These were some of the questions and arguments i wanted to discuss in the chat session for the "emergence" week but missed the chat. I am not sure if these were discussed already since the chat transcript is not posted. I think this page does not require user authentication to post comments (atleast not (we) students taking this course) but the home page does :) If anyone gets time, please post your thoughts on these...

1. Is Wikipedia an example of emergent software? Though it requires community (people, us) interference to grow and does not emerge by itself.

2.Johnson talks about the Karma system where everything is evaluated by other members of the community and if you contributed a lot your
karma increases . This reminds me of the way our download speed increases while using dc++ and other peer-peer file sharing software. The download speed is directly proportional to the contribution we make to the other members of the community i.e . the amount of incoming traffic to our computer and the files shared by us in demand.

1. Can we relate Termites, Honeybees to the ant community structure as described in the Steven johnson article on Emergence - Sims and
   Dornfest.

Richard's experience also reminds me of the theory of "Six Degrees of Separation" which states that every person across the globe is separated by every other person by 6 or less (degrees)intermediaries. I am not sure if the theory is proven yet but it is really interesting and can be related to Albert-Laszlo Barabasi's 'Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything else'.