Emergence

Second International TRANSIT workshop on
Cross-disciplinary Research

27-28 March 2019,

Ron Cooke Hub, University of York, Heslington, YO10 5GE UK

Keynote speakers:

Professor Yasmin Merali, University of Hull - 'The note you play ...'

Professor Liz Varga, University College London - 'Abstracting emergence in living beings to demonatrate two types of weak emergence using simple models'

TWCR Programme 2019 (PDF , 1,126kb)

The Second International TRANSIT workshop on Cross-disciplinary Research (TWCR 2019) took place in York, UK, on 27-28 March 2019. It was hosted by the York Cross-disciplinary Centre for Systems Analysis and the University of York.

Emergence is a term used to describe system-level collective properties and behaviours that cannot be reduced to specific properties of their individual components. From Aristotle’s “the whole is something besides the parts” to Anderson’s “More is different”, emergence captures the existence of an overall unity separate from its constituents. Emergence is a broad concept, occurring across systems comprising physical, technological, neural, biological, or social components. From physics to philosophy, from biology to art, from engineering to neuroscience, emergent properties abound, yet there remains little agreement on a formal definition of emergence, ways to analyse it, or ways to achieve it.

TWCR 2019 explored the cross-disciplinary theme of Emergence, seeking to bring together ideas, approaches, concepts, and perspectives from natural biological systems and other physical systems, from engineered physical and virtual systems, and from human social systems.

The aim of the workshop was to bring together researchers from all these connected fields, to engage across the disciplines, to inform of latest findings, to transfer discoveries and concepts from one field to another, and to inspire new ideas and new collaborations across the theme.

Programme Committee

Susan Stepney
Richard Bingham
Leo Caves
Pierre-Philippe Dechant
Dan Franks
Philip Garnett
Richard Law
Simon O’Keefe
Angelika Sebald
Reidun Twarock

See here for details on the First International TRANSIT Workshop, Evolution, Evolvability and Change held in April 2018