But perhaps the most important reason for having a common framework, says Farmer, is that it helps you distill out the essence of the models, so that you can focus on what they actually have to say about emergence. And in this case, the lesson is clear: the power really does lie in the connections. That's what gets so many people so excited about connectionism. You can start with very, very simple nodes—linear "polymers," "messages" that are just binary numbers, "neurons" that are essentially just on-off switches—and still generate surprising and sophisticated outcomes just from the way they
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