Map and Territory (Rationality: From AI to Zombies Book 1)

by Eliezer Yudkowsky

A fun exercise is to eliminate the adjective “emergent” from any sentence in which it appears, and see if the sentence says anything different: Before:Human intelligence is an emergent product of neurons firing. After:Human intelligence is a product of neurons firing. Before:The behavior of the ant colony is the emergent outcome of the interactions of many individual ants. After:The behavior of the ant colony is the outcome of the interactions of many individual ants. Even better:A colony is made of ants. We can successfully predict some aspects of colony behavior using models that include only individual ants, without any global colony variables, showing that we understand how those colony behaviors arise from ant behaviors. Another fun exercise is to replace the word “emergent” with the old word, the explanation that people had to use before emergence was invented: Before: Life is an emergent phenomenon. After: Life is a magical phenomenon. Before: Human intelligence is an emergent product of neurons firing. After: Human intelligence is a magical product of neurons firing.