- In the old age, knowledge was centralized by trusted authorities, such as religious figures (e.g. monks in temples) through dogmatic information (e.g. scriptures), then transpired for everyone else to consume.
- Emergence happens when individual simple agents exhibit complex behaviour in groups, beyond the ability of any individual agent.
- Information and innovations in the modern world emerges from diverse and unlikely sources.
- Diversity over Ability
- Example: Wikipedia versus Encyclopedia.
- In the age of information where information is democratized, ways of thinking of governments and traditional institutions still embrace authority, while independent innovators can make breakthroughs and solve problems for themselves.
Reference: The Computational Beauty of Nature