A formalism for multi-level emergent behaviours in designed component-based systems and agent-based simulations

Abstract

There currently exists no means of specifying or analysing specificemergent behaviours in designed multi-component systems. For thisreason, important questions about the lower level mechanisms givingrise to emergent behaviours cannot be resolved. We provide a compositionaldefinition of behaviours in terms of complex events, which can bedefined at multiple levels of abstraction and related hierarchically.Based on existing theories of emergence, we also distinguish complexevents that constitute emergent behaviours and those that do not.We describe how such emergent behaviours can be analysed by decompositionin terms of their underlying mechanisms.