Emergent software architecture is actually about emerging order. In the context of emerging order it’s interesting to read books such as Death and Life, and study topics such as urban planning, politics, languages, organizations, et cetera. For each of these fields, there’s a long history of spontaneous order, as well as more recent attempts to anticipate and plan.

Our languages, for instance, have emerged during a period of one million years. Some of them have been subjected to reforms in the past few centuries. Then there are artificial languages, such as esperanto and interlingua. It would be interesting to read a little about them. It’s apparent, though, that any artificial language must build upon existing, “natural” languages – anything else would be impossible. I wonder if The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language, by Steven Pinker, says something about this.

Regarding cities: planning seems to be something of a misnomer. Still, there are cities that are planned and built from scratch. Columbia, Maryland, for instance – as I discovered recently (also see the links I found to articles about this). Again, planned cities can’t disregard of existing cities, which largely have emerged spontaneously, so they build upon concepts that have emerged.

Then I thought about the justice system, which seems to be a system that mixes anticipation and adaptation. The existing laws were created to cover previous cases where no laws applied – or, in other words: the system learned. Still, existing laws represent an anticipation of future crimes. These laws won’t cover all future cases, so they will have to be amended, and new laws will have to be created. Also, I think that previous verdicts serve as amendments (legal precedents). The justice system is interesting, as it so obviously can’t be planned – so its design accomodates for future learning, to cover unanticipated things.

Also, it would be interesting to study economies. The global economy is clearly impossible to control. In the book Complexity, Mitchell Waldrop writes about how the CEO of Citigroup (I can’t remember his name; or was it the chairman?) promises to fund the Santa Fe Institute if they can help him understand the global economy. I don’t know to what extent complexity science has been able to explain the nature of the global economy, though, but I know that this is something that is pursued by many researchers, as the moodswings of the global marketplace affects us all. A planned global economy seems unthinkable, and while local economies can be influenced to some extent, if not controlled, a purely planned local economy seems equally unthinkable.

The planned versus the spontaneous. What seems to be common for all these fields is that pure design by anticipation is impossible. Where planning occurs, it draws heavily from lessons learned by studying systems that have emerged spontaneously. I’m sure that all these fields have experienced efforts to gain control out of the frustration of not being able to control. Are there any common principles for letting such systems free, and influence them indirectly instead?

It makes me think of Tao Te Ching.