"Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference." - Steve Jobs GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!! I came upon this quote and form it describes perfectly how I feel when I look at emergent models. It may be that when in the middle of playing with/ creating an emergent program we need not have a specific goal in mind. However, throughout the semester in this course we have grappled with specific questions, and I like to think that we were grappling with the hopes of finding/ nearing an answer. Even if the goal was as general as "I want to better understand how the world works", it is still a goal. It seems that emergence is still a science and cannot escape an inherent goal oriented nature. And I don't think it's such a bad thing! Like Jobs said, it is best to strive towards something. Perhaps in striving for a goal or searching for an answer we can use emergent tools and theories. But believing in the end that everything will come together can give us confidence we need to proceed in at least some direction! That is why I would like to hold onto my belief in a Theory of Everything. It is a goal that gives the pursuit of knowledge purpose. Of course it has been proven that since any Theory of Everything must necessarily be incomplete or inconsistent, that one cannot exist. However, I believe that even if a Theory of Everything is impossible, that there is inherent value in striving for the impossible. Not just practical value, but real goodness in working towards a Theory of Everything, and not just because of the knowledge we can uncover along the way. Some crackpot book called The Final Theory is available only online and claims that all the science we've learned from infancy is wrong, and we should trust our understanding and question everything including their crazy proposals. The first chapter is free, and I think that it's all a bunch of malarky, but I found it "interesting" nonetheless. :) It's nice to know that some people think a Theory of Everything is possible even if they are crackpots. Although, I shouldn't judge. Everything I've said is equally crackpotty.