CA’s were definitely useful theoretical devices, as was Langton’s Ant. I’d say there was just enough philosophy to get a grip on the nuances at hand, but not so much that we got bogged down in semantics. I was impressed with Netlogo’s versatility and its user-friendly interface. It’s a shame that the help files aren’t more helpful with providing syntax. While the plethora of example models were interesting and generally useful, I felt that sorting through them for information was a very round-about, inefficient, and frustrating way to get answers to my specific questions. If there is a similar tool elsewhere with better help documentation, I’d recommend giving it a try. Of course, what’s a class on emergence without evolutionary algorithms? Personally, I enjoy fiddling with them and neural networks. (even without robot babies fetching us beers) It’s obvious this class could have spanned many semesters. I think having students present midterm book reviews and final projects to the class was a great way to bring in some of what couldn’t otherwise fit into one semester. I would probably make the midterm book presentations a bit more instruction-oriented like the final projects. A couple of things that stayed with me in my understanding of emergence: Paul’s comparison points between a brain and a machine and Doug’s explanation of the difference between rational and emergent systems (particularly that paragraph on why "Einstein would make a really lousy neuron"). I thought the blog was a terrific tool for getting conversations going and for sharing thoughts outside the classroom time constraints. Many thanks to Doug & Paul for a really interesting and intellectually stimulating class – and thanks to everyone for some terrific thought-provoking conversations!