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!

I definitely enjoyed all of the material that we covered during this class. The discussions were thought-provoking, even if I couldn't keep up with them sometimes! NetLogo is a cool tool, but I guess that I wish that we had spent more time with python, as using NetLogo seems to be skipping several steps core to programming. But that is coming from a programming perspective. I would, however, have appreciated hardcopies of assignments. There seemed to be confusion amongst students about exactly what the midterm was supposed to be (was it a book report, a commentary, an exploration, etc...) and the same thing happened with the final project. I know that I was sick quite a bit, so I did miss descriptions of assignments, but having it even posted in the blog would have helped a lot. I also just like having something to which I can refer while doing assignments. This is more of a wish than a recommendation, because I realize that it would be next to impossible, but I do wish that we had a textbook. That always helps, even if it's just supplementary. In any case, I had a great time in this class!

This course has changed the way I perceive patterns and complex systems. Now I find myself looking at things I would usually look over and try to analyze them in terms of emergence. One thing I will carry with me about emergence is how no matter how complex something might appear, it is most likely a result of some very simple rules. One thing I liked about this course is that it was very informal where no one is constantly telling you what you should be doing for the class. This was also a little disadvantageous at times because it often led to confusions about where we are supposed to be in the class. One improvement for the class that I can think of is having the class be a little more directed. I agree with Julia and Kathy about how the requirements for the midterm and final project were a little confusing. I also agree with Julia about how it may be nice to have a “textbook” for the class so that everyone is on the same page. A lot of the times I felt as if everyone was exploring on their own things and while other people in the class probably liked this, it confused me about where I am supposed to be. Other than that, I am really glad I took this class because it was a uniquely interesting subject and class.

I thoroughly enjoyed this class, particularly because the focus was not to teach facts, but instead to encourage us to think differently about things. I too will start looking at complex systems in a different light.. maybe they are not as complex as we perceive them to be and maybe there is a simple way to achieve something complex. Netlogo was a really interesting tool to work with, being able to watch simple concepts evolve into interesting patterns. I have to agree with Kathy though; the documentation leaves a lot to be desired. I also agree with the others who commented about the structure. There were many times when I wondered where this was all leading to. I think now maybe that was the point. I was expecting a goal and there wasn't supposed to be one per se, just an exercise in thinking. I don't agree about having a text book. One of the things that I liked best was reading a book rather than a text, and hearing the reports by everyone in class. It gave me a sense of a lot of different subjects that people had read about, and I began to see how some of them fit it with what I had read. I never would have had time to read all that. Also the final projects were great. So often you never really get a sense of what other students are thinking. You don't read their papers and so you miss out on some really interesting and thought provoking ideas.

being a non computer science person, i found our classes/discussions on things like rationality, randomness, determinism, and artificial intelligence to be the most valuable. some general and specific things that stick out most in my mind: bidirectionality, irrational numbers and empirical mathematics, the role of an observer, processes w/out goals, completeness vs. inconsistency. cellular automata were interesting but i feel like we spent quite a bit of time on them while they were not nearly as "interesting" (or emergent) as some of the other models we looked at. on the flip side i wish we would have spent more time on neural networks. but these things just reflect my own interests so i dont know if thats necessarily helpful. i really liked the way the class was set up, the blog and class/discussions versus working in the computer lab. on the topic of textbooks i think it was nice not to have one and instead draw from a variety of resources (readings, the web, the blog, each other, etc.) and was really happy to be able to pursue specific topics that interested me most.