What is an “Off-Center”?
A Research Center is a formal UTD designation used for a group of interested professors, students, and community members who come together to study topics; you can learn more about UTD Centers at https://centers.utdallas.edu/guidelines/#summary
We are not yet an official UTD Research Center, although we aspire to become one. Until we do, we call ourselves an “Off-Center” – a Center in the process of emerging.
What is Emergence?
Emergence is the propensity for high-energy, far-from-equilibrium systems to self-organize in ways that cannot yet be predicted from a detailed understanding of system components. Emergent systems evolve, and end evolution is both bottom-up and top-down: the interacting parts determine the whole, while the whole determines the arrangement and activity of the parts. Feedback is a feature of emergent systems, not a “bug”. Entirely new properties and behaviors “emerge” without direction and with characteristics that cannot be predicted from knowing the properties of the constituents alone. The whole is truly more significant than the sum of its parts.
Spiral galaxies, chemical catalysis, hydrothermal systems, oceanic currents and tides, hurricanes, living organisms, ecosystems, economies, civilizations, political systems, the internet, and war are some of the many examples of emergent phenomena where low-level rules give rise to higher-level complexity with new rules. Universities themselves are emergent systems and UTD is an outstanding example.
There is no useful theory of Emergence or hypothesis to be tested. Reductionism, so useful in science, is of use in Emergence studies only in retrospect. Paying attention to emergence is especially useful in times of accelerating change like that of today, or places of accelerating change, like North Texas, or centers of thought, like UTD. We want more of the UTD community to reap the benefits of seeing in other disciplines the same processes of self-organization in what they study as what they find in their own.
You can watch a short (2:30 min video) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d939_DDU0w8
What does the Off-Center for Emergence Studies (OC4ES) do?
OC4ES is a hybrid between a “Think Tank” and an astronomical observatory; we seek to detect and study interesting new phenomena that have emerged in nature and that are emerging in human activities. We are trans-cultural and trans-generational group of volunteers who are especially interested in two activities: 1) bringing together creative experts from different fields to discuss emergence in their fields; and 2) teaching students about emergence and how it is affecting and will affect their lives and careers. Above all else, OC4Es works to foster a transdisciplinary network of emergence studies in all parts of UTD in a continuing effort to smash the boundaries between art, science, business, and government. We meet weekly to discuss progress. Some of us write papers and poems, make videos and teach classes.