Detecting Emergence in Social Networks

As social networks expand and interconnect with other social networks, their combined behavior can become more complex than each individual network in isolation and can result in unexpected self-organizing or emergent behaviors. This emergent behavior results from the combined knowledge or skills of the participants, and it enables the group to do things that it could not otherwise accomplish. Examples of such social network emergence can be found in startup companies, charitable organizations, groups of researchers and terrorist cells. This paper discusses a mathematical modeling technique for prediction and detection of emergent behavior in social networks using Semi-Boolean Algebra. This paper discusses emergent behavior, the use of Semi-Boolean Algebra for detecting it, and gives examples of its use on emergence in an example social network.