The emergence of the meaning of situations through human interaction systems  : Restricted application of the enaction and distributed cognition theories: Toward an “agentification” of human relational systems

Résumé 0

This article aims to clarify what “emergence” can be. Taking some examples from the natural and physical sciences and also from the humanities, it demonstrates that there are several forms of emergence, and that often the concept of emergence is misused to point out an effect or a construct the genesis of which could not be understood. Applying the method of “systemic relations” to a management situation, which supposedly reveals an instance of “emergence,” makes it possible to show how close this formalized representation of exchange is to the conceptualization of multi-agent systems by computer scientists. If the human interactional system is properly analyzed, it can therefore lead to the implementation of a simulation by a computer simulation system. This bringing together of diverse forms of disciplinary analysis signals the success of the formalization processes used and opens up interesting avenues of research. The meticulous deconstruction of an actual case, linked to a social situation of exchange, clarifies what we could call “emergence linked to interaction” in the human sciences. However, the analysis also demonstrates that the classical notion of “interaction” is inadequate for understanding in depth the mechanisms of emergence. The article then proposes a redefinition of the concept of “interaction” that better integrates complexity by taking into account the ideal and cognitive phenomena.