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In a didactic context, sociability (this word dates from the 17th Century) refers to the ability of a system to associate and bring together a number of similar entities and make them live agreeably and harmoniously at all times. By extension, sociability expresses the character of a group of living beings that promotes human relationships, particularly intellectual or social relationships [WIL 00]. This founding father of sociobiology explains in his book that most of the behavioral components of living organisms, and of course the conduct of human or social groups such as ants, have a genetic predestination. Thus, the sociability of groups of living beings is statically embedded in genes and becomes an integral part of their nature.

However, sociability can be seen as the manifestation of a dynamic process and the belonging of an entity to a larger group, and therefore to a social body, because there are mutual influences. These profoundly transform their own functioning and behavior. The emerging properties of this living group are of considerable power. Indeed:

 – each entity involved in the life of a group processes a variable amount of information and the amount of information processed in parallel by the whole group is considerable;

 – a living being (or agent) belonging to a social system processes less information by itself than a solitary being or agent. They operate in a limited “neighborhood” and are subject to local constraints and objectives. They work very astutely in their local environment;

 – as part of a whole, a living agent contributes to more complex information processing and works, without wishing to do so a priori, towards the emergence of global behavior. The system then acts as a single organization;

 – in a group of individuals, the communication therefore modifies the activity of each entity in any form whatsoever. It allows the exchange of statuses, needs and orders of actions. This ensures that the needs of the entire system are met more accurately and consistently than if each entity were to attempt to assess the overall demand on its own. However, can aggregate demand be measured at its fair value and assimilated by all agents in the system?

 – in a social body, constituting a single and coherent system, the roles of each individual will become more precise over time and become very specialized but very closely dependent on the whole, which is itself the consequence of collective action;

 – knowledge of the finest operating details and actions at the level of an individual does not allow us to understand and predict the evolution of the system as a whole.

The evolution of a complex system obeys a global objective, and it will therefore be organized to best meet its objectives in a given context and environment. This emergence of order corresponds to an attractor and it can be said, in another way, that the sociability of the system is considered as a sociobiological attractor.

Just as the notion of “interaction” is more important than that of “function” at the level of an agent, the emergence of a stable state or order takes precedence over the notion of predetermined order. In the first case, these are unpredictable events, and in the other case, these are calculable and predictable systems.

Thus, the concept of emergence is a fundamental part of the science of complexity and characterizes complex adaptive systems. This concept of the emergence and progressive and coherent organization of the parts of an interconnected system is based on two different approaches to the evolution of systems, the Platonicians and the Aristotelians:

 – for Aristotle’s followers, the approach is very mechanistic and deterministic. Living organisms, like interconnected systems, are “machines” whose behavior is explained solely by the laws of chemistry, physics and mechanics. In this approach, we will also classify the one advocated by Descartes and by determinists and reductionists. Even though many phenomena related to complex systems could be explained in this way, Aristotelians had to admit that there were fundamental differences between inanimate objects and living organisms: the physical organization of matter makes it possible to give living organism properties that inanimate things do not have;

 – for Plato’s followers, the approach is more open, vitalist and philosophical. Even though the components of the complex system obey the laws of physics, a life force animates the raw material and most of the properties that emerge from these organisms escape scientific analysis. Thus, Niels Bohr stated: “Knowledge of the fundamental characteristics in the functioning of living organisms is not sufficient to fully explain biological phenomena” [MCE 01].

However, in the life sciences, the proponents of each theory are opposed to the constitutive and emergent nature of phenomena related to complex systems. Indeed, thanks to molecular biology, the DNA of living organisms is observed in its smallest detail, genes are also isolated and attractive sites are identified. However, we are not yet able to explain, through the laws we know, how global properties emerge from such complex systems. Similarly, by focusing on the phenomena of organization and self-organization of organisms, we are still unable to explain certain points:

 – Is natural selection the only organizational cause of these complex systems? Does it have a direct impact on the organizational mechanisms of the interconnected system?

 – In the field of living organisms, does the gene have an influence on the intrinsic organization of organisms?

 – Is the configuration of a complex system directly and strongly correlated to the emerging global property and vice versa?

However, even though obscure points remain, everyone agrees that, in the phenomena of self-organization, if complex dynamic systems and living systems allow the emergence of structural patterns or stable forms, this is the result of the same mechanisms. Thus, the evolutionary models that have been developed by scientists are important to explain how orders are developed in Nature and in our industrial systems. Such models are fundamental to understanding the meaning of an organization, how a complex system is expressed and how global orders are organized, or to simulating the impact of a structural configuration on emerging orders and properties. However, they do not in any way allow us to understand and explain the profound meaning of emerging property, the meaning of life for example, but rather to understand and demystify the theory of self-organization.