De-emergence: Experimental Approaches to Deactivate Processes of Emergence

The processes of self-organization and emergence have been intensively studied and modeled. The focus has been on their generative mechanisms and the need to preserve and sustain their continuously acquired coherence(s), for instance, in ecosystems and living systems. Rarely has the focus been on the reverse attitude, that is, to prevent and avoid their establishment or on approaches leading to their deactivation. This is probably because of their supposed fragility since they are considered easy to break down with perturbations. For instance, a flock may be destroyed by shooting inside it, or an ecosystem may be ruined by placing poisonous substances within it, such as the case of an anthill or weed killer onto a lawn. Here, we consider the occurrence of unwanted and dangerous cases of self-organization and emergence against which there are currently no effective approaches available and, thus, need to be appropriately modeled and implemented. For example, the establishment of tornadoes and hurricanes. The latter is known as Rayleigh-Bénard convection can easily be deactivated in laboratory conditions, but not once established in the atmosphere because of the power of the created forces, which generate destruction and devastation. We are interested both in the theoretical aspects of such eventual de-emergence approaches and in their actual technical implementability.