Indeed, the way emergent behaviors arise from simple rules is interesting, but to the best of my knowledge, analytically intractable for all but most simple cas

Indeed, the way emergent behaviors arise from simple rules is interesting, but to the best of my knowledge, analytically intractable for all but most simple cases. The converse way (from desired emergent behaviors to the engineered simple rules) is also intractable, perhaps even more challenging than the other way. If you know existing literature on these topics, I would appreciate some pointers.