[FRIAM] stygmergy, CA's, and [biological] development

Tue Oct 19 23:34:07 EDT 2021

Ugh.  I was making fun of myself.  If everything is stigmergy then the word
has no interesting use.

  I am in danger of confusing it with niche construction.  The concept
offers an  alternative to Lamarckian mechanisms for an organism to direct
its own evolution.  It's like the inheritance of acquired environments.  I
think of it as including such phenomena as squirrels and jays putting
acorns in the ground and thus providing an environment rich with food for
the winter and also, perhaps, in the very long run, future oak trees.  In
some sense, the environment that selects the organism is an environment
that is selected by the organism.

I think the word does have a use, but only if we distinguish between things
left behind that positively affect  those that follow.  To my surprise, the
word is apparently of recent origin having been specifically invented to
apply to ant pheromone trails in the fifties.  So, I suppose we might
narrow it's meaning to objects left to convey information and leave niche
construction to apply to objects that provide shelter, nutrition or other
benefits to  the finder, eg., acorns, beaver dams,

Thanks for pitching in, everybody.  You have helped to drive me out of my
post travel lassitude.

Nick

On Tue, Oct 19, 2021 at 8:36 PM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Aren't we all immersed in stygmergy continuously while we're alive and
> maybe before and after?  This is a possible interpretation of Nick's
> comment that everything is stygmergy.
>
> ---
> Frank C. Wimberly
> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>
> 505 670-9918
> Santa Fe, NM
>
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2021, 8:29 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:
>
>> What I was driving at is that nature doesn’t give a damn whether we
>> categorize certain globs of stuff as “agents” or “environment” or
>> “transactions”.   Stigmergy could be going all the time in some subtle way
>> we can’t discern because we are looking at the pieces the wrong way.
>>
>> > On Oct 19, 2021, at 1:05 PM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > To be clear though, this requires a flexible understanding of "agent"
>> or whatever's doing the indirect coordinating "through" the environment.
>> I.e. "stygmergy" isn't very well defined.
>> >
>> >> On 10/19/21 12:58 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>> >> Game of Life has been shown to be universal
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/822575/turing-machine-universality-of-the-game-of-life
>> <
>> https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/822575/turing-machine-universality-of-the-game-of-life
>> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> I would expect there are many “intermediate lambda” CAs that behave
>> this way, and so could implement any simulation manifesting stigmergy.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Jochen Fromm
>> >> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 19, 2021 12:40 PM
>> >> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam at redfish.com>
>> >> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] stygmergy, CA's, and [biological] development
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Interesting point. What do the others think?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> I think if you start with an "X" at the top and consider the X as your
>> agent and the space to the left and right as the environment then yes, we
>> would have a kind of stygmergy model for an agent which interacts in a two
>> dimensional world (one space and one time dimension). It is a rather
>> limited model though. I am not sure if it is useful :-/
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> -J.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> -------- Original message --------
>> >>
>> >> From: thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
>> >>
>> >> Date: 10/19/21 21:28 (GMT+01:00)
>> >>
>> >> To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <
>> friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
>> >>
>> >> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] stygmergy, CA's, and [biological] development
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Thanks, Jochen, for answering.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Let me try to stretch the point and see if I can bring you on board.
>> In the first place, mimimally, stygmergy need not involve sociality.  So,
>> If I go out on a hike and cut blazes on trees on my way out so I can find
>> my way home, that is stygmergy in good standing, right?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Now let’s try a very simple ca where the rule is, if nothing is
>> written, write x; if x, white o beside; if o, write x beside.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> X
>> >>
>> >> OXO
>> >>
>> >> XOXOX
>> >>
>> >> ETC.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Now, if we consider what is written at each stage as a thing put out
>> in the environment and the “rules” what the organism brings to the table
>> then each line is the joint product of the previous line and the rule,
>> hence stygmergy.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Am I stretching a point.  Is everything not stygmergy?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> N
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Nick Thompson
>> >>
>> >> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>> >>
>> >> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ <
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:
>> friam-bounces at redfish.com>> *On Behalf Of *Jochen Fromm
>> >> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 19, 2021 1:05 PM
>> >> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
>> friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
>> >> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] stygmergy, CA's, and [biological] development
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> No, CAs are not a good model for stygmergy IMHO. Stygmergy is as
>> Wikipedia says a mechanism of indirect coordination through the
>> environment. For example: ants which exploit a food source by following a
>> pheromone trail. Or termites which build a nest.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> In Cellular Automata there is no clear distinction between agent and
>> environment. They are just a grid of states which evolves step by step by
>> updating the cells with a transition rule or function.
>> >>
>> >> The other type of collective intelligence besides stygmergy is swarm
>> formation. The individual member is attracted to the group as a whole but
>> repelled by other individuals. You know the classic Boids rules which
>> govern fish swarms and bird flocks: "stay close to the group but keep away
>> from your neighbors".
>> >>
>> >> For more complex things you probably need a code. If the individuals
>> are smart, then a few rules are enough - holy books have typically only a
>> few MB. If the individuals are lifeless molecules, then the code can be
>> several GB (a human genome has roughly 3 GB).
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Hope that helps a bit? You are lucky to have such a smart grandson! I
>> believe Frank has grandchildren too.
>> >>
>> >> Jochen
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> -------- Original message --------
>> >>
>> >> From: thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
>> >>
>> >> Date: 10/19/21 20:15 (GMT+01:00)
>> >>
>> >> To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <
>> friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
>> >>
>> >> Subject: [FRIAM] stygmergy, CA's, and [biological] development
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Friends,
>> >>
>> >> Beware.  As usual, I am trying to get you to think for me.
>> >>
>> >> My grandson is working on a regeneration project in his freshman
>> biolab  (Planaria) and his sources and texts are replete with cognitive
>> language like “signal” and “memory” etc., which implies that as the worm
>> regenerates it is influenced by a guiding idea of what it is producing.  My
>> basic intuition, as you know, that this doesn’t happen in human cognition,
>> let alone worm regeneration and that processes that produce a functional
>> head from a slice of the rear end of a flatworm have no idea what they are
>> doing even when they are done.  Thus I imagine an advancing edge of
>> structure with each new bit influencing the rules by which the next bit .
>> Which, of course, puts me in mind both of stygmergy and of Cellular
>> Automata.  So to my questions:
>> >>
>> >> Are Cellular Automata a good model for Stygmergy?
>> >>
>> >> Is Stygmergy a good model for organismic development?
>> >>
>> >> Why? Or Why not?  Discuss.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Also, is there a good website, citizen-friendly, steep learning curve,
>> where my grandson and I could explore the relation between developmental
>> processes and ca’s.  I looked at  NewLogo Library and did not find there
>> any models of regeneration, but may not have known where to look.  I did
>> find THIS <https://distill.pub/2020/growing-ca/>  which deep down in the
>> Table of Contents seemed to have three regeneration models including one
>> named “Planaria”, but I could no see how to go further with it.  If
>> somebody could have a look at it and give me some tips for how to use it, I
>> would be ever so grateful.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Good to be back.
>> >
>> > --
>> > "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
>> > ☤>$ uǝlƃ
>> >
>> >
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