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

[Nicholas Thompson]

Do you find the term "niche construction" equally uninteresting?


On Tue, Oct 19, 2021 at 9:56 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:

> I don’t actually get what is interesting about the term.   In computer
> science it would be a “blackboard system” or simply “memory”.
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Nicholas Thompson
> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 19, 2021 8:34 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] stygmergy, CA's, and [biological] development
>
>
>
> 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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