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

Wed Oct 20 01:45:30 EDT 2021

I love stigmergy! It is everywhere--even, or especially, this forum. Here's
an extended abstract
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UKVY284O3Tq-ssvi6xmUzIjubNsxwKIz/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=114865618166480775623&rtpof=true&sd=true>
that I submitted to a conference. (It was reviewed positively but rejected
anyway.)

-- Russ Abbott
Professor Emeritus, Computer Science
California State University, Los Angeles

On Tue, Oct 19, 2021 at 10:34 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com>
wrote:

> Some people find it surprising this could occur in silico?   Another old
> example is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War
>
> On Oct 19, 2021, at 10:15 PM, ⛧ glen <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But it's a specific kind of memory: a) shared and b) abused or misused.
> There should be a decoupling of the objectives of the writer from the
> objectives of the reader. A good example is a hermit crab using a soup can
> as its shell. Or an urban kid mistaking modern bananas for "natural" food.
>
> The "indirectness" in the definition obscures some nuance that needs some
> attention.
>
> On October 19, 2021 8:56:28 PM PDT, 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
> <mailto: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<mailto:
> 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<mailto:
> 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<mailto: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<mailto: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> <mailto:
> 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> <mailto: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> <mailto:
> 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>
> <mailto: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> <mailto: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> <mailto:
> 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> <mailto: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.
>
>
> --
> glen ⛧
>
>
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