<div dir="ltr"><div>Tom, </div><div><br></div><div>Thank you.</div><div><br></div><div>Nick</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, May 1, 2026 at 4:35\u202fPM Tom Johnson <<a href="mailto:jtjohnson555@gmail.com">jtjohnson555@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Abstract: "...
<span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)">agentic coordination emerges." Why not just say "agent"?<br><br>Introduction: "...</span>
<span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"> but the living animal\u2014its development, metabolism, behavior, and history\u2014remains more than a surface pattern." Shouldn't the environment in which it lives -- clearly changing with the seasons in Africa -- be included? The environment for any digital system is usually and constantly in flux: variation in transmitted power supply, possible light sources, and status, etc.<br><br>Define URI on first usage. In fact, please do so with all of this sort of abbreviation.</span><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><br>Figure 1: How about a key for the glyphs, just to prevent any misinterpretations? <br>"</span>
<span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)">many thin clients at the edge sending data in and receiving results back on one-way corridors." Isn't some of that Data In reserved for future interactions?<br></span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><br>"</span>
<span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><i>connected via HTTP, WebRTC, WebDAV, and Acequia tunnels,"</i> I don't know about the previous three, but Acequias -- ditches and tunnels -- need to be cleaned regularly. Does that process apply in <span style="border-style:none;background:none">your</span> model?</span><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)">"</span>
<em style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)">Figure 2: Fermented ink reaction\u2013diffusion studies on paper, showing branching, cracking, and cellular morphologies." Forgive me for not first drilling down into his experiments, but where the conditions of the paper held constant: dryness of the paper, its exposure to varying light sources, room temperature, and humidity, even the material it was resting on?</em><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"> Are his results the same with multiple types of paper and its manufacture?</span></div><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><i><br></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><i>"</i></span><span style="background-color:rgb(252,252,252);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium"><i>On the web, those traces can be <span style="border-style:none;background:none"><span style="border-style:none;background:none"><span style="border-style:none;background:none">edits</span></span></span> to shared documents, updates to linked data, cached fragments, or typed resources exposed via simple protocols. When agents operate by reading and writing such traces, the matrix becomes a computational landscape: repeated use deepens certain corridors, governance rules can open or close paths, and the emergent mosaic of patches and connections encodes a living map of collective intelligence."</i> Is anyone doing statistical analysis of this stuff, something like we used to do with Text Analysis?</span></div><div><span style="background-color:rgb(252,252,252);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium"><br></span></div><div><i><span style="background-color:rgb(252,252,252);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium">"</span>
</i><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><i>The central technical claim of this paper is that stigmergic coordination on the web can be modeled as a reaction\u2013diffusion process over a shared informational medium."</i> To what end? Is this potentially good, improving something or just an interesting, but basic, R&D experiment asking "I wonder what could happen if ...."</span></div><div><span style="background-color:rgb(252,252,252);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color:rgb(252,252,252);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium">Second graph </span>Reaction\u2013diffusion on the stigmergic web: <span style="background-color:rgb(252,252,252);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium">"</span> ...<span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)">agents gather local state," what? Conditions, data, context information...?"</span><span style="background-color:rgb(252,252,252);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium"><br><br>"</span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><i>Ant foraging models often use more than one pheromone or more than one task-dependent field, allowing the colony to represent both attraction and inhibition, or outward and return trajectories, in the same environment." </i>Are varied task instructions embedded in the pheromone trails? If so, are they laid down at different times by different task-assigned. Do different task pheromones depreciate at different rates? (I realize you're not writing a paper about ants and pheromones; I'm just curious."<br></span><span style="background-color:rgb(252,252,252);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium"><br></span><h2 style="font-weight:normal;margin-top:1.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em"><i><font color="#111111" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><span style="font-size:1.6em">"Technical architecture: browsers, tunnels, and local surfaces</span><span style="font-size:20.8px"><br></span></font><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium">The proposed architecture treats ordinary web clients and small edge services as first-class participants in a decentralized coordination field rather than as terminals of a cloud back end.</span><sup style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:1.6em;line-height:0"><a href="https://gsd.live/people/stephen-guerin/cognitive-landscapes-group/papers/reaction-diffusion-stigmergic_web_matrix.html#cite-81" style="color:rgb(221,0,0);text-decoration:none" target="_blank">[81]</a></sup><sup style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:1.6em;line-height:0"><a href="https://gsd.live/people/stephen-guerin/cognitive-landscapes-group/papers/reaction-diffusion-stigmergic_web_matrix.html#cite-158" style="color:rgb(221,0,0);text-decoration:none" target="_blank">[158]</a></sup><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium"> Phone browsers, laptop browsers, and lightweight local Node.js processes act as </span><strong style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium">patches</strong><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium"> in the landscape, each capable of <span style="background-color:rgb(255,0,0)">[ACTING AS A HOST?</span> hosting state,..."</span></i></h2><span style="font-style:italic;background-color:rgb(252,252,252);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium">"</span><span style="background-color:rgb(252,252,252);font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium"><i>The architecture therefore supports several classes of traces:" </i>Will these traces be visible in some way other than just rows of code?</span></div><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)">"</span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)">I<i>n this architecture, decentralized coordination is not achieved by removing infrastructure, but by redistributing it.</i></span><sup style="font-style:italic;line-height:0;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><a href="https://gsd.live/people/stephen-guerin/cognitive-landscapes-group/papers/reaction-diffusion-stigmergic_web_matrix.html#cite-81" style="color:rgb(221,0,0);text-decoration:none" target="_blank">[81]</a></sup><sup style="font-style:italic;line-height:0;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><a href="https://gsd.live/people/stephen-guerin/cognitive-landscapes-group/papers/reaction-diffusion-stigmergic_web_matrix.html#cite-158" style="color:rgb(221,0,0);text-decoration:none" target="_blank">[158]</a></sup><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><i> Browsers become active participants, protocols become behavioral primitives, tunnels become corridors, and local governance becomes a shaping force in the formation of intelligence landscapes." </i><font color="#ff0000">OK, what's the advantage in doing this?</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><font color="#ff0000"><br></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><font color="#000000">Bottom Line: I probably don't understand this, but you seem to be improving transmission efficiency while giving up the potential synergy of interdisciplinary ideas, methods, and data. How will the perspectives and models of ant trails and <span style="border-style:none;background:none">asequia</span> tunnels (or channels) turn up with your system that seems to shed content?</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><font color="#000000"><br></font></span></div><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><font color="#000000">Tom</font></span></div><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><br></span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><br><br></span><div><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:medium;background-color:rgb(252,252,252)"><br><br></span></div></div></div></div><div id="m_1176344382686584249m_1922890225841682498DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2"><br><table style="border-top:1px solid rgb(211,212,222)"><tbody><tr><td style="width:55px;padding-top:13px"><a href="https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail" target="_blank"><img src="https://s-install.avcdn.net/ipm/preview/icons/icon-envelope-tick-round-orange-animated-no-repeat-v1.gif" alt="" width="46" height="29" style="width: 46px; height: 29px;"></a></td><td style="width:470px;padding-top:12px;color:rgb(65,66,78);font-size:13px;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;line-height:18px">Virus-free.<a href="https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail" style="color:rgb(68,83,234)" target="_blank">www.avast.com</a></td></tr></tbody></table><a href="#m_1176344382686584249_m_1922890225841682498_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2" width="1" height="1"></a></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 3:16\u202fPM Stephen Guerin <<a href="mailto:stephen.guerin@simtable.com" target="_blank">stephen.guerin@simtable.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto"><div>please skim this document. </div><div dir="auto"><a href="https://gsd.live/people/stephen-guerin/cognitive-landscapes-group/papers/reaction-diffusion-stigmergic_web_matrix.html" target="_blank">https://gsd.live/people/stephen-guerin/cognitive-landscapes-group/papers/reaction-diffusion-stigmergic_web_matrix.html</a></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">and then what it represents to me:</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><a href="https://gsd.live/people/stephen-guerin/cognitive-landscapes-group/papers/reflection-on-reaction-diffusion-sketch.md" target="_blank">https://gsd.live/people/stephen-guerin/cognitive-landscapes-group/papers/reflection-on-reaction-diffusion-sketch.md</a></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">and then look up latin etymology of document. then a zoom with me</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br><img src="cid:ii_19de03ce8d9698c51f81" style="max-width: 100%; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div><br></div><div>____________________________________________<br>CEO Founder, Simtable.com<br><a href="mailto:stephen.guerin@simtable.com" target="_blank">stephen.guerin@simtable.com</a> <br><br>Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab<br><a href="mailto:stephenguerin@fas.harvard.edu" target="_blank">stephenguerin@fas.harvard.edu</a><br><br>mobile: (505)577-5828</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:09\u202fPM Stephen Guerin <<a href="mailto:stephen.guerin@simtable.com" target="_blank">stephen.guerin@simtable.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto"><div>I am thinking 80% of my time about it this week. do you know Hesse's Glass Bead Game?</div><div><br></div><div>____________________________________________<br>CEO Founder, Simtable.com<br><a href="mailto:stephen.guerin@simtable.com" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">stephen.guerin@simtable.com</a> <br><br>Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab<br><a href="mailto:stephenguerin@fas.harvard.edu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">stephenguerin@fas.harvard.edu</a><br><br>mobile: (505)577-5828</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 3:07\u202fPM Nicholas Thompson <<a href="mailto:thompnickson2@gmail.com" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">thompnickson2@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div>Dear stephen, </div><div><br></div><div>This is the time of year when I should be packing, and so I find myself overwhelmed by hi-toned philosophical ruminations. </div><div><br></div><div>Many years ago, before the dawn of time, you worked with SFI on visualizing semantic webs. The idea of semantic webs is attractive to me as an experience monist because, on my understanding, every new experience lights up a different part of the semantic web in which all experiences are embedded, past, present, future. </div><div><br></div><div>In my present state of unpackingness, I find myself desperately concerned to find out where your effort ended and if you have thought about it since.<br><br></div><div>To my FRIAM colleagues, if you want to play, GREAT!, but dont feel you have to big-foot this one. </div><div><br></div><div>Nick </div><div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>Nicholas S. Thompson</div><div>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology</div><div>Clark University</div><div><a href="mailto:nthompson@clarku.edu" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">nthompson@clarku.edu</a></div><div><a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson</a></div><div><a href="https://substack.com/@monist" rel="noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">https://substack.com/@monist</a></div></div></div></div></div>
</blockquote></div>
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</blockquote></div><div><br clear="all"></div><div><br></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<br>Tom Johnson - <a href="mailto:tom@jtjohnson.com" target="_blank">tom@jtjohnson.com</a><br>+1 505 577 6482<br>Santa Fe, New Mexico USA<br><b><a href="https://nmwriters.org/" target="_blank">New Mexico Writers</a><br></b>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<br></div></div>
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</blockquote></div><div><br clear="all"></div><br><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>Nicholas S. Thompson</div><div>Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology</div><div>Clark University</div><div><a href="mailto:nthompson@clarku.edu" target="_blank">nthompson@clarku.edu</a></div><div><a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson" target="_blank">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson</a></div><div><a href="https://substack.com/@monist" target="_blank">https://substack.com/@monist</a></div></div></div>