[FRIAM] semantic networks

Fri May 1 18:33:58 EDT 2026

Abstract: "... agentic coordination emerges." Why not just say "agent"?

Introduction: "...  but the living animal—its development, metabolism,
behavior, and history—remains 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.

Define URI on first usage. In fact, please do so with all of this sort of
abbreviation.

Figure 1: How about a key for the glyphs, just to prevent any
misinterpretations?
" 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?

" *connected via HTTP, WebRTC, WebDAV, and Acequia tunnels,"* I don't know
about the previous three, but Acequias -- ditches and tunnels -- need to be
cleaned regularly. Does that process apply in your model?

" *Figure 2: Fermented ink reaction–diffusion 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?* Are
his results the same with multiple types of paper and its manufacture?

*"**On the web, those traces can be edits 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."* Is anyone doing statistical analysis of this stuff,
something like we used to do with Text Analysis?

*" **The central technical claim of this paper is that stigmergic
coordination on the web can be modeled as a reaction–diffusion process over
a shared informational medium."* 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 ...."

Second graph Reaction–diffusion on the stigmergic web:  " ...agents gather
local state," what? Conditions, data, context information...?"

"*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." *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."

*"Technical architecture: browsers, tunnels, and local surfacesThe 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.[81]
<https://gsd.live/people/stephen-guerin/cognitive-landscapes-group/papers/reaction-diffusion-stigmergic_web_matrix.html#cite-81>[158]
<https://gsd.live/people/stephen-guerin/cognitive-landscapes-group/papers/reaction-diffusion-stigmergic_web_matrix.html#cite-158>
Phone
browsers, laptop browsers, and lightweight local Node.js processes act
as patches in the landscape, each capable of [ACTING AS A HOST? hosting
state,..."*"*The architecture therefore supports several classes of
traces:" *Will these traces be visible in some way other than just rows of
code?

"I*n this architecture, decentralized coordination is not achieved by
removing infrastructure, but by redistributing it.*[81]
<https://gsd.live/people/stephen-guerin/cognitive-landscapes-group/papers/reaction-diffusion-stigmergic_web_matrix.html#cite-81>
[158]
<https://gsd.live/people/stephen-guerin/cognitive-landscapes-group/papers/reaction-diffusion-stigmergic_web_matrix.html#cite-158>*
Browsers
become active participants, protocols become behavioral primitives, tunnels
become corridors, and local governance becomes a shaping force in the
formation of intelligence landscapes."  *OK, what's the advantage in doing
this?

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 asequia tunnels (or channels) turn up with your
system that seems to shed content?

Tom

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On Thu, Apr 30, 2026 at 3:16 PM Stephen Guerin <stephen.guerin at simtable.com>
wrote:

> please skim this document.
>
> https://gsd.live/people/stephen-guerin/cognitive-landscapes-group/papers/reaction-diffusion-stigmergic_web_matrix.html
>
> and then what it represents to me:
>
>
> https://gsd.live/people/stephen-guerin/cognitive-landscapes-group/papers/reflection-on-reaction-diffusion-sketch.md
>
>
>
> and then look up latin etymology of document. then a zoom with me
>
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________
> CEO Founder, Simtable.com
> stephen.guerin at simtable.com
>
> Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab
> stephenguerin at fas.harvard.edu
>
> mobile: (505)577-5828
>
> On Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 5:09 PM Stephen Guerin <stephen.guerin at simtable.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I am thinking 80% of my time about it this week. do you know Hesse's
>> Glass Bead Game?
>>
>> ____________________________________________
>> CEO Founder, Simtable.com
>> stephen.guerin at simtable.com
>>
>> Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab
>> stephenguerin at fas.harvard.edu
>>
>> mobile: (505)577-5828
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 30, 2026, 3:07 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear stephen,
>>>
>>> This is the time of year when I should be packing, and so I find myself
>>> overwhelmed by hi-toned philosophical ruminations.
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> 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.
>>>
>>> To my FRIAM colleagues, if you want to play, GREAT!, but dont feel you
>>> have  to big-foot this one.
>>>
>>> Nick
>>> --
>>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
>>> Clark University
>>> nthompson at clarku.edu
>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
>>> https://substack.com/@monist
>>>
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-- 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tom Johnson - tom at jtjohnson.com
+1 505 577 6482
Santa Fe, New Mexico USA

*New Mexico Writers <https://nmwriters.org/>*++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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