"These are collective decision-making systems," says Couzin. They have always looked fearsomely complex but maybe they follow rules that are much simpler than we have suspected. By observing the individual behaviour of these swarming cells we may be able to discover those rules, giving us new ways to intervene."
"Taking the idea even further, Couzin contends that neurons act like swarming animals. The brain is the very definition of complexity: it contains about 86 billion neurons, all interconnected by physical, chemical and electrical channels. Couzin and his colleagues wonder whether each might act as a simple sensor which, when networked, generates complex emergent behaviour. "We're interested in how they integrate local information from those around them, and how that gets encoded," he says. This might, he suggests, be a key to understanding how consciousness emerges. Perhaps it is collective information processing, analogous to the way groups of fish detect light gradients that a single fish cannot perceive."
"Taking the idea even further, Couzin contends that neurons act like swarming animals. The brain is the very definition of complexity: it contains about 86 billion neurons, all interconnected by physical, chemical and electrical channels. Couzin and his colleagues wonder whether each might act as a simple sensor which, when networked, generates complex emergent behaviour. "We're interested in how they integrate local information from those around them, and how that gets encoded," he says. This might, he suggests, be a key to understanding how consciousness emerges. Perhaps it is collective information processing, analogous to the way groups of fish detect light gradients that a single fish cannot perceive."
New Scientist: Mind meld: The genius of swarm thinking
5 comments:
That is, if you throw lots of darts and keep track of the fraction that land inside the circle, multiplying this fraction by 4 should give you an approximate value for Pi. Of course, it is only an approximation
That's what I say. Why all this whoop de do about irrational numbers? Or, you take a string, wrap it around the pipe and measure it, if you must have a number.
At the FED at one point I was in charge of all supplies. That meant moving pallets through doors using a mechanical lift.
I was totally ace with the lifts.
Rode them like scooters and nobody bothered me.
Some pallets would not fit and required re-stacking onto our own pallets that do fit through doors, even wide doors.
That was another thing I got away with. Everybody there is a banker. Nobody likes anything remotely physical.
They were actually thankful I was willing to do it. And that gave me POWER.
Power to control my own schedule. Power to wear whatever I wished. Power to do what I wished because of what I wear. Power to not take poo off anyone. Because I can always explain things in terms of unpleasant physical tasks. And it's fun.
This is making me miss my old job.
Anyway, this was the thing I noticed number-people fail to intuit: it is irrelevant how many inches + fractions the door opening is, it is irrelevant how many inches + fractions the leaning over stacked pallet is, the only thing that matters is if the pallet in its state will fit. And that you can tell by looking or with a piece of string, or a broomstick, what have you. The number is irrelevant. Same thing with cards, the question is not the numerical measurements, the question is will it fit and does it work.
Swarm is one of those words that sounds weirder and weirder when you say it out loud over and over again.
Same goes for spool.
Interesting hypothesis.
Interesting hypothesis.
It makes sense.
And stool, too, maybe.
Yes, makes sense just like the universe makes sense. Swarms, spools, and stools of galaxies, stars, planets, continents, fish, bees, butterflies and maggots, and oh, humans.
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