August 23, 2010
Stigmergy – the phenomenon of indirect communication mediated by modifications of the environment – was first conceptualized by zoologist Pierre-Paul Grasse in his ground-breaking work on termite colonies (Grasse 1959). It wasn’t until 1999 that Grasse’s work was brought to a wider audience by Eric Bonabeau et al (1999) in a special issue of Artificial Life. Since then interest in stigmergic systems has blossomed with researchers recognizing the application of Grasse’s insights to stock markets, economies, traffic patterns, supply logistics, computer networks, resource allocation, urban sprawl, and cultural memes. New forms of stigmergy have been exponentially expanded through the affordances of digital technology: Google’s recommendation algorithm, Amazon’s filtering algorithm, wiki, open source software, weblogs, and a whole range of “social media” are now deemed as essentially stigmergic.
Though the concept of stigmergy has typically been associated with ant- or swarm-like “agents” with minimal cognitive ability or with creatures of a somewhat higher cognitive capacity such as fish (schooling patterns) or birds (flocking patterns) or sheep (herding behavior), stigmergy offers a powerful tool to be deployed in the human domain. The editors of this special issue are thus looking for contributions that have human-human (social, organizational, and socio-technical) stigmergy as the main focus.
Proposals are invited from social scientists, social epistemologists, cognitive scientists, economists, group decision theorists, collective intentionality theorists, computational sociologists, network theorists, multi-agent modelers, and indeed researchers from any discipline that has social complexity and coordination as a core topic.
Papers that are theoretical, experimental, or computational in orientation are welcome. Please send proposals of no more than 300 words to lesliemarsh [at] gmail [dot] com with “Stigmergy/Cognitive Systems Research” in the subject line. The deadline for proposals is Nov 1, 2010.
All papers will be subject to double blind review by a least two referees and accepted papers will be published in a special issue of Cognitive Systems Research
Special Issue Editors
Margery Doyle
Senior Cognitive Research Scientist Air Force Research Lab
711 Human Performance Wing
L-3 Communications Link Simulation & Training
Leslie Marsh
Assistant Director
New England Institute of Cognitive Science and Evolutionary Behavior
References
Grasse, P. P. (1959). La reconstruction du nid et les coordinations interindividuelles chez Bellicositermes natalensis et Cubitermes sp. La theorie de la stigmergie: Essai d’interpretation du comportement des termites constructeurs. Insectes Sociaux, 6(1), 41–83.
Bonabeau, E. (Ed.) (1999). Stigmergy. Artificial Life, Vol. 5, No. 2: 95-202
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Eric Bonabeau, Margery Doyle, Pierre-Paul Grasse, artificial intelligence, collaborative filtering, collective intentionality, complexity, computational intelligence, computational psychology, computer simulations, google, particle swarm optimization, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
August 23, 2010
Here’s an article from The Economist on the practical application of swarm intelligence to human optimization problems.

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Marco Dorigo, ants, artificial intelligence, collective intentionality, complexity, computational intelligence, computational psychology, cybernetics, optimization, particle swarm optimization, spontaneous order, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
May 7, 2010

Here is a chapter from a book by Michael Dawson, Brian Dupuis, and Michael Wilson (all of the Biological Computation Project, University of Alberta) that has just come my way and is entitled From Bricks to Brains: The Embodied Cognitive Science of LEGO Robots. In fact, all the chapters in draft are freely available to be downloaded from the book’s dedicated webpage. This offer will cease on publication of the book – which will be VERY soon. There is also a nicely produced 15 minute mini-documentary on the publisher’s site featuring Dawson and Depuis (click the video tab).
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Brian Dupuis, Embedded, Michael Dawson, Michael Wilson, active externalism, active perception, anti-representationalist, artificial intelligence, bricks to brains, cognitive modeling, cognitive science, computational intelligence, computer simulations, concept of mind, connectionism, consciousness, cybernetics, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, embodiment, emergence, extended mind, feedback, lego, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, psychology, robotics, robots, situated cognition, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
April 5, 2010
Check out Akamai‘s data visualizations for the internet traffic it handles. Though pretty cool seeing this in their Cambridge control room when I visited, I was told it was more for show than anything else. Check out their online vizualizations page. Also, do check out their EdgePlatform blurb, a superb example of distributed computing.

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akamai, data visualization, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, edge platform, internet, internet traffic, network theory, optimization, stigmergic, stigmergy, streaming |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
April 1, 2010
Thanks to Amazon’s Recommendation Algorithm I chanced upon this book. I haven’t read it yet but it promises that it would provide a light (though hardly condescending) interlude between other drier and more technical works and the more stilted fictional attempts on which to hang the issues. And any work that makes philosophical approaches to consciousness more accessible, is a good thing. Of course it helps that it has as its authors are the top-notch Torin Alter and Robert Howell. The two discussants are Tollens and Ponens – unemployed graduate students who secretly live in a university library (tee hee, chortle, chortle).

Recommendation algorithms generally come in two varieties – collaborative filtering (CF) and cluster models (CM). CF attempts to mimic the process of ‘‘word-of-mouth’’ by which people recommend products or services to one another. CF runs on the notion that people who agreed in the past will agree in the future. CF aggregates ratings of items to recognize similarities between users, and generates a new recommendation of an item by weighting the ratings of similar users for the same item. But this technique is computationally expensive because ‘‘the average customer vector is extremely sparse’’ (Linden, Smith, & York, 2003, p. 77). By contrast CM divides the agent base into segments, treating the task as a classificatory problem. An agent is assigned a category comprised of similar agent profiles. Only then are recommendations generated. CM is computationally efficient since it only searches segments, rather than the complete database. Amazon.com’s recommendation algorithm is a derivative form of CF and CM. Consider an example. A search on Amazon for ‘‘stigmergy’’ returns 176 items, the default sort being by relevance (as opposed to price, reviews, publication date). Also given some prominence is a category ‘‘Customers who bought items in your Recent History also bought x, y, z . . ..’’ supplemented by Listmania, lists of salient material compiled by agents (all-comers as in Wikipedia) who ostensibly have some intimacy with the topic. There are also so-called ‘‘reviews’’ of a given title. All this over and above a record of my recent purchases which included stigmergy related material, assuming one hasn’t expunged Amazon’s cookies from one’s browser. Even on offer is the opportunity, for many titles, to peruse the contents page, read an excerpt and even be enticed by the dustjacket hyperbole. Furthermore, one can be alerted by email when a new title or new edition of a book matching one’s previous trails of interest, will become available: a preorder entitling the buyer to a discount. This all adds up to a highly bespoke experience that is better tailored than being in a bookstore, because it is unlikely the bookstore even stocks a title you have yet to discover as one scans the shelves – there is no ‘‘pheromone’’ trail. The Amazon algorithm rather than matching user-to-user finds items that customers tend to purchase together. It is computationally efficient (and easily scalable) because much of the computation has already been done off-line. The stigmergic interest of Amazon’s algorithm is patently clear: an item-to-item search generates a trail that gives rise to novel patterns of behavior. CF’s great virtue is that suppliers can be finely attuned to consumer behavior. The downside is that there runs the risk of ‘‘a kind of dysfunctional communal narrowing of attention’’ that can be self-fulfilling (Clark, 2003, p. 158; Gureckis & Goldstone, 2006, p. 296). Excerpt from Stigmergic epistemology, stigmergic cognition.
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Dialogue on Consciousness, amazon, cognitive science, collaborative filtering, consciousness, philosophy of mind, psychology, qualia, recommendation algorithm, robert howell, stigmergic, stigmergy, torin alter |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
March 17, 2010
Check out swarm grandee Guy Theraulaz’ list of papers available online.
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Guy Theraulaz, ants, artificial intelligence, cognitive systems, complexity, computational intelligence, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, situated cognition, spontaneous order, stigmergic, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
March 14, 2010

As some of you will know, I have posts on ants from time to time. The study of ants has a great deal of relevance to the computational intelligence community. I want to trail the forthcoming book by National Geographic photographer extraordinaire and entomologist Mark Moffett. See the book’s dedicated website.
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Mark Moffett, ants, complexity, computational intelligence, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, national geographic, spontaneous order, stigmergic, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
March 2, 2010
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Economics, Edelman, Embedded, Enacted, Gilbert Ryle, Inevitability Thesis, Mass Collaboration, Road to Serfdom, The Road to Serfdom, artificial intelligence, austrian economics, behaviorism, brain science, cognition, cognitive closure, cognitive modeling, cognitive science, cognitive systems, collective intentionality, complexity, computational intelligence, concept of mind, connectionism, consciousness, constructivism, cybernetics, david chalmers, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, embodiment, emergence, enactivism, epistemology, evolutionary psychology, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, externalism, frame problem, frank rosenblatt, functionalism, gerald edelman, hayek, hayek machine, hermeneutics, intentionality, knowing how knowing that, leslie marsh, metaphysics, mind body, networks, neurobiology, neuroeconomics, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, particle swarm optimization, philosophy of economics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of social science, psychology, qualia, rationality, representationalism, self-referentiality, situated cognition, social cognition, social connectionism, social constructivism, social epistemology, sociology, spontaneous order, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence, the "hard" problem, the sensory order |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
February 24, 2010
Check out the Editorial (and of course the full issue) for the special issue on Particle Swarm Optimization from the new journal Swarm Intelligence. This issue is edited by two of the most prominent luminaries in the field – Andries Engelbrecht and Jim Kennedy. The former is the author of Fundamentals of Computational Swarm Intelligence; the latter, the co-author of the now classic Swarm Intelligence and developer of the PSO algorithm – both books are essential reading in PSO. Please ask your library to subscribe to this high quality journal – swarm intelligence as a topic has relevance to so many endeavors – the implication and application only now being glimpsed. I bet that in five years reference to PSO will become commonplace in the philosophical and the sociological literature.

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Andries Engelbrecht, Jim Kennedy, artificial intelligence, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, networks, particle swarm optimization, stigmergic, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence | Tagged: Andries Engelbrecht |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities
February 9, 2010
Here is an article (admittedly a few years old) and some accompanying photographs from National Geographic.

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ants, cognitive closure, cognitive systems, collaboration, collective intentionality, complexity, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, national geographic, robotics, robots, spontaneous order, stigmergic, stigmergy, swarm, swarm behavior, swarm intelligence, wasps |
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Posted by manwithoutqualities