Tag Archives: stigmergy

Stigmergy 3.0: From ants to economies

According to Andy Clark “[M]uch of what goes on in the complex world of humans, may thus, somewhat surprisingly, be understood in terms of so-called stigmergic algorithms” (Clark, 1996, p. 279; 1997, p. 186). Pierre-Paul Grasse´, the brilliant mind who first conceptualized the notion … Continue reading

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The Emergence of Groups and Inequality

The emergence of groups and of inequality is often traced to pre-existing differences, exclusionary practices, or resource accumulation processes, but can the emergence of groups and their differential success simply be a feature of the behaviors of a priori equally-capable … Continue reading

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Cognitive stigmergy: A study of emergence in small-group social networks

This paper proposes a model and theory of leadership emergence whereby (1) small social groups are modeled as small-world networks and a betweeness metric is shown to be a property of networks with strong leadership, and (2) a theory of … Continue reading

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On the role of stigmergy in cognition

Cognition in animals is produced by the self-organized activity of mutually entrained body and brain. Given that stigmergy plays a major role in self-organization of societies, we identify stigmergic behavior in cognitive systems, as a common mechanism ranging from brain … Continue reading

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Emergence in Stigmergic and Complex Adaptive Systems

Complex systems have been studied by researchers from every discipline: biology, chemistry, physics, sociology, mathematics and economics and more. Depending upon the discipline, complex systems theory has accrued many flavors. We are after a formal representation, a model that can … Continue reading

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Stigmergy as a Universal Coordination Mechanism

The concept of stigmergy has been used to analyze self-organizing activities in an ever-widening range of domains, including social insects, robotics, web communities and human society. Yet, it is still poorly understood and as such its full power remains underappreciated. … Continue reading

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Social Cognition, Artefacts, and Stigmergy revisited: Concepts of coordination

A number of different coordination concepts have been developed to explain how individual activities are coordinated on a social level, and the variety of concepts shows there is an interest in many domains to find such explanations. Stigmergy being one … Continue reading

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The Swarm Model in Open Source Software Developer Communities

Most of the current swarm model studies and applications try to mimic the collective behaviors of social animals, such as birds and ants. The studies seek to solve tasks similar to patterns and behaviors exhibited in those animal colonies. In … Continue reading

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Swarm Cognition: Termites

Eusociality has evolved independently at least twice among the insects: among the Hymenoptera (ants and bees), and earlier among the Isoptera (termites). Studies of swarm intelligence, and by inference, swarm cognition, have focused largely on the bees and ants, while … Continue reading

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General Theory of Stigmergy: Modelling Stigma Semantics

Stigmergy is a biological term used when discussing a sub-set of insect swarm-behaviour describing the apparent organisation seen during their activities. Stigmergy describes a communication mechanism based on environment-mediated signals which trigger responses among the insects. This phenomenon is demonstrated … Continue reading

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