[MD] Emergence of Purpose

[ian glendinning]

Case. I'm not saying bird flocking (and insect swarming and fish
shoaling) are not interesting effects, with some elements of emergence
....

I wanted to highlight the level of complexity where the emergent
effect is no longer simply a collection of identifiable individuals -
a different "animal" almost - but the difference is really one of
human scale perecption.

Looking at flocking of higher animals you would still look at the
flock and say "oh look at that interesting flock of birds"

If you looked at a swarm of Myxobacter in some lifecycle states, you
would say "oh look at that strange little mushroom"

Ian

On 8/8/06, Case <Case at ispots.com> wrote:
> [Ian]
> Craig, I suspect the best answer to that is "Mu".
>
> But I have to point out that it is a completely different situation to
> the one I described. Many orders of magnitude less complex collective
> situation, and many order of magnitude more complex / intelligent
> individuals involved.
>
> I have absolutely no problem replying that in the goose-flying-V
> example - all the information is in each goose, and each goose has a
> sufficiently sophisticated motor and sensory feedback system to keep
> it's wing related to the vortex in the slipstream of a preceeding
> goose, and ease it's fying effort, and each goose remains a goose in
> the formation, etc. Very little "new" emerges.
>
> [Case]
> Here is an example of a chaotic model of birds flying in flocks:
> http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/ I think I have seen something similar about
> formations. But this is a nice start.
>
>
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