Dear Don, Lubomir, Terry, and All,
Recent posts to the new thread on stigmergy have me thinking still further. My puzzlement over using stigmergy as a concept in education (or design, for that matter) is that the concept usefully explain insect behavior, but it may not explain human behavior. This is not simply a scholarly concern on how we define stigmergy (what the word means) — it is a scientific concern about whether this is a useful explanation for human action and human interaction.
In an issue of the journal Artificial Life, I found a useful overview of stigmergy:
Theraulaz, Guy and Eric Bonabeau. 1999. A Brief History of Stigmergy. Artificial Life. Spring 99, Vol. 5 Issue 2, pp. 97-116. DOI: 10.1162/106454699568700
Abstract: "Stigmergy is a class of mechanisms that mediate animal-animal interactions. Its introduction in 1959 by Pierre-Paul Grassé made it possible to explain what had been until then considered paradoxical observations: In an insect society individuals work as if they were alone while their collective activities appear to be coordinated. In this article we describe the history of stigmergy in the context of social insects and discuss the general properties of two distinct stigmergic mechanisms: quantitative stigmergy and qualitative stigmergy."
In thinking about the example of people breaking trail through parks and camps greens, I began to think about the process as a method of communicative action. That is, the trailblazer may not be planning to communicate but the trailblazer leaves a trail behind that does communicate. Long ago, I wrote a paper in which I considered this phenomenon: you see it on every university campus in the world and nearly every public park, where people respond to the environment rather than to the planned pathways.
Human beings respond to the environment in complex ways. This is often a response to the environment itself, rather than a response to stigmergic phenomena. If you study military history, for example, you will see that in some regions, invading armies have used the same routes for centuries, even millennia. I once read an analysis of military invasions of France that compared Caesar’s invasion routes through Gaul to the invasions of later centuries. Learning the lessons of terrain, Henry V won the Battle of Agincourt not far from the site of the Battle of Crecy, where Edward III won a major victory a century earlier.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was common for rising officers likely to become generals to tour Europe, walking the sites of great battles, and learning the land to determine where they might best force battles if required to do so in future wars.
This is a response to the environment itself, mediated and interpreted by human purpose.
Don’s post very reasonably suggests that there may be uses for stigmergy. I agree. At the same time, I think there may be better explanations for some kinds of human action — a mechanism that mediates the behavior of insects in animal-animal social relations may not be sufficient in mediating the behavior of human beings. Human beings react to one another, often before they think out the conscious basis of their actions — and human beings also act based on their interpretation of action, context, and environment. While some folks cut an unplanned path across the quad, others use the walkway. A general fighting on a site that he toured two decades before the battle is not responding to the opposing army in a simple way — he is forcing the engagement on terms favorable to his army. In the Art of War, dating to the sixth century BC, Sun Tzu speaks of such encounters. Humans can do this — insects cannot.
You can find a fascinating version of stigmergic computing in novel Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky studied of zoology and psychology at university. He works as a legal executive and writes science fiction in his spare time. In Children of Time, Tchaikovsky describes a race of advanced spiders that learn how to control ant colonies using biological scent signals. One brilliant spider scientist learns how to program the ants to do massive parallel computing — the spiders use large ant colonies as biological supercomputers. This is stigmergy. In some ways, it parallels the use of stigmergy in AI and computing.
In questioning the use of stigmergy as a concept in design or education, I was not concerned about applying concepts from one field to another. My concern is that one requires caution in applying models designed for insect behavior to human behavior. To put it another way, the possible problem of stigermegy here is not that the concept comes from another discipline. The problem involves using a concept for human behavior that does not seem suitable. It’s often valuable to use concepts across fields. I’m just not sure that one can use this concept.
I might be wrong on this. People have made great advances misinterpreting the work of others to build better works fueled in part by what they did not understand. I once belonged to The Institute for Creative Misunderstanding, a non-organization established by the late Fluxus artist Dick Higgins. The propose of the institute was to misunderstand things in new and better ways.
It was difficult to say whether or not we succeeded. As George Brecht once said, “So little to do and so much time to do it in.”
Those who wish to read the Theraulaz and Bonabeau article will find a copy on my Academia page at the top of the Teaching Documents section.
a http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
It will be available there until March 31.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia
Email [log in to unmask] | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|
