Stigmergy refers to individuals who leave and react to marks (or mark-like objects) in the environment that produce group behavior rather than forming memories and using reasoning. Their reactions are relatively simplistic but the group is able to produce a range of variations which may seem surprising. If you are going to use stigmergy as a term to describe an AI program or part of an AI program then you have to hold the agents (or parts) so that they are not learning but just leaving and reacting to marks in the pseudo-environment (the blackboard). This suggests that your AI program is going to be based on agents capable of simple reactions to marks in the blackboard. I would want my AI program to be able to learn and I see no reason why shielding the agents from being able to learn is going to make the project more likely to succeed. However, it is interesting to think about how much could be done this way and it is a worthwhile experiment. But, suppose you want to work from this stigmergy into some more powerful model without giving up the philosophical model of the stigmergy entirely. You are going to try to give the agents some ability to learn but you still want to limit the memory store of the agents. What I am saying is that you might take that step by saying the agents are endowed with some 'abstractons' (or programming) which can then specialize as they are needed. Some of the original programming (or the potential range of the programming) is going to be filtered out as the agent specializes. But, once you take this step, I am saying, it is difficult to justify limiting the range of the agents to learn new abstractions (or new programming). The specialization is itself equivalent to a kind of reprogramming so why stop there? Why not explore other ways that the agents can be reprogrammed to deal with the data environment. So the 'agents' are not only specializing by filtering out programming steps but they could also (for example) be able to try combining programming steps in creative ways or even modifying the programming steps in some more dramatic (but still well managed) way. So then the simple programming of the agents is not a first level abstraction but a meta-level abstraction. (The word "abstraction" was originally meant to refer to an insight that was derived from learning but then Aristotle's redefinition of 'the form' meant the concept of abstraction could also be used as a form or formula or a program.)
If you wanted to simulate the behavior of an ant colony you could call it stigmergy because the current thinking about the behaviors of ants are presumably seen as stigmergic. Now you could take his simulation to something more abstract so it is no longer a simulation. Derived from a simulation of the stigmergy you can still call it a stigmergic model. Then even though you might further change your model you can still say that it was derived from stigmergy. But you need to keep some kind of reality check on your use of the terminology so you don't completely lose track of what the program is doing. Jim Bromer On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 3:55 PM, Mike Archbold <[email protected]> wrote: > On 7/24/15, Jim Bromer <[email protected]> wrote: >> You can try to use stigmergy as if it were an abstraction that can be >> seen as part of a human-like intelligence but then you would, for >> example, be forced to declare that the more abstract parts of the >> programming were the primitives that were not changing due to the >> memories of events and the integration of those event-memories. But, >> since you would want a secondary abstraction-generation system be >> something that could be learned you would have to reach further into >> the abstractions of the abstractions of the programming to find the >> truly stigmergic part. It is an interesting philosophical exercise but >> can it be used to lead to something new? >> Jim Bromer >> > > Jim, I really like this paragraph above although I don't know what it > means, exactly, but have kind of feel for it... > PM, I don't recall you had ideas in your design (apologize if I > forgot). How do you define "idea" in a non formal type way? > > Mike A > > >> >> On Wed, Jul 22, 2015 at 10:31 AM, Jim Bromer <[email protected]> wrote: >>> The definition of stigmergy in Wikipedia is that, "It produces >>> complex, seemingly intelligent structures, without need for any >>> planning, control, or even direct communication between the agents. As >>> such it supports efficient collaboration between extremely simple >>> agents, who lack any memory, intelligence or even individual awareness >>> of each other." >>> So while Facebook, for example, is designed to work based on human >>> responses it does also retain 'marks' which are used to determine a >>> range of actions that can be subsequently taken in response. However, >>> communication between the human agents, who have stores of memories, >>> is the whole reason Facebook has succeeded. Can we look at part of a >>> distributed active system, even one that relies on human IO, and say >>> that part of it is stigmergic? OK, but the next question is why? What >>> can you do with that point of view? I think (it is obvious that) human >>> beings are sometimes reacting without fully realizing what is going on >>> and instead base their responses on prevailing commonalities of >>> insight (like prevailing memes). This kind of reaction might be >>> likened to a stigmergic reaction. Subsequent interactions can then be >>> used to refine the first attempts to understand what is going on (or >>> what someone else is trying to say.) So perhaps by looking at >>> foundational or simple methods that can combine stigmergy with more >>> traditional AI methods so that stigmergic reactions can be integrated >>> with previous reactions (for example successive statements) someone >>> might be able to gain a little more insight in AGI. However, this >>> implies that simple reactions must be context-sensitive to different >>> combinations of events and they have to be sensitive to hidden parts >>> that need to be inferred and discovered in order to appreciate special >>> meanings (or to invoke special reactions) related to individuation of >>> the agents. So I can see one way how this extension of the definition >>> of stigmergy might be used to yield some novel experimental results. >>> If I only had the time... >> >> >> ------------------------------------------- >> AGI >> Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now >> RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/11943661-d9279dae >> Modify Your Subscription: >> https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; >> Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com >> > > > ------------------------------------------- > AGI > Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now > RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/24379807-653794b5 > Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
