Reading your response, Jim, brings genetic programming to mind. If the population, taken as a whole, learns, but the individuals within that population do not, is it still stigmergy?
Aaron Hosford > On Jul 25, 2015, at 7:49 PM, Jim Bromer <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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/303/23050605-2da819ff > 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
