Swarm technology..

[lollipop guild]

http://www.apple.com/science/profiles/u ... ofcalgary/

University of Calgary
Modeling Swarm Behavior

By Frank Lacombe


Swarm behavior: Ants collaborate to form a living bridge.
The swarming behavior of ants, bees, termites, and other social insects has implications far beyond the hive. Swarm intelligence â€" the collective behavior of independent agents, each responding to local stimuli without supervision â€" can be used to understand and model phenomena as diverse as blood clotting, highway traffic patterns, gene expression, and immune responses, to name just a few. Swarm technology is proving useful in a wide range of applications including robotics and nanotechnology, molecular biology and medicine, traffic and crowd control, military tactics, and even interactive art.

Students and faculty in the Evolutionary and Swarm Design (ESD) Research Group at the University of Calgary, Canada, use Mac computers and Mac OS X to model swarm behavior and to apply it to an ever-increasing number of real-world problems. Swarm modeling theories provide new conceptual frameworks for extending the field of artificial intelligence and suggest new possibilities for computer hardware and software design.

Christian Jacob has led the ESD Research Group since its inception. Like many swarm researchers, he believes that biologically-inspired computational tools like the ones being developed in the ESD Research Group will prove invaluable for developing many of the important technologies of the twenty-first century.

“A decentralized system has several important advantages over a centralized one, most notably robustness and flexibility.”

“What I find intriguing is the fact that very similar principles seem to apply to swarm-like systems regardless of scale,” Jacob says. “We can use the models that describe army ant raiding behavior to predict the behavior of automobile traffic or pedestrians on the road. The models that describe how birds and fish flock and school have practical applications in, for example, genetic algorithm test functions and the training of artificial neural network weights.”


To help regulate interior temperature, termites build these mounds along a north-south axis for even exposure to sunlight.

A Mind of Its Own

In contrast to the top-down organization that characterizes many human endeavors, many social species achieve their communal goals using a purely bottom-up approach with no central command-and-control structure. A swarm of termites, for example, exhibits a collective intelligence that far exceeds the intelligence of any individual insect, which by itself has limited capabilities for processing and communicating information.

The collective intelligence of the swarm emerges in a decentralized way from the actions of individual insects responding to local stimuli from the environment and, most importantly, from other members of the swarm. There is no “boss” in charge. No individual insect grasps the big picture. Yet in the aggregate, the local actions of each insect based on the local stimuli available to it can accomplish a collective goal that serves the interests of the whole community.

“It turns out that what makes sense in the biological world often make sense in the computational world as well,” explains Jacob. “For some types of applications, a collection of small, simple agents with limited intelligence, local decision-making capability, and a communication path to nearby peers can outperform a large centralized processor. Moreover, a decentralized system has several important advantages over a centralized one, most notably robustness and flexibility.”

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Organic life and man-made technology following apparently universal principals, the first used to predict the results of the second. How often do we hear of nature predicting technology?

That would be a great techno promotion...... "Well, Gary, according to the ants, our next generation of computers should benefit greatly with the new non-centralized processor chips that will be flowing throughout the system.....  

guild rep #9

[Jupe]

“For some types of applications, a collection of small, simple agents with limited intelligence, local decision-making capability, and a communication path to nearby peers can outperform a large centralized processor.



hmmmm sounds like SPF versus the gov'ment

thanx for article..

[JRL]

"a collection of small, simple agents with limited intelligence"

I resemble that remark!

[Cyano]

Isn´t this what magick/the spiritual is about? We are not only controlled by our intellect. We are not like robots with a computer in our head. With our intelligence we can think about the ideas that pop up in our minds and make choices. Our ideas however are not the product of our intelligence. In a way they come from a similar scource like the ideas from the ants that let them work together without a central authority. Magick is trying to get in contact with the mechanics/centers/gods of our ´´swarm intelligence´´ and base our choices on that information. These centers/gods are of course connected to the whole of nature.

[lollipop guild]

Isn´t this what magick/the spiritual is about? We are not only controlled by our intellect.  Magick is trying to get in contact with the mechanics/centers/gods of our ´´swarm intelligence´´ and base our choices on that information. These centers/gods are of course connected to the whole of nature.

We disagree. (maybe....)

Majick, to us, is attempting to manipulate the cosmos for personal gain.

Our idea of sprituality is individually surrendering to the cosmos in order for many to perform the will of the One.

Maybe a better way to put it is that we believe in being tempered and led by the spirit instead of the other way around.

guild reps in training #'s .33 and 1/3

[JRL]

Is that the difference between majick and magic.....?

Didn't I see the Guild at some Dead shows?

[Cyano]

As far as I understand it, manipulating the cosmos for personal gain is the way of science and technology. They belief in human intelligence as the only way to welfare and wellbeing. They are some kind of humanists/rationalists, not religious or magicians. The knowledge humanity possesses doubles every 25 years. One has to learn more and more to stay ahead of the problems manipulating the cosmos brought us. The more we learn, the more brain capacity we need, the more we lose perception of the spirits of nature. Therefore the industrialized countries are not religious or belief in magick. Christianity today is no more than a joke.
Like ants the human individual is a semi autonomous unit. Most of the ant behaviour is determined by their genetics. Since genetics can´t predict everything (where food can be found or what specific circumstances the ants will face) ants have a limited space to make individual choices. Since they do not have a humanlike intelligence their knowledge is not expanding and they stay under the influence of the spirit of the antnation they belong to. This spirit(collective intelligence) guides them and let them build their things without a central command-and control structure.
Magick is the old way when there were no scientists. Like today where the less ´´developed´´ nations are the religious nations.  According to the article these scientists also believe humanity has a collective intelligence. If one understands it´s ways one can predict automobile traffic and so on.  I don´t think ´´collective intelligence´´ is the wright term to describe this phenomen. In earlier times these tings were called gods. Magicians/sorcerers/shamans tried to get in contact with them to know the future and avoid trouble. There are different ways known to get into contact: drugs, transcendental meditation, bringing oneself into a trance etc.. These scientists, who do not belief in gods, try to do the same what magicians did/doe. The magician thinks of collective intelligence as gods/spirits, honours them and tries to get things done by them. The scientists think they can get in charge of the strings we are attached to (whose puppets we are). Like a puppet who is puppet and puppetmaster at the same time. A logical impossibility. That´s why I think that they are wrong, that magicians were wright and that these things are what magick is about.

[TooStonedToType]

We can learn much from the bees that make honey in our heads.

[lollipop guild]

Magicians/sorcerers/shamans tried to get in contact with them to know the future and avoid trouble. that´s why I think that they are wrong, that magicians were wright and that these things are what magick is about.

The bottom line, is that magicians still want to manipulate the world for their gain, even if you choose to call that act, "avoiding trouble" or "knowing the future." So, the magicians are right, scientists are wrong and the world is a wonderful two-toned black and white. Man, thats neat and tidy.

guild rep #8

[Cyano]

I would not say that magicians try to manipulate the world. I would call it playing. As with playing cards where every player wants to win. They don´t try to manipulate the natural flow of energy and matter in order to get products that have a value on the market.
Magicians, or better religion, is wright when it comes to how to deal with what these scientists call ´´collective intelligence´´. These scientists are like Adam and Eve who let themself convince by the snake that, if using their intelligence, they could become like the gods.

[lollipop guild]

I would not say that magicians try to manipulate the world. I would call it playing. As with playing cards where every player wants to win. They don´t try to manipulate the natural flow of energy and matter in order to get products that have a value on the market.

Who are you to say just what motivates individual magicians/sorcerers? Or to think there need be a monitary aspect to a desired gain in order to call it manipulation.

So, what's different between playing the cosmos and playing the stock market? Nothing if you are an inside trader on Wall St.

No offense, but it appears you have been reading only the positive propaganda about magicians and sorcerers.

Hate science, eh? Well, just who was responsible for the isolation of LSD? Albert Hoffman, the scientist.

PS: Einstein was a religious man.

guild rep #9

[Cyano]

I do not know what motivates the individual magician/scorcerer. Nor do I believe they are all nice and good people. The difference between religion and science is that science believes that mankind is free, while religion does not. I don´t belief that we are free, that our intelligence enables us to understand the true reality, the true nature of things. We can never be in charge of the world, the world is in charge of us. Therefore freedom is an illusion. Our efforts to create a better world, wherein we are free to do what was forbidden in the past, brought us only more problems and is more and more a threat for the whole of nature, including ourselfs.

[lollipop guild]

Interesting.....

However, I would guess that the world is no more in charge of us than we are of it. On some levels we are free, imo. On others we are not.

Just what are we free to do now that was forbidden in the past?

guild rep #9

[Cyano]

Free Sex for instance. In the past they could not live like this because who would have taken care of the children. Today we have the pill, condoms etc..
For people who want to eat more than is godd for them, there is light food. For people who want to smoke there are cigarettes with filter, to lower the health risk. Everything must be possible. If there is a problem, a solution must be found. Don´t adapt to the world, adapt the world to us.

[lollipop guild]

Free sex, eh? Well, in the olden days, the infant mortality rate was high much higher. That meant a lot more sex was needed just to keep population levels stable or growing.

Light food and filtered cigarettes, eh? Guess I never looked at it from that angle.

I'm guessing we are adapting to the world at roughly the rate She is adapting to us. We can't be separated from this organic equation no matter how hard some may try.

Concrete is natural.

guild rep #9