michel on coordination ness
michel bauwens on coordination ness (to me- need means to org around legit needs)
via tweet [https://x.com/mbauwens/status/2020123522752794702?s=20]:
My next substack article, planned for next Monday, will be a history of civilization systems, seen through the lens of coordination mechanisms.
My key theses:
* we’re moving from market/state coordination to stigmergic coordination
hello stigmergy et al
* the latter is expressed through open ecosystems that are holoptically visible to all participants
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
‘participant’ ness itself implies not everyone ness
* it is expressed through peer to peer social dynamics and digital commons that are linked to physical resources (p2p and commons)
social dynamic we need: the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
* AI is stigmergy without direct intervention of humans
but.. needs to be for the thing ai/tech/whatever can do.. that we can’t seem to .. ie: nonjudgmental expo labeling
there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake..
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. [again].. for (blank)’s sake..
STIGMERGY is therefore the keyword that you should know:
“Like energy, feedback, or gravitation, stigmergy names something that was always there, but only recently became understood scientifically.
to me.. if it’s understood.. not legit free/stigmergy.. science scientifically.. naming the colour.. intellectness as cancerous distraction.. et al
We are already living in stigmergic systems. We depend on them daily. We design them — often blindly — and suffer when we design them poorly.
if legit free/stigmergic.. then again.. the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
Giving this phenomenon a name is not just an academic exercise. It is a step toward understanding how intelligence, order, and meaning can emerge from collective activity without central control.
rather.. it’s a means of letting go of all that..
Stigmergy deserves to become common knowledge — because it explains how much of our world already works, and how it might work better.”
to me.. stigmergy.. legit freedom.. deserves to be set legit free.. ie: graeber can’t know law.. et al..
we need a means to org around legit needs via what is already on/in each heart..
need first/most: means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening – so we can hear what’s already on each heart as global detox in order to org around legit needs
https://francisheylighen.substack.com/p/stigmergy-the-most-important-concept
notes/quotes from article:
Stigmergy: the most important concept you’ve never heard of – coordination without planning or communication (2026) by Francis Heylighen
hello stigmergy.. marsh stigmergy law.. francis heylighen
Many of the concepts we rely on every day were once considered abstruse, technical, or even incomprehensible. (ie’s given: energy, feedback, gravitation and natural selection)
Today, these ideas are not only familiar — they are indispensable. We use them to reason about physical systems, organisms, social dynamics, and even our own lives.
are they? or might they be cancerous distractions to legit free people.. ie: would legit free people spend their days reasoning?..
What changed was not the concepts themselves, but *our recognition that they captured something fundamental.
again.. to me.. rather.. cancerous distractions .. nothing to date has gotten to the root of problem
legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do (that means sans the things listed above)
The concept of “stigmergy” is at precisely this stage today: sufficiently well-defined to provide us with a fundamental new insight about nature, life and society, but not yet widely known.
if well defined.. then not the free/stigmergy ness we need.. what we need is something deep enough that everyone already craves (groks) it in their heart
The Concept
Stigmergy is a concept with a clumsy name and a modest origin. It was first proposed by the French entomologist Pierre-Paul Grassé to explain how termites build complex nests without blueprints, leaders, or explicit communication. Yet beneath that narrow biological context lies one of the most powerful and general solutions to a problem that pervades modern life:
funny to have those words.. yet still try to blueprint/lead/explicityly-communicate
How can agents coordinate their actions without central control, shared plans, or direct communication?
again.. funny.. because we can’t seem (even evident here) to let go of control/planes/direct ness..
carhart-harris entropy law et al
We usually treat coordination as a cognitive problem — one that requires intelligence, negotiation, foresight, planning or authority. When coordination fails, we blame ignorance, incentives, or human nature. But in many cases, the problem is far simpler and far deeper.
i’d say in all the cases.. and we’re/you’re still missing it
ie: the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]
It is a problem of information flow between agents and their activities.
i think info flow ness would be irrelevant for legit free people.. to me info flow ness is a form of control..
Stigmergy solves this problem by shifting where information is kept. Instead of residing inside individual minds or in messages transmitted between them, information is offloaded into the environment. Agents act on a shared medium, and those modifications *leave traces that guide the actions of others. The trace becomes both a memory of what has already been done, and a signal to do what still needs to be done.
whoa.. *huge red flag.. need a means sans any form of people telling other people what to do
The Mechanism
The principle underlying stigmergy is so simple that once once you have understood this, it becomes impossible to unsee:
need legit mechanism simple enough
An action produces a trace or mark in an external medium. Perceiving the mark stimulates a next action.
ok.. so the way we seem to see stigmergy.. is (to me) legit free ness.. but (to me) this is not legit stigmergy ness.. ie: if you’re stimulating others.. et al..
how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..
ie: imagine if we listen to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & use that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)
The mark represents the work already done, while suggesting the work that still needs to be done.
not simple/free.. et al
The action stimulated by a mark creates a next mark, adding to what is there. ..As a result, the accumulated marks are gradually elaborated to form an increasingly sophisticated structure.
oi
Two prototypical illustrations of such stigmergic development are the collective intelligence of insects, such as termites and ants, and the collective development of Wikipedia.
Where the Idea Came From: Termites and Ants
The concept of stigmergy did not originate in computer science or social theory, but in the careful observation of insects — in particular, termites and ants.
wild city of ants.. planet ant.. ant network.. deborah gordon.. et al
At first glance, termite mounds look like the result of intelligent design. They can be several meters high, contain intricate networks of tunnels and chambers, regulate temperature and humidity, and even manage airflow and gas exchange. Yet no termite oversees the construction. No termite has a blueprint. No termite understands the structure as a whole.
lisa margonelli and underbug.. et al
Each termite follows extremely simple rules:
- Pick up a grain of soil
- Drop it where similar grains already accumulate
- Take into account local cues such as texture, or chemical traces
That’s it.
Yet from these local actions, coordinated by changes in the shared environment, an astonishingly complex structure emerges. The mound itself becomes a guide for further construction. What has already been built constrains and directs what will be built next.
Ants provide an even clearer illustration.
When ants search for food, they initially wander more or less randomly. As they move, they deposit faint chemical traces — pheromones — on the ground. If an ant happens to find food and returns to the nest, it reinforces the trail it followed. Other ants are more likely to follow stronger trails, and in doing so they reinforce them further.
yeah.. i think that’s too much ‘guidance’ .. too much maté trump law ness.. not enough brown belonging law ness.. for us to set/keep ourselves legit free.. so are they really doing that? or does it just look that way?
whatever.. i think thinking it’s a type of guidance.. is keeping us from the dance
Very quickly, a branching network of paths appears, with the most efficient routes becoming the most strongly marked. This network now functions as a collective map of the environment, guiding ants to the most productive food sources. No ant calculates distances. No ant compares alternatives. No ant decides which path the colony should use.
The “decision” is embodied in the trail itself.
to me.. the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..
This is the key insight that led to the concept of stigmergy: *coordination does not require communication between individuals, only interaction through a shared environment. **The environment stores the results of past actions and channels future ones.
*with you here
**not so much here..
What made this idea revolutionary was not that insects behave this way, but that the same principle can operate wherever many agents interact with a modifiable medium — including human societies, technologies, and knowledge systems.
Once this biological insight is generalized, termite mounds and ant trails stop being curiosities. They become the simplest, clearest demonstrations of a universal mechanism of self-organization.
to me.. that’s part of the cancerous distraction.. it’s a form of thinking we have to know.. that things have to be clear.. generalized.. et al
The Coordination Problem We All Live With
Coordination problems are everywhere.
in sea world
- How do thousands of volunteers write and maintain an encyclopedia?
- How do teams collaborate without endless meetings?
- How does science progress without anyone overseeing the whole enterprise?
- How do traffic patterns, languages, or social norms emerge without designers?
The traditional answers invoke hierarchies, planning, agreements, or communication. But these solutions scale poorly. As the number of participants grows, centralized control becomes brittle, and explicit communication becomes overwhelming.
what if it’s deeper.. what if thinking we need to coord those things is a cancerous distraction
again.. to me.. need first/most: means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening – so we can hear what’s already on each heart as global detox in order to org around legit needs
What stigmergy reveals is that coordination does not require that agents understand the global picture or agree among each other about who would do what. It only requires that they can:
- Act locally
- Leave visible traces of those actions
- Respond adequately to traces left by others
to me.. that is not a legit assumption
The intelligence is not in the agent, nor in a controller above them, but in the interaction between agents and a shared environment.
or perhaps.. there is no intell.. perhaps intellectness as cancerous distraction
What Is Stigmergy, in Plain Language?
In the simplest terms:
Stigmergy is coordination of actions through the traces of past activity.
ok.. i don’t resonate with that defn.. that’s not about the dance.. not about being legit free..
An action changes the environment.
That change stimulates the next action.
Over time, coherent patterns emerge.
red flags telling of the death of us ness..
No one needs to plan the whole. No one needs to even know that a “system” exists.
Stigmergy works because the environment does part of the cognitive work. It stores information, highlights what is relevant, and channels future actions. Thus, it functions like a “collective mental map”, a growing system of guidelines that channels activity to where it is most effective.
This makes stigmergy not just a coordination mechanism, but a form of distributed cognition.
to me.. that’s whalespeak.. ruining possibilites of hello stigmergy ness.. dang..
Systems We Already Rely On (Without Noticing)
Once you look for stigmergy, you find it everywhere, not only in biology, but in society, psychology, computer science and even chemistry. It is common especially online.
..Wikipedia from the start chose a method of distributed self-organization, opening up pages to anyone willing to contribute.
Contributors do not coordinate by assigning tasks or negotiating who writes what. They simply add to and improve what they see: correcting errors, adding references, reorganizing sections. Each edit leaves a trace. Those traces guide the next contributor.
am hung up on words like: trace; contributor; ..
Why Stigmergy Works So Well
Stigmergy works because it reduces coordination to simple, local decisions, while still allowing global structure to emerge.
not free if still decision ing
Each participant only needs to answer questions like:
- What needs improvement here?
- What is missing?
- What looks wrong or outdated?
The shared environment ensures that:
- Useful contributions accumulate
- Redundant work is discouraged
- Errors tend to be corrected
- Structure gradually stabilizes
In this sense, stigmergic systems are self-correcting. They adapt not because anyone oversees them, but because feedback is built directly into the environment.
ooof.. lynch fixed hidden law et al
This makes stigmergy remarkably robust, scalable, and tolerant of individual mistakes
What Happens without Stigmergy
Traditional methods of collaboration that rely on planning and communication are vulnerable to errors: messages being misunderstood, agents not being available, tasks failing to be performed … The more precise, rigid and centralized the plan, the higher the chance that a single error will throw everything off course, resulting in failure. With stigmergy, on the other hand, no plan needs to be communicated, and activity adapts directly to the state of the work. If one agent fails to act on the medium, sooner or later another one will do what is needed.
to me.. if something is needed in the activity ness.. state of work ness.. then there is a plan/coercion/et-al
The following joke illustrates what can go wrong if workers tightly stick to the plan instead of paying attention to the trace:
A pensioner watches two city workers busy in the municipal park. The one digs a series of deep holes at regular intervals. The other one then shovels the mounds of earth carefully back into each hole, and flattens the soil. The pensioner asks him: “Isn’t that a waste of effort what you are doing?”, to which the worker replies: “No, we always work this way, and it is very efficient. It is just that the third guy who plants the trees did not show up today.”
Why We’ve Missed the Concept
If stigmergy is so powerful, why isn’t it widely known or taught?
because.. to me.. the way we’re assuming/perceiving it.. isn’t legit organism as fractal ness..
One reason is that we are biased toward intentional explanations. We like to attribute order to plans, leaders, or minds. Stigmergy, by contrast, explains order without invoking anyone who “knows what they are doing” at the system level.
thinking we have to explain.. strike one.. assuming order.. strike two.. oi
Another reason is that stigmergy sits between disciplines. It is not just biology, not just sociology, not just cognitive science, and not just technology. As a result, it often falls through the cracks. Yet this in-between position is precisely what makes it so important.
A third reason is that the mechanism is indirect. Stigmergy is a form of self-organization, but one we tend to ignore because it is less visible. In better-known forms of self-organization, such as swarms of birds flying in sync, the coordination is direct: each bird aligns its flight with the one of its immediate neighbors as it senses them. Thus, alignment happens in real time.
But in the case of stigmergy, there is an intermediate stage—the trace left in the medium—that allows agents to coordinate without knowing about what the others do or even being present at the same time. Because we focus on direct interactions, we tend to overlook this passive trace which is lying in wait to be sensed.
Why Stigmergy Matters Now
We live in a world of increasing scale and complexity.
- *Scientific knowledge is exploding.
- **Digital platforms connect billions.
- ***AI systems interact with human contributors.
- ****Global problems demand coordination without global control.
*rather.. whalespeak.. speaking science scientifically is exploding.. oooof
**billions is a lot.. but it has to be all for the dance to dance
***we need ai systems that listen to every human
****there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake..
ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition
otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. [again].. for (blank)’s sake.
In this context, stigmergy is not a curiosity — it is a design principle.
Understanding stigmergy helps us:
- Build better collaborative platforms
- Design healthier online communities
- Rethink governance and participation
- Understand collective intelligence
- See cognition as something that extends beyond individual minds
rather.. we need to be the collab platforms.. and let go of gove/particip ness.. let go of cognition ness
Most importantly, it offers a way to think about coordination that does not rely on authority, coercion, or constant communication — but on shared structures that quietly guide action.
to me.. what i’ve read here.. is a form of coercion.. if guided ness.. if any form of m\a\p ness..
again.. the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness
pearson unconditional law et al
A Concept Whose Time Has Come
Like energy, feedback, or gravitation, stigmergy names something that was always there, but only recently became understood scientifically.
always there.. but if we want to keep it alive.. ie: organism as fractal ness et al.. need to let go of thinking we have to understand.. of thinking we have to science scientifically
We are already living in stigmergic systems. We depend on them daily. We design them — often blindly — and suffer when we design them poorly.
Giving this phenomenon a name is not just an academic exercise. It is a step toward understanding how intelligence, order, and meaning can emerge from collective activity without central control.
ooof… cancerous distraction from the get to..
Stigmergy deserves to become common knowledge — because it explains how much of our world already works, and how it might work better.
rather.. needs to be set free.. from knowledge ness.. again.. graeber can’t know law.. graeber unpredictability/surprise law.. et al
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be you. 