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The Rules of the Swarm
Posted by
samzenpus
on Tue Nov 13, 2007 08:47 PM
from the welcome-to-the-collective dept.
from the welcome-to-the-collective dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Researchers are starting to discover the simple rules that allow swarms of thousands of relatively simple animals to form a collective brain able to make decisions and move like a single organism. To get a sense of swarms, Dr. Iain Couzin, a mathematical biologist at the Collective Animal Behaviour Laboratory at Princeton University, builds computer models of virtual swarms with thousands of individual agents that he can program to follow a few simple rules. Among the findings are that swarm behavior has patterns common to many different species, that just as liquid water can suddenly begin to boil, swarm behavior can also change abruptly in character, and that just a few leaders can guide a swarm effectively by creating a bias in the swarm's movement that steers it in a particular direction. The rules of the swarm may also apply to the cells inside our bodies and researchers are working with cancer biologists to discover the rules by which cancer cells work together to build tumors or migrate through tissues. Even brain cells may follow the same rules for collective behavior seen in locusts or fish. "How does your brain take this information and come to a collective decision about what you're seeing?" Dr. Couzin says. The answer, he suspects, may lie in our inner swarm."
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I live for the swarm (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I live for the swarm (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Strength is irrelevent (Score:3, Funny)
C'est la vie (Score:2)
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it's funny because it's true (Score:5, Funny)
Strangely enough, it also explains republican voting habits.
Re:it's funny because it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey, I just discovered something...
Parent
Re:it's funny because it's true (Score:5, Funny)
"Ohh! Shiny gizmo!"
*BZZZZT*
"....what do you think happened to him?"
"who cares? look at the shiny gizmo!"
Parent
Re:it's funny because it's true (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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For our next trick, we will quote Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern as principles of honesty and integrity in reporting.
Group think is really a misnomer. Group think is really a large bunch of individuals not thinking (or thinking at a minimal level). So, republicans, democrats, libertarians, religious assemblies, whatever, is just minimal thinking individuals participating in groups guided by a few individuals in swarm behavior. It really does make so much sense this way. It has almost always worked when
Gaia? (Score:3, Insightful)
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"[...] look, see those birds? At some point a program was written to govern them. A program was written to watch over the trees, and the wind, the sunrise, and sunset." - The Oracle.
Probably not a program as we know it, but maybe a spirit that governs the swarms.
Just like fractals (Score:5, Interesting)
First rule of the swarm (Score:3, Funny)
I'm sure in some deep, dark basement (Score:2)
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Wouldn't that be more like "WE told ya so".
Collectively, of course (Score:2)
Would it be redundant to say 'slashdot swarm effect?
But seriously --- hunger, fright, spawning, yawning, roosting, cheering, migrating, hibernating, buying lotto tickets...you can't have a 'crowd' effect without a crowd, so discovering there is such a thing seems a bit like finding a bullet hole and then inventing the gun. All sounds a bit medieval if you ask me.
I just want to know where the on/off switch is so I can control it...
Re:Collectively, of course (Score:4, Insightful)
A swarm has no overlord!
Parent
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Exactly... Ok if I quote you? As a group, I mean.
Now, everybody don't move - I want a picture of this one. Is everybody not ready?
The Rules of THE SWARM (Score:4, Funny)
But in case you do... (Score:2)
in b4 "what the hell is this", -1 Offtopic, etc. =)
Rules of the Swarm (Score:5, Funny)
A swarm is a collection of Fine, Diminutive, or Tiny creatures that acts as a single creature. A swarm has the characteristics of its type, except as noted here. A swarm has a single pool of Hit Dice and hit points, a single initiative modifier, a single speed, and a single Armor Class. A swarm makes saving throws as a single creature. A single swarm occupies a square (if it is made up of nonflying creatures) or a cube (of flying creatures) 10 feet on a side, but its reach is 0 feet, like its component creatures. In order to attack, it moves into an opponent's space, which provokes an attack of opportunity. It can occupy the same space as a creature of any size, since it crawls all over its prey. A swarm can move through squares occupied by enemies and vice versa without impediment, although the swarm provokes an attack of opportunity if it does so. A swarm can move through cracks or holes large enough for its component creatures.
A swarm of Tiny creatures consists of 300 nonflying creatures or 1,000 flying creatures. A swarm of Diminutive creatures consists of 1,500 nonflying creatures or 5,000 flying creatures. A swarm of Fine creatures consists of 10,000 creatures, whether they are flying or not. Swarms of nonflying creatures include many more creatures than could normally fit in a 10-foot square based on their normal space, because creatures in a swarm are packed tightly together and generally crawl over each other and their prey when moving or attacking. Larger swarms are represented by multiples of single swarms. The area occupied by a large swarm is completely shapeable, though the swarm usually remains in contiguous squares.
Traits
A swarm has no clear front or back and no discernable anatomy, so it is not subject to critical hits or flanking. A swarm made up of Tiny creatures takes half damage from slashing and piercing weapons. A swarm composed of Fine or Diminutive creatures is immune to all weapon damage. Reducing a swarm to 0 hit points or lower causes it to break up, though damage taken until that point does not degrade its ability to attack or resist attack. Swarms are never staggered or reduced to a dying state by damage. Also, they cannot be tripped, grappled, or bull rushed, and they cannot grapple an opponent.
A swarm is immune to any spell or effect that targets a specific number of creatures (including single-target spells such as disintegrate), with the exception of mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects) if the swarm has an Intelligence score and a hive mind. A swarm takes half again as much damage (+50%) from spells or effects that affect an area, such as splash weapons and many evocation spells.
Swarms made up of Diminutive or Fine creatures are susceptible to high winds such as that created by a gust of wind spell. For purposes of determining the effects of wind on a swarm, treat the swarm as a creature of the same size as its constituent creatures. A swarm rendered unconscious by means of nonlethal damage becomes disorganized and dispersed, and does not reform until its hit points exceed its nonlethal damage.
Swarm HD Swarm
Base Damage
1-5 1d6
6-10 2d6
11-15 3d6
16-20 4d6
21 or more 5d6
Swarm Attack
Creatures with the swarm subtype don't make standard melee attacks. Instead, they deal automatic damage to any creature whose space they occupy at the end of their move, with no attack roll needed. Swarm attacks are not subject to a miss chance for concealment or cover. A swarm's statistics block has "swarm" in the Attack and Full Attack entries, with no attack bonus given. The amount of damage a swarm deals is based on its Hit Dice, as shown in the table.
A swarm's attacks are nonmagical, unless the swarm's description states otherwise. Damage reduction sufficient to reduce a swarm attack's damage to 0, being incorporeal, and other special abilities usually give a creature immunity (or at least resistance) to damage from a swarm. Some swarms
The Rules of the Swarm... on slashdot. (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is a popular science article, but addresses this, more interesting, question much more than the summary. They discuss some of the rules involved in specific situations (ants), and even look at "human swarms" (although that bit is a little cheesy). There is no general theory posited about how to make these rule sets though, apart from trial and error (in simulation if you can). They say that the researchers are starting to see patterns, but don't talk about what those patterns are - pity really, as that would have been very interesting.
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Hackers = L. Ron Hubbard, whoever wrote the Bible, the Torah, etc.
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Programs running on humans = religion. Hackers = L. Ron Hubbard, whoever wrote the Bible, the Torah, etc.
My inner swarm is whispering to me that 1992 called and wants its mass-market paperback scifi novel premise back.
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The crowd is untruth.
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Cheap shot: (Score:2)
Which explains AOL!
Stand Alone Complex? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, did this remind anyone else somewhat of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex [wikipedia.org] and the Laughing Man and Individual Eleven cases? Plus there is plenty of discussion throughout the series about how subtle influence by a select few can affect the whole of society, unnoticed. I know it's a bit different, but it's kind of unreal to be hearing about this in the news after having only just recently watched the two seasons of Stand Alone Complex episodes...
*cough*cough* (Score:3)
Not to mention my inner hippy.
algorithms (Score:5, Informative)
Locusts and cannibalism (Score:5, Interesting)
In any case, once they start eating each other, the locusts start trying to chase the locusts in front of them, while simultaneously avoiding the locusts behind them trying to eat them. The emergent behavior is that the entire swarm moves as a mass until a new area is found where salt and protein supplies are plentiful enough to cause them to switch out of cannibalism-mode. This presumably has a number of ramification on how to control migration of locust swarms, which are an immense destroyer of food resources in the developing world.
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Swarm simulations? (Score:2, Informative)
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Certainly no new work in artificial life simulation has been done in the last 21 years, and it's not possible that this has been applied to something new. Certainly not publishable [princeton.edu], especially not in respected publications like Science [princeton.edu] or Nature [princeton.edu] or Nature [princeton.edu].
... or IEEE Conference on Decision and Control [princeton.edu]... OK that one was a shameless plug for my own paper. But the others aren't.
leaders and bias in swarm? Marketers. (Score:5, Funny)
and that just a few leaders can guide a swarm effectively by creating a bias in the swarm's movement that steers it in a particular direction.
In human populations, we call those marketers.
Re:leaders and bias in swarm? Inventors (Score:2)
Imagine that at any given moment, each element of the swarm has:
1) A "desire" to behave in a unique way, with some probability;
2) The ability to persuade some number of nearby elements to follow it, also with a probability.
Might be an interesting simulation problem. The hypothetical link with reality is analogous to human societies; some the desire and persuasive power (and are therefore opinion leaders). And at various times in history, such people have moved entire societies in unexpe
Sounds like Finite Automata (Score:2)
This guy should get together with Mr. Wolfram. It sounds like these ideas overlap a lot with the stuff in his (highly recommded) "A New Kind of Science": http://www.wolframscience.com/ [wolframscience.com]
probably applies on macro scale too (Score:3, Insightful)
these are models... what about experiments? (Score:3, Informative)
They're called... (Score:3, Funny)
Politicians.
Re:Water never (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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The rules are quite similar, but the treatment is different. Boids was an artificial life simulation experiment. The stuff TFA r