1. Power of Swarms
It is undeniable that we frequently draw inspirations from nature, the forms and structures of the creatures. Now we are taking her inner logic.
Kevin Kelly(his book Out of Control is highly recommended) pointed out that: beyond semantics, two concrete trends are happening. On one hand, human-made things are behaving more lifelike; on the other hand, life is becoming more engineered.
There is an old saying that: the quantitative change will lead to the qualitative change. No one has taken this saying so seriously until Kevin Kelly proposed the notion of collective intelligence. This saying will be examined true both in the world of the born and the world of the made when we see the incredible power of swarm system.
In the world of the born, great power of generation is stored inside various kinds of swarms. Normally, we have no doubt that human possess higher-level of intelligence than other species on earth. But now this common sense will be rechecked. Take the bees living in the same honey comb for instance. Those sister bees manage the election of where the swarm should settle. Usually, groups of worker scouts will ahead separately to check the possible new hive locations. They back for reporting the result of searching by showing particular dances to the rest of the swarm. The more theatrically the scout dances, the better site she is reporting. Then deputy bees will follow the scouts to check these competing sites and concur with the scout by joining in the dance. This feed-back loop will go through iteratively until all the bees except the queen have checked the sites. And it is time to make the final decision by every member of this family. Each latent home address has a particular dance to represent. Finally, the dance possesses most followers wins. It is an election hall of idiots, for idiots and by idiots. This is the true nature of democracy and of all distributed governance.
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| colony of ants |
Ants, too, behaves collectively. An individual ant is not very bright, but ants in a colony do remarkable things. How do the patrolling ants adjust their reconnaissance if their territory expands or shrinks? No ant commands. Somehow there has to be some rule that individual ants use in deciding to change the shape of their paths so they cover the areas effectively. Deborah Gordon finds that rule is the rate in which these patrollers bump into each other. The more crowded they are, the more often each ant will bump into another ant. If the area of their territory is expanded, the frequency of contact decreases. Perhaps, Gordon thinks, each ant has a threshold for normality and adjusts its path shape depending on how often the number of encounters exceeds or falls short of that threshold. If the territory shrinks, the number of contacts increases and the ant alters its search pattern. If it expands, contact decreases and it alters the pattern a different way.
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| connectivity of Wikipedia |
Referring to the realm of the made, Wikipedia excellently exhibits the great power of swarm system. . Wikipedia is written collaboratively by an international group of volunteers. It is a free-content encyclopedia project based on an openly-editable mode. Anyone across the world can contribute their own effort to improve it by editing Wikipedia articles. In Wikipedia society there is no central control to give command. The autonomous participant is just a tiny subunit settles down in this huge knowledge planet. It is unbelievable that when the assembly of those small contributions of every subunit reaches certain critical level the huge knowledge pool just emerges. Wikipedia is an analogy of the bio-system not only reproduces the equals, but also gives birth to more complicated objects than themselves. I see it as one of the most incredible creations in human history.
The above swarm systems, from the born to the made, from the macro-level to the micro level, all exhibit the marvelous magic of collective intelligence. The bee is not capable of thinking and analyzing, but a swarm of them are able to democratically pick the optimal hive location out of various complex options. An ant is certainly not that smart to figure out the complex question—whether the territory is big enough for the whole colony to live. However, by working collectively, they are able to expand or shrink the territory as the population of colony increases or decreases. One man, even the smartest guy, is definitely not able to capture and arrange knowledge of all disciplines, but people from all over the world together are on the way to set up the perfect system of the knowledge throughout the entire history of human being. It is the collective intelligence of bee hive, of ant colony, of human group that hold the answer to these puzzles. The marvel of collective intelligence is no subunit inside is extraordinary, and yet it is an invisible hand governs, a hand that emerges from every dumb members.
2. Form Simple Rules to Complexity
Mies van der Rohe adopted the motto “less is more” to describe his aesthetic tactic of arranging the numerous necessary components of a building to create an impression of extreme simplicity. While Robert Venturi pointed out that complexity and contradiction should also be acknowledged in architecture as in other fields, and “less is bore”.
Just as its name implies, collective intelligence emerges from a colony organism. Swarm of bees, flock of birds, colony of ants, and network of people, all of these are involved with large population. However, large population is just one essential element in the process of generation. Meanwhile, we need a strong external force to drive the system work. In other words, only when the large population of subunits altogether facing certain level of complexity, will the collective intelligence emerge. In order to solve the complicated problem, the swarm of subunits should find an efficient way to work collectively. On the whole, to generate a colony organism from whatever subunit organism requires the subunits to be multiplied so that there are many, many more of them, and they communicate with each other. At some stage the level of complexity reaches a certain critical level where collective intelligent can emerge. There is the need for “moreness”. Here “moreness” represents not only the large number of population, but the diversity of category as well.
There are two extreme ways to structure “moreness.” At one extreme, you can construct a system as long string of sequential operations, such as the factory’s assembly line. The “moreness” is generated step by step consequently. At the other extreme, instead of the linear chain of commands, all the actions are taking place simultaneously. It is the parallel system that all the actions diffuse into the whole. Actually, these two poles of the organization of moreness only exist in theory because all systems in real life are mixtures of these two extremes. Some large systems are closer to the sequential model, like most of the mechanical systems; others lean to the web model, such as the neural network of a brain. It seems that the things we find most interesting in the universe are more or less involved with the latter extreme. Our swarm system follows the logic of the web model.
It is like a long wonderful adventure that finally back to the start point where the treasure lies. Let me rewind the tape to review the whole story. Firstly, our target is the treasure named “collective intelligence”. However, before starting, we should find the treasure map called “moreness”. Then we get the clue “moreness” is buried in a place called “swarm system” where we start our journey. I cannot wait to apply the collective intelligence to the complex architectural context.
3. The Architectural Metaphor
On account of the collective intelligence, swarm systems can be adaptable and evolvable. This idea of being responsive to the rapidly changing environment sounds quite attractive to architecture, however, meanwhile also challenging. There are some illustrations trying to apply collective intelligence in architecture.
Tensegrity or tensional integrity is a property of structures with an integrity based on a balance between tension and compression components. The simplest tensegrity structure comprises three compression elements and nine tension elements. Each of three compression members is symmetric with the other two and symmetric from end to end. Each end is connected to three tension members which provide compression and which precisely define the position of that end. Most of us assume compression (push) and tension (pull) are simple opposites. Nevertheless, cause of this special pattern of connection, the exceptionally rigid structure emerges as large numbers of these two “opposite” elements gathered. This emergent property of super-rigidity results from collective intelligence of the tensegrity system. Inside this system, push and pull have a win-win relationship with each other. The pull is continuous and the push is discontinuous. The continuous pull is balanced by the discontinuous push producing the integrity of tension – compression. In general, from this case we find that even swarms of two opposite elements can generate collective intelligence if they are organized in a smart way.
On the other hand,
the Universal Constructor of John Frazer’s
(his book An Evolutionary Architecture is brilliant) research team is another excellent interpretation of collective intelligence. John Frazer proposed the idea of evolutionary architecture which can achieve the symbiotic behavior and the state of metabolic balance in the flux environment. He strives to set up an ideal generative system of evolutionary architecture which is totally with no control from designers. The Universal Constructor is a big leap in the process. This system consists of a series of cells. Each cell has an identifying code and contains an integrated circuit which can communicate with adjacent ones. That means every cell is autonomous and located within the network of communication. The system knows what each part is and where it is. Each unit can also display the state in which it exists and pass messages to anyone interacting with the model. This network of communication of electronic units is quite like the neural network of a brain. The units are the neurons. They process the messages by communicating with others through the webby nonlinear network. As a result, the whole system is capable of interacting with external environment in a way of adding or removing the electronic units at some particular location. In the dance example, the interactor established a stage-set or landscape for the system to “perform” in. The system then requested units to be added at the points where dance positions or leaps were to occur. In this case, the collective intelligence of the subunits defines the responsive performance of the whole system in the changing environment. Just like a brain controls the behavior of the body.
By and large, the collective intelligence can be applied in various aspects of architectural design, like structure, form and space as showed above. Meanwhile, we should also be aware that there are still a lot of unknown treasures of collective intelligence waiting for us to exploit.
4. Conclusion
We have witnessed the great power of the collective intelligence which emerges from swarm systems. Within this wonderful system, large numbers of autonomous humble individuals work collectively under no central control. They are the unaware contributors to the emergent spectacle.
In the process of collective-intelligence-finding, moreness is absolutely necessary. On one hand, large population of subunits is one essential factor; On the other hand, certain level of complexity should be achieved to drive the system work.
If moreness is the bullet, then the smart way of connecting subunits in a swarm system is the man who pulls the trigger. There should be a high connectivity between subunits. For instance, species with big distinctions are the result of different ways of interpreting DNA, although the constituent subunits are identical. Actually, different interpretations represent different rules of connecting the identical components. The emergence of collective intelligence really depends on how to connect the subunits inside swarm systems. The high connectivity is the internal representation of complexity, or, in other words, is another form of moreness.
Kevin Kelly pointed out that “there is a universal law of swarm system: higher-level complexities cannot be inferred by lower-level existences. Nothing – no computer or mind, no means of mathematics, physics, or philosophy – can unravel the emergent pattern dissolved in the parts without actually playing it out. …… running a system is the quickest, shortest, and only sure method to discern emergent structures latent in it.” In summary, by applying the concept of collective intelligence to the generative process of architecture, the unexpected richness will emerge. Call for moreness and define the rules of connection to be able to set up swarm systems, let the forthcoming collective intelligence tell the rest of the story.
