you may remember me posting about the wisdom of the crowds. a friend ed sent me a link to this article on swarm theory which is in the same kind of area of self organising systems and complexity. it got me thinking about church communities and networks... here's a couple of quotes
That's the wonderful appeal of swarm intelligence. Whether we're talking about ants, bees, pigeons, or caribou, the ingredients of smart group behavior—decentralized control, response to local cues, simple rules of thumb—add up to a shrewd strategy to cope with complexity.
Crowds tend to be wise only if individual members act responsibly and make their own decisions. A group won't be smart if its members imitate one another, slavishly follow fads, or wait for someone to tell them what to do. When a group is being intelligent, whether it's made up of ants or attorneys, it relies on its members to do their own part.
great thoughts.
Posted by: Brett Tilford | May 29, 2008 at 12:19 AM
Jonny, If you dig swarms, you'll love Negri + Hardt's Multitude. Also here's a question:
If swarms, packs and shoals are collective nouns for groups of the same species, what's the collective noun for mixed-species groups? Bunches? Churches?
How do swarms do 'other'?
Posted by: Nic | May 29, 2008 at 12:34 AM
But isn't that the real problem, people too often follow the pack and the fad? That is why consumeristic marketing has been so successful. Humans want to belong and unfortunately we allow someone else (advertisers) to determine how and when we will belong.
Posted by: Brian | May 29, 2008 at 03:10 AM
you only become part of a group because you have seen something that you (probably?) want to imitate in the first place.
whether behaviour or thought patterns.
is it possible for this then to morph into 'you belonging to a group just because you do'? in which case then the individual thinking might be 'allowed' within the group - because it's not the thinking or behaviour which makes you part of the group.
but it takes a really strong group to allow for individual thinking and conversely it is only really in this kind of group that the real individual thinking is able to flourish - alongside the nourishment of the group.
one day.....
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Posted by: Megan34 | December 29, 2009 at 02:45 PM