The Agency of Swarm, Jamming, 24/11/2016

Yesterday’s post ended up mostly being a recollection of my lifelong affiliation with nerd culture, and why I’m trying to move beyond it today. It was a political and ethical post about how nerd culture has become increasingly identified with resentful grievance and hatred instead of creativity and openness.

About how a community of people that considers itself a home for freaks and weirdos became a pit of racism and misogyny. I couldn’t help but meditate on that sad transition as I wrote my explanation* for why I’ve come to presume that geeks and nerds hide horrible, hateful beliefs about everyone around them.

* Which is not an apology for stereotyping that guy on the subway, because I’m not sorry at all.

But I still want to make a few notes here about swarm intelligence. I’m not sure how concepts of swarm intelligence will appear in any of my future work. But when it comes to understanding today’s media ecology and communications infrastructure, getting your head around the concept of swarm is required thinking.

I should start from its agency. That’s the toughest part of swarm intelligence to wrap your head around. We’re accustomed to thinking of intelligence as being wrapped up with self-consciousness, with intentionality.

That is, we think of intelligence as having a direction of attention – at least an ability to direct and focus your attention. An intelligence might not focus their attention all the time – consider when you’re in a deep sleep, or addled by severe sickness like heart attack symptoms or heatstroke, or close to an overdose of some dissociative drug like ketamine.

That’s our intentionality. Imagine an intelligence without intentionality – you’re awake and alert to what’s around you, able to act and react to the affects of your environment. But you have no focus at all. That’s a swarm.

And we usually think of intelligence as being aware of itself. You have some sense of identity. You have a memory of notable past events, and of your close companions among other intelligences – pets, bosses, friends, the older woman who’s always on the evening shift at Tim Horton’s.

You remember these relationships, and you have some ability to reflect on yourself – maybe strategize for future plans, maybe wonder about your place in the world or the universe. That’s fundamentally what self-consciousness does.

Now imagine an intelligence without any of that memory and identity. You might have immense power, speed, have an incredibly complicated set of abilities that emerge from the spontaneous movement of your individual parts.

That’s the intelligence of the swarm.

But what are all those individual parts? What makes a swarm intelligence different from the unfocussed, unreflective spontaneous processes that cause intelligent life itself?

What are those processes that literally make me and you and everyone we know? Here are some examples. Embryo development. Everyday metabolism. Cell division. Because a swarm is different from these other spontaneous processes.

The parts of all those unfocussed, unreflective spontaneous processes are all themselves unfocussed, unreflective spontaneous processes.

A swarm's parts are intelligent creatures. Focussed, reflective, planned activities are the processes generating unfocussed, unreflective, spontaneous processes.

Who are these intelligent creatures? A swarm could be composed of viruses, locusts, social media trolls. Or it could be composed of fish, migrating caribou in the middle of a long daytime run through the tundra. The cars and their drivers who manifest a massive traffic jam when one guy hits his breaks for a moment three kilometres up.

A swarm body acts and has intelligence of a kind because it formed and moves in the world, always in response to the affects of its environment. It has that much unity – unity of motion and response. Very simple kinds of action. A collection of intelligent animals move together and constitute a swarm’s parallel of a very simple bacteria.

3 comments:

  1. *Self righteous twit makes baseless assumption about someone and takes pictures of them without their consent.

    *Whines about dealing with the consequences of his online dickery, and somehow paints himself as the wounded party*

    *Doubles down on his lack of remorse and segues into meaningless talk of swarms*

    But look on the bright side Adam, at least you're finally getting comments on this blog, even if they are of the "I can't believe this kind of pretentious dipshit actually exists" variety.

    ReplyDelete
  2. شركة سما الصقر
    نحن متخصصون في أعمال كشف التسربات المياة في الرياض وكذلك في أعمال الترميمات وأعمال ترميمات السباكة وأعمال الدهانات وتنفيذ أحدث أنواع الديكورات , وكذلك متخصصون في أعمال العزل الحراري للأسطح والعزل المائي لأسطح العقارات والفلل في الرياض وعموم أنحاء المملكة العربية السعودية
    افضل شركة ترميم بالرياض
    شركة ترميم
    شركة كشف تسربات المياه بالرياض
    ترميم حمامات
    كشف تسربات المياة بالرياض
    شركة ترميم حمامات
    شركة ترميم فلل بالرياض
    شركة كشف تسربات مياه بالرياض
    كشف تسربات بالرياض
    شركة ترميم منازل بالرياض

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello Ladies & Gentlemen, Are you in need of financial assistance? I'm Susan Benson. I'm a lender and also a financial consultant.

    Do you need a business loan, Personal loan, Mortgage loan or a loan to complete your project? If your answer is yes, I will recommend you to contact my firm. We render all kinds of loan services including long term and short term loans. For more info, write to us via Email: (sunshinefinancialgroupinc@gmail.com) or Message me directly on WhatsApp via: 00447903159998 & receive a response in an instant.

    We are a comprehensive financial service company and we are committed to help you meet all your aspirations. We specialize in providing structured finance solutions to individuals and companies in the most effective and fastest way.

    Here are some reasons why you should contact us for a loan;
    * Convenience - You can Apply for a loan anytime, anywhere.
    * Flexible Amount - You decide how much you want to borrow.
    * Fast Direct Funding - Receive your loan within 24 hours after approval.
    * Flexible interest rate - Affordable interest rate of 3%.
    * High Approval Rates - You have 99.9% chance to getting the loan
    * Flexible Repayment - You are to choose the Repayment Date, either weekly, monthly or yearly for a duration of 1-30 years.
    * Simple online application.
    * Personalized guidance and expertise.
    * No hidden Charges

    Don't lose out on an opportunity due to lack of finance. Contact my company now, we can assist you with a loan because we have helped numerous individuals and organizations who have been facing financial difficulty all over the world.

    For more information about our loan offer, kindly send us your loan request via
    Email: sunshinefinancialgroupinc@gmail.com
    WhatsApp/Telegram: +447903159998

    Intermediaries/Consultants/Brokers are welcome to bring their clients and are 100% protected. In complete confidence, we will work together for the benefits of all parties involved.

    ReplyDelete