A YouTube talk (uploaded Oct 25, 2024) exploring how local interactions in biological systems produce global, adaptive, self-sustaining outcomes without centralized control. The speaker contrasts this emergent behaviour (illustrated with ant colonies and bodies healing themselves) with human narratives of hierarchical top-down control.
At the time I was really struck, I was like 10 years old. And it occurred to me, this is going to heal itself regardless of whether I'm paying attention. So who's paying attention? What in my body is doing this? And there is no ant in the colony figuring out is there enough food? Where should we put a cemetery, where should we dig tunnels? Humans are the only ones, well, primates in general, I think, but, but humans specifically are, are really adept at creating stories where we are running the show that we exist in hierarchies and there are people at the top and there are people at the bottom and control filters down and there's stuff that comes up, but it's up to the people at the top whether they pay attention to it or not. That's not the way the world works, that's not the way biology works. It's mostly local interactions amongst individuals. And out of those local interactions, without sensing, without trying to determine what the global status is, a global status arises that's creative, adaptive, healthy, self sustaining, and has been doing that for 3.8.
