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day-level permalink  Sunday, February 16, 2003

permalink Jargon Watch: Stigmergy

Stigmergy pronunciation: (("stigma" - "a") + "merge" + "eee") = stig-merg-y n.

1.Interaction of insects through the environment.

Self-Organization in social insects often requires interactions among insects: such interactions can be direct or indirect. Direct interactions are the "obvious" interactions: antennation, trophallaxis (food or liquid exchange), mandibular contact, visual contact, chemical contact (the odor of nearby nestmates), etc. Indirect interactions are more subtle: two individuals interact indirectly when one of then modifies the environment and the other responds to the new environment at a later time. Such an interaction is an example of stigmergy. [1, p.14]

[Bitworking theories of Software Development]


2. Indirect interaction of World-Wide Web users, where an individual modifies the environment (in this case, the www) and another individual responds to the new environment at a later time.

9:06:15 AM  comment [] | Topics: Jargon