Benji

“When we can describe how patterns of encounters among individuals adjust outcomes in changing situations, we have explained collective behavior and it is no longer emergent. Then we can move past emergence to explanations, and abandon the idea that collective behavior is added on top of individual behavior to create something extra”
― Deborah M Gordon, The Ecology of Collective Behavior

“Regions of the brain differ in how tightly function is linked to particular cells. For cognitive tasks, f MRI tests on different people, or on the same people at different times, often show that particular functions are performed by groups of neurons but that the locations change; thus, the neurons engaged in cognitive tasks tend to be scattered across the brain.41 Differences in the fidelity of neurons to par- ticular tasks depend on function; the activity of particular neurons varies more for cognitive functions than for more ancestral functions such as vision and olfaction.42 Thus, neurons, like ants, switch tasks or functions, and interactions among groups of neurons regulate their activity.”
― Deborah M Gordon, The Ecology of Collective Behavior

“The dynamics of collective behavior are generated by how individuals interact to adjust collective outcomes to changing conditions. Selection for collective behavior is selection on individuals for how they interact to contribute to collective outcomes. Evolution shapes individual participation because of the ecological consequences of the collective outcomes for the individuals.”
― Deborah M Gordon, The Ecology of Collective Behavior

“Life is that property of matter whereby it can remember. Matter that can remember is living; matter that cannot remember is dead. Life then is memory.”
― Samuel Butler, Erewhon Revisited