Human beings learn in patterns. If you have four squares in a row, the next shape by assumption should be a square. Self-organizing systems are created from templates. Patterns formed by trial and error. Patterns formed by survival instincts. Models trained by learning from each other. In the essay “The Myth of the Ant Queen,” author Steven Johnson comments on how self-organized systems form and how patterns help them function in society. Self-organizing systems are made up of entities that are not individually intelligent, but collectively intelligent when they come together to perform behaviors. They are valuable when defining human intelligence because of the way they stimulate the human instinct to survive efficiently. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Being a member of a collective group or community and being able to learn from those around you is what creates these self-organizing systems. As the saying goes, "don't throw stones at your neighbors if your windows are glass." Learn from your neighbors. Learn and grow from the people around you because it could save you from making their mistakes. Ants also follow this code. Johnson states, “…it is as if they had solved one of those spatial mathematics tests that appear on a standardized test, conjuring up a solution perfectly suited to their environment…” (195). In this segment Johnson refers to how ants have designated their area as a landfill and graveyard. Talk about how they strategically placed these two locations away from food sources. From this observation we can conclude that the behavior of ants is strongly built with instinct. For example, quickly find the nearest food source and then decide how far away to place the dead. Based on the idea that ant behavior is instinctive, ants also delegate a “queen” of their colony, but all the queen does is lay eggs. She has no real authority, yet the rest of the ants protect and feed her anyway. Their instinct is to protect the female that is populating their colony. As they learn from each other, they become smarter and their colony becomes more complex, and with that complexity comes intelligence. This can be applied to human intelligence because as humans we do things without thinking to create a better quality of life, for example, as humans we also delegate a place to place our dead, not only to keep them respected, but to keep the deceased simply lying at the point of death. If we didn't have the instinct or knowledge to do so, we would trample the dead wherever we went. As time went on, we realized that if we buried or cared for our deceased, we could keep our system organized. The city of Manchester is another example of how self-organizing systems are valuable to human intelligence. In Johnson's example the city is in a state of complete anarchy and chaos, yet it still functions. It is only able to function because the population hit rock bottom: this means that people were in difficulty and needed to find a solution to make life sustainable again. When in trouble, people need to realize that all they need is to ask for help. To find that help all they have to do is look to the people around them. They must realize that they know nothing without the people around them. If one moves to a new neighborhood e.
tags