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"Statues from which used to drip the life-blood of a parasitic cult -
Structures of parabolas from which bleed equations." — Dec 03, 2023 02:29AM
"Statues from which used to drip the life-blood of a parasitic cult -
Structures of parabolas from which bleed equations." — Dec 03, 2023 02:29AM
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(page 6 of 360)
"The late physicist and complexity pioneer Murray Gell-Mann rightly called formal models “prostheses for the imagination." — Oct 25, 2023 02:20AM
"The late physicist and complexity pioneer Murray Gell-Mann rightly called formal models “prostheses for the imagination." — Oct 25, 2023 02:20AM
“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.”
― The Ecology of Collective Behavior
― The Ecology of Collective Behavior
“The causes of the ant’s behavior are woven into the relations link- ing the ant, the place it is searching, the other ants, the seeds, and the humidity in a web that widens as we learn more. This amounts to a more elaborate and detailed version of Aristotle’s idea that the animal is expressing its nature. The important point is that its nature is not inside it, but instead in how it reacts to and changes its situation.
The view of evolution outlined in this chapter is that the causes and heredity of traits, such as behavior, are generated by the relation of inside and outside, not contained in a packet of instructions carried inside. This perspective on the evolution of collective behavior is emerging in every field of biology and underlies the hypothesis that the dynamics of collective behavior reflect adaptation to the dynamics of the environment in which the behavior evolves. To summarize: The dynamics of collective behavior are generated by how individuals interact to adjust collective outcomes to changing conditions.”
― The Ecology of Collective Behavior
The view of evolution outlined in this chapter is that the causes and heredity of traits, such as behavior, are generated by the relation of inside and outside, not contained in a packet of instructions carried inside. This perspective on the evolution of collective behavior is emerging in every field of biology and underlies the hypothesis that the dynamics of collective behavior reflect adaptation to the dynamics of the environment in which the behavior evolves. To summarize: The dynamics of collective behavior are generated by how individuals interact to adjust collective outcomes to changing conditions.”
― The Ecology of Collective Behavior
“The “modern synthesis” in evolutionary biology brought the tools of population genetics to track the process of natural selection; now the “extended synthesis” adds the insight that organism and environment influence each other.”
― The Ecology of Collective Behavior
― The Ecology of Collective Behavior
“Though many early models of collective behavior sought to reveal common, basic principles that would lead to a single general theory of collective behavior, emergence, or self-organization, it is now clear that the processes that generate collective behavior are very diverse. By now many different models have been developed to de- scribe the myriad processes in nature that use interactions to generate collective outcomes.”
― The Ecology of Collective Behavior
― The Ecology of Collective Behavior
“Planarium is a small multicellular organism with an amazing capacity to regenerate; if cut into 200 pieces, it will grow 200 planaria. Its capacity is not limitless: if cut into more than about 250 pieces, each piece is smaller than the minimum module of interactions among cells needed to stimulate regeneration. It is likely that species differences in the capacity to regenerate are associated with the frequency and risk of local damage.”
― The Ecology of Collective Behavior
― The Ecology of Collective Behavior
Benji’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Benji’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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