https://www.amazon.com/Ecology-Collective-Behavior-Deborah-Gordon/dp/0691232156
From a systems sociology pespective:
Paul S. Chung
I enjoyed reading The Ecology of Collective Behavior, which is well written by Deborah Gordon, professor of Biology at Stanford University. What captures my eye is the author's ecological approach, facilitating an inquiry of how collective behavior operates in the dynamic relation on the inside and outside. Prof. Gordon derives the term ecology from the Greek word oikos (denoting villiage or everybody living in a given house, according to Aristotle).
This terminology makes me interested in the collective meaning of oikos, which refers to social groups (Max Weber), For Weber a social group is an agent or status which carries on its material interests in forming social interactions, exchanging and trading in every respect; it is culturally stratified. The education system determines the way one's type of status is accessble to gradients in occuption or job positions; it produces task allocation as specialized in social organization or networks.
The society is differentiated into systems in terms of division of labor, rationalization and specialization.
In Niklas Luhmann's sysyems sociology, Weber's notion of social group and rationalization process finds a signifcance in fostering functional differentiation of each system; it generates collective behavior, which is regulated within the rules of communication, in which the participants take part. This sysems perspective may lead to collective intelligence based on mutualistic interactions (p. 24).
This said, the ecology of collective behavior has a sociological implication for comprehending how interaction among social members would contribute to goods and services for use within the group. This comparative position facilitates a fruitful dialogue wih the ecology of collective behavior for the study of the interactions regulating systems.
The author's concern is driven by a "systems approach," which invesigates "how collective behavior at each layer is generated by interactions among participants and how this responds to changing conditions" (p.5). For this study, Deborah Gordon references an ancient Greek philosopher Heraclltus in 500 BC, who gave account of changing reality of the world in terms of "everything flows" (panta rhei). The dialectical stance in flow and becoming remains fundamental in response of living systems to changing conditions.
With this method in mind, the author advances the ecology of collective behavior in ants, exploring how collective behavior evolves its trends in changing environments. Two species of ants are illustrated and compared living in different surroundings. The red harvester ant in the desert and the turtle ant in the tropical forest are investigated to demonstrate the way of the interaction of each species in regulating foraging activity and its surroundings in each different manner.
There is a dialectical relationship of mutual change between living systems and its surroundings, which goes beyond a model of emergence. What is emergent cannot be explained by looking at the parts in a reductionist manner. In Gordon's view, however, the idea of emergence, in a lack of an explanation, has less to do with a thick and detailed description of how a system operates (p. 32).
Be that as it may, an emergence of the higher order of life can be relocated in dissipative structures with nonequilibrium and nonlinearity (Ilya Prigogine). A living system is structurally open to the flow of energy and matter, while closed in its organization within boundaries. When the system is far from equilibrium, as seen in the collective behavior in the nonlinear interconnection of the individual components, this could generate a novelty and phenotypic variation and diversity in a dynamic interaction wih the environment.
This nonlinear perspective underlying a critical theoy of lifelines (Steven Rose) may come to terms with a dialectical inquiry of niche construction or between oikos construction by looking at mutual transformation between organism and the environment. "The environment of an organism is the penumbra of external conidtion" (Richard Lewontin) (p.114)
The author takes on a general principle as outlined by Richard Levins, who gives account of the evolution of phenotypic plasticity; it refers to the capacity to change in response to changing situations This principle helps Deborah Gordon to advance the evolution of plasticity in collective behavior for the evolution of regulation; this draws upon the capacity to regulate or adjust collectively in network interactions to the current particular situation.
A dialectic between challenge and response is featured as the evolution of regulation, which adjusts to a specific condition in an approproate manner. The correlation between plasticity and regulation in systemic framework can be furthered in network science, which helps consider how participants in a collective process are linked in a pattern of network.
Rate of Interaction, Feedback Regime, Modularity
What becomes crucial in the sysemic-ecological approch is to utillize the three hypotheses, that is, the rate of interactions (related to stablity and the distribution of resources or demands), the feedback regime (gradients in the stability of conditions and in energy flow), and the modularity of the network of interactions (related to gradients in stability and the distribution of resources).
That being the case, ecology of collective behavior approaches cybernetic communication in feedback regime; it regulates interaction among participatnts in dealing with the distribution of resources and demands. The network of interaction requires flow of energy coming from an open envioronment, and its modularity is linked with stability and the distribution of resources and demands.
At this juncture, there is a parallel between ecology of collective behavior and systems sociology (Niklas Luhmann), in ways that the living systems are dynamically open to the energy from enviornment, while closed in organization of network which regulates information and control. Ecology is in networks, because ecosystem is seen as a dynamic web of interacted events.
As the study of living systems, cybernetic thinking is concerned with patterns of communication in feedback loops and networks. It is associated with autopoiesis, the circular organization of the living cells. The nervous system operates in a closed network of circuar interactions. Circularity comes to terms with evolutionary plasticity. Seen in the network pattern, all changes in the system occur within the basic circularity; function of each component specifies the circular organization, heping produce and transform other components.
Cybernetic circularity also functions as a self-referring perception. The self-referencing perception characterizes an aspect of the continual creativity engaged in the relationships within the neural network. A phenomenology of autopoiesis and its cybernetic circularity may come to terms with the three main hypotheses--the rate of interaction, the feedback regime, and modularity, by which to elaborate the ecology of collective behavior of participants within systems. This approach to lifelines is what Debrah Gordon is aware of in the discussion of cybernatics: the system of the systems with feedback in changing the envioronment (p.33).
More than that, what matters in the ecology of collective behavior is a model of two levels of agency by synthesizing the group from individual particapants to a collective whole. This is because "the behavior of the colony is the ants working together" (p. 35).
The process that generates collective behavior is set in a variety of ways against generalization. The same process or an interactions network that generates collective behavior would have different outcomes in different conditions (p. 36).
If so, the author requires typology of collectivie activity wthout central control, whether a top-down metrics or a model of bottom-up, or network interactions. This will serve best when it comes to finding elective affinity within different types of collective activity in a causally adequate manner.
Deborah Gordon remains flexible in approaching her work with various models, though she prefers to utilize modeling interactions as networks per nodes, a set of entities. The pattern of links is the modularity of the network, while utilizing a dialectics between nestmate recognition and immune response (p.46). If ecological patterns work in the diversity of processes that generate collective behavior, interactions of individuals have ecological consequences for faciliating their phenotypic variation. They deternine how natural selection shapes the interactions in generating collective behavior.
A Phenomenological Reflection
Gordon's ecological study of collecive behavior in ants is thought-provoking and valuable in particular from a systems sociology perspective. A different ecological setting or life-world becomes background of horizon to comprehend the gradients in the differences in the regulation of foraging in harvest ants and turtle ants.
There are many dfferent patterns of interactions in networks of neurons in brains (electrical stimulation, the transfer of neurotransmitters, communicative function of synapse), bringing forth a world of collective activity and mutualism.
This stance has to do with neuron phenomenology, which accentuates autopoietic networks as a highly cooperative or symbiotic system in the dense interactions among its components. System intentionality and life-world (structure, pattern, process) remain crucial for a critical theory of lifelines in reference to a systems sociology. A structural coupling in an autopoietic system undergoes continual structural changes; it specifies which pertubations from the environment trigger the changes. The social system driven by life intentionality (or evolvability) brings forth a world through embodied cognition and praxis (oikos construction).
According to Deborah Gordon, the dialectical relationship betweeen collective behavior and its ecological life setting operates at every level of biological organization--including innumerable kinds of groupings of organisms in many natural systems. Her epistemic stance is featured as the ecology of collective behavior, which draws upon the outcomes of all of these interacions. She helps a phenomenology of lifelines by reinforcing the autopoietic pattern in terms of ecology of collective behavior at the celluar level as well as at social cultural regimes.