creators_name: Marsh, Leslie
creators_name: Onof, Christian
creators_id: l.marsh@sussex.ac.uk
creators_id: c.onof@ic.ac.uk
type: journalp
datestamp: 2007-11-22 01:55:11
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:57:00
metadata_visibility: show
title: Stigmergic epistemology, stigmergic cognition
ispublished: inpress
subjects: phil-mind
subjects: phil-epist
subjects: comp-sci-complex-theory
subjects: soc-psy
full_text_status: public
keywords: Stigmergy; Social epistemology; Extended mind; Social cognition; Particle swarm optimization
abstract: To know is to cognize, to cognize is to be a culturally bounded, rationality-bounded and environmentally located agent. Knowledge and cognition are thus dual aspects of human sociality. If social epistemology has the formation, acquisition, mediation, transmission and dissemination of knowledge in complex communities of knowers as its subject matter, then its third party character is essentially stigmergic. In its most generic formulation, stigmergy is the phenomenon of indirect communication mediated by modifications of the environment. Extending this notion one might conceive of social stigmergy as the extra-cranial analog of an artificial neural network providing epistemic structure. This paper recommends a stigmergic framework for social epistemology to account for the supposed tension between individual action, wants and beliefs and the social corpora. We also propose that the so-called "extended mind" thesis offers the requisite stigmergic cognitive analog to stigmergic knowledge. Stigmergy as a theory of interaction within complex systems theory is illustrated through an example that runs on a particle swarm optimization algorithm.
date: 2008-03-01
date_type: published
publication: Cognitive Systems Research
volume: Vol. 9
number: issues
publisher: Elsevier
refereed: TRUE
citation:   Marsh, Leslie and Onof, Christian  (2008) Stigmergic epistemology, stigmergic cognition.  [Journal (Paginated)]    (In Press)  
document_url: http://cogprints.org/5825/1/stigmergic.pdf