---
abstract: 'The present paper will sketch the basic ideas of the complexity paradigm, and then apply them to social systems, and in particular to groups of communicating individuals who together need to agree about how to tackle some problem or how to coordinate their actions. I will  elaborate these concepts to provide an integrated foundation for a theory of self-organization, to be understood as a non-linear process of spontaneous coordination between actions. Such coordination will be shown to consist of the following components: alignment, division of labor, workflow and aggregation. I will then review some paradigmatic simulations and experiments that illustrate the alignment of references and communicative conventions between communicating agents. Finally, the paper will summarize the preliminary results of a series of experiments that I devised in order to observe the emergence of collective intelligence within a communicating group, and interpret these observations in terms of alignment, division of labor and workflow.'
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chapter: ~
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creators_id:
  - fheyligh@vub.ac.be
creators_name:
  - family: Heylighen
    given: Francis
    honourific: ''
    lineage: ''
date: 2011
date_type: submitted
datestamp: 2011-05-02 17:16:10
department: ~
dir: disk0/00/00/72/65
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eprint_status: archive
eprintid: 7265
fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png;/7265/1/Barcelona%2DLanguageSO.pdf
full_text_status: public
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ispublished: inpress
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keywords: 'self-organization, collective intelligence, coordination, origin of language, groupthink, referencing, alignment, division of labor, workflow, intentionality, agents'
lastmod: 2011-05-02 17:16:10
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publication: Language and Complexity
publisher: Barcelona University Press
refereed: FALSE
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In Synergetics of Cognition: Proceedings of the International Symposium at Schloss Elmau, Bavaria, June 4-8, 1989. Springer.\r\nSTEELS, L. (1998), The origins of ontologies and communication conventions in multi-agent systems. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 1(2), 169–194. \r\nSTEELS, L. (2005), The emergence and evolution of linguistic structure: from lexical to grammatical communication systems. Connection Science, 17(3), 213–230. \r\nSTEELS, L., and BELPAEME, T. (2005), Coordinating perceptually grounded categories through language: A case study for colour. Behavioral and brain sciences, 28(04), 469–489. \r\nSTEELS, L., and VOGT, P. (1997), Grounding adaptive language games in robotic agents. In Proceedings of the fourth european conference on artificial life (pp. 474–482),\r\nSTEWART, J., (2000), Evolution's Arrow: The Direction of Evolution and the Future of Humanity, Chapman Press. \r\nSTROGATZ, S. H. (2000), Nonlinear dynamics and chaos. Westview Press. \r\nSUNSTEIN, C. R. (2002), The law of group polarization. Journal of Political Philosophy, 10(2), 175–195. \r\nSUROWIECKI, J. (2005), The Wisdom of Crowds. Anchor. \r\nTHELEN, E. (1989), Self-organization in developmental processes: Can systems approaches work? In M. R. Gunnar and E. Thelen (Eds.), Systems and development: The Minnesota symposium on child psychology (Vol. 22, pp. 77–117), Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. \r\nVAN DER AALST, W., and VAN HEE, K. M. (2004), Workflow management: models, methods, and systems. The MIT press. \r\nVAN OVERWALLE F. and HEYLIGHEN F. (2006), Talking Nets: A Multi-Agent Connectionist Approach to Communication and Trust between Individuals, Psychological Review 113, 606-627.\r\nVEENHOVEN, R. (1997), Advances in Understanding Happiness. Revue Québécoise de Psychologie, 18(2), 29-74. \r\nVON FOERSTER H. (1960), On self-organizing systems and their environments. in (Yovitts and Cameron, 1960), 31–50.\r\nWALDROP, M. M. 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relation_type: []
relation_uri: []
reportno: ~
rev_number: 21
series: ~
source: ~
status_changed: 2011-05-02 17:16:10
subjects:
  - comp-sci-complex-theory
  - ling-prag
  - soc-psy
succeeds: ~
suggestions: ~
sword_depositor: ~
sword_slug: ~
thesistype: ~
title: "Self-organization in Communicating Groups: the emergence of coordination, shared references and collective intelligence\r\n"
type: bookchapter
userid: 271
volume: ~
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