Collective Intelligence and Neurodynamic Complexity

Dear Colleagues,

The nature of mind has fascinated philosophers, scientists and theologians for millennia. The abandonment of Cartesian dualism has required explanations of how brains produce minds. Many different metaphors have been employed in this endeavour—hydraulic, electrical, computational, networked, chaotic, and so on. A less explored metaphor is that of collective intelligence, which is ubiquitous in nature, exemplified by the behaviour of social insect colonies. Collective intelligence refers to the emergence of intelligent behaviour from interactions among a collective of individual agents. Developments in neuroscience over the past 30 years, such as stochasticity, fungibility, metastability, representational drift, volume and ephaptic conduction, and mass action, challenge widely used metaphors such as brains as computational circuits or neural networks. These dynamical phenomena are fundamental in the dynamics of collective intelligence systems, especially social insects. Can the study of neurodynamics benefit from insights gained in the study of collective intelligence? 

This Special Issue is devoted to an exploration of all aspects of dynamical phenomena and mechanisms that are common to natural collective intelligence systems (such as social insect colonies and human collectives) and neural systems. In particular, attention is directed to the roles of stochasticity, fungibility, metastability, volume and ephaptic signalling, thresholds, mass action, emergence, phases and phase transitions in the dynamics of collective and neural signalling. Approaches considered may be empirical, philosophical, or formal/theoretical. Original research is desirable, but detailed reviews of specific types of dynamics will also be considered.

Dr. William Sulis
Guest Editor

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