Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!mit-eddie!apollo!nelson_p
From: nelson_p@apollo.HP.COM (Peter Nelson)
Newsgroups: comp.theory.self-org-sys
Subject: self org principles
Message-ID: <4880f240.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 7 Feb 90 16:18:00 GMT
Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 43


     
  So far, since this newsgroup's inception only 22 articles
  to it have appeared at this site.  Is self-org-sys real
  new or just real quiet?

  I posted some comments about Autodesk's CA Lab here recently.
  After my disapointment with their offerings, especially in 
  terms of the complexity of the information that can pass 
  between adjacent cells, I decided to write my own.  It is 
  already about 75% done and has some novel features which
  I may describe in a future posting.

  Someone here recently posted a question about flocking 
  behavior.   The reference he was probably wondering about
  was "Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioral
  Model" by Craig Reynolds at Symbolics.  The article was 
  published in Computer Graphics, Vol 21, Number 4, July 1987
  (SIGGRAPH Conference Proceedings)

  A notable thing about the article was that Reynolds was able
  to show that flocking behavior could be accounted for by 
  *individual* boid's (simulated birds) choices and behavior.
  The existence or nature of the "flock" emerged from all
  these local effects.  

  I am curious to learn more about such self-organizing-systems.
  The natural world is full of examples of how microscopic 
  features or behavior produce macroscopic structures.   The 
  shape of my hand or the shape of a leaf is similarly the
  result of lots of individual cells responding individually 
  to local effects (which is not to say that the "local" 
  environment" to the cell may not be affected by chemicals 
  emitted by cells a great distance away and dissusing through
  the tissue).
  
  Are there any general principals that may be applied to 
  problems like this in simulations?   If I wanted to create 
  a CA program that would produce a particular shape, say a 
  star or a triangle, is there any systematic way to go 
  about it?                         

                                              ---Peter