What makes something a swarm vs an individual?

· Bits and Bobs 1/8/24

The difference is agency: does the entity exercise coherent agency?

The amount of agency is a spectrum.

Does it exhibit coherent agency?

Do we allow it to have agency?

Do we require it to have agency?

Society's laws require individual humans to have agency, and holds them accountable for their decisions' repercussions.

A company is also a thing that we legally allow and expect to exercise coherent agency.

Examples along the spectrum:

Individual humans

A corporation

Bee colonies

Neurons in a brain voting on which thing in the environment to navigate to

Cities

Life writ large

The Technium