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Imagine a small auditorium in which about 1000 people are about to turn up to hear a talk. This idea is to turn this group into a simple experiment: On every seat there will be an envelope with a laser pointer in it, and as people discover these and turn them on and point them at the large screen hanging
over the stage in the dimly-lit auditorium, it is possible that cooperative behaviours will spontaneously emerge. So, it is likely that this will start with 1000 laser dots randomly scribbling on the screen, accompanied by cries of "Ooh, that dot's mine!", but then what? Will everyone converge their dots into a single blob, burning a hole in the screen? Will the dots follow each other around the screen in a seemingly coordinated, but leaderless, group, like a school of fish or a flock[1] of starlings?
[1] Yes, I know that the collective noun for starlings can be murmeration, scourge, chattering or clutter, but I think species-specific collective nouns are stupid.
Loren Carpenter's "Emergent Pong" Experiment
http://dotsub.com/v...f-85ab-f8b3f7741a90
excerpt from "All Watched Over BY Machines of Loving Grace" - another fabulous Adam Curtis documentary [zen_tom, Oct 27 2011]
Paint The Moon Red
http://www.afinelin...projects/paint.html
One group's attempt to bake this. [Wrongfellow, Oct 27 2011]
A swarm of laser pointers
http://www.youtube....watch?v=rK7fOx9ySiM
It seems to need some kind of executive input to work [Ling, Oct 27 2011]
[link]
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If everyone had a 2mW laser pointer, and if they all
converged at one point, you'd have enough to burn a
hole. Plus this would be pretty. |
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Ah [zen] - I watched AWOBMOLG and, in fact, it's still lurking on my PVR somewhere. I'd forgotten about the Pong experiment - coming up with this idea must have been my subconscious mind's way of reminding me of it, or something.
[Max-B] Your staff responsible for online forum maintenance are failing you I'm afraid - when you put a "[+]" in your annotation one of them is supposed to add a + vote. |
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(+) in lieu of MB's missing bun. |
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And I like the whole 'collective conciousness' experiment thing. |
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Me too - watching the film (linked above) there's a real euphoria as the people all realise what's going on - it's quite magical. I'd like to see more of that please. All the time. |
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Did Paint the Moon work? I can't tell if that picture is real
and there is no other mention of it on the entire internet. |
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Love the pong experiment link. It ended rather abruptly though. |
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[hippo] I found a really nice link... |
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Excellent find, [Ling] - from that it looks like
self-organisation doesn't work that well... |
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(at least with students, it doesn't) |
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Just when we thought the world had seen the end of flash
mobs, somebody has to go put a new twist on it. |
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audibly, the equivalent must be applause |
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starting out chaotic, then people collecting together in a pattern, then trying to escape the pattern by clapping faster, and finally breaking back into chaos and then dying away as people grow bored and realize that collectively none of them are very interesting and individually none of them are interesting either. |
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