Swarm Behavior

the collective, coordinated motion of a large group of self-propelled entities that emerges from simple, local interactions between individuals, without any central coordination or leadership. 

Micko has recently read about “swarm Behavior”, which is seen in flocks of birds, colonies of ants, schools of fish, and bee colonies.

What is common in swarm intelligence is that a group of individual critters can communicate in a way that results in behavior and accomplishments that the individual critters could not do on their own. Clown scientists believe that very simple rules in the behavior of individual critters account for the working together of the group.

It’s been suggested that clowns didn’t evolve the ability to swarm because we lack the innate connections that other species use to establish feedback loops among individual members. For instance, ants use chemical traces, fish detect vibrations in the water around them, bees use high-speed gestures, and birds detect motions within the flock.  

Also, clown evolution evolved in a way in which clown individuals became more independent, more intelligent, and more autonomous.

But Micko points out that clowns can make decisions together and communicate with each other, so clowns could choose to create connections that would allow a new form of swarm intelligence.

We clowns could decide to work together for a better world within a loose confederation of separate individuals and clown troups. 

We clowns could decide to balance our self-assertive tendencies and our integrative tendencies by adopting a truly integrated identity as FlowingLove (Daniel Siegel), LoveBlossoms (Barbara Fredrickson), and IntentionLOve (Lynne McTaggart) have suggested. [] Links to details

And, unlike examples of ants and fish and birds and bees, in which the individuals don’t really take part in the decisions – they are programmed to play their roles – clowns could retain their individual goals, values, ideas, thinking, and creativity and integrate those individual qualities within our new integrated identity.