The boids the boids !!!

The Basic BOID

Boids are an artificial intelligence entity that simulates flock activity. Very complex and realistic flock activity can be generated from very simple rules -- from Wikipedia:

• separation: steer to avoid crowding local flockmates
• alignment: steer towards the average heading of local flockmates
• cohesion: steer to move toward the average position (center of mass) of local flockmates

More complex rules can be added, such as obstacle avoidance and goal seeking.

Boid-like rules and flock behavour can easily be observed in human populations.

Separation, Alignment and Cohesion in typical human settlement 

Humans demonstrate how human intelligence allows us to flock more perfectly than birds.

Being so much smarter than birds, fish and bacteria, humans are able to flock in complex non-physical dimensions to produce flocks like political parties, corporations and nation-states. However the principles of separation, alignment and cohesion still apply. No good human flocker wants to be exactly like his fellow flocker (we all want to "think for ourselves"), but wants to be facing roughly in the same direction and moving at the same speed as his or her immediate neighbors. This relatively mindless conformity produces mass flocking movements of thousands or millions of individuals that closely resemble the behavour of fish and birds. In this respect at least,the shape and behavour of human flocks is remarkably less intelligent than what any individual flocker could produce on his or her own.

As pointed out above, it is possible to produce different flock behavour by varying the simple rules in simple ways. In the case of humans, language or even skin color barriers can break the "cohesion" and produce random, unpredictable results. Flocking also breaks down when the flockee starts to become aware of individuals who are not immediate neighbors or even the same species.

All this results in the eternal human dilemma: Who shall I flock with?

Simple boid-like rules go a long way to explaining why humans are so easily assimilated. In other writings, I will refer to this as the boid hypothesis.

Boid Hypothesis

Humans are not birds, but perhaps the rules that govern human groups are simple, like those governing the flocking behavour of birds and fish. More precisely, the issue is how much of the flocking behavour of humans can be described by simple rules and how much these simple rules form the "gravity" behind assimilation. To be blunt, we use the boid hypothesis to rule out more sophisticated (and flattering) "official" reasons for the group in favor of simple almost physical flocking rules. For example, we need not look into reasons why people listen to pop music,  join the armed forces or get tatoos. Flocking rules cover almost the whole phenomenon.

For humans, finding the right flock to fly with is extremely complex. It's a bit like being a fish on a coral reef, surrounded by hundreds of different species. If you want to mate (one adaptive function of flocking) you need to recognize individuals of the right flock. In nature, this is done by markings that are not adaptive in themselves but serve merely to identify flock mates. In humans, this can be as simple as the approved hair cut, jacket, skirt length or eye makeup.

This idea is very similar to one I came up with in 1977: the "Credal Group". That was the idea that we form groups based on nothing but agreement to "believe" in a basically meaningless "creed". The creed allows us to perform the one fundamental thing we need to form a group: identify insiders and outsiders. In 1977, I noticed that Creeds are necessarily meaningless. Any trace of actual contact with verifiable reality would threaten the usefulness of the creed. Best to have something anyone can say without it impacting their lives in any way other than being their "ticket" to join the flock. Once accepted as a member of the flock, it is very unwise to threaten individuality by attempting to discuss the creed. For example, in practice, "theology" is the last thing discussed in social gatherings of Christians.

Flocks present an interesting paradox. The flockee must minimize the difference between other flock members but also stand out as an individual (a requirement of the sexual reproduction process). You can see this problem in a flock of a million penguins - indistinguishable by the human eye but, to any penguin, a million individuals. In humans and penguins, "individuality" is often achieved by aggressive conformity - being the prototypical flockee.