Nature has been in
the constant process of evolving better and better solutions for
creating more and more intelligent and adaptive animals through
various methods. These methods have attained perfection in the course
of millions of years, which if they are replicated into computer
systems, can result in very efficient algorithms. The use of examples
from biology is a well trodden path to understanding the behavior of
complex systems. The natural world is after all the global ecosystem
in which we and all other organisms live out our lives and contains
species which are either in competition or collaboration or symbiotic
in their relationships. So it is natural for us to look for
similarities between the way animal communities live and computer
programs. We can use biological system as metaphors or analogies. If
the metaphor seems to be working in pointing up similar features we
test it as a metaphor for explaining the possible relationships that
exist. Taken farther we may even build computer models which simulate
to some degree actual behavior. But there is a limit. True complex
systems are evolving systems and as such are neither predictable nor
can be expected to repeat their history in any exact way. Groups of
animals often exhibit behavior that are highly intelligent than the
individual mettle. These behaviors are called group behavior. For
example are swarming of bees, flocking of birds, herding of cattle,
schooling of fish etc. The intelligence emerging from such groups are
known as Swarm Intelligence. Swarm Intelligence often exceed the
human intelligence by many times. Therefore, it seems reasonable to
leave the complex and huge tasks to such intelligence and have them
solved. But the tricky part is the incorporation of these algorithms
into the computer. Setting simple rules and making the swarm elements
interact with each other with result in the solution of the problem
leads to the success of a biologically motivated system.
To
learn more about biologically motivated systems, please read one of
my seminars: Biologically Motivated
Systems