a fascinating aspect of biological systems is how well they can be modeled using cellular automata; after all, multicellular organisms consist of (nearly) identical units reacting to adjacency-dependent environmental conditions in ways which generate emergent properties
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RT @ulkar_aghayeva
"How to understand cells, tissues and organisms as agents with agendas"
h/t @RogersBacon1

https://aeon.co/essays/how-to-understand-cells-ti…
https://twitter.com/ulkar_aghayeva/status/1444812107040575488

the bit about blocking intercellular gap junctions causing a breakdown in collaboration and triggering cancerous growth reminds me of certain aspects of autistic behavior, namely how agents unable to communicate effectively end up with a radically different conception of selfhood

more generally, there seems to be a societal parallel; the rise of atomization has harmed our interpersonal communication, lowering social synchronization rates and driving individualistic modes of being

could improving communication skills, similarly, reverse this trend?

gap junctions are comparable to interpersonal relationships; both are communication channels between agents, and as such can be quantified in terms of bandwidth, with the two terminals of the spectrum being atomization and unification

how much bandwidth is needed to collaborate?

too little, and the agents cannot adequately synchronize on goals, and hence, align

too much and the agents cease to be distinct entities, which is likely suboptimal, as it lowers redundancy and parallelism

presumably related to the complexity of the relevant domain

the larger & more complex an agent is presumably the more bandwidth it requires to adequately align w/ another

I'd imagine this is proportional to the surface area of the agents informational boundary, as internal complexity increases w/ information flux

what's the growth rate?