Collective Intelligence, Swarms, and Multifractal Social Psychology - Damian Kelty-Stephen: EP18

Damian Kelty-Stephen is a psychologist focused on understanding complex behaviors such as movement, language, and perception. Traditional cognitive science often views organisms as having a centralized controller in the brain to govern behavior. But what if we could better understand organisms as collective intelligences, exhibiting behaviors we typically associate with swarm organisms, like bees? In this episode, we discuss intelligence without a central controller and intelligence beyond brains. We explore how complex behaviors might be explained without centralized control systems. We also touch on the importance of neurons, the intelligence of cells, and compare biological with technological intelligence. Find Damian's Work: A great lecture related to this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P89WTmNBjBk&t=1032s Personal website: https://sites.google.com/site/foovian/ TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Start 00:22 Explaining the complexity of movement 05:03 Cognition without a central controller 13:15 Intelligence beyond brains 21:48 Biological vs. technological intelligence 28:19 Multifractal social psychology 38:52 Measuring multifractality 49:16 Nations as collective intelligences 50:57 Understanding speech