Forum Post: Even the bird-brained can follow a leader. Pigeon Flocks Let the Best Bird Lead
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 4, 2011, 12:09 p.m. EST by joe100
(306)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
When pigeons fly in flocks, each bird falls behind another with better navigational skill, and the savviest among them leads the flock, scientists report in the April 8 Nature.
The research suggests hierarchies can serve peaceful purposes in the animal kingdom, where dominance by brute force is often the rule.
The research also suggests that for pigeons, dominance isn’t set in stone. While one bird often emerged as the leader, other birds also stepped up.
While flocks have hierarchies, they’re not dictatorships. One bird led eight of the 13 flights, while other birds took the lead on the rest of the trips.
Can OWS be at least as smart as pigeons? So far, the answer is NO.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/pigeon-flock-pecking-order/
if ows had leadership...Hidden"
No, thats not the reason. Sounds good as a tactical security strategy, but thats not the reason. The reason is because the truth is that vertical systems impair the group IQ function and cause group think. Only a horizontally organized network can create a super IQ meta entity. The only way to achieve true genius from a collective effort- far exceeding the IQ of ANY ONE SINGLE PARTICIPANT, is for everyone to RELEASE CONTROL back to the TRUTH ITSELF instead of PEOPLE.
================
OccupyThiswiki Flier
We would like to announce the Grand Opening of the Occupythiswiki.org Website. It is and will continue forever to be under construction, but there is now more than enough structure to organize and facilitate other efforts.
We would like to invite you there as a participant, and this is VERY important, PLEASE come to the wiki and become a Participant, or find people with whom you can network who have internet Access and get them to come to the Wiki to represent your end of the Network, and to keep you plugged into the process, and information regarding what is going on there.
This Wiki is CRUCIAL to the meaningful evolution of our species, It is CRUCIAL to human survival beyond this Century, and it is HOW all of WE can ever hope to give full and meaningful attention to the very LARGE NUMBER OF IMPORTANT ISSUES.
Please then, Consider what A General Assembly does for us. It is evolutionary, it is consensus and community building, it is 5 or ten minutes for you to speak live and in person and eye to eye and heart to heart with other people about the issue that matters to you. This is evolutionary, this is powerful, this is how we bring hundreds of years of knowledge thats being held back and hidden back from behind the veil; However, what we all know is that our personal important issue NEEDS MORE THAN THAT. It needs new laws written on its behalf. It needs open source research. It needs open source problem solving and democratic, consensus driven, direct democracy fueled problem solving process. If we gave each sub issue its own time and space to resolve inside of a GA, that would take WEEKS, or MONTHS or EVEN YEARS to iron out in a GA, PER ISSUE. How do we expand direct democracy fast enough, how do we accelerate direct democracy till its smooth as greased lightning instead of feeling stuck? How do we all come away from the GAs of next year feeling like our issue has been actually listened to and heard and resolved and addressed by the masses, instead of feeling like our own personal issue has been more or less ignored while some ego driven internal oligarch pressed ahead with organizing tens of thousands of people to do anything other than the WORK on the INTELLECTUAL LEVEL that CONSTRUCTS a REVOLUTION by means of a PARADIGM SHIFT... Instead of Demonstrating ourselves silly; But achieving still next to nothing and certainly not an end to Corporate Oligarchy, which has its plan to Co-opt the movement and make it work for the ELITES and oligarchs.
Please Consider carefully HOW we will build the NEW POSSIBLE WORLD. More important than HOW we will protest or WHERE, is the more fundamental Question of What does OUR NEW WORLD of DEMOCRATIC and CIVILIZED society Look like,(??!??) in terms of ITS ANSWERS and SOLUTIONS to EVERY high order problem. Only protesting but not doing that intellectual work, we can fail to have a revolution. The right order of the revolution should have been, First get mass educated, first form a new political party, first call for an article 5 Constitutional convention, and THEN once the message is 10,000 pages long and crystal clear , edited by ten thousand people with one person actually authoring a single page... about their core important issue to them...
THEN You'd take to the streets, THEN you'd start protesting, THEN you'd start occupying. The Occupy Movement put the cart before the horse. Okay, well, On a moving along and clear and present and how do we fix it note then, How do we DO THE WORK and get the Cart and horse in the RIGHT ORDER.???
There is a Giant Dam created by republican and democrat propaganda war dumble down and oligarchic control and intentional damage they have done to our so called educational system. 200 years of social and civil intellectual progress is being held back by 200 years of lies, spin doctoring, dumble down, and the simple meta function of keeping the public ignorant.
If you want then ONE SINGLE METHOD by which to END THE GAME. STOP BEING IGNORANT. Tell everyone and tell the world and stop running from the work, and crack open 1001 textbooks as a mob and then learn and only AFTER you have knowledge, TRY? TO USE KNOWLEDGE, not OPINION, to work and solve the problems. Everyone has to let go of their opinions, of their pet issues, of their biases, of their agendas, of their team sport ISMS and SCHISMS which are the bread and circuses THIS holy roman cathar empire uses to keep us divided and conquered and forever sequestered away from intellectual and thus spiritual Enlightenment.
actually, havingread all this, you are ignorant and unclued. Whats actually going on actually is oligarchic drift away from genuine democracy and THAT is a PROBLEM to BE SOLVED and GUARDED against. Not intentionally helped along.
The difference between your bird metaphor and humans is that human pack psychology is a lot more complicated, and a whole lot more subtle. It most certainly is going on, at all the occupies and inside the occupy movement. The evolutionary understanding inside of that is not that we should have leaders or form leadership structures, the best and most functional so called hierarchy is the one that most effectively distributes the energy potential of the network, which turns out to be in fact the most horizontal architecture; hierachy does exist inside of that architecture, but the entire point of CONSENSUS PROCESS is to transcend the CAGE of negative social entropy due to BAD hierarchy.
Every detail of your complaint is thus missing whats really going on. first you think you are giving us new information about human psychology. It turns out that the better approximation is wolf packs, .. Then you say we need leaders and that leaders serve and evolutionary purpose. No, leaders actually have multiple systemic functions, the real question is what kind of leadership inside of what kind of system.
Occupy movement SHOULD remain a horizontally organized movement, because that actually makes it systemically STRONGER, not Weaker.
Its always funny to watch people make arguments with science which are actually ignorant spin on what the REAL SCIENCE WOULD SAY.
Pack psychology is THE PRIME contributor to entropy in human systems.. CONSENSUS PROCESS IS ONE CURE.
Stop imagining that you can or should be telling us what to do or giving the movement systemic advice. WTF all these people, not just you but every other post some idiot wants to give advice they have no business giving, they are ignorant and dead wrong and imagine themselves to be reasonable and giving some kind of useful advice.
Your wrong, you haven't bothered to read enough about systems theory or sociology, the place to start is look up "iron rule of oligarchies:" and its disgusting that people think they can take a single article or two and try to spin it like they now have some grand solution to some problem.
Bother to get DEEPLY INFORMED before you come to the public with accidentally zomboid advice.
Thanks, sorry to be harsh, have a nice social movement.
I am not going to read your stuff at all. Calling me "ignorant and unclued" because you don't agree with the idea is a personal attack on me. This forum is for exchanging ideas. It's better to say "i don't like your idea" I am not "wrong", my idea may be incorrect.
You need to grow up and stop personifying ideas.
We all have GREAT ideas and we all have IDIOTIC ideas.
If you come up with a stupid idea, I will try not to call you STUPID. I will try to attack your idea, but not you.
Your comments that i did skim are incorrect according to what I have learned and experienced.
But keep attacking me if it makes you feel good - you are just looking not so good to others.
I seriously doubt that you have as much experience, education, and experience, and intelligence as I do on this matters.
That doesn't make "you wrong". It makes your ideas incorrect.
Try again.
you have apparently read it. you have also apparently failed to read sociology, and are using sociology, in an ignorant fashion, to try to tell us what to do and to try to make a case, which is dead wrong, that occupy movement should have leadership.
I'm sick of ignorant people coming in here and trying to play guru of the universe giving advice that is ludicrous and ignorant.
Stop doing it.
If you want to be part of meaningful positive social change, bother to get yourself clued up in depth first and don't come to us with advice on what we should do but instead report back on the science instead of trying to tell us what you think the science says , and spinning it, bother to go to the facts.
Humans are not birds. What you are arguing for is the whole problem. We don't need more sheeple herding and we don't need your services as a sheeple herder. We do not need leaders. WE need people to grasp and evolve into the new paradigm, which is horizontal organization, and to stand strong against undue hierarchy.
Your sense of direction is wrong. as a pigeon trying to lead by trying to tell us what to do; you fail.
end of discussion.
you are not the pigeon you have been waiting for, and we are not bird brains.
I respectfully disagree, without calling you names.
I won't stop saying what I think is the truth, and I hope you don't stop expressing your ideas as well.
I am not the only one pressing for competent leadership - look at some of the other posts.
Who do you refer to as "us" - you think everyone agrees with you?
Again, in the world of software, I am a guru. In the world of global economic labor, I am a guru. in the world of athletics, in some sports, I am a guru.
If you a guru in something, I would gladly take your advice and follow your lead.
Again, lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.
The discussion never ends, because when people post, even if one party "hates" the other party or their ideas, people are too curious not to look at the posts.
And I am "telling" anyone what to do" I think consensus is a great thing. I know good leadership will help.
Why are so upset? Your ideas are not perfect, nor are mine. I think my ideas are correct and your ideas are incorrect. But I don't call you names.
And you don't realize, we want the same thing, to end corporate greed, and allow the 99% a chance at a decent life. I have been doing Occupy stuff since 3 weeks before 9/11 - that's over 10 years!!! probably way before you joined in!
Relax - have a glass of wine. Heroes like me get the job done. There are three kinds of people:
People that make things happen
People that watch things happen
and People that wondered what happened.
Which are you? What are you doing to help Occupy specifically? I am trying to start Internet wealth distribution - something real, that gets REAL money in the hands of the 99%. What are you doing, besides calling people names?
okay then. in the world of sociology, i am a guru. in the world of systems theory, i am a guru. in the world of paradigm shifts i am a guru. in the world of gurus, I am a guru. You want to drift guru? there are 4 main brainwave states of consciousness, all existing religions exist to mentally cage you and prevent you from experiencing waking versions of three of those states, and all real religious experience is waking theta brainwave condition.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/134834953248102/
Now, As the guy whos a Guru of assorted social sciences,
https://www.facebook.com/groups/178521015519904/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/129253417142114/
I will again state. Your call to "leadership" is counter productive to the actual real and neccessary order and organization that exists.
No matter how smart i am, and how worthy i am to be this movements Guru; that would be GURU-ifying something not meant to guru-ified.
If ANYONE deserves that position, it would be me, because i have 20 phds of knowledge and the 180 iq and can sing in 4 octaves and etc am built to be a rockstar.
BUT.
both i and this movement are too wise to have ego trips, the world does not need to orbit me it only needs to hear what i have to say... along with everyone else.
No offense, But i seriously doubt your IQ is higher than mine when it comes to creativity. And I have a gifted voice as well. As gifted as you or more. Several times in my life I have had people tell me that I was the smartest person they ever met in their entire life. Have you heard that? And I am built like a world class athlete.
This should not an ego thing.
If OWS had solid leadership, the govt might destroy that leadership, so maybe its better the leadership is hidden.
I think that if you led for a month, and we all followed you, with consensus, not in a dictatorship kind of way, and then had another leader ran things for a month, with consensus, OWS would get a lot farther, because OWS would work on the same things at the same time. To me leadership is a way to unify our power instead of everyone doing different things.
Then I think more would get more done. We can agree to disagree without calling each other names.
And I don't agree with the religious thang - for ALL religions. For most, I agree with you. But scientifically, I think there must something around much more intelligent than either me or you, because of the basic scientific proofs - the amazing structure of the world in and of itself is proof to me of something more intelligent and more everlasting than us.
Either way, pleasure communicating with another high intellect person.
My ideas may be correct or your ideas may be correct. we just don't know.
If no leaders come up and things happen like we want - then your ideas will be correct. If nothing good happens with everyone being a leader, going of in different directions, then maybe my ideas are correct.
"if ows had leadership...Hidden"
No, thats not the reason. Sounds good as a tactical security strategy, but thats not the reason. The reason is because the truth is that vertical systems impair the group IQ function and cause group think. Only a horizontally organized network can create a super IQ meta entity. The only way to achieve true genius from a collective effort- far exceeding the IQ of ANY ONE SINGLE PARTICIPANT, is for everyone to RELEASE CONTROL back to the TRUTH ITSELF instead of PEOPLE.
The horizontal structure doesnt work in a nation of 300 million people, sorry.
your wrong, and while it does not yet work, evolutionary forces tell us that it soon will.
Only elite control and fascism prevents the will of the people from being slowly implemented. As soon as the impediments to real progress are removed, progress will begin to happen at a rate which reflects how long the elastic has been held back. In many instances thats over 200 years.
You can't stop it from happening. All you can do is be present or absent at its birth. Real Democracy is Coming like the end game reaper to all oligarchy and control. Its the Evolutionary direction, the only thing that can stop it is extinction and that is also the current major probable outcome of your civilization in any case. As entropy winds down energy to change before its too late winds up.
It all goes my way sooner or later.
==============
OccupyThiswiki Flier
We would like to announce the Grand Opening of the Occupythiswiki.org Website. It is and will continue forever to be under construction, but there is now more than enough structure to organize and facilitate other efforts.
We would like to invite you there as a participant, and this is VERY important, PLEASE come to the wiki and become a Participant, or find people with whom you can network who have internet Access and get them to come to the Wiki to represent your end of the Network, and to keep you plugged into the process, and information regarding what is going on there.
This Wiki is CRUCIAL to the meaningful evolution of our species, It is CRUCIAL to human survival beyond this Century, and it is HOW all of WE can ever hope to give full and meaningful attention to the very LARGE NUMBER OF IMPORTANT ISSUES.
Please then, Consider what A General Assembly does for us. It is evolutionary, it is consensus and community building, it is 5 or ten minutes for you to speak live and in person and eye to eye and heart to heart with other people about the issue that matters to you. This is evolutionary, this is powerful, this is how we bring hundreds of years of knowledge thats being held back and hidden back from behind the veil; However, what we all know is that our personal important issue NEEDS MORE THAN THAT. It needs new laws written on its behalf. It needs open source research. It needs open source problem solving and democratic, consensus driven, direct democracy fueled problem solving process. If we gave each sub issue its own time and space to resolve inside of a GA, that would take WEEKS, or MONTHS or EVEN YEARS to iron out in a GA, PER ISSUE. How do we expand direct democracy fast enough, how do we accelerate direct democracy till its smooth as greased lightning instead of feeling stuck? How do we all come away from the GAs of next year feeling like our issue has been actually listened to and heard and resolved and addressed by the masses, instead of feeling like our own personal issue has been more or less ignored while some ego driven internal oligarch pressed ahead with organizing tens of thousands of people to do anything other than the WORK on the INTELLECTUAL LEVEL that CONSTRUCTS a REVOLUTION by means of a PARADIGM SHIFT... Instead of Demonstrating ourselves silly; But achieving still next to nothing and certainly not an end to Corporate Oligarchy, which has its plan to Co-opt the movement and make it work for the ELITES and oligarchs.
Please Consider carefully HOW we will build the NEW POSSIBLE WORLD. More important than HOW we will protest or WHERE, is the more fundamental Question of What does OUR NEW WORLD of DEMOCRATIC and CIVILIZED society Look like,(??!??) in terms of ITS ANSWERS and SOLUTIONS to EVERY high order problem. Only protesting but not doing that intellectual work, we can fail to have a revolution. The right order of the revolution should have been, First get mass educated, first form a new political party, first call for an article 5 Constitutional convention, and THEN once the message is 10,000 pages long and crystal clear , edited by ten thousand people with one person actually authoring a single page... about their core important issue to them...
THEN You'd take to the streets, THEN you'd start protesting, THEN you'd start occupying. The Occupy Movement put the cart before the horse. Okay, well, On a moving along and clear and present and how do we fix it note then, How do we DO THE WORK and get the Cart and horse in the RIGHT ORDER.???
There is a Giant Dam created by republican and democrat propaganda war dumble down and oligarchic control and intentional damage they have done to our so called educational system. 200 years of social and civil intellectual progress is being held back by 200 years of lies, spin doctoring, dumble down, and the simple meta function of keeping the public ignorant.
If you want then ONE SINGLE METHOD by which to END THE GAME. STOP BEING IGNORANT. Tell everyone and tell the world and stop running from the work, and crack open 1001 textbooks as a mob and then learn and only AFTER you have knowledge, TRY? TO USE KNOWLEDGE, not OPINION, to work and solve the problems. Everyone has to let go of their opinions, of their pet issues, of their biases, of their agendas, of their team sport ISMS and SCHISMS which are the bread and circuses THIS holy roman cathar empire uses to keep us divided and conquered and forever sequestered away from intellectual and thus spiritual Enlightenment.
=================
=================
Keep living in a dreamland dude
I live in lucid waking reality, it is you whos living in a dream land and your pathetic ad hom is a sleepwalkers un canned insult.
http://occupythiswiki.org/wiki/OccupyThisWiki:About
What do you read? I need in on this.
participation. 100 new pages from you.
or a hundred thousand bucks, if you have it to spare. lol
Ive been to enough GA's to see that letting every person have a say in crafting something to vote on, somthing that has absolutely no bearing on those involved's children, is a disaster.
Theres a reason we elect leaders to go and vote.
The problem isnt the system. The problem is the culture and the people who are supposed to be the ones holding officials accountable.
If the nation is this apathetic, it doesnt matter what system you introduce. Corruption will run rampant.
theres a fine cure for that called social and civil entropy. As things get worse, things get worse. Adversity paradox.
The worse things are the higher the social learning curve will trend.
evolutionary forces favor a horizontal and truly democratic structure and a very different far move evolved personal responsibility and civil involvement.
What you have seen at GAs so far is mostly primitive and accidentally oligarchic. Its very hard to not end up doing delphi process, and as somebody qualified to audit a GA and Consensus process i can tell you; they mostly fail. So far. But failing is part of learning, and they are stretching and growing, and i have been to GA assemblies 15 years ago with 600 persons that cleared issue after issue like professional facilitation like the place was a airport. Launching ideas, getting feedback, pulling them into a presentation, and then consensusing over further actions AFTER the BIG MEETING...You only feel stuck at those GAs because the facilitators don't know what they are doing yet.
Once they learn.. and they will in time... things will pick up speed.
Just outta curiosity, how old are you there, "prophet"?
Sorry, the current trend is towards fascist globalism, not each country going to direct democracy.
I applaud your effort, Im just saying that if you think mobilzing 1 million groups in the USA, the United States of Apathy, wont be a mess, you havent been around enough human beings that are different than your group of friends.
Im not sure what is coming down, and I sure know that someone who has studied economics and mass psycology wouldnt assume as much as you do.
I appreciate your optimism, however flawed I may think it is.
Time will tell which one of us is right.
1million groups of 300 people all trying to decide on single answers to all the problems.....you kill me man..
So those that are too poor or too old are excluded, due to lack of internet access?
3m divided into 300 per group means that there would be 10,000 fuckin groups, left to decide everything from schooling, taxation, funds, policy, salaries, etc.
It would be disasterous.
Like I already said, humanity has gone down this road before, hence the evolution to representative democracy.
lack of interest or focus or self discipline in essence removes 9 out of 10.
there are 300 million USA Residents, that brings us down to one million approximate total groups. This is happening every day in the USA anyhow between work and school and hobbies and special interests all of these meetings are going off. There is no reason why people can't get behind a weekly GA meeting en masse.
There is no reason why a wiki can't handle the organizational workload, nothing to prevent each group from forming the obvious spokes councils and regional relationships, oh yes, it can all happen and more importantly, Its going to happen, whether i describe it or not because that is the evolutionary direction.
This is what it really comes down to in my own personal twilight zone. I really have modeled reality well enough to accurately predict the future and 99.99 percent of the rest of the population only TRIES to do that. sigh.
Humanity has not gone down "this" road before. Had mass communication, live global internet, or modern science. Yes, okay, they had airplanes in 3 or 5 societies and batteries in a dozen, but those were primitive iterations of technology.
This is all new. And we haven't gone this way before.
You have no given any explanation for why it would be disasterous;
you just expect us to folllow your reasoning with no reasons given.
Turns out you haven't the foggiest clue what you are talking about...
And i'm the real prophet and your just babbling.
Representative "democracy" would have had to have been democratic. It hasn't.
Its representative oligarchy, get it straight.
We are talking about REAL democracy, you are lying through your teeth, double thinking, playing at being a prophet, and in the end attacking the solution, all because why? you lack the imagination to see how it can be done?
or you are scared of something you are attached to getting bit by a real solution?
which is it?
Groups of 300 in a city of nearly 3million would be insane, and organizing the meetings would be even more insane.
The world has already been through these headaches before.
I wish it would work, but the simple laws of human behavior will not allow it.
not really, why? every neighborhood finds some space. A park, or a parking lot, or a yard somewhere? The moment it goes over 300 they split to a new sub group or split into two groups each with 151 people.
Using the wiki and a location checking in system along with a simple perusal of google maps and you could easily organize all of that.
Organizing what meeting? the wiki is a 24/7 open meeting. the end.
Organization is scientifically topological, and then localization to site based.
easy problems to solve.
Human behavior will in the end not only allow it, but resolve and demand it, because most people will realize the only alternative is to be some kind of slave. Being truly free does have its price; communicating somehow in civil engagement is the lions share of that cost.
600 is nothing. One percent of Tampa showing up at a GA would be 27,000 people.
It is impossible to run things like this, if it is option number one.
I wish it werent, but there are just too many people on the planet :)
Again, you don't have 27 thousand people all show up at one GA. they all form smaller GAs. limit about 300 or so. And each GA becomes a voice in a larger network reporting to a global GA function on the wiki.
It can work, you just haven't imagined the specifics of it yet.
You see it barely working and badly implemented; thats not an example of how it can be its just the monkeys learning that they even CAN wash the potato.
Stand back and watch the hundredth monkey episode go off. Consensus process. It can't be stopped.
"dominance by brute force"
Among animals, mating rights are competitive, but not necessarily by brute force. Often times while the dominant male is busy battling a challenger, a less physically dominant but far more clever male is quietly impregnating the herd.
Aside from that, your post is self-contradicting, as leadership duty is shared among the flock, not invested in a single animal.
No, the post is not self-contradicting. Not all pigeons get to be leaders. Out of a thousand, maybe 10 does the leading, not everyone. Leadership IS NOT SHARED AMONG THE FLOCK. It's shared between a few pigeons.
Seriously, and I don't mean to be rude. Are you a natural leader? Did you lead in high school? on the sports field or in politics or in the classroom?
Non-leaders at OWS have a real problem with the fact they may never lead a big group. I am not sure why - ego maybe -
I AM INTENDING TO BE RUDE or argumentative - But your statement about leadership shared among the flock seems to say leadership is shared and just anyone can be a leader. WRONG! Read the article - the SINGLE BEST NAVIGATOR is ALWAYS THE LEADER. That single best pigeon may change, but its not shared among the flock.
In your circle of family, friends, coworkers and acquaintances there is somebody who looks to you as a role model, whether you know it or not.
Individuals lead by example: Rosa Parks, the guy who stopped the column of tanks in Tienanmen Square, etc. They are not "leaders" in the sense that they organized groups or led movements, they were leaders because they set examples and demonstrated the power of individual action, and by doing so inspired others.
Thus we are all leaders, whether we know it or not. If you delegate authority to another for decisions about your well-being, you are a willing slave.
True, people lead by example. this is not the only kind of leadership. In the competitive world of money, teams that win have leaders. just like pigeons. Not dictators, leaders.
We are in world of money. And no, you are incorrect. Team members are not slaves. They are team members who look toward leadership for direction. Ideas like the one you mentioned will keep OWS from using its tremendous power.
Competitive environments need organization. OWS is in such a place. I respectfully disagree with you that all OWS can be leaders and work together well at the same time. It won't happen. Everyone will lead on their own.
Even the leader, at times will be a follower.
As the saying goes, Lead or Follow, or get the hell out of the way.
The beauty of OWS is that they have leaders without rank.
Leaders without rank sounds good.
If you look at http://youtu.be/A6nvvFkbRkY , you see flocking birds create beautiful patterns but don't necessarily get anywhere. All I can say is I darned sure wouldn't want to be below those flocks !
HAHAHAHA - that's what we need, some humour.
Great post! Really.
Some questions to ponder.
How does a flock of birds maintain the precision in the flight of the flock?
How do the pigeons know the other bird has better navigation?
How do pigeons know that dominance of leadership cannot be set in stone?
How do the birds stepping up know to do so, and how does the flock know to accept them?
How does a flock of birds maintain the precision in the flight of the flock?
LOYALTY.
How do the pigeons know the other bird has better navigation?
Athletic ability, talent and charisma are easy to identify for us and them.
How do pigeons know that dominance of leadership cannot be set in stone?
Lead birds get tired, and then they need another leader to step up. The most talented and best leader is different daily. There may 5 great birds, and one is feeling really good that day. just like in sports.
How do the birds stepping up know to do so, and how does the flock know to accept them?
The 10 best birds are in order, so if one drops out, due to injury, etc., the other 9 move up. It's a natural thing - humans do this do, in business, sports, etc.
THANKS for your post!
Joe wrote: "How does a flock of birds maintain the precision in the flight of the flock?"
LOYALTY.END----
That will not cover the birds in the middle that cannot see who the leader is or their moves that need to be followed. Not they are not loyal, but the knowledge they act is different than loyalty.
Joe wrote: "How do the pigeons know the other bird has better navigation?"
Athletic ability, talent and charisma are easy to identify for us and them.END----
These are physical things. Navigation is not a physical activity, it is mental involving memory and intuition when there are no cognitive aspects involved in the work. Since the birds in the middle of the flock cannot see the leader, how do they know that what has been identified is also leading?
My point is, that it is the destination or knowledge of it that the lead pigeon has that the flock needs, not the identity of a leader. The identity of a leader helps, but once the flock is in flight, that seems to not matter.
Joe wrote: "How do pigeons know that dominance of leadership cannot be set in stone?"
Lead birds get tired, and then they need another leader to step up. The most talented and best leader is different daily. There may 5 great birds, and one is feeling really good that day. just like in sports.END----
Yes, physical exertion can play a part, but all birds are putting out the same energy and you've already implied that the leader is physically superior perhaps. Perhaps at that point the entire flock needs to land and gather strength. I would suggest that the leader knows where the flock needs to go and that if for any reason, that becomes vague, the flock also knows it whereupon another bird which has that knowledge and it is very clear, takes the lead.
How does the flock know thid when very few can see the leader?
Joe wrote: "How do the birds stepping up know to do so, and how does the flock know to accept them?"
The 10 best birds are in order, so if one drops out, due to injury, etc., the other 9 move up. It's a natural thing - humans do this do, in business, sports, etc.
THANKS for your post!END----
I think my points about the flocks knowledge responding to your replies cover the last reply, so I won't clutter this response with redundancy.
Again, I need to teach people like "rayolite"
ideas are not people. An idea may be wrong, its doesn't mean the person is "wrong".
We all have great ideas and idiotic ideas.
If I don't like your idea and I say "you are wrong" that will start an altercation more than saying "I think your idea is incorrect".
I think most of your ideas about the birds are completely incorrect. That's not a personal attack on you.
When your write "joe wrote" you begin a personal attack.
Grow up a little. We are exchanging ideas to come up with solutions, and also to pass the time because, the 99% doesn't have enough money for vacations. While we argue, the 1% are having a grand time on the golf course, at the beaches, and flying around the world.
You can do better other than personally attacking someone because they pointed out some incorrectness about your ideas.
Most of what you say contradicts the scientific article in the link - Loyalty - yes - each bird is loyal to the one in front of it. That's what makes it work. Lead a horse to water, can't make you drink.
THE BEST BIRD LEADS. That is not just cognitive ability, its physical flight ability. Read the article again and learn
You seem to think you are a pigeon scientist. You have not studied the pigeons, and it seems you didn't read the article. Try again.
I'm reading it now. This very much supports my position.
“These pigeons know each other. They know which is the smartest. The fastest bird will even follow the slower one who knows the way home the best,” says Vicsek."
ON EDIT:"A pigeon following another was most likely to be flying on its partner’s right, seeing this leader with its left eye. “It’s very cool,” Jacobs says."
The left eye is right brain dominant. The right brain wants to know what the leader is doing. Supporting my position that intuition is the navigation tool.
Right, the best birds lead. The best navigational birds lead. I don't see how this supports you. The leadership is not spread throughout the flock. The best lead. We got off on a tangent about physical ability - this doesn't support your idea that leadership is spread across the flock.
The best birds lead, everyday.
I think you will have to re read what I've written because I don't say that "leadership is spread across the flock". Or maybe you misunderstood something. Maybe this will clarify.
I've maintained that the physical aspects of the flocks flight do not matter as much as navigation.
"Best" is a generalization that leaves out the issue of what is guiding the leader and the flock or their recognition of the leader; physical abilty, cognitive ability or unconscious ability.
For me, I was thinking that navigation involves physical ability, and it can be defined as that. It can also be defined as cognitive ability.
The best navigator leads according to the scientists. That's all I was trying to support. Whether cognitive or physical, matters not much.
The best leaders, in the pigeon world, lead.
But not at occupy. That was what i was sayiing. thanks for the comment
I've not read the article. I'm very familiar with the arguments. Science does not know everything, particularly about the mind. That is what navigates.
I didn't say pigeons used cognition but I have explained that the birds inside the flock cannot see the lead pigeon, so the flight ability per se doesn't matter.
I would say the birds are loyal to their species and it might be that the bird in front is suddenly not the leader. If that is bird is not, then the next leader flies forwards and takes the lead. How do they both know? How do the rest know?
Back to you, try again.
If you didn't read the article, AND you are not a scientist who studies birds, I guess you can just make up whatever you want and pretend that's true.
I don't work that way. "Science doesn't know everything" What does that mean? Do you know everything about pigeons? I guess we should just let you decide what the facts are, because, well, you are royalte!
Joe, you've left out quoting a critical aspect by assimilating an attitude that will control your perceptions.
"Science does not know everything, particularly about the mind."
"particularly about the mind"
Attitudes control perceptions to a large degree. You did not perceive the real point I was making.
The way I see it, is your sentence is better said like this: "People, using Science, do not know everything, particularly about the mind."
Science, even the science we dont know, DOES know everything. We just don't know all of science.
Just like with Gd and Science. Gd and science are always 100% in agreement. Where they differ, it is humans who don't understand science.
I will respectfully disagree with the last sentence. I think there are leaders, but for all different things. I feel like it will be a natural progression, and depend upon how invested any given person chooses to be in Occupy, and where, how, what, etc. etc.
I personally love the horizontal - no leader format. You don't see rudolph of the pigeons wearing a fancy hat or thinking it's special, it just does what it does naturally, and switches up into different positions as need be, in the same way.
As you say, other birds also step up. The more birds the better, each in it's place, as it should be.
Maybe the reason I put in the last line, is because I want to Occupy to fly. And Occupy IS NOT FLYING YET. We are all just sitting round a bunch of trees waiting. Some of the natural leaders are telling Occupy
"Let's fly now, I can lead, let's GO GO GO GO!" And the person takes off, but no one follows. Their response "OWS has no leaders" And then everyone just sits around squawking.
And if so, then we will NEVER fly together nor get ANYTHING done.
OWS can have different leaders everyday, BUT NOT EVERYONE GETS TO BE A LEADER.
Some people don't like that reality. Not every pigeon gets to be a leader, ever, their entire lives. But imagine, you are not a leader for OWS, but an important task has consensus and you are chosen for that task, and the entire OWS is depending on you. You are not a leader, but you have a lot of responsibility, and you have the opportunity to show your stuff. That's why everyone can participate without being a leader.
We can have leaders without dictators - the pigeons do.
The birds have leaders - for sure. For OWS - it may be early to have leaders, but without a leadership council, lots of power will be wasted. Pigeons are not horizontal AT ALL - completely hierarchical.
I would be interested if you would state your opinion - should OWS have leaders or not?
You seem in the middle....
I think there are leaders, and leaders will emerge or fall back according to necessity, although perhaps there are kinks that need to be worked out, as with anything. Do i think there should be official leaders? No, not really. And the pigeons are not completely hierarchical the way i see it. Who is the say the ones at the back are not equally as important to watch for anything that may come up from behind? And if we talk about other birds, they often move like a school of fish, as one, shifting direction and flight as a collective.
No one suggested the pigeons in the back are LESS IMPORTANT.
A non-leader can be given a very important task and be the biggest hero.
The ego thing is what is bringing people down.
No one is suggesting the leaders at the most important. According to the scientists, not me, and I don't think you are qualified, say they are hierarchical. I didn't make this up.
Learn.... they also mentioned how they were different from fish.
Yes, if we are talking pigeons, but not all birds. I often watch swarms of little birds and they move exactly like a school of fish. As for leaders, ok, we are in agreement they are not 'more important.' But that brings up the question, what is a leader? Someone who is at the front? The most visible? Many leaders lead by example and work behind the scenes. Is the leader the one who speaks on the podium? Or the one who writes what the person speaking to the crowd says? And where did the writer get his ideas from? So is the leader the person who gave the writer ideas, who wrote the speech for who is ostensibly the 'leader'? It just doesn't matter to me in one sense, because as long as the system is effective. Who the leaders are, and how endorsed and official they are, or how they may perceived to be lacking is less of an issue to me so long as they step up when called upon to fulfill whatever function is required.
For example that big marine guy who was caught on video telling off 15 or so cops in New York, was he designated a leader? No, he spoke from the heart, and spoke some good fucking sense pretty on point that everyone could feel, his video went viral, he got the interviews and became a leader of sorts. That video of him speaking inspired me, and it is no surprise to me why it caused such a stir as it did.
Now as we move on, leaders will rise here or there, but i just don't see why we need to run some sort of campaign behind some certain people or other. Let actions speak, and leaders lead by example. I agree with you about ego being a problem as well, regarding leaders, but i think Occupy will hopefully eventually recognize this collectively where it occurs, and then whoever loses credibility.
And what of eagles or ravens? They usually fly solo or with another bird or two, but still take care of business.
The National General Assembly is the leadership council. Why won't the NYCGA, and the UNELECTED "facilitators" behind it and this website, publicly endorse it???
How do I get my chance to get on the National General Assembly council? Or is this supposed council just anyone who goes?
Who controls the money?
The people of your congressional district elect you in an open and transparent process to be a delegate to the assembly. Details are in the Declaration and on their website.
https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/
Who controls the money, rumoured to be some $500,000 that was donated to OWS? The UNELECTED facilitators of the NYCGA, which represents approximately ONE PERCENT of protesters? Which have not publicly endorsed the concept of a National General Assembly? Which always tells people it is a leaderless/full movement?
put it to the test: Ask anyone where you should look because you heard there was going to be a big announcement by OWS.
So there are leaders at OWS.
Who removed the working group on the 99% Declaration pages from this website over a month ago?
[Removed]