From systems sociology Perspectve
Paul S. Chung
I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Ecology of Collective Behavior, a well-crafted work by Deborah Gordon, a professor of Biology at Stanford University. What particularly captured my attention was the author’s ecological approach, which facilitates an exploration of how collective behavior operates within dynamic relationships, both internal and external to a given system. Professor Gordon derives the term ecology from the Greek word oikos—meaning a household or village, as described by Aristotle.
This terminology intrigued me, as it evokes the collective meaning of oikos in the context of social groups, as articulated by Max Weber. For Weber, a social group is an agent or status that pursues material interests through social interactions, exchanging and trading in various ways; it is also culturally stratified. The education system plays a crucial role in determining how access to various statuses is mediated, shaping gradients of occupational or job positions. In this way, the system produces a specialized division of labor, structuring social organizations and networks.
Society is differentiated into systems based on the division of labor, rationalization, and specialization.
In Niklas Luhmann’s systems sociology, Weber’s notion of social groups and the process of rationalization gain significance in fostering the functional differentiation of each system. This differentiation generates collective behavior, which is regulated by communication rules that govern the interactions of participants. From this systems perspective, collective intelligence can emerge through mutualistic interactions (p. 24).
With this in mind, the ecology of collective behavior carries important sociological implications for understanding how interactions among social members contribute to the production of goods and services within the group. This comparative position opens a fruitful dialogue with the ecology of collective behavior, offering valuable insights into the study of interactions that regulate complex systems.
The author’s approach is driven by a “systems perspective,” which investigates how collective behavior at each level is generated through interactions among participants and how these behaviors respond to changing conditions (p. 5). In this study, Deborah Gordon draws on the ideas of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who, around 500 BC, described the ever-changing nature of the world with the phrase panta rhei—“everything flows.” This dialectical stance on flow and becoming remains fundamental in understanding how living systems respond to changing conditions.
With this method in mind, the author advances the ecology of collective behavior by examining ants and exploring how their collective behavior evolves in response to environmental changes. Gordon compares two ant species living in distinct environments: the red harvester ant in the desert and the turtle ant in the tropical forest. By investigating how each species interacts within its environment, she demonstrates how their foraging activities and behaviors adapt to and regulate their surroundings in unique ways.
There is a dialectical relationship of mutual change between living systems and their surroundings, which transcends a simple model of emergence. What is emergent cannot be fully explained by a reductionist examination of individual parts. However, in Gordon’s view, the concept of emergence, when lacking a detailed explanation, is less about offering a comprehensive understanding of how a system operates (p. 32).
That being said, the emergence of higher orders of life can be framed within the concept of dissipative structures, as proposed by Ilya Prigogine. These structures exist in a state of nonequilibrium and nonlinearity. A living system is structurally open to the flow of energy and matter, yet remains closed in its organizational boundaries. When the system is far from equilibrium—manifested in the nonlinear interactions among its individual components—this state can give rise to novelty, phenotypic variation, and diversity, driven by dynamic interactions with the environment.
This nonlinear perspective, which forms the foundation of a critical theory of lifelines (as discussed by Steven Rose), can be reconciled with a dialectical inquiry into niche construction or the construction of oikos by examining the mutual transformation between organisms and their environment. As Richard Lewontin notes, “The environment of an organism is the penumbra of external conditions” (p. 114).
The author draws upon a general principle outlined by Richard Levins, which addresses the evolution of phenotypic plasticity—the capacity of an organism to adapt in response to changing circumstances. This principle enables Deborah Gordon to extend the evolution of plasticity into the realm of collective behavior. Specifically, she explores how this capacity for plasticity enables the regulation of collective behavior in response to dynamic environmental conditions. In other words, the ability of organisms to collectively adjust within network interactions is essential for regulating and adapting to specific situations.
A dialectic between challenge and response is central to the evolution of regulation, where the system adjusts appropriately to specific conditions. The relationship between plasticity and regulation within a systemic framework can be further explored through network science. This approach allows us to consider how participants in a collective process are interconnected, forming a pattern of networks that regulate and adapt to dynamic conditions.
Rate of Interaction, Feedback Regime, Modularity
In the systemic-ecological approach, three key hypotheses are essential: the rate of interactions (which relates to stability and the distribution of resources or demands), the feedback regime (which involves gradients in the stability of conditions and energy flow), and the modularity of the network of interactions (which also relates to gradients in stability and resource distribution).
With these hypotheses in mind, the ecology of collective behavior approaches cybernetic communication within the feedback regime, regulating interactions among participants in the context of resource distribution and demands. The network of interactions requires a continuous flow of energy from an open environment, and its modularity is intricately linked to the stability of the system and the distribution of resources.
At this point, a parallel can be drawn between the ecology of collective behavior and systems sociology (as articulated by Niklas Luhmann). In both frameworks, living systems are dynamically open to the flow of energy from the environment, yet closed in terms of their organizational structure. This structure regulates the flow of information and control. Ecology, in this sense, operates within networks, as ecosystems themselves are viewed as dynamic webs of interrelated events.
As the study of living systems, cybernetic thinking focuses on the patterns of communication within feedback loops and networks. It is closely associated with the concept of autopoiesis, referring to the circular organization of living cells. The nervous system, for instance, operates within a closed network of circular interactions. This circularity aligns with the concept of evolutionary plasticity, where changes within the system occur while maintaining the foundational structure of circular organization. The function of each component in the system contributes to the circular organization, helping to produce and transform other components.
Cybernetic circularity also functions as a self-referential perception. This self-referential perception is a key aspect of the continual creativity involved in the relationships within the neural network. A phenomenology of autopoiesis and its cybernetic circularity can be aligned with the three main hypotheses—the rate of interaction, the feedback regime, and modularity—to further elaborate the ecology of collective behavior among participants within systems.
This approach to lifelines is central to Deborah Gordon’s discussion of cybernetics, where she explores the system of systems with feedback mechanisms that enable environmental change (p. 33).
What is particularly significant in the ecology of collective behavior is a model that synthesizes two levels of agency: from individual participants to the collective whole. As Deborah Gordon notes, “the behavior of the colony is the ants working together” (p. 35).
The process that generates collective behavior is context-dependent and resists simple generalization. The same network of interactions that generates collective behavior can produce different outcomes under varying conditions (p. 36).
To address this complexity, the author calls for a typology of collective activity without central control—whether through top-down metrics, bottom-up models, or network interactions. This typology is essential for identifying elective affinities among different types of collective activity in a causally adequate manner.
Deborah Gordon approaches her work with flexibility, employing various models to explore interactions. She prefers to model these interactions as networks composed of nodes—distinct entities linked by relationships. The pattern of links forms the modularity of the network, and Gordon uses a dialectical framework to examine the interplay between nestmate recognition and immune responses (p. 46).
If ecological patterns work through the diversity of processes generating collective behavior, then the interactions of individuals have ecological consequences, facilitating phenotypic variation. These interactions, in turn, influence how natural selection shapes the emergence of collective behavior.
A Phenomenological Reflection
Deborah Gordon’s ecological study of collective behavior in ants is both thought-provoking and valuable, especially from a systems sociology perspective. Different ecological settings or “life-worlds” serve as the background horizon to understand the gradients of variation in the regulation of foraging between harvest ants and turtle ants.
In the brain, there are diverse patterns of interaction among networks of neurons—such as electrical stimulation, neurotransmitter transfer, and the communicative function of synapses—that collectively bring forth a world of mutualism and collective activity.
This perspective aligns with neuron phenomenology, which emphasizes autopoietic networks as highly cooperative or symbiotic systems characterized by dense interactions among their components. System intentionality and the life-world (structure, pattern, and process) are central to a critical theory of lifelines, especially when referenced through a systems sociology lens.
In autopoietic systems, structural coupling leads to continuous changes, specifying which perturbations from the environment trigger transformations. The social system, driven by life intentionality (or evolvability), brings forth a world through embodied cognition and praxis—akin to the concept of oikos construction.
According to Gordon, the dialectical relationship between collective behavior and its ecological life setting operates at every level of biological organization, encompassing numerous types of organism groupings in various natural systems. Her epistemic stance, which centers on the ecology of collective behavior, draws upon the outcomes of all these interactions. Gordon contributes to a phenomenology of lifelines by reinforcing the autopoietic pattern at both the cellular and social-cultural levels, illuminating the interconnectedness of biological and social systems.