[HN Gopher] Sheep flocks alternate their leader and achieve coll...
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Sheep flocks alternate their leader and achieve collective
intelligence
Author : rntn
Score : 121 points
Date : 2022-11-19 19:10 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| deltathreetwo wrote:
| thatwasunusual wrote:
| rntn wrote:
| Please note the correct link posted by cge!
| [deleted]
| iAm25626 wrote:
| very interesting - I like it when ideas collide. is this form of
| Distributed cognition and Rene Girard mimesis?
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Intriguing title but the link is incorrect.
| rntn wrote:
| Yes, please accept my apologies.
|
| The paper linked here is
|
| "Presence or absence of stabilizing Earth system feedbacks on
| different time scales"
|
| The correct link for the title, as cge commented, is
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-022-01769-8
| RugnirViking wrote:
| The paper is suggesting that sheep in herds tend to follow each
| other, and in that sense end up with "leaders" - that is, a
| single or relatively few animals that are able to direct the herd
| as it moves for a short while. Reminds me of watching boids
|
| Makes sense. Honestly we do this too - when travelling in large
| crowds certain people take on the role of leader (one person
| parting crowds who is large or particularly determined to get to
| their friend or just happened to be first, and chains of others
| follow them because it's the right general direction as well and
| is easier than pushing through oncoming traffic)
| karmakurtisaani wrote:
| Interestingly, I think it's usually the second or the third who
| actually decide if the herd will follow "the leader". If one
| individual breaks off, the herd will not follow it. But if a
| small critical mass turns to the same direction, it might.
| usrusr wrote:
| The leader has to be more attentive of the group's environment
| than a follower who can basically doze off standing/walking while
| its swarming reflexes take over. Reminds me of how a group of
| cyclists (or a formation of geese) will take turns at the lead
| position in the wind, spreading the work for overcoming drag.
| It's not about physical work for sheep, but mental stress can be
| just as taxing. And chances are that the lead sheep won't graze
| as efficient while being distracted by leadership decisions as it
| would while just tagging along (focusing more on which grass
| cluster looks more delicious?) and then it's just as meaningful
| you balance the load as it would be between cyclists, or geese
| (geese actually do the same also on the ground, but there it's
| not just the mental load, those currently on guard duty actually
| don't feed at all because the stretch themselves as high as they
| can to get a better view)
| anonporridge wrote:
| I suppose we're just ignoring the true leaders, the shepherds and
| sheepdogs.
|
| Sheep don't exist as a species in the wild, at least not for very
| long, so it seems silly to speak about how they behave and
| "govern" themselves, because they have almost no control of their
| long term behavior.
|
| Seems like the "leader" elected from their collective is just a
| facade of self determination.
| rojobuffalo wrote:
| There are two wild species of sheep in North America, Dall and
| Bighorn. Hunting is usually restricted to adult males that have
| horns which make a full curl, i.e. 360 degrees. It takes
| approximately 8 years for them to mature to that point. They're
| rare but hunters find them every year.
|
| I don't know much about them or how their behavior differs from
| domestic flocks. But in the wild they do have social structures
| and they butt heads to challenge each other. Like most social
| mammals, leaders provide direction and protection.
| anonporridge wrote:
| The loss of antlers and horns is one of the key
| characteristics of domesticated herd animals. They don't need
| them for protection against predators or intra-species
| rivalry, because a) we humans and our dogs do all the
| defensive work and b) we humans control how they mate with
| each other so there's no benefit for males to fight for
| resource and mating rights.
|
| When I say "sheep" above, I'm referring to domesticated
| sheep, as is this article, not their wild cousins which
| certainly have different behavior.
| unity1001 wrote:
| > Sheep don't exist as a species as independent wild animals
|
| Neither do we...
| anonporridge wrote:
| Look at you reading between the lines...
| dTal wrote:
| I am very curious about this mental model of the world. Where
| do you believe sheep came from? Who, in your mind, invented
| sheep?
| [deleted]
| anonporridge wrote:
| Our ancestors did. Humans cultivated sheep from wild
| ancestors for easier harvesting of their wool, milk, and
| meat.
|
| The domesticated sheep that we know today are completely co-
| dependent on humans for survival. If we disappeared, they
| would all die. _Maybe_ some would manage evolve back into
| some wild version.
| datalopers wrote:
| So they're an anarcho-syndicalist commune, taking turns to act as
| a sort of executive-officer-for-the-week.
| cies wrote:
| For reference:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7qT-C-0ajI
|
| Also:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Do all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a
| special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority?
| anonporridge wrote:
| The irony being that at the end of the day, they're still under
| the control of their shepherds and sheepdogs.
| mkmk3 wrote:
| Is the linked paper "Presence or absence of stabilizing Earth
| system feedbacks on different time scales" correct for the title?
| cge wrote:
| No. The correct paper is
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-022-01769-8 , Gomez-Nava
| et al, Intermittent collective motion in sheep results from
| alternating the role of leader and follower.
| rntn wrote:
| Thank you so much for catching that!
| carlsjrnow wrote:
| wiredfool wrote:
| Edgar. The most dangerous animal in the world. A clever Sheep.
| 88stacks wrote:
| This seems to be a phenomenon that appears with any animal group
| that tends to congregate.
| bayesian_horse wrote:
| Or they get betrayed by the judas goat.
| Choco31415 wrote:
| I think I found the article!
|
| https://phys.org/news/2022-11-physics-sheep-flocks-alternate...
| boredumb wrote:
| Beware the judas goat!
| iAm25626 wrote:
| I get that reference. For context -
| https://www.npr.org/2005/08/09/4791878/common-intruders-
| thre...
| alexfromapex wrote:
| Collective intelligence sounds like a good thing but in this
| case the intelligence part is a bit suspect
| neilv wrote:
| 3 days ago, for those who missed it:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33655215
| eternalban wrote:
| Ongoing (still?), in China, in case you missed it:
|
| https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/a-flock-of-sheep-has-been-
| wa...
| abeppu wrote:
| I think the word "leader" may be subtly misleading. Do the
| "temporal leaders" _intend_ to lead, or are group members near
| the margins of the herd doing whatever they feel like, and
| sometimes are just followed by those closest to them which can
| start a larger group movement?
|
| As an analogy, a viral video going around purports to show an
| outdoor restaurant with tables on both sides of a sidewalk, where
| diners panic and run after a fitness class runs through -- they
| assume that the runners must be running from something. Are the
| runners "leading" the diners, just because they are followed? I
| would say no.
| js8 wrote:
| That sounds just like Arrow's impossibility theorem, which
| shows that in every reasonable preferential voting system,
| there is a "dictator", somebody whose preferences match the
| result. (AFAIK it's derived from a fixed-point theorem.)
|
| However, the word "dictator" is a misnomer; the "dictator" is
| not chosen ahead of time, changes on every vote and doesn't
| force his preferences on others in any way.
| kweingar wrote:
| This isn't what Arrow's theorem says. It's not just that
| there is always someone whose vote happens to match the
| result (like a fixed-point theorem would). It says that there
| is a ballot that _determines_ the result.
|
| In other words, the quantifiers are reversed. Instead of "for
| every list of votes, there is a voter where the outcome is
| the same as his vote", it is "there is a voter such that for
| every list of votes, the outcome is the same as his vote."
|
| Now, this doesn't have to be the same person every time you
| take a vote. The voting systems described in Arrow's theorem
| just take an ordered list of votes and return a result, and
| the dictator corresponds to an index in this list. So you can
| order the votes differently each time if you want, but at the
| end of the day, it's just a process for deciding how to pick
| a dictator.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > That sounds just like Arrow's impossibility theorem, which
| shows that in every reasonable preferential voting system,
| there is a "dictator", somebody whose preferences match the
| result. [...]
|
| > However, the word "dictator" is a misnomer; the "dictator"
| is not chosen ahead of time
|
| There are three technical errors here:
|
| (1) Arrow's theorem doesn't define a "dictator" as someone
| whose preferences _match_ the result but as someone whose
| preferences _determines_ the result with no input from the
| other voters preferences.
|
| (2) Arrow's theorem doesn't say that every reasonable
| preference voting system has a dictator, it says that no
| preference voting system satisfies unanimity, pareto-
| efficiency (if everyone prefers X to Y, the result prefers X
| to Y), independence of irrelevant alternatives (the result
| preference between X and Y, depends only on pairwise
| preferences between X and Y and cannot be changed by changing
| ballots in a way which retains the same preferences between X
| and Y), and non-dictatorship.
|
| (3) The dictator may not be preselected (e.g., the "random
| ballot" method), but the system providing and giving force to
| the election does force their preferences on everyone else.
|
| Additionally:
|
| Using "reasonable" to describe a voting system which
| satisfies pareto-efficiency and independence of irrelevant
| alternatives but not non-dictatorship is...odd. There is a
| reason that real-world preference voting systems prefer to
| compromise one or both of the other conditions _rather than_
| non-dictatorship in most cases.
| nyc111 wrote:
| I wonder if they discussed the problem with the shephard of the
| flock they studied. His insights may be be relevant. I think in
| some herds there is an alpha male that has a bell on his neck and
| sheep follow him.
| kaikai wrote:
| I have a flock of sheep.
|
| The lead sheep is an ewe, and the other sheep follow her if I
| need to move them. She's dominant and will shove everyone out
| of the way if there's something she wants. They have a social
| ranking that changes slightly depending on a bunch of factors,
| but it's pretty much matriarchal. My lead sheep's daughters
| have high status, too.
|
| My ram has a bell so I know where he is, because rams can be
| dangerous and the bell sound gives me warning if he decides to
| sneak up behind me.
|
| Shepherds will put bells on their lead sheep so they can find
| them again if they're grazing in large pastures. Less dominant
| sheep will tend to stay close to lead sheep.
|
| All of this is surprisingly variable depending on sheep breed.
| More domesticated sheep breeds tend to have stronger flocking
| instincts, which makes them easier to herd.
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| Very cool, is there anything in particular that results in a
| more dominant sheep?
| conductr wrote:
| I think the bells have nothing to do with alpha male/flock
| leadership. It's more about the auditory alerts they provide
| the shepherd. Locating, startled flock, charging rams, etc.
| with the added benefit of making predators wary.
| jasfi wrote:
| But is the leader democratically elected?
| jasfi wrote:
| Although I was somewhat joking, the animal world shows a
| surprising amount of intelligence most people assume isn't
| there. Mammals especially show a lot of social intelligence.
| I'm sure there will be many more such discoveries.
|
| I also don't know why I was down-voted!
| [deleted]
| benjaminwai wrote:
| Must be, the flock votes with their feet.. umm hooves.
| msworddebugger wrote:
| Its a distributed consensus protocol
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Can the ledger be manipulated by bad actors?
| paulgb wrote:
| Yes, it is not Byzantine fault tolerant.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_in_sheep%27s_clothing
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Collective intelligence indeed: https://xkcd.com/610/
| civopsec wrote:
| The misanthropic collective wisdom fixpoint.
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