CollectiveInformationArchitecture#5891

Mechanism

A decentralised collective such as a Superorganism processes information through its interaction network, so a behavioural regime (exploring, foraging, defending) can be described as a configuration of that network's informational architecture: the diversity, predictability and causal structure of interaction pathways. Measure it on several complementary representations, since RepresentationDependentOrder warns that no single one is sufficient: spatial structure against a random baseline (LocalSpatialStateDivergence) and succession structure of interactions (InteractionSequenceEntropySignature), compared at matched density and against nulls. A regime shift then appears as a reorganisation of the architecture, for example the bifurcation, as interaction density rises, of low-entropy roaming into high-entropy trailing and low-entropy aggression. The view links micro-level interaction rules to macro-level colony states and generalises to other collectives, including networks of AI agents, where the same measures can detect which coordination regime a DistributedIntelligence is in.

Invariants

• A regime is characterised by several representations, not one score
• Signatures are reported relative to density and to a null baseline
• The architecture is inferred from observed interactions, without access to any agent's internal plan

Failure modes

• Equating the architecture with one measure on one representation
• Reading descriptive regime signatures as mechanisms; the measures detect and characterise regimes but do not by themselves explain transitions (that needs information-flow measures such as transfer entropy, perturbation experiments and longer recordings)
• Transferring ant findings to AI agent swarms without re-validating what counts as an interaction there

Where this came from

• Thesis Kevin Do, PhD thesis on ant collective behaviour (NCSU, 2026), Abstract; Ch. 1.3; Ch. 1.5.1 'informational architecture'; Ch. 5.1; Ch. 5.7.1; Ch. 5.8

Builds on

• InteractionSequenceEntropySignatureComposes with
• RepresentationDependentOrderReferences
• SuperorganismReferences
• DistributedIntelligenceReferences
• LocalSpatialStateDivergenceComposes with

Identity

The name is the hash of the definition. Change a word and it becomes a different pattern.

Sema ID

sema:CollectiveInformationArchitecture#mh:SHA-256:5891d584ec59bddf1b8da79b61f07530b7fdfb53f13b59590ea9dd629af3b22b

Reference

CollectiveInformationArchitecture#5891

Ring

1

Tier

2