Multicellular organisms, whether biological or computing, co-exist and co-evolve with external structures that are created by and, in turn, influence the behaviour of the "cells."
# Examples
From Cyberyota's four principles.
- In the world of social insects include termite mounds which are built by and influence individual insects.
- In multicellular organisms include bones and connective tissues which are built by and, in turn, support the cells.
- In traditional computing include data bases and networking infrastructure. Examples in the internet include wikis, open-source project code repositories, and the Web itself (especially when organized by search engines).
Note:
These external stigmergy structures facilitate communication between individuals by providing a framework for "cues" (persistent polymorphic messages or data) in these structures that other individuals interpret according to their role in the multicellular entity.
# Definition
__Stigmergy__ is a mechanism of indirect :wikt:coordination, through the environment, between agents or actions. The principle is that the trace left in the natural environment by an action stimulates the performance of a next action, by the same or a different agent. In that way, subsequent actions tend to reinforce and build on each other, leading to the spontaneous emergence of coherent, apparently systematic activity - wikipedia 
Ant paths built from pheromone traces
- wikimedia.org
Stigmergy is a form of self-organization. It produces complex, seemingly intelligent structures, without need for any planning, control, or even direct communication between the agents. As such it supports efficient collaboration between extremely simple agents, who lack any memory, intelligence or even individual awareness of each other.
# Sections
# See also