Explorations on the formation of cultural groups through ants and ABM
Independent research explorations
Adopting Wilensky's model of ants - aimed at studying the stability of ant hormonal traces to different food piles, - I introduced two ant colonies and one pile of food to begin understanding the dynamics between collective fights for different objectives and different shelters.
This model aims to assist in understanding how different social groups construct their own power structures and value systems. Rather than focusing on segregation itself, the goal is to explore how these groups shape distinct cultural frameworks through contrasting and diverging collective purposes. The premise is that each group develops a unique internal system, rooted in a shared objective. In the case of the simulation, the purpose of each ant is to ensure that resources reach the shelter of its respective colony.
With the aim of understanding how belief structures form around a collective purpose, each ant—distinguished by colour—has a specific role (workers, caretakers, queen, and warriors).
This experimental model is a work in progress and currently represents a conceptual stage for an alternative approach to understanding how collective belief systems operate around opposing or conflicting common purposes.
The model constitutes stage 2 of 8 in a larger project designed to explore the formation of human roles in the process of collectivizing social ideas—what we understand as the formation of culture. Consequently, the roles assigned to the ants and the nests of their colonies serve as an analogy to better grasp the more complex and abstract dynamics that occur among humans, which are not as visually or explicitly represented in everyday life.
Ants were chosen as an analogy for this project because they exemplify one of the most striking cases of social emergence. They form highly efficient social structures with clearly defined roles, yet possess the ability to intervene in each other’s tasks for the greater good and improved efficiency of the colony. Ants instinctively prioritize collective needs over individual ones, mirroring certain human dynamics but without the process of reasoning. This raises the intriguing question of to what extent the state of conflict between colonies—shared by both ants and humans—is driven by rational thought or if it is a necessary condition for the emergence of collectivization, efficiency, and the formation of collective social ideas: culture.