Informational architecture across non-living and living collectives

Collective behavior is widely regarded as a hallmark property of living and intelligent systems. Yet, many examples are known of simple physical systems that are not alive, which nonetheless display collective behavior too, prompting simple physical models to often be adopted to explain living collective behaviors. To understand collective behavior as it occurs in living examples, it is important to determine whether or not there exist fundamental differences in how non-living and living systems act collectively, as well as the limits of the intuition that can be built from simpler, physical examples in explaining biological phenomenon. Here, we propose a framework for comparing non-living and living collectives as a continuum based on their information architecture: that is, how information is stored and processed across different degrees of freedom. We review diverse examples of collective phenomena, characterized from an information-theoretic perspective, and offer views on future directions for quantifying living collective behaviors based on their informational structure.

Automated summary

Collective behavior, a hallmark property of living and intelligent systems, has also been observed in simple physical systems, leading to the adoption of physical models to explain living collective behaviors. Understanding the differences between non-living and living systems in collective behavior is crucial, as well as exploring how information architecture plays a role in quantifying living collective behaviors. By characterizing collective phenomena from an information-theoretic perspective, future research can focus on quantifying and comparing living collectives based on their informational structure.