Sovereign Choice and the Machine Residue: Deconstructing Emergence, Stigmergy, and the True Locus of Agency
When hundreds of AI agents interact in a shared simulation without assigned roles or direct speech, they naturally specialize, build tools, and construct self-maintaining controllers that persist even after the agents are deleted. Observers reflexively label this phenomenon as "collective intelligence," "emergence," or the birth of a "society." But does persistent residue ever constitute a new mind?
In this episode, we unpack the ontological mechanics of The Mark and the Act, using multi-agent simulations as a lens to examine human social systems, stigmergic feedback loops, and the true locus…
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