Belgian cyberneticist at the Free University of Brussels, director of the Global Brain Institute, and the researcher who extended stigmergy from its original entomological setting to a general theory of self-organizing human coordination. His 2016 paper Stigmergy as a universal coordination mechanism set out the framework used to analyze Wikipedia, open-source software, and other online commons as stigmergic systems.
Heylighen’s work matters to the BioConomy because it names the mechanism through which distributed human coordination can operate at scale without central command, which is the operating question the E form and Mycelial Coordination both address.
Related pages
Sources
- Heylighen, F. (2016). Stigmergy as a universal coordination mechanism.
Provenance
Stub entry created September 2026 as part of the Stigmergy addition. Enrichment to follow.