*logo Thinking like a Tree

[Neal Carpenter <ncarpenter@jps.net>]

Mitchel,

I liked your description of the 'walking tree' of Costa Rica. IMHO,
though, while your discussion with the Costa Rican teachers modeled the
TREE, your star-logo set-up didn't.

It seems to me that the 'walking tree' strategy is not exactly
de-centralized, but rather parallel. That is, each root checks out its
neighborhood independently, but is then reinforced (shrivel and die if
you're one of the worst OR strengthen and reproduce if you're one of the
best) by the central trunk. This is what you did with your group of
teachers, eliminating the 'worst' guesses and trying again around the
'better' ones. Your star-logo simulation, however, has each 'guesser'
checking _only_ with its neighbors. There is no over-all comparison.

What you have in TREE, then, is not a purely CENTRALIZED or
DECENTRALIZED process, but a combination of both (COORDINATED, perhaps).
Rather neat, actually. The Observer could play a role, here.

I can hardly wait to get some of my students turned on to this. 

Neal