# Thoughts on emergent behavior in groups of cortical columns

**URL:** https://forum.thousandbrains.org/t/thoughts-on-emergent-behavior-in-groups-of-cortical-columns/834
**Category:** Miscellaneous
**Tags:** emergent-behavior
**Created:** [November 11, 2025, 5:40pm UTC](https://forum.thousandbrains.org/t/thoughts-on-emergent-behavior-in-groups-of-cortical-columns/834 "2025-11-11T17:40:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Rich\_Morin](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forum.thousandbrains.org/rich_morin/32/89_2.png) [@Rich\_Morin](https://forum.thousandbrains.org/u/Rich_Morin)
#### Post date: [November 11, 2025, 5:40pm UTC](https://forum.thousandbrains.org/t/thoughts-on-emergent-behavior-in-groups-of-cortical-columns/834/1 "2025-11-11T17:40:36Z")

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Here, FWIW, is a short ChatGPT session on emergent behavior in groups of cortical columns:

###### I said:

ISTR that attempts to model collective behavior in animals (e.g., flocks of birds, schools of fish) were eased by the realization that the modeling needed to focus on a single animal’s strategies (e.g., place my wingtip(s) in a certain relationship to the neighboring birds). So, the behavior emerges from the context. It strikes me that the behavior of cortical columns may need to be thought of in a similar manner: until a substantial number of columns (and their neurons) can be simulated, the lack of context may stand in the way of modeling interesting behavior. Discuss.

###### ChatGPT said:

You’re remembering a key insight from the study of **self-organizing systems** : if you try to model the entire flock/school/herd as a _global_ entity, the model quickly becomes unmanageable. But if you switch to **local rules** —what a single bird or fish does based only on its nearby neighbors—complex collective behavior emerges naturally.

This analogy maps very well onto cortical columns and the challenge of modeling the neocortex. …

> **[ChatGPT - Modeling collective behavior](https://chatgpt.com/share/691372a2-5594-8005-be54-499720fb7e93)**
>
> Shared via ChatGPT