From Ability to Inclination to Meaning — The Migration of Agency: 2 Ability at the Collective Level

Distributed potentials as the foundation of collective life.

At the base of the gradient of collective actualisation lies ability: the system-level horizon of possible actions instantiated by the structure and coordination of individuated units. In this domain, agency is not distributed relationally or symbolically, but architecturally and physically.

This post examines how colonial organisms and eusocial insects exemplify collective ability.

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1. Collective Ability Defined

Ability, in this context, is:

• A set of possible operations that the collective can perform.

• Distributed across components (cells, polyps, workers) rather than contained in any single unit.

• Emergent from architecture, morphology, and interaction patterns, rather than individual cognition.

In other words:

The system is the locus of agency. Individuals execute, but do not contain, the collective ability.

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2. Colonial Organisms: Distributed Life

Examples: Volvox, corals, bryozoans.

• Volvox: Somatic cells drive motility and environmental sensing, gonidia specialise in reproduction. Coordination emerges from flagellar coupling and extracellular matrix architecture.

• Corals: Polyps operate modularly, yet the colony’s ability to capture food, calcify, and survive environmental stress is a distributed property of the entire structure.

• Bryozoans: Zooids perform specialised tasks, creating a coherent colony capable of feeding, reproducing, and expanding.

Key feature: ability is inseparable from the collective architecture.

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3. Eusocial Insects: Caste-Structured Potentials

Examples: ants, termites, bees.

• Caste differentiation distributes functional capacity across the colony: workers forage, soldiers defend, reproductives propagate the lineage.

• Nest and hive architecture amplify distributed ability: tunnels, chambers, pheromone trails coordinate behaviour.

• Collective action is robust to individual loss, because ability is embedded in the structure and redundancy of roles.

In these systems, the colony functions as a superorganism, but superorganismality is structural, not perceptual: there is no central “self” guiding action.

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4. Key Themes

1. Emergent Coherence – The collective’s actions arise from interaction of structurally distributed parts.

2. Partial Individuation – Units are individuated enough to specialise, but their agency is subordinate to the collective.

3. Robustness through Distribution – Redundancy and architecture allow the system to maintain coherent ability under perturbation.

4. Minimal Perspectival Requirements – No unit needs to “understand” the whole; coordination is built into connectivity and interaction rules.

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5. Implications for the Gradient

Ability as a mode of collective life:

• Sits at the physical/structural end of the gradient.

• Provides the foundation for more complex alignment processes: once units acquire autonomy and attentional flexibility, inclination begins to dominate.

• Shows that coherence does not require cognition — structure alone can create emergent agency.

This contrasts sharply with vertebrate social systems, where physical distribution is insufficient and alignment of inclinations becomes primary.

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6. Conclusion

In colonial organisms and eusocial insects:

• Agency is a property of the collective, instantiated through distributed morphology, architecture, and role differentiation.

• Individuation is limited: components contribute but are largely subordinated to collective ability.

• Coherence is emergent, robust, and largely non-cognitive, highlighting the foundational role of structural ability in the evolution of collective life.

Next in the series, we will explore Post 3 — Inclination as the Pivot, moving up the gradient to vertebrate sociality, where agency is no longer embedded in structure but emerges relationally through alignment of individual inclinations.