The Somatic Coma

Stigmergy is an interesting phenomenon, and also something very informative to the
understanding of modern human society. In short, it is the appearance of intelligence or coordination based purely on instinctive or automated reaction to an external stimuli; there is not actually a conscious or cognitive decision involved on the part of the reacting organism, or so it is assumed. Ants are one of the best models of the behaviour — they are capable of achieving very impressive feats that look, to the human estimation, like they would require some intelligent decision and coordination to accomplish, be it building bridges, ladders, rafts out of their own bodies,  creating complex tunnel systems within a variety of substrates, or practicing kinds of agriculture.