Decentralized Systems
A decentralized system has no central controller.
Each node operates according to local rules, responding to its immediate environment and neighbors. Global behavior emerges from these local interactions — not from any top-down instruction.
Examples
- Flocking birds — each bird follows three rules (separation, alignment, cohesion).
- Ant colonies — no ant knows the plan, each follows simple chemical signals.
- Markets — prices emerge from millions of individual decisions, not from a central authority.
In Design
Designing a decentralized system means designing rules, not outcomes. Each node’s local behavior is defined — what it senses, what it responds to, what it produces — and the system runs from there.
Related
Linked from
- Furniture MusicMusique d'ameublement (furniture music) is a term coined by French composer Erik Satie in 1917 for music composed to be actively ignored.
- Thing-CenterednessThing-centeredness is a design perspective that takes the object as the starting point for design, rather than the user or the system.
- GlossaryKey technical and conceptual terms used in this course.
- Week 3Sound Encyclopedia + Decentralized Systems12 May
- Week 4Écouter Presentations + Furniture Music19 May
- Week 8Furniture Music at the Lucid.Bar16 Jun