Stigmergy
Etymology
Coined by French zoologist Pierre-Paul Grassé in 1959 to explain how termites build without a blueprint, from Greek "stigma," a mark, and "ergon," work. It named coordination in which the work already done guides the work still to do. It has since become a key concept in swarm intelligence and online collaboration.
noun · /STIG-mur-jee/
Coordination that happens indirectly, through traces agents leave in a shared environment rather than by direct communication.
What it names
A handle for how decentralized groups self-organize without a boss or a plan — ants via pheromone trails, editors via a shared document — where each mark left behind cues the next action.
Example
Wikipedia runs on stigmergy: no one assigns the articles, but each edit leaves a state that prompts the next contributor.
Related idea
A specific route to emergence: stigmergy names the indirect, trace-mediated mechanism, while emergence is the higher-order order that such interactions produce.