Look for
Compression
Does one relatively simple variable summarize something about the state of a much larger system?
One way alignment happens
Shared signals and collective variables
Can a larger-scale condition be compressed into a signal that local parts can act on?
A shared variable can make the condition of a larger system locally actionable. Prices, bioelectric signals, stress signals, and collective variables can coordinate components without every component representing the whole system in detail.
Try seeing it
A signal can connect local action to a larger condition.
A price changes when conditions elsewhere in a market change and gives local participants a reason to alter their plans.
In biological systems, shared electrical or stress-related signals can make larger-scale conditions relevant to local cellular behavior.
The signal need not be a command from a central controller. It can be a variable produced by the interactions of the components themselves and then fed back into those interactions.
Look for
Local responsiveness
Can individual components change what they do in response to that variable without reconstructing the entire global situation?
Look for
Feedback
Do the components help produce the signal that subsequently changes their own behavior?
Mechanism caution
A useful signal can still leave important things out.
Compression inevitably selects what becomes visible to local action. Externalities, minority states, or other relevant differences can disappear from the signal.
A signal can also depend on an information-generating process that must itself remain healthy. Preserving the number while destroying the process that makes it informative is not enough.
A useful perturbation