Ant intelligence (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 04, 2013, 20:25 (4098 days ago) @ David Turell

GEORGE: This review of Thomas Nagel's book by his former teacher may be of interest: -http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.ca/2013/09/what-have-i-been-reading.html-It also has a bit about E. O. Wilson and ants.-DAVID: This article makes it sound like computer programming, not real thinking:-http://theconversation.com/weve-been-looking-at-ant-intelligence-the-wrong-way-17619-What constitutes "real thinking"? Perhaps you mean human thinking, as in the quote below ("the spectre of anthropomorphism").-QUOTE: We need to keep in mind that this is only our current level of understanding. Even insect brains are far too complex to be fully understood in the near future. Perhaps we will have misjudged the intelligence of ants just as much as we think Simon did. However, we know that continued bottom-up research is the principled way to pull back the veil on insect intelligence, without the spectre of anthropomorphism.-All we know is that there are forms of intelligence that are very different from ours, and much as we admire our own astonishing arts and sciences and technology and philosophy, the fact is that bacteria continue to outsmart us and will probably outlive us (maybe ants will too). Some folk believe all this intelligence came about by chance. Some folk believe it's only humans that can "really" think, and they believe there's a thinker that invented all thinking, and specially made us thinking humans, whereas all other forms of life are merely computer programmed robots (including the cells that make up our own human bodies). And there are some folk who discover that the more they think, the less they know. I doubt if ants or bacteria have that problem ... but maybe they just think differently from us.