Dhw (quoting) "You have hundreds of these ants, and somehow they have to reach a consensus," Pratt said. "How do they do it without anyone in charge to tell them what to do?"-Pratt likened individual ants to individual neurons in the human brain. Both play a key role in the decision-making process, but no one understands how every neuron influences a decision."-dhw: Hm...cooperation, using information from the past, weighing options, making a choice, consensus, no-one in charge, like neurons...Hardly a description of automatons, is it?-DAVID: They are following plans and responses they have been given. But they also develop instincts, a process we do not understand. Note the bolded colored sentence. They have to be in comunication with each other somehow, and just as your mind weighs choices and reaches a conclusion, so do they. Since they don't have language or speech, it has to be at a consciousness level.-Ants, just like cells, have their own form of language. Cells use chemicals, and so do ants (pherosomes), and ants also use sound and touch. They do not work by telepathy. Thank you for acknowledging that they weigh choices and reach conclusions just as we do. Quite clearly these elements of their make-up transcend mere instinct. If you are following a plan, you do not have to weigh choices or make decisions. It would therefore seem that they are not automatons.