Natures wonders: Crocodile tools (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, December 08, 2013, 17:03 (4001 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: One-to-one teaching is not copy-catting, nor is it an example of species consciousness. Here is another short article that gives more details of the teaching process. Nothing like copy-catting. www.bris.ac.uk/news/2006/879.html-DAVID: Did you carefully read the last paragraph. I've seen the article before:
"The occurrence of teaching in ants indicates that teaching can evolve in animals with tiny brains. It is probably the value of information in social animals that determines when teaching will evolve, rather than the constraints of brain size."
Again that word information! It is a mix of information they contain in their brain and genome and it is a measure of the importance of useful information to be shared. The source of the initial slug of information when these animals developed their social status is what I keep requesting. They have intelligent information which they use, we all agree. Information developed by chance?-You love to juggle with "that word information". QUOTE: Professor Franks said: "We also believe that true teaching always involves feedback in both directions between the teacher and the pupil. In other words, the teacher provides information or guidance for the pupil at a rate suited to the pupil's abilities, and the pupil signals to the teacher when parts of the 'lesson' have been assimilated and that the lesson may continue."
There would not be much point in teaching if the teacher had no information to impart! Here is my interpretation of the research. Ants learn either from experience or from their fellow ants how to trace food sources, and they pass this information on to other ants by teaching them. We humans do the same. No luck, no instinct, no copy-catting, no species consciousness, but simply the deliberate passing of information from one organism to another, which many of us would regard as a sign of intelligence.-If your question concerning the source of the "initial slug of information" relates to the mechanisms which give the ant its intelligence, the answer may possibly be your God, but the point we are discussing is whether or not the one-to-one lesson is a sign that ants are intelligent in their own right. You readily accept observation and specialist research which shows crows, rats and dogs to be intelligent. Why do you unreservedly reject observation and specialist research that shows formic intelligence? As with birds, so with ants: "This means that bird brains can show us an alternative solution out of how intelligent behavior is produced with a different anatomy." (Lena Veit)