Natures wonders: Ant colony food finding (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 28, 2014, 17:46 (3830 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: The process of adaptation and innovation through cooperation between cells and cell communities has to entail a pooling of knowledge through communication. Maybe the ants' foraging can be seen as parallel to experimentation by cell communities (just as the cells of our individual organs must work out how best to deal with whatever changes our bodies are subjected to).-Again to the kidney. Those cells evolved to do complex work, but their sudden appearance in the Cambrian denies your cooperation theory. They suddenly worked together. Where was the time for negotiation and testing cooperation?-
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> dhw: And while the individual brain cell may not be "smart", put it together with a few billion others and between them they can produce a Shakespeare, a Beethoven, an Einstein. Of course, each brain is different, and some are "smarter" than others. Ditto ants, and ditto the cell communities that innovate.-First part of your comment is right on. Brain cells are so pliable they can produce. Cell commmunities, no. They are automatically in tight control of their productive capacities. They are production-line factories.