Animal Minds; termite automatic class recognition (Animals)

by dhw, Wednesday, March 21, 2018, 12:45 (2228 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTE: Non-royal termites – the overwhelming majority of any colony – behave differently towards kings and queens than to each other, but until recently the simple question of how they recognised royalty had been unanswered. (dhw's bold)

DAVID’s comment: A simple automatic set of controls for hive activity. No need for thought here. Termites are obviously sentient, but not thoughtful. Like ants, automatic.

So when all the chemical processes take place enabling me to recognize the Queen, and I behave accordingly, I am obviously sentient but not thoughtful? We do not judge intelligence in ourselves or other organisms by the chemical processes that take place in our bodies. The only criterion for intelligence is behaviour.