Natures wonders: ants and other insects farm (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, May 07, 2020, 11:38 (1659 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: animals and plants have their own forms of cognition, memory, communication, information-processing, decision-making etc. – all elements of what we call intelligence.

dhw: Do you agree that these are attributes that denote intelligence?

DAVID: Same old discussion: below we are looking at the ants from the outside. What looks like innate intelligence can be simply following rules or in all animals and plants simple yes/no responses to automatic sensors triggering standard responses.

We look at all things except ourselves from the outside. We simply assume that we ourselves are autonomously intelligent and therefore so are our fellow humans (though sometimes even I have my doubts when I listen to the robotic speeches of our politicians). As for other life forms, we can only judge by their behaviour. Thank you for providing the wonderful example below:

QUOTE: “Ants seem to avoid the traffic jam trap by continuously adapting their traffic rules to suit local crowding, whereas car traffic follows invariable rules such as stopping at a red light regardless of traffic."

DAVID: Human traffic jams are the result of individual driver's decisions. The ants make group decisions as each individual makes the same move in coordination. I suspect a learned instinctual behavior based on standardized individual responses to stimuli, as shown in the bridge building study.

A fine piece of convoluted thinking. The quote shows us human beings following “invariable” rules, such as automatically stopping at red traffic lights. But we are intelligent. Ants are "continuously adapting" their behaviour to changing conditions. And you think that makes them automatons!