Natures wonders: insect migration (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, December 06, 2021, 13:48 (1081 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The author is exactly saying the new bee has an instruction manual to learn the dance meanings. He does not mention God but the source is an ID site.

dhw: But you agree that they watch the dance, learn the movements, experience what they are told to look for, and memorize all the information. If they perform all these actions, what could be in the “manual” other than your God (if he exists) telling them to use the autonomous ability he has given them to watch, learn, experience and memorize?

DAVID: The issue is the proposed algorithm's contents. The author implies as they watch the dance they automatically know what it means.

They don’t. According to the author, “Honey bees are able to interpret the dance after about one week.” A worker bee born in the summer will live for 6-7 weeks, so the period of learning would be our equivalent of about 10 years. Please stop hiding behind the author’s vague terms. How can the bee possibly know the meaning of the dance if it knows nothing about flowers, distances and directions? You have agreed that they watch and learn the movements, experience what they are told to look for, memorize information, and perform all the actions they have learned over this one-week period. Do you not agree that learning, memorizing, communicating, experiencing and putting theory into practice are characteristic features of intelligence?

Ant bridge algorithm
QUOTE: To see how this unfolds, take the perspective of an ant on the march. When it comes to a gap in its path, it slows down. The rest of the colony, still barreling along at 12 centimeters per second, comes trampling over its back.

dhw: My guess is that the other 149,999 ants would then fall straight into the water. […]

DAVID: You missed the point they automatically hold on to each other when stepped upon.

dhw: You missed the point that the author has missed the point that ants are not stupid. The first ant stops when it sees a gap (sentience and cognition), and other ants don’t go trampling over its back. They build on each other. The origin of the process of bridge-building – like all their other complex activities – requires cognition, sentience, purposefulness with sensory, communication, information-processing and decision-making capabilities. Once the technique has been perfected, it will be handed down – no doubt with adjustments to individual conditions. Once more: how does this differ from human activity, other than through time and scale?

DAVID: All animals are built to note danger. The first ant at a stream will automatically stop as he spots the danger. The rest with the same reaction pile on to go over.

All ants forage for food, so why don’t all species of ant automatically stop and build bridges when they come to gaps? Are you saying that your God specially chose eciton hamatum for his algorithm, because without one species of ant building bridges he could never have designed humans and their food (his one and only purpose)?

DAVID: Automaticity can explain all of it. We are still on the outside looking at a 50/50 probability, just as in cells.

dhw: 50/50, but you go on opting for 100% automaticity and refuse to answer my question. Once again: Intelligence requires cognition, sentience, purposefulness with sensory, communication, information-processing and decision-making capabilities. All these attributes of intelligence are required for ant bridges, farms, nurseries, cities, strategies for defence and attack. Leaving aside your fixed belief, please explain why – apart from time required and scale of building etc – these obvious attributes are different from those we observe in humans.

DAVID: Outward appearance still gives a 50/50 probability.

Once more: 50/50, but you go for 100% no, and still you refuse to explain why all the manifested features of intelligence exhibited by insects and bacteria and cells in general are different from those exhibited by humans, apart from time and scale.