Natures wonders: insect migration (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 08, 2021, 15:16 (1079 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Your 'ability to interpret' is the author's algorithm

dhw: At last you agree that bees (and by extension, all other life forms) are provided with the ability to interpret, and not with a detailed programme telling them what they will perceive, how they will process the information (interpret it), what and how they will communicate with others, and what decisions they will take. No “algorithm” for any of that. Just the same autonomous processes as our own. Thank you.

Give an inch and take a mile. I didn't drop the idea of innate algorithms.

Ant bridge algorithm

DAVID: And I remind you the ants are part of necessary ecosystems providing food for all of life.

dhw: I remind you that according to you, your God specially designed the bridge-building programme for this particular species of ant. So if this particular species of ant was not able to build bridges, there would not be food for all? How did life survive before this particular species learnt to build bridges? Would your God have been unable to design H. sapiens if he had not programmed/dabbled bridge-building by this particular species of ant? Will the human race go extinct if this particular species stops building bridges?

For current food supply each small ecosystem melds into bigger ones so all can eat. Prior systems in the past were present to satisfy your usual compartmentalized-time complaints.

dhw: 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.

dhw: Once more: 50/50, but you go for 100% no, and still you refuse to bbexplain 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.[…]

DAVID: While you totter on your intellectual fence, I take a side based on my ability to reason and conclude which is most likely correct. Sorry you can't do that.

dhw: And now, using your undoubted ability to reason, please explain the difference between the cognitive, sentient, purposeful, sensory, information-processing and decision-making activities of bees and ants – other than time and scale – and our own, bearing in mind that the God-given “algorithm” is the ABILITY to interpret, and not all the individual interpretations of all the individual pieces of information.

You are again mincing around about the word algorithm. Language theory suggests we have a syntax algorithm as a counter example.