Natures wonders: insect migration (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, December 16, 2021, 15:32 (1071 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: The only difference you can find between bee/ant form of learning and ours (apart from time and scale), is your rigid belief that in their case, all these processes are the result of vague algorithms, which is your posh-sounding word for what you used to call a 3.8-billion-year-old programme for every undabbled life form and natural wonder in life's history.

DAVID: And the comparison in humans is the inborn guide it language, however it works, remember? Guided algorithms exist.

dhw: I don’t know why you are trying to dodge the issue by bringing in human language. Humans learn their language just as bees and ants learn their language – from contact with and imitation of those who use the language! All life forms are born with the ABILITY to learn their language, and that requires autonomous perception, information-processing, communication, decision-making etc. Why do you think feral children learn to speak wolf language until they live with humans?

DAVID: Learning wolf language is no different than human language, given the child has a given innate primary facility residing in his developing brain.

dhw: You’ve got it at last! All life forms have their own language, and all life forms are born with the ABILITY to learn the language of the species they grow up with, which for some reason you are now calling an “innate primary facility”. There is no difference between their ability and ours, other than in the context of time and scale. That ability (perhaps God-given) requires the characteristics of intelligence that I have listed. See also the article you have posted under “cellular intelligence”.

DAVID: I'll agree with God given.

dhw: Good. I hope this means you now accept the concept of God-given intelligence in such life forms as bees and ants, though of course at a far lower level than our own.

I haven't accepted your version