5 ms·

Ants are a good candidate for a second civilization. They live on every continent except Antarctica, they build complex structures, they invented argriculture m

by briga 9y ago

Ants are a good candidate for a second civilization. They live on every continent except Antarctica, they build complex structures, they invented argriculture millions of years before humans did (!), and they live in socially stratified societies. But I guess it ultimately comes down to your definition of what is a civilization. If we were to find evidence of an industrial civilization before humans we might not even recognize it as evidence, given how different it might be from ours.

mabbo 9y ago
> they live in socially stratified societies This is gross anthropomorphism. Ants don't have societies any more than the cells in our body have societies. An ant colony is an organism. Each individual ant has just enough neurons to do the one task that ant does. The overall organism is quite capable, true, but it's not intelligent. It doesn't learn novel things, it doesn't purposely invent, it doesn't 'know' anything. Ants may take over the world some day, but they won't know it.
- platz 9y ago
  Can ants form a boltzmann brain?
  - aalleavitch 9y ago
    They basically are one.
- 3131s 9y ago
  Ants pass the mirror test, which is something very few animals are capable of.
  - aalleavitch 9y ago
    Wait really? Do you have a source for this, I'd love to learn more.
    - ahakki 9y ago
      No source, but iirc the scientists applied a colored dot on the ants head. When they saw themselves in the mirror the started trying to remove it from their heads.
      - dogma1138 9y ago
        There are parasitic mites that attach themselves to ants and they look like a colored dot (usually red). I think the ant “thinking” that the dot was a mite is a much more plausible explanation than the that the ant is some how conscious with its cluster of like 3 and a half neurons
        zzbzq 9y ago
        Seems like the point was the mirror caused the response
        yaks_hairbrush 9y ago
        So the ant (allegedly -- I'm eagerly awaiting that source!) saw a dot on the ant in the mirror, and tried to remove the dot on its own forehead. The key point: that looks an awful lot like the identification of the self with the reflected image. The issue you brought up about the mite is a bit orthogonal to this point. I can give you that the ant was concerned about the possibility of having a mite, and the point still remains that the ant thought it was on its own head only on basis of a reflected image of itself. (Compare to the alternative behavior: the ant tries to get the mite off the reflected image, never making any attempt to remove it from itself.)
        ahakki 9y ago
        it was on hn a while back. the link is dead now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14146776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14146776 it’s on wikipedia, with the same dead source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test?wprov=sfti1 EDIT: Working link to the paper (in some journal of science): https://www.udocz.com/read/are-ants-capable-of-self-recognition-pdf https://www.udocz.com/read/are-ants-capable-of-self-recognit... http://difusion.ulb.ac.be/vufind/Record/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/219269/Details http://difusion.ulb.ac.be/vufind/Record/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot....
- scandox 9y ago
  Bruce Sterling’s story Swarm has a brilliant take on the collective that doesn’t have intelligence. Won’t spoil it by saying more but your comment brought it instantly to mind...
- Zaheer 9y ago
  If it doesn't invent / learn novel things, how did it learn the one task that it does today? Where does the leap from nothing to knowledge of that one task come in?
  - ItsMe000001 9y ago
    Mutation, genetic drift, gene flow, selection. The forces of evolution. Oh and lots of time and a huge amount of luck (not even ants can exist on Venus or Mars), but "luck" is just another word for selection bias, or looking backwards in time. > Where does the leap from nothing to knowledge of that one task come in? There is no sudden leap, only a huuuuuuuge number of tiny steps and lots of complexity of interactions.
- psyc 9y ago
  Such absolute statements are a reflection of your personality as much as your world view. I'd take the opposite view of all of this. That your body is a society, and society is an organism. You think the gp is anthropomorphizing. I think you're exhibiting species chauvinism, setting prejudiced goalposts.
  - 3131s 9y ago
    You're right actually. There were a lot of absolute statements being made, most of them contrary to what the actual evidence is. Ants pass the mirror test with flying colors -- 30 out of 30 scratched a colored dot off their heads when presented with a mirror, but did not if the dot was the color of their skin. The ants didn't do this when presented with a clear pane of glass with other painted ants behind it. The ants are able to pass the test a few days after birth, but not in infancy. From what I understand, the current thinking is that the ratio of brain mass to overall body size is much more predictive of intelligence than brain mass by itself. And there are odd cases too in humans like an individual with a severe case of hydrocephaly, with 95% percent of his cranial cavity filled with fluid pushing his brain matter to the sides of his skull, and this individual exhibited very high intelligence and majored in mathematics. There is a lot not known about the brain and animal intelligence, and I would not be surprised if we continue to find out amazing things about ants. I recommend an older book called "Ants at Work" by Deborah Gordon to get an idea of the complexity of ant behavior.
    - Zuider 9y ago
      There was a case of a French man who suffered from extreme hydrocephaly. He lived a normal life, despite an IQ of 75, was married with two children, and held a career as a civil servant. “It is hard for me [to say] exactly the percentage of reduction of the brain, since we did not use software to measure its volume. But visually, it is more than a 50 to 75 per cent reduction,” says Lionel Feuillet, a neurologist at the Mediterranean University in Marseille, France. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301-man-with-tiny-brain-shocks-doctors/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301-man-with-tiny-b...
- cema 8y ago
  I think you are fighting a metaphor with another metaphor. Saying that ants form a society indeed implies assigning them human characteristics (anthropomorphism) but saying that they are neurons basically suggests that there are common models to represent an ant colony as well as a neural system. Frankly, I am not sure that the latter approach is more helpful.
tmalsburg2 9y ago
Doesn't the fact that ants have already adapted to all kinds of environments suggests that they don't need to evolve civilization (whatever that is) in order to be successful?
runarberg 9y ago
Well many millions of years ago there was no Antarctica. Perhaps a civilization came about when there was only one continent, which has happened a few times throughout the earths history. Why would a civilization even be terrestrial, wouldn't an ocean living civilization be even more likely? Why does a civilization need to invent agriculture. Perhaps ever evolving hunting technics or even just a sudden massive change in diet could free up enough time for a mass population of a species to start concentrating their efforts on cross societal constructions. I'm not saying that there was an ancient aquatic civilization of squids that mutated plankton to swim to their mouths. But if we want to ask such an extraordinary question, we must not limit our self in such a way that it makes it easier to deny it.
- jobigoud 9y ago
  > Why would a civilization even be terrestrial, wouldn't an ocean living civilization be even more likely? There's a book about this, can't remember the name right now. Basically it looks at very ancient maps of the Antartica that have details that we only figured out in the 20th century with equipement allowing us to see through the ice layers. The book posits that there was a rather advanced civilization living before the last glaciation. It also posits that all the massive flooding mythology found in most human religions is actually stories transmitted by survivors of the previous era.
  - alcover 9y ago
    Barjavel - La Nuit des Temps ?
    - yoda_sl 9y ago
      Funny I just posted about it... the English name is “The Ice people”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_People_(Barjavel_novel) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_People_(Barjavel_nov... And yes a great sci-fi book, even so the civilization in question is just 900,000 years old not multi millions like the original article.
    - jobigoud 9y ago
madza 9y ago
Premise of a novel by Clifford D. Simak. Good read.
drdeadringer 9y ago
Ants can also count.
cpeterso 9y ago
The Hellstrom Chronicle is a 1971 pseudo-documentary about the threat of insects, due to their adaptability and rapid reproduction, to humanity. It won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It's available on Netflix DVD and YouTube. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hellstrom_Chronicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hellstrom_Chronicle

by briga 9y ago

mabbo 9y ago

> they live in socially stratified societies This is gross anthropomorphism. Ants don't have societies any more than the cells in our body have societies. An ant colony is an organism. Each individual ant has just enough neurons to do the one task that ant does. The overall organism is quite capable, true, but it's not intelligent. It doesn't learn novel things, it doesn't purposely invent, it doesn't 'know' anything. Ants may take over the world some day, but they won't know it.

platz 9y ago
Can ants form a boltzmann brain?
- aalleavitch 9y ago
  They basically are one.
3131s 9y ago
Ants pass the mirror test, which is something very few animals are capable of.
- aalleavitch 9y ago
  Wait really? Do you have a source for this, I'd love to learn more.
  - ahakki 9y ago
    No source, but iirc the scientists applied a colored dot on the ants head. When they saw themselves in the mirror the started trying to remove it from their heads.
    - dogma1138 9y ago
      There are parasitic mites that attach themselves to ants and they look like a colored dot (usually red). I think the ant “thinking” that the dot was a mite is a much more plausible explanation than the that the ant is some how conscious with its cluster of like 3 and a half neurons
      - zzbzq 9y ago
        Seems like the point was the mirror caused the response
      - yaks_hairbrush 9y ago
        So the ant (allegedly -- I'm eagerly awaiting that source!) saw a dot on the ant in the mirror, and tried to remove the dot on its own forehead. The key point: that looks an awful lot like the identification of the self with the reflected image. The issue you brought up about the mite is a bit orthogonal to this point. I can give you that the ant was concerned about the possibility of having a mite, and the point still remains that the ant thought it was on its own head only on basis of a reflected image of itself. (Compare to the alternative behavior: the ant tries to get the mite off the reflected image, never making any attempt to remove it from itself.)
        ahakki 9y ago
        it was on hn a while back. the link is dead now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14146776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14146776 it’s on wikipedia, with the same dead source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test?wprov=sfti1 EDIT: Working link to the paper (in some journal of science): https://www.udocz.com/read/are-ants-capable-of-self-recognition-pdf https://www.udocz.com/read/are-ants-capable-of-self-recognit... http://difusion.ulb.ac.be/vufind/Record/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/219269/Details http://difusion.ulb.ac.be/vufind/Record/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot....
scandox 9y ago
Bruce Sterling’s story Swarm has a brilliant take on the collective that doesn’t have intelligence. Won’t spoil it by saying more but your comment brought it instantly to mind...
Zaheer 9y ago
If it doesn't invent / learn novel things, how did it learn the one task that it does today? Where does the leap from nothing to knowledge of that one task come in?
- ItsMe000001 9y ago
  Mutation, genetic drift, gene flow, selection. The forces of evolution. Oh and lots of time and a huge amount of luck (not even ants can exist on Venus or Mars), but "luck" is just another word for selection bias, or looking backwards in time. > Where does the leap from nothing to knowledge of that one task come in? There is no sudden leap, only a huuuuuuuge number of tiny steps and lots of complexity of interactions.
psyc 9y ago
Such absolute statements are a reflection of your personality as much as your world view. I'd take the opposite view of all of this. That your body is a society, and society is an organism. You think the gp is anthropomorphizing. I think you're exhibiting species chauvinism, setting prejudiced goalposts.
- 3131s 9y ago
  You're right actually. There were a lot of absolute statements being made, most of them contrary to what the actual evidence is. Ants pass the mirror test with flying colors -- 30 out of 30 scratched a colored dot off their heads when presented with a mirror, but did not if the dot was the color of their skin. The ants didn't do this when presented with a clear pane of glass with other painted ants behind it. The ants are able to pass the test a few days after birth, but not in infancy. From what I understand, the current thinking is that the ratio of brain mass to overall body size is much more predictive of intelligence than brain mass by itself. And there are odd cases too in humans like an individual with a severe case of hydrocephaly, with 95% percent of his cranial cavity filled with fluid pushing his brain matter to the sides of his skull, and this individual exhibited very high intelligence and majored in mathematics. There is a lot not known about the brain and animal intelligence, and I would not be surprised if we continue to find out amazing things about ants. I recommend an older book called "Ants at Work" by Deborah Gordon to get an idea of the complexity of ant behavior.
  - Zuider 9y ago
    There was a case of a French man who suffered from extreme hydrocephaly. He lived a normal life, despite an IQ of 75, was married with two children, and held a career as a civil servant. “It is hard for me [to say] exactly the percentage of reduction of the brain, since we did not use software to measure its volume. But visually, it is more than a 50 to 75 per cent reduction,” says Lionel Feuillet, a neurologist at the Mediterranean University in Marseille, France. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301-man-with-tiny-brain-shocks-doctors/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12301-man-with-tiny-b...
cema 8y ago
I think you are fighting a metaphor with another metaphor. Saying that ants form a society indeed implies assigning them human characteristics (anthropomorphism) but saying that they are neurons basically suggests that there are common models to represent an ant colony as well as a neural system. Frankly, I am not sure that the latter approach is more helpful.

tmalsburg2 9y ago

Doesn't the fact that ants have already adapted to all kinds of environments suggests that they don't need to evolve civilization (whatever that is) in order to be successful?

runarberg 9y ago

Well many millions of years ago there was no Antarctica. Perhaps a civilization came about when there was only one continent, which has happened a few times throughout the earths history. Why would a civilization even be terrestrial, wouldn't an ocean living civilization be even more likely? Why does a civilization need to invent agriculture. Perhaps ever evolving hunting technics or even just a sudden massive change in diet could free up enough time for a mass population of a species to start concentrating their efforts on cross societal constructions. I'm not saying that there was an ancient aquatic civilization of squids that mutated plankton to swim to their mouths. But if we want to ask such an extraordinary question, we must not limit our self in such a way that it makes it easier to deny it.

jobigoud 9y ago
> Why would a civilization even be terrestrial, wouldn't an ocean living civilization be even more likely? There's a book about this, can't remember the name right now. Basically it looks at very ancient maps of the Antartica that have details that we only figured out in the 20th century with equipement allowing us to see through the ice layers. The book posits that there was a rather advanced civilization living before the last glaciation. It also posits that all the massive flooding mythology found in most human religions is actually stories transmitted by survivors of the previous era.
- alcover 9y ago
  Barjavel - La Nuit des Temps ?
  - yoda_sl 9y ago
    Funny I just posted about it... the English name is “The Ice people”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_People_(Barjavel_novel) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ice_People_(Barjavel_nov... And yes a great sci-fi book, even so the civilization in question is just 900,000 years old not multi millions like the original article.
  - jobigoud 9y ago

madza 9y ago

Premise of a novel by Clifford D. Simak. Good read.

drdeadringer 9y ago

Ants can also count.

cpeterso 9y ago

The Hellstrom Chronicle is a 1971 pseudo-documentary about the threat of insects, due to their adaptability and rapid reproduction, to humanity. It won the 1972 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It's available on Netflix DVD and YouTube. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hellstrom_Chronicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hellstrom_Chronicle