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Ants are estimated to be arround 20% of all terrestial biomass, so clearly they are succesful. And yet, can the ant survive without the colony? Many individual

by cdirkx 7y ago

Ants are estimated to be arround 20% of all terrestial biomass, so clearly they are succesful. And yet, can the ant survive without the colony? Many individual ants are so highly specialized they cannot survive by themselves. Queens cant forage for food or defend themselves, there are soldier ants with jaws so large they require others to feed them and worker ants cant reproduce. Even we humans, sometimes touted as nature's best generalist, have become more and more specialized as we organized in larger and larger groups. We require others to produce our food, keep the lights on and help us when we are sick, too old or too young. Sure there are still people who survive on their own, but that is becoming rarer every day. Is that really a criteria for being 'alive'?

corodra 7y ago
Then your argument train of thought stops at the station of "there is one ant organism" and "there is one human organism". Yes, the inherent ability of surviving on one's own is important. An ant can. A Silicon Valley software engineer can. A Wall Street hedge fund manager can. However, it will not be long. Mostly due to their stupidity. Don't base disconnection of survival needs and general societal stupid as a way to define "alive" as well. The specialization factor creates ecosystems. Ecosystems are not organisms. We can draw parallels, yes. There are plenty of fun parallels. The same way we can draw parallels to galaxy clusters and the way an eyeball iris structure is formed. But let's not be silly about it. This is literally the joke Douglas Adams was making in Hitch Hiker's Guide. We are all not one big computer (organism) with one goal. What I'm trying to understand is the desperate want for "machines are alive" argument. It's now come to the point that a dead cat should be considered alive and a functioning human is now not alive? This is some serious post-modern logic that just blows my mind. Let's take it a step further. So an ant can't survive long outside of a colony, it's not alive. If you pull a fish out of water and it can't survive long, then it was never alive to begin with? But since some people can't survive in Alaska by themselves (or anywhere else isolated), that means humans aren't alive. Perhaps isolate someone by shoving their face in water and they end up not surviving long, they were never alive anyways. Because they couldn't survive outside their environment. Like an ant to a colony. Love to see that logic used in court. Oh but, because we still have the corpse, the person should still be considered alive, thus there was no murder to begin with.

by cdirkx 7y ago

corodra 7y ago

Then your argument train of thought stops at the station of "there is one ant organism" and "there is one human organism". Yes, the inherent ability of surviving on one's own is important. An ant can. A Silicon Valley software engineer can. A Wall Street hedge fund manager can. However, it will not be long. Mostly due to their stupidity. Don't base disconnection of survival needs and general societal stupid as a way to define "alive" as well. The specialization factor creates ecosystems. Ecosystems are not organisms. We can draw parallels, yes. There are plenty of fun parallels. The same way we can draw parallels to galaxy clusters and the way an eyeball iris structure is formed. But let's not be silly about it. This is literally the joke Douglas Adams was making in Hitch Hiker's Guide. We are all not one big computer (organism) with one goal. What I'm trying to understand is the desperate want for "machines are alive" argument. It's now come to the point that a dead cat should be considered alive and a functioning human is now not alive? This is some serious post-modern logic that just blows my mind. Let's take it a step further. So an ant can't survive long outside of a colony, it's not alive. If you pull a fish out of water and it can't survive long, then it was never alive to begin with? But since some people can't survive in Alaska by themselves (or anywhere else isolated), that means humans aren't alive. Perhaps isolate someone by shoving their face in water and they end up not surviving long, they were never alive anyways. Because they couldn't survive outside their environment. Like an ant to a colony. Love to see that logic used in court. Oh but, because we still have the corpse, the person should still be considered alive, thus there was no murder to begin with.