4 ms·

A little off topic, but something I've been pondering a lot lately is the relationship between eusociality (the colony structure you find in bees, ants, termina

A little off topic, but something I've been pondering a lot lately is the relationship between eusociality (the colony structure you find in bees, ants, terminates, and 2 known mammal species) and intelligence. We can clearly see a difference between an ant or an ant colony and a human being, so the eusocial behavior cannot really be defined as intelligent. And in insects, the behavior is biological, not learned. And the interesting behavior is exhibited by the entire colony, not the individuals themselves, yet the idea that the colony has a mind is really not supported by our understanding of what a mind is. Yet outward traits of eusocial colonies and intelligent creatures are eerily similar in many ways. What gives?

tehchromic 6y ago
What gives is the extra status we automatically pad to the idea of human intelligence to make ourselves feel special. Anthropomorphic padding.
- betwixthewires 6y ago
  That might have a little to do with it, but it can't be the entire explanation. Human beings can send a man to the moon in a tin can. This has got to have something to do with intelligence. Ant colonies cannot do that. This comparison is now reminding me of Starship Troopers...
  - circlefavshape 6y ago
    I don't think that's a good argument. For 90% of the time that homo sapiens has existed we didn't even have pottery
  - vbezhenar 6y ago
    Where's the threshold? For thousands of years humans just hunted and gathered. They used primitive tools. I would argue that ants had more sophisticated behavior at that time.
  - tehchromic 6y ago
    Humans are also causing a planet scale extinction event. That's the opposite of intelligence by any philosophical definition.
bch 6y ago
You might enjoy Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid[0], which discusses this. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach
AnHonestComment 6y ago
Today I learned bee dances appear genetic in syntax, but the bees appear to evaluate if the dance “makes sense” before acting on it. They also have a “mental map” of the area. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_learning_and_communication https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_learning_and_communicati...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Firaxus 6y ago
If you like science fiction, Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep prominently features this idea.
- betwixthewires 6y ago
  Thank you! I looked into the book and it looks very interesting and I'm going to read it!
- chrisweekly 6y ago
  See also Tchaikovsky's "Children of Time", it's awesome.
cameron_b 6y ago
You might also enjoy Honeybee Democracy The author goes miles deep on the subject of swarming and how a few thousand bees decide -all together- to inhabit a new home. Very meaty, with clear presentation of years of research. https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780691147215 https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780691147215
chrisco255 6y ago
Your body and brain are a collection of cells. None of those cells are what we would call intelligent on their own. Intelligence is an emergent property of a system of cells. Ant and bee colonies act as superorganisms (since they all depend on their queen for reproduction) and therefore the apparent intelligence emerges at that social level.
- betwixthewires 6y ago
  I understand what you're saying but that's not what in getting at. It is a little hard to articulate exactly what I'm curious about. So in the insect species', the eusocial behavior is genetic. Worker ants are more closely related to their sisters than they would be to their daughters, the enforcement mechanisms in their systems are done by chemical communication, the pheromones are coded by DNA and can even differ slightly in different colonies. It is very very complex. You get behaviors in colonies that are very interesting, such as farming fungus in leafcutter ants (different species farm different species of fungus and use different plant material, and in many cases the fungus species only exist within the ant colonies). It is like the genetics of the colony itself is some sort of intelligent mechanism. This cannot really be called "intelligence". But we intuitively see a similarity with intelligence when we look at it that we cannot quite nail down. A brain of another animal does intelligent things, but with human beings we do something more that we consider the defining feature of our intelligence: we create things, synthesize things, go into space, all sorts of things. This behavior cannot be definitively chocked up to increased complexity of neurons. What is the commonality with all this stuff? Is there some connection between the mechanics of amino acids and intelligence? What fundamentally about the universe makes it so that intelligence occurs inside it? It's all really interesting stuff.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    It is interesting stuff, but humans are only more intelligent by degrees. All animals and organisms must exert some sort of adaptability to their environment or they are DOA. Our brains are certainly fantastic developments, but we also see this sort of emergent intelligence in AI, so it doesn't necessarily depend on amino acids. There, we see electronic neural nets achieving much of the same behavior. To me, intelligence is a system. It can be a network of neurons embodied in an individual, a colony of ants, or a group of programmers working on a startup. The system itself has inputs and outputs and needs to be viewed at that level. We can view ant colonies as a coherent system. We can view individual organisms as a coherent system. The main difference between ants and humans is that each node in a human social system is more powerful and the bandwidth of information shared between each node is much richer. A lot of people point out that man can send a rocket to the moon, but really, only a civilization can do that. A tribe couldn't do it in a million years. They would lack the industry and the science and the labor and resources and technology to pull it off. Those systems can be viewed as having a sort of emergent, even if ephemeral, intelligence that requires massive amounts of cooperation and coordination to pull off.
Ruthalas 6y ago
What are the two mammal species, if you don't mind?
mellavora 6y ago
"yet the idea that the colony has a mind is really not supported by our understanding of what a mind is." so perhaps the problem is the current/popular understanding of what a mind is? which tends to be linked to a central nervous system, which rules out octopuses (a class of animals which display clear and compelling examples of intelligent behavior) or to be more general, which we tend to link to a nervous system, which rules out both eusocial colonies (as you point out) and plants (which show clear and compelling examples of changing responses to certain stimuli which if displayed by dogs would be called learning/intelligent behavior). Indeed interesting things to ponder
chrisweekly 6y ago
Related tangent: Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Children of Time" (and sequel "Children of Ruin") is first-rate scifi that explores these kinds of questions, featuring artificially-accelerated evolution resulting in hyperintelligent insect and arachnid societies. Highly recommended.

tehchromic 6y ago

What gives is the extra status we automatically pad to the idea of human intelligence to make ourselves feel special. Anthropomorphic padding.

betwixthewires 6y ago
That might have a little to do with it, but it can't be the entire explanation. Human beings can send a man to the moon in a tin can. This has got to have something to do with intelligence. Ant colonies cannot do that. This comparison is now reminding me of Starship Troopers...
- circlefavshape 6y ago
  I don't think that's a good argument. For 90% of the time that homo sapiens has existed we didn't even have pottery
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  Where's the threshold? For thousands of years humans just hunted and gathered. They used primitive tools. I would argue that ants had more sophisticated behavior at that time.
- tehchromic 6y ago
  Humans are also causing a planet scale extinction event. That's the opposite of intelligence by any philosophical definition.

bch 6y ago

You might enjoy Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid[0], which discusses this. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach

AnHonestComment 6y ago

Today I learned bee dances appear genetic in syntax, but the bees appear to evaluate if the dance “makes sense” before acting on it. They also have a “mental map” of the area. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_learning_and_communication https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_learning_and_communicati...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Firaxus 6y ago

If you like science fiction, Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep prominently features this idea.

betwixthewires 6y ago
Thank you! I looked into the book and it looks very interesting and I'm going to read it!
chrisweekly 6y ago
See also Tchaikovsky's "Children of Time", it's awesome.

cameron_b 6y ago

You might also enjoy Honeybee Democracy The author goes miles deep on the subject of swarming and how a few thousand bees decide -all together- to inhabit a new home. Very meaty, with clear presentation of years of research. https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780691147215 https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780691147215

chrisco255 6y ago

Your body and brain are a collection of cells. None of those cells are what we would call intelligent on their own. Intelligence is an emergent property of a system of cells. Ant and bee colonies act as superorganisms (since they all depend on their queen for reproduction) and therefore the apparent intelligence emerges at that social level.

betwixthewires 6y ago
I understand what you're saying but that's not what in getting at. It is a little hard to articulate exactly what I'm curious about. So in the insect species', the eusocial behavior is genetic. Worker ants are more closely related to their sisters than they would be to their daughters, the enforcement mechanisms in their systems are done by chemical communication, the pheromones are coded by DNA and can even differ slightly in different colonies. It is very very complex. You get behaviors in colonies that are very interesting, such as farming fungus in leafcutter ants (different species farm different species of fungus and use different plant material, and in many cases the fungus species only exist within the ant colonies). It is like the genetics of the colony itself is some sort of intelligent mechanism. This cannot really be called "intelligence". But we intuitively see a similarity with intelligence when we look at it that we cannot quite nail down. A brain of another animal does intelligent things, but with human beings we do something more that we consider the defining feature of our intelligence: we create things, synthesize things, go into space, all sorts of things. This behavior cannot be definitively chocked up to increased complexity of neurons. What is the commonality with all this stuff? Is there some connection between the mechanics of amino acids and intelligence? What fundamentally about the universe makes it so that intelligence occurs inside it? It's all really interesting stuff.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  It is interesting stuff, but humans are only more intelligent by degrees. All animals and organisms must exert some sort of adaptability to their environment or they are DOA. Our brains are certainly fantastic developments, but we also see this sort of emergent intelligence in AI, so it doesn't necessarily depend on amino acids. There, we see electronic neural nets achieving much of the same behavior. To me, intelligence is a system. It can be a network of neurons embodied in an individual, a colony of ants, or a group of programmers working on a startup. The system itself has inputs and outputs and needs to be viewed at that level. We can view ant colonies as a coherent system. We can view individual organisms as a coherent system. The main difference between ants and humans is that each node in a human social system is more powerful and the bandwidth of information shared between each node is much richer. A lot of people point out that man can send a rocket to the moon, but really, only a civilization can do that. A tribe couldn't do it in a million years. They would lack the industry and the science and the labor and resources and technology to pull it off. Those systems can be viewed as having a sort of emergent, even if ephemeral, intelligence that requires massive amounts of cooperation and coordination to pull off.

Ruthalas 6y ago

What are the two mammal species, if you don't mind?

mellavora 6y ago

"yet the idea that the colony has a mind is really not supported by our understanding of what a mind is." so perhaps the problem is the current/popular understanding of what a mind is? which tends to be linked to a central nervous system, which rules out octopuses (a class of animals which display clear and compelling examples of intelligent behavior) or to be more general, which we tend to link to a nervous system, which rules out both eusocial colonies (as you point out) and plants (which show clear and compelling examples of changing responses to certain stimuli which if displayed by dogs would be called learning/intelligent behavior). Indeed interesting things to ponder

chrisweekly 6y ago

Related tangent: Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Children of Time" (and sequel "Children of Ruin") is first-rate scifi that explores these kinds of questions, featuring artificially-accelerated evolution resulting in hyperintelligent insect and arachnid societies. Highly recommended.