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The foraging response to food is an example of a positive feedback loop, and familiar to anyone who has had a picnic ruined by a line of ants marching in single

The foraging response to food is an example of a positive feedback loop, and familiar to anyone who has had a picnic ruined by a line of ants marching in single file toward their meal. Seeing how hundreds of ants in a long line harvest a package of cereal high upon the shelf is an impressive sight, despite the food casualty . . . :-) Reading the article makes me want to heed the thousands of years old advise: Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. (Proverbs 6:6-8, NIV) IANAAE (I Am Not An Ants Expert), but even though colonies have queens, there is no central control from what I understand: There are about 10,000 species of ants. They all live in colonies consisting of one or a few queens, and then all the ants you see walking around are sterile female workers. And all ant colonies have in common that there's no central control. Nobody tells anybody what to do. The queen just lays the eggs. There's no management. No ant directs the behavior of any other ant. And I try to figure out how that works. And I've been working for the past 20 years on a population of seed-eating ants in southeastern Arizona. http://www.ted.com/talks/deborah_gordon_digs_ants/transcript#t-30000 http://www.ted.com/talks/deborah_gordon_digs_ants/transcript...

orthecreedence 12y ago
> even though colonies have queens, there is no central control This is important. A lot of times I describe to people how ants are a perfect example of a cooperative anarchical society, and they say "Well what about the queen!!" "Queen" is a misnomer. She is really just another ant whos job it is to lay eggs. This job tends to be less expendable than others, so the queen is more protected (from what I know), but she's still "equal" in the sense that nobody gives orders, everything is self-organizing.

orthecreedence 12y ago

> even though colonies have queens, there is no central control This is important. A lot of times I describe to people how ants are a perfect example of a cooperative anarchical society, and they say "Well what about the queen!!" "Queen" is a misnomer. She is really just another ant whos job it is to lay eggs. This job tends to be less expendable than others, so the queen is more protected (from what I know), but she's still "equal" in the sense that nobody gives orders, everything is self-organizing.