Cecil
Muse
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2002
- Messages
- 990
This is an offshoot of the Number Freaking thread:
Ant colonies exhibit surprisingly complex behaviour, which emerges from a set of simple rules. In fact, it is almost as though the colony itself is the organism, and the ants merely cells. For example:
* When the nest is damaged, the ants all band together to repair it.
* Older ants will "teach" young ants how to follow trails to food, often at considerable expense to themselves.
* Colonies can learn from past events. If the nest is destroyed, they will rebuild it; if the nest is subsequently destroyed again, the rebuilding will be faster the second time.
* The colony will find the most direct route to food over time. Ants lay scent (pheromone) trails when returning with food to show other ants where to go. Say there are two trails to the food, one short and one long. More return trips will be completed along the shorter path, making the pheromones stronger. This will cause ants to follow the shorter path preferentially.
* Older colonies seem more experienced. When food is dropped in the vicinity of the nest, they will quickly find it and organise for it to be transported into storage in the most efficient manner. Younger colonies are more disorganised and try different methods each time. Note that this is a different idea than the colony's finding the most direct route to the food over time.
* Colonies have intricate highway systems. Of course the ants carrying food need to return along the preexisting trail itself (it's better to have a narrow strong trail than a wide, weak one). However, since the ants not carrying food back to the nest travel faster, they will travel off to the side of the trails so as not to cause traffic jams.
* Aphids eat leaves and secrete a sweet liquid called honeydew. Some species of ants will protect aphids from predators and move them around to the best grazing locations in order to harvest this liquid. Leafcutter ants "farm" fungi, growing it in experimentally determined optimal conditions inside the nest.
The most amazing part of this, to me, is that all these behaviours are emergent from a set of simple rules. Ant colonies are anarchistic - there is no control system other than the brains of individual ants. This gives me great hope that neural networks will pan out as viable models of intelligent systems.
What do you think? Are ant colonies intelligent?
Or perhaps the question that is more on my mind now, do you think it's possible (in theory) for an ant colony to be conscious? Is there a fundamental difference between one group 10^11 neurons that communicate directly with each other, and 10^7 groups of 10^4 neurons each that communicate with each other through a dozen or so different signals?
Ant colonies exhibit surprisingly complex behaviour, which emerges from a set of simple rules. In fact, it is almost as though the colony itself is the organism, and the ants merely cells. For example:
* When the nest is damaged, the ants all band together to repair it.
* Older ants will "teach" young ants how to follow trails to food, often at considerable expense to themselves.
* Colonies can learn from past events. If the nest is destroyed, they will rebuild it; if the nest is subsequently destroyed again, the rebuilding will be faster the second time.
* The colony will find the most direct route to food over time. Ants lay scent (pheromone) trails when returning with food to show other ants where to go. Say there are two trails to the food, one short and one long. More return trips will be completed along the shorter path, making the pheromones stronger. This will cause ants to follow the shorter path preferentially.
* Older colonies seem more experienced. When food is dropped in the vicinity of the nest, they will quickly find it and organise for it to be transported into storage in the most efficient manner. Younger colonies are more disorganised and try different methods each time. Note that this is a different idea than the colony's finding the most direct route to the food over time.
* Colonies have intricate highway systems. Of course the ants carrying food need to return along the preexisting trail itself (it's better to have a narrow strong trail than a wide, weak one). However, since the ants not carrying food back to the nest travel faster, they will travel off to the side of the trails so as not to cause traffic jams.
* Aphids eat leaves and secrete a sweet liquid called honeydew. Some species of ants will protect aphids from predators and move them around to the best grazing locations in order to harvest this liquid. Leafcutter ants "farm" fungi, growing it in experimentally determined optimal conditions inside the nest.
The most amazing part of this, to me, is that all these behaviours are emergent from a set of simple rules. Ant colonies are anarchistic - there is no control system other than the brains of individual ants. This gives me great hope that neural networks will pan out as viable models of intelligent systems.
What do you think? Are ant colonies intelligent?
Or perhaps the question that is more on my mind now, do you think it's possible (in theory) for an ant colony to be conscious? Is there a fundamental difference between one group 10^11 neurons that communicate directly with each other, and 10^7 groups of 10^4 neurons each that communicate with each other through a dozen or so different signals?
