[ExI] anternet

[spike]

On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Subject: Re: [ExI] anternet

 

On 29/08/2012 03:27, spike wrote: 

 

COOL!


>.I assume you are immediately going to become an anternet hacker?
-- 

Anders Sandberg,
 
 
 
I tried Anders.  Those two orange trees you recall seeing in my backyard
have aphid-farming ants.  I noticed they run a subroutine: go up tree, get
nectar from aphid, take nectar down tree to nest, repeat until dead.
 
The ants have apparently no means of learning, for no matter what I tried to
do to them, they never could run any other program.  I used tanglefoot
ant-goo to make all the ants cross a narrow strip of paper to go either
direction.  Then I made what I call the double-straw experiment, where they
had to go through one of two tubes, which were not big enough for ants to
pass each other inside.  They got all tangled up in there, so I eventually
simplified it to two holes in the strip of paper, adjacent.  All they had to
figure out is for the holes to be one-way: always go thru the hole on the
right for instance, one hole for upgoing ants, one for downgoing ants.
 
I was most disappointed with them really.  No matter what I did, they never
could figure out how to make both holes into one-way paths.  I tried
dividing the holes with a strip of tanglefoot, I tried coloring them
differently so they could tell the difference, no use.  These little beasts
that can somehow manage to get a completely different beast to hand over
nectar cannot figure out something so simple as making two adjacent paths
into one-ways.  Instead they get all wadded up and piled on top of each
other, many of them getting caught in the damn tanglefoot, generally looking
like the billion stooges.
 
spike
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