[ExI] ants again

[spike]

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2014 3:20 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] ants again

 

>…Awesome! I must admit I did not know this - hymenoptera is not my main field of study.

It could be that ants work like state machines. In the normal state they forage, defend the nest, and bite hands that handle them. In the ant war state it is all about identifying enemy ants, ignoring other stimuli. I wonder how they come down from it?

 

Very interesting question.  I had a replay today: spent the afternoon at the saddest place, took a break, found another ant war in progress not very far from where yesterday’s battle took place.  This time I managed to get several instances where ants continued their mortal combat on the surface of my hand.  The singleton ants were again looking around for another ant to fight rather than a me to bite.  I came to a conclusion similar to Anders’ observation: perhaps ants have some kind of simple switch with no reasoning process to speak of.  They are in war mode, something scoops them up, they have no means of changing modes from ‘fight another ant’ to ‘hey, a hand, let’s bite it.’

 

I can think of a whole bunch of cool experiments to determine how they transition back to defend the nest mode.  Or if some transition back while others are still fighting.  Or if a queen just randomly decides OK, enough battle, then she sends out some kind of pheromone that commands them back to their posts.

 

That whole ant war business is a hell of an interesting phenomenon if you think about it.  Humans wage war, chimps have what Ann Druyan has described as more of a rumble or gang fight, seldom resulting in serious injury but definitely groups working in teams.  Ants definitely fight to the death.  Then they come back and clean up all the corpses.  Most puzzling.  Do they eat them?  Why do they take them away?  Does each side take away only their own?  Why?  Does any other species engage in war?

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being a good god for warring ants makes one appreciate that the theodicy problem isn't easy for gods to handle. Of course, maybe God is now posting pictures of the Middle East to a hyperdimensional forum where vast entities are using it to discuss the weird behavior of 3D creatures and whether this tells them anything about how the existence of metadivinities?



Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University

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