Evolution puts state in spotlight [Kansas]

The Lawrence Journal-World ^ | 22 April 2005 | Scott Rothschild

[betty boop]

She proposes that bees have a "sixth sense" that gives them direct access to the quantum world of subatomic particles.

Amazing, Ronzo! I have speculated that much that we call "instinct" in animals -- bird migration patterns would be an excellent example -- derives from access to the quantum world as well.

Thank you so much for this fascinating post!

[betty boop]

I assume the "field" that carries the "message" is nothing more esoteric than the air.

But what if I were to say that the air itself is a field-mediated phenomenon?

[PatrickHenry]

But what if I were to say that the air itself is a field-mediated phenomenon?

I would regard it as yet another example of your charm.

[dread78645]

She proposes that bees have a "sixth sense" that gives them direct access to the quantum world of subatomic particles.

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

And there is another theory which states that this has already happened."

Douglas Adams

[Ronzo]

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

The universe is just God's way of keeping scientists fully employed.

[Ronzo]

Thank you so much for this fascinating post!

Your welcome betty. Prof. Shipman's idea might also help to explain collective consciousness.

Math and physics to the rescue yet again...

[js1138]

This is too weird. I'm outta here.

[PatrickHenry]

I'm outta here.

May the force be with you.

[dread78645]

"Move along. These aren't the droids druids you're looking for." placemark

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank y’all for this fascinating discussion! Great posts, betty boop and Ronzo!

Doctor Stochastic: Actually all that is needed is a trail of smelly chemicals.

PatrickHenry: I think it's been demonstrated that insects release "semiochemicals" into the air for rapid communication.

You guys are way oversimplifying Collective Intelligence. Collective Intelligence solves problems and has memory beyond the capability of the individual. The sum is greater than the parts:

Army Ants: A Collective Intelligence?

Put a hundred army ants on a flat surface and they will walk around in never decreasing circles until they die from exhaustion. But a colony of a million army ants is a sophisticated "super-organism." The colony carries out its legendary raids and can even keep nest temperatures constant to within a degree. An army ant colony seems endowed with an intelligence far beyond that of any individual ant. N.R.Franks speculates thus:

"It seems that intelligence, natural or artificial, is an emergent property of collective communication. Human consciousness itself may be an epiphenomenon of extraordinary processing power. Although experts prefer to avoid simplistic definitions of intelligence, it seems clear that all intelligence involves the rational manipulation of symbolic information. This is exactly what happens when army ants pass information from individual to individual through the 'writing' and 'reading' of symbols, often in the form of chemical messengers or trail pheromones, which act as stimuli for changing behavior patterns."

In the body of his article, Franks describes two remarkable capabilities of an army ant colony: time-keeping and navigation. The outward manisfestation of time-keeping is in the precise timing of the colony's nomadic phase of 15 days (during which larvae are growing) and the 20-day stationary phase (during which pupae develop). The queen's egg-laying also conforms with this schedule. Raids into the rain forest occur in both phases.

Perhaps more remarkable is the systematic orientation of the raids in the stationary phase. These raids are separated by an average 123°, as diagrammed. This scattering allows time for new prey to enter the previously raided areas. But how does the colony determine direction in the dense rain forest? Probably from polarized sunlight, thinks Franks. But here we have a problem: each army ant, instead of having multi faceted compound eyes like most insects, has just a single facet in each eye.

"The mystery is how the colony can navigate with each of its workers having such rudimentary eyesight. In my wildest dreams, I imagine that the whole swarm behaves like a huge compound eye, with each of the ants in the swarm front contributing two lenses to a 10- or 20-m wide 'eye' with hundreds of thousands of facets."

(Franks, Nigel R.; "Army Ants: A Collective Intelligence," American Scientist, 77:139, 1989.)

Comment. By analogy, the human body is a colony of individual cells, most of which are specialized in some way. Individual human cells can be grown alone, but they are as directionless as the 100 ants on the flat surface.

An attempt to model the behavior: Infinite World: Modeling Army Ants

Mathematicians are focusing on the question of Collective Intelligence, a relatively new and exciting area of research:

Collective Intelligence Laboratory

A formal definition of the phenomenon of Collective Intelligence and its IQ measure

Not surprisingly the direction of research is self-organizing complexity. Certainly that is part of the investigation, but there is more involved (the same things I keep mentioning on these evolution threads).

The difference here is autonomy - in this case, it is a collective rather than an individual or organism.

However, at all levels (individual, organism and collective) I now must also raise intelligence as an additional subject for investigation - both memory and problem solving ability. The Collective Intelligence of such creatures as Army Ants might be very helpful!

So the new "to investigate" list for biological systems is as follows:

information (successful communication)
autonomy (individual, organism, collective, universal)
semiosis (language, encoding/decoding)
complexity (self-organizing, functional, physical, Kolmogorov)
intelligence (memory, problem-solving)

[Doctor Stochastic]

PDF about Einstein's dissertation.

[Doctor Stochastic]

PDF concerning numbers on the Web.

[PatrickHenry]

PDF about Einstein's dissertation.

What could have possibly been the origin of the urban legend that he knew nothing about math?

[Doctor Stochastic]

Jealousy
Stupidity
Envy
Gluttony

[PatrickHenry]

You forgot lust.

[betty boop]

However, at all levels (individual, organism and collective) I now must also raise intelligence as an additional subject for investigation - both memory and problem solving ability. The Collective Intelligence of such creatures as Army Ants might be very helpful!

Jeepers, Alamo-Girl -- a new (and improved) "to investigate list!!!":

information (successful communication)
autonomy (individual, organism, collective, universal)
semiosis (language, encoding/decoding)
complexity (self-organizing, functional, physical, Kolmogorov)
intelligence (memory, problem-solving)

Well, that'll certainly keep us busy for a while! :^)

In going to your links, I noticed that it is the Russians who seem to be leading the field in the new discipline of "Collective Intelligence." It won't be long before someone cracks a joke about that....

Thanks so much for your excellent post!

[js1138]

Einstein's last wish, communicated to me via extra-dimensional quantum fluctuations, was that some folks should shave more often with Occam's Razor.

[PatrickHenry]

I thought you had abandoned this thread. Welcome back.

[js1138]

I'm lurking. I just don't feel like discussing extra-dimensional quantum doohickies.

Except for the mice.

[longshadow]

Except for the mice.

Keep your towel dry.

(I actually posted this to deny PH another "Prme Number placemaker" that was devisble by 100)