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Yesterday there was a link in HN regarding artificial intelligence, and a user raised an interesting question: if a ML algorithm can be considered conscious, could a group of people doing the equivalent calculations by hand be the same? I think that ant example answers that question with a strong "yes".
Reminds me of the "Tradition is smarter than you are" article that was posted here a few days ago. http://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2018/08/tradition-is-smar...
> The main idea behind complex systems is that the ensemble behaves in way not predicted by the components. The interactions matter more than the nature of the units. Studying individual ants will never (one can safely say never for most such situations), never give us an idea on how the ant colony operates. For that, one needs to understand an ant colony as an ant colony, no less, no more, not a collection of ants. This is called an “emergent” property of the whole, by which parts and whole differ because what matters is the interactions between such parts. And interactions can obey very simple rules. The rule we discuss in this chapter is the minority rule.
> The best example I know that gives insights into the functioning of a complex system is with the following situation. It suffices for an intransigent minority –a certain type of intransigent minorities –to reach a minutely small level, say three or four percent of the total population, for the entire population to have to submit to their preferences. Further, an optical illusion comes with the dominance of the minority: a naive observer would be under the impression that the choices and preferences are those of the majority. If it seems absurd, it is because our scientific intuitions aren’t calibrated for that (fughedabout scientific and academic intuitions and snap judgments; they don’t work and your standard intellectualization fails with complex systems, though not your grandmothers’ wisdom).
Of course in this context the grandmothers' wisdom is tradition in some way, as this is passed down by generations. Same as many practices in religion, some of which that might have been useful at some time (like not eating pig meat, because one would get sick quicker as pigs might eat anything they would find).
I live in Thailand and my girlfriend is Buddhist. Often I just go with the flow with regards to Buddhist practices, even as a non-believer, cause there might be some real use for these practices that I don't understand as a non-believer. At the very least it will make the Thai people in our village accept me more whenever they see me doing the same actions as my girlfriend at our local temple (burn incense, "pray" to some statue, etc...).
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[0]: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
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In some ways that's what collonialism is. It doesn't happen as much these days but if/when we start colonizing other planets, that would be a form of countries (or unions) reproducing.
> It doesn't happen as much these days Oh, we still lay the eggs of new countries in the corpses of ones we kill.
For a sci-fi take on this, Children of Time and Children of Ruin, Adrian Tchaikovsky
At some point in the Children of Time book, ant colonies become domesticated and are cultivated into general computation "devices".
I definitely recommend the first book, but have yet to finish the second one.
Individual ants... except for the queen. How likely is it that the queen is acting as the memory of the colony?
(I don't think this is actually the answer—I agree that it's more likely that the memories are being held in the collective—but it has to be ruled out somehow.)
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Personally, I don't see any reason not to perceive a commercial company or other similar societal structure as an AI.
People think the company is ran by people but if they step ever so slightly out of the job description (against company interests) they get marked for replacement.
Yesterday there was a link in HN regarding artificial intelligence, and a user raised an interesting question: if a ML algorithm can be considered conscious, could a group of people doing the equivalent calculations by hand be the same? I think that ant example answers that question with a strong "yes".
This reminds me of the Chinese Room argument. Basically, it goes like that: I never took any Chinese lesson. However, suppose I obtain a huge instruction manual that tells me exactly which sequence of Chinese characters I should use to reply to any sequence of Chinese characters you (a native Chinese speaker) give me. Do I "know/understand" Chinese?
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> Main takeaway, very interesting analogy. Ant colonies are great examples of complex systems with emergent large-scale behavior. Indeed the same could be said about networks of neurons. Interesting to think of an ant colony as the sum of oscillations of signals. Indeed. I've long thought that an ant colony should be seen as a single individual, rather than a group. One part which can procreate, like the reproductive…
This point is made in the book "The Soul of the White Ant" by Eugène Marais, and is perhaps the primary thesis of the book. It is a fascinating book, and I can recommend reading it, though having been published in 1925, it is possible some of the information is out-of-date. https://www.amazon.com/Soul-White-Ant-Complete-Unabridged/dp... "White Ant" actually refers to termites, though the same principles apply. The bo…
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I was going to say you can also look at a country like this, with roads as veins, military as white blood cells, scientists/universities for brains, etc. But my theory falls apart with the reproduction system. We don't really reproduce other 'countries'. While with ant colonies, a single entity produces all the "cells", and also all the "embryos" to start their own ant colonies. In that sense an ant colony uses asexu…
> But my theory falls apart with the reproduction system. We don't really reproduce other 'countries'. Sure we do. The UK has a whole lot of offspring, for instance.