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Bumble bees play, according to new research

phys.org

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Re: Bumble bees play, according to new research

#21

Post by brnaftr361 »

scoofy wrote: post #18

"Play" as a concept, is a clear social construct. The behaviors we call "play" is very obviously an innate instinctual behavior for humans, and is entirely plausible the same for bees. I see little here to suggest that this implies sentience apart from simple anthropomorphism.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the framework of the evolutionary dogma as I know it, this behavior wouldn't make sense. It comes at the expense of energy and time, yielding no benefit, and thus is a net detriment and should therefore be bred out of the species with the one exception being some sort of higher process like emotional gratification.

At least I can't imagine any sort of logical pattern where this improves fitness other than because it is emotionally gratifying, which I would posit necessarily intersects with biology beyond the very simplistic instinctual-automaton model.

Re: Bumble bees play, according to new research

#22

Post by scoofy »

throwaway3838g wrote: post #19
scoofy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's extremely hard to say, but I'd say it's hard to argue for sentience when the neural system is so small. This is a serious problem in philosophy. The concepts of "philosophical zombies" is a hard problem. The fact is that we could have perfectly "sentient behavior" from creatures/beings without any sensible consciousness involved. The sentience of humans is debatable, even though it is readily apparent th…

One could imagine that human’s would appear unconscious to a hyper intelligent alien species. Perhaps it’s all relative.

You're conflating consciousness with intelligence. The two are not the same.

One is the experience of qualia, and the ability to hold preferences.

The other is the behaviors associated with making predictions and intentionally manipulating the world to achieve tasks.

We have a hyper-intelligent chess engines that cannot be argued to be conscious. We also have small mammalian minds, like Koalas, that are dumb as a brick, but are very likely conscious.

Re: Bumble bees play, according to new research

#23

Post by nescioquid »

comfypotato wrote: post #17
nescioquid wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The researches adduce from those five findings that ball-rolling holds hedonic value for bumble bees. One of those findings was that ball-rolling is "intrinsically rewarding" to a bee. Isn't this what you call "begging the question"? It's hedonic because it is intrinsically rewarding. The article ends with the quote: "We are producing ever-increasing amounts of evidence backing up the need to do all we can to protect…

Begging the question is when you conclude one of your assumptions. “That it’s intrinsically rewarding” is a finding not an assumption. The study was definitely influenced by the popular notion of saving the bees, but that’s not a problem! I’d rather read about bees having fun than any other insect! I hope others feel the same and a friendlier sentiment towards bees (because of the study, a little bit) helps the whole…

They said that because there's no apparent reason for the behavior, it must be "intrinsically rewarding". Is that really a proven conclusion, or a working premise?

It's listed on equal footing with the observation that bees don't engage in the behavior under stress (also a finding). The later can be observed, while the former seems to need access to the inner experience of the organism.

Re: Bumble bees play, according to new research

#24

Post by nerpderp82 »

throwaway3838g wrote: post #19
scoofy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's extremely hard to say, but I'd say it's hard to argue for sentience when the neural system is so small. This is a serious problem in philosophy. The concepts of "philosophical zombies" is a hard problem. The fact is that we could have perfectly "sentient behavior" from creatures/beings without any sensible consciousness involved. The sentience of humans is debatable, even though it is readily apparent th…

One could imagine that human’s would appear unconscious to a hyper intelligent alien species. Perhaps it’s all relative.

I am hypo intelligent, but my coworkers definitely appear unconscious. Incomplete, ill-posed statement fragments over chat or better yet, in needless "sync" meetings.

Insects display unbelievable forms intelligence to anyone that pays attention.

Re: Bumble bees play, according to new research

#25

Post by throwaway3838g »

scoofy wrote: post #22
throwaway3838g wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could imagine that human’s would appear unconscious to a hyper intelligent alien species. Perhaps it’s all relative.

You're conflating consciousness with intelligence. The two are not the same. One is the experience of qualia, and the ability to hold preferences. The other is the behaviors associated with making predictions and intentionally manipulating the world to achieve tasks. We have a hyper-intelligent chess engines that cannot be argued to be conscious. We also have small mammalian minds, like Koalas, that are dumb as a bri…

That’s a good point. I suppose then, to a hyper intelligent alien species we would be the Koala’s, unintelligent but conscious.

Re: Bumble bees play, according to new research

#26

Post by scoofy »

brnaftr361 wrote: post #21
scoofy wrote: post #18

"Play" as a concept, is a clear social construct. The behaviors we call "play" is very obviously an innate instinctual behavior for humans, and is entirely plausible the same for bees. I see little here to suggest that this implies sentience apart from simple anthropomorphism.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the framework of the evolutionary dogma as I know it, this behavior wouldn't make sense. It comes at the expense of energy and time, yielding no benefit, and thus is a net detriment and should therefore be bred out of the species with the one exception being some sort of higher process like emotional gratification. At least I can't imagine any sort of logical pattern where this improve…

I mean, I'm no expert, but I think this position is more than a bit rigid. We know that evolutionary development probabilistically yields maximized efficiency, but we also know there is plenty of room for drift and it can be a bit random.

E.g. anti-fragile behaviors likely yield the best outcomes, even if they are less efficient, because the ultimate evolutionary failure is extinction (not death). Highly regular, efficient behavior are great for the individuals survival, but terrible for the species survival.

Re: Bumble bees play, according to new research

#27

Post by comfypotato »

nescioquid wrote: post #23
comfypotato wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Begging the question is when you conclude one of your assumptions. “That it’s intrinsically rewarding” is a finding not an assumption. The study was definitely influenced by the popular notion of saving the bees, but that’s not a problem! I’d rather read about bees having fun than any other insect! I hope others feel the same and a friendlier sentiment towards bees (because of the study, a little bit) helps the whole…

They said that because there's no apparent reason for the behavior, it must be "intrinsically rewarding". Is that really a proven conclusion, or a working premise? It's listed on equal footing with the observation that bees don't engage in the behavior under stress (also a finding). The later can be observed, while the former seems to need access to the inner experience of the organism.

You sound interested enough that you might enjoy bits of the actual paper [1].

They didn’t exactly say the bees stopped playing under stress. Instead they said the behavior isn’t a stress response (they know this because they eliminated stress from the environment). Also, the evidence that it’s inherently rewarding is bolstered by the pattern of interaction with balls. It increases over time and then drops (typical of play), and it is unrelated to mate/food finding.

It’s very difficult to know what animals are thinking. The scientists say multiple times in different ways that none of this is conclusive (the longest section regarding knowing the behavior isn’t function-related). That being said, it’s a well designed experiment in my opinion. I think they did a good job of setting it up so that we can conclude: “why else would they roll the balls?”

1. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Samadi-Galpayage/public...

Re: Bumble bees play, according to new research

#29

Post by comfypotato »

scoofy wrote: post #26
brnaftr361 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the framework of the evolutionary dogma as I know it, this behavior wouldn't make sense. It comes at the expense of energy and time, yielding no benefit, and thus is a net detriment and should therefore be bred out of the species with the one exception being some sort of higher process like emotional gratification. At least I can't imagine any sort of logical pattern where this improve…

I mean, I'm no expert, but I think this position is more than a bit rigid. We know that evolutionary development probabilistically yields maximized efficiency, but we also know there is plenty of room for drift and it can be a bit random. E.g. anti-fragile behaviors likely yield the best outcomes, even if they are less efficient, because the ultimate evolutionary failure is extinction (not death). Highly regular, eff…

The play could also have benefits evolutionarily. While the behavior take energy, it teaches motor skills (which is more relevant to the younger bees who played more). I’m just using this (admittedly weak) example to show that play isn’t necessarily less than optimal behavior.

Re: Bumble bees play, according to new research

#30

Post by version_five »

scoofy wrote: post #16
csallen wrote: post #13

> …insects… are a million miles from the mindless, unfeeling creatures they are traditionally believed to be. Is it truly a common belief that insects are mindless and unfeeling? I would imagine the vast majority of people, when polled, would guess that insects have some form of consciousness and feeling. Of course, that doesn't stop people from squashing or swatting them when they get in the way. In fact, it hasn't…

I think it's extremely hard to say, but I'd say it's hard to argue for sentience when the neural system is so small. This is a serious problem in philosophy. The concepts of "philosophical zombies" is a hard problem. The fact is that we could have perfectly "sentient behavior" from creatures/beings without any sensible consciousness involved. The sentience of humans is debatable, even though it is readily apparent th…

Is there something we know about the relationship between conciousness/sentience and the size of brain?

A computer neural network can be arbitrarily large and there is no evidence it will ever become sentient. While we're related to insects and afaik share some functions. I can definitely picture the idea of their conciousness just being a more basic version of ours. But I'm curious if there is some evidence or reasoning that actually conciousness emerges as some threshold gets crossed

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