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Ants: Who looks after the injured in a colony?

uni-wuerzburg.de

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Re: Ants: Who looks after the injured in a colony?

#51

Post by altmanaltman »

ahahs wrote: post #41
altmanaltman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean that is an untestable claim right? Like we can only infer from their behavior and there is no absolute way to really understand what consiousness is and how other species experience it. So while yes they may love each other but love is a very complex emotion with specific meaning while what they do is more reactive actions that keep the herd safe instead of subjective affection. It is highly unlikely ants are…

You said its an "Untestable claim" yet you are sure its "highly unlikely" ants are capable of emotion. Which is it? I think you're wrong, and its painfully obvious that ants do indeed form a bond with their community. The proof is in the system.

> You said its an "Untestable claim" yet you are sure its "highly unlikely" ants are capable of emotion. Which is it?

It can be both, right? To the best of our knowledge, they are not likely to have complex emotions. We cannot test it due to physical and technological limitations.

You can argue the other way but "proof is in the system" is not a very sound one.

Re: Ants: Who looks after the injured in a colony?

#52

Post by [deleted] »

makeitdouble wrote: post #38
K0balt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ants are also a special case because the vast majority of ants cannot reproduce. Only the queen and drones are reproductive agents, 99.9 percent of the colony are non reproductive, so their investment in the survival of the colony is total, they have no individual agenda.

As I understand it, the individual vs the group situation is complicated by their shared genetic pool. I'd imagine it as having dozens of clones of myself, and one of them is tasked with reproducing for the rest of us. It sounds like a total lack of individualism, but if the offspring has my genes and is raised like me (potentially by me), how far is it from being my own ?

[deleted]

Re: Ants: Who looks after the injured in a colony?

#53

Post by nchmy »

KetoManx64 wrote: post #49
nchmy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

may i ask in what context youve been saying this? I suspect it aint ant colonies...

When an ant colony has damaged ants or isn't making enough ants it's just better to mass import ants from another colony.

just say what youre trying to say

Re: Ants: Who looks after the injured in a colony?

#54

Post by downwithbgp »

mallomarmeasle wrote: post #13

That is super cool. Unfortunately I cannot access the original article to see the methodology, but they mention using a system that can track individual ants in a colony of ~100. I wonder what kind of biometrics allow that. The ants do not seem to be tagged individually in the linked video: https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/fileadmin/uniwue/2026/0702Ameis... Not to be too speciesist, but the ants kind of all look the same…

You don't need access to the paper, their methodology is explained in the SI: https://www.pnas.org/doi/suppl/10.1073/pnas.2614400123/suppl...

Re: Ants: Who looks after the injured in a colony?

#55

Post by felineflock »

SoftTalker wrote: post #33
benjaminard wrote: post #17

And the injured ant just sits there and takes it, probably in pain, because I'm guessing it also knows that it's best for the colony. Fascinating.

I am doubtful that ants feel conscious pain.

Until the 80s, many medical professionals believed infants could not feel pain due to an underdeveloped nervous system and performed major invasive surgeries in babies without anesthesia. Doctors sometimes used paralytic agents to keep the infant completely still instead of pain relievers. It was horrifying when I found out about that.

Re: Ants: Who looks after the injured in a colony?

#56

Post by [deleted] »

mftb wrote: post #31
Frieren wrote: post #4

> The ants carry out prophylactic amputations. This not only protects the colony from infection but also doubles the survival rate of the injured workers. To keep everybody around you healthy makes the probability of caching a disease lower for yourself, too. Grooming behaviour in primates helps in the same way. And it is so important that it is linked to all kinds of mental rewards. To let disease run amok in your o…

Thank you for saying this. I've been saying this for years. No one listens.

[deleted]

Re: Ants: Who looks after the injured in a colony?

#57

Post by drekipus »

nchmy wrote: post #53
KetoManx64 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When an ant colony has damaged ants or isn't making enough ants it's just better to mass import ants from another colony.

just say what youre trying to say

He said it. Ants are just economic units and easily squishable/replaceable.

I don't think anyone is adding anything to it.

Re: Ants: Who looks after the injured in a colony?

#58

Post by drekipus »

afavour wrote: post #48
ahahs wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All beings have emotions and feel things. Especially love. It is not a specifically human thing to form attachments, have bonds, and share community.

I’d be careful labelling any of that “love” though. There’s certainly not any proof of ants “loving” each other, they have a community, sure, but that’s just doing what best serves their colony. I’d need more evidence to consider that “love”.

Try experiencing it yourself firsthand, first

Re: Ants: Who looks after the injured in a colony?

#59

Post by nchmy »

drekipus wrote: post #57
nchmy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just say what youre trying to say

He said it. Ants are just economic units and easily squishable/replaceable. I don't think anyone is adding anything to it.

No, ants are not the topic of discussion here... the original comment was extending the ant patterns to human communities, and the comment I replied to said they've been saying this for years (presumably about human communities). I'm trying to get rid of the misdirection and see exactly which ant colony practices people are saying should be done with/to human communities, and why.

Re: Ants: Who looks after the injured in a colony?

#60

Post by toss1 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #50
toss1 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, those three things are NOT the same. Exactly zero of those things you list also spread disease throughout the population, and are aggressively anti-science. They only arguably affect the person themselves and the overall HC costs. Moreover, for the active items you listed: driving, contact sports, skydiving, rock climbing, etc., nearly everyone doing them takes real precautions to minimize the health risks — thei…

Driving alone kills far more people every year than disease spread by anti-vaxxers. And injuries from driving are seen in emergency rooms every day. I'm not defending anti-vaxxers. But they are not a big problem. And you can get vaccinated yourself and worry even less.

>>Driving alone kills far more people every year than disease spread by anti-vaxxers

That is a seriously dubious claim. Just for COVID, or Influenza, deaths from nonvaccination are well into six figures per year in heavy years. While most of those can be attributed to the non-vaxxed person themselves dying of their own ignorance or obstinance, they also more widely spread the disease and many of those deaths are innocent bustanders, either those who can not get vaccinations for actual medical reasons, or for whom it doesn't provide full immunity. Even at the 10% level, the deaths from each are comparable.

The solution for non-vaccination is also a LOT easier than the solution for not driving — implementing full vaccination protocol is a LOT easier and faster to do than building full public transport system covering the entire continent.

Moreover, even if it existing stats show driving with higher deaths, it is irrelevant — two things can be bad and we should fix both, not just dismiss one because there is another evil. Most critically, that is also PAST data, so using it is driving in the rear-view mirror. The effects of growing non-vaccination compound and grow exponentially. When the numbers cross, it is already too late.

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