"People stand out for individual cognitive abilities while ants excel in cooperation."
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Ants vs. humans: Solving the piano-mover puzzle
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At some time in the perhaps not too distant future:
"And this, my fellow antians, is why humans went extinct..."
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It seems no efforts were made to limit nonverbal communication in the ants, which I find speciesist.Jennifer Ouellette said:
Also, that is the second-strangest piano I've ever seen.
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Portia would most certainly concur with the conclusion of this study.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Time_(novel)
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But wouldn't a group of ants "communicate" by default? And "do not communicate" equivalent would mean turning off their sense of scent and otherwise hindered set of ants? The group of humans that does communicate solves problems better, so wisdom of crowds continues to be the expected outcome.
"Let's put individual humans into a group and prohibit them from doing thing that is making group successful. Oh, look, group was unsuccessful!!! AMAZING!"
"Let's put individual humans into a group and prohibit them from doing thing that is making group successful. Oh, look, group was unsuccessful!!! AMAZING!"
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I feel like this is an incorrect statement. The 3rd statement isn't because of the previous 2 sentences, but is because of the 2nd half of the 3rd.
The reason why an ant colony is referred to as a super-organism is because their pheromone based communication behaves a great deal like the communication between the nervous system and the body parts of a single large organism.
That said, at all times the ants are in full communication with each other, so I'm not sure exactly what we learn by comparing them with humans that have most of their advantages removed.
In a way this study isn't about ants at all, we didn't learn anything new about them, it's more about humans?
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Humans don’t do a good job communicating through pheromones. Those who’ve tried are often ridiculed…
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"if human's don't communicate, they experience none of the benefits of communication"
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The Doctor: They could communicate only by precisely modulated gastric emissions.
Emma: Oh no! Planet of the Bottom Burpers! So what happened to them?
The Doctor: They discovered fire.
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In case anyone who does not know this book yet:
Gödel Escher Bach
Wherein a colony of ants is used as an example for emerging intelligence.
Gödel Escher Bach
Wherein a colony of ants is used as an example for emerging intelligence.
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Presumably they were on a management training course, and the experimenters told them it was a team-building exercise.
Oh, wait, you said the ants, not the humans. In that case, the method would be far less ridicious: they probably coated the object in sugar.
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And from the top, we (humans) can look very similar to ants (without carrying a piano):
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHt36EY9_Uc
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHt36EY9_Uc
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I've been wanting to move a giant 'T' into my house, but haven't been able to figure out how. Do these ants have some spare time? I can't pay, but will provide free pizza and beer.
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"Their pheromone based communication takes neither load size versus door size nor load rotations into account, and thus deems a major part of their collective navigation strategy useless." The researchers' premise is that ant communication lacks the vocabulary to articulate the specific details relevant to success in the task.But wouldn't a group of ants "communicate" by default? And "do not communicate" equivalent would mean turning off their sense of scent and otherwise hindered set of ants? The group of humans that does communicate solves problems better, so wisdom of crowds continues to be the expected outcome.
"Let's put individual humans into a group and prohibit them from doing thing that is making group successful. Oh, look, group was unsuccessful!!! AMAZING!"
Maybe the researchers could have tried a version where the human participants a short list of approved pheromone-equivalent phrases, such as "come closer" and "go away", but they did try different limitations on nonverbal communication for the humans, using masks and sunglasses. I assume they wouldn't have done that if they hadn't observed the human participants using nonverbal communication.
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The humans where often restricted in communicating, and the article even states that when they could communicate they easily solved it. So this is nonsense.
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"A person can be smart. People are dumb, panicky and stupid, and you know it."
-- J.
-- J.
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From watching the embedded video, it clearly took a lot more ants (by at least an order of magnitude) to accomplish what humans accomplished in the roughly same amount of time. So even then, humans were 'per unit' far, far more efficient at solving the task. And that presumes the two videos were sped up the same amount.
And, of course, humans were also artificially hobbled by not being able to communicate in any meaningful way -- you know, that skill we developed and honed over millions of years to facilitate group coordination. So, metaphorically speaking, humans were competing with both hands tied behind their backs. And still managed to do quite well.
And, of course, humans were also artificially hobbled by not being able to communicate in any meaningful way -- you know, that skill we developed and honed over millions of years to facilitate group coordination. So, metaphorically speaking, humans were competing with both hands tied behind their backs. And still managed to do quite well.
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Ugh, I was helping my family move a large hutch over the holiday. If anything there was too much unhelpful, directionless communication and no synchronization. Things like one person shouting "tilt it clockwise" and then arguing that there's "no 'mine' or 'yours', clockwise is always clockwise!" at people facing opposite directions. I couldn't even get a "lift on 3" to work. I also had to stop to reiterate that counting to three before lifting wasn't a one time thing every time we set it down to adjust and reorient, at least one person would start heaving the second they got back in place and shout at the others not lifting yet. Some just shouting "do this! do what I'm doing!" through a vision blocking wall of wood.
traumatic flashback ends
traumatic flashback ends
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If you want to see a total breakdown of human communication, watch one member of a couple try to direct the other while backing a trailer into a tight space. Be aware that you may be watching the end of a marriage.
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My list of semi-unhelpful questions:
On the human side of the test, hot many of the test subjects were women?
Of the human test subjects were there any siblings?
At any point did the testers consider having an entire test group consist of a single family group?
I ask these questions because A- we know that human chemical communication is extremely poor but there are several degrees of non-verbal communication which are mostly subconscious but still effective (body language). B- women do work differently in a collective the men. C- as the paper stated, all the ants in the study were sisters with a very specific desire for the welfare of the group. One could suggest that the only way to replicate that desire in a basic human trial would be to have an actual family group where the reward would not be to themselves but to the rest of the family.
On the human side of the test, hot many of the test subjects were women?
Of the human test subjects were there any siblings?
At any point did the testers consider having an entire test group consist of a single family group?
I ask these questions because A- we know that human chemical communication is extremely poor but there are several degrees of non-verbal communication which are mostly subconscious but still effective (body language). B- women do work differently in a collective the men. C- as the paper stated, all the ants in the study were sisters with a very specific desire for the welfare of the group. One could suggest that the only way to replicate that desire in a basic human trial would be to have an actual family group where the reward would not be to themselves but to the rest of the family.
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Nazonohito
Ars Centurion
Same reason people would... Because the one who is asking for help promised to buy pizza for everyone else.
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Ignoring the subtleties of this research for the moment, I'm reminded of an old sci-fi short story I read as a kid decades ago. A bunch of alien species are interested in meeting humans, who are new to the galactic federation. Aliens are discussing this weird quirk about humans, that's outside their own experience for species of advanced intelligence who can travel the universe: If you get humans in a big group, instead of having an improved collective intelligence, the human group... gets dumber.
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I have to say, I'm impressed the ants managed to figure out they needed to pull it out all the way to try starting with the other end. I didn't think they were able of doing that. Good job.
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Another angle (sorry): The ants did well because they had plenty of practice - moving big objects co-operatively is a necessary part of survival for the ant species. For humans, it was their first time moving without verbal or gestural communication. If the humans had had a few (or many) practice runs, human performance would probably improve dramatically.
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I agree with this, and think it also depends on the type of people, their experience and mindset. Myself and a bunch of friends once had to move a piano up and through an awkward route. We were mostly fit-but-not-strong and were mostly medics or had PhDs, and for way too long we all stroked our chins, walked around it pontificating, measuring lengths by eye and theorising about the smartest approach that would work first time. In the end one of the guys (who happened to be a big farmer) said that if it was him and 2 of his fellow farm-workers they would already have finished, and we just needed to grab hold and shift the darn thing. He was right.
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Eusocial animals blur the definition of "organism." So do viruses blur the definition of "life."
Our cells work together because of chemical (and electrochemical) communication. So ant workers do the same. So what if inter-ant communication chemicals travel through air, where inter-cell communication travels through aqueous solution? So what if each ant worker is itself a collection of cells - each cell is a unit that itself communicates with its neighbors to function as a whole? We have multiple organs that could survive on their own for a while with the right support infrastructure.
Try to think of a hundred different ways life can succeed, and life has already thought of them and a thousand more.
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About the same if we took away a human's internal neurotransmitter and hormonal communication. Not pretty. And we know this. Ant colonies die when that happens.
If you consider worker ants as individual organs in a whole organism, and their inter-unit communication to be over air instead of through aqueous solution (blood) or electrochemical channel (nerve), parellels can be seen.
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