Ants Swarm Like Brains Think
A neuroscientist studies ant colonies to understand feedback in the brain.
By Carrie Arnold Illustration by Jonathon Rosen April 23, 2015
Excerpt 1: “The behavior of each individual in the group is set by the rate at which it meets other ants and a set of basic rules. Its behavior alters that of its neighbors, which in turn affects the original ant, in a classic example of feedback. The result is astonishing, complex behavior.”
Excerpt 2): “Feedback loops are everywhere on every level. They allow the system to realize that what it used to be doing isn’t working any more, and to try something new.”
My comment: See also: The Brain Is Broadly Wired for Reproduction and Feedback loops link odor and pheromone signaling with reproduction
In his comment on this article, Roy Niles claims that he has explained how purposeful systems evolved in bees, ants, and other species. Nothing with any explanatory power has come from him so far. His claim that “…each and all of the ants are born to fit within a hierarchy…” is more pseudoscientific nonsense.
In my model, nutrient-dependent RNA-mediated amino acid substitutions link ecological variation to ecological adaptations without ridiculous theories about “evolved” purposeful systems. For example, nutrient-dependent metabolic networks and genetic networks are linked via pheromones that control the physiology of reproduction and fixation of the amino acid substitutions.
See: Human pheromones and food odors: epigenetic influences on the socioaffective nature of evolved behaviors
Excerpt: Conditioned hormonal and behavioral responses to odors associated with food selection and conspecifics in mammals require something like the collective ‘neural networks’ of beehives. Philosophically and metaphorically, these neural networks extend to mammalian brains. The concept that is extended is the epigenetic tweaking of immense gene networks in ‘superorganisms’ (Lockett, Kucharski, & Maleszka, 2012) that ‘solve problems through the exchange and the selective cancellation and modification of signals (Bear, 2004, p. 330)’. It is now clearer how an environmental drive probably evolved from that of food ingestion in unicellular organisms to that of socialization in insects.
See also: Nutrient-dependent/pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution: a model
Conclusion: “Minimally, this model can be compared to any other factual representations of epigenesis and epistasis for determination of the best scientific ‘fit’.”
In my model, nutrient-dependent RNA-mediated amino acid substitutions link ecological variation to ecological adaptations without ridiculous theories about “evolved” purposeful systems. For example, nutrient-dependent metabolic networks and genetic networks are linked via pheromones that control the physiology of reproduction and fixation of the amino acid substitutions.
See: Human pheromones and food odors: epigenetic influences on the socioaffective nature of evolved behaviors
Excerpt: Conditioned hormonal and behavioral responses to odors associated with food selection and conspecifics in mammals require something like the collective ‘neural networks’ of beehives. Philosophically and metaphorically, these neural networks extend to mammalian brains. The concept that is extended is the epigenetic tweaking of immense gene networks in ‘superorganisms’ (Lockett, Kucharski, & Maleszka, 2012) that ‘solve problems through the exchange and the selective cancellation and modification of signals (Bear, 2004, p. 330)’. It is now clearer how an environmental drive probably evolved from that of food ingestion in unicellular organisms to that of socialization in insects.
See also: Nutrient-dependent/pheromone-controlled adaptive evolution: a model
Conclusion: “Minimally, this model can be compared to any other factual representations of epigenesis and epistasis for determination of the best scientific ‘fit’.”