The most breathtaking example of colony allegiance in the ant world is that of the Linepithema humile ant. Though native to Argentina, it has spread to many other parts of the world by hitching rides in human cargo. In California the biggest of these “supercolonies” ranges from San Francisco to the Mexican border and may contain a trillion individuals, united throughout by the same “national” identity. Each month millions of Argentine ants die along battlefronts that extend for miles around San Diego, where clashes occur with three other colonies in wars that may have been going on since the species arrived in the state a century ago. The Lanchester square law [of combat] applies with a vengeance in these battles. Cheap, tiny and constantly being replaced by an inexhaustible supply of reinforcements as they fall, Argentine workers reach densities of a few million in the average suburban yard. By vastly outnumbering whatever native species they encounter, the supercolonies control absolute territories, killing every competitor they contact. (more)
Shades of our future, as someday we will hopefully have quadrillions of descendants, and alas they will likely sometimes go to war.
I think it might be more fruitful to better study, in great detail, how distress and pleasures are implemented in the human brain and then create a formalism to look for analogues in other systems.That seems reasonable. At least it gets away from the problemwhere every negative feedback system looks like it has animplicit "goal", and a thermostat with a low setting in a hot roomgets classified as being frustrated...
What does it mean to talk about the quality of lifeof our visual cortex?I think it's very colorful. ;)
What sized chunks would one even look within for analogs of pleasures and distress?I'm not sure to what degree it is about size, I think it might be more fruitful to better study, in great detail, how distress and pleasures are implemented in the human brain and then create a formalism to look for analogues in other systems.