4 Comments

1. 

   acilius

    /  February 2, 2010

   I’ve always thought it was interesting to hear about the similarities between the ways colonies of social insects process information and the ways the brains of individual large animals process information. That makes it even more interesting to add some facts about the reasoning powers of individual members of those colonies. So one termite, for example, relates to the colony not as a neuron relates to the brain of a mammal, but as one of that brain’s organs relates to the whole.

2. 

   cymast

    /  February 2, 2010

   That analogy makes me ponder what people could be in relation to planet Earth. Nothing all that beneficial.

3. 

   acilius

    /  February 3, 2010

   Beneficial to whom?

4. 

   cymast

    /  February 3, 2010

   Nothing all that beneficial to planet Earth.