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From: dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu (Daniel Mocsny)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Theory for Life
Message-ID: <6536@uceng.UC.EDU>
Date: 28 Oct 90 19:08:32 GMT
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In article <26353.2729bf22@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> kuento@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu writes:
> - considering the
>numerical superiority of invertebrates on our own planet,

...not to mention in my apartment... ;-)

>Can you consider hive-or-nest-building a primitive technology?

A "complex system" consists of a large collection of similar,
relatively simple entities that interact with each other according to
a relatively set of rules/equations. Despite the apparent simplicity
with which we may describe the parts of the system, it may exhibit 
arbitrarily complex "emergent" (or "epiphenomenal") behavior. 

"Mind" may emerge from the interactions of a large number of relatively
simple neurons. Could it emerge from other complex systems?

Communication appears to be a determining factor in transforming a
collection of parts from a "colony" or "mob" into an "entity" or
"self". I.e., if each component part of the system has an internal
communication bandwidth which greatly exceeds the inter-part bandwidth,
then the capacity for the overall system to act like a unit probably
suffers.

This is intuitively observable in the behavior of human organizations
and communities. People have a hard time holding social structures
together---nations and businesses collapse, are overthrown, ethnic
groups balkanize, etc. This is easy to predict from the simple fact
that every particular individual enjoys a much richer communication
between parts of his own brain than with other brains. The result is
endless misunderstanding and conflict between humans. Conversely, the
more people "talk" to each other, USENET notwithstanding ;-), the more
likely they are to identify with a group than with themselves as
individuals. (More than just "talk" is involved, of course, since human
brains obtain information from the environment in several ways.)

In practical terms, the most essential component of all successful
social organizations is how well they manage information. In light of
modern organizational failures, one wonders how the great empires of
ancient times managed to "exist", or what this "existence" really
meant in the day-to-day affairs of people living in them. 

Getting back to the hive-mind possibility:

I suspect that any "Mind" emerging from a community of bees might not
develop much of an IQ. The problems:

1. The maximum practical size of a hive is limited. The human brain
has about 1e+11 components. A single bee is more complex than a single
neuron, of course. However, in terms of its interaction with the hive,
it is probably not vastly more complex. For the small system of
a few thousands of bees to become "Mind", each bee would have to 
embed a comsiderable degree of intelligence. This brings us to the
next problem.

2. Intra-bee communication is by neural pathways. This is several
orders of magnitude faster than inter-bee communication, which is
by tactile, visual, and chemical pathways. Unless bees can come up
with a way to "talk" faster, the overall performance of the hive-mind
will be very slow. If it is too slow, it will only be able to respond
to environmental phenomena that operate with slow characteristic times.
For example, the hive-mind can track changes in the location of the
best pollen fields. 

The slow inter-bee communication also probably limits the extent to
which the hive subsumes each individual bee. For example, each bee
is capable of existing in the real world (to some extent) independently 
from the hive. This is not possible at all for a neuron in the brain.
The hive-mind simply isn't fast and powerful enough to safeguard the 
momentary existence of each bee. Thus each bee must be a self-contained
survival machine. This gives each bee a self-interest and identity 
apart from the hive. To the extent that each bee can stand on its
own six feet, the hive-mind must be limited.


--
Dan Mocsny				Snail:
Internet: dmocsny@minerva.che.uc.edu	Dept. of Chemical Engng. M.L. 171
	  dmocsny@uceng.uc.edu		University of Cincinnati
513/751-6824 (home) 513/556-2007 (lab)	Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0171