How do animals/microbes communicate?

i know i'm approaching a bird nest, by the noise an adult bird makes, so i can understand at least some bird language

If there are microbes that eat hydrocarbons and expel carbon dioxide then logically there are microbes that eat iron or rock and expel oil. I see a complex language in this, a language of life itself. All of life is a book, with paragraphs and sentences formed by tiny nearly imperceptible words.

They don't communicate. They take in chemicals and emit chemicals.

Even if the language may be Greek or Yiddish there is a language of emotion conveyed also.

They may transfer bits of communication in the way they alter these chemicals, after all the words stored in our brains are just chemicals too.

Maybe they do. But, I think there'd be evidence of this.

Rex, pass the pipe.... <grin>

I'm pretty sure that's communication though. A few months ago, the New Yorker ran a sotry by E. O. Wilson about the history of an ant colony. Ants use pheromones to tell each other where to find food, how strong their enemy ant colonies are, and a number of other things. I highly recommend the article.

Absolutely!!


We are just prejudiced against chemical communication because we invented a whole other language.

We still communicate by chemicals, too, though, despite ourselves.

Now I'm imagining a teacher-ant with a stern look on her face pheromoning to a student-ant: "Humans don't communicate; they only emit and receive soundwaves."

Ok, but the ants communicate so that something can be achieved. What do the microbes achieve en masse?

lol haha

That is hilarious!

They have massively influenced all life on earth.

In multiple ways.

Just one example. Look at the Black Death.

Probably gradually led to European democracy.

How? Killed a third of the population of the UK and Europe.

Massive dearth of peasants. Peasant labour became scarcer and hence more valuable...peasants began to revolt and generally act up. They got killed a lot for their pains, but it is arguable that the Black Death was of enormous importance in gradually leading to the end of feudalism.


There are lots of books on the subject...eg:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel

Yes!!!!

We also have emotional expressions which literally change the brains of those observing them (the mirror neurones...now becoming expanded to the mirror system.) (As do lots of animals...but we don' know about their empathy neurones yet...I bet the great apes have them.)

I wonder if ants have expressions?

"They're too big to support intelligence as we know it. They're all Mongoes."

Nothing. I also don't believe microbes communicate over long distances. (Unless you use the word "microbes" so loosely that your cells and mine qualify. We're all bunches of one-celled organism strung together through biochemical communication. (And some bioelectrical communication.))

I wonder if the old chicken and egg conundrum can be changed to did life precede the physical world?

I am always amazed by the worlds perception that evolution springs out of the elemental and chemical physical world. It certainly seems that way.

I know the controversy that to put the cart before the horse and state that life existed before the big bang is contrary to many scientist's beliefs.

One does not have to deny evolution to still believe that some form of life preceded the big bang. That there was some sort of space bug with a fulcrum geared to gather time, dimension, space and infinite mass to itself to release it in a controlled way as to facilitate the universe with conclusive characteristics and properties so as to produce life (in its image) that can carry out the designer's ultimate purpose.

Evolution still calculates into that model and instead of the universe's purpose being shrouded in darkness it gives one a consideration that this universe may have intelligent secrets for one to discover. Not based upon a model where darkness and emptiness preceded the universe but a living unique possible intelligent organism preceded the big bang.

If nothing is created or destroyed then when we were born our "soul" was not unique and when we die nothing can be destroyed.

I cannot imagine that on the edges of the universe that information is not being lost and that thee is not a war of words and "corruption".

Iron rust, metals/elements burn and decay matter is created and destroyed in the eyes and design of the creator.

Does that creator need to be God? The creator can be a servant or messenger (angel) just as we are created/born of a fertilization process and reproduction that we do not necessarily consider as "God" either...

The reason why I mention all of this with creation and intelligent design is that it seems actually when we look at the philosophy of the out in the world perceptions of science the elements and chemistry are devoid of life.

I think even plants barely make it into what is considered "living" such that some refer to them as "still life".

Did Darwin make our universe seem dead? Do people devalue living things and the universe around them? Most people will argue that Darwin connected us to other living creatures but at the same time did he disconnect us from life beyond our universe's boundaries? One may think of a black hole as a certain part of the universe where the universe's DNA codes for that. Is the universe itself a huge brain and organism that lives and breathes and communicates to us through a spectrum of perceptibility. What did the universe evolve from?