The Hive Mind

RoyalesThaRula

Yes I think there are definite similarities, but we need not stop at the boundaries of "the individual".
There are many writers in the life sciences involved with a "top down" approach (the whole is greater than the sum of the parts). See for example references to Varela. The Gaia concept represents an ultimate level of discourse in which the whole earth acts as an ecological unity.

Hmmmm. I think I've seen this thread somewhere else....

I'm not sure about your initial axiom 'basic instinct is stay alive'. I think that's a tad meaningless with simpler organisms, I can't imagine it being passed through genes to offspring. Things like 'flee when you feel pain' are more probable. Otherwise bugs would eventually evolve to the point where they wouldn't splatter on my windscreen.

Just whistling in the breeze too.

Hingehead I think you're missing the point.
How many HIVES do you see splattered on windshields?

I don't think I missed the point - I just don't think the hive has a mind. I believe that individual behaviours within the hive give the impression that the hive as a whole is guided, but it's not. I don't think an ecology has a mind, it's in a state of dynamic equillibrium. I don't think evolution is directed though many people look at, say, a peacock and think that to get something so beautiful and complex must have required direction (dare I say 'intelligent direction').

Anthropomorphism is an easy trap to fall into.

I would say the compelling drive of any organism would be reproduction; without that the whole excersize not only would be pointless, the session wouldn't last very long. Any organism is at root a life-support system for whatever means that organism employs as a reproduction strategy. Everything else is trimming.

Unfortunately, in the hive case, most of the individuals will never reproduce.

Those that don't help those that do with the trimmings - in fact, those that don't are trimmings.

If they could fly I reckon I'd hit one :wink:

Because most of the individuals don't need to, in order for the hive to survive.


Of course sex drives an organism. Survival of it's species certainly considered higher priority then themselves, but still they must be alive in order to reproduce in the first place.

Hmm perhaps the first thing an animal thinks, is to re-produce.

Most animals cannot reproduce until they reach some mature form - therefore your proposal about reproduction being the first thing it thinks of is wrong - unless they don't think until their balls drop or they ovulate....

Exactly.

Everything before maturation is just lessons. Observations. Kids dont realize they're thinking. I'm sure most people can agree that their was a time in their life when they realized they were thinking alot more than usual, after puberty. Before they realized this though, the only thought they'd have is "that bitch is smokin, i want her" or "I'm hungry, cold, in pain, hot, in danger". All basic survival aspects, can they really be considered thoughts?

BumbleBee Economics
This is one of my all time favorite books.---BBB

Bumblebee Economics
by Bernd Heinrich

Book Description

In his new preface Bernd Heinrich ranges from Maine to Alaska and north to the Arctic as he summarizes findings from continuing investigations over the past twenty-five years by him and others into the wondrous energy economy of bumblebees.

Reviews of the previous edition: This is a remarkable and rewarding book, complementary to, yet in some respects going far beyond, its predecessors. It is highly recommended.

Caryl P. Haskins, New York Times Book Review: Extraordinary the implications of work such as Heinrich's seem to me more resonant than the promise of a rich harvest of new research.

Fred Hapgood, Harper's Magazine: A magnificent book that combines the best of both writing and science.

Matthew M. Douglas, Quarterly Review of Biology: Heinrich has performed a masterful job of sharing his personal research efforts and those of others in his field. He has written an extremely interesting book and in the process has shown how one kind of organism can be used as a model to investigate behavior, physiology, ecology and evolution. Bumblebee Economics should serve as a model for good scientific writing.

About the Author

Bernd Heinrich is Professor of Biology at the University of Vermont. He has written several memoirs of his life in science and nature, including One Man's Owl, and Ravens in Winter. Bumblebee Economics was twice a nominee for the American Book Award in Science, and A Year in the Maine Woods won the 1995 Rutstrum Authors' Award for Literary Excellence.
-----------------------------------------------

Other books by Bernd Heinrich:

In a Patch of Fireweed : A Biologist's Life in the Field by Bernd Heinrich

Mind of the Raven : Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds by Bernd Heinrich

The Trees in My Forest by Bernd Heinrich

The Thermal Warriors : Strategies of Insect Survival by Bernd Heinrich

The Geese of Beaver Bog by Bernd Heinrich

RoyalesThaRula,
Well, I think the only similarity is that, the bee martyrs itself to save the hive really because it knows that as soon as it stings it will die. So you can compare that with someone who becomes a martyr, but you cannot compare the bee's activity of stinging to a human falling and getting hurt and the cells rejuvenating to make him better. Why? Because where the bee took the initiative, the cells did not as they were only programmed to perform. Why? The cells don't have a heart to make a decision and the bee does. And I believe that decisions are only made by a heart, the brain just performs or processes information. And the decision made and the info processed together constitutes the mind which is separate, that is how God knows everything and can feel everything as well.

I somehow doubt that the bee makes a decision, in the sense that you and I would call it a decision. In fact I'd call it a tropism - ie a fixed response to a given stimuli.

You don't choose a quickening heart rate when you have a near miss in your car.

RoyalesThaRula,
I forgot to add, it's a brilliant query you put up. Gives us a lot to think about. Thanks for sharing.

the death of the protector bee was a sacrifice for the rest of the hive. So by denying his own instinct he was filling out the instinct of the rest of the hive.

so the bee is not an individual.
Yet we see them as seperate creatures. I feel they're just seperate bodies for the hive. Why do bees make honey. What is honey, and how do they make it.

I feel bees make honey, the same way body cells keep us alive so we can use our senses. Using our senses is what makes our brain grow.

Where's the brain in a hive?