Ants That Can Count 162
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samzenpus
from the ants-plus-math-equals-doom dept.
from the ants-plus-math-equals-doom dept.
thisIsOdd writes "NPR had a recent report about scientists at the University of Ulm who suggest that ants in desert environments count to help them get to and from their homes. Because the desert's windiness and sandiness is not conducive the 'smell-trail' method, where ants squeeze certain glands that leave a chemical trail, scientists were puzzled by the fact that these desert ants were able to leave and successfully return to their nest. The theory is called the 'pedometer theory,' and the experiment used to test it involves manipulating the leg length of some of these ants. Ants with longer legs would pass the nest on the way home, and ones with shorter legs came up... well... short."
I felt a pang... (Score:5, Insightful)
that accounts for distance... (Score:4, Insightful)
but not direction. Like doing "dead reckoning" with pace but no azimuth.
Re:This doesn't prove ants can count (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This doesn't prove ants can count (Score:2, Insightful)
Experimental set-up raises a few questions (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm not being too serious here, but, even though these are just ants, wouldn't it be wrong to assume that I didn't arrive home with my legs cut off beneath the knee because of the resulting leg length?
I mean even though ants a just insects they are really complex mechanisms and there might be some form of damage reaction other than shorter steps after a partial limb loss - like general weakness and reduced desire to go anywhere at all?
Still, desert-roaming ants on stilts (I'm guessing that's how they've increased leg length) sound very much like new overlords we should better bow to ASAP..
Re:This doesn't prove ants can count (Score:3, Insightful)
What I was trying to say is that counting usually involves numbers. You could build a car engine (or do almost anything) without using numbers. Instead of knowing the clearance for a given part is say 11mm, you could just use a mark on blank ruler or other tool the find out the right clearance. I suspect something similar is going on with the ants.
Also, I am glad you specified that you were no drummer. Drummers can reproduce songs with thousands of hits on the drum pads over and over again without counting. Don't let the drummer counting "1-2-3" at the beginning of a song fool you. He could as well go "Pom, pom, pom" and it would work as well.
Re:This doesn't prove ants can count (Score:4, Insightful)
Math isn't just about a bunch of numbers. Push down automata can count (I know, it's incredible! Even more so considering they have no fingers) The program as I heard it basically described a behaviour which could easily be simulated via a push down automata.
As a drummer, you might be so accustomed to a particular rhythm that you don't count it out in the literal sense of counting out loud, but you do put eight strikes into a measure. Whether you acknowledge that as counting or not, it is still counting, it is just counting that you have become so accustomed to that you don't consider it counting because you need to reframe it in a different context before you can acknowledge to yourself that you are counting.
Rather than using your own logic to falsify the scientist's hypothesis, perhaps you should have listened to the details of the experiment and observed the results. You might have found a superior but alternate explanation, in which case you would have expanded the realm of possibilities a bit. You might even be able to suggest a follow up experiment to differentiate between the counting hypothesis and your alternative to determine which is more correct.
I take it that you haven't done much with functional programming languages, as there are often certain types of problems that are more easily solved in functional languages by counting in the manner of "one one one one one" (as five) than by actually storing a five.
And while I'm at it, trade doesn't require counting. Bartering might involve counting, or it might simply be a swap of my fishtank for your LP collection. However, the idea that we knew counting would be good for trade so we developed counting is a cunning bit of mental gymnastics; it's the mental equivalent of putting the cart before the horse.
Re:This doesn't prove ants can count (Score:2, Insightful)
Uuum... What you describe IS counting.
It’s astonishing to what lengths people go, to preserve their arrogant world view of “superiority”.
A hundred years ago, common “knowledge” was, that animals don’t “think” and have no “souls” or “emotions”. They thought they simply simulate it and are in fact basic automatons.
Well, nowadays we know, that we are basic automatons too. That thinking and emotions are merely mechanisms. And that there is no “soul”, nor a need for something like that.
Let’s play this game: I say: You simulate thinking too. Including counting! And I will your method of argumentation to defend it.
And you will try to prove that you really think and can count.
You will notice that as long as you play by my rules, you can’t win. ^^
Does it mean..? (Score:3, Insightful)
But does it mean that they can sort tiny screws in space?
Re:I felt a pang... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ditto.. something about humans and the way they treat life with utter contempt...
I could make the same argument about humans. "...something about humans and the way they treat all life as sacred..."
There are very few creatures on the planet that actually react with sadness when something is killed (other than their very close kin)
Re:This doesn't prove ants can count (Score:5, Insightful)
It's still not counting, though it can reproduce the effects. A calculator doesn't actually count (it's just bit switching), but it reproduces the effect. Granted it means that whatever it's doing can simulate the effect of basic counting, but it in no way represents the understanding of numbers
Well, this is science. These researchers had a hypothesis that ants can count and devised an experiment to test the hypothesis. Based on their assumptions, the evidence from the experiments support their hypothesis.
Your hypothesis is that it's not counting but something else. It seems the next step is for you to devise a way to isolate counting from doing a counting-like behavior in ants and do an experiment to test your hypothesis.
However in a way, you're just playing with the definition. What does "understanding of numbers" mean? And is it really integral to counting? If you use pacecounter beads (Ranger beads: http://www.instructables.com/id/Army-Ranger-Beads/ [instructables.com]), you are "counting" on a piece of string but not actually keeping numbers in your head. In fact, the whole point of those is that you don't have to keep track of numbers because it's hard to do when you're exhausted and have all the other soldier-things to keep track of. You could use these beads to go out some distance, turn around and come back the same distance. You wouldn't have to use numbers in your head, but counting is still being done.
Re:This doesn't prove ants can count (Score:3, Insightful)
The way I see it even though you aren't consciously thinking of the number of drum beats as they pass by, you are still perceiving that number of beats and keeping track of it somewhere in your sub conscious. You may not use the same system to count, but I would argue that any method which is used to keep track of an incrementally increasing value even when not specifically defined as a number is a form of counting.
Music is probably the most common form of sub conscious counting we have, what is counting if not pattern recognition? When counting a series of number all you're really doing is keeping track of your position in an already recognized pattern and then continuing that pattern when you reach a number you have never used before. The same thing happens when you repeat a song that you know from memory, keeping your position in the music-space of a song is akin to keeping your position in given number space while counting. Were just aware of it in different ways.
Back on topic, I don't the ants are consciously thinking one... two ... three in their minds as they walk (I doubt they have a stream of consciousness to the same degree that we do) but that doesn't mean they don't have some instinctive ability to keep track of their progress through a pattern. If it effectively does the same thing as counting then we might as well call it the same thing.
Re:This doesn't prove ants can count (Score:4, Insightful)
I admit I'm not a drummer, but I have played other instruments - surely if we're talking about an entire song rather than one bar, the person still has to count lines/bars (e.g., this bit happens 4 times, before going onto the next bit, and these two sections alternate two times)? This would be especially true if the drummer was playing on their own, without being able to rely on listening to the music.
Ants can count. The reason it sounds uncomfortable is because it might imply a comparison to how humans count - we do it using our sentient mind. I doubt that this is the case for ants. But even if it's done by some automatic mechanism, I don't think "counting" is unreasonable (I mean, we say that computers can count, even if it's just following an automatic process that a human set up).