[neilep (OP)]

Wocha Peeps,

See these insects ?

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Nice eh ?...notice how many in numbers and non-sentient (like us) they are ?

(In fact this is a piccy of fried insects....yeuchh !!)

It's pretty safe to say that if we (ewe and I) died tomorrow then the world would get along pretty OK without us....probably better !!! There may be the odd nuclear accident from a non-attneded nuclear station but suffice it to say the insects and wildlife would be pretty much Ok.


There's a whole load of insects out there...even more than a hundred and that's a lot !!

They reproduce with incredible frequency so, assuming with each generation there's a little bit of evolution involved , how come they're not the sentient beings on the Earth ?

Is it that they're so clever that they thought they'd leave it to us silly apes to sort it out ?

[another_someone]

You are not comparing like with like.  You are comparing a single species (Homo Sapiens) with a class of insects, that contains over a million different species.

Then there is a problem as to what do you consider a single organism?

We may look at a single ant, or a single bee, and judge them as simple organism.  But then you can look at the similar number of cells in the human bodies and consider them primitive.

We look at the human body, and we regard it as a single organism (in part) because every cell in the body contains the same DNA, and every cell co-operates in a common purpose.

If you look at a hive of bees, or a nest of ants, each ant or bee has the same DNA as every other bee in the hive or ant in the nest, and co-operates with the others that share their DNA with a common purpose.  So then, is the organism a single ant, or the nest of ants; is it a single bee, or the hive of bees?  If it is the hive or the nest that is deemed the organism, then is it fair to compare the sentience of a single bee or ant rather than the sentience of the entire hive or nest (a little like asking whether we should judge human sentience on the basis of a single nerve cell in the brain, or the effect of the co-operation of all of the cells within the brain).

Ofcourse, what one then ask, even further, whether the intellect of humanity may reasonably be judged by the individual human being, or by the power of co-operation of millions (now billions) of individual human beings co-operating to a common purpose.

[neilep (OP)]

You are not comparing like with like.  You are comparing a single species (Homo Sapiens) with a class of insects, that contains over a million different species.

Then there is a problem as to what do you consider a single organism?

We may look at a single ant, or a single bee, and judge them as simple organism.  But then you can look at the similar number of cells in the human bodies and consider them primitive.

We look at the human body, and we regard it as a single organism (in part) because every cell in the body contains the same DNA, and every cell co-operates in a common purpose.

If you look at a hive of bees, or a nest of ants, each ant or bee has the same DNA as every other bee in the hive or ant in the nest, and co-operates with the others that share their DNA with a common purpose.  So then, is the organism a single ant, or the nest of ants; is it a single bee, or the hive of bees?  If it is the hive or the nest that is deemed the organism, then is it fair to compare the sentience of a single bee or ant rather than the sentience of the entire hive or nest (a little like asking whether we should judge human sentience on the basis of a single nerve cell in the brain, or the effect of the co-operation of all of the cells within the brain).

Ofcourse, what one then ask, even further, whether the intellect of humanity may reasonably be judged by the individual human being, or by the power of co-operation of millions (now billions) of individual human beings co-operating to a common purpose.

THANKS GEORGE.

You are right. I am not comparing like for like. I am just asking a question about insect evolution and asking why they have not evolved akin to us ?

Yep, insects have lots of species...even more unusual then that they have not evolved to be of a sentience akin to the human species.

I didn't realise that ants and bees share the same DNA !..so...queeny makes a load of clones before we even get to clone a sheep !


I would like to think that human intellect can be judged individually because we are individuals though I am fully aware of the herd mentality in certain situations and the results of mass hysteria. We do have natural behavioral proclivities which can be predicted.

[another_someone]

I didn't realise that ants and bees share the same DNA !..so...queeny makes a load of clones before we even get to clone a sheep !

Indeed so.

I would like to think that human intellect can be judged individually because we are individuals though I am fully aware of the herd mentality in certain situations and the results of mass hysteria. We do have natural behavioral proclivities which can be predicted.

It is not merely mass hysteria that I am referring to, but that everything we do we do in co-operation.  Most of us, if we were dropped on a dessert island, would be dead in a few weeks.  Just as bees ant ants have specialist tasks, where some become workers, some become queens; so we as humans become specialists, and each of us perform a small task in the co-operative efforts of society.  There is no way which we could have developed the science and technology that we have if we did not co-operate.  On our own, each of us is even less than the apes that first dropped to the forest floor from the trees.  It is that 6 billion brains can collectively do what one brain could never do that creates the power that humanity has today.