From: Chris Taylor (chris.taylor@ebi.ac.uk)
Date: Tue 08 Nov 2005 - 11:52:50 GMT
Nah -- she's channelling ;)
So there's the on/off switch; to flesh it out, for the hell of
it I did a Google 'I'm feeling lucky' on "emergence paper wasps
termites nest building local rules" and got
http://www-iasc.enst-bretagne.fr/PROJECTS/SWARM/Nest/Toulouse/JTB/jtb.html
which I haven't read more than the abstract of but anyway...
Derek Gatherer wrote:
> Here's Marais's orginal.
>
> http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/Marais1/whiteantch12.html
>
> In the middle section there is:
>
>
> "While the termites are carrying on their work of restoration on
> either side of the steel plate, dig a furrow enabling you to reach
> the queen's cell, disturbing the nest as little as possible. Expose
> the queen and destroy her. Immediately the whole community ceases
> work on either side of the plate. We can separate the termites from
> the queen for months by means of this plate, yet in spite of that
> they continue working systematically while she is alive in her cell;
> destroy or remove her, however, and their activity is at an end."
>
> So if there is a spooky field, it must emanate from the body of the
> queen. Therefore, it cannot be a property of the whole nest, but merely
> of the queen's individual body. Therefore it is not a holistic field at
> all. QED.
>
>
>
>>> The pheromones must be getting though the plate then. (Actually I
>>> dispute that the sound hypothesis has been ruled out. Where did you
>>> read that?)
>>
>>
>> I covered this one already! It is really straightforward, based on
>> actors following rule sets applied to _local_ stimuli without need of
>> intermediate-range signalling of any kind whether chemical or
>> vibrational knee-hearing or whatever.
>>
>> The plate was as you said _inserted_ implying that the mound's
>> development was already well underway, setting up a set of basic
>> conditions before intervention (point one). The actors continue to
>> follow _local_ rules of the form 'if you are confronted with X, do Y'
>> (point two). And incidentally, wrt the plate, they would essentially
>> ignore it as they have no programmed response to the smell/feel of the
>> plate. All you would see is a (predicatable given sufficient
>> [reductionist-produced] knowledge) minor distortion at the interface
>> of the mound and the plate -- correct?
>>
>> It all works just fine and such systems are extremely robust against
>> even the grossest of perturbations. There _is no issue here_. Next case.
>>
>
>
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