Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA23707 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 21 Aug 2001 15:41:17 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D310174601C@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Coordinated behavior among birds, fish, and insects Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 13:20:52 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Filter-Info: UoS MailScan 0.1 [D 1] Sender: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
<The planets are not performing Keplerian calculations as they sweep
across
> the sky, and neither are birds in a flock. If they had to do the
> stupendously complex math involved, their brains would blot out the sky.>
>
The planets are responding to this very interesting new force you
might not have heard of called gravity.
<The naturalist Edmund Selous has studied flocking behavior in
dunlins. He
> found that one or two birds located somewhere in the flock would initiate
> a
> change in direction, and this change would then radiate through the flock.
> He tested their reaction time in a laboratory and found it to be at 38
> milliseconds. But the change in direction of a flock radiates from bird
> to
> bird at 15 milliseconds, more than twice as fast as their reaction time.
> Also, the 38 millisecond reaction is always arbitrary, unlike the
> precisely
> coordinated behavior of the flock.>
>
Reference please. Differences in measured reaction time is not a
problem for the basic point that birds that flock are capable of applying
simple mathematical rules in order to prevent the birds bumping into each
other. I don't know how reaction time were tested, but we know, for
example, that motor racing drivers have faster than average reaction times
than ordinary drivers. Is it not possible that a bird's reaction times in
flight are faster when in a flock than when flying alone, and that the
direction of movement is relatively arbitary when flying solo, and not when
in a flock.
<As schools of fish demonstrate, there's no individual in charge of
the
> group. The fish in the front of the school might seem to be leading it
> until the whole school makes a sharp left turn, and suddenly the "leaders"
> are the fish who happened to be on that side. When a predator arrives on
> the scene, the school will sometimes engage in a "flash expansion," which
> looks kind of like a bomb going off. The fish dart away from the predator
> in as little as .02 seconds. Yet they never collide. They behave as a
> single organism whose parts are coordinated.>
>
First, I bet there are occasions when fish collide. Never is a
dangerous word to use in science. Second, again, the same basic rule of
thumb applies for fish as for birds. There isn't necessarily a "leader" in
a flock of birds either. Look at a herd of Wildebeast on the plains, when a
lion starts a charge they all wheel off in generally the same direction- the
ones that gety eaten are those that either can't keep up, run the wrong way,
or fall over. The fact is these things are not perfect, flocks of birds,
shoals of fish, herds of animals, crowds of people, roads full of traffic-
they all demonstrate patterns in their movements, but those patterns are not
perfect- some birds lose their flocks (especially on long migratory
flights), some fish lose their shoals, some Wlidebeast go the wrong way,
some people get trampled in crowds, some cars crash.
<This group-mind effect is revealed in the arch-building behavior of
> termites. Researchers commonly observe termites building columns, and if
> one column is close enough to another, then the termites, at a certain
> height, will begin building the columns together into an arch. Though the
> termites are blind, and none of them are running back and forth between
> the
> columns to measure the difference in their locations, the two columns
> always
> meet up perfectly. It was assumed that the termites use their sense of
> smell to guide the columns together, but when Eugene Marais stuck a steel
> plate between two columns, he found that they still matched perfectly.
> Marais also discovered that all the coordinated activities of the termites
> are somehow facilitated by their queen. Even if the queen is isolated
> from
> the workers in a compartment, when the queen is killed, all work instantly
> stops.>
>
Wouldn't all social insects disperse on the death of the central
queen? Reference please.
<Phenomena such as this can only be explained according to the field
model.>
I don't see why. You're not seeing the trees for the wood, seeing
immense complexity that "must" be the product of something more than the sum
of its parts, when it categorically doesn't need to be. Does MR apply to
the tree line?
<Sheldrake has never suggested that traffic jams are caused by
morphic fields
> (though morphic resonance with past drivers might cause a progressive
> improvement in our ability to drive safely).>
>
Might or should? Either this theory applies universally or not at
all, it can't apply to just those things you want it to.
Apologies for the intensity of this discussion, it's not personal on
my behalf, I'm just enjoying the intellectual fencing.
I have a feeling that the problems of MR are related to the problems
of memetics, that some have suggested, namely- why have the theory at all?
What does it add that isn't covered by other well established, and
empirically supported theories? Etc. This discussion is a good work-out for
those kinds of arguments.
Vincent
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