michaeleruleWed, Nov 19, 2008 Thats an good question, and I am not sure what to answer since the terms "conscious", "thought" and even "swarm intelligence" are poorly defined. Consciousness must occur on a continuum, though there may be some minimal structure required for what we would consider human consciousness. An ant is conscious of itself as an ant, though this may be a very limited experience. The ant may only be aware, rather than self-aware. An ant can not by definition comprehend the emergent behavior of its colony, since that would require the organism store more information than it can physically represent in its limited supply of neurons. We can however argue that the ant colony as a whole has a sense of awareness of its own, one that is much greater than that of a single ant.
This reasoning carries over to the human nervous system. Each neuron is quite complex and can perform a considerable amount of computation on its own. However, a single neuron can hardly be aware of the activity in the entire brain. A neuron can be conscious of a subset, or a reduced summary of the activity in the whole system. You and I are swarm intelligences, and it seems quite clear that we are conscious. It is also true that we are comprised of several conscious modules. These are the spatially localized neural circuits for our various abilities, such as visual processing, speech recognition, and metaphor comprehension. It is possible to deactivate a module, ( via stroke, surgery, drugs, or meditation ), and not remove the conscious character of the system. This suggests that there is a unit of awareness, larger than a single ant or neuron, but smaller than an entire human consciousness.
Thats an good question, and I am not sure what to answer since the terms "conscious", "thought" and even "swarm intelligence" are poorly defined. Consciousness must occur on a continuum, though there may be some minimal structure required for what we would consider human consciousness. An ant is conscious of itself as an ant, though this may be a very limited experience. The ant may only be aware, rather than self-aware. An ant can not by definition comprehend the emergent behavior of its colony, since that would require the organism store more information than it can physically represent in its limited supply of neurons. We can however argue that the ant colony as a whole has a sense of awareness of its own, one that is much greater than that of a single ant.
This reasoning carries over to the human nervous system. Each neuron is quite complex and can perform a considerable amount of computation on its own. However, a single neuron can hardly be aware of the activity in the entire brain. A neuron can be conscious of a subset, or a reduced summary of the activity in the whole system. You and I are swarm intelligences, and it seems quite clear that we are conscious. It is also true that we are comprised of several conscious modules. These are the spatially localized neural circuits for our various abilities, such as visual processing, speech recognition, and metaphor comprehension. It is possible to deactivate a module, ( via stroke, surgery, drugs, or meditation ), and not remove the conscious character of the system. This suggests that there is a unit of awareness, larger than a single ant or neuron, but smaller than an entire human consciousness.