Monday 24 August 2009

The Carefree Minds of Ants

“Ants behave in an extremely collective fashion. Each has no say in what happens, and it’s no problem for them, why should it be a problem for us?” [1]

It would not be a problem for “us” if we had the minds of ants. Forsooth we would have no problems at all. There are many other entities which have no problems: pebbles, leaves, stars, and so on. A utopian world free of problems is just a short step away.

[1] “Shlick”, commenting on Madeleine Bunting, “In control? Think again. Our ideas of brain and human nature are myths”, Comment is Free (The Guardian’s weblog), 23rd August 2009. (I do sometimes gape in wonder at what seems to be the profound stupidity of the commenters at Comment is Free, but then I remember that they are all geniuses, greater than which the world has never known.)

6 comments:

xlbrl said...

I do not doubt her sincerity or intelligence any more that I would Lenin's. Even an ant colony has an Alpha ant or two, not to say a tidy aristocracy. We know who gets the plumbs and who gets the crumbs. Comrade.

Recusant said...

I love the way that people are beginning to tiptoe around the pure materialist view of the human mind. It can be extremely attractive to those of a left wing disposition - people could no longer be blamed for their actions/failures/etc - and it is an inevitable consequence of the pure atheistic mindset when arguing against the Christian concept of free will. Unfortunately, when taken to its full extent, it is an argument that devours the asserter of it: if your thoughts are just the emanations of chemical reactions in your brain why should I give them any validity?

Deogolwulf said...

The philosopher John Searle was once asked whether he would ever accept that free, rational decision-making did not exist if it were shown not to exist, to which he replied that the question amounted to asking him whether he would freely and rationally make the decision to accept that free, rational decision-making did not exist.

James Higham said...

What's the stage beyond mindboggling. Has Shlick studied ants in any detail?

Laban said...

In the Woody Allen animation Antz, his ant character Z tells the ant psychiatrist of his feelings of insignificance.

"You've made an important breakthrough, Z", says the shrink "you ARE insignificant".

Weekend Yachtsman said...

I would rather like to know how he knows it's no problem for the ants.