Dhamma Wheel Buddhist Forum

• Jorge Vamos wrote:

  • Question: Are ants clever?

  • Answer: I would say that, collectively, they can solve problems quite well. However, they are probably not as conscious and self-aware as humans. (You never know, though.)

  from: 7 Natural Ways to Get Rid of Ants: How to Repel Ants Humanely Without Killing Them

Sabbe_Dhamma_Anatta wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 10:32 am

• Jorge Vamos wrote:

  • Question: Are ants clever?

  • Answer: I would say that, collectively, they can solve problems quite well. However, they are probably not as conscious and self-aware as humans. (You never know, though.)

  from: 7 Natural Ways to Get Rid of Ants: How to Repel Ants Humanely Without Killing Them

If they are as self-aware as humans, they probably think that natural ways to repel them are a bit anty-social.

Once I read that a single glass of wine kills as many brain cells as an ant possesses. Their tracks have chemical signals to other ants to go the same places. Part of repelling them has to involve cleaning away the chemicals.

Also, bed bugs are attracted to red and black sheets. Brown, too, for that matter. They start out resembling an apple seed and take on red when they feed. The blood turns black as it digests. They seek out their own kind and so the colors attract them.

Following programming can appear clever if the programs serve a useful function. Useful to them, not us.

Ants fascinate me. Marvellous little creatures IMO. When I was a kid I used to spend hours in the garden, building mazes for them or just watching them.

The usual belief among antologist is that ants do not feel pain and do not have emotions.
chownah

chownah wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:05 pm The usual belief among antologist is that ants do not feel pain and do not have emotions.
chownah

I sometimes have ants prowling my kitchen. When I try to catch them (one by one) they are certainly active in resisting my efforts. Why do they run away?

[james] wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 4:31 pm

chownah wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:05 pm The usual belief among antologist is that ants do not feel pain and do not have emotions.
chownah

I sometimes have ants prowling my kitchen. When I try to catch them (one by one) they are certainly active in resisting my efforts. Why do they run away?

A story:
Long ago there were more kinds of ant then there are today. There used to be ants that ran away and ants that didn't.....there was no discernable reason for the difference....it was just their inborne natures. After a long time went by all of the ants that didn't run away got eaten and they failed to produce offspring so they died out.....but not all of the ants that run away got eaten and the ones that were good at running away did produce offspring so we still have them around today.
chownah

Ant is an acronym for automatic negative thought. So don't feed your ants with attention.

chownah wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:05 pm The usual belief among antologist is that ants do not feel pain and do not have emotions.

That was certainly the case with myrmecologists in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but I understand from a trusted zoologist friend that modern ones tend to be less doctrinaire about it. Since the answer hinges on the question of whether the semantic range of "pain" is broad enough to include non-mammalian forms of nociception (which ants do have), the dominant myrmecological tendency nowadays is to delegate the question to philosophers.

Kim

Dhammanando wrote: ↑Thu Apr 08, 2021 6:18 am

chownah wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 3:05 pm The usual belief among antologist is that ants do not feel pain and do not have emotions.

That was certainly the case with myrmecologists in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but modern ones tend to be less doctrinaire about it. Since the answer hinges on the question of whether the semantic range of "pain" is broad enough to include non-mammalian forms of nociception (which ants do have), the dominant myrmecological tendency nowadays is to delegate the question to philosophers.

Interesting assertions but I haven't been able to find anything which supports any of it.....and more particularly I seem to find lots of places on the internet where entymologists cast strong doubt as to whether ants feel pain where they say that they don't have the physiology to be able to have pain as humans or even mammals can. I also found a place where it says that humans can have nociception without having pain.

Basically I can find lots of things which more or less agree with what I posted and nothing to support what you have postsed. I would be glad to see the stuff that supports your assertions as I am always wanting to learn more about this kind of stuff.
chownah

chownah wrote: ↑Thu Apr 08, 2021 10:18 am Basically I can find lots of things which more or less agree with what I posted and nothing to support what you have postsed. I would be glad to see the stuff that supports your assertions as I am always wanting to learn more about this kind of stuff.

What I stated regarding the majority view among entomologists is what I was told by a zoologist friend who until his retirement was in charge of the public education department at London Zoo.

But it's not difficult to find representatives of entomological opinion in all its glorious variety...

To find entomologists who hold that insects feel no pain, try googling: insects "cannot feel pain" entomologist

For those who hold the opposite, try: insects "do feel pain" entomologist.

For those who are agnostic on the question, try: insects "feel pain" "jury is still out" entomologist

For those who hold that it's more a question for philosophy than biology, try: insects "feel pain" philosophical entomology

To reduce the quantity of tabloid clickbait and woo, limit your searches to academia.edu

And of course all of us have been insects countless lives.
https://www.bps.lk/olib/bl/bl106_Mahasi ... birth.html
Tells the story of Queen Upari who was reborn as a dung beetle..and would have killed her old husband the king if she could .
Or the bhikkhu who was reborn as a flea on his very same robes .. and who then died and was reborn as a deva.

robertk wrote: ↑Thu Apr 08, 2021 11:36 am And of course all of us have been insects countless lives.
https://www.bps.lk/olib/bl/bl106_Mahasi ... birth.html

Are the ups and downs of rebirth not an outcome of consciousness and self awareness?