[HN Gopher] Bees have an internal sense of time (2022)
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Bees have an internal sense of time (2022)
Author : thunderbong
Score : 65 points
Date : 2024-01-16 17:31 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (greenrosechemistry.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (greenrosechemistry.com)
| piinbinary wrote:
| "Bees get jet lag"
|
| That seems like a much simpler experiment than the previous ones!
| beders wrote:
| Well, in 1929 they couldn't really get on a red-eye to New York
| ;)
| ct0 wrote:
| Did you see this on reddit? Pretty cool story though.
| dmurray wrote:
| Oysters are thought to have the opposite behaviour, per a famous
| experiment by Brown in 1954. If you transport them several hours
| of longitude away and keep them in a dark lab, they don't suffer
| jetlag, but instead they mysteriously adjust to the local lunar
| cycle.
|
| At least, that's what I thought, but this criticism of the
| methodology [0] doesn't make it look conclusive, and presumably
| it would have been replicated if it was any good.
|
| [0] https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-
| content/uploads/sites/29...
| dvh wrote:
| Do humans perceive time?
| sctb wrote:
| You could certainly argue that we do not. Perceptions are not
| instantaneous, and if they can be said to "take time" then they
| cannot have time as their object of perception directly. And
| even if they "take time", perceptions are ending simultaneously
| as they are beginning. Being aware of the passage of time does
| not require perception, as anyone can report when they have an
| understanding of how long they slept as soon as they wake. Not
| sure how all that relates to bees, though.
|
| Anyway, no abstract musing about time is complete without a
| word from Dogen: "You may suppose that time is only passing
| away, and not understand that time never arrives."
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| We seem to perceive time indirectly. Examples of how include
| our feelings, seeing changes in environment with temporal
| associations, and even counting the seconds that we generate.
| We are perceiving the passage of time in these cases as
| observed change in the perceptible state of the universe.
|
| If time itself is change, then we are directly observing it.
| If time is something else, and it causes change, then we
| can't observe it but can observe the effects. We'll probably
| perceive it similarly either way.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _We seem to perceive time indirectly_
|
| From all indications, time is an emergent property of
| causality. And we directly perceive causality.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Yes. As do fruit flies [1].
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6138759/
| utdiscant wrote:
| I am currently reading "What Would Animals Say If We Asked the
| Right Questions?" by Vinciane Despret, which is full of
| interesting stories like this and questions how we perceive the
| intelligence (and other aspects) of animals. Might be an
| interesting read for people who find this story interesting.
| ryanblakeley wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendation. I write about animal
| intelligence and will be keen to pick that one up.
|
| The molecular basis of circadian rhythm has been studied in
| fruit flies. Every cell has a chemical clock which adjusts for
| a range of temperatures. They found that calorie restriction
| and cold temperature extends the life span of fruit flies. But
| if you alter the DNA of their circadian clock those lifespan
| increases do not happen.
| gehwartzen wrote:
| Funny little cartoon I enjoyed wrt this subject:
|
| https://falseknees.com/comics/405.html
| max_ wrote:
| Thanks for the recommendation!
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Does a line of candles "perceive" time?
|
| Does a wave in a pond "perceive" time?
|
| Does my alarm clock "perceive" time?
|
| I think a less hyperbolic statement is that bees can _measure_
| time. perception has the connotation of conscious awareness.
| faitswulff wrote:
| At what point do you consider living organisms to be conscious?
| Any threshold is essentially arbitrary.
| yreg wrote:
| We don't know, but the title makes it sound like we do know.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I personally think self-awareness is a pre-requisite for
| consciousness.
|
| >ar*bi*trar*y, adjective based on random choice or personal
| whim, rather than any reason or system.
|
| I don't think this threshold is arbitrary. I think it is part
| of a set of word definitions that and are logically
| compatible, coherent, and useful.
|
| Similarly, I dont think it arbitrary to say the bee is a
| living organism, but the alarm clock is not.
|
| Would you argue that the any definition of "living" is
| similarly arbitrary?
| Jensson wrote:
| What is self-awareness? Do you think dogs are self aware? I
| think dogs are conscious at least even if they fail to
| recognize themselves in a mirror. Being aware that you are
| a consciousness requires intelligence, not just
| consciousness.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think dogs can be self aware. I think self-awareness is
| the ability to comprehend the "Self" as distinct from the
| "environment" and then compute and weigh the likely
| outcomes of different actions. It is high level thinking
| with many pre-requisites.
|
| An alarm clock is not self aware, because it doesn't
| model the world, and select between actions.
|
| Similarly, a bee, (which I believe to act on pre-
| programed instinct, not in the moment reason), is not
| self aware. This is because it selects between actions,
| but can not logically model the world.
|
| A dog, on the other hand, can build logical models of the
| world, and then take actions based on that. It can that
| begging from one person results in treats, while begging
| from another results in discipline. It can update this
| logic and behavior based on new information.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| So you have arbitrarily decided on units, such as bees
| and dogs. But perhaps it is an error to consider a
| singular bee as an arbitrary unit. What if we consider
| the entire hive/swarm as a unified organism? What would
| our results be then? What about considering individual
| cells of a dog instead of that whole dog? Wouldn't that
| tend to skew your results unfairly?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| My examples weren't arbitrary, they were made for
| specific reasons. I selected bees because the article and
| my OP was about bees, and I selected dogs because I was
| asked about dogs.
|
| I don't think a hive is self aware for the same reasons
| as the bee. It acts conditionally but does not create new
| logic models of the world.
|
| As for the cells, I think they closer to complex alarm
| clocks than the bees, and are not self aware for the same
| reason.
|
| I think my logic is consistent.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _What if we consider the entire hive /swarm as a
| unified organism?_
|
| We get a less-predictive model for some questions and a
| more-predictive one for others. Sort of like how asking
| whether we should model humans as collections of cells,
| individuals or societies is freshman dorm stuff until we
| pair it with an actual question.
| why_at wrote:
| I mean, it's pretty hard to tell what's going on inside
| any other creature's brain, from dogs to bees to humans.
| It's generally easier the closer they are to yourself, so
| it's easier with dogs than with bees.
|
| I think you are shortchanging bees a bit, based on your
| description of a dog building a logical model of the
| world, I would say bees definitely qualify.
|
| >A dog, on the other hand, can build logical models of
| the world, and then take actions based on that. It can
| that begging from one person results in treats, while
| begging from another results in discipline. It can update
| this logic and behavior based on new information.
|
| Bees are capable of a lot of interesting and complex
| behavior, from learning to communication with other
| bees.[1] It's been theorized that they can play around
| just for fun, which is hard to reconcile with them
| behaving on entirely pre-programmed instincts.[2]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_learning_and_commun
| ication [2]
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/bees-
| can-...
| masspro wrote:
| Are viruses alive? They're pretty close. That pretty-
| closeness is evidence that the definition of 'living' is
| arbitrary. In high school biology, 'living' was a list of
| five points to be memorized, and those points were
| definitely made up by humans. And viruses were used as a
| sorta-joke by the teacher to illustrate that it's
| arbitrary.
|
| Why I cared enough to dig into that: every word/category is
| arbitrary; words and word-logic only help us insofar as
| they tell us useful things about reality.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| > every word/category is arbitrary; words and word-logic
| only help us insofar as they tell us useful things about
| reality
|
| haha, having useful meanings is the exact thing that
| makes word categories non-arbitrary.
|
| Having different categories and words for food and poison
| is useful. The distinction is not arbitrary.
|
| Similarly, the concept and definition of living/inanimate
| is not arbitrary. It defiantly tells us something useful.
|
| You could say the exact definition of "living" isn't
| clear, but that doesn't mean every definition is equally
| good. For example, "things that are purple", would be a
| pretty crappy definition of "living". It's not random or
| arbitrary. Thought and logic went into crafting the
| definition.
| masspro wrote:
| > Having different categories and words for food and
| poison is useful. The distinction is not arbitrary.
|
| A very hot pepper has features of both food and poison.
| Most things are not perfect binaries, and if you put a
| dividing line on a spectrum, the placement of that
| dividing line must be arbitrary. Obviously people try to
| come up with good definitions of things, but that still
| doesn't mean it's a productive use of anyone's
| time/effort deciding which side of an arbitrary divide a
| thing falls into.
|
| > It's not random or arbitrary.
|
| No one said arbitrary == random! Arbitrary in this
| discussion is meaning "a person chose it". And it is a
| useful concept to me here in this context because it
| distinguishes things a person is deciding from things
| that are just real in-and-of-themselves out here in
| spacetime.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| >No one said arbitrary == random! Arbitrary in this
| discussion is meaning "a person chose it".
|
| Opposed to what what exactly? Nothing that can be
| perceived, processed, or communicated by humans fails
| this test. In that case, all language, logic, and thought
| is arbitrary. 2+2=4 is arbitrary, because someone chose
| definitions which fit within a logical construct of
| assumptions, and those rules too were selected by humans.
|
| Something is not arbitrary simply because alternatives
| may exist. Alternatives can be more or less useful, and
| useful for different purposes.
|
| Selection of a definition fit for purpose, is therefore
| not arbitrary, specifically _Because_ it comes with
| implications and consequences. It is a distinction _with_
| a difference
|
| >A very hot pepper has features of both food and poison.
| Most things are not perfect binaries, and if you put a
| dividing line on a spectrum, the placement of that
| dividing line must be arbitrary. Obviously people try to
| come up with good definitions of things, but that still
| doesn't mean it's a productive use of anyone's
| time/effort deciding which side of an arbitrary divide a
| thing falls into.
|
| I truly dont understand your example. Is it not a
| productive use of time to know if a hot pepper is food or
| poison, despite being on a spectrum? It seems to prove
| the opposite. Most things are not perfect binaries, but
| society doesn't throw up our hands and say it isn't
| productive to delineate food from poison. A definition of
| poison that excludes hot peppers is clearly more useful
| for nearly everyone, nearly all the time.
|
| I go by the typical dictionary definitions or arbitrary:
|
| a: existing or coming about seemingly at random or by
| chance or as a capricious and unreasonable act of will
|
| b: based on or determined by individual preference or
| convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic
| nature of something
|
| A definition that is thoughtfully constructed to fit
| within the greater body of human knowledge, logic, and
| utility is not random, capricious, or motivated by
| personal preference or convenience.
| bad_user wrote:
| The definition of life is based on what we observe, on
| empirical observations, which is the best kind of
| knowledge. The current definition may not be perfect, but
| it's useful enough to predict phenomena, such as how life
| on other planets might look like. And this is the
| opposite of arbitrary.
|
| You're getting into metaphysics, which is in general not
| useful. I mean, Nietzsche's essay on words being lies is
| entertaining and all, but ultimately just something to
| contemplate when stoned.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _How we learned that bees can tell time (2021)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36177030 - June 2023 (12
| comments)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| From what I understand, the timekeeping ability helps them to
| communicate the locations of points of interest (nectar sources
| and hive locations).
|
| Bees are pretty awesome.
|
| Here's a cool _Cosmos_ episode, that discusses them:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubE9hjrsHmI
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