[HN Gopher] Scientists now know that bees can process time, a fi...
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Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 178 points
Date : 2025-11-15 13:32 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| vlan121 wrote:
| I was unable to find the paper. I'm still wondering, if it is a
| cross-over experiment, as:
|
| > The circles were in different positions at each room in the
| maze, but the bees still learned over varying amounts of time to
| fly toward the short flash of light associated with the sweet
| food.
|
| Do not state, if the light suddenly changed in the rooms. If not,
| other factors might come into place.
| ryandv wrote:
| Here is what would appear to be the paper:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41218757/
|
| To clarify, the CNN article asserts that this is the "first
| [discovered] evidence" that bees possess this capability, not
| that bees are the first insect to have ever developed this
| capacity, as the headline may suggest.
| sitkack wrote:
| We are learning so many wonderful things about Bees!
|
| They can count https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21222227
|
| Bees play https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33369572
| https://www.science.org/content/article/are-these-bumble-bee...
|
| All of this reinforces my belief that nearly everything is
| conscious and aware, we differ in a capabilities and resolution
| but we are all more similar than we are different.
|
| Spider Cognition: How Tiny Brains Do Mighty Things
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46003146
| johnisgood wrote:
| I love bees and ants, but I love bees the most. I would
| recommend people to study the behavior of bees and ants.
| Additionally, honey, propolis, etc. are super healthy, and we
| can thank bees for that.
| baxtr wrote:
| Not that I want to curb your enthusiasm for bees, but...
|
| I recently read that honey bees in particular get the most
| attention from humans lately, so they are kept in high
| numbers.
|
| This has some adversarial effect on other pollinators, which
| hurts ecosystems more than it helps.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Why would what you said curb my enthusiasm for bees though?
|
| Can you provide me more specifics on this by the way?
|
| > This has some adversarial effect on other pollinators,
| which hurts ecosystems more than it helps.
|
| What are those adversarial effects, what other pollinators,
| and how does it hurt the ecosystem more than it helps?
|
| I do not mind bees having kept in higher numbers, and
| beekeepers can do it anywhere without affecting the
| ecosystem, I believe.
| baxtr wrote:
| I am no expert at all in this topic! So please take this
| with a grain of salt. I just have the feeling (maybe
| wrongly) that the love and focus for bees is having
| detrimental/ unwanted effects on the ecosystem.
|
| Here some more articles / discussions:
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44505552
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44792207
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35668879
| johnisgood wrote:
| My love for bees is more about their behavior (similar to
| how I find ants fascinating), and their "products" that
| is honey, propolis, beeswax, and so on. I am simply
| fascinated by their behaviors, and propolis is very
| healthy!
| 867-5309 wrote:
| that read like "source please" then "sauce is yummy"
| johnisgood wrote:
| I am not sure what you are trying to imply.
|
| If you are referring to what I asked: "What are those
| adversarial effects, what other pollinators, and how does
| it hurt the ecosystem more than it helps?", then all I
| have to say about it is that I am just genuinely curious.
| fullstop wrote:
| I have always been enamored with "social" insects like
| bees, wasps, and ants. I _loved_ SimAnt as a child.
|
| It also blows my mind that I utterly balk at eating
| insects but bee vomit is totally cool.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Oh my, I just looked for a screenshot of SimAnt. I
| remember this game, too! I have played it for some time,
| too. :)
| fullstop wrote:
| You can play it in a browser:
| https://archive.org/details/msdos_SimAnt_-
| _The_Electronic_An...
| johnisgood wrote:
| Oh cool! I am doing the tutorial and it told me to click
| on "MAP" which I did, and then nothing happened. :( Any
| ideas?
| fullstop wrote:
| Did it say to click on map or Window menu -> map?
|
| https://i.imgur.com/LbCx8jQ.png
| johnisgood wrote:
| Window menu -> MAP, so I assumed it was "MAP". Where is
| the "Window menu" exactly?
| fullstop wrote:
| It's at the top of the game window:
| https://i.imgur.com/xqh2rrY.png
| johnisgood wrote:
| Oh, that! Thank you!
| bijant wrote:
| Why won't you let ,,the ecosystem" decide that on its own
| ? It's much older than you and you are not its lega
| guardian. If the ecosystem (of which we are a part)
| decides it wants more honey bees than that's what it
| shall get.
| snthd wrote:
| The idea that ecosystems naturally balance themselves is
| a pervasive myth.
|
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/ba
| lan...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_of_nature
|
| >It's much older than you and you are not its legal
| guardian.
|
| A fair few cultures believe they are. NZ recognises the
| Whanganui River as having legal personhood.
| pinnochio wrote:
| If we're a part of the ecosystem, then deciding to be
| honey bees' legal guardian _is_ the ecosystem deciding
| that on its own, no?
| baxtr wrote:
| Yes exactly, doing nothing or doing something is the
| same.
|
| We are part of the ecosystem. So any discussion we're
| having is also part of being and operating in the
| ecosystem...
| soiltype wrote:
| The same reason you bandage a stab wound instead of
| letting the body decide what it wants.
|
| It doesn't want anything or have the ability to choose
| its responses to changes. Which is exactly why we _are_
| the legal guardians of natural ecosystems, by the way -
| have you not heard of lands and waters protected from
| certain human activities? The fact that we don 't
| currently stop ourselves from propogating honeybees into
| ecosystems that can't fit them is not an indication of
| anything except our failures.
| baxtr wrote:
| I guess it's a fair point.
|
| But then again, since as you argue (rightfully so!) that
| I'm also part of the ecosystem: me caring and expressing
| doubts is actually working as the ecosystem.
|
| That's how I'm being (virtually) a part of it.
| filoeleven wrote:
| European honeybees do not behave the same way as their
| native solitary counterparts. They gather honey by
| visiting every flower on a plant, then moving to the next
| plant. Native bees OTOH visit only one or two flowers per
| plant. So if imported honeybees outcompete natives (and
| studies show they do), it very much affects the viability
| of monoecious plants, which experience a drop in genetic
| diversity. I don't want to find out the long-term results
| of that experiment.
|
| I don't think that's a reason to eradicate honeybees in
| the US or anything like that, but it does point to a
| misplaced focus on "just" solving colony collapse
| disorder while ignoring the plight of the native
| pollinators.
|
| If you don't keep bees, or if you do but have a large
| enough property, you could put up a bee hotel. They can
| be bought or constructed pretty easily, and you'll get to
| see a wide variety of who's around your area!
|
| https://bugguide.net/node/view/475348
| bijant wrote:
| I'd give it a chance. After all it can't be any worse than
| Seinfeld for Bees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_Movie
| gibspaulding wrote:
| There's something like four thousand species of bees native
| to North America [1], so while there are lots of reasons to
| be unenthusiastic about honey bees [2], that still leaves
| lots of room for bee related enthusiasm :)
|
| [1] https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-role-native-bees-united-
| state...
|
| [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-
| with-...
| rootbear wrote:
| Agreed! Bees are my favorite social insect (we share a love
| of hexagons, for one thing) and they seem to be especially
| intelligent.
| jbnorth wrote:
| The hexagon is the best-agon
| hackable_sand wrote:
| This thread is awesome.
|
| I had a miniature war with some wasps staking a claim on
| my porch
|
| Let me say, wasps are incredibly endurant creatures. I
| have much respect for them.
|
| Their architecture though... I have the remnants of their
| enclave. It is so stable and uniform and cozy.
|
| I wish wasps were friends.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yellowjackets can go to hell though.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Well, kind of. :D Wasps do not produce honey, they just
| collect nectar and sugary substances for immediate
| consumption, and propolis is specifically a bee product
| made from tree resins.
|
| That said, wasps are still quite intelligent for insects
| with regarding to spatial memory, individual recognition,
| learning, problem-solving, and social cognition. In fact,
| their intelligence is comparable to honeybees in many
| respects.
|
| Contrary to popular belief, wasps are not mindless
| aggressors, their defensive behavior is calculated based on
| threat assessment. :)
| cj wrote:
| > wasps are not mindless aggressors, their defensive
| behavior is calculated based on threat assessment.
|
| Can confirm.
|
| I had a yellow jacket infestation in my kitchen wall this
| fall. Every day I'd wake up to dozens of bees flying
| around my kitchen. But they didn't care about me, all
| they cared about was getting outside.
|
| I probably killed 200-300 yellow jackets with a fly
| swatter over the course of 2 weeks. Somehow I wasn't
| stung once.
| testfrequency wrote:
| I promise this isn't a trap, it's just my curiosity as a
| "flexitarian". What (mostly) keeps me from eating animals is my
| mind wandering sometimes when making a protein choice about how
| they ended up there, wherever I am, not by choice.
|
| Are you vegan?
| MangoToupe wrote:
| Goats are just as tasty if you raised them, IMO. Maybe even
| tastier.
| angiolillo wrote:
| By "tastier" do you mean more physically pleasurable
| because you could ensure the animal's good health,
| ethically preferable because you could ensure a (mostly)
| good life, emotionally enjoyable because you can fondly
| remember interacting with them, or something else?
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| You can't avoid the reality that's your life depends on
| something else dying. Either plant insect or animal
|
| How and why you draw the line on what is acceptable to kill
| is mostly arbitrary
|
| I'd argue a mushroom or a bee are more "conscious" than most
| chickens
| crat3r wrote:
| You think that a mushroom is more capable of intelligent
| thought and emotion driven decisions than a chicken?
|
| lmao
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Maybe you should learn about what a mushroom is
| crat3r wrote:
| Three and four are both non-zero numbers. Zero
| constitutes the absence of value. Therefore, three and
| four are of the same value.
|
| You see the problem here, right? I'm not saying that
| fungi have not be recorded as having potential
| intelligent thought. I am saying that in no world is
| their capability for intelligence remotely comparable to
| that of a creature with a fully functioning brain,
| especially a bird. Having the ability to react to your
| environment does not make you AS or more intelligent than
| other things that can also do that...
|
| EDIT: I'm using intelligence and consciousness
| interchangeably here when I don't necessarily mean to,
| but my point stands.
| jezek2 wrote:
| Chickens are very intelligent, it just happens that most
| people ever see chickens in overcrowded small spaces where
| they behave idiotically. So would you if you would be in
| the same situation.
| pstuart wrote:
| I kept chickens for a while and it was very clear that
| they'd be more than happy to eat us if able to.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| I kept chickens for 15 years (mostly free-roaming in my
| backyard, unless there was a fox lurking, so not in
| overcrowded small spaces) and I disagree. To me they
| seemed pretty stupid, and pretty mean to one another
| assemblyman wrote:
| >>You can't avoid the reality that's your life depends on
| something else dying. Either plant insect or animal
|
| There are more nuanced ways of thinking about this. A good
| example is Jainism's version of vegetarianism which
| requires paying attention to what one consumes.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism
|
| "Jains make considerable efforts not to injure plants in
| everyday life as far as possible. Jains accept such
| violence only in as much as it is indispensable for human
| survival, and there are special instructions for preventing
| unnecessary violence against plants."
| Loughla wrote:
| Growing up on a farm taught me that animals are absolutely able
| to think and learn. Not in the same way as humans, but I'm
| fully convinced there are degrees of consciousness.
|
| Watching new calves play in spring meadows is one of the most
| purely joyful things you can ever see. They have best friends
| and will avoid playing with other calves until their friend
| comes to play with them.
| kznewman wrote:
| Thanks for this memory. I had similar experience watching
| spring lambs and swore off mutton/lamb/etc same day.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| I swore off lamb after trying to make a couple lamb stews.
| It is clearly an acquired taste if that.
| aunty_helen wrote:
| Or that cows can quickly determine when an electric fence
| isn't working and rampage a winter feed paddock in an hour.
| euroderf wrote:
| > degrees of consciousness
|
| Societal dogma aside, I think this probably applies to all
| critters, including within species, including us.
| dhosek wrote:
| There's a part of me that speculates that the kashrut laws
| are meant to rule out eating the most intelligent animals
| (pigs, cetaceans, cephalopods).
| eszed wrote:
| Interesting! I'd never thought of that.
|
| Still, though... bivalves?
| connicpu wrote:
| I think shellfish was more unambiguously a food safety
| thing
| thewebguyd wrote:
| Animals also grieve and mourn their dead, much like we do.
|
| They are fellow sentient beings capable of experiencing
| pleasure, pain, fear, and forming social bonds. It's a lot of
| why I take issue with anthropocentrism, and think factory
| farming is an absolute tragedy. It's the industrialized
| denial of a meaningful life and one of the biggest examples
| of human cruelty.
| scottyah wrote:
| I want to live, and think others do too- so Life must have
| some kind of Greater Meaning. Yet, almost everything else
| seems to prove the opposite based on how fragile life is,
| and how little things change when one is lost.
| freejazz wrote:
| > Yet, almost everything else seems to prove the opposite
| based on how fragile life is, and how little things
| change when one is lost.
|
| What a sad way to view things
| da02 wrote:
| Do you still live on a farm on in a city? Here in the
| suburbs, something is making animals "less smart". Every
| neighborhood has signs about missing pets. I suspect it also
| affects people too. Why get a pet when everyone is too busy
| to take care of it?
| 47282847 wrote:
| Maybe they run away exactly because they are smart.
| an0malous wrote:
| What is your definition of "conscious" here? Like it has
| thoughts and feelings?
| ilt wrote:
| Consciousness is a spectrum.
| 9991 wrote:
| Even if that were true, how could you possibly know it?
| Ukv wrote:
| Observing animals' behavior (in the wild and through
| experiments like the one here) and studying how their
| brains work to see that they often have the same kind of
| mental features as us (including whichever you'd classify
| as consciousness) - just at varying degrees of
| sophistication.
|
| Some would argue that "consciousness" is something non-
| physical that has no impact on the physical world, and so
| is not physically detectable or responsible for any
| behavior, but I feel then it inherently cannot be whatever
| we mean by "consciousness" that we're directly aware of and
| talking about in the physical world (because that itself is
| a physical impact).
| verisimi wrote:
| ... with insects on the low side, humans are mid, and dogs
| are top
| 47282847 wrote:
| Maybe it is the same level of consciousness but different
| physical limitations? Simply imagine being locked in in an
| insect body with different perception and abilities, and a
| wiped memory.
| dartharva wrote:
| I remember reading somewhere that bees have the highest
| cognitive abilities of all insects
| sethammons wrote:
| Thinking of smart bugs, check out the portia (aka jumping)
| spider. They plan multi-step, out of sight detours to ambush
| prey, and demonstrate impulse control. They have specialized
| hunting techniques for different menu items, one such is
| mimicking specific prey items stuck on a web to lure various
| types of spiders out.
|
| Insect wise, bees have to take the cake. Symbolic
| communication and counting, and now time. This all tracks for
| something that needs to share the location of food with the
| colony.
|
| Nature sure is neat.
| pyth0 wrote:
| Interesting you mention jumping spiders, I just saw a
| rather interesting video talking about exactly this and
| includes some interviews with scientists involved in some
| of these experiments [1]. One interesting fact I learned is
| that they have a sense of numeracy, and can distinguish
| between one, two and three-or-more objects.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QF6kaOAuYg
| vjerancrnjak wrote:
| It's interesting that Hellen Keller describes her experience,
| before language acquisition as timeless, no perception of time at
| all.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40466814
|
| I'm curious if this experiment actually tests for time perception
| at all or if it's a very different effect that we attribute as
| being actual experience of time.
| metalman wrote:
| this is such an amazing discovery, with hundreds of thousands of
| insect species left to determine there time processing abilities,
| which of course could never be atributed to the basic ability to
| navigate, it is the work for so many indispensible scientific
| institutions to take on this essential groundbreaking work
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in
| insects
|
| We have no idea what other insects can do this or when they got
| the ability. Sounds more like a first in Scientists. (tongue
| somewhat in cheek)
| nkrisc wrote:
| Yes, it means it's the first insects we know of with this
| ability. It of course has no bearing on whether other insects
| can and we simply don't know yet.
| nomel wrote:
| I imagine we could predict fairly well if we assume
| perception of time is a requirement for complex return-to-
| base type navigation.
| parpfish wrote:
| this might be more of "it's hard to find a behavioral
| experiment that proves you're using time" rather than "it's
| hard to find an animal that uses time"
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| Different scientist and different set of experiments, but a much
| more fun and educational video of bees + time:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xlGuBT5GT10
| RickJWagner wrote:
| Bees, buh.
|
| We've known about the early bird since Ben Franklin's day.
| fullstop wrote:
| When I think of insects, I see them as tiny microcontrollers. In
| my head bees have a little shift register to measure time.
|
| While ants have control over each limb, they mostly move by
| rotating two tripods one at a time. It's like they turn on an
| output for three legs, turn off the output, and then turn on the
| output for the other three legs.
|
| Ants can walk backward, though, so perhaps it is more like a
| half-bridge rectifier with multiple channels.
|
| They're like little organic ICs.
| nhecker wrote:
| I read a paper long ago (so there's no chance of my recalling
| the source!) and one of the takeaways was that in a cockroach
| one of the neural ganglia basically had a binary "run!" mode
| that was flipped on instantly if sense nerves very close to it
| were triggered. So when researchers tapped or blew air on the
| rears of the roaches the roach in question would sprint away,
| its powerful legs being efficiently driven at full tilt by this
| little sprinting circuit without needing any input or
| interaction from the more complex main brain. Imagine getting
| used to that effect! "Ahhh! Why am I suddenly running and where
| am I going to steer this runaway body?"
| fullstop wrote:
| That is so cool.
|
| > "Ahhh! Why am I suddenly running and where am I going to
| steer this runaway body?"
|
| I wonder if it's tied to the optical sensors to steer toward
| darker places.
| jlawson wrote:
| Humans have that too. Startle response, withdrawing from pain
| (hot stove), blink response upon incoming object - all these
| happen without involving the higher brainstem at all. I think
| some of them barely even connect with the brain.
| rkomorn wrote:
| Isn't this part of the comment thread basically about
| reflexes?
| ACCount37 wrote:
| Working in embedded gave me a lot of respect for insects. They
| can fit so much raw function into a body that's smaller than
| most standalone ICs.
|
| Just imagine how cool would it be to have programmable bees.
| fullstop wrote:
| That would make an interesting game.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| Black Mirror did an episode on programmable bees. S3E6
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's the power-to-weight ratio that is really mind boggling.
| Those creatures are strong!
| mikkupikku wrote:
| I don't know much about insects, but spiders at least seem to
| be much more than mere automatons. The way jumping spiders are
| aware of their environment makes them feel much closer to a dog
| than to a microcontroller.
| fullstop wrote:
| They have more peripherals, sram, and flash space.
| anthk wrote:
| Cats know to wait too. So they must have some concept of time.
| fullstop wrote:
| I have an automated feeder which will open when their collar is
| near, but is time limited. Each cat has a different allotment
| so that they don't get chonky.
|
| They walk up to it and wait a few seconds. If it doesn't open,
| they go off and do something else and try again later. They
| don't sit there and try to pull the machine apart.
|
| This could be explained by hunger levels, though, and knowing
| that they are used to eating whenever they feel like that.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| Cats perceive time as a fourth spacial dimension.
| anonzzzies wrote:
| Yep, we have a timed feeder; they go to it a few minutes before
| it dispenses and ten stare at it; never at another time.
| montroser wrote:
| https://youtube.com/shorts/xlGuBT5GT10?si=1oH7LTicJut143sC
| foo-bar-bat wrote:
| Lots of bees are dying suddenly, for multiple reasons. Here is a
| (sensationalized) summary:
|
| https://youtu.be/qWsBZbnt_4A?si=3AcS7IdGT41gF598
|
| Professional nerds in silicon valley and beyond might consider
| whether they can help, and how.
|
| My understanding from long conversations with a beekeeper who has
| lost millions of bees, including entire colonies remote from
| agricultural and residential pesticides and artificial colony
| technology (which are some of the hypothesized causes blamed) is
| there is a mix of a) pathogens, and b) global supply chain
| homogeny distributing the pathogens mixed into various
| agricultural products eg mulch and soil, and c) environmental
| factors to include possibly RF which have been observed to
| destroy previously healthy colonies very quickly and then also
| scramble or interfere with the colony division/expansion process
| where a queen starts over. To include in some cases the queens
| apparently getting lost and/or leading astray their entire swarm
| of minion bees during the fragile process of relocating. This
| getting lost is apparently a new puzzling phenomenon.
|
| Anyway, it would be bad if large fragile ecosystems upon which
| many species including ours depend, were deprived of key
| pollinators. There is probably some very smart insightful person
| or team here on HN who could help and profit from helping on a
| global scale.
|
| Edit. Typos
| altruios wrote:
| Professional nerds are already working on the problem of
| helping bees pollinate. Their solutions are not that popular
| yet. https://www.beevt.com/
|
| More professional nerds should be working on keeping bees
| healthy, but that's probably outside the purview of tech nerds.
| yehat wrote:
| That's interesting, given that scientists don't even know what
| the "time" is. But if that study helps finding those answers, I
| guess it is just fine to continue the push.
| Atlas667 wrote:
| A bunch of anecdotal evidence follows:
|
| There's this popular notion that humans are fundamentally
| different beings to everything else, which I believe is just a
| form of narcissism.
|
| If intelligence is used to navigate the world, then it is derived
| FROM the world, and your role is to be able to use those facts in
| your mind to change the world.
|
| I'm sure a wolf is as, or more, intelligent at surviving in the
| wild, with the tools it has, than your average suburban adult.
|
| Wolves understand distance, time, sun-time light levels, resource
| economy, body-energy economy, they know prey behaviors, complex
| hunting tactics, the basics of sound transmission, they know
| about self security, seeking adequate shelter, they know the
| basics about fall damage and how that may relate to
| height/weight, they know how to step when running, they know
| momentum, etc
|
| They absolutely do calculate a very very basic physics and animal
| psychology.
|
| Because, essentially, beings know/are intelligent about the
| things related to their survival. They have to be, its their
| existence.
|
| Therefore I speculate bees may know more about time than even
| this article suggests. And probably as well as sound transmission
| and perception and maybe even air pressure due to flying being
| such an important role for them. Maybe they also have a basic
| space-time vulnerability conception. They for sure have excellent
| home etiquette and social awareness.
|
| Im sure having a tiny brain doesnt eliminate the basic physics
| processing capacity that all beings need, maybe it just makes it
| shallower.
| assemblyman wrote:
| In the same vein, I always wondered if
|
| * the vast majority (including me) are not really very
| intelligent. We have a lot of "state" that's transferred from
| generation to generation. Once in a while, a very small
| percentage of people make advances and they filter through
| society and improves (or maybe just changes) the state. We
| collectively gives humans credit for these improvements but
| it's not the species but those specific people who created that
| jump in capabilities.
|
| * this notion of inherited pride or inherited achievement is
| very common. This leads to being proud of membership in a group
| (country, religion, tribe, corporation, university etc.) and
| also of instinctively rejecting ideas put forth by others (e.g.
| see the amount of derision vegetarians and especially vegans
| attract).
|
| * achievement/progress is also time-scale dependent. While we
| get smug about our progress, if it ends up destroying the one
| planet we have, it will be incredibly stupid. Humans
| fundamentally are not capable of thinking long-term.
|
| Everything around me was not made by me. I don't even
| understand how I would potentially make most of these from
| scratch without using machines made by other people or
| knowledge acquired over time (see first bullet above). Within
| the framework provided to me, I can convince myself to reason
| and act but the framework itself is my operating system. Of
| course, I like to think I am intelligent and reasoning but it's
| all in a box. I feel this describes almost everyone I know
| except for a few outstanding scientists I have worked with.
| Atlas667 wrote:
| I dig what you're saying...
|
| I have to quote one of my favorite thinkers here:
|
| "Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the
| sum of interrelations, the relations within which these
| individuals stand." - K. Marx
|
| This world knowledge is built upon piece by piece, the
| conceptual tools of the past create the conceptual tools of
| the future, that line is drawn through books and projected
| through minds, again onto books. This whole society depends
| deeply on cohesion and cultural continuation.
|
| Our intellectual thread is the cultural knowledge and
| technological progress itself, its not even down to great
| individuals alone. I think believing in great individuals is
| a product of a sort of personality-fetishism (though
| individuals can do great things, if that makes sense).
|
| This fetishism or mystification of the person who contributes
| I view as a product of an old frame of thinking which is
| called philosophical liberalism. This framework does this
| because it posits that all peoples exist under equal social
| value (political, legal and economical), thus people who
| contribute more must have a greater capacity that is innate
| and unexplainable or untraceable; inherent. Its a widespread
| philosophical frame of thought that does not consider the
| conditions of the individual.
|
| We most see this employed with rich people. We hear they are
| truly great, savvy, exceptional individuals, when in reality
| a lot of the times the explanation for the vast majority of
| the rich is that they had rich parents. Where would you be if
| your parents owned an emerald mine? or Where would you be if
| your parents gave you a small loan of a million dollars?
|
| In the same vein this human progress that we encounter, which
| seems to be carried on the backs of the Newtons and Einsteins
| of the world, is in fact a steady drip-feed of collective
| human knowledge that gets compiled and analyzed, made
| consistent and expounded upon by a few persons every certain
| amount of time. No lesser of a feat, mind you, the work is
| still there. I am not minimizing these persons, but
| contextualizing them.
|
| [Insert the "on shoulders of giants" quote here]. Is a great
| example of humility and awareness by a visionary.
|
| One thing I find impressive at times is the vast amount of
| German intellectuals throughout history, which upon looking
| at history can be explained by their colonial exploits
| leading to greater national wealth, leisure, and cultural
| amplification. This is often the case with Europe and the USA
| as well.
|
| So there is a chance that we are all base-level intelligence,
| since we are all essentially the same species. What changes
| that is access to the cultural wealth of information, and not
| only access to this cultural wealth of information but a
| CULTURE OF ACCESS to that wealth of info. A level of social
| development around you that enables you.
|
| People would rather immediately jump to physiological and
| even genetic explanations of intelligence rather than look at
| the social context of the individuals involved. This is
| because of the flaws of philosophical liberalism at
| contextualizing and actually scientifically looking at the
| world around us.
|
| Again: there's a good chance that we are all just base level
| intelligence. What we know is actually different between us
| is the preparation and economic/social context of the
| individuals.
| cuckmaxxed wrote:
| Dr. Mark Powell: How do you know right from wrong?
|
| Prot: Every being in the universe knows right from wrong, Mark.
|
| Dr. Mark Powell: Suppose someone did do something wrong?
| Committed murder or rape, how would you punish them?
|
| Prot: Let me tell you something, Mark. You humans, most of you,
| subscribe to this policy of eye for an eye, a life for a life.
| This is known through the universe for its stupidity. Even your
| Buddha and your Christ had quite a different vision but nobody's
| paid much attention to them not even the Buddhists or the
| Christians. You humans. Sometimes it's hard to imagine how you
| have made it this far.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| I think it's a bit of a stretch to say flashing lights are a
| stimulus bees have never seen before. Branches, leaves etc swing
| in the wind and oscillate letting sunlight through at intervals
| this causing the perception of flashing lights.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| There should be a name for the tendency to of humans to discount
| the depth and sophistication of the subjective experience of
| animals. From insects to primates, it is so prevalent.
| mikkupikku wrote:
| I don't think it's an innate tendency, but rather an aspect of
| some cultures. For instance, I have heard that the people
| native to orangutan ranges traditionally considered them to be
| a sort of people, at least in a way, and I've read that when
| Carthaginian explorers first encountered gorillas they though
| they were a peculiar tribe of primitive people.
| 93po wrote:
| I highly recommend Robert Fuller on Youtube for anyone who
| wants to better understand the shared experiences between
| humans and animals.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kQb-badp1s
|
| This video made me change my approach to consuming animals - I
| realized that just because animals are dumber than humans
| doesn't mean they don't have real, meaningful life experiences.
| And I'd be a dick to deprive them of those experiences.
|
| There's also some hypocrisy in us wanting hyper intelligent AI
| to have compassion for humans and the human experience even
| though we're dumber than it, but us not doing the same for
| animals.
| neoden wrote:
| I don't think we should be surprised by this. A creature that
| needs to operate its body in 3d environment, perform complex
| manipulations with objects, participate in social interactions,
| probably use some sort of planning to optimise pollen harvesting
| activities has very good chances to be acquainted with the
| concept of time in one way or another.
|
| What is indeed fascinating is how scientists invent all these
| experiments
| j45 wrote:
| Imagine what the bees have been thinking of humans all this time
| - treating them like they can't process time.
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