Buddhism and Karma (Religion)

by David Turell , Tuesday, October 15, 2013, 02:02 (3840 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt: The argument from social biologists is that the ant colony itself is the organism, and that the individual ants equivalent to cells in the human body. In that sense, David kind of undermines himself: If we can agree that the ant colony represents a single organism, but that organism displays intelligence in terms of being able to solve problems... but the individual ants themselves are simple automatons... then he's undermining the argument that chemical transactions in the brain are insufficient to produce intelligence.-
I don't follow your reasoning. Of course chemical reactions in the brain can produce intelligence, far more than computers ever can if you believe Penrose's comments. The issue is that intelligence is part of consciousness, and we don't know how that emerges from the complex of billions of neurons and trillions of synapses. The ants are automatons but acting together the colony acts as if it has intelligence, when really it is following instintual intelligent information in the genomes of the individuals. We can argue how that information was developed.