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posted by takyon on Tuesday August 04 2015, @10:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the minions dept.

A trio of researchers with Kobe University in Japan has found that lycaenid butterfly caterpillars of the Japanese oakblue variety, have dorsal nectary organ secretions that cause ants that eat the material to abandon their fellow ants to instead hang out with and defend the caterpillar against enemies. In their paper published in the journal Current Biology, Masaru Hojo, Naomi Pierce and Kazuki Tsuji describe their research into the relationship between the two creatures and why they believe the nature of that relationship needs to be reclassified.

Scientists have studied Japanese oakblue butterflies before, noting that ants seem to guard the young caterpillars, but until now that relationship was described as reciprocal, both seemed to derive some benefit. The caterpillars got protection and the ants got a nice meal. Now however, according to this new research, the ants may not be willing partners.


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  • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:32PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:32PM (#217902) Journal

    I believe anonymous cowards don't have free will. Their brains are just insufficiently complex.

    What does complexity have to do with free will?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:54PM (#217912)

    Do you think an atom has a free will? Why or why not?

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 04 2015, @02:22PM

      by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 04 2015, @02:22PM (#217921) Journal

      I think free will is a bullshit concept that refuses to acknowledge that while you exist in a real way, and are capable of making decisions, that you are an extremely complex engine for making those decisions.

      To think that you're separate from the mechanics of the universe because you're complicated is just silly. To think it because of spiritual nonsense is understandable, but I still think that's wrong. But to go "NO! I've got free will in my quantum state!" or "No! Once you put enough brain cells in one place suddenly the mostly deterministic laws of physics and chemistry cease to be!" I've got little to do but roll my eyes.

      With enough insight and invasive surgery, we could make your body do whatever we want, just like those ants and that caterpillar.

      • (Score: 1) by NullPtr on Tuesday August 04 2015, @03:02PM

        by NullPtr (3786) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @03:02PM (#217935) Journal

        That's like saying a cup can't hold water because you could cut a hole in it and then it wouldn't be able to hold any water.

        • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 04 2015, @03:03PM

          by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 04 2015, @03:03PM (#217936) Journal

          No, I don't think it's much like that at all.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @06:26PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @06:26PM (#218014)

          A cup can't hold water because there is space between atoms.

          • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday August 05 2015, @09:39AM

            by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday August 05 2015, @09:39AM (#218418)

            So what? Pretty much the only times anything actually touches at an atomic scale you get fusion or fission. Very rare in most contexts. Atoms don't normally touch, their electron clouds simply interact through a combination of electrostatics and quantum wavefunction limitations.

            But electrostatics are governed by the inverse square law, and the inverse square of atomic distances makes for some really large forces. Large enough that if you punch a brick wall the increase in electron repulsion as the distance shrinks will be so large and sudden that you'll imagine that there was actual physical contact involved in breaking your hand.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @04:25PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @04:25PM (#217973)

        Free will can be an illusion or not, but at least consciousness or self-awareness are probably more "real". Descartes could say "Cogito ergo sum", a child can recognize himself in the mirror, but very simple automata cannot have subjectivity. It can be argued that a few thousands neurons do not pass this threshold.

        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday August 05 2015, @10:06AM

          by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday August 05 2015, @10:06AM (#218426)

          It could also be argued that exactly twelve angels can dance on the head of a pin. That doesn't mean there's any particular validity to the argument.

          I would agree that consciousness and self awareness are, in some arguably poorly-defined sense, "real" phenomena, but at present we have essentially no idea of how they arise. We've only just discovered a brain region that appears to be responsible for the experience in humans, but have no understanding of the specific mechanisms involved. Much less whether those are the *only* mechanisms by which they could arise. As such, any assertions about their absence in other species based on physical characteristics is entirely speculative, and should be treated accordingly.

          In a similar vein it can be conclusively state that, from a purely mechanistic perspective, insects and arthropods do not feel pain like we do. Their nervous system simply lacks the mechanisms used by mammals to convey pain information, and thus they obviously cannot feel pain via those mechanisms. HOWEVER, that does not necessarily mean they do not feel pain via some other mechanism - and especially many higher arthropods such as lobsters have been observed engaging in the excessive grooming behaviors commonly associated with pain in mammals and other higher animals that do share the same pain mechanisms as us. Certainly that is not evidence that they DO feel pain, but when making statements about the capacity and range of subjective experience (aka sentience) I would suggest that behavior is probably at least as informative as mechanistic analysis.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @05:45PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @05:45PM (#217996)

        We neither have a complete model of the universe, nor are we sure know how the mechanisms we do understand lead to the emergence of consciousness. Rejecting an idea that you cannot reasonably falsify is willful ignorance, just as it is to assume it true.

        With enough insight and invasive surgery, we could make your body do whatever we want, just like those ants and that caterpillar.

        My body is a mechanism controlled by the brain. Unlike mammals, the Ant's brain has evolved to be controlled by external signals, it is physically incapable of opposing them.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @07:40PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @07:40PM (#218059)

          However, given our current knowledge about the universe, there is no reason to think that free will exists, just like there is no reason to think that a god exists. I lack a belief in both things.

          • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday August 05 2015, @10:43AM

            by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday August 05 2015, @10:43AM (#218433)

            At the risk of invoking Pascal's Wager, I would argue that a disbelief in free will is counterproductive:
            If free will does not exist, then you have no choice in whether or not you believe in it, and further discussion is irrelevant.

            However, if free will does exist, then belief in it empowers you to steer your path through the world, not least of which by engaging in self-directed operant conditioning to shape the "automatic" responses that generally govern the vast majority of behaviors in which we can both agree free will is lacking.

            Finally, if free will exists, and you do not believe in it, then have surrendered that power of self direction, and in exchange gain only an internal absolution of responsibility for your own actions. A state which it's worth mentioning makes you potentially dangerous to other individuals and society at large, and thus a candidate for elimination for the greater good.

            As an addendum, I would offer an alternate viewpoint to your purely mechanistic view of the universe - free will could itself be a fundamental property of the universe - consider: to an observer lacking broader context an exertion of free will would appear virtually indistinguishable from random behavior - it is after all almost by definition a bounded departure from the rules that normally govern behavior. And when we look at the universe at it's most fundamental level, quantum mechanics, what do we see but a universe dominated by apparently random behavior? If we postulate some mechanism by which such subatomic expressions of free will could contribute to a larger whole (perhaps not unlike the way a collective "mob mentality" can lead individuals to commit acts they later find appalling), then "high level" free will could emerge as naturally from the fundamental aspects of the universe as does complex biology.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @07:34PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 04 2015, @07:34PM (#218053)

        Dear "ikanreed",

        Words have meanings, and be mindful. "Complicated" is "made complex" for good or bad reasons. "Complex" is the word you're looking for.