Matt Gingell wrote:
> > Not so much perfection, as a system highly tolerant of imperfection.
>
> Heh heh. Recently I've been getting into this ant stuff - I wrote a
> little simulator for Linux/OpenGL and called it emergAnt...
If we could write a really good ant colony sim, I would be convinced
that we could write a neuron sim, interconnect a bunch of em to
make a brain sim. Then of course, Eliezer's Singularity results and
we all perish. But on a brighter note... {8^D
> I'd also like to model
> warrior ants - they would attack workers from rival colonies,
> releasing clouds of war scent to attract their friends, etc. It would
> make a terrific screen saver.
Actually all the workers are potential warriors, depending on the sitch,
methinks. This sim seems like an enormously difficult task. Ants do a
lotta things which seem to defy explanation. One hears that mankind
is the only animal that makes war. This nonsense is stated by one
who has never taken three minutes to observe ants, which not only
make war, they will fight to the last gal.
During a battle, two opposing ants will run up to each other and
wave antennae for several seconds, which on the ant scale would
be equivalent to a few hours. What is going on with that? Are they
arguing? [ "Hey you! Na4Cl3C7COOH!" "Oh yeah? Well
ClO3SiO2F5CaCl2 to you, sister!" "Thems fightin chemicals..."]
Then they start in with the mandibles.
Not only that, they play for keeps! An ant gets her thorax torn
off, she still wont relax her grip until her opponent is cold dead.
Then she calmly scoops up the severed aft section and walks away
with it. Vince Lombardy would loooove this animal.
Hey, Matt, back when I made the other ant farm I bought 4
pieces of glass planning to make 2 ant farms. Only made one,
which perished in the move to the Bay area, but I still have the
other two pieces of glass. Think Ill build that other one. We can
fool with your ant sim until it produces results that match the real
thing.
Then we can play the info game and Ill really stump you with how
many pets do I have. Stump me too: it becomes a bit unclear how
to even count ones ants. {8-] spike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:04:14 MDT