How ants build bridges using very simple rules
Jason Kottke,
kottke.org,
Mar 01, 2018
I love ants precisely because they are very simple things that can behave in very complex ways. And so I like this video. But I want to ask whether it's accurate to say "ants follow rules". When looking at their bridge-building behaviour, we could describe it normatively: "when it feels other ants walking on its back, it should freeze. In other words, a classic rule-based behaviour. But what if we described it observationally: "ants freeze when other ants walk on their backs." Now this could be the result of any number of causes, and not a rule at all. There is a danger in reducing behaviour to rules. Most behaviour isn't rule-based, and rule-based descriptions are abstractions that fail to explain most behaviour.
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