Insects May Have Consciousness

Here is an interesting article explaining that brain size may not be the whole picture when it comes to explaining consciousness or intelligence:

www.dailymail.co.uk...

nsects with minuscule brains may be as intelligent as much bigger animals and may even have consciousness, it was claimed today.
Having a brain the size of a pinhead does not necessarily make you less bright, say researchers.
Computer simulations show that consciousness could be generated in neural circuits tiny enough to fit into an insect's brain, according to the scientists at Queen Mary, University of London and Cambridge University.

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The models suggest that counting ability could be achieved with just a few hundred nerve cells, it is claimed.
And a few thousand would be sufficient to make an animal a conscious being, rather than an automated 'living robot'.
'Animals with bigger brains are not necessarily more intelligent,' said Professor Lars Chittka, from Queen Mary's Research Centre for Psychology, writing in the journal Current Biology.
'We know that body size is the single best way to predict an animal's brain size.
'However, contrary to popular belief, we can't say that brain size predicts their capacity for intelligent behaviour.
'In bigger brains we often don't find more complexity, just an endless repetition of the same neural circuits over and over.
'This might add detail to remembered images or sounds, but not add any degree of complexity. To use a computer analogy, bigger brains might in many cases be bigger hard drives, not necessarily better processors.'
Differences in brain size between animals can be extreme. A whale's brain can weigh up to nine kilograms and be packed with more than 200 billion nerve cells.
Human brains vary in weight between 1.25 kilograms and 1.45 kilograms, and have an estimated 85 billion neurons.
In contrast, a honeybee's brain weighs one milligram and contains fewer than a million nerve cells.
Many size differences existed only in specific brain regions, the scientists pointed out.
This was often the case in animals with highly developed senses, such as sight or hearing, or which have an ability to make very precise movements.
Increased size allowed the brain to function in more detail, finer resolution, and higher sensitivity or to achieve greater precision.
Research suggested that bigger animals may need larger brains simply because there was more to control. More nerves were needed to move bigger muscles, for example.
Much 'advanced' thinking could be done with very limited numbers of neurons, the scientists claimed.

The above is the entire Daily Mail article.


[edit on 17-11-2009 by berenike]

Absolutely agree with that. Just because they dont drink beer kill each other over trivial garbage pollute their environment and follow celebrity gossip doesnt mean they are not self aware. They might not make art or express themselves in a creative manner but that doesnt mean they dont posses consciousness.

Oh great now we will get PETA trying to protect insects.

No more insectsides, fly swatters. fly traps.





I am one of the other PETA(People Eating Tasty Animals)

The real kicker is when people find out that every living thing on this planet has a consciousness, including the planet herself. PS. She isn't happy.

the Jainists have it right! But I think insects have consciousness. and bee's are in tune with quantum mechcanics aren't they? seriously.

I can easily believe this - I've joined in a couple of threads here discussing insects and spiders. Few members seem to have any doubt that spiders are intelligent and have evil intentions towards humans

I used to have quite a phobia where some insects were concerned but worked hard to get over it. I'm glad I did because they really are fascinating little creatures.

I've no doubt that their lives are as valid as anyone else's.

One thing that occurred to me when I read this article is that it may settle the debate (or cause more arguments) about how women having smaller brains than men doesn't make them any less smart.

Here is another article. There's an interesting video included:

news.discovery.com...

Quote:

Insects may have tiny brains, but they can perform some seriously impressive feats of mental gymnastics.

According to a growing number of studies, some insects can count, categorize objects, even recognize human faces -- all with brains the size of pinheads.

I really love this part:

Ants and bees have notoriously complex social systems. Along with other insects, they can move in a surprising number of ways to communicate or get around.

Bees, for example, can sting, scout for food, guard the hive and fan their wings for ventilation, along with more than 50 other behaviors. The insect's behavioral repertoire, in fact, surpasses that of some vertebrates.”

"They are fantastically smart," Chittka said. "Perhaps we are only amazed by this because we think small brains shouldn't be able to do it."

In fact, scientists have calculated that a few hundred neurons should be enough to enable counting. A few thousand neurons could support consciousness. Engineers hope to use that kind of information to design programs that do things like recognize faces from a variety of angles, distances and emotional states. That's something bees can do, but computers still can't.

"Knowing how an insect functions and produces complex behaviors with a brain that's a million-fold smaller than ours makes it a little easier to envision that we might be able to model some of these behaviors," Farris said.

"It's wonderful to see that insects are finally being compared equally with vertebrate animals," she added. "They have smaller brains, but they still have complex enough brains to do these things."

This is the cutest picture I could find of an ant:

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[edit on 17-11-2009 by berenike]

I was searching around for more information on this and just look at the article I found:

news.bbc.co.uk...

Laser-controlled flies may be the latest addition to the neuroscientist's tool kit, thanks to a new technique.
Researchers have devised a way to write memories onto the brains of flies, revealing which brain cells are involved in making bad memories.
The researchers said that in flies just 12 brain cells were responsible for what is known as "associative learning".

Gawd...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/c8e74894bd30.jpg[/atsimg]



[edit on 17-11-2009 by berenike]

reply to post by TiM3LoRd


somethings definitely up!

check this out: first we have a video of what happens when 30 wasps attack a european honeybee hive with 30,000 honey bees. then we have a video of the japanese honeybees solution to the dilemma!





[edit on 17-11-2009 by undo]

reply to post by undo


Thats amazing. even a human wouldnt come up such a developed strategy. Its almost genius. Creating a thermal reaction through vibration. and applying that in a strategic plan. They know and understand the behavior of the wasp enough to know that the scout needs to be killed. Amazing simply amazing. If humans didnt have thermal imaging we would never have figured it out.

Originally posted by TiM3LoRd
Absolutely agree with that. Just because they dont drink beer kill each other over trivial garbage pollute their environment and follow celebrity gossip doesnt mean they are not self aware. They might not make art or express themselves in a creative manner but that doesnt mean they dont posses consciousness.

I would say many of them DO make art. Like a spider's web, or a bee's honeycomb. each spiders web is unique.

They kill each other also. But mostly out of necessity. Or because it is a life cycle function.

As far as celeb gossip goes..I wonder. I bet that if bees shared gossip, it would go something like:

"Did you hear about the queen?"
"Yeah I did, what a hussy, sha had pollen all over her!"

Or the conspiracy-false-flag bees, that just want the truth:

"The honeycomb is a lie!! we should over throw the empire!! The attack on the hive wasnt rain, it was our own people. Honey4truth!!!

Nevermind. An Efficient society would never act like that.

remember, the eco-system is an extroidinarily effective machine, everything has it's place........ save a major flaw...HUMANS.

Hi, berenike.
Cool OP !

Originally posted by berenike
Insects May Have Consciousness

Hey ! Did you know that "electrons" may have **awareness** ??? ! ! !

Buy/borrow/rent the 3 DVD kit linked by my signature's first line,
to find the answer in the " double slit experiment " ! !

Blue skies.

My cat can count, why not an insect. My cat will count from 1-7 in any order . I tell him 3 meows, he meows three times, 7 meows, I get 7. He always gets it rite in all orders.

I took it one step further, one meow for yes , two meows for no.
Ask him if he wants to go in the car car( hates the car) get two meows.
Ask him if he loves mama, get one meow. Ask him if he likes the dogs, get two meows, ask him if he wants numies (food) one meow.

He is a siamese by the way and VERY smart.

Insects are smart too, especially those darn roaches. They know when you coming, hide or sit still. I do have a major spider phobia. Especially sun scorpions. Here is a photo of one. I had one on my porch 4 times that size and FREAKED.

reply to post by amatrine


Squirrels can count - at least up to three.

I used to feed them in the park and found out that they could get three peanuts in their mouths, so I'd put three in the palm of my hand and offer them to a squirrel.

I decided to experiment with one of them and after a few 'feeds' of three peanuts I only put two in my hand. Back came the squirrel, took the two nuts and searched my hand and between my fingers looking for the third nut.

I can't remember, but knowing me I would have made up the shortfall once I'd found out what I wanted to know.

reply to post by berenike


what a cute story

All of life has consciousness, some expanded. All planets and stars and energy is sentient.
Energy is matter and matter is energy, and all are First Cause on a journey of self discovery.

Nature is filled with our teachers, literally, and if we would stop abusing it, we would know this, through meditation. Some of these teachers are higher cosmic citizens who are here as our guides. So some of nature are pleiadians, sirians, acturians, and higher dimensional people.

You can practice psi and the univerersal understanding/telepathy, in nature. Place an apple piece outside and try to communicate with the insects. You have to become, try to sense what they feel like, their flight, imagine a sense of becoming. Empathy is the root of this. Then ask them to be your teacher and reveal their life's purpose and knowledge. If you do this kind of thing long enough, and with trees, flowers, creatures, you will be very surprised at what will begin to happen.

Also, kneel on mother earth and tell her how sorry you are for being a part of the problems and hurting her, we all are. Then practice listening and asking her how you can help. Thank and greet the enegies and sunlight, grandfather sun!

You'll notice some changes in what occurs to, messages recieved, and awareness in general.

This gets better - here's Hellmutt's thread from a few years ago. Bomb and drug sniffing wasps

www.abovetopsecret.com...


I'd just like to say how much I appreciate the responses I've been getting in this thread. In the 'real world' I've so often been treated or thought of as a complete nutcase because of my attitude to other creatures.

It's lovely to come here and discuss them with other people who see them the same way as I do.

[edit on 18-11-2009 by berenike]

reply to post by berenike


I'm going to take the post I did in the other thread like this, because this one is more active and because I think my response fits better here.

I have a pet tarantula. It's a pretty normal spider except for one little thing.

I can reach into her cage and snatch her right up. Sometimes she will try to climb the glass, I'll stick my hand in there and she will actually climb on to my hand and wait for me to take her out.

I can hand her to other people with no problems.

Here is the strange part.

I can reach in there and pick her right up with no issue.

If you where to reach in there... well.... you better pray you are faster than she is.

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Also I saw that post with the hornets and the bees. I thought the method they used was absolutely brilliant. How do you think they figured out how to do that?

The bit that gets me, is the brains in all animals are just transmitters and receivers, where are they transmitting too?

Our brains are transmitting all the time, and somewhere out there is collecting this data, on all of us.

Just where though, i think it must be multi-dimensional, that we do not perceive though.

In our traditional teachings all living things have spirit and mind.
This is why we must respect all of life and our reletives, be them winged, hooved or feathered or scaled.

How we treat life around us is how we treat ourselves.

The "SAVAGES" knew this... but hey what did they know? (how to live and be within nature and the sacred circle)

Thank you very much for this post. I lvoe this sort of thing...
Fish have feelings too

Originally posted by Loki Lyesmyth
In our traditional teachings all living things have spirit and mind.
This is why we must respect all of life and our reletives, be them winged, hooved or feathered or scaled.

How we treat life around us is how we treat ourselves.

The "SAVAGES" knew this... but hey what did they know? (how to live and be within nature and the sacred circle)

Thank you very much for this post. I lvoe this sort of thing...
Fish have feelings too

Thats the traditional way...the ages have changed

Thanks
B???