Quantum Bees?

In a recent study, researchers reported that bumblebees were able to figure out the most efficient routes among several computer-controlled "flowers," quickly solving a complex problem that even stumps supercomputers. We already know bees are pretty good at facial recognition, and researchers have shown they can also be effective air-quality monitors.


Bumblebees can solve the classic "traveling salesman" problem, which keeps supercomputers busy for days. They learn to fly the shortest possible route between flowers even if they find the flowers in a different order, according to a new British study.

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Barbara Shipman, a mathematician at the University of Rochester, expands upon the research of physicist Karl Von Frisch, hypothesizing that bees have an advanced understanding of quantum space and mathematics.

Karl Von Frisch has proven that honey bees communicate the location of food through specific dances, or “waggles,” that are geometrically proportional to variables such as the distance between the hive and food.

Von Frisch concludes: “You have to wonder what makes the dance happen. Bees don’t have enough intelligence to know what they’re doing. How do they know the dance in the first place? Calling it instinct or some other word just substitutes one mystery for another.”

While researching this mystery, Shipman discovered a direct correlation between the geometry of higher-dimension “manifolds” and the honey bees’ dance, suggesting a deeper, more quantum connection than previously observed.

She continues to suggest that the insect’s bodies have evolved to increase sensitivity between quantum fields, that they’re actually able to physically communicate with the properties of quarks in a way that is beyond our current understanding of physics.

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Further reading

These cylinders were staggered into mazes with multiple levels of “Y” branch points that the bees encountered before reaching the desired feeder station. In one set of experiments, the scientists trained bees to track a trail of colored marks, as in a scavenger hunt. The bees could then follow—more or less—the same strategy in a completely unfamiliar maze. Amazingly enough, bees can use color in an abstract manner, turning right, for instance, when the branch point is colored blue and left when it is colored green. Individual animals developed quite sophisticated strategies, such as the right-turn rule, that always led to the goal, though not necessarily by the shortest route.

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Further Reading

I've been careful to stress that any network possesses integrated information. The theory is very explicit on this point: Any system whose functional connectivity and architecture yield a phi value greater than zero has at least a trifle of experience. This would certainly include the brains of bees. Just because bees are small and fuzzy does not mean that they cannot have subjective states. So, the next time a bee hovers above your breakfast, attracted by the golden nectar on your toast, gently shoo her away. She might be a fellow sentient being, experiencing her brief interlude in the light.

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Years ago there was an experiment preformed on bees related to a lake in a specific hives feeding grounds. Experimenters worked with the Bees that acted a scouts. They were effective in creating a condition in which these bees, responded to a flowers placed in a small boat.

When these bees returned to the nest and transmitted the location of there find as being in a lake? In many cases they were killed by the other bees. I mean granted animals do kill there own kind and especially in the case of the young when a problem is sensed. In this case there was actually nothing wrong with what the bees were communicating, but an apparent response occurred as if there was something physically wrong with them.

Any thoughts?

I think Shipman is full of poop.

However, bees are pretty good at remembering where things are and how to get to them. Not only can they tell other bees where something is, they can return to it themselves, and the more times they do, the more efficiently they route their path.

If you've ever beelined, you will notice your first round marker bees making the trip faster and faster.

reply to post by Bedlam


You might then consider the works of Karl von Frisch

Again the bees respond to the messenger bee as if there is a genetic problem but there is not. Animals as well as insects do often respond to medically determinable dysfunctions in relation to reproduction, where they either refuse to mate or kill the young. In this case we have a situation where there is nothing wrong with the bee, with exception of the fact it identified a food source location that could be considered inappropriate, without human intervention. The bees seem to think it is impossible for plants they can feed from to grow in lakes.

reply to post by Kashai

Shipman discovered a direct correlation between the geometry of higher-dimension “manifolds” and the honey bees’ dance

"Strong Correlation" in this case, means "Passing resemblance if you squint"

I'm not joking... That is the entirety of her research on the subject.

Take a look for yourself:

Here is a six dimensional manifold

And here's yer bee dance.




There, you looked at both?

Good, you just did exactly as much science as she did.

Seriously.... this whole thing is just sad.

reply to post by ErtaiNaGia


Effectively a good reason to place a question mark in relation to the title.

reply to post by Kashai


Nice experiment. It makes you look at small creatures in a different light. Maybe they have a belief system just like humans and as with humans there are lines you cannot cross.

reply to post by purplemer


It is interesting as when you look at other animals that travel in groups? A disagreement as to where the food is, is something rather unknown with exception of humans. Animals in general fight and kill each other over issues of territory, reproduction and food when it is scarce, but this is not the same thing.

Interesting article. What makes it more interesting is what it says about us.

The emerging field of Quantum Biology is exciting to say the least. If migrating birds, DNA, Photosynthesis, sense of smell and now bees use quantum properties like superposition, entanglement and non locality then it's just common sense that the brain could evolve to also access these properties.

I'm already a proponent of Quantum Consciousness because it explains who we are perfectly instead of all of these convoluted and plainly lacking explanations as to how consciousness emerged from the classical brain.

Quantum Conscious would also easily explain things like near death experiences, twin telepathy, psychic ability and more.

Thanks for posting.

reply to post by neoholographic

Tegmark's paper was aimed at refuting Hameroff's Orch OR theory, which required quantum coherence to be sustained for 25 ms. Thus Tegmark did not show that coherence over shorter timescales could not support consciousness, because he was directing his argument at the longer timescales of Hameroff's theory. Georgiev here queries whether there is any evidence that consciousness has to arise over a milliseconds timescale. If consciousness could operate over a picosecond or shorter timescale then Tegmark's calculations do not present any problem for quantum consciousness. It is pointed out that all neuroscience has been able to show to date is that consciousness does not operate on a scale slower than milliseconds.

Tests show that there is a minimum timescale of about 30 ms needed for a subject to distinguish two sensory inputs as being separate. This means that consciousness cannot be slower than 30 ms. However, patients with time agnosia, who have subjective experience of the passage of time, confirm that it is physically possible to have consecutive conscious steps that are experienced as simultaneous. From this it is argued that the real units of consciousness could be at the picoseconds level, although such units cannot be discerned by the conscious subject.

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If you have been around internet forums for while Tegmark's argument is one of this issues you will run into.

Any thoughts?

reply to post by Kashai


I think there's a couple of things wrong with Tegmark's paper. First, he uses a different metric than Hameroff which of course will be at odds with Hameroff. Hameroff was talking about sub units of microtubules which would provide a way to hold superposition longer. But, we might not find quantum consciousness in microtubules. It might be somewhere else. This is why more research in these areas are needed.

Tegmark and others think the brain can be mimicked by a computer in a way where consciousness will be produced. What Penrose showed was that the brain is non computable and therefore quantum mechanical. Consciousness doesn't work in a step by step fashion. Conscious experiences occur in ways that aren't computable at least on a classical level.

Penrose basically says that coherent states are in superposition on a quantum level. They become entangled and when they reach a quantum/classical threshold, a conscious experience occurs when these states decohere. This means the universe is conscious at the smallest scales of space-time geometry. Fascinating stuff if you ask me.

Let's say you go into Rite Aid. Everything in the store would be coherent states of superposition on a quantum level. When you buy that Snapple and bag of Baked Lays and walk out of the store, those coherent states of superposition decohere into one state and a conscious experience occurs. The classical human brain is intelligent and it has evolved to the point where it can observe and is aware of these conscious experiences that occur.

This is why the article about the Bees is so great. It's because other animals may use the same quantum properties. It's just we have brains that are advanced enough to be aware of these conscious experiences that occur on planck scales.

So when you walk into a store, quantum consciousness is putting things in a coherent state of superposition. The classical brain then makes the choice and the coherent superposition decohere's into one state which is a conscious experience. I don't think the classical brain always makes the choice though. I think these coherent states network and calculate the optimal choice. The brain is so advanced though, we can make choices that are less than optimal.

I was just reading about how the universe is like a brain and it said this:

The physicists' simulation modeled the very early life of the universe, shortly after the Big Bang.

In the simulation, they looked at how quantum units of space-time smaller than subatomic particles "networked" with each other.

They learned the simulation mirrored that of other networks - some links between similar nodes had limited growth, but others acted as junctions for many different connections.

Also, they found some connections are limited and similar, like a person who likes sports visiting many sports websites; while some connect to many other parts of the network, like Google and Yahoo.

www.gmanetwork.com...

I think because of this, Physics is missing something. Like the guy said in the article:

“For a physicist it’s an immediate signal that there is some missing understanding of how nature works,” the Huffington Post quoted Krioukov as tellinge Space.com.

What this means is that these coherent states network with each other on Planck scales in a way that's not random. They seem to favor these connections that produce universes, human brains and internets.

The reason this will be met with HUGE resistance because it also means things like twin telepathy, near death experiences and more are easily explained with these three words. Superposition, entanglement and non-locality.

Here's a great video:

reply to post by neoholographic

The human body is a constant flux of thousands of inter-reactions and processes connecting molecules, cells, organs and fluids throughout the brain, body and nervous system. Up until recently it was thought that all these countless interactions operated in a linear sequence, passing on information much like a runner passing the baton to the next runner. However, the latest findings in quantum biology and biophysics have discovered that there is in fact a tremendous degree of coherence within all living systems. It has been found through extensive scientific investigation that a form of quantum coherence operates within living biological systems through what is known as biological excitations and biophoton emission. What this means is that metabolic energy is stored as a form of electromechanical and electromagnetic excitations. It is these coherent excitations that are considered responsible for generating and maintaining long-range order via the transformation of energy and very weak electromagnetic signals.

After nearly 20 years of experimental research, Fritz-Albert Popp put forward the hypothesis that biophotons are emitted from a coherent electrodynamic field within the living system. What this effectively means is that each living cell is giving off, and resonating with, a biophoton field of coherent energy. If each cell is emitting this field, then the whole living system is, in effect, a resonating field -- a ubiquitous non-local field. And since it is by the means of biophotons that the living system communicates, then there is near instantaneous intercommunication throughout. And this, claims Popp, is the basis for coherent biological organization -- referred to as quantum coherence.

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Further reading

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Tegmark does seem wrong for many reasons.