I am reading the middle section of E.O. Wilson's Anthill right now, the part about a fictional colony of ants. Wilson and Bert Holldobler wrote a book called The Superorganism (which would probably be way over my head). But I love thinking about ant colonies as superorganisms, perhaps analogous to our bodies being made up of cells, or maybe to all the neurons in our brain communicating with each other, like the ants communicate with pheromones. I know Julie is taking a course on insect ecology now so maybe she has something to add here.
Ants within a colony are completely altruistic--they know their caste and their role in life, and they just perform their jobs. They don't take food from each other and if they are sick they get away from the other ants so as not to bother them or infect them. But--and I don't think I got this until I read The Blank Slate--the reason complete altruism works in this case is that they are all genetically identical to one another. (They all come from the queen and the sperm she was inseminated with (from one male ant) on the day she left her birth colony. It says the sperm survive inside her body, waiting to be used in turn, for up to 20 years!)
The reason we can't live like this, always acting for the greater good of humans in general, or even for the greater good of our ingroup, is that we aren't genetically identical. And Pinker says that we should be glad of it, because "without the possibility of suffering, what we would have is not harmonious bliss, but rather, no consciousness at all." p. 268 He also says that "Donald Symons has argued that we have genetic conflict to thank for the fact that we have feelings towards other people at all." p. 267.
But I wonder if an ant colony is analogous to a multicellular organism. I'm not quite sure if that's what Wilson says.
Unfortunately, reading about the individual ants in the colony, and their pointless lives (for example, the male that inseminates the queen lives a very short time and that's his whole goal in life, to mate with a queen--he can't even eat on his own. Being the queen is no picnic either from what I can tell) is also mildly depressing to me as it further indicates that there is no meaning to life. All of this behavior is completely about the genes replicating themselves. I really do believe in the Selfish Gene--Life, in every species, is all about the genes wanting to make more of themselves, not about the lives of the organisms. The ants aren't happy or sad--they just are. Where did we humans get the idea that we have a right to be happy?
This is my biggest stumbling block with mainstream Christianity. There is no objective purpose to any of us being here. Religion will have to continue to evolve towards the idea that you need to make your own purpose and then live that to the fullest.
One review of The Superorganism
To add to this: Most ants and bees are haplodiploidy, which means that unfertilized eggs hatch into males and fertilized eggs hatch into females. SO, females are 75% related to their sisters, but only 50% related to their mothers and daughters and only 25% related to brothers. So, it makes genetic sense to help their mother raise their sisters, who are more genetically related to themselves then their own daughters would be. And, not at all advantageous to help out males at all. Males on the other hand are often involved in raising the babies, and especially in rearing new queens. Out of the hundred, thousands+ "babies" they have been shown to favor the ones thta are most related to themselves and seek them out to feed royal jelly to (which makes a queen), so the males do show some favoritism.
ReplyDeleteFrom a biological standpoint I dont think there is much altruism.
So, that said, if there is no "meaning of life" then the best we can do is live our lives in a way that makes us happy (or at least content). I think for most people, being surrounded by happy people and living a fulfilling life is what makes us happy.
On the superorganism, Jon was having a moral dilemna about killing the ants in our house. i told him that they were just part of a superorganism that was working just fine, even though we killed a few of it's pieces. =)
I think one thing I am confused about is that I'm thinking there isn't any recombination, no variation between the individuals in the colony (except for what you're pointing out about the genetic differences between the sexes and so forth). I was thinking that they were all clones.
ReplyDeleteBut maybe there is recombination--because that happens before the egg and sperm are formed, so all of the queen's eggs, and all of the "father's" sperm aren't identical, just as they aren't in humans, for example.
It seems to me that Pinker said that the individuals in these social superorganisms were more closely related to each other than, say, are we humans within a family. I have to look this up.
Yeah, I'm thinking about this too as I kill the ants on my countertop every morning. Unfortunately I would like to get rid of this particular superorganism so it would stop entering my kitchen and bathroom.
News for Jon: I'm listening to the re-broadcast of Diane Rehm's interview with E.O. Wilson--someone just called in and asked, "What do I do about the ants in my kitchen? It pains me to kill them but I need to get rid of them" or something along those lines.
ReplyDeleteDiane asked if it would be okay to put some honey on a piece of paper and collect them and put them out in the garden ... he said "oh, if only it were so simple."
He said this is the most frequent question he is asked, and said that the best thing to do to get them out of the kitchen without killing the colony is to find the entrances and exits and line them with boric acid.