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@michaelgemar @alexwild @MyrmecolNews
If more people would just spend sometime watching ants carefully you'd see them making decisions, being confused, getting frustrated, feeling panicked or scared, and being sleepy.
You'd see them struggle and fight each other over who gets to do a task and then stomp off and walk in circles when they don't win.
There is a lot going on.
@michaelgemar @alexwild @MyrmecolNews
It's very contrived how we keep trying to get animals to do "tests" that are centered around things humans care about. People think it's significant to see "yourself" in a mirror.
I suspect that "ant ideas" don't have exactly parallel concepts. That is, I don't know what the test would prove if it worked.
Ants *do* care a lot about having the same pheromone profile as their colony.
Ants do some things we can't. No one likes to sit with that truth.
But they respond by cleaning themselves not attacking.
For the record... I don't find the idea of ants having some "self recognition" impossible or even unlikely.
What I'm getting hung up on is the idea that ants would pay attention to a mirror. Ants have poor vision, they are tactile creatures.
But maybe they ONLY pay attention if their reflection changes?
OK this has gone on long enough!
I'm breaking out the little ant-sized mirrors and the "bee safe paint!"
I have black and yellow and will try this on some of my black carpenter ants.
Covering new things you don't understand with sand is VERY sensible. Something we could learn from the ants IMO.
Here is Anton's video, he's pretty popular for science news, but he only really knows about space.
So a few months back I found a study that tried to do the "mirror test for consciousness" on ants. I remember not being very impressed with the journal where it was published, though I found the topic fascinating.
Anton Petrov has now mentioned this study in one of his videos, which means it's going to spread more.
So... how do the ant people feel about this?
I think the trick is to stop trying to get the cheese to stick to the popcorn and just eat one of each at the same time.
In Chicago they mix their cheesey popcorn with their sweet popcorn and brag about it a lot HOWEVER if you want to make it classy get the caramel corn but serve it with little slices of real sharp cheddar cheese.
Forget the cheese powder.
You are welcome.
I love that people are still making more vases like these.
I've been following @potterybyosa for a long time and love her work. This may or MAY NOT be a part of a subtle psychological influence campaign to get her to make ant stuff.
The school email, gchat, google classroom and websites already do that.
It was made by Guadalupe Gallegos.... I thought Mata Ortiz was a name at first, but it's the type of pottery. Very amazing art.
This vase is perfect. A better vase cannot be made.
Ant Ceramic Art on Etsy:
There are some really excellent pieces of art. Maaan if I were a rich person with a house with a place to put a $600 vase I know exactly which vase I would have. :
https://www.etsy.com/listing/8838238/ant-picnic-6x6-ceramic-art-tile
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1661330421/stunning-casas-grandes-mata-ortiz-olla
https://www.etsy.com/listing/4393721145/ceramic-sgraffito-bowl-with-ants?
I just wanted someone else to look at the nice ant art. Maybe it will inspire YOU to make ant art.
Is a house really a home without some ants?
Or maybe it is MORE funny?
Today, on a sunday I have 130 school email notifications and all of them are from the listservs and I need to open most of them and look to see what it is.
OK I'll open like half of them.
But it's a mess.
Nonetheless we are already a school where students and teachers do mass digital communication in the community all the time.
I haven't gotten as far as talking about software yet. Though I'm starting to think the way to sell them on this is to point out how much more elegant it would be than our current school electronic communication which is basically everyone spams everyone with email all the time.
Every club, team, department, etc. is just posting stuff to these horrible listserves like it's usenet and there are no forums. Just one big forum.
This would be a way to tame the chaos.