How smart are insects?

Xmo1

Xmo1

Registered Senior Member
This should have been posted to biology. Sorry, but now I can't move it.
When I wave (the byebye or shoo wave, not a swat where they will turn and attack me) at wasps flying into the garage, and tell them to leave they do. Most often times not returning. If they do return, and I wave and talk again usually they fly out and not return. Never had an instance where that did not happen. I've had several instances of house flies waiting to leave the house. Today, one kept bothering me by flying around, and alighting on my head. It would then sit on a window blind returning not soon after to bothering me again. So I open the window and screen and let it out. It does fly out immediately upon my opening the screen. How do they know to bother me - that I am something that will let them out? As I say, this has happened many times in both instances of flies and wasps. I do not harbor doubt about this being anything but an insect knowing what is happening, or with the flies knowing that I was the thing that would let them out of the house. Is there an explanation for this behavior?
 
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I thank ther fantastic at bein the insect that they are... an thers no indication i know of that they beleive stoopid sht.!!!
 
Xmo1 said:
Is there an explanation for this behavior?
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There is an explanation for every behaviour. And it's logical, in their world-view: insects are not intelligent enough to be irrational;
just intelligent enough to succeed at their life-style for millions of years.
Flies - and most insects - are attracted to light (I guess, because sunshine is where flowers and ripe carrion and warm puddles are likely to be),
so they'll usually go outside, given the chance. Why they keep butting one's head is usually because we're sitting right under a light; landing on one's hand,
I can only conjecture is because humans give off an attractive smell - sweat with the scent of whatever we last ate...
Wasps sometimes react aggressively to hostile motions, but a large, warm, waving thing is probably interpreted as bad news: something that maybe eats insects...
unless it's holding a soft drink or ice cream come.
Just don't try reasoning with a moth or mosquito. They are insects of very little brain.
 
Xmo1 said:
When I wave (the byebye or shoo wave, not a swat where they will turn and attack me) at wasps flying into the garage, and tell them to leave they do.
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Shooing a wasp results in it leaving? Not surprising.
Most often times not returning. If they do return, and I wave and talk again usually they fly out and not return. Never had an instance where that did not happen.
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I think it is rather amazing that you can distinguish one wasp from another!
I've had several instances of house flies waiting to leave the house.
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You can read the mind of house flys?
Today, one kept bothering me by flying around, and alighting on my head. It would then sit on a window blind returning not soon after to bothering me again. So I open the window and screen and let it out. It does fly out immediately upon my opening the screen. How do they know to bother me - that I am something that will let them out?
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They don't.
As I say, this has happened many times in both instances of flies and wasps. I do not harbor doubt about this being anything but an insect knowing what is happening, or with the flies knowing that I was the thing that would let them out of the house. Is there an explanation for this behavior?
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Yes, the explanation of your behavior is called anthropomorphism.
 
Jeeves said:
There is an explanation for every behaviour.
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I wonder if some of them (house flies and wasps here) react to sight and/or sound the same as pets, who when a person behaves disapprovingly the animals respond to it. As I said, this happens many times during the course of a year (especially spring and summer). I'm wondering if there is a mechanism that is very basic to life that produces these behaviors. What changes the brain in babies when mothers stroke and cuddle them in the first days and weeks of their lives? Not asking that question - just support for my observations.
 
All simple life forms (in terms of brain power) have overlapping behavior rules.

I watched a TV show a while back where it described a moth circling a flame.
Moths do not decide to circle a flame.
They have light receptors on their wings. When light impinges on one wing more than the other, it causes one wing to beat harder than the other, turning the moth back toward the source of light. The moth has no choice in the matter.

For flies, it might be:
Fly toward food.
Fly toward light.
Avoid fast-moving objects.

These rules have stimuli
- chemical odor
- impinging light
- fast-moving shadows across vision

None of these rules are voluntary. They are direct stimulus-response triggers. The rules are independent of each other, but their interaction and overlapping priorities can result in complex behavior.

Fly trapped indoors.
Light draws it to window.
Can't get to light.
Flight pattern gets increasingly chaotic, venturing further from window in attempt to find light.
Passes near chemical aura of human emanations, food rule kicks in.
Chemicals draw it to buzz human.
Human waves its arms, avoidance rules kicks in.
Human stops waving arms, fly defaults to food rule.
Human moves to door (slow movement), fly continues to orbit human.
Human opens door. Influx of light triggers fly's 'fly toward light' rule.

Simple rules: complex, emergent behavior.
 
DaveC426913 said:
All simple life forms (in terms of brain power) have overlapping behavior rules.
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Thanks DaveC. You're amazing. It makes sense to me now. I knew about moth's and the moon. The only way I think about mosquitoes, spiders, and snakes is weather or not they pose a threat. The flies and wasps really had me thinking though. Thanks again.
 
Xmo1 said:
I wonder if some of them (house flies and wasps here) react to sight and/or sound the same as pets,
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No. The difference in brain complexity between a fly and a cat puts them is immense.
Cats have brains, needs and lives similar to humans - which is why we co-exist so happily. http://www.petful.com/behaviors/cat-brain-compared-human-brain/
They process all different kinds of information about their environment, food sources, familial and social relationships;
store short- and long-term memories from a wide array of sensory input and experience, and have a range of options, desires and abilities to determine their actions.

Insects don't even know you exist. They perceive you as an obstacle, a threat or a food source - a large, mobile object.
However, the brain of even so small a thing as a fly is amazing. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100712102812.htm
 
Xmo1 said:
What changes the brain in babies when mothers stroke and cuddle them in the first days and weeks of their lives?
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Maybe you're on to something here. Have you tried cuddling and stroking the flies and wasps?
 
Xmo1 said:
I'm wondering if there is a mechanism that is very basic to life that produces these behaviors.
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Yes. Flee from fast moving objects. Don't get squished.

Xmo1 said:
What changes the brain in babies when mothers stroke and cuddle them in the first days and weeks of their lives? Not asking that question - just support for my observations.
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Babies have about 8 or 9 orders of magnitude more neurons, synapses and connections - to store new information and more complex tasks - than an insect.
 
DaveC426913 said:
All simple life forms (in terms of brain power) have overlapping behavior rules.

I watched a TV show a while back where it described a moth circling a flame.
Moths do not decide to circle a flame.
They have light receptors on their wings. When light impinges on one wing more than the other, it causes one wing to beat harder than the other, turning the moth back toward the source of light. The moth has no choice in the matter.

For flies, it might be:
Fly toward food.
Fly toward light.
Avoid fast-moving objects.

These rules have stimuli
- chemical odor
- impinging light
- fast-moving shadows across vision

None of these rules are voluntary. They are direct stimulus-response triggers. The rules are independent of each other, but their interaction and overlapping priorities can result in complex behavior.

Fly trapped indoors.
Light draws it to window.
Can't get to light.
Flight pattern gets increasingly chaotic, venturing further from window in attempt to find light.
Passes near chemical aura of human emanations, food rule kicks in.
Chemicals draw it to buzz human.
Human waves its arms, avoidance rules kicks in.
Human stops waving arms, fly defaults to food rule.
Human moves to door (slow movement), fly continues to orbit human.
Human opens door. Influx of light triggers fly's 'fly toward light' rule.

Simple rules: complex, emergent behavior.
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No bug left behind is the motto of Megaponera analis, an ant species found in southern regions of Africa. Every day these hunters raid termite nests to keep their colonies fed. But the ants have chosen a dangerous prey, and tussles with large soldier termites often lead to injury—limbs and antennae are sometimes lost on the battlefield. When researchers noticed that large ants called “majors” would pick up fallen soldiers and carry the live ones back to their nests, they decided to study the fate of the injured by marking them with paint. More than 90% of hurt ants recovered to emerge from their nests and march again in future raids, the researchers report today in Science Advances. A secretion from an injured ant’s mandibles seemed to be the key to calling for help; even when perfectly healthy ants were doused in the chemical, majors came around to offer a free ride. But if no help came for an ant in need—too slow to keep up with its departing unit—that ant was almost a third more likely to get eaten by a predator or die of exhaustion on the way home. The number of ants needing rescue each day was roughly equal to the number of ants born, meaning rescues—and the distress pheromone that signals them—help colonies stay strong enough to fight another day.
No bug left behind is the motto of Megaponera analis, an ant species found in southern regions of Africa. Every day these hunters raid termite nests to keep their colonies fed. But the ants have chosen a dangerous prey, and tussles with large soldier termites often lead to injury—limbs and antennae are sometimes lost on the battlefield. When researchers noticed that large ants called “majors” would pick up fallen soldiers and carry the live ones back to their nests, they decided to study the fate of the injured by marking them with paint. More than 90% of hurt ants recovered to emerge from their nests and march again in future raids, the researchers report today in Science Advances. A secretion from an injured ant’s mandibles seemed to be the key to calling for help; even when perfectly healthy ants were doused in the chemical, majors came around to offer a free ride. But if no help came for an ant in need—too slow to keep up with its departing unit—that ant was almost a third more likely to get eaten by a predator or die of exhaustion on the way home. The number of ants needing rescue each day was roughly equal to the number of ants born, meaning rescues—and the distress pheromone that signals them—help colonies stay strong enough to fight another day.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017...s_weekly_2017-04-14&et_rid=41087911&et_cid=12
 
I think that sometimes insects are attracted by things other than light. Sometimes it's chemical. When they buzz around your head and face, it's probably something (CO2?) in your breath that's attracting them.

I'm inclined to think of insects psychologically speaking as little machines. But pretty advanced machines, by our current engineering standards. There's lot's of AI'ish stuff happening in there. They may in fact display many cognitive capabilities found in 'higher' organisms, albeit in simpler form. They navigate, they identify others of their kind, they learn, they may be able to direct their attention depending on their task.

http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ddenenbe/248/Selected readings/Artificial Intelligence/HoneybeeCognition.pdf

http://socialinsectlab.arizona.edu/learning

http://www.chd.ucsd.edu/_files/fall2008/Dornhaus.2008.MN.pdf

But it probably doesn't help us understand whats going on behind those compound eyes to imagine what it would be like for ourselves to be in there. I'm not convinced that our folk-psychology vocabulary applies to insects.
 
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timojin said:
What is intelligence ?
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It's a tricky definition, but it generally revolves around ability to adapt to situations not previously encountered. (or abstracting problem-solving to apply to a broad range of circumstances).

While ants may exhibit complex behavior, it is not very adaptable behavior; it is instinct.
 
This link may be of interest.
IMO this is an important movie: The Hellstrom Chronicle

 
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DaveC426913 said:
It's a tricky definition, but it generally revolves around ability to adapt to situations not previously encountered. (or abstracting problem-solving to apply to a broad range of circumstances).

While ants may exhibit complex behavior, it is not very adaptable behavior; it is instinct.
Click to expand...

Ants build very complex living centers for themselves , they have structured society, would you say that require some intelligence ?
 
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