The Collective Mind of African Giant Ants

[Mike 5]

The Collective Mind of Siafu Ants

A while back I saw a TV documentary on the the "number one predator" in Africa – colonies of Siafu ants.

These are the swarming ants that eat people and horses alive if they do not get out of the way. Watching this film, it was clear that our thories of mind as "inside" a physical body are inadequate.

We get a slight sense when watching a flock of birds or a shoal of fish, even some crowded human mob, that a collective mind is there, but we can blink and shake that idea out of our heads. No serious thinker can witness Siafu Ants and shake off the idea that so many functions of a body - nesting, nourishment, excretion, are all organised at the communical level here involving "intelligence" that simply cannot fit into any single ant brain.

The Siafu Ants live in colonies of several millions, and are about as large as small locusts. There is just one helpless female queen, millions of baby maggots to be fed, millions or worker ants, and they must move nest every couple of weeks because they have eaten every living thing for miles around. To move 7 million ants to a new nest in a few hours, the Siafu form a flowing river like a motorway with living barrier rails and what look like streelamps – ants on other ants shoulders about three or four high and the top ones are regularly spaced and ready to attack any thing or any one who stumbles near the snaking dark amoeba of discrete individuals.

Then along come the sausage flies, the males are the size of a chipolata and fly in from another nest to mate. If I had not seen the film, I would not believe it either.

The logistics of moving so many million ants, over and over, a good many of them helpless pupae, and watching that, it is very hard to avoid the conclusion that these ants have a "mind" that is not physically in any one ant at all, but in the flowing spaces between them as it were.

Of course at the atomic level, matter is mainly space, so it is just a presumption that mind has to be within walls that are not there when you get beyond nanoscopic levels.

Every couple of days the ants go hunting and in such numbers, no creature is safe unless they are awake and running fast. The way they chase and capture any and every creature appears to us to be an action of a single large organisms that "knows" what to do.

Of course our own bodies are made of individual cells that for unknown reasons joined into collective collaborations and specialisations, technically each cell is still a separate cell but grown for a purpose from a blueprint of a single double helix of DNA.

The questions arises as to the future of our species. Some have the idea that people will become communal in the way that these ants are, and that the cells in our own bodies are. That as a species we already form mobs, teams, and know what that feels like, but could there actually be some level of mind beyond ours that wakes up and is there in the spaces between humans guiding us blindly to group actions?

Scary thought, especially thinking of wars and so on.

[Mike 5]

My thoughts are buzzing as always, I am in essence a gateway of mutation, some have said.

Here is an illustration for a talk in November in Vienna by Ra Uru Hu, who created the Human Design System.
http://hdblogs.typepad.com/photos/un...e_line_map.jpg

This shows a change from the 7 centred Chakra being our species has been since that model was cognised by Rishis in Asia many thousands of years ago, to a nine centred being, during the years from 1781 to 1881. Human Design Theory is based upon a rotational mathematics of time and space. During 1781 (the discover of Uranus by Herschel) and 1881 (the industrial revolution), the precession of the equinox, that is I believe a line marking the extremes of the wobble of the earth within the spin and orbit, drew a line that traversed line 3 (mutation) in hexagram 55 (Spirit) of the ancient Chinese Yi Jing. So in Human Design, the classical zodiac of 23 signs is replaced by a roulette wheel of the 64 hexagrams in a particular order that is derived mathematically from the binary sequence of those hexagrams in a balanced fractal recursive geometry: 00000 00001 00010 00011 000100 is balanced in oppositions across the ecliptic or constellations in the sky to it's graphical inverse 11111, 11110, 11101, 111100, 111011 etc.

This mathematical order happens to be both fractal and dialectic. It is one of a set of such orders that in my view could replace existing mathematics with nested fractal virtual binary elements that are both cardinal and ordinal, but I digress.

The 12 part zodiac of solar system orbits and the earth's rotation is replaced by a fine roulette wheel, as it were, of 64 binary derived flavours, each described poetically thousands of years ago by the Chinese in the Yi Jing (previously spelt I Ching). Hexagrams have six divisions or "lines" from both classical Chinese theory and the binary form of 64 from 000000 to 111111.

The much heralded Age of Aquarius is the precession of the equinox, I believe, I am not fussed, in Vedic astrology, again or not, I don't really bother to remember, for it is the mathematics that is so beautiful - from 2000 years (the Christian era, sign of the fish for early Christians) in Pisces to the constellation of Aquarius. Hence, I promise you, the swish of Nike, the Bezier graphics of oru computers, will be taken by many, and if I can make a buck from it, me too, me too, to herald this age of waves.

Superimposing the roulette wheel of 64 "gates", the equinox line moves from hexagram 101100 ("55" Abundance, and in RNA the sequence UAC or is it CAU, in amino acids this is Histamine, in the body the prostate, Human Design is am encyclopedic labyrinth of utterly outrageous empirically testable assertions) to the hexagram 101101 ("30" the clinging fire, RNA GAC or CAG, the amino acid is abbreviated to Glu).

The diagram I linked to above is the transition of our species from homo sapiens to a new energy structure.

What shocks me is the angles in this, so industrial. But 1881, industrial revolution, suddenly thinking of the ants and consciousness beyond their body, could an alien anthropoligist comment that since 1881 our species has changed to incorporate industrial objects as extensions of our consciousness and life?

If Siafu ants, for example, demonstrate many qualities of consciousness outside and beyond their physical body, could it be, that we humans have extended our consciousness not only between us, in culture, libraries, and so on, but that since 1881 the form of sharing of what we are collectively has moved to silicon notably and many industrially made forms?

Our cars, our TVs, our box like houses, the 3D graph of Descartes imposed on our walls and our furniture. Is our communal consciousness actually shared beyond living tissue, and into the internet and so on?

[labelwench]

Our cars, our TVs, our box like houses, the 3D graph of Descartes imposed on our walls and our furniture. Is our communal consciousness actually shared beyond living tissue, and into the internet and so on?

Originally posted by Mike 5

There would seem to be some form of energy in the space between all things that have mass. A communal consciousness does not seem logical, yet such may be a 'reservoir of energy' which allows us to draw upon and into which, all energy eventually returns.

My remark is devoid of any religious connotation. I am speaking only to the the components of my own biology, it's origins, it's source of operational energy and inspiration and it's eventual reclamation.

[labelwench]

This thread has lain dormant for years, and only the two posts, though the subject seems fascinating.

Yet many times, I have observed this thread being viewed by a large number of guests, as in a study class.

Why do you viewers not join this forum and share the purpose of your examination of this thread?

Why this thread?

Is it a direction of investigation we should be taking, or is it merely conveniently brief and thereby a suitable subject for application as a group exercise?

[Bogie]

There would seem to be some form of energy in the space between all things that have mass. A communal consciousness does not seem logical, yet such may be a 'reservoir of energy' which allows us to draw upon and into which, all energy eventually returns.

My remark is devoid of any religious connotation. I am speaking only to the the components of my own biology, it's origins, it's source of operational energy and inspiration and it's eventual reclamation.

I have to agree with you on the energy in the space between all mass. The conventional description of energy as "the ability to do work" is quite remiss in not acknowledging the possibility of the infinite fineness of the energy commodity. Do you think this is in line with the OP?

[labelwench]

I have to agree with you on the energy in the space between all mass. The conventional description of energy as "the ability to do work" is quite remiss in not acknowledging the possibility of the infinite fineness of the energy commodity. Do you think this is in line with the OP?

If by OP you mean 'Original Poster', I have taken this starting position from post #2, the final sentence.

Should you have another meaning for the acronym, I would need to be made aware, before I could respond otherwise.

Thank you for the engagement in discussion.

[Bogie]

If by OP you mean 'Original Poster', I have taken this starting position from post #2, the final sentence.

Should you have another meaning for the acronym, I would need to be made aware, before I could respond otherwise.

Thank you for the engagement in discussion.

You have it right. OP is original post or original poster. Sorry to have slipped that into the conversation without first seeing it used here. FM.

(Just kidding with the FM short cut; let's pretend it has a common meaning of forgive me )

[labelwench]

You have it right. OP is original post or original poster. Sorry to have slipped that into the conversation without first seeing it used here. FM.

(Just kidding with the FM short cut; let's pretend it has a common meaning of forgive me )

You mean it does not stand for Frequency Modulation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_modulation

The simple art of communication is neither simple, nor does it always result in communication.

Nothing to forgive unless one has intention of misleading. Most misunderstanding is just that. Misunderstanding due to there being more than one possible interpretation. Not that hard to fathom or redirect. Like a sponge. Just wring it out and you're good to go once again.....

[labelwench]

The army ant genus Dorylus, also known as driver ants, safari ants, or siafu, is found primarily in central and east Africa, although the range also extends to tropical Asia. The term siafu is a loanword from Swahili[1], and is one of numerous similar words from regional Bantu languages used by indigenous peoples to describe various species of these ants. Unlike the New World members of the subfamily Ecitoninae, members of this genus do form temporary anthills lasting from a few days up to three months. Each colony can contain over 20 million individuals. As with their New World counterparts, there is a soldier class among the workers, which is larger, with a very large head and pincer-like mandibles. They are capable of stinging, but very rarely do so, relying instead on their powerful shearing jaws.[2]

Some additional information on this species of ant may be found at the following link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorylus

[labelwench]

This is a most impressive video of ants as they forage, retreat, and finally encounter a surprising source of food.

Warning: Not for the squeamish.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOe5Lmyyxiw&feature=fvw