Science Memes

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Antybooties (mander.xyz)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

I don't see why not. Storing a count is not so complex and the animal kingdom is filled with impressive (to our perception) mental feats* (like the dedicated neurones for each octopus tentacles).

Ironically, I find the act of following a pheromone trail counting steps way simpler than them having detailed mappings of their surroundings.

Edit: fears -> feats

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The next question is going to be what the maximum number of steps an ant can store is and what happens when it overflows...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I think you're approaching it too much like a computer scientist. I don't think that organic brains have hard limits like that, or stack overflow, etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Woosh

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

I'm wondering if the "counting" could be derived from a form of proprioception rather than maintaining an active count. Distance just gets scaled and thrown off by longer legs.