Is the Idea of a Collective Consciousness Realistic?
In how smart can I make ants, an idea was suggested, to instead of making each ant individually sapient, make the 'anthill' as a whole sapient; a kind of unconventional hive mind. Just as a familiar anthill is more like a single body whose organs happen to not be stuck together, my alien intelligence develops on the level of a colony. Just as a single brain cell is not a mind, a single bug is not sapient. To quote the accepted answer:
It is the level of a colony that has a single DNA and evolves as an animal. Individual workers are no different than our individual cells which are replaced from within as they wear out. The colony has intent and direction and will decide when to move or camp, flee or fight, discover new food resources and hold social relations with other colonies. The individual bugs communicate via hormones etc. just as the cells and organs within a body coordinate, but are one system.
In summary, the basic concept here is that hundreds of thousands (if not millions), of small creature are able to make up one big creature, in the same way cells make up humans. Ever since hearing this answer, I have become obsessed with this idea but I, as a hard-science fiction worldbuilder, must know if this concept is at all realistic. So, is this concept of a collective consciousness realistic? And if so, how would it develop from regular ants?
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/45184. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
In a small way this happens already.
Weaver ants have a very complicated communication system using pheromones that allows for an unusual amount of cooperation.
A lot of that is hard wired into the ant as instinct; When I smell this, I do this. If the smell is stronger over here then that's where I should go.
The trick would be a very small evolutionary change that gets rid of the hard wiring and allows for a bit more flexibility. This could allow for inspiration to do something more than "make a nest, look for food."
The other important part would be a way to have a collective memory. If each ant is just doing its part and responding to what's happening right now, it would be a like a person with anterograde amnesia, which would wreck any hopes of them developing sentience.
This could be accomplished with chemicals; maybe each ant laying down a pattern of pheromones into the walls of the nest of the signals and messages passing around the nest, or it could be a special class of ant that does it. Perhaps while taking care of the eggs and larva. By having memory and history, you can see where you're coming from and where you're going.
Eventually it might develop into what could be seen as a biological computer, with input from the scouts, short term chemical memory in the form of scent trails (RAM), long term chemical memory laid down in the walls of the nest (hard drive), and the collective processing power of several million ants.
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