Tiny Brained Bees Solve a Complex Mathematical Problem

OK ponder with me here:

Scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London and Queen Mary, University of London have discovered that bees learn to fly the shortest possible route between flowers even if they discover the flowers in a different order. Bees are effectively solving the 'Travelling Salesman Problem', and these are the first animals found to do this.

The Travelling Salesman must find the shortest route that allows him to visit all locations on his route. Computers solve it by comparing the length of all possible routes and choosing the shortest. However, bees solve it without computer assistance using a brain the size of grass seed.

www.sciencedaily.com...

HOW?

If they have a brain the size of a grass seed, what is the secret? Do they have faster processing power within their brain, or is there another deeper secret?

Do they have a system in them that does all of this automatically? What is that system? How does a Bees brain operate so fast and so efficiently taking in to consideration its size?

When

When did bees acquire this characteristics?

At what stages of evolution did it gain this feature?

We know that bees loose a lot of energy flying, therefore it would only be logical for bees to have this feature in them.

Conclusion

Animals are not stupid?

I have argued that point before with an official thread, I argued that animals could potentially be much more wiser than us, but we can't see that wisdom due to communication barriers amongst us.

What would a Bee say if you ask how it finds the shortest route?

Thoughts.

oz

Another great post! Keep up the good work. I love learning about the smallest cells and insects to the larges. I always see humans as underestimated our cousins throughout the world.

they cant find the smallest route if glass is placed in the way. i am actually constantly amazed at how stupid animals. are. from flies eternally flying into closed windows. to cats trying to get at the food cupboard that always and forever has contained tins which over their entire life results in no food. animals are dumb as #, in a similar way to the entire universe and humans.

Originally posted by predisposed
they cant find the smallest route if glass is placed in the way. i am actually constantly amazed at how stupid animals. are. from flies eternally flying into closed windows. to cats trying to get at the food cupboard that always and forever has contained tins which over their entire life results in no food. animals are dumb as #, in a similar way to the entire universe and humans.

I said Wisdom.

What if you could speak to them and ask them why they constantly fly into closed windows?

Anyways, watch America's funniest videos, you will be surprised how many times people have ran in to a closed door

IMHO
The cultures that see everything as an interconnected mind are correct.
Man in general these days, sees him self anf his niche in the scheme of things, with a certain amount of hubris.
The ancients considered hubris to be right up there on the things to not do list.

PS
It seems to me that critters that size regularly fly in what we would call hurricane conditions, in relative terms.
Also some of them are time tested designs.

PPS
fight it out with a mass of bees your own body weight.....
ah, yep. Usually three or four bees are enough to win a fight.
tough little buggers

reply to post by oozyism


www.youtube.com... - is an example.

The only video my father has watched over 50 times and it still provokes the same level of laughter. It actually gets funnier. Hahaha.

Anyway, good find OP, but are your respondents insinuating that the bees are actually "smarter" than us?

reply to post by predisposed

Dolphins recognize themselves in mirrors—one of the few mammals other than humans that have the ability to do so, according to a new study published this week.

Source: news.nationalgeographic.com...

Quite stupid, quite stupid indeed.

You know what I find even more lacking of intelligence? People who talk. like. this.

reply to post by Revolution-2012


actually i said that animals are quite stupid similar to humans and the universe. however i would say that cetaceans such as dolphins in general as a species display far more intelligence than the average human.

man grammar freaks are possible the most annoying
and pretentious people on the planet. intelligent people can mispell and use incorrect grammar. its goign past the level of knowing what matters and what doesnt. if one can communicate their point effectively enough. what is the problem. In my case i am directly translating thought as quickly as possible to page, and my full stops. or periods as you may know them. are indicative of my breaks in thought.

but on the subject it is evident that all animals and energies are interconnected. still though. animals and wisdom, humans and wisdom. god and wisdom. at this point in my summising of the totalitiy of existence i dont think wisdom really exists.

Originally posted by Somehumanbeing
reply to post by oozyism

 

www.youtube.com... - is an example.

The only video my father has watched over 50 times and it still provokes the same level of laughter. It actually gets funnier. Hahaha.

Anyway, good find OP, but are your respondents insinuating that the bees are actually "smarter" than us?

edit on 5-12-2010 by Somehumanbeing because: What is smarter is in question.

Depends what you mean by smart?

I'm talking about Wisdom.

I have a hunch that animals have a lot of wisdom, that is the reason behind the way they live.

They know their part in this Universe therefore they do their part.

We humans, we are still lost

don't be stupid, they didn't solve anything. this is as natural as water flowing down a river. it's almost comical that people would waste their time on such pointless subjects.

Originally posted by DOADOA
don't be stupid, they didn't solve anything. this is as natural as water flowing down a river. it's almost comical that people would waste their time on such pointless subjects.

Actually your narrow viewpoint is much more comical than discussing the OP.

No one said it isn't natural.

No one said it isn't like water flowing down a river.

But

We know how a river flows down a river.

We know why a river flows in a certain direction, we know why in certain speed, we know why in splashes etc etc..

Do you get where I'm going with this?

A river does not process anything, a river flows from top of the mountain to the bottom because of gravity...

A Bee chooses the shortest path from point A to point B, because?

I think it's quite fascinating.

Emergence is a very interesting and complex subject indeed, you can get some very complex behaviours by just applying a few simple rules.
I made a little Java application in university that modelled the Emergent flocking behaviour in birds and it only takes a few very simple rules i.e. stay this far from the bird in front of you, to produce very interesting flocking patterns.

....because of natural selection. The bees that consistantly find the shortest path gather more food and consume less energy resulting in a more successful colony.
It's not that bees are more intelligent than humans, they are less greedy as individuals, which is why their form of socialism works so well, and ours will always fail.

reply to post by oozyism


My freshman year at college i took a class on this subject...the one about circuitous paths. It is something that folks like the postal service paid good money for, apparently. I don't know...i failed the class because the process of the work was far too laborious for the return on my effort.

I should have been a busier bee.

Originally posted by oozyism

A Bee chooses the shortest path from point A to point B, because?

To get to the other side?

I believe that what the bee is doing is a process of tapping into "mind", which does not exist within the biological entity, but rather elsewhere. The biological entity merely taps into "mind" to achieve any kind of higher though process. Math represents just such a higher thought process.

Originally posted by oozyism

Originally posted by DOADOA

A Bee chooses the shortest path from point A to point B, because?

Exactly.

reply to post by oozyism


Computers are built for a certain set and type of mathematics. A simple example of this is your processor versus your graphics card - your graphics card actually does far more 'math' and performs far more operations per second than your processor ever could. Even some of the cheapest video cards run circles around the most powerful of processors.

The difference is that the CPU is designed to handle a wide range of math and perform operations the graphics card would have to expend a lot of compute cycles performing. This is why we still have the x86-derived architecture.

Similarly - bees can have neural networks that develop in their brains specifically to resolve this problem in a very efficient manner. Exactly how is likely going to end up being a subject of research. The animal brain has a lot of capabilities that no computer really has today. 'Simple' and inherent concepts such as spatial awareness and recognition don't exist for a computer. I can make a number of observations almost immediately that reduce the complexity of any given problem. Something as simple as "my friend is on the floor above me, so I need to go up the stairs and not jump off the balcony" is a path-finding issue that computer programmers have been struggling with for decades.

Any time you want proof of the difference between computer capabilities and animal capabilities, just look at how your cat will follow you around, chase a mouse, and figure out how to get around/over an obstacle to get to where it wants to go. Then go play your favorite computer game and watch the AI run into walls, off of cliffs, blow itself up with rockets/grenades, etc.

It's a programming issue as much as it is a computer technology issue. Unraveling such irreducible understandings as walking through a house so that we can program a computer to do the same is proving to be far more difficult than first imagined.

Originally posted by oozyism

HOW?

Bees by Rudolf Steiner.

He explains the intelligence of bees, based on clairvoyant investigations.

Rudolf Steiner also predicted, 100 years in advance, the decline of the bee populations; and he gave reasons as to why it would occur.

reply to post by Tamahu


Exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. I’ve read several of Steiner’s books but have never heard of that one before. Good find.

Have you personally read it? If so, could you elaborate on his findings?