Science Memes

10923 readers

2663 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Rules

Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
Keep it rooted (on topic).
No spam.
Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.

Research Committee

[email protected]

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

985

Antybooties (mander.xyz)

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

72 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 40 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] 14 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] 3 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.