"People stand out for individual cognitive abilities while ants excel in cooperation.". //

Ants maneuvering a T-shaped load across a maze. //

The piano-mover puzzle involves trying to transport an oddly shaped load across a constricted environment with various obstructions. It's one of several variations on classic computational motion-planning problems, a key element in numerous robotics applications. But what would happen if you pitted human beings against ants in a competition to solve the piano-mover puzzle?

According to a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, humans have superior cognitive abilities and, hence, would be expected to outperform the ants. However, depriving people of verbal or nonverbal communication can level the playing field, with ants performing better in some trials. And while ants improved their cognitive performance when acting collectively as a group, the same did not hold true for humans. //

bugabuga Ars Centurion
18y
268
But wouldn't a group of ants "communicate" by default? And "do not communicate" equivalent would mean turning off their sense of scent and otherwise hindered set of ants? The group of humans that does communicate solves problems better, so wisdom of crowds continues to be the expected outcome.

"Let's put individual humans into a group and prohibit them from doing thing that is making group successful. Oh, look, group was unsuccessful!!! AMAZING!" :). //

fkaOld_one Ars Centurion
4y
322
I don't know who I am said:
How did they get the ants to do it?
Yeah… why would ants want to move a piano? //

Calidore Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
11y
121
EmeraldArcana said:
Humans don’t do a good job communicating through pheromones. Those who’ve tried are often ridiculed.

The Doctor: They could communicate only by precisely modulated gastric emissions.

Emma: Oh no! Planet of the Bottom Burpers! So what happened to them?

The Doctor: They discovered fire. //

Les Pane Smack-Fu Master, in training
9y
95
Aren't humans just better at moving pianos because they're chord-ates?

[I'm so very, very sorry for that. Truly.]

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(1934).International Journal of Psychoanalysis ,15():354-355
Sexual Regulations and Human Behaviour: By J. D. Unwin. (Williams & Norgate Ltd., London, 1933. Pp xv + 108. Price 7 s. 6 d. net.)
Roger Money-Kyrle

Those who are easily intimidated by the sheer weight of statistical

354

enumeration will at once succumb to the thesis of this book—that in human society there is a positive correlation between the degree of sexual restraint and the height of culture. The critical reader may indeed observe that the conclusion is somewhat wider than the premise. Dr. Unwin measures the degree of sexual restraint in any society by the pre-nuptial chastity of its marriageable girls (p. 8), and he selects as the main characteristic of a high culture the presence of temples for the worship of the gods (p. 1). Thus the actual, as opposed to the inferential, result of his statistical research would seem to be that men are religious in those societies in which their unmarried daughters are either prostitutes or chaste.

Dr. Unwin bridges the gap between this premise and his conclusion by assuming some degree of chastity in women to be symptomatic of chastity in general and temple building, priestcraft, etc., to be an expression of cultural energy. Those of us who believe that there can be no sublimation without repression will, at least partially, concede his point. But excessive repression tends to overflow and inhibit the sublimations it has itself produced. Therefore we might expect culture to rise with sexual restraint to a certain optimum and then to fall again. Perhaps Dr. Unwin will compile some more statistics in his next book to prove whether or not this expectation is correct.

Although Dr. Unwin's objectivity seems irreproachable, I suspect him of a desire to find a utilitarian basis for orthodox morality. If so, his statistical argument seems likely to be double-edged.