I found the information about what role the ages of ant colonies plays particularly interesting, especially in light of our class discussion on Cellular Automata (bear with me on this one), and whether or not free will/won’t really exists.
When we had discussed the idea of everything we do being a result of a preset order, or chemical reactions, the very philosophical idea had struck me: what if the universe itself is forming under the rules of some sort of giant cellular automata (again, please bear with me) that has, at this point at time, followed its particular rules to form what we see now. But, it also struck me, the ages of ant colonies could pose a counter-argument to that entire idea. As I mentioned in my comment on Bethie’s post, the difference between younger colonies and older colonies gives good insight on the debate of whether what we do is determined by consciousness and whether or not that consciousness can learn.
If learning is something that both humans and ant colonies really do, it’s not a large jump to say that cities can as well; in order for an ant colony to learn, each of the individual pieces must learn something, and somehow pass it on, either verbally, or through pheromone paths. So, for a city to learn, its individual parts and pieces must also learn, and communicate what they have learned to other generations, so that they may continue the growth and development without having to re-learn knowledge learned by dwellers (in colony or city) previous.
All of this may be drawn totally out of thin air, so please let me know what you all think either way. It’s my personal belief that cities, insects, and humans all learn and grow in a similar manner — maybe similar because of chance, or maybe because learning is in itself a predictable process.
I think this makes sense. The thing that still gets me is that ants and humans have brains, but cities don’t and yet they all “learn”.