On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 5:47 AM, OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson < [email protected]> wrote:
Of course each of the individual starling are reacting collectively by > bunching up closer together to stymie the Hawk, but that's the whole point. > Visually speaking, it appears to be the resulting collective behavior that > is most startling and apparent. The collective behavior is greater than the > sum of its parts. > Cool video. As a group, the starling flock seems to have as much intelligence, or more intelligence than, a slug. At that point the question of whether they're acting under a collective consciousness becomes a little academic. The flock (as one thing) would seem to be as or more intelligent than an actual living creature. A reductionist approach here would be to try to explain that thing in terms of its parts alone. A mystic approach would be to assert telepathy. A third possibility is to say that there's something weird going on and that the thing being observed seems to be more than the sum of its parts, and that whatever is going on is worth investigating. It takes great aim to hit the non-reductive, non-mystical sweet spot, assuming it's worth attempting. Eric
