Reading a book about a naturalist in Costa Rica in the 70s observing ants. He frames the question of ant communication as "do they *mostly* use stridulations (sounds) or do they use antennae tapping or do they use pheromones?" He concludes that ant communication is "primarily pheromones" and this isn't exactly *wrong*
The thing is the very ants he was observing were later found to use stridulations too. (Atta Cephalotes)
The medium is the message and the medium is the ants themselves.
Ants read everything about each other and their environment. The way their sisters move, the food in their crops, they way they smell, the pheromones they release, what they are carrying, which way they are moving, the stridulations they make, all of it is part of gaining a sense of the local needs of the colony. All of it will change the decisions of each individual ant.
So, it's not like there is a "way" that ants communicate. They are living information for their sisters.
@futurebird Does the colony exercise free will? How much response is programmatic due to stimuli, how much to something else?
Brother, I can't even tell you if I have any "free will" let alone a box of ants.
@futurebird see I want to generalize from the ants to us.
I don't have a proof, but I think individual ants make tiny ant choices. They do whatever they feel like based on the state of their sisters. I think this is the case because not all ants are the same. Some are bold, some scared more easily, some cautious, some always ready to bite and ask questions later.
@futurebird @mikeolson Humanity is also a planet scale ant colony in this sense.
