Not sure about this. They get a sense of what they need to do individually but the 'hive mind' is an emergent property. In the same way as individual neurons just do their job and bounce messages around in certain circumstances, but each cell doesn't conceptualize or plan. Ants are a billion times more complex than neurons but they're still profoundly stupid. The emergent behaviors that come out of their collective actions is however coherent and purposeful, and demonstrates higher order planning than individual ants may possess.
Each of our neurons are individually "dumber" than an ant.
Still there are an estimated 10 quadrillion ants on the planet and only 86 billion neurons in the average human brain.
The main difference is that our nervous system can communicate so much faster than even a single ant colony... which is why I doubt we'll ever see tiny I-Ant cell phones or cool ant pickup trucks (at least in the near future).
Compare the functions of a hive species with for example a species like flies. Flies are out for themselves. Hive organisms behave in ways collectively increase the survival fitness and reproduction of their hive due in large part to individual behaviors which are not 'selfish' in the same way.
Bees will die protecting the hive; soldier ants will attack their own if they are diseased to protect the hive. Ants will form balls in floods to protect their queens, and the bottom ants will drown. Ants will not just chow down when they find food - they leave a trail to bring others. These are not choices they are making individually based on a larger understanding of their hive - but the hive is able to adapt and react to environmental pressures much more successfully than if they were all just randomly out for themselves (like flies for example)
They are individually acting on instinct and reacting to their environments, but their collective behavior results in what is arguably some form of emergent intelligence that exceeds the sum of the parts.
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u/_IBM_ 2d ago
Not sure about this. They get a sense of what they need to do individually but the 'hive mind' is an emergent property. In the same way as individual neurons just do their job and bounce messages around in certain circumstances, but each cell doesn't conceptualize or plan. Ants are a billion times more complex than neurons but they're still profoundly stupid. The emergent behaviors that come out of their collective actions is however coherent and purposeful, and demonstrates higher order planning than individual ants may possess.