My goodness this forum is slow and a bit boring atm. It's really all yall's faults I'm making this thread, so blame yourselves and live with the consequences. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

Well humans have emotions, and animals do, but do bugs? I mean when bugs fight is it just instinct or do they really get pissed off? Can you piss off a bug? And if so, how can you tell?

:D

Don't bug me..

Not sure , but i think Ants in the Pants must have some serious Jedi-like emotioncontrol. How else could an ant survive in our pants ? :D

How can you tell when they get mad? Ever see the movie Eight Legged Freaks?

Here's a story about a bug on a website I found recently. Shows that bugs must have emotions! (Edited for forum rules)

[ 02-24-2005, 07:49 PM: Message edited by: SomeGuy ]

I actually had ants in my pants once Johnny LOL. In this old house we rented 5 years ago with a lot of old woods around it. Frikken ants were everywhere, in the spring they'd pop up between the cracks of the wooden floors. You drop a tiny crumb and the next day a million of them would be piled on it, was insane. Well I walk around when it's warm in shorts and barefoot, and so one day I guess I must have stepped on some, and went to my PC chair, and sat like I always do, cross-legged, and they must have ran from my feet and into my shorts! Boy do I miss that house, NOT [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

Sir Degrader - No. I hate spiders LOL, so make it a point to avoid any spider movies, *shudder* :D

OMG that was hilarious Someguy!!!!!!!! [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

A new species has been discovered... AntsInWendy'sPants. :D

Btw...spiders are not bugs, spiders eat bugs.

Well I mean "bugs" as insects in general, including spiders!

Now I do remember once, at that same dang house, we had a roommate who rented the basement, and he had just moved out and I went down there to vacuum the carpet. Well I noticed this little hole in the wall about 7 inches from the floor, bout half inch in diameter. This is also where the roommate used to have his bed LOL. So I'm vacuuming and the vacuum is hitting the wall a few times as I'm taking the upsweep and this fatass black spider just comes running out of the hole, not far though, just outside at the entrance. It DID seem he got pissed off LOL, dunno. At the time all I was thinkin was the roommate probably had him crawling on his bed at night ACK!

But still, is it emotions or instict to just protect itself? I mean does an insect have a bad day LOL and just gets in a bad mood LOL?

Instincts in insects... phew... there is a toungetwister... [img]smile.gif[/img]

Well, over here around august hornets get this "We are all going to die anyway while this fat ass bitch lies in the comfy lair, why don't we go out and pick some serious fight with the humans..." attitude. So you only have to wak passed them and they pretend to get seriously mad and chase you for several blocks... [img]smile.gif[/img]

Sheesh I hate those guys...

[ 02-24-2005, 08:36 PM: Message edited by: Jorath Calar ]

Insects have feelings! Just look at me!

Here's something to ponder on.... if you drink A LOT, and go to sleep drunk, and a mosquito decides to have you for breakfast... will the mosquito be affected by the alcohol in your blood ?

Well, if it was YOU that the mosquito bit, then certainly...as for others...not so much.

I was trying to be serious for a change.

Oh? How does it feel?

Johnny, they say that mosquitos are actually attracted to those that drink LOL, not kidding. Can't remember why, but they do. Lord knows they eat me alive in the summer [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

Does anger count as emotions? Because bees will get very angry when I throw stones at their hives and chase me all over. :rolleyes:

Yes but again, is it anger, or just an instinct to go and protect the hive?

Umm, also Kakero, LOL... If you have a hive near your house or something, and it is causing a problem and you want to get rid of the bees, best to just spray them with poison or something, I mean throwing stones doesn't really do a whole lot except what you mentioned LOL (bee chasing) [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, you got some balls to stand and throw stones at a bees' nest. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

[ 02-24-2005, 10:13 PM: Message edited by: ladyzekke ]

Well, what is the last thing a bug see's when it hits your windshield at road speed?

I *know* that insects have emotions, otherwise my bumblebee girlfriend would never have let me continue our physical relationship!

Dace, LOL... [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] dunno what you mean re your post. Your bumblebee girlfriend? What does that mean LOL? How can a girl be "bumblebee"? I'm confused and amused LOL

[ 02-24-2005, 10:51 PM: Message edited by: ladyzekke ]

Well that depends on the bug, really. I would be inclined to say "They see their lives pass in front of their eyes" but insects don't usually live that long. On that same thought however, it would be rather useless for one-day-flies (both insect and human :D ) to have emotions, now wouldn't it?

Individual insects don't have feelings in my book. A swarm might have some of the basic ones, like fear and anger. Maybe happiness.

I doubt insects have emotions, it's probably more instinctual reactions.

And spiders are not insects. ;)

:eek: It's "bug-eyed" reflection in the glass. *snort* *snort*

I would say bugs have instinctual defense mechanisms that make them appear to have emotions like anger (bees whose hive has been hit with rocks [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] ) or desperation (the floating beetle who frantically swims in circles before it drowns). Ever seen a happy bug? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 02-25-2005, 04:31 PM: Message edited by: Violet ]

ROTFL! Need to find you a hobby, LZ! LOL! You made me remember an episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond'that we had on the other day where his brother dates a girl who ate a fly because she thought all life came from frogs and kept a zillion of them in her room... blech!

Ewww, Cloudy! That's disgusting!

Hey, I don't think that bugs have emotions, but they've sure got feelers *rimshot*

It's butt. :D ;)

I know Bee's can get drunk for sure.

I imagine a similar thing must happen to mosquito's. Although the liklihood is that the concentration of alcohol in the blood would probably kill the relatively tiny insect.

I have a friend who says that animals don't have will, only instinct.

He's a silly boy.

Joining the conversation late, i'll just post my views. I think insects have feelings and instinct, just not in vast ammounts. They must have feelings to know to fly off something that's too hot, and they must have instinct to know to run when you go for the buggers with a newspaper ;) But i wouldn't go too far as to saying they have actual feeling, just basic things like i've already said.

Was typing this as the power went out. Not sure why it was worthy of typing again, lol.

First off, insects are animals :D

I'm not thinking that insects generally have much emotion, or need of emotion:

Neuroanatomically, how much physical 'room' is there in the notochord (just a sliver of nervous material) of a cricket for emotion? Think of an animal you KNOW has emotion, like your cat, or you. You've got lots of grey matter associated (at least somewhat) to emotion. I'd be happy to see differently, but the insects I've had to dissect didn't have central nervous systems with any kind of differentation like you'd find in a mammal like yourself. Then again, it's always good to do more with less, and we don't know what the little buggers are thinking ;)

Evolutionarily/Ecologically, there's a general tradeoff associated with how many offspring a species tends to have. Elephants are putting quite a lot of biomass and time into the raising of their young, but they're not going to do it very often. An insect that has dozens or even hundreds of offspring every year is counting on the numbers game to survive, but there's not much biomass or time in each offspring. This is more of a general point: each insect is far more expendable than each elephant.

Physiologically: If, biologically, thoughts, memories, and emotions are enabled by the brain, a physical structure, then all thoughts, memories, and emotions suck up precious energy, since the brain consumes energy. An insect's cognitive functions are minimalist in nature.

Practically, what is an insect going to do with emotion anyway? A fight or flight response seems appropriate enough for an insect to have, but most insects are pretty specialized individuals: they only need to do one thing well, especially if they're a member of a hive. Most individuals do not have social roles at all in a hive. There would seem little need to empathize with others, hold emnities/hatreds, love, be angry, or be happy or sad. Since these structures have an energy cost, they're immediate disadvantages if they serve no purpose, and these traits would be 'selected against' in terms of natural selection.

Of course, that's just the cognitive biases of a human ;) We tend to anthropomorphize the actions of other creatures, even in photographs of cells interacting. I think there's room in between the black and white of "instinct" and "free will", given the variety of cognitive capacities of various organisms. We don't really know when something is 'deciding' to do something for any particular reason. Even in humans there are predictably many behaviors that are confusing as to whether they're 'purely instinct' or 'purely free will', but of course we do know that we've got complex emotions. I'd like to know the answer as to why and when that began to develop...

Nerd alert!
Where?
Oh, me. I know.

Lucern, your post was very informative, thank you, Mr. Smarty. :D [img]smile.gif[/img] and screw the nerd alert LOL, most of us are nerds in some way here anyways. [img]smile.gif[/img]

But what about ants? Yes they are like slaves in many ways, scouting and bringing back food, like drones. But I remember in that old ass house we lived in, I had this plant in a pot I had just basically forgotten was there, and when I found it I immediately poured water into the dirt. Well, all these ants came out of it. I sat and watched them for a time, and observed many ants risking their own lives to save others from the flooding waters (some would make like a bridge of ants for others to cross, and many bridge makers drowned). Seriously I sat and observed them for like an hour or more LOL. Was really impressed at the rescues and sacrifices.

So what do you think about that Lucern? Just made me think they must feel some emotion? I mean at least it was not self preservation anyways, if you see what I'm sayin. So makes me wonder.

[ 02-27-2005, 10:46 PM: Message edited by: ladyzekke ]

Pfew, Nerd alert cancelled. Now where are my sparkly bug antennae? ;)

I believe I do see what you mean, Ladyzekke, and I have actually heard of very similar behaviors. Fascinating eh? In biology, altruism is a recognized and fairly well researched area of animal behavior, and I think there's a lot of truth to it. Altruism had been used against evolutionists in biology before about 50 years ago, as it seemed to counter the idea of evolution. However, hopefully myself or the quote below will show that it fits perfectly into a modern evolutionary framework as well as an alternate explanation for your observations.

The basic idea of altruism is that one individual performs a self destructive action that benefits others - which pretty well describes what you wrote. The key, though, is that in every case I can think of among insects the beneficiaries are genetically related to those who sacrifice themselves. The risk has to be worth the reward, in terms of the capacity to spread similar genes in the world (even through your relatives instead of yourself). This goes beyond insects (particularly in parent-offspring relationships), but it seems extreme in insects because they are so specialized. A sterile ant, be it a soldier or otherwise, will save other ants, so that more egg-laying ants will have a better chance of surviving. In an ant/bee/wasp colony, a large percentage of individuals are functionally sterile. In the quote below, E.O. Wilson, a biologist made famous (well, for a biologist) for his work with ants and his book, "Sociobiology", in which he explores the extent to which humans act in similar fashion to preserve their genes. Part A of the quote seems most relevent to your observations. Note that despite the age of that quote, it still holds water, which is not always the case in science.

Of course, as I briefly mentioned before...we don't know what (or to what extent) the little buggers are thinking - just the end result. I think it's especially interesting though, in this frame work, be it through instinct or whatever means, every sacrificing individual 'knew' to do that. There is room in their tiny neuroanatomy for such actions that merely give a chance for others to survive. They will reliably act this way.

I take it some of the ants survived? You didn't squash them after all that did you? ;)

http://scienceweek.com/2003/sa031205-2.htm