• MajorSauce
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    41
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    I don’t see why not. Storing a count is not so complex and the animal kingdom is filled with impressive (to our perception) mental feats* (like the dedicated neurones for each octopus tentacles).

    Ironically, I find the act of following a pheromone trail counting steps way simpler than them having detailed mappings of their surroundings.

    Edit: fears -> feats

    • kshade@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      7 months ago

      The next question is going to be what the maximum number of steps an ant can store is and what happens when it overflows…

      • Classy
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        7 months ago

        I think you’re approaching it too much like a computer scientist. I don’t think that organic brains have hard limits like that, or stack overflow, etc.

    • degen@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      7 months ago

      I’m wondering if the “counting” could be derived from a form of proprioception rather than maintaining an active count. Distance just gets scaled and thrown off by longer legs.