THE SOCIETAL ORGANISM 



intelligence. In its functioning the colony is acting as 

 if it "knew" what it was doing. This appears partic- 

 ularly remarkable when one considers that the indi- 

 vidual insect does apparently not possess by itself the 

 degree of intelligence evident in the functioning of 

 the colony, nor is there reason to believe that the 

 individual insect is at all aware of the total organiza- 

 tion of the colony, nor its own function in it. Experi- 

 mental studies of individual insects surely seem to 

 confirm this view. Non-colony-forming metazoa of a 

 similar level of complexity do not show anywhere near 

 the same degree of "intelligence" as does the colony. 



Yet despite the apparent lack of consciousness of the 

 individual insect, the colony shows a rational behavior; 

 a behavior that is directed so as to assure survival of 

 the colony. How is such a situation possible? 



The answer that is usually given to this question is 

 that the individual insects follow instinct, which guides 

 them in such a fashion as to make orderly function of 

 the colony possible. But just what is this instinct? One 

 possible definition of instinctive behavior, which seems 

 to cover the situation fairly well, is the following: 

 "Instinctive behavior is behavior which follows a defi- 

 nite, predictable pattern, the function of which the 

 organism behaving in such fashion need not be aware." 

 Instinct generally serves the survival needs of the 

 species, although at times when the environment has 

 changed, it may actually harm survival, as instinct is 



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