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I love the ant and the message it seems to be delivering to me-I think I get some of it! It is amazing that a seemingly random pattern can quickly become a pattern, if even for a short amount of time.  But in the big picture, I wonder were this is leading to in our discussion of the brain? How are the ant’s behavior and the brain related? I have a feeling in more than one way.

Or is the ant leading us to a nature vs. nurture discussion? Are our genes scripted/programmed to determine behavior and our characteristics? Or does our environment part-take in the process to determine our behavior?Or are we heading to a conversation of the big bang theory?  The statement from the Serendip site that “Quite sophisticated behavior can result from simple interactions of simple things” is a fascinating and intriguing one that has massive implications.  We will see.

And a final comment on the idea that science is an ongoing story.  Brain is a pattern driven processor, it seeks patterns, how it makes sense of the world, it functions on pattern recognition; it is how it sense of the world.  For example, everyone in a room feels uncomfortable when a person telling a story/joke misses the punch line to the story/joke.  The brain is constantly looking for the closing of the story.  It is why good writing start with the main idea followed by supporting details ending with summary/closing paragraph.