In much the same vein, echo chambers may divert us from the truth. In being diverted, army ants ‘lose the scent’ of the pheromone trail, instead following blindly the ant in the lead, marching inevitably to their death. But army ants can be lead astray – into death spirals. In the same way that ‘good’ army ants track pheromone trails, good epistemic agents track the truth. This has come to be known as the ‘truth-tracking’ theory of knowledge 1. As Robert Nozick argued, good epistemic agents track the truth – that is, if some proposition is true we believe it, but if that proposition weren’t true, then we wouldn’t believe it. Echo chambers might just be one such feature.įor comparison, think of pheromone trails like the holy grail in epistemology – the truth. Just as important, however, is exploring what features or behaviors make that task more difficult. Understanding what conditions must be satisfied for a belief to count as knowledge better enables us to get at the truth. One reason we study knowledge is that we care about truth. Epistemologists are concerned with studying knowledge. But it’s philosophers, and epistemologists specifically, who explore how this behavior can be mirrored in humans. Now myrmecologists are the folks who study the utterly bizarre behavior of ants and why they’re prone to death spirals. But where ants are lead to mass suicide, humans are led into thinking their ill-founded beliefs are better supported than they actually are. Echo chambers are closed circuits in which an individual’s beliefs are amplified or reinforced. Much like army ants may fall prey to death spirals, humans are subject to a similar phenomenon known as echo chambers. It is but a cruel trick of nature that she can be manipulated so to turn against herself, leading her slowly but faithfully to her death. It’s easy to pity the army ant, who does nothing other than what nature has programmed her to do. As it turns out, one can force army ants en masse into these ‘death spirals’ by simply diverting them into a closed circuit. Owing to their lack of sight, they will march around in a loop until they drop dead. But, if they lose the scent, they respond by following the ant immediately in front of them. Well, army ants, anyways.Īrmy ants, unlike your garden-variety ant, are completely blind, and navigate by following the pheromone trails left behind by others. But for all you psychopaths out there, there is a much cooler (read: crueler) way to kill ants. Though I bear no ill will to the ants, I did suddenly understand why some children, in the ultimate act of vengeance, try to burn ants with a magnifying glass. While I felt a momentary pang of regret at damaging their home – which I often spent my free hours admiring – I felt sorrier for myself, covered in painful and itchy bites. I once had the misfortune of falling into one. To Follow Blindly – Army Ants and Echo ChambersĪnt hills dominated the backyard of my childhood home. This is the sixty-fourth contribution in the series , submitted by Dr. The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and philosophy.
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