Chapter three from
Global Brain by
Howard Bloom. 1st ed. copyright 2000, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
In this chapter, Bloom gets into the concept that would allow early multi-cellular life to actually form a society: learning, specifically, imitative learning. Bloom notes how Cambrian-era spiny lobsters "engage in seasonal migration, a parade of tens of thousands per cortege in which each marcher follows the path of the one before it single file" (32-33) in order to avoid the cooling climate of the Earth. Particularly stupid or anti-social spiny lobsters would freeze to death, so, Bloom says, the ability to work with and learn from a group has been bred into life from a very early stage, despite what Richard Dawkins and the other "selfish gene" theorists would have you believe.
Back to chapter 2: Networking in Paleontology's "Dark Ages"
On to chapter 4: From Social Synapses to Social Ganglions: Complex Adaptive Systems in Jurassic Days
Up to the Index.