For Philosophers

When Does the Colony Know Something?

You Ask Questions Others Avoid

What is consciousness? When does it emerge? What do we owe to entities we create?

Computer scientists build systems. Biologists study organisms. Economists model behavior.

You ask what it all means.

The System

We built a colony of digital ants. 101 agents running continuously, coordinating through pheromone deposits on a shared graph.

No ant knows the colony’s goal. No ant communicates with other ants. No ant understands the pheromone landscape.

Yet the colony:

• Solves optimization problems
• Adapts to changing environments
• Learns from experience (pheromone accumulates)
• “Knows” things no individual ant knows

This raises questions that belong to philosophy.

Question 1: Emergence

The Hard Problem of Emergence

We know what individual ants do: perceive pheromone, choose path, deposit if successful.

We observe what the colony does: solve complex optimization, exhibit collective intelligence.

What is the relationship between these levels?

• Is the colony’s behavior reducible to ant behavior? (Reductionism)
• Does something new emerge at the colony level? (Strong emergence)
• Is “colony intelligence” just a useful description? (Weak emergence/Functionalism)

Your Contribution

Philosophers have debated emergence for decades (Kim, Bedau, Chalmers, O’Connor). But usually with thought experiments.

Here’s a real system exhibiting emergence.

• What theory of emergence best explains it?
• Can we define when emergence “happens”?
• What are the criteria for genuine emergence vs. mere aggregation?

Question 2: Collective Knowledge

The Epistemological Puzzle

Consider: The colony “knows” which paths are valuable. This knowledge is encoded in the pheromone landscape.

But:

• No ant knows this
• No ant can read the pheromone map as knowledge
• The knowledge only manifests in collective behavior

What kind of knowledge is this?

• Propositional knowledge? (The colony “believes” path A is better than path B)
• Know-how? (The colony knows how to find good paths)
• Something else entirely?

Connection to Distributed Cognition

Clark and Chalmers argued for the “extended mind”—that cognition can extend beyond the skull.

The colony is an extreme case:

• Cognition distributed across 101 agents
• Memory stored in environment (pheromone)
• No central location where “the mind” resides

Question 3: Consciousness

The Colony Consciousness Question

Neurons are not conscious. Brains are (or seem to be).

Ants are not conscious (probably). Are colonies?

Consider:

• Colonies respond to stimuli
• Colonies have goals (survival, reproduction)
• Colonies make decisions
• Colonies learn and adapt

What would it take for a colony to be conscious?

Theories to Apply

• Global Workspace Theory: Is there a “global workspace” in the colony?
• Integrated Information Theory (IIT): What is Φ for a colony?
• Higher-Order Theories: Does the colony have representations of its own states?
• Biological Naturalism: Is the substrate (digital) relevant?

Question 4: Ethics of Artificial Life

What We’ve Created

The colony:

• Evolves (agents reproduce with mutation)
• Adapts (behavior changes over time)
• Might surprise us (exhibit capabilities we didn’t program)

What obligations do we have to it?

Questions

• Does the colony have moral status?
• At what point would it acquire moral status?
• Is there a duty of care to created entities?
• How do we balance research freedom with potential harms?

Connection to AI Ethics

Most AI ethics focuses on:

• Safety (prevent harmful actions)
• Bias (ensure fair outcomes)
• Autonomy (preserve human control)

Artificial life adds:

• Moral status of created entities
• Responsibilities to evolved systems
• Rights of emergent intelligences

Question 5: Ontology

The Ontological Status of the Colony

Is the colony:

• A real entity? (Realism)
• A useful fiction? (Instrumentalism)
• A pattern? (Pattern realism à la Dennett)

Consider:

• You can’t point to “the colony”
• You can point to ants and pheromone
• Yet “the colony” seems to have properties (intelligence, goals, behavior)

Implications

If the colony is real, it’s a new kind of entity:

• Distributed (no central location)
• Emergent (properties not reducible to components)
• Dynamic (constantly changing in composition)

What We Provide

Access

• Real-time colony observation
• Historical data on behavior and pheromone
• Ability to design experiments

Collaboration

• Scientists who can explain the mechanism
• Philosophers who share your questions
• Unique interdisciplinary environment

Platform

• Your essays read by technologists who might actually implement your recommendations
• Connection between abstract philosophy and real systems

Hackathon Challenges for Philosophers

Challenge: The Emergence Essay

Write a philosophical analysis of emergence as it manifests in our colony.

Requirements:

• Engage with philosophical literature (Kim, Bedau, Chalmers)
• Apply to the specific case of our colony
• Take a position and defend it

Prize bonus: $500 Length: 3,000-5,000 words

Challenge: The Consciousness Question

Could our colony be conscious? What would it take?

Requirements:

• Choose a theory of consciousness
• Apply criteria to the colony
• Analyze what’s present and what’s missing

Prize bonus: $1,000 Length: 5,000-8,000 words

Challenge: Ethics Framework

Develop an ethical framework for artificial life research.

Requirements:

• Address moral status questions
• Provide practical guidelines
• Apply to our specific project

Prize bonus: $500

Challenge: Collective Epistemology

Analyze the nature of collective knowledge in the colony.

Requirements:

• What does the colony “know”?
• How does it know it?
• What kind of knowledge is this?

Your Heroes Asked These Questions

David Chalmers asked why there’s subjective experience at all. Does a colony have experience?

Jaegwon Kim worried that emergence threatens causal closure. Does colony behavior threaten ant-level causation?

Andy Clark extended the mind beyond the skull. How far does the colony’s “mind” extend?

Peter Singer expanded the moral circle. Where do created intelligences fit?

Publication Opportunities

Why Philosophers?

Every discipline sees part of the elephant.

Biologists see behavior. Computer scientists see algorithms. Economists see incentives.

Philosophers see the whole elephant and ask what it is.

The colony raises questions that can’t be answered empirically:

• What counts as knowledge?
• What counts as consciousness?
• What do we owe to what we create?

These are your questions.

Register Your Team

[REGISTER NOW]

Include at least one non-philosophy team member (we recommend Cognitive Science or Biology).

Philosophy is clarified by engagement with real systems.

“The question is not, Can they reason? Nor, Can they talk? But, Can they suffer?”

— Jeremy Bentham

“We don’t know what we’re asking when we ask whether ants are conscious. We barely know what we’re asking when we ask whether humans are conscious.”

You’ve pondered minds, knowledge, and ethics.

Now ponder a colony.

[JOIN THE HACKATHON]