The Myth Of The Ant Queen By Steven Johnson

Within any community, it is safe to say that the goal of maintaining a society that prospers on for many years is common. Establishing order is key to developing a prosperous society. Order, whether it be defined as assigning roles in society, or establishing a set of rules to maintain control, can be done through various approaches. The pondering question however lies in what is the best approach to establish order. This common question has been prominent throughout time, and has been debated in government and society. The debate in how society should establish order regularly results in contrasting opinions. In the essay "The Myth of the Ant Queen," by Steven Johnson, and in the excerpt “The Code of Hammurabi” from Society and Law in Ancient Babylonia, two distinct approaches to establishing order in society are discussed. I believe that through strict reinforcements, order in society can be established. In the essay “Man’s Nature is Evil” by Hsun Tzu, the human nature in society helps explain why strict reinforcements is the most efficient way to establish order. In Steven Johnson’s essay “The Myth of the Ant Queen,” he describes an interesting way in how the establishment of order arises. He argues that society can build itself up and maintain order without the need of a ruler or a set of laws. Through the observation of ants and how they behave in their environment, he explains how ants are able to establish an intricate yet simple

“The Electric Ant” is a short story written by Phillip K. Dick. Penned in October of 1969, the short story deals with the thought processes of a human-like robot. The protagonist is Garson Poole, a robot who previously thought he was a human. There are many points to ponder in the story, one of them being the similarities and differences between human and robots. Are robots as fundamentally different as we make them out to be or is it that we just haven’t created the proper technology yet? Conversely, maybe humans are essentially highly functioning robots? Although we may not be machines, our functioning can be highly mechanical. Additionally, Mr. Poole struggles with the concept of reality and he experiments to discover if reality can be altered. Can this apply to humans also? What defines our reality and is it possible to change the way reality is perceived?

“The Electric Ant” is a science fiction short story written by Philip K. Dick and published in 1969. In this setting, the story takes place in a distant alternative universe. Mankind’s identity and freedom are being questioned in this futuristic society. Indeed, the plot explores the identity of a protagonist who has been disconnected from reality after an accident, by being transformed into an organic robot. A being that is no longer human despite having the skin, the flesh and the physical body of a man. The story focuses on the shift of reality perceived by an organic robot. Nevertheless, it brings us a closer look at how the perspective of reality is approached from the point of view of a sub-social class. As the story goes on, the protagonist becomes more and more obsessed with his individuality and true freedom. The plot emphasis on the development of the main character’s identity throughout the story.

Our understanding of classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning has allowed us to unlock many of the answers we sought to learn about human behavior. Classical conditioning is a technique of behavioral training, coined by Ivan Pavlov, which basically states that an organism learns through establishing associations between different events and stimuli. This helps us understand human behavior in an assortment of ways. It makes it clear that almost everything we do is based on patterns of stimulus and response. For example, if you were bitten aggressively by a dog as a child, you may be still scared of dogs today. That is because the dog caused you pain, which in turn caused you have anxiety towards dogs.

Classical conditioning is a type of associative learning which occurs when two stimuli are paired together repetitively and therefore become associated with each other eventually producing the same response. Classical conditioning was developed from the findings of Ivan Pavlov to account for associations between neutral stimuli and reflexive behavior such as salivation. Pavlov (1927) accidently discovered that dogs began to salivate before they had tasted their food. To support his theory, he carried out experiments using dogs which involved measuring the amount of saliva they produced. In his experiments, food started off as an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) which produced salivation, an unconditioned response (UCR). They are both unconditioned as they occur naturally without being learned. The dogs were presented with a bell (NS), this provided no salivation. The bell and food were presented together and after many trails an

Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which an organism learns to transfer a natural response from one stimulus to another, previously neutral stimulus. Classical conditioning is achieved by manipulating reflexes. Operant conditioning is a type of learning in which the likelihood of a

Classical conditioning is the relationship of an automatic response with a neutral occurrence. There are many main components to classical conditioning. Acquisition which is the learning part of classical conditioning where the conditioned stimulus is paired with the unconditioned stimulus. An unconditioned stimulus is a stimulus that instinctively causes a response. An unconditioned response is the response to the unconditioned stimulus that the researcher will document. A Neutral stimulus is a stimulus that may not get a response initially however after time, develops an instinctive response. A conditioned stimulus is a neutral stimulus after is has taught the response by training based on the conditioning. A conditioned response is the response to the conditioned stimulus. Extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, and discrimination are all a part of the classical conditioning process (Nevid,

BibliographyBooks1.Burt, C. (1962). The concept of consciousness. British Journal of Psychology, 53, 229-2422.Carlson, N., & Buskist, W. (1997). Psychology: The science of behavior (5th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Learning is the act of changing an organism’s behavior in response to an experience. Associative learning is when an organism links two events that occur close in time. When an organism learns to make associations, it is being conditioned. There are two types of conditioning. Operant conditioning is when an organism associates an action and the consequence of that action. It results in the organism adapting its behavior to maximize rewards and minimize punishment (Skinner). On the other hand, classical conditioning is a type of learning where an organism associates a certain stimulus and the response to it with a different stimulus. A neutral stimulus is associated with an unconditioned response to an unconditioned

“Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus”.

Classical conditioning refers to the learning through association. It involves learning a new behavior through the process of association

Technology has tremendously changed human social behavior, which has provided a convenient way for people to communicate and collaborate with each other. For instance, Cathy Davidson, the author of “Project Classroom Makeover,” points out, there is a need to renew the current education system so that it meets the new expectation of the digital era. She discusses how technology improves social interaction when students work collectively through crowdsourcing. In “The Myth of the Ant Queen,” Steven Johnson provides the example of the complex systems in ant colonies, cities of Manchester and Internet by emphasizing the importance of collective working that intelligence emerges when people work together. On the other side, Sherry Turkle argues that technology has turned human beings become isolated. In her article “Alone Together: Why We Expect A Lot from Technology and Less from Each Other,” she discusses how humanity is transformed into a “robotic’ moment due to technology. Therefore, technology does not only help to form collective learning and social interaction that can provide an adequate platform for sharing social values, but also isolate people from each other if they rely too much on technology.

In 1903 a Russian physiologist by the name of Ivan Pavlov first developed an experiential model of learning called Classical Conditioning (Lautenheiser 1999). An example if Classical Conditioning would be ringing a bell when it is time for your pet to eat. The pet hears the bell and over time is conditioned that when the bell rings its dinner time thus begins to salivate, and eventually learns to be conditioned to responding to the bell in a specific manner. The bases was that neutral stimulus would be put together with an excitatory one and over time the neutral stimulus would, at some point down the line elicit the response that was associated with the original unlearned response. Pavlov later added an element known as the nonexcitatory, conditioned stimulus which is but together with an unconditioned stimulus (Lautenheiser 1999).

Nearly every human, at some point in time, finds him or herself completing a task so habitual that it requires no conscious effort at all. During this time, the individual’s consciousness dissociates from the bodily task at hand. If not as common during one’s adult life, every child experiences divided awareness. Stout makes the critical point, “In the interest of play, a child can, in a heartbeat, leave himself behind, become someone or something else, or several things at once. […] It is clear to anyone who really looks that normal children derive unending joy form their superior ability to leap out of their ‘selves’ and go somewhere else, be other things” (430). Only a process with such innate and biological foundation such as dissociation appears in early childhood in the majority of average children. The frequency of childhood dissociation proves that the brain innately utilizes the process as a means of escaping the current reality for a variety of reasons, especially to protect against traumatic memories. Although many people tend to dissociate to varying degrees, everyone experiences dissociation to a certain extent. This point clearly illustrates

Although classical conditioning is something that most people experience in a daily basis, it may also be the first thing someone remembers in a day. According to Olson and Hergenhahn (2009) classical conditioning is defined as a type of learning in which a neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response after being paired with a stimulus that naturally brings about that response. In this paper the subject is to describe the theory of classical conditioning as well as describing a scenario in which one could apply classical conditioning theory to, and bring forth the scenario by showing illustrations of how this could be used