You might also want to check "Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid",
by Douglas Hofstadter. He compares an ant colony to a sort of distributed
brain in a discussion of artificial intelligence. See the chapter about
"Aunt Hillary".

Tom Emerson pointed out:
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] Virtual computing


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wirt Atmar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> If there were any merits to a distributed computing
> architecture, certainly some species among the hundreds
> of millions that have existed would have toyed
> with the design at some point, but to the best of our
> knowledge, none have.

I may be out on a limb here, but I'll agree in that no single individual
member of any species has a "distributed brain" [I think that's what you
were driving at], but what about "hives" -- ants, bees, etc., where the
"hive" as a whole moves with a sense of purpose?  [also known as "mod
mentality"]

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