speaking of arachnids, let's talk really low level-- ants. I like ants because of the crazy social structures that visibly evolve. what I love more about them is that we tend to think of them as automatons with an if clause. an unknown if clause, which allows for what we call "group intelligence." hmmm sounds like fishy business to me... how I explain this if clause, which allows for some of the most intricate and complex architecture, among other incredibly complex behavior (and that's only what we can perceive. we have no idea about how to mentally (let alone physically) represent the chemically rich pheromone world of insects) is rogue behavior-- that desire to separate from the group, or at least the ability to be able to do so effectively. that invaluable power to determine a situation (a group of desires represented as options and energy consequences) as logical or illogical from an energy perspective. Not all ants have the ability. and I have seen many a worker fall prey to the local maxima problem, at which point they stop and wait for an electical response to reactivate them. (though they do have a built-in fail-safe, which is electrical activation from another electrically active creature. anyway, the coding of insect desires, I believe, is the basis for the true nature of DNA. When this rogue behavior happens, these rogues (opposite of workers), and their mates and forced (either by choice or natural occurence) to figure out new ways to do things. nature can throw some pretty crazy shit at you. these "new ways to do things" can be represented as desires. strong desires, with movement patterns encoded into them and who the hell knows what else. this is all bullshit theory, kinda, but it's good shit to think about. the truth is, we don't know how many of these desire formation systems are in the body, which ones are in control of which hormones and neuro-transmitters--which ones control the conscious us in which ways. This will take a lot of testing to figure out. I am ready. Again, good stuff to think about. Based on simple genetic experiments done on pea plants-onward, we know how genetics works. when these rogues have babies, some of the babies inherit this rogue instinct and some do not and some kinda do, which likely can all be sensed chamically. from these encoded needs and desires, social structure can be formed based on energy- maintenance information determined by pain sensors. from this, all of the jobs, originally done by the founding couple get passed down automatically and as every job has more participants, the structures grow as does the apparent "intelligence" of the hive, but I will argue the only real intelligent ants are the king and queen, who chemically make sure they stay the only intelligent ants, until it is time to hand down the thrown and let some more intelligent beings into the mix.