Muslim Agnostic

Army Ants. Do they have Self-Awareness? Do they have Foresight?

Quran 27:18 At length, when they came to a (lowly) valley of ants, one of the ants said: “O ye ants, get into your habitations, lest Solomon and his hosts crush you (under foot) without knowing it.”

Quran 27:19 So he smiled, amused at her speech; and he said: “O my Lord! so order me that I may be grateful for Thy favours, which thou hast bestowed on me and on my parents, and that I may work the righteousness that will please Thee: And admit me, by Thy Grace, to the ranks of Thy righteous Servants.”

 http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/027.qmt.html#027.018

* These ants are conscious of a number of things:

1) They understand what trampling is

2) They understand that trampling has serious negative effects, thus they understand the concept of benefit vs. harm

3) They have the foresight to predict that people moving in their direction will trample them

4) They know Solomon by name

5) They recognize Solomon as the leader of the group approaching them, thus they understand the concept of status or ranks

6) They have a concept of what knowledge is, as they say, “unknowingly”

7) They are able to pass judgment upon Solomon’s personal character by implying that Solomon would not knowingly trample them

* These ants are described to have a human-like consciousness. Bugs have nowhere near this level of awareness, much less knowledge. 

* If you are in doubt as to how aware an ant really is, try to step on one and see if it moves away from you. If it hardly reacts to you, what makes you think that it would have the foresight to determine so many things about an approaching army in the distance, much less know particular facts about them?

* The consciousness of ants as described here is even more than that of a young human child. The brain of an ant and the brain of a human child, are nowhere close in comparison.

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