Superorganisms and Intelligence

Biologically inspired cognitive systems have successfully been used for various purposes in recent years. There is, however, a considerable amount of work to be done using certain biological organisms to understand cognitions, especially in cases in which biological structures have been employed to create useful computational models that nevertheless are not thought to be explanations of cognitive capabilities. Superorganisms are at the basis of the swarm intelligence approach to artificial intelligence and robotics, but are also likely to lend themselves to the investigation of emergent phenomena involved in biology and in the foundation of cognitive capabilities. In this paper, I shall try to formulate hypotheses on some peculiar features of superorganisms that may help to shed light on understanding and building cognitive (artificial and natural) entities.