Bees and ants have external "central nervous systems" and the hive or hill is one organism. Each individual knows that for it's DNA to survive the queen must survive, and therefore gives no more consideration to it's life than does a white blood corpuscle in a human.

Those animals with an internal "central nervous system" know that for their DNA to survive they must procreate and that means survive. Often, but not always, it's the hell with my neighbor, I'm gonna live.

(Among many exceptions are the elephants I saw in Tanzania. Every baby elephant tagged along with it's mother, and every baby also had an older female elephant casually strolling between the observer and the baby. Sometimes in front of the mother, sometimes behind, whatever it took to stay between the baby and us.

I, for one, had absolutely no inclination to go over and pet the baby. None, not the slightest.)

The idea of an external CNS being part of one organism is new to me, and a natural. Answers a lot of questions. If I were a cloned individual, for instance, one of thousands, all of us communicating through some electro-chemical internet, I might be much more willing to donate my life for the survival of the source of my DNA and the operation of the internet than I am as the individual I am.

Interesting.

Arf