What If Insects Don't Know They're Alive?

A fruit fly brain simulation went viral in Minecraft. But do insects know they're alive? This science documentary digs into neuroscience, insect pain, and the case against insect minds. A cockroach leg with no head learns to give up. Ants carry a living sister to the graveyard because she smells dead. A worm with 302 neurons weighs danger against food just like a bee weighs pain against sugar. And a virtual fly built from a real connectome walks, grooms, and drinks with no training at all. We test the evidence from our last video (a bee that grasps zero, a bumblebee that trades pain for sugar) against four-neuron networks, robots that "feel pain", neural switches and death-feigning beetles. Then we follow the fly brain from the 2024 FlyWire map to the viral 2026 simulation, and give the counter-evidence its say. Drop a comment: What should this channel investigate next? Memberships are now open too. Tap Join to see what's on offer. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SOURCES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PAIN, MOOD & MACHINES ▸ Adamo, S. A. (2019). "Is it pain if it does not hurt? On the unlikelihood of insect pain." Canadian Entomologist, 151: 685–695. ▸ Gibson, W. T., et al. (2015). "Behavioral responses to a repetitive visual threat stimulus express a persistent state of defensive arousal in Drosophila." Current Biology, 25: 1401–1415. ▸ Gibbons, M., et al. (2022). "Motivational trade-offs and modulation of nociception in bumblebees." PNAS, 119: e2205821119. ▸ Ghosh, D. D., et al. (2016). "Neural architecture of hunger-dependent multisensory decision making in C. elegans." Neuron, 92: 1049–1062. ▸ Eisenstein, E. M., & Carlson, A. D. (1997). "A comparative approach to the behavior called 'learned helplessness'." Behavioural Brain Research, 86: 149–160. NUMBERS WITHOUT NUMBERS ▸ Howard, S. R., et al. (2018). "Numerical ordering of zero in honey bees." Science, 360: 1124–1126. ▸ MaBouDi, H., et al. (2021). "Non-numerical strategies used by bees to solve numerical cognition tasks." Proc R Soc B, 288: 20202711. ▸ Vasas, V., & Chittka, L. (2019). "Insect-inspired sequential inspection strategy enables an artificial network of four neurons to estimate numerosity." iScience, 11: 85–92. SWITCHES & LOOPS ▸ Bidaye, S. S., et al. (2014). "Neuronal control of Drosophila walking direction." Science, 344: 97–101. ▸ Gal, R., & Libersat, F. (2008). "A parasitoid wasp manipulates the drive for walking of its cockroach prey." Current Biology, 18: 877–882. ▸ Fabre, J.-H. (1916). The Life of the Caterpillar. ▸ Beebe, W. (1921). Edge of the Jungle. Henry Holt and Co. DEATH, SMELL & KNOWING ▸ Wilson, E. O., et al. (1958). "Chemical releasers of necrophoric behavior in ants." Psyche, 65: 108–114. ▸ Choe, D.-H., et al. (2009). "Chemical signals associated with life inhibit necrophoresis in Argentine ants." PNAS, 106: 8251–8255. ▸ Gendron, C. M., et al. (2023). "Ring neurons in the Drosophila central complex act as a rheostat for sensory modulation of aging." PLOS Biology, 21: e3002149. ▸ Miyatake, T., et al. (2004). "Is death-feigning adaptive? Heritable variation in fitness difference of death-feigning behaviour." Proc R Soc B, 271: 2293–2296. ▸ The New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness (2024). NYU. THE FLY BRAIN IN A COMPUTER ▸ Dorkenwald, S., et al. (2024). "Neuronal wiring diagram of an adult brain." Nature, 634: 124–138. ▸ Shiu, P. K., et al. (2024). "A Drosophila computational brain model reveals sensorimotor processing." Nature, 634: 210–219. ▸ Eon Systems (2026). "How the Eon Team Produced a Virtual Embodied Fly." eon.systems ▸ Berg, S., et al. (2026). "Sexual dimorphism in the complete connectome of the Drosophila male central nervous system." Cell. ▸ Ferreira, B. (2026). "A Digital Fly Brain Has Taken Over the Internet." 404 Media. STAKES & COUNTER-EVIDENCE ▸ Rowe, A. (2020). "Insects raised for food and feed: global scale, practices, and policy." Rethink Priorities. ▸ Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, UK. ▸ Eisemann, C. H., et al. (1984). "Do insects feel pain? A biological view." Experientia, 40: 164–167. ▸ Barrett, M., & Fischer, B. (2025). "The era beyond Eisemann et al. (1984): Insect pain in the 21st century." Quarterly Review of Biology. doi:10.1086/737365 ▸ Nieder, A., et al. (2020). "A neural correlate of sensory consciousness in a corvid bird." Science, 369: 1626–1629. ▸ Carruthers, P. (2019). Human and Animal Minds: The Consciousness Questions Laid to Rest. Oxford University Press. ▸ Heider, F., & Simmel, M. (1944). "An experimental study of apparent behavior." American Journal of Psychology, 57: 243–259. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ For business inquiries: [email protected] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #Insects #FruitFlyBrain #ScienceDocumentary #Neuroscience #Minecraft #FruitFly #DoInsectsFeelPain