Some people show more self-control than others. If a marshmallow is placed in front of me, I will probably eat it. You might exercise more restraint than me, or you might not. Either way, your actions will depend on thousands of neurons in your brain. It would make little sense to describe any one of these neurons as showing restraint. They’re just interacting with each other in simple ways, and restraint emerges from these interactions.

You can see the same emergent behaviours in an ant colony. The red harvester ant mainly eats seeds. Some colonies go out searching for seeds no matter the weather but others hold back on dry days when they risk death by dehydration. Deborah