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[Neonivek]

Well a gigant millipede would be dead if you slice it's unique head, or at least it will be blind and, errhh deaf (do they have hearing?) and it wouldn't be able to "sniff for you" (don't know how to call the olfactory impaired).

I don't see the hydra not having each head working independently from up to a certain degree.

Anosmic is if they cannot smell.

Millipedes may or may not hear depending on your definition. Specifically they can sense the vibrations of sound.

[eux0r]

there are a few videos of two headed snakes on youtube, could be a good reference. the heads seem to get along just fine, from what ive seen so far.

[Eric Blank]

Arthropods may not make a good example because their nervous system and various senses have some key differences. For instance, some insects like mantises' and cockroaches' bodies can persist without their head for some timeframe, functioning off of nerve ganglia in the abdomen and thorax. Starvation, lack of sensory input, infection, and loss of fluids are their biggest threats. But for a hydra, with seven heads starvation and sensory input won't be an issue if you lost only one of them. Blood loss may be an issue, as would infection, but hypothetically if their immune system could prevent massive invasion of bacteria through the wound, and the arteries in the neck clotted or had valves along their length which closed under certain conditions (related to rapid blood loss, possibly nerves detecting a sharp decrease in blood pressure?), the wound could scab over and heal and the hydra could survive relatively unaffected, assuming also that each head were able to direct movement of the limbs in some manner. Vertebrates also have minor nerve ganglia along their spinal cord, so sub-conscious processes could hypothetically be controlled by these without input form any of the heads.

Rather than a system resembling the split-brain issue in humans and similar animals, hydra may have a system where each brain subconsciously communicated with the others along the nerve columns in the neck what each of them independently conceived of doing. Consciously, it may have a single unified conscience, experiencing the inputs from each head as it's senses and a source of emotional urges. A decision to move may be made by the central head, or even by a ganglion at the base of the necks which averages nerve inputs (or controls them outright) to be directed to the muscles beyond it, like the sympathetic navigation of large flocks of birds; one of them decides to move, the others nearby may follow it, followed by yet more, but the flock only gets anywhere as a sort of hivemind, where the overall average of all the indepedent motions of the birds equates to a direction of travel at the present time.

The heads of the hydra, although not independently controlling the motion of the body, may independently decide their own motions in relation to it, which lets them assault prey (or adventurers) independently and rapidly. I don't see why the animal would spontaneously argue with itself externally, though.

[laularukyrumo]

\I don't see why the animal would spontaneously argue with itself externally, though.

It wouldn't, but, comic relief takes precedence in most situations over, say, an attempt to simulate fantasy biology.

Which is why Dwarf Fortress Forever.

[flabort]

On the other hands many dinosaurs had brains the size of a walnut - so its all open to speculation.

Did you know the Stegosaurus had a second brain in it's ***? This supposedly is where it's long term memory was located...
Of course, this may be a fabrication by TV Land, as I got the information from the character of Walter Bishop from Fringe. The long term memory thing is more likely fabricated than the other part, but still plausible.

I like to think that a typical Hydra (the kind that regrows it's heads) has a system similar to something from a more future work. From Schlock Mercenary, we have Retro-Exocephaloderm Nannies, a fancy word for "Robots that back your brain up in your skin". Let's say a hydra has an organic way of doing the same thing, either into the skin or an extra brain in it's ***. It's unable to do any thinking with it's skin, but all it's memories, personality, recent decisions, recent smells sights and sounds, etc. are in it's skin. So when it loses it's brain(s), it "restores it's [hard drive and RAM] from [backup], [while manufacturing a new identical motherboard]". It's automatic systems are able to do this, even when it has no brains left, so while the hydra is completely headless, it's unable to act in any way (As seen on Disney's Hercules movie), but it will soon regrow it's heads and they'll immediately start taking action. Including getting it's heart pumping again, as that (and likely other internal organ(s)) is likely to shut down after a brief period of no control. Which is why preventing the head from regrowing long enough will permanently kill a hydra.
Now, the way I see it, a hydra has multiple heads, therefor brains. It only has one hide. It has to back-up all the brains in this one skin, and so it either has to make certain areas different, which means that most of the brains restored from backup will be severely corrupted and inoperable; it has to overwrite backups from one brain with another over and over in a cycle, which will leave most brains un-backed up; or it will have to create a combined backup, with conflicting memories and duplicate sensory inputs. I believe the third takes place. When a head regrows, it will then be very disoriented by the various sensory inputs being restored from back-up, and the more heads sending sensory information to back up the more disoriented the new head(s) will be. They eventually sort those out, and once fully restored from backup they only use their own senses (no need for all eyes to send information to all heads, etc., and same with sound and taste/smell, though touch would be shared, and all heads would respond to a piercing by a sword). It almost immediately starts having it's own memories, but having multiple memories time stamped with the same time would be a bit confusing, and it would start subconsiously weeding out memories that seem similar from similar times, eventually arriving at it's own non-conflicting set of memories; The older the hydra, and the more heads it has/had the longer this process will take. Once it's senses are straightened out and it's memories pruned (if all the heads with a certain memory are destroyed (like eating a poisonous fruit), and all the new heads prune out that memory by chance, it's likely permanently lost (so it doesn't know the fruit's toxic anymore)), the new head will no longer be so disoriented. It's own new memories will start being backed up as well as the other heads' memories.
The fact that each head will have it's own set of old memories and new memories will probably mean that each will develop different personalities, and the overall case of multiple personality syndrome will only get worse as time wears on and heads regrow. This means a newly hatched hydra is probably the sanest, most intelligent hydra you will ever be able to find. This also leads into my theory of HOW A HYDRA BODY IS CONTROLLED, the relevant point of my rant to the discussion.

As each head has a different personality, as a result of their conflicting memories, and each is likely to be lost at any time (it's possible that hydra heads actually age and die quicker than the body, and rot and fall off periodically), it's necessary for each to have an equal chance at controlling the whole body past it's own neck. The only way for one to control the body is basically to "outwill" the others, and to become the dominant head. It will remember how to do it, as it's memories are backed up, but when a head becomes dominant, it's like "Remembering to ride a bike after five or six years", and not every head will be as good at coordinating the body as the others.
Since every head will remember controlling the body at some point or another, each head will want to control it. So they will constantly try to outwill the dominant head, or eliminate it. You've heard that the heads of a hydra will snap at each other, and fight with each other? Yeah, that's one head trying to sever the dominant head so it can take control of the body. Of course, once a head that's not controlled the body for a long time gets control, the body itself will seem a little disoriented as the new personality gets used to it. But control won't last for long, as another head will outwill it or sever it soon, which also explains why a creature with such powerful limbs walks so slow and never runs: it can't make up it's mind where to go for long and it can't remember how to walk for very long at a time.

[Buttery_Mess]

Are we going to see the prepared

invisible bureaucratic organ

upon the butchering of a hydra corpse?

[mastahcheese]

Are we going to see the prepared

invisible bureaucratic organ

upon the butchering of a hydra corpse?

Well, that would certainly end the debate.

[flabort]

Are we going to see the prepared

invisible bureaucratic organ

upon the butchering of a hydra corpse?

Well, that would certainly end the debate.

I'm not sure if it proves or disproves my organic dermic back-up hydra theory. (The wall of text a few posts up)

[Lolfail0009]

Are we going to see the prepared

invisible bureaucratic organ

upon the butchering of a hydra corpse?

Well, that would certainly end the debate.

I'm not sure if it proves or disproves my organic dermic back-up hydra theory. (The wall of text a few posts up)

Perhaps it backs up to the "invisible organ"? Of course, the organ would be used for [memory] and not [CPU] but it still has a purpose relating.

[gestahl]

I imagine there'll be edge cases and not-so-edge cases where things go horribly wrong and reality will need to be questioned.

That's one of the best things about DF

[flabort]

Are we going to see the prepared

invisible bureaucratic organ

upon the butchering of a hydra corpse?

Well, that would certainly end the debate.

I'm not sure if it proves or disproves my organic dermic back-up hydra theory. (The wall of text a few posts up)

Perhaps it backs up to the "invisible organ"? Of course, the organ would be used for [memory] and not [CPU] but it still has a purpose relating.

That's about what I thought. I think.
I wonder, how many folk are going to bother reading through all that mostly-off-topic text?

[Lolfail0009]

Me. I actually quite enjoyed it.

[Inarius]

Me too. Quite imaginative and interesting, actually.

[hermes]

You could already do that. This is a meta-variation--variations on variations!

Hehe, thanks but I still don't really get it!  Could you give an example?

[Andreus]

Some of the entity ethics cover the extremes already, and it matters a bit.  Expansions of that system should be natural as I actually add stuff.

I was thinking somewhat from a modder's perspective, since I'd like the granularity to make, for example, a civilization that is inherently xenophobic but merciful, so generally exiles members of other species it ends up conquering, and would certainly never accept the rulership of a member of another species, but might allow a member of another species who had earned their respect to stay. Is that sort of thing going to be possible?

On a related note, will there eventually be societies within the same species which hold differing values? Perhaps the stereotypcial "dark elves" or cannibalistic slaver dwarves.