Scientists find primitive organisms possess cognition

[Jesse]

A very interesting article, studies were done on simple organisms like slime molds, and it has been more or less proven that 'primitive organisms' possess cognition, and can transfer memory, behaviors, etc simply through cell fusion(growing new cells, or fusing two separate cells together etc).

They have tested other organisms and found the same thing, to me the fact that all living things are intelligent is obvious. If you simply look at their behavior it's fairly apparent they possess some form of intellect and cognition. The fact they are 'proving' it is awesome though. It also begs the question of consciousness. A lot of scientists would simply claim that intelligent behavior can exist without consciousness, but I disagree, and I can't wait until they delve into that topic. Although it's an impossible one tbh.

Anyway, the fact that simple cells can not only carry, but transfer memories, behaviors, and other information is a huge deal, it has implications that span a gamut of fields. From biology, neurology, behavior sciences, to computer science (Ai, neural networks, etc.), just to name a few.

Evidence mounts that organisms without nervous systems can in some sense learn and solve problems, but researchers disagree about whether this is “primitive cognition.”

For Dussutour, “that such organisms have the capacity to learn has considerable implications beyond recognizing learning in nonneural systems.” She believes that slime molds may help scientists to understand when and where in the tree of life the earliest manifestations of learning evolved.

Even more intriguingly, and perhaps controversially, research by Dussutour and others suggests that slime molds can transfer their acquired memories from cell to cell, said František Baluška, a plant cell biologist at the University of Bonn. “This is extremely exciting for our understanding of much larger organisms such as animals, humans and plants.”

It’s not just slime molds that may be able to learn. Researchers are investigating other nonneural organisms, such as plants, to discover whether they can display the most basic form of learning.

Here is the Article:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/slime-mo ... -20180709/

It's so funny how scientists are so resistant to change, even when offered plentiful evidence.

Some other interesting stuff:

If you have any interest in neural science or Artificial Intelligence:

But some mainstream biologists and neuroscientists are critical of the results. “Neuroscientists are objecting to the ‘devaluing’ of the specialness of the brain,” said Michael Levin, a biologist at Tufts University. “Brains are great, but we have to remember where they came from. Neurons evolved from nonneural cells, they did not magically appear.”

Some biologists also object “to the idea that cells can have goals, memories and so on, because it sounds like magic,” he added. But we have to remember, he said, that work on control theory, cybernetics, artificial intelligence and machine learning over the last century or so has shown that mechanistic systems can have goals and make decisions. “Computer science long ago learned that information processing is substrate-independent,” Levin said. “It’s not about what you’re made of, it’s about how you compute.”

Substrate-Independence

Substrate-Independence is one of the main ideas developed by philosopher Nick Bostrom, one of the leading minds behind the Simulation Argument. Substrate-independence is the simple, logical, yet profound idea that mental states can reside on multiple types of physical or digital substrates. A conscious, intelligent, self-aware person can reside in an organic brain, a silicon brain, a magnetic brain - the physical construction is fundamentally irrelevant.

As he notes, "a computer running a suitable program would be conscious."

[PadmaVonSamba]

The word I give this phenomena is "awarity".
It's like awareness, but without any brain activity or organ of sensory perception or cognition.

What I distinguish is between purely random activity, and what, for lack of a better word, is intentional.

Even some plants exhibit this. But you have to be able to tell what is random elimination and what is purposeful.

For example, suppose a tree sends out roots in different directions. The ones which make contact with water will flourish and grow, while the ones that do not contact water will wither and disappear. So, if you dig up the tree a few years later, and look at the roots, it will appear that the roots only grew toward the water.

However, there are also some trees, such as willows (I think), whose roots do not simply branch out in all directions, but only grow toward the direction of a water source.

Likewise, sperm cells swim toward an ovum (egg). If you look up how this happens, all you will learn is that there is a chemical attraction. But there is no explanation as to how or why such an attraction can occur. It's not like bits of paper clinging to a balloon charged with static electricity. Sperm swim.

Also, white blood cells in the bloodstream go to and attack and destroy bacteria, but they have no brains. The brain of the human or animal of course is shown to cause the white blood cells to operate this way in the blood stream when, for example, there is a cut to the flesh, or some kind of microbe enters the body. But the white blood cells have no sense organs. How do they "know" when they have made contact with an intruder?


Even if you can determine that an organism is simply reacting to light, or to heat, or to moisture or ph balance or whatever, the fact remains that it is responding to something in its environment that is outside of itself. This is very significant. It's not enough to just say that an outside stimulus triggers something in its physiology, like hot sun causing water to evaporate, or gravitational mass holding things onto the surface of the Earth, or vinegar reacting with baking soda. Now, if vinegar always flowed in the direction of baking soda in order to react with it, if you poured a teaspoon of vinegar out onto a table and it automatically formed a stream toward a pile of baking soda, then this would be something akin to what I am describing.

All, or nearly all living things possess some level of "awarity", which, I theorize is the basis for the development of higher levels of cognition and intelligence, or at least, for the physiological apparatus of the brain to occur, with which some kind of consciousness can specifically interact.
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[PadmaVonSamba]

Some biologists also object “to the idea that cells can have goals, memories and so on, because it sounds like magic,” he added. But we have to remember, he said, that work on control theory, cybernetics, artificial intelligence and machine learning over the last century or so has shown that mechanistic systems can have goals and make decisions. “Computer science long ago learned that information processing is substrate-independent,” Levin said. “It’s not about what you’re made of, it’s about how you compute.”

What sounds like magic to me is the idea that a few ounces of water, fat, salt, and amino acids, the physical makeup of a human brain, can
"think".

Asserting that thoughts come from the physical brain is like asserting that a computer produces its own user.
The brain can certainly be shown to be essential for mental function, but it hasn't yet been shown to be the actual source.
.
.
.

[Tenma]

A very interesting article, studies were done on simple organisms like slime molds, and it has been more or less proven that 'primitive organisms' possess cognition, and can transfer memory, behaviors, etc simply through cell fusion(growing new cells, or fusing two separate cells together etc).

They have tested other organisms and found the same thing, to me the fact that all living things are intelligent is obvious. If you simply look at their behavior it's fairly apparent they possess some form of intellect and cognition. The fact they are 'proving' it is awesome though. It also begs the question of consciousness. A lot of scientists would simply claim that intelligent behavior can exist without consciousness, but I disagree, and I can't wait until they delve into that topic. Although it's an impossible one tbh.

Anyway, the fact that simple cells can not only carry, but transfer memories, behaviors, and other information is a huge deal, it has implications that span a gamut of fields. From biology, neurology, behavior sciences, to computer science (Ai, neural networks, etc.), just to name a few.

Evidence mounts that organisms without nervous systems can in some sense learn and solve problems, but researchers disagree about whether this is “primitive cognition.”

For Dussutour, “that such organisms have the capacity to learn has considerable implications beyond recognizing learning in nonneural systems.” She believes that slime molds may help scientists to understand when and where in the tree of life the earliest manifestations of learning evolved.

Even more intriguingly, and perhaps controversially, research by Dussutour and others suggests that slime molds can transfer their acquired memories from cell to cell, said František Baluška, a plant cell biologist at the University of Bonn. “This is extremely exciting for our understanding of much larger organisms such as animals, humans and plants.”

It’s not just slime molds that may be able to learn. Researchers are investigating other nonneural organisms, such as plants, to discover whether they can display the most basic form of learning.

Here is the Article:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/slime-mo ... -20180709/

It's so funny how scientists are so resistant to change, even when offered plentiful evidence.

Some other interesting stuff:

If you have any interest in neural science or Artificial Intelligence:

But some mainstream biologists and neuroscientists are critical of the results. “Neuroscientists are objecting to the ‘devaluing’ of the specialness of the brain,” said Michael Levin, a biologist at Tufts University. “Brains are great, but we have to remember where they came from. Neurons evolved from nonneural cells, they did not magically appear.”

Some biologists also object “to the idea that cells can have goals, memories and so on, because it sounds like magic,” he added. But we have to remember, he said, that work on control theory, cybernetics, artificial intelligence and machine learning over the last century or so has shown that mechanistic systems can have goals and make decisions. “Computer science long ago learned that information processing is substrate-independent,” Levin said. “It’s not about what you’re made of, it’s about how you compute.”

Substrate-Independence

Substrate-Independence is one of the main ideas developed by philosopher Nick Bostrom, one of the leading minds behind the Simulation Argument. Substrate-independence is the simple, logical, yet profound idea that mental states can reside on multiple types of physical or digital substrates. A conscious, intelligent, self-aware person can reside in an organic brain, a silicon brain, a magnetic brain - the physical construction is fundamentally irrelevant.

As he notes, "a computer running a suitable program would be conscious."

Reminds me of THIS forum:
viewtopic.php?f=40&t=26761

[Jesse]

All, or nearly all living things possess some level of "awarity", which, I theorize is the basis for the development of higher levels of cognition and intelligence, or at least, for the physiological apparatus of the brain to occur, with which some kind of consciousness can specifically interact.

This is actually the basis of a theory, emergentism.. they are still stuck in a materialistic mindset, but the basic theory is sound IMO. Complex Consciousness arises out of a complex system, such as our brains, nervous systems, etc. I do not believe ALL people that subscribe to this theory are materialists, however, and there is probably some good works/research out there which is non-materialistic.


Found one!
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/1 ... chapter-15

Anyway, the theory basically posits that sufficiently complex interconnected systems connected in similarly complex networks give rise to consciousness, or consciousness emerges within such systems.. like the human brain/nervous system. The theory also applies to artificial networks, such as a neural network. If true, if computer scientists can build a sufficient 'container', self-aware conscious ai should be possible. (strong ai)

[Queequeg]

"Awarity" I like that.

My take is that stuff like this says more about our own concept of our consciousness than it does about the activity of these simple organisms. What I mean by that is we generally take ourselves as the standard and then measure other iterations of consciousness against us. So what we try to do is find similarity to us - basically to confirm our ideas about ourselves. Instead, it might make more sense to take that kind of simple awarity and then measure ourselves against it.

In terms of AI, for instance, attempts to make sophisticated machines that think have failed when the aim was a complicated system from the start. Instead, what machines like Deep Blue do is basically very simple - more or less just basic calculations. They work because those basic calculations can be performed in volume at high speeds. The Meta effect of all those calculations is something that starts to resemble intelligence. Add terrabytes of solid state memory and the machines appear to learn.

We have all kinds of fancy ideas about our minds. It's becoming more and more likely that our rich human consciousness that can create and appreciate things like art and music are just Meta effects of very efficient computers and their integrated sensory apparatus. Isn't that kind of what abhidhamma tells us?

[Jesse]

For example, suppose a tree sends out roots in different directions. The ones which make contact with water will flourish and grow, while the ones that do not contact water will wither and disappear. So, if you dig up the tree a few years later, and look at the roots, it will appear that the roots only grew toward the water.

However, there are also some trees, such as willows (I think), whose roots do not simply branch out in all directions, but only grow toward the direction of a water source.

What you are explaining is basically a strategy, the basic behavior behind this strategy is still intelligent, the plant seeks self-preservation through a specific strategy to obtain what it needs to survive. It just means the willows have found a superior strategy, or have obtained some mechanisms by which they can detect water, another strategy, and a much superior one. It also probably means they went through a number of strategies over the millenniums, and the ones which worked where the ones that got passed on, simply because the trees which used bad strategies died.

[Jesse]

"Awarity" I like that.

My take is that stuff like this says more about our own concept of our consciousness than it does about the activity of these simple organisms. What I mean by that is we generally take ourselves as the standard and then measure other iterations of consciousness against us. So what we try to do is find similarity to us - basically to confirm our ideas about ourselves. Instead, it might make more sense to take that kind of simple awarity and then measure ourselves against it.

In terms of AI, for instance, attempts to make sophisticated machines that think have failed when the aim was a complicated system from the start. Instead, what machines like Deep Blue do is basically very simple - more or less just basic calculations. They work because those basic calculations can be performed in volume at high speeds. The Meta effect of all those calculations is something that starts to resemble intelligence. Add terrabytes of solid state memory and the machines appear to learn.

We have all kinds of fancy ideas about our minds. It's becoming more and more likely that our rich human consciousness that can create and appreciate things like art and music are just Meta effects of very efficient computers and their integrated sensory apparatus. Isn't that kind of what abhidhamma tells us?

Neural nets are simple in essence. They are made from one basic component, a simulation of a single neuron. It takes in input, does a computation, and outputs something. It learns by being given a goal, you may say it's not real intelligence since a human is giving it a 'goal', but that isn't much different from how our brains work, our brains use a simple mechanisms that make us feel 'good', or 'bad', and by these two very simple drivers, we spend our entire life operating. A very simple goal can drive very complex behavior.

Neural networks become complex the bigger they get, the more interconnected they become. Similar to the human brain, after-all neural networks are based off the human brain in their entirety.

[Wayfarer]

Worth recalling that the very simplest of organisms are worlds more complex than anything in the inorganic realm. The fundamental attribute of any organism is to seek homeostasis - which nothing in inorganic nature does. I believe that anything living is, on that grounds, ontologically distinct from non-living matter - a view which is almost universally rejected as being ‘vitalist’.

[Simon E.]

Worth recalling that the very simplest of organisms are worlds more complex than anything in the inorganic realm. The fundamental attribute of any organism is to seek homeostasis - which nothing in inorganic nature does. I believe that anything living is, on that grounds, ontologically distinct from non-living matter - a view which is almost universally rejected as being ‘vitalist’.

It also blurs the whole sentient/insentient line. With huge implications for those who think that dietary purity is possible.

[Wayfarer]

yes I'll bear that in mind next time I prepare Slime Mould Soup.

[Simon E.]

The point being that Slime Mould Soup requires the death of beings with consciousness.
Of course Chicken Soup requires the death of beings with eyes.
So its much worserer.

[seeker242]

Worth recalling that the very simplest of organisms are worlds more complex than anything in the inorganic realm. The fundamental attribute of any organism is to seek homeostasis - which nothing in inorganic nature does. I believe that anything living is, on that grounds, ontologically distinct from non-living matter - a view which is almost universally rejected as being ‘vitalist’.

It also blurs the whole sentient/insentient line. With huge implications for those who think that dietary purity is possible.

Which is not a problem because no one even believes in "complete dietary purity" to begin with.

[Simon E.]

You introduced a qualifier..i.e. 'complete'. I made no mention of one. Neither did I talk in terms of a problem. Nor did I mention beliefs. All those are constructs introduced into the discussion by you.

[Jesse]

Worth recalling that the very simplest of organisms are worlds more complex than anything in the inorganic realm. The fundamental attribute of any organism is to seek homeostasis - which nothing in inorganic nature does. I believe that anything living is, on that grounds, ontologically distinct from non-living matter - a view which is almost universally rejected as being ‘vitalist’.

What we consider to be 'inorganic' matter, is very easily provable to be able to support life. Scientists have predicted silicon-based life probably exists somewhere in the universe for decades now. If so, it's easily conceivable for living beings to made of matter we consider to be inorganic, while on their planet certain matter we consider organic and alive, may not be so to them.

There are also some studies suggesting crystalline life could exist in some form, though it would likely be so alien, and unrelatable we probably wouldn't understand it at all, or even be able to 'gauge' it's intelligence or sentience.

The universe is so big, that thinking the way things are here is the standard format is a bit premature.

[Queequeg]

What you are explaining is basically a strategy, the basic behavior behind this strategy is still intelligent

That is a stretch.

[Queequeg]

The point being that Slime Mould Soup requires the death of beings with consciousness.
Of course Chicken Soup requires the death of beings with eyes.
So its much worserer.

So, would it somehow be morally better if we snuck up on the chicken and got it before it could see us?

[Queequeg]

The fundamental attribute of any organism is to seek homeostasis

I think this is an impressionistic rendering of what human homeostasis looks like:


From Onmark Productions.

[Simon E.]

The point being that Slime Mould Soup requires the death of beings with consciousness.
Of course Chicken Soup requires the death of beings with eyes.
So its much worserer.

So, would it somehow be morally better if we snuck up on the chicken and got it before it could see us?

It would be better if we saw clearly that samsara sucks. For all. From slime moulds to Einsteins.

[Queequeg]

The point being that Slime Mould Soup requires the death of beings with consciousness.
Of course Chicken Soup requires the death of beings with eyes.
So its much worserer.

So, would it somehow be morally better if we snuck up on the chicken and got it before it could see us?

It would be better if we saw clearly that samsara sucks. For all. From slime moulds to Einsteins.

I think you're ducking the question. You made the distinction, I'm just following up.

Didn't mean to put you on the spot.