Le
blob also known by its scientific name Physarum polycephalum or
"many-headed slime”
Looking for consciousness in a brain is like looking for ‘no’
needle in a haystack. I am convinced that consciousness is independent of
matter and energy but yes, intelligence is a function of matter and energy. Let
us see the existence of a singular cell that can perform many functions without
a brain. In my school days, we learn about a single cell organism known as an Amoeba
and were always fascinated by its existence.
All single-celled organisms contain everything they need
to survive within one cell. These cells are able to get energy from
complex molecules, to move, and to sense their environment. The ability to
perform these and other functions is part of their organization. However, we are
discussing the single-cell organisms in light of Intelligence and consciousness
Credit 📷 Audrey Dussutour @Docteur_Drey
A single cell can have intelligent actions without a
brain and this is practically proven in a "le blob" also known by its
scientific name Physarum polycephalum or "many-headed slime”. They belong to a separate
lineage that evolved from ordinary soil amoebas. The blob doesn't have a brain
but can solve problems, and has no mouth but can eat food. It has no stomach, eyes,
brain or nervous system, but it can detect and digest food. The organism moves
without legs, wings or fins at a speed of up to 1.6 inches per hour. It is also
self-healing — able to regenerate itself in just two minutes after being cut in
half and has 720 sex organs having no problems of reproducing. The organisms respond to
starvation by rushing together by the thousands into a single blob. The blob
stretches out into a slug-shaped mass about one millimeter long (one
twenty-fifth of an inch), which then crawls like a worm toward the light. But as with most other
species, survival is boosted by genetic diversity, which in the blob's case
happens by two genetically-diverse organisms meeting and fusing into a new,
single blob. Researchers
said the creature is essentially immortal, fearing only light and drought. They stick to the foot of an
animal and travel to a hospitable place. It shows that the Blob has the intelligence
to reason, for survival without a complex brain function.
The Blob is not an animal, a plant or a mushroom, but
scientists are still not sure exactly how to classify it. It can remember
things, adapt their behaviors and find its way out of a maze, which is all
animal-like behaviors.
The Paris zoo's latest attraction said the organism first
appeared a billion years ago. "It's been here for millions of years, and
we still don't really know what it is." Preceding humans on Earth by some
500 million years, the creature resembles a kind of slippery sponge.
"It surprises us because it has no brain, but is
able to learn ... and if you merge two blobs, the one that has learned will
transmit its knowledge to the other," "The blob is really one of the
most extraordinary things that live on Earth today," the president of Paris
zoo, Bruno David, said as he introduced the creature to journalists in the
French capital.
Something weird and wonderful is at a Paris zoo https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/slime-mold-in-paris
Matter
and intelligence
I conclude that all self-replicating life forms are
organic or dependent on the matter with a media to stimulate intelligence and energy
to sustain its existence (the relationship of intelligence,
consciousness, energy, and matter has been described in this blog, the posting of
Saturday, 10 August 201 Consciousness) Consciousness is what consciousness
is and intelligence is what it Intelligence is. Both seem to be represented by
many thinkers and researchers evolving from the brain with no sciences that can
prove that they belong to the activities of the brain function.
In my previous posting Consciousness and Intelligence I have described memory banks that
all matter will have. The survival of all living matter depends on intelligence
and the storage of this intelligence for all living entities is the Brain, Body
memory (BM) and cell memory. The main role of DNA in the cell is the long-term
storage of information or cell memory. Intelligence is defined as general
cognitive problem-solving skills. A mental ability involved in reasoning,
perceiving relationships and analogies, calculating, learning quickly, etc.
- ·
What happens if an entity does not have a
brain but behaves intelligently for its existence?
- ·
Is intelligence a mental activity if not then
what is intelligence in self-replicating life forms, from a single cell to the
most complex life similar to the Humans?
- ·
Is the brain a coordinator of a multi-cell self-replicating
life forms and not a generator of intelligence or consciousness?
- ·
Scientists concluded that the average human
body contains approximately 37.2 trillion cells! Does each cell have a memory
of its own?
These are some of the queries that scientist needs to
investigate with the concept of the brain to be the generator of all logical functions
for its existence and that it is independent of the creator’s instructions.
In conclusion with finite evidence of Le blob also
known by its scientific name Physarum polycephalum or "many-headed slime”
a single-cell organism, that matter, and intelligence for all living entities
are pre-defined and are not a random creation. I go back to my evaluation that intelligence
is just a stimulated logic controlled by a stimulus and designed by ‘it’ or consciousness. The matter has many ways to store it in a memory bank suiting the complexity of its
creation.
In the absence of matter and/or energy the stimulus is
not operational and the entity will be considered in a dormant state as
inorganic elements which again will be defined by the science of its own. More
knowledge of quantum physics with defined Atoms which are made up of much
smaller particles called subatomic particles. Subatomic particles refer to all
of these - protons, neutrons; quarks, leptons, and bosons - but the elementary
particles are quarks, leptons and bosons with it will describe a theory of
creation for inorganic entities.
A stimulus which activates stimulated logic has all design
variables giving an impression that the stimulated logic is the function of consciousness;
the origin of creation yet consciousness is a false impression in a living an entity which gives an apparent impression that consciousness is in control
forgetting the fact that intelligence is the one only in control of the memory
in the memory banks in the matter.
Original from
Existence Downloaded, Activated, Operated, Terminated.
By Jayram
Daya ISBN 978-1-920526-35-1 Quickfox Publishing South Africa
For further reading “Can Answers to Evolution Be Found in
Slime?” https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/science/04slime.html
Would you
call this Intelligence or Consciousness?
An interesting article below that differentiates consciousness as an easy and hard problem.
Facing up to the hard question of consciousness
1. THE HARD QUESTION IS NOT THE HARD PROBLEM
David Chalmers (‘Facing up to the hard problem of consciousness’ [1]) focused the attention of people researching consciousness by drawing a distinction between the ‘easy’ problems of consciousness, and what he memorably dubbed the hard problem.
The easy problems of consciousness include those of explaining the following phenomena:
- — the ability to discriminate, categorize and react to environmental stimuli;
- — the integration of information by a cognitive system;
- — the reportability of mental states;
- — the ability of a system to access its own internal states;
- — the focus of attention;
- — the deliberate control of behaviour;
- — the difference between wakefulness and sleep [1, p. 201].
The hard problem ‘is the problem of experience’ [1, p. 202], accounting for ‘what it is like’ [2] or qualia. To many researchers, this seemed like a sensible divide-and-conquer research strategy: first, we tackle all the easy problems, and then we turn our attention to the hard problem. To others, the identification of the hard problem called for something like a scientific revolution, replacing the standard methods and assumptions of cognitive science (which are continuous with the standard methods and assumptions of biology, chemistry and physics) with a more radical perspective. The hard problem, they surmised, will only be addressed by a return to some form of dualism, or panpsychism, or some yet to be articulated overthrow of what might be considered normal science..........
My suggestion
is that we are in the right direction describing consciousness.
- We should describe the easy problem as feedback of activated and random access intelligence which allows the matter to act independently without external support.
- The hard problem should be described as an external stimulus that gives life with a pre-set stimulated logic or intelligence. This allows the memories to support the concept of conscious and consciousness but in reality, the stimulus generator or consciousness is in control of the entities' memory banks giving it apparent reasoning, as most researchers are experiencing
Hence ‘Le
Blob’ is also conscious and has consciousness without a Brain.
