Gambling On Bacteria 128
An anonymous reader writes "When it comes to gambling, many people rely on game theory, a branch of applied mathematics that attempts to measure the choices of others to inform their own decisions. It's used in economics, politics, medicine — and, of course, Las Vegas. But recent findings from a Tel Aviv University researcher suggest that we may put ourselves on the winning side if we look to bacteria instead. According to Prof. Eshel Ben-Jacob of Tel Aviv University's School of Physics and Astronomy, current game theory can't account for bacteria's natural decision-making abilities — it's just too simplistic. Understanding bacteria's reactions to stressful and hazardous conditions may improve decision-making processes in any human arena from everyday life to political elections."
I'm Betting On Bacteria To Win (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah but it all boils down to the simplest having the best chance of survival.
Cockroaches survive better than humans, bacteria survive better than cockroaches, rocks survive better than bacteria, atoms survive better than rocks, etc...
Simple doesn't always mean "good" though.
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Wow, not only is the FP a GOOD post, but it's probably one of the best the article will see.
Hats off to you, sir.
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Israel is an interesting exercise in Game Theory (Score:3, Insightful)
If both sides stop acting belligerent, there will be peace.
However, if Israel stops and the Palestinians don't, there will be mass casualties on Israel's side.
If the Palestinians stop and Israel doesn't rescind their apartheid policies, the Palestinians will lose what little they have.
If both sides keep fighting, they will both suffer casualties, but they will not lose everything.
It's interesting that the Israelis are looking to biological scum for guidance in such matters.
Re:Israel is an interesting exercise in Game Theor (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll agree to the basic situation you put forward, but of course the situation is trickier than just two groups on opposite sides. Within each group are a bunch of sub-groups along the spectrum of "let's make peace now" and "we won't stop until they are all dead!" Even if you get most of the groups to agree to a peaceful arrangement, the sub-groups who don't agree can spoil it for everyone by causing trouble, leading to increased tension and eventual breakdown of the peace arrangement. It's very unlikely anytime soon that you will get 100% buy in from all sub-groups within both sides. The best you can hope for is a peace that is strong enough to withstand the inevitable bombardment by the sub-groups who don't join until support for them fades. And, in a region where violence is an everyday fact of life, this is going to be very tough to do.
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Not to mention that while peace would be better for Israelis and Palestinians, it is not necessarily better for sub-groups of those populations, such as the Hamas leadership.
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Not to mention that while peace would be better for Israelis and Palestinians, it is not necessarily better for sub-groups of those populations, such as the Likud party.
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Could you please point me to a single case of an Likud party member setting out official goals of exterminating all Palestinian Arabs, pushing them out into the sea, calling for kidnappings of Arabs to be held hostage and denouncing Arabs' (any arabs) right to live in the geographical palestine?
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...are you for real? So the Israeli settlers aren't stealing land from the Palestinians? Putting up a wall around Gaza so that the population has nowhere else to go isn't going to push them out into the sea?
Of course they won't make them "official" goals. In this day and age, no one comes out and says they want to engage in genocide. That would be like saying the US tortures. No, we use "enhanced interrogation techniques". And Israel put up the Gaza blockade and dropped white phosphorus on civilians i
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OK, then, you want to dance? Let's dance :)
- Majority of the settlements are built on land bought and paid for from it's owners. Please show me a verifiable case of land being "stolen", and also point out who, specifically, it was stolen from. I would like to remind you, that since there has never been any "Palestinian state", ownership of all the land on the occupied territories can be traced to a private individual.
- Gaza houses a belligerent population, implicated in many murderous attacks on Israeli cit
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In this day and age, no one comes out and says they want to engage in genocide.
Hamas Charter [mideastweb.org], article 13.
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Not to mention that while peace would be better for Israelis and Palestinians, it is not necessarily better for sub-groups of those populations, such as the international arms dealers.
There, now we've all demonized our particular nemesis.
And remember: pointing out that one party is at fault necessarily means that you 100% in support of absolutely everything all the other parties have ever done or might plan on the doing! That's what keeps the debate pointless and stupid, and if we didn't want pointless an
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There is one way, both sides have to agree to pursue attacks on the other as the criminal acts that they are. Random guy in Palestine shoots a rocket over the border? He needs to be hunted down and tried for attempted manslaughter, as well as maybe some laws against individuals performing international militant actions. The same goes the other way, if a land developer in Israel illegally tries to build a new apartment block on contested territory, he needs to be tried and punished under similar non-inter
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Even if you get most of the groups to agree to a peaceful arrangement, the sub-groups who don't agree can spoil it for everyone by causing trouble
No, that's where you are wrong. Israel is a functioning democracy with governmental control over the military and settlers; they can stop violence against the Palestinians, even if subgroups disagree. The violent elements within the Palestinians are terrorists, uncontrollable by the state.
For Israel to demand an end to violence by the Palestinians is therefore a
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Hamas do have the ability to stop the rockets and have done so in the past for long periods of time, those gestures were largely ignored by Isreal.
Hamas has some control and some persuasion. But it can't guarantee a stop to terrorist attacks. Furthermore, even that level of control comes at the cost of imposing a police state on the Palestinians.
For it's part Isreal forcibly evicted all jewish settlers from the west bank, that gesture was largely ignored by Hamas.
Israel evicted all Jewish settlers from th
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Even functioning democracies can have different subgroups within them. The USA is a democracy and pretty much every issue has a range of differing opinions. In Israel, there are people who want to stay at the peace talks until an agreement is arrived at and there are people who think the only "agreement" should be achieved with military might. Then there are those (the settlers, for example) who think that the "agreement" will be enforced by God when he restores Israel to its Biblical borders. With thei
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Even functioning democracies can have different subgroups within them.
True, but while those subgroups can cause political trouble, they do not commit violence against other nations on their own as long as the democracy is still functioning.
Then the government is replaced with people less likely to "support them"
That is a political reality, but it is irrelevant to the negotiations. Israel, as a party to the negotiations, could deliver on a removal of all settlements and a complete ceasefire; Israel doesn't
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It's interesting how you're pontificating on a subject you evidently know nothing about.
In fact, the reality of the matter is that the continuing war means doom only for one side - Palestinian. This follows from the fact that to support their war they had to continuously degenerate their own people further and further towards the stone age. At some point, they will be so low on the civilization scale that no amount of leftie wishful thinking would be enough to support them. And that will be their last day.
O
Re:Israel is an interesting exercise in Game Theor (Score:5, Insightful)
Read Phyrrhic victory. Everytime a jew "wins" by brutalizing an opponent which is inferior and powerless in every way, it gives back more in terms of the international goodwill marked "holocaust" than it gains.
Oh; and the homophobes in Brooklyn yesterday didn't do "the jews" any favors; especially when there was no condemnation from any other "jewish anti-defamation league".
Just sayin.
First the Jews came for the Palestinians, and I was quiet, because they wear towels on their head.
Then the Jews came for the gays, and I said nothing because my best friend is a Jew.
Then they came for the Jews, and I pretended they didn't have it coming...
The free pass your parents got doesn't extend to future generations -
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I don't talk to ukranian antisemites - go play with someone else.
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Awww, anyone who doesn't wholeheartedly approve every shitty thing the Jews do is an anti-semite, huh? I like that theory.
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I'm sorry, but this Jew (me) doesn't like to be called "it".
Also, he doesn't like to be labelled a homophobe simply because he's a Jew.
And I don't recall any free passes. Especially not from antisemites like him - his kind (the Ukranian antisemites) were murdering my relatives in WW2 while my grandparents fought against the nazis. So, yes, I'm labelling him an antisemite. Because I can tell. And you, apparently can't.
Deal with it.
Home of the free pass (Score:2)
So here you accuse one of antisemitism for noting that "the jews", whoever that means, and it isn't at all clear BTW, would benefit their own reputation by avoid even the appearance of assigning blame-by-association. You're generous reply includes both - a condemnation of bigotry, followed by bigotry.
I suggest you're wrong on both counts:
1. It is not bigotry to encourage a group to rein in their most radical elements - we should be so lucky to have both the jews and the arabs rein in their radicals - which
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You remind me of an old Soviet joke:
Rabinovich calls the "Rememberance Club" (a known club frequented by antisemites) and asks (in a typical Jewish accent:
- Tell me, is it true that Jews sold Mother Russia?
- Yes, you dirty jew!
- Oh, great, where do I get my share?
Anyhoo, I never got any free passes. Instead, I was confronted with antisemitism from the age of 6. So don't tell me about any free passes. And I'm still waiting for my share of Mother Russia.
Chosen People (Score:2)
My daughter is - thus far - an atheist and she gets confronted by antiatheists (paid public school teachers). Everyone gets picked on for the aspects of their life which makes them different. The average jew in the world does not on balance face a life of disproportionate poverty - on the contrary, the average jew will hide behind history as an excuse to extort others (and mutilate babies).
What was the role of the chosen people in the Bank Fraud? yeah, right, let's not look for fear of being labeled anticho
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In fact, the reality of the matter is that the continuing war means doom only for one side - Palestinian. This follows from the fact that to support their war they had to continuously degenerate their own people further and further towards the stone age.
Yes, this has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with Israel's treatment of the Palestinians including the blockade. Increase the pressure and use the attacks to justified the continued inhuman treatment.
At some point, they will be so low on the civilization scale
Note the dehumanisation here. Again, this is in the context of the Palestinians being to blame for their own fate, so not only can we indulge in that human tendency to dehumanise our enemies, we can blame them for it as well.
And that will be their last day.
I'm sure you would argue that this is an impartial statement of fact.
I can assure
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Wow, what an incredible collection of anti-Israel propaganda. A real overkill in fact.
Let's break it down to it's very mundane and often repeated components, shall we?
Yes, this has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with Israel's treatment of the Palestinians including the blockade. Increase the pressure and use the attacks to justified the continued inhuman treatment.
Here we have the anti-Israeli double standard: Any military action done by Israel is inherently and purely OFFENSIVE in nature. Israel NEVER has any reason for self-defense and it is always the first one to attack. The hundreds of Israeli citizens murdered in cold blood are conveniently forgotten and the timeline of the conflict is inverted. N
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And the Palestinians too, of course.
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Oh, and by the way: what might be "game theory" to you is actually lives and deaths for people involved. You should be alittle bit more careful with your approach to the subject. It's basic ethics and morality - something that should come as second nature to any wannbe humanist ;)
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Perhaps, but the reality is that often the people that are really making the decisions are self serving bastards.
Consider a corrupt government that diverts relief funds away from its population and towards its own pocket books.
I don't donate to relief efforts for this very reason.
I know it's never going into a starving person's mouth as food, but instead into a terrorist's armory as weapons and ammo.
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The Arab/Israeli conflict is greatly supported by various mercantile interests: starting from suicide bombers blowing themselves for money (their families get it afterwards), continuing to various politicians making career out of the perpetual (and quite futile) "peace process", and ending with various corporations making money on various projects (weather peace or war related).
As for charity - any kind of money-based charity is questionable (and ultimately harmful), unless you have direct and total control
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A humanist should realize that morals are just the results of genes playing at game theory.
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It's basic ethics and morality
Absolutely! And people who believe they have rights over land based on ancient religious texts and define their nation through religion and ethnic origin really fail in the "basic ethics and morality" department.
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You assume too much. Specifically, about the religion part. For example, I'm an atheist, and majority of Israel's Jewish population is secular or atheist and doesn't really care for the religious claims.
In fact, I know that most of the population is either atheist or moderate because I have been to Israel many times. But I also know--and you seem to ignore--that religious and ultra-conservative Jews are an enormously strong force in Israeli politics, and have become stronger and stronger over the years. N
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my ancestors were religiously persecuted twice
Since you seem to like to jump to conclusions, let me just point out that my ancestors were from a persecuted branch of Christianity, so neither Jewish nor Muslim nor Arab.
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I'm afraid at this point it's actually more like 100 years.
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I can't help but laugh at that one.
Actually, I would say that the problem here is that, your assessment is exactly the one that seems to be used by both sides. So long as that is the perceived situation, there doesn't appear to be any solution but to have them fight it out and go with the winner (which would be Isreal, we are talking about one side that can utterly wipe the other off the face of the planet, and one that can't).
I would like to think that the reality is, that this assessment is flawed in that
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That is an interesting theory, but it would lead to the result that no nation could act rationally since each individual actor acts rationally within his own sphere of influence. But what that fails to recognize is that such seemingly random actions taken in aggregate actually do exhibit a gestalt which can be examined, and this in turn leads us to view groups as single actors with understandable goals and predictable behavior.
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However, if Israel stops and the [if] Palestinians don't, there will be mass casualties on Israel's side.
Because the stated goal on the Palestinian side (their current government) is the destruction of Israel and pushing the Jews into the sea.
If the Palestinians stop and [if] Israel doesn't rescind their apartheid policies,
Because the stated goal of Israel is apartheid (irrespective of violence from those being kept apart)?
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However, if Israel stops and the Palestinians don't, there will be mass casualties on Israel's side. If the Palestinians stop and Israel doesn't rescind their apartheid policies, the Palestinians will lose what little they have.
I'm not sure it's a simple as that. I'm no expert on the subject, but it often seems like each side is going beyond the point of defending themselves and antagonizing the other side. There's a lot of revenge and hatred and contempt going on, which often results in sub-optimal outcomes for everyone involved.
Re:Israel is an interesting exercise in Game Theor (Score:4, Insightful)
However, if Israel stops and the Palestinians don't, there will be mass casualties on Israel's side.
Say what?
Please, compare the number of Israelis (young or old, male or female) that have died at the hands of Palestinians in the last ten years to the number of Palestinian children that died at the hands of Israelis in the last ten months
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Or the number of children the Israeli army hides behind while firing at the enemy then cries about how inhumane said enemy is when they defend themselves with the number of children the Palestinian army hides behind while firing at the enemy then cries about how inhumane said enemy is when they defend themselves.
The palestinians should go where they came from (Score:4, Interesting)
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Simple case of the Prisoner's Dilemma.
If you can't trust the other side to cooperate, it's foolish to put your own ass on the line.
And it's always profitable to sucker punch the other side once they let their guard down.
An exercise in Game Theory (Score:2)
If you do your research on game theory, I think you'll find that this is more of an Iterated Prisoner's dilemma, than it is a single instance of the game. If you research your strategies, I think you'll find that the most successful strategy requires that the participants be nice, forgiving, and focused on their own success rather than on beating their opponents.
Apply that to to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and tell me if your conclusion that violence is still the Nash Equilibrium.
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I don't think your assumption that both sides want peaceful coexistence is necessarily valid.
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I'm not basing my opinion on the assumption that each side wants a peaceful coexistence; I'm basing it on the OP's assumption that each side wants to avoid their own casualties.
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Not that it makes a lick of difference: You're right. Your assumption was that each side wants to avoid massive casualties on their own side.
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Apply that to to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and tell me if your conclusion that violence is still the Nash Equilibrium.
For the politicians involved, absolutely: elections and popular support are won most easily by instilling fear of an outside enemy into the population.
And if you can't fabricate a reason ("Nazi Germany is fighting back against Polish aggression") and don't get one handed on a silver platter (9/11), then you provoke attacks (Israeli settlements and blockades).
Fear of the outside enemy
that is a bad analogy... (Score:2)
If both sides stop acting belligerent, there will be peace.
There are no "both sides" that are acting.
In Israel, the same entity controls the military and its level of violence, makes decisions on settlement policy, has a functioning police force, and participates in the peace talks.
For the Palestinians, this is not true. Violence by Palestinians is carried out by a wide variety of forces, many of which are under nobody's control. The people suffering from settlements are your average farmer. And the peop
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If both sides stop acting belligerent, there will be peace. However, if Israel stops and the Palestinians don't, there will be mass casualties on Israel's side. If the Palestinians stop and Israel doesn't rescind their apartheid policies, the Palestinians will lose what little they have. If both sides keep fighting, they will both suffer casualties, but they will not lose everything.
It's interesting that the Israelis are looking to biological scum for guidance in such matters.
Scum? It says they're looking to bacteria not Palestinians....
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It's interesting that the Israelis are looking to biological scum for guidance in such matters.
Unfortunately, the biological scum in question has an important characteristic that humans do not. From the article: "Bacteria don't hide their intentions from their peers in the colony, he explains — they don't lie or prevaricate, but communicate their intentions by sending chemical messages among themselves."
That is what enables colonial decision making of the kind bacteria employ. This is not a moral judgment on humans in general, or on the Israelis or the Palestinians, but a matter of empirical
More then the sum of its parts? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:More then the sum of its parts? (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, bacteria cooperate.
In game theory this is a common phenomenon that collective good is boosted when people aren't selfish.
Confound? (Score:3, Interesting)
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As far as I can tell, the researcher is comparing clusters of bacteria with individual (human) choice. Surely he should be comparing clusters of bacteria with clusters of people...
I'm not sure why. They're comparing a cluster of bacteria cells to a cluster of human cells. An individual person is still a cluster of cells.
Advances in game theory from Israel (Score:2, Offtopic)
I expect no less from a country whose national sport is the Prisoner's Dilemma.
Most human societal behavior is similar (Score:2)
The difference is in the size of the rule set for each individual actor in the group. Otherwise, millionaires, beggars, sheep, voters and slime mold all follow similar structural rules for decision making, en masse.
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No they don't. Did you read the article? The point of it was the bacteria working toward a common good.
"Sometimes we need the restraint of the community," says Prof. Ben-Jacob. "As individuals we need to set some boundaries, and not just boost ourselves at the expense of others."
This right here is the key sentence. When was the last time you've seen "restraint in the community" for the greater good of the whole?
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Um. Yesterday. My very competent manager did not scream at my not so competent co-worker for making irrelevant suggestions about low-risk, low-probability events, because she knew it would help nothing, ruin the purpose of the meeting and so she said nothing, taking the person to task, off-line where only she would have to hear him (unpleasant but necessary).
And whose community are we talking about here? The collective decisions of billionaires for themselves and their own good aren't going to be the same a
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When was the last time you've seen "restraint in the community" for the greater good of the whole?
Just a moment ago when I read you sanctimoniously pessimistic statement and DIDN'T push the big red button that is labeled "Nuke From Orbit."
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The last time I drove thru a green light.
Bacteria for Congress (Score:2)
Bacteria: Finally, a candidate who tells the truth, never flip-flops, and can really get stuff done!
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Bacteria: Finally, a candidate who tells the truth, never flip-flops, and can really get stuff done!
Oh yeah? Tell that to the bacteria that just lies there on my flip-flops. The only thing it's been able to accomplish is giving me athlete's foot.
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By introducing you to its special friend, Mr Fungus?
Re:Bacteria for Congress (Score:5, Funny)
E-coli for congress! They really know their shit!
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Sounds like incumbents to me.
Article summary... (Score:2)
A bacterium, being a highly complex, somewhat random, biochemical mechanism, makes "decisions" based on complex, somewhat random, internal biochemical processing of external chemical and environmental messages. When growing together in large colonies, since this processing is happening in a complex stochastic environment, it is hard to understand the ultimate outcome for the colony and the individuals inside it and, thus, the system seems "mysterious and magical" to us. When bacteria are under high stress
anthropomorphic drivel (Score:3, Funny)
Individual bacteria weigh their decisions carefully
OK dude whatever. Ultimate in anthropomorphism. I'm surprised the author didn't describe it as little bacteria surfing wikipedia and using their smartphones and twitter to coordinate their flash mobs.
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Yes. As far as I know, all that happens is that bacteria execute a highly evolved instinctive program based on billions of years of trial and error at the generational level. They don't decide to take risks, they simply activate whatever part of their programming is triggered by their environment. More to the point, there is no decision because the individual bacterium has no ability to decide to save itself, even in the face of risk.
It seems like the only reason their actions compare to human decisions
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> ...except that you know from your first-person experience that we do.
But we only know that he makes noises that we interpret as signifying that he asserts that he has this experience. We have no objective knowledge of his internal state.
Let it ride (Score:1, Funny)
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For $250, I'll give you Chlamydia.
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Hehehe, here in Montreal decent Chlamidia can be easily had for 140$ an hour ;)
So wait... (Score:2, Funny)
Casino conduct (Score:1)
Gambling using bacteria. (Score:1)
the importance of transparency (Score:1)
and by that I mean the availability of all necessary information. The first thing that I noticed as I actually read the FA was that the bacteria start releasing chemicals to signal there intentions and/or state.
One of the reasons people make bad decisions is because other people will withold valuable information PRECISELY so that you will make a bad decision. Even if you are in a group that wants to do the right thing there is almost certain that important information lying outside your environment is nec
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They might be withholding something as well... how can we be certain? It's just about finding optimum which is good for the long term prosperity - indeed w might be damn close to it, too. Thing is, to properly gauge it requires perspective far longer than human lifespan.
Game theory does just fine here (Score:5, Insightful)
IAAGT (I am a game theorist)
I looked (briefly) but did not find the PNAS article, as I suspect that the medical daily article gets it wrong, and that Prof. Eshel Ben-Jacob doesn't bash game theory tools. The Med Daily reporter probably misinterpreted the Prof.'s comments about groups of bacteria versus groups of people.
Why don't all the cells go into 'survival mode'? It's not the best for the colony, and there are many real world examples of altruistic behavior towards one's family / colony / species.
One game theoretical model for this looks through an evolutionary lens: the players are species of bacteria and choose species wide traits. One strategy is 'everybody goes into survival mode', the other strategy is '10% go into survival mode'. Through random mutation, chance, whatever... a species picks its strategy, nature makes its move, and the game goes to the next round.
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I linked the PNAS a few comments down, but here's another link. http://www.pnas.org/content/107/30/13197.full [pnas.org]
See my comment for better links.
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This kind of reminds me of a species of possum (I don't think it's an Asutralaisian one, so it must be from the Americas). If there isn't food for all of these possums in the area, some will just drop dead allowing more food for those that are still alive.
From the stand piont of any given individual, this is a bad evolotionary move, but for the species as a whole it gives them a distinct advatage over a population that is continualy expanding and the food source stays the same size.
Research dupe (Score:2)
Borderline absurd (Score:2)
Interseting timing (Score:2)
I was recently in the position of commenting on an analogy a friend was putting together describing DNA-related processes like transcription. My primary criticism was that certain processes were anthropomorphized. Representing cellular processes (or, more generally, chemical processes) as human activities and "decisions" tends to create confusion about what's really going on.
And within a week or two of that, I find myself reading a story that bothers to ask why indiviual bacteria don't "try to save themse
Winning in evolution is about genes not individual (Score:2)
In the "game" of evolution, winning isn't about an individual, but about traits (genes).
For complex organisms like humans, the set of traits that I contain is different than the set of traits you contain - so if I breed and you don't, my traits "win" and yours "lose" (loose for the slashbots among us). So a trait that makes me a selfish bastard who screws you at every turn may (not always, but may) be more "successful" than other traits. Put a bunch of people in a position where only one can survive, and th
Original Article (Score:3, Insightful)
The press release does not link the original article(s):
Bacteria determine fate by playing dice with controlled odds
Eshel Ben-Jacob and Daniel Schultz
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/30/13197.full [pnas.org]
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1008254107
This is a commentary on:
Biological role of noise encoded in a genetic network motif
Mark Kittisopikul and Gürol M. Süel
http://www.pnas.org/content/107/30/13300.abstract [pnas.org]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1003975107 [doi.org]
and makes ample reference to
Architecture-Dependent Noise Discriminates Functionally Analogous Differentiation Circuits
Tolga Çaatay, Marc Turcotte, Michael B. Elowitz, Jordi Garcia-Ojalvo and Gürol M. Süel
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2009.07.046 [doi.org]
A colony of bacteria is not like a group of people (Score:1)
Behavior that enhances the survival of the gene is what is going to be demonstrated - not necessarily survival of an individual.
A colony of bacteria is more akin to an individual than it is to a group of people, which makes the "sporulating" behavior described more akin to a person moving their hand away from a hot flame - while still staying close enough to a fire to keep warm.
The article demo
Bacteria are effectively older and have more time (Score:2)
bacterial generations are fast.
they've had a lot more natural selection on their genes than we have.
Whose to say billions of bacteria don't die in these situations and we are not seeing a decision, but merely the survivors.
The decision being made by letting unsuited members die.
Humans do that some, but also they try really hard to sustain defective humans they like.
Huh... (Score:1)
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It' d be interesting to see if there's an analog to the collective behavior of slime molds in Life.
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Bacteria play Conway's Game of Life.
Wrong, bitches play Minecraft, just like everyone else. Reminds me a lot of a 3d Conway's, though..
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From the sound of this article, a university researcher is something akin to a hepatoscopist [wikipedia.org]