Slime Mold Demonstrates Primitive Intelligence 40
A reader writes "According to BBC News, scientists have just published a paper in Nature demonstrating that slime molds can negotiate the shortest route through a maze, thus demonstrating a form of "cellular computation" which implies a primitive intelligence."
Re:Oh, for crying out loud (Score:1)
Yes, I do tend to hold to the idea that there is some magic thing called "self-awareness" which "true intelligence" requires. Don't ask me what it is --- I don't know yet. Humans have it. Humans can probably create it in computational systems. However (and IMHO), if it can't produce "cogito ergo sum", it ain't intelligence.
Re:Oh, for sliming out loud (Score:1)
Self-reconfiguration as a response to stimuli can't be intelligence, because if it is, every single living thing on the planet displays rudimentary intelligence. (I make the assumption that most things are not intelligent. If you don't like that assumption, you are free not to use it, but I'll think you're being silly.)
Re:Oh, for sliming out loud (Score:1)
Re:Also in the news (Score:1)
Re:Consider for a moment who's conducting this stu (Score:1)
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Re:Next... (Score:1)
Anime (Score:3)
"Toshiyuki Nakagaki of the Bio-Mimetic Control Research Centre, Nagoya, Japan,..."
Is it just me or does this sound like the first 5 minutes of a Manga movie?
Re:Oh, for sliming out loud (Score:1)
I disagree with your current definition of intelligence... From here it looks like you view intelligence as a kind of a binary "either ya got it or ya don't" function. My personal beliefs are that while no, I wouldn't use the adjective "intelligent" in describing a slime mold, their behaviour shows certain aspects (ie problem solving and an inate desire to sustain itself). Parts of the meta-intelligence, if you will.
Bear in mind, a TRULY unintelligent creature would simply bumble-fuck around, maybe finding food, maybe eating it, not caring much one way or the other. It's movement would be truly random, and it wouldn't be effected by either positive or negative reinforcement. Such creatures would almost certainly die out before they could reproduce, unless they were unbelievably resilient to starvation, predators, and intelligent monkeys with a tube of gynolotromin.
If you aren't impressed by what the mighty slime mold can do, at least be impressed with the design. The thing can execute these complex actions as a system, and doesn't even have a central nervous system.
-Loooeee teaches his slime mold to roll over and rot
Re:Consider for a moment who's conducting this stu (Score:1)
Am I admitting too much when I say that she is on "Monster Rancher," not Pokemon? Or am I just admitting that I don't watch Pokemon?
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Re:Oh, for sliming out loud (Score:1)
I'm impressed by the design of life in general. A cell is a pretty complex little machine. Whether or not this lends the watchmaker argument credence, I'm not sure. It's more that this mold is somehow being touted as special that bugs me. That, and the fact that when I see animal or software intelligence written about in the popular press, there are always implications of some kind of sentience or human-level ability. Basically, I'm reacting to what I perceive as fluffy hype.
then trees are intelligent too..... (Score:1)
Did I Misunderstand This? (Score:2)
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soap bubbles (Score:1)
You could call that intelligence, we tend to call it surface tension.
Re:In other news... (Score:1)
Said one scientist, "The incoherent language that these slimes started spouting as soon as the cameras were turned on them should have been an instant tip-off."
Re:Did I Misunderstand This? (Score:1)
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Re:Oh, for crying out loud (Score:1)
Re:Anime (Score:1)
Political Aspirations??? (Score:1)
Re:Oh, for sliming out loud (Score:1)
Everyone seems to discuss intelligence as though it has some binary component: you do or do not display intelligence. Haven't we seen far more evidence that intelligence is a continuously evolving trait? All life is intelligent to some extent, while greater organization can lead to higher intelligence.
Some might claim that human beings can be used as the measure of other species intelligence. However, even if that were true, human beings display such a range of intelligence levels themselves, such a measure could never be useful! Besides, if you believe that human beings represent the ultimate accomplishment in biological intelligence, you oviously haven't been to enough sports venues.
Gee whiz! (Score:3)
Will we need to see an upgrade ? (Score:1)
Slime Molds possibly smarter than humans (Score:3)
Man... (Score:4)
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
Also in the news (Score:3)
Oh, for crying out loud (Score:5)
I'll grant the idea that you could somehow do computation using a mobile mold as your switching unit. I fail to see why anyone would bother (especially given that slime molds are icky
Yes, I'm one of those biased morons who thinks that you've got to demonstrate something like a sense of self or use of language to qualify for intelligence. Then again, given the human race, perhaps the bar's been lowered.
Re:Next... (Score:1)
Biologists aMaze me... (Score:4)
Also, it sounds like they ran this experiment once. As the great fortune program will tell you: If reproducibility is going to be a problem, conduct the experiment once.
I'll be convinced of the intelligence of this slime mold if it, and lots of its relatives, can do a maze without resorting to simple or exhaustive methods, or until the researchers can figure out a better test than exhaustive methods to prove intelligence. Until then, slime mold is a mostly unintelligent fungus-like growth that can solve a maze, like everything else that can move can do...
Consider me a skeptic.
In other news... (Score:2)
It posts! (Score:4)
Obviously, it's been posting as Anonymous Coward.
Intelligent Slide Molds? (Score:1)
Re:Will we need to see an upgrade ? (Score:1)
your Wisdom should go up a point.
Sardonica the Aspirant
survival==intelligence? (Score:2)
For more on complexity I would read "Complexity: the Emerging Science At the Edge of Order and Chaos" by M. Mitchell Waldrop. We read this after reading "Chaos" by Gleick. These books and the class change my perspective on the universe and changed it from a static thing to a wonderful complexity.
Re:Oh, for sliming out loud (Score:1)
Next... (Score:1)
Re:Oh, for sliming out loud (Score:1)
Here it is again, easier to read.
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I think that we need to take a step back and look at what we (and this article) define intelligent to be. The slime mold has clearly demonstrated
a problem solving ability - albeit to a very simple problem. While I wouldn't cheat off of this slime mold on my next calculus test, I would grant
that it's behavior shows some signs of a rudimentary intelligence.
I think that it would be interesting to see how "intelligently" a slime mold could handle more complex problems... what if portions of the maze were laced with a substance that was toxic to the mold? Would it avoid them successfully, or would it kill itself trying to get to the food? What if by going through a more circuitous route, the mold could reach a different type of food - one with more nutrients that would allow it to grow faster? How quickly can the slime mold to rearrange itself for these configurations? Can it "learn" to prize one food source more than another?
Again, this may not be displaying "intelligence" in the cut-and-dried sense that you are mentioning, but it would be a display of how well the various closed loop control systems that guide the slime molds interact with each other (for example, in the poisoned maze example above, how successfully do the "find food" behaviour mechanism and the "avoid danger" mechanism interact?)
But then again, maybe you can view all intelligence as a sum of how efficiently one's stimulus-detection-response closed loop feedback systems interact.
-Loooeeeee steps around the bungee pit and eats a steak dinner
Followup Story (Score:2)
Earns +2 Karma bonus in record time.
Re:Oh, for crying out loud (Score:2)
Umm, when you get down to it, isn't that pretty much all that intelligence does? That is, isn't it the prime goal of intelligence to move closer to food to increase survival rates and be able to reproduce more than the less intelligent competitors?
I wouldn't be quick to state that the slime mold is intelligent, but I wouldn't be too ready to write off its accomplishments.
After all, Douglas Hofstadter makes the point in Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid [barnesandnoble.com] that when dealing with artificial intelligence, the common definition of AI is whatever we can do that computers haven't accomplished yet. That is, once a computer beat a human at chess, then a lot of people quit using that as an indicator of AI. Let's not make that mistake here; give the little chap his credit!
Slime Smarter Than Clinton (Score:2)
Re:Biologists aMaze me... (Score:1)
Sure any programmer could colve this, but the programmer IS intellegent. The computer isn't intellegent, it's the programmer all along. Well the slime CAN do what you can do, so I think it's impressive.
Re:Next... (Score:1)