[Paleopsych] Intelligent Bacteria

[G. Reinhart-Waller]

Bacteria live in groups, communicate and thus must possess 
intelligence.  Genes are on one level but by not including the meme 
portion of behavior, one is only able to understand a portion of what 
intelligence actually is.

Gerry Reinhart-Waller

Steve Hovland wrote:

>Our own intelligence is mediated by neuropeptides
>and enzymes, so if we find those in bacteria,
>we find intelligence...
>
>Steve Hovland
>www.stevehovland.net
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:	Buck, Ross [SMTP:ross.buck at uconn.edu]
>Sent:	Friday, April 22, 2005 8:28 AM
>To:	The new improved paleopsych list
>Subject:	RE: [Paleopsych] Intelligent Bacteria
>
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>  _____  
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>From: paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org
>[mailto:paleopsych-bounces at paleopsych.org] On Behalf Of
>Thrst4knw at aol.com
>Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 3:14 PM
>To: paleopsych at paleopsych.org
>Cc: ToddStark at aol.com; HowlBloom at aol.com
>Subject: [Paleopsych] Intelligent Bacteria
>
> 
>
>http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/050418_bactfrm.htm
>
> 
>
>Intelligent bacteria?
>
>For the most primitive beings in the web of life, some researchers
>claim, "simple" might not mean "stupid." 
>
>Posted April 18, 2005
>Special to World Science
>
>Bacteria are by far the simplest things alive, at least among things
>generally agreed on as being alive. Next to one of these single-celled
>beings, one cell of our bodies looks about as complex as a human does
>compared to a sponge. 
>
> <http://www.hometown.aol.com/scipage/images/plate-CT-docu0043b.jpg> 
>
>A colony of Paenibacillus dendritiformis bacteria, which some
>researchers say can organize themselves into different types of
>extravagant formations to maximize food intake for given conditions.
>According to some, this reflects a bacterial intelligence. (Courtesy
>Eshel Ben-Jacob <http://star.tau.ac.il/~inon/pictures/pictures.html> ,
>Tel Aviv University, Israel)
>
>  _____  
>
>Yet the humble microbes may have a rudimentary form of intelligence,
>some researchers have found.
>
>The claims seem to come as a final exclamation point to a long series of
>increasingly surprising findings of sophistication among the microbes,
>including apparent cases of cooperation and even altruism. 
>
>But there is no clear measurement or test that scientists can use, based
>on the behavior alone, to determine whether it reflects intelligence.
>
>Some researchers, though, have found a systematic way of addressing the
>question and begun looking into it. This method involves focusing not so
>much on the behavior itself as the nuts and bolts behind it-a complex
>system of chemical "signals" that flit both within and among bacteria,
>helping them decide what to do and where to go.
>
>Researchers have found that this process has similarities to a type of
>human-made machine designed to act as a sort of simplified brain. These
>devices solve some simple problems in a manner more human-like than
>machine-like.
>
>The devices, called neural networks, also run on networks of signals
>akin to those of the bacteria. The devices use the networks to "learn"
>tasks such as distinguishing a male from a female in photographs-typical
>sorts of problems that are easy for humans but hard for traditional
>computers.
>
>The similarities in the bacterial and neural network signaling systems
>are far more than superficial, wrote one researcher, Klaas J.
>Hellingwerf, in the April issue of the journal Trends in Microbiology.
>He found that the bacterial system contains all the important features
>that make neural networks work, leading to the idea that the bacteria
>have "a minimal form of intelligence."
>
>Bacterial signaling possesses all four of the key properties that neural
>network experts have identified as essential to make such devices work,
>Hellingwerf elaborated. The only weak link in the argument, he added, is
>that for one of those properties, it's not clear whether bacteria
>exhibit it to a significant extent. This may be where future research
>should focus, he wrote.
>
>Cooperation and altruism
>
>The comparison of bacterial signaling with neural networks is not the
>only evidence that has nudged researchers closer to the concept that
>bacteria might possess a crude intelligence-though few scientists would
>go as far as to use that word. 
>
>One of the other lines of evidence is a simple examination of bacterial
>behavior.
>
>This behavior is strikingly versatile, researchers have found in recent
>years; bacteria can cope with a remarkably wide range of situations by
>taking appropriate actions for each. For instance, the deadly
>Pseudomonas aeruginosa can make a living by infecting a wide variety of
>animal and plant tissues, each of which is a very different type of
>environment in which to live and find sustenance.
>
>Furthermore, bacteria cooperate: they can group together to take on
>tasks that would be difficult or impossible for one to handle alone. In
>a textbook example, millions of individuals of the species Myxococcus
>xanthus can bunch up to form a "predatory" colony that moves and changes
>direction collectively toward possible food sources.
>
>Some examples of bacterial cooperation have even led researchers to
>propose that bacteria exhibit a form of altruism. For instance, some
>strains of Escherichia coli commit suicide when infected by a virus,
>thereby protecting their bacterial neighbors from infection.
>
>But until recently, few or no scientists had seriously suggested these
>behaviors reflected intelligence.  
>
>For instance, bacterial "altruism" may be a simple outcome of evolution
>that has nothing to do with concern for the welfare of others, wrote the
>University of Bonn's Jan-Ulrich Kreft in last August's issue of the
>research journal Current Biology. Thus he didn't suggest that any
>process akin to thinking was at work.
>
>But one thing that ties these various behaviors together is that they
>all operate as a result of signaling mechanisms like the ones studied by
>Hellingwerf.
>
>Mousetraps, learning and language
>
>These mechanisms work in a way somewhat akin to the American board game
>Mousetrap. In this game, you try to catch your opponent's plastic mouse
>using a rambling contraption that starts working when you turn a crank.
>This rotates gears, that push a lever, that moves a shoe, that kicks a
>bucket, that sends a ball down stairs and-after several more
>hair-raising steps of the sort-drops a basket on the mouse.
>
>Molecular signals inside cells work through somewhat similar chain
>reactions, except the pieces involved are molecules. 
>
>A typical way these molecular chain reactions work is that small
>clusters of atoms, called phosphate groups, are passed among various
>molecules. One example of what such a system could accomplish: a bit of
>food brushing against the cell could start a series of events that lead
>inside the cell and activate genes that generate the chemicals that
>digest the food.
>
>A single bacterium can contain dozens of such systems operating
>simultaneously for different purposes. And compared to the board game,
>the cellular systems have additional features that make them more
>complicated and versatile.
>
>For instance, some of these bacterial contraptions, when set in motion,
>lead to the formation of extra copies of themselves. These tricks can
>lead to phenomena with aspects of learning and language.
>
>For example, a shortage of a nutrient in a bacterium's neighborhood can
>activate a system that makes the microbe attract the nutrient toward
>itself more strongly. The system also produces extra copies of itself,
>researchers have found. Thus if shortage recurs later, the bacterium is
>better prepared. This is a form of "learning," Hellingwerf and
>colleagues wrote in the August, 2001 issue of the Journal of
>Bacteriology. 
>
>Brain cells can operate in an analogous way: a brain cell can grow more
>sensitive to a signal that it receives repeatedly, resulting in a
>reinforcement of signaling circuits and learning. 
>
>The bacterial versions of "mousetrap" have other tricks as well. For
>instance, some of them seem to contain components influenced by not just
>one stimulus, but by two or more. Thus the chain reactions merge. The
>component receiving these stimuli adds the strength of each to give a
>response whose strength is proportional to the sum.
>
>Although the full complexities of bacterial signaling are far from
>understood, many researchers believe the systems helps bacteria to
>communicate.
>
>For instance, some bacteria, when starving, emit molecules that serve as
>stress signals to their neighbors, write Eshel Ben-Jacob of Tel Aviv
>University and colleagues in last August's issue of Trends in
>Microbiology. The signals launch a process in which the group can
>transform itself to create tough, walled structures that wait out tough
>times to reemerge later.
>
>This transformation involves a complex dialogue that reveals a "social
>intelligence," the researchers added. Each bacterium uses the signals to
>assess the group's condition, compares this with its own state, and
>sends out a molecular "vote" for or against transformation. The majority
>wins.
>
>Collectively, the researchers wrote, "bacteria can glean information
>from the environment and from other organisms, interpret the information
>in a 'meaningful' way, develop common knowledge and learn from past
>experience." Some can even collectively change their chemical "dialect"
>to freeze out "cheaters" who exploit group efforts for their own selfish
>interest, the researchers claimed.
>
>Not everyone is convinced by these claims. 
>
>Rosemary J. Redfield of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver,
>has argued that the supposed communication molecules actually exist
>mainly to tell bacteria how closed-in their surroundings are, which is
>useful information to them for various reasons.
>
>Inside-out
>
>To properly assess if bacterial signals constitute intelligence, whether
>of a social or individual brand, Hellingwerf and some other researchers
>work from the inside out. 
>
>Rather than focusing on the behaviors, which are open to differing
>interpretations, they focus on the systems of interactions followed by
>the molecules. These systems, it is hoped, have distinct properties that
>can be measured and compared against similar interactions in known
>intelligent beings.
>
>For instance, if these bacterial systems operate similarly to networks
>in the brain, it would provide a weighty piece of evidence in favor of
>the bacterial intelligence.
>
>Hellingwerf has set himself a more modest goal, comparing bacterial
>signaling not to the brain, but to the brain-like, human-made neural
>network devices. Such an effort has a simple motivation. Demonstrating
>that bacterial signaling possesses every important feature of neural
>networks would suggest at least that microbial capabilities rival those
>of devices with proven ability to tackle simple problems using known
>rules of brain function-rather than robot-like calculations, which are
>very different.
>
>To understand how one could do such a comparison requires a brief
>explanation of how neural networks work, and how they differ from
>traditional computers. 
>
>Computers are good at following precise instructions, but terrible at
>even simple, common-sense tasks that lack definite rules, like the
>recognition of the difference between male and female.
>
>Neural networks, like humans, can do this because they are more
>flexible, and they learn-even though they can be built using computers.
>They are a set of simulated "brain cells" set to pass "signals" among
>themselves through simulated "connections."
>
>Some information that can be represented as a set of numbers, such as a
>digitized photograph, is fed to a first set of "cells" in such a way
>that each cell gets a number. Each cell is then set to "transmit" all,
>part or none of that number to one or more other cells. How big a
>portion of the number is passed on to each, depends on the simulated
>"strength" of the connections that are programmed into the system.
>
>Each of those cells, in turn, are set to do something with the numbers
>they receive, such as add them or average them-and then transmit all or
>part of them to yet another cell.
>
>Numbers ricochet through the system this way until they arrive at a
>final set of "output" cells. These cells are set to give out a final
>answer-based on the numbers in them-in the form of yet another number.
>For example, the answer could be 0 for male, 1 for female.
>
>Such a system, when new, will give random answers, because the
>connections are initially set at random. However, after each attempt at
>the problem, a human "tells" the system whether it was right or wrong.
>The system is designed to then change the strength of the connections to
>improve the answer for the next try. 
>
>To do this, the system calculates to what extent a change in strength of
>each connection previously contributed to giving a right or wrong
>answer. This information tells the system how to change the strengths to
>give better results. Over many attempts, the system's accuracy gradually
>improves, often reaching nearly human-like performance on a given task. 
>
>Such systems not only work quite well for simple problems, many
>researchers believed they capture all the key features of real brain
>cells, though in a drastically simplified way.
>
>The devices also have similarities to the messaging systems in bacteria.
>But how deep are the resemblances? To answer this, Hellingwerf looked at
>four properties that neural-network experts have identified as essential
>for such devices to work. He then examined whether bacterial signaling
>fits each of the criteria.
>
>The four properties are as follows. 
>
>First, a neural network must have multiple sub-systems that work
>simultaneously, or "in parallel." Neural networks do this, because
>signals follow multiple pathways at once, in effect carrying out
>multiple calculations at once. Traditional computers can't do this; they
>conduct one at a time. Bacteria do fit the standard, though, because
>they can contain many messaging networks acting simultaneously,
>Hellingwerf observes.
>
>Second, key components of the network must carry out logical operations.
>This means, in the case of a neural network, that single elements of the
>network combine signals from two or more other elements, and pass the
>result on to a third according to some mathematical rule. Regular
>computers also have this feature. Bacteria probably do too, Hellingwerf
>argues, based on the way that parts of their signaling systems add up
>inputs from different sources.
>
>The third property is "auto-amplification." This describes the way some
>network elements can boost the strength of their own interactions.
>Hellingwerf maintains that bacteria show this property, as when, for
>example, some of their signaling systems create more copies of
>themselves as they run.
>
>The fourth property is where the rub lies for bacteria. This feature,
>called crosstalk, means that the system must not consist just of
>separate chain reactions: rather, different chain reactions have to
>connect, so that the way one operates can change the way another runs.
>
>Crosstalk is believed to underlie an important form of memory called
>associative memory, the ability to mentally connect two things with no
>obvious relationship. A famous example is the Russian scientist Ivan
>Pavlov's dog, who drooled at the ring of a bell because experience had
>taught him food invariably followed the sound.
>
>Crosstalk has been found many times in bacteria, Hellingwerf wrote-but
>the strength of the crosstalk "signals" are hundreds or thousands of
>times weaker than those that follow the main tracks of the chain
>reactions. Moreover, "clear demonstrations of associative memory have
>not yet been detected in any single bacterial cell," he added, and this
>is an area ripe for further research. If bacteria can indeed
>communicate, it seems they may be holding quite a bit back from us. 
>
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