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Slime Mold Demonstrates Primitive Intelligence

Posted by Hemos on from the wow dept.

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."

4 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. Man... by pb · · Score: 4

    I didn't want to see any more articles about the RIAA today!
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  2. Oh, for crying out loud by Alik · · Score: 5

    So this thing has demonstrated intelligence because it reshaped its body to move most of its bulk as close to the nutrient source as possible? I'm not mad at the BBC or Slashdot, but I can't believe the scientists who call this intelligence. You could do the same thing with a single neuron and the appropriate mix of growth factors. (At least, given that both axon growth cones and slime mold food-seeking work on a sense-molecule-grow-tubules model, it seems pretty likely to me that you could achieve the same with a single cell.) This doesn't mean that those cells are intelligent.

    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 :-) but you could do it. That still doesn't mean it's intelligent. (I'm not even sure one could say that the mold itself is really *computing*, but I suppose the network of cells and integrated signal cascasdes does encode some function.)

    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. :-)

  3. Biologists aMaze me... by jellisky · · Score: 4

    I don't understand this fascination about biologists trying to prove intelligence through things "figuring" out mazes. Any person with a basic programming knowledge can solve a maze using exhaustive methods.
    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.

  4. It posts! by Tommi+Morre · · Score: 4
    The researchers believe the slime is exhibiting some form of primitive intelligence.

    Obviously, it's been posting as Anonymous Coward.

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