Are Bacteria Intelligent?
Are you ready for this? Some scientists are now thinking that it might be possible to find intelligent bacteria some day. They are saying that simple might not mean stupid. If we look at all the different types of life that grace our planet, we find that the simplest life forms are bacteria. Most scientists believe that bacteria are alive, but not all. It is not so easy to define life as one would think, that is why scientists and engineers are having such a hard time deciding if artificial intelligence can ever reach the point where it is a sentient being. Scientists have been conducting all sorts of tests on bacteria and some of the findings have really surprised them. One of the things that they have found that has really blown their minds, is that some microbes are capable of cooperation. Now for an even more astounding find, some bacteria showed a concern for others and even worked for the benefit of others. Does this sound like an ignorant organism?
Bacteria I know I have said this before, but I have to say it again because it fits this so nicely. Many years ago I saw a program on television. It was on the old Studio One. Only old timers will remember Studio One however. It had to do with a scientist that invented a machine that detected that almost everything on earth had some sort of intelligence and could feel pain, even rocks. Isn't this similar in a way? Are we going to find out that those bugs that we squash are a lot more intelligent than we have been giving them credit for? The problem lies in the tests that we use to determine intelligence, when we are dealing with microbes. The tests are really lacking and no one can think of how we can design a fool proof one. Certain molds have shown that they can figure out the shortest distance between two points even when put into a maze. This incredible skill shook a lot of the scientific community as it came as a total surprise, since it seemed to be an activity linked to intelligence.
E.coli Scientists have decided that the better way to test the intelligence of bacteria and microscopic life is not to look directly at the behavior that they exhibit, but the chemical signals within and among bacteria that help them decide how to act. What has been discovered is that the processes that drive the bacteria are very similar to the neural networks that we are building. Neural networks are designed to perform tasks that are easy for humans to accomplish, but hard for computers. One example of this might be the ability to tell the difference between people in photographs. Some scientists now believe that the neural network and the signals that bacteria use are far more than similar and this has given bacteria a form of intelligence based on a simplified brain. Can you imagine that bacteria form a brain? I hope no one tells the military that, or they will be trying to develop bacterial soldiers, if they haven't already. There are four properties that are necessary for a neural network and bacteria have all four of them, only one is a little weak.
Virus Here is a real surprise, when a situation is created to stymie the bacteria, they can usually cope with it and take the appropriate action to correct the situation. If a task is too hard for one bacterium, they will group together. Millions of bacteria have been seen joining up to form a colony that moves and changes direction in its search for food. Some bacteria have been known to commit suicide to protect their neighbors from an infection. Is this done to really protect others, or has this behavior been instilled in the bacteria through evolution? Could it be that the bacteria have no choice in the matter, but to kill themselves? Do they even know that they are doing this? These are all very pointed questions that will take a lot more research before we can be absolutely sure that the answers that we get for these actions are correct. Amazingly just one bacterium can have many different systems controlling different functions of its body. One might have to do with food and the release of digestive juices, others might allow the bacterium to copy itself. If there is a shortage of food, the bacterium can signal a system to become more sensitive so that it might be better able to detect food. This is not as unusual as it sounds. A human brain cell can become more sensitive to a signal it receives over and over. When we study for a test what do we do? We usually read the same facts from a book several times over allowing us to force the data into our memory. This is very similar. Here is what the researchers had to say about the bacteria that they tested, “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.” Does this sound like science fiction to you? I know it did to me when I first read it. Come on, let's be honest, did you ever think that bacteria had any type of intelligence, even a basic rudimentary one? If bacteria have some intelligence, how much more intelligent are creatures that are further up the chain of life? Have we been under estimating the intelligence of the creatures around us for thousands of years? We tend to think that dolphins may have some sort of language and intelligence that we can relate to, but what about a mushroom, or a fish? Recently we found out that fish were a lot smarter than we thought and could remember things for the human equivalent of at least 7 years. Are we in for a big surprise? Was our evening meal a lot smarter that we thought? I guess that this is getting silly now, but I think that we did learn one thing and that was we may be under estimating the intelligence of all the life around us. We have to remember that just because a type of life is different, it doesn't mean that it has no intelligence at all. |
