
Bacteria Use Brainlike Bursts of Electricity to Communicate - nature24
https://www.quantamagazine.org/bacteria-use-brainlike-bursts-of-electricity-to-communicate-20170905/
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visarga
Not just that bacteria can use electricity for communication, but DNA also has
the computing power of a neural network. Imagine every cell with the
intelligence of a neural net of many thousands of neurons (= to the number
number of genes).

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_regulatory_network](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_regulatory_network)

> In single-celled organisms, regulatory networks respond to the external
> environment, optimising the cell at a given time for survival in this
> environment.

> Genes can be viewed as nodes in the network, with input being proteins such
> as transcription factors, and outputs being the level of gene expression.
> The value of the node depends of a function which depends in the value of
> its regulators in previous time steps (in the Boolean network described
> below these are Boolean functions, typically AND, OR, and NOT). These
> functions have been interpreted as performing a kind of information
> processing within the cell, which determines cellular behavior. The basic
> drivers within cells are concentrations of some proteins, which determine
> both spatial (location within the cell or tissue) and temporal (cell cycle
> or developmental stage) coordinates of the cell, as a kind of "cellular
> memory".

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lioeters
This is intriguing to hear of the "computing power" of genes - especially the
metaphors of the circuit/computer/program like boolean functions, information
processing, memory, storage.

I read once about how scientific fields like biology and psychology were
influenced by the industrial revolution, to view the world and ourselves using
metaphors of the machine - e.g., the steam engine - to "let off steam", etc.
These days, we are using metaphors of the computer, hard/software, networks,
to model/describe/understand the mechanisms operating in nature.

It makes me wonder about how there are so many similarities of form and
function across layers of the physical world, in the quantum scale,
microscopic, human/social levels and beyond. How these bacteria "glom
together", form communicating communities, and how they use "quorum sensing"
(secrete chemicals to reach a critical level and trigger mass change). It's
fascinating to consider how we humans behave very similarly to colonies of
(somewhat) intelligent bacteria..

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tnzn
Since you point it out, the computational analogy of the brain is useful but
also has shortcomings as it leads us to misconceptions.

There's also a model/theory called enacting which doesn't consider cognition
like a computer but rather like a piano.

~~~
lioeters
Thank you for the pointer on enacting and a curious metaphor of cognition as a
piano, that made me dig deeper.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enactivism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enactivism)

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pavement
This reminds me of the issue of the comic book, titled Mr. Majestic, written
by Alan Moore, in which the universe suffers heat death and among the last few
remaining survivors alive to witness it, is a hyper-intelligent strain of
syphilis, which is able to communicate telepathically with its hosts.

~~~
a_e_k
Likewise, it makes me think of the Descolada virus from the _Ender 's Game_
sequels.

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blacksmith_tb
Lynn Margulis has proposed that our neurons have bacterial origins[1], this
would certainly appear to support that hypothesis.

1:
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2001....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2001.tb05707.x/abstract)

~~~
lioeters
"The Conscious Cell" \- intuitively I could see how the hypothesis makes
sense; this was a deeply interesting paper, and led me to Margulis' book
_Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origin of Species_. Appreciate the link!

