
On Intelligence in Cells: The Case for Whole Cell Biology (2009) [pdf] - resource0x
http://www.brianjford.com/a-ISR_Ford.pdf
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dragonwriter
There's a whole lot wrong with this paper, but I think that the biggest is
that it is attacking a giant fantasy—the idea that biology above the molecular
level has been abandoned. As well as the fact that the subfields of biology
that aren't molecular biology and biochemistry still exist as active fields of
study and research, a lot of what people working in molecular biology and
genetics are doing is looking at the relationship between low-level processes
and higher-level structure and activity.

~~~
stanfordkid
This. The authors point is analogous to "we shouldn't do the census because
everything is a result of human activity, and humans are really smart".
Well... people study psychology and others study economics. As computational
and modeling power goes up we have the newfound ability to blend the micro and
macro further. But historically this wasn't the case.

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RosanaAnaDana
Kind-of a bummer article for what I think is a very good point (that I'm not
actually sure he is trying to make). Current models based on biological
principals are starting at a level of complexity which is emergent from a more
foundational level which is ignored in our currently best performing models.

There is a strong argument for understanding 'mind' or 'intelligence' at a
cellular level. Neural networks were originally inspired by how we thought
brains work; a highly connected network. Within this framework, it was kind-of
ignored that the fundamental units of this network themselves have 'mind'
(intelligence? sense of self?) and at least the ability to change their
behavior (outputs) based on what they sense from their environment (inputs).
Currently, we train NN based on training data, but once trained, the network
is 'fixed', in that we've come up with some optimal set of weights and biases
that don't change. Biological networks don't work like this. Individual units
within biological networks can individually adjust their behavior, based on
external inputs both from other cells in the network and external to whole
network (environmental) inputs. I would argue that there has been a strong
bias in cell biology (especially human cell biology) against attributing
individual cells with 'mind' or a sense of self; however, this obviously can
not be the case, since most of the diversity of life is unicellular.

I think there would be a strong benefit to considering the ideas of 'cells'
and compartmentalization in regards to how we design and engineer intelligent
systems: we know that fundamentally, this is at least part of how cells work.

~~~
AllegedAlec
> Current models based on biological principals are starting at a level of
> complexity which is emergent from a more foundational level which is ignored
> in our currently best performing models.

Not really. It's too complex, we understand too little, and there's very
little reason for it, since intelligence is not a property which is encoded in
a neuron, but an emergent property, emerging from the interactions between
them and the development of the network.

It's a bad idea for the same reason that if you want to simulate the
aerodynamic properties of an airplane, you don't start with string theory.

> Individual units within biological networks can individually adjust their
> behavior, based on external inputs both from other cells in the network and
> external to whole network (environmental) inputs.

You don't need to start from the cellular level to achieve this though.

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taneq
Wow. Cells are machines made of molecules. Saying we shouldn't study molecular
biology is like saying that it's a waste of time for electrical engineers to
understand transistors.

I think he's misunderstood reductionism too. Reductionism isn't about saying
"only the lowest level detail matters", it's saying "the lowest level detail
explains the higher levels".

~~~
carapace
> Cells are machines made of molecules.

That's a theory, not a fact.

~~~
tmearnest
Care to share an alternate theory?

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kjhughes
Anyone interested in a more scientifically sound treatise of cellular biology
and from a computational perspective should instead read "Wetware: A computer
in every living cell" by Dennis Bray. It's very approachable and, despite its
unfortunate title, has nothing to do with the absurd anthropomorphising
suggested in the posted Brian Ford paper.

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rrock
Much of the money spent on increased resolution in electron microscopy is
wasted? What a crackpot indeed. This was written before the resolution
revolution, but still...

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carapace
I can't recall now where I read this, but it's a very interesting idea: Your
life is the life of your cells.

Everything we can do is something cells can do writ large.

Senses: we can see because our cells can see. Likewise for taste, vibration,
heat/cold, all twenty-seven of them (I think we're up to twenty-seven human
senses.)

Digestion? Cells. Movement? Skeletons? These are all things our cells do.

There is nothing we do that is not done by our cells.

So why not intelligence?

Why not self-awareness?

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notEvenOnce
The concept fits. Consider MENACE (Machine Educable Noughts And Crosses
Engine).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9c-_neaxeU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9c-_neaxeU)

If cells operate in a similar fashion, where adaptation to externalities
encodes itself into a durable surface of arbitrary pockets, then we have a
recipe for inert systems exhibiting variable degrees of behavior, which is
capable of evolving over time.

This doesn't solve for sentience, but it does solve for expressive adaptation
to fit into complex, hostile environments.

~~~
AllegedAlec
Congratulations. You have invented evolution and differential gene expression.

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searine
This reads like scientific fanfiction.

While I always appreciate novel and iconclastic ideas in biology, this makes
leaps and bounds of logic without supporting evidence.

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AllegedAlec
Initial thoughts on reading the abstract: what a crackpot.

There's a good reason to sub-cellular structures and interactions: we need to
have a reductionist's understanding in order to better understand the whole.
We never would've had any real insight into the cell, or much of our modern
day medicine, without all those researchers putting in hard, arduous hours
into studying the molecular mechanics of single proteins.

Ford would apparently have us see the cell as a antropomorphised black box,
attributing all behaviour to 'cellular intelligence'.

~~~
intarga
It gets better, read the section on cellular memory

~~~
AllegedAlec
Wow

~~~
pazimzadeh
What?

~~~
AllegedAlec
He suggests that cells are intelligent, and have a memory, and that this is
the reason why a middle-aged man started liking classical music after having a
donor organ from a violinist.

~~~
pazimzadeh
Cells are intelligent. And have a memory. I'm a microbiologist, studying
bacteria (single cells), and let me tell you - these things are true.

The organ transplantation thing seems far fetched and probably BS, but the
idea that someone's mood could change after an organ transplant is not that
far fetched. My mom studies transplantation and I know a bit of immunology as
well. Organ transplantation stimulates an immune response and in turn release
of various cytokines into the blood, which could travel to the brain and
affect mood. Inflammation in the brain is linked to many mood disorders.

The worst thing about the article is it's way too long, I think the author
must like to hear himself talk. I'm also not sure of why he dismisses quorum
sensing. Surely the "whole" does not stop at the single cell level. There's
the whole community, etc..

~~~
AllegedAlec
> Cells (...) have a memory

He didn't seem talking about genomics or epigenomics, though.

> Cells are intelligent.

Define intelligent. I don't see a mechanistic response unit, no matter how
sophisticated, as intelligent.

> Inflammation in the brain is linked to many mood disorders.

That is, however, extremely different from starting to like classical music
because your donor was a violinist. He wasn't talking about mood disorders,
but specific preferences.

~~~
pazimzadeh
Upon re-reading the organ transplant section, you're right that he says some
crazy stuff. However, what he says should be experimentally testable, which
means it's a valid hypothesis. I don't think the evidence he provided is
anywhere near sufficient to support his claim though.

> I don't see a mechanistic response unit, no matter how sophisticated, as
> intelligent.

Can you provide an example of an "intelligent" system that is definitely not a
"mechanistic response unit"?

> He didn't seem talking about genomics or epigenomics, though

Proteins can hold memory too. Not as stable as DNA except maybe for amyloid
fibers like those in prions. But it's not out of the question.

~~~
AllegedAlec
> Can you provide an example of an "intelligent" system that is definitely not
> a "mechanistic response unit"?

Sure, intelligent systems do by definition have a mechanistically responsive
element at its base; they're made of matter, after all. However, that doesn't
mean that every system which is able to respond to changes in its environment
is ipso facto intelligent.

The neurons in the brain are not what makes a brain intelligent. It's the
emergent meta-structures formed by neurons which allow us to think the way we
think.

