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OfflinePhanTomCat
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: Silversoul]
    #3882918 - 03/07/05 02:26 PM (19 years, 26 days ago)

This is a very interesting topic....



The one main thing that is 100% common in all life is that of DNA, as mentioned a few times above....    The code or plans to everything that is living, even super-small things such as viruses.... 

I guess what one would need to prove is if this complexly structured code of life itself is subjective to forces, or spiritual suggestion, or perhaps direct control from an outside source itself....  How could one proove such things....? 

There are those little things such as "Takions", or "Neutrinos"(sp?) that are theorized to be constantly flying thru everything that exists as we know it....  (Or, is this just a theory, and is unfounded...?)  Perhaps these *could* serve to be a "remote control" of sorts in a frequency that is undetectable or uncomprehendable by anything but the complex DNA strand itself....  It would not surprise me, DNA is some pretty complex stuff, and is a marvel that man himself may never understand because of it's utter complexity....  What if our DNA actually emitted such things, and that is how or why we are all connected in some way...? 

I dunno~, I don't know much detail about the subject of "Takions" at all, I am just speaking my mind on a possible connection that popped into my head(from the beyond?)....  :wink:


The question would remain, how would one proove or dis-proove a theory like this....? 
What kind of scientific tests could be done....?  And if one could test it, would you indeed want to....?    Well, one thing that just seemingly popped into my head, is something I saw on TV when I was very young....  Some scientist were measuring some kind of energy flow of a plant, while in a very close joining room they were causing either a person, or an animal great physical harm....  When they did this, the plant's energy readings were quite violently effected from the calm they were before....  As the readings were quite calm and flatlined before the infliction of pain started....    What a strange realization....  :oogle:

What if there needs to be more of a balance between the life in nature, and human life....?    What if plants in nature are the "governor", or "soother" of calmness on this very planet....?  It would make some sense as to why so many people have such conviction driven urges to "save the planet"....  What if they are indeed right, but they just don't know why....?  :what:  :confused:


Imagine the end of life as we know it when someone (human) figures out how to make such "remote control" frequencies, and screws everything up in the balance and flow of life itself....    I mean, think about it....  Once it was started, and everything was "de-magnetized" or "de-polarized", not even the "inventor" of such a gizmo would be able to stop it's effects....  HHhhhhhhmmmmm....  :what:  :shake:


This is not a belief of mine, it was just an idea(s) as they came to me.... 
Nothing I have said here is founded at all(that I know of), and open to MUCH interpretation or thought....    :smile:


ME....


:heartpump: :heartpump:


--------------------
I'll be your midnight French Fry....  :naughty:

"The most important things in life that are often ignored, are the things that one cannot see...."

>^;;^<

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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: SoopaX]
    #3883021 - 03/07/05 02:43 PM (19 years, 26 days ago)

Quote:

SoopaX said:
Reaction and thought are two very different things originiating from very different parts of our mental set.  Awareness can react and respond and learn, thought prohibits these things.  I don't think that bacterium are aware that they are aware, self-conscious.




:thumbup:


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

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Offlineexclusive58
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: Psychoactive1984]
    #3883089 - 03/07/05 02:57 PM (19 years, 26 days ago)

Of course bacterias are not aware of being aware, only humans are (on earth).

I think we have to make a difference between consciousness and thought. Thinking requires language and thus a complex structure of the brain.

Now consciousness...are bacteria conscious? that's the real question guys! please stop wondering if bacteria can think :cuckoo: are you all stoned? :blazed: :wink:


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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: exclusive58]
    #3883131 - 03/07/05 03:06 PM (19 years, 26 days ago)

I'd go so far to suggest that other primates are also aware. E.G. Chimps reacting to their image in a mirror, and realizing that it is indeed their image (various studies), whereas a dog will bark at it, not having the "awareness" of itself more often the not.


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

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OfflineDarcho
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: exclusive58]
    #3883357 - 03/07/05 03:54 PM (19 years, 26 days ago)

Does thinking require language? What do you mean by language: a natural language (i.e. English or French) or some sort of innate, subconscious processing language (i.e. Mentalese)?

I would say that thought does require language, but not natural language. Thought requires an innate, subconscious language, in such a sense that it is that language.

Consciousness and self-awareness still require thought, and therefore still require an innate language of some sorts. Something does not have to be conscious or self-aware to be able to think. So the question still is: Can bacteria think?

Here are some links that supposedly prove that bacteria can think:

http://www.creationmoments.com/radio/transcript.asp?track_id=242

http://www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/microminds.html

A quote from the second link:

Quote:

A few years ago, I prefaced a lecture on memory with a brief description of bacterial behavior, but soon yielded the floor to a person with a wide grin and a big cigar. "Please forgive my interruption. But I must ask if, in effect, you're saying that the little stinkers think?" I had to admit that I was. For deciding, choosing, judging, data processing and discriminating add up to thinking. Indeed, it is much easier to document certain types of thought in microbes than it is in human beings.



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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: Darcho]
    #3883480 - 03/07/05 04:25 PM (19 years, 26 days ago)

thought just needs to be able to join images (including memories sounds body feeling etc.) and to engage with or connect memory and the world.

language allows a kind of complexity, but also imposes a reduction in complexity.


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:

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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: Darcho]
    #3883584 - 03/07/05 04:58 PM (19 years, 26 days ago)

Quote:

Darcho said:
Does thinking require language?  What do you mean by language: a natural language (i.e. English or French) or some sort of innate, subconscious processing language (i.e. Mentalese)?

I would say that thought does require language, but not natural language.  Thought requires an innate, subconscious language, in such a sense that it is that language.

Consciousness and self-awareness still require thought, and therefore still require an innate language of some sorts.  Something does not have to be conscious or self-aware to be able to think.  So the question still is: Can bacteria think?

Here are some links that supposedly prove that bacteria can think:

http://www.creationmoments.com/radio/transcript.asp?track_id=242

http://www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/microminds.html

A quote from the second link:

Quote:

A few years ago, I prefaced a lecture on memory with a brief description of bacterial behavior, but soon yielded the floor to a person with a wide grin and a big cigar. "Please forgive my interruption. But I must ask if, in effect, you're saying that the little stinkers think?" I had to admit that I was. For deciding, choosing, judging, data processing and discriminating add up to thinking. Indeed, it is much easier to document certain types of thought in microbes than it is in human beings.







The reasoning provided in both of those articles is tantamount to reaction imo.

It's like sitting a jar of Mayo on a warm stove... the jar of glass isn't going to do anything but it was designed to do, but it will react to an external force by dissipating the heat (exploding getting Mayo all over the place). [:lol: shitty example i know, all that came to mind]

On the same token, would this also give cancers and viruses the ability to think by virtue of them infecting certain cells? Or are they just reacting on the basis of what it is they are to do? By this logic, indeed one can also designate a degree of consciousness onto chemicals for they know how to react with certain other substances right, and know how to be polarized by others? I dunno, I chalk it up to a natural afinity, and not an ability sustained at a conscious level.

Unless... here's an interesting thought, chemicals are conscious and are talking to us and confusing the hell out of us... and mushrooms are just more talkative, and thus have a higher degree of confusion associated with their use.


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

Edited by Psychoactive1984 (03/07/05 05:17 PM)

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OfflineGomp
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: Psychoactive1984]
    #3883855 - 03/07/05 06:07 PM (19 years, 26 days ago)

if you look at ants, as one being..
the same thing goes for bacteria. like an collective brain, scattered throughout our universe's.. :smile:


--------------------


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Disclaimer!?

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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: Gomp]
    #3883948 - 03/07/05 06:24 PM (19 years, 26 days ago)

ants and bees are like one being asleep dreaming


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:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:

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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: Gomp]
    #3883951 - 03/07/05 06:24 PM (19 years, 26 days ago)

Yeah, but is the ability to work on the basis of chemical trails really suggestive of intelligence or more on the basis of reaction?


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

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OfflineGomp
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: Psychoactive1984]
    #3884025 - 03/07/05 06:42 PM (19 years, 26 days ago)

yes.. :P


--------------------


--------------------
Disclaimer!?

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Invisiblekaiowas
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: Silversoul]
    #3884026 - 03/07/05 06:42 PM (19 years, 26 days ago)

what about abstact thought?

that is...having ideas that isn't from the experience. In other words, imagination. Can bacteria manifest the imagination into reality for others to experience (art) as we can.

pondering "do bacteria think?" is an abstract thought.

are bacteria even aware of the world around them?

Furthermore, who are we to say?


--------------------
Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.

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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: Gomp]
    #3884034 - 03/07/05 06:45 PM (19 years, 26 days ago)

Quote:

Gomp said:
yes.. :P




:thumbup: exactly


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

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Invisibleniteowl
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: Gomp]
    #3884068 - 03/07/05 06:52 PM (19 years, 26 days ago)

Quote:

Gomp said:
if you look at ants, as one being..
the same thing goes for bacteria. like an collective brain, scattered throughout our universe's.. :smile:





Would that mean that our(all) conscience is part of a.... "higher conscience" ?



:strokebeard:



:headbang:


--------------------
Live for the moment you are in now
Don't be bogged down by your past
Don't be afraid of what lies in your future

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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: niteowl]
    #3886105 - 03/08/05 04:32 AM (19 years, 26 days ago)

personally I find mucous a big extension to the thinking membrane
the dielectric consistency is great for abstraction.


--------------------
:confused: _ :brainfart:🧠  _ :finger:

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Offlinegnrm23
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #3886321 - 03/08/05 06:53 AM (19 years, 25 days ago)

some physicist have posited that consciousness is an attribute of all matter...
so bacteria would have the cosciousness inherent to their matter, as well as that of their inherent organization (order/information vs chaos/entropy) --- but they don't "think" about much compared to the "thoughts" of larger entities such as amoebae, grasshoppers, joshua trees, orcas, planets, galaxies, & gods (although "gods" may be more a manifestation of collective thought-forms, hehheh...)

check out stuff by:
fred alan wolf
jack saraffati
itzak bentov
etc...


--------------------
old enough to know better
not old enough to care

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OfflineThe_Walrus
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: Silversoul]
    #3886368 - 03/08/05 07:36 AM (19 years, 25 days ago)

I think that even bacteria exhibit some traits which one would associate with 'thinking', but I would not call it thinking. As stated, bacteria respond to different stimuli from the environment, but this alone doesn't IMO show that they 'think' in the way we would define the word 'think'. When external stimuli are introduced to bacteria, I don't think they take in all that stimuli to create a picture of what is happening, and use that to creat various options of how to react, and then choose one of those options and follow it through. But then again, they do not react to stimuli in the same way that an inanimate object such as a rock would. I think that sentience/consciousness is like a scale, it is not like once you reach a certain 'level', you achieve consciousness. I have two dogs, they exhibit different personal traits, they can recognise and make some sort of sense about the information coming in through their senses. But if I were to take an object, show it to them, and then quickly put it behind my back, they would think it has disappeared. The same could be said of children, when they are playing hide and seek and they close their eyes and believe that they are hidden because they cannot see anything, they cannot yet recognise to see the world from different perspectives. I believe that sentience is basically a measure of how you can make sense about the information providede to you by your senses, which is by it's nature constantly in flux (for instance, if I were to look at a coke can, and then turn it around, then purely as far as my senses are concerned, it is a different object, but my mind can recognise that I am simply looking at the same object from a different perspective). The more advanced your sentience is, the more everything seems to come together, and if you delve into theoretical physics, you realise that all the different forces, objects/matter and light/electromagnetic radiation we experience are all different manifestations of the same thing. I believe that true geniuses such as Max Planck and Albert Einstein had the ability to realise this, and this allowed them to devise their theories of relativity and quantum mexhanics. As far as they were concerned, we were just like the animals we compare our level of sentience to. The interesting thing I think is, what is the ultimate level of sentience, or enlightenment, if you will, one can experience. If you extrapolate, one can imagine that it would be able to see through the superficial world of flux we experience via our senses and realise that beneath the superficial surface, the very nature of reality/experience is all simply the same 'wave function'.
I do not mean the ability to do calculations involving quantum mechanics/relativity, but to actually experience it and feel it and 'see' it. Sort of like Neo in the first Matrix when he sees the matrix for what it really is. Anyways, I think I have gone on a massive tangent here, but when thinking about these sorts of things your mind wanders into all sorts of wierd, fascinating territories.


--------------------
'Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted' - Albert Einstein

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OfflineDarcho
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: Psychoactive1984]
    #3887138 - 03/08/05 12:10 PM (19 years, 25 days ago)

Again, consciousness is being mistaken for thought. For one to think, one does not necessarily require consciousness; but, for one to be conscious, one must necessarily be able to think.

Wild animals think, but they do not consciously think; their thoughts are based on instinct. Instinctive thoughts are still thoughts, even if there is no consciousness involved.

Bacteria have basic survival instincts, or else they wouldn't be able to survive. These instincts are a form of thought. Information is obtained by a bacteria about two seperate food sources, the bacteria processes this data, then instinctively chooses the more beneficial food source as the one in which it will feed. This is a thought process, even if the bacteria has no awareness of what it just did.

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OfflineMAIA
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: Darcho]
    #3887569 - 03/08/05 01:51 PM (19 years, 25 days ago)

Quote:

Darcho said:
But what is required (internally) for a bacteria to eat, and reproduce?

What is being processed in these two processes?




Information, but is it "thinking" ?
What about this new robots and new improved AI ? There are some making similar decisions when searching for energy sources, they have sensors and a very flexible AI acting depending on several variables. But being able to perform this kind of processes, does it make them "thinking" entities ?

MAIA


--------------------
Spiritual being, living a human experience ... The Shroomery Mandala



Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
Voltaire

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InvisiblePsychoactive1984
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Re: Do bacteria think? [Re: MAIA]
    #3888108 - 03/08/05 03:57 PM (19 years, 25 days ago)

Quote:

MAIA said:
Quote:

Darcho said:
But what is required (internally) for a bacteria to eat, and reproduce?

What is being processed in these two processes?




Information, but is it "thinking" ?
What about this new robots and new improved AI ? There are some making similar decisions when searching for energy sources, they have sensors and a very flexible AI acting depending on several variables. But being able to perform this kind of processes, does it make them "thinking" entities ?

MAIA




I don't think so, why I proposed that chemicals having consciousness isn't too disimilar in way of the reactions to other chemicals.


--------------------
"Their is one overriding question that concerns us all: How can we get out of the fatal groove we are in, the one that is leading towards the brink?" Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
"We may not be capable of eradicating the corruption of reason, but we must nevertheless counter it at every instance and with every means." Dan Agin
"Politics is the best religion and politicians are the worst followers."
-It's ok to trip as long as you don't fall.
-Substance over Style.
-Common sense is uncommon.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
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