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I'm something of a scientist myself*, and every time I delve into cellular biology I find myself wondering if there is a primitive consciousness on the cellular

I'm something of a scientist myself*, and every time I delve into cellular biology I find myself wondering if there is a primitive consciousness on the cellular level, because lives of many cells are complicated. Consider Memory B cells, which are formed early during foetal development. They hang around in the body for years - sometimes decades - looking out for new and unusual pathogens. When they encounter one, they internalize the peptides and then (typically, but not always) rush off to a germinal center to help manufacture new T cells that can recognize and defeat the unwanted interloper. then the B cells leave again and go back to their vigil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_B_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_B_cell Conversely, when you look at the dynamics of large groups, organizations, and corporate entities (institutions as well as business, up to whole nations), it's hard not to see them as organisms in their own right that have a sort of meta-consciousness independent of their component humans. * This is a joke

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
I have that thought quite often, both for cells and for aggregate things like countries or religions. Most recently I found myself framing zoonotic diseases (e.g. Lyme, Covid, Malaria) as ecosystem-level weapons against habitat loss i.e. as a manufactured reason to keep humans away.
- neofrommatrix 3y ago
  As an expert myself, I say both of you deserve the Ig Nobel.
- patcon 3y ago
  > I have that thought quite often, both for cells and for aggregate things like countries or religions. You both might find this interesting :) Information Closure Theory of Consciousness (2020) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342956066_Information_Closure_Theory_of_Consciousness https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342956066_Informati... > However, only information processed at specific scales of coarse-graining appears to be available for conscious awareness. We do not have direct experience of information available at the scale of individual neurons, which is noisy and highly stochastic. Neither do we have experience of more macro-scale interactions, such as interpersonal communications. Neurophysiological evidence suggests that conscious experiences co-vary with information encoded in coarse-grained neural states such as the firing pattern of a population of neurons. In this article, we introduce a new informational theory of consciousness: Information Closure Theory of Consciousness (ICT) Still watching the seminars, but this is the clearest text summary I've found online so far: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/dco3t1/comment/f2hw67o/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/dco3t1/com...
asylteltine 3y ago
Isn’t another explanation that they travel in such large amounts they will eventually interact with the right system due to chemical interactions? That is the right proteins will activate the right channels eventually when you have hundreds of thousands of attempts? I don’t think they are conscious in the sense they are driving along a road and know where to turn. It’s all chemical signaling and statistics.
- andrewljohnson 3y ago
  I travel in such large amounts that I eventually interact with the right systems. I have some neat meta processes for changing direction and re-orienting myself on a couple of important goals for my existence. It’s not really conscious when I change direction, it’s just kinda natural. I end up being like “whoa that was a big change.”
tracerbulletx 3y ago
You might like the book Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death by Nick Lane. (anyone enjoying this comment section would) but specifically he presents some really cool interesting ideas related to this and metabolism
sirspacey 3y ago
A joke from one of the greatest Spider-Man movies of all time, so you get a pass
Wherecombinator 3y ago
I can’t remember where I’ve seen it but there’s some interesting work done Michael Levin in this space. Something along the lines of how cells alone can have a goal but within a group exhibit different goals. This can go from cell to tissue to organ, all the way up to society. I’m not a biologist so I’m butchering his ideas, just writing this if anyone finds it interesting to look him up.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> I find myself wondering if there is a primitive consciousness on the cellular level Has anyone seriously tried tackling this with fiction?
- darth_aardvark 3y ago
  Possibly, although I always thought Osmosis Jones was a documentary.
galaxyLogic 3y ago
Right cells of a single individual co-operate, why should sperm-cells be any different.
- chiefalchemist 3y ago
  Yes and no. What's different about sperm-cells is you would expect an "every man for himself" behavior. Instead, they recognize (?) there might be other competition, other sperm donors if you will, and they therefore co-operate so one of their own wins. Does this mean monogamy is unnatural? Or at least at one point was not the norm? And still isn't? As why continue to optimize for co-operation?
  - DougEiffel 3y ago
    One hypothesis is that the shape of the glans penis serves to push rival sperm out of the way and behind the glans to be scooped out of the vagina. I wouldn't call monogamy unnatural. But it may be a more recent invention for humans. We still aren't sure how long it's been the norm. It's possible that humans used to rape more often. It's also possible that humans practiced forms of polygamy. Either way, cooperative sperm makes sense. It's one of those things where a simple mutation would provide a clear benefit over the competition.
  - galaxyLogic 3y ago
    > What's different about sperm-cells is you would expect an "every man for himself" You could expect that if each of them were an individual. Are they? One could say that all sperm-cells in a single ejaculation are part of the same single man. Therefore the principle still holds, but it could be re-phrased as: "Every sperm-cell for the donor-man"
- gus_massa 3y ago
  All the other cells have the same DNA[1], they are like identical twins. It's like an army of clones. Each sperm has a different DNA, they are like siblings. It's expected some cooperatio, but also some treason and backstabing. [1] Ignoring some interesting cases.
brabel 3y ago
> I find myself wondering if there is a primitive consciousness on the cellular level That seems to be obviously true to me. The alternative would be that consciousness simply appears at some point out of literally nowhere because there would be no lower levels from which it emerges.
- eternauta3k 3y ago
  Sounds like this * pushes the problem one level down ("why are cells conscious?") * adds the problem of explaining how consciousness of a person relates to consciousness of its cells. What would this model help explain?
  - brabel 3y ago
    Right, but it seems that both problems are easier than "it just emerges out of nothing". Cells consciousness would be a much, much simpler sort of consciousness, something any "object" that somehow is capable of searching for food and avoiding "danger" should possess. Higher level things emerging from similar, but lower level things is not a mystery, it's something expected (like ant colonies).
    - eternauta3k 3y ago
      I'm vaguely for pan-psychism as in, it sounds good but I haven't thought about it for even 5 minutes. But I'm more interested in the version where all matter has some kind of proto-consciousness. Still, no idea how it's suposed to work in detail: how can it make a difference whether a particle is part of an information-processing system? There is an infinitude of mappings between physical systems and mathematical functions (I'm probably plagiarizing a half-forgotten version of this https://joe-antognini.github.io/ml/consciousness https://joe-antognini.github.io/ml/consciousness )
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  I has to go all the way down by that logic, right?
indigoabstract 3y ago
> Conversely, when you look at the dynamics of large groups, organizations, and corporate entities (institutions as well as business, up to whole nations), it's hard not to see them as organisms in their own right that have a sort of meta-consciousness independent of their component humans. That's actually a thing, or at least there's a name for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore
b4ke 3y ago
This struck me like a Medicare benefits review commercial. I think those are also a bit more substantive. ;)
edgyquant 3y ago
I don’t think there’s a consciousness but I think most biologist would agree there must be some kind of “awareness” within cells and imo likely that awareness is the basis for what we’d call consciousness.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

I have that thought quite often, both for cells and for aggregate things like countries or religions. Most recently I found myself framing zoonotic diseases (e.g. Lyme, Covid, Malaria) as ecosystem-level weapons against habitat loss i.e. as a manufactured reason to keep humans away.

neofrommatrix 3y ago
As an expert myself, I say both of you deserve the Ig Nobel.
patcon 3y ago
> I have that thought quite often, both for cells and for aggregate things like countries or religions. You both might find this interesting :) Information Closure Theory of Consciousness (2020) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342956066_Information_Closure_Theory_of_Consciousness https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342956066_Informati... > However, only information processed at specific scales of coarse-graining appears to be available for conscious awareness. We do not have direct experience of information available at the scale of individual neurons, which is noisy and highly stochastic. Neither do we have experience of more macro-scale interactions, such as interpersonal communications. Neurophysiological evidence suggests that conscious experiences co-vary with information encoded in coarse-grained neural states such as the firing pattern of a population of neurons. In this article, we introduce a new informational theory of consciousness: Information Closure Theory of Consciousness (ICT) Still watching the seminars, but this is the clearest text summary I've found online so far: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/dco3t1/comment/f2hw67o/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/dco3t1/com...

asylteltine 3y ago

Isn’t another explanation that they travel in such large amounts they will eventually interact with the right system due to chemical interactions? That is the right proteins will activate the right channels eventually when you have hundreds of thousands of attempts? I don’t think they are conscious in the sense they are driving along a road and know where to turn. It’s all chemical signaling and statistics.

andrewljohnson 3y ago
I travel in such large amounts that I eventually interact with the right systems. I have some neat meta processes for changing direction and re-orienting myself on a couple of important goals for my existence. It’s not really conscious when I change direction, it’s just kinda natural. I end up being like “whoa that was a big change.”

tracerbulletx 3y ago

You might like the book Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death by Nick Lane. (anyone enjoying this comment section would) but specifically he presents some really cool interesting ideas related to this and metabolism

sirspacey 3y ago

A joke from one of the greatest Spider-Man movies of all time, so you get a pass

Wherecombinator 3y ago

I can’t remember where I’ve seen it but there’s some interesting work done Michael Levin in this space. Something along the lines of how cells alone can have a goal but within a group exhibit different goals. This can go from cell to tissue to organ, all the way up to society. I’m not a biologist so I’m butchering his ideas, just writing this if anyone finds it interesting to look him up.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> I find myself wondering if there is a primitive consciousness on the cellular level Has anyone seriously tried tackling this with fiction?

darth_aardvark 3y ago
Possibly, although I always thought Osmosis Jones was a documentary.

galaxyLogic 3y ago

Right cells of a single individual co-operate, why should sperm-cells be any different.

chiefalchemist 3y ago
Yes and no. What's different about sperm-cells is you would expect an "every man for himself" behavior. Instead, they recognize (?) there might be other competition, other sperm donors if you will, and they therefore co-operate so one of their own wins. Does this mean monogamy is unnatural? Or at least at one point was not the norm? And still isn't? As why continue to optimize for co-operation?
- DougEiffel 3y ago
  One hypothesis is that the shape of the glans penis serves to push rival sperm out of the way and behind the glans to be scooped out of the vagina. I wouldn't call monogamy unnatural. But it may be a more recent invention for humans. We still aren't sure how long it's been the norm. It's possible that humans used to rape more often. It's also possible that humans practiced forms of polygamy. Either way, cooperative sperm makes sense. It's one of those things where a simple mutation would provide a clear benefit over the competition.
- galaxyLogic 3y ago
  > What's different about sperm-cells is you would expect an "every man for himself" You could expect that if each of them were an individual. Are they? One could say that all sperm-cells in a single ejaculation are part of the same single man. Therefore the principle still holds, but it could be re-phrased as: "Every sperm-cell for the donor-man"
gus_massa 3y ago
All the other cells have the same DNA[1], they are like identical twins. It's like an army of clones. Each sperm has a different DNA, they are like siblings. It's expected some cooperatio, but also some treason and backstabing. [1] Ignoring some interesting cases.

brabel 3y ago

> I find myself wondering if there is a primitive consciousness on the cellular level That seems to be obviously true to me. The alternative would be that consciousness simply appears at some point out of literally nowhere because there would be no lower levels from which it emerges.

eternauta3k 3y ago
Sounds like this * pushes the problem one level down ("why are cells conscious?") * adds the problem of explaining how consciousness of a person relates to consciousness of its cells. What would this model help explain?
- brabel 3y ago
  Right, but it seems that both problems are easier than "it just emerges out of nothing". Cells consciousness would be a much, much simpler sort of consciousness, something any "object" that somehow is capable of searching for food and avoiding "danger" should possess. Higher level things emerging from similar, but lower level things is not a mystery, it's something expected (like ant colonies).
  - eternauta3k 3y ago
    I'm vaguely for pan-psychism as in, it sounds good but I haven't thought about it for even 5 minutes. But I'm more interested in the version where all matter has some kind of proto-consciousness. Still, no idea how it's suposed to work in detail: how can it make a difference whether a particle is part of an information-processing system? There is an infinitude of mappings between physical systems and mathematical functions (I'm probably plagiarizing a half-forgotten version of this https://joe-antognini.github.io/ml/consciousness https://joe-antognini.github.io/ml/consciousness )
AlecSchueler 3y ago
I has to go all the way down by that logic, right?

indigoabstract 3y ago

> Conversely, when you look at the dynamics of large groups, organizations, and corporate entities (institutions as well as business, up to whole nations), it's hard not to see them as organisms in their own right that have a sort of meta-consciousness independent of their component humans. That's actually a thing, or at least there's a name for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore

b4ke 3y ago

This struck me like a Medicare benefits review commercial. I think those are also a bit more substantive. ;)

edgyquant 3y ago

I don’t think there’s a consciousness but I think most biologist would agree there must be some kind of “awareness” within cells and imo likely that awareness is the basis for what we’d call consciousness.