3 ms·
Another useful metaphor that doesn't cross the threshold from human experience into the "experiencing" that non-living things do, would be chemotaxis. A bacter
by isoprophlex 2y ago
Another useful metaphor that doesn't cross the threshold from human experience into the "experiencing" that non-living things do, would be chemotaxis.
A bacterium finds food with a simple set of states. At it's most basic:
- you are experiencing an increasing concentration of food. you keep swimming straight ahead.
- you are experiencing a decreasing concentration of food. you move in a continuously randomized direction.
this eventually gets them onto a track where they are moving towards food.
Extremely simple like a thermostat, yet effective.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotaxis
- robwwilliams 2y agoNo, not like a thermostat. A bacterium is a compact and exceedingly complex living system. It has autopietic autonomy like we do. The fact the I navigate each morning to the refrigerator to get milk for breakfast is not so different from a bacterium following a gradient toward its food. Bacteria have complex receptors like we do that are their sensorium—-a nano-brain in the words of one scientist who studies their behavior.
- primes4all 2y agoAnd yet, also a thermostat is doing nothing else but following a gradient towards a desired state (albeit the gradient is discrete and it's moving along the dimension of temperature).
- jamieplex 2y agoExcept that a thermostat doesn't "follow" anything. It is basically a binary response state: on or off (or high and low). Nothing further. Analog or digital, it doesn't follow anything.... It reacts instantly at a setpoint. Would you think an alarm clock is "following" the time, and turns the alarm on at the set time? Or is it a momentary switch at a setpoint....