Do bacteria communicate among themselves?
This interesting article from wired - The Bacteria Whisperer tells about an intriguing phenomena: Bacteria communicating among themselves to create a higher level activity - as if the community as a whole responds to external environment. Wired says "
Bonnie Bassler discovered a secret about microbes that the science world has missed for centuries. The bugs are talking to each other. And plotting against us."
What is the significance? On the face of it, it seems like it is just something that science has missed for a long time. But there seems to be more to it.
First question is: Human beings treat themselves as 'independent minded' with free will. We even may include animals in the list of those with free will. But bacteria? And what kind of 'goals' exist to achieve? Are these goals only for survial instinct? Human beings would have goals like understanding 'what is the meaning of life?' and not just bother about survival. Do similar goals exist in bacteria?
Second question is, is there a higher inteliigence which operates through many (sometimes millions) organisms? It is as if we are all part of a bigger organism, which will show interesting properties. Simple example: The cells in my body may 'feel independent' and interact with their environment. We can even say there is intelligence. (What really is intelligence? But let us take that question some other time.) But they are likely to be unaware that they are part of body, and the body is controlled with a higher intelligence with totally different set of goals and environment.
So what can we learn from the bacteria that show collective intelligence? Seen from Indian Philosophy perspective, there is only observer, and observer and observed are not two distinct things. All the intelligence emanates from single observer. And we can only understand these things when we remove the assumption that 'I' is body, or for that matter, it exists in the first place. It is 'awareness' that is devoid of goals; and operates through collected memory; and is itself not limited by this memory. So, whatever intelligence we see around, is part of single continuous space and time, and so, shows itself in variety of ways. Including tiniest of living beings - bacteria.
-Vinod
This interesting article from wired - The Bacteria Whisperer tells about an intriguing phenomena: Bacteria communicating among themselves to create a higher level activity - as if the community as a whole responds to external environment. Wired says "
Bonnie Bassler discovered a secret about microbes that the science world has missed for centuries. The bugs are talking to each other. And plotting against us."
What is the significance? On the face of it, it seems like it is just something that science has missed for a long time. But there seems to be more to it.
First question is: Human beings treat themselves as 'independent minded' with free will. We even may include animals in the list of those with free will. But bacteria? And what kind of 'goals' exist to achieve? Are these goals only for survial instinct? Human beings would have goals like understanding 'what is the meaning of life?' and not just bother about survival. Do similar goals exist in bacteria?
Second question is, is there a higher inteliigence which operates through many (sometimes millions) organisms? It is as if we are all part of a bigger organism, which will show interesting properties. Simple example: The cells in my body may 'feel independent' and interact with their environment. We can even say there is intelligence. (What really is intelligence? But let us take that question some other time.) But they are likely to be unaware that they are part of body, and the body is controlled with a higher intelligence with totally different set of goals and environment.
So what can we learn from the bacteria that show collective intelligence? Seen from Indian Philosophy perspective, there is only observer, and observer and observed are not two distinct things. All the intelligence emanates from single observer. And we can only understand these things when we remove the assumption that 'I' is body, or for that matter, it exists in the first place. It is 'awareness' that is devoid of goals; and operates through collected memory; and is itself not limited by this memory. So, whatever intelligence we see around, is part of single continuous space and time, and so, shows itself in variety of ways. Including tiniest of living beings - bacteria.
-Vinod
posted by Vinod Kulkarni at 10:48 PM
