“Polycephalum’s type of organism is thought to have existed for roughly a billion years though it has only been studied intensively in recent decades. It is technically called a “protist” (a catch-all category for life forms that are hard to classify). It makes decisions with no apparent source of intelligence.”
Tag: slime molds
Could the 2.1 billion-year-old organism have been like a slime mold?
The behavior of the slime mold (if that’s what it is) sounds altogether too modern for Dr. Cohen’s liking. That’s understandable. See, for example, “Is an amoeba smarter than your computer? (yes, in certain respects, it is) The trouble is, many forms of behaviour, like nest-sharing and parental care, have been found earlier than expected. We shall see.
The amoeba that might be smarter than your computer
Nature is full of intelligence but mostly it does not resemble human intelligence. In some ways it works better than computer intelligence.