Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ This Animal’s Behavior Is Mechanically Programmed

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This is the coolest thing I've read in a while. "In a trio of preprints totaling more than 100 pages (biophysicists Manu Prakash and Matthew Storm Bull) showed that the behavior of Trichoplax could be described entirely in the language of physics and dynamical systems...  the well-orchestrated grace, agility and efficiency with which the thousands to millions of cells in Trichoplax move... usually requires neurons and muscles - and Trichoplax has neither." I read this partially as vindication for some schools of embodied cognition and partially as vindication for the idea that we don't actually need cognition at all. Either way, it stirs the imagination.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Nov 21, 2024 2:55 p.m.

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