This has been all over popular science media over the last week or so, but I want to flag it here. "Hundreds of thousands of human neurons growing in a dish coated with electrodes have been taught to play a version of the classic computer game Pong." Now sure, playing Pong doesn'rt require a towering intellect. But it requires some intellect, and rather more than we would normally associate with a pile of disembodied neural cells. Learning is much more basic that commonly assumed, and yes, it's something very simple organisms can do. Our understanding of learning ought to reflect that.
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