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Thank you so much for your reply, RWP and thank you for the link, betty boop!

Strangely, I had just located your post on the subject from a previous thread which I excerpt below for Lurkers:

Here's an interesting selection from Slavoj Hontela that elaborates this idea:

"Let us to observe the behavior of an Amoeba in the microscope’s visual field. We can see there an Amoeba, of Proteus species, slowly moving by stretching out its pseudopodia, looking probably for food. We place now with a glass pipette close to her few powdered pigments of a dried Chinese Ink. The amoeba stretches one of her pseudopodia to a pigment grain closest to her (evidence of a chemotaxic reaction or ability !) and involves the grain into her pushing it down to the nucleus where the digestive vacuoles are present. It is certainly interesting that the pigment transported through the pseudopodia towards the nucleus, doesn't yet touch the nucleus capsule when obviously the Amoeba recognized the undigestibility of the Chinese Ink pigment, the further transportation in the direction to the nucleus stops and the foreign body is quickly pushed back and finally eliminated from the Amoeba's body.

"From this observation it is possible to make already several conclusions:

"1) The amoeba was able to recognize and approach the foreign body which might be its potential food,

"2) A. was able to mobilize her pseudopodia giving them the appropriate message to approach this pigment and engulf it.

"3) With a certain delay which was obviously necessary to process the information related to the characteristic of the foreign body and the realization that it is indigestible follows another set of messages and the pigment was eliminated.

"We have to presume there were neuro-biological elements equivalent to those of more developed organisms and obviously there were present a appropriate number of genes ....

"The second phase of the observation experiment was even more interesting because it brought to the evidence the proof of the presence of memory. We have removed the pigment from the underlying microscopic glass dip, we put there a new drop of clear water and again placed there another pigment grain of Chinese Ink. The Amoeba stretched the pseudopodium to the closest pigment but did not touch it and, in contrary pulled back from the pigment grain. Obviously it preserved the memory for the identification of the indigestible pigment!

"It would be an exaggeration to speak about the mind or thinking but the period of might be 30 seconds which were passed by between the pigment taking and eliminating it; evokes the impression that the Amoeba needed a certain time to process the obtained information, i.e., it was 'thinking.'"

RWP, you said "You can extend 'learning' to a population, if you like, but I think that's an unwarranted broadening of the term, which makes it less useful."

I disagree. There is considerable evidence for collective conscious behavior among the species - from muskoxen to bees. The linked FR article and discussion explores this in many interesting ways...