[Ichneumon]

AG: The amoeba, for instance, which has been exposed to Chinese ink, will remember the experience and refuse to go for it the next time. [I've not heard of this, nor could find anything googling -- not even anything about amoebae "learning" in general. Details please?]

Here is the link to the experiment: [SNIP]

That only raises more questions than it answers. Other than this one author's claims, I can find *no* other reference to such "experimental results". Nor is it even described as any sort of controlled test. It sounds as if someone (the author?) did a one-time test (or is he just describing a "thought experiment"?) wherein:

a) an amoeba ingested a grain of ink and spit it out,
b) and then later it didn't do the same when it "could" have.

From just the sparse description given, amoeba "memory" and "decision-making" is hardly a confirmed finding -- equally possible is the following less revolutionary explanation: The first time the amoeba was "hungry" (and thus experimentally "ate" something near it), the second time it wasn't. Or the second time it failed "catch the scent" of possible "prey". Or the second time it was "sick" from contact the first ink particle. Etc. etc.

Unless there's any sort of more controlled experiments which reliably reproduced the "results" while systematically eliminating alternative explanations, this one anecdote quite literally proves nothing whatsoever about why the amoeba may have failed to ingest a particle on a second opportunity after having done so the first time.

This is an extremely shaky foundation on which to erect an "all life has 'will'/memory/etc." conclusion. As I mentioned earlier, it's easy to anthropomorphize tropisms and other "mechanical" responses into "will", but that doesn't make it so.

[furball4paws]

"Here is the link to the experiment: [SNIP]

That only raises more questions than it answers. Other than this one author's claims, I can find *no* other reference to such "experimental results". Nor is it even described as any sort of controlled test. It sounds as if someone (the author?) did a one-time test (or is he just describing a "thought experiment"?) wherein:

a) an amoeba ingested a grain of ink and spit it out,
b) and then later it didn't do the same when it "could" have.
From just the sparse description given, amoeba "memory" and "decision-making" is hardly a confirmed finding -- equally possible is the following less revolutionary explanation: The first time the amoeba was "hungry" (and thus experimentally "ate" something near it), the second time it wasn't. Or the second time it failed "catch the scent" of possible "prey". Or the second time it was "sick" from contact the first ink particle. Etc. etc. "

I would like the link to this experiment. I've been nosing around and haven't found it yet, so I thought you'd oblige. As a microbiologist, especially one with more than a passing interest in protozoa, I's like to see it.