Replies

I thought y'all might find this one interesting - beause it speaks of consciousness where it would not be expected in nature. This is from post 152 by betty boop on the Dismantling Darwinism thread:

It appears that the crucial difference between inorganic and organic entities is some type of consciousness, or some ability to learn.

Slavoj Hontela, a Czech physician, writes (Target Paper 55 at Karl Jaspers Forum -- http://www.douglashospital.qc.ca/fdg/kjf/), "How far this consciousness might be or should be considered as a 'mental state' or a simple nerve-reflect structure is not easy to decide.... Even in an Amoeba there are definitely signs of a memory presence. In regard that the memory is shown at the DNA molecule, in the process of 'repairing' it might be presumed [that] the memory proceeds the state of consciousness."

He then describes an experiment conducted on an Amoeba [emphasis added]:

"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 [a] 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[n] appropriate number of genes (I don't know how far the gene sequence has already been determined for the Amoeba species). In regard to the fact the elimination process of the pigment start[ed] already before the nucleus was involved, seems to support the hypothesis of involvement of the microtubules in the plasma.

"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.'"

Clearly, this is not a description of a state of full "awareness." But there is a very strong indication that some type of information processing was going on....

A while ago I ran into a website that had something on speculation of consciousness at the cellular level, but I don't have a ready reference. However, I just ran across this seminar by Dr Julie Theriot(That got my attention) here. Especially note the chase scene with the pursuit of the flagellar fugitive. It is striking. The actual topic is "Crawling Cells & Comet Tails." and the particular chase scene is 2 minutes into the seminar. You must select the webcam with audio.

I ran across this today as I was trapped in a waiting room. I read an article in "Discovery" about a Dr. Patrick Brown and the Public Library of Science(www.publiclibraryofscience.org) project. Later I wnet to the webpage and found the picture of Dr. Theriot. Needless to say she was more interesting than Watson and I looked her up on the net where I found the seminar. The seminar is over an hour but it is well worth it. Great stuff!