Animal Minds; bacterial cooperation (Animals)

by David Turell , Friday, December 11, 2015, 21:13 (3268 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: Thank you another interesting insight into bacterial society. I would suggest that the biochemical signals would denote the means of communication, not how the message is compiled. “Intelligently placed informational instructions” is a fine sounding phrase. I presume it means that your God preprogrammed bacteria for every single situation in which they needed to adapt to changing circumstances, cooperate, exclude the cheaters etc. etc., rather than his simply giving them the intelligence to work things out for themselves.-You presume too much. We know bacteria have quorum sensing. Simply this: if Bobby bacteria is exchanging nutrients with Betty but not Boris, he ignores Boris. Wa-la, isolation. It is just tit for tat. The instructions simply are: 'do unto others'.