Biological complexity: cell molecular communication (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, January 28, 2016, 18:15 (3222 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Cells respond to molecular signals they are programmed to interpret:-A misleading introduction! The article does not say the cells are programmed to do anything!-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/01/160121121825.htm-QUOTE: "To decide whether and where to move in the body, cells must read chemical signals in their environment. Individual cells do not act alone during this process, two new studies on mouse mammary tissue show. Instead, the cells make decisions collectively after exchanging information about the chemical messages they are receiving.
"Cells talk to nearby cells and compare notes before they make a move," says Ilya Nemenman....-If cells were programmed, they would not have to exchange information or “talk” to nearby cells or “compare notes” or, above all, make decisions. The decisions would already have been made for them.
 
QUOTE: "A cell in position one only talks to a cell in position two. So position one needs to communicate with position two in order to get information from the cell in position three."
"And like the telephone game -- where a line of people whisper a message to the person next to them -- the original message starts to become distorted as it travels down the line. "The researchers found that, for the cells in their experiments, the message begins to get garbled after passing through about four cells, by a factor of about three.-Why are garbled messages a sign of automaticity? The image used here could hardly be clearer: that there is a degree of subjectivity within each individual cell, and it can affect the way in which cooperation works.
 
David's comment: Note that the cells identify the type of signal and the strength of the signal. This study implies automaticity. Bacteria studied by Shapiro are on their own and must be more independent so I believe they are also automatic but have a greater variety of programmed responses.-Identifying the type and strength of signals is the equivalent of our perception. The next stage is processing the information received, communicating it to others, and taking a collective decision. All these are hallmarks of intelligence, and not automaticity. Shapiro (like McClintock, Margulis, Buehler etc.) is quite specific in attributing independent intelligence to cells in general and not just bacteria, and this study explicitly describes cooperative, decision-making procedures, as opposed to automatic responses! Thank you for drawing it to our attention.