Pushing Boundaries with Dr. Thomas R Verny

Prof. Nirosha Murugan PhD, Thinking Without a Brain


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We learn from Prof. Murugan that studies in brainless slime molds reveal that they use physical cues to decide where to grow. The physarum polycephalum i. e. slime mold, demonstrates how brainless organisms process information toward adaptive behavior. According to Prof. Murugan, a slime mold can use mechanical cues in its surrounding to reliably make decisions about distant objects and performs computations similar to what we call "thinking" to decide in which direction to grow based on that information. Scientists are becoming more interested in slime molds and similar unicellular organisms because in spite of lacking a brain or even a single neuron it can still perform many behaviors that we associate with cognition, like solving mazes, learning new things, and predicting events.

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Pushing Boundaries with Dr. Thomas R VernyBy Thomas