Show HN: I spent 6 years building a ridiculous wooden pixel display

"Remember?" this sounds more like we have so little observation of cells that when they respond to stimuli they have receptors for, we just never know that receptor existed.

Anthropomorphizing cells as anything beyond little machines seems silly.

shwaj•1h ago

You might want to look into the work of Michael Levin’s lab to give you a broader perspective on the intelligence of individual cells and tissues. Your machine metaphor is arguably as misleading as anthropomorphization.

Edit: did you read the article? The examples described go far beyond your straw man about undiscovered receptors.

Sniffnoy•16m ago

"Memory" can be used to refer to any form of statefulness, which is mostly what's being discussed here. I agree the article engages in some unwarranted anthropomorphism in some places, but there's still plenty of interesting material without that.

ravenstine•1h ago

I think the memory of slime molds (which are referenced in the article) can go further than merely relying on paths of slime they leave behind.

Recently, I acquired a sample of Physarium polycephalum and have been keeping it as a sort of "pet", if one can call it that. For those who don't know, slime molds like Physarium are actually considered a single-celled organism, at least when it's in its plasmodial phase. People typically feed them oat flakes because that's what they seem to love most, though I started trying some other foods to see what my little slime mold would be willing to eat. Carby things like pieces of bread, etc. The funny thing is that it seemed to really like those other foods, even multiple feedings in a row, but would then spontaneously refuse to respond to those same foods again. I've heard some anecdotes suggesting I'm not the only one to witness this. It really does seem like the slime mold is "remembering" at a level that may go beyond slime trails.