Eli5: On microorganisms without brains, how does it move and do actions?
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Damn there’s a great text on this I can’t remember the name of, but it goes like this:
Imagine a simple swimming organism that has some hairs that it uses to propel itself forward and it doesn’t quite go straight.
It could have a very simple neural system – if it’s temperature receptors are at an ideal temperature it goes slowly, otherwise it goes faster.
If you were watching this you could easily assign it agency – it swims around randomly looking for ideal warm areas of water, then shoots off quickly if it’s too cold or hot. It clearly likes the warm and hates the hot/cold.
It easier to think about microorganisms as little machines that respond to stimuli. If you press a button on a machine, machine does X. It dosent think about it, it’s just programmed to respond that signal in a specific way. Now replace the button with stimuli like chemicals, light, gravity, and other natural things.
Damn there’s a great text on this I can’t remember the name of, but it goes like this:
Imagine a simple swimming organism that has some hairs that it uses to propel itself forward and it doesn’t quite go straight.
It could have a very simple neural system – if it’s temperature receptors are at an ideal temperature it goes slowly, otherwise it goes faster.
If you were watching this you could easily assign it agency – it swims around randomly looking for ideal warm areas of water, then shoots off quickly if it’s too cold or hot. It clearly likes the warm and hates the hot/cold.
It easier to think about microorganisms as little machines that respond to stimuli. If you press a button on a machine, machine does X. It dosent think about it, it’s just programmed to respond that signal in a specific way. Now replace the button with stimuli like chemicals, light, gravity, and other natural things.
When you touch something hot, you pull your hand away without your brain telling you to. There are other nervous systems beyond just the brain. Some organisms only have those other systems.
When you touch something hot, you pull your hand away without your brain telling you to. There are other nervous systems beyond just the brain. Some organisms only have those other systems.
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