[MD] Emergence of Purpose

[ian glendinning]

MoQ'ers,

Is it a bacterium, is it a worm, is it a mushroom ?

In an earlier thread when I was trying to explain emergence, I made a
passing reference to a particular bacterial lifecycle that produces
some very strange emergent effects from many "atomic" individuals,
that look very much a higher form of purposeful life.

Those bacteria are a group called Myxobacter, and there are several
different species that all exhibit variations on this lifecycle.

(1) As bacteria, their normal single-celled life is to sit around in
their nutrient medium and multiply individually (vegetatively) by cell
division. Drop a few specimens on a agar Petri-dish, and they grow
into a spreading slimy mass on the surface. Situation normal.

(2) When they hit limits to nutrients (ie they "sense" starvation)
"they" do some funny things collectively.

(3) They start to "collaborate" - they start to "move" in blobs
en-mass - sometimes the motion is wavelike - like a flat caterpillar -
sometimes sliding like a slimy worm or slug - as if looking to find
more nutrients.

(4) If they continue to starve, they (collectively) try a different
strategy. They stop travelling and form fruiting bodies and lift them
up on stalks - like a mushroom made of zillions of collaborating
individuals - they individually start to specialize in their roles in
the collective whole. When ready, the fruiting bodies burst and
release spore-like individuals into the environment.

(5) Some lucky individuals land somewhere moist and nutritious, and
the cycle starts over again from (1)

The question that seems to raise itself is ... Clearly the single
celled-bacteria are already alive in our biological sense, but as
individuals have have no complex structures like brains, nervous
systems, or even primitive limbs for locomoton, such as we might find
in higher order living things.

Is that purposeful quest for nutrition, and the strategies for moving
and dispersing to find it, inherent in each individual, or is it
emergent from the complex arrangement and interaction of the
collection ?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=myxobacteria+lifecycle+images&btnG=Search

Have fun.
Ian