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originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Ghost147
Lol, this is my original one.
And wonderfully hideous.
The rectilinear crudite on the menu is particularly disconcerting. Live food?
originally posted by: ChesterJohn
a reply to: Ghost147
How have we established that consciousness happened millions of years ago when life began?
originally posted by: Kashai
a reply to: Ghost147
Bacteria know the difference between what is consumable and what is not that would constitute awareness of what one can eat.
originally posted by: Kashai
a reply to: Ghost147
The other Avatar is presents very humble orientation while this one looks like and Alien getting ready to eat something.
An interesting contrast....
According to a new study, bacteria can actually see by using themselves as camera lenses to focus light. In this respect, they go beyond just seeing—they sense where light is.
“The idea that bacteria can see their world in basically the same way that we do is pretty exciting,” said Conrad Mullineaux of the University of Freiburg in Germany and Queen Mary University of London.
Bacteria are well-known to be the cause of some of the most repugnant smells on earth, but now scientists have revealed this lowest of life forms actually has a sense of smell of its own.
originally posted by: Kashai
a reply to: Ghost147
In context though you are suggesting a car that gets its own gas and then splits into two other cars, that then are able to get there onw gas.
originally posted by: Kashai
a reply to: Ghost147
Hunger is a biological response to a condition that results in the feeding of every cell in the human body.
originally posted by: Kashai
a reply to: Ghost147
Dude seriously it looks like your avatar is about to eat something raw
Do bacteria have senses?
The foregoing catalogue of cognitive sophistication makes bacteria promising candidates for mental states - until we read the fine print. Bacteria do indeed possess sensors. According to John S. Parkinson, a professor of biology at the University of Utah, "most organisms - even bacteria - can sense sound, light, pressure, gravity and chemicals" (University of Utah, 2002). E. coli bacteria "can sense and respond to changes in temperature, osmolarity, pH, noxious chemicals, DNA-damaging agents, mineral abundance, energy sources, electron acceptors, metabolites, chemical signals from other bacteria, and parasites" (Meyers and Bull, 2002, p. 555). Bacteria are very sensitive to chemicals - for instance, E. coli bacteria have five different kinds of sensors which they use to detect food. As Di Primio, Muller and Lengeler (2000, pp. 4 - 5) explain, common bacteria like E. coli swim in chemical gradients towards attractants (e.g. glucose) or away from repellents (e.g. benzoate) - a phenomenon known as chemotaxis. Other bacteria display phototaxis and magnetotaxis, or movement in response to light and magnetic fields, respectively (Martin and Gordon, 2001, p. 219). Bacteria possess an elaborate chemosensory signaling pathway, which involves the phosphorylation (combination with phosphorus compounds) of a set of proteins in the cytoplasm of a bacterial cell (Blair, 1995, p. 489).
There are several philosophical questions relating to the sensitive capacities of bacteria. Should we call these capacities bona fide senses? For that matter, what are senses, anyway? Is there a distinction between sensing an object, and being sensitive to (or being affected by) it? And is the possession of senses by an organism a sufficient condition for its having perceptions (which, in common parlance, are mental states), or can an organism have senses without the capacity to have perceptions?
In principle, anything is capable of acting as a sensor: camera film is photosensitive, as are metals which release electrons when exposed to light (the photoelectric effect). The bimetallic strip in a thermostat is a temperature sensor.
A bacterium's memory is a consequence of the fact that its tracking system takes a few seconds to catch up with any alteration in chemical concentrations, enabling the bacterial cell to compare its present state with its state a short time ago. The number of receptors stimulated by attractive or repellent molecules (apparently this number is an average of measurements taken over a period of about one second) is "compared" with the number of receptors stimulated in the previous measurement (stored as an internal signal representing the average of measurements taken 3 seconds ago). The memory possessed by bacteria is minimal: it can store just one set of intermediate results, allowing bacteria to remember any changes in the concentration of attractant chemicals that have occurred in the past 3 seconds. We can formulate the following conclusion regarding the range of organisms with memory:
originally posted by: Kashai
a reply to: Ghost147
Agreed but what exactly would in purpose necessitate or make possible sight and smell?
Without a way to store information.
Do plants look for food? Or do they propagate where conditions happen to be favorable? If a seed falls on infertile ground, what then?
A plant is considered alive. in discussion photoelectric cells do not need to look for food, while bacteria do.
A bacterium, lacking sustenance, would die.
How would it respond in such an environment or alternative as relatable to this discussion.