Intelligence Without a Brain**
Romans 1:20 — “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”
We are a busy people—too busy with our jobs, our children, our entertainment, and the pride of life to pay attention to the world that was created by the Word of God.
John 1:3 — “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”
I was once as you are.
Ephesians 2:3 — “Among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”
Yet the Lord called me to task, granting me life in ALS.
Lamentations 3:23 — “They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”
He has turned my mind toward the wonders of His creation that most of us are too busy to perceive.
Romans 1:21 — “For even though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened.”
Look into a microscope and life is bursting out all over. Yet we are worried about everything life has thrown at us, never slowing down long enough to ponder:
What hath God wrought?
John 3:16 — “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
Consider this: slime mold.
Most people would recoil at the sight of it. Yet consider Physarum polycephalum. It has no brain and no nervous system, but experiments have demonstrated behavior consistent with memory, learning, and even anticipation of recurring environmental conditions.
In one remarkable experiment, researchers exposed Physarum to unfavorable conditions at regular intervals. The organism slowed its movement each time. After several repetitions, the researchers stopped applying the unfavorable condition. Yet at approximately the time the next exposure would have occurred, the organism slowed again.
What was directly observed was not conscious prediction of the future. What was observed was an organism responding as though it had retained information about the timing of previous events and anticipated their recurrence.
Scientists sometimes describe such behavior using terms such as “primitive cognition” or “primitive intelligence.”
I find the word primitive interesting.
We can observe what the organism does. We can measure its behavior. We can repeat experiments. But we still do not completely understand how an organism without a brain or nervous system accomplishes all that we observe.
The observable fact should come first. What we choose to call that behavior is a separate question.
Romans 1:22 — “Professing to be wise, they became fools.”
Its abilities become even more remarkable when food is involved.
Researchers have demonstrated that Physarum can find efficient paths between food sources. When presented with multiple food locations, it grows outward, explores its environment, and then reorganizes its network, abandoning less useful pathways while maintaining more efficient connections.
Researchers have used this behavior to study optimization problems, including shortest-path problems and transportation networks. In experiments modeled after the Tokyo railway system, Physarum produced networks that researchers could mathematically compare with the human-designed transportation network.
Think about that.
An organism without a brain or nervous system produces networks sufficiently efficient that scientists study them for insights into problems we ordinarily approach with mathematics and computer algorithms.
Researchers have gone even further. Living Physarum has been investigated as a substrate for unconventional computing. Researchers have demonstrated experimental logical operations using its growth and electrical behavior.
This does not mean that conventional computer chips are being manufactured with slime mold inside them. These are experimental biological and hybrid computing systems. But the fact remains remarkable: scientists are investigating a brainless living organism for principles that may be useful in computation.
And Physarum itself is stranger still.
The familiar yellow plasmodium is not simply a colony of thousands of individual cells working together. It is one enormous cell containing many nuclei. That single cell can spread over a surprisingly large area and construct an interconnected network of tubes.
Through those tubes its cytoplasm flows rhythmically back and forth.
It responds dynamically to its environment, including chemicals, light, food, and other conditions. Without neurons, a brain, eyes, or a centralized nervous system, it explores its surroundings, changes direction, reallocates its resources, and reorganizes its physical network in response to what it encounters.
How does it do this?
That is precisely the sort of question science should ask.
We should distinguish carefully between what we observe and what we infer from those observations. If an experiment demonstrates that Physarum changes its behavior based upon previous experience, then let us report exactly that. If it anticipates a recurring environmental event under controlled experimental conditions, let us report exactly that. If it produces an efficient network between food sources, let us measure the network and compare it mathematically with alternatives.
Then let us ask why.
I intend to do some of these experiments myself.
I do not know beforehand what my slime mold will do. That is the purpose of an experiment. I will observe it, measure what I can, repeat the experiment, and report what happens—even if what happens is not what I expected.
There is something wonderful about looking through a microscope and realizing how much remains unseen simply because we have not taken the time to look.
Look at the world with new eyes.
Study what has been made. Test it. Measure it. Ask questions of it. Distinguish what you actually observe from what you merely assume.
And when we discover something extraordinary, give God the glory for creating such a world—fallen though it is—and know that Christ will return and make all things new.
Revelation 21:5 — “And He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’”
Scientific references
Saigusa T, Tero A, Nakagaki T, Kuramoto Y. “Amoebae Anticipate Periodic Events.” Physical Review Letters 100, 018101 (2008). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.018101
Tero A, et al. “Rules for Biologically Inspired Adaptive Network Design.” Science 327, 439–442 (2010). DOI: 10.1126/science.1177894
Whiting JGH, de Lacy Costello BPJ, Adamatzky A. “Slime mould logic gates based on frequency changes of electrical potential oscillation.” BioSystems 124, 21–25 (2014). DOI: 10.1016/j.biosystems.2014.08.001