Are You Human?

You’ll need to watch the video to find out.

Or you could come up with a darwinian explanation for the squid/bacteria system if you feel up to it.

But that’s not the real topic. The real topic is bacterial communication. Seeing as how semiosis is such a topic of interest here at TSZ please forgive me if this hs come up previously.

All bacteria can talk to each other. They make chemical words. They recognize those words.

Bacteria can distinguish between self and other. They employ intra-species communication.

Bacteria are multi-lingual. They employ inter-species communication.

The more we learn about life the less it seems biosemiotics is something to be laughed at.

63 thoughts on “Are You Human?

  1. Or you could come up with a darwinian explanation for the squid/bacteria system if you feel up to it.

    Interesting, isn’t it, that the control of light output is a “shutter,” so the bacteria blaze away at the same luminescence (and energy cost) regardless, and some light is just absorbed to keep the level of output appropriate.

    Inefficient compared to organisms that can produce their own light, but the squid does what it can with what opportunity gives it. Just as we’d expect for some life-forms under the opportunistic darwinian scenario, and not as we’d expect of a designer capable of thinking across separated lineages largely lacking in multi-geneic HGT possibilities.

    Glen Davidson

  2. Maybe the shutter was there all along, serving no purpose whatsoever until the bacteria came along to give it a purpose.

    Maybe the shutter was there all along serving some completely different purpose, until the bacteria came along and allowed to be re-purposed.

    We could make up stories all day.

  3. Mung:
    Maybe the shutter was there all along, serving no purpose whatsoever until the bacteria came along to give it a purpose.

    Maybe the shutter was there all along serving some completely different purpose, until the bacteria came along and allowed to be re-purposed.

    We could make up stories all day.

    Amazing how far from the point that is.

    Glen Davidson

  4. Mung,

    The more we learn about life the less it seems biosemiotics is something to be laughed at.

    Speaking of which, when is Upright Biped going to launch his website? He’s five months late.

  5. … or are you dancer? On your knees looking for the answer.

    Even in the depths of the oceans, a Designer has to interfere, as organisms simply cannot change and attain anything with enhanced survival value without it. That what you’re saying?

  6. Good talk. How much of the work was inspired by the field of biosemiotics, as opposed to (say) molecular biology?

  7. Mung,

    The more we learn about life

    Who is this “we” you speak of? You and the UD gang?

  8. Perhaps the ID explanation could be published at Biocomplexity. They apparently need material.

  9. Allan Miller:
    Good talk. How much of the work was inspired by the field of biosemiotics, as opposed to (say) molecular biology?

    I think it can be both at the same time. It is two different levels of explanation and how they can co-develop, re-enforce, and challenge each other to improve.

    I understand that some of biosemiotics is about introducing notions of final causation and formal causation into biology, but in a way that is compatible with efficient causation.

    Final causation is about purpose and teleology. In the Ted talk, the purpose of the signalling for the (eg) toxic bacteria was to wait until there were enough of them to have an effect on the host organism. Natural selection provides a materialistic explanation for the final causation in this case. Bacteria which do not respond to the signal will be less fit.

    Formal causation is about downward causation: the structure of the whole causing changes in the interaction of the parts. In the Ted talk, the presence of enough bacteria organized so their chemical signals could reach each other caused them all to light up. There is nothing magic (non-physical, non-local) in this emergent cause: the causes of any given bacteria lighting up are still local to that bacteria (its chemical make-up and the immediately surrounding density of the signal chemical).

    The idea for new type of antibiotic is an example of co-evolution of levels and positive level-crossing influence.

  10. Mung: Thanks for posting this great example of the ideas KN was describing in another thread in his discussions with WJM on norms and how they arise from the conditions for life of an organism.

    Here the norms apply to the bacteria. Which is a right signal and what is a wrong signal? A wrong signal would be one that does not conform to the evolved functional standard for influencing other bacteria. And that standard is embedded in the way of life for the bacteria.

    Of course, humans are more complicated than bacteria. For one thing, we have developed dual process reasoning. And we have both biological development and cultural development and so there are two levels of ways of life that have to be considered.

    Is system 1 reasoning mainly biologically-developed and system 2 mainly culturally developed? How did the development of language influence system 2 and its development? I have the answers but they are are too long for this edit box.

  11. Mung:
    Maybe the shutter was there all along, serving no purpose whatsoever until the bacteria came along to give it a purpose.

    Maybe the shutter was there all along serving some completely different purpose, until the bacteria came along and allowed to be re-purposed.

    We could make up stories all day.

    We could. They’re called hypotheses. Next task is to devise hypotheses that have unique entailments, and figure out how to do empirical research that tests for those entailments. That’s hard work.

    ID stops at “make up a story.”

  12. Allan Miller: a Designer has to interfere

    why is it considered interference for a designer to interact with his design? Maybe it was designed in such a way as to make interaction an intricate part of the process.

    sort of like performance art

    peace

  13. Reciprocating Bill:

    ID stops at “make up a story.”

    ID is not a person it could not stop or start if it wanted to. Some folks who cotton to the ID idea stop at “make up a story.” some do not.

    The same could be said of people who reject ID

    peace

  14. fifthmonarchyman: why is it considered interference for a designer to interact with his design? Maybe it was designed in such a way as to make interaction an intricate part of the process.

    sort of like performance art

    peace

    Can you specify empirical entailments unique to “designed in such a way as to make interaction with a designer an intricate part of the process?” Such that if those entailments are found to be absent, your hypothesis is disconfirmed?

    If so, get to work!

    If not, you’ve the the entirety of the ID community to keep you company.

  15. Reciprocating Bill: If so, get to work!

    I am working, Not as fast as I should but that is mainly do laziness.

    Reciprocating Bill: If not, you’ve the the entirety of the ID community to keep you company.

    I’ve never met the illusive “ID community” you keep talking about. Perhaps there is a secret fortress somewhere where they get together and discuss world domination but Ive never been invited.

    peace

  16. fifthmonarchyman: I’ve never met the illusive “ID community” you keep talking about.

    Are you really going to claim that you don’t know to whom I refer when I say, “The ID community?”

  17. Reciprocating Bill: Are you really going to claim that you don’t know to whom I refer when I say, “The ID community?”

    No I’m going to claim that there is no such thing as an organized ID community. It’s like saying the holographic universe community

    It’s really just a few guys who find the idea interesting and are exploring it in various different ways some potentially fruitful others not so much .

    If your side could somehow get over the idea of a vast secret cabal plotting to ruin all your fun it would make discussion easier and maybe save you some stress.

    peace

  18. fifthmonarchyman: It’s really just a few guys who find the idea interesting and are exploring it in various different ways some potentially fruitful others not so much .

    Okay. If you are unable to specify empirical entailments unique to “designed in such a way as to make interaction with a designer an intricate part of the process,” such that if those entailments are found to be absent your hypothesis is disconfirmed, you’ll have them to keep you company.

  19. Reciprocating Bill: If you are unable to specify empirical entailments unique to “designed in such a way as to make interaction with a designer an intricate part of the process,”

    stay tuned

  20. fifthmonarchyman: No I’m going to claim that there is no such thing as an organized ID community.

    It’s true. IDist have no mutually consistent ideas; just hatred of nonbelievers. A confederation of folks still nursing grudges against Galileo.

  21. Reciprocating Bill: Can you specify empirical entailments unique to “designed in such a way as to make interaction with a designer an intricate part of the process?” Such that if those entailments are found to be absent, your hypothesis is disconfirmed?

    And not only testable “in principle” but have actually implement replicable measurements, generate a fruitful research program that opens up new lines of empirical inquiry, and so forth.

    It’s laughable to me that so many people who have no scientific training and very little understanding of science insist on making claims that they put on an epistemic par with scientific claims. (And yes, I do understand that that means I’m laughing at at least 90% of human beings.)

    .

  22. Reciprocating Bill: Whatever could you mean? I’m neither a radio nor a musical instrument, and couldn’t stay tuned if I wanted to.

    I think intends to bless us with an online version of the program that couldn’t distinguish a sonnet from random characters.

  23. petrushka: I think intends to bless us with an online version of the program that couldn’t distinguish a sonnet from random characters.

    I figured that. I’m spoofing FMM’s periodic affliction with worm-tongue. Recent symptoms: “ID is not a person it could not stop or start if it wanted to” and “I’ve never met the illusive “ID community” you keep talking about.” As if he didn’t understand the referents of my statements.

  24. fifthmonarchyman: Some folks who cotton to the ID idea stop at “make up a story.”

    Oh, do please link us to the scientific journal results of some of those ID folk who did NOT stop at making up an ID story.

    Your usual bible verses won’t help you now, fifth.

  25. Kantian Naturalist: (And yes, I do understand that that means I’m laughing at at least 90% of human beings.)

    It’s okay. We’re all worth laughing at. Some more than others. 🙂

  26. I find bacterial quorum sensing to be fascinating

    How is it determined how many cells constitute a quorum? 1 million bacteria and the light remains off 1 million and 1 and it comes on. The question is why?

    It looks to me like it’s yet another instance of the problem of the one and the many.

    peace

  27. This bacteria/squid thing seems very inefficient and wasteful to me. Ignoring the need for the shutter, there is also the need to provide the bacteria with sufficient food to perform all of their biological functions, only a small part of which is the production of light. Then the need to support them in log phase growth after the squid has expelled most of them. It seems to me that the designer could simply provide the squid with the ability to produce luciferin and luciferase as needed. Much less energy required.

  28. So we went back to molecular biology and started studying different bacteria, and what we’ve found now is that in fact, bacteria are multilingual. They all have a species-specific system — they have a molecule that says “me.” But then, running in parallel to that is a second system that we’ve discovered, that’s generic. So, they have a second enzyme that makes a second signal and it has its own receptor, and this molecule is the trade language of bacteria. It’s used by all different bacteria and it’s the language of interspecies communication. What happens is that bacteria are able to count how many of me and how many of you. They take that information inside, and they decide what tasks to carry out depending on who’s in the minority and who’s in the majority of any given population.

    I think it’s very interesting that this is something shared by all bacteria. Can anyone provide details about what molecules she’s talking about in the video?

    I’d like to know if there is anything similar in the other major domains of life. IS this something common to all cells or only bacteria?

  29. Mung: I’d like to know if there is anything similar in the other major domains of life. IS this something common to all cells or only bacteria?

    Let me ask how cells know to differentiate and when to stop multiplying.

    Most genes were invented by microbes. They had three billion years to invent cool stuff before it was co-opted by multicellular organisms.

  30. Mung, you are a colony whose cells diverged from a single cell. Do you imagine there’s no communication required for a multi-celled organism to develop all its organs?

  31. Mung: I don’t understand the motivation for your question.

    I was responding to your question. You asked if any cells aside from bacteria could count how many of me and how many of you.

  32. petrushka:

    Mung, you are a colony whose cells diverged from a single cell. Do you imagine there’s no communication required for a multi-celled organism to develop all its organs?

    Possibly little known fact.

    Alan Turing wrote one of the seminal papers in the related field of morophogenesis (how chemicals influence size, shape, color patterns, etc during development.)

  33. fifthmonarchyman,

    why is it considered interference for a designer to interact with his design?

    It’s just a word. Replace it with any other you like. Interact, tinker, fiddle, adjust, reprogram, reparameterise, optimise … hardly the point.

    Maybe it was designed in such a way as to make interaction an intricate part of the process.

    Maybe shmaybe. Anything but put the Designer out of business, right? He MUST be in there somewhere. He simply must. Doing something somehow.

  34. It’s amusing that the squid is using this elaborate system as part of its hunting strategy. Hunting other organisms with ‘exquisitely designed’ defences. Designers seemingly go to an enormous amount of trouble to overcome their own work. Multiple-designer theory is a much more plausible version (though obviously, I like No-Designer better still, as it avoids ad hoc causes and excessive use of the word ‘maybe’).

  35. Someone just forwarded this to me. Not totally relevant here, but….

    http://www.dispatchtimes.com/female-tungara-frogs-may-be-irrational-when-choosing-their-mate/70009/

    Science
    Female Tungara Frogs May be ‘Irrational’ When Choosing Their Mate
    by Newsmediaon August 30, 2015

    Picking a mate is one of the most important decisions anyone (human or animal) makes in a lifetime, so it’s important to weigh all the pros and cons and make a rational decision. But that doesn’t go for frogs. Female túngara frogs often exhibit irrational behavior when choosing a mate.

    These small but very loud frogs (males use loud calls to lure mates) were studied by Amanda M. Lea and Michael J. Ryan, biologists from the University of Texas (Ryan lab). It turned out that female frogs care nothing about looks.

    Some males make the longer “whines” and some make the “whine” and then a lower-frequency “chuck”, the females had a choice to make. “They tend to like longer calls”. So researchers put two different speakers and played “frog voices” – a fast and loud one, and a slow record. All the females chose the first option. But then, scientists added a third option: a call just like the slow, rejected one, except this one was much slower. And females now went for the rejected second option.

    However, the finding does not necessarily indicate that the frogs had made a wrong decision. “The interesting and surprising thing is you actually get this reversal of preference”. “We’re still trying to figure out exactly how it’s working”, says Lea.

    So think about it guys, if you’re unattractive and want to pick up some girls, just have a more unattractive wingman. That has to work – at least if you’re a frog.

    “People are really interested in this because it’s such a common thing for people”, says Amanda Lea in a quote reported by a news source. This action resembles a human behavior known as the “decoy effect”.

    Scientists see the decoy effect in all sorts of decision-making – among humans and other animals, too, says David Stephens, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Minnesota.

    The decoy effect is a popular marketing trick wherein a customer’s preference between two options is changed when presented with a third unappealing option.

    The results of this study counter the rational choice models that are now used in sexual selection theory, suggesting they may prove inadequate to explain decisions in socially complex and dynamic mating arenas.

    Lea says future studies may explore what causes the switch in preference, as well as the evolutionary impact of choosing a less attractive – and possibly genetically inferior – mate.

    For more information see: Irrationality in mate choice revealed by túngara frogs, Science 28 August 2015: Vol. 349 no. 6251 pp. 964-966.

  36. walto:
    Someone just forwarded this to me. Not totally relevant here, but….

    http://www.dispatchtimes.com/female-tungara-frogs-may-be-irrational-when-choosing-their-mate/70009/

    I think it is even more relevant to KN’s posts about norms and how they arise in the conditions for life. Here the norm is about “what is the right call to choose a mate by?”.

    I saw an analogous article which talked about how the cognitive biases in human system 1 (biases according to by system 2, that is) can be seen as correct when the norms for system 1 are recognized as probabilistic, and not the deduction-based norms applied by system 2 to rational arguments.

  37. BruceS,

    What I don’t see is any input from the supposed field of biosemiotics. It seems a bit niche, and what little I’ve read seems mostly about telling people what a great and promising new field it is, rather than actually gaining insight into any process.

    But cell signalling has been known for years. What’s a hormone, FFS? Or acetylcholine?

  38. fifthmonarchyman,

    How is it determined how many cells constitute a quorum? 1 million bacteria and the light remains off 1 million and 1 and it comes on. The question is why?

    I think the fundamental reason for it remains obscure. It happens mainly at night. Bacteria themselves supposedly cannot detect the light they emit, but they must be able to tell it’s night!

    Perhaps a design theorist could offer some insight as to why it happens, and make a positive contribution for a change.

    The quorum sensing is less mysterious though. Given that luminescence takes about 20% of a cell’s precious energy budget, it obviously makes sense to keep your light off unless your fellows are doing it too. You have two possible reasons – it is maladaptive to waste energy when your immediate competitors are not, and it is probable that the effect of a single cell’s photons is insufficient to reap the reward (whatever that is).

    Bearing in mind that large numbers of genetically identical cells are produced from a singleton, a single luminescent individual could soon spawn a whole tribe, and trigger the multi-cell benefit. Within such a clade, a second mutation allowing tuning of the pathway for energy-conservative reasons would also be expected to spread rapidly.

  39. Allan,

    Given that luminescence takes about 20% of a cell’s precious energy budget, it obviously makes sense to keep your light off unless your fellows are doing it too.

    It makes even more sense to keep your light off when theirs are on. That way you save the energy but still reap the benefit, whatever it happens to be.

    Of course, if too many individuals take that approach, the light is too weak and the benefit is lost.

  40. walto,

    Damnable free rider cells! X>{

    Freeloading pops up everywhere. It seems to be one of the Designer’s favorite motifs, along with parasitism and senseless arms races.

  41. keiths,

    Depends what the benefit is. If it is related to being taken up to provide light for a multicellular eukaryote, it makes no sense to cheat. The cells in a eukaryotic system such as the squid are derived from a small inoculum. If a cheat in that inoculum leaves a disproportionate number of descendants, the light will be feeble, their host loses its selective edge, and hence so do they. They may dominate that population, but they don’t get very far.

    Giving genes common cause is a great way to get them to co-operate. In certain systems, cheating is self-defeating.

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