Tuesday, June 2, 2009

The Intelligent Cell

At the level of the cell the new paradigm includes the idea of cell intelligence.
This link is fundamental to an understanding of this new idea:
http://www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/cellint0.htm
Are there reasons to think that cells are intelligent?
"The prevailing wisdom of modern biology [old paradigm] has it that cells are immensely complex, but rigidly operating chemical machines that derive their operating instructions internally from their genes and externally from chemicals and electrical signals emitted rigidly by other cells. Unable to believe that any machine can be designed that contains an instruction library which anticipates all the mishaps and glitches of a billion years of evolution without crashing over and over again, I began almost three decades ago to search for signs that the cell was actually a 'smart' machine. In other words, I looked for experimental evidence that cells contained a signal integration system that allowed them to sense, weigh and process huge numbers of signals from outside and inside their bodies and to make decisions on their own. " (Guenter Albrecht-Buehler)

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