Hi all, I was watching this program on TV about alien life, and how diferent it might be from us, and then i thought, imagining an alien life form practicly equal to us in terms of intelligence, are there other ways to design a central nervous system that doesnt rely on the neuron as its building block? The Neuron is the intelligence building block in our planet. It aproaches solutions by apliying previous patterns that seemed to have worked before, or using small ttep-by-step increments. Its like trying to solve an equation where everything is a variable and you tweak each variable every so slighty till you got it just right. So, do any of you believe that other intelligent life forms can develop using nervous structures dissimilar from the "neuron" concept? Thanks for your thoughts

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[Hugo Ferreira][Positronic Dreams][Colibri 3D Engine][Entropy HL2 MOD][Yann L.][Enginuity]
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I think it''s possible. Anyway, if all the universe is ruled by the same rules, and neurons are the optimal solution for organic processing of information, all organisms should tend to develop them. There are creatures in this world that could be cosidered "aliens" because of the chemistry their bodies are built from, and still, they have neurons.

I would argue that things such as our planet are organisms, with signals sent through rivers, clouds, and of course all organisms that compose it.

Hmmmm. Do jellyfish have neurons? I am guessing they do.

pUnkInner, your jellyfish post intrigued me, and I did a quick google.

Jellyfish DO have neurons, but they are more primitive in design as this website explains so well.

Aparently, even in the most "alien" of our earth beings, we still find the neuron...

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[Hugo Ferreira][Positronic Dreams][Colibri 3D Engine][Entropy HL2 MOD][Yann L.][Enginuity]
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quote:

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Original post by pentium3id
So, do any of you believe that other intelligent life forms can develop using nervous structures dissimilar from the "neuron" concept?

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I believe there definately is, just look at how limited the AI/learning field really is, its basically just neural nets, evolutionary algorithms, and fuzzy logic. A little too restrictive dont you think? Consider how new this whole field is - there must be more out there.

The problem with computer AI so far is that it has been inspired by biological advances, if we (computer scientists) can come up with a non-biologically inspired learning system, then theoretically such a sentient alien being can exist based around that concept.

I''m not sure what you mean by Intelligence but I believe that some of what our enzymes do is quite intelligent. There are complex metabolic processes that happen in sequence, are relatively intelligent and adaptive (such as the immune system, which afaik involves no neurons). So no, I see no reason to believe neurons are necessary.

I agree with ParadigmShift. First, what do you consider "intellligence?" How about these:

Bacteria have been able to elude antibiotics in a very short period of time. Penicillin was discovered in the 40s and by the 50s penicillin resistance was emerging. Bacteria also exhibit chemotaxis in which they are attracted to (or repelled from ) particular regiions by a chemical gradient. A sort of pathfinding, if I may make that suggestion. But, bacteria not only lack neurons they''re only one cell.

Viruses are able to infect, replicate, and essentially reproduce yet they''re even simpler than bacteria. They don''t have a metabolism, they can have as few as 6 genes. But they''ve come up with ways to hijack a cell''s replication and protein production pathways. They also exhibit drug resistance. Not only do they lack neurons, they lack cells. They are "supra-molecular assemblies," and the debate still rages on whether they are "alive" or not.

Are these things intelligent? Well, they''re able to "find" ways to survive while the most intelligent creatures on Earth try to destroy them. I''d love to hear other thoughts on this one.

-Kirk

I know this is a bit out there, BUT, if we''re going to assume that alien life exists:

The neuron is only the most optimal design here on earth. If there conditions were different (no saline, or swap oxygen with something else) there would be a different ''design'' for brains, and we''d all be saying that it is the most optimal.

The universe is kind of big... It''s near sighted to think that the Earth way is the best way at anything really. I would expect that we''re more likely 50% effecient at everything, until proven otherwise.

Cheers,
Will

Well, regarding bacterias and other microscopic single-celled organisms, they evolve more on Genetic Adapatation than on their central nervous system, which they don''t have.

Its like the spine in most mammals, the spine stores a lot of reflex actions, and acts sometimes without even asking the "brain", like when we touch something very hot, and we release it immediatly.

I see micro-organisms more in that category: pre-programmed reflex, instead of an actual problem-solving intelligence.

Also, i don''t agree with the "50%" remark. When comparing ourselfs to alien species (which is not possible) we tend to depreciate ourselfs a lot. We are quite well designed, and our Central nervous system is great for the environment we live in.

Geting back a little bit more on topic, the neuron, with its multiple inputs, weight analisis, remains a spetacular problem solving aproach, developed by nature.

If other beings can come up with something better, then hats off to them

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[Hugo Ferreira][Positronic Dreams][Colibri 3D Engine][Entropy HL2 MOD][Yann L.][Enginuity]
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Just had to post a little reference regarding the question whether a virus is intelligent or not.

In the books about Ender by Orson Scott Card, one of the alien lifeforms are a virus called Desolea (if I remember correctly), which is quite alike the viruses on earth today, but are in the books considered intelligent to a quite high degree.

I find this thought (and many other thought by O.S. Card) very interesting and intriguing, though I'm not sure wheter I believe viruses are intelligent or not...

/Kallepocket

[edited by - Kallepocket on December 2, 2003 6:10:48 PM]