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Let slime moulds do the thinking (2010)

theguardian.com

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Re: Let slime moulds do the thinking (2010)

#11

Post by digging »

tobr wrote: post #10
revolvingocelot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try this lens: dragonflies are one of nature's most incredible predators, with a 90-97% success rate of hunts. The precise data varies, but almost all more complex animals have a dramatically lower success rate. Well, so what? Harbour porpoises have a ~90% success rate, too. It's interesting because dragonflies only have about 10,000 neurons, whereas harbour porpoises have like 14 and a half billion. Slime molds aren…

Those are some interesting numbers, but I don’t understand the connection. Slime molds are exciting because dragonflies are better hunters than porpoises despite having a millionfold fewer neurons?

Both slime molds and dragonflies are amazing because they flaunt much of what we know/believe about intelligence.

Neurons are obviously excellent at handling and developing "intelligent" behavior, but it turns out they're not as necessary as we thought and there may be extreme efficiency gains possible (for specialized problems) over what traditional neural architecture indicates.

Re: Let slime moulds do the thinking (2010)

#12

Post by throwawaymaths »

johnnyjeans wrote: post #8
throwawaymaths wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's of the same vibe as "electricity solves a maze" or "water solves a maze", imo

No, it's not even remotely comparable. Neither electricity nor water changes propagation rules in response to stimuli and pre-emptively employs techniques to adapt to changing conditions.

Water's propagation rules for solving a maze are in fact dynamic and definitely not what you might expect. I bet if you wrote a sim for it you would get it wrong on your first shot.

Re: Let slime moulds do the thinking (2010)

#14

Post by ta20211004_1 »

johnnyjeans wrote: post #9
ta20211004_1 wrote: post #2

I find the “super computer slime” stories that pop up every once and a while (including in academic contexts, occasionally), pretty annoying. Usually they have fun examples of problems these things can solve, but we don’t actually think they’re doing something fundamentally different from a greedy algorithm or trial and error optimization? And they’re slow as slow can be. So, not that exciting?

They're primarily exciting because they exist at a fringe of research and challenge prevailing biological dogma that specialized organs (specifically the animal kingdom's specialized organs, the nerves) are required for complex behaviors and intelligence. They are an extremely important research area for philosophy of mind and their study has only provided more and deeper mysteries. Slime molds aren't ready-made solu…

Thanks for your perspective and insights. I'll take a more charitable view on this topic in the future. :)

Re: Let slime moulds do the thinking (2010)

#17

Post by KineticLensman »

revolvingocelot wrote: post #7
ta20211004_1 wrote: post #2

I find the “super computer slime” stories that pop up every once and a while (including in academic contexts, occasionally), pretty annoying. Usually they have fun examples of problems these things can solve, but we don’t actually think they’re doing something fundamentally different from a greedy algorithm or trial and error optimization? And they’re slow as slow can be. So, not that exciting?

Try this lens: dragonflies are one of nature's most incredible predators, with a 90-97% success rate of hunts. The precise data varies, but almost all more complex animals have a dramatically lower success rate. Well, so what? Harbour porpoises have a ~90% success rate, too. It's interesting because dragonflies only have about 10,000 neurons, whereas harbour porpoises have like 14 and a half billion. Slime molds aren…

Dragonfly neurons encode an extremely good hunter / seeker missile algorithm but they can’t solve other types of problems. So it can’t be argued that dragonflies are generally intelligent. There is more evidence for bee intelligence.

Re: Let slime moulds do the thinking (2010)

#18

Post by TeMPOraL »

digging wrote: post #11
tobr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are some interesting numbers, but I don’t understand the connection. Slime molds are exciting because dragonflies are better hunters than porpoises despite having a millionfold fewer neurons?

Both slime molds and dragonflies are amazing because they flaunt much of what we know/believe about intelligence. Neurons are obviously excellent at handling and developing "intelligent" behavior, but it turns out they're not as necessary as we thought and there may be extreme efficiency gains possible (for specialized problems) over what traditional neural architecture indicates.

Except aren't slime molds on the extreme end of inefficiency, seeing how they solve problems by physically exploring the problem space? Being able to map the environment remotely, via senses like sight and hearing, and being able to solve problems computationally, "in mind space", are huge efficiency wins.
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