Slime mold solving a maze in the lab
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- Опубликовано: 20 сен 2024
- Here, see physarum polycephalum (slime mold) solving a maze in the lab; the mold was more efficient than graduate students at finding the exit route.
For more about the problem-solving power inherent in networks, see "Networked," (May-June 2010)
Via harvardmagazine...
OK, having done some more research, here's what's happening: The mold is grown on the maze, and then some food is placed at the entrance and exit. The mold moves towards the food, aligning itself along the most direct route between the two feeding stations. Impressive, although obviously not impressive enough for them to provide a video which clearly shows what is going on...
9 years ago.... wow... there's better videos now at least xD
Still wish there were way more tho
What is the maze made of
@@bigpapajuarez4625 It would be on an agar gel in a petri dish. I don't know what they made the walls out of, but it might be something salty. Slime molds don't like salt.
What is with the sudden jump cut from it spreading out to having solved the optimum path?
These comments are a lovely example of the Dunning-Kruger effect at work.
The "intelligence" is in how the slime mold decides which paths to prune back to achieve maximum efficiency. This is nontrivial when you consider the resources that the organism has to work with. Keep in mind that it does this without a nervous system.
PS i've studied these things for a while and they certainly do have an amazing capacity to be able to sense chemical cues (odour?) from food source places at some distance from an advancing front even in an environment where there is little to no air movement.
I don't understand what's significant about it. Maybe because I don't see how it solved the maze without exhausting all possibilities (filling the entire maze).
Wouldn't "bio computers" be more subject to viruses? ;)
The very fact that it 'exhausted' certain nonproductive pathways and yet learned from it is just one of the remarkable parts of this demonstration. The other thing that is not mentioned here is that this mold was just grown. In terms of speed, let's see a human baby or other 'intelligent' life form solve this maze in literally just hours after their birth lol. There is a reason why fungi are the most successful organisms on the planet, going back over a billion years on this planet.
@ThugRandles Yeah, I don't get it either. It looks like they just let the mold overflow the maze, then scraped away the growth everywhere but the optimum route and declared the maze 'solved'. I'm sure there's more to it than that, and it's probably quite impressive if you understand exactly what's going on, but the video really doesn't make it clear.
@akromachan Photoshop flood fill uses the same principle. Any perfect flood fill algorithm will solve a maze if there is a solution; it's not the most efficient method when you have limited time, however.
@super6plx As flensingknife says, it is "problem solving". Whether you call that intelligence is another issue -- I don't think I would either. This is NOT a case of bacterial growth and the unfed bacteria dieing. The reason that he line goes back to the source is that is is a connected mass of living stuff with food being distributed to the entire "organism" (somewhat like a giant single-cell but somewhat like a colony). It's much more like you and me than it is like bacteria.
From what I know, slime moulds are sensetive to chemicals in the air that lead it to food source.... It's not intelligent but just has great sensing abilities
It's just stimulus and response in action.... Every living organism does that
I don't understand how that image equates to it solving the maze though. It merely filled the maze, meaning it used all possible routes, so while one of those routes were correct, the others weren't.
You can't beat that!
How long did this take?
Actually it can, there are insect like antennas (if you wanted a comparison) which can detect resources around the mold. The mold then moves toward the resource as fast and efficiently as possible which causes it to solve a maze where the resource is at the end.
IT'S ALIIIIIIIVE!
@ahlegro Depends on your definition of intelligence. But it's certainly an interesting phenomenon, whatever it is.
@ahlegro It no more "demonstrates intelligence" than electricity does by finding the shortest route to ground.
This is a terrible edit of the video. I've seen the original study and the point is that after the slime mould has filled the entire maze it kills off all the portions that are not directly leading to the food source and thus had found the most efficient pathway through the maze. Not very impressive since a three year old could probably solve that maze, but think about a more complex system in which it would be beneficial to discover the most efficient pathway through. It doesn't have to be intelligence to be used intelligently.
KingBobulousIII in most practical situations where you might be forced to solve a maze, there is a faster way. A photo of a maze and an app that processes the photo to extract the walls could solve the maze within a second.
This isn’t intelligence. It’s chemical.
This isn't about "intelligence," it's about how a simple biological process can perform a problem-solving algorithm.
It's not that the bacteria is intelligent in this case but rather the rules by which the bacteria reveals the solution of the problem is intelligent. It is not anthropomorphic intelligence either. Now, since we are part of the Universe same as this bacteria is, the Universe found a way to solve a problem and through us became aware of the solution. This happens in the brain too where different neuronal networks solve different problems while other higher level processes "witness" the solution.
The "elephant in the room" might be that intelligence is not confined to humans, apes or dolphins. Maybe...One way to test it is to see if somehow we could communicate an idea to the Slime Mold. Perhaps give it an offensive symbol, and then explain why it should NOT form that symbol by some method. Then, see if the Slime Mold refuses to form that symbol. If so, then we have not only intelligence, but moral intelligence on our hands!
Just like the slime that are pols, crats and banksters. Always scheming for someone else's cheese.
err.. looks to me them there mold just filled up the ENTIRE maze~ and that's special why?
Nah, Photoshop is faster at solving mazes...
this is a real study....