Brian Hollander
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 1994 16:15:22 -0500 (EST)
From: Brian A. Hollander <afn08460 at freenet2.freenet.ufl.edu>
To: "HARRY R. ERWIN" <herwin at mason1.gmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Ionic Conductance
>> You can train Paramecia aurelia to run a simple maze, so there has to be
> some sort of data processing going on. The protistan cytoskeleton is
> believed to be the place where this happens; hence it is refered to at
> times as the neuroskeleton. Stuart Hameroff is doing a lot of this work.
>> Harry Erwin
> Internet: herwin at gmu.edu>>Thank you for answering my question about the "protistan neuroskeleton".
However your answer raises several quetions in my mind. How are the
expts. "training" P. aurelia done? For instance one could train
Dictyostelium amoebae to run a maze by laying down a graient of cAMP, but
I would not think that this really represents data processing, unless all
signal transduction would qualify. Does *any* tactile response represent
data processing? Would all cells then be neurons? Are these quetions
merely about semantics rather than about the bilogy behind the
response. Excuse these random thoughts, but if anyone cares to resond
I'll "listen".
Brian Hollander
