What is Slime Mold?
The single-cell organism known as slime mold (Pysarium Polycephalum) intrigues scientists. Is Slime Mold intelligent? What you mean by the word intelligent? Is its seeming ability to learn, solve problems, have memory and transfer its acquired memory to other cells enough for you to consider it intelligent?.
Why Astronomy?
Why is this entry and its entertaining and educational videos found under the heading “Astronomy”? There are two reasons.
- First, as a Mason you are admonished to study Astronomy in order to learn “the systems of the world, and the preliminary laws of nature”. What could be more preliminary than the laws governing a single-cell organism? One that has been in existence for at least 600 million and perhaps 1 billion years?
- Second, you may be surprised to learn the behavior of slime mold has been used to develop a computer algorithm to map the filaments connecting the some 37,000 galaxies comprising the known universe.
Slime Mold and Mapping the Dark Matter of the Universe.
A March 10, 2020 NASA Publication outlines how the complex filamentary networks used by slime mold in search of food resembles the network of filaments that tie the galaxies and clusters of galaxies together. This, even though they are formed by entirely different laws of nature. The first being by the preliminary laws of biological evolution and the second by the primordial force of gravity. This network is seen in the photo above and can be seen developing in the videos that are part of this page.
That insight inspired researchers to develop a computer algorithm to map the cosmic web structure. The NASA article is short and well worth your taking a few minutes to read. It is good kindling for the fire that is your mind.
Is Slime Mold Intelligent?
That is the $64 question with rich philosophical as well as scientific implications . A Scientific American Article that includes the second of the videos discusses how Slime Mold redefines what we mean by “intelligent”.
A Quanta Magazine Article notes that even though Slime Molds exhibit many of the behaviors that would be considered “intelligent” in creatures with brains many biologists object to this “devaluing” of the specialness of the brain. To you as a Freemason this philosophical objection may sound familiar. Many of the scientific discoveries of the Enlightenment, which were so crucial in giving rise to Speculative Freemasonry, met with similar opposition from Ecclesiastical and secular authorities. You will find this article is a great read outlining the work of French Biologist Audrey Dussutour.
Non-Human Scholar in Residence
In 1917 Hampshire College in Amherst. MA announced its first ever Non-Human Scholars in Residence. A short video which describes why this was done and what they hope to accomplish is included within the announcement. At the time of this posting, Physarum Polycephalum is still listed in the Faculty listing as a Visiting Non-Human Scholar.
You should consider how treating non-humans as colleagues in your research, rather than targets or objects of that research, has interesting and far-reaching implications. Implications that could affect animals used in research projects. This raises that question in an interesting and imaginative way.
The Videos.
There are scores of videos on the internet discussing Slime Mold. There is a very good 11 minute discussion of how Slime Mold works and what it can do on Wired
Three videos are posted below for your review. The first is an entertaining description of some of the experiments that have been conducted and their results. The second is the one noted in the Scientific American Article and shows some of the experiments with Slime Mold. The third is a more in depth description of the different types of Slime Mold and how they operate.
The most complete video is a NOVA presentation that was presented on Public Television. It is almost an hour long, and worth every minute of it. Unfortunately it is only available to PBS members or on Amazon Prime as The Secret Mind of Slime.