cell consciousness

[fourier jr]

I a guy I know (not me, I'm in math) believes in cel consciousness, which is basically says that cells sort of know what's going on around them & can communicate with each other (to a certain extent). He told a prof about it & the prof said the guy better not tell any other prof about it because it's not 'mainstream' or something. What does everyone think of cell consciousness?

[Tesseract]

I think that cells are cells.And that they have no conciousness.

[blike]

Cells know whats going on around them, and can interact with each other accordingly. This isn't due to cellular "consciousness", just finely tuned chemical processes in the body.

[Crash]

I would say cells are not concious...but somehow they create a concious being

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

They may interact, but that's due to chemical processes, not conciousness.

[Crash]

So your saying your not concious? or that your not composed of cells?

 

[edit] i was saying cells are not concious but somehow all the cells together make a concious being

[fourier jr]

They may interact, but that's due to chemical processes, not conciousness.

 

No from what I understand, cells know what's going on around them & can communicate with each other & are 'self aware' (something like that) to some limited extent, and it isn't just mechanisms or chemical reactions. The cells know what they're doing.

 

The guy made it sound like the the people in the department here think it's just a silly crackpot theory, but there are small groups of people who work on it. I just thought it sounded kind of interesting.

[Sayonara]

It is a crackpot theory.

 

Cells do not have consciousness. Biology doesn't even provide a specification for what or where consciousness 'is'.

 

Cells do communicate and they are aware of the immediate surroundings, but that is just biochemistry.

[Daniel]

I would think you need a brain to be conscious.

 

From what we know of cells, they don't have a brain.

 

But that doesn't stop them from interacting with the environment of course.

[YT2095]

cells are just basic building blocks, it`s how they are employed that determines consciousness, ie/ neural networks in the brain and the ability to forge links as a result of nerve signals from our external environment, making the whole greater than the sum of it`s parts

[Radical Edward]

consciousness, whatever it is cannot exist (in biological lifeforms like ours at any rate) without a level of complexity which is found in the brain. individual cells do not have this level of complexity.