"Nakagaki, a soft-spoken Japanese biologist, studies primordial mold and other amoeboid organisms. These creatures, which have been on Earth for nearly a billion years, have no brain, no central nervous system, nor anything resembling what modern humans might consider essential to "intelligence." And yet, through years of careful observation, Nakagaki became convinced mold was, indeed, intelligent. Extremely intelligent. It could solve problems, navigate complexity, and even make decisions."
"If intelligence requires a brain, why do brainless organisms behave like they have one? Why do they navigate obstacles with stunning efficiency? Why do they prune dead ends and reinforce useful paths? What, exactly, is doing the "thinking"? To test his hypothesis, Nakagaki designed an experiment so beautifully strange it feels almost like a fable. He recreated the geography of the Kanto region - Tokyo and its surrounding cities - on a giant agar [gel] plate."
Toshiyuki Nakagaki studies primordial slime mold that lacks a brain yet displays behaviors associated with intelligence, including problem-solving, navigation, and decision-making. In the 1990s, computational neuroscience emphasized neuron-driven cognition confined to the skull, but Nakagaki observed mold pruning dead ends and reinforcing useful paths. He questioned brain-centric definitions of intelligence and designed a striking experiment replicating the Kanto region on an agar plate, using oat flakes as population centers. The mold’s actions suggested a form of distributed computation or collective problem-solving that challenges conventional notions of where and how thinking can occur.
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