Competitive Coherence Generates Qualia in Bacteria and Other Living Systems

Abstract

The relevance of bacteria to subjective experiences or qualia is underappreciated. Here, I make four proposals. Firstly, living systems traverse sequences of active states that determine their behaviour; these states result from competitive coherence, which depends on connectivity-based competition between a Next process and a Now process, whereby elements in the active state at time n+1 are chosen between the elements in the active state at time n and those elements in the developing n+1 state. Secondly, bacteria should help us link the mental to the physical world given that bacteria were here first, are highly complex, influence animal behaviour and dominate the Earth. Thirdly, the operation of competitive coherence to generate active states in bacteria, brains and other living systems is inseparable from qualia. Fourthly, these qualia become particularly important to the generation of active states in the highest levels of living systems, namely, the ecosystem and planetary levels.

The Sherpa hypothesis: Phenotype-Preserving Disordered Proteins stabilize the phenotypes of neurons and oligodendrocytes

“…To investigate the possible roles of proteins that are stable and that can interact with many partners in preserving the phenotype, we model the role of the interactions of a subset of macromolecules in determining the phenotype of the cell at any given time. In this modelling, we use a previously published, machine-learning program, Coco 28 , 29 , that simulates, at a very simple level, how a cell evolves into a differentiated state (Fig. 2 ).…”

“…In a pioneering investigation of such networks, Kauffman highlighted a fundamental problem that confronts cells containing many interacting constituents, namely, how such cells manage to obtain the reproducible phenotypes needed for natural selection to be effective when a ‘hyper-astronomical’ number of combinations of these constituents is apparently available 27 . The solution we favour is to consider the cell as a set of elements or macromolecules, out of which only a few – rather than a number limited only by the total number of constituents – are selected to determine the cell’s behaviour or phenotype at any given time 28 , 29 . This subset of macromolecules, which determines the phenotype, is selected on the basis that: i) the subset must be coherent (i.e., the macromolecules in this subset must work together and not against one another); ii) the behaviour at one time must be coherent with the behaviour at the previous time (i.e., any behaviour-determining subset of macromolecules must continue the work of the previous subset).…”

The Sherpa hypothesis: Phenotype-Protecting Disordered Proteins stabilize the phenotypes of neurons and oligodendrocytes

“…To investigate the possible roles of proteins that are stable and that can interact with many partners in preserving the phenotype, we model the role of the interactions of a subset of macromolecules in determining the phenotype of the cell at any given time. In this modelling, we use a previously published, machine learning program, Coco [28,29], that simulates, at a very simple level, how a cell evolves into a differentiated state (Figure 2). The idea here is to show that, during a learning task mimicking natural selection, conditions can exist that select a PPDP-like element.…”

“…In a pioneering investigation of such networks, Kauffman highlighted a fundamental problem that confronts cells containing many interacting constituents, namely, how such cells manage to obtain the reproducible phenotypes needed for natural selection to be effective when a 'hyper-astronomical' number of combinations of these constituents is apparently available [27]. The solution we favour is to consider the cell as a set of elements or macromolecules, out of which only a few -rather than a number limited only by the total number of constituents -are selected to determine the cell's behaviour or phenotype at any given time [28,29]. This subset of macromolecules, which determines the phenotype, is selected on the basis that i) the subset must be coherent (i.e., the macromolecules in this subset must work together and not against one another); ii) the behaviour at one time must be coherent with the behaviour at the previous time (i.e., any behaviourdetermining subset of macromolecules must continue the work of the previous subset).…”