Page 44 - 20120708 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - July / August 2012

Beyond the Super Computer BEYOND THE constant contact, communicating through a the resource shifters. Those stranded in the SUPERCOMPUTER: wide variety of means, measuring their desert are deprived of nutrients, which their location cannot provide, of companionship, and, environment's limitations and opportunities, and SOCIAL GROUPS AS feeding their data to each other, then finally most important from the point of view of the group brain, of what might best be termed summing the product through collaborative SELF-INVENTION decision. In short, bacilli engage in many of the popularity. Meanwhile, those who find an MACHINES basic activities we associate with human beings. overflowing buffet eat their fill and command Here's how Ben-Jacob's work appears the attention and protection of a gathering Continued from Page 43 when filtered through the lens of a social crowd. They are transformed into leaders, learning machine's five principles: guiding the group mind. "For he that hath, to 1) Bacillus subtilis colonies utilize the him shall be given: and he that hath not, from In the late 1980s, University of Tel Aviv physicist Eshel Ben-Jacob and the University of most basic conformity enforcer--the genome, him shall be taken even that which he hath" which restricts the range of forms and of (Mark 4:25). Chicago's James Shapiro were perplexed. operating methods among the colony's Should things prove truly grim, Bacteria, which we are popularly regarded as individuals. The resulting semi-uniformity however, and even the most strenuous searchers loners, are extraordinarily social, clustering in makes it possible for each and every member of confirm that food is nowhere within reach, highly structured colonies. Traditional neo- Darwinism says that bacteria stumble from one the community to "understand" a common another diversity generator, the most startling of collection of "languages." them all, may rouse to meet the challenge. It is innovation to another by random mutation. But 2) Bacillus subtilis colonies employ a a mechanism which James Shapiro calls the a growing body of evidence has accumulated to indicate that bacterial mutations are not variety of diversity generators. Says Ben- "genetic engineer." Explains Ben-Jacob, "the Jacob, bacterial clones (genetically identical cell carries a complete set of tools for genetic completely random (Kiely, 1990; Weiss, 1990; offspring of the same mother) can assume self-reconstruction: plasmids, phages, Lipkin, 1995a; Lipkin, 1995b). Seemingly intriguingly different variations. Which each transposons, and too many others to mention,... every month fresh studies suggest that these dons depends on the chemical signals it picks up the same tools, in fact, used in the lab today for mutations may, in fact, be genetic alterations "custom-tailored" to overcome the emergencies from the herd around it. These cues activate or genetic engineering." A microscopic research deactivate individual genes, redrawing a and development squadron goes to work of the moment. bacterium's design and replacing its old recrafting its own genetic string. Ben-Jacob detoured from normal Which raises a question: does the physics and spent five years studying bacillus operations manual (Ben-Jacob, personal genomic skunk works merely trot out pre- communication, 1996). In the best of times, subtilis. Meanwhile Shapiro focused on such organisms as E. coli and salmonella. Unlike the when food is plentiful, the colony clumps fabricated parts which have worked in the past? together for the feast. Divergent appetites and Or is it capable of true innovation? traditional biologists who had preceded them, digestive abilities are vital to a gorging group's Explains Ben-Jacob, "We've tried both Shapiro and Ben-Jacob applied an survival. The bacteria which concentrate on exposing bacterial colonies to conditions so unconventional tool to their data: the insights mining the new food source produce a novel that the creatures could never have they had absorbed from the mathematics of poisonous by-product--bacterial excreta, the encountered them before. Tough conditions, materials science. Gradually their work equivalent of feces and urine. Other bacteria conditions of life and death. We wanted to know indicated that, rather than being a mere carrier adopt an entirely different metabolic mode. To how inventive the colonies could be in of construction plans, the package of genes carried by each individual subtilis functions as a them the excrement is caviar. By snacking reworking their genetic code. For example, we took bacteria that can't move on agar but are heartily on toxic waste, they prevent the colony computer. What's more, the genetic bundle from killing itself (Ben-Jacob, personal able to roam freely in liquid. We put them on the seemed to accomplish something even communication, 1996). wilderness of their worst nightmares, agar, and computers cannot achieve. Says Ben-Jacob, More diversity generators kick in when deprived them of food. The need to branch out "the genome makes calculations and changes itself according to the outcome." Unlike a the colony's banquet runs out. As famine in search of grazing land was a true creative challenge." By forming a modular network approaches, individuals send out a chemotactic silicon chip, the genome adapts to signal of repulsion, a signal that says "spread beyond the supercomputer, by assembling a unaccustomed problems by remodeling itself out, flee, explore." This prods roughly 10,000 group mind, the massed genetic engineering (Eshel Ben-Jacob, personal communication, groups of cells to act as scouting parties, setting teams were able to solve the problem. 1996; Ben-Jacob, 1993; Ben-Jacob, 1997; Ben forth in a trek which looks to the human eye like Thanks to the synergy of the conformity Jacob, 1998; Ben-Jacob and Dworkin, 1997; a spreading circle of fractal lace. Meanwhile enforcer, the diversity generator, the utility Shapiro, 1991).1 other cellular cohorts apparently set up posts in sorter, and the resource shifter, the colony was Reaching this conclusion left a puzzle. Gödel's theorem implies that one computer the wake of the outward advance and channel capable of something numerous humans never achieve--creativity. the findings of the explorers toward the center. cannot design another computer with more 3) At this stage the teams of pioneers 5) In a natural environment, the fifth of sophisticated computational powers than its (technically called "random walkers") utilize a complex adaptive system's principles would own. So how does the individual bacterium's the third principle of a complex adaptive presumably come into play: the intergroup central processing unit confront large-scale catastrophe, natural disaster so overwhelming system: the colony's utility sorters. Those tournament. Alas, Ben-Jacob has studied each exploration parties which find slim pickings colony isolated in its own petri dish, sealed off that it dwarfs the bacteria's solo computational have an internal device, the bacterial equivalent by glass walls from competing groups. But as abilities? The answer, Ben-Jacob hypothesized, of what British theorist Michael Waller, writing the resources which feed the bacillus subtilis lay in networking--in knitting the colony's about human beings, has called a "comparator run out, imagine what might happen if a spore multitude of genomic personal computers into something beyond even the massively parallel mechanism" (Waller, 1995). This gauge of another bacterial species were to drop in, a species which found the inedible plateau on determines that the outriders have chanced distributed processor known as a across parched and dangerous territory. Their which the subtilis was stranded to be more supercomputer. A supercomputer is only faster than its less sophisticated cousins, but does not mission, in short, has failed. The unfortunates nourishing than roast beef and Yorkshire send out an altruistic repellent which makes pudding. The race would be on. While the transcend many of the smaller machines' most others in the group avoid them, leaving them to bacillus subtilis reworked its genome in an basic limitations. However the "creative net" of starve in isolation. effort to gain sustenance from the now (to it) the bacillus, unlike a machine, can recast its Conversely, discoverers which barren waste, the newcomer would rush to form to face an unfamiliar challenge. Ben-Jacob has now analyzed thousands encounter a cornucopia of edibles have their reproduce, taking advantage of the fact that of colonies of bacillus subtilis to find out if his comparator mechanisms tweaked in the subtilis' inedible slabs are its entrée du jour. opposite direction. They disperse an attractant creative network hypothesis is true, and if so which makes them the star of the party. Continued on Page 47 what makes the collective information- 4) Now the fourth principle of the processor work. His conclusion: bacilli are in Visit Howard Bloom Online At complex adaptive system enters the petri dish: www.howardbloom.net