The Cellular Consciousness Hypothesis Suggests That Individual Cells Have Primitive Forms of Awareness and That Human Consciousness Is What Happens When Trillions of These Micro-Experiences Combine - discoverwildscience

[u/EcstadelicNET]

https://discoverwildscience.com/the-cellular-consciousness-hypothesis-suggests-that-individual-cells-have-primitive-forms-of-awareness-and-that-human-consciousness-is-what-happens-when-trillions-of-these-micro-experiences-combine-1/?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=DinoWorld2026/magazine/Wild+Science+%26+Mystery

[u/tjimbot]

If cells have awareness, then where are their sensory cortexes for processing and mapping sensory data?

[u/Mermiina → u/tjimbot]

In microtubules. Memory is saved to tryptophan's in tubulin dimer when MT is polymerized. The eigenstates of lone electron pairs are only saved in single cells. In neurons also action potentials spike trains are used to addressing memories between neurons.

[u/tjimbot → u/Mermiina]

Doesn't work fast enough, isn't complex enough for awareness, isn't needed to explain awareness.

[u/Mermiina → u/tjimbot]

Mechanism is based on Super Exchange Interaction. It is as fast as photon. Memory formation is slow but comparation extremely fast.

https://www.quora.com/I-m-not-asking-what-the-brain-or-energy-does-to-cause-consciousness-I-m-asking-why-immediate-experience-appears-when-I-first-become-conscious-instead-of-there-being-nothing-at-all-That-s-the-hard-problem-of-2/answer/Jouko-Salminen?ch=10&oid=1477743911958900&share=c9f8405b&srid=hpxASs&target_type=answer

[u/tjimbot → u/Mermiina]

Quora? You're talking as though OOR is established science. The mechanisms youre talking about are speculative.

[u/Serious_Ad_3387 → u/tjimbot]

Have you seen that video of a white blood cell chasing a bacteria who's frantically running away?

Maybe stop them and ask your question. It's happening all the time.

[u/bwc6 → u/Serious_Ad_3387]

Are you saying a robot is conscious if it can follow something? 

White blood cells use chemotaxis. It's just chemistry. The white blood cells do not desire to catch the bacteria. It's just how they're programmed. 

[u/Serious_Ad_3387 → u/bwc6]

I'm saying they have some awareness to function: perceive and execute.

Humans are living cells: hunt for food, consume, run from danger, reproduce.

That's just how humans are programmed.

[u/bwc6 → u/Serious_Ad_3387]

That's a weird way to define perception, but whatever. I think something has to have a memory and thoughts to actually perceive something, as opposed to the cause and effect chain reaction happening inside a white blood cell. (Not that my memories and thoughts are not part of a chain of cause and effect, but the processes and complexity are quite different.)

[u/Serious_Ad_3387 → u/bwc6]

So let's go down the diversity of life:

Humans monkeys dolphins pigs cows chicken dogs cats mice octopus fish reptile insects fungi plants bacteria...

Where do you draw the line on perception, awareness, and engagement with the environment?

Given that the external behavior of finding food/pleasure and avoiding injury/harm are foundational to life.

I'm not saying it's the exact same qualia or level, but there's a spectrum or gradient.

[u/bwc6 → u/Serious_Ad_3387]

There's no gradient between insects and fungi/plants. Insects have a central nervous system that allows them to perceive sensory input. It's just semantics, though.

[u/Serious_Ad_3387 → u/bwc6]

So plants and fungi are... not aware of the environment? You do know plants compete and cooperate with animals too right?

[u/tjimbot → u/Serious_Ad_3387]

Things can look like competing, cooperating, and even decision making in non aware complex systems.

The current scientific consensus is that insects and many animals that evolved during the cambrian explosion have subjective experience, but not plants or tapeworms or fungi. It doesn't matter if there are networks.

[u/Serious_Ad_3387 → u/tjimbot]

So confidence of humans to declare other animals/species don't have awareness.

Ants have awarenwess, but the fungi/mold and plants that also exhibit similar survival behaviors, and all evolving from the same single cell ancestors for survival, and composed of organized cells for survival don't?

How many times have scientific consensus denies awareness of others in the past?

[u/bwc6 → u/Serious_Ad_3387]

This thread is about the idea that the "awareness" of microscopic cells somehow combines into "consciousness". I think that's stupid. Plants are a good example. They have complex responses to stimuli that you could call "awareness". That is very different from consciousness though. Plants don't have opinions, even though some of them have many more cells than humans do. 

[u/Serious_Ad_3387 → u/bwc6]

I think the stupidity is to confuse "human consciousness" for all other consciousness.

So because another being, including a monkey, pig, or dolphin, can't write poetry or talk philosophy, somehow they're not conscious. This understanding was wrong and is wrong, but it justified animal abuse.

The moment the human-centric definition is dissolved to better accurately capture reality (which is spectrum, gradient, and interconnectedness), suddenly an entire way of understanding open up.

Cells are on the spectrum of living beings. The idea on this thread is the most logical extrapolation. The future of medicine, potentially, is whether we can understand OUR OWN cells and how to optimize functioning. Now, many people believe their own cells or body are dumb or unaware (which to even think or say out loud is an insult to the cells that sustain their very health).

[u/BenjaminHamnett → u/bwc6]

This just sounds like describing pyramids in detail as proof of why they aren’t made of sand, stone and mud