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Ownership psychology as a “cognitive cell” adaptation: A minimalist model of microbial goods theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2023

Kevin B. Clark Open the ORCID record for Kevin B. Clark [Opens in a new window]
Kevin B. Clark*
Affiliation:
Cures Within Reach, Chicago, IL, USA kbclarkphd@yahoo.com; www.linkedin.com/pub/kevin-clark/58/67/19a; https://access-ci.org Felidae Conservation Fund, Mill Valley, CA, USA Expert Network, Penn Center for Innovation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA Network for Life Detection (NfoLD), NASA Astrobiology Program, NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA, USA Multi-Omics and Systems Biology & Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Analysis Working Groups, NASA GeneLab, NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA, USA Frontier Development Lab, NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA, USA SETI Institute, Mountain View, CA, USA Peace Innovation Institute, Netherlands & Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA Shared Interest Group for Natural and Artificial Intelligence (sigNAI), Max Planck Alumni Association, Berlin, Germany Biometrics and Nanotechnology Councils, Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York, NY, USA
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Abstract

Microbes perfect social interactions with intuitive logics and goal-directed reciprocity. These multilevel, cognition-resembling adaptations in Dictyostelid cellular molds enable individual-to-group viability through public/private bacterial farming and dynamic marketspaces. Like humans and animals, Dictyostelid livestock-ownership depends on environmental sensing, cooperation, and competition. Moreover, social-norm policing of cosmopolitan colonies coordinates farmer decisions, phenotypes, and ownership identities with bacteria herding, privatization, and consumption.

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Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 46 , 2023 , e330
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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