Participants Papers PRINCIPLES OF MINIMAL COGNITION IN SMART SLIME MOLDS AND SOCIAL BACTERIA ÓSCAR CASTRO GARCÍA Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona Segurilla Astronomical Observatory (OAS) ABSTRACT: The perception of the environment as well as sensorimotor coordination of unicellulars organisms competence as the foundation of a cognitive principle that goes beyond minimum metabolic processes. I study the recognition of the environment in case of slime mold and bacteria as significant learning processes in differentiating between hostile environment or optimal and physical transformations of each agency on the basis of received signals in both the membrane and within the agencies. Sensorimotor coordination mechanisms of metabolic adaptation expanded shapes. Some of these coordination mechanisms are linked to the perception with the environment through pulses, as temporal processing of signals. KEY WORDS: Umwelt, subjectual, enaction, haptic perception, Weber-Fechner Law, bio-fenomenology. RESUMEN: La percepción del entorno, así como la coordinación sensomotora de los organismos unicelulares competen como fundamentos de un principio cognitivo mínimo que va más allá de los procesos metabólicos. Trato de estudiar el reconocimiento del entorno en el caso de los mixomicetos y de las bacterias como los procesos significativos de aprendizaje en la diferenciación entre entorno hostil u óptimo, y en las trasformaciones físicas de cada organismo en función de las señales recibidas tanto en la membrana como en el interior de los organismos. Los mecanismos de coordinación sensomotora expanden formas de adaptación metabólica. Algunos de estos mecanismos de coordinación están ligados a la percepción con el entorno a través de pulsos, según el procesamiento temporal de las señales. PALABRAS CLAVE: Umwelt, subjectual, enacción, percepción háptica, Ley de Weber-Fechner, biofe- nomenología. 1. COGNITION IN SLIME MOLDS One of the clearest and most surprising turn in favor of accepting «intelligent behavior» in cognitive biology has been revised through real slime molds or myxomycetes. The Physarum polycephalum is a kind of mixogastreas that varying its structure to amoeboid plasmodium or sclerotium on favorable or unfavorable environment depending and their nutritional needs. When his phase is amoeba, this is the plasmodium authentic polynuclear with a single membrane, which maintains a topological unity, something significant in his description as an autopoietic system. It has been demonstrated that the Physarum polycephalum can find the shortest route through a maze to locate food sources placed at exits, and so absorb the maximum amount of nutrients in the shortest time possible (Nakagaki, Yamada and Toth, 2000; Nagakaki, 2001) 1 . This suggests that the cell is able to «smart behavior», even in complex situations © PENSAMIENTO, ISSN 0031-4749 PENSAMIENTO, vol. 67 (2011), núm. 254, pp. 787-797 1 As the speed of locomotion of Physarum polycephalum is 1 cm/h, the transport of intracellular material in tubes that are built with greater thickness increases to reach a top speed of 1mm/s.