ULTIMATE COMPUTING - Quantum Consciousness Studies

126 Cytoskeleton/Cytocomputer
activities related to information processing in the cytoskeleton and connected
membrane proteins. The future emergence of nanotechnology (Chapter 10) may
permit medical intervention to be more specifically tuned to functions and
dysfunctions of the cytoskeleton.
5.8 Intelligence in the Cytoskeleton
Cytoskeletal gel networks have complex repertoires. Motile events within
non-repetitive muscle cells are dynamic, often transient and variable and not
strictly analogous to muscle contraction. Cells contain from two to five different
types of actin and these may combine up to ten different ways depending on the
presence of binding proteins and other factors. Certain actins polymerize in the
presence of calcium or magnesium ions whereas other actins polymerize only in
their absence. Non-muscle cells possess control mechanisms that dynamically
switch between monomeric actin, actin in a filamentous bundle form, and actin in
a geodesic gel meshwork form. Some cytoplasmic motility is the result of actin
myosin crawling, whereas examples depend on explosive polymerization of actin,
rapid disaggregation of actin filaments, or interconversion of filament bundles
into a meshwork (Satir, 1984). Microtubules, filaments, and centrioles are also
involved in these same aspects of cell movement and are particularly important to
orientation and directional guidance.
How can these diverse modes be coordinated Guenter Albrecht-Buehler
(1985) cites two basic requirements for cytoplasmic intelligence. These are
compartmentalization, which separates components engaged in various functions
to prevent chaos, and the information content. According to Shannon (1948)
information is not concerned with the meaning of the message but only with its
formal structure. As Marshal MacLuhan said: “the medium is the message”; the
cytoplasm is both!
Information can have spatial and temporal content: spatially a message can be
in the form of a letter or magnetic tape, and/or can have a temporal structure such
as a radio signal or movie. It is the very coupling of spatial and temporal
components in a dynamic sense that provides the medium of information.
Shannon suggested that intended signals be “unpredictable.” For example, a
meaningful text is a sequence of words and letters that the reader cannot
anticipate. In contrast, text consisting of an uninterrupted string of a single letter
doesn’t carry much information. Similarly in temporal messages such as radio
signals, the strictly periodic and therefore predictable carrier wave of a transmitter
carries no information. Only after the periodic oscillations of the carrier wave
have been modulated with unpredictable changes of frequency (FM), or amplitude
(AM) can speech or music be heard. At the opposite end of the spectrum, random
stochastic noise is equally devoid of information.
Albrecht-Buehler observes that cytoplasm is neither totally regular, like a
periodic crystal, nor totally random like a boiling liquid, but is an organized piece
of matter. Complex, intricate activities occur “in the midst of drowning thermal
noise all around and within.” The cytoplasm not only keeps its cool against the
thermal background, it routinely couples spatial and temporal components to
manifest information. One example of cytoplsamic information which is
independent of DNA/genetic control is the pattern of ciliary orientation in
paramecium (Figure 5.27). Extrinsically altered, “nongenetic” patterns are
maintained through one hundred mitotic generations (Aufderheide, Frankel and
Williams, 1977).
Albrecht-Buehler describes three possible and progressively enlightened
approximations to account for the intelligent actions of cytoplasm. 1) “The secret
of cytoplasmic complexity is sought in the very randomness of thermal chaos