The Mental Life of Bacteria

What do bacteria think about? I'm sure that many will dismiss this question with: "They don't think about anything. They don't have a thought in their silly little heads. They don't even have heads." All true, from a certain point of view, but if we try to extract some sort of essence of intelligence, I think it comes down to the ability to make decisions based on information.

With that definition, I think that bacteria may stack up well enough against, say, certain Republican office holders. There are wide groups of bacteria, for example, that are equipped with little flagellar motors. If they run these forwards, they progress regularly in a direction - run backward, they tumble aimlessly. Many of them are additionally equipped with a sensing system which can tell if concentrations of certain nutrients are increasing or not. If they are swimming forwards, and the nutrient gradient is increasing, they keep swimming forwards, towards what is probably a nutrient source. If that gradient decreases, they reverse engines, tumble, and try forwards in another direction.

I wish our President had as useful a decison making apparatus.

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