Are paradoxes of amoeboid cognition, memristors, and memory mandating a re-conceptualization of actions and behaviors?

Abstract

Background From intelligent behaviors of individual molecules and primitive organisms to those with a nervous system and brain, nature displays a fascinating collective memory across time and space. Using certain electronic circuits called memristors, it has been possible to emulate several processes of memory and learning, including a predictive form of intelligence of simple amoebas.Purpose What is the core of such intelligent performances? Although memristors are able to effectively describe puzzling biologic behaviors, recent results challenge their very existence altogether. This paper asks what can be gleaned from the underlying controversy itself, which will be argued is analogous to the observer principle in quantum physics. It is hypothesized that the material phenomena of resonance and sync have a counterpart involving behavior and memory. This questions the prominent role of a causative agent, and which type of behavior or memory is being occasioned.Results Building on the theory of memristors, the challenge of their actualization, and puzzling behaviors of amoebas, this paper proposes that ‘resonating actions’ - that is, similar or interlinked behaviors beyond space and time - are enabled by an underlying field of potentiation or domain of influence, and not by a cause-effect relationship. Such linked behaviors resemble a form of ‘action coherence.’ Habituated actions, memory, and behavior may arise out of a similar field of consciousness (here, modeled as memristors). These principles may be at the core of many hitherto unexplained mysteries of collective learning and behavior beyond space and time. Although this study is based on amoebas, the key postulates are also of great relevance to human thinking, behavior, and performance (including the representation of illness), and have independently been confirmed in the fields of consciousness research and spirituality.