Neurons do play a big role though.
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They very much are doing other work for us.
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Of course. There could be no emergent properties like consciousness until there is something to be conscious about, no?
Something that is permissive of self-referential data transmission. An amplification of subtle electrochemical stimulants evolved over billions of years
Single cells do not need neurons for memory. But they do need cytoplasm and cytoskeleton
It is the cytoskeleton that enables both intra-cellular as well as inter-cellular data transmission and reception. It is known that single-celled organisms do possess “memory”, albeit short-term at this level.
In reply to “Fascia”, it relies totally on microtubule data processing function in the cell’s cytoplasm and cytoskeleton.
“Our findings suggest that, in addition to its well-established role as a channel-forming protein, Cx43 can anchor microtubule distal ends to gap junctions and thereby might influence the properties of microtubules in contacted cells.”
You didn’t say anything about unconscious or subconscious brain functions. I don’t know what you were responding to, but it wasn’t my comments.
Microtubules are pretty much ubiquitous to all body cells.
They are not neurons, although neurons couldn’t function without them.
Scientists learn more about them every day, they are fascinating, they are important, unfortunately speculation of how important they are, easily out paces the science to support, said claims.
Microtubules are not the body’s God Particle.
Microtubules, the third principal component of the cytoskeleton, are rigid hollow rods approximately 25 nm in diameter. Like actin filaments, microtubules are dynamic structures that undergo continual assembly and disassembly within the cell. They function both to determine cell shape and in a variety of cell movements, including some forms of cell locomotion, the intracellular transport of organelles, and the separation of chromosomes during mitosis. (source)
The centrosome has several functions. The central one is as the major microtubule organizing center (MTOC) in proliferating animal cells: thus, it helps to organize the microtubules that form the mitotic spindle in dividing cells, and orchestrate a wide variety of cellular processes, including cell motility, signaling, adhesion, coordination of protein trafficking by the microtubule cytoskeleton and the acquisition of polarity. The centrosome has crucial links to the nucleus, the Golgi, cell to cell junctions and acto-myosin cytoskeleton that are very important in positioning it and thus shaping the microtubule cytoskeleton in relation to the cell and the organism (reviewed in [1]). The role of the centrosome in organizing cellular microtubules can differ from cell to cell and be regulated differently in different phases of the life of a cell. (source)
Write I won’t argue that “Signaling” is part of thinking, but that doesn’t make the signal all there is to thinking.
Nor that propagating signals is the only job microtubules are engaged in.
Respect the folds within folds of cumulative harmonic complexity inhabiting our bodily functions, by not jumping to simplistic conclusions before they have fully ripened.
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Write I won’t argue that “Signaling” is part of thinking, but that doesn’t make the signal all there is to thinking.
I believe it is. Whatever is being transported by is engaged in the thinking process.
Nor that propagating signals is the only job microtubules are engaged in.
Oh, I agree with that . The microtubule is the “speck of dust that wanted to be more”.
And evolution made it so.
Oh, okay, so the entire body is involved in thinking?
I can go along with that.
How could I not love that. 