Reshma Joy

This review article explores the concept of the bacterial other by highlighting numerous ways bacteria recognize and interact with organismal and non-organismal entities in their environment. It expounds two patterns of bacterial otherness by drawing multiple examples from basal cognition and sociomicrobiology. These two patterns are the non-organismal other, i.e., the physical entities in the bacterial environment, and the organismal other, the living entities in the bacterial environment. By detailing numerous processes such as chemotaxis, learning, memory, kin recognition, altruism, predation, and cooperation, and analyzing these patterns of bacterial interactions, this review article also attempts to make a case for microbial bodily self

Xenobot, the world’s first biological robot, puts numerous philosophical riddles before us. One among them pertains to the cognitive status of these entities. Are these biological robots cognitive? To evaluate the cognitive status of xenobots and to resolve the puzzle of a single mind emerging from smaller sub-units, in this article, I juxtapose the cognitive capacities of xenobots with that of two other minimal models of cognition, i.e., basal cognition and nonliving active matter cognition. Further, the article underlines the essential cognitive capabilities that xenobots need to achieve to enter what I call stage 1 of xenobotic cognition. Stage 1 is characterized by numerous cognitive mechanisms, which are integral for the survival and cognition of basal organisms. Finally, I suggest that developing xenobots that can reach Stage 1 can help us achieve sophistication in the areas of evolution of the human mind, robotics, biology and medicine, and artificial intelligence (AI).

In the history of philosophy, the concept of self has been perennially elusive. The philosophical quest to understand the self is rife with phenomenological and metaphysical analyses, often overlooking other kinds of selves present in the biological realm. To systematically explore this question of non-human selves, I categorize the literature on philosophical and biological notions of self into the biogenic, the zoogenic, and the anthropogenic approaches to self. This article attempts to chart the genesis, the continuum, and the lowest bound of the self. Further, I enumerate challenges in developing a biogenic approach to self or taking the concept of self all the way down in the phylogenetic tree.