Egbert Matthew D, Pérez-Mercader Juan
Harvard University, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Cambridge, 02142, USA.
Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, 87501, USA.
Sci Rep. 2016 Jan 8;6:18963. doi: 10.1038/srep18963.
Genetic mutations, infection by parasites or symbionts, and other events can transform the way that an organism's internal state changes in response to a given environment. We use a minimalistic computational model to support an argument that by behaving "interoceptively," i.e. responding to internal state rather than to the environment, organisms can be robust to these organisational-transformations. We suggest that the robustness of interoceptive behaviour is due, in part, to the asymmetrical relationship between an organism and its environment, where the latter more substantially influences the former than vice versa. This relationship means that interoceptive behaviour can respond to the environment, the internal state and the interaction between the two, while exteroceptive behaviour can only respond to the environment. We discuss the possibilities that (i) interoceptive behaviour may play an important role of facilitating adaptive evolution (especially in the early evolution of primitive life) and (ii) interoceptive mechanisms could prove useful in efforts to create more robust synthetic life-forms.
基因突变、寄生虫或共生体感染以及其他事件能够改变生物体内部状态随给定环境变化的方式。我们使用一个极简计算模型来支持这样一个观点：通过“内感受性地”表现，即对内部状态而非环境做出反应，生物体能够对这些组织转变具有鲁棒性。我们认为，内感受性行为的鲁棒性部分归因于生物体与其环境之间的不对称关系，其中环境对生物体的影响远大于生物体对环境的影响。这种关系意味着内感受性行为能够对环境、内部状态以及两者之间的相互作用做出反应，而外感受性行为只能对环境做出反应。我们探讨了以下可能性：（i）内感受性行为可能在促进适应性进化（尤其是在原始生命的早期进化中）方面发挥重要作用；（ii）内感受机制可能在创造更具鲁棒性的合成生命形式的努力中证明是有用的。
