Slime Moulds Prompt a Copernican Rethink of Intelligence

A Guardian long read surveys the debate over whether slime moulds, trees, and even single cells display cognition, challenging the idea that intelligence belongs only to brain-bearing life; classic experiments with Physarum tracing maze-like paths and optimizing networks fuel a spectrum view of cognition and memory that can exist without a brain, raising philosophical questions about how we define mind and intelligence across all living systems.