Exploiting Environmental Computation in a Multi-Agent Model of Slime Mould

TL;DR

This paper investigates how environmental stimuli and simple multi-agent interactions can produce complex, seemingly intelligent behaviour in slime mould, suggesting that environmental computation plays a key role in its biological processes.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-agent model demonstrating how slime mould's behaviour emerges from environmental interactions, highlighting environmental computation as a source of complexity.

Findings

Complex behaviour arises from simple agent-environment interactions

Environmental stimuli influence collective slime mould behaviour

Dynamic gradient fields contribute to emergent complexity

Abstract

Very simple organisms, such as the single-celled amoeboid slime mould Physarum polycephalum possess no neural tissue yet, despite this, are known to exhibit complex biological and computational behaviour. Given such limited resources, can environmental stimuli play a role in generating the complexity of slime mould behaviour? We use a multi-agent collective model of slime mould to explore a two-way mechanism where the collective behaviour is influenced by simulated chemical concentration gradient fields and, in turn, this behaviour alters the spatial pattern of the concentration gradients. This simple mechanism yields complex behaviour amid the dynamically changing gradient profiles and suggests how the apparently intelligent response of the slime mould could possibly be due to outsourcing of computation to the environment.