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level on the board. In his view, most internal information processing takes place on this level, even among human beings. âI doubt anyone could explain how it is their body maintains balance when they ride a bicycle. While we are riding, our body just naturally performs the calculations required to solve the equation. It would be quite difficult for us to clearly define these on the conscious level, and were one able to do so and publish the method employed, it would undoubtedly be an important contribution to the scientific literature.â For Nakagaki, all living organisms have unconscious information-processing mechanisms. Whether this constitutes intelligence is a matter of debate. His research aims at clarifying these mechanisms, he said, if possible at a material level, in order to find out whether or not single-celled creatures possess intelligence. In this effort, he considers the slime mold to be an ideal subject.

Having spent the afternoon talking, we went out to dinner. Nakagaki invited along his wife, Yuka, and their three-year-old son, Gen-ichiro. We went to a restaurant specializing in traditional Japanese cooking and sat together around a low table in a room partitioned off from others by bamboo walls. Yuka had worked as a travel agent for ten years. She spoke with enthusiasm, and in fluent English, about South Korea, one of her favorite countries to visit. Gen-ichiro played quietly with his motherâs cell phone. Though we drank a number of glasses of sake, I still had some questions. In particular, I wanted to know what Nakagaki thought about the importance of studying intelligence in nature. He replied that it is âone of the most important questions in science.â

I agreed but said that, until recently, most scientists had held the opinion that nature lacks intelligence.

âSo, this opinion is wrong. This is obvious,â he said. âMost scientists are surely ill informed on this question. They only think about their own subject. Apart from their own subject, they are ill informed.â

He looked straight at me from across the table and added, âYou think about intelligence in nature, and you investigate many cases of research describing intelligence in nature. So you know more about this intelligence than I do. So you are the specialist on the problem of intelligence in nature. Whether you are a scientist or not does not matter. Since the times of Greek philosophy, we have basic questions on the mind and intelligence. Archimedes and Pythagoras thought about these serious problems. Descartes also thought about them. In this time, only a few people think about this serious problem. We do not have to share the opinions of most scientists.â

After the discussion with Nakagaki, I thought about the concept of chi-sei. He said that Japanese people did not question applying this term to the maze-solving slime mold. This was perhaps a concept I needed. Intelligence had been defined in too many different ways and had become a loaded word. And smartness commonly means cleanliness, tidiness, and elegance, which weakened its pertinence to my investigation. When a true slime mold solves a maze, it demonstrates a capacity to recognize its situation, to know. And if a true slime mold has chi-sei, what living entity does not?

Chapter 9

JAPANESE BUTTERFLY MACHINES

After hiking up a smoking volcano near Sapporo, Beatrice and I headed south to Kyoto, the historical center of Japanese culture. Kyoto is hot and muggy in the summer. It also has two thousand temples. We spent several days seeing the sights. We walked along the Path of Philosophy, which follows a canal lined with cherry trees. We visited the Golden Temple Kinkaku-ji in the rain. We strolled through manicured gardens with moss carpets and ponds filled with sacred carp. One sign with an English translation posted at the entrance of a temple explained that Zen gardens are âcompressed nature.â Another sign above a small exhibit of moss samples stated: âVery Important Moss (like VIP).â Paying attention to details in nature appeared to be a Japanese talent.

We caught