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Amoeba can move freely. Would I be correct in assuming that this movement is not completely random? Would it be correct to assume that an amoeba can seek out food and can attempt to avoid danger?

If this assumption is correct, would it be reasonable to assume that the amoeba has states which are roughly equivalent to being in pain? If this is not the case, what is it that motivates the amoeba to pursue food and avoid danger? Or is it believed to be instinctual -- that is, fully scripted without a need to presuppose a pain state?

Update from a search on the web:

I did find this article which suggests to me that amoebas might also show avoidance behavior.

Larry Freeman
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    This question is about perception which can't be answered because perception is subjective. – DKNguyen Jan 27 '23 at 18:46
  • I was thinking solely about behavior. Does an amoeba ever move in a way that would indicate "avoidance" or in another way that indicates "targeting"? I was thinking that the state that precedes avoidance or the state the precedes targeting might be analogous to a "pain" or "pleasure" state. I agree that we can never know if a subjective state exists for an amoeba. – Larry Freeman Jan 27 '23 at 20:14
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    The second paragraph is not too different from asking whether free will exists, albeit at the level of an amoeba. "Pain" is a subjective state, if you take the subjective state out of pain you don't have anything at all. A chemical motivation to perform some behavior is, at a cellular level, no different than what happens in our own nervous systems. – Bryan Krause Jan 27 '23 at 20:56
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    See also https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/36401/can-plants-feel-pain https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/19446/can-insects-feel-pain https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/60949/do-lobsters-possess-a-nervous-system-to-feel-pain https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/60337/at-what-stage-is-the-nervous-system-developed-enough-to-interpret-neuronal-signa – Bryan Krause Jan 27 '23 at 20:58
  • @BryanKrause, I am unclear on your first comment. Why does pain behavior presuppose a subjective state? If an amoeba shows avoidance behavior, then there is a biochemical state that precedes it. That's what I am interested in. I call this "pain" only so much as :"avoidance" would suggest that state. If there is no such behavioral state of pain, what is motivating the avoidance? – Larry Freeman Jan 27 '23 at 21:50
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    @LarryFreeman I mean that pain is a label for a subjective experience. If you call anything else "pain", you should know that you are no longer using "pain" in the way it is used in the fields of psychology/neuroscience/biology. Avoidance doesn't require pain, nor does it require any preceding state: common avoidance and approach behaviors in single-celled organisms are directly chemically mediated. "Motivation" is similarly a fraught term. – Bryan Krause Jan 27 '23 at 21:55
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    @LarryFreeman Well, they do respond to stimuli in the environment if that's what you mean. – DKNguyen Jan 27 '23 at 22:35

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