tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post4314449229620321532..comments2024-02-29T03:57:00.088-05:00Comments on The Mermaid's Tale: Are plants altruistic?Anne Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-22199427996311577152014-01-26T15:52:57.845-05:002014-01-26T15:52:57.845-05:00The only issue is that carrots don't 'eat&...The only issue is that carrots don't 'eat' in the same sense. They absorb chemicals from the earth and air, so they would have to absorb another carrot; I don't know if that's possible unless the other one is dead.Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-7133619976565573832014-01-26T15:32:46.325-05:002014-01-26T15:32:46.325-05:00plants do all kinds of cool stuff without brains a...plants do all kinds of cool stuff without brains and I loved Michael Pollan's video of the bean plants. But so do one celled beings - amoeba, for example. And, carrots wondering about whether to eat themselves, if they were more humanlike - humans have wondered the same thing and some do, some don't. I wonder what carrots would decide.Jenniferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10781510687154219618noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-63941623609479924062014-01-23T07:17:11.031-05:002014-01-23T07:17:11.031-05:00Viruses are RNA or DNA coated with protein, basica...Viruses are RNA or DNA coated with protein, basically. They only do anything when in some host cell. So they are not 'alive' but are part of life.<br /><br />Chardin's book The Phenomenon of Man tried to build a cosmos in which an essence of life was in everything even atoms, as I recall. Humans were higher on the scale and Omega was the cosmos or God himself--something like that. But as I recall the Church banned the book, at least for a long time.<br /><br />Bergson's somewhat similar idea was that objects have some inherent life, an elan vital as he called it. You can find out more by Googling him, I'm sure.Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-28904819769172797042014-01-22T23:32:05.032-05:002014-01-22T23:32:05.032-05:00Not really familiar with de Chardin or Bergson. Do...Not really familiar with de Chardin or Bergson. Do recall as a teenager, many decades ago, learning that de Chardin was instrumental in getting the Catholic Church and people of other religious persuasions to accept a qualified modus vivendi with Darwin. On Bergson, will have to put him on my to-read list. <br /><br />On life, wasn't there once, or maybe still is, a question as to whether viruses are living somethings, or are in that fuzzy area between the living and the not? <br />Robert Kopechttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05873765000196899526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-10821919973761267682014-01-21T19:59:04.084-05:002014-01-21T19:59:04.084-05:00In a sense, a change in a gene is always a punctua...In a sense, a change in a gene is always a punctuation event--a discrete change, between which faithful transmission is 'equilibrium'. But when there are collectives (many individuals in a species, and many species) it is less clear how this extends. I think most would use the term 'emergence' for it, and perhaps what happens in an ecosystem is a form of 'phase transition'. Or perhaps it is a wavelike phenomenon in someway that we don't understand. I was affiliated with the Santa Fe Institute for several years as an external faculty member, and while there were (and are) many very smart people there, working on complex problems, I think the major breakthroughs, if any are in fact possible,haven't occurred. Your final paragraph is a good summary of present knowledge.Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-12058821522940503732014-01-21T14:18:59.438-05:002014-01-21T14:18:59.438-05:00Coming from physics background, such things do not...Coming from physics background, such things do not bother me. When we add heat to a material at critical point, its atoms continue to increase vibrations or other heat-related activities, but externally the heat seems to disappear in a black hole (latent heat). Then all of a sudden, ice turns into water - a completely different form. Essentially, we need to find the link between changes in genes and changes in phenotype at the system level, and that is the hardest part. All pieces of the machine were barely identified 5-10 years back.<br /><br />I guess Stuart Kauffman and rest of Santa Fe school tried to bring some of those ideas of complexity theory into biology. However, it is one thing to speculate on a potential mechanism and another thing to demonstrate the same with proof.<br /><br />Ultimately we come to the same conclusion - life is far more complex than the human geneticists want us to believe. At least I am starting to see all layers of the onion, unlike in the past.Manoj Samantahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04264467983614167240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-15780843821090106662014-01-21T13:24:52.451-05:002014-01-21T13:24:52.451-05:00I'd be careful about 'punctuated equilibri...I'd be careful about 'punctuated equilibria' because it has been controversial and over-used. How 'punctuated' life actually is, as opposed to the fossil record, is not so clear. For example, some traits may be conserved (til they change!), but the underlying genome continues to click (the molecular clock) and the genes themselves may evolve. So p-e can be a slogan that is over-interpreted. Still, these are issues of relevance, for sure.Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-3509348602232143162014-01-21T12:34:28.842-05:002014-01-21T12:34:28.842-05:00Hermann Hesse's beautiful novel Siddhartha als...Hermann Hesse's beautiful novel Siddhartha also highlighted that continuum between inanimate minerals and living organisms. He saw the continuum through living objects and natural objects going through periodic cycles (just like humans live, grow up, get old and die, water goes through cycles of rain--> ponds --> river --> ocean --> moisture).<br /><br />I have been reading Stphen Jay Gould's books and found his 'punctuated evolution' theory quite thought-provoking. If every living animal goes through birth and death, it is not a stretch to imagine that a species will experience birth, 'stasis' and death as part of natural process.Manoj Samantahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04264467983614167240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-53518602679545333432014-01-21T08:40:41.369-05:002014-01-21T08:40:41.369-05:00Well, there is only one real world, one presumes. ...Well, there is only one real world, one presumes. Life began by spontaneous generation of a sort, we also presume as scientists. Perhaps a unitary worldview is consistent with this, a form of one might say Buddhist thinking. If one didn't take it too far! Do you know Tellhard de Chardin or Henri Bergson? They made efforts like that, as did some of the Greeks. The great search for causal unity, one could say.Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-51663852567435830442014-01-21T03:23:17.749-05:002014-01-21T03:23:17.749-05:00He actually rejected the idea of patenting science...He actually rejected the idea of patenting science. Or of keeping knowledge secret in the interest of personal gain. A precursor of open source technology? The question, by the way, of what is an organism interested him. Seems he saw a continuum between inanimate minerals and living organisms. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-69164713429086886082014-01-20T22:18:30.407-05:002014-01-20T22:18:30.407-05:00Yes, he apparently invented telegraph radio commun...Yes, he apparently invented telegraph radio communication system before Marconi, but did not get Nobel or patent for not being in the right circles. <br /><br />That is what we were taught in school, but I have no idea how much of that is correct. On one hand, the commies, who wrote our school text-books were habitual liars, and I have difficulty believing anything they taught us in school. On the other hand, British Calcutta had very vibrant scientific culture and produced several very high-quality scientists. J. C. Bose was the most creative among them.Manoj Samantahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04264467983614167240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-1771383733430582692014-01-20T21:08:38.601-05:002014-01-20T21:08:38.601-05:00Didn't know about him, but inspired by your co...Didn't know about him, but inspired by your comment found that he also invented the crescograph, a device that with wires connected from the plant to a timing mechanism measured how fast plants grew each hour. As a plant grew, the movement was recorded on smoked glass. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescograph<br /><br />Was also one of the early researchers on wireless transmission of electrical impulses.<br /><br />And was one of the pioneers of science fiction writing, with a story of how a bottle of baldness treatment oil, of the brand that sponsored the writing contest he entered, dissipated a cyclone, thus saving the city of Calcutta. http://www.strangehorizons.com/2013/20130930/3bose-f.shtml<br />Robert Kopechttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05873765000196899526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-12821725003993860502014-01-20T20:07:37.821-05:002014-01-20T20:07:37.821-05:00A very talented Bengali scientist did similar rese...A very talented Bengali scientist did similar research 100+ years back, but nobody wanted to believe him. <br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_(paranormal)<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose<br /><br />"His books include Response in the Living and Non-Living (1902) and The Nervous Mechanism of Plants (1926)."<br /><br />He is not the same Bose as the one who corrected Einstein's equation and got his name on a fundamental particle. Manoj Samantahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04264467983614167240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-77622874446522081352014-01-20T19:58:50.090-05:002014-01-20T19:58:50.090-05:00Thanks so much for this excellent resource! I am ...Thanks so much for this excellent resource! I am going to dip into it right now.Anne Buchananhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-24109148289790828922014-01-20T19:10:16.493-05:002014-01-20T19:10:16.493-05:00Herbert Spencer Jennings (Behavior of the Lower Or...Herbert Spencer Jennings (Behavior of the Lower Organisms, 1906 [ https://archive.org/details/behavioroflowero00jenn] ) would have loved this discussion and the Pollan video. Thanks for sharing.Robert Kopechttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05873765000196899526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-38422255143317067782014-01-20T08:42:59.317-05:002014-01-20T08:42:59.317-05:00Altruism has formally been related to kinship rela...Altruism has formally been related to kinship relationships in a sensible way, but often too rigorously or with too strongly selectionistic a viewpoint (since most local conspecifics may be kin, kin-selection would be rather automatic if individuals just help conspecifics). If a bird or chipmunk calls when it spots a cat, this alerts its conspecifics to the danger, another altruism issue (since the calling bird puts itself in danger). But, and this is not something I've seen discussed before, it also enables members of other species to know the predator is there--a kind of community warning system, but whether that has evolutionary implications of its own is not something I've seen any discussion of.Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-54033415285317020992014-01-20T08:37:30.240-05:002014-01-20T08:37:30.240-05:00Ah yes, I note that I didn't directly address ...Ah yes, I note that I didn't directly address the title of the piece in the post. Are plants altruistic? It's interesting to muse about, and Pollan's piece provides the fodder for doing so. The observation that plants can provide nutrients to other plants that need them, kin and even non-kin, that they warn of insect invasions, and share nutrients in root-based communication systems and so on suggests that, as with intelligence, we might have to broaden our view of altruism. It has long been considered a sticking point in evolutionary theory, at least by strict darwinians. If even plants help each other out, however, altruism starts to look like a more widespread and perhaps fundamental characteristic of life. Anne Buchananhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.com