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Boquila trifoliolata mimics leaves of an artificial plastic host plant (2021)
11–20 of 36 posts
Re: Boquila trifoliolata mimics leaves of an artificial plastic host plant (2021)
#12When it comes to other animals, theres a lot of principled caution about attributing supposedly "human" concepts to apes or orca whales. When it comes to computers, we tend to be exceedingly cautious. For some reason that principled caution goes out the window once we start talking about plants. Here on HN I've seen folks equate photoreceptivity to consciousness, chemical exchanges between roots to full fledged "comm…
"equate photoreceptivity to consciousness" - is this any more than one or two nutters? "chemical exchanges between roots to full fledged "communication"" - without context it may have been a perfectly reasonable supposition. "open ended musing about the gaia hypothesis" - hard to tell if it's a few or endemic without examples
Like anyone else, I am not in the position of being able safely generalize from what I've seen to what is believed by 50% + 1 of the community. I can just make inferences based on what I've experienced and what it shows about the ideas the community is comfortable entertaining.
But yes, I've seen people suggest that photo-receptivity amounts to consciousness, that amoeba can feel sensation, that the human genome is complex and can be reasonably assumed to host its own form of consciousness, and that chemical exchanges between plants amounts to full fledged communication, without any limiting qualifications.
>"chemical exchanges between roots to full fledged "communication"" - without context it may have been a perfectly reasonable supposition.
Perhaps I can add your endorsement of this view to the list, and we can later see if your view is brushed off belonging to a small minority of nutters.
Re: Boquila trifoliolata mimics leaves of an artificial plastic host plant (2021)
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
"equate photoreceptivity to consciousness" - is this any more than one or two nutters? "chemical exchanges between roots to full fledged "communication"" - without context it may have been a perfectly reasonable supposition. "open ended musing about the gaia hypothesis" - hard to tell if it's a few or endemic without examples
Like anyone else, I am not in the position of being able safely generalize from what I've seen to what is believed by 50% + 1 of the community. I can just make inferences based on what I've experienced and what it shows about the ideas the community is comfortable entertaining. But yes, I've seen people suggest that photo-receptivity amounts to consciousness, that amoeba can feel sensation, that the human genome is c…
You make a claim that others are stupid, I can't dismiss it, nor can I accept it. As such I accept your evaluation as honest held, but I can't do anything with it like learn something useful from it.
As for "Perhaps I can add your endorsement of this view to the list..." please be careful. Communication requires an exchange of information. If the exchange is in the form of chemicals, that's fine as communication is happening via chemical exchange. But whether chemical exchange alone IS communication is a philosophical question[1]. All I'm saying is that you may be misrepresnting or misunderstanding other people's stated position. Again, without links to read I can't judge.
[1] I'd say yes it is but am open to being shown wrong. It probably depends on whether you believe conscious intent is required. I say no, others may say yes, it is needed.
Re: Boquila trifoliolata mimics leaves of an artificial plastic host plant (2021)
#14When it comes to other animals, theres a lot of principled caution about attributing supposedly "human" concepts to apes or orca whales. When it comes to computers, we tend to be exceedingly cautious. For some reason that principled caution goes out the window once we start talking about plants. Here on HN I've seen folks equate photoreceptivity to consciousness, chemical exchanges between roots to full fledged "comm…
The caution about attributing "human concepts" to other animals, like emotions, empathy, language and self-awareness, comes from the religious idea that humans are "above" all the other creatures. If God created humans as some special case, then it makes sense.
Not long ago, it was believed that animals (and human babies) couldn't feel pain. Nowadays it's a ridiculous notion, but it was born of the idea that a certain animal was "exceptional" among all those others and has all these special properties, granted by God, that no other animals possess. That's not a belief that should be the "scientific" default anymore.
Re: Boquila trifoliolata mimics leaves of an artificial plastic host plant (2021)
#15Why would the vine mimic the leaves of the host plant? Is it tasty enough for animals to seek out the specific leaves or what?
Re: Boquila trifoliolata mimics leaves of an artificial plastic host plant (2021)
#16I’ve been trying to find a place to buy this plant (Texas, USA) for 3 years. Every place online I have found is always out of stock. Right now is actually the season to plant it, so I’ve been looking for it again. Has anyone found a place to buy it that is not out of stock and ships to the US?
Re: Boquila trifoliolata mimics leaves of an artificial plastic host plant (2021)
#17When it comes to other animals, theres a lot of principled caution about attributing supposedly "human" concepts to apes or orca whales. When it comes to computers, we tend to be exceedingly cautious. For some reason that principled caution goes out the window once we start talking about plants. Here on HN I've seen folks equate photoreceptivity to consciousness, chemical exchanges between roots to full fledged "comm…
I'm surprised to see communication in the list. Maybe you meant to critique the notion those signals are tied to sentient communication?
Re: Boquila trifoliolata mimics leaves of an artificial plastic host plant (2021)
#18I’ve been trying to find a place to buy this plant (Texas, USA) for 3 years. Every place online I have found is always out of stock. Right now is actually the season to plant it, so I’ve been looking for it again. Has anyone found a place to buy it that is not out of stock and ships to the US?
It's definitely in stock. It just looks like a rubber plant or a swiss cheese plant or a...
Re: Boquila trifoliolata mimics leaves of an artificial plastic host plant (2021)
#19When it comes to other animals, theres a lot of principled caution about attributing supposedly "human" concepts to apes or orca whales. When it comes to computers, we tend to be exceedingly cautious. For some reason that principled caution goes out the window once we start talking about plants. Here on HN I've seen folks equate photoreceptivity to consciousness, chemical exchanges between roots to full fledged "comm…
The caution about attributing "human concepts" to other animals, like emotions, empathy, language and self-awareness, comes from the religious idea that humans are "above" all the other creatures. If God created humans as some special case, then it makes sense. Not long ago, it was believed that animals (and human babies) couldn't feel pain. Nowadays it's a ridiculous notion, but it was born of the idea that a certai…
Not at all. The caution about attributing human concepts to other animals is that they can have an arbitrarily different brain organization in such a way that stretches those notions beyond what we usually take them to mean. Does a tiger experience joy? If it does, what does joy feel like to a tiger? Is bird song language? What are they saying? That last question is obviously begging the question, are they saying anything? Is "saying" something that more than humans can do, or when we refer to the word "say" do we only apply it to humans expressing human concepts? We don't even know if the concepts we use to describe minds are even valid, or if they are just products of introspection. This, along with the fact that other abstract aspects of the human condition are also on shaky ground when you change the underlying substrate those aspects emerge from, means that it's not clear that animals have those same exact aspects in their species-specific condition, and if they do have some similar aspects, those aspects can be quite different than what we'd find in humans, with completely different sets of states. TL;DR We hardly know if you and I see the same red, let alone if a tiger and a human feel the same joy.
Re: Boquila trifoliolata mimics leaves of an artificial plastic host plant (2021)
#20There are a few other plants that do similar mimicry of specific plants, but what's remarkable about B. trifoliolata is that it mimics such a large variety of plant leaves. Even leaves of some plants not found in it's native habitat! Even more remarkable is the fact that it does not require physical contact with a plant to mimic the leaves! As far as we know, this is totally unique