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Mushroom learns to crawl after being given robot body (2024)

the-independent.com

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Re: Mushroom learns to crawl after being given robot body (2024)

#71

Post by lisper »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #67
lisper wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that's not true. I think most people learn to walk long before they become aware of being able to walk.

Most people have rudimentary language ability, including the ability to express preferences, as they learn to walk. The average one-year-old child is plenty aware of the world.

Sure. So? That doesn't mean that the conscious part (such as it is at that point) is teaching the unconscious part. You could actually test this by asking a two-year-old who knows how to walk to teach walking to a one-year-old with rudimentary language skills but who can't walk yet. I'd be very surprised if this intervention speeds up the rate at which the one-year-old learns to walk.

Re: Mushroom learns to crawl after being given robot body (2024)

#72

Post by ofalkaed »

pyman wrote: post #65
ofalkaed wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take a small plot of wild land, say 50'x50' and visit it everyday watching all the various mushrooms which will grow there (there will be far more then most people realize or expect) and try and find the sense in where and when they fruit it becomes difficult to write it all off as simple biological responses to environment/following the food/etc, and even if you do look at it that way and start adding up the…

Looks like they respond to their environment in complex ways. What if mushrooms avoid trails because they feel the vibrations? Maybe they learned that foot traffic = danger. So it grows out of reach. You should explore this theory and run some field studies.

Avoiding the trails can generally explained in fairly simple ways; trail lets in more sunlight so ground near the trail is drier, soil of trails are often heavily compacted which means very dry and hard with very wet and soft on either side from rain water run off, trails funnel air flow down them which affects the moisture levels in the air and soil, etc. The thing here is their knack for growing out of sight of the trail, which is not just a distance thing, many mushrooms are far from inconspicuous and can be seen from a good distance but seem to be able to find those places where they won't be noticed even when growing near a trail.

So you look at a particular mushroom's requirements for fruiting and look to see how those are met by the place they are growing and try and try to figure out why they fruited in just that spot but not 5 feet over offers the exact same conditions other than that spot 5 feet over being more visible from the trail. On the larger well traveled trails it is fairly easy to find possible explanations, that spot which is not visible from the trail is often the spot protected from how the trail affects airflow/sunlight but things get less clear on the small less traveled trails which have a minimal affect on the local environment.

You can generally explain away everything with simple biological responses but often it requires quite a few and their all being informed by the others, not just acting in isolation, and at that point it starts looking like some level of intelligence. I am always amazed by the number and variety of mushrooms you find once you leave the trail and you don't even have to go far, 5 or 10 feet is often all it takes.

Unlikely I will ever do any sort of field study, I am perfectly content with just watching them grow and not having all the answers.

Re: Mushroom learns to crawl after being given robot body (2024)

#73

Post by pyman »

ofalkaed wrote: post #72
pyman wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like they respond to their environment in complex ways. What if mushrooms avoid trails because they feel the vibrations? Maybe they learned that foot traffic = danger. So it grows out of reach. You should explore this theory and run some field studies.

Avoiding the trails can generally explained in fairly simple ways; trail lets in more sunlight so ground near the trail is drier, soil of trails are often heavily compacted which means very dry and hard with very wet and soft on either side from rain water run off, trails funnel air flow down them which affects the moisture levels in the air and soil, etc. The thing here is their knack for growing out of sight of the…

I like that you saw this with your own eyes and noticed things that are hard to explain rather than just reading about it and settling for someone else's hypothesis. Thanks for sharing!

Re: Mushroom learns to crawl after being given robot body (2024)

#74

Post by wizzwizz4 »

lisper wrote: post #71
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have rudimentary language ability, including the ability to express preferences, as they learn to walk. The average one-year-old child is plenty aware of the world.

Sure. So? That doesn't mean that the conscious part (such as it is at that point) is teaching the unconscious part. You could actually test this by asking a two-year-old who knows how to walk to teach walking to a one-year-old with rudimentary language skills but who can't walk yet. I'd be very surprised if this intervention speeds up the rate at which the one-year-old learns to walk.

Unless you wire the two-year-old's brain up to the one-year-old's so the two-year-old can stimulate the one-year-old's motor cortex, I don't see how that experiment would test my theory. (Maybe I explained it badly.)

Adults already show the one-year-old how to walk, encourage the one-year-old to crawl and try to stand, and so on – but the adults aren't teaching the one-year-old how to coordinate muscles. That's all the doing of the one-year-old. Some of it's instinctual (as it is in other mammals), and we have some relevant reflexes once you're actually up and standing (assuming you stay within their domain of efficacy), but overall, walking isn't instinctual for humans.

Consider physiotherapy in adults recovering from a nervous system issue. The physiotherapist has to guide the patient through exercises to rebuild motor coordination ability. (Some adults figure this out on their own, invent and practice their own exercises, and breeze through the physiotherapy, but in general physio is long and boring and arduous, because it's very frustrating and doesn't come naturally.) That's the sort of thing infants do on their own volition (with some encouragement from caregivers), but I don't see how it makes sense to say it's not their volition.

Re: Mushroom learns to crawl after being given robot body (2024)

#75

Post by lisper »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #74
lisper wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. So? That doesn't mean that the conscious part (such as it is at that point) is teaching the unconscious part. You could actually test this by asking a two-year-old who knows how to walk to teach walking to a one-year-old with rudimentary language skills but who can't walk yet. I'd be very surprised if this intervention speeds up the rate at which the one-year-old learns to walk.

Unless you wire the two-year-old's brain up to the one-year-old's so the two-year-old can stimulate the one-year-old's motor cortex, I don't see how that experiment would test my theory. (Maybe I explained it badly.) Adults already show the one-year-old how to walk, encourage the one-year-old to crawl and try to stand, and so on – but the adults aren't teaching the one-year-old how to coordinate muscles. That's all t…

Remember the original scenario was "a child telling their parent to walk", so literally using language to communicate a high-level goal to a "lower-level" system.

I don't have kids so I have no direct experience with this, but I'm pretty sure that parent's don't actually instruct their kids how to walk. Kids figure it out mostly on their own. Parents might accelerate the process by giving guidance and encouragement, but even that probably is just another feedback channel. The heavy lifting is all in the kid's brain.

Contrast that with learning how to play chess. The latter is something that a higher level system really can teach to a lower-level one. Really good chess players eventually develop sub-conscious pattern-matching abilities that are very much like a motor skill, but before that happens a person first has to learn to play chess using slower deliberative methods, and they learn that through language. Other good examples are learning to drive, or fly an airplane, write code. But walking really is different. There's a reason that walking is not taught in preschool. (Physiotherapy is different. And as you yourself point out, some people figure that out on their own too.)

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