Pinch Paxton

Do you think Einstein could have put an Avatar up? I reckon it would take ages to explain it to him.

You need to decide on a boundry line for intelligence. I'm not counting reaction as intelligence. I'm not even counting communication as intelligence. It's what is being communicated that is important. Plants can't move much, and they can't create much, so their speech would not involve much in the way of gaining anything from each other. A weather report is probably the highest intelligence that a none moving plant could achieve. A venus fly trap might be able to use its movement to a useful advantage, and from that movement gain the ability to play a musical instrument, that is the not the highest level that it could achieve. Intelligence requires a response that is quite obvious. Lets say that plants were humans trapped in a plant body. You have no way to move, and your senses are greatly reduced. All of your life as a plant you have plant-like urges, not human urges. Your greatest desire is to be in sunlight, so you can lean a bit. Now you need to think what you are going to say to another plant. The important information would be, lean 3 o clock, fill leaves with poison because animal approaches. That is all of your goals achieved. Humans are hunters, and require games of Darts, pool, archery. Maybe art is a perception test. Music? Maybe a message system using drums. Elements of intelligence seem to be necessary for the type of survival tactics that the creature practices. That's why I don't think that plants are intelligent.

It's got something to do with breaking your concentration. Like being woken up during a sleepwalk I guess. I've felt it myself, but can control it better than that boy. Do you manage to block out sounds when you are concentrating? I can. I can't hear people talking to me. Then they get annoyed, and shock me out of my concentration. It feels bad. Pincho.

Explorer has caused an error, and has now closed. You reboot to find the video finished 20 minutes ago. I guess!

You could try something bendy instead of two poles. I was thinking about the tornado, it's like lots of gyroscopes with a bendy middle. That would be really cool made from metal. I can imagine it as a sarealistic weapon with jagged edges in a movie! Pincho.

Maybe NASA actually Released the bunny on mars, J/K! I used the topic name as a silly interpretation.

I didn't mean response to the insect, I meant response to the other plant life, as a response is another name for a message. Plants can send each other signals somehow, I'm not sure how they do it.

I said that already.

I think that the test was for them not to evade a threat, rather than for them to evade a threat. Otherwise it would not be memory, but reflex. There is not much about the test in that paper, but it seems like they were trained not to avoid fast running water, and tested again after 1 minute. I skipped over the Honey Bee stuff, so I had to just get the scraps that I could. I looked on the net for goldfish memory, but it was not easy to find anything relevant. I would need to know the exact test that was performed on the goldfish to make any judgement. That paper does not really help to say that this was a myth, it leans towards 1 minute, but that is not a very long time either. Pincho.

That's a good question. It has an answer, I am trying to figure it out. It puts an aspect on intelligence that we don't often consider. Intelligence is thought, but not just any thought, it is a constructive thought. It could be part of a constructive argument. This is as far as plants could get. So we are talking of communication, and nothing more. So how far can communication go as far as intelligence is concerned? For a plant, you would have to decide what is important for that plant? Dropping seeds at the right time, attracting insects to carry pollen. These two things are both physical. Most physical things are dependant on your growth patterns. Plants can't drop seeds all of the time, and there is no indication that they can change colour, but they may be able to send out a scent that attracts insects. If the scent is the only creative response that they can produce then they cannot be intelligent. They can communicate, but the most that they could pass on to another plant would be, "I've invented a new scent!" If you see what I mean.. Pincho.

I guess the centre pole stabalizes the whole thing. 1 centre pole cannot lean to balance two fluctuating weights, but two centre poles work individually. Like a tornado, which leans to balance itself. It leans to the heavier side, but by the time it has leaned, the heavier side has spun to the other side. Its juggling the weight.

Well eating could be a triggered response like pulling your hand away from fire. Everything that a goldfish does must be a triggered response. You could make a computer program of a goldfish, make all of the things that it does as automatic, don't give it learning capabilities, and it would perform the same. There isn't that much that you would have to program. Eat, flick your tail, avoid obstacles, avoid sudden movements, mate. The avoid sudden movements might be the reason for the 3 second memory. Don't avoid sudden movements of mate. You might wonder why so many other animals have a memory at all. I don't think that a moth even has a brain.

Did no one get that? I was the only person to get it right at work, but this is a brain - site.

I think that somebody just flushed out the toilet in the Shuttle!

Sharks do sleep.

My guess is that they would cancel each other out, but I don't actually know.

Yeah those look real enough to me. Some kind of spinning tool, grinding away at the rock. It look strange at first because the rock is the same rock, but if you look closely, you can see both patterns on one of the rocks. Pincho.

There are a number of possibilities in scale I guess. Star Trek has a limited budget, and it has to make a story each week, but it is not the humanoid appearance that is so far out, but the height of the people. I can see anything from microscopic intelligence, up to huge giants. Also, water based intelligence like Dolphins, maybe dolphins are more intelligent than we believe. Pincho.

What I find odd about magnets is the way that iron filings line up with gaps between them. It's the gaps that interest me, and I want to create a picture somehow that just shows the gaps, without the iron filings. Also, I would like to see a slow motion movie of the iron filings moving into their positions. Do they sweep from north to south? Do they move as a whole unit? Is there a difference in speed from top to bottom like a rotating wheel? Any answers to these questions? Pincho.

This is called Humphrey! It's a lumpy rock found on mars. I think it looks like a building remains!!! Oh this is a 3D computer representation. And a Link here

They do it now don't they?

Found some videos Pincho.

Ok Thanks!

I've been looking at iron filing pictures all day, trying to figure out what is pushing/pulling the magnets around, how it works, how photons are supposed to be involved. It's hard to envisage the shape from those iron filings. Anyone know of 3D pictures of the fields? Or a 3D generator of fields. Pincho.

That's very strange, it looks like a geode. I don't see how it could be on Mars?