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Jul. 31st, 2017
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this is actually a small sub branch of botany thats been growing and gaining some recognition in the past 5 years or so called plant cognition! we’ve been thinking about if plants can possibly be intelligent to any degree for centuries, but the main paper that started up this huge discussion in the modern era was one called Experience Teaches Plants to Learn Faster and Forget Slower in Environments Where It Matters by Monica Gagliano, a plant researcher in Australia who specializes in it. because the results indicated that plants were possible of learning and retaining information in a kind of memory in response to environmental changes, it received a lot of backlash and denial- generally in science, that kind of intelligent reaction to an organism’s environment is a good indicator of cognitive behavior in the organism. it got rejected by 10 different journals before being published in 2014.
the experiment worked like this. i’ve talked before about mimosa pudica, a tropical plant that curls its leaves back when touched (they go back to normal in a few minutes):
this is to help deter predators among other things. but in this experiment, Gagliano used it as an indicator of stimulus and to test cognitive function. It’s well known that pudica has a rudimentary nervous system that can even be temporarily inhibited using anesthetics (just like ours can!). she hooked up a ton of these plants in pots to identical rail systems that allowed them to be lightly dropped in an identical way, juuuuust heavy enough to trigger the stimulus so all the leaves drop down when they hit the bottom (a piece of foam so they wouldn’t actually hurt the plants). every time the plants would be dropped, they would close up.
but after the plants were dropped about 60 times each, they stopped responding to the drop.
they remembered that no harm was coming from this action and decided that it was against their best interests to keep expending energy closing their leaves. they 200% learned to stop.
she decided to test it further. she put some of the plants in a shaker and let them receive a more jarring response; the plants closed up as usual. then, she put them back in the droppers and dropped them again. they didn’t close up. they had remembered that response. this dispels the obvious rebuttal to this experiment of the plants just being tired; they still closed up when stimulated differently.
they just chose not to close up when they hit a stimulus they remembered.
it turns out that not only could they remember to keep their leaves open when dropped on the apparatus, but they remembered after 28 days when she kept testing it!! apparently by the end of the experiment, all the plants had decided to keep their leaves open when dropped!!!!
how do they do this?? we literally dont know. they have no central brain, only a basic nervous system. can other plants do this???
well, adding onto that, venus fly traps can count! like. they have three hairs inside their traps, and all three must be touched within 20 seconds for the trap to close. once closed, those three trigger hairs must continue to be stimulated by thrashing prey, or the trap will reopen.
so yeah like. basically ‘are they sentient’: apparently to an extent???? we dont know exactly why or how but they are??? maybe???? sort of????? at least some of them are?? but they dont have a brain so everyones like????????????????????? maybe its through a signaling network????????????????? but like how would that even work?????????
plant consciousness is still new enough to be dismissed as crazy by a lot of biologists but like. the evidence is there. we don’t know a whole lot and its clearly a radically different kind of intelligence than we know in animals, but it’s there and we 200% dont know how it works yet or even the full extent of how plants use this intelligence (for example: does a redwood have the same intelligence as a venus fly trap?? how does it learn things and use that knowledge???)
national geographic wrote an awesome article visualizing the experiment here if you want to read more!
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this is actually a small sub branch of botany thats been growing and gaining some recognition in the past 5 years or so called plant cognition! we’ve been thinking about if plants can possibly be intelligent to any degree for centuries, but the main paper that started up this huge discussion in the modern era was one called Experience Teaches Plants to Learn Faster and Forget Slower in Environments Where It Matters by Monica Gagliano, a plant researcher in Australia who specializes in it. because the results indicated that plants were possible of learning and retaining information in a kind of memory in response to environmental changes, it received a lot of backlash and denial- generally in science, that kind of intelligent reaction to an organism’s environment is a good indicator of cognitive behavior in the organism. it got rejected by 10 different journals before being published in 2014.
the experiment worked like this. i’ve talked before about mimosa pudica, a tropical plant that curls its leaves back when touched (they go back to normal in a few minutes):
this is to help deter predators among other things. but in this experiment, Gagliano used it as an indicator of stimulus and to test cognitive function. It’s well known that pudica has a rudimentary nervous system that can even be temporarily inhibited using anesthetics (just like ours can!). she hooked up a ton of these plants in pots to identical rail systems that allowed them to be lightly dropped in an identical way, juuuuust heavy enough to trigger the stimulus so all the leaves drop down when they hit the bottom (a piece of foam so they wouldn’t actually hurt the plants). every time the plants would be dropped, they would close up.
but after the plants were dropped about 60 times each, they stopped responding to the drop.
they remembered that no harm was coming from this action and decided that it was against their best interests to keep expending energy closing their leaves. they 200% learned to stop.
she decided to test it further. she put some of the plants in a shaker and let them receive a more jarring response; the plants closed up as usual. then, she put them back in the droppers and dropped them again. they didn’t close up. they had remembered that response. this dispels the obvious rebuttal to this experiment of the plants just being tired; they still closed up when stimulated differently.
they just chose not to close up when they hit a stimulus they remembered.
it turns out that not only could they remember to keep their leaves open when dropped on the apparatus, but they remembered after 28 days when she kept testing it!! apparently by the end of the experiment, all the plants had decided to keep their leaves open when dropped!!!!
how do they do this?? we literally dont know. they have no central brain, only a basic nervous system. can other plants do this???
well, adding onto that, venus fly traps can count! like. they have three hairs inside their traps, and all three must be touched within 20 seconds for the trap to close. once closed, those three trigger hairs must continue to be stimulated by thrashing prey, or the trap will reopen.
so yeah like. basically ‘are they sentient’: apparently to an extent???? we dont know exactly why or how but they are??? maybe???? sort of????? at least some of them are?? but they dont have a brain so everyones like????????????????????? maybe its through a signaling network????????????????? but like how would that even work?????????
plant consciousness is still new enough to be dismissed as crazy by a lot of biologists but like. the evidence is there. we don’t know a whole lot and its clearly a radically different kind of intelligence than we know in animals, but it’s there and we 200% dont know how it works yet or even the full extent of how plants use this intelligence (for example: does a redwood have the same intelligence as a venus fly trap?? how does it learn things and use that knowledge???)
national geographic wrote an awesome article visualizing the experiment here if you want to read more!
(Your picture was not posted)
via http://ift.tt/2tQEEJ6:
katteens:
Angels are warriors of God. I’m a soldier.
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katteens:
Angels are warriors of God. I’m a soldier.
(Your picture was not posted)
via http://ift.tt/2vc0ued:
killthefez:
strangerdarkerbetter:
spoonie-living:
anarcho-shindouism:
truthisademurelady:
yeronika:
beowulfstits:
Friends, family members and loved ones of learning disabled and mentally ill people need to have a working knowledge of what Executive Dysfunction is, and respect the fact that it is a prominent feature of that person’s psychology and life.
Executive Dysfunction is best known as a symptom of autism and ADHD, but it also features in depression, anxiety disorders schizophrenia, OCD (which by the way is also an anxiety disorder), personality disorders; etc, a whole myriad of mental illnesses and disabilities can result in executive dysfunction.
Years ago when I was like 14 and had recently learned of my autism diagnosis, I watched a youtube interview between autistic people, and an autistic woman said something along these lines:
“Sometimes, a lightbulb will burn out, but I cannot change it. I have the physical capability to change the lightbulb, and I want to change the lightbulb, and I know I need to do it, but because of my autism I just don’t do it. So the lightbulb remains unchanged for weeks. Sometimes people have to change the lightbulb for me.”
When she said that I related so much, because constantly throughout my whole life I have wanted and needed to do things with my wanting and needing being akin to my spurring an extremely stubborn horse who refuses to move. For the first time I learned that I wasn’t just “lazy”, I had a condition that prevented me from doing things as easily as other people can, but unfortunately it took me years since then to understand that.
Imagine that you are a horserider, but your horse is entirely unwilling to move even if you want to move. You dig in your heels, you raise the reins, but the horse refuses to respond. Your wants and needs are the rider, and your executive functions (the parts of your mind responsible for getting things done) are the horse.
I think it’s incredibly dangerous for neurotypical loved ones to not understand, or be aware of, or respect executive dysfunction. Neurotypical can assume that we are just being lazy, careless, selfish or difficult, when in reality we want to do the thing but our brains prevent us from consistently and reliably doing the thing.
That misinterpretation can lead to toxic behavior and resentment on the part of the loved one, which will harm us emotionally and do us a lot of damage gradually over time.
That damage can take the form of internal self-criticism, complicating executive dysfunction even further and making it worse.
edited for easier reading!
I think about this a lot, because I have to. In my own life, as a parent who struggles with executive dysfunction and yet has to teach a child basic life skills, it’s important to know my blind spots and learn to function around them. He’s watching me and learning from my example, so I have to do my best to explain what I can’t always do, and try to do it anyway.
Executive function is such a fundamental and yet hidden trait. It is in charge of reasoning, flexibility, problem solving, planning, and execution/prioritization of necessary steps in any action.
Each task is never one task. Take changing the lightbulb - from beginning to end, it’s a series of steps that must be put in proper order:
Notice light bulb is burnt out.
Recognize that it can be fixed by putting in a new light bulb
Remember where new light bulbs are stored
Go to light bulb storage area
Select new one
Find stool or chair to stand on
Take out old bulb, put in new one
Screw in bulb
Replace chair or stool to previous spot
Throw away old bulb
That’s not even all of them, but it’s a good enough summary for now. There are hidden stumbling blocks in every single step.
A burnt out bulb may go unrecognized as a problem - there’s two other bulbs in the room, it’s a little dimmer, so what? It might take all three burning out before you see it as a problem.
Maybe you forgot where the bulbs are, because it’s been a while. Searching the house is a task you put off, because it’s messy/disorganized/big/you have other more pressing matters. The bulb can wait.
You find the bulb storage, but you’re out of new ones. You have to shop. You’re busy, you put it off until the next time you shop, by which time you’ve forgotten you need a light bulb. Repeat cycle.
You’ve been depressed for a while, or maybe you’re just a messy person. A stack of important documents is on the chair you’d use to stand on to get to the bulb. You know if you move those documents you’ll forget where they are, and it’s tax stuff/homework/your mom’s birthday card, and you can’t forget that. The bulb gets put aside until you deal with those things. But you don’t want to deal with them now, so the bulb waits.
Throwing out the bulb requires safe disposal so that you don’t break it and accidentally cut yourself, or someone else in your home. You have no idea how to safely dispose of it. You put off changing the bulb until you figure out what to do with the old one.
On and on and on. Each step requires problem solving, prioritization, and reasoning. These are the hidden processes that go on in our minds every single moment of every day. Difficult tasks build up, compounding the problem of completing others, until each action requires ten more before you can solve the minor problem you started with. Changing a light bulb ends in a night of doing your taxes. Doing the dishes ends in standing in the dish soap aisle at the grocery story for a half hour trying to figure out which soap to buy for the dishwasher.
When a simple action requires the same effort from you as the most complex, abstract problem-solving…. to put it mildly, you’re fucked. Every day tasks require exhausting mental gymnastics.
So, be kind to the person who can’t seem to change a light bulb. There’s a lot that can stand in the way.
this is such a good addition to my post
Important info!
“Difficult tasks build up, compounding the problem of completing others, until each action requires ten more before you can solve the minor problem you started with. Changing a light bulb ends in a night of doing your taxes. Doing the dishes ends in standing in the dish soap aisle at the grocery story for a half hour trying to figure out which soap to buy for the dishwasher.”
I relate to this so hard.
(Your picture was not posted)
killthefez:
strangerdarkerbetter:
spoonie-living:
anarcho-shindouism:
truthisademurelady:
yeronika:
beowulfstits:
Friends, family members and loved ones of learning disabled and mentally ill people need to have a working knowledge of what Executive Dysfunction is, and respect the fact that it is a prominent feature of that person’s psychology and life.
Executive Dysfunction is best known as a symptom of autism and ADHD, but it also features in depression, anxiety disorders schizophrenia, OCD (which by the way is also an anxiety disorder), personality disorders; etc, a whole myriad of mental illnesses and disabilities can result in executive dysfunction.
Years ago when I was like 14 and had recently learned of my autism diagnosis, I watched a youtube interview between autistic people, and an autistic woman said something along these lines:
“Sometimes, a lightbulb will burn out, but I cannot change it. I have the physical capability to change the lightbulb, and I want to change the lightbulb, and I know I need to do it, but because of my autism I just don’t do it. So the lightbulb remains unchanged for weeks. Sometimes people have to change the lightbulb for me.”
When she said that I related so much, because constantly throughout my whole life I have wanted and needed to do things with my wanting and needing being akin to my spurring an extremely stubborn horse who refuses to move. For the first time I learned that I wasn’t just “lazy”, I had a condition that prevented me from doing things as easily as other people can, but unfortunately it took me years since then to understand that.
Imagine that you are a horserider, but your horse is entirely unwilling to move even if you want to move. You dig in your heels, you raise the reins, but the horse refuses to respond. Your wants and needs are the rider, and your executive functions (the parts of your mind responsible for getting things done) are the horse.
I think it’s incredibly dangerous for neurotypical loved ones to not understand, or be aware of, or respect executive dysfunction. Neurotypical can assume that we are just being lazy, careless, selfish or difficult, when in reality we want to do the thing but our brains prevent us from consistently and reliably doing the thing.
That misinterpretation can lead to toxic behavior and resentment on the part of the loved one, which will harm us emotionally and do us a lot of damage gradually over time.
That damage can take the form of internal self-criticism, complicating executive dysfunction even further and making it worse.
edited for easier reading!
I think about this a lot, because I have to. In my own life, as a parent who struggles with executive dysfunction and yet has to teach a child basic life skills, it’s important to know my blind spots and learn to function around them. He’s watching me and learning from my example, so I have to do my best to explain what I can’t always do, and try to do it anyway.
Executive function is such a fundamental and yet hidden trait. It is in charge of reasoning, flexibility, problem solving, planning, and execution/prioritization of necessary steps in any action.
Each task is never one task. Take changing the lightbulb - from beginning to end, it’s a series of steps that must be put in proper order:
Notice light bulb is burnt out.
Recognize that it can be fixed by putting in a new light bulb
Remember where new light bulbs are stored
Go to light bulb storage area
Select new one
Find stool or chair to stand on
Take out old bulb, put in new one
Screw in bulb
Replace chair or stool to previous spot
Throw away old bulb
That’s not even all of them, but it’s a good enough summary for now. There are hidden stumbling blocks in every single step.
A burnt out bulb may go unrecognized as a problem - there’s two other bulbs in the room, it’s a little dimmer, so what? It might take all three burning out before you see it as a problem.
Maybe you forgot where the bulbs are, because it’s been a while. Searching the house is a task you put off, because it’s messy/disorganized/big/you have other more pressing matters. The bulb can wait.
You find the bulb storage, but you’re out of new ones. You have to shop. You’re busy, you put it off until the next time you shop, by which time you’ve forgotten you need a light bulb. Repeat cycle.
You’ve been depressed for a while, or maybe you’re just a messy person. A stack of important documents is on the chair you’d use to stand on to get to the bulb. You know if you move those documents you’ll forget where they are, and it’s tax stuff/homework/your mom’s birthday card, and you can’t forget that. The bulb gets put aside until you deal with those things. But you don’t want to deal with them now, so the bulb waits.
Throwing out the bulb requires safe disposal so that you don’t break it and accidentally cut yourself, or someone else in your home. You have no idea how to safely dispose of it. You put off changing the bulb until you figure out what to do with the old one.
On and on and on. Each step requires problem solving, prioritization, and reasoning. These are the hidden processes that go on in our minds every single moment of every day. Difficult tasks build up, compounding the problem of completing others, until each action requires ten more before you can solve the minor problem you started with. Changing a light bulb ends in a night of doing your taxes. Doing the dishes ends in standing in the dish soap aisle at the grocery story for a half hour trying to figure out which soap to buy for the dishwasher.
When a simple action requires the same effort from you as the most complex, abstract problem-solving…. to put it mildly, you’re fucked. Every day tasks require exhausting mental gymnastics.
So, be kind to the person who can’t seem to change a light bulb. There’s a lot that can stand in the way.
this is such a good addition to my post
Important info!
“Difficult tasks build up, compounding the problem of completing others, until each action requires ten more before you can solve the minor problem you started with. Changing a light bulb ends in a night of doing your taxes. Doing the dishes ends in standing in the dish soap aisle at the grocery story for a half hour trying to figure out which soap to buy for the dishwasher.”
I relate to this so hard.
(Your picture was not posted)
via http://ift.tt/2tSdIbW:
mattdamoen:
There was the boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader rang out suddenly above the echolalia of the garden. (more) (insp.)
(Your picture was not posted)
mattdamoen:
There was the boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader rang out suddenly above the echolalia of the garden. (more) (insp.)
(Your picture was not posted)