Is Eywa a fungal organism?

[ISV Venture Star]

Originally Posted by Banefull

The taxonomic kingdom is known as "fungi".

Saying something like 'one of the Fungi' would still be preferable to me, although this usage is admittedly not universally accepted and yes, you will find papers that refer to 'a Fungi' (meaning one member of this Kingdom).

[lovewow]

Paul Stamet goes that way and he is no new age guy, but a very renowned scientist. Soo - mushrooms could be Earths version of that network that harbors the Eywa-consciousness.

[auroraglacialis]

Yeah, I was surprised in a positive way also, that a scientist with numerous valid and accepted publications will openly say, that he thinks that it is very well possible or even likely that mycelium has some form of intelligence and that mushrooms are sort of a bio-internet for plants and possibly animals.
Granted, Stamets DID start his work with studying hallucinogenic mushrooms, so he has some roots in that corner - but hey, so have the people who "invented" the internet and personal computers. And he went a long way from that time.

In case I did not post that interview before (but I am almost sure I did): Podcast Episode: Living Green: Paul Stamets, Fungal Intelligence and the 21st Psychedelic Journey - "How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World." in our "11th Hour" edition. (EveryBody Inspired to Succeed

[apache_blanca]

Originally Posted by Isard

The trees are the hardware, Eywa's the software.

^^^ this. Why is it so difficult to believe that Nature is intelligent?

Look what Paul Samet says:
"I believe that nature is intelligent. I believe that we are born of nature and if we are intelligent then, by definition, nature must be because nature gave rise to us.
.....
I think nature all around us is conscious of our presence. Whether we are conscious of nature’s presence of course, is a totally different matter. "

where shall I sign?

[auroraglacialis]

Yeah, I love Stamets ideas. I think however they require a redefinition of consciousness, intelligence and sensing presence. I am currently reading "the spell of the sensous" by david abrams and it is very interesting in that respect.
Basically what I think and part of that are also int hat book, though on a more philosophical line, is that consciousness and intelligence does not really need a grey mass of neurons and a frontal cortex. Sensing definitely does not - plants and funghi can sense movements (touch), chemicals (smell) and light (vision). They also could possibly react to sounds (hearing). They can react on that in a way that is meaningful to them or their kin.
And in the end, whole ecosystems are very complex networks of interactions and potentials and sort of are a "brain" in themselves. At least in an abstract way. They also reacto to various inputs and give outputs.
To know if they are conscious/intelligent in any sense that we can understand as such is stretching it, but who are we to define our own version of that as the only one and our timeframe of reference as the only one. Would a human on Pandora (without an Avatar) really be able to understand that Eywa really exists and is intelligent and conscious?
Do we really "know" something is happening until we experience it? As I recently heard in a talk "we can describe love in many ways as chemical process, as a pattern of neuronal activities, as a social phenomenon, but we never know what it really is until we experience it". Nature around us could be an intelligent, conscious being and we would not be able to be sure unless we somehow manage to communicate with it. But maybe its language and form of intelligence is too different from what we regard as normal communication.

Think of Sci Fi stories when humans encounter alien races and try to communicate with them - somethimes, they are clueless about what the others want and there are stories about creatures that do not even appear to be intelligent in any way until much later it becomes obvious that it is so - to the horror of all the people participating.

Shudder - I just realized what shock it would be for the human race to (once again?) become aware of the consciousness and intelligence of the Earth, realizing what has been done to her in all these years. It would be like "Soylent Green is made of people"...

[Human No More]

There isn't any such effect on Earth, as nice as that would be. All these 'Gaia' beliefs are just wishful thinking unfortunately. It doesn't need to be neurologically based, certainly, but it does need something more than basic chemical processes. An ecosystem can be considered a network in the very basic sense, and even in a few more advanced senses in terms of adaptation and limited healing and balancing abilities, but there is still no higher level process arising from it - biochemical exchanges are completely interchangeable and they do not vary as would be needed for a form of communication.

A human on Pandora - it depends on what they know and what they are doing. If they are studying the connectivity between the species then yes, they will be aware of a much wider-scale network and apparent activity, although possibly not the overall sentience, but still the potential for it to be there (based on the numbers of connections and their relative sophistication).

[Lahea Atxkxeftu]

I think that Eywa cannot be separated organism which uses trees as nerve system. I would say, that it's an intelligence of many. For example: One bee doesn't seems to be bright, but hive is very intelligent and advanced. The same happens with ants.

P.S. Grace never said that Eywa works like a human brain. She said that planet has ''more connections than the human brain. It's a network''

[apache_blanca]

Quoting Yukteswar by memory: "If Cosmos waited on human beings to discover every single law that it needs for its smooth functioning before putting it into operation... it would be a rather chaotic place!"

What was first - the electricity or the AVO-meter?
What is love - only hormones & neurons (that only seem to activate for one person, and no one else) - or "something more"?
What is Pandora homesickness - how does it happen?
What do we really know about the world that's been here for billions of years, and us, for a few hundred thousands?

It's a matter of free choice, but I like to keep my glass just a wee bit empty so that some new surprising knowledge might enter...

[Human No More]

Just because humans haven't existed for as long as Earth does not mean they can not understand it. There is not something definitely there just because it is older. As one of my favourite quotes goes: "By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out".

Bees and ants are not intelligent in a 'sentient being' sense though, just a (pheromone-based) coordination sense. The connections on Pandora are mentioned to work on a very similar principle to synapses - in effect, the entire network is a layer above cells and their networks, since in brains, each cell is still an individual unit in a basic sense, albeit not oen that is capable of surviving independently form support systems.

[Alyara Arati]

I don't see that Eywa necessarily has to have a supernatural component in order to extrapolate events of the fairly near future. Her nature is certainly more "super" than anything we're familiar with; who can say exactly what that level of consciousness is capable of, especially when given enough stimuli? On the other hand, I wouldn't rule it out, either, on the basis of what information we've been given.

[Human No More]

Exactly - an intelligent person can reasonably predict the future too.

[auroraglacialis]

Yes of course on Earth there is no Gaia that is 1:1 the same as Eywa in terms of something that stores the memories of people, but even Eywa is not something the people can talk to. There is no voice of Eywa or direct communication in words. And certainly most people do not even get much more back from Eywa than feeings, emotions and the feeling of a presence, maybe subconscious guides - at least there is no hin in the movie that people can "talk to Eywa" and get a response we here and now would understand as such.

Originally Posted by Human No More

All these 'Gaia' beliefs are just wishful thinking unfortunately. It doesn't need to be neurologically based, certainly, but it does need something more than basic chemical processes. An ecosystem can be considered a network in the very basic sense, [...] but there is still no higher level process arising from it - biochemical exchanges are completely interchangeable and they do not vary as would be needed for a form of communication.

I do not understand what you mean. What does not vary? Ecosystems vary all the time. They are on many cases very unpredictable, even individual animals and plants do not behave the same way as others of the same species. The amount of information in a mathematical sense is staggering.

(based on the numbers of connections and their relative sophistication).

The network on Earth is very complex indeed - animals, plants, funghi all working together on several levels from nutrient transportation to chemical responses, including electrochemical gradients. Of course it is not an electrical, fast reacting neural network, but if one looks at the complexity as a measurement - Earths ecosphere is extremely complex.
The distinction of a "higher level process" - where do you make it? What is a higher level process and what forms of communication do you count?
For example if your dog scratches at the door, you understand she wants to go outside to take a leak, if the potted plant tilts its leafs you know she needs water, if the little crustacaeans in the creek go away, you know there is something wrong with the creek, if fish die in a lake, the message is that upstream there was too much agriculture maybe - these are more abstract (or less abstract) forms of communication.

Originally Posted by Lahea Atxkxeftu

P.S. Grace never said that Eywa works like a human brain. She said that planet has ''more connections than the human brain. It's a network''

Indeed. And I found that actually a rather weak statement to compare it to a human brain, because certainly the network would be more complex than a human brain. I think it was more a pun on Selfridge to say that the trees have more brains than he does

Originally Posted by Human No More

Bees and ants are not intelligent in a 'sentient being' sense though, just a (pheromone-based) coordination sense. The connections on Pandora are mentioned to work on a very similar principle to synapses - in effect, the entire network is a layer above cells and their networks, since in brains, each cell is still an individual unit in a basic sense, albeit not oen that is capable of surviving independently form support systems.

Well if you compare it directly, then surely there is no such thing as that on Earth, but reducing it to a more basic, systems theory model, I would say the differences are not that strong. Turning this around, one could say that the brain is just a bunch of identical cells that only use simple electric connections to allow the animals to coordinate their bodies. That would be ignoring what else there is.

So what is the defining characteristics of the network of neurons in the brain compared to the network connecting individuals in a vibrant ecosystem. Just because we are made of neurons and electric impulses does not mean that this is the only way something can develop that is in some way conscious. But I also have trouble seperating human consciousness from that of other beings because I do not see that the difference is clearly defined so easily without using very subjective terms like "we are able to build spaceships". Pholosophers have been struggling with that question for ages and with more evidence coming in, one after another element that supposedly seperates humans from nonhumans goes away. It used to be that humans are "better" because they are making tools and build cities and farms, but birds make tools and ants build cities and mushroom farms.

[Human No More]

I mean that there is no way to encode any data in a chemical interaction between organisms.
A higher level process would be one approaching, at or greater than a human-like level of complexity, or possibly the ability to understand concepts beyond instinct (e.g. primates). In the case of plants as an example, the 'movement' is actually just a change in the shape of the cells due to the vacuole, while an animal has a functional nervous system. Earth's interactions are certainly extremely complex, and I agree that it could be considered a 'super-organism' in a basic sense in terms of homeostasis and interactions between both organisms and ecosystems, but not in a thinking sense (although there are a few individual plant organisms which are spread over extremely large areas such as some fungi and tree species, they are still isolated from everything else in all but the biochemical sense).
Being more complicated than a human brain does not preclude it working in a similar way - indeed, the structure would be very similar, Grace even makes a direct comparison to the effect of synapses.
The difference in a human or animal brain is that the interaction between neurons is not interchangeable, while a chemical reaction is. An organism doesn't care about the origin of its oxygen, different areas don't produce different types, what matters is just that it is present.

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by HNM

I mean that there is no way to encode any data in a chemical interaction between organisms.

But that is not really true. Take a mycelium because this is the original topic. It transports nutrients and chemicals from one part to the other. That flow of elements can be fast, slow, be diverted to other parts of the mycelium, cease or change in chemical composition. That is data. A plant that releases pheromones to warn other plants about a bug infestation gives information. Distance, intensity of infestation, potentially also direction.

Also interaction is not only chemical but can also be electrical (in microorganisms) or physical (by touching, physically moving).

A higher level process would be one approaching, at or greater than a human-like level of complexity, or possibly the ability to understand concepts beyond instinct

But how do we know that. The earths ecosystems are certainly more complex than humans, and we do not really know if there is an "understanding" happening beyond instinct. Animals also learn - they observe and act upon what they have learned. Is that instinct? It is learned behaviour after all. There are even cultures - birds from different places use different tools or techniques. How do we know that some being has "understanding beyond instinct" and how can we say that what we define as valid concepts are universal? Looking at different human cultures, there are already gaping differences in some concepts. Some indigenous in the Amazon have no concept of numbers. Not because they are stupid, but because for them you cannot say "3 people", because these 3 people are in fact John, Jill and Joe and to reduce John Jill and Joe to being identical and calling them "people" would be a reduction in information and a simplification. But these people are not lacing consiousness, they just have different concepts. A being that is more different from us than these people would have very differenct concepts maybe. But in any case, if there is no means of communication that we take valid, there is no way to know what they are.

In the case of plants as an example, the 'movement' is actually just a change in the shape of the cells due to the vacuole, while an animal has a functional nervous system.

Movement in animals is just cells using their "hairs" to pull strings we call muscles. In animals these reactions are caused by nerves, in plants there are potential gradients and slower moving impulses that activate them. Of course a single plant will not look at you and react to you individually, but that was not the point here anyways because we are not talking about intelligent or thinking individual plants.

although there are a few individual plant organisms which are spread over extremely large areas such as some fungi and tree species, they are still isolated from everything else in all but the biochemical sense

Well funghi for example interact with trees and other plants beyond their own mycelium. Also what is wrong with biochemical connections - why cannot biochemical reactions form a network? It is not that the release of some substance by one part of a mycelium instantly is spread over the whole world and diluted - it is a local effect, much like in the synapses of animal brains. The bridge between individual and seperated cells is a gap. In that gap, there is a local release of chemicals that trigger a response in the neighboring neuron. How exactly is that different from an ecosystem or an organism interacting with another part of the ecological network? With a mycelium releasing nutrients it gathered from the soil to one individual tree?

Grace even makes a direct comparison to the effect of synapses.

I also just did

An organism doesn't care about the origin of its oxygen, different areas don't produce different types, what matters is just that it is present.

As I said, it is not that these chemicals are upon release instantly mixed. Even a neuron does not care if the impulse comes from a specific neuron, it only cares that there is an impulse coming in from another neuron. In theory, even putting a wire in it would trigger it. The information is not in the chemicals themselves (though even they carry information in form of isotopes) but in the network that shuttles them around and releases them locally, which prompts a local reaction.

[Advent]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

Shudder - I just realized what shock it would be for the human race to (once again?) become aware of the consciousness and intelligence of the Earth, realizing what has been done to her in all these years. It would be like "Soylent Green is made of people"...

Some people (mostly here ) already respect the Earth as such. However, the majority of the population is stuck in what we've come to call 'blissful ignorance'.

Your statement here is quite food for thought though. What would happen if the Earth (or we) woke up? Would we kill ourselves? Would we be killed by nature? Would we attempt to repair Earth?
Quite interesting.

In response to the thread though, I would also have to agree with Aihwa's earlier statement. The tree of souls and the trees of voices are connections to Eywa - like nerve endings, you might say. The only problem is that, the actual network that makes Eywa is in fog, to say the least. We were told in the movie that there are more connections to Pandora then the Human brain. Okay, there's a lot of connections, to what? Eywa. But how much do we know about Eywa, how does she survive, how does she get her information? We don't have all the answers. And thus, JC should hopefully have better answers in the sequel.

My 2 cents there, chaps. Ask JC.