Evolution of tsaheylu

[auroraglacialis]

Alrook, interesting links, I will read and watch them later. I think there is a lot of communication going on on Earth that humans are not aware of or that they are deliberately forgetting. Of course nonhuman species communicate a lot - and try to communicate with us. Just because it is not heard as a voice in our ears or seen as abstract symbols in our eyes does not mean it is not happening. But this is deliberately ignored by science, sadly, who in some way keep doing what the first vivisectionists did - cut the vocal chords of the animals they tortured to not hear their voices.

Originally Posted by Human No More

While attraction is obviously a factor in sex, it isn't actually a part of the physical process past the concept of getting participants into a willing and ready state.

Man, your biologistical perspecive of sexuality is sort of disturbing. If you want to play in that field - attraction plays quite an important role in the health of a species, because it ensures that partners find to each other that do fit well and thus live long and have healthy babies.

That's a little more plausible, but I still wouldn't think so in that it would still imply a single complex (multicellular, motile, potentially semisentient) ancestor for all species

Quite possibly, yes. It would be fascinating to explore which lifeforms on Pandora have that trait and which ones do not have it. The animal life we see in the movie (excluding the NA'Vi which are a bit paradox) seems to share a lot of physiological properties (bare skin, six limbs, two queues, breathing through openings not in the head,...). That goes from sturmbeest down to tiny helicopter lizards and includes the flying creatures. So a common ancestor for all of them is likely anyways. We dont know, if the jellyfish or the bugs or the scorpions have anthing like tsaheylu.

This may very well be the case, I've always thought it likely to some degree, but in utero would seem the likely context, where there is already a significant physical and biochemical link. When it comes to making evolutionary sense, that isn't required for an attribute to be maintained so much as things being maintained if they are non-detrimental, even benignly so.

Yes of course, the theory that I learned also says that an attribute is maintained if it does not do harm, but frankly I think this is a very rare occurence because most attributes have some upsides & some downsides. And if it is only the energy and resources needed to grow something. But in the short run, some properties with only minor downsides and no upsides may stay, like the human appendix.

So to stay with the theory - a connection between mother and child is something that seems to be happening on Pandora. The beings there seem to be somewhat mammal-like in that they seem to give birth to live offspring and that they care for a few children until they get older. Rather than spreading thousands of eggs and then leaving. (K- and R- strategists). So I think the context of development of the particular way of tsaheylu between animals could well be developing in that context, just like feeding the little ones beyond their time of birth. As I said, basically mothers milk is an extension of the nourishing of the baby inside the mothers body, the mother carrying a child around and protecting it is a continuation from the protection the child has while inside the mother. So a neural connection between offspring and mother would quite well fit into this context and if so, it could also be extended to a time after birth.

I think that the queue does provide a different evolutionary advantage in terms of within the Na'vi though in that it allows mated pairs to have a strong emotional connection that is likely part physical too, on a neurochemical level, which would make it far less likely for them to even allow the other to come to harm, and to remain in a mated pair

Within context of the NA'Vi certainly this may be a speciality, as they are obviously deeply monogamous. We dont know that about others - I would guess this is not so and that other species are not that much bonding to a partner. If it is an evolutionary advantage - maybe it is. A strong bond between partners can in some circumstances be an advantage - in others it is not. In social beings like humans or the NA'Vi I'd rather think it is an advantage. Maybe it is in fact for all K-stragegists. On Pandora which seems to be a fully matured ecosystems in most parts, K-strategists would certainly be much more common.

It's likely transfer on a neurochemical level - more of the exact information as stored physically than a reinterpretation/being copied in, even if the recipient is then able to do so from their own experience of the information.

I did not get what you are saying here. As I would understand Tsaheylu, it is a form of communication that involves not only abstract concepts like vocal communication does, but also emotions, feelings, sensations and memories. I dont think it is anything like actually transferring an actual image or sound, but rather the memory of that image which is not precise, but tainted by the interpretation of the one that has the memory.

So a mother could give her child the feeling of "fear" in connection to the impression of a predator, or the feeling of being happy and warm in connection to a certain edible fruit. And later on, that sort of connection is not needed anymore between adults, but it is retained because one will care for offspring later on - and because it may serve that mating-connection purpose, or in the case of the NA'Vi the connection to semi-domesticated animals.

Of course, if this developed in the context of the most intimate connection there is in the world - that of a mother to her child - tsaheylu would in all other cases also be something intimate and create a bond in more than one way because of that. Just like I really love the dogs that are with me, I would assume that the NA'Vi build up deeper connections to the animals they bond with. For the Ikran we know that their connection resembles such a strong bond as it is normally seen only for mother/child or two beings in a strong and loving partnership.

I think this is also what you meant, right?

A convergence to such a degree of sophistication seems unlikely, it would probably take longer than the lifetime of any star[...]
It's a question of how far sentience goes - I would say that such fine manipulation is completely infeasible, it would be much the same as a human adjusting their DNA [...] to make a permanent change [...]. There's just no real mechanism for such fine control without a truly prodigious mutation rate, a far faster environmental reaction to selective pressures[...]

This is of course debatable. It seems more likely that there is some shared ancestor that had some form of "proto-tsaheylu" and which diverged into the two form we see - that between two animals (mother/child, lovers, hunter/Ikran) and that between plants (who form more permanent connections). Convergence is generally rather rare, but possible - after all tsaheylu is not mating, it does not require genetic compatibility, but it is communication. And communication can converge - there are humans that can understand and even "speak" some bird languages for example. Of course this is still a stretch, but convergence is an adaptation to a certain set of conditions - like animals being in water developing something that looks like fins and a tail because this is a better way to move underwater than with arms and legs. If the conditions are a planet that somehow is connected - if there are already networks of connections within major groups of species , then this creates an environment where participating in these networks is an advantage. The pressure to "understand the others communication" would be quite high. Imagine some larger species on Pandora that can have a large impact potentially and that is not participating in the communication - it would pose a threat to the others and they'd have a way to unite against it. Which is what happened in the movie. The pressure would thus be very great - and in this case the humans that want to stay better learn some way of participating in the communication - either by their development of Avatars or by following the ways of the NA'Vi.

On the genetic perspective - There are interestingly some mechanisms by which gene expression can be changed by the environment over generations (epigenetics) and there are some hints that this could be part of the mechanism of evolution because the parts of the genome that have been activated or deactivated are more or less sensitive to mutations. But I admit, that this theory is not so far advanced to say that external influences (and by that also self-created influences) can create some form of directed evolution. On Pandora on the other hand - it is as hard to imagine that by natural selection something like the Tree Of Souls evolved - but if something like that is possible as a result of directed evolution, then a convergence of the development of tsaheylu between plants and animals is not that implausible.

On Earth, interestingly there is also something converging when it comes to neural developments. Plants do have something like a neural pattern. Not as complex as a human brain of course, but they have nerves. And mushrooms sense touch as well and stretch out or retreat. Of course to neurally connect these three would not be possible - but its not possible for humans to technologcially connect two humans either