Is Eywa a fungal organism?

[HeartOfGaia]

"The quote is one of Stamets' replies to a question posted underneath his TED talk video.
Do I think such a thing might be true? No. I kind of want to, it's a beautiful idea, but you know how the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And the evidence isn't quite extraordinary enough at the moment."

Biologically, one of the criteria for being a living thing is the ability to respond to stimuli or shifting abiotic factors in the environment. If a structure like a branch (which also becomes the mycelium's food) falls above the organism it will have some means of 'sensing' it.

It has been proven scientifically that fungi coevolved with plants and form a symbiosis which without, many plants could not live.

Through experimentation it has been shown that plants with fungal symbionts grow larger and faster. These plants are drought resistant as well as defended from dangerous pathogens.

Within a foot step, enough mycelium hyphae is coild up to form a length of eight miles when stretched out.

It has been shown that mycelium connect multiple trees belonging to different species and that when one tree is severely lacking in nutrients, the mycelium will reroute nutrients toward that particular tree.

Stamets has also shown that mycelium can purify water by acting as a filter, they produce chemicals which can destroy biological weapons, and they produce powerful antibacterial agents.

He has studied these organisms for 30 years. In his book- 'Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World' he explains the experiments he and others have done. He provides pictures, explaining his ideas. Stamets even gives a list of references at the end of this book. He is the foremost authority on fungi.

[auroraglacialis]

Yeah -sadly that is true. Actually the evidence is not even below extraordinary, I guess. Did Stamet elaborate on the concept in some talk or in his book (the TED talk you mentioned is probably the one on "saving the world with mushrooms"´, right?) - I mean does he have ANY evidence for this claim or is it just a concept. He is a scientist after all, so making unsubstantiated claims is not exactly something one can easily afford. After all, even the at that time funny notion that contients are moving was at least supported by the matching shape of africa and south america and the presence of identical rock formations along that shape. Of course that theory was first laughed at and now is accepted - my point is though, that to make such a claim, Wegner at least had some evidence that pointed strongly towards it. The structural likeness of mycelium to neural networks alone is not really that much, as such "webs" are present in other nonsentient (at least at the current state of knowledge ) organisms and even inorganic structures as well.

[Human No More]

It's a human tendency to see patters where often none exist. One of the human brain's strongest abilities is pattern recognition (look at human attempts at calculations and attempts to develop pattern recognition in computers, they are the opposite), but that doesn't mean everything is part of one.

[auroraglacialis]

Mind you that Grace is a scientist. She is focussed on the tangible physical structure and that is the "brain", the connected trees, the neuron-like connections. For once, that may not even be everything there is to it. They were just starting to learn after all! And secondly to know the basic structure of the "brain" does not mean to know how it works. Like people used to think that 90% of the human brain is not used. That turned out to be nonsense...
I can imagine, that the "brain" of Eywa is not simply trees and roots on a macroscopic scale. I could not find a screenshot that showed that readout on graces screen when Norm said "its that fast" after poking a needle in a root. (Maybe someone has one?), but what showed up there was not like one big line of light per root - it was more like something in the roots or covering the roots. (like in this here: http://oneknightstands.files.wordpre...r-hd-00071.jpg) . Also the night pictures, they semed to show a glowing web that did not follow the visible roots, which actually were dark at times but crossed the landscape. So I can imagine, that Grace and her buddies did not (yet) see everything that happens, just imagine a world like Pandora - it would take decades to just grasp the basics of the ecology. We dont even understand the ecology of Earth yet and spent years of work and hordes of scientists on it

[auroraglacialis]

WTF? - Why is my post ("Yesterday, 12:02 PM ") showing up above HNM's ("Yesterday, 11:43 PM ")?

[Human No More]

Because 12PM is the first hour of the afternoon, 11PM is the last, then it goes to 12am (0AM in 24 hour)

[auroraglacialis]

Ah ok, makes sense. I just thought I had a deja vu, because you posted basically the same statement as before (http://www.tree-of-souls.com/97857-post25.html) in http://www.tree-of-souls.com/98117-post29.html - so I though "man, I just read that before I wrote that reply"

Anyways - I still hope someone has a nice screenshot of that screen readout when Grace shows Norm the signal transduction. And on Eywa beeing supernatural - I think there ARE some hints for that in some way. Like the "signs" with the woodsprites... How would Eywa send a sign if she did not see something coming, how did she "control" the woodsprites to act like they did. Also the (sadly cut) scene of Jake seeing Toruk as his spirit animal that came to him without direct contact is a bit mystical. Still - there may be explanations without supernatural for this, though I think I remember reading a comment of JC that he intended to give the impression of a supernatural Eywa and not merely a physical entity... but I cant find it, so I cant prove it.

[Human No More]

There

As for supernatural... I do disagree, with the atokirina, I had an interesting theory a while ago about their senses and how they may be 'programmed' in a way as to what they are attracted to. For Toruk, I'm no expert on that kind of thing, but isn't it supposed to reflect the person's personality, rather than any future events?

[auroraglacialis]

Yeah - the case for supernatural is not really a clean one

But on the roots. Thanks for the image. I think one can see, that some parts of the roots are dark, while others have lines along them that light up. This looks a bit like this:
or this: . So I dont want to debate too much here, as this is a bit loony to debate on these details on a fictional representation of a world, but to me it sure looks a bit like the roots are more covered in something that transmits the signals. Maybe Eywa is more at home in a symbiotic lifeform that grows along the roots of the trees or maybe the trees themselves as zooplantae have that ability to grow these structures on the roots - but it seems a bit (center bottom of the screen) like not the whole root is the conductor, but something that exists on its surface.
But from one screenshot, it's hard to say. Guess I need to go to the theatre again or get the DVD after all...

[Human No More]

I think it's clearer with the animation that it shows the signal actually moving along... as it's a scan that scans 'through' them, it's showing the centre of the roots where the actual nerve-like fibres are, rather than the outside which is more to protect them.

[auroraglacialis]

Ok, ok - well in any case - I think the comparison of zooplantae to funghi in respect to them beeing both neither completly plant nor animal is still a good point and a network of zooplantae would in some way be the Pandora equivalent of a mycelium network on Earth. Of course we dont know enough about what the Biology on Pandora is like to know this. In some ways, the trees and plants (we dont even know which trees and plants participate in that network - sigh) on Pandora seem to connect in a way that on Earth is not seen, while on Earth we can see that connection in funghi that connect large areas and even link trees together. So I think there is a similarity, but because you cant compare apples and purple fruits on a distant moon (or biology and exobiology), quite obviously there cant be a "this is that" comparison, just a homologous development or similarity in any case...

[Human No More]

Communication and sentience (or indeed, even conscious thought) aren't interdependent, so it's certainly possible

[Banefull]

Eywa most likely exhibits some characteristics of a Fungi; however, I highly doubt she fits the classification of one. Classification can sometimes be a tricky business because many lifeforms often exhibit characteristics of many different taxonomic groups.

There are fungus-like creatures called slime molds. They were once considered part of the fungi kingdom but the definition for what constitutes a fungi has changed somewhat and they are now classified as Protista. They exhibit some very amazing communal behaviors such as locomotion in large colonies.

#71: Slime Molds Show Surprising Degree of Intelligence | Animal Intelligence | DISCOVER Magazine

Slime Molds show that other possibilities exist besides neurons for communication.

[ISV Venture Star]

Fungi is the plural. Fungus is singular.

[Banefull]

The taxonomic kingdom is known as "fungi".