FQxI's Essay Competition Asks How Quantum is Life? Plus Plant Intelligence, Phys

Ulla Mattfolk

Steve Dufourny Life as HCNO is really an energetic mix, between entropy and negentropy. Universe contain mostly H (reduced).
Those atoms are among the first in the elemental table, and life can manage without O (decay). This kind of life would be non-local and quantum maybe? This is one reason why I say universe is living.

There is another aspect. Life is open systems so energy as entropy flows through, but a more interesting aspect is that matter also flows through, so the tissues are replaced by new tissues by time, different for different tissues. I can think of no 'dead' matter that do this.

Life would then be mostly an organizational principle at odds with both time and matter? Like a negentropic (reduced?) loop of coherence 'outside the laws' but this explanation can not hold, all in Nature must follow the same laws. So we must change our understanding, deepen it. Is this the function of consciousness?
Ulla.

marcovici alexandru

Ulla Mattfolk

my mistake consciousness intelligence are kind of the same

there is an device i found out in last month - plant wave that gives voice to plants
sea quest the movie had a similar babble fish translator for dolphins

sometimes language slows down reactions when translation happens there are more words in place than what container of the symbol it is originally emitted

lets say extraterrestrials in a different environment would use less words to describe a certain situation than in a translation for us because in our language in order to make sense there has to be also some explanations about their medium not just a word by word translation

what would be the right in human language translation of a tree swinging branches by the wind action

you may say this is not a good comparison because tree don't do that to communicate with other trees,
maybe they do and the information is carried by other means and is little compared to other communication schemes

soil pressure waves, water flowing , maybe even chemistry HCNO 😑

is there something obvious in cells that they have evolved on a planet with day and night ?

Ulla Mattfolk

marcovici alexandru consciousness intelligence are kind of the same

No, it is very different phenomena.

Lorraine Ford

In the sensory organs of living organisms, quantum particle interactions are right now occurring, in which information from the organism’s surroundings is exchanged with the organism (e.g. light wavelength or frequency information in the eyes), and starts a journey within the organism during which the organism collates (collects, combines and organises) and analyses myriads of such items of information, leading to higher-level consciousness, which is essentially just collated, analysed and organised information: the conscious experience of a myriad of individual particle- and/or atomic- and/or molecular-level interactions in and around the eyes eventually becomes higher-level unified conscious experience, e.g. of a tree or a car in the surrounding environment.

(When are people going to abandon this futile obsession with trying to explain why consciousness would “feel like something”? Because if consciousness is a separate or semi-separate, foundational aspect of the real-world moving system, then we can’t make judgements about whether consciousness ought to feel like something, or ought not to feel like something. In fact, consciousness is sometimes just thoughts, knowledge or conclusions without any obvious feelings or experiences (e.g. of pain or of colour) attached.)

But what is “information”? Real-world information, i.e. consciousness, is the time-place, non-physical, analytical aspect of the world that can be symbolically represented as (e.g.) something like:

(category1=number1 AND category2=number2 AND category3=number3) IS TRUE .

The basic low-level physical aspects are representable as categories like mass, wavelength and relative position, with their associated numbers.

But the basic low-level consciousness aspects are all about knowledge of what is time-place TRUE. This basic low-level, IS-TRUE-consciousness of categories and numbers, is what higher-level, collated and analysed, IS-TRUE-consciousness is based upon.

marcovici alexandru

so consciousness is a like an on off switch you either have it or you don't

or there a possibility for consciousness (intelligence) increase imagine a living organism that in his lifetime has more and more consciousness (intelligence),

imagine doing something for increasing the intelligence of a tree versus
doing something for increasing the consciousness (self awareness an other naming) of a tree

Lorraine Ford

marcovici alexandru
Your first line: No. I have never said or implied anything like that. All coherent matter (particles, atoms, molecules, living things) is necessarily time-place conscious/ aware of its immediate internal and external situation (to varying extents). The real-world system wouldn't work otherwise, without matter having a type of knowledge of its own time-place categories and numbers. The issue is: how do you represent this knowledge/ consciousness? I'm saying that one represents consciousness in the same way that one represents knowledge of what is currently true in a (basic-level) computer program.

Though I do agree with you that consciousness IS intelligence because consciousness of situation, and analysis of this situation, are both representable by the same types of symbols (symbols like IF, AND, OR, IS TRUE, THEN).

Your paragraph 3: I think you should quit dreaming and imagining such nonsense, unless you are in fact a child.

marcovici alexandru

check out my comment on
Lorraine Ford
https://forums.fqxi.org/d/4302-dark-energy-bombshell-cosmic-results-from-desi-and-act-rethinking-gatekeeping/8

unactionable data

so there is the idea of fluid intelligence and crystalized intelligence ,

human intelligence is just an example model of intelligence (information processing)
there are many other possibilities

https://forums.fqxi.org/d/4472-life-as-the-way-the-universe-experiences-its-own-entanglement/4

take this essay for granted

about swarm intelligence
https://www.bioradiations.com/trained-pigeons-read-mammograms-as-well-as-humans/

concretely for a tree doing the external shortcut that gives him more decisional powers in terms on how fast to grow or if to drop his leaves at a certain temperature at what angle a certain branches should stay might be easy than to evolutionary embed this mechanism in to his genetic development

agriculture is based one solution to fit all - tayloring spending time and energy for custom individual case lets say slow build up of tech

lets say a that life is actually is very fast given that there are all this posibilities to chose from , maybe a hundred years old forest is could have been in an other universe (equivalenting times between universes) a 10 000 years old forest with a lot more variations

| so basicaly i'm imagining the identical tree species in the 100 year old forest with more trees variation in between |||| for the paralel universe one

why no training tree to solve crosswords puzzles ?

Lorraine Ford

marcovici alexandru
As I said: I think you should quit dreaming and imagining such nonsense, unless you are in fact a child.

marcovici alexandru

maybe a world war three would be a good idea for ecology Lorraine Ford

therea are plenty of movies - humaniteis on trial in star trek have you seen it ?

A) technologies is giving potentialy a lot more power to fewer people
B) population has increased (intelligence not that much )
C) egalitarian human rights

in my opinion there could not be A simultaneusly with B simultaneusly witch C
a no wait there is also
D) ecology

ABCD at the same time downshifting, slowing down, invention new rituals maybe even religions

with a doing things right atitute taking in all the data one cannot reach a good conclusion that makes peacewith everywone

A) is also for becoming new species non humans merging with ai

this is old news, robot with rat brain

technoprogressivism has gone beyond people ability to tell stories about technologies

washing out the past not necessarely for the better
this ecology thing is like a keyhole , edge clif narrowing choiches for the human beign
alternatives elimination option reduction

at the same time people want more and more or at least the same busines as usual

why nobody told me is a video about an atheist that is concerned that nobody told him about science , i mean you have to look up for yourself, this is an isolating activity , with diminishin economic value , m not saying there is to much science i 'm saying it may be done differently

beside teachers i see no desperation no emergency no desire to learn and comunicate an use higher ideas and concepts
i see howver progress in the realm of automatic artificial five milions of years of evolution since bipedal walking to end up in century thats the estimate for the artificial superintelligence,

phase changes happens rapidly there are no societal organisation to deal with this changes ,
because people don't actually value communication look at this competiotion if you had realy valued sound based communication you may have had a voice phone prepaireing of the contestants to meet each other by voice before anything else,

this is probably because of missbehaving of phone societal structures the internet filled a communication nishe than it took complete over fixing and perpetuating certain mistakes , like in the jungle survivial of the fittest and the most robust, whatever worked

the idea of telepatic society is to amplify and foster grow each others minds to become more sensible ,
i see instead now a tele apatic society ,
maybe if i question the average joe on the street he will say that he is now more connected than ever

in half life computer game there is a monster a face monster this is what smartphones are they're completely interface the senses sight hearing and touch that are the grounding of cognition

that has happened because of the copy paste information explosion on the other hand books have remained the same
what is the information based society of tomorow if books that are still in print suffer from old habbits and problems completely disconnected from the ones and zeros of the digital age

no gradual middle ground only going for the extreme cases

the gradual middle ground is closer to an humble amiish society than to an ~~extraterestrials~~ artificial intelligence technobased society

the implicit asumption (we make the good choices for you) in acceleration techdiscoursesc push society and technolgy and ecology on specific interaction dynamics

new types of grammars and communication strategies should be carefully slowly crafted to fulfil all the constraints ive started this topic

marcovici alexandru

cells in a tissue communicate hundrets of terrabytes of information or just a few bytes of chemical data

the same with society a more efficient and less information density might be ideal with certain rules and protocols steps
that are also ecological friendly

the coordination costs i think is the term

with fewer things happening there is also fewer things to communicate

if evrybody is doing something increasingly more than there is also an overflood of communication and paralisis jams

i have not studied economy just heard briefly about such moments of inflation tulips flower sales i think is a moment
technology has aparently managed to overpass the exponential bubbles
but at what costs ?

growth in animal kingdom happens until is filling the niche , what is the todays nieche filled - the surface of earth and the heat of the deeper layers of ocean

what is to be looked after a way in wich things have a certain predictibility and not to be dependent on the communication medium

marcovici alexandru

the future is here just not evenly distributed

may be reformultaed like this
this is a broad conceptual debates ( with this and that prototypes or look at that 100 000 items catalogues , you can veryfy some of the summary of the past history) , this is what is possible now think twice before doing anything seriously

marcovici alexandru

the increased heat of human caused climate change is equivalent to a 100 watt light bulb burning continuously over every square meter on earth at height of 1.7 m

quate from data intergovernmental panel on climate change 2021 Patrick Gonzalez

i have not done the calculation howver i tend to believe this data is true

imagine boiling a pot of water

at the beginning the water is steady with some clear rotating swirls
the more heat is being injected those become more and more chaotic

now if you place a frog 🐸 at the end of the heating he will jump outside
if you keep the frog from start to gradually heat it will stay until a point of inability to jump

this is the more obvious

an other serious science researcher explained with the expresion that the
trees don't have legs

when clouds systems move gradually slowly for us to observe outside their normal range of weather
we dont have eyes to observe however this is to fast for trees to adapt

-
so i know all of this i write here in this forum now what you need electricity to read my comment on some wires that i dont know how efficient they are or what is their source of energy

imagine an extraterestrial language that has a voice that informes on each sentence what is the resource costs of comunication
it could be done like thsi sentence for me to speak write ( has costed half bite of a sandwitch and some water vitamin)

if you need to handle other distracting information that would be an overflow if you focus only on this part than it would be manageble ,
thats an other idea of how prices are setted up sociologically speaking , what do you mean by something becoming cheaper or more expensive , there are all sorts of reality distorting or hiding ilusions that coms from encapsualtion of knowledge in specializes sylos

like for example the weather man service , i dont care about the weather because i can know in an instance what the weather is from a person place organisation that is specialized on this task , there is nothing for me in this to be done , because i have externalized /delegated the service to someone else , historucally this is an interesting moment that has happend , weather is one of the main reasons for long distance comunication network appearance /invention

marcovici alexandru

have you bought your legumes with rain water in a drought prone area ?

or how you managed the excess water to infiltrate and dilute the soil in a place where rain has suddenly got to be more than expected by river clouds ? (hwo underground pipes forms in soil when it raining depending on the soil )

so the question format is what was the past how do you manage to do conservation works

so lets say there is a forest that might be saved if watered fort the next 20 years (till the normal clouds come back)
otherwise it will be fire wood

how do you save it technologically speaking without burning more energy with a minimal resource cost on a large area far away from a water source

maybe there could be done some reverse osmosis pipes out of food packaging that can be placed on soil ,
i saw recently a pump that was energy free that caried water upstream by means of water gravitational acceleration hammer , where the water was excesively loss and the pipes stored the tension energy

marcovici alexandru

As I said: I think you should quit dreaming and imagining such nonsense, unless you are in fact a child.

tree solving crossword puzzles i think is a good idea it can be done ✅

with leaves falling the input output should not be in real time with how you water and step on the nearby souil - should be -i dont know like - seasonal ? Jahreszeiten /anotimpuri / сезоны / saisons /årstider/stagioni/εποχές/ 季节/季節/עונות/المواسم

Lorraine Ford

“Randomness” or “quantum randomness” doesn’t actually exist. “Random” is just a description for behaviours/ outcomes, where an observer can find no rhyme or reason in what he/ she is observing.

Non-random behaviours/ outcomes, on the other hand, have a cause:

Behaviours/ outcomes that, when appropriately symbolically represented, are seen as being necessitated by an equation and/or an algorithm.
Free will behaviours/ outcomes, where free will is the cause of an outcome (free will can be algorithmically represented as being the more-or-less logical (or even illogical) response to a symbolically represented situation).

Perhaps the old idea of “order out of chaos” is to blame for the idea that there is an actual “randomness” thing. This idea of “order out of chaos” always was truly absurd, because underlying the so-called “chaotic” systems were non-random equations and non-random algorithms. I.e. the so-called “chaos” always was just superficial appearances. AND the so-called “order” never had any order at all, apart from that given by the underlying equations and algorithms.

Lorraine Ford

Biology can’t explain why a system, or a living organism, would ever move/ change/ evolve in response to its surroundings, or how a system, or a living organism, would know about itself and its surroundings. “Survival of the fittest” and other seemingly-causal, Platonic, entities don’t even exist. However, this movement aspect of the world and this knowledge aspect of the world, are seen in their most primitive form in the “quantum” behaviours of matter.

Physics’ “law of nature” equations merely represent relationships, and there are no equations/ relationships that can explain movement or knowledge either, but there it is, in the “quantum” behaviours of matter. Instead, the equations that represent relationships merely assume movement and knowledge on the part of the system, or small parts of the system.

On the other hand, computer systems analysts and computer programmers just might say that the symbolic representation of a knowledge aspect, and the symbolic representation of a movement aspect, are a necessary part of any computer program, and that this is the entire reason that AIs can seem lifelike.

“Law of nature” equations can be symbolically represented in computer programs, but the movement and knowledge aspects are symbolically represented with special logical symbols like: IF, AND, OR, IS TRUE, and THEN.

These movement aspects and knowledge aspects are necessary component parts of viable, moving, real-world systems, including living organisms.

Lorraine Ford

We have a way of representing the basic aspects of the physical world, in terms of categories (like mass or relative position), relationships between these categories (represented as equations that represent laws of nature), and numbers that apply to the categories.

But we do not have a basic way of representing consciousness and agency, seemingly because no particular use can be found for consciousness and agency in the world.

I’m saying that, on the contrary, basic-level consciousness and agency are the necessary logical aspects of the real-world moving system:

Consciousness is the time-place aspect of the system that says what set of categories and associated numbers are currently time-place TRUE. This aspect of the system can’t be represented as categories, equations and numbers alone.
Agency is the time-place aspect of the system that moves/ jumps the numbers that apply to the categories. This aspect of the system can’t be represented as categories, equations and numbers alone. The law-of-nature equations, with their partial derivative and/ or delta symbols, merely assume movement, they don’t represent the aspect of the system that causes movement.

However, the logical statements in computer programs already have a way of representing basic-level consciousness and agency, using symbols like: IF, AND, OR, IS TRUE, and THEN.

Equations alone are not sufficient to represent the real-world moving system: a viable moving system also requires logical aspects. The “quantum” aspects of the world are the logical aspects of the world; the “quantum” aspects of the world are the consciousness and agency aspects of the world.

Lorraine Ford

Computer systems analysts and computer programmers have always been aware that a set of equations does not represent a viable system: a viable moving system needs logical aspects, and in fact the equations are optional.

These logical aspects are the aspects whereby the system (or small parts of the system) knows its own categories and numbers, and the aspects whereby the system (or small parts of the system) jumps its own numbers that apply to the categories.

These logical aspects are the aspects of the real-world moving system that are embodied in the “quantum” behaviours of matter, and the aspects that allow matter to organise itself into living organisms. So-called “self-organisation” can only occur because matter knows its own categories and numbers, and because matter moves its own numbers.

So instead of the nonsensical woo-woo of “self-organisation”, it is time to look at the non-physical logical aspects of the world. These non-physical logical aspects of the world are necessary in order for the real-world moving system to exist, and necessary in order for matter to organise itself into living organisms.

Lorraine Ford

Lorraine Ford
(continued)

I am contending that matter has non-physical logical aspects that are necessary in order for the real-world moving system to exist, and are also necessary in order for matter to organise itself into living organisms. These are the IF, AND, OR, IS TRUE, and THEN aspects of the world; these are the non-physical and non-measurable consciousness and agency aspects of the world.

But the voltages, transistors and circuits in computers are physical components that merely symbolically represent logic in a physical way. This is not the “non-physical logic” I was referring to in the above paragraph. Unfortunately, an awful lot of people have been comprehensively fooled into believing that genuine logic is occurring inside computers; instead, there are voltages, transistors and circuits which merely represent logic.

Lorraine Ford

As someone who was awarded a High Distinction for Mathematical Methods in my university science course, I think I am qualified to say that equations do not represent a moving system, equations can only ever represent relationships. Replacing numbers with number changes, via the use of delta or partial differential symbols, makes no difference: equations do not represent a moving system, equations can only ever represent relationships.

And yet, at the foundations of reality, they found the source of all subsequent number change: quantum number jumps that are unencumbered by the equations.

Nevertheless, they struggled mightily, and continue to struggle, to turn the number jumps into equations; others wanted, and continue to want, to turn the number jumps into an elaborate story where all possible numbers exist, and the universe is continually manifolding.

But the equations always did require a source of number movement, and when they found the source of number movement in the universe, they didn’t want to believe it.

So, these continually occurring quantum number jumps, by matter, are the only reason why the universe moves, and these continually occurring quantum number jumps are the only reason why matter can move and organise itself into living organisms.

But these quantum number jumps can’t be represented by equations: quantum number jumps can only be represented algorithmically.

Lorraine Ford

Lorraine Ford
The equations that represent laws of nature merely represent mathematical relationships between categories, so these equations can’t explain why the world is moving.

I.e. the equations can’t explain why the numbers (that apply to the categories like relative position) would ever start to change, or continue to change, except as a consequence of other number change, and in this case, the numbers would passively change due to the mathematical relationships between the categories.

So “quantum number jumping”, i.e. matter jumping its own numbers, is the solution to the problem of “why is the world moving?”.

And matter (i.e. small parts of the universe) jumping its own numbers is also the solution to the problem of “what is doing the number jumping?”.

Instead of being a weird problem, “quantum number jumping” is the solution to a problem.

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