A Piece Of Dough Can Learn Just Like Animals And Humans

[haidut]

That's too materialistic for me...

Maybe learning is a property of matter. If iron bars and aluminum cones can learn (as the old study referenced in the article says) and electrons have memory (as Ray said) then the world looks even more alive to me. I know you don't like to ascribe consciousness to non-living matter, but what do you think would be a test for consciousness? It is not easy to come up with an objective one and of the few that I know of, most have yielded stranger result than this study - i.e. certain states of matter like plasma and gasses at certain temperatures or pressure pass those tests of consciousness but only under certain conditions. Similar to consciousness in humans requiring certain conditions to manifest itself.

 

[milk]

I have a kitchen table that filled with aunts eating stuff (suddenly they came in huge numbers) and they are addicted to white sugar, coconut oil, OJ, guava, and milk! What the hell, the same food that I eat. I think they might have high metabolism.

the ants in my kitchen love beef liver

 

[Lightbringer]

I always found the J.C. Bose stuff that Ray talked about very interesting.

1
J.C. Bose was the first person who came to my mind as well when i read this post. I think Peat had spoken of his attempts at inducing 'fatigue' in non-living matter:
Collected Physical Papers/On the Similarity of Effect of Electrical Stimulus on Inorganic and Living Substances - Wikisource, the free online library

 

[Makrosky]

Maybe learning is a property of matter. If iron bars and aluminum cones can learn (as the old study referenced in the article says) and electrons have memory (as Ray said) then the world looks even more alive to me. I know you don't like to ascribe consciousness to non-living matter, but what do you think would be a test for consciousness? It is not easy to come up with an objective one and of the few that I know of, most have yielded stranger result than this study - i.e. certain states of matter like plasma and gasses at certain temperatures or pressure pass those tests of consciousness but only under certain conditions. Similar to consciousness in humans requiring certain conditions to manifest itself.

haidut, my friend, just because something "learns" (again: in the dough ball case a very specific, automatic, unavoidable learning) or has memory that doesn't mean an iron bar, a rock or an electron is alive or has consciousness. To me that doesn't qualify as "alive". It looks like it has certain properties that we thought were merely human but they are not. I would formulate the other way around : Precisely because even iron bars can learn, humans are much more than a black box that recieves inputs, processes, learns, and gives outputs.

You are right, what would an objective definition of consciousness be? Conscious of what ? Of that the thing exists by itself ? Of that it is "alive" ? Not easy. I don't know the experiments you are talking about, you're much versed into that than me.

It is not that I "don't like to ascribe consciousness to non-living matter"!!! I think we just don't have the ideas and a scientifical paradigm to hold that. We just don't. Although you can grasp those ideas if you think about them, play with them (and you previously had a good dose of NDT or LSD haha) you can't bring them back to our world. Our paradigm. We're not tuned to that. There was a time (not very long ago) when the universe was alive. Rocks, Lightning bolts, plants, clouds, planets, caves, everything. It's the Plato's idea of anima mundi. But at a certain point in history, we killed that. We made a shift. Those old ideas are dead, we can't see the world anymore like that.

I think what is happening now is that slowly, we are punching holes in our current paradigm ceiling, we are breaking it, we just don't have a new paradigm to replace the old one. We did have one! but it's old and dead. We need a new one to accomodate our new findings. What would you do if I would tell you know that rocks are alive ? That have complete consciousness. It's a total mindfuck because we don't have a cultural frame to put that.

I don't know if I made any sense to you.

 

[jaa]

I'm mostly in agreement with Makrosky.

Does a rock think? Almost certainly not. There is no reason for it to think (it would be quite torturous if it could!), and there is no known mechanism by which it could think.

It seems very likely to me there is a scale of consciousness. It goes something like rock -> dough -> ameoba -> flatworm -> lizard -> bird -> dog -> chimp -> human. That's not linear or logarithmic, and maybe you could switch bird with dog, but you get the general idea. And I don't think humans are the be all end all of that scale either. There's plenty of room for development.

Anyway, I think there's a big difference between reacting, and consciousness. Consciousness is that inner light. I doubt this dough has it, but I'm fairly certain birds have it. It seems to require something analogous to a nervous system. The more conscious something is, the more complex the nervous system in general. i.e. the more information it is able to take in and process from the environment and the greater the ability or the organism to use that information to problem solve to achieve it's goals. Some type of self reflecting and future simulating ability seems to be a pre-requisite for turning the lights on.

 

[Drareg]

To answer all this we need clearer definitions/understanding of conciousness, Peat speaks about more energy gathering together creating complexity in pattern and patterns deciphered thereafter,something along those lines believe.

The question then for me is -does a rock or dough have the conciousness of a human?
Better still is the question-does a rock have the potential for human consciousness.

Everything has form,it is inform,it has meaning.
The Rock and doughball have meaning.

I agree there is possibly a higher energy organism than humans, the potential is there.
Haidut posted a study on bacteria eating electrical current so to speak,we eat to adjust our electric current?
From this a spokey question arises- how do we know we are not food for a higher organism we cannot see,it farms us like cattle,when we die it siphons our current into itself.
The more coherent Peaty life you live the more gourmet you are!!

 

[Drareg]

well yeah because the two verses were talking about past events :)

Drareg, it's not a shame if someone has spiritual beliefs. We like them and meditation to God makes me happy. I don't wanna really force or advertise for my religion especially at this bad time for muslims; I would look defensive which I really don't want.

I love that verse and I was fascinated by the ant story so why not just share my intuition especially that it was related to the subject discussed. Ant intelligence was mentioned by schultz and the post mentioned something about animals intelligence.

You believe whatever you want to believe, so let me believe what I want to believe. I think you are still angry about my negative thoughts of gays in the media in the other thread, which is understandable.

This is huge OT so I apologize.

I have no anger toward anyone,you religious paradigm is projecting this into me as it would have primed you to do so when anybody questions it.
Your second paragraph is mostly a strawman.
You don't like many religious people have a religious belief imo,it's cherry picked information to suit an agenda imo.


If all are entitled to their believes why then tell us about your opinion on homosexuality with the tone you did,you didn't respect their believes?
Your current understanding of your religious beliesfs like many others does not encourage you to live and let live,respect others viewpoints.

I hope you can see how homosexuality is a belief system and a religion just like yours and many Others with how they currently perceive .

 

[haidut]

haidut, my friend, just because something "learns" (again: in the dough ball case a very specific, automatic, unavoidable learning) or has memory that doesn't mean an iron bar, a rock or an electron is alive or has consciousness. To me that doesn't qualify as "alive". It looks like it has certain properties that we thought were merely human but they are not. I would formulate the other way around : Precisely because even iron bars can learn, humans are much more than a black box that recieves inputs, processes, learns, and gives outputs.

You are right, what would an objective definition of consciousness be? Conscious of what ? Of that the thing exists by itself ? Of that it is "alive" ? Not easy. I don't know the experiments you are talking about, you're much versed into that than me.

It is not that I "don't like to ascribe consciousness to non-living matter"!!! I think we just don't have the ideas and a scientifical paradigm to hold that. We just don't. Although you can grasp those ideas if you think about them, play with them (and you previously had a good dose of NDT or LSD haha) you can't bring them back to our world. Our paradigm. We're not tuned to that. There was a time (not very long ago) when the universe was alive. Rocks, Lightning bolts, plants, clouds, planets, caves, everything. It's the Plato's idea of anima mundi. But at a certain point in history, we killed that. We made a shift. Those old ideas are dead, we can't see the world anymore like that.

I think what is happening now is that slowly, we are punching holes in our current paradigm ceiling, we are breaking it, we just don't have a new paradigm to replace the old one. We did have one! but it's old and dead. We need a new one to accomodate our new findings. What would you do if I would tell you know that rocks are alive ? That have complete consciousness. It's a total mindfuck because we don't have a cultural frame to put that.

I don't know if I made any sense to you.

Oh yeah, it makes total sense. Until the world is comfortable with an idea and has the cultural framework to accept it and (more importantly) to communicate about this new paradigm sensibly with other cultures then it is premature to talk about universal consciousness simply because we probably can't properly explain what we mean by that. So, time will tell, and I am glad research like this is coming out. The more bewildered people are by a specific study the more it is changing the cultural framework and paradigms.

 

[haidut]

I'm mostly in agreement with Makrosky.

Does a rock think? Almost certainly not. There is no reason for it to think (it would be quite torturous if it could!), and there is no known mechanism by which it could think.

It seems very likely to me there is a scale of consciousness. It goes something like rock -> dough -> ameoba -> flatworm -> lizard -> bird -> dog -> chimp -> human. That's not linear or logarithmic, and maybe you could switch bird with dog, but you get the general idea. And I don't think humans are the be all end all of that scale either. There's plenty of room for development.

Anyway, I think there's a big difference between reacting, and consciousness. Consciousness is that inner light. I doubt this dough has it, but I'm fairly certain birds have it. It seems to require something analogous to a nervous system. The more conscious something is, the more complex the nervous system in general. i.e. the more information it is able to take in and process from the environment and the greater the ability or the organism to use that information to problem solve to achieve it's goals. Some type of self reflecting and future simulating ability seems to be a pre-requisite for turning the lights on.

That gradual scale of consciousness is what Hinduism roughly teaches. They have this proverb "the soul of God sleeps in stone, dreams in animals, and awakens in men". I do not contend the rock is the same as human. But there is decent evidence pointing in the direction that all matter possesses a primordial type of "orienting reflex", which Peat defined as consciousness in his book Mind and Tissue.

 

[milk_lover]

the ants in my kitchen love beef liver

Do they slow down after eating the liver? I am just speculating here. Maybe they are preparing for the winter and want to slow down their metabolism down by getting extra vitamin A. Maybe in the winter they can't get out to get food.

 

[Sucrates]

Is anyone repeating Persinger's experiments?

 

[DaveFoster]

Then your hearts became hardened after that, being like stones or even harder. For indeed, there are stones from which rivers burst forth, and there are some of them that split open and water comes out, and there are some of them that fall down for fear of Allah .

Luke 19:39-40 New International Version (NIV)
39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

 

[jaa]

That gradual scale of consciousness is what Hinduism roughly teaches. They have this proverb "the soul of God sleeps in stone, dreams in animals, and awakens in men". I do not contend the rock is the same as human. But there is decent evidence pointing in the direction that all matter possesses a primordial type of "orienting reflex", which Peat defined as consciousness in his book Mind and Tissue.

That's because it all matter came from the big bang . Iron shavings orient themselves towards the poles. That doesn't mean it's intelligent. It's just a feature of the universe.

That's a delightful proverb. It can jive with one's worldview whether Hindu or materialist.

It sounds like Peat is using a different definition of consciousness than is commonly used. Ok, a rock can be Peat conscious. But isn't he just playing with semantics at that point?

 

[milk_lover]

You don't like many religious people have a religious belief imo,it's cherry picked information to suit an agenda imo.

How do you assume that without knowing me? Throwing accusations randomly at people who you don't agree with so you feel you have the upper hand. Actually I prefer that people have religious beliefs and believing in god(s) than people who are atheists because religious and spiritual people (think of Sufism in Islam) are way humbler and nicer than atheists who dismiss everything with attitude. At the end of day, the most important thing in real interaction between people is caring, respect, humility, accepting etc.,. Atheists most likely care about themselves and think of money and materialistic stuff and mechanic science like Richard Dawkin with extreme arrogance and contempt toward anyone who believes in higher authority. I really don't fancy debating anyone about religion in this forum because I am here mainly to learn about health and science and try to contribute as much as possible even though my attempts may sound childish and not very heavy on the science because I don't like to spend so much dwelling on things.

I hope you can see how homosexuality is a belief system and a religion just like yours and many Others with how they currently perceive .

I can't look at it as a belief system. It's a sexual thing/preference. I know you are attacking me because you think we are killing homosexuals and throwing them off buildings in the middle east like your media is telling you. Good news is that we don't do that. I live in arabic country and I have never seen any homo who is arabic being killed in the middle of the road, rest assured. What if I told you that there are many felipino workers at restaurants who are gay who are being treated nicely by almost everyone? We may not approve of their act, but we sure don't react violently toward them.

 

[milk_lover]

Luke 19:39-40 New International Version (NIV)
39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

Amazing! Abrahamic religions (people of the book) have so many similarities. Jesus (Essa) is one the most respected prophet in Islam and his mother, the Virgin Marry (Maryam) is the most virtuous woman that has ever lived. Her name was mentioned in Quran maybe more than our prophet name, Mohamed. We believe in the second coming of Jesus in the middle of great wars between humans to save the good people. He will descend from heaven and land on a city in Syria.

 

[lollipop]

That gradual scale of consciousness is what Hinduism roughly teaches. They have this proverb "the soul of God sleeps in stone, dreams in animals, and awakens in men". I do not contend the rock is the same as human. But there is decent evidence pointing in the direction that all matter possesses a primordial type of "orienting reflex", which Peat defined as consciousness in his book Mind and Tissue.

I totally agree with this. Definition of consciousness helps, but many many sages have pointed to everything having consciousness - like Haidut mentions to different degrees/expression/experience/etc.etc.

 

[lexis]

When people say 'unified thinking' or 'integral personality' it means the human beings are connected to the entire creation.
In Islam,we believe that once you make your heart alive,you can see the whole creation alive(or conscious).Sort of ego dissolving.

 

[Such_Saturation]

It's just a feature of the universe

Ooooh boy...

 

[raypeatclips]

Does this mean vegetarians will be adding dough products to the list of things they cannot eat?

 

[Drareg]

I have no anger toward anyone,you religious paradigm is projecting this into me as it would have primed you to do so when anybody questions it.
You first line is a strawman.
You don't like many religious people have a religious belief imo,it's cherry picked information to suit an agenda imo.


If all are entitled to their believes why then tell us about your opinion on homosexuality with the tone you did,you didn't respect their believes?
Your current understanding of your religious beliesfs like many others does not encourage you to live and let live,respect others viewpoints.

I hope you can see how homosexuality is a belief system and a religion just like yours and many there currently is imo.

How do you assume that without knowing me? Throwing accusations randomly at people who you don't agree with so you feel you have the upper hand. Actually I prefer that people have religious beliefs and believing in god(s) than people who are atheists because religious and spiritual people (think of Sufism in Islam) are way humbler and nicer than atheists who dismiss everything with attitude. At the end of day, the most important thing in real interaction between people is caring, respect, humility, accepting etc.,. Atheists most likely care about themselves and think of money and materialistic stuff and mechanic science like Richard Dawkin with extreme arrogance and contempt toward anyone who believes in higher authority. I really don't fancy debating anyone about religion in this forum because I am here mainly to learn about health and science and try to contribute as much as possible even though my attempts may sound childish and not very heavy on the science because I don't like to spend so much dwelling on things.



I can't look at it as a belief system. It's a sexual thing/preference. I know you are attacking me because you think we are killing homosexuals and throwing them off buildings in the middle east like your media is telling you. Good news is that we don't do that. I live in arabic country and I have never seen any homo who is arabic being killed in the middle of the road, rest assured. What if I told you that there are many felipino workers at restaurants who are gay who are being treated nicely by almost everyone? We may not approve of their act, but we sure don't react violently toward them.

I know and read your comment toward homosexuals,it wasn't respectful,caring as you deem necessary.
You then attack atheists without respect or caring,hopefully you can realise atheism is clearly a religion.

The rest of your post is a desperate straw man using terms like- attacking me,throwing accusations around etc.
I don't believe everything I here in media,you shouldn't believe everything you here in your media/bible.

Most of you people who claim to be religious are ego driven, you want to keep your ego in an afterlife and most of the religions you believe in allow you to keep said ego in the afterlife ,you have built up this ego for years,it's a deep self love hidden under the guise of religious scripture,no empathy for others and the ego will do whatever it takes to maintain the illusion of you,can't handle regressing back into the whole as true individual/indivisible.

How is it that all of you religious people cannot allow the genius light of Christ/Alah et al shine through you? What are all of you lacking that we can't see this in you?
Yet without this light/genius of sorts you all feel the need to proselytize or quote scripture like you are a chosen one,surely if you were a chosen one we would see this in your actions and words that cut like a sword.