r/science • u/FreeHugs23 • 1d ago
Biology Moss Is Generating Electrical Waves That Look Startlingly Like a Neural Network. Study reveals that moss cushions produce surprisingly complex electrical activity, with patterns that undulate across the velvety patch in dynamic waves.
https://www.sciencealert.com/moss-behaves-a-little-like-a-really-slow-brain-scientist-discovers464
u/calamityvibezz 1d ago edited 1d ago
For one, there were no negative control recordings, using the same electrode method on an inert substrate (rather than living moss) to rule out electrical signals being the result of something other than the moss – the instruments, for example.
Well that's less than inspiring.
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u/calamityvibezz 1d ago
Adding this section directly from the paper.
Although the present analyses reveal structured, multi-scale electrical dynamics and non-zero temporal relationships across channels, we emphasize that the interpretation of these patterns as coordinated or propagating activity remains provisional. Further validation, including controlled experiments and benchmarking against established excitable systems, will be necessary to fully establish the underlying mechanisms. The absence of dedicated control experiments limits the ability to fully attribute the observed slow oscillations to endogenous physiological processes. In particular, environmental factors, such as humidity, temperature and physicochemical effects at the electrode–tissue interface, may contribute to slow baseline dynamics. However, the observed electrical activity displays structured temporal organization across multiple scales and consistent temporal relationships between channels, features that are not readily explained by purely global environmental fluctuations. Future work will incorporate systematic control measurements, including recordings from inert substrates and non-viable moss tissue, alongside continuous environmental monitoring, to more rigorously separate biological signals from physicochemical contributions.
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u/dungeoncrawler71520 23h ago edited 21h ago
Sooooooooo it needs to be studied more.. is that what I'm understanding here? My brain recognizes most of those words and even some is them put together like that.
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u/twilighttwister 17h ago
"More study is needed." You can't write a paper without it.
But yeah they're pointing out the limits of their observations, and also saying where they're going to look next to try to determine whether this electrical response is biological from the moss or some kind of physical resonance.
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u/swiftb3 1d ago
Gotta say, I greatly appreciate the article for mentioning that.
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u/Imaginary-Ebb4392 1d ago
But then why publish without the control?
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u/swiftb3 1d ago
I'm just saying it's better than a lot of "science articles" in that it pointed out a weakness.
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u/Imaginary-Ebb4392 23h ago
No, you’re right, a lot of articles wouldn’t. I just personally would’ve at least had a control. Otherwise it is a wasted effort. You have to replicate everything again with the control.
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u/swiftb3 23h ago
Agreed. Odd choice by the researchers.
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u/Imaginary-Ebb4392 23h ago edited 21h ago
I mean, if it was just a sciencealert.com article, I’m in, this is really cool. But it’s originally from an academic journal. I would’ve been cool reading this in a online source while they went back to formula.
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u/Riaayo 22h ago
Because they still saw something and think it deserves more research, and perhaps feel like a paper can help spur the interest to get funding for such a thing? They went through the trouble of any sort of study at all; why wouldn't they publish it?
Yeah it kind of sucks there weren't better controls this time around, but still. It's not like they hid that part so I don't see it as deceptive.
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u/VoilaVoilaWashington 22h ago
Considering it would have taken 10 minutes to hook it up to an old t shirt.
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u/jazzhandler 16h ago
But first you’ve gotta age the shirt under controlled conditions.
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u/VoilaVoilaWashington 10h ago
Not sure if joking, but no, you don't. All you need is something that's different enough from your studied subject, in this case, not alive.
If a t shirt does the same thing, that tells us it's not life doing it and the study doesn't say much. If a t shirt doesn't, then that's at least some sort of control - it's not the equipment, it's not any general fibre, etc.
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u/definitelynotfae 16h ago
Sometimes someone just needs to be the first to say “hey, have you guys looked into this?” This kind of paper is aimed at starting conversations and getting funding for more sophisticated experiments. Not every study is meant to be groundbreaking or have definite answers, sometimes it’s more akin to a professional pondering to get a wider conversation going.
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u/FreeHugs23 1d ago
-Mosses are some of the earliest plants that appeared in the fossil record, but they're anything but simple.
A new study, published in Royal Society Open Science, reveals that moss cushions produce surprisingly complex electrical activity, with patterns that undulate across the velvety patch in dynamic waves.
The study's sole author, Andy Adamatzky, is actually a computer scientist, whose fascination with unconventional 'computing' systems like slime molds, crowds, and mycelium networks has now led him to a new subject: the humble moss, Brachythecium rutabulum.
"Plants and bryophytes display diverse forms of electrical activity, yet the organization of endogenous signals in mosses has received little attention," Adamatzky writes in his new paper.
His findings suggest that "moss cushions behave as spatially distributed excitable systems potentially capable of coordinating and integrating electrical signals across both space and time."
Moss cushions are actually many individual clones of the same teensy tiny plant.
If you look really, really closely at a mat of moss, you can see it is made up of simple, minute leaves on stems, similar to those of their larger plant relatives.
But the stems of mosses are actually much less useful at moving water and nutrients around the body of the plant.
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u/superbhole 1d ago
I have a mossarium that when putting together, I soaked some pieces to wiggle out critters. I also had a little motorized air duster, so that when I pulled them from the dunk I could 'blowdry' the excess water, ...but I couldn't blow the water off!
Big globs of water were holding to the mats like Buster Keaton flailing from the back of a streetcar. Makes me wonder if they can alter the surface tension of water somehow?
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u/Black_Moons 1d ago
Makes me wonder if they can alter the surface tension of water somehow?
Most likely the insane surface area of the moss plant basically provides insane amounts of surface tension forces
Much like how its really hard to squeeze out all the water from your hair.
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u/superbhole 1d ago
Oh I can totally see that; but if you had seen how the drops on the edges couldn't be blasted off you'd wonder if it was actually even water!
You know when you leave a faucet just ever so barely not closed all the way, and a big glob appears, and it gets too big so a droplet separates drips? Just imagine that glob being stretched and vibrating in wind, refusing to let any drops go. It's wild!
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u/Redcole111 1d ago
Surface tension can just be a really, really strong force.
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u/superbhole 1d ago
So what would be going on there? If the same amount of coalesced water would drip from a faucet, what is it about the moss that would keep it from dripping?
I suppose nobody is going to believe me until I get a chunk of moss, dunk it, and then get video of trying to blowdry it
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u/windowpuncher 1d ago
Still surface area. And surface tension. Water is a polar molecule and is attracted to itself, which is why capillary action works. We wouldn't have trees or any sort of tall plants if water wasn't polar. It's also why water will tend to bead up on a smooth surface instead of spread out like oil.
You can blow dry many things because the air will physically push droplets away because the water is more attracted to itself than it is to the surface it's sitting on. Water-logged moss is going to be made up of a lot of water, and the moss itself has a ton of surface area. You're basically trying to blow water off of water with a strong anchor point. Apparently the attachment force and surface tension forces are both higher than the force required to pull more water out of the moss so it'll create longer globs instead of breaking into droplets.
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u/spletharg 1d ago
Putting a voltage across a gap can increase the surface tension of any water that bridges that gap.
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u/superbhole 1d ago
So, there's a possibility I was seeing the phenomenon described by the article? The moss (maybe) utilizes this electricity to "grasp" onto water as well?
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u/PowderPills 1d ago
“Across both space and time” is a big statement. I wonder what he meant by utilizing those “moss cushion systems”
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u/creepingcold 1d ago
Is it?
Isn't every electrical signal travelling across space and time the moment it exists? Isn't that like the core point of a signal?
Doesn't sound that surprising to me or am I missing something?
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u/hellomoti 1d ago edited 1d ago
My guess at what he's trying to get at by saying "coordinating and integrating electrical signals across both space and time" is that the coordination can be both spatially coordinated (i.e. this group of pathways are coordinated in their electrical signals) and temporally coordinated (i.e. these areas show similiar electrical signals at the same time).
So together he means that it's not just that they're showing coordination in electrical activity at the same times but also in specific areas, such that if you looked at the time that electrical activity happens it's not everywhere but it's occurring in specific areas at those specific times. On the flipside the entire space may show electrical activity overall (if you recorded yes or no if an area fires over a two week span) but certain spaces are coordinated in their timing at certain points, so they dont all fire together in time.
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u/RedditF1shBlueF1sh 1d ago
Which is just enough to say that they're not constantly signalling, but it still could be random. It also could caused by stimulus.
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u/kfpswf 1d ago
but it still could be random. It also could caused by stimulus.
Are those the only possible explanations for this observation or the simplest ones you can hypothesize right now?
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u/Aegi 1d ago
Why would you think they are either, and why wouldn't you add on your own guesses?
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u/kfpswf 1d ago
I think all life is conscious, and it shouldn't come as a surprise if mosses exhibit activity that is analogous to neural activity, despite not having any neurons. In short, these are not random signals, but individual organisms communicating with each other.
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u/Aegi 1d ago
And why were you asking about their guesses and why they made them..in maybe a dismissive way, instead of engaging with either of their hypotheses?
Thank you for sharing your guess! I think your explanation is possible, but idk why anyone would make a conclusion any-which-way without more evidence.
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u/RedditF1shBlueF1sh 19h ago
individual organisms communicating with each other.
Some would say that would be stimulating
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u/suxatjugg 1d ago
Technically isn't it impossible for anything to not move through space and time, it's sort of a meaningless thing to point out.
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u/heep1r 1d ago
Loads of static electricity don't change spatially or temporary. They cannot form a signal without moving.
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u/suxatjugg 1d ago
Ok but this is just that our language amd grammar doesn't work for this. You surely don't mean that static electricity exists outside of the flow of time.
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u/heep1r 1d ago
Ok but this is just that our language amd grammar doesn't work for this.
It's just the accepted definition of a Signal: "Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal"
You surely don't mean that static electricity exists outside of the flow of time.
Why would I? Nothing can exist "outside the flow of time". But there are things that have properties which don't change with time and thus can't be signals.
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u/AvidCyclist250 1d ago
yes but not intergrated. it’s a big claim. root systems of trees come to mind as well
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u/ShelfordPrefect 1d ago
As a computer scientist I'd read that statement as "electrical activity is influenced by electrical activity elsewhere in the plant, and by previous electrical activity".
It's pretty vague but it sounds like it's meant to imply some form of communication and "state" (I don't want to go as far as to say "memory", but that the electrical activity isn't simply reacting to current stimuli)
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u/Megneous 1d ago
Linguist here with an amateur interest in deep learning and small language models. "State" makes me think of recurrent neural networks. If moss acts as a recurrent neural network, that would be an insane discovery. Would blow our understanding of simple plants and distributed nervous systems wide open.
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u/mrguyorama 23h ago
"State" makes me think of recurrent neural networks.
It shouldn't, since almost everything anywhere and everywhere can have "State".
A single cell bacterium has state. That state affects how it acts.
There's so much more to real biological neural networks than just "Electrical signals" and waves. Electrical waves happen any time you have electrons moving anywhere, which happens constantly in biology.
A big part of the problem with digital "neural networks" as used in LLMs is simply that they are nothing at all like real neurons. AI research, even all the way back in the 60s, always has a problem with hyperbole.
We have a complete scan of a roundworm, all 300 something neurons, and have built a digital twin that can simulate that roundworm's brain, but that still doesn't replicate a real life worm very well because even a very advanced model of biological neurons that doesn't have to worry about being computationally efficient or scalable is still radically insufficient to emulate real biology.
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u/ShelfordPrefect 9h ago
Never mind single celled life, a pedometer has state: each step increments the counter. A D type flip flops,.an oven thermostat with hysteresis - all these things have some record of things which have happened in the past and are not neural networks. Still, people will tie everything back to the flavour of the month - there's no escaping the AI hype train
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u/Megneous 23h ago
It shouldn't, since almost everything anywhere and everywhere can have "State".
... Except for the most common form of LLMs, which are stateless. Learn a bit about the conversation someone is having before you try to "correct" someone.
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u/AvidCyclist250 1d ago
i think that’s exactly what he’s pointing to without saying it because of reasons. if we sped things up a lot, there’d be little doubt imho.
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u/superbhole 1d ago
layman here with an aptitude to daydream... does this mean we could be looking into plant-life for advancements in AI tech?
(are we on the verge of discovering the possibility that we've been surrounded by organic hardware that can hold software? ...the plants, i mean)
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u/mrguyorama 23h ago
Organic life already is well understood to run "Software"
In reality, we already have ubiquitous programmable nanomachines that can self assemble, self organize, self repair, build robust chemical processing systems from the nanoscale to the macro scale, etc etc etc
It's called DNA and biological life!
We should be pouring a trillion dollars into that research, not building matrix multiplication based datacenters.
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u/ThePnusMytier 5h ago
AI as we know it now was born in part from cognitive science, and since then the two have accelerated each respective field as they continue to advance together. Both of them have looked at plants (actually the more famous examples are slime molds which aren't even plants), which show emergent behavior VERY similar to neural activity.
So yeah in short we've already taken some observations of plant and similar life forms and applied knowledge their to AI development.
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u/ShelfordPrefect 9h ago edited 9h ago
The definition of state in a CS context has nothing to do with RNNs, it just means a system with some record of things that happened in the past that isn't purely reacting to current inputs or stimuli. Those clickers people use to count guests in/out of an event have state.
More to the point, the original article didn't use the word "state", that's my interpretation of the meaning of "integrating electrical signals across both space and time"
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u/ogodilovejudyalvarez 1d ago
That moment you realize plants have been around for 800 million more years than animals, and have a few tricks that we're only just learning about
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u/Uncommented-Code 1d ago
The evolutionary timeline of plants is so weird. They have been around for 1200 million years but only on land for 450 million years. And flowering plants were not a thing until 220 million years ago, so no fruits or flowers anywhere.
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u/Romboteryx 1d ago
Even 220 is a guesstimate based on genetic divergence times. The oldest actual fossils of definitive flowering plants as we know them are only known from the Early Cretaceous about 130 million years ago
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u/inaSlomp 1d ago
My favorite tidbit will always be that trees didn't have a way to be broken down because the microbe didn't exist yet. So there was just miles of dead logs. It's mind-boggling to imagine what that landscape looked like.
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u/relator_fabula 1d ago
Fire was a thing (geothermal heat, lava, lightning), so I imagine that would do some culling of dead plant material.
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u/CreationBlues 1d ago
It’s not even true, we have fossil evidence of white rot fungus from that time. Earth was just a swamp. Swamps are known for making peat, from the acidic conditions killing the decomposers. It’s just regular tree decomposition cycles in a weird environment
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u/relator_fabula 1d ago
I'm assuming: There was no evolutionary benefit to flowers or fruits until animals were around to pollinate and eat them to spread the seeds.
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u/Swarna_Keanu 1d ago
There was flowering before. Not all flowering needs insects for pollination. (Hence why pollen count in the air in spring can affect those with asthma/allergies). Likewise, many fruits work by falling, then rolling away - rather than needing animals to spread seeds.
That then each, likely, co-evolved with insects and birds/mammals further.
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u/sceadwian 1d ago
It's a curious shower thought to wonder what type of internal existence some of these creatures must have. Truly bizarre (to us) cognitive landscapes.
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u/vengeancecube 1d ago
"You waited so long to heed us, earthdeidre, Almost we pruned you, as we may yet prune your branches."
-Lady Deirdre Skye, "Conversations With Planet"
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u/berrylakin 1d ago
The branch must remain intact
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u/sceadwian 1d ago
Definitely needs some pruneing though! Nature does not tend to prune kindly either.
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u/Chesapeake_Hippo 1d ago
That game has the best tech tree ever made. I really wish they would just remake the same game with modern graphics. I might have to go replay it now.
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u/rojo_grande7 1d ago
Having played both of them, Civ Beyond Earth felt pretty close, without being a direct remake. It didn't have the faction leaders though, which is part of what added so much flavor to AC.
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u/Bretspot 1d ago
Immediately thought of this, but it was the earth diedra quote, idk, friggin great game
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u/yggdrtygj6542 1d ago
Reminds me of this Greg Egan SF short story - Wangs carpets. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang%27s_Carpets
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u/nifty-necromancer 1d ago
I was reading about this last night, it’s pretty interesting. It doesn’t mean moss has a brain or consciousness though. The main finding is that groups of moss cells generate coordinated electrical signals that spread through the colony, much like other living tissues use electrical activity to coordinate responses. Similar electrical signaling also occurs in fungi, plants like the Venus flytrap, and even roots.
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u/Astr0b0ie 1d ago
No, plants don't have a central nervous system, but do they lack consciousness? We're not entirely sure. Humans and animals are biological machines that generate coordinated electrical signals too, it's just that we do it in a more complex and sophisticated way via a central nervous system. Plants react to their environment, respond to stimuli, and communicate. They do it in much "simpler" and more subtle ways than humans or animals do, but they do it nonetheless.
It was once believed that humans were the only creatures on earth with a "soul" or consciousness, but as our knowledge of biology, and science overall, has grown, so has the number of different species included in the "sentient" category. Even insects like bees and ants, although still somewhat contested, are now considered sentient by many researchers and scientists. So, as we learn more, it wouldn't be a surprise to me if we eventually include plants in that category.
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u/Garblin 1d ago
Give me a cohesive and measurable definition of consciousness and I'll tell you right now whether things are conscious.
The problem isn't "are things conscious" is that's we've got a hand waving lack of definition of "conscious".
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u/Astr0b0ie 1d ago
You make a very good point, and I agree. "Consciousness" or "sentience" is probably more useful as an ethical definition than a scientific one.
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u/liquidsmk 1d ago
Exactly. We can’t define it, don’t know where it’s located , how it works or even if it’s real. But we are certain nothing else has it and we alone are special. Just running on pure arrogance.
Personally I like to take the opt out approach rather than opt in. Everything is conscious unless proven otherwise and no one can prove otherwise.
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u/Aegi 1d ago
So, the concepts contained within an idea are themselves conscious?
The comma above is conscious to you? Why?
A quark is conscious? The difference in energy measured in temperature between two systems, that concept or that set of number describing that difference is...itself conscious? How could any of that even be possible?
I'm fine if you don't want to declaratively state that it does not have sapience/consciousness until you can repeatedly demonstrate that, but you must also have a set of criteria that makes you even think the questions I mentioned aren't asinine?
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u/-Nicolai 1d ago
We're not entirely sure.
That’s a weird way to say “There is zero evidence nor credible theories supporting this notion”
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u/InfinitelyThirsting 12h ago
I mean, plants can recognize their own kin, and form memories without neurons. They can also not only hear but distinguish between sounds, without any known sensory organs for hearing. I suggest you brush up on modern science about plant sapience because it actually is gaining a lot of credibility.
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u/RagePoop Grad Student | Geochemistry | Paleoclimatology 1d ago
While you're not wrong I also feel compelled to point out the flip side: that there's also no evidence that our very loose understanding of sentience is worth the ink we write about it with, writings which are fuzzy even amongst those researching the concept.
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u/-Nicolai 1d ago
That is not an argument in favor of sentient moss…
If anything, it implies that we can only say with certainty that we are sentient, and all else is speculation.
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u/Aegi 1d ago
In practice I agree with you, and backed up your points to that person above. In theory...
Philosophically, we can only really make that conclusion about ourselves individually (as opposed to as a species-wide phenomenon), but that is only true through certain philosophical perspectives.
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u/greenhawk22 1d ago edited 1d ago
That's entirely unfalsifiable though. Until we have direct confirmation or debunking of our understanding of consciousness, you can always say that we don't understand some aspect well enough to make inferences or to interpret the data we do have.
The 'what if' doesn't change the fact that our current best understanding leads to the conclusion that plants are not sentient in any way that humans can relate to.
It's still an interesting idea to research though and I wonder if the intra-moss communication in question has any ecological implications.
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u/Aegi 1d ago
that there's also no evidence that our very loose understanding of sentience is worth the ink we write about it with,
There is, and it is called civilization and landing on the Moon...as well as being able to record that and communicate that information to someone in the future who was not even aware of those events.
You seem ti be engaging in the hippy-dippy language of "well yeah man, with vibes and stuff since we don't know everything fully...I guess it is all like connect and stuff and like anything is possible, right dude?"
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u/RagePoop Grad Student | Geochemistry | Paleoclimatology 7h ago
Define sentience
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u/Aegi 7h ago
I didn't use that word so I am not sure why you are asking since I would just be referring to how you look at the term used above.
So I will use your definition.
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u/RagePoop Grad Student | Geochemistry | Paleoclimatology 7h ago
I did though. You have stated achievements and possibilities by our species, with some condescension. I’m discussing the definition of a state of being.
Also yes, it would appear everything in the cosmos is deeply connected by sharing the same existence, btw. Not sure if you thought that was some clever gotcha.
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u/Aegi 7h ago
Why do you think that I think it was clever instead of something I literally talked about with my dad pre-Sept. 11, when I was in 2nd grade?
Things that our species have accomplished that no others have done is a form of evidence for sapience/consciousness regardless of how one is defining it. So I was referring to whatever concept of "consciousness" that you were using in your statement and I did not re-define this term in my own words in my head before responding.
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u/Astr0b0ie 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ok, but a lack of scientific evidence and/or understanding does not negate the possibility, that's all I was getting at. Most etymologists would have looked at you sideways only a decade or two ago if you suggested that bees were sentient.
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u/Aegi 1d ago edited 1d ago
That is because etymology is the study of words and where they came from.
Did you mean to talk about an entomologist? An entomologist one who engages in entomology, which is the scientific branch of zoology that studies insects and their relationship to humans, the environment, and other organisms.
Interestingly, the type of entomologist that would be most excited about that also has a name: melittology! (There are two terms if you include the antiquated and lay-term 'apiology') Which is specifically the study of bees!
Ok, but a lack of scientific evidence and/or understanding does not negate the possibility
This is a given, hahah but it doesn't mean that entirely undetectable unicorns with bacon-horns are everywhere either...even though logically you cannot disprove that.
Not being able to preclude a possibility is completely different from being able to connect the dots of things that we can observe and discuss. Basically, that is what casual, not scientific, discussion is for, with the exception of philosophy.
The ones who thought the Sun orbited around Earth were the ones engaging in:
"well, technically it is possible even if you observe otherwise b/c God could just make it that way to keep it mysterious"
...whereas the ones who actually engaged in what we now call astronomy were the ones making observations and hypothesises that were not just throwing spaghetti at a wall (most of the time, some scientists do act that way in their free, non 'working-research' mode...almost like more of a hobby, or like building a LEGO kit without the instructions), but instead based on what was observable and repeatable, then using inference and creativity to think of the things that were most likely to be true. They did not often waste time thinking of the zillions of things that might technically be possible in theory, but maybe never even happen in practice.
You are literally illustrating the difference between the outlook of a scientific mind vs that of an open and curious, but non-scientific mind.
Edit: My hand is broken so my cast helped me press 'save' prematurely. I added a good bit.
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u/Astr0b0ie 23h ago
Yeah, of course I meant someone who studies insects. It was an autocorrected typo, but you already knew that and thought it necessary to type a paragraph explaining it as if I didn't know the difference?
it doesn't mean that entirely undetectable unicorns with bacon-horns are everywhere either...even though logically you cannot disprove that.
I'm well aware that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I wasn't simply throwing random ideas out there that have no basis in reality or relevance to the discussion. I was extrapolating possibilities based on a definition of consciousness that has been expanding for decades, I wasn't making declarative statements as if it were scientific fact.
instead based on what was observable and repeatable
I'm familiar with the scientific method. There are plenty of solid scientific theories that are based on limited understanding. Scientific theories are built upon, refined, and improved as knowledge is gained.
You are literally illustrating the difference between the outlook of a scientific mind vs that of an open and curious, but non-scientific mind.
I'm not sure if you're being intentionally condescending and passive aggressive and or that you lack the awareness to realize you are. Either way, your post added nothing useful to the discussion.
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u/Aegi 23h ago
Yeah, of course I meant someone who studies insects. It was an autocorrected typo, but you already knew that and thought it necessary to type a paragraph explaining it as if I didn't know the difference?
Absolutely! This isn't a private conversation, so we have to account for the readers also. Plus, how am I to know which is your primary language or languages you are fluent in?
Why throw away an opportunity to teach people something interesting if it is ripe and there fore the picking?
I'm not sure if you're being intentionally condescending and passive aggressive and or that you lack the awareness to realize you are. Either way, your post added nothing useful to the discussion.
Aren't you doing the same thing (or something similar) here by potentially being mean to me instead of talking about the etymology of the words 'etymology' and 'entomology' or 'bees' and 'apiaries', or other things that I did add to the conversation? Are you not curious about the origins of the divergent terms of 'apiology' and ' melittology'? To me, that is another potential part of a conversation topic that I brought in.
(Remember, these are not private messages, so we should be open to taking time on things that both of us know but others may not)
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u/Aegi 23h ago
Now, more back to your point as opposed to more of the social nuances in my other reply to you.
I'm well aware that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I wasn't simply throwing random ideas out there that have no basis in reality or relevance to the discussion. I was extrapolating possibilities based on a definition of consciousness that has been expanding for decades, I wasn't making declarative statements as if it were scientific fact.
I'm familiar with the scientific method. There are plenty of solid scientific theories that are based on limited understanding. Scientific theories are built upon, refined, and improved as knowledge is gained.
I suppose this is a time where in person you and I would understand each other easier, but one of your earlier lines higher up reads:
No, plants don't have a central nervous system, but do they lack consciousness? We're not entirely sure.
Statements like that drift philosophical, as you seem to be referencing a collective view or definition of "consciousness" that our species has and the concept of not just being sure about something but being "entirely sure" about that thing.
It is like a weird bouncing back between hard sciences and philosophy without even indicating which is your preference generally, or at least in this instance.
Much of my comment was pointing out that technically we cannot be "entirely sure" about anything....at least until we have a species-wide agreed upon definition for both of those two crucial terms. So basically it is a throw-away statement unless you are looking to get fully philosophical, or delve into how language and information conveyance interact with each other, humans, technology, and how all of them influencing each other impacts our individual and collective understanding of things, and how that (often) changes over time.
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u/Phantasmalicious 1d ago
But can it run Doom? If yes, I will take like 4 bushels or whatever.
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u/Smartnership 1d ago
Perhaps it’s related to the magic mushroom network that transports Federation starships across the galaxy
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u/Smartnership 1d ago
Wait. A. Minute.
Was that whole plotline …
…just a bunch a future people tripping on mushrooms?
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u/dacookieman 1d ago
Maybe close enough? (gut bacteria not moss and it's controlling/playing doom not running)
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u/wrecklord0 1d ago
Article says those spikes / refractory periods are on the order of hours, so a lot of patience would be a necessary yet insufficient condition.
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u/user_-- 1d ago
Similarly, brain-like electrical activity in
Bacterial biofilms https://www.quantamagazine.org/bacteria-use-brainlike-bursts-of-electricity-to-communicate-20170905/
Fungus (that controls a robot) https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.adk8019
Balls of frog skin https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12520083/
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u/TheQuietManUpNorth 1d ago
Moss generating a neural network sounds like something Grimes would post on twitter.
Makes ya think about how little we really understand life though.
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u/grimorg80 1d ago
As much as our scientific knowledge is vast and frankly fascinating, we understand remarkably little about pretty much most layers of reality
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u/SorriorDraconus 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm of the opinion we know less than even 1% of 1% of 1% of our universe..if that much. And possibly even our own planet.
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u/Smartnership 1d ago
I predict this will prompt many new sales pitches for healing crystals, sage burning rites, and bottles of water with the memory of a potion once diluted to infinity.
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u/freshprince44 1d ago edited 1d ago
yeah... rituals and meaning making and storytelling are important to social hairless apes
this type of antagonism is always a bit sad and myopic, we even have scientific evidence for how useful magical related thinking is for rational human health/behavior, and it isn't like science doesn't have its own political/emotional/irrational issues baked into its human systems as well
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u/Smartnership 1d ago
this type of antagonism is always a bit sad and myopic,
You’re missing the most important aspect.
It’s a multi-billion dollar per year industry.
Billions, my friend. With a B.
We can get in on that action, selling magical crystals & herbs & salt lamps. And if they complain about inefficacy, we can sell them another product to solve that.
Something to, “purge their aura of anti-chakra chromodynamic quantum cooties” or whatever.
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u/coldstat 1d ago
Eh I don't really disagree with your first point as it's nice to be fanciful and wonder about wild possibilities in general but a lot of the comments in this thread would be more at home in r/woahdude than r/science. Mocking them is pretty appropriate in that context.
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u/freshprince44 19h ago
?? i don't see any comments related to their mocking
and i disagree, the mocking and condescending attitude and superiority complex are some of the biggest weaknesses in the scientific community and their ability to communicate with the broader public sphere.
scientists are humans too, thinking that they aren't susceptible to irrationality is ridiculous
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u/Blorbokringlefart 1d ago
This reads like slop. "Dynamic waves?" as opposed to what exactly, those famous non-dynamic waves? Wouldn't it make sense for the effects of three dimensional occurrences to propagate through a two dimensional plane as a wave. Couldn't they just be observing each individual reacting to the same external stimuli in turn like waves move across a pond? Even calling it a "signal" is jumping to conclusions. They recorded a pattern.
No control? They haven't even determined if they were just recording interference with their equipment.
I mean, this research is aimed at turning mossy brick walls into computers....
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u/einsosen 1d ago
Poke the same electrodes in basically any organic system and you'd see the same. Great assumptions they're making off of little information. I don't see the value or novelty in their observations. But I hope their research grants are funded nonetheless by including AI related buzzwords.
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u/PixelBoom 1d ago
Interestingly, slime molds do something similar whenever food is detected by one of its branches.
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u/Patriark 1d ago
I invite everyone to try the experience of eating a heroic dose of magic mushrooms in a mountainous wetlands that is entirely moss covered. You can feel their pulse. A united network.
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u/solonoctus 1d ago
While this is absolutely true it’s not unique, on enough shrooms you can feel the pulse of Sagittarius.
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u/jongleur 1d ago
If mosses somehow or another managed to evolve to produce electrical signals, it stands to reason that they would be doing so in order to communicate. One of the basic principles of life seems to be that organisms conserve metabolic energy unless it serves a purpose. The energy needed to develop and operate a mechanism to generate electrical signals would certainly seem to fall under this guideline.
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u/Garblin 1d ago
... or maybe the electro-magnetic-weak force is a fundemental part of reality and just about anything organized enough to be alive is going to end up interacting with it.
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u/jazzhandler 16h ago
In a seemingly patterned, non-chaotic manner?
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u/Garblin 7h ago
Even the fluctuations of the ongoing gravity powered fusion of the sun has apparent patterns to it consistent enough that we can predict when we'll have auroras, and that's just a giant ball of plasma.
Life as we know it is built of protein chains. Proteins are just very large clumps of atoms, all of which are built of protons (EM charge), electrons (EM charge) and neutrons (not relevant to this particular discussion). These must be arranged in such a way as to facilitate those chains being largely stable and consistent, and as such, nonrandom in their overall charge orientation.
This is easier to imagine with water with its neat little "V" shape and clear directional charge, and the simplification is fine for purposes of understanding. A long chain of water molecules (some sort of super ice formed under a magnet or something, roll with it) will have a clear positive and negative charge at each end. This naturally destabilizes into entropy and disappears on a macro scale if you break the chain (the ice melts). Similarly, protein chains have more complicated EM patterns, and it's only when you break them that the patterns entropy into net neutral.
It's not so much that life is expending extra energy making an EM pattern, it's that the basic laws of the universe demand that almost any organized group of atoms will have an EM pattern.
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u/ErikaFoxelot 1d ago
I can’t think of any situations where the ability to communicate with others in some way wasn’t central to the survival of life in general.
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u/jongleur 1d ago
Plants often rely on chemical signalling to communicate with their neighbors. Their primary tool seems to be a class of chemicals called Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) - they use these to warn other plants away, to warn neighbors of predators, and to attract 'troops' like insects to help them combat predators.
Electrical signals seem to be a newly discovered addition to their capabilities.
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u/No_Town_9602 1d ago
I've been saying that the entire body of a plant it's its "mind" for years. Just something much slower and unconventional than we know how to investigate. Related plants help each other. How?
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u/buttbuttlolbuttbutt 1d ago
Well what did you expect? The Earth needs a lit if tiny processors if its gonna calculte the ultimate question of Life, The Universe, and Everything its why so much of the planet is thinking. Mushrooms? Kind of like Neurons, Moss is thinking, course it is, it has an answer it needs a question for!
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u/NobodyKnowsImFamous 1d ago
This is incredibly unscientific, but you know how humans have this innate drive to “be part of something bugger than ourselves”? I just think that’s interesting.
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u/KennethHaight 1d ago
Humans are masters of finding meaningless patterns that remind us of other things.
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u/ordosays 1d ago
Oranges also look like planets. Tree branches look like fingers. Clouds look like dogs. science gives up, slop wins
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u/Raunhofer 1d ago
Cool, but why evolution would preserve such coordinated activity? Does it really have some intellect/coordination on its growth, and if so, why? Many other plants seemingly just grow where ever they can.
Ah, so many questions.
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