auraithx
@auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- Comment on How can we stop bots on the fediverse? 1 week ago:
Lemmy won’t like the answer but it’s decentralised anonymous ID (proof of personhood).
- Comment on The Sensory Biology of Plants 1 week ago:
I was using “chemical” as a shorthand for simple, automatic biological triggers to contrast them against complex, integrated networking.
i.e, for a Venus fly trap, a trigger (like a fly touching a hair) releases chemicals (ions like Calcium) that cause an electrical wave. This wave forces water to move quickly out of cells (turgor pressure), making the leaf collapse shut.
Consciousness is measurable because it’s not just that simple chemical reflex. It is the complex electrical buildup (readiness potential) in the brain’s cortex that happens before the action.
- Comment on The Sensory Biology of Plants 1 week ago:
Those paragraphs outlined the evidence which explain why it’s as improbable as any other nonsense statement.
- Comment on The Sensory Biology of Plants 1 week ago:
We also can’t know “for certain” that a rock isn’t screaming silently, or that there isn’t a china teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars. Science doesn’t deal in absolute certainties; it deals in probabilities based on evidence. There is zero evidence for plant consciousness and massive evidence against it.
Consciousness, as far as we observe it in the entire animal kingdom, is an emergent property of a centralized nervous system processing information. Plants lack neurons, a brain, or any substrate capable of integrating information into a unified experience.
Claiming a plant might be conscious is like claiming a calculator might be running Call of Duty. It’s not that we “don’t know”, it’s that the hardware simply cannot run that software.
Evolutionarily, consciousness (and specifically the ability to feel pain or fear) is a mechanism to trigger escape or avoidance. Since plants are sessile (they cannot move), developing a complex, energy-expensive system to “feel” damage would be a massive evolutionary disadvantage. Why would nature select for an organism that can feel being eaten but do absolutely nothing about it?
- Comment on The Sensory Biology of Plants 1 week ago:
Your definition of consciousness as any “internal state correlating to external state” is functionally too broad; by this metric, a mercury thermometer possesses a “world model” and is therefore conscious, which renders the term useless for distinguishing complex biology from simple causality. Phenomena like crown shyness are better explained by mechanical feedback loops, essentially biological if/then statements based on light and abrasion, rather than a self-aware “sense of self.” A true “thought” or “world model” requires the capacity for “offline” simulation (counterfactuals) decoupled from immediate sensory input, whereas plants are entirely reactive (“online”) and current AI lacks continuous internal state. Ultimately, you are conflating reception (reflexive data intake) with perception (integrated awareness), failing to distinguish between the mechanism of a map and the subjective experience of the territory.
- Comment on The Sensory Biology of Plants 1 week ago:
Complex, integrated electrical patterns rather than just the presence of a specific chemical.
The measure of electrical activity in the motor cortex (visible via EEG) that builds up milliseconds before a person makes a conscious, voluntary movement. It’s distinct from the sharp spike of a reflex.
If the action originates from the Prefrontal Cortex (executive function/planning), it’s generally considered “conscious effort.” If the signal bypasses the cortex and stays in the brainstem or spinal cord, it’s a reflex.
- Comment on The Sensory Biology of Plants 1 week ago:
Sounds like anthropomorphism to me.
- Comment on The Sensory Biology of Plants 1 week ago:
The decision would be made by measurable neurological means not chemical ones.
- Comment on The Sensory Biology of Plants 1 week ago:
Aware means it has a sense of self. They are circular because we use these words to define how that is perceived.
Plants do not act deliberately when they do anything, because they do not have a sense of self and are not conscious.
- Comment on The Sensory Biology of Plants 2 weeks ago:
Yes.
- Comment on The Sensory Biology of Plants 2 weeks ago:
Carnivores can digest plant matter too, and herbivores can digest meat.
Omnivore is a behavioural classification mostly. It means an animal (or person) that eats both plants and animals for energy.
So vegans are herbivores in practice.
- Comment on The Sensory Biology of Plants 2 weeks ago:
The line is it being a conscious effort.
Reflexes weren’t a conscious effort.
- Comment on The Sensory Biology of Plants 2 weeks ago:
“Conscious” means being aware of oneself, one’s surroundings, thoughts, or feelings, being awake, or acting with deliberate intention, like a “conscious effort”. It refers to subjective experience and internal knowledge, differentiating from unconsciousness (sleep, coma).
It’s a spectrum, sure. But the spectrum is between ants and humans; not animals and plants.
- Comment on I'm down with that 2 months ago:
Bounty set the standard
- Comment on 2 months ago:
I do 🙋♂️
- Comment on i enjoy high fructose corn syrup too 2 months ago:
Oh my bad
- Comment on i enjoy high fructose corn syrup too 2 months ago:
No I meant blackberries. We have both over here commercially available.
- Comment on i enjoy high fructose corn syrup too 2 months ago:
Blackberries are pretty rampant here in the UK. Always wondered why you guys didn’t have it- Seems they were banned in the US until recently due to some fungus.
- Comment on Starmer used land tax dodge to avoid inheritance tax 2 months ago:
Good people are in short supply by design.
- Comment on It would get old fast 4 months ago:
Me and the wife befriended the neighbours during lockdown. Hung out all the time, went on several holidays together.
Still pals, was round at one of theirs for dinner the other day.
Lived even closer than this for years. Didn’t get old. Miss it. But had to move on from the communal garden space for the kids.
- Comment on Why democrats under Biden administration didn't release Epstein files? 4 months ago:
It’s standard DOJ protocol to avoid compromising witnesses, active leads, or uncharged co-conspirators. Releasing unredacted files mid-investigation could tank prosecutions.
- Comment on Why democrats under Biden administration didn't release Epstein files? 4 months ago:
The investigation was still ongoing so they couldn’t have. It didn’t stop until Trump stopped it the other week.
- Comment on Why democrats under Biden administration didn't release Epstein files? 4 months ago:
?? Yes which Trump ended. Investigation was ongoing, Trump ended it. What aren’t you getting?
- Comment on Why democrats under Biden administration didn't release Epstein files? 4 months ago:
The investigation was still ongoing, which Trump ended. And the DOJ is supposed to operate independently from the president.
- Comment on Why democrats under Biden administration didn't release Epstein files? 4 months ago:
They were sealed until Jan 2024 as part of Maxwells appeal process.
- Comment on its painful each time (┬┬﹏┬┬) 4 months ago:
Tone down step 3 and cancel step 4.
- Comment on I didn't know that they have something in common... 5 months ago:
It’s extra to reserve your seat and they purposely assign the seats at random if you don’t so that you’re incentivised to pay for the reservation.
- Comment on Custodians 5 months ago:
Because it means there will be a larger burden on (smaller) younger generations to look after the aging ones.
Instead of 6 kids and 30 grandkids, you maybe have 2 kids and 1 grandkid, if you’re lucky.
- Comment on [deleted] 5 months ago:
The AI won’t return wrong results when using reference data. Plus, there will be references to the actual data to check.
Regardless, just delete all your socials and only keep psuedo anon ones.
- Comment on [deleted] 6 months ago:
20 seconds is the full duration. 1-2s to start.
