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| Chemical learning; A possible way for gaining knowledge? | |
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| Topic Started: Mar 11 2011, 03:26 PM (744 Views) | |
| Xenophile | Mar 11 2011, 03:26 PM Post #1 |
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Formerly known as alienboy.
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So its been relativly silent aroound here lately, but I recently came across an interesting but contraversal experiment where scientists got planaria to navigate through a maze by something they refered to as chemical learning. From Wikipedia: " In 1955, Robert Thompson and James V. McConnell conditioned planarian flatworms by pairing a bright light with an electric shock. After repeating this several times they took away the electric shock, and only exposed them to the bright light. The flatworms would react to the bright light as if they had been shocked. Thompson and McConnell found that if they cut the worm in two, and allowed both worms to regenerate each half would develop the light-shock reaction. In 1962, McConnell repeated the experiment, but instead of cutting the trained flatworms in two he ground them into small pieces and fed them to other flatworms. Incredibly these flatworms learned to associate the bright light with a shock much faster than flatworms who had not been fed trained worms. This experiment intended to show that memory could perhaps be transferred chemically. The experiment was repeated with mice, fish, and rats, but it always failed to produce the same results. The perceived explanation was that rather than memory being transferred to the other animals, it was the hormones in the ingested ground animals that changed its behavior.[4] McConnell believed that this was evidence of a chemical basis for memory, which he identified as memory RNA. McConnell's results are now attributed to observer bias.[5][6] No blinded experiment has ever reproduced his results." Could an organism possibly evolve to utilize this method? What are your thoughts on chemical learning? |
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| magpie | Apr 26 2011, 07:01 AM Post #2 |
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Newborn
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The water flea already communicates in a similar way. When one is killed, it produces a chemical signal. Any water flea nearby that gets the signal adapts to the environment, either through migration, size change or neck spines. Therefore, alongside that experiment, chemical learning is plausible. Who knows, with the pace of modern science, we could see some form of chemical learning in our lifetime. |
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| Ànraich | Apr 26 2011, 12:17 PM Post #3 |
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L'évolution Spéculative est moi
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It would certainly make sense. As incredible as animals are, the fact is that not all of them can learn through observation. It would be beneficial if in death a member of a species could pass on useful knowledge about what killed it to others, so that they could avoid the same mistake. Memory can be genetic, that is obvious from the observation of migratory animals (they have to learn where to migrate somehow, and seeing as most of them know where to go from birth it must be genetic). I don't see why it couldn't be chemical as well. A brain is pretty much just a chemical supercomputer after all, maybe there's a way to pass "flash" memory from one brain to another. I doubt such a method could ever be used to pass down, say, mathematics but maybe simple information like the location of protected breeding grounds or the location of seasonal food stuffs. |
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We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar. "The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming Tree That Owns Itself
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2:28 PM Jul 11