[MD] Levels in electronic computers

[John Carl]

Andy and Magnus,

It's too hot to dig now.  I'll come inside and deal with theoretical plants
rather than actual ones for a bit:


>  John to Arlo:
>>
>>> By this definition, are plants "alive"?
>>>
>>
>>
Andy:


> The plant pattern is a good example of an organism that can persist as
>> a singleton, a loner. There are many examples of life which do not
>> hold the interaction patterns as a necessary.
>>
>
>
Magnus:


> Plants contain cells. The interaction between organs starts already inside
> the cell. They are called organelles.
>
>
Well Magnus is going the reductionist route, Andy takes the
individualistic.

I think when we talk about a pattern of organic being, we should take the
largest whole as the "thing" being described.  Thus an animal isn't examined
as a bunch of organs, but as a whole and likewise a plant.

Now Andy, I specifically disagree that you'll find any plant in nature
that's alone.  It's parents oughta be somewhere in the vicinity, at least.
And where you find one coconut palm, you find many.  Raising the bar on what
is meant by "vicinity", no doubt, but nevertheless.

What interests me about plants is that they seem to coexist in a
biochemical-biomechanical relationship with insects.  This is one of the
insights of Fukuoka farming concerning the foolishness of the use of
pesticides.  Insects are the mobile workers of the plant organism and
without insects,  plants could not procreate or eat. Insects don't seem to
think much, but they react vigourously to chemical cues that plants and each
other emits.

Its in the digestive tracts of insects and the bacterial action thereupon
which converts the cellulose back into the minerals that plants eat, so you
could look at plant/insect as a symbiotic organism in the same way trees are
part of my breathing apparatus - even tho separate from my physical body.

To my mind it's  a puzzle how simple survival mechanisms can produce
symbiotic species.

Looking up CoEvolution on wiki yields:

Coevolutionary algorithms are also a class of algorithms used for generating
artificial life as well as for optimization, game learning and machine
learning. Pioneering results in the use of coevolutionary methods were by
Daniel Hillis (who coevolved sorting networks) and Karl Sims (who coevolved
virtual creatures).

And we come full circle!

Arlo was right, this is an interesting thread.

J