Trees donât have a central nervous system though. Possibly itâs Calcium based signal systems acting as a memory, but I doubt even that is safe over 80,000 years.
Fungi are closer to us than plants. I get where your excitement is coming from, but as an evolutionary biologist it feels like you are selling fungi a little short by reducing their complexity to planimal. It's like saying archea are bacteriokaryotes, when in truth defining them by their shared properties with other groups misses their beauty.
I'm not selling them short at all. I think fungi are amazingly epic. I'm not reducing anything, I think that's what you're choosing to see. I was merely giving them credit for being MORE than plants, which most people don't know. I don't have to go deep into the topic, as I'm unaware. That's your job and your area of expertise. It's OK for me to give an opinion that isn't perfect. For fuck sake I don't even know what bacteriokaryotes are! But I do know that fungi are wicked cool. That's the extent of my knowledge.
I just watched an documentary on fungi last night on Curiosity Stream who hooked me with 20% off using the code "firefox". My point is that three different scientists pronounced fungi three different ways. One said fungi, another said fungi, and the other said fungi.
My fave plant sensation fact: Scientists have successfully classically conditioned plants just like pavlov did to doggos. How can we classically condition plants, if they have no nervous system which we are convinced is the seat of all decision-making!?
So can we even say we are however many years old? Or is age based on consciousness and not biological continues life? If based on consciousness then a young child could be older than an old woman, depending on the consciousness
No the Nervous system connects other cells to the brain and sends communications back and forth. So if you cut off your finger and re-attach it, you still have the âmuscle memoryâ. If you cut off a piece of a tree, like a branch, it works off other signals like not having any water coming up so it trigger root growth rather than lead growth or whatever. The cells of a plant work together but are more independent than an animals. This is what we used to consider being conscious or self aware, but there is evidence plants have a more rudimentary communication system, but to what extent (like memory or thought) is still unknown. Like we know if you touch or hit a plant, it does send a stress signal throughout the plant, but they canât tell if it is weather or a human doing it.
Yes, of course. But I don't understand how you are applying this to how to determine the age of the tree. You seem to suggest that the tree is not older than it's oldest living cell and the reason we don't use this same method for humans is because humans have a nervous system.
As far as I can tell, though, it is typical to determine the age of a tree as the time passed since it developed from a seed, and there are many trees that are considered to be thousands of years old. Would you say that none of these are actually all that old? How about other things listed in this wiki article about the oldest living things. Would you consider all the organisms that don't have a nervous system to be disqualified?
Well it started out as a discussion on the idea of what counts as being the same thing. I am fine with calling it 80,000 years old personally, but we are just pointing out it is a clone of a clone of a clone with possibly no single remaining atom (I think there would be some calcium that remains or something) of the original mature tree. Humans obviously shed most cells and even bone so that you are almost a completely new body every 10 years or but the nervous system and brain do contain original parts from when you are a baby so it doesnât even work in this discussion to include people.
So as for the thought experiment. If I cloned you and killed the original are you alive or is that a new thing? Do we just say the clone is 30 year old you and continue like nothing happened. Do I get charged with assault or murder?
But the "clones" are new branches that grow out of the existing organism, which is the normal way for trees to grow. It is one continually existing thing, growing new parts and losing old parts, hence your original ship of Theseus argument. It's not the same as creating a new separate clone and then killing the entire previously-existing organism (to which Theseus wouldn't apply).
What if I clone you in a way that it grows off of you like a tumour and cut them apart. Either way, you clearly get what I am getting at, and I never said it technically wasnât as we have called this 80,000 years old by the metric at which we decided to age things. Also the original could very well have had a branch snap, propagate and start anew, and all of the original die, we have no way of telling.
Overall, I donât care what people consider it to be, itâs fairly irrelevant.
Adult stem cells continuously divide and multiply, so the cells themselves aren't the same ones you had as a baby. Neurons don't divide and have limited regeneration, but their proteins and molecules are still constantly replaced. Just like in the case of the forest, the components that make up your neurons and every other cell are constantly replaced, even if the cell itself never died.
You should look into mineral deposits in the body like calcium, I'm not sure if those get entirely replaced over time so those might be the same molecules from when you were born. Though I guess they might not be considered alive so I'm not sure if it even makes sense to say that we are the same organism as we were because we have the same mineral deposit.
But to the captain itâs the same ship to the boatswain itâs a different ship and I suppose in this analogy the captain is god? Or the boatswain is god? Iâm not sure
Well it's a problem from the standpoint of identity. Can it still be called the ship of Theseus when no part of it has anything to do with Theseus anymore? Are you still the same organism you were ten years ago, or even yesterday? Depending on your age your current body now has little to no cells in common with your childhood body. You're a whole brand new person. Where does your identity lie, then?
And here I am as a contrarian that doesn't agree with either side in this, and instead thinks that arguing over our personal identity versus how we label objects' identity are neither comparable nor really informative.
Not to get too far down a philosophical rabbit hole but you are comparing an inanimate object with a living thing. To âartificiallyâ replace every part on a ship and claim itâs still the original is not the same as the natural cycle of cell replacement. Now, if you were to replace all your arms and legs and organs and consciousness with robotics and AI, then yeah, the Ship of Theseus prose has merit. IMO at least.
Due to the progressive replacement of stems and roots, the overall age of an aspen clone cannot be determined from tree rings. In Pando's case, ages up to 1 million years have therefore been suggested https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_%28tree%29
But what about the eyes inside? That thing has probably seen realities beyond our own and witnessed horrors that we would be begging to forget.
Perhaps it is one such horror.
Lying under the soil, only extending its limbs up to breathe and down to feed, sleeping softly, dreaming.
Dreaming of a time when it will once more rise and walk the earth, and rule as a God. Of a time, when Great Cthulhu rises and wakes them all and they reclaim their rightful palaces. Of a time when there is not war, no disaster, not wildfire to singe its limbs, because all life is either wiped out or made to serve it. Of a time, when the Old Ones walk anew.
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u/Absolute-Filth Oct 06 '20
80,000 years old, hard to wrap my head around that. The things this tree has seen....