An approach to the plant body: Assessing concrete and abstract aspects

Intelligence: Natural, artificial, or what?

We consider the competing attributes of natural intelligence (NI) and artificial intelligence (AI). Attention is paid to conceptual, theoretical, stylistic and structural aspects of both, and non-human intelligence. Intelligence is related to information processing and current views of physical structuring. Means of distinguishing between NI and AI are noted, and neural and digital structures are described. Pribram's bi-computational neural networks are introduced, and high-level Pribram computation is discussed. We describe the hierarchical Aquarium scheme, along with an AI implementation, and conclude with a proposition for future quantum-based artificial intelligence.

Entropy is better related to unification than to order

There are difficulties related to the classical establishment of entropy. It is conventionally viewed as the inverse of order in a system, or more precisely as a quantification of the number of possible systemic microstate reorganisations. This should attribute the related energy to a spectrum of possibilities, from the conventionally 'expected order at one end to a different unexpected order at the other, with disorder between the two', rather than the conventional 'order at one end to disorder at the other'. We propose that the resolution of this dichotomy lies in relating entropy to system unification, in place of simplistic order, which in any case is unfathomable in a complex organisationally multi-levelled organism. We conclude by questioning the entropic place of the brain in the Universe.

Embodiment in distributed information processing: "Solid" plants versus "liquid" ant colonies

Information processing is an essential part of biology, enabling coordination of intra-organismal processes such as development, environmental adaptation and inter-organismal communication. Whilst in animals with specialised brain tissue a substantial amount of information processing occurs in a centralised manner, most biological computing is distributed across multiple entities, such as cells in a tissue, roots in a root system or ants in a colony. Physical context, called embodiment, also affects the nature of biological computing. While plants and ant colonies both perform distributed computing, in plants the units occupy fixed positions while individual ants move around. This distinction, solid versus liquid brain computing, shapes the nature of computations. Here we compare information processing in plants and ant colonies, highlighting how similarities and differences originate in, as well as make use of, the differences in embodiment. We end with a discussion on how this embodiment perspective may inform the debate on plant cognition.