

The worm that regrows its head, and memories, when decapitated - wozniacki
http://theweek.com/article/index/246703/the-worm-that-regrows-its-head-and-memories-when-decapitated

======
swombat
Maybe planar worms have souls...

Alternatively, the hypothesis that some of your learning is stored in your
nervous system outside of your brain seems compelling.

~~~
stephengillie
Souls are just programming...

~~~
Helianthus
Elaborate?

~~~
stephengillie
What is a soul? Is it what guides a living object when it moves, like a human,
dog, or worm?

If robots act autonomously, that is, without direct instruction from a living
object, do they have souls?

What if the robot is merely a plastic frame, a motor attached to wheels, an
Arduino with a motor shield, and an ultrasonic Ping distance sensor, but this
assemblage can navigate a room without colliding with anything -- does it have
a soul?

I say yes -- souls are the feedback loops which we have learned or been
taught, and they motivate or dissuade us and robots alike. And programming is
just teaching, providing instructions that will result in a desired outcome.

~~~
lolcraft
> What is a soul?

Soul, noun: social construct developed over millenia for purposes of group
identification, specifically religious; sometimes used for political
(crusades, justification of kings), even economical (selling of indulgences'
scandal, the Protestant Ethic) purposes. This project didn't at the end obtain
as much credibility as other (better built, with more interesting purposes)
social constructs such as physics or mathematics; though not for lack of
trying, from Plato to Kant and similar scholastics.

Now seriously, some terms are _very ridiculously_ loaded, and IMO should be
avoided in science. If you want to talk about a "feedback loop" that generates
consciousness, go on, be my guest. Now, calling it "soul"... that's just
openly inviting every faith in the world to, at best, hijack your theory with
pious, well-meaning BS.

~~~
cristianpascu
Science is actually a _very ridiculously loaded_ term.

~~~
Helianthus
XD

------
lewispollard
From the comments:

>Why is this news? Memories aren't stored only in our brains. There have been
heart-transplant patients who suddenly craved food they'd never eaten.

wat

~~~
polymatter
Relevant academic article: "Changes in Heart Transplant Recipients That
Parallel the Personalities of Their Donors"

([http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A%3A1013009425905](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A%3A1013009425905))

tldr; "Sensitive transplant patients may evidence personal changes that
parallel the history of their donors ... We suggest that cellular memory,
possibly systemic memory, is a plausible explanation for these parallels."

~~~
pygy_
A more reasonable hypothesis: the severance of the autonomous afferences
coming from the heart affects the brain stem and / or hypothalamus, which in
turns affects the rest of the brain.

It has the advantage of being testable.

Another (IMO less likely) possibility would be that the lack of brain-induced
rhythm variations of the denerved heart has an influence on the brain.

~~~
Helianthus
It's more reasonable in that it's more palatable to you, but let's be clear:
you're speculating.

~~~
nitrogen
The speculation that relies on a known mechanism is more believable than the
speculation that doesn't even propose a mechanism.

~~~
Helianthus
The term 'speculation' implies a mechanism unknown/unproposed. 'Known
mechanism' is again shorthand for 'palatable.'

~~~
nitrogen
Palatability is an unnecessarily pejorative shorthand for agreement with one's
expectations of reality.

I don't read "speculation" as meaning anything other than that the object of
speculation is as yet unproven, so speculation that makes an argument based on
previously known physical principles can still fairly be called speculation.
However, such speculation can rightly be given greater weight than speculation
which draws no connection to prior knowledge.

For example, if one were to argue that fairies make plants grow, with no other
information, then their argument can safely be ignored. On the other hand, if
their argument includes a testable definition of a fairy, suggests a mechanism
by which fairies add matter to plants, and provides a way of verifying that
mechanism, then the detailed fairy argument should be given higher weight than
the unsupported fairy argument, until evidence is available that either
disproves the definition of a fairy, disproves the mechanism by which fairies
make plants grow, or provides greater evidence for a different mechanism by
which plants grow (mitosis, perhaps).

------
ibudiallo
The worm can grow a new head from the body. Can it grow a new body from the
head?

If so you cut its head and you have 2 worms now.

~~~
Zikes
If I'm not mistaken, starfish are capable of this.

~~~
drobati
You're not mistaken.

"Because starfish like to eat clams and oysters, fishermen who gather
shellfish have tried for years to get rid of them. To kill the starfish,
fishermen would catch them, slice them right in half, and throw them back in
the ocean. However, because starfish can grow back parts of their bodies, they
were actually increasing the number of starfish." \- Wiki on Starfish
[http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish](http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish)

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Fascinating anecdote!

------
mratzloff
Interesting, but I'm curious why the author felt the need to include a
surprise spoiler to "A Game of Thrones" out of the blue.

~~~
ceejayoz
I think we're well past the "omg spoilers!" timeframe on Game fo Thrones'
first book/season.

~~~
mratzloff
Sure, on a message board topic about it, but generally you don't expect to run
across spoilers for a popular show in a _science article_ a mere 2 years after
the episode aired. "If you're not caught up on every popular show you may be
interested in within 2 years, screw you" seems kind of harsh.

Anyway, no need to continue this sub-thread, just thought it was unnecessary.

------
freefrancisco
It will be interesting to see what happens with the first head transplants
which are now possible. If memories are stored not only in the brain but also
throughout the nervous system in the body, head transplant patients will have
some of the memories of their new host body.

------
ypcx
I'm wondering why is it that we will do absolutely anything to avoid pondering
the hypothesis that the currently observable matter which constitues human
body may only be a half of the answer, and that the other half may be, what we
could approximately call some sort of energetic, perhaps electro-magnetic
field, carrying the missing link to many of our puzzles.

How about the cases of patients who lost large portions of their brain, or
people who were born with or have developed to most of their brain missing -
the rest of their head filled with fluid - these people are usually way more
functional than what any of our brain theories would suggest.

So perhaps the brain is only an antenna into this energetic field which is the
other half of that what see and can detect and measure.

The question is why does this sound ridiculous to you.

~~~
TeMPOraL
You're privileging the hypothesis. Why half of the answer, not 1/3 or 2/3? Why
energetic, not dark-matter? Why electro-magnetic?

But still, as far as I can tell, the "antenna" hypothesis was considered and
rejected, because right now we can pin-point different processes within a
brain using fMRIs, we can read out what an animal imagines out of its brain
directly... and basically "brain as a computer" is a simpler and better
fitting the data model than "brain as an antenna".

------
HNJohnC
Hmm...or maybe the worms are leaving an invisible trail of some kind which
helps them find it again. Like ants.

Doesn't sound very rigorous.

~~~
jackbravo
But then, other worm should be able to follow it?

------
negamax
Can this learning be something in the genetic makeup, that these worms now
have some kind of genetic advantage to find the food?

------
j2d3
this kind of memory is likely stored throughout the worms nervous system /
body, rather than centralized in its brain.

~~~
jessriedel
Yep. This study provides zero evidence justifying the claim in the title that
the memories regrew, in any meaningful sense.

------
6ren
_morphogenesis_ \holds up hands

Or, perhaps their bodies and muscles were adapted to the type of terrain.

------
hacker789
That article has a very peculiar comment:
[http://theweek.com/article/index/246703/the-worm-that-
regrow...](http://theweek.com/article/index/246703/the-worm-that-regrows-its-
head-and-memories-when-decapitated#comment-958983858)

I hesitate to copy and paste the entire comment, lest I be flagged by an
algorithm for spamming, but it uses Latin-like characters to write some
typical spam about making money from home. Then, it has a link to the
following site:

    
    
        viewmore------------------------------------------.qr.net/kkEj
    

After that link, the comment continues with an extremely interesting tidbit
that relates to the article, full of manual line breaks. I can't find it
anywhere else online:

    
    
        We replicated the results of a 
        similar experiment in a class I took in 1976, and also another one 
        that's even stranger. We trained planaria, killed them, dried them, and 
        fed them to untrained planaria. The training times for the untrained 
        planaria were shortened. Our experiments used planaria reactions to 
        light and subsequent electric shock, not food-finding behavior.
    

Is someone being paid to come up with original, relevant-sounding content to
post alongside spam? That text does not look machine generated.

~~~
jlgreco
Perhaps someone has a malware infection that inserts spam into the comments
they make online without them knowing. That would be a pretty slick way of
getting around CAPTCHAs and possibly spam filters.

------
Splendor
You crazy for this one, science.

------
Eva_Peron
Herbert West, MD, is doubtless all over this one.

------
tareqak
Was I the only one who read the title and thought "botnet"?

