Are we helpless without memory?

Originally posted by bill718
Maybe memory is not so imporntant. George W Bush managed to remain President of the United States for 8 years without one!
🙄

I wonder what the world is going to look like after this next guy?
Kelly

Originally posted by joe shmo
Are we helpless without memory?

We might be helpless without memories, but there are complex organisms without memories, and they live their lives nicely.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
We might be helpless without memories, but there are complex organisms without memories, and they live their lives nicely.

Please name one, because I haven't yet heard of any "complex" organism
without even the most rudimentary form of memory.

Originally posted by Jigtie
Please name one, because I haven't yet heard of any "complex" organism
without even the most rudimentary form of memory.

I'm thinking of trees. Some of them are really big. Like an old oak, or a redwood. They have not memories, they cannot think, but they are more stable lifeform than any mammal.
They have DNA as complex as any animal, they have an effective immunosystem, they digest nutriscients directly from the soil, they breath without lungs but with their leaves, they convert sunlight and CO2 to sugars that they convert to cellulose.
We shouldn't understimate these 'creatures'.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
They [trees] have DNA as complex as any animal, they have an effective immunosystem, they digest nutriscients directly from the soil, they breath without lungs but with their leaves, they convert sunlight and CO2 to sugars that they convert to cellulose.

Really? Fascinating. I must look this up. 🙂

Meh. I forget.

I heard of a condition on some TV show (maybe Law & Order?) in which a person cannot remember faces. Apparently, he had to find other ways to distinguish people he "knew", which sound terrifying to me. Wouldn't that be almost Alzheimer-like?

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
I heard of a condition on some TV show (maybe Law & Order?) in which a person cannot remember faces. Apparently, he had to find other ways to distinguish people he "knew", which sound terrifying to me. Wouldn't that be almost Alzheimer-like?

I have also watched TV programs where people have no short term memory. Not exactly the absence of memory as a whole, although it in none the less interesting.....

Originally posted by FabianFnas
I'm thinking of trees. Some of them are really big. Like an old oak, or a redwood. They have not memories, they cannot think, but they are more stable lifeform than any mammal.
They have DNA as complex as any animal, they have an effective immunosystem, they digest nutriscients directly from the soil, they breath without lungs but with their leaves, the ...[text shortened]... CO2 to sugars that they convert to cellulose.
We shouldn't understimate these 'creatures'.

Trees don't exactly run around and do things where a brain and
memory would come in handy, it isn't like they run around looking
for things to eat either. They bloom where they are planted, as long
as the conditions can support them or they die if the conditions around
them cannot.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Trees don't exactly run around and do things where a brain and
memory would come in handy, it isn't like they run around looking
for things to eat either. They bloom where they are planted, as long
as the conditions can support them or they die if the conditions around
them cannot.
Kelly

….Trees don't exactly run around and do things where a brain and
memory would come in handy, it isn't like they run around looking
for things to eat either. They bloom where they are planted, as long
as the conditions can support them or they die if the conditions around
them cannot.…

That is true for most plants but that is also true for certain animals:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral

Also, it is not true for ALL plants -some plants CAN travel from place to place! -have you heard of a volvox? :

http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/art97b/volvoxms.html

Also, although most plants don’t travel from place to place, they do move. Have you heard of tropisms?
(mainly phototropism, gravitropism, tigmotropism, hydrotropism and sometimes thermotropism -I learned this when I did my C&G horticultural degree) :

http://www.botanical-online.com/lasplantasmovimientosvegetalesangles.htm

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-tropism.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrotropism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermotropism

Also, these are not necessary all slow movements -especially when it comes to tigmotropism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_Flytrap

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]….Trees don't exactly run around and do things where a brain and
memory would come in handy, it isn't like they run around looking
for things to eat either. They bloom where they are planted, as long
as the conditions can support them or they die if the conditions around
them cannot.…

That is true for most plants but that is also t ...[text shortened]... ments -especially when it comes to tigmotropism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_Flytrap[/b]

You really do have to find ways to agrue with me don't you, even in
times I was agreeing with you. LOL
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
You really do have to find ways to agrue with me don't you, even in
times I was agreeing with you. LOL
Kelly

I wasn’t trying to make a point -I just thought this might interest you 🙂

Originally posted by KellyJay
Trees don't exactly run around and do things where a brain and
memory would come in handy, it isn't like they run around looking
for things to eat either. They bloom where they are planted, as long
as the conditions can support them or they die if the conditions around
them cannot.
Kelly

You have to think outside your box, KJ.

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
I wasn’t trying to make a point -I just thought this might interest you 🙂

Okay, my bad, I'm sorry.
Kelly

Originally posted by FabianFnas
You have to think outside your box, KJ.

You are always telling to think with the herd and now you are telling
me to think outside of the box, just no pleasing you. 🙂
Kelly