A while ago I wrote (you can find it here) about the trail-blazing effort of our organization in facilitating the scientific endeavors of other species. These first steps seem naive in retrospect, and in spite of our elevated expectations, not much came out of them. Little did we know that this was a pivotal point in the history of human civilization…
Our funding organization is at the forefront of these changes and takes them in stride. The support for human scientific efforts, that is, human-based science, is in retreat as nobody wants to invest in ever-traveling gluttons. It was dwindling for years but now there is really no good reason to pay money for science that really originates from brussel sprouts or yeast! Consequently, the budgets of grant proposals that used to have dollar amounts, now speak of light, water, and air, and science is the cheapest commodity on the planet. We are adapting to these changes as quickly as possible. Just recently a bullnose dolphin named Todo was hired as a program officer in the Political Science unit. His colleagues often frolic with him in a water-filled office. Frankly, these guys are so worried about human bias that only soliciting help from another species could give them credibility in the studies of the US political system. But the boldest move is due to the directorate of mathematical and physical sciences. In a recent search for a director of one of the units, a candidate named Fern made it to the final short-list. Discrete inquiries revealed that Fern is, yes, you have guessed it, a mid-size fern that is already settled in the hiring unit (still called human resources) in a clay pot near a window. Colleagues were apprehensive about the upcoming interview and were not quite clear what would transpire. On the day of the interview, Fern was brought in and the acting director murmured profuse apologies while collecting several leaves from the lower portion of his body. Next he brewed them in a small kettle and the interview commenced with everybody getting a Shot of Fern. Within minutes, a profound change occurred. Colleagues who were threatening to retire got new wind in their sails, ideas for budget drivers flourished, people were pledging to move on with mundane everyday work and engaging in strategic thinking. An hour into the interview we had drafts of three new solicitations, an employee assessment plan, and a clear vision of the future. Fern got enthusiastic support from everybody and was carried to the Central Office for more interviewing. After several hours, human resource people, clearly acting in the best interest of Fern and his leafy brethren, had to intervene and just in time! Poor Fern was missing half of his leaves, while his colleagues from the Central Office looked like they were walking on clouds. We hope for his speedy recovery and fully expect that Fern will be the first representative of flora in a managerial position of a government institution!
Shortly after the first inter-species panel, a paper was posted in the archives. It was titled "Computational aspects of biology," and it claimed that every DNA-based life form is computationally equivalent to the Turing machine. The paper generated a tremendous amount of misunderstanding, but in a nutshell it demonstrated that a human being and an ordinary house plant represent two species that in principle have the same ability to abstract the universe through computation. The key paradigm shift presented in this work concerned the concept of communication - a necessary step in carrying out an algorithm. While humans view communication as a process involving five senses, talking, writing, and so forth, this is a smoke-screen. On the biological level, communication occurs via ingestion of biological matter, that is eating. The entire food chain is really an encoding of billions of computations performed by various species. Sadly, consuming your interlocutor is the universal language of nature, geared towards a higher purpose. The computations carried on by the entire biomass are for the most part charting its evolutionary path, but there is a great deal of spare capacity. For example, if a banana plant wants to embark on resolving the Riemann Hypothesis, it carries on as long as it can and then produces a banana. This banana is eaten by a bird, who is eaten by a shark who is eaten by a tourist, who urinates on another banana tree during a cruise in Carribean. This is how a new banana plant finds out about the computation carried out by the former one, and is able to continue the former's efforts. The slowness of the process is offset by the immense size of the biosphere.
The tremendous amount of interspecies interactions is certainly a new ingredient in our understanding of the world, and given the asserted computational equivalence, it exacerbates the central question of humanity: "why are we here?" The answer is unfortunately quite sobering: "eat, shit and travel." Why? Because, the friendly plants inform us, we can do it so quickly. Apparently plants, bacteria, and the rest of the lot are also on a tight schedule, and it helps to have omnivorous busybodies running around and speeding things up. What about science, culture and the rest of it, you may ask? It has all been surreptitiously donated to humanity, and by golly, calling intuition a gut feeling should have been a hint a long time ago! Indeed, Archimedes' fondness of olive oil, Pythagoras' love for pig’s intestines, Newton's appetite for apples, Einstein's interest in sauerkraut, Marie Curie's appetite for fried possum, and Darwin's bouts with the flu were all means of transmitting scientific ideas from the ever-computing biomass into willing minds.
It is only when humans started messing up the planet too much that the biosphere faced the dilemma of whether to poison us all or try to appeal to our better side. The interspecies scientific panel was a big plus and a nudge in our favor. Reportedly it was a very close call, with bok-choy firmly on our side and Ebola virus and broccoli furiously lobbying for a showdown. As had already happened several times in the past, humanity prevailed, and soon afterward the movie "Avatar" was made. It popularized ideas of the computing world while carrying out a warning not to interfere with it. So in the end humans, were allowed another chance and given their marching orders. Most accepted with great relief solutions to a number of millennia-old philosophical questions, and promised to help restore the planetary balance.
