Fungi as Turing automata with oracles.

Area of Science:

• * Theoretical Biology
• * Computational Neuroscience
• * Philosophy of Mind

Background:

• * Organisms exhibit complex responses to environmental stimuli.
• * Existing models may not fully capture these dynamic interactions.
• * Consciousness remains a challenging phenomenon to define and quantify.

Purpose of the Study:

• * To model organismal responses to external stimuli using a theoretical framework.
• * To explore the concept of consciousness as a mathematical phenomenon.
• * To introduce 'hybridization of behaviour' as a key concept.

Main Methods:

• * Employing a variant of an oracle Turing machine (oTM) as a computational model.
• * Demonstrating that this oTM variant is equivalent to a cellular automaton with an oracle.
• * Interpreting observed interactions as forms of reflection and consciousness.

Main Results:

• * A cellular automaton with an oracle can model intricate organismal behaviors, like those in fungi.
• * Environmental interactions reveal reflective properties interpretable as a minimum consciousness.
• * Consciousness is mathematically defined via arbitrary modifications to arithmetic functions ('hybridization of behaviour').

Conclusions:

• * Oracle Turing machines provide a mathematical language for understanding behavioral hybridization.
• * The study offers a novel, mathematical perspective on consciousness.
• * This approach bridges theoretical computation with biological complexity.