Planarian “cannibal” worms eating other trained planarian worms, learn much faster how to behave under certain conditions than other worms who did not eat trained worms! It is like the knowledge of the eaten ones is transferred to the cannibals! (1, 2 – see file “McConnell 1962 _ Planarian worms”, 3)
This is the startling conclusion of well publicized experiments by James V. McConnell.
Although there are some other explanations for these results (4) the point is that “something is going on”. (see here for a “manual” on how to run your own experiments with cannibal worms)
We used to laugh at tribes cannibalizing the enemies to gain their knowledge.
Now we know that knowledge can be edible.
Not sure why.
Not sure how*.
But it seems it is.
Old “primitive” tribes, you can have your dignity back!
* Could a purely materialistic explanation give the solution to this? Could memory be transferred by chemistry? Could an immaterialistic explanation be the solution? Could a trained worm have matter more “ready” to accept the invisible “consciousness” waves existing out there? Who knows…
