Competition between ferro-retrieval and anti-ferro orders in a Hopfield-like network model for plant intelligence

We introduce a simple cellular-network model to explain the capacity of the plants as memory devices. Following earlier observations (Bose [1] and others), we regard the plant as a network in which each of the elements (plant cells) are connected via negative (inhibitory) interactions. To investigate the performance of the network, we construct a model following that of Hopfield, whose energy function possesses both Hebbian spin glass and anti-ferromagnetic terms. With the assistance of the replica method, we find that the memory state of the network decreases enormously due to the effect of the anti-ferromagnetic order induced by the inhibitory connections. We conclude that the ability of the plant as a memory device is rather weak.