Thought may not originate in the brain.

Ok, seriously, here is an example of complicated movement based on a very simple algorithm, http://www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html

I also would like to see a paper a bit newer than the turn of the century.

We know today that many things can "react" to stimuli. A plant will grow towards water, and towards light, but that doesn't mean it has a brain that is "deciding" to grow towards light.

Here is the passage I refer to:

Are you saying "life" is actually alive?
Why? Is the Lao Tze invalid because it's old?
The plant kingdom wasn't included in the article. Because they don't demonstrate the behavior it's describing, it's possible they aren't governed by the same process.

all those statements are incredibly wishy washy though. how does the quoted statement actually define the brain? it does not have a brain in a conventional sense, since it has no neurons. the allusion to emotion is also questionable, since it is a massive extrapolation with no real justification to it.

Nope, "life" isn't alive, however non intelligent algorithms can produce the appearance of life, yet still just be basic mechanics. As Jet mentioned the comments about emotions seem to be opinion that doesn't appear to be backed up by further studies. So, what is the difference between saying the game of life is displaying what appears to be intelligence, and this study?

So a newer report varifying the old research would go a long way to support the claims.

The planarian is considered the most primitive life to have a central nervous system, which is composed of a mass of cephalic neurons and a pair of ventral nerve cords. So it in fact has a brain made of neurons. I only used that example because he described it's behaviour with the most picturesque adjectives. If you actually took the time to read the article, you could see other examples of even simpler single-celled organisms doing the same things, which was my original point. Your claim that direct observation being massive extrapolation, is nonsensical.

http://custance.org/old/man/8ch2.htmlSingle-celled protista have complex behavior that shows they are able to think.

The way they search for something to climb and how picky they are about what they want to climb.

Then when they reach the top and can find nothing else to climb up they turn into a different plant and begin to get real thick. When the conditions are dry, that seems to be when they produce the most flowers.

Other plants seem to be able to decide if they will be short and bushy, or tall and thin, based on the other plants you put when them.

There are plants that will put out a chemical that will kill off the competition so they get to take over the growing space. I have watched plants fight it out, when there was not enough room for both of them to survive. Some plants are very dominate over others, some seem to be a pretty even match for the competition.

I once looked after tamagotchi when they were in craze, when I worked for a childrens holiday club, and I had all thsese little bits of plastic there, doing only what could be described as displays of emotion when I forgot to feed them or clean up their poo. However I would have no qualms about puttling the battery out, because I don't see them as alive

Humans are known for pattern matching, and often get it wrong,

unless justified we cannot really ascribe emotion to these objects, and the articles are massively extrapolating.

evolution does that.