Is there a scientific consensus on whether or not plants are conscious?I (look, evolution)
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I am a plant scientist and have worked with others at a high level all my adult life until retiring. No one at that level believes a plant is conscious in the way any animal is. But plants do sense, prepare, and react.
They have biochemical and biophysical sensory pathways which alert their cells as to what is going on in their immediate environment. This promotes certain other minute changes that evolution has favored and which prepares the cells for what is required for survival. The cells then do any number of things in the short or long run to adapt to those situations.
What they don’t do is think. Or imagine scenarios. Or daydream. The goal, if you will, is to spend the least energy (chemical and physics) perpetuating the species by producing viable offspring and providing the micro environment those offspring need to succeed.
n the late 60's I was working for a company, in southern Michigan, called Space Defense Corp. The company was engaged in basic research with most of the contracts being with NASA. The question of particular interest to us at the time was, "What would happen to man's biological rhythms in a long term deep space flight?" Man has about 280 biological clocks ticking away and are more or less associated with the Planet Earth. So if we take man and send him into deep space, is he going to fall apart?
The plan was to take something simple, study its' biorhythms on earth, then shoot it into deep space, then compare the biorhythm, which would give you conjecture as to Man. After a reasonable study the Potato was elected-it was simple, lots of data in the data banks, and the life-blood of Americans. To help clarify the data we elected to only fly the eye of a potato thus reducing the size of the experiment.
I think this shows signs of consciousness. Also if you read The Secret Life of Plants by Christoper Bird & Peter Tompkins there are many different examples which exhibit this consciousness.
I talk to a number of my plants as if they're humans, and if one isn't doing too well, I'll even massage its limbs, but even with that, a number of these plants have died on me anyway. Could be they just don't like their neighbors or the neighborhood.
I planted a Popcorn Cassia last year and when it expanded outward and one of its leaves touched my sage, my sage died. So before it could kill any other of its neighbors I had it destroyed. I understand now it's toxic, native to AFrica.
My snowbird neighbor wants me to plant a creosote bush next to her house, adjoining mine, and I was told that a creosote bush will kill anything within a 10 foot radius of it. Not sure if that's true or not, but I'm not taking the risk.
I talk to a number of my plants as if they're humans, and if one isn't doing too well, I'll even massage its limbs, but even with that, a number of these plants have died on me anyway. Could be they just don't like their neighbors or the neighborhood.
I planted a Popcorn Cassia last year and when it expanded outward and one of its leaves touched my sage, my sage died. So before it could kill any other of its neighbors I had it destroyed. I understand now it's toxic, native to AFrica.
My snowbird neighbor wants me to plant a creosote bush next to her house, adjoining mine, and I was told that a creosote bush will kill anything within a 10 foot radius of it. Not sure if that's true or not, but I'm not taking the risk.
You should read this whole article about creosote, I think you'd find it all interesting, but here's the quote from it I wanted to bring to your attention:
..... There is a legend that creosotes inhibit growth of any other plants around them. Not exactly. The roots will excrete a substance which inhibits growth of bursage, its main competitor, and it will also inhibit germination of its own seeds so competing new creosote bushes will not grow nearby. But, the creosote is an important nurse plant for small cacti and many other plants......
Just my opinion, but I think that humans for a long time did not really bother all that much with questions like stated by the OP. As time goes on and more studies are being carried about how other life forms "live" their lives, we are starting to learn all is not as simple as it appears.
I wish I could find a study carried out years ago in the Black Forest. If memory serves, researchers found that plants emitted certain chemical signals that others picked up on. We will probably never know if they are sentient beings, but they have gone through millions of years of evolution as have all living creatures.
Algeron Blackwood wrote a story entitled "The Man Whom The Trees Loved". Recommended for anyone interested in nature and the plant kingdom.
Walking alone into a heavily forested wood, after a while it seems that the plants know you are there. Especially the trees.
I don't know if it counts as consciousness, but I've heard quite a few people who keep plants in the house remark on some kind of link between the plants and what goes on in the home. I've seen some of it myself. Some plants that thrived in my house when I was a loner kid refuse to grow for me now that I'm a very social adult. Some plants that I couldn't grow no matter what, are now thriving. I know there are a dozen scientific explanations for this (different sunlight, different soil, where I get the plants from, probably more experience on my part), but still... makes me wonder.
And then there was my mother-in-law's plant. She had it for years, gave a few cuttings out to relatives, and it looked pretty good. Until the winter when she got diagnosed with cancer. It started wilting quite suddenly, and she said she wasn't caring for it any differently. She was very shaken by this and saw it as a bad sign, even though I tried to tell her that her soil must be old and it just needs transplanting (the soil looked fine, I was just trying to keep her mind from going there). I brought over some new soil ASAP, but it was clearly too late and the plant was quite dead the next week. It was a bad sign all right, my mother-in-law was gone in three months I know of two cuttings of this plant - one is in a pretty unhappy home and is healthy, but hasn't really grown. The other is in a happier environment and is bigger than the parent plant. Again, there could be all kinds of rational explanations but it makes me wonder.
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