Planta Sapiens: Unmasking Plant Intelligence

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Dorman, C. (2023). Genius in Your Garden. A Review of Stefano Mancuso’s “The Revolutionary Genius of Plants.” https://caseydorman.com/the-genius-in... Berry's path of inquiry is a deeply personal one. Struggling with anxiety, she tries to pinpoint its origins in her life and finds in the wolf a new way to explore her relationship with her own fears. Humans have long imbued wolves with coded meaning, and although the specifics of the archetype shift with culture and context, wolves function as “a pressure point in our psyches.” Berry explores this role through wide-ranging research, juxtaposing the “wolves” in her life—her fears around personal safety, solo travel and loss of family—with biological wolves and the cultural touchstones they represent. The ideas we will explore in Planta Sapiens are at odds with most people’s perceptions of plants. They might even make you a little uncomfortable, or force you to wonder what words like “behaving” or “awareness” can possibly mean for a plant, never mind “intelligence.” You are not unusual. It is entirely normal, as an animal, to have reservations about applying to rooted photosynthetic organisms ideas that we normally apply only to mobile, animal-like creatures. Most people are probably more comfortable describing the behaviour of an amoeba than of a vine, or the awareness of a woodlouse than a sunflower. You would probably be perfectly happy thinking about a jay burying acorns as “planning ahead,” while a plant “planning for the future” might make you feel a little uneasy. We will look at the many sources of your discomfort in the next chapter, exploring the numerous zoocentric traps that limit your perception and the long history of animal-focused indoctrination that has shaped your ideas.” Planta Sapiens presents 'fertile possibilities' to the public and in doing so it has put science on notice [...] We should be delighted with Professor Calvo's seeding of scientific curiosity for the hope that it offers" Calvo is a professor of the philosophy of science in the Minimal Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Murcia, Spain. Although he presents detailed scientific evidence to support his case, he also draws on philosophical arguments about the nature of consciousness. We humans have a tendency to believe that the world revolves around us, but Calvo writes that intelligence is “not quite as special as we like to think”. He argues that it’s time to accept that other organisms, even drastically different ones, may be capable of it.

Planta Sapiens by Paco Calvo | Hachette UK Planta Sapiens by Paco Calvo | Hachette UK

Of course, these are revolutionary ideas and, as Calvo admits, contested by many scientists who study the physiology of plants. But he guides us patiently through the latest research and builds a compelling case that, unlikely as it may seem, deserves to be taken seriously. Is the potted cactus on your windowsill a cognitive being? When the lettuce in your sandwich was cut from its roots, did it feel pain? However, the lows were very low. Connecting only loosely connected ideas from animal cognition and AI to plant sciences seems to be some of the strongest arguments the author musters for the cause of the subjective experience for plants. He focuses on the outward projection of plants and their macro behaviour, without so much considering the minute changes in growth and development in plants. He tends towards leaning on only the movement of vines, rather than the roots which he himself has indicated to be the more intelligent part of the plant. And this is the mindset I started reading this book with: I wanted to learn more about the plants around my apartment (because I live in the middle of the capital city with barely any plants outside my place). What I found instead was something different, and even after finishing the epilogue I still don’t know what to think of the ideas that were presented.In Planta Sapiens, Calvo tries to show us that our green friends do far more than just blindly react. He believes they “plan ahead to achieve goals” and “proactively engage with their surroundings”, as they grapple with gradual changes in the soil or the sudden appearance of a predator. Some plants seem to ‘remember’ previous droughts, conserving water more effectively than plants that have never encountered long dry spells This book leaned much more towards philosophy than science. I typically welcome that; however, Calvo’s main goal to prove plants’ intelligence and sentience felt weak. Many of the given examples didn’t feel relevant to the overall topic (albeit interesting). In a provocative new book, Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence, philosopher Paco Calvo, with writer Natalie Lawrence, explores these questions, urging us not to fall into the “zoocentric trap” of believing that intelligence, agency and even consciousness are found only in animals. This isn’t that book. But the good news is that anyone who wants to be enthralled by plant behaviour can tune into the BBC’s sublime recent series The Green Planet. Sir David Attenborough’s closing monologue deserves to be heard far and wide: “Our relationship with plants has changed throughout history and now it must change again. If we do this, our future will be healthier, safer and happier. Plants are our most ancient allies and together we can make this an even greener planet.” Remarkable.... Calvo has a wonderfully infectious enthusiasm for his subject that makes this book, for all its complex science, a joy to read. He challenges us to set aside our ‘zoocentric’ perspective and to change our view of plants radically: from mechanisms akin to robots to complex organisms with a range of behaviours, responding to and anticipating their environments. In doing so, he has written a genuinely mind-expanding book." - PD Smith, The Guardian

Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence - Goodreads

The authors talk to researchers working on all the dimensions of plant intelligence, all the ways their physiologies have developed alternatives to animal neurology. And the upshot of all that research is stated plainly throughout the whole book: that plants have the ability to both learn and remember. “Individual plants can acquire new information about the environment,” our authors write, “retain this information, and use it to guide their future behavior.” They can exhibit compassion for other plants, display individual preferences, and show grogginess after being anesthetized (this last item seems oddly important to our authors; they bring it up insistently). Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. Create Account We are unimaginable without plants, yet surprisingly blind to their powers and behaviours. Planta Sapiens weaves science and history into an absorbing exploration of the many ways that plants rise to the challenge of living"All of which raises loud questions that Calvo and Lawrence see and echo but spend comparatively little time trying to answer. “We don’t seem quite ready to confront the welfare and rights of plants,” they write. “In fact, if we cared even a little for the unnecessary stress we inflict on plants, we would have set up ethical committees in research institutions by now, of the very same sort we customarily rely on for the purposes of animal experimentation.” In the course of his book, Calvo describes many experiments that reveal plants’ remarkable range, including the way they communicate with others nearby using “chemical talk”, a language encoded in about 1,700 volatile organic compounds. He also shows how, like animals, they can be anaesthetised. In lectures, he places a Venus flytrap under a glass bell jar with a cotton pad soaked in anaesthetic. After an hour the plant no longer responds to touch by closing its traps. Tests show the plant’s electrical activity has stopped. It is effectively asleep, just as a cat would be. He also notes that the process of germination in seeds can be halted under anaesthetic. If plants can be put to sleep, does that imply they also have a waking state? Calvo thinks it does, for he argues that plants are not just “photosynthetic machines” and that it’s quite possible that they have an individual experience of the world: “They may be aware.”

Planta Sapiens: Unmasking Plant Intelligence - Goodreads Planta Sapiens: Unmasking Plant Intelligence - Goodreads

Por supuesto, cualquier tratamiento así de amplio se expone a ser recibido con un saludable escepticismo. Conceptos como inteligencia, cognición y consciencia están cargados de ambigüedad, y trazar las relaciones que establecen entre sí es incluso más turbio. Uno podría, por ejemplo, aceptar que las plantas almacenan, recuperan y procesan información en modos parecidos a los que usan los animales, facilitando la interacción flexible con el ambiente, sin que le convenza en absoluto de la posibilidad de que las plantas tengan consciencia. Mucho depende aquí de lo que consideremos consciencia. Por ejemplo, Calvo introduce la (bastante técnica) “teoría de la información integrada” (IIT por sus siglas en inglés) para apoyar su argumento a favor de la sensibilidad vegetal. IIT mantiene que la consciencia se corresponde con la interdependencia de las partes de un sistema y la irreducibilidad del sistema a esas partes. A mayor interdependencia e irreducibilidad, mayor grado de consciencia alcanza el sistema. IIT predice que el cerebro tiene altos niveles de consciencia, pero también predice que los fotodiodos y los átomos son también un poco conscientes. Planta Sapiens: noua știință a inteligenței plantelor prezintă o introducere în lumea complexă și fascinantă a plantelor și a modului în care acestea interactionează cu mediul înconjurător. Paco Calvo și Natalie Lawrence ne arată cum plantele au dezvoltat strategii ingenioase pentru a supraviețui și pentru a se reproduce, inclusiv prin comunicarea cu alte plante, animale și chiar prin influențarea comportamentului uman. De asemenea, autorii abordează chestiuni controversate, cum ar fi posibila conștiință a plantelor și modul în care acestea au influențat evoluția omenirii. Capitoul oferă o privire de ansamblu asupra cercetărilor recente care au dus la o înțelegere mai profundă a lumii plantelor și a rolului lor în lumea noastră. This was such an incredibly interesting book about the intelligence of plants. Not only does it talk about the science currently being employed to study plants and understand them better, but it discusses the implications of what it could mean for humanity and its future should we determine that in fact, plants are intelligent. The smell of freshly cut grass ‘comes from the chemicals released by the wounded plant to warn nearby grasses to mobilise their defences’. Photograph: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images

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The exciting—and controversial—implication is: if a plant can be temporarily put to sleep, as an animal can, does that mean it also has some kind of “waking” state normally? Perhaps we might consider the possibility that plants are not simple automatons or inert, photosynthetic machines. We might begin to imagine that plants have some kind of individual experience of the world. They might be aware.