Plant Behaviour and Intelligence

Plant Behaviour and Intelligence PDF

Author: A. J. Trewavas

Publisher:

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0199539545

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This book provides a convincing argument for the view that whole cells and whole plants growing in competitive wild conditions show aspects of plant behaviour that can be accurately described as 'intelligent'. Trewavas argues that behaviour, like intelligence, must be assessed within the constraints of the anatomical and physiological framework of the organism in question. The fact that plants do not have centralized nervous systems for example, does not exclude intelligent behaviour. Outside the human dimension, culture is thought largely absent and fitness is the biological property of value. Thus, solving environmental problems that threaten to reduce fitness is another way of viewing intelligent behaviour and has a similar meaning to adaptively variable behaviour. The capacity to solve these problems might be considered to vary in different organisms, but variation does not mean absence. By extending these ideas into a book that allows a critical and amplified discussion, the author hopes to raise an awareness of the concept of purposive behaviour in plants.

Plant Behaviour and Intelligence

Plant Behaviour and Intelligence PDF

Author: Anthony Trewavas

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2014-08-21

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0191028916

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This book provides a convincing argument for the view that whole cells and whole plants growing in competitive wild conditions show aspects of plant behaviour that can be accurately described as 'intelligent'. Trewavas argues that behaviour, like intelligence, must be assessed within the constraints of the anatomical and physiological framework of the organism in question. The fact that plants do not have centralized nervous systems for example, does not exclude intelligent behaviour. Outside the human dimension, culture is thought largely absent and fitness is the biological property of value. Thus, solving environmental problems that threaten to reduce fitness is another way of viewing intelligent behaviour and has a similar meaning to adaptively variable behaviour. The capacity to solve these problems might be considered to vary in different organisms, but variation does not mean absence. By extending these ideas into a book that allows a critical and amplified discussion, the author hopes to raise an awareness of the concept of purposive behaviour in plants.

Plant Behaviour and Intelligence

Plant Behaviour and Intelligence PDF

Author: Anthony Trewavas

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2015-07-23

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0198753683

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This book argues that whole cells and whole plants growing in competitive wild conditions show aspects of plant behaviour that can be accurately described as "intelligent," and that behaviour, like intelligence, must be assessed within the constraints of the anatomical and physiological framework of the organism in question.

The Revolutionary Genius of Plants

The Revolutionary Genius of Plants PDF

Author: Stefano Mancuso

Publisher: Atria Books

Published: 2018-08-28

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781501187858

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"In this thought-provoking, handsomely illustrated book, Italian neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso considers the fundamental differences between plants and animals and challenges our assumptions about which is the ‘higher’ form of life.” —The Wall Street Journal “Fascinating…full of optimism…this quick, accessible read will appeal to anyone with interest in how plants continue to surprise us.” —Library Journal Do plants have intelligence? Do they have memory? Are they better problem solvers than people? The Revolutionary Genius of Plants—a fascinating, paradigm-shifting work that upends everything you thought you knew about plants—makes a compelling scientific case that these and other astonishing ideas are all true. Plants make up eighty percent of the weight of all living things on earth, and yet it is easy to forget that these innocuous, beautiful organisms are responsible for not only the air that lets us survive, but for many of our modern comforts: our medicine, food supply, even our fossil fuels. On the forefront of uncovering the essential truths about plants, world-renowned scientist Stefano Mancuso reveals the surprisingly sophisticated ability of plants to innovate, to remember, and to learn, offering us creative solutions to the most vexing technological and ecological problems that face us today. Despite not having brains or central nervous systems, plants perceive their surroundings with an even greater sensitivity than animals. They efficiently explore and react promptly to potentially damaging external events thanks to their cooperative, shared systems; without any central command centers, they are able to remember prior catastrophic events and to actively adapt to new ones. Every page of The Revolutionary Genius of Plants bubbles over with Stefano Mancuso’s infectious love for plants and for the eye-opening research that makes it more and more clear how remarkable our fellow inhabitants on this planet really are. In his hands, complicated science is wonderfully accessible, and he has loaded the book with gorgeous photographs that make for an unforgettable reading experience. The Revolutionary Genius of Plants opens the doors to a new understanding of life on earth.

Brilliant Green

Brilliant Green PDF

Author: Stefano Mancuso

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2015-03-12

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 1610916034

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In this book, a leading plant scientist offers a new understanding of the botanical world and a passionate argument for intelligent plant life. Are plants intelligent? Can they solve problems, communicate, and navigate their surroundings? For centuries, philosophers and scientists have argued that plants are unthinking and inert, yet discoveries over the past fifty years have challenged this idea, shedding new light on the complex interior lives of plants. In Brilliant Green, leading scientist Stefano Mancuso presents a new paradigm in our understanding of the vegetal world. He argues that plants process information, sleep, remember, and signal to one another-showing that, far from passive machines, plants are intelligent and aware. Part botany lesson, part manifesto, Brilliant Green is an engaging and passionate examination of the inner workings of the plant kingdom.--

Thus Spoke the Plant

Thus Spoke the Plant PDF

Author: Monica Gagliano

Publisher: North Atlantic Books

Published: 2018-11-13

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1623172438

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A research scientist’s fascinating study of plant communication reveals how we “have been misunderstanding plants, and ourselves, for all of history” (The Paris Review). “A compelling story of discovery . . . [that] will change the way you see the world”—for fans of The Hidden Life of Trees (Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass) In this “phytobiography”—a collection of stories written in partnership with a plant—research scientist Monica Gagliano shares genuine first-hand accounts from her research into plant communication and cognition. By transcending the view of plants as the objects of scientific materialism, Gagliano encourages us to rethink plants as people—beings with subjectivity, consciousness, and volition, and hence having the capacity for their own perspectives and voices. The book draws on up-close-and-personal encounters with the plants themselves, as well as plant shamans, indigenous elders, and mystics from around the world and integrates these experiences with an incredible research journey and the groundbreaking scientific discoveries that emerged from it. Gagliano has published numerous peer-reviewed scientific papers on how plants have a Pavlov-like response to stimuli and can learn, remember, and communicate to neighboring plants. She has pioneered the brand-new research field of plant bioacoustics, for the first time experimentally demonstrating that plants emit their own 'voices' and, moreover, detect and respond to the sounds of their environments. By demonstrating experimentally that learning is not the exclusive province of animals, Gagliano has re-ignited the discourse on plant subjectivity and ethical and legal standing. This is the story of how she made those discoveries and how the plants helped her along the way.

Plants as Persons

Plants as Persons PDF

Author: Matthew Hall

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2011-05-06

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1438434308

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Plants are people too? No, but in this work of philosophical botany Matthew Hall challenges readers to reconsider the moral standing of plants, arguing that they are other-than-human persons. Plants constitute the bulk of our visible biomass, underpin all natural ecosystems, and make life on Earth possible. Yet plants are considered passive and insensitive beings rightly placed outside moral consideration. As the human assault on nature continues, more ethical behavior toward plants is needed. Hall surveys Western, Eastern, Pagan, and Indigenous thought as well as modern science for attitudes toward plants, noting the particular resources for plant personhood and those modes of thought which most exclude plants. The most hierarchical systems typically put plants at the bottom, but Hall finds much to support a more positive view of plants. Indeed, some indigenous animisms actually recognize plants as relational, intelligent beings who are the appropriate recipeints of care and respect. New scientific findings encourage this perspective, revealing that plants possess many of the capacities of sentience and mentality traditionally denied them.

Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm

Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm PDF

Author: Stephen Harrod Buhner

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-05-14

Total Pages: 576

ISBN-13: 1591438365

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A manual for opening the doors of perception and directly engaging the intelligence of the Natural World • Provides exercises to directly perceive and interact with the complex, living, self-organizing being that is Gaia • Reveals that every life form on Earth is highly intelligent and communicative • Examines the ecological function of invasive plants, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, psychotropic plants and fungi, and the human species In Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm, Stephen Harrod Buhner reveals that all life forms on Earth possess intelligence, language, a sense of I and not I, and the capacity to dream. He shows that by consciously opening the doors of perception, we can reconnect with the living intelligences in Nature as kindred beings, become again wild scientists, nondomesticated explorers of a Gaian world just as Goethe, Barbara McClintock, James Lovelock, and others have done. For as Einstein commented, “We cannot solve the problems facing us by using the same kind of thinking that created them.” Buhner explains how to use analogical thinking and imaginal perception to directly experience the inherent meanings that flow through the world, that are expressed from each living form that surrounds us, and to directly initiate communication in return. He delves deeply into the ecological function of invasive plants, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, psychotropic plants and fungi, and, most importantly, the human species itself. He shows that human beings are not a plague on the planet, they have a specific ecological function as important to Gaia as that of plants and bacteria. Buhner shows that the capacity for depth connection and meaning-filled communication with the living world is inherent in every human being. It is as natural as breathing, as the beating of our own hearts, as our own desire for intimacy and love. We can change how we think and in so doing begin to address the difficulties of our times.

Alice in the Land of Plants

Alice in the Land of Plants PDF

Author: Yiannis Manetas

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-06-07

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 3642283381

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Why is it that plants do not need to move? How does a nonmotile organism have sex or defend itself? Why are some plants virtually immortal? What is the mechanism that allows plants to exploit a practically inexhaustible extraterrestrial energy source? How do plants regulate the composition of our planet’s atmosphere? Why have there not been mass extinctions among plants as there have been among animals? How do plants communicate with one another? In the end, are plants intelligent organisms? These are some of the questions the author discusses to demonstrate that plants are wrongly considered to be simple organisms lacking specific behaviour and intelligence. This book promises to be as pleasant a surprise as Alice’s experience in the white rabbit’s warren, in which she encountered a world very different from ours. The author explains the biology of plants following Einstein's maxim that everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Plant Sensing & Communication

Plant Sensing & Communication PDF

Author: Richard Karban

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2015-06-18

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 022626484X

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The news that a flowering weed—mousear cress (Arabidopsis thaliana)—can sense the particular chewing noise of its most common caterpillar predator and adjust its chemical defenses in response led to headlines announcing the discovery of the first “hearing” plant. As plants lack central nervous systems (and, indeed, ears), the mechanisms behind this “hearing” are unquestionably very different from those of our own acoustic sense, but the misleading headlines point to an overlooked truth: plants do in fact perceive environmental cues and respond rapidly to them by changing their chemical, morphological, and behavioral traits. In Plant Sensing and Communication, Richard Karban provides the first comprehensive overview of what is known about how plants perceive their environments, communicate those perceptions, and learn. Facing many of the same challenges as animals, plants have developed many similar capabilities: they sense light, chemicals, mechanical stimulation, temperature, electricity, and sound. Moreover, prior experiences have lasting impacts on sensitivity and response to cues; plants, in essence, have memory. Nor are their senses limited to the processes of an individual plant: plants eavesdrop on the cues and behaviors of neighbors and—for example, through flowers and fruits—exchange information with other types of organisms. Far from inanimate organisms limited by their stationary existence, plants, this book makes unquestionably clear, are in constant and lively discourse.