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Is plant 'intelligence' just a human fantasy?

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https://gizmodo.com/is-plant-intelligenc...1844217825

EXCERPTS: Although plants make up over 80% of the biomass on Earth, for centuries they have been thought of as inanimate and passive things. [...] But as research into the plant world has blossomed over the past 40 years ... scientists are discovering how truly alive plants are. Even as new revelations change our knowledge of plant abilities, though, the debate on whether plants can be considered sentient remains contentious.

[...] Scientific research into plant cognition dates back to Charles Darwin, who would draw parallels between plant roots and the brain. Ever since, studious circles around the world have taken a leaf out of his book, from the controversial publishing of Secret Life of Plants in the 1970s, which goes as far as saying plants can read human minds, to Daniel Chamowitz’s 2013 book What a Plant Knows, which explores how plants’ acute senses teach them about the world.

Although no plant has a central nervous system, some researchers are exploring the field of neurobiology in botany. The International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology (LINV) in Florence, Italy argues that having a brain should not be a prerequisite for intelligence. “We firmly think that all the behaviors observed in plants, which look very much like learning, memory, decision-making, and intelligence observed in animals, deserve to be called by those same terms,” the LINV website reads.

Plants are conscious, according to LINV director Stefano Mancuso, an arboriculture professor at the University of Florence. Mancuso’s case for plant consciousness hinges on evidence that they are aware of their existence, of their surroundings, and of the passing of time. Among other things, Mancuso quotes the renowned physicist Michio Kaku and argues that, if consciousness is the ability to build a model of yourself in relationship to space, others, and time, then plants therefore must be conscious, because of their sensitivity to chemical and physical stimuli, to their competitors, and between themselves. Plants even deserve rights, Mancuso writes in his book La Nazione Delle Piante, where he drafts out an eight-article plant constitution for the “only, true and eternal powerful nation of the planet.”

[...] not all academics feels comfortable drawing comparisons between humans and plants. Last year, a group of scientists published a downright exasperated paper challenging the increasingly common view that plants possess consciousness. It’s title says it all: “Plants Neither Possess nor Require Consciousness.” ... For some, the consciousness argument boils down to semantics. Whether we use words like smart, intelligent, clever, or even conscious and reflective, it all comes down to what we mean by those words and how we understand them as they are attributed to humans... (MORE - details)
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