Planta Sapiens: Unmasking Plant Intelligence

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David George Haskell is a biologist and award-winning author. His most recent book is Sounds Wild and Broken (Viking, 2022). Nonfiction Big Bad Wolves Plants can learn, as demonstrated by the habituation and discrimination learning of leaf-closing in Mimosa pudica, described by both Calvo and Stefano Mancuso in his book The Revolutionary Genius of Plants (2018), which I recently reviewed (Dorman, 2023). Both Mancuso and Calvo spend a lot of time describing the sensitivity of plants to the same anesthetic chemicals that render animals’ unconscious. Automatic reactions such as leaf-closing in Mimosa pudica or the closing of a Venus Flytrap on an intruding insect are slowed, then stopped, with application of a substance such as chloroform. Not only that, but the electrical impulses that accompany a movement such as the snapping shut of the Flytrap, are muted or absent under anesthesia, similar to interfering with the electrical impulses in an animals’ brains, which are a part of Christof Koch’s indication of consciousness in humans and other animals (Koch, 2015). Not only that, but plants can also respond with chemicals such as dopamine to incidents of damage or destruction, as though they were attempting to relieve pain (which Calvo thinks should lead us to consider the ethical consequences of our actions toward plants).

Planta Sapiens by Paco Calvo review - The Guardian

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" 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 Putting together an animal’s physical structure is complicated. The cells that make up the growing body are sensitive to nutrients, toxins, sights and sounds and a variety of early experiences. One of the most complicated processes in growing a human body is assembling a working brain from the growth of billions of individual neurons. No two brains are alike, because as neurons grow, they interact with the idiosyncrasies of the experiences of the organism that houses them. Their growth is determined by genes, but the genes produce a modifiable plan, and the elements that can modify it affect the selection of the genes that control the neuron’s growth, so that it looks as if it has a mind. A neuron doesn’t have a mind and is not, by itself conscious. It grows by following an algorithm that allows it to modify its growth pattern according to the circumstances of its owner’s experiences (Heisinger, 2021). Probably, roots follow similar genetically based algorithms and the tendrils of vines do also. Those algorithms were chosen because they produced a plant that was likely to survive in a certain environment. The plant itself doesn’t need to know what it’s doing to survive. Its components just need to follow a plan that was shaped by evolution.Paco Calvo is a professor of the philosophy of science and principal investigator at the Universidad de Murcia’s Minimal Intelligence Lab (MINT Lab) in Spain. 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. Scientist or not, I think it’s important for everyone to consider all possibilities, and this book is an excellent place to start if you want to challenge your own long-held beliefs. Unfortunately this wasn't for me and I wouldn't recommend it as I feel there are much better plant/tree books to be read.

Planta Sapiens - Il Saggiatore Planta Sapiens - Il Saggiatore

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.”Mind-blowing.... This impressive addition to the growing literature on how plants experience the world will change how readers see the flora around them. 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. As our authors write, “We could even ask, why wouldn’t plants be intelligent, as animals are?” Didn’t plants and animals share the same primordial environments? While various animal species were adapting to those environments by developing different types and levels of intelligence, weren’t plants right there the whole time? “Animals and plants have evolved intelligence separately,” Calvo and Lawrence write, “helping them to function in very different ecological situations.” Consider the movements of Mimosa plants, for example. A poke from a human finger usually causes the plants' leaves to shrink and fold against the stem. This response takes mere seconds—an excellent defense against herbivores. But after a few minutes in a bell jar suffused with anesthetic fumes, Mimosa becomes unresponsive. The same drugs quiet the gyrations of pea tendrils and the clenching of Venus flytraps. 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.”

Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence

Planta Sapiens presents ‘fertile possibilities’ to the public and in doing so it has put science on notice. All plants are juggling to respond to climatic change. They are encoded to anticipate this, with their attentive neurobiochemistry driven by a helix that is so similar to that of the human family. Should we be surprised? No! We should be delighted with Professor Calvo’s seeding of scientific curiosity for the hope that it offers. 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"We are unimaginable without plants, yet surprisingly blind to their powers and behaviors. Planta Sapiens weaves science and history into an absorbing exploration of the many ways that plants rise to the challenge of living." - Merlin Sheldrake, author of Entangled Life What an intriguing book! I absolutely loved it. As a gardener, it’s always been obvious to me that plants have feelings. The way that hydrangeas perk up after being watered or the way zinnia leaves fold upward to shield their wound after being cut are obvious signs these species have feelings. Chamovitz, D. (2017). What a plant knows: A field guide to the senses: Updated and expanded edition. New York: Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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Vigorous debate about the nature of plants is surely a sign of a healthy field. Science, at its best, progresses through a reciprocal interplay between speculation and experimentation. Calvo's stimulating book draws us into that process, with an emphasis on the speculative. Could plants suffer, he wonders? When growing roots wriggle away from unexpectedly salty soil, might a psychological experience of distress or surprise direct their physiological response? The experimental evidence for these conjectures is currently scant, so the book repeatedly calls for further investigation. Koch, C. (2015). The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness is Widespread but Can’t be Computed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. In PLANTA SAPIENS, Professor Paco Calvo offers a bold new perspective on plant biology and cognitive science. Using the latest scientific findings, Calvo challenges us to make an imaginative leap into a world that is so close and yet so alien – one that will expand our understanding of our own minds. It’s difficult to imagine a world in which plants are considered with anything like the empathy this book suggests they deserve, and not only because this would mean confronting a truly alien system of perceiving the world; it would also raise the question of what even painstakingly ethical vegans are supposed to eat all day long – after all, man cannot live on jelly beans alone. We are unimaginable without plants, yet surprisingly blind to their powers and behaviors. Planta Sapiens weaves science and history into an absorbing exploration of the many ways that plants rise to the challenge of living.Are corals smart? Possibly smarter than you might expect for minute, static creatures. They can switch between their diets of sunlight and hunting for prey with tiny tentacles, and they go to war with one another over territory. But their swimming larval stage is their least self-possessed phase.18 In corals, then, motility does not seem to denote intelligence. It is when corals are sedentary that they engage in those activities, which would seem to contradrict Patricia Churchland’s argument that [i]f you root yourself in the ground, you can afford to be stupid. But if you move, you must have mechanisms for moving, and mechanisms to ensure that the movement is not utterly arbitrary and independent of what is going on outside. The import of all this has the potential to be stunningly subversive. The central contention of Planta Sapiens is that plants are people. They plan, they communicate, they innovate, and they very likely suffer and know their suffering. In Planta Sapiens, Paco Calvo, a leading figure in the philosophy of plant signaling and behavior, offers an entirely new perspective on plants’ worlds, showing for the first time how we can use tools developed to study animal cognition in a quest to understand plant intelligence. Plants learn from experience: wild strawberries can be taught to link light intensity with nutrient levels in the soil, and flowers can time pollen production to pollinator visits. Plants have social intelligence, releasing chemicals from their roots and leaves to speak to and identify one another. They make decisions about where to invest their growth, judging risk based on the resources available. Their individual preferences vary, too—plants have personalities. 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.