Do plants think?
Yes, but we haven't managed to find the code to translate his thoughts, that's where we are.
But they communicate with each other.
Plants learn, remember, communicate and make decisions. They have a sensitive and anticipatory behavior, they do not simply react to external stimuli but rather they think about the future, they have goals.
¡…!
They are intelligent beings. We need a bath of humility. We think they are stupid because they are sessile and that we are smart because we move from one place to another. We think they are like a stone, but let's think from another angle.
Let's think.
They have to be very smart to not have become extinct despite not being able to move. And they are capable of preparing anticipatory responses as I have told you.
Do you see them coming?
If I, the plant, are going to have water stress in the future, I am going to prepare.
And how do you know what's coming?
For example, it perceives a dehydration gradient in the soil, that is, it knows that it is progressively dehydrating, so the plant consumes less to save energy. They have the ability to foresee stressful situations.
His friend Lavatera has given him a surprise.
During the night the Lavatera turns its leaves in the direction of the sunrise before it occurs. Secluded in the dark in the laboratory they can adequately predict the direction of dawn, diligently turning their leaves towards the absent sun.
You consider the experience of being a plant.
Yes, and it is an exercise that would be very good for all of us, putting ourselves in the other person's shoes, being my partner, being my son, being my dog. Imagine what a change!
Trying to be a cactus is complicated.
When you try to put yourself in the shoes of a way of life that does not have neurons or a nervous system and does not move, you exercise that bath of humility necessary to realize that the way we behave is nothing more than one of the different solutions that the tree of life, and evolution, has found to adapt.
True, we are just another species.
But plants have different problems than ours and provide different solutions.
Putting yourself in their shoes, what have you understood?
That the image we have of ourselves does not correspond to reality. We have the idea that there is someone who is at the controls of the ship, a mini me in our head that governs us. Mental life, thinking with words, is so powerful that we forget that there are no words in the brain.
It has left me thinking.
There is no one in there, we are the result of a multitude of processes, and that is easy to see in plants precisely because they do not have a central nervous system, everything is distributed and, like them, we are much more decentralized than we think.
Do we look like plants?
Yes, our self is distributed throughout the body. And then there are details. When you can't sleep you take melatonin, they biosynthesize it just before folding their leaves at night. It is no coincidence that we draw on the same resources and strategies at the molecular level to be in sync with the same type of planetary rhythms.
Do you feel?
There is sentience in the entire tree of life. Any form of life is responding to all the parameters that come from the outside and inside, therefore they must feel.
The North American Department of Defense hired him.
We have investigated for them the application of plant models to artificial intelligence.
Explain it to me with an example.
We are going to the Moon in search of frozen water. The robot, inspired by an animal model, gets off the ship and moves, the problem is that it runs aground on a dune and capsizes. But what if instead of moving it grows like plants?
A robot that grows?
A robot that has a 3D printer that adds layers of material and lengthens. We have not done engineering, computing, or anything special, we have simply changed the chip, the point of view.
What is your big question?
Why are we so obtuse? Why is it difficult for us to see beyond our noses? Why is it difficult for us to overcome navelism? My big question is how we could educate the next generations to think differently. For me the key concept is to think differently.
Outside the Box.
For me the big question is how to change the glasses with which we see reality.
