Are plants conscious? | Stefano Mancuso | TEDxGranVíaSalon

Summary

In this engaging talk, Stefano explores the fascinating concept of Plant Blindness, which causes us to overlook the critical role plants play in our environment. He reveals how plants, though immobile and lacking organs, exhibit intelligence and remarkable abilities, such as sensing their surroundings, moving, and even learning. Stefano delves into plant consciousness, explaining how plants are aware of their position in space, communicate, and engage in complex social behaviors. He highlights their memory, problem-solving, and inter-plant cooperation, showcasing the hidden intelligence of plants and urging us to better understand and appreciate their importance.

Takeaways

• 😀 Plants are essential for life on Earth, making up 99.7% of the planet's biomass, while animals, including humans, constitute only 0.3%.
• 😀 Plant blindness is a psychological phenomenon where our brain filters out the presence of plants, focusing instead on animals and humans.
• 😀 Plants are sessile organisms, meaning they cannot move from one place to another, but they exhibit remarkable movement in other ways.
• 😀 Unlike animals, plants don't have organs but still perform functions like sight, hearing, tasting, smelling, and breathing without these specialized structures.
• 😀 Some plants, such as the Venus flytrap, exhibit active movements, while others like pinecones or Erodium cicutarium move passively based on environmental factors.
• 😀 Plants can exhibit intelligence by solving problems and making decisions, like a parasitic plant choosing the right host (tomato or wheat).
• 😀 Plants are incredibly sensitive to their environment, detecting chemical, physical, and even gravitational signals, and can respond to sound vibrations.
• 😀 A plant's awareness of its position in space is evident in behaviors such as the Cuscuta plant parasitizing a tomato plant or a bean plant seeking support from a pole.
• 😀 Social interactions are an essential aspect of plant life, including cooperation among related plants and competition between unrelated ones, particularly in shared spaces.
• 😀 Plants can memorize and learn over time, as demonstrated by the ability of a Mimosa sensitive plant to retain information for at least 40 days, far surpassing the memory span of many insects.

Q & A

What is Plant Blindness, and how does it affect our perception of plants?

Plant Blindness is the inability to notice or see the plants around us. It is a psychological phenomenon where our brains filter out plants in our environment, focusing instead on more immediately important elements like animals and humans. This feature was useful during our evolutionary past but has become a problem today, leading us to underestimate the importance and abilities of plants.

How much of the Earth's biomass is made up of plants, and why is this significant?

99.7% of the planet's biomass is made up of plants, which is a staggering fact. Despite this, humans often fail to recognize their significance. This statistic underscores the vast presence of plants on Earth and their crucial role in sustaining life, even though we don't fully understand how they work.

What are some of the unique features of plants that differentiate them from animals?

Plants are sessile organisms, meaning they cannot move from one place to another. Unlike animals, they lack organs, which makes them fundamentally different. While animals have organs specialized for specific functions (like eyes for seeing or lungs for breathing), plants perform these functions without organs, relying on their material structure to carry out vital processes.

How can plants move if they are sessile organisms?

Though plants cannot move from place to place, they exhibit various types of movement. These can be passive, like the opening and closing of a pine cone or the movement of seeds such as Erodium cicutarium, which can enter the soil using changes in humidity. Active movements, like those of the Venus flytrap, are faster and can be captured using time-lapse photography.

Are plants capable of sensing their environment?

Yes, plants are incredibly sensitive and can detect over 20 different chemical and physical parameters. This includes sensing gravity, electrical gradients, magnetic fields, humidity, sound vibrations, and even pathogens. For example, plant roots grow towards sources of sound, and they can produce sound themselves while growing.

What does the concept of plant consciousness mean, and how is it different from intelligence?

Consciousness in plants refers to their awareness of their position in space and their relationship with other organisms and time. While plants are undoubtedly intelligent, as they can solve problems, the concept of consciousness focuses on their ability to sense and understand their environment. This idea is linked to a model of self-awareness in relation to space and other organisms.

How do plants demonstrate spatial awareness and decision-making?

Plants, such as parasitic Cuscuta, can make decisions based on their environment. For instance, Cuscuta quickly identifies and attaches to a tomato plant, but when given a choice between a tomato and wheat, it will choose the tomato, demonstrating spatial awareness and the ability to assess its surroundings. Additionally, plants like beans show awareness of supports and even compete with one another to reach them.

What is plant social behavior, and how do plants interact with each other?

Plants exhibit social behavior through cooperation and competition. For example, they can recognize kin and act differently when interacting with related versus unrelated plants. A tree in a forest may be connected to other trees through a network that allows the sharing of resources like nutrients and water. This network helps plants communicate and support one another.

Can plants memorize information or learn from their experiences?

Yes, plants can memorize and learn. For example, a Mimosa sensitive plant can learn not to close in response to a non-dangerous stimulus and retain this information for up to 40 days, which is a significant duration for a plant. This ability to memorize and learn showcases the complexity of plant behavior and cognition.

Why is it important to study intelligence and consciousness in plants?

Studying plant intelligence and consciousness is important because these are real biological phenomena that can be studied in a similar way to other biological processes like reproduction. Understanding how plants perceive, react, and interact with their environment can reveal more about the fundamental nature of life and consciousness, expanding our knowledge of biology.