Research Reveals Plants Can Think, Choose and Remember
By Sayer Ji
Modern science is only beginning to catch up to the wisdom of the
ancients: plants possess sentience and a rudimentary form of intelligence.
Plants are far more intelligent and capable than we given them credit. In fact, provocative research from 2010 published in Plant Signaling & Behavior proposes that since they cannot escape environmental stresses in the manner of animals, they have developed a "sophisticated, highly responsive and dynamic physiology," which includes information processes such as "biological quantum computing" and "cellular light memory" which could be described as forms of plant intelligence.
Titled, "Secret life of plants: from memory to intelligence," the study highlights one particular "super power" of plants indicative of their success as intelligent beings:
“There are living trees that germinated long before Jesus Christ was born. What sort of life wisdom evolved in plants to make it possible to survive and propagate for so long a time in the same place they germinated?"
According to the researchers, plants "plants actually work as a biological quantum computing device that is capable to process quantum information encrypted in light intensity and in its energy." This information processing includes a mechanism for processing memorized information. For example:
“plants can store and use information from the spectral composition of light for several days or more to anticipate changes that might appear in the near future in the environment, for example, for anticipation of pathogen attack."
According to the study, "plants can actually think and remember."
Moreover, plant not only possess a mechanism for information gathering and processing, but appear to exercise agency or "choice" vis-Ã -vis different scenarios:
“different group of chloroplasts and cells in the same leaf under identical constant and stable light, temperature and relative humidity condition have different opinion "what to do" in such conditions and tests different scenarios of possible future development."
The study also offers an explanation for why plants absorb more light energy than is needed for photosynthesis alone:
“Another possible answer to the above question is a light training of young naïve leaves. Let's imagine when young leaf or flower is emerging out of a plant, it would be nice for that leaf or flower to know about the conditions in which it is going to emerge. Older, more experienced leaves that actually are acclimated to outside conditions can train naïve emerging young leaves with the PEPS [photoelectrophysiological signaling ]and cellular light memory mechanisms. This explains why plants possess a natural capacity to absorb more light energy than that required for photosynthetic CO2 assimilation. They need this absorbed energy in excess for optimization and training of light acclimatory and immune defenses."
The authors leave us with the provocative conclusion:
“Our results suggest that plants are intelligent organisms capable of performing a sort of thinking process (understood as at the same time and non-stress conditions capable of performing several different scenarios of possible future definitive responses), and capable of memorizing this training.17 Indeed leaves in the dark are able to not only "see" the light,8,34 but also are able to differently remember its spectral composition and use this memorized information to increase their Darwinian fitness."
Why is this discovery important?
There are many reasons why recognizing the sentience and intelligence of plants may have positive implications for the future of humanity. For one, it helps us all to transcend the dominant worldview that non-human life forms are best defined in strictly mechanistic terms, and that attributing a "life essence" or consciousness to them is a form of magical thinking. French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Pointy called this world view the "Great Object," namely, that everything in the universe is compromised of material objects externally related to one another, and with consciousness merely an ephemeral subjectivity found only in humans.
If we recognize, as biologist James Lovelock proposed, the Earth as a whole should be looked upon more like a self-regulating organisms (Gaia hypothesis), or as mycologist Paul Stamet envisions, that there is a fungi-based internet within the ground connecting all living things on the planet in an information-sharing network, we will be less likely to both perceive and to treat the natural world as "other" to be dominated.
Recognizing that plants, for instance, have consciousness, or that their simple presence in our environment has healing effects, reintroduces an element of wonder and mystery back into the experience of the natural world. A perfect example of this can be found in the singing plants of the sacred forest of Damanhur. Damanhurian researchers in the mid-70's reported using custom equipment to capture electromagnetic changes on the surface of leaves and roots and transforming them into audible signals.
The researchers also observed that the plants learned to control their electrical responses, indicating they had some rudimentary awareness of the music they were creating. To learn more, watch the video documentary [see below], or visit the Damanhur project website, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year - [see below].
Singing Plants at the Sacred Forest of Damanhur
@ https://youtu.be/aZaokNmQ4eY
Sayer Ji is
founder of Greenmedinfo.com, on
the Board of Governors for the National Health Federation,
and Fearless Parent, Steering Committee
Member of the Global GMO Free
Coalition (GGFC), a reviewer at the International
Journal of Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine.
From Green Med Info
@ http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/research-reveals-plants-can-think-choose-remember
The
Plant World
Bridging our human world with plants and nature spirits
Damanhurians have always been active in researching communication with the forces of nature, guided by the desire to re-establish a harmonious balance in the relationship with life on our beautiful planet. In the Damanhurian Spiritual Vision, humans are part of a spiritual ecosystem with forces and intelligences, and it is important to establish a conscious contact with them, just as it is with life forms present in the environmental ecosystem that surrounds us. Our human evolution is inextricably linked to the alliance and reunification with the physical and subtle forces that inhabit this and other worlds, which Damanhurians call the "Mother Worlds."
Plants and nature spirits are the beings that inhabit these worlds, and a large part of the research in Damanhur is dedicated to opening roads of deep contact with the "dimension" of plants and nature spirits.
Sacred Woods Temple
Magical
coexistence among plants, animals, nature spirits
In Damanhur's philosophy, a forest is a magical place where the complexity of life is expressed in a harmonious interweaving of many forms of animal, plant and subtle life. With dedication and patience, Damanhur citizens purchased a huge woods of chestnut trees, one tiny parcel at a time. The dead wood has been cleared and the woods have been transformed through therapeutic cutting from a thicket of small trees to one with taller trees. Working as a community, a team of Damanhurians have cured the woods from a gall wasp infection and reintroduced many plant species.
The Sacred Woods Temple now has dedicated spaces for meditation and contact with trees and nature spirits. There are also intentionally placed spirals and labyrinths that form pathways amongst and around the trees. They stretch for miles into the woods and each has a different function. They are connected to the node of Synchronic Lines that encompass the Temples of Humankind.
Officially dedicated as the Sacred Woods Temple in 2014, it is now an extension of the Temples of Humankind, which is carved into the same mountain where the woods are located. The trees of the woods are considered to be the "hair" of the Temples—if only as a poetic metaphor, and because of the energetic connection that unites these two sacred sites.
Much research and many experiences have made the Sacred Woods Temple alive and full of history, like when citizens of Damanhur went to the woods together for experiments in wilderness survival which also stimulated individual transformation for everyone. Today, the Sacred Woods Temple is accessible through the Welcome Office for all guests who wish to walk the spirals and labyrinths or attend a Music of the Plants concert.
From Damanhur @ http://www.damanhur.org/en/research-and-experimentation/the-plant-world#music-of-the-plants
The Secret Life of Plants
For more information about plant consciousness see http://nexusilluminati.blogspot.com/search/label/plant%20consciousness
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