Plants that talk back

I'm fairly open on the idea that plants could have some sort of mental awareness, that what they sense is subject to some level of conscious processing. Maybe only a very rudimentary sort, but something. Wouldn't say I was mad keen on the idea, but certainly open to it.

I'm much less enthusiastic that plants have fully developed minds of the same sophistication as we do, as Dr Gagliano believes. Clearly, humans and animals think differently - not entirely differently by any means, but undeniably there are differences. A dog will never understand how to do calculus, a human will never understand why chasing a ball is fun*. So it doesn't make any sense to me to say that plant minds would be more similar to ours than a dogs, despite a dog being biologically much more like me than a cactus.

* Professional football players, obviously, are not really people.

But do plants even think at all ? The memory experiment described is very interesting, though it would be nice to have follow-ups and independent testing. I hate to say it, but Gagliano is clearly biased (I'll come back to that shortly). That doesn't mean the results are wrong, let alone fabricated, but it definitely makes a replication test all the more necessary. But let's suppose the experimental result is perfectly correct. Learning and remembering is one thing, but a book stores information but doesn't have agency or intent. Do plants ? Do they make deliberate choices ? Gagliano says :

There is no doubt the plants make choices in real decision-making. This was tested in the context of a maze, where the test is actually to make a choice between left and right. The choice is based on what you might gain if you choose one side or the other. I did one study with peas that showed the plants can choose the right arm in a maze based on where the sound of water is coming from. Of course, they want water. So they will use the signal to follow that arm of the maze as they try to find the source of water.

Okay, but is this the same as having a will ? Does a plant "want" things in the emotional sense and how would you tell ? I liked very much the tests that show octopus can be fooled by optical illusions - that makes a pretty good case that they have inner lives, in my view. Obviously it's not watertight because that's not something we can ever be certain about, but about as good as we can expect. But instinctively growing towards a stimulus is not at all the same as doing it intentionally - we could build a purely mechanical system that responds to stimuli, and it wouldn't be sensible to say it was making a choice in the agency sense. Again, I'm quite open to the prospect that plants do make deliberate choices, but I don't think this experiment warrants that conclusion (I'm not quoting Gagliano's other quotes on the subject here as I don't think they convey anything useful).

Of course you might be thinking, "hang on, back up there a bit, did she just say the plant responded to sound ?". Yes, she did, and it really seems that they do :

Plants not only produce their own sound, which is amazing, but they are listening to sounds. We are surrounded by sound, so there are studies, like my own study, of plants moving toward certain frequencies and then responding to sounds of potential predators chewing on leaves, which other plants that are not yet threatened can hear. And more recently, there was some work done in Israel on the sound of bees and how flowers prepared themselves and become very nice and sweet, literally, to be more attractive to the bee. So the level of sugars gets increased as a bee passes by.

But still, having senses doesn't mean that a plant thinks, any more than a telescope or a microphone thinks. So do plants have minds or are they just acting automatically ? I don't think the experiments thus far have indicated much either way. Admittedly it's hard to think of an experiment that would properly demonstrate this. Could a plant somehow be taught to use its tendrils to pull on levers that release water or turn on a light ? I've no idea. I guess that the basis of an experiment would be to get the plant to alter what happens to it indirectly : it's not good enough for a plant, say, to close its pores and stop absorbing water, it has to be able to realise that pushing a button (or whatever) has the same desired effect.

Anyway, it must be mentioned that Gagliano subscribes to some pretty unorthodox views. For my part, I don't agree with her at all on this: I think if we were to take her at her word, we'd also have to take a million other crazy people at their word too, most of which would contradict each other. It's not science. Doesn't mean it's wrong, but it can't be objectively verified - though none of this invalidates the experiments. There are lots of bits in the rest of the discussion I could pick out and go on a rant about, but I'll refrain.

For one experiment, the one on the Pavlovian pea, I was trying to address that question the year before with a different plant. I was using sunflowers. And while I was doing my dieta with a different tree back in Peru, the plant just turned up and said, “By the way, not sunflowers, peas.” And I’m like, “what?” People always think that when you have these experiences, you’re supposed to understand the secrets of the universe. No, my plants are usually quite practical. [laughs] And they were right. 

If you had this experience of connecting with plants the way I have described—and there are plenty of people who have—the experience is so clear that you know that it’s not you; it’s someone else talking. If you haven’t had that experience, then I can totally see it’s like, “No way, it must be your mind that makes it up.” But all I can say is that I have had exchanges with plants who have shared things about topics and asked me to do things that I have really no idea about.

Okay, so how do you eat anything then ? If everything is as alive as in an old-timey Disney cartoon. doesn't that just mean the entire Universe is really, really creepy and weird ?

Guided by Plant Voices - Issue 84: Outbreak - Nautilus

Plants are intelligent beings with profound wisdom to impart-if only we know how to listen. And Monica Gagliano knows how to listen. The evolutionary ecologist has done groundbreaking experiments suggesting plants have the capacity to learn, remember, and make choices. That's not all.