I have searched around, but have not really found an answer to this question: Just how are plants aware of the physical world around them? Plants have survived near mass extinction events throughout the history of the Earth, and have always made a comeback, but in order to adopt to new living conditions and new animal and insect species, they need to know what is going on. What sensory capabilities to plants possess that allows them to be aware that a certain bird or insect exists? Symbiosis between plants and animals, and plants and insects, are well known. Some plants have adopted themselves so much that only a specific bird or insect can access the necter from it's flower and initiate the pollenisation process. Other plants have flowers that are especially bright within the ultra-violet spectrum. Apparently, some plants are aware that bees can see within the ultraviolet spectrum. Fascinating.

i beleive there is a type of fern that if damaged or eaten it lets of a signal to the other plants which then alter their chemicals to taste more bitter.
it was on QI so it must be true lol

Be careful with the implications of personificated consciousness/awareness in plants. Even bacteria can sense environment (including light), respond in complex ways and communicate. Are they conscious?

Plants aren't aware of anything. They don't even have nervous systems.

They can react to environmental cues, but these aren't conscious choices. Plants can react to things like phototropism (grow towards a light source) or geotropism (growing in regards to gravity). They can also react to damaged tissues through chemical release systems.

However, they are not aware of these effects.

could it be because they are actually connected to the world? Or all they do is 'watch' the world around them. They've only ever been part of the world never trying to disconnect, they help make this world.

Its all part of the unconscious everything is created for special purposes, each end up helping the big picture even if they are unaware at the time.

They are connected to the source field that holds us all in and eyes that see are not corporal. Spirit sees as well, in fact, Spirit/Soul coded the school and they can only the programs of sight sound hearing feelings emotions that they knew and understood. The programmers put themselves in the program. So trees have many capacities, plants, they sense when anything dies, and scream on a lie detector, but they are very sensitive to human input, so it has to be isolated. At night they will react even to bacteria being killed when you dysinfect. And they identify who is who. For example the one who mows the lawn is remembered in future meetings, even if they are pretending to be an artist and tree hugger.

I believe they have a distributed network of electo-magnetic and electro-chemical sensors and nerve cells, rather than a central system.. our mistake is in trying to identify animal traits in plants...we must look for plant specific traits and functions.

Originally posted by listerofsmeg
i beleive there is a type of fern that if damaged or eaten it lets of a signal to the other plants which then alter their chemicals to taste more bitter.
it was on QI so it must be true lol

I was just thinking of this.

It's the acacia plant that knows when Giraffes are approaching, or when one plant is being eaten it releases a chemical signal to warn all surrounding plants and they each respond by increasing a chemical compound immediately in their leaves to make them taste bitter.

I looked into this after I saw it, and I read that plants even respond out of wind path, so whatever signal they release it reaches out in all directions and is not carried on the wind.

It's fascinating, it proves awareness and communication, and it could even be argued that it indicates awareness of a community too. Why warn other plants? Does that indicate some form of emotive response?

I had to switch to a more friendly keyboard.

There are a lot of proven instances of plant communication and plants being able to identify other plants with a similiar genetic makeup IE clones vrs. other plants of same species but different parents.

If you think about it from an evolutionary standpoint, if plants are always eaten, trampled, torn by wind, ect....any being that has chosen to remain fairly stationary will need a genetic response to allow that. It would make sense not to invest one's nervous systems or sensing capabilities in a centralized location, but rather, to put it in nodes that are replaceable.

Now, we've got, IMO, a big problem in science with looking at nerve communication.

For instance, if L. Turin's theory of Vibration is correct for olfactory sensing, and I do think it is, then how does an insect communicate olfactory smell to their brain? IE if there are no dendrites, how does this communcation take place?

We've just got a lot of work to do but first we have to have scientists that really get quantum effects and neural networks - and, well, IMO too many of our scientists are graduating too fixed on their field of study....when what would really blow things open, IMO are more scientists and thinkers with more exposure to other sciences, because, IMO, everything is coming together. Biology/chemistry/physics/information theory.

Then there is a problem of access to this information. IE there's a text book on plant communication I'm drooling over, but it's 250 bucks.

I'm fascinated with it. Once I sat at an amusement park and realized that the trees were all bending away from the rides where there was a lot of screaming. I pointed it out to my party and then everyone could see it. A lot of times I can see plants doing things others do not noticed. I love them. I guess that is why, I dunno.