Is plant intelligence under-rated?

So, I just seen David Attenborough talking about plants and have kind of been left mind blown, and left with questions about plants.

Plants can mimic insects, their sents and their eggs. There is a orchid that mimics wasps and bees, and another plant that produces yellow spots on its leaves to dissuade a butterfly from laying eggs on it, saving itself from being eaten by hungry catapillars.



www.youtube.com...

A plant has no eyes? How does it know what a wasp/butterfly eggs look like and what colour they are?

A plant has no nose? How does it know what a wasp attracting a mate smells like?

A plant has no brain? How can it be so clever?

Plant intelligence, surly the plant must "think" and comunicate to its self along the lines of evolution to do these things. Or is it just natures purely harmonic ways, and nothing really to do with the plant?

Thoughts please?

Whether plants have a consciousness or not.. the answer to your question is they evolved... that's how they came to have these defense mechanisms..

reply to post by misscurious


Evolution no doubt plays a role, but unless conciousness is involved! How else can a plant know what yellow looks like? How does it make the oservation correctly?

Originally posted by misscurious
Whether plants have a consciousness or not.. the answer to your question is they evolved... that's how they came to have these defense mechanisms..

Yes, evolution and adaptation. These changes don't happen in a small span of time. Millions of years. Some evolve, some become extinct. I'm reading The Lost World right now. I know It's fiction but there is a lot of good info there about this type of behavior. I recommend it if you are interested in survival and extinction. Quite interesting.

reply to post by intrepid


Evolution is obvious! I'm asking for ideas on how it made these observations to mimic them? Evolution explains the process of morphing into a mimicry species, but how to they differentiate between colours and smell, shape ect?

reply to post by Wifibrains


This book doesn't go in depth on the science but it shows things like trees adapting to invaders. Like one tree will get an infestation and send out...... something. Vibes. A scent. IDK. And the other trees release something that will repel the bugs, preventing a spread. It's definitely evolution but I really haven't answered your question. I can't. Not enough knowledge but you will get the gist of it if you read that book.

My personal opinion is that yes, plants are intelligent.

I think it is important not to place human actions/ reactions as the deciding factor for intelligence in plants or animals.

Every living thing that has survived and adapted over the ages has everything including intelligence that it needs to survive...there is at best 20% of the organisms that started on this planet left living, and not a small part due to being pinicle in the environments they inhabit.

To try to judge other creatures which don't have similar forms by one standard is foolish to me.

I believe plants/trees communicate in thier way, and personally I do speak to them. The response is no different than when I speak to animals. Communication on the verbal level is not the only or even the most powerfull way to communicate in my opinion.

We owe plants are lives a little respect might be in order, lol

Cheers!

reply to post by intrepid


Ok, thanks, I'll keep a look out.

Interesting about those trees, too. Like some sort of comunication, no?

reply to post by Treespeaker


Cool, your username says you are not kidding about talking to them, lol, what do you say? And what is the response?

Originally posted by Wifibrains
reply to post by intrepid

 

Evolution is obvious! I'm asking for ideas on how it made these observations to mimic them? Evolution explains the process of morphing into a mimicry species, but how to they differentiate between colours and smell, shape ect?

edit on 16-2-2013 by Wifibrains because: (no reason given)

The plant didn't make any observations, it was Trial and error.. the ones that turned red became extinct, the ones that turned yellow survived.. same with with shapes and smells.. were talking millions of years here..

reply to post by misscurious


But there are lots of different orchids, red ones two! This perticular one has decided to mimic the wasp and changed its system of delivery of pollen to suit.

It's almost cunning? Lol

Plants are more intelligent than a lot of people out there...lol
But seriously their probably not aware they exist, so I'm not sure
if we can call them intelligent.

They are certainly more efficient than many humans.

All plants are in a nonstop slow motion war with all the other plants, and also the bugs. Trees can communicate to each other about infestations, they are all competing for the sunlight, etc. and they can read your mind!

Read "The Secret Life of Plants"....www.amazon.com...

You can find it online for free. If that video up there blew your mind, this book will make your head explode!

This one mimics a snake .

Are they intelligent? Or just well adapted? Even single-cell bacteria communicate, organise and respond in complex ways, that alone is not proof of intelligence. Intelligence is best manifested in unfamiliar situations when the plant has to come up with something new, not something that is already hardcoded into its DNA by evolution.

Originally posted by Wifibrains
reply to post by intrepid

 

Evolution is obvious! I'm asking for ideas on how it made these observations to mimic them? Evolution explains the process of morphing into a mimicry species, but how to they differentiate between colours and smell, shape ect?

edit on 16-2-2013 by Wifibrains because: (no reason given)

lol funny but yea its evolution jking honestly i believe its on a whole nother level than we can measure in my opinion i dont know much about plant concioussness but i do believe they send a signal through the atmosphere just like our human brain dose maybe the via electro magnetism they can see feel and smell just a wild guess you know sense via the electro magnetic aurora of entities ie the wasp and bee and such its just a wild guess im not to sure FnS very good question wifi im still waiting on pt 2 btw

Originally posted by Maslo
Are they intelligent? Or just well adapted? Even single-cell bacteria communicate, organise and respond in complex ways, that alone is not proof of intelligence. Intelligence is best manifested in unfamiliar situations when the plant has to come up with something new, not something that is already hardcoded into its DNA by evolution.

ok how sure are you of this? how do you know bactiera are not conciouss the definition a : the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself. now how can you measure this on a microbe scale its virtually impossible from my stand point

Originally posted by bri6844
Plants are more intelligent than a lot of people out there...lol
But seriously their probably not aware they exist, so I'm not sure
if we can call them intelligent.

They are certainly more efficient than many humans.

edit on 16-2-2013 by bri6844 because: (no reason given)

again how can you measure this deny ignorance and dont let your human ego get in the way readers fyi no attacks here just reinforcing the question guys

I know some people that have less intelligence than a carrot. I know lots of people that have less integrity than an oak tree. I have a lot more trust in the trees than I have in some people.

I think all plants have a collective intelligence. One tree may not think well but the forest can think and relay messages to other trees. Same with weeds or grasses or any sort of plants.

Our ancestors knew this long ago but they couldn't tell us that plants had intelligence or we would never have survived, refusing to eat them. We would have died off long ago. Just respect what lives you have taken to survive. Whatever man names has a soul. We gave names to everything.

The plant is a pimp using blowup dolls in the first video