Harder questions
Robert Lanza nicely summarizes the thinking of Chamovitz on plant intelligence and awareness. It's a hard question but basically irresistible. If we acknowledge that dogs and cats and turtles are conscious, we can't stop there. We have to acknowledge plants.

The only LOGICAL line of demarcation is between ME and the rest of the world. I'm aware of my own awareness for sure. I know from talking with other humans that they claim to be aware. Their words sound similar to my internal description, so I accept their 'testimony'. As soon as I accept their 'testimony', I have to go the full distance. Animals, plants, bacteria, everything that has life must be aware.

Lanza doesn't take plant awareness to the next HARD step. Plants and many invertebrates reproduce by budding. Plants also generate fruits and pods that carry seeds.

Does a budded offspring contain only part of the parent's awareness? Does it regenerate a full awareness like a lizard regrowing a tail? Is the bud sharing the parent's awareness in some mysterious action-at-a-distance way? Identical twins might be able to answer this. Conjoined twins who share a brain have already told us how it feels. Lori and Dori talked about their shared awareness as something like a room with partitions. Each could choose to close off the partitions or 'blank out' the other part.

If the adult plant is aware, what about the seed?

We can draw a familiar analogy for seeds. A seed is a new being, just like an animal embryo, so a seed might have its own new awareness. There's a difference. An embryo doesn't go through a long waiting period. As soon as the sperm and egg unite, the embryo starts growing and proceeds directly toward adulthood. Seeds contain an embryo in a suspended condition that can last hundreds of years until the embryo detects the correct conditions to pop out and start rooting and sprouting. Intelligence is present through all those years, because the seed is always ready to sprout. It is aware during all those years? Asleep? Dreaming?



What about a fruit? The yummy tomato that I just ate contained a hundred seeds. Did I extinguish a hundred awarenesses by chomping and digesting them? The fruit itself has its own intelligence, responding quickly to environmental conditions and sending and receiving signals to bugs and other fruits. Did I extinguish it as well?

Labels: Smarty-plants

  ¶ 11:56 AM