Plant Intelligence

As I was recently looking at pictures of vandalized trees, I got to thinking about why I feel empathy for them. I have seen the question asked, "Don't plants have feelings too?" Typically the response is, "Don't be ridiculous. Of course they don't." When I see this response I think to myself, "Wait a minute...plants do have feelings." Do they not "feel" their way through the soil? Do they not "feel" the sunshine and bend their bodies to be in it? Have you seen the tenacity and determination of a cottonwood that was cut down one year, only to sprout a dozen new shoots the next? To me, they seem to care about their fate and they seem to take action, through no force other than their own, to ensure their survival.

My perspective on this subject was hugely influenced by the Biology 1610 course I took in college at UVU from Olga Kopp. She had an assignment about plant intelligence that completely altered my way of thinking. What has to be established in order to determine intelligence is a set of criteria. From there, each criterion may be looked at to see whether or not it is met. Enter the video, "The Mind of Plants" Hopefully you have the time to watch all 52 minutes of it. I think it's worth the time.

Regardless of how you may feel about plant intelligence and whether or not they have any, I believe that the argument is based too much on semantics and doesn't really get to the heart. Professor Kopp influenced my thinking in her class another time when she said that our bodies were made up of atoms that were not actually touching, but were held together through energy bonds. Were we small enough, she said, we could travel straight through another person without even touching them, by flying between their atoms.

We are composed as much of energy as we are of matter and I think the connection to plants is indisputable. I would like to see somebody convince me that our energies are not interconnected. When we take in the bodies of plants as food, their energy becomes our own. We occupy a shared "intelligence." When it comes to how we treat plants, trees, and all forms of living and non-living things, I think this mindfulness should drive our behavior. The next time you take a bite of spinach or broccoli, consider the story of its life. It too once stood with its face to the sun. It too was once an infant who sprouted into an unfamiliar world, and it too has known the feeling of thirst and the gratification of having it quenched. When you eat a plant, its energy becomes you.

Left: Closeup of leaf

Center: City map (Birmingham, UK)

Right: Neuron in culture