Some might balk at the idea that plants made of roots, stems and leaves could haveintelligenceorconsciousness.
But scientists have actually beenhotly debatingthis idea for decades.
A recent papersought to finally draw a line under this question by dismissing it completely.
It argued that the key physical features found in conscious animals are missing in plants.
Plants, on the other hand, do not have nerve cells at all, let alone a brain.
This even extends to other organisms that plants cooperate with, such as fungi.
Theres even an argument that such a system could lead to a form of consciousness.
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So it might be possible that these replicate the functions of an animals nervous system.
So electrical signals in plants may have the potential tocarry and process information.
One impressive exception is the Venus flytrap.
Each trap has a number of minute hairs inside it.
Whenever they are touched they generatean electrical impulse.
The philosopherLudwig Wittgenstein said: If a lion could talk, we would not understand him.
How much stranger would a plants thoughts be?
They canrespond to sounds, and produce defensive chemicals when theyhear caterpillars chewing.
An important question is whether all of this could a result of simple pre-determined responses.
Does this behavior require anything that might be like our intelligence?
Indeed some definitions ofconsciousnessassume a central identity aware of itself.
Are such things possible without a brain?
Decentralized consciousness
Yet what if consciousness can spontaneously emerge from webs of interactionsin complex systems?
This is speculative but we have seen that plants can use intricate networks of signals tocollect and relay information.
Without a centralized brain, how strange and incomprehensible such a consciousness might be.
Distributed across a federation of cooperating cells rather than controlled by a single general.We rather than I.
After all, we cannot know even what it feels like to be another human.
