I am a scientist who believes that plants are CONSCIOUS. Here are signs that prove they have intelligence

Plants have been observed interacting with the environment in ways that scientists claim are conscious.

Paco Calvo, a professor at the University of Murcia in Spain, has been researching the intelligence and problem solving of plants for years. He discovered that the mimosa seems to ‘learn from experience’ when it stops folding.

“In psychology that is the most basic form of learning,” Calvo told DailyMail.com.

“This pattern of folding, then not folding again, is consistent with the idea that this plant learned something through experience, and not through its genes.”

The professor also noted that other plants communicate with each other through chemicals, solve problems and even appear to have memories.

Many scientists define intelligence as having a central nervous system, where electrical signals relay messages to other nerves to process information.

Instead, plants have a vascular system, a network of cells that transport water, minerals and nutrients to help them grow.

“We consider plants as resources, for fuel, for oxygen, for textiles, for food, but we don’t respect them for their own sake,” Calvo said.

‘If we can understand another form of intelligence that doesn’t require a brain, perhaps we can understand what unites us all in the tree of life.

“We need to find the master key.”

Some plants appear to “remember” droughts, retaining water more efficiently than plants that have not experienced droughts before, and strawberries can be trained to associate light with feeding sites, the professor said.

He further explained that plants also learn to time the release of pollen when pollinators such as bees are present.

Researchers have also speculated that plants may be able to count, make decisions, recognize their kin, and even remember events.

The problem is that people have a self-based understanding of intelligence – which focuses on animals with brains, and which leads us to ignore other possible intelligences and consciousnesses.

‘Our view is that you have to be an animal, otherwise you cannot be smart. This is very short-sighted,” Calvo said.

A recent study at Cornell University found that goldenrods release a chemical when eaten by beetles, which tricks the insects into thinking they are damaged and a poor food source. Goldenrods in the area do the same.

Andre Kessler, a chemical ecologist and professor at Cornell, said, “This would fit our definition of intelligence.

‘Depending on the information it receives from the environment, the plant changes its standard behavior.’

Calvo is among a growing number of scientists calling for a new understanding of how plants solve problems and communicate — and said the way they do that is in many ways similar to how humans “think,” only without one central brain.

‘Plant cells fire voltage spikes in the form of action potentials, just like brain cells. “If you touch the trigger hair of Venus Flytrap twice and it snaps shut, there is an action potential,” he said.

‘Not having a brain or nervous system doesn’t mean you can’t have electrochemical communication!’

Calvo has also suggested that plants “think” using their vascular system, a network of cells that transport water, minerals and nutrients to help them grow.

But it is also used to convey information, he noted.

“Not having a brain or nervous system doesn’t mean you can’t have some form of electrochemical communication,” the professor continued.

‘Electrical signals travel through the vascular system. So your plant not only responds to the place where it is stimulated, but can also respond on the other side of the plant.

‘Plants have no brains, but they still use electrochemical communication on their own time scale to stay alive.’

Calvo said the same neurotransmitters present in human brains (such as glutamate or GABA) are also present in plants – and sometimes used in the same way.

“So if you have a plant and this caterpillar nibbles on the leaf, the plant can use the neurotransmitter glutamate to trigger a calcium wave that spreads through the stem and leaves, creating a defensive chemical weapon to fight off the caterpillar.” to keep out,” he says. explained.

Calvo said plants must have a different survival strategy than humans because they are rooted in the soil. So their strategy is ‘divide and conquer’.

“So if you try to grab or attack an animal, it can fight back,” he explained.

“In the case of factories, they can’t do all that, so their strategy is to have everything really decentralized.

‘If you cut off a branch, another branch grows. That won’t happen to me if you cut off my arm.’

Research to understand plant intelligence could be crucial for understanding ourselves and in the fight against climate change.

“We consider plants as resources, for fuel, for oxygen, for textiles, for food, but we don’t respect them for their own sake,” Calvo said.

‘If we can understand another form of intelligence that doesn’t require a brain, perhaps we can understand what unites us all in the tree of life. We need to find the master key.”