Scientists debate a new way of understanding flora

north

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An interesting article about how some plant phenomena may be indicative of consciousness.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/12/23/131223fa_fact_pollan?currentPage=all

“Yes, plants have both short- and long-term electrical signalling, and they use some neurotransmitter-like chemicals as chemical signals,” Lincoln Taiz, an emeritus professor of plant physiology at U.C. Santa Cruz and one of the signers of the Alpi letter, told me. “But the mechanisms are quite different from those of true nervous systems.”

The sensory capabilities of plant roots fascinated Charles Darwin, who in his later years became increasingly passionate about plants; he and his son Francis performed scores of ingenious experiments on plants. Many involved the root, or radicle, of young plants, which the Darwins demonstrated could sense light, moisture, gravity, pressure, and several other environmental qualities, and then determine the optimal trajectory for the root’s growth. The last sentence of Darwin’s 1880 book, “The Power of Movement in Plants,” has assumed scriptural authority for some plant neurobiologists: “It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle . . . having the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals; the brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense organs and directing the several movements.” Darwin was asking us to think of the plant as a kind of upside-down animal, with its main sensory organs and “brain” on the bottom, underground, and its sexual organs on top.

The most controversial presentation was “Animal-Like Learning in Mimosa Pudica,” an unpublished paper by Monica Gagliano

How plants do what they do without a brain—what Anthony Trewavas has called their “mindless mastery”—raises questions about how our brains do what they do. When I asked Mancuso about the function and location of memory in plants, he speculated about the possible role of calcium channels and other mechanisms, but then he reminded me that mystery still surrounds where and how our memories are stored: “It could be the same kind of machinery, and figuring it out in plants may help us figure it out in humans.”

“Here, I’ll show you something,” he said. “Then you tell me if plants have intention.”
 
the seat of mind of most lifeforms (on this planet) is on the plane of instinctive consciousness
then with some animals it has progressed onto the plane of intellect , e.g. some of the higher animals and off course at the highest level man.

Man also at times touching the next level of consciousness termed spiritual consciousness :whence comes all our great inventions etc.

all this on a vast scale of gradation , divined by wise yogi philosophers thousands of years ago.
 
the seat of mind of most lifeforms (on this planet) is on the plane of instinctive consciousness
then with some animals it has progressed onto the plane of intellect , e.g. some of the higher animals and off course at the highest level man.

Man also at times touching the next level of consciousness termed spiritual consciousness :whence comes all our great inventions etc.

all this on a vast scale of gradation , divined by wise yogi philosophers thousands of years ago.
I'm with you (if 'divined' means 'made up a pre-scientific model based on their observations and knowledge at that time')
 
I'm with you (if 'divined' means 'made up a pre-scientific model based on their observations and knowledge at that time')

Yes, I should have been clearer - those more advanced souls (in this case the yogis) moving further up the scale of consciousness, thus being more able to receive knowledge. More spiritually unfolded if you like.
So 'divined' in the sense of " To know by inspiration, intuition, " (these attributes being above the intellect, just as instinctive is below it)

Also divined in the sense that all discoveries i.e. technology , music , social advances are likewise received when those are in the frame of mind to receive them.
how it then expresses itself on the plane of intellect, is up to the individual.

Scientific models are the effect after inspiration/intuition.

Observation is a tool to allow thoughts to arrive - from the higher spiritual mind.

This is why there are many yogi exercises aimed at the Concentration of Attention (Observation).

Thoughts flow in when attention is concentrated.
 
Mimosa Plants Have Long Term Memory, Can Learn, Biologists Say
By using the same experimental framework normally applied to test learnt behavioral responses in animals, biologists from Australia and Italy have successfully demonstrated that Mimosa pudica – an exotic herb native to South America and Central America – can learn and remember just as well as it would be expected of animals.
http://www.sci-news.com/biology/science-mimosa-plants-memory-01695.html
 
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