WEBVTT - Plant Memories, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:15.280 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.119 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:20.920 we're back for part two of our series on the 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:25.880 possible evidence for memory and learning in plants. Now, this 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:27.520 is one of our series where if you haven't listened 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:29.320 to part one yet, you really should go back and 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:31.240 do that one first, since we clear a lot of 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.080 the ground for what we're gonna be talking about today. 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:34.080 This is one that I think is going to be 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:36.360 kind of hard to jump in in the middle. But 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.160 in that past episode for a refresher, we talked about 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:42.720 a plant called known as the sensitive plant or the 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.680 humble plant, the shame plant that touched me, not scientific name, 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.159 Mimosa pudica, which is one of the few plants in 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:53.559 the world that displays rapid movement or movement on the 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.960 time scale usually associated with animal life. And we talked 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:02.080 about experiments from san that appeared to show a form 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:06.600 of rudimentary learning called habituation in these plants, where, for example, 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.000 if you take a potted Mimosa putica and you drop 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:12.959 it the exact same way over many training sessions, it 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:16.200 will adapt so that it no longer closes its leaves 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:19.600 defensively in response to a drop, but it will still 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:22.600 close its leaves in response to other types of disturbance. 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:25.800 So if this type of finding holds up to scrutiny 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.560 and replication, it would be evidence that even though this 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:32.680 plant has no brain, it has some kind of internal 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:36.880 mechanism for learning from experience in order to maximize its fitness. 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.600 And of course, at some level learning requires a form 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:42.920 of what we would think of as memory. In order 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.320 to learn from the past, you have to have some 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:48.640 way of being changed by the past, to store the 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:52.840 past within you in an organized way that can influence 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.240 future behavior, which of course we do with our brains. 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:00.920 But if plants in some cases also do this, uh, 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:03.960 it's a great question what is the mechanism? They obviously 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.360 don't have brains and h Finally, in the last episode, 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:12.519 we tried to disentangle different claims about so called plant cognition, 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:16.400 which is a controversial concept. We noted that memory is 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:18.600 not the same thing as reasoning, which is not the 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:21.160 same as consciousness, which is not the same as emotion 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:25.800 or communication, or or or or or plant uh. Like 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.600 psychic plant mind reading, which some people have also claimed 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:34.200 evidence of without without much justification, and with the final 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:36.520 point being that evidence for one of these traits is 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:39.880 not necessarily evidence for others. But today we're gonna look 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:43.160 at some more research that has been interpreted as showing 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:46.400 plant memory or plant cognition in the past decade, as 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.799 well as some reaction and criticism to that. Yeah. Now, 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.080 in the last episode I mentioned some music. I mentioned 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:57.960 both Celtic Frost's metal album to Megatherian uh and mort 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:01.560 Garson's plant Asia, and but both were kind of off 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.440 hand references, uh. And afterwards I was looking into it 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:05.840 a little bit more and I was the first of 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:09.800 all delighted to see that Plantasia is more widely regarded 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.240 as a classic than I thought it was. Um. I 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.000 was familiar with more Garson's work, and UM, you know, 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:19.600 I was delighted that his work had recently been reissued 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:22.200 by Sacred Bones Records. I think I had to make 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:26.320 do with some some uh, some some bad copies back 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:28.720 in the day. Sorry, we refresh on the more on 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.800 the more Garson album, It was so more Garson. It 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:36.280 was a pioneer of electronic music and synth work, and 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.560 he had a few different monikers that he used. He 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.960 did some like some cult sounding sounds and so forth. 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:45.760 But he also put out this album Plantasia, which was 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.400 music to be played for your plants very much. Jumping 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:54.360 in on this, uh the Secret Lives of Plants um. Uh, well, 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:57.200 I don't want to say hysteria, will say um popularity 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:02.200 during the nineties seventies and uh as as we discussed 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.320 in that episode, and we'll discuss a little bit here. Yeah, 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:06.800 this this album is not actually going to help your 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:08.800 plants out any of your plants. Do not care about 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.920 more Garson's discography as much as you do or I do. 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.919 But it is a very nice album for human listeners. Sure. 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:19.240 And hey, as I said in the last episode, even 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:21.520 if it doesn't actually do anything for your plans, which 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:24.359 it probably doesn't, no reason not to play it for 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:26.880 your plants. I mean that sounds fun. Yeah, So I 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:28.360 was delighted to see that, even if there was a 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:32.240 New York Times article about uh, this album's popularity and 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.360 it's increased popularity I think in part due to the reissue, 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:37.560 but also they were making the point due to the 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:41.599 resurgence and interest in house plants during the pandemic. You know, 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:44.280 I don't. I don't know about about you, but I 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:46.080 think I don't know if we actually picked up that. No, 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:48.120 we we did pick up more house plants. I think 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:50.240 some of them were gifted to us. But we have 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.960 all sorts of little succulents like hanging out all over 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:55.520 the house that we accumulated over the past couple of years. 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:57.320 I don't know the name for them. Rachel has some 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.440 kind of house plant that repeatedly produces. It's like, I 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:02.000 guess stalks will come off of it, and you can 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.680 separate them and turn them into their own new potted 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.359 version of that same plant, kind of like getting a 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:11.960 grimlin wet or something. Uh. Just you know, they repopulate 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:13.919 and go all over the place. So I think we 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:19.240 have had at least proliferation of existing plants. Yeah, and 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:21.919 and house plants are great, no doubt about it. But 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.360 at this on the other hand, I was looking around 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:25.960 for stuff on this, and I was kind of taken 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.719 aback and just how much content there is out there 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:32.000 on the Internet regarding playing music for plants. And while 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.080 I didn't find anyone actually exalting the benefits of playing 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:40.160 Celtic frost for your philodendrons. There are pages talking about 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:44.360 the merits of different musical genres, alleged merits, I should say, 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:48.320 for plant growth, including the idea that heavy metal can 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:51.919 improve plant mass and fruit taste, provided that it's not 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:56.320 too noisy or presumably too heavy beautiful. What is the 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:01.039 best thrash metal for your plants? I've to assume downstream 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:03.000 of this some people who believe in this really that 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:05.800 they think their plants have individual tastes, like my plants 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.680 really love motor Head. Yeah. I mean, I think we 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:12.200 said before death metal bands need to get in on 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:16.279 beans and realize that in the folklore a cannon being 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.279 plant plants are closely associated with the world of the dead, 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:25.159 and this should be embraced. Sure, now, all this being said, 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.000 uh yeah, not not every source popping up on the 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:30.240 subject is something that that I would take to the 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.800 bank at all. But plants do produce sound vibrations and 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.880 can respond to sound vibrations. Now I got interested in 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:42.080 this idea of thinking about plants responding to sound, and 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:44.560 I started wondering about a question. I think this is 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:47.440 always something good to wonder about when you hear a 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.480 claim about a life form. You think, what would be 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:55.240 the original ecological relevance of this, like in the actual environment, 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:56.840 not in a you know, in a house or a 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:00.320 lab or something. Why would this kind of stim llist 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:02.800 be relevant? So I looked it up in the scientific 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.360 literature and I did find some interesting examples. One of 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:10.160 them was a paper published in ecologiaen by Heidi M 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:14.080 Apple and Reginald B. Cocroft called Plants respond to leaf 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:19.360 vibrations caused by insect herbivore chewing. And this study found 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:23.200 that if you reproduce the sounds made by a caterpillar 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.680 feeding on a leaf and then expose those sounds to 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:30.360 what's known as a thail cress plant, the plant will 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:35.960 respond by producing higher levels of glucosinolate and anthocyanin, which 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.440 are defensive chemicals. So if this finding is sound, then 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.720 the plant does actually detect sound, and it is ecologically relevant. 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:48.040 Sound is an indicator of nearby predation the plant is 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.920 it is being threatened by what is producing this, uh, 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.600 this caterpillar eating sound. Yeah, and there's another study that 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:58.240 I believe came out the same year conducted by Italian 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:04.000 botanist Stefano um Mancuso, who found that roots could seek 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:08.320 out buried um pipes of running water seemingly attracted to 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.040 the sound. So um, again, if this if, if these 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:16.160 results hold up? Basically, the idea here is you have 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:18.840 water running through a pipe that is otherwise you know, 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:22.200 completely set apart from the dirt, from the dirt from 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:26.200 the soil. Uh. And yet the roots are are moving 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.480 towards the water anyway, how would they know the water 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.160 is there? The ideas that they're picking up on the sound, 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:34.680 they're picking up on the vibrations, right, and so again 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.199 you could wonder how would that be ecologically relevant? It 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:39.040 seems plausible to me. I mean, they're all kinds of 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:41.920 like underground water flows and so and those would of 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:46.920 course produce vibrations right now. And you might then wonder, well, okay, 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.160 if there's a sound of running water and my ambient music, 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.200 does that mean my plant wants it? Um? I think 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.040 that's a more maybe that's a kind of a simple, 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.559 um simplified argument to make. I think you get into 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:02.240 a lot of discussions about like the differences between how 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:05.320 the plant is quote unquote hearing and how we are 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:08.520 quote unquote hearing something. Right, I mean, I would say 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:13.200 it's hard to imagine that there's a evolutionarily justified reason 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:17.880 a plant would respond to music in particular, But of 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.760 course there are probably good reasons for plants to respond 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.480 to certain types of noise. So to be very generous, 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:27.240 I guess it's possible that in some cases some types 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:31.880 of music might accidentally trigger something like a tropism or 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:35.719 a stress response in a plant, where where it might 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.280 make the plant, I don't know, look different in some 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.720 way that the owner would be able to detect. It's possible. 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.040 I'm sort of skeptical even as far as that goes, 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:46.679 like the accidental byproduct of certain types of music. But 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:48.920 as I said in the last episode, again, if you 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:51.240 want to play music for your plants, go for it. Yeah. 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:53.520 I don't think it makes sense to literally believe it's 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.120 doing anything for the plant itself, but it sounds like 0:09:56.280 --> 0:10:00.440 a perfectly wonderful activity. Especially prints. Everybody loves prints, so 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.400 it makes sense that plants would love prints as well. Now, 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.480 this is just one of the senses that plants seem 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:08.960 to possess. Um. I've read that plants have somewhere between 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:12.600 fifteen and twenty distinct senses and some of these can 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:16.040 be compared to our basic set of human senses. UH. 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:19.200 In addition to sound, as Michael Paullen points out in 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:24.840 his wonderful article UH the Intelligent Plant from The New Yorker. UH, 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:27.160 we have, of course, on the human side, smell and taste, 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.760 and plants do seem to sense and respond to chemicals 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.880 in the air or on their bodies. We have sight, 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:38.920 and plants react differently to various wavelengths of light as 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.600 well as to shadows. So plants like us live in 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:45.760 a world of of periodic light and darkness, and of 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:50.479 course they depend heavily upon the light because of photosenses. 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:52.800 Is so it makes sense that this would be in place. 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:55.439 And then we have the sense of touch, and a 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.000 vine or root seems to know when it encounters a 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:03.080 solid object. So plant roots have been found to be 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:08.640 able to sense gravity, moisture, light, pressure, firmness, so you know, 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:10.400 it's like they're encountering something that seems to be a 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:12.640 solid as opposed to something they can continue to grow 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:19.400 in into volume. Nitrogen, phosphorus, salt, various toxins a lot 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.480 of times. Uh. Pollen points out that the roots of 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:24.600 the toxins are going to be first encountered by those 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:29.520 roots microbes as well as chemical signals from other plants, 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:31.719 and in that just a little bit, you get into 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:34.600 the realm of communication. Yeah, And so my read on 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:37.320 this this domain is that while a lot of the 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.000 other things in so called plant cognition could be considered 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:44.120 pretty controversial, even some of the stuff with better evidence 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.120 for it, like the memory stuff we're talking about, that's 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:51.560 still somewhat controversial. But but plant sensation plant the plants 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.480 being able to gather information about all kinds of different 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:56.840 things in their environment, that seems to me to be 0:11:56.920 --> 0:12:01.199 utterly uncontroversial. That's just they clearly do that right now. 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:04.560 A lot of the more controversial and um uh, it's 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:07.360 just flat out unbelievable stuff you encounter out there about 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:10.040 plants listening to music and so forth. This is still 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:14.199 stemm stemming from that nine The Secret Life of Plants 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:16.800 book by Tompkins and Bird that we we talked about 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:21.320 in the first episode. Um popular work of mostly pseudoscience, 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:26.079 that was also a huge setback for legitimate research. And 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.880 we should also point out that make the point here 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.760 too that there was, of course movement in the field 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:37.600 of plant research into plants senses and and you know, 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:44.040 potentially plant intelligence decades earlier before, before Baxter, before these uh, 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:48.280 these authors wrote this book. UH. For instance, decades before this, 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:52.680 scientist jagades Chandra bows demonstrated the plants were aware of 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:56.880 their environment and that they responded to electrical stimulation. But 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.960 then comes The Secret Life of Plants, And it was interesting. 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:01.880 I was reading what Paul and had to say about 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:04.520 it in the in that article, and he points out 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:08.040 that this book may have resulted in the self censorship 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:12.120 of researchers that were touching on areas of plant cognition 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:16.560 or anything that hinted at similarities between plant and animal senses. 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:21.240 Paullen writes, quote, Americans began talking to their plants and 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.400 playing Mozart for them, and no doubt many still do. 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:27.559 This might seem harmless enough, there will probably always be 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:31.320 a strain of romanticism running through our thinking about plants. 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.920 Luther Burbank and George Washington Carver both reputedly talked to 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.079 and listen to the plants they did such brilliant work with. 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:42.600 But in the view of many plants scientists, the science 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.520 The Secret Life of Plants has done lasting damage to 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.720 their field. Yeah, and you can understand how this would happen. 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.319 So there is a there is a very culturally popular 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:56.560 work of largely based on pseudoscience or not well founded 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:00.480 claims about the about the intelligence or cognition of plants, 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:03.520 and then for decades after that, Uh, you would have 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:09.760 some reticence to get into thematically similar research areas, even 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:13.000 if you did have a better evidential grounding for them. Yeah, 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:14.560 I have to say it reminds me a little bit 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.920 of the situation with dolphin communication research coming out in 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:22.680 the sixties and seventies, with its reputation somewhat tarnished or 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.880 or at least endangered, you know, by some perspectives by 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.760 John C. Lily's work and uh. And also it reminds 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:31.600 me a bit of the state of psychedelic research coming 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.840 out of the same time period. Um though of course, 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:39.120 um here with psychedelics there was the added um situation 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:42.720 of these substances becoming federally outlawed. So no one was 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.240 outlawing speaking to plants or playing music for them, um. 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:48.440 After the Secret Life of Plants came out. But we 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:51.960 can see how the whole affair became somewhat distracting and 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.920 off putting to serious researchers. You know, you're you're, you're 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:57.320 very this is your life's work. You don't want it 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:00.600 to be associated with this work of pseudoscience, with this 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:06.560 popular conception um of of what plants are doing, um, etcetera. Yeah, 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:10.240 I can totally see the parallel to psychedelic research, because, yeah, 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.200 in recent years there's been a thaw on psychedelic research 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:17.840 and there's more legitimate experiment being done with them. But 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:19.720 I think for a long time, yeah, it wasn't just 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.960 the law. There was a I think a scientific stigma 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.920 about them because there had been a lot of the 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.240 early work on psychedelics was clearly done by people who 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:33.720 were not practicing unbiased, objective science, but had become sort 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:39.080 of psychedelic evangelists. And we're we're we're dedicated, uh, proponents 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.760 of psychedelics, and we're just like, how can I make 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:46.160 them look good? I'll do anything, Yeah, Ti Timothy Learry 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:50.080 being the major figure that fits that classification. And I 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:53.160 have to say, in my very brief survey of some 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:57.040 of this plant cognition stuff, one thing that does make 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:00.480 me a little suspicious, perhaps unfairly um of even the 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:05.600 more legitimate seeming plant cognition research is that plant cognition 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:10.680 concepts seem to attract partisans who, uh, at least as 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:13.400 far as I can tell, sometimes over extend what can 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:16.440 be concluded based on a piece of research. Like you 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.080 could look at a single study about you know, habituation 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.640 or something that looks like learning or memory and plants 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:26.080 and conclude from that that this means plants are conscious, 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:28.160 they can think, they can read my mind, they have 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:31.200 a soul, or so something like that, you know, over 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:35.840 extrapolating from actually what is a fairly contained result, or 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.240 I think also you see examples of some people and 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:42.840 I'm not accusing uh, the researchers themselves of this, but 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:46.480 more like people who are excited about this research proponents, 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.520 people who want to use plant cognition research to prove 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.800 ideas they've already acquired elsewhere, like uh, you know, ideas 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.040 about like a universal life spirit per permeating all things 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:59.760 or something, or who take on a kind of in 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:04.320 all actual murder persona like the closed Minded Academy wants 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:08.960 to destroy the truth, all of which are major red flags. Uh, 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:11.800 But of course it's something I've noticed more in the 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:14.800 fans of plant cognition research than in the research itself. 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:17.240 So I wouldn't hold that against the studies we're about 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:22.040 to talk about. Yeah, anytime science is used to advance 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:26.159 a non scientific um, you know, say that theology or 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:29.680 some sort of an ideology, you get into murky territory, 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:34.520 even if said um theology or ideology isn't, at least 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.719 on the surface, something that's particularly harmful, even if it's 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.280 yet something like, oh, all life forms are connected on Earth, 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.080 you know, Oh, so nothing nothing wrong with believing that 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:45.720 is just like, this study does not show that, right, right, 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:47.760 But the situation is there is a lot of wonderfully 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:51.720 impressive evidence on the different ways that the plants, since 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:55.760 their environment, they compete with each other, communicate, and much more. 0:17:56.320 --> 0:18:00.400 And so this this research did continue and in continues 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.000 to this day. A Pollen points to a shifting point 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:05.800 around the year two thousand six. This is when an 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:08.680 article came that came out in Trends and Plants Science 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:12.920 by six scientists who were active in this field of research, 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:17.040 and they proposed a new field be established plant neurobiology, 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.320 and Pollen writes that more than a decade after this, 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:25.560 this term was first proposed. The plant science community was 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.120 still somewhat split on all of this, with some arguing 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:30.520 that this was a necessary step in the right direction 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:35.000 of reconsidering what constitutes intelligence and and indeed this is 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:38.280 something we see similar discussions going on regarding the likes 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:41.239 of ants and slime molds, the ideas of you know, 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:46.679 emergent intelligence intelligence without brains, uh, you know, getting outside 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.960 of the sort of you know, basic human and animal 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.879 conception of what intelligence is. And of course this is 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:57.360 also important when we get into discussions of artificial intelligence 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:01.920 and contemplations of what alien intelligence could consist of. Well, 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.359 this also recalls other types of research along these lines, 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.359 not in plants, but in say, animals, are parts of 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:10.960 animals in which a brain is not present. You know, 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.840 we did a couple of episodes about, uh, the the 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:19.920 research perhaps indicating that certain types of flatworms could learn 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:22.640 without a brain, or that part of their body, when 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:26.520 cut off, could retain memories without the brain present. It's 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:29.120 an older series, so I know, I'm I'm forgetting some details, 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:31.720 but if you want the full story on that, the 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.240 pair of episodes we did, I think we're called Devourer 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:45.320 of Memories thank so. Anyway, plant neurobiology, some people, some 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:48.600 researchers in this field very much behind the idea of 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:52.200 this classification, while others considered it kind of a backslide 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:54.679 to the seventies, you know, saying, look, we're trying to 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:58.760 get past the stigma of the secret life of plants. Um. 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.400 This just judges it all back up again. Though though 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:06.080 to be clear, none of these plant neurobiology proponents were 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:12.040 making these outrageous claims about telepathy or or plants having emotions. Uh, 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:14.359 And the sort of intelligence they're proposing is more in 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.280 line with the emergent modes of intelligence that we're discussing 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.119 here now. One of the key arguments for reconsidering the 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:25.320 lives of plants um actually comes down to big revelations 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:29.960 made through time lapse footage or if not key to 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:35.640 the arguments, key to to ways of of illustrating and 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:39.479 and UM and studying the plants in question. By speeding 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.680 up long shots of growing stems and leaves and vines, 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.639 were able to sort of translate that time scale of 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:49.040 plants into the time scale of human beings. And it's 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.440 not just a matter of oh, look, if you speed 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:53.880 up the footage it looks like a vine is crawling. 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:55.439 Now the vine is kind of like a snake, and 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:58.560 the snakes and animal, And now I'm viewing the plant 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.840 as more of you know, a national being sort of thing. Uh. 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:04.600 I guess that's inherently part of it, at least to 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.240 the you know, the casual viewer. Uh. If you're flipping 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:08.959 around on the TV and you happen to come across 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:11.560 you know, one of these Planet Earth documentaries and you 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:16.640 see even brilliant footage like that, but in various experiments, 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:19.359 it actually allows us, this kind of footage allows us 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:23.240 to better consider environmental interactions. So one example that Balan 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:25.920 has brought up before, I believe he. I think he 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:27.760 brings it up in if not in this article, he 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:29.720 brings it up in some of his books, but brings 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:33.240 it up in some some video interview footage that was 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.439 there to the World Science Festival several years back. But 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:39.639 you have being plants that are competing for a single 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:43.240 poll on which to grow. And when you when you 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:45.600 speed up that footage and you watch the time lapse 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:47.720 of it, you can see them competing. You can see 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:50.040 them both going after the same pole. You can see 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:54.679 one uh, claiming the pole, and then the other retreating, 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:57.120 giving up the fight, saying all right, fair enough, you've 0:21:57.160 --> 0:21:59.359 got it. And so this, you know, this sort of 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:04.240 reaction to competition, uh, you know, rather than inanimate objects 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:06.639 is key to tostms in many of these studies like 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:08.520 this seems to be an area where plants are are 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:13.480 even more likely to to have this sort of rapid response. Yes, though, 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:17.360 of course this invites I think highly relevant and interesting 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:21.080 questions about what intelligence actually is. Intelligence is a concept 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:26.480 that is notoriously difficult to define, um because I mean, 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:27.959 just think about it for a second, how would you 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:32.240 define intelligence? It's clear like there there are some things 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:36.640 that seem very clearly suggested by the concept, and one 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:39.720 of them I think is interesting has to do with speed. 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:45.240 Intelligence clearly has something to do with the rate of things, because, 0:22:45.680 --> 0:22:49.560 like you know, an animal that solves them is quickly. 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:51.600 We look at that behavior and we say, yeah, that's 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:54.960 indicative of intelligence. But a slime mold that solves them 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:57.080