In "Avatar," humans mine a lush moon inhabited by blue-skinned extraterrestrials, the Na'vi, who live in harmony with nature. Human military forces destroy their habitat despite objections that it could affect the bio-network connecting its organisms. On the eve of the big battle, the protagonist Jake communicates via a neural connection with the Tree of Souls, which intercedes on behalf of the Na'vi.
The movie suggests that we don't understand the conscious nature of the life that surrounds us.
Although I saw the movie three times, I still cringe whenever someone tells me that a plant has consciousness. As a biologist, I can accept that consciousness exists in cats, dogs and other animals with sophisticated brains. Studies show that dogs have a level of intelligence -- and consciousness -- on par with a two- or three-year-old human child. In fact, in 1981, I and Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner published a paper in Science showing that even pigeons were capable of certain aspects of self-awareness. But a plant or a tree? To consider the possibility seemed absurd -- until the other day.
My kitchen merges into a conservatory, a mini-rainforest with palms and ferns. While having breakfast, I looked up at one of my prize specimens, a Queen Sago tree. For the last several months I'd been watching it send up new fronds, which, since the winter solstice, have been repositioning themselves towards the shifting sun. During that time I also watched it respond to an injury to its trunk by sending out air-roots in search of new soil to re-root itself. It was a clever life-form, but clearly not conscious in any known biological way.
Then I remembered the episode of "Star Trek" called "Wink of an Eye." In this episode, Captain Kirk beams down to a planet and finds a beautiful but empty metropolis. The only trace of life is the mysterious buzzing of unseen insects. When he returns to the ship, the crew continues to hear the same strange buzzing sound. Suddenly, Kirk notices that the movements of the crew slow down to a stop, as if time itself were being manipulated. A beautiful woman appears and explains to Kirk that the bridge crew hasn't slowed down, but rather, he has been sped up, having been matched to the Scalosians' "hyper-accelerated" physical existence. Back in real time, Spock and Dr. McCoy figure out that the strange buzzing is the hyper-accelerated conversations of aliens that exist outside normal physics.
We think of time -- and thus consciousness -- in human terms. In my mind, I could easily accelerate the plant's behavior like a botanist does with time-lapse photography. The feathery creature, there in my conservatory, responded to the environment much like a primitive invertebrate. But there was more to it than that. We think time is an object, an invisible matrix that ticks away regardless of whether there are any objects or life. Not so, says biocentrism. Time isn't an object or thing; it's a biological concept, the way life relates to physical reality. It only exists relative to the observer.
Consider your own consciousness. Without your eyes, ears or other sense organs, you would still be able to experience consciousness, albeit in a radically different form. Even without thoughts, you would still be conscious, although the image of a person or tree would have no meaning. Indeed, you wouldn't be able to discern objects from each other, but rather would visually experience the world as a kaleidoscope of changing colors.
Like us, plants possess receptors, microtubules and sophisticated intercellular systems that likely facilitate a degree of spatio-temporal consciousness. Instead of generating a pattern of colors, the particles of light bouncing off a plant produce a pattern of energy molecules -- sugar -- in the chlorophyll in its stems and leaves. Light-stimulating chemical reactions in one leaf cause a chain reaction of signals to the entire organism via vascular bundles.
Neurobiologists have discovered that plants also have rudimentary neural nets and the capacity for primary perceptions. Indeed, the sundew plant (Drosera) will grasp at a fly with incredible accuracy -- much better than you can do a fly-swatter. Some plants even know when ants are coming towards them to steal their nectar and have mechanisms to close up when they approach. Scientists at Cornell University discovered that when a hornworm starts eating sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), the wounded plant will send out a blast of scent that warns surrounding plants -- in the case of the study, wild tobacco (Nicotiana attenuata) −- that trouble is on its way. Those plants, in turn, prepare chemical defenses that send the hungry critters in the opposite direction. Andre Kessler, the lead researcher, called this "priming its defense response." "This could be a crucial mechanism of plant-plant communication," he said.
As I sat in the kitchen that day, the early-morning sun slanted down through the skylights, throwing the entire room into gleaming brightness. The Queen Sago tree and I were both "happy" the sun was out.
Robert Lanza, M.D. has published extensively in leading scientific journals and has over two dozen books, including "Biocentrism," which lays out his theory of everything. You can learn more about his work by visiting his website at www.robertlanza.com.
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Andrew Z. Cohen: The Evolutionary Need to Understand Consciousness
Science is science and memoir and while the author writes incredibly good memoir I find his science to be lacking...uh...consciousness.
Lets expand the notion to anything that is alive is conscious. And then take the un-provable and quantum step of saying the Earth, the stars are conscious as well. If the Universe has a propensity for consciousness as you state in Biocentrism, then we can think of the planets and stars as Old Beings moving steadily through the cosmos. We are symbiots living on the surface. Of course, I am a proponent of the Gaia Theory.
Also, I think you were not truthful in your premise that you cringe when you hear that plants are conscious. You used that as a primer for the article to snatch in the skeptical.
My one thought / question to you - you are scratching the surface with you writings and your book. You have posited and put out the premise. Is it not time for you to go deeper with your thoughts? And not in trying to provide further theory and concept. You have done that already. Share the next level of what you are striving to say. I for one am avidly reading and listening.
A small example: I read where a study was done to see if dogs had an ability to be happy or sad. My dog got anxious because it took me too long to read, he wanted to go to the park and play.
People trying to measure a dog's intelligence compare the dog's abilities to a human's: language skills, mechanical skills,... and the dog comes out looking pretty stupid. But drop a domesticated dog and a human out in the middle of a wilderness and see which one finds food, avoids predators, keeps from freezing, in short which one could survive a week even giving the human the edge of clothing?
All living things must have some kind of conciousness or they would die. Life IS conciousness.
direct decendants of the Darwinian and Freudian theory of evolution. You HAD to put
limits on everything to justify life. Darwin couldn't otherwise account for a God that allowed
bad things to happen to good people. He was a religious man you know, but his befuddled
religious beliefs carried over into his view of life--i.e., evolution and 'survival of the fittest'--a
point of view that pervades almost every aspect of our lives today--economics, medicine,
manufacturing, politics, religions. and the list goes on.
As fpie said, Life IS consciousness and everything that exists has consciousness, everything!
It may not be 'man consciousness' or 'animal consciousness', but it HAS a consciousness
in keeping with its kind whether science can find it and label it or not. (Won't be the first time.)
Go hug a tree.
But there are many varieties of intelligence as well.
The standard IQ tests measure one type of intelligence.
www.newheavenonearth.wordpress.com
And you could tell the degree of intelligence by the shape and number of branches. Most people will think I'm nuts, but I swear to God I believe this to be true. You can't really see it when you're straight. Ask other people who have tripped what they think. I bet you'll get a lot of positive answers.
By the way, what's with the Whalers logo?! Go Wolfpack! Oops, I mean Whale.;-)