Quote Originally Posted by Aliquid View Post
I might take this a step further and really challenge people's preconceptions about intelligence etc.

Plants

There are plants that can talk to each other
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plants on one side of a field being attacked by aphids, will warn plants on the other side of the field. The warned plants will start proactively producing anti-aphid chemicals. It has been shown that this communication goes through a "mycorrhizal network" in the dirt (plants separated with a barrier in the dirt didn't get the message)


There are plants that can solve mazes like a lab rat

There are plants that learn
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scientists took a plant that was sensitive to touch (the leaves fold up protectively when touched). They dropped the plant 6" and it freaked out and folded up all its leaves. Then the scientists did that over and over until after about 5 times the plant realized there was no risk, and stopped folding up. Even months later it remembered that being dropped 6" isn't a big deal


There are plants that can recognize and help family
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They will grow their leaves away from family to make sure it gets light, and will grow over other plants to cover them with shade


There are plants that can count
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The Venus’ flytrap counts the number of times prey comes in contact with its sensory hairs to determine the size of the insect, when to shut its leaves to trap the creature, and even how much digestive juice to produce for its meal
Chemical signaling following injury isn't intelligent communication, it's a rash.

Furthermore were any of these studies by any chance done by either Terrence McKenna or Cleve Backster? Because McKenna's work on plants went way downhill after he decided he was going to smoke all of them and Backster not only was not a botanist by education but also harbored fundamental misunderstandings even of stuff he was educated in.