torbenm
09-19-2007, 04:51 AM
I agree with Sergio that this is an excellent column.
A few more suggestions about plant communication etc.:
- Plants could communicate by smell. Many plants have the ability to open and close flowers that emit smells and, hence, time the emissions (usually to time-of-day, but other factors can apply). If other plants would, somehow, be able to registers the smells, this could be used as a (slow) form of communication. Somewhat like the way some animals use pheromones to communicate. You could also imagine plants being able to modify the composition of smells to encode more complex messages.
- If you look at existing plants, the parts that have the widest range of movement are seeds and pollen, that can travel quite far from the mother plant. The movement is in existing plants limited to being carried by wind or animals, but you could imagine plants that evolve ever more complex ways of letting seeds and pollen travel, so they in the end evolve intelligence. So the plant itself is stationary and not intelligent, but the seeds and pollen are intelligent and have means of voluntary movement. In essence, you have male "pollen" (or pollen carriers) that seek out female "flowers" (who are still attached to their mother trees) and later female "seeds" that leave their mother trees and find places to root.
A few more suggestions about plant communication etc.:
- Plants could communicate by smell. Many plants have the ability to open and close flowers that emit smells and, hence, time the emissions (usually to time-of-day, but other factors can apply). If other plants would, somehow, be able to registers the smells, this could be used as a (slow) form of communication. Somewhat like the way some animals use pheromones to communicate. You could also imagine plants being able to modify the composition of smells to encode more complex messages.
- If you look at existing plants, the parts that have the widest range of movement are seeds and pollen, that can travel quite far from the mother plant. The movement is in existing plants limited to being carried by wind or animals, but you could imagine plants that evolve ever more complex ways of letting seeds and pollen travel, so they in the end evolve intelligence. So the plant itself is stationary and not intelligent, but the seeds and pollen are intelligent and have means of voluntary movement. In essence, you have male "pollen" (or pollen carriers) that seek out female "flowers" (who are still attached to their mother trees) and later female "seeds" that leave their mother trees and find places to root.