Plants do not have brains because they cannot walk.

[605]

Saying that plants have no brains based simply on the fact that the can not walk is completely off base. Being immobile doesn’t necessarily render something incapable of thought. In fact, plants, in their immobile existence, exhibit more common sense than some creatures who are scientifically proven to have brains.
For example, whales have been swimming the oceans for millions of years, and yet they still somehow manage to constantly have casualties among them every year due to beachings. Wolverines have been known to gnaw their own legs off to escape bear traps, possibly only to bleed to death soon after. Some birds actually mate while in an uncontrolled vertical dive, which often times results in them dying from impact if they haven’t completed the act of reproduction before they reach the ground. All of these animals have physical brains that can be seen and studied and show self a destructive nature that is completely uncommon among free thinking life forms.
Plants, however, avoid this behavior all together. In the act of self preservation, some plants, such as daisies, close their petals at night to avoid getting their pollen wet by morning dew, helping to preserve its ability to reproduce. A plant that isn’t getting sufficient lighting will actually grow towards its source of light, so that as it grows, its leaves get more sunlight to allow it to grow stronger and healthier. The roots of a plant spread to allow it to gather the most water possible from the earth on which it grows. These are hardly the traits of a non-thinking being.

Counter point:
Those examples are few and far between, and show no proof that a plant has a ’brain.’ Just because a plant exhibits this behavior doesn’t constitute it being a life form capable of thought.
A plant grows because it has to, not because it chooses to. Plants are not conceived, like other beings, they’re produced from seeds. A seed is basically a plant waiting to happen. Seeds don’t die, don’t age or change or ever expire or go bad. A seed can grow on cotton balls just as easily as dirt, because it only needs something to root itself in and get moisture from.
Once it’s growing, a plant has no choice but to continue until nature deems it time to cease, be it by consumption by another animal, or drought, or brush fires, or simply the changing of the seasons. A plant that is cut or bent can not simply fall over and lose it’s will to live. It either continues to grow and flourish or dies from loss of moisture and nutrients, because that’s all it can do. It’s incapable of anything beyond what it’s already doing because it has no will of its own.
A plant isn’t making the decisions mentioned above willingly. It’s merely doing the bare minimum necessary for survival. There are other such creatures in nature that do this which also have no physical brain, such as amoebas and plankton, viruses and bacteria. They exist on the most basic and simple level imaginable, because thought isn’t required to simply ’be.’ It’s not thought that drives them, it’s just what they do because it’s programmed into them. Much like computers, which have no brains, and yet they exhibit the potential to think and learn, only because that‘s how they‘re programmed.

Ahhhh, touche’:
By that standard, all beings in existence today save humans are brainless amoebas. Humans are, in fact, the only species that exist in this world that do more than what is simply necessary to exist. No other living creatures exhibit the kind of need for the unnecessary as humans.
When a bird sings, it’s to attract a mate. When a human sings, it’s for fun and enjoyment. When animals mate, it’s for survival, when humans mate, it’s for physical pleasure. Peacocks shows their feathers to, again, attract a mate to procreate and continue to allow their species to exist, while humans flaunt their bodies and possessions to gain praise and envy. More on this in a paragraph or two.
Back to the point at hand. Plants don’t need to do more than is necessary for survival to have a brain. All animals in nature do exactly that every day. Some go to more extreme measures than others, like the salmon who swims upstream to lay eggs and then dies, or the black widow who consumes her mate, but all animals are only ever truly aware of three basic necessities of life: Eat, Sleep, Poop. Everything else is instinct combined with learned behavior. Birds don’t know why they fly south for the winter, they just do. Bears don’t consciously decide to hibernate in winter, it’s just instinctual. Having a brain only allows for more complex thoughts to emerge; the bigger the brain, the more complex the thoughts. Plants may just have such minute brains that they’re only capable of enough thought to ensure their own survival.
Conception isn’t necessary either, as some animals are unsexed and are capable of reproducing without a mate at all. However, if you wish to argue that a seed isn’t alive, then I’d say neither is sperm or an egg. Obviously they are, and while neither is developed enough to have a mind of it’s own, when combined they complete a person who then grows to have a brain and can walk, which makes everyone happy. A seed, however, is capable of growing in various forms of life sustaining materials as mentioned; ie dirt, cotton balls, or sand. But much the same way a sperm and an egg aren’t capable of evolving on their own, a seed needs something to root itself in, only then can it grow and flourish the way a human or any other life does. And maybe once it’s begun, it develops a brain just like everything else, though it could be unlike any other we’re used to seeing, so we may not even realize what it is we’re looking at. It could exist within the roots themselves, or be a microscopic nerve center at the base of the stem of the plant. It could exist within the center of the stem, which would explain why a plant that’s nicked on the surface will usually recover, but one that’s bent in half will usually not; because it’s brain has been compromised.
While there is not a sure way to test to see if plants can think or not, it’s comparable to humans who are comatose. Those who continue to live and breathe for years with no signs of mental activity, only to emerge years later unchanged from the time of the start of their condition. 40 year olds who think they’re still 17, who’s brains ceased to function while comatose, probably due to the fact that they were busy concentrating on maintaining the basic life functions of ‘breath, pump blood, breathe, pump blood.’ Much the same way a plant is only capable of ‘find light, find water, find light, find water.’
If you were really intent on finding out, I’d suggest you hybrid humans and plants and see what happens in a few generations. Introducing the consciousness of a creature that knows more than ‘do what I need to do to survive’ is the only way to really see if plants have the capacity to handle actual thoughts. The instant the plants begin to worry about who has the prettier petals or bragging about their dirt being richer than everyone else’s, then we’ll have an answer.


total time: about 27 minutes, and only because I type slow. Tho that'd still give me enough time to scribble some plant-men in the margin of the paper before I turned it in.

k, that was fun! I like this game, I wanna do another! *yaps like a puppy who wants a treat and smiles*

[605]

Originally posted by Donut: This was a question on the entrance examination to study medicine at Cambridge University. Looks like no one on IW will be attending.

Hey, since when are you grading the papers? I want a REAL teacher to look at mine, just so that I can watch them go... "You really thought this made SENSE???"

[WillowIX]

Originally posted by Donut: This was a question on the entrance examination to study medicine at Cambridge University. Looks like no one on IW will be attending.

If this is what they teach at Cambridge I wouldn't want to be treated by one of their graduates.

BAH! I thought you were presenting your own research. Not this kind of mumbo jumbo. [img]tongue.gif[/img] Anyway printed it and handed it out to the colleagues. I'm eagerly expecting their responses.

Since the statement is VERY general it could be very easy to argue against the statement with experiments. Think water, salt water. *hint, hint* [img]smile.gif[/img]