Increasing numbers of researchers, in a multiplicity of fields, are beginning to acknowledge that intelligence is an inevitable aspect of all self-organized systems—that sophisticated neural networks are a hallmark of life. Some researchers are becoming quite vocal in attacking what they call the “brain chauvinism.” Kevin Warwick, a cyberneticist, observes succinctly that, “Comparisons (in intelligence) are usually made between characteristics that humans consider important; such a stance is of course biased and subjective in terms of the groups for whom it is being used.” In other words, rationalists, who have long attacked the concept of plant intelligence and consciousness and awareness in nature as antirational romantic projection, have themselves been merely looking at and for their own reflection in the world around them—and, of course, finding the world wanting. But what especially activates their antirational subjectivity is whenever the organism in question appears to not have a brain, such as with bacteria, viruses, and most especially plants.

~ Stephen Harrod Buhner

Plant and Fungi Earth-Kin, Netherlands – photo by Sinica Kover – bigstockphoto.com