The Green Plant as an Intelligent Organism - Communication in Plants: Neuronal Aspects of Plant Life - page 7

deliberately corner motile food (infusoria) or to escape from impalement.
Grasse (1977, p. 213) describes this behaviour as that which Haeckel called
the psychological ability (i.e. purposive behaviour or intelligence) of the
cell. “I dedicate these remarks to those who would simplify the properties
of living things to the points of insignificance . . . The observation of an
animal in action in its proper environment remains an exercise essential to
the biologist” (Grasse 1977), a statement of direct and pointed relevance to
plant biologists. The plant biologist McClintock (1984) echoes the previous
psychological sentiment in the following statement abstracted from her
Nobel Prize acceptance speech: “A goal for the future would be to deter-
mine the extent of knowledge the cell has of itself and how it utilizes this
knowledge in a thoughtful manner when challenged.” Thoughtful can be
equated w ith Grasse's (Haeckel's) psychological ability.
The slime mould Physarum has been presented with a maze of differing
lengthswithfoodattheendandalwayschosetheshortestpath,indicating
an ability to optimize food gain whilst minimizing economy of effort (Nak-
agaki et al. 2000). The authors of this paper state “this remarkable process
of cellular computation implies that cellular materials can show a primi-
tive intelligence”. Single cells have been observed to be capable of choice.
Amoebae will prey on Te t rahy m e n a but avoid Copromonas and if given the
choice Paramecium prefers small ciliates to bacteria (Corning 2003).
1.3
Other Forms of Biological Intelligence
Social insects (termites, bees, ants) in colonies construct nest structures,
minimal paths to food or adaptively change resource acquisition, behaviour
described as swarm intelligence (Bonabeau et al. 2000; Bonabeau and Meyer
2001; Bonabeau and Theraulaz 2000; Franks et al. 2003; Seeley 1995). “In-
deed it is not to much to say that a bee colony is capable of cognition in
muchthesamewaythatahumanbeingis.Thecolonygathersandcon-
tinually updates diverse information about its surroundings combines this
withinformationaboutitsinternalstateandmakesdecisionsthatreconcile
its well being with its environment” (Seeley and Levin 1987). Swarm intel-
ligenceoweditsbasistotheconnectionsbetweentheindividualworkers
that form a network and changes in communication change the behaviour
of the whole colony.
Immune intelligence-immune systems learn how to construct the best
antibody, remember and predict future bacterial evolution (De Castro and
Timmis 2002; Vertosick and Kelly 1992; Vertosick 2002) and intelligent
genomes have been described briefly elsewhere (Thaler 1994). Intelligent
genomes are equally found in plants (Trewavas 2005). Finally intelligent