Yesterday I got involved in a vegan topic (croatian forum) that went astray to arguing about whether plants are capable of receiving information and processing it. When we discussed the matter I presented my opinion in the following way: -"Chlorophyl acts as photon collector whereas plant photosystem 1 & 2 acts as processor!" To talk about photons as information would be inappropriate, but the essence is that chlorophyl acts as detector and absorber so it's not really true that plants don't have the ability to detect. Furthermore, something needs to be done with the absorbed photons, therefore plants are able to process as well. -"E.g. Short day plants" In order to flower, plants need a good portion of darkness, so there must be a way for plants to detect such conditions (as availability of light). Again, plants are able to detect and process (=act accordingly). -"Localized apoptosis as in some viral infections" Against some viral infections, plants respond by necrosis to specific parts of tissue in order to prevent further infection and spreading of disease. If necrosis is to be executed there has to be a way for plants to detect the viral presence and process that information which it does by inducing necrosis ofcourse. Now, thing is, some don't agree with my arguments because they stick to a definition that detection and processing involves possesion of brain, reasoning etc (as in humans for example). Obviously such definition cannot be applied to plants, but for plants to grow, reproduce and/or do other complex things, they need to posses systems which detect certain signals and act accordingly. Guess it all turned semantic and philosophical in the end, but still I'd like to hear your opinion on all this. There's certainly no brain involved but, still, plants do have the ability to detect and process!
Plants respond to all sorts of things in their own brainless ways. There's a quite serious book (Princeton University Press) titled "Mate Choice in Plants".
Anthropomorphizing plants does not at all help in understanding how they actually live in the world. Plants interact with their environment as do all living things and to do so does not require a "brain".
