Do plants have a brain,i mean how do they think or react?

[thunkit]

how do they sense light and lean or grow towards them?
a creeper tries to grasp a solid object for support,after knowning through pressure or sense wht made
it grow towards to send its branches towards it
i mean what instructs their body to grow in that direction, is their
any article simple to understand, i am not from a biologcal background

 

[Pythagorean]

All multicellular life is a coordinated interaction of cellular networks. We developed a brain to specialize the information processing but neurons are ultimately just another class of cell.

 

[Ken Natton]

And, of course, you can turn the point around – not everything that your body does is controlled by your brain. Understand quite apart form the point that some actions are conscious and some are unconscious, but still controlled by the brain, there are plenty of actions by your body that are vital to your survival, vital to your development, but have nothing whatever to do with the brain.

 

[Pythagorean]

And, of course, you can turn the point around – not everything that your body does is controlled by your brain. Understand quite apart form the point that some actions are conscious and some are unconscious, but still controlled by the brain, there are plenty of actions by your body that are vital to your survival, vital to your development, but have nothing whatever to do with the brain.

and even cells that aren't your own can influence your brain!

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2982.2010.01620.x

 

[mishrashubham]

It is important to understand that control and coordination in a body does not always occur due to organs like brain. The simple movements that plants do (growing towards sunlight, towards gravity, towards water etc.) do not need to be quick. Animals have developed a nerve-brain-muscle system for a rapid response to stimuli. Plants on the other hand do not need this. If you are asking about the mechanism this might be useful.

http://bcs.whfreeman.com/thelifewire/content/chp38/3801s.swf

 

[thunkit]

thx a lot thanks so basically in a way even plants have a controler kind of thing(brain) but spreaded through its body

 

[Borek]

thx a lot thanks so basically in a way even plants have a controler kind of thing(brain) but spreaded through its body

Putting it this way is asking for troubles. There is no "controller kind of thing" in plants, there are many simple feedback (positive and negative) mechanisms that work completely separately and are in no way connected.

 

[Pythagorean]

Some could even argue the same about brains. A bunch of coupled feedback loops regulate the system according to the laws of nature.

But I wouldn't say they're "in no way connected". Just that they're not intelligently connected.

 

[Borek]

Problem here is that when we start to speak about "brain" and "thing" in plants not understanding what we are talking about, we are on the straight path to crackpottery and thinking plants. That's a dangerous direction.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

All cells co-ordinate with the cells surrounding them, a good example of this is when you cut yourself. The cells respond by sealing the wound, fighting infection, remodelling the area and eventually regenerating the tissue. The nervous system controls the body by relaying sensory information to the spine and brain where the subconscious and conscious decide on actions, mainly movement.

Plants don't have a nervous system by the cells still coordinate; a good way to think about it is to remember that cells are small sacks of chemical reactions. Some of these chemicals leak out to change the reactions happening in other cells, ultimately systems have evolved so that certain stimuli (i.e. light) alter the chemistry in a way that results in coordination.

 

[Pythagorean]

Problem here is that when we start to speak about "brain" and "thing" in plants not understanding what we are talking about, we are on the straight path to crackpottery and thinking plants. That's a dangerous direction.

my intention was to imply that a brain "thinking" independent of cellular interactions is crackpot (ie begs for a "soul").

 

[mishrashubham]

All cells co-ordinate with the cells surrounding them, a good example of this is when you cut yourself. The cells respond by sealing the wound, fighting infection, remodelling the area and eventually regenerating the tissue.

A very good example; notice here that the healing is in no way instructed by the brain. The cells in our blood are designed to respond to such situations automatically; they need not be controlled by something. Something similar also happens in plants.

 

[What_Is_X?]

I believe the cells of a plant's roots behave similar to those in our brain, and there are a similar number as well.

 

[Pythagorean]

I believe the cells of a plant's roots behave similar to those in our brain, and there are a similar number as well.

Interesting:

Root apices as plant command centres: the unique ‘brain-like’ status of the root apex transition zone
František Baluška, Stefano Mancuso, Dieter Volkmann & Peter Barlow
Biologia, Bratislava, 59/Suppl. 13: 1, 2004

http://ds9.botanik.uni-bonn.de/zellbio/AG-Baluska-Volkmann/plantneuro/pdf/NeuroPlantTZ-Biologia.pdf

 

[Pythagorean]

There's no need to be antrhopocentric about things like memory and decision-making:

Genes themselves can be viewed as associate memory
http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262290758chap40.pdf[/URL]

there's work investigating the molecular circuits for associative learning in single-celled organisms:
[url]http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/6/34/463.full[/url]

and decision-making from within the same complex:
http://www.nature.com/msb/journal/v5/n1/full/msb200983.html

We have subjective experiences as humans, that we're not sure if all other organisms have, but that's irrelevant.

When it comes to "thinking" (decision-making and working memory) it seems more crackpot to me to claim that humans are the only ones capable of it. Especially since the mechanisms at the neuroethological level (in terms of memory and learning) are essentially no different than the complicated molecular networks that make up all life.

 

[Borek]

When it comes to "thinking" (decision-making and working memory) it seems more crackpot to me to claim that humans are the only ones capable of it.

No doubt about it.

A lot depends on how we define "thinking" and what we decide to call a "brain" - there is whole spectrum of phenomena that have to be accounted for; I guess it is about as "easy" as defining "life" - discussions on the subject start again and again and they are never conclusive.

Unfortunately, most people ARE anthropocentric and when they say "brain" they see two wrinkled hemispheres and when they say "think" they imagine abstract analysis of facts. That's why I prefer to be very careful with wording.

Thanks for the links, interesting reading.

 

[Pythagorean]

Well yes, as a pedagogical approach we have to be careful. But I come from the other side of "being careful". If we imagine a spectrum with skepticism on one side and innovation on the other, our goal is to be the "moderate" in the middle. Of course, none of us can really be in the middle, and if we were really homogonized like that, we probably wouldn't get very far in science.

It's the social feedback network (to speak of feedback again) between peoples a little perturbed to either side of the middle that pushes science forward.

But I feel sometimes that the skepticism-leaning side is over-represented. And not just trivially. I think sometimes students that could have become inspired and innovated science are discouraged by emotionally intense words like "crackpot" (a word I think is flung around too loosely around here).

There's really no pedagogical reason to call things "crackpot". It's an emotionally-charged word that has little substance (whatever you mean by it, you can specifically say instead). I don't see it in peer-review papers, I don't hear high-quality lecturers use the word in classes unless they're specifically outlining a social behavior of scientists, (i.e. if you have watched Sapolsky's lectures I posted on Human Behavioral Biology, he describes two subcultures of scientist and how they practice such harsh skepticism of each other).

yet it seems to have slipped through the cracks as permissible ad-hominem on physicsforums. I don't mean to imply that you intended that way, but never-the-less, for all the ad-hominem attacks people are restricted from using, they find ways to focus them into permissible actions, especially when mentors happily oblige the behavior (benevolently or not).

If we can inspire people to become scientists in the first place, even if they have facts or philosophies that sound "crackpot", the overwhelming power of the "way of thinking" will eventually overcome those "crackpot" facts and philosophies... or, by chance, they'll turn out to be right.

Anyway, this is a long-due rant I've pent up over time. But I am bias; I think all teachers (and outreach administrators) should be required to learn about the psychology of learning and learning styles in general because once you really learn science, you have a different way of seeing things and you forget how it was to see the world before, and then by the time you're emiritis, neuroplasticity is so reduced that you haven't realized what's changed in science over the last 30 years. [/rant]

 

[Ygggdrasil]

The phenomenon of moving toward some sort of external stimulus is not even something specific to living systems (let alone those with brains). Chemists can create oil droplets that move toward regions of high pH (acidic regions). These droplets will move toward these regions even in a maze, giving them the ability to solve mazes by performing simple acid/base chemistry.

See https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=398898 for videos and a link to the scientific paper describing the droplets.

 

[Pythagorean]

A difference with life is that there are several temporal scales over which stimulus is responded to, from the ancient genetic memory up to the immediate working memory.

The system has built up a huge database of useful infomation (information that can do work) stored in the geometry/chemical potentials of molecules.

We humans have gone so far as to extenssively use our own environment as an extension of our memory and decision making (such as the example you provided or computer programs).

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Temporal, spatial and hierarchical! The body utilises the nervous system to store memories of previous sensory input and plan behaviour, chemistry to dictate workings at a molecular level and perhaps even quantum effects though in all the years I've worked in the life sciences I've never personally learned much of the latter

 

[Ouabache]

how do they sense light and lean or grow towards them?
a creeper tries to grasp a solid object for support, after knowing through pressure or sense wh(a)t made it grow towards to send its branches towards it.
I mean what instructs their body to grow in that direction, is their
any article simple to understand, i am not from a biologcal background

Welcome thunkit to PF forums! As you may have observed, there are many fascinating topics of discussion here. You probably also noticed there are lots of knowledgeable people here who share similar interests and are willing to share their thoughts.

Let me address one of the tropisms you mentioned. (You learned about tropisms in the article that mishrashubham referenced). The mechanism that allows vining plants (e.g. virginia creeper) to grow towards a supportive object and wrap itself around it, is called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thigmotropism" ).

 

[mishrashubham]

The phenomenon of moving toward some sort of external stimulus is not even something specific to living systems (let alone those with brains). Chemists can create oil droplets that move toward regions of high pH (acidic regions). These droplets will move toward these regions even in a maze, giving them the ability to solve mazes by performing simple acid/base chemistry.

See https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=398898 for videos and a link to the scientific paper describing the droplets.

Now that was amazing.

 

[Dremmer]

The vast majority of organisms on this Earth have no brain.

 

[Roysun]

in my point of view, humans and organisms are no different from anything which is matter because all is energy. and energy can take any form you see and know. energy forms our brain as well as plants and matter. But I am not sure if consciousness controls and creates energy like quantum physics might explain. I am not sure if everything is consciousness.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

in my point of view, humans and organisms are no different from anything which is matter because all is energy. and energy can take any form you see and know. energy forms our brain as well as plants and matter. But I am not sure if consciousness controls and creates energy like quantum physics might explain. I am not sure if everything is consciousness.

Yes we are made from matter, all matter interacts (energy). The emergent property of the interaction of our brain creates consciousness. The last two sentences of your post do not make sense

 

[JaredJames]

in my point of view, humans and organisms are no different from anything which is matter because all is energy. and energy can take any form you see and know. energy forms our brain as well as plants and matter. But I am not sure if consciousness controls and creates energy like quantum physics might explain. I am not sure if everything is consciousness.

What is it with people dropping "quantum" into everything? It's like listening to an advert for homeopathic remedies: "quantum energy healing stones - realign your inner chi using natural quantum fluctuations in the quantum atomic field".

Of course everything comes back to matter and energy, but that's completely separate to the issue of consciousness - as per ryan above.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

What is it with people dropping "quantum" into everything?

Totally agree! It drives me up the wall that people grab at buzzwords like quantum and nano and attach them to their ideologies to make them seem more legitimate when in actual fact they have little or no understanding of the science involved.

If you're sitting down here's a fun quantum link

EDIT: Link removed about Quantum jumping

 

[Borek]

If you're sitting down here's a fun quantum link

I have "unlinked" the link. I agree it is in a way an interesting thing, but we are not going to work on the site SEO.

 

[micromass]

in my point of view, humans and organisms are no different from anything which is matter because all is energy. and energy can take any form you see and know. energy forms our brain as well as plants and matter. But I am not sure if consciousness controls and creates energy like quantum physics might explain. I am not sure if everything is consciousness.

What does quantum physics have to do with anything. And what do you mean that consciousness creates energy? It makes no sense whatever...

And what do you mean "everything is consciousness"? Consciousness comes to existence through neuron interactions in our brain, it's nothing more than that. And consciousness does not travel "faster than light", like your other posts tells us. It is nonsense...

 

[thunkit]

thx for the info, i understood a lot from this. thanks a lot for the help