Day 259: Its all about Perspective - Plants are alive

 

We tend to find it difficult to put some things in perspective. For example: Just how far is it to the Moon? The distance from the earth to the moon is about 384,400 km. When you look at a number like that its hard to imagine how far that is. Its like traveling around the world 9 times. Or you can look at it like this: You can fit all the planets (including Pluto) between the earth and the moon. Like this:

 

      

                                               Puts things in perspective

 

Now we all the know that plants are living things. They grow and they die, but there is allot more to it. when you walk towards a plant in the grass and it looks like you might step on it, the plant reacts. It knows you might step on it and it really doesn't want that. There has been plenty of research on this point.

A cabbage was hooked up to machines to measure any sort of reactions. They took another cabbage and started cutting it up in pieces, what they found was that the veggie reacted to this event. Even more interesting is that whenever that same person walked into the room - the plant would react. Another study showed that a plant is aware of itself being eaten by a caterpillar for example.

What does this all show us? Firstly that we do not yet know the extent to which plants are aware. When you step on grass it "feels" it. When you cut a tree down or pluck fruit the tree is aware of this. Even the fruit we eat are alive.

We tend to see things based on our perception - meaning we look at plants and trees and cut them down. We do not hear a scream of pain or see any kind of reaction and from that we believe the tree is not actually aware, but the fact is that its aware.  Plants and trees are living things. 

 

Puts things in perspective...