Everything that lives, lives not alone, nor for itself. —William Blake

 

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Much of Earth’s life moves and communicates on a time scale 

humans cannot hope to comprehend. 

—Mose Feldenkrais

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The plant that directs its growth tendency to the light does not understand the arithmetic of wavelengths; it simply perceives light as good in the form of a positive affection. 

Today’s botanists have used ingenious experiments to confirm the subjectivity of plants. They observed that identical plant clones — multiple vegetative twins whose DNA sequences are identical to the letter — behave differently, even though room temperature and substrate moisture are the same. They are clones, but their bodies unfold into individual shapes. They individually choose between different options.

Every sprout has its own preferences. Each is an individual, not simply an automaton carrying out a genetic blueprint. 

Intelligence, according to the meaning of the Latin verb intelligere, means to be in between, to be able to choose. It signifies the ability to make a decision, and hence the judgment of a distinct self for whom a choice means something — survival, growth, flourishing. In this sense intelligence and life are one and the same thing.


—Andreas Weber
The Biology of Wonder, excerpts

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