Do plants have green souls?
By Mark Renz
According to plant researchers S. Fornaciari and L. Arru, the plant Kingdom followed its own evolutionary path.
Nonetheless, say these researchers, plants originated from the same common ancestor and evolved following related mechanisms. Part of what we are able to identify and recognize in animals may also exist in plants. The problem is that we do not recognize it by first sight, since it comes from different paths, and it integrates in different systems, obeying different balance and function.
Fornaciari and Arru point out that in Rene Descartes' 1650 book, “The Passions of the Soul”, Descartes notes an important difference between animate and inanimate bodies. He postulated that the difference between them must be attributed to the soul, and that a single physical organ was the intermediary between soul and body. Descartes reasoned that the brain was the center of mental activity and the pineal gland was that single physical organ, because it is the only organ so close to the center of the brain, and for which there are not two separate sides.
Science may not be ready to proclaim proof of a soul or that it would be in the pineal gland if we have one, but Descartes' postulation may be worthy of further exploration.
No one knows of any counterpart to the pineal gland in plants, say Fornaciari and Arru, but it is known that melatonin and many other neurotransmitters that are typically human or animal, act constantly inside plants, regulating mechanisms and phenomena that, in many cases, we are still not able to detect.
(From “Hormones and neurotransmitter-like molecules interactions:
Introduction to a very preliminary study in plants.” – Fornaciari S, Arru L, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, as part of an international symposium called “Evolution in Communication and Neural Processing” on-line at http://www.geco.unimore.it homepage.
Two responses to above article:
"Its been seen through many studies that upon our approach to cut or break part of a plant, the plant will react extremely, as measured with light (kirlian) and magnetic instruments. Music, loving care, speech and touch have all been documented with plants as having direct effects on them. This demonstrates that they're more than alive and that they have soul or a consciousness that humans are only now beginning to understand." --Noreen Cullen
"Ok mark...no more cooking mushrooms from the pasture...of course they have souls.....you can even see them briefly...rising from the pot when you cook em. PS...how do you feel about the easter bunny ????? --Bill Byle
Of course, I get the last say since it's my web site:
"All sciences have their wackos -- some perceived, some real -- who leap beyond our known understandings of the Universe and make outrageous claims, often with flimsy or incomplete evidence. While they can be annoying, what I like about them is that they publicly force established scientists to double check and triple check their research. The result is that the science holds fast, or wobbly data is tightened, or the science completely falls apart and the wacko becomes the established scientist. In the end, we all benefit." -- Mark Renz
House of Nature (Paraphrased)
The wide house of Nature is built with many rooms, each having its own entrance. The physicist, chemist and biologist get in through different doors, each having his or her section of science and each thinking that this is his or her own property, separated from the others. From this house, the present division of the phenomena in organic, plant and conscious kingdoms belong. Such philosophical attitude of the mind lends itself to be denied. We must remember that all the investigations have the aim to reach knowledge in its entirety. – Sir JC Bose, (1858-1937)
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