Relationship Between Life Systems and Music [Technology] - Part II
Around 20 years ago, Kathleen Harrison a ethnobotanist, described the worldviews of the indigenous shamans and plant people she worked with in the Amazon, during a Bioneers conference. She said the following
“Everything is vibrantly alive in the same way we feel we are. Every single species has eyes with which it sees the world and it sees as legitimate and truer version of the world as we see. Every species has a song, it’s part of an encyclopedia on the sonic level, in the same way seeds are on another level. As a species, it has a vast set of relationships, to all the others in its world and to its ecosystem. These plants are allies to each other.Theyre also not allies. Its a net of species that are communicating, and we are each just beads on a net. In these traditions, the spirit resides in the species and every species will speak to you in the same way, from the same source. Take away your identifying mind and just see the spirit in the plants”.
— Kathleen Harrison
One could say that over the last 20 years there has been several changes in the paradigms of science and its worldviews, specially in the field of vegetal biology.
All these scientific discoveries in botany have changed their view from inert mechanisms to thinking living organisms, animated with intelligence and consciousness. As Mancuso said, they can solve problems, learn, communicate and have intentions.
Another great scientist that inspired my work is Monica Gagliano Research Associate Professor in Evolutionary Ecology at the University of Western Australia. She has deepen in the studies of plant cognition to confirm that they are indeed sentient organisms. She is also a pioneer in the field of Plant Bioacoustics (Plants do make sounds, plants have a song).
She has was able to combine the objectivity of the scientific methodology in order for such studies comply with the parameters and requirements, with the subjectivity of pure intuition and transcendental experience.
She talks about imagination, about this being the mere fact of creating images of something. Imagination as the ability of our mind to dream about our world. The problem is imagination in Science, ¿right?, there is no such a thing of imagination in science. There is a tendency to dismiss it or to remove relevance in such approach of Imagination in science, strongly restricted by the scientific method. This mindset leaves aside the importance of imagination in the construction of knowledge through science.
As Monica describes “Science describes a world deprived of imagination then you are describing humans and the rest of nature as a systems of cog wheels, and suddenly those parts are replaceable, or became worthless”.
Why is Imagination idea so scary for science? is it because of Chaos? due to our tendency to control everything due of our environment? Maybe because we have been trained these way since we are kids.
To Darwin imagination is the faculty that enables us to create results and opportunities we are all looking for. Imagination represents meaning, embodied in ourselves. We feel it, we have it.
Imagination does guide action and adaptive behavior, and innovative solution for our current circumstances. I had the opportunity to experience with visionary plants and must say that what Monica describes resonates tremendously with my experiences. She unites plants and indigenous knowledge. They affirm that the pants itself taught them most of the things they know. They are able to perceive sound and vibrations among others a field which Monica is having groundbreaking results Plant Bioacoustics.
So based on her experiences with indigenous people and their knowledge, she decided to test this through the scientific method. To test the cognitive abilities of plants, learning and memory (Psychology - Human cognition - then animals / machines).
For many psychologists this field requires brains and neurons, this are the key. If you do not have this element, then you are excluded.
Mimosa pudica as we have seen moves really fast once tapped or touched. She learned really fast and remembers.
She later experimented with Pisum Sativum (Pea) that showed higher cognitive level. By exposing it to blue light the plant would tend to move towards the light source this is instinctive. Then she decided to find a neutral cue to trigger the response. Same as pavlov where the bell predicts the arrival of food, so then the bell produces the salivation of the dog. What is relevant from the dog experiments :
- The dog is evaluating whats happening in its environment based in its value system.
- The value system is subjective, so there is a subject that makes decisions based on feelings and experiences connected to the cues.
- By salivating to the bell, the dog he is extending the information to the environment. Food is a concept in the dog, the dog is Imagining dinner.
She decided to start a fan everytime she turned on the blue light in order to create a conditioned reaction.
After a while, just by turning on the fan, the pea would move towards the blue light without any blue light being turned on.
This means as the same pavlov, the plant is evaluating the environment based on a value system. There is someone there that based in this systems decides and makes decisions based on experiences and perception. And then the plant is imagining the food arriving by being exposed to the fan.
This study disrupted the linear thinking that if you don’t have a brain or neurons you arent intelligent or have a system value to solve problems and make decisions.