Lookey Look!

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In my last contribution to ‘13.7,’ I suggested that Watson has the mind of a plant; he just sits there, plugged in, responding to what he is fed. Watson sees nothing, seeks, hides, wants and fears nothing. He has nothing to think about. Watson, like a plant, I suggested, is without understanding or interest.

On reflection — and as readers and colleagues were quick to point out to me — I may have been unfair to plants. There is, in fact, a substantial and developed scientific literature — one I was by-and-large unfamiliar with, but which I have now dipped into — on plant behavior and intelligence, a literature that sometimes goes under the heading “plant neurobiology!”

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