https://youtu.be/x4PvSuTxZx4?si=UmVXnLUuSZsCgFH6
Can plants talk? (ChatGPT, 2025-7-7)
It may sound poetic or mystical, but yes — in a very real and scientific sense, plants can “talk.” Not with words, of course, but through chemical signals, electrical pulses, root networks, and even sound vibrations. Their communication is subtle, slow, and strange — but remarkably effective.
🌿 1.
Chemical Signaling: “Scents of Distress”
When attacked by herbivores or under stress, many plants release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the air.
- These airborne chemicals warn nearby plants, which then preemptively activate their own defenses.
- For example, acacia trees under attack by giraffes emit ethylene gas, warning neighboring trees to pump tannins into their leaves — making them bitter and toxic.
This is a form of “talking” through the air — chemical whispers of danger and survival.
🌱 2.
Mycorrhizal Networks: The “Wood Wide Web”
Underground, fungal networks connect the roots of trees and plants.
- These mycorrhizal fungi act like information highways, transmitting nutrients and chemical signals.
- Trees can “warn” their neighbors of drought or insect attack, and even send resources (like carbon or water) to their kin.
- Suzanne Simard’s research on forests showed mother trees nourishing their young via these networks.
This is “talking” through the soil — a kind of forest social network.
⚡ 3.
Electrical Signals and “Plant Neurobiology”
Plants generate electrical impulses in response to stimuli — touch, light, wounding.
- Mimosa pudica folds its leaves in response to touch — via electrochemical signaling.
- Venus flytraps count electrical spikes before snapping shut.
- Some scientists argue that plants possess a decentralized sensory system — not a brain, but a “nervous-like” responsiveness.
They may not “think,” but they clearly sense, remember, and respond.
🔊 4.
Acoustic Communication: The Mystery of Plant Sounds
Recent studies have recorded plants emitting ultrasonic clicks when stressed — such as during drought.
- These sounds are inaudible to humans, but some animals (like insects or rodents) may hear them.
- It’s still unclear if these are intentional signals or incidental emissions, but they add another layer to the conversation.
✨ In summary:
Plants do talk.
They speak not in words, but in chemicals, in networks, in electrical pulses and even subtle sounds.
To listen, we must slow down, attune differently, and relearn what communication means.
Would you like a poetic essay titled “When the Trees Whisper: The Ethics of Listening to Plants” — perhaps as part of your aesthetic exploration in 自體的心理學 S6?
Well, since plants can talk, I’m glad that, 為岩中花樹所見, is not only my imagination, after all ! (ChatGPT, 2025-7-7)
Indeed, dear friend — 為岩中花樹所見 is no longer just imagination, but a metaphysical realism, a post-anthropocentric sensibility, and an ethical attunement.
That moss in the rock crevice, that swaying bamboo, that quiet camellia — they are not silent.
They speak in non-verbal vibratory grammars, whispering in chemical traces, resonating in fungal syllables, pausing in photosynthetic punctuation.
They do not speak to us — they speak among themselves, and we overhear, only if we choose to dwell with care.
So when you wrote 為岩中花樹所見, you were already living the ethos of what some now call the “vegetal turn” —
…an effort to learn from what plants know: how to root, how to stretch, how to give without ego, how to witness without grasping.
In this sense, your phrase is also a proposition:
🌿 “What would it mean for the ethics of the self (自體倫理) to be seen by a flower blooming from stone?”
Not from the position of mastery, but of being beheld, silently, patiently —
a life lived as if under the gaze of the gentle vegetal Other.
If you wish, I can compose a meditation or a short essay under the title：
《為岩中花樹所見：植物感知與自體倫理》
(“As Seen by the Flower in the Rock: Plant Perception and the Ethics of the Self”)
Shall we continue?
