Search
3 interviews · 10 quotes
Conversations
In this exclusive interview, we talk to Professor Stefano Mancuso, founder of the study of plant neurobiology, and co-founder of the LINV (the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology). We discuss the very…
What 190 conversations with the world's leading thinkers reveal about the nature of reality
What 190 conversations with the world's leading thinkers reveal about life's deepest questions
From the archive
Every plant has to endlessly sense and monitor a number of environmental parameters; and is constantly called upon to make decisions. This is not the place to list numerous cases of intelligence behaviour in plants, a huge volume of such examples can be found in scientific literature.
— Stefano MancusoPlant neurobiologist and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.
A nervous system is just a group of cells specialised in transmitting impulses from one to another. Ordinary plant cells can do this, albeit in a less efficient way. It is indisputable that there is no need of this "Holy Grail" of a nervous system to have the miracle of the transmission of electrical signals and communication.
— Stefano MancusoPlant neurobiologist and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.
In biology we are still in a kind of Ptolemaic era with man considering himself the centre of the universe.
— Stefano MancusoPlant neurobiologist and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.
Intelligence is the ability to solve problems. For me intelligence is a property of life. Even the most humble unicellular living organism must be intelligent to solve the problems of everyday life. Human intelligence is, for want of a better phrase, a degree of magnitude greater than the intelligence of a Paramecium or, better, of a Chlamydomonas; but the difference is just quantitative and not qualitative.
— Stefano MancusoPlant neurobiologist and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.
DNA is not life. A single chemical molecule has nothing to do with life. DNA is merely a storage system. Nobody would ever say that the "Divine Comedy" is the actual paper and ink on which one of its copies is printed, however many influential scientists have supported this nonsensical viewpoint.
— Stefano MancusoPlant neurobiologist and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.
Life is a masterpiece of complexity. We will never understand, in a near future, the extraordinary complexity of the simplest forms of life.
— Stefano MancusoPlant neurobiologist and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.
In biology we are still in a kind of Ptolemaic era with man considering himself the centre of the universe.
— Stefano MancusoPlant neurobiologist and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.
Human intelligence is, for want of a better phrase, a degree of magnitude greater than the intelligence of a Paramecium or, better, of a Chlamydomonas; but the difference is just quantitative and not qualitative.
— Stefano MancusoPlant neurobiologist and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.
Intelligence is the ability to solve problems. For me intelligence is a property of life. Even the most humble unicellular living organism must be intelligent to solve the problems of everyday life.
— Stefano MancusoPlant neurobiologist and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.
DNA is not life. A single chemical molecule has nothing to do with life. DNA is merely a storage system. Nobody would ever say that the 'Divine Comedy' is the actual paper and ink on which one of its copies is printed, however many influential scientists have supported this nonsensical viewpoint.
— Stefano MancusoPlant neurobiologist and founder of the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology.
More conversations
