top of page
Search

Two talks last year: attention in plants and extended cognition

Writer's picture: André Geremia PariseAndré Geremia Parise

2025 has just begun, and I’m still processing everything that happened last year. It was quite an intense year, both personally and professionally. Several good things happened. Among them, we received generous funding from the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation in the United States to explore the electrical signalling of fungi and mycorrhizas. We’ve already started this promising work!


I also had the opportunity to share some insights about research into plant attention, an intriguing electrophysiological phenomenon we are investigating with the LACEV team at the Federal University of Pelotas, as well as about the extended plant cognition hypothesis, which is the central thread of my PhD here at the University of Reading. Fortunately, some of these talks were online and are available on YouTube.


The first one took place in May, when I shared the digital stage with Isis Brook to talk precisely about the phenomenon of plant attention. We participated in a virtual seminar for the Gifts from the Sentient Forest project, organised by Francis Joy and John C. Ryan, along with the Kone Foundation, the University of Lapland (both in Finland), and the Southern Cross University (Australia). The link to this video can be found below:



Later, towards the end of the year, I had a very interesting conversation with Prof. César Marín from the University of Santo Tomás (Chile) about the extended cognition of plants. This conversation was recorded for the YouTube channel of the South American Network for Mycorrhizal Research, What We Are Reading. The link to this video is also below:



The latter video includes Spanish subtitles.


So, I’ve compiled these two videos into this post to save them in one place, making it easier for those interested in the topic to find them. I believe the study of intelligence (or, as I prefer to say, cognition) in nature is very important for understanding the extent to which this phenomenon is present in the natural world. Furthermore, it can help us comprehend different forms of cognition and intelligence—not only ours but also those of other life forms we might eventually encounter on other planets. I also enjoy reflecting on the ethical implications that this kind of study will have in the future. However, we need to study more, and that’s exactly what I’ll be doing this year. I hope to bring updates here soon.

Recent Posts

See All

Comentarios


Folhas tropicais

André Geremia Parise

MSc in plant physiology | UFPel

BSc in biological sciences | UFSC

andregparise@gmail.com

© André Geremia Parise
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
bottom of page