What mechanism enables them to do math?
Answers (4)
Math is nothing more than a specialized case of human logic. At one time math and physics were considered to be the same subject. Then about 1932 a fellow named Goethe (German named pronounced "gerta") proved that you can not prove any system from within the system. IOW you can not use math to prove that something is true. You can only prove that it does not contradict itself.
If you suggest that plants do math, you have to establish that they do logic. But any such proof is easily shown to be nonsense, because everything a plant does is the ONLY thing it can do. There is no logic involved.
Thank you. I also forgot the name of the book, and you jogged my memory. It's "Goedel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid".
PLANTS use a complex process called photosynthesis to extract energy from sunlight to create food. Studies on certain species have revealed that they perform yet another feat—they calculate the optimum rate at which to absorb that food overnight.
Consider: By day, plants convert atmospheric carbon dioxide into starch and sugars. During the night, many species consume the starch stored during the day, thus avoiding starvation and maintaining plant productivity, including growth. Moreover, they process the stored starch at just the right rate—not too quickly and not too slowly—so that they use about 95 percent of it by dawn, when they start making more.
The findings were based on experiments on a plant of the mustard family called Arabidopsis thaliana. Researchers found that this plant carefully rations its food reserves according to the length of the night, no matter whether 8, 12, or 16 hours remained until dawn. Evidently, the plant divides the amount of starch available by the length of time remaining until dawn, thus determining the optimal rate of consumption.
Goethe was the German prince of poets. The guy you are talking about was Kurt Goedel.