Is it possible to genetically modify a plant to become sentient?

The genetic changes made by the scientists to increase resistance to nuclear radiation had the side effect of turning some plant structures into an analogue to neurons. In addition, the scientists made genetic changes so that the plants would cooperate with each other using a shared root system, much like a giant fungus.

The unexpected side effect was that the individual "neurons" of each plant linked together to form a rudimentary "brain". The chemical process of communicating over acres of land instead of electrically over a few inches of gray matter slows down the thinking process, but it still evolved quickly to sentience. Since each plant contains relatively few "neurons", they function somewhat like a hive mind. As long as they are connected and large enough scale (perhaps an acre of plants linked together via the root system) they reach and maintain sentience. The humans don't realize that cutting off the fruit (a.k.a. harvesting pumpkins and melons to eat, which suddenly becomes a dangerous activity...) does not significantly alter the ability of the plants to think. Only cutting through the roots or killing large sections of the plants will have any measurable effect.

The plants certainly include plenty of sensors for light (via photosynthesis and other mechanisms), water, temperature and touch. As for how the plants can affect the environment, and those pesky humans, plants act on a much slower time scale than humans. But they are persistent and widespread. And not necessarily so slow - bamboo can grow 36" in one day! Plants have limited movement, but some, like the Venus flytrap have evolved to attack various creatures, and while the watermelons can't launch themselves on suicide missions by building catapults they can still do some damage using other techniques.

The gourds have similar modifications but somehow manage to communicate with humans, though getting through that challenge was a bit of a gourdian knot. The humans learn how to cultivate large-enough groups of gourds in greenhouses, isolated from the pumpkins & melons, in order to join forces.

While humans sleep, the creepy pumpkins keep creeping into human territory, destroying the human food supply, cracking foundations of buildings and generally wreaking havoc.

The worst attacks came the day after Halloween as the newly sentient pumpkins took revenge upon humans for mutilating their non-sentient cousins!

Of course, they are doomed to be squashed by the squash, and the humans are perplexed out of their gourd!

posted almost 7 years ago

manassehkatz‭ staff

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Speaking as a college professor that works in artificial intelligence, this is basically all impossible. Sentience would require some way for plants to both sense and "model" the world around them using abstractions. To the best of our current knowledge, that requires neurons, in large quantities, in order to think. We call those brains.

It is likely that something as small as a mouse has some sentience (self-awareness), several experiments indicate they do.

But for long-term planning of strategies like you speak of, the human brain is the only one we are aware of that is capable of that. I think your plants would need brains at least the size of a young human.

Now those neurons could be distributed through much of the plant, perhaps. But even then, it appears much of our own intellect was evolved in response to our ability to manipulate objects and things. Plants do not have muscles either.

By the time you give plants all the attributes they need to evolve sentience, they are no longer plants but animals!

So I would say no, it is not possible for plants to be accidentally mutated into any form that can have sentience to the scale that allows them to plan for the future.

posted almost 7 years ago

Amadeus‭

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