Charles Darwin was convinced that plants possessed a similar level of intelligence to lower animals. He formulated the root-brain hypothesis, which postulated that the organ of intelligence in plants was the root meristem. Perhaps imbued with this conviction, he teamed up with the physiologist John Burdon-Sanderson and made the first measurements of electrical signals in plants. This facet of his work, however, fell into prolonged oblivion. Today, fuelled in part by advances in information theory and, more importantly, by the ethically motivated search for sentience in lower animals, there is a new interest in the cognitive characteristics of plants. At the same time, significant effort has been put into the development of plant electrophysiology, which is on the verge of providing important practical applications. We are therefore witnessing a lively dialogue between science and philosophy (and sometimes pseudoscience…) about the cognitive characteristics of plants. The aim of this meeting is to shed some light on the subject, although it may well raise more questions than answers.
Plants' Life. A Dialogue between Science and Philosophy
Vai realizar-se em Lisboa, nos dias 28 e 29 de junho de 2024, o 37.º Encontro do Seminário Nacional de História da Matemática.
Uma oportunidade única de conheceres e experimentares o ritmo e o espírito da vida académica!
O maior evento anual na área da ciência e da tecnologia em Portugal.
The topics of the conference include (but are not limited to) classical and quantum integrable systems, complex geometry of moduli spaces, automorphic forms and their applications to number theory.
Inscrição (taxa reduzida) até 20 de abril.
Escola de verão com um programa muito diversificado, com especialistas em vários tópicos, que vão falar sobre formas de olhar para o nosso planeta de uma forma integrada, juntando conhecimentos de várias disciplinas.
Are you a BSc or MSc student interested in Soft Matter, Non-linear Dynamics and Waves or Particle Physics?
Vem investigar connosco!
Um evento de reunião da comunidade nacional nas diversas vertentes da informática, com a ambição de ser o fórum de eleição para a divulgação, discussão e reconhecimento de trabalhos científicos.