This idea is a tale for people who are stuck in stubborness.
It is to make one think that systems (of any kind) can be seen from more than one perspective. It's an attempt to foster empathy through an absurd (yet possible) idea.
There are many of those kinds of tales. Sometimes it does not work, the listener can't bring itself to be empathic to other point of view. Always worth a try though.
If I spend too long thinking about plant traits, I get caught up in the difference between traits useful in nature and traits useful for cultivation.
It has to have more instances of failing successfully than any other system. The most coveted plants are the ones that increased their reproduction by evolving deterrents to consumption. They contain irritants to specifically prevent animals from eating them. Those irritants have strong, often bitter flavors and occasionally go so far as to antagonize temperature receptors, yet we eat them specifically because of those irritants. It would be a huge failure if we were eating them in the wild, but because we cultivate them, they are now some of the most widespread and successful plants.
This idea is a tale for people who are stuck in stubborness.
It is to make one think that systems (of any kind) can be seen from more than one perspective. It's an attempt to foster empathy through an absurd (yet possible) idea.
There are many of those kinds of tales. Sometimes it does not work, the listener can't bring itself to be empathic to other point of view. Always worth a try though.
If I spend too long thinking about plant traits, I get caught up in the difference between traits useful in nature and traits useful for cultivation.
It has to have more instances of failing successfully than any other system. The most coveted plants are the ones that increased their reproduction by evolving deterrents to consumption. They contain irritants to specifically prevent animals from eating them. Those irritants have strong, often bitter flavors and occasionally go so far as to antagonize temperature receptors, yet we eat them specifically because of those irritants. It would be a huge failure if we were eating them in the wild, but because we cultivate them, they are now some of the most widespread and successful plants.
You are actually thinking in plant-animal interactions.
Maybe their goal is just to photosynthetize and grow and the bitter flavors and other products and interactions are not that important (for them).
I don't know. Maybe they're high tech time travelling solar panels and radiator systems sent back to prevent the early drying of the planet.
Can you think of plants outside of the traditional evolutionary paradigm, just for a while? That is the challenge of this idea.
See also: housecats