Thinking Our Disruption

Buzz Submitted by : Ali Anani
Buzz: Disruption of Thinking

Powerful Buzz that utilizes Plants as a focal point about Disruption

When one is writing a buzz about plant brains and plant consciousness i.e. plants suffer pain, this is an especially highly disruptive buzz because as I have consequently found out, this raises unusually high levels of conflict within the scientific community, to the kind of extent one finds in the debates between those who believe in evolution and those who believe in creation.

My own discoveries in the last few days have seen me acknowledge the importance of plant science but not as a disruption but as an intelligence.  Our collective intelligence is raised with a more acute future focus on plant science and here I am not addressing any semantics about "plant intelligence". 

There is an unfortunate view in the scientific community that science must be rigourously defended against pseudo-science or bad science, and I get that - but when I look at the animosity shown to plant scientists, it is a turf war on terminology and the behaviour feels more akin to the protection of dogma and religious views, rather than scientific discourse.

Plants do have a richer existence then we presently understand or some would care to express, and this richness is present in Ali Anani's buzz and how he introduces plants as a disruptive topic.  He does say that plants do not have a brain to guide them but yet still engage in extraordinary activities that science is barely touched the surface of. 

What I discovered is that the single most controversial thinker in plant science is also the most fascinating individual I came across as a pure hot bed of disruption - his name is Stefano Mancuso - and while he has incurred the wrath of scientists in other fields, his thinking is compelling and very forward looking.My greatest takeaway is two fold, one is valuing the role of disruption but also in focusing on disruption in thinking, to seriously think about our disruption.  In order to innovate disruption is a necessary injection of change, but in order to appreciate science we need to close the door on disruptive behaviour - here disruption is about the process and not the person !!!   I have avoided linking to Stefano Mancuso's views on plant intelligence simply because I am noting him as a thinker and not the controversy others scientists have over the word intelligence.

At a milder level the role of Michael Pollan is someone I find highly relatable because he not only addresses views about plants but he has done tremendous work on the food we eat.  Pollan is another set of eyes that I consider to be highly 21st Century focused and this appeals to me. The way Michael Pollan looks at plants is the way Ali Anani has focused his approach with his buzzes - because he is drawing in relationships from science to inform our human perspectives ie. as Pollan says "looking at another species point of view is a cure for human self-importance".

As I absorbed videos and articles about plants, I had reached a point where disruption isn't and here I mean isn't necessary - and this is inculcating and appreciating beauty.  Here I accidently in searching came upon a Netflix documentary on Flowers.   The documentary makers name is Louie Schwartzberg, in the documentary he made about Forests below - it is a good example of his work.  When we get caught up in the Disruption of Thinking, we may only view Disruption rather than think about what is Non-Disruption and just as important where Disruption is not helpful and therefore allowing us to understand the consequences of our own thinking.

Louie Schwartzberg camera work is accompanied by different music composers, in the Forest film above the composer is Colin Farish.  My personal role in a buzz like the kind Ali Anani's is to think for myself, to think a.k.a. thinking about my own disruption or "our disruption", because where I disrupt thinking it is affecting someone else - but when I think that is not my intent, nor is it my call to action.  Whether people want to have fisticuffs over their science beliefs or religious logic is that individuals personal business, that does not mean that I ascribe to that way of reasoning.  Great to reason that way as a scientist but I am not a scientist,  I am one mind in 7 Billion, of which only 11 million have access to BeBee. 

I see now point in argument being a Disruption in Thinking because I want to see that person who is willing to argue with 7 billion citizens of this world.  What was reasonable and productive within a debating chamber is holy unrealistic when technology is bringing the world in, where everyone can voice an opinion, challenge a view or state a position.  My responsibility here is metacognition, to think about my own thinking.  Even the very paragraph that I have inscribed here.  I also know that I cannot use the terminology of MY here, because my thinking is OUR thinking.  OURS for all in this context is MINE as the thinker who owns that thought and is and never was different from that thought.  Thinking our disruption is our disruption of thinking. 

I have not quite finished with thinking on Disruption for I will take it to the next step which is as a part of my "Renaissance" process - a post on Disruption.

"