Human Entities 2025: culture in the age of artificial intelligence
Ninth edition

Thur 5 June 2025, 6.30pm; book-signing session at 6pm
Planta Sapiens: Rethinking Intelligence in the Living World
Paco Calvo
Professor of Philosophy of Science, Principal Investigator of the Minimal Intelligence Laboratory (MINT Lab) at the University of Murcia (Spain)

Our conventional understanding of intelligence has long been shaped by human and animal models, leaving little room to consider the cognitive potential of plants. However, emerging research challenges this perspective, revealing that plants engage with their surroundings in ways that suggest problem-solving, flexible adaptation, and even anticipatory forms of behavior.In this talk, I will present key findings, exploring how plants process information, respond to stimuli, and coordinate their actions through sophisticated signaling mechanisms. Beyond the scientific discoveries, these insights prompt deeper philosophical questions. Why do we struggle to conceive of plants as more than passive organisms? What assumptions shape our tendency to separate the human from the nonhuman, intelligence from instinct, or agency from environment? Our conceptual and linguistic frameworks are often ill-equipped to accommodate the possibility that plants, too, participate in the web of cognition. By questioning these biases, we open the door to a more expansive and inclusive view of life; one that recognizes intelligence as a broader, more distributed phenomenon across biological systems. This shift in perspective not only deepens our understanding of plants but also challenges us to rethink fundamental ideas about mind, perception, and the interconnected nature of all living beings.

Paco Calvo
Professor of Philosophy of Science, Principal Investigator of the Minimal Intelligence Laboratory (MINT Lab) at the University of Murcia (Spain). His research interests range broadly within the cognitive sciences, with special emphasis on plant intelligence, ecological psychology and embodied cognitive science, robotics and AI. He uses time-lapse photography to explore perception-action and learning in plants. His scientific articles have appeared in Annals of Botany, Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, Frontiers in Neurorobotics, Frontiers in Robotics and AI, Journal of the Royal Society, Plant, Cell & Environment, Plant Signaling & Behavior, Scientific Reports, and Trends in Plant Science, among other journals. He is author of the popular science book Planta Sapiens ( 2023; with Natalie Lawrence).
https://www.um.es/mintlab/index.php/about/people/paco-calvo

Credits

Organised by ⁠CADA⁠ in partnership with ⁠Lisbon Architecture Triennale⁠

Programmed by Jared Hawkey/Sofia Oliveira with guest programmers: Andrea Pavoni, Lavínia Pereira and Olivia Bina.

CADA is funded by: República Portuguesa – Cultura / ⁠Direção-Geral das Artes

⁠Support: ⁠Câmara Municipal de Lisboa⁠; Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia – ⁠NOVA LINCS⁠; ⁠Instituto Ciências Sociais⁠, Universidade de Lisboa; ⁠DINAMIA’CET⁠ (ISCTE-IUL) and ⁠Faculdade Belas Artes⁠, Universidade de Lisboa

Art direction + graphic design: ⁠Emir Karyo⁠

Photography: ⁠Joana Linda⁠

Sound: ⁠Diogo Melo