They have the knowledge and are doing something about it. If other plants can send out this chemical by observing it themselves, that sounds like a reaction from a communication. It may not be cognition like we expect but it is behaving like cognition would. Hard to argue that plants don't know or care of their friends start dying.
I'd argue that knowledge is more than that, otherwise books or state machines could also be said to know things.
This is why I don't eat books
epistemologists agree: knowledge is a justified true belief.
The plants are acquiring information and making an independent change to their status with this information. Books do nothing with knowledge other than communicate it to others. Machines are unable to make independent changes to itself unless programmed to do so.
They have the knowledge and are doing something about it. If other plants can send out this chemical by observing it themselves, that sounds like a reaction from a communication. It may not be cognition like we expect but it is behaving like cognition would. Hard to argue that plants don't know or care of their friends start dying.
I'd argue that knowledge is more than that, otherwise books or state machines could also be said to know things.
This is why I don't eat books
epistemologists agree: knowledge is a justified true belief.
The plants are acquiring information and making an independent change to their status with this information. Books do nothing with knowledge other than communicate it to others. Machines are unable to make independent changes to itself unless programmed to do so.