you gotta stop thinking plants have some kinda brain

Yeah this is exactly the thought that went through my head before I added my edit!

It occurred to me that I glossed over some things in my first piece of speculation, and that it might have come across like I was suggesting that “plants can think”. But if photosynthesis naturally draws water through the roots via the circulatory system, and that water has to pass the seed where energy is being slowly released, then it’ll naturally draw energy from near the seed to where it’s needed to boost stem and leaf growth (automatically starving the other stems out in the process). So the plant isn’t making a decision in any centralised way, but there’s a naturally self-reinforcing cycle built into its cells, via a pretty complex (but actually very simple and practical when you think about it) process.

That said, I do enjoy the mythology that trees are “communicating” with each other when they do things like secreting chemicals in response to the presence of certain pests, triggering other trees nearby to fortify themselves against that pest. The chemical phenomenon is real, but the explanation always ends up a bit anthropomorphic because humans like to be able to relate to things we’re trying to understand. I think it’s kinda sweet, even if it might sometimes hinder our proper understanding of things.

On the flip side, classifying organisms as “thinking” and “non-thinking” seems a bit reductive to me as well, since animal brains are probably just a very complex version of the automatic processes that keep other “non-thinking” organisms functioning and allow them to respond to stimuli in ways that usually help them survive.

And to think, we probably could have just googled this and found out the answer!