"First, I took an acid trip. Then I asked scientists about the power of altered states."
Illustration by Ian Mackay via The New Yorker
"In 'The Soul of an Octopus,' the naturalist Sy Montgomery compares scuba diving among sea creatures to taking LSD. 'I find myself in an altered state of consciousness, where the focus, range, and clarity of perception are dramatically changed,' she writes. In an e-mail, Montgomery told me that, while diving, she feels as if 'the mental experience of one species is no more real or valuable than any other.'
"When I wrote about the biologist Michael Levin, who studies electrical signals that instruct cells to become body parts, he told me, 'I look for cognition everywhere. In some places you don’t find it, but I think I see it broader than many people.'
"Maybe it does make sense to consider a tree’s intelligence." - Matthew Hutson
Article: How I Started to See Trees as Smart.