Coherence Without Cognition: Distributed Agency in Plants, Ecosystems, and the Biosphere

Recent findings in plant mechanosensing, calcium signaling, and ecosystem feedback dynamics challenge neuron-centric definitions of intelligence and agency. This preprint proposes a substrate-independent definition of agency as directed persistence under constraint, and demonstrates that plants, forests, and coupled biosphere-scale systems satisfy this criterion without requiring centralized control, symbolic representation, or consciousness.Evidence is synthesized from plant vibrational sensing, distributed ion-channel signaling, mycorrhizal nutrient allocation, and Earth-system regulation to show that agency emerges naturally from multi-scale coherence and constraint balancing. Collapse phenomena are reframed as phase transitions that restore systemic coherence rather than failures of control.This framework provides a unifying lens for plant behavior, ecosystem resilience, and biosphere stability, with implications for ecological ethics, artificial intelligence, and sustainability science. Intelligence is reinterpreted not as computation by discrete agents, but as resonance-maintaining dynamics distributed across matter, time, and feedback.