Can you ‘program’ even animal neurons?

The trees are slow. They stand in place, a dim flicker of all that is mobile passing mostly unheeded all around them, breathing in new wood from the air all around them. They grow with their brothers, all in a family, dignified and tall. With rare exceptions, nothing that comes can disturb them from their quiet contemplation.

The drips of sap that they emit contain individual thoughts. An imagined scenario, a wish, a memory, a love or a hatred. They are easy to make, ephemeral, and unnoticed if they are removed.

A slug of resin may contain a useful memory; someone with the right type of abilities might hold it in their hand and concentrate, and discover what the landscape was like a hundred years before, or the source of an ancient injury to the tree. Or, they might learn nothing but develop a sudden bitter hatred for hoofed animals that eat leaves, or fly into a violent rage and attack a woodcutter with intent to kill.

For small amounts, what is contained in the resin is unpredictable, and so to use this productively is difficult. Someone with a desperate need to learn things the tree knows might hack out a hole and collect a full bucket, then concentrate for quite a long time and come away with (a) a deep knowledge of what they needed to know (b) a set of queer actions and beliefs which do not fade quickly, if at all.