Plants and sentience/pain

[Hazel]

Interesting. I tend to believe that other animals, unlike plants, are self-aware in much the same way humans are. I.e. I have no proof they are or aren't, just like I have no proof really that everyone else in the world is or isn't just a product of my mind, so why not give everyone the benefit of the doubt?

 

[Gov Kodos]

Interesting. I tend to believe that other animals, unlike plants, are self-aware in much the same way humans are. I.e. I have no proof they are or aren't, just like I have no proof really that everyone else in the world is or isn't just a product of my mind, so why not give everyone the benefit of the doubt?

Including the plants in that benefit?

Besides...

We are a product of your mind. Did you really think reality was mad enough to produce TNZ?

 

[2takesfrakes]

If Humanity went extinct without it affecting the rest of the planet, it's fairly $afe to assume that the rest of Life of Earth would breath a collective sigh of relief. As for pain being able to be expressed in any other way besides neurological, I can't pretend to know that, I am an artist, not a biologist. But the easily digestible information that's out there seems to suggest that the one and only path to pain is through a brain. And despite laws protecting everything from endangered species to household pets, there's still this stubborn attitude out there that animals AND plants are just there for Human use - and that's it. It's never really going to go away, entirely, no matter what we find out about pain or what it takes for something - or someone - to experience it. As long as a spin could be put on the data, there will always be a pot somewhere with a crab or vegetables being boiled alive in it ...

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Keep in mind the difference between sentience and sapience. The initial question got it right. There is no way in hell plants are sapient. Do they have awareness of their surroundings? It seems the answer is that they do in only the very most rudimentary way. They don't seem to have the capacity to experience fear or anguish or anything of that sort. Pain might be a different question if they do react to threatening stimuli. I would imagine, without any cognitive ability, pain would be redundant (I expect the reaction to be more automatic and mechanical than it is with other living creatures).

I think the question can be divorced from ethical questions. Although it will certainly influence the answers to those questions, that's answer still needs to be informed by all the facts so we gain nothing by saying "no" solely because we don't want to have to deal with the other question. That being said, I voted no. I put it down as intuition because I haven't read this much in depth, but, like sentience, my answer is closer to being on a continuum as well.

 

[Finn]

But what is sentience, other than an appeal to a soul? That is to say, humans are intrinsic unique for that quality, yet under investigation falls apart. Humans are much more sophisticated in their ways of reacting to the environment, but not unique in any of those ways from other life on the planet.

You aren't getting it. Self-awareness is very rare in nature, even among mammals and primates. Without self-awareness, there wouldn't be any consciousness.

You seem to be treading pseudoscience by playing with "what ifs" or "Different forms of stimuli".

No, I find self-awareness just another way of positing a soul without saying so or demonstrating it. Humans are more sophisticated than other animals and plants in reacting to their environment. How humans differ from other life on the planet is more a matter of scale rather than kind as I see it. In other words, the differences that create the choice in the OPs opening post is one of philosophy rather than science. My understanding of the difference between plants and animals as a matter of science is trivial. Where the term sentience comes in I see sentience as a philosophical term. Something that one can posit in the abstract but is nigh on impossible to support as a thing of empirical fact.

Defining sentience is done much like Justice Potter Stewart's definition of Pornography, folks know it when they see it even though they can't define it. Perhaps sentience is better described as an ability to delude oneself to the reality of the cosmos as uncaring and unthinking, and that wishful thinking is a suitable alternative to anything else.

I. do. not. see. sentience. as. a. philosophical term.

I'd have no business being a science teacher if I did.

 

[JarodRussell]

We can't deny nature. We have to eat. If we resolved to designate plants as thinking, feeling creatures that it's cruel of us to consume, what then? We all have to become breatharians?

Just out of principle, I don't think such a concern should ever stop us from re-evaluating our situation. We'd be denying a legitimate claim of living, sentient and sapient beings just because it doesn't suit us?

If at some point we'd manage to prove that all the plants and animals we slaughter and eat are in fact sentient and sapient, and we'd have the technical means (we are working on them already), we should replace them with artificial food.



I don't get the analogy of the definition of sentience with the definition of pornography. Definition of pornography clear as day.

 

[Set Harth]

Self-awareness is very rare in nature, even among mammals and primates.

That's a myth.

 

[Finn]

No it's not. Majority of organisms aren't self aware. God, I hope not.

 

[JarodRussell]

It kinda is. Even if you can teach them talk and they say "I think, therefore I am", people can still deny it, claiming it's just an elaborate process, but not true consciousness. Applies for plants, animals, computers.

 

[2takesfrakes]

This is slightly off topic, I either read, or was told, or taught, that at the cellular level, trees were not really a single creature, but a symbiosis of some kind of bacteria and plant, or something like this. So I looked it up and I couldn't find anything about that, so I'm guessing I "dreamt" it. But I wasn't too far offbase, as it turns out. My minimal amount of online "research" did reveal this:

http://microbes.org/microscopic-worlds/symbiotic-microbes

Fungi and Plants

Fungi and plants form mutually-beneficial relationships called mycorrhizal associations. The fungi increase the absorption of water and nutrients by the plants, and benefit from the compounds produced by the plants during photosynthesis. The fungus also protects the roots from diseases. Some fungi form extensive networks beneath the ground, and have been known to transport nutrients between plants and trees in different locations.

Fungi and plant roots form two different kinds of associations. In one type, the fungus grows outside the roots as a thick mat, or between certain cells in the root. The fungus, however, never enters any of the plant cells. With the other type of association, the fungus actually penetrates the cell walls of the roots. They break through the cell wall, but not the inner plasma membrane. In both types, the fungus extends its filaments outward to collect nutrients and water from the soil, which are in turn passed onto the plant.

 

[Mudd]

There's no real scientific definition of sentience; it is, as has been said, a philosophical term. It implies the ability to experience sensation and, usually, awareness of some kind. Plants may "experience sensation;" they respond to stimuli.

Who knows, all matter may have some degree of awareness - kind of an open question, since that's not a particularly scientific term either.

 

[scotpens]

I don't get the analogy of the definition of sentience with the definition of pornography. Definition of pornography clear as day.

Actually, that's true. Pornography can be objectively defined as "sexually explicit material intended to create sexual stimulation or arousal." Justice Potter Stewart's famous quote was in reference to obscenity, which is defined as whatever the law says it is.

Keep in mind the difference between sentience and sapience. The initial question got it right. There is no way in hell plants are sapient.

That's what you think.

BWAHAHAHA!

 

[Relayer1]

I hope not. I've got to eat something...

 

[Hazel]

Interesting. I tend to believe that other animals, unlike plants, are self-aware in much the same way humans are. I.e. I have no proof they are or aren't, just like I have no proof really that everyone else in the world is or isn't just a product of my mind, so why not give everyone the benefit of the doubt?

Including the plants in that benefit?

Nope. Screw those leafy bastards.

I'm not going to pretend that my opinion isn't a rationalization, but it goes like this:
Are far as we currently know, particular elements - like a central nervous system and a certain type of brain - are required for thought, self-awareness and pain response
Plants do not have these elements, and indeed having them would be an odd evolutionary response
Ergo, I'm gonna eat me a potato tonight

Besides...

We are a product of your mind. Did you really think reality was mad enough to produce TNZ?

The horror.......I look upon what my mind has wrought, and I despair.

 

[urbandefault]

If I told my wife that I can't cut the grass because it feels pain, she'd whack me with a frying pan. "Is it worse than that?" she'd ask, while ordering me to not bleed on the good towels.