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The inclusion of Mycelium as a plant here is very triggering.
But the inclusion of Peter Wohlleben as a plant makes perfect sense?
It all depends on what you mean by “conscious”, which IMO doesn’t fall under “Maybe everything is conscious” because that’s wrongly assuming that “conscious” is a binary property instead of a spectrum that humans and plants are both on while clearly being at vastly different levels. Maybe I just have a much looser definition of “conscious” than most people, but why don’t tropisms count as a very primitive form of consciousness?
Personally, I’m more a fan of the binary/discrete idea. I tend to go with the following definitions:
- Animate: capable of responding to stimuli
- Sentient: capable of recognizing experiences and debating the next best action to take
- Conscious: aware of the delineation between self and not self
- Sapient: capable of using abstract thinking and logic to solve problems without relying solely on memory or hardcoded actions (being able to apply knowledge abstractly to different but related problems)
If you could prove that plants have the ability to choose to scream rather than it being a reflexive response, then they would be sentient. Like a tree “screaming” only when other trees are around to hear.
If I cut myself my body will move away reflexively, it with scab over the wound. My immune system might “remember” some of the bacteria or viruses that get in and respond accordingly. But I don’t experience it as an action under my control. I’m not aware of all the work my body does in the background. I’m not sentient because my body can live on its own and respond to stimuli, I’m sentient because I am aware that stimuli exist and can choose how to react to some of them.
If you could prove that the tree as a whole or that part of a centralized control system in the tree could recognize the difference between itself and another plant or some mycorrhiza, and choose to respond to those encounters, then it would be conscious. But it seems more likely that the sharing of nutrients with others, the networking of the forest is not controlled by the tree but by the natural reflexive responses built into its genome.
Also, If something is conscious, then it will exhibit individuality. You should be able to identify changes in behavior due to the self referential systems required for the recognition of self. Plants and fungi grown in different circumstances should respond differently to the same circumstances.
If you taught a conscious fungus to play chess and then put it in a typical environment, you would expect to see it respond very differently than another member of its species who was not cursed with the knowledge of chess.
If a plant is conscious, you should be able to teach it to collaborate in ways that it normally would not, and again after placing it in a natural environment you should see it attempt those collaborations while it’s untrained peers would not.
Damn now I want to do some biology experiments…
Conscious: aware of the delineation between self and not self
I don’t know whether this applies to plants and fungi, but it applies to just about every animal. There’s a minimum basic sense of self required in distinguishing one’s own movements from the approach of an attacker. Even earthworms react differently when they touch something vs when something touches them.
Yes most definitely, I’d imagine most animals are conscious.
In fact my definition of sapience means several animals like crows and parrots and rats are capable of sapience.
it could be several spectra and what we call consciousness is a series of multiple phenomena
I’m inclined to believe every dynamic interconnected system is “conscious” to some degree. Not 1:1 with human consciousness obviously, but the same base phenomenon.
The main problem is that there aren’t very good metrics to distinguish how primitive a consciousness is. Where do you draw the line between consciousness and reflex? Is each of your cells conscious in its own impossibly tiny way?
The line is it being a conscious effort.
Reflexes weren’t a conscious effort.
I think the big dividing line between what many animals do and what cells or plants do is the ability to react in different ways by considering stimuli in conjunction with memory, and then the next big divide is metacognition. I feel like there should be concrete words for these categories. “Sentient” and “conscious” have pretty much lost meaning at this point, as demonstrated by this discussion’s existence.
I will call them reactive awareness, decisive awareness, and reflective awareness in the absence of a better idea.
Cells are very diverse, though. Some can get over your first divide.
That’s not a problem. The idea is to define practical categories along the spectrum of consciousness so that they can be discussed without having to re-define terms prior to every discussion. There’s no reason any given organism should or shouldn’t fall into a particular category except for its properties directly regarding that category.
“Conscious” means being aware of oneself, one’s surroundings, thoughts, or feelings, being awake, or acting with deliberate intention, like a “conscious effort”. It refers to subjective experience and internal knowledge, differentiating from unconsciousness (sleep, coma).
It’s a spectrum, sure. But the spectrum is between ants and humans; not animals and plants.
It’s also worth noting that science can’t prove humans are conscious.
There’s a reason it’s called “the hard problem.”
It’s all a figment of my imagination after all
I will admit I get enjoyment from guiding pseudo intelligent down the path of discovering that absolutely nothing is real and for as far as we are able to detect everything may as well be the fever dream of a turtle.
Wouldn’t it be cool tho? You could go up to a tree that’s super old and ask it about the world, and it would take an entire day to spell a word in a language you don’t understand. And house plants would be chit chatting and making all kinds of noise inaudible to us, kinda like WiFi, but with sound instead of light. It’s like a fantasy setting
When I was a little kid my mother always stopped by ancient trees to admire them. “Imagine if it could tell us what it has seen”.
I think there’s plot material in your comment.
There is and it’s called The Lord of the Rings…
Gish gallop
A rhetorical technique in which a dishonest speaker lists a string of falsehoods or misleading items so that their opponent will be unable to counter each one and still be able to make their own counterpoints.I’d wish my plant scream when they need something so they would stop the fucking dying.
They do, you can’t hear it though.
Average omni trying to dismantle veganism by claiming that plants are conscious/sentient to justify eating animals
Just a little nitpick: vegans are omnivores too. Afaik, being omnivorous describes the biological ability to digest plant matter and meat. Voluntarily restricting ones diet for whatever reason does not remove this ability.
Fair enough
Yeah but they cry like babies when you call them carnists
Carnivores can digest plant matter too, and herbivores can digest meat.
Omnivore is a behavioural classification mostly. It means an animal (or person) that eats both plants and animals for energy.
So vegans are herbivores in practice, even though as a species humans are practicing omnivores.
That could literally be an alternate title for the bingo card, and is almost certainly the motivation for like 90% of the people who wish plants were conscious. And even if their flawed logic were true, it’s just more testament to how morally bankrupt they are. Because all they’re saying is “since we might be causing suffering on an incomprehensibly massive scale in this hypothetical case, that means it’s perfectly fine to also keep causing suffering on an incomprehensibly massive scale in this other case where it for sure is happening undeniably. Gotcha, vegan!”
Maybe everything is conscious
Straw man gish gallop
Ah yes, non-sequitur
Maybe the acid square should be Mimosa hostilis/Peyote instead to keep with the plant theme, but either way that one hits the hardest for me
Does this come up often?
Yes.
Groot
