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> The concept of pain is universal to any life form Plants respond to anesthetics, some can react to touch/electricity/heat with rapid movement(thigmonasty), t

> The concept of pain is universal to any life form Plants respond to anesthetics, some can react to touch/electricity/heat with rapid movement(thigmonasty), they can sense when they are being damaged, some can even display short-term memory. But do they feel pain? They have no pain receptors. They have no nervous system. They can feel pressure/vibrations, and even respond to it, but that's it.

Valmar 9y ago
Is a nervous system explicitly necessary to feel physical sensations? Why should we presume that a nervous system is necessary? They may have pain receptors that we haven't identified yet. Plants have consciousness... but it is quite different to animal consciousness, because their bodies are vastly different to our. I feel that we should presume consciousness, pain, emotions, etc, in all living beings, until most rigorously proven otherwise, because just because we may not understand non-human, non-mammalian or non-animal living beings as well as ourselves does not mean that they cannot experience whatever equivalents their consciousness, bodies or minds allow them to.
- red75prime 9y ago
  What basis do we have to call presumable feeling associated with negative stimulus "pain" and not "tingling" or "shame" or "irresistible urge to move away"?
  - Valmar 9y ago
    On what basis do we have to deny them being able to feel pain without having truly proven it or not?
    - red75prime 9y ago
      Because word pain loses any meaning then. You can't prove that your toilet bowl doesn't feel pain when you violate its homeostasis by flushing.
      - Valmar 9y ago
        Don't try to equate living beings with non-living things. Doesn't work. My argument is that all living things can feel pain, regardless of how it manifests for them.
        red75prime 9y ago
        It is not an argument. It is a statement. OK. What about short DNA fragments in a solution of DNA replicase. They are built from DNA, they are replicating, in a few billions years they can evolve, they aren't much more complex than a toilet bowl, undergrad molecular biology student can create them by billions.
kawsper 9y ago
A plant can't get away from a situation, so I am not sure that it would make sense for it to feel pain the same way that we do.
Joeri 9y ago
Whether or not plants feel pain is largely irrelevant. Humans have to eat plants, it’s not possible to make food (yet) without plants being in the chain. Even if plants feel pain, that makes it ok to eat them (unless we’re advocating mass suicide). Eating animals is trickier. You’re eating processed plants, so you’re still harming plants by eating them, but you’re harming an order of magnitude more plants (due to the inefficient conversion from plant to meat), and you’re harming animals as well. There’s therefore a very strong argument to be made that eating meat is immoral.

Valmar 9y ago

Is a nervous system explicitly necessary to feel physical sensations? Why should we presume that a nervous system is necessary? They may have pain receptors that we haven't identified yet. Plants have consciousness... but it is quite different to animal consciousness, because their bodies are vastly different to our. I feel that we should presume consciousness, pain, emotions, etc, in all living beings, until most rigorously proven otherwise, because just because we may not understand non-human, non-mammalian or non-animal living beings as well as ourselves does not mean that they cannot experience whatever equivalents their consciousness, bodies or minds allow them to.

red75prime 9y ago
What basis do we have to call presumable feeling associated with negative stimulus "pain" and not "tingling" or "shame" or "irresistible urge to move away"?
- Valmar 9y ago
  On what basis do we have to deny them being able to feel pain without having truly proven it or not?
  - red75prime 9y ago
    Because word pain loses any meaning then. You can't prove that your toilet bowl doesn't feel pain when you violate its homeostasis by flushing.
    - Valmar 9y ago
      Don't try to equate living beings with non-living things. Doesn't work. My argument is that all living things can feel pain, regardless of how it manifests for them.
      - red75prime 9y ago
        It is not an argument. It is a statement. OK. What about short DNA fragments in a solution of DNA replicase. They are built from DNA, they are replicating, in a few billions years they can evolve, they aren't much more complex than a toilet bowl, undergrad molecular biology student can create them by billions.

kawsper 9y ago

A plant can't get away from a situation, so I am not sure that it would make sense for it to feel pain the same way that we do.

Joeri 9y ago

Whether or not plants feel pain is largely irrelevant. Humans have to eat plants, it’s not possible to make food (yet) without plants being in the chain. Even if plants feel pain, that makes it ok to eat them (unless we’re advocating mass suicide). Eating animals is trickier. You’re eating processed plants, so you’re still harming plants by eating them, but you’re harming an order of magnitude more plants (due to the inefficient conversion from plant to meat), and you’re harming animals as well. There’s therefore a very strong argument to be made that eating meat is immoral.