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Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
- glenstein 9y agoComplex exchange of information and response to your environment is fascinating, and should be appreciated. But if we're calling that consciousness, we've watered down the term to the point that it's just a loose metaphor for virtually any kind of complex biological mechanisms. This really shouldn't even be a debate. It's the special kind of wrong that ought to be embarrassing, like when people equate consciousness to quantum weirdness.
- pygy_ 9y agoProvided there are single cell organisms with eyes[1], and transcription factors form DNA-based activation/inhibition networks conceptually indistinguishable from neuronal networks, debating whether plants have subjective experience ("a view from the inside" doesn't necessarily implies visual information) is totally on the table. Whether those organisms experience anything we can relate to is another matter though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocelloid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocelloid
- glenstein 9y agoPhotoreceptivity isn't consciousness. "View from the inside" wasn't a mere reference to vision. And I would hope that the structural differences between DNA and brains are clear enough that they wouldn't have to be debated in a serious conversation.
- mikro2nd 9y agoI believe that at this point it's worth drawing a distinction between "consciousness" and "self-awareness"/"self-consciousness".
- pygy_ 9y agoPlease stop with the "serious convesation" FUD. Structural differences are no barrier to functional equivalence. Transcription factors are proteins that activate or inhibit the transcription rate of other genes, including those of other transcription factors. They do form complex regulation networks that are isomorphic to neural circuitry. Edit: re. ocelloid, I know you didn't literally mean vision. The structure of the retinal body and adjacent organelles suggests that it is more than a focused, single pixel cam that would be used for simple phototropism, which implies that it is tied to a more complex processing apparatus.
- trisimix 9y agoWhat
- dang 9y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? You've done it a lot and we eventually ban such accounts. Of course you're welcome to contribute if you want to use HN as intended. It works like this: when you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; when you don't, please don't comment until you do. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- goldenkey 9y agoIs the planet conscious but on a time scale that we are out-of-touch with? Plants are just an order of magnitude quicker to react but still much slower than needed to make us care. The truth is, we associate speed with intelligence, it's natural for us. We even have the word "slow" to mean stupid. It's possible we will eventually have a super intelligence able to craftily manipulate matter at the highest ability -- but will still be as slow as a turtle. If it builds shields and preventative measures to compensate for its' slowness, I think we'd consider it a superintelligent species -- slow or not.
- perl4ever 9y agoRegarding speed and intelligence, I found an interesting article (while searching for something else): It's titled "Smart People Really Do Think Faster" and says the speed of nerve impulses in the brain's white matter correlates to intelligence. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102169531 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102169...
- whatshisface 9y agoI think we might just have to, out of philosophical desperation, define "murder" as a set containing A. the irreversible termination of any economically useful self-directing information processor and B. acts that desensitize our inborn resistance to doing A. The first covers not killing other healthy adults/sentient robots, and the second covers not abusing animals or euthanizing anybody. As far as my gut says that's all you really need out of an ethical system, right? If I had to assign an evolutionary purpose to why we hate animal abuse so much, it would probably be that whenever the "don't torture squirrels" circuit fails homicide is not far behind.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- dzuc 9y agohttp://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/USAconscious.htm http://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/USAconscious.htm
- rubyfan 9y agoGreat, they’ve ruined vegetarianism.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoWe have known for years that plants give off a pulse ("scream") when assaulted, communicate chemically etc. I have said for years that the idea that eating plants is morally superior because they aren't sentient is basically speciesist, for lack of a better word.
- jopsen 9y agoWell, I would argue that eating animals is morally superior to cannibalism :) So why can't eating plants be morally superior to eat animals.
- DoreenMichele 9y agoI would argue that there are lots of valid reasons to eat lower on the food chain, many of which can be framed as having a moral impetus. But the idea that it is morally superior based on plants being stupid is repugnant to me. It opens the door on questions like "So, is it okay to eat mentally retarded people?" Some moral arguments I can agree with: A mostly plant based diet is less resource intensive. Since most wars are about scarcity of resources, eating less meat is voting against war in a tangible way. It is about promoting peace globally. There are health benefits to eating less meat. Meat is very water intensive. Water shortages are a big deal globally at the moment. There are no doubt others. Just quick and dirty off the cuff thoughts.
- everdev 9y agoOr for me: I should only eat something that I am willing to kill, clean and cook myself. When we pass the important moral test of killing an animal to someone else or a factory I think we lose touch with the decision we're making.
- murukesh_s 9y agoRemembering reading about the work done by Jagadish Chandra Bose: "He researched the mechanism of the seasonal effect on plants, the effect of chemical inhibitors on plant stimuli and the effect of temperature. From the analysis of the variation of the cell membrane potential of plants under different circumstances, he hypothesised that plants can "feel pain, understand affection etc." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose
- drieddust 9y agoYeah its amazing that his research is completely forgotten perhaps too conveniently.
- dTal 9y agoNot that amazing, given that it's never been successfully been replicated and quite likely to be bunk.
- drieddust 9y agoDo you have any references? Wikipedia suggests the opposite. I do not find anything wrong with new research but presenting it as groundbreaking is laughable. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose [2] https://doi.org/10.1038%2F360062a0 https://doi.org/10.1038%2F360062a0
- Ascetik 9y agoNot in the same sense that we are. If you go by the Aristotelian and Platonic hierarchy of nature then we know that they are life forms by the fact that they are animated insofar as the metabolic process is concerned. They sedated the metabolic process. It's sort of like when you are hopped up on drugs in the hospital and not moving, you require much less caloric intake because you're expending less energy, similar to that I would suspect.
- codeisawesome 9y agoThey mention that sedating bacteria can cause them to “pause” as well. Are bacteria considered conscious?
- taneq 9y agoPutting a strong magnet next to my old mechanical watch causes it to "pause" too. Clearly I'm sedating it.
- has2k1 9y agoIf you buy into Pansychism [1], bacteria are very conscious. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism
- pygy_ 9y agoTranscription factors are proteins that activate or inhibit genes, including the genes of other transcription factors. They form complex regulation network isomorphic to neuronal networks. It looks like consciousness arises from what the brain does (processing information), and that DNA can do the same thing, so... why not?
- taneq 9y ago> “Plants are not just robotic, stimulus-response devices,” said Frantisek Baluska I don't see how this follows from the finding that sedatives can prevent plants from responding to stimuli. It just means that there's a shared mechanism behind plants' responses and animals' responses, which wouldn't be overly surprising. Of course, that doesn't mean that plants don't have a lot more going on than we usually realise, just because it happens at timescales so much longer than ours. There's all sorts of cool stuff happening in rainforests with cooperation/competition between plants.
- gowld 9y agoThe correct statement is "Plants are less [more like robotic, stimulus-response devices than people are] than previously assumed."
- omeid2 9y agoThe hard question is, how large is the spectrum between Robotic and Conscious and at which point it is reasonable to suspect Consciousness?
- pharrington 9y agoSpectrum? Between? The hard thing is to be less reliant your assumptions and start figuring out what to start measuring. edit: s/ditch/be less reliant on/ edit2: even that's not quite right; the derivative I'm reaching for is first testing the validity of your assumptions
- Franciscouzo 9y agoFor all I care humans are "just robotic, stimulus-response devices".
- make3 9y agoI mean I also have a physicalist materialist view of the world but that's exaggeratedly simple
- ppbutt 9y agoDoes everybody on HackerNews have a subscription to the New York Times or something?
- nordsieck 9y agoUse incognito.
- iainmerrick 9y agoOr skip the article and just read the comments! :)
- JonnyNova 9y agoAlan Watts has talked about something very similar with regard to what is intelligence and how exactly do we measure and define it. Here is a short (1m20s) youtube clip of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgZ73Lc5VS8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgZ73Lc5VS8
- rotrux 9y agoK sooo to (kinda) answer the question: depends. What's your definition of consciousness? Now as for the implication that anesthetics sedating plants has ANYTHING to do with this/whether or not they are conscious: no. No sorry, not buying it. Need more science. This just suggests we may have similar inhibitory biochemical responses to certain organic compounds. That's not surprising since were all made out of hydrocarbons & many anesthetics have relatively simple structures.
- visarga 9y ago> What's your definition of consciousness? How about - ability to adapt to environment and select good actions depending on situation, learning from reward/loss signals.
- justinpombrio 9y agoOoh, a new one. I need to start collecting these. There's just such incredible variety.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoNot particularly new. The dictionary I have close at hand claims: consciousness |ˈkɒnʃəsnɪs| noun 1 [ mass noun ] the state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings: she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later. 2 a person's awareness or perception of something: her acute consciousness of Luke's presence.
- justinpombrio 9y agoOP's definition doesn't include "awareness" at all, which I think is an essential part of both of those definitions. Although now I've said too much.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y agoI've been meaning to back to this, apologies for the delay. If a bacteria senses a change, say in salinity, and moves away, can we say the bacteria is / was aware of the change. What does awareness mean. It sounds at least as slippery as conscious.
- randomdrake 9y agoStudy: Anaesthetics stop diverse plant organ movements, affect endocytic vesicle recycling and ROS homeostasis, and block action potentials in Venus flytraps Citation: K Yokawa, T Kagenishi, A Pavlovič, S Gall, M Weiland, S Mancuso, F Baluška; Annals of Botany, mcx155. Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcx155 https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcx155 DOI: 10.1093/aob/mcx155 Abstract: Background and Aims Anaesthesia for medical purposes was introduced in the 19th century. However, the physiological mode of anaesthetic drug actions on the nervous system remains unclear. One of the remaining questions is how these different compounds, with no structural similarities and even chemically inert elements such as the noble gas xenon, act as anaesthetic agents inducing loss of consciousness. The main goal here was to determine if anaesthetics affect the same or similar processes in plants as in animals and humans. Methods A single-lens reflex camera was used to follow organ movements in plants before, during and after recovery from exposure to diverse anaesthetics. Confocal microscopy was used to analyse endocytic vesicle trafficking. Electrical signals were recorded using a surface AgCl electrode. Key Results Mimosa leaves, pea tendrils, Venus flytraps and sundew traps all lost both their autonomous and touch-induced movements after exposure to anaesthetics. In Venus flytrap, this was shown to be due to the loss of action potentials under diethyl ether anaesthesia. The same concentration of diethyl ether immobilized pea tendrils. Anaesthetics also impeded seed germination and chlorophyll accumulation in cress seedlings. Endocytic vesicle recycling and reactive oxygen species (ROS) balance, as observed in intact Arabidopsis root apex cells, were also affected by all anaesthetics tested. Conclusions Plants are sensitive to several anaesthetics that have no structural similarities. As in animals and humans, anaesthetics used at appropriate concentrations block action potentials and immobilize organs via effects on action potentials, endocytic vesicle recycling and ROS homeostasis. Plants emerge as ideal model objects to study general questions related to anaesthesia, as well as to serve as a suitable test system for human anaesthesia.
- singularity2001 9y agowhether you are a robot or a person I appreciate your effort
- peter303 9y agoSome wise hunters dont kill out of spite but necessity. They say a prayer celebrating the circle of life and thanking the caught animal. And dont take more than necessary.
- basicplus2 9y agoVegetarianism is murder
- stagas 9y agoMy first thought. Though not appropriate for sharing in HN discussions, little toleration for humor.
- bitL 9y agoHmm, I am not sure how would I live with the thought that every single step in nature I do brutally kills/damages conscious beings. Fun! Theodicy would suddenly seem a small problem...
- Pica_soO 9y agoHa ha, take this vegetarians of all colors- we may have to eat your potato-stuffing due to overpopulation and water economics for the rest of our lives, but at least, you dont get to feel smug and moral superior- you are just a monstrous as the rest of us.
- featherverse 9y agoHow idiotic can a headline get? What those results really suggest is that consciousness is nothing more than chemical reactions. Leave it to a garbage rag like the NY Times to bring down the collective IQ.
- sebringj 9y agoRemove the hat from the dog and it seems to lose its sense of style. Is the dog a fashionista? This is anthropomorphism while being unconscious of it.
- appleflaxen 9y agowhen you cut the legs of the frog and yell "jump", it does not. could the ears of the frog be in the legs? this article is inane.
- colanderman 9y agoI can anesthetize large parts of my body, losing all responsiveness, yet remain conscious. Moreover, if I had no head (and presumably no consciousness), I would still respond to stimuli via the spinal cord, and could still be anesthetized. That plants become unresponsive when anesthetized in no way imples that they have some consciousness that they are losing. Why does the article make this bizarre logical leap.
- lisper 9y agoThe thermostat in my house responds to stimuli, unless I sedate it by taking out the batteries. Is it conscious? No, of course not. In an era where charges of "fake news" are flying thick and fast, the NYT, of all venues, really should not publishing this sort of pseudo-scientific rubbish.
- ph4 9y agoDo you have a working definition of consciousness?
- lisper 9y agoI do, but I'm not going to play this game unless you seriously want to argue that a thermostat is conscious, in which case you have to go first.
- ph4 9y agoSeems to me that consciousness is a matter of degree, with devices like thermostats at one pole, and self-reflective neocortex-style consciousness at the other. Not that I have a strong desire to defend the consciousness of thermostats. I just wouldn't consider the article pseudo-scientific rubbish, and I definitely wouldn't just write off this type of inquiry or discussion as some kind of harmful fake news.
- lisper 9y ago> consciousness is a matter of degree That's true, but that doesn't mean that thermostats are conscious. Shortness is "a matter of degree" too. Nonetheless, Danny Devito is short (4'10"), and Michael Jordan (6'6") is not. We can argue about Tom Cruise (5'7") and Johnny Depp (5'10"), and with regards to consciousness, we can argue about dolphins and dogs and maybe even cockroaches. But not plants and not thermostats.
- ph4 9y agoYou're drawing arbitrary cutoffs in your height example. Which brings back the original question, what's your selection criteria for consciousness?
- creep 9y agoI'm a hobbyist gardener. I've always suspected these guys have something else going on.
- rdlecler1 9y agoThat biological systems have a low power mode and that this can be chemically induced is not suprising. Suggesting that the presence of a low power mode in biological systems equates to evidence of consciousness is a big stretch.