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Reacting to a stimulus doesn’t necessitate the need to feel pain. A computer doesn’t feel pain when I plug in a USB drive, but it certainly sends an electrical
by PretzelPirate 5y ago
Reacting to a stimulus doesn’t necessitate the need to feel pain. A computer doesn’t feel pain when I plug in a USB drive, but it certainly sends an electrical signal to let other parts of the computer know something happened.
This research doesn’t suggest that plants suffer or are somehow sentient, just that they react to stimuli in a way that’s advantageous to survival.
- nicoburns 5y agoThere's also no evidence that plants (or computers) don't feel pain. We really have very little knowledge of what does or does not cause conscious experience.
- PretzelPirate 5y agoWe also don’t know if rocks feel pain, but it’s a safe assumption since we don’t see them attempt to avoid being destroyed. If you try to cut an animal, it runs away or fights back. If you try to cut a plant, it sits there are lets you cut it. A plant may have some electrochemical response to ensure that a predator doesn’t kill it (which could simply be the result of natural selection), but that isn’t good evidence for us to even begin to entertain the idea that a plant feels pain. In the absence of evidence, we shouldn’t make up wild ideas that don’t fit our best current understanding.
- ineedasername 5y agoSome plants even leak delicious fluids that encourage more cuts (maple trees)
- philipswood 5y agoSpend some time looking at sped up videos of plants and then state that same feeling about their lack of reactivity with the same feeling of absolute certainty. Some species have been shown to communicate using pheromones to increase tannins in the leaves of their neighbours. Agreed about in the absence of evidence, but in the absence of much study being done we could maybe have a closer look?