• usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
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    10 months ago

    There is not really strong evidence of plant sentience. Here’s one paper looking at it:

    A. Plants do not show proactive behavior.

    B. Classical learning does not indicate consciousness, so reports of such learning in plants are irrelevant.

    C. The considerable differences between the electrical signals in plants and the animal nervous system speak against a functional equivalence. Unlike in animals, the action potentials of plants have many physiological roles that involve Ca2+ signaling and osmotic control; and plants’ variable potentials have properties that preclude any conscious perception of wounding as pain.

    D. In plants, no evidence exists of reciprocal (recurrent) electrical signaling for integrating information, which is a prerequisite for consciousness.

    E. Most proponents of plant consciousness also say that all cells are conscious, a speculative theory plagued with counterevidence.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8052213/

    Though something interesting and perhaps counter intuitive to note is that even if we realized plants were sentient, a plant-based diet actually involved killing fewer plants due to the lessened need to grow feed (of which most of the energy is lost)

      • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.mlOP
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        10 months ago

        Academic writing is usually dry, but every once in a while you run into something like that which changes your perspective on how to roast an idea

      • Zozano@lemy.lol
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        10 months ago

        That’s why I’m a fruitarian. I only eat fruit once it drops from the tree.

        • jaybone@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          The Supreme Court says you are not allowed to interfere with the seed, or stand in shallow water.

          It’s Grow v. Wade.

    • Umbrias@beehaw.org
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      10 months ago

      The issue is we as of yet still have no falsifiable or rigorous measurable definition of consciousness. So any reference to something consciousness isn’t doesn’t make a strong case.

      I don’t think plants have a conventional consciousness, but I don’t think this study found evidence of something it can’t even structure a good definition of.