Plants are they aware/sentient/alive

[alchemi2]

I thought i start a thread for this, that came up in veggy thread as it is a bit unfair to keep on about it in that thread as it is somewhat off topic.

The main points raised previously are:-

1) are plants alive

2) do plants feel pain

3) are plants aware of their enviroment

4) are plants sentient

my arguement is on all the points yes

1) yes they grow, eat and reproduce.

2) ok plants dont have a lump of tissue called a brain or an animals nervous system but they are made up of complex cell systems that interact with each passing nutriants etc through out the whole. if hooked up to electronic equipment and different stimulous are applied the plant reacts to those in diffrent ways.

3) reproduction is key to survival. plants often rely on outside elements to carry out there reproduction or to transport their seed. They must be aware of those things to use them not only insects/wind but birds mammals etc.

4)if you are aware of your enviroment the chances are you are aware of yourself. plants grow defences against predators, have symbiopic relationships or produce food/toxins for other creatures to establish a relationship with them.

What are your thoughts. Please address all the points raised, not just single out 1, as to be coherent in your agruement you have to look at the whole issue.

[Loki]

ok, interesting topic,

1st) No reall doubt that plants are alive, unless the are plstic and live in [insert food type]take aways. They grow, eat, create waste, reproduce etc. they are alive.

Now the rest, for the stimulus response there can be a number of reasons, like you have already put. But i dont believe that some apply. at all. sorry.

plants often rely on outside elements to carry out there reproduction or to transport their seed. They must be aware of those things to use them not only insects/wind but birds mammals etc.

uh, well, thats one way of looking at it, that sort of stimulus response can be put down to evolution, eg fisrt plants grow, 2 are exactly the same, APART FROM, one have colourful flowers/interesting smell/etc the other doesn't, the colourful one gets polinated, the other doesn't, simple as that, the most effiecient system rules. the plants don't just decide to change their 'outfit' as it were. its the same with all animals, its evolution.

now with that though, im not saying they are not aware, but its a different time scale, um, as example a fly lives for a short time, but it moves damn fast, a tortoise moves slowly, it lives longer (nothing to do with kit kat mini cube thingys). metabolism. plants can live for a vvvveeerrryyy long time, and, if you lived for a couple of hundred years, in the same place, doing the same stuff alll the time, even if you a hyperactive little sappling, even after a few years you wouldnt notice much, you'd either beome insane or go into yourself. it's almost like the frog and the boiling water, if you put a frog into boiling water, it would leap out, but if you put it into cold water and then raised the temperature, kaching, boiled frog. Soooo, even if plants are very conscious of themeselves and their world, they may have their heads in the sky, and not notice anything.

[Acriku]

1) Of course, although I was never satisfied with the definition of life.

2) No, for two reasons. 1 - There's no capacity for them to feel pain. They do not have an interpreter to feel pain, which is crucial to "feel pain." And 2 - no studies have shown, that I have come across, that plants feel pain. I am left with no choice but the most obvious one.

3) No. Where does this awareness come from? Again, no brain. No synapses to relay thoughts. Also, consider a bacterium. It reacts to its environment just like you argue plants do, yet is it aware? We know every part of this example bacterium through a microscope, so does a brain or pseudo-brain escape our observation? To go further, consider a magnet. This magnet reacts to its environment, especially to ferrous objects and other magnets. Yet, is it aware of its environment?

4) As a corollary from 3, no. Explained above.

[Egeides]

I think we should first concentrate on a definition of "living". And if you say that thinking makes you live, then plants aren't living under your definition.

I believe that living = having some will. I guess even cells have some will, even if not thought.

[Acriku]

I hope you're not talking to me? Anyway, I classify living as having basic survival methods - breathing, reproducing, living in a host, or any other method.

[Tio_Holtzmann]

isnt the important thing here is that sensitivity to your environment is not the same as "awareness?" and plants dont have anything that even remotely resembles a nervous system so they can feel pain, or a brain that could even tell them they were feeling pain.

[Loki]

OK, i dont know whether plants are concious or not, but an interesting point is... just because no normal nervous system or brain, that doesnt mean they dont have one, they may have a system that we just cant understand. not quite the same, but, a man had a couple of mm's of brain tissue along his skull, he was born with it, he had a perfectly normal life, no physical or emotional difference apart from that. (we learnt that in psychology, cant remeber where from though). so who knows, plants may have a nervous system, and a brain, but just nothing we could understand as being such.

[Acriku]

That's not an argument, that's hopeful thinking, and utterly baseless. But if you meant it as such, then yes - although very unlikely, it is possible. But then again, elves mining my intestines is possible as well.

[Caid Ivik]

They do live. What we define as "life" is in them. But pain they can't feel. For that you need a neural system, receptors on whole skin, which create chemicals as alarms if they are hit. Physical pain can't be without it. Lack of defence is compensed by quicker regeneration. Awareness is a harder thing; they do react to enviroment, but as programmed living things, even less than animals.

Aristoteles created three categories of souls: plant soul, animal soul and human soul. Plant's one is a definition of life, animal's of physical feeling and human's of spirituality.

[Egeides]

Wasn't Aristotle placing humans as plants? ;D

[Dante]

I hope you're not talking to me? Anyway, I classify living as having basic survival methods - breathing, reproducing, living in a host, or any other method.

Depending on the plant, they do all of those things. Breathing included.

1) Duh. Of course they're alive. They reproduce, respirate, whatever.

2) We don't know whether they feel pain, or an equivalent. Though it is logically impossible for them to feel our mammalian kind of pain, as they have no nerves. But, as was brought up before, who's to say that they don't have another system? One that is just as good?

Plants certainly react. Venus flytraps spring shut, some flowers open or shut depending on the temperature, humidity, or even time of day. A plant that is too dry will 'conciously' (for want of a better word) remove limbs one by one until it had enough water for the rest of it.

Micro-organisms have no brains and yet they react. Put an amoeba in acid and it will do it's utmost to get out. And don't say that that's different, it's not. The microscopic form of plants, algae in other words, have been known to move and actively seek out light sources to photosynthesise. And yes, we can tell that they're plants, they have chloroplasts.

In short, plants react to their enviroment. But how can they do this without a nervous system? Answer: They don't have a nervous system, but they do have a sensory system. One that allows them to feel 'positive' such as more light, water, or nutrients. And 'negative,' lack of the aforesaid and the equivalent of our pain. So yes, in their own way, they feel pain.

3) Of course they're sensitive to their enviroment! Aside from the examples above, if they weren't then evolution would have killed them off millions of years ago.

4) Hmm, tricky one. Well 'sentient' is self-aware... And if plants are aware of the enviroment around them then they are certainly aware that there is a bit of enviroment that needs protecting etc etc. Which is itself... I'd say yes, probably. Though most likely not in the way we are.

[Tio_Holtzmann]

egeides think aristotle was right bout some humans being plants, we have far far far too many couch potatoes for humanity's sake.....