690
Those poor plants (lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] hellfire103@lemmy.ca 99 points 2 months ago

"Know" is a stretch. Plants respond to attack by releasing chemicals (e.g. nettles and grasses), curling or retracting their leaves (e.g. acacia), or by changing their morphology (e.g. holly); but they have no nervous system - let alone a brain - so it's not like you're killing an animal.

[-] prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works 105 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Plants having no nervous system is being challenged with the idea that the plant itself is its central nervous system.

They react to stimulus, they emit sounds (different ones when in “pain”), and communicate with each other.

They don’t have consciousness in a way we understand

I dont mean this as a “dunk” but more of a how neat is that

[-] LordGimp@lemm.ee 40 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It's always funny to me how people eat up the concept of a distrubuted neural network in tech but scoff at the same idea applying to something like a tree or a fungus.

Pando is the largest organism by area, and the Humungous Fungus is the largest by mass. The idea that those organisms don't "think" in some way is laughable.

[-] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

"In some way" is doing A LOT of heavy lifting there. ... although in the general sense, agreed.

Especially given how many outright wrong or otherwise assinine conclusions some "thinking" animals come to... Perhaps communicative consciousness is overrated on the intelligence scale.

[-] x4740N@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It always seems lime some excuse in a counter response by vеgаns

The number of times I've responded to them telling them that plants probably process pain in a different way to us has always been shot down by them

Tell them that brains extremely simplified are just on and off responses to certain stimuli / information just like plants have specific reponsonses to stimuli and computers having 1's and 0's that respond to information

A mycelium network could be counted as a brain

[-] BlackDragon@slrpnk.net 10 points 2 months ago

If you actually believe harming plants causes them pain and that that is bad, you should be vegan. Animal agriculture harms far, far more plants than any plant agriculture ever could.

load more comments (9 replies)
[-] VelvetStorm@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

You should read the book "entangled life" if you haven't already. It's fascinating.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago

because humans invent things from scratch that nature has already created and optimzed, it's why we're seeing a lot of optimizations on current tech that comes from nature itself.

It's a really weird problem to have.

[-] LordGimp@lemm.ee 7 points 2 months ago

Go find that video of a slime mold optimizing Japan's rail system by finding oats in a maze

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] hellfire103@lemmy.ca 30 points 2 months ago
load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 25 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

We don't know how consciousness works enough to say they don't. Having a brain and/or nervous system might not be necessary.

They don't have muscles either, but some plants are known to uproot themselves and fucking move.

[-] strawberrysocial@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

Yeah, plants aren't stationary. All plants move, just very, very slowly compared to animals. Looking at time lapse videos of vines growing, reaching out for something to grab on to and stuff is pretty neat. They kind of whip around in circles until they feel they've hit something worth grabbing onto.

[-] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago

Wait that's cool as hell, which plants?

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)
[-] strawberrysocial@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Maybe tumbleweeds? I think..

[-] nifty@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

We don’t know how consciousness works enough to say they don’t. Having a brain and/or nervous system might not be necessary.

Hmm sorry but no, there are traits exhibited by conscious entities which we don’t observe in those which lack consciousness. This is a nice explainer on consciousness, note that it’s not saying anything about needing a brain to exhibit those traits

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#DesQueWhaFeaCon

correct me if I am misremembering sth

[-] howrar@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 months ago

there are traits exhibited by conscious entities which we don’t observe in those which lack consciousness.

Implying we have a way of determining whether an entity is conscious or not. That's the entire point of contention here.

[-] arken@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

which we don’t observe in those which lack consciousness.

See what you did there? You assume a priori which entities lack consciousness, and then motivate this by claiming they lack traits that can be observed in conscious entities. That is very neatly circular.

load more comments (7 replies)
[-] strawberrysocial@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

How will we ever know for sure if plants have their own form of consciousness that doesn't follow a list of requirements that's based on animals, or can feel pain.

[-] nifty@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

But why do you think plants should have some own form of consciousness? All organism which have circulatory systems have generally similarly behaving circulatory systems. So why should consciousness be different?

No, if an organism does not exhibit all properties of consciousness that we see in all other organisms, then it’s not conscious

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] 0x0@infosec.pub 9 points 2 months ago

Isn't that how we justified boiling Crayfish alive though?

[-] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Some misguided monsters, yes.

[-] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

They have the knowledge and are doing something about it. If other plants can send out this chemical by observing it themselves, that sounds like a reaction from a communication. It may not be cognition like we expect but it is behaving like cognition would. Hard to argue that plants don't know or care of their friends start dying.

[-] kshade@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

I'd argue that knowledge is more than that, otherwise books or state machines could also be said to know things.

[-] socsa@piefed.social 3 points 2 months ago

This is why I don't eat books

[-] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

The plants are acquiring information and making an independent change to their status with this information. Books do nothing with knowledge other than communicate it to others. Machines are unable to make independent changes to itself unless programmed to do so.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 months ago

We can't say that brains are required for a mind to exist; we have no way of knowing.

[-] VelvetStorm@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Lobsters contain 15 nerve clusters called ganglia dispersed throughout their bodies, with a main ganglion located between their eyes. So, according to the logic here whyis it wrong to boil them alive if they don't have a brain?

For the record, imo it is wrong to boil lobster, crabs, and other crustaceans alive. There is no reason you can't kill them directly before boiling them.

load more comments (15 replies)
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024
690 points (83.4% liked)

Lemmy Shitpost

26915 readers
2562 users here now

Welcome to Lemmy Shitpost. Here you can shitpost to your hearts content.

Anything and everything goes. Memes, Jokes, Vents and Banter. Though we still have to comply with lemmy.world instance rules. So behave!


Rules:

1. Be Respectful


Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion.

Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here.

...


2. No Illegal Content


Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required.

That means:

-No promoting violence/threats against any individuals

-No CSA content or Revenge Porn

-No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing)

...


3. No Spam


Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules.

-If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community.

-Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community.

-No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers

-No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community.

...


4. No Porn/ExplicitContent


-Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content.

-Do not post Gore or Shock Content.

...


5. No Enciting Harassment,Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts


-Do not Brigade other Communities

-No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy.

-No Witch Hunts against users/communities.

-No content that harasses members within or outside of the community.

...


6. NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.


-Content that is NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.

-Content that might be distressing should be kept behind NSFW tags.

...

If you see content that is a breach of the rules, please flag and report the comment and a moderator will take action where they can.


Also check out:

Partnered Communities:

1.Memes

2.Lemmy Review

3.Mildly Infuriating

4.Lemmy Be Wholesome

5.No Stupid Questions

6.You Should Know

7.Comedy Heaven

8.Credible Defense

9.Ten Forward

10.LinuxMemes (Linux themed memes)


Reach out to

All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules. Striker

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS