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A comment on When They Hear Plants Crying, Moths Make a Decision. Parent comment

Re:When They Hear Plants Crying, Moths Make a Decision by quonn on Sunday December 08, 2024 @01:47PM (#42359218)
We know for a fact that for humans consciousness only exists in parts of the brain and can be turned off using drugs, sleep and accidents.

It is almost certainly the same for all animals with a brain.

Given the fact that plants have no brain it is a reasonable assumption they have no consciousness. It may be wrong, but given all evidence it is, so far, the best assumption.

We usually call assumptions based on our best current understanding scientific facts.

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Re:When They Hear Plants Crying, Moths Make a Decision by tripper_27 on Sunday December 08, 2024 @04:09PM (#42360480)
Alternative hypothesis: Given that plants do not have a central nervous system, it is reasonable to expect they have a distributed consciousness.

Recall that most plants avoid building single-purpose organs, as the odds that 70-80% of the plant gets eaten are high. Plants have evolved to survive massive loss of body parts.

I've read some studies on plant consciousness which shows that plant awareness can be turned off with anesthetics

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Re:When They Hear Plants Crying, Moths Make a Decision by block_dagger on Sunday December 08, 2024 @04:13PM (#42360524)
Can you cite those studies please? Very interested.
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Re:When They Hear Plants Crying, Moths Make a Decision by addicted on Sunday December 08, 2024 @06:44PM (#42361755)
> it is reasonable to expect they have a distributed consciousness.

Why would it be reasonable to expect they have any consciousness? What would plants do with such a consciousness that they’re wasting scarce energy on both operating and building the biological structures to maintain consciousness? They can’t move. They can’t take active actions. Why would they develop a consciousness that does nothing but makes them aware of their implementing doom without allowing them to act on it?

> Recall that most plants avoid building single-purpose organs, as the odds that 70-80% of the plant gets eaten are high. Plants have evolved to survive massive loss of body parts.

You know what would be really useful to evolve to survive the loss of body parts? Not suffering and feeling pain when you do, or even being aware that you just did. Especially when not being mobile in anyways you can’t do anything about it.

> I've read some studies on plant consciousness which shows that plant awareness can be turned off with anesthetics

Citation needed.

Actually I’ll make it even easier. Start with studies that show plant awareness in the first place, before you show studies showing it can be switched off.

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Re:When They Hear Plants Crying, Moths Make a Decision by hackable_sand on Monday December 09, 2024 @09:42AM (#42366616)
Are you okay?
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Re:When They Hear Plants Crying, Moths Make a Decision by Enginerrrd on Monday December 09, 2024 @05:14PM (#42371141)
Plants do move and respond to their environment. A lot. They even are social. They've been shown to communicate with each other to signal that pests are attacking and their peers will increase production of pest repelling chemicals and stuff.

They just do all that at a much slower time scale than you're used to in your consciousness. I wouldn't totally discount plants having some form of consciousness at lower frequency.

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