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Majrelende wrote

Plants don't have mouths, they have roots and leaves, but we still recognise they eat, even if it is of a radically different sort to our eating.

Let's consider. We have mouths, we seek out nutrients and energy with our limbs and put them in our mouths. Why? Because we don't want to be hungry, and we are pleased by eating.

We also feel pain, and that causes us generally to recoil or escape, because we are animals and we can move. Plants, when they are hurt, begin making new growth at a more rapid rate, and as I understand it, such injuries encourage them to produce toxins in order to deter certain types of herbivory. Isn't that enough like human pain to qualify?

If not, then do butterflies not have wings because their wings aren't the same as bird wings?

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moonlune wrote

The roots are the organs the plants use to eat. Plants don't have organs for pain.

Projecting only goes so far. Plants aren't animals and don't follow the same biology. Plants do tons of cool stuff, but don't feel pain. It's impossible.

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Majrelende wrote (edited )

We're approaching this from very different angles. You are looking for an objective measure of pain, and that measure is similarity to the measures that indicate that a human is in pain. But something is obviously happening when a plant is hurt, and neither of us has access to the experiences of plants.

Is that particular experience pain? Because of our lack of access to plant experience, that is a question of belief. You see no reason to believe it is pain; I see no reason to believe it is not. Thus, it is a free choice to have compassion or not have compassion for plants; the question now is the effect of our believing or not believing.

Imagine there are two towns. In one, everyone has compassion for plants; in another, no one does. In the first town, people are careful to only do as much harm to plants as they need; in the other, people take freely, and only have mercy on the plants as far as it benefits them immediately. I think the first will be more beautiful, its people happier and healthier, with less hunger, and as a whole, moving through the world with kindness and grace. Look at the second town, and you have most places in the civilised world.

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Fool wrote

I think what they're trying to say, is by the doctrine of Science, Pain is defined to be related to a specific form of neuron based process. As such, by their definition of pain any pain like discomfort experienced by plants should have a different name, because it doesn't use the same mechanism.

I'm not saying that Plants cannot be conscious, I'm just trying to discuss why devout believers of Science have a hard time.


Side thought:

In a way, pain would not be beneficial to plants from a survival perspective. As their defences are largely passive or reproductive, and they do not have capability to move away from danger. A disrupting process like pain would just be noise with no benefits to the plant.

Animals that don't feel pain don't tend to survive too long, because it is a self care mechism. On topic, Mollusks with no capability for movement would have no use for pain.

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moonlune wrote (edited )

I'm really sorry but I can't waste my time on this anymore, try Googling something like "plant tropism pain".

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