Is the planet conscious but on a time scale that we are out-of-touch with? Plants are just an order of magnitude quicker to react but still much slower than needed to make us care. The truth is, we associate speed with intelligence, it's natural for us. We even have the word "slow" to mean stupid. It's possible we will eventually have a super intelligence able to craftily manipulate matter at the highest ability -- b…
Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
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Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#22Great, they’ve ruined vegetarianism.
This is what https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianism is all about. (The scruples of the Jain are outlandish, but also worthy of serious respect. You won't meet many new-agey types who are as serious about compassion and nonviolence.)
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#23They mention that sedating bacteria can cause them to “pause” as well. Are bacteria considered conscious?
Putting a strong magnet next to my old mechanical watch causes it to "pause" too. Clearly I'm sedating it.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#24Great, they’ve ruined vegetarianism.
Can you construct a complete human diet out of fungi (mushrooms, truffles, yeast, etc.)?
What about if you add milk and eggs?
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#25Does everybody on HackerNews have a subscription to the New York Times or something?
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#26Does everybody on HackerNews have a subscription to the New York Times or something?
Use incognito.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#27Alan Watts has talked about something very similar with regard to what is intelligence and how exactly do we measure and define it. Here is a short (1m20s) youtube clip of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgZ73Lc5VS8
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#28They mention that sedating bacteria can cause them to “pause” as well. Are bacteria considered conscious?
If you buy into Pansychism [1], bacteria are very conscious.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#29K sooo to (kinda) answer the question: depends. What's your definition of consciousness?
Now as for the implication that anesthetics sedating plants has ANYTHING to do with this/whether or not they are conscious: no. No sorry, not buying it. Need more science.
This just suggests we may have similar inhibitory biochemical responses to certain organic compounds.
That's not surprising since were all made out of hydrocarbons & many anesthetics have relatively simple structures.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, I would argue that eating animals is morally superior to cannibalism :) So why can't eating plants be morally superior to eat animals.
I would argue that there are lots of valid reasons to eat lower on the food chain, many of which can be framed as having a moral impetus. But the idea that it is morally superior based on plants being stupid is repugnant to me. It opens the door on questions like "So, is it okay to eat mentally retarded people?" Some moral arguments I can agree with: A mostly plant based diet is less resource intensive. Since most wa…
Or for me: I should only eat something that I am willing to kill, clean and cook myself. When we pass the important moral test of killing an animal to someone else or a factory I think we lose touch with the decision we're making.