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Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?

nytimes.com

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Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?

#41

Post by visarga »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #19
jopsen wrote: post #16

Earlier 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…

I wouldn't make human source of food a major moral issue. In the end, we can't eat rocks. We need something organic, be it plants or animals. Of course, if human survival is put at risk by meat consumption, we'd need to adapt.

Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?

#42

Post by DoreenMichele »

gowld wrote: post #36
DoreenMichele wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"

If my IQ is higher than yours, is this evidence that I suffer more deeply than you?

I seriously don't personally like this line of reasoning. At. All.

Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?

#43

Post by cjbprime »

rubyfan wrote: post #4

Great, they’ve ruined vegetarianism.

If hearing that choosing to eat plants can cause suffering ruins vegetarianism for you, it should already have been ruined by learning that harvesting land for e.g. wheat causes the death of some small animals. (Mice, rabbits, etc.)

The idea that it's a worthy goal to minimize suffering caused through your food choices, however, is unaffected by learning about harvesting deaths or by learning that plants might be very minimally conscious.

Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?

#44

Post by gumby »

nradov wrote: post #33
gumby wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When someone says they're a "vegetarian" but eat fish" I always think, "ah, it's the IQ school of vegetarianism: you'll eat anything you think is as smart as asparagus."

Fish aren't necessarily any less smart than chickens or cattle. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24942105 If you count cephalopods as "fish", some species are as smart as primates.

Indeed! I'm mocking these people.

Plus fish are in the same kingdom as any other animal , which means you can hardly be a "vegetarian" unless you only eat vegetables (well, fungi and yeasts are OK too IMHO).

Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?

#45

Post by DoreenMichele »

visarga wrote: post #41
DoreenMichele wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I wouldn't make human source of food a major moral issue. In the end, we can't eat rocks. We need something organic, be it plants or animals. Of course, if human survival is put at risk by meat consumption, we'd need to adapt.

I largely agree.

Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?

#46

Post by justinpombrio »

visarga wrote: post #35
rotrux wrote: post #29

K 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 hydrocar…

> What's your definition of consciousness? How about - ability to adapt to environment and select good actions depending on situation, learning from reward/loss signals.

Ooh, a new one. I need to start collecting these. There's just such incredible variety.

Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?

#48

Post by DoreenMichele »

geofft wrote: post #24
rubyfan wrote: post #4

Great, 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?

Eggs = unborn baby birds.

Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?

#49

Post by cjbprime »

gumby wrote: post #14
hyperion2010 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite only half joking comment on vegitarianism is "So you're saying that you are racist against plants?" [0] 0. The pedant in me says kingdomist.

When someone says they're a "vegetarian" but eat fish" I always think, "ah, it's the IQ school of vegetarianism: you'll eat anything you think is as smart as asparagus."

I heard an interesting argument that while eating fish can cause suffering in absolute terms, in marginal terms it's not so bad -- fish don't die gracefully in the wild in the way that a farm animal might otherwise do, they die from being eaten, from disease, or starvation, often more slowly and painfully compared to suffocating in a fishing net.

Of course this analysis ignores things like environmental consequences, and creating new animals through fish farms.

(I'm a vegetarian who doesn't eat fish, just thought it was interesting to hear marginal difference in consequences being considered for once.)

Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?

#50

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

gowld wrote: post #40
DoreenMichele wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have long joked that vegetarianism is about hating plants, not loving animals.

Animals that peope eat eat far more plants than people who eat plants eat, so the joke is more "funny" than meaningful.

It's not even funny. It's an attempt to subvert the very legitimate premise of vegetarianism in order to not face the undeniable impacts of non-vegetarian diets.
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