Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eggs = unborn baby birds.
Not unless they're fertilised.
I probably should have put a winky in there.
Whoops.
Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
61–70 of 181 posts
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#62K 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.
Yeah. How do you slice consciousness?
Consciousness, like Artificial Intelligence, is a slippery concept. They both tend toward being unattainable by anything-other-than-human:
i. As we implement progressively more abstract concepts in computers, those layers of abstraction become mundane things that computers can do.
ii. As we learn more and more about how non-robot-like other organisms are we can quite easily push consciousness further in to the human-only corner by just adjusting the definition of consciousness.
Insofar as consciousness can be defined as the state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings the yes, plants certainly are conscious.*
Do they posses self-awareness?
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Not particularly new.
The dictionary I have close at hand claims:
consciousness |ˈkɒnʃəsnɪs|
noun
1 [ mass noun ] the state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings: she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later.
2 a person's awareness or perception of something: her acute consciousness of Luke's presence.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#64Earlier 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…
>There are health benefits to eating less meat. Are there? To what extent? I'd very much like to see the science to back up a blanket statement like that.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662288/
All the information in the world is but a google search away...
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
So a Roomba is conscious?
Why not? And if it's power source runs out, the Roomba loses consciousness.
That seems closer to the everyday definition of consciousness most people operate by, than to the hopelessly bikeshed attempts at making it a uniquely human thing.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
If IQ measured the depth of emotional understanding, then yes. You don't have to like it, just find another reason to argue against eating people - there are plenty.
Plenty of very smart people have terrible social and emotional intelligence. So, I don't think so.
It really doesn't matter, because the rationale you provided was essentially: it is wrong because I don't like it. To keep with your utilitarian line of thinking, a position against cannibalism based on disease transmission would make more sense. Personally, I prefer the classic argument of it being the ultimate violation of personal space - but that is likely because I favor Locke's theory of property and the mixing of labor.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#67> “Plants are not just robotic, stimulus-response devices,” said Frantisek Baluska I don't see how this follows from the finding that sedatives can prevent plants from responding to stimuli. It just means that there's a shared mechanism behind plants' responses and animals' responses, which wouldn't be overly surprising. Of course, that doesn't mean that plants don't have a lot more going on than we usually realise,…
For all I care humans are "just robotic, stimulus-response devices".
I mean I also have a physicalist materialist view of the world but that's exaggeratedly simple
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plenty of very smart people have terrible social and emotional intelligence. So, I don't think so.
It really doesn't matter, because the rationale you provided was essentially: it is wrong because I don't like it. To keep with your utilitarian line of thinking, a position against cannibalism based on disease transmission would make more sense. Personally, I prefer the classic argument of it being the ultimate violation of personal space - but that is likely because I favor Locke's theory of property and the mixing…
Ah. No. To be clear: this line of reasoning is simply not my cup of tea and I feel zero need to take it seriously or justify my preference.
To each his own.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ooh, a new one. I need to start collecting these. There's just such incredible variety.
Not particularly new. The dictionary I have close at hand claims: consciousness |ˈkɒnʃəsnɪs| noun 1 [ mass noun ] the state of being aware of and responsive to one's surroundings: she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later. 2 a person's awareness or perception of something: her acute consciousness of Luke's presence.
OP's definition doesn't include "awareness" at all, which I think is an essential part of both of those definitions. Although now I've said too much.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#70Some wise hunters dont kill out of spite but necessity.
They say a prayer celebrating the circle of life and thanking the caught animal. And dont take more than necessary.