The case against plant consciousness • Hacker News Board

Re: The case against plant consciousness

#111

Post by hathawsh » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 1:09 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #110

hathawsh wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plant communication is certainly fascinating, but I wouldn't call it a sign of consciousness. Isn't it just another reaction to stimuli? I can imagine an experiment where some plants are placed in an environment where the communication chemical they secrete interacts with a gas in the air, slowly poisoning the plants. Would the plants adapt by changing their own behavior, or would some later generation survive due to…

The medical definition of conciseness includes things like responding to bright light by constructing the iris. It’s not high on the scale, but it’s very much part of the current definition in active usage. So, in practice it’s useful have level of consciousness and as such the minimum can be extremely low without becoming less meaningful. More importantly as we understand more about the brain we may eventually under…

That's a very helpful clarification. Thanks!

Re: The case against plant consciousness

#112

Post by andrei_says_ » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 2:08 AM UTC

naasking wrote: post #98

hathawsh wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "consciousness" has important connotations that are not captured by the generic definition. As others noted, an air conditioner with a built in thermostat can fit the generic definition of consciousness. When I say an entity is conscious, I mean to say it not only has the ability to react to stimuli, but it can also abstractly choose how to react. It can rewire its own reactions, not just in a Pavlovian sens…

> When I say an entity is conscious, I mean to say it not only has the ability to react to stimuli, but it can also abstractly choose how to react. It can rewire its own reactions, not just in a Pavlovian sense, but it can also develop internal thought frameworks and route its reactions through the frameworks it prefers. These are just reactions with a memory component. This would include any computers, and so is too…

Also if you unpack “prefers”, there’s nothing there which is not based on current biochemistry, genetic make up, instinctive responses, conditioning, trauma and experiences until a fraction of a second ago, and environment.

Saying this because the definition seems to beer toward “free will”.

Re: The case against plant consciousness

#113

Post by bane » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 2:17 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #110

hathawsh wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plant communication is certainly fascinating, but I wouldn't call it a sign of consciousness. Isn't it just another reaction to stimuli? I can imagine an experiment where some plants are placed in an environment where the communication chemical they secrete interacts with a gas in the air, slowly poisoning the plants. Would the plants adapt by changing their own behavior, or would some later generation survive due to…

The medical definition of conciseness includes things like responding to bright light by constructing the iris. It’s not high on the scale, but it’s very much part of the current definition in active usage. So, in practice it’s useful have level of consciousness and as such the minimum can be extremely low without becoming less meaningful. More importantly as we understand more about the brain we may eventually under…

> The medical definition of conciseness includes things like responding to bright light by constructing the iris.

Which has an interesting parallel with many plant's ability to rotate the face of their leaves towards the current position of the sun.

Re: The case against plant consciousness

#114

Post by ta1234567890 » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

solipsism wrote: post #93

ta1234567890 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. Don't have a good answer to that. However, this happens very frequently in humans, we have multiple different languages and even multiple synonyms for a lot of (most?) words in every one of those languages. At the same time, would correlation of two things make one of them worthless to have/know/understand?

Synonymous != Correlated. If you're saying they're synonymous, then it doesn't make sense to ask whether you can have one without the other. So ask yourself, could you imagine something being complex but not conscious, or conscious but not complex? If so, then they're not synonymous and you have something interesting to talk about.

That was exactly the point. According to panpsychism, everything has consciousness.

We us as humans on the other hand, want to compare our consciousness to the one of animals/plants/etc.

Trying to bridge the two things, you could say that everything has consciousness, but that there's a "level" of it, which to make it simple, you could attribute to (or be roughly correlated to) complexity/size.

In a way, it's exactly how gravity is defined.

Re: The case against plant consciousness

#115

Post by bigiain » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 3:03 AM UTC

ex3xu wrote: post #58

For a layman's introduction to the case for plant consciousness, Monica Gagliano and her plant consciousness experiments were featured on Radiolab last year (transcript available): https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/plant-parade

I saw her present at a conference recently, and subsequently bought her book. I'm finding it all fascinating, especially the pea plant experiment. I am not well enough informed about the state of the art in either consciousness research/thinking or plant reactions/behaviours, but it's certainly made me acutely aware there's something going on there which doesn't fit in with my mental model of how plants work.

I'm going to be following along here for quite some time I suspect...

Re: The case against plant consciousness

#116

Post by hndamien » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 4:48 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #113

Retric wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The medical definition of conciseness includes things like responding to bright light by constructing the iris. It’s not high on the scale, but it’s very much part of the current definition in active usage. So, in practice it’s useful have level of consciousness and as such the minimum can be extremely low without becoming less meaningful. More importantly as we understand more about the brain we may eventually under…

> The medical definition of conciseness includes things like responding to bright light by constructing the iris. Which has an interesting parallel with many plant's ability to rotate the face of their leaves towards the current position of the sun.

Mimosa Pudica and the Venus Fly Trap respond even faster (in iris response like times).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLTcVNyOhUc

Re: The case against plant consciousness

#117

Post by hndamien » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 5:03 AM UTC

This discussion appears to have completely ignored the concept of a "sensorium" for a definition of consciousness which seems to me to be the only defining requirement. Whether or not it is possible to externally detect this is an open question.

It is hard to imagine that anything with eyes doesn't have this, and yet functioning eyes are clearly not a requirement. The only requirement at all one would assume is integrated information processing - but even that is not necessarily a given.

Re: The case against plant consciousness

#118

Post by matt-attack » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 5:05 AM UTC

hathawsh wrote: post #74

anon_z88 wrote: post #20

While I agree with his reasoning based on his definition of consciousness, I am not sure if this is the most appropriate way of defining consciousness. We still do not properly understand it, thus we cannot define it. While I try to stray from vague or ambiguous interpretations, I do think it's significant to point that out. Let's look at the generic definition: * consciousness - "the state of being awake and aware o…

The word "consciousness" has important connotations that are not captured by the generic definition. As others noted, an air conditioner with a built in thermostat can fit the generic definition of consciousness. When I say an entity is conscious, I mean to say it not only has the ability to react to stimuli, but it can also abstractly choose how to react. It can rewire its own reactions, not just in a Pavlovian sens…

I feel like evolution of a species is way too simple a process to claim it has a conscience. I believe if you simply combine variations (from either mutations or cross-breeding) along with “survival of the fittest” you essentially get evolution. There’s nothing more magical happening. Each of those processes is extremely boring and entirely mechanical.

Re: The case against plant consciousness

#119

Post by matt-attack » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 5:20 AM UTC

justwalt wrote: post #65

daveFNbuck wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the most abstract interpretation I think consciousness can be defined as a closed system that contain both input and output, in which information is gathered and alters some component of the system itself. This is very similar to the definition I was given for "robot" in an embedded systems course.

I think this is the point that the poster is trying to make. They’re saying it’s difficult to declare something conscious or not using exact criteria. A popular definition (in my experience) is the existence of a central nervous system, but we don’t really know whether or not that’s responsible for consciousness. I wonder if we’ll ever know for sure.

Well an unconscious body has a central nervous system but is clearly not conscious.

Re: The case against plant consciousness

#120

Post by matt-attack » Thu, Jul 04, 2019, 5:23 AM UTC

sixplusone wrote: post #77

mikeg8 wrote: post #48

In The Hidden Life of Trees , one cool fact that stuck with me in support of tree consciousness was how trees that are under attack from certain insect species will release pheromones to warn neighboring trees. The neighboring trees will then rapidly increase production of tanins and other defense chemicals to stave of the insect onslaught. pretty cool

How do you determine whether the tree releases pheromones to warn others -vs- it happens to release pheromones and it induces a response in the others? i.e., the former requires intent, whereas the latter simply evolutionary pressure (since the trees with the response would fare better, thus reproduce more successfully).

Yes. A mouse trap reacts to being “attacked”.