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What if plants were animals like any other?

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Re: What if plants were animals like any other?

#31

Post by tgv »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #8

while I do agree that sometimes this seems a bit newagey or, to use an obvious word, "treehugger", I've grown to appreciate the insights from the true believers. I don't always go as far as they do, but I do find there are plenty of surprises with plants. When researchers opened their eyes and looked, they could find concrete proof that plants often communicated and nurtured their young. They shared and built communi…

That's projection at its worst. Just because you can map some concept vaguely on behavior of some species, doesn't mean it is doing that, nor does it imply that it thus deserves to be treated as human.

> but if you look at their progress in the abstract

Good thing we don't eat abstract plants then.

Re: What if plants were animals like any other?

#33

Post by [deleted] »

chacha2 wrote: post #27
grawprog wrote: post #15

I'm never really sure what the point of things like this are. I've grown enough plants in my life to understand they're at least 'aware' in some way when bad things happen to them. But in the end, it's a basic biological fact, unless a form of life can photosynthesize, it likely consumes some form of matter that was likely from something living. Extremophiles that eat sulphur and minerals and such aside, the majority…

> Trying to pretend we can erase any and all suffering we may cause ever is a fruitless effort. I wouldn't be so sure. Eduard Hartmann came up with a solution in the 19th century. https://theconversation.com/solve-suffering-by-blowing-up-th...

[deleted]

Re: What if plants were animals like any other?

#34

Post by hypertele-Xii »

grawprog wrote: post #15

I'm never really sure what the point of things like this are. I've grown enough plants in my life to understand they're at least 'aware' in some way when bad things happen to them. But in the end, it's a basic biological fact, unless a form of life can photosynthesize, it likely consumes some form of matter that was likely from something living. Extremophiles that eat sulphur and minerals and such aside, the majority…

> Life involves suffering of some kind for every living thing on this planet. It's another one of those inescapable facts.

So when plants consciously grow edible parts to themselves in exchange for seed dispersal, are they suffering? Do they suffer when they drop leaves every autumn?

Re: What if plants were animals like any other?

#35

Post by Tagbert »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #34
grawprog wrote: post #15

I'm never really sure what the point of things like this are. I've grown enough plants in my life to understand they're at least 'aware' in some way when bad things happen to them. But in the end, it's a basic biological fact, unless a form of life can photosynthesize, it likely consumes some form of matter that was likely from something living. Extremophiles that eat sulphur and minerals and such aside, the majority…

> Life involves suffering of some kind for every living thing on this planet. It's another one of those inescapable facts. So when plants consciously grow edible parts to themselves in exchange for seed dispersal, are they suffering? Do they suffer when they drop leaves every autumn?

the cells that makeup those structures suffer the consequences of being sacrificed but the genes of that being have "decided" that the cost is worthwhile.

Re: What if plants were animals like any other?

#36

Post by morelisp »

chacha2 wrote: post #27
grawprog wrote: post #15

I'm never really sure what the point of things like this are. I've grown enough plants in my life to understand they're at least 'aware' in some way when bad things happen to them. But in the end, it's a basic biological fact, unless a form of life can photosynthesize, it likely consumes some form of matter that was likely from something living. Extremophiles that eat sulphur and minerals and such aside, the majority…

> Trying to pretend we can erase any and all suffering we may cause ever is a fruitless effort. I wouldn't be so sure. Eduard Hartmann came up with a solution in the 19th century. https://theconversation.com/solve-suffering-by-blowing-up-th...

This is a common feature of critiques of Schopenhaur; Philipp Mainländer advanced the position that God created the universe to end its atemporal suffering, exploding and binding itself temporally in order that its suffering should eventually cease.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_is_dead#Role_in_the_philos...

It's frustrating that your article brushes off the philosophy as "unimaginably wrong" so easily with some hand wave of techno-utopian "genetic engineering". Benatar's writing takes pains to address why the situation cannot fundamentally be solved, especially via naive scientism.

Re: What if plants were animals like any other?

#37

Post by Falling3 »

matz1 wrote: post #30
ping_pong wrote: post #7

If you spend enough time watching nature videos like I do, you will notice that the vast majority of animals are eaten alive by their predators. It's slow, and exceedingly painful and it is ubiquitous. So even if plants were conscious, I honestly don't care. A bear would eat me alive in the most painful way possible and they wouldn't even think a second about it. Neither will I.

I don't care either, I draw the line between human and non-human. Anything you do on non-human is fair game to me. The only reason I may care about animal suffering is because the other human can get angry can cause me trouble.

Why do you draw the line there? And that means you're okay with things like torture of animals and bestiality?

Re: What if plants were animals like any other?

#38

Post by gffrd »

grawprog wrote: post #15

I'm never really sure what the point of things like this are. I've grown enough plants in my life to understand they're at least 'aware' in some way when bad things happen to them. But in the end, it's a basic biological fact, unless a form of life can photosynthesize, it likely consumes some form of matter that was likely from something living. Extremophiles that eat sulphur and minerals and such aside, the majority…

Fair. In the end, we'll find "well, _everything_ is suffering!" and be forced to just embrace it or pretend we never asked.

However, I do see the unpacking/evaluation of assumptions inherent in the debate as valuable … "why is ending a life that can experience suffering the way humans do more ethical than a life that doesn't?" and "what does it say about us that we want to prevent animals from suffering?" and so on …

Re: What if plants were animals like any other?

#39

Post by beebeepka »

ping_pong wrote: post #7

If you spend enough time watching nature videos like I do, you will notice that the vast majority of animals are eaten alive by their predators. It's slow, and exceedingly painful and it is ubiquitous. So even if plants were conscious, I honestly don't care. A bear would eat me alive in the most painful way possible and they wouldn't even think a second about it. Neither will I.

I knew exactly whete this eould go after reading that opening line. You just don't care.

Re: What if plants were animals like any other?

#40

Post by benlivengood »

Loughla wrote: post #32
drummer wrote: post #12

This is why we were supposed to eat the fruits, not the plants themselves.

Isn't that just eating the unborn children, then? Is that better than eating an adult? (tongue in cheek, obviously)

Seeds are evolved to survive being eaten and deposited with extra fertilizer some distance away.

Breeding sterile fruit for convenience might be considered bad form in the plant world.

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