The thermostat in my house responds to stimuli, unless I sedate it by taking out the batteries. Is it conscious? No, of course not. In an era where charges of "fake news" are flying thick and fast, the NYT, of all venues, really should not publishing this sort of pseudo-scientific rubbish.
Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
151–160 of 181 posts
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#152I'm a hobbyist gardener. I've always suspected these guys have something else going on.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Moreover, I can have say, my limbs anesthetized, yet remain conscious. I can also be unconscious (sleeping) yet respond to stimuli. The author of the article seems to assume that loss of responsiveness implies a consciousness which is lost, which is frankly a bizarrely incorrect inference.
It reads to me as: Here is a list of examples of things that plants do that would imply some kind of decision making process. When we anesthetize them they lose those abilities, is that something that tells us they have consciousness. Secondarily, one can make the argument that due to the fact that you have a nervous system in your arm and your brain loses the signals from that system, in some way you have lost part…
My understanding of the traditional definition of consciousness is explicitly not the simple stimulus/response you imply it is, but rather, meta-awareness or control over the stimulus/response system.
That is, I am conscious of my arm if and only if I am aware of the stimulus/response process taking place (or not, as it were). Whereas, there are plenty of processes in the body of which one is not typically conscious (e.g. heartbeat, digestion, anything occuring during sleep or coma).
To claim that you suffer partial loss of consciousness when your arm is anesthetized implies that when asleep, you are not fully unconscious, because your arm still responds to stimuli. This is contrary to almost every definition of consciousness I've heard, and sounds more like a definition of responsiveness.
The model of plants wherein all stimuli/response processes are unconscious I claim is not invalidated by the experiment in the article.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#154That biological systems have a low power mode and that this can be chemically induced is not suprising. Suggesting that the presence of a low power mode in biological systems equates to evidence of consciousness is a big stretch.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
No. It is mocking the idea that the food choices of vegetarians makes them morally superior and entitled to look down their noses at everyone else and be awful to them. My dislike of the tendency for vegetarians to be all holier than thou was solidified while I was homeless and being harassed online by a holier than thou vegan* who claimed to be vegan because she couldn't tolerate the suffering of the farm raised ani…
I understand where you are coming from, but instead of judging veganism based on one vegan who harassed you, why not read about the fundamental concepts? Peter Singer or Tom Regan are a good start.
One way to understand why certain vegans act like this, is to learn about Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is more common than it looks and watching documentaries like Earthlings can definitely trigger it on people who are not well equipped to witness this level of violence.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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...
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Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#157The thermostat in my house responds to stimuli, unless I sedate it by taking out the batteries. Is it conscious? No, of course not. In an era where charges of "fake news" are flying thick and fast, the NYT, of all venues, really should not publishing this sort of pseudo-scientific rubbish.
Do you have a working definition of consciousness?
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#158The thermostat in my house responds to stimuli, unless I sedate it by taking out the batteries. Is it conscious? No, of course not. In an era where charges of "fake news" are flying thick and fast, the NYT, of all venues, really should not publishing this sort of pseudo-scientific rubbish.
Do you have a working definition of consciousness?
I do, but I'm not going to play this game unless you seriously want to argue that a thermostat is conscious, in which case you have to go first.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. It is mocking the idea that the food choices of vegetarians makes them morally superior and entitled to look down their noses at everyone else and be awful to them. My dislike of the tendency for vegetarians to be all holier than thou was solidified while I was homeless and being harassed online by a holier than thou vegan* who claimed to be vegan because she couldn't tolerate the suffering of the farm raised ani…
I understand where you are coming from, but instead of judging veganism based on one vegan who harassed you, why not read about the fundamental concepts? Peter Singer or Tom Regan are a good start. One way to understand why certain vegans act like this, is to learn about Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is more common than it looks and watching documentaries like Earthlings can definitely trigger it on peopl…
I am not judging Veganism. I am certainly not doing it on the basis of one extreme example of assholery. But the specific example highlights what is wrong with running around and pissing on other people because you don't approve of their food choices. If vegetarians want to ascribe to themselves the role of moral leader, they need to up their game and figure out how to stop being gratuitous assholes to the millions, if not billions, of animals that are the same species as themselves but don't eat like them.
Re: Sedate a Plant, and It Seems to Lose Consciousness. Is It Conscious?
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have a working definition of consciousness?
I do, but I'm not going to play this game unless you seriously want to argue that a thermostat is conscious, in which case you have to go first.
Seems to me that consciousness is a matter of degree, with devices like thermostats at one pole, and self-reflective neocortex-style consciousness at the other.
Not that I have a strong desire to defend the consciousness of thermostats. I just wouldn't consider the article pseudo-scientific rubbish, and I definitely wouldn't just write off this type of inquiry or discussion as some kind of harmful fake news.