Plant sentience: The burden of proof (original) (raw)
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Plant sentience revisited: Sifting through the thicket of perspectives
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In our target article (Segundo-Ortin & Calvo 2023), we proposed the intriguing possibility of plant sentience, drawing parallels with non-human animal studies. This response aims to sift through the rich thicket of perspectives offered by our commentators. To do so, we assess the risks of employing double standards, as well as the tendencies of anthropomorphizing and zoomorphizing in plant studies. We also emphasize the need for clarity in linguistic and conceptual terms, examine the neurophysiological evidence for plant sentience, and discuss the ethical implications of such recognition.
Debunking a myth: plant consciousness
Protoplasma
Claims that plants have conscious experiences have increased in recent years and have received wide coverage, from the popular media to scientific journals. Such claims are misleading and have the potential to misdirect funding and governmental policy decisions. After defining basic, primary consciousness, we provide new arguments against 12 core claims made by the proponents of plant consciousness. Three important new conclusions of our study are (1) plants have not been shown to perform the proactive, anticipatory behaviors associated with consciousness, but only to sense and follow stimulus trails reactively; (2) electrophysiological signaling in plants serves immediate physiological functions rather than integrative-information processing as in nervous systems of animals, giving no indication of plant consciousness; (3) the controversial claim of classical Pavlovian learning in plants, even if correct, is irrelevant because this type of learning does not require consciousness. F...
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The commentaries by Calvo (2018) and Mallatt & Feinberg (2017) on my 2016 target branch out from a common conceptual node like forks in a road. Calvo criticizes me for not acknowledging that plants too are likely to be sentient and claims I have fallen into the kind of category error of which I accuse others ─ a zoocentric bias that fails to grant consciousness to flora. Mallatt & Feinberg maintain that I've gone too far in granting sentience to any species that lacks a nervous system. Calvo makes some good points but there are other issues concerning plant sentience such as metabolic cost and ethical implications. Mallatt & Feinberg take me to task for failing to provide supporting data. They are right, and a partial remedy is offered. They also imply that I have misunderstand basic principles of evolutionary biology. I think they have misunderstood my position.
Language matters Commentary on Segundo-Ortin & Calvo on Plant Sentience
Animal Sentience, 2023
The term sentience tends to be associated with affective valence along with affectively neutral sensory states. In the absence of evidence for affectively laden states in plants, the use of the term sentience in the exploration of plant sensory and behavioral complexity is misleading and ethically problematic for its potential to trivialize animal sentience.
Plant Neurobiology Can Prove Plant Consciousness. -Elizabeth MacLeod
Consciousness is dependent on sentience. What are the criteria for the state of being sentient? It has been defined as “... the basic ability of organisms to perceive and thereby respond to selected features of their environments, thus making them conscious or aware of those features.” (Schneider p. 58) If a being is sentient, does that mean that being is divine? If divinity includes everything everywhere, can we also say that everything everywhere deserves the dignity of human acknowledgement? “Why is there such a discrepancy between treatment of human life, and treatment of all other life forms.” (Kimmerer, L p. 1) What if true equality for all included plant-life as well as animal-life justice? There is a great debate in the scientific community creating tidal waves in our usual thought patterns. It is similar in scale of the great debate of the 70’s spearheaded by Carl Sagan addressing “Are we alone in the Universe?” It is the exciting idea of plant-life agency.
Consciousness and cognition in plants
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 2021
Unlike animal behavior, behavior in plants is traditionally assumed to be completely determined either genetically or environmentally. Under this assumption, plants are usually considered to be noncognitive organisms. This view nonetheless clashes with a growing body of empirical research that shows that many sophisticated cognitive capabilities traditionally assumed to be exclusive to ani
Journal of Consciousness Studies (vol. 4, no. 3), 1997
Views of 'plant consciousness' in the literature are classified on a scale ranging from descriptions of plant phenomena using consciousness as a metaphor, to explicit statements that plants are conscious beings. The idea of plant consciousness is far from new, but it has received a new impetus from recent claims by psychics to communicate with plants. The literature surveyed is widely scattered and very diverse, but it can teach us much about the views that various segments of society hold on plant consciousness.
Plants Neither Possess nor Require Consciousness
Trends in Plant Science, 2019
Although 'plant neurobiologists' have claimed that plants possess many of the same mental features as animals, such as consciousness, cognition, intentionality, emotions, and the ability to feel pain, the evidence for these abilities in plants is highly problematical. Proponents of plant consciousness have consistently glossed over the unique and remarkable degree of structural, organizational, and functional complexity that the animal brain had to evolve before consciousness could emerge. Recent results of neuroscientist Todd E. Feinberg and evolutionary biologist Jon M. Mallatt on the minimum brain structures and functions required for consciousness in animals have implications for plants. Their findings make it extremely unlikely that plants, lacking any anatomical structures remotely comparable to the complexity of the threshold brain, possess consciousness.