Blasphemy?

[DJ Droood]

I feel sorry for him, obviously his opinion is just as worthless as mine.

That's the spirit!

[Aylyn]

Well, I hope you meant that as a joke, that's how I take it anyway. However, if my opinion is worthless, then fine, go watching your navel so you do not need to see anything that could shake your worldview.

[lavouivre]

Here is another article from 2007 with an interesting study on plants:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 161516.htm

The plant has genes (which we still no little about), and it has the ability to "judge" a situation critical or stressful and take action by changing or controlling its balance. To me, this is a scientifically proved thing that plants do have their way of thinking, with the means given to them by nature to do so. There is clearly a reaction to an outside situation and an attempt to avoid stress, or uncomfort, or whatever we want to call it as humans. Maybe the stress for a plant is the pain to a human, proportionally. If they can feel a stressful situation and try to escape it, by changing their needs, then isn't that a tiny attempt at self-preservation? Isn't that a tiny spark of consciousness?

Aylyn, don't let it get to you, that some people do not think this way. I feel the same way as you do, you are not alone. I believe we know too little about how trees work to be able to say right away that they don't feel pain. What is see with my own eyes is the following: when we entail the trunk of a tree, it makes a scar on it. Like a wound on our own skin. Action-reaction again. If the tree wasn't feeling anything, why would it cover the entail? The tree knows it is wounded and it knows where, and it reacts in his own way. Sure, it doesn't scream, and because of its roots it cannot leave. But it knows how to circle around a wall to get to the light, how to heal its entails, and how to keep balance with weather or external conditions like draught etc.

I think we are too human-centered, even in our scientific research. The article above was written to understand better our own illnesses, not to understand plants. We research aliens and exobiology, but most people will think about humanoid aliens, not microbs. Microbs are simply not exciting enough, unless they affect us. And which philosopher was saying that if we were triangles, our gods would be triangles?

However, as long as we do not even know how to speak dog, cat or bird language (and dog owners and cat owners will know that their animal talk, really talk to us) we should forget about saying we are right about trees feeling pain. We still have a long way to go to know the species we are lucky to live with...

[lavouivre]

Hey, DJ Drood, I think I like your son very much!! Very clever, his take on food

[Aylyn]

Thanks for the article, that was very enlightening. I mut say that for years I was of the same opinion as Nico and DJDrood, until I started my final year in Environmental Science and choose trees as a topic. I had never really looked into plants before, and that research has opened my eyes to a whole new world that I never knew was there. It is astonishing how little we know about plants, and how much we discover now that they are becoming important to us.....

[Explorer]

I will not presume to know if or what a plant feels.

Well, I'm glad you finally did come around.

[DJ Droood]

Hey, DJ Drood, I think I like your son very much!! Very clever, his take on food

He inspired me to become a veg....he was one himself from 13-16 (when I was still an unconverted torturer) and I always admired his discipline...he is just going through a brutal killing phase at the moment....but he is a skinny guy, and I always tell him that I love my baby animal more than any other baby animal, so i am just glad he is eating.

[lavouivre]

Nico, you are the one who seems so sure that trees do not feel. What Aylyn and I are saying, I think (i do not presume to speak for her) is that we do not know enough to say we are right or wrong on the subject, and we would rather leave it open until further scientific studies. But so far, I have to say that on one side, we are, us humans, very self-centered (see my previous post), and on the other side, the little scientific research we have on the subject shows that plants do react to "stress" in ingenious ways with their own means. What I say here is that if they weren't feeling anything, then why any reaction at all? So I would lean towards the opinion that they do feel some kind of pain.

Aylyn, I think you showed great open-mindedness by going from DJ Drood and Nico's point of view to a study of plants to a different take on the matter.

On my side, I have to say honestly, I went from myths telling stories about bleeding sacred trees and punishment for humans, to scientific articles pointing to my beliefs that trees are living sentient things

DJ Drood, for my part, I eat meat and veggies without any qualms in my conscience, even though I believe that trees feel and animals talk. Maybe I have something dark in me, like an old crone?

[DJ Droood]

DJ Drood, for my part, I eat meat and veggies without any qualms in my conscience, even though I believe that trees feel and animals talk. Maybe I have something dark in me, like an old crone?

[Explorer]

Nico, you are the one who seems so sure that trees do not feel. What Aylyn and I are saying, I think (i do not presume to speak for her) is that we do not know enough to say we are right or wrong on the subject, and we would rather leave it open until further scientific studies. But so far, I have to say that on one side, we are, us humans, very self-centered (see my previous post), and on the other side, the little scientific research we have on the subject shows that plants do react to "stress" in ingenious ways with their own means.

So far I agree.

What I say here is that if they weren't feeling anything, then why any reaction at all? So I would lean towards the opinion that they do feel some kind of pain.

And there I don't. The evidence doesn't point in that direction at all.
Our bodies also heal themselves without the use of 'feelings'. Coma patients, or even brain dead people kept alive by machines, also heal their cuts. It is a well understood automatic defence system against foreign microbes, dirt, damaged tissue. It doesn't come from our brains, but from our blood and bone marrow.

I agree that trees have bodies, but I have seen no indication anywhere that they also have minds.

[Aylyn]

I agree that trees have bodies, but I have seen no indication anywhere that they also have minds.

I would agree with you on that, but that was not the point. We were talking about the ability to feel pain, and it seems you are not talking about feeling pain, but being aware of pain. There is no need for a mind as such to feel pain, a basic neural net is all that is neded. Flatworms feel pain without having much of a mind, an amoeba tries to avoid unpleasant sensations without having any form of neurological net. Usually, pain is a damage indicator and acts as a danger-avoidance signal, and all animals have danger avoidance mechanisms, so must somehow feel when they get damaged. Whether an amoeba has the mind to feel pain as a human does is questionnable, but the reaction is there. likewise in a tree, they show a reaction to damage and while they cannot avoid he damage, as they are stationary, they start damage-reducing actions and warn neighbours of approaching dangers. Does that indicate a mind? No idea, we cannot even agree on what is a mind, and how it applies to animals, so how do we apply it to plants?

The problem is: their reactions are so much slower that we fast-living organisms do not even notice them. We need time-condensed movies to even see what they are doing, but once you look at them like that, hey are remarkably active. I would suggest watching David Attenborough's "Private life of plants", that is fantastic. After I had seen his movie of a flower-meadow, I have never been able to feel peace in there again. There is a war going on, fought with poison, starvation and strangulation, there is allies and enemies. We just never notice it, as it is all so slow and subtle. And that gives the impression that plants and trees do not feel or care.

[lavouivre]

Hi Nico,
I understand the separation you make. Feeling and healing is a different process and you are right. If the fact that we self-heal (thanks to bones, blood or genes) doesn't mean that we feel or don't feel then it should be the same for trees and so my whole construction falls apart, but so does yours in a way. We simply have no way to know if a tree feels pain or not, we have no clue.

Follow me here:

We have no clue, because we don't know if trees have another kind of system to feel in their own way. They do react to cold and draught, apart from the healing of their wounds, they do live and grow, have genes and chemical processes. But they don't even "eat" or digest the same way as we do. Or grow or live or move the same way as we do, even their life-span is different. So why couldn't they feel another way than we do, ie without nervous system or brain? Maybe they can feel chemically, or maybe they have a way, because they can't escape pain like us, to create a chemical analgesic? Maybe it is too simplistic for us to detect it at our own level, a bit like the scents a wolf can smell compared to the ones we can smell.

Maybe it is a bit sci-fi, but a true scientist should keep all these questions open until they are answered. After all, if we are ready to accept (and research) life from outer space under all its forms (and form of consciousness too), then maybe we should accept that trees have such a different system of life that we can't even begin to understand if they have feelings or not?

[lavouivre]

The problem is: their reactions are so much slower that we fast-living organisms do not even notice them. We need time-condensed movies to even see what they are doing, but once you look at them like that, hey are remarkably active. I would suggest watching David Attenborough's "Private life of plants", that is fantastic. After I had seen his movie of a flower-meadow, I have never been able to feel peace in there again. There is a war going on, fought with poison, starvation and strangulation, there is allies and enemies. We just never notice it, as it is all so slow and subtle. And that gives the impression that plants and trees do not feel or care.

I had heard of the strategies of plants to survive but couldn't remember whether I had read or heard that and where/when. I am going to watch this! Thanks for the suggestion Aylyn.

Also, I didn't even notice Nico's sentence, but I wasn't speaking about the mind of trees either. Just the feeling or acknowledgment of pain. I don't know if trees feel, and so I know even less if they are sentient creatures with their own brand of wisdom, though it is fun to imagine and would love it if they did... It makes great stories anyway.
This discussion reminds me of the byzantine discussion on the sex of angels a bit.
Except it is not useless but fascinating and we know trees do exist. Perhaps next we should talk about the sex of trees?

[lavouivre]

just thought about another thing: plants don't have bones or marrow or blood. So they heal with a different system than ours as well. ha-ha!
As far as we know, do they have coma?
Just pushing you to have fun Nico!

[Explorer]

This discussion reminds me of the byzantine discussion on the sex of angels a bit.
Except it is not useless but fascinating and we know trees do exist. Perhaps next we should talk about the sex of trees?

I didn't know that angels had sex, but trees certainly have.

Why do I get the feeling... ehm... the idea.. that terms are being mixed up.
Aylyn said "We were talking about the ability to feel pain, and it seems you are not talking about feeling pain, but being aware of pain:

So, what are we talking about. Can you describe what you mean with "feeling pain"? (ofcourse, this should have been the first question asked).
- (1) physical awareness of being damaged (lets use the word 'damaged', to not confuse it with the emotional 'hurt'). In the way our body self-repairs.
- (2) mental awareness of damage? Not necesarily being upset about it, but just somehow aware of it beyond the 'mechanical' state of automatic repair.
- (3) emotional awareness of damage? Like being upset.
- (4) something else?

[Dendrias]

Are You feeling pain?
I ask, because I don't think that pain exists, anyway.
Feeling exists, though, as far as people have told me.

[lavouivre]

Good points! We should precise.

I think, for me, 1 and 2. I wouldnt use "mental" but a kind of awareness, yes. Perhaps 3 also, but not in a human way. I think we know only our way of feeling or being aware of things, so it might make it difficult to us to relate to another way of having "emotions". Stress, emotions, pain, hurt, feelings, all these things we have only our point of view to discuss with. We can guess at animals because they share things in common (organs, heart, brain, blood, nerves, sounds etc) and they react more or less the same way to pain as we do, but what do we have in common with plants to be able to relate to? We can only guess, imagine and study as closely as we can. But we can't relate to them truly. They don't have organs, or blood, or nerves. But they have other things as amazing and complex.

Look, just to laugh a bit, from their point of view if they were sentient things, they would probably look at us like unhealthy stumps (no leaves, no photosynthesis, not much growing, no bark to protect against the cold, and not even roots against the wind).
And that's just physical differences that are already difficult to know for sure, so how on earth are we ever going to be able to prove abstract things?

We can just talk about them for now.

So, do you believe in 1 only?

As for the sex of trees I know some are male or females and some are both. I wonder if in Byzance they reached a conclusion on the angels or decided they were asexual beings

[lavouivre]

Are You feeling pain?
I ask, because I don't think that pain exists, anyway.
Feeling exists, though, as far as people have told me.

ha no! you need to explain more than that.
You have never "felt" the sharp pain when you receive a blow in the head, hurt your kneecap on a corner table, or felt the heat at your bottom when you received spanking from your parents, or received a finger in your eye and feel them burn and water at the same time? Or cut your finger while cooking? Anything?
Or do you mean that it doesn't exist in a Buddhist way, that all is illusion?
Or do you dissociate the feeling from the pain, like in if we will ourselves not to listen to our body, then we can deny that we are in pain physically?
Please tell us more.

[Explorer]

Good points! We should precise.
I think, for me, 1 and 2. I wouldnt use "mental" but a kind of awareness, yes. Perhaps 3 also,

hahaha, we should be precise and then you choose all the options .
Well... I just asked the May Queen... "hon, do you think trees feel pain?". And she must understand you, because she went through the same sort of reasoning.

So, do you believe in 1 only?

Technically, and in principle, I believe nothing. I go by the facts, or by personal experience, which may in fact contradict, but I can handle that. But I hardly ever go by 'believing'.
But in this case, yes... but I wouldn't call that 'feeling pain', which to me means becoming aware of a sensation (or emotion). And I don't think trees have 'awareness'.
And the brings us back to square one I think?

As for the sex of trees I know some are male or females and some are both. I wonder if in Byzance they reached a conclusion on the angels or decided they were asexual beings

Oh, gender? I thought you meant the act of love-making. See how confusing words can be? hahaha.
Angels asexual? But I thought that the mother of Jesus was made pregnant by an angel? (I remember that when I came home with that story, as a child, that my dad told me that it was really the ferry man who did it, and that Mary had made up the angel. I even remember my confusion, because I had no idea what the ferry man then supposedly had done.... sigh, I was so innocent once ;-)).

[lavouivre]

you are right, I just chose them all
Your answer made me laugh!

You know, "talking about the sex of the angels" is an expression. I didn't mean sexual life at all, but as you point out, gender. In Byzance, they would discuss very seriously on angels' gender even though the town was besieged by the Turks. The expression remained, but maybe I didn't translate it well. English is not my first language