How plants communicate with each other when in danger
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
If you've ever been around an old growth tree, let alone entire forest, or something mega like a redwood, it makes sense that they can (a) communicate and (b) feel. There's just something so, I don't know, intense about a living organism that big.
It just seems like the feelings would be glacially slow.
Also, if you've never read The Overstory, do yourself a favor. Also listen to Richard on npr. He lays out the argument of trees as thinking, feeling, and caring entities. It's really strong.
Ultimately what is a feeling but a response to environmental stimuli? Why is consciousness necessary in the equation?
What is being "felt" is the chemical signals that are part of an organism's low level behavior control system.
Other animals do have the chemical signaling part since they have a similar low level behavior control system. But the chemical signals part is not what constitutes "feelings" in humans, so IMO animals do not have "feelings" per se unless they have a conscious agent to experience the "feelings".
It is possible that some other animals do have a conscious agent layer, and those animals could be said to "have feelings", but at present we do not know which animals possess this layer, if any. I think if we say that dogs "have feelings" then we are giving them the benefit of the doubt regarding whether they possess such a layer, in the absence of concrete knowledge on our part.
I find it extremely unlikely that plants have a conscious agent layer, because the purpose of this layer is behavior computation, and plants do not have behavior because they lack moving parts.
note: this mentions the VOCs, as well, because the study was done in 1980!
it's really impressive reading arguments of this level on a place like this... and even worse: justifications at the ballpark of "i can't commit to veganism, its too boring/difficult"
edit: boring is to work on a livestock place killing hundreds of animals per day and dealing with the smell of blood, screams of animals not killed at the first air-shot & the high paying salary that probably allows plenty of exotic seasoning and vegetables to be cooked after work; if you aren't going to suicide, because rates of this type on those workers are pretty high
That's a fair point. Eggs from chickens and milk from cows seem like the corresponding thing for the animal realm.
Both of those animals are raped, have their children separated from them, and are ultimately killed early in their life when their economic commodification is concluded, so no, the level of violence and negative side effects is not anywhere close to comparable.
Hem... not. Farmers don't have sex with chicken or cows normally. Can we behave as adults here?
Oh, you mean like "beans, corn and wheat" as in the comment I was replying to?
That seems to be what happens for them too. ;)
No idea why you're saying the same things happening to them "aren't anywhere close to comparable".
Doesn't really seem like that'd be a common thing, though I could believe it does happen occasionally (law of large numbers and all).
We don't need to kill individual plants, because we can wait and kill its babies. Philosophical consistence at its best.
Each bean, corn and wheat grains are individual plants. Eating a dish of beans or a slice of bread is the very own definition of killing 200 plants each time.
Silly influencers tried to eat only fruits. The poor misguided souls died of malnutrition. It does not work. Seriously. Facts are stubborn.
We're talking about humans, right? Which are anatomically closest to frugivorous apes. Curious which "facts" you must be considering.
Facts: Fruit only diet is unsuitable for the survival of human children.
nine month old girl died in 2000. The baby was severely malnourished after being feed a diet of water and tomato juice. Their parent rejected repeatedly any medical advice, thinking that just providing more sun would be enough.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/sep/15/taniabranigan
So this diet can kill you literally in a few months
More food for your mind. Fruitarian diet can kill young adults also
Aug 2023. The food influencer Zhanna Samsonova starved herself to death at 39 Yo after subsisting exclusively on a diet of fruits, sunflower seed sprouts, fruit smoothies and juices for years
If fruitarian diet is so healthy as you think, then this people shouldn't have died. Period.
Have you any logical, adult, alternative explanation about how a 9 months old girl can die by the consequences of severe starving after being feed such nutritious diet (and not any trace of poisonous meat or evil processed foods)? I would want to hear it.
And if the doctor's claims that fruitarian diets damage the pancreas are false, then maybe Steve Jobs shouldn't had developed pancreatic cancer. Or his pancreas should have improved after the all-juice "cure", right?
Jobs pancreas didn't healed. The disease didn't ever stopped. In fact, his choice most probably accelerated the disease. If doctor's experience are of any value, then we should pay attention when they universally say that fruitarian diets damage pancreas and kidneys at long term.
Most doctors say also that fruitarian diet can lead to diabetes.
Can we conclude yet that maybe fruitarian diet is not so healthy for us as some people preached, or people must learnt it the hard way?
> Most doctors say also that fruitarian diet can lead to diabetes.
No, they don't. You seem to have an ideological bias against fruit. Until you address it, a lot won't make sense to you.
The trait of changing dietary preferences based on flawed understanding of how organisms suffer and which ones.
I have read that cephalopods are on a genetic tree that diverged from our own before the emergence of photosynthesis. It seems that we are more closely related to most plants that we are to octopuses... yet they are able to befriend humans, clearly have emotions and undoubtedly experience pain. It is even the case that they generate hormones that are nearly chemically identical to our own for similar emotional states, fight-or-flight for example.
So, octopuses are pretty similar to us and yet more distant genetic relatives than your salad!
You're right that this example throws a wrench in my genetic relatedness argument. Stepping back from that, the deeper question is: how obvious is it that a creature can suffer similar to my own suffering? If it's obvious, it's obviously a bad choice for domination and consumption in my book. Plants do not have this outward obvious ability to suffer imo.
EDIT: after a conversation with ChatGPT, I think it's reasonable to base one's assessment of suffering potential on the following observations of an organism: nervous system complexity, social behavior, learning and problem solving, presence/intensity of pain receptors, response to stimuli, and outward evidence of emotional states.
Like, what if some "thing" has very complex behaviours as per your existing items, but their external signalling rate is so slow that it takes hours for them to start displaying their reactions?
(note - that's just an exaggerated thing to convey the idea)
This is ideological BS, not scientific facts. Many of this kind of posts are just pseudoscience in its most pure form.
An animal is obviously more related with another member of the same kingdom than with another member of a different kingdom. Why? Because taxonomy works exactly like that.
If you find a single animal with DNA more closely related with a plant that with another animal that would destroy the entire classification of life.
Molluscs can have, and do have, chloroplasts under its skin. We know about several species of molluscs that have it, but this is borrowed stuff. To a naive person could appear as one single species in a genetic analysis, but is an artifact. We know better and learned not to trust blindly in those analysis
> I do think that plants have capacity for suffering but it is incomparable to the suffering of a cow, for example.
why? why is it incomparable.
the fact that you even consider "genetic relatedness" or "that plants have capacity for suffering" is an expansion that requires admitting a simpler view that many vegans have was simply wrong! there are plenty that are like "anything without a central nervous system can't suffer!" and the goal posts keep moving as they have to accept that more and more organisms avoid negative stimuli because they can predict it or don't want it.
if plants could yell and howl in pain they would. which way would be incomparable?
if plants could uproot and move out the way, they would. which way would be incomparable?
and that entire view is based on the vegan feeling so uniquely enlightened, as if the rest of us could not perceive suffering of mammals or suffering of other species. but it was only you, the anti-suffering vegans, that ever needed the validation of additional institutions to accept this already widely held perception that killing organisms for consumption is something those organisms actively react to and avoid because of sensory inputs.
and for solutions, it is arbitrary to manifest that as a dietary preference.
Plants don't seem to be conscious, at least on the same timescale, as humans. I think it's fairly obvious to anyone that they don't have the same capacity to suffer as a human. What would be your reasoning for supporting that view?
Note that I grew up on a farm raising sheep, cows, turkeys, ducks, dogs, and cats, and have experienced first hand the domination and torture of individuals of all these species by myself, my parents, and our neighbors. Have you seen how industrial farming works?
I think part of your comment might be based on the idea that vegans are playing a social virtue game rather than being compassionate for its own sake and you feel challenged and offended by that. I encourage you to break out of that mentality, although I admit many diets are based around that virtue game.
Not quite, I find the chosen solution to be arbitrary and that the chosen solution continues to move with new information about what suffering is. Echoed by the less verbose quip someone made earlier in the thread about needing to switch to a rock based diet.
I think several other rationales for the same dietary preferences are stronger, for example being against factory farming has nothing to do with only consuming plants it has to do with not consuming factory farmed meat.
I think several other responses to the mammalian suffering observation are stronger, for example, regulating or reducing how much of it occurs, which would have a greater impact than your dietary preference.
But there’s also something to be said of simply opting out of a system you believe to be evil. For example, with slavery, the correct response is not to advocate to regulate or reduce how much slavery occurs while still being a slave owner. The correct response is first to not be a slave owner.
I’m trying to understand the extent of your particular position, or which similarity to focus on
As for pet ownership, I honestly don’t know. I think it’s certainly ethically complicated but personally I don’t think it’s wrong per se. I would say there’s a massive difference between keeping a dog as a pet and keeping a tiger or monkey, though.
but house animals though
Related though: we haven't discussed the energy efficiency of producing meat vs plant matter, which is another important factor, unrelated to suffering.
Interesting. That seems like a clear case of "familiarity with these creatures lets me empathise with them".
Wonder if people growing up among scuba diving families (or other situations very familiar with sea life) might have a parallel version of the same thing?
What is that based on?
> that entire view is based on the vegan feeling so uniquely enlightened
This point, and others like it, are just unfounded ad hominem attacks. Nobody here has said anything like it, and the only time I've seen something like it mentioned is when people use similar attacks.
I expounded upon the viewpoint I was familiar with, I said I’m familiar with it and wrote about it
There are no strawmans or ad hominem in doing that
The only response is whether the view interpretation was inaccurate or not
Wait, what are we optimising for here?
Vegans aren't wrong.
…per capita?
So, maybe trees haven’t developed these abilities to speak because they’re sturdier and feel/sense less (or the ToE is incorrect/incomplete).
Why does not one tree use vocalisations to attract insects? Why flowers and not, say, the death sounds of an antelope to attract a bunch of animals whose fur can be vector to transport burrs?
Also, if your next step has to land on a dog or a patch of grass it almost sounds like you are going to say it doesn’t matter because we can’t know if the grass has a subjective experience (but we know the dog has one).
Thanks for responding and I hope my question was worded inoffensively. I hate to sound like i am JAQ-ing off.
I just realized i have this style conversation every time i bring up anything about food when talking with people specifically in the US, for 15 of the last 20 years of my life. The comment i originally typed mentioned a 50 mile radius around my house is either forest or farmland, with 1 metro area. AFAIK there's no farmer's market; also the most common crops are field corn (not human edible as i understand it) and cotton, then soybeans.
It is very difficult to enjoy eating if there's any dietary restrictions, self-imposed or otherwise, due to living it what i suppose most people would call a food desert. Atkins, vegetarianism, veganism, etc.
I can buy hamburger patties, chicken, bacon, cheese about 15 minutes from my house, though - and an extremely limited selection of seasonal produce, grapes, avocado, banana, apples, iceberg lettuce, sometimes cucumbers and celery and carrots. Everything else would be canned, and i'm on an eternally medically necessary low-sodium diet, so i don't eat much canned vegetables.
Food here is such a pain in the ass that sometimes i buy my friends fresh produce when i go to town so they have something to eat that isn't fried.
We all live on the same planet, in different worlds.
Heh, fermentation may open up some options there. :D
There is a lot to be said against the inhuman assembly-line-like production of meat that has developed over the last century. But in my view, I shouldn't have to defend myself for being born an omnivore.
What an improvement!
First of all, again, the vast majority of that slash and burn agriculture is used to feed animal livestock.
Second, even if that agriculture was used for human consumption instead of animal livestock, it would again require 10 times less land to feed humans than it does to feed animals that are fed to humans.
It must be the vegan's fault.