The new experiments that hint at plant consciousness

The consciousness research community absolutely cannot agree on a clear, principled line to draw between behaviours definitively associated with consciousness and those that are not indicative of consciousness. Candidate behaviours range from anything between verbal indications of self-awareness on the high end (only possible by humans already around a year old) through to any sign of environmental awareness on the low end (demonstrable even by bacteria).

Think it should rely on having brains? Well, jellyfish have neurons but not brains, so do they count? But hold on, even fungi have action potentials in their cells. Or on the other end of things, humans can clearly perform some complicated behaviours unconsciously, such as 'blind' people being able to see (google 'blindsight').

The hard problem of consciousness isn't going to be solved or dissolved by experimental science, because it's fundamentally a philosophical problem to be resolved through first-principles. Science can give hints, but that's all. See https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niab001 for a proof of that statement.