Plants have a teleogical end of existence, survival, and reproduction: that was known from Aristotle's time. Now we know that they can pursue this end through the emission of organic compounds that cause not only themselves, but nearby plants as well, to erect defenses to further their survival against dangers. They're not especially good at it -- I have cut down quite a few trees in my time, and though I prefer to cut dead ones rather than living ones I have sometimes had to cut living trees too -- but it does show that they have a kind of consciousness, and are pursuing an end in communication with each other. Thus, they also have a kind of community.
These are ordinarily significant considerations in ethics. Why wouldn't they be here? And if they are, what does that mean for us in how we treat with these conscious beings and their communities?
3 comments:
I just put up the humorous side of this in the Tim Sample video "Strict Carnivore."
I deeply question the idea plants have "consciousness" and the studies that supposedly indicate that. Does my body have consciousness when it scabs over a wound? I may, but the scabbing is wholly unrelated to my consciousness, and occurs with no regard to my conscious state. I think scabbing is a comparable thing to what they're using to claim plants have "consciousness". I've seen nothing else that can't be explained as an autonomous reaction to environmental conditions.
“I am not going to tell you my name, not yet at any rate.' A queer half-knowing, half-humorous look came with a green flicker into his eyes. 'For one thing it would take a long while: my name is growing all the time, and I've lived a very long, long time; so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of things they belong to in my language, in the Old Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time saying anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.”
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