fredman
Masterpiece
I loved this. Especially when she says..."plants sacrifice so much in order for us to live".
Plants have consciousness....
- Thread starter fredman
- Start date
Glaucus
Omono
I really dislike these pseudoscience videos. They make up strange stuff to make in this case plants seem amazing. But the real science of plants is already amazing. You don't need to make up wacky stuff about plants being able to affect quantum probabilities so they can influence a random number generator in their favour, so the light shines on them the plant.
Plants also have no consciousness, emotions, fear, pain, or any of these. These are human emotions that we humans share with almost all animals. Because we humans get them because of our brain, which we share with most animals. Or at least most animals we would consider when we hear the word 'animal'.
I often get the impression that people think that we humans are more evolved and more advanced than everything else on planet earth. But all life on earth evolved for the same amount of time. And it is actually species with shorter generation times that have been able to get in more evolution. Because they have more cell divisions, shorter generation time, and more selection on individuals.
Plants evolved four about 470 million years to find the tricks, that are accessible by evolution, to solve their survival problems. Be it lack of light, drought, pests, etc.
We humans only spend about 2 million years evolving our human brain from a more great ape-like brain.
Everything in biology is always more complicated then we first assume. In part because of a fundamental quality that nature has that we humans have a hard time understanding. Namely, that biology are not engineered and designed machines. They are inherently chaotic systems of chemical reactions with emergent properties, fine tuned to the extreme, tiny step by tiny step, by evolution. Biology isn't a set of modular independent components. A biological system is so interconnected, that any attempt to simplify or reduce it to general principles can result in the loss of details that are actually quite important. This is why say the pruning response of bonsai is so much more complicated than we often propose. We say, auxin is produced in the apical tips, and that diffuses down the plant and keeps all auxiliary buds dormant. Remove the apical tip, you remove the auxin, and the auxiliary buds start to grow. But in reality it is a chemical dance in every single cell, who all communicate with each others through various signalling systems.
In reality, plants have 5 different auxin molecules. In the model plant arabidopsis, there are 6 auxin inhibitor proteins, 23 auxin response factors and 29 auxin binding proteins (Aux/IAA). Which means 5 auxins can bind with 29 binding proteins, which can then bind to a transcription factor, which can then bind the any DNA or RNA sequence to either upregulate or down regulate either transcription or translation. And here, every unique combination represents a different calculation in the 'computer' that controls the plant. And it is in fact observed that auxin plays a role in basically every process that occurs in plants.
Because live evolved, it can only create certain types of systems. Seemingly chaotic systems where everything is connected with everything else. A cell is a big soup were every molecule reacts with every other molecule. It just happens to be so that natural selection found the path where this leads to emergent properties. Because life evolved in the first place, it is so pliable to new evolution. Proteins can easily change function because that's how they happened to evolve themselves. And remove one protein or one chemical pathway, and things still work. Just in another way. That is likely to reduce the organism's fitness. But any scrambling of the DNA doesn't break a finely tuned clock. It just gives rise to a different interpretation of the same emergent properties.
Yes, plant cells communicate with each other. With other plants. With microbes. And on every length scale, you can find emergent behaviour. Including ecosystems. But plants do not have a central nervous system. So they are not 'intelligent', they do not have 'consciousness' and they do not have emotions.
This argument to the opposite, which also unscientific, annoys me because it is sometimes used to say that it means that killing plants for food is comparable to killing fish or bugs for good. Which is only slightly better than killing mammals like cows, or dinosaurs like birds, for good. Besides that one needs to 'harm' way less plants if one uses the plants to feed humans direction, when compared to using plants to first feed animals, then have the human eat the plant.
Instead, I recommend people watch these videos:
www.youtube.com
www.youtube.com
Plants also have no consciousness, emotions, fear, pain, or any of these. These are human emotions that we humans share with almost all animals. Because we humans get them because of our brain, which we share with most animals. Or at least most animals we would consider when we hear the word 'animal'.
I often get the impression that people think that we humans are more evolved and more advanced than everything else on planet earth. But all life on earth evolved for the same amount of time. And it is actually species with shorter generation times that have been able to get in more evolution. Because they have more cell divisions, shorter generation time, and more selection on individuals.
Plants evolved four about 470 million years to find the tricks, that are accessible by evolution, to solve their survival problems. Be it lack of light, drought, pests, etc.
We humans only spend about 2 million years evolving our human brain from a more great ape-like brain.
Everything in biology is always more complicated then we first assume. In part because of a fundamental quality that nature has that we humans have a hard time understanding. Namely, that biology are not engineered and designed machines. They are inherently chaotic systems of chemical reactions with emergent properties, fine tuned to the extreme, tiny step by tiny step, by evolution. Biology isn't a set of modular independent components. A biological system is so interconnected, that any attempt to simplify or reduce it to general principles can result in the loss of details that are actually quite important. This is why say the pruning response of bonsai is so much more complicated than we often propose. We say, auxin is produced in the apical tips, and that diffuses down the plant and keeps all auxiliary buds dormant. Remove the apical tip, you remove the auxin, and the auxiliary buds start to grow. But in reality it is a chemical dance in every single cell, who all communicate with each others through various signalling systems.
In reality, plants have 5 different auxin molecules. In the model plant arabidopsis, there are 6 auxin inhibitor proteins, 23 auxin response factors and 29 auxin binding proteins (Aux/IAA). Which means 5 auxins can bind with 29 binding proteins, which can then bind to a transcription factor, which can then bind the any DNA or RNA sequence to either upregulate or down regulate either transcription or translation. And here, every unique combination represents a different calculation in the 'computer' that controls the plant. And it is in fact observed that auxin plays a role in basically every process that occurs in plants.
Because live evolved, it can only create certain types of systems. Seemingly chaotic systems where everything is connected with everything else. A cell is a big soup were every molecule reacts with every other molecule. It just happens to be so that natural selection found the path where this leads to emergent properties. Because life evolved in the first place, it is so pliable to new evolution. Proteins can easily change function because that's how they happened to evolve themselves. And remove one protein or one chemical pathway, and things still work. Just in another way. That is likely to reduce the organism's fitness. But any scrambling of the DNA doesn't break a finely tuned clock. It just gives rise to a different interpretation of the same emergent properties.
Yes, plant cells communicate with each other. With other plants. With microbes. And on every length scale, you can find emergent behaviour. Including ecosystems. But plants do not have a central nervous system. So they are not 'intelligent', they do not have 'consciousness' and they do not have emotions.
This argument to the opposite, which also unscientific, annoys me because it is sometimes used to say that it means that killing plants for food is comparable to killing fish or bugs for good. Which is only slightly better than killing mammals like cows, or dinosaurs like birds, for good. Besides that one needs to 'harm' way less plants if one uses the plants to feed humans direction, when compared to using plants to first feed animals, then have the human eat the plant.
Instead, I recommend people watch these videos:
Planet of the trees Cosmos A Spacetime Odyssey episode 9 part 2
This episode explores the palaeogeography of Earth over millions of years, and its impact on the development of life on the planet. Tyson starts by explainin...
www.youtube.com
The Secret Language of Trees
Use code REALSCIENCE12 for up to 12 FREE MEALS across your first 4 HelloFresh boxes, including free shipping on your first box at https://bit.ly/3bY4RxwWatch...
www.youtube.com
Last edited:
Glaucus
Omono
Typo I made twice:
killing for good -> killing for food
killing for good -> killing for food
Wires_Guy_wires
Imperial Masterpiece
The trees talk to each other research is scientifically weak in the sense that is has not been repeated very often with the same results.
I think it was mentioned as one of the most cited papers in plant biology and popular media, but opposed to other publications not a lot of researchers were able to get the same outcome with the same setup. If memory serves me right, most repetitions of the experiment actually disproved it.
I think it was mentioned as one of the most cited papers in plant biology and popular media, but opposed to other publications not a lot of researchers were able to get the same outcome with the same setup. If memory serves me right, most repetitions of the experiment actually disproved it.
I’m not even going to watch the video that the OP posted, as I don’t want to help pseudoscientific nonsense be monetized or even just be spread to more people (because YouTube tracks engagement and its algorithm is more likely to recommend a video to people if the video has a lot of views, even if folks’ reactions to it are overwhelmingly negative). Anytime someone talks about consciousness in the context of plants, they’re anthropomorphizing. Plants do not have central nervous systems. End of story.
Barbells and bonsai
Mame
This video sounds like one of my friends post-mushroom trip telling me about how “we are all, like, one interconnected being, dude.”
Glaucus
Omono
Trees talking to each other doesn't make sense because it is a anthropomorphism. Trees don't have thoughts, or ideas, or words. They have nothing to 'talk' about.
For example, masting trees all set most of their seeds in specific years. Which means they are synchronized with each other. How trees do that is not exactly known. Likely, there are some subtle ques the trees use to all behave similar each year. Among them could be pollen limitatiion-coupling.
Similarly, plants that get eaten by insects or mechanically wounded can produce some volatile organic compounds that the plants nearby can then attack. Plants that get eaten themselves by insects already have a whole response mechanism. But these volatile chemicals can also 'communicate' to neighbouring plants that they should also thicken their cell walls, produce more insect-repelling compounds, or activate their immunity in some way.
The fact that the system that allows plants to exchange nutrients isn't the same as the one that warns of herbivorous insects, and also the mechanism that synchronizes masting means it is all decentralized.
If trees could 'just talk' then any info they needed to exchange could just use that system instead. But plants & trees don't. It is always decentralized, subtle, and involving different chemicals.
As for how good this research actually is, I can't comment. Seems for sure it is not all super solid. Because of lack of funding, hard to figure out, and only a handful of actual experimental papers. It is more that in some cases plants have a mechanism to detects signals from other plants, which then affect their own processes. Technically it is a form of communication. But calling it 'talking' between two forms of 'consciousness' is a bit silly.
News articles sometimes try to comment communication with memory, with responses to physical harm, and then claim plants 'know' they are about to by physically harmed. And that they are therefore 'experiencing pain' in anticipation.
I think that was the headline of 'plants feel pain' that went viral in main stream media. MSM reporting on science is so horrendous, every time you see a science headline in normal media/on the front page, you know it is not true. If you read the underlying experiment/paper the news article is about, it is almost always something different. And if it is the same, often the scientists are wrong. Like with neutrino's going faster than light. Or the possible 'signs of life' on Venus as they suspected they detected phosphine. Or with those microbes that were said to use arsenic in place of phosphorus, etc etc. The most horrible ones are the ones about 'New discovery in space, physicists have to go back to the drawing board'. As if they aren't continuously at the drawing board but instead sitting in a room bragging to each other how they already figured everything out and are just waiting for someone to prove them wrong.
For example, masting trees all set most of their seeds in specific years. Which means they are synchronized with each other. How trees do that is not exactly known. Likely, there are some subtle ques the trees use to all behave similar each year. Among them could be pollen limitatiion-coupling.
Similarly, plants that get eaten by insects or mechanically wounded can produce some volatile organic compounds that the plants nearby can then attack. Plants that get eaten themselves by insects already have a whole response mechanism. But these volatile chemicals can also 'communicate' to neighbouring plants that they should also thicken their cell walls, produce more insect-repelling compounds, or activate their immunity in some way.
The fact that the system that allows plants to exchange nutrients isn't the same as the one that warns of herbivorous insects, and also the mechanism that synchronizes masting means it is all decentralized.
If trees could 'just talk' then any info they needed to exchange could just use that system instead. But plants & trees don't. It is always decentralized, subtle, and involving different chemicals.
As for how good this research actually is, I can't comment. Seems for sure it is not all super solid. Because of lack of funding, hard to figure out, and only a handful of actual experimental papers. It is more that in some cases plants have a mechanism to detects signals from other plants, which then affect their own processes. Technically it is a form of communication. But calling it 'talking' between two forms of 'consciousness' is a bit silly.
News articles sometimes try to comment communication with memory, with responses to physical harm, and then claim plants 'know' they are about to by physically harmed. And that they are therefore 'experiencing pain' in anticipation.
I think that was the headline of 'plants feel pain' that went viral in main stream media. MSM reporting on science is so horrendous, every time you see a science headline in normal media/on the front page, you know it is not true. If you read the underlying experiment/paper the news article is about, it is almost always something different. And if it is the same, often the scientists are wrong. Like with neutrino's going faster than light. Or the possible 'signs of life' on Venus as they suspected they detected phosphine. Or with those microbes that were said to use arsenic in place of phosphorus, etc etc. The most horrible ones are the ones about 'New discovery in space, physicists have to go back to the drawing board'. As if they aren't continuously at the drawing board but instead sitting in a room bragging to each other how they already figured everything out and are just waiting for someone to prove them wrong.
Last edited:
WestHavenMusician
Sapling
It’s ironic that a video about consciousness gets such strong negative reactions from folks labeling it “pseudoscience.”
Science has no comprehensive understanding of consciousness. It seems to me that science has wandered far away from the understandings of consciousness that humanity developed millennia ago.
One thing is certain: the flora of this planet were doing much better overall before “science” had its way with the planet.
A quote from Annakin Skywalker comes to mind: "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force."
View attachment IMG_9825.webp
I’m quite rooted in science and am a researcher with a doctorate. I don’t get swept away by every spiritual YouTube video, but I also experience enough of these spiritual truths with my own observations - and have enough scientific background to be aware of the limitations of science. I think the glib dismissals of spiritual truths and traditions is hubris, and lacks the open mindedness necessary to true scientific advancement.
Science has no comprehensive understanding of consciousness. It seems to me that science has wandered far away from the understandings of consciousness that humanity developed millennia ago.
One thing is certain: the flora of this planet were doing much better overall before “science” had its way with the planet.
A quote from Annakin Skywalker comes to mind: "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force."
View attachment IMG_9825.webp
I’m quite rooted in science and am a researcher with a doctorate. I don’t get swept away by every spiritual YouTube video, but I also experience enough of these spiritual truths with my own observations - and have enough scientific background to be aware of the limitations of science. I think the glib dismissals of spiritual truths and traditions is hubris, and lacks the open mindedness necessary to true scientific advancement.
Cajunrider
Imperial Masterpiece
After spending near 50 years in multiple science fields, I am about to retire and play with my bonsai trees. My approach to bonsai is less about science and much more about how I feel. Note that it is about how I feel. I don’t want to know how my bonsai feel, most particularly my bald cypress.
Glaucus
Omono
Consciousness is a word we made up. We can define however we want it. And we do. There are tons of books and papers about it. Related to philosophy, to neurology, to psychology, to animals, to artificial intelligence.
But plants don't have consciousness, the way most understand it. We have plenty of evidence that things with brains can have conscience. We have zero evidence that thinks without one can have consciousness. And that includes, plants, rocks, and AI computer programs. It is nice to keep using words as 'consciousness' in ways that are useful. We can still disagree and have a meaningful discussion. But we should also be able to agree on what it is not.
This one may blow your mind. But, the planet is fine. Even if we drive 99.9% of all species to extinction, the planet will be fine. It will simply just re-evolve species to whatever niches that were made vacant. And it will only take it about 1 to 10 million years or so. The planet, or the animals, or the coral reefs, or the bees, or the rainforest, they don't need saving. We the people need saving. Because we have this very fragile thing called 'civilization'. And on top of that, we have this even more fragile thing called 'the western capitalist globalized market economy'. We can burn everything down, poison everything, wipe out all the beautiful species. Then we go extinct. And nature will just evolve new stuff equally amazing. This planet can still keep going for 7.6 billion years. Some form of life will be on earth until the very last day. We have been here for 2 million to half a million years, depending to how you define us humans. And we could be gone in half a million years. True, if we go extinct, and many organisms, including larger ones, have to re-evolve from smaller ones, like we did from the dinosaur, it may take 20 to 200 million years for intelligent life similar to us to re-evolve. And when they do, we burned up all of the easily accessible coal and oil. The oil we burned op was formed mostly about 500 million years ago. Before true plants even came into existence. For any future intelligence to get a new bunch of fossil fuel reserves, they can use as literal free energy to power their version of the industrial age, is quite unlikely. So if you are on 'team earth-born intelligent civilization', then we are probably earths only shot. But if you are on team plants, we humans in burning all that fossil fuel doubled CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Which is disrupting our climate in unpredictable ways, that our fragile economies can not deal with well. But it is great for plants. When anti climate change people say that CO2 is plant food, they are right. We might have set up earth for a new golden age of plants. Total photosynthesis on earth went up by 20% because of us burning fossil fuels. Of course there are winners and losers. But in general, this is great for plants.
We actually do not have the capabilities to make planet earth be a dead planet. I do not know by which metric people measure if planet, or mother nature, if doing good or bad. But in general we should be much more worried about ourselves. How pollution, climate change, ecosystem collapse, and unsustainable harvesting of resources is going to affect us. Because the planet will be fine. With or without us.
Says the brand new account just created today, presumably for the purpose of trolling this forum…
fredman
Masterpiece
TBH I don't know why I posted this here on this forum (maybe because I love plants to obsessively).
My view on creation and our existence changed radically over the last few years....since I got out of religion. Spirituality are giving me a whole new perspective on everything.
I absolutely believe plants have consciousness....so does animals, insects and everything down to the biome level.
To me, that is the foundational principal of creation. That is how the Devine communicates with this (3rd) dimension....through energy, frequency, vibration....hence consciousness.
Consciousness can never be reasoned nor understood by the human mind...nore can it be understood by scientific means...although they are trying.
Nothing can and will ever be achieved by trying to reason or debate consciousness. Consciousness (in its true sense) can only be experienced by raising the vibration and awareness to a certain level.
Shamans on different continents over the world have been communicating with plants since the dawn of humanity....while in an altered state of consciousness. Still today there is people that has the ability (because of their consciousness) to communicate with plants.
I believe that is how the medicinal qualities of plants have been conveyed to our forefathers....and beyond.
Our only way out of this mess we created, is to raise our consciousness.
My view on creation and our existence changed radically over the last few years....since I got out of religion. Spirituality are giving me a whole new perspective on everything.
I absolutely believe plants have consciousness....so does animals, insects and everything down to the biome level.
To me, that is the foundational principal of creation. That is how the Devine communicates with this (3rd) dimension....through energy, frequency, vibration....hence consciousness.
Consciousness can never be reasoned nor understood by the human mind...nore can it be understood by scientific means...although they are trying.
Nothing can and will ever be achieved by trying to reason or debate consciousness. Consciousness (in its true sense) can only be experienced by raising the vibration and awareness to a certain level.
Shamans on different continents over the world have been communicating with plants since the dawn of humanity....while in an altered state of consciousness. Still today there is people that has the ability (because of their consciousness) to communicate with plants.
I believe that is how the medicinal qualities of plants have been conveyed to our forefathers....and beyond.
Our only way out of this mess we created, is to raise our consciousness.
Last edited:
Got news for you, dude. You’re still in it (religion). You’ve just replaced the organized religion you left with one you’ve invented to take its place.
cmeg1
Imperial Masterpiece
cmeg1
Imperial Masterpiece
I like this Rush song about oaks and maples
Here are my oak and maple
fredman
Masterpiece
Haha...Yeah you don't understand...but that's understandable.
eugenev2
Shohin
Thanks for the good laugh i needed that...
On a different note...pun intended...i can introduce you to some frequencies that could definitely change your vibrations...possibly even good...vibrations
Alternatively...stick your finger in a socket...i heard the Devine favors this communication method ...i heard energy transferal can be an...electrifying experience
Cajunrider
Imperial Masterpiece
If the plants have feelings, everyone in this forum is doomed for all the maiming and torturing they have done.
Baldeaux, I am sorry for splitting your legs, for putting holes in your stomach and pulling your arms through just because I want your arms in lower places. I am also especially sorry for contorting your spine and chopping your heads every time you grow a new one.
Baldeaux, I am sorry for splitting your legs, for putting holes in your stomach and pulling your arms through just because I want your arms in lower places. I am also especially sorry for contorting your spine and chopping your heads every time you grow a new one.
WestHavenMusician
Sapling
Your first paragraph has no citations — just “it’s a made up word” and “there are books about it.”
That would seem to be contradictory.
What word is *not* made up? And why is this video specifically less worthy of consideration than a book?
Science has much going for it. It certainly is being used to make our planet uninhabitable for many of its residents.
What books on consciousness have you read? I’m reading Mircea Eliade again now. (I read “The Sacred and the Profane” in college and am now reading his deep explication of the history and theory of yoga.
Trees are so much a part of my consciousness. From first memory. Of this I’m keenly aware. I am a part of theirs. Of this I’m more dimly aware. But nevertheless aware.
WestHavenMusician
Sapling
Pruning neurons is a major way in which our brains function. Our bones are continually dissolved and remade on a molecular level by osteoblasts. Pruning is a natural part of life.
I’m new to bonsai but I’ve studied East Asian and South Asian philosophy and religion as well as indigenous American philosophy and religion. The balance of civilization and nature is important. The liminal space between human and nonhuman. The pain of pruning and the life of growth. The age of a century old bonsai and the freshness of a new leaf.
I’ve pruned many things in my life — childlike behavior, bad habits, unhealthy relationships, traumatic memories, even prejudices and angers.
Pruning is a good thing.
I’m enjoying this thread. I didn’t expect to see philosophy when I joined yesterday!
