Yeah, but it's mostly just in that lame hippie bullshit "part of the living force of the planet" kind of way, so it's probably best to just ignore me as a lame outlier on this one.
Plants exhibit characteristics of life. They do not exhibit characteristics of sentience anymore more than a single cell organism does.
Anything beyond that gets into the realm of theology. There are animistic belief systems that suggest that everything has a spirit, even inanimate objects like rocks and mountains. Regardless, plant life is life and all life on this planet is interdependent. It behooves us to remember this.
I don't believe that anything has a "soul," so I don't grant this capacity to trees.
Consciousness requires a nervous system that is able to perceive and process input, which plants do not have. It is extremely unlikely that they possess any such system, there is no biological sign of it.
If "awareness" is defined very generally as to not necessitate self-awareness, but merely to define responding to the environment, then plants have a very rudimentary level of awareness. They do respond to light and to hormones, even those released by other plants. But this no more requires consciousness than the responses of a thermostat.
They are beautiful living things no matter what levelof conciousness we give them and they deserve more repect than we currrently show them. Afraid I agree with crisw about their "soul" thing.
No. I'm not sure about souls. It's just a word for something unexplainable. I just wanted to use as many words to roughly express what I mean, to widen the chance people would understand what I meant.
I can't answer that for sure either way. I know that I feel differently, more at ease and peace beneath the giant Sequoia trees on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada in California...
!000 years is a long time to exist as an organic being, maybe something resembling a higher plane of consciousness may have occurred within that time period. The elders used to venerate very old trees. Now they are a nuisance on the path to development.
sort of... but it can't be explained with those words. Trees have a sort of collective memory... Their makeup is so much older than ours - adaptable to whatever environment their thrust into and they balance things out. Let alone that changes are saved in their layers... fire, too much carbon, not enough water... it's all there, remembered.
Look the only thing trees have is the ability to make oxygen for us. Depending on much you like breathing, I think you should respect trees accordingly.
Pithy one liners bore you? What are you married to David Spade. *Sigh*
Well here is the thing, Trees could survive without us. We need trees way more than trees need us. The problem with humans is we stopped evolving. Instead of adapting to our environment we started adapting our environment for us. The sad thing is we are really poor at it.
And I realise they could survive with out us, etc. My original issue was that you assumed providing for other life was their only ability. Even if it is (which it could be) it doesn't have anything to do with the awareness issue.
I agree. Pretty brilliant either way. I don't understand though why so many people can't entertain the idea that they could have something beyond what we currently understand. Or might never understand.
that_fellow... 2 months ago
departed... 2 months ago
crisw... 2 months ago
Consciousness requires a nervous system that is able to perceive and process input, which plants do not have. It is extremely unlikely that they possess any such system, there is no biological sign of it.
If "awareness" is defined very generally as to not necessitate self-awareness, but merely to define responding to the environment, then plants have a very rudimentary level of awareness. They do respond to light and to hormones, even those released by other plants. But this no more requires consciousness than the responses of a thermostat.
departed... 2 months ago
Afraid I agree with crisw about their "soul" thing.
rahb... 2 months ago
Kevisaurus... 2 months ago
I wouldn't attribute this attribute to saplings.
jeanpaulsartre... 2 months ago
TRicardo... 2 months ago
TRicardo... 2 months ago
TRicardo... 2 months ago
DrAwkward... about 1 month ago