#TOTW If science ever proves plants are properly sentient, whats left to eat?

I think its only a matter of time before science proves all living things are interconnected, just like Avatar. I have read various articles which claim sweetcorn plants produce subterranean sounds with their roots, like a click or pop. The function of this is as yet unknown, it is also unknown whether it is purely a side effect of physical processes or intentional, but the young plants definitely exhibit a tendency to grow towards a sound source in the same frequency as the sounds they produce.
So, with that in mind, how would people on here feel if the only real benefit vegetarianism has , ie the fact you are claiming a non sentient life as food over a sentient firm, was negated. If the only factor it came down to was ugly cabbage versus cute lamb?

just like Avatar

They didn’t have a problem with sentient creatures eating sentient creatures in avatar

Really OP?

 I have read various articles which claim sweetcorn plants produce subterranean sounds with their roots, like a click or pop

Sounds fascinating, any info?

Everything as the playing field has been levelled.

Its been a theory for many years and there is some evidence that plants do communicate. sentience is a reach tho for sure.

What level of sentience are we talking here? Dog level, or more like an ant?

Synthetic food obvs. It already exists, we feed it to babies.

However, plants communicating isn’t an indication that they are highly intelligent and sentient and have been discussing philosophy and art all this time. I’m pretty sure bacteria do stuff like this too.

Do we just start eating People from Peterborough?  They are BARELY sentient…

I can prove that plants are sentient; the word you’re looking for is sapient.

What do I win?

I’m no expert in the matter, but aren’t a lot of vegetarians, vegetarian for reasons other than not hurting baby lambs? An objection to intensive farming, and the damage that does to the planet, for one thing. Personal health reasons being another.

Can someone explain what is wrong with eating sentient, sapient, smart, dumb, LBGTQx or any other kind of being please

sweetcorn plants produce subterranean sounds with their roots, like a click or pop

It’s well know that sweetcorn speak Xhosa 🙂

Can someone explain what is wrong with eating sentient, sapient, smart, dumb, LBGTQx or any other kind of being please

Soylent Green

Well think about this:
Plants know when the seasons are changing, take the trees around me for example, as soon as high summer passed they were starting to show signs of leaves withering, and not just due to dehydration like in the Teak forests. They were sensing that autumn was upon us, yet temperatures were still hovering around the 15 to 20c mark, higher than most springtime temps. So they are definitely sentient, yet have no eyes to monitor light levels. Remember, once the leaves fall, they know when to rise the sap again, so its not leaves sensing the light either.
Yes you can quote auxins and giberellins,etc but the fact is the plants are only reacting to these compounds which are self produced, how do they know when and why? Theres a lot going on here under the surface. When I last did any formal education in these matters , we knew all about how but not why, id be interested to know if anything has changed in tge last 12 years or so.

https://teachingkidsnews.com/2012/06/26/3-scientists-discovers-corn-plants-make-a-noise/#:~:text=They%20used%20a%20sound%20that%20was%20in%20the,%E2%80%9Cclicking%20sounds%E2%80%9D%20the%20corn%20seedlings%20made.%20Sweetcorn%20seeding.

Can someone explain what is wrong with eating sentient, sapient, smart, dumb, LBGTQx or any other kind of being please

There is an issue here. The perfect counter argument exists.

Bacon.

And i never said they did, I said they were interconnected like Avatar.

Yes sentient might not be the right word then. Plants are definitely sentient. Ever heard of tge experiments where they connected a polygraph or similar to a houseplant and boiled various things, some inanimate some inanimate, only to see supposed spikes when lifeforms were boiled? I suppose im talking about awareness of being connected to the living web then.

Well think about this:

I’m pretty sure junior school science lessons have you covered for explanations there.

Educate me then, Mr.Howard.

Anyeay, the point im making is, IF it were to happen, would we be morally obliged to process food from its source nutrients without a living intermediate, or would it, as Drac suggests, level the playing field, meaning all life is equal and therefore fair game with nothing to choose between it other than aesthetics.
Also, would the artificial propogation of plants via cuttings, grafting,etc, be ethical? We villify anyone who does it to animals. Witness the reaction to the dog head transplant experiments by Vladimir Demokhov.

I’d carry on as per normal.

As the OP says, everything is linked, but perhaps not in the same way they’re thinking. Every action we take, or don’t take affects everything else.

Some people don’t like to eat animals, or find it distasteful or even disgusting. I don’t share that opinion but I respect it. Some people are okay eating some animals, but not others and some people are okay with animals dying and suffering to provide them with food, but only if they don’t actually eat them – and I respect their opinions too.

Everyone has their own opinion / threshold for what they think is right when it comes to the death of other beings for them to survive.

A Vegan will generally want to avoid anything that’s caused an animal to suffer or die for them. I would imagine leading a strict vegan lifestyle can be very limiting sometimes and it’s a real sacrifice (they certain don’t suffer in silence – that’s a joke). Most Vegans would find having a 5 month old Lamb brought into an slaughterhouse, shot in the head with a bolt and having it’s throat cut just so people can eat it disgusting, but many will drive. 160 billion insects and assorted ‘bugs’ are killed every year by moving cars in the Netherlands alone.

A vegetarian would usually choose not to eat chicken, but many will still eat eggs. The egg industry doesn’t raise male chickens, they’re gassed or fed live into macerators live, and that’s seen as humane.

Don’t click this unless you want to see what that looks like.

https://www.farmtransparency.org/videos?id=9ff4223a9f

Meat eaters like me, are happy, or at least happy to remain ignorant about the reality of meat we buy, and it doesn’t really matter if you’re buying from the local organic farm shop or ASDA, in order for it to reach you, someone took a young, fit healthy animal, killed it and chopped it up. But meat eaters can be utterly enraged by by the idea of someone eating a dog, or a horse, or a whale or a Dolphin, or hunting a deer.

Even if everyone in the world became a Vegan, it wouldn’t mean the end of the death of animals for us to survive Trillions upon trillions of insects killed by pesticides to ensure intensive farming can exist to feed a global population that’s many multiples too large to sustain through foraging alone. Be they ‘organic’ pesticides or otherwise.

When it comes to possibly sentient plants, how do we, as individuals decide on what’s more sentient, a virus, our immune systems kill 100m viruses a day each. A plant? How many humans would we let starve to save the lives of wheat? An insect? If we don’t don’t kill trillions of them every year, then Humans starve and so do the plants. Domestic animals we eat, like Cows, Sheep and Pigs? Are they more worthy of being allowed to live than Viruses and Insects because they’re bigger? Cuter? More intelligent? Other animals that we consider pets in the west and wild animals? Why do we consider Dogs to be sacred because we consider them pets, but cows which are just as intelligent can be lead to slaughter in their millions every year?

whats left to eat?

Animal waste product?

We have a long, long way to go before that becomes an issue.
Quite frankly I’m appalled that I hear much more talk of giving artificial intelligence rights, or at least crediting it with consciousness, when we can barely do that for a chimpanzee. Machines should be way, way down the pecking order.

Bacon.

The only know cure for vegetarianism. Scientific fact.

Also, would the artificial propogation of plants via cuttings, grafting,etc, be ethical? We villify anyone who does it to animals. Witness the reaction to the dog head transplant experiments by Vladimir Demokhov.

He who breaks the law goes back to the house of pain.

Synthetic food obvs. It already exists, we feed it to babies.

Where do the materials used to manufacture synthetic food come from?

They were sensing that autumn was upon us, yet temperatures were still hovering around the 15 to 20c mark, higher than most springtime temps. So they are definitely sentient

That’s not what sentient really means in this context.

Plants are responding to sunlight creating a chemical reaction in their leaves or other exposed parts, or temperature changes. It doesn’t mean they are intelligent. I mean, let me ask another question: if I have a cup of vinegar, and I put a teaspoon of baking soda in it, it froths up. But how does it KNOW to froth up at the exact moment I put the baking soda in? Answer – it doesn’t, it just happens. Same with plants – the sunlight hitting the leaves or temperatures being over a certain threshold for a long enough period triggers chemical processes that make the plant grow.

Here’s another question for you. Let’s say I write a computer program that starts up and says ‘Hello, my name is George. Please be careful, my Enter key is very sore’. Then I program it so that when you press Enter it prints out ‘Ow!’. Is my computer feeling pain? Think about what pain actually is, in a human. It’s not a straightforward question.

Where do the materials used to manufacture synthetic food come from?

Asda?

Also, consider what happens down here in Cardiff in the mild South-West of Britain. Plants start coming up early after or during a mild winter, and then there’s a frost or some really shitty weather and they get damaged. They didn’t know it was actually still February, they thought it was April and time to come up. Why? Because it was warm. They really aren’t smart.

Venus Fly Trap must have sensors or awareness

how do they know when and why?

I don’t think that plants can know in the sense you’re talking about. Chemical changes and heat and sunlight can cause reactions to cells, but that’s not the same. Plus of course, animals are sentient, and folks still eat them, which somewhat undermines your argument, no?

But meat eaters can be utterly enraged by by the idea of someone eating a dog, or a horse, or a whale or a Dolphin, or hunting a deer.

As a lifelong vegetarian I never really understood this. What we – well, you lot – eat is broadly cultural. In the UK we see venison (meat taken from animals often considered pests) as something of a luxury but would be appalled at a bowl of horse curry. Why? Different cultures have different standards for what is “normal,” some of them eat all manner of weird shit. China has an annual dog meat festival.

There is an issue here. The perfect counter argument exists.

Bacon.

Somewhere in the grim North, Cougar’s ‘bacon joke’ trigger has just been activated and he’s rushing to the nearest internet cafe as we speak.

Edit: now I just look silly.

As a lifelong carnivore I never understood it either. To sweep a generalisation – if you’re willing to eat a dead thing, you should be willing to eat any deaf thing, and any part of any dead thing

Venus Fly Trap must have sensors or awareness

Sensors yes, but awareness? They’re about as aware as George the computer programme I just mentioned, or a ring doorbell. When we receive a sensory input, as humans, that input sometimes goes through a whole load of processing and evaluation, and can trigger a load of emotions subject to the context on a minute level. When you press George’s enter key, it just prints out ‘ow’. That’s all there is to it. When you touch a Venus fly trap’s sensor hairs, it releases a chemical that causes cells to expand along the hinge and it shuts. It’s not making a decision.

if you’re willing to eat a dead thing, you should be willing to eat any deaf thing, and any part of any dead thing

Helen Keller?

johnnymarone
Free Member
Educate me then, Mr.Howard.

Quantum mechanics has you covered here – The theory is that quantum resonance changes fractionally as a result of the earths changing position/axial tilt WRT to the sun. Thus plants (and migratory animals) react to this change at a quantum level. Animals move position around the globe until the resonance equilibrium is satisfied, plants (and non-migratory animals) hibernate, etc until the resonance returns.

So, with that in mind, how would people on here feel if the only real benefit vegetarianism has , ie the fact you are claiming a non sentient life as food over a sentient firm, was negated

That’s not the only benefit to not eating the flesh of dead things. Y’know?

Somewhere in the grim North, Cougar’s ‘bacon joke’ trigger has just been activated and he’s rushing to the nearest internet cafe as we speak.

Edit: now I just look silly.

I thing I’ve grown as a person.

I understand temperature thresholds, cold dormancy, etc, but the phenomenon of oak trees exuding chemical warnings to surrounding oaks whilst under caterpillar attack suggests some type of community . There is nothing in it for the attacked tree.

https://www.nathab.com/blog/the-trees-are-talking/#:~:text=It%20was%20found%20that%20the%20trees%20did%20not,pheromone%29%20to%20warn%20their%20neighbors%20of%20the%20danger.

suggests some type of community . There is nothing in it for the attacked tree.

It doesn’t. It could just suggests some cells in oaks react to other chemicals produced by caterpillars, and that could happen without any need for any sort of control or understanding.