As a kid in michigan, i was addicted to the woods. I had to be out in the pines every day. Id wake up early, get my shoes on and run out there, i just loved it. But one day while out in a nice spot i was just overcome with awe at how beautiful it was out there. I sat down and rested my back against a tall pine, and just looked around in amazement. In that silence i realized i was actually feeling an intense "hum." It literally felt like the trees were emitting a powerful low hum, and it felt so good. I sat there aware of it and said to myself, "This is what perfect feels like." 30 yrs ago and ive never forgotten it. Ive since concluded that the trees were speaking to me, embracing me, filling me with something that they were emitting. Sounds kooky, but im convinced there's something to it.
@@Lak735their are people who spell things there way and just post it right they’re. Isn’t that f’ing infuriating to read? I know maybe it’s a minor thing, but people seem to genuinely not understand this. I just don’t get it, truly. It’s the language you speak.
I've spent many years in the garden and I earnestly believe that plants have personalities. They are more attuned and responsive to their environment than most people.
@@stevenpham6734 well to be fair, I'm not stating it to be true, only that I beleive it to be so. My only evidence would be the same as evidence I have for people having personalities. Specimens from the same genus, growing in the same environment, presenting a wide variation of responses to stimili.
All life has a mind, I simply cannot fathom how it could be any other way. If you 'know' something, your mind is telling you that you 'know' that particular thing. I think as a human species, we seriously need to disassociate the 'mind' with 'brain'.
Questions I had about this interview are, are there inter species communication between various plants? When the plant detects a pollinator, how quickly is it able to change its nectar to entice the pollinator? He mentioned that plants on either side react to the presence of a destructive beetle, is there a differentiation between plants of their own kind or is there any indication if there are changes in response to the beetle among plants of a different variety?
I have a bog garden of carnivorous plants. The Fly Traps not only sense for more than one hair touched, they will open the trap again if no movement is detected inside the trap. They also detect the sun location and orient the blooms is that direction. (Yes, the bloom just like other plants.) BTW: Excellent video!
The problem is projecting human concepts of sense (of taste, smell, sight) and the human concept of information processing (mental activity) onto other species rather than the other way around. As covered at around 2:15 there are other ways of biologically responding to environmental inputs without mental processing. Only a small part of human reactions or pro-actions involve any real mental processing. That may say something about our understanding of what mental processing even is -> it may just be evolutionary developed interacting-with-the-environment mechanisms
I give my plants consistency, consistent predictable schedules with light/dark, temperatures, and watering. I've had many for 15 years and they've grown enormous in my house. They're everywhere. I also put lots of different types near each other so they can compete and that seems to spur growth. Eventually they all find their spots in sun and share and none lose out
I hope Chamovitz really meant that he didn't mind stepping on grass or plants when it was a matter of course or simply necessary. I would hope that most people would avoid crushing any life form if it is a simple thing to avoid it and definitely not find satisfaction in the destruction. One of the factors in childhood development that leads toward bullying and aggression in adulthood is a lack of wonder and empathy toward nature which really should be nurtured by parents and society.
I let a large centipede out once, that I had found downstairs. I felt good that I let it live and watched it motor away back to where it belonged. Then I realized, that was wrong. I felt good because " I let" it live ? No. Who am I, God ? I don't "let" things live and then pat myself on the back. That's wrong. You just do it, because "killing automatically" of the little creatures, is not cool. We're all trained; you see a bug , a spider, you kill it without thinking. Took me a while to break that programming. It took a centipede. Now there is a glass and a coaster out, always, to let spiders out. I sense they know, I;m not going to kill them. They're just going for a ride.
Pretty sure all of these points could be emulated by an Arduino. And I don't think there is a debate over whether that is sentient. It's still an interesting debate regarding plants though
I'd take the question a step further: do plants have SOULS??? Mycelia is the nervous system connecting them all, and unifying ALL Earthbound life!!! Should each planet that hosts life be identified by its own unique mycelia?
Very good interview.. "Sentience" is not an overly vague word like the word "consciousness" certainly is, but AWARENESS is more precise.. Yes indeed, plants have an obvious awareness of their environment.. One opinion.
@sven888 I agee friend.. If anyone has a weak garden or house plant, it is virtually certain the reason is a LACK of attention.. Simple enough and common knowledge as well.. I am convinced that
Plants have the ability to react to an outside stimulus, such as responding with a chemical defense when they are being eaten by insects. However, even a brain dead human will respond in the same way, in that the body will exhibit a chemical defense when doctors try to harvest the organs for donation. However, without a functioning brain, there is no pain or consciousness present. The same is most likely true in the case of plants.
I practice "reverence for life" (Dr. Albert Schweitzer, 1915), and believe that one should not harm other life (even non-sentient). But to say that plants are sentient is just ridiculous. To be sentient, a being needs a nervous system and nociceptors (and probably a brain), and plants do not have any of these. They simply respond in a stimulus and response manner. Still, we should respect their existence and not unnecessarily harm them. Reverence for life is a spiritual practice that could save the world, if humans only had the sense and discipline to embrace it.
Dear Mr. Kuhn, Watching this episode about sentient plants, I'd rather think I'd found the end of the Internet than hear you report tomorrow that this was your final installment of Closer to Truth. 🙂On a serious note, I'm glad you covered this topic. I enjoyed it!
But where is the plant's memory "stored"? Or does it need to be stored? And does that mean that a certain plant can predict, maybe the sun's patterns, the weather? In other words, for a plant, do these phenomena have meaning and value?
Funny like the interviewer on many occasions is trying to dig deeper into the mechanism behind those senses and is never really heard. Great interview regardless, but it's like talking about new features of an iPhone and never really explaining in deep how is the hardware and software done behind them features
He walks back a lot of this in his first couple of sentences. There’s one thing of having a way of chemically interacting with its environment, and being sentient, which means something entirely different.
EXACTLY. Plants can't move location, therefore they need a lot of genes so that they can perform many differential strategies for survival, this leads to natural selection favoring a larger genome that supports these many chemical sensory detection mechanisms. Animals can move away from danger, which favors a streamlined genome that maximizes skeletal muscular control, symmetric proportions. Meaning when a environmental pressure is met, the animal can move out of the way, without needing many different mechanisms to change it's growth trajectory, a plant has to change growth pattern to adapt (it can't move location) larger genes are needed.
Physarum can literally solve mazes and use historical prediction. They certainly fit William James definition of intelligence - delaying gratification to achieve a goal.
Why does a plant bend toward the light? The guests answer, "Because it wants to employ photosynthesis..." Notice the language he uses, "it wants to". No, it doesn't WANT to. It just does. Along with all of the other things mentioned that it does to survive. This whole presentation by the guest was one big anthropomorphizing exercise. Now THAT was impressive.
*Consciousness* encompasses a wide range of mental states and processes, including awareness of oneself and the environment, perception, thoughts, emotions, and volitional control. *Sentience* is a specific aspect of consciousness. Sentience is the capacity to have subjective experiences, particularly feelings and sensations. This means being able to experience things like pleasure, pain, joy, fear, hunger, or thirst. It also implies some level of awareness of oneself and one's environment, although it's not only that. Sentience is a property or component of consciousness. It's possible to imagine scenarios where consciousness exists without sentience (non-sentient consciousness). For example, a hypothetical artificial intelligence might be able to process information, reason, and even communicate, but lack the ability to experience subjective feelings. If panpsychism is true, and consciousness exists in all things, even seemingly inanimate objects like rocks and atoms possess some form of rudimentary consciousness. However, this does not imply that they are sentient. They might possess a basic awareness or a fundamental "what-it's-like-ness" to be them, but they lack the complex neural structures and cognitive capacities necessary for subjective experience, emotions, or self-awareness. If everything is conscious, it doesn't mean that everything feels or experiences the world in the same way we do. While a rock might have some basic form of consciousness, it doesn't experience pain when kicked or joy when warmed by the sun. Its consciousness is likely so rudimentary that it's barely recognizable as such from our human perspective. In this panpsychist view, sentience emerges as a more specialized and complex form of consciousness, requiring specific biological or computational structures to enable subjective experience. Therefore, while panpsychism expands the realm of consciousness to include all entities, it doesn't necessarily equate everything with sentience. The vast majority of conscious entities in the universe might be non-sentient, possessing only a basic form of awareness without the capacity for feelings or subjective experiences. The paper "Limits to Sentience" argues that plants are not sentient due to the lack of a centralized nervous system. Sentience, defined as the capacity to have feelings, requires the ability to process and integrate sensory information, evaluate actions, and make decisions. These complex functions are typically associated with a centralized nervous system, which plants do not possess. While plants can respond to their environment through various mechanisms, these responses are localized and decentralized. Each plant cell or group of cells reacts independently to specific stimuli, without any central coordination or integration of information. This decentralized system allows plants to adapt and survive, but it does not provide the necessary foundation for sentience. The absence of a central nervous system in plants also means that they lack the capacity for subjective experiences, such as feelings of pain or pleasure. These subjective experiences are thought to require a centralized system to process and interpret sensory input, leading to the conscious awareness of emotions and sensations. Furthermore, the paper emphasizes that plant communication and information sharing do not necessarily equate to sentience. While plants can exchange chemical signals and electrical impulses, these mechanisms are fundamentally different from the complex neural networks found in animals. Therefore, based on the current scientific understanding of sentience and the evidence presented in the paper, there is no reason to believe that plants are sentient. The lack of a centralized nervous system and the decentralized nature of their responses indicate that they do not possess the necessary biological structures or cognitive abilities to experience feelings or sensations. It's crucial to consult experts who specialize in the study of consciousness to understand the nuances of sentience accurately. The explanatory gap in philosophy of mind highlights the challenge in bridging the understanding of physical processes in the brain with the subjective experience of consciousness. This gap emphasizes that a purely reductionist approach, focusing solely on the physical components, is insufficient to fully grasp the complexities of consciousness and sentience. The analogy of a computer program and its hardware further reinforces this point. Just as understanding a program's functionality requires more than examining its hardware, understanding sentience necessitates delving into the non-physical aspects of consciousness, like subjective experience and qualia. This is where the expertise of cognitive scientists, philosophers of mind, and neuroscientists becomes crucial. These professionals dedicate their careers to studying the intricacies of consciousness, developing theories, and conducting research to unravel its mysteries. They possess the knowledge and understanding to differentiate between mere biological responses and true sentience. Daniel Chamovitz, as a plant geneticist, is undoubtedly an expert in his field. However, his expertise lies in the biological mechanisms of plants, not the philosophical or neuroscientific underpinnings of consciousness. While his insights into plant behavior are valuable, they may not provide a complete picture when discussing sentience. To illustrate this further, consider this analogy: You wouldn't consult a cardiologist to treat a broken bone, would you? Similarly, relying solely on a plant geneticist's perspective on sentience might not provide the comprehensive understanding needed to address this complex topic. Therefore, it's imperative to engage with the peer-reviewed literature produced by experts in the relevant fields. This ensures that we are basing our understanding of sentience on rigorous research and informed perspectives, rather than relying on potentially incomplete or misleading interpretations.
If I remember to remember my notification (I'm busy at the moment), I will come back here and directly and clearly (hopefully) explain my answer the question: _"How to detect sentience?,"_ which requires a multi-faceted approach. I do want to briefly point out that terms like "hear," "see," or "smell" when describing plant responses can be misleading, as these words typically imply conscious perception and subjective experience in humans and animals. While plants can detect and respond to stimuli like sound vibrations, light, and chemicals, their mechanisms are fundamentally different from the sensory systems of animals. Plants do not possess the neural structures necessary to process sensory information into qualia, the subjective "feeling" of an experience. They lack a central nervous system to integrate sensory input and generate conscious awareness. Therefore, it's important to use precise language when discussing plant perception. Instead of saying plants "hear," we can say they "detect vibrations" or "respond to acoustic stimuli." This avoids *misnomers* and *category mistakes* via anthropomorphizing plants and accurately reflects the scientific understanding of their sensory capabilities. I do want to make it clear that I do believe a plant geneticist can provide valuable insights into the biological mechanisms underlying plant responses to stimuli, which are relevant to understanding the limits of plant awareness and potential for consciousness. However, they might commit a lot of errors that cognitive scientists or philosophers of mind would typically avoid, as non-philosophers tend to repeat many of the tempting mistakes that have made in the past. They also tend to offer a more nuanced perspective on the topic.
11:46 could that be that because when we listen to the music we like we feel good and the plants sense or smell that. Isn’t there a study with speaking to plants negatively and then another plan positivity and the ones that got the positive reinforcement did better? Not sure if that was a real experiment tho.
the only reason we have a nervous system is speed...our cells need to communicate and respond on much faster time scales than plants, since we are mobile
13:44 - The most important aspect of this issue is relegated to the final seconds of this clip. He gives an answer, yet absolutely no explanation as to the reason *WHY* he has no reservations when stepping on plants.
6:38 Mr. Chamovitz really didn't want to answer how plants bend to the light. I think Mr. Kuhn was seeking understanding as to the processes involved with a plant physically moving in an arc of 40+ degrees over the course of a solar day. A plant doesn't have muscles or ligaments. Are individual cells expanding or contracting using water, hydraulics perhaps?
Just prior to my local village fair, held in a nearby meadow surrounded by trees, the trees seem to quiver with anticipation and excitement. Sometimes their excitement is so great that it pisses with rain on the day of the fair.
No doubt there are complexities and wonderful mechanisms in plant biology that are less known to us, but something that seems a bit incorrect to me is utilizing the terms like "know" and "see". It seems that Chamovitz concluded the existence of subjectivity in plants, purely based on behavioral observations. For instance, if a camera receives light, and based on that changes the aperture (or any other task for that matter), we usually don't use the verb "see" to describe it, as it is a solely mechanical and electrical (or chemical) process that is kind of automatic without the involvement of experience.
Exactly. First of all they do not suffer. Plants lack nervous system, brain, or pain receptors. Sentience involves the capacity for subjective experiences, which plants lack due to the absence of the mentioned.
Agree. On the other hand did you know the same volatile anesthetics that make us unconscious also stop motility in single-celled organisms and plants like Venus flytraps…!
Did you watch the whole video? If they can communicate internally without a nervous system, have memory without brain and can feel touch without nerves or receptors then what's keeping them from feeling pain? @@lordganesha7084
I have been observing plants at my home for many years and I feel they have some subjective experience no matter how minute and limited. Just like a human is behind a camera seeing through it, a plant has some sentience (life force) utilizing parts of it to achieve its life goals (surviving and reproducing).
@@qrious786 It's fascinating to think about and probably have some truth in it. But it's an open debate since one can observe the behaviors of a system that are directed towards maximizing its survival chance, yet argue that all of it is just chemical, mechanical and electrical activities, completely knowable but void of any sentience. Like in single celled organisms as an example.
This is the second one of these I’ve watched where the guest spent forever not answering the question. The only real answer was offhand at the end where he said he has no problem stepping on grass.
Mum swung for a thousand year living Spanish tree in Botanical Gardens Sydney beside the local art gallery, who could have the same rate of change as us after accounting for scale.
Im so happy that this topic was touched. I have been more sensetive towards plants and did feel that they hear us. Probably much more intelligent to survive and adapt in any circumstances. Very interesting talk indeed.
Anecdotal, but I had a friend as a kid that did his science project on plants and music. 3 plants were exposed to 3 different types of music. The plant exposed to classical music grew the best. I really don't think my friend had a dog in that fight, and if he did it would have been towards punk as that was his style.
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Michael Levin has literally found evidence of this at the cellular level. He essentially posits and has good scientific evidence that suggests any entity made of cells is a hive intelligence, like an ant colony.
Plants do not "know," they are programed to respond to signals as robots are. Plants are endowed with multiplicity of well engineered sensors. Plants are a link between inorganic matters and animal life.
"program" implies an a priori purpose, as if it were part of an intelligent design. That's teleology, like the basic mechanicism that biologists proclaimed in the early last century, influenced by the idea of divine creation (prior to evolution theory development)
The plants are more hearing than you understand. Look at the hairs all over, it’s not just like hairs on our arm, same as hairs in our ears. The signal is transferred once the vibration is felt. Hearing is just feeling, same with light, feeling the changes and measuring the distance and seeing the relative.
11:50 "music and plants have no evolutionary connection"... well, if you think about it, neither plants nor humans have. Why do we even have preference and attraction for harmony and tune? You can hypothesize a lot about "tune in the mother's voice" or whatever, but nothing can convince me that evolution brought us to having a preference for some harmonic transitions, some modulations and some tunes. Moreover, animals also would not have an evolutionary connection to music, but most musicians know how domesticated or wild animals can be deeply attracted to music, and stop to hear it. There's something else to music and musical taste that evolution seems unable to explain. I don't think everything needs to make evolutionary sense. Not everything evolves for a reason.
Countless studies have shown they react to individual people in unique ways, they breathe, they know friend and family from foe, they know when people are around, they learn, have a memory, and have a life force. Their reactions are alien to us and they move much slower but it doesn't mean they're not sentient. They are.
meh - in jr hs i did the classic vs rock experiment and the former grew twice as better. i took it to be a preference for the differing vibrations of the speakers, not really the music itself. whatever it was it was very real and yes i had a neutral plant that m’s growth was right in the middle. 🎉
Next time you go to the plant section in the Home Depot, think how you are surrounded by a zombie plant army, waiting to invade the unsuspecting natives.
@@ehthrough So, no one is sentient? Neither you, nor your phone and also the plant? I'm 100 percent sure about phone though because man created it and didn't put life in it because he himself doesn't know what it is. Man just exploited the potentials (silicon, radio signal, electric, etc) already present to configure them to his liking and enclose in a box. We know this much that plant is a living being because we look for such phenomenon on other extra terrestrial places but don't look for rocks which are plenty.
in many ways plants are more advanced than human or any other animals,they can produce their own food,we cant.thats a clear sign of more advancement in evolution. and i think memory is not only related to just brain cells,its related to all cells.
As a kid in michigan, i was addicted to the woods. I had to be out in the pines every day. Id wake up early, get my shoes on and run out there, i just loved it. But one day while out in a nice spot i was just overcome with awe at how beautiful it was out there. I sat down and rested my back against a tall pine, and just looked around in amazement. In that silence i realized i was actually feeling an intense "hum." It literally felt like the trees were emitting a powerful low hum, and it felt so good. I sat there aware of it and said to myself, "This is what perfect feels like." 30 yrs ago and ive never forgotten it. Ive since concluded that the trees were speaking to me, embracing me, filling me with something that they were emitting. Sounds kooky, but im convinced there's something to it.
That’s awesome, thanks for sharing. Glad you were able to connect to nature as a kid
What an amazing experience. Thank you for sharing
Whether there anything to it is less important than having to experience a great feeling, because it is so rare.
The plants in the background are like “crap…they’re onto us”
Ahh, that was going to be my joke! 🙂
@@Kritiker313 It’s ok. Let’s both enjoy this joke together as co-founders. 😂
hahaha
They are plastic.
@@Lak735their are people who spell things there way and just post it right they’re.
Isn’t that f’ing infuriating to read? I know maybe it’s a minor thing, but people seem to genuinely not understand this. I just don’t get it, truly. It’s the language you speak.
I've spent many years in the garden and I earnestly believe that plants have personalities. They are more attuned and responsive to their environment than most people.
Your 2nd statement is quite obviously true, however you're gonna need to provide some arguments for the 1st claim.
@@stevenpham6734 well to be fair, I'm not stating it to be true, only that I beleive it to be so. My only evidence would be the same as evidence I have for people having personalities. Specimens from the same genus, growing in the same environment, presenting a wide variation of responses to stimili.
It was a joke about 20yrs in the garden 😊
Are you the type of person that thinks a dead universe is better than a human universe?
All life has a mind, I simply cannot fathom how it could be any other way. If you 'know' something, your mind is telling you that you 'know' that particular thing. I think as a human species, we seriously need to disassociate the 'mind' with 'brain'.
Questions I had about this interview are, are there inter species communication between various plants? When the plant detects a pollinator, how quickly is it able to change its nectar to entice the pollinator? He mentioned that plants on either side react to the presence of a destructive beetle, is there a differentiation between plants of their own kind or is there any indication if there are changes in response to the beetle among plants of a different variety?
I have a bog garden of carnivorous plants. The Fly Traps not only sense for more than one hair touched, they will open the trap again if no movement is detected inside the trap. They also detect the sun location and orient the blooms is that direction. (Yes, the bloom just like other plants.) BTW: Excellent video!
The problem is projecting human concepts of sense (of taste, smell, sight) and the human concept of information processing (mental activity) onto other species rather than the other way around. As covered at around 2:15 there are other ways of biologically responding to environmental inputs without mental processing. Only a small part of human reactions or pro-actions involve any real mental processing. That may say something about our understanding of what mental processing even is -> it may just be evolutionary developed interacting-with-the-environment mechanisms
Every cell has its own intelligence
The invasive vines in my yard "know" how to piss me off.
They are just happy to be alive just like animals and people.
I give my plants consistency, consistent predictable schedules with light/dark, temperatures, and watering. I've had many for 15 years and they've grown enormous in my house. They're everywhere. I also put lots of different types near each other so they can compete and that seems to spur growth. Eventually they all find their spots in sun and share and none lose out
I hope Chamovitz really meant that he didn't mind stepping on grass or plants when it was a matter of course or simply necessary. I would hope that most people would avoid crushing any life form if it is a simple thing to avoid it and definitely not find satisfaction in the destruction. One of the factors in childhood development that leads toward bullying and aggression in adulthood is a lack of wonder and empathy toward nature which really should be nurtured by parents and society.
yeah, and how will you keep on making wooden doors?
You guilty....vegetarian? omnivore? carnivore? You predate at the supermarket?
"Reverence for life"-if adopted en masse-would save the world! And going vegan. Sadly, humans are too unevolved and lacking in discipline to do this.
Before creation comes destruction
I let a large centipede out once, that I had found downstairs. I felt good that I let it live and watched it motor away back to where it belonged. Then I realized, that was wrong. I felt good because " I let" it live ? No. Who am I, God ? I don't "let" things live and then pat myself on the back. That's wrong. You just do it, because "killing automatically" of the little creatures, is not cool. We're all trained; you see a bug , a spider, you kill it without thinking. Took me a while to break that programming. It took a centipede. Now there is a glass and a coaster out, always, to let spiders out. I sense they know, I;m not going to kill them. They're just going for a ride.
8:14 I love your channel and your audience, I'm gonna comment on ALL your videos for years until I reach your level of subscribers.
Pretty sure all of these points could be emulated by an Arduino. And I don't think there is a debate over whether that is sentient. It's still an interesting debate regarding plants though
I'd take the question a step further: do plants have SOULS???
Mycelia is the nervous system connecting them all, and unifying ALL Earthbound life!!!
Should each planet that hosts life be identified by its own unique mycelia?
Life on Earth, Truely Amazing.
That was an interesting interview! I bet Daniel is an avid gardener.
Very good interview.. "Sentience" is not an overly vague word like the word "consciousness" certainly is, but AWARENESS is more precise.. Yes indeed, plants have an obvious awareness of their environment.. One opinion.
wow, this got me man, thank you for the comment
They can feel who loves them for sure.
@sven888 I agee friend.. If anyone has a weak garden or house plant, it is virtually certain the reason is a LACK of attention.. Simple enough and common knowledge as well.. I am convinced that
That they are far more complex than science realizes..(yet)..peace.
'Awareness' is still vague. Traffic lights have an 'awareness' of road traffic. But so what?
Mowing the lawn just becomes a green-bath.
Plants have the ability to react to an outside stimulus, such as responding with a chemical defense when they are being eaten by insects. However, even a brain dead human will respond in the same way, in that the body will exhibit a chemical defense when doctors try to harvest the organs for donation. However, without a functioning brain, there is no pain or consciousness present. The same is most likely true in the case of plants.
The brain acts as a veil. The purpose of the veil is love. Blessings to you brother.
I am getting hold of Chamovitz's book.
Fascinating stuff
I practice "reverence for life" (Dr. Albert Schweitzer, 1915), and believe that one should not harm other life (even non-sentient). But to say that plants are sentient is just ridiculous. To be sentient, a being needs a nervous system and nociceptors (and probably a brain), and plants do not have any of these. They simply respond in a stimulus and response manner. Still, we should respect their existence and not unnecessarily harm them. Reverence for life is a spiritual practice that could save the world, if humans only had the sense and discipline to embrace it.
Beautiful stuff ❤
Fascinating, thanks guys!
A plant that “knows” but can’t run away is useless…!
Also “Knowing” is different from “Reacting to a feed-back-mechanism”…..
Dear Mr. Kuhn, Watching this episode about sentient plants, I'd rather think I'd found the end of the Internet than hear you report tomorrow that this was your final installment of Closer to Truth. 🙂On a serious note, I'm glad you covered this topic. I enjoyed it!
Thank you for the new perspective and knowledge. Who knew ? This was great.
But where is the plant's memory "stored"? Or does it need to be stored? And does that mean that a certain plant can predict, maybe the sun's patterns, the weather? In other words, for a plant, do these phenomena have meaning and value?
Funny like the interviewer on many occasions is trying to dig deeper into the mechanism behind those senses and is never really heard. Great interview regardless, but it's like talking about new features of an iPhone and never really explaining in deep how is the hardware and software done behind them features
He walks back a lot of this in his first couple of sentences. There’s one thing of having a way of chemically interacting with its environment, and being sentient, which means something entirely different.
EXACTLY. Plants can't move location, therefore they need a lot of genes so that they can perform many differential strategies for survival, this leads to natural selection favoring a larger genome that supports these many chemical sensory detection mechanisms. Animals can move away from danger, which favors a streamlined genome that maximizes skeletal muscular control, symmetric proportions. Meaning when a environmental pressure is met, the animal can move out of the way, without needing many different mechanisms to change it's growth trajectory, a plant has to change growth pattern to adapt (it can't move location) larger genes are needed.
Great video! @3:29 has this chemical ever been observed? Also, why say “smelling” ? Could it also be a different form of communication?
Smelling is just the process of observing volatile chemicals with our nose. Why not say smelling?
Physarum can literally solve mazes and use historical prediction. They certainly fit William James definition of intelligence - delaying gratification to achieve a goal.
Fascinating!
Some plants do have a circadian rhythm, and it is possible they "use" Time .
There is a plant called "touch me not" plant .
Why does a plant bend toward the light? The guests answer, "Because it wants to employ photosynthesis..." Notice the language he uses, "it wants to". No, it doesn't WANT to. It just does. Along with all of the other things mentioned that it does to survive. This whole presentation by the guest was one big anthropomorphizing exercise. Now THAT was impressive.
What does Dr. Terrance Howard have to say on this subject?????
I'm skeptical...
The entire world is memory itself. Only the gifted observe and develop.
awesome!
The first question is, "What is Sentience?"
The second question is, "How to detect sentience in anything?"
*Consciousness* encompasses a wide range of mental states and processes, including awareness of oneself and the environment, perception, thoughts, emotions, and volitional control.
*Sentience* is a specific aspect of consciousness. Sentience is the capacity to have subjective experiences, particularly feelings and sensations. This means being able to experience things like pleasure, pain, joy, fear, hunger, or thirst. It also implies some level of awareness of oneself and one's environment, although it's not only that. Sentience is a property or component of consciousness.
It's possible to imagine scenarios where consciousness exists without sentience (non-sentient consciousness). For example, a hypothetical artificial intelligence might be able to process information, reason, and even communicate, but lack the ability to experience subjective feelings.
If panpsychism is true, and consciousness exists in all things, even seemingly inanimate objects like rocks and atoms possess some form of rudimentary consciousness. However, this does not imply that they are sentient. They might possess a basic awareness or a fundamental "what-it's-like-ness" to be them, but they lack the complex neural structures and cognitive capacities necessary for subjective experience, emotions, or self-awareness. If everything is conscious, it doesn't mean that everything feels or experiences the world in the same way we do. While a rock might have some basic form of consciousness, it doesn't experience pain when kicked or joy when warmed by the sun. Its consciousness is likely so rudimentary that it's barely recognizable as such from our human perspective.
In this panpsychist view, sentience emerges as a more specialized and complex form of consciousness, requiring specific biological or computational structures to enable subjective experience. Therefore, while panpsychism expands the realm of consciousness to include all entities, it doesn't necessarily equate everything with sentience. The vast majority of conscious entities in the universe might be non-sentient, possessing only a basic form of awareness without the capacity for feelings or subjective experiences.
The paper "Limits to Sentience" argues that plants are not sentient due to the lack of a centralized nervous system. Sentience, defined as the capacity to have feelings, requires the ability to process and integrate sensory information, evaluate actions, and make decisions. These complex functions are typically associated with a centralized nervous system, which plants do not possess. While plants can respond to their environment through various mechanisms, these responses are localized and decentralized. Each plant cell or group of cells reacts independently to specific stimuli, without any central coordination or integration of information. This decentralized system allows plants to adapt and survive, but it does not provide the necessary foundation for sentience.
The absence of a central nervous system in plants also means that they lack the capacity for subjective experiences, such as feelings of pain or pleasure. These subjective experiences are thought to require a centralized system to process and interpret sensory input, leading to the conscious awareness of emotions and sensations.
Furthermore, the paper emphasizes that plant communication and information sharing do not necessarily equate to sentience. While plants can exchange chemical signals and electrical impulses, these mechanisms are fundamentally different from the complex neural networks found in animals.
Therefore, based on the current scientific understanding of sentience and the evidence presented in the paper, there is no reason to believe that plants are sentient. The lack of a centralized nervous system and the decentralized nature of their responses indicate that they do not possess the necessary biological structures or cognitive abilities to experience feelings or sensations.
It's crucial to consult experts who specialize in the study of consciousness to understand the nuances of sentience accurately. The explanatory gap in philosophy of mind highlights the challenge in bridging the understanding of physical processes in the brain with the subjective experience of consciousness. This gap emphasizes that a purely reductionist approach, focusing solely on the physical components, is insufficient to fully grasp the complexities of consciousness and sentience.
The analogy of a computer program and its hardware further reinforces this point. Just as understanding a program's functionality requires more than examining its hardware, understanding sentience necessitates delving into the non-physical aspects of consciousness, like subjective experience and qualia. This is where the expertise of cognitive scientists, philosophers of mind, and neuroscientists becomes crucial. These professionals dedicate their careers to studying the intricacies of consciousness, developing theories, and conducting research to unravel its mysteries. They possess the knowledge and understanding to differentiate between mere biological responses and true sentience.
Daniel Chamovitz, as a plant geneticist, is undoubtedly an expert in his field. However, his expertise lies in the biological mechanisms of plants, not the philosophical or neuroscientific underpinnings of consciousness. While his insights into plant behavior are valuable, they may not provide a complete picture when discussing sentience. To illustrate this further, consider this analogy: You wouldn't consult a cardiologist to treat a broken bone, would you? Similarly, relying solely on a plant geneticist's perspective on sentience might not provide the comprehensive understanding needed to address this complex topic.
Therefore, it's imperative to engage with the peer-reviewed literature produced by experts in the relevant fields. This ensures that we are basing our understanding of sentience on rigorous research and informed perspectives, rather than relying on potentially incomplete or misleading interpretations.
If I remember to remember my notification (I'm busy at the moment), I will come back here and directly and clearly (hopefully) explain my answer the question: _"How to detect sentience?,"_ which requires a multi-faceted approach. I do want to briefly point out that terms like "hear," "see," or "smell" when describing plant responses can be misleading, as these words typically imply conscious perception and subjective experience in humans and animals. While plants can detect and respond to stimuli like sound vibrations, light, and chemicals, their mechanisms are fundamentally different from the sensory systems of animals.
Plants do not possess the neural structures necessary to process sensory information into qualia, the subjective "feeling" of an experience. They lack a central nervous system to integrate sensory input and generate conscious awareness. Therefore, it's important to use precise language when discussing plant perception. Instead of saying plants "hear," we can say they "detect vibrations" or "respond to acoustic stimuli." This avoids *misnomers* and *category mistakes* via anthropomorphizing plants and accurately reflects the scientific understanding of their sensory capabilities.
I do want to make it clear that I do believe a plant geneticist can provide valuable insights into the biological mechanisms underlying plant responses to stimuli, which are relevant to understanding the limits of plant awareness and potential for consciousness. However, they might commit a lot of errors that cognitive scientists or philosophers of mind would typically avoid, as non-philosophers tend to repeat many of the tempting mistakes that have made in the past. They also tend to offer a more nuanced perspective on the topic.
My vine keeps hugging my plants 😂😂 awww she keeps tangling herself on them
Plants know, but they don’t know that they know. Big difference.
How do you know?
Nobody knows anything. We hypothesize lol
Best video I have seen on this channel.
Super interesting!
for hearing as requiring an evolutionary basis i would suggest the frequencies associated with approaching storms
And how should the plant respond when a storm is coming?
@@heliumcalcium396 with panic (they actually show this kind of response through changes in their immune system etc)
11:46 could that be that because when we listen to the music we like we feel good and the plants sense or smell that. Isn’t there a study with speaking to plants negatively and then another plan positivity and the ones that got the positive reinforcement did better? Not sure if that was a real experiment tho.
the only reason we have a nervous system is speed...our cells need to communicate and respond on much faster time scales than plants, since we are mobile
13:44 - The most important aspect of this issue is relegated to the final seconds of this clip. He gives an answer, yet absolutely no explanation as to the reason *WHY* he has no reservations when stepping on plants.
6:38 Mr. Chamovitz really didn't want to answer how plants bend to the light. I think Mr. Kuhn was seeking understanding as to the processes involved with a plant physically moving in an arc of 40+ degrees over the course of a solar day. A plant doesn't have muscles or ligaments. Are individual cells expanding or contracting using water, hydraulics perhaps?
Just prior to my local village fair, held in a nearby meadow surrounded by trees, the trees seem to quiver with anticipation and excitement. Sometimes their excitement is so great that it pisses with rain on the day of the fair.
Get help!
I have heard that plants actually do have receptors for sound which are stimulated by bird noises in the morning and cause them to open their stomata
too good
topic is close to my heart.
Truth is One (Rig Veda). It is just that it is not good to be alone (Genesis 2:18). Hence: God('s purpose) is Love (1 John).
No doubt there are complexities and wonderful mechanisms in plant biology that are less known to us, but something that seems a bit incorrect to me is utilizing the terms like "know" and "see". It seems that Chamovitz concluded the existence of subjectivity in plants, purely based on behavioral observations. For instance, if a camera receives light, and based on that changes the aperture (or any other task for that matter), we usually don't use the verb "see" to describe it, as it is a solely mechanical and electrical (or chemical) process that is kind of automatic without the involvement of experience.
Exactly. First of all they do not suffer. Plants lack nervous system, brain, or pain receptors. Sentience involves the capacity for subjective experiences, which plants lack due to the absence of the mentioned.
Agree. On the other hand did you know the same volatile anesthetics that make us unconscious also stop motility in single-celled organisms and plants like Venus flytraps…!
Did you watch the whole video? If they can communicate internally without a nervous system, have memory without brain and can feel touch without nerves or receptors then what's keeping them from feeling pain? @@lordganesha7084
I have been observing plants at my home for many years and I feel they have some subjective experience no matter how minute and limited.
Just like a human is behind a camera seeing through it, a plant has some sentience (life force) utilizing parts of it to achieve its life goals (surviving and reproducing).
@@qrious786 It's fascinating to think about and probably have some truth in it. But it's an open debate since one can observe the behaviors of a system that are directed towards maximizing its survival chance, yet argue that all of it is just chemical, mechanical and electrical activities, completely knowable but void of any sentience. Like in single celled organisms as an example.
Can we pick up defenses from smells?
This is the second one of these I’ve watched where the guest spent forever not answering the question. The only real answer was offhand at the end where he said he has no problem stepping on grass.
exactly, mind you he had lots of interesting stuff though but it was never really an answer to the question
The real question is what does "know" really mean.
Mum swung for a thousand year living Spanish tree in Botanical Gardens Sydney beside the local art gallery, who could have the same rate of change as us after accounting for scale.
So mowing the lawn is mass-disfigurement?
Yes
Thank you 🙏
This answers my question when I mentioned this in one of my comments about consciousness when a linguistic jerk popped up
Amazing
Im so happy that this topic was touched. I have been more sensetive towards plants and did feel that they hear us. Probably much more intelligent to survive and adapt in any circumstances. Very interesting talk indeed.
Get help now!
I now have greater appreciation for the show Between Two Ferns.
Why make nectar at all if there is no pollenater
There are many ways in which humans also merely “know” things. There are degrees and senses of knowing.
Searching for souls and sentience in plants is clearly closer to dissonance than it is closer to truth.
Truth is One (Rig Veda). It is just that it is not good to be alone (Genesis 2:18). God('s purpose) is Love (1 John).
Should try ayahuasca or dmt made from root bark,they communicate on a level that will absolutely blow your mind
@@Jack-r2v9b Everything is sentient indeed. Plants will be sad and whither when the owner is sad or stressed.
How do woodland people (all over the world) know which plants to use for medicine? Often the plants "speak" to them
Interesting.
Anecdotal, but I had a friend as a kid that did his science project on plants and music. 3 plants were exposed to 3 different types of music. The plant exposed to classical music grew the best. I really don't think my friend had a dog in that fight, and if he did it would have been towards punk as that was his style.
Daniel, you are now my friend. Say no more
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Now when someone calls me dumb as a potted plant I can take it as a compliment.
By extension not just animals and plants but everything that exists must be sentient at some level.
Plants also use the mycelium network to communicate.
It suggests that intelligent consciousness might not need a nervous system either.
Michael Levin has literally found evidence of this at the cellular level. He essentially posits and has good scientific evidence that suggests any entity made of cells is a hive intelligence, like an ant colony.
Plants sense touch, sound, smell, and light. They have small amount of Emory. Can we conclude that plants have mind without brain?
Plants do not "know," they are programed to respond to signals as robots are. Plants are endowed with multiplicity of well engineered sensors. Plants are a link between inorganic matters and animal life.
"program" implies an a priori purpose, as if it were part of an intelligent design. That's teleology, like the basic mechanicism that biologists proclaimed in the early last century, influenced by the idea of divine creation (prior to evolution theory development)
The plants are more hearing than you understand. Look at the hairs all over, it’s not just like hairs on our arm, same as hairs in our ears. The signal is transferred once the vibration is felt. Hearing is just feeling, same with light, feeling the changes and measuring the distance and seeing the relative.
Bro this plant man is the professor Oak of biologists.
Anything that can feel is conscious and has a soul
Someone wrote a book titled " the secret life of plants " and the author believes that plants have consciousness.
Now I will feel even more guilty when I thin seedlings in my garden.
3:11 To this day, Paul McCartney and Ringo won't perform in the forest.
11:50 "music and plants have no evolutionary connection"... well, if you think about it, neither plants nor humans have.
Why do we even have preference and attraction for harmony and tune? You can hypothesize a lot about "tune in the mother's voice" or whatever, but nothing can convince me that evolution brought us to having a preference for some harmonic transitions, some modulations and some tunes. Moreover, animals also would not have an evolutionary connection to music, but most musicians know how domesticated or wild animals can be deeply attracted to music, and stop to hear it.
There's something else to music and musical taste that evolution seems unable to explain. I don't think everything needs to make evolutionary sense. Not everything evolves for a reason.
Countless studies have shown they react to individual people in unique ways, they breathe, they know friend and family from foe, they know when people are around, they learn, have a memory, and have a life force. Their reactions are alien to us and they move much slower but it doesn't mean they're not sentient. They are.
Get help immediately, you are completely off your nut! Post just 1 peer reviewed study that states ant such total nonsense!
Yes, I'm aware of plants
meh - in jr hs i did the classic vs rock experiment and the former grew twice as better. i took it to be a preference for the differing vibrations of the speakers, not really the music itself. whatever it was it was very real and yes i had a neutral plant that m’s growth was right in the middle. 🎉
Indigenous peoples have known this for thousands of years.
I identify as a lucious green plant with a thin stem 🌱
Next time you go to the plant section in the Home Depot, think how you are surrounded by a zombie plant army, waiting to invade the unsuspecting natives.
Have you ever considered if plants see humans as “sentient” from their point of view? Maybe humans are not “sentient” enough to understand plants…
10:47 snot
From an evolutionary point of view, what does a venus fly trap want with a fly?
Cats can hear plants screaming ❤
I guess my phone in sentient because it reacts to light, touch and sound.
Are you suggesting that there is no difference between you and your phone? In other words, you are no more special than your phone?
No, just the opposite. I am insinuating that the idea of something being sentient because it "senses" or "reacts" is asinine.
@@ehthrough So, no one is sentient? Neither you, nor your phone and also the plant? I'm 100 percent sure about phone though because man created it and didn't put life in it because he himself doesn't know what it is. Man just exploited the potentials (silicon, radio signal, electric, etc) already present to configure them to his liking and enclose in a box. We know this much that plant is a living being because we look for such phenomenon on other extra terrestrial places but don't look for rocks which are plenty.
@@ehthroughnot necessarily. You can be sentient without consciousness. You can be "aware" without the senses. You just need to "know".
This guy said "there is a randomality" with a straight face
ua-cam.com/video/8FyUdbujA0g/v-deo.html
in many ways plants are more advanced than human or any other animals,they can produce their own food,we cant.thats a clear sign of more advancement in evolution.
and i think memory is not only related to just brain cells,its related to all cells.
You asked his 6 times how does this happen and he dodged the question and responded to how he wanted until you stopped asking
Light is strength. The sun is your life as a human being. Source apollos and the zeus. In Hades, there is a water source.
All “life” has a common ancestor. I’m to understand that the closest plant relative to us (humans 😂) is the banana.
I’ve even met a few.