Consul wrote: ↑May 8th, 2018, 10:42 am
Greta wrote: ↑May 6th, 2018, 11:36 pmIt's well established that are equivalent mechanisms to neurons that produce seemingly intelligent or aware behaviour in simple organisms.
Yes,
"intelligent behaviour can be observed in organisms and cells that do not possess a nervous system." (p. 221)
But:
"Plants have no defined nervous system." (p. 16)
"[P]lants do not possess a nervous system." (p. 77)
"A plant ‘brain’ is certainly a metaphor because Darwin recognized that plants have no nerves or nervous system, and he makes this very clear." (p. 155)
"Plants are obviously organisms that lack both a nervous system and a brain." (p. 201)
(Trewavas, Anthony.
Plant Behaviour and Intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.)
The point is that there are no structures or functions in plants which are
equivalent to the structure and function of animal nervous systems. There are some similarities, but these are much too weak to justify the claim that there are equivalences, i.e. that plants (literally) have nervous systems.
I'm not saying that plants have structures that are equivalent to nervous systems, but that they
may do; I am only calling into question the the completeness of current research in the area, not its quality.
This century has seen repeated debunking of old assumptions made about the minds of other organisms, and it is has always been a matter of finding other organisms to be more like us than expected. Consider the assumptions previously made about bird intelligence because they lacked a neocortex, but neuroscience revealed a structure in their brains called the pallium that performs equivalent functions to the neocortex in mammals.
Conclusion of 2016 paper,
Plant Intelligence: An Overview:
Plant behavior is similar to cognition in an analogous sense to that of a human being. A plant continually gathers and updates diverse information about its environment, integrates this with information on its present internal state, and then makes decisions that reconcile its well-being with its environment. Understanding plant behavior and intelligence has become one of the most exciting new and fast-moving frontiers in plant biology.
The paper quotes Darwin:
Darwin (1880) argued, “The tip of the root having the power of redirecting the movements of the adjoining parts acts like the brain of one of the lower animals receiving the impressions of sense organs and directing the several movements.”
Worth considering?
Consul wrote:Greta wrote: ↑May 6th, 2018, 11:36 pmSince we don't entirely understand the mechanism of consciousness - aka the hard problem - we cannot discount the possibility that seemingly entirely mindless organisms have some small sense of being, although that sense may seem insignificant enough to count as zero to our perception.
It is true that the mechanisms of consciousness are still a mystery, but from the scientific perspective there is no doubt that they are
neurological ones, that consciousness is realized by and in the brain by means of neural (electrochemical) processes.
Plant consciousness isn't logically impossible, but this doesn't mean that it is physically possible. I think it's not: no brain, no consciousness!
(So if you want to create artificial consciousness, you have to create an artificial brain.)
I agree there appears to be no consciousness present but I would differentiate that with a sense of being, even if that sense is not at a level that would be considered of interest or value to humans, with our fast and active minds. What we consider to be unconscious within ourselves tends to be simply a lack of awareness of our processing; there is still plenty going on even in deep sleep, which I suggest probably does feel like something, just that we don't commit those sensations to memory.
Consul wrote:Greta wrote: ↑May 6th, 2018, 11:36 pmA common analogy is the idea that certain entities are "dark inside" - there is nothing going on. To illustrate the point via that analogy, there are numerous shades of black, and many of them will be too subtle for the human eye to tell the difference. The issue of consciousness may operate similarly.
I wouldn't disagree if you countered that that there are emergent qualities in the consciousness of brained organisms that were not present before. However, I would suggest that such emergences are still only matters of degree, but exponentially so, and these will tend to be perceived as absolute rather than relative difference.
There are no degrees of consciousness in the sense of degrees of subjecthood. The state of being a subject of consciousness is binary, being an all-or-nothing, on-off affair. Note that this is not to say that there are no degrees or levels of consciousness in other senses of the term such as degrees of wakefulness or degrees of self-consciousness; but these are all different states
within the state of consciousness.
I suggest that those different states of consciousness are exactly that - degrees in the sense of subjecthood, and the differences would surely be much more profound between species.
Given the difficulty we humans have in parsing that which is reflexive and that which is wanted, I'm loathe to paint another organism's reflexes as entirely mechanical and insensate.
Consul wrote:Greta wrote: ↑May 6th, 2018, 11:36 pmThat's my point, it
may feel like something to be a plant. If so, it would feel like nothing by our standards - the vegetative state. However, studies of consciousness in other species have consistently debunked prior - and very certainly stated - notions from leading thinkers that other animals are less conscious than they are. Many experts over the years have denied the consciousness of any non-human species.
Meanwhile, intelligent behaviour has been found in plants that, if reported a century ago, might have placed one at risk of being sent to an insane asylum. Put all of the above points together and I would not discount the possibility of minimal plant consciousness, odd as that may seem based on what we know today.
The concept of intelligence as defined by cognitive science is a purely functional-informational one that is independent of (the concept of) consciousness. A "mind" in the cognitive-scientific sense is an IPS (information-processing system) and a CPU (central processing unit) regulating behavior and internal processes. Such cognitive "minds" are consciousness-independent and often nonconscious ones that are multiply implementable by various types of physical/physiological mechanisms/systems. However, plants don't even possess an IPS which is a (brainlike) CPU. There is no such central organ in a plant.
As I already said above, plant consciousness is merely a logical possibility; but there are no good reasons to believe in its actuality, especially as there are good reasons to believe in its physical impossibility and hence in its non-actuality.
As per the Darwin quote above, plant root tips take on at least some of the functions of a brain in a lower order animal. This is especially interesting in acacia trees, whose root tips pass signals via fungal filaments to other acacias when a leaf-eater is present, triggering the neighbouring trees to produce bitter tannins to repel the herbivore threat.
In short, a rather alien and unfamiliar sense of sense of being may be present in organisms that are not strictly speaking conscious. We humans only consider consciousness from our human standpoint (not having much choice in the matter) but this is akin to being in the ISS looking down on the Earth and assuming that the only things moving down there are clouds, smoke, dunes, water currents and ocean algal blooms.