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Plants monitor the integrity of their barrier by sensing gas diffusion

spacephysics

At what point will we see that plants are conscious, just in a different manner than animals colloquially?

danwills

I think it's pretty clear that plants have agency, and maybe that can be regarded as a phenomena that is on the same spectrum as consciousness, just at a lower intensity (and maybe slower too)?

bullfightonmars

Stimulus-response is not consciousness. There is nothing subjective about this mechanical and chemical response to injury.

stouset

I don't really disagree. But I also can't help but imagine a hyper-advanced alien species thinking the same thing about us due to us lacking some notionally critical (to them) aspect of intelligence/consciousness and paving over the solar system to make room for a hyperspace bypass.

londons_explore

Science hasn't really understood consciousness.

If you don't understand consciousness, how to make it from first principles and how it works, then I don't think you can confidently say "this isn't conscious" about much.

nemonemo

Wikipedia article about Consciousness opens with an interesting line: "Defining consciousness is challenging; about forty meanings are attributed to the term."

Perhaps "consciousness" is just a poor term to use in a scientific discussion.

hombre_fatal

We can explain plant behavior through known physical processes though.

We don't need to lean on consciousness nor other mysteries at all. Nor we do have to when a rock changes color as it gets wet.

And without this parsimony, then we could claim that any unexplained mystery underlies any well-understood phenomenon which doesn't sound like much of an epistemic standard.