Plants can sense the light,smell chemicals,sense gravity and can even hear. Some plants like Mimosa pudica have been shown to have a long term memory and can even learn. When I drink ayahuasca I can sense their presence. Why is it that no one seems to care about the destruction of the amazon rainforest? Many People seem to care about animals but very few care about the plants and it doesn't make sense to me.

I guess it depends on how you define consciousness. I personally believe all matter is conscious and therefor any networking strategies aimed at measuring the environment produce an innate sense of orientation and "self". Not that that always resembles a human type of awareness. But it is after all, very similar to our methods of sensory input and integration. I guess the question really becomes their degree of awareness. Do they feel any sense of purpose or being worth preserving? If so, is it justified over our own? Very hard to answer those kinds of questions... But people should stop cutting down the amazon at least for their own sake. This question reminds me of this book i just got i'm really interested in reading. Stephen Buhners "Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Beyond the Doors of Perception into the Dreaming of Earth". Can't comment on this one, but if it's anything like his other books i expect it to be highly scientific yet with a Gaian perspective. One more day of exams until i have a summer in the hammock with this baby. I'm getting giddy

Your view seems to fall under something like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylozoism

are plants conscious?

I think you'll find this thread relevant and useful!

Only read through the first page but i find some of the responses perplexing It's interesting that the conventional school of thought carried by staunch reductionists is that consciousness is an emergent property. It seems almost amusingly superstitious to attribute consciousness to something who's constitutive parts do not bear such capacity no matter how limited it may be in the "lower" forms. As if the brain is some separate piece of matter capable of creating its own physics as opposed to being simply a relatively dense informational hub in an infinite sea of informatic exchange. I feel any true reductionist should see the fundamental nature of this matter...

I would say yes and no.
They have consciousness but it is not as advanced as say Human, or even Animal consciouness is.
Some plants may have conscious traits that others don't just like Animals do. A squirel is going to break a nut open by either biting it hard enough, or hitting it hard enough, whereas a Monkey may use a rock to break a nut open. Their are levels to how advanced consciounsness is, but their are a wide variety of things that some conscious things do that others do not. So yeah, I guess some plants may be considered "Smarter" than others based on how they react to the stimuli around them.

Now on the terms of feeling said consciousness when taken... Id say their is deffinetly something their... For example (and this may sound weird but this is the only way I can describe it): I eat mint and I literally feel minty. I smoke cannabis and idk how but I feel like cannabis.
can anyone else relate to this last part? Hope im not insane

Plants are very conscious of their environment. They can sense the environment around them, they remember experiences they've had, they remember those who are kind and help them and those who are cruel and hurt them, they know who they relatives are, and so on.

Plant consciousness is not inferior or superior to animal consciousness... it's just unique, and expresses itself in such ways. Just because plants do not express what many humans think of to be "advanced" intelligence, does not mean it is not advanced - we just don't understand plants from a plant perspective. We cannot hope to really, truly understand the complexities of plant consciousness from a human mental perspective.

Our human perspectives tend to blind us in subtle ways, and because our human perspective is the ocean we swim in from birth, it can be very difficult to see past that. Just like a fish in water. Think about this for a moment.

By what standard do you measure consciousness and whether it is advanced or not? Animal consciousness? Our consciouness? There is no such standard, only uniqueness which can not be properly, truly and fully compared to other forms of consciousness. How can we assume or presume that our consciousness is advanced when we cannot feel a non-human's consciousness? Scientific instruments aren't an adequate tool to explore this. Mind, through psychedelics, can.

I suggest this book as an interesting introduction to plant intelligence:
http://www.bibliotecaple...s_pdf/blindedscience.pdf

Look at chapters 7 - J.C. Bose and 8 - Plants for the relevant information. Bose was a remarkable scientist who, in the early 20th century, did some great research on plant intelligence. His experiments and results have been long ignored by the dogmatic materialists who call themselves "scientists". Bose's results were verified by experiments done by Clive Backster half(?) a century later.

Have a enjoying read!

Considering how vastly different plants are from us, I would ask those who say there is "no evidence" to imagine what would we expect to see about the behavior of such organisms if they were conscious?

The question for me then is not whether they are conscious, but to what degree.

This is a book which has quite a lot to say on the subject. It's a good read, although some of the claims are perhaps closer to anecdote than bona-fide science. Even so, I found the book very effective at subtly recalibrating my perspective.

Buhner's "Plant Intelligence" is a masterpiece, but a much deeper read. It took me about two months to finish, but I managed this one over a short holiday.

I am ecstatic to hear that! The deeper read is exactly what I'm going for. It's one thing to discuss this from a philosophical and experiential perspective, but to bridge it with modern science... I've stumbled across buhner because of all his Lyme disease books. I've been blowing through those pretty quick, but his scientific literacy is astounding. As is his ability to draw into view the big picture without falling prey to reductionist traps. I expect this one would be no different. He's really my new favorite author

consciousness IS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrrSAc-vjG4

The link above is a PBS documentary on the topic titled "what plants talk about"

One example showed plants roots, the roots would rapidly grow when there were little nutrients in the soil until they hit a patch of nutrient rich soil, where they would then slow down, absorb as much as they could, then they moved on...

This behavior is near identical to foraging animals, when there is little to eat, they move on, when they find food, they slow to consume it, hanging around the food patches, and moving when there is little food...

So they are aware of the soil composition around them, they are "conscious" of their surroundings in this aspect.

Another example from this film was centered on wild tobacco. When hawk moth caterpillars are feeding on it, the wild tobacco recognizes that it's being eaten by hawk moth caterpillars, so it offers them a trichome, which they think is a tasty treat and consume, however after consumption of this trichome the caterpillar will emit a smell, attracting its predictors to come and eat it. So the plant recognizes who is eating it, and responds with chemicals specific to that organism.
The hawk moth is the wild tobacco plants pollinator, however if the hawk moth caterpillars become too much of an issue, the wild tobacco will switch it's pollinators, it will begin to open flowers at a different time, the flowers will also change shape and smell, attracting humming birds as its new pollinator. It's aware of the organisms that are pollinating it, and it responds appropriately to attract pollinators, to repel parasites, and so on.

I think this makes it obvious that plants are aware of their surrounding and the organisms which inhabit them...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb_9X3I38N0
Another example from that film is the "Dodder vine", this parasitic vine has no root system and can not produce its on food, it's entirely dependant on a host plant, which it has 48 hours to locate, the experiment in the link.above demonstrates the vines ability to select it's host, showing it has awareness of the plants in its surroundings, and is able to select the best host...

There are many examples of how plants are aware of their surroundings and the life forms in them, and how plants will use chemistry to manipulate the biology around them.

It's hard for people to understand plants as being aware or having behavior, and there are many reasons for this, it is a different sort of awareness, and it's also occurring at a speed in time Which is far different from what we considered "normal"...meaning you have to.watch plants in time-lapse to truly observe their behavior, and one must also consider that half of the plant exists under ground, and the chemical signaling and communications between plants and other plants and between plants and the lifeforms surrounding them is invisible, so.it's not obvious to the observer...

I would say 100% yes, plants are conscious.

I am also of the opinion that a physical body is not a prerequisite for conscious-being, I do not feel that our consciousness is a product of the physical body or our Neuro-functioning...these subjective viewpoints make it seem entirely reasonable that consciousness exists in all living things...
But these are just my personal feelings...

As for the plant consciousness issue, it's up for debate, I guess your definition of "consciousness" plays heavily in your interpretation of the situation as well.

-eg

Fungi really trip me out, because they are not plants or animals, but if you had to ask "which group do they have more in common with?" The answer is clearly animals

Fungi breathe oxygen, and exhale c02, just like animals.

Fungi do not use light to produce food (the do not photosynthesize ) just like animals

...fungi form some pretty neat symbiotic relationships as well, Mycorrhizal fungi are essential for certain types of trees, in a Mycorrhizal fungal.relationship the fungi covers the root, acting as a more efficient water and nutrient absorption system than the roots alone, some of these Mycorrhizal fungi act as filters, preventing harmful substances m entering the roots...

When you see leaf cutter ants marching through the Forrest, cutting and carrying leaf, it's not because ants eat leaf, it's because in their nest there is a fungus that eats tree leaf, and it secrets "ant food" in return, this fungus has managed to manipulate these little ants into marching across the Forrest to bring it food...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwKuFREOgmo
In this link, it shows a map of Japan's subway, oat-flakes were placed at the stops, this slime mold found the most efficient way possible to have a system running between the stops...brilliant...

A mycelial mat of fungus can span miles, this living Mycelium is interconnected and in constant communication, these things are almost like massive "brains" laying underground, complete with synapses and chemical communication, as well as communication of other types...

In the case of psychedelic fungi, they are even producing compounds which are alterations of our higher neurotransmitters...

Ok, I'm going to stop though, because I'm getting off topic...and most this fungi stuff is just "fun to think about" so I may have made errors, and there's a good deal of conjecture...

-eg

Another thing to keep in mind when saying "fungi are more like animals than plants"


The below quote is in relation to mycelial mats and their similarities to brains...



This quote was in relation to my statements about mycelial mats being "brains"




I'm am also of the opinion that fungi are conscious...


And if animals and fungi and microorganisms can be conscious, why not plants?

Are a nervous system and a brain really essential for consciousness?

I would say no.


Ok, I'll stop here...




-eg

Thanks for all the information! I just bought Plant intelligence and the imaginal realm. Cant wait to read it!

Only today, I made a second batch of nettle beer, from his excellent "Sacred & Healing Herbal Beers". It's super-refreshing, and just the job after a hard day's toil in the garden.

I must have read about a dozen of his books by now, and I'm profoundly grateful for his many, multi-layered, pseudo-mycelial perspectives.

He can also be extremely funny when he wants to...this article perfectly captures the dark underbelly of the flaky New Age/workshop scene...!

No one seems to know what consciousness actually is. It seems to me that it is an umbrella term for whatever meaning an individual has decreed for it based on their beliefs and life experiences. In that respect unless someone comes up with an objective meaning for consciousness there is a possibility that consciousness is a myth and therefore plants arn't conscious and nor are we.

We're certainly conscious. Certainly aware. So are plants. But what's the source of this consciousness and awareness? Not the brain... because accounts of OBEs, NDEs, telepathy, with and without psychedelics, prove that there's something... but we just don't know what consciousness is. It's not materially quantifiable.

If there's one thing I know to be undisputably true - it's that I am aware of my own beingness. Everything else, including sensory input, I can happily doubt.

So i've been curious on that one. I don't drink beer really because of health problems. But it's interesting to hear about "healing beers". Is there anything profound to the book in terms of healing? Or is it just porn for new age brewers?

And yes i quite enjoy his humor haha. He's got quite a few recurrent rants on taxonomists that are always entertaining

Edit: holy shit that link... His analogies... i'm lost for words

Since you are certain of this could you provide us a definition of consciousness?

I'm less interested in the source of consciousness than the definition of it.