A debate over plant consciousness is forcing us to confront the limitations of the hu

A debate over plant consciousness is forcing us to confront the limitations of the human mind

Danny Chamovitz, director of the Manna Center for Plant Biosciences at Tel Aviv University in Israel, says that plants are neither conscious nor intelligent, though they are incredibly complex. Plant awareness shouldn’t be confused with the human experience of existence. He tells Gizmodo, “All organisms, even bacteria, have to be able to find the exact niche that will enable them to survive. It’s not anything that’s unique to people. Are they self-aware? No. We care about plants, do plants care about us? No.”

The thing is, Chamovitz can’t prove that plants don’t care about us. No one can, really. We know that hugging trees, literally, makes us feel better. It has a medicinal effect. But we can’t test the reciprocity of this—whether plants love us back, or feel good when we care for them.

Green philosophy

Philosopher Michael Marder, meanwhile, says we’re underestimating plants. The author of Plant Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life, Marder tells Gizmodo, “Plants are definitely conscious, though in a different way than we, humans, are.” He notes that plants are in tune with their surroundings and make many complex decisions, like when to bloom. Marder concludes, “If consciousness literally means being ‘with knowledge,’ then plants fit the bill perfectly.”

That said, Marder admits that we can’t know if plants are self-conscious, because we define both the self and consciousness based on our human selves and limitations. “Before dismissing the existence of this higher-level faculty in them outright, we should consider what a plant self might be,” he says.

Marder points out that plant cuttings can survive and grow independently. That suggests that if plants do have a self, it is likely dispersed and unconfined, unlike the human sense of self. It’s notable, too, that many scientists and mystics argue that the human feeling of individuality—of being a self within a particular body—is a necessary illusion.

He further argues that because plants communicate with one another, defend their health, and make decisions, among other things, they may well have some sense of self, too.

I am not a vegetarian. I am too sensitive. I cannot stand putting a living thing in my mouth and crushing the life out of it between my teeth and then swallowing it. Nor can I stand slicing up a living thing in to bits. I especially don't have the heart to kill any living thing which has sprouted in my refrigerator, hanging on to the remnants of existence with its last ounce of vitality.

I find it much easier to eat dead meat than live vegetables.

If you have never talked to a tree, I highly recommend it. They are far better conversationalists than many human beings.

[Laird]

Acknowledging plant intelligence could put us in an awkward position. Perhaps there is nothing we can eat that isn’t some form of murder, not even salad. Moreover, if we discover plant kinship relations are real, we’ll need to acknowledge that cutting trees down for furniture means splitting up families. More than that, expanding definitions of consciousness and intelligence could mean admitting we’ve been limited in our worldview altogether. What if everything around us is intelligent in its own way, and we’re just not smart enough to see it?

This is where I've been at for a while now. It's why I recommend a diet that for want of a better term I refer to as ethical botanical fruitarianism: because it seems to me that fruit by the botanical definition (or near enough) is least likely to be harmed by our harvesting and then eating it.

This is where I've been at for a while now. It's why I recommend a diet that for want of a better term I refer to as ethical botanical fruitarianism: because it seems to me that fruit by the botanical definition (or near enough) is least likely to be harmed by our harvesting and then eating it.

If you have fructose (fruit sugar) malabsorption or, even worse, fructose intolerance, you have to minimise or even exclude any source that contains fructose and even sometimes related sugars (fructans). I only discovered recently that I am a fructose malabsorber -- fructose (often in "corn syrup") is in many things these days (it's cheaper than ordinary sugar), and some opine that ingesting undue amounts of fructose is the cause of many modern malaises.

In my case this included ectopic heartbeats and chronic tiredness, which I believe led to a mistaken diagnosis of moderate heart failure -- even though I didn't have swollen ankles, breathlessness or chest pain. Only by excluding, as far as possible, fruits from my diet, eschewing dodgy pharmaceuticals like clopidogrel, ramipril and bisoprolol, together with taking natural remedies like cbd oil, hawthorn, allicin and turmeric, have I been able, for the most part, to eliminate my symptoms.

And that's another thing: so many plant substances and extracts have valuable curative effects, and without using those, we'd be entirely reliant on pharmaceuticals, nearly all of which can have side effects often as (or even more) severe than what they're nominally prescribed for. It's not just us: animals may instinctively seek out and eat plants appropriate for their ailments.

The question of ethical eating is an interesting one. If the objective is, on principle, not to harm any living being, then you might end up being something like a fruitarian, or somewhere along the vegetarian/vegan continuum. But it's undeniable that we, and many other animals, naturally eat meat, and indeed some people claim that excluding most plant sources from their diet makes them more healthy.

Like it or not, we all have to eat. Not all of us could be "ethical fruitarians" even if we wanted to. In that case, would the ethical thing be to die? In my book, suicide is no less unethical than murder. Besides, many animals are heavily carnivorous, and even those that aren't have no quibbles about eating plants raw.

Plants are alive, no doubt, but it may be that to "murder" them, you'd have to kill every member of their species. It may be that plants only have a collective identity, and that killing individuals is like cutting heads off a multi-headed hydra that only grow back again -- indeed many plants propagate vegetatively as well as through seed. We often take advantage of this through the practice of planting cuttings or coppicing trees.

Take the ethics of it far enough, and I suppose one would logically have to object to eliminating disease-causing bacteria or infestations of Japanese knot weed. Fact is, it's impossible to live at all without in some shape or form killing other organisms. It's just the way it is, and in a way trying to avoid doing that is a kind of tacit acceptance of materialism: one is seeing organisms as being no more than the material forms that they appear to take whilst incarnate.

If one tends to think that organic forms are the mere appearances to our perception of eternal and indestructible ideas (a la Platonism), then one can't really cause anything to completely disappear. All organisms, even those we have caused to become extinct may still exist, in a sense; possibly even to actually exist on some other planet or in some other realm.

I'm not saying that we don't have an ethical duty to raise animals in circumstances that don't cause them suffering: I'm dead against battery farming, for example. Nor am I saying that it's okay to kill them in cruel ways, or make their lives unbearable -- pate de fois gras, anyone?

If some people want to take things further than usual, by being somewhere along the vegetarian spectrum, then that's fair enough -- for them, at least. As for the rest of us, I don't believe that we are necessarily any the less ethical than they are.

In my book, suicide is no less unethical than murder.

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[Laird]

If you have fructose (fruit sugar) malabsorption or, even worse, fructose intolerance, you have to minimise or even exclude any source that contains fructose and even sometimes related sugars (fructans). I only discovered recently that I am a fructose malabsorber -- fructose (often in "corn syrup") is in many things these days (it's cheaper than ordinary sugar), and some opine that ingesting undue amounts of fructose is the cause of many modern malaises.

Mmm, yes, and if you have a malabsorption of the links provided to you or, even worse, intolerance to their contents, you might not realise that the diet being advocated needn't involve fructose at all. Be honest, Michael: you deserved that. You even quoted the link in your response.

If the objective is, on principle, not to harm any living being, then you might end up being something like a fruitarian, or somewhere along the vegetarian/vegan continuum.

Of course you would. The principle though is to avoid avoidable harm to living beings. Some harms are unavoidable.

But it's undeniable that we, and many other animals, naturally eat meat

It's also undeniable that [w]hen male lions take over a new territory, they almost always kill the prides' cubs, since they are not biologically related and do not want to spend energy ensuring that other lions' genes will be passed on. So, you would be justified in killing off the children of any divorcee you might marry, right?

Or, let's say that everybody else was "undeniably" jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge - would you then be justified in doing the same thing (noting your antipathy towards suicide)?

Of course not in either case. Of course there is no necessary connection between that which is "natural" or at least "normally done" and that which is moral.

and indeed some people claim that excluding most plant sources from their diet makes them more healthy.

Sure, and some people claim that Elvis lives down the street. Claims are a dime a dozen. Empirically validated claims - now those are in a different ball park.

Not all of us could be "ethical fruitarians" even if we wanted to.

Like I said: dime a dozen.

Fact is, it's impossible to live at all without in some shape or form killing other organisms.

The implication being: the line is arbitrary and any killing "to live" is justified. OK, well, then I hope you'll be first in line to repeal the laws against murder - after all, if the line is arbitrary, then there is no reason to stop anybody from arguing that they had "some shape or form" to kill some other person for some reason "to live". And certainly, the reasons for killing animals "to live" are utterly arbitrary (they taste good; it's too hard to go vegan; I'm a big baby; etc).

I'm dead against battery farming, for example

Battery farming is of course morally abhorrent, but any killing for food is morally abhorrent: replacing a repugnant system with a slightly less repugnant system is not the solution. The solution is to replace repugnant systems with benevolent systems.

But what do you do in practical (i.e. purchasing) terms to combat battery farming in any case?

If some people want to take things further than usual, by being somewhere along the vegetarian spectrum, then that's fair enough -- for them, at least. As for the rest of us, I don't believe that we are necessarily any the less ethical than they are.

I'm sure that's comforting to believe, and of course comfort is inimical to change.

I am not a vegetarian. I am too sensitive. I cannot stand putting a living thing in my mouth and crushing the life out of it between my teeth and then swallowing it. Nor can I stand slicing up a living thing in to bits. I especially don't have the heart to kill any living thing which has sprouted in my refrigerator, hanging on to the remnants of existence with its last ounce of vitality.

I find it much easier to eat dead meat than live vegetables.

If you have never talked to a tree, I highly recommend it. They are far better conversationalists than many human beings.

Mmm, yes, and if you have a malabsorption of the links provided to you or, even worse, intolerance to their contents, you might not realise that the diet being advocated needn't involve fructose at all. Be honest, Michael: you deserved that. You even quoted the link in your response.

Huh? I read the link. Many vegetables that aren't commonly thought of as fruits do in fact contain fructose -- tomatoes, for example. And honey, too: I remember feeling particularly bad one day when I'd used it to sweeten my porridge. If you eat vegetables of any sort, it's hard to completely avoid fructose. You might be okay as a malabsorber, since in general most plants contain less fructose than most fruits, but if you're fructose intolerant, you may have to avoid those too, along with anything containing fructans, such as wheat, barley, onions and chicory.

Your distinction between unavoidable and avoidable harms is shaky. If one eats raw plants, one is killing them in a particularly gruesome way. In general, as Jim said, we kill our animals quickly before we eat them (exceptions for molluscs and crustacea). For plants, even if we kill them before ingestion, we often do it by boiling/grilling/roasting/frying them alive.

We can eat plants in a way compatible with natural processes as raw fruits (in the widest sense of that term) that rely on animal seed dispersal. The only way to live maximally ethically (by vegetarian lights) would be to forage in wild grounds, only eat fruits intended to be dispersed via the gut, and defaecate in places where, hopefully, the source plants stood a good chance of propagation and survival.

Even using a composting toilet and spreading the compost doesn't ensure seed dispersal unless one's idea is to spread the compost and not weed out any unwanted plants. Otherwise, one could extract and re-plant weeds where they could survive without hindrance. But weeding kills plants, and why should a weed be any less worthy of life than an animal-dispersed seed-bearing plant? If one says weeding is unavoidable, it's just special pleading.

I have a certain cynicism about vegetarians/vegans/fruitarians. Are they really such because they are more ethical than others? Or does it massage the ego to berate others and think of oneself as untainted? If they thought things through, it might dawn on them that they're being hypocritical.

I have a certain cynicism about people who avoid certain actions for moral reasons. Do they really act so because they are more ethical than others? Or does it massage the ego to berate others and think of oneself as untainted? If they thought things through, it might dawn on them that they're being hypocritical.