[from LIVESCIENCE] A tree falls in the woods; but whether or not anyone hears it, the tree has no regrets. Nor does it experience fear, anger, relief or sadness as it topples to the ground. Trees — and all plants, for that matter — feel nothing at all, because consciousness, emotions and cognition are hallmarks of animals alone, scientists recently reported in an opinion article.
The idea that plants have some degree of consciousness first took root in the early 2000s; the term "plant neurobiology" was coined around the notion that some aspects of plant behavior could be compared to intelligence in animals. Though plants lack brains, the firing of electrical signals in their stems and leaves nonetheless triggered responses that hinted at consciousness, researchers previously reported.
But such an idea is bunk, according to the authors of the new article. Plant biology is complex and fascinating, but it differs so greatly from that of animals that so-called evidence of plants' intelligence is intriguing but inconclusive, the scientists wrote. ...
"For consciousness to evolve, a brain with a threshold level of complexity and capacity is required," he added.
Other researchers who recently investigated the neuroscience of consciousness — awareness of one's world and a sense of self — found that in animals, only vertebrates, arthropods and cephalopods had brains complex enough to enable them to be conscious.
The idea that plants have some degree of consciousness first took root in the early 2000s; the term "plant neurobiology" was coined around the notion that some aspects of plant behavior could be compared to intelligence in animals. Though plants lack brains, the firing of electrical signals in their stems and leaves nonetheless triggered responses that hinted at consciousness, researchers previously reported.
But such an idea is bunk, according to the authors of the new article. Plant biology is complex and fascinating, but it differs so greatly from that of animals that so-called evidence of plants' intelligence is intriguing but inconclusive, the scientists wrote. ...
"For consciousness to evolve, a brain with a threshold level of complexity and capacity is required," he added.
Other researchers who recently investigated the neuroscience of consciousness — awareness of one's world and a sense of self — found that in animals, only vertebrates, arthropods and cephalopods had brains complex enough to enable them to be conscious.
The cited report: https://www.cell.com/trends/plant-sc...385(19)30126-8
I happened to be working today on a section of my new book "ZEN of the FUTURE!" which asks if robots might develop consciousness and a subjective experience and sense of self. My conclusion looking at various theories is that probably, yes, if they possess an electronic or artificial bio-chemical brain of sufficient complexity to process data from some set of senses, they would develop consciousness and self-awareness. With the right structure (most probable for a structure closely resembling the human brain, and quite likely for variations), consciousness is likely to arise spontaneously as a naturally emergent property (like gravity naturally emerges from mass), including subjective self-awareness. I speculate in the book that the brain creates subjective self-awareness from a fundamental pre-existing undivided state by dividing the whole though a kind of "house of mirrors" parlor trick into the subject-object divide, and a world broken into separate objects with individual characteristics experienced out of our eyes from a particular vantage point, via the brain's ability to exclude data as much as it absorbs data. (These are not original ideas by me at all, of course, and are in fact pretty ancient Buddhist ideas of dependent co-arising). The brain creates a vantage point looking out from our eyes at external objects, but it is something of a "hall of mirrors" effect that the brain employs to divide reality into pieces. In other words, it is not so much creating consciousness of "self" but instead dividing self into subject/object and "this that and the other thing" on a rather sophisticated level. Animals with less sophisticated brains are able to do so to lesser degrees, and robots with more sophisticated brains might be able to go even further.
In many Buddhist theories, by the way, "Satori" consists of reversing the above effect to return to that original pre-subject/object "wholeness."
Anyway, it is just a small section of the book, so I just toss it out there.
Gassho, J
STLah
Comment