Do plants feel pain?

Your computer does the same thing. It turns up the speed of the fans when It calculates that the unit is getting to hot (so it doesn't overheat and burn out and "die"... trying to stay alive), it will make loud beeps upon startup if there is something seriously wrong in the hardware, windows recovery will startup if there's corruption in the operating system, Windows 8 performs "maintenance" when it senses the user is idle/not doing much...your computer even will go to "sleep" if it's idle too long as well. Is your computer feeling pain or any self awareness ?

Of all likelihood, no, it's responding to circumstances with its calculations

 

First you'd have to define what "want" is. "to want" or to desire something requires a conscience. Plants don't desire things; they can't desire things because they don't have brains. Btw, not "wanting" to get eaten has nothing to do with pain. It has to do with survival. You don't need pain for survival, it merely increases the odds of your survival hence why animals feel pain.

Toxins, attractants and wound healing are all things that are in the animal kingdom as well, but they have nothing to do with pain. Humans have reactions such as our pupils contracting when exposed to light. These are simply chemical reactions that in and of themselves don't equal pain. Pain is processed in the brain, can't feel it without a brain simple as that. The fact that plants release toxins and whatnot is not a conscious decision the plants make. It simply just happens, like sodium + chloride = salt, only many times more complex.

 

Alright so it looks like the only way this is going to be solved is if we create some way for us to become autotrophs. Get on it scientists! Do it for the vegans!

 

Even IF plants felt pain, vegans would still have the moral argument as by eating plants directly we are causing less of them to be killed. When you eat meat the animal uses energy to live and survive, and thus when you eat meat only a minor portion (estimated 30%) of the energy from the plant gets carried over to the meat-eater. Thus the meat eater would have to eat much more to make up for this inefficiency (only after the fact that it wasn't just plants who have no brains or nervous system who died now, but animals with complex feelings plain and relationships as well). Not even to mention the impact that the meat industry is having on climate change nowadays which is putting us all at risk.

Here's a good food-for-thought http://news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat

 

Of course plants don't feel pain. They don't have nervous systems so it's impossible.

 

This.

 

Plants are sentient beings. They have feelings and feel pain. (Hence, my username.) There are many fascinating videos on YouTube about plant sentience and plant music (Yes, they make their own music). I highly recommend that you read the book,"The Secret Life of Plants". It's amazing.

 

Christopher Walken believes they not only can feel pain, they can sneak up on you. The best thing to do is to put googily eyes on plants so you can stare them down and let them know you don't fear them.

 

Well I imagine the "anthropocentric definition" makes most sense to use in this context since we are talking about feelings(pain). Yes, I know sodium + chloride = sodium chloride, and I know salt has a wide definition, I was just using it as a simple example. No need to go all science-Nazi on me.

I was simply saying animals feel pain because at some point throughout evolution, organisms that could feel pain had a slight advantage over those who couldn't. That doesn't mean plants can't live without pain. Plants are so much greater in number since they have a much greater "propagation rate" than animals do. And the animal kingdom is also dependent on plants for survival, therefore there is really no reason as to why plants would need pain in order to increase their chances of survival. Since they are so persistent as it is. If we did see a decrease in plant population, animals would start dying to balance it out. To some plants pain might even reduce chances of survival since their seeds get spread through animal feces, and they therefore in some cases even "want" to be consumed by animals to carry on their survival.

There might not be any specific study that says for certain that animals feel pain since "pain" in and of it self is a rather abstract concept. I at least don't know much about studies made on pain, but there's still tons of facts that suggest animals do feel pain. All vertebrae animals have similar nerve systems as humans and they all have brains, so why wouldn't they feel pain. And why would a dog, or a rhino, giraffe, rabbit or any other animal squeal, twist and turn in agony when you stab them with something unless they felt pain? They can still express themselves like humans can, just not in words. So suggesting that there's proof humans can feel pain and animals can not, simply because we can communicate through word, doesn't make any sense.

As is often said: "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck". We might not know for certain that animals feel pain, or that plants can't feel pain, but there are facts that clearly states that is the case.

 

If they feel pain, then I have caused so much agony!!!!

I'm even worse than Hitler!!

I'm a Tyrant......... :tears:

 

We know what does and doesn't feel pain due to the presence of nociceptors. Plants can only respond to stimuli, that is not done consciously.

 

Do plants feel pain?

I'll leaf that up to you.









I'll fetch the blindfold, and you summon the firing squad. LOL.

 

ur not even trying anymore

 

Hey, now! I'll have you know I'm very photosensitive about my humor.

 

And that means absolutely nothing. Does bacteria also feel pain? Do self replicating crystals feel pain?

 

Yes but I think that was a decent example, which you discounted simply by saying computers are not alive (since they cannot self replicate, which isn't necessarily a completely accurate distinction of biological life...).