Do trees have feelings?

Do trees have feelings?

  • Total voters
    10
davewhite04 said:
Myles:

You obviously know what feelings are, so why expect everyone else to be ignorant of them?
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I like classical music. Does that count ? I have read of music being played in greenhouse to speed up the growth of tomatoes.

I do not expect everyone else to be ignorant of what feelings are but I have no guarantee that our understanding of what that means will be in agreement. I make no claims to being a mind reader.


I have just sat through a thunderstorm, am hot and sticky, so it's a shower and bed for me.

Bye for now.
 
Enmos said:
Depends on how you define "feelings".
Seeing that they don't have a nervous system they don't have feelings like any animal would have. But they do sense the external stimuli.
They can detect hot and cold for instance.
There are plants that curl up their leave when confronted with heat.

http://plantsinmotion.bio.indiana.edu/plantmotion/movements/nastic/mimosa/mimosa.html
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How do you know they have no nervous system? Aren't you anthropomorphizing your assumptions?


Researchers from Michigan State University discovered that plants have a rudimentary nerve structure which allows them to feel pain.
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http://www.bbspot.com/News/2003/08/plant_pain.html

You should read up on the experiments conducted on plants by Jagdish Chandra Bose.
 
S.A.M. said:
How do you know they have no nervous system? Aren't you anthropomorphizing your assumptions?




http://www.bbspot.com/News/2003/08/plant_pain.html

You should read up on the experiments conducted on plants by Jagdish Chandra Bose.
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Huh ? :bugeye:
How is asserting that plants have no nervous system anthropomorphizing ?

I'm assuming that these result are controversial to say the least ?
I'm willing to accept it if you come up with more articles, preferably published scientific ones.
Also, can they actually feel anything if they don't have a centralized nervous system ? And, since it's rudimentary.. is it in use ?
 
I'm willing to accept your assertion too, soon as you give me some published scientific information to support it. :)
 
S.A.M. said:
I'm willing to accept your assertion too, soon as you give me some published scientific information to support it. :)
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I have looked around the web and I've come to the conclusion that I was wrong.
Plants do have a basic nervous system.
And their experience of "pain" is akin to the reaction described in my first post here (two posts back).
So I'm still unsure whether or not this can be called feeling until it is clear what definition we are using.
 
I'm surprised no one has continued the work that Bose did, it was so fascinating.
 
Enmos said:
I have looked around the web and I've come to the conclusion that I was wrong.
Plants do have a basic nervous system.
And their experience of "pain" is akin to the reaction described in my first post here (two posts back).
So I'm still unsure whether or not this can be called feeling until it is clear what definition we are using.
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I feel that if we were to call plants' rudimentary sensory system feeling, in the animal sense of the word, we would be anthropomorphizing.
 
S.A.M. said:
I'm surprised no one has continued the work that Bose did, it was so fascinating.
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I have always been under the impression that plants reacted through hormone release only.. the release must be controlled by this rudimentary nervous system then ?
 
Roman said:
I feel that if we were to call plants' rudimentary sensory system feeling, in the animal sense of the word, we would be anthropomorphizing.
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I agree. They do not feel in the same way animals do.. but still.. is it feeling ? I think so.
Unless a level of consciousness is required to feel.. I'm unsure.
 
It's pretty hard to know if a person has feelings. I'm not sure how we're going to figure out if plants have feelings.
 
Roman said:
It's pretty hard to know if a person has feelings. I'm not sure how we're going to figure out if plants have feelings.
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It depends on how we want to define "feeling".
If the processes are analogous to animal feeling and the definition does not include a necessity of consciousness, I think we can say plants feel.
 
davewhite04 said:
Myles:

You obviously know what feelings are, so why expect everyone else to be ignorant of them?
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I assumed this thread was being pursued tongue in cheek, but apparently I was wrong. I am astounded that anyone could believe trees have feelings, which is why I resoonded as I did.

Let me clarify my position. I enjoy a bit of fun but sometimes my humour has a serious content. When I suggested that we should define our terms, I was thinking of how Socrates would have responded to the question. I even gave a ridiculous answer to the question of whether trees have a sense of time but nobody picked me up on it.

I am aware that other pople have feelings but we use that word in more than one way. We may be referring to emotional responses or simply an ability to be aware of stimuli. For example, it could be asked what, if anything, a tree feels if I kick it. Humans talk of a loss of feeling in a limb for example. So my request for a definition of "feelings" was not entirely frivolous.

Feeling in either of the senses refered to is associated with a brain and a nervous system. A tree lacks these and consequently cannot be said to have feelings, hence my attitude to the question. I cannot believe anyone would take the op seriously but it appears you do.

If there is a definition of feeling which excludes a central nervous systen, I would be intrested to hear it.
 
Last edited:
no brains, no conciousness, no feelings

Trees are simply complex chemistry, not real life.
 
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