They do groom themselves. Trees grow a tissue around their wound. A chayote bends its vine on response to my touch. Yes they use chemicals and hormones to perform that action, but so do we?
Their nervous system is of course different and slower than ours, but you have no mechanism that would say you or cricket feels pain and my chayote does not. From my point of view you, chayote and crickets might all just be philosophical zombies and just respond to some stimuly as robots.
impairedimperator@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
No, but they will release chemical signals that attract predators of things that eat plants, while telling other nearby plants to start moving nutrients into their root structures to minimize damage.
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day ago
Pain has an emotional component though. Without a devoted nervous system, any kind of subjective experience a plant has would be on a very long timescale, (And you’d have the weird situation where it’s mind “grows” as it’s thinking)
For sure, people treat a dog as if it has pain, and lettuce as if it doesn’t.
impairedimperator@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
How do you measure emotions?
Like, how do I know that you have emotions? If I punch you, how do I know you’ll feel pain? I’m not gonna feel what you feel, I can only observe your response. Stimulus, response.
Same thing with plants. Same thing with dogs.
As to your last point, it wasn’t that long ago that Very Smart People argued dogs don’t feel pain. Of course they obviously did, and of course most every normal person recognized they did…but that wasn’t what we “knew”, as a society. Hell, it wasn’t until like, 50 years ago that we recognized human babies felt pain prior to being able to vocalize an “ow that hurts”.
Perhaps it makes people feel better to know that dogs feel pain and lettuce doesn’t. But that’s almost certainly not a true statement.
Edit: also, how much of your body controls your brain? Like, have you ever considered bending your elbow in the wrong direction? No? Why not? Why is it the wrong direction? It just is, right? That’s how the body works?
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day ago
If this was real life, I’d suggest a trip to a pet store so you can prove it. Either you’re a psychopath, or this is bullshit, and in your everyday interactions you make an obvious guess about who feels what.
Yes, I actually have tried bending/pushing my elbows back as far as I can make them go. That’s got to be a pretty normal kid thing to do. Not sure what medical textbook you’ve been reading out of, but it is a pretty one way street. Like, there’s medical mysteries that suggest some exceptions, but they are few.
zzffyfajzkzhnsweqm@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Why would that be an issue? Are sloths less capable of pain because they are slower?
Why would be an issue with that? Kids brain grows and you have no issue with acknowledging their mind? It is not too hard to imagine?
What a strange assumption on my intentions…
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 13 hours ago
No, no it’s not.