Plant Sentient

[Virgo]

If plants are conscious communities, and this is demonstrable, then this opens up the door for increased awareness and understanding of our world.

Are molecules sentient when they exchange electrons? Trees exchanging carbon via fungi are no more sentient.

Kevin

[Virgo]

Well, is the human host body "sentient"? The minute you admit that "spirits" inhabit plants, you are opening the door for plants to be considered sentient. Just as the mind leaves the host body, so to would plant spirits leave the their host plants, and take up a new life in a newly germinated plant, for example. This just means that "plants" would be part of the preta realm.

M

Explained that way it seems more plausible.

Kevin

[Malcolm]

Well, is the human host body "sentient"? The minute you admit that "spirits" inhabit plants, you are opening the door for plants to be considered sentient. Just as the mind leaves the host body, so to would plant spirits leave the their host plants, and take up a new life in a newly germinated plant, for example. This just means that "plants" would be part of the preta realm.

M

Explained that way it seems more plausible.

Kevin

Yes, for as long as one is still attached the principle of a dichotomy between mind and matter.

But if you look at my signature, you will see that it is not that way in Dzogchen.

[Virgo]

Well, is the human host body "sentient"? The minute you admit that "spirits" inhabit plants, you are opening the door for plants to be considered sentient. Just as the mind leaves the host body, so to would plant spirits leave the their host plants, and take up a new life in a newly germinated plant, for example. This just means that "plants" would be part of the preta realm.

M

Explained that way it seems more plausible.

Kevin

Yes, for as long as one is still attached the principle of a dichotomy between mind and matter.

But if you look at my siganture, you will see that it is not that way in Dzogchen.

I understand.

Kevin

[Nemo]

To say some DNA based life is sentient and some is not sounds implausible. It makes me think of the turn of the century "scientists" who unequivocally said animals like dogs cannot feel pain.

I will treat all life like it is alive.

[Lhug-Pa]

*Originally in response to Virgo's post at the very top of this page*

Perhaps, however the fungi idea isn't the only thing that suggests plant sentience. There is also for example the research of the Indian scientist Chandra Bose' that I posted a link to in my previous post, which could also prove that there is something to the Elemental and/or plant-sentience ideas of the Bönpos, Jains, Druids, Western 'Hermeticists', and ancient Plant 'worshiping' Indians.

So is the Dzogchen view then that 'everything' is sentient? Similar to the idea that even every atom is a sentient 'Monad'?

Not to say that atoms are 'real' or have 'inherent existence'. Nonetheless, how could there be non-sentience anywhere, if the Universe is ultimately non-dual?

[Virgo]

To say some DNA based life is sentient and some is not sounds implausible. It makes me think of the turn of the century "scientists" who unequivocally said animals like dogs cannot feel pain.

I will treat all life like it is alive.

Fish don't feel pain, though.

Jk

[Josef]

Paul Stamets is awesome.

[Malcolm]

To say some DNA based life is sentient and some is not sounds implausible. It makes me think of the turn of the century "scientists" who unequivocally said animals like dogs cannot feel pain.

I will treat all life like it is alive.

Fish don't feel pain, though.

Jk

Have you ever caught a fish? They certainly do feel pain.

[Malcolm]

To say some DNA based life is sentient and some is not sounds implausible. It makes me think of the turn of the century "scientists" who unequivocally said animals like dogs cannot feel pain.

I will treat all life like it is alive.

Good point:

In the center of every plant cell – from algae to orchids – and in the center of every animal cell – from jellyfish to you and me – there’s a copy of the organism’s genetic material. This DNA carries a complete blueprint of the organism. It’s what transfers characteristics from one generation to the next.

There are pretty obvious differences between plants and animals, but – at the chemical level – the cells of all plants and all animals contain DNA in the same shape – the famous “double helix” that looks like a twisted ladder. What’s more, all DNA molecules – in both plants and animals – are made from the same four chemical building blocks – called nucleotides.

What is different is how these four nucleotides in DNA are arranged. It’s their sequence that determines which proteins will be made. The way the nucleotides are arranged, and the information they encode, decides whether the organism will produce scales or leaves – legs or a stalk.

Research shows that plants and animals may produce some proteins in common. One prominent example is known as Cytochrome C. But because the DNA copying process is imperfect, mistakes accumulate over time, making Cytochrome C slightly different in different creatures. The gene regions that specify the amino acid sequence in human Cytochrome C are more similar to those in another mammal like a rabbit, and less similar to a more evolutionarily distant creature, like a sunflower.

The schematic of classifying animals and plants in kingdoms is facing competition. More recently an alternative system has arisen, based on evolutionary and molecular information. Cytochrome c is perhaps the canonical or paradigmatic molecule in this approach.

Every species has a characteristic number of chromosomes, called the chromosome number. Animals have more chromosomes; plants have fewer.

http://earthsky.org/?p=433

[Bhusuku]

Fish don't feel pain, though.

Is that meant to be ironic?

[Norwegian]

He wrote "Jk" = "Just kidding"

[gad rgyangs]

when computers communicate with each other over a network, does that mean they are sentient?

[Malcolm]

when computers communicate with each other over a network, does that mean they are sentient?

The internet is not a self-organizing system, it's a limited extension of our neurology.

[Virgo]

Have you ever caught a fish? They certainly do feel pain.

I don't really like fishing it was never my thing.

And yeah I was just joking. Fish certainly do feel pain.

Kevin

[tomamundsen]

To say some DNA based life is sentient and some is not sounds implausible. It makes me think of the turn of the century "scientists" who unequivocally said animals like dogs cannot feel pain.

I will treat all life like it is alive.

I see what you're saying, but I can't completely get behind that notion. DNA is information that encodes how to grow and maintain an organism, in less-than-scientific language. This doesn't imply that the information necessarily produces sentient organisms.

However, DNA is quite mysterious. Have you ever seen an animation of how it is copied? There's some special molecule that is able to filter out nucleobases when constructing a new DNA strand. It looks like magic, honestly.

[Malcolm]

Have you ever caught a fish? They certainly do feel pain.

I don't really like fishing it was never my thing.

And yeah I was just joking. Fish certainly do feel pain.

Kevin

I did not understand the jk.

M

[tomamundsen]

But if you look at my siganture, you will see that it is not that way in Dzogchen.

I understand.

Kevin

Hi Malcolm. Could you please explain your signature? I don't understand it...

Thanks

[Lhug-Pa]

when computers communicate with each other over a network, does that mean they are sentient?

Well for sentient beings, everything in the Universe is relative. A Deva is more aware than an Asura, the latter more than a human, the latter more (generally speaking) than a Preta, and the latter is more aware than say a rock.

And we've speculated here that Plants are somewhere between Pretas and Animals in terms of sentience.

But I'd guess that a computer isn't much more—if any more—sentient than the atoms and molecules that it is composed of. And there have been experiments by I think physicists or quantum physicists in order to find out if atoms and/or subatomic particles are sentient. But apparently an aggregate of atoms called a 'computer' performs the functions that it is made to do by humans.

By the way....

There is a book by a Japanese geneticist on DNA, RNA, etc. with a forward written by H.H. the Dalai Lama, that looks very interesting.

It's not The Universe in a Single Atom (which also looks interesting), but a different book that I can't seem to find with a web search....

[Paul]

To say some DNA based life is sentient and some is not sounds implausible. It makes me think of the turn of the century "scientists" who unequivocally said animals like dogs cannot feel pain.

I will treat all life like it is alive.

If someone is going to state that only some biology is sentient, then there's a problem of how and where to draw a line. I don't think that there can be a clear division.

As for plants, I've take the stance that they are the body/house for spirit beings.