Hi TOK,

Cool thoughts, John. On this topic, here are some interesting articles about what plants might “feel” that my brother shared with me:

 

https://www.peta.org/about-peta/faq/what-about-plants/ 

https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/plants-feel-pain.htm

 

For me, I completely agree that this stuff demonstrates plants exhibit aversion and withdrawal behaviors that are the roots of what we call “pain”. I would like to call them “proto-pain-behaviors”. However, I am a skeptic regarding “plant sentience,” although they clearly exhibit functional avoidance and aversion responses. When my son Jon badly broke his arm, the docs put him under and they tried to set it. Andee and I watched as his body writhed and he moaned and he pulled away. Was he “in pain” or did he “feel pain” as it happened? One of my “flashbulb” memories was when, twenty minutes later, he woke up and cried out “I am alive!”. I don’t think he felt pain during that time, at least in any we mean the term (although you might argue yes and he does not remember). Yet he exhibited behavior that was far more indicative of pain than the evidence cited for plant pain. The body (ours and plants) has lots of “functional awareness and response” mechanisms in it…but it is always tricky to sort out what observers see as patterns of behavior and what is (or is not) going on at the first person level of experience.

 

Best,

Gregg

 

 

From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of JOHN TORDAY
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2019 6:21 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Qualia

 

Dear Brent and TOK, in putting together a brief talk on Consciousness, I had to reduce my cell biologic approach to the problem due to time constraints. So I decided to start with E=mc2 as the mathematical expression of the Singularity of the Cosmos (I assume we're all good on Einstein). Based on that 'logic', development of the embryo as cell-cell signaling is the conversion of 'mass' (growth factors) into 'energy' (the downstream interaction of the growth factor with its receptor (think 'lock and key'), triggering an intracellular cascade of high energy phosphates that ultimately affect growth and differentiation of the embryo, culminating in homeostatic physiology at birth. The aggregate of those cell-cell interactions is Consciousness, bearing in mind that the origin of the brain is the skin as a graphic. That would explain Qualia as the way in which experiences trigger consciousness, i.e. why seeing 'red' free associates with the physiology of the individual, bearing in mind that those homeostatic signaling cascades reference not only the physiology of the current individual, but their past experiences as a species as evolution too, so the Qualia go way back in the history of the organism. I hope that was helpful. 

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