Are Plants Conscious?

[SQAAD]

Are plants conscious like animals or humans?

They are definetely alive like we are. In this video Sadhguru suggests that even eating plants is cruel and talks about a communication system that trees have developed.

What do you think?

 

Edited April 29, 2021 by SQAAD

[Roy]

I definitely think so, though intuitively I feel it's on a different wavelength or "mode" of consciousness that is foreign to our traditional understanding.

[Megan Alecia]

Pansychism seems to think so.

Edited April 29, 2021 by Megan Alecia

[Ry4n]

Mushrooms convinced me yes

[Tim R]

Of course plants are conscious.

They have some very elaborate systems of perception, like for example graviception or photoception. Also, they are aware of sounds and even music. Plants communicate all kinds of things via chemicals through the air, think of the tobacco plant: there's a species of caterpillar who loves eating the leaves of young tobacco plants, and if he starts chewing on a plant, it will send out a bunch of chemicals that are called "phytohormones" (phyto=plant) to warn the other plants nearby and they receive this signal and as a result will produce chemicals which make the leaves bitter and inedible for the caterpillar. Plants are also aware of different kinds of stress, like when there isn't enough water around or when the sun is burning too hot and they have the most incredible systems of coping with these situations. And god only knows what is going on in the forest underneath the soil where the trees form communication and nutrient exchange networks of enormous sizes with different species of funghi (which aren't plants btw) and other trees.

When I started to learn about plant physiology in university I was shocked to discover how sophisticated they actually are... plants aren't dumb or unconscious at all. Only because they don't scream or run away doesn't mean they aren't conscious. 

[BipolarGrowth]

Does consciousness occur within a human being, or does a human being occur within consciousness? 
 

Your initial question only makes sense working with one of those two possible assumptions. 
 

With the other assumption, no thing is conscious. Consciousness is all things. 
 

Which one feels more right to you? 
 

Before you gravitate to the first assumption as your basis of forming conclusions, you might ask yourself why you consider your mother in a dream to not be conscious while your mother in waking reality to be conscious. What is the difference between the two? Simply a popular story telling you that one is not real. The direct experience of both versions of your mother and even the environment in which an interaction with her occurs could be the exact same. 
 

With the conclusion that you are always everything contained within the picture frame rather than a part of the picture, everything changes while the picture looks exactly the same. 

[mandyjw]

@BipolarGrowth ?

[flume]

Consciousness is not a property of plants, plants are a property of consciousness.

[Tim R]

What are we talking about exactly? Is the question whether plants perceive? Or is this thread becoming one of those "what is consciousness" discussions?

Of course "there's no one home" also applies to plants, like with BipolarGrowth's analogy of the dream mother. There's no one home. Likewise with you, nobody home... Consciousness is, but nobody who is conscious.

[Breakingthewall]

of course they are conscious, but they have no ego. They don't care if you cut them and dry

[Tim R]

1 minute ago, Breakingthewall said:

they have no ego. They don't care if you cut them and dry

hmm idk man. I think whenever an organism tries to survive, there's ego. Albeit a very simple one.

[Breakingthewall]

 

12 minutes ago, Tim R said:

 

True they try to survive , they have a clear intention, in a way that could be called ego, but also a piece of iron has the intention of remaining iron, with all its molecules exerting resistance to don't stop being

Edited April 29, 2021 by Breakingthewall

[Leo Gura]

The idea that things have consciousness is ego.

That's how ego stays alive.

Be ware of this most sneaky self-deception.

[Tim R]

14 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

but also a piece of iron has the intention of remaining iron

not necessarily, the iron may contain very reactive ions which "want" to become Fe2O3 or something. 

You got me thinking tho. In a sense, everything is sort of..sluggish and doesn't want to change. on the other hand, there is no ego in anything, not even in humans.

4 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The idea that things have consciousness is ego.

That's how ego stays alive.

@Leo Gura I have a question on that: I remember Nahm posting somewhere "the biggest misconception is that ego is a thought". 

So.. "ego" doesn't exist, not even as a thought, right? it's a total illusion, there's nothing at all to which you could point and say "there is the ego". So even to say that 

Quote

The idea that things have consciousness is ego

is already saying too much, yes? 

Edited April 29, 2021 by Tim R

[Mason Riggle]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The idea that things have consciousness is ego.

That's how ego stays alive.

Be ware of this most sneaky self-deception.

It's 'beware' or 'be wary'.. 

But then I suppose we must ask, 'who is it that should beware?'  

The idea that things can 'beware' is ego. 

[BipolarGrowth]

1 minute ago, Tim R said:

So.. "ego" doesn't exist, not even as a thought, right? it's a total illusion, there's nothing at all to which you could point and say "there is the ego". 

If the color red didn’t exist, would we have words for it in virtually every modern language? An illusion still has to exist for it to be an illusion at all. An illusion is something which leads to incorrect assumptions or conclusions. Ego is not just a thought. It’s also an experience generated by a belief. If this were not the case, why would experience change when this belief is fully vanquished (awakening)? 

[Nahm]

@Tim R

One appears as two.

Ego’s just a word a sleeping psychologist coined. 

[Leo Gura]

21 minutes ago, Tim R said:

So.. "ego" doesn't exist, not even as a thought, right? it's a total illusion, there's nothing at all to which you could point and say "there is the ego".

Ego is more than a thought, since thoughts come and go all the time, but your sense of self is pretty constant and much more stable than any one thought or belief.

Ego is actually a state of consciousness. Consciousness imagines itself to be a "someone". A human. A living creature. A thing that is conscious . A thing that has experiences. We might call this the egoic or materialistic state of consciousness. Changing that state of consciousness is necessary for the illusion of ego to dissolve.

It is as if you were a child playing a game of cowboys and Indians, and you are imagining yourself as a cowboy. Is the cowboy real? It's a role that's being played, a mask being worn. You feel like a cowboy because you keep imagining that you are one. Until you stop imagining it. Ego is not a thing, it's an imaginary role you've adopted.

For example, you might imagine yourself to be a woman. But right now you're imagining yourself to be a man. Except you tell yourself that you actually ARE a man, whereas being a woman would be imaginary to you. But both are imaginary. What is a man? A man is not a physical object. A man is a role you've adopted.

[roopepa]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

Ego is more than a thought, since thoughts come and go all the time, but your sense of self is pretty constant and much more stable than anyone one thought or a single belief.

Ego is actually a state of consciousness. Consciousness imagines itself to be a "someone". A human. A living creature. A thing that is conscious . A thing that has experiences. We might call this the egoic or materialistic state of consciousness. Changing that state of consciousness is necessary for the illusion of ego dissolve.

It is as if you were a child playing a game of cowboy and Indians, and you are imagining yourself as a cowboy. Is the cowboy real? It's a role that's being played, a mask being worn.

What if the consciousness imagines itself to be "a state of consciousness where it imagines being a human being, a living creature"? Is that ego?

Is there anything else than ego? 

[Tim R]

11 minutes ago, BipolarGrowth said:

If the color red didn’t exist, would we have words for it in virtually every modern language? An illusion still has to exist for it to be an illusion at all. An illusion is something which leads to incorrect assumptions or conclusions. Ego is not just a thought. It’s also an experience generated by a belief. If this were not the case, why would experience change when this belief is fully vanquished (awakening)? 

@BipolarGrowth Makes a lot of sense, thank you!

8 minutes ago, Nahm said:

One appears as two.

Ego’s just a word a sleeping psychologist coined. 

@NahmThird time watching that video, here wo go! seriously tho I will have to return to that video many times coming, always with new context of understanding

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Ego is more than a thought, since thoughts come and go all the time, but your sense of self is pretty constant and much more stable than anyone one thought or a single belief.

Ego is actually a state of consciousness. Consciousness imagines itself to be a "someone". A human. A living creature. A thing that is conscious . A thing that has experiences. We might call this the egoic or materialistic state of consciousness. Changing that state of consciousness is necessary for the illusion of ego dissolve.

It is as if you were a child playing a game of cowboy and Indians, and you are imagining yourself as a cowboy. Is the cowboy real? It's a role that's being played, a mask being worn.

That adds to my understanding.. or maybe it took away from "my understanding". Thank you!