Bro, not only are they sentient, the trees fucking hate us. Allergies aren't just something that happens as a quirk of evolution. Those trees are filling the air with their jizz in a coordinated effort to take us out bro. The trees are trying to kill us bro.
Considering what we do to them, they have every right to defend themselves.
As an asthmatic hay-fever sufferer, fuck yeah - you're onto something!
There's a theory that allergies are getting worse due to an imbalance of gender selection when planting trees in urban environments. Here is some additional context.
Consider that human neuron makes around 7000 connections, while plant cells via plasmodesma may make from 1k to 100k connections.
We have such a human-centric and focused interpretation of knowing, and what qualifies as intelligence. Something that these recent series of advances should impress upon you is that maybe, complexity alone is enough. Obviously whatever we've built out of silicon isn't something we'd describe as intelligence. But the hint that maybe just 'having a preposterous number of connections' might be sufficient for emergent properties like reason and memory and identity.
So then what about plants? Discount the incredible relationships they make with fungi. Just plants are foreign enough to us to maybe give you a bit of caution. They are easy to take for granted because they are so ubiquitous. Internally they're as networked as you or I. They're constantly gathering information about the world around them. What does a plant know of the wind or the sun? Where would a plant put its 'self' if it had one?
If complexity alone is enough, then why wouldn't silicon brains connected to multiple external sensors be enough? The computer scientist are even starting to experiment with bio fuel cells that convert light to energy, and using fuzzy logic for AI networks. Our brains are giant fuzzy logic processors.
We have such a human-centric and focused interpretation of knowing, and what qualifies as intelligence.
This has been my response to all of the bullshit alien claims recently. It's always some kind of very human-centric idea of a bipedal being using a second thing as a vehicle. Just that entire concept is so human-centric.
If extraterrestrial ilfe exists, it's not going to resemble humans. Unless it's literally our cosmic ancestors or some shit.
Honestly I've come to the conclusion that most "things" are more intelligent ( or even just worthy of moral worth ) than we usually give them credit for.
This is partially why most veganism arguments that try and say that we shouldn't kill and eat animals and instead we should kill and eat plants usually fall on deaf ears for me just because it makes an implicit assumption that plant life is worth less than animal life ( I'm not saying this is not true but that is the exact same argument meat eaters make with animals. )
There are other reasons why veganism is good for the planet however ( like it being easier to sustain and lower carbon emissions ) but I think that it is better to come at this whole situation with the attitude of how do we live in harmony with the life around us whether that be human, animal, plant, etc.
This is partially why most veganism arguments that try and say that we shouldn't kill and eat animals and instead we should kill and eat plants usually fall on deaf ears for me just because it makes an implicit assumption that plant life is worth less than animal life
Animals don't create biomass from thin air though. They have to eat a lot of plants to grow.
the production of 1 kg of beef requires 8 kg of feed and 14.5 thousand liters of water. For 1 kg of pork, 3 kg of feed is needed and nearly 6 thousand liters of water
Eating plants directly instead of feeding them to animals is clearly much more efficient, requiring much fewer animal deaths as well as plant deaths to sustain a human.
If plants are sentient, the moral argument for veganism is even stronger.
It's a start: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-13-8922-1
I'm sorry to say that that is most likely a myth that scientists have been hyping each other up about.
https://www.sciencealert.com/does-a-vast-network-of-fungi-connect-forests-heres-what-we-know
I just want to point out that this source indicates researchers reviewed 1500 papers on the topic and found that unsupported claims had doubled.
However, they never indicate the number or give a percentage of those 1500 papers that featured unsupported claims.
So is it doubling from 2 to 4, or from 700 to 1400? Because that's a major difference.
This is a problem with AI articles on science. They skim other AI articles and repeat without bringing all the important facts with them. Then we get dozens of results for one claim about science, with only maybe one or two original sources.
Then the idea spreads through reddit or whatever forum you prefer.
We know trees share resources, that they have been demonstrated to signal pain and danger to other plants, that they signal food availability to pollinators via electromagnetic fields. We have had hard evidence for all of this.
Yes? Hard evidence? Where?
It's an interesting hypothesis run amok because a core group of biologists WANTED it to be true so badly.
There's a GREAT episode (ep. 425) from the In Defense of Plants podcast that covers the misinformation and misunderstanding perfectly.
Thanks! I’ve listen to a couple of those. The info is good, but there’s something a little off-putting about the guy’s delivery. Not sure what it is.
Y'all mf'ers need to read The Secret Life of Plants. It's fascinating.
It's from the 1970s or 80s, and it talks about this stuff in extreme depth - plant communication, plants understanding their environment... Long range communication & telepathic plants...
You gotta understand, there's absolutely zero science to it -- TSLoP is richly detailed with unconfirmed anecdotal evidence, some lady said this, a man from Tucson said this other thing, etc. If it was real, it would be world changing, but, at this point, it's a pretty crazy claim that would need some pretty crazy evidence.
But it's still fascinating -- both from it's own kayfabe, like, imagine a world in which this was real -- and in terms of "conspiracy theories" -- is not a conspiracy but it's clear bullshit so the who and why of it's believers is interesting. Because it's not like most conspiracies, which usually eventually lead back to antisemitic and Christian supremacist stuff. TSLoP is a legit leftist conspiracy, all its own thing.
So, if you see The Secret Life of Plants at a used bookstore for a couple dollars, pick it up, it's really neat.
The mycorrhizal networks are a real phenomenon, and as recently as 2016 were confirmed to share resources between trees.
Researchers exposed certain trees to a specific carbon isotope and found their unfed neighbors were processing that specific isotope despite not being exposed.
We've also found that many plants generate interacting electrical fields that help promote pollination and may indicate to pollinators which plants are ready to be harvested.
We've also found, by sequencing fungal DNA, that mother trees do have a resource sharing preference for their direct offspring.
We don't have hard evidence for direct communication between trees, in the sense that we don't speak tree. We do have hard evidence that they share resources, have preferences, express pain signals externally and other plants react, and can indicate information to other species.
Thank you for taking the time to comment in this thread.
A few years ago, a group of giraffes were placed in a field surrounded by enough acacia trees to ensure their food, but after a short time the giraffes began to get sick. The cause is the acacias. These, when the giraffe eats its shoots, releases a toxic substance to the other shoots that makes them toxic and also sends signals to the surrounding acacias that also make them toxic. The giraffes, therefore, in freedom, after eating from an acacia, move to others of several km to continue in these, but this in an enclosure was not possible.
This comment is the definition of joie de vivre.
Thanks for the tip, I’ll keep an eye out for it.
I like this comment for many reasons, but I'll mention just that I have never heard the word "kayfabe" until today and I love it!
I hadn't heard it either until FD Signifier used it in a video. I guess it originally referred to the "in universe" fiction of professional wrestling, but FD took it out of that context and now I use it all the time -- well, it doesn't come up that often, but it's a concept that's needed a word for a while now... Especially now that "alternative facts" are becoming so prevalent.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-trees-support-each-other-through-a-network-of-fungi/
The whole tree network thing is not as proven as many people think.
But it helps me anthropomorphize them into ents so it must be true
I actually witnessed a similar thing today. A girl was going into an extensive history lecture to her boyfriend that later just got up and started walking away and then they got into a fight over it.
RIP in peace
For some updated information on the continued research into plant communication, I would suggest a video by Anton Petrov
Mindblowing Video of Plants Talking to Each Other In Real Time
My kind of lady
This is basically the storyline of a new book I just read - The Canopy Keepers by Veronica Henry
So the Lorax is a myconid?
This kid looks like a young Tom holland
Tom Holland already looks like a young Tom Holland though
A young....er? (If that's possible) Tom Holland.
His face says "your tits aren't big enough for me to put up with all this screaming."
Merlin Sheldrake be like ⬆️
