> Plants lack nerves, let alone a central nervous system, and cannot feel pain or respond to circumstances in any deliberate way (not to be confused with the non-conscious reactions they do have).
The argument is circular. Plants cannot act in a deliberate way because they are not conscious and are not conscious because they cannot act deliberately. From a pure materialist perspective, the human mind is just as reactionary in its behavior as a plant, born of a combination of genetics and external stimuli. That it is sufficiently complex enough to obscure the direct relationships from our understanding is irrelevant.
We have very little understanding of a plant's experience of the universe, it may well be that they experience suffering through some mechanism other than having a central nervous system, it just isn't the same experience as our own forms of suffering. This whole thread is about how things different from ourselves can never the less experience the world similarly, why would we think this stops at animal life?
> Second, assuming for example that molecules have some experience of reality, and we just don't "relate" to the air around us, I am going to assume we will continue breathing.
Not an unreasonable position. The question is, why is this ok? I don't think it is one people should just write off and not think about, even though their conclusion will probably be the same as yours. In general, I think it is a trap to allow yourself to say "well, this is where the line is, because of X" and not also question your assumptions about X and, in particular, why X matters.
Why do people draw the line at sentience when it comes to what we can and cannot do to another entity? Why is sentience important? Why not simply draw the line at being human, or go the other direction and draw it at all life? On what axis are these two choices and why did we pick that one? Why is feeling pain important? Is it ok to kill someone afflicted anhidrosis?
I don't believe there are easy answers to these questions, or even necessarily answers at all if you insist on some kind of empirical and well defined rule, which is also why I think they're important to ask ourselves.
I eat plants because it's the best balance of survival and how much suffering I cause. If one day we invent an affordable pill not made of plants that fulfills my biological needs, and its production causes less suffering than eating plants, sign me up.
Then let's suppose this pill is a mash of different rocks (which we have to extract from the earth with all its consequences) but then we invent nano bots that change my organic needs to be fulfilled by the energy of the sun, then sign me up for that too.
The whole plant argument is commonly used by meat eaters in denial as some type of catastrophic excuse. "Its all bad man!! No solution to what Im currently doing!" Really irritates me to see such petty denial of their poor virtue.
Using this argument as a justification for eating meat is silly, since meat animals must also eat plants and therefore more plants are consumed per calorie when you eat meat than when you don't. To argue that if plants suffer then eating meat is no worse is to argue that increased suffering is no worse than decreased suffering simply because suffering still exists.
> Plants lack nerves, let alone a central nervous system, and cannot feel pain or respond to circumstances in any deliberate way (not to be confused with the non-conscious reactions they do have).
The argument is circular. Plants cannot act in a deliberate way because they are not conscious and are not conscious because they cannot act deliberately. From a pure materialist perspective, the human mind is just as reactionary in its behavior as a plant, born of a combination of genetics and external stimuli. That it is sufficiently complex enough to obscure the direct relationships from our understanding is irrelevant.
We have very little understanding of a plant's experience of the universe, it may well be that they experience suffering through some mechanism other than having a central nervous system, it just isn't the same experience as our own forms of suffering. This whole thread is about how things different from ourselves can never the less experience the world similarly, why would we think this stops at animal life?
> Second, assuming for example that molecules have some experience of reality, and we just don't "relate" to the air around us, I am going to assume we will continue breathing.
Not an unreasonable position. The question is, why is this ok? I don't think it is one people should just write off and not think about, even though their conclusion will probably be the same as yours. In general, I think it is a trap to allow yourself to say "well, this is where the line is, because of X" and not also question your assumptions about X and, in particular, why X matters.
Why do people draw the line at sentience when it comes to what we can and cannot do to another entity? Why is sentience important? Why not simply draw the line at being human, or go the other direction and draw it at all life? On what axis are these two choices and why did we pick that one? Why is feeling pain important? Is it ok to kill someone afflicted anhidrosis?
I don't believe there are easy answers to these questions, or even necessarily answers at all if you insist on some kind of empirical and well defined rule, which is also why I think they're important to ask ourselves.