So much turns here on definitions! You can make “consciousness” rich and florid enough that only people possess it, or you minimal enough that anything that can register change and respond to it is conscious...this is why I often ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ at these issues...
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Agreed. That's why I try to frame the question in terms of a notion of sentience as the feeling of being alive.
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Although Arthur Reber makes an interesting case for sentience in single cell organisms... no CNS necessarily required.
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Yes, I've read his book and talked to him about it. I've got a paper in the works on this too.
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Petitio principii: the authors assume (p. 6) sentience requires brained animals (not plants) to prove that plants are insentient. They thereby beg the question at issue.
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Yes, I agree.
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Started reading the article.... do the authors ever define “consciousness” anywhere? Surely we are still capable of making the distinctions that originated with Plato and Aristotle between growing, desiring, and thinking that roughly speaking apply to plants, animals, and humans?
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These are different shades of “consciousness,” perhaps? Unless these authors define “consciousness” as rational self-awareness or something... Then I’d agree with them. Plants don’t have it.
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