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Articles 1 - 30 of 706
Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Multiple Ways To Implement And Infer Sentience, Nicolas Rouleau, Michael Levin
Multiple Ways To Implement And Infer Sentience, Nicolas Rouleau, Michael Levin
Animal Sentience
Segundo-Ortin & Calvo’s (S&C’s) thorough review of “plant neurobiology” presents evidence supporting the possibility of plant sentience. They make a compelling case that plants anticipate, assess risk, cooperate, mimic, and pursue goals, as do their animal counterparts. S&C point out that there is a double standard: behavioural patterns associated with subjective experiences in humans are considered valid for inferring cognition in non-human animals but not in diverse other systems including plants. We argue that cognitive functions, including sentience, can potentially be achieved by very different systems and their disparate substrates. We offer some context from the basal cognition literature and …
Plant Sentience: Not Now, Maybe Later?, Helen Tiffin
Plant Sentience: Not Now, Maybe Later?, Helen Tiffin
Animal Sentience
Segundo-Ortin’s target article provides compelling evidence for physiological and behavioral complexity in plants, bringing us closer to a recognition of some kind of plant cognition – but it does not as yet offer firm grounds for inferring sentience (feeling) in plants, The recent history of the scientific demonstration and recognition of animalsentience in invertebrates, for example, does not entirely rule out the possibility that further research might provide support for plant sentience. Should this ever turn out to be the case, the ethical problems raised are not insurmountable, and would not threaten the now proven case for animal sentience
Animal Communication And Sentience, Catia Correia-Caeiro, Katja Liebal
Animal Communication And Sentience, Catia Correia-Caeiro, Katja Liebal
Animal Sentience
Segundo-Ortin & Calvo (S&C) argue for sentience in plants on the basis of several studies of what they describe as "cognitive abilities" in plants. As other commentaries (e.g., Brooks Pribac, 2023; Damasio & Damasio, 2023; ten Cate, 2023) have pointed out, however, there is some misuse of several concepts, and a lack of evidence for sentience. We try to clarify three questions in S&C’s discussion: (1) How is communication defined and conceptualised in animal research? (2) Is plant communication comparable to animal communication? (3) Is communication (or the process we see in plants) a good basis for inferring sentience in …
Limits To Sentience, Donald M. Broom
Limits To Sentience, Donald M. Broom
Animal Sentience
There are many parallels between cellular function in animals and plants. Plants can have complex interactions with their environments. But they lack a central nervous system, which is a prerequisite for sentience (the capacity to feel). In my view the suggestion that plants are sentient is not only empirically incorrect but potentially harmful to the efforts to protect the welfare of sentient beings.
Plant Sentience: Getting To The Roots Of The Problem, Krzysztof Dolega, Savannah Siekierski, Axel Cleeremans
Plant Sentience: Getting To The Roots Of The Problem, Krzysztof Dolega, Savannah Siekierski, Axel Cleeremans
Animal Sentience
Segundo-Ortin’s (2023) target article invites us to consider the possibility that plants can experience subjectively felt states. We discuss this speculation on the basis of the functional neurobiology of consciousness. We suggest that demonstrating plant sentience would require that we identify not only behaviors analogous to those exhibited by sentient creatures, but also the functional analogues of the mechanisms causing such behaviors. The lack of clear evidence for any kind of integration between self-states, self-movement, environmental states, memory, or affective communication within plants suggests that plant sentience remains an admittedly fascinating, but ultimately merely provocative speculation.
Dissociation Between Conscious And Unconscious Processes As A Criterion For Sentience, Ivan Ivanchei, Nicolas Coucke, Axel Cleeremans
Dissociation Between Conscious And Unconscious Processes As A Criterion For Sentience, Ivan Ivanchei, Nicolas Coucke, Axel Cleeremans
Animal Sentience
Based on the literature on human consciousness, we suggest that to demonstrate sentience in a system, one needs to demonstrate both conscious and unconscious processing in the system. Major theories of consciousness require the existence of both conscious and unconscious processes. Contrasting effects of conscious and unconscious processes have been successfully used in human studies and have begun being applied in animal sentience research as well.
Associative Learning: Unmet Criterion For Plant Sentience, Luigi Baciadonna, Catherine Macri, Martin Giurfa
Associative Learning: Unmet Criterion For Plant Sentience, Luigi Baciadonna, Catherine Macri, Martin Giurfa
Animal Sentience
In a thought-provoking target article, Segundo-Ortin & Calvo (S&C) discuss the possibility that plants are sentient, focusing on a series of capacities normally attributed only to human and nonhuman animals. S&C propose learning as a marker for sentience. We review studies reporting associative learning in plants and find that they either lack essential controls or fail to produce replicable results. The capacity to learn has not yet been demonstrated in plants, so it cannot be used to support the hypothesis that plants are sentient. Further studies are needed. But agnosticism about sentience should not deter us from investigating unexpected new …
Disentangling Sentience From Developmental Plasticity, Jonathan Birch
Disentangling Sentience From Developmental Plasticity, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
Plants, like animals, display remarkable developmental plasticity, inviting the metaphorical use of terms like “decision” and “choice”. In the animal case, this is not taken to be evidence of sentience, because sentience is a complex product of development, not something that guides it. We should apply the same standards when evaluating the evidence in plants. It is hard to overstate the contrast with the case of invertebrates such as octopuses, where pain markers that were originally developed for use in mammals have been clearly demonstrated and plausible neural substrates for sentience have been identified.
Complex Floral Behavior Of An Angiosperm Family, Tilo Henning, Moritz Mittelbach
Complex Floral Behavior Of An Angiosperm Family, Tilo Henning, Moritz Mittelbach
Animal Sentience
Segundo-Ortin & Calvo provide a comprehensive overview of the many aspects of plant behavior examined to date. In our view, multiple lines of evidence make it difficult to deny plant sentience. We add further evidence to support the conclusion that plants are sentient organisms. As in animals, the behavior of plants can be seen and studied as an evolutionary trait, subject to and a consequence of increasing complexity in the interactions of plants with their environment. Our example is the evolution of floral behavior in Loasaceae, where complex patterns of stamen movement have co-evolved in interaction with specialized pollinators.
The Elephant In The Garden, Ila France Porcher
The Elephant In The Garden, Ila France Porcher
Animal Sentience
The other commentators on Chapman & Huffman (2018) have pointed out in different ways that despite our biological nature, there is a widespread tendency for humans to believe that we are not only superior to animals, but that we are not animals at all. Alongside our denial of animal sentience and cognition, this has resulted in the denial of our own instinctive natures. It is this denial that is our error, for it is only by understanding our true natural heritage that we can begin to change the runaway path we are on.
Cognition Is Not Evidence Of Sentience, Tom Bennett
Cognition Is Not Evidence Of Sentience, Tom Bennett
Animal Sentience
The ability of plants to detect their environment, including other organisms within that environment, is unquestioned. The ability of plants to differentially process, integrate and respond to complex combinations of environmental information could perhaps be described as cognition. But no amount of evidence for cognitive abilities in plants equates to evidence for plant sentience. Nor is plant sentience required to understand or interpret the behaviour of plants in their environment.
Do Plants Have The Cognitive Complexity For Sentience?, Ricard V. Solé
Do Plants Have The Cognitive Complexity For Sentience?, Ricard V. Solé
Animal Sentience
Are plants sentient? Like other aspects of the cognitive potential of plants, this is a controversial issue, often driven by analogies and seldom supported on solid theoretical grounds. Sentience is understood in cognitive sciences as the capacity to feel. I suggest that because of plants’ evolved adaptations to morphological plasticity, sessile nature and ecological constraints, they are unlikely to have the requisite cognitive complexity for sentience.
Sensing Is A Far Cry From Sentience, Antonio Damasio, Hanna Damasio
Sensing Is A Far Cry From Sentience, Antonio Damasio, Hanna Damasio
Animal Sentience
The hypothesis that plants might be sentient confuses the notion of sentience (or consciousness) with that of sensing. Sentience/consciousness implies feeling, experience, and subjectivity. Sensing does not. Plants can sense/detect and even respond appropriately in the absence of any sentience/consciousness.
What If Plants Compute?, Jordi Vallverdú
What If Plants Compute?, Jordi Vallverdú
Animal Sentience
The unexpended cognitive capacities of plants suggest the possibility of combining them with advances in computation. It is important to explore such a new field of research despite the incompleteness of the empirical support for it.
Plant Sentience: The Burden Of Proof, Jon Mallatt, David G. Robinson, Michael R. Blatt, Andreas Draguhn, Lincoln Taiz
Plant Sentience: The Burden Of Proof, Jon Mallatt, David G. Robinson, Michael R. Blatt, Andreas Draguhn, Lincoln Taiz
Animal Sentience
Segundo-Ortin & Calvo’s (2023) target article takes a less speculative and more evidence-based approach to plant sentience than did previous works promoting that idea. However, it retains many of the idea’s longstanding difficulties such as starting from a false dichotomy (plants must be either hardwired or sentient), not accepting the full burden of proof for an extraordinary claim, confusingly redefining accepted cognitive terms, implying cell consciousness, not adopting the most parsimonious explanations for plant behaviors, and downplaying all the counterevidence. We advise rectifying these problems before plant sentience can become a full-fledged scientific domain.
Plant Sentience: A Hypothesis Based On Shaky Premises, Carel Ten Cate
Plant Sentience: A Hypothesis Based On Shaky Premises, Carel Ten Cate
Animal Sentience
Plants may produce fascinating behavioural phenomena for which the label ‘cognitive process’ may be applicable, at least by some definitions. Segundo-Ortin & Calvo (2023) base their hypothesis that plants might be sentient on the premise of demonstrated presence of cognitive complexity. However, the way phenomena are ascribed, and how the term ‘cognitive’ is used by Segundo-Ortin & Calvo, deviates from the common practice in studies of animal cognition, implying greater complexity than seems justified. It thus provides a questionable basis for attributing sentience to plants.
Plant Sentience: "Feeling" Or Biological Automatism?, Andrea Mastinu
Plant Sentience: "Feeling" Or Biological Automatism?, Andrea Mastinu
Animal Sentience
Sentience refers to the ability of an organism to have subjective experiences such as sensations, emotions and awareness. Whereas some animals, including humans, are widely recognized as sentient, the question of whether plants are sentient is still debated among scientists, philosophers, and ethicists. Over the past 20 years, many scientists such as Trewavas, Baluška, Mancuso, Gagliano, and Calvo have reported interesting discussions about memory, behavior, communication, and intelligence in plants. However, the reported conclusions have not convinced the entire scientific community. In this commentary, I would like to focus on two critical aspects related to sentience: cognition and emotion
Plant Sentience: Bias And Promise, Sidney Carls-Diamante
Plant Sentience: Bias And Promise, Sidney Carls-Diamante
Animal Sentience
Whichever side of the debate one chooses, plant sentience is a fertile research area that challenges received views and assumptions, generates novel insights, and suggests new ways that felt states might arise. My commentary discusses methodological and philosophical implications.
From Animal To Plant Sentience: Is There Credible Evidence?, Leonard Dung
From Animal To Plant Sentience: Is There Credible Evidence?, Leonard Dung
Animal Sentience
Segundo-Ortin & Calvo argue that plants have a surprisingly varied and complex behavioral repertoire. Which of these behavioral capacities are credible indicators of sentience? If we use the standards of evidence common in discussions of animal sentience, the behavioral capacities reviewed are insufficient evidence of sentience. Even if some putative indicators of animal sentience are present in plants, it is not clear whether what we should conclude is that plants are sentient or that those indicators are inadequate.
Stress: An Adaptive Problem Common To Plant And Animal Science, Özlem Yilmaz
Stress: An Adaptive Problem Common To Plant And Animal Science, Özlem Yilmaz
Animal Sentience
It is very hard to determine whether plants have “felt states,” but they do have specific states, such as stress, that depend on sensory input from their environment. Plants do not have neurons or brains, but they do have xylem and phloem, as well as many signalling molecules that are dynamically distributed in their bodies, enabling them to produce systemic responses to environmental stimuli. One common topic in plant and animal science that may or may not prove to involve sentience but that does involve the same molecules is stress.
Plants Lack The Functional Neurotransmitters And Signaling Pathways Required For Sentience In Animals, David G. Robinson, Michael R. Blatt, Andreas Draguhn, Lincoln Taiz, Jon Mallatt
Plants Lack The Functional Neurotransmitters And Signaling Pathways Required For Sentience In Animals, David G. Robinson, Michael R. Blatt, Andreas Draguhn, Lincoln Taiz, Jon Mallatt
Animal Sentience
We cannot agree with Segundo-Ortin and Calvo that plants are sentient organisms. We have critically examined several aspects of their target article, and find their claims are not supported by the published evidence. We address these claims in sections on whether plants have a ‘neurobiology’ analogous to that of animal nervous systems, including neurotransmitters and synaptic receptors that respond to anesthetics; and whether plant signaling resembles neural transmission. For the latter, we especially consider the unique way plants signal their responses to wounding. Although the plant vascular system has been compared to the animal nervous system, animal blood vessels would …
What Can Plant Science Learn From Animal Nervous Systems?, Luiz Pessoa
What Can Plant Science Learn From Animal Nervous Systems?, Luiz Pessoa
Animal Sentience
I welcome Segundo-Ortin & Calvo’s (2023) call for a rigorous science of plant behavior and physiology. My commentary addresses three points drawn from the literature on animal brains that could help elucidate the possibility of cognition and sentience in plants: (1) the presumed requirement of a centralized brain; (2) centralization of control versus heterarchical organization; and (3) connecting plant research with research on animal nervous systems.
Plant Sentience And The Case For Ethical Veganism, Josh Milburn
Plant Sentience And The Case For Ethical Veganism, Josh Milburn
Animal Sentience
Does the possibility of plant sentience pose a problem for ethical veganism? It has not yet been demonstrated that plants are sentient (i.e., that they can feel). Moreover, even if it were demonstrated that plants could feel, it would also have to be demonstrated that they can feel the affectively “valenced” feelings that are ethically significant, such as pain and fear, rather than just neutral sensations such as darker/lighter, or wetter/drier. Finally, if plants could feel valenced feelings, veganism would likely still be the ethical option, on the principle of causing the least harm.
Plants Detect And Adapt, But Do Not Feel, Paul C. Struik
Plants Detect And Adapt, But Do Not Feel, Paul C. Struik
Animal Sentience
Plant sentience is a hot topic in scientific and popular media. There are moral reasons to respect both the service of plants to humanity and their natural integrity as creatures playing their own significant role in a complex ecosystem. However, to infer that plants have certain cognitive capacities that are present also in certain human and nonhuman animals calls for scientific rigor beyond mere analogy. The unique capacities of plants identified by Segundo-Ortin & Calvo are not necessarily linked to sentience. Nor is it likely that sentience is an evolutionary trait that is present to some extent in all living …
Questions About Sentience Are Not Scientific But Cultural, Yoram Gutfreund
Questions About Sentience Are Not Scientific But Cultural, Yoram Gutfreund
Animal Sentience
Abstract: The findings of complex cognitive-like behaviours in plants are surprising and exciting. However, they do not provide a scientific reason for ascribing sentience to plants. The target article, in trying to provide evidence for sentience in plants, exposes the weakness of the science of animal consciousness in general. In this commentary, I try to explain why the scientific method is incapable of resolving the question of which organisms or systems are sentient.
Insentient “Cognition”?, Stevan Harnad
Insentient “Cognition”?, Stevan Harnad
Animal Sentience
A sentient state is a state that it feels like something to be in. Cows have them, cars don’t. Cognitive capacities are a subset of behavioral capacities. Not all behavioral capacities are cognitive (but the distinction is fuzzy). Might the difference have something to do with whether the behaver is sentient?
Update – Food & Drug Administration’S Animal Testing Mandate, Andrew N. Rowan
Update – Food & Drug Administration’S Animal Testing Mandate, Andrew N. Rowan
WellBeing News
Following the end of the Second World War, the World Medical Association developed new ethical guidelines regarding research involving human subjects. These guidelines included requirements to obtain informed consent from research subjects but also emphasized the importance of conducting animal research before engaging in human clinical trials and other human research. This principle was included in legislation mandating the FDA to require prior animal research before permitting human trials of new drugs. That mandate was recently eliminated by new US legislation cosponsored by Senators Cory Booker and Rand Paul. The FDA can now encourage non-animal methods and no longer has …
Plant Sentience Revisited: Sifting Through The Thicket Of Perspectives, Paco Calvo, Miguel Segundo-Ortin
Plant Sentience Revisited: Sifting Through The Thicket Of Perspectives, Paco Calvo, Miguel Segundo-Ortin
Animal Sentience
In our target article (Segundo-Ortin & Calvo 2023), we proposed the intriguing possibility of plant sentience, drawing parallels with non-human animal studies. This response aims to sift through the rich thicket of perspectives offered by our commentators. To do so, we assess the risks of employing double standards, as well as the tendencies of anthropomorphizing and zoomorphizing in plant studies. We also emphasize the need for clarity in linguistic and conceptual terms, examine the neurophysiological evidence for plant sentience, and discuss the ethical implications of such recognition.
Defining And Exploring Animal Sentience, Andrew N. Rowan, Joyce M. D'Silva Mrs, Ian J.H. Duncan, Nicholas Palmer
Defining And Exploring Animal Sentience, Andrew N. Rowan, Joyce M. D'Silva Mrs, Ian J.H. Duncan, Nicholas Palmer
Animal Sentience
One of the commentaries on the target article notes that "animal sentience" is difficult to define operationally. This response to the commentaries develops a working, usable definition of animal sentience and examines the relationships between animal emotions and sentience.
Plant Sentience? Between Romanticism And Denial: Science, Miguel Segundo-Ortin, Paco Calvo
Plant Sentience? Between Romanticism And Denial: Science, Miguel Segundo-Ortin, Paco Calvo
Animal Sentience
A growing number of non-human animal species are being seriously considered as candidates for sentience, but plants are either forgotten or explicitly excluded from these debates. In our view, this is based on the belief that plant behavior is hardwired and inflexible and on an underestimation of the role of plant electrophysiology. We weigh such assumptions against the evidence to suggest that it is time to take seriously the hypothesis that plants, too, might be sentient. We hope this target article will serve as an invitation to investigate sentience in plants with the same rigor as in non-human animals.