Pain.
It’s an unpleasant sensation that we humans experience from time to time.
It’s a reaction that warns us that something is unsafe or that we are being harmed.
And it’s this important neural signal that tells us that our bodies need extra care.
Our unpleasant experience with pain has led some of us to develop a care and concern for
others who may be going through pain, including other beings in the world.
In an effort to show compassion or benevolence to other creatures, we’ve developed organizations
that focus on the humane treatment of animals, who can also experience pain.
It has led many of us to lead greener, more vegan lifestyles.
From the products we buy to the foods we eat.
But what about plants?
Can plants feel pain?
If a venus flytrap is capable of movement in the same way a flesh and blood organic
being is, who’s to say that it doesn’t experience a range of other similarities?
Let’s take for example the smell of freshly cut grass.
For many of us, this is a rather pleasant scent.
But what if it's really the plant’s way of screaming for help?
What if it’s the plant’s way of crying in agony?
If that were the case, would “pleasant” be the right word here?
Scientists have found that the smell we associate with freshly cut grass is actually a chemical
distress call being emitted by the plants- a signal of molecular communications that
have several uses linked to survival.
From poisoning an enemy, to alerting plants nearby of potential danger, to enlisting the
aid of insects nearby, such as bees who help pollinate the plant and ensure the continuity
of its species.
It is clear that this is a response to being damaged.
German scientists have developed a way to pick up sounds that are unrecognized by the
naked human ear.
Using a laser-driven microphone, scientists at the Institute for Applied Physics at the
University of Bonn have found that flowers whimper when a leaf is cut and cucumbers squeal
when they get sick.
A growing body of research suggests that at the very least, plants instinctively respond
to being harmed.
The plant itself doesn’t actually make a sound.
When a leaf or stem is cut off, the plant “cries out” by releasing the gas, ethylene
over its entire surface.
When specially calibrated lasers are pointed at the ethylene molecules, they begin to vibrate,
emitting a sound.
The more pressure, the more ethylene released, the louder the sound.
If plants are capable of perceiving a sense of their own environment, and adjusting their
morphology, physiology, and phenotype accordingly, then doesn’t that tell us that at least
on some level, plants can feel?
All living organisms strive to maintain a balance of homeostasis, or in other words,
will instinctively do what it can to survive.
But does a tree growing more girthy and less tall in a windier environment to avoid being
blown out of the ground necessarily mean that it will suffer a sensation of pain if its
leaves are cut?
Some researchers and botanists argue that pain is a sensation that is strictly linked
with the brain.
Without a brain, pain can’t possibly be registered.
But despite this lack of a perceivable brain or even conscious awareness, plants still
seem to exhibit some form of intelligence.
According to Daniel Chamovitz, a biologist and the author of What a Plant Knows, at the
very least, plants can feel.
When leaves are under attack by insects, they emit electric signals from leaf to leaf, sending
out the message that it must protect itself.
This occurs very similar to how information moves along a nervous system, however plants
do this without a proper neural system like the kind we humans have.
What does this mean?
It means that neural systems are simply one way to process information- more specifically
our way- but they aren’t the only way.
Another thing to consider is that damage doesn’t necessarily equate to pain.
We humans feel pain because we have pain receptors called nociceptors.
They’re programmed to respond to pain- not to touch.
Some people can have genetic malfunctions where they feel pressure but never feel pain
because they don’t have pain receptors.
We don’t have enough evidence to suggest that plants feel pain.
Chamovitz suggests that plants are not cognizant.
They don’t have a consciousness like we do.
They aren’t self-aware like we are.
When we cut a leaf, we assume that the plant is suffering.
But that might just be our own anthropomorphism- our need to give similar human characteristics
to nonhuman things, kicking in.
We have a tendency to assume that other entities in the world around us have experiences similar
to our own, though that can lead us to a lot of false assumptions.
Even though plants do feel, they don’t have a personality or the cognizant capacity to
recognize damage as suffering.
Plants don’t have pain receptors.
They have pressure receptors that allow them to know when they’re being touched or moved-
a specific nerve cell called a mechanoreceptor.
So you can definitely kill a plant, but it doesn’t care.
Chamovitz sums it up as: they can feel themselves being eaten, they just don’t have the capacity
to give a shit.
If they did, we might see a reality like in M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Happening”.
So it seems we’re at a stand still.
While it’s clear that plants respond to certain stimuli, we haven’t yet been able
to address whether or not plants actually experience pain.
We know that they don’t have a brain or nervous system like our own, though evidence
points to a complex connection of mechanisms that could at the very least lead to a pseudo-emotion
that we could one day classify as pain similar to the kind we experience.
How we would be able to identify that remains a mystery.
And then there’s the idea that plants are not cognizant beings with thoughts and emotions.
But then again, they do feel.
And even if we did realize that plants did indeed experience pain, what would that mean
for our diet?
Would vegetarians and vegans just eat nothing to avoid causing pain to others and die of
starvation?
Would we evolve to a diet of oxygen, water, and sunlight?
Or would we adapt as we always do?
What do you think?