Interesting, although if you want evidence-based studies about plants feeling pain, I mean you know that doesn't exist and can't since we can't communicate with them. Similarly, we actually don't have that kind of evidence for any animals other than humans.
We have visual evidence of dogs, eg, crying out when getting hurt, but are they having a subjective experience? We can't know.
I would say that the only way we are other animals having pain is through avoidant reactions (running away, fighting back, etc), which you are saying are really just caused by unconscious behaviors. We know in humans that these are associated with pain, so we canmproject that onto other animals (which I think is correct), but in terms of validated science saying animals have subjective pain it doesn't exist for dogs, it doesn't exist for snails, and it doesn't exist for non-animals either, of course.
I have no way of knowing what another animal or plant feels when exposed to negative stimulus. I know that humans have pain, and i can infer that other animals probably do as well, but if animals avoiding negative stimuli suggests that they feel something like pain, who am I to deny (without evidence) that plants don't have some kind of unpleasant "feeling" associated with their avoidant behavior reactions to negative stimuli.
Overall, we can't know - but if you believe that having a brain is the threshold to experiencing something unpleasant that is like pain, I can be on board with that. I don't want to deny that there might be other unpleasant interpretations of negative stimuli that humans don't know about.
The problem is that by this logic, maybe rocks feel pain. Maybe the atmosphere feels pain when we pollute it. Maybe the ghost of Jimmy Johnson who lives in my attic feels the pain of loneliness. "Maybe it feels pain but we don't know about it" is a completely meaningless and unactionable observation. Without evidence that it feels pain, we can only assume that it does not.
But as we've already covered, pain isn't a response to a negative stimulus. My reflexive reaction to touching something hot is not a reaction to pain. As you said, we don't fully understand where pain comes from, so who's to say rocks can't feel it?
I definitely like discussing and thinking about this, but my premise is that pain, or at least some unpleasant sensation, does occur as a response to negative stimuli.
Plants show a response to negative stimuli, therefore maybe they feel some kind of unpleasant sensation.
Bringing rocks into it doesn't jive with either of our definitions of pain and is being a bit ludicrous.
The point I'm making is that pain happens in the brain. No brain no pain. If you bring plants into it, you disconnect pain from the brain and get into the realm of "ok, maybe pain is just magic"
Interesting, although if you want evidence-based studies about plants feeling pain, I mean you know that doesn't exist and can't since we can't communicate with them. Similarly, we actually don't have that kind of evidence for any animals other than humans.
We have visual evidence of dogs, eg, crying out when getting hurt, but are they having a subjective experience? We can't know.
I would say that the only way we are other animals having pain is through avoidant reactions (running away, fighting back, etc), which you are saying are really just caused by unconscious behaviors. We know in humans that these are associated with pain, so we canmproject that onto other animals (which I think is correct), but in terms of validated science saying animals have subjective pain it doesn't exist for dogs, it doesn't exist for snails, and it doesn't exist for non-animals either, of course.
I have no way of knowing what another animal or plant feels when exposed to negative stimulus. I know that humans have pain, and i can infer that other animals probably do as well, but if animals avoiding negative stimuli suggests that they feel something like pain, who am I to deny (without evidence) that plants don't have some kind of unpleasant "feeling" associated with their avoidant behavior reactions to negative stimuli.
Overall, we can't know - but if you believe that having a brain is the threshold to experiencing something unpleasant that is like pain, I can be on board with that. I don't want to deny that there might be other unpleasant interpretations of negative stimuli that humans don't know about.
The problem is that by this logic, maybe rocks feel pain. Maybe the atmosphere feels pain when we pollute it. Maybe the ghost of Jimmy Johnson who lives in my attic feels the pain of loneliness. "Maybe it feels pain but we don't know about it" is a completely meaningless and unactionable observation. Without evidence that it feels pain, we can only assume that it does not.
No, because plants and trees respond to negative stimuli. Do rocks? Are ghosts real? These aren't real equivalencies and you know it
But as we've already covered, pain isn't a response to a negative stimulus. My reflexive reaction to touching something hot is not a reaction to pain. As you said, we don't fully understand where pain comes from, so who's to say rocks can't feel it?
I definitely like discussing and thinking about this, but my premise is that pain, or at least some unpleasant sensation, does occur as a response to negative stimuli.
Plants show a response to negative stimuli, therefore maybe they feel some kind of unpleasant sensation.
Bringing rocks into it doesn't jive with either of our definitions of pain and is being a bit ludicrous.
The point I'm making is that pain happens in the brain. No brain no pain. If you bring plants into it, you disconnect pain from the brain and get into the realm of "ok, maybe pain is just magic"