Plants and pain.

In school today my biology teacher was yabbling on about cells and came to the nerves cell. And she told a story, [ Im not sure if this is true] Anyway she sais in Uni her room mate was running a test to see if plants felt pain, but as they did not have nerves it became a big question. So he got millions of microphones and stuff around a tree and he got a chain saw and recored the sound of him cutting the tree then stopping then cutting again. In the lab he got results of a noise that did not come from the chain saw but fomr the area of the tree. So he thought that plants could feel pain.
But the question is.. Cant plants feel pain?

 

Plants cannot think, they do not have brains, therefore they have no concept of pain in the same sense as we have.

Plants simply 'strive to thrive'. They can react to stimuli, but they cannot feel pain like you and I.

 

I know they don't have bnrain forgod sake but who say they can't feel pain?

 

Hundereds of years of scientific research says they can't feel pain.

Also a chainsaw is not sterile or controlled tool. The plants would need to be identical to one cut with a water saw aswell. (note the lack of noise with a water saw )

 

Just because plants do not make much noise, doesn't mean they don't feel pain, sure they don't have nerves and stuff, but they can still respond to the enviroment and even adapt a bit sometimes, I'm pretty sure they can at least feel a small amount of pain.

 

Thats all true, however, its still not pain.

Its a reaction to a stimuli, which is not the same as pain. If you put a rock in the middle of a small stream, the water will flow around it- this does not mean that the water is in pain simply because it reacted..

Like I stated before- pain is a concept, which requires consciousness. Dogs, cats, gerbils, kangaroos, king cobras, and ardvarks can all feel pain because animals and humans have highly developed brains and a nervous system. Even animals of intelligence can understand pain as a concept- (Dogs will comfort their owner if in pain) but plants cannot.

If a plant could feel pain, in theory, it would be capable of feeling pleasure as well- which is not possible.

 

Yes but water is not living it's just water as plants are alive...

 

Ye it might of been this was just a story my teacher had told me she didn't go into details so i juust ha to ay what she told me..

 

Your responses make no sense at all. You haven't made one valid point yet, you just keep referring back to what your teacher told you..

I'm beginning to suspect that you simply misunderstood what your teacher was talking about and misinterpreted her story..

Plants cannot feel pain.

 

In my opinion they cant feel pain because they don't have a brain.

 

Im not wanting to here a point im wanting to here peoples opinions about if they feel pain or not. And i did understand my teacher, just a rough story so i can't give you much more infomation on the test.
Also i refered back twice or so... Also If you want ill ask her about the story and ill see if i was wrong, but im pretty sure i was rite. If i wasn't sure i wouldn't of brought it up. Also the only point you have made is they have no brains or nerves... And people keep saying well if humans didn't have nerves they couldn't fell anything.. correct but plants are not humans.

 

This is simple logic, but its clearly going right over your head.
Let me break it down for you in basic terms....

1. TO FEEL PAIN- YOU NEED A BRAIN, AND A NERVOUS SYSTEM

2. PLANTS DO NOT HAVE A BRAIN OR A NERVOUS SYSTEM

3. THEREFORE, PLANTS CANNOT FEEL PAIN

There you have it, basic logic and science..

I hope that puts your mind at ease, you can have a walk on the lawn without feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt.. (Plants can't feel guilt either btw..)

 

Lol... I'm loving this rite now btw.

If you think plants can't feel pain then, explain why he heard a noise other than the chainsaw or as someone noted water saw or somthing going through a tree...

Also ill start searching for this online it should be there.

Edit:

I just want to add this aswell, Your sort of comparing animals and plants your saying a plant would need nerves and a brain to feel pain. That's just like saying they need a mouth ant stumack to feed.

 

Technically it is possible to feel pain without pleasure, but it wouldl require a skin impermiable to touch.

 

That is the most idiotic thing I have ever heard, save a few Creationist Pseudoscientific arguments. For one, there was probably no noise other than the chainsaw, and if there was, it didn't come from a plant. You want to know why? Because plants can't fucking scream. They don't have the vocal chords required. Plants can't feel pain because, as Wendy said a thousand times without you comprehending, plants DON'T HAVE A FUCKING NERVOUS SYSTEM TO SEND THE SIGNALS OF PAIN, OR A BRAIN TO DECIPHER THE SIGNALS. Got that through your thick skull yet? As far as the whole stomach bullshit, those are different things. Every living thing has to have a way to absorb nutrients, and most don't have stomachs. Plants didn't evolve to feel pain because they don't need to. The only reaction to stimuli that plants have is a few forms of tropism.

 

That would require conditioning, maybe a defect or disorder of some kind I should think. Since pain is a concept- it can become pleasure, and vice versa. But I won't get into that..

Back to the subject:

"Plant pain" is a scientific myth cooked up by radical vegetarians as a pathetic propaganda ploy.. I've read these stories on the web of farmers hearing their crops screaming after harvest- BULLSHIT. If plants could scream, we'd know about it.. I never once heard a peep out of our freshly cut lawn.

Talking plants is no more credible than time travel..

 

Lol. People get so worked up.

Can you prove that they don't feel pain? Because really anything is possible.
Think about it. There could be somthing in a plant that we could never of seen or should i say can't see with our machines and stuff these days.
And im sure somone in a differant thread said if i could run a mile in 10 second or somthing and he said that would be impossible. But it itsn't We just might not be aware that somthing could help us do this.. Im not sure what could do this but theres always somthing. So i do think plants can feel pain not in the same way as we do but some how they do.

I no above some of it dosen't make sence but that's because im dumb..

Also atleast im not that dumb that i think i listen through my skull. As you said 'Got that through your thick skull yet?' No i got it through my ears and still that's not enough to back the argument up.

 

Just as everyone else has said "no brain, no pain." There is simply nowhere for nerve impulses to go.

On another note, they did something like this on mythbusters.

 

We get PAIN when we damage our bodies because our BRAIN wants us to stop damaging our bodies. Our BRAINs can figure out that we need to do something to stop ourselves from harming ourselves. Plants do not have BRAINs to comprehend PAIN and they have no way to stop the damage once it penetrates the natural defences of the plant. Plants don't need to feel PAIN because they have evolved and accept that they cannot stop the damage (this is a personification as plants don't have a BRAIN to comprehend this). I hope you comprehend this unlike the others before me.

 

If you do not have a brain, you cannot feel pain.

Pain messages are sent to your brain, which administrates the pain messages, sending around a 'warning' as such, to the rest of your body, basically telling it to stop doing what is causing the new pain.