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Gaudiya Discussions Archive » PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY
Discussions on the doctrines of Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Please place practical questions under the Miscellaneous forum and set this aside for the more theoretical side of it.

Plant Sentience -



Leo - Sat, 21 Feb 2004 19:26:20 +0530
I can't believe it isn't obvious. People have no intelligrence. I have amassed sound proof philosophical arguments supporting plant sentience, but they go ignored. No one hears them. They go on and on about evolution, unaware of the fact that evolutionary theory is severely fllawed. I have not been able to get a anyone to excplain to how how plants have unconsiously developed poisions, thorns and other mechanisms to avoid being eaten. Or how fruit bearing plants have designed an ingenious way to spread their seeds and survive. The evolutionary answer is "accidentally" over millions of years of random mutations. If true, why do we not observe failures in this pattern? For example, according to evolutionists, the venus fly trap "accidentally" mutated into an insect devouring plant, apparently it is a stroke of luck for it that "flys" even exist. All evolutionists avoid tacking these questions and refer me to someone else or merely say "read Darwin." Apparently they have not read Darwin, in "Origin of species," he has an entire chapter devoted to problems in his theory. Common sence tells you hat the Orchid flowers know that their polinating insects look like, and they know what scents and colors appeal to the insects, simply because they have a wide range of senses and insight into insects, which obviously requires sentience.

Furthermore, We know plants have senses. It is a biological fact. There is no physical principle that dictates that the plant's root will grown down and its leaves will follow sunlight. It is not magnetism at work. Moreover, the "common sense" argument that plants have no mind because they have no brain is fundamentally flawed. For one reason, our precious "Science" has no explanation why HUMANS are conscious. Science pinpoints it the the brain, but has no speculation for why a brain generates consciousness at all. Science does not deal in consciousness because it is a mystery to it. It has left it to philosophy.

In truth, Consciousness does not originate in the brain, the brain is not the CAUSE for consciousness, it is merely an interface for it. Animals need hearts to live. Plants have no heart, yet they are alive through different principles. Similarly, why should an absence of a brain imply that a plant has no mind? What reason is there against the explanation that plants have a mind through different principles? I have never recieved an answer to this. We know that plants have senses. In animals, senses do not work without being connected to a neurological system. The fact that plants have senses is evidence of a "brain" that operates though differernt principles.

There are also my own experiments. I postulated that a seedling knows which direction to grow its root, by sensing gravity. I planted some Mung beans and placed a fine nylon net over the soil (the kind that Oranges come in), then I inverted the pot and hung it. The roots should grown down right? (even though to survive they should grown up) . I cheated though, I telepathically communicated to the seeds, telling them how to grown. The results were supprising. Each seed reacted differently, as an individual. One started to grow down, then immediately turned and grew upwards. The second seed grew horrizontally. The third root was the slowest to grow and it just grew down. I then planted a seed normally, not inverting the pot. (this seed was among one that I telepathically told to grow up). This seed grew its root up from the start, completely oblivious to gravity; It grew for about three forths of an inch, then it immediately turned, made a hook and started growing downward! But it didn't get very far. It soon died.