Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science

From: Albert (albertwagner_at_cox.net)
Date: 02/15/05 

Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 19:41:05 -0600

Tony Orlow (aeo6) wrote:
> robert j. kolker said:
>
>>
>>Tony Orlow (aeo6) wrote:
>>
>>>I have to disagree with the idea that plants are sentient. Since the
>>>purpose of the mind evolutionarily is to determine action, and since
>>>plants are incapable of action (as distinct from growth), I see no
>>>reason to believe that plants are capable of pleasure or pain, or any
>>>higher psychic function. What good does a sensation do for a plant?
>>
>>Plants "feel" light and they open up their leaves during dayling to
>>promote photsynthesis. They are also lean into the light to maximize the
>>incoming light energy.
>>
>>Bob Kolker
>>
>
> Sorry Bob -
>
> When they "bend" toward light that's because light inhibits growth
> hormone and they grow faster on the dark side, bending toward the light
> through GROWTH. Most leaves stay the same during light and dark; where
> they "move" it's also a matter of growth, or inflation/deflation of
> structures inside the leaf. Even Venus flytraps have only a very
> mechanical method of "moving" that involves nothing more than the
> intelligence of a mousetrap.

Yeah, the intelligence of a mousetrap that knows when it has been
tripped and resets itself when the prey is safely disposed of.

Show me a plant's nervous system.

A nervous system is just a means to an end. There are ways of
accomplishing an end other than what animals have evolved. There
has, as yet, been no environmental pressure put on plants to
evolve an animal-like nervous system. Different strokes for
different folks. 

-- 
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the 
range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally 
impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it."
     -- George Orwell as Syme in "1984"

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