the totally sentient thread!
 

Let us begin with the definition of sentience? Does one need a body and physical mind to exist?

a living thing does, except plants of course, and about the title, IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!

???What about trees, unless it's an ent a tree cannot think, or can it? If it can't it isn't sentient surely.

ive just put all plants!

Oi vay this thread isn't going to last long.

why is that?

Plants may have feelings. There is evidence for and against the idea.

They need sensory neurones though and a functioning brain like organ to register pain and other feelings. So there's no evidence at all to suggest they can feel.

I suppose. It would be cool though.

I suppose a person could base an argument perhaps on the evolutionary prowess and apparent understanding of a plants surroundings but is this simply complex evolution?

Everything you do to a plant's environment will affect it in some way, if indirectly. This may make the plant seem intelligent.

Perhaps it depends on how long it takes for the plant to adapt?

Ok, perhaps a basic plant...I don't know, elephant grass, which was growing in perfect soil suddenly found itself hanging on the edge of a cliff and after a few generations, all it's daughter plants had evolved specialised roots to better grip poor quality soil, then is this intelligence?

Super BM, I need you!

Well it would happen if the ones without specialised roots died, as that's how evolution works. But you knew that already.

You hope ;)

Yer but what I mean is what if the plant managed to create a new root system in just a few generations, that's whacky and some plants seem to be able to evolve this fast albeit in more minor ways.

some plants are very intelligent, think about venus fly traps?

More evolution.

'Greed

If it turns out that plants do have feelings, what will the vegetarians eat?

I'm not saying they do.

Poor Max'll starve :(

'tha hell did I get here? Apparently the forum says I subscribed it!? Oh well...

It shouldn't be hard to believe that plants don't have feelings, right? They're way too stationary to have feelings, they would get depressed easily. Unless it's a super mario plant. Man, those things bite.

Im not sure if plants are intelligent or not, someone told me there was a type of tree that walked but I'm not entirely sure if he was being truthful or just pulling my chain (I can be very gullable, (incorrectly spelt))

Fuck it, I'm not going to start correcting the science in here; I'd be here forever. Which isn't necessary a bad thing, but you morons would be here too.

Not necessarily. I'm only vegan knowing I can do so safely and healthily; if I couldn't live avoiding food that used to think and feel, I wouldn't choose to not live.

I'm so glad BM hasn't hit this thread yet, and hopefully never will.

I hope he does hit it, I get to learn science stuff

I wonder if you can measure the IQ of a plant.

And ya Bullet Magnet would tell everyone how much of a dumbass we all are/ explain the fallacies of all your crackpot theories. But this is probably not worth it.

I wouldnt like the bit of him calling us morons but I have no problem with him explaining the faults of our theories, I'm interested in what he would say about this

He'd say "This is dumb, let's have some french fries!"

He wouldn't actually say that.

Anyway, isn't there a way to quarantine this thread or something? We got the three worst posters (by popular opinion) in here!

I'm evolutioning plants to have intelligence through a Lamarckian breeding programme. I've already produced a fuschia that passes the Turing test.

That explains a lot of your recent posts.

And you know what? I'd still rather spend time with a worm than with Ricky Gervais.

This explains so much about the new forum members.

Do we mean sentience or sapience?

I'm pretty sure we're just talking sentience. Equivalating plants to the dumber sort of animals, that sort of thing.

What about sapient pearwood?

Oh yeah, that's not real.

I was going to bring this up, but I'm not really sure of the difference so I decided to just let this mess be.

Looks like a Whippet/Greyhound crossed with something fat.

I don't know the difference between these terms either. Can you inform me Wise One?

Of course, but is it sentient?

I'm not wise, but I can try to inform the masses.

sentience: having a mind like an animal's.

sapience: having a mind like a human's.

I think.