How are we sure plants have no feelings?

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Plants respond to stimuli, and some plants even having specific responses to being damaged. They may not feel "pain", at least not as we animals understand it, but they definitely feel something, as all living things can respond to stimuli in some way, they all must have something to govern these responses. I do not believe a central nervous system is any prerequisite to feeling

This is ridiculous. Plants usually live off of pruning, seeding, and cutting. A plant's life is based on other animals eating it. Whether or not it feels it, isn't the point.
Their life cycle is based on being pruned and eaten. They grow healthier and bigger when they are taken care of, pruning, cutting, and eating then releasing the seed.

friend CLYDE writes: whether or not it feels it, isn't the point. pardon, but yes it is the point. the original question
was certainly....do plants feel? it could be literal or philosophical, but is interesting. you are so young, grasshopper, to be so sure about things. you will learn that as you age, things will not be so clear. tis a benefit of youth, to be able to KNOW. that will mellow as the questions linger and new questions come your way. enjoy your certainty now.


to TAKEMITSU......most humorous. unfortunately, or fortunately....depending on how you look at it, i have no will. no need of one. i plan to give away everything i have, to animal related causes. no need for you to make fun of that. you would not be alone. i have no human to help me die. all up to me. die where i can be found, the gov't will bury me. a great fear, with what i know now. something for you to think about......bet you have a living will. bet you think your commands in said will must be followed. not so. if you're in a hospital, injured terribly, kept alive by various machines and your living will says...no, not that.....if a single distant relative says....don't pull the plug.....make him live like that for years, the hospital will honor your relatives wishes...and not yours. fear of lawsuits. tis a terrible truth. all thanks to religious right fanatics. not for me. death on my own terms. by my own hand...well, what's left of it.

mr. TENSU from missouri writes.....show me.....of course he does, it's in his dna. sorry, i actually think i am funny.

i have been dead 4 times. the last time was the longest. and strangest. while laying on a table in a hospital, i went home and let louie the wonder dog come into the bedroom from our screened porch. opened the door. he came in. he was very hesitant, like the first time i saw him. i shut the door. i told him how very much i loved him and that i would not see him again. he was still very shy. i was going to hug him goodbye when instantly i was back in the hospital. wham. gone. woke up hours later, strapped to a table, waiting for surgery.

facts: door was shut with louie on our screen porch. i manage to die. when people from our animal sanctuary go to pick up louie to take care of him while i'm unable......he is inside. door to porch is shut. no one else could have possible let him inside. no way. i'm 99.9% certain this is true. could i have let him inside before i left? no. no. no.
ok, 0.1% chance that happened. always that little doubt. but he WAS on the porch. his food and water bowls...still on the porch when i return home much later.

memories while dead do not go away. above is like it happened 10 minutes ago.

cemetery.............the lady who owned the animal sanctuary (property) i was part of a few years ago developed p.a.d. and suffered a long slow death. it was a terrible time. when she went into a coma, she was at home. her three daughters , her son and i took care of her the best we could. louie loved her....a lot. i fixed a ramp so he could lay beside her on the hospital type bed hospice had provided for her. he was so gentle around her. she lingered for so long. i was going home as often as i could to take care of our other companion animals. i returned early one morning and watched as louie climbed up next to her. he did not lay down. he went to her head and stuck his nose right against her mouth for a few seconds. he drew back, hesitated while looking at her and climbed down to the floor. he did not return to her side. i had been telling her every day about what all the animals had been doing. why not. who knows. that day i said it was time to let go. louie has told me it is time for you to go.

a few hours later her heart stopped. she stopped breathing. she was gone. i looked at louie and told him what a good boy he was. seeing what she went through, week after week, was hard on everyone. she looked like a mummy when she finally died. scared the hell out of me. i knew for certain that i must not let what happened to her happen to me.

after the services at the gravesite, louie and i went for a final good-bye. i knew i could not be there when all the humans were gathered around, for obvious reasons. also, if i had been there and the priest said something like...god works in mysterious ways.....i think i would have tried to hurt him.

two days later louie and i went back to where she was buried. louie was off the leash. very safe. he went STRAIGHT to her grave and laid right on top of where she was buried. and laid there. time after time, same thing. week after week......month after month. one year later.....eighteen months later.....he still goes to her grave and lays down on top of where she is buried. we've approached the gravesite from every direction. we've entered the area from every way possible. dry weather. rainy weather. does not matter. to the grave, lay on top of where she is buried. two year mark, same thing.

a week later, 2 years and 1 week after she died, we park, i let louie out of the car,know exactly the direction he is going to go in and watch, stunned, as he angles off to miss her gravesite by about 5 yards or so. he keeps going, waters some grass, and heads off in another direction. i can't move. what has happened? i catch up to him, clip on his leash and head back to her gravesite. he smells a couple of times, and lays down about 3 or 4 feet from his usual spot.

two weeks later, we're back. this time, he immediately heads off 90 degrees from his normal path. i leash him, to the gravesite we go, but no reaction from him. he pulls on the leash to head off somewhere else. it's now much later and he has never lain on her gravesite again.

i checked with the grounds staff. no new chemicals, no anything. absolutely no changes.

how do you explain something like that? none of louie's docs have an answer. they probably think i'm a little nuts. well, that may be so.....but there is no denying what happened.

there was something of her still there. no one can question that dogs can sense things humans cannot. was louie picking up something left of her. what else could it be? for two years she was there in some form and then she ...left? i have no clue. plants/trees do not have brains as we know them. are you certain plants/trees do not feel? i'm not. was a part , electrical, soul, whatever of this lady still there? was she aware of being there in some form?
it's almost more than i can deal with. i know what happened. i know something happened. i know i will NOT be buried.

so, that's it missouri, you asked for it.....sorta.

you are funny

That's an interesting out-of-body experience you've had there... how exactly did you "die"?

the incient at the graveyard doesn't strike me as being something worth fearing burial for, though.

to TENSU.....first death was at birth. wish i had been there. hahahahaha. i was not breathing, all the women in the room were screaming, my grandmother---why wasn't she off on a trip that day- sticks her finger down my throat, clears it, starts beating on my chest,blowing in my nose, beating on my chest, blowing in my nose until i start coughing and crying and breathing and heart starts. you are correct , oh man from mo, how could i possibly know this? actually talked to a woman who was in the room. she remembered my grandmother well. everyone remembers lady with ax.

no. 2------you know how something good always goes away? i had beaten all my childhood horrors and at age 39 was a marathoner, a bicycle racer, a free climber and traveller to about 40 countries on 6 continents. felt good about myself for the first time ever. so, i'm out training on the bike, practicing sprints....and a drunk driver, the town drunk bum sort of guy, runs right over top of me with his old wreck of a pickup truck. mangled somewhat with body pieces pointing in all directions. i remember the hit but nothing for long time after that. emt's save me in ambulance.

no.3 see above except substitute surgery suite. for 2 and 3 not gone for long. i remember seeing things but had no idea i was even a person. more like a leaf, if that makes any sense. really nice feeling. doctors said i should have not lived, thought my incredible fitness level made the difference.

no. 4 i worked very hard after 2 and 3, to be able to walk and ride a bike, just a little. had leveled out on recovery when in a 'no good deed ever....ever....goes unpunished moment', i'm in a multi-rollover car crash and have several injuries but the really scary one was cervical fractures for c5, c6, and c7. pieces pressing on the spinal cord.
i woke briefly in the e. r. while they were drilling into my skull and stapling part of my scalp back on. i could feel the burns on my face but nothing hurt at all. it was actually peaceful, just like no 3. my vision went slowly away and off we go. that's when i made my trip to take care of louie. medical notes say it was for several minutes. seemed way longer. lucky. no permanent paralysis. could not have dealt with that.

louie had a stroke recently but has recovered to about 75%. the plan is for us to really! go out together. i think i'll be brave enough to do it. there's a road in northern arizona, desolate, that has a mile or so perfectly straight section , and ends in a 90 degree turn. there is a sheer cliff face there. so....go to vegas, rent a ferrari of some sort, or maybe a gallardo, have a full tank of gas and go into the cliff face at 150 mph. instant vaporization. or maybe just wander deep into the desert and never be found. don't know.

anyone asks me what it's like to be dead, i say or write for them.......peaceful.

way more info than you asked for. sorry. i'm just barely holding on and it helps to do this.

I'm terribly sorry... I was confusing sentience with sapience again.

Yes, I would argue that responding to stimuli suggests some level of sentience, or at least the possibility of such.

Dan: I don't know what to say to that... other than maybe I'm going through rough times too. I just keep telling myself things will be better in a few years.

I heard somewhere that amoeba have some primitive way of communicating.

Don't remember where I heard that. Maybe I dreamt it.

They don't have nerves.

How can you be so certain that means they feel nothing? While it does mean that they do not "feel" in the same way animals do, they do respond to stimuli, and that suggests some way of being able to process that the stimulus has occurred.