How are we sure plants have no feelings?

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Just because they don't show feelings of pain nor do they have nerve cells how are we so sure? Maybe they have another way to receive touch sensory signals. What if a tree is in constant pain after you "amputate" its branch? Or are we, as humans, not going to be concerned about it so long as there is no biological evidence that plants feel pain. I guess that would be my own best answer too.

I'm about as worried about plants having some non-neural means of feeling pain as I am that air particles I displace while walking have some non-neural means of feeling pain. That is to say, less then 100% sure but way over 99.999% sure. I base my life on the premise air particles, the hardwood table I'm resting my elbows on, and trees don't feel pain.

I'm no biologist, but I think that, in order to process pain and sentience, one needs to have a brain, of which plants are lacking.

I asked a plant how it was feeling and it told me to piss off, it was busy pollinating.

This would be a good question for vegans. If the common assumption is proven wrong, they are SCREWED.

Has anyone seen the episode of Mythbusters where they yell at plants?

This was a big question back in the 1970's.
A famous book was "The Secret Life of Plants"

There were a lot of experiments at the time, many from Russia where they did things like getting a "faith healer" to "charge up" water and using it on some plants but not the control batch.

Anyway, a lot of scientists concluded that plants were sensitive to what was going on around them.

True? Not true? I don't know. The subject has gone out of fashion since then.

so the concept of gaia is just nonsense? i really hope plants do not feel pain and are not self aware. i am not that certain.

my experiences allow me to KNOW there is something after brain death. doctors have laughed at me, but what happened......happened. has nothing to do with religious matters.

louie the wonder dog showed me something impossible in a cemetery. so unsettling that i will not allow the gov't to bury me. i will have to take care of just vanishing, myself. if anyone listened to me (fat chance) i would tell them...do not let yourself be buried.

do i sound like a lunatic to you?.........ok., bad example.....do i seem like i've slipped a few gears? ok, that's not quite right either.

i'm way older than most of you and it becomes apparent to me, day after day, that i know so little about philosophical matters and...well, everything that it is now comical.

What would be the evolutionary benefits for plants to feel pain?