Consciousness and vegetarianism

reply to post by AthlonSavage


Has anyone ever tried cooked earth?

Japan brings Food Inflation down to 'Earth'

Originally posted by dave_welch
Okay, I have a few questions.(I'm not trying to be a smart-aleck or anything like that).

1. What difference should this make to vegans/vegetarians?

I don't believe in "shoulds", but I asked the question with the idea in mind that perhaps some vegetarians make this choice because they are uncomfortable with the killing of another living, sentient being for food. It seems to me I have met one or two who told me that was their reason, so it made me wonder if the idea that plants too, may have consciousness, self awareness, and feel pain and have survival drives would cause them as much discomfort as for animals.

As for your second question, which was not directed to me, as I am not vegetarian, I would liek to just point out that if you take out the "should" then you remove all conflict here!

reply to post by Bluesma


I've long been open to this idea despite also finding it silly, so I just tried to keep an open mind on this one. I think you could qualify everything that is said here- the supposed results of research - that the plant's awareness and sense/feeling etc. is not the same as awareness is to us, ie, their experience of consciousness is SO different it is really beyond us to grasp it well; we have enough limits WITHIN consciousness, so to take a construct as broad as our very existence, our perspective is limited from inside this giant bubble, to see inside the giant bubble of another kingdom.
As in, don't mistake these findings for imagining that plants are people trapped inside leafy green bodies. Consciousness most likely, can be much broader, more like a computer, holding trillions of bits of info and having much less emotion than we usually do, and it can also be much narrower. For example we have feedback systems for thousands of cellular processes and hormone production- going on within our own bodies. Your thyroid and your bones "communicate with each other" about the amount of calcium in each - therefore that is consciousness - part of our own. But if you didn't even know you had it, how could it be consciousness?