But trees or mosses or whatever do none of this. A tree will keep trying to grow towards a fence that damages branches in a storm, a tree never starves itself to death making thicker bark after teens carve lovehearts into it, a tree doesn’t stop reproducing after 3 droughts kill all its children and so on. Leaves might change colour in response to periods of high or low sunlight but these changes are like tanning, they don’t modify anything about how the tree trees.
I don’t know why any of this means that our nebulous definitions of ‘pain’ and ‘suffering’ cannot apply to plants.
If I stub my toe, it doesn’t modify anything about how I human. But it hurts.
It does though, you will stop walking. Clutch your foot, say ow, look at where you hit the thing, be more careful when walking near there, move the object, pad the object, maybe wear protective covers on your feet, maybe dress a wound if the nailbed was damaged etc. If your toe keeps hurting you will travel to a doctor for assessment, or splint the toe and so on.
Unless you don’t notice, in which case you feel no pain despite the toe signalling furiously.
Along side this a bunch of cellular processes will happen to repair the damage, but they happen even if you don’t notice (distraction/nerve damage, anaesthetic etc) and so we can notice “huh, there are 2 clusters of things happening, one is conditional and one isn’t” and that’s a clue that there’s something more going on than just a body repairing itself.
Damaged plants can send out signals to other plants, and chemicals to repel what is damaging them (to the specific area where the damage is being done) and repair their damage. Some plants will avoid growing towards areas that they have been unable to thrive in before.
You still seem to be talking about things from a purely human perspective. Dogs will damage their feet and not even let you know sometimes. They will get a piece of glass in their foot and they won’t stop walking on them or try to do anything about it until they literally can’t do anything about it. My dog tore her CCL and the only reason we knew anything was wrong was that she wasn’t limping and then she was a few moments later. She didn’t make a sound, she didn’t react with any sort of signal that indicated that she was aware serious damage had been done to her, she just was unable to use that leg. Are you going to argue that she felt no pain?
Damaged plants can send out signals to other plants, and chemicals to repel what is damaging them (to the specific area where the damage is being done) and repair their damage.
Could you please explain how this can be distinguished from wound healing in a human. Like what chemicals are sent out? what is the mechanism? are they transported anywhere in particular? are different signals collated in determining a response or does the same hormone guarantee the same response in a dose dependent manner?
Some plants will avoid growing towards areas that they have been unable to thrive in before.
This is surprising to me, is it distinct from following chemical gradients? I have never seen this, or heard about it. The closest I would say I have ever seen is not growing towards salt or dry soil. What is the evidence here please as I don’t know what you’re talking about. Is there a memory effect? if a grass doesn’t grow south and you put it in a new area will it also not grow south?
You still seem to be talking about things from a purely human perspective. Dogs will damage their feet and not even let you know sometimes.
I’m really not, I had a whole thing about memory and will to live and avoiding areas where I specifically spoke about rats.
Whether or not you notice it (and it’s true that many animals will try to hide injuries, humans included) doesn’t mean there is no modifications to behaviour. E.g. licking, protecting the area (less weight on paw, lifiting it up etc), reacting to the same stimulus more negatively such as not eating or growling etc when being touched.
You literally said she stopped using it. Aka she felt pain. Ever eaten after a dentist when your mouth is still numb? you will straight up bite off chunks of your lips and keep eating. If there was no pain she would keep trying to use it and probably just be confused when it didn’t work. Which btw is how she’ll behave if you anaesthetise her!
Also if you’ve ever noticed her behaviour after removing say a piece of gravel from between the pads in her feet you’ll probably notice despite no damage the first step or two will be tentative. She’s anticipating pain, again behaviour modification.
Plants just don’t do anything like this.