this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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It's funny to me because it reads like a satire of non-vegans, but this is literally how most of them are.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

No, not really.

We conclude that claims for plant consciousness are highly speculative and lack sound scientific support.

A few "experts" who arrive at their beliefs off of vibes rather than science may say they support the notion of plant sentience, but it's not taken seriously as a scientific idea.

Non-vegans also don't believe it. If anything, they just throw it out as a disingenuous excuse to alleviate guilt.

Something I ask non-vegans who say this stuff [NSFW]If plants are to be sentient and that therefore makes exploiting animals for food and eating plants morally equivalent, would you consider using a cucumber as a sex toy to be morally equivalent to bestiality?

In every case, they dodge the question and act as if they don't understand the relevance.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

the "experts" are botanists, they aren't like just random people and the idea has been published in scientific journals
and yeah, of course non-vegans are being disingenuous, that's what they do

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Can you a cite a source, though? I've seen non-vegans cite sources and arrive at the wrong conclusions because they misinterpreted the sources. For example, they think that responding to stimuli is an indicator of sentience, but it's not. I feel like you are assuming far too much good-faith when it comes to this debate about plant sentience. Just because an idea is discussed and seems controversial doesn't actually mean that it's truly contentious with in a scientific context. Not all "debates" are genuine, and not all "controversies" are scientifically valid, and this is really just a "We have to validate both sides" kind of framing. Can you please demonstrate to me a single reputable botanical source that endorses plant sentience?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago

my 2 cents is that we dont understand nearly enough about consiousness/cognition to say (i dont have the time to look right now, but i remember reading about people somehow receiving some sort of vague memories when they receive a heart transplant, which suggests that cells themselves might have memories in some fashion), but this isnt the comm for it because like you say most people use the "plants are conscious" to justify their own meat eating