Have you ever wondered if plants feel pain? Often you can meet a man who thoughtlessly breaks the stem of a flower or sticks a sharp ax into a birch to get juice from it in return. From birth, people have the idea that plants are inanimate, because they do not move, which means that no feelings are unusual for them. Is it so? Let's figure it out.
What is the smell talking about?
Everyone, most likely, knows the smell of freshly cut grass, which is felt after the lawnmower passes through the lawn. However, few people know that this smell is a kind of request for help. Plants feel the danger, an imminent threat, so they release chemicals into the air that reach our sense of smell. Science knows many such cases. For example, plants are able to secrete caffeine and intoxicate bees, primarily to protect themselves or scare away an approaching enemy.
The influence of the smell of freshly cut grass on humans
Despite the fact that plants smell of danger with such a smell, it affects a person extremely unusual. Chemical compounds that are released into the air act on a part of the brain (namely, the amygdala and hippocampus, which are responsible for emotions and manifestations of stress) in a soothing way. A person feels balanced and calm. Based on this, it was decided to create a fragrance with such a smell.
Do plants feel pain?
In answering this question, opinions differ. Scientists from the Institute of Applied Physics in Germany claim that plants also feel pain. At least they give some hints of it. For example, scientists have found that when plants are harmed (cut stems), they emit gases that are equivalent to human tears. With the help of a laser microphone, it was even possible to catch sound waves that emanated from a wounded representative of the flora. The human hearing aid cannot hear them, so we don’t have access to peculiar cries for help from plants when we are preparing a seemingly harmless salad.
Scientists at Columbia University have found that plants feel when they are attacked by caterpillars for a bite, and turn on a defense mechanism. They are also able to sense the danger threatening other plants.
From such considerations, some scientists conclude that, indeed, plants feel pain, while others argue that they cannot do this without a brain that regulates the manifestations of certain feelings and emotions. However, most scholars dwell on the fact that representatives of the flora do not need to have consciousness for this.
From the point of view of science
It is believed that plants, in fact, like animals, have an essence that consists of the etheric and astral bodies. This unites them with a person. That is, plants experience pain and fear, only in a different way. This is primarily due to differences in structure. Despite the fact that plants do not have such a nervous system that a person possesses and which is known to us from school anatomy, they have their own special individual system, their nerves, which allow them to respond to environmental irritations. Therefore, tearing the leaf and chopping off the stem of the plant, it should be remembered that they can also experience pain.
Counterattacks
However, the plants are not so simple in nature and can even give the abuser change if he decides to harm them. For example, a lot of such representatives of the flora, which are covered with spikes or needles, which allow them to protect themselves from the attack of surrounding enemies. There are also plants that release toxic substances that paralyze and in the worst case kill the enemy.
Scientific facts
Do plants feel pain? Polygraph examiner Cleve Baxter, who began to study plants in 1960, tried to answer this question. He was one of the first who wondered if plants were experiencing pain. He almost succeeded in proving that plants are capable of sensual cognition of objects of the surrounding world. Cleve conducted a series of experiments in which he used a lie detector that reacts to the skin. When the plant was hurt, the polygraph examiner recorded the reactions of the electrochemical electrodes. The results of the experiment showed that representatives of the flora respond to pain in almost the same way as a person. After repeated experiments, the results showed the same changes.
Then came Baxter's article, in which he argued that plants are able to capture the emotions and thoughts of people, to respond to their desires and actions.
The tests of the polygraph examiner were called unscientific and doubtful, since after him no one else could repeat them. Later, Clive Baxter’s claims were supported by Veniamin Noevich Pushkin, who worked at the Institute of General and Educational Psychology.
The television program "Legion Breakers" wanted to repeat the experiments of Cleve. To do this, its creators decided to do the same experiments and used a galvanometer, which was supposed to show the reaction of the plant, if it experienced pain. Indeed, during the first test, the device showed a response of one third, but the experimenters referred to the fact that the cause of this could be vibration from their own movements. Repeated experiments were unsuccessful and gave them every right to recognize the theory as false.
Despite the fact that plants can turn towards the sun and make movements, this is explained from a biological point of view and has nothing to do with pain.
Also, one should not forget that nature strictly divided the representatives of the kingdom of animals and plants, depriving the former of cellulose in tissues, but providing them with the nervous system. In contrast, plant cells contain cellulose, but they do not have such a nervous and sensory system. Therefore, they simply do not have pain, fear, emotions, and everything that is provided by the activity of the brain.
Words of scientists
Professor Daniel Chamovits claims that plants definitely feel mechanical stimulation, that is, they feel touch, gusts of wind. However, in his opinion, the answer to the question whether plants feel pain is negative for the following reasons:
- Plants have no brain.
- They have no nervous system.
- Also, plants lack pain receptors.
In order for the representatives of the flora to experience pain, according to scientists, the transmission of impulses to the central nervous system, which they do not have, is necessary. It is known that only organisms whose tissues contain nociceptors - pain receptors, can experience pain from cuts, wounds. Since there are none in plants, this allows scientists to say for sure that representatives of the flora do not experience the sensations inherent in man. Perhaps, over time, other justifications will appear whether plants feel pain.