All Forms of Life Are Sacred.

[jeff47]

38. Keep telling yourself that. That way you can ignore the questions.

Ok, if we call chickens sentient, why don't we call plants sentient?

While plants don't have a central nervous system, some plants do appear to plan - they don't blindly react to stimuli. Put them in a climate and light-controlled environment, and simulate spring in December. They won't react the same as if it was really spring.

Plants also have chemical reactions we experience as pain. We have two kinds of pain: the initial "ow" that tells us to move, and then that dull ache that starts a little later. That dull ache is caused by chemicals we release in response to injury. Plants release the same chemicals in response to injury. And other parts of the plant react to that injury - rip off part of a plant and another part will try to grow to replace the lost tissues. But it won't be some random part of the plant - it will grow in a manner to minimize the effects of the injury.

So we can't logically restrict "sentience" to the animal kingdom if we're only talking about "thinking" and "feeling pain" as the criteria. There's lots of plants that we've shown would meet that criteria....and there's "dumber" plants that would not.

Drawing lines in biology is not trivial. We can't even agree on what is alive, because we keep finding things that appear alive that are outside the old definition.

That isn't a "meat eater rationalization". That is doing more than a superficial look at drawing the line. "I can see that critter moving" is not a logical place to put the line.