Plants Can "Think and Remember"

As I have long suspected plants will turn out to be intelligent beings. I don't know how vegetarians and vegans can live with themselves. Do they not know in what kind of conditions the plants they devour are grown? The way they are slaughtered impersonally, a hundred at a time, with huge sharp-bladed machines of death?

It is a God damn massacre I tell you, a massacre!

BAD NEWS VEGETARIANS! One of your arguments has gone out the window...

hahaha... what about the screaming plant test? Where plants scream at a level we can't hear when fire is put near them?

Unfortunately, living things have to consume living things in order to live... unless you're a plant, then you're boned.

@amberae

"And the angel of the lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber. And took me on high, and higher still until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself. And he brought me into a vast farmlands of our own midwest. And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil. One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear. And terror possessed me then. And I begged, "Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?" And the angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots! You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust." And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared, "Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!" Can I get an amen? Can I get a hallelujah? Thank you Jesus.
Life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on........

This is necessary."

This explains the forget-me-not.

Ugh... as a vegetarian, let me tell you, it has nothing to do with the ability of animals to feel things like pain. It has to do with the fact that Americans consume too much meat, and that means that we have to have these huge "factory farms" (a term I hate to use, but it's apt) that often pollute local waterways, destroying local ecosystems and making people sick.

That's why I'm a vegetarian. Meat is tasty, and great, but it's ridiculous that people think it needs to be the centerpiece of every meal.

And my disgust comes merely from the lack of creativity in jokes about "sensitive vegetarians."

Guess who's tired of the "plants can't run" joke!?

@Cola

Well, for you maybe it's about the environment. For many other vegetarians it's about their "love" for animals. You know, the ones who usually like to call meat eaters "flesh eaters", "barbarians" and whatnot. Those are the ones we target with the jokes :-)

I eat locally and ethically raised meats. Your beef is not with me.

Lol, pun!

@Xayzer I've been a vegetarian for ten years now, I know a lot of other vegetarians and vegans, and I have yet to actually MEET a vegetarian that fits your description. Oh wait, actually, I know one. I forgot about her because I don't hang out with her because she's annoying. So could you please quantify your belief about how "many vegetarians" are? Because really, most of the ones I've met are normal. Non-vegetarians need to get over how "most vegetarians" supposedly are. I'm sick of being told I'm an exception when really it's the other way around.

@Brinna

Hi :-)
Just read this post I wrote about a while ago on a subject similar to this topic here

http://xayzer.blogspot.com/2008/06/vegetarians-next-jehovahs-witnesses.html

Wow, Xayzer. You're really good at totally ignoring the content of what other people say.

I still don't think plants can think & remember. They can respond to changing patterns, and then start a pattern. And there is a lag before they stop. Thinking has to include some sort of judgment & anticipation of changing conditions. And I'm serious about this, because there might be some sort of evolved manner of communication and reasoning that we don't understand.

DanM, or anyone else, care to evaluate DanM's definition of a plant as compared to a fetus?

we've known plants are "alive" for quite some time, this does not mean they are conscious. they aren't responding to stimuli in any meaningful way, they have just adapted to do so. when's the last time you "thought" about dilating your pupils in response to different light? the words "think" and "remember" are entirely misleading in this article.

Okay, its just one paragraph, so how many of you guys need to make a vegetarian joke? or something like it. nothing in the article even alludes to conscious thought or sensations of pain or emotions in the ways that animals make understand them. Only that plants have developed a functionaliy of memory and response different than that of animals. Not surprising since the plants are living creatures.

But obviously it doesn't have chemical-electrical impulses connected through nerves the way the animal kingdom does. So to all vegetarians, you can still eat food. Don't worry. But i would very much like to see the "fruits" of this research. Possibly even the ability to understand the communication operations of a kind that we are physically unable to replicate. (good news for people who want to make contact with alien-life.)

Once upon a time, before we had developed language, we could 'talk' to plants and animals. The price of our intense focus on humans, our specialization, is that we have lost sight of the periphery. We'll all be just fine. We've just got a little growing up to do. Namaste, my brothers and sisters- human or otherwise.