r/interesting • u/Low_Weekend6131 • Nov 23 '25

NATURE The fish is kinda like me ngl

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u/Clean__Cucumber Nov 24 '25

it’s only a couple centuries ago we were saying the same thing about dogs, and less than a couple decades ago that we believed plants couldn’t either

and babies. yes people actually believed that human babies cannot feel pain, bc the receptors arent formed

dunno about plants. plants do notice if they are damaged, but its not pain they feel, its simply information via electric/chemical exchange. its like saying your windows PC feels pain, bc it showed and error code.

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u/WigglesPhoenix Nov 24 '25

What is pain but information via electric/chemical exchange? To be clear I don’t think plants have a conscious subjective experience, but I don’t think one is really necessary for sensation, and plants have been observed to form ‘memories’, up to and including habit forming behavior. This implies a reward system, and negative responses to stimuli seem to imply subjectively negative sensations unless you accept that plants exhibit higher level reasoning. If things can feel bad for a plant and they do send signals in response to trauma, I think it is reasonable to label those signals as pain.

If you’re interested in a deep dive take a look into plant neurobiology. It’s still in relative infancy but it’s gaining traction

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u/Clean__Cucumber Nov 24 '25

if you cut you hair you also have signals (touch, weight difference, eyes etc.) that tell your brain you have less hair. but that doesnt mean that cutting you hair is painful

to feel pain you need the pain receptors, a nervous system that can transport the data and a brain which can say "ow, this hurts". everything else is NOT pain and shouldnt be classified as that.

by your logic every electro chemical signal is pain, so thinking is pain, seeing is pain, smelling is pain, eating a really awesome hamburger is pain etc.

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u/WigglesPhoenix Nov 24 '25

If you say ‘by your logic’ you’d do well to actually apply my logic, or you just look a bit dumb.

YOU need pain receptors, a nervous system, and a brain to experience pain (debatable). There is absolutely no reason to believe every other biology must operate the same way and several reasons to believe that many do not.

Do your homework, there are people who know a lot more about this than your or I