“acacias nibbled by antelope produce leaf tannin in quantities lethal to the browsers, and emit ethylene into the air which can travel up to 50 yards. The ethylene warns other trees of the impending danger, which then step up their own production of leaf tannin within just five to ten minutes”
There's a lot of anthropomorphism in that. Intention to warn, feeling danger, making decisions... They're indicative of an intricate system, but let's not jump the conclusion of inferring it's a sentient system in the lens of our own experience.
As others in this thread have said (in other ways) other organisms are black boxes to each of us. We cannot know whether they intent to do things, feel, have emotions, etc. We can only try and guess on basis of analogies (some philosophers will argue we cannot even know other organisms exist outside our own mind)
If it walks and quacks like a sentient being, why not call it a sentient being? One argument is the lack of complexity in reactions. That may be valid, but if so, where do you put the border between simple mechanical response and pain/warns others/…?
If that’s a gradual border, you can’t say the least complex of them aren’t feeling/having emotions/….
I think the distinction is gradual, with no clear border. That’s why I’m fine with calling this kind of responses ‘feeling’. On the other hand, I also don’t think cutting of a branch of an acacia is torture, but maybe I should call it torture on the extreme end of the scale of torture.
You're right about the language, but the mechanism is real The evolution of gaseous defense hormones in plants is thought to actually benefit the same plant, but has a side effect of 'warning' the plant's neighbours. Because plants don't have a bloodstream, chemical diffusion of messenger molecules throughout a plant is pretty slow. So some plants just use the air around them as a signalling medium, and when they are damaged, release gases into the air which their other leaves can detect. Of course, the gases also affect their neighbours.
I highly recommend The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. Trees signal their neighbours of incoming dangers so they have to time to e.g. pump tannins into their leaves to deter animals that would munch on them.
This is really interesting. Signalling to other plants for what purpose? I'd like to read more about it.