Disentangling sentience from developmental plasticity

Birch, Jonathan ORCID: 0000-0001-7517-4759 (2023) Disentangling sentience from developmental plasticity. Animal Sentience, 8 (33). ISSN 2377-7478

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Abstract

Plants, like animals, display remarkable developmental plasticity, inviting the metaphorical use of terms like “decision” and “choice”. In the animal case, this is not taken to be evidence of sentience, because sentience is a complex product of development, not something that guides it. We should apply the same standards when evaluating the evidence in plants. It is hard to overstate the contrast with the case of invertebrates such as octopuses, where pain markers that were originally developed for use in mammals have been clearly demonstrated and plausible neural substrates for sentience have been identified.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2023 Author(s)
Divisions:	Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
Subjects:	R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry S Agriculture Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology
Date Deposited:	30 Aug 2023 14:33
Last Modified:	19 Nov 2024 01:15
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/120088

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