Another bad argument. He fails to understand the nature of intelligence and sentience:
the plant sentience argument generally relies on a conflation of intelligence with sentience
Because true intelligence and sentience are closely and inextricably linked.
as if this weren't already obvious we're told that various experiments have surfaced showing that plants have intelligence
Which is bullshit, plants have no true intelligence. Yellow journalism is using the wrong words to describe plant behavior --"intelligent" in the common colloquial sense, like smart phone or computer apps that remember user preferences-- and implying far more than what they can actually do (which has been widely known for centuries).
intelligence being the capacity for information processing
False. There are multiple definitions of intelligence, some much less rigorous and useful than others, but even the one he included a screen shot of does not say this. Mere action-reaction responses (reflexes) certainly do not quality.
wikipedia wrote:Intelligence has been defined in many different ways including one's capacity for logic, abstract thought, understanding, self-awareness, communication, learning, emotional knowledge, memory, planning, creativity and problem solving. It can be more generally described as the ability to perceive information, and retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment.
Plants and calculators do not demonstrate true learning, they can merely be sensitized (like a plant not responding to excessive stimuli, or a calculator "remembering" your settings). True learning requires comprehension of information as
knowledge (which is contextual in nature and requires
understanding of the information), which can be applied to truly adaptive behaviors rather than those which represent only a spectrum of responses or settings (the best example and test of true intelligence is operant conditioning).
the fact that a plant can process information such as the location of the sun and react intelligently by tracking it as it moves through the sky is not a demonstration of sentience
This kind of behavior is not regarded as intelligence in computers or plants.
What is suspect is their limited ability to be conditioned, but there isn't evidence that this is any more than sensitization (which is distinct from true learning).
computers can do this and at present they are not sentient
Computers are not broadly sentient, but some computer programs are.
a calculator is intelligent but not sentient
A calculator is neither intelligent nor sentient. A program running on a powerful calculator could be sentient, though.
there is a huge gulf between information processing and first person subjective experience
Which is represented by the difference between a reflex and actual intelligent behavior -- between sensitization and crude conditioning, and more advanced processes like true learning and operant conditioning.
Some plants have very advanced behavior that may come very close to being intelligent (like quick moving carnivorous plants). However, not all animals are even truly intelligent -- some function purely on reflex, and can not respond to operant conditioning. That is, not all animals are even sentient.
The line that best represents true intelligence (and sentience) is somewhere around worms and small insects, not plants.
Also of crucial importance: Those which pass that mark are only intelligent or sentient in matters of degrees, and this is inherently important as well.
Equating worms to humans in terms of value is absurd.
and in the absence of any good reason to presume plants have the latter, calling them sentient and morally equating them with humans and animals is retarded
And yet he just spent quite a bit of time criticizing solipsism and saying we need to give others the benefit of the doubt there?
Behavior is the ultimate smoking gun here, and plants have not expressed anything like true intelligence or true learning yet -- even lower animals do not.
We also need to stop blindly equating everything that happens to be sentient regardless of degree. Even if plants were as sentient as worms, that's not saying much and it would still be more appropriate to eat them rather than the animals that are fed plants.
Thermodynamics, in trophic levels, is important here.