• Question: hello I was wondering do plants maybe feel very very subtle emotions (possibly when they are pollinated ) so slow we can't actually see them in any way?

    Asked by anon-204601 to Sally, Lucy, James, David, Dan on 13 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Dan Taylor

      Dan Taylor answered on 13 Mar 2019:

      I don’t think so, mostly because a lot of emotions comes from activation of brain areas and neurotransmitters. Given plants don’t have a nervous system, I don’t think this would be a thing. I guess the closest is they release a “distress” hormone when they’re damaged, but again things like pain require a nervous system so I don’t think its really the same as when animals feel pain or emotion.

    • Photo: Sally Tilt

      Sally Tilt answered on 13 Mar 2019:

      As Dan says – the term emotion is normally used when we are thinking about the reaction within a brain area. But certainly there are complex chemical processes – which assist plants in reproducing – which of course is really important.

      It’s kind of tempting to think of plants as having emotions – and to think of the world through our experience of it – but it is unlikely to be a reaction that is similar to what we would think of as having emotions.

      Thought provoking question.

    • Photo: David Chadwick

      David Chadwick answered on 13 Mar 2019:

      The answer is we do not know. For example we have only recently discovered that certain fungi and trees communicate under the soil over huge distances.
      The amount of knowledge that we do know today is tiny compared to what we do not know.
      And of what we do not know, this can be broken down into: things we know we do not know (such as what turns a non-living thing into a living thing or vice versa) and things we do not know we do not know. I would say that plant emotions fall into the category of things we do not know we do not know.

    • Photo: Lucy Maddox

      Lucy Maddox answered on 14 Mar 2019:

      Interesting to think about – I don’t really know but I like imagining that! You could write a brilliant story based on that idea.

    • Photo: James Munro

      James Munro answered on 14 Mar 2019:

      This is one of my favourite questions so far. I love this.

      Our understanding of emotion is a very “human centred” understanding. Our brains produce chemical and electrical signals which we perceive (in other parts of the brain) as emotion.

      However some emotions are not very complex. Disgust is a reaction to things we want to avoid because they might make us ill. Think about it, we are disgusted by jobbies and dead animals and food that has gone off. Does that make hunger an emotion? We become attracted to things that make us think of food. Smells and tastes and sights. If we go away from the awful things we stop feeling disgust, if we eat food we stop feeling hunger.

      Plants definitely do not perceive the world the same way as we do. We could not imagine how it would “feel” to be a plant – if that even makes sense. But plants do consume things for energy, they do try to be fertilised and fertilise. They do give off signals in response to damage or danger or to attract bees and so on. Maybe that results in some sort of “feeling” like hunger makes us feel.

      Who knows? How could we ever know how it “feels” to be a plant without being one? 🙂

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