Comment on Those poor plants
x4740N@lemm.ee 2 weeks agoWhen talking about the capacity to consciously be aware of themselves (the oysters) how is that actually measured and what do they look for
How are we sure they are not actually self aware through some other unknown mechanism
ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
I am not a biologist but my understanding is that largely has to do with a lack of central nervous system. It would be like asking if a heart is aware of itself. It can autonomously react to things like low oxygen but that isn’t because those signals go anywhere that makes a decision it’s more like a chemical/biological Rube Goldberg machine. If you really want to get down to it though I don’t think we can know for certain just make educated guesses, and imo oysters are even less likely to have any form of consciousness than a lot of plants or mushrooms