AMAZING FACTS* ABOUT TREES THAT YOU DEFINITELY DIDN’T KNOW!
12th October 2014
Charlotte Mew on Men and Trees
12th November 2014Do Trees Have Feelings?
Do Trees Have Feelings?
Some people relate to trees almost as inanimate objects – green things that stand in the way. However, modern research has undermined this view and is showing trees as having ever greater levels of sophistication than previously imagined.
In their own way, plants can see, hear, smell, feel and it is possible they even have a memory. Trees can communicate with each other too; using mycorrhizal fungi, their roots exchange information and even goods to other trees in need. Obviously trees don’t have brains, but some believe that trees may have something akin to a nervous system and produce some of the same hormones that animals do.
It’s clear that trees can sense and react to their environment, but does this mean that trees think? Are trees conscious?
What is it like to be a tree?
In one of the most influential essays on consciousness ever written, the philosopher Thomas Nagel asks us to consider “what is it like to be a bat?”. His interest wasn’t in bats, but in how we define consciousness. Nagel argued that an organism is conscious if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism – something that it is like for the organism.
Following Nagel’s thought experiment, if you were to trade places with a tree, what would it be like? Would you be left with any experience – however indescribable – some experience of sounds, sights, emotions? If so, then that is what consciousness is in the case of a tree. However, if being transformed into a tree were equivalent to annihilation, then trees are not conscious. For Nagel, either the lights are on or they are not.
Perhaps imagining oneself as a tree may say more about the limits of human imagination than anything else; but if consciousness is something within oneself that is aware of oneself experiencing reality, “the feeling of what happens,” then we are surely safe to say trees don’t possess it. Certainly, no rational person would claim that a tree feels emotions, and without a brain a tree can’t feel pain, so it would follow that trees cannot think.
However, if we define consciousness as just being aware of one’s environment – the state of being awake – then the sharp line currently separating animals from trees becomes less clear. In this case perhaps trees may qualify as sentient. Just because a tree offers little outward signs of consciousness is perhaps deceptive. Whether or not trees seem conscious to us is not the point; just how would trees appear if they were conscious – perhaps exactly as they do now – would you expect them to talk?
The necessity of consciousness.
We face many of the same challenges as trees, obtaining food and water, surviving and reproducing. We are built from the same atoms and have the same ancestors, but our evolutionary branching point was truly ancient. The last common ancestor of plants and animals is likely to have been single-celled and is estimated to have lived 1.6 billion years ago – close to the root of the evolutionary tree. From that time on trees have had a distinct lineage, completely independent to us animals; evolving their own unique processes that has allowed them to successfully assemble into complex, elaborate organisms.
Impressive as it is, consciousness only evolved because it was useful for us – a social species that moves around a lot – but consciousness may have been unnecessary or even a disadvantage if you are rooted in the same spot for hundreds of years.
Working as a tree consultant I’m regularly amazed during tree inspections as to their tenacity and adaptability. Arboricultural experts acknowledge there are still many unknowns surrounding a trees sensory system. There are sure to be further revelations which will astound us – but this should not be confused with what goes on in our cerebral cortex. Ultimately, it seems very unlikely that trees have significant inner lives, but they have managed just fine without this. Moreover, in attempting to increase the value of trees by superficial analogies – crudely trying to attach consciousness to them – we actually diminish their unique stature. After all, a tree can live for a thousand years and eat sunlight, isn’t that enough?
Adam
I'm a Chartered Arboriculturist at AWA Tree Consultants Ltd. As well as detailing our recent tree survey and arboricultural consultant work, this blog includes wide ranging arboricultural musings, including tree facts, opinion and anecdotes on trees in human culture.
2 Comments
Wow you leave me with a lot of good important informations I was always wondering about . Thank you . But I have a question for you . Do you think trees can hear us when we talk to them.? I have seen that many times before some people cut down a tree they say something in the form of a prayer to the trees.
i believe trees have ascended from this plane of reality.