Even for animal life, animals of different body sizes have radically different types of situational awareness, so it's not surprising we struggle to imagine what a single-celled organism like *Stentor coeruleus* "thinks" of its experiences.

It's a little humbling to think of your individual cells having their own opinions about how "the weather" (your metabolic inner life) has been lately.

And regardless of how such anaesthetics affect the cell membrane, I suspect their narrow therapeutic index comes from disrupting the function of the mitochondrial membrane. Depolarizing the mitochondria (by making them leaky or by blocking their proton pumps) is lethal for most eukaryotic cells, since the H+ gradient across the inner membrane is what powers aerobic ATP synthesis.

Indeed - I've been a fly on the wall of such debates. Plant capabilities themselves are stunning and worthy of note.

But discussions of "consciousness" / "sentience" always devolve into semantic nonsense. Often a pseudo-resolution comes with something like "For any *reasonable* definition of (consciousness / sentience) plants ..."

But as a behavioral neuroscientist, I can tell you I've yet to encounter a reasonable definition of either of these terms.

*takes off surgical gown, sadly puts away scythe*

The weird thing is that plant cells have discrete action potentials, but C. elegans (the roundworm) does not[1].

C. elegans has a nervous system made of 302 neurons with graded potentials (no spikes, meaning they are 'analog') and no myelin to work as wire insulation. Its signaling is slow. C. Elegans cognition is mix of of mechanical, chemical and electrical signals.

Mechanical stetching opens ion channels in the neurons, generating signals. Neurons can react external touching or internal movement. Internal mechanical feedback is part of its thinking and movement.

[1]: as far as I know.

"The angular displacement in Mimosa and in Venus was measured to compare the drugged groups with control groups. Assumed p-value = 0,01, amlodipine showed have no significant effects vs. control in mimosa and Venus flytrap (p > 0,10) with 118 degrees of freedom. In the same way ketamine had no significant effects vs. control in mimosa and Venus flytrap (p > 0,10). Lidocaine had significant effect vs. control group in mimosa causing strong immobilization of the petioles (p < 0,001) and spontaneous closing of leaflets, but not in Venus Flytrap (0,02 > p > 0,01). Ether had an evident effect in Mimosa and Venus Flytrap (p < 0,001) causing almost total immobilization."

Just a moment...

(www.tandfonline.com)

Ether is in the group of anesthetic vapors whose functioning is mysterious, along with chloroform and even argon and xenon. These are the ones that seem to work on plants as well as animals.

I also came here to recommend Zoe Schlanger's "The Light Eaters" (which presents a range of evidence of plant capabilities that we would associate with sentience).

I'll have to check out "What a Plant Knows" now too.