What living things other than animals can experience pain, such as bacteria, plants, or fungi?
Never Eat The ‘Clean’ Part Of Moldy Bread
Last update: 2 answers
Previous questionCould it be that a more effective (concentrated) product is poured into cosmetic samples than in full-size versions?
Next questionIs it true that representatives of pharmaceutical companies come to doctors and offer doctors, on a commercial basis, to prescribe their medicines to patients?
Answer 1
January, 2021Pain is a mental phenomenon. To experience it, you need a consciousness that can fix the feeling "I am in pain" in the act of reflection. Accordingly, only conscious living beings are capable of experiencing pain. There is no exact answer to the question of from what degree of complexity of the nervous system consciousness appears, one of the criteria is passing the mirror test. But there are objections to the test itself, and so, for example, ants pass it.
The purely physiological side of pain - nociception - the nervous system is enough for it. But there can be pain without nociception and nociception without pain.
An analogue of nociception, as a signaling mechanism, reactions to dangerous stimuli exist in all living beings, including protozoa.
Answer 2
January, 2021To feel pain, the body must have a nervous system. Microbes do not have it, they are very primitive creatures. Consequently, bacteria, amoeba and ciliates do not feel any pain. The yellow journalists say that plants have an analogue of the nervous system. Indeed, in response to an irritating factor, the plant reacts. But this only serves to prepare for more serious shocks and nothing more.