The difference between plants and stars?

[Marc K.]

Is it? How would it affect Rand's discussion of life? If it is true that non-living things have goals, that doesn't mean that living things do not still cease to exist when they die. Whatever goals it had before, it no longer has those goals when it is dead, and does not appear to have any goals at all.

OK, I can go with softwareNerd's answer on this (which you accepted). If you consider a star to be alive, then that wouldn't necessarily affect Miss Rand's proof. But that is not what you said above. You said: "If it is true that non-living things have goals [...]" and non-living things don't have goals.

So if you want to consider the sun to be alive that is your prerogative, but it isn't and it will only cause you problems thinking it is. The sun certainly doesn't look like any living thing I've ever seen. It looks more like the the moon or earth to me. And the sun doesn't act like any living thing I've encountered. It acts more like the a fire or a pendulum or a falling rock or the moon to me.

The other thing you are missing is the alternative of life or death. Living things face this alternative constantly and can act to achieve life. Inanimate objects face no alternative. Without fuel a fire and the sun will go out and they cannot act to attain more fuel. Without food and water, plants and animals will die, so they act to attain food and water.

Just by observation alone, I see viruses seeking out and taking over cells, and those cells produce copies of the virus, so it's reproducing indirectly, but Dr. Binswanger says such things are not alive. So what do you call these actions that appear to be goal-oriented? Are they?

I don't think viruses "seek out cells" any more than heavy metals seek out cells. They sound more like computer programs than life.

[agrippa1]

Yes, and what is that goal? Staying alive.

You are asserting that there is a "goal" "directing" the actions of plants. That means that a [desired] future state is causing actions to occur within a plant. But the plant is not conscious, has no idea of a future state, and has no ability to self-direct its actions towards any state. So who/what is directing the actions of the plant?

The actions of the plant are being "directed" by its nature. Its nature has been determined by the process of evolution, in which randomly generated processes that happen to work tend to be maintained through procreation, while those that don't work tend to die with the plants that developed them. The "direction" in this process is causal, not final-causal, i.e., it is based on what was done before, not what will work now, and it is fully the result of coded DNA, so close in conceptual nature to software that to make the distinctions you do ("They sound more like computer programs than life"), is, in my opinion, untenable.

Plants do not act towards a goal of life. They act according to the coded processes in their nature. The fact that those actions tend towards survival is wholly a result of the constant evolutionary process of filtering and refining the nature of organisms, which is "directed" by the survival and death of past generations, not by a desire to reach a "goal."

Life is different from any other state of matter in that it passes information from one state of being to the next. "Information" in this context is simply the slightly modified sequence of chemicals that make up the DNA strands reproduced in subsequent generations of an organism. A star is born, it dies and passes out of existence. An organism is born, it dies, but its existence is extended into future generations. That's a difference between a plant and a star.

Life is not the "goal" of life. Life is the state of life.

[Marc K.]

You are asserting that there is a "goal" "directing" the actions of plants. That means that a [desired] future state is causing actions to occur within a plant.

I don't know if it is a future state, probably the current state: life.

But the plant is not conscious, has no idea of a future state, and has no ability to self-direct its actions towards any state.

Animals are conscious and they have "no idea of a future state". And have you seen a plant grow? It sends roots toward water and leaves toward the sun.

The actions of the plant are being "directed" by its nature.

Again, I'm not sure if I would use the term "directed", but the way you are using it makes it true of everything in the Universe and is an axiom of Objectivism. So I'll agree with you but I don't think you are saying anything unique about plants or life in general.

Its nature has been determined by the process of evolution, in which randomly generated processes that happen to work tend to be maintained through procreation, while those that don't work tend to die with the plants that developed them.

No. Your description of evolution is inaccurate. It isn't "processes" that exist or survive, it is whole organisms.

The "direction" in this process is causal, not final-causal, i.e., it is based on what was done before, not what will work now,

No, entirely wrong. It is entirely based on what will work now. An organism must be able to survive in its current environment. So no matter how much evolution prepared the dinosaurs to live in a flourishing tropical world, if an asteroid crashes into earth, they better be able to survive in that environment or ... well we know what happens.

and it is fully the result of coded DNA,

No. This is genetic determinism. Which isn't any more true than determinism.

The fact that those actions tend towards survival is wholly a result of the constant evolutionary process of filtering and refining the nature of organisms, which is "directed" by the survival and death of past generations, not by a desire to reach a "goal."

If you read one of those threads I linked to then you will see that this is reification. There is no "process" operating in insentient nature. Evolution is a manmade observation of what happens over long stretches of time when organisms act toward their own survival. The fittest survive, naturally, and by passing their genes to their progeny, we observe that higher and higher forms of life evolve. And it isn't "directed" by survival and death it is only directed by survival. And not survival of generations, just survival of its parents.

A star is born, it dies and passes out of existence. An organism is born, it dies, but its existence is extended into future generations.

Well we are talking about life here so you should be careful with the terminology but I hope you are not asserting that a star is alive. If not then the matter that makes-up a star does not go "out of existence", it simply changes form. When an organism dies, its life goes out of existence and future generations do not give it further life, they have their own lives.

[Jake_Ellison]

Just as a falling rock has no goal, the sun has no goal and a comet has no goal, not in the sense Ayn Rand is using the term.

Yep. I re-read some of the relevant pages and it looks like you're right. I over-simplified the issue.

[Grames]

You are asserting that there is a "goal" "directing" the actions of plants. That means that a [desired] future state is causing actions to occur within a plant. But the plant is not conscious, has no idea of a future state, and has no ability to self-direct its actions towards any state. So who/what is directing the actions of the plant?

The actions of the plant are being "directed" by its nature. Its nature has been determined by the process of evolution, in which randomly generated processes that happen to work tend to be maintained through procreation, while those that don't work tend to die with the plants that developed them. The "direction" in this process is causal, not final-causal, i.e., it is based on what was done before, not what will work now, and it is fully the result of coded DNA, so close in conceptual nature to software that to make the distinctions you do ("They sound more like computer programs than life"), is, in my opinion, untenable.

Plants do not act towards a goal of life. They act according to the coded processes in their nature. The fact that those actions tend towards survival is wholly a result of the constant evolutionary process of filtering and refining the nature of organisms, which is "directed" by the survival and death of past generations, not by a desire to reach a "goal."

Life is different from any other state of matter in that it passes information from one state of being to the next. "Information" in this context is simply the slightly modified sequence of chemicals that make up the DNA strands reproduced in subsequent generations of an organism. A star is born, it dies and passes out of existence. An organism is born, it dies, but its existence is extended into future generations. That's a difference between a plant and a star.

Life is not the "goal" of life. Life is the state of life.

"Goal-directed" does not mean that the "goal" is actively "directing" a process, but that a process has a direction (has an identity), which is named the "goal". -edit "Goal-directed" is an adjective modifying the word "action". It leaves unspecified from where the goal originated.

Consider a plant with a strong phototropic response that keeps its leaves toward the sun. Now consider a solar power facility with an engineered mechanism that has a sun tracking mechanism. Is it true that one is goal-directed and one is not? An engineered mechanism does not know what it wants anymore than the plant does. Both can be described as goal-directed, or neither should. If neither, a new word is needed for the concept containing these behaviors as examples. Multiplying terms beyond that required is a deprecated practice, so stick with goal-directed applying to both.

Edited January 16, 2009 by Grames

[Capitalism Forever]

(I have not read the entire thread, so I apologize if I am being redundant here.)

There is less difference between a star and a plant than between a plant and a man. A plant does not have volition or a mind or purpose; only men do, which is what sets men apart from all other entities in the known universe. When viewed from this angle, plants are just like stars: will-less, unthinking objects that have no means of gaining knowledge or choosing their actions using a conceptual faculty.

Where plants do differ from stars is in that they face a constant alternative between life and death. The continued existence of a star can pretty much be taken for granted for the next n billion years (and after that, its destruction can be taken for granted), while the continued existence of a plant depends on whether it is able to obtain enough water, sunlight, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and the various other nutrients it needs to absorb from the soil. It is in the face of this alternative that the concept of a goal arises: the fact that a plant has a goal means that its nature is organized in such a way as to maximize its chances of survival in whatever external circumstances happen to surround it. If, for example, a branch or root of a tree hits an obstacle, the tree will react by trying to grow in another direction. Deciduous trees react to cool weather by shedding their leaves, helping them conserve water during the winter. Sunflowers track the sun across the sky to maximize their exposure to it. All these reactions are due to the genetic code of the plants, which can be said to be their programming to follow the goal of survival. Stars have no equivalent kind of programming.

[agrippa1]

"Goal-directed" does not mean that the "goal" is actively "directing" a process, but that a process has a direction (has an identity), which is named the "goal". -edit "Goal-directed" is an adjective modifying the word "action". It leaves unspecified from where the goal originated.

Consider a plant with a strong phototropic response that keeps its leaves toward the sun. Now consider a solar power facility with an engineered mechanism that has a sun tracking mechanism. Is it true that one is goal-directed and one is not? An engineered mechanism does not know what it wants anymore than the plant does. Both can be described as goal-directed, or neither should. If neither, a new word is needed for the concept containing these behaviors as examples. Multiplying terms beyond that required is a deprecated practice, so stick with goal-directed applying to both.

By the same argument you could say that, by virtue of their mass, all objects have the goal of reuniting into a single object. (Though they may be thwarted in that goal by their velocities)

I'm curious, would you say that the goal of the first generations of cellular organisms was not only to survive and procreate, but to achieve a rational consciousness?

[Grames]

By the same argument you could say that, by virtue of their mass, all objects have the goal of reuniting into a single object. (Though they may be thwarted in that goal by their velocities)

I think that the cleverest response to this specific example of gravity, is that any resultant acceleration of an entity is due to the uncoordinated forces of attraction from other entities, so what happens is out of control of the accelerated entity and cannot be said to be directed at all.

I'm curious, would you say that the goal of the first generations of cellular organisms was not only to survive and procreate, but to achieve a rational consciousness?

No. Although there are mathematical reasons explaining why starting from a low complexity life would gain more complexity over time, the overall direction of evolution is not directed at all. The appearance of a direction is just hindsight on our part. Individuals do not evolve, species do. But species do not exist in the primary sense that individuals do, a species is a human concept for a collection of organisms based on their similarity.

"Goal-directed" implies a relationship including an element in addition to cause and effect. I think the additional element is "control", the ability to modulate the cause to achieve a particular effect. This implies a feedback loop. At this point I don't think we are still doing philosophy, but the topic is interesting and I'm certainly willing to continue.

I'm interpreting your postulated inevitability of rational consciousness as a principle, and denying the validity of it as a principle. I do not deny what has actually happened here on earth. All of the entities prior to the first humans had no volition thus there was an inevitability to what happened here. But this is only evidence for the theory that evolution is necessary for, but not sufficient to cause, rational consciousness to emerge.

[agrippa1]

I think that the cleverest response to this specific example of gravity, is that any resultant acceleration of an entity is due to the uncoordinated forces of attraction from other entities, so what happens is out of control of the accelerated entity and cannot be said to be directed at all.

Ahh, but a plant that sends roots down and leaves up is dependent on the uncoordinated actions of the sun and rain to achieve the desired effect from its actions.

No. Although there are mathematical reasons explaining why starting from a low complexity life would gain more complexity over time, the overall direction of evolution is not directed at all. The appearance of a direction is just hindsight on our part. Individuals do not evolve, species do. But species do not exist in the primary sense that individuals do, a species is a human concept for a collection of organisms based on their similarity.

"Goal-directed" implies a relationship including an element in addition to cause and effect. I think the additional element is "control", the ability to modulate the cause to achieve a particular effect. This implies a feedback loop. At this point I don't think we are still doing philosophy, but the topic is interesting and I'm certainly willing to continue.

I'm interpreting your postulated inevitability of rational consciousness as a principle, and denying the validity of it as a principle. I do not deny what has actually happened here on earth. All of the entities prior to the first humans had no volition thus there was an inevitability to what happened here. But this is only evidence for the theory that evolution is necessary for, but not sufficient to cause, rational consciousness to emerge.

No, I don't believe that rational consciousness is/was inevitable, except in hindsight. I was just trying to get a fix on "goal." Does it imply an inevitability, then?

I'm not sure there's a feedback loop, in the common sense of the word, but there is something similar. In a typical feedback, a thing takes a certain action, evaluates the effect, and either does it more or does it less in response to the effect. In evolution, a group of organisms are randomly varied from their predecessors by genetic combination and mutation, and those whose variations "work" survive, while that don't work, die. That is a sort of feedback by filtration, and the result is that the surviving organisms, on average, have a "better" adaptation than their predecessors. Over time the tendency towards survival is strengthened. The faster jaguars survive because they catch the rabbit, the faster rabbits survive because they evade the jaguar.

[Ifat Glassman]

"goal directed, self regenerative action" is not ALL that life is. It is simple one essential part of it. You should not omit the rest of the things that "life" is. Like D'kian keeps bringing up - the concept of life contains a lot more details than just the definition. Details which you should not ignore while comparing a plant to a star.

I think this whole topic demonstrates the absurdity of using JUST the definition to compare between entities. You end up saying that a lake, a star, is alive just like a human. Everything in your brain screams that this is nonsense, but because you only work with the definition, you are forced to accept it as true.

(A lake, for example maintains its shape: if you take water out with a cup, they quickly return to the lake as you flip the cup - thus, the elements of the lake act to maintain its existence).

The right way to go about things is to start by observing reality. NOT by looking at the definition. and when yu observe reality, you see that there are tremendous differences between a star and a plant. A plant reproduces. It has many different processes all aimed at its survival and reproduction. A star, on the other hand, does not have all of these. It may have a single process that achieves the maintenance of its physical shape, but this cannot be said about ALL its processes that they achieve the maintenance of its shape. Some do, and some don't (which is different than a living thing where EVERY process achieves either survival or reproduction).

To show another difference: If a star cools down and becomes inactive (like the moon), it is still a star, nothing much changed. But with a living thing, if its processes stop - something fundamental about the entity disappears from existence. In the case of an animals, for example - it no longer moves, feels or thinks. A star just lays there, hot or cold.

Doesn't a goal imply volition?

No. See this explanation by Ayn Rand:

Only a living entity can have goals or can originate them. And it is only a living organism that has the capacity for self-generated, goal-directed action. On the physical level, the functions of all living organisms, from the simplest to the most complex—from the nutritive function in the single cell of an amoeba to the blood circulation in the body of a man—are actions generated by the organism itself and directed to a single goal: the maintenance of the organism’s life.

When applied to physical phenomena, such as the automatic functions of an organism, the term “goal-directed” is not to be taken to mean “purposive” (a concept applicable only to the actions of a consciousness) and is not to imply the existence of any teleological principle operating in insentient nature. I use the term “goal-directed,” in this context, to designate the fact that the automatic functions of living organisms are actions whose nature is such that they result in the preservation of an organism’s life.

[Ifat Glassman]

Ah yeah, and I should also say, Peikoff talks about this very problem in his course "Understanding Objectivism" (available at the Ayn Rand bookstore). It is because of first hearing it from him that I could see the problem here.

[brian0918]

Ifat: As I have repeatedly said, the intent was not to show that a star is alive, but that it has self-generated, goal-directed actions. In other words, why are such actions limited to life?

[Capitalism Forever]

"goal directed, self regenerative action" is not ALL that life is. It is simple one essential part of it. You should not omit the rest of the things that "life" is. Like D'kian keeps bringing up - the concept of life contains a lot more details than just the definition. Details which you should not ignore while comparing a plant to a star.

Definitely. If we discovered (or created) some process distinct from what we call life that matched the definition of "goal-directed, self-regenerative action," then we should update our definition of life to distinguish it from that other process. We might also introduce a new concept that covers both life as we know it and the new process, and call it, say, something like "biotism." Assuming that the essential difference of the new kind of biotism from life was that it was man-made, we could then have the following set of definitions:

• biotism is the process of goal-directed, self-regenerative action;
  
• life is the form of biotism found in nature;
  
• technobiotism is the man-made form of biotism.
  

Until and unless such a new kind of process is known to exist, though, all the above is moot. In our current context of knowledge, life IS the process of goal-directed, self-regenerative action. Nothing else we know of matches that definition--stars are neither goal-directed, as I explained in my previous post, nor self-regenerative.

Ifat: As I have repeatedly said, the intent was not to show that a star is alive, but that it has self-generated, goal-directed actions. In other words, why are such actions limited to life?

After what has been written in these 6 pages, though, do you now see why only life is that kind of thing?

[Ifat Glassman]

Ifat: As I have repeatedly said, the intent was not to show that a star is alive, but that it has self-generated, goal-directed actions. In other words, why are such actions limited to life?

I don't think such actions are limited to life. A star may be self-regenerating (I don't know enough about starts to say though), or you could build a robot that self-maintains itself. However, unlike life, such entities would not have that as their theme and underlying state of existence. A robot is likely to ultimately serve human life - a star simply exists. Both entities acts in ways that do not lead to their "survival" or "reproduction". It just happens, that among the many processes that the entity performs, some of them are self-regenerative. But not so with living entities. All automatic actions of living entities serve life and its continuation. Everything about the nature of a living thing exists because it serves its survival and continuation.

So just because a single process of an entity does X, does not make the entity X. Otherwise, a lake is an entity that self-regenerates as well (because its water keep coming back to it).

[brian0918]

I don't think such actions are limited to life. A star may be self-regenerating (I don't know enough about starts to say though), or you could build a robot that self-maintains itself.

The other part that we have been discussing is the "goal-directed" part, and whether that is limited to life, and what exactly a "goal" is.

[Capitalism Forever]

A star may be self-regenerating (I don't know enough about starts to say though)

It isn't. In fact, one of the key characteristics of a star is that it is continually burning up itself.

[Grames]

Ahh, but a plant that sends roots down and leaves up is dependent on the uncoordinated actions of the sun and rain to achieve the desired effect from its actions.

A plant must take action to gather water and sunlight in order to turn to them use in the furtherance of its life. In the gravity example, there is no "gathering of gravity". Merely having mass is not an action.

No, I don't believe that rational consciousness is/was inevitable, except in hindsight. I was just trying to get a fix on "goal." Does it imply an inevitability, then?

Goal does not imply inevitability in the sense of regardless of circumstance. But yes in the sense that if the environmental conditions are right then a goal can and will be achieved. If that wasn't true then there could be no life, or target seeking torpedoes. Not every living thing or torpedoe will achieve its goal, but some will and those who succeed are responsible for the continued existence of that class of entity. (Only indirectly in the case of the torpedoes, but if no torpedoes ever worked people would stop building them.)

I'm not sure there's a feedback loop, in the common sense of the word, but there is something similar. In a typical feedback, a thing takes a certain action, evaluates the effect, and either does it more or does it less in response to the effect. In evolution, a group of organisms are randomly varied from their predecessors by genetic combination and mutation, and those whose variations "work" survive, while that don't work, die. That is a sort of feedback by filtration, and the result is that the surviving organisms, on average, have a "better" adaptation than their predecessors. Over time the tendency towards survival is strengthened. The faster jaguars survive because they catch the rabbit, the faster rabbits survive because they evade the jaguar.

I think it can be helpful to chew on what "goal-directed" means by exploring why it does not apply to evolution.

"Goal-directed" implies causation and an additional element I call control, specifically a feedback mechanism. In typical feedback it is the same entity that takes the original action and receives the feedback. In evolution the organism that did the reproducing is not the organism whose fitness is evaluated. Thus the unit of heritability that evolution works upon is not a whole individual but a part of it, a gene which can be held in common by two different organisms. If evolution were goal-directed, then the entities capable of acting and receiving feedback would be the genes, and the goals in question would have to be ascribed to the genes.

The fitness evalution is imposed on an organism externally, not an action by that organism. It is not possible for an organism or any of its genes to revise its identity or actions in response to the feedback because it is either already dead or already successfully reproduced. Evolution is what has already happened, and no additional action is required to achieve it. If no action is possible to the gene then it certainly cannot be taking goal-directed action. If the gene is not taking goal-directed action then nothing is, and evolution is not goal-directed.

[Jake_Ellison]

Sorry, but I'm not following the discussion between Grames and agrippa1, so to Brian, Capitalism, Ifat( and maybe others):

I believe we need to clarify one thing, which in my opinion is causing all sorts of misunderstandings, before we can proceed with this discussion:

I've seen people quote this sentence from Galt's speech on the forum: "Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action.", and say that this is how Ayn Rand defined life.

I think it is time to clarify, once and for all, what the definition of life is. Here's the full quote:

There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence—and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence.

So the existence of a living entity has to be conditional (has to depend on a specific course of action), and there has to be the possibility that this organism can fail in that action, which would then stop the process. Is there the possibility that a star's actions fail to keep this process (nuclear reaction) going? (the way a tree in a dish in my apartment can for instance grow to a size which then causes it to die- because the dish is too small?)

I'd say quite the opposite is true: the "life-span" of a star is a given (and we can in fact calculate it), it does not depend on any actions that originate from it.

To Ifat: while I do realize that the concept "life" integrates all the existens (which count as life) and all the attributes these existens have, and we have to consider them all when deciding whether a star is alive or not, Brian has a point if what he's driving at is this: if he can find an entity which clearly isn't alive(a star), but fits the definition of life, then something's wrong with the definition. So, it's perfectly valid to request proof that the star does in fact not fit the definition, regardless of those other attributes.

I do believe I provided that proof above, by saying that a star does not face an alternative between life and death. In fact it will be "alive" X amount of time, and then it will "die". If someone said this before and I missed it, I'm sorry. It's a long thread.

Edited January 19, 2009 by Jake_Ellison

[Jake_Ellison]

The other part that we have been discussing is the "goal-directed" part, and whether that is limited to life, and what exactly a "goal" is.

Ayn Rand said "Only a living entity can have goals or can originate them." (Ayn Rand Lexicon / Life)

She said this because in order for something to have a goal, it has to first have alternatives. Without alternatives (choices, but not in the conscious, "free will" choice sense of the word), it would be completely useless to speak of goals. Instead, we could just speak of a destination, which is given (and can, in theory, be predicted with 100% accuracy).

The reason why only living entities can have goals is this metaphysical reality:

"There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence—and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional..."

The reason why this is not a circular definition is this: goals are not part of the definition of life. Ayn Rand did not define life as something which has a goal. She just said that something has to face an alternative in order to be alive, and also that a goal (in the sense she used and defined this word) can only exist if there is an alternative. Therefor only those things which face alternatives can have goals. (life happens to be the only fundamental alternative, so only with a living entity can we speak of goals)

[brian0918]

Without alternatives (choices, but not in the conscious, "free will" choice sense of the word), it would be completely useless to speak of goals.

I don't understand what is meant by "choice" or "alternatives" if there is no "free will" associated with it. Can you clarify?

[Jake_Ellison]

I don't understand what is meant by "choice" or "alternatives" if there is no "free will" associated with it. Can you clarify?

An alternative for a living organism is what a fork in a road is to a driver: there are two options, and depending on which it takes, it will either live or die (in the end). Obviously, to a driver the option is determined via his free will. In the case of an organism without free will however, one or the other option is chosen based on this organism's nature. There is no guarantee that this option will be the right one, there are plenty of instances in which a plant's nature is such that it will do something that will kill it. (for instance a tree in a pot should stay small, but instead it grows until it dies) Because of evolution however, most of the time living things, in their natural habitat, tend to "follow the right path" so to speak, but not always. There are "forks in the road" which lead to death, and which can potentially be taken.

Stars on the other hand, by their nature, are incapable of facing an alternative, they don't have the potential to "do" two different things, which will lead to a different end-result. They invariably exist while they have fuel, and then they stop existing. That is why they don't fit the definition of life.

[Grames]

I don't understand what is meant by "choice" or "alternatives" if there is no "free will" associated with it. Can you clarify?

Alternative here means that the continued existence of a living thing is conditional. If circumstances permit, its actions will succeed and life goes on. If conditions do not permit, then life stops.

These three words: conditional, alternative, goal are different facets of the same phenomenon. The continued existence of life is conditional upon achieving a preferred alternative, which is the goal toward which its action is directed.

[Ifat Glassman]

The other part that we have been discussing is the "goal-directed" part, and whether that is limited to life, and what exactly a "goal" is.

I quoted Ayn Rand giving an answer to exactly this question (what a "goal" is). Did you not read it, or did you not understand it?

[wilicyote]

I would ask the same question of a plant.

Douglass Adams to the contrary, I don't think the plant will answer.