If I start with the presupposition that Mr. McCarthy is an intelligent and broadly knowledgeable individual (given his corpus of work I think it's a safe place to start), I can chalk it up to one of two things:
1. It's a device to get the point across, though clumsy and innacurate to people familiar with an evolving area of study
2. He isn't up to date with the various studies that certainly show something akin to a type of consciousness. But I bet he'd be open to the notion...
It may be a tad early to say that the statement is wrong. It might be technically correct that plants don't have unconscious but they have something we'd classify differently.
I just chalk up to a kludgy device, I get the point he was trying to make- at least I think I do.
I don't think you answer the parent's concern, which I think is "why assume that all animals have a subconscious" instead of "why assume plants don't have one".
What about jellyfish or oysters? They don't have a brain and have very limited sensory and movement abilities. If they have an unconscious then why not carnivorous plants?
Yes exactly, I think its really the opposite though. Either the definition of unconscious is very loose and then I think plants would have it too, or its more related to have some sort of central nervous system of some level of complexity and in that case many animals wouldnt have an unconscious.
@Chris2048: "conscious[ness] is a disputed work, and things like "Have scientists discovered the secret of consciousness" etc all the time. Until the definition, and underlying semantic assumptions, are clear, don't build too many linguistic castles on top of it."
Modded into invisibility, looks like you violated one of the sacred tenets of Hacker News :)
Though I do notice a lot of innocuous comments get down-voted, for some reason. I wish there was more to hold down-voters to account for unreasonable mods..
