[john_minsk]

Well, you can explain to a plant in your room that E=mc2 in a couple of sentences, a plant can't explain to you how it feels the world.

If cows were eating grass and conceptualising what is infinity, and what is her role in the universe, and how she was born, and what would happen after she is dead... we would see a lot of jumpy cows out there.

[ozgung]

This is exactly what I mean by anthropocentric thinking. Plants talk plant things and cows talk about cow issues. Maybe there are alien cows in some planet with larger brains and can do advanced physics in their moo language. Or some giant network of alien fungi discussing about their existential crisis. Maybe ants talk about ant politics by moving their antennae. Maybe they vote and make decisions. Or bees talk about elaborate honey economics by modulating their buzz. Or maybe plants tell bees the best time for picking pollens by changing their colors and smell.

Words, after all are just arbitrary ink shapes on paper. Or vibrations in air. Not fundamentally different than any other signal. Meaning is added only by the human brain.