It's an interesting question. I think the term consciousness is used differently amongst us. If we simply use the term to mean awareness of surroundings then, yes, it would be difficult to argue that a plant was not aware of its surroundings.
From an evolutionary standpoint, I'm uncertain how anyone could argue that a plant was not aware on some level. It has to survive, thrive and multiply within the environment it finds itself in. It isn't as if it can pack up and leave. Plants have evolved to use sunlight as a primary energy source. Many have evolved to entice bees and others insects to pollinate for them. Flowers, without other life forms to appreciate and use them, would have been a rather pointless endeavor for the stationary plant.
I've read studies where beetles were introduced on one side of a forest and the particular species of tree which would be endangered by their presence somehow signaled (A crazy word to use, but appropriate; I think) the rest of the trees in the forest of that species and the ones not infested yet began to emit more sap to create a surface resin to ward them off. Now, it can be argued that the roots are, to some degree, interwoven and the reaction of one tree was slowly shared by the others through that means; but the individual plants had to be aware on some level to react.
Studies have shown that some flower seeds, when planted with seeds from the same plant mixed with seeds of another of the same species are aware that they are, somehow, different. Seedlings from the same individual plant will work together to compete for sunlight and nutrients; to the detriment of the seedlings from another plant of the same variety. This is a level of awareness. And could be initially interpreted as the possibility of a level of self awareness, in some ways.
You might find the following interesting:
2.1 Creature Consciousness
An animal, person or other cognitive system may be regarded as conscious in a number of different senses.
Sentience. It may be conscious in the generic sense of simply being a sentient creature, one capable of sensing and responding to its world (Armstrong 1981). Being conscious in this sense may admit of degrees, and just what sort of sensory capacities are sufficient may not be sharply defined. Are fish conscious in the relevant respect? And what of shrimp or bees?
Wakefulness. One might further require that the organism actually be exercising such a capacity rather than merely having the ability or disposition to do so. Thus one might count it as conscious only if it were awake and normally alert. In that sense organisms would not count as conscious when asleep or in any of the deeper levels of coma. Again boundaries may be blurry, and intermediate cases may be involved. For example, is one conscious in the relevant sense when dreaming, hypnotized or in a fugue state?
Self-consciousness. A third and yet more demanding sense might define conscious creatures as those that are not only aware but also aware that they are aware, thus treating creature consciousness as a form of self-consciousness (Carruthers 2000). The self-awareness requirement might get interpreted in a variety of ways, and which creatures would qualify as conscious in the relevant sense will vary accordingly. If it is taken to involve explicit conceptual self-awareness, many non-human animals and even young children might fail to qualify, but if only more rudimentary implicit forms of self-awareness are required then a wide range of nonlinguistic creatures might count as self-conscious.
What it is like. Thomas Nagel's (1974) famous“what it is like” criterion aims to capture another and perhaps more subjective notion of being a conscious organism. According to Nagel, a being is conscious just if there is “something that it is like” to be that creature, i.e., some subjective way the world seems or appears from the creature's mental or experiential point of view. In Nagel's example, bats are conscious because there is something that it is like for a bat to experience its world through its echo-locatory senses, even though we humans from our human point of view can not emphatically understand what such a mode of consciousness is like from the bat's own point of view.
Subject of conscious states. A fifth alternative would be to define the notion of a conscious organism in terms of conscious states. That is, one might first define what makes a mental state a conscious mental state, and then define being a conscious creature in terms of having such states. One's concept of a conscious organism would then depend upon the particular account one gives of conscious states (section 2.2).
Transitive Consciousness. In addition to describing creatures as conscious in these various senses, there are also related senses in which creatures are described as being conscious of various things. The distinction is sometimes marked as that between transitive and intransitive notions of consciousness, with the former involving some object at which consciousness is directed (Rosenthal 1986). from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/#ConCon
You might take particular note of the fifth alternative. They say that one's concept of a conscious organism would depend upon the particular account one gives of conscious states. So, the idea of consciousness of any living thing is up for debate.
I would go on to argue that all matter which exists within the universe has some level of awareness of a state of being.
That was bad - I retract it.
0
