When I consider the problem of the Chinese room, I often feel it's a stronger argument that human perception of its own understanding is just illusory, predictable mappings of inputs to outputs. To say we understand things intrinsically and not through a mechanical, artificial process sounds wrong. The ideal AI would be equal to us, and equally flawed from any sort of objective existence.

Discussion of plant feelings strikes me as a dumbed down Chinese room. I'd say plants are just stimulus response machines with no option for debate of sentience or awareness. That's not to say they're not intricate, amazing, or beautiful. But "feelings" imply processing of the feelings at some sort of subjective level, and I don't see any reason to believe plants have this.