I'm skeptical that this will prove to be true, that plants experience pain in the same way animals do.

Having sentience doesn't mean their experience with pain is the same.

Like for example, and it'll sound kind of silly (talking about plant consciousness kind of asks for that :p), but plants seem complimentary to animal life. They give us shelter and energy. They could want to fuel us to whatever extent they have any sense of purpose or will. So it can make sense that they're sentient, but haven't evolved a negative association with pain, because being used as food or shelter is kind of their point or goal.

And it's a part of their survival too.. animals defecate their seeds and squirrels bury acorns etc etc.. people grow more trees.. being consumed is an aspect of how they make it whereas animals are always trying to avoid it and should have a hard wire against it.

At the end of the day they're completely different types of life, and so I don't know why people expect the science will show they have the same experience. (I think generally meat eaters just want this to be the case to weaken the vegan ethic or whatever.)

Like, MAYBE science will show this, but to me it would seem surprising more than what we should expect will happen.

Instincts can guide us correctly and often "know" things that we don't know consciously. And so when it feels like there's some sort of difference between a plant and an animal, it could be based on real underlying reasons that we just don't know consciously or scientifically. It doesn't have to be random noise or a bias sort of thing.

Cool interview!!