| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 2/20/2008 12:46:53 AM | I know this is an ancient video but one so few are truly aware of. For eons other cultures have respected plants as if they have consciousness like we do. OK, not like we do -- plants can't talk obviously but is obviously communication really needed for sentience? Of course not... we know this with many animals.
This is not some quack. This guy who started all this at the time was the world's foremost expert in polygraph tests at the time. Very black leather shoes and tie sort of fellow, not a believer in ancient mystical religions.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4753736638977368381&q=secret+life+of+plants&total=75&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1
If you don't believe plants have some kind of consciousness watch that video and tell me how all that is possible. Note -- he follows the scientific method as best as he can. He even puts the plant subject on the lie detector in a plexiglass shield and a faraday cage so no other stray forces including electrical can be affecting the tests.
It's amazing -- it reacts just to his INTENT, that is his thought, to harm the plant with a match.
I'm not sure if this has ever been taken anywhere since then but its fascinating. I think some one like Einstein would have taken this and perhaps used it to tie it into a unified theory. Perhaps what we see is the link via an unknown energy source like the "dark energy" he talked about.
Check out 41:55 where the Japanese lady talks to her cactus.
Next question is can plants think? What do you think a plant thinks about?
And for all you vegans who think your consciousness is somehow raised by not killing or eating animals check out at 43:00 where not only does a fellow plant give a measurable reaction to a cabbage plant being chopped into coleslaw on a marble cutting board BUT IT REMEMBERS that person later.
So even a vegan doesn't transcend the karmic cycle of life and death. You have to consume to live. You can't be separate of the cycle of life and death, no matter how hard you try. The best you can do is to respect that which you kill. In the indian tradition tobacco is left to a plant when some of it is harvested. It is done out of respect but it unknowingly serves another purpose -- tobacco is a fantastic insecticide and bug repellant. It helps the plant live. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 2/20/2008 1:50:20 AM | Two Hawks takes the talking Stick:
I read.....somewhere and I don't remember when....about an experiment with plants. What was done was....plants were selected at random and placed in sound proof rooms. Plants in "Room A" were subjected to loud, rock and roll music. Plants in "Room B" were subjected to gentle, soft classical music. It was discovedred that the plants in "Room B" were more healthy and growing better than the ones in "Room A".
We have to contend that a plant is a living, growing creature and as such, could very possibly have a consciousness?
That's my two bits worth!
Two Hawks passes the Talking stick. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 2/20/2008 6:49:45 AM | | two hawks music can not only effect plants but humans. It is known that classical music can help heal a person while rockin roll will make you worse. The water structure changes with sound. Even thoughs affect your health and well being, negative thoughts produces stress, disease like symptoms and actually weakens the immune system. Positive thoughts can heal and calm the mind. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 2/20/2008 7:52:55 AM | Plants...you can hook them up to an old ossiloscope and see definite wave patterns form due to various stimulus. You can pick one up pretty cheaply too! Hook one up to a cabbge or carrot or a geranium.
Plants having conciousness? I don't think so...more of a survival instinct. trees have developed bark to protect them from bugs, fire, etc. Doesn't always work, but it is armour of a sort. Some plants use poisons to keep other plants away from their growing area, keeping the resources for themselves. Others have developed a symbiotic relationship with insects...some plants supply food for ants, while the ants keep other plants and animals away from the host plant. Some grow large leaves to block others from getting sunlight. Look at your lawm...that plantain plant has large round leaves growing close to the ground to prevent other plants from sprouting. Dandilions do much the same.
A view of a forest or meadow may seem a peaceful scene...but in reality, it is a battlefield, with the war raging on all the time. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 2/20/2008 11:17:25 AM | Dandelions also are helpful in the fight of topsoil losing nutrients. The nutrients want to go down being carried with erosion and water. The dandelion taproot can go two feet straight down and in doing so recovers nutrients that would be lost by more regular shallow rooted plants like lettuces and such. It also explains why a carrot, another taproot is more nutritious than a lettuce leaf.
I know what symbiotic relationships are... they are everywhere in nature to even oceanlife the clownfish but neither that nor survival instinct seem to explain what is on that video.
Plants having conciousness? I don't think so...more of a survival instinct.
So watch the video done by not just a professional polygraph career guy but a leader in his field. A guy who helped put away a lot of bad guys -- think he is gonna risk his career over this if there wasn't something to it? WATCH the video. I have never heard of this video being "debunked" so I generally hold it to be true. Plus this isn't some backyard youtube video... this video was put out decades ago now and was professionally done. You could rent it at any big enough video store under the documentary section. Stevie Wonder does the soundtrack. It's totally professional. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 2/20/2008 2:47:55 PM | | Yes, I do believe plants have consciousness and so on and so forth. The only differences from us 'human' is that they don't have the sense of who they are. The sense of saying who am I and what am I. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 2/22/2008 9:17:26 AM | | going to be tough for veggies who stopped eating meat due to killing animals that think, if they think plants are similair, not much left... | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 2/22/2008 10:46:35 AM | i believe plants have a consciousness, not like ours obviously. plants want to live, grow and be healthy. plants want to pass on their genes to the next generation. survival, adaptation. plants want the same as we do in life. plants want the same as any other living organism.
i am an omnivore. i eat veggie, meat, dairy and whatever the hell else crosses my path. i truly get upset when a vegetarian will preach to me about consuming meat. most vegetarians dont even give the slightest thought about the matter that they consume. do they think plants feel privileged to be ground down and digested by animals. we live in a highly overpopulated world and some of the tactics we resort to so that we have enough meat are barbaric. you take for instance a large cattle farm, it is truly disturbing. how is the cattle farm different than a large produce farm? plants grown in a humongous operation waiting to be harvested. i have respect for all the food i consume and i am grateful for it all. i make no distinction between any of them. something has to die in order for me to live. i think vegetarians find comfort in the falsity that they dont kill to survive. killing is an unavoidable truth for the life of a physical being. recognize | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 2/22/2008 12:41:22 PM | | No. Plants do not have a consciousness. They don't have a nervous system either. And a nervous system alone does not mean there is necessarily a consciousness either, especially among the lower animals that live on instinct alone like insects. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 2/22/2008 2:16:56 PM | To assume humankind are the only entities capable of consciousness is a form of arrogance and ignorance to the possibilities of a wider universe than many of us accept.
When you meditate in a truly humble state you realise, all life is of value. Yes I agree with an earlier post about plants, they are truly generous and giving. It is always important to value what we receive into our lives and appreciate what comes into our personal sphere. When you quiet your mind to your own internal chatter, you hear so much more, the "chatter" on the breeze...plants as with all living things appreciate being appreciated and valued. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 2/22/2008 6:08:46 PM | um.........no.
The only reason we have consciousness is because we have a well developed nervous system, including the brain. Plants have no nervous system, they are simply a system of cells that work together to reproduce. As far as life forms go, they are at the bottom of the barrel, no matter how pretty the seem to be. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 2/23/2008 8:14:11 AM | | Even if they did have consciousness (the experiments have long been discredited http://skepdic.com/plants.html), you kill fewer plants on a vegan diet than on a diet that includes meat -- what do you think the cows eat -- air? Some people do think it is wrong to harm plants and they choose to eat only fruit which falls naturally from the plant without harming it. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 2/24/2008 3:49:47 AM | Never heard of that one, what are they called?
(the experiments have long been discredited http://skepdic.com/plants.html) I started reading your link and when the guy was quoting Backster I was wondering to myself "Where is he getting this stuff? It wasn't phrased like that in the movie." but when I came to this passage I find what a truly negative wishing thinker we have here. Anyway, to return to the original experiment: Backster admits that he committed a bit of petty larceny in the name of science: he went to another office, went into a secretary's desk drawer and retrieved some matches. A) Matches were free back then. I even used to pick up TCF matchbooks that said "Tuck a buck a day away" inside them when I would deposit my paper route earnings into a bank account. B) Only the absurdest person on the planet would call that larceny for something that was free. If you wish I will go through the movie and transcribe where your link misrepresents Mr Backster's words but frankly I find it to be a waste of time as I personally have seen the movie at least 3 times and I know this guy is twisting his story to make it sound untrue. The site also says: Backster's claims were refuted by Horowitz, Lewis, and Gasteiger (1975) and Kmetz (1977). Kmetz summarized the case against Backster in an article for the Skeptical Inquirer in 1978. Backster had not used proper controls in doing his study. When controls were used, no detection of plant reaction to thoughts or threats could be found. These researchers found that the cause of the polygraph contours could have been due to a number of factors, including static electricity, movement in the room, changes in humidity, etc. That's not what the movie shows. It shows plexiglas or glass containers and Faraday cages. Ditto with this, Backster doesn't call it a lab in the movie, he just says it is the room they adminster polygraphs in, why this guy makes a big deal of it I have no idea: the "lab" & the Eureka! experience
Backster tells us that it was on February 2, 1966, in his "lab" in New York City that he did his first plant experiment. His "lab" was not a science lab. In fact, it wasn't much of a lab at all in the beginning. It was just a place where he conducted training in the use of the polygraph. There was a plant in the room. He recalls the following:
But even a training place could be called a lab. We had "lab" everyday in electronics college in a normal looking room where we put together circuits and tested them with our handheld meters. It didn't have $20,000 worth of quartz-containing glassware around or even a single bunsen burner but it was still a lab. Nearly thirty years after his original "discovery," he is still telling the same story. It is a very revealing story and worth repeating. If its bunk then why does the author even find it worth repeating -- because he, too, is making a buck on repeating it and I see at the bottom of the page placebo effect to one direction and pleidans to the other. Now I don't believe in pleidans but I do in the placebo effect, maybe on plants with conciousness. In fact maybe I will go look at what he says on placebo effect to see how good this guy's mind really works. Ok, he doesn't believe in the placebo effect, which is double blind scientifically proven. He doesn't believe in accupuncture -- also double blind scientifically proven. Plus, I personally have felt it work in many ways. Next debunker, please! The only reason we have consciousness is because we have a well developed nervous system, including the brain. Plants have no nervous system, they are simply a system of cells that work together to reproduce. As far as life forms go, they are at the bottom of the barrel, no matter how pretty the seem to be. That is still very much up for debate -- no one knows exactly why we are conscious, just that we are. We may have fancy 2 Tesla fMRI machines but we still aren't very far beyond I think therefore I am. so to say that a nervous system is needed for consciousness is rediculous. Study up on nerve transmission, come back in ten years, and tell me why it works and I'll personally try to get you nominated for a Nobel Prize because no one knows how they really work much less the whole picture. If we don't know why we are conscious we can not know why some thing else is not. That carrot said "Bite me!" I heard it.... Said the donkey to the one holding the stick tied to that carrot and riding your back.  But you still haven't posted one bit of potential proof. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 2/24/2008 9:23:47 AM | So you don't like the writing style of the author of that article. He's trying to get across that lack of scientific method in Backster's "experiment" and is injecting a little humour on the way. (Theft is still theft, by the way, whatever the value of the item). The key part to note is the fact that the experiments were so flawed, they did not even include a control group and the way Backster himself explains how he jumped to wild conclusions (the polygraph couldn't be malfunctioning, the plant MUST be reading my mind!!") is revealing enough. But the final paragraph debunks it pretty soundly as far as I'm concerned:
The press, for the most part, never mentions that articles on the Backster effect are based on observations of only seven plants. Perhaps they need to be reminded, again, that they are making exaggerated claims from an experiment that no one, including Backster, by his own refusal to do so, has been able to replicate."
Another source would be Mythbusters, summarised on wikipedia:
Backster's "Primary Perception" theory was referenced in the Discovery Channel television show MythBusters. The team attempted to reproduce Backster's experiments using a polygraph and an EEG machine. They reproduced the plant experiment and initially got something peculiar as predicted by Backster's work. "They got steadily more stunned, uncomfortable and spooked as the plant they were testing showed inarguable reactions to being 'thought at' threateningly" Link. However, after more carefully controlling the conditions of the experiment to eliminate the possibility of external influence, the plant did not demonstrate any measurable reaction to external stimulus. They were similarly unable to coax any measurable response out of yogurt cultures or white blood cells. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleve_Backster
You could also consider the fact that no-one has claimed the million dollars offered as a prize to anyone who could demonstrate such a phenomenon as a telepathy with plants.
As for the skepdic website failing to recognise the placebo effect, I don't know how you reached that conclusion http://skepdic.com/placebo.html is pretty clear on the power of the placebo effect and the studies demonstrating this. | |
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| Do planets have consciousness?
Posted: 2/24/2008 3:25:52 PM | Do planets have consciousness? Just wondering...
My guess is that since plants don't have ears, they don't really have the sensation of hearing. They also don't have a mind to consciously process the information they receive through sensory input, never mind thinking about it in a systematic way. It's the different form of the soundwaves from the two different music environment that somehow stimulated the growth of the plants, not the actual music. That said, plants don't have consciousness. They are living, but not sentient. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 6/29/2008 6:40:19 AM | | If there is a such thing as a spirit, then I am sure that plants possess them. Are they concious? I'm not so sure, but at the same time, it's difficult to deine what it truly means to be concious. Either way, plants should be treated with respect, especially trees. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 6/29/2008 8:03:46 AM | | i think it all depends upon what you believe. obviously respect is a necessary thing for all life. but i think it comes down to the soul of each living organism...now if u were catholic like i am, it says in the good ol' Catechism of the Catholic Church. That things like plants and animals wouldn't have rational souls like human beings. i think they are called irrational souls... | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 6/29/2008 10:50:23 AM | Yes I believe they do and unlike most men, the plants have morals and abide to contracts.
In a factory plant filled with men, you have want and want more of many different things, natures plant only wants to give and is filled with IT. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 6/29/2008 6:08:01 PM | I think a lot of lifeforms have a consciousness.
But I also think that consciousness is nothing more than a network of unintelligent processes. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 6/29/2008 7:20:46 PM | | Aristotle argued that plants have a 'soul', but in his metaphysics soul is a principle of organisation and activity rather than a mysterious immaterial substance (which we tend to think 'soul' is). I don't think plants have mind and conciousness in the same sense we do, and it is pretty meaningless to apply qualities we associate with human minds to plants to explain functions and activities in plants already well understood by science. | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 6/30/2008 2:04:05 PM | Great a new way for kids to get out of eating there veggies.
Kid… “but dad it’s ALIVE! It has feelings, I can’t eat it!”
Dad… “unless it’s alive enough to outrun you, you better eat it!”
But really, we spent the last few thousand years clubbing, spearing and shooting our way to the top of the food chain I’m not about to start worrying about hurting my dinner’s feelings. Now pass the veal and to he11 with the screaming carrots!
That reminds me you want disturbing read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, the part where they have a nice conversation with there intended meal before eating it, gave me the creeps!  | |
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| Do plants have consciousness?
Posted: 6/30/2008 8:39:58 PM | Sounds interesting to me. Hmm, maybe I'll experiment a bit on my spare time! Does anyone know the parameters of the current they put through the plant, and other gotchas? What's the easiest way to digitize it? Would anyone like to do it together?
I've heard of similar experiments.. the first experiment I'd do would be to try and give the plant a feedback loop and let it choose the music it likes.
BTW - I remember myself as a 6 months old, and it was VERY different from what everybody thinks.. so I am pretty sure we don't understand plants..
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