Plant Consciousness

[J'Dona]

This thread is only meant to ask everyone here about the subject itself, and what's currently known about it. I've put it in the pseudoscience section for obvious reasons...

 

Though it sounds a bit lame, I was just involved in a half hour or so argument with my mother about this subject, starting out when she suggested that I try writing a short story (which I like doing) in which the main character is a virus or bacterium. I didn't mean for it to last that long, and it's particularly annoying as I missed taping Invader Zim because of it. Basically it qiuckly turned into a debate about whether plants are conscious or not in the end (or middle, somewhere anyway). During the debate my mom happened to mention things in passing about a life force, energy fields, auras, and ESP, and a lot about bigotry and bias in mainstream science. But she did mention one particular experiment that had been done in the past involving plants and an apparent awareness of some sort.

 

What happened was that there were two plants in a room, and in comes a man who pulverizes one of the plants. Later a procession of random people is lead through the room with the plant, including the man who destroyed the plant. This plant was hooked up to some sort of meter, a polygraph apparently. The graph was normal for everyone who walked through, except when the man who destroyed the first plant entered, when the graph went crazy.

 

I plan to Google this now and try to find out more about it, but perhaps there's someone here who knows about this experiment and anything else about it, or on the subject of plant consciousness. Or even a life force for that matter, aside from the dozens of popular science books on the subject. What sort of physical evidence is there for these sort of things?

[Sayonara]

Did you point out that even if this study was carried out (I hear people mentioning it from time to time - invariably the details change between such occasions), the fact that the plant reacted to a specific (and most likely unidentified) stimulus does not necessarily denote consciousness?

[J'Dona]

I tried to, and started by asking if I could suggest an alternative hypothesis (those were my exact words). Before I could my mom said that that was subjective, by coming up with ways to explain the results whilst disproving the idea that plants are conscious. I think the main problem is that this consciousness or, as some would attribute it, life force is undefined and undetectible, so even classifying it as such is subjective.

 

I was going to suggest that the result could have been due to the plant somehow registering that this particular animal (based on their scent/hormones/etc.) was somehow "remembered" by the plant as one which had killed another plant earlier when it rembered the other plant dying. This wouldn't be conscious thought as such, but still involves massive assumptions about the plant being able to detect and remember its surrounding and the events that take place around it, which is made all the more difficult as plants don't have brains or a central nervous system. So the experiment basically suggests that consciousness, reasoning and memory can be produced via this proposed life force by itself, thus rendering brains redundant.

[atinymonkey]

Triffids O_o

 

 

Run!!!"!!21

[J'Dona]

Erm, I haven't read that book yet so that comment's lost to me, it's on my floor now, waiting.

 

After a very breif second discussion about the points I made in the second post, my mom has told me that she was really talking about "primary consciousness", which is apparently another name for instinct. She's also provided me with a few books on the subject: "The Fields of Life", "The Unseen Self", and "Frontiers of Consciousness". The last one is a whopper; it deals with 11 issues, including "Death as an Altered State of Consciousness", "Ecolgical Consciousness", "Psychical Research" and "Paraphysics", among other things. I'll post the ISBN's if anyone is interested. Apparently these fields are electromagnetic in origin. How this influences consciousness (when not in the brain, of course) I'm uncertain.

 

I woldn't vouch for the scientific objectiveness these books, of course. The inside leaf of "The Fields of Life", the only one written by someone with a degree, is as follows:

In a materialistic, scientific age many find it hard to accept those religious beliefs that sustained their forefathers in times which - to them - seemed as troubled and perilous as the present. They would like to believe that man is no accident and that the Universe in which he lives is one of law, order, and purpose. But, dazzled by the methods and triumphs of science... they demand some 'scientific' proof or evidence.

 

This book presents, for the first time, evidence that man is no accident, that he is a participant in the destiny and purpose of the Universe. Clear, compelling, wholly authenticated, it may be the most important, far-reaching book you will read this year.

Bearing in mind that this book is supposed to have been written by someone with a doctorate, I wonder about the rest fo it...

[Sayonara]

I would venture that man is as much a part of the "destiny and purpose" of the universe as anything else the universe contains. The answer as to whether or not that is by some unknown intention, I suspect, will not be found in a single book.

 

As far as instinct in plants goes, this is something of a malapropism, since they lack the necessary physiological mechanisms.

[J'Dona]

I had to get out of bed and turn on my computer to post this last point after reading it; the foreword, by the author:

The Universe in which we find ourselves and from which we cannot be separated is a place of Law and Order. It is not an accident, nor chaos. It is organized and maintained by an Electro-dynamic Field capable of determining the position and movement of all charged particles.

 

For nearly half a century the logical consequences of this theory have been subjected to rigorously controlled experimental conditions and met with no contradictions.

I'd agree with both of your points there, particularly the first after this. Now I'd better go sleep, last week of college tomorrow and I need to revise some more...

[Sayonara]

He sounds very sure of that. "Lack of evidence against is the same as proof that I am right" etc.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

How would the plant know that the man killed the other plant, and how in the heck (sorry Sayonara) would they measure it?

[Sayonara]

(sorry Sayonara)

 

Que?

[J'Dona]

I think Cap'n Refsmmat is referring to the use of heck rather than "the other one", which you were opposed to in the thread titled "Hell".

 

But I agree; how could this plant sense the death of another plant by a particular person at all, and how do they hook up a polygraph to a plant? And how exactly could it go "crazy"?

[Sayonara]

I wasn't opposed to anything - all I asked was "why".

 

Plant + polygraph = such bad experimental design that we can safely assume this did not happen, or at least not in that way, and attribute stories of it to chinese whispers.

[YT2095]

at 1`st it was assumed that plants comunicated with each other using chemicals, like a smell. later it was discovered that when they were denied this means of comunication another mechanism was at play, plants emit light in the UV spectrum, this can be picked up by sensitive equipment and be seen on a monitor. although nothing was done with regards to "Murder", this focused more on disease and attack by predators (birds, insects etc...). and it was found through this special glass seperator, that the plants automatic defenses against attack were triggered, even though it itself wasn`t under attack but it`s buddy was.

Fascinating stuff!

[Sayonara]

Something tells me that if any credible evidence that plant consciousness might exist had ever arisen, there'd be a hell of a lot of research in that area.

 

There's plenty of research going on in plant responses (like YT mentioned), but response does not denote consciousness or awareness. For god's sake, these people could at least use Occam's Razor.

[Guest kVn]

For more information, check out the book, Primary Perception: Biocommunication With Plants, Living Foods, and Human Cells.By Cleve Backster

 

It's very strange, yet interesting indeed.