How Smart are Plants ?

[Frazz]

Read this article a while ago and it got me wondering, what do youse reckon?

 

Quoted from "Secret life of Plants"

A series of experiments conducted over 35 years by America’s foremost lie detector expert Cleve Backster has shown that plants can sense and respond to external stimuli.

 

Backster’s School of Lie Detection, San Diego, specialises in training intelligence organisations and police departments in the use of lie detectors.

 

One part of a lie detector measures the galvanic skin response (GSR) of a subject. The GSR is a measure of the resistance of the subject’s skin to a small electrical current, indicating a change in their level of physiological arousal.

 

Early one morning in October 1966, Mr Backster connected the polygraph’s GSR electrodes to the leaf of a Dragon plant and then watered the base of the plant. His intention was to measure the amount of time it would take for water to reach the leaf and change its electrical resistance.

 

While expecting a drop in resistance as the water entered the leaf, Mr Baxter was not prepared for what followed – the resistance instead increased, and according to the polygraph results, the plant generated a curve similar to that of a human being experiencing happiness.

 

Mr Backster then tried another experiment. “It was early in the morning and no other person was in the laboratory. My thought and intent was: ‘I’m going to burn that leaf!’” Backster recorded, “The very moment the imagery of burning that leaf entered my mind, the polygraph recording pen moved rapidly to the top of the chart.”

 

He went to get a box of matches and returned, but realised the polygraph was already so agitated that there would be no observable response. So he took the matches back to his secretary’s office. According to Mr Backster, when he returned to the polygraph “the thing just evened right out again, which really rounded it out and gave me a very, very high quality observation.”

 

In another fascinating and rather incredible experiment, Backster was able to identify a plant killer through his polygraph machine. The plants pointed to the real killer by reacting wildly to him.

 

"One of six students was chosen to kill a plant in a room with only one plant present. Neither Backster nor the five other students knew who the killer would be. The chosen student sneaked into the room with two plants and destroyed one of them. Backster later asked the students to come into the room one at a time.

 

"Each of the innocent students came into the room and the plant showed no reaction to any of them. But when the guilty student came into the room, the plant seemed to go into a frenzy which showed up as wild activity on the polygraph tracings."

 

His research found, among other things, that plants can perceive and measurably respond to intentional human thought and actions. Allegedly, Mr Backster’s experiments have been duplicated by scientists thousands of times using many variations

 

Other experiments conducted by different researchers showed that plants responded positively to classical music and very badly to rock or heavy metal music. They also responded well to words of encouragement and positive emotions from people around them.

[oniks]

holy crap thats really weird ey...here'sa a stoned theory..maybe plants are of the same evolution tree as humans and. :scratchin ..i can't think of the words too bushed

[Gush]

I posted this on another site, but thought it was appropriate....I keep my plants symmetrical to the planetary alignments. When entering my room, I attach leaves and branches to myself in a camouflage-type manner, as to not frighten the plants......before beginning any work on them, I like to first gain there trust by sitting amongst them and pretending to be a plant. I dont like right-angles or anything yellow in my growroom.

 

Hmmm, maybe I should stop kulling the males, infront of the ladies aswell... :scratchin

[Infinitee]

Yeah, you can tell the ladies that your just taking the males to the "vet" to get "fixed" cause they are "broken", hopefully the beauties won't catch on.

 

That's really really interesting and amazinfg and cool. I read somewhere that water, too, changes according to human thought. Something about the structure changing when subjected to positive or negative thoughts. This is also interesting cause we are predominantly water.

 

Maybe if i water my mully's with super-happy-water i'll get bigger buds :thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

[Pickle]

I remember hearing about vegetation giving off pheromones in response to pain and the plants around them giving off the same pheromones in response to them. I am wondering if this professors student was still covered in the pheromones from the plant they killed and that is what triggered the response.

 

Nice theory though, love your plants.

[Infinitee]

I just found the full unabridged article, check it out:

 

http://www.pureinsight.org/pi/articles/2003/3/3/1496.html

 

Check out the egg thing, that's crazy.

[Gush]

:: sorta loses its credibility, reading it on some wacked cult site

[oniks]

haha crazy cults.. :mellow: haha that is the most boring smilie out of them all

[Pickle]

I havn't read that site yet but i imagine what they are saying would be their interpretation of the information, not the "cult scientists" results.

[dsyfer]

Maybe you could try blowing all your exhaled smoke in the cabinet, see if you can get your plants whacked, I'm sure they would grow more if they new where bud comes from.