Plants 'can think and remember'

[Happy 7]

The Mythbusters tried the 'scaring plants' myth in an episode.
Busted.

 

[IncredibowlBoss]

The Mythbusters tried the 'scaring plants' myth in an episode.
Busted.

At the risk of coming across like a paranoid wacko, I'm suspicious of anything that comes out of a show produced by a TV network for entertainment... I mean, how can anyone take that guy seriously with the walrus mustache?

 

[VerdantGreen]

it's cool when they blow stuff up though...

 

[Anti]

At the risk of coming across like a paranoid wacko, I'm suspicious of anything that comes out of a show produced by a TV network for entertainment... I mean, how can anyone take that guy seriously with the walrus mustache?

Being suspicious of an entertainment program's scientific method is reasonable.

But let's think about it for a moment. What would the show have to gain by 'proving' that plants don't react to thoughts/feelings/threats of violence?

Watch the episode. It's not a debate-ender.. but it's pretty convincing.

 

[IncredibowlBoss]

Being suspicious of an entertainment program's scientific method is reasonable.

But let's think about it for a moment. What would the show have to gain by 'proving' that plants don't react to thoughts/feelings/threats of violence?

Watch the episode. It's not a debate-ender.. but it's pretty convincing.

It's not their scientific method that I call into question, but comparing their experimental setup to Backster's (yes, I realize Backster's method wasn't necessarily sound to start with), there are a bunch of dangling questions. If Backster's research is to be believed (or at least considered), plants' electro-emotional-type responses are easily linked to those of humans who interact with them (more easily to some than others).

I know that the first time you put the average person under TV lights, with sound guys, grips, boom operators, etc. etc. all around them, they will become fundamentally uneasy - not that they'll freak out, but it will affect their state of mind - how they present themselves and connect with others. Obviously this by no means totally refutes the Mythbusters' experiments, but if we're dealing with subtle energies (that is, literal electrochemical energy) that science is still trying/unable to definitively quantify or qualify, I feel that it's safe to say no one experiment under such "abnormal" environmental conditions can prove or disprove anything.

Because I've had a bit of hash, I'll propose an idea for consideration:
If quantum physics has led us to understand that the expectations of the observer can affect the apparent activity of photons, is it totally impossible that the same might hold for a different sort of experiment focused on measuring energetic transmission?

 

[IncredibowlBoss]

it's cool when they blow stuff up though...

Walrus-stache is *definitely* qualified to blow up/burn/crush/otherwise destroy stuff in an entertaining fashion!

 

[Happy 7]

I know that the first time you put the average person under TV lights, with sound guys, grips, boom operators, etc. etc. all around them, they will become fundamentally uneasy - not that they'll freak out, but it will affect their state of mind - how they present themselves and connect with others. Obviously this by no means totally refutes the Mythbusters' experiments, but if we're dealing with subtle energies (that is, literal electrochemical energy) that science is still trying/unable to definitively quantify or qualify, I feel that it's safe to say no one experiment under such "abnormal" environmental conditions can prove or disprove anything.

Really? So if you change the scenario to Backster, CIA, interrogation and polygraph how would that kind of logic do?
Wouldn't that mean that all of Backster's CIA interrogations with polygraphs were 'tainted' because interrogated people usually are not in their 'normal' state of mind. Quite frankly, one of the main goals of any interrogation is to 'break' the mind of people.

There's a flaw in logic... Backster claims that interrogation of people with a polygraph works reliable but plants need to 'feel save' for it to work at all?

Oh, come on...

 

[IncredibowlBoss]

Really? So if you change the scenario to Backster, CIA, interrogation and polygraph how would that kind of logic do?
Wouldn't that mean that all of Backster's CIA interrogations with polygraphs were 'tainted' because interrogated people usually are not in their 'normal' state of mind. Quite frankly, one of the main goals of any interrogation is to 'break' the mind of people.

There's a flaw in logic... Backster claims that interrogation of people with a polygraph works reliable but plants need to 'feel save' for it to work at all?

Oh, come on...

I don't know Backster's feelings on it - those were just my thoughts - sorry for not making that more clear.

But from my super-limited definitely-not-anywhere-near-expert understanding of polygraph tests, if you were to hook the same person to the same polygraph in a situation of high stress (as in what you described) and one of low stress, the baseline reading would be drastically different. The peaks representing "lying" or "not lying" would look different between the two situations, but would be consistent within any of them.

To put it another way, if you ran a polygraph on me while I'm ripping the bong in my living room and established a "known false", you wouldn't be able to look for that same wave signature in a polygraph administered to me while I was being waterboarded in Guantanamo and accurately conclude that I was lying.

On the other hand, if you established the known false while I was being tortured (and the intensity of torture stayed constant), an identical (or nearly-identical) wave signature to a known false would be a reliable indicator of a lie.

 

[Happy 7]

Yeah, that is what baseline establishment is for i.e. calibrating the polygraph.
It 'works' for people but not for plants?

 

[IncredibowlBoss]

Yeah, that is what baseline establishment is for.
It 'works' for people but not for plants?

My point was that it only 'works' for people in identical conditions... so to apply it to the current problem, I'll accept that the Mythbusters experiment could prove that a plant does not exhibit the "Bose-Backster" response in a television studio when being monitored for experimental purposes, but that we can't necessarily extrapolate that finding to cover all plants in all situations unless they've been experimentally verified.

 

[Happy 7]

My point was that it only 'works' for people in identical conditions... so to apply it to the current problem, I'll accept that the Mythbusters experiment could prove that a plant does not exhibit the "Bose-Backster" response in a television studio when being monitored for experimental purposes, but that we can't necessarily extrapolate that finding to cover all plants in all situations unless they've been experimentally verified.

We can't necessarily extrapolate any of Backster's results for all pants in all situations unless they've been experimentally verified.

edit: I think it's best to keep the esoteric quantum-bose stuff out of 'advanced growing science' as long as there is no credible proof. Otherwise
Spurr's section turns really fast into just another 'Toker's Den'.

 

[MrFista]

Bug skittering stuff.

You’re sitting at your computer reading IC mag ‘ Plant Intelligence?’ thread and thinking about negative repping MrFista’s posts again when out of the corner of your eye you spot a cockroach. You search for a suitable missile and finding a shoe beside yourself you hurl it directly at the roach. But you miss. You fire another well aimed shoe and it misses as well, luckily, you are a three legged cousin banging neg repping gimp but the third shoe misses too and the roach dodges then runs beneath the couch.

How did it do that? How did a roach act so quickly in reaction? When you were sizing it up, was it sizing you up?

Am I blowing air up your ass?

Perhaps, but when the cockroach ‘knows’ to run, it is because you are effectively blowing air up its ass. Hair receptors in the roaches anal cerci (look at a picture of a roach, or catch one and check it out, cerci are the two spikes out of its butt), upon receiving a puff of air will elicit an escape response within 8.2-70.2 milliseconds (Roeder, 1948). Abdominal sensory hairs also pick up on wind direction indicating the direction to run (away from the stimulus!).

The interesting thing to me about this reaction is that it is much faster than human comprehension. It seems smart, it involves a central nervous system, but it is not thought. The speed of human comprehension has been figured at around 550-750 milliseconds (Hart, 1998). This is a lot slower than the roaches 8.2-70.2 millisecond response.

Sidetrack - When it comes to killing roaches, wasps are better equipped than we are. The subesophageal ganglion initiates motor programs in insects. Ampulex compressa wasps will sting a roach above the subesophageal ganglion before taking it to offspring which consume it alive (fresh!). The meticulously placed venom eliminates the escape response in the roach (Fouad et al., 1996).

Mimosa pudica is a great example of a plants response to a stimulus that you can see in real time. The pulvinus at the leaf base closes the leaf after solute gradients change and water moves into the region - this is initially triggered by sensory hair cells. Vibration can trigger the plant, burning can cause a whole tree to react from one leaf. Here’s some M. pudica:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq3UuHlPLQU&feature=related

So much of animal behaviour is proving to be automatic. We see the same thing in plants. The reaction speeds vary, but the mechanisms remain very similar with sensory organs, chemical gradients, electrical impulses, genes, transcription factors, hormones and more coming into play after stimulus. None of this to me implies intelligence but it is very difficult for me to think of intelligence as anything other than thinking.

Trying to work out what intelligence is, is possibly a largely pointless philosophical wank, or intelligence.

Fouad, K. Liberstat, F. Rathmayer, W. 1996. Neuromodulation of the escape behavior of the cockroach Periplaneta americana by the venom of the parasitic wasp Ampulex compressa. Journal of Comprehensive Physiology 178: 91-100.

Hart, J et al. 1998. Temporal dynamics of verbal object comprehension. Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences, May 26.

Roeder KD (1948) Organization of the ascending giant fibre system in the cockroach, Periplaneta americana. Journal of Experimental Biology 48: 545-567.

 

[IncredibowlBoss]

So much of animal behaviour is proving to be automatic. We see the same thing in plants. The reaction speeds vary, but the mechanisms remain very similar with sensory organs, chemical gradients, electrical impulses, genes, transcription factors, hormones and more coming into play after stimulus. None of this to me implies intelligence but it is very difficult for me to think of intelligence as anything other than thinking.

Trying to work out what intelligence is, is possibly a largely pointless philosophical wank, or intelligence.

To harness this all back to "Advanced Growing Techniques", regardless of whether or not plants are actually intelligent, they definitely *do* have mechanisms that are similar to intelligence, whether totally mechanical/stim-response, or not.

I think one very relevant (though maybe not all-that "advanced") area is "plant exhaustion" - whether through consciousness or mechnical action (or something else!), do plants get tired/reach a point at which photosynthesis is slowed/becomes less efficient?

If so, are all the 24/0 veg growers wasting dough on electricity?

 

[MrFista]

That's a new subject - but yes, they are wasting electricity.

 

[hazemaker]

why is 24/0 waisting electricity, i am not saying it does or doesnt, cus i dont know, cus i havent studied it, have you? if so id like to stop wasting electric please help a brotha out and tell me what you know n how you know it!