Hey guys, I've been doing some studying up on this subject lately. It seemed ridiculous to me at first but the more I read and study about it, the more it starts to look legit. But I still think there's something else going on here. Does anybody here know the naturalistic explanation for why people get these kind of results from these experiments?
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Do plants have feelings?
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skepticalbip
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It depends on what you mean by feelings.
If you mean do they react to the environment, stimuli, stresses, etc. then obviously they do. They grow toward the sun. Their roots grow toward moisture and sections will dry up if moisture becomes absent in some area. They seal over cuts and tears. They produce chemicals to repel insects. Etc. etc.
If you mean do they feel fear, hatred, anger, etc. then there is no evidence of it and the suggestion that they do is anthropomorphizing not science.
Your video was a piss poor attempt at science. There was no control. Would the contacts connected to a piece of wet paper give the same or similar galvanic response if slapped around or sprayed with a fire extinguisher? Then there is the matter of reproducibility. Would the same response be seen for repeated series of tests?
whichphilosophy
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Plants react to the environment (reaction to stimuli). They would need to conduct more tests.
Under the Rose
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You might find the following of interest to this topic. Plants move on a different time scale than we do.
Published on Jul 22, 2014
Michael Pollan discusses how timelapse photography reveals the hidden life of plants.
The article related to the video. http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-...may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plants
Published on Jul 22, 2014
Michael Pollan discusses how timelapse photography reveals the hidden life of plants.
The article related to the video. http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-...may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plants
Perspicuo
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Well, roses are quite romantic...
Living systems have reactivity even at the cellular level. Reactivity is not emotion. Emotion is one of the several kinds of complex neural behavior processing. Plants do not have brains. Several species of plants, however, have been studied to have defensive systems, but these are not emotions. The human imune system, for example, is extremely complex and adaptive compared to anything studied in plants, yet it does not generate emotions.
Living systems have reactivity even at the cellular level. Reactivity is not emotion. Emotion is one of the several kinds of complex neural behavior processing. Plants do not have brains. Several species of plants, however, have been studied to have defensive systems, but these are not emotions. The human imune system, for example, is extremely complex and adaptive compared to anything studied in plants, yet it does not generate emotions.
Peez
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spikepipsqueak
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My immune system regularly generates emotions in ME!
Without a nervous system it would be hard to argue for feelings in plants. Chemical reactivity, even reactivity that causes 'behaviour' doesn't qualify.
Avoidance, which is the behaviour that can be anthropomorphised to be read as pain, can be explained chemically. The lack of any CNS or centre for rudimentary self awareness makes anything we would understand as sensation or emotion in plants very unlikely.
Yeah. It seems the guy who started this, Clive Backster, has already been refuted. I can only find one of the pdfs online, but it looks like you were right about the controls. My bad. I guess I should have studied more before creating this thread.
spikepipsqueak
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If nobody started a thread in order to discuss something interesting or controversial or funny we would all have to hang up our keyboards.
skepticalbip
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There is no problem in asking what you did. It is good that you were still skeptical even though it seemed reasonable to you at the time. However, I wouldn't take anyone's word (especially mine) for things like this on a forum but the responses will, at least, let you know some things to check into yourself. I am always encouraged when I see people asking questions rather than accepting odd stuff as true.