Radical Noesis - Thinking outside the box

This may be the guy I read about some years ago. I didn't think to record the source at the time, but I remember the experiment involved 3 identical plants in identical soil with identical amounts of light and water given to each plant. The variable was music and news. One plant had X hours of classical music, one plant had the same amount of time with rock and the other with news broadcasts. The idea was to see if there was any significant differences in the plants at the end of the study. The news plant did not grow, the rock n' roll plant grew some and the classical plant grew the most. I wish I would have referenced that, but it's been many years ago.

All things are vibratory and I can feel different sensations in different trees, plain as day. I know an old timer who lays hands on red oak trees most every day to "get charged up" (his words).Certain areas of the woods I hunt and roam in have different feelings too. Hard science folks would laugh at me but I could care less. My Dad was a water witch and they would laugh at him too, but he found many wells for people.

Why wouldn't plants be emotively sentient? As a living, growing, changing being, I sure the hell wouldn't want to be gashed with an axe, so what is the basis for saying it doesn't matter to a tree to be gashed with the same axe?

I agree there is some spiritual energy that flows through natural habitats and changes with environment. It is my belief that this Spirit is the One who created it. I have attributed change in feeling to the "change" made by humans. I like the idea of choosing something from nature to "charge up" with. Sensations like this can be very addictive.
I really do not see there is anything to laugh or sneer at. We all define the sensations we experience differently. I do understand the hesistation to share. I have been thought of as crazy for some time now by certain family members.

In response to the question:
The knowledge of good and evil has nothing to with right and wrong. It has to do with becoming aware of the harm that has to be done in order to survive. All species take something from nature in order to survive, be it plants taking from the soil or carnivores consuming the flesh and bone of the earth. All species but one take only what is needed to survive and give back in a manner that keeps the circle of life going 'round. I believe feral cats are the only other exception.

Goesh, Backster's were actually different from the one's you recall, although I imagine his findings galvanized the experiments you reference. Backster's hypothesis was more specific, linked directly to "extra-sensory" communication. He hooked up a plant (pictures of the original plant are available on certain sites dedicated to Backster) to polygraph machinery and merely THOUGHT things which would be threatening to the plant, such as images of fire consuming the leaves of the plant. After 13+ minutes, it seemed clear that the plant was responding mightily to the images by vivid responses recorded by the lie detector.

Backster's science has been heavily debated. He was not a botanist, and apparently did not use the types of control that empirical study demand. I will address the ideology of empiricism at some later date, but suffice it to say that empiricism is, in my opinion, only one way of garnering knowledge.

As someone writing about ideology with only a philosophical background and not a scientific one, I feel it would be reckless for me to assert a position on whether plants have emotions without qualifying it as my opinion first. I feel plants have responses which evolved to protect them as organisms, and that plants and animals DO have this facility of biocommunication. Emotion has been so anthropomorphized in our western ideology that I would probably not use that word for biological responses. Instead I would presume a spiritual or collective consciousness and communication (the collective soul, or Spirit that Shawna references).

The best scientific minds once debated on how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. They likewise asserted that the earth was flat and that man could never fly. I recall when august minds informed the non-august minds that the potato was worthless as a food source, despite the infamous Irish potato famine that resulted in massive immigration here in order to find food, visa-via working of course. I also recall being informed that cranberries caused cancer, despite centuries of educated herbalists knowing their benefit for the body's liquid humors, i.e. urine/kidney functions.

You would be wise indeed to not reference emotive states as being potentially existent in the plant kingdom. You would not be burned at the stake but would be ostracized and ignored to the detriment of your inquiries and any scholarly work you might attempt. Emotion does precede reputation that's for sure. In as much as hugely significant human events transpire with minimal emotion, or even the lack there-of, i.e. a President authorizing air strikes with the stroke of a pen, I would not label it an impossibility for the plant kingdom. History shows that dogmatism often overrides reason, i.e. archeologists and cultural antrhopologists, much to the consternation of some, continue to pre-date the crossing of the land bridge by Native Americans for instance. And of course we know that no intelligent life forces could exist beyond earth because empiricism tells us so. What amazes me is that the sacrosanct nature of empiricism cannot always sustain its own existence when unpredictable and undefined and quantified emotive states of funding sources deem certain endeavors to be not worthy of existance and cut off the money. They die like plants, with little or no whimpering.

If we reduce ourselves to instinct and DNA and phsiological/biological reactions and physics, which somehow get translated into emotive states and rote behavior, it is not reaching to assume that plants do the same. I've rambled on enough here.

Excellent, the same thing has been done with WATER....have you seen What the Bleep ? That is why Buddhist use the term sentient being. I live completely surrounded by huge fir trees and actually have named them. No I didn't eat the brown acid !....Shrooms !!!

Bell Hooked (great moniker, I love bellhooks), I have not seen What the Bleep ... although I have heard much feedback on it. It is on my list. When we moved to Oregon we were distressed by the amount of houses that were not lushly surrounded by mature trees--it seems a prerequisite of Oregon living in my book. Therefore, when we stumbled upon a somewhat staid ranch encircled by mature fir trees, we immediately bought the home. I love our trees (however much their pollens plague me in spring and the end of summer--allergies), and feel protected by them.

For those plagued and pestered by pollen, take oranic bee pollen. It acts like an inoculation. I am never bothered and I live a very high pollen area.

Goesh, for years that worked for me. In fact, I bought a really nice quality pollen from England on sale at Wild Oats several times. But for the past 2-3 years, it hasn't been working. It could be that I'm metabolizing it too quickly due to heightened stress, or that my systems have undergone some change.

But bee pollen IS a very good preventative, and up until now I've sworn by it. Sometimes, while reading outdoors, I find myself covered with yellow pollen that is raining down from the trees!