Transcript Plant Perception

Plant Perception
By: Avery Ockman
What is it?
• Theory that plant’s are sentient
• Can perceive and react accordingly to
stimuli such as:
– Pain
– Pleasure
– Various emotions
~Plants reaction to music~
History
• First documented by Dr. Gustav
Theodor Fechner
• In his book “Nanna” in 1848
– Plants are capable of emotions, just like humans or animals,
and that one could promote healthy growth by showering
plants with talk, attention, and affection.
Further Reasearch
• Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose in 1900
– Found that every part of a plant “appeared” to have a
central nervous system and responded to a shock or spasm
just as an animal muscle would
– One visitor to his laboratory, the vegetarian playwright
George Bernard Shaw, was intensely disturbed upon
witnessing a demonstration in which a cabbage had violent
convulsions as it boiled to death.
• Also claimed plants could “feel pain and understand affection”
based on potential variations in plants’ cell membrane.
“The Backster Affect”
• Research by Cleve Backster beginning
in 1966.
– Used a polygraph to conduct experiments.
• Similar electrical patterns to a human emotional
stimulus. Fire causing an upward pattern in the plant’s
electrical resistance.
Results
• An overall better understanding of
plant’s reactions to the environment.
• Communication:
– Botanicalls
– Pet Plant
– Midori-San
Skepticism
• Lack of concrete evidence.
– Technologically impossible to measure.
“Pseudoscience is a methodology, belief, or
practice that is claimed to be scientific, or
that is made to appear to be scientific, but
which does not adhere to an appropriate
scientific methodology.”
Related Theories
• Gaia Theory
– Components of Earth are integrated to form an interacting
system.
• Earth as a single organism.
– “A complex entity involving the Earth's biosphere,
atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a
feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal
physical and chemical environment for life on this planet.
• Parapsychology
– Investigating paranormal using the scientific method.
El fin.