They can't feel pain, they don't have brains... Reacting to stimuli, like turning to the sun, or closing leaves to trap insects isn't a sign of intelligence.
Primary Perception
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"For whatever reason, it occurred to me that it would be interesting to see how long it took the water to get from the root area of this plant, all the way up this long trunk and out and down to the leaves" he said.[/FONT] [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]
"After doing a saturation watering of the plant, I thought, 'Well gee whiz, I've got a lot of polygraph equipment around; let me hook the galvanic skin response section of the polygraph onto the leaf.'[/FONT]
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"Now this is a whetstone bridge circuit that is designed to measure resistance changes, and I felt that as the contaminated water came up the trunk and down into the leaf that the leaf, becoming more saturated and a better conductor, it would give me the rising time of the water....I would be able to get that on the polygraph chart tracing.[/FONT]
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"Now the thing trended downward rather than upward, which amazed me a little bit because it should have been going slowly upward on the tracings, if it was going to show a drop in resistance" he continued, using slides of the polygraph chart to help illustrate what he was saying.[/FONT]
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"I moved it up here - this was my move - and then it came down again, and this is the thing that amazed me right here because this contour right away...I'm looking and thinking, 'That's got the contour of a human being tested, reacting when you are asking a question that could get them in trouble.'[/FONT]
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"So I forgot about the rising water time and said, Wow, this thing wants to show me people-like reactions. What can I do that will be a threat to the well being of the plant, similar to the fact that a relevant question regarding a crime could be a threat to a person taking a polygraph test if they're lying.[/FONT]
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About fifteen minutes along - thirteen minutes and fifty-five seconds along in this initial observation - I had tried different things to try to get a reaction from this plant. I had even dipped a neighboring leaf into a cup of rather warm coffee - and the plant didn't show me any reaction. It showed me, if anything, boredom, and just continued to go downwards. If this thing were an individual, it would have indicated that they were getting bored and sleepy.[/FONT]
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"But over here," he said pointing to a sudden jump in the graph, "the idea occurred to me - and only the idea - 'I know what I am going to do: I am going to burn that plant leaf, that very leaf that's attached to the polygraph.'[/FONT]
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"Now I didn't have matches in the room. I wasn't touching the plant in any way. I was maybe five feet away from the desk. I was essentially away from the plant.[/FONT]
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"The only new thing that occurred was my intent to burn that plant leaf. [/FONT]
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"Right here, split second-wise, was when I thought of burning that plant leaf and the image entered my mind. I wasn't using words at all.[/FONT]
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"And up that the thing went into a wild agitation.[/FONT]
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"Now this was very late at night and towards morning. The building was empty and there was just no other reason for this reaction. This had been going along at a fairly stable level all the way up to this point.[/FONT]
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"So this amazed me.[/FONT]
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"This, I would say, would be a very high quality observation, and my consciousness hasn't been the same since. And this happened in 1966.[/FONT]
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"I thought, 'Wow! This thing read my mind!' It was that obvious to me right then.[/FONT]
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"So then I went to get some matches from the next room. The secretary was a smoker, and I got some matches out of her desk and brought them in.[/FONT]
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"The next will show where I came back in the room, right about here. I lit the match. I was even into burning a neighboring leaf rather than the leaf I had hooked up. Somehow that was already a special leaf.[/FONT]
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"Even before I had a chance to do this I thought, 'Well, this massive degree of reaction that I'm getting here, I wouldn't be able to see any additional reaction if it did occur.'[/FONT]
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"So I thought, 'Well, let me reverse the process and remove the threat from the room.'[/FONT]
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"I took the matches back out of the room here, came back in at this point, and the thing just evened right out again, which really rounded it out and gave me a very, very high quality observation.[/FONT]
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"Now when my partner in the polygraph school we were running at the time came in, he was able to do the same thing also, as long as he intended to burn the plant leaf. If he pretended to burn the plant leaf, it wouldn't react.[/FONT]
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"It could tell the difference between pretending you are going to, compared to when you actually intend to do it, which is quite interesting in itself from a plant psychology standpoint."
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Cleve Backster - Primary Perception And The Consciousness Of Plants
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[/FONT]Backster was about to water a Dracaena plant in the office and wondered whether he could measure the movement of the water into the plant leaves. From such an initial thought came a life's work and changes in the way we must view universal life. You will enjoy the story as told by Backster. From viewing the traces of the polygraph sensor, the results were different than Backster expected and he noted a surge response that was somewhat like one would measure when questioning a person. As Backster relates: "Well, if this plant wants to show me some people-like reactions, I've got to use some people like rules on it and see it I can get this to happen again."
Later Backster decided to try something that the plant could really feel like using a flame to burn a leaf. It was astonishing to note that it was the THOUGHT of burning a leaf to which the polygraph showed an immediate response! From this bit of history, it must be stated that science now has years of data on plant, animal, and even microscopic life forms and their ability to respond to thought processes.
One interesting example was Backster's observation of a plant's reaction on the polygraph when he poured boiling water down the sink. What could hot water going down a sink have to do with a response from his measurements? The answer led into a new series of investigations. It had to be that live microscopic organisms in the drain were killed by the hot water - thus the response. Astonishing that bacteria could emit signals that could be received many feet away by another life form.
As a scientist I can understand why it has taken so long for the enormously important discoveries being made by Cleve Backster to begin to be accepted by the scientific community. It is strongly a part of science's understanding of life that some type of a brain or nervous system would be required to respond to (or emit) stimuli. How could a plant, an egg, a cup of yogurt, or just some white cells from a person's mouth either respond to or emit detectable stimuli?
