Indigenous knowledge is a whole other way of knowing—it’s no worse (and no better) than science

From your work, I would have surmised that you actually think indigenous knowledge systems are superior…?

well, therein lies the problem. i believe what you`ve just said is that if science doesn`t recognise or measure it then it`s…….um, BS?

No, I’ve said that false claims about science are BS. The Backster effect is the claim that plant consciousness is scientifically measurable. It’s a scientific claim, so it has to stand or fall on the standards of science. All we’ve measured so far is some fairly obvious recording errors and the researcher’s own bias. It’s never been independently verified, and it’s never stood up to anything like a rigorous research method. So it’s not a scientific claim at all–which is what it purports to be.

Now, I do believe that plants are conscious; it’s just one of the whole worlds of valid opinions I think exist beyond the domain of science. But I don’t pretend that these viewpoints are scientific, either.

there isn`t much the shaman does which science can measure, but healing occurs nonetheless……….whether it happens in borneo or in surbiton or upper manhattan.

Absolutely. Indigenous knowledge is a whole other way of knowing—it’s no worse (and no better) than science, but it is different, so calling one the other does a terrible disservice to both, and is generally rooted in our inability to consider anything other than science worthwhile. Notice, for instance, that when I call the notion of plant consciousness “unscientific,” you assume I must mean it doesn’t exist. That’s the kind of leap, rooted in our ethnocentric notions of the superiority of “science,” that we most desperately need to break out of.

Small animals that eat the fruit (thus spreading the seeds) are protected from their predators by the thorns.

Never thought of it like that and you’re probably right! Blackberries are one serious plant, man.

Like how blackberries have evolved both fruit and horrid thorns.

Bear in mind that the blackberry species is older than the human. Small animals that eat the fruit (thus spreading the seeds) are protected from their predators by the thorns. Blackberry says: Eat me. Don’t eat those that eat me.

Pretty much a one-track mind.

but isn’t there a spiritual realm where nothing needs to be eaten or devoured?

One can always dream.

prunes, I’m listening. You’ve said this before and I found it incredibly profound, then promptly forgot it. Thanks for the reminder. This illusion of the exterior is very convincing. In fact (ha!), I could swear I’m typing on a keyboard and responding to you, another human, right now!

The have a view of the world, a little bit of consciousness has been poured into them, but they don’t have the intellect to make anything of it.

Intellect is as intellect does.

alistair, well said.

unthinkable, nobody cares what (you think) you think.

well, therein lies the problem. i believe what you`ve just said is that if science doesn`t recognise or measure it then it`s…….um, BS?

there isn`t much the shaman does which science can measure, but healing occurs nonetheless……….whether it happens in borneo or in surbiton or upper manhattan.

for the shaman all consciousness is intertwined. all we have to do is recognise some pattern in the relationship……..then we are communicating.

if you haven`t walked in the woods and felt held in the boughs and branches then you will rely on science to be your filter.

But in all honesty, I don’t want to be eaten by a higher life form or a lower life form. So in putting myself in another organism’s shoe I bet a lower life form or a higher life form does not want to be eaten by me.

Actually, I think that there are certain types of plants which DO want to be eaten. They seriously want us to enjoy their bounty. Like the book, the Giving Tree - totally spot on.

But I also think, like us, that there are plants which have evolved protective measures to guard against their true purpose in some sense. Like how blackberries have evolved both fruit and horrid thorns. Maybe they have an identity crisis too - like they find it disgusting that other beings would want to eat them. I don’t know that it’s necessarily the case, but I think it might be a useful tool for thinking through your own disgust.

Another way: have you ever considered that ingesting something is not a disgrace to the the thing you’r eating, but an honor? Oral sex comes to mind, for one. But then, maybe that’s why some people have problems with oral sex as well. More realistically though, you could think about how the things that you eat are the things that you want to become, that you want to incorporate their qualities into yourself. And thus there is no dishonor or disgust in it.

Interesting: I just discovered that the word “disgust” comes from the french “gouster” to taste

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=disgust&searchmode=none

Perhaps what it comes down to is that we and the plants are related, and our DNA proves it.

Why be disgusted? That’s the way of life: all life is grounded in death, and all death follows life. Can’t have one without the other.

Absolutely! Where does the source of this type of disgust really lie?

I am vegetarian…And I am disgusted at the fact I am eating something conscious.

Why be disgusted? That’s the way of life: all life is grounded in death, and all death follows life. Can’t have one without the other. There’s nothing to be disgusted of in it: it’s the very essence of life itself, the ouroboros eating its own tail, the cave bear with its own femur in its mouth, the first philopshical glimmering in humanity’s archaeological record and the foundation of all our spirituality.

Co-author Mark C. Mescher added, “One of the interesting things we found was that the plants make choices.

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/articleArchive/sep2006/parasiticweedsniffs.php

If I can say I know I am conscious, and I know other people are conscious, then I know plants are conscious.
I tend to make friends with plants (trees in particular) wherever I go, or–more to the point–they tend to make friends with me.

Then again, if you are (and I am) of the opinion that the universe is a conscious entity–then everything in it has consciousness, even rocks. The only argument would be to what extent that consciousness is or isn’t manifest in a certain object.

Makes me think of the Tao when he said “The Kingdom of Heaven is inside you and it is outside”

The soul is not in the body, the body is in the soul. How do we ‘connect’ with other people, is it solely through our words and gestures? No, it is with the Heart, which does not reside inside the body, but in the core of the soul.

You have been watching the process develop inside your spherical alchemical glass for so many years, that you have forgotten you were somebody else, you have mistaken the development of Nature for your Self.

The mineral life, the vegetative life, and the mineral life are all contained within the human and we relate to them on their own level.

I am vegetarian…And I am disgusted at the fact I am eating something conscious.
“We’ve just proved plants are conscious so there’s no point being a vegetarian anymore. It’s just a question of eating conscious animals or conscious plants.”
http://www.vegsource.com/harris/flake.htm

On a side not I am wondering if things make sense again?

Well, it’s my day off and I have yet to read through all the comments from the week, so things make sense for right now. I’ll go get some breakfast and then come back and we’ll see!

Personally, I don’t know enough about the Backster effect to know whether or not it’s BS, but I certainly take the entries on Skepdic with a grain of salt, since they are all written from a place with a rather narrow viewpoint of what is and what isn’t possible. That said though, I think you’re right that science isn’t the tool through which we can measure or understand the consciousness of other beings: empathy is. Get inside plants, and more importantly, let them get inside you. What happens then, I’m still figuring out…

On a side not I am wondering if things make sense again?

But I’m a big fan of David Abram these days, and as he pointed out, we don’t know whether other humans are conscious except through our capacity for empathy, putting ourselves in their place. Our natural inclination is to extend that empathy to everything around us, including plants. Our basic animism needs to be beaten out of us. We need to be trained to “know” that plants aren’t conscious, that animals don’t commuicate with us, and so forth.

So, what does it mean for something else beyond ourselves to be conscious? After all, our own consciousness is the only thing we ever truly know firsthand. So if it’s pure animism, or our perception of something real, who can say? We live inside our own sensual world, and that’s the only reality we’ll ever know. What does a theory about plants not being conscious really matter, when the world we experience first-hand is full of feeling plants and talking animals?