[Happy 7]

Originally Posted by IncredibowlBoss

My point was that it only 'works' for people in identical conditions... so to apply it to the current problem, I'll accept that the Mythbusters experiment could prove that a plant does not exhibit the "Bose-Backster" response in a television studio when being monitored for experimental purposes, but that we can't necessarily extrapolate that finding to cover all plants in all situations unless they've been experimentally verified.

We can't necessarily extrapolate any of Backster's results for all pants in all situations unless they've been experimentally verified.

edit: I think it's best to keep the esoteric quantum-bose stuff out of 'advanced growing science' as long as there is no credible proof. Otherwise
Spurr's section turns really fast into just another 'Toker's Den'.

[MrFista]

Bug skittering stuff.

You’re sitting at your computer reading IC mag ‘ Plant Intelligence?’ thread and thinking about negative repping MrFista’s posts again when out of the corner of your eye you spot a cockroach. You search for a suitable missile and finding a shoe beside yourself you hurl it directly at the roach. But you miss. You fire another well aimed shoe and it misses as well, luckily, you are a three legged cousin banging neg repping gimp but the third shoe misses too and the roach dodges then runs beneath the couch.

How did it do that? How did a roach act so quickly in reaction? When you were sizing it up, was it sizing you up?

Am I blowing air up your ass?

Perhaps, but when the cockroach ‘knows’ to run, it is because you are effectively blowing air up its ass. Hair receptors in the roaches anal cerci (look at a picture of a roach, or catch one and check it out, cerci are the two spikes out of its butt), upon receiving a puff of air will elicit an escape response within 8.2-70.2 milliseconds (Roeder, 1948). Abdominal sensory hairs also pick up on wind direction indicating the direction to run (away from the stimulus!).

The interesting thing to me about this reaction is that it is much faster than human comprehension. It seems smart, it involves a central nervous system, but it is not thought. The speed of human comprehension has been figured at around 550-750 milliseconds (Hart, 1998). This is a lot slower than the roaches 8.2-70.2 millisecond response.

Sidetrack - When it comes to killing roaches, wasps are better equipped than we are. The subesophageal ganglion initiates motor programs in insects. Ampulex compressa wasps will sting a roach above the subesophageal ganglion before taking it to offspring which consume it alive (fresh!). The meticulously placed venom eliminates the escape response in the roach (Fouad et al., 1996).

Mimosa pudica is a great example of a plants response to a stimulus that you can see in real time. The pulvinus at the leaf base closes the leaf after solute gradients change and water moves into the region - this is initially triggered by sensory hair cells. Vibration can trigger the plant, burning can cause a whole tree to react from one leaf. Here’s some M. pudica:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq3Uu...eature=related

So much of animal behaviour is proving to be automatic. We see the same thing in plants. The reaction speeds vary, but the mechanisms remain very similar with sensory organs, chemical gradients, electrical impulses, genes, transcription factors, hormones and more coming into play after stimulus. None of this to me implies intelligence but it is very difficult for me to think of intelligence as anything other than thinking.

Trying to work out what intelligence is, is possibly a largely pointless philosophical wank, or intelligence.

Fouad, K. Liberstat, F. Rathmayer, W. 1996. Neuromodulation of the escape behavior of the cockroach Periplaneta americana by the venom of the parasitic wasp Ampulex compressa. Journal of Comprehensive Physiology 178: 91-100.

Hart, J et al. 1998. Temporal dynamics of verbal object comprehension. Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences, May 26.

Roeder KD (1948) Organization of the ascending giant fibre system in the cockroach, Periplaneta americana. Journal of Experimental Biology 48: 545-567.

[IncredibowlBoss]

Originally Posted by MrFista

So much of animal behaviour is proving to be automatic. We see the same thing in plants. The reaction speeds vary, but the mechanisms remain very similar with sensory organs, chemical gradients, electrical impulses, genes, transcription factors, hormones and more coming into play after stimulus. None of this to me implies intelligence but it is very difficult for me to think of intelligence as anything other than thinking.

Trying to work out what intelligence is, is possibly a largely pointless philosophical wank, or intelligence.

To harness this all back to "Advanced Growing Techniques", regardless of whether or not plants are actually intelligent, they definitely *do* have mechanisms that are similar to intelligence, whether totally mechanical/stim-response, or not.

I think one very relevant (though maybe not all-that "advanced") area is "plant exhaustion" - whether through consciousness or mechnical action (or something else!), do plants get tired/reach a point at which photosynthesis is slowed/becomes less efficient?

If so, are all the 24/0 veg growers wasting dough on electricity?

[MrFista]

That's a new subject - but yes, they are wasting electricity.

[hazemaker]

why is 24/0 waisting electricity, i am not saying it does or doesnt, cus i dont know, cus i havent studied it, have you? if so id like to stop wasting electric please help a brotha out and tell me what you know n how you know it!