"Sure, you could say a plant is a being, but only if you view the word being as life, whose not aware that plants are alive?"

I dont really understand what you mean there..

If you and I are beings..than how can plants not be beings? Different from us sure..but individual and living nonetheless..

I dont think anyone here should really be getting offended..everyone has opinions...rainbows are better in color than black and white.

"And just because a plant struggles when a branch is broken in no way proves it feels pain, it dosen't have a brain or nerves, so it feeling pain is not possible."

How do KNOW it's not possible..how do you KNOW that they dont have something different and analagous to a nervous system we just dont understand yet?

http://www.vetmed.wsu.ed...3/v63%20p19%20Wagner.PDF

Pain is just our way of responding to something that is not supportive of us flourishing..it tells us something is wromg so that we can fix it..plants do similar things. We are not so different in that respect..

Plants are closed biological systems..in a sense they are open becasue they attain energy from the environment like us..but like us they are individual closed systems that have a good of their own..a niche that they fill and will respond accordingly to hold that postiion..they are alive and fit the definition of a being.

I know what is right and wrong to ME. I never said I was God did I? I'm stating my mind like everyone else here. Reality is in the eye of the beholder; not even scientific method can escape the finite vision of human perspective. For every theory there is a counter-theory; no one fully agrees on anything even within the scientific community. The long sought after scientific theory of everything that would reconcile the incompatibilities of every scientific field is still no where in sight because the unifying theory does not exist in knowing it exists in feeling. Feeling is the perfect nonZensical education we receive from entheogens.



Why leave? There is so much to think about... I love that verse it is very simple to understand and it's humorous when acted out physically or illustrated. Another verse that is dear to me is Mathew 5:43&44. "43Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.44But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."

Whether Jesus was a mushroom, a real person, The Son of God or simply did not exist there is no proof any way. What is real are those words above, and they ring true to me.

I probably have made enemies of thought or belief here at the Nexus because I am a pretty strong opinion, but if there was ever a physical Nexus gathering those people that think themselves enemies of me would be the first to receive a hug by me...Burnt, I'm warning you if this ever happens so please don't punch me . The hug would be genuine and not to mock because those are the yin to my yang and vise verse. Enemies, or in better words opposing force(s) teach us who we are not and in doing so teach us who we are. Adversity, The Great Adversary is not a disease, no, he is a very old and wise teacher.

I wonder if anyone will watch the documentary I linked to...if you do I'd like to read your opinions on it, especially yours, Burnt.

Cheeto its impossible to debate with people whose beliefs are 100% solidified by the personal experience under the influence of psychedelic drugs or other altered states of consciousness. I am glad at least someone gets the concepts I have been bringing up.

Plants don't feel pain. They can't. Its not possible for them. They can't think. Its not possible for them. They don't have a nervous system. That's required for the above processes. We know this because our human concept of pain is a perception generated by our brain to respond to certain stimuli. This is a fact.

Plants are definitely alive. They are not conscious however. Most living organisms are not conscious. Like bacteria. If you think plants have conscious then it applies to any organisms that doesn't have a nervous system could be conscious. Yet they ALL lack ALL of the traits that distinguish conscious organisms from non conscious ones.

Where is your evidence people? I can give all the evidence in the world to show that plants are not conscious down to biochemical responses of stimuli and why its different. But if you won't listen then there really is no point.



I don't consider anyone here my enemy. My views tend to clash with a number of people here and we still get along. Its fun.

YOu mean this documentary? http://topdocumentaryfil...e-secret-life-of-plants/

Ill watch it but I am a plant scientist so I dunno if its going to add anything to what I already know. But anyway I should say one time some of my collegues did a fun experiment and grew some plants one group with music and one group without. The ones with music grew worse then the ones without music. It might have been the growth chamber they were growing in but the conditions were set exactly the same. Who knows but I think lots of these plants hearing music things are largely bunk and crap studies. Plants can respond chemically or even physically to high amounts of mechanical stress but thats about it.

Furthermore measurements like placing an electrode on a plant leaf doesn't tell you much of anything about whats going on in the plant. Chemical analysis reveals how plants respond chemically to mechanical stress. They don't do it consciously its all controlled genetically and biochemically.

I wasn't getting offended, and i know your not saying i was, i was manily speaking on the post antichode left.

"its as if this thread was made in order to weazel out opinions then jump on them.... Not the sort of thing the nexus is renowned for. Whatever fleeting reward that is gained from this it will be very short lived, with nothing gained

Im tottteling off now, the vibes are hostile"

I was assuming that others may have felt the same, clearly not since your still discussing opinions. Its really hard to write and debate opinions whith out some thinking of it as arguing, and i wanted to make it clear that this was not a thread created to draw out opinions and pounce on them, i was just wanting to discuss, and to show that for over 10 years of my life i did give the spiritual thing a chance, it just poved to me to be false.

When i was reffering to the being statement, what i was saying in my view a being is a conscious being, with a brain, able to process thought. I was thinking maybe you meant being in a different way, like how you call, "i assume", a molecules energy its soul.

What is pain, but physical harm done to an organism? Plants respond to physical harm just like our bodies do, they repair themselves as best they can scabbing over gaping wounds and such. If they do not feel pain they definitely know pain in that they have adapted to defend themselves from physical pain through various mechanisms, such as thorns, poisons, chemical armor that makes for a highly successful fire retardant, insecticide, and or fungicide etc. They do what Homo sapiens do in response to and in defense of pain only better IMHO in that they do so without fucking up the planet. They do all of this without a mammalian nervous system, so you're going to have to be a little more specific with what you mean in your argument because right now it is simply invalid, and false.



All life is conscious of itself, if it were not so life would not exist meaning life has a Freudian aggression drive, and sex-drive stemming from their own awareness of the necessity to survive and reproduce. There are different states or points of perception manifest in the diverse ocean of genetic material. Man is the most arrogant to think that his genetic makeup is superior to everything else. Homo sapiens are a symphony of single-celled life, and it sounds magnificent, pure evolutionary genius but the musical score is no more profound than each and every instrument required to synchronize perfectly with one another in order for the score to manifest from musical genetic code into a powerful, walking, talking, hair-raising chorus of string, wind, and percussion that sends electricity up your spine.

All "higher" forms of multi-cellular life are simply populations of individuals that work together in harmony. You are saying that an individual cell is not conscious but a multitude of these unconscious cells is conscious which is completely illogical. If what you are saying is true then consciousness is in fact an illusion because we are the sum of unconscious parts.



Good, then we can continue debating. Most Americans only see debating in a negative light as arguing, unlike Europeans who stereotypically use it to further personal and collective progress in every field of thought.



Music does directly effect the growth of plants. I'm going to reproduce and document this experiment myself, and I think you should repeat it as well. You need to eliminate your projection of consciousness though which is tricky but can be seen in the documentary as totally doable.



I suppose science should eliminate the use of electrode mechanisms on mammals then, and disregard the data that has resulted from such instrumentation such as the polygraph if it really does not tell us what's internally going on. Every life-form is controlled genetically and biochemically which has everything to do with consciousness.

Plants can respond to mechanical stress. Mammals also can. Mammals however are capable of experiencing the perception of pain via their nervous system. This is important for learning and survival and hence why we evolved such an ability to be hurt by fire or hurt by a cut. We can partially turn off this perception and that's what pain medication is for. Pain medication doesn't work on plants because they don't have a nervous system and they don't feel pain.

Plants respond to mechanical stress by a variety of mechanisms none of which come anywhere close to resembling pain perception in mammals for reasons that should be so obvious I am wondering why I have to even bother to explain it. Plants can respond to a host of biotic and abiotic stresses such as pathogen invasion or mechanical wounding. If they didn't there wouldn't be any plants anymore this is all to aid survival and reproduction.

They do this all by not perceiving pain via a nervous system but by detecting the stressor. For example if you expose a plant to methyl jasmonate (a volatile plant signaling compound) it will start to produce a defense response and upregulate the production of defense related proteins and secondary metabolites. Plants can also be elicited by other signaling compounds such as salycilic acid. All kinds of stressors biotic and abiotic can induce plants to produce these compounds which stimulate defense responses throughout the plant and even sometimes in neighboring plants. Also plant cells can start beefing up their defense response when they are exposed to fungal cell walls and other compounds associated with fungi. They do the same for plant virus's etc. This often happens by responding to reactive oxygen species associated with pathogen invasions.

Different stressors can lead to difference defense pathways. Some defense pathways tell the plant cells around the infection to induce programmed cell death to kill the cells near an invading virus. This is why many viral infections are associated with necrosis. Some beef up defense compounds.

I don't really know what kind of answer you are looking for but plants use a very intricate series of biochemical pathways to respond to abiotic and biotic stress. Its not the same as mammals although evolutionarily you can see similarities in very old and preserved pathways which is just a sign of having a common ancestor. I guess what I am trying to say is that plants perceive abiotic and biotic stress for the same evolutionary reasons we respond to pain but we do it very differently. But they DO NOT 'FEEL' PAIN.



Yes that's true our consciousness is an emergent property of organized unconscious matter. You act as it thats illogical and impossible but thats exactly what I am saying and its what all evidence points too.

All your talk about cells working in harmony is fully explained by their evolutionary development. Cells don't need to be conscious to work together where do you get that idea from? All cellular processes are controlled by their biochemistry which is really a product of their genetic make up. All your talk of syncronicity and music is just hot air to make your argument sound poetic but offers no evidence in favor of the idea that all organisms are conscious.



Of course sound waves can have an effect on plant growth. My collegues showed it had a negative impact on their growth once just for fun. But it doesn't matter. If plants are responding to music its because of the mechanical stress induced by sound waves does something to their growth or metabolism. This is actually very easy to prove and not with electrodes but with chemical analysis. Its not because they can "hear" or because they like music humans think sounds pretty. Biologically it makes no sense because hearing is perception created by a nervous system responding to sound waves.





You don't get it. Putting an electrode on something just measures electrical currents which is useful for studying certain processes in biology. But just putting an electrode on a plant leaf and showing that something changes in response to music or pretty talking doesn't actually tell you whats happening inside the plant. To do that you need a more detailed chemical and molecular approach. This is easy to do. You can observe how gene expression changes in response to sound waves and you can observe how this effects the cellular metabolism of plants. Scientists are doing this all the time with more important stressors like pathogens and drought etc.

But what you clearly don't see is how pseudoscience is used to trick scientifically illiterate people such as yourself into believing whatever they want you to believe. In this case that plants are conscious and like beautiful music like people. All people need to do is grow some plants and hook up an electrode turn on some music and say "look its all energy man" and you believe them without actually questioning whats really happening. You also fail to realize that scientists are studying this kind of plant biochemistry all the time but not with sound waves because they aren't that interesting. There is more important issues to deal with in agriculture and other plant sciences.


Since your entire theory is based on consciousness being the root of all things please explain how consciousness regulates gene expression or other cellular processes? If you can't do that you have no theory. But I know you can't so I already know you don't have a theory your just spouting new age garbage about universal consciousness.

I fell into a bush once and he was like: "HEY MAN! Watch the branches! Do you know how long it takes to grow those?"
As I walked away could swear I heard him mutter Bastard in my direction...

...could have been the acid though=)

...and here's a good video (one of my favorite "TED" videos) on the subject of how the mind works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS3wMC2BpxU

"Henry Markram says the mysteries of the mind can be solved -- soon. Mental illness, memory, perception: they're made of neurons and electric signals, and he plans to find them with a supercomputer that models all the brain's 100,000,000,000,000 synapses."

Plants don't really have the gear to "think"

exactly.

That is exactly what I stated. See, I delved into your original premise and then you delved deeper to say once again what we both agree on, which is that plants know biochemical pain, and thus respond to it.


If they did not physically FEEL the biochemical pain then how would they EXPERIENCE it and KNOW it? The same cause, and effect process that we consciously recognize is the only logical causality. FEELING IS SYNONYMOUS with EXPERIENCE. What do we so often say to our friends? You would have to have been there to KNOW what I am SAYING, then you would KNOW through FEELING what I EXPERIENCED. You see words fail miserably to communicate the real education of experience, and that is why feeling is much more powerful and important, because feeling is synonymous with experience.

If you cut a plant with a knife it feels the incision chemically like we do, and bleeds chemically like we do, and by experiencing this feeling of chemical pain, initiates a response hardwired into their membrane and as with our brains. That is an intelligent chemical response in knowing how to suture and heal what remains.



When he who clings to doubt (an iconoclast of all things sacred) simultaneously with double think makes the same illogical leap of faith, what more can I say than within an ocean of doubt there is infinite faith, and within an ocean of faith there is infinite doubt in which your haste you most certainly erased, disgraced.



Yes, I agree that all cellular processes are controlled by their biochemistry and that life is a product of genetic make up. You see we agree on the observations, but at the same time hold opposing interpretations of the same vital information. The language of genes contain extremely specific information that is blueprints that must be followed with incredible accuracy for life to function properly. This information can be expressed infinitely in an infinite number of ways, but musically in that if so much as one wrong note is hit the whole song stops dead. 99% of genetic mutations that occur in all living things are non-conducive to adaptation, and or detrimental to varying degrees up to a point of serious handicap and thus fatality. That is why life is a perfect song.

The key word I am bringing to the forefront is INFORMATION. Information (that which is intelligible, and meaningful) can only logically come from an intelligent source. You make the same poetic leap of faith that I do my friend and that is believing in what the other believes impossible. Your leap is that information, and consciousness could come infinitely from nothing...this defies logical entirely. 0 + 0 is never 1.

I am obsessed with meaning which is Art, life, and love so excuse my poetry yes I do so that you don't have to. You are obsessed with the meaningless which is death, and void. To mix the two is a most excellent test to see which will fall into solution and which will fall out, I think it will be you without a doubt, but maybe I'm wrong, and if this is the case we should all listen to the same old but perfect song.



Now burnt, lets not resort to Ad hominem abusives we both know that is a logical fallacy. If you watched the documentary from beginning to end and still think it pseudoscience than you are more close-minded to different schools of scientific theory than I thought. I'm sure all of those highly educated scientists that were documented doing laboratory research on their plant subjects would highly disagree with you to the point of laughing in your face, but I do not feel the same need.



I think the more troubling question is how does unconscious, eternal void being the root of all things speak into existence infinite chemical structure, information, and conscious life? I know of many intelligent beings that can easily manipulate chemistry, and information to the point of artificial intelligence, and Divine Revelation, but I know of no vacuum, void chamber that can do even the most crude, creative manual labor. I suppose we will have to agree to disagree. We both lose, and we both win. We are both full of shit, only I for one am very content in knowing that my thoughts come from holy shit. Nothing sadly ever grows out of yours.

"I guess what I am trying to say is that plants perceive abiotic and biotic stress for the same
evolutionary reasons we respond to pain but we do it very differently."

Yes that is what I meant when talking about plants feeling "pain"..I didnt mean pain like we experience it..I meant stress..

My whole point is that plants are living things that I get life from when I ingest them..so I respect them as such.

My bad for being rude. I apologize.



But feeling pain in an animal way is way different then how plants respond to wounding pathogens and all that. Its not intelligent in a conscious sense. But overall many plants have intelligent defense systems yes but thats not to say plants are intelligent.



What are you defining as information? I am not saying that consciousness comes from nothing. Consciousness comes from a certain kind of organized matter. Matter could come from nothing. Maybe it doesn't but it could the laws of physics allow such a thing to be possible.



Chemical structure and conscious can all come from an evolutionary process. Complexity can arise from the simplest of building blocks. We know this. Its not shit. Its true.


Anyway we are getting off topic. But nothing I said was full of shit. Its all backed up by evidence. It could be wrong. But it has a far greater change of being right then just 'shitting in the dark' is an appropriate way to say it I guess

You are telling me that consciousness is an illusion projected by organized unconscious matter, and then you are saying that this illusion of consciousness is superior to "unconscious" and or "unintelligent" life. If Consciousness is a bag of cheap tricks then how can you honestly believe Homo sapiens to be superior in any way to plants or any living thing for that matter when according to you we are unconscious in light of scientific observations. I think you might need to reform your thesis.



Example: These words are information, and the following line of unintelligible random letters & numbers contain no information: odfinqefmmpm3r46odgfkmrgobigrl94tmg4oi2n3



Scientists have been trying to cook up life in the lab for decades to no avail. I'm sure you've heard of the Miller-Urey experiments which were among the first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...i/Miller-Urey_experiment
Absolutely no chaotic, primordial earth simulation produced by laboratory research has yet to randomly produce the most primitive predecessor of cyanobacteria. They can synthesize amino acid building blocks but no form of wave, no intensity of heat, no combination of gaseous or mineral elements can ever build the most "primitive" single-celled organism even when given millions of years of time not taking into account the life-span of amino acids in the most ideal stable conditions. It's an elegant theory that you maintain but unfortunately it is only functional on paper. Evolution is powerful, but not powerful enough to explain the origins of the first life. The day this happens is the day I gravel at the feet of Richard Dawkins, beg forgiveness for my faith, and worship him as God. Too bad for him that day will never come.



I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough. I was referring to Bill Hick's genius insight about worshiped cows being "Holy Cows" and the shit they produce which mushrooms grow out of as being "Holy Shit." I meant that we both hold opinions no matter the number of "facts", and also that you don't believe in Holy Shit, and I do. Most facts to me are merely opinions that take people longer to prove as false. Scientific facts rarely remain intact for more than a lifetime, and those laws that stand the test of time might one day be fully realized as sacred truth. I believe that sacred truths are revealed through entheogens, and that they are of divine origin. This last paragraph is not part of my argument. It is only so you better understand my perspective.

I hope your ThanksGiving celebration has been as enjoyable as mine, Burnt. Cheers to life, and long live The Nexus

consciousness has its disadvantages. i don't consider any species superior to any other in the grand scheme of things. everything has its niche.



if you type long enough maybe you'll make a word. thats kinda like evolution.



The first kind of life was probably not a single celled organism but more likely a piece of enzymatic RNA. Maybe you should realize that there are still experiments going on in this area and also realize that we would be lucky to see something like this happen. The point is that all the ingredients were there. If we find evidence for life on mars or find life on titan would that be satisfactory?

Whats your explanation for the origin of life then? Science has lots of coherent ideas. What are yours?



There chemicals that interact with your nervous system. maybe it all has divine origin but then do does this lump of rock we live on this star we orbit and this universe we inhabit. Entheogens are nothing special in the grand scheme of things.

I have a very different impression of your previous posts now in light of the above statements.



I could fill book upon book with enough randomly typed letters and or numbers (efoi3jr3-09jufeklfm) to fill every bookstore and library in the world and not one of those books would have more than a mouthful of randomly produced information in any human language let alone genetic language. There would be no spontaneous occurrence of mathematical display, no epiphany of physics, no sacred spiritual revelation. Nothing. Zilch.

Inanimate forces have never had a knack for generating information. The ocean waves don't write Shakespeare in beach sand, fire does not build molecular machines, elements on the periodic table do not talk about getting together with a bunch of friends to make Life happen, because inanimate matter cannot communicate. It makes no decisions to survive in one formation or another. Inanimate matter will never create anything animate. It's like dropping a rock in a hot tub, and asking it to do something smart. Will it do anything? Hmm...you might say not in my lifetime...but what if we say lets give it some time to think like 1 billion years then what? Am I being too generous? Okay, 30 million years...what do you think?



It doesn't matter how many planets have life on them, the question will remain the same. What is the most logical explanation for the creation of the most "primitive" life on any planet? We all know what intelligent beings are capable of accomplishing. Artificial intelligence is already here. It is only a matter of time before people (intelligent beings) understand how to engineer life from scratch. The key word is ENGINEER. No, scientists are not still doing the equivalent of placing amino acids with random elements in a hi-tech oven, and waiting around scratching their heads wondering if something will ever leap out. They are decoding the physical genetic INSTRUCTIONS that all life contains which is far more technologically advanced than anything man's most gifted minds can think up.



What you are saying is that even though understanding information requires intelligence, creating information does not require intelligence. This might be true for the creation a few randomly created phrases spread out between many pages of gibberish, but the secrets of life can't be found in a book for toddlers titled, The Clock Goes Tick Tock. My theory is that the generation of highly-advanced technology which is communicated through genetic information requires the meticulous handiwork of highly intelligent beings. My theory is completely logical and functional not only on paper but it is also functioning on the very brink of new scientific breakthroughs. If there were a contest to see who could create life given a million years I would put my money on Atheist Scientists, not their brainless pet rock. It is ironic that those who downplay life most will be those who prove life's most sacred power.



I'm happy to read that "maybe". Entheogens are Very special when existence is looked at from the perspective of those such as myself who believe in what is to you a simple "maybe".

So your an ID'er? You think life could only exist with an intelligent kind of design behind it? Ill get back to your posts after work etc.

I see where your comming from, but i think your thinking to local, compare your random typing to the size of the universe, but don't stop there, we don't know if or how many other universes there are, would our universe be special? I doubt it, the odds of there being more universes than there are stars in our universe are pretty great from my point of view. Add that vast amount along with evolution and non-ending time and intelligent life just dosen't seem so special. Once it begins evolving, its less random, its trying to survive, reproduce and gentic mutations sometimes favored sometimes not, with billions of years i would think intelligence could easily pop up. May be rare for how far we can see or reach(May be hard to find) but with all existence, very not impossible.

Labeling someone is a very childish way to ignore one's argument, and it is a logical fallacy. So your an Atheist? Oh well in that case I better ignore everything you're saying...please lets not stoop that low. My beliefs have always been internally realized as my own. I don't know much about "I.D.ers" and I honestly don't give a rats ass about what their political, and or religious agenda is even if they believe in creation via intelligent architects, engineers, designers however you want to put it. I am speaking from Me, he who serves the most sacred plants. I AM NOT THEY who speak of the earth being 6 thousand years old, I AM NOT they who think Rush Limbaugh a saint, I AM NOT they who believe abortion or gay rights a sin. Labeling me an "I.D.er" would be an extreme insult considering the negative connotations the label carries. Please, no more Ad Hominem abusives.

:arrow: Burnt, I have only one extremely important favor of you to ask, and that is please examine and respond to ONLY my words, only my argument, and only my reasons. You are not talking to a politically, and religiously-charged movement that reared its head in the 90's. You are talking to ME, a very unusual fellow who feels, and speaks the realities of entheogens that you do not like.




No matter how long you stroke your pet rock it is not going to Talk. Your imaginary friend that is TIME has no springs nor cogs, though you put such pretty gears on your wrist and forever listen to their noise Sprock: Tick Tock Tick Tock. You put your faith in Nothing but a Tick Tock Tick Tock. You put your faith in nothing but a Dumb Rock Dumb Rock.

Time is an illusion. There is only this moment NOW, and NOW is infinity. If spontaneous creation AKA abiogenesis cannot happen NOW it will happen NEVER. I must say however that time is a useful illusion. It teaches though excruciatingly slow those who ignore the teachers of the wise which are Love (good, creation, +), and Adversity (evil, destruction, -). Time is the teacher of fools. Flip through the pages of history, and you will read The Chronicles Of Fools. They never learn what they could, because they are always living in the illusion of the past due to the disintegrating dream of their very foolish future. If only they could realize that E.Ternal T.ruth is NOW, they could save themselves.

It’s called the PLACEBO EFFECT.

This even works with LSD. If you give someone LSD and tell them its mescaline, they’ll often say the trip was more “earthy” more “spiritual”, etc. It’s all about belief systems and nothing more.

The state of mind produced by authentic Banisteriopsis caapi and chacruna brewed the way the natives make it is identical to the state of mind SWIM gets from taking pure THH, harmine, harmaline, and DMT. The visions have the same deep meaningful content. If the plant “spirit” idea is at all real then the “spirit” must be present in these molecules and not in the other plant fibers.

You can prove this actually. You can take a plant that tastes similar to caapi that is not active, a plant that tastes similar to chacruna that is also not active, and then add THH, harmine, harmaline, and DMT, and people will think the plant “spirit” is present when they drink it because they will think they are drinking ayahuasca.

Again, this is the PLACEBO EFFECT and nothing more.

If you think the plant has a spirit, then why kill the plant and ingest it? Isn’t that disrespectful? Do you think killing the plant to get high is something the plant wants you do to? I certainly don’t believe that for a second.

If the plant has a spirit at all, I’m sure it would tell you to leave it there and not cut any of it’s body parts off. Why would the plant like you cutting off parts of its body? That makes no sense to me.

I would not feel respected by you if you started cutting off my fingers to make tea from them so you could have visions!