Reddit reviews The Secret Life of Plants

Relevant reading material.

I just recently began reading The Secret Life of Plants and it's pretty awesome. A bit woowoo (if that's your thing) but also a lot of science exploring the nature of living things that we often very much take for granted and make some pretty big assumptions about.

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Plants-Peter-Tompkins/dp/0060915870

I have read all of these front to back multiple times. I read the grow bible 5 times before I even started purchasing equipment and propagating seeds. Do it right, take the time to do the research. You will find there are many cost effective ways to grow amazing Cannabis.

True Living Organics: The Ultimate Guide to Growing All-Natural Marijuana Indoors

The Cannabis Grow Bible: The Definitive Guide to Growing Marijuana for Recreational and Medical Use

Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web, Revised Edition (Science for Gardeners)

Teaming with Nutrients: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to Optimizing Plant Nutrition (Science for Gardeners)

Fundamentals of Horticulture 4th Edition

The Secret Life of Plants: a Fascinating Account of the Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Relations Between Plants and Man

edit: If you cant tell I am an organic cultivator. ;D

Somehow equip us all with these and we can experience something new and profound...possibly. Reminds me of the 'mind reading' aspects described in The Secret Life of Plants.

Dogs have emotions?! I don't think that's news for most dog owners. What surprises me is that some people need a MRI scanner in order to believe it. By the way, plants have emotions too, according to this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Secret-Life-Plants-Fascinating/dp/0060915870/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1381075460&sr=8-1&keywords=The+secret+life+of+plants

> Killing a plant is not the same as killing a sentient animal that has thoughts, feelings, fears, friends, that care for their offspring.

You presume that plants are not sentient? How do you know this? Are you a plant? Have you ever been a plant? No? I thought as much.

Plants are alive, just like animals. They have all of the hallmarks of life. And based off the fact that they use poisons and anti-nutrients to ward off prey due to not being able to move, they therefore must logically have some kind of awareness, sentience, and feeling of pain.

Current research often means nothing, as in future, things can change once old dogmas about the world are demolished.

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Plants-Fascinating-Emotional/dp/0060915870

https://www.amazon.com/Primary-Perception-Biocommunication-Plants-Living/dp/0966435435

https://www.amazon.com/Blinded-Science-Matthew-Silverstone/dp/0956865607

In Primary Perception, Cleve Backster collates his research notes into his explorations into plant awareness. He accidentally, through boredom, discovered that plants can react very quickly to our behaviour, but their body movements are basically near-impossible for us to perceive on a macro scale.

Blinded by Science references Backster, and it's the only book I have a digital copy of, so I'll paste some relevant stuff:

> Backster worked for the CIA, specialising in interrogation.
He was an expert in the use of polygraph machines to interrogate
applicants who were looking for employment in the CIA. As a
young and innovative man, Backster found that this work became
less and less stimulating and decided to go freelance, setting up his
own school to teach polygraphic techniques in New York in 1965
and calling it the “Backster Research Foundation”. It was during
a quiet night in the office that Backster decided to investigate the
behaviour of plants and the speed at which water rose from the root
to the leaf area. He happened to have a large Dracaena plant in a pot
in the corner of the office that he thought he would experiment on,
and he wired it up to his polygraph machine.

> The first reaction produced surprising results, completely
opposite to what Backster had expected, but exactly the results
that Bose had shown seventy years previously. Plants do not like
being fed cold water; they go into shock and take time to respond
positively, and this is exactly what the lie detector graph showed.

> The initial tracing moved in a downward direction, but one minute
after feeding, the tracing exhibited a “short term change in contour
similar to a reaction pattern typical of a human subject who might
have been briefly experiencing the fear of detection”.

> For some unknown reason, Backster decided to challenge the
plant because the unexpected human contour pattern seemed to
bring out his competitive nature. He seemed to be saying, if that
is how you are going to behave, then let’s see what you do when I
do something that a human would react very strongly to, like being
punched in the face. The only equivalent idea that Backster had,
other than actually punching the plant, was to hurt it by burning it
with his cigarette lighter. [...]

> The room was small, it was close to midnight and there was no-
one around in the building, just Backster and the Dracaena plant.
Whilst Backster was searching for his cigarette lighter, knowing he
had the idea of burning the leaf attached to his polygraph, his ears
picked up something strange that stopped him in his tracks – the
polygraph machine was showing extreme movements. “The very
moment the imagery of burning that leaf entered my mind, the
polygraph recording pen moved rapidly to the top of the chart! No
words were spoken, no touching the plant, no lighting of matches,
just my clear intention to burn the leaf”. I don’t know about you, but
I think I would have immediately run out of the room screaming in
terror. The image of this reaction can be seen in the graph above,
the intent being shown by the huge jump at the right of the chart.

> https://i.imgur.com/meRr2qF.png

Obviously you have never seen the plethora of crap science books people put out. The Secret Lives of Plants The Atlantis Enigma I mean the list goes on and on. Let's just agree that both sections can be equally horrible.

If this interests you, check out the Book [The Secret Life of Plants] (http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Plants-Peter-Tompkins/dp/0060915870)

Loads of them actually. One of them being - The Secret Life Of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird