Law of One

[baronaatista]

'Grover Cleveland "Cleve" Backster, Jr. (February 27, 1924 – June 24, 2013) was an interrogation specialist for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), best known for his experiments with plants using a polygraph instrument in the 1960s which led to his theory of "primary perception" where he claimed that plants "feel pain" and have extrasensory perception (ESP), which was widely reported in the media but was rejected by the scientific community.'

- the quickest internet search ever, Wikipedia.

.... he 'proved' that plants can be self aware?

 

 

 

Primary perception

Findings

Backster's study of plants began in the 1960s, and he reported observing that a polygraph instrument attached to a plant leaf registered a change in electrical resistance when the plant was harmed or even threatened with harm. His work was inspired by the research of physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose, who claimed to have discovered that playing certain kinds of music in the area where plants grew caused them to grow faster.[9] Bose used a crescograph to measure plant response to various stimuli and demonstrated feeling in plants. From the analysis of the variation of the cell membrane potential of plants under different circumstances, he hypothesized that plants can "feel pain, understand affection etc" and wrote two books about it in 1902 and 1926.

In February 1966, Backster attached polygraph electrodes to a Dracaena cane plant, to measure at first the time taken for water to reach the leaves. The electrodes are used to measure galvanic skin response and the plant showed readings which resembled that of a human. This made Backster try different scenarios, and the readings went off the chart when he pictured burning the leaf, because according to him, the plant registered a stress response to his thoughts of harming it.[10] He conducted another similar experiment where he observed a plant's response to the death of a brine shrimp in another room; his results convinced him that plants demonstrated telepathic awareness. He argued that plants perceived human intentions, and as he began to investigate further, he also reported finding that other human thoughts and emotions caused reactions in plants, which could be recorded by a polygraph instrument. He termed the plants' sensitivity to thoughts "Primary Perception", and published his findings from the experiments in the International Journal of Parapsychology in 1968.[11] Soviet scientists invited Backster to the first Psychotronic Association conference in Prague in 1973 and his paper was entitled "Evidence of Primary Perception at a Cellular Level in Plant and Animal Life".[12] After 1973, he further experimented on yoghurt bacteria, eggs and human sperm and he claimed his results showed "primary perception" could be measured in all living things.[10]

 

Reactions by the scientific community

Controlled experiments that have attempted to replicate Backster's findings have failed,[13][14][15] and the theory was not accepted since it did not follow the scientific method.[10][16] At the 141st annual meeting of American Association for the Advancement of Science, the panel of biologists found the claim unsupportable. The results seemed to be spontaneous; repeatability is still a problem, for him and the people who tried to perform his experiment. His lack of control experiments were criticized and explanations, such as that the polygraphs were responding to static electricity build-up and humidity changes, were put forward. The reliability of the polygraph test itself has been questioned.[10] Plants have cellulose cell walls but do not possess sensory organs, which rules out the possibility of plants having ESP or consciousness.[3]

Biologist Arthur Galston told St. Petersburg Times, "We know plants don't have nervous systems. But they do have little electrical currents flowing through them and are subject to outside manipulation." He further said that plants can show altered electrical responses to light, chemical agents and disease but he "draws the line" to the claim of them "responding to human thoughts and events, including life elimination."[16][17] Scientists at the Cornell University and the Science Unlimited Research Foundation, San Antonio, Texas, could not find results that supported Backster's findings in the experiment, where the death of brine shrimp caused electrical voltage changes in the leaves of a plant in another room. Backster explained that they did not follow the exact laboratory techniques which he had used to perform the original experiments and he has not attempted to repeat them himself.[16]

 

Science - actual science has very stringent requirements for what is considered proof, or even evidence. These people take extremely questionable studies, call them science and then draw conclusions about the nature of reality from them.  Again, nothing wrong with appreciating the material.  It's just not science, not in any way, not even close.

Edited April 8, 2017 by baronaatista

[dreadflopp]

Fun discussion, I love the STEP forums. I don't have much to add, I'm an atheist in the sense that I have never seen anything that even indicates that supernatural beings or creators exists and I can therefore not believe in them. But, this discussion reminds me so much of this awesome song, which is why I had to jump in and post it:

Sorry for being a little off topic.
  Edited April 8, 2017 by dreadflopp

[TechAngel85]

Yes, David is clear that a lot of the science from the scientist he talks about is not widely accepted in the scientific community or has been surprised by governments and later released via the Freedom of Information Act. He's very clear some of it is not "popular" or " mainstream" science, but doesn't refute the data simply because the community doesn't pick it up. Most, if not all, of the data he presents has been gathered from within controlled scientific settings. Some of the information he presents is from very reputable scientists in the community who didn't reveal they were the source of the information until they were retired or their tenures were up out of fear from losing their reputations by publishing "fringe science" during their careers.

 

Wikipedia is about the worse resource you can pull information from. My college professors wouldn't even allow citations from it when doing research. Seriously... Allow me to make the point...

• 13, 14, and 15 don't even have links for you to follow up and check the information.
• 13 (and 14 I believe) is addressed by David by showing they did not follow the same methods as Backster so their results would obviously be different (bad science by not following Backster's methods).
• 10 and 16 for disclaiming scientific method are from news articles on The Guardian and St. Petersburg Times which contains no citations for their sources...you're going to use news articles to back up claims that scientific methods weren't followed?
• 3 cites a "skeptics dictionary" written by an author with no scientific background.
• In fact, the majority of the "Reactions by the scientific community" section came from those news articles, not from independent scientific studies.

I think the point is made. Don't use wikipedia for citing information and make sure the information that is cited can be followed up on and fact checked from reliable sources.

[baronaatista]

I went to college too dude, and I'm well aware of Wikipedia's issues as a source.

However.

 

13 cites

 Kenneth Horowitz, Donald Lewis and Edgar Gasteiger. (1975). Plant Primary Perception: Electrophysiological Unresponsiveness to Brine Shrimp Killing. Science, 189. pp. 478-480.

This report was published in the journal Science, one of the worlds top science journals... it was published in 1975, no it's not likely to have a direct link.  But if I was in college I would have access to a database, and I guarantee you I could pull up this article.

 

...It was 'addressed by David', was it?  I'm betting not in Science magazine, or any other properly academic peer-reviewed journal, because it would take specific experiments with specific circumstances, and reproducible results in order to actually 'be addressed'.  

[baronaatista]

The point is, if any of this were properly scientific, that would mean proper experiments have been done that would properly show the results.  And those experiments would and could be conducted by other groups who would find the same or at least highly similar results.  And then you publish a paper, allow the peer-review system to work, and if it all checks out then you can begin to build theories and do further experimentation to bore them out.

[Mator]

Wikipedia is about the worse resource you can pull information from. My college professors wouldn't even allow citations from it when doing research.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it cites other information sources.  The article about Cleve Backster cites 19 sources.

 

Including a mythbusters episode.

Edited April 8, 2017 by Mator

[Mator]

Also, you may be interested in actual science that shows how plants conduct electricity and produce electric fields.  Conducting electricity or displaying an electrical response to certain events does not imply the plants have feelings.  Rather, it implies the electric potential in the plant can be influenced in certain circumstances.

 

https://www.livescience.com/5711-electricity-harvested-trees.html

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/30/479804121/bumblebees-little-hairs-can-sense-flowers-electric-fields

Edited April 8, 2017 by Mator

[baronaatista]

It really is important to understand the difference here.  I must admit I find it somewhat odd in that STEP actually embraces some of these exact principles, for these exact reasons;

 

As an example, the mod Crash Fixes.

To my knowledge, this has not yet been accepted into STEP.  From when I was last reading the thread, the reasoning was essentially "while there have been numerous reports in the community about the effectiveness and safety of the mod, we have been fooled in the past and we'll wait for further corroboration before incorporating it".  Now I'm not suggesting this is a proper scientific experiment or any individuals testimony could even be used properly as scientific evidence.  However it does embrace the same principles for the same reasons;  It is recognized our understanding of the subject matter has limits, and as such the cause and effect mapping is not perfectly clear, so we want to be cautious about simply adopting this new thing until we have better information.

 

This is the exact reason that it can be so difficult to get science accepted by the scientific community.  We want to be sure of this new information before we go building our lives around it, or structures / theories on top of it.  

 

*EDIT*

You clearly recognize the value in this thinking when it comes to STEP.  The scientific method is a precise tool for doing this exact work in the real world, where the consequences of being wrong on these subjects can be much greater, and the amount of unkowns and complicating factors is much greater - thus, the work is more difficult, and the burden of proof much greater.

Edited April 8, 2017 by baronaatista

[TechAngel85]

To be sure of this, I went back and watched the Backster episodes.

 

Backster's Method

Since the focus seems to be Backster's method with the plant reaction to the death of other biological life, this experiment entailed "random and unexpected" death with no other life present for the experiment, thus removing the possibility of human or other life interference in the experiment. When he did the shrimp test he set up his test to be completely random and set to to perform overnight while no life was present in the building but the plants and the shrimp. This part of the protocol was important because Backster found if there was other life present the plants didn't really react because they "weren't concerned about the shrimp". Other scientists performing this test did not follow this the protocol of the experiment and were present while the experiments were taking place. This includes the  Mythbusters tests but there were other issue I found when watching that episode too (though they did reproduce the results of harming the plant via both physically harming the plant and mentally thinking of harming the plant).

 

By definition the protocols of the experiment must be followed to validation or invalidate the results. This is why I am dismissing citations 13 and 14. Anyone that wishes to argue against, I encourage to do the research themselves or watch the presentation provided by David before poking holes (I can gift the video that covers some of this data for anyone to watch...I think. I've never used their gifting feature so I'm not sure how it works). I will freely admit that I rarely fact check David because the way he presents the data is by laying it all on the table via slides of the actual data for you to see and validate on your own. When possible he also provides the links to the information for you to go and fact check it yourself in the event you don't follow what he is saying.

 

I don't follow your latest post, though, and am not connecting the dots of how any of this is connected to STEP's acceptance of mods. This is the Banter Inn thread of which is provided for discussion of any random topics the community wishes to discuss upon. It can your pub to have some friendly chatting or your lecture hall to have intellectual debates. Do not consider anything in the Banter Inn as connected to any way to STEP processes. The staff shouldn't have to put up a disclaimer up every time we discuss something in this forum. Discussions herein are our personal views and in no way reflect upon STEP.

 

To address Crash Fixes, which is off topic, mods of this nature are installed by the staff and ran with them installed for longer periods of time than your typical mod to attempt to weed out any potential issues with the STEP set of mods. I've had the mod install for months and am 100% confident it will be accepted for STEP inclusion. It should also be noted that STEP is going through some pretty big changes behind the scenes so work on the Guides is not a priority, atm.

 

 

@Mator

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia from the public masses, but that doesn't mean the sources it cites are reliable (and I realize you didn't say that they were, but that was the point I was making). In this case, I wouldn't deem them reliable in the slightest besides possibly three or four of the 19 which be be followed up on and fact checked independently. I'm sure you brought it up for amusement, but I really don't consider Mythbusters a reliable source for anything but entertainment. Though I did go watch the episode to do my own fact checking and they did reproduce some of the results, but dismissed them later because they couldn't reproduce them in other (different) scenarios such as their egg drop. Of which, their egg drop was a joke because it was suppose to be into boiling water. You can clearly see in the episode there is no boil on that water. It's just plain water they're dropping them into. Again, Backster's protocols weren't followed, but it's just a TV show for entertainment.

[baronaatista]

... I really wasn't trying to talk about Crash Fixes and STEP, I was attempting to show how that situation is similar to the situation that occurs in research, for similar reasons.

 

If it's possible to reproduce his results, why haven't they been reproduced? I'm sure this is an area that would interest many scientists, as well as the general public. Why was his initial paper published in the journal of parapsychology and not in a reputable journal? Why has there been no follow-up from him or anyone else?

Why do you feel so comfortable de-bunking the one actually recognized scientific report on the issue? Do you really think you're capable of discerning the difference between methods? Why are you more trusting of a less credible source?

 

The answer; because it's not science. It's pure confirmation bias and nothing more.

[TechAngel85]

If it's possible to reproduce his results, why haven't they been reproduced? I'm sure this is an area that would interest many scientists, as well as the general public. Why was his initial paper published in the journal of parapsychology and not in a reputable journal? Why has there been no follow-up from him or anyone else?

Actually, David addresses this. Others did try to follow his work, but explains what I said above. That the protocols weren't followed correctly and due to this, Backster couldn't call his work a "theory" and was forced to call it an "effect". The scientific community is just as prone to issues as any other field. I also did mention that on the Mythbusters episode they were able to reproduce some of the results. The problem is that it seems no one has really followed the proper protocol when it came to the experiments with the shrimp. It should also be noted that Backster had a specialized clamp he used for the plants. He didn't just randomly hook up the normal clamps as it seems the other testers did.

 

As for follow ups on this type of research, you can do your own google search. If you're looking for specifics to Backster's use of the polygraph, I know of only the ones cited which I've covered extensively here already. Plant neurobiology is within the same realm of Backster's experiments and the data is stacking high that he was likely right.

 

Why do you feel so comfortable de-bunking the one actually recognized scientific report on the issue? Do you really think you're capable of discerning the difference between methods? Why are you more trusting of a less credible source?

Because the evidence is there that the "one actually recognized scientific report on the issue" wasn't done to proper scientific protocol. If it was, it wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. The fact that you're overlooking this is what concerns me considering the entirety of your point of view is following scientific methods. I would, in turn, ask why you consider Backster's methods unscientific, which you imply with your statement I have quoted. Have you read Backster's paper? If you have, what issues do you have with it to imply the process unscientific?

 

And yes, I do feel I am capable of discerning the difference between methods. I am fully capable of reading scientific publishing. :: These particular papers are not all that complicated.

 

I do grow weary of debating this one point. There is a lot of other material which could be covered and debated instead which leads more into the philosophical. Debating scientific methods was not my purpose in this topic, but I have amused you few who are posting to keep the talk going.

[baronaatista]

Agreed, growing tired of this... Perhaps one last try.

 

So your guy, Backster, who was never published in a proper peer-reviewed, credible science journal says that the experiment that was published in a credible science journal got his procedure wrong.  This report your one dude is claiming to be false was accepted by the broader scientific community - people whose entire lives are wrapped up in this pursuit - which is inherently based on attempting to disprove this very paper.  Shall we go down the list of tangible contributions to the real-world that have come out of journals such as Science or Nature?  And then compare with what's come from the Journal of Parapsychology.  I'm sorry but it's silly.  

Yes scientists get things wrong, and the process goes awry sometimes.  Which is why the process of intensive peer-review and precision of the standards by which something can be claimed to be 'true' is so important - the self-correcting mechanism.  

Which is also why its disturbing to hear you claim 'these particular papers are not all that complicated' and you see yourself apparently as a better judge of the scientific veracity of a report than... the academic peer review at its highest level?  Have you read the paper from Science?  I mean jesus man.  You can't possibly believe that.

Edited April 9, 2017 by baronaatista

[baronaatista]

I'm not trying to argue that Backsters report is wrong. I'm not anywhere near familiar enough with the material to make a definitive statement on it.
My point is that if it were properly scientific there would be multiple experiments with corroborating results. There are not. You have one guy with one paper, published a long time ago, in a questionable journal. This is not a solid basis for anything other than further research, if even that.

*EDIT*

and it certainly doesn't constitute proof of anything at all.

Edited April 9, 2017 by baronaatista

[TechAngel85]

@Baronaatista

You misinterpreted my statement about the papers not being complicated. In that statement I meant they are not hard to understand. They read easily enough that anyone which basic knowledge of science would be able to understand them. I would love nothing more than someone to properly follow all of Backster's protocols for the experiment in question; however, to date none have that I am aware of.

 

"Have you read the paper from Science?"

No, I have not read the paper from Science in its entirety (have have read Backster's since it's freely available). I have only read what was provided as evidence of protocols not followed. Nor am I willing to pay $40 for a AAAS membership to simply prove a point. I would much rather move on after pointing out that the "peer review" of this subject is only one published paper. This, as you have basically pointed out in the second post, is not much review and not enough to disprove his findings. As you say, it requires further review.

 

I will go on record to to say the usefulness of this data, if proven accurate, would not likely be very useful to anyone. I honestly can't thank of any way is could be used in society. That's the reason I have assumed the research has never gone very far. Also, Backster basically discovered this out of boredom and curiosity, is my understanding, and it picked up from there. He was never expecting to discovery the findings he did.

 

Now, I wish to move on from this. I will continue forward by posting some content from the Law of One for comment.

[TechAngel85]

Okay. There's been no replies. Time for new subject material!
 
I will simply quote some lines from the Law of One for discussion. The following covers cancers and other illnesses and the potential for self-healing. Some things for reference:

• Catalyst - in the Law of One an opportunity for growth and learning is called a catalyst. It is an event which is meant for the person to mediate/think upon, learn the lesson being provided, and grow.
• Other-self/selves - this is the Law of One's term for other people. In the Law of One, we are all one so other people are "other-selves".
• Mind/spirit/body complex - this is the Law of One's term for our complete, whole selves. The mind, spirit, and body are all connected.
• "Instrument" - the "instrument" is the one in the trance state channeling Ra.

 

Questioner: You mentioned that the thoughts of anger now are causing cancer. Can you expand on this mechanism as it acts as a catalyst or its complete purpose?

Ra: I am Ra. The fourth-density is one of revealed information. Selves are not hidden to self or other-selves. The imbalances or distortions which are of a destructive nature show, therefore, in the more obvious ways, the vehicle of the mind/spirit/body complex thus acting as a teaching resource for self revelation. These illnesses such as cancer are correspondingly very amenable to self-healing once the mechanism of the destructive influence has been grasped by the individual.
 
Questioner: Then you are saying that cancer is quite easily healed mentally and is a good teaching tool because it is easily healed mentally and once the entity forgives the other-self at whom he is angry the cancer will disappear. Is this correct?
 
Ra: I am Ra. This is partially correct. The other portion of healing has to do with forgiveness of self and a greatly heightened respect for the self. This may conveniently be expressed by taking care in dietary matters. This is quite frequently a part of the healing and forgiving process. Your basic premise is correct.
 
Questioner: In dietary matters, what would be the foods that one would include and what would be the foods that one would exclude in a general way for the greatest care of one's bodily complex?
 
Ra: I am Ra. Firstly, we underline and emphasize that this information is not to be understood literally but as a link or psychological nudge for the body and the mind and spirit. Thus it is the care and respect for the self that is the true thing of importance. In this light we may iterate the basic information given for this instrument's diet. The vegetables, the fruits, the grains, and to the extent necessary for the individual metabolism, the animal products. These are those substances showing respect for the self. In addition, though this has not been mentioned for this instrument is not in need of purification, those entities in need of purging the self of a poison thought-form or emotion complex do well in following a program of careful fasting until the destructive thought-form has been purged analogously with the by-products of ridding the physical vehicle of excess material. Again you see the value not to the body complex but used as a link for the mind and spirit. Thus self reveals self to self.

Thoughts on the material? I'm looking for a bit more open discussion than throwing a science book at it.