The Secret Life of Plants

Today I stumbled upon an article in New Yorker magazine. The title of the article is The Intelligent Plant - Scientists debate a new way of understanding flora.

The author recounts the results of studies done in the mid 1960's. The scientist that began this conversation about cognitive ability of plants was responsible for administering polygraph test. One day he was fooling around with not much to do when he attached the electrodes from his polygraph to the plant. To his amazement when he imagines the plant being set aflame, the polygraph registered a dramatic change. Needless to say the scientist was surprised, had he discovered plants were similar to humans in they exhibit feeling the way we do?

Fast forward 50 years and Movie Producer & Director James Cameron incorporates green life with mass, mind and spirit. The storyline in Cameron's movie Avatar was built around the notion the tribe and everyone in it were forever connected to "The Tree of Souls". In the Avatar story The Tree of Souls was located on Pandora, on Hallelujah Mountains near the Hometree of the Omaticaya clan.

Do plants think and feel the way do?

Those studies from the mid 1960's are the reason people talk with their plants or play Mozart for them, they do those things because they believe plants have feelings too (as per those mid 1960's experiments) and they thrive when they are engaged and showered with affection.

The article is a fascinating read. I'm attaching the link to the full New Yorker article here: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/the-intelligent-plant