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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault for an older episode

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Speaker 1: of the show. Today it is the Star Wars Alien

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Speaker 1: Necropsy Part two, originally published May six. We hope you

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Speaker 1: enjoy This facility is a mess, totally not up to

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Speaker 1: Imperial standards. He says that it's due to his haste.

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Speaker 1: He could perform tidier necropsies of the alien species requested,

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Speaker 1: but it would require more time. Lord Veda has absolutely

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Speaker 1: forbidden a third episode. The analysis needs to be completed today.

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Speaker 1: The surgical droid is requesting that we each hold a

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Speaker 1: flap of tissue. I am just here to supervise. Doesn't

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Speaker 1: he have extra arms for precisely this reason? Those are

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Speaker 1: for waving around all right? Then? My welcome to stot

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, a production of My Heart Radio. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with

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Speaker 1: part two of our Star Wars Alien Necropsys. Uh So

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Speaker 1: in the last episode. If you haven't heard that, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you should probably just go listen to that one first

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Speaker 1: where we discuss what we're doing here and then and

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Speaker 1: then come back and rejoin us for this one. But hey,

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Speaker 1: if if you're all caught up here, we are again.

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Speaker 1: And the last time we talked about some aliens from

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Speaker 1: the Star Wars galaxy. We talked about some vacuum dwellers

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Speaker 1: like the Exo Gorth and the myn Ox and compared

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Speaker 1: that to some real world biology, both both definite and hypothetical.

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Speaker 1: And we also talked about the Jedi toe Gruda, a

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Speaker 1: powerful and honorable species of alien with some with awesome

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Speaker 1: stuff on their heads. But but we're back again, and

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Speaker 1: I think it's heads up first again today, isn't it?

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Speaker 1: It is? And I'm glad as you mentioned the Togruto

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Speaker 1: because because basically it comes down to this situation where

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Speaker 1: you have various scenes in Star Wars Cantina scenes, Jedi

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Speaker 1: Council scenes, etcetera, where part of the fund is like, wow,

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Speaker 1: look at the alien diversity and look at all the

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Speaker 1: strange things going on with with morphology, with with these

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Speaker 1: aliens heads and bodies. But of course, if we're looking

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Speaker 1: at things from a biological standpoint, things are shaped certain

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Speaker 1: ways for a reason. Things have evolved into different forms

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Speaker 1: for a reason. And those strange heads you see just

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Speaker 1: filling up the space. If we were, if we were

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Speaker 1: to look at them with scientific scrutiny, and you know,

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Speaker 1: and also lean into the uh, you know two, into

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Speaker 1: the imagination, into the fantasy of that. You know, all

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Speaker 1: these things have a purpose, and and we can we

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Speaker 1: can turn, of course, to to Cannon and to the

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Speaker 1: fiction itself to get some of those answers. But then

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Speaker 1: a lot of the fun is an extrapolating and saying

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Speaker 1: what else could it be used for? Or if the

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Speaker 1: thing they're telling me is true, what are the ramifications,

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Speaker 1: often the unexplored ramifications of that right? What can you

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Speaker 1: deduce about the ancestral environment of the creature that confronts

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Speaker 1: Luke in the moss ize lye cantina with the weird

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Speaker 1: little lobes on his chin. I actually know the answer

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Speaker 1: to that one. I think that was that one has

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Speaker 1: been described in Cannon. I think it's cannon anyway as

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Speaker 1: being um like a a surgical It's like a self

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Speaker 1: surgical addict. So that so all those weird features are

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Speaker 1: at least partially the result of self surgery. I think

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Speaker 1: that's right. Could be wrong on that. We might have

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Speaker 1: to take that out if I'm wrong, but but I

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Speaker 1: believe that's the case. That is not the answer I expect. Wait,

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Speaker 1: are you talking about the guy who talks to Luke

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Speaker 1: or just the guy who grunt? No, I meant the

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Speaker 1: guy who grunts at him, who has the weird little

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Speaker 1: kind of like the butt on his mouth or chin area. Yes, um,

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Speaker 1: I don't know as much about those guys, but but

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Speaker 1: they are. They are described at length in some of

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Speaker 1: the books that, uh, that I've looked at. One of

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Speaker 1: which I want to go ahead and mention is Star

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Speaker 1: Wars Alien Archive, which is just a wonderful illustrated tone

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Speaker 1: of Aliens from all I think, all the Star Wars

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Speaker 1: movies up through Solo, and it had just wonderful illustrations,

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Speaker 1: nice little rite ups about them. It's one of these

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Speaker 1: books that, um, that I got from my my son

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Speaker 1: sometime last year early last year, and we've already like

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Speaker 1: worn it out, their pages falling out of it. You know,

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Speaker 1: anytime you get the book out, you have to like

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Speaker 1: reinsert different parts of it that have come come apart.

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Speaker 1: It's a it's seen a lot of a lot of

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Speaker 1: wear and tear and love, so I highly recommend that one. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think we've talked too many times before about our

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Speaker 1: our love for the illustrated encyclopedias of fictional worlds, and

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Speaker 1: and this is a great one. But the the first

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Speaker 1: selection I want to make here today is Um is

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Speaker 1: not a creature from a cantina. It is that, in fact,

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Speaker 1: a creature from UH that we first encounter in the

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Speaker 1: Jedi Council scenes in UH Star Wars The Phantom Menace. Now,

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember these these guys are

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Speaker 1: not are really there's mainly one that we encounter, but

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Speaker 1: the species they're known as the Serians. Oh, this is

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Speaker 1: the guy who looks like a wizard but with a

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Speaker 1: tower head. So it's almost as if the Tower of

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Speaker 1: Eisngard has been incorporated into Sorrowman's skull. Yes, these uh

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Speaker 1: these were a bipedal largely humanoid species were told their

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Speaker 1: native to the planet Syria, and they're most notable for

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Speaker 1: their enlarged, vaguely conical craniums, though they lack the pronounced

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Speaker 1: cone heads of the Remulachians of cone Head's fame. Um

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Speaker 1: we're told that they have two hearts, the second of

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Speaker 1: which is said to supply extra blood and oxygen to

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Speaker 1: their most curious uh neurobiology. And that is a binary brain.

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Speaker 1: Oh okay, I can see why this caught your attention. Yes,

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Speaker 1: So what is meant by a binary brain? Well? In

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Speaker 1: uh again the excellent illustrated Star Wars Alien Archive, it

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Speaker 1: is said that the Syrian binary brain is quote able

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Speaker 1: to process many things the same time, sort through data quickly,

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Speaker 1: and also consider two sides of the same arguments simultaneously

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Speaker 1: parallel processing. Yeah, and it's also been suggested I think

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Speaker 1: in perhaps this is like an extended universe, you know,

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Speaker 1: novelization thing. But it's been suggested that this sort of

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Speaker 1: brain structure allows at least certain members of of of

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Speaker 1: the Syrian species, especially like four sensitive individuals, to explore

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Speaker 1: both the light and the dark side of the force

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Speaker 1: in ways that are maybe somewhat safer compared to just

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Speaker 1: normal dabbling in the dark side. Oh. I see. So

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Speaker 1: the understanding is that normally, if you are to explore

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Speaker 1: the dark side, it's kind of not possible to just

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Speaker 1: do that as a curiosity like learning the dark side

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Speaker 1: necessarily will corrupt and contaminate your brain. And so if

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Speaker 1: you have a divided mind like this, maybe you can

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Speaker 1: sort of quarantine the half of your brain that does

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Speaker 1: get corrupted with that so that it doesn't spread to

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Speaker 1: the other half. Is that what you're saying? That is what?

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Speaker 1: That is what I've leaeve The argument is I haven't

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Speaker 1: actually read anything um or viewed anything where they get

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Speaker 1: into that, but certainly if anyone out there has, if

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Speaker 1: you're familiar with with whatever novelization or or novel or

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Speaker 1: comic this happens to be from, I'd love to hear

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Speaker 1: a little bit more. Now. The most famous and recognizable

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Speaker 1: Serian is, without a doubt, Jedi Master Kai Adimundi, hero

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Speaker 1: general of the Clone Wars who fought alongside the likes

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Speaker 1: of Anakin, Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi. He fought at

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Speaker 1: the first and second battles of Genosis and perished during

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Speaker 1: the invasion of the Ghetto with the twenty one Novocore

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Speaker 1: when Supreme Chancellor Palpatine initiated Order sixty six. He's skilled

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Speaker 1: with a lightsaber. He was a skilled force combatant, but

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Speaker 1: he was equally known and respected for his logic and

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Speaker 1: tactics that big brain of his Yeah, that would make sense.

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Speaker 1: I seem to recall his death scene. I think it's

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Speaker 1: in Revenge of the Sith. He's like running across a

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Speaker 1: is it across a bridge or something? Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: it's a bridge battle and all the Clone Troopers start

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Speaker 1: shooting him in the back. Yeah. Yeah, so so he

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Speaker 1: track definitely goes down. But so you don't see a

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Speaker 1: lot of him in the live action stuff, but um

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Speaker 1: and in those prequel films, he was played by an

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Speaker 1: actor by the name of Silas Carson under heavy um

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Speaker 1: effects makeup. But in the Clone Wars animated series, the

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Speaker 1: main one, he was voiced by British Israeli actor Brian George,

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Speaker 1: who does a great job with him, and they have

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Speaker 1: a little more time to flesh him out. And in

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Speaker 1: the two thousand three Clone Wars series from Ghindi Tartakowski,

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Speaker 1: you don't have um, you don't really have a lot

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Speaker 1: of character development there, but you have a lot of action.

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Speaker 1: That's a very action centric series. And in that um

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Speaker 1: Master Mundi is an absolute shirt ripping beast, Like he's

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Speaker 1: running around with head bandaged and his shirt torn open,

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Speaker 1: with all these muscles and he's just like you know,

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Speaker 1: killing the thousands of droids. It's it's pretty fun. So

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Speaker 1: he's like your Hunter from the Future mode. Yeah, just slaying.

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Speaker 1: But you know, okay, it's impressive that he can do

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Speaker 1: stuff with the lightsaber and then he can go into

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Speaker 1: beast mode. But the main thing we're gonna talk about

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Speaker 1: here is this idea of a binary brain. And as

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Speaker 1: far as I know, there's no definitive word on the

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Speaker 1: exact structure of the Syrian brain or brains, but I

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Speaker 1: think there are essentially a couple of ways to look

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Speaker 1: at what might be going on inside that skull of theirs. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's let's hear it. What's the first option? Okay, first

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Speaker 1: option would be just, of course, a supersized brain that

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Speaker 1: enables this binary mental process, composed of two lobes like ours,

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Speaker 1: or maybe more lobes. I don't know, you know, when

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Speaker 1: you're getting into an unknown alien brain, who's to say, right,

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Speaker 1: And Syrian brain evolution could certainly follow the ice cream

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Speaker 1: scoop model of human brain evolution. I think we've discussed

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Speaker 1: this in the show before. But as explained by Kyle

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Speaker 1: Moon Kittrick in a two thousand ten Discover Magazine article,

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Speaker 1: quote evolution built our brain by taking simpler brains and

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Speaker 1: just piling more brains on top, like adding scoops of

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Speaker 1: ice cream to an ice cream cone. Yeah. I think

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Speaker 1: that's a good way of thinking about it. I mean, obviously,

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Speaker 1: we always want to be careful not to oversimplify the

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Speaker 1: way we think about the structures of the brain, because

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Speaker 1: brains are complex and and all that, But in rough terms,

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Speaker 1: I think that is sort of true. Like at the

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Speaker 1: lower levels of the brain you have um the more

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Speaker 1: sort of automatic processes of the body, and the more

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Speaker 1: base level things like emotional type reactions. And then when

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Speaker 1: you get further and further into the younger parts of

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Speaker 1: the brain, younger in an evolutionary sense, towards the top

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Speaker 1: and front of the brain, you get these you know,

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Speaker 1: these core texes, which are very involved in executive function

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Speaker 1: and a lot of the things we think of as

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Speaker 1: higher level thinking and behavior. Yeah, Son Gentric describes like

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Speaker 1: the first the first layer is actually the cone, and

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Speaker 1: that's the nervous jellyfish cone. And then you get your

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Speaker 1: instinctive lizard scoop pile on top of that, then the

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Speaker 1: memory mouse scoop, then the thinking, the thinking ape scoop

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Speaker 1: on top of that. So each layer brings with it

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Speaker 1: great pros that enable the human brain to funct and evolved,

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Speaker 1: but also arguably certain cons. And that's one of the

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Speaker 1: things they get into in this article. But for our purposes, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think you could look at these arian the brain

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Speaker 1: as essentially a human level brain with additional scoops cowering

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Speaker 1: atop the rest of the cone, enabling this vastly increased functionality.

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Speaker 1: Now you might think, well, what would the cons of

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Speaker 1: having higher brain function be? And I would just say, like,

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Speaker 1: I'm not aware of any reptiles that really get bogged

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Speaker 1: down in rumination. Yeah, yeah, um, and I and I

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Speaker 1: really hope certainly a Jedi master wouldn't have Like a

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Speaker 1: Jedi masters have to deal with the dark side too.

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Speaker 1: I mean that's kind of the thing, right, Like higher

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Speaker 1: cognition means you're open to the dark set. Correct me

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Speaker 1: if I'm wrong. But I seem to recall in the

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Speaker 1: prequels that a lot of Jedi training is about purging emotions,

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Speaker 1: or at least certain kinds of emotions, maybe not to

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Speaker 1: the full Spock extent, but at least like not letting

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Speaker 1: impulsive emotional reactions guide you're thinking to be clear and

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Speaker 1: to be you know, to to be able to use

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Speaker 1: was clear thinking in your mind when when our our

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Speaker 1: natural tendency would be to get hot headed, right uh. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And then there's a lot of Buddhist uh uh Buddhism

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Speaker 1: in there as well, dealing with like the idea of

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Speaker 1: avoiding attachments and all. So we see that doesn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: work out all that well for those who aspire to it,

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Speaker 1: right in those films. But but even like in terms

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Speaker 1: of like confronting the dark side though, like that's always

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Speaker 1: been a part of the uh of the of the

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Speaker 1: Star Wars world, I mean, back the Empire. When Luke

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Speaker 1: goes into that swamp and he's completing his training, like

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Speaker 1: one of the things he does is the encounters that

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Speaker 1: that vision of of Darth Vader that is also a

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Speaker 1: vision of himself, right, I mean, I think we're supposed

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Speaker 1: to take that as like Luke is being confronted by

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Speaker 1: the possibility of what would happen if he himself were

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Speaker 1: seduced by the dark Side, which of course he does.

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Speaker 1: He does play pretty dangerous in the movies, right, he

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Speaker 1: gets close. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, that's Basically, this is like

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Speaker 1: one idea of looking at this big just one big

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Speaker 1: brain in there, so it's like built up level by level,

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Speaker 1: and maybe the additional brains are are something like what

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Speaker 1: you would put even on top of our neo cortex.

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Speaker 1: Maybe like they've got like a neo neo cortex or something. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: now another interpretation, and I think a more exotic one

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Speaker 1: and also maybe maybe more fun, maybe more sci fi fantasy,

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Speaker 1: but also one that I think I've seen visually represented somewhere.

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Speaker 1: I tried to hunt it down to see if I

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Speaker 1: get because I would have put it in our inside

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Speaker 1: of our notes if I could, but I couldn't find it.

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Speaker 1: But I think I've seen this represented visibly. And that

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Speaker 1: is the idea that Serian's actually have two brains inside

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Speaker 1: their skull, one positioned right on top of the other,

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Speaker 1: just straight up two brains inside their heads. So that

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Speaker 1: means one of the brains is closer to the heart.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that makes it easier to get blood flow to

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Speaker 1: that one. Well, that's why they have two hearts, Joe.

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Speaker 1: So the idea is that that second heart is I

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Speaker 1: guess powering the second brain or enabling just enough blood

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Speaker 1: flow to get up there to to work with both brains. Um.

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Speaker 1: So I want to stress I'm not talking two brains

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Speaker 1: here in the sense that the human brain consists of

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Speaker 1: two hemispheres connected by the corpus colalsum, but two separate brains,

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Speaker 1: perhaps each consisting of two hemispheres each. And uh, I

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Speaker 1: should also add that that some descriptions refer to Syrian

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Speaker 1: brains in a way that does seem to indicate two brains.

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Speaker 1: And again, they do have two hard so I guess

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Speaker 1: the duplicity seems to to work out here. So of

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Speaker 1: these two I tend to lean more towards the actual

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Speaker 1: two brains inside their their heads. Uh. So, I guess

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Speaker 1: another you could do a third option that would be

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Speaker 1: a variation on idea number two, and that would be

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Speaker 1: that they just have a very large humanoid brain, but

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Speaker 1: the hemispheres are not connected by something like the corpus colossum.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, that's very interesting. I want to say some things,

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Speaker 1: but I also don't want to preempt you because I

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Speaker 1: know you're going to get into talking about split brain

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Speaker 1: experiments here. Oh yeah, okay, but yeah, so the corpus colosum,

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Speaker 1: at least we know in the human brain enables a

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Speaker 1: large amount of community cation between the hemispheres, and in

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Speaker 1: cases where the corpus colossum in humans has been severed,

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Speaker 1: often a person can still live their life, like you

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Speaker 1: can function with your brain hemispheres severed, and you can

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Speaker 1: do things, but there are some very noticeable changes to

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Speaker 1: how the brain or brains react to certain types of

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Speaker 1: stimuli and scenarios under that condition. Yeah, yeah, when the

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Speaker 1: colossum has been severed. And then when you have like

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Speaker 1: often it's you have to have certain experimental scenarios in

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Speaker 1: place to make it become obvious because otherwise the individual

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Speaker 1: doesn't notice and people who know them probably don't notice.

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Speaker 1: But but we'll get out into all that in a second. Now,

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of different directions you could go

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Speaker 1: in here, like why, I mean, the big one is

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Speaker 1: like why would they go in this direction? First of all,

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Speaker 1: would it be natural? Would it be just an evolution

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Speaker 1: or would it be something that was engineered? And in

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Speaker 1: either case, like why would it have to do with uh,

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Speaker 1: like higher why would they need this? Like higher cognitive

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Speaker 1: state would have something to do with, you know, being

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Speaker 1: an interstellar species, or something to do with their their

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Speaker 1: home environment. I don't know. Well, I mean it makes

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Speaker 1: me think about how there are species on Earth that

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Speaker 1: have a more distributed model of intelligence and nervous system control.

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Speaker 1: And a great example would be octopuses, you know, like

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Speaker 1: the octopus of course, like they've got a central brain,

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Speaker 1: but then they have ganglia throughout the body that are

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Speaker 1: sometimes written about, and you could argue to what extent

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Speaker 1: this is a fair characterization, but they you could argue

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Speaker 1: that octopuses in some ways also think with their arms

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Speaker 1: in ways that are independent of the thinking that takes

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Speaker 1: place in the centralized brain. So you can imagine there

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Speaker 1: are scenarios where it's useful for an animal to have

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Speaker 1: thinking or information processing happening at multiple different places within

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Speaker 1: the body. But the Syrian seems kind of different because

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Speaker 1: you can imagine with the octopus, Okay, maybe somehow the

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Speaker 1: arm needs to think independently of the central brain, but

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Speaker 1: this is too central role brains, two brains in the head,

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Speaker 1: So what's the what's like the second one doing differently?

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Speaker 1: How would that be distributed in a way that would

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Speaker 1: be useful like the octopus's arm. Yeah, and and so

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Speaker 1: in thinking about possibilities, and you know, we also come

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Speaker 1: into ideas of that, like a philosophical or spiritual upgrades

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Speaker 1: to the brain. I mean, why not if we're trying

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Speaker 1: to determine where we go from here. I mean, it

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Speaker 1: seems like that's worth thinking about. I should also just

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Speaker 1: go ahead and add that obviously, big headed aliens is

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Speaker 1: just a long, a longstanding trope, you know, going back

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Speaker 1: to the outer limits and so forth. So, uh, it's

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Speaker 1: not like they invented the idea of big headed aliens

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Speaker 1: and big headed future humanoids. It's been pretty much standard. Um.

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Speaker 1: But but I don't know that I have I'm sure

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Speaker 1: there's some sci fi out there predating this in which

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Speaker 1: a human had to brain or humanoid had two brains,

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Speaker 1: aside from Steve Martin, but yeah, but I'm not I'm

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Speaker 1: not aware of it off the top of my head.

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Speaker 1: But but a lot of these considerations, like when we're

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Speaker 1: talking about what, you know, what does this mean? What

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Speaker 1: would two brains be like? I mean, it basically comes

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Speaker 1: down to to that, what would it be like to

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Speaker 1: have two brains? What would it conceive? What would conceivably

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Speaker 1: be the mental state of an individual like Master Moondy

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Speaker 1: here with two brains in their head? Ah? So now,

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Speaker 1: you're getting into subjective experience. And this of course touches

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Speaker 1: on really big questions that are still unsettled in in

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Speaker 1: in human science and philosophy, stuff about like where consciousness

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Speaker 1: resides and what it consists of. Yeah, yeah, and ultimately, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is going to be unanswerable and we just have

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Speaker 1: to sort of speculate and have fun with the speculation.

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Speaker 1: But on one level, you have to say that, ultimately

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Speaker 1: the mind of alien being might just be impossible for

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Speaker 1: us to comprehend. It just might be that different. On

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Speaker 1: the other hand, you could say, well, having two brains

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Speaker 1: in your head like this, it would just be like

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Speaker 1: our mental experience. Because, as we alluded to earlier, the

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Speaker 1: human brain consists of two cerebral hemispheres connected by the

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Speaker 1: corpus um closum, each with many different modules, all of

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Speaker 1: these acting and consert with each other, interconnected, and we

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Speaker 1: explored this at length in our episodes on split brain

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Speaker 1: experiments UM and and of those experiments, most interestingly, one

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Speaker 1: of the big takems was if is that indeed, if

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Speaker 1: you split the brain, you essentially split the person as well. Um,

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Speaker 1: we're talking one person per hemisphere of the brain, a

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Speaker 1: division of self not one that is obvious to the

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Speaker 1: individual or too people around them, but again presents itself

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Speaker 1: when revealed through various experiments, particularly the Nobel winning work

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Speaker 1: of neuroscientists Roger Sperry and Michael Gazanaga in the sixties

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Speaker 1: and seventies. And so we go into much more depth

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Speaker 1: than in that pair of episodes from I think it

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Speaker 1: was a couple of years ago now, so you can

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Speaker 1: go look those up if you want the full scoop.

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Speaker 1: But they did find some very interesting things that I

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Speaker 1: will say, Um, we also talked in that episode, I

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Speaker 1: think about how there has been some research in recent

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Speaker 1: years that sort of challenge their original findings, but people

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Speaker 1: have pushed back against that research too, so it seems like,

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Speaker 1: you know, this is one of the many things in

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Speaker 1: in psychology and neuroscience that's still an ongoing question. But

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Speaker 1: at least what they appeared to find is that you can,

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Speaker 1: for example, in a patient who has had their hemisphere

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Speaker 1: severed through this radical UH severing of the corpus closum,

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Speaker 1: which is done not for the purpose of the experiment,

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Speaker 1: but it's done specifically for people with really UH treatment

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Speaker 1: resistant epilepsy to prevent them from having these recurring terrible seizures.

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Speaker 1: Uh that you can sever the corpus closum, a person

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Speaker 1: still reports being able to live their life generally like,

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Speaker 1: it is not a debilitating thing to do to the brain,

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Speaker 1: but it causes these strange things where, for example, it

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Speaker 1: seems that some amount of information is prevented from being

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Speaker 1: shared fully between the two different parts of the brain.

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Speaker 1: And so, for example, it is widely uh that in

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Speaker 1: in most brains, it is the left hemisphere that seems

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Speaker 1: to do the talking, like the language interactions with the

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Speaker 1: outside world. And so you can present stimuli that are

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Speaker 1: only within the sensory awareness of the right hemisphere of

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Speaker 1: the brain, say by presenting it in a certain part

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Speaker 1: of the visual field. And so the parts of the

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Speaker 1: body controlled primarily by the right hemisphere of the brain

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Speaker 1: can do things that seem to reflect knowledge of the

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Speaker 1: stimulus that you have showed that hemisphere of the brain,

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Speaker 1: but the person can't talk about that knowledge. They don't

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Speaker 1: seem to have linguistic awareness of it, which is extremely weird. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And and at times it kind of comes off as

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Speaker 1: a sort of subtle duality of self. Some of the

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Speaker 1: most interesting ideas that come come out of it because

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Speaker 1: Anaga wraps up in his interpreter theory, which which again

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Speaker 1: we've discussed on the show, in which the the left

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Speaker 1: brain hemisphere contains some function that he calls the interpreter,

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Speaker 1: which creates a sense of self, even if it is

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Speaker 1: a completely false sense by coming up with a post

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Speaker 1: talk explanation for behaviors. Yeah, that that there's this function

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Speaker 1: that's largely seated within the left hemisphere that sort of

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Speaker 1: tells the narrative story to your own brain, that explains

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Speaker 1: why you're doing what you're doing. It creates that moment

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Speaker 1: to moment stream of consciousness that helps you understand your

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Speaker 1: own behavior, even though it seems a lot of your

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Speaker 1: own behavior is caused by things that are not actually

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Speaker 1: within your awareness. It doesn't, it doesn't. It's not downstream

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Speaker 1: from your consciousness, but upstream from your consciousness. Now I

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Speaker 1: should also throw in that in there. They did experiment

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Speaker 1: with animals as well, and um, you know there are

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Speaker 1: limitations when you're looking at animal brains and you know,

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Speaker 1: trying to compare it to human brains. But but they

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Speaker 1: found that if they produced a split brain in some

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Speaker 1: of these animals. Uh. First of all, of course, each

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Speaker 1: side seemed to function independently the other, but also that

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Speaker 1: an animal with a split brain could memorize double the information.

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Speaker 1: Uh So that basic idea again, we could at least

428
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:50,360
Speaker 1: when talking about Star Wars, we could extrapolate to say, well,

429
00:22:50,359 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 1: maybe if you did have two independent brains in your head, yeah,

430
00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:57,119
Speaker 1: maybe you could process and contain double the information. So

431
00:22:57,200 --> 00:22:59,680
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. But I'm also really interested in this

432
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:02,359
Speaker 1: idea of exploring both sides of the force with the

433
00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:05,639
Speaker 1: brain like this that you mentioned earlier. Yeah. Yeah, So

434
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:08,440
Speaker 1: with that in mind, let's consider a couple of take comes.

435
00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:10,399
Speaker 1: And again we're kind of cherry picking here, but a

436
00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:13,800
Speaker 1: couple of take comes from the split brain research that

437
00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 1: Kazanga put forth. First of all, the interpreter function of

438
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:20,520
Speaker 1: the left brain makes it more makes it more likely

439
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:24,800
Speaker 1: to distort recall of events, and that the non interpreting,

440
00:23:25,119 --> 00:23:29,160
Speaker 1: non explaining right brain has a more accurate recall function.

441
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:32,920
Speaker 1: So it's not telling itself a story to post talk

442
00:23:33,040 --> 00:23:37,000
Speaker 1: rationalize whatever is, it's experiencing. It's logging information in a

443
00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:40,639
Speaker 1: more objective sense. Yeah, like one side is telling a story,

444
00:23:41,119 --> 00:23:43,760
Speaker 1: crafting a story, and retelling a story. On the other

445
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:48,000
Speaker 1: side is is recalling events, saying what happened. Also, the

446
00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:51,720
Speaker 1: left and right hemispheres have different problem solving approaches. The

447
00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:56,560
Speaker 1: right hemisphere bases its judgments on simple frequency information, while

448
00:23:56,600 --> 00:24:00,320
Speaker 1: the left relies on the formation of elaborate HYPOTHESI sees.

449
00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:03,600
Speaker 1: So that this makes me wonder like which side would

450
00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:06,840
Speaker 1: lean dark side? Because you know that the left is

451
00:24:06,880 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 1: again partial to distorted recall, the very sort of distortion

452
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:12,800
Speaker 1: that we see in the fall of say Anakin Skywalker,

453
00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:15,760
Speaker 1: but it also relies on uh, you know, those the

454
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 1: idea of elaborate hypotheses, which again matches up with some

455
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:22,960
Speaker 1: of some of Skywalker's inner torment or or you know,

456
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:26,160
Speaker 1: as well as the expressed worldview of of his master

457
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:29,199
Speaker 1: dark city a simper of Palpatine, right, uh and and

458
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:32,159
Speaker 1: perhaps the light you know, the right side of the force,

459
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:35,359
Speaker 1: the side of the brain here is more about simple

460
00:24:35,440 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 1: frequency information and accurate recall. So instead of the distorted

461
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:42,359
Speaker 1: worldview like this is the world as it is, like

462
00:24:42,600 --> 00:24:46,359
Speaker 1: a more logical approach to reality. So if there is

463
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:49,879
Speaker 1: anything to interpreter theory, it seems to me pretty clear

464
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 1: that it would be the left side that's the dark side, right,

465
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:54,320
Speaker 1: because what's the Dark Side. Do the Dark Side you

466
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:57,640
Speaker 1: tell a story in which your actions are justified because

467
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:00,080
Speaker 1: of some reason. Right, well, I had to do it

468
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:03,080
Speaker 1: because I had to save pad May, right right where

469
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 1: the logical side is like, no, you're just like strayed

470
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:08,879
Speaker 1: up killing people. Uh. But then again, you know, what

471
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 1: would darth Citius say to all this? What would would

472
00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:14,400
Speaker 1: Palpatine say? And I think he might well argue that

473
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:17,720
Speaker 1: it's only through mental gymnastics that we arrive at the

474
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:22,600
Speaker 1: Jedi way, that the Jedi exists because they're telling this themselves,

475
00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 1: the story and over and over again. They're creating their

476
00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:28,920
Speaker 1: own mythology to rationalize their tyranny, and that the dark

477
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: Side is just the shortest logical path, like that Cidius

478
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: is the same man in the universe that has been

479
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 1: deluded by this um, this ancient religion. Darth Citius makes

480
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:43,440
Speaker 1: a good point. You know, I think it would work better. Actually, though,

481
00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 1: if Darth said if the Sith Lords were not always

482
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:49,639
Speaker 1: saying like, yes, we are the dark Side, we we

483
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:52,439
Speaker 1: are the bad guys. Like what if Darth Citius had

484
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:56,800
Speaker 1: been like, no, it's the Jedi who are the dark Side. Well,

485
00:25:56,840 --> 00:25:58,680
Speaker 1: I think he also realized that you know, dark Side

486
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 1: is good branding, you know, yeah, yeah, it looks I

487
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: mean seriously, who looks cool or Darth Vader or what

488
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 1: Yoda or Obi wan Kenobi. I mean yeah, have you

489
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:08,800
Speaker 1: ever seen there's an illustrator. I think this is from

490
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,160
Speaker 1: a comic or something where they did an alternate reality

491
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 1: where Darth Vader fully redeemed himself and survived at some

492
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 1: point in like say, Return of the Jedi, and then

493
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:21,240
Speaker 1: he's still in his armor, but now it's white armor,

494
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:26,239
Speaker 1: white Darth Darth Vader outfit. And I mean it's kind

495
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 1: of a neat idea. I love the idea of exploring

496
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 1: alternate possibilities, but on the other hand, it just doesn't

497
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:33,440
Speaker 1: look as cool as it does in black. Oh. I

498
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 1: think he should have kept it. I mean, I don't

499
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:39,040
Speaker 1: love anyway, like the simple like color coordinating of morality.

500
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: I mean, like that's dumb. I mean, and they already

501
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:45,120
Speaker 1: transcended in some ways, like the Stormtroopers are addressed in

502
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: clean white right. Yeah, so yeah, I think they should

503
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 1: let Darth Vader keep his original armor. I mean, it

504
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:54,639
Speaker 1: looks looks awesome. Before we move on from the split

505
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:56,719
Speaker 1: brain stuff, I just wanted to throw in. So so

506
00:26:56,880 --> 00:27:00,719
Speaker 1: there's some more nuance on the subject that that research

507
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 1: I alluded to in recent years that's put some challenges

508
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 1: to the original split brain research. Uh. I think a

509
00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 1: lot of that was associated with the researcher named Pinto,

510
00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 1: I think named Yair Pinto, who I think is a

511
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:17,560
Speaker 1: Dutch neuropsychologist. And basically what uh, that person and colleagues

512
00:27:17,600 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 1: have argued is that the split brain experiments actually just

513
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 1: proved divided perception, not divided consciousness. But then people who

514
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 1: people have defended the original research coming back against that.

515
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: I don't remember how all of the back and forth

516
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:34,640
Speaker 1: worked out right now, but just be aware that there

517
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: is ongoing division about that. In fact, split brain researchers

518
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 1: appeared to be uh somewhat divided. We may say, yeah,

519
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:46,120
Speaker 1: well I'm of two minds myself on it. Um. Speaking

520
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:50,479
Speaker 1: of which, back to the Syrian binary brain. Um. Again,

521
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 1: they're apparently noted for their ability to come at a

522
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:57,439
Speaker 1: topic from both sides simultaneously. Um and uh. And I

523
00:27:57,480 --> 00:27:59,119
Speaker 1: got to thinking about that. I mean, one hand, I

524
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 1: was wondering again, is something they do naturally or is

525
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 1: it only accessible via training? But I suppose one way

526
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:07,200
Speaker 1: to really tackle the problem is again to come back

527
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 1: to human cognition and to ask what seems like it

528
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:13,880
Speaker 1: should be a pretty simple question. Is it possible for

529
00:28:13,920 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 1: a human to think two things at one time, not

530
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 1: to juggle between thoughts, or to focus on like a

531
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,639
Speaker 1: combination of two things. Like you know, for instance, I

532
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 1: can think about a human and I can think about

533
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: a horse. You know, I can sort of go back

534
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 1: and forth between the two. I can focus on the

535
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,439
Speaker 1: idea of a centaur and kind of involve you know,

536
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:33,680
Speaker 1: both of them at once. But can I think about

537
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 1: a horse and a human on like on, you know,

538
00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 1: and actually do parallel lines of thought at the same time,

539
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: So not this is a mixture between a horse and

540
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 1: a human, but to think simultaneously this is one horse

541
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 1: and this is one human at the same time, right,

542
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 1: Can I what's the business lingo dual track, parallel path,

543
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 1: parallel path? I think that means something somewhat different, but yeah, yeah, yeah,

544
00:28:57,600 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 1: I know what you're saying, So like, yeah, being able

545
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 1: to I mean, I think it's a really important thing

546
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: in in good mental hygiene and training your brain to

547
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 1: work well, that you are able to hold conflicting ideas

548
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 1: in your mind in order to figure out which one

549
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:13,959
Speaker 1: makes more sense. I mean, I think it's our natural

550
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:18,239
Speaker 1: tendency to kind of too instead get a feel for

551
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 1: conflicting ideas pretty quickly figure out which one were more

552
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:23,720
Speaker 1: attached to, and then just fully commit to that one

553
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: and not consider the other at all. But I think

554
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:28,520
Speaker 1: also maybe you're getting at something different, which is not

555
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:34,600
Speaker 1: um being able to consider conflicting ideas or conflicting explanations

556
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 1: for something you're talking more about like having the focus

557
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 1: of attention in the mind be two different things at

558
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:44,960
Speaker 1: the same time. Is that what you're Okay, Yeah, yeah,

559
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 1: that's a different thing. And that's also very interesting because yeah,

560
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:52,080
Speaker 1: this once again gets into like what is consciousness And

561
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:54,520
Speaker 1: one of the central features of consciousness seems to be

562
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:58,960
Speaker 1: this spotlight quality to it, right that it consciousness seems

563
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: to have a basic really like one focal point of

564
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 1: attention at a time, and other things can kind of

565
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 1: intrude on consciousness suddenly. But if you are thinking about

566
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: a horse, you're also not simultaneously thinking with the same

567
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 1: level of focus and intensity about a person, right, right,

568
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 1: And so this is something that a psychologist by the

569
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 1: name of Nick I believe it is Shader. I could

570
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 1: have his last name pronounced wrong. If so, I apologize

571
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: here at c h A t E r Um. But

572
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: he is the author of the mind is flat, the

573
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: illusion of mental depth in the improvised mind. And what

574
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 1: he would argue here is that that we depend on

575
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: a cycle of thought whereby a number of systems work

576
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 1: to push forward ideas step by step. Uh so I

577
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 1: he would argue, I think if he worked to weigh

578
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:53,480
Speaker 1: in on this topic, that are limited human neural capacity

579
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:56,480
Speaker 1: is only sufficient to pursue one goal at a time,

580
00:30:57,040 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: and maybe just maybe doubled human neural capacity is what

581
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:05,960
Speaker 1: it would actually take to truly dual track something. Does

582
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: that make sense? Yeah, I think so. So he's saying

583
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 1: to to like consider like to you know, it's kind

584
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 1: of how when we're making like a to do list,

585
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:20,240
Speaker 1: you have to break tasks apart into into like individual

586
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 1: steps and do them one at a time. Uh. And

587
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 1: I find, you know, doing that for me, it definitely

588
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 1: helps me organize the flow of of work a lot better.

589
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 1: But maybe if you had a more powerful mind, if

590
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:35,280
Speaker 1: you had like two brains in your head, you could

591
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 1: actually you wouldn't have to break things into parts quite

592
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:41,479
Speaker 1: so much. You could, you know, consider more sort of

593
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 1: umbrella tasks with all of their subdivided parts simultaneously. Yeah,

594
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: And I think ultimately it's it's very difficult to imagine

595
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:51,200
Speaker 1: what that would be like. I mean, it's kind of

596
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 1: like trying to imagine what would our view of reality

597
00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 1: be like if we could also, uh, you know, feel

598
00:31:56,680 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 1: the magnetosphere or something you know, or or or you know,

599
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,840
Speaker 1: see wavelengths of light that we we don't have access

600
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: to that sort of thing. Um Now, the author of

601
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 1: the mind is Flat. He was also a co author

602
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: on a paper um along with Elizabeth A. Mayor Mayler

603
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 1: and Gregory V. Jones from two thousand one titled searching

604
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: for Two Things at Once. And in this the author's

605
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 1: conducted an experiment into whether retrieval from semantic memory and

606
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:28,840
Speaker 1: autobiographical memory is exclusive or whether people can search for

607
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 1: two things at once, and they concluded that quote exclusivity

608
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 1: was observed to occur in retrieval among multiple non overlapping

609
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: categories in both semantic and autobiographical memory. Again, they're they're

610
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 1: talking about about memory recall here, but this also seems

611
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: to get it sort of the same idea. I was

612
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 1: reading a summary of the mind is Flat by Stephen

613
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 1: Poole for The Guardian, and they summarize some of this

614
00:32:52,720 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 1: by by by saying, quote, we can't even see two

615
00:32:55,800 --> 00:32:58,880
Speaker 1: or more colors at once, but switch between one at

616
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 1: a time. In general, our richness of experience seems to

617
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 1: be a construct. And we've touched on some of this

618
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 1: before as well, especially with vision about like how, um

619
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 1: you know, we we have this idea in our mind

620
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 1: that the whole everything we can see with our eyes

621
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 1: at one time are in like full color and maybe

622
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 1: even full detail. But you don't have to really get

623
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:22,479
Speaker 1: too experimental. You can just to to realize that this

624
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 1: is not the case. Yeah, And there are tons of

625
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 1: examples of this. We like if you close one eye,

626
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:30,640
Speaker 1: you still feel like you have total vision and you

627
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 1: can see all around, but in fact there's a blind

628
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: spot caused by your optic nerve, and you just don't

629
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: see that there is a blind spot there um or.

630
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:40,400
Speaker 1: One of the other examples we've often cited is color

631
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 1: blindness and peripheral vision, Like you believe that you can

632
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:46,240
Speaker 1: see color in your peripheral vision until you try it,

633
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:49,120
Speaker 1: Like somebody holds up different colored objects right at the

634
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:50,719
Speaker 1: edge of where you can see, and it turns out

635
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 1: you can't. You know, you can't see different colors there.

636
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 1: You can only see vague things. Something is moving. Even

637
00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 1: though it totally like a percent, it feels like I

638
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 1: can see color in my periphery, so so very roughly,

639
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 1: if we take that idea and we we extrapolate it

640
00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 1: to cognition itself, you know, we can we see the

641
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:11,759
Speaker 1: limitations of of our focus. We see the limitations of

642
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 1: how we construct a world and focus on it, you know,

643
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 1: and it is you could basically break it down to

644
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 1: the idea of we have the one spotlight, but if

645
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 1: we had two brains in our head, would we essentially

646
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 1: have two spotlights. That's very interesting and it makes me

647
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 1: wonder what the practical differences in like say, a culture

648
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:32,839
Speaker 1: and a technosphere and a science developed by people with

649
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 1: brains of that type would be, Like, like, how is

650
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:39,279
Speaker 1: art different if you can focus on more than one

651
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:42,440
Speaker 1: thing at a time? How how is science and technology

652
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 1: different if you can focus on more than one thing

653
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 1: at a time? Yeah, or even your your use of

654
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:49,919
Speaker 1: symbols and language, etcetera. I mean it kind of coming

655
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 1: back to the idea of the center. The center exists

656
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 1: to a certain extent because it combines two things into

657
00:34:56,400 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: one and brags in aspects of both of those independent things.

658
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:03,279
Speaker 1: But would you would these types, would these forms be

659
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 1: necessary for um uh, for the Syrians, or would they

660
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:10,520
Speaker 1: by just by necessity? Would all of their hybrids be

661
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:14,719
Speaker 1: more complex chimeras that involve like multiple aspects, like at

662
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:18,879
Speaker 1: least four aspects, because in terms of just contemplating two parallels,

663
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: they can do that on their own. They don't need

664
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 1: a symbol to help with it. This is really interesting.

665
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 1: I want more about the Syrians now, I want like

666
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 1: Syrian focused Star Wars stories. I want to master moondy

667
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: Um novelization to read somebody, why do we not have one?

668
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: Mace Window got his own book. It's really really difficult

669
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 1: to follow his inner monologue though. Oh man, it's it's

670
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:43,200
Speaker 1: actually two volumes and you have to read them at

671
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 1: the same time. Oh wait, No, that's a fantastic idea. Actually,

672
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 1: you write two different novels that narrate the exact same events,

673
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:57,200
Speaker 1: but they're one is from each each brain in the head.

674
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:00,279
Speaker 1: That's really yeah, that could be good, now, that would

675
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:02,600
Speaker 1: that would actually be a fun Yeah, short story exercise

676
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 1: if someone wanted it to keep it simple, all right,

677
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:07,640
Speaker 1: talk about his death, like the final moments leading up

678
00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:10,200
Speaker 1: to his death, to his betrayal by the Clone troopers.

679
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 1: He was aside, he was working aside, Like what is

680
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 1: one account of it and what is the other? Like,

681
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: I guess one account is kind of like I didn't

682
00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 1: see this coming at all. The other account is is Yeah,

683
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:21,880
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Yeah, I should have talked to the

684
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 1: other brain about this before we ran out of them

685
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:28,360
Speaker 1: on the bridge. All Right, well, I say we we

686
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:31,839
Speaker 1: close out on the Syrians for now. Obviously there there

687
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:34,280
Speaker 1: are a ton of other weird brains and multi headed

688
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:36,400
Speaker 1: things we could talk about in Star Wars universe. But

689
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:39,400
Speaker 1: uh yeah, for for some reason, I think the Syrian

690
00:36:39,480 --> 00:36:41,719
Speaker 1: was the one that that captured my imagination the most here.

691
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:49,920
Speaker 1: This was a very good pick. Thank thank thank all Right,

692
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 1: what do you have, Joe, what do you have for us? Okay, Well,

693
00:36:52,160 --> 00:36:54,360
Speaker 1: you had to help me with the Star Wars aspect

694
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:56,279
Speaker 1: of this one, because I admit this is one that

695
00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 1: I backed into because I got interested in the analogy

696
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:03,880
Speaker 1: animal from reality first, to be fully transparent. This is

697
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 1: a type of animal that I first started looking at

698
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:09,240
Speaker 1: for our episode last week. I think it was about

699
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:12,800
Speaker 1: the sargassum seaweed, but then I realized that it didn't

700
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,360
Speaker 1: really fit super well into that episode. This animal is

701
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:20,560
Speaker 1: not especially associated with sargassum, only in certain occasions. Uh,

702
00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:22,319
Speaker 1: So I figured I would actually save it for this,

703
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:24,840
Speaker 1: and I found what I believe is a fantastic wedge

704
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 1: to to get into the Star Wars universe. But I

705
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:28,600
Speaker 1: felt like I had to hold up a hand and

706
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:31,439
Speaker 1: be honest about where this comes from. Oh, fair enough,

707
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 1: but I wanted to think about bipedal, aquatic, humanoid aliens,

708
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 1: sentient water creatures who stand up on two feet with

709
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:43,839
Speaker 1: a Homo sapiens posture. Now, the first one I thought

710
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:46,359
Speaker 1: about is is not your your excellent pick here, It's

711
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:50,080
Speaker 1: something that doesn't quite fit my animal as well. But uh,

712
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:51,920
Speaker 1: the first one I wanted to talk about is one

713
00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 1: of my favorites from childhood, Admiral Akbar from Return of

714
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:57,919
Speaker 1: the Jedi, And I think he's been featured in many

715
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 1: other things since. But Admiral Bar the the noble, brilliant,

716
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 1: big eyed commander of the Rebel fleet during its attack

717
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:11,360
Speaker 1: on the Second Death Star. Famously, he discovers it is

718
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 1: a trap. Yeah, he's a super fun character. Wonderful, just

719
00:38:15,120 --> 00:38:19,319
Speaker 1: wonderful special effects makeup to create that guy and uh,

720
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 1: and that that species is is fleshed out a bit

721
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,160
Speaker 1: more in the Clone Wars animated series as well. We

722
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 1: get to go to their their home world of of Mancola,

723
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:31,880
Speaker 1: which is this ocean world and it's also where the

724
00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:35,000
Speaker 1: Corean live. Um. I don't know if you remember these guys.

725
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:38,319
Speaker 1: They were also I think first uh shown to us

726
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: in Return of the Jedi. But they're like a squid

727
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:43,319
Speaker 1: face guy. Yeah, they pop up in a job as

728
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:46,799
Speaker 1: palace I believe, yes, so, Admiral Akbar. Species is called

729
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,840
Speaker 1: the Montclamari and they are native to this home planet

730
00:38:49,880 --> 00:38:52,800
Speaker 1: of Montcola. But also, yes, the Coreans these other creatures

731
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: who look more like So, the Montclamari are an amphibious

732
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 1: species and they look sort of I guess the closest

733
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 1: analogy in Earth it would be they look kind of

734
00:39:01,040 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 1: like frogs. They've got frog like eyes and kind of

735
00:39:04,200 --> 00:39:07,439
Speaker 1: frog like skin, and it would make sense since they're

736
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:11,239
Speaker 1: supposed to be amphibious. But the Corn's they look more

737
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 1: like bipedal uh humans basically, but with squids for heads.

738
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 1: I think they've sometimes been called like kind of Catholic aliens,

739
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 1: now the mont Calamari. This does raise a number of

740
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 1: questions itself, because I wonder how does the bipedalism of

741
00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:34,240
Speaker 1: the mont calumari evolve Like bipedalism and limit even limited

742
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: by beetle behaviors can be found in a number of

743
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 1: terrestrial animals on Earth. You've got birds and their extinct

744
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:44,319
Speaker 1: therapod dinosaur relatives, some reptiles such as you know the

745
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:46,880
Speaker 1: reptiles we've discussed in the past, lizards that run on

746
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 1: the water with two back legs. Of course, in primate

747
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 1: so number of animals will stand up on two legs.

748
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:55,560
Speaker 1: But almost all the cases I can think of with

749
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:59,799
Speaker 1: this involve animals that are standing on or walking on

750
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:03,320
Speaker 1: solid land, or walking or running across the top of

751
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:06,000
Speaker 1: the water. And it's actually still a matter of debate

752
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:10,359
Speaker 1: in a pretty interesting way, how human ancestors developed full

753
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 1: time by petals um. One of the bygone hypotheses you've

754
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:16,040
Speaker 1: probably heard, this was from the old days, was that

755
00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 1: human ancestors evolved by petalism so that they could see

756
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 1: over the tall grasses of the savannah. But I think

757
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 1: this hypothesis is mostly discarded now. One of the main

758
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 1: reasons is that it looks like from from the fossil

759
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: record that humans became bipetle when they still lived primarily

760
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:37,440
Speaker 1: in an arboreal environment, so around the trees, not in

761
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:41,000
Speaker 1: grasslands with tall grasses. And so there are a number

762
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:44,320
Speaker 1: of competing hypotheses today, one of which that's pretty interesting,

763
00:40:44,400 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 1: or I guess several actually get into the idea that

764
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:51,400
Speaker 1: by petalism evolved because of the evolutionary advantages in various

765
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 1: different ways of having free hands available for carrying things

766
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:58,720
Speaker 1: around while you move. Yeah, as I'm hunting and gathering,

767
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 1: like I need those free hands to hold like my

768
00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 1: my satchel of collected berries or mushrooms or the tools

769
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:07,600
Speaker 1: that I'm using, yeah, to like bring back to your

770
00:41:07,640 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 1: family from across a long distance or something like that.

771
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 1: But there could be another explanation this better. This is

772
00:41:13,080 --> 00:41:15,239
Speaker 1: one one of those things where I think the it's

773
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:17,320
Speaker 1: wide open, you know, they're there are tons of different

774
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,760
Speaker 1: ideas competing, and and so it's very interesting for that reason.

775
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,919
Speaker 1: But whatever the reason that that human ancestors evolved full

776
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 1: time by petalism, it does seem kind of weird. To

777
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 1: imagine by petalism evolving in an aquatic or mostly aquatic species,

778
00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:34,359
Speaker 1: Like what are they walking around on? You know, are

779
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:38,040
Speaker 1: they walking around on the ocean floor? In order to

780
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 1: do that, it would seem like they would have to

781
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:41,880
Speaker 1: be very dense, right, Like they sink to the bottom

782
00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:43,520
Speaker 1: and they need to stand up and walk around on

783
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:47,759
Speaker 1: the bottom. You'd imagine they'd mostly be geared for for swimming. Uh.

784
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:49,840
Speaker 1: Though maybe I don't know, because the Mont Calamari it

785
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 1: says that they're an amphibious species. Maybe they evolved by

786
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:55,880
Speaker 1: petalism for whatever part of their life they spend walking

787
00:41:55,920 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 1: around outside the water on the land, if they if

788
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 1: they do that at all, I don't know all that

789
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:05,279
Speaker 1: much about the Montcolamari. But amphibious, yeah maybe yeah. In

790
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 1: the episodes of Clone Wars where they're they're more fleshed out,

791
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 1: we we don't really always see here. I think some

792
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:13,520
Speaker 1: like big submersible environments, and of course a lot of

793
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 1: like open water warfare that's taking place. So I don't

794
00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:20,279
Speaker 1: know if that ultimately we get much in the way

795
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:23,520
Speaker 1: of answers from that show either, But in thinking about

796
00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:27,239
Speaker 1: other bipedal upright water aliens in the Star Wars universe. Rob,

797
00:42:27,719 --> 00:42:29,320
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to help me with this one, because

798
00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:31,720
Speaker 1: you connected me to the species and I knew nothing

799
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:34,680
Speaker 1: about it previously. But there is a species from the

800
00:42:34,719 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 1: Star Wars universe called the Nephron in E P H

801
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:41,239
Speaker 1: R A N. And this is much closer to what

802
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:43,120
Speaker 1: I want to talk about here, because this is a

803
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:46,480
Speaker 1: bipedal aquatic alien that's more like a crustacean, like a

804
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:50,719
Speaker 1: bipedal shrimp or crab. They are said to come from

805
00:42:50,719 --> 00:42:53,800
Speaker 1: an ocean world in the Star Wars galaxy called Nepotus.

806
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 1: And the main example character of this species is a

807
00:42:57,120 --> 00:43:01,400
Speaker 1: person from stuff I haven't seen called erm scissor Punch.

808
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:04,920
Speaker 1: Can can you fill me in? Yeah, So this is

809
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 1: a character, if if memory serves, pops up in the

810
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:11,000
Speaker 1: movie Solo, which of course the Han Solo prequel, which

811
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:13,839
Speaker 1: I know some folks didn't care for. I we thought

812
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:15,239
Speaker 1: it was a lot of fun when we watched as

813
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:18,120
Speaker 1: a family. Uh. It certainly has some great aliens in it,

814
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:20,239
Speaker 1: for sure, and this is one of them. Uh. You know,

815
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:24,240
Speaker 1: this kind of shrimpy, squitty looking guy and he's wearing

816
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:27,799
Speaker 1: what looks to be like an interstellar flight suit. So

817
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:33,240
Speaker 1: this seems to support like the theory that underwater creatures

818
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:37,239
Speaker 1: in the Star Wars universe perhaps have an advantage when

819
00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:40,760
Speaker 1: it comes to navigating the three dimensional world of open space,

820
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:43,920
Speaker 1: because again think of the mont Calamari. Where do we

821
00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:49,480
Speaker 1: encounter them time and time again, uh, strategic commanders during

822
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:52,560
Speaker 1: space warfare. So it makes you wonder do they have

823
00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:54,759
Speaker 1: some sort of would they have some sort of advantage

824
00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 1: they're used to the oceanic environment, like the open water

825
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:02,080
Speaker 1: warfare environment and the survival environment, do they Are they

826
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:06,759
Speaker 1: better than contemplating threats in outer space? That would make

827
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:09,680
Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Now, there's still some important differences.

828
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:11,799
Speaker 1: I'd say one of the most important differences is even

829
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:14,839
Speaker 1: within the water column, you've still got an up and down.

830
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 1: You've got gravity and buoyancy, which you don't have in space.

831
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:19,840
Speaker 1: In space, there's no up and down. It's just a

832
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:24,040
Speaker 1: limitless three dimensional space. But even with that, you can

833
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 1: still see the advantage where you're naturally evolutionarily adapted to

834
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 1: combat within the space where you can move in three

835
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: different dimensions in a way that we can't really on

836
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:35,239
Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth, Like you can jump and

837
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:37,799
Speaker 1: you can climb a tree, and stuff, but mostly you're

838
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:41,320
Speaker 1: just gonna be on flat ground when you're fighting other people. Yeah,

839
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 1: and of course you can have aircraft and stuff, but

840
00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 1: that's not really part of the ancestral environment that shaped

841
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 1: our brains. Yeah, I imagine the reverse. Those probably true

842
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:52,880
Speaker 1: to have a like a crustacean alien had an advantage,

843
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:57,480
Speaker 1: and imagining open space warfare, they'd probably also be really disadvantaged.

844
00:44:57,520 --> 00:45:00,560
Speaker 1: Imagining like a land warfare. That would be like, like, what,

845
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:02,359
Speaker 1: what's your command, general, and they would be like move

846
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:07,440
Speaker 1: swim away, yea swim away, Yeah, get back in the water.

847
00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:12,440
Speaker 1: So this guy is called therm scissor Punch, and at

848
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:14,960
Speaker 1: first the name seemed weird to me until I connected

849
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:17,440
Speaker 1: it to the fact that he has crab like claws

850
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:20,839
Speaker 1: instead of hands. So if he punches you, I guess

851
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:23,320
Speaker 1: it is much like being punched with a giant blunt

852
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:27,160
Speaker 1: pair of scissors. Yeah, yeah, I think so Okay, But

853
00:45:27,200 --> 00:45:30,080
Speaker 1: here we're gonna make the lateral leap to real biology

854
00:45:30,160 --> 00:45:34,279
Speaker 1: because I've got a crustacean with an eerily human bipedal

855
00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 1: type posture to talk about. And this is the skeleton

856
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:43,399
Speaker 1: shrimp from the crustacean family Caprella Day this is one

857
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:47,600
Speaker 1: absolutely to look up pictures of. Go google skeleton shrimp.

858
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:52,840
Speaker 1: While I'm talking about this, they look very cool, very creepy,

859
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:54,919
Speaker 1: and on top of that, and on top of their

860
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:58,799
Speaker 1: they're kind of haunting creepy appearance. They somehow to me

861
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:02,239
Speaker 1: look a little bit scene. I can't quite explain it

862
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 1: very well, but they look like an acolyte of some

863
00:46:06,360 --> 00:46:09,960
Speaker 1: horrible shadow god that was rightly banished to the cavern

864
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:13,399
Speaker 1: of tears. Yeah, they are very strange looking. And that's

865
00:46:13,440 --> 00:46:16,200
Speaker 1: even if you're approaching it with the idea that, yeah,

866
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:17,960
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different shrimp in the ocean,

867
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:21,240
Speaker 1: and not all shrimp, you know, look like the shrimp

868
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: that you might buy at the seafood store. But these guys, especially,

869
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 1: they feel like they earn their nickname the skeleton shrimp

870
00:46:28,560 --> 00:46:30,400
Speaker 1: or the ghost shrimp. They look like some sort of

871
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:33,719
Speaker 1: a horrible shrimp wraith wraith shrimp, that would be a

872
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:36,800
Speaker 1: good name for them. I think they're called skeleton shrimp

873
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 1: because they typically have a very spind ly appearance. They're

874
00:46:41,040 --> 00:46:45,320
Speaker 1: almost like a stick insect, but creepier. Now. They're typically

875
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 1: very small. They range in size from a few millimeters

876
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:51,319
Speaker 1: to a couple of inches long. But if you get

877
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:53,960
Speaker 1: up close and you look at them with some magnification,

878
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: you'll notice that they often have an upright posture where

879
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:01,560
Speaker 1: they will stretch their body out as they cling onto

880
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 1: something with their back legs. So in that sense they

881
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:08,600
Speaker 1: look eerily human. But in addition to this, they often

882
00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:12,799
Speaker 1: have a kind of bent over supplicant posture within that

883
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:17,000
Speaker 1: upstanding position, almost looking like they're in prayer. Again, I

884
00:47:17,040 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 1: guess to that, to that rightly banished God. Yeah, yeah,

885
00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:24,520
Speaker 1: in a way, similar posture to old scissor punch. There,

886
00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:26,960
Speaker 1: he looks a little bit bent over in the skills

887
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 1: I have of him. Oh, yes, you're right, I've seen

888
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:30,919
Speaker 1: some of the skills I've seen of him. He looks

889
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:33,280
Speaker 1: like he's hanging his head, or maybe like he's about

890
00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:36,160
Speaker 1: to bow down at the altar. Gravity is really hard

891
00:47:36,239 --> 00:47:39,480
Speaker 1: on him. But he must gamble, he must play comics.

892
00:47:41,480 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 1: Uh So, I was wondering if my raw sense of

893
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:47,600
Speaker 1: obscenity when looking at a skeleton shrimp comes from the

894
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:51,399
Speaker 1: different body parts that seem to defy type. It has

895
00:47:51,520 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 1: antentnie that look like legs, and claws that look like heads,

896
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:59,160
Speaker 1: and little claws near the face of the actual head.

897
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:02,640
Speaker 1: It's it's mains are called natopods, and it has smaller

898
00:48:02,719 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 1: natopods near its face that look kind of like, I

899
00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:09,160
Speaker 1: don't know, like hip facial hair, facial or I don't

900
00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:10,880
Speaker 1: know how hip it would be the kind of facial

901
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:15,280
Speaker 1: hair that makes a statement. Now, despite being called skeleton shrimp,

902
00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:18,520
Speaker 1: these are not exactly super closely related to the shrimp

903
00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:21,840
Speaker 1: that you would eat in your shrimp cocktail um skeleton

904
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:23,879
Speaker 1: shrimp in fact, consistent with what I was just saying

905
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:27,839
Speaker 1: about their their different weird claws and legs. They are

906
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:31,840
Speaker 1: of an order of crustaceans known as amphipods, which literally

907
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: means different feet as opposed to related crustaceans that have

908
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:38,919
Speaker 1: more consistent sets of feet. And I was reading about

909
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:41,399
Speaker 1: them on a page for the Monterey Bay Aquarium that

910
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:45,640
Speaker 1: mentions that these animals are sometimes called praying mantises of

911
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 1: the sea. I can absolutely understand the comparison. In addition

912
00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:53,400
Speaker 1: to the of course praying posture I mentioned, uh, the

913
00:48:53,600 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 1: claws look very much like the raptorial four legs of

914
00:48:57,520 --> 00:49:02,040
Speaker 1: a praying mantis. So skeleton shrimp emper often camouflaged within

915
00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:06,440
Speaker 1: their environment, making forests of seaweed a really great habitat

916
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:11,160
Speaker 1: for them. Uh. They're often found clinging to branzonens, hydroids

917
00:49:11,280 --> 00:49:15,200
Speaker 1: or eel grass, sometimes even in patches of sarcassum, which

918
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:18,280
Speaker 1: we talked about last week. Those skeleton shrimp are found

919
00:49:18,280 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 1: in other habitats as well. You can find them on

920
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:24,400
Speaker 1: a ship's hull or on some other animals body. Even

921
00:49:24,520 --> 00:49:28,880
Speaker 1: one video I was watching of skeleton shrimp showed hundreds,

922
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:32,920
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe thousands of tiny skeleton shrimp clinging

923
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:37,280
Speaker 1: to the scales of a scorpion fish, crowded right around

924
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 1: the fish's eye. I tried to take a take a

925
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:42,720
Speaker 1: screen grab so you can see it here robbed down below.

926
00:49:42,760 --> 00:49:45,439
Speaker 1: But they're just crowded around the eye and all over

927
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:48,480
Speaker 1: the top of his head, and they're just swaying around

928
00:49:48,520 --> 00:49:50,879
Speaker 1: in the water. And the fish does not really look

929
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:53,359
Speaker 1: put out, I know, like at first glance, these look

930
00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:57,239
Speaker 1: like eyebrows and tufts of hair, almost kind of zat

931
00:49:57,440 --> 00:50:00,520
Speaker 1: ish tufts of hair, you know. Oh, yes, sometimes they

932
00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 1: can look quite fuzzy, especially when the females are carrying

933
00:50:04,080 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 1: their brood along with them, like after mating. They they

934
00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:12,600
Speaker 1: reproduce sexually and after mating, the females will sometimes carry

935
00:50:12,600 --> 00:50:16,400
Speaker 1: around what looks almost like a ball of dandelion fuzz

936
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:19,040
Speaker 1: or something, but that's all they're young that that haven't

937
00:50:19,120 --> 00:50:23,000
Speaker 1: left the mother's body yet. Now. The different appendages jutting

938
00:50:23,080 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 1: off of their bodies provide a range of different ways

939
00:50:26,160 --> 00:50:29,920
Speaker 1: to survive. In general, their back legs are for gripping

940
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:31,960
Speaker 1: onto a substrate, and this is where you get the

941
00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 1: bipedal posture. Here you will very often see skeleton shrimp

942
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:40,480
Speaker 1: clinging to something a piece of seaweed or even a

943
00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:44,040
Speaker 1: scorpion fish's head or something with their back legs while

944
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:46,879
Speaker 1: their body is stretched out above that, looking like they're

945
00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:50,640
Speaker 1: standing up and reaching out into the water. And then meanwhile,

946
00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:53,759
Speaker 1: while they're clinging with their back legs and standing up

947
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:56,800
Speaker 1: like this, they're larger front legs with the folding features

948
00:50:56,800 --> 00:50:59,759
Speaker 1: that look like mantis claws. These can be used for

949
00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:03,239
Speaker 1: rooming the body or for violence in fighting each other,

950
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:06,040
Speaker 1: which it seems like they do a lot, or for

951
00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:09,120
Speaker 1: snagging food, and the antennae coming off of their head

952
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:13,120
Speaker 1: apparently can sometimes be used for filter feeding. They eat

953
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:17,320
Speaker 1: everything it seems that they say are different. Different species

954
00:51:17,360 --> 00:51:19,640
Speaker 1: of them will eat different things. Sometimes, but they're they're

955
00:51:19,640 --> 00:51:24,239
Speaker 1: pretty omnivorous. They scavenge for floating detritus, meaning particles of

956
00:51:24,280 --> 00:51:27,520
Speaker 1: dead organic matter. They're just sort of like hanging around

957
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:30,960
Speaker 1: in the water. Sometimes they eat algae, or sometimes they

958
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:34,160
Speaker 1: act as predators. They can snag, kill and eat live prey,

959
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 1: for example worms or crustacean larvae. And though they look

960
00:51:38,640 --> 00:51:41,720
Speaker 1: very bipedal when they're attached to a substrate and reaching

961
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:44,799
Speaker 1: out into the water, I thought this was interesting. They

962
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:48,160
Speaker 1: generally move not by walking on their back legs, but

963
00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:52,000
Speaker 1: by gripping the substrate, folding their body over, and then

964
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 1: sliding along like an inchworm. Again, very creepy. And there's

965
00:51:57,120 --> 00:52:01,840
Speaker 1: another fascinating comparison to the praying manti us. Some species

966
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:07,080
Speaker 1: of skeleton shrimp practice sexual homicide, where the female will

967
00:52:07,160 --> 00:52:11,160
Speaker 1: kill the male after mating, sometimes by stabbing them with

968
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:16,120
Speaker 1: a special claw and injecting them with venom. Which this

969
00:52:16,239 --> 00:52:19,520
Speaker 1: strikes me as a very interesting example of convergent evolution

970
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:23,760
Speaker 1: because of course this is there's this superficial resemblance between

971
00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 1: the body form of a praying mantis and a skeleton shrimp.

972
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:30,880
Speaker 1: They have these similar raptorial fore legs and similar posture

973
00:52:30,880 --> 00:52:34,560
Speaker 1: and stuff, and like a praying mantis, sometimes the female

974
00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:37,560
Speaker 1: will kill the male after mating. Uh though I didn't

975
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:40,320
Speaker 1: see much about the female eating the male after mating.

976
00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:44,439
Speaker 1: Maybe they do, because sometimes these skeleton shrimp are cannibalistic,

977
00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:46,719
Speaker 1: but mainly I just saw about killing the male with

978
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:50,359
Speaker 1: this venomous claw. I was wondering why it would be

979
00:52:50,480 --> 00:52:52,840
Speaker 1: that the female would kill the male after mating. I

980
00:52:52,920 --> 00:52:56,160
Speaker 1: wonder if this is in part to prevent the males

981
00:52:56,320 --> 00:53:00,400
Speaker 1: from cannibalizing them or their offspring in the future. So

982
00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:02,520
Speaker 1: there are a couple of things they're one of which

983
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 1: is that mating. Uh So, of course these crustaceans, like

984
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:10,760
Speaker 1: other crustaceans, they have to grow by molting, right because

985
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:14,360
Speaker 1: having a hard outer exo skeleton, you can't get bigger

986
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:16,960
Speaker 1: with a hardened outer exo skeleton. You have to shed

987
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 1: the exo skeleton and then come come out as a

988
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:23,880
Speaker 1: larger soft version of yourself, and then the outer layer

989
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:26,960
Speaker 1: of you hardens into a new larger exo skeleton. This

990
00:53:27,040 --> 00:53:29,760
Speaker 1: is the molting process. And apparently skeleton shrimp can only

991
00:53:30,239 --> 00:53:35,279
Speaker 1: mate when the female is freshly molted, so I don't know.

992
00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:37,799
Speaker 1: It's possibly that means that she could be in a

993
00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:41,320
Speaker 1: in a more vulnerable position around the time of mating,

994
00:53:41,640 --> 00:53:44,480
Speaker 1: or it could be to prevent males from from eating

995
00:53:44,520 --> 00:53:46,960
Speaker 1: the new larva that will be coming along soon. I

996
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:49,440
Speaker 1: don't know, I wonder I like the idea that they

997
00:53:49,480 --> 00:53:51,919
Speaker 1: have they may have a special claw for this though.

998
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:54,600
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, with with the venom and apparently the

999
00:53:54,640 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 1: males also sometimes have venomous claws which they use for

1000
00:53:58,239 --> 00:54:00,919
Speaker 1: fighting each other. I think in some cases, at least

1001
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:06,040
Speaker 1: for access tomating real scissor punches. They're right exactly, But

1002
00:54:06,120 --> 00:54:08,560
Speaker 1: as I said already, skeleton shrimp are really something that

1003
00:54:08,600 --> 00:54:11,000
Speaker 1: you need to see with your eyes to appreciate. So

1004
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:13,800
Speaker 1: I would highly recommend looking up some pictures and looking

1005
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 1: up some videos of these animals. They're they're very small,

1006
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:29,200
Speaker 1: but they're beautiful, creepy, unsettling, worth your attention, absolutely. Thank Alright,

1007
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:32,640
Speaker 1: I think we have time for one more specimen here,

1008
00:54:32,840 --> 00:54:35,440
Speaker 1: oh boy, And for this one, Joe, I'm gonna have

1009
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:37,280
Speaker 1: to ask you to come to the planet and Naboo

1010
00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:39,920
Speaker 1: with me. Well, I'll always go to Naboo. Well, I mean,

1011
00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:41,920
Speaker 1: it's an interesting world. I would say one of the

1012
00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:45,480
Speaker 1: most interesting in the Star Wars universe. Because even outside

1013
00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:48,600
Speaker 1: of its important role in galactic history, it has just

1014
00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 1: incredibly rich fauna. You have human human settlers coming to

1015
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:54,640
Speaker 1: the planet at some point, and then there's signs of

1016
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:57,799
Speaker 1: an elder civilization. But you have this native Gungan population

1017
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:01,560
Speaker 1: um that are an advanced st amphibious species that make

1018
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:06,080
Speaker 1: their home and underwater cities, and the planets expansive underwater oceans.

1019
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:11,960
Speaker 1: Uh Naboo seems to have a vast uh number of

1020
00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:14,880
Speaker 1: of impressive land animals, many of which are used as

1021
00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:17,800
Speaker 1: battle mounts by the Gungans. But then you have this

1022
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:22,160
Speaker 1: this shadowy underwater realm that is home to just many,

1023
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:27,400
Speaker 1: many marine organisms. And there's a fabulous uh section in

1024
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:30,880
Speaker 1: The Phantom Menace where we get to explore it a bit. Uh.

1025
00:55:31,200 --> 00:55:33,799
Speaker 1: It's the scene where we have our main characters there

1026
00:55:34,280 --> 00:55:37,440
Speaker 1: uh with with the kid I think and and uh

1027
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:40,440
Speaker 1: and jar Jar and they're in a submarine and they

1028
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:45,160
Speaker 1: are attacked by one giant underwater creature after another, each

1029
00:55:45,239 --> 00:55:48,640
Speaker 1: one bigger and more horrifying than the last. Out of

1030
00:55:48,680 --> 00:55:51,960
Speaker 1: the frying pan and into the fish. Yes. So the

1031
00:55:52,160 --> 00:55:55,400
Speaker 1: first one that attacks is this thing that's opec killer

1032
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:57,480
Speaker 1: that looks kind of like a like a deep sea

1033
00:55:57,480 --> 00:56:01,040
Speaker 1: angler fish type of of a thing. Then they're attacked

1034
00:56:01,040 --> 00:56:03,760
Speaker 1: by the colo clawfish, which looks like a cross between

1035
00:56:03,800 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 1: a crocodile and an eel, and then finally by this

1036
00:56:06,680 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 1: even more titanic Sando Aqua monster, which is just an

1037
00:56:10,480 --> 00:56:13,480
Speaker 1: apex of apex predators, looks like some sort of a

1038
00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:18,480
Speaker 1: salamandary um giant. Do I recall that in this sequence

1039
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:21,759
Speaker 1: they are trying to like take a submarine through the

1040
00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:24,840
Speaker 1: center of the world to get to the other side

1041
00:56:24,880 --> 00:56:27,560
Speaker 1: of the planet or something. I don't remember if they're

1042
00:56:27,800 --> 00:56:29,880
Speaker 1: I don't remember if they're actually going through the center,

1043
00:56:30,160 --> 00:56:32,319
Speaker 1: but they are, at least at the very least. Yeah,

1044
00:56:32,360 --> 00:56:36,080
Speaker 1: they're going through the deep underwater sections of the of

1045
00:56:36,080 --> 00:56:39,719
Speaker 1: of the world to get to a specific location. Okay, Okay,

1046
00:56:39,840 --> 00:56:42,440
Speaker 1: maybe it might just be underwater caves. Yeah, but I

1047
00:56:42,440 --> 00:56:44,080
Speaker 1: don't know, it could be. If it is. If it's

1048
00:56:44,120 --> 00:56:47,000
Speaker 1: the former, then it it's dante Esk and it's and

1049
00:56:47,080 --> 00:56:50,919
Speaker 1: it's nature, right. Yeah, But anyway, the creature of these

1050
00:56:50,920 --> 00:56:52,640
Speaker 1: three I want to talk about is that middle one,

1051
00:56:52,680 --> 00:56:56,480
Speaker 1: the colo clawfish, which which is pretty neat, little looking.

1052
00:56:56,560 --> 00:56:59,480
Speaker 1: I mean, all three of these are impressive creatures. This

1053
00:56:59,520 --> 00:57:03,480
Speaker 1: one is um is again enormous. Its head is larger

1054
00:57:03,480 --> 00:57:07,000
Speaker 1: than the Gungan sub. We're told in like the Alien

1055
00:57:07,080 --> 00:57:09,440
Speaker 1: Archive and other books that they can reach lengths of

1056
00:57:09,480 --> 00:57:14,759
Speaker 1: at least forty one feet. Their long bioluminescent predators with

1057
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:18,840
Speaker 1: mandible like four legs to grip their their prey. And

1058
00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:21,800
Speaker 1: there's long mouth of razor sharp teeth and I and

1059
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:23,960
Speaker 1: I believe they're supposed to have venomous things, and there

1060
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:28,040
Speaker 1: is as well to partially or completely disable some of

1061
00:57:28,040 --> 00:57:31,000
Speaker 1: their prey. And they can unhinge their jaw like a

1062
00:57:31,080 --> 00:57:34,280
Speaker 1: terrestrial snake in order to eat prey larger than their

1063
00:57:34,320 --> 00:57:36,560
Speaker 1: own head. But the part that interests me the most

1064
00:57:36,600 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 1: here is this one little tid debt that is that's

1065
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:42,840
Speaker 1: described in the Star Wars Alien Archive book quote. However,

1066
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:46,600
Speaker 1: Coolo's must ensure their prey is dead before ingesting it.

1067
00:57:46,960 --> 00:57:50,080
Speaker 1: Their digestive systems are slow and they run the risk

1068
00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:53,880
Speaker 1: of being eaten from inside out if the prey remains alive.

1069
00:57:54,520 --> 00:57:57,760
Speaker 1: WHOA So obviously that got me thinking, I was like,

1070
00:57:57,880 --> 00:58:01,120
Speaker 1: is there anything like this here on Earth? And uh?

1071
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:05,120
Speaker 1: I found an excellent article on this in BBC Earth

1072
00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:10,160
Speaker 1: by Sandrine Kristamont. This is from and and they made

1073
00:58:10,200 --> 00:58:13,000
Speaker 1: some wonderful points on on this. So basically, as the

1074
00:58:13,040 --> 00:58:16,560
Speaker 1: author points out, you'd probably need two key realities to

1075
00:58:16,600 --> 00:58:19,640
Speaker 1: be in place for something like this to happen. So,

1076
00:58:19,760 --> 00:58:22,040
Speaker 1: first of all, the animal would have to survive the

1077
00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:24,600
Speaker 1: jaws of its attacker. It would have to be swallowed whole.

1078
00:58:24,840 --> 00:58:30,040
Speaker 1: No fatal crushing, no incapacitating venom uh you know, inserted

1079
00:58:30,120 --> 00:58:33,000
Speaker 1: into the creature. It would know. No death roll or

1080
00:58:33,040 --> 00:58:35,600
Speaker 1: death shake. Yeah, no death roll, no death shake, no

1081
00:58:35,720 --> 00:58:38,800
Speaker 1: intentional breaking of the bones like you see with you know,

1082
00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:41,160
Speaker 1: like a cattle due to it to its um you know,

1083
00:58:41,320 --> 00:58:44,640
Speaker 1: rodent prey um, and you know it would it would

1084
00:58:44,640 --> 00:58:46,680
Speaker 1: just have to happen in the case of an animal

1085
00:58:46,680 --> 00:58:50,400
Speaker 1: that just gulps its prey down whole. Secondly, the digestive

1086
00:58:50,480 --> 00:58:53,960
Speaker 1: juices would have to be weak enough and or the

1087
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:57,240
Speaker 1: praise outer covering would have to be resilient enough for

1088
00:58:57,360 --> 00:59:01,560
Speaker 1: it to survive entry into the stomach at least initial entry,

1089
00:59:01,600 --> 00:59:04,640
Speaker 1: if not its entire time there. So it seems like

1090
00:59:04,680 --> 00:59:07,680
Speaker 1: maybe there's some risk at like swallowing hole a creature

1091
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:09,840
Speaker 1: with a hard outer layer, like if you swallowed a

1092
00:59:09,840 --> 00:59:12,880
Speaker 1: whole crab that could be pretty bad, right, And then

1093
00:59:13,040 --> 00:59:15,240
Speaker 1: also it would help if the prey and question has

1094
00:59:15,240 --> 00:59:17,640
Speaker 1: some sort of ace up its sleeve as well. So

1095
00:59:17,720 --> 00:59:21,040
Speaker 1: as the author explains, yes, there are cases where all

1096
00:59:21,080 --> 00:59:24,200
Speaker 1: of these things seem to line up. Um. The first

1097
00:59:24,240 --> 00:59:28,360
Speaker 1: one is the rough skinned newt can survive being swallowed

1098
00:59:28,400 --> 00:59:30,760
Speaker 1: by a frog and in and in large part this

1099
00:59:30,800 --> 00:59:33,880
Speaker 1: is because it packs enough toxin to kill the predator

1100
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:37,880
Speaker 1: before the digestive juices overpower it. Quote. Then the news

1101
00:59:37,880 --> 00:59:40,400
Speaker 1: simply has to crawl back up the dead frog's throat

1102
00:59:40,640 --> 00:59:44,120
Speaker 1: and out of its mouth, which is pretty badass. I

1103
00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:47,080
Speaker 1: like that. Yes, that is power you can respect. Now.

1104
00:59:47,120 --> 00:59:50,480
Speaker 1: The next example is is even weirder and maybe maybe

1105
00:59:50,560 --> 00:59:53,880
Speaker 1: not as as cool in the sense that like, it's

1106
00:59:53,920 --> 00:59:56,280
Speaker 1: not a full survival story, but it's still really amazing.

1107
00:59:56,640 --> 01:00:00,400
Speaker 1: And that is the case of the brahminy blind snake,

1108
01:00:00,920 --> 01:00:04,000
Speaker 1: a tiny natural burrower, and it has been observed to

1109
01:00:04,040 --> 01:00:07,720
Speaker 1: survive the digestion of a toad and emerge out the

1110
01:00:07,720 --> 01:00:10,960
Speaker 1: other end of the toad, essentially swallowed by the toad

1111
01:00:11,040 --> 01:00:13,440
Speaker 1: and then just wriggles through the rest of the way

1112
01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:17,360
Speaker 1: and out the rear entry um or the rear exit

1113
01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:20,480
Speaker 1: as it were. Uh, so in these cases of survival,

1114
01:00:20,760 --> 01:00:23,840
Speaker 1: it also really helps if, if if it maybe even

1115
01:00:23,840 --> 01:00:26,720
Speaker 1: be essential, that there's not another big meal up ahead

1116
01:00:26,720 --> 01:00:30,200
Speaker 1: of it blocking the way. But then this is also

1117
01:00:30,240 --> 01:00:33,120
Speaker 1: a situation where protection from the digestive juices seems to

1118
01:00:33,200 --> 01:00:36,160
Speaker 1: be key. This is what the author Kristomont had to say.

1119
01:00:36,680 --> 01:00:40,960
Speaker 1: Quote but its skin was probably the biggest lifesaver. The

1120
01:00:41,080 --> 01:00:44,800
Speaker 1: closely knit, overlapping scales that help blind snakes move on

1121
01:00:44,960 --> 01:00:49,200
Speaker 1: land would likely block gastric juices, preventing them from reaching

1122
01:00:49,240 --> 01:00:52,480
Speaker 1: delicate tissues and organs. The scales of other snakes come

1123
01:00:52,520 --> 01:00:55,160
Speaker 1: apart slightly when they move, so would not have the

1124
01:00:55,200 --> 01:00:59,360
Speaker 1: same protective effect. It's like a natural hazmat suit. Yeah,

1125
01:00:59,640 --> 01:01:02,000
Speaker 1: I have never I don't think I've ever considered this

1126
01:01:02,040 --> 01:01:06,720
Speaker 1: as a strategy for defending against predators before. Uh, when

1127
01:01:06,720 --> 01:01:10,000
Speaker 1: I've always thought about trying to avoid getting eaten, I've

1128
01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:13,160
Speaker 1: thought about trying to escape or trying to fight back,

1129
01:01:13,720 --> 01:01:17,720
Speaker 1: not preventing eating from hurting you, Like, yeah, just get

1130
01:01:17,720 --> 01:01:21,640
Speaker 1: eaten and you know you'll be okay. Probably, Now it

1131
01:01:21,720 --> 01:01:23,920
Speaker 1: may be a case. First of all, it seems to

1132
01:01:23,920 --> 01:01:25,640
Speaker 1: be a case where this is not certainly not an

1133
01:01:25,720 --> 01:01:29,280
Speaker 1: evolved way of surviving predators. Uh. And it also seems

1134
01:01:29,280 --> 01:01:32,480
Speaker 1: to be a case where survival is perhaps a um

1135
01:01:32,960 --> 01:01:36,120
Speaker 1: an incorrect term for it, because this in the case

1136
01:01:36,160 --> 01:01:38,760
Speaker 1: that it was observed by researchers here, the snake died

1137
01:01:38,800 --> 01:01:41,680
Speaker 1: five hours later, probably due to complications due to lack

1138
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:44,440
Speaker 1: of oxygen. Because that's the thing. If even if you're

1139
01:01:44,520 --> 01:01:47,600
Speaker 1: armored against that that acid or the acid isn't strong enough,

1140
01:01:47,960 --> 01:01:50,040
Speaker 1: you're still going to be inside that animal for a

1141
01:01:50,080 --> 01:01:53,200
Speaker 1: certain amount of time, if you're not killing it with

1142
01:01:53,240 --> 01:01:56,000
Speaker 1: toxins and chron climbing out the front. Uh. You know,

1143
01:01:56,080 --> 01:01:59,040
Speaker 1: if you're gonna take the complete journey through, you're gonna

1144
01:01:59,080 --> 01:02:02,520
Speaker 1: be without oxygen. And depending on your biology, you know,

1145
01:02:02,560 --> 01:02:05,400
Speaker 1: that can have very detrimental effects. That itself can be

1146
01:02:05,440 --> 01:02:08,360
Speaker 1: the fatal flaw. Okay, so you're saying this is not

1147
01:02:08,760 --> 01:02:12,120
Speaker 1: It doesn't appear that these tiny snakes have evolved a

1148
01:02:12,160 --> 01:02:15,840
Speaker 1: capacity to be eaten and survived specifically as a protection

1149
01:02:15,880 --> 01:02:19,640
Speaker 1: against predation. It just so happens like it's a coincidence

1150
01:02:19,720 --> 01:02:23,280
Speaker 1: that some of their natural defenses for other things happened

1151
01:02:23,320 --> 01:02:27,240
Speaker 1: to allow them to survive passing through the digestive system.

1152
01:02:27,280 --> 01:02:30,480
Speaker 1: In at least this case, or limited cases. Yeah, and

1153
01:02:30,520 --> 01:02:33,680
Speaker 1: maybe it's more of a curse, you know, Yeah, they

1154
01:02:33,680 --> 01:02:37,680
Speaker 1: get to survive the whole process. Yeah. Now, on top

1155
01:02:37,760 --> 01:02:40,680
Speaker 1: of these cases, apparently there are some land snails that

1156
01:02:40,720 --> 01:02:44,440
Speaker 1: can survive the journey through a bird's digestive system. And

1157
01:02:44,720 --> 01:02:47,080
Speaker 1: this is a case where you have you have another

1158
01:02:47,120 --> 01:02:50,320
Speaker 1: important helpful fact here, and that is SPEEDI or digestion time.

1159
01:02:50,560 --> 01:02:54,160
Speaker 1: So just less time spent in the bird's digestive system.

1160
01:02:54,480 --> 01:02:58,280
Speaker 1: That means less exposure to the digestive juices, coupled with

1161
01:02:58,360 --> 01:03:01,280
Speaker 1: the natural protection of the snail shell, which is key,

1162
01:03:01,360 --> 01:03:04,320
Speaker 1: but also the mucus of the snail might also help

1163
01:03:04,360 --> 01:03:09,240
Speaker 1: serve as a protective barrier like a chemical armor. Yeah.

1164
01:03:09,360 --> 01:03:11,760
Speaker 1: And so you have some aquatic snails as well that

1165
01:03:11,800 --> 01:03:15,120
Speaker 1: have been that have been observed to be very um

1166
01:03:15,480 --> 01:03:19,560
Speaker 1: uh resilient to digestion. You have nematode worms, of course,

1167
01:03:19,800 --> 01:03:23,000
Speaker 1: some of which are true internal parasites. So once you

1168
01:03:23,000 --> 01:03:26,320
Speaker 1: get into that territory, I think we're more inclined to

1169
01:03:27,240 --> 01:03:29,560
Speaker 1: uh is not expect but you know, not be surprised

1170
01:03:29,600 --> 01:03:33,240
Speaker 1: by that kind of resiliency things that that survive in

1171
01:03:33,320 --> 01:03:37,280
Speaker 1: the digestive system of of of host organisms. But you

1172
01:03:37,320 --> 01:03:41,360
Speaker 1: generally don't think about snakes, salamanders and other things. Uh,

1173
01:03:41,440 --> 01:03:44,640
Speaker 1: you know, having a chance once they're actually in the

1174
01:03:44,680 --> 01:03:49,680
Speaker 1: predator's gullet. You have opened my eyes so with to

1175
01:03:49,760 --> 01:03:52,600
Speaker 1: come back to the planet naboo. Uh I guess the

1176
01:03:52,640 --> 01:03:55,960
Speaker 1: idea here is that we're largely talking about other deadly

1177
01:03:56,000 --> 01:03:58,720
Speaker 1: predators in the depths of Nebo that, after having been eaten,

1178
01:03:59,000 --> 01:04:03,000
Speaker 1: then turn on the pre or host here. Um. You know,

1179
01:04:03,000 --> 01:04:06,440
Speaker 1: it's just that that crazy and environment, So it seems

1180
01:04:06,600 --> 01:04:08,640
Speaker 1: entirely feasible that you could have something like this, like

1181
01:04:08,680 --> 01:04:12,080
Speaker 1: maybe there's one particular type of fish or you know,

1182
01:04:12,160 --> 01:04:15,800
Speaker 1: creature in that deep sea underground environment and the boo

1183
01:04:15,880 --> 01:04:18,520
Speaker 1: and if it eats those, it gets too excited about them.

1184
01:04:18,560 --> 01:04:21,360
Speaker 1: Maybe it's maybe it's a venom doesn't work on that

1185
01:04:21,520 --> 01:04:24,240
Speaker 1: on that particular creature, or sometimes maybe it doesn't use

1186
01:04:24,280 --> 01:04:27,600
Speaker 1: its venom. Um. You know, often we see that with snakes, right,

1187
01:04:27,600 --> 01:04:29,280
Speaker 1: they're not going to use their venom every time if

1188
01:04:29,320 --> 01:04:31,920
Speaker 1: they don't have to. It is a it is an

1189
01:04:31,960 --> 01:04:35,400
Speaker 1: important resource. But maybe that's a fatal mistake for the

1190
01:04:35,840 --> 01:04:40,000
Speaker 1: COLO concerning certain prey species. You don't want to underestimate

1191
01:04:40,000 --> 01:04:43,360
Speaker 1: what you're eating. Yeah, all right, Well that's that's all

1192
01:04:43,400 --> 01:04:46,800
Speaker 1: I have, Joe, should we close the compendium? Let's let's

1193
01:04:46,840 --> 01:04:49,760
Speaker 1: close it up now. Obviously there are tons of other

1194
01:04:49,880 --> 01:04:54,400
Speaker 1: creatures and aliens and the Star Wars universe, so you know,

1195
01:04:54,440 --> 01:04:56,440
Speaker 1: perhaps there are some other really good candidates that we

1196
01:04:56,480 --> 01:05:00,000
Speaker 1: didn't touch on. If you have suggestions for the future,

1197
01:05:00,280 --> 01:05:02,280
Speaker 1: let us know. Likewise, you know, we could always take

1198
01:05:02,320 --> 01:05:06,560
Speaker 1: this approach to other uh you know, fictional ecosystems and

1199
01:05:06,680 --> 01:05:08,040
Speaker 1: uh and take a look at those. I know we

1200
01:05:08,080 --> 01:05:11,200
Speaker 1: had some fun talking about the sand worms of Dune,

1201
01:05:11,640 --> 01:05:15,680
Speaker 1: uh several years back. Um, Dune is coming back? Yeah, yeah,

1202
01:05:16,200 --> 01:05:18,680
Speaker 1: I need to revisit. I think I have some some

1203
01:05:18,800 --> 01:05:22,400
Speaker 1: ideas jotted down about things we might might consider when

1204
01:05:22,600 --> 01:05:25,040
Speaker 1: we get a little closer to uh to done time.

1205
01:05:25,320 --> 01:05:28,360
Speaker 1: Well that's exciting, and hey, they're they're probably other worlds

1206
01:05:28,360 --> 01:05:30,120
Speaker 1: I'm not even thinking of. I mean, I guess there's

1207
01:05:30,160 --> 01:05:32,040
Speaker 1: Star Trek too. I don't think we've ever done anything

1208
01:05:32,040 --> 01:05:34,280
Speaker 1: on Star Trek. If we we have, I'm certainly not

1209
01:05:34,320 --> 01:05:36,959
Speaker 1: remembering it. Did you actually watch Star Trek? You weren't

1210
01:05:36,960 --> 01:05:39,000
Speaker 1: really a Star Trek guy where you I wasn't an

1211
01:05:39,040 --> 01:05:43,080
Speaker 1: original Star Trek guy. But there was. I watched tons

1212
01:05:43,120 --> 01:05:47,080
Speaker 1: of Next Generation and tons of Deep Space nine um

1213
01:05:47,120 --> 01:05:49,040
Speaker 1: and uh and and you know some of the movies.

1214
01:05:49,600 --> 01:05:52,400
Speaker 1: But yeah, that that was my my area. Like I

1215
01:05:52,400 --> 01:05:56,360
Speaker 1: think it was like every evening at nine pm, Next

1216
01:05:56,400 --> 01:05:58,640
Speaker 1: Generation was on and I always watched it, like that

1217
01:05:58,720 --> 01:06:00,720
Speaker 1: was my go to for a while. I like in

1218
01:06:00,760 --> 01:06:03,440
Speaker 1: the Uh. I haven't seen all of the Next Generation,

1219
01:06:03,520 --> 01:06:05,720
Speaker 1: but I like those episodes. I think, especially in the

1220
01:06:05,760 --> 01:06:08,440
Speaker 1: early seasons of TNNG, where they would go down to

1221
01:06:08,480 --> 01:06:11,120
Speaker 1: a planet and it would just look like a nineteen

1222
01:06:11,240 --> 01:06:14,840
Speaker 1: nineties uh you know, family portrait photo studio with some

1223
01:06:14,880 --> 01:06:18,080
Speaker 1: potted plants on it. Yeah, yeah, I remember some of

1224
01:06:18,080 --> 01:06:20,240
Speaker 1: those settings. I think I've said this on the show before,

1225
01:06:20,280 --> 01:06:23,120
Speaker 1: but I don't know exactly why. I always really really

1226
01:06:23,120 --> 01:06:27,880
Speaker 1: love a good cheap indoor for outdoor set. Yeah yeah,

1227
01:06:27,880 --> 01:06:33,160
Speaker 1: I've also really been, uh been thinking about this a

1228
01:06:33,160 --> 01:06:37,040
Speaker 1: lot in terms of the Outer Limits series, where they

1229
01:06:37,080 --> 01:06:39,880
Speaker 1: have some great sets on that show, but also each

1230
01:06:39,880 --> 01:06:43,040
Speaker 1: episode is like, Okay, what are they about to film

1231
01:06:43,160 --> 01:06:46,200
Speaker 1: in like the Toronto area that they're gonna make look

1232
01:06:46,240 --> 01:06:50,280
Speaker 1: like the future or or the post apocalyptic world. Like

1233
01:06:51,040 --> 01:06:53,800
Speaker 1: there's some interesting choices at times where it's like you

1234
01:06:53,800 --> 01:06:56,200
Speaker 1: know it's it's not really an impressive building they're working

1235
01:06:56,200 --> 01:06:58,080
Speaker 1: with here, but they try and figure out ways to

1236
01:06:58,080 --> 01:07:00,880
Speaker 1: shoot it in such a way and it feels fresh

1237
01:07:00,880 --> 01:07:03,200
Speaker 1: and different compared to all these other episodes they're pumping out.

1238
01:07:03,360 --> 01:07:06,280
Speaker 1: So they're actually writing around the second hand sets and

1239
01:07:06,360 --> 01:07:10,600
Speaker 1: costumes and stuff. Um, they seem to and I haven't

1240
01:07:10,600 --> 01:07:13,240
Speaker 1: seen all the outer limits yet, but they seem to

1241
01:07:13,240 --> 01:07:15,880
Speaker 1: do a pretty good job of of not repeating themselves,

1242
01:07:15,960 --> 01:07:17,880
Speaker 1: which I think can be hard when you have so

1243
01:07:17,920 --> 01:07:21,440
Speaker 1: many episodes that are about being trapped in an alien spaceship,

1244
01:07:21,480 --> 01:07:24,160
Speaker 1: being trapped in a in a survival bunker. You know,

1245
01:07:24,360 --> 01:07:26,880
Speaker 1: like a lot of the same basic setups are going

1246
01:07:26,920 --> 01:07:29,600
Speaker 1: to be in place. Like I wonder how many different

1247
01:07:30,160 --> 01:07:34,200
Speaker 1: alien hallways, uh they create alien spaceship hallways they created

1248
01:07:34,240 --> 01:07:36,360
Speaker 1: for this show and still found a way to make

1249
01:07:36,400 --> 01:07:40,840
Speaker 1: them feel different enough, if not, you know, substantially different.

1250
01:07:40,920 --> 01:07:44,080
Speaker 1: It's the mark of a good bottle episode. Different yep,

1251
01:07:44,280 --> 01:07:46,919
Speaker 1: just different enough? All right? Should we wrap up? Let's

1252
01:07:46,920 --> 01:07:48,880
Speaker 1: wrap up. If you want to listen to other episodes

1253
01:07:48,920 --> 01:07:51,080
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow your mind, you can find them

1254
01:07:51,280 --> 01:07:53,560
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts and wherever that happens to

1255
01:07:53,560 --> 01:07:56,600
Speaker 1: be We just ask the rate, review and subscribe Huge

1256
01:07:56,640 --> 01:07:59,760
Speaker 1: things As always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas

1257
01:07:59,840 --> 01:08:01,720
Speaker 1: john Unson. If you would like to get in touch

1258
01:08:01,800 --> 01:08:04,000
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

1259
01:08:04,080 --> 01:08:06,000
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

1260
01:08:06,080 --> 01:08:09,160
Speaker 1: say hi, you can email us at contact at stuff

1261
01:08:09,200 --> 01:08:18,920
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your

1262
01:08:18,960 --> 01:08:21,920
Speaker 1: Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts

1263
01:08:21,920 --> 01:08:24,000
Speaker 1: for my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

1264
01:08:24,160 --> 01:08:35,720
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.