1 00:00:06,080 --> 00:00:08,000 Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 2 00:00:08,080 --> 00:00:11,480 Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday, 3 00:00:11,680 --> 00:00:14,360 Speaker 1: so we are heading into the vault for an older 4 00:00:14,360 --> 00:00:18,400 Speaker 1: episode of the show. This one originally aired on April twelfth, 5 00:00:18,440 --> 00:00:20,880 Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, and it's part one of a series 6 00:00:20,920 --> 00:00:24,720 Speaker 1: we did on the question of whether plants have memories 7 00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:28,680 Speaker 1: or anything analogous to memories. I remember thinking the series 8 00:00:28,760 --> 00:00:31,319 Speaker 1: was really fascinating, so it should be a treat to 9 00:00:31,320 --> 00:00:37,560 Speaker 1: re explore. Here you go. Welcome to Stuff to Blow 10 00:00:37,560 --> 00:00:47,520 Speaker 1: Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, welcome to Stuff 11 00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:50,000 Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 12 00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:52,680 Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going to be talking 13 00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:57,720 Speaker 1: about an interesting and perhaps hidden property of plants. And 14 00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:01,560 Speaker 1: to start us off, I wanted to read a selection 15 00:01:01,680 --> 00:01:04,600 Speaker 1: from one of the lesser known works by the English 16 00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:08,319 Speaker 1: Romantic poet Percy Bis Shelley. This is a poem called 17 00:01:08,360 --> 00:01:11,160 Speaker 1: the Sensitive Plant. Rob Am, I write that you'd never 18 00:01:11,160 --> 00:01:13,679 Speaker 1: heard of this one before. No, I you know, obviously 19 00:01:13,720 --> 00:01:16,039 Speaker 1: I've read a little bit of Shelley here and there, 20 00:01:17,080 --> 00:01:20,039 Speaker 1: but this must I'm assuming this is a deeper cut 21 00:01:20,319 --> 00:01:22,360 Speaker 1: it is. I think it was one of the final 22 00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:25,440 Speaker 1: things he wrote before his death, so this would have 23 00:01:25,440 --> 00:01:28,959 Speaker 1: been I think sometimes in the early eighteen twenties, and 24 00:01:29,080 --> 00:01:32,040 Speaker 1: it was published I believe as a standalone work at 25 00:01:32,120 --> 00:01:33,960 Speaker 1: least at some point it was. I was reading through 26 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:36,440 Speaker 1: like a book version of it on that had been 27 00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:39,119 Speaker 1: scanned into Google Books, and every other page on it 28 00:01:39,160 --> 00:01:42,040 Speaker 1: was like washed out on the scan, so that was beautiful. 29 00:01:42,080 --> 00:01:45,720 Speaker 1: But yeah, this one's kind of weird. It's it's not 30 00:01:45,760 --> 00:01:47,760 Speaker 1: one of his best poems, but it has some really 31 00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:50,280 Speaker 1: great lines in it. So I just wanted to read 32 00:01:51,120 --> 00:01:53,280 Speaker 1: just a selection from it. It's too long to read 33 00:01:53,320 --> 00:01:56,120 Speaker 1: in full, but this is an exerpt from the end 34 00:01:56,160 --> 00:01:59,680 Speaker 1: of Part one of The Sensitive Plant by Percy BIS. Shelley. 35 00:02:00,360 --> 00:02:03,880 Speaker 1: For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower. Radiance and 36 00:02:04,040 --> 00:02:07,600 Speaker 1: odor are not its dour. It loves even like love. 37 00:02:07,880 --> 00:02:10,760 Speaker 1: Its deep heart is full. It desires what it has 38 00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:16,079 Speaker 1: not the beautiful, the light winds, which from unsustaining wings 39 00:02:16,200 --> 00:02:19,960 Speaker 1: shed the music of many murmurings, the beams which dart 40 00:02:20,040 --> 00:02:23,160 Speaker 1: from many a star of the flowers whose hues they 41 00:02:23,200 --> 00:02:27,560 Speaker 1: bear afar, the plumid insects, swift and free, like golden 42 00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:30,880 Speaker 1: boats on a sunny sea, laden with light and odor, 43 00:02:30,960 --> 00:02:34,400 Speaker 1: which pass over the gleam of the living grass, The 44 00:02:34,560 --> 00:02:37,919 Speaker 1: unseen clouds of the dew, which lie like fire in 45 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:41,320 Speaker 1: the flowers till the sun rides high, then wander like 46 00:02:41,480 --> 00:02:45,400 Speaker 1: spirits among the spheres, each cloud faint with the fragrance 47 00:02:45,440 --> 00:02:49,840 Speaker 1: it bears, The quivering vapors of dim noontide, which like 48 00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:53,280 Speaker 1: a sea over the warm earth, glide in which every 49 00:02:53,320 --> 00:02:56,720 Speaker 1: sound and odor and beam move as reeds in a 50 00:02:56,800 --> 00:03:00,960 Speaker 1: single stream, each and all, like ministering angels, were for 51 00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:05,040 Speaker 1: the sensitive plant, sweet joy to bear, whilst the lagging 52 00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:08,239 Speaker 1: hours of the day went by like windless clouds over 53 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:12,320 Speaker 1: a tender sky, And when evening descended from heaven above, 54 00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:15,000 Speaker 1: and the earth was all rest, and the air was 55 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:19,000 Speaker 1: all love and delight, though less bright was far more deep, 56 00:03:19,360 --> 00:03:22,120 Speaker 1: and the day's veil fell from the world of sleep, 57 00:03:22,600 --> 00:03:25,000 Speaker 1: and the beasts and the birds and the insects were 58 00:03:25,080 --> 00:03:28,799 Speaker 1: drowned in an ocean of dreams without a sound, whose 59 00:03:28,840 --> 00:03:32,400 Speaker 1: waves never mark, though they ever impressed the light sand 60 00:03:32,440 --> 00:03:38,000 Speaker 1: which paves it consciousness only overhead. The sweet nightingale ever 61 00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:41,520 Speaker 1: sang more sweet as the day might fail, and snatches 62 00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:44,960 Speaker 1: of its elysien chant were mixed with the dreams of 63 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:49,240 Speaker 1: the sensitive plant. Ah, very nice. Yeah, so I don't 64 00:03:49,280 --> 00:03:51,360 Speaker 1: think it's one of Percy's best poems. Like I was saying, 65 00:03:51,440 --> 00:03:54,480 Speaker 1: the rhythms a little too regular and singsongy. Sometimes. Some 66 00:03:54,520 --> 00:03:56,160 Speaker 1: of the rhymes are a little obvious, you know, the 67 00:03:56,240 --> 00:03:59,520 Speaker 1: rhyming love with above and all that. You could imagine 68 00:03:59,560 --> 00:04:03,560 Speaker 1: like a an eighties rat bait thrown in the background 69 00:04:03,800 --> 00:04:05,720 Speaker 1: some of those, or this could be a song like 70 00:04:05,760 --> 00:04:09,000 Speaker 1: every Rose has its Thorn, you know, a monster ballad. 71 00:04:09,440 --> 00:04:12,000 Speaker 1: But there are also lines. I really love the dew 72 00:04:12,160 --> 00:04:15,160 Speaker 1: which lies like fire and the flowers, and the nighttime 73 00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:18,880 Speaker 1: as an ocean paved under with the sands of consciousness. 74 00:04:19,640 --> 00:04:23,080 Speaker 1: But it's esthetic qualities aside. I think it's really interesting 75 00:04:23,640 --> 00:04:28,240 Speaker 1: that Percy is suggesting, in his unorthodox and emotionally charged 76 00:04:28,320 --> 00:04:32,280 Speaker 1: view of the world, that this particular plant, the sensitive plant, 77 00:04:32,279 --> 00:04:35,159 Speaker 1: which is a species of plant, may somehow have a 78 00:04:35,240 --> 00:04:38,279 Speaker 1: kind of humanity of its own, like a soul or 79 00:04:38,320 --> 00:04:41,200 Speaker 1: a mind, or, as I believe he implies later in 80 00:04:41,240 --> 00:04:44,840 Speaker 1: the poem, an afterlife. So you might wonder why would 81 00:04:44,839 --> 00:04:46,880 Speaker 1: he say that about this species of plant, which he 82 00:04:46,920 --> 00:04:50,640 Speaker 1: acknowledges is not a particularly beautiful flower. It's it's a mimosa, 83 00:04:50,680 --> 00:04:54,960 Speaker 1: so it's got a little pink, puffball kind of thing. Well, 84 00:04:55,640 --> 00:04:58,719 Speaker 1: I think the answer is actually tied to some of 85 00:04:58,720 --> 00:05:02,360 Speaker 1: the biological qualities of the sensitive plant as a species. 86 00:05:02,360 --> 00:05:04,760 Speaker 1: So the sensitive plant is one of the mani names 87 00:05:04,839 --> 00:05:10,719 Speaker 1: of Mimosa pudica, pudica being Latin for chaste or modest, 88 00:05:10,960 --> 00:05:15,280 Speaker 1: shamefaced or bashful. And this is a flowering plant in 89 00:05:15,320 --> 00:05:19,239 Speaker 1: the family Fabasi, which is the pea or lagume family, 90 00:05:19,560 --> 00:05:22,000 Speaker 1: which means yes, this plant is a cousin of the 91 00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:24,680 Speaker 1: common being. So we are we are dealing in bean 92 00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:28,680 Speaker 1: can today, we're getting into into supernatural territory then, oh boy. 93 00:05:29,320 --> 00:05:32,479 Speaker 1: Mimosa pudica is native to South and Central America and 94 00:05:32,520 --> 00:05:36,560 Speaker 1: the Caribbean, though since transatlantic contact it has spread to 95 00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:39,200 Speaker 1: all other parts of the world. I think it's pervasive 96 00:05:39,240 --> 00:05:42,919 Speaker 1: throughout the tropics, and it's also known by tons of 97 00:05:42,920 --> 00:05:46,279 Speaker 1: different names. It's called the humble plant, the shame plant, 98 00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:50,680 Speaker 1: the touch me not, and all of these names connect 99 00:05:50,839 --> 00:05:54,159 Speaker 1: to the most striking feature of this species, which is 100 00:05:54,200 --> 00:05:58,880 Speaker 1: that it is a plant that recoils when touched. And 101 00:05:59,360 --> 00:06:01,960 Speaker 1: this is one of a handful of examples of rapid 102 00:06:02,160 --> 00:06:05,919 Speaker 1: movement in the plant kingdom, movement on the timescale that 103 00:06:05,960 --> 00:06:09,400 Speaker 1: we would normally associate only with animals. So, if you 104 00:06:09,400 --> 00:06:12,080 Speaker 1: want to picture it, the sensitive plant is a spiny 105 00:06:12,120 --> 00:06:15,000 Speaker 1: little shrub that grows up to about a foot off 106 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:18,640 Speaker 1: the ground. It has these pink flower puffs and small 107 00:06:18,760 --> 00:06:23,640 Speaker 1: forking branches with compound leaves. So to picture the leaves 108 00:06:23,640 --> 00:06:26,520 Speaker 1: of this plant, they are the ones that kind of 109 00:06:26,560 --> 00:06:28,880 Speaker 1: like a feather, you know, with a stalk running up 110 00:06:28,880 --> 00:06:32,680 Speaker 1: the middle, and then lots of tiny, little pinile leaflets 111 00:06:32,720 --> 00:06:35,600 Speaker 1: shooting out from that middle stalk, parallel to each other 112 00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:38,560 Speaker 1: and perpendicular to the stalk, like the teeth of a comb, 113 00:06:39,040 --> 00:06:41,680 Speaker 1: or like the barbs of a feather. And to see 114 00:06:41,720 --> 00:06:45,159 Speaker 1: the sensitive plant in action, all you need to do 115 00:06:45,440 --> 00:06:48,400 Speaker 1: is touch a finger on one of these branches, and 116 00:06:48,600 --> 00:06:52,640 Speaker 1: suddenly what happens is the leaflets all fold inward like 117 00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:56,479 Speaker 1: a closing suitcase. And then sometimes even the branch or 118 00:06:56,520 --> 00:07:00,719 Speaker 1: the stalk that they're on will droop away, the stimulus 119 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:04,599 Speaker 1: will droop down. From what I can tell, there is 120 00:07:04,720 --> 00:07:08,800 Speaker 1: not yet a full consensus on the main function of 121 00:07:08,800 --> 00:07:11,600 Speaker 1: this shrinking behavior in the wild, like, why does it 122 00:07:11,680 --> 00:07:16,120 Speaker 1: do that? But botanists have long suspected that it's some 123 00:07:16,240 --> 00:07:19,520 Speaker 1: kind of defensive action by the plant to protect its 124 00:07:19,600 --> 00:07:23,760 Speaker 1: leaves from grazing herbivores or insects. And this could actually 125 00:07:23,760 --> 00:07:27,680 Speaker 1: work in multiple ways. So one of them is that 126 00:07:27,760 --> 00:07:30,840 Speaker 1: maybe it works by physically moving the leaves away from 127 00:07:30,840 --> 00:07:33,440 Speaker 1: a grazer. You know, something comes, spides, it's munching on 128 00:07:33,480 --> 00:07:36,000 Speaker 1: the leaves, and this causes the leaves to kind of 129 00:07:36,080 --> 00:07:38,960 Speaker 1: pull away from the mouth. Or it could work by 130 00:07:39,080 --> 00:07:42,280 Speaker 1: hiding the leaves so you know, it is disturbed something 131 00:07:42,360 --> 00:07:44,200 Speaker 1: is around, it might be trying to eat the plant, 132 00:07:44,400 --> 00:07:47,440 Speaker 1: and by closing up it makes it less obvious where 133 00:07:47,480 --> 00:07:51,080 Speaker 1: the leaves are. Yeah, and I guess one can imagine 134 00:07:51,240 --> 00:07:54,640 Speaker 1: this working within the context of a you know, an 135 00:07:54,800 --> 00:07:58,080 Speaker 1: enormous grazing animal that is eating a lot of plants. 136 00:07:58,240 --> 00:08:01,440 Speaker 1: And it's maybe not gonna opt to really get particular 137 00:08:01,520 --> 00:08:04,920 Speaker 1: about this one if this one has made itself smaller, 138 00:08:05,160 --> 00:08:09,360 Speaker 1: you know, retreated into you know, amidst other plants, et cetera, 139 00:08:09,520 --> 00:08:11,600 Speaker 1: Like it's just going to keep eating whatever is readily 140 00:08:11,600 --> 00:08:14,880 Speaker 1: available to eat, right, But I think there's also a 141 00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:18,440 Speaker 1: focus on insects maybe insects or also the reason it 142 00:08:18,480 --> 00:08:22,080 Speaker 1: does this, and it could also work maybe by startling 143 00:08:22,120 --> 00:08:24,720 Speaker 1: a predator like an insect or grazing her before because 144 00:08:24,920 --> 00:08:28,040 Speaker 1: of course plants don't usually move rapidly like animals do. 145 00:08:28,160 --> 00:08:30,760 Speaker 1: So you know, if you're an insect or whatever that's 146 00:08:30,800 --> 00:08:34,240 Speaker 1: grazing and then suddenly there is movement on the timescale 147 00:08:34,240 --> 00:08:37,400 Speaker 1: of animal movement in your in your vicinity, that might 148 00:08:37,520 --> 00:08:40,520 Speaker 1: startle you and send you on the run. Yeah, on 149 00:08:40,640 --> 00:08:43,840 Speaker 1: the timescale of animal movement. That's that's key. Because of course, 150 00:08:43,880 --> 00:08:46,800 Speaker 1: the other main plant we think of in terms of 151 00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:49,280 Speaker 1: this is the venus fly plant, which you know, we'll 152 00:08:49,320 --> 00:08:51,720 Speaker 1: come back to, uh that. You know, that is a 153 00:08:51,760 --> 00:08:56,080 Speaker 1: plant that is acting aggressively on the timescale of of 154 00:08:56,080 --> 00:09:00,319 Speaker 1: of animals in an attempt to capture set an. But 155 00:09:00,640 --> 00:09:02,760 Speaker 1: here we see the reverse. Here we see something that 156 00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:06,319 Speaker 1: is that is acting, you know, defensively, that is moving 157 00:09:06,320 --> 00:09:08,800 Speaker 1: away from us, that is not saying I want to 158 00:09:08,800 --> 00:09:11,160 Speaker 1: touch you and envelop you, but I would rather not 159 00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:13,120 Speaker 1: touch you at all. Yes, I would rather not. I 160 00:09:13,120 --> 00:09:17,200 Speaker 1: would prefer not to. Yeah. So usually after a sensitive 161 00:09:17,200 --> 00:09:20,640 Speaker 1: plant closes up its leaflets and droops away, it will 162 00:09:20,760 --> 00:09:24,680 Speaker 1: reopen within some short time period, maybe only a few seconds, 163 00:09:25,360 --> 00:09:28,400 Speaker 1: sometimes a few minutes, but it doesn't take long. It'll 164 00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:31,360 Speaker 1: it'll open back up, get those leaves out there again, 165 00:09:31,440 --> 00:09:35,240 Speaker 1: and start all over. And the sensitive plant also has 166 00:09:35,280 --> 00:09:39,200 Speaker 1: a circadian rhythm to its closure, because it will close 167 00:09:39,240 --> 00:09:41,920 Speaker 1: its leaves in the darkness and then reopen them in 168 00:09:41,920 --> 00:09:45,400 Speaker 1: the daylight. Now, I found a wonderful post on j 169 00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:50,360 Speaker 1: Store Daily by Rebecca Friedel about the history of Mimosa 170 00:09:50,360 --> 00:09:55,880 Speaker 1: putica and also a similar Old World plant called Biophytum sensitivum, 171 00:09:56,160 --> 00:09:59,800 Speaker 1: which is actually not a close relative of the sensitive plant, 172 00:09:59,800 --> 00:10:02,360 Speaker 1: but does almost exactly the same thing with its leaves. 173 00:10:02,360 --> 00:10:03,800 Speaker 1: So it looks like this would be a case of 174 00:10:04,160 --> 00:10:08,640 Speaker 1: convergent evolution. But this article points to the work of 175 00:10:08,679 --> 00:10:13,200 Speaker 1: a sixteenth century Portuguese naturalist living in India named Christo 176 00:10:13,280 --> 00:10:16,880 Speaker 1: baal Acosta, who authored a book in fifteen seventy eight 177 00:10:16,920 --> 00:10:21,240 Speaker 1: called Tractado de las Drogas e Medicinas de las Indias 178 00:10:21,320 --> 00:10:24,679 Speaker 1: Orientales or Treatise on the Drugs and Medicines of the 179 00:10:24,679 --> 00:10:27,800 Speaker 1: East and East Indies. I really wanted to find an 180 00:10:27,800 --> 00:10:30,160 Speaker 1: English translation of this so I could quote it directly, 181 00:10:30,200 --> 00:10:33,160 Speaker 1: because it sounds like it's a hoot, but I could not, 182 00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:34,720 Speaker 1: So I'm going to have to rely on a couple 183 00:10:34,720 --> 00:10:38,280 Speaker 1: of secondhand summaries, including a Friedel's article here. But anyway, 184 00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:41,079 Speaker 1: in this book by Christo Baal Acosta in the sixteenth century, 185 00:10:41,320 --> 00:10:45,720 Speaker 1: he describes a plant among the medicinal herbs of India 186 00:10:45,920 --> 00:10:49,280 Speaker 1: called the yerba della more or the herb the herb 187 00:10:49,360 --> 00:10:54,280 Speaker 1: of love? Do you ever say herb with the H pronounced? Sometimes? 188 00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:57,000 Speaker 1: I'm afraid I'm going to keep doing that. Yeah, sometimes 189 00:10:57,040 --> 00:10:59,640 Speaker 1: it slips out. Yeah, I don't know why. I try 190 00:10:59,640 --> 00:11:02,160 Speaker 1: to fix this in my brain by like saying the 191 00:11:02,280 --> 00:11:05,800 Speaker 1: name herb without the H pronounce. So like I go, 192 00:11:07,280 --> 00:11:12,800 Speaker 1: I said, herb Herbert Hoover, Herbert Hoover. That'llfens it. Well, yeah, 193 00:11:12,800 --> 00:11:16,760 Speaker 1: I mean it's easy to fall into because herbivore, herbivorec Anyway, 194 00:11:16,840 --> 00:11:18,920 Speaker 1: why the herb of love? Why would it be called 195 00:11:18,960 --> 00:11:22,400 Speaker 1: the herb of love? Well? Acosta says that, according to 196 00:11:22,440 --> 00:11:25,199 Speaker 1: an Indian physician he talked to, the herb of love 197 00:11:25,640 --> 00:11:29,160 Speaker 1: was a potent seduction drug with a one hundred percent 198 00:11:29,280 --> 00:11:34,160 Speaker 1: success rate never fails. And after this passage, Acosta has 199 00:11:34,160 --> 00:11:37,320 Speaker 1: an aside to assure readers of this medicinal catalog that 200 00:11:37,400 --> 00:11:41,040 Speaker 1: he definitely never personally tried to use the sex herb, never, 201 00:11:41,440 --> 00:11:44,840 Speaker 1: not once. Probably a good thing considering that other more 202 00:11:44,880 --> 00:11:47,400 Speaker 1: well known sex herbs, if you will, are you know 203 00:11:47,480 --> 00:11:53,040 Speaker 1: essentially poisons? Right? But aside from the dubious allegations about 204 00:11:53,280 --> 00:11:56,600 Speaker 1: Cupid's aero type powers, this plant, the Herb of Love 205 00:11:56,880 --> 00:12:00,560 Speaker 1: is remarkable for its ability to close its leaves rapidly, 206 00:12:00,679 --> 00:12:03,240 Speaker 1: moving at the speed of an animal recoiling from a 207 00:12:03,280 --> 00:12:06,760 Speaker 1: needle prick. And I was looking at another source which 208 00:12:06,800 --> 00:12:11,200 Speaker 1: mentions Acosta. This is by JF. Veldkamp called Notes on 209 00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:14,920 Speaker 1: Biophytom of the Old World, published in Taxon in nineteen 210 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:19,360 Speaker 1: eighty nine. I cite this just because Veldkamp tells a 211 00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:23,520 Speaker 1: story that Acosta claimed he knew of a philosopher in Malabar, 212 00:12:23,679 --> 00:12:28,640 Speaker 1: so region along the southwest coast of India. A philosopher 213 00:12:28,679 --> 00:12:31,679 Speaker 1: who lived in Malabar who was so tortured by the 214 00:12:31,720 --> 00:12:35,120 Speaker 1: mystery of the Herb of Love's rapid movement that he 215 00:12:35,200 --> 00:12:38,200 Speaker 1: literally lost his mind trying to study it. He was like, 216 00:12:38,240 --> 00:12:41,040 Speaker 1: how does it move? And that was it for him. 217 00:12:41,559 --> 00:12:43,680 Speaker 1: No word on whether that guy ever used it for 218 00:12:44,120 --> 00:12:47,280 Speaker 1: Cupid zero type purposes. Yeah, because again, and this will 219 00:12:47,600 --> 00:12:50,240 Speaker 1: going to be something that will will discuss later as well. 220 00:12:50,280 --> 00:12:52,439 Speaker 1: I mean it's it's acting in a way that other 221 00:12:52,520 --> 00:12:56,800 Speaker 1: plants do not act. It seems unnatural, right, I mean 222 00:12:56,840 --> 00:12:59,440 Speaker 1: if I had never seen a rapidly moving plant before 223 00:12:59,480 --> 00:13:01,520 Speaker 1: and I just stumbled across one of these in the 224 00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:03,640 Speaker 1: wild saw it folding up like that, I would be 225 00:13:03,679 --> 00:13:06,120 Speaker 1: freaked out. I don't know what to think of this. 226 00:13:06,160 --> 00:13:09,040 Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to imagine because I grew up 227 00:13:09,040 --> 00:13:13,040 Speaker 1: with venus flytraps, you know, Like I remember when I 228 00:13:13,080 --> 00:13:15,880 Speaker 1: was a kid and I would have like one of 229 00:13:15,880 --> 00:13:18,760 Speaker 1: those really boring weekend days where my mom wanted to 230 00:13:18,800 --> 00:13:22,000 Speaker 1: go to the plant nursery and get some plants around 231 00:13:22,040 --> 00:13:25,000 Speaker 1: the house. And I think my consolation there was that 232 00:13:25,080 --> 00:13:28,480 Speaker 1: a couple of times I got a little potted venus flytrap. Yeah. 233 00:13:28,520 --> 00:13:31,320 Speaker 1: They're pretty fun little plants. They always have a huge 234 00:13:31,640 --> 00:13:36,040 Speaker 1: container of them out at the at the Bananical Garden 235 00:13:36,120 --> 00:13:39,160 Speaker 1: in Atlanta for the kids to interact with and inevitably 236 00:13:39,200 --> 00:13:42,840 Speaker 1: stick little sticks into their into their their their mouths, 237 00:13:42,880 --> 00:13:45,240 Speaker 1: if you will. Right, so, we know about that one. 238 00:13:45,280 --> 00:13:47,800 Speaker 1: But if you're previously unfamiliar with a plant like that, 239 00:13:48,080 --> 00:13:51,200 Speaker 1: or or one of these leaf closing plants like Mimosa 240 00:13:51,200 --> 00:13:56,520 Speaker 1: pudica or biophytum. I imagine it would be shocking. Yeah, 241 00:13:56,520 --> 00:14:01,680 Speaker 1: I mean, we are hardwired really to topact that sudden 242 00:14:01,800 --> 00:14:05,679 Speaker 1: movement in the grass might be something dangerous. It might 243 00:14:05,720 --> 00:14:07,959 Speaker 1: be a snake, for example, Like, that's the first place 244 00:14:08,040 --> 00:14:10,280 Speaker 1: my mind goes. If I'm on a walk and there's 245 00:14:10,280 --> 00:14:13,120 Speaker 1: some sort of rustling in the bushes, it might be 246 00:14:13,240 --> 00:14:16,280 Speaker 1: a snake, or it's something like a chipmunk or a squirrel. 247 00:14:16,360 --> 00:14:18,760 Speaker 1: Probably not a squirrel because they're a bit bolder, but 248 00:14:19,320 --> 00:14:22,560 Speaker 1: certainly the snake is never far from one's mind. Very true. 249 00:14:22,960 --> 00:14:26,720 Speaker 1: So anyway, for several centuries there was confusion about how 250 00:14:26,760 --> 00:14:30,080 Speaker 1: to taxonomize this plant that Christal ball Acosta was talking about, 251 00:14:30,080 --> 00:14:32,960 Speaker 1: the Herb of Love, and Freedell points to an eighteen 252 00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:37,200 Speaker 1: twenty five volume of the Botanical Register which says, hey, 253 00:14:37,240 --> 00:14:39,920 Speaker 1: we know about this plant from South America called the 254 00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:43,800 Speaker 1: Mimosa pudica. It does that leaf shutting thing. So maybe 255 00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:46,680 Speaker 1: this herb of love that Acosta is talking about in 256 00:14:46,680 --> 00:14:49,720 Speaker 1: India in the sixteenth century is actually the same plant. 257 00:14:50,320 --> 00:14:54,320 Speaker 1: After all, it does seem that pretty quickly after transatlantic contact, 258 00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:58,640 Speaker 1: the mimosa spread all around the globe. But now that 259 00:14:58,680 --> 00:15:00,840 Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be the case. Botton are pretty clear 260 00:15:00,920 --> 00:15:03,280 Speaker 1: that the herb of love was actually this other species 261 00:15:03,320 --> 00:15:07,840 Speaker 1: I mentioned a minute ago, Biophytum sensitivum and Freedel rights. 262 00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:11,640 Speaker 1: This was funny quote. Perhaps the erotic claims Acosta made 263 00:15:11,720 --> 00:15:14,560 Speaker 1: so enthralled some that they failed to turn the page 264 00:15:14,600 --> 00:15:18,520 Speaker 1: to the next entry on Erba mimosa, a likely description 265 00:15:18,600 --> 00:15:22,440 Speaker 1: of the actual mimosa putica. Do your homework, guys, come on. 266 00:15:23,120 --> 00:15:26,800 Speaker 1: But anyway, I was thinking about this mechanism, so immediately 267 00:15:26,920 --> 00:15:29,760 Speaker 1: when I see a plant with rapid movement like this, 268 00:15:29,840 --> 00:15:32,960 Speaker 1: the leaf closing behavior, I wonder how on earth does 269 00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:36,440 Speaker 1: it do that? Because, of course we can move rapidly, 270 00:15:36,520 --> 00:15:38,400 Speaker 1: but we can only do that because we have a 271 00:15:38,440 --> 00:15:43,280 Speaker 1: nervous system and a muscular skeletal system muscles. Plants don't 272 00:15:43,320 --> 00:15:45,480 Speaker 1: have either one. There are no muscles and a plant. 273 00:15:45,600 --> 00:15:50,520 Speaker 1: So what mechanism could a plant use to contract on 274 00:15:50,560 --> 00:15:54,160 Speaker 1: the order of seconds. Well, scientists have actually figured out 275 00:15:54,160 --> 00:15:57,680 Speaker 1: the answer to this one. The types of movement on 276 00:15:57,760 --> 00:16:01,040 Speaker 1: display in the sensitive plant and the rapid moving plants 277 00:16:01,040 --> 00:16:06,720 Speaker 1: like the venus flytrap are known as seismoonastic movements, and 278 00:16:06,920 --> 00:16:11,040 Speaker 1: these are an example of a bigger category of nastic movements, 279 00:16:11,080 --> 00:16:13,760 Speaker 1: which can be defined by their difference from another type 280 00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:17,440 Speaker 1: of plant movement called tropisms. Now, tropisms, I think we've 281 00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:21,080 Speaker 1: all seen in action. You know what this is? View 282 00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:24,680 Speaker 1: ever had house plants? A tropism is growth in a 283 00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:29,640 Speaker 1: specific direction based on an external stimulus. So plants will 284 00:16:29,760 --> 00:16:33,000 Speaker 1: grow toward a light source. In fact, right in front 285 00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:35,280 Speaker 1: of me. Right now, I have a potted plant here 286 00:16:35,280 --> 00:16:39,520 Speaker 1: on my desk, and over time its leaves all start 287 00:16:39,720 --> 00:16:42,880 Speaker 1: reaching out for the lamp next to it, until I 288 00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:45,800 Speaker 1: turn the pot around, and then gradually they all start 289 00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:50,080 Speaker 1: to hook back in the opposite direction. And it just 290 00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:52,000 Speaker 1: now struck me for the first time. That might sound 291 00:16:52,080 --> 00:16:54,040 Speaker 1: kind of cruel, like I'm toying with it, but I 292 00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:57,000 Speaker 1: really don't think the plant's feelings are hurt. Another example 293 00:16:57,080 --> 00:17:01,320 Speaker 1: this would be trees seeing to grow around up power lines. Sure, yeah, 294 00:17:01,480 --> 00:17:06,360 Speaker 1: So plants can grow in different directions responding to objects 295 00:17:06,480 --> 00:17:12,159 Speaker 1: or stimuli in their environments. Nastic movements, in contrast to tropisms, 296 00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:15,800 Speaker 1: are not oriented in the direction of a stimulus, but 297 00:17:16,040 --> 00:17:21,280 Speaker 1: rather are fixed reflexes that are determined by the plant's anatomy. So, 298 00:17:21,680 --> 00:17:25,520 Speaker 1: for example, a venus fly trap shows a nastic response. 299 00:17:25,800 --> 00:17:28,760 Speaker 1: It doesn't go off in a particular direction to catch 300 00:17:28,760 --> 00:17:31,680 Speaker 1: a fly, but rather, when it senses movement in its 301 00:17:31,720 --> 00:17:36,160 Speaker 1: trap area, the hinge closes. So it has a predetermined, 302 00:17:36,280 --> 00:17:40,639 Speaker 1: a directionally predetermined movement that is in keeping with the 303 00:17:41,040 --> 00:17:46,080 Speaker 1: plant's anatomy, not in an adaptable direction. And the sensitive 304 00:17:46,080 --> 00:17:49,159 Speaker 1: plant is another example of a nastic response. And I 305 00:17:49,160 --> 00:17:54,280 Speaker 1: think it's interesting to note that the stimulus direction dependent 306 00:17:54,400 --> 00:17:58,160 Speaker 1: movements of plants tend to be very slow, very very slow, 307 00:17:58,200 --> 00:18:01,320 Speaker 1: and based on growth. Well, the few plants that are 308 00:18:01,480 --> 00:18:04,600 Speaker 1: able to move rapidly in all cases that I'm aware of, 309 00:18:04,680 --> 00:18:08,480 Speaker 1: certainly in most cases their movement is constrained to these 310 00:18:08,600 --> 00:18:12,600 Speaker 1: directionally fixed reflexes. Now, of course, we animals have the 311 00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:15,440 Speaker 1: best of both worlds, right, We can move rapidly and 312 00:18:15,560 --> 00:18:19,080 Speaker 1: we have the flexibility to respond in whatever direction makes 313 00:18:19,119 --> 00:18:21,600 Speaker 1: sense given the stimulus. But you know that's because we're 314 00:18:21,640 --> 00:18:25,439 Speaker 1: different types of creatures, different anatomy, different energy requirements and 315 00:18:25,480 --> 00:18:35,760 Speaker 1: so forth. But okay, that's nastic movements now, seis monastic 316 00:18:35,800 --> 00:18:39,439 Speaker 1: movements are nastic movements that are triggered by touch or 317 00:18:39,480 --> 00:18:45,280 Speaker 1: by vibration. Now again without muscles. How it all this work? 318 00:18:45,359 --> 00:18:48,359 Speaker 1: How does the nastic movement actually happen? Well, here we 319 00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:50,919 Speaker 1: come to a really excellent new word I learned. The 320 00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:56,199 Speaker 1: word is terger spelled tur gr. It's a good like 321 00:18:56,320 --> 00:18:59,879 Speaker 1: a leather diaper, Barbarian name. But it also it is 322 00:19:00,040 --> 00:19:02,600 Speaker 1: a name for something that happens within plants. It's related 323 00:19:02,640 --> 00:19:06,479 Speaker 1: to the word turgid or turgidity, and so within plants 324 00:19:06,600 --> 00:19:10,639 Speaker 1: there is a principle called turger pressure. And one simple 325 00:19:10,680 --> 00:19:12,919 Speaker 1: way to think about turger pressure is that it is 326 00:19:12,960 --> 00:19:17,440 Speaker 1: like water pressure inside a plant. So you think about 327 00:19:17,480 --> 00:19:21,480 Speaker 1: the difference between a wilted flower baking dry in the sun. 328 00:19:22,040 --> 00:19:24,640 Speaker 1: You know it's parched, and you see it drooping over, 329 00:19:25,280 --> 00:19:27,640 Speaker 1: and then you think about what that flower does after 330 00:19:27,720 --> 00:19:30,400 Speaker 1: you water it. If things go well. Usually you give 331 00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:33,280 Speaker 1: a wilted plant water and its leaves and stems stops 332 00:19:33,320 --> 00:19:36,360 Speaker 1: sagging and they become rigid again. It stands straight up 333 00:19:36,440 --> 00:19:38,840 Speaker 1: the you know, the it's it's almost like it's inflated 334 00:19:38,920 --> 00:19:41,160 Speaker 1: like a balloon. Yeah, And in some plants it's it's 335 00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:45,480 Speaker 1: it's amazing the difference just a quick watering can have. 336 00:19:46,359 --> 00:19:49,800 Speaker 1: We have a linen bomb, and I always find that 337 00:19:49,800 --> 00:19:51,760 Speaker 1: that one among our plants is the first to just 338 00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:54,720 Speaker 1: immediately seem to give up the ghost and start wilting away. 339 00:19:55,359 --> 00:19:57,040 Speaker 1: But then you know, you give it enough water and 340 00:19:57,080 --> 00:19:59,920 Speaker 1: it's just back, just a bushy and full of fly 341 00:20:00,119 --> 00:20:02,600 Speaker 1: as ever totally. In fact, you might have even observed this, 342 00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:06,639 Speaker 1: not with a live plants, but giving some veggies in 343 00:20:06,680 --> 00:20:09,040 Speaker 1: the kitchen a soak or even just to wash. This 344 00:20:09,119 --> 00:20:12,119 Speaker 1: is a good trick for resurrecting what appeared to be 345 00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:15,040 Speaker 1: wilted salad greens that are past their prime. You might 346 00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:17,320 Speaker 1: think they're no good, you know, you got to toss them. 347 00:20:17,760 --> 00:20:21,200 Speaker 1: You would be surprised how salvageable some greens are after 348 00:20:21,240 --> 00:20:24,359 Speaker 1: a soak in cold water. Really like like spinach, the 349 00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:26,360 Speaker 1: surf of spinach. I don't know if I ever tried 350 00:20:26,359 --> 00:20:28,120 Speaker 1: it on spinach, but I've tried it on other types 351 00:20:28,160 --> 00:20:30,800 Speaker 1: of greens, like you know, arugula and things like that 352 00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:33,679 Speaker 1: that are you know, they're starting not not like if 353 00:20:33,680 --> 00:20:36,040 Speaker 1: they're getting slimy, you know, but if they're just like 354 00:20:36,080 --> 00:20:39,520 Speaker 1: they're clearly they're getting desiccated and wilted. It looks like, oh, 355 00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:40,919 Speaker 1: these are going to be no good. Soak them in 356 00:20:40,960 --> 00:20:42,800 Speaker 1: some cold water. They might come back to life and 357 00:20:42,920 --> 00:20:45,520 Speaker 1: be crisp again. Okay, I didn't know about this trick, 358 00:20:45,560 --> 00:20:48,359 Speaker 1: but now I will have to try this sometime. But anyway, So, 359 00:20:48,520 --> 00:20:53,240 Speaker 1: turger pressure is when a plant's cells are swollen with 360 00:20:53,320 --> 00:20:56,080 Speaker 1: water so that in the inside of the cells, within 361 00:20:56,119 --> 00:20:59,880 Speaker 1: the plasma membrane, the water pressure is actually pushing out 362 00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:03,840 Speaker 1: against the cell wall. And so when turger pressure is high, 363 00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:06,840 Speaker 1: the plant is said to be turgid, and so to 364 00:21:06,960 --> 00:21:09,680 Speaker 1: come back to the sensitive plant when the leaves are 365 00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:14,240 Speaker 1: touched or disturbed and electrochemical chain reaction is set off, 366 00:21:14,880 --> 00:21:17,159 Speaker 1: It's sensed by cells in the leaves and then it 367 00:21:17,440 --> 00:21:21,320 Speaker 1: sets off this electrochemical chain reaction that eventually ends in 368 00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:25,840 Speaker 1: water gushing out from so called motor cells at the 369 00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:29,800 Speaker 1: base of the leaflets that were previously turgid. So the 370 00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:33,520 Speaker 1: sudden loss of turger pressure the cells purging their water 371 00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:37,959 Speaker 1: contents causes the leaflet to move, basically to collapse at 372 00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:41,800 Speaker 1: it's hinge, and this is known as turger movement. So 373 00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:44,120 Speaker 1: in a strange way, you can think about it like 374 00:21:44,480 --> 00:21:49,000 Speaker 1: the plant moving by causing itself to very selectively and 375 00:21:49,200 --> 00:21:53,200 Speaker 1: rapidly wilt like a parched plant. Then over the course 376 00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:57,119 Speaker 1: of the following minutes, turger pressure can be restored and 377 00:21:57,200 --> 00:21:59,439 Speaker 1: the leaves go rigid again, and they go back to 378 00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:01,880 Speaker 1: their extended state. But to come to the next thing, 379 00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:07,840 Speaker 1: even more astonishing than the plant's ability to behave physically 380 00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:10,920 Speaker 1: in ways that seem more at home in animals with muscles, 381 00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:15,359 Speaker 1: is potential evidence that the Mimosa pudica may also, in 382 00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:19,760 Speaker 1: a qualified sense, behave mentally in ways that seem more 383 00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:24,400 Speaker 1: at home in animals with brains. Specifically, there has been 384 00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:28,040 Speaker 1: research arguing that this plant, an organism entirely without a 385 00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:31,680 Speaker 1: brain or without a nervous system, actually has its own 386 00:22:31,840 --> 00:22:36,960 Speaker 1: rudimentary form of memory. And we'll talk about one of 387 00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:40,000 Speaker 1: the studies allegedly showing this in a minute, But first 388 00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:42,240 Speaker 1: I thought it might be good to spend a few 389 00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:47,120 Speaker 1: minutes disentangling concepts about the alleged mental or cognitive properties 390 00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:50,119 Speaker 1: of plants, because I think once you get into this area, 391 00:22:50,240 --> 00:22:53,560 Speaker 1: you run a whole gamut of different types of claims 392 00:22:53,600 --> 00:22:59,080 Speaker 1: of extremely variable evidential backing. Yeah, and you also get 393 00:22:59,080 --> 00:23:04,720 Speaker 1: into into areas of confusion over like what constitutes animal 394 00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:08,080 Speaker 1: intelligence and human intelligence and so. Yeah, so I thought 395 00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:10,320 Speaker 1: it might be helpful to sort through some sort of 396 00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:14,359 Speaker 1: general ideas regarding the nature of plants in Western thought. 397 00:23:14,920 --> 00:23:19,440 Speaker 1: Fourth century BC thinker Aristotle, of course, casts along shadow, 398 00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:24,000 Speaker 1: and he wrote that plants have a vegetative soul or 399 00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:27,560 Speaker 1: two threpticon, which I believe just means the vegetable soul, 400 00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:30,520 Speaker 1: not to be confused with two megatherion, which means the 401 00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:34,560 Speaker 1: great beast in Greek and is of course a Celtic 402 00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:38,199 Speaker 1: Frost album. But I couldn't help but think of that 403 00:23:38,240 --> 00:23:41,120 Speaker 1: when I was reading about two threpticon. Yeah, a lot 404 00:23:41,119 --> 00:23:43,240 Speaker 1: of these well, so there were people in like the 405 00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:45,800 Speaker 1: nineteenth century and stuff who were very interested in the 406 00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:47,760 Speaker 1: sensitive plant, and I think a lot of them made 407 00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:50,919 Speaker 1: references back to Aristotle, like this is what Aristotle was 408 00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:53,680 Speaker 1: talking about. Plants have a soul, they can feel right, 409 00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:56,719 Speaker 1: but of course yes and no right, because they are 410 00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:59,040 Speaker 1: two important things to keep in mind about all of it. 411 00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:02,959 Speaker 1: First of all, he attributes nourishment and reproduction to the 412 00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:05,600 Speaker 1: plant soul, and we have to remember that the Greek 413 00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:10,160 Speaker 1: notion of a soul or suka is rather different than 414 00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:13,200 Speaker 1: modern or even early Christian notions of a soul. We're 415 00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:15,840 Speaker 1: not talking about like an inner ghost person that moves 416 00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:18,679 Speaker 1: on and has an afterlife, that sort of thing. This 417 00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:22,199 Speaker 1: would be more like the concept of a mind or 418 00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:24,800 Speaker 1: or would it be like the idea of an animating breath. 419 00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:27,720 Speaker 1: There are a lot of different ideas of things that 420 00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:32,040 Speaker 1: get translated into English as soul from the ancient world. Yeah. 421 00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:34,879 Speaker 1: I was reading about this in an excellent paper that 422 00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:38,120 Speaker 1: I will probably continue to refer to in this series 423 00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:42,160 Speaker 1: by Michael Martyr from twenty twelve in Plant Signal Behavior 424 00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:47,119 Speaker 1: titled Plant Intentionality and the Phenomenological Framework of Plant Intelligence. 425 00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:50,960 Speaker 1: And in this he writes that the soul in this context, 426 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:55,560 Speaker 1: in Aristotle's context, is quote a set of active capacities 427 00:24:55,560 --> 00:25:00,000 Speaker 1: of an organism, not an invisible entity connected to the divine. Okay, 428 00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:01,880 Speaker 1: that makes sense. So the soul is sort of like 429 00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:06,600 Speaker 1: the essence of the organism. It's like what the form 430 00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:10,560 Speaker 1: of the organism apart from its physical body. Right. And 431 00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:14,640 Speaker 1: while the vegetative soul here is defined by nourishment and reproduction, 432 00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:19,400 Speaker 1: animals and humans additionally have capacities of sensation and rational 433 00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:23,720 Speaker 1: thought added atop these baser soul characteristics. Now, I think 434 00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:28,240 Speaker 1: an interesting division there is that, So it's attributing animals 435 00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:31,320 Speaker 1: and humans with sensation and rational thought. I think a 436 00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:33,399 Speaker 1: lot of people have made what seemed to me to 437 00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:40,120 Speaker 1: be pretty spurious claims about evidence for rational thought in plants. 438 00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:44,280 Speaker 1: But I would say it's completely uncontroversial that plants experience 439 00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:47,960 Speaker 1: a form of sensation. They can gather information about their environment, 440 00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:52,000 Speaker 1: and they do constantly. Yeah, but in Aristotle's hierarchy, you 441 00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:54,440 Speaker 1: have basically of animals, and then you have plants, and 442 00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:58,320 Speaker 1: they of minerals. And there's also this added caveat that 443 00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:02,000 Speaker 1: aspects of the vegetative soul continue on into forms that follow, 444 00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:05,679 Speaker 1: which which might not be all that helpful in what 445 00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:09,520 Speaker 1: we're thinking about here, but perhaps bears mentioning. Now, aristotle 446 00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:12,040 Speaker 1: shadow again is long, and we see his ideas carried 447 00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:16,560 Speaker 1: on into medieval Europe. Thirteenth century CE thinker Thomas Aquinas 448 00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:19,800 Speaker 1: wrote in Puma Theology that quote, the very fact that 449 00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:22,680 Speaker 1: the acts of the vegetative soul do not obey reason 450 00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:27,080 Speaker 1: shows that they rank lowest lowest, lower than minerals. Or 451 00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:30,000 Speaker 1: was he not lower than minerals? But I think it 452 00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:34,000 Speaker 1: was in reference to animals and of course humans. Yeah. Now, 453 00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:37,040 Speaker 1: one thing that that Martyr points out is that while 454 00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:40,840 Speaker 1: the Aristotle view here, you know, it kind of used 455 00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:44,120 Speaker 1: plants as baser and that they're only carrying out nourishment 456 00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:47,960 Speaker 1: and reproduction. But he writes that that's that's actually it's 457 00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:52,119 Speaker 1: actually quite impressive within the modern context of certainly planned 458 00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:57,720 Speaker 1: intelligence research, because these impulses nourishment and reproduction quote entail 459 00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:02,200 Speaker 1: complex decisions related to the avaiability of resources. Now that's 460 00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:05,760 Speaker 1: interesting because that could be on one hand, very true, 461 00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:09,199 Speaker 1: but also could easily be misinterpreted to lead people to 462 00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:11,800 Speaker 1: unjustified conclusions. And I want to get into a little 463 00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:14,520 Speaker 1: more disentangling on concepts in a minute here, but yeah, 464 00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:19,360 Speaker 1: flag that. Yes, Martyr also adds quote Additionally, plants express 465 00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:24,680 Speaker 1: almost all known neurotransmitters, confirming the extension of twothrepticon well 466 00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:29,040 Speaker 1: beyond the activities Aristotle and his followers allotted to them. Hence, 467 00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:32,880 Speaker 1: the lines of demarcation between the higher and the lower capacities, 468 00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:38,040 Speaker 1: between consciousness and non consciousness, and by implication, between biological 469 00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:42,600 Speaker 1: regna are not as rigid as classical thinkers believed. And 470 00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:45,080 Speaker 1: there are a few other strains of more modern thought 471 00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:48,720 Speaker 1: that Martyr shares He points out that, according to late 472 00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:53,520 Speaker 1: eighteenth and early nineteenth century German philosopher Hegel, plants are passive, 473 00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:58,920 Speaker 1: they have negative selfhood, and they lack quote an organismic whole. Okay, 474 00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:02,360 Speaker 1: I don't know what that means, but that's Hegel. Yeah, 475 00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:05,400 Speaker 1: not a not a plant fan. Nineteenth century English naturalist 476 00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:07,600 Speaker 1: Charles Darwin, on the other hand, this I believe was 477 00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:11,000 Speaker 1: like a later thing that he wrote about. But he 478 00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:14,400 Speaker 1: had the root brain hypothesis that held that the root 479 00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:17,360 Speaker 1: apex of a plant served as a brain like oregon, 480 00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:21,199 Speaker 1: that was both sensitive and capable of navigating soil in 481 00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,120 Speaker 1: search of resources. Now, I think it might be going 482 00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:28,200 Speaker 1: a little overboard to call it brain like, but Charles 483 00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:31,679 Speaker 1: Darwin was clearly enthralled by plants like the venus flytrap, 484 00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:35,920 Speaker 1: Like he got really excited about what this means. And 485 00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:38,760 Speaker 1: maybe we can come back to Darwin in part two 486 00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:40,800 Speaker 1: of this because I think some of his ideas might 487 00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:42,640 Speaker 1: connect more to to some of the research we're going 488 00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,040 Speaker 1: to talk about later on. Yeah, it's my understanding, and 489 00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:47,760 Speaker 1: I believe the author mentions this that some of these 490 00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:52,240 Speaker 1: ideas that Charles Darwin had regarding this root brain hypothesis 491 00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:55,960 Speaker 1: like they've people have come back to them in modern 492 00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:59,520 Speaker 1: plant intelligence research and said, well, yeah, there's more to 493 00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:03,160 Speaker 1: this than the people of Darwin's day thought. Then there's 494 00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:06,720 Speaker 1: also a nineteenth century German philosopher, Frederick Nietsche, who is 495 00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:10,360 Speaker 1: very much I believe, inspired by Darwin. In this wrote 496 00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:13,640 Speaker 1: that a plant's nourishment and growth are expressions of its 497 00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:17,600 Speaker 1: will to power, or the wills whore mocked, which he 498 00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:22,040 Speaker 1: identifies as the core driving force behind human beings. Oh 499 00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:25,040 Speaker 1: my god, So this this potted plant in front of me, 500 00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:27,000 Speaker 1: when it reaches for the lamp and then I turn 501 00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:29,440 Speaker 1: it around, I am thwarting its will to power, but 502 00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:33,280 Speaker 1: I am like the naysaying crowd that it must rebel 503 00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:36,880 Speaker 1: against and show its might. Yeah, and every day you 504 00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:40,600 Speaker 1: don't kill it, you make it stronger. Right now. In 505 00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:43,240 Speaker 1: Eastern thought, there are of course strong traditions of all 506 00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:47,200 Speaker 1: of this, as discussed in, among other many sources, in 507 00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:52,400 Speaker 1: Richard Nespit's The Geography of Thought. China's Taoism and Japan's 508 00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:57,880 Speaker 1: Shintoism both emphasize the spirits of animals, plants, natural objects, 509 00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:01,720 Speaker 1: and artifacts. And for my part, I've been reading a 510 00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:05,080 Speaker 1: little bit about this um earlier when I was looking 511 00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:08,920 Speaker 1: for things to cover for artifact and monster fact episodes. 512 00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:12,360 Speaker 1: But you know, I don't want to steal any thunder 513 00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:16,360 Speaker 1: from some possible potential episodes long or short form about these. 514 00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:19,800 Speaker 1: But you know, we have strong folkloric, legendary, and mythological 515 00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:25,560 Speaker 1: concepts of plant animal hybrids, which, of course, with all hybrids, 516 00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:34,240 Speaker 1: they certainly perform various functions in symbolic, metaphoric and supernatural thought, 517 00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:38,480 Speaker 1: but they also raise the question inevitably of animalness in 518 00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:42,640 Speaker 1: plants and plantness in animals. You know, like you you 519 00:30:42,680 --> 00:30:46,080 Speaker 1: can't think of something like say a screaming man Drake, 520 00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:50,040 Speaker 1: or say the vegetable lamb of Targary. You know this 521 00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:53,280 Speaker 1: this sheeplike thing that is growing out of the ground 522 00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:56,080 Speaker 1: that is a plant but also seems like an animal, 523 00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:58,560 Speaker 1: Like you can't. I don't think you can really have 524 00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:01,320 Speaker 1: a concept like that without it's sort of by blurring 525 00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:05,080 Speaker 1: the lines, by invoking the hybrid, making you think about 526 00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:08,720 Speaker 1: the characteristics of the opposite side that are present in 527 00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:13,520 Speaker 1: this side. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, I think several years 528 00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:16,680 Speaker 1: back we did an October episode called something like the 529 00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:21,000 Speaker 1: Killer Tree that was a Legends of Trees that would 530 00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,920 Speaker 1: eat people. It's a surprisingly common recurring motif, though apparently 531 00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:28,800 Speaker 1: has no basis in real biology. No, but I mean 532 00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:31,600 Speaker 1: certainly not at the not not on the the animal 533 00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:34,560 Speaker 1: time scale of things, but I guess on the plant 534 00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:36,800 Speaker 1: time scale of things. Yeah, you can get into more 535 00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:40,800 Speaker 1: nuanced discussions of plants eating people, plants eating human corpses 536 00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:43,600 Speaker 1: and that sort of thing, right, but not the active 537 00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:45,720 Speaker 1: predation like in that Oh it's that is like a 538 00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:48,320 Speaker 1: William freed Can movie about the killer tree that that 539 00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:53,720 Speaker 1: gobbles people up. Oh my gosh, I don't remember this one. Okay, yeah, 540 00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:56,320 Speaker 1: we'll have to revisit. But there, Yeah, there are clearly 541 00:31:56,360 --> 00:31:58,600 Speaker 1: a lot of killer trees and tree I mean you 542 00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:02,040 Speaker 1: have things like the ants, right, yea trees walking around 543 00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:05,960 Speaker 1: like humans. And yeah, all these concepts. They they they're 544 00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:10,200 Speaker 1: performing a number of different functions. But I think one 545 00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:12,440 Speaker 1: of them is that it inevitably makes you think about 546 00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:14,680 Speaker 1: about plants and animals, what do they have in common? 547 00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:18,040 Speaker 1: In what ways do they differ in? Indeed? Yeah, in 548 00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:27,440 Speaker 1: what ways might they be more alike than we often realize. 549 00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:31,600 Speaker 1: Another thing is that as we're going forward talking about 550 00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:36,640 Speaker 1: research potentially indicating something like a plant basis for memory 551 00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:39,600 Speaker 1: or learning. I think we also have to be very 552 00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:44,720 Speaker 1: careful because the whole the realm of plant, so called 553 00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:48,400 Speaker 1: plant cognition research, I think, has a history that is 554 00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:52,200 Speaker 1: filled with stuff that is not so great. Like there 555 00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:54,840 Speaker 1: are a number of different concepts regarding the hidden complexity 556 00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:58,160 Speaker 1: of plants that people seem to get confused with each other. 557 00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:01,720 Speaker 1: And this is unfortunate because these topics range from what 558 00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:04,880 Speaker 1: appears to me to be maybe controversial but at least 559 00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:08,479 Speaker 1: potentially evidence backed biology, and that would be things like, 560 00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:10,360 Speaker 1: you know, some of the memory research we're going to 561 00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,480 Speaker 1: talk about, all the way over to pure pseudoscience and 562 00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:17,000 Speaker 1: paranormal stuff. And just to give some quick flavor of 563 00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:20,080 Speaker 1: the latter end of that spectrum, I'm reminded of something 564 00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:22,920 Speaker 1: we talked about briefly in an episode that we did 565 00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:25,640 Speaker 1: a long time ago. Robie, remember when we did the 566 00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:29,040 Speaker 1: Science of Stranger Things at New York Comic Con. Yes, 567 00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:31,520 Speaker 1: I do remember this, So it was in the context 568 00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:34,880 Speaker 1: of that episode we were talking about government research into 569 00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:39,120 Speaker 1: psychic and paranormal phenomena during the Cold War, which absolutely 570 00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:43,320 Speaker 1: did happen, and the extent of it is hilarious. But 571 00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:47,280 Speaker 1: I read a couple of whole books about this. Of course, 572 00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:49,280 Speaker 1: one if you want to quick read that's very funny 573 00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:51,440 Speaker 1: is The Men Who Stare at Gohost by John Ronson. 574 00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:54,520 Speaker 1: But also there was a book by Annie Jacobson that 575 00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:58,280 Speaker 1: was a big, complete, sort of history of the Stanford 576 00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:02,240 Speaker 1: Research Institute and all of these normal government research projects 577 00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:06,200 Speaker 1: that were fueled by Cold War paranoia but looked into 578 00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:11,640 Speaker 1: They looked into things like remote viewing and telekinesis and 579 00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:15,600 Speaker 1: stuff like that, and unfortunately, I think a lot of 580 00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:19,279 Speaker 1: that was just was just tricks and poorly designed experiments. 581 00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:23,480 Speaker 1: But but but one brief episode from this, one of 582 00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:25,640 Speaker 1: the people we talked about in that episode was a 583 00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:31,120 Speaker 1: CIA interrogation expert named Cleave Baxter, who specialized apparently in 584 00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:36,000 Speaker 1: narcotic and hypnotism based interrogation techniques and then later in 585 00:34:36,080 --> 00:34:39,920 Speaker 1: the polygraph and according to a twenty thirteen New York 586 00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:43,000 Speaker 1: Times article I was reading about Baxter by Josh Eels, 587 00:34:43,920 --> 00:34:47,560 Speaker 1: Baxter developed a method for conducting polygraph sessions called the 588 00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:51,279 Speaker 1: Baxter zone comparison technique, which according to this article, is 589 00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:55,760 Speaker 1: still used in polygraph tests today. So cool. Anyway, later 590 00:34:55,840 --> 00:35:00,440 Speaker 1: in his career, Baxter quite famously became upset with the 591 00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:03,520 Speaker 1: idea that plants could read our minds, and he claimed 592 00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:07,279 Speaker 1: to show it with experiments. So the discovery of this 593 00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:10,440 Speaker 1: The story goes like this. One night in nineteen sixty six, 594 00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:13,839 Speaker 1: Baxter stayed up all night, he was drinking coffee, and 595 00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:16,920 Speaker 1: he got an amazing idea. He would hook a potted 596 00:35:16,960 --> 00:35:21,200 Speaker 1: plant up to a polygraph machine. I guess, I don't 597 00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:22,360 Speaker 1: know if he was going to see if it was 598 00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:25,319 Speaker 1: telling lies, or maybe you just I don't know. So 599 00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:30,759 Speaker 1: allegedly this plant was a quote corn plant or dressina fragrans, which, 600 00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:33,880 Speaker 1: in a confusing twist, is completely different from the plant 601 00:35:34,040 --> 00:35:37,240 Speaker 1: za maze, which is the grain plant that produces maize 602 00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:39,560 Speaker 1: or corn, the food. So this is called a corn plant, 603 00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:42,080 Speaker 1: but it's not the corn that would be planted in 604 00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:44,840 Speaker 1: as a crop. The corn plant had been a gift 605 00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:48,120 Speaker 1: from his secretary, intended to brighten up his office, which 606 00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:49,840 Speaker 1: I have not seen pictures of. I don't know what 607 00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:52,240 Speaker 1: was in there, but I'm imagining a kind of dungeon 608 00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:55,280 Speaker 1: full of chairs with leather straps on them and needles 609 00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:57,880 Speaker 1: full of quack truth serums. So yeah, you can imagine 610 00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:00,480 Speaker 1: some plants would be nice, Yeah, you want to get 611 00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:03,439 Speaker 1: some corn down there. So from here I just want 612 00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:08,160 Speaker 1: to quote from the article by Eels summarizing this experiment. Quote. 613 00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:13,480 Speaker 1: In human subjects, a polygraph measures three things pulse, respiration rate, 614 00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:17,839 Speaker 1: and galvanic skin response otherwise known as perspiration. If you're 615 00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:20,439 Speaker 1: worried about being caught in a lie, your levels will 616 00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:24,600 Speaker 1: spike or dip. Baxter wanted to induce a similar anxiety 617 00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:27,520 Speaker 1: in the plant, so he decided to set one of 618 00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:30,839 Speaker 1: its leaves on fire, But before he could even get 619 00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,600 Speaker 1: a match, the polygraph registered an intense reaction on the 620 00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:38,040 Speaker 1: part of the dressina. To Baxter, the implication was as 621 00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:42,080 Speaker 1: indisputable as it was unbelievable. Not only had the plant 622 00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:48,320 Speaker 1: demonstrated fear, it had also read his mind. So Baxter 623 00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:51,680 Speaker 1: became convinced that plants had psychic powers, consisting of a 624 00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:55,799 Speaker 1: sensibility that he called primary perception, which they could use 625 00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:59,439 Speaker 1: to read our minds and emotions from Afar and upon 626 00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:01,960 Speaker 1: this disc every he did what any responsible seeker of 627 00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:05,520 Speaker 1: the truth would do. He went straight to the popular media, 628 00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:08,239 Speaker 1: and there was a book based on his claims, and 629 00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:12,239 Speaker 1: apparently he did a TV spot, multiple TV spots, but 630 00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:14,640 Speaker 1: I like Johnny Carson and stuff, but one of them 631 00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:17,440 Speaker 1: I wanted to note was, apparently with Leonard Nimoy, was 632 00:37:17,480 --> 00:37:19,600 Speaker 1: this in search of. I don't know if the timeframe 633 00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:21,280 Speaker 1: is right for that. I don't know if the timeframes 634 00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:23,400 Speaker 1: right either, but yeah, Ansling makes me think of in 635 00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:28,120 Speaker 1: search of. And unfortunately, skeptical scientists were unable to reproduce 636 00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:30,560 Speaker 1: his results. They tried to do the same thing and 637 00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:34,880 Speaker 1: got nothing. But if you poke around about this on 638 00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:39,320 Speaker 1: the internet, you will find many believers even today, still 639 00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:43,399 Speaker 1: overflowing with faith in Baxter's claims. It's one of those 640 00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:46,759 Speaker 1: ideas that lots of people just seemed to like. It 641 00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:51,120 Speaker 1: feels really true and wholesome and good to believe. Yes, 642 00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:54,759 Speaker 1: plants can think, they can feel, they can know what 643 00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:56,799 Speaker 1: we're thinking if we tell them, or maybe even if 644 00:37:56,800 --> 00:37:59,359 Speaker 1: we don't tell them, if we just think it really hard, 645 00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:03,640 Speaker 1: they can detect it somehow. But obviously there are there 646 00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:06,960 Speaker 1: are major problems if you're trying to put together a coherent, 647 00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:10,359 Speaker 1: scientifically informed worldview. First of all, I would say the 648 00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:13,760 Speaker 1: theoretical basis is weak. Like you know, we could always 649 00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:16,799 Speaker 1: discover something new, but it is not clear that there's 650 00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:19,919 Speaker 1: any kind of physical mechanism that could allow something like that. 651 00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:23,840 Speaker 1: And then the second part is just the empirical basis, 652 00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:26,879 Speaker 1: like the controlled experiments by skeptics don't find the same thing. 653 00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:30,680 Speaker 1: So yeah, this appears to be nonsense. I can't help 654 00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:34,520 Speaker 1: but wonder if okay, this experiment was sixty six. Frank 655 00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:37,640 Speaker 1: Herbert's Dune was first published in sixty five, and of 656 00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:40,799 Speaker 1: course has the very early on in the novel, has 657 00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:44,480 Speaker 1: the scene where we have the benijesra at test of 658 00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:47,360 Speaker 1: the box and the com jabbar the box, which of 659 00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:50,880 Speaker 1: course makes you feel like your hand is burning and 660 00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:54,680 Speaker 1: on fire. And here in this test behalf part of 661 00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:58,120 Speaker 1: the plant is actually caught on fire. Wow, that's interesting. 662 00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:01,360 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. And the box is supposedly a kind of 663 00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:04,080 Speaker 1: polygraph of its own yeah yeah, yeah yeah, And of 664 00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:08,279 Speaker 1: course you have the benegestrate, yeah, truthsayers and so forth. Though, 665 00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:11,040 Speaker 1: I think in our episode on that did we both 666 00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:12,799 Speaker 1: come to the conclusion that we think that the real 667 00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,680 Speaker 1: power is the box actually does nothing and it's just 668 00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,640 Speaker 1: all it's all the reverend mother like she's the real test. Yeah. 669 00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:21,520 Speaker 1: I think it's ultimately unknown, but we did. I think 670 00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:24,200 Speaker 1: we both liked that idea the most. Yeah, it felt 671 00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:27,880 Speaker 1: the most herberty of the ideas. It's just a prop 672 00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:30,880 Speaker 1: But anyway, So to come back to all this, so 673 00:39:30,880 --> 00:39:33,200 Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about plant memory research. But 674 00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:35,160 Speaker 1: I think I want to be clear that if you 675 00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:38,279 Speaker 1: say that a plant could have such a thing as 676 00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:42,400 Speaker 1: a memory or an ability to learn, that is truly 677 00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,680 Speaker 1: surprising and fascinating. But it is not the same thing 678 00:39:46,320 --> 00:39:50,000 Speaker 1: as saying or showing that plants can quote think, that 679 00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:54,560 Speaker 1: plants are conscious, that plants have emotions, or that they 680 00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:57,359 Speaker 1: get upset when you say or do negative things around them, 681 00:39:57,840 --> 00:39:59,719 Speaker 1: all of which are claims that people have tried to 682 00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:01,560 Speaker 1: make over the years, but which seemed to me to 683 00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:05,200 Speaker 1: be lacking in evidential basis, with the possible exception of 684 00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:10,040 Speaker 1: quote thinking under some very broad or inclusive definitions of 685 00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:13,480 Speaker 1: what counts has thought. Yeah. Like Another area related to 686 00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:18,080 Speaker 1: this is the relationship between plants and sound. So can 687 00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:23,080 Speaker 1: plants respond to sound, Yes, they can, But can do 688 00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:27,480 Speaker 1: plants then benefit from listening to music? No, there's there's 689 00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:29,359 Speaker 1: no evidence for that. But I mean, this was an 690 00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:32,319 Speaker 1: idea that was very much in the zeitgeist, especially in 691 00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:36,520 Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. That's where there was actually a wonderful 692 00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:40,359 Speaker 1: album that came out, an early electronic music album by 693 00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:43,560 Speaker 1: Mort Garson, who is a you know, early synth wizard 694 00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:46,000 Speaker 1: who did a lot of a number of different projects 695 00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:48,720 Speaker 1: under different names, but he put out this this album 696 00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:54,880 Speaker 1: titled Mother Earth's Plantasia, and it is supposed to be 697 00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:58,239 Speaker 1: music that you play for your house plants, and your 698 00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:02,000 Speaker 1: house plants then benefit from it. I don't think house 699 00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:04,200 Speaker 1: plants actually get nothing out of listening to this album, 700 00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:08,920 Speaker 1: but it's a wonderful ambient, experimental electronic album for humans. 701 00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:11,080 Speaker 1: I love this. I would say I'm all for playing 702 00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:13,320 Speaker 1: music for your plants. I don't think it does anything 703 00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:15,920 Speaker 1: for the plants, but playing music for your plants might 704 00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:19,000 Speaker 1: do something nice for you. Yeah, yeah, just like the plant. 705 00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:22,120 Speaker 1: The presence of the plants certainly can have a very 706 00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:26,320 Speaker 1: pleasant effect on the human psyche. So can ambient music. 707 00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:31,520 Speaker 1: So double up, have them both and benefit. But anyway, 708 00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:33,680 Speaker 1: before we end part one of the series, I did 709 00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:35,719 Speaker 1: want to look at at least one of the studies 710 00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:39,160 Speaker 1: that claims to find evidence for what you might call 711 00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:43,719 Speaker 1: memory learning or habituation in plants. And in the next 712 00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:47,719 Speaker 1: episode we'll come back and talk about some reaction, criticism, 713 00:41:47,719 --> 00:41:50,879 Speaker 1: and follow up of these types of ideas. So this 714 00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:54,160 Speaker 1: is not without its accompanying controversy, but I thought it 715 00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:56,320 Speaker 1: would be at least worthwhile to look at like what 716 00:41:56,800 --> 00:42:00,440 Speaker 1: the evidential claims of the recent research are. Earlier we 717 00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:03,960 Speaker 1: mentioned that scientists are actually not one hundred percent sure 718 00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:08,200 Speaker 1: why Mimosa pudica closes its leaves, though it is generally 719 00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:11,360 Speaker 1: believed to be some kind of defensive reaction to prevent 720 00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:14,960 Speaker 1: the leaves from being eaten by grazing herbivores or insects. 721 00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:18,719 Speaker 1: So if that's the case, you might wonder, well, why 722 00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:20,880 Speaker 1: don't the plants just keep their leaves folded up all 723 00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:23,480 Speaker 1: the time, then they'd be protected always. Why do they 724 00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:28,160 Speaker 1: have to do it rapidly suddenly? Well, because if they 725 00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:30,319 Speaker 1: were to keep their leaves closed all the time, the 726 00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:33,800 Speaker 1: plant would be drastically reducing its ability to collect sunlight 727 00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:37,239 Speaker 1: and feed through photosynthesis. And this is the classic risk 728 00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:40,080 Speaker 1: reward paradigm that we know well with all kinds of animals. 729 00:42:40,160 --> 00:42:43,200 Speaker 1: You have a small prey animal that might be much 730 00:42:43,239 --> 00:42:46,120 Speaker 1: safer if it stays in its cozy little burrow all day, 731 00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:49,880 Speaker 1: but if it never leaves, it foregoes opportunities to get food. 732 00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:52,239 Speaker 1: It needs to go out to do the things it 733 00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:55,000 Speaker 1: must do to sustain its life cycle and reproduce. So 734 00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:57,120 Speaker 1: it's got to find food, it's got to find mates, 735 00:42:57,160 --> 00:42:58,640 Speaker 1: and you know you're not going to get that just 736 00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:00,840 Speaker 1: sitting in your hole. You could say the same is 737 00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:03,920 Speaker 1: true for this plant. So the evolutionary logic that drives 738 00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:07,040 Speaker 1: the folding behavior of the leaves and the sensitive plant 739 00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:11,840 Speaker 1: will reward the folding in scenarios where it actually protects 740 00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:16,560 Speaker 1: the leaf from predation, but it will punish unnecessary folding, 741 00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:21,200 Speaker 1: which wastes precious opportunities to harvest the sunlight. And we've 742 00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:24,000 Speaker 1: already seen a couple of demonstrations of this balance. One 743 00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:27,680 Speaker 1: is that the leaves tend to fold at night time, 744 00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:30,719 Speaker 1: when there's no point in being exposed because there's no 745 00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:34,160 Speaker 1: sunlight to absorb. And another is that once the leaves 746 00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:37,800 Speaker 1: close in response to a seismic stimulus, they reopen again, 747 00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:40,480 Speaker 1: usually within a few minutes. They're ready to get back 748 00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:43,239 Speaker 1: to the buffet. But to continue the logic of this 749 00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:47,520 Speaker 1: risk reward balance, it would also obviously benefit the plant 750 00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:51,920 Speaker 1: if it had a mechanism for discriminating between a potentially 751 00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:55,920 Speaker 1: dangerous seismic stimulus and a harmless one. And you can 752 00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:59,800 Speaker 1: imagine scenarios in the wild where plants are repeatedly shaken 753 00:43:59,840 --> 00:44:02,960 Speaker 1: in some way or subjected to physical contact with objects 754 00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:07,040 Speaker 1: in the environment, maybe by wind or something in a 755 00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:09,560 Speaker 1: way that is not actually a threat to the plant, 756 00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:12,759 Speaker 1: where closing the leaflets every time that happened would be 757 00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:17,719 Speaker 1: pointless and harmful to survival. So do these plants have 758 00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:21,360 Speaker 1: a mechanism that allows them to discriminate like that? And 759 00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:24,399 Speaker 1: according to this following study, it looks like maybe they do. So. 760 00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:27,720 Speaker 1: This was a study published in Ecologia in twenty fourteen 761 00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:33,719 Speaker 1: by Monica Gagliano, Michael Renton, Marshall dip Chinsky, and Stefano 762 00:44:33,760 --> 00:44:38,120 Speaker 1: Mancuso called experience teaches plants to learn faster and forget 763 00:44:38,160 --> 00:44:41,560 Speaker 1: slower in environments where it matters. So the authors write 764 00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:44,840 Speaker 1: in their abstract quote, the nervous system of animals serves 765 00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:50,280 Speaker 1: the acquisition, memorization, and recollection of information. Like animals, plants 766 00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:53,600 Speaker 1: also acquire a huge amount of information from their environment, 767 00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:58,000 Speaker 1: Yet their capacity to memorize and organized learned behavioral responses 768 00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:02,879 Speaker 1: has not been demonstrated. In mimosa pudica the sensitive plant. 769 00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:06,520 Speaker 1: The defensive leaf folding behavior in response to repeated physical 770 00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:13,080 Speaker 1: disturbance exhibits clear habituation, suggesting some elementary form of learning. 771 00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:17,200 Speaker 1: So how do they actually demonstrate this, Well, they did 772 00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:20,400 Speaker 1: a series of experiments, but one of their models is 773 00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:25,040 Speaker 1: they took potted specimens of Mimosa pudica and they mounted 774 00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:28,480 Speaker 1: them on this contraption that would repeatedly drop the potted 775 00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:32,160 Speaker 1: plant a distance of fifteen centimeters onto a padded surface. 776 00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:37,680 Speaker 1: And these drops were organized into repeated sessions of multiple exposures. 777 00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:42,040 Speaker 1: And sure enough, the plants, after they were repeatedly exposed 778 00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:46,520 Speaker 1: to the same fifteen centimeter drop, started reopening their leaves 779 00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:50,640 Speaker 1: more quickly and eventually started ignoring the stimulus more or 780 00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:53,800 Speaker 1: less entirely, just keeping their leaves open during a drop. 781 00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:57,640 Speaker 1: And that's really interesting. It might seem to indicate that 782 00:45:57,680 --> 00:46:02,560 Speaker 1: the plant is becoming habituosed to this particular thing. It's like, okay, 783 00:46:03,200 --> 00:46:06,479 Speaker 1: being dropped fifteen centimeters is just something that happens. Now, 784 00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:08,160 Speaker 1: This is just how things are. I know what it 785 00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:10,799 Speaker 1: feels like. It doesn't hurt me. I'm over it, by 786 00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:13,680 Speaker 1: the way that I guess I am anthropomorphizing there, So 787 00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:16,880 Speaker 1: I don't mean to imply that it is actually reasoning 788 00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:21,239 Speaker 1: out in semantic logic like that, but that's to give 789 00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:24,400 Speaker 1: you the idea that it's somehow becoming habituated to something 790 00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:27,200 Speaker 1: that's happening over and over again without hurting it, and 791 00:46:27,239 --> 00:46:30,920 Speaker 1: it's just learning to ignore that thing. Now, there's an 792 00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:35,160 Speaker 1: obvious other explanation if this was all they discovered. What 793 00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:38,280 Speaker 1: if this was just the plant's leaf closing mechanism getting 794 00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:41,440 Speaker 1: worn out over time, It's just becoming exhausted and running 795 00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:43,520 Speaker 1: out of the juice that it needs to use to 796 00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:47,520 Speaker 1: close its leaves. Well, the researchers they thought about this, 797 00:46:47,560 --> 00:46:50,600 Speaker 1: and they controlled for this by introducing a new novel 798 00:46:50,680 --> 00:46:54,880 Speaker 1: stimulus after the plant became habituated. This was the shake, 799 00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:58,640 Speaker 1: so different from the drop, but it would also stimulate 800 00:46:58,680 --> 00:47:01,520 Speaker 1: the seismonastic closure or of the leaflets to shake the 801 00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:04,880 Speaker 1: potted plant. And they found that even when a plant 802 00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:08,960 Speaker 1: had become desensitized to the drop, apparently through habituation, it 803 00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:12,040 Speaker 1: would still close its leaves just like normal when given 804 00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:14,440 Speaker 1: a shake. So this would seem to help rule out 805 00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:17,960 Speaker 1: the idea that it's just the plant's leaf closure mechanisms 806 00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:21,839 Speaker 1: becoming exhausted by repeated use. Now, there are some more 807 00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:24,640 Speaker 1: interesting details from this one that we might get into 808 00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:28,240 Speaker 1: in the next part of this series. For example, they 809 00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:31,879 Speaker 1: found that apparently this habituation to the fifteen centimeter drop 810 00:47:31,920 --> 00:47:35,640 Speaker 1: was still present weeks later after the initial sessions, and 811 00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:40,960 Speaker 1: that it was variable and adaptable depending on the hostility 812 00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:43,920 Speaker 1: of the conditions, like the light conditions in which it 813 00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:46,520 Speaker 1: was happening. But maybe if we get into those, we 814 00:47:46,560 --> 00:47:48,239 Speaker 1: can do that in part two, because I think we 815 00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:50,799 Speaker 1: need to wrap up part one for now, but I'm 816 00:47:50,840 --> 00:47:53,359 Speaker 1: so excited all the things we get to talk about 817 00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:56,040 Speaker 1: when we come back next time. More research on plants 818 00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:59,920 Speaker 1: in memory. If plants do in fact possess some rudiment 819 00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:03,280 Speaker 1: reform of memory and learning, how what is the physical 820 00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:05,960 Speaker 1: basis of that, given of course that they don't have brains, 821 00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:10,000 Speaker 1: And what would that mean for our understanding of what 822 00:48:10,120 --> 00:48:13,919 Speaker 1: intelligence and its subdivided parts are. Yeah, yeah, this should 823 00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:16,319 Speaker 1: continue to be a fun exploration. And this is an 824 00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:19,080 Speaker 1: exploration that we've we've been talking about doing for years, 825 00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:21,799 Speaker 1: and I know we've had some listeners right in requesting 826 00:48:22,120 --> 00:48:25,120 Speaker 1: that we cover this topic. So it's great to finally 827 00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:28,040 Speaker 1: be able to dive in. All right, So we're gonna 828 00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:30,160 Speaker 1: go and close it out, but we'll be back next 829 00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:34,640 Speaker 1: time with more on this topic. In the meantime, if 830 00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:36,360 Speaker 1: you want to check out other episodes of Stuff to 831 00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:38,800 Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind, our core episodes come out on Tuesdays 832 00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:41,440 Speaker 1: and Thursdays, we have a rerun that comes out of 833 00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:45,400 Speaker 1: vault episode. On the weekend, we do listener mail on Monday, 834 00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:48,279 Speaker 1: we do a short form artifact or monster fact on Wednesday, 835 00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:51,680 Speaker 1: and on Friday we set aside most serious matters and 836 00:48:51,719 --> 00:48:55,040 Speaker 1: just discuss a weird film on Weird House Cinema. Huge 837 00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:59,600 Speaker 1: things as always to well, actually to our regular producer 838 00:48:59,719 --> 00:49:02,800 Speaker 1: Seth Nicholas Johnson, and thanks to our guest producer today 839 00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:06,680 Speaker 1: Paul decand Paul really appreciate you sub an in for 840 00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:09,200 Speaker 1: us today. If you would like to get in touch 841 00:49:09,280 --> 00:49:12,080 Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other, 842 00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:14,239 Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to 843 00:49:14,320 --> 00:49:17,760 Speaker 1: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff 844 00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:27,880 Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your 845 00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:31,000 Speaker 1: Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my 846 00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:34,440 Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 847 00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:43,800 Speaker 1: you're listening to your favorite shows