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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. This is

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Speaker 2: Ruthless Rob Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And this is corrosive Joseph McCormick and Happy Halloween.

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Speaker 2: That's right. We're continuing our Halloween tradition this year, or

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Speaker 2: it's been our Halloween tradition for several years now. Anthology

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Speaker 2: of Horror. This is where we take We each take

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Speaker 2: an episode of a TV anthology series or something related

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Speaker 2: to this tradition, such as in the case of Joe's

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Speaker 2: selection this year, kind of like a Monster of the

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Speaker 2: Week episode, which which still close enough for our work,

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Speaker 2: and then we spend some science or contemplation out of it.

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Speaker 2: Before we switched over and started doing horror and sci

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Speaker 2: fi anthologies, we did the same treatment with creepy pastas

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Speaker 2: in the past. So that's that's what we do in

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Speaker 2: this series. Take a little horror, a little sci fi,

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Speaker 2: and spin it out, squeeze it out, and see what

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Speaker 2: kind of science we can get out of it. However,

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Speaker 2: I think this is likely the final installment of Anthology

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Speaker 2: of Horror. Here on Stuff to Blow Your Mind, and

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Speaker 2: mainly because ever since we started doing weird House Cinema.

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Speaker 2: The premise has felt like a little bit redundant, like

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Speaker 2: we get to talk about a weird movie every week.

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Speaker 2: So maybe, at least in my case, it feels a

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Speaker 2: little less special to have this Horror Anthology episode we

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Speaker 2: do every year. And we've also covered a lot of

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Speaker 2: great selections already, So I don't know if listeners out

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Speaker 2: there have strong feelings about this right in, and we

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Speaker 2: will consider now.

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Speaker 3: I know you suggested that this would be Anthology of

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Speaker 3: Horror the final Chapter, but if we're going by Friday

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Speaker 3: the thirteenth sequel naming conventions, that would have actually been

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Speaker 3: the fourth Anthology of Horror episode we did, which was

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Speaker 3: many years ago. Now this is the ninth, is that correct?

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Speaker 3: Which would that would put us in Jason Goes to

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Speaker 3: Hell territory? So this really should be Anthology of Horror

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Speaker 3: Part nine, Robin Joe go to Hell.

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Speaker 2: Okay, well, hopefully we can deliver Jason Goes to Hell

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Speaker 2: quality level or above in this episode. All right, Joe,

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Speaker 2: what do you have for us? I teased it a

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Speaker 2: little bit, but what is your selection for this year?

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Speaker 3: Okay, so, not too long ago, on some episode or other,

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Speaker 3: it came up that I had never seen any of

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Speaker 3: the classic American TV series Colchak The Nightstalker, which was

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Speaker 3: originally broadcast on ABC in nineteen seventy four. I think

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Speaker 3: it ran seventy four to seventy five, only for one season,

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Speaker 3: though I think there are around twenty episodes or so.

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Speaker 3: And my ignorance of this show was so deep that

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Speaker 3: I didn't even realize it had a supernatural element. I thought,

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Speaker 3: I guess this was just based on the name. I

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Speaker 3: thought it was some kind of gritty crime show. I

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Speaker 3: think because I heard night Stalker, I thought about that

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Speaker 3: serial killer and I was like, Okay, it's like a

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Speaker 3: serial killer show. But no, no, no, it's so much

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Speaker 3: more delightful than that. This show is essentially a precursor

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Speaker 3: to The X Files, where instead of FBI agents Malter

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Speaker 3: and Scully, we have a fast talking, rascally Chicago newspaper

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Speaker 3: reporter named Carl Coolchak played by Darren McGavin, whom I

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Speaker 3: knew primarily as the dad, the guy who gets his

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Speaker 3: son a BB gun in a Christmas story.

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Speaker 2: Well, and of course that's a tremendous role by Darren

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Speaker 2: McGavin there as well, So if you only know him

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Speaker 2: for one role, Like, that's a good one to know

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Speaker 2: him from. You know, it was in tons of stuff.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, he's great in this. As I'll mention in

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Speaker 2: a bit, I think he's he's really holding the show

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Speaker 2: up on his shoulders.

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Speaker 3: Now. I think any episode of Colchak The night Stalker

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Speaker 3: would count as an anthology entry because it had a

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Speaker 3: monster of the Week format. In each new kper Kolchak

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Speaker 3: would begin by reporting on some weird crime, usually a

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Speaker 3: murder that baffles the narrow minded police detectives. Ah, you know,

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Speaker 3: the victim's teeth were all painted blue? What could this mean?

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Speaker 3: And eventually we discover it means that the deaths were

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Speaker 3: caused by a shape shifting wear tiger or something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the plot that you encounter in these episodes, it's

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Speaker 2: going to be very formulaic. I think I watched a

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Speaker 2: bunch of these back in the nineties on either sci

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Speaker 2: Fi or any probably sci Fi, and I remember liking it.

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Speaker 2: One thing I also strongly remember about it is it

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Speaker 2: being kind of a cross generational hit. I have vague

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Speaker 2: memories that like, both my dad and my granddad would

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Speaker 2: be like cool with this show being on, because you know,

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Speaker 2: kids in the nineties, we wanted to watch Monsters, or

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Speaker 2: I wanted to watch Monsters anyway. But the rest of

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Speaker 2: the show has a very traditional episodic gum shoe feel

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Speaker 2: to it. You know, it feels very classic television in

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Speaker 2: that regard. It's very much a product of its age,

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Speaker 2: but with this strain supernatural twist to it. And then

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Speaker 2: at the center of this you have just an incredibly fun,

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Speaker 2: fast talking and charismatic performance by Darren McGavin, and you

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Speaker 2: just can't help but love him. You can't help but

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Speaker 2: follow him, and you want to see what he does next.

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Speaker 2: And it doesn't matter if you're here for the monsters

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Speaker 2: or you didn't know monsters were going to occur, You're

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Speaker 2: gonna stick around and see where this goes.

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Speaker 3: Yes, the force of the main character's personality is really

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Speaker 3: the anchor of the show. And now I haven't seen

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Speaker 3: the whole series. I've only seen this one episode now

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Speaker 3: and then read about some others, but I'm going to

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Speaker 3: be watching more. I think it is interesting to compare

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Speaker 3: the dynamics of Kolchak to the show that it is

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Speaker 3: explicitly acknowledged to have inspired The X Files. I know,

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Speaker 3: I think Chris Carter has said Coulchak was an inspiration

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Speaker 3: on the X Files. So the X Files, the investigations

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Speaker 3: there are that the tone of them is largely based

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Speaker 3: on the tension between Molder the believer and Scully the skeptic,

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Speaker 3: whereas in Colchak there's just one investigator, so there are

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Speaker 3: not two characters to bounce ideas off each other and

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Speaker 3: act as foils for one another. It all has to

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Speaker 3: be there inside Darren McGavin, and there is a similar

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Speaker 3: tension within him, but it's different. It's not like part

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Speaker 3: of him is an idealistic true believer who just wants

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Speaker 3: aliens to be real, and another part is ruthlessly seeking

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Speaker 3: out hard evidence instead. I think the tension is between

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Speaker 3: Coolchak's personality versus his observations. So it seems to me

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Speaker 3: that the tension is that Kolchak is naturally a wily, sardonic,

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Speaker 3: no nonsense personality. He talks like a just the facts

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Speaker 3: kind of newsman, and he makes wry jokes about anything

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Speaker 3: that sounds unusual, not just monsters, but unfamiliar science concepts,

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Speaker 3: like he makes jokes about the idea of rim sleep.

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Speaker 3: You know, there's like a guy in this episode, who's

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Speaker 3: undergoing rim sleep a scientist says, and he's like, oh,

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Speaker 3: is he remming right now? And there's like an inflection

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Speaker 3: on that that makes it sound funny. And then he

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Speaker 3: has the same kind of jokes about anything that's outside

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Speaker 3: of a very grounded, working class kind of scope of life.

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Speaker 3: So he makes jokes about the impossibility of pronouncing the

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Speaker 3: scientific names of plants, or about French food items, stuff

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Speaker 3: like that, and yet at the same time he puts

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Speaker 3: the clues together and he does end up believing that

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Speaker 3: the murders are supernatural in nature, and then has to

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Speaker 3: convince other people. He has to convince his boss at

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Speaker 3: the newspaper, the police whatever, that it really was a

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Speaker 3: monster again this time, and not this other poor guy

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Speaker 3: who's being falsely accused of the crime.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that's a good summary of the energy here.

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Speaker 2: It's kind of like Moulder and Scully kind of have

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Speaker 2: like an forgive me if if I'm not doing justice

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Speaker 2: to musical genres. They have kind of a shoegaze vibe,

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Speaker 2: and I feel like, I feel like col Shak is

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Speaker 2: jazz anyway. A couple of quick notes just about people

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Speaker 2: involved in this series. The main character was created by

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Speaker 2: Jeff Rice in his novel The Cool Jack Papers, and

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Speaker 2: this was adapted before it was published into the original

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three TV movie that kicked it all off.

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Speaker 2: It concerned vampire murders and I think that's where we

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Speaker 2: get the night stalker thing. Also of note is that

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Speaker 2: this episode is directed by Gordon Hessler, who lived nineteen

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Speaker 2: twenty five through twenty fourteen. He directed nineteen seventy Scream

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Speaker 2: and Scream Again, which we talked about in Weird House Cinema.

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Speaker 3: M okay, And as far.

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Speaker 2: As the cast goes, you know, if this were a

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Speaker 2: weird House, we'd go deeper. But I will point out

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Speaker 2: that we have the prolific Keenan Wynn who lived nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixteen through nineteen eighty six, playing Captain what mad Dog

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Speaker 2: Joe in this and it's a pretty fun role.

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Speaker 3: Yes, what do I know him from? I mean he

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Speaker 3: was in a lot of things. You probably know him

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Speaker 3: from Doctor Strangelove.

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Speaker 2: I think he was in Tarantula. I don't know, have

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Speaker 2: my notes in front of me, but he was very prolific.

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Speaker 2: He was in a lot of stuff.

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Speaker 3: But another big guest star in this movie, though you

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Speaker 3: don't see his face, it's covered by some fibrous material.

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Speaker 3: Is Richard Keel, the guy who played Jaws in the

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Speaker 3: James Bond series.

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Speaker 2: Ah, he's just doing a basic big man monster role

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Speaker 2: in this.

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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, he's Ega. He's a soggy ega in So

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Speaker 3: to summarize the episode, it's called the Spanish Moss Murders,

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Speaker 3: and it starts with Kolchak intercepting a call in his

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Speaker 3: police radio to the scene of a murder in a

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Speaker 3: fancy French restaurant. He makes some joke about the wine

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Speaker 3: cellar of this restaurant having more than being worth more

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Speaker 3: than the entire gross domestic product of Paraguay, which I

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Speaker 3: looked that up and that would make it worth like

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Speaker 3: billions of dollars at the time, So I think that's

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Speaker 3: a little bit of an exaggeration. But anyway, the head

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Speaker 3: chef of this restaurant has been slain right in the

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Speaker 3: middle of the restaurant kitchen. His body's lying there on

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Speaker 3: the floor between the prep tables and all that. And

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Speaker 3: not only has he been killed, but his body was

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Speaker 3: found in a particularly groo some state, with its chest

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Speaker 3: cavity crushed like a beer can on top of that,

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Speaker 3: there is some kind of weird, wet vegetable matter scattered

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Speaker 3: around the crime scene, described by one character as quote

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Speaker 3: green glop, and the police sagely conclude that the plant

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Speaker 3: matter must be salad. They were in a restaurant after all.

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Speaker 2: All right, solid police work, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I think Rob, you've seen more Culchak than me. Is

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Speaker 3: this a theme that like the police don't know what

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Speaker 3: they're doing and Colchak has to be the one to

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Speaker 3: figure everything out.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I vaguely remember this being the case. You know,

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Speaker 2: it's like you need an outside thinker because you know

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Speaker 2: the police they're doing they're doing a good job. They're

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Speaker 2: you know, they're not incompetent in this show, but they're

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Speaker 2: used to dealing with normal crimes. Yeah, Cold Shack's expertise

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Speaker 2: comes into play when we're dealing with supernatural crimes.

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Speaker 3: So Colchak is on the case. Through some crafty investigation

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Speaker 3: involving trickery and trespassing, Colchack starts to piece together a

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Speaker 3: perplexing set of facts connecting a number of different crimes together.

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Speaker 3: People all crushed or killed by severe blunt force trauma

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Speaker 3: to the thorax, all with the same green glop found

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Speaker 3: around their bodies, and after a visit to a local

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Speaker 3: botanical garden, Kolchak is able to ascertain the origin of

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Speaker 3: the green glop. It is Spanish moss, which only grows,

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Speaker 3: he's told in hot and humid conditions nowhere around Chicago,

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Speaker 3: outside of a greenhouse. And I have to make a

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Speaker 3: little observation. Spanish moss is not like usually wet and soggy.

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Speaker 3: So I think I don't know how much experience the

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Speaker 3: writers here had with actual Spanish moss, which is consistently

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Speaker 3: described in this more like they're talking about algae.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that is weird, isn't it. Yeah, maybe they

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Speaker 2: just hadn't been really exposed to it. But yeah, I

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Speaker 2: don't think of Spanish moss as being humid and wet

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Speaker 2: and drippy and gloppy and so forth.

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Speaker 3: It's actually rather dry and crispy. In fact, famously, I

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Speaker 3: know I was reading about there was one huge historical

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Speaker 3: fire that was started when some Spanish moss caught fire.

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Speaker 3: It was the Great Fire of nineteen oh one in Jacksonville, Florida,

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Speaker 3: which a huge fire that was started outside a factory

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Speaker 3: that was putting stuffing inside of upholstery for furniture, I think,

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Speaker 3: and the stuffing they were using was Spanish moss. There

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Speaker 3: were piles of it that I guess we're sitting there

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Speaker 3: to dry or sitting out ready to be stuffed into things.

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Speaker 3: Some of it caught fire and it caused this giant conflagration. Anyway,

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Speaker 3: back to colchak, investigation of one victim leads him to

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Speaker 3: the victim's workplace, a university sleep laboratory, where the professor

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Speaker 3: and his assistants are running an experimental treatment on a

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Speaker 3: man with severe narcolepsy by keeping him in an induced coma.

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Speaker 3: Colchak learns that the murder victim was an assistant in

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Speaker 3: the lab who was known for her clumsiness, one time

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Speaker 3: nearly waking up their test subject when she knocked over

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Speaker 3: some apparatus in the room. Beyond that, other murder victims

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Speaker 3: seem to have some connection to a social group of

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Speaker 3: Cajun street musicians who are all originally from Louisiana Bayou

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Speaker 3: Country and have moved up to the Chicago area. Kolchak

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Speaker 3: learns from one of their associates the story of a

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Speaker 3: bogeyman figure from Bayou folklore known as Paramoulfay or the

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Speaker 3: evil father. All the Cajuns would joke to each other,

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Speaker 3: you better watch out or Paramoufay is going to get you.

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Speaker 3: And the stories go that Para Malfay has lived in

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Speaker 3: the swamp since long before the Cajuns arrived. He's wet,

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Speaker 3: he's covered in rot, and festooned with Spanish moss from

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Speaker 3: head to toe. Mothers warn their children that if they

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Speaker 3: get out of line, Paramoufay will squeeze the life right

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Speaker 3: out of them, and the only way to beat him

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Speaker 3: is to stab him with a steak from a Bayou

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Speaker 3: gum tree. Kolchak gets another piece of the puzzle. A

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Speaker 3: prime suspect emerges in several of the murders, a man

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Speaker 3: named Languis who is known to have a grudge against

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Speaker 3: several of the victims, but he has a rock solid alibi.

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Speaker 3: He is the man who has been in an induced

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Speaker 3: coma in the sleep laboratory, so he's being monitored twenty

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Speaker 3: four to seven. There's no way he could have done

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Speaker 3: the murders because he never left the lab he's been asleep. Finally,

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Speaker 3: Colchak pieces it all together. He discovers the truth the

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Speaker 3: murders are being carried out by the sleeping man, but

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Speaker 3: not physically. He is dreaming people to death. His experimental

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Speaker 3: coma is preventing him from dreaming normally. I guess the

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Speaker 3: drug regimen that the scientists are giving him is doing

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Speaker 3: something to his ability to dream, and so his dreams

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Speaker 3: are escaping his mind and becoming a physical entity in

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Speaker 3: the form of the swamp monster paramou Fay.

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Speaker 2: So it's a sleep dream manifestation, kind of a.

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Speaker 3: Toolpot exactly, and in the form of the bay U

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Speaker 3: boogeyman covered in Spanish moss that this sleep subject grew

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Speaker 3: up hearing about. So I guess presumably the monster in

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Speaker 3: this story could have been anything. It could have been

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Speaker 3: whatever it was that this man had in his mind.

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Speaker 3: But because this is the folklore he knows, it assumes

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Speaker 3: this form. It's kind of like Wes Craven's New Nightmare.

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Speaker 3: You know, there's an entity that could take any form.

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Speaker 3: The form it takes is the form you imagine. So

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Speaker 3: it becomes Freddy Krueger.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, or of course reminds one of Goser as well.

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Speaker 2: Choose the form of the destructor.

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Speaker 3: Yes. So Kolchak explains his theory to the police commander

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Speaker 3: in the sleep lab. To mad Dog Captain mad Dog

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Speaker 3: Keenan Wynn here and the professor is ordered to wake

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Speaker 3: up the test subject in order to stop the mayhem.

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Speaker 3: But it doesn't work. Langua will not wake up, and

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Speaker 3: instead he dies. Jack thinks that, well, that's tragic, but

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Speaker 3: now at least the trouble is over, until he discovers

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Speaker 3: water and Spanish moss in his desk drawers. He thinks

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Speaker 3: that there's like that the ceiling. The plumbing in the

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Speaker 3: ceiling is leaking, and that's why there's water everywhere. But nope,

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Speaker 3: Paramoulfa has been stalking around his desk in the newspaper office,

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Speaker 3: and this seems to mean that Paramoufay has escaped his host.

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Speaker 3: Even though the dreamer is dead, the dream lives on independently,

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Speaker 3: and now the dream knows the reporter is on to him.

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Speaker 3: In the end, Kolchak has to confront the monster by

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Speaker 3: tracking it to the sewers and staking it with a

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Speaker 3: bayou gum tree branch that he stole from the botanical garden.

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Speaker 3: The sewer confrontation, I feel like, is a little anti

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Speaker 3: climactic for me because you never get a great, great

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Speaker 3: look at the monster. He's kind of a big shaggy

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Speaker 3: vegetable sasquatch played by Richard Keel.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, the lighting's pretty good, so it's not unforgiving,

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Speaker 2: but yeah, it's a bit dark. I mean, it's obviously

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00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:06,040
Speaker 2: not the most robust monster costume ever committed to film.

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Speaker 3: But I love the concept of the monster, even if

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Speaker 3: it's not the most impressive looking thing I've ever seen.

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Speaker 3: The idea of this shaggy creature dreamed into existence and

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Speaker 3: covered head to toe in Spanish moss, just a shambling

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Speaker 3: mess of plant matter.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a It's an admirable plot. It

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Speaker 2: all fit, all the pieces fit together, and then at

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Speaker 2: the same time it feels wild and weird enough that

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Speaker 2: it could have been a symbol via like an improv

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Speaker 2: theater audience shout out plot elements, like all right, what

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Speaker 2: do we have? Okay here, I hear rim sleep, I

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00:17:43,240 --> 00:17:47,719
Speaker 2: hear Cajun boogeyman, I hear French cuisine. Okay, let's put

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Speaker 2: all this together.

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Speaker 3: Now. I was really hoping to discover that Paramolfa would

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Speaker 3: be a real piece of Bayou lore that I could

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Speaker 3: dig into, but alas I came up short on this.

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Speaker 3: All the sources I could find that looked solid at

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Speaker 3: all seem to trace back to the Culchak episode. There

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Speaker 3: are some websites that claim Paramol Fay is an independent

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Speaker 3: folk tale, but they don't cite any sources and they're

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Speaker 3: just kind of websites. So I don't know. I couldn't

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Speaker 3: find anything that looks solid that says this is an

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Speaker 3: actual story that goes anywhere back further than the TV show,

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Speaker 3: So I can't say for certain, but I will say

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Speaker 3: my best judgment is it looks to me like this

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Speaker 3: creature was invented for the show, though I think it

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Speaker 3: may be based on existing folk beliefs. There are many

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Speaker 3: monsters of the swamp. One example that it could be

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Speaker 3: based on would be like the rugaroo, sort of a

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00:18:42,240 --> 00:18:44,320
Speaker 3: Francophone American werewolf legend.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the rugaru connection is pretty solid here. Which,

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Speaker 2: by the way, if you ever go to the zoo,

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00:18:52,119 --> 00:18:54,480
Speaker 2: the Audubon Zoo down in New Orleans, they have one

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00:18:55,240 --> 00:18:59,320
Speaker 2: on display. That's a lot of fun. But yeah, I

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00:19:00,040 --> 00:19:02,480
Speaker 2: feel like vay connection to that creature, like maybe that

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00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:06,000
Speaker 2: was even the original concept. And they're like, we have

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Speaker 2: another episode that has a werewolf in it. Let's go

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00:19:08,359 --> 00:19:11,840
Speaker 2: a different direction here. I didn't do an exhaustive search.

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Speaker 2: It seems like you went a lot deeper. But I

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Speaker 2: did crack open Carol Rose's books and see if she

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Speaker 2: had any mention. The only the closest thing she mentions

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Speaker 2: is a different supernatural father, and that's Pierre Futard or

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Speaker 2: Father Spanker, which is a French kind of uger character

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00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:33,360
Speaker 2: that's also a monstrous Christmas kind of crampist creature that's

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00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:38,280
Speaker 2: a counterpart to Father Christmas. So she doesn't listen any

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Speaker 2: kind of you know, swamp Spanish moss creature. So I

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Speaker 2: think you're right. I think it's an invention for the show,

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Speaker 2: but a fun invention and one that feels like it

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Speaker 2: could be real enough. So there you go.

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Speaker 3: Yes, Now, what about the monstrous qualities of Spanish moss itself?

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Speaker 3: I wanted to get a bit into this here. The

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Speaker 3: funny thing about Spanish moss, most scientific sources will acknowledge

356
00:20:03,840 --> 00:20:05,800
Speaker 3: this right at the top, is that it is neither

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Speaker 3: Spanish nor is it moss, which is pretty funny. But

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Speaker 3: I'll deal with those one at a time. So regarding moss,

359
00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:18,240
Speaker 3: the species name of Spanish moss is Telanzia eucinioides, and

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00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:23,880
Speaker 3: it's taxonomized within the flowering plant family Bromeliacee, also known

361
00:20:23,880 --> 00:20:27,720
Speaker 3: as the bromeliads, along with the pineapple plants. So Spanish

362
00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:31,600
Speaker 3: moss is a cousin to the pineapple And I feel

363
00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:33,080
Speaker 3: like you can almost see it, Like if you get

364
00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:35,480
Speaker 3: up real close to Spanish moss and you look at

365
00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:39,280
Speaker 3: the weird curling stalks and leaves that kind of remind

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Speaker 3: me of pineapple leaves in a strange way. They're obviously

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00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:45,520
Speaker 3: much smaller, but you can almost see the family resemblance.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm looking at some close up pictures right now,

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00:20:48,119 --> 00:20:50,200
Speaker 2: and yeah, I can lean into that.

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00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:54,520
Speaker 3: True mosses, of course, are more distantly related. They belong

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Speaker 3: to a division of non vascular, non flowering plants called Bryophytes.

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00:20:59,440 --> 00:21:03,359
Speaker 3: Spanish is not a moss at all. It's also not Spanish.

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Speaker 3: It is native to north, South and Central America, so

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00:21:07,240 --> 00:21:10,399
Speaker 3: in the United States it's only found in the south

375
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Speaker 3: along the Gulf Coast and up the East coast to

376
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Speaker 3: around Virginia. Chicago is no place for a Spanish moss

377
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Speaker 3: man to thrive.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. When I think Spanish moss, I always instantly think Savannah, Georgia,

379
00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:24,800
Speaker 2: because we have some some beautiful examples of it there,

380
00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:29,280
Speaker 2: especially in the out there in amid the tombstones.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, in North America, it's going to be, especially in

382
00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:37,440
Speaker 3: like coastal areas around the American South. But if it's

383
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:41,120
Speaker 3: not Spanish in origin, why is it called Spanish moss?

384
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Speaker 3: You know a lot of things just have like a

385
00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:46,480
Speaker 3: country name applied to them and they're not from that

386
00:21:46,520 --> 00:21:48,399
Speaker 3: country at all, And this is one of those cases.

387
00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:51,840
Speaker 3: The origin story that I've seen most attested here is

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Speaker 3: that the naming convention comes from early French explorers in

389
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Speaker 3: the Americas who thought that the plant looked like the

390
00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:03,000
Speaker 3: big beer words of Spanish conquistadors, so they called the

391
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Speaker 3: plant Spanish beard.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's another reason that one might lean into creating

393
00:22:09,560 --> 00:22:12,080
Speaker 2: a monster based on it, right, because it's already compared

394
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Speaker 2: to a part of a person's look in general features.

395
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Speaker 3: That's true. I want to get back to that in

396
00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:21,240
Speaker 3: a minute now. An interesting thing that makes Spanish moss

397
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Speaker 3: different as a plant is that it is an epiphyte,

398
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Speaker 3: which means an organism that grows on other plants. Epi

399
00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:33,000
Speaker 3: means on top of fight means plant. So it's an epiphyte.

400
00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:35,600
Speaker 3: If you've ever seen it in the wild before, You've

401
00:22:35,640 --> 00:22:39,040
Speaker 3: probably seen it hanging off of the limbs of trees,

402
00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:43,880
Speaker 3: especially trees like live oak and cyprus. Now you might assume,

403
00:22:44,119 --> 00:22:46,760
Speaker 3: just by looking at it dangling off of tree limbs

404
00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:50,160
Speaker 3: the way it does, that Spanish moss is a parasite

405
00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:53,360
Speaker 3: killing the tree that hosts it. And you also might

406
00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:56,919
Speaker 3: remember the botanical body horror that we talked about in

407
00:22:56,960 --> 00:23:00,840
Speaker 3: our episodes on mistletoe from several years back. In that case,

408
00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:05,000
Speaker 3: one that is totally going Cronenberg on its host plant,

409
00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:07,840
Speaker 3: that seems not to be the case with Spanish moss.

410
00:23:08,359 --> 00:23:10,520
Speaker 3: A lot of sources flatly state that it is just

411
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:13,880
Speaker 3: not parasitic at all. It does no harm to the tree.

412
00:23:14,119 --> 00:23:17,720
Speaker 3: According to this opinion, it would probably be best considered a

413
00:23:17,760 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 3: commensal organism, So in this case, the idea would be

414
00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:24,720
Speaker 3: Spanish moss benefits the tree is unaffected. However, it seems

415
00:23:24,760 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 3: to me like the exact symbiotic equation is perhaps debatable,

416
00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:33,880
Speaker 3: and some sources say Spanish moss might have a mild

417
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:37,320
Speaker 3: negative effect on the host tree, possibly just by blocking

418
00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:39,960
Speaker 3: sun from reaching some of its lower leaves or something

419
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:43,359
Speaker 3: like that. But it's not like drilling into the host

420
00:23:43,480 --> 00:23:46,879
Speaker 3: tree and sucking it, sucking nutrients out of its sucking

421
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:50,160
Speaker 3: water out of its vascular system, and stuff like that

422
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Speaker 3: the way that mistletoe does.

423
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Speaker 1: So.

424
00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:55,879
Speaker 3: According to most sources, at least, Spanish moss is probably

425
00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:58,760
Speaker 3: not a parasite. It's certainly not an obligate parasite, though

426
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,240
Speaker 3: it seems to prefer tree. I think you can see

427
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:05,840
Speaker 3: it sometimes growing on other substrates, even inanimate ones. And

428
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:09,520
Speaker 3: it does not leach sustenance directly from its host tree.

429
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 3: So if it doesn't act like a vampire to the

430
00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:15,959
Speaker 3: host tree, and it doesn't have roots going into the ground,

431
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 3: how does it get its water and mineral nutrients which

432
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:23,160
Speaker 3: plants need. Well, it gets these things from the air.

433
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:27,400
Speaker 3: Spanish moss is an air plant, so it absorbs moisture

434
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 3: from the air using little scales on its leaves called trichomes.

435
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:36,439
Speaker 3: So when rainfalls or when fog swirls, when mists rises

436
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 3: off the ground, the Spanish moss will be there waiting

437
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:43,639
Speaker 3: to get its cut. And as this tangled, shaggy collection

438
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:48,280
Speaker 3: of hair like leaves, these fibers, all winding together, it

439
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:51,280
Speaker 3: does have a very uncanny appearance. It can form these

440
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:54,919
Speaker 3: ghostly drooping masses like the wispy hair of a witch,

441
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:59,119
Speaker 3: or like old bits of cobweb tangled up in the branches.

442
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:02,360
Speaker 3: But if you look close, the structure is interesting. Rob

443
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 3: I've got some pictures for you to examine here. People

444
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:07,399
Speaker 3: at home, you might want to look up close ups

445
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 3: of Spanish moss, especially to see the tri combes. If

446
00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:15,120
Speaker 3: you see magnified images, like through a microscope, you can

447
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:18,879
Speaker 3: see all these little these little scales lifting up like

448
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:22,360
Speaker 3: flaps off of the surface of the leaves.

449
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's very intricate.

450
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:28,520
Speaker 3: And these scales are what the plant uses to trap

451
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:31,960
Speaker 3: moisture from the air. However, that means that in order

452
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:35,199
Speaker 3: to survive, the Spanish moss does need what will at

453
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 3: least at some point be a warm, sunny, humid environment. So,

454
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 3: as Colchak discovered, you're not going to find it growing

455
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 3: around Chicago, except maybe in a steamy sewer, though I

456
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 3: guess there it wouldn't have access to the sun. But

457
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 3: during cold and dry times it can apparently go dormant,

458
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:55,040
Speaker 3: so it can kind of like keep the water that

459
00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:57,880
Speaker 3: it has stored just kind of close up and then

460
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 3: wade out dry times, but it will eventually need favorable

461
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 3: conditions to come back, and the tricombes are also used

462
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:09,160
Speaker 3: to trap mineral and chemical nutrients that the plant needs.

463
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 3: Those can be dissolved in the water that it absorbs,

464
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 3: or it can I've read also that it can sort

465
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 3: of like just catch debris from the air. It can

466
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:20,960
Speaker 3: catch dust, bird droppings, whatever, and try to make use

467
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 3: of that for its nutrients. Now, because Spanish moss has

468
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 3: to survive by trapping whatever water vapor is in the

469
00:26:28,640 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 3: air for some monstrous flavor, we can call this breathing fog.

470
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 3: Because it has to breathe fog. You might imagine that

471
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 3: water is precious to it. What little it can get

472
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 3: must be preserved. But plants also need to breathe in

473
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:47,800
Speaker 3: a way in order to perform photosynthesis. In order to

474
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:51,879
Speaker 3: power their metabolism, they have to exchange gases with the atmosphere,

475
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:55,400
Speaker 3: taking in carbon dioxide and water and then using sunlight

476
00:26:55,480 --> 00:26:58,680
Speaker 3: to power that chemical reaction that generates the carbohydrates for

477
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 3: the plant, and then of course oxygen as a waste product,

478
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 3: which is useful to us. But breathing exchanging gases with

479
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:08,879
Speaker 3: the atmosphere can be dangerous when you are living on

480
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 3: a razor's edge of hydration when you have to get

481
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 3: all of your water out of the air itself. And specifically,

482
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:18,640
Speaker 3: the danger comes when a plant opens the little holes

483
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 3: in its leaves called stomata to absorb CO two from

484
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:25,400
Speaker 3: the atmosphere. When it opens up like that, it can

485
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:30,879
Speaker 3: lose moisture through those little openings, especially under a hot sun.

486
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 3: So Spanish moss uses a specially evolved type of photosynthesis

487
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 3: to avoid this. It's called crass Eulacian acid metabolism photosynthesis

488
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 3: usually CAM photosynthesis for short, and this is an adaptation

489
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 3: found in plants that survive in especially arid conditions. Under

490
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 3: this regime photosynthesis it actually has two phases. There's a

491
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 3: day cycle and a night cycle. So during the day,

492
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:02,879
Speaker 3: when the fronment is hot and dry, the plant keeps

493
00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 3: its stomata closed so it doesn't lose water through the

494
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 3: holes under the burning sun. But nighttime is the right time.

495
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 3: When the sun goes down, the stomata open up and

496
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 3: they absorb CO two and you specially adapted structure chemical

497
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 3: structures in their cells to fix the CO two and

498
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:25,720
Speaker 3: store it until daytime. Then when the sun comes back up,

499
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:29,880
Speaker 3: the stomata close once again, and the plant cells release

500
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 3: the stored co two harvested during the night for photosynthesis

501
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 3: to take place under the sunlight. So you could argue

502
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:41,920
Speaker 3: that Spanish moss feeds by night and then closes the

503
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 3: coffin lid to digest during the cursed daylight.

504
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 2: Ooh, very nice. That's seasonally appropriate right there.

505
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 3: So actually, I think Spanish moss is the is the

506
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 3: perfect thing to cover the body of a monster that

507
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:55,040
Speaker 3: roams in the nighttime.

508
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 2: Though.

509
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 3: You know, something that just occurred to me about the

510
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:02,720
Speaker 3: episode is how come the monster in Kolchak always attacks

511
00:29:02,720 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 3: in the night. The guy is sleeping all day in

512
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 3: all night, so shouldn't he sometimes be dreaming it during

513
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 3: the daytime?

514
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 2: Unless he's aware of how cam photosynthesis works. You know,

515
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 2: it's a shame they didn't go into all this in

516
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:20,200
Speaker 2: the episode, because Darren McGavin could have been like, cam photosynthesis?

517
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 2: Is it camming right now?

518
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 4: That is what he'd say. Okay, Rob, are you ready

519
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 4: for yours?

520
00:29:37,040 --> 00:29:40,720
Speaker 2: Yeah? For mine. You know, if you've listened to the show,

521
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 2: and if you've listened to Weird House Cinema, you probably

522
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 2: know that I have a soft spot for the nineteen

523
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 2: nineties Outer Limits revival. They produced a ton of episodes,

524
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 2: more episodes of this in the original Outer Limits series.

525
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:57,520
Speaker 2: I think they were all filmed in Canada, often used

526
00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 2: very Canadian cruise and very Canadian casts, and of course

527
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 2: often dealt with you know, it was a science fiction series,

528
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 2: so it's more likely to involve elements that we can

529
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 2: discuss here on the show, as opposed to shows like

530
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 2: Night Gallery or Tales from the Crypt.

531
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 3: What little of the nineties Outer Limits I've seen is

532
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:20,360
Speaker 3: mostly stuff that you've referred me to, but by large

533
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 3: I'm impressed, Like, well, it's a mix of things. The

534
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 3: episodes don't always look the most amazing, but of the

535
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 3: stuff I've seen, typically the writing and the acting is

536
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:31,920
Speaker 3: quite solid.

537
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 2: Yeah. Typically if you're just going in blind on a

538
00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 2: nineties Outer Limits episode, you can expect it to be

539
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 2: well acted, overly serious, with a mix of solid practical effects.

540
00:30:43,200 --> 00:30:45,720
Speaker 2: Usually there's some nice sets like this is a show

541
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 2: that really had to think and rethink how to create

542
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 2: a spaceship or alien hallway multiple times per season, and

543
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 2: they generally did a pretty good job. The digital effects, though,

544
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 2: ye are generally not that great to look gap.

545
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 3: I'm going to say regarding the sets, it has a quality.

546
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 3: I don't know exactly what this is I'm noticing, but

547
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 3: it looks like other TV shows made in Canada in

548
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 3: the nineties. Like the sets remind me of the sets

549
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 3: from Are You Afraid of the Dark? The Nickelodeon horror

550
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 3: TV show with you Know shot in Canada in the nineties.

551
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:25,120
Speaker 3: A lot of things shot in Canada in the nineties

552
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 3: look like this to me. Film nerds out there, tell

553
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 3: me what is it? I'm noticing? What is that nineties

554
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 3: Canada look?

555
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:35,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if memory serves I may be wrong in this.

556
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:38,760
Speaker 2: I think we filmed all these in and also around Toronto.

557
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 2: So you know, anytime you need like an urban environment,

558
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,880
Speaker 2: you need some skyscrapers or what have you, there's a

559
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 2: certain mix of buildings that are going to be considered

560
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 2: for those shots. But an you're right, yeah, I love

561
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 2: the nineties Outer Limits. The lesser episodes are often going

562
00:31:56,240 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 2: to have a weaker message or more ham fisted message,

563
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 2: and the opening and closing narration can also be a

564
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 2: bit hammy, as it tries to like compose a really

565
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 2: grandiose idea for this episode that is sometimes present and

566
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:12,240
Speaker 2: sometimes feels kind of tacked on.

567
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 3: I agree. I thought with this episode in particular, it

568
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:18,400
Speaker 3: might have been better without any of the narration, because

569
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:20,360
Speaker 3: I feel like the narration just tried to put an

570
00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 3: overly simplistic spin on what was actually a morally complex episode.

571
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:26,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, I feel like the ending to this one,

572
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:29,520
Speaker 2: they nailed the landing, there's no need to say, and

573
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,239
Speaker 2: the plane landed successfully, and like, no, we just watched it.

574
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 2: It just didn't. So the episode that I selected is

575
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 2: from the seventh season of The Outer Limits. I believe

576
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 2: this is actually from two thousand and one. It is

577
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 2: titled Think like a Dinosaur.

578
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 3: You might really expect the episodes going in a different

579
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 3: direction than it does based on that title.

580
00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 2: Yeah you think you think, I don't know, walk like

581
00:32:53,440 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 2: an Egyptian or I don't know, do the Dinosaur'll get

582
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:02,920
Speaker 2: into what the title means. But it's based on the

583
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:06,440
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six Hugo winning novelette of the same name

584
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 2: by James Patrick Kelly. It was directed by Jorge Montesi

585
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 2: and it stars Enrico Colintoni. This is an actor, by

586
00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:19,560
Speaker 2: the way, who played Veronica Mar's dad on Veronica Mars

587
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 2: and he also played the character of mathisar in Galaxy Quest.

588
00:33:23,760 --> 00:33:25,960
Speaker 2: It also stars Linnea Sharples.

589
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 3: I would say Enrico Colantoni is especially good in this

590
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 3: I've liked him in everything I've seen him, and you know,

591
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:34,320
Speaker 3: he's great and Veronica Mars and all that, but he

592
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 3: really is the heart of this episode and his performance

593
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:39,480
Speaker 3: holds it down.

594
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, maybe not on the same level as holding

595
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:46,560
Speaker 2: it together as as Darren mcavan, but still solid, solid

596
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 2: performance that grounds the episode. Oh. I should also point

597
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 2: out if you want to watch this episode, lucky you,

598
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 2: because if you get Prime, this show is back on Prime.

599
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 2: It was on Prime like early in the pandemic, and

600
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 2: I watched a number of episodes like virtually with some friends.

601
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 2: We would do it every Monday night, and then it

602
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:09,759
Speaker 2: vanished and we had to like watch it via like

603
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 2: scrambled versions on Daily Motion I think, and like sometimes

604
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 2: where they had it was completely the footage was backwards

605
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:21,879
Speaker 2: or mirrored so that all the text was weird I think,

606
00:34:21,920 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 2: so that like it couldn't be detected by bots or

607
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 2: something I don't know, and the quality was suspect. But

608
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 2: now it's back on Prime. The quality is as good

609
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,840
Speaker 2: as it's going to get for the nineties outer limits,

610
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 2: maybe even too good considering some of the effects.

611
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:38,160
Speaker 3: Okay, tell us the plot, all.

612
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 2: Right, So what we have here is a good old

613
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 2: fashioned teleportation horror yarn, one of my favorite sub subgenres

614
00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:48,759
Speaker 2: of horror. So in the story, this is what the

615
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 2: scenario in the future a technologically advanced reptilian alien species

616
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:58,719
Speaker 2: called the Hanen, but dubbed dinos by humans. They facilitate

617
00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:01,880
Speaker 2: a form of teleportation that has allowed human beings to

618
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 2: travel to new worlds and explore the wider waters of

619
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:09,800
Speaker 2: the galaxy. Now, the process here is very clinical, presented

620
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 2: as something it can do undergoing anesthesia, and many humans

621
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,800
Speaker 2: seem to feel a great deal of anxiety about the process,

622
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:23,200
Speaker 2: anxiety that the emotionless pacifist Dinos do not share. So

623
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 2: the Dinos carry out most of the process, but a

624
00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:30,040
Speaker 2: human supervisor has to hit the final switch, because the

625
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:34,480
Speaker 2: system works by scanning a comatose individual at point A,

626
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 2: sending the information of that individual to point B, where

627
00:35:40,239 --> 00:35:44,640
Speaker 2: the machine over there recreates an exact duplicate of them,

628
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:48,319
Speaker 2: and at this point there are two of the individual

629
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:53,160
Speaker 2: with identical bodies and identical brains, identical memories. It then

630
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 2: falls to the human supervisor at point A to hit

631
00:35:57,080 --> 00:36:02,759
Speaker 2: the switch that incinerates the comatose individual, the original individual,

632
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 2: the one who is doing the quote unquote traveling. This

633
00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 2: termination of the original individual at point A is called

634
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:11,840
Speaker 2: balancing the equation.

635
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 3: Now, I should note that they explain the experience of

636
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:19,320
Speaker 3: the what they call the jumper in this story as

637
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 3: as being continuous. So they say that you close your

638
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:26,240
Speaker 3: eyes here at the jumping station and then you open

639
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:29,840
Speaker 3: them on this wonderful planet that you're being transported to,

640
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,200
Speaker 3: so that they suggest that it's just going to be

641
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:34,880
Speaker 3: like being here and then being there.

642
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:38,959
Speaker 2: Right, But as we'll see, like deep down, everybody knows

643
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:41,879
Speaker 2: what this means, and you know, I should point out

644
00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:43,360
Speaker 2: and we'll get into this more in a bit, but

645
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 2: I mentioned anesthesia. Anesthesia seems to be like a common

646
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 2: reference point or starting point for fantastic interpretations of this,

647
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:55,400
Speaker 2: and it's also involved in sort of the wider philosophical

648
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:58,719
Speaker 2: contemplation here. You know, what does it mean when my

649
00:36:58,840 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 2: consciousness changes? What does it mean when my consciousness seems

650
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 2: to cease for an amount of time? You know, it's

651
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 2: that weird experience of suddenly, oh, whatever happened happened, and

652
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 2: I'm suddenly awake again after the fact. I'm conscious again

653
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 2: after the fact. And so you see this reflected in

654
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:21,800
Speaker 2: other treatments of teleportation, in say Stephen King's The Jaunt,

655
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 2: or also you see it referenced in like cryo sleep

656
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:32,080
Speaker 2: scenarios and other science fiction. Yeah, so anyway, that's the setup,

657
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:35,760
Speaker 2: the sort of technological world building setup for the episode.

658
00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 2: The plot concerns essentially three characters. You have Enrico Colintoni's

659
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 2: Michael Burr. He's the human supervisor at the lunar jump station.

660
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:49,920
Speaker 2: He's the one who hits that incineration switch. Then you

661
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 2: have LINEA. Sharple's Kamala Shastri it is pronounced Kamala in

662
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:58,840
Speaker 2: this episode, who has arrived at the lunar station to

663
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:01,840
Speaker 2: jump to a disc world where she's going to study

664
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:05,760
Speaker 2: an alien civilization. And then you have David James Lewis

665
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:08,919
Speaker 2: playing this character Will Carson, who it takes a little

666
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:10,399
Speaker 2: bit to figure out what he's there for, but he's

667
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:14,359
Speaker 2: a replacement tech who is actually a psychological observer sent

668
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:17,880
Speaker 2: by the company to make sure that Burr can handle

669
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:18,360
Speaker 2: the job.

670
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:22,719
Speaker 3: Because a lot is writing on Burr doing his job correctly.

671
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the Dinos are like, this is great, this

672
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 2: is this technology is wonderful. It's going to change everything

673
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 2: you do. It's going to ensure the long term survival

674
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 2: of the human race. But you've got to prove to

675
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:37,840
Speaker 2: us that you're able to handle this. The Dinos refer

676
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:41,320
Speaker 2: to humans as weepies because they see them as is

677
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:44,319
Speaker 2: way too emotional. They make a big deal out of

678
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:47,239
Speaker 2: this whole destroy yourself at point A to travel to

679
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:49,960
Speaker 2: point B, and they do not want to continue with

680
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 2: it if humans cannot handle it. So in this scenario again,

681
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:59,880
Speaker 2: Kamala Shastri traveling to a distant point in the galaxy

682
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 2: or whatever. It seems like everything is going to going

683
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 2: as plan. She's a little nervous, but she's up for it.

684
00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 2: But then during the procedure, the transmission is interrupted. Reconstitution

685
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:16,439
Speaker 2: at point B cannot be confirmed, so the jumper at

686
00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:21,480
Speaker 2: point A cannot be incinerated. So Kamala wakes up screaming

687
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:24,879
Speaker 2: still at point A, and essentially we're unsure if her

688
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 2: double has awoken at point B and she is traumatized

689
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:30,760
Speaker 2: by the pain and terror she felt in the jump chamber,

690
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 2: and Burr is there he tries to reassure and you know,

691
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:38,520
Speaker 2: says some kind words, is very compassionate, but she's like,

692
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:40,799
Speaker 2: I don't think I can go through it again, and

693
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:43,359
Speaker 2: he assures her, you don't have to, you know, don't

694
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:44,880
Speaker 2: don't worry. You don't have to worry about it. Then

695
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 2: if you don't want to give it a second try.

696
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:51,680
Speaker 2: This is entirely voluntary. But at this point even Burr's

697
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 2: commitment to teleportation technology is put to a severe test

698
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:59,919
Speaker 2: when the Dynos confirm that Kamala has arrived at Point B.

699
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 2: They tell him and Carson insists as well that now

700
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 2: he has to balance the equation by killing the original Kamala.

701
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:11,720
Speaker 2: So he struggles with the ethics of this, but goes

702
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 2: forward with it by convincing her to simply go through

703
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 2: with the teleportation. It's like, you've got to get back

704
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 2: in there. You've got to continue your mission, with the

705
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:22,799
Speaker 2: idea of being that she won't be scanned and transmitted

706
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:26,120
Speaker 2: this time. She doesn't know this. She'll just be incinerated

707
00:40:26,239 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 2: and that will balance the equation. That will only be

708
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 2: one Kamala. And she's on this distant planet exploring this

709
00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 2: new civilization, and at this point he almost pulls it off,

710
00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:40,120
Speaker 2: but she gets cold feet again and the truth comes out,

711
00:40:40,160 --> 00:40:43,239
Speaker 2: and so now Burr is under even more pressure to

712
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 2: balance the equation, and there is no way around the

713
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:50,240
Speaker 2: fact that he's contemplating just cold blooded murder and being

714
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 2: asked to kill her, and she knows that that is

715
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 2: the scenario as well. And what's at stake here is

716
00:40:57,040 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 2: like the continuation, like you said, of the entire teleportation program,

717
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 2: the advancement in continuing survival of the human species. So

718
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 2: a lot of pressure is put on him at this moment.

719
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:09,880
Speaker 3: There's a background scenario that they discussed, which is that

720
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 3: humans have destroyed the environment of Earth, that Earth is

721
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 3: close to uninhabitable at this point. Humans have polluted the

722
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:19,360
Speaker 3: environment so much, and that in order to have a

723
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:22,000
Speaker 3: chance at survival, they're going to have to be able

724
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 3: to teleport en mass to these unspoiled worlds. But the

725
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:29,440
Speaker 3: Han and like you said, they're unwilling to let humans

726
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 3: do this unless they prove that they can handle the

727
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:35,240
Speaker 3: technology that they can quote balance the equation.

728
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:37,880
Speaker 2: Now, at this point, my summary is not going to

729
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:39,640
Speaker 2: really do it. It's going to sound a lot more

730
00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 2: rushed because this is a part of the episode that

731
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 2: I think really depends heavily on the performances, but this

732
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 2: is what happens. We see Berg grab a cool looking

733
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:52,319
Speaker 2: sci fi gun from a safe, something that you might

734
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 2: see in time Coop or something, and we think he's

735
00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 2: going to go killer at this point, but when he

736
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 2: runs runs into her in the complex, he tells her

737
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:05,040
Speaker 2: that he's arranging to have her smuggled safely back to

738
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:09,360
Speaker 2: Earth on a routine shuttle, so that seems to be

739
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:13,480
Speaker 2: in motion, and then he's confronted by Carson and he

740
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:15,520
Speaker 2: knocks Carson out, So yeah, it seems like, all right,

741
00:42:15,560 --> 00:42:18,919
Speaker 2: he's gone rogue. He's doing the moral right thing here

742
00:42:18,960 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 2: for the individual. Maybe not for the greater good, but

743
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:25,480
Speaker 2: for the individual. And then he leads her to an

744
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:27,919
Speaker 2: air lock. But then he has this change of heart.

745
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 2: We see flashes back to this background information about him

746
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 2: having lost his family, lost his wife, and he has

747
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 2: a change of heart and instead he blasts her out

748
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:41,279
Speaker 2: the air lock. Clearly this was not an easy choice

749
00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:43,799
Speaker 2: for him to make. He's just emotionally destroyed by this.

750
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 2: Two years later we see him once more. He's still

751
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:52,160
Speaker 2: apparently the supervisor there at the Lunar Teleportation station and

752
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:58,359
Speaker 2: the teleporter is being used and it's receiving somebody who

753
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:01,600
Speaker 2: is it, Well, it's come on on her return to

754
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:04,480
Speaker 2: the lunar station from her studies on that distant planet,

755
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:07,879
Speaker 2: and she greets him warmly, telling him, Hey, you were

756
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:10,960
Speaker 2: my jump supervisor. Don't you remember remember me? You were

757
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:13,920
Speaker 2: so nice to me, you were so comforting, And he

758
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 2: says flat late, no, that was somebody else.

759
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:20,799
Speaker 3: And then the narrator comes in with some I think

760
00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:24,759
Speaker 3: over overly simplified, kind of hammy summary of everything we

761
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:25,279
Speaker 3: just saw.

762
00:43:26,040 --> 00:43:29,080
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. When I was watching these episodes with with

763
00:43:29,120 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 2: some with some friends, we would always make fun of

764
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:34,799
Speaker 2: the ending narration, especially if the episode was a bit

765
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 2: bad or confusing, because you knew he'd come in and

766
00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:39,359
Speaker 2: try and wrap it up with a tight little boat.

767
00:43:41,160 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 3: Now, I think there are a lot of really interesting

768
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:45,200
Speaker 3: things about this episode, and it raises a lot of

769
00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 3: the great questions about about teleportation as a technology, if

770
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:53,480
Speaker 3: you were to imagine something like it actually existed. Some

771
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 3: of the same questions applied to the idea of like

772
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:01,080
Speaker 3: mind uploading or you know, transferral conciousness to a machine

773
00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:03,520
Speaker 3: substrate or something like that. I think one of the

774
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:07,880
Speaker 3: really interesting things in this episode is that the essential

775
00:44:09,560 --> 00:44:14,040
Speaker 3: thing that Burr has to do has not changed. In

776
00:44:14,120 --> 00:44:17,799
Speaker 3: both cases. He is supposed to destroy the body of

777
00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:20,560
Speaker 3: the jumper at the origin point while they while they

778
00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 3: go on living at the destination point. The only thing

779
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:27,120
Speaker 3: that has changed is that in this scenario, the jumper

780
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:32,719
Speaker 3: at the departure point has had time to wake up

781
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:35,640
Speaker 3: and become conscious of the fact that they're still here.

782
00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:40,440
Speaker 3: But otherwise it's the same. So there's something where like,

783
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 3: it doesn't feel like murder if they knew what was

784
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:47,359
Speaker 3: going to happen going in and they're destroyed instantaneously at

785
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 3: the departure point. As long you know they understand, they

786
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:54,439
Speaker 3: get to live on at the destination But something about

787
00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 3: the fact that she has had several seconds of being

788
00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 3: awake now and she's like, well, now that I'm here,

789
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 3: I don't want to die at this place. That changes

790
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:07,480
Speaker 3: the equation. And I think that's interesting because it plays

791
00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:10,799
Speaker 3: with our intuitions about what would or would not be

792
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:12,920
Speaker 3: murder in a strange scenario like this.

793
00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:18,320
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, it's just this level of it certainly reminds

794
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 2: one of various sort of moral thought experiments where it's like, okay,

795
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 2: you're going to flip the switch and you're going to

796
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:28,560
Speaker 2: save the human race. But somebody that you don't really

797
00:45:28,600 --> 00:45:30,440
Speaker 2: see or know in another room's going to die. And

798
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:32,360
Speaker 2: then if they're okay with that, well, okay, here's a

799
00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:33,759
Speaker 2: different version of the scenario, etc.

800
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:37,080
Speaker 3: Though I guess it also raises these some questions about

801
00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:40,839
Speaker 3: like where is consciousness located and is it possible for

802
00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:45,000
Speaker 3: consciousness to be continuously transferred if that concept even makes sense,

803
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:48,000
Speaker 3: because again, the jumpers talk about the idea that well,

804
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 3: they don't mind that their body is going to be

805
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:53,840
Speaker 3: destroyed at the departure point because they're just going to

806
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:56,040
Speaker 3: close their eyes and wake up on this other planet.

807
00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:59,799
Speaker 3: They seem to have confidence that their consciousness will con

808
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:02,759
Speaker 3: tinue in some way. But what does that mean?

809
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:05,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, in this we can't help but

810
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:08,480
Speaker 2: think of the think in the anesthesia example, you know,

811
00:46:08,600 --> 00:46:12,920
Speaker 2: and really like sort of like just everyday ideas of like, well,

812
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:14,640
Speaker 2: am I the same person when I wake up in

813
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:18,920
Speaker 2: the morning, that sort of thing, you know. Really yeah, yeah,

814
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:22,040
Speaker 2: comparisons between sleep and death that, as we've discussed in

815
00:46:22,080 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 2: the show, go you know, back into the earliest times

816
00:46:25,600 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 2: during which humans were able to contemplate these things, and

817
00:46:29,080 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 2: and that brings us, I think, to the dinosaurs, the dinos,

818
00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 2: the haunins, because that's another element of the plot here

819
00:46:34,800 --> 00:46:38,759
Speaker 2: that we don't you kind of have to come back

820
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:40,600
Speaker 2: and think about it more yourself, because they don't get

821
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 2: into it as much, at least in the episode. Is like,

822
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:46,600
Speaker 2: what is the thought process of these of these dinos

823
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:51,719
Speaker 2: who are again presented as being like dinosaur creatures, but

824
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:55,479
Speaker 2: they're not. They're not depicted as being like completely quote

825
00:46:55,560 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 2: unquote cold blooded, Like they're not cruel, They're just calculates,

826
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:03,239
Speaker 2: and it seems like they have made the decision and

827
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 2: don't seem to put a lot of effort into it

828
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:09,880
Speaker 2: really that hey, you know, when one teleports, one is

829
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:12,799
Speaker 2: going to destroy a version of themselves and recreate a

830
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:16,359
Speaker 2: new one to carry out a particular task or goal, etc.

831
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:19,759
Speaker 2: And they don't think it's a big deal. And so

832
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:21,759
Speaker 2: I was thinking a little bit like, well, what would

833
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:23,640
Speaker 2: that mean, where does that come from? How much of

834
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:26,720
Speaker 2: that would be cultural? Because you can imagine a scenario

835
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:29,799
Speaker 2: even with humans where if they're regularly undergoing this kind

836
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 2: of teleportation, you would maybe have a lot of cultural

837
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:36,240
Speaker 2: ideas surrounding it, maybe even religious ideas surrounding it about

838
00:47:36,239 --> 00:47:38,399
Speaker 2: the nature of the self and the soul and how

839
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:43,560
Speaker 2: that has continued through this technological leap. But also maybe

840
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 2: there's something about the Hannans that, you know, maybe they're

841
00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:50,759
Speaker 2: more use social where the sacrifice doesn't mean as much

842
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:53,279
Speaker 2: because the individual doesn't mean as much, and that's just

843
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:55,440
Speaker 2: part of their just genetic program.

844
00:47:55,960 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. They are portrayed as mostly

845
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 3: benevolent but just not swayed by emotional considerations, and so

846
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:08,279
Speaker 3: I think their point of view is that they're not

847
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:11,360
Speaker 3: harming the jumper by killing them here because they're already

848
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 3: alive somewhere else. So it doesn't matter what the jumper

849
00:48:14,719 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 3: at the destination, at the departure point actually wants, Like

850
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 3: if they wake up and say, no, don't kill me,

851
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:24,040
Speaker 3: it's like that is just not of importance. You know,

852
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:26,680
Speaker 3: they're fine, They're somewhere else now, and so this is

853
00:48:26,760 --> 00:48:29,160
Speaker 3: just sort of like a mistake to be cleaned up.

854
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:31,879
Speaker 3: Whereas the human point of view is, oh, now there's

855
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:33,839
Speaker 3: a person in front of me who wants to live,

856
00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:37,440
Speaker 3: and that that is extremely important, like the fact that

857
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:40,200
Speaker 3: this person is conscious and they want to live, gives

858
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:42,400
Speaker 3: them just as much right to live as the person

859
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:45,480
Speaker 3: at the destination point, and the dinosaurs don't see it

860
00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 3: that way. They're like, well, no, this is the way

861
00:48:47,640 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 3: it works, and you know, she as long as she's fine.

862
00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:53,960
Speaker 3: They're what, the one that's here doesn't matter anymore.

863
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:56,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't. Again, they don't understand it. They kind

864
00:48:56,920 --> 00:49:03,279
Speaker 2: of mock the human emotion in this respect, calling us wheepies.

865
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:05,680
Speaker 2: You can imagine memes they might create, like, oh no,

866
00:49:05,719 --> 00:49:08,680
Speaker 2: a weepee accidentally made two sandwiches and now it's sad,

867
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:12,480
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. But I should also mention they

868
00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:15,399
Speaker 2: made the strange choice in this episode to have the

869
00:49:15,520 --> 00:49:21,840
Speaker 2: Hanens speak in an almost unintelligible monster voice. Yes. Yeah,

870
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:24,160
Speaker 2: like though the monster the dino will be talking, you

871
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:26,680
Speaker 2: just can't understand it. You have to run it back

872
00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:28,360
Speaker 2: to figure out what it's squawking about.

873
00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:32,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, jump the chain back. It's kind of crypt.

874
00:49:32,040 --> 00:49:37,840
Speaker 2: Keeper, Yeah, like crypt Keeper, sketchy, but but harder to understand.

875
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:42,399
Speaker 3: Well, Also, they established that they're getting the humans are

876
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:47,440
Speaker 3: hearing the Hanen through a real time translation device, so

877
00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:52,560
Speaker 3: it's like translating their sort of squawks and language into English.

878
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:55,839
Speaker 3: For the jump operators. But hold on a second, why

879
00:49:55,840 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 3: does it make them sound like the crypt Keeper. If

880
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:00,399
Speaker 3: it's doing that anyway, shouldn't the machine just give them

881
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:01,880
Speaker 3: the kind of the serie voice.

882
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:05,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like, it's it's set to Cryptkeeper. We don't

883
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:07,560
Speaker 2: know how to change it back to Angela Lansbury. This

884
00:50:07,719 --> 00:50:19,240
Speaker 2: is just what we have to use now. Of course,

885
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:22,440
Speaker 2: the central treatment of the whole episode has to do

886
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:26,160
Speaker 2: with this, this idea of teleportation, the recreation of the

887
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:30,960
Speaker 2: self and and and the I guess it's not even

888
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:33,319
Speaker 2: really a question about like the continuation of the soul

889
00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:36,840
Speaker 2: like it at Herd. Here it seems to be clear

890
00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:39,400
Speaker 2: that someone is dying and then a new person is

891
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:43,719
Speaker 2: being created. And I really wasn't aware of this until

892
00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:47,480
Speaker 2: I started researching this episode. But it turns out this

893
00:50:47,760 --> 00:50:52,320
Speaker 2: entire central premise lines up with the work of Derek Parfitt,

894
00:50:52,719 --> 00:50:58,080
Speaker 2: a British philosopher who specialized in personal identity, among other subjects.

895
00:50:58,480 --> 00:51:01,080
Speaker 3: Parfit's come up on the show before. We may have

896
00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:05,160
Speaker 3: talked about him, Was it in our episode on astronomical suffering?

897
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 2: Maybe? I think so. Yeah. He he wrote about a

898
00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 2: number of topics, so it's not like he's not like

899
00:51:11,640 --> 00:51:14,360
Speaker 2: a one idea guy, and he's very influential. So he

900
00:51:14,480 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 2: lived nineteen forty two through twenty seventeen, and in his

901
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:23,680
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven book Reasons and Persons, he explores exactly

902
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:28,239
Speaker 2: this scenario. And I'm unsure if Kelly, the author of

903
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:32,360
Speaker 2: Think Like a Ninosaur, based his fiction on this, or if,

904
00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:35,440
Speaker 2: as with swamp Thing and swamp Man, we have an

905
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:40,120
Speaker 2: uncertain case with a possibility of independent development in different fields.

906
00:51:40,120 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 3: Swamp Man being another philosophical thought experiment about the idea

907
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:47,080
Speaker 3: that like, if your body was destroyed by lightning and

908
00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:50,720
Speaker 3: then recreated out of different molecules by a lightning strike

909
00:51:50,760 --> 00:51:54,400
Speaker 3: and a swamp like, what relation would that other you

910
00:51:54,600 --> 00:51:55,480
Speaker 3: have to the original?

911
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:55,640
Speaker 1: You?

912
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 2: Right?

913
00:51:56,760 --> 00:51:57,000
Speaker 3: Right?

914
00:51:58,239 --> 00:52:02,759
Speaker 2: So again Parfitt's book Reasons in Persons, in chapter ten

915
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:06,399
Speaker 2: what we Believe Ourselves to Be, he presents a thought

916
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:10,000
Speaker 2: experiment in which he is commuting to work on Mars

917
00:52:10,200 --> 00:52:13,400
Speaker 2: via a machine called a tele transporter, in which the

918
00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:17,000
Speaker 2: subject loses consciousness and wakes up a moment later, or

919
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:21,080
Speaker 2: seems to wake up a moment later at their destination.

920
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 2: In reality, however, it's explained, really an hour takes an

921
00:52:25,680 --> 00:52:31,240
Speaker 2: hour passes in between losing consciousness and reawakening. The original

922
00:52:31,320 --> 00:52:36,520
Speaker 2: body is scanned, recorded in every detail, and destroyed. Traveling

923
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:39,600
Speaker 2: at light speed, the information takes three minutes to reach Mars,

924
00:52:39,680 --> 00:52:42,560
Speaker 2: and then, using that information that had been sent, the

925
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:46,279
Speaker 2: replicator machine on Mars creates a new brain and a

926
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 2: new body out of new matter. So then Parfitt goes

927
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:53,799
Speaker 2: on to layout a scenario that involves interruption and accidental

928
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:58,319
Speaker 2: duplication without destruction of the original. The added wrinkle is

929
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:01,240
Speaker 2: that while the machine failed to destroy the original body

930
00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:04,080
Speaker 2: and brain, it also inflicted a heart condition that will

931
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:08,480
Speaker 2: be fatal in like forty days. Also in the thought experiment,

932
00:53:08,520 --> 00:53:10,960
Speaker 2: the scanning is supposed to destroy the individual as part

933
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:14,799
Speaker 2: of the process. It's not like there's this switch that

934
00:53:14,800 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 2: you hit for incineration. It's like all part of the process.

935
00:53:17,920 --> 00:53:20,919
Speaker 3: So it's not a separate decision that an operator has to.

936
00:53:20,840 --> 00:53:23,839
Speaker 2: Make right, right, And it makes more sense, I guess.

937
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:29,919
Speaker 2: In the fictional treatment, he writes quote simple teletransportation as

938
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:33,359
Speaker 2: just described is a common feature in science fiction, and

939
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:36,080
Speaker 2: it is believed by some readers of this fiction merely

940
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:39,359
Speaker 2: to be the fastest way of traveling. They believe that

941
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:43,839
Speaker 2: my replica would be me. Other science fiction readers and

942
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:46,399
Speaker 2: some of the characters in this fiction take a different view.

943
00:53:46,920 --> 00:53:49,839
Speaker 2: They believe that when I press the green button, I die.

944
00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:53,080
Speaker 2: My replica is someone else who has been made to

945
00:53:53,160 --> 00:53:56,320
Speaker 2: be exactly like me. So he uses the thought experiment

946
00:53:56,360 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 2: to discuss what he calls two kinds of sameness, qualitative

947
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:04,280
Speaker 2: identa and numerical identity. So the scanner and replicator produce

948
00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:09,480
Speaker 2: a double that is qualitatively identical but not numerically identical.

949
00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:12,520
Speaker 2: In other words, the two are otherwise the same, but

950
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:16,360
Speaker 2: they are not literally the same person in a physical sense. Again,

951
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:20,800
Speaker 2: like new matter was used to make, there's no physical

952
00:54:20,840 --> 00:54:22,480
Speaker 2: connection between these two beings.

953
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 3: It's kind of like how you can have two copies

954
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:27,200
Speaker 3: of the same book that are at the same time

955
00:54:27,440 --> 00:54:30,360
Speaker 3: the same book, but they're also two different objects.

956
00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:35,160
Speaker 2: Right. Likewise, though, he points out that numerically identical individuals

957
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:41,040
Speaker 2: can also become qualitatively different. Quote though our chief concern

958
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:46,640
Speaker 2: is our numerical identity. Psychological changes matter. Indeed, on one view,

959
00:54:46,760 --> 00:54:51,280
Speaker 2: certain kinds of qualitative change destroy numerical identity. If certain

960
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:53,960
Speaker 2: things happen to me, the truth might not be that

961
00:54:54,040 --> 00:54:56,680
Speaker 2: I become a very different person. The truth might be

962
00:54:56,760 --> 00:55:00,359
Speaker 2: that I cease to exist, that the resulting person is

963
00:55:00,400 --> 00:55:01,080
Speaker 2: someone else.

964
00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:05,640
Speaker 3: And in fact, the strange thing is that our bodies

965
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:10,120
Speaker 3: and minds are constantly undergoing physical change, and yet we

966
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:15,040
Speaker 3: have the conscious experience of it seeming to be that

967
00:55:15,120 --> 00:55:18,600
Speaker 3: life is continuous. It just feels like you were the

968
00:55:18,640 --> 00:55:21,600
Speaker 3: same person you have been your whole life, but physically

969
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:22,720
Speaker 3: you're always changing.

970
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:27,280
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, physically at a cellular level, things are changing

971
00:55:27,320 --> 00:55:30,640
Speaker 2: where we're not exactly the same matter that we were

972
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:34,239
Speaker 2: years back, and then major events, as he's pointing out,

973
00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:38,040
Speaker 2: have a huge impact on us. The episode closes with

974
00:55:38,120 --> 00:55:41,080
Speaker 2: this idea as well, which I thought was right, thought

975
00:55:41,160 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 2: was really nice. The Kamala, who is beamed back to

976
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:49,000
Speaker 2: the lunar base is one numerically different. This is the

977
00:55:49,040 --> 00:55:52,359
Speaker 2: third version of her in the story that we don't see,

978
00:55:52,360 --> 00:55:55,680
Speaker 2: the second, the one that's on that other planet. This

979
00:55:55,719 --> 00:55:59,200
Speaker 2: is all due of course to the scanner destroyer replicator technology,

980
00:55:59,440 --> 00:56:02,879
Speaker 2: but she also so seems to be qualitatively different as

981
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 2: her as her experienced studying an alien civilization has greatly

982
00:56:06,600 --> 00:56:09,520
Speaker 2: impacted her. There's even a new tattoo on her and

983
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:12,640
Speaker 2: a different hairstyle to sort of drive this home visually.

984
00:56:13,520 --> 00:56:14,440
Speaker 3: Yeah.

985
00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:18,800
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Burr is numerically identical to the man she knew before,

986
00:56:18,840 --> 00:56:21,520
Speaker 2: that she met before, but it seems that he is

987
00:56:21,600 --> 00:56:25,840
Speaker 2: qualitatively different as well, forever changed by the horrendous series

988
00:56:25,880 --> 00:56:28,360
Speaker 2: of events that he went through, namely the murder he

989
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:33,200
Speaker 2: committed to keep the teleportation machines running. And and of

990
00:56:33,200 --> 00:56:37,080
Speaker 2: course she is completely oblivious to this because the version

991
00:56:37,360 --> 00:56:41,239
Speaker 2: of Kamala that she is did not witness any of

992
00:56:41,280 --> 00:56:44,880
Speaker 2: this and was not the one murdered. And so that

993
00:56:45,200 --> 00:56:47,920
Speaker 2: final line just hits nicely. He's like, no, that was

994
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:51,240
Speaker 2: someone else, Like that was a that was a different

995
00:56:51,360 --> 00:56:54,240
Speaker 2: me before I was changed by what happened.

996
00:56:54,760 --> 00:56:58,000
Speaker 3: I think this raises another interesting philosophical question, kind of

997
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:02,480
Speaker 3: a moral philosophical question, which is, imagine that the error

998
00:57:02,520 --> 00:57:05,400
Speaker 3: scenario had never happened. You know, you never had the

999
00:57:05,719 --> 00:57:08,759
Speaker 3: scene where he has to hunt down a jumper with

1000
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:11,600
Speaker 3: a gun and blow them out of the airlock. It like,

1001
00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:15,080
Speaker 3: murder them in a very explicit way, and he was

1002
00:57:15,120 --> 00:57:18,840
Speaker 3: still just pressing the button to incinerate the body. Is

1003
00:57:18,920 --> 00:57:22,800
Speaker 3: there anything morally wrong going on there? If we assume

1004
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:26,320
Speaker 3: that everything that the characters assume is true, So assume

1005
00:57:26,400 --> 00:57:30,800
Speaker 3: that it is basically painless. That the conscious experience of

1006
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:33,120
Speaker 3: the person undergoing it is that they close their eyes

1007
00:57:33,120 --> 00:57:35,680
Speaker 3: here and they wake up at the destination point. There's

1008
00:57:35,720 --> 00:57:40,280
Speaker 3: not actually like a person to suffer or to be

1009
00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:43,600
Speaker 3: denied life or whatever that there's just a continuous conscious

1010
00:57:43,640 --> 00:57:48,600
Speaker 3: experience and all of that. Is there anything morally wrong

1011
00:57:48,640 --> 00:57:51,640
Speaker 3: with what you're doing by pressing the button to incinerate

1012
00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:54,920
Speaker 3: the person at the departure point? I don't know. I

1013
00:57:54,960 --> 00:57:57,360
Speaker 3: think that's a really interesting question to ask, because you

1014
00:57:57,360 --> 00:58:01,560
Speaker 3: could say, even if nobody is so, and the person

1015
00:58:01,720 --> 00:58:05,560
Speaker 3: who's jumping gets to continue to live, so in whatever

1016
00:58:05,720 --> 00:58:08,480
Speaker 3: normal way we would think about it, they're not being murdered,

1017
00:58:09,040 --> 00:58:11,880
Speaker 3: you'd still have to wonder if there is some kind

1018
00:58:11,880 --> 00:58:15,360
Speaker 3: of subtle moral violence going on just by the repeated

1019
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:19,920
Speaker 3: pressing of a button to destroy a human body like that, Like,

1020
00:58:20,120 --> 00:58:23,240
Speaker 3: is that conditioning the person who has to do the

1021
00:58:23,240 --> 00:58:28,120
Speaker 3: button pushing in a way that degrades them morally in

1022
00:58:28,160 --> 00:58:28,600
Speaker 3: some way?

1023
00:58:29,160 --> 00:58:34,320
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, it's a rich field for thought here, And

1024
00:58:34,680 --> 00:58:37,800
Speaker 2: to be clear, Parfitt goes into a great more detail

1025
00:58:38,480 --> 00:58:41,400
Speaker 2: in the book, and of course uses this thought experiment

1026
00:58:41,520 --> 00:58:45,120
Speaker 2: as a leaping off point to discuss identity and self

1027
00:58:45,160 --> 00:58:48,680
Speaker 2: at great length though it's all it's all very, very

1028
00:58:48,800 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 2: readable and absorbable, so I do recommend picking that up.

1029
00:58:52,560 --> 00:58:55,560
Speaker 2: And I did not not have time to seek out

1030
00:58:55,560 --> 00:58:59,560
Speaker 2: and read the original novel Lette Think like a Dinosaur.

1031
00:58:59,720 --> 00:59:01,640
Speaker 2: But I understand, of course it is quite good as well,

1032
00:59:01,640 --> 00:59:03,640
Speaker 2: and I'd be interested to hear from anyone out there

1033
00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:07,040
Speaker 2: who has read it and can compare it to the

1034
00:59:07,120 --> 00:59:10,600
Speaker 2: outer limits adaptation. And of course yeah, in terms of

1035
00:59:12,360 --> 00:59:15,480
Speaker 2: human consciousness and identity. You know, we could easily go

1036
00:59:15,520 --> 00:59:18,200
Speaker 2: on and on here, but I thought I might close out.

1037
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:21,880
Speaker 2: I was reminded of a brief mention from an article

1038
00:59:21,920 --> 00:59:24,520
Speaker 2: that we reference in our shadow episodes? Do we actually

1039
00:59:24,600 --> 00:59:28,600
Speaker 2: see shadows? On Jay Store Daily? By Roy Sorensen, He

1040
00:59:28,680 --> 00:59:32,480
Speaker 2: writes the optics of the Chinese moists focused on shadows

1041
00:59:32,560 --> 00:59:37,160
Speaker 2: rather than light. They defend the literal truth of Chiangxu's aphromism,

1042
00:59:37,440 --> 00:59:40,880
Speaker 2: the shadow of a flying bird never moves, for shadows

1043
00:59:40,960 --> 00:59:45,360
Speaker 2: last only an instant. The Chinese dialectician Kung Sun Lung

1044
00:59:46,400 --> 00:59:49,360
Speaker 2: three twenty five through two point fifty PCE appears to

1045
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:53,200
Speaker 2: have extended the objection to the bird. At each moment

1046
00:59:53,320 --> 00:59:55,520
Speaker 2: the bird is where it is, and so is not

1047
00:59:55,680 --> 00:59:58,720
Speaker 2: traveling since the bird is always at rest, the bird

1048
00:59:58,840 --> 01:00:00,800
Speaker 2: no more moves than its shadow.

1049
01:00:01,320 --> 01:00:03,320
Speaker 3: I guess to try to map that onto our questions

1050
01:00:03,360 --> 01:00:08,080
Speaker 3: about teleportation and human consciousness. You know, would consciousness survive

1051
01:00:08,520 --> 01:00:11,320
Speaker 3: the body being destroyed in one place and recreated exactly

1052
01:00:11,400 --> 01:00:11,800
Speaker 3: in another.

1053
01:00:12,800 --> 01:00:12,880
Speaker 1: Uh.

1054
01:00:13,520 --> 01:00:16,080
Speaker 3: You could maybe take the view that consciousness is not

1055
01:00:16,360 --> 01:00:19,240
Speaker 3: continuous anyway, that that is merely an illusion and there

1056
01:00:19,240 --> 01:00:25,560
Speaker 3: are only instants of consciousness that are that are mistakenly

1057
01:00:25,680 --> 01:00:29,640
Speaker 3: thinking that something is is traceable from one moment to

1058
01:00:29,680 --> 01:00:31,440
Speaker 3: the next, and in fact there is not.

1059
01:00:32,320 --> 01:00:34,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I don't know.

1060
01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:35,960
Speaker 3: If I buy that, but that's an interesting way of

1061
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:36,400
Speaker 3: seeing it.

1062
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:38,320
Speaker 2: Well that I guess that's one of the great things

1063
01:00:38,360 --> 01:00:42,120
Speaker 2: about this about it, about this particular quandary, but also

1064
01:00:42,400 --> 01:00:46,680
Speaker 2: questions about consciousness in general, is that there's I mean,

1065
01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:48,360
Speaker 2: I guess there's some wrong answers out there, but you

1066
01:00:48,400 --> 01:00:50,920
Speaker 2: can generalize and say there are no wrong answers like this.

1067
01:00:51,400 --> 01:00:54,880
Speaker 2: These are all just thought experiments and ideas that that

1068
01:00:55,080 --> 01:00:57,960
Speaker 2: tease at the reality and make us sort of turn

1069
01:00:58,040 --> 01:01:01,680
Speaker 2: our perceptions on their head and reconsider what they are

1070
01:01:01,960 --> 01:01:02,960
Speaker 2: and what we are.

1071
01:01:03,280 --> 01:01:05,080
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I think a lot of the thought experiments

1072
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Speaker 3: about consciousness. They don't necessarily provide evidence to help us

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Speaker 3: discover the true nature and origin of consciousness. They don't

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Speaker 3: always help us discover what consciousness really objectively is, but

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Speaker 3: they do help us better understand our intuitions about consciousness,

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01:01:22,400 --> 01:01:25,680
Speaker 3: which are often quite vague, and these thought experiments can

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01:01:25,720 --> 01:01:29,360
Speaker 3: make them clearer. Yeah. Anyway, good Outer Limits episode.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I recommend checking out. It's one of my favorites.

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Speaker 2: It's one of my wife's favorites. I think she she'd

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01:01:35,680 --> 01:01:38,240
Speaker 2: seen it before our I did years ago, and she

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01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:41,760
Speaker 2: always brings it up as an episode worth watching. So

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01:01:41,840 --> 01:01:44,680
Speaker 2: I would agree not all of the Outer Limits episodes

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01:01:44,720 --> 01:01:47,919
Speaker 2: are necessarily worth watching. Again, there are some weak ones,

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01:01:47,960 --> 01:01:50,720
Speaker 2: but this one's a strong one, all right. And on

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Speaker 2: that note, we're going to go ahead and close up

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Speaker 2: Anthology of Horror volume nine. Thanks for listening, joining us

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Speaker 2: on this quest, and we'd love to hear from everyone

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Speaker 2: out there. If you have thoughts about the episodes in

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01:02:03,200 --> 01:02:05,960
Speaker 2: particular or the show's in particular that we discussed here,

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01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:08,480
Speaker 2: write in. And if you have thoughts about the subject

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01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:12,960
Speaker 2: matter that we discussed about consciousness and the self about

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01:02:13,520 --> 01:02:18,040
Speaker 2: Spanish Moss and different interpretations of it right in we

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01:02:18,080 --> 01:02:20,880
Speaker 2: would love to hear from you. Just a reminder that

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Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind as a science podcast with

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01:02:24,120 --> 01:02:29,600
Speaker 2: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have a listener

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01:02:29,600 --> 01:02:32,360
Speaker 2: mail episode on Mondays. We have a short form Monster

1097
01:02:32,400 --> 01:02:35,200
Speaker 2: Factor Artifact episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays, we set

1098
01:02:35,200 --> 01:02:37,600
Speaker 2: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird

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01:02:37,640 --> 01:02:41,000
Speaker 2: film on Weird House Cinema. And hey, if you use

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01:02:41,040 --> 01:02:43,880
Speaker 2: any of the social media platforms, do check us out

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Speaker 2: and follow us there there, I've and running again on Instagram.

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Speaker 2: We are stbym.

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Speaker 3: Podcast huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer

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01:02:54,400 --> 01:02:57,480
Speaker 3: O Skull of Skulls Pauseway. If you would like to

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01:02:57,480 --> 01:03:00,320
Speaker 3: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode, together,

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01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:02,640
Speaker 3: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

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01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:06,000
Speaker 3: say hello, you can email us at contact Stuff to

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01:03:06,040 --> 01:03:14,560
Speaker 3: Blow your Mind dot com.

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01:03:14,600 --> 01:03:17,560
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