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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to blow your mind. My

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

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Speaker 1: The Vault is open and it is going to be

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Speaker 1: part two of a two part Vault series. Now. Last Saturday,

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Speaker 1: we ran part one of our Science of Dune episodes

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Speaker 1: from we ran the Science of Dune Technology. Today it's

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Speaker 1: going to be another foray into the planet Iraq as

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Speaker 1: part two, the Science of Dune Biology, which originally aired

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Speaker 1: on October one. Yeah, there's a lot of sand where

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Speaker 1: I'm talking this episode, as we sort of pieced together

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Speaker 1: the science that that Frank Herbert used to create the

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Speaker 1: idea of the sand worm, as well as scientific interpretations

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Speaker 1: by a couple of different commentators in the decades to follow. Now,

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Speaker 1: wait a minute, Robert, we're going to be getting another

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Speaker 1: Dune film, right, Yes, it's true. Bye bye Dnevillneuve. Yes,

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Speaker 1: the director of, of course, the most recent blay Runner film,

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Speaker 1: Blade Run, which I really enjoyed and it certainly is

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Speaker 1: just full of visual flare like watching that and especially

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Speaker 1: enjoy I especially enjoyed the slow pace of the film,

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Speaker 1: like like Blade Runner is what three four hours long,

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Speaker 1: it's about seven hours long, but it feels like it's

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Speaker 1: just an hour and a half. It feels far shorter

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Speaker 1: than any superhero movie I have ever seen. How long

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Speaker 1: was Batman v. Superman Dawn of Justice? Is that about

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Speaker 1: six and a half hours? I don't know. I only

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Speaker 1: saw that over other people's shoulders on an airplane. I

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Speaker 1: watched it on a flight and could not finish it

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Speaker 1: on the flight. Like it. I started it at takeoff

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Speaker 1: and we landed and the movie wasn't over. Yeah, superhero

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Speaker 1: movies are not necessarily my thing these days, unless unless

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Speaker 1: it has Wesley Snipes in it, and he's he's running vampires.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, I am all in on another cinematic vision

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Speaker 1: of Dune. I mean every element, all the old ones

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Speaker 1: we talked about here, the sand warm terms. If we

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Speaker 1: get to face dancers, I really want to see a

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Speaker 1: nice cinematic vision of the face dancers as well. I

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Speaker 1: think I might have said this in the original episode,

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Speaker 1: so apologies if I repeat later in our rerun what

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Speaker 1: I'm about to say now, But I think there should

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Speaker 1: be an HBO series adaptation of the Done universe. Oh

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Speaker 1: you think what HBO did with Game of Thrones. They

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Speaker 1: should do with Done. Yeah, there's plenty of material. They're

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Speaker 1: even just the first book. You could do a full blown,

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Speaker 1: drawn out, you know, cinematic treatment of the thing. Like

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Speaker 1: I'm currently watching the Netflix adaptation of Richard K. Morgan's

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Speaker 1: Altered Carbon, which is a not that lengthy of a novel.

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Speaker 1: It has a lot of ins and outs, and they've

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Speaker 1: done a really great job of of giving it the

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Speaker 1: multi episode treatment. Whereas I like watching their treatment of it,

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Speaker 1: I can't imagine crushing it all down into even a

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Speaker 1: lengthy film, so Done is perfect for that that sort

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Speaker 1: of treatment. But I guess we're getting another movie. Hopefully

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Speaker 1: it'll be four to five hours long. That's that's that's

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Speaker 1: what I'm looking for. Hud percent agree, And I hope

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Speaker 1: it has a little intermission break in it. It just

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Speaker 1: runs for thirty seconds or so, but not a werewolf

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Speaker 1: break because there are no there are no werewolves. That's

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Speaker 1: a callback, folks, all right, with without further ado, let's

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Speaker 1: enter the vault. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind

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Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot Com. Disembarkation disembarkation notice to

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Speaker 1: all passengers arriving on Station Aracus, the June Planetary Tourism

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Speaker 1: Consortium funded by the great generosity of the most noble

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Speaker 1: House Hardconed would like to welcome you to planet Aracus.

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Speaker 1: Aracus is a dry place. Please remember to conserve water

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Speaker 1: whenever possible. It is recommended that you do not venture

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Speaker 1: outside without a properly fitted steel suit to recycle your sweat,

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Speaker 1: urine and fecal moisture. When traveling beyond the shield ball,

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Speaker 1: remember always to watchful worms. Signed by keeping in mind

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Speaker 1: the three ages, hissing, heaving, and high energy discharge. A

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Speaker 1: hissing sound in the sand, heaving up of displaced sediment,

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Speaker 1: and high energy study discharge from the dunes may all

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Speaker 1: indicate that the sand worm is near and the event

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Speaker 1: of worm sign do not activate shields and proceed immediately

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Speaker 1: to the nearest cave building or evacuation or in a

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Speaker 1: thought or local vendors and kiosks gone throughout station. Iraqets

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Speaker 1: are the best place to purchase steel suits, frim hits,

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Speaker 1: and individually packaged worm thumbers and duty free prices. Please

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Speaker 1: remember also the spice must blow. Anyone suspected of sabotaging, inhibiting,

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Speaker 1: or interfering with spice production may be subject to penalties

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Speaker 1: up to and including gladiatorial remuneration on gating prime or

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Speaker 1: personal evaporation. Please enjoy your stay among the dunes. Hey,

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

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And this is episode

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Speaker 1: two in our exploration of the science of doone, the

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Speaker 1: science of Frank Herbert's sci fi classic Dune, which is

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Speaker 1: celebrating its fifty the anniversary this year. Yeah, so if

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Speaker 1: you missed the first part, you should go back and

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Speaker 1: listen to that first part one where we talk about

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Speaker 1: the technology of doing and we we talked about some

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Speaker 1: important sort of introductory materials to the universe of doone.

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Speaker 1: If you're not familiar with it, we highly recommend that

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Speaker 1: you check out that part first before you listen to

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Speaker 1: this one. But if you just want to get thrown

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Speaker 1: right into the middle, here we are. Yeah. Last time

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Speaker 1: we talked about but Larry and Johad, we talked about

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Speaker 1: still suits, We talked about orna thoptors, and a little

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Speaker 1: bit about the Holtzman effect whatever that is. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: this time we're going to talk more about the the

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Speaker 1: living science of done, about the biology an ecology of

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Speaker 1: the planet Iracus, and one of the coolest things about

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Speaker 1: the Dune universe has got to be the sandworms. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I imagine that is one of, if not the key

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Speaker 1: aspects of the franchise that come to people's minds when

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Speaker 1: they think of do Yeah. I So, I just finished

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Speaker 1: reading this book a few weeks ago, and I loved it.

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Speaker 1: I absolutely adored this book. As I said in the

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Speaker 1: last podcast, it frequently struck me as just amazingly fresh

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Speaker 1: for a fifty year old book. It's full of ideas

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Speaker 1: that you don't encounter elsewhere. It just felt very original

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Speaker 1: and unique and different. But the moment where the book

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Speaker 1: really kicked into gear for me was the first sandworm attack.

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Speaker 1: And this is when they're going out to observe spice harvests. Correct. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So I want to kind of put you the listener

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Speaker 1: into the moment of the sandworm attack. So imagine you're

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Speaker 1: one of a group of twenty six spice sminers working

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Speaker 1: on a patch of spice in the deep desert. So

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Speaker 1: you're out there among the dunes. The heat is high,

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Speaker 1: the sun's bearing down on you. You've got your protective

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Speaker 1: still suit on, You're working the harvester machine trying desperately

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Speaker 1: to get this spice going, and you've you've been at

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Speaker 1: it for several minutes, and overhead there's this enormous cargo aircraft.

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Speaker 1: I suppose it would be some type of ornithopter with

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Speaker 1: flapping wings, which, as we discussed in the last last episode,

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Speaker 1: doesn't make a lot of aerodynamic sense, but okay, uh,

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Speaker 1: And it's called a carryall. It hovers nearby, waiting to

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Speaker 1: lift you off at a moment's notice, and preferably at

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Speaker 1: the last possible minute, to maximize the profits, because you've

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Speaker 1: got to get as much spice as you can. The

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Speaker 1: spice is important. The spice must flow, the universe needs it.

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Speaker 1: But a worm will come. The worm always comes it.

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Speaker 1: Here's the harvester. It knows where you are and the

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Speaker 1: moment you start working, it's on its way now. With

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Speaker 1: for precautions, you'll lift off at just the right moment,

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Speaker 1: you'll get the maximum spice and you'll avoid the worm.

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Speaker 1: But if you're not able to lift off in time,

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Speaker 1: you may notice a hissing sound in the sand sliding.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's sand sliding against sand. In the background,

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Speaker 1: you might see a static discharge in the air and

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Speaker 1: Eventually you're gonna notice an upheaval of sand as the

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Speaker 1: worm rises to the shallows of the desert. And then

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Speaker 1: finally you see, and it's probably the last thing you see,

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Speaker 1: a great gaping circular mouth, maybe up to eighty meters wide,

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Speaker 1: emerging from the dunes, spreading open, closing over you, and

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Speaker 1: swallowing you and your friends and your mining vehicle all

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Speaker 1: in one bite. It's quite a site. And as far

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Speaker 1: as sound goes, we do want to give a quick

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Speaker 1: thanks to Chris Knife double O seven. Uh. He's on

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Speaker 1: band camp as Cheesy Nervosa. Will include a link to

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Speaker 1: his account on the landing bait for this episode. But

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Speaker 1: he does a lot of cool and it tracks where

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Speaker 1: he gets the the ambience from from various sci fi properties.

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Speaker 1: And so this was the track that we used to

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Speaker 1: was Dune Sandworm Ride. Yeah, so I love the sandworms.

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Speaker 1: I love the sandworms scenes in the book. When we

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Speaker 1: first encounter sandworms in the book, it's there merely as

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Speaker 1: a threat. You know, this this huge, terrifying beast that

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Speaker 1: lives in the desert. It's you know, it's a gigantic

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Speaker 1: snake eel worm type creature that it's sort of like

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Speaker 1: the monsters and tremors. You know, it lays under Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it lives under the ground. It can hear where you are.

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Speaker 1: You know, it might be hundreds of meters long. They're

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Speaker 1: so huge you can't fight them off. There's no way

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Speaker 1: to avoid them except to run. Yeah, and I've I've

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Speaker 1: seen it describe that that the Frank Herbert sandworms are

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Speaker 1: are kind of like dragons, and but but not merely

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Speaker 1: in just the threat aspect. Not just a monstrous dragon,

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Speaker 1: but a celestial dragon, because there ultimately the gateway to wisdom. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's true, because I do want to spoil too much.

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Speaker 1: But then later on in the book, we learned that

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Speaker 1: the desert dwellers of the planet Iraq is the Fremen,

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Speaker 1: have a more complex relationship with the sand worms. It's

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Speaker 1: not just you know, here's this huge, threatening creature that

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Speaker 1: we have to avoid. They have a sort of a

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Speaker 1: bit of a back and forth. I don't want to

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Speaker 1: say too much more, but it's really interesting, and so

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Speaker 1: I thought we should talk about the sand worm. What

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Speaker 1: is this organism as it's imagined in the Dune universe,

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Speaker 1: and how has this changed the way we think about

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Speaker 1: aliens and science fiction? And what what analogies can we

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Speaker 1: make to real world life forms? Yeah, and for starters,

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Speaker 1: let's just go ahead and roll through what we know

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Speaker 1: from from Frank Herbert's books. And again it's one of

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Speaker 1: those cases where Herbert, there's a lot of information at

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Speaker 1: you about how sand worms work, but then when you

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Speaker 1: add it all up right, you realize you don't know

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Speaker 1: key things. Um, here's what we know. The sand worm

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Speaker 1: or shy hallud I believe that is the fremin term

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Speaker 1: a creature. Again, you utterly unique to iraq Us, totally

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Speaker 1: tied to a complex life cycle on the desert planet.

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Speaker 1: Links exceed four hundred meters width of a hundred meters

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Speaker 1: at the thickest point, perhaps as long as the thousand meters.

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Speaker 1: In the deep isolated parts of the desert mouth, diameter

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Speaker 1: is probably about eighty meters, so when it's open and

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Speaker 1: lined with a thousand or more cargo silica crystal teeth um.

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Speaker 1: A typical worm consists of one to four hundred segments,

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Speaker 1: and each segment possessed its own nervous system. Something to

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Speaker 1: keep in mind for later. Now, what Herbert didn't tell us.

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Speaker 1: He didn't tell us whether sand Mouran's lay eggs. They

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Speaker 1: He didn't tell us if they're male and female, how

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Speaker 1: reproduction occurs at all. He didn't tell us if it's

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Speaker 1: a definitively if it's a vertebrate or an invertebrate. He

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Speaker 1: didn't explain the physics of how it moves, and he

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Speaker 1: didn't tell us what it eats. I would be surprised

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Speaker 1: if it's vertebrate, simply because I think of vertebrate as

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Speaker 1: a category belonging to Earth life. I mean, I think

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Speaker 1: it might have some kind of internal, you know, rigid structure.

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Speaker 1: But it's weird to think about those, you know, those

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Speaker 1: peculiarities of evolution that seems so ubiquitous on Earth. We

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Speaker 1: just assume their natural categories. But I mean, who knows

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Speaker 1: if a alien life form is likely to have a backbone, right,

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Speaker 1: And I think that ultimately, the like the segmented nature

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Speaker 1: and the independence of the segments tends to imply something

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Speaker 1: that is inherently invertebrate. But but again, he doesn't draw

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Speaker 1: a distinct line in the sand. Well, then to learn

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Speaker 1: more about the sand worm, I think we're gonna have

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Speaker 1: to turn back to our old friends that we mentioned

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Speaker 1: in the last episode. A couple of books that we

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Speaker 1: used as resources. So one of these is going to

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Speaker 1: be The Science of Dune, edited by Kevin R. Grazier,

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Speaker 1: and then the other one is the Dune Encyclopedia right right.

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Speaker 1: That one's compiled by Dr Willis E. McNelly, and that

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Speaker 1: came out in eighty five. It's out of print, but

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Speaker 1: you can still find used copies in various places. Uh

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Speaker 1: I got mine online for like, you know, fifteen or

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Speaker 1: twenty bucks, so it's it's still out there and it's

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Speaker 1: not like an out of your reach collector's item. In

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Speaker 1: particular that the explanations for sandworms from these two books.

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Speaker 1: From Doune Encyclopedia, we have an explanation by marine a shifflet,

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Speaker 1: and in the Science of Doune we have a sybil

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Speaker 1: hetchel pH D's explanation from her piece the Biology of

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Speaker 1: the sand Worm. Now I'm actually gonna start with the

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Speaker 1: Doune Encyclopedia explanation from Marine shifflet. Um shifflet goes ahead

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Speaker 1: and defines both male and female sandworms, the ladder somewhat

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Speaker 1: smaller than the males, with the secondary segment um of

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Speaker 1: each worm containing its reproductive system, and she posits that

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Speaker 1: at age one thousand, because these are long living creatures,

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Speaker 1: the female develops an egg sact in her reproductive system,

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Speaker 1: constructs a deep, massive nest, and then a tracts a

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Speaker 1: male with rhythmic thumping. Now this is key because in

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Speaker 1: the in doone we see people attracting or distracting a

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Speaker 1: worm by using a mechanical thumper. Right, yeah, that's one

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Speaker 1: of the technologies we could have talked about in the

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Speaker 1: last episode, but I guess we just didn't have time.

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Speaker 1: The thumper is a sort of you might think of

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Speaker 1: it as a defensive decoy mechanism out in the desert

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Speaker 1: where if you want to draw off a sandworm, or

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Speaker 1: perhaps even attract a sandworm, you put this thing down

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Speaker 1: in the ground and it starts beating on the sand

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Speaker 1: to say come on over, Yeah, with a rhythmic pattern,

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Speaker 1: because if you you know, there's like this thing, if

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Speaker 1: you you got to walk without rhythm, yeah, you know,

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Speaker 1: unless you want to attract the worm. So yeah, one

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Speaker 1: of the things that's frequently mentioned in the book is

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Speaker 1: that if you want to walk across the sand and

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Speaker 1: not attract the worm, you have to walk without rhythm.

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Speaker 1: You have to walk without any kind of uh cadence

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Speaker 1: to your walk. And I love how they bring up

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Speaker 1: the fact that this is so much harder to do

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Speaker 1: than it sounds like, like the characters are just exhausted

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Speaker 1: from trying to walk without maintaining a rhythm of their gait. Right.

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Speaker 1: And so she ties this into the into the life

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Speaker 1: cycle the worm by saying that it's that kind of

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Speaker 1: rhythmic um thumping that not only indicates something unnatural on

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Speaker 1: the desert surface, but perhaps the mating cry, the mating

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Speaker 1: call of the female worm. So she says that then

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Speaker 1: the male would arrive, consumes the smaller female, just straight

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Speaker 1: up eats the female and then goes into a dormant state.

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Speaker 1: And it's during the state that the heavy duty spice

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Speaker 1: fiber egg sac remains intact and it's fertilized by the

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Speaker 1: male's reproductive system. And then when he wakes up, he's

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Speaker 1: gonna spit that fertilized egg sac out. What yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I've heard of reproductive cannibalism, but what yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: it's an interesting uh uh. And again this is you know,

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Speaker 1: her taking Herbert's world and extrapolating on it and trying

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Speaker 1: to come with a scientific explanation for how it might work.

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Speaker 1: It's not. This is not cannon by any means, but

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Speaker 1: it is interesting because we don't see sexual cannibalism occur

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Speaker 1: in nature that I can think of where the male

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Speaker 1: eats the female, because generally the female is the species

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Speaker 1: and she may or may not eat the male after

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Speaker 1: he's served his purpose. But here we have the male

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Speaker 1: consuming the female. Yeah, okay, I mean that just makes

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Speaker 1: me wonder if this almost would start to play with

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Speaker 1: the definitions of what counts as male and what counts

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Speaker 1: as female in a species. Yeah, I would. I feel

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Speaker 1: like I would feel more comfortable with this example if

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Speaker 1: the genders were reversed and the primary primarily the sandworms

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Speaker 1: are are female. But but you know, either way, the

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Speaker 1: the best example that comes to mind of something close

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Speaker 1: to this in the natural world would be um anglerfish,

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Speaker 1: where you have, oh those great things, so you've probably

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Speaker 1: seen pictures of this from the deep ocean. They look

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Speaker 1: like movie monsters. Uh, they've got the crazy faces and

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Speaker 1: that they've got a little a little lit up fishing pole, right,

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Speaker 1: And those are the females. The females are the ones

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Speaker 1: we see pictures of the males. Um are essentially a tiny,

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Speaker 1: heat seeking sexual missile equipped with gigantic nostrils. Uh. All

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Speaker 1: they do is they swim out in search of a

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Speaker 1: female and if he's lucky, and most are not, they

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Speaker 1: find one and they bite onto her abdomen and hang on. Again.

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Speaker 1: These are the angler fish, real world organisms, nothing from

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Speaker 1: sci fi. And then there I'm looking. I just sorry,

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Speaker 1: I looked. I just googled pictures of the male angler

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Speaker 1: fish attaching to the female angler fish. And it's pathetic.

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Speaker 1: It's could go with that interpretation because what happens is

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Speaker 1: not only does he bite on and hold on, but

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Speaker 1: their flesh grows together, their blood vessels connect, and the

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00:17:40,920 --> 00:17:44,040
Speaker 1: male becomes a mere part of the female's body, sustained

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Speaker 1: by her systems. His eyes, fins, and some internal organs

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Speaker 1: all atrophy h and just leave him as just this

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Speaker 1: fat flap of skin, this just mindless thing on the female.

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Speaker 1: And this way, the male and his reproductive systems are

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Speaker 1: always there when she needs them, which is a necessary

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Speaker 1: adaptation in the a dark, lonely world of the deep ocean.

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Speaker 1: That's fascinating. I've never read about this before. I was

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Speaker 1: really I ran across in the past year or two

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Speaker 1: and was pretty amazed by it. But that's certainly it's

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Speaker 1: the case where the male and female fuse into one.

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Speaker 1: And I guess you could interpret this consumption of the

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Speaker 1: of the female sand worm is more of emerging than

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Speaker 1: a consumption, since there's not, according to her model anyway,

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Speaker 1: there's not really any nourishment to be gained from the

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Speaker 1: worm eating the other worm. So this is where we

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Speaker 1: start getting into a more complex life cycle. So bear

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Speaker 1: with me, everyone, Um, when the male sum so, the

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Speaker 1: male sandword comes to vomits up that egg case, and

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Speaker 1: he takes off the egg case. Eventually hatch catches into

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Speaker 1: a legion of sand trout sand trout sand trout. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and now these these this is where we're getting back

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Speaker 1: into um, into the actual canon of of of Frank

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Speaker 1: Herbert's sandworm biology, because these are very much a part

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Speaker 1: of the series. Yeah, there are sequences in Dune where character, well,

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Speaker 1: at least one character I can think of, the planetary

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Speaker 1: scientist kinds Uh. There may be other characters, but not

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Speaker 1: that I recall. At least Kinds thinks about down under

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Speaker 1: the the dunes of sand there are these massive patches

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Speaker 1: of life. Then there's moisture down there too, which is

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Speaker 1: sort of hidden from the surface, which is I guess

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Speaker 1: being trapped or used by these unicellular life forms. And

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Speaker 1: in this case we're talking twenty by six centimeter unicellular organisms.

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Speaker 1: But that's a big cell. You know, Alien world, different laws, right, um.

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Speaker 1: But but yeah, their water scavengers. So the idea here

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Speaker 1: is that they're traveling out, they're collecting water, they're bringing

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Speaker 1: them back, according to um to this model, anyway, to

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Speaker 1: the nest site and there sequestering the water. And here

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Speaker 1: the water mixes with excretions from the pre spice mass. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And here the c t U c O two builds

348
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Speaker 1: up as a byproduct, and this eventually results in a

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Speaker 1: spice blow explosion. And this is very much a part

350
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Speaker 1: of the books, where eventually the pressure builds up and

351
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Speaker 1: it blasts that precious spice melange that's produced uh somehow

352
00:20:05,160 --> 00:20:09,800
Speaker 1: by this sand trout nesting water sequestering action blows it

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Speaker 1: up to the surface where people can say, hey, there's

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Speaker 1: some spice there, let's go get it, all right, all right,

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Speaker 1: So but it's not only people that want to come

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Speaker 1: and get the spice that also attracts the sand worms,

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Speaker 1: which we'll get into. Um. And at this point, according

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Speaker 1: to Schifflet, the sand worms enter a pre metamorphic stage

359
00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:29,840
Speaker 1: during which surviving sand trout joined bodies, and as metamorphosis

360
00:20:29,840 --> 00:20:32,960
Speaker 1: sets in properly, each sand trout also known as a

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Speaker 1: little maker among the fremen, becomes a segment of a

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Speaker 1: conjoined body that becomes a small sandworm. So again we

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Speaker 1: see conjoined bodies coming into play. Uh. And this is

364
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Speaker 1: this is certainly part of of Herbert's original model for

365
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Speaker 1: the sand worm. So this is fascinating because the sand

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Speaker 1: worm and that sense it's is sort of a composite organism. Yes,

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Speaker 1: very much so. Um and this this play I don't

368
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Speaker 1: want to give any spoilers, but this also plays out

369
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Speaker 1: and rather unique and mind blowing ways in the sequels. Okay,

370
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Speaker 1: so how long does it take for little sand trout

371
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Speaker 1: joining together to become the gigantic shihlud like we see

372
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Speaker 1: in the book? You know, before they're they're a big

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Speaker 1: sandworm out in the desert over over a thousand years,

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Speaker 1: because it's going to take that long, corner and Chifflet

375
00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:21,760
Speaker 1: here to segment for the segments to take on. Uh,

376
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Speaker 1: you know, the different properties such as the tooth head,

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Speaker 1: the reproductive system. If you're going by her model and

378
00:21:28,880 --> 00:21:31,520
Speaker 1: h during this time of environmental conditions are not met,

379
00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:35,960
Speaker 1: then the underdifferentiated segments can revert to sand trout. So

380
00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:38,440
Speaker 1: it's kind of like those jellyfish that can that can

381
00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:42,840
Speaker 1: reverse age, right, they can revert to the earlier life

382
00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:45,439
Speaker 1: form stage if things aren't going well. Yeah, I like

383
00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:48,679
Speaker 1: that detail. If she throws in and finally the a

384
00:21:48,800 --> 00:21:52,480
Speaker 1: sexual juvenile warm develops and it's twenty to thirty long,

385
00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:56,080
Speaker 1: and this is the form that fremen eventually capture and

386
00:21:56,200 --> 00:22:00,199
Speaker 1: drown to produce spice essence. More about spice in this

387
00:22:00,240 --> 00:22:04,000
Speaker 1: episode later that's coming up. Uh, most juveniles, according to Shifflet,

388
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:07,919
Speaker 1: would become females, but it's possible that it's possible that

389
00:22:07,960 --> 00:22:11,000
Speaker 1: the environmental absence of a male is what results in

390
00:22:11,080 --> 00:22:14,320
Speaker 1: male development. In the book itself, we're told that each

391
00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:17,840
Speaker 1: male has a three four hundred kilometer territory that it

392
00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:22,640
Speaker 1: defends against other worms, and she has a really interesting

393
00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:27,280
Speaker 1: bit about how that combat would work. Yeah, how do

394
00:22:27,359 --> 00:22:30,159
Speaker 1: the worms fight each other if they're just they're huge

395
00:22:30,200 --> 00:22:33,960
Speaker 1: worms with big circular mouths. Well, she draws on a

396
00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:37,159
Speaker 1: on a on a detail that will discuss in a minute.

397
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Speaker 1: Um or I guess, let's go ahead and hit it.

398
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:42,719
Speaker 1: How does someone ride a sandworm? Ah, yes, well this

399
00:22:42,800 --> 00:22:44,399
Speaker 1: is something we learned about later in the book and

400
00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:47,560
Speaker 1: it's very interesting. So the sandworm, like the sandworms like

401
00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:50,240
Speaker 1: we mentioned, have these segments on their bodies. They have

402
00:22:50,280 --> 00:22:54,320
Speaker 1: sort of scales that protects their soft, fleshy inner tissues

403
00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:57,679
Speaker 1: from the you know, the harsh exterior realities of Aracus

404
00:22:57,720 --> 00:23:01,600
Speaker 1: and all the sand. So a coman who is who

405
00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:04,920
Speaker 1: is hopped up on spice and ready to ride, will

406
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:07,800
Speaker 1: go out into the desert with some hooks and attract

407
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:11,280
Speaker 1: a sandworm using a thumper, and if the sand worm

408
00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:14,560
Speaker 1: comes by at the right time, the fremen rider can

409
00:23:14,600 --> 00:23:18,560
Speaker 1: get the hooks under one of the sandworms outer plates

410
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:23,120
Speaker 1: or these scales segments, whatever you wants, yeah, and then

411
00:23:23,359 --> 00:23:25,919
Speaker 1: pull it back. And what that does is exposed the

412
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:30,480
Speaker 1: sandworms inner tissues to the external elements. Obviously, the sandworm

413
00:23:30,600 --> 00:23:34,080
Speaker 1: does not like this and says, oh no, and it

414
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 1: rolls over to protect the exposed part of its body

415
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:41,320
Speaker 1: from the sand, and in doing so can lift the

416
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 1: rider up onto its back. And then once you're going

417
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:48,560
Speaker 1: like that, the sandworm refuses, It doesn't re submerge into

418
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:51,800
Speaker 1: the ground while it's got a part of its body

419
00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:54,320
Speaker 1: exposed like that, because it doesn't want sand to get

420
00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:57,479
Speaker 1: in there and hurt it. So you can essentially ride

421
00:23:57,640 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 1: this sandworm around as long as you want until it's

422
00:24:00,560 --> 00:24:03,639
Speaker 1: just exhausted and collapses, as long as you've got the

423
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,159
Speaker 1: hooks pulling back the plate. Right, did I describe that

424
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 1: about right? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, that's that's perfect. And and

425
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 1: so in shifflet, trying to understand like what its teeth

426
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:16,480
Speaker 1: are for, she draws on this detail and says, well, uh,

427
00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:19,679
Speaker 1: what happens when two males are are getting into combat

428
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:23,640
Speaker 1: over territory. They're using those teeth to pull back each

429
00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:28,560
Speaker 1: other's segments, essentially wrestling that way. And uh, because again

430
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 1: sand gets in there, it's gonna irritate the flesh. And

431
00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:34,119
Speaker 1: she posits that in extreme cases this could result in

432
00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:36,719
Speaker 1: a viral infection that could kill a worm, but generally

433
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:40,199
Speaker 1: the bluser breaks away. So uh, yeah, just grappling with

434
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:42,720
Speaker 1: each other, exposing each other as inner flesh by pulling

435
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 1: back with the teeth and eventually forcing one of them

436
00:24:45,800 --> 00:24:47,920
Speaker 1: to give up and break. Yeah, And a lot. It's

437
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 1: like in nature on Earth, a lot of territorial disputes

438
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 1: between you know, angry males of species. They don't always

439
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:56,960
Speaker 1: end in death. They just one of them is like, okay,

440
00:24:56,960 --> 00:24:58,679
Speaker 1: I give up. Yeah, if you can have it, you

441
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 1: can eat all the female in this region that you want. Um. Finally,

442
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:06,280
Speaker 1: a word on diet from Shifflet. Her theory here is

443
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:09,400
Speaker 1: that the sandworm is a true autotroph as an organism

444
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,880
Speaker 1: that's able to to form a nutritional organic substances from

445
00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 1: simple inorganic substances such as carbon dioxide. In this case,

446
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:20,880
Speaker 1: the sandworm is producing all of its nutritional needs from

447
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: inorganic compounds on the planet's surface. The energy for this,

448
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:28,320
Speaker 1: she says that it it drives the synthetic reactions to

449
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:32,119
Speaker 1: completion just by by traveling across the sand, which causes

450
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: an electrostatic charge differential, which we do see in the

451
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:37,439
Speaker 1: books with a whole You know, you see that you

452
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 1: already mentioned the static charts that tells you that a

453
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:44,719
Speaker 1: worm is approaching and uh. Incidentally, she also uses this

454
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 1: as an as an explanation for why water would be

455
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:49,760
Speaker 1: fatal to a sandworm, and that it would cause the

456
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:54,119
Speaker 1: electrons to discharge abnormally. Yeah. Now, obviously it can't be

457
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:57,919
Speaker 1: that any massive water is fatal to a sandworm because

458
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 1: there there is some tiny amount of water on a racus.

459
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:03,160
Speaker 1: But it sounds like a large amount of water will

460
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 1: kill the sandworm, right, and it gets into that whole

461
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:07,919
Speaker 1: segmented thing because it's it's mentioned in the book that

462
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:11,479
Speaker 1: to really kill a sandworm, like to straight up kill it,

463
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:13,680
Speaker 1: it's so big. And since each shot, since it doesn't

464
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:16,119
Speaker 1: have a central nervous system, since each segment has its

465
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:18,879
Speaker 1: own nervous system, you would have to just nuke the

466
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 1: whole thing with one of your your handy house atomics

467
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:32,800
Speaker 1: that you're not allowed to use anyway. Wow. Yeah, so

468
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:36,160
Speaker 1: uh yeah, it's a it's kind of a complex life cycle.

469
00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:39,560
Speaker 1: Uh and uh it's it's summed up in this brief

470
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 1: bit from the appendix to dune. Now they had a

471
00:26:42,080 --> 00:26:46,480
Speaker 1: circular relationship little maker. Again, that's our our sound trout

472
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: to pries spy spice mass little Maker to Shah Haloud

473
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 1: Shah Haloo to scatter the spice upon which fed microscopic

474
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: creatures called sand plankton, which we'll get into the sand

475
00:26:57,280 --> 00:27:01,600
Speaker 1: plankton food for Shah haloud, growing, growing, becoming little makers.

476
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:07,400
Speaker 1: Now that of course is a little complicated, and we'll

477
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 1: get into that, because here it seems like how can

478
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:12,360
Speaker 1: one be. It sounds like one part of its own

479
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: life cycle is also part of it is also it's

480
00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:19,919
Speaker 1: part of its diet. That's bizarre, alright. And this brings

481
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 1: us to biologist Sibyl Hetchel, PhD s um. Science of

482
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:29,359
Speaker 1: Dune Explanation, which, uh is also really interesting and I

483
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 1: think gives us our best comparison to real world biology. Okay,

484
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:38,199
Speaker 1: so first of all, she she she zooms in on

485
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:41,959
Speaker 1: the whole idea that sand trout produce oxygen deep underground,

486
00:27:42,000 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 1: as mentioned by Kinds in the novel. But they need

487
00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 1: an energy source to produce oxygen, and since photo since

488
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 1: theist is out of the question because their underground, right,

489
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:53,920
Speaker 1: the best candidate is of course deep hydrothermal vents. That's

490
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:57,959
Speaker 1: how we see it working on Earth, right. Okay, so

491
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:01,400
Speaker 1: one could interpret the sand trout is the producer of milange,

492
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 1: and that's certainly Herbert doesn't really say exactly like it's

493
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,719
Speaker 1: just sandworms are key to the production of spice malhunch,

494
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 1: but I don't know exactly how it goes happening, but

495
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: of course we don't want them to go extinct. Right.

496
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:18,919
Speaker 1: So Hetchel deposits that just as sand trout scavenge and

497
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:23,959
Speaker 1: herd water, they may also tend a milange producing fungus.

498
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:27,240
Speaker 1: So in this case then it's not actually any part

499
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: of the of the sandworms life cycle that produces the spice,

500
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: but they are harvesters of spice, right. She's theorizing that

501
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 1: they would sequester stashes of water around these hydrothermal areas,

502
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 1: and this would cause the spice fungus to grow. Uh.

503
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:47,520
Speaker 1: And in our world, plants, bacteria, and fungi produced the

504
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: majority of exotic compounds, such as psychedelic compounds, so this

505
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 1: would make extra sense, right, the secondary compact pounds that

506
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: synthesized for protection by a particular fungus. And of course

507
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 1: they're are examples of animals on earth that actually do

508
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 1: practice farming, I mean animals other than humans. Right. The

509
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: example here would be, of course, the leaf cutter ants,

510
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 1: and that's the comparison that that civil Hetchel makes in

511
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 1: this uh. In this piece, the leaf cutter ants are

512
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: of course a number of species that are found in

513
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:20,080
Speaker 1: the America's and they cut tree leaves. They drag them

514
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 1: to an underground growth chamber and they keep it moist

515
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: to gold, cultivate fungi on the leaves um and then

516
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: they so they so basically it breaks down like this.

517
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 1: They bring leaf cuttings back to the colony along well

518
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: worn forest roads and paths. We've probably all seen video

519
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: or images of this, you know, very very visual. Um.

520
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: They filter out the bad cuttings, they hand the good

521
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: ones off to their farmer ants. Then they munch the

522
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:46,560
Speaker 1: leaf cuttings down into a fine mulch. Then they grow

523
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 1: the delicious fung guy on that mulch, lay some eggs

524
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: in it, and enjoy. They drag the depleted leaf cuttings

525
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:54,719
Speaker 1: to the dump chamber, along with all the dead ants

526
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 1: and dead fungus. So the crazy part about this, and

527
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: ultimately kind of sigh five uh sounding thing about the

528
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:04,600
Speaker 1: leaf cutter ants is that they gave up hunting and

529
00:30:04,640 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: gathering fifty million years ago and they became farmers. And

530
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 1: they they discovered the technology of agriculture before we did.

531
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 1: They did, and well not only before we did, before

532
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 1: we existed, right, They not only did they find this substance,

533
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 1: but they essentially domesticated it, and it's grown extinct in

534
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 1: the wild, like it's no longer something that they can

535
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:28,760
Speaker 1: go out and get. So the analogy here would be

536
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: imagine if leaf cutter ants, uh could grow to become

537
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 1: giant leaf cutter ants that can eat a city. But

538
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:38,880
Speaker 1: also if the fungus that the little leaf cutter ants

539
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 1: grew in their colonies created a drug that lets you

540
00:30:43,120 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 1: see the future. Yeah, yeah, imagine all those leaf cutter

541
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: ants voltron ing up into a larger organism over the

542
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: course of a thousand years. Um, And I do also

543
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 1: want to know that it's it's also kind of like

544
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 1: a caveman movie in that when a winged male prepares

545
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 1: to leave a leaf on her cut her aunt colony

546
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 1: to found a new colony, they have to take a

547
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 1: sample of that precious fungi with them because again, it

548
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:09,120
Speaker 1: doesn't exist in the wild anymore. It was continually fascinated

549
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 1: by that. Um, we're completely at the mercy of the

550
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 1: ants if we want this fungus exactly, and of course

551
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: we don't want it, but they require it completely. It's

552
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: key to their their their life. But back to the sandworms. Okay,

553
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 1: so we don't know exactly what sand plankton and sand

554
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 1: trout are supposed to eat. But maybe they eat spice,

555
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:32,440
Speaker 1: uh and it and it, but you know it, but

556
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 1: it wouldn't make sense. Hetchel argues for the creature to

557
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 1: both create and consume spice, so the fungus again makes

558
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 1: more sense from from that analogy as well from that

559
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 1: comparison as well. So she well, I mean I wonder

560
00:31:44,080 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 1: you could look at depending on what you mean by create,

561
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: you could look at an example like honey in a

562
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 1: bee colony. You know, the bees don't create the honey,

563
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 1: but they sort of they process the honey. Yes, And

564
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 1: I think that would be an apt analogy here for

565
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 1: the milange as well, that the mash is kind of

566
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 1: is a created element. UM. So she argues that sand

567
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 1: trout communities um are essentially like a combination of leaf cutting,

568
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 1: ant nest and hydrothermal vent community and in this case,

569
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 1: sandplankton and sand trout would subsist on living spice, fungi,

570
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 1: and bacterial mats that grow around the events. She also

571
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:22,840
Speaker 1: presents the notion that sand trout or essentially a sexual

572
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 1: and they might subsist as clone communities for quite some

573
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 1: time at least until the build up of carbon dioxide

574
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 1: from their farming efforts triggers sexual reproduction and also triggers

575
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 1: that spice blow the results from the build up, and

576
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 1: then that that would scatter the newly produced sand plankton.

577
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 1: So then the sand worm comes in. It wants to

578
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:44,440
Speaker 1: eat up that spice, and in doing so it disperses

579
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 1: the offspring across vast distances, because of course sandworms have

580
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: those large spread out territories. That makes sense with some

581
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: earth earth life too. Or you can think about seeds

582
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 1: that spread by growing in fruits that predators want to

583
00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: come and eat, or maybe not predators, you'd call them.

584
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 1: I guess they're predators of the plant. They come and

585
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: want to eat the fruit, and then they take the

586
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:09,600
Speaker 1: seeds with them wherever they go afterwards. So now she

587
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 1: also goes on in this piece if she has some

588
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 1: some thoughts on size constraints of enormous organisms. If you

589
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 1: want to read about that, do check out the book

590
00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:19,239
Speaker 1: to check out her peace. But we're not gonna go

591
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 1: into him in this podcast. So one of the things

592
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 1: I've already mentioned that I really loved about doing is

593
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 1: that it's the most ecologically conscious novel i've ever read

594
00:33:29,760 --> 00:33:34,640
Speaker 1: It's It's a novel that really has interesting thoughts about

595
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 1: ecosystems and about resources in ecosystems, like how resources get

596
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 1: used and conserve, specifically water and spice, and then also

597
00:33:43,480 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: about how organisms feed into one another and create ecosystems.

598
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 1: There's actually a section in the book where the planetary

599
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 1: scientist and ecologist Kinds has visions of his father, who

600
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 1: was also an ecologist and lived among the fremen on

601
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:02,360
Speaker 1: the dune plan in it, and the vision of his

602
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 1: father says a couple of interesting things. He says, the

603
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 1: more life there is within a system, the more niches

604
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:12,719
Speaker 1: there are for life. Life improves the capacity of the

605
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 1: environment to sustain life. Life makes needed nutrients more readily available.

606
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 1: It binds more energy into the system through the tremendous

607
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:25,719
Speaker 1: chemical interplay from organism to organism. And I think that

608
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense, because whenever you imagine a

609
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:34,240
Speaker 1: a rich, thriving ecosystem on Earth, it's one that already

610
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: has a lot of life forms succeeding in It is

611
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 1: kind of counterintuitive from a resource competition or evolutionary perspective,

612
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 1: places that have a lot of competitions seem like they

613
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 1: they should be harder to survive in. But life creates

614
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:52,719
Speaker 1: ways for other life to thrive. And this is sort

615
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:55,880
Speaker 1: of part of the problem with aracous as it's imagined,

616
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 1: unless you you imagine it terraformed and seated with other

617
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:01,239
Speaker 1: life forms, as some aracters in the novel do kind

618
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:04,400
Speaker 1: of imagine. I think primarily they talked about, let's plants,

619
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 1: some grasses and you know, and settle the dunes. It

620
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to have enough biodiversity to be very hospitable

621
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 1: to life forms. And uh, in addition to the sandworms,

622
00:35:17,080 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 1: like what life forms are described as inhabiting Aracus, Herbert

623
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:25,279
Speaker 1: mentions some scavenging birds and a few other carrion eaters

624
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: and some kind of scrubby plants. But I got the sense,

625
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 1: I don't know what you thought about this. I get

626
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:34,719
Speaker 1: the sense that a lot of these animals that are

627
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:39,719
Speaker 1: described as inhabiting Aracus are imports from human settlement. I

628
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:41,520
Speaker 1: don't know what you thought. That's that's the sense I

629
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,280
Speaker 1: got as well. They, like the scavenging birds, have certainly

630
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 1: evolved over over time to to thrive on Aracus. Like

631
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:51,880
Speaker 1: they're there's you know, they're far more conscious. They can

632
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: basically hear water, you know, miles away, but that they're

633
00:35:55,640 --> 00:36:00,080
Speaker 1: essentially a terrestrial product. Yeah, while the sandworm is it

634
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 1: is entirely alien. So I don't know, maybe somewhere in

635
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 1: the if it's in the sequels, or if I missed it.

636
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 1: In the book, Herbert does talk about other life forms

637
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:12,320
Speaker 1: native to Aracus, but I can't think of any examples

638
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:14,560
Speaker 1: where I remember him talking about that. And and I

639
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:18,520
Speaker 1: wanted to ask the question, if we imagine that the sandworm,

640
00:36:18,560 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 1: at the various stages of his life cycle, were the

641
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:25,760
Speaker 1: one and only organism native to a planet, is something

642
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:28,320
Speaker 1: like that possible in reality? Can you have a one

643
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: organism ecosystem? Yeah, even if it's a really complex organism

644
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:35,879
Speaker 1: like this one. I was trying to find examples of this.

645
00:36:36,239 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: I found one. Actually I think you found it first.

646
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 1: But in two thousand and eight there were reports that

647
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: the first known single organism ecosystem had been discovered, and

648
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:51,880
Speaker 1: this was miles under the earth in the moment, I

649
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 1: apologize if I'm pronouncing this wrong, Momponing gold mine in

650
00:36:56,600 --> 00:36:59,920
Speaker 1: South Africa, and it was a bacteria called de Sulfuru

651
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:04,719
Speaker 1: dis audax viator. It was a rod shaped bacterium, and

652
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 1: it makes its living in a very remarkable way. It

653
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:13,200
Speaker 1: doesn't need sunlight and it doesn't need any prey organisms,

654
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 1: so it lives down there by itself, and instead it

655
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 1: puts together the organic molecules it needs by access only

656
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:25,680
Speaker 1: to water, carbon, and nitrogen in the ground using energy

657
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:29,120
Speaker 1: from According to this Lawrence Berkeley Lab source I read

658
00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:33,760
Speaker 1: on this, hydrogen and sulfate produced by the radioactive decay

659
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:39,919
Speaker 1: of uranium. So this is a it's surviving on chemicals

660
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:43,560
Speaker 1: created by radiation in the ground, almost two miles under

661
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:46,799
Speaker 1: the ground. This is essentially about as close to an

662
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:49,919
Speaker 1: alien microbe as I've ever heard of on Earth. Yeah,

663
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:55,319
Speaker 1: it's pretty it's pretty far removed from our traditional ecosystem model. Yeah,

664
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 1: and so I just thought that was fascinating. But another

665
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 1: way of thinking about it is, if you imagine way

666
00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:05,760
Speaker 1: way back in time two I don't know, situations of

667
00:38:05,960 --> 00:38:10,200
Speaker 1: a biogenesis on Earth, you probably at least have to

668
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 1: imagine that there are some periods in the history of

669
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:17,200
Speaker 1: life where there was only one organism, um and then

670
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 1: and then of course we got a branching ecosystem. So

671
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 1: that again makes me wonder if you could naturally have

672
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 1: a planet where there's really only one type of organism there.

673
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:30,440
Speaker 1: It seems like the natural course of biological evolution is

674
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 1: to diversify. But another way of thinking about this that

675
00:38:36,040 --> 00:38:39,719
Speaker 1: that occurred to me is that what if it is

676
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:43,240
Speaker 1: the case that the sand worm and its various stages

677
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:46,800
Speaker 1: of life is the only major organism alive on Iracus

678
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 1: And it wasn't always that way, And so it could

679
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: have been a planet rich with life that has essentially

680
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: been conquered by a single invasive species, Like there's one

681
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 1: organism that destroys all eco diversity on the planet. I

682
00:39:04,880 --> 00:39:06,759
Speaker 1: could say, Okay, I could see that being the case too, Yeah,

683
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 1: where you end up with just a sandworm only ecosystem

684
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: because it's that dominant of species in this environment. Yeah,

685
00:39:12,680 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 1: I mean, one wonders how sustainable a system like that

686
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 1: would be. Uh. And then of course, if you want

687
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:21,000
Speaker 1: to think about other parallels to the sandworm in reality,

688
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:24,719
Speaker 1: you've of course got the Mongolian death worm. Ah. Now

689
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:28,760
Speaker 1: the Mongolian death worm is not real though, right? Maybe

690
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: not to you. Well, I didn't know. I maybe I've

691
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 1: missed a new study where the occasionally you see an

692
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:37,560
Speaker 1: expedition to to to find it. No, as far as

693
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:40,440
Speaker 1: I'm aware, no one has ever discovered the Mongolian deathcorm.

694
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 1: But if you're not familiar, you should. I bet you've

695
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:45,160
Speaker 1: written a blog post about that. I don't know if

696
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:48,840
Speaker 1: I've ever really covered mongolian death worm. Um. I have

697
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: run across you have something called a sandworm that lives

698
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: in beach sand. But of course that's an entirely different scenario. Yeah,

699
00:39:56,320 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: that's unfortunate, okay, Robert, Yeah, imagine yourself at a party

700
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:06,799
Speaker 1: with some hip young people who start passing around the

701
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 1: hottest new designer drug. It is the spice Melange. And

702
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 1: Herbert never is exactly clear what the spice in the

703
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:17,880
Speaker 1: book looks like, but I'm going to try to imagine

704
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:19,799
Speaker 1: it here based on a scene from the movie and

705
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 1: a description quote I read from a from a sequel.

706
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:29,759
Speaker 1: It's it's a little glass box. And then inside the

707
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 1: box there is some orange mass. It almost looks like

708
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 1: a like an evacuated insect shell, you know how, like

709
00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:39,880
Speaker 1: when the cicadas leave their shells behind after they mold

710
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:43,840
Speaker 1: some stuff like that. It's kind of brownish orange. And

711
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:46,359
Speaker 1: then you press down a little piston to crush some

712
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:49,920
Speaker 1: of this stuff. In the glass and an orange liquid

713
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 1: strains out and it smells like cinnamon and you can

714
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 1: drink it right up, or you can add it to

715
00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 1: food or beverages or have it transformed into a gas

716
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:02,719
Speaker 1: if you're old navigator in the tank, but it's going

717
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:05,440
Speaker 1: to be doing some weird stuff to you. Yeah. And

718
00:41:05,440 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 1: if you're in araqan U Dennizen, if you if Iraqus

719
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: is your home and you're not privy to a lot

720
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 1: of outsider food coming in from other worlds, uh, it's

721
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 1: just gonna find its way into your diet. It's just

722
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:23,319
Speaker 1: an ambient part of of water and food on the world. Yeah.

723
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 1: And if you're not careful and you keep taking too

724
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 1: much spice, you may begin to see the future and

725
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 1: become fatally addicted. Yeah, and your eyes will turn blue

726
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: despite the fatal addiction. There's something kind of appealing about

727
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:37,840
Speaker 1: the way they describe some of the spice consumption in

728
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:40,400
Speaker 1: the novel. Yeah. They mentioned having, you know, having a

729
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 1: cup of spice coffee some I think there's some spice

730
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 1: cakes that are mentioned here and there. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah,

731
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, I would kind of like that a

732
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 1: nice you know, a nice consciousness expanding cup of coffee

733
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:54,920
Speaker 1: as opposed to this, you know these red Bull and

734
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: Samuda cocktails that I keep going. So characteristics of the

735
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:01,920
Speaker 1: spy us in the book, which very according to the

736
00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:05,880
Speaker 1: person taking it and the intake level, would be some

737
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:08,319
Speaker 1: of the following. First, I should say that it's core

738
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 1: the spice is described, I think is an awareness drug

739
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 1: and that it changes perception and consciousness. Uh. Now, the

740
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 1: first major feature described is that it's the geriatric spice.

741
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 1: It's when taken in small quantities over long periods of time,

742
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:27,719
Speaker 1: it extends your lifespan. And that's something we probably should

743
00:42:27,719 --> 00:42:31,399
Speaker 1: have mentioned more earlier on. Like, that's another reason that

744
00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:34,560
Speaker 1: Iraq is the center of the universe, because not only

745
00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:39,240
Speaker 1: does the spice enable interstellar travel, uh, it also allows

746
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: the wealthy people to extend their lives. Right, once you're

747
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 1: a feudal lord and you've conquered all your enemies and

748
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:48,040
Speaker 1: you've secured a place in the in the power structures

749
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 1: of the universe, what's the next thing you need? You've

750
00:42:50,560 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 1: got to live forever, right, So it does that. And

751
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:56,880
Speaker 1: then another effect of it is that it stains your eyes.

752
00:42:57,480 --> 00:43:00,760
Speaker 1: Taking spice will will cause blue ten ting of the eyes,

753
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 1: not just the irises, but the whole eye. It's a

754
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 1: mind expander. It grants heightened awareness. In some cases it

755
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:14,040
Speaker 1: allows prescience or limited omniscience. I don't know if limited

756
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:18,240
Speaker 1: omniscience is a phrase that makes any sense. It allows

757
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:21,720
Speaker 1: you to have some knowledge beyond your physical time and place,

758
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:24,960
Speaker 1: and the ability to see some aspects of the future

759
00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 1: or aspects of the present removed by distance, or to

760
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 1: share communal awareness, sort of collaborating across aspects of mind

761
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 1: with others. And they often make geographic comparisons in the book.

762
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:39,759
Speaker 1: So it's like looking into the future is kind of

763
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:42,800
Speaker 1: like looking across the landscape. And depending on your circumstances,

764
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:45,440
Speaker 1: you might be kind of standing in all like a

765
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 1: shallow basin and you can't actually see that far. Other

766
00:43:48,239 --> 00:43:51,439
Speaker 1: times it's flat. Other times maybe you're on a hill,

767
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 1: and it depends on your prescient availabilities. How far can

768
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:56,480
Speaker 1: you see? Yeah, And then of course the negative that

769
00:43:56,600 --> 00:44:00,160
Speaker 1: the downside I alluded to earlier is the addiction. When

770
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:02,800
Speaker 1: you take it in large quantities, you will get addicted

771
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 1: to it, and if you stop taking it, you will die. Well,

772
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 1: that'll happen, unfortunately. So the idea of a drug that

773
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:20,760
Speaker 1: expands consciousness is certainly something you find in many cultures writing,

774
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 1: including our own. You know, lots of people believe things

775
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:28,800
Speaker 1: like hallucinogens like LSD, marijuana, psilocybin, mushrooms, uh, and the

776
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:33,640
Speaker 1: ayahuasca brew which I think the chemical uh, the active

777
00:44:33,719 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 1: chemical and that is D m T right. Yeah, and

778
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 1: so under various circumstances, people have suggested all these drugs

779
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:45,600
Speaker 1: not only provide euphoria and sometimes sensory hallucinations, but they

780
00:44:45,640 --> 00:44:50,799
Speaker 1: actually provide access to information or knowledge about reality that

781
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:54,799
Speaker 1: is not otherwise available to people. One of the most

782
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:58,400
Speaker 1: common claims you hear is the sort of transcendence journey

783
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: you might call it, where the hallu synogen gives the

784
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 1: user a mental vantage point from which he or she

785
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:09,440
Speaker 1: claims to see a deeper reality or to now understand

786
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:12,239
Speaker 1: that our day to day experiences are not all there is.

787
00:45:12,719 --> 00:45:15,400
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've encountered this before. Oh yeah, And of

788
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:18,080
Speaker 1: course it's and that's key to most religions too, that

789
00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:22,560
Speaker 1: you have at the heart there's a deeper understanding of reality, um,

790
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:25,720
Speaker 1: that you have to uncover. Yeah, And I think that's interesting.

791
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 1: I think the hallucinogen comparison to spices. Perhaps quite on point,

792
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:34,360
Speaker 1: because in a two thousand five book called my clum

793
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 1: Running by the American mycologist paulse statements, that's a person

794
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:43,560
Speaker 1: who studies fungus. Uh. The author claims that Frank Herbert. Well,

795
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 1: I should just read this quote. It says Uh. He

796
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:50,920
Speaker 1: says that Frank Herbert was apparently an enthusiastic mushroom collector

797
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:54,480
Speaker 1: himself who came up with this great system for for

798
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:58,280
Speaker 1: growing chantrell mushrooms in a way that people hadn't realized

799
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:01,239
Speaker 1: how to do before, by creating this spore slurry in

800
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 1: a bucket. But anyway, he says of Frank Herbert. Frank

801
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:08,000
Speaker 1: went on to tell me that much of the premise

802
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:12,640
Speaker 1: of Dune, the magic spice spores that allowed the bending

803
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:18,440
Speaker 1: of space tripping, the giant worms, maggots digesting mushrooms, the

804
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:22,520
Speaker 1: eyes of the fremen, the cerulean blue of psilocybin mushrooms,

805
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:26,520
Speaker 1: the mysticism of the female spiritual warriors, the Binny Jess,

806
00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:30,080
Speaker 1: It's influenced by tales of Maria Sabina and the sacred

807
00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:33,719
Speaker 1: mushroom cults of Mexico, came from his perception of the

808
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:37,840
Speaker 1: fungal life cycle and his imagination was stimulated through his

809
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 1: experiences with the use of magic mushrooms. All right, well,

810
00:46:43,280 --> 00:46:46,000
Speaker 1: then that that certainly matches up with with what we

811
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:47,880
Speaker 1: see in the book. And again bearing in mind that

812
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:50,640
Speaker 1: this is you know, rising out of NINETI and mid

813
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:53,879
Speaker 1: sixties and and uh and a lot of the counterculture

814
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 1: movements that were taking place there, and the and the

815
00:46:57,280 --> 00:47:00,719
Speaker 1: roll of drugs and lucinogens in that subculture. Yeah, yeah,

816
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: certainly though one thing about that that was weird. I

817
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 1: googled the psilocybin mushrooms and they didn't look blue to me.

818
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:12,000
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, maybe there's sometimes I have not Yeah,

819
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:16,560
Speaker 1: they look like mushrooms to me. I've never noticed anyway.

820
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 1: To go back to the science of Dune, the writer

821
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 1: Carol Hart, PhD has a great essay about the spice,

822
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:26,279
Speaker 1: melange and the science of Dune, and she makes some

823
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:30,680
Speaker 1: really interesting points comparing the spice to hallucinogens like the

824
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:36,920
Speaker 1: ones I mentioned above, LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, ayahuasca. And there

825
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 1: are the following changes that you can notice that are similar.

826
00:47:40,040 --> 00:47:42,720
Speaker 1: One would be changes to the eyes. The spice, it seems,

827
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:45,439
Speaker 1: causes a more permanent kind of change with the blue tent,

828
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 1: but hallucinogens like LSD and ayahuasca typically cause an extreme

829
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 1: dilation to the pupils. She also notices suspension of time right,

830
00:47:56,239 --> 00:48:00,000
Speaker 1: ecstatic us, an ecstatic and sometimes frightening sense of communion

831
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:04,279
Speaker 1: with others, out of body sensations, loss of self and

832
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 1: merger into a oneness, euphoria, death, rebirth, experience, vision slash,

833
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:15,359
Speaker 1: hallucinations and opprescience and life changing realizations. And I think

834
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:18,919
Speaker 1: this is one of the most interesting things because, like

835
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:21,640
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, a lot of times people take

836
00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 1: hallucinogens not just with the idea that I'm going to

837
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:27,680
Speaker 1: see something interesting, but they take it with the idea

838
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 1: that they're learning something about the true nature of reality.

839
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:34,760
Speaker 1: They're getting access to facts and useful information. She says,

840
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:39,840
Speaker 1: for example, for the Amazonian Shamans, ayahuasca allowed the soul

841
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:43,160
Speaker 1: to leave the body, to search out the explanation for

842
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:47,359
Speaker 1: illness in the individual or problems threatening the community, and

843
00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:51,560
Speaker 1: to decide the course of action. Yeah, I I remember reading, uh,

844
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:56,879
Speaker 1: some words from Buddhist Alan Watts, who is also part

845
00:48:56,920 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 1: of you know the certainly a name. During the decent

846
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 1: seventies and he was commenting on on the views of

847
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:07,960
Speaker 1: psychedelic drugs in the counterculture, and he compared them to

848
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:11,400
Speaker 1: the use of a telescope or microscope that it's something

849
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 1: that you, you know, you put your eye to the

850
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:16,680
Speaker 1: telescope of the microscope to learn something about reality, but

851
00:49:16,680 --> 00:49:18,960
Speaker 1: then you also have to re engage with reality. You

852
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:21,480
Speaker 1: have to put the telescope or the microscope down in

853
00:49:21,600 --> 00:49:25,279
Speaker 1: order to to take those lessons and apply them to life. Yeah,

854
00:49:25,400 --> 00:49:28,279
Speaker 1: another really interesting parallel with Dune, I think is that

855
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:31,640
Speaker 1: the effect of the drug, whether you're talking about real

856
00:49:31,719 --> 00:49:35,759
Speaker 1: hallucinogens or the spice in Dune, is not just a

857
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:38,319
Speaker 1: product of the drug. It's not just here are the

858
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:40,560
Speaker 1: molecules in the drug and what they'll do to you,

859
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:44,760
Speaker 1: but there are there are product sort of combinatorial product

860
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:49,480
Speaker 1: of the drug acting on body and the preparation that

861
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:54,520
Speaker 1: the user has experienced. So it's about preparation, it's about departure. States.

862
00:49:54,560 --> 00:49:58,080
Speaker 1: Some people will take acid, take LST and just mess

863
00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:01,000
Speaker 1: around and have some weird experiences and don't learn a

864
00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:03,920
Speaker 1: whole lot from it. Some people might have bad trips,

865
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 1: some people might have what they would consider to be

866
00:50:06,560 --> 00:50:10,000
Speaker 1: transcendent experiences. And I think there are a lot of

867
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:13,759
Speaker 1: people who throughout the years have been advocates of controlled

868
00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:19,000
Speaker 1: hallucinogen use, who lament the fact that it's taken for kicks. Yeah.

869
00:50:19,120 --> 00:50:21,240
Speaker 1: I mean, we look at some of the current research

870
00:50:21,280 --> 00:50:24,920
Speaker 1: and we're finally seeing a lot more research into psychedelics

871
00:50:25,040 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 1: uh these days. For a while, it was such a

872
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:32,280
Speaker 1: taboo area, you know, really kind of poisoned by uh

873
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:35,719
Speaker 1: the more you know, extreme aspects of the counterculture in

874
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:38,840
Speaker 1: the way that it it gained coverage in the media,

875
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:42,279
Speaker 1: we're finally seeing it being an area that can get

876
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:45,040
Speaker 1: funded and and and be studied. Uh. And there have

877
00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:48,440
Speaker 1: been some some really fascinating looks into how the right

878
00:50:48,520 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 1: levels of hallucinogens combined with appropriate priming, uh, you know,

879
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 1: preparation for the experience, uh and as well as sort

880
00:50:56,239 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 1: of after uh exploration of what they felt it can

881
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 1: be you to to help eternally ill patients as they

882
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:06,799
Speaker 1: prepared to die. It can be used in in various therapies,

883
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:10,800
Speaker 1: even addiction therapies. UH. So so yeah, that the priming,

884
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:14,120
Speaker 1: the purpose, really the ritual of it is essential. I mean,

885
00:51:14,200 --> 00:51:16,359
Speaker 1: I imagine a number of our listeners can think of

886
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:19,839
Speaker 1: you know, some individual they've come across before that at

887
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:22,560
Speaker 1: least on the surface, looks like they are gaining nothing

888
00:51:22,760 --> 00:51:26,399
Speaker 1: of value from their experimentation with psychedelics. And and then

889
00:51:26,480 --> 00:51:29,240
Speaker 1: on the other hand, you know, there are cases where,

890
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:32,920
Speaker 1: you know, this particular thinker claims to have had some

891
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:38,640
Speaker 1: sort of profound insight um intellectually or creatively while trying

892
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:42,200
Speaker 1: one of these substances. Yeah, So, as Albert Hoffman, the

893
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:46,000
Speaker 1: discoverer of LSD, once wrote, he said, special internal and

894
00:51:46,080 --> 00:51:51,239
Speaker 1: external advanced preparations are required. With them, an LSD experiment

895
00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:54,680
Speaker 1: can become a meaningful experience. So I think he was

896
00:51:54,719 --> 00:51:56,520
Speaker 1: one of those people you're talking, you know who, who

897
00:51:56,560 --> 00:52:01,719
Speaker 1: recommended the preparations that go into making yourself ready for

898
00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:05,719
Speaker 1: the mental journey of expanded consciousness. If you don't put

899
00:52:05,719 --> 00:52:08,959
Speaker 1: the preparation time in, it doesn't work. And we see

900
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:12,839
Speaker 1: this in the novel Dune because people consuming lots of

901
00:52:12,840 --> 00:52:15,719
Speaker 1: spice react to it in very different ways. You get

902
00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 1: the sense that when paul A Tradees starts taking lots

903
00:52:19,040 --> 00:52:22,160
Speaker 1: of spice and then has his moment of expanded consciousness,

904
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:25,080
Speaker 1: begins to see the future, begins to have you know,

905
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:30,279
Speaker 1: heightened awareness and pressions and limited omniscience. It's all because

906
00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:32,919
Speaker 1: of the things that have gone into making Paul who

907
00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:34,920
Speaker 1: he is. It's not just like he got a really

908
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:38,240
Speaker 1: strong hit of it, you know. So it's the fact

909
00:52:38,320 --> 00:52:41,840
Speaker 1: that he's been trained in the Benny Jesser at ways

910
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:43,360
Speaker 1: that we talked about in the last episode in The

911
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:46,799
Speaker 1: mint at Ways. All this that went into making him

912
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 1: who he is also made the expanded consciousness what it was.

913
00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:53,719
Speaker 1: You can see that in contrast to another character in

914
00:52:53,760 --> 00:52:56,520
Speaker 1: the novel The Twisted Mint at do you call him

915
00:52:56,560 --> 00:52:59,799
Speaker 1: Pider or Peter? Um always read At as Peter, but

916
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:03,000
Speaker 1: Piper might be more accurate. They call him Pider. In

917
00:53:03,080 --> 00:53:05,759
Speaker 1: the David Lynch movie, I'll call him Peter. Peter Davrees

918
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:08,400
Speaker 1: the The Bad Men Tad who works for the evil

919
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:12,120
Speaker 1: harconans uh he They say he takes huge amounts of

920
00:53:12,120 --> 00:53:15,000
Speaker 1: spice too. He's just gobbles it like candy. He can't

921
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:17,440
Speaker 1: get enough of it. But he does not seem to

922
00:53:17,520 --> 00:53:20,759
Speaker 1: have this same type of expanded awareness that Paul has

923
00:53:20,840 --> 00:53:23,480
Speaker 1: from extended spice use. And it seems to be that

924
00:53:24,239 --> 00:53:27,080
Speaker 1: it's it's because of different types of preparation going into

925
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:29,960
Speaker 1: the experience. Yeah, I mean The other example, of course,

926
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:34,800
Speaker 1: of the Guild navigators who have been engineered in bread

927
00:53:35,280 --> 00:53:40,040
Speaker 1: to to pilot these spaceships uh while using the spice.

928
00:53:40,080 --> 00:53:42,560
Speaker 1: So they consume the spice in order to safely navigate

929
00:53:42,600 --> 00:53:46,600
Speaker 1: folded space and as a celestial mechanic. John C. Smith

930
00:53:46,680 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 1: points out in the Science of doone UH, there's a

931
00:53:49,080 --> 00:53:52,040
Speaker 1: quantum physics tie in here. So eight years before the

932
00:53:52,080 --> 00:53:55,360
Speaker 1: publication of doone, physicist Hugh Ever the Third proposed a

933
00:53:55,760 --> 00:53:59,840
Speaker 1: radical interpretation of quantum mechanics that everything that can happen

934
00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:03,840
Speaker 1: does happen, and each possible action spawns a new universe.

935
00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:06,319
Speaker 1: This is what's known as the many worlds theory. Every

936
00:54:06,360 --> 00:54:09,960
Speaker 1: time there's an indeterminate quantum event, the world the universe

937
00:54:10,040 --> 00:54:13,279
Speaker 1: branches off into separate realities. It's the very thing that

938
00:54:13,760 --> 00:54:18,120
Speaker 1: the Borges referenced with the Library of Battle, that this

939
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:22,120
Speaker 1: library would contain not only all books, but all possible books.

940
00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:25,400
Speaker 1: So taking the spies here would have allowed the navigator

941
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:28,880
Speaker 1: to at least see the immediate path of the ship

942
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:33,040
Speaker 1: in many different multiverses uh, and then safely, you know,

943
00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:37,680
Speaker 1: choose the safest path um. And interestingly enough, there is

944
00:54:38,040 --> 00:54:42,120
Speaker 1: kind of a real world tie in here because according

945
00:54:42,160 --> 00:54:45,400
Speaker 1: to a nineteen seventy three studied compiled by the RAND

946
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:51,080
Speaker 1: Corporation for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA, UM,

947
00:54:51,160 --> 00:54:56,240
Speaker 1: there was a Soviet plan to launch psychics into orbit.

948
00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:59,000
Speaker 1: Quote how how much should we how much face should

949
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:01,759
Speaker 1: we put in this report? I mean maybe a grain

950
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:05,920
Speaker 1: of salt, I'll read the quote here. Regarding precognition, we

951
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 1: found only one unverified report by a Soviet investigator that

952
00:55:11,080 --> 00:55:14,440
Speaker 1: a program was being planned to train astronauts to quote

953
00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:18,240
Speaker 1: foresee and to avoid accidents in space. It was clear

954
00:55:18,280 --> 00:55:22,000
Speaker 1: from the context that he was referring to pre cognitive process.

955
00:55:22,600 --> 00:55:27,200
Speaker 1: So I don't know, uh, if they did look into it,

956
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:30,160
Speaker 1: obviously didn't work out. But this was a time of when,

957
00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:32,359
Speaker 1: you know, the stakes were high in the Cold War.

958
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:35,360
Speaker 1: So if there was a possibility that there was something

959
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:39,600
Speaker 1: to some sort of paranormal uh situation, you checked it out, yea?

960
00:55:39,719 --> 00:55:43,280
Speaker 1: Why not train a bunker full of psychics? Yeah? The same.

961
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:48,440
Speaker 1: The same Rand Corporation report also mentioned UM that there

962
00:55:48,480 --> 00:55:52,759
Speaker 1: was a test into psychic communication by sacrificing a litter

963
00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:55,200
Speaker 1: of baby rabbits on board of on board of Soviet

964
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:58,720
Speaker 1: submarine and the idea here was that the mother rabbit,

965
00:55:58,800 --> 00:56:02,000
Speaker 1: located on the surface receive psychic signals from the dying young.

966
00:56:02,160 --> 00:56:09,040
Speaker 1: So again, uh, this is all unverified, but but it

967
00:56:09,160 --> 00:56:12,000
Speaker 1: seems possible based on some of the other reports we've

968
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,880
Speaker 1: heard about both the US and Soviet investigations into the

969
00:56:14,920 --> 00:56:17,719
Speaker 1: potential use of paranormal effects. You know, one of the

970
00:56:17,760 --> 00:56:20,400
Speaker 1: things that's interesting to me about the role of spice

971
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 1: in the Dune universe is that it posits a world

972
00:56:24,760 --> 00:56:29,080
Speaker 1: in which the entire universe is completely dependent on a

973
00:56:29,160 --> 00:56:34,319
Speaker 1: resource that essentially produces effects similar to things that are

974
00:56:34,440 --> 00:56:39,000
Speaker 1: taboo in our culture that not only do we, you know,

975
00:56:39,080 --> 00:56:41,560
Speaker 1: not depend on as a society, but we try to

976
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 1: stamp out and say that's not okay. Yeah, Like, essentially

977
00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:49,080
Speaker 1: everyone in the book seems to be taking some sort

978
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:53,920
Speaker 1: of um performance enhancing substance. If it's not milange, then

979
00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:57,520
Speaker 1: it's the uh you know, then they're taking samudo, or

980
00:56:57,520 --> 00:56:59,560
Speaker 1: they're taking the I can't remember the name of it,

981
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 1: but that line that the mentent drink, which I believe

982
00:57:01,719 --> 00:57:04,400
Speaker 1: is supposed to be derived from the same source as samuda,

983
00:57:04,840 --> 00:57:07,840
Speaker 1: the purple stand lips. Yeah, so everybody's just cranked to

984
00:57:07,880 --> 00:57:10,319
Speaker 1: the gills on something because you can't depend on the

985
00:57:10,360 --> 00:57:12,320
Speaker 1: thinking machine, You've got to depend on the human mind.

986
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:15,000
Speaker 1: So maybe you could say that if we had to

987
00:57:15,040 --> 00:57:18,400
Speaker 1: get rid of our computers, there would be I don't

988
00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:25,320
Speaker 1: know less opposition to recreational drug use. Maybe. So all right,

989
00:57:25,360 --> 00:57:27,240
Speaker 1: you know, we're running out of time here, and I

990
00:57:27,240 --> 00:57:28,880
Speaker 1: don't know, we might even have to cut this part,

991
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:33,600
Speaker 1: but I do want to mention the beneath a lack

992
00:57:33,680 --> 00:57:37,720
Speaker 1: Sue face dancers before we close out. These are characters

993
00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:39,960
Speaker 1: that you did not encounter in the book because they

994
00:57:39,960 --> 00:57:42,720
Speaker 1: don't show up until book two and then play an

995
00:57:42,720 --> 00:57:47,280
Speaker 1: increasingly important role moving on. But as we mentioned, uh,

996
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:49,520
Speaker 1: I think in the first episode that many if the

997
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:52,640
Speaker 1: lack su this is a group, this is like a

998
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:55,920
Speaker 1: faction in the Doune universe that are really involved in

999
00:57:56,360 --> 00:58:00,880
Speaker 1: trans human post human um machinations. They're changing the human

1000
00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:06,520
Speaker 1: form uh engineering new people uh to to survive in

1001
00:58:06,520 --> 00:58:11,440
Speaker 1: this post singularity, you know, Postbutalian jihad world, and so

1002
00:58:11,520 --> 00:58:14,680
Speaker 1: they're doing things like like essentially engaging in cloning the

1003
00:58:14,720 --> 00:58:17,400
Speaker 1: producer of these ghoula's that play an important role in

1004
00:58:17,400 --> 00:58:20,320
Speaker 1: the later books, where dead individuals brought back as a

1005
00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:23,400
Speaker 1: clone h. I like the sound of that. Yeah, they're

1006
00:58:23,440 --> 00:58:27,320
Speaker 1: the they're the faction that creates the twisted uh mentats

1007
00:58:27,440 --> 00:58:30,560
Speaker 1: we've already discussed. And then they also have these face

1008
00:58:30,640 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 1: dancers who are known and feared as spies and assassins

1009
00:58:34,280 --> 00:58:37,720
Speaker 1: UM and their essentially their shape shifters. They can change

1010
00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:42,800
Speaker 1: their their face, their appearance, um, their their voice everything

1011
00:58:43,120 --> 00:58:47,840
Speaker 1: to resemble another person UM and and so they you know,

1012
00:58:48,000 --> 00:58:51,080
Speaker 1: give some unparalleled acting ability. They serve as entertainers throughout

1013
00:58:51,080 --> 00:58:55,120
Speaker 1: the galaxy and UM and they're also key at the

1014
00:58:55,240 --> 00:58:59,920
Speaker 1: Laxu diplomats and conspirators as and as well as just

1015
00:59:00,120 --> 00:59:06,400
Speaker 1: core members of their society. So uh. There, there's actually

1016
00:59:06,440 --> 00:59:10,120
Speaker 1: a couple of cool articles about how this might work, essentially,

1017
00:59:10,240 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 1: how a shape shifting humanoid might work as an organism. Uh.

1018
00:59:13,880 --> 00:59:16,120
Speaker 1: The first uh and the primary one I want to

1019
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:20,520
Speaker 1: mention comes to us from the Dune Encyclopedia, and this

1020
00:59:20,600 --> 00:59:23,680
Speaker 1: is from contributor Walter E. Myers, and he very much

1021
00:59:23,880 --> 00:59:28,040
Speaker 1: in envisions face dancer biology a shape shifting biology as

1022
00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:32,800
Speaker 1: a complex creation of training, breeding, embryotic manipulation, genetic team

1023
00:59:32,840 --> 00:59:37,160
Speaker 1: current tinkering, and surgical augmentation. So basically throwing all of

1024
00:59:37,160 --> 00:59:40,240
Speaker 1: these various everything. We got everything we got at creating

1025
00:59:40,480 --> 00:59:43,880
Speaker 1: this shape shifting creature. So I'm not gonna go through

1026
00:59:43,920 --> 00:59:46,800
Speaker 1: the entire entry because it's a he has a lot

1027
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:48,440
Speaker 1: of details that he throws out, But here are the

1028
00:59:48,520 --> 00:59:52,120
Speaker 1: high points. This is what you need. Key alterations include

1029
00:59:52,480 --> 00:59:57,560
Speaker 1: selected breeding for appropriate physicality and muscle control, because you're

1030
00:59:57,600 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 1: gonna need muscle control to shift the face around out

1031
01:00:00,200 --> 01:00:05,120
Speaker 1: and shift everything about. Embryotic stimulation of overdeveloped back muscles

1032
01:00:05,160 --> 01:00:10,680
Speaker 1: and hyper elastic spine for height control. The embryonic manipulation

1033
01:00:10,680 --> 01:00:14,480
Speaker 1: of the bodies of psylamic sacks, altering their position and

1034
01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:18,240
Speaker 1: allowing them to serve in the voluntary inflation of artificial

1035
01:00:18,360 --> 01:00:23,000
Speaker 1: tubes that are implanted after puberty, thus allowing conscious body

1036
01:00:23,040 --> 01:00:27,640
Speaker 1: size alteration, so essentially bladders in the body that allow

1037
01:00:27,680 --> 01:00:31,720
Speaker 1: you to just fill up as needed. Childhood augmentation of

1038
01:00:31,760 --> 01:00:36,160
Speaker 1: facial structure replacing certain facial bones with elastic cartilage, coupled

1039
01:00:36,200 --> 01:00:40,040
Speaker 1: with extensive training to allow total manipulation of facial features.

1040
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:45,440
Speaker 1: Cellular embryonic manipulation to allow conscious control of scalp temperature

1041
01:00:46,040 --> 01:00:49,200
Speaker 1: and temperature, because this would be used to allow the

1042
01:00:49,280 --> 01:00:53,720
Speaker 1: color manipulation of artificial liquid crystal hair follicles that are

1043
01:00:53,800 --> 01:00:58,800
Speaker 1: later planted like individually, genetic manipulation to enable the conscious

1044
01:00:58,840 --> 01:01:03,520
Speaker 1: formonal control of eye pigment, fetal manipulation, and surgical augmentation

1045
01:01:03,560 --> 01:01:07,440
Speaker 1: to produce male genitals that are attractable within a vaginal

1046
01:01:07,520 --> 01:01:12,000
Speaker 1: cavity for visual gender swapping. So they wouldn't actually be

1047
01:01:12,040 --> 01:01:14,720
Speaker 1: able to change sex, but they could sort of retract

1048
01:01:14,800 --> 01:01:17,440
Speaker 1: the genitals into a cavity as if they were the

1049
01:01:17,560 --> 01:01:21,680
Speaker 1: landing gear of an airplane. Training and surgery to enhance

1050
01:01:21,760 --> 01:01:26,480
Speaker 1: deferential muscle and autonomic nerve control. Uh So, in other words,

1051
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:29,360
Speaker 1: a face dancer by this definition would be an extremely

1052
01:01:29,400 --> 01:01:34,680
Speaker 1: complex product uh and no mere human subspecies. But this

1053
01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:37,320
Speaker 1: is just one take. We also have a take from

1054
01:01:37,400 --> 01:01:41,520
Speaker 1: Sandy Field in her essay Evolution by Any Means on Dune,

1055
01:01:41,520 --> 01:01:43,560
Speaker 1: and this is from the Science of Dune, and she

1056
01:01:43,640 --> 01:01:46,240
Speaker 1: goes into a lot of a lot of these sort

1057
01:01:46,240 --> 01:01:49,240
Speaker 1: of highly evolved human models that we discuss here, but

1058
01:01:49,360 --> 01:01:52,400
Speaker 1: she posits that the face dancers mimic their targets through

1059
01:01:52,520 --> 01:01:56,400
Speaker 1: conscious migration of body cells. So in order to swiftly

1060
01:01:56,480 --> 01:01:59,000
Speaker 1: change form, a face dancer would need to reck reorganize

1061
01:01:59,000 --> 01:02:02,920
Speaker 1: its skin cells, uh, muscle, liature, and skeletal elements, a

1062
01:02:02,920 --> 01:02:07,640
Speaker 1: feat they might accomplish through the the dissolution and recombination

1063
01:02:07,760 --> 01:02:12,560
Speaker 1: of the cell to sell bonds that hold the tissue together. Now,

1064
01:02:12,560 --> 01:02:15,720
Speaker 1: how might the the lax who have accomplished this. Here's

1065
01:02:15,760 --> 01:02:18,800
Speaker 1: what she had to say. Quote the concerted action of

1066
01:02:18,840 --> 01:02:22,800
Speaker 1: newly created hormones selected genetically by the the laxu over

1067
01:02:22,840 --> 01:02:26,280
Speaker 1: many generations could act to allow different cell types to

1068
01:02:26,400 --> 01:02:31,320
Speaker 1: move when prompted by neurological signals. Face dancing then could

1069
01:02:31,320 --> 01:02:34,920
Speaker 1: be a genetically derived ability to generate specific hormones at

1070
01:02:34,920 --> 01:02:38,680
Speaker 1: will which allow for the concerted movement of skin, muscle, bone,

1071
01:02:38,720 --> 01:02:41,520
Speaker 1: and other cells to new locations to create the appearance

1072
01:02:41,560 --> 01:02:45,840
Speaker 1: of another person. So there you go. I mean, I

1073
01:02:46,040 --> 01:02:48,920
Speaker 1: appreciate that as a as a great attempt to explanation.

1074
01:02:49,000 --> 01:02:52,800
Speaker 1: I somehow don't feel like a creature like that could

1075
01:02:52,840 --> 01:02:55,760
Speaker 1: exist in reality. I mean, certainly you can imagine some

1076
01:02:55,880 --> 01:03:00,440
Speaker 1: types of uh, you know, chameleon type elements like changing

1077
01:03:00,480 --> 01:03:03,560
Speaker 1: pigmentation and when we see octopuses and stuff that have

1078
01:03:03,680 --> 01:03:08,160
Speaker 1: a remarkable ability to change their external appearance at wed will.

1079
01:03:08,200 --> 01:03:12,560
Speaker 1: But the moving of bones and things like that, that

1080
01:03:12,720 --> 01:03:17,280
Speaker 1: sounds impossible to me. Yeah, I I do love the

1081
01:03:16,680 --> 01:03:19,439
Speaker 1: the the rigor in both of these examples, because one

1082
01:03:19,480 --> 01:03:23,880
Speaker 1: takes a very um, you know, genetic, cellular hormonal approach,

1083
01:03:24,240 --> 01:03:26,800
Speaker 1: and the other is a very more of a varied

1084
01:03:26,800 --> 01:03:30,560
Speaker 1: approach but also all into just post human cybernetic tinkering.

1085
01:03:31,160 --> 01:03:33,400
Speaker 1: And I guess in reality you could create a model

1086
01:03:33,440 --> 01:03:35,400
Speaker 1: that is a combination of the two, maybe draw in

1087
01:03:35,480 --> 01:03:38,120
Speaker 1: some bio mimicry by looking to the world of of

1088
01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:41,440
Speaker 1: the of the octopus or the cuttlefish and saying, well,

1089
01:03:41,440 --> 01:03:43,680
Speaker 1: how could you create those same sort of flesh effects

1090
01:03:43,960 --> 01:03:46,840
Speaker 1: in a humanoid creature. Well, here's something I would say.

1091
01:03:46,840 --> 01:03:50,400
Speaker 1: I don't know to what extent they have shape shifting

1092
01:03:50,560 --> 01:03:54,320
Speaker 1: precision in the books, but I would I would buy

1093
01:03:54,320 --> 01:03:58,680
Speaker 1: this creature more if it could make basic changes to

1094
01:03:58,800 --> 01:04:02,720
Speaker 1: its body. But but sort of target a particular individual

1095
01:04:02,840 --> 01:04:06,520
Speaker 1: like I, you know, can look now exactly like Robert

1096
01:04:06,560 --> 01:04:09,000
Speaker 1: Lamb as opposed to just I can look different than

1097
01:04:09,040 --> 01:04:12,200
Speaker 1: I normally look. Yeah, yeah, it would. And I think

1098
01:04:12,200 --> 01:04:14,000
Speaker 1: in the books it's laid out that it depends on

1099
01:04:14,000 --> 01:04:16,720
Speaker 1: how long they study a target. So if they study,

1100
01:04:16,880 --> 01:04:18,479
Speaker 1: you know, they just sort of glance at you would

1101
01:04:18,480 --> 01:04:21,960
Speaker 1: be like a very rough version, but they would ideally

1102
01:04:22,000 --> 01:04:25,200
Speaker 1: want to uh study you in earnest for a few

1103
01:04:25,240 --> 01:04:29,160
Speaker 1: days before replacing you. Yeah, all right, so there you go.

1104
01:04:29,280 --> 01:04:32,720
Speaker 1: We're out of time. Uh that's the biology of done.

1105
01:04:33,080 --> 01:04:35,320
Speaker 1: But before we go, Robert, I gotta ask you about

1106
01:04:35,520 --> 01:04:39,480
Speaker 1: David Lynch movie. I've been burning to talk about this. No,

1107
01:04:39,640 --> 01:04:41,440
Speaker 1: I mean, I read the book and then I watched

1108
01:04:41,440 --> 01:04:44,400
Speaker 1: the movie, and there's so much to like about the movie, actually,

1109
01:04:44,440 --> 01:04:47,680
Speaker 1: because it's got great sets and costumes. Some parts of

1110
01:04:47,720 --> 01:04:51,240
Speaker 1: it are truly weird, uh in ways that are really

1111
01:04:51,280 --> 01:04:56,280
Speaker 1: fun and exciting, and other aspects of it are just incomprehensible.

1112
01:04:56,320 --> 01:04:59,880
Speaker 1: I watched it with my wife Rachel, and I constantly

1113
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:03,720
Speaker 1: had to explain things because the movie does not make

1114
01:05:03,800 --> 01:05:07,000
Speaker 1: sense on its own. Yeah, it's It's been a long

1115
01:05:07,080 --> 01:05:09,760
Speaker 1: time since I've seen the movie, though I did last night.

1116
01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:13,720
Speaker 1: I rewatched the intro material that was on the TV

1117
01:05:13,880 --> 01:05:16,880
Speaker 1: airing of it, where they have the the still illustrations

1118
01:05:16,920 --> 01:05:20,720
Speaker 1: and some narration to set up the world. Uh. Yeah,

1119
01:05:20,760 --> 01:05:23,680
Speaker 1: I agree. There's there's so much that doesn't work in

1120
01:05:23,720 --> 01:05:26,400
Speaker 1: the films and ultimately led to it being a kind

1121
01:05:26,440 --> 01:05:28,640
Speaker 1: of a train wreck. But then there's so many elements

1122
01:05:28,640 --> 01:05:30,680
Speaker 1: that are they're well done. Like some of the casting

1123
01:05:30,760 --> 01:05:34,080
Speaker 1: is just weird. Some of the casting it's just spot on.

1124
01:05:34,640 --> 01:05:38,800
Speaker 1: The costumes are amazing, some of the visual takes on

1125
01:05:38,840 --> 01:05:41,800
Speaker 1: the world are just perfect. But it just doesn't all

1126
01:05:41,800 --> 01:05:45,560
Speaker 1: come together. Yeah, you know, I think Doone could be

1127
01:05:45,600 --> 01:05:49,640
Speaker 1: a really great animated movie. Yeah, Like imagine if Miyazaki

1128
01:05:49,920 --> 01:05:52,480
Speaker 1: had had taken it on, you know, because you have

1129
01:05:52,520 --> 01:05:56,160
Speaker 1: the ecological elements that he's you know, it's so president

1130
01:05:56,160 --> 01:05:58,200
Speaker 1: in his work. Oh man, that's a thing that I

1131
01:05:58,200 --> 01:06:00,360
Speaker 1: think was really lacking, and at least the version of

1132
01:06:00,360 --> 01:06:02,600
Speaker 1: doing that I saw. Now I heard that there there's

1133
01:06:02,680 --> 01:06:05,320
Speaker 1: shorter there's a shorter version and a longer version. I'm

1134
01:06:05,320 --> 01:06:08,560
Speaker 1: not sure which one I saw. Uh. If there's a

1135
01:06:08,600 --> 01:06:12,000
Speaker 1: shorter version, I cannot imagine it because the version I

1136
01:06:12,040 --> 01:06:17,200
Speaker 1: saw left out so much explanation it's crazy. But but yeah,

1137
01:06:17,280 --> 01:06:19,080
Speaker 1: the one thing that really seemed left out of the

1138
01:06:19,120 --> 01:06:22,680
Speaker 1: movie is the ecological themes of the book. All the

1139
01:06:22,720 --> 01:06:27,720
Speaker 1: concerns about water, about about how to survive in the environment.

1140
01:06:27,880 --> 01:06:29,840
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a this is a key part

1141
01:06:29,840 --> 01:06:32,320
Speaker 1: of the book, and it's you know, maybe one out

1142
01:06:32,360 --> 01:06:36,600
Speaker 1: of every three pages is primarily about water, and this

1143
01:06:36,720 --> 01:06:40,080
Speaker 1: is just not the case in the movie. Yeah, indeed,

1144
01:06:40,120 --> 01:06:42,840
Speaker 1: and that's you know, ultimately a you know, a large

1145
01:06:42,880 --> 01:06:45,760
Speaker 1: thing to be missing from the finished product. On the

1146
01:06:45,800 --> 01:06:47,920
Speaker 1: other hand, the movie does have I don't know if

1147
01:06:47,920 --> 01:06:51,160
Speaker 1: you remember this from the movie, but the the strategically

1148
01:06:51,200 --> 01:06:55,600
Speaker 1: inserted pug. Oh yes, how how c Trades has a pug. Yeah,

1149
01:06:55,600 --> 01:06:57,520
Speaker 1: and if you mentioned this, I saw he The pug

1150
01:06:57,600 --> 01:07:02,640
Speaker 1: shows up in the still illustrations for the TV version intro.

1151
01:07:03,240 --> 01:07:06,280
Speaker 1: So it's got Jurgen proc now standing there with his

1152
01:07:06,280 --> 01:07:09,520
Speaker 1: his beard in his uniform holding a pug. There's also

1153
01:07:09,560 --> 01:07:12,800
Speaker 1: a scene of Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck fighting a

1154
01:07:12,840 --> 01:07:17,280
Speaker 1: battle and he's got the pug in his arms. Yeah.

1155
01:07:17,400 --> 01:07:20,160
Speaker 1: I do not remember. I've in my reread of the book,

1156
01:07:20,160 --> 01:07:22,680
Speaker 1: I've not come across the pug. Pretty sure. They added

1157
01:07:22,760 --> 01:07:25,080
Speaker 1: that their pug at Tradees is not in the book.

1158
01:07:25,360 --> 01:07:28,320
Speaker 1: They added the pug, they adding the added the weirding module,

1159
01:07:28,640 --> 01:07:31,240
Speaker 1: um and a few other things. They added him then

1160
01:07:31,320 --> 01:07:34,240
Speaker 1: left out some some key things as well. So yeah,

1161
01:07:34,440 --> 01:07:36,120
Speaker 1: there you go. Well, hey, I know that a lot

1162
01:07:36,160 --> 01:07:38,360
Speaker 1: of you out there have comments you would like to

1163
01:07:38,400 --> 01:07:41,600
Speaker 1: add on the Dune Universe, on the Dune movies, on

1164
01:07:41,680 --> 01:07:45,280
Speaker 1: some of this uh uh, some of the possible science

1165
01:07:45,320 --> 01:07:47,920
Speaker 1: behind the biology behind the technology that discussed in the

1166
01:07:48,000 --> 01:07:50,320
Speaker 1: other episodes, and we would of course loved to hear

1167
01:07:50,360 --> 01:07:52,560
Speaker 1: from you. As always, check out our homepage Stuff to

1168
01:07:52,560 --> 01:07:54,920
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com. Uh, and you also want

1169
01:07:54,920 --> 01:07:56,560
Speaker 1: to check out the landing page for this episode that

1170
01:07:56,560 --> 01:07:58,880
Speaker 1: will include links out to these books that we've mentioned

1171
01:07:58,920 --> 01:08:01,560
Speaker 1: too related our coals, as well as where you can

1172
01:08:01,600 --> 01:08:04,360
Speaker 1: find some of the music that we featured and uh

1173
01:08:04,400 --> 01:08:06,680
Speaker 1: and indeed, as we close out here, we're gonna be

1174
01:08:06,760 --> 01:08:10,760
Speaker 1: listening to the track Aracus by musician Raleigh Porter off

1175
01:08:10,800 --> 01:08:14,760
Speaker 1: his two thousand eleven album Aftertime, released by Subtext Recordings. Uh.

1176
01:08:14,800 --> 01:08:16,320
Speaker 1: There'll be a link to that on the landing page

1177
01:08:16,360 --> 01:08:17,960
Speaker 1: for this episode. But you can also learn more about

1178
01:08:18,000 --> 01:08:21,320
Speaker 1: human his work at Raleigh Porter dot com. And if

1179
01:08:21,320 --> 01:08:23,360
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us about your

1180
01:08:23,600 --> 01:08:26,880
Speaker 1: favorite aspect of the Dune novels or the Dune movies,

1181
01:08:27,000 --> 01:08:29,519
Speaker 1: or your least favorite aspect, or just tell us what

1182
01:08:29,600 --> 01:08:31,959
Speaker 1: you think about Dune or give us feedback on the episode,

1183
01:08:31,960 --> 01:08:34,320
Speaker 1: you can email us at blow the Mind at how

1184
01:08:34,400 --> 01:08:46,240
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

1185
01:08:46,240 --> 01:08:52,240
Speaker 1: of other topics. Does it, How stuff works dot com