Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 2: Our colleague Nola is not here today, but will rejoin
Speaker 2: us shortly.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Ball, Mission Control decond. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 2: You are here.
Speaker 3: That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Matt,
Speaker 3: would you say, do you have house plants?
Speaker 2: No? I have zero houseplants. I have plants that live
Speaker 2: in the backyard.
Speaker 3: I got some feel I got some houseplants too. You know,
Speaker 3: I sometimes verge into prepper territory. So it's like, whenever
Speaker 3: I have green onions, I decide I have to plant them.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, we know. Our pal code named Doc
Speaker 3: Holiday is quite the enthusiast of houseplants.
Speaker 2: Right yeah, Oh for sure. You know, I'm so nervous
Speaker 2: about fungus these days. I'm nervous about the types of
Speaker 2: plants that grow around me in case that fungus wants
Speaker 2: to hang out with those plants, or maybe.
Speaker 3: Just mutate, which fungus does all the time. Oh man, Yeah,
Speaker 3: we've been on a bit of a plant kick here
Speaker 3: at the studios of Late. We talked about photosynthesis, to
Speaker 3: whether plants are intelligent and to your point, Met no spoilers,
Speaker 3: but we have a fascinating episode about fungus on the
Speaker 3: way and tonight we're veering into somewhat philosophical territory. What
Speaker 3: exactly is the human plant relationship? I think most of us,
Speaker 3: even if you have a green thumb, or if you
Speaker 3: feel like plants just die in a three meter radius
Speaker 3: of you, I think we all kind of have some
Speaker 3: assumptions about humans and their relationship to plants. Would you
Speaker 3: say that's fair?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, this whole episode. Can I do a
Speaker 2: quick shout out to Malcolm X Always in my mind
Speaker 2: this this this episode is we did not domesticate these figs.
Speaker 2: These figs domesticated us.
Speaker 3: Said, to the tone of we didn't land on ploth rock. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's beautiful. Here are the facts, folks. Check out our
Speaker 3: photosynthesis episode for the basics of plant life, wherein you
Speaker 3: can hear Matt and I and Noel expounding about just
Speaker 3: how strange and amazing photosynthesis is it's a superpower. It's
Speaker 3: massively underrated. It is, in a very real way, the
Speaker 3: engine upon which most of the natural world runs. And
Speaker 3: I don't know about you, man, but since we recorded
Speaker 3: that episode, I walk by plants and sometimes just stare
Speaker 3: at them.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, there are some particular vines in my backyard.
Speaker 2: I guess that we're planted there by the previous homeowner,
Speaker 2: and I often watch them, thinking that I am seeing
Speaker 2: them do their little movement that's kind of a circular motion,
Speaker 2: like trying to wrap around something. I know in my
Speaker 2: mind that's probably just the wind moving them, but I imagine
Speaker 2: them being sentient and able to move in real time,
Speaker 2: or at least the time that I experience. You're right
Speaker 2: in seconds, Hm, Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3: You can also see plants responding to sunlight, right tracking
Speaker 3: the movement of the sun. That's amazing. And both of
Speaker 3: those examples kind of show us that humans have a
Speaker 3: lot of incorrect assumptions about plants. You know, they're not
Speaker 3: all created equal. We talked about that a little bit.
Speaker 3: Some are super adaptable, others can only exist in a
Speaker 3: very specific set of circumstances. And uh, it's kind of
Speaker 3: like It reminds me of how amphibians are often the
Speaker 3: first life forms to go when an ecosystem starts changing
Speaker 3: because they they rely on a balance of a water
Speaker 3: system and a land system.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get the temperature and moisture off by just
Speaker 2: a little bit and they get wiped out.
Speaker 3: Same reason. Honestly, it's one of the main reasons I've
Speaker 3: never had a pet octopus, because those guys are so
Speaker 3: tough to keep alive in to.
Speaker 2: Keep in cages or whatever you keep it in.
Speaker 3: Right, right, Yeah. And the other reason, of course being
Speaker 3: their abbreviated lifespans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and their ability to understand that they're alive, we think, right.
Speaker 3: The fact that an octopus can dream, you, if you
Speaker 3: are interested in going down a bit of a rabbit
Speaker 3: hole or a cephalopod hole, then after tonight's show, folks,
Speaker 3: go to your browser of choice and search for footage
Speaker 3: of octopus's dreaming. A kid, you not, It's amazing because
Speaker 3: their chromatophores respond to whatever they're experiencing in the dream.
Speaker 2: Dude. I watch my dogs dream and it's mostly just
Speaker 2: like but they're definitely chasing something. I watch.
Speaker 3: I watch my cat's dream and maybe because they are
Speaker 3: getting up there in the years, they their dreams seem
Speaker 3: to be apparently complex. You know, I don't know if
Speaker 3: this happens with dogs, we know what happens with people.
Speaker 3: Have you ever been in a situation, Matt where someone
Speaker 3: wakes up from a dream and in the dream, their
Speaker 3: dream version of you did something and they kind of like,
Speaker 3: low key, hold you responsible. That happens to me.
Speaker 2: I've done that to people in my life, where I
Speaker 2: have a weird dream about you, whoever you are, and
Speaker 2: then I'm just I sidhe eye you a little bit
Speaker 2: more in my waking times. Well, because look, I'm definitely
Speaker 2: guilty of that, But there is there's a weird thing
Speaker 2: where sometimes just depending on how your dreams are functioning
Speaker 2: that particular night, it's like you're putting stuff together. M
Speaker 2: M yeah, I don't know, man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, defragging the system, we called it. And some great
Speaker 3: inventions and discoveries are arrived at in dreams, like I've
Speaker 3: woken up before I had the answer to a story.
Speaker 3: Great mathematicians and you know what we're getting off topic,
Speaker 3: but that's this is fascinating stuff. And I bring up
Speaker 3: the line between wake and sleep just because dude, again,
Speaker 3: off topic. I'm pretty convinced. One time recently, one of
Speaker 3: my cats had a dream and something bad happened in
Speaker 3: the dream, and when it woke up, it was pissed
Speaker 3: at me because the dream ben had on something and
Speaker 3: I don't know how to navigate that situation.
Speaker 2: Well, it was remembered that time that you asked it
Speaker 2: very quietly and gently to be quiet while we're recording,
Speaker 2: and it was like, who is this guy? We're telling me?
Speaker 2: This big cat that I live with that wears hats
Speaker 2: sometimes telling me that I can't do this because they don't.
Speaker 2: Don't cats see other humans as cats, like as part
Speaker 2: of their pride or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yes, similar to the way dogs see other animals as
Speaker 3: part of their pack exactly. And that's that also maybe
Speaker 3: a result of domestication, right, we have as a civilization,
Speaker 3: we have domesticated not just animals, but plants, and we
Speaker 3: don't talk about that too too often, right outside of
Speaker 3: staple grains.
Speaker 2: It's weird to think about. We think about developing the
Speaker 2: arts of farming, right, all the skills and the tools
Speaker 2: necessary and the techniques, but we don't think about it
Speaker 2: as actually taking plants and taking care of them, domesticating
Speaker 2: them to where they can live amongst us or near us,
Speaker 2: to where we have access to them all the time,
Speaker 2: being very careful to make sure the temperatures they experience
Speaker 2: are not too hot or too cold. Right, it is
Speaker 2: very It is domestication.
Speaker 3: It's true, man, and getting the right pH balance for
Speaker 3: the soil, parrying them with other plant life forms, like
Speaker 3: the Three Sisters of the Great Native American agriculturists. Like.
Speaker 3: The thing that's nuts to me is that we so
Speaker 3: often use the term domestication in a way that comes
Speaker 3: with a lot of baggage, right, because you think of
Speaker 3: like wild animals versus domesticated animals. So was corn out
Speaker 3: there just raising hell, drinking every night, you know, skin diving,
Speaker 3: and someone was like, hey, you got to commit calm down,
Speaker 3: you need to grow roots. You need to.
Speaker 2: But there is I think with the term domestication, there
Speaker 2: is maybe an image contract in my mind at least
Speaker 2: of training something to be comfortable in a certain environment,
Speaker 2: which weirdly does apply to taking these plants that grow
Speaker 2: in the wild and putting them in a brand new environment,
Speaker 2: getting them used to that and growing well with all
Speaker 2: those different factors you just mentioned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if we look back at the history of this.
Speaker 3: Experts believe that people began domesticating plants around ten thousand
Speaker 3: to twelve thousand years ago. Currently, the going bet is
Speaker 3: that this occurred all over the world at different times
Speaker 3: and different cultures, but it occurred first, probably in the
Speaker 3: Tigris and Euphrates River in what would be part of
Speaker 3: modern day Ira and Ira, Syria and Turkey. And it's
Speaker 3: nuts because there's some Sherlock Holmes stuff about this. There's
Speaker 3: a little bit of Maguiver about this. You know, cast
Speaker 3: your memory back. We're old, very early humans, and we
Speaker 3: know that you can eat some things. We know you
Speaker 3: can't eat other things because you know, Uncle Gilgamesh died
Speaker 3: right getting too big for his breeches with some mushrooms.
Speaker 3: And so we start, we start collecting these seeds, and
Speaker 3: then we do exactly what you're describing, Matt. We say, Okay,
Speaker 3: let's make sure these little guys have some water, Let's
Speaker 3: make sure we put them through a process of trial
Speaker 3: and error, I imagine, let's make sure we put them
Speaker 3: in a place where they are most likely to grow abundantly.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and that's all trial and error too, unless
Speaker 2: you observe them those plants in the wild growing with
Speaker 2: partial sunlight or full sunlight, or you know, in the shade,
Speaker 2: which you know you roll in the dice. But once
Speaker 2: you figure it out, you can. If you've got a
Speaker 2: writing system, you can write that down, and everybody who
Speaker 2: gets access to that information has it. It really is
Speaker 2: a technology in all its forms. I guess it's not
Speaker 2: really is growing? Could growing plants be able? Could that
Speaker 2: be a weapon? I guess it could. You could grow
Speaker 2: the wrong kinds of plants that can hurt people.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you can grow and grow plants that hurt people.
Speaker 3: You could grow or deploy invasive species that damage another
Speaker 3: crop or wildlife, and people have done those things. People
Speaker 3: figure stuff out, you know, and we're never going to
Speaker 3: know which individuals. Again, across the world, separated by chasms
Speaker 3: of space and time, we'll never know which ones figured
Speaker 3: out this little hack. But the world owes them a
Speaker 3: great debt. These anonymous pioneers are the reason we can
Speaker 3: do a podcast right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh for sure, that's why cities are a thing.
Speaker 3: Yes, we'd still be hunting and gathering right and there's
Speaker 3: nothing wrong with that. The first domesticated plants, we imagine
Speaker 3: if we're looking at the Mesopotamian record, were things like wheat, barley, lentils,
Speaker 3: and surprisingly types of peas. I don't know much about peas.
Speaker 2: I hope they're English peas. There's still of my favorite
Speaker 2: things on the planet.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you, you know. I still every time I'm
Speaker 3: in a grocery store, and I love the I love
Speaker 3: the weird vibes of grocery stores. The one can in
Speaker 3: the vegetable aisle that always stands out to me is
Speaker 3: that silver foiled peas can because it sounds kind of creepy.
Speaker 3: They're like very tender, very young, very sweet peas.
Speaker 2: Ah, it sounds good.
Speaker 3: It just sounds it sounds like there's a creepy French
Speaker 3: guy in a trench who is whispering to me in
Speaker 3: Aisle thirteen, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, But if you get
Speaker 2: some paneer and just like a little bit of cream,
Speaker 2: maybe some spices, put all that together with those young
Speaker 2: whatever peas dang.
Speaker 3: Very sweet, very young.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And we were talking a little bit off air about
Speaker 3: different like staple grains. I go through a lentile phase
Speaker 3: every so often, and Matt, do you have a do
Speaker 3: you have a go to like grain or cereal that
Speaker 3: you find yourself returning to.
Speaker 2: It's rice for me. Just some steamed rice, some day
Speaker 2: old rice. Throw it in an egg and a little
Speaker 2: bit of butter in a pan or you know, oil
Speaker 2: in a pan, and just go for it. Maybe some
Speaker 2: tinned vegetables like peas and carrots and things like that.
Speaker 2: Good do you go?
Speaker 3: I love I love a good rice bowl too. It's
Speaker 3: so easy, man.
Speaker 2: That's why I like it. I'm not good at anything else.
Speaker 2: There's this this really delicious I think it's Japanese barbecue
Speaker 2: sauce that you can find now at many places, at
Speaker 2: least in Georgia. Hopefully you can find in other places.
Speaker 2: I don't I can't recall the name of it. But
Speaker 2: just a little bit of that on top of that rice.
Speaker 2: That's just cooking, baby.
Speaker 3: It's all about the seasonings, right, and the sauces. Throw
Speaker 3: some what you call it for a cock on there
Speaker 3: and stuff.
Speaker 2: You're good to go. Then I don't know what that is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's dude. I'm gonna get you some or you
Speaker 3: gotta try it if you find it. It's kind of
Speaker 3: a an all purpose seasoning. It's a dry seasoning or
Speaker 3: dry condiment and it's just the best.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I should be more.
Speaker 3: Articulate about it, but if you've tried it before, then
Speaker 3: you guys know what we're talking about. It's pretty easy
Speaker 3: to find. And it also a lot of these sauces
Speaker 3: themselves derive from plant matter, right, so we're using plants
Speaker 3: on plants on plants, and I don't know this, This
Speaker 3: plan to domesticate plants was cartoonishly successful, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean. The stuff you can buy in a grocery
Speaker 3: store at your local market. Odds are it did not
Speaker 3: naturally occur in your part of the world, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean.
Speaker 2: Well, it's very likely that the animals that'd eat that
Speaker 2: stuff that you also enjoy eating, weren't in your part
Speaker 2: of the world. But hey, by some magic, we all
Speaker 2: decided these animals taste good and they like to eat
Speaker 2: these things, and now we're all happy, and Benny Hannas
Speaker 2: is a thing.
Speaker 3: Only these, these arbitrarily chosen animals are cool to eat. Yeah,
Speaker 3: only this list, And we have domesticated them such that
Speaker 3: we can we can determine their lives that way, right,
Speaker 3: That's why the most wide widespread non human large animals
Speaker 3: are livestock animals.
Speaker 2: Exactly, And we will make as much corn as you need.
Speaker 2: In fact, we will make two hundred and eighty percent
Speaker 2: more corn than you and those animals need.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then we'll figure out what to do with
Speaker 3: the corn later. Yeah, we'll figure out maybe a syrup
Speaker 3: of some sort. We're a fuel. Imagine check out our
Speaker 3: episode what was it how corn took over America or something? Yeah,
Speaker 3: and look, folks, ancient people, we always have to say this,
Speaker 3: ancient people were just as smart or as not smart
Speaker 3: as anyone else alive today. So it should come as
Speaker 3: no surprise that civilizations in other parts of the planet
Speaker 3: quickly figured out the wild plants that would be suitable
Speaker 3: candidates for domestication, like, of course, Eastern Asia rice. You know,
Speaker 3: South America potatoes, right, tomatoes. It goes on and on
Speaker 3: and on, and parts of the African continent, of course.
Speaker 3: But plants weren't just domesticated as a food source.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh no, dude, Plants do all kinds of things.
Speaker 2: I remember when we first learned about hemp on this show,
Speaker 2: and it was the first time I ever knew that
Speaker 2: hemp was used as a textile of fiber that could
Speaker 2: be woven and you could create all kinds of things
Speaker 2: with that stuff. You know, we domesticated sheep one of
Speaker 2: the primary reasons. The stuff that grows on their backs
Speaker 2: can make some really great stuff called wool. You know,
Speaker 2: think about cotton, how just important cotton as a textile
Speaker 2: in plant was for the United States and other countries
Speaker 2: around the world. Really bad past, right, but it was
Speaker 2: massively important and it still is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even before the invention of things like the cotton
Speaker 3: gen when it was very, very labor intensive to gather cotton,
Speaker 3: it was such a useful crop that society built itself
Speaker 3: around it too. That you're you're you're pointing out sheep
Speaker 3: because I gotta tell you. Have you ever spent time
Speaker 3: with sheep?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh, man, me and sheep, we go way back,
Speaker 2: You go way back. Yeah, yeah, we go way back.
Speaker 3: Yes, no, butler fie, I feel bad, man, because you know,
Speaker 3: if you have worked in I guess the sheep industry
Speaker 3: or spent time with sheep, tell me if I'm incorrect,
Speaker 3: maybe I just met a bad sample size. But sheep
Speaker 3: are kind of dumb.
Speaker 2: Uh. Well, it's weird because if you compare them to goats,
Speaker 2: there's definitely a different vibe.
Speaker 3: Right, I'm just thinking goats have always struck me as
Speaker 3: kind of the unhinged relatives of sheep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've met a few goats. My son and I
Speaker 2: went to the think a will go in a long story,
Speaker 2: But my son and I went to the Coming Fair
Speaker 2: c U, M M I and G Fair in that place.
Speaker 2: It's in Georgia, it's a town, and there was this
Speaker 2: one goat. Dude, this one goat was off his rocker.
Speaker 2: I don't know what happened to him. His eyes were funny,
Speaker 2: and he was just he would just jump up at
Speaker 2: you and just make full eye contact with you, just
Speaker 2: like he I don't know, he was a human in
Speaker 2: a very recent past life.
Speaker 3: They do have distinct personalities, right. Lamas are also famous
Speaker 3: or infamous for this. It reminds me behind the scenes
Speaker 3: of one of the most excellent recent horror films, The Witch.
Speaker 3: Apparently the most nightmarish cast member was the goat playing
Speaker 3: Black Philip. He was like Gary Busey level unhinged. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I always think about that when I see a goat.
Speaker 3: I'm like, you might be cool now, but I don't
Speaker 3: know what's gonna what's gonna set you off Man.
Speaker 2: That's exciting.
Speaker 3: It is. It is very strange because maybe we're also anthropomorphizing.
Speaker 3: Maybe we're sticking human framework upon a non human animal,
Speaker 3: and maybe we've done something similar with plants, which we'll
Speaker 3: get to one of the most beautiful things. If you're
Speaker 3: an extraterrestrial or so called artificial intelligence, you meet humans
Speaker 3: for the first time, you say, tell me about your
Speaker 3: whole thing with plants, then you might be surprised and
Speaker 3: find it a little poetic that people also domesticate plants
Speaker 3: for no material use, just because they're beautiful and people
Speaker 3: like beautiful things. Like you're not going to see somebody
Speaker 3: cooking with tulips on the regular or wearing clothing. You're
Speaker 3: going to see them planting them and looking at them.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's true. But you can also make those things
Speaker 2: very useful. If you've domesticated bees, let's say you're trying
Speaker 2: to produce honey or something. Right, So in a way,
Speaker 2: even the things that we just kind of take as
Speaker 2: beautiful in Things to behold do have a pretty unique
Speaker 2: and interesting purpose, sometimes not always.
Speaker 3: I agree with that. I think that's a really good
Speaker 3: point too, man. I love that one because it shows
Speaker 3: us that this domestication isn't as siloed as we may
Speaker 3: want to imagine it to be. Right to bees, So
Speaker 3: this domestication, it's not going process. Somebody doesn't just find
Speaker 3: corn and then like move the resource as though they're
Speaker 3: playing a SIMS game. They start selectively breeding this. Every
Speaker 3: staple crop that you eat is genetically modified. The question
Speaker 3: is whether it happened recently, whether it happened thousands and
Speaker 3: thousands and thousands of years ago.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. The way I would think about it, Ben
Speaker 2: is maybe it's it's gradual GMO or rapid GMO.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there we go. And you know, it's crazy because
Speaker 3: the early human cultures, they encourage the growth of what
Speaker 3: we would see as positive traits to finding things that
Speaker 3: are useful to people. More edible parts of the plant,
Speaker 3: fewer non edible parts, more resistance to temperature right or
Speaker 3: to lack of water, et cetera, et cetera. And humans
Speaker 3: wanted these things, by gum, they got them right right now,
Speaker 3: we got deep on this, but right now people still
Speaker 3: aren't sure how many different types of plants exist. But
Speaker 3: if you go to experts like Michael D. Peruganon, then
Speaker 3: you'll see there are thousands of plants, like well around
Speaker 3: twenty five hundred that are considered to be semi or
Speaker 3: fully domesticated, and some of them are very old, date
Speaker 3: back to the Neolithic. Some of them just got domesticated
Speaker 3: within the past few centuries.
Speaker 2: I was gonna I wish I had an example of
Speaker 2: looking at you whatever, looking at you to macco, Oh,
Speaker 2: there we go, there we go. That would be done, right,
Speaker 2: I think so. And you know, something that's strange to
Speaker 2: think about here is that the Earth has been around
Speaker 2: for a long time and plants have been growing and
Speaker 2: getting obliterated over all, you know, over all of those
Speaker 2: millions and millions and millions of years. It's weird to
Speaker 2: think that we're in a I guess, and what is
Speaker 2: it called the anthropisine No, that's yeah. And that's where
Speaker 2: rim like, we have very specific plants that have only
Speaker 2: been around for a couple thousand years. I've tens of
Speaker 2: thousands of years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, because there had to be humans to domesticate
Speaker 3: the things, right, and humans have are still a relatively
Speaker 3: new fad in Earth's history. I think that's I think
Speaker 3: that's an excellent point. And I think we also need
Speaker 3: to point out that domestication of plants started to become
Speaker 3: more and more of a focus of early human civilization.
Speaker 3: You would be less nomadic because now you had a
Speaker 3: compelling reason to stick around in the same place, because
Speaker 3: you had to actually make sure the crops grew. And
Speaker 3: we're not saying plants made people lazy, They just they
Speaker 3: they ushered in this still not totally understood explosion of
Speaker 3: new techniques and technologies and processes. People were still hunting
Speaker 3: and gathering and migrating and people still do that today,
Speaker 3: but now they were doing it with a level of
Speaker 3: food security that simply could not exist ever in human
Speaker 3: history before agriculture. And you know, like, looking at it now,
Speaker 3: it fuels with the benefit of retrospect that we can
Speaker 3: be a bit it condescending about it and we can say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: sure I would have figured it out. I would have
Speaker 3: done that. But how did they figure this out? How
Speaker 3: on earth did this Bonker's plant actually work? To answer that,
Speaker 3: we got to look at a pretty strange it's called
Speaker 3: a non human conspiracy. What if there's a different explanation.
Speaker 3: What if the whole time folks, plants were cultivating us
Speaker 3: and please folks, just you know, our super producer Paul
Speaker 3: Michion control decand did insert a squeal from a plant?
Speaker 3: Can squeal, It's just not for a It's not in
Speaker 3: the range of human hearing.
Speaker 2: It's ultrasonic squeals.
Speaker 3: That is the level of sound design you get with
Speaker 3: this show.
Speaker 2: Wow. Hey, we'll be right back after a word from
Speaker 2: our sponsor.
Speaker 3: Here's where it gets crazy. I don't know, man, what
Speaker 3: do you think about this? We talked about it a
Speaker 3: little bit off air. I think.
Speaker 2: The concept that plants coaxed us into being domesticators or well,
Speaker 2: I mean, because okay, let's just let's break it down
Speaker 2: a little bit. If we're saying plants potentially domesticated humans,
Speaker 2: does that mean the plants coaxed the humans to live
Speaker 2: where they were and to take care of them.
Speaker 3: Domesticate me, right, is what they were saying. It's a
Speaker 3: good question, right. I mean, it seems that crop domestication
Speaker 3: is not what we were told many you know, in
Speaker 3: most conventional classrooms, we're kind of taught that it's this
Speaker 3: one way street. Yeah, that someone figured out domestication and
Speaker 3: humanity conquered nature. But I like what you're describing because
Speaker 3: it does feel more accurate. Maybe we could call it
Speaker 3: a weird interspecial group project.
Speaker 2: Oh under our relationship status, it just says it's com complicated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's open, but it's complicated. We still hang out.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So the idea here then is that plant species adapted,
Speaker 3: but they adapted in a kind of symbiosis mutualism. It
Speaker 3: was better for some plants in some ways to have
Speaker 3: human fingers on the scale. Right now, we have these
Speaker 3: all the stuff you just described earlier, a dramatically increased range,
Speaker 3: a ton of genetic advantages you know that simply didn't
Speaker 3: exist in the plant's predecessors. It's kind of super dope
Speaker 3: for the plants on the wide scale, on the evolutionary scale,
Speaker 3: it stinks for you know, if you were thinking, does
Speaker 3: an individual plant have a soul or dreams or aspirations, Well,
Speaker 3: it stinks for that individual plant because its purpose is
Speaker 3: to be killed and consumed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is weird. But if you okay, if we
Speaker 2: could truly get into the perspective of corn, if corn
Speaker 2: somehow had an awareness of like a bunch of plants together,
Speaker 2: then corn they've seen the world man like without humans.
Speaker 2: They couldn't have done that, No.
Speaker 3: They would, They wouldn't even be the same plant, right,
Speaker 3: there would be a hardy, inedible grass, yeah creature.
Speaker 2: Then nobody would have been that interested in And now
Speaker 2: they're like one of the hottest things on the planet.
Speaker 3: They're so hot right now.
Speaker 2: Huh. Corn is.
Speaker 3: The band and the food and yeah, that's that's a
Speaker 3: really good point. You know, this has been a success
Speaker 3: story for plants. You can see similar arguments, this co
Speaker 3: evolutionary symbiosis thing. You can see it when you look
Speaker 3: at the evolution of dogs and their relationship with human beings,
Speaker 3: Like dogs have evolved eyebrow muscles to mimic human expressions.
Speaker 3: Dogs are one of the few non human animals that
Speaker 3: understands the concept of pointing. It's just nuts.
Speaker 2: My dog even learned how to wink in like a
Speaker 2: weird kind of way. It's o yeah, trust me.
Speaker 3: Can you describe it.
Speaker 2: It's a dog that stares at you and then winks
Speaker 2: and then just waits for you to react. And depending
Speaker 2: on how you react, maybe it winks with the other
Speaker 2: eye and it just stares yeah, yeah, meow, I'm looking
Speaker 2: at you. Weirdo.
Speaker 3: Did she wink?
Speaker 2: No, she's asleep, probably dreaming.
Speaker 3: Dreaming of winking. And there's a guy that has a
Speaker 3: pretty good perspective on this concept. His name is Hoder.
Speaker 3: Ian Hoder is an archaeologist who as what some of
Speaker 3: us doubtlessly would consider a dream job. For decades, he
Speaker 3: has been deep into the excavation of a little place
Speaker 3: called katal Hyolk.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, that sounds really familiar to me. We've heard
Speaker 2: about this before. It's in Turkey, but I don't know
Speaker 2: anything else. Was it in ancient aliens or something? Is
Speaker 2: that how I have getting flashbacks?
Speaker 3: It recurs. We've mentioned it in several different episodes. It's
Speaker 3: a really weird place. It's like nine thousand something years old.
Speaker 3: There are huge questions about why people built something there,
Speaker 3: how long they lived there, what their day to day
Speaker 3: lives or spiritual beliefs were like it is. It will
Speaker 3: often pop up in ancient civilization stories, ancient alien stories,
Speaker 3: the true origin of human entity type stuff, and it's
Speaker 3: it's a fascinating place.
Speaker 2: Well, and hod believes that this may be where maybe
Speaker 2: not the origin first ever point, but Hoder believes it
Speaker 2: could have been one of the first places where some
Speaker 2: of this domestication was taking place.
Speaker 3: And Hood also doesn't cotton to the idea of you
Speaker 3: know humans as a civilized force taming the natural world. Instead,
Speaker 3: he calls the early interactions between humans and domesticated plants
Speaker 3: the quote first entanglement.
Speaker 2: MM I don't know, I like I like the way
Speaker 2: that sounds. It just sounds a little naughty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that some pop stars have have influenced the
Speaker 3: way we look at the word entanglement now, right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you know who you are. Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 3: We appreciate your support. Not listening they might be so,
Speaker 3: Hoader said. Look, as plants became increasingly domesticated, humans became
Speaker 3: increasingly dependent upon those crops, and that meant they would
Speaker 3: do their absolute best to make sure crops survived to
Speaker 3: harvest and could be regrown, hopefully over a larger amount
Speaker 3: of territory the next year. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: you know, as the seasons tick on, our good friends,
Speaker 3: the plants become increasingly reliant on humans. They got a
Speaker 3: little too comfortable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and isn't there a story about wheat kind of
Speaker 2: became so dependent on humans that it was difficult to
Speaker 2: find specific strains of it in the wild anymore. It
Speaker 2: was basically like, oh, that's the wheat that you got
Speaker 2: to grow on that specific soil that those humans got.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, exactly. This is a perfect example because multiple
Speaker 3: plants cannot can no longer reproduce in their current form
Speaker 3: without human intervention. And it's kind of a fascinating thing, right.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of some fruits that have you know,
Speaker 3: that have a pit like picture. I don't like an
Speaker 3: avocado or something. Those things were reliant on dinosaurs to
Speaker 3: eat them and then transport them by passing them through
Speaker 3: their intestines as they you know, walked and dinoed around.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's it's given me flashes of human domestication when
Speaker 2: whatever the next thing comes along and decides that we're
Speaker 2: cute and worth keeping around.
Speaker 3: You know, if only we could breed them to have
Speaker 3: bigger eyes and ears. Right.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, well and they can't breed anymore unless we
Speaker 2: intervene and you know, help out. But that's fine. If
Speaker 2: you need one, we've got it. Specialized companies that provide
Speaker 2: you know, pretty good humans, actually pretty good.
Speaker 3: Make sure you get your humans from a certified human provider.
Speaker 3: Watch out for those kiddie mills.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that's exactly what pray too.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, that's what happens. But Okay, it's weird then,
Speaker 3: because what Hoder and other experts are arguing is that
Speaker 3: domestication made humans and some plants codependent. They entered a
Speaker 3: codependent relationship. And now again to the point about entanglements,
Speaker 3: codependent carries its own not super great implications in modern.
Speaker 2: Foolish well, of course not well, because if you've got
Speaker 2: a reliable source of you know, wheat, barley, whatever, one
Speaker 2: of these plants that is a staple, right, you can
Speaker 2: have more people join up and hang out around where
Speaker 2: those crops are. Then now you really depend on those
Speaker 2: crops because if you don't have them, you can't feed
Speaker 2: all the people that are there, and if you're not
Speaker 2: made and enough, you can't feed them. But you're also
Speaker 2: adding in the economics of the whole system, where you're
Speaker 2: not only making that crop to feed all the people
Speaker 2: who now lived there, you are making that crop to
Speaker 2: make money or whatever to trade, right, to bring other
Speaker 2: things in that those people also need.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely it. The system builds upon itself.
Speaker 3: We talked about this in the past, man, but remember
Speaker 3: that book Sapiens by 'vall Noah Harari.
Speaker 2: I have heard you talk about I think Knowel's read
Speaker 2: parts of it too. I've not read it, but it
Speaker 2: sounds amazing every time we talk about it.
Speaker 3: It's a great think piece book. Now, a lot of
Speaker 3: scientists and subject matter experts get their dander up about
Speaker 3: certain passages, but Harari talks about this as well, this
Speaker 3: plant human relationship, and he specifically says the agricultural revolution
Speaker 3: was history's biggest fraud and that wheat and rice and
Speaker 3: potatoes domesticated Homo sapiens rather than the other way around.
Speaker 2: Sure, Harari, I still don't get it, but I mean
Speaker 2: I kind of see the argument. I just don't understand
Speaker 2: how there's what actions were taken by the plants to
Speaker 2: domesticate the humans. That's what I want to know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, same right, And you know, do check out the book.
Speaker 3: It is worth a read. You can also see new
Speaker 3: research that has been conducted, including a multi university thing
Speaker 3: in Europe where they're trying to prove or maybe they're
Speaker 3: trying to address or support the suppositions of people like Harari.
Speaker 3: But I'm with you, I'm Tea Matt on this. This
Speaker 3: takes us all the way to one of the strangest
Speaker 3: topics we've grappled with in the history of this show.
Speaker 3: To your question, what did plants do? We always think
Speaker 3: of plants as these passive, these passive creatures right, just
Speaker 3: encountering the world around them. But this idea of flipping
Speaker 3: the script here, it brings us to the sticky, complicated
Speaker 3: notion of something called plant intelligence. Dunk dun, dum oh.
Speaker 2: We have a video on this owner YouTube channel. Go
Speaker 2: in check it out.
Speaker 3: Plant intelligence. Okay, at first, yeah, might sound pretty nuts,
Speaker 3: no pun left behind.
Speaker 2: Uh well, it always makes me think about carnivorous plants
Speaker 2: for some reason. I don't know why. I associate the
Speaker 2: act of eating another creature, like a living creature, by
Speaker 2: that is somehow intelligence, But I know it's not. It's
Speaker 2: just that's what I think about.
Speaker 3: It's one of the oldest covenants for sure. You know
Speaker 3: also that's a creepy way to describe it. But I
Speaker 3: agree with you, yep, that's also I mean, think about
Speaker 3: it too when when when predators evolve, they tend to
Speaker 3: exercise what we call a higher degree of intelligence than
Speaker 3: prey animals. So that transfers maybe to our image of
Speaker 3: a carnivorous plant. Also feed me seymore little Shop of
Speaker 3: Horrors stem Disterned banger, best song about dentists in the
Speaker 3: history of musical theater.
Speaker 2: Due, yes, right, yeah, oh I do, I definitely remember.
Speaker 2: But there's something about it's not planning that's necessary. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's just cunning that's necessary to hunt something successfully and
Speaker 2: to be like a predator that's large enough to be
Speaker 2: successful enough to sustain itself for a long period of time.
Speaker 2: To me, it speaks to some kind of as you're saying, intelligence,
Speaker 2: or at least I think the word is cunning for me.
Speaker 3: And there's a convergent evolution too that we see in predators, right,
Speaker 3: that's where the eyes start to shift towards the front
Speaker 3: of the face. You know, you get different types of
Speaker 3: muscle et cetera, et cetera, muscle groups rather. I also,
Speaker 3: you know, we got to point out there are carnivorous
Speaker 3: plants that aren't necessarily go getters the way that humans
Speaker 3: think about them, right, the ones that are just evil
Speaker 3: cups basically.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, well even again, I don't know if it's
Speaker 2: the documentaries we've seen in the past, all of us
Speaker 2: together collectively, but like a venus fly trap, when you
Speaker 2: learn about the system of those little it's feelers They're
Speaker 2: like hairs that are inside, right, And it's just a
Speaker 2: system where you trip it twice in a short time span.
Speaker 2: The thing closes and it waits, it digests, and then
Speaker 2: opens again. It's a pretty simple system. But is there
Speaker 2: intelligence in there?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Or is it cunning? How do we define intelligence
Speaker 3: and cunning? I think a lot of the when we
Speaker 3: dismiss the idea of plant intelligence. Check out our earlier
Speaker 3: episode on that. What the people who dismiss that are
Speaker 3: making an error. I would argue they're conflating two related
Speaker 3: yet distinct concepts, intelligence and sentience.
Speaker 2: And let us explore it. After a quick word from
Speaker 2: our sponsor.
Speaker 3: And we have returned. Shout out to all the plants
Speaker 3: tuning in to tonight's podcast. However, you're hearing this right
Speaker 3: as a plants email.
Speaker 2: All right, No, look, now that you said that, I
Speaker 2: am going to find a way to take these headphones
Speaker 2: outside and play this episode for I've got a rose bush,
Speaker 2: so I'll see what i can do.
Speaker 3: That's awesome, and we do know that plants. Oh, there's
Speaker 3: this fascinating a series of studies that show us plants
Speaker 3: do seem to react to music, to voices, but it's
Speaker 3: kind of like maybe a dog reacting to humans in
Speaker 3: some way. They may not be getting, you know, they
Speaker 3: may not be aware that you are playing Glenn Miller
Speaker 3: for them, but they may be reacting to some sort
Speaker 3: of note or vibration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, those trombones.
Speaker 3: M h yeah, big fans of trombones. Plants, Oh boy,
Speaker 3: this is why we got kicked out of botany class.
Speaker 3: Someone who would have agreed with us is an actual botanist,
Speaker 3: an Italian botanist named Stefano Mancuzo, and Mencuzo argues that
Speaker 3: humans have always dramatically underestimated what he sees as the
Speaker 3: intelligence of plants, just because we're coming from the human perspective,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yes, and men Cuzo wrote a book titled The Incredible
Speaker 2: Journey of Plants. Oh buddy, I love it. I love
Speaker 2: the idea. It's kind of what we're exploring here today.
Speaker 2: And he thinks that if we look at the if
Speaker 2: we look at plants all together, or a plant outside
Speaker 2: of what he calls the animal filter, then there are
Speaker 2: other qualities, like they're mind blowing qualities will emerge. But
Speaker 2: you know, you've got to take your brain out of
Speaker 2: that whole, like, this is a plant and this is
Speaker 2: an animal. Animals run and bark and meow and they're great.
Speaker 2: This plant sits and grows. Okay, you've got to take
Speaker 2: yourself away from that differentiation, I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then when you do that, you see all
Speaker 3: these strange actions that plants take. You know, they seeds
Speaker 3: that hitchhike. The adaptations that plants have evolved to spread
Speaker 3: themselves are nothing short of astonishing. Like what are what's
Speaker 3: the name for those seeds that spin when you throw
Speaker 3: them here in the air.
Speaker 2: In the helicopter seeds. Helicopter seeds you heard, I don't
Speaker 2: know what they're going.
Speaker 3: There's something called the dynamite tree, the heroicrepitons that can
Speaker 3: shoot fruit capsules up over three hundred feet away.
Speaker 2: M h. I've seen that in slow motion in one
Speaker 2: of them nature documentaries.
Speaker 3: Plants can thrive after man made disasters like the nuclear
Speaker 3: meltdown at Chernobyl, And then plants also can basically nap
Speaker 3: for thousands of years. They can just go dormant and
Speaker 3: then you give them the water, you give them the soil,
Speaker 3: and then just right back at it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, Just like viruses in the Arctic.
Speaker 3: Or the Siberian permafrost. Yeah, we're fine, We're fine, and
Speaker 3: look at this point, you know, rightly, with some validity,
Speaker 3: we might collectively groan and say, come on, guys, come on,
Speaker 3: Matt and when they call bin adaptation does not necessarily
Speaker 3: imply intelligence. Evolution is a brute force hack. Evolution occurred
Speaker 3: before humans were a thing. It's not as if any
Speaker 3: of these plant life forms woke up one evening and
Speaker 3: decided to mutate, is it? Because the tricky thing is
Speaker 3: to understand that we would have to have humanity would
Speaker 3: have to have a definition of intelligence, like a good one,
Speaker 3: and humanity does not.
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, well, humanity's version of intelligence or definition of
Speaker 2: intelligence is like you're good at being. Not really, that's
Speaker 2: not really it, But it's close to that, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it depends on what school of thought we subscribe to,
Speaker 3: Like multipolar intelligence would say there are discrete genres of
Speaker 3: good at being right, you are good at numbers being,
Speaker 3: you are a good at interpersonal relationship being, et cetera,
Speaker 3: et cetera, and a lot of educational systems are based
Speaker 3: off those distinctions. But if we look at the most
Speaker 3: basic operative definition, I think we could say intelligence can
Speaker 3: be defined as the ability to operate successfully in a
Speaker 3: given environment, which means you might be very very smart
Speaker 3: in one scenario, very very dumb in another one.
Speaker 2: Oh so, like you can't successfully put together that bathroom
Speaker 2: vanity that you just bought or the sink that you're
Speaker 2: supposed to put into it. Wait and hold on, I'm
Speaker 2: just being self depregad I can't do that stuff, So
Speaker 2: I'm not intelligent in the putting together vanity sets arena.
Speaker 3: You know, it's the differences that the fight us. All Right,
Speaker 3: I would be I think I would be in the
Speaker 3: same remedial vanity set class because there's a trick to it,
Speaker 3: you know. Also, like, yeah, to that example, Let's say
Speaker 3: you're a physics professor and you take an entry level
Speaker 3: physics mid term that kids take in undergrad. You're gonna
Speaker 3: ace it because you teach it. You're very intelligent in
Speaker 3: that world of physics. But then let's let's see if
Speaker 3: you can get together with other physicists and successfully install
Speaker 3: and hang a door.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm actually I bet they could. I bet they could.
Speaker 3: It's so tough, it's so tough, and this is not
Speaker 3: us duncan on physicists. This is us say, it's so tough.
Speaker 2: To make a door work, right, Yeah, things correct exactly?
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah. And so in that, in that hypothetical situation,
Speaker 3: we see the same entity being considered very, very intelligent,
Speaker 3: and then maybe not as intelligent depending upon the changes
Speaker 3: of their environment. And then if we remove the animal
Speaker 3: filter man Quzo's talking about, then we see that plants
Speaker 3: are another type of life form or collections of life forms,
Speaker 3: behaving in a pretty fascinating, dare we say, intelligent manner?
Speaker 3: Like you said, plants travel the world, you.
Speaker 1: Know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I don't care how many stamps are on your passport.
Speaker 3: There is a plant that has been more places than you.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, you're probably right.
Speaker 3: It's a weird it's a weird observation, it is.
Speaker 2: But and it's also weird to think about a specific
Speaker 2: plant because there are some trees, right that are much
Speaker 2: older than the oldest human being. But it's one tree, right,
Speaker 2: It's not that type of sequoia or whatever it's. It's
Speaker 2: I don't know, in my mind, I don't see how
Speaker 2: individual plants can then have enough experience to learn, I guess,
Speaker 2: to be intelligent in environments right to then take actions,
Speaker 2: because then it always goes back to the action what
Speaker 2: what is actually being done? But you know, think about
Speaker 2: the evolution of some plants that like taste horrible or
Speaker 2: have or are toxic to predators or anything that would
Speaker 2: eat them. Right, that's something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then maybe I like where it goes with this.
Speaker 3: Maybe it points out the weakness in some of these
Speaker 3: arguments is the idea of a distinction between a group
Speaker 3: and an individual. Does you know a single stalk of
Speaker 3: corn sprout from the ground like a hand sprouting from
Speaker 3: a grave in a horror movie and say to the universe,
Speaker 3: I corn, not all corn, just the one that is
Speaker 3: me icorn, I corn coming to you soon from.
Speaker 2: But yeah, because how do you transfer that information? Let's
Speaker 2: say a single stock of corn gets played Mozart over
Speaker 2: and over and over again until the day that it
Speaker 2: passes away. But it's alone in a chamber where it's growing.
Speaker 2: Does that corn transfer that information in any way even
Speaker 2: if you take the seeds or you know that you
Speaker 2: take that corn to make more corn? Is there epigenetics
Speaker 2: involved with this thing?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Do you like if you took that one of those
Speaker 3: Mozart kernels and you planted it in another field of corn,
Speaker 3: would the other corn be like this nerd right, yeah.
Speaker 2: But then you play Mozart to the entire field and
Speaker 2: that one piece of corn is like, I don't know, nodding,
Speaker 2: it's yeah, of corn, it's vibe. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a good question. We know that plants
Speaker 3: do have these very specific adaptations, right, you mentioned stuff
Speaker 3: like capsaisin or various toxins. Plants can also respond to attacks,
Speaker 3: like there's some sweet potatoes that when they are bitten
Speaker 3: or chewed or attacked by some kind of creature, they
Speaker 3: release chemical signals that make other nearby plants spread defensive
Speaker 3: proteins that make them tougher to eat. So plants do,
Speaker 3: in a way, talk to each other. They just they
Speaker 3: do it through complex chemical signals that human scientists still
Speaker 3: don't understand. That gets very close to sounding a little
Speaker 3: like intelligence, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a crazy move. By the way, being eaten
Speaker 2: all y'all get really hard, so he won't want to
Speaker 2: eat more of us. Everybody will survive. Hit the gym. Yeah, No,
Speaker 2: that's crazy.
Speaker 3: I agree with you.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 3: It's crazy because it has been occurring far before humanity.
Speaker 3: Hit the scene right, So this anthrocentrism might be stymying
Speaker 3: some of our progress, Like at the far end of
Speaker 3: the spectrum. I still remember our episode on plant communication.
Speaker 3: I don't think I don't. I don't know about you, Matt,
Speaker 3: but I don't think either of us were expecting it
Speaker 3: to go as far as it did. Like I didn't
Speaker 3: know they talk to each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's very different. The chemical signals always goes
Speaker 2: back to that movie The Happening I think from m
Speaker 2: Night Shyamalan. God, but it's worth a watch at some point.
Speaker 2: Just imagine it. Just imagine that plant somehow developed a
Speaker 2: simultaneous defense mechanism against humans. That's fascinating to me. It's
Speaker 2: a cool thought experiment. You have to go through well,
Speaker 2: Mark Wahlberg talk saying every line like he's whispering it
Speaker 2: just a little bit, but it's okay, you can get
Speaker 2: through it. Fascinating idea.
Speaker 3: The idea is amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I lost myself because now I've just got visions
Speaker 2: of Mark Wahlberg whispering his lines.
Speaker 3: You're saying, there's something wrong with the with the plants.
Speaker 2: Say a load to your mother for me, to your mother,
Speaker 2: for me, chicken.
Speaker 3: I promise I'm not racist anymore, right, But I walked
Speaker 3: down the street for that one.
Speaker 2: But I really like him as an actor. By the way,
Speaker 2: for some reason in this movie with him whispering just
Speaker 2: I don't know why, it bothered me.
Speaker 3: Well, also, that was a directorial choice, so I can't
Speaker 3: put entirely on him, right, But there's there's something else
Speaker 3: that I wasn't aware of that Mankizo points out, you
Speaker 3: could say that plants act a bit like parents in
Speaker 3: some case because to your point about very old mature
Speaker 3: trees that have, you know, burst through the forest canopy
Speaker 3: and now they form, you know, the top echelons of it.
Speaker 3: Some of these trees will feed the saplings that can't
Speaker 3: get sunlight, and they'll feed them through underground fungal networks. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's that's pretty crazy logistics, right.
Speaker 2: That can't happen, is what my brain says.
Speaker 3: And then our brains could also say, okay, we get it, guys,
Speaker 3: that's all fascinating. But these plants didn't decide to do
Speaker 3: any of that. It just happened. And I would argue
Speaker 3: that that points out, even though it's a safe understandable position,
Speaker 3: it points out a flawed assumption in the argument, do
Speaker 3: humans decide to do things? No, to what degree does
Speaker 3: you know free will?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 3: Does free will exist? I'd like to think so.
Speaker 2: Well, according to Robert Sapolski, which is a person you
Speaker 2: should search right now through your Googles or whatever other
Speaker 2: search you're using, he doesn't think free will exists, and
Speaker 2: he's been studying it for a long time.
Speaker 3: So he didn't even decide to write his book.
Speaker 2: Right, it was gonna happen, dude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now refresh us on that he is a neuroscientist, right.
Speaker 2: M hmm. Yeah. I don't have all the facts. I
Speaker 2: was reading about him in October. I was talking. He
Speaker 2: was making the rounds for one reason or another. People
Speaker 2: were talking about him a lot, and it was just
Speaker 2: fascinating to again, and it's worth your time. I think
Speaker 2: everybody out there just really consider free will for a
Speaker 2: little bit, because the act of considering free will feels
Speaker 2: like a free will thing, right, but it may not be.
Speaker 2: Maybe if you hear me say that and then you
Speaker 2: have a desire to think about free will, maybe that
Speaker 2: was just a part of who you were anyway, and
Speaker 2: you were just going to listen to this podcast, this
Speaker 2: episode specifically because that's just who you are. Man.
Speaker 3: Well, it's true, right, It's a thing that most people
Speaker 3: would kind of look at a skance.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: If someone says free will doesn't exist, then there's this
Speaker 3: for most people. I think there's this impulsive, instantaneous reaction
Speaker 3: that says, no, me, I'm a thing like I am
Speaker 3: a master, I am a thinking entity. Yeah you are.
Speaker 3: You are an object in space. You are a voice
Speaker 3: in the dark. That is very different. I decide what
Speaker 3: I do. Right, But we also know with just the
Speaker 3: barest like street level hustler psychology, that people can be
Speaker 3: easily pushed into not just making decisions, but feeling as
Speaker 3: though they have made not just do actions, I should say,
Speaker 3: but made to feel as though those actions were their
Speaker 3: own decision. It's deep water.
Speaker 2: It is weird to think that you're starting build once
Speaker 2: you enter the game, right, It's just that's what's gonna
Speaker 2: happen now, depending on the starting builds of all the
Speaker 2: people around you.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: And it doesn't sound fair. It certainly doesn't sound egalitarian.
Speaker 3: And it's also like a question of you know, that's
Speaker 3: that's where you get into the fuzzy line between science
Speaker 3: and metaphysics and philosophy, right, Like were the Calvinists correct
Speaker 3: when they argued predetermination or determinism, et cetera? Like is
Speaker 3: are in that argument or in similar arguments of that note?
Speaker 3: The story goes that when you are born, you are
Speaker 3: either destined for hell or you're destined for heaven, and
Speaker 3: nothing you do in any direction will change that initial conclusion.
Speaker 3: Kind of depressing, right, I don't think anybody wants to
Speaker 3: imagine themselves as a series of if then's guest knows
Speaker 3: that cannot change their mind or determine their own course
Speaker 3: in the universe.
Speaker 2: It's certainly not helpful for decision making.
Speaker 3: Right, And by the way, arguing against free will will
Speaker 3: not hold up if you are ever in court.
Speaker 2: You're honor.
Speaker 3: We're just all sort of objects in space.
Speaker 2: Man. I do like that idea. I'd love to see
Speaker 2: that as I been. I wonder if that's been in
Speaker 2: a movie before. Write to us and let us know,
Speaker 2: because I can imagine that's a thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Matt, Maybe here we end with a few more
Speaker 3: questions than any answers, like what would this teach us?
Speaker 3: Did plants conspire to use humans as another vector in evolution?
Speaker 3: I mean can we even attribute motivation to them?
Speaker 2: Maybe we can. The my celial network thing somehow holds
Speaker 2: a key to be able to transfer nutrients and potentially
Speaker 2: information across long distances between very different genetic maybe cousins
Speaker 2: of like the same plants. That that is very interesting
Speaker 2: to me, and I think there needs to be a
Speaker 2: harder look at that. I'd love to take one. Although
Speaker 2: I would understand, I would understand five percent of what's
Speaker 2: being said. I'm definitely interested in that. You know that.
Speaker 3: Reminds me, Uh, we should also mention plants squeal like
Speaker 3: we weren't just joking about the sound effect plants do
Speaker 3: vocalized toward one another. And to your point about this communication,
Speaker 3: this no working. I wonder how domestication has changed that, Like,
Speaker 3: cruciferous vegetables are all kind of related to your point
Speaker 3: about cousins, right, broccoli, backchoy, cabbage, et cetera. So how
Speaker 3: does their interaction work? Are they far enough apart now
Speaker 3: that they are mutually unintelligible in a chemical way? What
Speaker 3: about different citrus fruits? You know what I mean? People
Speaker 3: are crossbreading those all the time. What about apples? Apples
Speaker 3: are so weird? Those things are all mutants. It is
Speaker 3: so hard to grow apples.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just go with the honey crisp. Oh wait, that's
Speaker 2: like a brand, now, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Well, aren't they all? I mean there's they are distinct
Speaker 3: types of apple, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. That's just the
Speaker 2: one my son likes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got I go for Fuji. But I think
Speaker 3: the most misleading one is red Delicious.
Speaker 2: It never was not even once.
Speaker 3: They promised a lot, a lot, and did they deliver
Speaker 3: well each their own. I mean it also depends on
Speaker 3: our perspective, right, Like you're listening to this and we
Speaker 3: could dismiss all of this, all these high folutint dialogues
Speaker 3: about the nature of free will and intelligence, visentience, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And you might say, well, you know what, guys, I
Speaker 3: don't see plants out at the farmer's market buying parts
Speaker 3: of people. Might yet not yet, but we can't get
Speaker 3: around it. The domestication of plants changed humanity just as
Speaker 3: much as humans changed plants, only in different ways. But
Speaker 3: the degree of change is still I think significant and
Speaker 3: quite I don't want to say terrifying, but tune into
Speaker 3: our space. Upungus episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the fungus is the way to go, man,
Speaker 2: because fungus eats people, right, I think that's an important
Speaker 2: ass sot. I guess some plants also eats people. It's true.
Speaker 3: I mean, fungus can also change behavior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's something to it. We mentioned that before that
Speaker 2: if you look at the food chain is a little
Speaker 2: different and it continues along. There's no top of the
Speaker 2: food chain. It's just one big circular thing. Fungus is
Speaker 2: like sitting pretty looking at everything going delicious.
Speaker 3: Fungus is like that producer that you might not hear
Speaker 3: on the songs, but when you look through the liner notes,
Speaker 3: fungus is on every track of the album.
Speaker 2: How's she on here too?
Speaker 3: So I guess maybe one of the takeaways we could
Speaker 3: say is this does teach us about the dangers of
Speaker 3: framing the dangers of anthrocentrism. Maybe by limiting ourselves to
Speaker 3: these human or fauna perspectives, we're limiting our understanding of
Speaker 3: the world overall. To your point about the food chain,
Speaker 3: I mean is that I don't know, man, we didn't
Speaker 3: get to answers. I don't know what the answers are.
Speaker 2: Well, just because one person or a group of very
Speaker 2: smart people, at least conventionally to us humans has the
Speaker 2: idea maybe plants domesticated humans. It doesn't mean it's true,
Speaker 2: But I think one of the most important things here
Speaker 2: is what you just said, been to put your mind
Speaker 2: in a place like that, to ask questions that are
Speaker 2: pretty out there like that, just to consider not only
Speaker 2: yourself but all of the things that you do every day,
Speaker 2: including enjoying that piece of buck choy ah.
Speaker 3: And what better way to end right now that we've
Speaker 3: talked about the nature of intelligence and existence with plants,
Speaker 3: Let's go eat some. Let's chop them up.
Speaker 2: I'm so hungry.
Speaker 3: It's what they would want. We can't wait to hear
Speaker 3: what you think, folks. Again, Like we said, this is
Speaker 3: a more philosophical conversation, right and we would love for
Speaker 3: you to be a part of it. So let's call
Speaker 3: it free will and find us. We're on the internet,
Speaker 3: We're on YouTube, Instagram, farmers only, you name it, you'll
Speaker 3: find us. There's some iteration thereof And if you don't
Speaker 3: sip the social meds, if you're like, hey, guys, I'm
Speaker 3: a plant, I'm a quaking aspen. I don't get on TikTok.
Speaker 3: That's not for me.
Speaker 2: Ah, well, then find us on conifers only specifically, that's
Speaker 2: the one. But yeah. Maybe you like to use a
Speaker 2: phone and call numbers and then leave voicemails, Well you
Speaker 2: can do that with us. Call one eight three three
Speaker 2: st d WYTK. When you call in, you've got three minutes.
Speaker 2: Give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
Speaker 2: we can use your name and message on one of
Speaker 2: our listener mail episodes. If you don't want to do that,
Speaker 2: why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 2: We are the folks.
Speaker 3: Read every single email we get. Can't wait to hear
Speaker 3: from you. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
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