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Speaker 1: Come out of the man thou let spirit. What is

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Speaker 1: thy name? My name is Legion, because yawnny, and he

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Speaker 1: besought him much that he would not send them away

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Speaker 1: out of the country. Now there was there nigh unto

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Speaker 1: the mountains, a great herd of swine feeting, and all

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Speaker 1: the devils besought him, saying, sitting us among the peaks,

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Speaker 1: allow us to go into them, and forthwith Jesus gave

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Speaker 1: them leave, and the unclean spirits went out and entered

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Speaker 1: into the swine, and the herd ran violently down a

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Speaker 1: steep place into the sea, and were choked from the sea.

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Speaker 1: Welcome Stuff to Blow your Mind. A production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and

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Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. And it's still October, so of course

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Speaker 1: we're letting out a great demonic oink today, Robert, I know. So,

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Speaker 1: so you wanted to talk about a demoniac today. And

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Speaker 1: this was a very exciting idea to me because this

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Speaker 1: story in the Bible about the garrison or gathering demoniac

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Speaker 1: has long been one of my favorites, but also because

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Speaker 1: it's a story that concerns possessed swine. I think it

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Speaker 1: gives us a great opportunity to talk about pig technology. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is this is a really fun one. I guess

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Speaker 1: you'd say. This is definitely a section of the New

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Speaker 1: Testament that I remember turning to when I would if

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Speaker 1: I was bored in church growing up, because it it

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Speaker 1: is such a weird little scene, you know, Jesus meeting

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Speaker 1: with um an individual that's possessed not by one demon,

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Speaker 1: but by like thousands of demons, a legion of demons

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Speaker 1: and uh, and then negotiating them out of the man,

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Speaker 1: but not only that, sending them then into a whole

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Speaker 1: bunch of pigs, which subsequently fall off the side of

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Speaker 1: a cliff into the ocean. Inge rown right. And there

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Speaker 1: are plenty of other stories in the New Testament about

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Speaker 1: Jesus doing various healings, doing exorcisms, so that that happens elsewhere.

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Speaker 1: But it's like the setting and the weird conclusion of

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Speaker 1: this story that make it so memorable going into the pigs.

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Speaker 1: So maybe we should look at the story in a

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Speaker 1: little bit of context and then come back to talk

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Speaker 1: about thoughts about it's you know, historical and theological role,

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Speaker 1: and then thoughts about pigs as animals and uh and

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Speaker 1: what a stampede of of devilish intelligence they might bring forth.

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Speaker 1: So I guess let's start with the story in the

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Speaker 1: context of the Gospel of Mark. And I think that's

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Speaker 1: a good place to start, because pretty much all scholars

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Speaker 1: agree that Mark is the earliest of the four canonical gospels,

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Speaker 1: since it's clear that the other gospels used Mark as

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Speaker 1: a source and like they made variations on it according

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Speaker 1: to their storytelling priorities, and probably also from the use

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Speaker 1: of other sources. Uh. Now, this story does also appear

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Speaker 1: in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, but with some changes. Uh. So.

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Speaker 1: In the Gospel of Mark, the story happens in chapter five,

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Speaker 1: and it's right after a chapter where Jesus is out

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Speaker 1: preaching to a crowd. He tells the crowd a bunch

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Speaker 1: of familiar parables, like the parable of the lamp under

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Speaker 1: the bushel basket and the parable of the mustard seed.

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Speaker 1: You know, if you have faith is only the size

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Speaker 1: of a mustard seed, you can do great things, hits right. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And in the chapters before this in Mark, he's done

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Speaker 1: some various preaching, some healing. I think he heals the paralytic,

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Speaker 1: he heals a man with a withered hand. But so

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Speaker 1: at the end of this UH, at the fourth chapter,

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Speaker 1: after he's been doing this preaching, Jesus says, okay, let's

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Speaker 1: go across the sea, which is taken to refer to

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Speaker 1: the Sea of Galilee. It's a body of water UH

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Speaker 1: in the area. So Jesus and the disciples leave behind

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Speaker 1: the crowds. They get in the boat to cross the water,

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Speaker 1: and on the way across, a big storm comes up,

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Speaker 1: and the disciples are all shaken in their boots. But

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Speaker 1: then Jesus wakes up and he says, peace be still,

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Speaker 1: and the storm is replaced with dead calm. And then

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Speaker 1: Jesus goes on to immediately shame his disciples for being afraid, saying,

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Speaker 1: have you still no faith? And they're all of course

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Speaker 1: amazed by his powers, saying who is this then that

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Speaker 1: even the wind and the sea obey him. So I think,

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Speaker 1: in the context of the Gospel story, UH, this preacher

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Speaker 1: Jesus has been telling parables that shows great wisdom about

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Speaker 1: the coming Kingdom of God, and he's showing more and

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Speaker 1: more direct power himself all the time, not just as

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Speaker 1: a teacher, but as possibly some kind of sorcerer or

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Speaker 1: even divine being. And that's when we get to the

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Speaker 1: demoniac here. So they get to the other side of

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Speaker 1: the Sea of Galilee, and Mark says it's in the

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Speaker 1: country of the Garacenes, but other gospels say it's in

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Speaker 1: a different place, the country of the Maternes. And that's

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Speaker 1: why they're different names for this story, the gathering Swine,

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Speaker 1: the gathering demoniac, the Guarristine and swine the Garristine demoniac.

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Speaker 1: But wherever it is, we immediately meet this man out

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Speaker 1: of the tombs. Yeah. And it's it's worth noting that,

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Speaker 1: you know, the differences in the other two gospels. Um,

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Speaker 1: in Matthew, for instance, it's not one man out of

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Speaker 1: the tomb, but two men out of the tomb. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then also in Luke, it's one man again, but

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Speaker 1: this time he's also naked, as if to you know,

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Speaker 1: really stress the feral nature of the individual. Well, yes,

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Speaker 1: and then Luke's telling of the story, Uh, it's I

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Speaker 1: think it's that's the one where it's stressed that he

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Speaker 1: was naked before he got the demons cast out, and

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Speaker 1: then he puts on clothes at once the demons are

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Speaker 1: out of him, right, and then sometimes in like retellings

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Speaker 1: I've noticed, especially in artistic depictions of this scene, sometimes

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Speaker 1: the artists seemed to just pick and choose from all three,

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Speaker 1: you know. So I saw one where it was two

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Speaker 1: naked individuals serving as the men of the tomb. Oh,

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Speaker 1: this is a very common thing that happens. Because you've got,

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Speaker 1: you know, different versions of the same story that appear

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Speaker 1: across the four Gospels. Sometimes people will just, like as

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Speaker 1: modern readers come, bind them all into one, so they'll

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Speaker 1: put all the elements there next to each other in

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Speaker 1: ways that don't always make sense, but it can be funny.

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Speaker 1: So what follows is, yeah, an exorcism scene, you know,

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Speaker 1: one that's maybe not as as dramatic as modern horror

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Speaker 1: viewers would would hope for. It's a little more more

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Speaker 1: of a negotiation in some respects. Yeah, but yeah, on

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Speaker 1: the face of it, we have a very disturbed individual

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Speaker 1: who seems to live among the tombs and abuses himself

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Speaker 1: with rocks, like scratching himself up with rocks. Yeah, we're

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Speaker 1: told he lives in the graveyard, but he spends day

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Speaker 1: and night prowling the graveyard in the mountains, bruising himself

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Speaker 1: with rocks and howling. Yeah, and then of course when

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Speaker 1: Jesus shows up, right, we get the the unclean spirits.

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Speaker 1: Immediately they start begging Jesus like they recognize his power,

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Speaker 1: which I think is a thing that's supposed to be

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Speaker 1: important in the story. Yeah, they realized they don't have

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Speaker 1: a lot of bargaining strength her into this. It's like

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Speaker 1: when the bad Cops shows up in the interrogation room.

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Speaker 1: They're like, oh no, yeah, now we're we've been getting

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Speaker 1: away with this, but now we're in trouble. And so

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Speaker 1: they immediately begged Jesus not to send them away. They

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Speaker 1: reveal their name, which I think we can come back

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Speaker 1: to that, but that might be a theologically significant thing.

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Speaker 1: They revealed their name is Legion, as in a large

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Speaker 1: Roman military unit consisting of more than a thousand soldiers.

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Speaker 1: It was different numbers at different times. Yeah. I was

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Speaker 1: looking at at various modern translations, and there's at least

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Speaker 1: one translation that just said our name is a lot

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Speaker 1: because there are a lot of us. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: do think that's sort of what it was supposed to mean,

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Speaker 1: but but it lacks that right you know, like, what

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Speaker 1: if it was the name is a whole message us,

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Speaker 1: Like what if the film was The Exorcist three colon

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Speaker 1: a lot instead of Legion, which which of course is

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Speaker 1: referring back to this very this very line. Uh. Though

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Speaker 1: it might also be significant that Legion is like a

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Speaker 1: Roman concept because of course at the time, like a

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Speaker 1: huge theme of the Gospels is that the people, the

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Speaker 1: Jewish people are being occupied by the Romans, and there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of sort of rebellious sentiments and anti

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Speaker 1: Roman ideas. Yeah, yeah, and when we'll definitely come back

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Speaker 1: to some of the Roman elements here. Yeah. But to

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Speaker 1: conclude the story, of course, this was in the opening

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Speaker 1: passage we read. But Jesus commands the demons out. They

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Speaker 1: asked him to send them into a flock of pigs nearby,

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Speaker 1: and Jesus is like, okay, take the pigs. So he

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Speaker 1: sends them into the pigs, and then the pigs immediately

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Speaker 1: go stampeding down into the water of the Sea of

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Speaker 1: Galilee to their doom. So I see overall that I

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Speaker 1: think this story in its place in the Gospel of

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Speaker 1: Mark is kind of an escalation moment. Like Jesus keeps

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Speaker 1: showing greater and greater power, not just wisdom and teaching,

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Speaker 1: not just power over the winds and the seas, but

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Speaker 1: now even over a legion of demons. And so all

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Speaker 1: the disciples are of course like, oh wow, how you

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Speaker 1: know he's he's so powerful. They keep emphasizing that this

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Speaker 1: is even more powerful than we thought he was before.

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Speaker 1: So I was looking around for a little more information

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Speaker 1: on this than I read A Spirit Possession and the

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Speaker 1: Garrison h Demoniac by J. Duncan M. Derrett from The

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Speaker 1: journal Man in nine and he made the following points

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Speaker 1: about it. The first of all, he points out there

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Speaker 1: are no really important textual textual variance of the tale,

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Speaker 1: you know, like one one man possessed by demons, too

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Speaker 1: naked or not naked like still, that the story is

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Speaker 1: essentially the same. Now, I wonder if that also refers

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Speaker 1: to the fact that there are not major like non

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Speaker 1: canonical early older texts that have different versions of the

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Speaker 1: story that change, because that is the case with some stories.

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Speaker 1: He also points out that the man here is clearly

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Speaker 1: shunned as unclean, and he's engaging and in kind of

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Speaker 1: an out of control cleansing ritual, you know, the scraping

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Speaker 1: of the body, um you know, the the abusing of

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Speaker 1: himself with rocks, you know, really on those same lines

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Speaker 1: as like flagellation and so forth. Um Deret also draws

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Speaker 1: comparisons to various rights of possession in other cultures where

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Speaker 1: sensation to physical pain is dulled, which I think is

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Speaker 1: an interesting point because there are various like especially religious

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Speaker 1: trials and rituals, in which one will do something that

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Speaker 1: is either you know, definitely painful or takes on the

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Speaker 1: appearance of painful and just be via the like the

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Speaker 1: frenzy of the of the ritual, one is able to

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Speaker 1: to experience less pain or to uh or at least

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Speaker 1: it's you know, you get into that area where it's

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Speaker 1: like there's the experience of the of the right, and

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Speaker 1: then there is the the story of the right you know.

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Speaker 1: Well yeah. This also makes me think, of course, about

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Speaker 1: the nature of what was going on when people believe

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Speaker 1: they encounter demon possession in the ancient world. I mean, so,

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Speaker 1: of course, there are multiple theories about this, and it

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Speaker 1: would probably vary from case to case. Of course, one

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Speaker 1: major and pretty obvious thing is the idea that people

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Speaker 1: in the ancient world often didn't understand that they were

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Speaker 1: looking at the symptoms of various mental illnesses, and you know,

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Speaker 1: would characterize that as a person being possessed by an

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Speaker 1: unclean spirit. But you could also imagine a person who

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Speaker 1: might not necessarily have a particular mental illness, but would

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Speaker 1: be prompted in some various way by the religious context

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Speaker 1: to believe that they were possessed in some way and

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Speaker 1: act out the role. Yeah. I think of some of

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Speaker 1: the medieval rights of penance that would come much later,

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Speaker 1: in which one would say, for instance, flatulate yourself with

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Speaker 1: with sticks or whips, uh you know where, ragged clothing

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Speaker 1: and crawl through the streets. Uh, you know that sort

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Speaker 1: of thing. Uh. So in in in all of this,

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Speaker 1: Dred is saying that this is you know, potentially essentially

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Speaker 1: at the theater of protests that's taking place. You know

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Speaker 1: that there is a you know, there's a performance quality

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Speaker 1: to it, um of course. And then he points out that,

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Speaker 1: you know, Jesus acquires the demon's name, which is often

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Speaker 1: an important aspect of some sort of an exorcism ritual.

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Speaker 1: And I think that even shows up in like the

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Speaker 1: the Conjuring movies, right. Really, Yeah, I didn't know if

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Speaker 1: there was a like an actual ancient exorcism precedent for that,

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Speaker 1: but it's in the second Conjuring movie. There's this whole

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Speaker 1: thing where it's like I figured out the demon's name,

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Speaker 1: now I can defeat it. Oh yeah, it's definitely definitely

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Speaker 1: part of Dungeons and Dragons, you know, really the demon's name,

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Speaker 1: you have some power over it. Usually from the Gospel

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Speaker 1: of Guy GaX. Yeah. Um. And then he also points

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Speaker 1: out what we just discussed already. Legion is, of course

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Speaker 1: a military term. The man is possessed by a host

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Speaker 1: of demons, and Jesus is he's either speaking to all

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Speaker 1: of them or perhaps to the leader commanding them. And

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Speaker 1: Jesus has presented as being, you know, much more than

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Speaker 1: a match for an entire legion of demons. Like you said,

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Speaker 1: this is a lot of this is about presenting just

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Speaker 1: how how powerful Jesus is. Yes, And I think that's

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Speaker 1: an important point of comparison. When even you look at

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Speaker 1: something like in The Exorcist, you know, the priests show

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Speaker 1: up and the demon taunts them and stuff. It's like, okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm ready to do bad attle. When Jesus shows up,

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Speaker 1: the demon is immediately crying uncle. He's like Oh no,

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Speaker 1: don't send me out too far. Maybe just let me

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Speaker 1: go to the pigs, like he immediately knows he's beaten now. Pigs,

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Speaker 1: Derek reminds us, were slaughtered in offering to the underworld

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Speaker 1: at Roman burials, thus their connection to the tombs and

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Speaker 1: to this particular individual's fascination with morbidity and with death.

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Speaker 1: Pigs are associated with sacrifices to demons as well as

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Speaker 1: with beast reality, and Derett stresses that there is a

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Speaker 1: sexual connotation to spirit possession. Uh, you know, this idea

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Speaker 1: of of entering into the pigs, or also just the

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Speaker 1: idea of a spirit having entered into you and taken

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Speaker 1: hold of your senses. Well, that also makes me think

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Speaker 1: about another possible explanation for a belief in spirit possession

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Speaker 1: in the ancient world, which is just maybe a person

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Speaker 1: wasn't even necessarily experiencing symptoms of mental illness or even

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Speaker 1: acting out a possession. Maybe they were just behaving in

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Speaker 1: an unconventional way and people around them said, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: nobody in the right mind would act like that. So

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Speaker 1: if they violated sexual taboos or something like that, you

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Speaker 1: could say they must have had a demon in order

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Speaker 1: to do that. Now, one thing that he does point

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Speaker 1: out is that pigs are actually great swimmers, really yeah,

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Speaker 1: and also that they don't stampede. So there's a big

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Speaker 1: problem with this idea of potentially it defends how I

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Speaker 1: guess you read into the demon possession of the pigs.

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Speaker 1: But pigs on their own are not going to stampede.

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Speaker 1: They're probably not going to drown in the river. Now,

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Speaker 1: I guess you could say that, well, they're not. They're

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Speaker 1: no longer pig brains controlling those pigs. Those are scared

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Speaker 1: demon brains, and maybe they don't know how to swim. Well,

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Speaker 1: this is funny. I was also looking up examples. I

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Speaker 1: was trying to find things about pigs stampeding. I didn't

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Speaker 1: really find anything like good documented like zoological literature about

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Speaker 1: pig stampeding, though I did find a news story about

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Speaker 1: supposedly somewhere in Syria stampede of pigs killing some IIS

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Speaker 1: fighters and in recent years. But I think that's probably

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Speaker 1: just like a news like a journalist appellation. It might

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Speaker 1: have not have been a stampede, but just like a

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Speaker 1: herd of pigs. Wasn't there a scene in a cornte

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Speaker 1: McCarthy novel where I heard of pigs trample off into

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Speaker 1: the river, though probably a reference to this very tale.

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Speaker 1: I feel like it was. It was one of the

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Speaker 1: Appalachian books, like maybe Child of God or Outer Dark.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I've I've read some of those books,

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Speaker 1: but I don't remember that scene. But I could be wrong. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it might not have been picked, been something else. But

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of drowned animals at one point,

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Speaker 1: certainly now on the uncleanliness of pigs. Obviously, much has

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Speaker 1: been written about this because there you know, there there

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Speaker 1: are uh supposed practical reasons that pork is prohibited in

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Speaker 1: Judaism and Islam. One is that pigs are not very

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Speaker 1: sustainable and drier environments. That's the argument. Another is that pork,

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Speaker 1: of course can contain trickin nosis, but of course that's

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Speaker 1: taken care of if it's cooked properly. Um so, so

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Speaker 1: it's often in it out that like that, even when

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Speaker 1: Judaism and Islam, even when these religions travel out of

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Speaker 1: areas where you could make the argument that a pig

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Speaker 1: is not suitable for this environment, like, the restriction still remains. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I'm convinced by any of the alleged

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Speaker 1: practical reasons behind the prohibition on pork and other foods

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Speaker 1: in Judaism and Islam, because I mean, I haven't seen

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Speaker 1: any really convincing evidence there. It seems to be more likely.

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Speaker 1: This is another one of the many unique practices and

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Speaker 1: characteristics you'd find in any religion or culture that don't

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Speaker 1: necessarily result from some kind of clear material environmental mandate.

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Speaker 1: I mean, there are some like we were just recently

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Speaker 1: talking about, you know, sky burial practices in Tibet being

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Speaker 1: a religious cultural practice, but perhaps resulting from the fact

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Speaker 1: that also within that landscape, it's hard to find places

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Speaker 1: to dig graves, it's hard to find wood to burn

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Speaker 1: bodies with, so it just sort of makes sense from

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Speaker 1: a material environmental standpoint. I think sometimes explanations like that

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Speaker 1: makes sense. But I'm I'm not convinced by any of

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Speaker 1: the pork ones, right. Another one that sometimes brought up

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Speaker 1: well there in the texts themselves. Sometimes a point is

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Speaker 1: made about the cloven hoof, which seems kind of nonsensical. Why, yeah,

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Speaker 1: what's the problem. Yeah, there's also the idea that, well,

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Speaker 1: pigs are omnivores and they may consume scavenged flesh, and

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Speaker 1: that could be seen as unclean. But yes, we've discussed

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Speaker 1: in the show before even strict herbivores will eat meat

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Speaker 1: on occasion. Um. I Unfortunately, like I did some searching

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Speaker 1: on this, uh and and saw some videos of like

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Speaker 1: like how many ducklings can can a particular cow eat that?

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Speaker 1: You know? I mean, it just it happens, it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's so it's never considered cows before. We've thought about

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Speaker 1: like deer eating meat. Of course, squirrels and meat, we think, yeah,

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Speaker 1: wilder creatures, right, But this now is just haunting my brain.

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Speaker 1: Why is it so much scarier to be eaten by

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Speaker 1: a cow than any other animal? I can think because

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Speaker 1: you trusted it so much. I thought that you had it,

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Speaker 1: had invested through a domestication. Seems so docile, and then

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Speaker 1: it jumps seven feet straight in the air and eats you.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever seen how high cows can jump? It

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Speaker 1: looks wrong. I don't know that I have. Certainly I'm

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Speaker 1: always impressed by how fast a horse can move, and

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Speaker 1: how fast it can like PLoP unto the ground and

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Speaker 1: pop back up again. So let's get back though to

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Speaker 1: the religious reasons that ultimately the social reasons to prohibit

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Speaker 1: something like a pork is explained by a Nigel Barber, PhD.

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Speaker 1: In psychology today. The signaling theory of religion puts forth

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Speaker 1: that abstaining from something like pork is a way of

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Speaker 1: signaling your devotion and provides something that a social group

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Speaker 1: can bond over, and there's a you're all going to

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Speaker 1: be paying a ritual cost for this. Basically, food taboos

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Speaker 1: keep co religionists together and and it's something where like

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Speaker 1: everyone has to give up something, you have to pay

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Speaker 1: a fee to to join this club. Yeah, that makes

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Speaker 1: a lot of sense to me. Again, I don't know

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Speaker 1: that that's the primary real reason, but that certainly seems

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Speaker 1: very plausible. I mean, I think they are all kinds

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Speaker 1: of things that religions do where the main goal of

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Speaker 1: doing them is showing that you are a devoted member

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Speaker 1: of the religion and good standing. Right. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: like for a modern example, one turns to like the

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Speaker 1: straight edge movement. Right, We're on one hand, you can say, okay,

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Speaker 1: there is a sort of signaling going on here. People

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Speaker 1: who are abstaining from these various substances are doing so

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Speaker 1: and by doing so they can they can claim to

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Speaker 1: be a part of a particular group. However, it's not

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Speaker 1: the only thing, like they're also you know, any individual

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Speaker 1: that's that's following that lifestyle will also point to other

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Speaker 1: reasons why they are abstaining, not merely to be a

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Speaker 1: part of a group, but for you know, various other

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Speaker 1: lifestyle purposes. Oh sure, yeah, yeah, I mean, but whether

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Speaker 1: or not those other reasons are also truly motivating them,

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Speaker 1: I think it's hard to deny that shared abstinence creates solidarity. Right,

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Speaker 1: But to come back to the Romans, the Romans definitely

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Speaker 1: a pork. And so when the Omens roll in and began,

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Speaker 1: you know, controlling your territory, derating the pork, you are not.

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Speaker 1: There's a firm line to be drawn in the sand

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Speaker 1: there between us and them, right right, So there could

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Speaker 1: be like people all around with flocks of pigs that

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Speaker 1: they're preparing to eat, and you can look at those

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Speaker 1: things and be like, well, that's no part of my life. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And of course, ultimately, you know, rules against eating certain

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Speaker 1: animals are going to be kind of an arbitrary agreement.

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Speaker 1: And I think a huge example of this, as well

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Speaker 1: discussed is the predominant American notion that it's well and

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Speaker 1: good to eat a pig, that eating a pig is

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Speaker 1: something that should be celebrated, we should have parades about it.

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Speaker 1: But eating a dog, well, that's just that's just not

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Speaker 1: acceptable now. And then nature of exercismicism itself, Well, we've

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Speaker 1: covered exorcism on the show before, and I think it's

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Speaker 1: always important to to think about rights of exorcism across

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Speaker 1: various cultures. Is is being rights potentially too, of expulsion

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Speaker 1: of negative feelings, uh, negative attributes, and in some cases

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Speaker 1: an attempt crude attempt in some cases to treat mental illness,

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Speaker 1: you know. But I think think we have to think about,

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Speaker 1: you know, a tendency to think about the exorcisms as

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Speaker 1: a pure, superstitious right, and you know, not to think

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Speaker 1: about its connotations to more secular rights, such as expelling

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Speaker 1: negative thoughts via breath in various meditation and yoga practices,

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Speaker 1: you know. I mean, we don't think of that as exorcism,

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Speaker 1: We don't think of that as magic, but it is

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Speaker 1: an exercise that can allow us to well to to

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Speaker 1: to quote, doone to you know, to allow your your

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Speaker 1: fear to pass over and through you Oh yeah. I

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Speaker 1: mean I've see no problem at all from a secular standpoint,

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Speaker 1: excepting that exorcism could sometimes be a successful psychological intervention,

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Speaker 1: not because there are actually like like spirit demons, but

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Speaker 1: because like going like you're saying, like going through a

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Speaker 1: cathartic event where you go through some kind of ritual purging. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying that it's necessarily a reliable practice, but

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Speaker 1: it's not surprising that it might work sometimes in some cases.

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Speaker 1: And certainly not to say that it is a better

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Speaker 1: method for like, for actual mental illness. But but at

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Speaker 1: any rate, I just want to like frame, you know,

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Speaker 1: provide a frame of reference for it. Um. Also, I

408
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Speaker 1: want to come back to the idea of pig based

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Speaker 1: u beings, pig based monsters, and pig based creatures. Um.

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Speaker 1: You do see these should pop up in a lot

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Speaker 1: of different mythologies around the world wherever they are pigs.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's just given right, wherever there are pigs,

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Speaker 1: there is going to be some idea of the pig

414
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Speaker 1: half man, half pig being man. Pig monsters are are

415
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Speaker 1: underrated for horror value, yeah, absolutely, I feel like sometimes

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Speaker 1: they're rolled out as more comedic relief uh. And in

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Speaker 1: those cases, I don't I don't think enough you know,

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Speaker 1: enough emphasis is placed on just how how horrifying, how

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Speaker 1: scary like a wild boar can be. I have no

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Speaker 1: respect to whatsoever for the solo movies. That's just not

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Speaker 1: my kind of horror film. But the one thing I

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Speaker 1: remember thinking was actually successful about them is just the

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Speaker 1: fact that, like the creep in them, Where's sometimes wears

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Speaker 1: a pig mask. Oh yeah, that was one of his

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Speaker 1: many disguises, and one of a very dramatic individual. He

426
00:23:05,480 --> 00:23:08,440
Speaker 1: had a mask, yet a puppet. He had a whole

427
00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:12,240
Speaker 1: production truck. The puppets just kind of goofy. The pig

428
00:23:12,280 --> 00:23:15,400
Speaker 1: mask is where it's at. Uh. Now, I want to

429
00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 1: make a quick side note about Chinese tradition, you know,

430
00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 1: and all this talk of demons and pigs, I can't

431
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:24,240
Speaker 1: help but think of Pigsy. Are you familiar with Pigsy?

432
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:27,600
Speaker 1: I don't think I know Pigsy, Pigsy or what is it?

433
00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:32,240
Speaker 1: A zoo um bagier from Journey into the West. So

434
00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 1: if you just if you look up Journey into the

435
00:23:34,800 --> 00:23:37,840
Speaker 1: West and Pigsy, uh, for instance, on YouTube, you'll find

436
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:40,840
Speaker 1: numerous clips I'm sure from the various film and TV

437
00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:43,080
Speaker 1: adaptations of Journey into the West. I mean, they've also

438
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:46,520
Speaker 1: been video game adaptations of Journey into the West, but

439
00:23:47,160 --> 00:23:50,159
Speaker 1: the accounts vary. But basically, he was punished by the

440
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:53,840
Speaker 1: Jade Emperor for lusting after chang Uh, the Goddess of

441
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:56,360
Speaker 1: the Moon, and his punishment, he's cast down to Earth

442
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: and winds up in the form of a half pig,

443
00:23:58,200 --> 00:24:01,399
Speaker 1: half human monster. But just his faults, he becomes a

444
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:04,400
Speaker 1: great adventure and is a key character and Journey into

445
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:08,320
Speaker 1: the West and ultimately slays many demons. Oh, a pig slayer.

446
00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:10,359
Speaker 1: Did we talk about him in our in our monster

447
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:13,400
Speaker 1: Slayer episode last year? I don't think we did. Um. Yeah,

448
00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:15,480
Speaker 1: I don't think Journey into the West has has actually

449
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:17,679
Speaker 1: come up on the show before. But there's you know,

450
00:24:17,720 --> 00:24:19,919
Speaker 1: there's a there's a lot of wonderful material there if

451
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:22,000
Speaker 1: we ever choose to come back to it. Oh, I

452
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 1: guess I gotta read it now. Yeah, we're watching. Like

453
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:28,159
Speaker 1: I said, there's some fabulous film adaptations of this. You

454
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,000
Speaker 1: got the Monkey King, you got Pigsy or the whole group.

455
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:32,680
Speaker 1: All right, I think we have to take a break,

456
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:35,760
Speaker 1: but we will be right back with more about about

457
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:39,720
Speaker 1: the garristine demoniac, the gathering swine, pig science, and and

458
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:45,040
Speaker 1: much more than Alright, we're back. So I've I've already

459
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:47,000
Speaker 1: mentioned how this is. This is one of those little

460
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:49,399
Speaker 1: Bible stories that if you're if you're bored in a

461
00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:52,879
Speaker 1: Christian church, you sometimes turned to. Also, it has had

462
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 1: a big influence on on horror and sort of demonic

463
00:24:56,320 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 1: and occults themed material, most notably The Exorcist three Legion,

464
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 1: a surprisingly good movie, given that The Exorcist one, of

465
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 1: course horror classic Exorcist to one of the most hilarious

466
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 1: bad horror movies of all time. I remember it's got

467
00:25:12,680 --> 00:25:15,400
Speaker 1: a line in it it's something like your machine has

468
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:20,400
Speaker 1: scientifically proven there's an ancient demon locked inside her. Yeah.

469
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:22,760
Speaker 1: I think if I had to rewatch an Exorcist film

470
00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:25,359
Speaker 1: this year, it would be three, Like like one is

471
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 1: a classic. But also I've always been one that is

472
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:31,880
Speaker 1: believed that the best parts of the Exorcist are not

473
00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:36,480
Speaker 1: the you know, the screaming crazy uh you know Reagan,

474
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: the you know, raging out with demonic possession. It's smaller moments.

475
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:44,479
Speaker 1: It's like the little what Pozoozu, the creature that's been

476
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:47,480
Speaker 1: made by the child or or drawn on a sheet

477
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:50,280
Speaker 1: in the background. That sure, yeah, yeah, I totally agree.

478
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: I actually think some of the best stuff in The

479
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:53,720
Speaker 1: Exorcist is the parts where it's kind of like a

480
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 1: seventies character study movie. I mean, there are parts that

481
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 1: almost feel kind of like a Scorsese movie or something,

482
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:02,479
Speaker 1: with like father Cares visiting his mother and that kind

483
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 1: of stuff, and his horrible nightmares. And I think it's

484
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:08,679
Speaker 1: a very effective horror film. But Exorcist three is also

485
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 1: really really good. It's been years since I've seen it,

486
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:13,880
Speaker 1: but uh, at least I won't say it's as good

487
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 1: as the first one, but it's surprisingly good for being

488
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: a third film. I can't think of a third film

489
00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:23,359
Speaker 1: that competes apart from Halloween three. Oh um, Underworld three

490
00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 1: is the best of the Underworld. So there's that. But

491
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: the the ie An Legion things shows up in all

492
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 1: kinds of just like you know, demon horror, right, it's

493
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:35,160
Speaker 1: how can you resist? It seems like such an easy

494
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:37,879
Speaker 1: thing to pick up and run with. I remember it

495
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:41,240
Speaker 1: also shows up in something that I inexplicably read when

496
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:44,439
Speaker 1: I was a kid. I remember buying a used copy

497
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:49,200
Speaker 1: of the screenplay or the teleplay to Stephen King's Storm

498
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:52,040
Speaker 1: of the Century, which is I think not ever a

499
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:54,199
Speaker 1: piece of fiction. I think he wrote it directly for

500
00:26:54,320 --> 00:26:56,639
Speaker 1: like made for TV. So I was just reading the

501
00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 1: original work, which is his teleplay, not kings best work,

502
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,399
Speaker 1: but basically, uh, the demon Legion shows up in a

503
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:06,159
Speaker 1: small island town in New England, of course, and he

504
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 1: demands to steal the town's children. And he he's originally

505
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:13,400
Speaker 1: disguised as a man named Lenoge and of course it's

506
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 1: an anagram for my name is for Legion for but

507
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:20,400
Speaker 1: also he's played by the demon is played by Comb Fiori,

508
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:24,159
Speaker 1: a prolific character actor and the bad guy from one

509
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:27,240
Speaker 1: of your favorites, Robert Chronicles of Rittick. Oh yeah, he's

510
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: what the Lord Marshall right right, yeah? Is he like

511
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 1: he's like the main big bad in it and yeah, yeah,

512
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: he's the head necromonger. Yeah yeah, and he's he is

513
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: a wonderful character Actor's been in tons of things, so

514
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:40,199
Speaker 1: great comedic actor as well. Now, in any given like

515
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:43,359
Speaker 1: piece of a religious text, there, you know, there's always

516
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,119
Speaker 1: various things going on with it, right, there's a question

517
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:48,680
Speaker 1: of what does it say, what is the story, What

518
00:27:48,720 --> 00:27:52,119
Speaker 1: did the the people who wrote it or told it

519
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:54,719
Speaker 1: or transcribed it mean for it to say? And then

520
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:56,919
Speaker 1: what is the tradition of using it? How has it

521
00:27:56,960 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 1: been used and even misused over the years to drive

522
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 1: home particular points? Right? Often, what did the author intend

523
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 1: for it to mean versus how has it been interpreted

524
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 1: by the faithful over the years is a very different thing. Yeah,

525
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 1: And one one interpretation of this text I was surprised

526
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:18,000
Speaker 1: by was the fact that it's been uh is, there's

527
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:21,399
Speaker 1: been used to drive home this idea that humans have

528
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:28,120
Speaker 1: no responsibility towards animals, particularly uh suggested by St. Augustine

529
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: of Hippo. Augustine wrote, quote, Christ himself shows that to

530
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:35,239
Speaker 1: refrain from the killing of animals and the destroying of

531
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:38,479
Speaker 1: plants is the height of superstition. For judging that there

532
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 1: are no common rights between us and the beasts and trees,

533
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:43,480
Speaker 1: he sent the devils into a herd of swine, and

534
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 1: with a curse, withered the tree on which he found

535
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 1: no fruit. Oh yeah, that's the withering of the fig tree, right,

536
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:51,960
Speaker 1: which is a different story In the Bible, Jesus comes

537
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: across a fig tree. It says there were no figs

538
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 1: on the tree, for figs were not in season, and

539
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: Jesus becomes angry with the tree and he withers it. Yeah,

540
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 1: I mean he was having a bad day in that day. Well,

541
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 1: I think that story it to go back to what

542
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: authors actually intended versus how they're interpreted. I think a

543
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:11,840
Speaker 1: lot of scholars think that that story was originally meant

544
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 1: to be like a metaphor for people who did not

545
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:18,600
Speaker 1: bear good fruits. Right, so it's not literally about trees

546
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 1: or are showing off his abilities to wither fruit? Right?

547
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 1: At least yeah, at least under this interpretation, it seems

548
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 1: very a very plausible interpretation to me. But here Augustine's

549
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 1: running with it is like now it's literally about trees.

550
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 1: It's about how trees not worth nothing. You can do

551
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 1: whatever you want to them, it doesn't matter. Jesus showed

552
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: it in this parable. Yeah, seen, you can well imagine that.

553
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 1: Like Augustine like was kicking a pig or something or

554
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:45,480
Speaker 1: a dog and someone say, hey, don't don't kick that dog,

555
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:47,520
Speaker 1: and he's like, well, Jesus put a whole bunch of

556
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 1: demons in pigs and drove him off a cliff, So

557
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 1: I have free reign to kick as many dogs and

558
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 1: pigs as I see fit. Somebody like somebody shamed him

559
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 1: for letting his orchard with her, and then he's like,

560
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 1: I'll show you. When he goes and looks up the Bible,

561
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: He's like, look right here. So various authors have have

562
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 1: have taken issue with Augustine's interpretation here uh, Christian vegetarian

563
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 1: uh and Anglican priest Andrew Lindsay, author of Christianity and

564
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 1: the Rights of Animals. He counter argues and says, you know,

565
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 1: this is ridiculous. It's just propping up Augustine's prior opinion

566
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:23,480
Speaker 1: that animals have no rights. And he contends that the

567
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:27,520
Speaker 1: demons ultimately that they're selecting their own vessel here and

568
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 1: uh and did so because they were weaker creatures. Uh

569
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, and obviously the demons themselves don't

570
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: care for animal rights. Meanwhile, he argues that there are

571
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:39,960
Speaker 1: plenty of other passages where it's far easier to read

572
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: pro animal ideas in the words of Christ than it

573
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 1: is to uh, you know, to to to shoehorn in

574
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 1: an anti animal rights agenda. Well, there is one thing

575
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: that I actually do wonder about the story that's very interesting.

576
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: Is there supposed to be some kind of metaphorical or

577
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 1: theological meaning to the fact that the pigs, So that

578
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 1: Jesus sends the demons into the pigs where they asked

579
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: to go, He's like, okay, you can go into the pigs,

580
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 1: and then they go into the pigs, and then the

581
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:10,560
Speaker 1: pigs immediately stampede and die. Why did they stampede and die?

582
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 1: Is there is that just like? Was that just added

583
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 1: to the story because like, okay, you know, that'd be

584
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:18,200
Speaker 1: an interesting way to conclude it. And now the demons

585
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: are dealt with? Or was there some like meaning They're like,

586
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 1: does does this have something to do with the Romans

587
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 1: or with you know, yeah, because we already touched on

588
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 1: the connection between the Romans and pigs. We touched on

589
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 1: the connection between pigs and the location with the you know,

590
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:35,840
Speaker 1: the the tombs. So and then also you always have

591
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 1: to wonder too with stories like this, like what what

592
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:40,680
Speaker 1: other you know, pre existing narratives where they're out there

593
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: that have potentially been otherwise lost, that are reflected in

594
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:47,960
Speaker 1: this story. Now, Thomas Aquinas, apparently I read thought that

595
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: this passage showed that Christ was primarily concerned with men

596
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: rather than pigs. But and and I've seen that pointed

597
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 1: out a few different places. But I was looking for

598
00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:00,120
Speaker 1: like a direct quote on this, and I was looking

599
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 1: at acquaintas his thoughts on the passage, and most of

600
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 1: it seemed to come down to him stressing the fact

601
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: that the pigs were unclean. So of course that's the

602
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 1: best place to send a bunch of demons. They love

603
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: unclean things. And it also shows shows he would he

604
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: argued that the devil can't kill you unless you present

605
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 1: yourself as an unclean animal. But I don't know that.

606
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: There's a lot of riffing on the scripture that I

607
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 1: ran across, but I'm not sure animal rights are the

608
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 1: lack thereof was the primary concern. Well, while we're on

609
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 1: the subject of the demonic oink, I think, uh, this

610
00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 1: is a great opportunity to jump over to talking a

611
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: little bit about pig intelligence, pig behavior, and even a

612
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: very recent discovery about possible pig tool use. Yeah, yeah,

613
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: that that was. That was I think ultimately the the

614
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: bit of news that that made up my mind on

615
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 1: pursuing this as a topic. Yeah, so we've touched on

616
00:32:50,480 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 1: animal rights, we've touched on the notion of higher intelligence

617
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:55,440
Speaker 1: in the form of demons being dropped into the bodies

618
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 1: of pigs. H Plus the notion that in some traditions

619
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 1: pigsy from journeying into the West is a product of reincarnation.

620
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 1: Uh So, having touched on these notions, you know, we

621
00:33:05,320 --> 00:33:07,320
Speaker 1: come back around to the question, well, how smart is

622
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:10,480
Speaker 1: just a normal pig? You know, certainly I think we

623
00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:12,720
Speaker 1: can assume its brain is not on part of the humans.

624
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 1: We can more than assume that. We can state that.

625
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 1: But they're not the dumb animals we all we sometimes

626
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 1: take them for, uh the sort of comic relief. Look,

627
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:24,560
Speaker 1: how dumb the pig is. It's covered in mud, it

628
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 1: lives in a pig pin. Well, I don't know if

629
00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:29,400
Speaker 1: this is actually a good explanation, but at least something

630
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: I've heard postulated in the past is what if the

631
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:38,920
Speaker 1: common prohibitions on eating pigs in some religions stem from

632
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: not the uncleanness of pigs, but the similarity between pigs

633
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 1: and humans. I mean, there are a lot of sort

634
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 1: of biological and morphological similarities. For example, some pigs having

635
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: like fairly bare skin kind of like a less hair

636
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 1: than most mammals have unlike kind of like they're human cousins, uh,

637
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: just things. Oh apparently human meat tasting kind of like pork. Apparently.

638
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:07,800
Speaker 1: I've also noticed that when a pig is butchered, uh,

639
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:10,920
Speaker 1: sometimes its body looks like that of a of a

640
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 1: human um. Particularly ever, if you watch a lot of

641
00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 1: like cooking shows on you know, very streaming channels, and

642
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 1: the inevitably there'll be a scene where someone has uh

643
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:23,440
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're rolling out the slaughtered pig, or

644
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:26,360
Speaker 1: then it's been prepared for the barbecue grill and it

645
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:29,800
Speaker 1: looks alarmingly like a small person. Yeah, and so again,

646
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:31,799
Speaker 1: I don't know if that really has all that much

647
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:34,640
Speaker 1: explanatory power, but I can see that a little bit

648
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 1: like maybe we anthropomorphize pigs because it's just already pretty close.

649
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 1: There's a natural leap from humans to pigs, and boy

650
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 1: do we I mean, this has always disturbed me, the

651
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 1: level to which a barbecue restaurant will anthropomorphize a pig,

652
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: usually on the logo, where it'll be you know, it'll

653
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: be like smiling, happy humanoid pigs roaming around or even

654
00:34:55,719 --> 00:35:00,160
Speaker 1: doing grizzly things like cooking themselves or climbing into grills, Like,

655
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:03,560
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Uh, you know you shouldn't you

656
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:08,280
Speaker 1: be like distancing yourself from this notion that the pigs

657
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 1: are rational beings and you're eating them. Well, it makes

658
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 1: me think of the Chick fil A marketing strategy where

659
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:17,240
Speaker 1: they would have the cows painting the signs. It's brilliant,

660
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 1: really anthropomorphized the other animal. That's that. That was I

661
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 1: think the wise choice. So also looking around a little

662
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 1: bit just on sort of pre existing um knowledge about

663
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 1: the intelligence of pigs, because there's there's been a lot

664
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:34,919
Speaker 1: of data on this. So Barry Esterbrook wrote a book

665
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:38,439
Speaker 1: called Pigtails which gets into all of this. Uh. He's

666
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 1: a science writer, and he points out some of the

667
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:44,320
Speaker 1: big key points about peg behavior. First of all, pigs

668
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: have been taught to play computer games, and this gets

669
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:49,320
Speaker 1: to to basically do it to the fact that pigs

670
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: have proven themselves to be very good at learning new task,

671
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 1: learning new tricks um, which is essentially what's going on

672
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: when they're playing a computer game and some of these

673
00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 1: experiments they're trainable. Yeah, pigs have a sense of self

674
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 1: and they can recognize themselves in mirrors. They can also

675
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: figure out how a mirror works. I mean not in

676
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 1: terms of like how it's made and how it's like

677
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:12,440
Speaker 1: the optics of it, but you know, they can they

678
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:15,719
Speaker 1: can figure out what they're seeing through it and use

679
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:19,239
Speaker 1: it to identify food. Oh really, so they can recognize

680
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:21,840
Speaker 1: that the mirror is a reflection of what's you know,

681
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:25,399
Speaker 1: behind them and stuff. Yeah, and also pigs can look

682
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 1: at another pig and calculate what that pig might do

683
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: or how it might act. A two thousand sixteen University

684
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:34,240
Speaker 1: of Lincoln study found that, as with humans, the pig's

685
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:38,799
Speaker 1: judgment and decisions are governed by mood and personality type. Uh.

686
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:41,480
Speaker 1: They're also proven to be really good remembering where food

687
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 1: stores are, and not only that, how they rate in

688
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 1: size to each other. So it's not just a matter

689
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 1: of like, oh, there's some the researchers put so much food,

690
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:51,880
Speaker 1: you know, put put food here and here and here. No,

691
00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:54,839
Speaker 1: they can remember the proportions as well, you can rank

692
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:57,719
Speaker 1: them in their their heads um. And they're also really

693
00:36:57,760 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 1: good at deceiving each other when it comes to food. Oh,

694
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:03,040
Speaker 1: how does that work? Basically comes down to the fact

695
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 1: that they're they're intelligent animals, but they're also highly social animals.

696
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:11,319
Speaker 1: So you know they in the wild, wild hogs are

697
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 1: not living in seclusion. They're living in contact with one another. Uh,

698
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 1: so they are social creatures. And on the subject of domestication, Uh,

699
00:37:21,320 --> 00:37:25,839
Speaker 1: the domesticated pig diverge from wild hogs somewhere like eight

700
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:29,760
Speaker 1: thousand years ago. That's that's when we began domesticating pigs

701
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,480
Speaker 1: and uh, and it's it is kind of impressive that

702
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:35,439
Speaker 1: we haven't managed to domesticate the smarts out of them,

703
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:40,320
Speaker 1: like they're like, even the domesticated pig is an intelligent creature. Well,

704
00:37:40,360 --> 00:37:42,759
Speaker 1: maybe we should explore more of that intelligence after we

705
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:44,800
Speaker 1: come back from a break and we can talk about

706
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 1: pigs and tool use. Than all right, we're back. So

707
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: tool use this is uh, this is really fascinating because

708
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 1: of course tool use is our thing the humans. Tools

709
00:37:59,160 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 1: are the things we use to build our barbecue restaurants

710
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 1: and to slaughter pigs and then to cook pigs and

711
00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 1: serve pigs and then to eat pigs. But apparently it

712
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:11,240
Speaker 1: takes no tools to cast demons from a human into pigs.

713
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 1: We're not told there's a wand involved or anything. So yeah, Robert,

714
00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 1: I I found out about this interesting report on pig

715
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:20,839
Speaker 1: intelligence recently, I think because you shared it with me. Yeah,

716
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 1: the day it came out, I I shared it with

717
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,279
Speaker 1: our our Facebook group. Stuff to Blow your mind a

718
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:28,560
Speaker 1: discussion module, which is a place you can go if

719
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:31,080
Speaker 1: you want to discuss episodes of the show and uh,

720
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 1: you know, sort of related studies with other listeners. Uh So,

721
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 1: for some background talking about tool use. Tool use is

722
00:38:38,239 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 1: often taken, of course, is one of the most interesting

723
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 1: and most important signs of higher intelligence and animals. It's

724
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: you know, it's I think fairly plausibly argued to be

725
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:51,759
Speaker 1: one of the main things that makes humans very special. Right.

726
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:55,319
Speaker 1: We've got language, we've got tool use, right, But we're

727
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 1: not the only animals that use tools. A few non

728
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:01,760
Speaker 1: human animals show pretty clear or undisputed use of tools.

729
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:07,320
Speaker 1: Of course. One great example is other primates, right, like chimpanzees, binobo's, orangutans,

730
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:10,160
Speaker 1: and even I think you know, guerrillas, and some monkeys

731
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:13,960
Speaker 1: and stuff. Chimpanzees will sometimes like use large rocks to

732
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:18,880
Speaker 1: crush nutshells, use sticks for hunting or for fishing insects

733
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:22,400
Speaker 1: or other prey out of crevices and enclosures. We've also

734
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 1: extensively covered tool use in some bird species in the past.

735
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:27,920
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more, you can check out

736
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:31,719
Speaker 1: our older episodes on the Unsettling depths of bird intelligence.

737
00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 1: I think it was called Yes. The primary examples here

738
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 1: are birds like Corvid's and parrots. Great example is the

739
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:41,160
Speaker 1: new Caledonian crow, which has been involved in a lot

740
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 1: of research. They can use sticks or bark for rooting

741
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:48,280
Speaker 1: around inside crevices, fishing for insects and larvae. Uh, sometimes

742
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:52,520
Speaker 1: even displaying really startling levels of abstraction. I believe there

743
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:56,760
Speaker 1: are examples of them constructing tools, like putting things together

744
00:39:56,920 --> 00:40:00,720
Speaker 1: to make tools, or using one tool not to get food,

745
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:04,319
Speaker 1: but to access a second, better tool which can be

746
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:07,759
Speaker 1: used to get food. I mean that's interesting. Yeah, And

747
00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 1: of course there are other mammals. Marine mammals like cetaceans

748
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: also sometimes display behaviors that might count as tool use.

749
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:18,719
Speaker 1: I think you've mentioned before dolphins, like using sponges as tools. Yeah,

750
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 1: that definitely comes up. What was the it's basically like

751
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 1: for sea floor foraging. I believe so. Yeah, I'm I'm

752
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:27,000
Speaker 1: a little foggy on the details of that one, but

753
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: but there is a there's definitely a case that has

754
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:32,319
Speaker 1: been made for tool use by dolphins, even the octopus.

755
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:36,800
Speaker 1: Actually it's invertebrate tool use. Uh. The octopus for example,

756
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:40,439
Speaker 1: well sometimes carry shells or like coconut shells with them

757
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 1: to fold over their bodies to use as shelter, armor,

758
00:40:43,760 --> 00:40:47,759
Speaker 1: hunting blind uh. And then there are more arguable examples

759
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 1: of things that might or might not be tool used,

760
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:53,440
Speaker 1: depending on your criteria. I mean, if you really stretch it,

761
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 1: like sometimes even reptiles like croc crocodilians are alleged to

762
00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,520
Speaker 1: use tools. But I think not everyone would agree on

763
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 1: whether these behaviors count. But maybe the newest, most surprising

764
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:07,239
Speaker 1: discovery of animal tool use as of the day we're

765
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:10,719
Speaker 1: recording this is this very recent documentation of tool use

766
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:14,719
Speaker 1: by pigs. So what would count as tool use? Well,

767
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:17,360
Speaker 1: I was reading a great article about this new discovery

768
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 1: and nat GEO by Christine Delamore. I think this is

769
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 1: the best article I've found about the this new research,

770
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:26,840
Speaker 1: and she cites a definition here which seems very reasonable

771
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:28,960
Speaker 1: to me. So the definition of tool use here is

772
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:34,280
Speaker 1: quote the exertion of control over a freely manipulable external object,

773
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:37,839
Speaker 1: which is the tool, with the goal of altering the

774
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 1: physical properties of another object, substance, surface, or medium via

775
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 1: a dynamic mechanical interaction, or to mediating the flow of information,

776
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:51,040
Speaker 1: which sounds a little complicated, but basically means you've got

777
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 1: to use an object that's not part of your body,

778
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 1: an object from the outside, to make changes to your

779
00:41:56,600 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 1: environment or objects in your environment, or to control information somehow. Now,

780
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 1: if you're wondering, like, how can information work, I believe

781
00:42:05,480 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 1: that would mean, for example, by changing what can be

782
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:11,840
Speaker 1: seen and by whom. So if you use an object

783
00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:15,360
Speaker 1: to help you see something you couldn't otherwise see, or

784
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 1: to keep somebody else from seeing something, like you put

785
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 1: up something to hide yourself, that could be considered tool use. Right.

786
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:25,360
Speaker 1: So yeah, Like so the idea of say the octopus

787
00:42:25,400 --> 00:42:29,640
Speaker 1: climbing inside of a coconut is arguably an example of this, right,

788
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 1: And I think though there would be differences between, Like

789
00:42:33,400 --> 00:42:36,239
Speaker 1: going into a hole is not tool used, so you

790
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:38,319
Speaker 1: could be hiding there. I think it would be like

791
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:40,960
Speaker 1: if you carry along a thing with you that you

792
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:44,240
Speaker 1: can hide inside. But then even then you run into

793
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 1: some difficulties. I mean, when you see an octopus doing that,

794
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:49,360
Speaker 1: that seems like tool use. But when a hermit crab

795
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 1: doesn't that that doesn't seem like tool use, right, So

796
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 1: they're they're like, uh, They're always going to be these

797
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:58,880
Speaker 1: difficulties with these edge cases about what counts and what doesn't.

798
00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:00,440
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of arguing, I think in the

799
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 1: scientific literature about does this case count or does it

800
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:06,479
Speaker 1: not count and why? But anyway, this new research about

801
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:10,800
Speaker 1: pig tool use originates with a conservation ecologist named Meredith

802
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:16,919
Speaker 1: root Bernstein who in October of was at a zoo

803
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:20,760
Speaker 1: in Paris. She was observing a group of vision wardy

804
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:24,880
Speaker 1: pigs at this Parisian zoo and Visayan warty pigs are

805
00:43:24,920 --> 00:43:28,759
Speaker 1: a critically endangered species of wild pig native to the Philippines.

806
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:32,360
Speaker 1: They're critically endangered, like so many other creatures, because of

807
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:36,880
Speaker 1: habitat destruction. It's the ruin of their natural rainforest homeland

808
00:43:37,040 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 1: that has driven them to this point. You may have

809
00:43:39,640 --> 00:43:42,719
Speaker 1: actually seen images of them. The males of the species

810
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:46,279
Speaker 1: often have a natural mohawk hairdo running down the length

811
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 1: of their bodies, so they look pretty cool. Yeah, yeah,

812
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 1: they look pretty rough and tumble. But this group observed

813
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:55,160
Speaker 1: by root Bernstein, they were in captivity and that's important

814
00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:58,600
Speaker 1: to remember because that can sometimes change animal behavior. I've

815
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:00,200
Speaker 1: got an image, by the way for you to look

816
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 1: at here, Robert. The hair is mighty. Absolutely, I would

817
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:06,120
Speaker 1: go as far as to say that this particular hog

818
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:10,839
Speaker 1: looks rad This hog could play with some kind of like, uh,

819
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 1: some kind of minor tough and a Russell Mulkahi movie.

820
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 1: So in October fifteen, root Burnstein she was at this

821
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 1: zooe and she noticed one of the pigs in this

822
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 1: enclosure picking up a piece of tree bark with its

823
00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:27,120
Speaker 1: mouth and then using the bark as a spade to

824
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:30,319
Speaker 1: dig around in the soil within its enclosure. Uh. The

825
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: pig was named Priscilla, by the way, and Priscilla's mate

826
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:37,880
Speaker 1: was named Billy. So the French are good at naming pigs. Actually,

827
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:39,960
Speaker 1: I don't know if the French name them, but Priscilla

828
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:41,640
Speaker 1: and Billy, and then of course there were there were

829
00:44:41,640 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 1: younger pigs and the enclosure too. But root Burnstein, so

830
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:47,919
Speaker 1: she saw this happening, the pig picking up the bark

831
00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:50,120
Speaker 1: with its mouth and digging with it, and she never

832
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:53,320
Speaker 1: heard of documented tool use in any species of pigs.

833
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 1: So she went home to look it up, and she

834
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:58,960
Speaker 1: couldn't find anything in the animal behavior literature, so she

835
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:02,240
Speaker 1: kept returning to the zoo and documenting the pig's behavior

836
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:05,000
Speaker 1: with the help of colleagues. But for several months she

837
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 1: never saw it happen again. So what was going on here? Well?

838
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:11,880
Speaker 1: Delamore writes that Rude Bernstein suspected that the digging behavior

839
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:15,160
Speaker 1: was part of the pigs nest building process. And of

840
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 1: course nest building doesn't happen year round. It's not all

841
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:20,440
Speaker 1: the time, it's whenever there is a new litter of

842
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: piglets coming, and this happens about twice a year. So

843
00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:26,360
Speaker 1: root Bernstein and her colleagues waited, and in the following

844
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:29,600
Speaker 1: spring they did, in fact observe tool use. Yet again,

845
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:33,000
Speaker 1: three of the four pigs in the enclosure we're using

846
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 1: bark to help dig out their nests bark or sticks.

847
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 1: So does digging with bark count as tool use? We

848
00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:42,319
Speaker 1: can look in more detail in a minute, but yes,

849
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 1: I think it meets the regular criteria right. It's using

850
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 1: an object outside the body, a freely manipulable object to

851
00:45:49,440 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: change the environment, and there's no doubt that they're doing it.

852
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 1: There's video you can watch online. Though they do seem

853
00:45:56,000 --> 00:45:58,800
Speaker 1: a little clumsy at it. They don't look like hyper

854
00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 1: like dexterrous tool users. It's more kind of like they're

855
00:46:02,560 --> 00:46:05,279
Speaker 1: flipping the stick all over the place and it kind

856
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:08,400
Speaker 1: of moves the dirt around, which does make me wonder

857
00:46:08,719 --> 00:46:12,399
Speaker 1: what did tool use look like when like our ancestors

858
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:17,040
Speaker 1: first started doing it, just like, you know, wildly swinging

859
00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:20,239
Speaker 1: things around and occasionally getting some benefit out of it. Well,

860
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 1: I mean, I think a lot of us probably fit

861
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:25,960
Speaker 1: that description when we use, you know, a particular utensil

862
00:46:26,040 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 1: or go after a particular task in the kitchen that

863
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:30,840
Speaker 1: we don't normally do. Like I was grading a sweet

864
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:33,360
Speaker 1: potato last night, and I feel like that was basically

865
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:36,240
Speaker 1: what was happening. People who were observing it might think, wow,

866
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:43,359
Speaker 1: this this uh, this ape can barely manipulate this tool. Uh.

867
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:46,160
Speaker 1: I don't know if this counts. Is too using intelligence? Yes?

868
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:50,000
Speaker 1: Is it tool using intelligence? Or is it just occasionally

869
00:46:50,080 --> 00:46:52,759
Speaker 1: rubbing and fumbling this piece of the metal against the

870
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:55,959
Speaker 1: this tuber. We're not sure, Robert, or your knuckles, Okay,

871
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:58,280
Speaker 1: did you lose an they knuckles? Lucky, my my knuckles,

872
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:03,160
Speaker 1: my skin, that's all fine, But that potato did suffer

873
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 1: I have lost a knuckler two to the greater before.

874
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:09,760
Speaker 1: But my my point being, uh, you don't have to be, uh,

875
00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 1: you know, an artful user of a tool to be

876
00:47:12,080 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 1: a tool user, right, Uh, you know, that's exactly right.

877
00:47:15,480 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 1: So rut Bernstein and her co authors published their research

878
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 1: in the journal Mammalian Biology in September twenty nineteen, and

879
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:26,600
Speaker 1: so all the authors were Meredith Root Bernstein, A Trumpteen, Narayan,

880
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:31,200
Speaker 1: Lucille Cornier, and Audi Bourgeois. The article is called context

881
00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 1: specific tool use in sus Sebifrons in Mammalian Biology and

882
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:38,320
Speaker 1: that this was published just in September in twenty nineteen,

883
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:41,799
Speaker 1: so specifically, what's going on with the digging process here? Well,

884
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:45,000
Speaker 1: the things become kind of interesting. So the authors documented

885
00:47:45,040 --> 00:47:48,120
Speaker 1: pigs using tools to dig four times in twenty sixteen

886
00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 1: and seven times in twenty seventeen, and it seems that

887
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 1: the tool use always came in the middle of the

888
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:58,919
Speaker 1: nest to digging process. Ultimately, of course, the nest they're

889
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:01,759
Speaker 1: producing is going to be like a little dugout pit

890
00:48:01,880 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: and that's gonna be lined with leaves and that's where

891
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:06,719
Speaker 1: the pig let's go. Uh. They also observed that the

892
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:10,120
Speaker 1: male pigs digging was clumsier and less productive than the

893
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:13,239
Speaker 1: digging by the females. Uh. It also seemed that the

894
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:16,919
Speaker 1: knowledge about how to use the digging implements was being

895
00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:22,160
Speaker 1: passed on both vertically from mother to offspring and horizontally

896
00:48:22,239 --> 00:48:26,000
Speaker 1: by being taught to the males by the females. Interesting.

897
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:29,799
Speaker 1: They also introduced foreign objects into the enclosure, like they

898
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:33,040
Speaker 1: put spatulas in there to see if the pigs would

899
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 1: try to use them. Apparently they did sort of a

900
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:37,560
Speaker 1: couple of times, but they seemed to prefer the sticks

901
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:40,400
Speaker 1: in the bark. Yeah, I mean a spatulist seems like

902
00:48:40,440 --> 00:48:42,320
Speaker 1: it would It would not be the best tool anyway

903
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:45,000
Speaker 1: for that task. Oh, I don't know. You could dig

904
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 1: in loose soil okay with a spatula okay, but like

905
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:50,520
Speaker 1: a metal spoon would be better. Yeah, but biting on

906
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:53,239
Speaker 1: a metal spoon might hurt us in their mouth. Yeah,

907
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 1: we're still giving them a human tool of and and

908
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:58,239
Speaker 1: this this is a creature that that is using a

909
00:48:58,239 --> 00:49:00,440
Speaker 1: tool in a in a different manner. We need to

910
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 1: make special pig digging mecca suits. Then we'll really see

911
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:07,360
Speaker 1: how far their tool using intelligence goes. But The authors

912
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 1: argued that the observed behaviors do meet the best definition

913
00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:13,360
Speaker 1: of tool use. And I want to read a quote

914
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:16,000
Speaker 1: about how they explain this. They say, Uh, it is

915
00:49:16,040 --> 00:49:18,960
Speaker 1: tool use quote, because it involved the manipulation of an

916
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:22,279
Speaker 1: external object, the bark, the stick, or the spatula. It

917
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:28,360
Speaker 1: occurred exclusively and regularly within a goal oriented, repeated action pattern. Okay,

918
00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 1: so it's not just like they're running around with sticks

919
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 1: in their mouths all the time and occasionally it moves

920
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:36,439
Speaker 1: some soil. It only happens sometimes and only when they're

921
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 1: digging nests. And to continue with their quote, they say,

922
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 1: and as its end result, it altered both the distribution

923
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 1: of the soil to make a pit and the physical

924
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:50,320
Speaker 1: properties of the tool user a physical disposition digging action,

925
00:49:50,680 --> 00:49:54,759
Speaker 1: and thus it likely also included information transfer to the

926
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:58,640
Speaker 1: tool user in the form of appropriate receptive feedback different

927
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:01,840
Speaker 1: to that without tool use. So there's an information thing again,

928
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:05,239
Speaker 1: like using the stick to have a different method of

929
00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 1: like feeling how deep the hole is and stuff. So

930
00:50:08,080 --> 00:50:13,280
Speaker 1: one question is how has this behavior escaped attention so long? Uh?

931
00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:16,600
Speaker 1: In Delamore's article, she mentions that well, wild pigs are

932
00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:20,840
Speaker 1: sometimes understudied so maybe that's the case. But also, you know,

933
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:23,439
Speaker 1: one thing to think about is these pigs are in captivity.

934
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:27,960
Speaker 1: Animals in captivity also sometimes show behaviors that the same

935
00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:31,120
Speaker 1: animals do not exhibit in the wild. But then again,

936
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:33,920
Speaker 1: it seemed like the bark was only used for digging

937
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:37,200
Speaker 1: nests and only at a specific stage in the nest

938
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:40,239
Speaker 1: building process, which makes it pretty different from most of

939
00:50:40,239 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 1: the repetitive, compulsive types of behaviors that you would see

940
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 1: induced by captivity. Right. Yeah, it's not not a situation

941
00:50:47,160 --> 00:50:49,160
Speaker 1: where these pigs were doing this all the time. They

942
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:52,000
Speaker 1: were only doing it like every six months during their

943
00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:55,880
Speaker 1: their nest building activities. Right. It's not the panther pacing

944
00:50:55,920 --> 00:50:57,680
Speaker 1: in its cage in the way that it would not

945
00:50:57,719 --> 00:51:00,960
Speaker 1: pace in the wild. So the question is do we

946
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:04,720
Speaker 1: find examples of these endangered pigs or other related pigs

947
00:51:05,160 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 1: using tools in the wild. I think this is the

948
00:51:08,160 --> 00:51:11,760
Speaker 1: first really documented case that's clear. But in her article,

949
00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:15,440
Speaker 1: Delamore notes an interesting anecdote from somebody. She talks to,

950
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:19,800
Speaker 1: somebody named Fernando Dino Gutierrez who's president of the Philippine

951
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:23,880
Speaker 1: conservation group known as the Tallara Foundation. And so here's

952
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:26,920
Speaker 1: this story. Quoting from Delmore's article uh quote. A few

953
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:29,800
Speaker 1: years ago, Gautierra has witnessed a group of wild pigs

954
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:34,359
Speaker 1: pushing rocks toward an electric fence to test it. And

955
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:37,000
Speaker 1: Gautierra says, as soon as they push and the rocks

956
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:40,319
Speaker 1: make contact, they would wait for the clicking sound or

957
00:51:40,360 --> 00:51:44,160
Speaker 1: absence thereof clicking means the wires are hot and they

958
00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 1: will back off and not cross. No sounds mean it

959
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:50,759
Speaker 1: is safe to investigate what's beyond the wire. So that

960
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:54,040
Speaker 1: seems like pigs using like possible edge case there of

961
00:51:54,160 --> 00:52:00,440
Speaker 1: pigs using tools to mediate the flow of information. They

962
00:52:00,440 --> 00:52:05,799
Speaker 1: were testing the fences systematically for weaknesses they remember. But

963
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:09,160
Speaker 1: as for whether these specific pigs, the vision warty pigs

964
00:52:09,200 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 1: do this kind of thing in the wild, I think

965
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:13,359
Speaker 1: we don't really know that. Of course, there aren't many

966
00:52:13,400 --> 00:52:14,880
Speaker 1: of them in the wild. I think there might just

967
00:52:14,920 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 1: be a few hundred that their numbers are not really known.

968
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:21,800
Speaker 1: But wild pig scientists of the world, combine your powers,

969
00:52:21,880 --> 00:52:25,479
Speaker 1: figure this out, plunge the depths of pig technology. Yeah,

970
00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:28,200
Speaker 1: it would be would be wonderful to hear more about this,

971
00:52:28,280 --> 00:52:30,880
Speaker 1: and certainly to hear about how it's occurring in the wild.

972
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:33,839
Speaker 1: Now there's one last thing though, that makes this even

973
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 1: more interesting. It's not clear to root Bernstein and her

974
00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:42,000
Speaker 1: co authors that the bark or the stick provides much

975
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:46,240
Speaker 1: of a utilitarian advantage, if any. According to the study,

976
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:49,279
Speaker 1: it seemed digging with the stick was sometimes less efficient

977
00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:52,399
Speaker 1: than digging with the hoofs or with the snout, which

978
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:54,399
Speaker 1: is of course what they would normally use. I think

979
00:52:54,760 --> 00:52:56,600
Speaker 1: so if and again you can see this if you

980
00:52:56,600 --> 00:52:59,560
Speaker 1: watch the video. The digging does sort of work, but

981
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:01,880
Speaker 1: it also it looks kind of bumbling and funny, and

982
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:04,680
Speaker 1: you can imagine that digging with the snout or the

983
00:53:04,719 --> 00:53:07,480
Speaker 1: hoofs would actually be pretty quick. So if the bark

984
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:11,520
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily speeding up the digging process even though it

985
00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:14,240
Speaker 1: is working, it's if it's not making the process faster

986
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:18,399
Speaker 1: or more efficient, why do it at all. One thing

987
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 1: that occurred to me is why, well, maybe the snout

988
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:23,359
Speaker 1: gets sore. I mean, that could be a thing. Yeah, yeah,

989
00:53:23,360 --> 00:53:27,080
Speaker 1: that's that's one possibility. M One also wonders, of course,

990
00:53:27,160 --> 00:53:30,279
Speaker 1: if if there is something communicated through the act of

991
00:53:30,400 --> 00:53:32,760
Speaker 1: using the tool, and it's some sort of like a

992
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:37,560
Speaker 1: physical mental fitness communication. Yeah, that's a that's an interesting thing.

993
00:53:37,640 --> 00:53:40,560
Speaker 1: So this could be tool use that actually, even though

994
00:53:40,560 --> 00:53:45,799
Speaker 1: it's tool use, doesn't exist primarily for utilitarian advantage. What

995
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:50,040
Speaker 1: if this is just a learned animal cultural behavior. Sometimes

996
00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:53,120
Speaker 1: animals do just pick up and repeat behaviors from one

997
00:53:53,160 --> 00:53:58,279
Speaker 1: another even though they don't provide an obvious continuing material benefit. Uh.

998
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:00,960
Speaker 1: Of course we can imagine that the brain must be

999
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:05,400
Speaker 1: supplying some kind of internal reward that motivates the pig's behavior.

1000
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:07,719
Speaker 1: But of course, you know, we know from our own

1001
00:54:07,719 --> 00:54:11,160
Speaker 1: experience that we do behaviors all the time that don't

1002
00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:15,120
Speaker 1: provide a clear evolutionary utilitarian benefit. They're just sort of

1003
00:54:15,160 --> 00:54:18,920
Speaker 1: like a cultural artifact. There's something a behavior popped up,

1004
00:54:18,960 --> 00:54:22,319
Speaker 1: it gets rewarded for some reason in our brains, even

1005
00:54:22,320 --> 00:54:25,320
Speaker 1: though it's not helping us like live longer, be stronger,

1006
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:28,560
Speaker 1: or reproduce more well. And then via culture, there there

1007
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:31,880
Speaker 1: are various specific tools that we continue to use despite

1008
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:33,920
Speaker 1: the fact that there are much better ways to go

1009
00:54:33,960 --> 00:54:36,520
Speaker 1: about a particular task. The main idea that the main

1010
00:54:36,600 --> 00:54:39,960
Speaker 1: example comes to my mind is the wooden honey ladle

1011
00:54:40,239 --> 00:54:43,520
Speaker 1: uh implement Um. We've talked about this on the show,

1012
00:54:43,520 --> 00:54:47,080
Speaker 1: but about how it's just it's a messy, unnecessary thing

1013
00:54:47,239 --> 00:54:50,040
Speaker 1: that looks cool. People like the way it looks. People

1014
00:54:50,120 --> 00:54:52,279
Speaker 1: like the way it looks. But the honey bear, the

1015
00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:56,200
Speaker 1: squeezable honey bear, is by far the superior means of

1016
00:54:56,239 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 1: putting honey on anything or in anything. But what if

1017
00:54:59,680 --> 00:55:02,719
Speaker 1: these pigs are using the sticks to dig for the

1018
00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:06,040
Speaker 1: same reason that you might use the might use the

1019
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:08,840
Speaker 1: wooden honey spoon thing. I don't even know what you

1020
00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:11,000
Speaker 1: call it. I think it has a name, and we're

1021
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:15,520
Speaker 1: forgetting it once more, the honey knob, honey, the ridged

1022
00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:18,759
Speaker 1: honey knob, even though yeah, the squeeze bear that you

1023
00:55:18,800 --> 00:55:22,719
Speaker 1: just squeeze with your own hands is more efficient. But yeah, Now,

1024
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:25,640
Speaker 1: another possibility that comes to mind here too is so

1025
00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:29,120
Speaker 1: so we're looking to learn more about the wild implement

1026
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:33,520
Speaker 1: implementation of this tool use. So one question I would

1027
00:55:33,520 --> 00:55:36,359
Speaker 1: have is, Okay, in the wild, are they using the

1028
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:39,960
Speaker 1: same pieces of wood, the same pieces of bark? Are

1029
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:43,120
Speaker 1: they comparable? Uh? And if they're not, that could be

1030
00:55:43,600 --> 00:55:46,040
Speaker 1: an issue. Right, maybe they're using a different type of

1031
00:55:46,040 --> 00:55:49,080
Speaker 1: wood in the wild the other that's true, Yeah, maybe

1032
00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:53,000
Speaker 1: this is a behavior that they're trying to use tools

1033
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:55,359
Speaker 1: that are the inferior versions of the tool that would

1034
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:57,680
Speaker 1: be in their native range right or then also they're

1035
00:55:57,719 --> 00:56:00,440
Speaker 1: threatened by habitat loss, so maybe they'd only even in

1036
00:56:00,440 --> 00:56:03,320
Speaker 1: the wild, have the same access anymore, and they're making

1037
00:56:03,360 --> 00:56:07,600
Speaker 1: do with inferior tools to carry out this, uh, this

1038
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:10,719
Speaker 1: practice that they've been doing for you know, for for

1039
00:56:10,719 --> 00:56:14,120
Speaker 1: for so long. It's like after a nuclear apocalypse finding

1040
00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 1: humans making phone calls with tin cans and string. You know,

1041
00:56:18,080 --> 00:56:20,200
Speaker 1: it's like, uh, why are they doing that? The tin

1042
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:22,600
Speaker 1: the tin cans and string don't work all that well.

1043
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:25,239
Speaker 1: But it's because they they're so used to doing the

1044
00:56:25,280 --> 00:56:28,000
Speaker 1: regular phone calls and they don't have the right tools anymore.

1045
00:56:28,239 --> 00:56:32,480
Speaker 1: Oh man, can you imagine a post apocalyptic world in

1046
00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:36,280
Speaker 1: which there are no more smartphones, but but the people

1047
00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:40,080
Speaker 1: still use like little chunks of stone or wood as

1048
00:56:40,080 --> 00:56:44,400
Speaker 1: if they were smartphones that essentially like little idols, little

1049
00:56:44,440 --> 00:56:48,040
Speaker 1: wooden gods that they speak to and listen to. Yes,

1050
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:51,759
Speaker 1: they carry around little rectangular flints that they stare at

1051
00:56:51,800 --> 00:56:54,120
Speaker 1: while they're out in public, and then if they see

1052
00:56:54,160 --> 00:56:56,320
Speaker 1: somebody they don't want to talk to, they can pretend

1053
00:56:56,320 --> 00:56:58,480
Speaker 1: to be doing something on their flint and then so

1054
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:01,480
Speaker 1: they don't have to look up and make eye contact. Yeah,

1055
00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:03,560
Speaker 1: well to bring it back to the gathering swine. I

1056
00:57:03,560 --> 00:57:05,760
Speaker 1: mean it makes me think about how, in a way,

1057
00:57:05,840 --> 00:57:09,680
Speaker 1: a lot of our our culturally learned behaviors are kind

1058
00:57:09,680 --> 00:57:12,480
Speaker 1: of like a weird little demon possession, right there, a

1059
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:15,600
Speaker 1: thing that gets in our brain and exists for its

1060
00:57:15,600 --> 00:57:18,240
Speaker 1: own sake, even though it doesn't necessarily help us in

1061
00:57:18,320 --> 00:57:20,960
Speaker 1: any way, we just keep doing it. You know. It's

1062
00:57:21,040 --> 00:57:25,440
Speaker 1: like it's the it's the self rewarding subroutine. Yeah, absolutely,

1063
00:57:25,720 --> 00:57:27,000
Speaker 1: all right, So that you have it, I feel like

1064
00:57:27,000 --> 00:57:29,959
Speaker 1: we covered a lot of ground in this episode. You know, Uh,

1065
00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:33,280
Speaker 1: if you're playing the the Stuff to Blow your mind

1066
00:57:33,320 --> 00:57:35,840
Speaker 1: drinking game, I guess you got to. You got to

1067
00:57:35,840 --> 00:57:38,600
Speaker 1: take multiple shots here. We managed to fit a Bible

1068
00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:41,440
Speaker 1: story in there. We had a skit with demons in it.

1069
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:46,320
Speaker 1: We got into tool use and animal intelligence, a little

1070
00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:49,760
Speaker 1: bit of Chinese mythology incorporated as well. It's a lot

1071
00:57:49,760 --> 00:57:53,040
Speaker 1: of my favorite stuff. Yeah, and and it's all ultimately

1072
00:57:53,080 --> 00:57:56,600
Speaker 1: Halloween episode because at the heart we're still dealing with

1073
00:57:56,640 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 1: the story of exorcism. So I'm looking up anagrams for

1074
00:57:59,640 --> 00:58:03,240
Speaker 1: legion and like like Leno's in the Stephen King's story.

1075
00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:05,960
Speaker 1: There are really not very many good ones. We got

1076
00:58:06,040 --> 00:58:09,440
Speaker 1: leg I on Okay, let's not really good but but

1077
00:58:09,600 --> 00:58:12,120
Speaker 1: still good. That just inserts the space. But we also

1078
00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:16,320
Speaker 1: got ogl in sounds good ego Nil, Yeah, I like

1079
00:58:16,400 --> 00:58:22,120
Speaker 1: that one, Lean Go line Go and old Jin Old Jen. Well,

1080
00:58:22,520 --> 00:58:24,800
Speaker 1: those demons are gonna need a lot of names, because

1081
00:58:24,800 --> 00:58:27,200
Speaker 1: there are a lot of them. I think we must

1082
00:58:27,240 --> 00:58:29,280
Speaker 1: in there all right. Well, if you want to listen

1083
00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:31,640
Speaker 1: to other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, go

1084
00:58:31,960 --> 00:58:34,880
Speaker 1: forth and do so. You'll find them wherever you get

1085
00:58:34,920 --> 00:58:37,520
Speaker 1: your podcasts and wherever you get your podcast Just make

1086
00:58:37,560 --> 00:58:40,440
Speaker 1: sure you rate and review, make sure you've subscribed. It's

1087
00:58:40,440 --> 00:58:42,120
Speaker 1: a great way to support the show. You can also

1088
00:58:42,120 --> 00:58:44,240
Speaker 1: get us find our episodes that Stuff with your Mind

1089
00:58:44,280 --> 00:58:47,080
Speaker 1: dot com. Also, we have another show called Invention that

1090
00:58:47,120 --> 00:58:50,240
Speaker 1: we uh we we highly recommend you check out this month.

1091
00:58:50,360 --> 00:58:52,480
Speaker 1: We have a number of episodes that have come out

1092
00:58:52,520 --> 00:58:58,200
Speaker 1: about caskets, casket science, casket history, weird casket inventions, well

1093
00:58:58,360 --> 00:59:01,600
Speaker 1: worth listening to if you're in the mood for more

1094
00:59:01,800 --> 00:59:05,160
Speaker 1: seasonal content. Yeah, if you're not subscribed to Invention, go

1095
00:59:05,280 --> 00:59:09,120
Speaker 1: subscribe now. Ogl In Big Thanks as always to our

1096
00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:12,400
Speaker 1: excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like

1097
00:59:12,440 --> 00:59:14,240
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this

1098
00:59:14,320 --> 00:59:16,880
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future,

1099
00:59:17,160 --> 00:59:19,360
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, come on and ogle on

1100
00:59:19,520 --> 00:59:31,560
Speaker 1: in at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1101
00:59:31,640 --> 00:59:33,480
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart

1102
00:59:33,560 --> 00:59:35,919
Speaker 1: Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart

1103
00:59:35,960 --> 00:59:38,600
Speaker 1: Radio is at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

1104
00:59:38,600 --> 00:59:49,240
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.