WEBVTT - From the Vault: Dissolver of Worlds 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.440 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:11.440 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Came today we're 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.200 bringing you an episode from the Vault. This one is 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:20.159 called Dissolver of Worlds. It originally published on April. I 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:22.919 remember being very excited about this one when we recorded it. 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.119 Uh we we talk a lot about the history of 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:30.040 the quest for a universal solvent in in alchemy. All right, 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:35.640 let's dive right in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:45.839 Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:48.800 to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:52.640 I'm Joe McCormick, and I wanted to start off today 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:57.240 by thinking about containers. Um, if you ever look around 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:00.160 a chemistry lab, you will notice that there are a 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:04.120 lot of containers made out of glass. Glass is often 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.560 thought of as as the chemist's friend, right, And this 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.920 is because silica, the stuff that glass is made out of, 0:01:11.120 --> 0:01:15.320 is generally chemically inert, not much reacts with it, and 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:19.319 glass is insoluble in in most solvents, so it's not 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:23.240 going to be leaching off and contaminating your sample. But 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.800 this is not true in all cases. For instance, there's 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:29.160 a chemical we've talked about on the show before, called 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:34.480 hydrofluoric acid, uh, the solution of hydrogen fluoride or HF 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:40.560 in water. Hydrogen fluoride is known to actually corrode even glass, 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:42.800 and there's some pretty good videos of this that you 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:46.240 can look up, like the YouTube channel called periodic Videos 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.840 as one you can find where they dissolve a glass 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.480 light bulb in hydrofluoric acid. I think while it's plugged 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:55.800 in by the way, at least when when the glass 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.480 finally does dissolve and break off in the liquid, the 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:01.840 the film inside the light bulb, I recall, is like 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:05.280 sparking in the solution in a in a very weak 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.280 and creepy and cursed way. But it's kind of disturbing 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:12.640 to see even glass, the ultimate non reactor, just getting 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.880 sort of cleanly sheared off of the top of a 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:20.120 bulb when it's dipped into this this stuff and then 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:23.200 falling away and eventually just dissolving into it and becoming 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.680 a liquid itself. Regular glass, of course, is made of 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:29.960 silica sand, which is made of silicon dioxide or s 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:34.520 I O two, and when you put glass into hydrogen 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:39.040 fluoride into hydrofluoric acid, the hydrogen fluoride breaks the bonds 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:44.160 between silicon and oxygen in silica to form silicon fluorine molecules, 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.600 and the result is the hydrofluoric acid eats right through 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.359 the solid glass. So here you've got this material, this 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.800 hydrofluoric acid that cannot be stored in regular glass containers, 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:59.280 has to be stored in special plastic containers or it 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:03.600 might eat right through the bottle and spill everywhere. And 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:06.040 this is a jumping off point for today's episode, because 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.600 we're gonna be looking at the question of what if 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:12.959 you were to imagine a material that pushed the boundaries 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.560 even farther, if there was a solvent that that could 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:22.799 dissolve everything it touched, a sort of universal solvent. M Yeah, 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.120 this reminds me a lot of our discussions in the 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.600 episode on Hollywood Acid, the the way that acids are 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:33.160 sometimes presented in science fiction, especially where you know, you 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:36.600 you wound a xenomorph and it's so it's it's acidic 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:41.080 blood seems to just burn its way through every floor, 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:43.840 you know, all the way through the hull of the ship. Yeah, precisely. 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.119 So this will be kind of a follow up episode 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:48.920 to that. But but going more into the history of 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:52.720 alchemy and getting into some of the metaphorical realms of 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:56.760 these these high powered solvents. Now, one thing this immediately 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.840 relates to for me is a thought experiment that I 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.800 remember encountering from reading some of the American philosopher Daniel 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:08.760 Dennett's books, where um Dinnett often talks about a metaphor 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.800 that he uses called universal acid. It's basically exactly what 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:15.960 we're describing here, but he doesn't mean it in the 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:19.640 pure material sense. Then it uses the metaphor of universal 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:24.359 acid to describe evolution. Uh. And and what he means 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:28.080 there is that evolution is a concept that is not 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.760 just a theory in biology. It's not just that when 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:35.520 we discovered evolution by natural selection we could suddenly explain 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.400 the diversity of species on Earth. That was true, but 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.640 it's also a sort of revolutionizing world view that changes 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.160 everything it touches. And so, to quote from his summary 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.040 of this idea from his book Intuition, Pumps and Other 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:52.440 Tools for Thinking, din it writes, universal acid is a 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.560 liquid so corrosive that it will eat through anything, but 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:59.000 what do you keep it in? It dissolves glass bottles 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:03.159 and stainless steel canisters as readily as paper bags. What 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:05.960 would happen if you somehow came upon or created a 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:10.320 dollop of universal acid? Would the whole planet eventually be destroyed? 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:13.680 What would it leave in its wake after everything had 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:17.400 been transformed by its encounter with universal acid? What would 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.279 the world look like? Little did I realize that in 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:23.760 a few years I would encounter an idea, Darwin's idea 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:28.000 bearing an unmistakable likeness to universal acid. It eats through 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.480 just about every traditional concept and leaves in its wake 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:36.080 a revolutionized worldview, with most of the old landmarks still recognizable, 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:40.360 but transformed in fundamental ways. Now there's a thing here 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.279 where the metaphor I think might not be the best one, 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.400 because we get Hollywood acid in our brains, and when 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.160 we think about Hollywood acid, Hollywood acid doesn't just change, 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.799 it destroys. Right. You put the Batman in the Hollywood acid, 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.120 and then the Batman is no more. Yeah. I mean 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.279 a lot of this, though, comes down to what we 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.240 I mean when you talk about things being destroyed. This 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:06.640 is a very human viewpoint. This is a very um, 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:11.120 you know, organism based view of things. That the Batman 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:14.680 is destroyed in the acid, that the the car is 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.960 destroyed in the crash. Uh that or that even something 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:20.520 is destroyed when it is um you know, when it's 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:22.680 just you know, a metal or something and it's melted 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.279 or it's uh or it's it's it's it's put into 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:29.000 some sort of an acid or a base. But you know, 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:31.640 it comes back to the basic principle that matter can 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.880 neither be uh, you know, ultimately created or destroyed. Everything 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:38.679 can only be transferred into different states or broken down 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.680 into different components. That's a very good point. Yeah, from 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:44.200 the sort of like chemical view of the universe, nothing 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:46.360 has been destroyed. But I think it'd be fair to 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.400 say that if you put a batman in a bunch 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:51.600 of sulfuric acid and then you liberate all the possible 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:54.200 water molecules from him and just leave a bunch of 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.440 elemental carbon, you could say, in some sense the batman 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.840 has been destroyed conceptually at least, yes, But I mean 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.080 part of that is the difficulty of then recreating a batman, right, 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:08.240 because right, I mean we would have to recreate not 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:12.080 only the batman's body, but the batman's psyche, and and 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:15.160 you know, they're huge hurdles, not only in terms of 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:18.360 of science and our understanding of psychology, but also time. 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:23.119 It's a huge time investment to try and reproduce another Batman. Right, So, 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.520 so I don't know if maybe he could have used 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.120 a slightly better metaphor for what he means, because what 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:31.480 I think he means is not that the concept of 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:35.120 evolution destroys everything it touches in culture, but rather it 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:38.800 reacts with everything it touches. So it leaves the world 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:42.160 we knew before populated with the same questions and beauties 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.760 and wonders, but each of them sort of now upgraded 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.960 by a chemical reaction, each one sort of changed somewhat 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:52.440 by our new perspective. You have a new scientific way 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:56.320 of thinking about everything that you knew before. Yeah, you know, 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.400 I think this this argument, it certainly applies to evolution 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.920 very wrongly, uh, but you know, into evolutionary theory, but 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:08.360 it also can apply to even um hypotheses that we've 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:10.720 discussed in the show before. You know that take, for instance, 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.600 the bi cameral mind hypothesis by Julian Jaynes. That's an 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:18.440 example of of of a very infectious idea that once 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:21.400 you have, if you've really gotten into it. You it 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:23.800 kind of can change the way you think about so 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:26.400 many other things. Um. And then there are even less 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:28.840 you know, controversial ideas you can think of where once 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:32.640 you have once you were alert to say, um, oh 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:36.080 just you know, certain sort of psychological ideas about how 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.200 uh you know, how things like trauma work. You know, Uh, 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.560 it changes the way you think about reality because you 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.720 have a different way of processing, uh, what is going 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:50.920 on or maybe going on with other people and other 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.040 groups and throughout history. Yeah, and the metaphorical sense, I mean, 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:57.160 all kinds of ideas I guess can become a mental 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:01.400 universal solvent. I would say in some cases with more 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.400 use than in other cases, Like sometimes we just start 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.760 applying an idea to everything because it's really fun. And 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:10.319 in other cases we start applying idea an idea to 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:12.839 everything because we get we we at least believe we're 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:15.040 getting some kind of analytical use out of it, like 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.760 it's explaining more than, uh than than other ideas that 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:21.680 we had previously. Though, I would say, be cautious of 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.320 any lens that seems to explain everything, because you know, 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:27.600 I've been through phases in my life where I sort 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.160 of like learned a new analytical lens and then it 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:33.400 explained literally everything in the world, And like, you gotta 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.480 be careful about those. Usually you're probably over applying it 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:39.920 at that point. Yeah, Like if you if you just 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:43.760 apply aliens to everything, yeah, and then it works. Uh, 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:46.280 you know, you're probably over applying aliens. And there was 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:48.560 actually a sample I hear every now and then in 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.680 a in a track where someone saying, you know, listing 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.600 off all these different things and then saying, you drop 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:57.199 aliens in the middle of this and everything makes sense. 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:03.200 U always true. It's always true. So if there's anything 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:05.440 like that, yeah, you could. You can sub anything for 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.000 aliens if if it feels like it's a perfect fit, 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:12.360 that it explains everything that it that it absolutely dissolves 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:14.800 all the mysteries of life. I don't know, it's it's 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.160 probably not the universal solvent you're you're really looking for, 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:19.360 but it can seem like that. But before we get 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:21.720 back into the fully metaphorical space, but what it means 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:25.120 to to think about the world in terms of universal solvents. 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:29.680 I want to actually consider the real material possibility of 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:34.360 a universal solvent, especially as it has figured into the 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:39.040 history of alchemy, because you probably know, even if you 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:42.360 only have passing familiarity with alchemy, that one of the 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:47.280 endeavors of of alchemy was this search for these sort 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:52.240 of dream materials, these holy Grail materials. What an author 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:55.520 I'm going to be quoting extensively in this episode, Lawrence 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.320 Prince you pay calls chemical arcana or I guess singular 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:03.080 chemical ar kanum. Uh. These objects that are sort of 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:07.080 the mcguffins of alchemy that alchemists were requesting after. So 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.120 one of these things might be like the Philosopher's stone 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.559 that could allow you to transmute base metals into gold 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:17.600 in the process known as chrysopoeia, or other ones might be. 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:20.720 Actually I talked about one in an Artifact episode and 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:23.760 it did not too long ago. Uh. It's an idea 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:25.880 that you can find going all the way back to 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.880 ancient Roman times, and that's the concept of bindable glass, 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:34.040 the vitrum flexila or vitrum malle abel that you could 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:37.280 have glass that could be soft like dough and shaped 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.559 into into different you know, into whatever form you needed. 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:45.400 But another similar arcanum in alchemy was the concept of 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.840 alcahest a, a substance that would act as a universal 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:54.839 solvent that could break down anything. Now, discussing alchemy is 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:59.760 always a little bit difficult because alchemy is somewhat controversially 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:05.040 find like different people try to insist on different historical understanding. 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.400 Is of exactly what alchemy was. I mean, you can't 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:10.160 say it's a It's the general output of a group 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:13.000 of certain scholars who, you know, we're kind of secretive 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.240 about their beliefs, and we're working with materials in some way. 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.240 I mean, it's a kind of slippery concept. In English, 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:21.199 the term has been used to refer to a huge 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:24.840 range of beliefs and behaviors, with special emphasis on things 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.800 done that that sound in some way related to sorcery, 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:32.880 the hermetic, and the occult, and these associations are absolutely 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.240 not without foundation. Like that they much of alchemy does 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:42.400 have occult and and and supernatural connections. But another way 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.760 to understand alchemy, for the purpose of today's discussion at least, 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.800 is that it is sort of the proto scientific study 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:54.880 of the dynamics of matter, particularly concerned with transforming one 0:12:54.960 --> 0:13:00.120 type of matter into another, or of isolating the constituents 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:05.679 of a material, refining that material, or enhancing its alleged properties, 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:09.120 many of which were perceived to be medicinal properties. I 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:11.040 know a lot of people in the modern era when 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.160 they think of alchemy, they think about people trying to 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:15.800 turn lead into gold. And then then that was a 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:18.720 preoccupation of some people in the world of alchemy. But 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:22.720 also a huge part of alchemy was a quest for medicine. Yeah. 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.680 I guess to two points to make here. One is 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.000 that we do often think of that when we think 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.360 of alchemy, we may think of a very Western context, 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.080 and we think of people who look like wizards, you know, 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.760 or even specifically someone who looks like John d or Merlin, Uh, 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.000 toying around with science stuff. You know, alchemy is science 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.520 stuff what wizards do. Uh. But it is also important 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:45.840 to note that that alchemy and things that we think 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:49.000 of in English and uh in the end, in the 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.080 Western world as alchemy, you also find that in the 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.840 in the Arabic world, you find it in in ancient India, 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.760 you find it in ancient China. Uh. You know. So 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:03.360 alchemy can very broadly speaking be seen as kind of 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:07.640 a global effort of learned individuals trying to learn more 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:11.480 about the world. Um. I think one way to think 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:15.720 of it too. Is think about geographic discovery. You know, 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:20.400 people setting out on on voyages, trying to find distant 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:22.920 lands that they know to exist or that they have 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.320 heard to exist. Sometimes those lands do not exist at all. 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:29.560 Sometimes they are, you know, islands of the imagination. But 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:33.359 in the quest to find those places, they find real places, 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:38.280 and ultimately this leads up to a a more accurate 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:42.560 and more refined understanding of the world. Own interesting parallel 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:47.080 between alchemy and your geography. Example, during the ages of exploration, 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.120 where people were trying to get away from their home 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:51.120 country and figure out what else was out there that 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:54.160 they could find. They're going to be different levels of 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:59.280 perspicacity and reporting, you know, because like, whatever you've discovered, 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:01.160 you may think of this is, oh, this is knowledge 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:02.720 I want to share with the world, But you may 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.360 also very much think of it as like kind of 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:07.960 a trade secret or a personal You know, this is 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:10.960 something I've discovered for me and my my, my buddies, 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:13.800 and we need to keep this secret and not let 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:16.000 everybody else get in there before we've had a good 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:18.239 go at it. Yeah, and then you have the pesky 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:22.240 situation of discovering the real but keeping it secret or 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:24.360 only holding on to it because of your quest for 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:26.960 the unreal. And we've touched on this before on the 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:31.240 show before um when we were talking about urine at 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.800 some point urine's role in alchemy, and uh, I forget 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:39.720 that the exact chemical episode we were discussing this. But 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:42.960 the history of alchemy is full of such scenarios, you know. 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.320 I was reading actually a Washington Post article from January 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.400 eighteen by Ben Guarino that interviews Lawrence Prince you pay, 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:52.800 one of the one of the authors who's an expert 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:55.040 on alchemy that we're gonna be talking about in this episode. 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:57.480 And this article ends up talking a lot about p 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:00.280 and there was one part I found very fun. It's 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:03.960 talking about how in prince hips lab he will try 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:09.400 to recreate some some old alchemy experiments as they are 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:13.080 described from these these texts, and so the artifacts of 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.000 these experiments are all all around his lab. And and 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.160 the article here describes on the counter sits a large 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:24.600 jar labeled flim of acidified urine. More than one alchemical 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:28.000 recipe calls for human p. Prince Ship said. An old 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:32.120 Arabic text used the phrase the secret is within you, 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:36.280 probably meaning well reader you go figure it out, and 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:38.880 then it quotes Prince saying, but some people took that 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:42.720 more literally, so they ended up using vast amounts of urine. 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:46.880 Oh that's wonderful. Yeah. And and now that I've had 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:50.239 a second to reflect, it was our our invention episode 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:54.520 or episodes on the matchtick. Uh yeah, we're we're talking. 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:56.600 I can't rea. So we talked about multiple people who 0:16:56.720 --> 0:16:59.040 used urine. At least one of the main people who 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.680 was big into it to urine experiments was was the 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:07.919 seventeenth century alchemist Hinnig Brund who who really specifically wanted 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:10.840 urine from beer drinkers. So it was like, go to 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.120 the bars, get the drunks to p in a bucket, 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.600 and I will create a huge, a gigantic vat of 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:20.199 beer drinker p. Yes. Yes, so it was brand He 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:24.119 was in search of the Philosopher's stone, um, but in 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.520 doing so made these discoveries that ultimately tied into our 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:32.520 understanding of phosphorus and matches and you know, or matches 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.439 being the one of the the actual real world and 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.440 world inventions to come out of this quest for the fantastic. 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.879 But it's so funny also about like misinterpreting the line 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.760 the secret is within you two mean like literally in 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:48.960 your bladder, because that that seems just just perfect for 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:51.080 the world of alchemy, because there was a lot of 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:56.640 sort of metaphors and secret keeping, kind of coded language. 0:17:56.880 --> 0:18:00.600 A Prince Pay talks in in one interview was watching 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:04.560 about how, you know, in some alchemical texts, the author 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:09.440 will not say the conventional names of the chemicals that 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:13.200 he's talking about. He might instead of saying nitric acid, 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:17.640 he will say the red dragon, And instead of saying, um, 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:20.920 you know, like add nitric acid to this solution, he 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:24.280 would say something like allow the red dragon to consume 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:26.679 the white eagle or something. So, you know, it's kind 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:28.359 of you have to like dig through and figure out 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:30.639 what all of these code words refer to, not in 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:33.879 every case, but in many. Yeah, So it it makes 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:38.320 looking back on some of these recipes and ideas oftentimes confusing, 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:41.399 because like I'm reminded of of the recipe that I 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:46.080 looked at once for the creation of a homunculous and 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.000 it has this kind of coded language in it. So 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:51.720 sometimes it's hard to determine, you know, how much of 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:56.840 what you're looking at is just abject occultism and in sorcery. 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:00.800 And how much is coded material referring to something more 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:04.560 closely related to to the world of chemistry and reality? 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.280 Oh right, so like is it actually asking for like 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:10.879 a bat swing or is it or is that a 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.640 code for like saltpeter or something? Yeah, and I guess 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.200 you can. You can look at similar situations throughout our 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:21.680 you know the world of language and spirituality and all. 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:24.280 But um, I guess one of the things to drive 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.000 home with with alchemy is that, yes, we're talking about 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:31.879 ultimately a proto scientific sphere. Uh. You know, this is 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:36.880 one though, in which scientific considerations are either inherently mingled 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.359 with philosophic and supernatural ideas, or at the very least 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:44.760 are heavily susceptible to flowing into those subjects. And is 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:48.200 the author um Mercia Eliade put it in the Forge 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:52.080 and the Crucible quote Alchemy posed as a sacred science, 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:55.800 whereas chemistry came into its own when substances had shed 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.600 their sacred attributes. Oh that's interesting, I mean, yeah, One 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:01.199 thing I we want to talk about as we go 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:04.560 on is the ways that different uh practitioners of the 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:09.240 alchemy period didn't they weren't just looking for chemical formulas, 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:13.959 but they really thought chemicals meant something. Yeah. Yeah, And 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:17.040 you you can imagine too where this gets. You know, 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.359 we can't look at something without working without you know, 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:23.920 without our brain beginning to ponder over the possible metaphors there. 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:26.520 You know, how does this relate to me? Um And 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:28.880 maybe we're we get we're a little further from that now, 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.480 but you know, we have to sort of put ourselves 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:37.600 in the mindset of of older uh, you know, experimentors. 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.280 And uh, this is where I want to bring up 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:43.200 some of the some of the thoughts that Terrence McKenna 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:47.040 brought to the table concerning alchemy um And and I 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:48.880 think he I think he made he made some good, 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:50.840 good points on the topic. He gave a series of 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:54.159 lectures on alchemy in the late nineties um And touched 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:56.360 on this. And I want to read a quote from 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.000 it from a transcription. In this he is citing Iliade 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:02.960 it also putting his own spin on things. Quote. The 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:05.760 shaman is the brother of the smith. The smith is 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:08.840 the metallurgist, the worker in metals. And this is where 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.119 alchemy has its roots. We who take this for granted, 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:15.080 have no idea. How mysterious and powerful this seemed to 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:17.720 ancient people, and in fact it would seem so to 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:20.240 us if we had anything to do with it. I mean, 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:22.720 how many of us are welders or castors of metal. 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:26.280 It's a magical process to take, for instance, cinnabar, a 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:29.159 red soft ore, and by the mere act of heating 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:31.960 it in a furnace, it will sweat liquid mercury onto 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:37.120 its surface. We have unconsciously imbibed the ontology of science, 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:40.640 where we have mind firmly separated out from the world. 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:43.520 We take this for granted. It's effortless because it is 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:46.560 the ambiance of the civilization that we've been born into. 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:48.960 But in an earlier age, some writers would say, a 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:52.000 more naive age. But I wonder about that mind and 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:55.679 matter were seen to be alloyed together throughout nature, so 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:58.520 that the sweating of mercury out of cinnabar is not 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.480 a material process. It is a process in which the 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:05.360 mind and the observations of the metal worker maintain an 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:08.399 important role. Well, I don't know what to think about 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:10.959 that claim about the idea the role of the mind 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:14.919 in the transformations, but I think he's absolutely right that 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:18.000 like you know, it's one of the frustrations of the 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:21.840 modern world is that we rely so on so much 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:26.840 um science and technology in the background of our lives 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:29.440 that we can lose sight of the sheer wonder that 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:32.880 that is on, you know, visible if you're actually watching 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:37.000 these processes unfold in firsthand. Yeah. I mean we talk 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:39.720 about technological metaphors all the time on the show. How 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:43.840 how often we think about our own cognition in terms 0:22:44.160 --> 0:22:49.040 of computers and cameras and digital recordings and so forth, 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:52.320 uh and photoshop, etcetera. You know, and and these can 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:55.679 all be useful, but they can also distort and create 0:22:55.960 --> 0:23:00.800 a a distorted version of what's actually going on inside 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:04.560 the mind or outside of it. And yeah, I think 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:06.359 you know, if you were to put yourself in someone 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:09.240 who day in and day out, was not using an iPhone, 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:11.320 was not using a PC or a GO or a 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:15.719 Mac or whatever, but was instead, uh working with the 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:19.399