Speaker 1: This facility is a mess, totally not up to imperial standards.
Speaker 1: He says that it's due to his haste. He could
Speaker 1: perform tidier neckruptcies of the alien species requested, but it
Speaker 1: would require more time. Lord Veta has absolutely forbidden a
Speaker 1: third episode. The analysis needs to be completed today. The
Speaker 1: surgical droid is requesting that we each hold a flap
Speaker 1: of tissue. I am just here to supervise. Doesn't he
Speaker 1: have extra arms for precisely this reason? Those are for
Speaker 1: waving around all right? Then, welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two
Speaker 1: of our Star Wars Alien necropsies. So in the last episode,
Speaker 1: if you haven't heard that, yeah, you should probably just
Speaker 1: go listen to that one first where we discuss what
Speaker 1: we're doing here and then and then come back and
Speaker 1: rejoin us for this one. But hey, if if you're
Speaker 1: all caught up here, we are again. And the last
Speaker 1: time we talked about some aliens from the Star Wars galaxy,
Speaker 1: we talked about some vacuum dwellers like the exo Gorth
Speaker 1: and the Mynox and compared that to some real world biology,
Speaker 1: both both definite and hypothetical. And we also talked about
Speaker 1: the Jedi toe Gruta, a powerful and honorable species of
Speaker 1: alien with some with awesome stuff on their heads. But
Speaker 1: but we're back again, and I think it's heads up
Speaker 1: first again today, isn't it? It is? And I'm glad
Speaker 1: you mentioned the togruta because because basically it comes down
Speaker 1: to this situation where you have various scenes in Star Wars,
Speaker 1: Cantina scenes, Jedi Council scenes, etcetera, where part of the
Speaker 1: fun is like, wow, look at the alien diversity and
Speaker 1: look at all the strange things going on with with morphology,
Speaker 1: with with these aliens heads and bodies. But of course,
Speaker 1: if we're looking at things from a biological standpoint, things
Speaker 1: are shaped certain ways for a reason. Things have evolved
Speaker 1: into different forms for a reason. And those strange heads
Speaker 1: you see just filling up the space if we were,
Speaker 1: if we were to look at them with scientific scrutiny,
Speaker 1: and you know, and also lean into the uh, you know, two,
Speaker 1: into the imagination, into the fantasy of that you know,
Speaker 1: all these things have a purpose, and and we can
Speaker 1: we can turn, of course, to to Cannon and to
Speaker 1: the fiction itself to get some of those answers. But
Speaker 1: then a lot of the fun is in extrapolating and
Speaker 1: saying what else could it be used for? Or if
Speaker 1: the thing they're telling me is true, what are the ramifications,
Speaker 1: often the unexplored ramifications of that right? What can you
Speaker 1: deduce about the ancestral environment of the creature that confronts
Speaker 1: Luke in the moss as Lee Cantina with the weird
Speaker 1: little lobes on his chin. I actually know the answer
Speaker 1: to that one. I think that was that one has
Speaker 1: been described in Cannon. I think it's Cannon anyway as
Speaker 1: being um like a a surgical It's like a self
Speaker 1: surgical addict. So so all those weird features are at
Speaker 1: least partially the result of self surgery. I think that's right.
Speaker 1: Could be wrong on that. We might have to take
Speaker 1: that out if I'm wrong, but but I believe that's
Speaker 1: the case. That is not the answer I expect. Wait,
Speaker 1: are you talking about the guy who talks to Luke
Speaker 1: or just the guy who grunt? No, I meant the
Speaker 1: guy who grunts at him, who has the weird little
Speaker 1: kind of like the butt on his mouth or chin area. Yes, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know as much about those guys, but but
Speaker 1: they are. They are described at length in some of
Speaker 1: the books that uh, that I've looked at. One of
Speaker 1: which I want to go ahead and mention is Star
Speaker 1: Wars Alien Archive, which is just a wonderful illustrated tone
Speaker 1: of Aliens from all I think, all the Star Wars
Speaker 1: movies up through Solo, and it had just wonderful illustrations,
Speaker 1: nice little write ups about them. It's one of these
Speaker 1: books that UM that I got from my my son
Speaker 1: sometime last year early last year, and we've already like
Speaker 1: worn it out, their pages falling out of it. You know,
Speaker 1: anytime you get the book out, you have to like
Speaker 1: reinsert different parts of it that have come come apart.
Speaker 1: It's a it's seen a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: wear and tear and love. So I highly recommend that one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think we've talked to many times before about our
Speaker 1: our love for the illustrated encyclopedias of fictional worlds, and
Speaker 1: and this is a great one. But the the first
Speaker 1: selection I want to make here today is Um is
Speaker 1: not a creature from a Cantina. It is that, in fact,
Speaker 1: a creature from UH that we first encounter in the
Speaker 1: Jedi Council scenes in UH Star Wars The Phantom Menace. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember these these guys are
Speaker 1: not are really there's mainly one guy that we encounter,
Speaker 1: but the species they're known as the Serians. Oh, this
Speaker 1: is the guy who looks like a wizard but with
Speaker 1: a tower head. So it's almost as if the Tower
Speaker 1: of Eisenard has been incorporated into Saruman's skull. Yes, these
Speaker 1: uh these were a bipedal largely humanoid species. Were told
Speaker 1: their native to the planet Syria, and they're most notable
Speaker 1: for their in large, just vaguely conical craniums, though they
Speaker 1: lack the pronounced cone heads of the Mulachians of cone
Speaker 1: Head's fame. Um. We're told that they have two hearts,
Speaker 1: the second of which is said to supply extra blood
Speaker 1: and oxygen to their most curious uh neurobiology. And that
Speaker 1: is a binary brain. Oh okay, I can see why
Speaker 1: this caught your attention. Yes, so what is meant by
Speaker 1: a binary brain? Well? In UH again, the excellent illustrated
Speaker 1: Star Wars Alien Archive it is said that the Syrian
Speaker 1: binary brain is quote able to process many things at
Speaker 1: the same time, sort through data quickly and also consider
Speaker 1: two sides of the same arguments simultaneously parallel processing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's also been suggested I think in perhaps this
Speaker 1: is like an extended universe, you know, novelization thing. But
Speaker 1: it's been suggested that this sort of brain structure allows
Speaker 1: at least certain members of of of the Syrian species,
Speaker 1: especially like for or sensitive individuals, to explore both the
Speaker 1: light and the dark side of the force in ways
Speaker 1: that are maybe somewhat safer compared to just normal dabbling
Speaker 1: in the dark side. Oh, I see. So the understanding
Speaker 1: is that normally, if you are to explore the dark side,
Speaker 1: it's kind of not possible to just do that as
Speaker 1: a curiosity like learning. The dark side necessarily will corrupt
Speaker 1: and contaminate your brain. And so if you have a
Speaker 1: divided mind like this, maybe you can sort of quarantine
Speaker 1: the half of your brain that does get corrupted with
Speaker 1: that so that it doesn't spread to the other half.
Speaker 1: Is is that what you're saying? That is what? That
Speaker 1: is what I believe the argument is. I haven't actually
Speaker 1: read anything um or viewed anything where they get into that.
Speaker 1: But certainly, if anyone out there has, if you're familiar
Speaker 1: with with whatever novelization or or novel or comic this
Speaker 1: happens to be from, I'd love to hear it a
Speaker 1: little bit more. Now. The most famous and recognizable Serian is,
Speaker 1: without a doubt, Jedi Master Kai Adimundi, hero general of
Speaker 1: the Clone Wars who fought alongside the likes of Anakin
Speaker 1: Skywalker and Obie one Kenobi. He fought at the first
Speaker 1: and second battles of Genosis and perished during the invasion
Speaker 1: of the Ghetto with the twenty one Novocore. When Supreme
Speaker 1: Chancellor Palpatine initiated Order sixty six, he stilled with a lightsaber.
Speaker 1: He was a skilled force combatant, but he was equally
Speaker 1: known and respected for his logic and tactics. That big
Speaker 1: brain of his. Yeah, that would make sense. I seem
Speaker 1: to recall his death scene. I think it's in Revenge
Speaker 1: of the Sith. He's like running across a is it
Speaker 1: across a bridge or something? Yeah, I think it's a
Speaker 1: bridge battle and all the Clone troopers start shooting him
Speaker 1: in the back. Yeah. Yeah, So so he definitely goes
Speaker 1: down but you so you don't see a lot of
Speaker 1: him in the live action stuff, but um And in
Speaker 1: those prequel films he was played by an actor by
Speaker 1: the name of Silas Carson under heavy um effects makeup.
Speaker 1: But in the Clone Wars animated series, the main one,
Speaker 1: he was voiced by British Israeli actor Brian George, who
Speaker 1: does a great job with him, and they have a
Speaker 1: little more time to flesh him out. And in the
Speaker 1: two thousand three Clone Wars series from Ghindi Tartakowski, you
Speaker 1: don't have um you don't really have a lot of
Speaker 1: character development there, but you have a lot of action.
Speaker 1: That's a very action centric series. And in that um
Speaker 1: Master Mundi is an absolute shirt ripping beast. Like he's
Speaker 1: running around with head bandaged and his shirt torn open,
Speaker 1: with all these muscles and he's just like, you know,
Speaker 1: killing the thousands of droids. It's it's pretty fun. So
Speaker 1: he's like your Hunter from the Future mode. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: slaying but you know, Okay, it's impressive that he can
Speaker 1: do stuff with lightsaber and then he can go into
Speaker 1: best mode. But the main thing we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about here is this idea of a binary brain and
Speaker 1: as far as I know, there's no definitive word on
Speaker 1: the exact structure of the Syrian brain or brains. But
Speaker 1: I think there are essentially a couple of ways to
Speaker 1: look at what might be going on inside that skull
Speaker 1: of their's. Okay, let's let's hear it. What's the first option? Okay,
Speaker 1: first option would be just, of course, a supersized brain
Speaker 1: that enables this buying, very mental process, composed of two
Speaker 1: lobes like ours, or maybe more lobes. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're getting into an unknown alien brain.
Speaker 1: Who's to say, right, And Syrian brain evolution could certainly
Speaker 1: follow the ice cream scoop model of human brain evolution.
Speaker 1: I think we've discussed this on the show before. But
Speaker 1: as explained by Kyle Moon Kittrick in a two thousand
Speaker 1: ten Discover magazine article, quote, evolution built our brain by
Speaker 1: taking simpler brains and just piling more brains on top,
Speaker 1: like adding scoops of ice cream to an ice cream cone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good way of thinking about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, we always want to be careful not
Speaker 1: to oversimplify the way we think about the structures of
Speaker 1: the brain. Because brains are complex and and all that,
Speaker 1: but in rough terms, I think that is sort of true.
Speaker 1: Like at the the lower levels of the brain, you
Speaker 1: have um the more sort of automatic processes of the body,
Speaker 1: and the more base level things like emotional type reactions.
Speaker 1: And then when you get further and further into the
Speaker 1: younger parts of the brain, younger in an evolutionary sense,
Speaker 1: towards the top and front of the brain, you get
Speaker 1: these you know, these coretexes, which are very involved in
Speaker 1: executive function and a lot of the things we think
Speaker 1: of as higher level thinking and behavior. Yeah, so mon
Speaker 1: Gentric describes like the first the first layer is actually
Speaker 1: the cone, and that's the nervous jellyfish cone, and then
Speaker 1: you get your instinctive lizard scoop pile on top of that,
Speaker 1: then the memory mouse scoop, then the thinking the thinking
Speaker 1: ape scoop on top of that. So each layer brings
Speaker 1: with it great pros that enable the human brain to
Speaker 1: function and evolved, but also arguably certain cons and that's
Speaker 1: one of the things they get into in this article.
Speaker 1: But for our purposes, Yeah, I think you could look
Speaker 1: at the Syrian the brain as essentially a human level
Speaker 1: brain with additional scoops cowering atop the rest of the cone,
Speaker 1: enabling this vastly increased functionality. Now you might think, well,
Speaker 1: what would the cons of having higher brain function be?
Speaker 1: And I would just say, like I, I'm not aware
Speaker 1: of any reptiles that really get bogged down in rumination. Yeah, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and I and I really hope certainly a Jedi master
Speaker 1: wouldn't have like Jedi masters have to deal with the
Speaker 1: dark side too. I mean, that's kind of the thing, right,
Speaker 1: Like higher cognition means you're open to the dark side.
Speaker 1: Correct me if I'm wrong. But I seem to recall
Speaker 1: in the prequels that a lot of Jedi training is
Speaker 1: about purging emotions, or at least certain kinds of emotions.
Speaker 1: Maybe not to the full Spock extent, but at least
Speaker 1: like not letting impulsive emotional reactions guide you're thinking, to
Speaker 1: be clear and to be you know, to to be
Speaker 1: able to use clear thinking in your mind when when
Speaker 1: our our natural tendency would be to get hot headed,
Speaker 1: right uh yeah. And then there's a lot of Buddhist
Speaker 1: uh uh Buddhism in there as well, dealing with like
Speaker 1: the idea of avoiding attachments and all. So we see
Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily work out all that well for those
Speaker 1: who aspire to it, right in those films. But but
Speaker 1: even like in terms of like confronting the dark side though,
Speaker 1: like that's always been a part of the uh of
Speaker 1: the of the Star Wars world, I mean, back the Empire,
Speaker 1: when Luke goes into that swamp and he's completing his training,
Speaker 1: like one of the things he does is the encounters
Speaker 1: that that vision of of Darth Vader that is also
Speaker 1: a vision of himself, right, I mean, I think we're
Speaker 1: supposed to take that as like Luke is being confronted
Speaker 1: by the possibility of what would happen if he himself
Speaker 1: were seduced by the dark Side, which of course he does.
Speaker 1: He does play pretty dangerous in the movies, right, he
Speaker 1: gets close. Yeah. Yeah, anyway, that's basically this is like
Speaker 1: one idea of looking at this big brain, just one
Speaker 1: big brain in there, right, so it's like built up
Speaker 1: level by level, and maybe the additional brains are are
Speaker 1: something like what you would put even on top of
Speaker 1: our neo cortex. Maybe like they've got like a neo
Speaker 1: neo cortex or something. Yeah, Now, another interpretation and I
Speaker 1: think a more exotic one and also maybe maybe more fun,
Speaker 1: maybe more sci fi fantasy, but also one that I
Speaker 1: think I've seen visually represented somewhere. I tried to hunt
Speaker 1: it down to see if I could, because I would
Speaker 1: have put it in our inside of our notes if
Speaker 1: I could, but I couldn't find it. But I think
Speaker 1: I've seen this represented visibly. And that is the idea
Speaker 1: that Syrians actually have two brains inside their skull, one
Speaker 1: positioned right on top of the other, just straight up,
Speaker 1: two brains inside their heads. So that means one of
Speaker 1: the brains is closer to the heart. Maybe that makes
Speaker 1: it easier to get blood flow to that one. Well,
Speaker 1: that's why they have two hearts, Joe. So the idea
Speaker 1: is that that second heart is I guess, powering the
Speaker 1: second brain or enabling just enough blood flow to get
Speaker 1: up there to to work with both brains. Um. So
Speaker 1: I want to stress I'm not talking two brains here
Speaker 1: in the sense that the human brain consists of two
Speaker 1: hemispheres connected by the corpus co awesome, but two separate brains,
Speaker 1: perhaps each consisting of two hemispheres each. And uh, I
Speaker 1: should also add that that some descriptions refer to Syrian
Speaker 1: brains in a way that does seem to indicate two brains.
Speaker 1: And again they do have too hard so I guess
Speaker 1: the duplicity seems to to work out here. So these
Speaker 1: two I tend to lean more towards the actual two
Speaker 1: brains inside their their heads. Uh So, I guess another
Speaker 1: you could do a third option. It would be a
Speaker 1: variation on idea number two, and that would be that
Speaker 1: they just had a very large humanoid brain, but the
Speaker 1: hemispheres are not connected by something like the corpus colossum.
Speaker 1: Oh no, that's very interesting. I want to say some things,
Speaker 1: but I also don't want to preempt you because I
Speaker 1: know you're going to get into talking about split brain
Speaker 1: experiments here. Yeah, okay, but yeah, So the corpus colossum,
Speaker 1: at least we know in the human brain, enables a
Speaker 1: large amount of communication between the hemispheres, and in cases
Speaker 1: where the corpus colossum in humans has been severed, often
Speaker 1: a person can still live their life, like you can
Speaker 1: function with your brain hemispheres severed, and you can do things.
Speaker 1: But there are some very noticeable changes to how the
Speaker 1: brain or brains react to certain types of stimuli and
Speaker 1: scenarios under that condition. Yeah, yeah, when the color some
Speaker 1: has been severed. And then when you have like often
Speaker 1: it's you have to have certain experimental scenarios in place
Speaker 1: to make it become obvious because otherwise the individual doesn't
Speaker 1: notice and people who know them probably don't notice. But
Speaker 1: we'll get out into all that in a second. Now,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different directions you could go
Speaker 1: in here, like why, I mean the big one is
Speaker 1: like why would they go in this direction? First of all,
Speaker 1: would it be natural? Would it be just an evolution
Speaker 1: or would it be something that was engineered? And in
Speaker 1: either case, like why would it have to do with uh,
Speaker 1: like higher why would they need this like higher cognitive state?
Speaker 1: Would it have something to do with, you know, being
Speaker 1: an interstellar species or something to do with their their
Speaker 1: home environment. I don't know. Well, I mean it makes
Speaker 1: me think about how there are species on Earth that
Speaker 1: have a more distributed model of intelligence and nervous system control.
Speaker 1: And a great example would be octopuses, you know, like
Speaker 1: the octopus of course, like they've got a central brain,
Speaker 1: but then they have anglia throughout the body that are
Speaker 1: sometimes written about and you could argue to what extent
Speaker 1: this is a fair characterization, but they you could argue
Speaker 1: that octopuses in some ways also think with their arms
Speaker 1: in ways that are independent of the thinking that takes
Speaker 1: place in the centralized brain. So you can imagine there
Speaker 1: are scenarios where it's useful for an animal to have
Speaker 1: thinking or information processing happening at multiple different places within
Speaker 1: the body. But the Syrian seems kind of different because
Speaker 1: you can imagine with the octopus, Okay, maybe somehow the
Speaker 1: arm needs to think independently of the central brain. But
Speaker 1: this is two central brains, two brains in the head,
Speaker 1: So what's the what's like the second one doing differently?
Speaker 1: How would that be distributed in a way that would
Speaker 1: be useful like the octopus's arm. Yeah, and and so
Speaker 1: in thinking about possibilities, you know, we also come into
Speaker 1: ideas of that, like philosophical or spiritual upgrades to the brain.
Speaker 1: I mean, why not if we're trying to determine where
Speaker 1: we go from here, I mean, it seems that's worth
Speaker 1: thinking about. I should also just go ahead and add
Speaker 1: that obviously, big headed aliens is just a long, a
Speaker 1: long standing trope, you know, going back to the outer limits,
Speaker 1: and so forth. So, Uh, it's not like they invented
Speaker 1: the idea of big headed aliens and big headed future humanoids.
Speaker 1: It's been pretty much standard. Um. But but I don't
Speaker 1: know that I have I'm sure there's some sci fi
Speaker 1: out there predating this in which a human had two
Speaker 1: brain or humanoid had two brains, aside from Steve Martin,
Speaker 1: but yeah, but I'm not. I'm not aware of it
Speaker 1: off the top of my head. But but a lot
Speaker 1: of these considerations, like when we're talking about what, you know,
Speaker 1: what does this mean? What would two brains be like?
Speaker 1: I mean, it basically comes down to to that, what
Speaker 1: would it be like to have two brains? What would
Speaker 1: it conceive? What would conceivably be the mental state of
Speaker 1: an an individual like Master moon Dy here with two
Speaker 1: brains in their head? Ah, So now you're getting into
Speaker 1: subjective experience, And this of course touches on really big
Speaker 1: questions that are still unsettled in in human science and philosophy,
Speaker 1: stuff about like where consciousness resides in what it consists of? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and ultimately, yeah, this is gonna be unanswerable and we
Speaker 1: just have to sort of speculate and have fun with
Speaker 1: the speculation. But on one level, you have to say
Speaker 1: that ultimately the mind of alien being might just be
Speaker 1: impossible for us to comprehend. It just might be that different.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, you could say, well, having two
Speaker 1: brains in your head like this, it would just be
Speaker 1: like our mental experience. Because, as we alluded to earlier, though,
Speaker 1: the human brain consists of two cerebral hemispheres connected by
Speaker 1: the corpus um closum, each with many different modules, all
Speaker 1: of these acting in concert with each other, interconnected, and
Speaker 1: we explored this at length in our episodes on split
Speaker 1: brain experiments UM and of and of those experiments, most interestingly,
Speaker 1: one of the big ta coms was is that indeed,
Speaker 1: if you split the brain, you essentially split the person
Speaker 1: as well. Um, we're talking one person per hemisphere of
Speaker 1: the brain. A division of self, not one that is
Speaker 1: obvious to the individual or two people around them, but
Speaker 1: again presents itself when revealed through various experiments, particularly the
Speaker 1: Nobel winning work of neuroscientists Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga
Speaker 1: in the sixties and seventies. And so we go into
Speaker 1: much more depth than in that pair of episodes from
Speaker 1: I think it was a couple of years ago now,
Speaker 1: so you can go look those up if you want
Speaker 1: the full scoop. But they did find some very interesting
Speaker 1: things that I will say. Um. We also talked in
Speaker 1: that episode, I think about how there has been some
Speaker 1: research in recent years that sort of challenged their original findings,
Speaker 1: but people have pushed back against that research too, So
Speaker 1: it seems like, you know, this is one of the
Speaker 1: many things in in psychology and neuroscience that's still an
Speaker 1: ongoing question. But at least what they appeared to find
Speaker 1: is that you can, for example, in a patient who's
Speaker 1: had their hemisphere severed through this radical uh severing of
Speaker 1: the corpus closum, which is done not for the purpose
Speaker 1: of the experiment, but it's done specifically for people with
Speaker 1: really uh treatment resistant epilepsy to prevent them from having
Speaker 1: these recurr terrible seizures. UH. That you can sever the
Speaker 1: corpus closum, a person still reports being able to live
Speaker 1: their life generally like it is not a debilitating thing
Speaker 1: to do to the brain, but it causes these strange
Speaker 1: things where, for example, it seems that some amount of
Speaker 1: information is prevented from being shared fully between the two
Speaker 1: different parts of the brain. And so, for example, it
Speaker 1: is widely uh that in in most brains it is
Speaker 1: the left hemisphere that seems to do the talking, like
Speaker 1: the language interactions with the outside world. And so you
Speaker 1: can present stimuli that are only within the sensory awareness
Speaker 1: of the right hemisphere of the brain, say by presenting
Speaker 1: it in a certain part of the visual field. And
Speaker 1: so the parts of the body controlled primarily by the
Speaker 1: right hemisphere of the brain can do things that seem
Speaker 1: to reflect knowledge of the stimulus that you have showed
Speaker 1: that hemisphere of the brain, but the person can't talk
Speaker 1: about that knowledge. They don't seem to have linguistic aware
Speaker 1: earness of it, which is extremely weird. Yeah, And and
Speaker 1: at times it kind of comes off as a sort
Speaker 1: of subtle duality of self. Some of the most interesting
Speaker 1: ideas that come come out of it because Anaga wraps
Speaker 1: up in his interpreter theory, which which again we've discussed
Speaker 1: on the show, in which the left brain hemisphere contains
Speaker 1: some function that he calls the interpreter, which creates a
Speaker 1: sense of self, even if it is a completely false sense.
Speaker 1: By coming up with a post talk explanation for behaviors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that there's this function that's largely seated within the
Speaker 1: left hemisphere that sort of tells the narrative story to
Speaker 1: your own brain, that explains why you're doing what you're doing.
Speaker 1: It creates that moment to moment, the stream of consciousness
Speaker 1: that helps you understand your own behavior. Even though it
Speaker 1: seems a lot of your own behavior is caused by
Speaker 1: things that are not actually within your awareness. It doesn't,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. It's not downstream from your consciousness, but upstream
Speaker 1: from your consciousness. Now I should also throw in that
Speaker 1: in there. They did experiment with animals as well, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, there are limitations when you're looking at animal
Speaker 1: brains and you know, trying to compare it to human brains.
Speaker 1: But but they found that if they produced a split
Speaker 1: brain in some of these animals. Uh. First of all,
Speaker 1: of course, each side seemed to function independently the other,
Speaker 1: but also that an animal with a split brain could
Speaker 1: memorize double the information. Uh. So that basic idea again,
Speaker 1: we could at least when talking about Star Wars, we
Speaker 1: could extrapolate to say, well, maybe if you did have
Speaker 1: two independent brains in your head, yeah, maybe you could
Speaker 1: uh process and contain double the information so that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: But I'm also really interested in this idea of exploring
Speaker 1: both sides of the force with a brain like this
Speaker 1: that you mentioned earlier. Yeah, So with that in mind,
Speaker 1: let's consider a couple of take comes. And again we're
Speaker 1: kind of cherry picking here, but a couple of take
Speaker 1: comes from the split brain research that Kazanga put forth.
Speaker 1: First of all, the interpreter function of the left brain
Speaker 1: makes it more makes it more likely to distort recall
Speaker 1: of events, and at the non interpreting, non explaining right
Speaker 1: brain has a more accurate recall function. So it's not
Speaker 1: telling itself a story to post talk rationalize whatever is
Speaker 1: it's experiencing. It's logging information in a more objective sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like one side is telling a story, crafting a story,
Speaker 1: and retelling a story. On the other side is recalling events,
Speaker 1: saying what happened. Also, the left and right hemispheres have
Speaker 1: different problem solving approaches. The right hemisphere bases its judgments
Speaker 1: on simple frequency information, while the left relies on the
Speaker 1: formation of elaborate hypotheses. So that this makes me wonder
Speaker 1: like which side would lean dark side? Because you know
Speaker 1: that the left is again partial to distorted recall, the
Speaker 1: very sort of distortion that we see in the fall
Speaker 1: of say Anakin Skywalker, but it also relies on uh,
Speaker 1: you know those the idea of elaborate hypotheses, which again
Speaker 1: matches up with some of some of Skywalker's inner torment
Speaker 1: or or you know, as well as the expressed worldview
Speaker 1: of of his master Darth City, a simper of Palpatine, right. Uh,
Speaker 1: and and perhaps the light you know, the right side
Speaker 1: of the force, the side of the brain here is
Speaker 1: more about simple frequency information and accurate recall. So instead
Speaker 1: of the distorted worldview like this is the world as
Speaker 1: it is, like a more logical approach to reality. So
Speaker 1: if there is anything to interpreter theory, it seems to
Speaker 1: me pretty clear that it would be the left side,
Speaker 1: this is the dark side, right, because what's the dark side?
Speaker 1: Do the dark side? You tell a story in which
Speaker 1: your actions are justified because of some reason. Right, well,
Speaker 1: I had to do it because I had to save
Speaker 1: pad May, right right, where the logical side is like, no,
Speaker 1: you're just like strayed up killing people. Uh. But then again,
Speaker 1: you know what would Darth City has say to all this?
Speaker 1: What would would Palpatine say and I think he might
Speaker 1: well argue that it's only through mental gymnastics that we
Speaker 1: arrive at the Jedi way, that the Jedi exists because
Speaker 1: they're telling this themselves, this story, you know, or run
Speaker 1: over again. They're creating their own mythology to rationalize their tyranny,
Speaker 1: and that the Dark Side is just the shortest logical
Speaker 1: path like that Sidious is the same man in the
Speaker 1: universe that has been deluded by this um, this ancient religion.
Speaker 1: Darth Cidius makes a good point, you know, I think
Speaker 1: it would work better. Actually, though, if Darth said if
Speaker 1: the Sith Lords were not always saying like, yes, we
Speaker 1: are the dark Side, we we are the bad guys.
Speaker 1: Like what if Darth Cidius had been like, no, it's
Speaker 1: the Jedi who are the dark Side? Well, I think
Speaker 1: he also realized that, you know, dark Side is good branding.
Speaker 1: You know, oh yeah, yeah, it looks I mean seriously,
Speaker 1: who looks cool or Darth Vader or what Yoda or
Speaker 1: Obi wan Kenobi? I mean yeah, have you ever seen
Speaker 1: there's an illustration. I think this is from a comic
Speaker 1: or something where they did an alternate reality where Darth
Speaker 1: Vader fully redeemed himself and survived at some point in
Speaker 1: like say Return of the Jedi, and then he's still
Speaker 1: in his armor, but now it's white armor, white white
Speaker 1: Darth Darth Vader outfit. And I mean it's kind of
Speaker 1: a neat idea. I love the idea of exploring alternate possibilities,
Speaker 1: but on the other hand, it just doesn't look as
Speaker 1: cool as it does in black. Oh. I think he
Speaker 1: should have kept it. I mean, I don't love anyway,
Speaker 1: like the simple like color coordinating of morality. I mean,
Speaker 1: like that's dumb. I mean, and they already transcended in
Speaker 1: some ways, like the Stormtroopers are addressed in clean white, right,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think they should let Darth Vader keep
Speaker 1: his original armor. I mean, it looks looks awesome. Before
Speaker 1: we move on from the split brain stuff, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to throw in. So so there's some more nuance
Speaker 1: on the subject that that that research I alluded to
Speaker 1: in recent years that's put some challenges to the original
Speaker 1: split brain research. Uh. I think a lot of that
Speaker 1: was associated with the researcher named Pinto, I think named
Speaker 1: Yair Pinto, who I think is a Dutch neuropsychologist, and
Speaker 1: basically what Uh. That person and colleagues have argued is
Speaker 1: that the split brain experiments actually just proved divided perception,
Speaker 1: not divided consciousness. But then people who people have defended
Speaker 1: the original research coming back against that. I don't remember
Speaker 1: how all of the back and forth worked out right now,
Speaker 1: but just be aware that there is ongoing division about that.
Speaker 1: In fact, split brain researchers appear to be somewhat divided.
Speaker 1: We may say, yeah, well I'm of two minds myself
Speaker 1: on it right. Um. Speaking of which, back to the
Speaker 1: Syrian binary brain. Um. Again, they're apparently noted for their
Speaker 1: ability to come at a topic from both sides simultaneously.
Speaker 1: Um and uh. And I got to thinking about that.
Speaker 1: I mean, in one hand, I was wondering, again, is
Speaker 1: this something they do naturally or is it only accessible
Speaker 1: via training? But I suppose one way to really tackle
Speaker 1: the problem is again to come back to human cognition
Speaker 1: and to ask what seems like it should be a
Speaker 1: pretty simple question, is it possible for a human to
Speaker 1: think two things at one time, not to juggle between thoughts,
Speaker 1: or to focus on like a combination of two things,
Speaker 1: Like you know, for instance, I can think about a
Speaker 1: human and I can think about a horse, you know,
Speaker 1: I can sort of go back and forth between the two.
Speaker 1: I can focus on the idea of a centaur and
Speaker 1: kind of involve you know, both of them at once.
Speaker 1: But can I think about a horse and a human
Speaker 1: on like on, you know, and actually do parallel lines
Speaker 1: of thought at the same time, So not this is
Speaker 1: a mixture between a horse and a human, but to
Speaker 1: think simultaneously, this is one horse and this is one
Speaker 1: human at the same time. Right, Can I what's the
Speaker 1: business lingo dual track, parallel path, parallel path? I think
Speaker 1: that means something somewhat different, But yeah, yeah, I know
Speaker 1: what you're saying, so like, yeah, being able to I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's a really important thing in in good
Speaker 1: mental hygiene, in training your brain to work well, that
Speaker 1: you are able to hold conflicting ideas in your mind
Speaker 1: in order to figure out which one makes more sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's our natural tendency to kind
Speaker 1: of to instead get a feel for conflicting ideas pretty
Speaker 1: quickly figure out which one we're more attached to, and
Speaker 1: then just fully commit to that one and not consider
Speaker 1: the other at all. But I think also maybe you're
Speaker 1: getting at something different, which is not um being able
Speaker 1: to consider conflicting ideas or conflicting explanations for something you're
Speaker 1: talking more about like having the focus of attention in
Speaker 1: the mind be two different things at the same time.
Speaker 1: Is that what you're okay? Yeah, yeah, that's a different thing.
Speaker 1: And that's also very interesting because yeah, this once again
Speaker 1: gets into like what is consciousness? And one of the
Speaker 1: central features of consciousness seems to be this spotlight quality
Speaker 1: to it, right that it consciousness seems to have a
Speaker 1: basically like one focal point of attention at a time,
Speaker 1: and other things can kind of intrude on consciousness suddenly.
Speaker 1: But if you are thinking about a horse, you're also
Speaker 1: not simultaneously thinking with the same level of focus and
Speaker 1: intensity about a person, right right. And so this is
Speaker 1: something that a psychologist by the name of nick I
Speaker 1: believe it is Shader. I could have his last name
Speaker 1: pronounced wrong, if so, I apologize here at c H
Speaker 1: A T E er um. But he is the author
Speaker 1: of the mind is flat, the illusion of mental depth
Speaker 1: in the improvised mind. And what he would argue here
Speaker 1: is that that we depend on a cycle of thought
Speaker 1: whereby a number of systems work to push forward ideas
Speaker 1: step by step. Uh. So I he would argue, I think,
Speaker 1: if he were to weigh in on on this topic,
Speaker 1: that our limited human neural capacity is only sufficient to
Speaker 1: pursue one goal at a time, and maybe just maybe
Speaker 1: doubled human neural capacity is what it would actually take
Speaker 1: to truly dual track something. Does that make sense? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. So he's saying to to like consider
Speaker 1: like to you know, it's kind of how when we're
Speaker 1: making like a to do list, you have to break
Speaker 1: tasks apart into into like individual steps and do them
Speaker 1: one at a time. Uh. And uh, I find, you know,
Speaker 1: doing that for me, it definitely helps me organize the
Speaker 1: flow of of work a lot better. But maybe if
Speaker 1: you had a more powerful mind, if you had like
Speaker 1: two brains in your head, you could actually you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to break things into parts quite so much. You could,
Speaker 1: you know, consider more sort of umbrella tasks with all
Speaker 1: of their subdivided parts simultaneously. Yeah. And I think ultimately
Speaker 1: it's it's very difficult to imagine what that would be like.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of like trying to imagine what
Speaker 1: would our view of reality be like if we could
Speaker 1: also uh, you know, feel the magnetosphere or something you
Speaker 1: know or or or you know, see wavelengths of light
Speaker 1: that we don't have access to that sort of thing. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: the author of the Mind is Flat, well, he was.
Speaker 1: He was also a co author on a paper um
Speaker 1: along with Elizabeth A. May Mahler and Gregory V. Jones
Speaker 1: from two thousand one titled searching for Two Things at Once.
Speaker 1: And in this the author's conducted an experiment into whether
Speaker 1: retrieval from semantic memory and autobiographical memory is exclusive or
Speaker 1: whether people can search for two things at once, and
Speaker 1: they concluded that quote exclusivity was observed to occur in
Speaker 1: retrieval among multiple non overlapping categories in both semantic and
Speaker 1: autobiographical memory. Again they're they're talking about about memory recall here,
Speaker 1: but this also seems to get it sort of the
Speaker 1: same idea. I was reading a summary of the Mind
Speaker 1: is Flat by Stephen Pool for The Guardian, and they
Speaker 1: summarize some of this by by by saying, quote, we
Speaker 1: can't even see two or more colors at once, but
Speaker 1: switch between one at a time. In general, our richness
Speaker 1: of experience seems to be a construct, and we've touched
Speaker 1: on some of this before as well, especially with vision
Speaker 1: about like how um you know, we we have this
Speaker 1: idea in our mind that the whole everything we can see,
Speaker 1: whether our eyes at one time are in like full
Speaker 1: color and maybe even full detail. But you don't have
Speaker 1: to really get too experimental. You can just to realize
Speaker 1: that this is not the case. Yeah, And there are
Speaker 1: tons of examples of this. We like if you close
Speaker 1: one eye, you still feel like you have total vision
Speaker 1: and you can see all around, but in fact there's
Speaker 1: a blind spot caused by your optic nerve, and you
Speaker 1: just don't see that there is a blind spot there,
Speaker 1: um or. One of the other examples we've often cited
Speaker 1: is color blindness and peripheral vision, Like you believe that
Speaker 1: you can see color in your peripheral vision until you
Speaker 1: try it. Like somebody holds up different colored objects right
Speaker 1: at the edge of where you can see, and it
Speaker 1: turns out you can't. You know, you can't see different
Speaker 1: colors there. You can only see vague things. Something is moving,
Speaker 1: even though it totally like a p it feels like
Speaker 1: I can see color in my periphery, so so very roughly,
Speaker 1: if we take that idea and we we extrapolate it
Speaker 1: to cognition itself. You know, we can we see the
Speaker 1: limitations of of our focus. We see the limitations of
Speaker 1: of how we construct a world and focus on it,
Speaker 1: you know, and it is you could basically break it
Speaker 1: down to the idea of we have the one spotlight,
Speaker 1: but if we had two brains in our head, would
Speaker 1: we essentially have two spotlights. That's very interesting and it
Speaker 1: makes me wonder what the practical differences in like say,
Speaker 1: a culture and a technosphere and a science developed by
Speaker 1: people with brains of that type would be, like, Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: how is art different if you can focus on more
Speaker 1: than one thing at a time? How how is science
Speaker 1: and technology different if you can focus on more than
Speaker 1: one thing at a time? Yeah? Or even your your
Speaker 1: use of symbols and language, etcetera. I mean it kind
Speaker 1: of coming back to the idea of the center. The
Speaker 1: center exists to a certain extent because it combines two
Speaker 1: things into one and brags in aspects of both of
Speaker 1: those independent things. But would you would these type would
Speaker 1: these forms be necessary for um uh, for the Syrians,
Speaker 1: or would they by just by necessity would all of
Speaker 1: their hybrids be more complex chimeras that involve like multiple aspects,
Speaker 1: like at least four aspects, because in terms of just
Speaker 1: contemplating two parallels, they can do that on their own.
Speaker 1: They don't need a symbol to help with it. This
Speaker 1: is really interesting. I want more about the Syrians now,
Speaker 1: I want like Syrian focused Star Wars stories. I want
Speaker 1: to master moondy Um novelization to read. Somebody, why do
Speaker 1: we not have one? Mace Window got his own book.
Speaker 1: It's really really difficult to follow his inner monologue though.
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's it's actually two volumes and you have
Speaker 1: to read them at the same time. Oh wait, No,
Speaker 1: that's a fantastic idea. Actually you write two different novels
Speaker 1: that narrate the exact same events, but they're one is
Speaker 1: from each each brain in the head. That's really yeah.
Speaker 1: That could be good, now, that would that would actually
Speaker 1: be a fun yeah, short story exercise if someone wanted it.
Speaker 1: To keep it simple, all right, talk about his death,
Speaker 1: like the final moments leading up to his death, to
Speaker 1: his betrayal by the Clone Troopers. He was aside, he
Speaker 1: was working aside, Like what is one account of it?
Speaker 1: What is the other? Like, I guess one account is
Speaker 1: kind of like I didn't see this coming at all.
Speaker 1: The other account is is, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I should have talked to the other brain about this
Speaker 1: before we ran of them on the bridge. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: well I say we we close out on the Syrians
Speaker 1: for now. Obviously there there are a ton of other
Speaker 1: weird brains and multi headed things we could talk about
Speaker 1: in Star Wars universe. But uh yeah, for for some reason,
Speaker 1: I think the Syrian was the one that captured my
Speaker 1: imagination the most here. This was a very good pick.
Speaker 1: Thank all right, what do you have, Joe, What do
Speaker 1: you have for us? Okay, well, you had to help
Speaker 1: me with the Star Wars aspect of this one, because
Speaker 1: I admit this is one that I backed into because
Speaker 1: I got interested in the analogy animal from reality first.
Speaker 1: To be fully transparent, This is a type of animal
Speaker 1: that I first started looking at for our episode last week.
Speaker 1: I think it was about the sargassum seaweed, but then
Speaker 1: I realized that it didn't really fit super well into
Speaker 1: that episode. This animal is not especially associated with sargassum,
Speaker 1: only in certain occasions. Uh So I figured I would
Speaker 1: actually save it for this and I found what I
Speaker 1: believe a fantastic wedge to to get into the Star
Speaker 1: Wars universe. But I felt like I had to hold
Speaker 1: up a hand and be honest about where this comes from. Oh,
Speaker 1: fair enough, but I wanted to think about bipedal, aquatic,
Speaker 1: humanoid aliens, sentient water creatures who stand up on two
Speaker 1: feet with a Homo sapiens posture. Now, the first one
Speaker 1: I thought about is is not your your excellent pick here,
Speaker 1: it's something that doesn't quite fit my animal as well.
Speaker 1: But uh, the first one I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: is one of my favorites from childhood, Admiral Akbar from
Speaker 1: Return of the Jedi, and I think he's been featured
Speaker 1: in many other things since. But Admiral Akbar the the noble, brilliant,
Speaker 1: big eyed commander of the Rebel Fleet during its attack
Speaker 1: on the second Death Star. Famously he discovers it is
Speaker 1: a trap. Yeah, he's a super fun character, wonderful, just
Speaker 1: wonderful special effects makeup to create that guy. And uh,
Speaker 1: and that that species is is fleshed out a bit
Speaker 1: more in the Clone Wars animated seri is as well.
Speaker 1: We get to go to their their home world of
Speaker 1: of Moncola, which is this ocean world and it's also
Speaker 1: where uh the core in live. Um. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you remember these guys. They were also I think
Speaker 1: first uh shown to us in Return of the Jedi.
Speaker 1: But they're like a squid face guy. Yes, yeah, they
Speaker 1: pop up in a job as palace I believe, yes, so,
Speaker 1: Admiral Akbar. Species is called the mon Calamari and they
Speaker 1: are native to this home planet of Montcola. But also, yes,
Speaker 1: the Coreans, these other creatures who look more like so,
Speaker 1: the Montclamari are an amphibious species, and they look sort
Speaker 1: of I guess the closest analogy in Earth life would
Speaker 1: be they look kind of like frogs. They've got frog
Speaker 1: like eyes and kind of frog like skin, and it
Speaker 1: would make sense since they're supposed to be amphibious. But
Speaker 1: the Corn's they look more like bipedal uh humans basically,
Speaker 1: but with squids for heads. I think they've sometimes been
Speaker 1: called like kind of Cathulu aliens. Yeah, now the Montclamari.
Speaker 1: This does raise a number of questions itself, because I
Speaker 1: wonder how does the bipedalism of the mon Calumari evolve
Speaker 1: like bipedalism and limit even limited by beetle behaviors can
Speaker 1: be found in a number of terrestrial animals on Earth.
Speaker 1: You've got birds and their extinct therapod dinosaur relatives, some
Speaker 1: reptiles such as you know the reptiles we've discussed in
Speaker 1: the past, lizards that run on the water with two
Speaker 1: back legs. Of course, in primate so a number of
Speaker 1: animals will stand up on two legs, But almost all
Speaker 1: the cases I can think of with this involve animals
Speaker 1: that are standing on or walking on solid land, or
Speaker 1: walking or running across the top of the water. And
Speaker 1: it's actually still a matter of debate in a pretty
Speaker 1: interesting way, how human ancestors developed full time bipedalism. One
Speaker 1: of the bygone hypotheses you've probably heard, this was from
Speaker 1: the old days, was that human ancestors evolved bipedalism so
Speaker 1: that they could see over the tall grasses of the savannah.
Speaker 1: But I think this hypothesis is mostly discarded now. One
Speaker 1: of the main reasons is that it looks like from
Speaker 1: from the fossil record, that humans became by petal when
Speaker 1: they still lived primarily in an arboreal environment, so around
Speaker 1: the trees, not in grasslands with tall grasses, and so
Speaker 1: there are a number of competing hypotheses today, one of
Speaker 1: which that's pretty interesting, or I guess several actually get
Speaker 1: into the idea that by petalism evolved because of the
Speaker 1: evolutionary advantages in various different ways of having free hands
Speaker 1: available for carrying things around while you move. Yeah, as
Speaker 1: I'm hunting and gathering, like I need those free hands
Speaker 1: to hold like my my satchel of collected berries or
Speaker 1: mushrooms or the tools that I'm using, yeah, to bring
Speaker 1: back to your family from across a long distance or
Speaker 1: something like that. But there could be another explanation this better.
Speaker 1: This is one one of those things where I think
Speaker 1: the it's wide open, you know, there there are tons
Speaker 1: of different ideas competing and and and so it's very
Speaker 1: interesting for that reason. But whatever the reason that that
Speaker 1: human ancestors have all full time by petalism, it does
Speaker 1: seem kind of weird to imagine by petalism evolving in
Speaker 1: an aquatic or mostly aquatic species, Like what are they
Speaker 1: walking around on? You know, are they walking around on
Speaker 1: the ocean floor? In order to do that, it would
Speaker 1: seem like they would have to be very dense, right,
Speaker 1: Like they sink to the bottom and they need to
Speaker 1: stand up and walk around on the bottom. You'd imagine
Speaker 1: they'd mostly be geared for for swimming. Uh, though maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know because the mont Calamari it says that
Speaker 1: they're an amphibious species. Maybe they evolved by petalism for
Speaker 1: whatever part of their life they spend walking around outside
Speaker 1: the water on the land, if they if they do
Speaker 1: that at all, I don't know all that much about
Speaker 1: the mont Calamari. But amphibious, yeah, maybe. Yeah. In the
Speaker 1: episodes of Clone Wars where they're they're more fleshed out,
Speaker 1: we we don't really always see here. I think some
Speaker 1: like big submersible environments, and of course a lot of
Speaker 1: like open water warfare that's taking place. So I don't
Speaker 1: know if that ultimately we get much in the way
Speaker 1: of answers from that show either. But in thinking about
Speaker 1: other bipedal upright water aliens in the Star Wars universe, Rob,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to help me with this one, because
Speaker 1: you connected me to the species and I knew nothing
Speaker 1: about it previously. But there is a species from the
Speaker 1: Star Wars universe called the Nephron in E. P H
Speaker 1: R A N. And this is much closer to what
Speaker 1: I want to talk about here, because this is a
Speaker 1: bipedal aquatic alien that's more like a crustacean, like a
Speaker 1: bipedal shrimp or crab. They are said to come from
Speaker 1: an ocean world in the Star Wars galaxy called Nippotus,
Speaker 1: And the main example character of this species is a
Speaker 1: person from stuff I haven't seen called Therm scissor punch
Speaker 1: Rob Can you can you fill me in, you know
Speaker 1: about Therm? Yeah, So this is a character if if
Speaker 1: memory serves, pops up in the movie Solo, which, of
Speaker 1: course the Han Solo prequel, which I know some folks
Speaker 1: didn't care for. I we thought it was a lot
Speaker 1: of fun when we watched a family. Uh. It certainly
Speaker 1: had some great aliens in it for sure, and this
Speaker 1: is one of them. Uh you know, this kind of shrimpy,
Speaker 1: squitty looking guy and he's wearing what looks to be
Speaker 1: like an interstellar flight suit. So this seems to support
Speaker 1: like the theory that underwater creatures in the Star Wars
Speaker 1: universe perhaps have an advantage when it comes to navigating
Speaker 1: the three dimensional world of open space, because again, think
Speaker 1: of the mont Calamari. Where do we encounter them time
Speaker 1: and time again? Uh, heterggic commanders strategic commanders during space warfare.
Speaker 1: So it makes you wonder do they have some sort
Speaker 1: of would they have some sort of advantage they're used
Speaker 1: to the oceanic environment, like the open water warfare environment
Speaker 1: and the survival environment. Do they are they better than
Speaker 1: contemplating threats in outer space? That would make a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. Now, there's still some important differences. I'd say
Speaker 1: one of the most important differences is even within the
Speaker 1: water column, you've still got an up and down. You've
Speaker 1: got gravity and buoyancy, which you don't have in space.
Speaker 1: In space, there's no up and down. It's just a
Speaker 1: limitless three dimensional space. But even with out you can
Speaker 1: still see the advantage where you're naturally evolutionarily adapted to
Speaker 1: combat within a space where you can move in three
Speaker 1: different dimensions in a way that we can't really on
Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth. Like you can jump and
Speaker 1: you can climb a tree and stuff, but mostly you're
Speaker 1: just going to be on flat ground when you're fighting
Speaker 1: other people. Yeah, and of course you can have aircraft
Speaker 1: and stuff, but that's not really part of the ancestral
Speaker 1: environment that shaped our brains. Yeah, I imagine the reverse.
Speaker 1: That's probably true too. I like a crustacean alien had
Speaker 1: an advantage, and imagining open space warfare, they'd probably also
Speaker 1: be really disadvantaged. Imagining like a land warfare. It would
Speaker 1: be like like, what, what's your command, general, and they
Speaker 1: would be like move, swim away, yea swim away, Yeah,
Speaker 1: get back in the water. So this guy is called
Speaker 1: therm scissor Punch, And at first the name seemed weird
Speaker 1: to me until I connected it to the fact that
Speaker 1: he has crab like claws instead of hands. So if
Speaker 1: he punches you, I guess it is much like being
Speaker 1: punched with a giant, blunt pair of scissors. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. Okay, But here we're gonna make the
Speaker 1: lateral leap to real biology because I've got a crustacean
Speaker 1: with an eerily human bipedal type posture to talk about.
Speaker 1: And this is the skeleton shrimp from the crustacean family Caprilla. Day.
Speaker 1: This is one absolutely to look up pictures of. Go
Speaker 1: google skeleton shrimp while I'm talking about this. They look
Speaker 1: very cool, very creepy, and on top of that, and
Speaker 1: on top of their they're kind of haunting creepy appearance.
Speaker 1: They somehow to me look a little bit obscene. I
Speaker 1: can't quite explain it very well, but they look like
Speaker 1: an acolyte of some horrible shadow god that was rightly
Speaker 1: banished to the cavern of tears. Yeah, they are very
Speaker 1: strange looking. And that's even if you're approaching it with
Speaker 1: the idea that, yeah, there are a lot of different
Speaker 1: shrimp in the ocean, and not all shrimp, you know,
Speaker 1: look like the shrimp that you might buy at the
Speaker 1: seafood store. But these guys, especially, they feel like they
Speaker 1: earn their nickname the skeleton shrimp or the ghost shrimp.
Speaker 1: They look like some sort of a horrible shri raith shrimp.
Speaker 1: That would be a good name for them. I think
Speaker 1: they're called skeleton shrimp because they typically have a very
Speaker 1: spindly appearance. They're almost like a stick insect, but creepier. Now.
Speaker 1: They're typically very small. They range in size from a
Speaker 1: few millimeters to a couple of inches long. But if
Speaker 1: you get up close and you look at them with
Speaker 1: some magnification, you'll notice that they often have an upright
Speaker 1: posture where they will stretch their body out as they
Speaker 1: cling onto something with their back legs. So in that sense,
Speaker 1: they look eerily human. But in addition to this, they
Speaker 1: often have a kind of bent over supplicant posture within
Speaker 1: that upstanding position, almost looking like they're in prayer. Again,
Speaker 1: I guess to that, to that rightly banished God. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: in a way, similar posture to old scissor punch. There,
Speaker 1: he looks a little bit dent over in the skills
Speaker 1: I have of him. Oh, yes, you're right, I've seen
Speaker 1: some of the skills I've seen of him. He looks
Speaker 1: like he's hanging his head, or maybe like he's about
Speaker 1: to bow down at the altar. Gravity is really hard
Speaker 1: on him. But he must damble, he must play cards.
Speaker 1: Uh So, I was wondering if my raw sense of
Speaker 1: obscenity when looking at a skeleton shrimp comes from the
Speaker 1: different body parts that seem to defy type. It has
Speaker 1: antentnie that look like legs, and claws that look like heads,
Speaker 1: and little claws near the face of the actual head.
Speaker 1: It's Its main claws are called natopods, and it has
Speaker 1: smaller natopods near its face that look kind of like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like hip facial hair facial or I
Speaker 1: don't know how hip. It would be the kind of
Speaker 1: facial hair that makes a statement. Now, despite being called
Speaker 1: skeleton shrimp, these are not exactly super closely related to
Speaker 1: the shrimp that you would eat in your shrimp cocktail. Um.
Speaker 1: Skeleton shrimp in fact, consistent with what I was saying
Speaker 1: about their their different weird claws and legs. They are
Speaker 1: of an order of crustaceans known as amphipods, which literally
Speaker 1: means different feet as opposed to related crustaceans that have
Speaker 1: more consistent sets of feet. And I was reading about
Speaker 1: them on a page for the Monterey Bay Aquarium that
Speaker 1: mentions that these animals are sometimes called praying mantises of
Speaker 1: the sea. I can absolutely understand the comparison. In addition
Speaker 1: to the of course praying posture I mentioned, Uh, the
Speaker 1: claws look very much like the raptorial four legs of
Speaker 1: a praying mantis. So skeleton shrimp are often camouflaged within
Speaker 1: their environment, making forests of seaweed a really great habitat
Speaker 1: for them. Uh. They're often found clinging to bryozoans, hydroids,
Speaker 1: or eel grass, sometimes even in patches of sarcassum, which
Speaker 1: we talked about last week. Those skeleton shrimp are found
Speaker 1: in other habitats as well. You can find them on
Speaker 1: a ship's hull or on some other animals body. Even
Speaker 1: one video I was watching of skeleton shrimp showed hundreds,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe thousands of tiny skeleton shrimp clinging
Speaker 1: to the scales of a scorpion fish, crowded right around
Speaker 1: the fish's I I tried to take a take a
Speaker 1: screen grab so you can see it here robbed down below.
Speaker 1: But they're just crowded around the eye and all over
Speaker 1: the top of his head, and they're just swaying around
Speaker 1: in the water. And the fish does not really look
Speaker 1: put out, I know, like at first glance, these look
Speaker 1: like eyebrows and tufts of hair, almost kind of zat
Speaker 1: ish tufts of hair, you know. Oh yeah, Sometimes they
Speaker 1: can look quite fuzzy, especially when the females are carrying
Speaker 1: their brood along with them, like after mating. They they
Speaker 1: reproduce sexually, and after mating, the females will sometimes carry
Speaker 1: around what looks almost like a ball of dandelion fuzz
Speaker 1: or something. But that's all they're young that that haven't
Speaker 1: left the mother's body yet. Now, the different appendages jutting
Speaker 1: off of the bodies provide a range of different ways
Speaker 1: to survive. In general, their back legs are for gripping
Speaker 1: onto a substrate, and this is where you get the
Speaker 1: bipedal posture. Here you will very often see skeleton shrimp
Speaker 1: clinging to something a piece of seaweed or even a
Speaker 1: scorpion fish's head or something with their back legs while
Speaker 1: their body is stretched out above that, looking like they're
Speaker 1: standing up and reaching out into the water. And then meanwhile,
Speaker 1: while they're clinging with their back legs and standing up
Speaker 1: like this, they're larger front legs with the folding features
Speaker 1: that look like mantis claws. These can be used for
Speaker 1: grooming the body or for violence in fighting each other,
Speaker 1: which it seems like they do a lot, or for
Speaker 1: snagging food, and the antennae coming off of their head
Speaker 1: apparently can sometimes be used for filter feeding. They eat
Speaker 1: everything it seems that they say are different. Different species
Speaker 1: of them will eat different things sometimes, but they're they're
Speaker 1: pretty omnivorous. They scavenge for floating detritus, meaning particles of
Speaker 1: dead organic matter. They're just sort of like hanging around
Speaker 1: in the water. Sometimes they eat algae or sometimes they
Speaker 1: act as predators. They can snag kill and eat live prey,
Speaker 1: for example worms or crustacean larvae. And though they look
Speaker 1: very bipedal when they're attached to a substrate and reaching
Speaker 1: out into the water, I thought this was interesting. They
Speaker 1: generally move not by walking on their back legs, but
Speaker 1: by gripping the substrate, folding their body over, and then
Speaker 1: sliding along like an inchworm. Again, very creepy. And there's
Speaker 1: another fascinating comparison to the praying mantis. Some species of
Speaker 1: skeleton shrimp practice sexual homicide, where the female will kill
Speaker 1: the male after mating, sometimes by stabbing them with a
Speaker 1: special claw and injecting them with venom, which this strikes
Speaker 1: me as a very interesting example of convergent evolution, because
Speaker 1: of course this is there's this superficial resemblance between the
Speaker 1: body form of a praying mantis and a skeleton shrimp.
Speaker 1: They have these similar raptorial fore legs and similar posture
Speaker 1: and stuff, and like a praying mantis, sometimes the female
Speaker 1: will kill the male after mating. Uh. Though I didn't
Speaker 1: see much about the female eating the male after mating.
Speaker 1: Maybe they do, because sometimes these skeleton shrimp are cannibalistic,
Speaker 1: but mainly I just saw about killing the male with
Speaker 1: this venomous claw. I was wondering why it would be
Speaker 1: that the female would kill the male after mating. I
Speaker 1: wonder if this is in part to prevent the males
Speaker 1: from cannibalizing them or their offspring in the future. So
Speaker 1: there are a couple of things they're one of which
Speaker 1: is that mating. Uh So, of course these crustaceans, like
Speaker 1: other crustaceans, they have to grow by molting, right because
Speaker 1: having a hard outer exoskeleton. You can't get bigger with
Speaker 1: a hardened outer exo skeleton. You have to shed the
Speaker 1: exo skeleton and then come come out as a larger
Speaker 1: soft version of yourself, and then the outer layer a
Speaker 1: few hardens into a new larger exoskeleton. This is the
Speaker 1: molting process. And apparently skeleton shrimp can only mate when
Speaker 1: the female is freshly molted, so I don't know. There's
Speaker 1: possibly that means that she could be in a in
Speaker 1: a more vulnerable position around the time of mating, or
Speaker 1: it could be to prevent males from from eating the
Speaker 1: new larva that will be coming along soon. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I wonder I like the idea that they have they
Speaker 1: may have a special claw for this though, Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: with the with the venom and apparently the males also
Speaker 1: sometimes have venomous claws which they use for fighting each other.
Speaker 1: I think in some cases at least for access to
Speaker 1: mating real scissor punches. They're right exactly. But as I
Speaker 1: said already, skeleton shrimp are really something that you need
Speaker 1: to see with your eyes to appreciate. So I would
Speaker 1: highly recommend looking up some pictures and looking up some
Speaker 1: videos of these animals there. They're very small, but they're beautiful, creepy, unsettling,
Speaker 1: worth your attention absolutely than Alright, I think we have
Speaker 1: time for one more specimen here, oh boy. And for
Speaker 1: this one, Joe, I'm gonna have to ask you to
Speaker 1: come to the planet Naboo with me. Well, I'll always
Speaker 1: go to Naboo. Well, I mean, it's an interesting world,
Speaker 1: but I would say one of the most interesting in
Speaker 1: the Star Wars universe because even outside of its important
Speaker 1: role in galactic history, it has just incredibly rich fauna. Uh.
Speaker 1: You have human human settlers coming to the planet at
Speaker 1: some point, and then there's signs of an elder civilization,
Speaker 1: but you have this native Gungan population um that are
Speaker 1: an advanced amphibious species that make their home and underwater cities,
Speaker 1: and the planets expansive underwater oceans. Uh Naboo seems to
Speaker 1: have a vast uh number of of impressive land animals,
Speaker 1: many of which are used as battle mounts by the Gungans.
Speaker 1: But then you have this this shadowy underwater realm that
Speaker 1: is home to just many many marine or anis ums.
Speaker 1: And there's a fabulous uh section in The Phantom Menace
Speaker 1: where we get to explore it a bit. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: the scene where we have our main characters there uh
Speaker 1: with with the kid I think and and uh and
Speaker 1: jar jar and they're in a submarine and they are
Speaker 1: attacked by one giant underwater creature after another, each one
Speaker 1: bigger and more horrifying than the last. Out of the
Speaker 1: frying pan and into the fish. Yes, so the first
Speaker 1: one that attacks is this thing that's op c killer
Speaker 1: that looks kind of like a like a deep sea
Speaker 1: angler fish type of of a thing. Then they're attacked
Speaker 1: by the colo clawfish, which looks like a cross between
Speaker 1: a crocodile and an eel, and then finally by this
Speaker 1: even more titanic Sando Aqua monster, which is just an
Speaker 1: Apex of Apex predators looks like some sort of a
Speaker 1: salamandery um giant. Do I recall that in this sequence
Speaker 1: they are trying to like take a submarine through the
Speaker 1: center of the world to get to the other side
Speaker 1: of the planet or something. I don't remember if they're
Speaker 1: I don't remember if they're actually going through the center,
Speaker 1: but they are at least at the very least. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're going through the deep underwater sections of the of
Speaker 1: of the world to get to a specific location. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe it might just be underwater caves. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: don't know, it could be. If it is. If it's
Speaker 1: the former, then it it's dante esk and it's and
Speaker 1: it's nature, right. Yeah. But anyway, the creature of these
Speaker 1: three I want to talk about is that middle one,
Speaker 1: the colo clawfish, which which is pretty neat litt looking.
Speaker 1: I mean, all three of these are impressive creatures. This
Speaker 1: one is um is again enormous. Its head is larger
Speaker 1: than the Gungan sub We're told in like the Alien
Speaker 1: Archive and other books that they can reach lengths of
Speaker 1: at least forty one feet. Their long bioluminescent predators with
Speaker 1: mandible like four legs to grip their their prey and
Speaker 1: this long mouth of razor sharp teeth and I and
Speaker 1: I believe they're supposed to have venomous things in there
Speaker 1: is as well to partially or completely disable some of
Speaker 1: their prey. And they can unhinge their jaw like a
Speaker 1: terrestrial snake in order to eat prey larger than their
Speaker 1: own head. But the part that interests me the most
Speaker 1: here is this one little tid debt that is that
Speaker 1: is described in the Star Wars Alien Archive book quote. However,
Speaker 1: Colo's must ensure their prey is dead before ingesting it.
Speaker 1: Their digestive systems are slow, and they run the risk
Speaker 1: of being eaten from inside out if the prey remains alive. WHOA.
Speaker 1: So obviously that got me thinking. I was like, is
Speaker 1: there anything like this here on Earth? And uh I
Speaker 1: I found an excellent article on this in BBC Earth
Speaker 1: by Sandrine Kristamont. This is from and and they made
Speaker 1: some wonderful points on this. So basically, as the author
Speaker 1: points out, you'd probably need two key realities to be
Speaker 1: in place for something like this to happen. So, first
Speaker 1: of all, the animal would have to survive the jaws
Speaker 1: of its attacker. It would have to be swallowed whole.
Speaker 1: No fatal crushing, no incapacitating venom uh you know, inserted
Speaker 1: into the creature. It would no no death roll or
Speaker 1: death shake. Yeah, no death roll, no death shake, no
Speaker 1: intentional breaking of the bones like you see with you know,
Speaker 1: like a cattle due to it to its um you know,
Speaker 1: rodent prey um, and you know it would it would
Speaker 1: just have to happen in the case of an animal
Speaker 1: that just gulps its prey down whole. Secondly, the digestive
Speaker 1: juices would have to be weak enough and or the
Speaker 1: praise outer covering would have to be resilient enough for
Speaker 1: it to survive entry into the stomach at least initial entry,
Speaker 1: if not its entire time there. So it seems like
Speaker 1: maybe there's some risk at like swallowing whole a creature
Speaker 1: with a hard outer layer, like if you swallowed a
Speaker 1: whole crab, that could be pretty bad, right. And then
Speaker 1: also it would help if the prey in question has
Speaker 1: some sort of ace up its sleeve as well. So,
Speaker 1: as the author explains, yes, there are cases where all
Speaker 1: of these things seem to line up. Um. The first
Speaker 1: one is the rough skinned newt can survive being swallowed
Speaker 1: by a frog and in in in large part this
Speaker 1: is because it packs enough toxin to kill the predator
Speaker 1: before the digestive juices overpower it. Quote then the newts
Speaker 1: simply has to crawl back up the dead frog's throat
Speaker 1: and out of its mouth, which is pretty badass. I
Speaker 1: like that. Yes, that is power can respect. Now the
Speaker 1: next example is is even weirder and maybe maybe not
Speaker 1: as as cool in the sense that like it's not
Speaker 1: a full survival story, but it's still really amazing. And
Speaker 1: that is the case of the brahminy blind snake, a
Speaker 1: tiny natural burrower, and it has been observed to survive
Speaker 1: the digestion of a toad and emerge out the other
Speaker 1: end of the toad, essentially swallowed by the toad, and
Speaker 1: then just wriggles through the rest of the way and
Speaker 1: out out the rear entry um or the rear exit
Speaker 1: as it were. Uh So, in these cases of survival,
Speaker 1: it also really helps if if if it maybe even
Speaker 1: be essential that there's not another big meal up ahead
Speaker 1: of it blocking the way. I see. But then this
Speaker 1: is also a situation where protection from the digestive juices
Speaker 1: seems to be key. This is what the author Kristamont
Speaker 1: had to say. Quote, but its skin was probably the
Speaker 1: biggest lifesaver. The closely knit, overlapping scales that help blind
Speaker 1: snakes move on land would likely block gastric juices, preventing
Speaker 1: them from reaching delicate tissues and organs. The scales of
Speaker 1: other snakes come apart slightly when they move, so would
Speaker 1: not have the same protective effect. It's like a natural
Speaker 1: hazmat suit. Yeah, I have never I don't think I've
Speaker 1: ever considered this as a strategy for defending against predators before. Uh.
Speaker 1: When I've always thought about trying to avoid getting eaten,
Speaker 1: I thought about trying to escape or trying to fight back,
Speaker 1: not preventing eating from hurting you, Like, yeah, just get
Speaker 1: eaten and you know you'll be okay. Probably Now, it
Speaker 1: may be a case. First of all, it seems to
Speaker 1: be a case where this is not certainly not an
Speaker 1: evolved way of surviving predators. Uh. And it also seems
Speaker 1: to be a case where survival is perhaps a um
Speaker 1: an incorrect term for it. Because this in the case
Speaker 1: that it was observed by researchers here, the snake died
Speaker 1: five hours later, probably due to complications due to lack
Speaker 1: of oxygen. Because that's the thing. If even if you're
Speaker 1: armored against that that acid or the acid isn't strong enough,
Speaker 1: you're still going to be inside that animal for a
Speaker 1: certain amount of time if you're not killing it with
Speaker 1: toxins and chron climbing out the front. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna take the complete journey through, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be without oxygen, and depending on your biology, you know,
Speaker 1: that can have very detrimental effects. That itself can be
Speaker 1: the fatal flaw. Okay, so you're saying this is not
Speaker 1: It doesn't appear that these tiny snakes have evolved a
Speaker 1: capacity to be eaten and survived specifically as a protection
Speaker 1: against predation. It just so happens like it's a coincidence
Speaker 1: that some of their natural defenses for other things happened
Speaker 1: to a allow them to survive passing through the digestive
Speaker 1: system in at least this case or limited cases. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and maybe it's more of a curse. You know, they
Speaker 1: get to survive the whole process. Now on top of
Speaker 1: these cases, apparently there are some land snails that can
Speaker 1: survive the journey through a bird's digestive system. And this
Speaker 1: is a case where you have you have another important
Speaker 1: helpful fact here, and that is SPEEDI or digestion time.
Speaker 1: So just less time spent in the bird's digestive system.
Speaker 1: That means less exposure to the digestive juices, coupled with
Speaker 1: the natural protection of the snail shell which is key,
Speaker 1: but also the mucus of the snail might also help
Speaker 1: serve as a protective barrier like a chemical armor. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so you have some aquatic snails as well that
Speaker 1: have been that have been observed to be very uh
Speaker 1: uh resilient to digestion. You have nematode worms of course,
Speaker 1: some of which are true internal parasites. So once you
Speaker 1: get into that territory, I think we're more inclined to
Speaker 1: uh it's not expect but you know, not be surprised
Speaker 1: by that kind of resiliency things that that survive in
Speaker 1: the digestive system of of of host organisms. But you
Speaker 1: generally don't think about snakes, salamanders and other things, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, having a chance once they're actually in the
Speaker 1: predator's gullet. You have opened my eyes. So with to
Speaker 1: come back to the planet naboo. Uh, I guess the
Speaker 1: idea here is that we're largely talking about other deadly
Speaker 1: predators in the depths of Neboo that after having been eaten,
Speaker 1: then turn on the predator host here. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just that that crazy and environment. So it seems
Speaker 1: entirely feasible that you could have something like this, like
Speaker 1: maybe there's one particular type of fish or you know,
Speaker 1: creature in that deep sea underground environment and naboo, and
Speaker 1: if it eats those, it gets too excited about them.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's maybe it's a venom doesn't work on that
Speaker 1: on that particular creature, or sometimes maybe it doesn't use
Speaker 1: its venom um. You know, often we see that with snakes, right,
Speaker 1: they're not going to use their venom every time if
Speaker 1: they don't have to. It is a it is an
Speaker 1: important resource. But maybe that's a fatal mistake for the
Speaker 1: COLO concerning certain prey species. You don't want to underestimate
Speaker 1: what you're eating. Yeah, all right, Well that's that's all
Speaker 1: I have, Joe. Should we close the compendium. Let's let's
Speaker 1: close it up now. Obviously there are tons of other
Speaker 1: creatures and aliens and the Star Wars universe, so you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps there's some other really good candidates that we didn't
Speaker 1: touch on. If you have suggestions for the future, let
Speaker 1: us know. Likewise, you know, we could always take this
Speaker 1: approach to other uh you know, fictional ecosystems and uh
Speaker 1: and take a look at those. I know we had
Speaker 1: some fun talking about the sandworms of Dune, uh several
Speaker 1: years back. Um Dune is coming back. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: need to revisit. I think I have some some ideas
Speaker 1: jotted down about things we might might consider when we
Speaker 1: get a little closer to uh to doom time. Well
Speaker 1: that's exciting, and hey, they're they're probably other world I'm
Speaker 1: not even thinking of. I mean, I guess there's Star
Speaker 1: Trek too. I don't think we've ever done anything on
Speaker 1: Star Trek. If we we have, I'm certainly not remembering it.
Speaker 1: Did you actually watch Star Trek? You weren't really a
Speaker 1: Star Trek guy where you I wasn't an original Star
Speaker 1: Trek guy, but there was I watched tons of Next
Speaker 1: Generation and tons of Deep Space nine and uh and
Speaker 1: and you know some of the movies. But yeah, that
Speaker 1: that was my my area. Like I think it was
Speaker 1: like every evening at nine pm, Next Generation was on,
Speaker 1: and I always watched it like that was my go
Speaker 1: to for a while. I like in the uh. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen all of the Next Generation, but I like
Speaker 1: those episodes. I think, especially in the early seasons of TNNG,
Speaker 1: where they would go down to a planet and it
Speaker 1: would just look like a nineteen nineties uh you know,
Speaker 1: family portrait photos studio with some potted plants on it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember some of those settings. I think I've said
Speaker 1: this on the show before, but I don't know exactly why.
Speaker 1: I always really really love a good cheap indoor for
Speaker 1: outdoor set. Yeah. Yeah, I've also really been, uh been
Speaker 1: thinking about this a lot in terms of Outer Limits series,
Speaker 1: where they have some great sets on that show, but
Speaker 1: also each episode is like, Okay, what are they about
Speaker 1: to film in like the Toronto area that they're gonna
Speaker 1: make look like the future or or the post apocalyptic world.
Speaker 1: Like there's some interesting choices at times where it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's not really an impressive building they're
Speaker 1: working with here, but they try and figure out ways
Speaker 1: to shoot it in such a way that it feels
Speaker 1: fresh and different compared to all these other episodes they're
Speaker 1: pumping out, so they're actually writing around the second hand
Speaker 1: sets and costumes and stuff. Um, they seem to I
Speaker 1: I haven't seen all the outer limits yet, but they
Speaker 1: seem to do a pretty good job of of not
Speaker 1: repeating themselves, which I think can be hard when you
Speaker 1: have so many episodes that are about being trapped in
Speaker 1: an alien spaceship, being trapped in a in a survival bunker.
Speaker 1: You know, like a lot of the same basic setups
Speaker 1: are going to be in place. Like I wonder how
Speaker 1: many different alien hallways, uh they create alien spaceship hallways
Speaker 1: they created for this show and still found a way
Speaker 1: to make them feel different enough if if not, you know,
Speaker 1: substantially different. It's the mark of a good bottle episode.
Speaker 1: Different yep, just different enough? All right? Should we wrap up?
Speaker 1: Let's wrap up. If you want to listen to other
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your mind, you can find
Speaker 1: them wherever you get your podcasts and wherever that happens
Speaker 1: to be. We just asked that you rate, review, and subscribe.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic, for the future or just to
Speaker 1: say hi. You can email us at contact at stuff
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