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