Get your DEMYSTICON 2024 tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/demysticon-2024-tickets-727054969987 Sign up for a yearly Patreon membership for discounted tickets: https://bit.ly/3lcAasB Dr. J. Scott Turner is a physiologist who has contributed extensively to our understanding of collective intelligence through his work on the behavior of mound building termites. Early in his career he realized that the the textbook explanation for the mounds - that they contributed to temperature regulation of the underlying colony - were woefully incomplete. Through his work, Turner was able to demonstrate that the mounds were actually an integral part of the physiological success of the termites - rather than being a temperature regulating mechanism, the mounds acted as an external lung that was built and maintained by the colony for the express purposes of air filtration and circulation. Downstream of this realization, Turner developed a theory that suggests Darwinism alone - in context of survival of the fittest as the sole driver of the diversity of life - was an incomplete representation of the dynamics of life. We talk about the details of how to rewrite Darwin with a greater emphasis on epigenetics, collective intelligence, and the innate drive of purpose that is particular to life. 00:00:00 Go! 00:00:17 The man behind the termites 00:01:44 Remaining mysteries of evolutionary theory 00:06:01 When things don't add up 00:12:47 The ingenuity of termite mounds 00:25:11 Biology as a PID controller 00:29:56 Desire can't emerge from genes alone 00:35:54 Origins of Life 00:38:09 Origin of Life vs Origin of Cells 00:43:31 The struggle to exist is an inherent part of life 00:49:36 Crystal structure of life 00:57:29 Organisms are defined through communion & community 01:16:21 Our function in the superorganism 01:23:19 A teleology of life? 01:28:50 Recursive degradation of information 01:38:43 Purpose and desire as fundamental grounds of biology 01:57:39 Searching for gold on the fringe 02:07:28 The endless churn of ideas 02:20:19 Stand ins for superstitious forces 02:29:01 Willful intelligence of superorganisms 02:32:18 Tuning the algorithm that turns rocks into life 02:36:50 Closing thoughts Tell us what you think in the comments or on our Discord: https://discord.gg/MJzKT8CQub #DrJScottTurner, #CollectiveIntelligence, #Termites, #MoundBuildingTermites, #Physiologist, #BiologicalResearch, #Darwinism, #Epigenetics, #LifeDynamics, #PurposeOfLife, #EvolutionaryTheory, #ScienceDiscussion, #InnovativeResearch, #TermitesBehavior, #BiologicalInsights, #Ecosystems, #EnvironmentalScience, #NatureStudy, #Life'sComplexity, #ScientificDiscoveries. Check our short-films channel, @DemystifySci: https://www.youtube.com/c/DemystifyingScience AND our material science investigations of atomics, @MaterialAtomics https://www.youtube.com/@MaterialAtomics Join our mailing list https://bit.ly/3v3kz2S PODCAST INFO: Anastasia completed her PhD studying bioelectricity at Columbia University. When not talking to brilliant people or making movies, she spends her time painting, reading, and guiding backcountry excursions. Shilo also did his PhD at Columbia studying the elastic properties of molecular water. When he's not in the film studio, he's exploring sound in music. They are both freelance professors at various universities. - Blog: http://DemystifySci.com/blog - RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/2be66934/podcast/rss - Donate: https://bit.ly/3wkPqaD - Swag: https://bit.ly/2PXdC2y SOCIAL: - Discord: https://discord.gg/MJzKT8CQub - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DemystifySci - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DemystifySci/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/DemystifySci MUSIC: -Shilo Delay: https://g.co/kgs/oty671