January 25, 2025

The Wood-wide Web and Do Plants Feel Pain? - forest ecologist Justine Karst - Sentientism 220

1 hour 32 minutes

Justine Karst is Associate Professor at the University of Alberta in Canada. As an ecologist she studies the mycorrhizal ecology of forests. She is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Ecology and President of the International Mycorrhiza Society.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the most important questions: “what’s real?”, “who matters?” and "how can we make a better world?"

Sentientism answers those questions with "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

00:00 Clips

01:13 Welcome

- Justine on the Many Minds podcast

- The #woodwideweb

03:45 Justine's Intro

- "I'm pretty into mycorrhizas"

04:30 What's Real?

- #catholic parents "they both left the church when they got married"

- Raised in a non-religious home

- Summers with grand-parents who felt "we need to get a

healthy dose of religion because we were missing it from all the other months of the year"

- "I was and I still am a very curious, curious kid... I was really fascinated by a lot of the [church] stories and the rituals... but

there was no time for asking questions."

- Bible stories "some of them are extraordinary - they

don't always make sense to a kids mind or an adult mind"

- Dad "the Spock in the family", mum an artist

- Cousins mostly religious. An argument at ~10 yrs old about

evolution and whether He Man has more muscles than Justine :) "No - he has the same number of muscles as me - they're just more developed"

- Getting in trouble with grandma for telling cousins we

evolved "from something ape-like"

- "I'm not somebody that ever talks somebody out of

their faith... not anti-religion... I deeply respect people's values and beliefs and faith even though it's different... I find it very easy to co-exist with people who do have a faith."

- Enjoying good faith conversations with religious people

about nature "I really appreciated how he would give me space to ask questions"

- "I'm not religious, I don't believe there's a god, but I am totally open to being wrong about that."

- "I practice science with a small 's'... I am someone

who loves an elegant experiment tied to field observations - that's what I'm here for."

- "Some people could say that I'm a reductionist... reduction is kind of a dirty word... but I can kind of live with it."

- "There's definitely been some events in my life that

do make me pause... is there something else going on here?"... coincidences vs. something else?

52:30 What and Who Matters?

01:19:15 How to Make a Better World?

01:28:40 Follow Justine:

- Justine’s Karst Lab

- Justine on BlueSky

- Justine on Twitter

“I kind of abandoned that account… I just got tired of the ads and the crappy algorithm”. JW: “That platform almost now seems to be an attempt to destroy public epistemology and ethics – almost the antithesis of what we’re trying to do with this [Sentientism] worldview.”

And more... full show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

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