Learn about why cannabis gives people the munchies; the Bicameral Mind theory that says the ancient Greeks lacked consciousness; and the evolutionary reason why you listen to songs on repeat.
Learn about why cannabis gives people the munchies; the Bicameral Mind theory that says the ancient Greeks lacked consciousness; and the evolutionary reason why you listen to songs on repeat.
Why does cannabis give you the munchies? by Grant Currin
The "Bicameral Mind" Theory Says the Ancient Greeks Lacked Consciousness by Reuben Westmaas
There's an Evolutionary Reason Why You Listen to Some Songs on Repeat originally aired November 15, 2018 https://omny.fm/shows/curiosity-daily/why-you-listen-to-songs-on-repeat-aluminum-foil-wi
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/why-cannabis-gives-you-the-munchies
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about why cannabis gives people the munchies; a theory that says the ancient Greeks lacked consciousness; and the evolutionary reason why you listen to songs on repeat.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Here in the US, states are becoming increasingly more friendly towards cannabis, from decriminalizing it to letting people sell it to people for recreational use. And there are a few pretty sure-fire things people consuming it have been able to count on: it can make a comedy even funnier, the back of their hand even more fascinating, and food simply irresistible. Let’s pause for a second to talk about that last one: how does a plant have what it takes to send a human’s appetite through the roof? In other words: why does cannabis give you the munchies?
There are actually a lot of reasons, but it all comes down to a molecule called tetrahydrocannabinol [TET-rah-HIGH-drah-cah-NAB-bin-all], or THC. It’s one of the main active ingredients in cannabis and a major player in “the munchies.”
THC belongs to a group of chemically similar compounds called cannabinoids. They’re, unsurprisingly, found in cannabis. The human brain and body are full of receptors that cannabinoids can bind to. Those receptors are meant for molecules called endocannabinoids that the body produces on its own. THC hacks the system by posing as endocannabinoids, binding to receptors, and changing how and when neurons choose to fire.
As it happens, a lot of those receptors are located in food-related parts of the brain and body. There are a ton of cannabinoid receptor type 1 — that’s CB1, for short — in the basal ganglia, where they may enhance the pleasure that comes from eating. There are also a lot in the limbic forebrain, which is a region that helps you figure out whether food tastes good, among other things. Research has also suggested that CB1 receptors affect two other brain regions that help your brain lead you to eat the right amount of food.
But it’s not just the brain. There are also CB1 receptors in the stomach and small intestine. When THC molecules bind to those receptors, they affect the body’s delicate system of hormones that make you feel hungry and full. In one line of research, scientists have discovered that THC causes levels of the peptide tyrosine [TYE-ruh-SEEN] to drop, which in turn causes levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin [grel·lin] to rise, which leads to...you guessed it...the munchies.
Finally, research in mice suggests that THC molecules that make their way to the olfactory bulb cause food to smell and taste way better than normal. That caused the mice to eat a lot more of it. The same thing probably happens in high humans. Clearly, THC does a lot to give you the munchies. It’s almost more amazing that it finds time to do anything else.
Humans are conscious beings. There’s no denying that. But have we always had consciousness? And if not, when did we get it? In 1976, psychologist Julian Jaynes posed a kind of shocking answer to that question: humans only developed consciousness in the last 3,000 years or so.
In his book “The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind,” Jaynes said that consciousness is much smaller, rarer, and younger than we tend to think. Forget about wondering if a dog, cat, or earthworm has consciousness — Jaynes hypothesized that even the ancient Greeks didn’t have consciousness. His definition of consciousness was very specific, though: it was a process based on metaphorical language that has to be learned. So humans, according to him, didn’t learn to be conscious until they could tell the story of their lives with metaphor and introspection.
In Jayne’s theory, the “bicameral mind” is essentially a consciousness split in half. One half takes care of execution: so like, when it receives the message that the body is hungry, it looks for food and eats it. The other half is the one that sends those messages. So before we developed any sort of introspection, those messages would have hit the brain like the word of the gods. It wasn’t until we could grasp narrative and metaphor that we could realize that those voices came from within us.
Ok, so where’s his evidence? He bases most of it on the difference between Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey. In the Iliad, Jayne arguest there’s no introspection, and that it was written long before the bicameral mind began examining itself. In the Odyssey, characters reflect on their surroundings and have complex reasons for their actions, suggesting that they had consciousness.
As popular as bicameralism became, it had a lot of flaws. A big one is that it set up a hierarchy of consciousness that puts people who believe that divine forces influence their life towards the bottom and people with more atheistic beliefs above them. But regardless of whether you believe it or not, it’s a fascinating idea that really gets you thinking.
CODY: Do you ever find yourself listening to the same song over and over again? Well a lot of people do, and a few years ago, we looked into why. So in case you missed it, here’s the story from 2018 that we remastered just for you.
ASHLEY: [2:39 story audio clip]
CODY: Before we recap what we learned today, I just want to mention that we are running a very important, very amazing, very just awesome interview on our show starting tomorrow, and you do NOT want to miss it. So definitely stay tuned to Curiosity Daily this week. But for now, let’s recap today’s takeaways
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CODY: Today’s stories were written by Grant Currin, Reuben Westmaas, and Ashley Hamer, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Scriptwriting was by Cody Gough and Sonja Hodgen. Today’s episode was produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: You can listen to this podcast episode on repeat — don’t worry, we don’t judge. Just remember to join us again for TOMORROW’S episode to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!