This is the second episode of our discussion of Andrea Wulf's biography of Alexander von Humboldt, The Invention of Nature. In this episode, we will discuss parts 3 and 4. As always with the book club, in each episode we will talk about whatever happened, so there will be spoilers and it probably makes most sense if you have read as far as we have.
For this series, I'm joined by Cody Kommers, former guest of the podcast (episode 4), fellow podcaster, and fellow PhD student in cognitive neuroscience. Cody has a particular interest in travel and psychology.
Podcast links
Website: https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast
Cody's links
Website: https://www.codykommers.com/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=ImTtx_kAAAAJ
Twitter: https://twitter.com/codykommers
Newsletter: https://codykommers.substack.com/
Ben's links
Website: www.bjks.page/
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bjks_tweets
References
Bryson (2004). A short history of nearly everything. Broadway.
Foer (2012). Moonwalking with Einstein: The art and science of remembering everything.
Freud (1905). The interpretation of dreams.
Geertz (1973). The interpretation of cultures.
Humboldt & Bonpland (1807). Essay on the Geography of Plants. University of Chicago Press.
Humboldt (1807). Views of nature. University of Chicago Press.
Humboldt (1807). Personal narrative of travels to the equinoctial regions of the new continent during the years 1799-1804. G. Bell.
Humboldt (1845-62). Cosmos: a sketch of a physical description of the universe. Harper.
Luria (1968). The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory.
Sacks (1985). The man who mistook his wife for a hat. Duckworth.
Wulf (2015). The invention of nature: Alexander von Humboldt's new world. Knopf.
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[This is an automated transcript with many errors]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: [00:00:00] This is now the second part of our discussion of Andrea Wolf Al Biography, the Invention of Nature. I'm again joined by Cody Commerce, uh, fellow PhD student podcaster and, uh, reader of this book, I guess. Um,
Cody Kommers: awesome. Looking forward to talking about these, uh, these sections then.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Cool. Yeah. Today, yeah, maybe that's, uh, we're discussing section parts three and four, and as always, I'll have a brief two, three sentence summary per chapter.
Chapter nine, Humbolt returns to Europe and settles in Paris. He brings a huge collection of unknown species and enjoys his fame. He talks to Simon Bolivar about a potential revolution in South America without actually encouraging him to be the leader. Chapter 10. Humboldt moves to Berlin due to politics rather than preference.
He writes several books including essay on the Geography of Plants, [00:01:00] which was admired by Gur and views of nature, which was loved by many, including Henry Debit, Thoreau, Ralph Ford, Emerson, Charles, Darwin, and Julian. He goes to Paris on a political assignment for the King of Prussia, but decides to actually stay there.
Chapter 11, against his brother's wishes, Humboldt stays in Paris during the Neonic war. He enjoys great fame and respect, working all the time on his books, correspondence, experiments, and giving talks. He wants to leave Europe though for another expedition. Chapter 12, Iman Bolivar starts the Revolution in South America to Free South America from the Spanish colonists.
Inspired by Humboldt's writing and aided by Humboldt's maps of South America, chapter 13, Humbold stays in London to get permission from the East India company to be allowed to explore India and climb the Himalaya. His request is denied probably due to humbolt's, explicit and strong negative opinions on colonization.
Chapter 14, Humbolt is given permission and finances the travel to India only to have the permission taken away. Again. He's still widely admired, meets many famous and influential people, but is poor and [00:02:00]forced to move back to Berlin Chapter 15. Humbolt spends most of his time in Berlin entertaining the King FTO Williams ii.
He also gives a very popular lecture series to the public. Almost three decades after travel to South America, Humbolt receives an invitation from Sar Nicholas, the first for an all expenses paid expedition through Russia, chapter 16, Humbold Travis through Russia, all the way to where the borders of Russia, China, Mongolia meet on the way.
He celebrates his 60th birthday with Vladimir Lyon's grandfather and returns to Moscow and Berlin. The expedition having been a great success. Chapter 17 in 1831 Inspired Ba Humbold, both for the journey itself and in his description of the journey, Darwin Boards, the Beagle for Around the World Trip with lengthy stays in South America.
Chapter 18, in his seventies, Humbold publishes Cosmos. The first book spans the Universe, earth and All Living Creatures. And the Second book focuses on human history. The books were total success among all parts of [00:03:00] society, from scientists to the general population. And finally, chapter 19, inspired by Humboldt's Cosmos, Henry David Thoreau becomes a serious writer and rewrites warden to its current form.
There's quite a lot of chapters.
Cody Kommers: No, we really covered the, the majority of, of Humboldt's life here. Yeah, exactly. So where we, where we finished off at the end of discussion one was he'd just come back from South America very much a young man, very much this, this big, you know, expedition that he undertook.
And now this is just him living out his life as a consequence essentially of having under undertaken this one initial big magnificent adventure and sort of book ended by his Russia adventure, which was his second big adventure, which was really 30, like three decades after, after his first travel, big travel, and then his magnum opus cosmos.
So we, uh, we, we sort of see the whole, you know, sort of middle part of his life in these sections.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, it's basically [00:04:00] years 30 to 70 something, right? Roughly that, yeah.
Cody Kommers: So, let's see. I think there's one thing that I wanna, or there, there's a kind of couple things that stood out to me about when he came back to Europe, particularly when he, he came back to, to Berlin.
And that's one thing is that I wanna, I, that I partially wanna kind of just like plant a seed of, now we can come back to after we've talked about everything that he's, he's went through, uh, he, he, he went through and his, his influence on Darwin and, and Henry David Thoreau and these other incredible people.
And I think that part of what was so impactful about his trip was that the one to South America, the big, you know, sort of initial thing that put him on the map was, was in a word magnitude. He simply went farther than anyone else had and collected more than anyone else had.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah.
Cody Kommers: And I think what we're gonna see as we talk about Darwin and, and a lot of this stuff is that it, it really provided in a sense [00:05:00] raw data.
For, for people to work with and to also provide a template for what people were going to do in the future. And I also think for us, for us young academics and, and people who are, you know, interested in, in this, this kind of world and everything, I think Humboldt is also a, a, uh, a, a lesson, a very representative lesson and how a single good study conducted in one's twenties can sustain an entire career because that's, this is what he did.
He did one big exposition and then he spent the next 30 years talking about it, and people fucking loved it.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I found that crazy too. And the same, in some sense, applied, at least in the beginning to Darwin also, they, they went on this trip both financed by their parents of essentially, and then suddenly though everyone wants to talk to them about all their great findings.
I mean, I guess, you know, as we discussed last part, it's very difficult to do that stuff and all these kind of things, of course. But effectively he, yes, spent five years. On, on [00:06:00] adventure and suddenly he was a scientific superstar, almost. Absolutely not only scientific, I mean just general superstar, it seemed.
Cody Kommers: Yeah. It's not like he was constantly traveling for his entire life. No. He had one really big travel adventure and on that basis, which admittedly like, you know, he did, he, he like what he was spending at 30 years doing was a lot of sifting through what he had found, both in terms of the physical specimens and the intellectual concepts and everything like that.
So he was, he, he was productive during that five years. But it's just so funny how, uh, it was just this one big thing that he was cashing in on for his entire career. And in many ways, I suspect that is kind of, that is like, that, that, that resembles a lot of academic trajectories is that you have one really significant idea, uh, usually, excuse me, in your twenties and then you kind of spend.
The next 20. So year is like rearranging adjacent ideas [00:07:00] and elaborating on that and telling people what, what the, the core of that, that idea and that finding was. So,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: ah, now I feel like I need to have, I mean, I've already 30 and I haven't had this yet. Does that mean it's over?
Cody Kommers: I, I don't know if that, that that means it's over, but maybe you, maybe this, maybe this is only one template.
Maybe there's another template out there, which is that you actually spend years 30 through 70 doing novel doing science. Yeah. And, uh, uh, stuff that would be an alternative besides the one and done, uh, approach. So maybe, maybe that's, I was
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: about to say that sounds like more work, but from the description of it, he was, I found it really weird that in a way it seemed like he was working all the time, basically.
Cody Kommers: Mm-hmm.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But then, you know, it was conflicting in the sense that, at least for when he was in Berlin, he was based, he spent most of his days, it seemed more or less entertaining the king. So he wasn't really doing any work in that sense, although he had to, you know, I think he still had this huge drive to, you know, work in the middle of the night to finish these things.
But [00:08:00] yeah, I find it weird how there was this, this at one point on some points, the description of him working so much and constantly giving talks and all these things, and at other points the description of him just. Meeting people, but basically him talking the entire time and we're never letting anyone else talk.
Which I guess also relates to our point about vanity from that you mentioned in the first part.
Cody Kommers: Absolutely. No, I think this is the other thing that stands out to me about his return to Europe is that he just couldn't stand being there, particularly in Berlin. So I've got a couple quotes, uh, direct from, from fumbled here, which he described, uh, himself initially in Berlin as quote isolated and as a stranger to describe his sort of, you know, feeling of being there.
And then, uh, another choice passage, uh, choice line was he feel, he felt quote, buried in the ruins of an unhappy fatherland. Why did I not stay in the forest at the oroco or on the high ridges of the Andes? Um, and then [00:09:00] going on to say that quote, court life robs even the most intellectual of their genius in freedom.
And I going to your point about him spending the majority of his time, kind of being a, a scientific celebrity, entertaining people engaging in e evidently very magnificent disquisition for these people, but not necessarily doing the, uh, the work of, of furthering his scientific ideas, though definitely getting them out there into the sort of popular consciousness, it seems like.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But it sounds like his, his meetings with the king were the 19th century equivalent of committee meetings in which he was basically just caught up for the, like, large majority of his life.
Cody Kommers: Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But, um, I have one point about that just occurred to me that I found kind of interesting is that, you know, as, as you just mentioned, he talks about wanting to leave Europe, uh, multiple times and he wants to go in expeditions and tries to arrange them.
But when you actually look at what he did is he had the five years in South America and [00:10:00] then a year in Russia, and that's it. Right. He had two trips in his entire life and he just, I mean, you know, you, you have this idea of, you know, I mean the subtitle here is The Adventures of Alexander Van Humbold, but there was basically, well, two, I guess that is, those are two adventures.
Yes. But, uh, I think what what kind of, I almost didn't realize was reason this part, it's just that he basically never went on an adventure. He was constantly wanted to, but never could.
Cody Kommers: Absolutely. Exactly. And I think what, what kind of stands out to me about that is it was, it was sort of what, like what we were talking about earlier is what drives him to, to have this strong desire to, to be on the road, to be, to be out there, to go on these expeditions.
And part of it's certainly that there's something out there to find, but part of it is just this, like, he just felt uncomfortable at home. He didn't wanna be there. And there was something about the. Even though he was living this lavish, [00:11:00] incredible lifestyle, the life of the party and, and, and, and going in these circles and, you know, lots of stuff, you'd look and be like, oh yeah, that sounds like a pretty solid, yeah.
As far as lives go, I could imagine a lot worse. And yet there was this constant sense of like, man, like I just need to get outta here and get back out there onto the road. And that sort of stuff. That was clearly this huge motivating thing that was always present him was this sense of this desire to be somewhere else, to keep going, to get back out there, to be on the move.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And I guess it must have been, I mean, part of me what was though? Like, how much he really wanted that though. How much he just said he wanted it, because, I mean, it's difficult for me to tell whether to what extent he really tried to go on expeditions, because, I mean, of course the, the, you know, in this book Wolf mentions, you know, how he constantly, you know, was going in circles with the East India company and these kind of things.
And of course it was difficult politically if basically all the countries were at war with each other all the time. I guess that [00:12:00] makes it a bit difficult to actually cross borders. But I also wonder like a guy with that standing, like he could, I mean, I feel like he could have done some sort of expedition if he really wanted to, I don't know, like go to the North Pole via Norway or something.
I don't know. Like it seemed to me like someone of his standing and his fame and maybe not his money anymore. But you know, with, with all of that, it seems to me he could have maybe done another expedition within the 30 years between Yeah. Between the two that he did in his life. So I wonder at, at sometimes like to what extent he actually yeah.
Really, really wanted to go on adventures and in what case it was. Yeah, I don't know. Do you, do you know what I'm trying to get at?
Cody Kommers: I know exactly what you're trying to get and I think, I think I'm pretty sympathetic to his, to his plight there. So I, there's, there's a couple things that stand out to me about that.
One is that, uh, and of course this, this goes without saying some level, but it was as the, it was the time, it truly before mass tourism, which is really a [00:13:00] concept that begins to exist in the 1950s as we understand it now. That's when essentially we see this, this exponential upturn in what we consider tourism today.
And so, uh, I think there's definitely. And it's, it is an important point to make, which is that, it's, that concept is like, oh, I'm just gonna go somewhere. Uh, outside of Europe particularly, wasn't really the same. Sure. There were the, there is, uh, basically, like there is this thing in Russia, I think probably around this time called the Grand Tour, uh, which was, you know, going to Paris, Berlin, et cetera, and, and whatever.
So people did travel, uh, within Europe, that sort of stuff. But I don't think that the same notion of just, oh, I'm just gonna head out somewhere and, and do do something. So that's, that's one thing. But I definitely, I think what it is, is that like when you're. Before you've done anything significant. And for Humboldt, this was, you know, in his twenties, whatever, you're not beholden to anyone.
It's easy to go out there and do something big and to have this [00:14:00] opportunity where it's like, well, I'm just gonna, uh, I'm gonna do this. But then when you come back and now everyone from the, uh, king of Prussia on down wants something from you and expects something from you, and you're now embedded in, you know, this, this web of, of expectation and responsibility and that sort of stuff.
In, in a sense we just call that adulthood usually. Um, but in, in Humboldt's case, it was even more dramatic because he was so. You know, like literally the king wanted shit from him and everything. And then also the, the fame and, you know, people wanted to hear from him, wanted to show up, wanted him to show up as their parties, that sort of stuff.
And so I just think that, I do think the, I don't think he was just saying it, I think he truly wanted to go out there and I think he, in a sense, truly tried in the way that any of us are, are likely to try once we get to that point in our lives. And, uh, that it's just that stricture of having responsibility [00:15:00] and being, uh, an adult and especially one that's successful and, and having people asked a lot.
I think once you get to that point in life, it's really difficult to transcend that, even if you have all the resources in the world and sometimes even because you have all the resources in the world.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I mean, I, I, I think, yeah, to some extent also then he had the responsibility of sharing the stuff that he found out in South America, right?
I mean, he. Yeah, like in the chapter nine, it says he brought back some 60,000 plant specimens, six thousands of which were, wait, is that a sentence? 6,000 species of which, oh yeah. Sorry. Wait, sorry. Can you just, just, can you pass the sentence? He brought back some 60,000 plant specimens, 6,000 species of which almost 2000 were new to European botanists.
Cody Kommers: Yeah, I think, um, I mean it's the, the 2000 of the 6,000 he brought back were, uh, new to European botanists.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. But he [00:16:00] brought down six 60,000. It says just before that.
Cody Kommers: Those are the specimens? No, not necessarily different species. Oh, so there's multiple specimens that
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: was retarded. Same species. Yeah.
Sorry. You're right. A confused specimen of species. Yes. Um. Anyway, thousands of specimens and species.
Cody Kommers: I analogically I think you're, you're, uh, I I can see where the
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: confusion came from. Confusion comes in. Yeah. Anyway. Um, wonder is more like, you know, if, if you are the person who collected them or with your team and you know where stuff is from, and you have your personal experiences that just this, this, this, this very, not in a negative way, unspecific knowledge about the place that's then linked to where you took these, these species from, um, or specimens from, yeah.
I guess you do have a responsibility to share with the, with the best botanists and whatever in Europe, your knowledge, not to just, you know, go off again. Yeah. Um, 'cause in that, in some sense, then it's a nice personal, um, adventure, but it's, it becomes less scientific if you just [00:17:00] then leave again and don't do anything with that knowledge.
Cody Kommers: Absolutely. Yeah. Let's, let's dive into that. And just to put a pin in the sort of Berlin discussion, uh, there were a couple things that I thought, you know, to sort of summarize what I think about his relationship to Berlin was, is that I don't think he hated Berlin, though he did claim to so much as he hated what, what it represented, which was not being on the road.
And so I think it's that kind of. Is what I think my interpretation based off of what Wolf is saying, that that's kind of how I, it, it occurred to me that he, he felt about the whole thing. Also, there was this line she quoted from him, which I suspect may be the greatest ever description of Berlin, which is, uh, that it is, uh, quote, a dancing carnivalesque necropolis, which I feel like, uh, is just the most perfect thing I've ever heard anyone say about Berlin.
Uh, and I don't think it's,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: most, lots of people read that and go, yeah, sounds good.
Cody Kommers: Exactly. I think that that's, that's humble. I probably meant it as a negative thing, but I think people who love Berlin are like, yes, that's [00:18:00] exactly what I love about it. That's, that is the dancing carnivals, necropolis, yeah.
That's, that's my favorite city.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, to be fair, I have no idea what the, the Berlin of 200 years ago, how that relates to the Berlin of today, because I think, if I remember correct, at some point it said that the, the Homo University that his brother founded. I think it was the first university of that.
Right. I think that was in part what he hated about it is that there was just no higher education basically. Um, that's
Cody Kommers: certainly what he, he said about it was, uh, basically that it was illiterate, I think was one of the words he used to describe
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: it. Yeah. So I wonder like to some extent, yeah, just how it relates and you know, for example, ger, which they always, which he always writes about a separate places, which I guess they were then, you know, and now you have, that's where the airport of Berlin is, right?
So it's Berlin has expanded and, you know, pot also, like, you know, when they went to Potsdam to Sun Sea, it sounded like this massive trip. Today, it's like a half an hour by train or something. So yeah, I have no idea how it relates, but. Yeah. I wonder whether to some extent it actually was the way he described it, it [00:19:00] was just, yeah, not a place of, of competitors.
Cody Kommers: I think it probably wasn't as bad as he was describing. I think he was just being a bitch about it. Uh, anyway, um, so he came back. There were, let's say like maybe three major books, um, that resulted from his trip. Views of Nature was this one that basically gave the scientific overview, kind of like the, the scientific theoretical, abstract account.
There was the personal narrative, which was the travel log. This is the, on the ground here is what I saw and everything. And then there was the, I don't have the name in front of me, but the essays on geography and plants. Um, I think that
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: is the title. Yeah.
Cody Kommers: And that one is more specifically about the specific things, um, his findings about plants and,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: and that was Cosmos.
Right?
Cody Kommers: Well, so Cosmos is. 30 years later. I wouldn't say that I, I,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I have to admit, I'm always slightly confused by, by the chronology in this book because, you know, she jumps around quite a bit. [00:20:00] So I'm never, I'm never entirely sure when, which book was written. I always thought it was a kind of fairly continuous stream of books.
That's,
Cody Kommers: I, I mean, the way I, uh, so I also don't have the exact chronology, uh, in mind. It wasn't, it wasn't clear to me exactly like, here's the thing, but it, it did seem like he was a cluster of Okay. Um. Three books that mm-hmm. Sort of addressed three different ways of parsing Humboldt's initial trip. And then Cosmos was his magnum opus saying, look after, because he needed Russia for that one because, uh, as we'll, we'll talk about with the Russia section.
He needed that comparative sort of, um, thing. And so maybe it's not necessarily to spell out exactly what was in each of these books, but especially views of nature and personal narrative. Basically what he was doing that was tremendously unique, and I found this super interesting, super fascinating, super compelling, was that he evidently was the first [00:21:00] person to really combine from, uh, Andrea Volf quotes, lively prose and rich landscape descriptions with scientific observations in a blueprint for much of nature writing today.
This concept that it's not just, oh, here's, you know, some detailed description of it. Here's something that's actually supposed to immerse you in the experience. What it was, it was, it was gonna be like, which, uh, it happened evidently in both those books, and then connecting that to the ideas to say, here's, here's, here's what it all means.
Here's the, here's the scientific interpretation of it as travel writing. Uh, some of the quotes that I have here are someone said that he wrote with a painter's eye and a poet's feeling among travelers what words worth is among poets. And I thought that was super cool to sort of think of him as an architect of that tradition.
And I, you know, we did talk about sas, like, how do we know, how do we trust the author? How do we trust the wolf when [00:22:00] she says, oh, Humboldt was the first to do X. It's like, okay, maybe, maybe not, maybe, uh, I, I do, I do, I do sort of buy this one though. And I found it really cool to think about him being the architect of this tradition.
One that I certainly consider myself when I'm, when I'm writing, that's what I'm trying to do is how do we connect, you know, some sort of on the ground account of what it actually looks like to live an experience life along with the abstract and electoral ideas of how to make sense of it and how to interpret what we wanna is seeing and feeling.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Can you provide maybe some other examples of books or authors that have done that? Because this is something that I'm just not very familiar with at all. Um, so to me this is. Yeah, I don't think I've, yeah, I think by coincidence I just haven't read books like that. Sounds like
Cody Kommers: you have. So, from, from an academic perspective, the best description of what this method is comes from an anthropologist named Clifford Geertz.
And he was, uh, writing this account, at least these come up with these ideas in, in the early 1970s. And he is this [00:23:00] really epic figure in anthropology where essentially the modern era of anthropology is in many way a response to the work of Clifford Gurts. And his idea was this notion of what he called thick description.
And the idea is that in order to capture the, the way of living, this is someone's way of living. For him as an anthropologist, what he was trying to do was trying to say, oh, I went here. I saw these people. I, I engaged meaningfully in their, their way of life. And I'm coming back to describe what it is that I learned about them specifically in humanity more generally.
And in order to do that, what you had to have, um, was this, uh, appreciation of both the specific on the ground. Moments of, of, of what happened and what you actually saw in the concrete manifestations of it, and then connect that back to, to the account. So that's the basic idea in terms of the most direct, uh, my favorites and what I consider to be the most direct, explicit academic account of what it means to do this.
And also he does a great fucking job of it himself. 'cause he's one of the greatest all time academic writers, Clifford [00:24:00] Gertz. So that's definitely one important point, I'd say from the academics perspective. Then in terms of just, you know, random people who I think do this well, for example, Oliver Sachs, the neuroscientist, um, whom you may have heard of, um, yeah.
In connection with neuroscience, neurology or he wasn't a neuroscientist. He was a neurologist, very much. Not a neuroscientist, in my opinion, very much a neurologist. Um, and his thing, what he did was that he operating, you know, this is early stuff, was around that same time of Garrett that I was talking about in the, the late 1970s, that sort of thing.
And what he did was he took this classical tradition of case studies in neurology where you actually go through and say. What is the manifestation of this neurological pathology in the person's life as they actually live it. And so he would go through and say, look, this is how this unfolds. This is the human impact of, of, of what is happening.
And then, [00:25:00] uh, connect that back to the medical literature on what was known about the disease and, and what was happening in the brain. And breaking it down from a more philosophical perspective of like, okay, so here is this person's, you know, for example, memory, um, you know, some sort of amnesia or something like that.
Or he studied a lot with parkinsonians and uh, uh, Parkinsonism and that sort of stuff. So, okay, here's this, here's this thing. Here's what it looks like in actuality. And then what do we know about what's happening in the brain and what does it mean to have one's memory fall out from underneath oneself?
So that's an example of someone who practiced that and that sort of thing. So it really ranges not just from nature writing, which is of course, uh, if you look at the other books that, that vol has published, that's clearly her, uh, area of expertise. But closer to, um, certainly what I'm more interested in and a little bit closer to our interest in psychology and cognitive science and everything.
Yeah. Connecting, connecting those lived experiences and the concrete manifestations of [00:26:00] life with the abstract intellectual academic theories.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: And you agree that that's, that that's Bol seems to have been one of the first people to really start that.
Cody Kommers: Yeah. I, I, going back to our theme of, you know, this is partially an exercise in helping Cody learn about romanticism and figures of that, you know, sort of era, which my intellectual history knowledge is not extend that back that far, but yeah.
So the traditional Oliver Sacks would've been working in, goes back quite a ways. He was, he was drawing on this. Soviet psychologist named, uh, Alexander Luria, who published his stuff I believe in, in the 1950s, but the most famous of his book is Mind of a Feminist, which describes basically, uh, this dude's Soviet dude who never forgot anything.
And this is one of the id, uh, one of, if you've ever like, looked into like memory palaces and the method of loci and, and that sort of stuff, those memory mnemonic techniques and everything. But basically what was happening was [00:27:00] there was this guy in everything he ever saw, he placed along the side of the road by, I can't remember which road it was, but you know, let's say close to his like little village or whatever.
And he could just go back along that road in his memory palace and, and retrieve that. And for whatever reason, he was unable not to do this. And basically, uh, loria explored how he couldn't function because he couldn't forget anything. And so then we learn about the importance of forgetting things through, through that and everything.
And this goes back to the, the very early, the very first neurologist did this, for example, charco, who's considered the, the father of, uh, neurology, which would be late, late 18 hundreds. And then Freud, of course is the sort of pinnacle of that pre-modern case study thing. That's, that's, that's obviously what he was doing in, in interpretation of dreams and, and that sort of thing was here's a case study, let's, let's talk about it.
So anyway, that tradition goes back to around 1851. Not anyway, but the point is, is that I, I do buy that, uh, Humboldt did this in an important way.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. And just as a [00:28:00] brief aside, you know, I guess last time we questioned some of the statements she made about, you know, Humboldt being the first to do X, y, or z, or how influential he really was at times.
I was questioning it a bit, but I think in this, in in parts three and four, there were quite a lot of direct quotes from people you'd assume know roughly what they're talking about at the time. Who, yeah, I mean, basically summarizing it in earlier chapter. So I think a lot of our slight skepticism might have been slightly misplaced or, uh, not misplaced, but like, might have been, I think, well, I think I buy it more now that I've read the, the other two parts where lots of people, I mean, it seems like he was really by, really admired, by huge influential figures at the time from all spectrums, spectrum of life.
I
Cody Kommers: think there's no doubt about it that he was admired and considered, uh, uh, to be a lot of these things. Whether or not he actually was is a separate question, as a matter of fact. But I agree with you that that does lend, uh, a lot of credibility to the claim.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: [00:29:00] Um,
Cody Kommers: Russia,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: talking about Russia. Okay.
Cody Kommers: That's kind of what I have next in my,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah, I mean, I just have a random, I have no order to my comments.
So let's, let's talk about Russia next.
Cody Kommers: So this, as, as we've mentioned, it was his second big trip, definitely less grand, um, and in a way less ambitious in the South America one. But as part of his motivation was, besides the general inclination to go somewhere and do something, was it seemed, it seemed to really be hinging on this idea of the comparative method that he went to particular landscape, particularly a mountainous one in South America.
And in order to get. The level of understanding that he wanted to get out of it. He felt like he needed to go to a similar comparable landscape in a completely different area and thereby understand better the sort of, to use the word, we've been, we've been using interconnectedness of everything, how these two very different [00:30:00] landscapes are connected to one another and have similarities and isomorphism, but then also to understand what was unique about these places and be like, oh, here's a similar landscape, but it doesn't have X so therefore X actually, um, can be, you know, in order to get those sort of inferences sort, he needed to go somewhere else and do that.
So that was, that was really why he wanted to go to somewhere in Central Asia. Ideally, uh, the Himalayas Indian, that sort of stuff. But as a, as a backup plan, as it as it actually happened, the, um, sort of steps of Russia and then a couple different mountain ranges within the Russian Empire.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I mean this was definitely a much.
I mean, it's almost, it almost feels weird to call it a less ambitious adventure in that sense, because it seems like for the most part, he was, you know, the, the Russian SA just wanted to know some more stuff about how they could mine certain minerals or whatever. And then along the way, he kind of just did his thing.
Um, so it's almost more like he had, you know, just a work trip that was interspersed by two or three small little [00:31:00] expeditions he made that he wasn't supposed to make. Um, I mean, one thing I found really interesting is that he then, this is a, you know, for him in particular, very small point, but that he actually predicted where diamonds would be in Russia.
And he was the first person, I guess to, to show where they would be. That was something where, I dunno, I feel like, I know I have a much bigger point about this later, but I feel like a lot of his scientific work is very vague in that sense. Um, you know, trying to connect everything with everything. Um, and thereby not, I don't know this question well, how much you actually achieve by doing that?
It was really surprising to me to see like, oh, he, he is capable of making specific predictions that actually turn up in this case, at least to be correct. And that go against Yeah, the, the mainstream idea. I guess that's the critical part.
Cody Kommers: Yeah, I agree. I think that was, that was pretty badass. So definitely this, both Andrea Volf and Humboldt didn't feel that Russia had the [00:32:00] same magic as South America,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: which is, I think, to be expected that the, the, the Russian Tundra isn't quite as fun as the jungle.
Yeah,
Cody Kommers: absolutely. And so that, that is definitely the kind of introduction, the introductory passages of how Wolf describes it is, uh, yeah, basically the steps, Russian steps were pretty boring, pretty uniform. Yeah. Not that different from what one might find in Germany or England, and have this like, really tremendously undifferentiated landscape, unlike what we would find in, uh, south America.
So
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I feel so sorry for the guy. Sometimes it's like, yeah, finally an expedition, and then he just basically sees an extended version of what he already knows.
Cody Kommers: Yeah, there was. Um, so we talked about mosquitoes last time and was another great passage, um, that I'm sure you, uh, also pro probably stood out to you for, for, for that reason.
But, uh, I'm gonna quote this at length 'cause I, I [00:33:00] think it's just such a great description of like the actuality of travel, especially the particular trip that Humboldt was taking. This is from page 2 0 7, uh, quote, the thermometer climb from six degrees at night to 30 degrees during the day, Humboldt up Celsius.
Of course, Humboldt and his team were plagued by mosquitoes just as he and PL had been during their or Noco expedition since 30 years previously. To protect themselves, they now wore heavy leather masks. These masks had a small opening for the eyes covered with mesh made of horse hair to see through.
They protected against the pernicious insects, but also trapped the air. It was unbearably hot. None of this mattered. Humboldt was in a great mood because he was liberated from the controlling hand of the Russian administration. They traveled day and night sleeping in their jolting carriages. It felt like a quote, sea voyage on land Humboldt Road as they sailed across the monotonous planes as if on an ocean they average more than a hundred miles a day and sometimes covered almost 200 miles in 24 hours.
The Siberian highway was as good as [00:34:00] the best roads in Europe. They traveled faster, Humboldt probably noted than any European Express courier. Uh, and so that, that kind of summarizes the day-to-day of what actually they were looking at as like they were making a, a bunch of progress across nothing in particular, uh, had these ridiculous nother masks on to protect him with against the mosquitoes.
Um, and it like, look, it doesn't sound like that. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, so I wonder sometimes what he found so great about these expeditions, but I guess he loved the seeing new things or whatever.
Cody Kommers: That to me is this outstanding question. Like, uh, I obviously when you and I go somewhere, we don't quite like have to dawn the leather masks and whatever, but still going anywhere beyond the sort of like simplest.
Tourists des destinations, it's kind of exasperating for all sorts of reasons. Um, it's just so much more comfortable to uncomfortable to go out and [00:35:00] go somewhere. There's to stay at home. Which leaves me with this question that I think we don't ask enough. Uh, a question about travel, which is why would anyone want to do this?
Um, like, what, what is it like he, he could, like, here's two options. You could either be chilling with the King of Prussia, eating lavish meals and entertaining people at court and, you know, go to bed in your own bedroom. Or you could go sleep in the jolting carriage across the steps of Russia, looking at nothing, especially spectacular.
Uh, eating God knows what, and wearing a leather mask to protect yourself from the, the mosquitoes. Which of those two options are you gonna go for?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Or maybe that's why he was such a famous figure, because he was the only person who actually chose the second option.
Cody Kommers: But I think that's the mystery of it, is that there is, for a lot of us, and especially for any people, you know, like myself, who identify with this inclination to travel, there's something about that that does speak to a person.
There is something, uh, maybe it's only [00:36:00] retrospective, I don't know. Um, but I, I think there's, there's a little bit of a deep mystery here about why humans have this inclination to go out there and see something and experience something other than what it is they're familiar with. And I think Humboldt definitely was this archetype of that, but I think it's present in all of us.
In, in some, in some ways.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: But what, what is it for you? I mean, I have to admit, I'm not someone who really travels much. I always imagine it's a kind of just curiosity for the unknown. Yeah. Just curiosity of what's, what's there. And maybe. I mean, again, humbled, I guess it was fairly explicit, this sense of trying to gain new perspectives on things he knew and testing out new ideas.
But couldn't that kind of be an implicit curiosity in most people?
Cody Kommers: You know, I'm not sure that I know what I think about this question yet. Um, I, to me it is the [00:37:00] mystery of trying to think about this, this topic at a deeper level. 'cause yeah, you can say, oh yeah, you're just interested in going out there and, and having new experiences, that sort of stuff.
But I don't think that fully explains that. There's lots of ways to have new experiences. Why this kind of mode, why is that such a, a thing that, that draws so many people?
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I mean, is it so different or is it just we give it a specific name? I mean, if I, you know, explore the city I'm new to or whatever, because I just moved here, I don't call that travel because I mean the same place.
It's just when it's somewhere else then we call it travel. Isn't it kind of the same principle?
Cody Kommers: I think of this as the Walden problem, which may come up when we, uh, perhaps next time talk about Henry David Thoreau. But clearly Thoreau thought that, look, you don't have to go to the fucking rush in the steps to go experience something new like the pond, a couple towns over.
We'll do just fine. So I think, I think it's an outstanding question. I think to me, at an abstract sense, what it means to travel in this sort of [00:38:00] conceptual way is to put yourself in an environment where your habits and your actions are not well suited to that environment. So that is the defining characteristic of being at home somewhere.
Um, being comfortable somewhere, being familiar with a place is that, you know. Which actions are going to lead to rewarding experiences and you basically have a whole behavioral system for how to navigate that environment relatively successfully. And um, the defining characteristic of travel is, in my opinion, in my sort of framework for it, that you are putting yourself in a position actively where your habits and your, your sort of actions that you're used to undertaking are no longer matched to your environment.
And so I think it's a question of, uh, okay, you're going, you know, to the next town over or you're going halfway across the world. It's not a function of how far you go, but how the extent to which that mismatch between action [00:39:00] environment is the case.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. It doesn't seem to be the case with Humbold though, right?
Cody Kommers: I'm not sure that we got a lot
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: feel like for him it's something else.
Cody Kommers: Yeah, like I said, I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm working on the, the, the overall, the overall idea here. So you, you might be right. I think, I do think there is more, more going on here and, um, you know, the, the motivations for it and the experience of his complicated.
I'm also not sure that we got enough data, um, on his Russian exposition. Yeah. Like we know that he went to like some mountain ranges, saw some stuff predicted about some diamonds, you know, had a tough time with the mosquitoes again and everything like that. But yeah, I'm not sure that I, I, I, I would be comfortable saying that I understand that.
I don't think that penetrated fully his perspective and his experience and his, his mind during, during his travels and everything.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I wonder, I wonder maybe she, whether she's gonna explain more about this on part five, maybe, or it's just an open question, you know,
Cody Kommers: I would definitely like [00:40:00] a. An epilogue of sorts, or I don't know if she'll put it as an epilogue or a, or whatever, but I definitely hope there's a chapter on like, okay, given that we worked our way through all of the plots of, of, um, you know, humble thing, here's what I actually make of, of his thing beyond just like, oh yeah, he was the first to understand the interconnectedness of nature.
Um, I do hope that there is a sort of, after he's dead, here's what I make of his life. Um, sort chapter.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I wonder, I mean, I just looking at the chapters of,
Cody Kommers: I don't think she will, what I know about pages, I mean, there's an pages pages
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: her
Cody Kommers: from her writing. I don't think she's gonna do that. Um, but I'd like to.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. Well, I guess we'll see.
Cody Kommers: So we've got, uh, got 10 minutes left here in this section. And I do wanna talk about the, the Darwin thing. So I don't wanna cut short our discussion of Russia. Maybe we can, uh, return to the travel stuff next time in our sort of summary remarks and everything like that. Yeah, exactly.
But I do wanna spend, um, some time talking about Darwin, so that, that was this, along with the goods of [00:41:00] passages was maybe some of my favorite passages in the
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: mm-hmm.
Cody Kommers: The book that I like this chapter a lot.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I thought. It was very cute. Darwin's.
Cody Kommers: Oh yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Admiration for, for Humboldt and then his subsequent, oh, I guess, yeah.
I dunno. Do you wanna start then? It seems
Cody Kommers: like you have. I, I do. Yeah. So I've got a, I've got a couple notes on this. So basically Humboldt was this huge influence on Darwin and, um, a few different points in this, but basically Humboldt's personal narrative, the travel log specifically though, I'm, he, he, he read all the other stuff, of course, but it was definitely the personal narrative travel log.
Uh, that, along with Charles Lyle's geology was, was the book that the most impacted Darwin's thinking. And the way I would describe this impact was that essentially Humboldt modeled for Darwin, the kind of intellectual that he wanted to be, um, in, uh, like Darwin found in Humboldt, this template, this way of doing things that he [00:42:00] wanted to do.
And he was like. There was this really strong resonance where he read personal narrative and my sort of editorializing it was that he looked at that and he said, I could do that. And yeah, that is, uh, like I understand what's happening here and I feel like I could do this myself. And it turned out he was right.
Um, but basically there's this quote directly from Darwin that vol gives us, quote, my admiration of his famous personal narrative, part of which I almost know by heart, determined me to travel in distant countries and led me to volunteer as a naturalist in her majesty ship beagle. And so it started off the whole adventure for.
Darwin on, on the Beagle and, and everything that turned into his, his later theorizing. And he also, he was so inside the head of Humboldt that he wrote out entire passages of personal narrative just to get humboldt's voice in his name and under his fingers. And, uh, I love that so much. And he basically saw South America [00:43:00] through Humboldt's description of it, by carrying Humboldt's descriptions around with him, uh, on his own travels.
I really think that's how he learned to observe was that he saw a, you know, a, a mountain scene, a mountain scape, and encountered it. Knew what Humboldt had already said about it. 'cause he'd studied that text so deeply and was able to simultaneously hold his own observations, what he was seeing and humboldt's observations together.
And that was really this, this way that he got into his own incisive perspective. And then after returning from his beagle voyage, he published his own narrative. And Darwin's sister went so far as to say that he had quote, probably from reading, so much of Humble got his phraseology and the kind of flowery French Express expressions, which he used.
And so a lot of what we think of, you know, uh, I've never read Darwin's voyage, not yet, but I know a lot of scientists who have, who say like, oh yeah, it's this, this great thing. And I have no doubt that it is. And it's really interesting to know that that was essentially [00:44:00] Darwin's replication of. What Humboldt had, had, had, had innovated his own take on how to do that.
And coming from that per profound understanding and having engaged in the material himself, uh, he was able to do that to cer almost certainly an even greater effect than than Humboldt was. Um, and I thought that was really cool. And in a way that to me, after everything we've read is the thing that I feel like was Humboldt's greatest contribution, was that he taught Darwin how to think.
He's like, this is how to go into the world and to think critically about what you're seeing. And Humboldt obviously was very good at it. Um, but Darwin used it to this level. Nothing that Humboldt said really changed the world in the same way that, that, that Darwin did. And, and Darwin wouldn't have been able to do that.
One might think if he didn't have that template to work from. Amazing.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, I completely agree. I think what's, so there's. [00:45:00] Two related points after this is the, the first is that I think especially for, you know, Darwin it seemed like, was very confused when he went on this voyage, right? I mean, he just, well, he'd, he'd stopped his medical training, right?
And then he was supposed to train to be a whatever minister or whatever. Um, and then he was, well he was doing that, but clearly he wasn't interested in it. So I think, and he was in this like really weird pay period where he just didn't know what to do with himself. And it seems like he then just read this book and went like, this, this is it.
Right? This is something, this is how I, what I can do at least for, you know, the next few years or whatever. So I think it's really interesting that it, it seemed to get Darwin started on this journey, but what's the inter, the other second point then is, and that's what I find almost more interesting, is that it seemed that Darwin took as a starting point, but then.
Somewhat diverged from that. I mean, in one sense, I guess Darwin never [00:46:00] seemed to have this, the personality or the need that tomboy had to be around all the time to, you know, talk to people all day to go on trips and all these kind of things. And what, you know, seemed like to be a much quieter, um, or introverted person.
But what I find interesting scientifically is that, from what I can tell, the big difference is that Humbolt took all these measurements and had all these facts and all these things, and wanted to put it kind of all into one thing that kind of explained everything or showed everything. Whereas Darwin took all of this and then formulated one specific principle from it, at least in, I mean, of course he did more than that, but you know, the one, the big difference to me is that Cosmos, BOLs, uh, um, post Magnum is.
A piece that seems to describe everything in a kind of pop sly kind of way. I don't mean that in a negative way. Um, whereas Darwin seemed to his magnum opus seems to be something where Opus Magnum, [00:47:00]uh, seems to be something where he took all of these things to then articulate one specific thought. And that to me is a huge, you know, do you see what I mean?
Like, they start off in a similar way, but then they diverge quite strongly after that. And that's what I found quite interesting.
Cody Kommers: Yeah, I definitely, uh, I think that's a very, very astute distinction is that Humboldt seems to have been more of a collector, and at least in retrospect, what we, you know, sort of think of for these two different figures is of course we associate Darwin with his, his idea and natural selection and, and all that sort of stuff.
Though, of course he did do lots of other things. And Humboldt we can't really look at and say, oh yeah, well, he had this sense that like everything in nature was connected, but that's not really like a theory, that's science in the way that, uh, but he certainly had this literary appreciation for, for everything, and it was me.
Everything was meaningful to him. I think that's what drove him to be a collector, um, was that each individual [00:48:00] thing was a piece in the piece of the puzzle and everything like that, as it was for Darwin. But yeah, you're right. The, the projects that they were embarked on and the what they did with that mass amount of information was, was very different.
And I think this kind of goes back to what I was saying at the beginning was that there's a sense in which Humble, what he did was give raw data to people who would come through and create the actual. Fundamental ideas. For example, Darwin, um, also Charles Lyle, who the connection wasn't drawn in this book, but, uh, besides being alluded Dilu, she alluded to it.
But I think, uh, it suffice to say that like, that connection, uh, is very important and, and, and that sort of thing. But, um, but yeah, that, that seems to be, that seems to be the, the fundamental thing, uh, that that Humboldt's left was this influence on people who [00:49:00] actually went on to have some of these world shaking ideas in the next, the next sort of generation of scientists.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah, definitely. I think the, I wrote down something similar that, to something that you just mentioned, which is, I mean, there's a famous quote that it seems, it's not entirely clear who said it, but, um, all sciences, either physics or STEM collecting. I think homework was definitely in the STEM collecting business of just taking all the facts, you know, uh, or I guess like Pokemons, he's trying to catch them all.
He's really trying to like get everything in there. Um, whereas, and I think Darwin started off maybe that way, but then came much closer to, um, yeah, trying to articulate specifically theories. And I mean, what's also interesting to me is that my supervisor and I have also talked about this because we had one study, which was fairly broad, lots of data.
Sift through the data, find things not like in a p hacking way, but in a exploratory way. And, um, we, we explicitly, I don't, I don't think [00:50:00] he's, I dunno whether he's read this, but we explicitly talked about, you know, some sciences, you have a piece of like rainforest or whatever and you just go into it to see what's there.
And then you just say, Hey look, this, there's this thing, there's this thing, there's this thing. Um, and then you kind of draw some vague connections between them. And the project that we did was a bit like that and I found that very hard and very unsatisfying. Whereas I think I'm much more towards the area of let's actually think this through.
Like we have a few amount of facts, let's create some theories and then make specific experiments. Yeah. And I think maybe, yeah, I think Conboy is maybe the extreme example of this going into the forest and I mean, he is literally, that's what he did. And then collecting things. Yeah.
Cody Kommers: Yeah. Uh, absolutely.
Yeah. There's another thing I I was just curious about, which is that, um, so, uh, there's this book, uh, we've talked about Bob Bryson before, but we've got his short history of nearly everything, uh, which is his, uh, extensive history of science and essentially the process behind it. I was just curious [00:51:00] from a different non humble, invested perspective, um, whether or not Humboldt was mentioned in, in this book, which is, you know, we can def I would not consider Bryson an authority, uh, on, on any scientific matter.
I, uh, uh, yeah, would say though that whatever you have to say about the book, it covers some ground and it mentions a lot of people who we'd not think of as big names today. So it's not just exclusively dealing with the big names, the Newtons or the, the Darwin's and everything, but there's lots of people in here.
And so, uh, what I found is that, uh, Humboldt was only, it was only mentioned twice in the book. Another, none of them were for. Uh, his findings, they were mostly, both of them were for social connection, or the first one was for social connection. The one was actually a quote, um, which I thought was funny and I don't think has appeared in the Andrea Vol book.
Um, but I'll, I'll read from, uh, here, I'll just read the, the full sentence in, in context. But, um, Alexander von Humboldt, [00:52:00] yet another friend may have had agassis, at least partly in mind when he observed that there are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true. Then they deny that it is important.
Finally, they credit the wrong person. Um, and, uh, I liked that, uh, that sort of theory of scientific progress evidently quoted from, yeah, from Pumble. So.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Humboldt said that apparently, or,
Cody Kommers: yeah, that was, that was, uh,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: okay.
Cody Kommers: I've heard that a lot,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: but I didn't know. Yeah,
Cody Kommers: I looked up in the references, uh, and it wasn't like Bryson was reading from Humboldt's Diary or something like that.
It was another book that he was quoting. I see. Who was quoting. So we'd have to go back. Look at that. We'd, I mean, it's possible, but I'm just saying more fact checking needs to be done because it's po It is, it is, it is, it is possible that there's, there, I mean, there's still links to be drawn out. Anyway, there's, uh, maybe we can save our discussion of Cosmos and, and Thoreau.
For, [00:53:00] um, tomorrow or for, for, for the next tomorrow episode. Yeah. Uh, we'll just talk about, uh, the book every day of this week until we No, but maybe we can save it for next time because we, uh, have fewer chapters to cover. Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah. It's much less, it's 70 pages. It's half roughly. Yeah.
Cody Kommers: Uh, but there is one more thing I wanna say about travel, which I think you partially covered, but I just wanna sort of mm-hmm.
Um, there, there's a couple things that I definitely, uh, found really interesting in that, and it goes back to Darwin's. Darwin's Darwin's voyage. And so basically the, the context which, you know, anyone who's heard scientific discussions about Darwin's probably like familiar with this, but his father famously was really against him undertaking this voyage.
Um, and said it was, quote, a wild scheme and a useless undertaking. Um, and I think that in an important way, this is a totally accurate description, that like Darwin's father was right in, in, in, in a really important way. And, and one of the hallmarks of travel is, is that it's one of the least goal [00:54:00] directed of behaviors that we engage in, in the course of modern life.
And so from the perspective of like what achievement is likely to result from it, the sort of expedition that Darwin went on is marked by Disutility, and the father was right about that. Um, and then it was Darwin's uncle who convinced his father to let him go, basically saying quote, uh, if I saw Charles now absorbed in professional studies, it would not be advisable to interrupt them, but, uh, this isn't really the case.
Uh, and I will be the case with him. Um, and that's such a great
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: way of saying he's just. Fucking give out all day anyway.
Cody Kommers: And you might have it on a page. And I actually, I actually really subscribe. I think this is a great heuristic. I think that when one finds oneself unengaged by school or work, or whatever one is currently involved with in daily life, that's when it's time to hit the road.
That's when you need to sh something's not working. You need to shake things up. You need to experience something different to free your mind from um, you [00:55:00] know, whatever it is. That's sort of encumbering at home. And, you know, so Darwin goes on this big expedition with the beagle, as we know, like went around collecting, looking at plants and shit and turtles and whatever.
Um, and he, it was also funny to note that he had a certain level of misery onboard the beagle. Just like we've noted from, from, from Humboldt, which is, there were a couple quotes that I love of thought were hilarious. Uh, quote, I loathe, I abhor the sea and all ships, which sail on it. It's Darwin. And then I also, uh, uh, he says, uh, also quote, I hate every wave of the ocean.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah,
Cody Kommers: exactly. Um, but so anyway, yeah, he went on a ship to South America and like I said, you know, like. Was carrying humboldt's observations with him, which I think was important. But then, um, you know, when, and when he came back in retrospective, he was looking on it, he said, you know, ultimately, uh, he wrote that, uh, quote, the voyage of the beagle has been by far the most important event in my life, and it's determined my whole career, which of course stands in stark contrast to the evident [00:56:00] disutility noted by his father and everything.
And I guess to me, the, the deeper point here is that distil in prospect leads to the greatest utility sometimes in retrospect. So, you know, from the point of view of like, oh, what goals am I going to accomplish by going out and, you know, having this experience, you have no idea because there are no specific goals that you're trying to do.
And yet it has the ability to, to redefine what one's goals. Are what they should be and, and the whole frame of reference and in, in which a person's working. And so by not committing yourself to a specific goal, by engaging this in this sort of like apotheosis non goal directed behavior, uh, you're able to engage more directly with what actually exists, what's out there and, and you know, your perspective on on, on what you believe about it.
And I think Darwin's voyage is very much a, an example of that. And, uh, the sort of nuit to this story between Darwin and Humboldt is that Humboldt having [00:57:00] read Darwin's stuff, they never, it took him a while to meet. Uh, but Humboldt loved Darwin's book. Thought it was awesome, thought he'd done a great job.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That was great.
Cody Kommers: Uh, and that was heartwarming. And then, yeah. Uh, they actually go on to meet, um, on page, uh, 2 42. Let me see if I have that right here. Um, they go on to meet and basically as you alluded to at the beginning, uh, Humboldt basically went on these like, he basically like never let anyone talk. He just sort of like, go on.
And apparently it was really interesting, but like he just couldn't shut up. And so quote, Darwin was stunned several times. He tried to get an award but eventually gave up. Humboldt was cheerful enough and paid him quote some tremendous compliments, but the old man just talked too much. Humboldt gushed on for three hours, chattering away, quote, beyond all reason, Darwin said, this is not how he envisaged their first encounter.
After all those years of worshiping Humble and of admiring book his books, Darwin felt a little deflated quote, but my [00:58:00] anticipations were probably too high. He later admitted, and I think this goes to show another thing. Which is that you shouldn't meet your heroes. They're never as good as they are in the book.
Uh, don't meet your heroes. Um,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: yeah,
Cody Kommers: and, uh, I mean,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: I guess in this case it was, it was maybe disappointing, but I think it was still, I think Darwin would still rather have met him than not met him. Right.
Cody Kommers: I felt like, to be honest, someone who does a podcast where I talk to my heroes on a regular basis, uh, and who, like Darwin tends to kind of like idolize people, uh, especially people whose works that I like that sort stuff.
I'll just say that I very much resonated with Darwin's. Uh,
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: although maybe, yeah, I just realized actually if. I mean, this meeting was of course, much after Humbard sent Darwin these fantastic letters. Right. Saying like, oh, you, you have a great career ahead of you. You, you've done amazing work here. Yeah.
Just that probably would've been better. But Yeah. I was actually gonna ask, I mean, [00:59:00] didn't, I guess I can take this out if you, if you don't wanna respond to this, but didn't you, isn't Louis Menand Menand, however you pronounce his name, it seemed like I listened to your interview with him that he is one of your heroes.
Uh, it seemed like you had a good time talking to him though.
Cody Kommers: Yeah. So that, that one's a, a confusing one because he is, uh, my, he is one of my biggest heroes and he's also great. And there's a couple things on there, uh, none of which I think are intrinsically negative. So I, I, I'm, I'm fine stating them, but like, at the end of the day, what.
Lu Menendez is a writer, and so he's just, that's, that's his best form. He's never gonna be as good, right. Uh, in any like, as he is on the page. And so that, that's just a fact. I mean, it, part of it is that he's one of the great greatest writers currently working in English language, in my opinion. Um, but so, but, so yeah.
So there's, there's just intrinsically gonna be a disconnect. [01:00:00] And the same would be true I imagine, of of Humboldt's thing, which you're so, um, connected in this, you know, personal narrative thing, um, or his personal narrative and then meeting him person of course, like it's just gonna be hard to. Yeah, there's just, there's just gotta be a disconnect there.
'cause one 'em so monumentally good. Another thing is that when you are so intimately familiar with someone on the page and in their work, um, as you know, was basically my relationship with man. I actually had met 'em, uh, one or two times previously. Uh, but never in depth as a conversation. Uh, you, you get this really intimate relationship with someone who doesn't necessarily exist, right?
Because it's your conception of who they are based off of what they've written and everything like that. And then the other thing is that they don't give a shit about you. Even if they like your work and, and everything like that, you are still so you, you, they are your hero. And, uh, I'm not saying that Lou Banon was um, [01:01:00]uh, you know, like mean or anything.
He was very nice. Uh uh, but like, I'm not his hero. Um, you are some
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: guy who interviewed him. Yeah.
Cody Kommers: Humboldt, uh, liked Darwin and thought he was gonna go on and have a, uh, prestigious career and thought he had done a great job of his work, not his hero. Still doesn't really give that many shits about him, uh, in the grand scheme of things.
And so, yeah, for all these reasons, um, and I, like I said, none of those are intrinsically wrong or bad. Uh, but those are, those are kinds of dynamics that one is going to encounter when one, you know, comes face to face with someone who you previously have only, uh, you know, partially worshiped on the, the page.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Yeah. I think it's a fair point that you made that, you know, your, your heroes or just people you admire, you admire them usually for one specific reason or for one thing that they did or whatever. And that thing is. Basically never being great to talk to in person. Even if they're perfectly fine in person, they won't be as great [01:02:00] as the thing that they're known for.
So absolutely. I guess apart from maybe a very few exceptions, no one's gonna be able to live up to those expectations.
Cody Kommers: Yeah. Yeah.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: That positive note.
Uh, yeah. I guess, um, next time we're gonna read the end and have more of, a bit of a grander, not grander, but like a more, you know, we've read everything then about his entire life, like we've had an account of his entire life, and then maybe we can,
Cody Kommers: yeah, we'll do, we'll do some over put things into perspective.
Some, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So let's talk about cosmos. Let's talk about tho whatever comes up there, and then the final section as we plan to read. And the overall, yeah, o the o, the overall perspective.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Definitely. I also have a few points about science, which I'd be interested to hear opinion about, but
Cody Kommers: awesome.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Next time.
Cody Kommers: Looking forward to hearing him.
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: Cool.