The pomegranate-guava juice talking
This is as crazy as what I am about to write. I just mixed pomegranate and guava juice so that should set some context of what is to follow. Truth is I don’t think free will is a thing. Like I am sure one doesn’t just get up and mix the two exotic fruit juices and then start typing. There is no WHY to it. No causality. Just as there is no causality to anything. It is pure randomness.
Now that you are with me one paragraph in I shall humor you with a random trivia that bothers a particular type of ant in Thailand. The Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus infects Camponotus leonardi ants that live in tropical rainforest trees. Once infected, the spore-possessed ant will climb down from its normal habitat and bite down, with what the authors call a “death grip” on a leaf and then die. But the story doesn’t end there.
“The death grip occurred in very precise locations,” the authors write. All of the C. leonardi ants studied in Thailand’s Khao Chong Wildlife Sanctuary had chomped down on the underside of a leaf, and 98 percent had landed on a vein. Most had: a) found their way to the north side of the plant, b) chomped on a leaf about 25 centimeters above the ground, c) selected a leaf in an environment with 94 to 95 percent humidity and d) ended up in a location with temperatures between 20 and 30 degrees Celsius. The researchers called this specificity “remarkable.” From this location the future generations of the Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus emerge and the cycle repeats.
Of course, the highly intelligent human can smirk that this can never happen to them. After all, they are the most intelligent beings on the planet. Think again, you tailless ape. In many ways, your gut bacteria are as vast and mysterious as the Milky Way. About 100 trillion bacteria, both good and bad, live inside your digestive system. Collectively, they’re known as the gut microbiota. If you care for name dropping, here is an article from the folks at Harvard talking about it, calling it another organ in itself. If a microscopic fungus can force an ant to isolate them from the peer pressures of the cultures imposed by their society and force it to commit suicide, it would be silly to assume that several trillion bacteria may not be able to influence our thoughts and actions. In fact, here is another article stating that microorganisms can influence the neural circuitry.
There are so many things that seem logically coherent to my brain and the heart steps in to veto. On rare occasions, the heart and the brain seem to align and things don’t seem to be right. It is just a weird ‘gut instinct’ that forces me to do what I do. Do I even have free will? Or is the the juice talking? Or am I a slave to the trillions of parasite in my gut? I don’t know, but something tells me that I need to pour another glass…
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