BECAME HOMELESS TO STUDY PLANTS🔍

I am spending 7 days homeless to deepen my understanding of plants. I have been sleeping in the forest, under bridges. I built a secret garden. I brought no food and no water for this challenge. Watch to the end of the video to see what I learned. Where it is dark, there are mountain lions, there are homeless people who might kill you. No, there are safe spots. Oh my God. Realistically, I can last a full week without food. So food is more of a concern of energy. Do plants behave differently when they are observed? Plants can sense light, a sense of smell, so there's some form of communication between you and the plant. But I'm wondering, how does a plant behave differently when it is observed by a human. I'm going to sit here and observe this plant for the next 3 hours to see what I learn. I stared at these flowers for 3 hours straight. Here's what I learned. The ones that were closer to me wilted, while this flower up here was originally wilted But it ended up blooming. I think this has to do with something that I was closer to these 2 flowers than this flower. Now I want to leave you with one question I was thinking about. Does the seed or the plant come first? Ah, I can't even walk.

Ow.

Let me give you a room tour. Right here we have my sleeping bag, all my supplies. And then my food basket is hanging. Multiple grass seeds often grow together in clusters, and I don't know why that is. And on top of the grass, you see all these seedlings, but there's all this small black fuzz. I'm unsure if it's a disease or if it's from the grass itself. These are the main types of seeds. Dispersal: wind, animals, water bursting, and humans. I was thinking, what if there's quantum plants? There's something in quantum physics where one particle can affect another no matter the distance in between. What if a plant could do that?

Good night.

I'm sleeping with a knife so I don't get attacked. I'm late to school. What they dreamed, and then he would interpret it. He would help them interpret it. Room tour. So this is the tunnel.

Bats.

Hornet's nest. Dead animal. I have a fork if I need it, and I'm gonna go to bed. A dream come true. I've always wanted to sleep under a tunnel. Good night. A creature just touched my head. I couldn't tell. He was making really strange noises, kind of like— I, I can't even describe it. I have an idea. I'm gonna sleep in the middle of this lawn at a park because if you see someone sleeping to the side at a park, you think that You think that's creepy, you think that's weird. Are they homeless? But if you see someone in the center, they are bold. Is that person stargazing? Are they even asleep? You're not afraid if you see someone sleeping in the center of a park. I'm cold and wet. The sprinklers keep going off. It's raining, so I'm gonna go try to find shelter somewhere. In the rainstorm, I had to use my jacket to clear poison ivy. I haven't really told anyone about my challenge, but a girl just walked up to me and said, "Let me know if you need any help, Max." Somehow she knew I was have been homeless. The rumors have caught on. I have no idea how. Do you think plants are conscious? I've created 3 categories: communication, senses, and memory. Pause the video here to see all my points. I'm at a beaver creek right now with my sleeping bag. I'm about to go to bed. It's beautiful. You can hear all the crickets chirping and see the stars. Best night's sleep I've had this entire challenge. I heard so many animals last Fish flopping, chirpits chirping, and things I can't describe. Let's get ready for work. I'm here! I've always wanted to do this! Bro, I have so much food.

Look at all this.

Look, it's free!

You're good.

Following is a conversation with Neri Oxman, an engineer, scientist, designer, architect, artist, and one of the kindest, most thoughtful, and brilliant human beings I've ever gotten to know. Do you know the smell of fresh grass in Incredible feeling. Really, that smell is something called a GLV, a hormone of stress. It is communicating to other grass that it is going to be cut. So the fresh smell people love of grass is really a stress hormone where the grass is frantically communicating amongst itself. But this house over here has their garage open. And I can't get ready for bed because there will be a homeless person in their bush. I'm gonna lay in my sleeping bag and spend the next 20 minutes visualizing my future, visualizing success. It's my 5th day being homeless. It's really not that hard. I don't know why so many people complain.

Apples.

Church of Jesus Christ. Let's fix it. I'm at my college tennis courts. I'm about to join my biweekly philosophy meeting. I always love these.

It's an interesting question asked, you know. Do do plants have consciousness?

Well, what I'm most interested in is you guys both said no. Is there a reason that you guys believe that? Plants don't have consciousness?

It's how I kind of like define consciousness right now, which is neuroscience perspective of essentially like a model of my brain that's constantly being updated whenever I form memories. Um, that, that model of my brain is, um, essentially adding myself, uh, to that model, and then that is like a conscious thread of experience that I have. But that is kind of the way I define it. So that's, that's kind of the The hardest part about talking about consciousness is that like no one can really concretely define it.

Um, I think I misclicked, so, um, I probably would have leaned towards yes, um, just because I don't know like where, where we can really draw that line of consciousness. I mean, I really just think it's emergent.

I think plants have a form of consciousness for sure. Studies about how they communicate with each other So there's like a natural phenomenon where they'll like— trees will grow in such a way that they don't like run into each other, right, in forests. And you'll like see the pattern in the canopy. And there's also, when it comes to like mycelial networks, supposedly they like join like communication through trees. So like there's a transfer of information and like they supposedly react to like human like presence too. Like certain plants will like shrink away to like avoid getting like trampled or destroyed. There's definitely something there, but you know, obviously they're not experiencing reality the same way that we are as humans.

I spent the last few hours thinking about if plants are conscious, and that turned into thinking about consciousness in general, and I started writing an article about consciousness and doing some drawings. Check out my Medium article I just wrote. It talks about the different purposes for consciousness in different metaphysical realities. I would love to hear your thoughts. Now I'm sleeping on top of a hill in between the ranger and this road, so I can't keep this light on, but I'm gonna go to bed. It's been a great day, and tomorrow I'm gonna see my dad. All of my food was eaten last night. This was full of like 20 things of bread. There's people everywhere because of the Renaissance Faire. This is where everyone is parking and getting out, and my secret entrance is right over here. The Garden of Eden is done! Look, look! Introducing the Garden of Eden. I have gotten horse dung, horse dung, charcoal. Look at all the charcoal I got. Deer dung, deer dung. 20+ variety of seeds: apple, kumquat, wheat. And much more! I got these boards from deep within the forest. I cleared out this land to tend to it. This is my garden. Life shall grow! Welcome to my secret Garden of Eden! This is a garden?

Yeah!

This is your garden?

Yeah!

Holy shit, that's cool! I started doing this because I was unsure if some seeds were seeds, so I wanted to plant them to see if they grow. So some of these might not even be seeds I planted. Take a picture of your garden. Do you think plants are conscious?

It's like space, we just don't know.

But if you had to take a guess, would you say they have any degree of awareness?

Yes.

What degree do you think of awareness do they have?

For survival, for helping each other. Beyond that, not much. It makes you wonder, like, if they did have a conscience, do you think they were smart enough to talk or something?

They can hear.

All of them?

A lot of them. Like, if you play the sound of a caterpillar chewing to a plant, it releases a stress hormone to the system, and it basically makes the entire system more aware.

I wonder if you had 2 plants and you had one be the palico plant, I got soap from a public bathroom to bathe. Like the pump dispenser thing? Look at all the ducks coming out. Do you want me to turn the camera off so you can get the boys?

Yeah.

Go and do the homeless camp of my son. See where my son's been living, eating fruit from the trees.

There he goes.

Bye. See you in a week.

In between a neighborhood and a trail, so I have to be quiet. Okay, I hear people. I have to go to bed. Plants in Sacramento that make you high, that make you die. That do both. Which would hurt more, getting your arm cut off as a human or getting your branch cut off as a tree? Well, the obvious answer is a human. Humans have a higher form of awareness, a higher form of intelligence. We're able to have more complex thoughts, but we do not know what a tree is experiencing. We are unable to give a qualified answer without experiencing the tree for ourselves. What do you guys think? I've wanted to sleep under a bridge my entire life, and the other night I did not complete the full night, so I must redeem myself. It's good to see you, friend. I'm here at the tunnel to sleep. I have a strategy so the animals won't mess with my head.

Good night.

Good morning!

Ah.

I now have zero concern for financial aid. I am 100% confident I can follow my passions And everything will be alright. Money is irrelevant. Do what you love. Nothing else matters.

Here's some coins.

I want change. Keep your coins. Follow to join the revolution.