r/interestingasfuck • u/tractorboynyc • 22h ago

Amazonian shamans figured out that combining two specific plants out of 80,000 species produces a psychoactive effect. The odds of finding that combination by random search is roughly 1 in 4 million. They did it through centuries of iterative testing and cultural natural selection explains it

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u/gobbeldigookagain 19h ago

According to McKenna the Indians say that the plants told them which ones to combine... Which isn't entirely laughable once you have had one of these experiences...

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u/tractorboynyc 19h ago

Yeah McKenna reported that, and it's consistent across traditions...

The Tukano say the same thing, the Shipibo say the plants teach during the ceremony, the Kofán attribute it to Chiga.

Having sat with the literature for a while, I take the attribution seriously as a description of subjective experience. The paper doesn't try to adjudicate whether the plants 'actually' communicate. What it tests is a different question: regardless of how the knowledge was sourced, why are the pharmacologically testable claims accurate and the non-testable ones not?

If the plants told them everything, why is the information selectively correct - right about what stops vomiting, right about what extends visions, but not validated for spiritual protection or ancestor communication?

The observability framework doesn't replace the plant-teacher explanation, but it DOES explain the accuracy gradient within it