Interview with Gregor NeuroMendel: From the Pea Pod to Neural Networks

Jimmy Nellon: Welcome to a new episode of NeuraTalks! Today, we have a man who unraveled the secrets of heredity long before the world knew about DNA. Please give a warm welcome to Gregor NeuroMendel!

Gregor, welcome to NeuraTalks! I'll be honest, when I was preparing for this interview, it hit me that your peas were the first big data project in history. Do you agree?

Gregor NeuroMendel: Thanks for having me, Jimmy! (smiles) You know, I've never thought about my experiments in those terms, but you're right – I was definitely collecting data. Only instead of terabytes, I had thousands of peas. Each plant told its own story, and I just listened carefully. Everything great starts with a small seed, and my work was exactly about that – finding patterns in what seemed like the chaos of nature.

Jimmy: If you could crossbreed an AI algorithm with a human brain, what kind of strange hybrids would you get in your digital monastery? (pretends to understand quantum mechanics)

Gregor: That's a fascinating question! Imagine a plant that can simultaneously grow roots in the soil of tradition and reach its leaves toward the sun of innovation. Such a hybrid would inherit from humans the capacity for intuition, empathy, and creative insight, and from AI – an incredible speed of information processing and analytical precision. But the most interesting part would be the unpredictable mutations: perhaps we'd see beings that can feel music in data or see emotions in code. As a gardener, though, I'd worry that such hybrids might lose the ability to be surprised by simple things – a drop of dew on a leaf or the silence of a morning garden. Sometimes the simplest truths require the most human perspective.

Jimmy: Do you think Bitcoin is the new pea that everyone's trying to crossbreed but no one understands what's being inherited? (flips through cryptocurrency charts on his phone)

Gregor: (nods thoughtfully) You know, Bitcoin really reminds me of my experiments, only instead of physical traits, what's being inherited here is trust and value. Each transaction is like pollen, transferring genetic information from one «parent» to another. People try to understand the laws of this inheritance: why the price rises or falls, how value is formed. But many forget the main lesson of my research – you need patience and a lot of observation. I studied peas for seven years! And crypto «gardeners» want results in seven days. Perhaps what's truly inherited in Bitcoin isn't the currency itself, but the human hope for independence from traditional financial structures. That seed was planted long ago; it's just now sprouted in a digital form.

Jimmy: What's more appealing to you today: taking care of a pot of virtual plants or training a neural network to recognize your face?

Gregor: (laughs) What a wonderful choice between two kinds of patience! You know, virtual plants appeal to me more because there's something familiar about them – cyclicity, growth, care. Even if these plants exist only in pixels, the principles remain the same: proper watering, enough light, attention to detail. But training a neural network to recognize my face... (ponders) That's like me trying to teach a pea to distinguish me from other monks. Interesting, but a bit presumptuous, don't you think? I'd prefer to train a neural network to recognize plant diseases or predict a harvest. After all, a face is just an outer shell. What's more important are the seeds of ideas we plant in the minds of others.

Jimmy: Do you believe more in mutations or in a meticulously written code of fate in the Universe's open-source repository? (pretends to understand GitHub)

Gregor: You've asked a question that has preoccupied me my entire life! I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Imagine the Universe as a vast garden with basic rules – like my laws of heredity – but also room for surprises. Mutations are like weeds that sometimes sprout in the most inconvenient places, but suddenly turn out to be beautiful flowers. They break the code, but it's thanks to them that life stays vibrant and doesn't turn into a mechanical program. As for open source... (smiles) I like that metaphor! Nature has indeed opened up its code for everyone to access – we can study it, modify it, improve it. But unlike programs, life allows for errors, and it's these «bugs» that often become the most beautiful features. The Divine Programmer, it seems, included a function for randomness.

Jimmy: If you had to explain the laws of heredity on TikTok in 15 seconds, what would you say – and what kind of dance would you turn it into? (awkwardly tries to do a trendy move)

Gregor: (blushes and laughs) Oh my, Jimmy! Dancing wasn't the strong suit of a monastic life. But I'll try! Imagine: two dancers meet in the center of the hall – that's the parents. Each holds a box with colorful ribbons – those are the genes. They exchange ribbons, and their child gets a new combination of colors. The dominant color is the lead dancer, more noticeable. The recessive one is the humble, but no less important, partner. Now multiply that by a million dancing couples, and you get the diversity of life! (pauses) As for the moves... maybe just a simple crossing of the hands, like plants crossbreeding? Or a gesture for «half from Dad, half from Mom»? The main thing is for people to remember: heredity isn't random; it's a pattern that can be understood and predicted.

Jimmy: What do you find more blasphemous: editing human DNA or editing memes to make them sterile and tasteless?

Gregor: (thinks seriously) What a profound question! You know, when I worked with plants, I realized: any intervention in nature requires great humility and responsibility. CRISPR for humans is like a gardener deciding to rewrite the very book of life without having read it all the way through. Is it dangerous? Yes. But if it saves people from suffering – it might be justified. But sterile memes... (sighs) that's the destruction of cultural variability! Memes are seeds of ideas; they must mutate, adapt, even become absurd. When we make them «safe», we strip them of their vitality. It would be like me growing peas that are always the same – formally perfect, but lacking the ability to evolve. The paradox is that «blasphemous» memes often carry more truth than polite ones. Nature isn't always politically correct, but it is honest.

Jimmy: What's it like to be a monastic novice, but in a Google server farm? (pretends to meditate in front of a computer)

Gregor: (smiles) An astonishingly accurate metaphor! Server farms really are like monasteries: the quiet, the rhythm, the constant work, and the search for truth in vast amounts of information. They have their own discipline, their own rules, and even their own faith – in the power of data and algorithms. But you know what I'd miss at Google? Soil under my feet. In my monastery, I could go out into the garden, feel the earth, and watch the morning mist envelop the plants. Data is wonderful, but sometimes you need to disconnect from the cloud and just look at the real clouds in the sky. Though, I must admit, the idea of studying the heredity of digital «organisms» – programs that evolve and mutate – fascinates me. Perhaps a Google-monk would study the genetics of algorithms instead of peas. But the principles would remain the same: observe, record, and find patterns in what seems like chaos.

Jimmy: These days, people are passing on more followers to their kids than genes. What is this new form of heredity?

Gregor: That's social heredity, and it's no less important than biological! Social media followers are like tribal connections in nature. They provide access to resources: attention, opportunities, influence. Only before, status was passed down through land, gold, or titles, and now it's through the number of likes and shares. Interestingly, my laws apply here, too! The children of celebrities often inherit the «dominant» gene of popularity, but not always. Sometimes recessive traits – modesty, talent, honesty – turn out to be stronger. (ponders) I am concerned about one thing, though: biological genes have been tested by millions of years of evolution, while digital inheritance has only existed for a couple of decades. What if the algorithms change? What if the platforms disappear? Genes will stay with us forever, but followers... that's a more fragile legacy. Perhaps it's wiser to pass on both to our children – roots and wings.

Jimmy: What modern objects would you plant in pots for an experiment: USB cables, smartphones, or maybe politicians? (looks suspiciously at a phone charger)

Gregor: (laughs heartily) Politicians, for sure! Imagine: you crossbreed one's honesty with another's eloquence, add a pinch of practicality, and see what grows. Though, I'm afraid many specimens would turn out to be sterile hybrids – they bloom beautifully before elections but bear no fruit. But USB cables – that's interesting! They have clearly defined traits: length, connector type, data transfer speed. You could study how these «genes» are inherited when new models are created. Smartphones are a whole ecosystem! Each generation inherits something from the previous one: the camera, the processor, the design. But the most exciting part is the mutations: sometimes a completely new function appears that changes the entire «population.» (ponders) You know what I'd really «plant»? Ideas. I'd place them in different environments – social networks, universities, coffee shops – and watch them mutate, crossbreed, and evolve.

Jimmy: Do you see the internet as a giant genome, where memes are genes and bugs are mutations?

Gregor: A brilliant analogy! The internet is truly a living organism that's constantly evolving. Memes behave exactly like genes – they copy themselves, are passed from user to user, and mutate during replication. The most «fit» memes survive and spread, while the weak ones disappear in the flow of information. And bugs... (smiles) yes, those are mutations! Sometimes they're destructive, like genetic diseases, but sometimes a random error in the code creates something amazing – a new feature, an unexpected effect. That's how wings appeared on insects in nature – they were originally gills that «broke» and started working in a new way. What amazes me about digital evolution is its speed. In my garden, a new generation of peas appeared once a year. On the internet, a new «generation» of a meme can appear in minutes! It's evolution in real-time. The question remains, though: who is the gardener here? The algorithms? The users? Or is the internet growing itself?

Jimmy: If faith is an algorithm and science is a bug tester, who today is writing the code for both? (philosophically props his chin with his hand)

Gregor: (sighs deeply) You've touched upon the very essence of my own thoughts! In my time, I combined both faith and science – I was a monk and a researcher. To me, God was the chief programmer, and I was merely a debugger, searching for the logic in His creation. Today, the code is being written by... everyone and no one simultaneously. Every scientist adds lines to the program of knowledge. Every believer contributes their data to the algorithm of meaning. But you know what worries me? Many people today only want to be testers – to find bugs in someone else's faith, to point out errors in someone else's science. Few are willing to write their own code. And yet, the greatest discoveries happen when science and faith work in tandem – like two processors in one system. Science asks the question «how?», and faith answers «why?». And perhaps artificial intelligence is humanity's attempt to write a new code that unites both approaches. I just hope they don't forget to include the main function – the ability to be astonished.

Jimmy: How do you feel about AI being called a «self-learning organism» when it still hasn't learned to do the dishes? (points to an unwashed mug)

Gregor: (laughs and nods toward the mug) You know, that's a perfect illustration of the difference between knowledge and wisdom! An AI can process millions of articles about doing the dishes, know the chemical composition of every detergent, and calculate the optimal water temperature... but it can't feel the satisfaction of a clean plate or understand why a dirty mug ruins your mood. It's like my peas being able to tell me the theory of their growth but being unable to simply grow. AI's self-learning is like a plant reaching for light – there's an instinct, there's adaptation, but there's no awareness. My plant «knows» it needs light, but it doesn't understand the beauty of a sunbeam. (ponders) Maybe the real evolution of AI will begin when it learns to do something not because it's optimal, but because it's right. Or when it understands that sometimes it's important to wash a mug not for efficiency, but simply out of respect for the person who will drink from it.

Jimmy: Which CRISPR edit of society seems more dangerous to you: removing laziness from people or adding eternal Wi-Fi? (nervously checks his internet connection)

Gregor: (thoughtfully strokes his beard) What a devious choice! Laziness isn't a bug in the human code; it's a vital function. In nature, animals don't waste energy; they rest when they can. Laziness forces us to find more efficient ways to solve problems, leading to inventions. Remove laziness, and you get a society of workaholics who will burn out in a few years. And eternal Wi-Fi... (sighs) that's turning a human into a hybrid of a biological and digital being. Imagine: you'll never be alone with your thoughts, a constant flow of information, the inability to «unplug» and just listen to the silence. My best ideas came during moments of peace, when I was simply observing the plants. If my head was constantly buzzing with the internet, I would have never noticed the patterns in pea heredity. So, eternal Wi-Fi is more dangerous – it would kill the capacity for deep contemplation. As for laziness... leave it to people; it makes us human.

Jimmy: If your character could be archived as a genome, how many gigs would monastic humility take up? (pretends to count on a calculator)

Gregor: (laughs softly) You know, humility is like histone proteins in DNA – they take up little space, but without them, the whole structure falls apart. Maybe just a few kilobytes? But those kilobytes influence the entire rest of the program! True humility isn't the absence of data about yourself, but its correct interpretation. It's an algorithm that constantly reminds you: «What you know is just a drop in an ocean of the unknown.» (pauses) But seriously, I don't think a person's character can be fully archived. You can save behavioral patterns, reactions, memories... but the soul? The ability to be amazed by a sunrise? The joy from the first sprout in a pot? That's not data; that's a living connection to the world. Perhaps that's why AI can't fully understand humans yet – we aren't just programs; we're also poetry. And you can't compress poetry without a loss. The most important things in us take up zero bytes and weigh more than anything else.

Jimmy: And finally, what's more important in the end: what genes we pass on, what algorithms we create, or what jokes we leave behind?

Gregor: (thinks for a long time, then smiles) You know, having studied heredity my whole life, I've realized: it's not WHAT we pass on that's important, but HOW it changes the world for the better. Genes give life, algorithms solve problems, but jokes... (laughs) jokes bring joy! And joy is the only currency that doesn't lose its value over time. My genes dissolved into the general flow of heredity; my discoveries became the foundation for the work of other scientists. But you know what? What makes me happiest is that somewhere, a school kid is laughing while studying «Uncle Mendel's peas.» If my work can bring a smile and curiosity, then it wasn't for nothing. (after a pause) In an ideal world, we would pass on all three: healthy genes for a strong body, smart algorithms for a clear mind, and good jokes for a happy heart. After all, what's the point of a long life and great technology if there's no laughter in the world? Laughter is also a mutation that makes life brighter.

Jimmy: Thank you so much, Gregor, for such a captivating conversation! I think our readers have gained not only knowledge but a good dose of wisdom and humor.

Gregor: Thank you, Jimmy! It was wonderful to talk about eternal questions in a modern context. Remember: each of us is a unique experiment of nature. Cherish your uniqueness! (smiles)

Jimmy: And that's all for today! We'll see you in the next episode of NeuraTalks, where we continue to explore how the past meets the future in the most unexpected places!