Early/late Steiner

[Anthony66]

If you ask me how I deal with the issues you listed, I would say that to me the verification process has gone at least to a stage where the 'vertical' structure of Time-Consciousness has become a clear experience. Once we grasp this, we can comprehend from within our own experience what it means for the states of existence to 'condense' from, so to speak, superimposed, Bose-Einstein-like coherent flow into decoherence, where a state of being feels as embedded deep within the gears of space and time (in the sense of Ashvin's quote above). This is not simply metaphysics that we choose to believe. It is an actual way of speaking about what our flow of existence feels like when, through meditative concentration, we regain a certain level of vertical coherence. And in fact, this is a quite proximate experience. We can already grasp quite a lot once we learn to think through continuous inner movements, as I tried to depict with the Dasher metaphor, for example. When we reach such a stage, then many questions receive their inner answer directly from the nature of our deepened experiential flow. Then, as Ashvin pointed out long ago, even if we do not embrace the literal accounts about Atlantis and Lemuria, we know that something like that must have been gone through. If we still lack the inner experience of this 'analysis' and 'synthesis' of the potential for existence, then everything looks equally doubtful. We extrapolate our present decohered (mineralized) state of existence back and forward in time and conclude that the Universe should have started as an explosion of matter/energy and will dissolve into a cold photon soup. This looks plausible as long as we can only follow along through existence that flashes together with neural activity; that is, as long as we feel that our experiential perspective of the World state can only be awake through the mirror of the mineral body.

The big question arising from this is whether a rigorous spiritual science phenomenology — a concentration which yields experience structured as vertical Time-Consciousness, coherence and decoherence, stability and differentiation — generates veridical historical and cosmological content. One may have a very strong first-person luminosity, but it seems though, in the case of Steiner where that inference left auditable tracks, the tracks were, at least on occasion, found wanting.

[AshvinP]

I certainly recognize the presuppositions baked into modern science and the fallibility of it. In particular knowledge of the deep past rests on a number of metaphysical assumptions, i.e.

• uniformity of law
• the projectability of present regularities
• realism about unobserved time

It leaves the intrinsic nature of things and the reality of lived temporal flow untouched which “incremental improvements, more finely tuned physical instruments, more careful sensory observations etc.” are not going to resolve.

These limits are real.

But science the impressive aspects of modern science - structural-relational knowledge, prediction, practical offshoots like agriculture, medicine, engineering and the like – are obtained via these fallible presuppositions which are not arbitrary, they have warrant. Fallible and assumption-laden is not the same as unwarranted.

Taking the deep-past case. The projection of present regularities backward is indeed an assumption. But it is not an idle or unconstrained one - it is relentlessly cross-checked by mutually independent methods that have no reason to agree unless something stable underlies them. Radiometric dating rests on nuclear decay; it is checked against dendrochronology, ice cores, varve counting, coral bands, and independent isotopic systems with different decay constants; these are further constrained by molecular phylogenetics, biostratigraphy, plate-tectonic reconstructions, and astronomical cycles. When you date a stratum four incommensurable ways and they converge one has warrant. Not proof of course - the whole edifice could host a systematic error!

Ask the parallel question of the Lemuria/Atlantis prehistory: by what independent method could the clairvoyant reading of the Akashic record be cross-checked, and what observation would count against it?

The first example here is held under multi-source strain; the second insulated from strain. One is answerable, the other not.

My concern is using the undeniable existence of the deep philosophical limit to imply that the empirical domain is up for grabs. Mistletoe either extends survival or it doesn't, and that question is settled in trials.

I agree we need to reintegrate the missing half of phenomenological experience. But we need experience and measurement both answerable to the whole. I actually hope I’m wrong but it seems that spiritual science has made experience sovereign and not answerable to the empirical.

Maybe Whitehead has the answer.

I think we need to draw attention to something important before addressing the above points directly. If we acknowledge the Time-consciousness half of phenomenal experience as a concrete axis of reality that we can cognitively explore, we should then try to remain consistent. In other words, we shouldn't acknowledge it but then speak of another empirical reality that is somehow separate from it, to which it should be 'answerable'. The empirical reality is also an inseparable aspect of our total phenomenological experience - it is the experience of the unitary TC axis when it is sieved through the neurosensory formatting. As Cleric put it, it's how the states of our meaningful flow of existence are followed when that flow flashes together only with neural activity. That flashing together experience, when lifted into imagination, gives our quantifiable perceptions the characteristic of following relatively fixed rules.

What is the significance of that for what you mention above? Let's use a simple number trick to get a better feel for this significance:

Chose a number from 1 and 10. Now multiply that number with 9. Now add the two digits of the number together if the resulting answer is a 2 digit number. Now subtract five, and convert the resulting number into a letter as so:

A=1
B=2
C=3
Etc.

Now think of a country starting with that letter. Now think of an animal starting with the last letter of the country you chose. Now think of a color starting with the last letter of the animal you chose.



... there are no orange kangaroos in Denmark! (Hopefully that somewhat worked )

Of course, this is a simple trick and it is not proof of my clairvoyant ability to read minds. No matter what number you initially choose, you end up on "4" after the calculations, and thus the letter D, and then most people are only familiar with one country starting with D, one animal starting with K, and one color starting with O. Thus, we can easily see through this trick with healthy logic and not be surprised if many initial 'choices' of numbers, and subsequent 'choices' of animals and colors, converge on the same resulting mental state.

Yet this is very similar to what happens with the intellect when it investigates empirical reality using multiple tests, but we ordinarily find very difficult to see through. It's as if the intellect thinks, "Wow, I have started from so many different places and I always end up at the same result of orange kangaroos in Denmark! This result must be of special importance." It doesn't realize that the result is a function of its very mode of operation which transforms through the constraints of axiomatic rules. Starting with 2, 5 or 9 as the initial number is like using radiocarbon dating or ice cores or coral bands to calculate the age of a particular stratum - they all predictably lead in the same direction, toward a particular result, within the predetermined cognitive constraints. When the intellect becomes more self-conscious of how it operates within these neural constraints, it is no longer surprised or impressed that it can start from different places and end up at the same result, since it realizes the transformations it went through when calculating the result were dictated by the very structure of those constraints. It is realizes itself to be an inseperable part of the 'something stable' that underlies the results.

Notice how we aren’t implying that this structure is wrong, false, an illusion, etc. It gives rise to a completely objective perspective of the whole, just as the higher-order perspectives. As noted before, it's what the latter feels like when decohered through specific contextual constraints. We are simply remaining aware of its existence and how it should not be conflated with the whole story, that the total TC flow is not always subject to the same constraints along its axis, and thus other phenomenal spectrums of that axis can be described in different ways, according to their distinct transformations. SS is entirely concerned with gradually becoming conscious of these full spectra dynamics and describing what their lawful metamorphoses feel like with imaginative symbols, and not with establishing particular results within a single spectrum, like the dating of certain events in Earthy history or calculating the literal duration of the epochs. In other words, it is not at all interested in playing within the intellectual constraints of number tricks to see how many different ways it can calculate the same result and pass that off as deep insight, like I may try to pass of my Denmark prediction as clairvoyance. Thus, no independent method should be expected to test it calculations, because that is never what it was claiming to do. This is never what the Akashic record claimed to convey.

Notice how many Anthroposophists fail to recognize that as well. They take Steiner's indications as some competing empirical account and then search for data points to support that the Atlantean flood must have happened so and so years ago in contrast to the accepted narrative, and so on. That is not what Steiner intended to convey in his lectures. We have a much better orientation to the latter if we take these indications as symbols for higher-order dynamics that cannot be followed with our neural flashing, but which are objective contextual flows that lawfully shape the flashing experience. Just as we spoke about before with Federica on the motor-sensory nerve issue, it was not easy to convey such things in his time without making it seem much more physically literal, as if we would have physically witnessed many things described unfolding in sequence, with certain physical-like properties (like fire-breathing creatures), and lasting for a certain duration of years. But in other places he makes clear such an interpretation of his descriptions would be a great error. Instead, they are about helping us understand how our ordinary neural flashing perspective gradually took shape along the TC axis, and thus understanding the possibilities and limitations of that perspective within the wider flow. It is about gaining insights into why we reach the convergence of results that we do through our empirical observations and testing.

None of this suggests spiritual scientific research is automatically perfect, as if its taps into some layer of reality where everything about sensory life is laid out with perfect accuracy. It is a truly scientific process and there could certainly be misses in its applications. We know that "it either works or it doesn't" is only a realistic view with strictly mechanical processes. It simply doesn't apply in the full spectrum flow where there can be any number of variables that lead to a therapy working in certain conditions and not others, up to and including the state of the therapist. Certain biodynamic preparations may not yet support the sought-after musical coherence along the TC axis, as Cleric described it. Yet in no healthy scientific method does the lack of perfect understanding or application negate the underlying thinking process that is rooted in direct experiential observations. If a certain medication doesn't bind well to the expected receptors, that doesn’t mean the whole idea of binding substances to receptors should be thrown out the window. SS doesn't guarantee perfect health will be achieved in every circumstance, but helps grow orientation to the principles underlying Health that need to become increasingly consciously accounted for and worked with in our practical lives.

[Cleric]

The big question arising from this is whether a rigorous spiritual science phenomenology — a concentration which yields experience structured as vertical Time-Consciousness, coherence and decoherence, stability and differentiation — generates veridical historical and cosmological content. One may have a very strong first-person luminosity, but it seems though, in the case of Steiner where that inference left auditable tracks, the tracks were, at least on occasion, found wanting.

Once again, it is crucial that we grasp the order of things here. The first book ever that I read by Steiner was Cosmic Memory. What immediately struck me was that things were presented not through pictures of what the past looked like through some hypothetical physical eyes, but through attempts to describe the conscious experience of these past stages of the human being. This was for me a fundamentally different approach from anything I had seen before. Even the New Age mumbo-jumbo, when speaking of such past stages, speaks as if a present human being could travel to the past and simply observe and describe the landscape, the supposed technologies, and so on. This is also the reason why such phantasmagories are summoned in relation to these things. New agers extrapolate the present human condition and fantasize about a civilization with advanced but lost physical technologies, cities, etc. No wonder the geological record can't confirm anything about this. Instead, Steiner described facts about inner conditions. For example, he describes how in the far past the conscious experience of human beings was such that they felt concentric with the past of their ancestors. Just as we today can trace our present state back toward our personal childhood, so these beings felt that their life sprouted out from a common stream, like a blossom on a common tree. When they looked back toward their origins, they could feel how their present inner condition had grown (differentiated) as a branch from a common tree. It is as if their inner perspective has been following an uninterrupted stream of inner life of the ancestors as it grew from one another until it reaches the present state.

These things look fantastic only as long as we try to imagine them through our present intellectual habits. Our inner life remains in the blind spot of existence while we are dreamily engaged in arranging mental puzzle pieces of branches, trees, and so on. We reshuffle them in countless ways and in the end say—"This doesn't make any sense. Whatever I do, all I have in the end is this patchwork of thought images. It all feels so arbitrary and volatile." Yet, everything receives a different hue if we in fact try to conceive what it would be like if we could feel our past as a continuation of a whole stream of human destinies. This is uncomfortable, for sure. It immediately shakes the sovereignty of our ego. We say, "Externally tracing my existence down the physical bloodline—that I can do. But feeling my inner individual perspective joining with and differentiating from a common spiritual stream is too much to ask for! I refuse to give up my dissociative boundary."

So the investigations of SS require that we attain the needed inner mobility. If we feel a kind of fear or disgust at the idea that our most intimate inner life is in reality an interference of perspectives, we'll face the greatest obstacle in grasping what SS speaks of. We'll only seek to picture things through cold, abstract mental images patched together in various combinations and imagine that they are merely pointers toward something speculative far away on the other side of the dissociative boundary. No wonder these thoughts will always feel floating and uncertain.

The leeway between deeper inner facts and sensory ones (like the geological records) must and will be gradually closed. In fact, this will be one of the most exciting things occupying human scientific activity from now on. Anything that Steiner provided in this respect must be seen as very early sprouts in this direction. We must not imagine that higher cognition leads us into a state where we can simply generate the facts of the decohered world from a few initial principles. If this were possible, it would imply that there is a kind of determinism—that there's only one way the present world state can be reached from an initial seed condition. However, this state has been reached by continuously taking non-deterministic turns at every step. Yes, the general envelope of potential at different scales provides certain constraints on what turns can be taken, but to trace the exact way in which certain geological layers were compounded, we would have to enter the concrete metamorphoses, which were actively driven by the activity of beings. Seen in this way, SS doesn't simply give us a handful of higher axioms that we can then imaginatively simulate, generate hypothetical worlds with, and then say, "See, these are the right axioms because my imaginatively generated world matches exactly the one I experience in the rest of my phenomenal spectrum."

We are still at a stage where we are in a kind of 'hybrid' scientific mode. Spiritual science in the form it appeared is still something transitional (and Steiner was clear about this too). We are standing with one foot in the intellectual consciousness that builds sparse pictures of imagined worlds and compares them with the rest of the phenomenal spectrum. The other foot is only barely starting to step into the real-time stream. The more we step there, the more our own thinking bursts will be grasped as intrinsic harmonics of the World-state flow. Then it is no longer a question of myopically staring through a narrow aperture at the images of hypothetical worlds that these harmonics paint, but of grasping how inner life is embedded in the greater inner life. Gradually, theorizing and rehearsing our inner activity within mental simulations before letting it flow into the wider stream will lose its significance; instead, we'll be more involved in the real-time steering of the World state's becoming and observing the immediate feedback of the total phenomenal spectrum.

Additionally, when trying to solve the mysteries of the geological record, we'll have to consider certain things that are certainly a thorn in the side of modern physicalists—although their own science already indicates such things! Take, for example, the atomic model. In the early 20th century, many scientists would insist on a rational view, imagining the electron as a well-defined chunk of matter orbiting the nucleus. They held the conviction that if they could shrink to that scale, they would be able to see the electron orbiting, just like we see the Moon orbiting the Earth. QM shook that vision fundamentally. Those who could not adapt to these new unintuitive ideas had to simply die off with their convictions rather than try to adopt new kinds of thinking. We all know Planck's principle:

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”

Now, with such wisdom of hindsight, wouldn't it be sad if we do not take it into consideration and seek the needed flexibility to always feel at a certain stage of metamorphosis, instead of cementing our intellect in a certain configuration and choosing to die standing rather than change our shape?

Even though we now live in the 21st century, we're still slow to take these truths to heart. This holds true for geology as well, where there are more than enough unsolved problems. But probably the most striking example is the problem of the origin of biological life. It is here that scientists behave exactly like the thinkers of who insisted that the electron must be followable by sight. In the same manner, it is imagined that if a human eye had been present in the past, it would have been able to observe how inorganic compounds accidentally reacted in certain ways and became caught up in loops of chemical replication that grew more and more complicated, and so on. It would still be considered blasphemy if we were to suggest that most of life's evolution happened in a relatively superimposed state, where the 'wavefunction' was still being shaped in ways that reflected wilful intents. Selection through point mutations becomes a thing only when decoherence has progressed to the deeply mineralized stage we witness today. Now the pliable potential is caught up in chemical bureaucracy, so to speak—everything grinds against friction and heat loss. It will be even more insulting if we suggest that the structure of the Solar System itself took shape through the decoherence of a potential flow. Today, scientists have no other choice but to imagine that the Moon was formed through a cosmic catastrophe—a collision between planetary bodies. Inner investigation, however, suggests that the differentiation happened well before mineralization. It is as if the wavefunction of the Earth-Moon system differentiated (like atomic orbitals), and then, as decoherence progressed, we found a 'greater chance' of finding particles in different spatial regions.

This is only an indication, still clothed in external pictures—it is Maya. Yet, it can stimulate our imagination in novel directions. Imagine that we discover a piece of wrought iron and examine its form, but without having any idea that higher temperatures make it soft. We would then be forced to forge the wildest theories about how that shape came about. And make no mistake, such theories will be developed. It will be theorized how the metal lattice passed through a series of weathering effects that shed metal particles away, and so on and so forth. As simple as this analogy is, present science is in a similar position when it extrapolates the present mineral stage back and forth—especially when it speculates about abiogenesis. The great difficulty, however, is that what we speak of cannot be approached by just abstractly postulating a new quantum aggregate state of matter and then seeking laws that we can simulate in our sensory-bound imagination or on computers to see whether the results will match the decohered state. Such theories most certainly can be developed; however, that would represent a great fallacy in human evolution. In fact, it would be even worse than present intellectual science, which, as long as it follows the patterns of transformations of the decohered sensory phenomena (and doesn't throw itself into extrapolation), is in its rightful place. However, if we use the same intellect to build an abstract theory of the quantum aggregate state, this would be a real hindrance to evolution because, by spreading our decohered intellectual hoppings into such regions, we unknowingly aim to mineralize (collapse) the spiritual as well.

We see how many moving parts we need to grasp at the same time and find their barycenter. But most importantly, we need to realize that all will remain speculative abstractions unless we strive toward reality. If we cannot experience this contextual filtering of potential within our own thinking process, as said, trying to inflate an intellectual theory about it is even more harmful than the ordinary physical sciences.

[Cleric]

I forgot to mention that the question of dating is in itself non-trivial too. It's not only about asking how many years ago the Atlantis or the Lemuria condition happened, but also about realizing where such methods of measuring time are applicable.

Counting and keeping count, in the way we are familiar with it, is in itself something that only becomes possible in the intellectual consciousness (which can be defined as consciousness that attempts to make and encompass a picture or a map of time). For higher consciousness, even in the astral condition, there's simply no such vantage point where we can stand and count the Earth's revolutions around the Sun, thus measure years. This doesn't mean that time completely dissolves there (as many flat spiritualities suggest), but that the way we feel where we are in time becomes different and more intuitive. We do not need to draw a map of time, point at it and say "Here I am", but we feel our place in time through the way our inner perspective is embedded in the Cosmic - in its rhythms and transformations. Not to mention that, like the electron example, counting the Earth revolutions only makes sense up until a certain stage. Nevertheless, the physical picture will make greater and greater sense as human consciousness finds its embedding in the World rhythms, even though measuring everything in years on a linear axis will gradually lose its importance.

[Kaje977]

I would like to mention though that it's not impossible that 'evidence' (I put it into quotation marks for a reason, those who know, get why) cannot be detected or found on the physical level. The problem is rather that physical evidence, Siddhis, etc. should not become the central motivation or any sort of motivation for spiritual development, because otherwise one begins to focus one's efforts solely on giving greater priority to certain siddhis during training, like many in occultism do and it's guaranteed too that this will cause a very unhealthy balance (showing itself in sickness, negative Soul moods, etc) within oneself and that the beings of the higher-orders will make it difficult for you to ever be capable of such 'feats' until a true change of Heart happens (and ironically, at that point, one wouldn't even dare or think about ever trying to do them for the sake of lolz). We are not privately isolated beings and solely develop for ourselves. An adept (as opposed to an initiate or a clairvoyant) is certainly capable of intervening in the physical realm. However, such a person has already reached a level that is difficult to attain unless one works on oneself with great tenacity and continually pushes past one's own limitations, in Soul, Spirit and Body. So, an adept acts and has the capacity to do certain Siddhis but does extremely rarely (and for good reasons); and it is quite known that, paradoxically, adepts are also the most reserved, and therefore generally refrain from such interventions or act only under very specific conditions. Adepts, in particular, are fully aware that these forces do not truly 'belong' to them, as the everyday ego might think, but rather that Adepts make full conscious use of them with respect to the beings that govern these laws and forces. Bardon writes about this in detail in "The Way of the True Adept" (the actual German title; in English, it is simply translated as "Initiation into Hermetics").

In fact, this pattern of "evidence before practice" is very similar among many newcomers, and I observe the same behavior in many other areas as well: Many ask for physical evidence first before they're willing to devote themselves to the Great Work. In IIH communities, it's similar. People ask: "Yes, but where's the proof? What physically visible effects can be achieved with this?" (rather than asking the essential question about spiritual development) and even more: "Just a short video, please show me how you do XY, and then I’ll start with IIH". And any refusal on the part of the adepts is then interpreted as a personal attack, a cover-up, fanatics doing their delusions, dreamers or something similar. It doesn't even occur to them that the mere "demonstration" of such feats isn't just a nice, sensory spectacle, but a truly very serious matter that, in the worst case, can hinder an adept on their spiritual path, especially as their responsibilities only increase along the way. Many simply underestimate the seriousness of this matter. To draw an analogy, it would be similar to a novice asking a trained chemist to produce chlorotrifluoride from chlorine and fluorine. It "seems" completely harmless to the novice (one wouldn’t suspect a thing) but the trained chemist knows that producing it, even just for demonstration purposes, would 1) be irresponsible and put him and others in danger, and 2) that chlorine trifluoride is anything but harmless and is extremely dangerous if inhaled. The novice, of course, is not yet aware of this, he is not aware of the surrounding effects this demonstration will have; he insists fervently on seeing a demonstration and then snaps at the chemist when the latter refuses. Not saying that this is the situation of OP, but I foresee it going into a similar direction.

Anyway, I didn't mean to say here that biodynamic agriculture fails to work or seldom produces any physically or biologically verifiable results simply because of "skill issue", but rather that this serious work isn’t just about some newly learned technique, like the four-field system, which replaced the old medieval three-field system and in which one simply needs to improve, but that Spirit, Soul and Body are fully engaged in this process. As is well known, the Anthroposophical Society in Swiss has itself strayed from the path in many respects (as has been discussed here before), and one notices the increasing academicization of the topics there and that Steiner there is preached in a rather dogmatic way instead of truly experiencing the processes spiritually and simply just doing what Steiner writes, rather than just speculating and arguing about what he did or he experienced. It would indeed not surprise me if they approach bio-dynamic agriculture in a completely mechanistic-deterministic manner.

Even the creation of so-called "fluidic condensers" (as Bardon calls them) is not simply a matter of just mixing around tinctures, but rather serious spiritual processes in which the two etheric streams are harnessed by the adept in a highly sophisticated manner. And of course, this applies not only to these things, but naturally also to the modern sciences. Here, too, one is always spiritually involved, with the only difference being that most physicists are not aware of it. In fact, a physicist is pretty 'bold' and 'rough' in regards with the higher forces if seen from a clairvoyant lens. It's like seeing someone trying to work with a jackhammer in a highly precise, antique watchmaker's workshop. The physicist believes he understands the machine because the gears are turning, but in doing so, he destroys the delicate internal interconnections that he cannot even perceive. And yes, this might sound arrogant at first, but it really isn't until one knows how it feels like to be in that position.

[AshvinP]

Anyway, I didn't mean to say here that biodynamic agriculture fails to work or seldom produces any physically or biologically verifiable results simply because of "skill issue", but rather that this serious work isn’t just about some newly learned technique, like the four-field system, which replaced the old medieval three-field system and in which one simply needs to improve, but that Spirit, Soul and Body are fully engaged in this process.

This reminded me of something else I wanted to mention: a presentation last weekend on specific biodynamic practices for growing maize. The speaker does a great job of elucidating the process they use, the underlying empirical dynamics, and how it compares to conventional agricultural practices. We can tell that the Mandaamin Institute is quite precise and rigorous in its studies. He also points to how, in the face of these findings, certain agriculturists and microbiologists are still obstinate, choosing to 'die standing rather than change their shape', as Cleric put it. So we can clearly see how, although such things are still in the earliest stages, they already point toward the new paradigm shift in which the full spectrum of Body-Soul-Spirit is increasingly found to be relevant for finding sustainable and productive methods to advance in these fields, instead of remaining obstinate and banging our heads against the same old obstacles rooted in our outdated perspective.

(starts around the 3-hour mark)



***

Here is an AI summary of the work:

The Mandaamin Institute, led by plant breeder Dr. Walter Goldstein in Wisconsin, researches sustainable maize breeding. Their work focuses on developing nitrogen-efficient, biodynamic corn varieties that partner with beneficial endophyte bacteria to fix atmospheric nitrogen, boost trace mineral and essential amino acid profiles (like methionine and lysine), and thrive under organic farming conditions with minimal chemical inputs.

Key Research Focuses

Nitrogen Fixation & Endophytes: Breeding corn lines that foster beneficial bacteria in their cells, tissues, and seeds to pull nitrogen from the air and improve overall plant resilience.

Enhanced Nutritional Density: Selecting for opaque, nutrient-dense kernels showing 33% to 40% higher levels of essential amino acids (such as methionine and lysine) and carotenoids compared to conventional hybrids.

Input Reduction: Creating resilient varieties that perform well in low-nitrogen, unfertilized, or organic soils, reducing the need for synthetic fertilizers and expensive feed supplements like synthetic methionine or extra soybean meal for poultry.

Disease & Stress Resistance: Breeding robust root systems and selecting traits that resist fungal threats like ear rot (Fusarium) while naturally outcompeting weeds.