Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, welcome the Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas, and
Speaker 1: we have a classic episode for you here today, a
Speaker 1: holiday episode to to get you through this period of
Speaker 1: holiday stress and uh and gift giving. That's right. It's
Speaker 1: called the Mystery of Box. And for some reason, I
Speaker 1: want to go, Yeah, it's inter the mystery Box aspect
Speaker 1: of this is interesting because I believe we do mention J.
Speaker 1: J Abrams uh in this episode and uh. J j
Speaker 1: Abrams has kind of made a name for himself with
Speaker 1: the Mystery Box is one of the you know we
Speaker 1: lost and then with his subsequent film work. Um, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of it's kind of earned a backlash from
Speaker 1: it at times, the idea that that maybe at times
Speaker 1: you're you're actually withholding a little too much for us,
Speaker 1: and sometimes the mystery box, like the Virginity box that
Speaker 1: I discussed in this episode, turns out to be empty.
Speaker 1: It's true. And I guess that's based on interpretation too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's heavily subjective, but but I just want
Speaker 1: to I want to throw that out there in case
Speaker 1: anybody that's really hating on J. J. Abrams right now,
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying you should. Uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: have high hopes for the new Star Wars films like
Speaker 1: everybody else, but but just in case, just take just
Speaker 1: understand that this is coming from from earlier Julius and Roberts.
Speaker 1: That's right. And gentle listener, if you would like a
Speaker 1: quick recommendation of a mystery box like documentary, check out
Speaker 1: Finding Vivian Mayor. This is fascinating. I don't know if
Speaker 1: anybody is familiar with us, but if you're not, it's
Speaker 1: a great documentary about what happens when John Mloup, a
Speaker 1: real estate agent, buys four hundred dollar box of mystery.
Speaker 1: He's looking for some archival stuff and discovers one of
Speaker 1: the richest tapestries of American street photographs and this very
Speaker 1: mysterious woman behind the photographs. To check it out. Really,
Speaker 1: here we are in the holidays, in the midst of it.
Speaker 1: They're piping the music and to the mardest station. It's
Speaker 1: like it's some sort of vaccine. It's going to protect
Speaker 1: us simply being a wonderful chime. Yeah, that one that
Speaker 1: makes seven in the morning, you know, you're trying to
Speaker 1: listen to your own music or get stuck in your
Speaker 1: own book. At any rate, it's not even December yet,
Speaker 1: and I'm you know, I'm already I understand the train
Speaker 1: station is U is killing your air drums with Christmas music. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean the big thing about Christmas, of course,
Speaker 1: is the gift giving, right Christmas saw Holidays, So the
Speaker 1: whole whatever you're you're calling your winter gift giving shenanigans, Uh,
Speaker 1: it generally relates to taking something in a box, wrapping
Speaker 1: it up, sticking in a bag, creating this air of mystery, right,
Speaker 1: what's inside it? What could it be? And and people
Speaker 1: get excited about it, right right, So in this podcast,
Speaker 1: we're basically advocating give the gift of an empty box.
Speaker 1: Well okay, not necessarily an empty box. And we'll talk
Speaker 1: about this because maybe you could, you could fill this
Speaker 1: box with ideas, thoughts and presented as a president, I'm
Speaker 1: sure that will go over really well, especially with the kids.
Speaker 1: I mean they're so cheat. Yeah. I do. My uncle
Speaker 1: Craig and the gift raffle this year, So I think
Speaker 1: I'm going to give him some like a box of
Speaker 1: ideas and we'll see how that plays out. I think
Speaker 1: he's gonna love it, and I think that that you should.
Speaker 1: If he doesn't understand it, he's going to have to
Speaker 1: listen to this podcast so he can really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Sometimes one of the base gifts is a mystery, right, um.
Speaker 1: And we can't help but get really excited about a
Speaker 1: mystery about what might be inside of a box. Um.
Speaker 1: And sometimes we approach it, we unwrap it with gusto,
Speaker 1: and sometimes we shy away. And so we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about that in various forms today, right, because that's what's is.
Speaker 1: That is what it's always fascinating about a gift box
Speaker 1: or a mystery box. It's the mystery. It's not I
Speaker 1: want to tear into that thing and get what's in it.
Speaker 1: And and Grant, we sort of lose track of that,
Speaker 1: I think sometimes with our gift giving, with the with
Speaker 1: the use of saying like an Amazon gift list and
Speaker 1: all this, because it's like because it's it's so regimented,
Speaker 1: it's like, these are the things I want, these are
Speaker 1: the things you may give me, Please check them off.
Speaker 1: And then you know people are cheating anyway, and seeing
Speaker 1: there's no mystery there and seeing what they're going to
Speaker 1: get ahead of time. But but yeah, mystery boxes in general.
Speaker 1: We were chatting about this. We each have like a
Speaker 1: few different stories that relate to mystery boxes in our
Speaker 1: own life. Will you talk a little about the art
Speaker 1: in your house? And yeah, yeah, we have um in
Speaker 1: our house. We have a giant painting and it's an
Speaker 1: abstract and it sort of looks like it could be
Speaker 1: um maybe like an advertising, like a poll or something
Speaker 1: that is that is has like a little advertisement on it.
Speaker 1: And on top of that is an envelope that has
Speaker 1: been attached to this painting and it is sealed and
Speaker 1: there's no way you could remove it without absolutely destroying
Speaker 1: the painting, or if you open it, you would destroy
Speaker 1: the pain. But it is a part of the work.
Speaker 1: It's not merely something that says like, hey, guys, hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed the piece I make for you. Here's the
Speaker 1: receipt for the painting, suckers. Um. But no, this was
Speaker 1: actually something that was given to us by a friend
Speaker 1: and we traded out some of our work and so
Speaker 1: and of course Jeff will never tell us what is
Speaker 1: inside that envelope. But as you can see, if you
Speaker 1: look at it, actually you can see the corners of
Speaker 1: the envelope have been played with enough that they've been
Speaker 1: kind of turned up. And so it drives everybody crazy,
Speaker 1: particularly my father in law. He wants to know what
Speaker 1: is in that envelope. Uh, and I'm pretty sure he's
Speaker 1: probably tried to steam an open before two and we
Speaker 1: haven't been home. But it does drive people nuts because
Speaker 1: there's this idea that maybe it could contain the secrets
Speaker 1: of the world, or maybe it would, I mean, at
Speaker 1: the very least just have something really interesting to say, right,
Speaker 1: because it contains basically anything in the world until you
Speaker 1: open exactly, it has all the pa abilities in the
Speaker 1: world until you open it. Right, But could it be
Speaker 1: a Pandora's Box? Could all the ills of the world
Speaker 1: fly out of that envelope and they can never be
Speaker 1: stuffed back in, They can never be stuffed back in.
Speaker 1: All the demons are out there. Um. And then the
Speaker 1: other thing that you mentioned is a little postcard that
Speaker 1: I have or a couple of them at my cubicle.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's a scratch off like sort of like
Speaker 1: a I guess what you call like a lottery ticket. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lottery ticket, and there's a woman in a beautiful
Speaker 1: dress and she's got a big round scratch off over
Speaker 1: her head. You can scratch off and see what's underneath,
Speaker 1: but I refused to. I want the mystery. Now, did
Speaker 1: you place them on there? Or did they come? They came?
Speaker 1: They came that way, because every time I walk by
Speaker 1: your desk, I see those and there is a temptation like,
Speaker 1: what's going on under there? Yeah? What is what is
Speaker 1: going on with that lady? Or in one of them
Speaker 1: a llama or something? Yeah, there's a llama? Yeah, what
Speaker 1: is this? Allama have a head? Is it is it's
Speaker 1: head missing? I don't know, I know, is it? Is
Speaker 1: it a monkey underneath a lama? And by the way,
Speaker 1: you've just revealed yourself. If I ever find them scratched,
Speaker 1: I know exactly who did it. Well. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: really a miracle that that nobody has scratched it. Because
Speaker 1: I brought a model airplane to work and it's been
Speaker 1: broken twice by mysterious hands. Yeah, but how mysterious hands
Speaker 1: are not going after your art? Because that whatever like
Speaker 1: sort of gremlin we have is interested in model airplanes
Speaker 1: and not art. Um So anyway, there's are some examples,
Speaker 1: and then you have an example of a mystery thought.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, I have a really good one. This
Speaker 1: is a story. I haven't actually told this one a lot,
Speaker 1: but it's it's such a good story, so now I
Speaker 1: will share with the world. Back when I was like
Speaker 1: in junior high, my my family went to this Southern
Speaker 1: Baptist church and they were big on the whole wait
Speaker 1: till you're married to have sex. And if you've had
Speaker 1: sex already as a junior high kid or a high
Speaker 1: school kid, um, you need to sort of regain your virginity,
Speaker 1: like sort of a new replacement virginity can be bestowed
Speaker 1: upon you and then keep that one intact until such
Speaker 1: time as you're married in the eyes of God and
Speaker 1: all that. So a part of this campaign, if you will. Um.
Speaker 1: We were all issued a little box who was wrapped
Speaker 1: in gift paper. It was the size of a cassette tape.
Speaker 1: For those of you who remember cassette tapes, the little
Speaker 1: plastic case that it comes in. It was that size,
Speaker 1: and indeed, if you pressed on it and sort of
Speaker 1: felt the package, you could tell that it was in
Speaker 1: fact like a cassette box that was wrapped up okay,
Speaker 1: but it's sealed, right, But it's sealed, and and then,
Speaker 1: of course the big question is is what's inside that
Speaker 1: box now? Now, obviously, what is the purpose of the
Speaker 1: SPOX Why the box is supposed to represent your virginity,
Speaker 1: the special gift that God has bestowed upon you, and
Speaker 1: you were supposed to keep it in treasure it and
Speaker 1: uh and and you're not supposed to unwrap it until
Speaker 1: such times. So when you make love and the Holy
Speaker 1: Spirit then visits you, you're able to unwrap this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah there. Yeah. Basically, so they were like, here you go.
Speaker 1: Of course after you've been married yet, this is a reminder,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like a metaphor no now, So
Speaker 1: I ended up sticking this package away for for a
Speaker 1: long time because, as it turns out, I didn't actually
Speaker 1: have to open it until I was into my twenties. Um,
Speaker 1: which is no big deal. If you're you know, any
Speaker 1: of your kids listening right now, and you feel like
Speaker 1: some sort of weird pressure to go out there and
Speaker 1: and have some sex, let me just tell you if
Speaker 1: it's not that big a deal. So I just uh,
Speaker 1: you know, chill out. It'll all make a lot more
Speaker 1: sense later. But but so I'm in my twenties and
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm doing whatever. And then I realized, hey, um,
Speaker 1: this thing happened the other week, So now technically I
Speaker 1: can open that package and I won't be cheating because
Speaker 1: I imagine some of the kids took it home and
Speaker 1: opened it immediately because they were like, oh, I wonder
Speaker 1: what this is? What's inside this? And I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: have You weren't married, right, like, you didn't know? Okay,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to hear. I'm just saying like this,
Speaker 1: you know, this was the the idea, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: I didn't it was. There were other causes for me
Speaker 1: not opening that package though I was in my twenties, right,
Speaker 1: So but I'm saying, though, it's not like you wait
Speaker 1: and you're like okay, no, no, it's just you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's that package. Right. It just ended up not happening
Speaker 1: in my life until I was at that, you know,
Speaker 1: at this particular age. And then then I realized, hey,
Speaker 1: I've got that package. And so the next time I
Speaker 1: came home and I went through a box of my
Speaker 1: old stuff and I found it. I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go ahead. And open this up see what
Speaker 1: this was all about. Because I was kind of superstitious
Speaker 1: about it before. I was like, well, if I opened
Speaker 1: it too early, what if that jinxes me for life?
Speaker 1: And then you know, even though you don't subscribe to
Speaker 1: any even though you don't subscribe to it, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh. And then I was also thinking, like, what
Speaker 1: if there's like this nasty note in it that it's
Speaker 1: like it's from my youth pastor and he's like, wow,
Speaker 1: you're really screwed up there, buddy, or or a way
Speaker 1: to throw away your precious gift. You know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: so I um, so I opened it up and the
Speaker 1: box is empty. There's nothing inside it, Like there's not
Speaker 1: a note saying I'm shaking my head now, God bless
Speaker 1: or a note saying I hope you did the right thing,
Speaker 1: or you know, a prize, a gift certificate. I think
Speaker 1: that's really sad because I mean, that to me is
Speaker 1: just laziness. Because or I would think that the church
Speaker 1: thought so little of the kids ability to retain the
Speaker 1: virginity that they were like, you know what, that's not
Speaker 1: going to happen anyway, Let's not fill it with anything. Well,
Speaker 1: it would have also been bed if they filled it
Speaker 1: with something perishable, like some candy or something, because then
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, they had no faith in us at all.
Speaker 1: They were like, just go ahead and put you know,
Speaker 1: the expiration date is next month. Uh, they're probably gonna
Speaker 1: open it tonight. Might as well have a treat in
Speaker 1: there to keep them business. And see, so you were
Speaker 1: disappointed because all of the possibilities ceased to exist, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I was disappointed. Uh, it was
Speaker 1: just more kind of fascinating, like why why didn't they
Speaker 1: put something? And it was it intentional? I tend to
Speaker 1: to think that probably they were just pressed for time
Speaker 1: and they wanted to do something. But like a far
Speaker 1: side cartoon, they could have thrown in anything. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know a fortune cookie? Um? Uh what you mud call it?
Speaker 1: A little slip of paper? Yeah, I know the lottery
Speaker 1: numbers on it. I don't know. I wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't disappointed, and I certainly wasn't like, oh I
Speaker 1: wish I had opened this ages ago, literally or figuratively.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's It just shows you, though, how
Speaker 1: the idea of something in a package can sort of
Speaker 1: captivate your mind for years and years on end. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so let's talk about one more story. Ben Bolan gave
Speaker 1: me a special gift the other day stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know. Yeah, And by a special gift,
Speaker 1: I mean he gave me a package, not his virginity
Speaker 1: but but it was. And I didn't know it was
Speaker 1: from him at the time, but I came into work
Speaker 1: and there's a package and it said mystery, Um, you know, gift.
Speaker 1: You can choose to open it, keep it or throw
Speaker 1: it away or cross out your name and give it.
Speaker 1: It says, a mystery package arrives. Do you do? And
Speaker 1: I shared this on the Facebook and we had different answers.
Speaker 1: Some people were like, throw it away, give it away,
Speaker 1: open it now, I must see what's inside it. And
Speaker 1: it turned it was a book that we had been
Speaker 1: talking about. But but it really captivated my well psychologically,
Speaker 1: I think that everybody was like, what could it be?
Speaker 1: Could it be something good or ill will? Which is
Speaker 1: essentially what every box presented to you, is right? And
Speaker 1: is it a test? I was kind of getting shadows
Speaker 1: of the uh, the virginity box there because I'm like
Speaker 1: Clay am I nant to open this am I meant
Speaker 1: to give it to someone else, so I ended up
Speaker 1: actually crossing out my name, putting yours on it. And
Speaker 1: then you treat you were scared to death of it.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, thanks, Lamb. So then I ticket
Speaker 1: to someone else and then we crossed it out and
Speaker 1: then back back. So it was meant to be. And
Speaker 1: uh it was a book Illuminati trilogy. Yeah, there we go,
Speaker 1: which lovely think for Ben does Ben? Thanks if you're listening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So okay, let's talk about when you you receive a
Speaker 1: box that you don't want. And let's say that your
Speaker 1: name is Enzo Antonia and you live in Genoa, Italy,
Speaker 1: and your port worker who specializes in radiation detection. Ah,
Speaker 1: this is the the story. I believe this was unwired
Speaker 1: um about the the radioactive cargo container. Yeah, shows up.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's inside it, but we know that
Speaker 1: whatever is inside it is radioactive. Yeah. Like basically, it's
Speaker 1: just another day, another thousand of these things a day
Speaker 1: coming into this one particular port. So that's that's actually
Speaker 1: a pretty sobering statistic, by the way, because if you
Speaker 1: think about it, there are millions and millions of these
Speaker 1: shipping containers and cargo containers um going around the world.
Speaker 1: So here's this one port thousand a day and Zoe
Speaker 1: shows up, turns on his radiation detector and the thing
Speaker 1: goes nuts. In fact, it gets off the charts, and
Speaker 1: he hasn't even gone into the area to actually try
Speaker 1: to UM do his security check. So it turns out
Speaker 1: that there is uh something inside of it obviously that
Speaker 1: is highly radioactive, and they think that it could be
Speaker 1: a dirty mom and they freak out and they move
Speaker 1: it away as far as possible. In the meantime, it
Speaker 1: languishes on that doc for almost a year, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: they're trying to figure out who is going to pay
Speaker 1: for it, Can we get it, can be a where
Speaker 1: did it come from? And we ship it back Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia from from whence it originated? Was like no way, no,
Speaker 1: thank you? Um. And you know these things are really
Speaker 1: hard to track yea. And what does it contain? Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it some sort of nefarious device? Is that? Is
Speaker 1: it just waste material? Is it the ark of the Covenant?
Speaker 1: But exactly exactly and it is actually tagged as waste material.
Speaker 1: There's a picture of the inside bit. Of course, when
Speaker 1: you're looking at all these copper coils, you know, twenty
Speaker 1: two tons of copper coils. Something obviously could be put
Speaker 1: in there and and you would never discover it. Uh
Speaker 1: So anyway, sat there for a long time until they
Speaker 1: finally got a robot to go in and um, they
Speaker 1: use some cameras and they figured out that it was
Speaker 1: a chunk of cobalt. Yeah, which was even odd because, um,
Speaker 1: you know, this is not some sort of material that
Speaker 1: you find every day. In fact, I believe that it
Speaker 1: came from or at least they're thinking that it came
Speaker 1: from some sort of medical device or machine used to
Speaker 1: sterilized food. And it's really expensive to dispose of this
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Um, but apparently this is just not
Speaker 1: all that odd that you would have shipping containers with
Speaker 1: nefarious things inside of it. In fact, that Wired dot
Speaker 1: com the article wise is cargo container emitting so much radiation?
Speaker 1: Said that there was this one guy who they found
Speaker 1: and this was just six weeks after Nune eleven, by
Speaker 1: the way, Um they found him inside of when the
Speaker 1: shipping containers because they heard noise and they opened it
Speaker 1: up and lo and behold, they found that this guy
Speaker 1: was hanging out in there with a satellite phone, uh,
Speaker 1: cell phone, a laptop, cameras, maps, security passes to airports
Speaker 1: in Canada, Thailand and Egypt. And the container was outfitted
Speaker 1: with a bed, a water supply, a heater, and a toilet.
Speaker 1: Yeah so, and you know, okay, it was a little
Speaker 1: bit odd, right, don't you think? Well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I've seen some magazine articles where dudes take a cargo
Speaker 1: container and transforming into an upscale apartment, right right. But
Speaker 1: he was not, you know, that some sort of model
Speaker 1: for Dwell magazine, you know, saying oh look at my
Speaker 1: great postmodern home here. Um. They actually nicknamed him container
Speaker 1: Bob and the Kui posted bail and Italian court. It
Speaker 1: was never seen again. Yeah so, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: and there's been a lot of talk actually about security
Speaker 1: of shipping containers, and so that remains a pretty big problem,
Speaker 1: or you know, I guess you would say a blind
Speaker 1: spot in security, right, And of course we don't have
Speaker 1: to dwell much on this, but obviously there are tons
Speaker 1: of like the big thing, the big show today on
Speaker 1: multiple networks is the whole antiquers and these people checking
Speaker 1: out abandoned the storage facilities, uh where they get to
Speaker 1: the auction off the contents of abandoned storage, especially in
Speaker 1: this economy where people are no longer able to pay
Speaker 1: for him, right, and they're mostly filled with nothing anyway,
Speaker 1: But there's always that chance, and people get really into
Speaker 1: that idea because they don't say, all right, everybody, go
Speaker 1: in here and check it out and see if there's
Speaker 1: anything you want to buy. They're like, we're gonna sell everything.
Speaker 1: You buy, you buy everything or nothing, you keep everything
Speaker 1: or nothing, and you just get a break. So so
Speaker 1: that's that's a great example of people that are just
Speaker 1: captivated by the possibility that in the midst of all
Speaker 1: that junk and and left over uh material from somebody's
Speaker 1: life and somebody's sob story. Uh, there's gonna be something
Speaker 1: that I have read that mostly what people find are
Speaker 1: like stacks of porn. I'm not kidding, really, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe there's some vintage porn in there that
Speaker 1: that you could sell on eBay. I don't know, but yeah,
Speaker 1: most of the time, it's not anything that that's that's
Speaker 1: very exciting. It's not like you get like Hannibal Lecters
Speaker 1: storage unit had a vintage car and a severed head.
Speaker 1: I was thinking of science of the lens too, because
Speaker 1: it's not Hannibals, but like somebody else's and they have
Speaker 1: somebody the new Hannibal, right, like a head in a
Speaker 1: jar or something. You're right. It was Ruskin or something,
Speaker 1: one of his patients. I think that was his name.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I remember that. But in a
Speaker 1: moment here we are going to talk about humans as
Speaker 1: mystery boxes, and we'll get a little more into the science, uh,
Speaker 1: and not just amusing tale. That's right, keeping containers. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back. Let's uh, let's open this up. Okay, if
Speaker 1: it was insided here, all right, So before we get
Speaker 1: to humans, we're gonna have to talk about cats, specifically
Speaker 1: a cat in a box. Yes, and this would have
Speaker 1: This was one that I think most of our listeners
Speaker 1: are gonna be familiar with, and that is, of course
Speaker 1: shroed Injur's cat. We're not gonna dive too deep into
Speaker 1: the quantum physics here because but but essentially this is
Speaker 1: a this is a thought experiment, and it has to
Speaker 1: do with the Copenhagen interpretation of uncertainly. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: the first proposed by boer Uh and it says that
Speaker 1: a quantum particle doesn't exist in one state or another,
Speaker 1: but in all of its possible states at once. It's
Speaker 1: only when we observe its state that a quantum particle
Speaker 1: is essentially forced to choose one probability, and that's the
Speaker 1: state that we observe, all right, So it's essentially a
Speaker 1: lesson in uncertainty and particle physics in the quantum world. Right.
Speaker 1: So here comes Stroinger in Austrian physicist, right, and he
Speaker 1: puts together a thought experiment. Like thought experiments are often
Speaker 1: really useful to to to illustrate a point and to
Speaker 1: make something that's a little uh hard to grasp a
Speaker 1: little more concrete, right, And then in the point of
Speaker 1: a thought of experiment is not to have a solution
Speaker 1: per se, right, yeah, nor to kill cats, but to
Speaker 1: just sort of make you think about it. So in
Speaker 1: his experiment, he puts a cat in a box along
Speaker 1: with a bit of radioactive material like and you know,
Speaker 1: like we're talking about with this radioactive container um and
Speaker 1: a Geiger counter, all right, which is a device that
Speaker 1: measured radiation. Of course, So the the Geiger counter is
Speaker 1: designed so that if it senses the decay of the
Speaker 1: radioactive material and all radioactive material decays, it triggers a hammer,
Speaker 1: which then breaks a flask that contains acid it put poison.
Speaker 1: Their different versions of this, but basically you've if if
Speaker 1: this radioactive elopment decays, it triggers something that kills the cat.
Speaker 1: And so if you were to open that box, that
Speaker 1: that that the particles are gonna have to be in
Speaker 1: one state or the other. The cat is going to
Speaker 1: be alive or dead. There's no there's no one between.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be one or the other. Even the that
Speaker 1: cat has been poisoned with the ham or whatever had
Speaker 1: acid poured on it, or it's fine and just maybe
Speaker 1: a little ticked off that you put it in the
Speaker 1: thought experiment. But but it's unknowable. I mean, essentially it's unknowable.
Speaker 1: And you have to sort of accept that this cat
Speaker 1: is in both states, right, and and don't think you
Speaker 1: can't listen for the me owing. Yeah, described and if
Speaker 1: you start thinking about the hammer thing and the radioactive decay,
Speaker 1: it's just sort of imagine shorting or as as a
Speaker 1: sort of like a peewee of the physicists, like creating
Speaker 1: these little contraptions. Yeah, and he also knew that the
Speaker 1: more thought he put into. Actually, he also realized that
Speaker 1: the more thought he put into into how the cat
Speaker 1: actually dies, the creep period it would be so right again,
Speaker 1: no cat died. This was just a thought experiment. But
Speaker 1: why the reason why we're talking about it is that, um,
Speaker 1: you could give a sort of alternative reading about whether
Speaker 1: or not this really applies to us in how we
Speaker 1: perceive reality. Right, because the cat in this in this
Speaker 1: situation is in a quantum state. It is, it is
Speaker 1: both dead and alive. It is in both states at
Speaker 1: once until we open the box and by perceiving it,
Speaker 1: change it. So there's this question consciousness of reality, right, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, is there an actual consciousness of reality? Does
Speaker 1: it only exist until we begin to think about it? Um?
Speaker 1: Or is there just no material reality whatsoever? You know
Speaker 1: I'm talking about here. So in terms of like, okay,
Speaker 1: are we all just linking the cat in the box.
Speaker 1: We're both dead and alive, We're both unconscious and conscious
Speaker 1: until we begin to really speculate about life and sort
Speaker 1: of peel back the layers and begin to to investigate
Speaker 1: what it means to be alive or what it means
Speaker 1: to even be part of this physical world. Yeah, does
Speaker 1: does Spain exist if you don't know about it? That
Speaker 1: kind of thing exactly true? Make a sound on the forest, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly to hear it all that, you know, it's it's it.
Speaker 1: That's that's one of the reasons that the Stroger's Cat
Speaker 1: is so endearing. Well, I don't of endearing. It's the words, right,
Speaker 1: but but it's such a good u such a good
Speaker 1: cognitive chew toy for everyone because it gets down to
Speaker 1: a lot of really um, you know, mind rending philosophical
Speaker 1: pondering about the state of reality. So you sent me
Speaker 1: this link to this guy named Scott Aaronson, Yes, and
Speaker 1: and he sort of takes this idea not not like wholesale,
Speaker 1: but he applies it to us as automatums, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy Scott Aaronson came up with this notion presented
Speaker 1: at this lecture. Uh. And it's basically a touring test
Speaker 1: for free will. Turing test being something that I aimed
Speaker 1: at to gauge the intelligence of the machine to see
Speaker 1: if the machines can think on the same level as humans.
Speaker 1: It's also been using a lot of sci fi and
Speaker 1: all that. Yeah, and the main question that touring asked
Speaker 1: was kN machines think right, this was the initial question,
Speaker 1: and then he sort of threw that out said, you
Speaker 1: know what, that's not even the question. The question is
Speaker 1: are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in
Speaker 1: the imitation game? Right? Right? Like he basically he redefined
Speaker 1: the question in terms that it could be actually examined
Speaker 1: a little closer and tested. Um. So Aaronson is is
Speaker 1: dealing with similar question, but he's he's interested about free will,
Speaker 1: all right, and it also involves super smart computers. And
Speaker 1: that's when when when we say super smart computers, that's
Speaker 1: what we're talking about the imitation game, right right? Okay,
Speaker 1: So what does this test consist stuff? Um? Okay. On
Speaker 1: the surface, it basically means somebody would hand you an envelope,
Speaker 1: probably a robot when hand you the hanvelope, right, and
Speaker 1: it would tell you that. The idea would be, if
Speaker 1: you open this envelope, it'll tell you what you're thinking
Speaker 1: or or saying or doing at a particular point in
Speaker 1: the future. It would be like that. It would be
Speaker 1: like the Virginity box if I opened it, however, many
Speaker 1: years later and found a note inside to tell that
Speaker 1: told me exactly where I lost my virginity and how
Speaker 1: into who oh wow? Okay, so then with that and
Speaker 1: that would be like whoa how did a machine know
Speaker 1: that ahead of time? Clearly I'm if I'm not predictable,
Speaker 1: if I'm that kind of a system that can you know,
Speaker 1: It's it's like weather, right. We build these computer models
Speaker 1: of weather and an atmospheric systems to try and figure
Speaker 1: out what they're going to do in the in the future,
Speaker 1: and we can only do that with a limited amount
Speaker 1: of of success, with only so much accuracy. So could
Speaker 1: you have data that can continue to bring you back
Speaker 1: into a more accurate system, right? Right? So what if
Speaker 1: we we dipped into something like the Blue Brain project,
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of building a working copy, digital
Speaker 1: copy of the human mind. What if a supercomputer was
Speaker 1: able to build a copy of your mind and then
Speaker 1: by analyzing that copy, that mathematical model of you, and
Speaker 1: then they could accurately plan out the rest of your
Speaker 1: life or anything you could conceivably do, say, or think,
Speaker 1: and then tell you make up this note and printed out,
Speaker 1: hand it to you and say open this next Thursday,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you what you did. Right, And this
Speaker 1: is what Aaronson the same that you could do this
Speaker 1: in a couple of ways, Like you could continue to
Speaker 1: do some sort of trial and error process where you, uh,
Speaker 1: you sort of get the landscape of someone's brain by
Speaker 1: asking someone a ton of questions and then build a
Speaker 1: model of predictability based upon that, right, Or you could
Speaker 1: do something like the Blue Brain project, which is a
Speaker 1: reverse engineering the brain by building a detailed, realistic computer
Speaker 1: model of the human brain. And it's one trillion synapsis.
Speaker 1: So then you have this this this other system that
Speaker 1: is analyzed sing the way that you think, what how
Speaker 1: your your snapses are firing and what they're responding to.
Speaker 1: So yeah, essentially, what what Aaronson is saying what is
Speaker 1: so interesting is he's saying, you know, maybe there's not
Speaker 1: free will. You know, maybe there is a certain amount
Speaker 1: of predictability unpredictability, but it's finite. Right, It's almost like
Speaker 1: the cat in the box. There are only two choices.
Speaker 1: There is a factor of unpredictability there because it's either
Speaker 1: dead or alive, but it's still you know, just these
Speaker 1: one of two things. Right, So through trial and error
Speaker 1: there you're going to predict or accurately predict eventually what's
Speaker 1: happening with this cat um And I'm not saying that's
Speaker 1: what it's going to happen in quantum physics, but in
Speaker 1: terms of how we begin to really think about technology
Speaker 1: and how it's interacting with us at a meaningful level
Speaker 1: as we go forward. Um, it does sort of beg
Speaker 1: the question even more about free will. And we've talked
Speaker 1: about it many times before, but this this is certainly
Speaker 1: an interesting proposition, pretty predictable, Yeah, and it comes down to, uh,
Speaker 1: we keep coming back to this idea of at what
Speaker 1: point does science demystify, uh, the human experience and then
Speaker 1: how do we relate to that? And then it tends
Speaker 1: to to to divide into two basic camps. Either it's
Speaker 1: terrifying or it's deliberating, Like the idea that that that
Speaker 1: there that there's no free will. Uh, it either means great,
Speaker 1: there's something maybe there's there's something in charge, or I
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about it there's not you know,
Speaker 1: I don't have to get been on a shape over
Speaker 1: the over choices because ultimately there are no choices, or
Speaker 1: that's ultimately really damning because you're you're thinking there's no
Speaker 1: choice in life. I'm just this automaton mindlessly following its programs,
Speaker 1: making the same mistakes over and over again, doing the
Speaker 1: same stuff, and there's no changing it. And that's why
Speaker 1: mysteries becomes really important again, right, because sometimes that's even
Speaker 1: more important than the actual knowledge, because that's how you
Speaker 1: to the heart of it. Yeah. I actually in researching this,
Speaker 1: I found a book called and bear with me that
Speaker 1: The title here is the Triumph of God over Evil
Speaker 1: um by William Hasker of the University of Edinburgh. And
Speaker 1: it's actually an interesting looking book if anybody would like
Speaker 1: to read, like a whole thick book about the theology
Speaker 1: and philosophy of comedy it uh. I think there's a
Speaker 1: little humor in there, but but mostly it's like it's
Speaker 1: Hasker getting really philosophical about what what is what is
Speaker 1: the nature of free will? How does it factor into
Speaker 1: the belief and God, the belief and evil, you know,
Speaker 1: getting into some of the old questions about why would
Speaker 1: God allow evil to exist? And basically he sets out
Speaker 1: to justify the ways of God demand which which always
Speaker 1: works well for for authors. But it looks like an
Speaker 1: interesting book, so if you're into that, check it out.
Speaker 1: But he was actually asking the same question with the
Speaker 1: same sort of thought experiment. Imagine somebody handed you an
Speaker 1: envelope and it and you opened it up, and it
Speaker 1: told you what you just thought or said or did.
Speaker 1: And he he predicted that pretty much anybody would be
Speaker 1: frustrated and angry and resentful upon opening that envelope, even
Speaker 1: if you agreed with everything it's said, and there's a
Speaker 1: good chance you would not be happy with what it's
Speaker 1: said anyway. But even if you were perfectly fine, you
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, that's me to a t, you probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't be particularly pleased. Well, no, because I mean, we
Speaker 1: all want to believe that we're unique, and essentially I
Speaker 1: do think that we are. But certainly there are some
Speaker 1: things about humans that are predictable and that's so unique. Um, which,
Speaker 1: of course is going to bring me to J. J. Abrams. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course the mystery box thing. Um, he really blew
Speaker 1: up when he did that on the internet because he
Speaker 1: did that, Ted talk like a year a year ago.
Speaker 1: Maybe no, no, it's more, maybe more because I don't
Speaker 1: think lost. Yeah, And basically he was talking about well
Speaker 1: he's doing a lot of talking, uh, And it was
Speaker 1: it was a little rambley even for me, and because
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of room to talk. But
Speaker 1: but basically his whole point was the idea of the
Speaker 1: mystery box is is so inspiring. He was talking about
Speaker 1: getting this mystery package from a magic store in New York,
Speaker 1: I believe, and and you know it's some one of
Speaker 1: these like you pay a certain amount. He's probably just
Speaker 1: got some you know, some garbage in it from the
Speaker 1: magic shops, some stuff they couldn't move, and so they
Speaker 1: just packaged it up in this and sold it. But
Speaker 1: the Archie McPhee mystery bag, everybody knows about Archie McPhee.
Speaker 1: Who's Archie. It's an online emporium of all things silly,
Speaker 1: and you can get you know, bacon, breath, mints, so
Speaker 1: on and so forth. So so his Tellhole Ted Talk,
Speaker 1: which you can you can find easily online Ted Talk,
Speaker 1: j J Abrams and Google search. He was, he was.
Speaker 1: He makes the argument that the the idea of the
Speaker 1: mystery box is what stirs human creativity and what really
Speaker 1: uh certainly his own creativity and really um motivates him
Speaker 1: to to create. And you actually sent me a really
Speaker 1: interesting um PDF about curiosity is a memory enhancer. Right,
Speaker 1: So there's this idea that that that it's not just J. J.
Speaker 1: Abrams talking about how great it is, that there's actually
Speaker 1: some some research back. Yeah, yeah, that that you know, this,
Speaker 1: this mystery has to be unraveled in our brains again,
Speaker 1: like you said, needs a good chew toy which really
Speaker 1: helps us to learn better into uh, get our noggains engaged. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This particular study was from the California Institute of Technology
Speaker 1: and they did some fm R eyes on people when
Speaker 1: they There are a couple of different like phases of
Speaker 1: this experiment, but people wanted they were reading trivia questions
Speaker 1: to creating mixture of high and low creativity UM. They
Speaker 1: measured subjects pupil dilation UH and tested their memory recall
Speaker 1: and and the fm R I showed that the curiosity
Speaker 1: increases activity in memory areas UM such as the pair
Speaker 1: of hippocampal gyrus and the left inferior frontal gyrus when
Speaker 1: subjects said guests incorrectly, which suggests that curiosity may enhance
Speaker 1: memory for new information. And it's funny too. I was
Speaker 1: thinking about that yesterday. I was working from a coffee
Speaker 1: shop in there was a French tutor with her to
Speaker 1: students and they were kind of like scraggle I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe like thirteen year old boys and you were working
Speaker 1: like a Madeline children's book. Yesterday, Yes I was. I
Speaker 1: was in Paris and there was a gypsy in the
Speaker 1: corner that was going to kidnap us all. But before
Speaker 1: that there was a French lesson and uh, they you
Speaker 1: could tell the guys were kind of bored. And I
Speaker 1: remember thinking to myself, if they had this context of like, okay,
Speaker 1: this this phrase, this sort of rope phrase of like
Speaker 1: how are you doing today? I love this artwork here,
Speaker 1: you know, these sort of things, we might be so
Speaker 1: much more interesting if their their curiosity was piqued, if
Speaker 1: their imagination was engaged, if they might think that the
Speaker 1: person that they were talking to could be uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Stephen Hawking or a pretty girl or an attractive boy.
Speaker 1: I don't know, like you know, they're there are different
Speaker 1: ways I think that we can play with the blueprint
Speaker 1: of our mind in the way that we acquire a knowledge.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was so interesting that the curiosity
Speaker 1: about something really does help this this flicker of our
Speaker 1: um flame of memory, and uh, I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: exciting to me. All right, there you have it. Hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed the mystery box. Do you have a mystery
Speaker 1: box of information that you want to send to us?
Speaker 1: You can, indeed, And you know, we'd also love to
Speaker 1: hear any mystery box scenarios that have gone down in
Speaker 1: your gift giving our gift receiving life. Um, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you have some fascinating stories to share with us as well.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, head on over to stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That's where you'll find all the
Speaker 1: podcast episodes, all the videos, all the blogs, all that
Speaker 1: stuff we've done before, as well as links after our
Speaker 1: social media account. There's a lot of great content there.
Speaker 1: And if you you're ever wondering, hey, I wonder if
Speaker 1: if they've ever done a podcast on this or they
Speaker 1: should do a podcast on on this subject, go over
Speaker 1: so seek it out. There's there's a chance we may
Speaker 1: have done it. And uh, and if we've done it before,
Speaker 1: maybe we need to update it for h for today's listeners. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're like, hey, do they have any episodes on the
Speaker 1: insect that a female insect that has a penis, Yes,
Speaker 1: and a male insect that has a vagina. Yeah, we've
Speaker 1: got that, We're not going to pass up a story
Speaker 1: like that. Indeed, all right, send us your thoughts in
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