1
00:00:00,240 --> 00:00:04,680
Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

2
00:00:04,760 --> 00:00:09,080
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

3
00:00:09,200 --> 00:00:12,079
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

4
00:00:12,200 --> 00:00:25,520
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.

5
00:00:25,600 --> 00:00:28,280
Speaker 1: My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called

6
00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:31,240
Speaker 1: me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer

7
00:00:31,280 --> 00:00:35,279
Speaker 1: Paul Mission Controlled deconds. Most importantly, you are you. You

8
00:00:35,360 --> 00:00:38,839
Speaker 1: are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't

9
00:00:38,840 --> 00:00:41,720
Speaker 1: want you to know. Now. If you're a fan of

10
00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:46,240
Speaker 1: old sitcoms, you'll be familiar with this trope. Someone gets

11
00:00:46,240 --> 00:00:49,360
Speaker 1: a bunk on the head like so balk and then

12
00:00:49,800 --> 00:00:54,280
Speaker 1: this head injury affects the way maybe their memory works,

13
00:00:54,760 --> 00:00:57,680
Speaker 1: or it returns their memory in the case of the

14
00:00:57,880 --> 00:01:02,320
Speaker 1: second bok like so bok uh, and in some cases

15
00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:05,400
Speaker 1: again there's in fiction, it can even give them a new,

16
00:01:05,640 --> 00:01:09,680
Speaker 1: unprecedented skill. The main takeaway from this episode is going

17
00:01:09,720 --> 00:01:14,280
Speaker 1: to be do not purposely injure yourself to try to

18
00:01:14,440 --> 00:01:18,360
Speaker 1: get cool abilities. You'll see what we're talking about. He

19
00:01:19,319 --> 00:01:21,360
Speaker 1: You know, if you you don't have to be a

20
00:01:21,440 --> 00:01:25,759
Speaker 1: neuroscientist to realize that a second brain injury is not

21
00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:29,199
Speaker 1: going is going to make things worse rather than take

22
00:01:29,240 --> 00:01:32,880
Speaker 1: you back to your baseline. But and the first brain

23
00:01:32,920 --> 00:01:37,119
Speaker 1: injury is likely not going to have positive effects, exactly exactly.

24
00:01:37,280 --> 00:01:40,880
Speaker 1: There's this episode of Fawlty Towers where John Cleese's character

25
00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:44,120
Speaker 1: has a taxidermy moose head fall on his head and

26
00:01:44,160 --> 00:01:46,480
Speaker 1: then he goes a little wonky and then of course

27
00:01:46,520 --> 00:01:48,600
Speaker 1: it falls on his head again at the end, which

28
00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:51,040
Speaker 1: returns him back to normalcy. I think there are more

29
00:01:51,080 --> 00:01:52,920
Speaker 1: examples than we could probably all think of in the

30
00:01:53,080 --> 00:01:56,240
Speaker 1: pop culture of this trope. Yeah, yeah, Well he's doing

31
00:01:56,360 --> 00:01:59,720
Speaker 1: research for this. I went to TV Tropes, which is

32
00:01:59,760 --> 00:02:04,000
Speaker 1: one my favorite time vampires on the internet, and this thing.

33
00:02:04,800 --> 00:02:06,960
Speaker 1: You can see their entry on what I'm calling a

34
00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:10,400
Speaker 1: punk on the head. But we're talking about this because

35
00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:13,760
Speaker 1: today's episode came to us in the form of a

36
00:02:13,880 --> 00:02:18,839
Speaker 1: suggestion slash question from our fellow conspiracy realist Dwayne, who

37
00:02:18,840 --> 00:02:22,560
Speaker 1: you may recognize from an earlier Listener mail segment, and

38
00:02:22,600 --> 00:02:26,440
Speaker 1: it got us asking could something like this actually happened? Well,

39
00:02:26,880 --> 00:02:29,480
Speaker 1: we're going to tell you here are the facts. If

40
00:02:29,480 --> 00:02:33,680
Speaker 1: we want to learn about this idea, First, we have

41
00:02:33,800 --> 00:02:36,480
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that people are still trying to figure out

42
00:02:36,520 --> 00:02:39,120
Speaker 1: we still have a lot to learn about learning. Honestly,

43
00:02:39,600 --> 00:02:43,880
Speaker 1: you know, everybody has some natural aptitude toward one type

44
00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:46,480
Speaker 1: of skill set or another, right, Like we we all have.

45
00:02:46,600 --> 00:02:49,280
Speaker 1: You got friends who just sort of get math, or

46
00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:53,040
Speaker 1: they just understand music, you know what I mean? That

47
00:02:53,280 --> 00:02:57,960
Speaker 1: just something clicks, or they're quite talented in the communicative arts,

48
00:02:58,120 --> 00:03:01,160
Speaker 1: or they may even be a polyglot and know multiple languages.

49
00:03:01,600 --> 00:03:05,359
Speaker 1: I have a lot of polyglot friends, and they're awesome.

50
00:03:05,960 --> 00:03:09,320
Speaker 1: But I'm I'm gonna be honest, especially my my favorite

51
00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:12,320
Speaker 1: old pal, Tim Westover. Tim, I don't always get your jokes.

52
00:03:12,360 --> 00:03:16,919
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I love Esperanto. I know a little bit

53
00:03:16,960 --> 00:03:20,480
Speaker 1: about it, but you're my language guy. I if someone

54
00:03:20,560 --> 00:03:23,760
Speaker 1: needs to learn, you know, a new obscure language, I'm

55
00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:26,160
Speaker 1: just going to email you instead of me doing it.

56
00:03:26,320 --> 00:03:28,959
Speaker 1: I hope that's okay. Tim doesn't listen to the show,

57
00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:32,000
Speaker 1: I think, but uh, but you know we all know this.

58
00:03:32,080 --> 00:03:35,560
Speaker 1: We acknowledge it, right, Like Matt and Noll. In your cases,

59
00:03:35,600 --> 00:03:40,200
Speaker 1: you're both tremendously talented musicians. In other cases, there may

60
00:03:40,240 --> 00:03:45,200
Speaker 1: be people who are more physiologically suited to something than

61
00:03:45,240 --> 00:03:49,200
Speaker 1: the average person. Like very tall people are gonna be

62
00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:52,560
Speaker 1: like the majority of professional basketball players are going to

63
00:03:52,640 --> 00:03:55,400
Speaker 1: be very tall because that helps them play the game.

64
00:03:55,880 --> 00:03:59,240
Speaker 1: We all accept this. We all know that these natural aptitudes,

65
00:03:59,320 --> 00:04:03,520
Speaker 1: whatever they may be, can also be encouraged and refined

66
00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:07,080
Speaker 1: through practice. And that's where we get to the tricky thing.

67
00:04:07,160 --> 00:04:09,120
Speaker 1: I don't know if the three of us have talked

68
00:04:09,120 --> 00:04:11,880
Speaker 1: about this, but one of the hardest parts of learning

69
00:04:11,920 --> 00:04:14,520
Speaker 1: something new is you have to be ready for that

70
00:04:14,560 --> 00:04:17,560
Speaker 1: blow to your ego when you're not automatically good at

71
00:04:17,560 --> 00:04:21,400
Speaker 1: the star or you're not automatically good at writing sonnets.

72
00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:25,080
Speaker 1: You have to power through that awkward, sometimes frustrating part

73
00:04:25,080 --> 00:04:29,600
Speaker 1: of the process where you're just not immediately Beethoven and

74
00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:33,839
Speaker 1: that's okay. You just have to be able to work

75
00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:38,400
Speaker 1: through that. Like instant success especially, it's funny for a

76
00:04:38,440 --> 00:04:41,800
Speaker 1: lot of former honor students, most of our most of

77
00:04:41,839 --> 00:04:44,960
Speaker 1: our crew here at work, by the way, former honor students, nerds,

78
00:04:45,080 --> 00:04:47,839
Speaker 1: you name it when we say that with affection. For

79
00:04:47,960 --> 00:04:52,000
Speaker 1: a lot of those folks, not instantly being really good

80
00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:54,800
Speaker 1: a plus level, it's something is a big turn off,

81
00:04:54,839 --> 00:04:57,240
Speaker 1: and it's a heck of a hurdle to traverse. I mean,

82
00:04:57,279 --> 00:04:59,960
Speaker 1: if you guys experienced this before learning a new skill,

83
00:05:00,200 --> 00:05:03,599
Speaker 1: whether it's like an instrument, a language, a game. Well,

84
00:05:03,640 --> 00:05:06,480
Speaker 1: speaking of hurdle, UM, I was just having a conversation

85
00:05:06,520 --> 00:05:08,880
Speaker 1: with my friend Tyler last NIME about the game Wordle

86
00:05:09,240 --> 00:05:13,000
Speaker 1: and how for some people, the level of frustration that

87
00:05:13,080 --> 00:05:15,840
Speaker 1: it causes them, whether it's because of a certain skill

88
00:05:15,880 --> 00:05:18,279
Speaker 1: set or certain way they process patterns, or you know,

89
00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:21,920
Speaker 1: just the way their brains work it outweighs any positive

90
00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:24,479
Speaker 1: fun benefits to the game, and so they just kind

91
00:05:24,480 --> 00:05:27,159
Speaker 1: of their mind rejects it. But then there, you know,

92
00:05:27,720 --> 00:05:30,760
Speaker 1: the positive way people would experience that would be somewhere

93
00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:33,760
Speaker 1: in between, where you have just enough level of frustration

94
00:05:33,800 --> 00:05:36,920
Speaker 1: to make it fun and challenging. Um, and you know

95
00:05:37,760 --> 00:05:40,919
Speaker 1: she ultimately are successful with it to keep going. But

96
00:05:40,960 --> 00:05:43,080
Speaker 1: some people are just like Nope, turned off. This is

97
00:05:43,120 --> 00:05:46,120
Speaker 1: too much. It hurts my brain. It makes me feel stupid, right,

98
00:05:46,400 --> 00:05:50,320
Speaker 1: I see that, Like I should be candidly, I should

99
00:05:50,360 --> 00:05:54,080
Speaker 1: be like you, Like I should be the perfect demographic

100
00:05:54,240 --> 00:05:58,800
Speaker 1: for wordle. It just doesn't give me the same dopamine rush. Um.

101
00:05:58,839 --> 00:06:01,280
Speaker 1: It feels like saduco. It feels like I'm doing someone

102
00:06:01,320 --> 00:06:06,159
Speaker 1: else's homework on my off day. But it's fine. For

103
00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:08,280
Speaker 1: for me, it was always mathematics. And you know, I

104
00:06:08,480 --> 00:06:10,480
Speaker 1: think there are probably a lot of people listening right now,

105
00:06:11,360 --> 00:06:14,720
Speaker 1: Well maybe not, but we're Mathematics just didn't click in

106
00:06:14,760 --> 00:06:18,680
Speaker 1: the same way language maybe did, or maybe music the

107
00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:21,840
Speaker 1: way it did in my case, but just I had

108
00:06:21,880 --> 00:06:25,680
Speaker 1: to work so hard to get passing grades in all

109
00:06:25,720 --> 00:06:30,080
Speaker 1: of my math classes attitutor, like in college, Like I

110
00:06:30,120 --> 00:06:32,960
Speaker 1: had a really hard time with math. Yeah. So I

111
00:06:32,960 --> 00:06:37,480
Speaker 1: mean it's it's daunting, and especially once we become adults,

112
00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:41,280
Speaker 1: trying something new that doesn't automatically click, I think causes

113
00:06:41,400 --> 00:06:45,320
Speaker 1: us to just shut it off from our lives, especially

114
00:06:45,400 --> 00:06:49,240
Speaker 1: as people feel further and further pressed for time, right

115
00:06:49,320 --> 00:06:53,000
Speaker 1: and your free time, your free time eroades, and you

116
00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:55,919
Speaker 1: start asking yourself, well, do I need to push myself

117
00:06:55,960 --> 00:06:58,760
Speaker 1: for this thing? What is my end goal? What's my

118
00:06:58,839 --> 00:07:01,960
Speaker 1: cost benefit? I I feel you, guys on the math thing.

119
00:07:02,600 --> 00:07:06,240
Speaker 1: A lot of that in defense of anybody who feels

120
00:07:06,279 --> 00:07:09,160
Speaker 1: like math is just very difficult. A lot of that

121
00:07:09,600 --> 00:07:13,600
Speaker 1: goes back to the pedagogy, to the approach your original

122
00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:16,880
Speaker 1: teachers took when they were relating this information to you.

123
00:07:16,920 --> 00:07:21,480
Speaker 1: So don't beat yourself up again. Everybody given the opportunity

124
00:07:21,960 --> 00:07:27,880
Speaker 1: is actually quite intelligent, and everybody has some really cool aptitudes.

125
00:07:27,920 --> 00:07:30,600
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter who you are. So once you learn

126
00:07:30,680 --> 00:07:32,680
Speaker 1: this new skill, let's say you power through it. Once

127
00:07:32,680 --> 00:07:35,800
Speaker 1: you learn this new skill, if you're the average person,

128
00:07:35,800 --> 00:07:39,320
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to regularly practice it, not just to

129
00:07:39,320 --> 00:07:41,600
Speaker 1: make sure you continue improving, but to make sure that

130
00:07:41,640 --> 00:07:45,440
Speaker 1: you don't lose the stuff you've learned. Like if you

131
00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:50,760
Speaker 1: anybody who has gone to um like high school level

132
00:07:51,200 --> 00:07:54,040
Speaker 1: of a foreign language, right, you know that if you

133
00:07:54,080 --> 00:07:58,600
Speaker 1: don't speak French regularly or you don't read French regularly

134
00:07:58,680 --> 00:08:01,200
Speaker 1: for a long time, you're gonna get rusty, uh, And

135
00:08:01,240 --> 00:08:03,240
Speaker 1: then you're gonna have to when you dive back in,

136
00:08:03,400 --> 00:08:06,680
Speaker 1: you're going to have to play some catch up. It

137
00:08:06,720 --> 00:08:08,520
Speaker 1: won't take as long as it did the first time,

138
00:08:08,800 --> 00:08:11,440
Speaker 1: but you are going to have to get those synapsis

139
00:08:11,520 --> 00:08:14,000
Speaker 1: in those connections refiring. We're going to talk about the

140
00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:17,040
Speaker 1: brain in a bit too. So what we're what we're

141
00:08:17,080 --> 00:08:20,120
Speaker 1: virging on is like we're saying, everybody who feels bad

142
00:08:20,240 --> 00:08:24,640
Speaker 1: about not being the world's best mathematician, don't worry about it.

143
00:08:25,520 --> 00:08:28,880
Speaker 1: You can always learn. And there's a ton of research

144
00:08:29,080 --> 00:08:32,160
Speaker 1: on learning, like how do people learn best? What makes

145
00:08:32,200 --> 00:08:36,760
Speaker 1: new information stick in your mind? My mother, for example,

146
00:08:36,760 --> 00:08:40,080
Speaker 1: a long time teacher before she passed, one of her

147
00:08:40,120 --> 00:08:46,840
Speaker 1: favorite adages was something like, when I here, I forget,

148
00:08:47,679 --> 00:08:51,600
Speaker 1: When I see, I remember, When I do, I understand.

149
00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:55,360
Speaker 1: So it's experiential learning. Right. Well, first of all, been

150
00:08:55,440 --> 00:08:59,559
Speaker 1: that is a lovely adage. I really like that. Um.

151
00:08:59,720 --> 00:09:03,760
Speaker 1: I won't agree though, because I learned by hearing very

152
00:09:03,760 --> 00:09:08,600
Speaker 1: often and and reading. Uh So, just we all do

153
00:09:08,679 --> 00:09:12,760
Speaker 1: it a little differently, right, um. And we're just going

154
00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:17,920
Speaker 1: back to the requirements generally that it takes to fully

155
00:09:18,080 --> 00:09:20,600
Speaker 1: learn something. We can look to Malcolm Gladwell in his

156
00:09:20,640 --> 00:09:24,880
Speaker 1: book Outliers. Uh, this is a concept. There's a concept

157
00:09:24,960 --> 00:09:28,280
Speaker 1: that he popularized that you've probably heard. I know I've

158
00:09:28,280 --> 00:09:30,440
Speaker 1: heard it. I think we've said it before on this show.

159
00:09:30,840 --> 00:09:34,199
Speaker 1: But he at least popularized the concept that it requires

160
00:09:34,520 --> 00:09:39,840
Speaker 1: ten thousand hours to become essentially a master of something, right,

161
00:09:39,840 --> 00:09:42,800
Speaker 1: to master something? And I believe it was called the

162
00:09:42,800 --> 00:09:47,200
Speaker 1: ten rule perhaps, Yeah, The idea being that if you

163
00:09:47,280 --> 00:09:52,840
Speaker 1: started a baseline zero, then after ten thousand hours of

164
00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:58,720
Speaker 1: regular practice, you will be not just competent, but incredibly

165
00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:01,800
Speaker 1: proficient at whatever you're trying to learn. And he, you know,

166
00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:06,000
Speaker 1: he didn't just Malcolm get Gladwell, brilliant guy by the way,

167
00:10:06,320 --> 00:10:09,200
Speaker 1: also the author of a book called The Tipping Point. Uh,

168
00:10:09,360 --> 00:10:12,760
Speaker 1: he didn't just make this up out a whole cloth.

169
00:10:13,360 --> 00:10:15,640
Speaker 1: Even though he is he is in arguably a very

170
00:10:15,679 --> 00:10:20,120
Speaker 1: intelligent person. He was basing this on anecdotes from people

171
00:10:20,120 --> 00:10:22,840
Speaker 1: who are luminaries in their field, Bill Gates for instances

172
00:10:22,880 --> 00:10:26,240
Speaker 1: mentioned in this Uh. And then this study that came

173
00:10:26,280 --> 00:10:32,560
Speaker 1: out in Psychological Review, a journal of note in three. Um,

174
00:10:32,559 --> 00:10:34,400
Speaker 1: it's probably worth for us to talk a little bit

175
00:10:34,400 --> 00:10:37,240
Speaker 1: about this study. There's a great article from vox that

176
00:10:37,360 --> 00:10:40,880
Speaker 1: summarizes it too. So the study actually focused on violinists,

177
00:10:41,040 --> 00:10:46,720
Speaker 1: and it concluded, Um, something seemingly obvious. But maybe let's

178
00:10:46,760 --> 00:10:51,640
Speaker 1: let's take a deeper look. As Brian Resnick wrote for Vox, um, quote,

179
00:10:51,679 --> 00:10:54,800
Speaker 1: the very best expert players, those who are considered elite,

180
00:10:55,000 --> 00:10:57,920
Speaker 1: were the ones who had practiced the most. The conclusions

181
00:10:57,960 --> 00:11:01,280
Speaker 1: implied the deliberate practice was the most important ingredient needed

182
00:11:01,320 --> 00:11:04,600
Speaker 1: to achieve elite status, more important than inborn characteristics like

183
00:11:04,640 --> 00:11:09,480
Speaker 1: genetics or personality. And and again, seemingly obvious like, you know,

184
00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:12,439
Speaker 1: I have maybe some in eight musical abilities. Both of

185
00:11:12,480 --> 00:11:14,840
Speaker 1: my parents were musicians. My kid has a little bit

186
00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:18,040
Speaker 1: of an eight musical abilities. But the thing that set me,

187
00:11:18,360 --> 00:11:21,360
Speaker 1: that set others apart from me in orchestra in school

188
00:11:21,920 --> 00:11:23,640
Speaker 1: was that I was kind of lazy. I didn't practice

189
00:11:23,679 --> 00:11:25,120
Speaker 1: that much, and I was more interested in sort of

190
00:11:25,160 --> 00:11:27,719
Speaker 1: noodling around and doing my own thing, which I'm very

191
00:11:27,720 --> 00:11:29,720
Speaker 1: happy that I went that route. I didn't go to

192
00:11:29,800 --> 00:11:32,960
Speaker 1: music college. But you know, the people that were really

193
00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:37,240
Speaker 1: really great first chair, they're called elite athletes or elite

194
00:11:37,320 --> 00:11:39,040
Speaker 1: musicians for a reason because they're in a class out

195
00:11:39,080 --> 00:11:41,880
Speaker 1: of themselves because of how much work they put into it. Yeah,

196
00:11:42,000 --> 00:11:45,480
Speaker 1: I mean that makes sense, right. Practice may not always

197
00:11:45,520 --> 00:11:49,400
Speaker 1: make perfect, but practice does make progress. That's the That's

198
00:11:49,400 --> 00:11:53,080
Speaker 1: how I would rephrase that that old figure speech. But

199
00:11:53,840 --> 00:11:57,240
Speaker 1: the problem there's a problem here. Though. That study has

200
00:11:57,280 --> 00:12:02,600
Speaker 1: been repeatedly examined, It's been cited thousands and thousands of times,

201
00:12:02,640 --> 00:12:05,000
Speaker 1: but it doesn't seem to give us the whole picture.

202
00:12:05,440 --> 00:12:09,800
Speaker 1: Most particularly, two researchers over a case Western University, Brooke

203
00:12:09,920 --> 00:12:14,679
Speaker 1: McNamara and Mega matra redid the study, which is a

204
00:12:14,679 --> 00:12:16,480
Speaker 1: good thing to do. And in the world of science,

205
00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:19,160
Speaker 1: they redid the study and they just it up a little.

206
00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:21,640
Speaker 1: They had a bigger sample size, so they're looking at

207
00:12:21,720 --> 00:12:25,720
Speaker 1: more violinists, more violent players, and they tightened the control

208
00:12:25,800 --> 00:12:28,880
Speaker 1: and the methodology of their study, and they found that

209
00:12:28,960 --> 00:12:32,080
Speaker 1: practice does matter, but not nearly as much as that

210
00:12:32,160 --> 00:12:36,160
Speaker 1: first study indicated. I think. Ultimately they find that amid

211
00:12:36,200 --> 00:12:40,240
Speaker 1: a mix of factors, practice plays like an eighteen percent

212
00:12:40,440 --> 00:12:45,680
Speaker 1: role in how good someone's performances. Uh. And they found

213
00:12:45,720 --> 00:12:48,280
Speaker 1: that not only to practice not matter as much as

214
00:12:48,400 --> 00:12:51,520
Speaker 1: was indicated by the first study, but it seemed learning

215
00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:55,880
Speaker 1: on in some fundamental ways worked differently for the best

216
00:12:55,920 --> 00:12:59,239
Speaker 1: of the best violin players, the Creme de la trem violinist.

217
00:12:59,559 --> 00:13:03,280
Speaker 1: So practice does matter, that's true. It's just one of

218
00:13:03,400 --> 00:13:08,040
Speaker 1: several factors genetics, personality, your life history, etcetera that contributes

219
00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:10,480
Speaker 1: to your overall performance. But this is where we get

220
00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:13,360
Speaker 1: to some exciting What if there was a shortcut. What

221
00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:17,520
Speaker 1: if we could all avoid thousands of hours of struggling

222
00:13:17,520 --> 00:13:20,480
Speaker 1: to learn a language, to get better at math, struggling

223
00:13:20,480 --> 00:13:24,320
Speaker 1: to become a world famous painter. Could an injury give

224
00:13:24,360 --> 00:13:28,640
Speaker 1: you superpowers? We're gonna pause, We'll return with the answer.

225
00:13:35,600 --> 00:13:39,920
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. Oddly enough, yes, kind of

226
00:13:40,360 --> 00:13:45,800
Speaker 1: yes asterix caveat read the fine print, but you know, yeah,

227
00:13:46,040 --> 00:13:48,959
Speaker 1: kind of it can happen. We think it can happen,

228
00:13:49,360 --> 00:13:54,439
Speaker 1: right from a very small sample size of people who

229
00:13:54,480 --> 00:13:57,760
Speaker 1: have had it happened to them. Yeah, that's a better

230
00:13:57,760 --> 00:13:59,959
Speaker 1: way to say it. And we're getting into some controversy

231
00:14:00,240 --> 00:14:05,040
Speaker 1: stuff here. We are not ourselves neuroscientists, so we're leaning

232
00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:07,400
Speaker 1: heavily on the experts, and the thing is that not

233
00:14:07,440 --> 00:14:09,800
Speaker 1: all the experts agree. Just so you know that going

234
00:14:09,840 --> 00:14:14,439
Speaker 1: into this. We're talking about something called acquired savant syndrome.

235
00:14:14,480 --> 00:14:16,800
Speaker 1: And again this is a shout out to Dwayne for

236
00:14:16,920 --> 00:14:21,560
Speaker 1: asking us to explore this fascinating topic. And let's clear

237
00:14:21,560 --> 00:14:25,040
Speaker 1: some myths. You've heard of savant syndrome before. Even the

238
00:14:25,200 --> 00:14:28,280
Speaker 1: term gets tricky a little bit for people because it

239
00:14:28,320 --> 00:14:33,360
Speaker 1: can be misrepresented so easily. People can be mothered. And

240
00:14:33,680 --> 00:14:36,640
Speaker 1: you know, even the term savant it comes from like

241
00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:40,480
Speaker 1: the French learned idiot, so it's not starting at a

242
00:14:40,480 --> 00:14:42,840
Speaker 1: great place. But well there's even kind of a grosser

243
00:14:42,920 --> 00:14:45,680
Speaker 1: version of it where people actually say idiot savant, which

244
00:14:45,720 --> 00:14:50,560
Speaker 1: is way outmoded and well, in this case, as many

245
00:14:50,880 --> 00:14:53,080
Speaker 1: many outlets, at least in the news, when they refer

246
00:14:53,160 --> 00:14:56,240
Speaker 1: to it, they're calling it things like sudden genius syndrome,

247
00:14:56,640 --> 00:15:03,320
Speaker 1: which it isn't quite accurate either, but it sounds nicer. Yeah, yeah,

248
00:15:03,560 --> 00:15:06,960
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a sexier headline for sure, But

249
00:15:06,960 --> 00:15:09,320
Speaker 1: but isn't the basis of what a savant is, or

250
00:15:09,320 --> 00:15:12,000
Speaker 1: at least, you know, on the surface, someone who is

251
00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:15,920
Speaker 1: just instantly good at something without having to practice. Yeah, yeah,

252
00:15:15,960 --> 00:15:20,440
Speaker 1: it's it's fascinating. Okay, So the most common form of

253
00:15:20,520 --> 00:15:23,600
Speaker 1: savant syndrome, the one people know the most about, is

254
00:15:23,640 --> 00:15:28,280
Speaker 1: something called congenital savant syndrome is a very very rare condition.

255
00:15:29,440 --> 00:15:35,360
Speaker 1: Someone who often will have significant mental disabilities can also

256
00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:41,120
Speaker 1: seem to have extraordinary abilities in some very narrow skill set.

257
00:15:41,560 --> 00:15:43,680
Speaker 1: This is stuff like this is what the rain Man

258
00:15:44,200 --> 00:15:47,320
Speaker 1: is based on, right. This is stuff like people who

259
00:15:47,360 --> 00:15:50,400
Speaker 1: can see something once and then they can draw in

260
00:15:50,760 --> 00:15:54,840
Speaker 1: exquisite photo realistic detail. There are people who can tell

261
00:15:54,920 --> 00:16:00,600
Speaker 1: you what day of the week March is gonna be,

262
00:16:00,760 --> 00:16:03,000
Speaker 1: and they won't pause. They'll just be like, it's a

263
00:16:03,320 --> 00:16:05,840
Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna guess, I don't know, I don't

264
00:16:05,880 --> 00:16:11,320
Speaker 1: have clindrical computation superpowers. So this stuff is often related

265
00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:14,560
Speaker 1: to memory, these sorts of abilities, but they can also

266
00:16:14,600 --> 00:16:19,240
Speaker 1: include things like very very quick mathematic calculations, artistic ability,

267
00:16:19,640 --> 00:16:23,440
Speaker 1: musical talent, things like that. And human beings have known

268
00:16:23,480 --> 00:16:28,080
Speaker 1: about this phenomenon for some time, and as a matter

269
00:16:28,120 --> 00:16:31,480
Speaker 1: of fact, the first medical account of what we recognize

270
00:16:31,520 --> 00:16:36,239
Speaker 1: as congenital savant syndrome was made back in seventeen eighty three.

271
00:16:36,400 --> 00:16:38,680
Speaker 1: And Matt, you make a great point about the sample

272
00:16:38,720 --> 00:16:42,960
Speaker 1: size is incredibly rare. We're talking about an estimated one

273
00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:46,480
Speaker 1: out of a million people might have savant syndrome. They're

274
00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:53,280
Speaker 1: gonna tend to be biologically male more often, and within

275
00:16:53,440 --> 00:16:55,720
Speaker 1: the world of or within the range of people on

276
00:16:55,760 --> 00:16:59,960
Speaker 1: the autism spectrum, there's a much higher frequency of savant syndrome.

277
00:17:00,040 --> 00:17:02,240
Speaker 1: So we go from one in a million to like

278
00:17:03,240 --> 00:17:07,560
Speaker 1: one and two or in some estimates on some level,

279
00:17:07,680 --> 00:17:09,960
Speaker 1: one in ten. But I feel like that's very very

280
00:17:10,080 --> 00:17:15,720
Speaker 1: high ratio. I think it. Yeah, um, and and mostly

281
00:17:15,760 --> 00:17:20,840
Speaker 1: again we're talking about the genital savant syndrome. Overwhelmingly, that's

282
00:17:20,840 --> 00:17:24,720
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here, And you know, you can imagine,

283
00:17:24,720 --> 00:17:27,359
Speaker 1: like with that small sample size and with the number

284
00:17:27,400 --> 00:17:29,960
Speaker 1: of people who are able to study this kind of

285
00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:33,119
Speaker 1: thing effectively. Like, if you take those two pools of

286
00:17:33,200 --> 00:17:36,480
Speaker 1: human beings together, you can imagine that there hasn't been

287
00:17:36,520 --> 00:17:39,440
Speaker 1: a ton of research done in you know, on this

288
00:17:39,760 --> 00:17:46,160
Speaker 1: hant savant syndrome itself. Um, just because again it's time.

289
00:17:46,400 --> 00:17:48,359
Speaker 1: It has a lot to do with time. Are there

290
00:17:48,480 --> 00:17:51,280
Speaker 1: enough people to do the work needed to be done

291
00:17:51,320 --> 00:17:54,280
Speaker 1: those ten thousand hours to study savant syndrome? Right? Um,

292
00:17:56,160 --> 00:18:00,520
Speaker 1: But there is research being done. It's not completely absent.

293
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:04,719
Speaker 1: We're just learning more and more about it right now. Yeah,

294
00:18:05,200 --> 00:18:08,159
Speaker 1: there's another really good point here. Uh, it wasn't until

295
00:18:08,200 --> 00:18:13,960
Speaker 1: relatively recently in the progress of human civilization that people

296
00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:18,520
Speaker 1: even had the tools to measure or map the brain

297
00:18:18,920 --> 00:18:20,640
Speaker 1: in such a way that they could get a better

298
00:18:20,720 --> 00:18:25,280
Speaker 1: understanding of this. But again, again, the vast majority of

299
00:18:25,720 --> 00:18:29,239
Speaker 1: human beings are not going to have this condition is

300
00:18:29,560 --> 00:18:34,800
Speaker 1: incredibly rare. But there are other types of savant syndrome,

301
00:18:34,880 --> 00:18:39,119
Speaker 1: and that's what that's what Dwayne is really asking about here. Um,

302
00:18:39,160 --> 00:18:43,720
Speaker 1: the the idea of acquired savant syndrome. Imagine you are

303
00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:47,280
Speaker 1: living here like in your twenties, You're like in your sixties,

304
00:18:47,560 --> 00:18:51,439
Speaker 1: you're in your eighties. Whenever this technically could happen to

305
00:18:51,520 --> 00:18:55,040
Speaker 1: someone at any time, you may all of a sudden

306
00:18:55,280 --> 00:19:02,000
Speaker 1: have astonishing new not just abilities, but compulsions. You won't

307
00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:06,679
Speaker 1: just be maybe great at piano now somehow, but you

308
00:19:06,760 --> 00:19:11,640
Speaker 1: will further be driven to play a piano. It's all

309
00:19:11,760 --> 00:19:14,879
Speaker 1: you can think about. These things occur in step with

310
00:19:14,920 --> 00:19:17,919
Speaker 1: each other. Usually acquired Savan syndrome is going to be

311
00:19:17,960 --> 00:19:21,520
Speaker 1: something in the world of music, art or mathematics. But

312
00:19:21,680 --> 00:19:26,440
Speaker 1: they appear in people after a head injury, or after

313
00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:32,240
Speaker 1: a stroke, or after some other incredibly traumatic event that

314
00:19:32,320 --> 00:19:37,000
Speaker 1: affects their central nervous system. We'll call these CNS incidents.

315
00:19:37,560 --> 00:19:43,639
Speaker 1: And these skills, once once acquired, don't seem to fade

316
00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:46,560
Speaker 1: over time, like we're saying. You know, even if you

317
00:19:47,119 --> 00:19:50,840
Speaker 1: were really good at French or German or whatever in

318
00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:53,040
Speaker 1: high school, then you're gonna have to keep using that

319
00:19:53,200 --> 00:19:55,800
Speaker 1: or else you'll your your memory of this will start

320
00:19:55,840 --> 00:20:00,560
Speaker 1: to erode. Not so with Savans skills. Um we do

321
00:20:00,640 --> 00:20:04,000
Speaker 1: have to know. Unfortunately, because we are talking about traumatic

322
00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:08,639
Speaker 1: brain injury, often this stuff can still cause serious disabilities

323
00:20:08,920 --> 00:20:12,679
Speaker 1: too many people that they come apart and parcel with

324
00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:15,479
Speaker 1: those newly acquired skills. So we can't think of this

325
00:20:15,960 --> 00:20:20,560
Speaker 1: as an automatic free ticket to being a genius. It's

326
00:20:20,600 --> 00:20:22,399
Speaker 1: not as simple as a bonk on the head. There

327
00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:24,880
Speaker 1: is a price to be paid. But maybe the best

328
00:20:24,880 --> 00:20:26,959
Speaker 1: way for us to explore that is talked about some

329
00:20:27,040 --> 00:20:31,439
Speaker 1: examples acquired syndrome. Because Dwayne, Dwayne actually knows one of

330
00:20:31,440 --> 00:20:34,040
Speaker 1: these people. Maybe that's the first person we talked about. Yeah,

331
00:20:34,119 --> 00:20:36,480
Speaker 1: we I think that's a great idea, And I just

332
00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:39,560
Speaker 1: want to point something out before we jump into this. UM.

333
00:20:39,600 --> 00:20:44,240
Speaker 1: Sometimes it isn't necessarily a brand new skill that's learned.

334
00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:50,320
Speaker 1: Sometimes it is almost like unlocking a new way of

335
00:20:50,320 --> 00:20:53,919
Speaker 1: seeing the world or a new understanding of something that

336
00:20:53,960 --> 00:20:58,680
Speaker 1: you just didn't have before. UM. And then that new

337
00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:00,560
Speaker 1: way of seeing, a new way of exp periencing the

338
00:21:00,560 --> 00:21:04,359
Speaker 1: world unlocks those skills that we're talking about, or even

339
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:06,960
Speaker 1: like a leveling up kind of scenario, or maybe you

340
00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:10,280
Speaker 1: had a base level understanding of the skill and then

341
00:21:10,280 --> 00:21:12,359
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you've reframed, you're thinking around it,

342
00:21:12,400 --> 00:21:16,439
Speaker 1: and you just are like, you know, on fire synesthesia.

343
00:21:16,600 --> 00:21:20,040
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about, Oh yeah, it's real, it's real. Well,

344
00:21:20,080 --> 00:21:22,600
Speaker 1: I mean we should talk about the person that the

345
00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:26,119
Speaker 1: our listener wrote into us about Jason Paget, not the listener,

346
00:21:26,160 --> 00:21:28,520
Speaker 1: that's the guy he wrote in about UM. Today. Paget

347
00:21:28,560 --> 00:21:31,640
Speaker 1: is a very well known number theorists, but that wasn't

348
00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:35,320
Speaker 1: always the case. He tells his story UM this way,

349
00:21:35,359 --> 00:21:39,520
Speaker 1: that he was once a mild mannered, normal fellow throughout

350
00:21:39,520 --> 00:21:42,000
Speaker 1: most of his early life. Um. He went to college

351
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:46,080
Speaker 1: and Tacoma, Washington, and dropped out and was actually working

352
00:21:46,160 --> 00:21:50,200
Speaker 1: selling phutons uh and and partying his his his mind

353
00:21:50,280 --> 00:21:53,159
Speaker 1: away UM in the in the wee hours when he

354
00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:57,560
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, selling slinging phutons um until the evening

355
00:21:57,600 --> 00:22:02,440
Speaker 1: of September two when Pat experienced a horrible traumatic event.

356
00:22:02,520 --> 00:22:06,320
Speaker 1: He was robbed and beaten by two men outside of

357
00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:08,240
Speaker 1: a karaoke bar, and when he was hit in the

358
00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:10,520
Speaker 1: back of the head, he experienced what he describes as

359
00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:13,800
Speaker 1: a flash. And you can imagine, because you're the visual

360
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:15,600
Speaker 1: parts of your brain are in the back of your head,

361
00:22:15,800 --> 00:22:18,560
Speaker 1: so that checks out like that sudden flash of light

362
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:21,880
Speaker 1: that he experienced. He felt really dizzy and the whole

363
00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:25,080
Speaker 1: world was spinning around him. At that point, he fell

364
00:22:25,119 --> 00:22:29,320
Speaker 1: down to the ground and lost consciousness and when he

365
00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:34,240
Speaker 1: came back, when he remembers coming back to consciousness, Uh,

366
00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:35,679
Speaker 1: he didn't know where he was, He didn't know how

367
00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:38,320
Speaker 1: he got there. I mean, this is pretty common in

368
00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:42,600
Speaker 1: a major concussion event or an event where you lose

369
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:46,200
Speaker 1: consciousness due to a blow to the head. And um,

370
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 1: when he tried to stand up, he was punched and

371
00:22:48,920 --> 00:22:53,600
Speaker 1: kicked by two men repeatedly afterwards. And this, this next

372
00:22:53,600 --> 00:22:57,840
Speaker 1: part is really interesting to me personally as someone who

373
00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:01,119
Speaker 1: does have a form of sentistage. Uh. This is going

374
00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:04,840
Speaker 1: to be familiar to anybody's experienced this kind of stuff before. Uh.

375
00:23:04,960 --> 00:23:08,879
Speaker 1: He has taken to Tacoma General Hospital. Doctors say, okay,

376
00:23:08,880 --> 00:23:12,680
Speaker 1: you've got one of your kidneys has been bruised pretty significantly,

377
00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:17,439
Speaker 1: and perhaps even more importantly, you have a severe concussion. Uh.

378
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:23,120
Speaker 1: Padgett immediately notices his perception is shifted after this attack.

379
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:27,960
Speaker 1: As he's in recovery, he is seeing the world literally

380
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 1: in a new way in shapes and fractals. This might, also,

381
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:37,080
Speaker 1: no judgment, be a familiar perspective to anyone who has

382
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:40,720
Speaker 1: dabbled in certain hallucingens. Uh. He talks about he's seen

383
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:46,840
Speaker 1: fractals basically water looks like tangent lines and light, good

384
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:49,359
Speaker 1: old fashioned light that he used to just not really

385
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:52,520
Speaker 1: think about, is now made up of lines and spirals,

386
00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:56,239
Speaker 1: and somehow, like he's seen the world in geometry, he's

387
00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:59,320
Speaker 1: seen it in terms of physics, things he had never studied,

388
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:04,200
Speaker 1: and he's thinking this is all somehow related to pie

389
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:08,320
Speaker 1: three point one for YadA YadA, YadA. Uh. He there's

390
00:24:08,320 --> 00:24:12,120
Speaker 1: a guy named Dr Matthew Doll who put it this way.

391
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:15,959
Speaker 1: He says that after being assaulted, Jason had a perceptual change.

392
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 1: He has a particular kind of synaesthesia where he sees lines,

393
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:24,119
Speaker 1: and for him that translates into a greater understanding of mathematics.

394
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:29,159
Speaker 1: His interaction with mathematics before had been one of you know,

395
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:32,359
Speaker 1: you have to learn this in school, right, you have to.

396
00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:34,760
Speaker 1: You have to learn this to graduate and be an adult.

397
00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:39,440
Speaker 1: But now he has experiential learning, kind of like um

398
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:44,359
Speaker 1: authors like Nabokov, one of my favorite authors, uh Nabokov

399
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:47,720
Speaker 1: had a type of synastasia we discussed in the past

400
00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 1: on the show, where words and sounds, letters all had

401
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: shape and texture and it affected the way he wrote. Yeah,

402
00:24:55,840 --> 00:24:58,159
Speaker 1: it's like Daniel Tammant, the gentleman who wrote Born on

403
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 1: a Blue Day, it's very similar, just quickly for for

404
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:05,679
Speaker 1: this person, Jason Jason Paget. The way he describes it

405
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:08,840
Speaker 1: is that his vision is a little pixelated and he

406
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:12,720
Speaker 1: no longer sees the world as a video the way

407
00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 1: most of us when like when I'm looking at the camera,

408
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:17,959
Speaker 1: I'm looking at you guys on zoom. It's one just

409
00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:21,400
Speaker 1: moving image right for him, now, all of the images

410
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 1: are broken up into the still frames, so he doesn't

411
00:25:25,119 --> 00:25:29,479
Speaker 1: have that thing where you're actually combining too, you know,

412
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:32,920
Speaker 1: images together that creates movement. He's just seeing the images.

413
00:25:33,920 --> 00:25:38,040
Speaker 1: And it is strange because it's almost as though part

414
00:25:38,119 --> 00:25:42,000
Speaker 1: of his the visual part of his brain was broken,

415
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 1: but it's almost as if it was then connected to

416
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 1: a to a different part of his brain that it

417
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:51,720
Speaker 1: wasn't connected to before. Like it's a defect, right, it's

418
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: a problem, but it's somehow unlocked his understanding of mathematics.

419
00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: We hear all the time the world is math. Every physics,

420
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:03,000
Speaker 1: Everything in the world is math. Everything we do, everything

421
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:05,720
Speaker 1: we touch, everything we're made of is math. You can

422
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:09,680
Speaker 1: hear that, and you can perhaps understand that to some extent,

423
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:14,680
Speaker 1: but to be able to perceive the underlying mathematics that's

424
00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 1: operating at all times. That's got I mean, my goodness,

425
00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 1: it's like that movie A Beautiful Mind, you know. I

426
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:23,680
Speaker 1: mean it almost said. It was so well done that

427
00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:26,000
Speaker 1: it's become a cliche where you look around and all

428
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:28,720
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the world is is replaced with like

429
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:32,399
Speaker 1: numbers and equations and functions and you know, graphs and

430
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 1: charts and stuff. Yeah, and that is a very good

431
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:41,959
Speaker 1: artistic interpretation of the experience for some people. Paget is

432
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: one of the most well known. He also to two

433
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:47,439
Speaker 1: points I want to make but I didn't put this

434
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:49,480
Speaker 1: in the outline, but I thought this was this was

435
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 1: really too, really impressive and nice things. Uh. He later

436
00:26:55,400 --> 00:27:01,320
Speaker 1: relocated from the Pacific Northwest to Indiana because he wrote

437
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 1: he he basically wrote a mathematical equation or process that

438
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:10,439
Speaker 1: would help him determine the best place to live in

439
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:12,680
Speaker 1: the US. And it turned out to be the spot

440
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:15,080
Speaker 1: in Indiana, and he went with it and he he

441
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: loves it there. Uh. He also has a great ted

442
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: talk that you can check out ted x Tacoma if

443
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 1: you want to get a summary of his experience from

444
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:25,439
Speaker 1: the number theorist mouth. The second thing is one of

445
00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:28,719
Speaker 1: the guys who originally assaulted him. That guy cleaned up

446
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 1: his life. He was no longer I guess, abusing drugs.

447
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:38,639
Speaker 1: And he actually reached out to Jason and they talked

448
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:40,919
Speaker 1: to each other and they both thought it was a cathartic,

449
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 1: healthy experience. And and Paget, for the record, considers his

450
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:48,880
Speaker 1: abilities a gift, and I would agree with him, that

451
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 1: would be that's an amazing way to see the world.

452
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:55,640
Speaker 1: He's also not alone in this. There's a guy who

453
00:27:55,760 --> 00:28:00,200
Speaker 1: when he was thirty nine years old, was party game,

454
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 1: dove into I think it was a jacuzzi and bonked

455
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:08,720
Speaker 1: his head. He got a major concussion. He lost thirty

456
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: of his hearing ability. His name is Derek a Motto.

457
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 1: You can hear him talking about his experience on the

458
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:19,119
Speaker 1: excellent MPR program Snap Judgment. Here's what happened when he

459
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:23,639
Speaker 1: was recovering. He had before this, like you have mentioned earlier,

460
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,719
Speaker 1: in all he had, he had kind of dabbled in guitar.

461
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:29,359
Speaker 1: He played it recreationally, you know, like he probably doesn't

462
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 1: mean cover a wonder wall at this point, but then

463
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:37,960
Speaker 1: a that's important too. But after he after this injury,

464
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 1: he found himself crazy good at piano. He was able

465
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 1: to compose for Pierre. He just it's amazing to hear

466
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,040
Speaker 1: him describe this because he sits down on piano she

467
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:51,960
Speaker 1: normally wouldn't wouldn't really mess with because he's like compelled

468
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: to do so, and all of a sudden, it's all

469
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 1: making sense. He's having this epiphany, this revelatory moment, and

470
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: he hasn't lost this ability. He still loves playing piano.

471
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 1: This accident appears to have given him a new kind

472
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:09,440
Speaker 1: of synaesthesia, but in his case, it presented as a

473
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:13,520
Speaker 1: new way to experience music. Again. Amazing, dude. Well in

474
00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: the way he found out about it because he was

475
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 1: at a friend's house and there was just a little keyboard, Like,

476
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 1: uh no, you can't see in my there's a tiny

477
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 1: little keyboard over here. He just saw it sitting in

478
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:26,720
Speaker 1: a room. He went over to the keyboard and he

479
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: just he said, he was compelled to look at it

480
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 1: and pick it up. He started playing it, and five

481
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 1: hours later he put it down like like a person

482
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 1: who's never plays a keyboard just did that. Um, that

483
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:43,719
Speaker 1: kind of compulsion is fascinating to me, Like your brain

484
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 1: is just sending you on a mission, essentially a brand

485
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: new mission that you've never tried before, and you have

486
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 1: to do it. You gotta do it, you gotta do it. Uh.

487
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 1: This also another example just to show that this isn't

488
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:02,479
Speaker 1: always you know Trump, it's and angel farts and good news. Uh.

489
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:09,040
Speaker 1: There is a gentleman named Alonso Clemens, phenomenal sculptor, photo

490
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 1: realistic sculptor. He is part of his sculpting ability, a

491
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:18,480
Speaker 1: huge part of it is believed to be the result

492
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 1: of a severe brain injury had when he was only

493
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 1: about three or four years old, and this left him

494
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 1: with some some significant developmental disabilities. It affected his i Q,

495
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 1: it affected his mental progress ever since that accident, which

496
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 1: meant he would need assistance of some sort for the

497
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 1: rest of his life. Clemens exhibited this profound talent for sculpting.

498
00:30:44,840 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 1: He started with clay and when the teachers took the

499
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 1: clay away, he was like forget it. He got tar

500
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 1: from the pavement and started making sculptures again. He would

501
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 1: use butter lard, whatever he could find, and he had

502
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 1: no formal training ever. But what happens is this interesting Matt,

503
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 1: going to our conversation about Paget. What happens is he

504
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: now seems to be able to create lifelike representations of

505
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:10,239
Speaker 1: any animal he sees, even if he just sees it

506
00:31:10,320 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 1: for a moment. And for any artist in the crowd,

507
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 1: you know that if you are but a lot of

508
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 1: the art you may do, especially if it's very detailed

509
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: and lifelike, you probably have a reference at some point

510
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 1: that you're looking at right. But what's happening with him

511
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:29,479
Speaker 1: is he's able to just glance at it and then boom,

512
00:31:29,760 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: I'll not just make a horse, I'll make that very

513
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:37,360
Speaker 1: same horse I saw. Researchers believe that what's happening is

514
00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: similar to UM is similar to this idea that you

515
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 1: talked about with freezing something in a mental tableau. He's

516
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 1: able to freeze the frame of his perception, hold it

517
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 1: in his mind, and produce these act image and his

518
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 1: work is objectively very impressive. UM. It's it's something again

519
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 1: that came with a very very high We're talking about

520
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 1: a guy who is not going to have the same

521
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: level of independence that a lot of other people have.

522
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 1: But also there are very few people in the world

523
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 1: who are ever going to be as good as this

524
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:15,480
Speaker 1: guy at sculpting. Um. There aren't a ton of savants

525
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 1: out there, whether they're we're talking congenital savants or people

526
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 1: have acquired savant syndrome. But this is an enormous opportunity

527
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:27,080
Speaker 1: to learn more about the profound malleability of the human brain.

528
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 1: And there's still so much more to this story. Like I,

529
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 1: this doesn't get talked about as much when we talked

530
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 1: about savants, but there are people who as they age,

531
00:32:37,120 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: they acquire specific types of age related mental deterioration that

532
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 1: can also give them new skills and compulsion. We're talking

533
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 1: specifically about something called fronto temporal dementia or f t D.

534
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 1: And let's keep adding to this before we get to

535
00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 1: before you get to the next turn and conversation, there's

536
00:32:56,320 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 1: some twist to head, folks. Let's have one more example.

537
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Tony Sequaria. Tony Sequaria, he sat a

538
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 1: pay phone, He's hung up the phone. It's about foot

539
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 1: away near alban in New York, and then he gets

540
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:16,240
Speaker 1: struck by lightning. Kind of shades that movie Powder, right.

541
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 1: He has a near death experience. His heart stops, you

542
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 1: could say, he dies, and he reports some things that

543
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:27,360
Speaker 1: you see in near death experiences. He sees his body

544
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:31,560
Speaker 1: on the ground surrounded by a bluish light. He very

545
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:36,400
Speaker 1: well could have died permanently, but he had a huge

546
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,360
Speaker 1: stroke of luck here there was This wouldn't have happened

547
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 1: in the age of smart phones. There was somebody who

548
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: was just waiting behind him to use the phone next

549
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 1: and luckily for Tony, lucky for science, she happened to

550
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: be a nurse and she was able to resuscitate him.

551
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 1: His face is burned because that's where the lightning the

552
00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:59,720
Speaker 1: electricity entered. His left foot is burned because that's where

553
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 1: the tricity left. For the first few weeks, he's like,

554
00:34:04,360 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: my memory is weird. Something's up with that feel really

555
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:12,359
Speaker 1: low energy. And then that kind of faded and he

556
00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 1: was on the end and he started feeling normal, and

557
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: he just had this really crazy story about how he

558
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:21,160
Speaker 1: got struck by lightning until he got hit with something else.

559
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:23,879
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he got hit with memory problems. I mean

560
00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:25,840
Speaker 1: that was the first thing, right, or that's what he

561
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: was experiencing, um, But he also got hit with one

562
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,720
Speaker 1: of these compulsions we keep talking about. In this case,

563
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: it was the need to listen to classical piano just

564
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 1: fill his head with it as much as he could,

565
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 1: and then the desire and the need to go out

566
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:46,799
Speaker 1: and buy a piano so he could start working on

567
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:49,600
Speaker 1: it and just putting some of that music out through

568
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 1: his hands, through his fingers that he was just experiencing basically,

569
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:57,880
Speaker 1: and he remains an impressive pianist to this day. He

570
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,840
Speaker 1: had no prior history of interest in music, nor a

571
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 1: history of interest in performing. That lightning changed him, and

572
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:12,920
Speaker 1: it changed something about his brain. We're gonna hit you

573
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:14,880
Speaker 1: with one more twist here right before we go to

574
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: the break. Turns out there maybe a third type of savant.

575
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: What are we talking about. We'll tell you after a

576
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:31,520
Speaker 1: word from our sponsors. All right, we've got congenital savant syndrome.

577
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:36,360
Speaker 1: You are born with a condition or some sort of

578
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 1: condition that creates an extraordinary skill set, right uh. And

579
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 1: then we have acquired savants. You survive a traumatic injury

580
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 1: of some sort which changes your brain in a way

581
00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 1: that appears to give you a profound ability as well

582
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:58,280
Speaker 1: as a profound compulsion to pursue that ability. The third

583
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:03,839
Speaker 1: type sudden savants. This is a term describing people who

584
00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:08,920
Speaker 1: have an unprecedented, as of yet an explicable surge in

585
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 1: a specific ability or skill set. Unlike traditional savants and

586
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 1: unlike acquired savants, they don't seem to have any accompanying

587
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:20,840
Speaker 1: brain trauma or injury. They have no damage to the

588
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 1: central nervous system. Instead, they have something that well, let'sten,

589
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 1: I want to introduce this guy, daryld A Treffort. Darrold

590
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: A Treffort is or was for a long time until

591
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:38,400
Speaker 1: he passed in. It's like a world class expert on savants.

592
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:42,359
Speaker 1: He was the go to person for this and he

593
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:46,319
Speaker 1: had this beautiful description of the sudden savant. He said,

594
00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:52,719
Speaker 1: they have a quote unanticipated spontaneous epiphany like moment where

595
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:57,280
Speaker 1: the rules and intricacies of music, art, or mathematics, for example,

596
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: are experienced and revealed produced seeing almost instantaneous giftedness and

597
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:06,919
Speaker 1: ability in the affected area. Think about that. You're normal guy,

598
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 1: You're just You're walking around the streets of um Missoula

599
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 1: or something, and you turn a corner and you like, see,

600
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:18,480
Speaker 1: I I don't know, you just you see like a

601
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 1: sign for Baskin Robbins or something, and all of a sudden,

602
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:27,920
Speaker 1: you have this amazing understanding of math, Like how does that?

603
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 1: How does that work. No one knows. It's just sometimes,

604
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:37,440
Speaker 1: in very rare instances, it appears people acquire extraordinary ability

605
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:40,799
Speaker 1: at a very specific skill set. It is interesting in

606
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:43,040
Speaker 1: my reading of this, bend and correct me if I'm

607
00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:46,440
Speaker 1: wrong here, but it seems as though sleep is in

608
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:50,920
Speaker 1: some way often connected to sudden. So the sudden type

609
00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 1: that we're talking about here were revealed in a dream. Right, Well, yeah,

610
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 1: either somehow, either revealed in a dream or just upon

611
00:37:58,800 --> 00:38:03,360
Speaker 1: waking as the rain reboots. Right, there's just extra code

612
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:07,120
Speaker 1: there for some reason. Uh, Like how it's weird to

613
00:38:07,120 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 1: think about it that way, but that's kind of what

614
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:11,759
Speaker 1: it is. It's like a program got loaded while you

615
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:16,160
Speaker 1: were asleep. They found the DLC. That's what happened, right,

616
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 1: They found the DLC uh. And this is this again,

617
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:23,799
Speaker 1: this does not is not accompanied so far as we know,

618
00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:33,400
Speaker 1: by um damaging or detrimental mental conditions. There are examples

619
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:36,560
Speaker 1: of this in the scientific record. And while they're specific,

620
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 1: skill sets or gifts may differ, Dr Trefford believes they

621
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 1: all have some broad commonalities. And again he's like the

622
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:49,480
Speaker 1: world expert on this. He describes these commonalities and it

623
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:52,720
Speaker 1: really quick checklist and they all They all make sense,

624
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:55,920
Speaker 1: but we need to need to talk about them, especially

625
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:01,720
Speaker 1: the compulsion aspect. So what what makes someone a sudden savan?

626
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 1: What makes that different? Well, we talked about abrupt onset

627
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:09,720
Speaker 1: of a skill, usually with no prior talent or even

628
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:14,359
Speaker 1: prior interest in this, Like I don't understand math, I

629
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 1: didn't care about it. I woke up and now I'm

630
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:21,680
Speaker 1: like the best mathematician in town. How you going to hard?

631
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 1: Now you're going to have it? Add have it yet? Uh?

632
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:35,880
Speaker 1: There's no obvious precipitating events, no injury or disease. The

633
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:43,880
Speaker 1: skill also comes with this seemingly instant knowledge of the

634
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:48,280
Speaker 1: underlying concepts and rules of a thing. I understand basic

635
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:53,239
Speaker 1: mathematical principles. Now I get major and minor scales. I

636
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:57,080
Speaker 1: can see them, I can feel them somehow. And the

637
00:39:57,120 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 1: person who is experiencing this has never studied the things.

638
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:05,360
Speaker 1: They know them without learning them about doing any of

639
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:09,239
Speaker 1: the stuff we described in the first part of this episode. Yeah,

640
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 1: and and the other major component is that O C

641
00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 1: D factor, Right, the need the compulsion to do this thing.

642
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 1: It is now overlaid on top of everything else you

643
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 1: think about. Yeah, and that's that makes it as much

644
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 1: of a force as it makes it a gift in

645
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:32,080
Speaker 1: in the doctor's opinion, there's also for him, there's a

646
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:37,000
Speaker 1: deep fear that sudden savants have that this change because

647
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:40,479
Speaker 1: it is a profound change to your mind, the most

648
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 1: personal thing people possess, and they start to think, they

649
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 1: start to rightly ask themselves, am I going crazy? I've

650
00:40:50,160 --> 00:40:52,880
Speaker 1: got to keep this a secret. It's it's similar to

651
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:55,920
Speaker 1: the superhero trope in comic books. It is to reiterate,

652
00:40:56,239 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 1: it's a super small sample size. Therefore, there's still a

653
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 1: whole lot uh more research left to be done. Um,

654
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:07,760
Speaker 1: if that is the savant syndrome even exists at all. Um,

655
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 1: after hearing all of these confirmed stories that we've been

656
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 1: laying out for, you might surprise you to learn that

657
00:41:14,160 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 1: not every expert believes savan syndrome actually exists. Wait, scientists

658
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:22,319
Speaker 1: disagree with another. That's crazy talk, um, Pamela heating. It's

659
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 1: sort of the nature of the game, sort of like

660
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 1: there have to be these factions, you know, for it,

661
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:30,360
Speaker 1: for it or again. As as a friend, Scott Benjamin

662
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:34,120
Speaker 1: would say, right, Ben, Uh Well, hey, guys and science,

663
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:37,640
Speaker 1: we must always constantly test that which we think we

664
00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:40,919
Speaker 1: know right, Yeah, Well, I mean sure, at the most

665
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:45,319
Speaker 1: uh idealized version of science, um, but you do end

666
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:48,040
Speaker 1: up getting in these kind of fiefdoms and people protecting

667
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 1: their territory and these pet theories and all of that stuff,

668
00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:54,080
Speaker 1: and it can cause a lot of interesting mud slinging. Um.

669
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:57,720
Speaker 1: Pamela Heaton is a PhD professor of psychology at Goldsmith

670
00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:00,719
Speaker 1: University in London. Said quote, I'm not convinced that this

671
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:05,799
Speaker 1: syndrome exists. I once saw a conference presentation of acquired savantism,

672
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 1: but the quality of the art produced had not been

673
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:11,200
Speaker 1: evaluated by an art expert. That someone sustains brain damage

674
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:13,719
Speaker 1: that results in obsessional activity and this becomes focused on

675
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:16,880
Speaker 1: drawing without regard to the quality of the output. Is

676
00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 1: that savantis um? The problem is that people use the

677
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 1: term in different ways. I also think there's a problem

678
00:42:22,160 --> 00:42:25,360
Speaker 1: with her assessment here. And this is clearly like a

679
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 1: scientist describing the value of art, like it's not art

680
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:32,279
Speaker 1: unless it was analyzed by an art expert and like

681
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:35,760
Speaker 1: rated on like the factors. That's not really how people

682
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:38,440
Speaker 1: interpret art. It's sort of subjective, like there's a lot

683
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: of art that's in like modern art museums that wouldn't

684
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 1: necessarily meet the criteria for what the scientist considers art.

685
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:46,360
Speaker 1: So I think that's a problematic statement in and of itself,

686
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 1: But it is interesting to think about obsession with something

687
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 1: is not the same as being incredibly uh proficient at it?

688
00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:02,719
Speaker 1: And you know, does that make sense? Yeah? But proficiency?

689
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:06,239
Speaker 1: How do you define proficiency in art? Like art is

690
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:09,839
Speaker 1: so about the end users experience? Like there's all these

691
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:12,960
Speaker 1: outsider artists that you would not say are particularly good painters,

692
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:16,040
Speaker 1: but they make things that are emotionally resonant. You know,

693
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:19,760
Speaker 1: a lot of art is the context or the story

694
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 1: of the artist. In many cases, that's what people are

695
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:25,520
Speaker 1: buying if they're buying it. But I would the reason

696
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:27,919
Speaker 1: I wanted to pull that quote is, Yeah, first we've

697
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:31,040
Speaker 1: got to acknowledge that not all of the experts agree.

698
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:34,239
Speaker 1: But then secondly, yeah, to your point, art may not

699
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:38,400
Speaker 1: be the best example because arts, um the idea of

700
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 1: art having value is is a very personal, subjective thing. Right.

701
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 1: Do you remember an episode of King of the Hill

702
00:43:44,760 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 1: where Peggy was making these like robot things out of

703
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:52,400
Speaker 1: pro pain tanks and then this gallery owner like in

704
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 1: Houston or whatever, you know, caught wind of her work

705
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:58,399
Speaker 1: and and and just like showered her with praise, made

706
00:43:58,400 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 1: her feel like she was an absolutely yes, and she

707
00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: started like really believing in wearing a beret. And then

708
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:04,840
Speaker 1: she went to the art show and realized she was

709
00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 1: sharing it is any episode hasn't really aged particularly well.

710
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:10,240
Speaker 1: She was sharing it with Jimmy, who was a person

711
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 1: with some mental disabilities, and they again didn't age well.

712
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 1: They really play into that. And he's sort of like

713
00:44:16,200 --> 00:44:18,640
Speaker 1: this wild you know, I think he's like finger painting

714
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:21,000
Speaker 1: or something like that. Again, not not great, but that's

715
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 1: what that episode is about. He's he's capitalizing on this

716
00:44:23,719 --> 00:44:27,840
Speaker 1: whole like outsider savant artist thing in a really gross,

717
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:32,279
Speaker 1: um and uh exploitative way. Yeah. And this this is

718
00:44:32,320 --> 00:44:36,160
Speaker 1: something that you know again is even though that's fictional,

719
00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:40,320
Speaker 1: it is based on a real phenomenon which you're talking about.

720
00:44:40,320 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 1: And this is where this is what takes us to

721
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:48,360
Speaker 1: what I see as the future as the bleeding edge questions.

722
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 1: And we have to be careful how we navigate these

723
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:53,440
Speaker 1: questions because we are talking about real people and we're

724
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:55,880
Speaker 1: talking about things that are yet to be fully understood.

725
00:44:56,840 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: But for a lot of us in the audience today.

726
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:03,520
Speaker 1: One of the questions that naturally arises is, hey, would

727
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:08,839
Speaker 1: it be possible to one day give myself abilities like this?

728
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:14,719
Speaker 1: Could one purposely induce savants like skills right now? The

729
00:45:14,760 --> 00:45:19,879
Speaker 1: answer is not, really, not really and very dangerous. There

730
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:24,799
Speaker 1: is solid science indicating that electrical or magnetic simulation of

731
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:27,880
Speaker 1: the brain u to my favorite old hobby horses, t

732
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:31,319
Speaker 1: d c S or TMS may bestow some sort of

733
00:45:31,360 --> 00:45:35,640
Speaker 1: temporary mental improvement. You can create the feeling of being

734
00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:39,840
Speaker 1: in the quote unquote zone, that area of flow and focus,

735
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:45,920
Speaker 1: but that can also possibly have some damaging effects on

736
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 1: your cognitive processes if it's you know, if you're using

737
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: it all the time over a long period of time.

738
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:56,920
Speaker 1: So what would we need to do to be able

739
00:45:57,040 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 1: to say, like, is there a world where one day,

740
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:02,399
Speaker 1: as someone will say, if you want to get better

741
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:05,800
Speaker 1: at math, take the money you would have paid a tutor,

742
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: and pay a neuroscientist to give you a targeted pop. Ow.

743
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 1: I shouldn't hit myself when I was doing that, but

744
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 1: give yourself a targeted pop to make you all of

745
00:46:16,680 --> 00:46:20,920
Speaker 1: a sudden grad at Trigg trigonometry or whatever. We're not

746
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:25,800
Speaker 1: there yet, but as the research continues, humanity is getting

747
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:28,360
Speaker 1: closer and closer to a world in which that idea

748
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:35,360
Speaker 1: may not be science fiction, which is both amazing and frightening. Yeah.

749
00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:38,399
Speaker 1: I agree, and for my money, I think we might

750
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:44,320
Speaker 1: understand how to do it. In an article in Brain

751
00:46:44,400 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 1: and Life written by Susan Fitzgerald titled studying acquired savant

752
00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:53,520
Speaker 1: syndrome may increase understanding of creativity. Uh, there's some stuff

753
00:46:53,560 --> 00:46:57,399
Speaker 1: in here that, at least through the mechanisms of the brain,

754
00:46:57,480 --> 00:47:00,319
Speaker 1: we think maybe we understand what's happening or what may

755
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:04,040
Speaker 1: be happening. I'm gonna read a little bit from this quote.

756
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:07,000
Speaker 1: The exact mechanisms of how a brain injury could lead

757
00:47:07,040 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 1: to virtuoso skills is not fully understood, but the quote

758
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 1: prefrontal cortex normally suppresses activity in lower brain regions, in

759
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:20,400
Speaker 1: the parietal cortex and elsewhere involved in creativity. Uh, so that,

760
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 1: let's just positive the prefrontal cortex suppresses often those creative

761
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:30,319
Speaker 1: urges that we have. Um, I'm gonna continue here. This

762
00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:33,480
Speaker 1: means that the prefrontal cortex keeps our creative abilities in

763
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:37,160
Speaker 1: check to ensure that we can be creative when necessary,

764
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:39,520
Speaker 1: but that not all of our energy is devoted to

765
00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:42,279
Speaker 1: those activities. So that kind of makes sense, right from

766
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:46,000
Speaker 1: from an evolutionary perspective. Let's be creative when we need

767
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:48,080
Speaker 1: to be creative, but when we need to just take

768
00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 1: care of business, let's also make sure that that is

769
00:47:50,680 --> 00:47:53,640
Speaker 1: at the forefront. That's like the whole almost fight or

770
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:57,440
Speaker 1: flight thing connected to the prefrontal cortex, the more advanced

771
00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:00,919
Speaker 1: parts of our brain. Um is the last part here.

772
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 1: Damage to the prefrontal cortex can sometimes prevent it from

773
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:08,360
Speaker 1: suppressing that activity in the brain in those areas involved

774
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: in creativity, or from keeping the lower brain regions in check.

775
00:48:12,760 --> 00:48:16,200
Speaker 1: And this is a quote from a Barrett bro Guard,

776
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:22,240
Speaker 1: who's a PhD professor of philosophy at the University of Miami. Quote,

777
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 1: without the prefrontal cortex suppressing the activity of the lower

778
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:30,560
Speaker 1: brain areas, you sometimes see hyperactivity in those areas. Yeah,

779
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 1: this is something I talked about in t DCS episodes

780
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:39,879
Speaker 1: as well, that electrical simulation is silencing part one part

781
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:43,399
Speaker 1: of your brain, and then when that part is occupied

782
00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 1: or when it itself is suppressed, when the other parts

783
00:48:47,120 --> 00:48:50,800
Speaker 1: come out to play. You know what I mean. Schools out, Uh,

784
00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:52,880
Speaker 1: there there is part of that, but we don't know

785
00:48:52,960 --> 00:48:56,040
Speaker 1: the long tail consequences though, which is very important. I

786
00:48:56,080 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 1: remember there's a book by Philip K. Dick called Vallas

787
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 1: that sort of auto biographical. It's really weird. He writes

788
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:04,480
Speaker 1: it from the third person and the first person. He's

789
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:07,360
Speaker 1: like writing about himself, like as an omniscian narrator, and

790
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:09,440
Speaker 1: it's about like this this event that happened where like

791
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:11,359
Speaker 1: he says, he claims a pink lazer being from outer

792
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:14,080
Speaker 1: space was fired into his brain and imbued him with

793
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:17,160
Speaker 1: the ability to speak Latin, and like the knowledge that

794
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 1: his son had some sort of rare cancer and that

795
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:22,480
Speaker 1: he was able to like save his life using this knowledge.

796
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 1: I think he's probably largely referring to, you know, hallucinogenic

797
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:28,560
Speaker 1: experience and this kind of talking about this kind of

798
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:31,799
Speaker 1: stuff and the way the pathways in your brain can

799
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:35,880
Speaker 1: be like kind of gamed or unlocked. Let's just say,

800
00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:39,600
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if if there are examples of people unlocking

801
00:49:39,600 --> 00:49:42,920
Speaker 1: these types of abilities through psychedelic experiences, coming on the

802
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 1: other side of one of those particularly powerful one and

803
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 1: realizing you know something you didn't know before, or to

804
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:52,000
Speaker 1: your point, Matt, the whole reframing aspect of it, you

805
00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:56,040
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Yeah, perhaps I think the real

806
00:49:56,120 --> 00:49:58,399
Speaker 1: far out questions for me, you guys when it comes

807
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:02,879
Speaker 1: to the future is are these innate abilities that all

808
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:06,040
Speaker 1: of us have from the structure of our brains because

809
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:08,120
Speaker 1: we do have so much in common when it comes

810
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 1: to how our brains are structured, each each one of us, like,

811
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:16,560
Speaker 1: is this stuff in there already? These these talents, these

812
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:22,239
Speaker 1: abilities to see and understand complex things like music like

813
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 1: a you know, a piano, a guitar, singing abilities, mathematical understanding.

814
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 1: Is that all in there and it just needs to

815
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:36,279
Speaker 1: be unlocked? Or is it something that gets inserted through

816
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:38,840
Speaker 1: like lightning or you know, I mean we just to

817
00:50:38,960 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 1: me it feels as though it's stuff we've all got

818
00:50:44,239 --> 00:50:46,560
Speaker 1: because I don't know how it would be inserted through

819
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:49,120
Speaker 1: an injury or being struck by lightning. We'll think of

820
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:53,840
Speaker 1: it in terms of hardware versus software. What's happening in

821
00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:58,319
Speaker 1: these cases is that the hardware is being affected. It's

822
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 1: not necessarily that there is I love that DLC joke

823
00:51:02,640 --> 00:51:05,440
Speaker 1: from earlier, I'll admit, but it's not necessarily as if

824
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:09,040
Speaker 1: a vast amount of information or software is being downloaded.

825
00:51:09,360 --> 00:51:13,960
Speaker 1: What's happening is that the the the pathways through which

826
00:51:14,040 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 1: the brain encounters the world and evaluates the world have

827
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:23,719
Speaker 1: been altered in some degree to to in some way,

828
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:27,120
Speaker 1: and there are lots of brilliant scientists who are studying

829
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 1: this now. But you also start to run into ethical

830
00:51:31,160 --> 00:51:36,480
Speaker 1: quandaries when you say, like, even even if someone says, okay,

831
00:51:36,520 --> 00:51:40,200
Speaker 1: I will, with informed consent, sign up for a study

832
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:43,279
Speaker 1: seeing whether we can replicate this and what's called a

833
00:51:43,320 --> 00:51:48,920
Speaker 1: neurotypical person, whether we can purposely recreate acquired Savan syndrome.

834
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:50,759
Speaker 1: Even if they sign up for that, and even if

835
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:54,920
Speaker 1: they fully are fully on board with the risk of

836
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:58,440
Speaker 1: traumatic injury to the central nervous system or the brain,

837
00:51:59,000 --> 00:52:04,600
Speaker 1: you would still possibly you would still possibly be doing

838
00:52:04,680 --> 00:52:09,000
Speaker 1: serious damage to someone's mind. That's that's part of the issue. Now,

839
00:52:09,080 --> 00:52:12,200
Speaker 1: does everybody, like I said earlier, you know, the vast

840
00:52:12,239 --> 00:52:16,400
Speaker 1: majority of people are incredibly intelligent when given the opportunity

841
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:19,400
Speaker 1: and the space and the time and the motivation to

842
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:24,719
Speaker 1: really think about things. But not everybody's hardware is the same.

843
00:52:25,160 --> 00:52:29,880
Speaker 1: So there are there are people who maybe are just

844
00:52:31,680 --> 00:52:34,840
Speaker 1: not going to be able to click with math unless

845
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:37,879
Speaker 1: you know, the interstate roots of their brain and how

846
00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:41,560
Speaker 1: their brain encounters math are changed. That's what I would say.

847
00:52:41,560 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? You know? It makes me think

848
00:52:43,560 --> 00:52:45,279
Speaker 1: of a conversation I was having with a friend of

849
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:49,400
Speaker 1: mine about a particular type of therapy is used to

850
00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:52,320
Speaker 1: treat trauma. It's called E M d R and it

851
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:56,840
Speaker 1: stands for eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing, and it's a

852
00:52:56,840 --> 00:53:00,840
Speaker 1: type of psychotherapy. It's designed to help people get past

853
00:53:01,000 --> 00:53:06,440
Speaker 1: traumatic memories by kind of, um, sort of subjecting themselves

854
00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:11,200
Speaker 1: to these traumatic memories while you know, a therapist uses

855
00:53:11,239 --> 00:53:13,160
Speaker 1: like a special kind of light and it has to

856
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:15,440
Speaker 1: do with eye movement and all this stuff. The point is,

857
00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:19,800
Speaker 1: the idea is that it's supposed to we trace those

858
00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:23,799
Speaker 1: neural pathways in your brain and sort of make them

859
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:25,839
Speaker 1: fresh again. And we all know that our brains are

860
00:53:25,840 --> 00:53:30,000
Speaker 1: incredibly elastic and that these pathways can regenerate, you know,

861
00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:32,319
Speaker 1: or or be replaced or or you know, be kind

862
00:53:32,320 --> 00:53:34,719
Speaker 1: of elastic in that way. Um, So I think it's

863
00:53:34,760 --> 00:53:36,680
Speaker 1: really interesting. And then this all just you know, does

864
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:41,279
Speaker 1: speak to the incredible potential power and mystery of the

865
00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:44,160
Speaker 1: human brain and how little we actually know or understand

866
00:53:44,239 --> 00:53:47,000
Speaker 1: about what it's capable of. Because I am a lot

867
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:49,719
Speaker 1: of fun and parties. Let me also and by busting

868
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:54,120
Speaker 1: one of the most popular and misleading myths about the

869
00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:59,279
Speaker 1: nature of the human brain, you're using a dent of

870
00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:03,640
Speaker 1: your brain. You are because your brain is like you know,

871
00:54:03,680 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 1: if you look at a spaceship or a rocket launch,

872
00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:10,960
Speaker 1: there's a very small part of that that has the

873
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:14,080
Speaker 1: astronauts in it. The rest of it is is an

874
00:54:14,239 --> 00:54:17,839
Speaker 1: enormous support system to make sure those people don't die

875
00:54:18,120 --> 00:54:20,080
Speaker 1: and that they get to where they're supposed to be.

876
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:22,720
Speaker 1: So a lot of the stuff your brain is doing

877
00:54:23,440 --> 00:54:26,479
Speaker 1: is stuff that you are not consciously aware of. And

878
00:54:26,680 --> 00:54:29,200
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just to establish this point, I'm gonna do

879
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:34,280
Speaker 1: something I wouldn't ordinarily do, but think about your breathing

880
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:38,200
Speaker 1: right now, think about when you're going in and out

881
00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:41,759
Speaker 1: inhaling and ex helling. And the more you think about it,

882
00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 1: the more you bring it to the conscious part of

883
00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:48,160
Speaker 1: your brain, the harder it is going to be to

884
00:54:48,280 --> 00:54:51,439
Speaker 1: not pay attention to it, right That's that's the thing,

885
00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:54,040
Speaker 1: Like you want it to be an unconscious activity. So

886
00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:58,360
Speaker 1: your brain is a tremendous piece of technology or a

887
00:54:58,360 --> 00:55:03,400
Speaker 1: piece of equipment at least, but you are not aware

888
00:55:03,400 --> 00:55:06,120
Speaker 1: of a lot of the work it's doing. I also

889
00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:10,399
Speaker 1: would like to recommend everybody check out our three part

890
00:55:10,480 --> 00:55:12,920
Speaker 1: series and How Your Brain Deceives You? What do we do?

891
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:19,200
Speaker 1: We did love hate, There's something else, but but it's

892
00:55:19,200 --> 00:55:24,279
Speaker 1: an amazing thing that humanity still doesn't fully understand, and

893
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 1: research in this field maybe one of the keys to

894
00:55:28,160 --> 00:55:31,320
Speaker 1: make it some real breakthroughs. Here at this point I

895
00:55:31,400 --> 00:55:33,880
Speaker 1: say we we have to toss it to our fellow

896
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:36,880
Speaker 1: conspiracy realist. First, thank you again to Dwayne for the

897
00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:40,399
Speaker 1: excellent suggestion. And also, what do you think what can

898
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:44,920
Speaker 1: savant syndrome teach us about the human brain? Matt Nol,

899
00:55:45,080 --> 00:55:47,520
Speaker 1: This is a question for us as well. Would you

900
00:55:47,560 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 1: ever consider participating in research that could just maybe give

901
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:54,840
Speaker 1: you that shortcut? You know, like you don't have to

902
00:55:54,880 --> 00:55:59,839
Speaker 1: spend four years getting a college level bachelor's and mathematics.

903
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:03,600
Speaker 1: You can just get the ball. What would you do?

904
00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 1: I'm already a video game, so on, I'm good, okay,

905
00:56:06,719 --> 00:56:12,560
Speaker 1: fair enough, but you know, yeah, I'm just an idiot. Well, uh,

906
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:15,399
Speaker 1: we can't wait to hear from you all, so let

907
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 1: us know what's on your mind. We have a number

908
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:19,960
Speaker 1: of ways to contact us. We try to be easy

909
00:56:20,000 --> 00:56:24,360
Speaker 1: to find online, correct amando. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,

910
00:56:24,800 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 1: and YouTube at the handle Conspiracy Stuff. You can find

911
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:30,360
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at the handlo Conspiracy Stuff Show. You

912
00:56:30,360 --> 00:56:32,000
Speaker 1: don't want to check us out on social media, why

913
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:35,960
Speaker 1: not give us a telephone call? Yes to please? I

914
00:56:36,040 --> 00:56:39,120
Speaker 1: remember is one eight three three st d w y

915
00:56:39,200 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 1: t K. When you call in, give yourself a cool nickname.

916
00:56:43,160 --> 00:56:44,920
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what it is. As long as it's

917
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:48,080
Speaker 1: fun for you and for us, it's gonna be great.

918
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:50,719
Speaker 1: Let us know if we can use your voice and

919
00:56:50,840 --> 00:56:53,239
Speaker 1: message on the air and one of our listener Maile

920
00:56:53,320 --> 00:56:57,359
Speaker 1: episodes that come out every Thursday. And uh oh hey,

921
00:56:57,480 --> 00:57:01,839
Speaker 1: I really am interested personally in your concepts around this

922
00:57:01,880 --> 00:57:05,120
Speaker 1: topic that are more metaphysical or you know out there.

923
00:57:05,400 --> 00:57:07,640
Speaker 1: I just want to I want us to have thought

924
00:57:07,680 --> 00:57:10,040
Speaker 1: experiments together on that. So if you've got any weird

925
00:57:10,120 --> 00:57:12,640
Speaker 1: ideas that you think might be a little out there,

926
00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:15,480
Speaker 1: send them our way. And if you've got more to

927
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:18,440
Speaker 1: say than can fit in that three minute voicemail message,

928
00:57:18,800 --> 00:57:21,960
Speaker 1: why not instead consider sending us a good old fashioned email.

929
00:57:22,360 --> 00:57:44,880
Speaker 1: We are conspiracy at iHeart Radio dot com stuff they

930
00:57:44,920 --> 00:57:46,800
Speaker 1: don't want you to know. Is a production of I

931
00:57:46,960 --> 00:57:50,040
Speaker 1: heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit

932
00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:52,840
Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

933
00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:54,040
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.