Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know?
Speaker 1: From House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And that makes the stuff you
Speaker 1: should know. That's right, Yes, it is not other imitators.
Speaker 1: I wonder how many times I've said that that makes
Speaker 1: the stuff you should know. No, the just the whole spiel,
Speaker 1: the whole opening. Hey, you welcome to the podcast. Well
Speaker 1: you've said it about two hundred and seventy. Sometimes I think,
Speaker 1: luckily we have them all saved and we could count
Speaker 1: we do. I don't know if it's lucky, though, Chuck,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of shows, dude, we should do something
Speaker 1: special for three hundred. That's like, that's a lot of shows.
Speaker 1: It is that makes me probably Okay, Well, do you
Speaker 1: think maybe we could get some cake around here or something?
Speaker 1: Shrimp cocktail the love of Pete. No, I'm allergic to
Speaker 1: shrimp now, I remember, I know, But to let a
Speaker 1: throat out there. Actually, I had a shrimp wanton the
Speaker 1: other day and nothing happened. I had a wanton with
Speaker 1: shrimp and nothing happened. So it was just like tiny
Speaker 1: little bits of shrimp. And I don't know either that
Speaker 1: or I'm getting stronger. Maybe so superhuman, you might say
Speaker 1: trans human speaking of human um, chuck. There is a
Speaker 1: recent study that came out in part from one of
Speaker 1: our universities here in the city, Emory, right down the street,
Speaker 1: Great School. There's been this problem that's been plaguing researchers
Speaker 1: for a really long time, and that is at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the Lower Paleolithic period, which is about two
Speaker 1: points seven million years ago, we started using sharp rocks
Speaker 1: as bashing and cutting tools. So we figured that out. Okay,
Speaker 1: you can take a rock, that's technology. That's not horse,
Speaker 1: that's technology. Yes, okay, you can take this rock and
Speaker 1: you can use it to when a coconut or the
Speaker 1: head of someone who's wrong. Do you using an implement
Speaker 1: to complete attack? Well, specifically sharp rocks? Okay? It took
Speaker 1: two million years the end of the Lower Paleolithic period
Speaker 1: before we figured out that we could actually attach handles
Speaker 1: to these things. And tournament how long it took? Yes,
Speaker 1: And this is baffled scientists, like, how could it possibly
Speaker 1: have taken two million years to go from using your
Speaker 1: hand to attaching a stick. You know, this doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense. So, um, well they were dumb back then.
Speaker 1: Well a dumb is close to it. They would literally
Speaker 1: were lacking the region of the brain needed. Apparently, according
Speaker 1: to this new study, Um, they they basically we developed
Speaker 1: a region in the right hemisphere, specifically the supra marginal gyrus,
Speaker 1: which allowed us to go, hey, let's put a hand
Speaker 1: on this. And after we did that, we moved out
Speaker 1: of Africa and started colonizing the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: So that's they've been pointed the region of the brain
Speaker 1: that is specific to innovation, too specific to um stone toolmaking. Okay,
Speaker 1: I thought you meant innovation in general. No, like that's
Speaker 1: where your ideas come from. No, give me a second,
Speaker 1: old ramp all shoot, did every rue it? It's okay? Um.
Speaker 1: So we go from I can't figure out how to
Speaker 1: attach a handle to a sharp rocky two million years
Speaker 1: we figured that out, We leave Africa, and we start
Speaker 1: colonizing the rest of the world, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden things start entering light speed, right, And it seems
Speaker 1: like over the last couple hundred years, you know, especially
Speaker 1: since the Industrial Revolution, our ability to innovate, to grasp
Speaker 1: new ideas, to understand the world around us has just
Speaker 1: been hitting this hyper speed, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: wonder if we've reached a point where all the ideas,
Speaker 1: all the good ones at least, have already been discovered,
Speaker 1: all the we under stand how everything works, and there's
Speaker 1: really just figuring out how to dot the eyes and
Speaker 1: cross the teas right right. There was actually a guy
Speaker 1: who famously said in guy named Charles Buell. I love
Speaker 1: this quote. He was, He was the commissioner of the
Speaker 1: Patents Office. That's attributed to him, I should say, but
Speaker 1: he said something like everything that can be invented has
Speaker 1: already been invented. And he said this in a memo,
Speaker 1: basically saying like you should go ahead and shut down
Speaker 1: the patent office. He clearly had never considered the Snuggie
Speaker 1: Josh or anything that's been invented since. So here's what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say. I'm gonna go ahead and give you
Speaker 1: my summation early on, Okay, is that I think people
Speaker 1: think at various times in history that they've plateaued, and
Speaker 1: then I think things happen. People come along innovators and
Speaker 1: then they reached new heights and they go, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we didn't know that, and we there are new ideas, right.
Speaker 1: It's it's on most umb. It almost displays a shameful
Speaker 1: lack of historic awareness to say we've reached the end
Speaker 1: of all of our good ideas. It's just it's just
Speaker 1: asking to be made a fool of, yeah, or for
Speaker 1: people to maybe people do that on purpose, to go
Speaker 1: the innovators and say, oh, yeah, right, using reverse psychology,
Speaker 1: you know that's how innovation works. Yeah, you might as
Speaker 1: well just give up. Reverse psychology drives innovation. There are
Speaker 1: people though, that say that technological that real technological innovation
Speaker 1: has been stalled for quite a while. Yes, after the
Speaker 1: nineties computer revolution, everything else since then has kind of
Speaker 1: been like, uh, packaging it and better looking cases and
Speaker 1: sleeker designs, and it's all like design oriented it is,
Speaker 1: or marketing oriented. These these guys Cedric Lagare and Eric Virdo,
Speaker 1: we're both with scheme of business school. Um basically say, smartphones, Yes,
Speaker 1: they seem incredibly new and cutting in, but really they're
Speaker 1: just the packaging of several already extant technologies into a
Speaker 1: really sharp looking handheld device, but there's still a new idea.
Speaker 1: I would argue it is still a new idea. But
Speaker 1: I think what their point is is saying, like, but
Speaker 1: before the late nineties and before the eighties, let's say,
Speaker 1: with computers, but especially the tech boom of the telecom
Speaker 1: boom of the late nineties, Like this stuff wasn't around, Like,
Speaker 1: it's not true innovation rights, it's kind of repurposing and
Speaker 1: what you were saying, like the cosmetic changes to a computer. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why they they believe that this
Speaker 1: is going on is because we've come to a point
Speaker 1: in the computer revolution. I think, chuck, where, Um, it's
Speaker 1: not you can still make tons of cash just by
Speaker 1: changing the casing of a CPU. Yeah, there's like no
Speaker 1: money in innovation basically, is what I got from this
Speaker 1: one article is that innovation costs more than it's worth
Speaker 1: when you can just repackage what you've got in a
Speaker 1: sleeker design and people buy it up. Exactly. Um, these
Speaker 1: two authors of this article, UM predict that we're gonna
Speaker 1: have two trends that will drive innovation. I guess currently right, yes,
Speaker 1: that consolidation where basically like especially with I think they're
Speaker 1: talking just about computers. Yeah, because they're saying the big
Speaker 1: hardware firms are going to all consolidate all of the
Speaker 1: smaller hardware firms to where they'll just basically be like
Speaker 1: the Big three or five, and that will leave it
Speaker 1: to the software firms to compete and innovate, so we'll
Speaker 1: see more innovation in the software side rather than the
Speaker 1: hardware side. And they're also saying that, um, the green
Speaker 1: boom is going to drive innovation that makes sense, like
Speaker 1: coming up with sustainable packages or sustainable solutions. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: One of the other things I pointed out thought was
Speaker 1: interesting was the they said they said the tes uh
Speaker 1: they call it the tech refresh cycle is too small
Speaker 1: right now. So what's happening is they'll say, Um, you
Speaker 1: like your CD, well you're gonna love the the Super
Speaker 1: Audio CD or Blu Ray. Do you like your DVD.
Speaker 1: You're gonna love Blu Ray. But guess what's coming up
Speaker 1: after Blu Ray. It's gonna be like Super Blue Ray.
Speaker 1: It's happening so fast. People aren't abandoning their current systems.
Speaker 1: They're just like, you know what, I'm gonna hold on
Speaker 1: because I don't want to be the guy stuck with
Speaker 1: the laser disc player in a couple of years, so
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the same thing happens. No one's
Speaker 1: buying it, so it's not worth a much money, which
Speaker 1: means that nobody's putting any effort into it and money
Speaker 1: into it. So innovation sees right. And there's a guy,
Speaker 1: um named Edmund Phelps who's a professor of political economy
Speaker 1: at Columbia University, right, and he's basically kind of saying
Speaker 1: the same thing. He's saying that, Um, there's not enough
Speaker 1: money going toward innovation. But rather than the the onus
Speaker 1: being put on consumers not buying blue rays of fear
Speaker 1: of looking like laser disc jerks, Um, it's actually government
Speaker 1: and big business that's not pouring money into small innovators. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he said, that's the innovation is the only thing not
Speaker 1: subsidized by the United States government, which he says is
Speaker 1: actually attacks in a way because it's not being subsidized. Reach.
Speaker 1: You could definitely, Yeah, I think a lot of these
Speaker 1: guy's points are reached. But um, what he's suggesting is
Speaker 1: if the government isn't pouring money into big business so
Speaker 1: that they can pour money into I guess small venture firms. Um,
Speaker 1: these people who are in their garages aren't going to
Speaker 1: take you know, risks, They're not going to innovate. There's
Speaker 1: no incentive. Right. I disagree with this. I dispute this
Speaker 1: because he's saying, like the people who do work in
Speaker 1: their garages and you know, are the Steve Jobs and
Speaker 1: Bill Gates in the seventies, that they were driven by
Speaker 1: this lust for money exactly. And I think that's wrong.
Speaker 1: I think that people innovate first and foremost to get
Speaker 1: this idea out of their head and birth into reality. Right.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said this because I completely agreed. Regardless
Speaker 1: of what you think of the Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg didn't
Speaker 1: invent Facebook to make gobs of money. He invented to
Speaker 1: make real friends. Yeah, to to innovate. And that's what
Speaker 1: that's my point that you made is that these people
Speaker 1: in the garage, the true innovators. They don't care if
Speaker 1: they have two pennies to rub together. They're still gonna
Speaker 1: be trying to innovate and make a name for themselves
Speaker 1: and come up with something awesome. Right. And now there
Speaker 1: are people out there who are trying to innovate for
Speaker 1: you know, the riches sure. The guy who invented the
Speaker 1: snugg he wasn't in his garage and just wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of get this out or else I'm never gonna sleep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the people that are looking for the next get
Speaker 1: rich quick thing. But I think you can also make
Speaker 1: a point that, um, when you introduce money to innovation,
Speaker 1: it leads to actual stagnation. Um, because when you introduce money,
Speaker 1: there's now uh something to lose, and people are less
Speaker 1: willing to take risks, and risk is one of the
Speaker 1: driving the willingness to take risk is one of the
Speaker 1: driving forces of innovation. You know. Yeah, well, I Phelps
Speaker 1: had a good idea, uh and this will never happen,
Speaker 1: of course, because it's a good idea to create the
Speaker 1: first national Bank of innovation all capitalized capitalized not all caps,
Speaker 1: but each word is capitalized. He should do it all
Speaker 1: in all caps with exclamation points. But basically, it would
Speaker 1: be a bank that you could go and partner, you know,
Speaker 1: as a startup company and partner with his bank for
Speaker 1: financing and you know, get I would guess some sort
Speaker 1: of low interest loans to spur innovation. Right. That was
Speaker 1: a great idea, So it is. It is a good
Speaker 1: idea and this does happen in the real world, and
Speaker 1: the government does pour money into innovation. He's not exactly
Speaker 1: correct in that sense. And I also kind of resented
Speaker 1: that he placed big business in between you know, people
Speaker 1: in their garage innovating and you know, government subsidies that
Speaker 1: we have to have big business give them the money
Speaker 1: and then skim a little off the top and give
Speaker 1: it to this guy in the garage. He's drawing broad
Speaker 1: strokes here. For sure. There are government programs, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about one from the National Institutes of Health where
Speaker 1: the government says, hey, you have a really good idea,
Speaker 1: Mr or MS research scientists, and we're gonna give you
Speaker 1: enough money to survive for three years. Yeah, because the
Speaker 1: deal is you can always get grants if you know,
Speaker 1: you put together a nice package. But this program with
Speaker 1: the n i H what's it called the New Innovator Award,
Speaker 1: Director's New Innovator Award. This is uh intended for people
Speaker 1: who have such a good idea, but it's so new
Speaker 1: that they don't have the data to write a grant
Speaker 1: where people would say, like, it looks like you're onto
Speaker 1: something here, So they're sort of throwing money at stuff.
Speaker 1: That's like, you know, you're the dude in the garage
Speaker 1: and we believe in this idea. Go see what you
Speaker 1: can find out, right, and we're keeping big business out
Speaker 1: of the way. Yes, but now that and I h
Speaker 1: owns you for the rest of your career. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: let's talk about UM. There's three people at U c
Speaker 1: l A That got these grants recently and they're up
Speaker 1: to some kind of some interesting one could say innovative stuff, right.
Speaker 1: They have some good ideas, hugely innovative about how to
Speaker 1: UM approach problems, like the professor Dino di Carlo. All
Speaker 1: these I think these people are younger than us. By
Speaker 1: the way, UM Dino de Carlo is working on ways
Speaker 1: to basically apply heat or pressure or chemicals to very
Speaker 1: specific sites in cells using nanoparticles and magnets, which is tough,
Speaker 1: sounds like a winning idea to me. Is basically one
Speaker 1: of the big problems we have with UM getting cells,
Speaker 1: engineering cells to do specific things, like UM, I don't know,
Speaker 1: attack other cells for fun. Like if tell me that
Speaker 1: wouldn't be like a big Christmas gift this year, if
Speaker 1: you could like make cells fight with one another under
Speaker 1: the microscope, UM then what you have to basically try
Speaker 1: to engineer the cell, you know, time after time after time,
Speaker 1: and basically program it to do what you want it
Speaker 1: to do. What Di Carlo is coming up with is
Speaker 1: a way to use very tiny magnets and even tinier
Speaker 1: nano particles that can basically you, my brain is so small.
Speaker 1: When you move the magnet with a joystick, it attracts
Speaker 1: the nano particles in a certain direction or whatever, and
Speaker 1: you can have the nano particles apply heat or pressure
Speaker 1: or a specific chemical to a specific site on a
Speaker 1: cell and direct it to go attack another cell for
Speaker 1: your pleasure. That's awesome, your amusement. So one point five
Speaker 1: mill goes to uh de Carlo and for a good reason.
Speaker 1: And for a good reason. The other winner, one of
Speaker 1: the other winners, was Hugh Wang, and you came up
Speaker 1: with basically, I'm gonna break this down easy. Instead of saying,
Speaker 1: let me come up with cure for cancer, hu Wang said,
Speaker 1: let me come up with a way to detect cancer
Speaker 1: so early, like way earlier than we've ever detected it before,
Speaker 1: that we can stop in his track essentially curing cancer.
Speaker 1: And he's doing this, actually I don't know, she's doing
Speaker 1: this um through uh nano material called graphine that is
Speaker 1: just one atom thick. Yes, graphine is like the super
Speaker 1: clearly not of this world material. It's literally a carbon
Speaker 1: atom thick. That's it. So, but it is a biological
Speaker 1: sensor to tell you when cells aren't doing the things
Speaker 1: that should be doing. So did you know a graham
Speaker 1: of this stuff? It's flattened covers a football field. Wow,
Speaker 1: it's ultra light. That is thin, my friend, it's one
Speaker 1: atom thin. So one point five mail to hu Wang, Right, well,
Speaker 1: did you explain how? Let me let me try my
Speaker 1: hand at this. So basically what you do is you um,
Speaker 1: you put a graphine conductor transistor UM in a cell
Speaker 1: and when these biological markers right say his stones or
Speaker 1: something like that, start to accumulate, they're attracted to the graphing.
Speaker 1: And these, by the way these biological markers are, we
Speaker 1: found are correlated with the growth of cancer, the origin
Speaker 1: of cancer. That's where they're starting. UM. And when some
Speaker 1: of these markers like are attracted to the graphing, they
Speaker 1: create an electrical charge that we can sense. And the
Speaker 1: graphine is so thin but so highly conductive that um
Speaker 1: with just a couple of these molecules attaching to the graphing.
Speaker 1: We would be able to detect it and be like,
Speaker 1: oh right, we'd be like, oh crap, you have cancer
Speaker 1: and we'd cure it right then. Wow, Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's a good way to approach a cure for cancer.
Speaker 1: If you asked me, did I explain that? Well? I
Speaker 1: think so. I think the last winner this year was
Speaker 1: Jen Hill Lee and Jin is trying to debug the
Speaker 1: brain circuit using you know, we have the Wonder Machine,
Speaker 1: which is our favorite thing in the world fm R I,
Speaker 1: which measures uh measures. It measures blood and oxygen levels
Speaker 1: in the brain, so it tells you these areas light
Speaker 1: up there called bold signals blood and oxygen level dependent.
Speaker 1: They light up to correspond a certain brain right, And
Speaker 1: we've talked about this before, like you're seeing that there's
Speaker 1: more oxygen that's going to that part of the brain.
Speaker 1: So we've assumed this is the basis of the f
Speaker 1: m R I. If it has more oxygen being delivered
Speaker 1: to it, that must mean that that region of the
Speaker 1: brain is active. When you show somebody a picture of
Speaker 1: you know, their kid, like being carried away into a
Speaker 1: van that you know that's the fear region right there. Um.
Speaker 1: That doesn't really say anything though, and it doesn't. It
Speaker 1: doesn't also implicate well it's it's not it's showing. Okay,
Speaker 1: well there's more oxygen in this region, right? What this is, um?
Speaker 1: What what genuine Lee is looking at is um how
Speaker 1: or what specifically on the neuronal level is being activated? Right?
Speaker 1: And he's using opt to genetics, So it's going to
Speaker 1: be called the O F M R I. And that's
Speaker 1: beyond even what we thought was the wonder machine. So
Speaker 1: this is the super duper wonder machine. Basically, he's using
Speaker 1: light to allow genetically specified neurons to be activated. Right.
Speaker 1: Do you know, um, are one of our listeners that
Speaker 1: Emory has been harping on us doing one on opt
Speaker 1: to genetics for a while. We should get this person
Speaker 1: in here. This is probably his closest forever gonna come
Speaker 1: out and it uh, well it's a great idea though
Speaker 1: obviously because Jin Young Lee won one of the Innovator
Speaker 1: Awards as well. Yes, and they give these out every year,
Speaker 1: so they clearly believe that we're not out of good ideas.
Speaker 1: No excellent point choke h no, and we're not out
Speaker 1: of good ideas. So yes, Chuck, we we you pick
Speaker 1: those out. You found those guys all right, Well I
Speaker 1: didn't personally find them. You're like, these guys should get
Speaker 1: the UM. There are very good ideas out there, right,
Speaker 1: But there is a debate that's raging in science UM
Speaker 1: about whether these ideas like optogenetics or um, you know,
Speaker 1: using graphine or nanoparticles to cure detect cancer. UM, are
Speaker 1: these variations on a theme? Are they applying cosmetic changes
Speaker 1: to a computer rather than really creating new parts to it? Right?
Speaker 1: And basically the question is, um, are are are there
Speaker 1: any more major discoveries for us to make or are
Speaker 1: these really just basically at Remember I've always said like
Speaker 1: we we have the pieces on the table, now we
Speaker 1: just have to put it together. Is that the point
Speaker 1: that we're at? UM said we were, I did, and
Speaker 1: then we started researching this, and I'm like, I wonder,
Speaker 1: I think I still do believe that. UM. But within
Speaker 1: that though, there's so much that it's to me a
Speaker 1: little bit like splitting hair. Well, but you're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: especially when you throw in the word discovered, right, Discovery
Speaker 1: indicates something that's already out there. We just figure it
Speaker 1: out or stumble upon it and an idea necessarily kind
Speaker 1: of UM invention leads, Yeah, it leads to an invention.
Speaker 1: It's something we we've created, like technology. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about discovery, right. We have a lot of UM problems
Speaker 1: that are still facing us and how we understand the universe,
Speaker 1: like human consciousness. How do brain cells create our understanding
Speaker 1: of the world, like what we see as reality? How
Speaker 1: is that possible? And can we figure everything out? Well,
Speaker 1: that's the big question. Is there there's a UM there's
Speaker 1: Like I said, there's a lot of debate about whether
Speaker 1: or not we will ever be able to figure everything out,
Speaker 1: or if the human brain just simply isn't UM programmed
Speaker 1: to understand the world? Uh fully, you know, will will.
Speaker 1: There's a guy who's a physicist. His name is um
Speaker 1: Russell Standard, and he's written this book called The End
Speaker 1: of Discovery, and basically he's saying he says that we're
Speaker 1: in quote a transient age of human development, right where
Speaker 1: we're past the point where we figured out you can
Speaker 1: put a handle on a rock and make it an ax.
Speaker 1: But we're right before the point where we can no
Speaker 1: longer make discoveries. Not because we've understood everything or figured
Speaker 1: everything out. But because we've reached the limits of what
Speaker 1: is noble for the human brain. But even that, look
Speaker 1: at that, that part of the the right hemisphere that
Speaker 1: developed and allowed us to put the axe handle on, right,
Speaker 1: who's to say that our brain won't that we won't
Speaker 1: reach that point where we can't know anything any longer,
Speaker 1: or I can't know everything? And in uh, we evolve
Speaker 1: even further and all of a sudden we're even better
Speaker 1: at um understanding our world. Right, But will we end
Speaker 1: up eventually coming to a point where humans understand everything
Speaker 1: and there is no more discovery to make I say no,
Speaker 1: because he he points out in here and this is
Speaker 1: I think very valid from the Midnight century, the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry they said that. A lot of people in
Speaker 1: science said, you know, we've kind of debunked religion and
Speaker 1: philosophy and all these things with scientific discovery. But he
Speaker 1: points out, and I agree that even if you figure
Speaker 1: out all the problems of science, which will never happen,
Speaker 1: there's still human life and consciousness in the subjectivity of
Speaker 1: what goes on inside a person's head. You're never gonna
Speaker 1: solve that's not solvable, right, that's what I argue. That's subjectivism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: before I think I believe in that there, well, they're
Speaker 1: the whole the I guess I I agree with you. Um,
Speaker 1: there's this aspect of the universe that Kant called the
Speaker 1: new Amenon, new amenon that was specifically tailored from my
Speaker 1: thick time. But basically the new aminon is the thing
Speaker 1: itself right where um it has. It's just the objective.
Speaker 1: It's the objective universe, and we don't interact with that.
Speaker 1: Everything we know and understand is subjective, and this is
Speaker 1: where subjectivism is is based that basically we can never
Speaker 1: fully know anything or and we certainly won't ever know
Speaker 1: everything because one thing that will always be elusive is
Speaker 1: what you see. My reality is different than your reality exactly,
Speaker 1: and there's different. There's an extreme version of it called
Speaker 1: so solipsism, right, yes, and solipsism is the the um
Speaker 1: this extreme version of subjectivism that basically says, um, we
Speaker 1: everything is so subjective that I can't fully verify that
Speaker 1: you exist. The only thing I know that exists is
Speaker 1: my reality, but all of you may be made up.
Speaker 1: I may be totally completely out of my mind and
Speaker 1: actually in a padded cell right now and none of
Speaker 1: you are really real Well, that's sort of touches on
Speaker 1: the whole quantum mechanics thing, right, don't you think Please? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't have a whole to say about
Speaker 1: it because we've covered it, but it definitely is along
Speaker 1: the same line. So I think, well, yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: there's an interpretation of quantum mechanics that basically says, um,
Speaker 1: everything we know about the universe we know through observation,
Speaker 1: and but once you observe it, it it changes. That's part
Speaker 1: of it. And when when we observe, we we gain information, right,
Speaker 1: but we can't observe everything at once, So all we
Speaker 1: know exists in our reality for sure, is what we're observing.
Speaker 1: So everything else, like what's going on out there in
Speaker 1: the office right now, doesn't exist because we're not there
Speaker 1: to observe it. Mind blowing. Once again, it is mind blowing,
Speaker 1: but it all So we say all this not just
Speaker 1: to you know, rock out to Floyd, but um, because
Speaker 1: this is this is what science is up against. This
Speaker 1: isn't just jibberish. This isn't just philosophical jibberish, as much
Speaker 1: as science would like it to be. There is a
Speaker 1: true problem with the fact that subjectivity, not objectivity, is
Speaker 1: how we interact with our universe, even though science is
Speaker 1: based it's supposed to be based exclusively on objectivity. Right. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: Stephen Hawking, you might have heard of him and another
Speaker 1: dude named Leonard load Loader. Now is how I'm going
Speaker 1: to pronounce that there's a silent m in there somewhere.
Speaker 1: They have a new book called The Grand Design, and
Speaker 1: they are now saying that I think scientists used to
Speaker 1: say we're gonna find the theory of everything. Now they're saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, We're probably not going to find the
Speaker 1: theory of everything, but it's probably gonna be more like
Speaker 1: what they call, quote a family of interconnected theories which
Speaker 1: describe your reality under very specific conditions. And this is
Speaker 1: kind of huge for Stephen Hawking because he's long been
Speaker 1: a big supporter of the theory of everything, which takes
Speaker 1: the standard model of physics, includes gravity, which has always
Speaker 1: been elusive, and then marries it with quantum mechanics to
Speaker 1: explain everything. That's the theory of everything. It's one theory
Speaker 1: that explains everything, right, like that surfer guy exactly, Garrett Leci.
Speaker 1: I think it's damn it was. And you know it's
Speaker 1: going to be years before he's shown to be correct
Speaker 1: or incorrect. But Hawking saying it's probably not going to
Speaker 1: be the case. There's going to there's too many different
Speaker 1: variables that don't fit together. But the thing that really
Speaker 1: scares a physicist, that will scare any physicist, is this sports.
Speaker 1: Those are those models that we've come up with. Are
Speaker 1: they how the universe actually works? Or how we look
Speaker 1: at the universe and see how it works? You see
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. There's that subjectivism again. It can't be
Speaker 1: whipped well. And all the things that we've said over
Speaker 1: the years that we have formed to be true, are
Speaker 1: those even true? Or are are the conclusions we're reaching
Speaker 1: just based on years of thought compiled that may not
Speaker 1: have been true to begin with. So I like we
Speaker 1: arrive at reality by consensus. Yeah, but is that consensus?
Speaker 1: Was that even accurate along the way? Not necessarily. It's
Speaker 1: been shown time and time again that it's it hasn't
Speaker 1: been accurate through these um the five revolutions, as VM
Speaker 1: Ramaschandra and puts them. Arnicus Copernicus was the first one
Speaker 1: who said that Earth is not the center of the universe,
Speaker 1: Darwinism dark very good. Chuck Darwin's says like, hey, we're
Speaker 1: actually just a bunch of apes DNA Freud Freud Freud
Speaker 1: saying like we we actually are driven by desires that
Speaker 1: we can't control and aren't really aware of DNA, which
Speaker 1: is saying I think James Watson, who found DNA along
Speaker 1: with Francis Crick, said quote, there are only molecules, everything
Speaker 1: else is sociologist. I love that quote, man, It's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite. And then um, the Fifth Revolution, the
Speaker 1: neuroscience revolution, that we're all everything, are all of our
Speaker 1: understanding movements and and experiences are nothing but um neuronal transmissions,
Speaker 1: electrochemical impulses. Right, so there's not even sociology that even
Speaker 1: is just based on firing neurons. Right, That's that's where
Speaker 1: we're at right now. That's why I say, I think
Speaker 1: we have everything on the table, just haven't put it together.
Speaker 1: But it's entirely possible historically speaking, to say, well we
Speaker 1: thought that before and we didn't. And what revolution is next?
Speaker 1: Will that will the next revolution get us over the
Speaker 1: wall of subjectivism or will that be the wall that
Speaker 1: we always run into? This is a good one, and well,
Speaker 1: I was worried about this one. It came out pretty
Speaker 1: good in it. I think, so, yeah, don't you like
Speaker 1: it when we like pat ourselves in the back of
Speaker 1: the end of the show, I think this one deserves it.
Speaker 1: Man well, so from Blue Rays to Carons And at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, Josh and Chuck say, we
Speaker 1: are not out of new ideas. Can I speak for you?
Speaker 1: Go ahead, We're not out of new ideas. And just
Speaker 1: when you think you're out of new ideas, just when
Speaker 1: you think of plateaued comes up you wang along to
Speaker 1: say no, no, no, no, there are new ideas and
Speaker 1: here's one you know not give me the cash exactly.
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about innovation and new ideas,
Speaker 1: we have tons of stuff all over the site. Just
Speaker 1: type in innovation, type in discovery. I'm sure that'll bring
Speaker 1: up a ton of stuff. Um, and type in neurons.
Speaker 1: That will bring up some pretty cool stuff too. Agreed. Uh,
Speaker 1: you can type all those words into the handy search
Speaker 1: bar how stuff works dot com, which means it's time
Speaker 1: for a listener mail. Yes, Josh, I'm gonna follow this
Speaker 1: very heavy podcast with the opposite an email for him Okay,
Speaker 1: this is from our thirteen year old fan Payton in California. Well, hello,
Speaker 1: I'm sending us from my eye touch while laying in bed.
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to be asleep, so anyway, I just started
Speaker 1: listening to your podcast after my friend Claire. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: the Claire from California whose email you read on the air,
Speaker 1: who thinks Jerry looks like Tina f A. Uh. Claire
Speaker 1: is his his Peyton's friend. So she said, oh, you
Speaker 1: got in the year, so i'letna starting listening to you. Um. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm saying Peyton is a girl, Peten maybe a boy.
Speaker 1: You never know? Oh really, yeah, it's indragynus right, yeah,
Speaker 1: ambivalent at least. Uh. Claire posted on her Facebook page
Speaker 1: that I said, listen to the most recent podcast because
Speaker 1: you guys read her letter or something. I thought it
Speaker 1: was so cool. Claire and I are really good friends. Anyways,
Speaker 1: I love this podcast. Gosh, I feel so boring because
Speaker 1: I keep saying podcast. Is there like another word for that?
Speaker 1: Jared laughed at that. Anyways, I definitely she does that
Speaker 1: thing like the kids do now where they put like
Speaker 1: eight s at the end of a word. Have you
Speaker 1: seen that yeah, I don't get that. I don't either, original,
Speaker 1: I guess. So. I most definitely enjoyed the podcast on
Speaker 1: the Octopi and stuff I thought was Octopie. I thought
Speaker 1: it was informational and funny. By the way, this email
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. It's because my eye touch is
Speaker 1: dumb and auto correct words that have already spelled right
Speaker 1: ERG moving on your iPhone does that too? And mind
Speaker 1: does that? What's this? An email written with one of
Speaker 1: those pens that has like four different color ink you
Speaker 1: can select rons that it feels like. But the reason
Speaker 1: I brought that up is I have an idea to
Speaker 1: start a website called my ipop my iPhone spelled what
Speaker 1: dot com Because you ever look at some of them
Speaker 1: you sinned and you're like, can you please make sure
Speaker 1: you take the sofa out of the oven when you
Speaker 1: get them when you meant to say, um sturgeon, let's
Speaker 1: say surgeon is so far I would surgeon, okay, take
Speaker 1: the surgeon out of the oven? Which is I think
Speaker 1: so much better. I wish you would have planned this anyway.
Speaker 1: It can make for a lot of fun. So that's
Speaker 1: my new idea. And that's some lots of love from Peyton,
Speaker 1: aged thirteen and Cali thanks a lot of patent age
Speaker 1: thirteen and a boy or girl. We're not exactly sure,
Speaker 1: but either way, we appreciate you taking the time to
Speaker 1: write in. And if you have a movie that Chuck
Speaker 1: and I have not seen, you assume we haven't seen
Speaker 1: that you think we should see, best movie, best overlooked
Speaker 1: movie of all time. We're always looking for good suggestions.
Speaker 1: Wrap it up in an email and send it to
Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. The how stuff Works dot Com i
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