1 00:00:05,760 --> 00:00:07,840 Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name 2 00:00:07,880 --> 00:00:10,880 Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 3 00:00:11,119 --> 00:00:14,360 Speaker 1: The vault door open, it be yes, and the thing 4 00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:18,400 Speaker 1: that it contains this uh, this weekend, we can't even 5 00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:22,520 Speaker 1: properly relate to you because it is it contains absolute silence. 6 00:00:23,079 --> 00:00:25,520 Speaker 1: And I no matter where you're listening to this, uh 7 00:00:25,680 --> 00:00:29,280 Speaker 1: this episode, you're probably not in a in a place 8 00:00:29,320 --> 00:00:33,240 Speaker 1: to appreciate that level of silence. Obviously, if you're listening 9 00:00:33,280 --> 00:00:35,520 Speaker 1: to a podcast, you are not going to be appreciating 10 00:00:35,560 --> 00:00:37,880 Speaker 1: that level of silence. And you've probably got a million 11 00:00:37,880 --> 00:00:40,680 Speaker 1: other sounds going on outside of your headphone environment or 12 00:00:40,720 --> 00:00:44,199 Speaker 1: your car listening environment. But but still, silence is this 13 00:00:44,400 --> 00:00:47,839 Speaker 1: fascinating topic. It's this, it's it seems to have it 14 00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:49,840 Speaker 1: almost has a substance, and yet at the same time 15 00:00:50,400 --> 00:00:53,680 Speaker 1: is an emptiness. Right, So we maybe recommend you find 16 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:56,440 Speaker 1: a little place with some peace and quiet and give 17 00:00:56,480 --> 00:01:00,600 Speaker 1: this one a listen. This originally aired on August thirty one, sixteen. 18 00:01:01,280 --> 00:01:03,480 Speaker 1: It looks like it was published at three am. I 19 00:01:03,480 --> 00:01:05,160 Speaker 1: don't know what that means. Maybe that's some kind of 20 00:01:05,240 --> 00:01:08,720 Speaker 1: archival error. Uh, I wonder what was going on that 21 00:01:08,760 --> 00:01:12,520 Speaker 1: week anyway? Uh so, yeah, So this is the substance 22 00:01:12,560 --> 00:01:19,679 Speaker 1: of silence. From Hope you enjoy. Welcome to stuff to 23 00:01:19,720 --> 00:01:30,120 Speaker 1: Blow your Mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, 24 00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:31,800 Speaker 1: welcome to stuff to Blow your mind. My name is 25 00:01:31,880 --> 00:01:34,400 Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and done Joe McCormick and Robert. I'd like 26 00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:36,880 Speaker 1: you to think about something, and that's what I'm here for. 27 00:01:37,160 --> 00:01:39,560 Speaker 1: I want you to think about the idea of the 28 00:01:39,640 --> 00:01:44,240 Speaker 1: substance of absence in our in our sensory experience of 29 00:01:44,240 --> 00:01:46,800 Speaker 1: the world. So we all experienced this in our lives 30 00:01:46,920 --> 00:01:50,800 Speaker 1: where there is a stark disconnect between everything we know 31 00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:55,520 Speaker 1: about physics and what are intuitions tell us. And one 32 00:01:55,560 --> 00:01:58,280 Speaker 1: of the examples of this is that there is no 33 00:01:58,480 --> 00:02:02,960 Speaker 1: such substance in physics as cold, right, Cold is just 34 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:06,600 Speaker 1: the absence of heat energy. And yet if you haven't 35 00:02:06,600 --> 00:02:09,000 Speaker 1: experienced like mine, when you hold an ice cube in 36 00:02:09,040 --> 00:02:12,120 Speaker 1: your hand, it doesn't just feel like heat is leaving 37 00:02:12,160 --> 00:02:15,359 Speaker 1: your body. It certainly feels like you are meeting cold. 38 00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:18,560 Speaker 1: You are meeting a substance of coldness that is an 39 00:02:18,600 --> 00:02:24,600 Speaker 1: independent material reality in itself, not not unlike how many 40 00:02:24,639 --> 00:02:29,080 Speaker 1: people process sight as a beam coming out of their eyes, 41 00:02:29,160 --> 00:02:31,800 Speaker 1: like they think about it in those terms, even though 42 00:02:32,960 --> 00:02:34,600 Speaker 1: most of those people, I think are going to realize 43 00:02:34,600 --> 00:02:37,160 Speaker 1: that that's not how vision works. But we can't help 44 00:02:37,160 --> 00:02:40,640 Speaker 1: it interpret what's happening as such. Yeah, it's almost like 45 00:02:40,680 --> 00:02:43,320 Speaker 1: people think of sight as an apprehending power. It's like 46 00:02:43,440 --> 00:02:46,080 Speaker 1: you would reach out to pick something up. So in 47 00:02:46,160 --> 00:02:48,680 Speaker 1: order to get visions, you must be reaching out with 48 00:02:48,720 --> 00:02:51,640 Speaker 1: your eyes in some way to pull things in. Also 49 00:02:51,680 --> 00:02:55,639 Speaker 1: to mention light, there's no such substance in physics as darkness. 50 00:02:55,639 --> 00:02:58,480 Speaker 1: Of course, darkness is just the absence of light. But 51 00:02:58,639 --> 00:03:01,600 Speaker 1: when a cloud passes in front of the sun and 52 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:03,799 Speaker 1: it casts a shadow over the earth, and you get 53 00:03:03,840 --> 00:03:06,400 Speaker 1: that little shiver when that happens, it is hard not 54 00:03:06,480 --> 00:03:10,120 Speaker 1: to think of that shadow, the darkness, as a substance 55 00:03:10,200 --> 00:03:12,520 Speaker 1: unto itself, at least if you're like me. Yeah, I mean, 56 00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:16,320 Speaker 1: unless an entity is actually stepping out of the negative 57 00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:19,560 Speaker 1: material plane, right, if there's actual actually a denizen of 58 00:03:19,600 --> 00:03:23,920 Speaker 1: the shadow realm uh, breaching your immediate universe. Well, of 59 00:03:23,919 --> 00:03:26,680 Speaker 1: course I speak not of beings of darkness, because merely 60 00:03:26,720 --> 00:03:28,600 Speaker 1: to speak of them is to summon them, And now 61 00:03:28,639 --> 00:03:33,520 Speaker 1: we should be watching our backs. But another substance like 62 00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:38,120 Speaker 1: this is the substance of silence, right, So silence is 63 00:03:38,160 --> 00:03:41,320 Speaker 1: not a thing. It's merely the absence of the vibrational 64 00:03:41,440 --> 00:03:45,000 Speaker 1: pressure waves of energy that we call sound. But in 65 00:03:45,040 --> 00:03:49,240 Speaker 1: psychological terms, I wonder is silence a substance in the 66 00:03:49,320 --> 00:03:53,240 Speaker 1: same way as cold and darker to me? And if 67 00:03:53,280 --> 00:03:55,560 Speaker 1: it is, I think we may have come across some 68 00:03:55,680 --> 00:04:00,680 Speaker 1: interesting biological reasons for feeling this way. So Robert, back in, 69 00:04:01,600 --> 00:04:03,880 Speaker 1: you and Julie did an episode of this show where 70 00:04:03,920 --> 00:04:07,800 Speaker 1: you talked about the quietest place in the entire world. 71 00:04:07,880 --> 00:04:09,920 Speaker 1: And I went back and listened to the episode, and 72 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:13,000 Speaker 1: at this time, uh, the quietest place in the world 73 00:04:13,200 --> 00:04:16,640 Speaker 1: was a type of room known as an antichoic chamber, 74 00:04:16,680 --> 00:04:20,120 Speaker 1: meaning a chamber that's echo free no echoes, at a 75 00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:24,560 Speaker 1: facility in Minneapolis, Minnesota called or Field Laboratories. You remember 76 00:04:24,600 --> 00:04:27,480 Speaker 1: doing this episode. I assume no one has wiped your memory. 77 00:04:28,200 --> 00:04:32,600 Speaker 1: It's amazing how much I forget about some some old episodes. Um, 78 00:04:33,480 --> 00:04:36,800 Speaker 1: but I do remember this one. Yes, Okay, So if 79 00:04:36,839 --> 00:04:39,839 Speaker 1: you haven't seen it, you should google pictures of this 80 00:04:39,960 --> 00:04:43,400 Speaker 1: lab facility you out there listening. According to Atlas Obscure, 81 00:04:43,440 --> 00:04:45,880 Speaker 1: it's actually in the same building where Bob Dylan recorded 82 00:04:45,880 --> 00:04:48,440 Speaker 1: Blood on the Tracks. Not the same room, but the 83 00:04:48,440 --> 00:04:51,599 Speaker 1: same building. Uh. And so this room is used to 84 00:04:52,680 --> 00:04:56,440 Speaker 1: test appliances and equipment for sound production under very very 85 00:04:56,520 --> 00:05:00,160 Speaker 1: sensitive conditions by creating the most the quietest environ rement 86 00:05:00,240 --> 00:05:03,479 Speaker 1: we could imagine. And to achieve these conditions, the room 87 00:05:03,520 --> 00:05:06,080 Speaker 1: has been built in a very weird way. So it's 88 00:05:06,080 --> 00:05:09,719 Speaker 1: got double layered steel and foot thick concrete walls. It's 89 00:05:09,720 --> 00:05:14,000 Speaker 1: got this vault type door, and then on the walls 90 00:05:14,360 --> 00:05:19,160 Speaker 1: from floor to ceiling, they are covered with fiberglass acoustic wedges, 91 00:05:19,240 --> 00:05:23,200 Speaker 1: which are these fuzzy looking three foot long axe blades 92 00:05:23,320 --> 00:05:26,080 Speaker 1: that stab out into the room from the walls. And 93 00:05:26,160 --> 00:05:28,440 Speaker 1: it looks like at any moment the trap is going 94 00:05:28,520 --> 00:05:31,200 Speaker 1: to spring and the walls will begin closing in and 95 00:05:31,240 --> 00:05:34,160 Speaker 1: these wedges are going to become interlocking teeth, you know, 96 00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:37,480 Speaker 1: to grind your bones between them. But as far as 97 00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:39,440 Speaker 1: we know, it is not a trap. People have been 98 00:05:39,480 --> 00:05:42,840 Speaker 1: to the room and survived, uh, though maybe not unscathed. 99 00:05:43,279 --> 00:05:46,680 Speaker 1: So it's just a room with a very powerful thirst 100 00:05:46,800 --> 00:05:49,440 Speaker 1: for absorbing sound. And according to the Guinness Book of 101 00:05:49,480 --> 00:05:52,680 Speaker 1: World Records, account the ambient sound levels inside it are 102 00:05:52,680 --> 00:05:56,640 Speaker 1: about negative thirteen decibels or d b a actually, which 103 00:05:56,680 --> 00:06:00,160 Speaker 1: is just an adjusted version of decibel measurement. We will 104 00:06:00,200 --> 00:06:03,680 Speaker 1: horrify the audio engineers and just use decibels for simplicity, 105 00:06:03,760 --> 00:06:08,160 Speaker 1: say going forward. But so when you when you hear 106 00:06:08,279 --> 00:06:13,200 Speaker 1: something like negative thirteen decibels, that might sound kind of weird, right, 107 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:16,200 Speaker 1: How how could you have negative sound? Yeah, especially since 108 00:06:16,240 --> 00:06:20,400 Speaker 1: you you look at various lists and near total silences 109 00:06:20,520 --> 00:06:26,159 Speaker 1: zero A whispers fifteen, So it's like a negative whisper. 110 00:06:26,200 --> 00:06:29,479 Speaker 1: How is that possible? Well, zero decibels actually doesn't mean 111 00:06:29,640 --> 00:06:32,200 Speaker 1: no sound. Zero decibels is just taken to be the 112 00:06:32,279 --> 00:06:36,320 Speaker 1: threshold of normal human hearing at birth, your best hearing, 113 00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:41,799 Speaker 1: infancy hearing people can usually detect sounds above zero decibels. 114 00:06:41,800 --> 00:06:46,320 Speaker 1: Below zero decibels, you know, too bad. Human scale. It's 115 00:06:46,320 --> 00:06:49,720 Speaker 1: a scale based on human perception of sound, not sound 116 00:06:49,760 --> 00:06:54,280 Speaker 1: as some sort of um concrete thing outside of human 117 00:06:54,279 --> 00:06:57,880 Speaker 1: experience exactly. And so going into this space of negative 118 00:06:57,920 --> 00:07:01,320 Speaker 1: decibels is like going into the under verse. It puts 119 00:07:01,400 --> 00:07:04,599 Speaker 1: you in a very bizarre state of mind. People who 120 00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:07,320 Speaker 1: have gone here report that they have a hard time 121 00:07:07,400 --> 00:07:09,520 Speaker 1: staying in the room too long. They used to have 122 00:07:09,560 --> 00:07:11,600 Speaker 1: this thing. All all the articles about it mentioned this 123 00:07:11,720 --> 00:07:14,880 Speaker 1: challenge that the owner seems very excited about, where he 124 00:07:14,880 --> 00:07:16,920 Speaker 1: would test people to see how long they could stay 125 00:07:16,960 --> 00:07:18,880 Speaker 1: in there. He seemed to get some kind of sadistic 126 00:07:18,920 --> 00:07:21,440 Speaker 1: pleasure out of it. But in the under verse with 127 00:07:21,480 --> 00:07:24,560 Speaker 1: the necromongers from Chronicles of Riddick, I do appreciate a 128 00:07:24,600 --> 00:07:27,040 Speaker 1: good Chronicles of Riddick reference to Actually, I've never seen 129 00:07:27,080 --> 00:07:29,680 Speaker 1: chronically that's the under verse is a big deal on 130 00:07:29,720 --> 00:07:32,960 Speaker 1: that the under verse is bigger than than Riddick. Oh well, 131 00:07:33,520 --> 00:07:35,679 Speaker 1: I don't know. Riddick's pretty big. If you've seen his arms, 132 00:07:36,120 --> 00:07:38,240 Speaker 1: he's very, very big. I guess you'll. You'll have to 133 00:07:38,240 --> 00:07:41,920 Speaker 1: show it to me someday. But so anyway, supposedly inside 134 00:07:41,920 --> 00:07:45,640 Speaker 1: this antecote chamber, what happens is people become just hyper 135 00:07:45,720 --> 00:07:48,560 Speaker 1: aware of the sounds produced by their own bodies. You are, 136 00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:50,679 Speaker 1: you start to hear the thump of your own heart, 137 00:07:51,080 --> 00:07:54,320 Speaker 1: and hear the kind of squelching of your digestive system, 138 00:07:54,400 --> 00:07:56,840 Speaker 1: and you hear this hissing and rustling which is your 139 00:07:56,840 --> 00:08:00,600 Speaker 1: own respiration. And media reports also claim him that people 140 00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:05,520 Speaker 1: become dizzy, disoriented, sometimes kind of panicky, which suggests that 141 00:08:05,520 --> 00:08:08,040 Speaker 1: our hearing is in some way tied to our body 142 00:08:08,080 --> 00:08:10,679 Speaker 1: orientation and movement. Right, you may have read these stories 143 00:08:10,720 --> 00:08:14,200 Speaker 1: about blind people using forms of echolocation to hear where 144 00:08:14,200 --> 00:08:16,280 Speaker 1: they are in a room, but this kind of suggests 145 00:08:16,280 --> 00:08:20,080 Speaker 1: that even people with normal senses, all their senses functioning normally, 146 00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:24,360 Speaker 1: might still use some kind of echolocation and basic body orientation. 147 00:08:25,080 --> 00:08:27,720 Speaker 1: My favorite detail I heard was I read one story 148 00:08:27,760 --> 00:08:29,800 Speaker 1: in The Guardian about a man who went into this 149 00:08:29,920 --> 00:08:32,320 Speaker 1: room and he claimed that after his ears adjusted, he 150 00:08:32,360 --> 00:08:37,800 Speaker 1: could hear his own scalp moving over his skull when 151 00:08:37,800 --> 00:08:41,559 Speaker 1: he changed facial expressions. You know, one of the important 152 00:08:41,559 --> 00:08:43,920 Speaker 1: things to keep in mind about all this too, is that, 153 00:08:44,040 --> 00:08:48,119 Speaker 1: of course it goes without saying that humans have evolved 154 00:08:48,120 --> 00:08:51,800 Speaker 1: to thrive in a certain sort of environment and with 155 00:08:51,880 --> 00:08:54,880 Speaker 1: a certain amount of sound in their immediate environment. So 156 00:08:54,920 --> 00:08:57,880 Speaker 1: we're we have We did not evolve to to live 157 00:08:58,080 --> 00:09:01,120 Speaker 1: in in quiet chambers. We ev all to live in 158 00:09:01,160 --> 00:09:06,200 Speaker 1: the world, and so when we are deprived of almost 159 00:09:06,240 --> 00:09:09,240 Speaker 1: like the oxygen of sound, so much we have to 160 00:09:09,840 --> 00:09:11,640 Speaker 1: it's almost like the mind has to gulp in more 161 00:09:11,679 --> 00:09:13,760 Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, if it doesn't have something to chew on, 162 00:09:13,840 --> 00:09:16,520 Speaker 1: it will start chewing on itself, which is certainly a 163 00:09:16,960 --> 00:09:19,240 Speaker 1: trend that occurs time and time again in any kind 164 00:09:19,280 --> 00:09:23,280 Speaker 1: of experiment looking into sensory deprivation. And we are discussing, 165 00:09:23,559 --> 00:09:26,480 Speaker 1: you know, one major area of sensory deprivation here. And 166 00:09:26,520 --> 00:09:30,119 Speaker 1: this is another thing that gets mentioned in in context 167 00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:33,000 Speaker 1: with these antecode chambers, is that you might go into 168 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:37,440 Speaker 1: there and experience auditory hallucinations just because of that sensory 169 00:09:37,480 --> 00:09:41,520 Speaker 1: deprivation element. But anyway, since that podcast that you and 170 00:09:41,600 --> 00:09:45,320 Speaker 1: Julie recorded, there's a new kid in town. Microsoft has 171 00:09:45,360 --> 00:09:49,560 Speaker 1: built a silent mind Flare chamber, even more psychedelically quiet 172 00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:51,920 Speaker 1: than the one in or Field Labs, and much like 173 00:09:52,040 --> 00:09:54,079 Speaker 1: the other facility, this one is used for sort of 174 00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:57,800 Speaker 1: audio and device testing in very sensitive conditions. But it's 175 00:09:57,800 --> 00:10:02,280 Speaker 1: located at Microsoft's Audio lab in Redmond, Washington, and according 176 00:10:02,280 --> 00:10:06,920 Speaker 1: to Business Wire, Microsoft contracted a company called Echo Noise 177 00:10:06,960 --> 00:10:09,920 Speaker 1: Control Technology I think actually the same company that built 178 00:10:09,920 --> 00:10:13,120 Speaker 1: the oar Field Room UH to build this new dungeon 179 00:10:13,200 --> 00:10:16,200 Speaker 1: of lost whis perhaps for them, and it was completed 180 00:10:16,240 --> 00:10:20,319 Speaker 1: in July. But compared to ore Fields negative thirteen decibles, 181 00:10:20,320 --> 00:10:24,200 Speaker 1: this room gets as quiet as negative twenty point six decibles, 182 00:10:24,640 --> 00:10:27,079 Speaker 1: and this is close to about as quiet as a 183 00:10:27,200 --> 00:10:31,440 Speaker 1: room filled with atmosphere can possibly be. So, since sound 184 00:10:31,480 --> 00:10:34,760 Speaker 1: is caused by mechanical pressure waves in a medium such 185 00:10:34,800 --> 00:10:37,160 Speaker 1: as air or water, there is no sound at all 186 00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:38,640 Speaker 1: in a vacuum. If you were to go into the 187 00:10:38,720 --> 00:10:41,280 Speaker 1: vacuum of space, you wouldn't hear anything but in a 188 00:10:41,360 --> 00:10:44,960 Speaker 1: room filled screams exactly. But in a room filled with 189 00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:48,679 Speaker 1: normal atmosphere, negative twenty three decibels is about as quiet 190 00:10:48,720 --> 00:10:51,840 Speaker 1: as things can get, because that's the sound level of 191 00:10:51,840 --> 00:10:55,120 Speaker 1: what's known as Brownie in motion, which is the random 192 00:10:55,160 --> 00:11:00,400 Speaker 1: movement of air particles rustling against one another. I would 193 00:11:00,440 --> 00:11:02,920 Speaker 1: love to hear what that sounds like. I think Brownie 194 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:06,680 Speaker 1: in motion of air particles it is actually an eno album, Yeah, yeah, 195 00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:12,760 Speaker 1: like a late seventies a perfect companion to metal machine music. Anyway, 196 00:11:12,800 --> 00:11:17,360 Speaker 1: So I started thinking about this room and about how 197 00:11:17,679 --> 00:11:21,960 Speaker 1: there are actually plenty of god beings and monsters from 198 00:11:21,960 --> 00:11:25,800 Speaker 1: the history of human imagination who have found themselves in 199 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:29,560 Speaker 1: a dire quest for a place like this room. I 200 00:11:29,600 --> 00:11:32,680 Speaker 1: think that the quest for peace and quiet is it's 201 00:11:32,920 --> 00:11:34,880 Speaker 1: we think of it as something of the modern age, right, 202 00:11:35,320 --> 00:11:37,680 Speaker 1: you live in the city, or there's the traffic horns, 203 00:11:37,720 --> 00:11:42,480 Speaker 1: honking people, screaming people I don't know, arguing about Pokemon 204 00:11:42,520 --> 00:11:44,680 Speaker 1: Go and about whether adults should play it or not 205 00:11:44,880 --> 00:11:47,760 Speaker 1: outside your window at all hours of the night. And 206 00:11:48,480 --> 00:11:52,760 Speaker 1: we come to associate this feeling of of this noisy 207 00:11:52,960 --> 00:11:57,760 Speaker 1: cacaphony with modernity. But but this feeling goes way back. 208 00:11:58,080 --> 00:12:01,640 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, really, human haven't changed that much, 209 00:12:01,679 --> 00:12:05,920 Speaker 1: not so much that they've stopped being annoying and obnoxious 210 00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:11,120 Speaker 1: and loud. U. We've we've had allowed talkers among us. 211 00:12:11,880 --> 00:12:16,040 Speaker 1: We've had we've had individuals who cannot wake up silently. Uh. 212 00:12:16,800 --> 00:12:19,160 Speaker 1: Since time out of mind. Though then again, I do 213 00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:21,079 Speaker 1: think it's kind of interesting. We're going to mention a 214 00:12:21,160 --> 00:12:24,760 Speaker 1: few of these that the quest for silence, the desire 215 00:12:24,880 --> 00:12:28,680 Speaker 1: for peace and quiet, is often associated with villains, not heroes. 216 00:12:30,240 --> 00:12:32,640 Speaker 1: Well you do see, Yeah, I mean I think I 217 00:12:32,640 --> 00:12:36,280 Speaker 1: think it falls on both sides. Uh. I guess the 218 00:12:36,320 --> 00:12:39,400 Speaker 1: heroes that are seeking silence, they tend to want to 219 00:12:39,440 --> 00:12:45,120 Speaker 1: share that path to silence with others. So it's more about, hey, everybody, 220 00:12:45,200 --> 00:12:47,679 Speaker 1: let me show you the way to the silence. Let 221 00:12:47,679 --> 00:12:49,720 Speaker 1: me show you a way of silence. That will better 222 00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:52,800 Speaker 1: your life, whereas the monsters are a little more selfish. Well. 223 00:12:52,920 --> 00:12:55,840 Speaker 1: One great example of this is the Animo a Leash, 224 00:12:55,960 --> 00:12:59,160 Speaker 1: the creation myth of ancient Mesopotamia, which you see in 225 00:12:59,280 --> 00:13:03,480 Speaker 1: ancient sumi Arian and Babylonian texts. Originally at Sumerian focused 226 00:13:03,480 --> 00:13:06,520 Speaker 1: on the god in Leal. Later the Babylonian version is 227 00:13:06,600 --> 00:13:10,080 Speaker 1: altered to glorify the Babylonian god mar Duke. But the 228 00:13:10,160 --> 00:13:14,080 Speaker 1: story is pretty much that the gods Apsu and Tiamat 229 00:13:14,200 --> 00:13:18,240 Speaker 1: freshwater and saltwater personified. They they sort of live in 230 00:13:18,280 --> 00:13:22,400 Speaker 1: this primordial chaos, and they create a younger generation of 231 00:13:22,520 --> 00:13:26,920 Speaker 1: gods who just make a great rucus. They cause disorder, 232 00:13:26,960 --> 00:13:31,040 Speaker 1: irritating noise, and Opsu, in reaction to this, plots to 233 00:13:31,240 --> 00:13:35,800 Speaker 1: destroy his creations in order to get some peace and quiet. 234 00:13:36,240 --> 00:13:39,720 Speaker 1: Quote by day I cannot rest, by night, I cannot 235 00:13:39,760 --> 00:13:43,079 Speaker 1: lie down in peace. But I will destroy their way. 236 00:13:43,320 --> 00:13:46,280 Speaker 1: Let there be lamentation, and let us lie down again 237 00:13:46,320 --> 00:13:50,400 Speaker 1: in peace. Oh nice. Now, of course, later a hero 238 00:13:50,559 --> 00:13:53,800 Speaker 1: has to come and fight these beings. Actually, so Apsu 239 00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:58,079 Speaker 1: gets destroyed and then Tiamatt his his sort of companion, 240 00:13:58,160 --> 00:14:01,760 Speaker 1: his female counterpart, becomes a monster that has to be fought. 241 00:14:02,640 --> 00:14:04,840 Speaker 1: But so yeah, not the heroes of the piece here, 242 00:14:05,840 --> 00:14:07,959 Speaker 1: but they want some peace and quiet. That all all 243 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:11,599 Speaker 1: these new created beings are just too loud and irritating. 244 00:14:12,280 --> 00:14:15,080 Speaker 1: It's in it always the way. The youth are loud, 245 00:14:15,320 --> 00:14:17,679 Speaker 1: and they need to they need to pipe down because 246 00:14:17,720 --> 00:14:20,400 Speaker 1: those old people are trying to get some sleep. I 247 00:14:20,480 --> 00:14:24,120 Speaker 1: wonder if that is what's behind the idea of Grendel 248 00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:28,720 Speaker 1: in Beowolf. Oh yeah, because he he quite famously is 249 00:14:28,760 --> 00:14:31,480 Speaker 1: not a fan of the noise, not a fan of 250 00:14:31,480 --> 00:14:36,640 Speaker 1: the partying that's coming from the mead hall across the way, right, 251 00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:39,800 Speaker 1: So what's what's the basic story of Grendel and Beowulf. 252 00:14:39,880 --> 00:14:44,320 Speaker 1: It's Beowulf comes to Rathgar's mead Hall of hero right 253 00:14:44,440 --> 00:14:48,280 Speaker 1: in the land of the Dane Men, and they they 254 00:14:48,320 --> 00:14:51,280 Speaker 1: party in the hall and have their big feasts, and 255 00:14:51,640 --> 00:14:56,480 Speaker 1: somewhere nearby there's this monster called Grendel. Not actually described 256 00:14:56,480 --> 00:15:01,640 Speaker 1: physically very much. Yeah, virtually no physical description um, which 257 00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:05,640 Speaker 1: means basically any interpretation you have is valid. I did 258 00:15:05,720 --> 00:15:10,120 Speaker 1: read some great translations of the description. What they do 259 00:15:10,200 --> 00:15:12,960 Speaker 1: say about him. The march Stepper, famous who dwelt in 260 00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:17,160 Speaker 1: the more Fins the Marsh and the fastness a fiend 261 00:15:17,200 --> 00:15:21,760 Speaker 1: in hell. This ghastly demon was named Grendel, infamous stalker 262 00:15:21,760 --> 00:15:26,160 Speaker 1: of the Marches, who held the Moor's finn and desolate stronghold, 263 00:15:26,240 --> 00:15:30,240 Speaker 1: the land of the Marsh monsters. Nice. I always liked 264 00:15:30,400 --> 00:15:33,520 Speaker 1: the way that John Gardner described him in his novel 265 00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:36,440 Speaker 1: A Grendel, which is one of my my favorites. He 266 00:15:36,640 --> 00:15:41,040 Speaker 1: described him his quote a shadow shooter, earth rim romer, 267 00:15:41,240 --> 00:15:44,320 Speaker 1: walker of the world's weird wall. Oh, that's so great, 268 00:15:44,360 --> 00:15:46,360 Speaker 1: and that captures this is a feature of the Anglo 269 00:15:46,400 --> 00:15:49,280 Speaker 1: Saxon poetry, is the alliteration there where you hear the 270 00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:54,040 Speaker 1: same words starting consonants used over and over, and Gardner 271 00:15:54,080 --> 00:15:56,520 Speaker 1: captures that very well. But anyway, so in the story, 272 00:15:56,560 --> 00:15:59,240 Speaker 1: of course Beowulf has to go and kill Grendel, and 273 00:15:59,280 --> 00:16:02,840 Speaker 1: the reason he does that is because basically he is 274 00:16:02,920 --> 00:16:07,280 Speaker 1: but also it's because Grendel comes into Rothgar's meat hall 275 00:16:07,440 --> 00:16:10,600 Speaker 1: and and messes them up. He comes in and kills 276 00:16:10,720 --> 00:16:14,640 Speaker 1: he does a lot of people in the in the 277 00:16:14,760 --> 00:16:17,280 Speaker 1: Dane Men's defense. Yeah, So why does he come into 278 00:16:17,320 --> 00:16:19,040 Speaker 1: the mead hall and kill the Dane men. Well, there 279 00:16:19,040 --> 00:16:20,600 Speaker 1: are a couple of ways. You could read this, but 280 00:16:20,720 --> 00:16:23,720 Speaker 1: the basic way is the way it's described in the poem. 281 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:26,480 Speaker 1: It's kind of vague, but it seems like he's annoyed 282 00:16:26,680 --> 00:16:30,680 Speaker 1: by the noise they're making. So one translation reads quote 283 00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:35,040 Speaker 1: then the bold spirit impatiently endured dreary time, He who 284 00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:38,760 Speaker 1: dwelt in darkness, He that every day heard noise of 285 00:16:38,880 --> 00:16:42,040 Speaker 1: revelry loud in the hall. There was the harmony of 286 00:16:42,120 --> 00:16:45,480 Speaker 1: the harp, the sweet song of the poet. Uh, and 287 00:16:45,640 --> 00:16:48,160 Speaker 1: he doesn't like this noise. Now, it's unclear to me, 288 00:16:48,320 --> 00:16:50,760 Speaker 1: and I think they're actually differing opinions on this, whether 289 00:16:50,840 --> 00:16:54,720 Speaker 1: the text means that Grendel was actually jealous of the Danes, 290 00:16:55,040 --> 00:16:57,960 Speaker 1: you know, friendship and happiness their their camaraderie in the party, 291 00:16:58,200 --> 00:17:01,280 Speaker 1: or merely that he just couldn't stand the noise. The 292 00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:03,760 Speaker 1: sound of it bothered him. Well, this is the same 293 00:17:03,880 --> 00:17:06,960 Speaker 1: question we ask ourselves when whenever we're annoyed by a 294 00:17:07,040 --> 00:17:10,439 Speaker 1: neighbor having allowed party. Am I annoyed because they are 295 00:17:10,560 --> 00:17:13,040 Speaker 1: loud and I want to sleep right now? Or am 296 00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:16,080 Speaker 1: I allowed because I was not invited? Or I am 297 00:17:16,160 --> 00:17:19,240 Speaker 1: not invited to parties like this anymore? That that line 298 00:17:19,280 --> 00:17:22,800 Speaker 1: of questioning, well, it might be hard to tell the difference. Robert, 299 00:17:22,840 --> 00:17:26,439 Speaker 1: you made a fascinating observation I had never considered before. 300 00:17:26,840 --> 00:17:30,360 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, tell me tell me about Oh well, I've 301 00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:32,200 Speaker 1: I read a lot of Dr SEUs books these days, 302 00:17:32,680 --> 00:17:36,040 Speaker 1: and so anytime I read or if we end up 303 00:17:36,080 --> 00:17:40,239 Speaker 1: viewing The Grinch, Who's still Christmas, the comparisons are are 304 00:17:40,359 --> 00:17:45,040 Speaker 1: pretty uh, are pretty obvious, because in Grendel you have 305 00:17:45,119 --> 00:17:48,080 Speaker 1: a monster that lives out in the boonies who comes 306 00:17:48,119 --> 00:17:52,080 Speaker 1: into the center of civilization and unleash's havoc when there 307 00:17:52,160 --> 00:17:55,080 Speaker 1: is too much noise, and the same thing happens with 308 00:17:55,160 --> 00:17:58,520 Speaker 1: the Grinch. The Grinch hates the noise of the Christmas season, 309 00:17:58,680 --> 00:18:01,800 Speaker 1: even the g r is there. Yeah, that seems like 310 00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:05,960 Speaker 1: it's got to be intentional. Right, Oh, the noise, noise, noise, noise, 311 00:18:06,080 --> 00:18:09,919 Speaker 1: noise is one thing I hate, all the noise, noise, noise, noise. 312 00:18:10,040 --> 00:18:13,280 Speaker 1: It's the who's in Whoville are like the Dane men 313 00:18:13,400 --> 00:18:16,240 Speaker 1: and hero Yeah, except instead of you know, coming in 314 00:18:16,640 --> 00:18:19,639 Speaker 1: and killing who's, he just was gonna he's gonna uh, 315 00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:24,040 Speaker 1: you know, he's gonna surgically remove the cause of their joy. Uh, 316 00:18:24,359 --> 00:18:26,639 Speaker 1: and the joy being the cause of their noise, But 317 00:18:26,760 --> 00:18:29,920 Speaker 1: of course that backfires and he has to remove Christmas. Yeah, 318 00:18:30,520 --> 00:18:32,920 Speaker 1: but then his heart grew three sizes that day. Yeah, 319 00:18:32,960 --> 00:18:37,240 Speaker 1: they're a number of anatomical complications in the comparison, but 320 00:18:37,520 --> 00:18:40,400 Speaker 1: it doesn't happen to Grindel. Grendel, I believe his head 321 00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:43,800 Speaker 1: shrinks many sizes that day. Yeah, but well I'm not 322 00:18:43,880 --> 00:18:45,920 Speaker 1: sure he gets his head cut off. Yeah. Also of 323 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:49,000 Speaker 1: the arm, yeah, arm to the arm, the arm is 324 00:18:49,040 --> 00:18:51,800 Speaker 1: cut off? First? Is that a call going got cut off? 325 00:18:52,280 --> 00:18:54,920 Speaker 1: Because I think blades don't quite cut him, like blades 326 00:18:55,040 --> 00:18:57,480 Speaker 1: melt or something when they when they hit his blood. 327 00:18:57,800 --> 00:19:01,439 Speaker 1: There's some description. There's some descriptions that can be interpreted 328 00:19:01,640 --> 00:19:05,080 Speaker 1: that either Grendel's blood is acidic and is eating through 329 00:19:05,119 --> 00:19:07,200 Speaker 1: the blade or it is so hot that it is 330 00:19:07,320 --> 00:19:11,040 Speaker 1: melting the blade. But Beowulf just rips off the arm 331 00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:14,359 Speaker 1: and then Grendel runs away. Wow. So here we've got 332 00:19:14,440 --> 00:19:19,240 Speaker 1: these monsters and god beings, uh, causing mayhem and havoc 333 00:19:19,320 --> 00:19:22,840 Speaker 1: and trouble for the creatures that dwell under their level 334 00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:27,120 Speaker 1: of power by trying to shut them up, just wanting silence, 335 00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:29,560 Speaker 1: and and if we can only find a room for Grendel, 336 00:19:29,640 --> 00:19:32,080 Speaker 1: if we could find an antechoic chamber for him. This 337 00:19:32,160 --> 00:19:34,199 Speaker 1: never would have happened. But I wondered if there are 338 00:19:34,240 --> 00:19:40,160 Speaker 1: any straight up gods of silence. Well there is, um Hippocrates, 339 00:19:40,400 --> 00:19:42,920 Speaker 1: the Greek god of silence, and he's thought to have 340 00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:47,000 Speaker 1: evolved from the childhood variant of the Egyptian god Horace. 341 00:19:47,800 --> 00:19:52,840 Speaker 1: But ultimately Hippocrates is really more about secrets than silence. 342 00:19:53,440 --> 00:19:57,480 Speaker 1: Uh So, it's it's more about yeah, you know, occult 343 00:19:57,560 --> 00:20:01,840 Speaker 1: knowledge in many interpretations, as opposed to just oh I 344 00:20:01,920 --> 00:20:04,399 Speaker 1: need a nice meditative place to think. I knew there 345 00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:07,720 Speaker 1: was a group of monsters in doctor who called the Silence, 346 00:20:07,800 --> 00:20:09,359 Speaker 1: but I looked at them up and found that their 347 00:20:09,400 --> 00:20:11,440 Speaker 1: name is somewhat misleading. Oh yeah, what do they do? 348 00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:15,800 Speaker 1: Uh they engineer history and cause people to have mass 349 00:20:15,920 --> 00:20:19,080 Speaker 1: forgettings of events and stuff. But as far as I know, 350 00:20:19,240 --> 00:20:23,360 Speaker 1: they're not especially all that quiet. Uh well, one one 351 00:20:23,440 --> 00:20:25,359 Speaker 1: that is quiet. I have to confess, I'm not a 352 00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:27,520 Speaker 1: doctor expert. I don't know that much of what What 353 00:20:27,560 --> 00:20:31,440 Speaker 1: did you ever watch Buffy? No? I actually didn't should 354 00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:33,800 Speaker 1: I it's a lot of fun. You know, you kind 355 00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:37,040 Speaker 1: of have to plow through that first season. But but 356 00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:39,720 Speaker 1: it's it's all it's all fun after that, as I recall, 357 00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:44,560 Speaker 1: but one episode in particular, one of the best episodes UH, 358 00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:49,080 Speaker 1: is titled Hush, and it concerns a group of sort 359 00:20:49,119 --> 00:20:53,040 Speaker 1: of fairy tale ghoulish creatures called the Gentleman, and they 360 00:20:53,320 --> 00:20:56,920 Speaker 1: come to town to steal everyone's voices, leaving them unable 361 00:20:57,000 --> 00:21:00,480 Speaker 1: to scream when they come around and cut everyone's hearts out. 362 00:21:01,440 --> 00:21:03,920 Speaker 1: And then we finally learned that if you the reason 363 00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:07,199 Speaker 1: here is because loud noises such as those caused by 364 00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:11,040 Speaker 1: a screaming human, cause the creatures heads to explode. Now 365 00:21:11,200 --> 00:21:13,280 Speaker 1: that's funny. You should mention it, because one thing we 366 00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:17,760 Speaker 1: do know is that loud noises can definitely cause injury 367 00:21:17,840 --> 00:21:20,280 Speaker 1: and damage to live in creatures. Oh yeah, I mean 368 00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:23,560 Speaker 1: there's a lot of data out there about about noise pollution. UM. 369 00:21:24,119 --> 00:21:27,600 Speaker 1: You know various uh, various human I mean humans even, 370 00:21:27,640 --> 00:21:30,680 Speaker 1: but also plenty of non human animals. Uh. The distraction 371 00:21:30,720 --> 00:21:33,480 Speaker 1: alone can put many prey animals at an increasing risk 372 00:21:33,520 --> 00:21:36,600 Speaker 1: of predation UH. And the more pronounced effects are generally 373 00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:41,520 Speaker 1: found in marine mammals such as whales and also in cephalopods. UH. 374 00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:47,040 Speaker 1: The giant squid actually offers the clearest example of this, yeah, 375 00:21:47,080 --> 00:21:50,040 Speaker 1: in the in the early two thousand's low frequency sound 376 00:21:50,119 --> 00:21:54,440 Speaker 1: pulse exercises that I believe we're being utilized by the 377 00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:58,159 Speaker 1: oil industry. Um, it was like dynamite fishing for squid, 378 00:21:58,359 --> 00:22:01,919 Speaker 1: right right. Yeah, essentially they're they're blasting out these um, 379 00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:05,040 Speaker 1: these low frequency pulses and then dead squid start to 380 00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:08,800 Speaker 1: start just popping up, and they seem to have extensive 381 00:22:08,840 --> 00:22:13,040 Speaker 1: bodily damage. And uh, when they looked closer, they found 382 00:22:13,119 --> 00:22:16,080 Speaker 1: that like their mantles were reduced to pulp, there was 383 00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:20,720 Speaker 1: bruised muscles, lesions in their statusists, which are these fluid 384 00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:23,720 Speaker 1: filled organs that rest behind the creatures eyes that helped 385 00:22:23,760 --> 00:22:26,760 Speaker 1: them maintain their ballots and position. In a few years 386 00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:30,399 Speaker 1: after this, Spanish marine biologists and gal Gara investigated this 387 00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:35,680 Speaker 1: further and found that low frequency sound exposure intensities between 388 00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:38,440 Speaker 1: a hundred fifty seven and a hundred seventy five decibels 389 00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:42,639 Speaker 1: and frequency range which is very loud. Yeah. One of 390 00:22:42,680 --> 00:22:46,400 Speaker 1: the things to drive home and some throughout some comparisons 391 00:22:46,440 --> 00:22:49,600 Speaker 1: here in a bit is that, yeah, underwater, uh, sounds 392 00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:52,720 Speaker 1: can really get up there. Some of our loudest noises 393 00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:57,399 Speaker 1: on earth, they're occurring underwater. Um. But but anyway, and 394 00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:00,600 Speaker 1: this experiment found that that there is a great deal 395 00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:05,600 Speaker 1: of statusus tissue damage, including the destruction of tiny inverted 396 00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:09,000 Speaker 1: hair like sensory structures in the cells that helped the 397 00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:12,159 Speaker 1: creatures maintain their balance. So this effectively crippled them and 398 00:23:12,359 --> 00:23:16,480 Speaker 1: even the the the the various celli pods that they studied, 399 00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:19,879 Speaker 1: the ones that survived the experiment exhibited in some cases 400 00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:27,480 Speaker 1: visible holes in the tissues. So we're talking you know, legitimate, yeah, yeah, yeah, 401 00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:30,119 Speaker 1: I mean the worst if you're comparing places to be 402 00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:33,280 Speaker 1: next to a bomb um, the water is far worse. 403 00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:35,399 Speaker 1: Like if someone throw if you're at if your pool 404 00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:39,720 Speaker 1: side and someone throws a grenade, two grenades into your vicinity, 405 00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:42,200 Speaker 1: one in the water, one on the surface. Definitely stay 406 00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:46,320 Speaker 1: on the surface, but also avoid pool parties where grenades 407 00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:48,840 Speaker 1: are being thrown around. How do you keep getting invited 408 00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:51,200 Speaker 1: to those I don't know? Um? Like when I when 409 00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:53,160 Speaker 1: I when they stopped inviting me, And then I'm gonna 410 00:23:53,280 --> 00:23:55,120 Speaker 1: I'm gonna feel bad. I'm gonna look back on and say, 411 00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:59,000 Speaker 1: why why don't they invite me to these loud, noisy 412 00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:01,600 Speaker 1: grenade parties? Uh, and I wish I could go to 413 00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:11,720 Speaker 1: sleep now, Robert, right before we get back to the 414 00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:14,239 Speaker 1: subject of silence, I know everybody wants to know how 415 00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:17,159 Speaker 1: do you make a human head explode with sound? All right, 416 00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:19,520 Speaker 1: so this is a pretty cool There was a popular 417 00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:23,600 Speaker 1: science article by seth ets Horowitz that came out a 418 00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:26,320 Speaker 1: few years back, and he looked into this. I'll included 419 00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:27,639 Speaker 1: we'll make sure we include a link to this on 420 00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:29,640 Speaker 1: the landing page for this episode, because it's worth checking out. 421 00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:35,040 Speaker 1: But he ruled that yes, sufficiently powerful sound waves can 422 00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:38,120 Speaker 1: make a human head explode, much like the the Gentleman 423 00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:44,160 Speaker 1: on Buffy Um. Because uh infrasound is essentially a hell 424 00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:46,440 Speaker 1: of a thing. So if you crank it up to 425 00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:51,000 Speaker 1: uh eighteen point ninety eight hurts the same resonance of 426 00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:54,119 Speaker 1: the human eye, and the resulting distortions can make you 427 00:24:54,160 --> 00:24:58,320 Speaker 1: see weird ghostly shapes. However, if you crank it up 428 00:24:58,359 --> 00:25:02,240 Speaker 1: to two forty descibels, you can get the skull to 429 00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:06,880 Speaker 1: resonate destructively. Especially it's especially the case if you're using 430 00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:10,240 Speaker 1: a debt like a cadaver head. But but this could 431 00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:13,040 Speaker 1: conceivably be the case with a living head as well. 432 00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,640 Speaker 1: To put that in perspective. Low frequency sonar can reach 433 00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:20,159 Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty five decibels. And the nineteen o 434 00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:23,959 Speaker 1: eight Tunguska event, you know, of course, the Earth object 435 00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:27,480 Speaker 1: colliding with the Earth. It's heard around the world, perhaps 436 00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:30,200 Speaker 1: the loudest single event in modern history, and it probably 437 00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:35,720 Speaker 1: hit three hundred to three D so loud stuff. So 438 00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:38,879 Speaker 1: we've never seen anybody's head explode from sound as far 439 00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:41,920 Speaker 1: as you know. And I think the way that, the 440 00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:45,320 Speaker 1: way that Horowitz explained it is that if you were 441 00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:48,520 Speaker 1: setting there, you if you had the technology to do it, 442 00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:50,840 Speaker 1: you would still get bored, and you just probably want 443 00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:53,200 Speaker 1: to brain the person in the head with the device 444 00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:55,280 Speaker 1: you're using. Like it's it's not a bit. There are 445 00:25:55,320 --> 00:25:57,639 Speaker 1: far better ways to make a head explode than depending 446 00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:01,600 Speaker 1: on sound. Okay. So we've been talking about the idea 447 00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:05,760 Speaker 1: of silence as a substance and where you can find it, 448 00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:08,440 Speaker 1: and one piece that I came across that I thought 449 00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:12,240 Speaker 1: was pretty interesting was a short article in High Country News, 450 00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:14,920 Speaker 1: which is a very good magazine focusing on nature in 451 00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:18,080 Speaker 1: the American West, uh and it was about places of 452 00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:21,040 Speaker 1: quiet in the American wilderness. Now, we often think about 453 00:26:21,119 --> 00:26:24,080 Speaker 1: human activity is the primary purveyor of noise, which it 454 00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,560 Speaker 1: usually is. But leaving the city doesn't always mean heading 455 00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:29,520 Speaker 1: to a place of quiet. Of course. I think about 456 00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:32,120 Speaker 1: William Butler Yates Lake Isle of innis free. He wants 457 00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:34,399 Speaker 1: to get away from the bustle of the city. But 458 00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:36,720 Speaker 1: where he's going isn't going to be silent, right, because 459 00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,800 Speaker 1: he's going to live in the b loud glade. What 460 00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:42,840 Speaker 1: a great term. But anyway, you know nature, you hear 461 00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:46,200 Speaker 1: the nature sounds, the crickets, the wind, wrestling the leaves. 462 00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:49,320 Speaker 1: But even in nature, some places are louder than others. 463 00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:52,520 Speaker 1: So at uh that they talked about Idaho's City of 464 00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:55,639 Speaker 1: Rocks National Reserve. It's going to be very quiet, but 465 00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:58,320 Speaker 1: you'll still probably hear the faint sounds of running water 466 00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:03,159 Speaker 1: and wrestling leaves, um and it can get quieter. One 467 00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:07,720 Speaker 1: example is Colorado's Great Sand Dunes National Park, which is 468 00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:10,879 Speaker 1: very quiet. According to research by the National Park Service. 469 00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:13,680 Speaker 1: It's almost as quiet as it was before the European 470 00:27:13,760 --> 00:27:18,680 Speaker 1: colonization of America. But like the Antichoic chamber, this level 471 00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:23,000 Speaker 1: of silence sort of highlights an underlying lack of silence. 472 00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:25,680 Speaker 1: You go into the chamber, and you hear your heartbeat, 473 00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:29,280 Speaker 1: your scalp moving, all of that creepy stuff. You apparently 474 00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:32,080 Speaker 1: go to Great Sand Dunes National Park and they say 475 00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:37,560 Speaker 1: that you hear other sounds from very far away, for example, 476 00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:40,960 Speaker 1: the sounds of the Denver International Airport. I did a 477 00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:43,320 Speaker 1: quick Google Maps check to see how far away that is, 478 00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:46,000 Speaker 1: and it's about two hundred and fifty miles or a 479 00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:50,480 Speaker 1: four hour drive. So if this is true, you're you're 480 00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:55,600 Speaker 1: hearing planes taking off from two fifty miles away. That's 481 00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:59,359 Speaker 1: just crazy. They also put together, the National Park Service 482 00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:02,040 Speaker 1: put together on map of America with color coding for 483 00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:05,399 Speaker 1: different levels of noise, and so they have these blue 484 00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,720 Speaker 1: regions where it's very quiet, in these yellow regions where 485 00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:11,080 Speaker 1: it's allowed. One thing I noticed is that there's a 486 00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:15,840 Speaker 1: very sharp east west divide. The west is much quieter 487 00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,399 Speaker 1: than the east, and I would say from experience, I 488 00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:22,359 Speaker 1: think that's right. Even being in the wilderness, if you 489 00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:25,200 Speaker 1: get out of the City's when I noticed. Going to 490 00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:27,520 Speaker 1: the wilderness in the east, it's I don't know, you 491 00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:31,480 Speaker 1: hear bugs, and you hear wind rustling the leaves and 492 00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,159 Speaker 1: stuff like that. Probably the quietest place I can ever 493 00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:38,480 Speaker 1: remember being was the desert in southwest Texas at Big 494 00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:41,040 Speaker 1: Ben National Park, where there was this one day where 495 00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:45,120 Speaker 1: I was riding around in a car with my wife 496 00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:48,240 Speaker 1: Rachel and her cousin Marie, and one day we we 497 00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:50,840 Speaker 1: parked and I went off by myself to hike up 498 00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:54,160 Speaker 1: a short little trail, and by myself. At the top 499 00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:57,440 Speaker 1: of this trail, I can remember just hearing nothing. I 500 00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:01,320 Speaker 1: couldn't hear any water, any insects, any birds, any wind 501 00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:05,320 Speaker 1: or leaves. The air was very still. I just heard 502 00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,800 Speaker 1: this kind of vague whir of things, very distant. And 503 00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:12,720 Speaker 1: it's one of the bluest places on the map. Actually, yeah, 504 00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:15,200 Speaker 1: I mean it's it's impressive to look one of these maps. 505 00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:17,640 Speaker 1: You know where not to move if you are a 506 00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:22,400 Speaker 1: Grendel or a granch so like obviously, don't go virtually 507 00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:26,480 Speaker 1: anywhere in New England, stay out of the Midwest. Don't 508 00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,720 Speaker 1: go to Florida. Even the sparsely populated Midwest, it looks 509 00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:31,479 Speaker 1: like they're there are a lot of places that are 510 00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:33,640 Speaker 1: kind of yellow, and I wonder if that's because of 511 00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:37,200 Speaker 1: kind of flat landscape and a lot of highways. You 512 00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:40,760 Speaker 1: hear traffic from very far away. Yeah, you pretty much 513 00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:42,479 Speaker 1: have to go to the desert. Okay, but I think 514 00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:46,400 Speaker 1: we should actually talk about some medical research with reference 515 00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:49,920 Speaker 1: to silence and noise. Now everybody knows, of course, that 516 00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,160 Speaker 1: noise can be really irritating, but I think we don't 517 00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:56,280 Speaker 1: often realize the extent to which noise takes a measurable 518 00:29:56,680 --> 00:29:59,920 Speaker 1: toll on human on human health, and some people of 519 00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:03,200 Speaker 1: actually tried to measure this. For example, I found one 520 00:30:04,160 --> 00:30:08,959 Speaker 1: study in the Lancet that said, quote, observational and experimental 521 00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:13,320 Speaker 1: studies have shown that noise exposure leads to annoyance, disturbed sleep, 522 00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:18,200 Speaker 1: and causes daytime sleepiness, affects patient outcomes and staff performance 523 00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:22,959 Speaker 1: in hospitals, increases the occurrence of hypertension and cardiovascular disease, 524 00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:26,840 Speaker 1: and impairs cognitive performance in school children. Now, if all 525 00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:29,680 Speaker 1: these things were being caused by some food additive or something, 526 00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:32,640 Speaker 1: we would be freaking out. Yeah, you know there. I 527 00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:36,160 Speaker 1: believe that on the childhood front, there there have been 528 00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:38,960 Speaker 1: studies in recent years that have looked into like the 529 00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:42,200 Speaker 1: role background music plays and how that can actually that 530 00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:46,400 Speaker 1: has a can of a detrimental effect on on On 531 00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:49,080 Speaker 1: one hand, I'm just communicating with a kid and like 532 00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:52,440 Speaker 1: getting their attention, because even though you're cool with some 533 00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:55,480 Speaker 1: ambient music playing in the background and that enhances your 534 00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:58,440 Speaker 1: experiences of the scenario, it can be actually kind of 535 00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:02,400 Speaker 1: distracting for them. And I believe that it occasionally even 536 00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:06,560 Speaker 1: has been shown to to bleed over into language acquisition 537 00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:09,560 Speaker 1: to some degree. I don't have the research in front 538 00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:11,600 Speaker 1: of me right now, but that's interesting. But even yeah, 539 00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:13,680 Speaker 1: but even then, the noise that we take for granted, 540 00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:15,880 Speaker 1: the stuff that's not noise, the stuff that weep, the 541 00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:19,280 Speaker 1: the adults put on hunt to cancel out the noise, 542 00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:23,080 Speaker 1: can itself, um, you know, have a noisome effect. Yeah, 543 00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:25,760 Speaker 1: And so when you're exposed to a noise, of course, 544 00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:28,280 Speaker 1: this activates a stress response in the brain and goes 545 00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:31,400 Speaker 1: to the amygdala, and that triggers there is the release 546 00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:34,760 Speaker 1: of stress hormones like cortisol. And of course these hormones 547 00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:36,960 Speaker 1: serve a purpose in nature. Right if you you've got 548 00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:39,000 Speaker 1: you've got to get ready for a fight, or you've 549 00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:40,880 Speaker 1: got to be able to run. But if you've just 550 00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:45,240 Speaker 1: got continuously elevated levels of stress hormone being triggered by 551 00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:49,400 Speaker 1: noises that have no relevance to you whatsoever, that's not 552 00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:52,360 Speaker 1: good for your health, and there's no good reason for it. Yeah, 553 00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:56,560 Speaker 1: so we're talking like horns hanking um things out of 554 00:31:56,600 --> 00:31:58,640 Speaker 1: the ordinary, things that your mind hasn't had a chance 555 00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:01,560 Speaker 1: to sort of program into the north array of sounds 556 00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:05,880 Speaker 1: jackhammers on the floor above you in the office. Yeah, 557 00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:08,600 Speaker 1: it's weird to think about this because I actually live 558 00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:12,920 Speaker 1: next to train tracks and I virtually never hear Like 559 00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:14,959 Speaker 1: I hear them all the time, but I almost never 560 00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:17,680 Speaker 1: register them, uh, And they never interfere with my in 561 00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:20,920 Speaker 1: my sleep or anything, unless there's a sound that happens 562 00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,240 Speaker 1: that's out of the ordinary, like some sort of occasionally 563 00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:28,880 Speaker 1: there's like this huge shuddering um stop to a train 564 00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:31,840 Speaker 1: that's making its way through. But other than that, I 565 00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:36,480 Speaker 1: legitimately haven't really heard the train in a distractive manner 566 00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:38,880 Speaker 1: since the day I moved into the house. Well, there's 567 00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:40,880 Speaker 1: one thing I would say is that you might not 568 00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:43,760 Speaker 1: even be aware of the extent to which it is 569 00:32:43,840 --> 00:32:48,840 Speaker 1: disturbing your sleep, because noise disturbance of sleep is a 570 00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:52,440 Speaker 1: major factor in these health outcomes. In fact, in two 571 00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:54,960 Speaker 1: thousand and eleven, the World Health Organization, they put together 572 00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:57,280 Speaker 1: this big report and they were collecting evidence on the 573 00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:00,680 Speaker 1: public health risks posed by noise and your Uropean Union 574 00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:03,720 Speaker 1: member states, and they actually put numbers on it. They 575 00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:06,640 Speaker 1: tried to take what we know and make some estimates 576 00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,240 Speaker 1: of what the total effects are. And of course what 577 00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:12,440 Speaker 1: they were calculating this in was something called dailies or 578 00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:17,280 Speaker 1: disability adjusted life years. So how many healthy years is 579 00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:21,200 Speaker 1: this issue taking off of people's lives. You can measure 580 00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:26,080 Speaker 1: a lot of negative health factors that way, and they said, quote, 581 00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:30,320 Speaker 1: with conservative assumptions applied to the calculation methods, it's estimated 582 00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:34,440 Speaker 1: that uh daily is lost from environmental noise are sixty 583 00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:39,640 Speaker 1: one thousand years for heart disease, forty five thousand years 584 00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:43,720 Speaker 1: for cognitive impairment of children, nine hundred and three thousand 585 00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:47,240 Speaker 1: years for sleep disturbance, twenty two thousand years for tenadives, 586 00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:51,120 Speaker 1: six hundred and fifty four thousand years for annoyance. In 587 00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:54,760 Speaker 1: the European Union member states, the results indicate that at 588 00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:58,560 Speaker 1: least one million healthy life years are lost every year 589 00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:02,760 Speaker 1: from traffic related and noise in the western part of Europe. Well, 590 00:34:02,760 --> 00:34:04,280 Speaker 1: that's the good thing I turned on that white noise 591 00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:07,160 Speaker 1: in the evening. That does bring something up. I want 592 00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:10,400 Speaker 1: to keep thinking about throughout this episode, is white noise 593 00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:13,719 Speaker 1: the same as silence? Like, what really is silence? If 594 00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:17,360 Speaker 1: we've established this principle where you go into the antichotic 595 00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:20,640 Speaker 1: chamber and there's silence, and that just means that you 596 00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:24,000 Speaker 1: notice your heartbeat, and you notice the you know, the 597 00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:28,960 Speaker 1: creepy scalp. You go to a national park in Colorado 598 00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:32,160 Speaker 1: and you notice planes taking off hundreds of miles away. 599 00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:38,160 Speaker 1: You're always digging deeper into the background sound palette. And 600 00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:41,359 Speaker 1: so if that's the case, what is silence? Is there 601 00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:46,200 Speaker 1: actually such an experience as silence? Well as far as 602 00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:49,960 Speaker 1: white noise machines go. I feel like in a way 603 00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:52,319 Speaker 1: that the use of colors is kind of telling. Now 604 00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:56,320 Speaker 1: specifically I use a brown noise. Yes, that's my favorite setting. 605 00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:58,279 Speaker 1: It's a good one. Yeah, And it's hard not to 606 00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:01,560 Speaker 1: think of it in terms of of of say a 607 00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:04,200 Speaker 1: wall that was once white. So like, all right, it's 608 00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:07,080 Speaker 1: got some smears on it, it's got some scuffs. I 609 00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:09,120 Speaker 1: could try and clean it down, I could try and 610 00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:11,799 Speaker 1: go back to that that that white level. I could 611 00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:14,000 Speaker 1: try and suscribe everything away and get to some level 612 00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:16,759 Speaker 1: of silence. But I'm better off just putting up a 613 00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:19,600 Speaker 1: wall of sound and just make just painting the wall Brown. 614 00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:21,759 Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm mixing my metaphors here, but I don't 615 00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:25,160 Speaker 1: see what you're saying. A new um and a new 616 00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:30,239 Speaker 1: seamless sound. Uh, you know, base level of noise that 617 00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:32,920 Speaker 1: has no no variety. They're not going to be any sudden, 618 00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:37,520 Speaker 1: you know, goblin cackles or anything. Yeah, quiet, predictable sound 619 00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:41,200 Speaker 1: you can tune out and register is silence. Real silence 620 00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:45,600 Speaker 1: is hard to tune out because you're constantly hearing tiny variations. Yeah, 621 00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:48,480 Speaker 1: I don't want to hear all the little noises that 622 00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:50,880 Speaker 1: mightn't happen during the night. I don't want to. I 623 00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:52,880 Speaker 1: certainly don't want to hear anything the cats up to. 624 00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:55,759 Speaker 1: So I would rather just just go ahead and put 625 00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:57,279 Speaker 1: up this wall of sound. I don't want to hear 626 00:35:57,320 --> 00:35:59,680 Speaker 1: the kind of research on how to take your soul. 627 00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:03,560 Speaker 1: It's going through those books of the occult you got. 628 00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,280 Speaker 1: You know, you shouldn't have bought those, I know, especially 629 00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:11,000 Speaker 1: the ones written in cat So Robert. One of the 630 00:36:11,080 --> 00:36:13,440 Speaker 1: things that actually inspired me to do this episode was 631 00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:16,080 Speaker 1: it was an article I read from Nautilus that was 632 00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:20,000 Speaker 1: a July piece in Nautilus by Daniel A. Gross called 633 00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:23,320 Speaker 1: This is Your Brain on Silence, and this actually turned 634 00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:26,080 Speaker 1: me onto a few more avenues of of inquiry that 635 00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:28,919 Speaker 1: I want to talk about now. So in Gross's piece 636 00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:32,000 Speaker 1: he mentions a few studies, and one of them is 637 00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:35,879 Speaker 1: this two thousand six study in the journal Heart by 638 00:36:36,719 --> 00:36:42,040 Speaker 1: a scientist named lu Luciano Bernardi and colleagues. And it's 639 00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:46,280 Speaker 1: called Cardiovascular, cerebro vascular and Respiratory changes induced by different 640 00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:50,760 Speaker 1: types of music in musicians and non musicians. The importance 641 00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:54,400 Speaker 1: of silence long name, But the interesting takeaway from this 642 00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:58,120 Speaker 1: is that they were intending to study physiological effects of 643 00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:01,480 Speaker 1: different types of music. This sounds like pretty standard research, right. 644 00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:03,640 Speaker 1: So they hook you up to some machines and they 645 00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:05,960 Speaker 1: want to play I don't know exactly what different music 646 00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:09,120 Speaker 1: they played, probably some probably some metal, probably some classical. 647 00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:13,880 Speaker 1: They played exciting music, arousing music, relaxing music, and they 648 00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:17,640 Speaker 1: measured things about your body respirations, is still blood pressure, 649 00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:20,799 Speaker 1: circulation in the brain, and they were trying to figure out, 650 00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:23,839 Speaker 1: you know, do different types of music change these things? Now, 651 00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:26,280 Speaker 1: of course they did. Different types of music did indeed 652 00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:30,000 Speaker 1: lead to different states of arousal and cause physiological changes. 653 00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:34,640 Speaker 1: But Bernardi and colleagues found that the most drastic changes 654 00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:39,040 Speaker 1: and the most interesting changes happened when random two minute 655 00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:43,120 Speaker 1: intervals of silence were introduced as a control to the tests. 656 00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:47,600 Speaker 1: So these periods of silence had a physiologically miserable effect 657 00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:52,600 Speaker 1: of calming and relaxation, more so than the relaxing, calming 658 00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:56,040 Speaker 1: music that they were attempting to test. So this is 659 00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:57,960 Speaker 1: kind of like if you went to a fancy restaurant 660 00:37:58,040 --> 00:38:00,879 Speaker 1: or a wine tasting and the best part of your 661 00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:04,680 Speaker 1: experience was the palette cleanser between courses, you know, the 662 00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:07,239 Speaker 1: crackers or the sorbet or whatever. Is that that that 663 00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:10,200 Speaker 1: actually does more for you than anything else. It's like 664 00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:13,799 Speaker 1: that wonderful scene in Putti tang Um Yes, which which 665 00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:16,480 Speaker 1: I always have enjoyed as I think it's a I 666 00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:18,799 Speaker 1: think it's a fine movie. It's a great science fiction film. 667 00:38:19,520 --> 00:38:22,360 Speaker 1: But there's a scene where where Potty Tang the the 668 00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:26,799 Speaker 1: the the the title character, who is himself an accomplished 669 00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:31,879 Speaker 1: musician and just sort of cultural phenomenon um. He goes 670 00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:34,000 Speaker 1: around winner, yeah, just all around winner. He goes in 671 00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:36,000 Speaker 1: and he's gonna cut this new track. He's gonna drop 672 00:38:36,080 --> 00:38:39,320 Speaker 1: this new track and he gets the the sound engineer 673 00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:42,640 Speaker 1: to just bring all the levels down and he passionately 674 00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:46,560 Speaker 1: performs the track of pure silence and and it becomes 675 00:38:46,680 --> 00:38:49,440 Speaker 1: a sensation. And I think it's kind of a beautiful 676 00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:51,279 Speaker 1: idea that it's like in this in in an in 677 00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:53,800 Speaker 1: an age where like it's all about like the noise 678 00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:56,719 Speaker 1: that the music, that the constant music on top of 679 00:38:56,760 --> 00:39:00,640 Speaker 1: all the sounds around us. That an actual silence, some 680 00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:04,240 Speaker 1: force meditation and maybe even like essentially a two minute 681 00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:09,440 Speaker 1: interval of silence enforced on everyone would have a profound impact. Well, yeah, 682 00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:12,560 Speaker 1: it's POUTI tang spin on the the original work of 683 00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:16,360 Speaker 1: the composer John Cage, Right, So John Cage would do 684 00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:19,239 Speaker 1: these experimental music things where you know, you might be 685 00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:22,719 Speaker 1: just like random turned on radios or complete silence or 686 00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:26,640 Speaker 1: something like that. And it's it's easy to make jokes 687 00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:29,279 Speaker 1: about that. You know, you go to a classical music 688 00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:31,759 Speaker 1: concert and sit there while a pianist sits in front 689 00:39:31,760 --> 00:39:36,240 Speaker 1: of a piano and she doesn't play anything. That that's funny, 690 00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:39,640 Speaker 1: but it's also yeah, I can see the artistic merit 691 00:39:39,719 --> 00:39:42,680 Speaker 1: in that causing people to notice other sounds in the room, 692 00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:45,920 Speaker 1: to notice what the experience of listening is like by 693 00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:49,560 Speaker 1: not having anything to listen to. But again it's also 694 00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:59,880 Speaker 1: easy to make fun of another interesting fact here about 695 00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:03,200 Speaker 1: the study. So found these periods of silence more relaxing 696 00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:06,280 Speaker 1: than the relaxing music. The relaxing effect of the silence 697 00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:09,560 Speaker 1: was more pronounced in these short intervals between music than 698 00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,400 Speaker 1: it was in a long period of silence before the 699 00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:16,160 Speaker 1: test started. So, in other words, the most profound effect 700 00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:18,839 Speaker 1: of silence seemed to be when it occurred in contrast, 701 00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:21,960 Speaker 1: And this is a quote from Gross's article that that 702 00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:24,920 Speaker 1: is quoting Bernardi that the author of the study gives 703 00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:28,640 Speaker 1: to the author of the article quote, perhaps the arousal 704 00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:32,120 Speaker 1: is something that concentrates the mind in one direction, so 705 00:40:32,239 --> 00:40:36,760 Speaker 1: that when there's nothing more arousing, then you have deeper relaxation, 706 00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:40,840 Speaker 1: so you're focused on something and then you take a break, 707 00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:44,279 Speaker 1: which is much more relaxing than doing nothing in the 708 00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:47,960 Speaker 1: first place. Well, certainly, I can think I don't know 709 00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:50,759 Speaker 1: how closely related this is, but you can think of 710 00:40:50,920 --> 00:40:55,040 Speaker 1: of moments in modern music and older music where you 711 00:40:55,160 --> 00:40:58,120 Speaker 1: have that that full stop where everything goes silent for 712 00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:01,080 Speaker 1: a second and then the sound comes back right before 713 00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:03,439 Speaker 1: they drop with the drop, right, yeah, like the drop, 714 00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:07,279 Speaker 1: the dubstep drop, or even of course, um, what was 715 00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:13,040 Speaker 1: it that the Beatles song with the famous drop. I'm 716 00:41:13,080 --> 00:41:15,279 Speaker 1: not sure which in the life, right is that the one? 717 00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:17,759 Speaker 1: Oh I know that song, but I can't remember if 718 00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:21,720 Speaker 1: there's a drop in it where there's like that, everything 719 00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:27,520 Speaker 1: gets very loud and then suddenly silence. Our Beatles fans 720 00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:29,080 Speaker 1: will have to correct man that one if I'm wrong. 721 00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:34,040 Speaker 1: But but certainly their example of this throughout music the 722 00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:36,879 Speaker 1: drop totally well, I mean it does focus the mind. 723 00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:40,080 Speaker 1: The rests are as important as the beats. But of course, 724 00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:43,560 Speaker 1: the finding that the brain responds mainly to contrast and 725 00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:47,560 Speaker 1: change is borne out by other research research in mice. 726 00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:50,920 Speaker 1: So here's one interesting one that is also cited in 727 00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:53,920 Speaker 1: the Nautilus piece. Back in two thousand ten at the 728 00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:57,279 Speaker 1: University of Oregon, there was this interesting finding about how 729 00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:01,480 Speaker 1: the brain reacts to silence. So the interesting fact is 730 00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:05,160 Speaker 1: that the brain processes silence is a distinct type of 731 00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:08,880 Speaker 1: input apart from sound. Remember we were talking about silence 732 00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:12,120 Speaker 1: as a substance, so the brain sees it as such too. Yeah, 733 00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:15,120 Speaker 1: the brain very much treats silence as a substance rather 734 00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:18,840 Speaker 1: than just the absence of noise. So the researchers monitored 735 00:42:18,920 --> 00:42:21,759 Speaker 1: the brains of rats exposed to bursts of sound and 736 00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:25,319 Speaker 1: charted the brain activity for when sounds began and when 737 00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,720 Speaker 1: sounds ended. And what they found was that rats used 738 00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:34,400 Speaker 1: two completely separate synaptic pathways for processing these types of sensation. 739 00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:37,440 Speaker 1: So you hear a new sound, sound comes on, the 740 00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:41,399 Speaker 1: brain does one thing, sound goes off. The brains goes 741 00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:44,719 Speaker 1: a completely different synaptic route to the auditory cortex. Something 742 00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:48,480 Speaker 1: that it's it's doing a different kind of processing. And 743 00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:51,160 Speaker 1: the first thing to notice is, of course this is 744 00:42:51,280 --> 00:42:54,560 Speaker 1: necessary for the understanding of speech. When you're listening to 745 00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:57,839 Speaker 1: somebody talk, how do you tell when one word ends 746 00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:00,919 Speaker 1: and another begins in spoken communicityation? You have to hear 747 00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:03,920 Speaker 1: the spaces, and that's not so easy to do. It's 748 00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:07,440 Speaker 1: not easy to get computers to do this right, because certainly, 749 00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:10,200 Speaker 1: if you hear yourself talk, you hear other people talk 750 00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:13,200 Speaker 1: uh to varying degrees depending on who's doing the during 751 00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:16,840 Speaker 1: the talking. Yeah, though, the spaces between the words become 752 00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:20,959 Speaker 1: almost microscopic. Yeah. And then of course this is also 753 00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:25,400 Speaker 1: a survival mechanism. Have you ever thought about how unnerving 754 00:43:25,520 --> 00:43:29,359 Speaker 1: it is to hear a sudden silence. Yes, I have, Joe, 755 00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:37,880 Speaker 1: So yeah, Fear is an adaptive mechanism, right. It triggers 756 00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:42,120 Speaker 1: these survival behaviors. You've got a robot assassin coming at you, 757 00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:45,719 Speaker 1: it's turning on its mini gun, wearing up and uh, 758 00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:49,480 Speaker 1: and it triggers these survival behaviors. In dangerous situations, you've 759 00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:52,640 Speaker 1: got an impulse to freeze and be quiet, or the 760 00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:57,000 Speaker 1: body prepares itself to flee or or to fight for survival. Though, 761 00:43:57,120 --> 00:43:58,879 Speaker 1: I mean, if it's the robot with the mini gun, 762 00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:01,320 Speaker 1: you don't have much of a good ants. But so, 763 00:44:01,520 --> 00:44:06,760 Speaker 1: how do animals know when to be afraid? Well, decent question, 764 00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:11,319 Speaker 1: and certainly one clue is if something has alerted other 765 00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:13,799 Speaker 1: animals in their presence, right that if something has caused 766 00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:19,160 Speaker 1: a quiet to spread amongst the surrounding organisms. Right. And 767 00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:22,200 Speaker 1: the question is is that sort of a universal language 768 00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:25,600 Speaker 1: and instinctual universal language among animals, And it looks like 769 00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:28,279 Speaker 1: it might be. So. One way of course animals can 770 00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:31,560 Speaker 1: be afraid is learned fear associations. If every time you 771 00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:34,520 Speaker 1: go to the red food bowl it shocks you, you're 772 00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:36,680 Speaker 1: going to be afraid of the red food bowl. There's 773 00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:41,400 Speaker 1: also instinctual, species specific triggers of fear, like audible alarm 774 00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:45,319 Speaker 1: calls or pheromones. But there was a study in two 775 00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:49,400 Speaker 1: thousand twelve in Current Biology called silence resulting from the 776 00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:53,520 Speaker 1: cessation of movement signals danger. And what this study found 777 00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:57,759 Speaker 1: is that the other animal fear trigger is silence, specifically 778 00:44:58,160 --> 00:45:02,520 Speaker 1: the sudden cessation of the sound of movement. You here, walking, talking, here, 779 00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:05,640 Speaker 1: moving along through the brush. When whenever that goes quiet, 780 00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:10,239 Speaker 1: animals instinctively become afraid. They know something's wrong. Uh. And 781 00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:13,279 Speaker 1: the author's right in their abstract quote as freezing is 782 00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:17,000 Speaker 1: a pervasive fear response in animals. Silence may constitute a 783 00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:21,320 Speaker 1: truly public queue used by a variety of animals in 784 00:45:21,400 --> 00:45:25,280 Speaker 1: the ecosystem to detect impending danger. So this is interesting 785 00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:28,719 Speaker 1: that it becomes across species language like you're you're not. 786 00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:32,560 Speaker 1: You don't have to listen to your own co species, 787 00:45:32,680 --> 00:45:35,160 Speaker 1: you know calling out, be careful when you hear the 788 00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:39,759 Speaker 1: birds becoming quiet, you know something's up, even if you 789 00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:44,680 Speaker 1: are an escaped monkey from a from a lab, even 790 00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:49,000 Speaker 1: if you are even if you're a wolverine. But then 791 00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:51,440 Speaker 1: to come back on the other side, there is another 792 00:45:51,520 --> 00:45:55,040 Speaker 1: biological role that silence seems to play, and it's a 793 00:45:55,239 --> 00:46:01,279 Speaker 1: positive nurturing one toward brain development. So there's study by M. K. 794 00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:06,200 Speaker 1: Kirsty in Brain structure and function called is silence Golden 795 00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:09,880 Speaker 1: effects of auditory stimuli and their absence on adult hippocamp 796 00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:15,160 Speaker 1: ll neurogenesis. So this essentially linked silence to brain development. 797 00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:19,880 Speaker 1: And they tested four different sound conditions, which was so 798 00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:23,760 Speaker 1: they had some mice and they tested standard background noise 799 00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:26,319 Speaker 1: and an animal testing facility that sounds like a really 800 00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:29,799 Speaker 1: pleasant noise. But then they also compared this to white 801 00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:32,600 Speaker 1: noise that they might have gone with brown noise, but 802 00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:35,960 Speaker 1: they didn't white noise the pup calls of mice, so 803 00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:38,480 Speaker 1: you know, a little little mice calling out for the 804 00:46:38,560 --> 00:46:42,840 Speaker 1: parents and silence. And the hypothesis going into this experiment 805 00:46:42,960 --> 00:46:45,439 Speaker 1: was that the baby mouse calls, the pup calls would 806 00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:49,480 Speaker 1: stimulate the growth of new brain cells in adults. And 807 00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,520 Speaker 1: at first, all of the sounds except the white noise, 808 00:46:52,640 --> 00:46:55,680 Speaker 1: did seem to encourage one specific type of brain cell 809 00:46:55,719 --> 00:47:00,239 Speaker 1: growth neurogenesis in the hippocampus, but after seven days only 810 00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:04,080 Speaker 1: silence was still associated with this brain cell growth and 811 00:47:04,360 --> 00:47:08,520 Speaker 1: that was a total surprise. But the authors write, quote, 812 00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:12,600 Speaker 1: our results indicate that the unnatural absence of auditory inputs, 813 00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:17,839 Speaker 1: as well as spectro temporally rich albeit ethologically irrelevant stimuli, 814 00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:22,479 Speaker 1: activate precursor cells in the case of silence, also leading 815 00:47:22,520 --> 00:47:26,320 Speaker 1: to greater numbers of newborn immature neurons, whereas ambient and 816 00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:31,359 Speaker 1: unstructured background auditory stimuli do not. So. In other words, 817 00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:35,000 Speaker 1: the theory is that artificial silence presents a healthy challenge 818 00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:38,279 Speaker 1: to the brain, which prompts the brain to grow new 819 00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:42,759 Speaker 1: brain cells in adaptation more so than any of these 820 00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:47,239 Speaker 1: other background noises. It's interesting when you when need when 821 00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:50,360 Speaker 1: you take that into account thinking about our own Like, 822 00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:53,960 Speaker 1: so you're driving along in the car and he might think, oh, 823 00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:56,480 Speaker 1: I need something to occupy my mind. Right, so I'm 824 00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:58,840 Speaker 1: gonna put on some music and put on some podcast 825 00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:02,320 Speaker 1: or what have you. Um, But really your mind is 826 00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:05,680 Speaker 1: gonna be able to occupy itself. Maybe, but again, perhaps 827 00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:07,520 Speaker 1: that's part of the problem. You want you it's going 828 00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:10,279 Speaker 1: to occupy itself, But maybe that's part of the problem. Well, 829 00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:13,880 Speaker 1: it might just occupy itself with obsession over your own 830 00:48:13,960 --> 00:48:17,560 Speaker 1: mortality or with other things that you just don't have 831 00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:21,239 Speaker 1: time for. Yeah, the basic default mode network. Right, So 832 00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:24,719 Speaker 1: this really complex picture of silence is emerging. For me. 833 00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:28,919 Speaker 1: The substance of silence is is strange because uh, it's 834 00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:32,120 Speaker 1: freedom from noise. Of course, it seems to promote relaxation, 835 00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:34,920 Speaker 1: We've seen that. But then you go into an intensely 836 00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:38,200 Speaker 1: quiet room, we become aware of deeper and deeper noises, 837 00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:41,600 Speaker 1: deeper into the quiet verse, and you start to go crazy. 838 00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:44,359 Speaker 1: People lose their minds, they can't stand it. And then 839 00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:47,880 Speaker 1: periods of silence seem to promote healthy growth of brain cells, 840 00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:51,160 Speaker 1: seems to be good for at least the brains of mice. Um. 841 00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:54,280 Speaker 1: But then the sudden silence also triggers fear and alarm. 842 00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:57,839 Speaker 1: So it seems our reactions to silence are almost as 843 00:48:57,920 --> 00:49:01,080 Speaker 1: complex as our reactions to sound itself, which makes me 844 00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:05,160 Speaker 1: wonder is there really such a thing as silence? And 845 00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:08,120 Speaker 1: if so, what is the ideal quiet? What are we 846 00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:11,320 Speaker 1: really going for when we want some peace and quiet? 847 00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:15,719 Speaker 1: What is it we have in mind? M hm, Well, 848 00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:18,920 Speaker 1: I feel like this is um. This is a question 849 00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:23,600 Speaker 1: that is complicated by just the human experience of silence. 850 00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:28,480 Speaker 1: For you know, for one, thing, because when I'm engaging 851 00:49:28,719 --> 00:49:33,080 Speaker 1: with with actual silence, I'm also very engaging to varying 852 00:49:33,120 --> 00:49:37,520 Speaker 1: degrees with inner silence and weighing those two. And then 853 00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:41,160 Speaker 1: if that's going to color my memory about how quiet 854 00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:45,120 Speaker 1: a particular setting was, you know, like if I like 855 00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:47,520 Speaker 1: I've gone places before, like when I had to think 856 00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:49,760 Speaker 1: of for this podcast, like what are the quietest places 857 00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:53,400 Speaker 1: I've been to? I can the places that come to 858 00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:58,200 Speaker 1: mind are like wilderness environments. They were not necessarily quiet. 859 00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:00,600 Speaker 1: Like one was, like um, up on top of a 860 00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:05,239 Speaker 1: mountain in Yosemite, and there weren't any human noises around 861 00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:07,120 Speaker 1: me other than like I think I was, I was 862 00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:09,920 Speaker 1: pretty worn out by the time I reached the top. Uh. 863 00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:14,120 Speaker 1: But you know that the wind was sweeping through, blowing 864 00:50:14,120 --> 00:50:16,960 Speaker 1: across the trees and the and the rocks. Uh that 865 00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:20,640 Speaker 1: there was a sound of of loose rocks underfoot as 866 00:50:20,680 --> 00:50:24,480 Speaker 1: I ascended. But yet you know, part of part of 867 00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:26,880 Speaker 1: it was probably physical exertion. Part of it was just 868 00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:33,040 Speaker 1: the you know, an entirely new physical environment, a slightly 869 00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:37,280 Speaker 1: different you know, sound environment. Like all of that further 870 00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:42,040 Speaker 1: colored my interpretation of it as quiet. You know, so 871 00:50:42,160 --> 00:50:44,640 Speaker 1: when I look back on it, now I'm it's easy 872 00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:45,800 Speaker 1: for me to say, oh, that was one of the 873 00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:47,840 Speaker 1: quietest places I've been to. But in a way it 874 00:50:47,960 --> 00:50:51,360 Speaker 1: was just loud in different ways, both sonically and like 875 00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:54,600 Speaker 1: just visually loud. I thought the same thing. I mean, 876 00:50:54,719 --> 00:50:58,000 Speaker 1: I was able to think of Big Bend, which was actually, 877 00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:01,480 Speaker 1: I think, relatively quiet. But when I when I think 878 00:51:01,520 --> 00:51:04,400 Speaker 1: of quiet places, I just think of like nature and 879 00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:07,120 Speaker 1: stuff like that. It's not quiet at all. There's bugs everywhere. 880 00:51:07,600 --> 00:51:10,680 Speaker 1: I was up in Tennessee last weekend, sitting out on 881 00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:13,879 Speaker 1: the porch one night, and I was thinking, Man, it's 882 00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:16,200 Speaker 1: so nice and quiet out here. It was not even 883 00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:20,879 Speaker 1: remotely quote. It was incredibly loud with different like the Uh. 884 00:51:21,520 --> 00:51:24,200 Speaker 1: It's like a it's like a Phil Specter wall of sound, 885 00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:30,760 Speaker 1: engineered entirely by bugs. They're filling in every single conceivable 886 00:51:30,920 --> 00:51:33,359 Speaker 1: hole where there could be a noise. They've all got 887 00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:36,399 Speaker 1: their niche and it's all there. It's like a it's 888 00:51:36,440 --> 00:51:38,560 Speaker 1: like a like a Queen metal song, you know where 889 00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:43,120 Speaker 1: they it's just floor to ceiling. Oh yeah. I camped 890 00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:46,680 Speaker 1: in okay Finoki swamp here in Georgia several years back 891 00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:49,919 Speaker 1: when on a canoe trip. UH, and it was legitimately 892 00:51:50,320 --> 00:51:53,239 Speaker 1: hard to sleep that night because the insects were so 893 00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:57,240 Speaker 1: loud and the frogs frogs, like actually underneath the platform 894 00:51:57,320 --> 00:51:58,800 Speaker 1: that we had our tents set up on, we're just 895 00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:02,680 Speaker 1: so incredibly out. It was. It was worse than trying 896 00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:05,240 Speaker 1: to sleep in a city. But but in my memory 897 00:52:05,320 --> 00:52:09,880 Speaker 1: I interpreted this as peace and quiet. Yeah, in in 898 00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:13,040 Speaker 1: a sense it is. But it's but again that that 899 00:52:13,160 --> 00:52:15,560 Speaker 1: kind of that that's why it's so complicated to try 900 00:52:15,600 --> 00:52:18,240 Speaker 1: and think, like, well, what's what's my ideal level of silence, 901 00:52:18,239 --> 00:52:20,360 Speaker 1: because you know what, a doctor's waiting room can be 902 00:52:20,440 --> 00:52:23,560 Speaker 1: pretty quiet. But oh, that's no good at all. Yeah, 903 00:52:23,600 --> 00:52:25,320 Speaker 1: but it's not good because you're about to go and 904 00:52:25,400 --> 00:52:28,239 Speaker 1: see the doctor. Your head is probably more alive with 905 00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:32,239 Speaker 1: with worry and concerns and what ifs than uh than 906 00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:35,400 Speaker 1: any other time. I mean, I'm I wonder what it 907 00:52:35,440 --> 00:52:37,120 Speaker 1: would be like to find it soothing to sit in 908 00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:39,520 Speaker 1: a silent room and hear nothing but the sound of 909 00:52:40,080 --> 00:52:43,640 Speaker 1: a pencil scraping against paper as it describes the shape 910 00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:47,600 Speaker 1: of a mole. Yeah. Um, you know, it also makes 911 00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:50,600 Speaker 1: me think of airports we mentioned, you know earlier in 912 00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:53,760 Speaker 1: um in jest. But of course he created music for airports. 913 00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:57,640 Speaker 1: That's wonderful ambient album. And every time I listened to it, 914 00:52:57,920 --> 00:53:00,320 Speaker 1: or and or every time I'm in an actual report, 915 00:53:00,360 --> 00:53:04,000 Speaker 1: I think, why am I listening to CNN on several 916 00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:07,279 Speaker 1: different TVs on top of all the noise instead of 917 00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:10,000 Speaker 1: music for airports? Is is there an idea here that 918 00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:14,000 Speaker 1: actually more distraction? Is is better? Like that is the 919 00:53:14,239 --> 00:53:17,200 Speaker 1: form of silence that works better in an airport as 920 00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:21,520 Speaker 1: opposed to the the the the idea of silence, uh 921 00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:25,120 Speaker 1: in the midst of ambient music. I don't know. I 922 00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:30,200 Speaker 1: don't know either. Or should we just all have, you know, 923 00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:33,440 Speaker 1: our our heads encased in some sort of sarcophagus to 924 00:53:34,160 --> 00:53:39,680 Speaker 1: enforce silence upon us. Well, that's another thing. Even even 925 00:53:39,719 --> 00:53:41,719 Speaker 1: if you put in ear plugs and you you know, 926 00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:43,800 Speaker 1: very good ones, and you don't hear what's going on 927 00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:46,759 Speaker 1: around you, there is still a sort of connected sense 928 00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:49,919 Speaker 1: of touch, you know, the vibrational energy. There's some sort 929 00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:52,839 Speaker 1: of blending between our sense of touch and our sense 930 00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:54,719 Speaker 1: of hearing. Yeah, yeah, and certainly you're still going to 931 00:53:55,160 --> 00:53:58,279 Speaker 1: receive those uh, those waves you're certainly gonna hear with 932 00:53:58,400 --> 00:54:01,279 Speaker 1: your skull um to a large degree. So yeah, you're 933 00:54:01,280 --> 00:54:04,600 Speaker 1: not gonna be able to to to completely silence it out. 934 00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:08,320 Speaker 1: So Robert, here's something that I read about when I was, 935 00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:11,840 Speaker 1: you know, doing some browsing on the subject of silence. 936 00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:15,360 Speaker 1: The idea of enforced silence. It's a hard thing to 937 00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:17,920 Speaker 1: pull off, right, because you can isolate somebody, you can 938 00:54:17,920 --> 00:54:20,960 Speaker 1: put them in solitary, you can go, uh, you know, 939 00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:24,239 Speaker 1: cold War John C. Lily, and drop somebody in an 940 00:54:24,280 --> 00:54:27,560 Speaker 1: isolation tank. But for the most partly, people have a 941 00:54:27,719 --> 00:54:31,480 Speaker 1: right to be loud, and people can be loud outwardly 942 00:54:31,560 --> 00:54:34,400 Speaker 1: and certainly inwardly. You know, I don't usually think of 943 00:54:34,560 --> 00:54:37,200 Speaker 1: a prison as a place that's going to be, especially 944 00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:40,880 Speaker 1: a refuge of peace and quiet. But in the nineteenth 945 00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:44,000 Speaker 1: century there was this regime that I read about known 946 00:54:44,080 --> 00:54:47,280 Speaker 1: as the Auburn system. It evolved in the Auburn Prison 947 00:54:47,400 --> 00:54:50,640 Speaker 1: of Auburn, New York. And the way this worked is 948 00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:53,160 Speaker 1: that you had prisoners whould go out perform hard labor 949 00:54:53,239 --> 00:54:57,040 Speaker 1: all day, and then they were put in solitary confinement 950 00:54:57,120 --> 00:55:01,400 Speaker 1: at night with enforced silence at all time, no talking. 951 00:55:02,000 --> 00:55:08,280 Speaker 1: Well that sounds absolutely dreadful, absolutely shredful. Well, anyway, the idea, 952 00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:11,200 Speaker 1: I guess is that, you know, criminals, they learn habits, 953 00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:14,400 Speaker 1: they learn things from each other, They learn and reinforce 954 00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:18,520 Speaker 1: bad behaviors from other criminals through some sort of perverted 955 00:55:18,600 --> 00:55:22,640 Speaker 1: form of social education. But if the prisoners can't make 956 00:55:22,680 --> 00:55:25,719 Speaker 1: a sound, they can't communicate with one another in order 957 00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:30,440 Speaker 1: to reinforce and instruct. But I'm curious how, I mean, 958 00:55:30,920 --> 00:55:32,759 Speaker 1: not like I think it would be ethical to do 959 00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:36,840 Speaker 1: this in any case, but putting questions of ethicality aside, 960 00:55:36,920 --> 00:55:40,719 Speaker 1: did this work? Did people really find that this increased 961 00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:45,440 Speaker 1: penitence caused people to stop living a criminal lifestyle? I 962 00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:49,040 Speaker 1: I am almost positive that this did not. My bat 963 00:55:49,320 --> 00:55:51,880 Speaker 1: is that this did not work, though it does sound like, 964 00:55:52,280 --> 00:55:57,080 Speaker 1: you know, perfectly deplorable from you know, by nineteenth century 965 00:55:57,760 --> 00:56:00,160 Speaker 1: penal standards. I mean, I think I think it's of 966 00:56:00,239 --> 00:56:03,479 Speaker 1: fits with the idea of you know what, do you need? Nothing? 967 00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:06,719 Speaker 1: You need? You need your Bible and you need quiet reflection, 968 00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:09,520 Speaker 1: and so they put you in a room by yourself, 969 00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:13,320 Speaker 1: no talking, read your Bible and that's it. And I 970 00:56:13,400 --> 00:56:16,000 Speaker 1: guess it was supposed to encourage guilt, you know, guilt 971 00:56:16,080 --> 00:56:20,279 Speaker 1: and remorse and feelings of wanting to reform. But I 972 00:56:20,360 --> 00:56:23,400 Speaker 1: don't know. I think when you force people to be silent, 973 00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:29,279 Speaker 1: do you also encourage them to stew on what bothers them? Well, 974 00:56:29,360 --> 00:56:33,520 Speaker 1: I think yeah, I mean it's you're not necessarily making 975 00:56:33,600 --> 00:56:38,040 Speaker 1: any positive movement there. I mean, in researching this episode, 976 00:56:38,160 --> 00:56:41,000 Speaker 1: it did a lot of searches around for silence related 977 00:56:41,520 --> 00:56:45,399 Speaker 1: UM studies, and silence can have many meanings. Of course, 978 00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:47,919 Speaker 1: as we've already discussed, one meaning we haven't really gotten 979 00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:52,040 Speaker 1: into is silence in terms of not talking about your problems, 980 00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:55,000 Speaker 1: not talking about what's botting, You're not talking about an issue. Well, 981 00:56:55,040 --> 00:56:57,720 Speaker 1: that's another You've done an episode of this show before. 982 00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:00,480 Speaker 1: It was also several years ago in the Spiral Silence, 983 00:57:00,880 --> 00:57:03,920 Speaker 1: which is not not so much about sound but just 984 00:57:04,040 --> 00:57:08,280 Speaker 1: about not speaking up right, And yeah, that that becomes 985 00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:12,239 Speaker 1: an echo chamber of its own. Um. But I mean, 986 00:57:12,280 --> 00:57:15,080 Speaker 1: on top of that, of course, the all of the 987 00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:19,920 Speaker 1: research indicates that solitary confinement is just a brutal tactic 988 00:57:20,000 --> 00:57:22,920 Speaker 1: to use against anybody. So I think it is it 989 00:57:23,080 --> 00:57:25,440 Speaker 1: is now coming to be considered a form of torture, 990 00:57:26,280 --> 00:57:27,680 Speaker 1: so I'd be willing to look into it more. But 991 00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:31,600 Speaker 1: I my my firm suspicion is that this, uh, this 992 00:57:31,760 --> 00:57:34,960 Speaker 1: prison experiment like so like pretty much anything you call 993 00:57:35,040 --> 00:57:40,960 Speaker 1: a prison experience probably did not have great, great outcome. Now, 994 00:57:41,040 --> 00:57:44,880 Speaker 1: of course, that's when silence is imposed upon you, inflicted 995 00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:47,480 Speaker 1: upon you. But but certainly there there are plenty of 996 00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:52,960 Speaker 1: models for embracing silence, taking on vowels of silence. Certainly, 997 00:57:53,120 --> 00:57:56,560 Speaker 1: um there a number of monastic traditions and the Catholic 998 00:57:56,640 --> 00:57:59,960 Speaker 1: tradition that come to mind. Uh. It Also, silence also 999 00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:05,080 Speaker 1: plays a role in Hindu philosophy, where it is uh mauna. Also, 1000 00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:09,520 Speaker 1: even the Greek philosopher of Pathagoras of say most imposed 1001 00:58:09,520 --> 00:58:13,520 Speaker 1: a rule of silence on his uh disciples of pythagoraean 1002 00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:17,120 Speaker 1: silence stince of five years or more, even to prove 1003 00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:20,120 Speaker 1: your commitment apparently, oh man, Yeah, the music of the 1004 00:58:20,160 --> 00:58:23,080 Speaker 1: spheres you can't hear it unless you stop talking. Yeah, 1005 00:58:23,760 --> 00:58:25,960 Speaker 1: And then of course there's the whole issue of silence. 1006 00:58:26,360 --> 00:58:29,680 Speaker 1: Uh in the world place silence in steady, you know 1007 00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:33,400 Speaker 1: here and how stuff works over over the years, I've 1008 00:58:33,400 --> 00:58:37,440 Speaker 1: seen I've seen this this transformation. So like when I 1009 00:58:37,480 --> 00:58:40,120 Speaker 1: first started here, like eight or nine years ago, we 1010 00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:42,120 Speaker 1: had these bit and you were here at the at 1011 00:58:42,120 --> 00:58:45,840 Speaker 1: the time. We had these big but six years Yeah, 1012 00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:47,600 Speaker 1: it was still in the same office, so it was 1013 00:58:47,840 --> 00:58:52,000 Speaker 1: like sort of big three sided cubicles, really spacious. Uh. 1014 00:58:52,440 --> 00:58:56,640 Speaker 1: You felt like a monk in um in the library 1015 00:58:56,720 --> 00:58:58,640 Speaker 1: at times. You know, you're able to get your materials, 1016 00:58:58,720 --> 00:59:00,880 Speaker 1: you had your computer and you are working away on 1017 00:59:01,040 --> 00:59:04,280 Speaker 1: your on your own. There were days where you didn't 1018 00:59:04,480 --> 00:59:07,280 Speaker 1: you didn't necessarily see anybody that was seated on an 1019 00:59:07,320 --> 00:59:10,280 Speaker 1: opposite row from you. And uh, We've had a couple 1020 00:59:10,320 --> 00:59:12,640 Speaker 1: of different offices since then, and things have gotten more 1021 00:59:12,800 --> 00:59:17,560 Speaker 1: open office, as is the trend right where the ideas that, oh, 1022 00:59:17,600 --> 00:59:19,800 Speaker 1: we're going to treat treat everything like it's a newsroom, 1023 00:59:19,880 --> 00:59:23,320 Speaker 1: treat everything, uh in a way so that we're inspiring 1024 00:59:23,360 --> 00:59:27,640 Speaker 1: all sorts of uh, you know, vital and imaginative, creative 1025 00:59:27,760 --> 00:59:31,320 Speaker 1: energies that will just free flow and ricochet around the office. Man, 1026 00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:37,680 Speaker 1: there is nothing more inspiring than overhearing somebody else's work conversation. Yeah, um, 1027 00:59:38,120 --> 00:59:42,080 Speaker 1: you know. And I feel like there are there are 1028 00:59:42,120 --> 00:59:45,480 Speaker 1: professions where an opus opened the office environment work better 1029 00:59:45,560 --> 00:59:49,080 Speaker 1: their individuals for whom it works better. Um. I think 1030 00:59:49,120 --> 00:59:52,120 Speaker 1: the problem is always when you try applying any kind 1031 00:59:52,160 --> 00:59:56,880 Speaker 1: of one size fits all um plan to a workforce, well, 1032 00:59:56,920 --> 00:59:59,160 Speaker 1: it seems to be from what I've read, everything is 1033 00:59:59,200 --> 01:00:02,840 Speaker 1: open office now. It's what everybody does. I'm not quite 1034 01:00:02,880 --> 01:00:06,160 Speaker 1: sure why that trend has caught on, but but it's 1035 01:00:06,200 --> 01:00:09,040 Speaker 1: not just it's not just here in the work world. 1036 01:00:09,120 --> 01:00:10,960 Speaker 1: I mean you also see it out in the world 1037 01:00:11,040 --> 01:00:13,960 Speaker 1: of scientific research. In fact, there have there have been 1038 01:00:14,040 --> 01:00:16,360 Speaker 1: some papers in recent years so they've brought this up 1039 01:00:16,440 --> 01:00:19,640 Speaker 1: saying that hey, we have too much enforced interaction in 1040 01:00:19,800 --> 01:00:24,200 Speaker 1: science UM. In fact, Peter Higgs has stated that the 1041 01:00:24,280 --> 01:00:27,040 Speaker 1: Higgs Boson of the Higgs Boson has stated that the 1042 01:00:27,160 --> 01:00:30,920 Speaker 1: peace and quiet that he was afforded in the nineteen sixties, 1043 01:00:31,120 --> 01:00:34,080 Speaker 1: which resulted in his Nobel Prize winning work, is no 1044 01:00:34,240 --> 01:00:37,040 Speaker 1: longer possible, you know. So you have you have a 1045 01:00:37,120 --> 01:00:39,280 Speaker 1: number of scientists over the years who have really been 1046 01:00:39,800 --> 01:00:45,480 Speaker 1: UM proponents of silence. Newton, Einstein, just just to name 1047 01:00:45,480 --> 01:00:48,720 Speaker 1: a few here. They've all prized silence and isolation. And 1048 01:00:48,880 --> 01:00:52,160 Speaker 1: if they were working today, would they have it? And 1049 01:00:52,400 --> 01:00:54,080 Speaker 1: if they didn't have it, would they have been able 1050 01:00:54,160 --> 01:00:57,360 Speaker 1: to achieve the ends that they that they achieved in 1051 01:00:57,400 --> 01:00:59,640 Speaker 1: their lives. Well, not to mention how much they'd be 1052 01:00:59,720 --> 01:01:03,160 Speaker 1: required or to tweet about their ongoing research and upcoming conferences. 1053 01:01:04,360 --> 01:01:07,880 Speaker 1: I'll do that Facebook Live. Make sure Newton that you 1054 01:01:07,960 --> 01:01:10,000 Speaker 1: do your Facebook life. You gotta understand you're gonna do 1055 01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:12,760 Speaker 1: something with an apple, um where you have a dog 1056 01:01:12,840 --> 01:01:16,120 Speaker 1: door something. Let's get some let's point some some cameras 1057 01:01:16,160 --> 01:01:20,439 Speaker 1: of that. Facebook wants to know what is this? Yes? 1058 01:01:20,920 --> 01:01:25,760 Speaker 1: Why am I seeing this? Who? Who are you? Uh? Well, 1059 01:01:26,360 --> 01:01:28,040 Speaker 1: it's the world. It's the world we have. It's the 1060 01:01:28,040 --> 01:01:30,600 Speaker 1: world we have to deal with, and we'll we'll find 1061 01:01:30,680 --> 01:01:32,400 Speaker 1: a way to work through the noise. I mean that's 1062 01:01:32,440 --> 01:01:35,640 Speaker 1: a scenario at any point, right right, No, no matter 1063 01:01:35,720 --> 01:01:38,320 Speaker 1: how noise do you think the world is. No matter 1064 01:01:38,440 --> 01:01:41,440 Speaker 1: how quiet a slice you've carved out for yourself, you're 1065 01:01:41,480 --> 01:01:43,280 Speaker 1: still going to have to work through the noise. Well, 1066 01:01:43,320 --> 01:01:45,600 Speaker 1: I mean that brings us back to the to the question. 1067 01:01:45,680 --> 01:01:48,080 Speaker 1: I guess the core question the substance of silence. What 1068 01:01:48,320 --> 01:01:51,640 Speaker 1: is it? And why is some silence desirable but other 1069 01:01:51,760 --> 01:01:56,120 Speaker 1: silence is not? So you might put in this loud 1070 01:01:56,920 --> 01:02:01,040 Speaker 1: white noise track at work in order to get some 1071 01:02:01,240 --> 01:02:04,520 Speaker 1: quiet from the conversations that are going on around you. 1072 01:02:04,960 --> 01:02:07,720 Speaker 1: So you're increasing the volume in order to get some 1073 01:02:07,800 --> 01:02:11,720 Speaker 1: peace and quiet. The signals again that that is clearly 1074 01:02:11,800 --> 01:02:16,040 Speaker 1: about something about the the introduction and novelty of sound 1075 01:02:16,240 --> 01:02:19,560 Speaker 1: rather than the volume of sound. Yeah, I guess I'd 1076 01:02:19,600 --> 01:02:21,680 Speaker 1: be tempted to think of it as oxygen, you know, 1077 01:02:22,520 --> 01:02:24,720 Speaker 1: And like I might want to take a breath of 1078 01:02:24,800 --> 01:02:27,520 Speaker 1: pure oxygen every now and then, But I don't fun 1079 01:02:27,720 --> 01:02:30,080 Speaker 1: just for fun. But I don't want to necessarily live 1080 01:02:30,160 --> 01:02:33,720 Speaker 1: in an environment of pure oxygen and breathe it all 1081 01:02:33,760 --> 01:02:37,120 Speaker 1: the time. That would kill you. But but but every 1082 01:02:37,160 --> 01:02:39,520 Speaker 1: now and then I'll sleep in my specialized oxygen tent. 1083 01:02:40,160 --> 01:02:44,600 Speaker 1: Uh and uh, and it will revitalize me. But hey, 1084 01:02:44,680 --> 01:02:47,120 Speaker 1: that's uh, that's our take on the topic. We we 1085 01:02:47,240 --> 01:02:50,120 Speaker 1: put it to you, though, what is the quietest place 1086 01:02:50,400 --> 01:02:53,600 Speaker 1: you have ever found yourself in? What what's the quietest 1087 01:02:53,640 --> 01:02:56,200 Speaker 1: place you've visited? What is the quietest place you have 1088 01:02:56,320 --> 01:02:58,800 Speaker 1: created for yourself in your own life? And I guess 1089 01:02:58,880 --> 01:03:01,200 Speaker 1: the question is a dual question, right, what's the place 1090 01:03:01,280 --> 01:03:03,600 Speaker 1: that has felt the most quiet to you, like the 1091 01:03:03,760 --> 01:03:08,760 Speaker 1: ideal mind silence versus what's actually the lowest number of 1092 01:03:08,800 --> 01:03:13,000 Speaker 1: ambient decibels? Be very interested to hear, Hey, maybe you've 1093 01:03:13,000 --> 01:03:16,400 Speaker 1: even been to one of these uh, these soundless chambers 1094 01:03:16,520 --> 01:03:18,920 Speaker 1: that we've created in the world. I want to hear 1095 01:03:19,000 --> 01:03:20,440 Speaker 1: from the people, and I know they've got to be 1096 01:03:20,520 --> 01:03:22,240 Speaker 1: out there, the people who went in one and did 1097 01:03:22,360 --> 01:03:24,760 Speaker 1: not get all freaked out, because I'm sure there are 1098 01:03:24,880 --> 01:03:27,160 Speaker 1: some people. I'm sure we hear about the ones that 1099 01:03:27,280 --> 01:03:29,400 Speaker 1: get freaked out. Have you been to one of these 1100 01:03:29,480 --> 01:03:31,680 Speaker 1: things and didn't really bother you? I want to hear 1101 01:03:31,720 --> 01:03:34,960 Speaker 1: about that. I mean, there are people who who are 1102 01:03:35,080 --> 01:03:38,760 Speaker 1: noisy enough and or make enough noises just moving around 1103 01:03:39,480 --> 01:03:41,400 Speaker 1: that I think they would they would fare just fine, 1104 01:03:41,520 --> 01:03:43,400 Speaker 1: like they would never notice. They're just if you're just 1105 01:03:43,440 --> 01:03:47,480 Speaker 1: sitting there like groaning to yourself and cracking your knuckles 1106 01:03:47,760 --> 01:03:50,480 Speaker 1: and talking to yourself and groaning some more than you know, 1107 01:03:50,520 --> 01:03:53,000 Speaker 1: you're probably not gonna notice. The test about how we'll 1108 01:03:53,200 --> 01:03:59,360 Speaker 1: show all them, show all they're griping about your office 1109 01:03:59,480 --> 01:04:03,520 Speaker 1: environment all that. Let's stop being grumpy, Robert, how can 1110 01:04:03,560 --> 01:04:05,400 Speaker 1: they get in touch with us? Oh? Hey, before we 1111 01:04:05,560 --> 01:04:07,760 Speaker 1: do that, we should also mention that this week we 1112 01:04:07,840 --> 01:04:10,520 Speaker 1: are going to be in New York. That's right. If 1113 01:04:10,560 --> 01:04:13,640 Speaker 1: you were in New York, specifically, if you were attending 1114 01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:19,120 Speaker 1: the The Star Trek Mission New York uh CON in 1115 01:04:19,280 --> 01:04:22,000 Speaker 1: New York City, then you should you should check us out. 1116 01:04:22,080 --> 01:04:23,960 Speaker 1: We're gonna be there. We're gonna be doing a presentation. 1117 01:04:24,040 --> 01:04:25,920 Speaker 1: It's gonna be Star Trek e. It's gonna be science, 1118 01:04:26,120 --> 01:04:27,840 Speaker 1: it's gonna be a little cosmic, it's gonna be a 1119 01:04:27,880 --> 01:04:31,960 Speaker 1: little uh psychological. Yeah. So the conference goes from September 1120 01:04:32,040 --> 01:04:34,440 Speaker 1: two to September four. If if you're gonna be there, 1121 01:04:34,520 --> 01:04:38,040 Speaker 1: our panel will be on Friday afternoon, in the early afternoon, 1122 01:04:38,560 --> 01:04:41,080 Speaker 1: and you can look us up in the conference materials. 1123 01:04:41,240 --> 01:04:44,439 Speaker 1: But yeah, so if if you're around, come say hi, yeah, yeah, 1124 01:04:44,520 --> 01:04:46,040 Speaker 1: come here what we have to say, and then uh 1125 01:04:46,360 --> 01:04:49,480 Speaker 1: have a little chat with us afterwards. And in the meantime, 1126 01:04:50,080 --> 01:04:51,800 Speaker 1: head on over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. 1127 01:04:51,880 --> 01:04:54,960 Speaker 1: That's where you'll find all the podcast, the videos, blog 1128 01:04:55,040 --> 01:04:58,240 Speaker 1: post links out to our various social media accounts, uh 1129 01:04:58,320 --> 01:05:01,560 Speaker 1: and that Facebook account Blow the Mind. You will definitely 1130 01:05:01,680 --> 01:05:05,920 Speaker 1: find information there about the upcoming Star Trek thing. And 1131 01:05:06,120 --> 01:05:08,000 Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us, as always, 1132 01:05:08,080 --> 01:05:10,240 Speaker 1: you can email us and blow the mind at how 1133 01:05:10,360 --> 01:05:22,480 Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands 1134 01:05:22,520 --> 01:05:24,880 Speaker 1: of other topics. Is that how stuff Works dot com. 1135 01:05:31,040 --> 01:05:31,280 Speaker 1: Bl