1 00:00:05,559 --> 00:00:10,120 Speaker 1: How is your brain like Abraham Lincoln's political cabinet? And 2 00:00:10,160 --> 00:00:12,880 Speaker 1: why is it easier to do a drone strike on 3 00:00:12,920 --> 00:00:15,840 Speaker 1: an enemy than to stab them with a bayonet? And 4 00:00:15,880 --> 00:00:17,959 Speaker 1: what does any of this have to do with Mel 5 00:00:18,040 --> 00:00:22,000 Speaker 1: Gibson or the Twilight Zone or mister Spock from Star Trek. 6 00:00:24,360 --> 00:00:29,040 Speaker 1: Welcome to Inner Cosmos with me David Eagleman. I'm a 7 00:00:29,080 --> 00:00:33,720 Speaker 1: neuroscientist and an author at Stanford University, and in these 8 00:00:33,760 --> 00:00:37,519 Speaker 1: next three episodes, we're going to sail deeply into our 9 00:00:37,720 --> 00:00:41,720 Speaker 1: three pound universe to understand why and how our lives 10 00:00:41,760 --> 00:00:51,320 Speaker 1: look the way they do. So today we're going to 11 00:00:51,400 --> 00:00:55,040 Speaker 1: discover that you're not one thing with a single drive, 12 00:00:55,200 --> 00:00:59,360 Speaker 1: but instead your brain is a team of rivals. It's 13 00:00:59,360 --> 00:01:02,960 Speaker 1: a machine that's built of conflicting parts. This is going 14 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:06,120 Speaker 1: to allow us to understand how we make decisions, which 15 00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:08,640 Speaker 1: is what we'll focus on in this episode, and in 16 00:01:08,680 --> 00:01:13,160 Speaker 1: the next episode we'll talk about economic decisions in particular, 17 00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:15,520 Speaker 1: like how do you choose which ice cream to buy 18 00:01:15,640 --> 00:01:18,600 Speaker 1: or which car to buy? And finally, we'll talk about 19 00:01:18,959 --> 00:01:22,680 Speaker 1: how we can leverage this sort of knowledge to optimally 20 00:01:23,360 --> 00:01:27,399 Speaker 1: navigate our behavior, to make our behavior consistent with our 21 00:01:27,480 --> 00:01:31,119 Speaker 1: long term thinking rather than the temptations that sit right 22 00:01:31,160 --> 00:01:34,800 Speaker 1: in front of us. So for now, let's begin with 23 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:39,920 Speaker 1: human behavior and why we are all so complicated. So 24 00:01:39,959 --> 00:01:42,160 Speaker 1: I'm going to start today with a story that I 25 00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:45,199 Speaker 1: told in my book Incognito, and the story is about 26 00:01:45,240 --> 00:01:49,440 Speaker 1: that two thousand and six arrest of the actor Mel Gibson. 27 00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:52,200 Speaker 1: So he was pulled over for speeding. He was going 28 00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:55,560 Speaker 1: almost twice the posted speed limit on the Pacific Coast 29 00:01:55,640 --> 00:01:59,080 Speaker 1: Highway in Malibu, and the police officer, James Me, gave 30 00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:02,200 Speaker 1: him a breath liizer test, and what that showed is 31 00:02:02,200 --> 00:02:05,840 Speaker 1: that Gibson's blood alcohol level was at zero point one 32 00:02:05,960 --> 00:02:09,400 Speaker 1: two percent, which is very high, well over the legal 33 00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:12,000 Speaker 1: limit of point eight. And there was also an open 34 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:15,160 Speaker 1: bottle of tequila on the seat next to Gibson. So 35 00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:19,680 Speaker 1: the officer places Gibson under arrest and asks him to 36 00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:23,880 Speaker 1: get into the squad car, and Gibson goes nuts, and 37 00:02:23,919 --> 00:02:27,799 Speaker 1: he says Jews are responsible for all the wars in 38 00:02:27,840 --> 00:02:30,800 Speaker 1: the world, and he asks the officer are you a 39 00:02:30,919 --> 00:02:34,920 Speaker 1: Jew And the officer, James Me, was indeed Jewish. So 40 00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:37,800 Speaker 1: Gibson refuses to get in the squad car and he 41 00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:41,600 Speaker 1: has to be handcuffed. So within a day the website 42 00:02:41,639 --> 00:02:45,520 Speaker 1: TMZ leaks a video of this interaction, and there's this 43 00:02:45,720 --> 00:02:49,160 Speaker 1: vigorous response from the media and everything gets very heated. 44 00:02:49,760 --> 00:02:53,920 Speaker 1: So eventually Gibson writes a note of apology, and it 45 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:57,799 Speaker 1: reads quote, after drinking alcohol on Thursday night, I did 46 00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:00,360 Speaker 1: a number of things that were very wrong and for 47 00:03:00,440 --> 00:03:03,120 Speaker 1: which I am ashamed. I acted like a person completely 48 00:03:03,120 --> 00:03:05,760 Speaker 1: out of control when I was arrested and said things 49 00:03:06,040 --> 00:03:08,000 Speaker 1: that I do not believe to be true and which 50 00:03:08,080 --> 00:03:11,600 Speaker 1: are despicable. So he goes on to say he's ashamed 51 00:03:11,639 --> 00:03:15,280 Speaker 1: and he disgraced himself, and that he's been battling alcoholism, 52 00:03:15,639 --> 00:03:21,200 Speaker 1: and he apologizes for his quote unbecoming behavior. But this 53 00:03:21,240 --> 00:03:24,520 Speaker 1: didn't really land that well because there was no reference 54 00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:27,960 Speaker 1: at all to the anti Semitic slurs. So Gibson then 55 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:31,960 Speaker 1: writes a longer note of apology directed toward the Jewish community, 56 00:03:31,960 --> 00:03:35,440 Speaker 1: and he says, quote, there is no excuse, nor should 57 00:03:35,480 --> 00:03:38,960 Speaker 1: there be any tolerance for anyone who thinks or expresses 58 00:03:39,080 --> 00:03:43,400 Speaker 1: any kind of antisemitic remark. I want to apologize, specifically 59 00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:46,840 Speaker 1: to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and 60 00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:50,360 Speaker 1: harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer 61 00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:53,440 Speaker 1: the night I was arrested on a dui charge. Every 62 00:03:53,520 --> 00:03:56,320 Speaker 1: human being is God's child, and if I wish to 63 00:03:56,400 --> 00:03:59,920 Speaker 1: honor my God, I have to honor his children. But please, 64 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:01,800 Speaker 1: I know from my heart that I am not an 65 00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:05,360 Speaker 1: anti Semite. I'm not a bigot. Hatred of any kind 66 00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:09,520 Speaker 1: goes against my faith. So Gibson offered to meet one 67 00:04:09,520 --> 00:04:12,920 Speaker 1: on one with leaders of the Jewish community to quote 68 00:04:13,080 --> 00:04:18,560 Speaker 1: discern the appropriate path for healing. So he seemed genuinely apologetic, 69 00:04:18,720 --> 00:04:22,920 Speaker 1: and Jewish leaders accepted his apology. But here's the question. 70 00:04:23,880 --> 00:04:28,280 Speaker 1: Are Mel Gibson's true colors that of an anti Semite 71 00:04:28,600 --> 00:04:31,960 Speaker 1: or are his true colors those he showed afterwards in 72 00:04:32,040 --> 00:04:36,919 Speaker 1: his eloquent and apparently heartfelt apologies. Well this was a 73 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:40,040 Speaker 1: question that got a lot of people arguing. So one 74 00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:43,839 Speaker 1: journalist wrote in the Washington Post an article that he 75 00:04:43,960 --> 00:04:48,440 Speaker 1: titled Mel Gibson it wasn't just the tequila talking, and 76 00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:51,760 Speaker 1: he wrote, quote, well, I'm sorry about his relapse, but 77 00:04:51,880 --> 00:04:55,279 Speaker 1: I just don't buy the idea that a little tequila, 78 00:04:55,400 --> 00:04:58,640 Speaker 1: or even a lot of tequila, can somehow turn an 79 00:04:58,839 --> 00:05:03,480 Speaker 1: unbiased person into a raging anti semite, or a racist, 80 00:05:03,560 --> 00:05:05,800 Speaker 1: or a homophobe, or a bigot of any kind for 81 00:05:05,880 --> 00:05:10,680 Speaker 1: that matter. Alcohol removes inhibitions, allowing all kinds of opinions 82 00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:15,160 Speaker 1: to escape uncensored. But you can't blame alcohol for forming 83 00:05:15,279 --> 00:05:18,560 Speaker 1: and nurturing those opinions in the first place. Then, the 84 00:05:18,600 --> 00:05:22,880 Speaker 1: producer of the TV show Scarborough County drank alcohol on 85 00:05:23,040 --> 00:05:26,560 Speaker 1: the show until he raised his blood alcohol level two 86 00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:29,760 Speaker 1: point one two percent, which was Gibson's level on that night, 87 00:05:30,320 --> 00:05:35,560 Speaker 1: and he reported quote, not feeling antisemitic after drinking. So, 88 00:05:35,880 --> 00:05:38,400 Speaker 1: like a lot of people, the reporter and the producer 89 00:05:39,040 --> 00:05:44,120 Speaker 1: suspected that the alcohol had loosened Gibson's inhibitions and revealed 90 00:05:44,160 --> 00:05:47,880 Speaker 1: his true self, and the nature of their suspicion has 91 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:52,720 Speaker 1: a long history. An ancient Greek poet had coined a 92 00:05:52,880 --> 00:05:57,680 Speaker 1: popular phrase which translates to in wine, there is the truth, 93 00:05:58,279 --> 00:06:02,680 Speaker 1: and this was repeated by the Roman as in Vino veritas. 94 00:06:03,080 --> 00:06:06,440 Speaker 1: A passage in the Babylonian Talmud makes the same point 95 00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:11,080 Speaker 1: quote in came wine out went a secret. The Roman 96 00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:17,000 Speaker 1: historian Tacitus claimed that the Germanic people always drank alcohol 97 00:06:17,040 --> 00:06:22,200 Speaker 1: while holding councils to prevent anyone from lying. Okay, But 98 00:06:22,240 --> 00:06:26,240 Speaker 1: going back to Mel Gibson, not everyone agreed with the 99 00:06:26,320 --> 00:06:31,320 Speaker 1: hypothesis that alcohol revealed who he really was. A writer 100 00:06:31,440 --> 00:06:34,960 Speaker 1: in The National Review argued, quote, the guy was drunk. 101 00:06:35,080 --> 00:06:38,000 Speaker 1: For Heaven's sake. We all say and do dumb things 102 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:40,560 Speaker 1: when we're drunk. If I were to be judged on 103 00:06:40,640 --> 00:06:44,600 Speaker 1: my drunken escapades and follies, I should be utterly excluded 104 00:06:44,640 --> 00:06:47,960 Speaker 1: from polite society. And so would you, unless you're some 105 00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:53,000 Speaker 1: kind of saint. The Jewish conservative activist David Horowitz commented 106 00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:57,400 Speaker 1: on Fox News, quote, people deserve compassion when they're in 107 00:06:57,440 --> 00:06:59,480 Speaker 1: this kind of trouble. I think it would be very 108 00:06:59,600 --> 00:07:02,800 Speaker 1: ungracious for people to deny it to him. There is 109 00:07:02,839 --> 00:07:06,440 Speaker 1: an addiction psychologist named Alan Marlott who wrote in USA 110 00:07:06,520 --> 00:07:10,560 Speaker 1: Today alcohol is not a truth serum. It may or 111 00:07:10,560 --> 00:07:15,080 Speaker 1: may not indicate his true feelings, and Gibson's social circle 112 00:07:15,200 --> 00:07:19,400 Speaker 1: publicly vouched for him. Earlier in the day before the arrest, 113 00:07:19,480 --> 00:07:22,600 Speaker 1: Gibson had spent time at the house of his friend 114 00:07:22,840 --> 00:07:26,880 Speaker 1: Dean Devlin, who was quoted saying, if Mel is an 115 00:07:26,920 --> 00:07:29,920 Speaker 1: anti Semite, he spends a lot of time with us, 116 00:07:29,960 --> 00:07:33,560 Speaker 1: which makes no sense. Devlin and his wife are both Jewish. 117 00:07:34,080 --> 00:07:37,440 Speaker 1: For Devlin, that was proof enough against the arguments of 118 00:07:37,480 --> 00:07:43,840 Speaker 1: anti Semitism. So which are Gibson's true colors? Those in 119 00:07:43,880 --> 00:07:47,000 Speaker 1: which he shouts anti Semitic comments or those in which 120 00:07:47,000 --> 00:07:50,240 Speaker 1: he feels remorse and shame and publicly says I am 121 00:07:50,320 --> 00:07:53,480 Speaker 1: reaching out to the Jewish community for its help. Now, 122 00:07:53,560 --> 00:07:57,160 Speaker 1: many people prefer a view of human nature that includes 123 00:07:57,360 --> 00:08:01,080 Speaker 1: a true side and a false side. Words, we think 124 00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:05,440 Speaker 1: that people have a genuine aim and the rest is 125 00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:09,520 Speaker 1: decoration or evasion or cover up. Now that's intuitive, but 126 00:08:09,600 --> 00:08:13,800 Speaker 1: it's incomplete. A study of the brain necessitates a more 127 00:08:13,960 --> 00:08:17,080 Speaker 1: nuanced view of human nature. And as we're going to 128 00:08:17,120 --> 00:08:20,680 Speaker 1: see in this episode, we are made of many drives 129 00:08:20,840 --> 00:08:24,800 Speaker 1: under the hood, many different networks of neurons that sometimes 130 00:08:24,840 --> 00:08:28,400 Speaker 1: have their own opinions. As the poet Walt Whitman put it, 131 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:34,959 Speaker 1: I am large, I contain multitudes. So Gibson's detractors are 132 00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:37,400 Speaker 1: going to continue to insist that he is truly an 133 00:08:37,400 --> 00:08:41,000 Speaker 1: anti Semite, and his defenders will continue to insist that 134 00:08:41,040 --> 00:08:45,480 Speaker 1: he is not. But both may be defending an incomplete story. 135 00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:50,400 Speaker 1: So let's begin in the nineteen sixties, when the pioneers 136 00:08:50,440 --> 00:08:55,640 Speaker 1: of artificial intelligence, we're struggling to build simple robotic programs 137 00:08:55,679 --> 00:08:59,840 Speaker 1: that could manipulate small blocks of wood. So the idea 138 00:08:59,880 --> 00:09:03,680 Speaker 1: was to identify the blocks and then to grip them, 139 00:09:04,160 --> 00:09:07,080 Speaker 1: and then to stack them up in simple patterns. And 140 00:09:07,120 --> 00:09:10,400 Speaker 1: this was one of those apparently simple problems that turns 141 00:09:10,440 --> 00:09:15,600 Speaker 1: out to be incredibly hard, because for a robot, finding 142 00:09:15,640 --> 00:09:20,360 Speaker 1: a block of wood requires figuring out which camera pixels 143 00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:23,280 Speaker 1: correspond to the block and which ones don't, and then 144 00:09:23,320 --> 00:09:26,800 Speaker 1: you have to recognize the block shape regardless of the 145 00:09:27,080 --> 00:09:29,800 Speaker 1: angle and the distance of the block. And then you 146 00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:33,880 Speaker 1: have to grab it, which requires visual guidance of graspers 147 00:09:33,880 --> 00:09:36,800 Speaker 1: that have to squeeze in at the right moment from 148 00:09:36,840 --> 00:09:41,000 Speaker 1: the right direction with the right force, and stacking requires 149 00:09:41,480 --> 00:09:44,479 Speaker 1: an analysis of the rest of the blocks and adjusting 150 00:09:44,520 --> 00:09:47,840 Speaker 1: to those details. And all these programs need to be 151 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:51,120 Speaker 1: coordinated so they happen at the right times in the 152 00:09:51,200 --> 00:09:55,960 Speaker 1: right sequence. And so what these AI pioneers discovered is 153 00:09:56,000 --> 00:10:05,040 Speaker 1: that tasks that seem simple are often masking enormous computational complexity. 154 00:10:05,080 --> 00:10:09,320 Speaker 1: So some decades ago, the computer scientist Marvin Minsky and 155 00:10:09,360 --> 00:10:13,080 Speaker 1: his colleagues started thinking about this problem and they came 156 00:10:13,160 --> 00:10:17,400 Speaker 1: up with a really progressive idea. Maybe the robot could 157 00:10:17,480 --> 00:10:23,640 Speaker 1: solve the problem by distributing the labor among specialized subagents. 158 00:10:24,160 --> 00:10:28,920 Speaker 1: So imagine small computer programs that could each bite off 159 00:10:29,040 --> 00:10:32,400 Speaker 1: a small piece of the problem. So one computer program 160 00:10:32,480 --> 00:10:36,040 Speaker 1: is in charge of the job find, another could solve 161 00:10:36,080 --> 00:10:40,320 Speaker 1: the Fetch problem. Another takes care of the stack block. 162 00:10:40,600 --> 00:10:44,840 Speaker 1: And these subagents can be connected in a hierarchy just 163 00:10:44,880 --> 00:10:47,520 Speaker 1: like a company, and they can report to one another 164 00:10:47,679 --> 00:10:51,840 Speaker 1: and to their bosses. And because of this hierarchy, stack 165 00:10:51,880 --> 00:10:56,319 Speaker 1: block would not try to start its job until Find 166 00:10:56,720 --> 00:11:00,640 Speaker 1: and Fetch had finished their jobs. So they is that 167 00:11:00,679 --> 00:11:05,360 Speaker 1: these subagents are totally mindless. But when these sub agents 168 00:11:05,400 --> 00:11:08,920 Speaker 1: come together, the whole system starts to look pretty smart. 169 00:11:09,800 --> 00:11:13,960 Speaker 1: So this idea of subagents didn't solve the problem entirely, 170 00:11:14,040 --> 00:11:17,160 Speaker 1: but it helped a lot, and most importantly, it brought 171 00:11:17,160 --> 00:11:22,720 Speaker 1: into focus a new idea about the working of biological brains. 172 00:11:23,400 --> 00:11:28,440 Speaker 1: Marvin Minsky suggested that human minds perhaps were collections of 173 00:11:29,240 --> 00:11:35,640 Speaker 1: enormous numbers of machine like mindless subagents that collaborate. So 174 00:11:35,760 --> 00:11:38,960 Speaker 1: the key idea is that a bunch of small specialized 175 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:43,200 Speaker 1: workers can give rise to something like a society with 176 00:11:43,280 --> 00:11:48,199 Speaker 1: all kinds of rich properties that no subagent has by itself. 177 00:11:48,600 --> 00:11:52,120 Speaker 1: Each little guy is just doing some simple thing, but together, 178 00:11:52,240 --> 00:11:55,600 Speaker 1: when they're connected in the right way, you get something 179 00:11:55,640 --> 00:12:00,040 Speaker 1: that looks like intelligence. So the suggestion was that and 180 00:12:00,240 --> 00:12:03,920 Speaker 1: thousands of little minds are better than one large one. 181 00:12:04,360 --> 00:12:08,120 Speaker 1: And if this sounds weird, just think about how factories work. 182 00:12:08,360 --> 00:12:11,840 Speaker 1: Each person on the assembly line is specialized. They do 183 00:12:11,960 --> 00:12:16,079 Speaker 1: one simple job. No one there knows how to do everything, 184 00:12:16,640 --> 00:12:20,640 Speaker 1: and yet complex products get built out of this. And 185 00:12:20,679 --> 00:12:24,880 Speaker 1: this is also how government ministries operate. Each bureaucrat has 186 00:12:25,040 --> 00:12:28,199 Speaker 1: one task or a few very specific tasks, and the 187 00:12:28,240 --> 00:12:32,880 Speaker 1: government succeeds on its ability to distribute the work appropriately 188 00:12:33,320 --> 00:12:37,439 Speaker 1: and on larger scales. This is how civilizations operate. They 189 00:12:37,520 --> 00:12:41,240 Speaker 1: reach the next level of sophistication when they learn to 190 00:12:41,360 --> 00:12:46,040 Speaker 1: divide labor. They commit some people to specialize in agriculture, 191 00:12:46,080 --> 00:12:48,800 Speaker 1: and some to art, and some to warfare and so on. 192 00:12:49,400 --> 00:12:54,439 Speaker 1: This division of labor allows specialization and a deeper level 193 00:12:54,440 --> 00:12:58,440 Speaker 1: of expertise, so even though no one knows how other 194 00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:03,679 Speaker 1: jobs work, as an emergent result, you get civilization. So 195 00:13:04,080 --> 00:13:08,839 Speaker 1: this idea of dividing up problems into smaller subroutines that 196 00:13:09,040 --> 00:13:12,360 Speaker 1: ignited the young field of artificial intelligence back in the 197 00:13:12,440 --> 00:13:16,240 Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. Instead of trying to develop a single all 198 00:13:16,280 --> 00:13:21,360 Speaker 1: purpose program, the scientists changed their goal. Now it was 199 00:13:21,440 --> 00:13:26,280 Speaker 1: to build a system out of smaller, local expert networks 200 00:13:26,320 --> 00:13:29,200 Speaker 1: which know how to do one single thing. And in 201 00:13:29,240 --> 00:13:33,160 Speaker 1: this framework, the larger system only has to switch which 202 00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:36,720 Speaker 1: of the experts has control at any given moment. The 203 00:13:36,800 --> 00:13:39,920 Speaker 1: learning challenge now involves not so much how to do 204 00:13:40,040 --> 00:13:44,240 Speaker 1: each little task, but instead how to distribute who's doing 205 00:13:44,280 --> 00:13:48,160 Speaker 1: what when. So, as Minsky suggested in his book The 206 00:13:48,200 --> 00:13:52,679 Speaker 1: Society of Mind, perhaps that's all the human brain has 207 00:13:52,720 --> 00:13:55,680 Speaker 1: to do as well, and he noted that if brains 208 00:13:55,880 --> 00:14:00,160 Speaker 1: really do work this way as collections of subagents, we 209 00:14:00,200 --> 00:14:04,679 Speaker 1: wouldn't have any reason to be aware of the specialized processes. 210 00:14:04,720 --> 00:14:09,520 Speaker 1: He said, quote thousands and perhaps millions of little processes 211 00:14:09,640 --> 00:14:14,959 Speaker 1: must be involved in how we anticipate, imagine, plan, predicts, 212 00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:19,600 Speaker 1: and prevent, and yet all this proceeds so automatically that 213 00:14:19,640 --> 00:14:23,960 Speaker 1: we regard it as ordinary common sense. At first, it 214 00:14:23,960 --> 00:14:27,200 Speaker 1: may seem incredible that our minds could use such intricate 215 00:14:27,320 --> 00:14:31,600 Speaker 1: machinery and yet be unaware of it. When scientists began 216 00:14:31,680 --> 00:14:36,080 Speaker 1: to look into the brains of animals, Minsky's society of 217 00:14:36,240 --> 00:14:39,560 Speaker 1: mind idea open up a new way of looking at things. 218 00:14:40,240 --> 00:14:44,600 Speaker 1: In the early nineteen seventies, researchers realized that a frog 219 00:14:45,200 --> 00:14:49,320 Speaker 1: has at least two separate ways of seeing motion. One 220 00:14:49,400 --> 00:14:52,720 Speaker 1: system is looking for small darting objects like a fly, 221 00:14:52,960 --> 00:14:55,800 Speaker 1: and it directs the tongue, and the other system is 222 00:14:55,840 --> 00:14:59,440 Speaker 1: looking for large looming objects like a person, and it 223 00:14:59,480 --> 00:15:02,600 Speaker 1: tells the lef legs to jump. And presumably neither of 224 00:15:02,640 --> 00:15:07,760 Speaker 1: these systems is conscious. Instead, they're just simple automated programs 225 00:15:08,120 --> 00:15:11,800 Speaker 1: that are burned down in the circuitry. So the society 226 00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:16,400 Speaker 1: of mind framework was an important step forward. But despite 227 00:15:16,440 --> 00:15:20,600 Speaker 1: the initial excitement about it, a collection of experts with 228 00:15:20,680 --> 00:15:26,000 Speaker 1: divided labor has never proven sufficient to yield the properties 229 00:15:26,040 --> 00:15:28,680 Speaker 1: of the human brain. It's still the case that our 230 00:15:28,960 --> 00:15:32,680 Speaker 1: smartest robots are less intelligent than a three year old child. 231 00:15:33,080 --> 00:15:36,920 Speaker 1: So what went wrong? I suggested in my book Incognito 232 00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:41,480 Speaker 1: that a critical factor was missing from the division of 233 00:15:41,560 --> 00:15:45,480 Speaker 1: labor models, and we turn to that now. The missing 234 00:15:45,560 --> 00:15:50,880 Speaker 1: factor in Minski's theory was competition among the experts who 235 00:15:50,880 --> 00:15:53,440 Speaker 1: all believe they know the right way to solve the problem. 236 00:15:53,960 --> 00:15:58,280 Speaker 1: Just like a good drama, the human brain runs on conflict. 237 00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:03,120 Speaker 1: In an assembly line a government ministry, each worker is 238 00:16:03,160 --> 00:16:07,800 Speaker 1: an expert in a small task. But in contrast, parties 239 00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:12,280 Speaker 1: in a democracy hold different opinions about the same issues, 240 00:16:12,680 --> 00:16:16,400 Speaker 1: and the important part of the process is the battle 241 00:16:16,600 --> 00:16:22,080 Speaker 1: for steering the ship of state. Brains are like democracies. 242 00:16:22,120 --> 00:16:27,280 Speaker 1: They're built of multiple overlapping experts who weigh in and 243 00:16:27,320 --> 00:16:33,000 Speaker 1: compete over different choices. As the poet while Whitman correctly surmised, 244 00:16:33,080 --> 00:16:37,160 Speaker 1: we are large, and we harbor multitudes within us, and 245 00:16:37,200 --> 00:16:42,360 Speaker 1: those multitudes are locked in chronic battle. There's an ongoing 246 00:16:42,480 --> 00:16:47,400 Speaker 1: conversation among the different factions in your brain. They compete 247 00:16:47,680 --> 00:16:51,360 Speaker 1: to control the single output channel of your behavior. So 248 00:16:51,480 --> 00:16:55,160 Speaker 1: as a result, you can accomplish the strange feats of 249 00:16:55,880 --> 00:17:01,040 Speaker 1: arguing with yourself, or cussing yourself, or cajoling yourself. These 250 00:17:01,040 --> 00:17:04,480 Speaker 1: are things that computers simply don't do. So when the 251 00:17:04,480 --> 00:17:08,320 Speaker 1: hostess at a party offers you chocolate cake, you can 252 00:17:08,320 --> 00:17:11,480 Speaker 1: find yourself on the horns of a dilemma. Some parts 253 00:17:11,520 --> 00:17:14,760 Speaker 1: of your brain have evolved to crave the rich energy 254 00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:18,000 Speaker 1: source of sugar. Other parts of your brain care about 255 00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:21,080 Speaker 1: the negative consequences, like the health of your heart or 256 00:17:21,119 --> 00:17:24,679 Speaker 1: the bulge of your love handles. Part of you wants 257 00:17:24,720 --> 00:17:27,199 Speaker 1: the cake, and part of you tries to gather the 258 00:17:27,280 --> 00:17:30,679 Speaker 1: strength to pass on it. And the final vote of 259 00:17:30,760 --> 00:17:35,480 Speaker 1: the parliament determines which party controls what you ultimately do. 260 00:17:36,119 --> 00:17:37,879 Speaker 1: In other words, whether you put your hand up or 261 00:17:37,880 --> 00:17:41,359 Speaker 1: you put your hand out. In the end, you either 262 00:17:41,400 --> 00:17:44,000 Speaker 1: eat the chocolate cake or you don't, but you can't 263 00:17:44,040 --> 00:17:50,640 Speaker 1: do both. Because of these internal multitudes, biological creatures can 264 00:17:50,680 --> 00:17:55,960 Speaker 1: be conflicted. Now, the term conflicted can't be sensibly applied 265 00:17:56,080 --> 00:17:59,639 Speaker 1: to an entity that has a single program. Your car 266 00:17:59,680 --> 00:18:02,520 Speaker 1: can't conflicted about which way to turn. It has one 267 00:18:02,560 --> 00:18:06,880 Speaker 1: steering wheel commanded by one driver, and it follows directions 268 00:18:06,880 --> 00:18:11,520 Speaker 1: without complaint. But brains can be of two minds, and 269 00:18:11,600 --> 00:18:14,439 Speaker 1: often many more than that. We don't know whether to 270 00:18:14,520 --> 00:18:17,880 Speaker 1: turn toward the cake or away from it, because there 271 00:18:17,880 --> 00:18:21,359 Speaker 1: are several little sets of hands on the steering wheel 272 00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:25,200 Speaker 1: of our behavior. Consider this simple experiment that's been done 273 00:18:25,200 --> 00:18:28,679 Speaker 1: with laboratory rats. If you put some cheese at the 274 00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:31,600 Speaker 1: end of a little corridor, the rat will go towards 275 00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:33,960 Speaker 1: the cheese, and you can hook up a little harness 276 00:18:34,119 --> 00:18:38,320 Speaker 1: to feel how strongly he's pulling towards that. Now, let's 277 00:18:38,320 --> 00:18:40,840 Speaker 1: say instead of the cheese, you put an electrical shock. 278 00:18:40,960 --> 00:18:44,560 Speaker 1: Now the rat moves away from the electrical shock, and 279 00:18:44,600 --> 00:18:48,160 Speaker 1: with the harness you can measure the force. Okay, Now 280 00:18:48,520 --> 00:18:51,919 Speaker 1: you put both cheese and the electrical shock at the 281 00:18:52,040 --> 00:18:54,679 Speaker 1: end of the hallway. And what the rat does is 282 00:18:54,720 --> 00:19:00,359 Speaker 1: he begins to approach, but with draws, and he finds 283 00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:02,520 Speaker 1: the courage to approach again. And what happens is he 284 00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:07,560 Speaker 1: oscillates conflicted, and it's exactly at the distance where the 285 00:19:07,600 --> 00:19:11,560 Speaker 1: two forces cancel out. In other words, he's going towards 286 00:19:11,560 --> 00:19:13,879 Speaker 1: a thing, and he's pulling away from the thing, and 287 00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:18,840 Speaker 1: both programs are running at once. The pull matches the push. 288 00:19:19,160 --> 00:19:22,880 Speaker 1: The poor rat has two pairs of paws on its 289 00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:27,399 Speaker 1: steering wheel, each pulling in opposite directions, and as a result, 290 00:19:27,440 --> 00:19:31,560 Speaker 1: he can't get anywhere. So brains, whether rat or human, 291 00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:36,960 Speaker 1: are machines made of conflicting parts. If building a contraption 292 00:19:37,119 --> 00:19:41,760 Speaker 1: with internal division seems strange, just consider that we already 293 00:19:41,800 --> 00:19:45,879 Speaker 1: build social machines like this. Think of a jury of 294 00:19:46,080 --> 00:19:50,320 Speaker 1: peers in a courtroom trial. You have twelve strangers with 295 00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:54,320 Speaker 1: different opinions, and they're tasked with this single mission of 296 00:19:54,359 --> 00:19:59,200 Speaker 1: coming to a consensus. So the jurors argue and cox 297 00:19:59,280 --> 00:20:03,160 Speaker 1: and the influence, and eventually the group coheres to a 298 00:20:03,240 --> 00:20:08,639 Speaker 1: single decision, having differing opinions. It's not a drawback to 299 00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:12,119 Speaker 1: the jury system. It is the central feature. When the 300 00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:16,560 Speaker 1: President Abraham Lincoln was putting together his presidential cabinet, he 301 00:20:16,720 --> 00:20:21,760 Speaker 1: chose to put in adversaries. The historian Doris Kern's Goodwin 302 00:20:22,119 --> 00:20:26,639 Speaker 1: described his cabinet as a team of rivals, and we 303 00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:28,840 Speaker 1: see this kind of team of rivals all the time. 304 00:20:29,359 --> 00:20:33,560 Speaker 1: In Zimbabwe some years ago, the president Robert Mugabe agreed 305 00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:36,640 Speaker 1: to share power with a rival that he had earlier 306 00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:40,360 Speaker 1: tried to assassinate. And in China in two thousand and nine, 307 00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:45,439 Speaker 1: the President Hu Jintao named two opposing faction leaders to 308 00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:51,199 Speaker 1: help him craft China's future. I proposed in incognito that 309 00:20:51,280 --> 00:20:55,639 Speaker 1: the brain is best understood as a team of rivals, 310 00:20:56,119 --> 00:20:58,160 Speaker 1: and the rest of this episode and the next two 311 00:20:58,640 --> 00:21:02,320 Speaker 1: are going to explore that framework. Who the parties are, 312 00:21:02,720 --> 00:21:06,359 Speaker 1: how they compete, how the union is held together, what 313 00:21:06,520 --> 00:21:10,119 Speaker 1: happens when things fall apart. How this framework allows us 314 00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:13,920 Speaker 1: to understand what products we buy and how we can 315 00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:17,919 Speaker 1: use this understanding of the team of rivals to better 316 00:21:18,040 --> 00:21:23,040 Speaker 1: navigate our own behavior into the future. As we move along, 317 00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:28,240 Speaker 1: remember that different political parties typically have the same goal, 318 00:21:28,560 --> 00:21:31,639 Speaker 1: which is success for their country, but they just have 319 00:21:31,760 --> 00:21:35,760 Speaker 1: different ways of going about it. So, as Lincoln put it, 320 00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:40,119 Speaker 1: rivals should be turned into allies quote for the sake 321 00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:43,119 Speaker 1: of the greater good and for networks. In your brain 322 00:21:44,119 --> 00:21:50,359 Speaker 1: neural subpopulations, the common interest is the thriving and survival 323 00:21:50,560 --> 00:21:54,399 Speaker 1: of you the organism. In the same way that liberals 324 00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:58,240 Speaker 1: and conservatives both love their country but can have different 325 00:21:58,280 --> 00:22:01,639 Speaker 1: strategies for steering it. It's the same way in the 326 00:22:01,680 --> 00:22:04,919 Speaker 1: brain you have competing factions that all believe they know 327 00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:25,400 Speaker 1: the right way to solve problems. When trying to understand 328 00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:31,200 Speaker 1: the strange details of human behavior, psychologists or economists sometimes 329 00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:36,160 Speaker 1: refer to a dual process account, and you'll know this, 330 00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:40,520 Speaker 1: for example, if you've read Daniel Kahneman's book Thinking Fast 331 00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:44,520 Speaker 1: and Slow. In that framework, the brain has two separate systems. 332 00:22:44,600 --> 00:22:48,119 Speaker 1: One is fast and automatic and below the surface of 333 00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:53,640 Speaker 1: conscious awareness, and the other system is slow and cognitive 334 00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:59,119 Speaker 1: and conscious, and these two systems are always battling it out. Now, 335 00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:01,720 Speaker 1: this is a very good start to thinking about it, 336 00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:04,640 Speaker 1: but there's no real reason to assume that there are 337 00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:07,600 Speaker 1: only two systems. In fact, as we're going to see, 338 00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:11,640 Speaker 1: there are many systems, and there are also different ways 339 00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:15,359 Speaker 1: to think about how to divide things up. So in 340 00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:20,280 Speaker 1: nineteen twenty, Sigmund Freud suggested three competing parts in his 341 00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:23,760 Speaker 1: model of the psyche. There was the id, the ego, 342 00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:28,080 Speaker 1: and the superego. The id was all about instinct, the 343 00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:33,080 Speaker 1: ego was realistic and organized, and the super ego was 344 00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:38,120 Speaker 1: critical and moralizing. In the nineteen fifties, the neuroscientist Paul 345 00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:42,440 Speaker 1: MacLean suggested that the brain is made of three layers 346 00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:50,080 Speaker 1: that represent successive stages of evolutionary development. There's the reptilian brain, 347 00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:55,200 Speaker 1: which is involved in survival behaviors, and the limbic system, 348 00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:59,240 Speaker 1: which underlies the emotions. And in higher animals, there's the 349 00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:04,280 Speaker 1: neo core text, which is used in higher order thinking. Now, 350 00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:08,440 Speaker 1: the details of both Freud's model and Maclean's model have 351 00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:11,760 Speaker 1: largely fallen out of favor, but the heart of the 352 00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:17,760 Speaker 1: idea survives, which is that brains are made of competing subsystems. 353 00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:21,240 Speaker 1: I'll start with a simple model of competition as a 354 00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:25,200 Speaker 1: starting point because it captures one way to see this picture, 355 00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:28,040 Speaker 1: but by the next episode we'll see that it's even 356 00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:32,080 Speaker 1: more sophisticated than that. So we'll start with a general 357 00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:35,840 Speaker 1: statement about the brain's anatomy, which is that some areas 358 00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:40,040 Speaker 1: of your brain are involved in higher order operations regarding 359 00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:44,080 Speaker 1: events in the outside world. For the cognitionandy, this area 360 00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:47,000 Speaker 1: is like the dorsilateral prefrontal core text, which is on 361 00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:50,399 Speaker 1: the surface of your brain, just inside your temples, so 362 00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:54,960 Speaker 1: those are monitoring and assessing the outside world, while other 363 00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:59,719 Speaker 1: areas are involved with monitoring your internal state, like your 364 00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:03,399 Speaker 1: level of hunger, or your sense of motivation, or whether 365 00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:06,679 Speaker 1: something is rewarding to you. And this includes areas like 366 00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:10,800 Speaker 1: the region just behind your forehead called the medial prefrontal cortex, 367 00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:14,960 Speaker 1: in several areas deep below the surface, so these monitor 368 00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:18,480 Speaker 1: what's going on on the inside. Now, again, the real 369 00:25:18,520 --> 00:25:22,600 Speaker 1: situation is even more complex than this rough division would imply, 370 00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:26,840 Speaker 1: because brains do a lot more than just monitor the 371 00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:31,960 Speaker 1: outside and the inside. Your brain also simulates future states 372 00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:35,080 Speaker 1: and reminisces about the past and figures out where to 373 00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:37,960 Speaker 1: find things not immediately present, and so on. We'll get 374 00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:42,800 Speaker 1: into that, but for the moment, this division into systems 375 00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:47,480 Speaker 1: that monitor the outside and the inside will serve as 376 00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:50,399 Speaker 1: a rough guide, and we can refine this picture later. 377 00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:53,840 Speaker 1: Now to pick two labels that'll be familiar to everyone. 378 00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:58,840 Speaker 1: We can call these the rational and the emotional systems. 379 00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:04,080 Speaker 1: Are a little underspecified and imperfect, but they carry this 380 00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:09,160 Speaker 1: starting point about rivalries in the brain. The rational system 381 00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:12,439 Speaker 1: is the one that cares about analysis of things in 382 00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:17,840 Speaker 1: the outside world, while the emotional system monitors the internal 383 00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:20,560 Speaker 1: state and worries whether things will be good or bad. 384 00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:25,760 Speaker 1: In other words, as a rough guide, rational cognition involves 385 00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:30,919 Speaker 1: external events, while emotion involves your internal state. So you 386 00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:34,800 Speaker 1: can do a math problem without consulting your internal state, 387 00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:38,280 Speaker 1: but you have to consult your internal state to order 388 00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:41,879 Speaker 1: a dessert off the menu, or to prioritize what you 389 00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:47,040 Speaker 1: feel like doing next. The emotional networks are absolutely required 390 00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:51,880 Speaker 1: to rank your possible next actions in the world. If 391 00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:56,080 Speaker 1: you were an emotionless robot who rolled into a room, 392 00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:59,920 Speaker 1: you might be able to analyze this stuff around you, 393 00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:03,000 Speaker 1: but you would be frozen with indecision about what to 394 00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:08,520 Speaker 1: do next. Choices about the priority of actions are determined 395 00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:12,320 Speaker 1: by our internal states. When you get home, will you 396 00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:16,320 Speaker 1: head straight to your refrigerator or the bathroom or the bedroom. 397 00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:19,920 Speaker 1: That doesn't depend on the external stimuli in your home 398 00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:24,640 Speaker 1: because those haven't changed, but instead on your body's internal states. 399 00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,840 Speaker 1: So the battle between the rational and the emotional systems 400 00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:32,560 Speaker 1: can be brought to light by what philosophers call the 401 00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:38,640 Speaker 1: trolley dilemma. Here's the scenario. A trolley is barreling down 402 00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:42,280 Speaker 1: the train tracks. It's going out of control, and five 403 00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:46,000 Speaker 1: workers are making repairs way down the track, and you, 404 00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:50,480 Speaker 1: a bystander, realize that they're all going to get killed 405 00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:53,280 Speaker 1: by this trolley. But you also notice that there's a 406 00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:57,680 Speaker 1: lever nearby that you can throw, and that will divert 407 00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:00,960 Speaker 1: the trolley down a different track where there's a single 408 00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,320 Speaker 1: worker who will be killed. So what do you do? 409 00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:07,840 Speaker 1: Do you throw the lever or not? If you're like 410 00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:11,680 Speaker 1: most people, you have no hesitation about throwing the lever 411 00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:15,359 Speaker 1: because it's far better than only one person gets killed 412 00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:18,720 Speaker 1: than five people. Right, Okay, so that's a good choice. 413 00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:22,040 Speaker 1: But there's a second version. Of the trolley problem that 414 00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:26,560 Speaker 1: presents an interesting twist. Imagine that the same trolley is 415 00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:30,000 Speaker 1: barreling down the tracks. The same five workers are gonna 416 00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:34,000 Speaker 1: get killed, but this time you're a bystander on a 417 00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:38,280 Speaker 1: footbridge that goes over the tracks, and you notice that 418 00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:42,360 Speaker 1: there's an obese man standing on the footbridge, and you 419 00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:46,000 Speaker 1: realize that if you push him off the bridge, his 420 00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:50,600 Speaker 1: bulk will be sufficient to stop the train and save 421 00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:57,560 Speaker 1: the five workers. Do you push the man off? If 422 00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:01,719 Speaker 1: you're like most people, you bristle at this suggestion of 423 00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:07,600 Speaker 1: murdering an innocent person. But here's the thing. What differentiates 424 00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:12,040 Speaker 1: this from your previous choice. Aren't you trading one life 425 00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:16,160 Speaker 1: for five lives? In both versions of the dilemma? Doesn't 426 00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:19,080 Speaker 1: the math work out the same way? So what is 427 00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:24,000 Speaker 1: the difference in these two cases. Philosophers propose that the 428 00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:28,680 Speaker 1: difference lies in how people are being used. In the 429 00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:32,960 Speaker 1: first scenario, you're simply reducing a bad situation, the death 430 00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:36,480 Speaker 1: of five people, to a less bad situation, the death 431 00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:38,840 Speaker 1: of one person. In the case of the man on 432 00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:42,680 Speaker 1: the bridge, he is being exploited as a means to 433 00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:46,680 Speaker 1: an end. So that's a popular explanation in the philosophy literature, 434 00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:51,760 Speaker 1: but there's also a more brain based approach to understanding 435 00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:57,520 Speaker 1: this reversal in your choice. Neuroscientists Joshua Green and Jonathan 436 00:29:57,600 --> 00:30:02,480 Speaker 1: Cohen did brain imaging while people consider these two scenarios, 437 00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:05,920 Speaker 1: and what they found was that the difference pivots on 438 00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:11,360 Speaker 1: the emotional component of actually touching someone that is interacting 439 00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:15,000 Speaker 1: with them at a close distance. So if the problem 440 00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:18,200 Speaker 1: is constructed so that the man on the footbridge can 441 00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:21,360 Speaker 1: be dropped with the flip of a switch through a trapdoor, 442 00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:24,680 Speaker 1: many people will vote to let him drop. But there's 443 00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:28,800 Speaker 1: something about interacting with the person up close that stops 444 00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:32,760 Speaker 1: most people from pushing the man to his death. Why 445 00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:38,320 Speaker 1: it's because that sort of personal interaction activates these emotional networks. 446 00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:43,920 Speaker 1: It changes the problem from an abstract, impersonal math problem 447 00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:49,320 Speaker 1: into a personal emotional decision. So when people consider the 448 00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:53,160 Speaker 1: trolley problem, here's what the brain imaging reveals. In the 449 00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:56,720 Speaker 1: footbridge scenario, where you actually have to push the guy, 450 00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:02,200 Speaker 1: the brain areas involved in motor planning and emotion become active. 451 00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:06,480 Speaker 1: But in pulling the lever scenario, the only brain errors 452 00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:11,520 Speaker 1: involved are those involved in rational thinking. People register emotionally 453 00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:14,280 Speaker 1: when they have to push someone. But if you only 454 00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:18,160 Speaker 1: have to tip a lever, your brain behaves like mister Spock, 455 00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:21,600 Speaker 1: who's the vulcan on Star Trek, who's all rationality and 456 00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:42,840 Speaker 1: no emotion, who says emotions are alien to me. The 457 00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:47,440 Speaker 1: battle between emotional and rational networks in the brain is 458 00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,960 Speaker 1: nicely illustrated by an old episode of The Twilight Zone, 459 00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:53,840 Speaker 1: which I saw years ago. Here's how it goes. A 460 00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:57,240 Speaker 1: stranger in an overcoat shows up at a man's door 461 00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:01,600 Speaker 1: and proposes a deal. He says, here is a box 462 00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:04,520 Speaker 1: with a single button on it. All you have to 463 00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:07,640 Speaker 1: do is press the button, and I will pay you 464 00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:11,200 Speaker 1: one thousand dollars. The man says, what happens when I 465 00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:14,560 Speaker 1: press the button? And the stranger says, when you press 466 00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:18,640 Speaker 1: the button, someone far away, someone you don't even know, 467 00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:23,880 Speaker 1: will die. So the man suffers over this moral dilemma 468 00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:27,160 Speaker 1: through the night, and the button box rests on his 469 00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:30,360 Speaker 1: kitchen table and he stares at it, and he paces 470 00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:34,520 Speaker 1: around it, and sweat is on his brow, and he's 471 00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:39,840 Speaker 1: thinking about his desperate financial situation, and finally he lunges 472 00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:43,120 Speaker 1: to the box and he punches the button and nothing happens. 473 00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:48,560 Speaker 1: It's quiet, anticlimactic. And suddenly there's a knock at the door, 474 00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:51,280 Speaker 1: and the stranger in the overcoat is there, and he 475 00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:54,240 Speaker 1: hands the man the money and he takes the box, 476 00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:58,120 Speaker 1: and the man says, wait, what happens now, And the 477 00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:02,360 Speaker 1: stranger says, now, I take the box and I give 478 00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:06,680 Speaker 1: it to the next person, someone far away, someone you 479 00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:10,680 Speaker 1: don't even know now. I loved this story because it 480 00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:15,520 Speaker 1: highlights the ease of impersonally pressing a button. If the 481 00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:18,840 Speaker 1: man had been asked to attack someone with his hands, 482 00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:24,000 Speaker 1: he presumably would have declined the offer. In earlier times 483 00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:27,440 Speaker 1: in our evolution, there wasn't really any way to interact 484 00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:31,440 Speaker 1: with other people at any distance other than hands and 485 00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:35,760 Speaker 1: feet are possibly a stick, and that distance of interaction 486 00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:41,040 Speaker 1: was salient and consequential. And this is what our emotional 487 00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:46,360 Speaker 1: reaction reflects. But interestingly, as we evolved, the situation began 488 00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:51,160 Speaker 1: to change. Generals and even soldiers could very commonly find 489 00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:55,160 Speaker 1: themselves very far removed from the people that they were killing. 490 00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:59,080 Speaker 1: There's a great line in Shakespeare's Henry the Sixth where 491 00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:03,360 Speaker 1: a man challenges a nobleman and mocks the fact that 492 00:34:03,360 --> 00:34:06,520 Speaker 1: the nobleman has never known the danger of the battlefield. 493 00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:10,920 Speaker 1: The man says, when struckest thou one blow in the field, 494 00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:17,600 Speaker 1: and the nobleman responds, great men have reaching hands oft? 495 00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:20,680 Speaker 1: Have I struck those that I never saw? And struck 496 00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:23,720 Speaker 1: them dead? And this is what happens all the time. 497 00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:28,520 Speaker 1: In modern warfare, we can launch Tomahawk surface to surface 498 00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:31,640 Speaker 1: missiles from the deck of Navy ships with the touch 499 00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:34,400 Speaker 1: of a button. The result of pushing that button is 500 00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:39,320 Speaker 1: then watched by the missile operator live on CNN. Minutes 501 00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:44,480 Speaker 1: later when buildings in the enemy's city disappear in plumes, 502 00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:50,400 Speaker 1: so the proximity is lost, and so is the emotional influence. 503 00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:57,759 Speaker 1: This impersonal nature of waging war makes it disconcertingly easy. 504 00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:02,360 Speaker 1: I recently heard an argument between an old time fighter 505 00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:06,320 Speaker 1: pilot who was lamenting how easy it is for drone 506 00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:10,160 Speaker 1: pilots to do something, and he's right, But it should 507 00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:13,000 Speaker 1: also be noted that it's easy when you're thousands of 508 00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:15,799 Speaker 1: feet in the air. If you watch the footage of 509 00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:20,359 Speaker 1: the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which was dropping these 510 00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:25,080 Speaker 1: ten thousand pound nuclear bombs onto civilian targets, you'll hear 511 00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:29,080 Speaker 1: the total casualness of the pilot even though each bomb 512 00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:32,720 Speaker 1: wiped out almost one hundred thousand people, and in fact, 513 00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:36,000 Speaker 1: the pilot later said quote, I made up my mind 514 00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:38,920 Speaker 1: then that the morality of dropping that bomb was not 515 00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:42,640 Speaker 1: my business. I was instructed to perform a military mission 516 00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:45,560 Speaker 1: to drop the bomb. Now, I'm not making a judgment 517 00:35:45,719 --> 00:35:48,560 Speaker 1: about a military pilot's obligation in the middle of a 518 00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:52,920 Speaker 1: world war. It was a complex issue that is difficult 519 00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:55,719 Speaker 1: to be understood by a modern audience who hasn't just 520 00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:58,120 Speaker 1: lived through years of war and is looking for a 521 00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:01,080 Speaker 1: way to end it. That I am saying saying it's 522 00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:05,319 Speaker 1: surprising to see how easy it appeared to press the 523 00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:09,240 Speaker 1: button to open the bomb doors from thirty three thousand 524 00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:11,720 Speaker 1: feet in the air, as opposed to if the pilot 525 00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:15,560 Speaker 1: had been sent in to murder one hundred thousand civilians, 526 00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:19,360 Speaker 1: including women and children, with a knife or with his hands. 527 00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:22,400 Speaker 1: I assume it would have been a very different experience 528 00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:26,720 Speaker 1: for him. So, in thinking about these issues about how 529 00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:30,560 Speaker 1: easy it is to wage war when it's impersonal, one 530 00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:35,200 Speaker 1: political thinker in the nineteen sixties suggested that the button 531 00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:39,160 Speaker 1: to launch a nuclear war should be implanted in the 532 00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:44,080 Speaker 1: chest of the president's closest friend. That way, if the 533 00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:47,279 Speaker 1: president wants to make the decision to annihilate millions of 534 00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:49,840 Speaker 1: people on the other side of the globe, he'd first 535 00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:53,600 Speaker 1: have to physically harm his friend. He'd have to rip 536 00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:57,160 Speaker 1: open his chest to get at the button that would 537 00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:01,600 Speaker 1: at least engage his emotional system in the decision making 538 00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:06,400 Speaker 1: so as to guard against letting the choice be impersonal. 539 00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:11,080 Speaker 1: Because both of these neural systems battle to control the 540 00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:15,319 Speaker 1: single output channel of your behavior, emotions can tip the 541 00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:19,200 Speaker 1: balance of decision making, and this ancient battle has turned 542 00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:23,000 Speaker 1: into a directive of sorts from many people. If it 543 00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:27,719 Speaker 1: feels bad, it is probably wrong. Now, there are lots 544 00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:31,160 Speaker 1: of counter examples to this. For example, you can find 545 00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:34,920 Speaker 1: yourself put off by a particular choice, but still conclude 546 00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:39,080 Speaker 1: that it's not morally wrong, like putting your pet down 547 00:37:39,120 --> 00:37:42,040 Speaker 1: when it gets too old and sick, even though it 548 00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:48,160 Speaker 1: breaks your heart. Nonetheless, emotion serves as a generally useful 549 00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:53,920 Speaker 1: steering mechanism for decision making. The emotional systems are evolutionarily 550 00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:57,719 Speaker 1: quite old, and they're shared with many other species, while 551 00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:01,960 Speaker 1: the development of the rational system is more recent. But 552 00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:06,239 Speaker 1: the novelty of the rational system doesn't necessarily indicate that 553 00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:11,560 Speaker 1: it's by itself superior. Societies would not be better off 554 00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:15,879 Speaker 1: if everyone were like the vulcan mister Spock, all rationality 555 00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:20,839 Speaker 1: and no emotion. Instead, a balance, a teaming up of 556 00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:25,640 Speaker 1: the internal rivals is probably optimal for brains. And that's 557 00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:29,279 Speaker 1: because the disgust that we feel at pushing the man 558 00:38:29,320 --> 00:38:34,480 Speaker 1: off the footbridge is critical to social interaction. The impassivity 559 00:38:34,520 --> 00:38:36,960 Speaker 1: that one feels at pressing a button to launch a 560 00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:42,960 Speaker 1: Tomahawk missile is probably detrimental to civilization. Some balance of 561 00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:46,520 Speaker 1: the emotional and rational systems is needed, and that balance 562 00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:51,239 Speaker 1: may already be optimized by natural selection in human brains. Or, 563 00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:54,640 Speaker 1: to put it in another way, a democracy that is split 564 00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:58,080 Speaker 1: across the aisle maybe just what you want, because a 565 00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:03,279 Speaker 1: takeover in either direction would almost certainly prove less optimal. 566 00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:06,839 Speaker 1: The ancient Greeks had an interesting analogy for life that 567 00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:10,919 Speaker 1: captured this wisdom. The idea was that life is as 568 00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:14,840 Speaker 1: though you are a charioteer and your chariot is being 569 00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:18,440 Speaker 1: pulled by two horses. One is the horse of reason 570 00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,480 Speaker 1: and the other is the horse of passion. One horse 571 00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:23,840 Speaker 1: is always trying to tug you off one side of 572 00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:25,719 Speaker 1: the road, and the other is trying to pull you 573 00:39:25,760 --> 00:39:28,920 Speaker 1: off the other side, and your job is to hold 574 00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:32,640 Speaker 1: on to them tightly and keep them in check so 575 00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:36,120 Speaker 1: that you can continue down the middle of the road. 576 00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:39,640 Speaker 1: And that's what we try to do with the brain 577 00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:44,440 Speaker 1: networks involved in rationality and emotion. So what we've introduced 578 00:39:44,480 --> 00:39:47,360 Speaker 1: in today's episode is the way in which the brain 579 00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:51,000 Speaker 1: is a machine built out of conflicting parts. In the 580 00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:54,840 Speaker 1: next episode, we're going to explore how this team of 581 00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:58,920 Speaker 1: rivals expresses itself in very particular ways, like how we 582 00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:02,040 Speaker 1: choose what to buy or how much something should cost. 583 00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:05,880 Speaker 1: This is the basis of a new type of economics 584 00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:10,480 Speaker 1: called neuroeconomics, so tune into that to uncover the next 585 00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:17,560 Speaker 1: juicy bits. That's all for this week. To find out 586 00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:20,120 Speaker 1: more and to share your thoughts, head over to eagleman 587 00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:24,120 Speaker 1: dot com, slash Podcasts, and you can also watch full 588 00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:28,320 Speaker 1: episodes of Inner Cosmos on YouTube. Subscribe to my channel 589 00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:31,000 Speaker 1: so you can follow along each week for new updates 590 00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:36,080 Speaker 1: until next time. This is Inner Cosmos and I'm David Eagleman.