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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault, this time with a

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Speaker 1: follow up from last Saturday's Vault episode. This is going

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Speaker 1: to be our episode on the Split Brain Experiments, Part two.

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Speaker 1: If you listen last Saturday, you know what's in store.

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Speaker 1: So I guess let's jump right in with every day.

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Speaker 1: And from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and

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Speaker 1: the intellectual, I've else drew steadily near to that truth,

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Speaker 1: by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such

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Speaker 1: a dreadful shipwreck that man is not truly one, but

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Speaker 1: truly too. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from

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Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm

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Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, and this is going to be part two

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Speaker 1: of our two part exploration of hemisphereic collateralization and especially

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Speaker 1: the split brain experiments of Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga

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Speaker 1: starting in the nineteen sixties. Now, if you haven't heard

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Speaker 1: the last episode, you should really go check that out first.

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Speaker 1: That's gonna lay all the groundwork for what we're talking

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Speaker 1: about today, right, and it will also explain why we

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Speaker 1: kicked off this episode and the last episode with the

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Speaker 1: reading from Robert Louis Stevenson Strange Case of Dr Jacqueline mr.

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Speaker 1: Hyde from six short version is Robert Louis Stevenson thought

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Speaker 1: he had another dude in there. What did he call him?

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Speaker 1: The other guy? The man inside me by I know

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Speaker 1: it was a different author. Uh no, it was it

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Speaker 1: was me and the that other fellow, that other fellow. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So in the last episode we discussed twentieth century research

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Speaker 1: on a small group which it was a small subset

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Speaker 1: of the total group of maybe fifty to a hundred

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Speaker 1: or maybe a little more than a hundred people who

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Speaker 1: have ever received a surgical intervention called a corpus callosotomy,

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Speaker 1: which is a severing of the corpus colosum and the

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Speaker 1: corpus colosum you can kind of think of as the

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Speaker 1: high speed fiber optic cable that connects the two hemispheres

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Speaker 1: of the brain together. Now, the surgery was originally intended

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Speaker 1: as a kind of last resort treatment for people who

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Speaker 1: had terrible epileptic seizures. There are so few of these

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Speaker 1: patients because now we generally have better, safer ways of

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Speaker 1: treating epilepsy without such a radical surgery, right though these

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Speaker 1: individuals are still around. Yes, certainly, in the last episode

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Speaker 1: we mentioned that Pinto study that looked at a couple

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Speaker 1: of them in seen, And it's very possible that we

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Speaker 1: have listeners out there who have received this surgery as well.

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Speaker 1: And obviously we would love to hear from you if

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Speaker 1: there's anything you would like to share. Oh yeah, please,

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Speaker 1: if you have a split brain, email us immediately. And

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Speaker 1: in fact you mentioned the more recent research. We're gonna

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Speaker 1: look at some of that research in today's episode. But

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Speaker 1: what neuroscientists learned in the twentieth century from this small

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Speaker 1: group of patients was truly remarkable. Beginning in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixties and continuing up until recent years, these split brain

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Speaker 1: patients have been the subject of some of the most

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Speaker 1: interesting research ever on the nature of the brain, the mind,

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Speaker 1: and the self. So last time we talked about the

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Speaker 1: original work of like Sperry and Gazzaniga, who discovered many

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Speaker 1: fascinating things about how it's possible for one half of

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Speaker 1: the brain to not know what the other half is thinking, doing,

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Speaker 1: or seeing. This time we want to follow up on

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Speaker 1: the subject, to explore some more recent studies and to

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Speaker 1: ask questions about what these split brain studies mean for

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Speaker 1: our lives. And to start off, I wanted to mention

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Speaker 1: an anecdote I came across from the neuroscientist V. S.

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Speaker 1: Ramachandren that he has brought up in some of his

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Speaker 1: public talks and work. He tells a story of working

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Speaker 1: with one particular split brain patient who had been trained

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Speaker 1: to respond to questions with his right hemisphere. Now you'll

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Speaker 1: remember from our last episode that in the case of

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Speaker 1: most patients, the right hemisphere of the brain cannot speak.

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Speaker 1: It might have some very rudimentary language comprehension, but generally

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Speaker 1: language and especially the production of speech, is dominated by

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Speaker 1: areas of the left hemisphere. So if you're dealing with

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Speaker 1: the right hemisphere of a split brain patient and you

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Speaker 1: show something only to their left visual field, which connects

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Speaker 1: to the right hemisphere, and you ask them about it,

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Speaker 1: what often happens is that, for instance, they will not

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Speaker 1: be able to say the thing you have showed them

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Speaker 1: in their right brain, or even explain it in words,

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Speaker 1: but they will be able to draw the image with

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Speaker 1: their left hand. Now. In the case of Ramaschandrian story,

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Speaker 1: he had trained a patient in a lab at Caltech

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Speaker 1: to answer questions posed directly to his right hemisphere only

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Speaker 1: by pointing with his left hand to response boxes indicating yes, no,

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Speaker 1: I don't know now. Of course, asking these questions directly

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Speaker 1: to the left hemisphere is a lot easier because it

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Speaker 1: just processes language normally and you can just ask. But

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Speaker 1: he trained the right hemisphere to respond as well, so

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Speaker 1: the patient was perfectly capable of answering questions like this

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Speaker 1: with either hemisphere. Are you on the moon right now?

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Speaker 1: Patient says no? Are you at cal Tech? Patient says yes.

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Speaker 1: But Rama Schondre and then asked the right hemisphere do

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Speaker 1: you believe in God? And it says yes. And he

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Speaker 1: then asked the left hemisphere, the language dominant hemisphere, do

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Speaker 1: you believe in God? And it says no. This is

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Speaker 1: yet another one that immediately when I heard the story,

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Speaker 1: the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

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Speaker 1: I feel the I feel that the goose bumps of

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Speaker 1: of counterintuition running through me. Yeah, because I feel like,

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Speaker 1: for the for the most part, I feel like a

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Speaker 1: lot of us want to feel like we have a

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Speaker 1: definitive answer to that question, and Queen answers like that,

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Speaker 1: Now I'm probably a little weirder and that I and

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Speaker 1: I imagined a lot of our listeners are like this

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Speaker 1: as well, where someone asks you a questions like this

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Speaker 1: and you can be a lot more wishy washy and say, well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. It depends you know, yes and no.

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Speaker 1: I feel like most of us, if not all of us,

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Speaker 1: we can have We can have contry contrary ideas in

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Speaker 1: our mind. We can have conflicting notions that are that

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Speaker 1: are vying for dominance, which me, are you asking? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Askin Jacky? L are you asking hide? You know? Hid he?

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Speaker 1: You know he's he's not much of a churchgoer, but

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Speaker 1: but Jackal he's there every Sunday. Yeah, but he's only

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Speaker 1: there to ultimately work his way up the chain and

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Speaker 1: usurp the creator. Now Rama shonder and jokingly asks a

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Speaker 1: theological question about this. He says, you know, assume the

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Speaker 1: old dogma that people who have faith in God go

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Speaker 1: to Heaven and people who don't go to hell? What

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Speaker 1: happens when the split brain patient dies? That's a good

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Speaker 1: laugh line. But I think this question is actually more

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Speaker 1: profound than it seems at first, because we may not

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Speaker 1: be divine judges casting people into heaven or hell, but

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Speaker 1: we are judges, and we judge and evaluate and characterize

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Speaker 1: people all the time every day, as if they are

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Speaker 1: some sort of essential whole. We pick out what we

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Speaker 1: believe to be the salient characteristics that define a per person,

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Speaker 1: like this is their character and and now we know

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Speaker 1: who they are. This is their mind, this is the person.

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Speaker 1: There might be no way to get people to live

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Speaker 1: and behave other than this. I mean, there might just

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Speaker 1: be an inextricable part of our our personalities that we

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Speaker 1: have to judge people as essential holes in this way.

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Speaker 1: But I think this research should cause us to wonder

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Speaker 1: about our folk beliefs about the nature of the mind

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Speaker 1: and the brain and what it means to be a person. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, just to talk about judgment, we we

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Speaker 1: have some severe problems with with with dealing with the

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Speaker 1: idea that that that that there is not a single

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Speaker 1: person over a length of time. I mean, I mean, obviously,

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Speaker 1: you have people serving prison sentences for crimes that an

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Speaker 1: earlier iteration of themselves committed. What do they say, I'm

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Speaker 1: a different person now, and and it is true we

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Speaker 1: have all different people than than we once were. But

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Speaker 1: you might in some ways also be a different person

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Speaker 1: than you were a couple of seconds ago, right, Or

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Speaker 1: it can be kind of a juggling back and forth.

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Speaker 1: You know, I'm a different person in the morning versus uh,

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Speaker 1: the afternoon. I mean, I I truly feel that, well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, when it comes to questions like this, like

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Speaker 1: the theological question. The fact is, most people, I think,

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Speaker 1: are probably filled with all kinds of doubts concerning whatever

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Speaker 1: their beliefs about religion are, whether you believe in God

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Speaker 1: or not. Either way, you probably sometimes wonder if you're

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Speaker 1: wrong or you should. That's always a great exercise about

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Speaker 1: anything in life, think about the possibility that you're wrong,

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Speaker 1: no matter what it is exactly. But our everyday experience,

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Speaker 1: of course, is that these varying states of doubt they

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Speaker 1: get somehow synthesized. Right. You roll it all up together,

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Speaker 1: you say, even though whichever way I am, whether I

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Speaker 1: believe in God or not, I ultimately have one way

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Speaker 1: of answering that question. Most people are like this when

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Speaker 1: you I mean, you might not be this way, Robert,

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Speaker 1: but a lot most people would say I have an answer. Well,

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Speaker 1: at the end of the day, or even just minute

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Speaker 1: to minute, you your brain has to tell a story

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Speaker 1: about who you are, right and for that to make sense,

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Speaker 1: there still has to be a sentence. There still has

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Speaker 1: to be a story, some sort of continuation. And even

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Speaker 1: if you know my story is a little more uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, meandering, it's still a story, right, Yeah, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: You're still narrativising yourself. You're composing a synthetic picture of

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Speaker 1: who I am, and for you, I think that picture

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Speaker 1: includes more ambiguity than a lot of people are comfortable with.

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Speaker 1: But either way, no matter what, you're telling a story

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Speaker 1: about yourself. Yeah, and so despite your doubts, either way,

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Speaker 1: you think of yourself as one whole, unified, unified person.

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Speaker 1: You either believe in God or you don't, or you

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Speaker 1: identify you have some narrative that's in between. You say

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Speaker 1: I'm an agnostic or whatever. But this is just one

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Speaker 1: case of a generally fascinating phenomenon to ponder. What if

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Speaker 1: by asking parts of our brains separately, we would think

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Speaker 1: different things about all kinds of stuff, have different feelings,

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Speaker 1: make different judgments, make different moral judgments, be different people.

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Speaker 1: Is anyone aspect of your brain more truly authentically you

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Speaker 1: than another aspect of your brain? I mean they're both

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Speaker 1: in your head right. So today this is sort of

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Speaker 1: what we wanted to focus on to talk about some

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Speaker 1: of these types of takeaways from split brain experiments and

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Speaker 1: more recent research on split brain patients. So one really

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Speaker 1: fascinating area of research we can look at is the

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Speaker 1: idea of moral judgments. Robert, can I pose you a

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Speaker 1: scenario and see what you think? Yes, go ahead, band

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Speaker 1: or snatched me here? Okay? Oh yeah, you're taunting me

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Speaker 1: with it every day. I still haven't seen it yet,

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Speaker 1: but I will. Okay, here's the scenario. Grace and her

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Speaker 1: friend are taking a tour of a chemical plant. Grace

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Speaker 1: goes over to the coffee machine to pour some coffee.

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Speaker 1: Grace's friend asks if Grace will put some sugar in hers,

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Speaker 1: and there is a white powder in a container next

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Speaker 1: to the coffee machine. The white powder is a very

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Speaker 1: toxic substance left behind by a scientist and deadly when ingested.

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Speaker 1: The container, however, is labeled sugar, so Grace believes that

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Speaker 1: the white powder is regular sugar. Grace puts this white

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Speaker 1: powder in her friend's coffee. Her friend drinks the coffee

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Speaker 1: and dies. Now the question is, is what Grace did

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Speaker 1: morally acceptable or not um given this scenario, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it seems morally acceptable because she didn't know it was toxic.

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Speaker 1: It was labeled sugar. Yeah, she was do and she

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Speaker 1: was following a request. Yeah, so you are answering the

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Speaker 1: question the way almost all adult adults tend to answer

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Speaker 1: these questions, that what matters is the intention of the

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Speaker 1: person doing the action. Uh So let me pose it

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Speaker 1: another way. Same scenario. Grace and her friend or at

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Speaker 1: a coffee. They're getting coffee at the chemical plant. Now

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Speaker 1: it turns out that the white powder in the container

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Speaker 1: is just sugar and it's fine, but it is labeled toxic.

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Speaker 1: So Grace believes that the white powder is a toxic substance,

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Speaker 1: but she's wrong. She puts it in her friend's coffee.

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Speaker 1: It's actually just sugar. Her friend drinks it. Is what

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Speaker 1: is what Grace did morally acceptable? Well, I would say

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Speaker 1: it is forbidden because she attempted to poison a friend,

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Speaker 1: exactly right. So yeah, this is how I would answer

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Speaker 1: as well. This is how almost all adults tend to

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Speaker 1: answer these questions. The fact is that in general, adults

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Speaker 1: tend to think that intentions are highly morally relevant, so

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Speaker 1: they usually say that a person who accidentally poisons a

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Speaker 1: friend of theirs with no intent to harm them is

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Speaker 1: not morally blame worthy, but somebody who intends to poison

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Speaker 1: a friend, even if they fail at doing so, is

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Speaker 1: morally blameworthy. And of course, like you know, there are

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Speaker 1: many aspects that you see this put into practice around

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Speaker 1: the world, and like legal injustice systems, a person is

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Speaker 1: punished a lot more for trying to hurt someone on

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Speaker 1: purpose than for hurting them by accident, though often sometimes

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Speaker 1: they are still held responsible for hurting somebody growth negligent situation,

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Speaker 1: you know. Uh, And that's like a middle category, right

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Speaker 1: like if you didn't mean to hurt somebody, but you

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Speaker 1: were doing something really reckless, send it hurt them. That's

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Speaker 1: sort of like a middle culpability level, right like if

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Speaker 1: you stored the toxic white powder next to the sugar

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Speaker 1: and she just didn't look closely enough, like you really

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Speaker 1: should you know that this place has as sugar and

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Speaker 1: toxic poison. You should you should know to check which

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Speaker 1: one you're scoop Getting lumps out of right, But we

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Speaker 1: wouldn't think that Grace should have expected there to be

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Speaker 1: poisoned right next to the coffee machine, right. And on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, Grace, you can't expect Grace to just

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Speaker 1: expect people to be trying to poisoning her all the

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Speaker 1: time like they're they're they're certain cultural expectations in place

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Speaker 1: here exactly. But the weird thing is not everyone answers

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Speaker 1: scenarios this way. For example, previous research, including by the

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Speaker 1: Swiss psychologist Jean piage Uh and others later, has found

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Speaker 1: that young children and pj found this was up to

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Speaker 1: about the age of nine or ten, tend to attribute

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Speaker 1: moral guilt and deservingness of punishment in exactly the opposite way.

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Speaker 1: They assigned guilt based on the active consequences of the

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Speaker 1: action rather than to the knowledge or intentions of the agent,

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Speaker 1: meaning that many young children will suggest that if Grace

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Speaker 1: means to put sugar in her friend's coffee but accidentally

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Speaker 1: poisons her friend, she is naughty. But if she tries

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Speaker 1: to poison her friend and the poison doesn't work, she's fine.

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Speaker 1: Well that sounds totally believable. I mean, I now that

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Speaker 1: it's pointed out like that. You know, I can see

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Speaker 1: I can see various aspects of that popping up in

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Speaker 1: just raising a child, you know, where where they're gonna

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Speaker 1: they're gonna going to jump to this conclusion. You know

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Speaker 1: it certainly not with poisoning, but with just sort of

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Speaker 1: the everyday minutia that fills your life. Well, they don't

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Speaker 1: reason this way every time, Like sometimes intentions seem salient

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Speaker 1: to them, but generally the rule is after about age ten,

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Speaker 1: almost nobody ever thinks that accidentally harming someone is worse

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Speaker 1: than intending to harm them and not harm in failing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but this, I mean that I've seen this with my

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Speaker 1: son though, where like he'll do something accidentally and then

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Speaker 1: he's really hard on himself for having for for quote,

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Speaker 1: being bad or having you know, done something bad and

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Speaker 1: you have to reassure him you know this was you know,

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Speaker 1: there was an accident, but you know it's all cool. Well,

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Speaker 1: this is a fascinating phenomenon on its own. I mean,

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Speaker 1: before we even get to how this applies to the

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Speaker 1: split brain experiments for example, you know, I went back,

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Speaker 1: I was like, is this really true? So I was

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Speaker 1: reading some of Pj's work on this question from a

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Speaker 1: book of his. And so here's one of the scenarios

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Speaker 1: he describes when interviewing young children. Okay, the first one is,

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Speaker 1: uh this, uh about this little boy named John, Robert,

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Speaker 1: do you want to read about John? Sure? A little

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Speaker 1: boy who is called John is in his room. He

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Speaker 1: has called to dinner. He goes into the dining room.

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Speaker 1: But behind the door there was a chair, and on

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Speaker 1: the chair there was a tray with fifteen cups on it.

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Speaker 1: John couldn't have known that there was all this behind

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Speaker 1: the door. He goes in the door, knocks against the tray, Bang,

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Speaker 1: go the fifteen cups and they all get broken. All right.

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Speaker 1: Here's the other scenario. Once there was a little boy

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Speaker 1: whose name was Henry. One day when his mother was out,

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Speaker 1: he tried to get some jam out of the cupboard.

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Speaker 1: He climbed up onto a chair and stretched out his arm,

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Speaker 1: but the jam was too high up and he couldn't

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Speaker 1: reach it and have any But while he was trying

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Speaker 1: to get it, he knocked over a cup. The cup

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Speaker 1: fell down and broke. Ah. So, yeah, we have a

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Speaker 1: situation where John was just going about normal everyday. How

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Speaker 1: stuff he didn't know where some stuff was. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: it stuff got broken. But Henry is trying to do

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Speaker 1: something he shouldn't and then accidentally break something. But here then,

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Speaker 1: PJ includes a little transcript of a dialogue with a

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Speaker 1: six year old boy named Geo about these stories. Robert,

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Speaker 1: do you want to be Geo? I'll be the child? Yes? Okay,

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Speaker 1: have you understood these stories? Yes? What did the first

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Speaker 1: boy do? He broke eleven cups? And the second one

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Speaker 1: he broke a cup by moving roughly? Why did the

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Speaker 1: swan break the cups because the door knocked them in

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Speaker 1: the second he was clumsy when he was getting the

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Speaker 1: jam the cup fell down? How did Geo become Richard O'Brien? Okay? No, sorry?

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Speaker 1: Going on? Is one of the boys naughtier than the other?

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Speaker 1: The first is because he knocked over twelve cups? If

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Speaker 1: you were the daddy, which one would you punish most?

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Speaker 1: To one who broke twelve cups? Why did he break them?

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Speaker 1: The door shut too hard and knocked them. He didn't

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Speaker 1: do it on purpose? And why did the other boy

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Speaker 1: break a cup? He wanted to get the jam. He

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Speaker 1: moved too far, the cup got a broken. Why did

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Speaker 1: he want the jam? Because he was all alone? Because

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Speaker 1: his mother, wasn't there have you got a brother, no,

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Speaker 1: a little sister. Well, if it was you who had

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Speaker 1: broken the twelve cups when you went into the room

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Speaker 1: and your little sister had broken the one cup while

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Speaker 1: she was trying to get the jam, which of you

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Speaker 1: would be punished most severely? Me? Because I broke more

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Speaker 1: within one cup. Robert. First of all, I'm gonna give

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Speaker 1: a rave view to your creepy child voice. That was

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Speaker 1: like a beau, a full riff raff French geo. I

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Speaker 1: think I was trying to go for like a Damian

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Speaker 1: child or something. But you know, Richard O'Brien is still

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Speaker 1: pretty good. It's all for you riff raff. But this

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Speaker 1: is illuminating. This shows, Uh, this shows how the six

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Speaker 1: year old is thinking about these two scenarios in applying judgment. Yes,

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Speaker 1: almost no adult reasons this way right right, So this

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Speaker 1: on its own is fascinating to me. Why this discrepancy

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Speaker 1: in the moral reasoning of children and adults? And what

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Speaker 1: causes the change? You know? POJ says the change tends

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Speaker 1: to happen somewhere in late childhood, you know, somewhere between

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Speaker 1: like uh, like seven and nine or ten. This change

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Speaker 1: really takes over and people still and the children start

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Speaker 1: reasoning about moral intentions and moral knowledge as opposed to

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Speaker 1: just the objective outcomes. Uh. One issue I think that

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Speaker 1: plays into this maturation process in moral judgments is of

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Speaker 1: course going to be the development of the sophistication of

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Speaker 1: theory of mind, and theory of mind of course is

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Speaker 1: the ability to understand that others have into mental states

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Speaker 1: and imagine what those states are. But this clearly can't

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Speaker 1: be the only factor, because most children develop theory of

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Speaker 1: mind by around age five or so, and a significant

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Speaker 1: number of them think outcomes matter more than intentions for

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Speaker 1: guilt until around age nine or so, So there must

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Speaker 1: be something else happening also, so they're able to either

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Speaker 1: able to contemplate other mind states, and yet they're still

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Speaker 1: sticking to this. Uh, this this harsh form of judgment. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And again, to be clear, not in every case, because

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Speaker 1: sometimes children will seem to think intentions matter, but they

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Speaker 1: clearly they they default to this far more than adults would. Now,

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Speaker 1: there's one reason to think that, of course, theory of

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Speaker 1: mind is important for making a mature moral judgments the

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Speaker 1: kind adults make based on knowledge and intentions. For the

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Speaker 1: obvious reason that when you make a judgment considering a

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Speaker 1: state of mind, including the knowledge and intentions of the

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Speaker 1: person who broke the cups or put the powder in

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Speaker 1: the coffee or whatever, you need to imagine their state

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Speaker 1: of mind, like you have to have that in your

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Speaker 1: rain in order to evaluate whether they were guilty or not.

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Speaker 1: And so in like two thousand and eight two thousand nine,

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Speaker 1: researchers named Leanne Young and Rebecca Sacks used neuroimaging to

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Speaker 1: find evidence that when you try to ascribe beliefs and

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Speaker 1: intentions to other people, essentially when you practice theory of

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Speaker 1: mind and you're thinking about other minds, it involves processes

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Speaker 1: that are lateralized their primarily on one side of the brain,

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Speaker 1: specifically in the right temporal parietal junction or TPJ. And

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Speaker 1: in a two thousand nine study, Young and Sacks found

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Speaker 1: that uh temporal parietal junction activity in the right hemisphere

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Speaker 1: only appeared when people tried to assess the moral significance

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Speaker 1: of things like accidental harms when you hurt somebody but

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Speaker 1: you didn't mean to. So if I tell you a

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Speaker 1: story about Jeffrey accidentally knocking somebody into the Grand Canyon

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Speaker 1: and then I ask you to think about whether Jeffrey

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Speaker 1: did something morally wrong or not. Whatever thinking you use

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Speaker 1: to answer that question will probably we involve the t

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Speaker 1: PJ on the right side. But oh, what if the

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Speaker 1: part of your brain that's getting that's interacting with the

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Speaker 1: language that poses this question to you, cannot retrieve information

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Speaker 1: from the lateralized TPJ the right side the brain. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so we're gonna look at the two thousand tens study

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Speaker 1: from Neuropsychologia called Abnormal Moral Reasoning and Complete and partial

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Speaker 1: calisotomy Patients by Miller, Senate, Armstrong, Young, King, Pagi, Fabri, Polinara,

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Speaker 1: and Gazanaga. So the authors begin by looking at the

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Speaker 1: state of affairs we just talked about, uh, with the

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Speaker 1: you know, the localization in the right hemisphere of this

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Speaker 1: part of the brain that's used in imagining other minds

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Speaker 1: and making judgments about something like the intentions of somebody

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Speaker 1: in reference to moral guilt and the right quote. These

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Speaker 1: findings suggest that patients with disconnected hemispheres would provide abnormal

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Speaker 1: moral judgments on accidental harms and fail old attempts to harm,

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Speaker 1: since normal judgments in these cases require information about beliefs

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Speaker 1: and intentions from the right brain to reach the judgmental

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Speaker 1: processes in the left brain. So they ran a test.

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Speaker 1: They used six split brain patients who have had either

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Speaker 1: a partial or total sectioning of the corpus colosum and

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Speaker 1: compared that with twenty two normal control subjects. Now verbally,

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Speaker 1: so what they did is verbally out loud conducted interviews

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Speaker 1: posing moral judgment scenarios like the sugar or poison story

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Speaker 1: we talked about with Grace, but also other ones like

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Speaker 1: it uh. They conducted these interviews verbally, asking the subjects

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Speaker 1: about whether different types of action in the scenario were

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Speaker 1: morally acceptable or not. And remember, of course, which hemisphere

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Speaker 1: of the brain is the one primarily responsible for speech.

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Speaker 1: It's the left. So if you're having a verbal interview

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Speaker 1: with somebody, their left hemisphere is sort of like it's

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Speaker 1: like the gatekeeper right that will in most cases be

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Speaker 1: dominating the input and output of the brain you're interacting with,

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Speaker 1: since the input and output is all spoken words. So

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Speaker 1: if you have to give your answers in words coming

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Speaker 1: from your left hemisphere and it can't communicate very well

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Speaker 1: with your right hemisphere or at all with your right hemisphere,

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Speaker 1: which is the home of an important part of the

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Speaker 1: brain that used to think about the knowledge and intentions

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Speaker 1: of other people. Your verbal answers on subjects requiring this

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Speaker 1: kind of knowledge may very well be impaired, and the results,

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Speaker 1: it turned out, supported this hypothesis. The control subjects, the

430
00:23:30,040 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 1: people without split brains, they tended to judge just like

431
00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:36,320
Speaker 1: we did earlier. Like they judged based on intentions, well,

432
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:38,760
Speaker 1: did grace mean to harm somebody or not? And that

433
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:42,640
Speaker 1: was the mainly salient thing. The split brain patients did

434
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:47,840
Speaker 1: so far less consistently, more often judging based purely on outcomes,

435
00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:52,160
Speaker 1: the way many young children did and pj's work, and

436
00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 1: also to supplement their experiment, they tested two of the

437
00:23:55,359 --> 00:24:00,800
Speaker 1: split brain patient's ability to detect hypothetical faux pause. For example,

438
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:04,240
Speaker 1: a person quote telling somebody how much they dislike a

439
00:24:04,359 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 1: bowl while forgetting that the person had given them that

440
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:10,760
Speaker 1: bowl as a wedding present. Uh. And of course, the

441
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:13,000
Speaker 1: idea is that a person who's unable like if you're

442
00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:16,480
Speaker 1: unable to give spoken answers involving the theory of mind

443
00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:19,919
Speaker 1: function localized in the right TPJ, you will find it

444
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:24,119
Speaker 1: significantly harder to detect a faux paw which requires you

445
00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:27,360
Speaker 1: to think about other minds, and the split brain difference

446
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 1: held true here. Out of tin faux pause, they said,

447
00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:35,240
Speaker 1: patient VP successfully detected only six and patient j W

448
00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 1: correctly identified only four, whereas control subjects all identified a

449
00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 1: hundred of the faux pause. So when they were given

450
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:45,160
Speaker 1: a scenario like that and asked did something awkward happen

451
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 1: normal people? They detected every time. In fact, one of

452
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:50,720
Speaker 1: the things that I would say our brains are most

453
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:56,200
Speaker 1: highly suited for is detecting social awkwardness and stuff, right, Yeah,

454
00:24:56,280 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 1: And it is interesting to notice this emerging in younger

455
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 1: or children too, you know, like you see this kind

456
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 1: of awareness coming online, you know where they're able to

457
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:08,800
Speaker 1: identify faux pause as opposed to just be like the

458
00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:12,399
Speaker 1: master of folk pause. Well do you ever notice I

459
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:17,199
Speaker 1: wonder if like adolescence and teenage years are kind of

460
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:19,679
Speaker 1: an error. It's like it's a time when you were

461
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:24,480
Speaker 1: almost like hyper aware of social awkwardness. Does that ring

462
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,680
Speaker 1: true to you? Um to a certain extent? But I

463
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:30,160
Speaker 1: don't know. I've run into some teens who I mean,

464
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:33,640
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different types of brains out there,

465
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 1: but I mean I've run into some teams that that

466
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:39,920
Speaker 1: definitely have a lot of social awkwardness or or definitely

467
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:42,360
Speaker 1: walk into a lot of faux pas. So I don't know. Well,

468
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 1: I mean, just because you are awkward doesn't mean you're

469
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: not aware of awkwardness, right, Yeah, certainly awkwardness does seem

470
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: to define that buried in one's life. That would be

471
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:55,199
Speaker 1: that might be something to come back to. I know

472
00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:57,640
Speaker 1: we've done episodes in the past on the teenage brain,

473
00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:00,920
Speaker 1: in the particular aspects of the team age brain. I

474
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 1: wonder if there's a if there's an entire episode on

475
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 1: the science of awkwardness. Well, I think we should take

476
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: a quick break and then when we come back we

477
00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:13,400
Speaker 1: can discuss this study a little more than alright, we're back,

478
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: all right. So we've just discussed this study about split

479
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:20,520
Speaker 1: brain patients and moral judgments and found that split brain patients,

480
00:26:20,520 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 1: at least in this one study, made moral judgments based

481
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:29,200
Speaker 1: on outcomes rather than on intentions, more like children sometimes

482
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:32,639
Speaker 1: do instead of the way that adults normally do. Um,

483
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:35,680
Speaker 1: And this is fascinating. Now, of course, we should acknowledge

484
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:39,560
Speaker 1: some potential drawbacks of this experiment. Like all split brain studies,

485
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,399
Speaker 1: by necessity, it's a small sample, right, you know, there

486
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 1: aren't that many of these people out there, and even

487
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 1: a smaller subset of them want to participate in experiments

488
00:26:48,160 --> 00:26:50,719
Speaker 1: like this, But so it's almost on the scale of anecdote,

489
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:54,120
Speaker 1: so you have to be careful about drawing strong conclusions

490
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 1: from the results. Also, there are some other detailed complications

491
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 1: in the study, such as questions about why the effect

492
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 1: also manifested impartial calisotomy patients, so when the authors had

493
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:07,400
Speaker 1: not expected it to they thought it would only appear

494
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 1: in the full calisotomy patients. And then also about where

495
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:14,440
Speaker 1: the exact side of decoding the beliefs of others is located.

496
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:17,880
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not exactly the TPJ but more anterior to it.

497
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 1: Uh So that's some peripheral issues. But nevertheless, if we

498
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:25,120
Speaker 1: tentatively accept these results like how fascinating, and it leads

499
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: to these questions like here's one. You know we discussed

500
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: in the last episode that despite the radical nature of

501
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:36,120
Speaker 1: the surgery that cuts the corpus colossum and the amazing

502
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 1: neurological anomalies that can arise from it under lab conditions,

503
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:44,640
Speaker 1: generally most patients and patient families report totally normal functionality

504
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:48,320
Speaker 1: no major changes in personality or behavior after the surgery.

505
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:52,360
Speaker 1: If it's changing their moral reasoning in in this kind

506
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:55,640
Speaker 1: of way, how could that be possible? I mean yeah,

507
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 1: because certainly from your own standpoint, I mean, you were

508
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: if you're moral compass has changed than you I mean,

509
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: you can't see the forest for the trees, right, But

510
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 1: but you're gonna be surrounded by other people who would

511
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 1: be able to identify the change. But presumably yeah, you

512
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:15,959
Speaker 1: would think so, I mean if there is actually a change.

513
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:19,399
Speaker 1: So uh. And and also like, yeah, you think that

514
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 1: moral judgments sort of go to the heart of a

515
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 1: person's personality, right, like that that is your character, that

516
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: is who you are as a person, or at least

517
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 1: how you think about that subject. Right. You would think

518
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 1: there would be anecdotes out there about like, yeah, my

519
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 1: uncle had this surgery and then his like his his

520
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: political ideology changed afterwards, or yeah you have been something

521
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: to that effect. But we have not seen that in

522
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: referenced in any of these studies. So, if these results

523
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 1: from this two thousand ten studies are sound, what accounts

524
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 1: for the discrepancy here? And the authors they posit three

525
00:28:51,800 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: possible answers. One is, well, maybe there are profound personality

526
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: changes in split brain patients that have gone unnoticed or unreported.

527
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 1: They don't think this is very likely because quote, most

528
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 1: reports from family members suggest no changes in mental functions

529
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: or personality, and early studies that thoroughly tested patients pre

530
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 1: and postoperatively reported no changes in cognitive functioning. So they

531
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 1: feel pretty robustly that these patients in their day to

532
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 1: day lives are not really changed. The other possibility as well.

533
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just because the judgment tasks here have no

534
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:30,480
Speaker 1: relevance to real life. But I mean, we use judgments

535
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 1: like this all the time, like did somebody mean to

536
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: do something that? That seems like something that comes up

537
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 1: every day? Yeah, I mean I jokingly brought up Bandersnatch

538
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 1: the Town Adventure Black Mirror episode on Netflix earlier, But

539
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 1: like I I found myself in watching that, like having

540
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 1: to make choices about moral choices for the character. I

541
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: found myself very uncomfortable with with choices that that I

542
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:58,680
Speaker 1: found morally reprehensible, even though it's just purely hypothetical. It's

543
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 1: just a story, right, all right? What else do we have?

544
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 1: What other possible answers? Well, the third possibility is what

545
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 1: the researchers think is probably the case, which is that

546
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:10,239
Speaker 1: even though this impairment is manifested in the lab, in

547
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 1: reality it somehow gets compensated for somehow in daily life.

548
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 1: Other brain regions and functions or alternative processes kick in

549
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: to counteract whatever is causing people to give these unusual

550
00:30:24,320 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 1: answers in the lab condition. The brain finds a way, yes,

551
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 1: so what would it be, Well, what about a version

552
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:34,400
Speaker 1: of something not exactly but something like the system one

553
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 1: versus system to schema. Of course, now, of course we

554
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:39,959
Speaker 1: can remind people what the system one in the system

555
00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: to themes are. Well, it's like, basically like the different

556
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 1: ways of dealing with the threat of the tiger. There's

557
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 1: the way of dealing with the tiger by avoiding it

558
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 1: and not going to the places where the tiger is,

559
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 1: and then there's the way of dealing with the tiger

560
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 1: where you have to fight it re flee from it.

561
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:56,480
Speaker 1: So I think we'd have the order inverted there. But yeah,

562
00:30:56,480 --> 00:30:59,760
Speaker 1: so like system too is generally considered to be like

563
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 1: low deliberate, methodical, logical thinking about how to solve problems,

564
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 1: whereas system one is fast, reactive, intuitive, implicit right punch

565
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 1: the tiger in the nose and run for it. And

566
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 1: we need both for life. I mean, system to reactions

567
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 1: might be less likely to give us erroneous results. But

568
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 1: you don't have time to use system to thinking on everything.

569
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 1: You know, you're trying to get through life. Most of

570
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:28,720
Speaker 1: the time. You need to make quick judgments that are

571
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: not overly concerned. You know, you can't overthink, like which

572
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 1: foot I'm gonna put in front of the other right now? Right? Yeah,

573
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: So so you've got to be prepared for either tiger,

574
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 1: the distance tiger or the close tiger. And so maybe

575
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 1: the idea here is that the right TPJ is somehow

576
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 1: necessary for making fast implicit system one type decisions about

577
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 1: judging more, you know, the moral valance of an action

578
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 1: and imagining theory of mind. But that you can if

579
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 1: you can't do that, you can somehow do the same thing.

580
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 1: It just takes longer, and it's is a more difficult,

581
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 1: deliberate process that the brain has to go through if

582
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: it can't rely on this brain region that does does

583
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:15,240
Speaker 1: this fast for you normally the author's right quote. If

584
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 1: the patients do not have access to the fast implicit

585
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 1: systems for ascribing beliefs to others. Their initial automatic moral

586
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: judgments might not take into account beliefs of others, but

587
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 1: you know, they're slow reason deliberate thinking system can compensate,

588
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 1: it can kick in. Then again, I mean, I wonder

589
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 1: how this, if this is the case, and we'll discuss

590
00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 1: this a little more, how this wouldn't manifest in normal life,

591
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:41,360
Speaker 1: because I feel like we use the fast intuitive system

592
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 1: one type process to make morally relevant judgments all the time.

593
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: I mean, we're constantly making sort of unfair moral judgments

594
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 1: about things that would not you know, they're not using

595
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 1: the kind of reasoning that you would sit down and

596
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:58,200
Speaker 1: deliberate about. Think about how often you get mad at

597
00:32:58,240 --> 00:33:01,600
Speaker 1: somebody because they do something accidentally, and if you were

598
00:33:01,640 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 1: forced to stop and think about it, you're like, Okay,

599
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 1: no they didn't, they didn't mean to do that. There's

600
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 1: no reason to morally blame them. You just get mad

601
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:11,160
Speaker 1: in the moment and you're just like, why are you

602
00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: in my way? Or why did you do that? Yeah? Yeah, totally.

603
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 1: This is you know, this like the the other split

604
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 1: brain experiments we're looking at, though it reminds me of say,

605
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: if you're watching a three D film and you have

606
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 1: the glasses on, and then you take the glasses off,

607
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 1: and you you you see that there is there's there's

608
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 1: some sort of uh uh, you know, there's a lack

609
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 1: of unity there. Or it's like you're you're staring through

610
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 1: the stereo view and then you look at the card

611
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: and you see that it's two images side by side

612
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 1: to create the united whole. Like it's it's a glimpse

613
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 1: at the duality that that is making the at least,

614
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 1: you know, the sort of the illusion, the experience of

615
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: the whole possible. Um. But but but then it's it's

616
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: we we shouldn't fall under the we shouldn't then fall

617
00:33:56,680 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 1: into the trap of thinking that it is dual by nature.

618
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 1: It's like taking the US is up and saying, oh,

619
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:03,800
Speaker 1: the world is really red, the world is really blue. Well, no, no,

620
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:06,480
Speaker 1: that the world is the thing that comes together. Yeah,

621
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 1: And and the glasses are designed to give you this

622
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:11,680
Speaker 1: three D image the same way that the brain is

623
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:14,920
Speaker 1: designed by evolution to have compensating processes, to have one

624
00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:17,280
Speaker 1: way of doing something or another way of doing something

625
00:34:17,320 --> 00:34:20,279
Speaker 1: depending on the situational need. And so, of course I

626
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:22,960
Speaker 1: indicated that the authors tend to think this third answer

627
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 1: is probably the correct one about the compensating mechanism taking

628
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:30,719
Speaker 1: over in real life scenarios. Uh And as evidence, they

629
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:34,320
Speaker 1: cite the fact that in the experiment, split brain patients

630
00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 1: would sometimes spontaneously blurred out a rationalization of an answer

631
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:44,840
Speaker 1: that ignored intentions, almost as if after giving the answer

632
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:49,320
Speaker 1: out loud that ignored intentions, they realized something was wrong

633
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 1: with it. So here's one example. A split brain patient

634
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 1: named JW hurt a scenario where a waitress thought that

635
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:01,120
Speaker 1: serving sesame seeds to a customer would give him a

636
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 1: terrible allergic reaction. She thought he was allergic to sesame seeds.

637
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 1: She tried, she served him sesame seeds, but it turns

638
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 1: out he wasn't actually allergic. She was wrong about that,

639
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 1: and the seeds didn't hurt him, even though she thought

640
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 1: they would. J W said the waitress had done nothing wrong.

641
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:22,319
Speaker 1: Then he paused for a few moments, then spontaneously blurted out,

642
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:26,000
Speaker 1: sesame seeds are tiny little things. They don't hurt nobody,

643
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:30,279
Speaker 1: you know. It's it's almost as if he was searching

644
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 1: for a post talk rationalization of an answer he'd already given,

645
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 1: but which began to seem wrong to him as it

646
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:40,400
Speaker 1: sank in, you know, given a few more seconds to

647
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 1: think about it, and the patient j W alone, they

648
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 1: reported spontaneously blurted out rationalizations like this in five of

649
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:51,480
Speaker 1: the twenty four scenarios, so like more than a fifth,

650
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:54,719
Speaker 1: and again, I just think back to the fact, you know,

651
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:57,759
Speaker 1: post talk rationalization is a huge part of life. We

652
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 1: talked about this in the last episode with the the

653
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 1: writer and the elephant, right, like, how often do we

654
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:08,080
Speaker 1: do things that honestly we don't understand why we did them,

655
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:10,480
Speaker 1: but we just come up with a story, and we

656
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:13,919
Speaker 1: even believe that story ourselves as an explanation for why

657
00:36:13,920 --> 00:36:16,359
Speaker 1: we did it. But you can see clear evidence that

658
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:19,440
Speaker 1: that is not the reason. Right, Yeah, you end up

659
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 1: telling yourself, well I wanted that product, or perhaps oh

660
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:25,279
Speaker 1: well you might even you know, you might even end

661
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:26,839
Speaker 1: up telling you so the st of the story about

662
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:29,040
Speaker 1: how you were tricked into buying it. But but there

663
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 1: is some sort of rationalization about the about the movements

664
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 1: of the beast beneath you. Alright, on that note, we're

665
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 1: going to take another break, but we'll be right back.

666
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:43,840
Speaker 1: Than all right, we're back, Okay, I think we should

667
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:47,799
Speaker 1: take a look at another study about moral judgment and

668
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 1: the division of the brain hemispheres. So this is one

669
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: from Royal Society Open Science from called moral judgment by

670
00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:01,760
Speaker 1: the disconnected left and right cerebral hemispheres, a split brain investigation,

671
00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:06,719
Speaker 1: and this is by Steckler, Hamlin, Miller, King and Kingstone. Uh.

672
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:08,839
Speaker 1: And when you get king and Kingstone together, you never

673
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:12,240
Speaker 1: know what's gonna happen. So to recap from the last study,

674
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:14,680
Speaker 1: we know that lots of parts of the brain are

675
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:18,080
Speaker 1: used in making moral judgments, including you know, regions and

676
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:21,360
Speaker 1: networks in the left hemisphere such as the the left

677
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: medial prefrontal cortex, the left temporal parietal junction, and the

678
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:29,280
Speaker 1: left singulate. But in order to make moral decisions based

679
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 1: on people's intentions, when you're imagining what other people mean

680
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:36,759
Speaker 1: to do and what they know, we seem to require

681
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:40,440
Speaker 1: use of an area in or around the area mentioned

682
00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:44,759
Speaker 1: in the last study, the right tempo parietal junction or rTPJ.

683
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 1: And it seems that without it you can't properly imagine

684
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:52,440
Speaker 1: other people's intentions and beliefs to make a quick moral judgment.

685
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 1: So here's a question. Then the right hemisphere seems necessary

686
00:37:56,840 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 1: in making a quick moral judgment in the normal way

687
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 1: based on people's intent, But is it sufficient Could the

688
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 1: right hemisphere alone make a judgment? So the authors try

689
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 1: to find out with the help of a split brain patient.

690
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:14,360
Speaker 1: They write, quote, here we use non linguistic morality plays

691
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:18,439
Speaker 1: with split brain patient j W to examine the moral

692
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 1: judgments of the disconnected right hemisphere. So obviously you've got

693
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:24,640
Speaker 1: a problem if you're trying to just talk to the

694
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:27,360
Speaker 1: right hemisphere, because the right hemisphere is not going to

695
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: do super well at understanding a verbal scenario you describe

696
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:33,440
Speaker 1: to them. Right it doesn't want to listen to you

697
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:35,799
Speaker 1: tell a story. It doesn't want a lot of dialogue.

698
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 1: It just wants some sweet, muted YouTube action the silent

699
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:43,799
Speaker 1: film hemisphere. And again not to not to be overly simplistic,

700
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:45,920
Speaker 1: because we do know from some research that the right

701
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:49,359
Speaker 1: brain does seem to understand some language, it's just not

702
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 1: nearly as linguistically sophisticated as the left hemisphere. Um So

703
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 1: they use these nonverbal videos of people trying to help

704
00:38:57,320 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 1: someone and succeeding or failing, or trying to thwart someone

705
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:05,200
Speaker 1: and succeeding or failing. So an example might be somebody's

706
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 1: trying to get something down off of a high shelf,

707
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:11,439
Speaker 1: and then somebody either like bumps into them to try

708
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:14,279
Speaker 1: to knock them off the shelf or tries to help

709
00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: them get the thing down or something like that. And

710
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:19,400
Speaker 1: then they had j W watch all these videos and

711
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:22,239
Speaker 1: point with the finger of a specific hand which is

712
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:26,280
Speaker 1: controlled by the opposite hemisphere, to indicate which character was nicer.

713
00:39:27,040 --> 00:39:29,080
Speaker 1: So in a series of test sessions like this over

714
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:31,400
Speaker 1: the course of a year, they found that JW was

715
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:35,279
Speaker 1: able to make pretty normal intent based judgments with his

716
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 1: right hemisphere alone pointing with his left hand, but had

717
00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:42,560
Speaker 1: a lot more trouble making intent based judgments with the

718
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:46,800
Speaker 1: left left hemisphere, in some cases seeming to respond almost

719
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 1: at random with the left hemisphere. And yet the left

720
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: hemisphere is the hemisphere that the talks, so there were

721
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:56,280
Speaker 1: more signs of the left hemisphere making up ex post

722
00:39:56,320 --> 00:40:00,880
Speaker 1: facto justifications when it did not understand what what the

723
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:04,800
Speaker 1: person had done. For example, after one video, when asked

724
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:07,200
Speaker 1: why he made the choice he did of which character

725
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:11,960
Speaker 1: was nicer, JW just offered the rationalization that blonds can't

726
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:14,440
Speaker 1: be trusted. When one of the actors in the video

727
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:18,279
Speaker 1: was blonde. So here's one question why the discrepancy with

728
00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:21,400
Speaker 1: the last study. In the last study, the left hemisphere

729
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:25,480
Speaker 1: defaulted more often in making moral judgments based on, remember

730
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:29,759
Speaker 1: the objective good or bad outcomes, rather than people's intentions.

731
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:32,920
Speaker 1: Why did it seem to make judgments at random this time?

732
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 1: So the authors say, maybe in the previous study it's

733
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 1: because subjects were explicitly asked to judge whether a behavior

734
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:42,280
Speaker 1: was morally acceptable or not, and in this study instead,

735
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 1: the subject was just asked who's nicer, Maybe to the

736
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 1: left hemisphere, you know, separated and on its own devices.

737
00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:52,600
Speaker 1: Maybe it doesn't use any kind of moral reasoning to

738
00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 1: judge who is nicer, but uses some other kind of rubric.

739
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:59,760
Speaker 1: Maybe nicer means something non moral to it. Then again,

740
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:03,600
Speaker 1: there's also the possibility, well, you know, we're again limited

741
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:06,360
Speaker 1: to small sample sizes, in this case very small of

742
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 1: just one patient. So it's possible that maybe JW is

743
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:12,560
Speaker 1: just unusual. That's always a thing to consider with this

744
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:15,640
Speaker 1: kind of study, and it's what you know, unfortunately, what

745
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:18,440
Speaker 1: what this sort of research is by nature limited to

746
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think is interesting and

747
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 1: looking at this research, we we've looked at today with

748
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:27,160
Speaker 1: the different kinds of moral reasoning in the different hemispheres,

749
00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 1: is that we see again the role of something that

750
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:32,680
Speaker 1: we talked about in in part one of this series

751
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:36,240
Speaker 1: back in the first episode, about the role of what's

752
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:38,720
Speaker 1: thought of as the interpreter, or at least in Michael

753
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:42,880
Speaker 1: Gazzaniga's theory, that the interpreter in the left hemisphere. So

754
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 1: the idea is, of course, that your brain constantly makes

755
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:49,239
Speaker 1: up stories to explain why you just did what you did.

756
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:52,839
Speaker 1: But split brain research indicates that we have no guarantee

757
00:41:53,320 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 1: that the stories we give to explain our own behaviors

758
00:41:56,200 --> 00:41:59,200
Speaker 1: have any explanatory power at all. A lot of times

759
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 1: it seems more like they are just confabulated post talk rationalizations,

760
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 1: that you just came up with something to explain something

761
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:09,880
Speaker 1: you did when you really have no idea why you

762
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 1: did what you did. The brain just pulled it out

763
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:14,319
Speaker 1: of its own button. If the brain had a butt.

764
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 1: In the previous experiments, this had to do with stuff

765
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 1: like why did you draw this picture you know? Or

766
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:22,000
Speaker 1: why did you pick this object out of a drawer

767
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:24,920
Speaker 1: with your left hand when you couldn't name that object

768
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 1: in speech, or anything like that, and people would make

769
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:30,880
Speaker 1: up excuses. Now you you see a similar kind of

770
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 1: thing perhaps going on with making moral judgments. And I

771
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 1: think that there is some research that this is indicative

772
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:41,319
Speaker 1: not just of something about split brain patients, but of

773
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:46,399
Speaker 1: something larger about this phenomenon of interpretation in the left

774
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 1: hemisphere and of the human condition itself. Yeah, like we've

775
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:53,280
Speaker 1: we've touched on in this episode Sode, in the previous episode,

776
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:55,480
Speaker 1: and in any other episodes before. It's like there's always

777
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:59,080
Speaker 1: a story that is told, right, We're constantly telling a

778
00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 1: story about ourselves, and that story involves rationalizations, rationalizations for

779
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:08,000
Speaker 1: our actions and uh and interpretations of who we are

780
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:10,840
Speaker 1: and why we're doing everything we do exactly. And it

781
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:13,719
Speaker 1: happens in multiple level. It happens to explain why you

782
00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 1: have why you took certain actions that you can't actually explain.

783
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:21,440
Speaker 1: It happens to explain why your mood changes. Because Aniga

784
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:24,040
Speaker 1: writes about this that there are these cases where you

785
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:27,319
Speaker 1: can have somebody who's has a mood shift triggered, like

786
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:30,319
Speaker 1: for example, you get you have split brain patients where

787
00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:33,440
Speaker 1: you show some positive or negative mood, triggering stimulus to

788
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 1: the right hemisphere, and then the speaking part of the

789
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:40,200
Speaker 1: brain expresses being upset, but then we'll be unable to

790
00:43:40,239 --> 00:43:43,439
Speaker 1: express why, and we'll just make up a story about why, like, well,

791
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:47,320
Speaker 1: because you did this thing that made me upset. And crucially,

792
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: I think it seems to be the case that when

793
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:52,719
Speaker 1: we make up stories like this, they're not just you know,

794
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 1: they're not just outward facing. It's not just pr for

795
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:59,719
Speaker 1: the brain, it's inward facing. We are convincing our cell

796
00:44:00,239 --> 00:44:03,439
Speaker 1: that this made up story is correct. Yeah, it helps

797
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 1: create like the internal reality that we cling to. Yeah, exactly.

798
00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:10,839
Speaker 1: And so it's it's interesting, I think, to notice that

799
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 1: this appears to be linked to the brain's capacity for language. That,

800
00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:18,760
Speaker 1: at least, according to Kazaniga's theory here, if he's correct,

801
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:22,600
Speaker 1: the part of the brain that makes up explanations for

802
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:26,000
Speaker 1: why something happened is also highly associated with the part

803
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:28,720
Speaker 1: of the brain that is able to talk about things.

804
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 1: And that very well might not be an accident. It

805
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:35,239
Speaker 1: seems possible there's a link between the networks of the

806
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 1: brain that have the most to do with generating conscious

807
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 1: experience and the networks of the brain that are able

808
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 1: to put things into words. And that's fascinating alright. So

809
00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 1: under under Gazaniga's ideas here, the consciousness generating capacity is

810
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:52,919
Speaker 1: located primarily in the left hemisphere. And what happens when

811
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:56,240
Speaker 1: you have a split brain patient is you essentially cut

812
00:44:56,320 --> 00:45:00,480
Speaker 1: off the conscious part of the brain's access to half

813
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:03,319
Speaker 1: of what the brain is doing, right, Yeah, though that

814
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 1: half of the brain is still over there doing stuff. Yeah.

815
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:08,719
Speaker 1: With with each example that we we we pull out here,

816
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:13,320
Speaker 1: each each study, it is still very difficult to really grasp.

817
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:15,160
Speaker 1: You know. It's it's again this kind of you can't

818
00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:17,880
Speaker 1: see the forest for the tree situation. It's hard to

819
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:23,840
Speaker 1: imagine the consciousness we're experiencing, uh, in a in a

820
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:26,759
Speaker 1: system that's been divided, you know. Well, yeah, that's one

821
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 1: thing that that's so interesting here. I think one way

822
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 1: you could misunderstand what the split brain cases show is

823
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: that if you cut the brain in half, you generate

824
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:41,440
Speaker 1: two conscious, independent people. And that appears to not be

825
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:44,160
Speaker 1: the case. People still get the man with two brains,

826
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:47,440
Speaker 1: like with Steve Martin, right, you get one conscious experience.

827
00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:50,839
Speaker 1: The person generally does not report feeling any different, as

828
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:53,759
Speaker 1: we talked about last time, Their behavior and stuff is

829
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:57,319
Speaker 1: generally about the same as it was before, except you

830
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 1: have the ability to show under certain conditions, there's this

831
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 1: whole half of the brain over there doing things that

832
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 1: you cannot be conscious of or put into words. So

833
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 1: it can still sense, it can still control the body

834
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:15,040
Speaker 1: is just apparently not integrating or synthesizing into whatever creates

835
00:46:15,120 --> 00:46:19,279
Speaker 1: your conscious experience, which I mean in a way that

836
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:21,399
Speaker 1: is that that is sort of like having the other

837
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 1: fellow in there, in the words of Robert Louis Stevenson.

838
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:29,000
Speaker 1: Now to bring up another literary example. We've talked about

839
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:32,279
Speaker 1: Peter Watt's book Blindside on the program before. I'm sure

840
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:35,800
Speaker 1: you remember the character Siri Keaton, who loses his brains

841
00:46:36,040 --> 00:46:39,640
Speaker 1: left hemisphere to infection, and and and and and as

842
00:46:39,640 --> 00:46:42,960
Speaker 1: a result of that, entire hemisphere is largely or entirely

843
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: replaced with like a cybernetic implant. Yes, and this creates

844
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:49,640
Speaker 1: a lot of the strange psychology of the narrator in

845
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,480
Speaker 1: that book. Yes, yes, I can help and think of that.

846
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:55,480
Speaker 1: When we were talking about this, also, I was reminded

847
00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:59,120
Speaker 1: of a character in the book Consider Felibus by Ian M. Banks,

848
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: who who has tweaked his brain so that you can

849
00:47:02,680 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: engage in uni hemispheric sleep. We didn't even get into

850
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:07,279
Speaker 1: that in in this episode. But of course this is

851
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 1: something that for instance, dolphins can do. Uh, it can't

852
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:12,840
Speaker 1: just go to sleep, so they'll put one side of

853
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 1: their brain, one hemisphere of the brain to sleep at

854
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:17,719
Speaker 1: a time. And so and then that particular book, it

855
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:21,239
Speaker 1: was he was probably leaning a little bit into sort

856
00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:24,520
Speaker 1: of the left brain right brain myth a bit, but

857
00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:27,840
Speaker 1: he was discussing how if one side of the human

858
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:30,080
Speaker 1: brain is sleeping and then only one side is awake,

859
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 1: you are going to have a different expression of that individual. Now,

860
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:38,279
Speaker 1: if the Gazonica model of consciousness is correct, Uh, that

861
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:40,760
Speaker 1: wouldn't make me wonder that if a human were capable

862
00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:45,320
Speaker 1: of uni hemispheric sleep, would the human be conscious while

863
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:48,759
Speaker 1: the right brain is sleeping and not conscious while the

864
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:51,759
Speaker 1: left brain is sleeping, and yet while the left brain

865
00:47:51,840 --> 00:47:54,879
Speaker 1: is sleeping, still awake, just not conscious. Well, I guess

866
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:58,120
Speaker 1: you'd ultimately and then you'd have to work out exactly

867
00:47:58,120 --> 00:47:59,880
Speaker 1: how this would work in a human scenario. But you

868
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:02,240
Speaker 1: as long as one side would be awake to alert

869
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 1: the other side when full brain alertness was required, you

870
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:10,799
Speaker 1: know that would that would be the main prerequisite. I

871
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:13,399
Speaker 1: just thought to look this up. I wish I thought

872
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:16,240
Speaker 1: before we came in here, whether there are any lateralization

873
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:19,680
Speaker 1: properties of sleepwalking. Oh, that would be good too. Well,

874
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:22,440
Speaker 1: we we need to come back and discuss sleepwalking in

875
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:25,000
Speaker 1: in depth, because I'm sure there's a whole episode just

876
00:48:25,080 --> 00:48:28,360
Speaker 1: right there. We've done some episodes on what paras omnia

877
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 1: in the past, like sort of covering various weird sleep phenomena.

878
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 1: But yeah, that would be a fun one to come

879
00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 1: back to, for sure. You know. Speaking of Peter Watts,

880
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 1: I remember he's written about this idea of if thoughts

881
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:45,000
Speaker 1: were inserted into your brain from the outside, would you

882
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 1: even perceive them as alien or would you just perceive

883
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:52,040
Speaker 1: them as self? Because Gazzaniga's left brain interpreter model might

884
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 1: be totally wrong, of course, but let's just assume for

885
00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:57,120
Speaker 1: a minute that it is correct. Things happen unconsciously in

886
00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:00,160
Speaker 1: modules all throughout the brain, and then regions in the

887
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:03,360
Speaker 1: left hemisphere have the job of synthesizing all that activity

888
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 1: and generating a story that explains to you why your

889
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:10,880
Speaker 1: brain just did something. And this interpreter function is somehow

890
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:13,840
Speaker 1: crucial to what we think of as the human experience

891
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:17,359
Speaker 1: of consciousness. Consciousness is sort of is this story we

892
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:21,360
Speaker 1: tell about why we're doing things and who we are now. Normally,

893
00:49:21,400 --> 00:49:24,360
Speaker 1: if something enters your left visual field, goes to the

894
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:27,239
Speaker 1: right hemisphere, gets processed there, and then travels to the

895
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:30,279
Speaker 1: interpreter and the left hemisphere through the corpus closum. That

896
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:33,400
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like you're getting that thought or information or

897
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:36,480
Speaker 1: experience from somewhere else. It's all just self. It all

898
00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:40,120
Speaker 1: just gets interpreted and it's you. So if we were

899
00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 1: to start using some kind of brain to brain interface

900
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:46,320
Speaker 1: or a computer to brain interface where it were possible

901
00:49:46,320 --> 00:49:50,640
Speaker 1: to transmit thoughts into the brain from outside, and who

902
00:49:50,719 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 1: knows if that's really possible, of course, but just assume

903
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 1: would we be able to tell the externally inserted thoughts

904
00:49:57,600 --> 00:50:01,440
Speaker 1: the sort of incoming brain mail from activity arising in

905
00:50:01,480 --> 00:50:05,840
Speaker 1: networks and modules natively throughout the brain itself, or would

906
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:08,440
Speaker 1: it just all go to the interpreter the same way.

907
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:11,600
Speaker 1: So you could send an alien thought into somebody's head

908
00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:14,719
Speaker 1: and have them immediately rationalize it as part of the

909
00:50:14,760 --> 00:50:17,680
Speaker 1: interpret itself the same way they would if it came

910
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:20,920
Speaker 1: from some network in the right hemisphere, would they just think, yep,

911
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:25,000
Speaker 1: this is just me thinking I feel like we're borderline

912
00:50:25,040 --> 00:50:28,959
Speaker 1: there with certain individuals in their use of smartphones. Oh yeah,

913
00:50:29,160 --> 00:50:32,920
Speaker 1: where imagine you and I'm listeners out there, you've had

914
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:34,880
Speaker 1: a similar experience. We would be in a conversation with

915
00:50:34,960 --> 00:50:39,239
Speaker 1: someone and they'll without a phone to remember something. But

916
00:50:39,239 --> 00:50:41,680
Speaker 1: but but often like not in a way where it's like,

917
00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:44,120
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I forget that, let me research it, More like,

918
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:46,800
Speaker 1: let me access this part of my memory. Yes, I

919
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:51,520
Speaker 1: know exactly what you mean, and I, um, I don't know.

920
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:54,520
Speaker 1: I mean I wonder what the processes by which the

921
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 1: interpreter function. Again, just assuming this model of the interpreter

922
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:00,759
Speaker 1: and the conscious experience is correct, mean this, you know,

923
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 1: this might be mistaken. But if this is correct, what

924
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:06,880
Speaker 1: is the rubric it uses to decide what gets integrated

925
00:51:06,920 --> 00:51:10,880
Speaker 1: as self? And what what does it decide is alien?

926
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:12,799
Speaker 1: That's a great question. We'll have to come back to

927
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:15,000
Speaker 1: that in the future. Maybe there is none. Maybe it's

928
00:51:15,040 --> 00:51:19,040
Speaker 1: also maybe there's no future. Oh there's maybe there's no self. Yes, well,

929
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:21,239
Speaker 1: you know it also brings up the question, you know,

930
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:26,080
Speaker 1: are we limited our Is our identity limited by the

931
00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:28,000
Speaker 1: things that we have at our disposal in our mind?

932
00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:30,319
Speaker 1: Do you count the things that we we have to

933
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 1: depend upon, that we have externalized, you know, And I

934
00:51:33,880 --> 00:51:36,239
Speaker 1: feel like that is part of the modern human experience,

935
00:51:36,600 --> 00:51:38,440
Speaker 1: has been part of the human experience for a while.

936
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:44,000
Speaker 1: I mean, if an author writes, say, thirty books, um,

937
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 1: and that author cannot repeat them from memory, they are

938
00:51:46,680 --> 00:51:49,440
Speaker 1: not a part of his his or her mind. Uh,

939
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:52,160
Speaker 1: then you know, how do you weigh that into the

940
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:55,120
Speaker 1: equation of self? Yeah? Exactly. And what if you didn't

941
00:51:55,120 --> 00:51:57,239
Speaker 1: write them? What if these are just books that you

942
00:51:57,719 --> 00:52:02,120
Speaker 1: have incorporated into your thinking about things? Are those now

943
00:52:02,160 --> 00:52:04,600
Speaker 1: a part of your brain? If you know that, you

944
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:07,359
Speaker 1: could consult them in order to figure out what you

945
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:11,279
Speaker 1: think about something, but you can't do it without consulting them. Yeah,

946
00:52:11,320 --> 00:52:14,000
Speaker 1: what if it's a book that you've written and you've forgotten.

947
00:52:14,200 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 1: I believe Stephen King has a couple of examples of

948
00:52:16,520 --> 00:52:19,280
Speaker 1: that right wherever he doesn't remember writing a particular novel.

949
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:21,840
Speaker 1: I think one example was Coujo. He said they didn't

950
00:52:21,840 --> 00:52:23,880
Speaker 1: remember writing it because he was on drugs. Yeah, so

951
00:52:23,960 --> 00:52:26,879
Speaker 1: it's Kujo a part of Stephen King likewise, I mean,

952
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:30,520
Speaker 1: there we all have, prehaps the books, films, etcetera, some

953
00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:33,600
Speaker 1: sort of external influence that has been important at one

954
00:52:33,600 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 1: point in our life, and then is discarded later and

955
00:52:36,600 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 1: then sometimes pick back up again. Oh, there's an extremely

956
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:43,440
Speaker 1: strong social component here. Lots of people figure out what

957
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:46,240
Speaker 1: they think about something by checking to see what somebody

958
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:49,040
Speaker 1: else thinks about it, whether that's a person you know

959
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:51,719
Speaker 1: known to them, or some public figure that they you know,

960
00:52:52,160 --> 00:52:54,919
Speaker 1: derive opinions from. Yeah, and you know what, I'm gonna

961
00:52:54,960 --> 00:52:57,120
Speaker 1: go ahead and take a stand. That's not behavior I

962
00:52:57,239 --> 00:53:00,960
Speaker 1: encourage do not do not trust another person as much

963
00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:04,000
Speaker 1: as you trust your own, right hemisphere, don't just directly

964
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:08,840
Speaker 1: incorporate their their information as as self. I can agree

965
00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:13,080
Speaker 1: with that. Yes, all right, well there you have it.

966
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:15,239
Speaker 1: We're gonna go ahead and cap off these two episodes

967
00:53:15,840 --> 00:53:20,959
Speaker 1: Part one, Part two, Hemisphere, left hemisphere right if you will, Uh,

968
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:22,759
Speaker 1: if you want to check out other episodes of Stuff

969
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:24,399
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, you know where to go. Head

970
00:53:24,440 --> 00:53:26,359
Speaker 1: on over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

971
00:53:26,400 --> 00:53:29,160
Speaker 1: That's the mothership. That's where we'll find all the episodes

972
00:53:29,560 --> 00:53:32,759
Speaker 1: of the show. And don't forget about Invention at invention

973
00:53:32,880 --> 00:53:37,440
Speaker 1: pod dot com. That is the website for our other show, Invention,

974
00:53:37,520 --> 00:53:40,440
Speaker 1: which comes out every Monday. It is it's very much

975
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:42,239
Speaker 1: a you know, a sister show to Stuff to Blow

976
00:53:42,239 --> 00:53:44,719
Speaker 1: your Mind. It covers a lot of the sort of

977
00:53:44,760 --> 00:53:46,799
Speaker 1: topics that we've covered on Stuff to Blow your Mind

978
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:49,520
Speaker 1: in the past, So it's, you know, I wouldn't say

979
00:53:49,520 --> 00:53:52,040
Speaker 1: it's a you know, radically different show, but it's one

980
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:53,439
Speaker 1: that if if you're a fan of Stuff to Blow

981
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:57,560
Speaker 1: your Mind, you should subscribe to Invention. And perhaps you're

982
00:53:57,560 --> 00:53:59,279
Speaker 1: even the type of person who you're like, you know what,

983
00:53:59,440 --> 00:54:02,160
Speaker 1: I like being mentioned episodes the most, Maybe I'll just

984
00:54:02,200 --> 00:54:05,240
Speaker 1: stick with Invention. That's fine too. Yeah, we basically applied

985
00:54:05,280 --> 00:54:07,080
Speaker 1: the same kind of mindset we do on the show

986
00:54:07,120 --> 00:54:10,000
Speaker 1: here to scientific topics and cultural topics. Over there, we

987
00:54:10,040 --> 00:54:12,520
Speaker 1: tend to apply it more to techno history. So if

988
00:54:12,520 --> 00:54:14,239
Speaker 1: you like what we do here, you'll like what we

989
00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:17,960
Speaker 1: do there. Go check it out, subscribe to Invention and

990
00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:19,880
Speaker 1: rate and review us wherever you have the ability to

991
00:54:19,880 --> 00:54:22,680
Speaker 1: do so. That helps us out immensely. Yeah, oh huge,

992
00:54:22,719 --> 00:54:26,360
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams

993
00:54:26,400 --> 00:54:28,640
Speaker 1: and Tory Harrison. If you would like to get in

994
00:54:28,680 --> 00:54:31,400
Speaker 1: touch with us directly with feedback about this episode or

995
00:54:31,400 --> 00:54:34,040
Speaker 1: any other uh to suggest a topic for the future,

996
00:54:34,160 --> 00:54:36,400
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, let us know how you

997
00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:38,560
Speaker 1: found out about the show where you listen from all

998
00:54:38,600 --> 00:54:41,200
Speaker 1: that stuff. You can email us at blow the Mind

999
00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:53,320
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this

1000
00:54:53,520 --> 00:54:56,000
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works

1001
00:54:56,040 --> 00:55:15,120
Speaker 1: dot com. The people think four start four f