WEBVTT - How to Think Like a Child 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:06.720 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:13.840 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.520 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Now Julie. 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:18.680 Normally we don't we don't do a lot of readings 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.560 from the Bible on this podcast, but I've got a 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:23.279 couple here I want to hit everyone with because of 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:25.640 Ravens what we're talking about. Both of these are from 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:29.920 the Book of Matthew, the New Testament and the first 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.080 one Matthew eleven. At that time, Jesus explained, I give 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:34.879 praise for you, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, for 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:37.120 although you have hidden these things from the wise and 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.680 the learning, you have revealed them to the little ones. 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.400 The little ones, little being the children. And then there's 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:45.240 another one where he says, I tell you the truth. 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:47.599 Unless you change and become like little children, you will 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:50.279 never enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And I think there's 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:53.880 a little more there about needles and rich people. But 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.080 needles and rich people, yeah, yeah, Like it's easier for 0:00:57.160 --> 0:00:58.840 a camel to go through the eyeban needle than for 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:01.000 a rich man. And can all you know, lots of 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:03.840 the you know, New testament wisdom that Jesus is spouting 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:06.560 and in this book. But these two passages in particular 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:10.600 interesting because they both talk about the this childhood nature, 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.319 this there's something special about children that enables them to 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.240 see the world as it really is, to to see 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:21.319 through the grown up bs and and get at the 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.160 truth of the matter. And it's something you see, I 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:26.360 mean throughout the human history. I mean you see it 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:31.320 a lot in fiction Chronicles of Narnia, Susan becomes too sophisticated, well, 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:33.920 too grown up for Narnia, can't go there anymore. Puff 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.319 the magic Dragon, as you remember a little Jackie Paper 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:38.840 Paper reaches the point where you can't see Narnia the 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.319 children and Stephen King's it you too. In order to 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:46.320 defeat this evil clown shifting monster, you have to have 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.800 this spirit of a child. Yeah. And my neighbor Totoro, 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:53.840 the farest spirits, adorable as they are, he's got to 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.320 be a child to see them. And and so then 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.680 there's of course this longstanding thing like that. There's the 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.320 whole kids say that darned as things right, where like 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.120 Bill Cosby show, wasn't it it was? Yeah? And I 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:06.720 think it was. It was an older show even before 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:08.880 Cosby took it over, but he's the one most remembered 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:10.760 for it. But the idea being that you bring a 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:13.000 kid on and you just let them talk, and they're 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:15.400 you're just gonna drop truth bombs on you because they 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:17.919 don't know any better. Though, I found it interesting that 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.000 Bill Cosby is also quoted as saying it's saying quote, 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:23.440 a person with no children says, well, I just love children. 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:25.360 And you say why, and they say, because the child 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:27.680 is so truthful, and that's what I love about them. 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.160 They tell the truth. And Cosby goes on to say, 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:31.440 but that's a lie. I've got five of them and 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:32.959 the only time they tell the truth is when they're 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:37.600 having pain. Even that sometimes can be a lie, as 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:39.520 I have discovered. Yeah, you're you're a mom. What's your 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:43.720 take on the the innocence and the truth bombs of children? 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.680 The truth bombs? Um, Well, I mean I think everything 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:50.320 is is new to them, right, so immediately kids see 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:53.600 things an entirely different way because they're piecing together context 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:58.880 and being able to see things, um from an entirely 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:02.160 new perspective, as we know, is a completely liberating thing. 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:03.880 And there's a power to that, and we've talked about 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.200 that before that as we age, we tend to let 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.520 some of that uh slaw off of us, right, because 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.160 we're so used to sort of establishing a pattern, going 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:17.720 with that and then moving forward. But to paraphrase Picasso, 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:20.760 he said he took his whole life to think like 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:24.839 a child artistically to reach that place where he could 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:30.480 once again delve into novel ideas or novel representations of 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:33.440 the human experience. And in fact, I am looking at 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.280 Picasso right now because in our podcast Booth. I don't 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:38.400 know if we've ever mentioned this before. I don't think 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.720 you have not in the podcast. Uh well, we have 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.080 a couple of photos in the podcast Booth, and the 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:46.080 one that I get to stare at is Picasso in 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:49.040 his underwear. So I think about this idea a lot, 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.760 so that I don't think about Picasso in his underwear 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:53.600 with a bat for a while. But then then someone 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:55.880 moved it. Yeah I did. I covered up his private 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.320 parts in this one. They did. Um, But there is 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.000 this I think he puts a you well that you 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.400 know it takes a lot of effort to try to 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:07.800 bust out of these constraints that we because we have 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:11.280 to we placed in our lives, um, and to be 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:14.200 able to think in a way that is completely mind 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.560 blowing a new Yeah. I mean there is something about 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:19.920 the creativity alone of a child. UM. I think I've 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:22.200 mentioned this before. There's a in Atlanta. There's a there's 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:25.920 an improv company called Dad's Garage and they do if 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:27.599 you go at night, you've often get a lot of 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:30.479 very blue material from these improv actors. They're getting up there. 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:34.040 They're blooming dirty dirty. Yeah, they're doing free association and 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.080 it's and all sorts of outlandish things are coming up 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:39.520 that I couldn't even mention on the podcast, but they 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:41.680 would all. They also do a show and I think 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:45.480 they still do it called Uncle Grahampa's Hoodaily story Time. 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:48.760 And in this show, it's the same improv actors, these 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:51.559 same same guys and gals that are just really tearing 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:53.880 it up at night with ranching material. But now they're 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:56.040 in the a m and they have they're performing to 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.320 an audience of mostly children, but they're also doing improv 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:01.880 and they're getting tips from the audience, so they'll they'll 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.520 ask the kids in the audience, Hey, what should the 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:06.719 name of this princess be and what should the story 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:09.719 that we tell be called? And uh, I've been to 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.359 it a couple of times, and there it is always 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.159 amazing because from these children, they're able to come up 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.800 with the craziest ideas, like stuff that these these these 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:24.360 experienced and highly creative improv actors would never be able 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:26.200 to pull out. Like like I remember one when when 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:27.839 they asked what should the princess be called, the little 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.120 girl said that the princess name should be quote Batman 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.960 the Girl, which is incredible. You know, it's like that 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:37.359 kind of like strange, free association that you're just not 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:39.920 going to get from an adult. Well, yeah, I remember 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.960 seeing this Ted talk and uh, I'll show this up 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.160 on Facebook or in a post. I don't remember the 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:47.440 name of the Ted talk right now, but they were 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.800 starting they were talking about accessing again this this childish thinking, 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:55.280 and they were talking about um an arts program in 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:57.840 which the kids were making different kinds of clay models, 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:00.360 and one of the kids came up with Bacon Boy 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:03.600 and it is so I've got to throw up an 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:05.960 image of this. It is awesome, you know, sort of 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:09.400 a superpower figure. And again, these are not things that 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:11.480 we as adults go around thinking like I'm going to 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.760 sculpture Bacon Boy today and really start to think about 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:17.120 this mythology of this character. But that's what kids do. 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:19.919 And um, if you have ever taken a walk with 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:23.479 a toddler anywhere from two to when they started to 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:28.320 get preschool four five years of age, you know there 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.279 is no linear path. That this is going to take 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.200 a long time because everything is going to be picked 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:39.240 up and inspected and stories where will begin to just 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:44.960 organically arise from their experience with with their environments. And 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:47.560 we have talked about this before, but I thought it 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:49.880 would be good for us to mention that this is 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:53.160 this idea that when we are adults, we have a 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:56.880 focus that is that's pretty laser focused, this flashlight focus 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:02.640 that kids starting as infants grow into that flashlight focus, 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:07.760 but they begin at the lantern of light experience where everything, 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.080 uh is it has light cast upon it and they're 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:14.320 considering everything in their world. Yeah. Like, one thing that 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:16.760 comes to mind when I think about this is the 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:21.400 the Alan Rogue Grulay novel Jealousy, where the entire book 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:23.160 and this is not going to really sell it well 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:25.640 from most people, but the entire book is this guy 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:29.160 staring at a wall or occasionally staring at its has 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:32.920 banana plantation and trying to figure out whether his wife 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:35.440 is having an affair with another band of plantation owner. 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:37.680 And so a lot of it is him staring at 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:39.600 at a sneer on the wall where he killed a 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:44.120 centipede and just obsessing and obsessing, obsessing. It's that laser focus, 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.200 you know, and that he's getting nothing done the whole 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.080 novel because he's just obsessed with one thing. And I 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.440 feel in his adults that we often do that it's 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.080 not an actual smash centipede on the wall. Then it's 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:56.480 something like, you know, some you know guy starts losing 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:58.120 his hair, and then that's the thing they come back 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:00.440 to over and over again. Oh my goodness, what's happening 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:02.600 to me? Am I I'm getting older. I'm dying. You know, 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.680 we end up obsessing over something, or we get obsessed 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:08.960 with with one particular material thing or another, or or 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:11.600 we attached our ego to a sports team or something. 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.640 Whereas how many how many child children do you know 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.920 who are rabid sports fanatics, who are rabbid fans of 0:08:18.960 --> 0:08:22.440 a particular team, you know, how many reliduced fundamentalist children 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:24.960 do you know? How many neurotic children do you know 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:27.360 where they're obsessed with? Uh, I don't know if their 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:30.760 weight gain. Yeah, that's just not really something that you 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.400 you commonly see until they get a little bit older, right, 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.280 they get into grade school. The thing about this, and 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:40.679 psychologist Alison Gothnick has talked about this, is that when 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:44.000 you're an adult, you have, uh, you know, certain neural 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:46.480 connections that have been pruned away because you don't use 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.600 them anymore. And so if you are that character in 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:51.720 the book who is staring at the wall, well, you're 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.360 gonna be squirting a lot of neuro transmitters on that 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.760 part of the brain to really keep it activated in focus. 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.960 But if you are an infant, your entire brain is 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:06.079 just steeped in neuro transmitters. It's marinating in it. And 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:10.120 this is what she says results in this information rich world, 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:14.679 this lantern vision, trying to take every single thing in. Yeah. 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:16.440 She mentions in her in her writing that in the 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:18.400 past it's been difficult for us to try and study 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:21.280 exactly what's going on in the in the minds of 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:24.199 young children, and certainly in the minds of of unlanguaged 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:26.520 children and infants, and and even if you can get 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:28.160 them to talk, it's going to be a stream of 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:31.920 consciousness mumbo jumbo about I think her example is birthday 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.000 parties and horses, obviously for for girls and for for 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:39.080 little boys. Birthday parties. Uh, fire trucks and boogers. You know, 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:44.199 it's I mean to go across gender, across gender, fire trucks, 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:48.880 but yeah, um so. So I found that interesting because 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:51.280 a lot of her studies is about getting beyond that 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:53.960 and really finding ways to not only look at what 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:58.280 children and infants are saying, well certainly not infants so much, 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:00.800 but what beyond what children are say, and also look 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.040 at their actions and how they're interacting with the world 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:05.120 around them. And what she gets out a lot is 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:07.600 the idea of this plasticity, which we've talked about before, 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.120 the ability of our mind to change, the ability of 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.640 ourselves to to to roll with the punches, because when 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:16.960 you were a a zero to three year old, you 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:18.880 have to really be able to roll with the punches. 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.760 And so even in even in a very comfy environment, 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:25.520 if you grow up in a very civilized environment, a 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.319 very safe environment, there's still a lot of a lot 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.320 of trauma around you when you're that alert to the world, 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:35.920 and certainly in in less advantageous environments, you've gotta be 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:40.400 really hardy to survive. Yeah, she alson. Gopnik actually has 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:42.640 this great quote about what it's like to be an infant, 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:45.439 and she said, and this is the kind of more 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.280 romanticized version of it, as opposed to just you know, 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.240 having to deal with all the noise and the different stimuli. 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:53.040 She says, it's like being in love and perish for 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.920 the first time after you've had three double espressos. Yeah, 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.679 so there is this idea you are being bombarded by 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:02.640 all the different elements out there. She also mentions the 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:07.480 study of Eastern European orphans who were adopted by parents 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:10.600 in the UK and about how in in in most 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:12.120 of the case it's not all but in most of 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.960 those cases, and these were kids that were they're growing 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:19.559 up in like extreme um situations of you know, they're 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.760 just not exposed to enough sensory information, enough personal interaction. 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.520 They're starved for all of this. But they're so but 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:29.040 the child is so resilient zero to three that most 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:31.600 of them were able to just really bounce back without 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.960 any kind of significant problems. And she says that this 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.960 is because of this different consciousness that kids have that 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:43.000 they grow out of again into the more flashlight focus. 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:45.480 But she's saying, and this is this is kind of 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.000 looping it back on how you can try to retain 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.200 a bit of this for yourself as as an adult. 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:53.720 She's saying that the creative people are able to hold 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:57.400 onto this different consciousness to be able to inhabit this 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:03.599 mind space where you can transfer your consciousness from flashlight 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:07.920 to lantern and began to take more things in all 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:11.959 while being a reasonably um responsible adult. Of course, one 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.080 thing that comes to mind here, and so we're comparing 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:19.000 adult artists with young children, one thing that instantly comes 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.760 to mind here is children running around in the yard naked, 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.199 and then artists inevitably running around in the yard naked, 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:28.240 or like our friend Picasso here in the diaper um 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:30.679 because it does kind of his head where it does 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:33.200 look like a diaper, Because art, like childhood, is kind 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:35.439 of a judgment free zone. And as it turns out, 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:38.320 that plays into this mind of a child, this creativity 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.600 as well. Yeah, and in fact, in kids and teenagers 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.280 frontal lobes the seat of judgment. Right, these are the 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:48.480 last pieces to be fully connected to the brain, okay, 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:50.240 or be fully connected to parts of the brain that 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:55.480 deal with judgment, inhibition, self awareness, cause and effect, acknowledgement, um, 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:57.280 all the things that are sort of the bane of 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:01.760 our existence with with teenagers that we normally look at us. Ah, man, 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:04.199 they just they're crazy there, you know, look at their hair. 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:06.760 What are they think? Yeah, yeah, they're just there's not 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:09.800 a lick of sense. And that kid um, that actually 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.160 can be a real boon two kids because they lack 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.600 again this idea of this inner judgmental voice that can 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:19.760 sometimes stop us in our tracks when we're trying to 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:24.520 do something novel um. So again, trying to silence that 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:26.640 part of the brain is really important. And we have 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:30.240 talked about this before, but surgeon and jazz musician Charles 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:34.160 Limb wanted to look at this a little more carefully 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:38.319 to say, how how are musicians so adept at just 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:43.280 getting in there and improvising? What makes them able to 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.360 do that? And it turns out that musicians are really 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:48.559 good at turning off the part of the brain again 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:54.560 this uh dorsal lateral prefrontal and lateral orbital regions, dimming 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:59.760 that and instead bringing online the medial prefrontal cortex, which 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:04.040 else them to express themselves better. And so the frontal 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:05.800 lobes they dim a bit because they're like, yeah, you 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:07.440 know what, I don't need you right now. I really 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:09.320 need to kind of flex this part of my muscle. 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:11.200 So he saw that in all these m r I 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:15.240 scans of these musicians, which really pointed to this idea 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.480 that certain things are play. In fact, neuroscientists, Rex Jung 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:23.560 also talks about how highly creative people usually have less 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:27.000 white matter integrity and less brain tissue in the frontal lobes. Okay, 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:30.960 that doesn't mean that they're you know, less intelligent or 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.480 that they lack something. It just means that the frontal 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.360 lobes again the seat of judgment, Uh, it's not nearly 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:42.040 as taxed with neural connections, these glial cells, white cells, 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.920 and therefore those people are a bit more unencumbered when 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:48.760 it comes to creating something new. All right, we are 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:50.480 going to take a quick break, but when we come back, 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:52.520 we are going to talk about the importance of play 0:14:52.640 --> 0:15:04.640 in this idea of uncertainty in our lives. All right, 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.960 we're back. We're discussing again the minds of children. Uh, 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:11.320 this old idea that children see the world as it 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:13.640 really is, or they see it in in a unique way. 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:16.560 And if we as adults can simply recapture some of 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.600 that childhood essence, and I mean not in a drain 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.520 essence from a child's skull in a like a skexy way, 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:25.200 but in an actual let us let's change the way 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:28.160 we perceive the world and how we interact with it too, 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:32.600 to improve our creative output. And and when I say creative, 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.120 I'm not just talking about finger painting on the wall. 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:40.120 But as we'll discussed here, actual scientific achievement as well 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.680 falls under this category. Yeah, really engaging critical thinking skill. 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:48.480 According to neuroscientists, Bolatto and he has that great Ted 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:51.440 dot com talk, He says that uncertainty for adults is 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:55.840 really problematic. And this is particularly true in the context 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.880 of evolution, where uncertainty, you know, not knowing if there's 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:02.720 a saber tooth tiger in the weeds over there or 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.760 if it's just the wind rustling through through the leaves, 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:08.880 could result in death. For us, we need to be 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:11.560 certain about certain elements of life Yeah. That's the thing 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:15.800 about uncertainty is that, for the most part, most of 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.120 us tend to want to get away from uncertainty because 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:22.000 uncertainty brings potential disaster. Uncertainty as you're walking down the 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:25.040 street means maybe I'll get run over by a car, 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:27.960 maybe I'll get mugged. Maybe again the saber through tiger 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:30.240 will jump out at me. But it's out of that 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:35.960 uncertainty that so many amazing creative ideas arise. And the 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:38.640 way that we combat uncertainty, of course, is to sort 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:41.640 of apply a script to the world, to cling to 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:45.400 certain world views that that bring order out of chaos. 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.400 So look at any particular world view and it may 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:53.080 and generally it's about positioning yourself, your group at the center, 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:57.640 creating a barrier between this group and outside groups. I 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.880 we think like this, They think like that. These are 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:03.680 the rules of the environment in which I live. These 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.120 are the people who don't abide by those rules. These 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:09.920 are the rules that apply to me. We we steadily organized, 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.159 We build a little fort of ideas in which we 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.960 feel safe against the chaos of the world. And that's 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:18.479 that's certainty that we're talking about. That really helps us 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:21.680 to predict how things will come out. But he's saying 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:24.720 that for children, uncertainty is a game, and it is 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.080 a necessary game because if you look at animals and humans, 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:31.520 all species play in some way. And we've talked about 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:34.240 this before, um in terms of the amount of time 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.720 it takes for a creature to mature. We've talked about 0:17:37.720 --> 0:17:41.800 the New Caledonian crow, which has a relatively long childhood 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:46.320 as as a bird, and then we've talked about the say, 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:49.320 just you know, your run of the Milk chicken, and 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:53.080 the consensus there was that the New Caldonian crow really 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:55.919 needed that time to mature because it's pretty sophisticated in 0:17:56.000 --> 0:18:00.280 terms of its tool use and where's the chicken so 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:02.840 much doesn't need a lot of time to play to 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.600 to have a long childhood. And as we said, one 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.119 ended up in in a pot. The other one, the 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.000 New Caldonian Crow, ended up on the cover of Nature 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:17.199 magazine because it does have these very sophisticated tool using abilities. 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.639 So when you look at children and you get uncertainty, 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.000 it really is necessary for kids to throw away the 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:29.120 rules and to begin to like a scientist, approach their 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:32.439 environments and play with that environment. Yeah, it's easy to 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:34.480 look at children and play and and just sort of 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.040 discredited to say, oh, that's just children wasting time instead 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:40.200 of doing chores, which they should be doing, or to 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:41.800 look at it in terms of all right, well that's 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.639 a that's a boy and he's playing with tools and 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.240 beating stuff with hammers. He's just he's just kind of 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:49.880 practicing for his life. Or oh, there's a little girl 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:51.760 and she's playing with the baby doll. Well, that's just 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:55.320 her rehearsing. That's a little there's a kitten fighting another kitten. 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.560 They're just rehearsing for their their lives. It's aggressive hunters, 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:00.960 but there's a lot more going on speci Typically, as 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:05.679 a bow Latto points out, play be it whatever the 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:08.240 kittens doing, what the child is doing, or what an 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:12.320 adult artists or scientists is engaging in, boils down to 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:17.919 five different things. First, celebrating uncertainty. It's not you're not 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:21.120 entering the environment and saying saying, oh, there there might 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:24.120 be something I'm unsure of outside of this fort of ideas. 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:26.840 It's about venturing outside of that fort of ideas and 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:33.160 seeing the world anew uh. It's about being acceptable to change, 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.720 engaging in this in this world, beyond the fortress of ideas, 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:40.359 and realizing that what you see may change you, It 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.959 may change how you assemble your fortress of ideas when 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:47.200 you return to it. You have to be open to possibility, 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.280 open to the possibility that you're gonna change, open to 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:51.960 the possibility that your preconceived notions are going to fail. 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.840 You need to be cooperative, certainly if you're venturing outside 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:58.920 of that fortress of ideas with other individuals, and finally, 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:02.480 intrinsically motivated, you're doing it because you want to You 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:05.120 want to see beyond this fortress of ideas that you've 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:09.439 used to understand the world previously. Now, as um, you 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:13.280 have probably witnessed before with kids that the rules can 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:15.720 change pretty quick, right, They can throw them out or 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:19.000 sometimes just completely change them. One second the floor's lava, 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:20.919 then it's then it's a never ending pit, and then 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:24.119 it's okay to walk on, which is great, right because 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.000 it kind of gets very good narrative consistency. No, nobody 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.840 gives them a certain amount of flexibility. And you have 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:33.240 mentioned like giving a girl a baby doll and giving 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.879 a boy tools. Um, really, you give a kid a 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:40.000 stick and they are going to turn it into something 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:46.159 in which Tory, Yeah, to interrogate the world around them. 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:47.920 And I see this again and again with my daughter 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:51.840 making Pulley systems out of you know, um buckets, because 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.639 the buckets are full of Pixie destin she needs to 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:59.280 skewer some pirate or something. Um. But I think it's 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:04.160 really interestinging that Lotto looked at this play, this uncertainty, 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:07.479 and then he sought out a group of children ages 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.280 eight to ten because he wanted to know could they 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:14.320 approach an experiment or could they create their own experiment? 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:16.639 And could we actually get something on the other end 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:19.160 that we could use. Because again he's saying that those 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:22.040 those five circumstances that you talked about, this openness, this 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:26.200 um intrinsically motivated cooperation, and so on and so forth. 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.400 He's saying that this is really the play of a scientist. 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:31.880 This is what scientists do. Yeah. I mean again, it's 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:35.359 easier to make the initial comparison to creative work because 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:37.240 like I think, if like, if I'm writing a story 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:39.359 or something, I'm entering it with an uncertain mind. I 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:41.200 don't know where characters are gonna end up, or what's 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:43.480 going to happen in maybe one rule or two that 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:45.440 you're trying to stay too, and those rules may they 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:47.440 break by the time I finish it. I mean, I 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:49.480 can't think of the number of times that I've I've 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:51.399 started writing a story and when I end up getting 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:54.200 is entirely different because I've because you've got to be 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.399 open to it to change. And then, certainly in science, 0:21:57.400 --> 0:21:59.240 when you start looking at these these five things from 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:01.920 a scientist per spective, imagine if a scientist goes out 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:04.320 to figure out why something in the world works the 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:07.200 way it does, or something in the outer cosmos works 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:09.360 the way it does. You're going to go in there 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:11.480 with some preconceived notions, but you have to be able 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:14.600 to to dispel them and ignore them. It need be 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:16.920 for commisically and you have to celebrate uncertainty, it be 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:21.600 acceptable to change, open to possibility, cooperative, and intrinsically motivated. Well, 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:23.560 a lot of wanted to see if these codes could 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:27.080 see themselves differently through the process of being a scientist, 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:29.840 because again, when you say let's let's do some science, 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:32.800 that's pretty weighted because people approach it and thinking that 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:35.320 science is something that is separate from them as opposed 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:38.880 to well, it's actually science really plays to our strengths 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:41.399 as human beings. Yeah, this this comes into sort of 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:43.600 the puff the magic dragon thing again. There's kind of 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:46.399 this false idea that when you're a child, it's all 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:50.159 interacting with imaginary creatures and engaging in this creativity. But 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:51.840 then you learn to be a grown up and you 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:54.520 learn science, and then you put all that crap behind you. 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:58.679 But as as we're discussing here, being a scientist is 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:02.000 as much about embracing that spirit of childhood as it 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.440 is about growing up and becoming more mature. So a 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:09.240 lot of worked with twenty five children in conjunction with 0:23:09.280 --> 0:23:13.160 their headmaster, again ages eight to ten, and they studied 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:16.800 black wotton bees to see if these bees, again this 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:19.760 is something that kids came up with, could solve problems 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:23.720 in a similar way that humans do. And the kids 0:23:23.760 --> 0:23:27.560 asked the questions and they actually devised the experiments. Um. 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:31.320 According to Biology Letters, which published the paper, the children's 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:34.680 findings show that bees are able to alter their foraging 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:39.000 behavior based on previously learned colors and pattern cues and 0:23:39.040 --> 0:23:42.439 a complex scene consisting of a local pattern within a 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:45.720 larger global pattern. This is pretty sophisticated for an insect 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:49.000 um and then in Biology letters that says, as there 0:23:49.000 --> 0:23:52.240 has been little testing of bees learning color patterns at 0:23:52.280 --> 0:23:55.439 small and large scales, the results contribute considerably to our 0:23:55.520 --> 0:23:59.919 understanding of insect behavior. The kids managed to not only 0:24:00.200 --> 0:24:02.760 published a paper, which we'll talk a little bit more 0:24:02.800 --> 0:24:05.920 about how they did that, but to to get a 0:24:06.000 --> 0:24:11.680 novel understanding of an insect. And what I love about 0:24:11.720 --> 0:24:13.960 this is that the paper actually begins with once upon 0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:19.000 a Time, which largely written in kids speak, but the 0:24:19.640 --> 0:24:24.320 methodology that they came up with, the observations, the hypothesis, 0:24:24.359 --> 0:24:27.439 all of this is so solid that they, you know, 0:24:27.480 --> 0:24:31.040 the people who actually ended up reviewing this and writing 0:24:31.040 --> 0:24:33.440 a commentary on this could not deny that they had 0:24:33.480 --> 0:24:35.959 found something that was very valuable. Well, it reminds me 0:24:36.080 --> 0:24:39.800 of your daughter's interaction with the trial bide and how 0:24:40.040 --> 0:24:42.240 she granted she gave it, that she give it a name, 0:24:42.320 --> 0:24:44.600 called it Gonk, but then also created the story about 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:47.159 how it was going down to the water and eating plants, 0:24:47.160 --> 0:24:50.119 if I remember correctly. So it wasn't living in a 0:24:50.160 --> 0:24:53.120 fairy castle or anything. It was. She wasn't creating a 0:24:53.119 --> 0:24:56.080 a plausible story for that creature based on her knowledge 0:24:56.080 --> 0:24:59.440 of the world well and more importantly of her observations 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:01.639 of the world, then she had a context for it, 0:25:01.720 --> 0:25:04.280 and she of course subscribed emotions to it and all 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:06.399 this sort of stuff. But yeah, I mean, do you 0:25:06.440 --> 0:25:08.400 just give kids a couple of things and they will 0:25:08.480 --> 0:25:11.000 run with us? And UH and began to see the 0:25:11.080 --> 0:25:14.280 logic inherent in there. I wanted to also point out 0:25:14.320 --> 0:25:17.640 that the paper that they came up with actually had 0:25:17.720 --> 0:25:20.399 hand drawn figures and tables in it as well. And 0:25:20.480 --> 0:25:22.720 if you check out that TED talk um by a 0:25:22.760 --> 0:25:26.200 lot of you'll also see a presentation by Amy O'Toole, who, 0:25:26.240 --> 0:25:27.840 at the time of a twelve year old student who 0:25:27.840 --> 0:25:30.159 helped run one of the science experiments that it was 0:25:30.200 --> 0:25:34.880 inspired by Bolto science approach and UH. At the age 0:25:34.880 --> 0:25:36.960 of ten, she became one of the youngest people ever 0:25:37.040 --> 0:25:39.439 to publish a peer of viewed science paper, and she 0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:41.200 was also at the time the youngest person to give 0:25:41.200 --> 0:25:43.200 a TED talk or to help give a TED talk. 0:25:43.240 --> 0:25:45.480 Since you get the second half, but that was really 0:25:45.880 --> 0:25:47.919 motivating as well, because then it comes down to the 0:25:47.960 --> 0:25:49.520 idea that when you got these kids in the room, 0:25:49.520 --> 0:25:51.879 you got him thinking about science they were already asking 0:25:51.960 --> 0:25:54.879 questions that were significant to science. Yeah, I mean this 0:25:54.920 --> 0:25:57.040 is pretty life changing for a lot of those kids, 0:25:57.080 --> 0:25:59.439 because again a lot of wanted to see how they 0:25:59.440 --> 0:26:04.760 would see themselves after going through a scientific process and 0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:08.320 you know, help them to gell this idea that science 0:26:08.400 --> 0:26:11.000 is again a part of them and not apart, not 0:26:11.119 --> 0:26:13.600 some sort of It's not something you learn, it's something 0:26:13.640 --> 0:26:16.200 you are from the earliest. If anything is we grow 0:26:16.200 --> 0:26:19.880 older more many of us we forget science rather than 0:26:20.359 --> 0:26:22.440 have to learn it. Well, it just seems like something 0:26:22.440 --> 0:26:25.000 that we look through the window at, right. But Loto 0:26:25.080 --> 0:26:27.040 said this, and I thought it was really interesting. He said, 0:26:27.320 --> 0:26:30.320 the point is what science does for us. We normally 0:26:30.320 --> 0:26:32.800 walk through life responding, but if we ever want to 0:26:32.840 --> 0:26:36.600 do anything different, we have to step into uncertainty. That's 0:26:36.600 --> 0:26:39.480 what science offers us. It offers the possibility to step 0:26:39.480 --> 0:26:42.399 into uncertainty through the process of play. Yeah. It reminds 0:26:42.400 --> 0:26:45.200 me of a quote badly enough by Timothy Leary who 0:26:45.359 --> 0:26:48.640 talked about before he gets his childlike was childlike. Yeah, 0:26:48.640 --> 0:26:51.320 I mean he was, you know, he was very free 0:26:51.320 --> 0:26:55.160 thinking dude. Um for some of the other faults aside, 0:26:55.200 --> 0:26:57.119 but he has this great quote where he says to 0:26:57.160 --> 0:26:59.720 think for yourself, you must question an authority and learn 0:26:59.760 --> 0:27:03.080 how to put yourself in a state of vulnerable, open mindedness, 0:27:03.320 --> 0:27:09.000 chaotic confused vulnerability to inform yourself tune in. Yeah, and 0:27:09.080 --> 0:27:11.000 of course the thing is, you know, you need to 0:27:11.000 --> 0:27:14.880 remind mrr Larry that ultimately don't need any pharmaceutical help 0:27:14.920 --> 0:27:17.280 to achieve that. In I mean, all you have to 0:27:17.280 --> 0:27:19.560 do is either be a child or try and think 0:27:19.640 --> 0:27:22.320 like a child, and you can achieve that that level 0:27:22.440 --> 0:27:26.200 of of chaotic, confused vulnerability. Well, here's the thing about 0:27:26.320 --> 0:27:29.359 Larry is that he was a trained scientist, and so 0:27:29.480 --> 0:27:31.959 he had a background in the best ways to go 0:27:32.040 --> 0:27:35.040 about thinking critically but also thinking in a way that 0:27:35.119 --> 0:27:37.200 could really open up the mind. And when I think 0:27:37.240 --> 0:27:40.919 about ways in which you can look at probabilities and 0:27:40.920 --> 0:27:43.879 try to predict the future in a new way or 0:27:43.920 --> 0:27:47.840 an interesting way, I think about Bayesian modeling. Yes. Now, 0:27:47.880 --> 0:27:50.400 this is UH something that is named after the Reverend 0:27:50.480 --> 0:27:54.960 Reverend Thomas Bayes, an eighteenth century mathematician, and according to 0:27:55.119 --> 0:27:59.440 Alice and Gopnik, studies show that kids at least unconsciously 0:27:59.560 --> 0:28:03.920 are Asian UH masters themselves. Now here's the thing about 0:28:03.920 --> 0:28:06.760 Beiesian logic is you can really get into the weeds 0:28:06.760 --> 0:28:10.399 trying to understand what it is. Essentially, Baisian probability theory 0:28:10.960 --> 0:28:13.720 is a branch of mathematical theory that allows one to 0:28:13.840 --> 0:28:18.239 model uncertainty about the world and about the outcomes of 0:28:18.880 --> 0:28:22.200 various aspects of that world by combining common sense knowledge 0:28:22.480 --> 0:28:27.280 with observational evidence. Okay, it sounds very mechanical and straightforar 0:28:27.359 --> 0:28:29.800 this because it is. It's actually figures into some of 0:28:29.840 --> 0:28:32.439 our AI constructs that we're working on today. It's a 0:28:32.480 --> 0:28:35.680 central part of trying to figure out how an intelligent 0:28:35.760 --> 0:28:38.880 creature thinks. Yeah, it was actually going to mention that 0:28:39.200 --> 0:28:43.600 Bayesian modeling actually came online in I think the early nineties, 0:28:43.840 --> 0:28:47.440 around the same time that psychologists were beginning to look 0:28:47.480 --> 0:28:51.240 at kids and wondering if this Baisian modeling was inherent 0:28:51.320 --> 0:28:55.680 to them. And it's funny because AI, artificial intelligence and 0:28:55.760 --> 0:28:58.959 kids really go hand in hand because people who are 0:28:58.960 --> 0:29:01.840 interested in AI are interested in looking at kids as 0:29:01.880 --> 0:29:04.320 the root model. In other words, if we're going to 0:29:04.360 --> 0:29:07.400 build a computer that can think like us, act like us, 0:29:07.960 --> 0:29:10.959 make decisions, then we want it to be based on 0:29:11.000 --> 0:29:14.280 this root material. A k a. Kids. And you know, 0:29:14.320 --> 0:29:17.120 as we're moving forward to the future, we we inevitably 0:29:17.160 --> 0:29:20.160 come back to this idea of of robots solving problems, 0:29:20.600 --> 0:29:22.840 computers solving problems. We want to know the weather's doing 0:29:22.840 --> 0:29:25.120 in ten days through a computer model at it, right, 0:29:25.440 --> 0:29:27.200 And it's just gonna become more and more like that 0:29:27.200 --> 0:29:29.760 as we move forward. So it's it's fascinating to think 0:29:30.160 --> 0:29:33.720 that the ais that we're building today to solve the 0:29:33.760 --> 0:29:37.960 problems of tomorrow, children are already born with that, with 0:29:38.000 --> 0:29:40.400 those mechanics in their mind. If they get older and 0:29:40.400 --> 0:29:43.600 they become adults, it becomes clouded. So in a way, 0:29:44.440 --> 0:29:47.640 adult humans are having to build robots that think like 0:29:47.760 --> 0:29:49.960 children so they can solve the problems that they no 0:29:50.040 --> 0:29:52.400 longer can. And one of the reasons that can because 0:29:52.400 --> 0:29:55.320 of preconceived notions. And these again, these these fortresses of 0:29:55.440 --> 0:29:59.520 ideas that we build because whether you're looking at questions 0:29:59.520 --> 0:30:02.120 of I want who's gonna win the election, I wonder, 0:30:03.560 --> 0:30:05.560 I wonder what choice I should make in my life 0:30:05.560 --> 0:30:09.240 regarding my employment, uh, any number of questions that may 0:30:09.280 --> 0:30:14.120 come up. We're we're handicapped against applying the Asian logic 0:30:14.200 --> 0:30:17.440 to them because we have these these world views in place, 0:30:17.520 --> 0:30:20.440 these preconceived notions, this fortress of ideas that we have 0:30:20.560 --> 0:30:23.280 to somehow navigate, and it could because of all those 0:30:23.280 --> 0:30:27.320 preconceived notions, they end up flowing the data. Yeah, it's true. 0:30:27.360 --> 0:30:31.200 And um, you know, kids can really be better problem 0:30:31.240 --> 0:30:34.400 solvers when it comes to Bayesian logic, because, as you say, 0:30:34.440 --> 0:30:35.960 there are certain things that as we get older, we 0:30:35.960 --> 0:30:38.120 have these priors, they get stronger and stronger, and they 0:30:38.160 --> 0:30:41.000 actually need to in some ways to help us survive 0:30:42.000 --> 0:30:45.560 our experience in the world. But we're already relying on 0:30:45.560 --> 0:30:48.920 that too heavily and less on new data, right, so 0:30:49.200 --> 0:30:52.320 we rely more on our past experiences, and these strong 0:30:52.400 --> 0:30:56.160 priors are really actually very comforting to us. But Bayesian 0:30:56.280 --> 0:31:00.680 inference inference, excuse me, it considers both uh, new evidence 0:31:00.720 --> 0:31:06.080 and prior probability of hypotheses, and this gives Baisian learning 0:31:06.160 --> 0:31:12.200 a character characteristic combination of stability and flexibility. So here's 0:31:12.240 --> 0:31:15.520 the key to it really working really well in science 0:31:15.560 --> 0:31:18.880 and with kids. In science. Uh, if if you have 0:31:18.920 --> 0:31:22.920 a really crappy hypothesis, you're gonna throw it out. Kids 0:31:22.960 --> 0:31:24.800 are going to do the same thing. They don't have 0:31:25.200 --> 0:31:29.320 emotional investments or really strong priors. So this allows them 0:31:29.320 --> 0:31:32.479 to go through the information much better. Okay, so how 0:31:32.520 --> 0:31:36.120 do we know that kids are better at some reasoning 0:31:36.320 --> 0:31:40.440 when it comes to to be Asian modeling, um than adults? 0:31:40.880 --> 0:31:43.400 Is it because they say the darniest things? It is 0:31:45.120 --> 0:31:48.440 Alson Gopnik again, who is pretty much the centerpiece for 0:31:48.480 --> 0:31:52.440 this podcast. She used something called a Blikic detector. This 0:31:52.520 --> 0:31:54.360 is a machine that lights up and plays music when 0:31:54.360 --> 0:31:58.080 certain objects which are controlled by the experiment or are 0:31:58.120 --> 0:32:00.760 placed on top of it, plays like a cube onto 0:32:00.760 --> 0:32:03.600 this little platform and lights up and it starts playing music. Right, 0:32:03.600 --> 0:32:05.200 you might have different shapes, you might have a star 0:32:05.520 --> 0:32:08.680 or a cube, or different colors, and so the idea 0:32:08.760 --> 0:32:10.920 is that you begin to understand the relationship of what 0:32:11.040 --> 0:32:14.000 makes the machine work. Well, what she did is she 0:32:14.120 --> 0:32:18.080 asked both adults and children separately in separate experiments, to 0:32:18.200 --> 0:32:21.760 try to figure out these objects and how they would 0:32:21.840 --> 0:32:23.640 make the machine work. I mean, essentially, she was saying, 0:32:23.680 --> 0:32:26.280 go make this machine work. Well, the kids were a 0:32:26.280 --> 0:32:30.040 lot better at it, because what what the adults did 0:32:30.120 --> 0:32:32.440 is they observed what the experiment or did with the 0:32:32.480 --> 0:32:34.640 blocks to make the machine work and there's a really 0:32:34.680 --> 0:32:37.880 strong priors, and so they were holding onto the this 0:32:37.960 --> 0:32:40.520 idea of what happened in the past, whereas the kids 0:32:40.880 --> 0:32:43.440 were able to take every single angle of the blocks 0:32:43.520 --> 0:32:46.960 the colors put together, you know, various points of data 0:32:47.280 --> 0:32:50.320 to figure out how to best make this blicket machine work. 0:32:51.280 --> 0:32:54.960 Another example of this is give an iPad to a 0:32:55.120 --> 0:32:59.120 child and your grandparents and see who figures it out 0:32:59.160 --> 0:33:02.520 for Yeah, and in some not to say that's a 0:33:02.560 --> 0:33:05.440 complete divide, because you're gonna have some older people that 0:33:06.000 --> 0:33:08.320 really dive with new technology and again are really able 0:33:08.320 --> 0:33:11.959 to pass that booket test. Like my wife's grandmother in 0:33:11.960 --> 0:33:15.160 her nineties use the Kindle all the time, which is awesome. 0:33:15.200 --> 0:33:16.960 Do you think kindles in the beginning like an early 0:33:17.480 --> 0:33:20.480 early adopter of that technology. Well, and see there's again 0:33:20.480 --> 0:33:23.760 there's this idea of holding on see this bit of 0:33:23.840 --> 0:33:27.160 your your childhood thinking or your childness, or this openness 0:33:27.280 --> 0:33:30.520 to new ideas and experiences and not saying up a 0:33:30.640 --> 0:33:32.760 machine for a bug, give me my old books, Just 0:33:32.760 --> 0:33:34.920 give me my paper, my paper, I just move with 0:33:34.960 --> 0:33:37.320 my finger. Yeah, yeah, you can do the same thing 0:33:37.320 --> 0:33:40.520 with kindle. Um, all right, So there's this idea. Another 0:33:40.600 --> 0:33:45.440 pcassa quote that everything you can imagine is real. Now 0:33:45.480 --> 0:33:47.800 I would say that I would add this, you just 0:33:47.840 --> 0:33:50.240 have to make it fit into that bay Asian model. 0:33:50.760 --> 0:33:54.040 So anything you dream of could be real as long 0:33:54.080 --> 0:33:57.680 as you can make it fit into the constructs of 0:33:57.720 --> 0:34:01.920 our physical world. And that's where Okem's razor comes in. Yeah, 0:34:01.960 --> 0:34:05.120 all comes razor. Is this idea that basically the simplest 0:34:05.280 --> 0:34:09.760 answer is the one that is probably the most likely answer. Yeah, 0:34:09.880 --> 0:34:13.000 Akams raisers. It's interesting because the term first appears around 0:34:13.000 --> 0:34:16.760 eighteen fifty, two centuries after the death of the guy's 0:34:16.840 --> 0:34:20.000 named after, who was a fourteenth century Franciscan friar by 0:34:20.000 --> 0:34:24.000 the name of William of Oakum. Uh. Really fascinating dude. Um. 0:34:24.040 --> 0:34:25.880 If you've ever read the Name of the rose By 0:34:25.920 --> 0:34:28.040 and Burn of Eco, the main character in that, who's 0:34:28.080 --> 0:34:31.480 a Sherlock Holmes styled monk named William of Baskerville. He's 0:34:31.480 --> 0:34:34.839 always talking about his friendship and camaraderie with Oakum's way 0:34:34.880 --> 0:34:38.320 of thinking, because despite being a Franciscan friar, he was 0:34:38.600 --> 0:34:40.200 you could you imagine, all right, what he's gonna be 0:34:40.200 --> 0:34:42.520 a really religious dude. He's gonna see the world through 0:34:42.840 --> 0:34:46.080 religious goggles and to a certain extent you, as we've 0:34:46.080 --> 0:34:48.759 discussed in a recent podcast on witchcraft, that's gonna be 0:34:48.840 --> 0:34:50.560 a part of the way you see the world. You 0:34:50.640 --> 0:34:52.600 just can't help with us the world you're born into. 0:34:52.960 --> 0:34:56.320 But Oakum was a realist, and what we call a nominalist. 0:34:56.719 --> 0:35:00.920 Nominalism is the theory that there are no universal soul, 0:35:01.120 --> 0:35:05.279 essences and reality. He argued that only individuals exist rather 0:35:05.360 --> 0:35:11.000 than super individual universals, essences, and forms. So to break 0:35:11.000 --> 0:35:13.200 that down in a really sustinct way, I turned to 0:35:13.560 --> 0:35:16.000 Catholic Encyclopedia of all places. They have a really nice 0:35:16.160 --> 0:35:18.520 paragraph and we're just gonna read this. They say, exaggerated 0:35:18.560 --> 0:35:22.640 realism invents a world of reality, corresponding exactly to the 0:35:22.680 --> 0:35:26.320 attributes of the world of thought. Nominalism, on the contrary, 0:35:26.360 --> 0:35:30.640 models the concept on the external object, which it holds 0:35:30.640 --> 0:35:34.360 to be individual in particular. So it comes down to 0:35:35.200 --> 0:35:37.200 how are you gonna understand the world around you? Are 0:35:37.239 --> 0:35:39.200 you gonna start with the ideas about the world and 0:35:39.239 --> 0:35:42.040 work down to the world itself, or do you start 0:35:42.120 --> 0:35:44.799 with the world and work out from there? And so 0:35:44.880 --> 0:35:48.239 that's that's a large part of Lum's Razer. Right there 0:35:48.360 --> 0:35:51.600 is is looking at this idea, this possible theory for 0:35:51.640 --> 0:35:55.680 what's happening, and then asking yourself which hypothesis conforms to 0:35:55.760 --> 0:35:58.480 the world that we observe and not the world that 0:35:58.520 --> 0:36:01.960 we think exists. This is the basis of the scientific method, 0:36:02.440 --> 0:36:05.680 and so when we talk about science and scientists and play, 0:36:05.800 --> 0:36:08.680 this is really essentially we're talking about because in a way, 0:36:08.719 --> 0:36:11.560 this is a bit of a thought experiment, although with 0:36:11.640 --> 0:36:13.640 the thought experiment you're just trying to kind of throw 0:36:13.680 --> 0:36:16.160 everything out there. You're not really looking for for something 0:36:16.200 --> 0:36:18.880 that's going to stick. But it's the same idea that 0:36:18.920 --> 0:36:22.680 you you try to figure out every hypothesis you can 0:36:23.239 --> 0:36:25.960 and then you call out the ones that don't make 0:36:26.000 --> 0:36:29.799 any sense or at least probable. Um. Now, this is 0:36:29.840 --> 0:36:34.080 really an awesome game to play with kids because it 0:36:34.120 --> 0:36:38.040 fuels their imagination, but it also gives them the tools 0:36:38.120 --> 0:36:40.759 to sort through all the data that they have and 0:36:40.840 --> 0:36:44.520 find a line of logic. And it's a particularly a 0:36:44.600 --> 0:36:46.160 nice game to play when they're at that age where 0:36:46.160 --> 0:36:49.600 they're asking a bazilion questions about how the world works. Right, Yeah, 0:36:49.680 --> 0:36:51.759 like why is that? Why is the sky blue? Well, 0:36:51.800 --> 0:36:54.440 because it has to do with reflectional well, why is 0:36:54.480 --> 0:36:56.520 that the case? Then? Why is that the case? And 0:36:56.520 --> 0:36:58.759 and you can either give up like the lady I 0:36:58.760 --> 0:37:01.320 observed at a zoo once when the child asked, Mommy, 0:37:01.400 --> 0:37:03.919 why does the commode dragon? Why does he look like that? 0:37:04.080 --> 0:37:06.480 And she just responded because that's just the way God 0:37:06.520 --> 0:37:10.240 made him, honey. Right there, there's a complete non answer, 0:37:10.520 --> 0:37:12.799 and not engaging with the child's curiosity about the world 0:37:12.800 --> 0:37:16.080 and instead saying, here's a big wall of the fortress 0:37:16.080 --> 0:37:19.480 of ideas, let me erect that in in the way 0:37:19.520 --> 0:37:21.239 of the horizon. Say I'm going to say that that 0:37:21.280 --> 0:37:24.680 parent probably had low blood sugar. So before you engage 0:37:24.680 --> 0:37:27.080 in augms phraser, make sure you eat something because you're 0:37:27.080 --> 0:37:29.919 gonna need that energy because kids will ask a million questions, 0:37:29.960 --> 0:37:33.520 as you say, and it can get a little bit like, oh, 0:37:33.560 --> 0:37:37.600 you know, like after fifteen million questions. But you know, obviously, 0:37:37.640 --> 0:37:39.879 my daughter asked me a ton of questions every day 0:37:39.920 --> 0:37:43.600 about everything, and um, one of the things that I 0:37:43.640 --> 0:37:46.640 noticed was she's starting to enter into that territory where 0:37:46.680 --> 0:37:51.040 the unknown is frightening her. So she's really looking for answers, 0:37:51.080 --> 0:37:54.280 she's looking for comfort, Like the skeleton thing you mentioned. Yeah, 0:37:54.320 --> 0:37:56.960 she's she's very frightened of skeletons, even though we've talked 0:37:56.960 --> 0:38:00.279 about how they're inside our bodies. Um, you know, they 0:38:00.280 --> 0:38:02.080 help us to walk, so on and so forth, a 0:38:02.239 --> 0:38:04.200 very practical things. She said, I don't care. I just 0:38:04.200 --> 0:38:06.919 don't want to see them outside of the skin, which 0:38:06.920 --> 0:38:08.799 is a reasonable request. What are you know what you're 0:38:08.800 --> 0:38:11.000 gonna say to that. Um, But one of the things 0:38:11.040 --> 0:38:13.120 that drives her nuts, or has in the past, is 0:38:13.120 --> 0:38:16.239 that we'll she'll hear things on the roof of our house. Well, 0:38:16.280 --> 0:38:19.839 I know it's magnolia pods. There's just falling and they're 0:38:20.000 --> 0:38:22.280 huge and they're I mean, they do sound like someone's 0:38:22.360 --> 0:38:26.640 on the roof. Yeah, oh yeah, the squirrels. It's a 0:38:26.719 --> 0:38:29.520 racetrack actually on our house, particularly this time of year 0:38:29.560 --> 0:38:32.000 in the fall. But um, so if I hear allowed that, 0:38:32.080 --> 0:38:34.040 what I've done in the past is I've said, okay, 0:38:34.440 --> 0:38:36.520 you know, let's look out the window and see what's 0:38:36.520 --> 0:38:39.520 on the ground, and they will observe that there are 0:38:39.520 --> 0:38:42.439 magnolia pods all over the yard. So then I can 0:38:42.480 --> 0:38:46.320 ask my daughter, and I've done this before, which is, hey, okay, 0:38:46.360 --> 0:38:48.520 what else do you think could be causing that noise. 0:38:48.719 --> 0:38:51.160 So now we're entering into this idea of blackham threachers, 0:38:51.200 --> 0:38:53.720 where we're going to gather as many hypotheses as possible, 0:38:54.360 --> 0:38:57.200 and so she's come up with before you know, again, 0:38:57.280 --> 0:38:59.640 the skeleton is a skeleton. It's trying to come down 0:38:59.640 --> 0:39:03.080 the gym name get me um Or she has observed 0:39:03.080 --> 0:39:05.160 that there's construction in our neighborhood, and she said that 0:39:05.200 --> 0:39:07.600 it's a construction crane, and she thinks that it just 0:39:07.840 --> 0:39:10.680 came down the street and crashed into our roof. Okay, 0:39:10.680 --> 0:39:14.200 but she's already going from from least believable hypothesis to 0:39:14.320 --> 0:39:17.239 a slightly more believable hypothesis. Yeah, because actually, if you 0:39:17.320 --> 0:39:21.200 count the number of assumptions for all of the hypotheses, 0:39:21.239 --> 0:39:23.400 you will see that the Magnoli pod is one assumption 0:39:23.760 --> 0:39:25.960 it fell from the tree in Atlanta on the ground. 0:39:26.480 --> 0:39:30.279 But a skeleton, well, that is requires the assumption that 0:39:30.760 --> 0:39:33.440 even though it's dead, it doesn't have any flesh around 0:39:33.440 --> 0:39:37.120 it somehow alive, it somehow has a functioning brain. Those 0:39:37.200 --> 0:39:39.799 three it can scale a roof and show me down 0:39:39.840 --> 0:39:43.080 a chimney that's for maybe even five um and then 0:39:43.080 --> 0:39:46.799 it has some business with us. It's got some some 0:39:47.040 --> 0:39:50.760 reason for coming down the chimney and talking to us 0:39:50.760 --> 0:39:52.640 about that too. Is it makes me think, well, to 0:39:52.960 --> 0:39:55.200 make the skeleton down the chimney idea makes sense. You 0:39:55.239 --> 0:39:58.719 really need a working um understanding of necromancy, which is 0:39:58.760 --> 0:40:01.359 just say, you need a fortress of ideas that has 0:40:01.400 --> 0:40:06.600 been carefully constructed by adults to make the unlikely seem plausible. Yeah, 0:40:06.640 --> 0:40:09.240 you need so, I say five assumptions there, but really, 0:40:09.280 --> 0:40:12.040 if you're going to detail, there's probably about a hundred 0:40:12.040 --> 0:40:14.600 different assumptions there. So then you get to the crane 0:40:15.080 --> 0:40:17.360 and now you have the crane down the street scenario 0:40:17.480 --> 0:40:19.840 that it can operate on its own. That's an assumption 0:40:20.160 --> 0:40:21.960 that it has somehow managed to make its way through 0:40:22.000 --> 0:40:27.200 four houses and and and and still has momentum that 0:40:27.280 --> 0:40:30.080 it has bumped into the roof, and that somehow, even 0:40:30.080 --> 0:40:32.239 though it's bunched in the roof, there's no damage done 0:40:32.280 --> 0:40:35.520 to our house. There's four assumptions. You're right, there's getting better. Yeah, 0:40:35.520 --> 0:40:39.759 because if if the if the walking skeleton necromance, the 0:40:39.800 --> 0:40:41.560 idea of that is like it's like a cathedral of 0:40:41.600 --> 0:40:45.239 ideas with flying buttresses and stuff. Whereas the claim moving 0:40:45.280 --> 0:40:48.320 on its own. That's more like a decent um cabin 0:40:48.400 --> 0:40:52.160 in the woods, kind of fortress of ideas, modestly constructed 0:40:52.200 --> 0:40:55.120 but still constructed. Nice. Nice. I like that, Yes, flying 0:40:55.120 --> 0:40:58.480 buttresses as opposed to like a modest cabin. So you 0:40:58.560 --> 0:41:01.400 present all those which I've done with my daughter before, 0:41:01.440 --> 0:41:03.640 and she'll just laugh and say the magnolia pod because 0:41:03.760 --> 0:41:07.160 then she's starting to understand that these are outrageous things. 0:41:08.280 --> 0:41:11.360 But we've been able to talk about really cool different 0:41:11.480 --> 0:41:14.640 ways that the world might work, which is the imagination 0:41:14.640 --> 0:41:17.279 in the creativity part. But now she has something to 0:41:17.320 --> 0:41:21.359 hold onto that is concrete, that is logical, that makes sense. Yeah, 0:41:21.440 --> 0:41:24.120 so she can imagine the flying buttresses and the crazy 0:41:24.120 --> 0:41:26.239 cathedral of ideas. I mean, everyone wants to be able 0:41:26.239 --> 0:41:30.640 to imagine something that that rich and and and just engaging, 0:41:30.719 --> 0:41:33.120 you know, kind of like uh, like say Dante's Inferno. 0:41:33.200 --> 0:41:35.120 I love that that's the cathedral ideas that there ever 0:41:35.560 --> 0:41:37.880 was one. But when I actually think about how the 0:41:37.920 --> 0:41:40.480 world works, I choose to go with a far more 0:41:40.760 --> 0:41:44.680 modest construction of ideas um and certainly at times of 0:41:44.800 --> 0:41:48.280 the less the less building there on the horizon, the better, 0:41:48.320 --> 0:41:50.800 And you can actually see the world as it perhaps 0:41:50.920 --> 0:41:54.520 really is now. Gothnick says that these cathedral of ideas, 0:41:54.640 --> 0:41:58.840 this is really the evolutionary juice of our species. We 0:41:58.920 --> 0:42:01.799 have to have this imagine a because she said, you know, 0:42:01.840 --> 0:42:04.120 think about every single thing around you right now. Think 0:42:04.120 --> 0:42:06.640 about this microphone in front of us. This was once 0:42:06.680 --> 0:42:10.520 an idea in someone's head and it was part of 0:42:10.520 --> 0:42:15.000 their imagination, and they just used their available knowledge to 0:42:15.080 --> 0:42:17.799 create this thing. Uh, you know, given a couple of 0:42:17.840 --> 0:42:21.240 constructs of what is possible what is not possible. So 0:42:21.760 --> 0:42:24.759 you know, she's saying that if you are um, a 0:42:24.880 --> 0:42:28.960 human fifty thou years ago, this is incredibly important as well, 0:42:29.000 --> 0:42:32.520 because you're trying to imagine or predict really what the 0:42:32.600 --> 0:42:34.040 year is going to look for you. So you start 0:42:34.080 --> 0:42:37.839 to really pay attention to seasons when some animals might 0:42:37.880 --> 0:42:41.200 be migrating, right, and you start to sort of imagine 0:42:41.440 --> 0:42:45.839 yourself participating in this future self or this future part 0:42:45.840 --> 0:42:49.040 of yourself. So again, just all of this is ah 0:42:49.600 --> 0:42:53.960 I think, an evolutionary boon to us, this stability to imagine, create, 0:42:54.160 --> 0:42:58.399 play and essentially become scientists. All right, Well, on that note, 0:42:58.520 --> 0:43:01.920 let's call over the robot and get some listener mail here. 0:43:03.920 --> 0:43:06.440 The first one comes from a listener by the name 0:43:06.560 --> 0:43:10.320 of h. A. H A writes in and says, greetings 0:43:10.440 --> 0:43:13.080 Robert and Julie, regarding your mention of Bloody Mary in 0:43:13.120 --> 0:43:15.840 your recent podcast Light as a Feather Stiff as a Board. 0:43:16.000 --> 0:43:19.640 I've always, personally, i albeit humorously, believed that the Bloody 0:43:19.760 --> 0:43:21.920 Mary myth that she would appear of her name was 0:43:21.960 --> 0:43:23.560 spoken a certain number of times in front of a 0:43:23.560 --> 0:43:26.400 mirror was real, but that everybody that's tried it so 0:43:26.440 --> 0:43:29.239 far had just gotten the number of times one has 0:43:29.280 --> 0:43:31.760 to say her name to invoke her wrong. I believe 0:43:31.800 --> 0:43:34.360 the correct number is three hundred and thirty three. No, 0:43:34.520 --> 0:43:37.200 I've never tried it anyway. Thank you for the entertaining 0:43:37.200 --> 0:43:40.200 and informative podcast. We'll see there's a there's an interesting, 0:43:40.440 --> 0:43:43.520 uh cathedral of ideas that only not a cathedral. But 0:43:43.680 --> 0:43:46.160 let's say there's a modest cabin of ideas, and our 0:43:46.200 --> 0:43:48.799 listener here built a little extension. Well, yeah, what is 0:43:48.840 --> 0:43:52.759 half of if you double three three, what is that? Well, 0:43:52.800 --> 0:43:57.000 that would be six D sixty six. Yeah, so curious 0:43:57.040 --> 0:43:59.919 to know why it would be half of the devil's numbers, 0:44:00.080 --> 0:44:02.560 and that their math is wrong, that the actually needs 0:44:02.600 --> 0:44:05.120 to be doubled up or I don't know, maybe maybe 0:44:05.360 --> 0:44:07.759 Bloody Mary is going to match that number on the 0:44:07.800 --> 0:44:11.800 other side and then there then becomes complete. Well, it 0:44:11.840 --> 0:44:14.600 reminds me of pretty much every attempt to predict to 0:44:14.640 --> 0:44:16.640 the end of the world, be at the rapture or 0:44:16.640 --> 0:44:19.000 something else. Inevitably that comes a point where that where 0:44:19.000 --> 0:44:20.960 someone says, well, the math was wrong. We need to 0:44:20.960 --> 0:44:23.520 do the math a little more correctly to figure out 0:44:23.520 --> 0:44:25.759 exactly when the world's gonna end. So I'm sure if 0:44:25.760 --> 0:44:29.040 if someone were to count up to thirty three, uh, 0:44:29.080 --> 0:44:32.320 there would be a need to revise our predictions speaking 0:44:32.320 --> 0:44:34.279 of when is the next end of the world, Oh 0:44:34.400 --> 0:44:36.319 like now or something that the mind calendar. When what's 0:44:36.320 --> 0:44:39.080 happening right now outside the door? Oh yeah, that's what 0:44:39.160 --> 0:44:41.040 that was. I just thought there was a lot of traffic. 0:44:41.360 --> 0:44:43.800 We also heard from a listener by the name of Kristen. 0:44:43.880 --> 0:44:46.320 Kristen writes and says, hey, guys, in the Maps episodes, 0:44:46.360 --> 0:44:49.160 you talked about how humans are just wired to respond 0:44:49.239 --> 0:44:52.680 to vertical and horizontal and diagonals and mess things up. 0:44:53.120 --> 0:44:55.440 It triggered a memory for me three summers ago, I 0:44:55.520 --> 0:44:57.680 visited my friend in Colorado and we went to an 0:44:57.680 --> 0:45:00.680 old West type town. They had a mystery house there. 0:45:00.880 --> 0:45:03.640 You went inside. It started out with the hallway floor 0:45:04.040 --> 0:45:06.680 slanted at a slight angle, which was fine, and then 0:45:06.680 --> 0:45:08.680 it opened up into this huge room and the floor 0:45:08.719 --> 0:45:11.280 there was at a forty five degree angle. I guess 0:45:11.280 --> 0:45:13.480 my brain totally shut down because as soon as I 0:45:13.480 --> 0:45:16.000 stepped into the room, I just fell down into the 0:45:16.040 --> 0:45:19.560 wall and couldn't move or stop laughing. My friend's dad 0:45:19.560 --> 0:45:21.239 had to help me out because I could not move. 0:45:21.640 --> 0:45:24.040 L o l uh. It's my favorite memory. Thanks for 0:45:24.080 --> 0:45:26.919 the great podcast. That's because that draws us right into 0:45:26.960 --> 0:45:29.759 the episode we did on Haunted Houses to how if 0:45:29.800 --> 0:45:32.840 you screwed around with the shape of rooms and engage 0:45:32.880 --> 0:45:35.960 more of that diagonal construction, then it throws us off. 0:45:36.000 --> 0:45:38.000 It throws throws off our ability to predict what's going 0:45:38.040 --> 0:45:40.520 to happen, our understanding where we are in a space. 0:45:41.040 --> 0:45:43.399 That's right because we have many more neurons that are 0:45:43.400 --> 0:45:47.360 dedicated to the X Y access than the diagonal access. 0:45:47.440 --> 0:45:50.239 So it makes sense that our brain would like this 0:45:50.640 --> 0:45:53.880 very clean lines, and of course haunted houses like to 0:45:53.920 --> 0:45:58.360 play with that idea, so that's fascinating. Thanks for writing 0:45:58.480 --> 0:46:01.960 into us, Kristen and h A. We always love to 0:46:01.960 --> 0:46:03.920 hear from our our listeners and if you have anything 0:46:03.960 --> 0:46:05.680 to add on this podcast, let us know. And we 0:46:05.680 --> 0:46:07.040 know we have a lot of parents out there as 0:46:07.040 --> 0:46:10.239 their listeners, and then many more who have children in 0:46:10.280 --> 0:46:14.480 their lives, and many more still who are very talented artists, 0:46:14.840 --> 0:46:17.239 uh and creative people. We'd love to hear from you 0:46:17.280 --> 0:46:19.440 guys as well. How do how does the child inside 0:46:19.480 --> 0:46:23.239 you come out when you engage and creative act? Send 0:46:23.320 --> 0:46:24.839 us an example of what you do to We'd love 0:46:24.880 --> 0:46:28.040 to share it on Facebook and let us know how 0:46:28.080 --> 0:46:31.560 the young lauarvel human in your life, How they seem 0:46:31.640 --> 0:46:33.200 to see the world around you, What kind of questions 0:46:33.200 --> 0:46:36.239 are they asking, What unique inside are they bringing the 0:46:36.280 --> 0:46:40.040 table when they construct their own fortress of ideas. You 0:46:40.040 --> 0:46:42.440 can find us on Facebook, you can find us on tumbler. 0:46:42.640 --> 0:46:44.319 We are stuff to blow your mind on both of 0:46:44.320 --> 0:46:47.200 those and on Twitter we go by the handle blow 0:46:47.280 --> 0:46:49.560 the Mind and you can always drop us a line 0:46:49.560 --> 0:46:58.600 at Blow the Mind at discovery dot com. For more 0:46:58.640 --> 0:47:01.240 on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff 0:47:01.239 --> 0:47:06.560 Works dot com.