1
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,760
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:12,920 --> 00:00:14,880
Speaker 2: Hey, you welcome do Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

3
00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:16,120
Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb.

4
00:00:16,040 --> 00:00:18,520
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick. And today we're going to

5
00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:21,800
Speaker 3: begin a series of episodes on the theme of licking

6
00:00:21,960 --> 00:00:25,200
Speaker 3: with the tongue, as this behavior appears in nature, in

7
00:00:25,320 --> 00:00:28,840
Speaker 3: human culture, in science, and even in the mass manufacture

8
00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:32,479
Speaker 3: and consumption of candy, as we'll get into later today.

9
00:00:33,200 --> 00:00:35,800
Speaker 3: But Rob, I've got a kind of strange place I

10
00:00:35,840 --> 00:00:39,400
Speaker 3: want to begin with this subject because I actually got

11
00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:42,400
Speaker 3: the idea to talk about licking on the show, not

12
00:00:42,520 --> 00:00:45,000
Speaker 3: by like watching a you know, a deer go for

13
00:00:45,040 --> 00:00:47,800
Speaker 3: assault lick, or by observing a snake's tongue, though I

14
00:00:47,800 --> 00:00:50,080
Speaker 3: think we will end up talking about all those things

15
00:00:50,120 --> 00:00:54,840
Speaker 3: in this series, but by reading about ancient Egyptian curses

16
00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:55,640
Speaker 3: last month.

17
00:00:56,120 --> 00:00:59,800
Speaker 2: Hmmm, all right. It's always an interesting way to go, right,

18
00:01:00,160 --> 00:01:04,360
Speaker 2: especially in considering something that is kind of seemingly mundane,

19
00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:07,200
Speaker 2: And every day we go we start with the esoteric

20
00:01:07,959 --> 00:01:09,000
Speaker 2: in the ritualistic.

21
00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:11,000
Speaker 3: I think that's the way to do it, because now

22
00:01:11,040 --> 00:01:13,440
Speaker 3: every time we look at licking in the real world,

23
00:01:13,520 --> 00:01:15,639
Speaker 3: we can think back to the ways that it's also

24
00:01:15,800 --> 00:01:20,320
Speaker 3: infused with evil or protective magic. So yeah, I came

25
00:01:20,360 --> 00:01:22,840
Speaker 3: across the idea to do this when we did an

26
00:01:22,840 --> 00:01:26,440
Speaker 3: episode earlier in October about ancient Egyptian curses, and in

27
00:01:26,520 --> 00:01:29,720
Speaker 3: preparing for that episode, I was reading parts of some

28
00:01:29,880 --> 00:01:34,080
Speaker 3: books about magical beliefs and practices in ancient Egypt. There's

29
00:01:34,080 --> 00:01:36,679
Speaker 3: one that I mentioned in that episode already. That was

30
00:01:36,880 --> 00:01:40,240
Speaker 3: the book by Geraldine Pinch called Magic in Ancient Egypt,

31
00:01:40,360 --> 00:01:43,920
Speaker 3: University of Texas Press, nineteen ninety four. But there's another

32
00:01:43,959 --> 00:01:47,960
Speaker 3: book that I have in digital form here that is

33
00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:52,400
Speaker 3: by Robert K. Rittner, called The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian

34
00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:57,720
Speaker 3: Magical Practices, University of Chicago Press, nineteen ninety three. Writtener

35
00:01:57,840 --> 00:02:00,880
Speaker 3: I've also referenced in an episode last month, I think

36
00:02:00,920 --> 00:02:06,200
Speaker 3: because he did some translations and a paper on a

37
00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:09,040
Speaker 3: curse we talked about that cursed the reader for reading it.

38
00:02:09,919 --> 00:02:13,040
Speaker 3: But Writtner was an American Egyptologist who lived nineteen fifty

39
00:02:13,040 --> 00:02:15,400
Speaker 3: three to twenty twenty one. He was affiliated with the

40
00:02:15,520 --> 00:02:20,520
Speaker 3: University of Chicago, and this book draws on archaeological and

41
00:02:20,600 --> 00:02:24,000
Speaker 3: literary evidence to try to create a full picture of

42
00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:29,600
Speaker 3: how Egyptian magic was performed, so not just the written

43
00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:34,000
Speaker 3: words of spells and magical texts, but also the physically

44
00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:38,600
Speaker 3: enacted and embodied elements of magic, all the stuff around

45
00:02:39,040 --> 00:02:42,480
Speaker 3: the text of the spells. One of the chapters in

46
00:02:42,520 --> 00:02:46,880
Speaker 3: this book, chapter three, is called Spitting, licking, and Swallowing,

47
00:02:47,120 --> 00:02:51,320
Speaker 3: and it explores what Writtner calls the oral dimension of

48
00:02:51,520 --> 00:02:55,480
Speaker 3: Egyptian magic. And I ended up finding this really interesting.

49
00:02:55,520 --> 00:02:57,639
Speaker 3: So I just want to talk about some things from

50
00:02:57,720 --> 00:03:00,800
Speaker 3: this chapter, especially focused on licking, but we'll have to

51
00:03:00,840 --> 00:03:03,400
Speaker 3: discuss spitting a bit too, because spitting is important.

52
00:03:03,800 --> 00:03:05,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think spitting is maybe a little more

53
00:03:05,720 --> 00:03:09,840
Speaker 2: familiar for folks out there who are used to seeing

54
00:03:09,880 --> 00:03:14,000
Speaker 2: it in various fictional depictions of magic. Yeah, you know,

55
00:03:14,160 --> 00:03:17,120
Speaker 2: a witch or wizard spitting on something, spitting into some

56
00:03:17,160 --> 00:03:18,960
Speaker 2: sort of a potion. And then if you're into the

57
00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:22,120
Speaker 2: weirder stuff, there's of course the film Boxer's Omen that

58
00:03:22,160 --> 00:03:24,919
Speaker 2: we recently watched on Weird House Cinema that also involves

59
00:03:24,960 --> 00:03:26,080
Speaker 2: a lot of oral.

60
00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:29,600
Speaker 3: Magic, amazing oral magic, a lot of spitting, a lot

61
00:03:29,600 --> 00:03:33,520
Speaker 3: of chewing up and spitting back out, some chicken butts,

62
00:03:33,880 --> 00:03:36,280
Speaker 3: all kinds of things. But before we go on to

63
00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:39,680
Speaker 3: discuss this licking, spitting, and swallowing chapter. I also just

64
00:03:39,720 --> 00:03:43,280
Speaker 3: wanted to briefly go over a couple of principles that

65
00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:46,840
Speaker 3: we talked about recently in that Egyptian magic episode, but

66
00:03:47,040 --> 00:03:50,600
Speaker 3: that will apply very much here. So one of the

67
00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:54,840
Speaker 3: things that's important to remember is the sort of consensus

68
00:03:54,840 --> 00:04:00,000
Speaker 3: of scholars that in an Egyptian context, the classical anthropological

69
00:04:00,240 --> 00:04:04,640
Speaker 3: distinctions between magic and religion are not very useful. Those

70
00:04:04,720 --> 00:04:07,520
Speaker 3: might apply in some cultures sometimes in history, but in

71
00:04:07,560 --> 00:04:13,920
Speaker 3: ancient Egypt, state affiliated temple activity, religion was fully enmeshed

72
00:04:13,960 --> 00:04:18,640
Speaker 3: with everyday magic. Magic spells were a core part of religion,

73
00:04:19,040 --> 00:04:23,160
Speaker 3: and temple priests were also experts in private everyday magic

74
00:04:23,279 --> 00:04:26,640
Speaker 3: and may have sold their services as magic spell consultants.

75
00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:30,520
Speaker 3: So the magic religion distinction just doesn't really apply to

76
00:04:30,600 --> 00:04:34,440
Speaker 3: ancient Egypt. Religion is full of magic, and magic is

77
00:04:34,520 --> 00:04:39,080
Speaker 3: enmeshed with religion. Another interesting principle of Egyptian magic is

78
00:04:39,120 --> 00:04:44,600
Speaker 3: about language. This is something that on one hand, it

79
00:04:44,720 --> 00:04:49,159
Speaker 3: might sound very simple to conceptualize, maybe you even think

80
00:04:49,200 --> 00:04:52,120
Speaker 3: about the world this way already. In another sense, if

81
00:04:52,160 --> 00:04:55,760
Speaker 3: you really embrace the strangeness of it, it becomes more

82
00:04:55,800 --> 00:05:00,440
Speaker 3: and more powerful in the ancient Egyptian worldview. I think

83
00:05:00,440 --> 00:05:05,240
Speaker 3: it's fair to say that words were not merely symbols

84
00:05:05,320 --> 00:05:11,279
Speaker 3: referring to objects or concepts. Words in themselves, both spoken

85
00:05:11,440 --> 00:05:16,320
Speaker 3: and written, had active power to change and create reality.

86
00:05:16,760 --> 00:05:20,039
Speaker 3: So it's obviously in our reality words are very powerful

87
00:05:20,160 --> 00:05:22,960
Speaker 3: because words convey meaning, and that meaning can be acted

88
00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:26,000
Speaker 3: on by people. But that was not the only way

89
00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:29,400
Speaker 3: words were powerful in ancient Egypt. In ancient Egypt, the

90
00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:34,840
Speaker 3: belief is words themselves do things, and so I think

91
00:05:34,960 --> 00:05:37,440
Speaker 3: perhaps in part this is not the only reason, but

92
00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:42,360
Speaker 3: perhaps in part because spoken words flow from the mouth.

93
00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:46,480
Speaker 3: There is a lot of ritual action in Egyptian magic

94
00:05:46,920 --> 00:05:50,480
Speaker 3: centered on the actions of the mouth, like spitting, licking,

95
00:05:50,520 --> 00:05:54,680
Speaker 3: and swallowing, and ritual attention given to the fluids of

96
00:05:54,800 --> 00:05:58,200
Speaker 3: the mouth cavity. I say that the association with language

97
00:05:58,200 --> 00:06:01,400
Speaker 3: is not the only reason, because just generally, the body

98
00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:05,640
Speaker 3: fluids in ancient Egypt are thought to convey a power

99
00:06:05,839 --> 00:06:08,520
Speaker 3: and vitality of the person they come from, and so

100
00:06:08,560 --> 00:06:12,279
Speaker 3: there's a transference power that works on the principle of

101
00:06:12,320 --> 00:06:15,200
Speaker 3: contact with body fluids of all kinds. But I think

102
00:06:15,200 --> 00:06:17,520
Speaker 3: with the mouth cavity you have this added dimension of

103
00:06:17,640 --> 00:06:20,760
Speaker 3: not only is saliva a powerful body fluid, but it

104
00:06:20,800 --> 00:06:23,320
Speaker 3: comes from the mouth, which is the part that speaks.

105
00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:27,520
Speaker 2: Interesting, so we can I think again, this is probably

106
00:06:27,560 --> 00:06:30,920
Speaker 2: a case where we're more familiar with the power of

107
00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:36,840
Speaker 2: blood being utilized in various fantasy and magical and semi

108
00:06:36,920 --> 00:06:41,000
Speaker 2: magical scenarios and symbolic scenarios as well. So this is

109
00:06:41,240 --> 00:06:43,400
Speaker 2: almost kind of an extension of that level of power,

110
00:06:43,520 --> 00:06:46,960
Speaker 2: but to the spit in saliva.

111
00:06:47,080 --> 00:06:49,440
Speaker 3: But I don't want to downplay the importance of other

112
00:06:49,560 --> 00:06:52,560
Speaker 3: body fluids in ancient Egyptian magic as well. Tears, the

113
00:06:52,600 --> 00:06:59,120
Speaker 3: tears of ray are very important. Tears, spit, blood, minstrel blood,

114
00:06:59,200 --> 00:07:03,520
Speaker 3: semen is all considered magically potent in different ways.

115
00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:06,160
Speaker 2: And of course medically today, Like we know that this

116
00:07:06,720 --> 00:07:08,640
Speaker 2: is this is true, Like there's a lot of data

117
00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:11,880
Speaker 2: in all of these fluids. Yeah, so you know it

118
00:07:11,960 --> 00:07:12,960
Speaker 2: ultimately stacks up.

119
00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:18,760
Speaker 3: So, according to Rittner, here spitting is the most significant

120
00:07:18,800 --> 00:07:22,360
Speaker 3: of these three actions. Spitting plays a huge role in

121
00:07:22,480 --> 00:07:25,520
Speaker 3: Egyptian mythology, not just in what you're supposed to do

122
00:07:25,560 --> 00:07:29,080
Speaker 3: in the text of these spells, but but in like

123
00:07:29,160 --> 00:07:32,280
Speaker 3: the creation narratives. So in some versions of the Egyptian

124
00:07:32,320 --> 00:07:35,240
Speaker 3: creation myth, you know, had various forms, but in some

125
00:07:35,360 --> 00:07:38,280
Speaker 3: of them, the creator deity, whichever one it is, in

126
00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:41,760
Speaker 3: this form, emerges out of the waters of chaos onto

127
00:07:41,880 --> 00:07:44,560
Speaker 3: the mound of earth, the initial mound of earth that

128
00:07:44,600 --> 00:07:47,040
Speaker 3: comes out of the water, and then creates the other

129
00:07:47,120 --> 00:07:51,640
Speaker 3: gods by spitting, sometimes by ejaculating, but sometimes by spitting.

130
00:07:52,400 --> 00:07:56,840
Speaker 3: And he gives the example of the Heliopolitan creation myth,

131
00:07:57,280 --> 00:07:59,840
Speaker 3: where you've got the sun god coming up out of

132
00:08:00,160 --> 00:08:02,320
Speaker 3: water and then is on the mound, and the Sun

133
00:08:02,320 --> 00:08:06,560
Speaker 3: God's spittle creates the primordial pair of God's shoe, the

134
00:08:06,600 --> 00:08:11,080
Speaker 3: god of the air and Tefnut of moisture. And so

135
00:08:11,320 --> 00:08:14,520
Speaker 3: there is this link between spitting and the kind of

136
00:08:14,640 --> 00:08:18,840
Speaker 3: creative magic, the creating force that gives rise or generation

137
00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:24,120
Speaker 3: to all things. Writtner gives translations of several different text passages.

138
00:08:24,480 --> 00:08:26,960
Speaker 3: One of them is referring to this creation narrative where

139
00:08:26,960 --> 00:08:30,880
Speaker 3: the sun god Atom is the creator here Atum and

140
00:08:31,280 --> 00:08:34,400
Speaker 3: this says Atom spat me out as the spittle of

141
00:08:34,440 --> 00:08:37,880
Speaker 3: his mouth, together with my sister Tefnut. But then you

142
00:08:37,920 --> 00:08:41,600
Speaker 3: get other expressions such as raise yourself ray. This is

143
00:08:41,679 --> 00:08:45,400
Speaker 3: the solar deity, ray, raise yourself, ray, spit out the day,

144
00:08:47,240 --> 00:08:51,280
Speaker 3: and as something cast off from a god's body. Body

145
00:08:51,320 --> 00:08:56,400
Speaker 3: fluids like spit convey the God's divine power, and so

146
00:08:56,679 --> 00:09:00,440
Speaker 3: spitting is used in spells of healing and blessing, often

147
00:09:00,520 --> 00:09:04,680
Speaker 3: symbolizing a transfer of the invigorating power of the God

148
00:09:04,880 --> 00:09:08,599
Speaker 3: to the recipient of the spittle, whether literal or symbolic.

149
00:09:09,080 --> 00:09:11,680
Speaker 3: So spitting is very big in Egyptian magic.

150
00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:15,439
Speaker 2: You know, I can't help but be reminded of I

151
00:09:15,480 --> 00:09:17,080
Speaker 2: don't even know if this is This is probably not

152
00:09:17,120 --> 00:09:20,800
Speaker 2: even current slang, but in some of the older hip

153
00:09:20,840 --> 00:09:23,960
Speaker 2: hop that I have listened to, spit is often used

154
00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:26,520
Speaker 2: as a way of talking about I guess you would say,

155
00:09:27,320 --> 00:09:30,120
Speaker 2: the delivery of lyrics with a certain amount of skill

156
00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:34,440
Speaker 2: and rhythm. Yeah. And it creative force, yeah yeah, creative

157
00:09:34,440 --> 00:09:37,840
Speaker 2: force through language, through spoken word. And it seems very

158
00:09:37,920 --> 00:09:40,200
Speaker 2: much in line with what we're talking about here. Yeah.

159
00:09:40,400 --> 00:09:43,120
Speaker 3: I think that's a great parallel actually, because my understanding

160
00:09:43,160 --> 00:09:46,760
Speaker 3: of the connotation of spit there is that it is

161
00:09:47,320 --> 00:09:50,280
Speaker 3: not just saying like, okay, talk now. It means, like,

162
00:09:50,600 --> 00:09:53,120
Speaker 3: you know, you use your power of creation. There's like

163
00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:58,160
Speaker 3: an emphasis on the creative generative element there So anyway,

164
00:09:58,920 --> 00:10:00,440
Speaker 3: the next thing, of course I want to come to

165
00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:04,240
Speaker 3: is licking, the subject of today. Licking is mentioned less

166
00:10:04,280 --> 00:10:08,360
Speaker 3: frequently than spitting in Egyptian magical texts, but it is

167
00:10:08,400 --> 00:10:13,240
Speaker 3: nevertheless a really interesting and significant action in Egyptian magic

168
00:10:13,280 --> 00:10:17,400
Speaker 3: and religion. Licking, I would say, has some of the

169
00:10:17,440 --> 00:10:22,040
Speaker 3: same physiomagical properties as spitting, in that it involves the

170
00:10:22,120 --> 00:10:26,920
Speaker 3: transfer of saliva, which is again imbued with the divine

171
00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:30,480
Speaker 3: power of the mouth from which it comes. But it

172
00:10:30,520 --> 00:10:34,080
Speaker 3: also has uses of its own for spells of healing

173
00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:38,120
Speaker 3: or blessing and for curses or attacks. So I want

174
00:10:38,160 --> 00:10:40,280
Speaker 3: to talk about some of the examples that Rittner brings

175
00:10:40,360 --> 00:10:45,120
Speaker 3: up offering rituals of the Pyramid texts. This would include

176
00:10:45,440 --> 00:10:48,720
Speaker 3: spells one sixty six and one eighty one, and the

177
00:10:48,880 --> 00:10:54,040
Speaker 3: Coffin texts spell nine thirty six, all described the following scenario.

178
00:10:54,800 --> 00:10:59,479
Speaker 3: After death, the spirit of the deceased king is presented,

179
00:11:00,200 --> 00:11:03,760
Speaker 3: is presented with or put before two bowls of fruit

180
00:11:03,960 --> 00:11:07,160
Speaker 3: from the ziziphus plant. This is a fruit known as

181
00:11:07,240 --> 00:11:10,920
Speaker 3: the jujub or sometimes as the red date or Chinese date.

182
00:11:11,080 --> 00:11:13,120
Speaker 3: The use of the word date there can be confusing

183
00:11:13,160 --> 00:11:15,199
Speaker 3: because this is different from the dates that are the

184
00:11:15,240 --> 00:11:17,080
Speaker 3: fruit of the date palm.

185
00:11:17,080 --> 00:11:19,160
Speaker 2: Okay, so confusing in the same way that a pine

186
00:11:19,160 --> 00:11:20,120
Speaker 2: apple is not an apple.

187
00:11:20,120 --> 00:11:23,360
Speaker 3: And exactly yeah, yeah, So this is the fruit of

188
00:11:23,400 --> 00:11:28,320
Speaker 3: the zizyphus plant, and the text says these fruits or

189
00:11:28,360 --> 00:11:32,440
Speaker 3: fruit bowls, they're referred to in the spells as the

190
00:11:32,559 --> 00:11:37,560
Speaker 3: eye of Horus, which they have licked. Were that they

191
00:11:37,800 --> 00:11:41,240
Speaker 3: that lick to the eye of Horace a couple of possibilities.

192
00:11:41,360 --> 00:11:45,200
Speaker 3: Writtener cites a scholar who argues that they are the

193
00:11:45,240 --> 00:11:50,000
Speaker 3: followers of Seth or set the destructive god of storms, chaos,

194
00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:53,880
Speaker 3: and the desert wilderness. If that's correct, this licking of

195
00:11:53,920 --> 00:11:57,160
Speaker 3: the fruit would represent a magical attack against the eye

196
00:11:57,240 --> 00:12:02,360
Speaker 3: of Horace. The licking somehowers heck of violence onto the eye.

197
00:12:03,200 --> 00:12:07,520
Speaker 3: But Writtner argues that while there is offensive licking sorcery

198
00:12:07,600 --> 00:12:10,559
Speaker 3: of this kind in Egyptian spells, that's probably not what's

199
00:12:10,640 --> 00:12:13,440
Speaker 3: going on here. He thinks it is more likely this

200
00:12:13,520 --> 00:12:17,199
Speaker 3: passage refers to a motif of the sacred healing of

201
00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:22,839
Speaker 3: Horace's eye by way of licks from the gods. After all,

202
00:12:22,960 --> 00:12:25,920
Speaker 3: the eye of Horace presented to the king here should

203
00:12:25,960 --> 00:12:29,160
Speaker 3: be sound and well, not envenomed with the curse of

204
00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:32,200
Speaker 3: the Sethian tongue, and Rittner points out that there are

205
00:12:32,240 --> 00:12:36,160
Speaker 3: other spells where an injured or troubled eye is restored

206
00:12:36,640 --> 00:12:40,120
Speaker 3: by the power of Holy saliva through healing spells that

207
00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:43,840
Speaker 3: involve spitting, and this licking could be envisioned as a

208
00:12:43,880 --> 00:12:48,720
Speaker 3: parallel mechanism. And Rittner points out that this mirror's phenomena

209
00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:53,600
Speaker 3: observed in nature the licking of wounds by animals as

210
00:12:53,760 --> 00:12:56,520
Speaker 3: magical licking here would seem to tap into both what

211
00:12:56,760 --> 00:13:01,000
Speaker 3: we see in other animals and perhaps even in instincts

212
00:13:01,040 --> 00:13:04,800
Speaker 3: that we ourselves still possess to some extent, even if

213
00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:08,440
Speaker 3: we don't always express them. Another important piece of licking

214
00:13:08,520 --> 00:13:11,679
Speaker 3: imagery along these lines the healing the healing licks of

215
00:13:11,720 --> 00:13:16,120
Speaker 3: the gods. The cow goddess Hathor bestows blessings on her

216
00:13:16,160 --> 00:13:20,480
Speaker 3: offspring Horace by licking him in the same manner that

217
00:13:20,559 --> 00:13:23,760
Speaker 3: an earthly cow can be seen licking her newborn calf,

218
00:13:24,600 --> 00:13:28,400
Speaker 3: and we get texts saying that Hathor blessed the pharaoh

219
00:13:28,440 --> 00:13:32,640
Speaker 3: Queen Hatchepsitt of the eighteenth dynasty in the same way.

220
00:13:32,920 --> 00:13:37,839
Speaker 3: Quote kissing your hand, licking your limbs, endowing your majesty

221
00:13:38,120 --> 00:13:44,360
Speaker 3: with life and dominion. Yeah. Interesting. I think it's interesting

222
00:13:44,440 --> 00:13:48,760
Speaker 3: there the way that seems to be casting the Pharaoh,

223
00:13:48,800 --> 00:13:52,280
Speaker 3: who we want their image to be one of power

224
00:13:52,280 --> 00:13:55,800
Speaker 3: and dominion, life, power, vigor, dominion, Like it's saying they're

225
00:13:55,840 --> 00:14:01,000
Speaker 3: being given, you know, the majesty of the throne in

226
00:14:01,040 --> 00:14:05,240
Speaker 3: this saying here, But the imagery is actually of a

227
00:14:05,280 --> 00:14:08,680
Speaker 3: little baby being taken care of by its mother in nature,

228
00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:11,240
Speaker 3: a calf being licked by the mother cow.

229
00:14:11,760 --> 00:14:13,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. And if you've ever seen, I mean certainly we have.

230
00:14:14,280 --> 00:14:18,640
Speaker 2: We have farmers and folks that live more closely to

231
00:14:19,320 --> 00:14:21,440
Speaker 2: cattle out there who can attest to this as well.

232
00:14:21,640 --> 00:14:24,600
Speaker 2: But if you've seen at least seen footage of this occurring,

233
00:14:24,880 --> 00:14:27,440
Speaker 2: there is almost this sense that like the cow is

234
00:14:27,640 --> 00:14:30,600
Speaker 2: the cat, the calf is born, and then the cow

235
00:14:30,880 --> 00:14:33,720
Speaker 2: licks this calf, and that is what truly brings it

236
00:14:33,760 --> 00:14:36,320
Speaker 2: to life. Yeah. So you can you can see where

237
00:14:36,320 --> 00:14:39,720
Speaker 2: this powerful connection could be forged, you know, just via

238
00:14:39,840 --> 00:14:41,520
Speaker 2: observation of the natural world.

239
00:14:41,760 --> 00:14:42,320
Speaker 4: Yeah.

240
00:14:42,480 --> 00:14:43,920
Speaker 3: So I want to come back to some of these

241
00:14:44,040 --> 00:14:47,400
Speaker 3: licking behaviors and animals in the next part in this series,

242
00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:49,680
Speaker 3: where we're definitely going to talk about wound licking and

243
00:14:50,480 --> 00:14:54,680
Speaker 3: about licking of offspring as well. But coming back to

244
00:14:55,720 --> 00:14:59,400
Speaker 3: the magical looking here, that which is true of gods

245
00:14:59,400 --> 00:15:02,880
Speaker 3: and pharaoh is also true of spirits in the afterlife.

246
00:15:03,320 --> 00:15:05,280
Speaker 3: In the Book of the Dead, we are told that

247
00:15:05,400 --> 00:15:08,520
Speaker 3: Hathor licks the dead man's hand to give him the

248
00:15:08,560 --> 00:15:12,040
Speaker 3: power of rebirth. And then there's a really interesting aside

249
00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:14,560
Speaker 3: by Writtener here where he compares this to a story

250
00:15:14,560 --> 00:15:18,400
Speaker 3: that's not from Egyptian texts but from Greek legends. So

251
00:15:18,480 --> 00:15:23,200
Speaker 3: Writtner writes, quote, a contrasting concept associated with the APIs

252
00:15:23,280 --> 00:15:27,160
Speaker 3: bull survives in the Greek legends of the astronomer Eudoxus

253
00:15:27,200 --> 00:15:30,880
Speaker 3: of Nidos, a pupil of Plato who subsequently traveled to

254
00:15:30,960 --> 00:15:33,920
Speaker 3: Egypt to study with the native clergy in the fourth

255
00:15:33,920 --> 00:15:38,359
Speaker 3: century BC. When his cloak was licked by the APIs,

256
00:15:38,520 --> 00:15:41,720
Speaker 3: Eudoxus was informed by the priests that his fame would

257
00:15:41,760 --> 00:15:45,440
Speaker 3: be great, but that his life would be short. He had,

258
00:15:45,560 --> 00:15:50,720
Speaker 3: in effect acquired certain qualities of Osiris transmitted by the

259
00:15:50,760 --> 00:15:55,240
Speaker 3: god's earthly representative, the APIs. We know we actually did

260
00:15:55,240 --> 00:16:00,120
Speaker 3: some episodes a while back on the Osiris legend, and

261
00:16:00,160 --> 00:16:04,000
Speaker 3: of course Osiris is a god who is killed and dismembered,

262
00:16:04,640 --> 00:16:08,240
Speaker 3: so that, yeah, there's a duality there. Of course Osiris

263
00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:12,640
Speaker 3: is great and powerful and is famed, but does suffer

264
00:16:12,720 --> 00:16:16,520
Speaker 3: this fate before being sort of reassembled in the afterlife.

265
00:16:16,840 --> 00:16:20,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he death is part of his existence.

266
00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:23,720
Speaker 2: I mean, as as it is for all of us.

267
00:16:23,800 --> 00:16:28,440
Speaker 3: To be clear, But that combination of greatness and early

268
00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:32,520
Speaker 3: doom is transferred to this human being when it is

269
00:16:32,640 --> 00:16:45,320
Speaker 3: licked by the bull that represents the power of Osiris.

270
00:16:46,240 --> 00:16:49,440
Speaker 3: Now I want to turn to therapeutic licking, So spells

271
00:16:49,520 --> 00:16:53,720
Speaker 3: that are actually designed to heal heal wounds. There were

272
00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:57,920
Speaker 3: healing rituals performed by human priests that probably would involve

273
00:16:58,040 --> 00:17:02,120
Speaker 3: literal licking. An example he is the Coffin Texts spell

274
00:17:02,200 --> 00:17:06,040
Speaker 3: eighty one, where the performer of the spell identifies himself

275
00:17:06,080 --> 00:17:10,320
Speaker 3: with Shoe, the god of air, light and wind, whose

276
00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:14,359
Speaker 3: name means emptiness. In this spell, the hand of the

277
00:17:14,400 --> 00:17:20,119
Speaker 3: deceased is painted with representations of eight Egyptian deities in

278
00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:24,560
Speaker 3: yellow pigment and Nubian ochre, and then the spell is

279
00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:29,000
Speaker 3: spoken aloud over these images, and then finally it says

280
00:17:29,080 --> 00:17:32,320
Speaker 3: that the painted images of the gods are to be

281
00:17:32,520 --> 00:17:37,600
Speaker 3: quote licked off every day very early. Rittner says that

282
00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:40,960
Speaker 3: like many of the Coffin text spells, it sounds like

283
00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:44,040
Speaker 3: it is meant exclusively for the benefit of the dead,

284
00:17:44,200 --> 00:17:47,919
Speaker 3: but it was probably actually used by the living. It

285
00:17:47,960 --> 00:17:50,720
Speaker 3: sounds kind of weird as phrased, But I wonder if

286
00:17:50,760 --> 00:17:53,800
Speaker 3: the idea of licking off the images of the gods

287
00:17:54,200 --> 00:17:59,000
Speaker 3: very early, meaning in the morning, corresponds to the time

288
00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:02,040
Speaker 3: of dawn, because Writtner points out that there is a

289
00:18:02,119 --> 00:18:06,520
Speaker 3: mythological passage sighted in the spell, and this passage states

290
00:18:06,560 --> 00:18:09,639
Speaker 3: that the gods shoe is blessed with kisses from the

291
00:18:09,680 --> 00:18:13,760
Speaker 3: sun god Autumn every day, and the Coffin texts sometimes

292
00:18:13,880 --> 00:18:16,919
Speaker 3: use the imagery of a favored deity getting licked with

293
00:18:17,119 --> 00:18:19,200
Speaker 3: sunshine by the sun god at dawn.

294
00:18:19,560 --> 00:18:20,600
Speaker 2: Oh nice.

295
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:24,400
Speaker 3: And again this is especially significant because the sun god Autumn,

296
00:18:24,680 --> 00:18:28,960
Speaker 3: as one of the creator deities, has especially powerful saliva,

297
00:18:29,080 --> 00:18:32,800
Speaker 3: creative saliva. He can spit gods into existence, and now

298
00:18:32,880 --> 00:18:36,359
Speaker 3: at dawn he licks the world with his rays. Some

299
00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:40,120
Speaker 3: curative looking had nothing to do with funerary use or imagery.

300
00:18:40,119 --> 00:18:42,800
Speaker 3: It was just good old fashioned healing. Of body ailments.

301
00:18:43,440 --> 00:18:47,440
Speaker 3: So Writtner cites a twelfth dynasty manuscript known as Papyrus

302
00:18:47,480 --> 00:18:51,679
Speaker 3: Turin fifty four zero zero three, which includes the following

303
00:18:51,720 --> 00:18:54,880
Speaker 3: spell for the treatment of the eyes. And by the way,

304
00:18:54,920 --> 00:18:58,080
Speaker 3: I looked up this papyrus to see what else it said.

305
00:18:58,160 --> 00:19:00,360
Speaker 3: In addition to the spells for healing the eyes, which

306
00:19:00,359 --> 00:19:02,760
Speaker 3: I'm going to read from here, it's got spells designed

307
00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:07,000
Speaker 3: to protect from serpents and to extract fish bones. I

308
00:19:07,040 --> 00:19:09,520
Speaker 3: didn't figure out extract them from wear, Maybe from.

309
00:19:09,320 --> 00:19:11,600
Speaker 2: The throat or from the fish.

310
00:19:12,280 --> 00:19:13,920
Speaker 3: I don't know. I want to learn more about that,

311
00:19:14,400 --> 00:19:16,600
Speaker 3: but I didn't get there. So this is the part

312
00:19:16,640 --> 00:19:19,840
Speaker 3: about healing the eyes. I thought this text is great.

313
00:19:20,400 --> 00:19:24,560
Speaker 3: So this is the Writtner's translation here quote, my eyes

314
00:19:24,600 --> 00:19:27,360
Speaker 3: are opened by the Great One. My eyes are opened

315
00:19:27,480 --> 00:19:30,840
Speaker 3: by the Opener. The eyes of Hathor are opened in

316
00:19:30,880 --> 00:19:33,760
Speaker 3: the house of the statue. The eyes of Hathor are

317
00:19:33,800 --> 00:19:36,680
Speaker 3: opened in the house of Gold, that she might look

318
00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:40,200
Speaker 3: at that red animal when he opens his mouth, when

319
00:19:40,240 --> 00:19:43,120
Speaker 3: he opens his jaws, when he looks at that pupil

320
00:19:43,160 --> 00:19:46,639
Speaker 3: of gold. Feance. And by the way, we just had

321
00:19:46,680 --> 00:19:48,080
Speaker 3: to look that up because neither of us knew what

322
00:19:48,160 --> 00:19:50,600
Speaker 3: it was. That's like a type of tin glazed pottery,

323
00:19:51,520 --> 00:19:56,679
Speaker 3: pupil of gold, feance, quartz and Carnelian which flourishes on

324
00:19:56,840 --> 00:20:02,000
Speaker 3: the eye of the Majesty of Ta when isis bent over,

325
00:20:02,440 --> 00:20:06,199
Speaker 3: she licked it. When I bent over my eye, I

326
00:20:06,320 --> 00:20:09,600
Speaker 3: licked it from this my face, from this my eye,

327
00:20:09,640 --> 00:20:12,680
Speaker 3: I dispelled. The blow of a god, goddess, dead man

328
00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:16,720
Speaker 3: or dead woman dispelled. Is the obscurity being thoroughly stripped

329
00:20:16,720 --> 00:20:20,000
Speaker 3: away as she has licked what was done to him.

330
00:20:20,440 --> 00:20:23,280
Speaker 3: So Mott has licked what was done to her. And

331
00:20:23,320 --> 00:20:25,360
Speaker 3: then the last sentence to be said by a man

332
00:20:25,400 --> 00:20:30,359
Speaker 3: as he puts water into his eyes. Though these spells

333
00:20:30,359 --> 00:20:34,400
Speaker 3: are often best interpreted literally when it comes to physical action,

334
00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:37,480
Speaker 3: in this case, Writtner says that the licking might not

335
00:20:37,600 --> 00:20:40,719
Speaker 3: be literal because there's that last sentence that seems to

336
00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:44,320
Speaker 3: specify the spell is spoken as a man symbolically licks

337
00:20:44,359 --> 00:20:46,720
Speaker 3: his eyes by placing eye drops into them.

338
00:20:47,040 --> 00:20:50,359
Speaker 2: Hmmm, yeah, yeah, okay, Yeah, you could think of putting

339
00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:53,640
Speaker 2: eye drops in as licking. Yeah, the licking of the eye. Yeah,

340
00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:55,120
Speaker 2: I mean, it's accomplished the same thing.

341
00:20:55,440 --> 00:20:58,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's like the gods are licking my eyes as

342
00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:01,680
Speaker 3: I put eye drops in isis is down licking my eye.

343
00:21:02,960 --> 00:21:05,399
Speaker 3: But there is literal licking and healing magic as well.

344
00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:10,320
Speaker 3: Many of these spells prescribe actually the licking off of

345
00:21:10,560 --> 00:21:15,600
Speaker 3: images or words of the spell, sometimes inscribed on the hand,

346
00:21:15,760 --> 00:21:17,560
Speaker 3: like I mentioned earlier, with those you know the eight

347
00:21:17,600 --> 00:21:19,400
Speaker 3: gods are written on the hand, and then you must

348
00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:23,480
Speaker 3: lick it off very early, very early every day. There

349
00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:28,359
Speaker 3: is an anti scorpion sting magical spell from Papyrus Turin

350
00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:32,040
Speaker 3: one nine ninety three the legend of Isis and the

351
00:21:32,080 --> 00:21:34,800
Speaker 3: secret name of Ray, and it goes like this. This

352
00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:38,440
Speaker 3: is written theer's translation again quote words to be recited

353
00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:41,240
Speaker 3: over an image of Autumn and horrus of praise, a

354
00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:44,159
Speaker 3: figure of Isis and an image of Horus drawn on

355
00:21:44,240 --> 00:21:46,719
Speaker 3: the hand of the sufferer, and licked off by the

356
00:21:46,760 --> 00:21:50,400
Speaker 3: man do likewise on a strip of fine linen placed

357
00:21:50,400 --> 00:21:54,200
Speaker 3: on the sufferer at his throat. Its plant is scorpion plant,

358
00:21:54,880 --> 00:21:57,000
Speaker 3: and that is a type of plant. I think it's

359
00:21:57,000 --> 00:22:00,960
Speaker 3: supposed to resemble a scorpion's tail or. Ground up with

360
00:22:01,080 --> 00:22:03,480
Speaker 3: beer or wine. It is drunk by the man who

361
00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:06,480
Speaker 3: has a scorpion sting. It is what kills the poison

362
00:22:06,720 --> 00:22:12,639
Speaker 3: truly effective, proved a million times. So you draw the

363
00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:16,800
Speaker 3: gods on the scorpion victim's hand and then someone licks

364
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:19,680
Speaker 3: the image off. Actually couldn't tell from the text when

365
00:22:19,720 --> 00:22:22,639
Speaker 3: it says licked off by the man. I don't know

366
00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:25,000
Speaker 3: if that means licked off by the same part by

367
00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:27,200
Speaker 3: the victim they're licking their own hand, or licked off

368
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:29,520
Speaker 3: by someone else like the person performing the spell. I

369
00:22:29,520 --> 00:22:32,280
Speaker 3: couldn't quite tell from the text. But then yeah, it

370
00:22:32,320 --> 00:22:37,000
Speaker 3: says proof of scorpion cure confirmed, and Writtener cites another

371
00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:40,240
Speaker 3: spell curing scorpion sting that includes a recitation of a

372
00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:43,960
Speaker 3: myth of a wound received by a Nubis which was

373
00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:47,720
Speaker 3: cured by Isis, in which Isis tells a Nubis quote,

374
00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:51,119
Speaker 3: lick from your tongue to your heart, and vice versa,

375
00:22:51,560 --> 00:22:54,080
Speaker 3: up to the edges of the wound. Lick to the

376
00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:56,520
Speaker 3: edges of the wound, up to the limits of your strength.

377
00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:59,840
Speaker 3: What you shall lick, you shall swallow. Do not spit

378
00:22:59,880 --> 00:23:02,080
Speaker 3: it out on the ground. For your tongue is the

379
00:23:02,119 --> 00:23:05,280
Speaker 3: tongue of Shay, and your tongue is that of autumn.

380
00:23:06,400 --> 00:23:10,560
Speaker 3: And the patient benefiting from the spell, so is told

381
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:14,080
Speaker 3: to quote, lick your wound with your tongue immediately while

382
00:23:14,080 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 3: it is still bleeding. And the patient here has become

383
00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:21,280
Speaker 3: identified with Anubis, who is at once a god, but

384
00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:26,400
Speaker 3: also in these reflections of natural observations observations of animals

385
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:31,040
Speaker 3: in nature, is also a dog licking its wounds. Fascinating,

386
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:35,360
Speaker 3: But it's also interesting how many of these spells advised

387
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:41,320
Speaker 3: licking of a written spell to absorb or consume its power,

388
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 3: and that seems to come back to the belief that

389
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:48,159
Speaker 3: words in themselves have power. It's not just like that

390
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:52,520
Speaker 3: the word causes you to do something that gives the

391
00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:55,480
Speaker 3: spell power, but actually writing the spell or having some

392
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 3: kind of inscription on something on a linen or on

393
00:23:59,119 --> 00:24:02,720
Speaker 3: the body and then licking it can transfer the power

394
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:05,840
Speaker 3: of the spell because you licked the words into you.

395
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:13,160
Speaker 2: This is so fascinating because this really feels foreign from

396
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 2: at least the modern Western conception of various magics. You know,

397
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:21,640
Speaker 2: this seems like something that, assuming I'm understanding it correctly,

398
00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:25,160
Speaker 2: is largely lost. It's possible I'm not thinking of some

399
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:28,560
Speaker 2: more direct connection, so if anyone out there can think

400
00:24:28,600 --> 00:24:30,119
Speaker 2: of one, but yeah, I'm just trying to think of

401
00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 2: any other system of magic, real or imagined, that has

402
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:35,920
Speaker 2: involved something like this.

403
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:39,360
Speaker 3: You eat the words by licking them, and the words

404
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:42,160
Speaker 3: have the power, and the power goes into you when

405
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 3: you lick them.

406
00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:45,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess that. You know, there are

407
00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 2: things involving, say the eating of pages, that sort of thing.

408
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:51,320
Speaker 2: I can maybe think to some examples that get into

409
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 2: that area. But like the idea of something is is

410
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:57,800
Speaker 2: printed on the skin and then that is licked off

411
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:00,919
Speaker 2: of the skin and they're and lies the magic.

412
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:05,720
Speaker 3: Yeah. Now, in addition to all of this protective licking, healing, licking,

413
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:10,639
Speaker 3: blessings from licking, there is also offensive licking in Egyptian magic.

414
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:13,640
Speaker 3: Because the hecka magic, as we talked about last month,

415
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 3: it was morally neutral in a way it could be

416
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 3: used to help or to harm than those were equally

417
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 3: legitimate uses for it. There are a bunch of texts

418
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 3: that describe licking in various sometimes obscure ways, as a

419
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:32,919
Speaker 3: violent or offensive act. For example, the threat of being

420
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:37,520
Speaker 3: licked by a venomous serpent. And you know, so there

421
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 3: are texts that talk about the serpent shall lick you,

422
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 3: and that's like a thing you don't want, in which

423
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:46,719
Speaker 3: case I was kind of wondering if some uses of

424
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 3: licking by a serpent could be a case of observing

425
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:57,120
Speaker 3: observing nature and watching the way that a snake will

426
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:00,159
Speaker 3: flick its tongue in the air like and thinking that

427
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:03,199
Speaker 3: a snake maybe deposits its venom with a lick of

428
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,720
Speaker 3: the tongue rather than injection through a bite. This might

429
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:09,879
Speaker 3: be a natural conclusion if you've seen a snake flicking

430
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:12,560
Speaker 3: its tongue. And also I don't know of examples from

431
00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 3: Age and Egypt that make this connection explicit, but at

432
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:17,919
Speaker 3: lots of other times and places in history people have

433
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:21,240
Speaker 3: thought this. This is a common belief throughout different cultures

434
00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:24,639
Speaker 3: and times that people think that the snake delivers venom

435
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 3: with its tongue.

436
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:29,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, well, they are very tongue forward in

437
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:31,119
Speaker 2: their presentation. Yeah.

438
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:33,199
Speaker 3: And actually this led into I wanted to do a

439
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 3: brief scientific aside on why do snakes actually flick their tongues?

440
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:40,360
Speaker 3: So I was reading a few things. There's one very

441
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 3: good overview explainer on the research here, hosted on the

442
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 3: Conversation by a herpetologist named Andrew Durso from twenty fourteen,

443
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:52,159
Speaker 3: called why do snakes flick their tongues? People have wondered

444
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:54,680
Speaker 3: about this for ages. Again, there are many people who

445
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:59,159
Speaker 3: thought that the tongue is the thing that delivers venom. Also,

446
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:03,360
Speaker 3: some writers from the seventeenth century even positive that snakes

447
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 3: would use their the forked tips of their tongues like

448
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:09,320
Speaker 3: pincers to catch prey, you know, like tweezers that come

449
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 3: out of the mouth and snatch them. That, as far

450
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 3: as we know, that's not true. In reality, the snake's

451
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 3: tongue is part of a highly developed chemosensory system for

452
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 3: detecting molecules in the air and along the substrate of

453
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:27,959
Speaker 3: the ground, revealing the presence of important things to the snake,

454
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 3: like prey or a potential mate. The closest analogy in

455
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 3: human senses would be taste and smell, though those might

456
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:40,640
Speaker 3: give you the incorrect idea that the flicking tongue itself

457
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 3: is the organ that tastes or smells the chemical signatures,

458
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:48,639
Speaker 3: and it is not. The chemical sensing organ is actually

459
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,879
Speaker 3: located on the roof of the snake's mouth, and it

460
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 3: is called the vomeronasal system or Jacobsen's organ. Research has

461
00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:00,440
Speaker 3: shown that what generally happens when the snake flick its

462
00:28:00,480 --> 00:28:03,479
Speaker 3: tongue out to lick the air or the ground. Is

463
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:07,680
Speaker 3: that the tongue acts like a flypaper trap for chemical signature.

464
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 3: Is it goes out and it touches the ground or

465
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 3: whips around in the air, and then molecules along the

466
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:16,640
Speaker 3: ground are suspended in the air stick to the tongue.

467
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:20,160
Speaker 3: The tongue brings the molecules back into the mouth when

468
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 3: it retracts, and it somehow delivers them to the Jacobson's organ.

469
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 3: And this article it was talking about at least in

470
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:29,680
Speaker 3: some snakes, the way it works is the tongue comes

471
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:33,479
Speaker 3: in and it deposits those molecules on pads on the

472
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:36,880
Speaker 3: floor of the mouth cavity, and then these pads then

473
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:40,480
Speaker 3: deliver the molecules to the sensitive cells in the Jacobson's

474
00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 3: organ on the roof of the mouth when the snake

475
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 3: closes its jaw.

476
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 2: We talked a little bit about the Jacobson organ in

477
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 2: our episodes on Urine last year. Yeah, I think it

478
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 2: was last year, in the last year or so, and yeah,

479
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 2: we talked about it's like the stinky kitty face and

480
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 2: so forth, and so the seeming lack of a system

481
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 2: like this in human beings, or at least contemporary human beings.

482
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the Jacobsen's organ is of vastly different levels

483
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 3: of importance to different animals. For snakes, it's highly important

484
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 3: because a lot of snakes have these really sensitive, well

485
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 3: developed chemical sensing powers, and they need them in order

486
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 3: to hunt and to mate. One interesting thing about the

487
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:27,959
Speaker 3: way the snake uses its tongue to sense chemical signatures

488
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 3: is that it can even detect differences in the relative

489
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 3: density of smells across three dimensions. This is at least

490
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 3: in part what the fork of the tongue is for.

491
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 3: So when the snake sticks its tongue out, the tips

492
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 3: of the forked tongue spread apart, and that creates a

493
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 3: stereo signal. So if they detect that the smell trail

494
00:29:52,120 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 3: they're following, maybe a male copperhead is trying to follow

495
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 3: the trail of a female so it can mate. If

496
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 3: it detects that the smell trail is stronger on the

497
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 3: left tip, the snake will turn its head to the

498
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 3: left and adjust course to follow the scent more directly,

499
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 3: kind of like how we can use the stereo signal

500
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 3: from our two ears to locate the directional origin of sounds.

501
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 3: Another interesting thing is that some snakes have venom that

502
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 3: is specially evolved to work together with their vomor nasal system.

503
00:30:24,720 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 3: For example, ambush predators these snakes that bite prey and

504
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 3: then wait for that prey to run away and die

505
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 3: before eating. Presumably this helps them avoid struggling with prey

506
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 3: that might fight back in some way. So you've got,

507
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:41,720
Speaker 3: of course, the directly harmful paralyzing compounds in the venom,

508
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 3: But this venom also has stuff in it that is

509
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 3: easy for the snake to smell. It's like putting a

510
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 3: little stinky tracer into your bite, so that later the

511
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 3: predator can follow the scent of the envenomed prey to

512
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,239
Speaker 3: the place where it collapses, and then the snake can

513
00:30:59,280 --> 00:30:59,960
Speaker 3: feast at its.

514
00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 2: Life like a tracker.

515
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, but what about so that's you know why

516
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:08,320
Speaker 3: you got the fork, and how what the snake is

517
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 3: using its tongue for. But what about that rapid flicking

518
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 3: of the tongue motion we've all seen. So snake sticks

519
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 3: its tongue out, and it doesn't just go out and

520
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 3: then back in. Sometimes it goes out and then just

521
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:22,160
Speaker 3: like vibrates all over the place, flicks up and down rapidly.

522
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:25,720
Speaker 3: What is that for? It seems this is a trick

523
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 3: to help increase the collection of volatile molecules. It by

524
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 3: flicking back and forth rapidly, the snake's tongue creates vortices

525
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 3: in the air, basically stirring the air up to expose

526
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 3: the surface area of the tongue to more air volume

527
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 3: and thus more volatile molecules. Kind Of like I was

528
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 3: trying to think of an analogy. Imagine you've got a

529
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:52,520
Speaker 3: bunch of styrofoam packing peanuts floating in a bath tub

530
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 3: and you're trying to collect them with a sticky rod.

531
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 3: You would collect a lot more of them by sticking

532
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 3: the rod into the bath and vigorously stirring it up

533
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 3: instead of just doing a simple like dip in and out.

534
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 2: Okay, that makes sense.

535
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:11,640
Speaker 3: So anyway, side quest over on the snake tongue science.

536
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 3: Coming back to magical licking for just a moment. There's

537
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 3: also the idea of offensive spell. So that came from

538
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 3: the idea that you know, a snake could, maybe a

539
00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 3: serpent could harm you by licking. But I also wanted

540
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 3: to talk about the horrifying idea of magical licks from

541
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 3: a deadly crocodile or of other malevolent actors in the afterlife,

542
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 3: especially which can be attacks in themselves or could remove

543
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 3: your most important spells for the afterlife. So Writtener lists

544
00:32:44,080 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 3: a number of passages from the Coffin texts and from

545
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 3: the Book of the Dead which invoke the terrible threat

546
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:52,720
Speaker 3: of licking as a way to attack and remove the

547
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:56,800
Speaker 3: protection of the deceased. Just a few of these different passages.

548
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 3: One of them is, as for any God, goddess, spirit,

549
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 3: dead man, or dead woman who shall lick off his

550
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 3: spell against me today, he shall fall to the execution blocks,

551
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 3: to the magic that is in my body, the terrible

552
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 3: flames that are in my mouth. Okay, so that's a

553
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 3: kind of curse. That's saying you're gonna try to lick

554
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 3: my spells off, you're gonna get it. And then it's

555
00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 3: funny that one of the threats is almost sounds like

556
00:33:24,640 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 3: it doesn't say the word licking, but the counter threat

557
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 3: is the terrible flames that are in my mouth. Sounds

558
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 3: like a threat to lick, lick with fire. Another one

559
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 3: of these quotes, as for any god or dead man

560
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 3: who shall lick off his spell in my presence. On

561
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 3: this day he shall fall to the depths. And then

562
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 3: another one back, Oh crocodile who is in the west,

563
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 3: For there is a serpent in this my belly. I

564
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 3: shall not be given to you. You shall not lick

565
00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 3: off my spell.

566
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 2: Oh wow, So I thought this was just.

567
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 3: Such interesting imagery, the terror at the idea of licking

568
00:33:57,760 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 3: off of spells by the crocodile or by some other

569
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 3: evil actor as a grave threat to the deceased. Sometimes

570
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:10,799
Speaker 3: the phrasing is kind of ambiguous in that I'm not

571
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 3: sure whose spell it is saying that the offender is

572
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:17,319
Speaker 3: licking off. Sometimes it's clearly saying like, you're not going

573
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 3: to lick off my spells, But then other times it's

574
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 3: saying like, if you try to lick off your spell

575
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:26,239
Speaker 3: or lick off somebody else's spell, that's really danger. I

576
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 3: wonder then if it's like a threat against you trying

577
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:33,879
Speaker 3: to power up by licking your own spell to give

578
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:36,879
Speaker 3: you power against me. I couldn't quite tell exactly what that.

579
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:39,319
Speaker 2: Means, Like I will lick your spell before you can

580
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:41,800
Speaker 2: lick it and cast it at me. Yeah, So clearly

581
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:45,879
Speaker 2: this needs to be developed into a magical system for

582
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 2: modern role playing games.

583
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so I admit that I don't fully understand

584
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:52,920
Speaker 3: exactly what's being talked about in some of these texts,

585
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 3: but in some of them it's, oh, it's so interesting.

586
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:58,919
Speaker 3: Just like the lick of the crocodile could itself, I think,

587
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 3: be envisioned as an attack on its own. That's just like,

588
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:05,000
Speaker 3: you know, it's like the crocodile kind of moving to

589
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:10,080
Speaker 3: devour you. The lick is some part of that action,

590
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 3: but also the specific threat of licking off of spells

591
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 3: is a hostile act by which the crocodile removes the

592
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:21,800
Speaker 3: dead person's magical armor. So in the end of this section,

593
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 3: Writtener writes, quote where licking serves primarily to transfer saliva,

594
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 3: it is but a variant of ritual spitting, and maybe

595
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 3: construed as a blessing cure or curse. So that's one mechanism,

596
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:35,359
Speaker 3: the transfer of saliva. But the other is quote where

597
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:39,080
Speaker 3: licking serves primarily as a means of consumption. However, it

598
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 3: is but a variant of ritual swallowing, employed either to

599
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 3: ingest divine force or to devour hostile figures. And this

600
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 3: kind of just by association got me thinking about another

601
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 3: kind of offensive licking, not at all related to ancient

602
00:35:56,600 --> 00:35:58,759
Speaker 3: Egyptian magic, though I don't know, maybe some of the

603
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 3: same intuitions are at work, who knows. I was thinking

604
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 3: about when kids lick something to form an attack, to

605
00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 3: intentionally contaminate that object, to claim ownership or deny access

606
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:18,839
Speaker 3: to another child. Sometimes I think this is done to say, like,

607
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 3: this object is mine, I'm gonna lick it, like I'm

608
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 3: gonna lick this food so you don't eat the food.

609
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:26,439
Speaker 2: Classic example being like a roll, or like a dinner

610
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:27,360
Speaker 2: roll at a table.

611
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:30,799
Speaker 3: Yes, or sometimes so. Sometimes it's like claiming like this

612
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 3: is for me, don't you mess with it because I'm

613
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:35,239
Speaker 3: gonna lick it. But a lot of times it's done,

614
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 3: apparently just to annoy or provoke another child on purpose,

615
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:44,360
Speaker 3: like licking your siblings dinner role or licking your siblings

616
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:47,319
Speaker 3: ice cream cone, or even not non foods, licking their

617
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:49,799
Speaker 3: toy as a provocation. Do you remember this?

618
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:56,319
Speaker 2: No, I remember the dinner roll sort of situation, But yeah,

619
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:59,359
Speaker 2: not so. I mean, you know kids do this sort

620
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:01,240
Speaker 2: of thing, but I don't have a lot of direct

621
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:02,000
Speaker 2: experience with it.

622
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, anyway, I was wondering if there was any

623
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:08,080
Speaker 3: research in psychology or child development on this. I went looking.

624
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 3: I couldn't find anything directly investigating the practice of intentionally

625
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:16,520
Speaker 3: licking things, either to inflict harm or annoyance or to

626
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:20,200
Speaker 3: claim them. But I did find a peripherally related study.

627
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 3: This was by Jasmine DeJesus, Kristin Schutz, and Catherine Kinsler,

628
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 3: published in the journal Appetite in twenty fifteen called ew

629
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:35,360
Speaker 3: She Sneezed. Contamination context affects children's food preferences and consumption.

630
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 3: This is kind of funny. So the study looked into

631
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:43,839
Speaker 3: the question how does a child's understanding of contamination in

632
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:49,360
Speaker 3: food develop and how does contextual information about the life

633
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 3: history of a piece of food affect a child's disgust reaction,

634
00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:56,400
Speaker 3: like apart from qualities of appearance or taste in the

635
00:37:56,440 --> 00:38:00,880
Speaker 3: food itself. So to study this, the researchers looked at

636
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:03,839
Speaker 3: children between the ages of three and eight, and they

637
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:07,759
Speaker 3: presented them with identical food items. The only difference was

638
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:10,680
Speaker 3: that one was the control where nothing had happened to it,

639
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:14,200
Speaker 3: and the other, while the food item was exactly the same,

640
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:17,319
Speaker 3: was given a story with a visual aid which is

641
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:21,040
Speaker 3: somebody licked the spoon you have to use to eat this.

642
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 3: And then they also tested somebody sneezed on the bowl

643
00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:27,799
Speaker 3: in which this is served. They didn't really do this,

644
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:30,720
Speaker 3: there was some trickery involved, but they made the children

645
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:32,759
Speaker 3: think the spoon had been licked or the bull had

646
00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 3: been sneezed on and the author's rite quote. When given

647
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:38,799
Speaker 3: the opportunity to eat the foods, five to eight year

648
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 3: old children consumed more clean food and rated the clean

649
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:47,440
Speaker 3: food's taste more positively. Younger children did not distinguish between

650
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 3: the foods. The relation between contamination and subjective taste held

651
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:55,840
Speaker 3: even among children who ate both foods and had direct

652
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 3: evidence that they were identical. So, yeah, I thought it

653
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 3: was kind of interesting. Like, three year olds, on average,

654
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 3: at least in this sample, don't seem to much care

655
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:08,080
Speaker 3: if food is contaminated with a spoon somebody else's licked,

656
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 3: as long as it still appears yummy. But by ages

657
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:16,920
Speaker 3: five to eight, we've got a psychological contamination reflex. Food

658
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:20,279
Speaker 3: that has been contaminated by a licked spoon or is

659
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:23,960
Speaker 3: served in a sneezed on bowl acquires this ick factor.

660
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:27,439
Speaker 3: The kids desire to eat the food less, and when

661
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 3: they do eat it, they think it tastes worse, even

662
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:33,840
Speaker 3: though they can sample both foods directly and there's actually

663
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 3: no difference. And so, of course, in my many, like

664
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:39,799
Speaker 3: you know, wondering about parenting things, I have been thinking

665
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 3: about the different like trade offs in the development of

666
00:39:42,840 --> 00:39:46,880
Speaker 3: the disgust reaction, because it's clearly not that young children

667
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:51,040
Speaker 3: fully lack a disgust reaction, Like young children will often

668
00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:54,799
Speaker 3: show disgust reactions to perfectly healthy, nutritious foods, but it's

669
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:56,319
Speaker 3: just like I don't like, I don't want to eat

670
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 3: that vegetable. I don't know, no, no disgusting, you know,

671
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:02,920
Speaker 3: instant disgust reaction to just the appearance or smell of

672
00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:04,200
Speaker 3: a food they haven't even tried.

673
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:09,440
Speaker 2: I've heard it put before that some of this gets

674
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 2: down to the fact that if a child were to

675
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 2: eat something that we're toxic, their smaller bodies would make

676
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 2: them more susceptible to damage from said thing, and therefore

677
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:24,279
Speaker 2: they're more susceptible to the ick factor. On top of that, though,

678
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:26,319
Speaker 2: of course, there's a lot of room for just sort

679
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:30,719
Speaker 2: of like additional social contamination, you know, like this is

680
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:33,919
Speaker 2: like a personal pet peeve. But anytime I've encountered small

681
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 2: children who describe food they are presented with as disgusting,

682
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:41,240
Speaker 2: and I mean a lot of that is just has learned,

683
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:45,880
Speaker 2: like how do you how do you describe food that

684
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:48,399
Speaker 2: you do not wish to eat? And so like, that's

685
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:51,319
Speaker 2: something we always really hammered home. It's like, okay, it's

686
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 2: okay to not want to eat something, but you don't

687
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:56,880
Speaker 2: describe it as disgusting or gross. You would say something like,

688
00:40:57,000 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 2: well that is not for me, or maybe you get

689
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:01,319
Speaker 2: down to it, like why do I not like it?

690
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:03,680
Speaker 2: Is it too spicy? Is there something in the texture

691
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:06,680
Speaker 2: of it? And so forth? Is it too sour? Like?

692
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:09,680
Speaker 2: There's so much more room to explore what's going on.

693
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 2: But when you know, they throw out the oh this

694
00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 2: is gross or this is disgusting. Yeah, that's not going

695
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:17,439
Speaker 2: to win win friends and influence people either.

696
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:20,920
Speaker 3: But disgusting is an interesting descriptive word about food because

697
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 3: it doesn't actually refer to any objective qualities or inherent

698
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 3: qualities of the food itself. Disgusted is an emotion, so

699
00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:31,520
Speaker 3: it's just merely describing the child's own emotional reactions. I

700
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:34,520
Speaker 3: totally am with you. And it's yeah, it's frustrating.

701
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:34,880
Speaker 4: I don't know.

702
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:39,200
Speaker 3: I feel like, you know, the adults in our household

703
00:41:39,239 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 3: are very non picky eaters and discovering that even if

704
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,279
Speaker 3: you try to create the ultimate like you know, non

705
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:48,120
Speaker 3: picky eating environment for a child, sometimes a child's just

706
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 3: going to be a picky eater.

707
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:52,760
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's often out of your control. Yeah,

708
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 2: but we work at it.

709
00:41:53,960 --> 00:41:56,919
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, but yeah, I totally understand what you're saying

710
00:41:56,920 --> 00:41:59,880
Speaker 3: about the it's frustrating to hear a child describe some

711
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:02,520
Speaker 3: is disgusting, but yeah, that is a word that refers

712
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:06,879
Speaker 3: to their own emotions. But anyway, yeah, I'm thinking about

713
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 3: the ways that these emotions trade off. So as a

714
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:13,360
Speaker 3: child grows up, I think they a common pattern, it seems,

715
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 3: is that they lose a lot of the the pickiness

716
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 3: declines over time, and they will become more open to

717
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:26,759
Speaker 3: trying different kinds of foods inherently, but that they acquire

718
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:29,920
Speaker 3: new dimensions of the disgust reaction. And some of that

719
00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:34,440
Speaker 3: is based around knowledge of contamination of food by like

720
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 3: body fluids. So it's like if somebody licked this spoon,

721
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 3: now that's a disgust reaction and it makes the food yucky,

722
00:42:41,280 --> 00:42:42,319
Speaker 3: but I might still eat it.

723
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:45,839
Speaker 2: I should also throw in that I've also heard it

724
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 2: put that. Another aspect in play here is that young

725
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:52,319
Speaker 2: children often you know, do not have a lot of

726
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 2: choices that they can make in life, and a lot

727
00:42:55,960 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 2: of choices are made for them. But this becomes a

728
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 2: dimension where they have They often feel like they have

729
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 2: a great deal more power. Yeah, and that you know,

730
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 2: it may not be on an actual, like conscious level,

731
00:43:07,239 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 2: it's you know, maybe more subconscious, but it may be

732
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:13,160
Speaker 2: in play in some of these scenarios. I guess adults

733
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:16,400
Speaker 2: do sometimes lick food items to claim it, though I

734
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:20,920
Speaker 2: think generally it's a way of intentionally acting childish, perhaps

735
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 2: for laughs, but there may be situations where someone is

736
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 2: actually employing this as a protected strategy for their food,

737
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 2: or in a very childish fashion offensively against people they

738
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:31,960
Speaker 2: don't like.

739
00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:34,880
Speaker 3: It might be more subtle in the way the adult

740
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:36,960
Speaker 3: does it. It's not like the eh and they like

741
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:39,879
Speaker 3: the control, but they just kind of, you know, I'll

742
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:42,160
Speaker 3: take one bite of this plate before walking away.

743
00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. Generally, as an adult, you're going to find yourself

744
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 2: in a situation where I would imagine once food is

745
00:43:48,080 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 2: on your plate. It is safe, it is off limits

746
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:52,719
Speaker 2: from other people taking it, but I don't know. It's

747
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:54,719
Speaker 2: like some if there's only one of a particular bait

748
00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:57,360
Speaker 2: good and it's particularly nice that it might be different.

749
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 2: All Right. To close out this episode, I want to

750
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:14,520
Speaker 2: turn to something that came to mind the second that

751
00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:18,640
Speaker 2: you proposed an episode on licking, and it concerns something

752
00:44:18,680 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 2: that in general, children have never had any problem licking,

753
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:26,719
Speaker 2: and that is the Tutsi pop. Joe, I'm sure you

754
00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 2: grew up with this candy as well. It's been around

755
00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:31,520
Speaker 2: for quite a while. This is, of course a Tutsi

756
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:34,719
Speaker 2: roll that's a kind of chocolate chew candy. It's not

757
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:37,880
Speaker 2: really chocolate per se, but it is. It's a chocolate

758
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 2: chew that has been entombed in the middle of a

759
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 2: hard candy sucker. This comes in different flavors. I think

760
00:44:45,040 --> 00:44:47,280
Speaker 2: the one I most remember is kind of an orange flavor.

761
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:50,160
Speaker 2: And so they're kind of like the scorpion lollipops that

762
00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 2: you see in Arizona, but instead of there being an

763
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:56,279
Speaker 2: iraq knet at the center, there is a chunk of

764
00:44:56,640 --> 00:44:58,560
Speaker 2: like a glob of chocolate chewic wait.

765
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:00,200
Speaker 3: I don't know about the scorpion LOLLI.

766
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:02,719
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean you see these outside Arizona, but

767
00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:05,400
Speaker 2: I mean it's like anytime I'm at the Sky Harbor

768
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:08,759
Speaker 2: Airport in Phoenix, like you know, I have a few

769
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:10,799
Speaker 2: minutes signed up, wandering into a gift shop and they

770
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 2: have all those these little brightly colored suckers and in

771
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:16,960
Speaker 2: the middle there is an actual scorpion.

772
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:19,880
Speaker 3: So you like, lick your tongue makes contact with the scorpion.

773
00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:22,920
Speaker 2: I don't know, I've never purchased one. I don't know

774
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 2: how much of it is. Just it's just the idea

775
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:28,239
Speaker 2: of it is irresistible, so people get it. I don't

776
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 2: know what happens if you actually lick to the to

777
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:33,319
Speaker 2: the center and get the scorpion, or or in some

778
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:36,120
Speaker 2: other way get to the center. I have no idea,

779
00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 2: but their eye catching.

780
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:39,319
Speaker 3: Wow, well I've never heard of that does seem like

781
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:42,960
Speaker 3: an inversion of the Tutsi role principle, because let me

782
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:45,279
Speaker 3: run this by you. See what you think is the

783
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 3: idea of the Tutsi pop that the best part of

784
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:51,919
Speaker 3: it is in the middle, and you got to work

785
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:54,279
Speaker 3: through the outside to get down to the best part

786
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 3: in the middle.

787
00:45:55,840 --> 00:46:00,040
Speaker 2: This is a very hard question to answer, because I

788
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 2: vaguely remember as a child being far more into the

789
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:07,440
Speaker 2: candy coating as opposed to the sinner. But I think

790
00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:09,880
Speaker 2: I ate the center as well. But then I know,

791
00:46:10,280 --> 00:46:14,120
Speaker 2: like children's taste of candy is is weird, Like like

792
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:17,759
Speaker 2: there was a point where my kiddo's favorite candy, like

793
00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:19,799
Speaker 2: they got to choose which candy they got to keep

794
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:22,239
Speaker 2: before the rest went to the switch witch. And there

795
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:24,640
Speaker 2: was one year where they're like, I choose the Tutsie rolls.

796
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:26,799
Speaker 2: And so it's like, you know, I don't know fair enough,

797
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:31,800
Speaker 2: Like you're in different taste sensations that they've since it evolved,

798
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 2: So now they're more they're more of a dark chocolate

799
00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 2: enjoyer as opposed to a Tutsi roll enjoyer. So you

800
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:41,399
Speaker 2: know it changes over time.

801
00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:47,160
Speaker 3: Sophisticated now, yeah, but that would be It's funny. I

802
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:49,600
Speaker 3: just had a very similar experience of my child this year.

803
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 3: We did switchwich for the first time. This is our

804
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:54,399
Speaker 3: first real trick or treating year, and yeah, we did

805
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:58,240
Speaker 3: switch witch and she kept only the most disgusting candies.

806
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:02,200
Speaker 3: I think they were based on the colorfulness of the rapper,

807
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 3: which tends to correspond with the actually least good candy.

808
00:47:05,760 --> 00:47:08,400
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of bad stuff

809
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:11,120
Speaker 2: out there. I don't even know if Tutsi rolls were

810
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:14,320
Speaker 2: necessarily made. I mean surely Tutsi rolls were out there

811
00:47:14,560 --> 00:47:17,720
Speaker 2: in circulation, and I assume Tutsi pops as well, because

812
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:21,400
Speaker 2: they were definitely in circulation when I was triggered treating

813
00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:24,360
Speaker 2: back when I was a kid. So just to refresh,

814
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:27,800
Speaker 2: the tutsi roll itself is an eighteen ninety six invention,

815
00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 2: and I think that probably matches up with sort of

816
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:34,400
Speaker 2: like the chocolate chew aspect of the thing. If you

817
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:37,239
Speaker 2: were to have a tutsi role today, and maybe you're

818
00:47:37,280 --> 00:47:40,440
Speaker 2: having one right now, I think it does feel like

819
00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:45,040
Speaker 2: a classic candy in this regard. The Tutsi pop, however,

820
00:47:45,200 --> 00:47:48,360
Speaker 2: was a nineteen thirty one innovation. To put that in

821
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 2: cinematic terms, that is the year that the original Boris

822
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 2: Carlos Frankenstein movie came out coincidence, and then it's much

823
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:03,920
Speaker 2: later though, in nineteen sixty nine, the year Frankenstein Must

824
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 2: Be Destroyed comes out the hammer picture that we get

825
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 2: what is probably one of, if not the most famous

826
00:48:13,120 --> 00:48:15,799
Speaker 2: TV ad campaigns of all time, and I would also

827
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:21,120
Speaker 2: argue one of the best commercials of all time. I

828
00:48:21,160 --> 00:48:23,920
Speaker 2: think everyone can. I think everyone out there has probably

829
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:25,920
Speaker 2: seen this. If you haven't, just go to YouTube or

830
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 2: anywhere you will find video of this classic commercial. This

831
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:32,799
Speaker 2: is the how many licks does it take to get

832
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:36,800
Speaker 2: to the tutsi role center of a Tutsi pop commercial.

833
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:38,880
Speaker 3: I don't know how I would be wrong about this

834
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 3: that I'm wondering if I am wrong. I have memories

835
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:45,880
Speaker 3: of being a kid in the not the late sixties

836
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:48,880
Speaker 3: or seventies. I have memories of being a child in

837
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:52,800
Speaker 3: the eighties and nineties and still seeing this original commercial airing.

838
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 3: Do they just run the same commercial for decades?

839
00:48:55,200 --> 00:48:58,760
Speaker 2: Yeah? It is often presented that this is the longest

840
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:02,720
Speaker 2: running televisionmercial of all time, and that's of course difficult

841
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:05,840
Speaker 2: to impossible to actually quantify, but it might be true,

842
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:10,800
Speaker 2: Like it is across multiple generations. People have seen this ad,

843
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:14,080
Speaker 2: and I think legitimately is a testament to just how

844
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:16,840
Speaker 2: good it is. Like it is just almost a perfect

845
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:17,600
Speaker 2: ad campaign.

846
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 3: Okay, so wait for people who have never actually seen it,

847
00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:22,120
Speaker 3: how does this ad go?

848
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:24,640
Speaker 2: All? Right? So it's brilliant. It's presented in the form

849
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 2: of a fable in which a young boy brings this

850
00:49:28,160 --> 00:49:31,600
Speaker 2: particular conundrum to a series of talking animals, first a cow,

851
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:34,200
Speaker 2: then a fox and turtle, and finally a wise owl.

852
00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:37,799
Speaker 2: The child is wondering how many licks does it take

853
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:41,640
Speaker 2: to get to the center of this TUTSI pop And

854
00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:45,560
Speaker 2: before I get into describing what happens, and I do

855
00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:47,360
Speaker 2: want to just mention a little bit about the behind

856
00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:51,080
Speaker 2: the scenes here because it's pretty interesting. It was directed

857
00:49:51,080 --> 00:49:56,799
Speaker 2: by Jimmy T. Murakami, American Irish animator of Japanese American heritage,

858
00:49:56,840 --> 00:49:59,720
Speaker 2: who directed a segment of nineteen eighty one's Heavy Metal

859
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:03,720
Speaker 2: and nineteen eighties Battle Beyond the Stars, which we've discussed

860
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:05,839
Speaker 2: on in depth on Weird House Cinema.

861
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:09,279
Speaker 3: Oh, Okay, Battle Beyond was that the Roger Corman Star

862
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 3: Wars ripoff. Yes, yeah, okay, the good one Yeah.

863
00:50:13,120 --> 00:50:16,920
Speaker 2: And then among the vocal talents involved, it featured the

864
00:50:16,960 --> 00:50:20,560
Speaker 2: prolific Paul Freese mister Fox. He does a voice of

865
00:50:20,600 --> 00:50:24,320
Speaker 2: mister Fox here. Paul Freese has his voice and sometimes

866
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:26,840
Speaker 2: his physical performance have shown up in multiple films that

867
00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:29,040
Speaker 2: we've talked about on a Weird House, like When You

868
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:31,240
Speaker 2: Go to Letterbox dot Com and look at the stats

869
00:50:31,239 --> 00:50:33,799
Speaker 2: for the movies we've covered, Paul Freeze is up there

870
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:36,759
Speaker 2: in appearing in the most titles that we've covered, just

871
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:39,520
Speaker 2: sort of incidentally because you just did a lot of

872
00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:42,719
Speaker 2: bit parts and voices. But then you also have in

873
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 2: this voicing the wise owl, legendary ventriloquist Paul Winschell. He

874
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:53,080
Speaker 2: was the original tigger voice, for example, So he's doing

875
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:55,880
Speaker 2: the owl voice. And the short itself was written by

876
00:50:55,960 --> 00:51:00,880
Speaker 2: ad wizard Jerry Bernstein and looked into him a little bit,

877
00:51:00,920 --> 00:51:03,680
Speaker 2: and he's He's was a big name, and part of

878
00:51:03,719 --> 00:51:06,960
Speaker 2: his legendary status was this campaign. Like this is almost

879
00:51:07,040 --> 00:51:11,040
Speaker 2: like this is like a Madman like level successful ad

880
00:51:11,080 --> 00:51:14,799
Speaker 2: campaign like it again, survived for decades and still has

881
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:16,560
Speaker 2: cultural reach and importance today.

882
00:51:16,800 --> 00:51:18,880
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, I guess I never thought about it like that,

883
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 3: but it is like one of the ads I really

884
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:23,400
Speaker 3: remember most from childhood.

885
00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:26,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it is legitimately thought provoking. Like let's start

886
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 2: with the question, you know, how much how many licks

887
00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:31,880
Speaker 2: does it take to get to the center of this

888
00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 2: this tutsi roll pop that implies how much candy does

889
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:38,440
Speaker 2: a single lick remove from a tutsi pop? How do

890
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:42,640
Speaker 2: we quantify it, and indeed, when have we actually reached

891
00:51:42,640 --> 00:51:45,360
Speaker 2: the center of the thing, as we'll discuss, This is

892
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:48,200
Speaker 2: a question that truly ensnares the listener and forces them

893
00:51:48,200 --> 00:51:53,560
Speaker 2: to contemplate the infantiesimal. So, but then there's also the

894
00:51:53,560 --> 00:51:56,360
Speaker 2: way that is it is presented. So the cow, fox,

895
00:51:56,400 --> 00:51:59,040
Speaker 2: and turtle all reply that, hey, we don't know. We

896
00:51:59,120 --> 00:52:01,880
Speaker 2: can't know because we just end up biting through the

897
00:52:01,960 --> 00:52:04,840
Speaker 2: candy too soon. We just bite through it, so we

898
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:09,239
Speaker 2: can't answer this question. We've never really attempted to have

899
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:12,960
Speaker 2: the experience you're seeking to quantify. And they say you

900
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:16,479
Speaker 2: should go ask the wise owl, and so the child does,

901
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:19,880
Speaker 2: and the wise owl's answer to the question it smacks

902
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:22,400
Speaker 2: of both the Gordian knot, you know, in which the

903
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:25,040
Speaker 2: Gordian knot is untied by cutting it into half. And

904
00:52:25,080 --> 00:52:28,279
Speaker 2: then it also it feels vaguely almost like a like

905
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:32,320
Speaker 2: a Buddhist coon, you know, a phraser riddle that serves

906
00:52:32,360 --> 00:52:36,520
Speaker 2: as a meditation tool, sometimes in the form of a paradox,

907
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:40,440
Speaker 2: like what is the sound of one hand clapping? And

908
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:43,960
Speaker 2: so the way the owl says, well, I will answer

909
00:52:43,960 --> 00:52:48,560
Speaker 2: this question for you. Give me the tootsi pop, and

910
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:50,840
Speaker 2: he do an experiment. He says, let's do an experiment.

911
00:52:51,040 --> 00:52:53,319
Speaker 2: He says, let's find out, and he goes. He licks

912
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 2: it and says A one, looks at another time, says

913
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:58,319
Speaker 2: a two, looks at a third time and says A three,

914
00:52:58,920 --> 00:53:01,560
Speaker 2: And then Crunch bites through it and then answers three

915
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 2: three is the answer, And the child is not amused

916
00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:09,560
Speaker 2: and says, if there's anything I can't stand, it's a

917
00:53:09,600 --> 00:53:13,839
Speaker 2: smart owl. And then the narrator of the commercial asks

918
00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:16,719
Speaker 2: the question once more and says, we may never know.

919
00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 3: So, in addition to being funny, it's actually, at the

920
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:24,360
Speaker 3: risk of sounding silly, it's actually kind of philosophically interesting

921
00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:28,879
Speaker 3: because I think so it points out that there are

922
00:53:29,640 --> 00:53:34,800
Speaker 3: questions that we can ask that sound like perfectly sensible

923
00:53:34,920 --> 00:53:40,799
Speaker 3: questions that in fact do not contain enough specificity in

924
00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:42,720
Speaker 3: the question to actually be answered.

925
00:53:43,320 --> 00:53:45,799
Speaker 2: I think that's a good read of it. Yeah, yeah,

926
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:48,319
Speaker 2: I wonder too if they're Like what else we could

927
00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 2: take away from it? Like should we feel ashamed that

928
00:53:51,120 --> 00:53:54,920
Speaker 2: we can't truly savor something like this that long, that

929
00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:58,200
Speaker 2: will eventually grow tired or impatient and simply rush to

930
00:53:58,239 --> 00:54:01,279
Speaker 2: the big finish of a thing. Yeah, that too, or

931
00:54:01,400 --> 00:54:04,240
Speaker 2: are we meant or are we simply you know, refuting

932
00:54:04,239 --> 00:54:06,560
Speaker 2: the logic of the question. You know, maybe TOUTSI pops

933
00:54:06,760 --> 00:54:09,280
Speaker 2: are simply not meant to be licked to the center.

934
00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:14,400
Speaker 2: You know, perhaps you're supposed to crunch through it. Maybe

935
00:54:14,400 --> 00:54:16,520
Speaker 2: some things in life are like that. I don't know,

936
00:54:17,600 --> 00:54:19,600
Speaker 2: but it is also interesting to think about it. This

937
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:22,719
Speaker 2: is a case where an attempt to measure the perhaps immeasurable,

938
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:27,480
Speaker 2: is always interrupted by desire. So there's perhaps something telling

939
00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:32,160
Speaker 2: there like desire prevents you from answering the question, and

940
00:54:32,719 --> 00:54:34,800
Speaker 2: maybe what does that say about human nature?

941
00:54:35,040 --> 00:54:37,760
Speaker 3: The idea of getting to the center of a tissy

942
00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:43,200
Speaker 3: pop sounds uncomplicated, but actually it's a very complicated proposition.

943
00:54:43,560 --> 00:54:47,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know, despite how amusing it is and infectious,

944
00:54:47,719 --> 00:54:52,440
Speaker 2: the idea again legendary commercial. I can scarcely think of

945
00:54:52,480 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 2: one that it just sticks in the mind more. But

946
00:54:55,719 --> 00:54:59,880
Speaker 2: still it does ask a question that is subject to experimentation.

947
00:55:00,800 --> 00:55:04,520
Speaker 2: And since this commercial has aired so long and so often,

948
00:55:05,239 --> 00:55:07,880
Speaker 2: you know, it has this huge pop culture footprint across

949
00:55:07,960 --> 00:55:12,240
Speaker 2: multiple generations, so plenty of folks over time have taken

950
00:55:12,280 --> 00:55:17,200
Speaker 2: this question, experimented it with it, and produced varying results

951
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:21,640
Speaker 2: and this, you know, it varies. I've seen cases where

952
00:55:21,760 --> 00:55:26,080
Speaker 2: it's scientists doing it, you know, probably at least partially

953
00:55:26,080 --> 00:55:28,600
Speaker 2: as a lark. Other cases, this is the sort of

954
00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 2: question that makes for a great student experiment at various levels.

955
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:37,120
Speaker 2: I've seen like you know, college and graduate students writing

956
00:55:37,120 --> 00:55:39,120
Speaker 2: about this, and I'm sure it has also been explored

957
00:55:39,160 --> 00:55:42,719
Speaker 2: in like science fairs and the like. Definitely, So I'm

958
00:55:42,760 --> 00:55:44,279
Speaker 2: not sure it would be the best use of our

959
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:46,359
Speaker 2: time to go through all of the results or even

960
00:55:46,400 --> 00:55:47,960
Speaker 2: some of the big ones. I'm going to refer to

961
00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:50,640
Speaker 2: a few here, but I thought maybe we could highlight

962
00:55:50,760 --> 00:55:55,799
Speaker 2: some of the basic issues. So, first of all, this

963
00:55:56,040 --> 00:56:02,319
Speaker 2: is a quandary of tribal corrosion, meaning the synergistic degradation

964
00:56:02,520 --> 00:56:06,200
Speaker 2: of the material surface from the combined action of mechanical

965
00:56:06,239 --> 00:56:09,360
Speaker 2: wear and chemical or electrochemical corrosion.

966
00:56:09,560 --> 00:56:12,280
Speaker 3: All right, so there are at least two different things

967
00:56:12,360 --> 00:56:16,319
Speaker 3: removing the material from the tutsi pop. One is mechanical,

968
00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:19,640
Speaker 3: the scraping with the tongue, and one is chemical, the

969
00:56:19,680 --> 00:56:22,960
Speaker 3: dissolving of the sugar content of the candy by the saliva.

970
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:29,680
Speaker 2: Right right. In general, tribocorrosion questions impact designs and everything

971
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:33,840
Speaker 2: from biomedical implants to aerospace. You know, this is this

972
00:56:33,920 --> 00:56:35,879
Speaker 2: is an important area of study when you get into

973
00:56:35,960 --> 00:56:39,040
Speaker 2: the designing things and figuring out what sort of materials

974
00:56:39,080 --> 00:56:40,680
Speaker 2: are going to use and how are you going to

975
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 2: deal with steady corrosion, be it like brutal, like ongoing corrosion,

976
00:56:45,600 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 2: or something that is taking place at almost like a

977
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:54,880
Speaker 2: licking a tutsi roll level of of things. And more specifically,

978
00:56:54,920 --> 00:56:59,080
Speaker 2: this is a question of bio tribocorrosion, as pointed out

979
00:56:59,080 --> 00:57:02,080
Speaker 2: by row at All in twenty fourteen's Lessons from the

980
00:57:02,120 --> 00:57:04,960
Speaker 2: Lollipop published in Tribology Letters.

981
00:57:05,280 --> 00:57:08,359
Speaker 3: Now, as we alluded to earlier, answering the question how

982
00:57:08,360 --> 00:57:10,200
Speaker 3: many licks does it take to get to the center

983
00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:14,560
Speaker 3: is actually not a straightforward question to answer. You kind

984
00:57:14,600 --> 00:57:16,439
Speaker 3: of have to break this, you'd like, have to add

985
00:57:16,480 --> 00:57:20,360
Speaker 3: some detail or break it down into smaller questions.

986
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:23,720
Speaker 2: Right, that's right. Yeah, It ultimately involves the quantification of

987
00:57:23,760 --> 00:57:26,160
Speaker 2: a number of factors. So, first of all, we're generally

988
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:28,760
Speaker 2: trying to figure out how many licks does it take

989
00:57:28,800 --> 00:57:32,440
Speaker 2: to remove a single millimeter of hard candy thickness? Okay,

990
00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:36,920
Speaker 2: how many millimeters of hard candy thickness exist between the

991
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:42,160
Speaker 2: surface and the tutsi roll center of the pop. Generally,

992
00:57:42,200 --> 00:57:44,920
Speaker 2: I think you're looking to reach just the threshold or

993
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:49,439
Speaker 2: surface of that chocolate center, and then supposedly we would

994
00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:51,600
Speaker 2: have the answer, right if we knew these two factors.

995
00:57:51,600 --> 00:57:54,000
Speaker 2: It's kind of like, Okay, if I know how fast

996
00:57:54,000 --> 00:57:56,440
Speaker 2: my car is traveling and I know how far I

997
00:57:56,480 --> 00:57:58,720
Speaker 2: need to drive, then I can compare. I can use

998
00:57:58,760 --> 00:58:01,120
Speaker 2: these two facts to figure out how long it takes

999
00:58:01,160 --> 00:58:02,000
Speaker 2: to get there, right.

1000
00:58:02,600 --> 00:58:05,280
Speaker 3: You would think so, but what if getting there in

1001
00:58:05,320 --> 00:58:09,640
Speaker 3: your car is like a poorly defined area or range.

1002
00:58:10,160 --> 00:58:13,000
Speaker 2: That's right, and that this seems to be perhaps the

1003
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:16,520
Speaker 2: biggest factor in the papers I was looking at. So

1004
00:58:16,840 --> 00:58:21,320
Speaker 2: despite being a mass produced candy product, you know, in

1005
00:58:21,360 --> 00:58:23,440
Speaker 2: which you know, pretty much every Tutsi pop to the

1006
00:58:23,480 --> 00:58:27,160
Speaker 2: casual eye looks exactly like the next Toutsi pop, you know,

1007
00:58:27,240 --> 00:58:29,919
Speaker 2: unless there's a difference in flavor of the hard candy shell.

1008
00:58:30,760 --> 00:58:32,920
Speaker 2: You know, it is almost almost an icon of the

1009
00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:36,840
Speaker 2: industrial candy age. And yet not every Tutsi roll pop

1010
00:58:37,000 --> 00:58:40,840
Speaker 2: is the same. Specifically, the size and shape of the

1011
00:58:40,880 --> 00:58:44,440
Speaker 2: Tutsi rolls center has been found in studies to vary

1012
00:58:44,480 --> 00:58:46,880
Speaker 2: from sucker to sucker, and not in not in a

1013
00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:50,280
Speaker 2: way that necessarily influences the experiencing of eating the thing.

1014
00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:52,960
Speaker 2: So it's not like, you know, this would pass some

1015
00:58:52,960 --> 00:58:57,280
Speaker 2: sort of like a QA test for Tutsi rolls pop

1016
00:58:57,400 --> 00:58:59,360
Speaker 2: Tutsi roll pops. But when you're getting into this very

1017
00:58:59,400 --> 00:59:02,480
Speaker 2: specific quest question, it's going to complicate attempts to generate

1018
00:59:02,480 --> 00:59:03,520
Speaker 2: a catch all answer.

1019
00:59:04,160 --> 00:59:06,400
Speaker 3: I have no evidence of this, but I just had

1020
00:59:06,440 --> 00:59:09,280
Speaker 3: the thought, what if the creation of Tutsi roll pops

1021
00:59:09,400 --> 00:59:12,720
Speaker 3: was a way to make use of poorly formed tutsi

1022
00:59:12,840 --> 00:59:15,080
Speaker 3: rolls that came off the assembly line with not the

1023
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:15,840
Speaker 3: right shape.

1024
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:19,960
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean such You see such things occurring

1025
00:59:20,040 --> 00:59:24,440
Speaker 2: in food products for sure, A tater tot. Yeah yeah,

1026
00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:27,400
Speaker 2: but yeah, I suspect it has something to do with

1027
00:59:27,520 --> 00:59:30,959
Speaker 2: like the way that the Tutsi pop is produced. Here.

1028
00:59:31,760 --> 00:59:34,320
Speaker 2: Another issue that will become important later on is the

1029
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:38,920
Speaker 2: Tutsi pop also features a thick, longitudinal band of hard candy,

1030
00:59:39,440 --> 00:59:43,880
Speaker 2: so it's almost like like it's a planet with a

1031
00:59:43,960 --> 00:59:45,960
Speaker 2: ring on it, and then it is turned up so

1032
00:59:46,000 --> 00:59:50,120
Speaker 2: that the ring is vertical instead of horizontal. If you

1033
00:59:50,120 --> 00:59:52,200
Speaker 2: have a Tutsi roll pop in your mouth right now,

1034
00:59:52,240 --> 00:59:53,760
Speaker 2: remove it. Take a look at it, you'll see what

1035
00:59:53,800 --> 00:59:57,800
Speaker 2: I'm talking about, unless you have sucked the pop down

1036
00:59:57,920 --> 01:00:01,240
Speaker 2: enough to wear that particular band and is no longer present.

1037
01:00:01,600 --> 01:00:06,040
Speaker 3: It's also like a really pronounced version of the ring

1038
01:00:06,240 --> 01:00:08,960
Speaker 3: ridge running around Saturn's moon yapotus.

1039
01:00:09,320 --> 01:00:12,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that sort of thing. Okay. Another factor is

1040
01:00:12,320 --> 01:00:15,080
Speaker 2: the positioning of the candy center tends to be a

1041
01:00:15,080 --> 01:00:19,160
Speaker 2: bit off, so it very much depends. So in other words,

1042
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:23,680
Speaker 2: it's not like we might think of this as like

1043
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:25,720
Speaker 2: a cross section of a planet where you're going to

1044
01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:27,680
Speaker 2: have like the various layers and then you're going to

1045
01:00:27,720 --> 01:00:29,040
Speaker 2: get down to the core, and the core is going

1046
01:00:29,080 --> 01:00:33,600
Speaker 2: to essentially be, you know, a spherical object in the

1047
01:00:33,640 --> 01:00:37,160
Speaker 2: center of the pop. But this doesn't seem to be

1048
01:00:37,200 --> 01:00:40,520
Speaker 2: the case. It can be rather lopsided, if you see.

1049
01:00:40,760 --> 01:00:42,520
Speaker 2: You can see in some of these papers where they've

1050
01:00:42,560 --> 01:00:47,400
Speaker 2: sawed through the candy to show like where the tutsi

1051
01:00:47,480 --> 01:00:50,840
Speaker 2: roll center lies. It's not always at the center. Sometimes

1052
01:00:50,840 --> 01:00:53,720
Speaker 2: it's pushed up more towards the top, and it definitely

1053
01:00:53,720 --> 01:00:55,959
Speaker 2: can be pushed more to one side or the other,

1054
01:00:56,320 --> 01:00:58,960
Speaker 2: so the candy center can be closer to the surface

1055
01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:01,800
Speaker 2: on one side of the side or versus another, meaning

1056
01:01:01,880 --> 01:01:05,480
Speaker 2: that one side will often offer at least a slightly

1057
01:01:05,600 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 2: shorter licking pathway to the center to the surface of

1058
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:13,560
Speaker 2: the tutsi roll center devilish. So again, lots of recorded

1059
01:01:13,600 --> 01:01:15,720
Speaker 2: experiments on this quandary, both as a kind of fun

1060
01:01:15,800 --> 01:01:18,640
Speaker 2: lark by professionals as well as by students, and in fact,

1061
01:01:19,440 --> 01:01:21,920
Speaker 2: some of the student papers are really good. There's actually

1062
01:01:21,960 --> 01:01:25,120
Speaker 2: a really good twenty fifteen student paper from the University

1063
01:01:25,160 --> 01:01:30,960
Speaker 2: of Wisconsin is titled World May Never Know, Unwrapping the

1064
01:01:31,000 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 2: Mystery of the Tutsi Pop by Tyler T. Schmidt. It's

1065
01:01:34,240 --> 01:01:39,439
Speaker 2: published in the University of Wisconsin's Minds Journal, and the

1066
01:01:39,480 --> 01:01:42,280
Speaker 2: individual who wrote this also conducted his own research. That's

1067
01:01:42,280 --> 01:01:45,600
Speaker 2: the great thing about this is that generally the research

1068
01:01:45,680 --> 01:01:49,040
Speaker 2: is very easily obtainable. All you need are tutsi pops

1069
01:01:49,680 --> 01:01:52,080
Speaker 2: and some tongues. You could just do it with the

1070
01:01:52,080 --> 01:01:54,160
Speaker 2: one tongue you have in your mouth, or like some

1071
01:01:54,200 --> 01:02:00,200
Speaker 2: of these studies, they talk about acquiring human liquors some

1072
01:02:00,280 --> 01:02:03,440
Speaker 2: test subjects in on the action. So Schmidt in that

1073
01:02:03,480 --> 01:02:06,320
Speaker 2: paper did refer back to some other studies. I'm just

1074
01:02:06,320 --> 01:02:08,160
Speaker 2: going to throw out some numbers here because it will

1075
01:02:08,200 --> 01:02:09,920
Speaker 2: give you an idea of some of the range we're

1076
01:02:09,960 --> 01:02:14,000
Speaker 2: dealing with, because we get again some wildly different estimates

1077
01:02:14,400 --> 01:02:18,840
Speaker 2: on how many licks it takes. He cites a paper

1078
01:02:18,840 --> 01:02:22,360
Speaker 2: by Zerra from nineteen ninety six involved twenty two trials.

1079
01:02:22,440 --> 01:02:24,520
Speaker 2: Average number of licks to get to that center. One

1080
01:02:24,560 --> 01:02:27,959
Speaker 2: hundred and forty two sounds low to me. Then there's

1081
01:02:28,000 --> 01:02:30,920
Speaker 2: a Wakespan paper from twentousand and nine, twenty two trials

1082
01:02:30,920 --> 01:02:35,160
Speaker 2: as well, two hundred and fifty four licks to reveal

1083
01:02:35,320 --> 01:02:37,240
Speaker 2: one side of that TUTSI roll center.

1084
01:02:37,440 --> 01:02:38,880
Speaker 3: Huh, that's a big range.

1085
01:02:39,080 --> 01:02:41,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that study also looked like, okay,

1086
01:02:41,320 --> 01:02:44,640
Speaker 2: how many licks total, like they wanted to expose both sides.

1087
01:02:44,680 --> 01:02:46,360
Speaker 2: I don't know. Again, you have to really nail these

1088
01:02:46,360 --> 01:02:50,439
Speaker 2: things down before you attempt to answer. And then there's

1089
01:02:50,480 --> 01:02:54,360
Speaker 2: a there's a really good overview that was provided by

1090
01:02:54,520 --> 01:02:59,280
Speaker 2: Corey Hyde in twenty thirteen for the Royal Statistical Society's

1091
01:02:59,360 --> 01:03:03,320
Speaker 2: Journals Sgnificance. The title of this was Tutsi pops colon

1092
01:03:03,480 --> 01:03:05,280
Speaker 2: how many licks to the chocolate.

1093
01:03:05,560 --> 01:03:07,920
Speaker 3: To the chocolate? Something sounds kind of terse about that.

1094
01:03:09,760 --> 01:03:12,280
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you're being generous calling it chocolate,

1095
01:03:12,400 --> 01:03:18,120
Speaker 2: but anyway get the So this author points out that

1096
01:03:19,560 --> 01:03:23,680
Speaker 2: three different US universities at least have not only used

1097
01:03:23,880 --> 01:03:26,840
Speaker 2: human licking trials to try and answer the question, but

1098
01:03:26,880 --> 01:03:29,520
Speaker 2: they have also constructed licking machines.

1099
01:03:30,160 --> 01:03:32,920
Speaker 3: God bless them wonderful licking machines.

1100
01:03:33,240 --> 01:03:36,400
Speaker 2: Now a note on licking machines. We're talking about custom

1101
01:03:36,440 --> 01:03:40,080
Speaker 2: made machines in these situations that would utilize some manner

1102
01:03:40,120 --> 01:03:43,320
Speaker 2: of soft artificial tongue or some sort of tongue like

1103
01:03:45,440 --> 01:03:49,200
Speaker 2: you know, implement that would be mechanically used to apply

1104
01:03:49,320 --> 01:03:51,720
Speaker 2: lick after lick to the sucker. Not to be confused

1105
01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:54,200
Speaker 2: with the various licking machines that will pop up if you,

1106
01:03:54,400 --> 01:03:56,640
Speaker 2: like me, do a search on your work computer for

1107
01:03:56,720 --> 01:04:00,720
Speaker 2: that turn. So there are other devices. I don't know.

1108
01:04:00,720 --> 01:04:02,560
Speaker 2: Maybe in the future someone will take some of these

1109
01:04:02,560 --> 01:04:05,280
Speaker 2: devices and use them to try and solve the TUTSI

1110
01:04:05,360 --> 01:04:07,000
Speaker 2: roll pop enigma.

1111
01:04:07,720 --> 01:04:11,400
Speaker 3: But licking machines designed for personal use are not what

1112
01:04:11,440 --> 01:04:12,760
Speaker 3: we're used in these studies.

1113
01:04:12,840 --> 01:04:18,080
Speaker 2: These are I believe created for the experiments. But even

1114
01:04:18,120 --> 01:04:22,520
Speaker 2: then there seems to be just some wild variety in

1115
01:04:23,000 --> 01:04:26,120
Speaker 2: the results we get. So according to hyde, licking machine

1116
01:04:26,320 --> 01:04:30,760
Speaker 2: results for each of these three universities. Purdue University took

1117
01:04:30,760 --> 01:04:34,280
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty four mechanical licks, University of Michigan

1118
01:04:34,320 --> 01:04:39,000
Speaker 2: four hundred and eleven mechanical licks, Harvard University's licking machine

1119
01:04:39,240 --> 01:04:41,160
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty five licks.

1120
01:04:41,440 --> 01:04:43,760
Speaker 3: That sounds like that's got to be a difference in

1121
01:04:44,040 --> 01:04:46,640
Speaker 3: method or malfunction or something.

1122
01:04:46,840 --> 01:04:49,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's that's pretty far away from like the

1123
01:04:49,720 --> 01:04:54,280
Speaker 2: various human licking trials, which, by the way, it also

1124
01:04:54,360 --> 01:05:00,000
Speaker 2: points to three different university studies that used human licking trials. Again,

1125
01:05:00,120 --> 01:05:04,320
Speaker 2: Purdue University was involved two hundred and fifty two licks,

1126
01:05:04,880 --> 01:05:07,600
Speaker 2: Swarthmore College one hundred and forty four licks, and then

1127
01:05:07,800 --> 01:05:11,240
Speaker 2: the University of Cambridge four hundred and eighty one licks.

1128
01:05:11,320 --> 01:05:16,080
Speaker 2: What I don't know. Again, I didn't get into all

1129
01:05:16,120 --> 01:05:19,480
Speaker 2: the details of how they conducted their experiment versus others,

1130
01:05:19,560 --> 01:05:22,600
Speaker 2: But I mean, it just goes to show that depending

1131
01:05:22,680 --> 01:05:24,680
Speaker 2: on how you roll out the question and how you

1132
01:05:24,720 --> 01:05:29,200
Speaker 2: attempt to answer it, you could get some crazy different numbers. Yeah.

1133
01:05:29,560 --> 01:05:31,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, this sounds like this's got to be a different

1134
01:05:31,440 --> 01:05:33,120
Speaker 3: threshold they're going for or something.

1135
01:05:33,280 --> 01:05:36,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this probably goes without saying, but I want

1136
01:05:36,280 --> 01:05:38,600
Speaker 2: to drive home that none of these experiments human or

1137
01:05:38,640 --> 01:05:42,880
Speaker 2: a machine involved the chomp of desire, because you could

1138
01:05:42,880 --> 01:05:45,400
Speaker 2: easily question that. You could say, well, after one hundred

1139
01:05:45,400 --> 01:05:47,280
Speaker 2: and forty four licks, they just gave up and bit it.

1140
01:05:47,320 --> 01:05:50,160
Speaker 2: They're just like the owl. The commercial was absolutely correct.

1141
01:05:50,560 --> 01:05:53,720
Speaker 2: Three four hundred and eighty one is what you get

1142
01:05:53,800 --> 01:05:58,880
Speaker 2: if desire is somehow absolutely prohibited. But no, no, these

1143
01:05:58,920 --> 01:06:00,640
Speaker 2: are all just pure licks, no chumps.

1144
01:06:00,840 --> 01:06:03,200
Speaker 3: Now, I want to ask a question that challenges the

1145
01:06:03,320 --> 01:06:06,080
Speaker 3: very premise of this investigation and goes back to what

1146
01:06:06,120 --> 01:06:09,919
Speaker 3: the wise philosopher Owl may have been implying. What if

1147
01:06:10,040 --> 01:06:14,640
Speaker 3: you don't actually get to the center by licking, You

1148
01:06:14,680 --> 01:06:19,160
Speaker 3: can only get to the center by chomping, because the

1149
01:06:19,200 --> 01:06:22,720
Speaker 3: achievement of the center is the satisfying chomp through the

1150
01:06:22,800 --> 01:06:24,360
Speaker 3: last bits of hard candy.

1151
01:06:25,320 --> 01:06:26,960
Speaker 2: You know, I would, I mean, I think there's a

1152
01:06:27,000 --> 01:06:31,360
Speaker 2: strong argument for that. I read this may be apocryphal,

1153
01:06:31,480 --> 01:06:33,680
Speaker 2: because you know, you encounter this sort of thing certainly

1154
01:06:33,680 --> 01:06:36,080
Speaker 2: in the creation of candies and an invention in general.

1155
01:06:36,120 --> 01:06:41,720
Speaker 2: But I think the idea was that the I may

1156
01:06:41,720 --> 01:06:43,440
Speaker 2: have this backwards, but I think the inventor of the

1157
01:06:43,440 --> 01:06:46,720
Speaker 2: tutsi role pop the guy who proposed this idea. He

1158
01:06:46,880 --> 01:06:49,280
Speaker 2: was eating a tutsi roll and at the same time

1159
01:06:49,360 --> 01:06:52,000
Speaker 2: he took a lick of his kids sucker, and he

1160
01:06:52,080 --> 01:06:55,080
Speaker 2: was like, these two go great together. So if that

1161
01:06:55,280 --> 01:06:58,360
Speaker 2: is indeed true, and that is the genesis of the idea,

1162
01:06:59,120 --> 01:07:02,440
Speaker 2: then you perhaps have to ask yourself which experience gives

1163
01:07:02,480 --> 01:07:06,400
Speaker 2: you that taste combination the best, because if it were

1164
01:07:06,440 --> 01:07:09,480
Speaker 2: a piece of sushi, right, you don't lick to get

1165
01:07:09,520 --> 01:07:12,600
Speaker 2: the center of a sushi role the ideas you want

1166
01:07:12,600 --> 01:07:14,760
Speaker 2: to encount. You want to have it all at once.

1167
01:07:15,320 --> 01:07:17,000
Speaker 2: I mean, not that there's I guess the wrong way

1168
01:07:17,040 --> 01:07:20,600
Speaker 2: to eat it. I guess it's valid as well, But yeah,

1169
01:07:20,640 --> 01:07:22,919
Speaker 2: you could you could easily ask, well, which which version

1170
01:07:22,960 --> 01:07:25,160
Speaker 2: gets you the combination of, say, the orange hard candy

1171
01:07:25,160 --> 01:07:26,480
Speaker 2: and the tutsi roll at the same time.

1172
01:07:26,800 --> 01:07:37,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Now.

1173
01:07:37,800 --> 01:07:41,000
Speaker 2: Hide also pointed out that via their own slicing of

1174
01:07:41,360 --> 01:07:44,000
Speaker 2: tutsi pops in half, they became concerned that the center

1175
01:07:44,520 --> 01:07:48,760
Speaker 2: is more coin shaped than it is spherical, and thought

1176
01:07:48,760 --> 01:07:52,439
Speaker 2: that having human liquors go at the thicker banded part

1177
01:07:52,480 --> 01:07:55,680
Speaker 2: of the sucker was actually the way to go. You know,

1178
01:07:55,720 --> 01:07:58,160
Speaker 2: this would mean you it would inevitably mean more licks

1179
01:07:58,480 --> 01:07:59,840
Speaker 2: to get to the center because you're going at the

1180
01:07:59,840 --> 01:08:04,400
Speaker 2: thick is part. But they thought that this would enable

1181
01:08:04,560 --> 01:08:08,520
Speaker 2: the liquors to quote find the center with much smaller variability.

1182
01:08:09,360 --> 01:08:13,480
Speaker 2: And their answer via experimentation like this was four hundred

1183
01:08:13,520 --> 01:08:17,920
Speaker 2: and seventeen licks, give or take thirty nine licks. So

1184
01:08:18,160 --> 01:08:21,240
Speaker 2: I don't know's I guess the idea is again, it

1185
01:08:21,240 --> 01:08:23,920
Speaker 2: would just be more uniform and you would have a

1186
01:08:23,960 --> 01:08:28,040
Speaker 2: definite place to start. Hyde also looked at variables in

1187
01:08:28,080 --> 01:08:33,280
Speaker 2: human saliva and in individual tongue details, and these included

1188
01:08:33,400 --> 01:08:38,920
Speaker 2: lick force, mouth temperature, pH, level of saliva, and solubility level.

1189
01:08:39,360 --> 01:08:42,040
Speaker 2: Only the latter seemed to have an observable impact, and

1190
01:08:42,080 --> 01:08:45,120
Speaker 2: even it had little to no effect on average licks.

1191
01:08:45,439 --> 01:08:48,880
Speaker 2: So everything the author here contends really has to do

1192
01:08:48,920 --> 01:08:51,719
Speaker 2: with the positioning of the candy center inside the sucker.

1193
01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:55,760
Speaker 2: The other factors did not apparently have that much of

1194
01:08:55,800 --> 01:08:58,160
Speaker 2: an impact, like person to person, liquor to.

1195
01:08:58,160 --> 01:09:00,280
Speaker 3: Liquor, or they might kind of even out on a.

1196
01:09:00,479 --> 01:09:02,719
Speaker 2: Yah are certainly even out when you're dealing with enough

1197
01:09:02,800 --> 01:09:07,000
Speaker 2: tongues licking enough lollipops, which is of course you know

1198
01:09:07,040 --> 01:09:09,519
Speaker 2: with any scientific experiment, like that's what you're looking for,

1199
01:09:09,720 --> 01:09:12,559
Speaker 2: like not what is not what the exceptional liquor does,

1200
01:09:12,600 --> 01:09:16,400
Speaker 2: but what does the average liquor accomplish, you know, over

1201
01:09:16,520 --> 01:09:19,400
Speaker 2: multiple test subjects. So I think there's a strong case

1202
01:09:19,439 --> 01:09:22,080
Speaker 2: to be made here that that you really have to

1203
01:09:22,120 --> 01:09:25,559
Speaker 2: have a standardized lick location for these experiments, and you

1204
01:09:25,640 --> 01:09:28,839
Speaker 2: have to take into account the variability in the candy

1205
01:09:28,920 --> 01:09:32,280
Speaker 2: core and like that that's key. If you dismiss the

1206
01:09:32,320 --> 01:09:35,960
Speaker 2: idea that each TOTSI pop is a little bit different

1207
01:09:36,160 --> 01:09:39,200
Speaker 2: compared to the next, than you're kind of doomed from

1208
01:09:39,240 --> 01:09:39,679
Speaker 2: the start.

1209
01:09:40,160 --> 01:09:44,000
Speaker 3: Can I bring up one possible way this research is interesting.

1210
01:09:44,680 --> 01:09:46,600
Speaker 3: I guess we've sort of already touched on this, but

1211
01:09:46,680 --> 01:09:49,959
Speaker 3: to make it more explicit, this research might be interesting

1212
01:09:50,080 --> 01:09:55,000
Speaker 3: in the way it illuminates the gaps between a mechanistic

1213
01:09:55,720 --> 01:10:01,640
Speaker 3: or quantitative understanding of a behavioral phenomenon and the enjoyment

1214
01:10:01,800 --> 01:10:05,439
Speaker 3: or experience we get out of that phenomenon. This comes

1215
01:10:05,479 --> 01:10:08,760
Speaker 3: back to, you know, the wisdom of the owl. Is

1216
01:10:08,800 --> 01:10:12,240
Speaker 3: it really getting to the center if you lick your

1217
01:10:12,240 --> 01:10:14,000
Speaker 3: way all the way to the center and you deny

1218
01:10:14,080 --> 01:10:16,960
Speaker 3: yourself the bite, which at least the owl obviously likes.

1219
01:10:17,040 --> 01:10:19,240
Speaker 3: The owl likes biting through part of the candy to

1220
01:10:19,280 --> 01:10:21,880
Speaker 3: get to the center that is defining the experience for

1221
01:10:21,960 --> 01:10:25,280
Speaker 3: the owl. And thus, by even if you come up

1222
01:10:25,320 --> 01:10:28,640
Speaker 3: with a really good method to investigate this and you

1223
01:10:28,720 --> 01:10:30,720
Speaker 3: find out, you know, okay, this is a reliable way

1224
01:10:30,760 --> 01:10:32,920
Speaker 3: of knowing how many licks it takes to get to

1225
01:10:32,960 --> 01:10:36,839
Speaker 3: the center, just by licking, you have misunderstood the question

1226
01:10:37,240 --> 01:10:40,839
Speaker 3: of the Tutsi pop's existence and you have not really

1227
01:10:40,920 --> 01:10:45,720
Speaker 3: found what makes the Tutsi pop valuable to people. And

1228
01:10:45,800 --> 01:10:48,280
Speaker 3: this is a common thing actually, and not just in

1229
01:10:48,640 --> 01:10:51,960
Speaker 3: you know, funny little experiments like this, but in very

1230
01:10:52,040 --> 01:10:56,439
Speaker 3: real experiments, especially in the social sciences, like we can find.

1231
01:10:56,479 --> 01:11:00,759
Speaker 3: And this is not at all to criticize quantitytive ways

1232
01:11:00,800 --> 01:11:03,240
Speaker 3: of exploring the world, but it's to remember there's a

1233
01:11:03,280 --> 01:11:08,880
Speaker 3: difference between quantitatively studying a phenomenon that affects human life

1234
01:11:09,240 --> 01:11:13,120
Speaker 3: and understanding the value of that phenomenon to human life.

1235
01:11:13,160 --> 01:11:14,040
Speaker 3: If that makes sense.

1236
01:11:14,760 --> 01:11:17,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because you know, once you get to the

1237
01:11:17,080 --> 01:11:20,639
Speaker 2: center of the Tutsi pop, it's also over. So yeah,

1238
01:11:20,760 --> 01:11:23,439
Speaker 2: you know, the experience is done with and then I guess,

1239
01:11:23,520 --> 01:11:26,320
Speaker 2: especially if you're a kid on Halloween in like the

1240
01:11:26,400 --> 01:11:28,519
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties or nineteen nineties, you just move on to

1241
01:11:28,600 --> 01:11:31,000
Speaker 2: the next Tutsi pop. You've probably got six of them

1242
01:11:31,000 --> 01:11:32,760
Speaker 2: in there, and yes, you are going to eat all

1243
01:11:32,840 --> 01:11:35,800
Speaker 2: of them in one Halloween night. But I'd love to

1244
01:11:35,800 --> 01:11:38,519
Speaker 2: hear from folks out there. What was your approach to

1245
01:11:38,640 --> 01:11:41,759
Speaker 2: eating a Tutsi roll pop? What is it like today?

1246
01:11:42,040 --> 01:11:44,040
Speaker 2: Did you chomp through it? Did you actually lick through

1247
01:11:44,040 --> 01:11:47,599
Speaker 2: the whole thing? Yeah? Feel free to share your thoughts

1248
01:11:47,680 --> 01:11:55,840
Speaker 2: on the philosophy and the experimental science of this whole scenario. Likewise,

1249
01:11:56,520 --> 01:12:01,559
Speaker 2: magical licking and spitting too, for that matter, examples from

1250
01:12:01,760 --> 01:12:04,840
Speaker 2: Magic Systems, real and imagined. If you've got something you

1251
01:12:04,840 --> 01:12:07,960
Speaker 2: would like to share with us on these, definitely ride

1252
01:12:08,000 --> 01:12:11,679
Speaker 2: in and chat with us. Absolutely again. We'll be back

1253
01:12:12,280 --> 01:12:14,080
Speaker 2: in our next core episode of Stuff to Blow Your

1254
01:12:14,120 --> 01:12:17,120
Speaker 2: Mind to continue our exploration of licking. We'll definitely get

1255
01:12:17,120 --> 01:12:20,760
Speaker 2: into more animal world licking. We will probably talk about

1256
01:12:20,840 --> 01:12:23,760
Speaker 2: cats and dogs and who knows what else. Just a

1257
01:12:23,760 --> 01:12:25,720
Speaker 2: reminder to everyone out there that Stuff to Blow Your

1258
01:12:25,720 --> 01:12:28,040
Speaker 2: Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core

1259
01:12:28,080 --> 01:12:30,960
Speaker 2: episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes on Wednesdays

1260
01:12:30,960 --> 01:12:33,200
Speaker 2: and on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns to

1261
01:12:33,200 --> 01:12:36,120
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird movie on Weird House Cinema.

1262
01:12:36,320 --> 01:12:39,959
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1263
01:12:40,200 --> 01:12:41,599
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1264
01:12:41,600 --> 01:12:43,920
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1265
01:12:44,000 --> 01:12:45,880
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1266
01:12:46,080 --> 01:12:48,559
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1267
01:12:48,600 --> 01:12:56,400
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

1268
01:12:56,760 --> 01:12:59,680
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1269
01:12:59,720 --> 01:13:03,600
Speaker 1: more podcast My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1270
01:13:03,680 --> 01:13:24,479
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M