WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Moses Illusion 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.079 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is 0:00:08.200 --> 0:00:11.480 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're bringing 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:13.840 you an episode from the Vault. This one it was 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:17.800 about a psychological effect called the Moses illusion. It originally 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:25.720 published February. All right, let's jump right in Welcome to 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:35.280 Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:37.120 welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:41.160 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:45.840 to be talking about an interesting observation in cognitive psychology 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:49.120 that deals with language that starts off as kind of 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.360 just a funny little quirk about the way we process 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:55.440 certain kinds of sentences but ends up having some some 0:00:55.560 --> 0:00:59.400 broader and more interesting implications about knowledge and language and 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.440 thought both. The best way to start here would just 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:06.680 be to illustrate the prime example of the effect we're 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:08.800 going to be talking about. And to do that, I 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:11.600 think we need to do a bit of Bible trivia. Rob, 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:17.800 are you ready to go to Sunday School. Let's do it. 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:20.039 Let's go to Sunday School. Okay, And if you I'm 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:22.360 gonna ask you a few questions about the Bible. If 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.240 you get one wrong, you are going to get a paddling. Whoa, 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:27.840 what the domination? Is this one of the ones that 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.920 means business? All right? Okay, so how about let's see 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:36.280 it so, um, in in the garden of Eden, what 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:38.959 type of animal is it that tempts Eve to eat 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:42.840 from the tree? Oh, that's a snake, that's right, the 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:47.120 serpent it is? Uh. Okay. When after God created the world, 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:50.320 on which day of the week did he rest? Oh? 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.360 That was the seventh day. You got that one, right, Okay, 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:56.600 next one, How many animals of each kind did Moses 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:00.960 take on the arc? Oh? Too, of course. And there 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:03.800 you go. That is the prime example. Now, Rob, I 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:06.080 know you were playing along because you already know the 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:08.400 trick in here what I actually said when I asked 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:10.720 that question. Hopefully you were playing along at home as 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:12.880 as you're listening, or maybe you're not at home, wherever 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.720 the heck you are. Um, you may have thought the 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.400 same thing, right, Moses took two of each animal on 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:21.160 the arc. But in fact, in the Bible story which 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.280 maybe not everybody knows, but maybe you do know this 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.360 story of of the arc and in the Book of Genesis, 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:29.440 and you do in fact know that it was not 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:32.600 Moses who did that. It was Noah in the story 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:35.400 who took animals on the arc. And yet you thought 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:37.639 after I said the question that the answer is too 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:42.640 and didn't even register the fact that the name was wrong. Yeah, 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:48.040 It's it's an interesting uh phenomenon to uh, to encounter, 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:51.120 you know, others, but also in yourself because you m 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:54.320 there's several different ways to look at and we'll get 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:55.760 into a number of these here. But like even just 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:57.919 now when you ask me those questions like the serpent one, 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:00.400 I'm totally firm on that, like I of the I 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.840 know that aspect of the story inside and out. Uh. 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:04.600 And of course I know it's the seventh day that 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:07.240 he rested on the God rested on he she yet 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.359 ohever you want to look at it. Uh, But there 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:12.800 was still like this moment of hesitation because I was like, 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:14.639 it's seven, right, it is seven. I don't want to 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:18.720 come come off with the wrong answer on the podcast. Um. 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:20.840 But then when one encount and granted already knew the 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.520 answer to the third one, but there is this temptation 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:26.359 though too, like when you when you know why, when 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:28.800 you know the answer to something like you just you 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.640 can just jump in without hesitation, Like there's a certainty 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:35.320 that just propels you. Um, you're excited to get your 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:38.560 answer in and then you know, get the acclaim and 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.080 the praise for getting it right. Yeah, there's a certain 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:43.680 kind of way in which a question, especially a question 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:47.040 posed in quiz format, where you feel you are under 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:50.520 performance pressure and you're being evaluated for whether or not 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:52.480 you're going to get the right answer. It sort of 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:56.080 takes away some amount of critical thinking that would normally 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.080 go into reading a sentence and causes you to focus 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:01.880 more exclusive lee on like just can I get the 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.640 right answer? And so it's not hard to see how now, 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:06.840 and this of course might not be the only explanation 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:09.360 for why this is happening, but it's not hard to 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:12.720 see why you could pretty easily miss a major error 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:15.520 in a question that is not you know, that is 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.560 not necessarily something that you're fuzzy on to begin with, 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.320 Like you could know perfectly well that it's Noah in 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:25.320 the story, and yet it just goes completely over your head. Yeah, 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:27.280 and you know, we've we've been doing this podcast quite 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:29.560 a while at this point, and occasionally this this comes 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:31.800 up in our data, not so much in things that 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:35.400 we've researched for the podcast, because I feel like if 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:37.880 we've been crunching the facts or the numbers, you know, 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:40.160 or the you know, we're we're more likely to be 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:43.320 putting a lot of thought into the situation and we're 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.200 maybe just a you know, a little hesitant anyway. But 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.080 the times where I've personally like said something that was 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.840 absolutely incorrect, it would be something that I felt so 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:54.039 sure about that I just belt it out without fact 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:56.760 checking it at all. You know, Uh, something you generally 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.120 it's something not directly related to the episode, but something 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:02.159 that just kind of comes up in organic conversation. That's 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:05.040 exactly right. Yeah, it's when you feel so confident that 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:07.880 you're not even being careful, you know that that you 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.359 can really make some big blunders. Uh. There were some 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:13.640 other questions I was reading about in one of the 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:16.599 I think the earliest study on this phenomenon we're talking 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.120 about today. Some of the other questions were in the 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.640 biblical story, what is Joshua swallowed by? Of course, that's 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.760 Jonah that is swallowed by the whale or the great fish, 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.200 the sea monster. Joshua of course is the the conquering 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:32.040 leader of the Israelites as they go about Kanaan. Another 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.520 one I really liked was in the novel Moby Dick. 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:37.440 What color was the whale that Captain Nemo was after? 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:40.800 I think I think I might have fallen for that one. Yeah, 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:42.880 I mean, I wonder how much of the ego is 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.200 involved here, because it's like, you're kind of like, all right, 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:46.719 let's get to the part of this where I get 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:48.880 to talk and get to be the one is correct, 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:51.520 like like fast followers through all this other stuff. I 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:53.840 don't care. I have an answer and it is the 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:58.320 correct one. Yeah. Um, that's that's quite perceptive, and I 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:02.000 think that's right. Um. But anyway, so this question that 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.560 we're looking at today, that this effect of not noticing 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.919 that the question says Moses and just barreling right on 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:11.480 through to the answer, even if you know that it's 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:14.640 actually Noah in the story and not Moses. This effect 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:17.520 has a name, and it's known as the Moses illusion. 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:21.880 It's a particular type of semantic illusion that occurs when 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:25.880 we are trying to process certain kinds of sentences, and 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.800 this was first explored in a classic study in psychology. 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.359 It was a study called from Words to Meaning a 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:35.440 Semantic Illusion, published in the Journal of Verbal Learning and 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.760 Verbal Behavior in nineteen eighty one by Thomas D. Ericsson 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.640 and Mark E. Mattson. And I think it's interesting that 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.520 this original observation about this, this question about Moses, it 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:50.120 comes out of a mysterious question about how we process 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:54.400 the meaning of sentences. Uh. The authors of this study ask, quote, 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:58.880 how are the meanings of individual words combined to form 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:02.960 a more global description of meaning? And if you start 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:06.520 to think hard about this question about the human capacity 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:10.920 for language, I would argue it is absolutely astonishing. It's 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.240 almost baffling the way that we're not only able to 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:18.200 associate symbolic meaning with certain sounds coming out of our 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.240 mouths or glyphs on a page, but you're able to 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:27.080 combine those things endlessly to form and comprehend infinite variations 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:31.400 of combinations of those sounds, to create sentences that actually 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:33.920 means something and other people can understand what you mean 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:36.760 when you say them. Like, I think this type of 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.360 capacity for language is one of the features of the 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.960 natural world that to me seems closest to magic. Yeah. Absolutely, 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:46.000 And I feel like that the mostest illusion is one 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:48.520 of those things that that reveals the magic that makes 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:53.520 you more aware of the magic trick that is inherent 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.400 to your just everyday perception of reality and how you 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.600 engage with facts and information and the fact that you're 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.080 just like it. It's crazy that we're just constantly throwing 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:08.320 together sentences, almost effortlessly, that are combining all these words together. 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:12.040 Each word has a huge range of of possible meanings 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.800 and associations, and and that we are able to do 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:18.360 this with such fluency, I mean, sometimes with more fluency 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:21.880 than other times. But uh, but yeah, it is truly 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.880 astounding to me. And so the authors here are sort 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.720 of talking about this process and some of the question 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.160 marks that existed at the time in science about how 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:34.440 we form sentences and how we comprehend sentences. So they 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.000 start in their introduction by talking about how quote a 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.920 central process in language comprehension is the construction of a 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.600 global description of the sentence meaning from the meanings of 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:47.640 individual words which make up the sentence. Right, So you 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:50.800 know what individual words mean, but somehow, like we're just 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:54.400 talking about, you can combine them into these overall gist 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.760 forms of what somebody is getting at. You know, like, like, 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.280 what kind of answer is being quested by a question 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:03.839 that might be made up of ten different words that 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.439 are all you know, throwing your brain in ten different directions. 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.040 Yet you can get the gist of the question and 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.160 figure out what is getting at pretty quickly actually, And 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:13.840 they talk about how there's been a lot of work 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:17.960 on how language processing works in the realm of artificial intelligence, 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:20.120 but at the time of this paper, there was still 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:22.920 a lot that we didn't know about the global meaning 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.240 of of a sentence and and how that's constructed in 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.440 the brain. And so they summarize the way they're starting 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.360 this paper by saying, uh, it has become widely assumed 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:36.840 that sentences are subject to exhaustive analysis and consistency checks 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:41.079 during processing, but this is not the case. People do 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:44.120 not always understand what is said to them. Sometimes they 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:48.319 fail to understand, sometimes they misunderstand. And while these failures 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.640 of comprehension are sometimes due to lack of appropriate knowledge 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:54.000 or error on the part of the speaker, there are 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:57.800 other cases in which such failures occur when the understander 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:03.000 possesses all the knowledge necessary for correct understanding. This paper 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.360 explores such a phenomenon and then they give the example 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:08.959 of the Moses illusion that we already talked about. The 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:12.280 question that they pose is how many animals of each 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.040 kind did Moses take on the arc? And so what 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:17.400 the authors here found in their original study and eighty 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.560 one was that the majority of people failed to notice 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:24.920 a problem with the question and simply answer to despite 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.760 later displaying knowledge that it was in fact Noah and 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.559 the story and not Moses. And so that it's not 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.000 that they just don't know that much about the Bible, 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.400 like they can answer the question correctly when it's posed, like, hey, 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.320 was it Noah or Moses who took animals onto the ark? 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.160 They can answer that correctly and yet still fail to 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.200 notice a problem in the question. And studies find that 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.040 people do this even when they're not rushed. They still 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.720 make the mistake when they are given unlimited time to 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:55.720 think about it. Another interesting thing here they found was 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:59.560 that the the effect is not caused by people misreading 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.720 or miss hearing the question, because people still make the 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:06.720 Moses illusion mistake even if they themselves read the question 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:09.720 out loud, including the name Moses, so they are saying 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:12.199 Moses out of their own lips, and they still might 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:15.280 not notice it now. In this first study, the authors 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:19.040 conclude that what's very important, because they're getting at things 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:21.640 about the semantics of words and a sentence and how 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.800 the meanings of sentences are formed. They conclude that shared 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:29.600 semantic features of the mix up are probably significantly contributing 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.840 to the effect. In other words, this effect would probably 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:36.040 not be nearly as pronounced, maybe not even maybe totally 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:38.880 non existent if the items were not in some way 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:43.800 closely related in the way that's a two Bible characters are. 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:46.480 If you ask, you know, how many of each kind 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:50.360 did Captain Hook take into the arc, the effect probably vanishes. 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:52.720 Another study, I was looking at side at an example 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:55.800 I found really funny, which was how many animals of 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.600 each kind did Nixon take on the arc? And yeah, 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:02.160 and and I like that because they were saying, Okay, well, 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.480 what if it's just like phonological similarities, like Nixon and 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.200 Noah have some similarities. They start with the same sound, 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:11.200 they've got the same number of syllables. But clearly when 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:14.760 you put Nixon in the sentence, people notice. And so 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.520 the Moses illusion is just one persistent example from a 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.400 class of mental phenomena that could be called knowledge neglect. 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:24.840 This is a term used by a couple of authors 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:28.120 that will cite later in the episode. But knowledge neglect 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.920 and simplified terms, is when you behave as if you 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.240 don't know something even though you definitely do know it. 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:38.280 And the Moses illusion is of course an example of 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:42.040 knowledge neglect, because the problem isn't that people think Moses 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.640 was the biblical character who built the arc. You can 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:47.720 know that it was Noah, not Moses. If you're asked directly, 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:50.640 you'll get the answer right, but you don't notice the 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.880 problem when it's phrased in a question like this. And 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:55.880 of course it's not just Moses and Noah. There are 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.360 plenty of other sentences in studies that have shown the 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:02.240 same thing. Though it is interesting that Moses and Noah 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.080 are like sort of the perfect example of it. I 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:08.160 think there might be particular characteristics of these two names 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:12.160 and characters that make it like that make people especially 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.160 prone to the mix up in this case, though it 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:16.360 is true for lots of other types of you know, 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.079 words and objects. Well, speaking of that, let's do a 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.120 quick breakdown and just especially for folks who are not 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:26.199 that up on Moses and Noah. Uh, just to give 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:28.480 a little you know, basic information about each of them, 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.000 and give me, give me the magic the gathering card 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:33.560 on each one. Okay, well let's start. Let's start with 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.800 with Noah. Okay, certainly the the older of the two, 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.920 the first that in the chronological order. So Noah was 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.800 h is written as as a was an antediluvian patriarch 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:49.079 in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. The basic story, God 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:51.160 grows sick of humanity, so he tells Noah to round 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.040 up his family and two of every animal and get 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.160 them on a big old boat the arc, uh, the 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:58.200 first of two arcs we're going to discuss here, so 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.680 they alone can survive the noble flood that's about to happen. Yeah. Now, 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:06.040 one interesting variation. I think most people probably wouldn't even 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:09.560 their brains wouldn't go this far into the question. Uh. 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.320 It is actually more complicated than two of every kind, 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:15.440 because it also says in the Noah's ark story that 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.600 I think they're supposed to bring more of every kind 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:21.800 of like certain types of animals, like certain clean animals 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.720 and just two of the unclean animals or something. But 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:27.760 but yeah, when you get it gets a little more 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:31.520 complicated right, I mean it's all kinds of animal management. Yeah, 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.880 which I would love to see somebody fail the test 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:39.320 of of the the Noah illusion the Moses illusion here 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.240 by by going into a lot of detail about the 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.600 you know, the the actual biblical text while still failing. 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:47.720 I think that right. Well, it was fourteen of every 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:54.080 kind of clean animal alright. Well, anyway, Noah strengths megaproject 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:59.400 management and animal handling. Obviously weakness, alcoholism, that's a major 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:02.120 part of the store, right. Um. Actors of note who 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.360 have betrayed him. Uh, this is not a complete list, 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:08.720 but these are the main main ones. John Houston, Russell Crowe, 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.680 David Thrillful. This is a guy on Shameless. He also 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.720 played Dr John d and Elizabeth the Golden Age. John Voight, 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:20.520 David Rentall. Uh, David Rentall is the guy who played 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:24.560 Aries Targarian on the Game of Thrones show. Oh interesting, 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:28.080 wait a Aries to the Mad King. I believe. So 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.560 that's the main areas, right, Okay, yeah, well maybe I 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:33.400 guess for some reason I thought there was another one. 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.760 I am wrong. Um, okay, So the I've got a 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:39.760 really funny story about John Voight playing Noah. I remember 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:42.520 seeing this one, oh, I have. It was made for TV. 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:45.840 I think came out when I was in like middle school, 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.560 and it is not at all faithful to the Bible, 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:53.920 and to say, very hollywooded up version of the Noah's 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:56.720 Arks story. John Voight does play Noah and the arc 0:15:56.800 --> 0:16:01.000 is attacked by pirates. What. Yeah, it's attacked by like 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:03.080 water World pirates. I mean, it might as well be 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:06.080 Dennis Hopper and the Smokers, but it's actually I think 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:12.040 they get attacked by pirates led by the biblical character Lot. Okay, alright, well, 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.280 if that is in the Bible, at least they're they're 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:16.600 playing around with it. Was this brought up at all 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:22.240 when um Uh, when Darren Aronofsky was being criticized for 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:25.640 the plot of his Noah movie, which has like um 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:29.400 Uh giants and Nephelim in it. Oh, I kind of 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.920 liked his Noah movie. It was way more more faithful 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:37.240 to I think it included stuff from non canonical ancient texts, 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.920 but was actually inspired by ancient texts. Okay, alright, I 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:43.200 still haven't seen it. It's it's been on the list 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:45.960 for a while. All Right, let's talk about Moses real quick. Okay, 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:49.720 So Moses comes later. He's an Old Testament prophet um 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.520 central figure in the narrative of the Exodus. In the account, 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.160 he helps the Jewish people in their liberation from Egypt 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:59.480 Egyptian captivity and following Tim the tin Plegs of Egypt. 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.280 He assists him in the Exodus, and he also is 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:04.880 involved with an arc. But it's the Ark of the Covenant, 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:07.399 which we've discussed on the show before. Not a boat, 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:12.600 but a golden vessel that contains sacred items. Yeah. I 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:15.280 would assume that the words are related because they're both 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:19.080 like a container of kinds, like a big box. Okay, 0:17:19.080 --> 0:17:22.879 So Moses his strength community organizing of course, and sorcery 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:26.640 his weaknesses. This is this is kind of interesting, I guess, 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:29.720 because it's either not obeying God and everything or obeying 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:32.680 God and everything, depending on who you ask, right, uh, 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:35.320 I mean, if you ask God, he would say, well, 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:37.280 he didn't obey me and everything. That's why I didn't 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:40.240 get to go into the Promised Land. But especially modern 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:42.119 critics are like, it seems like he he may be 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:44.600 followed the letter of the law a little bit too. 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:48.840 Um uh too. Seriously, I seem to recall at one 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:51.640 point him commanding the death penalty for a dude who 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.040 was working on the Sabbath. That seems a little harsh. Yeah, 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.480 it seems seems a little harsh. Um. Okay, So actors 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:00.720 of note who have betrayed Moses, well, Charlton has obviously, 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:06.000 Burt Lancaster, mel Brooks, Ben Kingsley, Val Kilmer, though that 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:10.240 that may have just been a voice role. And Christian Bale. Now, 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.800 the last one is interesting because as I was looking 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:14.679 at these actors was one of the interesting things is 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:18.959 even though they're basically interchangeable, like the same, Um, you know, 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:21.200 in most of these cases, you're dealing with the same 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:23.480 white dude that could play either of these characters in 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:27.840 a big Hollywood production. Um. But it's interesting that I 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:31.840 don't think anyone has actually played both Moses and Noah, 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:36.720 though Christian Bale reportedly came very close because Darren Aronofsky 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:40.040 originally wanted Christian Bale to play the title role in 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:44.080 his Noah film, but scheduling conflicts prohibited that from happening. 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.320 Oh he couldn't because he was filming like terminator Mick 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:50.679 g or whatever. Yeah. I don't know, but um, but 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:55.000 imagine if if Bale had played both Noah and Moses. 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:57.720 What would that have meant for the Moses illusion? Would 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.200 it have made the would would it just destroy are 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:04.359 semantic understanding of reality? Maybe there's a secret counsel. There's 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:07.760 like no Hollywood, no actor can play both of these 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:11.240 roles because it will totally tear our understanding of of 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:15.080 of facts and fiction apart. I could see that. I mean, so, 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:17.200 I think what some of the authors here are proposing 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.560 is that the the fact that it's not just that 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.640 Moses and Noah are words that kind of sound similar. 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.440 They've got some similar consonants and uh in the same 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.639 number of syllables, similar vowel sounds. That's all true, and 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:32.920 that does seem to matter, But it's also very important 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:36.480 that they are semantically related, that they are both characters 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:39.800 from the Torah, from the Old Testament, and that sort 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:41.800 of links them together. And I think the more you 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:44.679 could do to link them even further together and associate 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.199 them in in our minds, like yes, having one actor 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:49.600 play both, I think that would actually probably make people 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.800 even more susceptible. Yeah, um, I was thinking about this too, 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:56.840 Like obviously we've already touched on a few extra examples 0:19:56.840 --> 0:19:58.720 of this. But I was trying to come up with 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.280 with other examples that would play on the same energy here, 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:03.919 and one that came to mind would be, uh, if 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:05.960 we were to look to Chinese mythology, if we were 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:08.800 to say, hey, how did the Yellow Emperor decide how 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:11.280 to order the animals of the zodiac? And you might 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:13.960 respond with, oh, well, there's this cool little story about 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:17.080 a race for the animals, etcetera. Um, but it wasn't 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:19.119 the Yellow Emperor. It was the Jade Emperor, who's an 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:23.440 even more primordial god ruler than the Yellow Emperor. Um. 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:25.200 So I don't know that seems like it could be 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:29.520 could play in the similar could work in a similar 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:33.520 way to the Moses and Noah illusion. Or how about 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:35.560 this in Return of the Jedi, what was Django fet 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:38.480 swallowed by? Oh? I just see. For some reason, I 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:40.560 feel like that one doesn't work because then learn as 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:42.840 you as soon as you say the word django, like 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:45.520 people's alarms go off and like, wait a minute, what 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.280 are we talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:51.399 don't maybe it would. Okay, here's one for Avatar, the 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:54.479 last Airbender fans out there, Um, we're hearing from several 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:58.520 of them. Which nation was the avatar Apa born into. 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:01.040 I don't know if that one or not. But of 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:03.520 course ang is the last and not the last avatar, 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:06.399 and is the avatar uh Appa is the sky by 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.280 sin that he rides on. Ah. I see, so I 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:12.320 don't know ang Appa. Maybe that works not sure? Well 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:21.120 that went over my head anyway. So you might think, well, 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:23.240 now that we have told you there is such a 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:25.840 thing as the Moses illusion, uh you know you would 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:29.280 never fall for it, right because you know you will 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:32.840