WEBVTT - Shared False Memories and The Mandela Effect 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:01.680 Are you a Stuff to Blow your Mind fan? Are 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:03.880 you a New Yorker Do you plan to attend this 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:06.800 year's New York Comic Con. If so, then you've got 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:10.600 to check out our exclusive live show NYCC presents Stuff 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:14.000 to Blow Your Mind Live Stranger Science. Join all three 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:16.840 of us as we record a live podcast about the 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:21.640 exciting science and tantalizing pseudo science underlying the hit Netflix 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:25.840 show Stranger Things. It all goes down Friday October six 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.240 from seven pm to eight thirty pm at the Hudson 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.279 Mercantile in Manhattan. Stuff You missed in history class has 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:34.920 a show right before us, so you can really double down, 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:37.920 learn more and buy your tickets today at New York 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:45.760 Comic Con dot com slash NYCC hyphen presents Welcome to 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:55.279 Stuff to Blow Your Mind from How Stuff Works dot com. Hey, 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:56.920 are you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind? My 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:00.080 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger. Robert, do 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:01.920 you remember this movie? This is how a Lot of 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:04.320 Stuff to Blow Your Mind? Episode to begin? But do 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:08.039 you remember this movie that had Sinbad in it from 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.720 the nineties where he played a genie. Uh, you're you're 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:16.200 you're discussing the film Shazam. Yeah, but I don't think 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.280 Sinbad is actually in it. I just think a lot 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.360 of people remember Sinbad being in it. It turns out 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:26.360 it's Shaquille O'Neill who raised and it's Kazam as opposed 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.800 to show exactly. Yeah, this is uh, this is a 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:32.480 big deal. This is This is one of those cases 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:37.000 where the joke, the conspiracy theory, all of it sort 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:41.119 of wrapped together, like ends up actually taking shape because 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.680 I believe it's a college humor came around and eventually 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.319 put out like they got Sinbad. Is that right? I 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.240 didn't know this. Okay, they got Sinbad. They filmed him 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:52.680 in like a scene from this movie, and they put 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.240 all these filters over it to make it look like 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:59.040 it was retrieved you know, video footage from a VHS 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:03.640 tape from the nineties. Okay. Yeah, And essentially what we're 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.800 talking about here is actually, and I hesitate to say, 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:11.440 this a phenomena that many people report. Uh, and it's 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:16.040 all connected and bundled under terminology referred to as the 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:20.400 Mandela effect. Yeah, it basically comes down to something that 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:26.160 is an alleged shared false memory where it gets it 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:28.160 gets more complicated than that. We're going to discuss it. 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.919 But the idea is that you'll have multiple people sharing 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:36.480 a false memory, generally of something from sort of you know, 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:40.280 obscure pop culture, but in some cases like world history, 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:44.240 that that everyone has the same mistaken notion in their mind, 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:47.079 and then they suddenly say, hey, why do we why 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:49.200 do we all believe this thing that simply is not 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.640 So you can go to Synbad's filmography on IMDb and 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.000 clearly that he was never in such a film. It's 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:57.640 not listed. I mean you can, you can. You can 0:02:57.639 --> 0:02:59.880 get into situations where, all, right, there are films that 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:02.320 are not maybe not listed on IMDb because they never 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:07.960 reached a stage of completion, but people claim to have 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.120 remembered seeing it or seeing trailers for it. So it 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:13.440 would for that to be the case for it to 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:16.760 have legitimately existed in some form or another, like they 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:18.400 would have had to have seen it or at least 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:20.680 sen a trailer. Right. Well, but I think you're spending 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:24.240 too much time thinking about the possibilities here, because I 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:27.560 think it's pretty obvious that it's just the people who 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:30.840 thought that they had seen Shazam with Sinbad are actually 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.200 originally from an alternate reality. Oh yes, well, there's there's 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:37.520 that argument, or that a time traveler traveled back in 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:41.160 time and changed time and we're all remembering it now 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:43.880 only because of the Sinbad. They traced the like the 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:46.480 butterfly effect, and they said, if we can stop the 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:51.240 Shazam movie from existing, then we'll um will prevent say, 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:53.920 World War three exactly. Now, those of you out there 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.280 might think I'm being a facetious jerk right now, but 0:03:56.400 --> 0:04:01.960 actually that is a explanation for this effect we're talking 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.960 about again, the Mandela effect. You're gonna have a hard 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:09.320 time finding legitimate academic research done on this topic, but wow, 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:11.240 it is all over the internet. Like when I started 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.560 doing research on this yesterday, every listical site had a 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.560 twenty two instances of the Mandela effect that you won't 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:21.040 remember something like, Yeah, you'll find reddits where people are 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:26.200 arguing back and forth about the various ridiculous conspiracy theory 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:28.719 explanations like oh, it's it's a glitch in the matrix. 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.680 We're already in a computer simulation, and this is because 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:35.440 somebody you know, hit delete on Shazam by accident, or 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.359 or yeah, where it's the we've drifted over into an 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.599 alternate reality. Then the only difference is that there's no 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.160 Shazam movie in this universe. Yeah, and I also want 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:45.800 to make it clear to like, we're not here to 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.920 make fun of the idea of alternate realities or time travel. 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:52.200 Those are actually topics that we are going to cover 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:54.120 in the future on this show. But we're going to 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.720 cover them from an actual research angle. Yeah. The computer 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.800 simulation angle came up recently in an episode that I 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:04.640 did with Joe about growing a universe in a bottle, 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.240 creating university. Uh, the thing. But but a lot of 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:11.320 this comes down to Aucam's razor. Right, what is the 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.920 what is the most reasonable explanation that we can we 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:17.680 can take, you know, if we're if we're forced to 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:20.839 draw Aucam's razors from its sheath, which of course this 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.839 is named for William of Ockham. Uh, then it's it's simple. 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:27.160 It's the simple notion that among competing hypotheses, the one 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.159 with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Right, So, should 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.640 we assume that there are multiple realities and we're shifting 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:35.480 among them, that should we assume that we're living in 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.760 a computer simulation, or should we assume based on what 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:43.120 we know about memory and uh and how infallible it 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:46.000 is and how malleable it is, that that is where 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:50.719 we can place all the blame for this shared misinformation. Yeah. 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.360 This is especially interesting coming on the heels of our 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.880 alien abduction two parter that we did, because we talk 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:00.360 a little bit in those episodes about the science behind 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:04.120 inserting false memories and how easy that actually turns out 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:06.040 to be. There's been a lot of research done on that, 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:08.320 and this seems to be similar, but just on a 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:11.640 much smaller level. Right, instead of remembering that you were 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:16.039 abducted by aliens, you remember a movie that Sinbad didn't make. Yes, Now, 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:18.520 well let's go ahead and get just the name out 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:22.600 of the way, because we are saying Mandela effect, not Mandola, 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.920 which was would sound more esoteric and mysterious. But now 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:31.800 Mandela as in Nelson Mandela. Right. Yeah. So the popular example, 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:34.719 actually more popular than the sin Bad example, is that 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:39.000 some people seem certain that they remember Nelson Mandela dying 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.560 in the nineteen eighties, and they think they saw his 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:44.599 funeral on television, or more specifically, they remember that he 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:48.880 died in prison, as opposed to you know, dying later 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:51.400 after he like WHI which I have. I have a 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:55.080 hard time relating to this one because I distinctly remember 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.839 like news footage about his relief getting out of person. Yeah, 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:03.680 me too, Yeah he actually died in So what's going 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.719 on here? Well? It this seems like a case of 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:09.400 false memories, right, just like we talked about in those 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.680 alien abduction episodes. But some people do wonder if they're 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:15.800 remembering something from an alternate reality or if a time 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.560 travelers slightly altered our presence. So Robert and I were like, 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:20.520 this is a kind of fascinating topic. Why don't we 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.280 dive into this and see what the research says. Um 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:25.800 Most commentators out there, I want to be clear about this, 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.800 suggest that these are examples of false memories that are 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:33.040 just shaped by similar factors that are affecting multiple people. Okay, 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:35.960 but the main proponent of this is a person named 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:40.200 Fiona Broom. Uh and that that sounds like a witch name. 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:43.360 It's like like a made up witch name. But Fiona 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:47.320 Broom is a quote paranormal consultant who dubbed this the 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:51.160 Mandela effect. She claims that perhaps thousands of other people 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:53.800 have the same experience and She points to speculation of 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:57.400 alternate realities as an explanation, and then as I dug deeper, 0:07:57.480 --> 0:07:59.920 I found out that this actually all occurred in our 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.840 backyard here in Atlanta, at our local sci fi comic 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:10.760 book fantasy uh convention slash party dragon Con. Interesting. Yeah, 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.280 so it was at dragon Con in two thousand and ten. 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:15.800 She was in. She was there, apparently, she was a guest. 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:18.240 They have a paranormal track where people talk about things 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:20.520 like this, and uh, she was in the V I P. 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:23.680 Suite and a security person mentioned to the other people 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.920 in the room, hey, do you remember when Nelson Mandela 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:31.880 died in the eighties? But then he just died like actually, 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.040 and this was in two thousand ten. Sorry, he hadn't 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.840 even died yet. He just said, remember when Nelson Mandela 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.240 died in the eighties and he was still alive and 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:42.640 nobody else remembers that. And she was like, I remember 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:46.160 that too, And out of that conversation was born this 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:50.360 whole thing. Another example, she says, also comes from Dragon Con. 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.720 She was there and someone insisted they remembered a Star 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:57.160 Trek episode that, according to one star of the show, 0:08:57.760 --> 0:08:59.640 was never filmed, So there was a person in the 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.240 audience who clearly remembered seeing this episode, but it had 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:06.160 never actually been filmed. Maybe they had read about it 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:08.680 in so much detail that they thought they had seen 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:13.680 it they they false remembered it. Anyways, the quote from 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:16.000 from fion A brooms site. She actually has a site. 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.440 I think it's the Mandela Effect dot com or dot 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:20.320 net or something like that. She's a book coming out. 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:24.000 This is profitable and she says on her site, these 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:27.040 aren't simple errors in memory. They seem to be fully 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:32.079 constructed incidents or sequential events from the past. They exceed 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:34.959 the normal range of forgetfulness. So she's saying this is 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:39.920 something beyond just our our memory being fallible. Well, I 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.080 I strongly disagree with that. Well, and we'll discuss I 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:45.840 do too. You know what's funny is like on our show, 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:48.960 I'm usually the one who's most willing, well maybe not 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:51.120 most willing out of the three of us, but I'm 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:53.280 always like I want to give these people a chance, 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:55.640 Like I want to give their idea a chance. Let's let's, 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.080 you know, kind of poke at it and see how 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:00.719 it works. But immediately with this one, my reaction is 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.880 just like nope, like that that just doesn't sound like 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:06.520 a thing. I feel like you're just making something up. Well, 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.520 the thing is like that. There's basically a statement that 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.840 that she's making something amazing is happening, and it's blank. 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.400 I agree with the first part of that statement, because 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.600 something amazing is happening, But the what's amazing about it 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:21.720 is what it reveals about our memory and how we 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.920 influence each other's memory of events. Now I do I 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.360 do have to say, I really wish we could rename 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:34.400 this the Shazam effect, etcetera Mandela effect, because when you 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:36.720 call it a Mandelo effect, and I'm sure our South 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:41.520 African listeners will agree it, it betrays a sense of 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:46.080 historical ignorance. And you know, I don't want to be 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.200 to judge you with that, but because I think that 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:51.280 the relatable example of this that I can relate to is, 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:53.840 for instance, there's a period about a year or two 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.560 before Gene Wilder's actual death that I kind of had 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.800 in my mind that he had died, uh, which you know, 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:03.439 he just wasn't acting in anything. He just kind of 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:06.360 you know, I think for the last ten or fifteen 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:08.080 years of his life, right, yeah, yeah, I think he 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:10.240 just got super choosy with his projects, and you know, 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:12.840 I didn't wasn't really that into doing it anymore, which 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:14.760 is fine, he has everybody had every right to to 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.440 do that. But for some reason, you know, when it 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:21.120 comes to the existence of celebrities, somehow my mind kind 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:22.679 of clicked it off that oh, he's an older guy. 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.800 He must he died or something, you know. And granted 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.400 that was allowed to happen because I like Gene Wilder, 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:31.880 but I'm not a Gene Wilder super fan. I'm not 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:35.000 the kind. I wasn't checking his IMDb profile every day 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:39.280 for up upcoming projects. Your ram wasn't backing up information 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:41.840 about what was going on with Gene Wilder currently if 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.320 there was any media reportage on it, right right, So 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:46.840 kind of like in the in my my rear view 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:51.640 mirrors or you know, in my peripheral cultural vision, the 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:55.000 the the the timeline of Gene Wilder had ended. And 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:58.160 so I I think what's happening with Nelson Mandela's case 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:02.000 is that for many people, uh you know, maybe African 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:07.320 South African politics especially is not something that bere zeroed 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:10.360 in on. It's happening in in their peripheral vision. It's 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.240 happening based on what is you know, climbing up through 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.480 the news cycle to to greet them. And therefore the 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:20.880 timeline of Nelson Mandela ended, you know, in his incarceration. 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:23.920 So and I think it's fair to say that it 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:27.760 would be extremely rare to find this effect in South Africa. 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.880 Like I would imagine that citizens of South Africa are 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:34.120 probably very aware of how long he was in prison, 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:36.640 when he passed away, when he was you know, in 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:40.880 charge of the country, etcetera. Like there isn't this uh 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:46.080 sort of like weird cognitive distance from it, right, Um, 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.400 So let's go through some other examples here. We talked 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:51.680 about Shazam and Sinbad, and we've talked about the Mandela one. 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.560 What about the Barren Stain Bears. Oh, yes, this one 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.720 of course relates to the spelling of the Barrensteine Bears 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:02.000 is in the Barrensteine Bears children's book series, whether it's 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:08.320 spelled Barren Stain or Barren stein Stein. And uh, you know, 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:10.679 it basically comes down to an argument over what how 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.000 how to pronounce the name right right? Yeah? And it's 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:16.959 also like, like I think this one just is like 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:22.120 a simple instance of misspelling and also cognitive bias, right, 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:25.400 and that like we're more used to Stein being in 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.800 names than stain being in name, so our brain sort 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:32.040 of self corrects if you see it as stain and 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:35.679 turns it into Stein. Right. Uh. There was another one 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:38.360 like this that I saw floating around where people were like, 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:40.400 this is gonna blow your mind. You're ready for it. 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:45.200 The peanut butter isn't Jeffy peanut butter. It's just jeff 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:49.000 peanut butter. And I was like, okay, fair enough, Like 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:50.480 I did, like in the back of my head, I 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:54.240 did think of it as Jiffy peanut butter. But I 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:58.160 think that's just because the word jiffy is probably used 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:01.520 more often and it's probably like search to the surface 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:05.600 of my memory data bank than the word jiff which 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:10.640 most people use now to describe like an image file type. Yeah, 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.520 now one. I don't think this is a widespread example, 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:17.079 but this one came up recently on Twitter Comal and 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:21.920 Johnny shared his amazement that Dan Ackroyd and then Dan 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:25.280 a Chroid of The Ghostbusters that his name his last 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.680 name is spelled a y k r O y d 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:32.840 and there's no like c uh c k going on 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:35.080 in there and uh, and I when I read that, 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:38.120 I was like, you know, I kind of just that's 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:40.400 odd as well. You know, I've I've certainly seen his 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:42.920 name plenty of times, but for some reason, I just 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:44.640 kind of thought there was a C in there. Yeah, 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:46.800 me too. And I definitely didn't think there was a 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:49.320 y at the beginning. I mean, there's two wise in 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.680 his name. I didn't think there was a a y exactly. 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:54.560 Like That's another perfect one where it's like, how many 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.400 Dana Chroid movies have I seen? But how closely am 0:14:57.440 --> 0:14:59.560 I paying attention to the spelling of his name versus 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:01.720 just how I think it should be spelled on how 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:04.480 it sounds. Yeah, members of the Acroid family, I'm sure 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.440 how do not have this this effect? Right? So I've 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:10.320 got an example here actually from the research that is 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.520 much smaller and that it doesn't pertain to pop culture 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:16.040 and won't be as broadly felt, but it's a really 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.920 good example of how this takes place. Okay, at a 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:23.480 town clock at the Bologna Central Railway station, which was 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.920 damaged in a massacre in nineteen eighty. When they surveyed people, 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:33.080 nine percent of them falsely remembered that this specific town 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:38.320 clock had stopped working since the bombing. Actually, what had 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:41.480 happened was they repaired the clock immediately after the attack, 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.760 but then they manually stopped at sixteen years later in commemoration. 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:50.240 These are people who lived in the area, but they 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:54.040 had basically erased the sixteen years between the bombing and 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.960 it being turned off where it was working. And again, 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.360 it's just how memory works, I think more than it 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:04.920 is an example of all these people sliding into an 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:09.400 alternate dimension. Now, one fun personal example of this that 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:13.680 I that I have to share concerns the Konami video 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.160 game for the original Nintendo Entertainment System, Top Gun, the 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:21.120 second mission. Yeah, vaguely remember this, Okay, so it's tied 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:23.560 into the Top Gun movie. Yes, but it was very 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:26.200 much It was a loose kind of a sequel because 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:29.640 you're presumably still Maverick, You're still Tom Cruise, and you're 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.520 going up in these little dog fights against progressively more 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:36.680 difficult like Soviet dog fight. Okay, I was thinking it 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:41.560 was like goose Iceman. No remembered in the first one, 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:43.960 I know, but maybe you fight as ghost. Well, this 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:47.280 is the thing I was. It's at some point in 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:50.160 the past like ten years. I was reminiscing about this 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:53.440 game with my friend Dave, and I was joking to 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:57.120 him that that at the end you fight Goose, because 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:01.240 there's this reveal that Goose didn't die in the first one, 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:03.480 that the Soviets, uh, you know, fished him out of 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.199 the water and they brainwashed him into a you know, 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:09.000 a Soviet agent, and so now he's just like You've 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:14.320 Winter Soldiers and uh. And I joked about it, and 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:17.119 then I think, I think Dave kind of, you know, 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:19.399 thinking back on it, kind of believed that it was real, 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:23.480 and I kind of, since I don't think about Top 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.960 Gun to all the time, I kind of fooled myself 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.040 a little bit. So we talked about it later and 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:30.760 he was and he would he would ask like, was 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.320 is that isn't Goose the villain and Top Gun two? 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:34.879 And I think, yeah, I think I think he is. 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:37.200 And then I have to remember, oh, wait, I made 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:39.280 that up. That was just a joke. Well, so did 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.040 this come back up again recently because they announced Tom 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:44.640 Cruise announced that they're actually doing a Top Gun too. 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:46.080 I know, I I feel like I feel like I 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:49.240 got the script done. Well, yeah, I feel like it'll 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:53.000 be a personal betrayal. If Goose is not the Winter 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:55.760 Soldier villain of Top Gun two, well, Anthony Edwards, if 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.880 you're listening, please plead with Tom Cruise once you get 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:01.919 Winter sold I know he wants then, So for me, 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:04.640 I don't have a lot of examples of this with 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:08.919 I Just when things like this happened, I just often 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.480 say like, oh, there goes your memory, right, Like, there 0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:14.120 are definitely moments, especially as I'm getting older, where I'm 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.520 like acutely aware. It's funny to use that term, but 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:21.040 I'm very aware of how my memory is starting to fail, 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:23.959 not in like a like an Alzheimer's type way or anything, 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.200 but just in like things like this that I don't 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:29.760 really keep close to the surface, I tend to forget 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.000 over a long period of time. Right. It's like the 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:36.840 first you know, several decades of your life for about accumulation, 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:38.760 and then you run out of room and stuff just 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:42.919 can yeah, exactly. Like sometimes my wife will be like, 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:46.560 I can't believe you don't remember this important event that happened, 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:48.680 and I'm like, well, look, I've got three hundred pages 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:51.120 of D and D manuals up here, Like I'm gonna 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:53.399 have to start deleting loads in order to keep all 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:56.439 this other information. So yeah, I mean it happens. My 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.280 memory is fallible. I'll misremember an actor who was in 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:01.000 a movie for an since, or maybe I'll think an 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.240 older celebrity is already dead, like your instance with Gene Wilder. 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.960 Happened to me. When Martin Landau died recentthing. I was like, 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:09.600 what didn't that guy already die like ten years ago? 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:12.080 But you know, and I feel bad, But then I'm like, well, 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:14.399 he just hasn't been working for a while, right, The 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:16.840 last thing I remember him and was probably ed Wood. 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:20.800 So you know, I definitely get spelling and pronunciation of 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:23.840 things wrong, as many of the listeners of the show now. 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:27.200 But I've never felt like there's anything going on here 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:31.560 beyond the fallibility of my recollection. But let's you want 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:34.240 to take a break, and then when we come back, 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.600 let's get into some of the theories surrounding this before 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:44.600 we hit the science. Okay, we're back, so what are 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:47.280 let's go. Let's cover like the broad gamut of I 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.760 guess wild theories as to what's going on here with 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.680 what is called the Mandela effect. All right, Well, as 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:57.040 we already mentioned. There's the alternate reality multiverse view of it. 0:19:57.720 --> 0:19:59.840 There's the the idea that we're in a computer s 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:04.320 relation that some far future civilization has decided that the 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:06.600 best way for us to live is to live in 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:10.439 a simulation of an earlier, more simple time. You know 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.720 what's interesting to me about that is like when you 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.359 take like philosophy one oh one in school, right, you 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:21.240 learn about Descartes and his whole argument with himself centuries 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.639 ago about whether or not his brain was actually in 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:28.280 a jar being tortured by a demon and reality was 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:31.760 just all fake illusions. It's essentially the same thing, just 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:34.360 a different framework. Yeah, it's actually a topic with don't 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:36.800 I discussed on the recent episode Order Out of Chaos 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.360 how to create a universe? It's it's it's a fascinating 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:44.439 area of sort of thought experiment and discussion. Uh. And 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:46.959 there's some there's some interesting arguments on both sides, but 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:49.359 you know, it's it's again, it's one of those cases 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:54.520 where when we're looking at at an alleged phenomenon in 0:20:54.560 --> 0:21:01.800 our world, what what hypothesis entails the fewest assumption about reality? Yeah, 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:04.199 and you can see how like you know, you go 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:06.320 back and you look at that Decartes stuff, and he 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:10.359 pretty firmly was able to ground his argument and say, well, 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.640 the world is actually real. I'm not braining a jar, 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.800 but you can see how in our present day circumstances, 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:22.720 because so much of life is simulated via entertainment or computers, 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:25.720 right for most of us, um that it would be 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:27.560 easy to fall back on that and be like, well, 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:29.840 wait a minute, what if none of this is real? Well, 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:32.760 it's interesting that a lot of this relates to thinking 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:35.440 about the human mind and human experience in terms of 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:40.520 a computer, because they're analyze the real error. I think, 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:44.399 because we tend to think of our mind as as 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:47.480 as like video footage and a surveillance, uh, you know, 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.239 a system or just a computer record of what has 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:53.679 occurred and uh. And then when we pull up an 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:58.800