WEBVTT - Wind Beneath My Surgical Wings, Part 1 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.720 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:13.800 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.560 My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm truly decklass Julie 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:20.439 who is not dreamed of either having wings themselves or 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:24.439 just dreams of winged humanoids flying about. I mean, it's 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:27.480 the stuff of just ancient myth, the stuff of fantasy, 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:31.360 the stuff of religion, the stuff of of art. It's 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:35.120 there's something just irresistible about the idea of a human 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:37.240 with the wings of a bird, or even the wings 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.120 of a bat. Yeah. The desire to fly, I think 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.960 is pretty universal. Even Dorothy from oz right somewhere of 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:48.440 the rainbow, bluebirds fly, birds fly over the rainbow? Why then, 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:53.160 oh why can't I Yeah, we're just singing the rest, Okay, 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:57.840 But yeah, one example that always comes to my mind. 0:00:57.920 --> 0:00:59.960 I mean, there are a lot of a iconic ones. Obviously, 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.720 the myth of Icarus and Datalus is big. The idea 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.240 that you know, they built these wings and then they 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:07.040 fly too close to the sun and then they plummet. 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:11.240 It's just a fantastic metaphor for so much in human endeavor, 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:16.319 human technology, um humans reaching to achieve things that they 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:20.720 were not necessarily biologically gifted with, but via their intelligence, 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:24.119 are in a sense genetically gifted with. I also think 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:26.000 back to a book called Goodbye to All That by 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:30.320 Robert Graves, British author who famously wrote I Claudius Um. 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:32.520 That's probably what he's most known for, But this was 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:34.920 his biography and he was talking about his um, his 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.840 service in World War One. There's a bit about mountain 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:39.280 climbing in that as well, because he was one of 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:41.640 these just really adventurous dudes. He'd go out with his 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.960 his pals and they would scale these these towering cliffs. 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:47.960 And there was one point where he's talking about, you know, 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:50.880 clinging to the side of this this rock face. Uh, 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.360 you know, pretty to someone like me, who is not 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:56.680 a mountain climber and will never mountain climb, terrifying idea, 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:58.800 just to imagine myself clinging to the side of a 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:01.240 mountain face. Uh. But he was unfazed. But he was 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:05.160 an adventuest dude, had bravery and just a natural inclination 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:07.920 for this kind of thing. But one time he said, 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.680 they're scaling, they're they're a little tired clinging to the side, 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.560 and a bird like sort of flow flies by, but 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:16.960 given the altitude and the wind, kind of floats out 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:20.120 there to the side, and and he entered the house 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:22.360 just so unnerving. The idea that it was like the 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.960 bird was was coaxing him into letting go, as if 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:28.840 there was another way, as if he could fly, which 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.959 which also gets into these weird impulses we sometimes have 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:36.240 of almost like self destructive impulses. The the idea that, oh, 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:37.800 if I get too close to the edge of the building, 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:39.920 I might jump off, I was to say, because I 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:42.000 have that. So even if I meant to say, like 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:44.800 a fairly like simple structure like a mall on the 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.000 second floor, I don't want to go to the edge 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:49.079 because I feel as if I'm going to plunge off. 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:52.399 So it's kind of interesting that there's this idea of him, 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:56.240 you know, clinging to the side and this bird short 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:59.760 of mocking him to the limits of his own morphology. 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:02.359 Hey dude, you're never going to have wings. You might 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:04.840 consure this cool that you can you know, rock climb 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.480 up here, but you know, let me just buzz around 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:09.960 you and remind you of this. Yeah, it's like, in 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.560 a sense, we see the birds flying and we we 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:14.280 inded it, and we feel to a certain extent like 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:19.119 it's our birthright because vast empty air, vast heights are 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:21.440 terrifying because we know that that's a limitation to us. 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.000 We know that those are those are heights that we 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:27.680 cannot really ascend to. Yes, we there, you know. We 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.640 we have airplanes at our disposal. We have various uh 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.360 methods of flight and gliding and skydiving and everything, but 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.200 they're all kind of cheap imitations of the natural biological 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:39.960 gifts of a bird. That's right, We're greedy. We want 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:42.240 it for ourselves. It's not enough that we have created 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:46.040 flight in the form of jets and planes and uh, 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:49.800 you know, various other modes of transportation. So the question, 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.240 and the question for this podcast is is it would 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:56.760 it be possible? Is it really possible that we could 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:02.240 somehow create wings for ourselves? Um? And I'm not talking 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.880 just like strapping on some wings, because there are wingsuits 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:08.400 which are phenomenal. There's actually an article on them on 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.200 how stuff works dot com that I wrote how wingsuits 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.120 work and it's phenomenal technology and the people who use 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:19.159 them are insane and also highly skilled. Um. But yeah, 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:21.560 could we actually have biological wings that are a part 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:23.480 of us, that are an extension of us. Right, could 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.800 we gain our bodies in our minds in order to 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.480 actually have this be a part of our own morphology? 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:31.560 And why not? Right, because we've talked about this, this 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:35.160 is this is not so crazy. I mean, it's absolutely 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:37.080 out there. But there are so many different ways that 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:41.800 we have augmented our reality in our physicality that uh, 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:44.719 no doubt one day this could be a possibility. Yeah, 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:46.320 I mean, like you said, there's so many things we 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:48.160 do to our bodies. Anyway, we went into this, We've 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:50.400 got into this a number of times. We talked about 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:53.480 post humanism quite a bit, and and cybernetics. We did 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.800 an episode called the Werewolf Principle Um, which probably wasn't 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.320 the best title in the world because it doesn't have 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:01.200 anything to do with or wolves. It's about that. It's 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:03.240 a has to do with a sci fi story I 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:04.919 was reading at the time, But the idea that we 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.080 change our but potentially we change our bodies in order 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:11.040 to explore space and to explore our the world instead 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:15.000 of attempting to bring a portion of our atmosphere in 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.440 our environment with us. Uh and and and our limitations 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:22.760 with us we instead alter ourselves, and certainly we make 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.240 a lot of augmentations to ourselves anyway, So many things 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:29.440 such as glasses, contacts, various biomedical equipment that is added 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.120 to the human body. We're making these changes anyway for 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:36.400 things that are generally thought of as necessary. Um. And 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.080 then we also make changes that are cosmetic in nature. 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.440 But what about wings? Well, yeah, and in order to 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.279 actually really get to the meat of this conversation, we 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:48.880 have to bring up Dr Joseph Rosen. He is a 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:55.200 Dartmouth plastic surgeon and reconstructive surgeon. And it's um, I 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.640 think would be pretty mild just to say that he's 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.760 a futurist. Yeah, and he's definitely a UTRA, is definitely 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.880 a post humanist in a he's he's one of these 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.120 amazing individuals that if you look him up, you'll find 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.880 various articles about his work. Um. But in particular, there 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:15.040 was a two thousand and one UM interview slash profile 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:19.680 in Harper's magazine by Lawrence Slater. Highly recommend anyone read 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.840 who's fascinated by this topic. It was called Dr Dayalus. 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:25.640 It's an excellent article. Actually, the way that it was 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:27.600 written reminded me of Mary Rich in the way that 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:30.560 she approaches her material, so it is well worth checking out. 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:36.279 So with Rosen, here's the thing. He is, he's totally 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:38.960 steeped in his profession and he takes on something like 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:43.520 five hundred patients a year to do mostly reconstructive surgery, 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:45.240 but some plastic surgery as well. I mean, this is 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:49.960 someone he was an absolute expert in his field. He is, uh, 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.760 he steeped in the practicalities of it, but he was 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.840 also a big thinker. Yeah, he's a plastic surgeon, but 0:06:56.839 --> 0:07:00.400 but not a mirror cosmetic surgeon. And the article in 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.440 question went into sort of around the turn of the 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:06.400 millennium where plastic surgery stood about the idea that it's 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:08.839 sort of sort of in this place where it's often 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:14.040 looked down on um by people outside of the medical profession, 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:16.440 and sometimes within the medical profession, may be seen as 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:20.400 as a as a lesser medical practice, which of course 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:22.800 is is not not the case when you look at 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:27.320 the the the non cosmetic applications. When you're looking at 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.320 people who have undergone serious injury, particularly facial injuries for instance, 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.080 and finding ways to correct that and and bring a 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:37.200 certain amount of normalcy back to that person's life. When 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:41.360 you look at cleft palate and cleft lip reconstruction. Yeah, 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:43.080 I mean there's there's a lot that goes on in 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:47.360 plastic surgery that is not breast jobs. But but that 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:50.320 tends to be sort of the the easy association that 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.560 people make when you just hear plastic surgeon on TV. Oh, 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:55.800 she went to the plastic surgeon's office. That means she 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:59.160 had something superficial and unnecessary done. But plastic surgery is 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.720 bigger than that, much bigger. And uh, you know, as 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.120 you had said that he has he's worked on reconstructing 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:09.800 faces um when died warrior causes. Right, So we're talking 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:14.440 about catastrophic poly trauma. So if you're in uh, if 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.240 you're a soldier and you have undergone this trauma, what 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.400 that means is that you have so many various problems 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:24.280 going on um that you can't necessarily, uh find a 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.440 solution to all of those injuries. But what Dr Rosen 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:30.240 can do is he can fashion a new knows um, 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:32.599 but he can't restore that soldier's sense of smell. He 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:34.760 can at least give some sort of normalcy back to 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:37.000 that person. So that's a lot of work that he 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.960 does there. Um. He also is working on healthcare reform. 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.320 This is really interesting. This isn't the form of cybercare. 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.560 He argues that our hospital system is just uh, you know, 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:51.400 an outgrowth of the Civil War. In other words, it 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:54.440 was set up to administer to a huge amount of 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.559 massive casualties. And he's saying that that's just not the 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:00.280 way that the world works today. And he is helping 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.319 to revamp the national healthcare system of Vietnam using cellphones 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:07.960 and laptops to link clinics, hospitals, and rural physicians. So 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.120 this guy is a renaissance man. And like I said, 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:13.520 he's a big thinker, which is extended over to his 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:19.520 ideas about what we can do in terms of improving 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.160 not just augmenting, i should say, but really heightening our 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:27.040 senses as a human being, in augmenting our experiences as 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.200 a human being. Yeah, he's an amazing thinker. And then 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:32.600 he really use the cliche, you know, thinks outside the box. 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.480 He is the he's a bit of a rebel. He's 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:40.199 he's questioning authority and questioning sort of normal approaches to 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.679 things all the time. And you see that with with 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.520 with various gifted minds out there. You know, it's it's 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.840 not merely that they work really hard and are just 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.800 geniuses within the confines of their profession, within the confines 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.520 of their their role in society, but they actually think 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:02.120 beyond the typical constraint. It's true. Like, for instance, he 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:04.880 says that a salamander can regenerate in arm in forty 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.600 two days, So he says, somewhere in your own genome 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:10.600 that ability still exists. He says, why can't we go 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:13.080 ahead and find that figure that out so that we 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.200 can regenerate a whole limb for ourselves. And he says, 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:17.960 we can do it. It's just a matter of you know, 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:21.839 twenty to fifty years to coming up with that. Um. So, 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.800 you know, he also looks at soldiers again who have 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:29.000 had those catastrophic poly traumas, and he says, why can't 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.520 we use a whole body pro thesis, like you know 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.960 that's made out of exoskeleton. Um. You know, obviously cost 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:40.280 as a factor in perception because it's not too it's 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.559 not too normal. They see someone trapesing through a hallway, 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:45.920 who's you know, in case in exo skeleton, But he's 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.040 got these ideas of how to make it work for 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.760 humans and how to, as I said, augment the experiences 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:53.280 for people and make it better. Yeah, he wants to 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:54.640 make it better. He wants to fix it. You see 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:57.160 that both in in healthcare reform, as you mentioned, but 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.040 also but more importantly, in the human body. There's a 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.800 great quote from that article that I think really sums 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:06.200 up a lot about Rosen's outlook on not just plastic 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:09.680 surgery but life. He says, you know, I'm really proud 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:12.200 of that face. And he's talking about some facial reconstruction 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.520 that he performed on an individual who lost a lot 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:16.840 of it to cancer. Because I'm really proud of that face. 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.560 I didn't follow any protocol. There's no textbook to tell 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:21.920 you how to fashion a face eaten away by cancer. 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:25.640 Plastic surgery is the intersection of art and science. It's 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.920 the intersection of the surgeon's imagination with human flesh, and 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:33.040 human flesh is infinitely malleable. People say cosmetic surgery is 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.960 frivolous boobs and noses, but it's so much more than that. 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:38.400 The body is a conduit for the soul, at least 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.600 historically speaking, When you change what you look like, you 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:45.480 change who you are so well, and it doesn't That 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:47.360 kind of speak to a lot of what we've talked 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.960 about in the podcast in terms of studies having to 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:53.240 do with psychology the whole, like you fit, you know, 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:55.439 fake it till you make it, or you know, if 0:11:55.440 --> 0:12:00.240 you assume a powerful posture, then your body responds physiological way. 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:03.600 So you know, a lot of what he's saying is 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:06.120 is there's a truth there that if you can change 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:10.600 yourself in that way, then certainly physically and mentally, things 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:13.240 will follow. Okay, so let's get into some of his 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:16.839 really fun post humanist dreams for the human body. Yeah, 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:20.480 because he again he's all about making the changes necessary, 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:25.240 arguably necessary in some cases to make us better beings. 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:29.520 For instance, calcular implants, uh, new rods for the eyes 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:33.640 to give a super binocular vision. Um soldier implants like 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:37.040 this was great, a nose flashlight because you know your 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:40.160 nose is just there. You know it's important for breathing. 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:45.040 But you know optics, optic technology grow smaller and smaller. 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:48.080 Why not have a light up there? Imagine you sort 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.839 of you know, you click one nostril and then a 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.600 light shines out the other nose and you it's perfect 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:55.880 for reading. It's a great idea. Really, now I can 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:57.640 just see eight year old really having fun with that 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.320 when they blow their nose. Yeah, yeah, like light flashes, 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:03.679 like really bright light every time you sneeze. But it's 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:05.360 stuff like that, like when you say it, like, we're 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:07.680 even laughing because it's ridiculous. It's so different from what 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:10.280 we're used to. But Rosen is the kind of guy 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:12.439 that says, no, why are you laughing? Because this is 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:15.160 actually really practical. Right, he's saying, in a military sense, 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.120 why wouldn't you want your soldier outfitted with this? Right? 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.400 Because it makes perfect sense. Um. Cochlear implants, of course, 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:24.040 are already in existence. But what he is suggesting is 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.800 that you have cochlear implants that enhance your hearing, essentially 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:31.680 giving us far superior auditory powers, so we'll be able 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:37.120 to detect things miles away, again becoming superhuman. And uh, 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.720 we've mentioned before the senses that we used to perceive 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:45.280 the world are in to varying degrees limited or extremely limited, 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:47.640 even compared to other animals. Um, you know, it's like 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:51.040 the mantis shrimp, which sees and all this vaster array 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:53.400 of colors that we can scarcely imagine. We talked about 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:55.920 when we're talking about bats, how it's almost impossible for 0:13:56.000 --> 0:13:59.240 us to really imagine what it's like to to quote unquote, 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.080 see the world as a bat. So instead of being 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:07.440 limited by this this world that we've painted in just 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:09.840 a few different colors, he's saying, why don't we paint 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.320 the world in more colors? Why don't we update our 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:16.440 our machinery so that we can paint a more brilliant world. 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.960 You know, that's an interesting concept to think about when 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:25.400 especially in the I guess in the context of how 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:28.960 we are bombarded with stimuli these days, and we've talked 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:32.200 about this and the multitasking episodes quite a bit. So 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:36.000 I wonder if if doing that, if sort of upping 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:40.920 your experience of that stimuli, would would make sense in 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:44.320 this sort of new world where you're getting thrown things 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:46.160 all the time. So if you get other words, if 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:47.880 you can kind of tune in a little bit more, 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:49.800 things are a little bit louder, things are a little 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:53.640 bit brighter. Does that make sense for the modern human mind? 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:57.800 Sort of opening ended question there, but I wanted to 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.200 point out that Rosen is also a fan of alo 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.320 location implants and fins. Fins, Yes, why not? I mean 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:06.400 it it comes down to a lot of you know, biomimicry. 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:08.280 If you want to see how to swim, look for 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.520 look at an animal that has evolved over the course 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.640 of millions and millions of years to be an incredible swimmer. 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:16.760 That's what you need to do. And that we do 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:18.720 that to a certain extent. And you're looking at the 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:22.560 shark skin and then adapting that into swimwear. Um. But 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.840 he's talking about taking it even even further. And of 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:29.560 course his pet project, his pet thought experiment. I guess 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.840 you could say surgical wings, because this is really where 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:36.960 his engineering brain meets his his his reconstructive brain and 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.960 brushes up against the brain of mad science, for sure. 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:41.840 But it is important to think of it as as 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.280 a thought experiment. Um. He is not trying to do 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:49.040 this or anything that we know of, uh, but but 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.000 it is a great thought experiment for just what are 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:52.880 you know, what are we willing to do? What can 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:55.880 we do? And why are we why do we feel 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.440 weird about going into some of these areas like, for instance, 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:00.520 so one of the examples he brings up just in 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:02.400 plastic surgery. And what I mean he brings it up. 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:05.680 He brings it up at conferences because this this dude 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:10.520 has been an amazing figure in plastic surgery, travels over 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:13.120 the world, speaks a big conferences. He's an influential character. 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:15.240 So he's not just his voice out on the fringe. 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:19.560 He's a leading figure. Um. So he brought up for instance, 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.240 you have a man walks into the surgeon's office and 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:25.640 he has an extra thumb. Um, he's then he is 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.760 a doctor is allowed to take that thumb off. But 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:30.360 but if a person comes in and says, hey, I 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:33.360 would like an extra thumb, then he can't. He can't 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:36.680 do that. That's that's just completely crazy. And nobody adds 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:39.200 extra thumbs to people. But he was saying that he 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:41.720 there was one person that who was I believe a 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:45.760 waiter server and had an extra thumb and it actually 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:49.040 aided that person in their job. This is an actual 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:50.920 person with the second thumb, and he was saying, well 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:54.040 that that was helping that person out. So yeah, why 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:57.920 is it beyond the pail to add extra digits? Yeah, 0:16:58.000 --> 0:17:01.720 and then there's also the rest uh example that he 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:03.840 brings up. Um and this is he brought this up 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:05.840 when people were pressing him on the wing issue because 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:07.920 he'd mentioned it before, and then at a conference some 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:10.120 people were kind of, you know, they're a little freaked 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:11.720 out by this, and they're saying, would you really do that? 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.919 Would you really give somebody wings? Or would you give somebody, 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:16.639 you know, lizard skin? Would you really do any of 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.280 these crazy things? And so he's bringing up various examples 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:21.679 to to make his, uh, his point, And he pointed 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:24.479 out that that there was a lady that he'd come 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:28.000 across that was in need of breast reconstruction and she 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:34.159 wanted blue areolas. And don't have anything to say about that, 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:37.400 but he said, well, you know what's wrong with that? Um? 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:39.720 You know what, why not if the person wants to 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:41.800 have blue areolas, let him have blue areolas. How is 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.159 that different from a lot of the things we did 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:46.360 to our body? You know? For some reason, of all 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:48.880 the things that have been saying on this podcast, that's 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:53.359 the one thing that made me. But don't ask me why, um, 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:55.560 you know, and it's stuff like this, I think that 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:58.560 makes people sort of look at him a little sideways. 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:00.200 But the fact the matter, as I said, this is 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.840 someone who is an absolute expert in his field and 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:07.240 steeped in the technology. He's on the advisory panel for 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:10.840 the Navy as well as NASA. His insights on human 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.440 machine interfaces brought him to the attention of the Department 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.720 of Defense here in the States, and they've sought his 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:21.560 views on virtual reality, future warfare, and bio terrorism. So 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.120 people want his brain. They want to know what's going 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:26.600 on and rumbling around in that brain is blue oriole 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:31.480 aerials and uh, you know, nose flashlights and surgical wings. Yeah, 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:33.440 because he'd gain He's one of these guys that he 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:36.400 thinks or sees something in the world and it's it's 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.400 like it instantly, the wheels are turning like. He doesn't 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:42.439 take anything for granted. He thinks about it's possible applications, 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.760 possible ways to improve it, like, for instance, with rhino plastic, 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.840 which often is you know, typically about correcting rebuilding the 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.119 nose or or making cosmetic adjustments to the nose. But 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:55.240 he's saying that that hasn't even reached its full potential, 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:57.240 that we could we can improve upon the nose, and 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:00.399 then ultimately improvements that we make to the human body 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:04.160 need not be a surgical in nature, but a genetic 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.320 in nature. Okay, so he's talking about gaming the body 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:10.240 now through genetics as opposed to plastic surgery. We're getting 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:14.520 married eventually. Yeah. Um, Now again you have to kind 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:16.639 of take his perspective on a little bit if this 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:18.600 seems odd to you. I mean, again, here's someone who's 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.640 doing five D procedures a year. And keep in mind 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.520 that in two thousand and ten, Americans spent over ten 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:29.600 billion dollars on cosmetic surgery. So if you're in this 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:31.439 field and you see this over and over again and 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.359 your futurist, you can't help but sit there and say, 0:19:34.400 --> 0:19:37.120 how can I actually improve upon this process? And if 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.040 this is the way that humanity is going, why not 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:44.720 make it really incredible? Why not chase after the idea 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.439 of flight, which is something that humans you know, have 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:51.240 always secretly or not so secretly wanted for themselves. Yeah. 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.000 So he's at disconference again, people keep pressing him on 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.359 this issue, and finally he does answer. Because he's not 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:58.800 the kind of guy that's gonna not tell you exactly 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:01.159 what he thinks of about a topic. He said, and 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.439 they said, would you perform this surgery on someone if 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:06.480 they want. Um, No, I think he's talking about wings 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:10.400 in this case. Yeah, I'm just hypothetically, and we'll get 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.280 into the mechanics possible mechanics of the surgery in a 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.240 bet that he said, yes, I would. I can certainly 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:19.119 see why we don't devote research money to it. I 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:21.120 can see why the n i H would fund work 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:22.879 on breast cancer over this. But I don't have a 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:25.000 problem with altering the human form. We do it all 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:28.640 the time. It's only our Judeo Christian conservatism that makes 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:31.320 us think this is wrong. Who here doesn't try to 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:33.400 send their children to the best schools in the hopes 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.760 of altering them. Who here objects to palm pilot, a 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.720 thing we we class to our bodies with which we 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.080 receive rapid electronic signals. Who here doesn't surround themselves with 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.919 a metal shell and travel at death defying speeds. We 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:49.280 have always altered ourselves for beauty or for power, and 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:51.720