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Speaker 1: My Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 1: today we're going to be kicking off the first episode

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Speaker 1: in a series about the subject of tears. This is

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Speaker 1: something I've gotten really interested in in the last couple

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Speaker 1: of weeks, Questions about the biological origins of crying and

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Speaker 1: things like that. But before we get started to set

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Speaker 1: the mood, I wanted to to read a poem by

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Speaker 1: Walt Whitman that's all about tears. In fact, it's so

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Speaker 1: much about tears. It just has the word tears followed

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Speaker 1: by an exclamation point, like at least six or seven times.

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Speaker 1: All Right, you ready for Grandpa Wald, Let's do it,

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Speaker 1: hit it? Okay. The poem goes tears, Tears, Tears in

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Speaker 1: the night in solitude, Tears on the white shore, dripping, dripping,

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Speaker 1: sucked in by the sand. Tears not a star shining,

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Speaker 1: all dark and desolate, moist, tears from the eyes of

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Speaker 1: a muffled head. Oh who is that ghost that form

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Speaker 1: in the dark with tears? What shapeless lump is that

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Speaker 1: bent crouched there on the sand, streaming tears, sobbing tears,

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Speaker 1: throws choked with wild cries. Oh storm embodied, rising, careering

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Speaker 1: with swift steps along the beach, A wild and dismal

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Speaker 1: night storm and wind, Oh belching and desperate. Oh shade,

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Speaker 1: so sedate and decorous by day, with calm countenance and

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Speaker 1: regulated pace, but away at night as you fly, none looking. Oh,

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Speaker 1: then the unloosened ocean of tears. Tears, tears. That's pretty good,

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Speaker 1: So listeners probably know I'm a big fan of Walt Whitman,

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Speaker 1: But it has that that great contrast that's in so

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Speaker 1: many of his poems, of the kind of beautiful, flowing

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Speaker 1: expressive like long lines and phrases, but then they're punctuated

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Speaker 1: by these exclamations, just like shouting a word. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: I almost quite don't know how to how to render

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Speaker 1: that in readings. I feel like I should be yelling it,

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Speaker 1: but that would probably be inappropriate to do into the microphone.

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Speaker 1: I think you could look for guidance in various grindhouse

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Speaker 1: movie trailers where they repeat the title of the film times.

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Speaker 1: You know, zombie, zombie, zombie shockma. You know that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing, just over and over again, Tears, Tears, tears

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Speaker 1: coming to a theater near you, No wonder to some

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Speaker 1: team will be admitted. Well, I guess you know you

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Speaker 1: get the with the repetition in this poem. You do

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Speaker 1: get the sense of of something that is coming that

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Speaker 1: cannot be fully control, something that is outside of yourself.

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Speaker 1: And that is, of course, that is the vibe they're

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Speaker 1: trying to relay in those movie trailers that by repeating

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Speaker 1: the title, they're letting you know that the zombie or

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Speaker 1: the shakma, or whatever the case may be, it is

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Speaker 1: something that cannot be contained. It's a little bit out

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Speaker 1: of control. And that's why are you're coming to the

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Speaker 1: theater to experience the brain is departing, are you going

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Speaker 1: to get on before it leaves the station? But anyway,

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Speaker 1: today's topic again is tears, and the main question that

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Speaker 1: really got me interested in this subject, though I think

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Speaker 1: we're going to get more into this question in the

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Speaker 1: second episode than in today's episode, is what is the

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Speaker 1: biological origin and thus the biological purpose of emotional crying?

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Speaker 1: Tears as a result of emotional states. What do emotional

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Speaker 1: tears actually do? And it's important to specify the question

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Speaker 1: of emotional tears. Because the purpose of tears and say

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Speaker 1: lubricating the eyes or and protecting them, washing them in

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Speaker 1: in various ways. That that's a more obvious thing that

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Speaker 1: you you can you know, you can tell pretty much

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Speaker 1: what's going on biologically there. But why is it that

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Speaker 1: humans have this upwelling of fluid in their eyes that

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Speaker 1: overflows the eyelids and runs down the face, particularly in

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Speaker 1: response to abstract emotional states, when the feeling joy or

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Speaker 1: surprise or sadness or terror. Yeah, yeah, I mean because

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Speaker 1: we can we can all relate to you know, get

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Speaker 1: a little dust in your eye, tears well up, and

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Speaker 1: it's about washing stuff out of the eye. But you

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Speaker 1: find yourself in these other situations where you know, you're

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Speaker 1: watching a Star Wars movie with your son or something,

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Speaker 1: and and the waterworks start coming. Clearly there was nothing

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Speaker 1: in your eye. You're watching Sam with your son, and

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Speaker 1: you start crying. Okay, I think we we both might

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Speaker 1: cry if we watched Shakoma together, but not good tears. Um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is this is gonna be a fascinating topic to

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Speaker 1: discuss in this episode and an unknown number of subsequent episodes.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna we're kind of taking the same approach with

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Speaker 1: this topic that we took with our Mirrors episodes. Well,

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Speaker 1: we'll just see, we'll just keep going until we feel

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Speaker 1: like we have finished at least for the time being. Um.

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Speaker 1: But tears, like mirrors, these are things that that everyone

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Speaker 1: in the in the world can relate to on some level.

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Speaker 1: You have tears lubricating your eyes right now. And we

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Speaker 1: have all had had moments of of emotional um tears,

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Speaker 1: We've had, We've we've wept, we will weep again. And

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Speaker 1: then of course our art, our mythology, our religion are

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Speaker 1: our cultures are full of tears, and and there's not

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Speaker 1: necessarily a universal understanding of what they are, how they

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Speaker 1: factor into the divine, how they factor into our rights

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Speaker 1: and rituals. Uh So it's a fascinating topic to unwind. Now.

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Speaker 1: A very just quick and handy definition of human tears

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Speaker 1: that comes from one of the sources I turned to

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Speaker 1: and probably one that I'll get into more in the

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Speaker 1: subsequent episode or episodes is Holy Tears Book edited by

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Speaker 1: Patent and Holly Um and they say that tears are

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Speaker 1: quote a physiological function in response to intense emotion or

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Speaker 1: physical pain. But to come back to what we just

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Speaker 1: said about emotion, I think we have to once more

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Speaker 1: acknowledge that human being especially have an added emotional dimension

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Speaker 1: to physical pain. For example, as we've discussed on the

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Speaker 1: show before, tears are linked not merely to the idea

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Speaker 1: of painful neural feedback, but also to the wider dimensions

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Speaker 1: of human suffering. And of course there have been endless

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Speaker 1: treatments on this, and we'll have many more in human

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Speaker 1: culture as thinkers, dreamers, and artists contemplate the human condition.

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Speaker 1: But but one take on all of this that we

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Speaker 1: see in both Western and Eastern traditions is the idea

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Speaker 1: that we suffer because we fixate on things and even

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Speaker 1: living being living beings that are impermanent, and we are

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Speaker 1: of course creatures of impermanence as well. Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: nothing is going to last forever. Everything and to some

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Speaker 1: degree is ephemeral. Everything to some degree is little more

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Speaker 1: than a dream. So it's not just that there's pain,

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Speaker 1: it's the emotional context of the pain, what it means

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Speaker 1: for things that were and things that could or will be.

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Speaker 1: Because I think one of the you know, the the

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Speaker 1: easy to imagine and even remember and to anticipate examples

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Speaker 1: of human tears are like a kid falls, scrapes up

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Speaker 1: their knee and then they're crying and and honestly that

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Speaker 1: that can happen with with adults too. It's not just

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Speaker 1: a kid's thing. You can suffer an injury. Uh, you

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Speaker 1: might find yourself shedding some tears. It can be you know,

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Speaker 1: it can be just an automatic response. But the idea

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Speaker 1: seems to be that that in the in the human context,

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Speaker 1: we have this additional stuff as well. You know that

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Speaker 1: we are thinking we may, let some level, be connecting

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Speaker 1: two past experiences of say, scraping our knee, the anticipation

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Speaker 1: of realizing I'm gonna have this annoying, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: injury and then scab on my knee that sort of thing,

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Speaker 1: or I am embarrassed by what happened. There are these

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Speaker 1: other connotations that are involved with the physical uh pain scenario. Well,

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Speaker 1: in the specific scenario you describe, I couldn't help but

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Speaker 1: think that one of the things that is most strongly

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Speaker 1: tied to the tearful response and in response to pain

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Speaker 1: in or emotional distress, especially in a child, is the

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Speaker 1: is the separation aspect, Like when a child is separated

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Speaker 1: from their you know, parent or caregiver, like whoever the

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Speaker 1: authority figure that would turn to at this moment. Is

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Speaker 1: that's the thing that seems most powerfully motivating of the tears,

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Speaker 1: right because often with a kid, like the tears are

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Speaker 1: there until or or or they can start to subside,

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Speaker 1: like once the parent gets to them. Yeah, and in

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Speaker 1: that we get into the the the communication aspects of tears,

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Speaker 1: which is something that we'll we'll be talking about at

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Speaker 1: length as well. You know, the idea that we're when

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Speaker 1: we're weeping like this, it is because someone else needs

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Speaker 1: to pick up on it and their varying degrees. That

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Speaker 1: will discuss in that. But yeah, and another thing we're

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Speaker 1: pointing out, I think is that you know, the obviously

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Speaker 1: that one can be in a more emotionally raw state

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Speaker 1: and then you'll find yourself more susceptible to spontaneous tears,

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Speaker 1: perhaps over something that normally would not generate these tears,

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Speaker 1: but you already have some other kind of emotional connotation

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Speaker 1: going on in the background, right, Like you're already stressed

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Speaker 1: and then you're you're crying because like you can't get

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Speaker 1: the padlock on the shed open right right, or yeah,

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Speaker 1: or you miss a particular person, be there somebody who's

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Speaker 1: just away or has has died, and then there's something,

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Speaker 1: some sort of emotional media or or even just a

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Speaker 1: like a household item you encounter and that can be

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Speaker 1: enough to push you over the edge. So it's not

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Speaker 1: the idea that you know, just looking at this hammer

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Speaker 1: made you cry, but perhaps that the memories associated with it,

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Speaker 1: the emotions associated with it, and to come back to,

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Speaker 1: you know, some of these ideas that you see in

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Speaker 1: in both Greek and Buddhist thought, the idea that attachment

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Speaker 1: is playing a role, that you are still uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: suffering from attachment to this thing or this person that

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Speaker 1: perhaps no longer is all right. Well, before we get

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Speaker 1: into the evolutionary questions, the questions about the purpose of

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Speaker 1: emotional and only linked tear responses, we should look at

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Speaker 1: some basic anatomical facts. So tears are a clear liquid

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Speaker 1: that covers the eye. They're secreted by what's called the

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Speaker 1: lachrymal gland. And here is an I was always wrong

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Speaker 1: about this moment. I want to admit I had I had,

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Speaker 1: you know, like I tear stuff anatomy wrong my entire

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Speaker 1: life until I was getting ready to do this episode.

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Speaker 1: I always thought that the lachrymal gland and the tear

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Speaker 1: duct were the same thing. The tear duct is, of

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Speaker 1: course in the inside corner of your eye, where the

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Speaker 1: eye meets the bridge of your nose, and I thought,

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Speaker 1: I thought this was the same as the lachrymal gland.

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Speaker 1: I thought, this is where tears came from. And these,

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Speaker 1: in fact are not the same thing at all. Tears

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Speaker 1: are secreted by the lachrymal gland via the lachrymal ducts,

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Speaker 1: and this tear producing apparatus is position actually over the

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Speaker 1: top of the eye, sort of on the outside of

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Speaker 1: each eye. So each eye, you think of like go

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Speaker 1: up from the middle of it over where your eyebrow

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Speaker 1: and then move a little towards the outside of your head.

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Speaker 1: That's where your lachrymal glands are. And now that I

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Speaker 1: think about it, I guess um it would probably make

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Speaker 1: sense for a gland that produces a fluid that's supposed

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Speaker 1: to flow over the surface of the eye to be

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Speaker 1: positioned above the eye instead of below it, just because

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Speaker 1: you know, gravity would sort of help move the fluid

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Speaker 1: in the right direction, right. Yeah, It's like putting the

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Speaker 1: water tower on the on the roof of the building,

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Yeah. I don't know that I

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Speaker 1: would have known this previously either, had it not been

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Speaker 1: for the fact that my my son had an issue

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Speaker 1: with his tear ducks and had to have tubes put

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Speaker 1: in there. Uh, because before that, he would just like

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Speaker 1: tears would come out for like either very easily during

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Speaker 1: an emotional outbursts, but also for no seeming reason at all.

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Speaker 1: Like I remember one time when he was an infant

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Speaker 1: and I like moved in and I like, I like

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Speaker 1: want to kiss him on the forehead, and instead I

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Speaker 1: kissed him on the eyelid, and it caused tears to

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Speaker 1: shoot out of his tear duck into my mouth. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: And uh, anyway, it was no ideal. We got it,

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Speaker 1: got the tubes put in, and he's been fine ever since.

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Speaker 1: Oh I'm glad to hear that. I was actually reading

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Speaker 1: that blockage of the tear ducks that prevents proper draining

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Speaker 1: of the eyes is very common in children. There are

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Speaker 1: multiple reasons that can happen. Yeah, he did weep at

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Speaker 1: least a couple of drops of blood from from those

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Speaker 1: tear ducks, though right after he had the surgery, so

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Speaker 1: it was he was. That was kind of neat and

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Speaker 1: again not not painful, but just a normal, right, normal

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Speaker 1: post surgical situation that they warned us about. They said, look,

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Speaker 1: there might be some blood that comes out of the tear. Duck,

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Speaker 1: don't freak out about it. This is not a biblical

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Speaker 1: event or anything. Normal side effect. Yeah, but it was

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Speaker 1: knowing it was coming, it was kind of cool. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can probably hear based on what we're just talking about.

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Speaker 1: The the tear duct that is on the inside corner

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Speaker 1: of the eye, where the eye meets the bridge of

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Speaker 1: the nose. This actually has a different function. This is

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Speaker 1: not where tears come from. This is a drainage system,

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Speaker 1: or if you prefer, you could think of it as

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Speaker 1: the sewer of the eye. I don't know that I

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Speaker 1: like the sound of that, but that that very well.

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Speaker 1: We do not allow stigmatization of sewers. Sewers are great.

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Speaker 1: So the way it works is that tears are continually

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Speaker 1: produced to cover the surface of the eye and they

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Speaker 1: stay there the you know, when you blink, it helps

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Speaker 1: spread the spread the tear fluid around the surface of

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Speaker 1: the eye keeps it well, well moisten and lubricated there

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Speaker 1: and then Eventually these tears drained down into openings called

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Speaker 1: punkta that are on the inside corners of your eyelids.

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Speaker 1: And then from here they drained down into narrow tubes

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Speaker 1: in a cabin into a cavity called the lachrymal sack,

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Speaker 1: and again this is on the inside corners of your eyes.

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Speaker 1: And then finally from there they drained down into a

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Speaker 1: duct where they empty into your nose. An interesting note

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Speaker 1: I believe, based on a few things I was reading,

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Speaker 1: I think this is actually the main reason that your

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Speaker 1: nose runs when you cry. Um. So, you know, when

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Speaker 1: you cry, it's often not just fluid coming out of

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Speaker 1: your eyes running down your cheeks, but also, like you know,

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Speaker 1: it's suddenly like you have a cold as well. Your

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Speaker 1: nose might get stopped up or your nose might run.

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Speaker 1: And it seems that one reason this is happening is

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Speaker 1: that you've got lots of extra tears flowing into the

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Speaker 1: nasal cavity via this duct system where they mix with

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Speaker 1: nasal mucus and they form this mucacy liquid of a

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Speaker 1: thinner consistency than normal, which sort of drips out your

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Speaker 1: nose holes and down the back of your throat. It's

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Speaker 1: it's easy to forget given that we we see it,

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Speaker 1: we probably consume a lot more like media crying and

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Speaker 1: movie crying. You don't always have the snot involved during

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Speaker 1: the movie crying. Sometimes you do, and when when it's there,

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Speaker 1: I applaud it because I'm like, that's real. There's some

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Speaker 1: real water works. Yeah. Yeah, the sanitized crying. It's like

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Speaker 1: how in movies when an attractive actor or they like

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Speaker 1: get into some big scuffle. You know, they've been like

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Speaker 1: rolling around in the mud and all that, but then

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Speaker 1: they come up and then like their hair is still

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Speaker 1: perfect and their makeup is perfect and they still look

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Speaker 1: super great. Yeah. Uh. They do the same thing with crying.

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Speaker 1: There's like a sanitized unreality to crying in movies where

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Speaker 1: they they still want you to like look cool, so

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Speaker 1: they're not gonna give you like a red running nose.

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Speaker 1: They're just gonna have the single tear going down the cheek. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And and you know, I have wondered in the past

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Speaker 1: with with certain actors who are known for this ability

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Speaker 1: if perhaps sometimes they do have some sort of a

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Speaker 1: tear duck situation that allows them to like easily produce

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Speaker 1: a tear without like actively engaging the rest of their

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Speaker 1: their face. Uh, because yeah, like a full on bawling situation.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes the snot that you're gonna have snot involved. You're

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Speaker 1: gonna have like red, puffy faced a situation going on.

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Speaker 1: And yeah you don't. You don't see that as much

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Speaker 1: in films, or at least not in you know, the big,

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Speaker 1: big mainstream films. Well, one thing I was reading about

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Speaker 1: is that some people have conditions where their eyes are

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Speaker 1: too dry, like that they don't have enough of the

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Speaker 1: standard tear fluid um over their eyes. And one way

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Speaker 1: of dealing with this is a procedure that I think

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Speaker 1: at least partially blocks the ducks that are draining away

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Speaker 1: from the eyes normally. And one side effect of this procedure,

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Speaker 1: if you have to get it to to help moisten

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Speaker 1: your eyes better, is that with that blockage, now if

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Speaker 1: you start crying, you don't get a running nose. Interesting, now,

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Speaker 1: this just brings to mind all sorts of of possible

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Speaker 1: nightmare scenarios where an actor is getting a bunch of

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Speaker 1: like nasal surgery done purely so that they can cry

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Speaker 1: on command without experiencing a running nose or or blushing

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Speaker 1: of the face. Oscar Baits scenes without the snot that

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Speaker 1: would would make them look unattractive. But I think it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's interesting that we're you know, we're talking about

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Speaker 1: the like the the physical complexity of tear production and

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Speaker 1: how integrated it is with the you know, the rest

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Speaker 1: the plumbing of our face, because that does match up

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Speaker 1: with a lot of what we just said about the

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Speaker 1: human emotional uh context, you know, how how our emotions

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Speaker 1: are so wrapped up in all these other processes as well.

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Speaker 1: So it feels like it feels right that these two

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Speaker 1: things should both be so indebted. You know who we are,

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Speaker 1: thank you, Thank now. Researchers have noted basically three broad

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Speaker 1: categories of tears that are present in humans. There are

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Speaker 1: three different ways you can make tears. The first is

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Speaker 1: what we've already been talking about, which is basal tears.

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Speaker 1: Basil tears are not a response to anything in particular. Instead,

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Speaker 1: basal tears are what is always present, is always being

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Speaker 1: produced by the lachrymal gland, always coating the surface of

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Speaker 1: the eye and then draining away gradually through the tear

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Speaker 1: ducts on the inner eye. And one reason we blink

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Speaker 1: actually is to help keep this ever present layer of

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Speaker 1: basal tears evenly spread out over the eyeballs. An interesting

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Speaker 1: fact I discovered about basal tears They are not a

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Speaker 1: homogeneous liquid. They instead consist of a number of distinct

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Speaker 1: components that tend to settle into layers. When coding the

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Speaker 1: eye and so going from the inside out, I want

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Speaker 1: mentioned the three different layers. So the first layer, the

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Speaker 1: closest your eye, is the mucous layer, and this layer

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Speaker 1: tears contain this This mucus that is I believe secreted

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Speaker 1: by epithelial cells within the eye itself rather than from

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Speaker 1: the lachrymal gland um, and this helps the tier film

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Speaker 1: stick to the surface of the eye. This would be

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Speaker 1: similar to the way that a lot of the tissues

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Speaker 1: inside the body have a layer of epithelial cells that

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Speaker 1: serve to secrete a mucus that helps like a lubricate

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Speaker 1: or somehow protect the inner surface of or the outer

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Speaker 1: surface of the organ. Then after that there is the

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Speaker 1: watery layer or the aqueous layer, and this is the

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Speaker 1: bulk of the salty ear liquid. This is secreted by

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Speaker 1: the lacrimal glands. But then on top of that there

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Speaker 1: is a lipid layer or oily layer, the oily coat

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Speaker 1: on top of the tears, So the sea of your

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Speaker 1: tears on your eye is topped by an oil slick,

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Speaker 1: and this apparently helps protect the liquid layer. It slows

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Speaker 1: down evaporation and so forth. So when you consider your tears,

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Speaker 1: know that they do in fact contain multitudes. However, all

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Speaker 1: of this is present even when we're not thinking about tears,

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Speaker 1: because they're not overflowing the eyelids just in the normal

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Speaker 1: cycle of of blinking and lubrication and so forth. That's

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Speaker 1: all just in the basal tears. What about these other

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Speaker 1: two kinds of tear responses present in humans. Well, the

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Speaker 1: next kind that you would want to look at is

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Speaker 1: known as reflex tears, or maybe irritant tears, and this

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Speaker 1: is when the eye overflows with tears in response to

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Speaker 1: a physical condition. So if you get sand in your eye,

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Speaker 1: or if you punish yourself with volatile sulfur compounds from

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Speaker 1: chopping onions with a dull knife. This this is the

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Speaker 1: eye detecting irritation of some kind and going into self

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Speaker 1: cleaning mode, producing lots of tears to protect itself and

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Speaker 1: to wash away potential contaminants. But then finally you get

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Speaker 1: into the most enigmatic category, which is emotional tears. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And and this is that this is the really strange

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Speaker 1: and interesting one, the welling of tears in the eyes

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Speaker 1: and the absence of a physical cause in the eye itself,

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Speaker 1: but owing instead to an abstract emotional state. And while

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Speaker 1: the other two categories of tears can be found in

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Speaker 1: other animal responses, it's the emotional tears that apparently, at

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Speaker 1: least according to many researchers, are pretty much unique to

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Speaker 1: Homo sapiens. I think it's pretty widely agreed that Homo

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Speaker 1: sapiens are the only extant animal that the cries emotionally,

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Speaker 1: that produces emotional tears, and certainly on a regular basis.

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Speaker 1: So this brings us back to this interesting question. Why

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Speaker 1: do we shed tears when we're overcome with joy or

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Speaker 1: sadness or even surprise. These things that are originally there

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Speaker 1: to lubricate and protect the eye and then maybe to

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Speaker 1: sort of overflow and wash out irritants in the case

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Speaker 1: of some kind of physical distress. Why would they show

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Speaker 1: up when you see a dog getting reunited with its owner.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I think the animal videos

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Speaker 1: certainly get to a lot of us, or or cheetah

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Speaker 1: and dog who are friends. It's another one. Any any

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Speaker 1: baby animal, Yeah, why why do we need It's not

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Speaker 1: like those things are are going going to admit particles

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Speaker 1: that could irritate our eyes and then our eyes are like,

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Speaker 1: oh no, here comes a cute animal. That would be

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Speaker 1: great if there was like an emotional you know. So

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Speaker 1: you just know that whenever there's a cute animal, it's

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Speaker 1: also emitting like oniony sulfur compounds that are gonna get

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Speaker 1: in your eyes, and so it's it's protective like that.

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Speaker 1: But no, I mean, we don't know of anything of

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Speaker 1: that kind. At least there's nothing obvious of that kind.

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Speaker 1: So you've got to look to other explanations. Though actually

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Speaker 1: there is one explanation that's that's almost certainly a bad

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Speaker 1: explanation for the evolutionary origins of tears, But I'm going

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Speaker 1: to mention it later in this episode just because it's, uh,

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Speaker 1: it's it's kind of funny to consider, even though it's

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Speaker 1: almost definitely wrong, but it sort of follows this method anyway.

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Speaker 1: We'll come back to that. So it seems a major

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Speaker 1: clue in looking at at the the evolutionary purpose of

401
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Speaker 1: tears to observe that emotional tears seem to be pretty

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Speaker 1: much unique to human beings. The Roman poet Juvenile said, uh,

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Speaker 1: nature in giving tears to man confessed that he had

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Speaker 1: a tender heart. This is our noblest quality. So, you know,

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Speaker 1: like the juveniles observing something unique about human beings being

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Speaker 1: able to cry, uh, noble tears, Tears that have a

407
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Speaker 1: meaning rather than just being like washing out irritation from

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Speaker 1: the eye sockets. This is of course something that that

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Speaker 1: comes up quite a bit. And Holy Tears that book

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Speaker 1: I referenced earlier from Patton and Holly, they're they're the editors,

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Speaker 1: but it contains work by other authors, other bits of

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Speaker 1: scholarship about tears and how they factor into rights and religion.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, we we tend to look at the human

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Speaker 1: condition and we say, okay, humans are capable of these

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Speaker 1: complex emotional states. They're they're capable of feeling sorrow and empathy. Also,

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Speaker 1: we we we shed tears in many of these emotional states.

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Speaker 1: And then we just we kind of assume that these

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Speaker 1: two things are one, that that that we we have tears,

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Speaker 1: therefore we have emotional states. We have emotional states, Therefore

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Speaker 1: we have tears and uh. And we see that bleed

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Speaker 1: over into our conception of various supernatural entities as well

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Speaker 1: all of our our human like creatures and beings and

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Speaker 1: myth and religion. They're all these stories of of course,

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Speaker 1: not only mythological heroes and demi gods shedding tears, but

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Speaker 1: God um itself shedding tears. Also various monsters and creatures

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Speaker 1: shedding tears tears uh and uh. And so that it's

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00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 1: interesting to take all of that and then you look

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Speaker 1: to the animal world, and I think in doing so,

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Speaker 1: we do have to stress that that ultimately, when we're

430
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 1: even if we're saying an animal does not shed tears,

431
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:19,000
Speaker 1: or another like primate for instance, does not shed emotional tears,

432
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:22,760
Speaker 1: it does not mean that they don't have emotional states,

433
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:26,720
Speaker 1: um and and uh. And in a way that that

434
00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:29,159
Speaker 1: this is kind of an overstatement of the obvious, but

435
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 1: I think it's it's so important to drive home because

436
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:35,800
Speaker 1: the idea of of human emotions and tears are so

437
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:39,920
Speaker 1: closely linked, like they're just inseparable. Yeah, yeah, I see

438
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:41,640
Speaker 1: what you're saying there, and I think that's a very

439
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:45,040
Speaker 1: good point. You a person could naively assume, Oh well,

440
00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:47,680
Speaker 1: because if it's the case that only humans really shed

441
00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 1: tears in response to emotions, that must mean humans have

442
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:56,880
Speaker 1: like better, more sophisticated emotions than animals do, or or

443
00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:00,240
Speaker 1: more powerful emotions than animals do. You can't necessary really

444
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:03,200
Speaker 1: conclude that, I mean one doesn't follow from the other. Yeah,

445
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 1: so you know, I think it. Ultimately, we can all

446
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:09,480
Speaker 1: engage our creativity. We can imagine alien species, you know,

447
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 1: in a Star Wars or Star Trek kind of scenario.

448
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:16,560
Speaker 1: We can easily imagine beings that have complex emotional states

449
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,040
Speaker 1: at least on par with human beings that don't shed

450
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:21,800
Speaker 1: tears like we do. Maybe they do something else that

451
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 1: that communicates uh, their emotional state to others. Maybe it's

452
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 1: a change in coloration, maybe they admit a certain odor.

453
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:34,200
Speaker 1: Maybe it's some sort of a light based scenario, or

454
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:37,199
Speaker 1: I don't know. Um if we're going to try and

455
00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 1: come up with something that is on par with and

456
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 1: maybe ultimately as mysterious as why why is when are

457
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:46,840
Speaker 1: my eyeballs producing extra liquid? Maybe it's like extra sweating.

458
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:49,000
Speaker 1: You know, you're you're at a funeral, So what do

459
00:25:49,040 --> 00:25:52,400
Speaker 1: you do? You sweat? You sweat with everybody else? Um,

460
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 1: or you salivate a lot. That's kind of thing emotional flatulence.

461
00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:58,520
Speaker 1: I mean, there could be all kinds of like the

462
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: body could release all kind ends of substances in response

463
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:05,359
Speaker 1: to powerful emotions. Right, But this is the adaptation that

464
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:09,400
Speaker 1: our ancient ancestors, uh, somehow acquired, and the question would

465
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:12,160
Speaker 1: be how did they acquire it and why? Now in

466
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:15,400
Speaker 1: in Holy Tears, there's a there's a wonderful little line.

467
00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:17,360
Speaker 1: There's so many great lines in this, but I want

468
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 1: to read this quick one before I move forward. Quote,

469
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 1: among the very earliest expressions of distress in the infants range,

470
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 1: tears remain a profound existential signifier at all stages of

471
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:32,640
Speaker 1: human life, particularly in the face of fear, loss, or despair.

472
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: And I think that's true. I think that that's a

473
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,159
Speaker 1: that's a great statement. But I started looking around a

474
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: little bit, and uh, I realized, Oh, newborn babies don't

475
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: actually shed emotional tears. And this is I have to admit,

476
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of experience with the very

477
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:51,160
Speaker 1: young children. So maybe I just haven't been around enough

478
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:54,160
Speaker 1: like brand new babies, like less than a month old

479
00:26:54,160 --> 00:26:58,199
Speaker 1: sort of thing. But the uh, the fact seems to

480
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:00,720
Speaker 1: be that the eyes of an infant remains a pretty

481
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: dry for the first two weeks of life. Now there, Uh,

482
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:08,080
Speaker 1: their tear glands are functional, but they don't make enough

483
00:27:08,119 --> 00:27:11,360
Speaker 1: of the stuff for it to be seen as as

484
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:14,679
Speaker 1: as obvious tears in the eye. So they might they

485
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:17,560
Speaker 1: might be bawling, for example, and you're not going to see,

486
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:20,919
Speaker 1: you know, the water works flowing. After two weeks, however,

487
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:24,280
Speaker 1: those glands are gonna boost production, and most children, according

488
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 1: to Karen gil m d writing for Healthline, create full

489
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 1: tears between one and three months into their lives. That

490
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: is interesting because it makes you think about what are

491
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 1: the components of crying Again, this is something that will

492
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:39,359
Speaker 1: probably become more significant when we talk about a lot

493
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 1: of some of the major theories in the next episode.

494
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: But crying entails multiple behavioral signals, right, So an infant

495
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:50,640
Speaker 1: can cry and it would do a thing that everybody

496
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:53,919
Speaker 1: would recognize as crying, and you would say, yeah, that's crying,

497
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 1: even without shedding liquid tears running down its face. I mean,

498
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:01,640
Speaker 1: it will make a vocalization and you see like contortions

499
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 1: of the face in a certain way, and uh, kind

500
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:07,679
Speaker 1: of like screaming or bawling, and everybody knows that's crying

501
00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 1: even though the tears are not present. And yet once

502
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 1: you reach a certain age, the tears are present, and

503
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: we start to think of tears as an important part

504
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: of crying, especially adult crying. Yeah. Yeah, So on one level,

505
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:23,639
Speaker 1: when we're looking elsewhere in the animal world, we have

506
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:25,879
Speaker 1: to be very specific about what we're talking about with crying.

507
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: And this was pointed out by professor in comparative biology

508
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 1: Kim A. Bard Uh in a bit she wrote for

509
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 1: Scientific America, pointing out that crying has been used to

510
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 1: describe just the vocalization of various primates. So if you're

511
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:43,760
Speaker 1: just very generally saying, we'll do other primates cry, well, yes,

512
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: other primates do cry out, They create vocalizations, and and

513
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: obviously you know these vocalizations are about communicating something, uh

514
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 1: to other creatures and or other primates. But if we're

515
00:28:56,840 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: indeed going to focus in on tears and quote fearful sobbing,

516
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 1: then humans do seem to be alone. It doesn't mean, again,

517
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 1: that we're the only primates capable of feelings, say sorrow

518
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: or other complex emotions. We don't really have a firm

519
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,520
Speaker 1: answer on that count yet, but there I think there's

520
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 1: some some strong arguments to be made, but we're the

521
00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 1: only ones who shed tears of sorrow right now. I

522
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: think a lot of you probably your brains went to

523
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: the same place as mind did at this point, and

524
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:28,520
Speaker 1: I my I thought, well, what about Neanderthals. Did these

525
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 1: intelligent relatives of humans that went extinct about forty tho

526
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: years ago? Did they shed tears like we do? Right?

527
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess this would be a question and

528
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 1: part of how far back the emotional tear adaptation goes

529
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 1: like did our you know, the common ancestor of Neanderthals

530
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: and Homo sapiens have this tear response that it would

531
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: would give to both of them or or is it

532
00:29:50,800 --> 00:29:55,160
Speaker 1: a more unique property of Homo sapiens specifically? Yeah, And

533
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,680
Speaker 1: then also I think it's it's it's worth thinking about

534
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 1: uh and exploring to to to a limited extent because

535
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 1: you think about, well, what can what what what could

536
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: Neanderthals do? Like what do we know that they had

537
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: that human that modern humans also had? And have you know,

538
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: they had access to various technologies, they created art, and

539
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: depending on on how you look at the artifacts, they

540
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 1: may have engaged in funeral rights as well, so, on

541
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 1: one hand, it seems like a lot of the things

542
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: that we attribute to the human condition and human you know,

543
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 1: civilization even and the emotional states associated with them, we

544
00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: can look to the Neanderthal world and say, well, they

545
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 1: had these things. So perhaps you know, so it seems

546
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 1: like they had emotional states like we did. But does

547
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 1: that mean that they could produce tears as well? Emotional

548
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 1: tears not necessarily a given? Yeah, yeah, so uh So

549
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: I started looking into this a little bit, and it's

550
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:59,280
Speaker 1: it's interesting because the topic was somewhat muddled by some

551
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 1: scholarship in the mid nineties. There was I believe this

552
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 1: was a nineteen nineties nineties six article that came out

553
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 1: in p N a s uh significance of some previously

554
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 1: unrecognized uh apo morphies in the nasal region of Homo

555
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 1: neandertal insis. And this was from a pair of researchers

556
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: Shorts and Tattersall Okay, so uh to clarify in that title,

557
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 1: apo morphies would refer to unique traits, unique physical traits

558
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 1: of a species, right, and so this particular paper, uh,

559
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 1: basically what it was doing is looking at various remains

560
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: all of Deandertals and claiming that that there were there

561
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 1: were aspects of their nasal uh makeup that seemed to

562
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:52,880
Speaker 1: be different from humans and all of their primates. And

563
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:54,959
Speaker 1: there were so and and one of these was the

564
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 1: idea that peer ducts seemed to be absent. And this

565
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: caused quite a stir at the time time because oh, well,

566
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 1: this is this was this On one hand, this would

567
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:05,479
Speaker 1: be amazing if we found this out, like what does

568
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 1: this mean that Neanderthals seemed to be distinct from all

569
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:13,000
Speaker 1: other primates? Uh? And then it ended up being kind

570
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 1: of hijacked to a certain extent I've read by creationists

571
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 1: who wanted to put the spin on it. Oh, this

572
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 1: means that Neanderdal's they couldn't cry. Humans can cry. We're

573
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:27,200
Speaker 1: the king of crying. We're the we're the only children

574
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: of God. God can cry. We can cry apes. Neanderthal's

575
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:35,200
Speaker 1: no crying for you guys. We're the best, which the

576
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:38,959
Speaker 1: divine spark exists only in crying. Brain Yeah, which kind

577
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:41,960
Speaker 1: of goes back to the juvenile quote from earlier, right

578
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 1: like this is this is what humans do, so nothing

579
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: else does it and so uh that's you know, which

580
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,840
Speaker 1: makes us the noblest of all is right, right. But

581
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: the curious thing about this is that it's such a

582
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 1: misread on the paper because, for one thing, the original

583
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: researchers here, they they were trying to make that point.

584
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:04,239
Speaker 1: If anything, they were making the opposite point. Neanderthals were

585
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: something special, uh not human humans you know, have have

586
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 1: pretty much all the other things in common with the

587
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 1: other primates. Nasal features. They were saying, Oh, the nasal

588
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:16,440
Speaker 1: features of Neanderthals. They this looks distinct. These guys are special.

589
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: So if you were going to take some sort of

590
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 1: religious message out of that, it seems like you might

591
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: want to say, well, then the Neanderthals were the true

592
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:27,280
Speaker 1: children of God because God decided to give them special

593
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:31,280
Speaker 1: nasal cavities. I don't know, But at any rate, this

594
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:36,840
Speaker 1: particular paper, in this particular study, Uh, it was a

595
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 1: big controversial at the time. I've read and subsequently other

596
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 1: researchers argue that the findings were based on and this

597
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 1: is from a N. P. And S published rebuttal Uh,

598
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 1: it was based on quote reliance on specimens with damaged, incomplete,

599
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: or in some cases entirely absent relevant anatomy. So what

600
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: they were inferring about the supposed lack of tear ducts

601
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:03,160
Speaker 1: in in the Neanderthals could have actually not been based

602
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: on what was something not something universal to Neandertal anatomy,

603
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 1: but just based on problems with the specific like skeletal

604
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 1: remains they were looking at, right, And you know, this

605
00:34:13,680 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 1: is just this is we see this in plenty of

606
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:17,839
Speaker 1: other studies as well. I mean, this is just kind

607
00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:20,720
Speaker 1: of how science works. Sometimes there's something missing, it seems

608
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 1: seems like it might be something. Uh, paper is published

609
00:34:24,120 --> 00:34:26,239
Speaker 1: about it, and then subsequently there's kind of a course

610
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:29,439
Speaker 1: correction on it. But I think it does. I've read

611
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:31,359
Speaker 1: that it's still kind of remains out there. You'll still

612
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 1: see this brought up, particularly by some some creationist websites

613
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: that will try and use it to prop up this

614
00:34:37,680 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 1: idea that that human beings are are distinct from other

615
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:44,359
Speaker 1: primates and therefore are not an evolved species or something

616
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 1: to that effect. So to be clear, Neanderthals they had

617
00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 1: tear ducks like other primates. But the question that is

618
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:55,799
Speaker 1: still outstanding, I guess would be did they or would

619
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: they have been capable of shedding emotional tears like human

620
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:02,879
Speaker 1: like modern woman's do, and that is just that's something

621
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:04,480
Speaker 1: I don't think we have an answer too. I'm not

622
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: sure of what we could ever have an answer to

623
00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: that unless we had a time machine. Though. I guess

624
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:12,719
Speaker 1: perhaps it's conceivable that something could be worked out with genetics.

625
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 1: But maybe, I mean that seems like something, Yeah, a

626
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 1: genetic marker could be possible that gives a predisposition to

627
00:35:20,080 --> 00:35:24,200
Speaker 1: a certain kind of behavior. But but yeah, that's difficult

628
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 1: because like emotional weeping is something that may not leave

629
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,000
Speaker 1: any kind of physical trace at all that you could detect.

630
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 1: I mean, might it's something that's just a behavior that

631
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:37,520
Speaker 1: may or may not have recognizable genetic markers that point

632
00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, I guess for me, I'm I'm aloathe

633
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:46,200
Speaker 1: to take emotional tears away from Neanderthals just because for

634
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 1: no other reason, it's because we have again, this is

635
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 1: such a strong link between tears and emotional states. Like

636
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:54,239
Speaker 1: I don't want to just assume that Neandertals did not

637
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 1: have emotional states. You know what I'm saying is it

638
00:35:56,760 --> 00:36:00,279
Speaker 1: just seems because of that that bad into is and

639
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:03,240
Speaker 1: we were talking about earlier. Yeah, yeah, and it seems

640
00:36:03,280 --> 00:36:06,919
Speaker 1: kind of tacky considering the rise of modern humans. Uh,

641
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:10,200
Speaker 1: you know, may have would have played some role in

642
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 1: the extinction of Neanderthals, though the exact role is a

643
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:15,840
Speaker 1: matter of debate. You know, could could just be a

644
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:18,879
Speaker 1: matter of you see that the argument's range from out

645
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:23,919
Speaker 1: competing them resources to like actually hunting them down and

646
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:26,960
Speaker 1: killing them that sort of thing. But whatever the truth there.

647
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:29,880
Speaker 1: I mean, as we talked about earlier, the presence or

648
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 1: absence of weeping as a response to emotion is not

649
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:37,239
Speaker 1: indicative of whether or not there is underlying emotion or

650
00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:47,280
Speaker 1: the or the properties of that emotion. Now, this whole

651
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 1: discussion about ancient, ancient humans and Neanderthals has gotten me

652
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:55,280
Speaker 1: thinking about one answer that's been given to the question

653
00:36:55,320 --> 00:37:00,759
Speaker 1: of the evolutionary origins of of tearful sobbing. And I'm

654
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 1: citing this because it's it's interesting and kind of funny,

655
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:07,319
Speaker 1: not because it is a good explanation. I think this

656
00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 1: is almost definitely wrong. But I came across this in

657
00:37:11,200 --> 00:37:13,719
Speaker 1: a book I'll probably refer to again and in the

658
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 1: next episode. This is a book by a Dutch psychologist

659
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:22,320
Speaker 1: named ad Vinger Hoots called Why Only Humans Weep? Unraveling

660
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:27,200
Speaker 1: the Mysteries of Tears from Oxford University Press and Vinger

661
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 1: Hoots is best I can tell. Seems to be one

662
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:32,239
Speaker 1: of the leading experts in the world on the the

663
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: origins of crying. He's looked into this question a lot.

664
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:36,920
Speaker 1: He's got a whole book about it, so he will

665
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:39,920
Speaker 1: definitely come up again in the next episode. But anyway,

666
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:43,400
Speaker 1: so he's he's running through a list of all the

667
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 1: different explanations people have given for for the origin of

668
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:51,920
Speaker 1: emotional weeping. And one of these is a hypothesis that

669
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:56,120
Speaker 1: was advanced by a neuroscientist and uh an expert in

670
00:37:56,200 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 1: emotions named Paul McLean. And so here I want to

671
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 1: quote from from Fingerhood summary quote. He argued that our

672
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:08,520
Speaker 1: emotional tears originated about one point four million years ago,

673
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 1: when the use of fire became more common and our

674
00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 1: ancestors burned the corpses of their beloved family and tribe members.

675
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: According to McLean and We're published in it was the

676
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 1: smoke from these fires that might initially have generated tear

677
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:30,120
Speaker 1: producing reflexes. Subsequently, the production of tears became a conditioned

678
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:33,759
Speaker 1: reflex due to the association of fire and ceremonies with

679
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:38,040
Speaker 1: emotional events. Now on one level. I love this explanation because,

680
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 1: like it really works on kind of a mythological level.

681
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:42,520
Speaker 1: This would be a great like story to tell, is

682
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 1: when they first started burning the smoke it got in

683
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 1: their eyes. You know, it almost has that sort of

684
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 1: folk tale quality to it. I think this is a

685
00:38:50,480 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 1: really bad explanation in terms of scientific or evolutionary reasoning, because,

686
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:59,440
Speaker 1: for one thing, a conditioned response learned by our ancient

687
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:03,879
Speaker 1: ancests is having to do with funerary practices. There's really

688
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:06,799
Speaker 1: no explanation of how a conditioned response like that, a

689
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:12,600
Speaker 1: learned response could turn into a genetically determined anatomical response

690
00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 1: because like, you know, babies don't need to learn to

691
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: shed emotional tears from adults it. You know, clearly emotional

692
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:22,480
Speaker 1: tears are something that just kind of happens naturally with humans.

693
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 1: It doesn't need to be learned from experiencing fires at

694
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:29,080
Speaker 1: funerals or anything like that. Yeah, they've they've mastered it

695
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: pretty early on. It's just we we learned from them, really, right,

696
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:35,920
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's clear it's like it's a genetically determined

697
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 1: behavior at this point. It is in our bodies. It's

698
00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 1: not something that you have to pick up from culture really, though,

699
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:44,320
Speaker 1: of course there are lots of cultural variations and how

700
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:47,919
Speaker 1: exactly emotional weeping comes through. It's it's clear that there's

701
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 1: a there's an underlying baseline that's in our bodies and

702
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 1: in our DNA. Yeah. The other thing Fingerhood's points out

703
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: as a real reason to think this is not a

704
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 1: good explanation for the biologic origins or purpose of crying

705
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:05,600
Speaker 1: is that it's hard to see how tears here would

706
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 1: have any additional survival value. So, right, if you're imagining

707
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 1: when humans they started, they started using fires and used

708
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 1: fires in their funeral rights um and thus came to

709
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:21,320
Speaker 1: associate feelings of sadness and loss with irritation of the eyes,

710
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:23,920
Speaker 1: and this made them weep, and you would have to

711
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:29,800
Speaker 1: imagine that like the people who wept the most. I guess,

712
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 1: as you know, who got the most smoke in their eyes,

713
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:34,759
Speaker 1: or got the or got the most eye irritation and

714
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:37,239
Speaker 1: wept to the most in response to it would have

715
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:41,360
Speaker 1: some kind of uh, some kind of additional survival or

716
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: reproduction as opposed to people who didn't, whose eyes didn't

717
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:47,440
Speaker 1: well up a lot at at funerals where smoke was

718
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:50,240
Speaker 1: getting in their faces, it just doesn't seem very plausible.

719
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:54,280
Speaker 1: You can't really imagine scenarios where that leads to having

720
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:57,879
Speaker 1: additional kids that survived further into the future. I mean,

721
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:01,040
Speaker 1: unless we lived in a world where the the old

722
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:04,680
Speaker 1: saying smoke follows beauty is actually true, and then you

723
00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:06,920
Speaker 1: might have a situation where you're like, oh, look at

724
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:10,040
Speaker 1: Thag's eyes. He's a mess totally. He's been getting all

725
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:13,239
Speaker 1: the campfire smoke, and he is the most beautiful, He

726
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 1: is the most desired made Again, it's very fun, like

727
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:18,240
Speaker 1: the level of a kind of myth or folk tale.

728
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 1: But I think as a scientific hypothesis, this one just

729
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:23,719
Speaker 1: doesn't really work. But I do think this is a

730
00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:26,880
Speaker 1: good illustration of how people are kind of scrambling about

731
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 1: for explanations of in recognizable periods of human history, Like

732
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:35,160
Speaker 1: if humans are the only animals that produce emotional tears,

733
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 1: you see people wanting to find some very very characteristically

734
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:44,719
Speaker 1: human cause of this adaptation, right, which would make people

735
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:48,919
Speaker 1: kind of want to reach to early the examples of culture,

736
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:51,840
Speaker 1: like human culture as a as a cause for it.

737
00:41:51,840 --> 00:41:54,680
Speaker 1: Though I think that's not necessarily the right place to look.

738
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:58,439
Speaker 1: Um one more very unlikely explanation I wanted to visit

739
00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:02,520
Speaker 1: before we wrap up today. Apparently some people have used

740
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 1: the aquatic ap hypothesis uh to explain the origins of

741
00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 1: emotional tears. Now, if you're interested in our our take

742
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:14,839
Speaker 1: on aquatic ape, we several years back we did an

743
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 1: episode on this. The the aquatic ape hypothesis was originally

744
00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:25,319
Speaker 1: put forward by a biologist named Alistair Hardy, has since

745
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:29,360
Speaker 1: been championed by scholar named Elane morgan Um. And essentially,

746
00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:33,239
Speaker 1: the idea is that a lot of the traits that

747
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: are unique to Homo sapiens are evolved because our ancestors

748
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 1: were semi aquatic. Uh. So, like they spent a lot

749
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 1: of time in the water, maybe fishing around for mollusks

750
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:48,279
Speaker 1: and swimming and things like that. And this is used

751
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:52,160
Speaker 1: to explain the relative hairlessness of humans that was for

752
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:56,440
Speaker 1: aerodynamics in the water upright, walking was comes from waiting

753
00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 1: around in the water, uh and so forth. Now, as

754
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: we concluded in the previous episode, I think that the

755
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 1: aquatic ape hypothesis is really really unlikely to be true

756
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:10,799
Speaker 1: for a number of reasons. But one of the main

757
00:43:10,880 --> 00:43:13,319
Speaker 1: ones is that you would have to say, okay, well,

758
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:16,720
Speaker 1: if humans lost all of these traits like walking around

759
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 1: on all fours and and having very hairy bodies in

760
00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:23,000
Speaker 1: order to be in the water. How come when they

761
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:25,719
Speaker 1: supposedly came out of the water they retained all of

762
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: those adaptations to the water. You would have to come

763
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:30,759
Speaker 1: up with ways of saying, well, uh, it turned out

764
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 1: those adaptations proved useful on the land as well for

765
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:37,359
Speaker 1: some reason. But then, but then if you have that,

766
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:39,879
Speaker 1: why couldn't they just have been adaptive on the land

767
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:42,440
Speaker 1: to begin with. Plus, there's no direct evidence for the

768
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 1: aquatic ape scenario, so this just seems like, um, you know,

769
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 1: it's kind of it's fun to imagine, but it really

770
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:53,000
Speaker 1: has no direct evidence going for it. Yeah, it's it's

771
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: it's a fun topic to to read about and to discuss,

772
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: even because it it's it's kind of like imagining a

773
00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:00,239
Speaker 1: scenario where you need to get across the wood. It's

774
00:44:00,719 --> 00:44:03,120
Speaker 1: from point A to point B, and uh. You know,

775
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:06,279
Speaker 1: someone might ask, well, why can't we take this path? Uh? Well,

776
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:08,719
Speaker 1: sometimes taking that path, you can realize, oh, this is

777
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:10,960
Speaker 1: the harder path. After all. It seems like it's shorter,

778
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:13,799
Speaker 1: but you have to cross a number of streams to

779
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:15,759
Speaker 1: get there. You have to you have to do a

780
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:18,240
Speaker 1: lot more work, even though at the on the outset

781
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:21,719
Speaker 1: it seems like it is the most straightforward path. Uh,

782
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 1: it's not. But then and then the other thing about

783
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:27,719
Speaker 1: it too, is that the aquatic aphypothesis, why you know,

784
00:44:27,760 --> 00:44:31,279
Speaker 1: who will incorrect. If you learn about it, you do

785
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:35,359
Speaker 1: learn about other other scientific topics that are accurate. I mean,

786
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:39,200
Speaker 1: you are learning a little bit about about the evolution

787
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 1: of aquatic mammals and so forth. It just doesn't have

788
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 1: anything to do directly with what our bodies have done. Like,

789
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:50,400
Speaker 1: it's still beyond amazing to to look at a whale

790
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:54,800
Speaker 1: and realize that this was once a kind of shaggy

791
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 1: wolf type creature living living along the shore and catching

792
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:02,360
Speaker 1: fish in the water. Uh, and that eventually it would

793
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:06,359
Speaker 1: it would become this, you know, behemoth, this leviathan. Uh,

794
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:10,000
Speaker 1: you know the ocean. That's that's amazing stuff. Oh yeah,

795
00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:12,560
Speaker 1: it is. Uh. And and you know, it's it's a

796
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 1: very it's very seductive because it's cool to imagine humans

797
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:20,879
Speaker 1: becoming like semi aquatic creatures and and adapting this way.

798
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the aquatic a hypothesis is uh,

799
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 1: despite not having a lot of explanatory power and no

800
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: direct evidence for it. I think it's attractive to people

801
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:36,680
Speaker 1: on the same basis that, for example, a lot of

802
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:39,640
Speaker 1: like conspiracy theories are which is that this is something

803
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:41,880
Speaker 1: I know I've said on the show before, but I

804
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:45,160
Speaker 1: think a lot of times people underestimate how much people

805
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 1: believe certain things because it's fun to believe them, sort

806
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:56,319
Speaker 1: of like entertainment or interest. First theory of epistemology that

807
00:45:56,400 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 1: people are attracted to certain explanations of the real world,

808
00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:04,320
Speaker 1: not really because of anything about how well they explain things,

809
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:08,480
Speaker 1: but because it's pleasurable to believe certain things about the world,

810
00:46:08,560 --> 00:46:12,040
Speaker 1: Like entertaining certain theories like the aquatic ape theory is

811
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 1: kind of mentally exciting. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean these

812
00:46:16,680 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: various sort of fringe hypotheses, you know, some of which

813
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:23,799
Speaker 1: that we've explored on the show before. They can they

814
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:27,480
Speaker 1: can almost fill the space of religion in in the mind,

815
00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:30,239
Speaker 1: you know, they can be this this thing that I

816
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:33,880
Speaker 1: think ultimately that's perhaps the healthier way to to correspond

817
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:37,080
Speaker 1: with some of them, to say, uh, you know, for instance,

818
00:46:37,120 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 1: I really like the aquatic ap theory. Do I think

819
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:41,759
Speaker 1: it's real, No, but I think it is an interesting

820
00:46:41,800 --> 00:46:44,719
Speaker 1: topic to look at, and perhaps you can even expand

821
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 1: on it and imagine fictional worlds in which this is

822
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 1: the path that human evolution took. I don't know, totally

823
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:54,280
Speaker 1: totally yeah, um, so, anyway that the the the aquatic

824
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 1: ape hypothesis encompasses also, among the many things it purports

825
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:01,000
Speaker 1: to explain, it has been alleged that it also explains

826
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:06,759
Speaker 1: uniquely human tear traits. Um. But I guess maybe we

827
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:09,080
Speaker 1: need to wrap up the first part here, But when

828
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 1: we come back in the next episode, we can talk

829
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:15,360
Speaker 1: about some of the major theories leading theories today about

830
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 1: why humans shed tears as an emotional response. And there's

831
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 1: also something I want to look at in the next

832
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:24,719
Speaker 1: episode which is very interesting. What is the origin of

833
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:27,919
Speaker 1: the concept of crocodile tears? There's a lot of fun

834
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 1: in this. Uh, just one little teaser on that. Apparently

835
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:35,440
Speaker 1: some ancient and medieval sources alleged that as a crocodile

836
00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 1: was eating an animal, or maybe even eating a human,

837
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:42,440
Speaker 1: it would shed tears in order to tender rize the

838
00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:45,600
Speaker 1: head of the animal it was eating. I don't know

839
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:48,799
Speaker 1: how that allegedly works, but oh wow, all right, well

840
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:51,320
Speaker 1: that that sounds like it'll be fun more on this topic,

841
00:47:51,360 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 1: but with a little uh medieval uh medievalism thrown in

842
00:47:56,239 --> 00:47:58,600
Speaker 1: there as well. So yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

843
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:01,960
Speaker 1: In meantime, if you would like to listen to other

844
00:48:01,960 --> 00:48:03,759
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you'll find them

845
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:06,239
Speaker 1: all in the all the episodes and the Stuff to

846
00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:08,600
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind podcast feed you'll find out wherever you

847
00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:11,239
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. We have core episodes on Tuesdays and

848
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 1: Thursdays and rerun on the weekend, Artifact episode on Wednesday,

849
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 1: listener mail on Monday, and on Friday's we do a

850
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema episode. That's our time to set aside

851
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 1: most of the science and just talk about a weird movie.

852
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:26,120
Speaker 1: Huge things. As always to our excellent audio producer Seth

853
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would love to get in touch

854
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:30,719
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

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Speaker 1: say hello, you can email us at contact at Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. Dr. Stuff to Blow Your Mind

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Speaker 1: is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for

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Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows. By the

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Speaker 1: present joint four point four PC first FO