WEBVTT - Brain-to-Brain: The Science of Techno-Telepathy 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.160 Welcome to stuff to blow your mind from housetop works 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:16.320 dot com. I would like to scan all of them 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:20.200 in this room, one at a time. I must remind 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:23.160 you that the scanning experience is usually a painful one, 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:30.120 sometimes resulting in nosebleeds, ear aches, stomach cramps. Wait, wait, Joe, 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.680 you can't just scan everybody in the room. Well why not? 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:36.040 Well did you get everyone to sign those consent forms. 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:39.479 I figured they show up for a press conference, they 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:41.279 must be game for a little till epithy. But they 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:44.000 might have pre existing health conditions. I mean, you just 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:48.560 warned them that they might get cramps and nosebleeds, mild nosebleeds. 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:51.280 I mean, we're not gonna catch anybody on fire or anything. 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:53.680 What about their mental health? What about their privacy, the right, 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:57.280 the right of freedom of thought and the deliberate communication. Well, 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:00.160 that's not what this experiment is about. And that isn't 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:01.880 even touched on the fact that you can scan their 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:05.080 smartphones and laptops with your mind. I mean, that's not 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.600 quite as bad as peering into their private thoughts, dreams, 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:11.959 and fears. But nobody wants that either. Geez Robert, I 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:14.760 was really looking forward to this, and I have to 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:18.839 report that you are now being a major buzz kill. Hey, 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:23.600 I'm sorry, I knew you are. I know you are 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:32.080 a bit of a migraine forming here. Okay, I'm good. 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:35.880 That's a close one. Hey, you welcome to stuff to 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:37.840 blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:40.440 Joe McCormick. And if you haven't guessed already, today we're 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:44.919 going to be talking about telepathy scanning, as it's often 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:48.280 called in the literature. Yes, yes, I imagine a number 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:52.640 of you identified our homage there to uh to David 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:56.520 Cronenberg's sci fi classics Scanners. You know, what I found 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.000 out just this week is that Scanners has a huge 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.600 catalog of sequels that was unaware of. I knew there 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:07.120 was a Scanners too that's got some corrupt police commissioner 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:09.880 with an army of Scanners. But there's a Scanners three 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:11.880 that has a scene where a woman makes a pigeon 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:15.720 blow up with her mind. And then I had no 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:17.680 idea about this until you told me. But there's a 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:22.280 spinoff series called Scanner Cop Scanner Cop one and then 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:27.080 Scanner Cop two, which is also sometimes essentially Scanners forward, 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.760 depending on which a version of the release you're looking at. 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:33.200 You know, one of the funny things about the development 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:35.240 of the Scanners series, at least as far as I 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:37.160 can tell, I haven't watched all of the movies, that 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:41.720 most of the sequels look quite bad. But there is 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.600 a sort of slow development or escalation of the powers 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.520 that are attributed to Scanners. I can remember in the 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:52.519 first movie, you can read somebody's thoughts, and you can 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.840 also sort of I think, plant implant thoughts to a 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:59.320 certain extent um, and then of course you can cause 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.519 the resident for frequency cascade that makes their head blow up, right, 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:04.760 and I think you can make fire, and you can 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:07.000 you can. Oh well, then also there's at least a 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:09.280 um I don't want to give too many spoilers, but 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:11.520 it's at least mentioned that you might be able to 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:15.200 absorb another individual's mind state into your own. Okay, so 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:17.760 that's pretty godline. It's getting pretty weird even in the 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:21.160 first movie. But later on you add what would conventionally 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.280 be called telekinesis where you're throwing things around, you throw 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:29.320 people across the room, So you're just generally developing psychic powers. Yeah, 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:33.160 it goes into that realm of essentially magic. Yeah, pan 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:39.000 psychic sorcery. But telepathy is something that I can understand 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:42.880 why that happens, because it's a concept that I thought. 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:46.080 I think it's been interpreted in various ways that are 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:49.080 often quite vague. So as much as I hate to 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:51.920 go to the dictionary at the beginning of a discussion, 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.520 I do think it's helpful to get a specified common 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.760 definition on the table for telepathy, and I want to 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:01.200 go with one included a mere Iriam Webster, which it 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:05.840 just says communication from one mind to another by extra 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.080 sensory means. So I think that's what we're gonna be 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:14.520 talking about today. It's sharing ideas. It's communication without using 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:17.799 any of the senses, because we're using our our senses 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:20.320 and our our language abilities or vocal abilities. Right now, 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:24.880 we're engaging in a in a communication, in a communal 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:27.960 thought process. Yeah, Like right now, a man walks into 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:30.640 a bar and there's a duck on the bar. I 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:32.200 just put that image into your head. I just put 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.480 that image into everyone's head. I essentially use my scanner 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.520 powers on everyone listening to this podcast. But there was 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.640 a fidelity copying problem there because when I pictured in 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:44.840 my brain, what I pictured was a swan there, and 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:48.080 that sort of gets to the basic problem of communication. 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:50.919 One of the reasons we often imagine the idea of 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:53.240 telepathy as we defined it for the purpose of this 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:58.719 episode communication without words or any of the normal sensory means, 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:03.960 is that those normal canonical means of communication are highly flawed, 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.839 like our ability to use them is far from perfect. 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.000 Just think how often there's a conflict in your life 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.839 because somebody took something that you said or wrote the 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:17.520 wrong way, or because or because you don't know how 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.840 to interpret what somebody has said or wrote. If only 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:24.960 you could truly understand what their intentions and feelings about 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:29.160 the subject really were without everything being garbled through this 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:33.520 language transmission mediator, then then things would seem to be 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:35.880 a lot easier, right, Yeah, I mean, there's a study 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.839 that came out earlier this year talking about how there 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:41.359 I think they were mainly looking at, you know, situations 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:45.120 between spouses where individuals have known each other for an 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.840 extended period of time, they've they have this this this 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:53.600 long relationship and this collaboration going on, and you would think, oh, well, 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.400 they're they've been they've been together so long, they totally 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:58.880 understand each other. They can totally read each other's intents, 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:01.760 and they know what the other person wants and values. 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:05.880 But this particular study found there was kind of the 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.000 the opposite into many cases, because you end up having 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:11.840 an idea in your head of what that other individual 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:14.719 wants and needs, and it need not actually be accurate, 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:17.920 but you're no longer feeling it out as much anymore, 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:21.159 because it's if you feel like it's written in stone. Yeah, 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:24.800 like everything you say, because I know you, I'm interpreting 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.960 through the lens of what I think about Robert. So 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:32.560 even though all you said was, hey can you can 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.680 you grab a cup of coffee from the kitchen, I'm thinking, 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:41.360 why is he asking for a Satanic ritual? Yeah? Yeah, 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:43.279 there's just so much that can that can become lost 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:47.000 and ambiguous and just misinterpreted entirely. Of course, most of 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.640 us are familiar with telepathy from fiction. That's how we 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:52.960 started off with an example from a a fictional sci 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:57.120 fi horror movie. Uh uh, And and certainly fiction gives 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:01.480 us plenty of wonderful, rich examples uh and some more 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:04.359 thoughtful than others. Yeah. Yeah, of course, there's like the 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.680 shining in the Shining, you know, the title of the 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:12.120 Shining refers to this this sort of telepathic ability, though 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:16.240 it seems to extend beyond just communication telepathy. It is 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:20.240 more just like we've mentioned earlier, the general psychic awareness, 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.440 being able to sense things that are beyond what we 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:26.600 can normally see with our see or here since is, Yes, 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:28.360 they have a censury. It's like they have a sensory 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.160 ability that everyone has, but there's this amped up to 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.760 an incredible level, so they're constantly bombarded with the signals. 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:37.800 You can finally hear the red rum resolve from the 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:41.000 background noise. Yeah. Another one that comes to my mind 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.160 is I assume you've seen The Dark Crystal, right, and 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.400 do you remember the Guelfling dream fast in that vaguely? 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:52.960 That's uh, that's when Jin and Kira, I believe you 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:54.920 have the two Gelflings meet and I sort of they 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.000 kind of have this mind meld moment where they share 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:59.920 visions of their childhood, right, they share their memories. It's 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.239 seems like it's been a while since I've seen the movie, 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:04.200 but it is a great movie. And what I remember 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:08.320 is that they just sort of download their memories directly 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:12.160 from one another, so you can suddenly remember the other 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.880 one's life. Another one, of course, is box vol can 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.680 mind meld and start trek And that seems also kind 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:22.000 of like the dream fast from what I recalled that 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.720 it's not just like a single coded message being traded 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:29.120 between minds, but it's like I've got your consciousness in 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.880 me now? Yeah? Is that? Is that pretty much right? Yeah? 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:35.120 I believe so, it's it's it's been houstine. I've seen 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.600 any track with actual mind melding moments. But yeah, alright, 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:40.160 well a few that came to my mind. Well, first 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:42.640 of all, I was wondering, do you think that the 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:46.640 spice orgies and doone count There's it's not directly mentioned 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.000 as I recall that, and I could be wrong on this, 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:53.000 that there's a telepathic link. And certainly I think the 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:57.040 spice is going to affect individuals and you know, varying levels. Well, 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:58.960 this is a problem I've read about in some of 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:03.280 the skeptical rich you're on telepathy is that it's difficult 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:07.760 to tell the difference between different types of extrasensory perception 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:11.280 that people have claimed. So how can you tell the 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:17.319 functional difference between telepathy and precognition or telepathy and clairvoyance. Yeah, 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.240 I mean so I think that comes through in Dune. 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:24.200 Our trouble here may just be that there's general psychic 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:27.800 hyper awareness. Can you tell the difference between am I 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.800 reading your mind or am I standing atop the dune 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.920 viewing the great order of the universe? And one of 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:37.360 the things I gain awareness of is what you would 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.040 be thinking or saying. Yes, Yeah, that's a good point. 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:42.720 Another one that comes to mind, This one's hot on 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:46.679 uh in my memory since I just watched the whole thing. 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:50.199 But then the Marvel Netflix series Jessica Jones has the 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:56.559 villain Purple Man Zebediah Killgrave and fabulous, fabulous villain that 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:59.640 used his mind control what he but what he commands 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:01.760 you to do, you want to do. You don't just 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.120 turn into a zombie. They just just a nice exploration 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:06.080 of this to where if he puts an impulse in 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:08.680 your mind, like that's the thing you want. So that's 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.840 not just communication, that's full online control. Yeah, but it's 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:14.360 it kind of leaks into some of the stuff we're 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:16.760 gonna talk later, and that he kind of it's kind 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.880 of I get the impression that kill Grave is kind 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:23.360 of temporarily thinking with your brain. And so he's thinking 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:27.359 with your brain and giving you, you know, something to 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:29.520 to want, something to believe in that you know or 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:32.920 or desire that you normally would not. Well, that blurs 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:35.160 a line that will become important later in this episode 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:38.480 when we talked about scientific studies. Yea indeed and uh. 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:40.320 And another thing about kill Grave is that, you know, 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:42.480 it raises the question that if there's an outside force 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.720 making you want or believe something temporarily, and then that 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:49.000 a force eventually you know, it's it's influence is gone, 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:51.960 how does that affect what you're going to believe or 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:54.280 want in the long term? You know, like, how does 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:58.000 that memory and form? Can you remember that you wanted 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:02.880 something but recognize that it was not original to your mind? Yeah? Indeed, 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.079 so I thought that was a There were some some 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.560 excellent explorations of that in in that particular show um 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.520 in the Vampire in the Vampire novel by John Steckley 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:16.040 Vampires where the s is a dollar sign, which was 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.840 adapted into John Carpenter's movie, But believe me the book, 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.840 So yeah, that the book is really really frightening and 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:27.560 terrifying and the just hideous. Yeah. But the vampires in 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.719 the book they engage in in mind control that's very 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.600 similar to to kill Gray and from the world of 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:35.400 Dungeons and Dragons, I feel like I need to mention 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:37.600 just a couple of species real quick. There's of course 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:42.319 the mild communal meditation of the fungal my conid species. Okay, 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.120 you know, shambling fungus people benevolent that live in the 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:46.960 under dark. But yeah, they engage in a kind of 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:51.440 communal meditation. And then also they're the hive mind colligue 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.600 colonies of the alipid mind flares, and there of course 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:59.480 just catastrophically evil uh beings spent and they're using all 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.440 of just about every shade of of psychic power and 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:07.160 telepathic power to to work their evil schemes in the 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:11.040 under dark. They strike terror just by directly transmitting the 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:15.079 pages of the monster manual that feature them into your brain. Yeah, 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:17.800 and and they also it's like a whole host of 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.480 under dark creatures in Dungeon and Dragons there are weird 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.160 and twisted and horrible because the mind players use their 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.880 abilities to enslave their species in a in an earlier times. 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:30.280 So yeah, it seems to me that in all these 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.840 different conceptions of telepathy from fiction, you can basically break 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:38.360 them down into two different categories of communication, linguistic and 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:42.600 non linguistic. So even the linguistic version, of course, is 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:48.839 not involving written or spoken words, but it's silent internal 0:12:48.880 --> 0:12:52.400 brain to brain communication without the senses that still somehow 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.880 seems to be mediated through language, Like you hear a 0:12:56.000 --> 0:13:00.360 voice inside your head communicating with you through words, there's 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:04.680 some other type of structured, coded message. Then there's non 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:09.439 linguistic telepathy, and that's communication that's not mediated by language. 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:12.560 And I think this is more difficult to represent in fiction, 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:15.800 but it's the kind we see more often because it's 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:20.120 the kind that's even stranger to to to reality. You know, 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:23.880 it's one thing to send a message into somebody's brain. 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:26.560 You could accomplish almost the same thing by them just 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.880 having a tiny earpiece, you know, and talking into a microphone. 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:34.320 But it's a different thing to download somebody's memories or 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:39.760 to uh or to experience uncoded conceptual thought like the 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:42.240 guelf link dream fast I was talking about. And that 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.120 second kind, I think is it may end up introducing 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:48.160 some conceptual problems with the concept of telepathy that we 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:50.120 can talk about more once we look at the science. 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:55.520 But so today we're gonna be talking primarily about technologically 0:13:55.760 --> 0:14:00.400 enabled brain to brain communication or technologically enabled to empathy, 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:03.640 because we we should at least give a brief nod 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.040 to the concept of paranormal telepathy. I don't think we 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:08.760 need to spend a lot of time on this because 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.319 I think by and large our listeners are are scientific 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:13.800 skeptics of one kind or another. Yeah. I mean, there 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:18.120 have been studies into paranormal telepathy, of course, and we 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:20.600 could go through all of all those here today, but 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:23.480 I think we pretty much decided that this would this 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.720 would take time away from the more pressing studies we're 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.280 gonna discuss regarding technological telepathy. Yes, so we'll just say 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:34.080 very briefly that the scientific community has not been convinced 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:37.200 that there's ever been any good evidence of telepathy from 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.480 properly controlled studies. Lots of people have claimed to find 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:43.600 evidence of telepathy, but usually when you look at these studies, 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:46.200 they're not double blinded, they're not being carried out with 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:48.480 the kind of strict rigor you expect if you want 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:51.200 to get a scientific result that that you can feel 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.840 confidence in. Yeah. So, so by and large, we have 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.640 not seen any convincing evidence that paranormal telepathy exists. There 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.400 doesn't seem to be any known mechanism of action for that, 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:04.720 so we will leave that to the side for today. Yeah, 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:08.080 because when it comes to brain to brain communication, we 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.560 have all of these other wonderful systems and equally, i mean, 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:15.200 even more mind blowing than than than brain sending little 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.960 waves because we're communicating with language. We're communicating with all 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:21.920 the various expressions and micro expressions that are that are 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:26.520 rippling across this facial communication ray that we all have. Yeah, 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.560 it's one of those things that's, Uh, it can seem 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:31.760 kind of silly to say it now, but really just 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:34.840 take a second and try to step back from human 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:39.160 experience and feel the weirdness of language. It's language is 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.480 totally normal to us because we use it all the time. 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.680 But just try to pretend you're not a creature that 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:48.480 uses language, and look at this from the universe's perspective. 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.920 What a bizarre thing we're doing. We're taking electrical patterns 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:56.520 in our brain and then infecting other people with copies 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:01.320 of those patterns by making waves in the air. Yeah, 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:05.600 it's freaky. So, setting aside any kind of naturally occurring 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.680 you know, brain wave telepathy situation going on, we're talking 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:13.760 about using technology, using the technology that we've created and 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:16.960 have access to, to serve as a bridge between one 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:20.280 mind and the next. Yeah. So you might be thinking like, well, 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.920 wait a minute, how could you do this? Let us 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.120 tell you a story. So for years now, scientists have 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.960 been developing lots of different technologies for brain to computer 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.840 interfaces or they're often known as b c I S 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.800 brain computer interfaces. And in physical terms, it makes sense 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:40.480 that you can do this because the brain is an 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:44.200 electrochemical machine. Things are happening inside the brain when you're 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:48.400 thinking thoughts, when you're performing behaviors. Whenever your brain is 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:53.480 doing something, there's electrical activity going on inside it that 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:57.840 is allowing that activity, that external activity, or that conscious 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:01.280 thought to happen, and it's at ativities are expressed in 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:05.040 ways for this reason, that are detectable by machines that 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:08.159 are sensitive to electromagnetism. You have to get outside of 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:11.159 this idea that your your mind is this magical soul 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:13.280 or that lives in a little meat house in your 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:16.359 skull um and just start thinking about the meat house 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.480 itself as as being the thing. You're taking a very uh, 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:23.480 you know, direct approach to what what what is going 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:25.879 on with our mind? Yeah, not to not to downgrade 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.840 the beauty and mysteriousness of consciousness, which is a wonderfully 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:34.480 powerfully strange thing. But when there's something happening in your brain, 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.600 there is electricity concurrent with that, and so if you 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.520 can figure out how to measure that electricity, you can 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:46.239 somehow represent it as data that's usable by technology. So 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.640 what I've just been talking about is neuroimaging, various forms 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.280 of neuroimaging to take what's going on in the brain 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:56.439 and understand that with a computer, say okay, there's some 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.240 electrical spiking in this part of the brain, here's here's 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:02.679 what's going on with action potentials in in this cortical region, 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:07.359 and then stimulate that same region in another individual's brain bingo. 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:10.600 So in a sense, it's kind of like peeking behind 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:12.800 one puppet theater, you know, out on the street, like 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.160 a punch and judy thing, right, seeing what what manner 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:19.719 of physical manipulations that puppet mat puppet master is making 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:24.240 and then transmitting or relating those exact manipulations to a 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.760 puppet here within a second puppet theater. So that's a 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:31.679 great analogy because it encapsulates both what you're trying to 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:35.840 do and the limitations we have when we try to 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:38.199 do this. And we'll talk more about the limitations at 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.400 the end. But notice that that what you just said 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:45.240 would only really make sense if both puppet theaters were 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:49.159 exactly the same size and had exactly the same puppets 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.680 and the same type of puppets, and then the exact 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:57.359 same method of manipulation, which is not necessarily the case 0:18:57.440 --> 0:18:59.680 for the brain, but maybe you can get some kind 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:03.040 of a approximation. You know, your brain isn't the exact 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.680 same as somebody else's brain. Your puppet theater is different, 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.160 but there are some general rules that operate in both 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:13.119 puppet theaters that you can exploit. So let's look at 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.240 some of the technologies here. What what actual technology would 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.040 you use if you want to scan somebody else's brain 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.240 and see what's happening inside there. Well, one of the 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:25.960 most powerful methods we would have would be implanted electrodes. 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:31.359 You can implant directly into somebody's brain, cortical microelectrode arrays 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:35.320 which are capable of of recording what's going on in 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:39.560 the brain, and also what's known as intracortical micro stimulation 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:43.399 or i c MS, and this means you can get 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.440 both input and output with the brain, so you can 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:50.000 read the electrical activity to find out what's going on, 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:52.400 and if you want to stimulate parts of the brain, 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.480 you can provide little bits of electric current through these 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.360 two light up that part of the brain. You can 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.919 also use electro cortico bography, which is electrodes on the 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:04.719 exposed surface of the brain. If you want to be 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:08.680 really weird at out google pictures of this. But if 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:10.879 you don't want to cut your skull open, and I 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:13.240 think most of us would prefer that method, there are 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:15.439 there are still other ways you can scan what's going 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:17.359 on in the brain. I think typically they're not going 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.640 to be as sensitive, so there's a drawback. The advantages 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.400 you don't have to go through brain surgery. The advantage 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.199 or the disadvantages you're not going to get quite as 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:29.200 much precision with the signals you're receiving. But you can 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:33.000 use f m R I, so that's functional magnetic resonance imaging, 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:35.880 So it's like an m r I, except you detect 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.840 real time activity in the brain by mapping blood flow 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:43.800 to different parts of the brain. There's magneto encephalography, which 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:47.399 is great. Google pictures of this also. I love telling 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:49.399 people to Google pictures of things. I think I do 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:51.880 that pretty often, but this one, this one is worth 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:55.320 it because it's a it's a system that detects magnetic 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:59.239 field fluctuations caused by electrical activity in the brain. And 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:01.520 it looks like you're wearing a hat the size of 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:04.199 a car. You're kind of like you get in like 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:07.160 the space jockey scene from Alien and then you put 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:09.000 on a hat that's as big as a van with 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:12.320 tons of wires and stuff. Yeah, it's gigantic and it 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:14.600 just goes over your head. And I guess it's got 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:17.439 to be very sensitive to to detect what's going on 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:20.240 with these tiny little electrical currents in your brain, but 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:22.560 it does it. Yeah, And all of these are methods 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:24.960 that I'm sure that you've heard mentioned on this podcast 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:28.520 before or in other science podcasts and science literature. These 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.000 are standard means of looking at the brain and figuring 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:34.840 out what's going on. Yeah, and then this very last 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:37.000 one is gonna be crucial in some of the studies 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.600 we're talking about. It's electro and cephalography or e e g. 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.560 You've probably heard of this one before, but this one 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:45.640 is very appealing because you don't have to get into 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:47.520 a chair with a hat the size of the car. 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.520 You just put some electrodes on your scalp, and the 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:54.040 electrodes they go on the skin on your head. They're 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:58.000 really really sensitive to electricity enough that they can read 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:02.080 some of the electrical activity in your brain through your scalp, 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:04.879 though obviously, like we said, it's not nearly as sensitive 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:09.080 as implanted electrodes um And then, of course, if you 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:10.560 want to go so that's all the ways we can 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:14.240 read what's happening inside your brain. Imagine we want to 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:17.080 switch to input on the brain. How can we put 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:20.960 things directly into your brain without the use of your senses. Well, 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:23.480 of course, like we said, you can implant electrodes, So 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:27.160 just put some get some brain surgery, put those stimulators 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:29.119 in your brain and give you little shocks. When we 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:33.840 want you to experience something, you can use focused ultrasound, 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:37.200