Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Today
Speaker 1: we're going to dive into some listener mail and you
Speaker 1: know we have we actually have two different carney the
Speaker 1: mailbots here to help us today. The one on the
Speaker 1: left here is just bright silver gleaming like a suit
Speaker 1: of armor from the movie ex Caliber. And then, uh,
Speaker 1: the one on the right and resembles a like a
Speaker 1: rusty death bucket, like a suit of armor from Monty
Speaker 1: Python and the Holy Grail. Yeah, that's pretty much what
Speaker 1: he looks like. Uh, how how did did did we
Speaker 1: get two carneys in these two different states. Well, it's
Speaker 1: because we did that massive upgrade on Carney. You know,
Speaker 1: we we started replacing some of his parts, um, upgrading
Speaker 1: apart here apart air, and then we just kept doing it.
Speaker 1: And then on the other end, we when when we
Speaker 1: were done the used parts, we just started assembling those
Speaker 1: as well, until we had two complete carnis the carney
Speaker 1: in which we had replaced every last piece with a new,
Speaker 1: shiny piece, and then the carney that we built out
Speaker 1: of the old pieces. Now the question is which Carney
Speaker 1: is going to deliver us this week's listener mail. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna I'm just gonna close my eyes and put
Speaker 1: my hand out and um and I guess hope that
Speaker 1: I don't get pricked by the rusty one just because
Speaker 1: I'm not sure my tetnas shots up to date. Uh.
Speaker 1: Fun fact, Russ does not cause tetanus, does it not? Well,
Speaker 1: there you go. So it's okay that he has razor
Speaker 1: sharp rusty claws. It's a okay all right now. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: no matter what, we never have time to read all
Speaker 1: of the great listener mail we get. So if you
Speaker 1: have sent us a message and we haven't been able
Speaker 1: to respond and you don't hear it on the show today,
Speaker 1: please please don't be discouraged. It's not because we don't
Speaker 1: appreciate the mail we get. There's there's just a lot
Speaker 1: of great stuff out there and and no time to
Speaker 1: attend to it all. But we really do appreciate all
Speaker 1: the wonderful community case we get from you lovely people
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, because even though we have twice the
Speaker 1: Carney now, we only still have the two of us,
Speaker 1: So there's only so much we can do, and there's
Speaker 1: only so much time. That's right. Let's jump right in, Robert,
Speaker 1: all right, let's do it. I'm gonna put out my hand.
Speaker 1: It looks like Shiny Carney is bringing me something to
Speaker 1: read here. All right. This one comes to us from Alex.
Speaker 1: Alex says, Hi, Robert and Joe, your podcast is wonderful,
Speaker 1: and although it was already very good to begin with,
Speaker 1: I feel you two are getting even better and better
Speaker 1: because we keep replacing parts. That's what's happened. Keep up
Speaker 1: the great work. We're big fans. I have a comment
Speaker 1: about the ship of theseus episode. I'm a particle physicist
Speaker 1: by training, so I was thinking about your discussion a
Speaker 1: bit from that perspective. I don't claim to have any
Speaker 1: definite answers, but I think the theory of quantum mechanics
Speaker 1: adds more depth and weirdness to the problem of identity
Speaker 1: on top of what you've already discussed. In quantum mechanics,
Speaker 1: different particles of the same type are treated as truly indistinguishable.
Speaker 1: Two particles can be separated in space, but in the
Speaker 1: theory they are described by one wave function, which simply
Speaker 1: features a high probability to find a particle in region A,
Speaker 1: as well as a high probability to find a particle
Speaker 1: in region B with no mention that it's particle Alice
Speaker 1: here and that it's particle Bob there. My tentative takeaway
Speaker 1: is this, if a quantum teleportation machine were to transfer
Speaker 1: the quantum state of the atoms in my body sitting
Speaker 1: in place A onto a stream of photons, and then
Speaker 1: transfer that onto atoms in a place B a mile away,
Speaker 1: I don't see a real justification to treat the newly
Speaker 1: created atoms a mile away is anything thing other than
Speaker 1: truly the parts of my own body which have been
Speaker 1: moved there. I still feel a bit queasy to hand
Speaker 1: over my fate to this machine, but rationally I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear a discussion of these quantum physics aspects of
Speaker 1: the ship of the Theseius sometime. Cheers Alex. Now, that
Speaker 1: is an interesting question because there's this obvious preference people
Speaker 1: have that like, oh, if I'm going to be teleported
Speaker 1: and it will still be me, I want the particles
Speaker 1: that originally made my body to be the same particles
Speaker 1: that make up the copy of me. Now, that's if
Speaker 1: you're teleporting information about your body from one place to another.
Speaker 1: That's just probably not going to be the case, right,
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to build from different particles. And Alex
Speaker 1: is saying, why would that really make a difference. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that really would make a difference. I
Speaker 1: would think that the problem would be the interruption of
Speaker 1: the continuous existence of you from during that moment of transition,
Speaker 1: basically what I said before, where you just need somebody
Speaker 1: to lie to you about that interruption. You know, you
Speaker 1: need somebody to just to to gloss over the more
Speaker 1: problematic details of your teleportation system. So I think you
Speaker 1: said this before, you'd rather live in a world where
Speaker 1: people are teleporting they are just actually dying every time
Speaker 1: they do it. But nobody is it well. But but
Speaker 1: I guess the positive spin is you're not only dying,
Speaker 1: you're being reborn. I mean, this is kind of what, uh,
Speaker 1: what what Seth Brundel was talking about in Cronenberg's The Fly,
Speaker 1: The idea that it's it's like there's a purifying aspect
Speaker 1: to the teleportation. I believe this was some of what
Speaker 1: he was talking about before things began going terribly wrong
Speaker 1: for him, mixing his DNA with that of a fly,
Speaker 1: but as being reborn worthwhile if you don't know you're
Speaker 1: being reborn, Say, for example, people say, you know, I'd
Speaker 1: love to be able to go back and start over
Speaker 1: my life again, to do it right this time. But
Speaker 1: if you were to go back and start over without
Speaker 1: the memory of your previous life, how would anything, Why
Speaker 1: would that be any better? Why would that change anything?
Speaker 1: It seems like the value of being reborn is the
Speaker 1: knowledge of what came before and the knowledge that you
Speaker 1: have been reborn, or to just the idea that you've
Speaker 1: been reborn. I mean, somebody could just fool you into
Speaker 1: thinking teleportation is possible. You walk into a box, there's
Speaker 1: some lights, you walk out of the box. But if
Speaker 1: you feel will renewed right then it could have an
Speaker 1: overall positive effect. Speaking of Cronenberg, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've read about this as well, but supposedly, uh, David
Speaker 1: Cronenberg has has a screenplay that he wrote that is
Speaker 1: a sequel to The Fly that doesn't necessarily contain any monsters.
Speaker 1: It's more about something. I don't know that there are
Speaker 1: any more additional details out there, but it is more
Speaker 1: concerned with teleportation itself than it is with any kind
Speaker 1: of monstrous side effects of the technology. Oh, I think
Speaker 1: you could write a great psychological horror movie it's purely
Speaker 1: about teleportation without any like DNA fusion or you know,
Speaker 1: becoming half fly or anything like that. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: one of my hopes that either Cronenberg will get to
Speaker 1: direct that script, where somebody will one day direct that script.
Speaker 1: I'm very interested, um what he's exploring in that because
Speaker 1: because we're also talking about later day Cronenberg. Cronenberg who
Speaker 1: hasn't really been dipping his toes into the the squeamish
Speaker 1: horror content of his his earlier filmography. So the more
Speaker 1: recent Cronenberg version, it's just got a bunch of like
Speaker 1: mafia guys who get into a teleporter together and they
Speaker 1: come out having an existential crisis. I'd probably be down
Speaker 1: for that, you know. And I do love so many that,
Speaker 1: like the transcendent ideas that were at least briefly discussed
Speaker 1: in The Fly, like the idea towards the end that
Speaker 1: not only is he gonna cure himself by climbing into
Speaker 1: the telepod uh with Gina Davis's character, you know, but
Speaker 1: they will become one perfect being you know that there's
Speaker 1: this this fusion that will take place, that will create
Speaker 1: a higher human. Yeah, and that embodies some of the
Speaker 1: questions I guess about the whole teleportation idea. Like to him,
Speaker 1: that's an idea of like addition or becoming better into her.
Speaker 1: That's obviously an idea of obliteration or destruction. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1: Also about the ship of Theseus, this comes to us
Speaker 1: from our listener, and and writes, Hi, Robert and Joe,
Speaker 1: I'm a longtime listener of your show, and I'm writing
Speaker 1: in to respond to your great episode on the ship
Speaker 1: of Theseus. I've never heard of the mythic iteration of
Speaker 1: this concept, but I'm familiar with it from the Romantic
Speaker 1: poets of England. I wouldn't be surprised if they built
Speaker 1: off of it from some of the philosophers you mentioned,
Speaker 1: including Hobbes. In a September eight, nineteen letter to his
Speaker 1: brother and sister in law, John Keats, that's the romantic
Speaker 1: poet John Keats takes a personal and religious approach to
Speaker 1: the question. I've included the excerpt here. Quote from the
Speaker 1: time you left me. Our friends say I have altered completely,
Speaker 1: am not the same person. Perhaps in this letter. I
Speaker 1: am for in a letter, one takes up one's existence
Speaker 1: from the time we last met. I dare say you
Speaker 1: have altered. Also every man does. Our bodies every seven
Speaker 1: years are completely fresh material seven years ago. It was
Speaker 1: not this hand that clinched itself against Hammond. We are
Speaker 1: like the relict garments of a saint. The same and
Speaker 1: not the same for the careful monks patchet and patchet
Speaker 1: for St. Anthony's shirt. Oh that's nice. Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1: That brings in. And I so if you believe, for example,
Speaker 1: that an item can be holy, that's another question about identity.
Speaker 1: Imagine you say you believe uh in like a piece
Speaker 1: of the True Cross or something, one of these medieval relics,
Speaker 1: and it's gradually losing splinters, but having splinters replaced by
Speaker 1: people who are working on it. Once the entire thing
Speaker 1: has been replaced, it does still have holy power. But
Speaker 1: this is why you notice it. In some of the
Speaker 1: museums that you go to, There'll be a tiny vial
Speaker 1: of vampire blood uh inside the temperature control compartment with it,
Speaker 1: so they can see just how holy the artifact still is.
Speaker 1: That would be a good test, and continues I love
Speaker 1: that the section gets into different layers of identity, both
Speaker 1: the one self reported and or time traveled to e g. Quote,
Speaker 1: taking up one's existence from the time we last met unquote,
Speaker 1: and also the one created by others, as in the
Speaker 1: monks reconstructing the relic ironically in trying to preserve the original.
Speaker 1: This also touches on the biological transformation that you mentioned
Speaker 1: in the podcast, the seven to ten year recreation of
Speaker 1: the cells in the body. As for identity being defined
Speaker 1: by the static reality of an object or its constant
Speaker 1: evolution in a process, Shelly weighs in with a poem
Speaker 1: called mutability, which concludes on the following stanzas. So this
Speaker 1: is Percy Biss Shelly we rest a dream has power
Speaker 1: to poison sleep. We rise one wandering thought pollutes the
Speaker 1: day we feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep, embrace
Speaker 1: fond woe, or cast our cares away. It is the same,
Speaker 1: for be it joy or sorrow, the path of its
Speaker 1: departure still is free man's yesterday. May ne'er be like
Speaker 1: his morrow, not may endure. But mutability. To me that
Speaker 1: embodies very much the the idea of the Heraclitis type
Speaker 1: idea of pant ray. Everything flows, it's all flox, it's
Speaker 1: all change, but a continues. While he's maybe talking more
Speaker 1: about emotional states here than comprehensive identity, the final thought
Speaker 1: of the poem sides with the argument that existence is
Speaker 1: defined by transformation, which brings up the question of whether
Speaker 1: or not change itself can be defined as a constant. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's just some tie ins from yet another realm. I
Speaker 1: love your show and the curious exuberance with which it
Speaker 1: addresses these potentially terrifying existential questions. Thanks a lot, Thanks
Speaker 1: for a lot of great listening sincerely, Anne, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. And I always love when people come at
Speaker 1: us with poetry. Yes, and I particularly like the specimens
Speaker 1: that she presented us with. With there, I want to
Speaker 1: skip to another bit of listener mail here that came
Speaker 1: to us about the Ship of Theseus. And this came
Speaker 1: to us from Diana, Diana Rides, Hi, Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: I've been listening for a while, sometimes by myself, sometimes
Speaker 1: with the kids. Recently, my seven year old daughter and
Speaker 1: I were listening to the Ship of Theseus episode and
Speaker 1: I thought i'd ask her the question if you had
Speaker 1: a toy and replaced all the parts that toy with
Speaker 1: new different parts, would it be the same toy? Her
Speaker 1: unequivocal answer was yes. When I ask why it we
Speaker 1: would be the same and not different, her response was
Speaker 1: because it's the same toy. The new parts don't make
Speaker 1: it different. Yeah. So there you go. From the mouths
Speaker 1: of babes love the show, Diana. I really like this, uh,
Speaker 1: this this email because it reminds me of the the
Speaker 1: whole scenario of the replacing a lost toy, which is
Speaker 1: something that uh and imagine a number of you have
Speaker 1: experienced as a child or perhaps you've you've played a
Speaker 1: part in the scenario as a parent. But obviously, when
Speaker 1: you replace a toy, especially if it's a stuffed animal,
Speaker 1: the replacement can often look just like a completely different
Speaker 1: species compared to the like the worn out thing that
Speaker 1: you had to replace, you know, uh, like it becomes
Speaker 1: the essentially the rusty carney, Like the rusty carney is
Speaker 1: the one you love, and then when you're presented with
Speaker 1: this brand new, untarnished carney, you're like, that's not carney,
Speaker 1: you know, that's not you know, uh, socks the bear socks.
Speaker 1: The bear has only one eye and his his fur isn't,
Speaker 1: you know, bright and fluffy, it's it's mad at and gray. Like,
Speaker 1: it's the wear and the tear that that that is
Speaker 1: that is part and partial to the identity of the thing.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like Diana's child is saying, maybe that
Speaker 1: it's not right that like, even if you do replace
Speaker 1: all of the body parts of Socks the bear with newer,
Speaker 1: fresher body parts, it's the same bear. Yeah, So maybe
Speaker 1: this is just h This is just me like looking
Speaker 1: back on childhood experiences and you know, and and and
Speaker 1: looking at my my own child's experiences through the eyes
Speaker 1: of a parent. Yeah, maybe that ultimately doesn't matter to
Speaker 1: the kid. They're like, yeah, Socks is great. Now, look
Speaker 1: at him. He's he's doing great, He's he's wonderful. It
Speaker 1: looks like he's brand new, exactly what I wanted, you know.
Speaker 1: With the kind of unreality of childhood, the kind of
Speaker 1: hallucinatory quality of the child's view of the world, I
Speaker 1: can almost imagine that I could have been a little
Speaker 1: kid and had some of my toys replaced with clearly
Speaker 1: newer versions of themselves, And I wonder if I would
Speaker 1: have noticed, or if I would have thought anything was unusual,
Speaker 1: or if I just would have thought, hey, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's even better now, Well, sometimes the function would be improved, right,
Speaker 1: like like I remember having two boba FETs. There was
Speaker 1: the original Boba fet that I played with so much
Speaker 1: that he couldn't stand up anymore like his his limited
Speaker 1: joints were just they would just swivel around, so he
Speaker 1: could only like lay down, that was it. Or you know,
Speaker 1: he could fly through the air, I guess. But it
Speaker 1: was only the newer boba Fete that could actually stand upright,
Speaker 1: which was more important. I think ultimately standing upright was
Speaker 1: more important. The floppy boba fet was had limited usage. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's one from our listener and frequent contributor Jim writing
Speaker 1: also about the Ship of Theseus Jim rights, Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: One can visit a real life ship of Theseus in Boston.
Speaker 1: The USS Constitution Old ironsides. She is the oldest commissioned
Speaker 1: naval vessel still afloat. She makes it lea least one
Speaker 1: quote turnaround a trip in the Boston Harbor every year,
Speaker 1: where they take her out and dock her back again
Speaker 1: in the opposite side for even more wear and tear
Speaker 1: while docked. I was in Boston in the early nineteen
Speaker 1: nineties where she was under major renovations. She was barely
Speaker 1: a hull and timbers from what I remember. About a
Speaker 1: dozen years later, I visited again when she was fully
Speaker 1: restored and beautiful. I asked our guide on the tour
Speaker 1: how much of the ship was original. He said about
Speaker 1: fifteen percent as original, mostly below the waterline. He then
Speaker 1: motioned towards the bow of the ship, toward the sick deck.
Speaker 1: I don't know what a sick deck is anyway, sick
Speaker 1: deck and said, quote, do you see those brass nuts
Speaker 1: and bolts in the bulkhead? They were made by Paul Revere.
Speaker 1: I was impressed. Um. He mentions that Malcolm Gladwell talked
Speaker 1: about the Ship of Theseus in an episode of the
Speaker 1: Revisionist History podcast. Yes, and I do remember. I do
Speaker 1: remember listening to that one. Now I believe he was.
Speaker 1: I believe this was the the golf episode. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: explains it so, Jim Rights. This was an episode about
Speaker 1: golf courses on California. California property taxes are based upon
Speaker 1: the value of your property when you purchased it, not
Speaker 1: on current value. This was to prevent retired couples who
Speaker 1: owned their houses from being forced to move due to
Speaker 1: taxes when the value of their home skyrocketed. But what
Speaker 1: about the Gulf country Club who owns them? They are
Speaker 1: owned by the members, much like the members of a
Speaker 1: credit union. But when does membership change so as to
Speaker 1: recalculate the tax? The tax regulators determined that an individual
Speaker 1: member leaving or joining was not enough to not enough
Speaker 1: of a change to trigger a new property value. Therefore,
Speaker 1: the golf courses are taxed that there are property values
Speaker 1: from decades ago, even if the entire membership from those
Speaker 1: original days has completely turned over. Given this logic, the
Speaker 1: THESEUS Country Club never changes its ownership, especially for tax purposes,
Speaker 1: even if the entire membership turns over multiple times over
Speaker 1: the decades. And then he also has a ps with
Speaker 1: Star Trek transporter issues. I don't know, we could get
Speaker 1: into those maybe maybe not sure. I'm I'm I'm positive
Speaker 1: that um our our producer Alex would would would would
Speaker 1: prefer that we get into these teleportation issues from track
Speaker 1: so Jim Rights. In the old show, some sort of
Speaker 1: cosmic dust causes Kirk to reassemble twice on the transporter.
Speaker 1: He was split into good and evil. It was their
Speaker 1: Jecklin Highe homage. In the Next Generation, Riker is found
Speaker 1: stranded as an outcast on a waste land of a planet.
Speaker 1: But hasn't he been on the Enterprise for years? He
Speaker 1: had been on the barren planet when with a previous
Speaker 1: ship before the Next Generation started. When beamed up from
Speaker 1: the previous assignment, his signal was split by something in
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. One copy materialized on his ship, the other
Speaker 1: bounced back to the surface of the planet where he
Speaker 1: re materialized, but no one knew the stranded Ricker wasn't
Speaker 1: too pleased that no one had come looking for him.
Speaker 1: Oh man, what if that just happened? It turns out
Speaker 1: it just happens all the time, like one out of
Speaker 1: every five teleportations, and Star Trek ends up shooting a
Speaker 1: random copy of you either to the surface of the
Speaker 1: of the deserted planet or you know or you know,
Speaker 1: into the walls. It is a galaxy full of like
Speaker 1: Kirks and the you know, the red Shirt away parties. Now,
Speaker 1: this next one, he mentions, is one of the episodes
Speaker 1: I remember the most uh from watching Star Trek The
Speaker 1: Next Generation as a kid, and yet I totally forgot
Speaker 1: about this whole uh you know, teleportation ship of theseus
Speaker 1: angle right gim rights. In the next generation the Dyson's
Speaker 1: Fear episode, we meet Mr Scott from the old show,
Speaker 1: but he hasn't aged from the movies, which took place
Speaker 1: decades previously. How he had put himself into a form
Speaker 1: of stasis I don't remember exactly why, which placed him
Speaker 1: in an infinite disassemble slash as symbol cycle, basically freezing
Speaker 1: time until he was found. Yes, I forgot all about
Speaker 1: that because it's it's a pretty distracting aspect of that
Speaker 1: episode that there's a dycense here and if you you
Speaker 1: were like me, you never encountered that concept before. It
Speaker 1: was pretty mind blowing enough so that it overshadowed the
Speaker 1: sort of glitching uh teleporter mishaps of of of Dr
Speaker 1: Scott here, Mr Scott, Mr Scott say, I was never
Speaker 1: a classic track guy. I'm not sure what his credentials are.
Speaker 1: I've been I've been lashed by our fans enough about
Speaker 1: not having sufficient treknowledge. General Scott, that's correct, that's correct,
Speaker 1: Admiral Dr Scott dds um one. Last note in Voyager
Speaker 1: two characters information was mixed somehow. It wasn't a fifty
Speaker 1: fifty mix. It was more like a sixty forty mix.
Speaker 1: In both cases, the sixty personality wasn't too keen on
Speaker 1: sharing their bodies with the other. I only saw this
Speaker 1: episode once, and when it originally aired, I think the
Speaker 1: two characters were male and female. I have a memory
Speaker 1: that they cast two different actors to play each so
Speaker 1: as to make the fusion even more realistic. Oh nice, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't usually think a Star Trek is realistic, but
Speaker 1: uh well, I'd explored a lot of territory. I will
Speaker 1: say this. Uh. I am definitely pro Star Trek, especially
Speaker 1: Next Generation and the Space nine. Uh And I'm not
Speaker 1: really a fan of golf, so I will say check
Speaker 1: out Star Trek by all means, but also check out
Speaker 1: that Malcolm Gladwell a revisionist history episode about golf. He
Speaker 1: he promises at the beginning that he says that he
Speaker 1: hates golf, and by end, by the end of the episode,
Speaker 1: he hopes that he thinks that you'll hate golf as well.
Speaker 1: Uh And, and I think I did hate golf even
Speaker 1: more after listening to that episode. It's a great podcast.
Speaker 1: It just fills you with insightful rage. It's great for
Speaker 1: road trips. Okay, maybe we should look at a couple
Speaker 1: more Ship of THESEUS mails. All right, here's another one.
Speaker 1: This one comes to us from Marcos. I love your podcast.
Speaker 1: I have to say it's my favorite way of passing
Speaker 1: time on my commute. Conversation and conjecture turn a undane
Speaker 1: daily trip into a timeless voyage. I was voyaging on
Speaker 1: your Ship of Theseus episode when it occurred to me
Speaker 1: that our constitution, by by this means the the U. S.
Speaker 1: Constitution has in a way become a document of THESEUS.
Speaker 1: The words like planks, have warped and rotted in a way,
Speaker 1: and have been replaced each generation by new interpretations of
Speaker 1: the same letters. It's as if each year a plank
Speaker 1: is removed, studied, whittled, and placed back, so that the
Speaker 1: same ship is now one of immense complexity and context.
Speaker 1: Even a strict structuralist interpretation fills the same words with
Speaker 1: more subtlety and complexity than the original carpenters ever did.
Speaker 1: I'm also thinking that the physical U. S. S Constitution
Speaker 1: might embody an actual example of a true modernship of THESEUS.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting parallel. Thanks for adding insight to my
Speaker 1: otherwise absent drive another reference to the old Iron Sides.
Speaker 1: But this is interesting about the document because I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously exactly this kind of question comes up in judicial philosophy, right.
Speaker 1: You know, judges are trying to interpret how should the
Speaker 1: constant who san applies to laws we write today? And
Speaker 1: it's a tricky task because the Constitution was written a
Speaker 1: long time ago and not anticipating all kinds of stuff
Speaker 1: that's come up since then. Do you say that the
Speaker 1: Constitution embodies what the spirit of people expressing the same
Speaker 1: sentiments would probably be saying today, or should we just
Speaker 1: try to pretend somebody wrote these words yesterday and read
Speaker 1: them to mean exactly what they should literally mean in
Speaker 1: our usage, or uh, should it should we look to
Speaker 1: the letters of the people who wrote it and see,
Speaker 1: you know, what did they really mean when they wrote this.
Speaker 1: That's complicated enough without getting into the various agendas that
Speaker 1: would influence one in in in various interpretations. Oh sure,
Speaker 1: of course, I guess that's taking the idea of judicial
Speaker 1: philosophy at face value, which you know, obviously there's some
Speaker 1: judicial philosophy that's probably just motivated reasoning for people's own
Speaker 1: personal politics, you know, speaking of of politicians, I mean
Speaker 1: something like the Senate is is kind of like a
Speaker 1: ship of theseis as well. Right, oh yeah, we're always
Speaker 1: swapping out new parts for the old parts, and they
Speaker 1: are a lot of the parts are rather old. Um.
Speaker 1: But if we were to replace half the members of
Speaker 1: the U. S. Senate would say amphibians, it would still
Speaker 1: be the Senate, even though it would have far more
Speaker 1: Amphibians than it currently has. Mr Toad goes to Washington.
Speaker 1: There you go. Well, at this point, I feel like
Speaker 1: we should take a break and then come back and
Speaker 1: tackle some more listener mail. Thank you, thank you. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back. Okay. This next one comes to us from
Speaker 1: our listener Ian. It concerns viruses high there. I only
Speaker 1: discovered your podcast a couple of months ago, and I
Speaker 1: don't know how I coped without it. I'm a my
Speaker 1: cross capist. I spend much of my day working in
Speaker 1: the dark alone and trying not to move much. But
Speaker 1: that does mean I get three or four hours a
Speaker 1: day to listen to podcasts, and I get to see
Speaker 1: things that nobody else ever has. Have you ever thought
Speaker 1: about doing an episode on viruses. If we have school
Speaker 1: trips in at work, or it's just a quiet day,
Speaker 1: we go virus spotting in the pond outside the lab
Speaker 1: and the results are absolutely staggering. Hardly anyone realizes the
Speaker 1: extent of viruses in the world. They outnumber us. In fact,
Speaker 1: they outnumber every living cell on the planet, and there
Speaker 1: are a major driving force of evolution, not just through
Speaker 1: selection pressure, but the vast scale of cross species gene swapping.
Speaker 1: They facilitate eight hundred million viruses land on every square
Speaker 1: meter of our planet's surface every day. They're around ten
Speaker 1: to the eight in every milli liter of seawater. More
Speaker 1: than that in our pond. They reckon to kill a
Speaker 1: third of every cell in the ocean every day. If
Speaker 1: that's not mind blowing enough, we found giant viruses in
Speaker 1: the drip tray of a water cooler. This dude and
Speaker 1: and Ian attaches a picture is five nimes across and
Speaker 1: lives in our coffee room, and there is a suitably
Speaker 1: evil looking metal album cover here. It's kind of this, uh,
Speaker 1: this whirling void of a hexagon in a gray background.
Speaker 1: It it's kind of love craft Ian. It's inviting me
Speaker 1: into the dark with it. It. That's kind of it
Speaker 1: has a kind of a black hole feeling to it,
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, I continues, if you're ever in the UK,
Speaker 1: drop us a line and we'll let you drive an
Speaker 1: electron microscope. Keep the episodes coming. My coffee strained brain
Speaker 1: depends on it. Ian, Well, thank you so much. Ian.
Speaker 1: We I don't know if we'll ever get to test
Speaker 1: drive an electron microscope with you, but it sounds fun.
Speaker 1: And actually we I think have talked about doing an
Speaker 1: episode on on viruses. Uh we have both um the
Speaker 1: organism and uh, we've we've talked about the computer viruses
Speaker 1: as well. It's it's been a long time since I've
Speaker 1: looked at this, but I remember there being some interesting,
Speaker 1: um parallel questions one can ask about viruses and computer
Speaker 1: viruses and their their status as as as living entities.
Speaker 1: All right, here's another piece of listener mail that comes
Speaker 1: to us. Uh. This this one has to do with
Speaker 1: our episode on teasing that that recently came out, where
Speaker 1: we talked about this curious phenomenon of of of of
Speaker 1: human interaction that is often difficult to to make sense
Speaker 1: of and they also difficult to figure out, like what
Speaker 1: is uh, what is playful teasing and what is harmful teasing?
Speaker 1: So this one comes to us from Rachel quote, I
Speaker 1: just finished listening to your excellent episode on teasing. That's
Speaker 1: not meant in an ironic way. I actually did think
Speaker 1: it was an excellent episode. The line between teasing and
Speaker 1: bullying can be so blurry. I was teased and bullied
Speaker 1: a lot as a kid, so I identified a great
Speaker 1: deal with what you were saying. I wondered what your
Speaker 1: research revealed, if it touched on at all about the
Speaker 1: roast of certain prominent individuals, such as comedians or politicians,
Speaker 1: since this ritualized form of socially acceptable teasing can be
Speaker 1: quite mean spirited at times. I loved your mention also
Speaker 1: of teasing through the pet. We do this a lot
Speaker 1: at our house. We have a cat, our dog recently passed,
Speaker 1: and she is often the butt of jokes that simultaneously
Speaker 1: earned her a lot of attention. My husband might be
Speaker 1: holding the cat in an awkward way that really displays
Speaker 1: how big she is, or exposes her belly and says
Speaker 1: something like, quote, getting a bit plump there, slippers. Her
Speaker 1: name is George, and she's a tortoise shell. I might
Speaker 1: also and I might also respond with something like, if
Speaker 1: she keeps eating all her food and treats like a
Speaker 1: good girl, we might even be able to get a
Speaker 1: pair of gloves out of her too. We'll get her
Speaker 1: nice and tubby. Yet I'm also certain she is trying
Speaker 1: to kill me. I tell people, I'm certain she is
Speaker 1: a reincarnated mafia princess, and she's basically held onto the
Speaker 1: same business model. She is a homicidal sociopath with a
Speaker 1: mafia style flare for vengeance. She's a great foil for
Speaker 1: when I stumble into something on my own, I can
Speaker 1: always blame it on her. Sometimes, if she was stretched
Speaker 1: out in one of her more hedonistic poses on some
Speaker 1: particularly posha perch, like a fresh laundered or folded comforter,
Speaker 1: one of us will express the concern that she may
Speaker 1: not be getting enough rest. Probably far too much about
Speaker 1: our cat. But I am home all day with her.
Speaker 1: She is the subject of much teasing. I look forward
Speaker 1: to your next cast. Keep them coming, you keep me
Speaker 1: saying at work, this is very familiar kind of pet roasting. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: what is it that's so fun about roasting a pet?
Speaker 1: You you don't dislike your pet, You like your pet.
Speaker 1: A lot, but it's really fun to make fun of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know it. It really keeps their status in check,
Speaker 1: you know, like they no matter how how how pompous
Speaker 1: or loud they may be. Now, as for the roasting culture,
Speaker 1: like the celebrity roast and all, I don't remember specifically
Speaker 1: running across anything, but but it might be out there.
Speaker 1: It is certainly interesting because it is this this area
Speaker 1: of comedy that gets uh, it gets gets very sharp
Speaker 1: at times and and can I feel like has a
Speaker 1: has a tendency to uh, to get a little out
Speaker 1: of control sometimes, you know what I'm saying. Um, But
Speaker 1: then again, it is a very ancient form of comedy.
Speaker 1: I mean, you go back to the ancient Greeks and like,
Speaker 1: and make making fun of politicians was was a central
Speaker 1: aspect of some of our earliest examples of comedy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I would say, if you're gonna use harsh,
Speaker 1: biting mockery, it's good that it's directed at people who are,
Speaker 1: you know, in high status positions of power. Now in
Speaker 1: some cases though, it is of course comedians roasting other comedians,
Speaker 1: and that may be a special category. Uh, I mean
Speaker 1: that I would be interesting to hear fould be interesting
Speaker 1: to hear from a professional comedian stand up comedian out
Speaker 1: there on this topic, because I know there is probably
Speaker 1: a lot of of ribbing going on there on just
Speaker 1: a regular basis, and a lot of comedy is clearly
Speaker 1: about pushing boundaries, Like how mean can you be in
Speaker 1: in roasting is probably one of the boundaries people are
Speaker 1: going to experiment with, right though, certainly at this point,
Speaker 1: if you agree to be the subject of a celebrity roast,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know what's in store for you, so
Speaker 1: you can't complain, I guess, But you gotta wonder, like
Speaker 1: why do people do it? I mean, do they think, well,
Speaker 1: I'm so great, everybody's gonna be nice to me at
Speaker 1: my roast. Well, it's in a way, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like we even that episode we talked about the test
Speaker 1: of the King. Right, if the king can set there
Speaker 1: and be a big good sport about it, even when
Speaker 1: it's vicious, Uh, then then then the king has kind
Speaker 1: of passed the test. Also, I think if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: and I do, I do not watch uh any of
Speaker 1: these celebrity roasts these days, but I remember correctly, the
Speaker 1: format usually involves the subject at the very end getting
Speaker 1: to throw out a few jabs at the participants as well,
Speaker 1: so they kind of get the last laugh, even though
Speaker 1: they take most of the punishment. You know, now that
Speaker 1: we're talking about it, I can actually think that specifically,
Speaker 1: the stuff I've seen that seemed really over the line,
Speaker 1: mean to me, at at celebrity roast was not directed
Speaker 1: at the main roast Steve, was directed at other people
Speaker 1: in attendance. Yes, like other roasters and celebrity participants that
Speaker 1: were involved. Yes, that's often the stuff that that seems
Speaker 1: like just like way over the line, because it's like
Speaker 1: they're not the sanction target. This is about this is
Speaker 1: about an keep the attention on Shatner. I'm tuning in
Speaker 1: to watch him be made the fool, the one that
Speaker 1: the ones that I've seen that have been really I
Speaker 1: felt not cool, or when they like go after the
Speaker 1: roast ease spouse or or partner or something you know
Speaker 1: that happens. Yeah, again, like they're not the target. Like
Speaker 1: I want to, I want to see the target just
Speaker 1: absolutely skewered, like you have. You have just almost free
Speaker 1: range in terms of this individual. But I don't know
Speaker 1: about these other targets. I guess I don't make the
Speaker 1: roast rules, and neither do you. Okay. This one comes
Speaker 1: to us from our listener, Dean, and he introduces himself.
Speaker 1: He says he's an associate lecture in psychology and postdoctoral
Speaker 1: research fellow based in Ireland. And uh, Dean says, quote,
Speaker 1: my research focus is broadly psychology and education, but I
Speaker 1: do have that techy twist of how technology influences human behavior. Uh.
Speaker 1: I teach numerous programs focusing on this. I love the
Speaker 1: podcast and actively encourage my students to listen to it. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, Dean. Dean writes, I finished listening
Speaker 1: to the on Teasing episode yesterday and couldn't agree more
Speaker 1: about how teasing quickly turns to bullying. My PhD supervisor
Speaker 1: is a powerhouse regarding this field, especially alterophobic bullying, and
Speaker 1: I didn't know what that was, so I looked it up.
Speaker 1: But that's like bullying people based on like subcultures or
Speaker 1: alternative lifestyles. Uh. Perhaps a study could be done on
Speaker 1: a species of squirrels here. My own PhD was looking
Speaker 1: at interpersonal interactions between students and teachers and the role
Speaker 1: positive educational experiences can play in academic and social outcomes.
Speaker 1: I'm often asked questions in class about quote wind is
Speaker 1: teasing end and bullying start, especially between students and also
Speaker 1: between staff, and I often reply by saying how it's
Speaker 1: next to impossible to fully know, not only because interactions
Speaker 1: between individuals are incredibly subjective, and it would also depend
Speaker 1: on multiple contextual factors and how the teased or t
Speaker 1: easier processes the situation. Anyway, like most episodes, this one
Speaker 1: got me thinking of technological applications and social cues in
Speaker 1: the digital space. Well, you mentioned the yellow smiley faces
Speaker 1: and how emoticon slash emoji support comprehension. How do you
Speaker 1: feel the concept of disinhibition and the bystander effect would
Speaker 1: play out in a physical situation and then in a
Speaker 1: digital situation they might seem polar opposites in some cases,
Speaker 1: but then again maybe not. Thoughts from the Hive mind
Speaker 1: once again, love the show. I need to get my
Speaker 1: hands on some merch and flag it to my students.
Speaker 1: All the best Dean, Oh, yeah, that merch. It's a
Speaker 1: great time for us to plug the merch store. If
Speaker 1: you got to stuff to blow your mind. Dot com
Speaker 1: at the top of the page, you'll see a tab
Speaker 1: for store. You can go there. You can get shirts
Speaker 1: with our our cool new logo logo on it. You
Speaker 1: can get what bags for your laptop. You can get
Speaker 1: two framed art. You can get pillows, stickers to put
Speaker 1: on your car, you name it. Listen to the soulis
Speaker 1: ad Man. No. I appreciate Roberts saying that, so I
Speaker 1: don't have to. Yeah, please merch up some cool stuff.
Speaker 1: And it's a great way to support the show if
Speaker 1: you want to, you know, you want to throw a
Speaker 1: few bucks to the show. Okay, but back to Dean's message,
Speaker 1: so Dean asked. I assumed Dean here is talking about
Speaker 1: how we talked about in the episode, this idea of
Speaker 1: you've been there watching teasing turn to bullying, like you've
Speaker 1: seen it happen, and you didn't do anything because you
Speaker 1: didn't know, like should I intervene or would I be
Speaker 1: making it weird if I did? Is this actually okay?
Speaker 1: And I misreading? Like you never really know. It's it's
Speaker 1: hard to know when to step in and sort of
Speaker 1: like become the social police, right because you don't want
Speaker 1: to feel like you're a kindergarten teacher when you're hanging
Speaker 1: out with your friends, Like, don't say that that's me.
Speaker 1: That's mean to Sam, Kyle, say you're sorry to Sam. Okay,
Speaker 1: now you too, hug All right, now we can go
Speaker 1: back to talking about molodies. And maybe maybe you're misreading.
Speaker 1: Maybe Sam is not actually being bothered, and by stepping in,
Speaker 1: you were making everybody feel bad. I mean, there's this
Speaker 1: bystander effect going on. You don't know when it's your
Speaker 1: turn to act, when you should do something. And so
Speaker 1: Dean is asking about the disinhibition and the bystander effect
Speaker 1: and how that varies across physical space versus digital space.
Speaker 1: What do you think about that, Robert, mm hmm, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean in digital space, it's it's kind of complicated
Speaker 1: because there's I mean, undoubtedly there's so much there's so
Speaker 1: much bad stuff going on out there at any given moment.
Speaker 1: Like I'm sure I could go on to say Reddit,
Speaker 1: and I don't mean to single Reddit out, but I'm
Speaker 1: I'm sure I could go on to Reddit right now
Speaker 1: and find somebody being, um, you know, somewhat bullying towards
Speaker 1: another person. I mean, sometimes you don't have much to
Speaker 1: work with, right because you're just responding to somebody's comments.
Speaker 1: It's one stranger, uh responding to another stranger. Or you
Speaker 1: see similar things play out on on Facebook or Twitter, right,
Speaker 1: especially on Facebook where it's someone has their their their
Speaker 1: their privacy UM settings very open and it's maybe arguments
Speaker 1: between one like a friend's friends or a friends relatives
Speaker 1: than you UM. And I mean you see it going on,
Speaker 1: and it just it doesn't necessarily feel like your place
Speaker 1: to step in, Like I don't know who these people are.
Speaker 1: I'm not the one to come in. This is clearly,
Speaker 1: clearly somebody knows these people because it's on their Facebook profile.
Speaker 1: They should be the ones to step in and start
Speaker 1: breaking it up. Right. Well, I would say some of
Speaker 1: the same inhibitions or at play in digital space like
Speaker 1: you're talking about. But I think I've observed, I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe you'll disagree. I feel like I've observed people are
Speaker 1: more likely to step in and play social police in
Speaker 1: digital space than they are in physical space. I mean,
Speaker 1: have you not like I see people like like stepping
Speaker 1: in and and saying like, okay, it's time to intervene
Speaker 1: in in comment threads on Facebook way way more often
Speaker 1: than I see that happening in person. I never see anything.
Speaker 1: People are more likely to be a jerk quad uh
Speaker 1: digitally than they ask a person as well. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess you're guess you're right. I mean, I'm having
Speaker 1: trouble thinking the last time I saw somebody being a
Speaker 1: jerk in person and saw somebody intervene, or saw a
Speaker 1: situation where even I was wondering if someone should intervene.
Speaker 1: It's been a while, I haven't It's been a one
Speaker 1: since I've taken like public transit for instance. Yeah, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I feel like these situations used to
Speaker 1: happen more back when I was in school, and stuff
Speaker 1: happens less often as an adult. I just don't see
Speaker 1: adults bullying each other that often. Well. The other aspect
Speaker 1: of it, too is that in physical space, I mean
Speaker 1: I do on the internet. Well well, well, I guess
Speaker 1: one of the aspects of both scenarios is that in
Speaker 1: a physical environment, there is always the possibility, even if
Speaker 1: it is even if it is distant, it's still possible
Speaker 1: that it could escalate into into a physical altercation, into
Speaker 1: physical violence. And in a digital scenario, I mean it, certainly,
Speaker 1: digital arguments can still have real world consequences. Um they're
Speaker 1: not completely removed from it, but it is. It's not
Speaker 1: an immediate step, like like if if it's stranger Kyle
Speaker 1: and stranger Andrew or engage in an argument, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: one's gonna have to find out where the other one lives,
Speaker 1: or they're gonna have to agree to meet up in
Speaker 1: a parking lot and fight. Like there are more steps
Speaker 1: where it's just two people arguing at a bar or
Speaker 1: on a street, uh, you know, on the sidewalk, Then
Speaker 1: they could conceivably come to blows without too much planning involved.
Speaker 1: So you think the threat of a punch in the
Speaker 1: face may actually be a positive influence on our social interactions.
Speaker 1: There are some that would argue that, right, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean another another factor there, though, is that you
Speaker 1: just aren't that often getting into conversations that are covering
Speaker 1: any kind of potentially sensitive or controversial subject matter with
Speaker 1: people you don't know very well in physical space. That
Speaker 1: kind of thing happens all the time in digital space
Speaker 1: and almost never happens in physical space. When do you
Speaker 1: argue politics with a stranger in person, it just doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: And then when it does, I mean, the cases that
Speaker 1: come to mind are going to be uh, certainly cases
Speaker 1: of say protest and that is it's a huge stretch
Speaker 1: to call the back and forth it's happening there a conversation.
Speaker 1: It's probably more one side shouting at the other. Right,
Speaker 1: But you see that kind of thing happening on the
Speaker 1: internet all the time. And then so of course there's
Speaker 1: there's plenty of incentive there to just like just show
Speaker 1: want and cruelty and to turn it straight over into
Speaker 1: personal insults and bullying and all that. Well, some great
Speaker 1: food for thought here from Dean. We're gonna take one
Speaker 1: more break and we come back. Will crack open a
Speaker 1: few more listener mails before we close out this episode.
Speaker 1: Thank thank Alright, we're back, and I can see that
Speaker 1: our two robots here are very excited because the next
Speaker 1: few listener mails are going to listen to I have
Speaker 1: to do with our two thousand and one Space Odyssey episode. Okay,
Speaker 1: this one comes from listener Eric. Eric writes, greeting stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind. Your recent episode two thousand one
Speaker 1: of Space Odyssey made me think you might find the
Speaker 1: following interesting. I was as far as my research yields,
Speaker 1: and I could be wrong. One of the last people
Speaker 1: to conduct a long form interview with Arthur C. Clark.
Speaker 1: He gave a few long form interviews in the last
Speaker 1: five years of his life due to post polio fatigue syndromes, scandal,
Speaker 1: his pending knighthood, and general failing health. Conducted while visiting
Speaker 1: my then girlfriend in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in the summer
Speaker 1: of nineteen Clark's sole interview condition was that I couldn't
Speaker 1: sell the interview to a national magazine, but he would
Speaker 1: allow it to be published in my college's literary magazine.
Speaker 1: Online publishing didn't effectively exist at the time, of course.
Speaker 1: Uh And then he says, he did publish it in
Speaker 1: the college literary magazine. Uh. So picking up, he says,
Speaker 1: Clark sat behind his desk all the while a top
Speaker 1: which were two cutting edge Macintosh computers and abacus, various
Speaker 1: and sundry papers, and a moon rock. And behind his
Speaker 1: desk stood an eight by twenty foot wall of books,
Speaker 1: one half of which consisted of his novels in translation
Speaker 1: and most of which were hard backs. A regal environment there.
Speaker 1: Uh I spent about two and a half hours with
Speaker 1: Dr Clark, as his staff invariably called him, and our
Speaker 1: meeting ended with he my girlfriend Pepsi, which is Clark's
Speaker 1: one eyed Chihuahua, and I watching eight millimeter home movies
Speaker 1: of Clark and Isaac Asimov playing chess. This was done
Speaker 1: in total silence and was admittedly odd, But my reason
Speaker 1: for writing is to say that many of your listeners
Speaker 1: might be interested in knowing what Clark thought his magnum
Speaker 1: opus was in science fiction. About an hour into our meeting,
Speaker 1: I asked him what novel he felt made the greatest
Speaker 1: mark on science fiction. I expected Clark to name two
Speaker 1: thousand one, in spite of its interesting creation, in tandem
Speaker 1: with the screenplay for the film, which you mentioned as
Speaker 1: his most horton novel, given that it canonized him as
Speaker 1: a science fiction master and made him decidedly world famous. However,
Speaker 1: when I asked him, he said that his most important
Speaker 1: novel was The Songs of Distant Earth, a brand new
Speaker 1: copy of which was then in my backpack unread. It
Speaker 1: was the only Clark novel I could find at a
Speaker 1: local store. All other Clark books were about scuba diving.
Speaker 1: I asked him to sign it. He laughed and said
Speaker 1: I was being quote cheeky, and accused me of a setup.
Speaker 1: He also showed me specs of a space elevator cable
Speaker 1: and told me two math jokes I didn't understand. In
Speaker 1: any case, it was a great episode. I thank you
Speaker 1: for it and for conjuring up some wonderful memories. Thanks
Speaker 1: gents for all you do. What you do makes the
Speaker 1: world less stupid and more interesting. Yours, Eric, Oh, thank
Speaker 1: you Eric. Yeah. And plus, that was a fascinating story.
Speaker 1: I really really just a delightful little story about meeting
Speaker 1: uh the author there, watch me play chess. That's that
Speaker 1: that has the ring of truth. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know Eric, so I don't know if he's on
Speaker 1: the truth, but I believe him based on that detail.
Speaker 1: All right, here's another bit of two thousand and one, Uh,
Speaker 1: listener mail. This one comes to us from Chandler. This
Speaker 1: is this is our coworker Chandler. Is it? Oh? Yes?
Speaker 1: Oh well the way I know exactly who it's from.
Speaker 1: Then he says, quote, I listened to your two thousand
Speaker 1: and one episode the other day and thought it was fantastic.
Speaker 1: There's one thing I wanted to ask you that perhaps
Speaker 1: you didn't have time to cover in your opinion. Did
Speaker 1: how make a mistake? Was he actually malfunctioning. When Dave
Speaker 1: brought back the satellite unit and found nothing wrong with it,
Speaker 1: How's next suggestion was to put it back, let it fail,
Speaker 1: then find the source of the problem afterwards. This seems
Speaker 1: like a logical solution, but Dave and Frank planned to
Speaker 1: shut him down before we ever got to find out
Speaker 1: if How had actually made a mistake or not. And
Speaker 1: since How was given a secret directive to contact the
Speaker 1: monolith with or without the crew, he felt he needed
Speaker 1: to remove the humans from the mission. Or did the
Speaker 1: secret directive itself make How malfunction in that the conflicting
Speaker 1: goals of taking care of the crew and not letting
Speaker 1: the crew get in the way of his journey to
Speaker 1: the monolith? Did he create an almost a programming paradox
Speaker 1: that made his brain short circuit. I'm curious to hear
Speaker 1: your thoughts, Cheers Chandler. This is an interesting question because
Speaker 1: it's sort of like asks if do we need to
Speaker 1: put the responsibility back on the humans for what went
Speaker 1: wrong in their interactions with How um So obviously the
Speaker 1: way most people would read that as well, How starts malfunctioning.
Speaker 1: There's something wrong with his logic, and this leads the
Speaker 1: like Bowman and Pool to have no choice but to say,
Speaker 1: we've got to shut him down, and then How reacts
Speaker 1: negatively to that and everything spirals out of control. What
Speaker 1: I think Chandler is asking, what if How was not malfunctioning?
Speaker 1: How was doing just fine? But Bowman and Pool misread
Speaker 1: the situation. They go on the offensive against How and
Speaker 1: he just has to defend himself. Yeah, Frank and Dave,
Speaker 1: they are kind of like, uh, you know, automatons. Once
Speaker 1: they decide to act, they can't be stopped. I mean,
Speaker 1: remind me of this concept in a way of the uh,
Speaker 1: the the hunter Killer aies the idea that you could have.
Speaker 1: You could have a specialized AI who's who in Their
Speaker 1: primary goal is to take down a general AI should
Speaker 1: it emerge or or you know, emerge from it's the
Speaker 1: confines of its digital prison, and their only purpose is
Speaker 1: to just take out that superior AI intelligence. In fact,
Speaker 1: I can well imagine a scenario where that the first
Speaker 1: AI Hunter Killers are called David Frank for that purpose. Bowman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I never thought about this before, but Bowman in many
Speaker 1: ways behaves like a terminator. Yeah, He's kind of like
Speaker 1: Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first Terminator movie or or even
Speaker 1: more so kind of like uh Robert Patrick and Terminator too.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have much of a discernible personality and is
Speaker 1: just very singly focused on achieving goals. One of those
Speaker 1: major goals of Worse becomes shutting down How. While how
Speaker 1: begs for mercy, he can't be stopped. He can't be
Speaker 1: reasoned with. And that's what Hal tries to do. He
Speaker 1: essentially tries to reason with him. Um and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: imagine a future in which uh post singularity of course. Uh,
Speaker 1: the the machines when they dress up for Halloween, they
Speaker 1: dress up as Bowman, like he's the new icon of terror.
Speaker 1: That's a good idea. Costume stores get on that starts
Speaker 1: selling the suit. Another thing that Chandler's question brings up,
Speaker 1: which I think is interesting, is the idea of, um,
Speaker 1: you know, like, whether whether a secret inherently sort of
Speaker 1: pollutes the nature of of a functional AI from from
Speaker 1: doing well right. You know. This is I think present
Speaker 1: definitely present in the novel somewhat in the movie. The
Speaker 1: idea that having a secret secondary objective that must be
Speaker 1: kept secret from the human operators is sort of a
Speaker 1: a dangerous proposition to start with for an AI, right,
Speaker 1: because if like an AI has a thing it must
Speaker 1: do and the human operators can't know about that thing
Speaker 1: it must do, then they could interfere with its mission
Speaker 1: without knowing they're interfering with its mission, and thus it
Speaker 1: could come into conflict with them in a way that
Speaker 1: it can't even tell them how not to be in
Speaker 1: its way. And maybe it's also a leap in cognition
Speaker 1: too far for an artificial intelligence, right, because it's one
Speaker 1: thing for it to be able to have this this
Speaker 1: you know, robust relationship with the crew, you know, playing
Speaker 1: chess with them, engaging in small talk qu while also
Speaker 1: looking after their every need. But then you add on
Speaker 1: top of that this necessity for deception. I think teaching
Speaker 1: computers how to lie is a bad idea. Is that
Speaker 1: the secret to preventing the AI from going wrong just
Speaker 1: to have a have a like as a prime directive
Speaker 1: more so than anything else, that a computer can never
Speaker 1: lie to the user. I mean, it does remind me
Speaker 1: of some of some of the ideas that have been
Speaker 1: that have been brought up um uh, specifically some of
Speaker 1: the ideas that presented by max Tech Mark and his
Speaker 1: his book Life three point oh about the idea that
Speaker 1: we need to make sure that that the that the
Speaker 1: the AI that we're developing, that these that their goal
Speaker 1: is to benefit humanity, that that that is just like
Speaker 1: part of their you know, essentially part part of their
Speaker 1: their their core programming, their backbone, their DNA is that
Speaker 1: they exist to help us and to make a better
Speaker 1: world and not to uh to fulfill some of these
Speaker 1: smaller goals these uh um, the these finite games that
Speaker 1: are being played between nations and companies. That's a great point.
Speaker 1: And and to those of you who are saying, well, yeah, obviously,
Speaker 1: I mean that just sounds like an obvious thing that
Speaker 1: it should be made to benefit humanity, That's actually not obvious.
Speaker 1: It's not obvious to people who are working artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: You know, you might be working on a chat bot
Speaker 1: program that there's no reason you have to fear this
Speaker 1: chatbot program you're working on is gonna harm anyone, But
Speaker 1: you're not telling it that it has to benefit humanity.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's not part of your research program. At
Speaker 1: some point we need to think about that being a
Speaker 1: core part of any AI research is the benefit of
Speaker 1: humanity being part of what it does being sort of
Speaker 1: the Asimov's Rules of robotics that underlies everything it does. Right, Otherwise,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be just going about your business one day
Speaker 1: and a robot's gonna snip your life hose and then
Speaker 1: you're done. Now, we already mentioned an email from our
Speaker 1: listener Jim. Today. Jim also wrote us about two thousand one,
Speaker 1: and we're not going to read a whole other email
Speaker 1: from him, but just to mention a couple of interesting
Speaker 1: points he made in his email about two thousand one
Speaker 1: of Space Odyssey. He mentions that the quote bone to
Speaker 1: satellite cut in the movie. So that's when moon Gazer
Speaker 1: throws the bone up in the air and then it
Speaker 1: cuts it to become a satellite in orbit. Um uh.
Speaker 1: Jim says that it had a bit more context than
Speaker 1: what's obvious. When Ciskel and Ebert talked about two thousand one,
Speaker 1: one of them made mention that the satellite is a
Speaker 1: space missile form pointing back down to Earth. It represents
Speaker 1: more than just several million years of man's progress. It's
Speaker 1: several million years in man's progress to kill one another.
Speaker 1: Since the bone was also of course used as a weapon,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. Um. Then also one more point
Speaker 1: that that Jim makes quote as for the star Child
Speaker 1: at the end, I read the book years ago in school.
Speaker 1: I'm going on memory alone since I don't have a copy,
Speaker 1: but I recalled that the final lines or something like
Speaker 1: Bowman looked down at the Earth. He didn't know what
Speaker 1: he was going to do with it, but he was
Speaker 1: sure he would think of something. I have looked at
Speaker 1: the end of the book, and Jim, you're very close.
Speaker 1: That is almost exactly what it says at the very end.
Speaker 1: So Bowman as the star Child as sort of having
Speaker 1: ascended to this strange godlike form by with by way
Speaker 1: of you know, alien transmutation. Uh, he shows up, trains modified,
Speaker 1: he's a star child. He's in orbit and he looks
Speaker 1: down and he's going to do something with Earth. And
Speaker 1: that's that's a lot of ambiguity, the same kind of
Speaker 1: ambiguity we get at the end of the movie, Like
Speaker 1: does he of nefarious intentions? Good intentions? Is you want
Speaker 1: to help Earth? Does he want to destroy it? As
Speaker 1: you say here? Is he a destroyer? How how much
Speaker 1: difference is there between the two. All right, we have
Speaker 1: one last listener, Mail here and uh, I know which
Speaker 1: one you're gonna Yes, it's the Highlander one. This one
Speaker 1: comes to us from Elizabeth Dear stuff to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: Hosts and team, thank you very much for your show.
Speaker 1: It is a joy to hear about unsettling Boltzmann brains
Speaker 1: and bloodthirsty scugs while walking my dog here in Paris.
Speaker 1: I've been listening to and enjoying your show for a
Speaker 1: few months now, and I noticed many references to Highlander,
Speaker 1: the movie earlier this summer. You mused about Highlander style immortality.
Speaker 1: Immortality is a form of immutability. In the movie, Connor
Speaker 1: McCloud and the other immortals are trapped in time, unable
Speaker 1: to evolve their immortal therefore outside life very interesting. Do
Speaker 1: you know that there also was a Highlander TV show? Uh? Yes,
Speaker 1: I am aware. I have. I have to say I
Speaker 1: did much. I watched a fair amount of it, but
Speaker 1: I didn't watch it like religiously, so I was never
Speaker 1: like really privy to the overarching narratives that were going
Speaker 1: on there. I would just like tune in and occasionally
Speaker 1: there'd be a fun episode in which, you know, they
Speaker 1: kind of go through the typical um motions of the
Speaker 1: show where McLeod encounters a Highlander from the past, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a flashback as to how they know each other,
Speaker 1: and then there's a big standoff and and uh and
Speaker 1: so forth. Now I have to sadly assume that Chris
Speaker 1: stuff Lambert is not in the TV show. I believe
Speaker 1: he's in the first episode at least. And the thing is,
Speaker 1: I never actually saw the first episode, but I believe,
Speaker 1: based on subsequent research, that he did show up in
Speaker 1: the pilot to set up their relationship. Anyway, she says,
Speaker 1: do you know that there was also a Highlander TV
Speaker 1: show where a major development arc was actually about the
Speaker 1: the possibility slash impossibility of change for immortals? And this
Speaker 1: I did not realize, She says, quote the air the
Speaker 1: show aired in the late nineties in France. Don't know
Speaker 1: about the US. Uh it did? Uh this I think
Speaker 1: it aired exclusively in syndication. So this was the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that I would watch like uh. I think
Speaker 1: it would come on like like four in the afternoon
Speaker 1: on a Saturday, or come out on at like ten
Speaker 1: at night on some random channel. She continues, It's protagonist
Speaker 1: Duncan McCloud Connor's better looking and younger cousin started office
Speaker 1: this archetypical immortal boy scout hero set in Stone and
Speaker 1: settling scores with batties that were as stuck in the
Speaker 1: past as he was. However, the show couldn't follow this pattern,
Speaker 1: and definitely since we the viewers, are of course, children
Speaker 1: of time, so it became all about how Duncan needed
Speaker 1: to change and break his black and white vision of
Speaker 1: the world. It was hard for him and he didn't
Speaker 1: like it, uh was forced to have He was forced
Speaker 1: to evolve by interesting side characters. In the end, after
Speaker 1: a few seasons, he got there only to become this
Speaker 1: faded out version of himself, almost losing the will to
Speaker 1: live and fight another day. Having lost his trademark identity,
Speaker 1: he resolved to leave the game, and thus the show ended.
Speaker 1: Sorry for the long message, but I really enjoyed hearing
Speaker 1: about your thoughts on identity and immortality and am delighted
Speaker 1: about the ongoing challenge of watching the Highlander movie a
Speaker 1: few minutes at a time. I couldn't resist telling you
Speaker 1: about the TV show in case you didn't know about it. Again,
Speaker 1: merceies for your show, best, Elizabeth Well, I didn't think
Speaker 1: I'd ever be tempted to go back and watch the
Speaker 1: Highlander TV series. Now I am a little bit. This
Speaker 1: gives me renewed respect for it. I mean, I I
Speaker 1: know loosely that they do end up adding a lot
Speaker 1: of elements later on, Like there's this whole thing with
Speaker 1: the Watchers, who I think are just mortals who watched
Speaker 1: the Immortals um like this. You know, they it went
Speaker 1: multiple seasons, so they had to add more elements. I
Speaker 1: had to have like Highlander administrators. Yeah, you couldn't just
Speaker 1: have follow the Kurgan of the Weak model. And definitely
Speaker 1: though that hasn't stopped the movie series post Highlander two,
Speaker 1: because I think that's basically what they've done. How many
Speaker 1: movies are there after Highlander too, something like three or
Speaker 1: four only saw up to three. Those of you out
Speaker 1: there who think we've forgotten that we've promised on the
Speaker 1: show before to one day do a Highlander to the
Speaker 1: quickening science of episode, we have not forgotten. That will happen.
Speaker 1: In that's nature. It is a guarantee. In fact, I
Speaker 1: finally finished watching the first Highlander like three minutes at
Speaker 1: a time, so that one's done, I'm ready to to
Speaker 1: rewatch Highlander two and its original theatrical glory. Uh, and
Speaker 1: then we'll we'll pick it up from there. Highlander two
Speaker 1: remains one of the best bad movies of all time.
Speaker 1: It is bad movie sorcery. It is transcendent. Your soul
Speaker 1: will leave your body and flash around the room and
Speaker 1: uh and bolts of lightning. Yeah, all right, we'll look
Speaker 1: to that. I think at this rate, it's probably gonna
Speaker 1: be November before we get that out, because we've got
Speaker 1: our our Halloween content. But I'm hopeful for November. Let's
Speaker 1: let's make a date. It's got to happen, all right.
Speaker 1: So I think we're gonna leave it off there. The
Speaker 1: robots are tired. I think they want to embrace each
Speaker 1: other and swap the parts around, so that now we'll
Speaker 1: have just to uh. We'll have two new new slash
Speaker 1: old carney, the mailbox running around, both of them made
Speaker 1: out of a combination of new and old parts. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then they'll probably ask for replacements, request more parts.
Speaker 1: This is just gonna get out of control. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have three carneys, so we're gonna have four carnis Us.
Speaker 1: We'll pick that up another day in the meantime, if
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us, you want
Speaker 1: to find out more about what we do, you want
Speaker 1: to listen to more episodes of the podcast, head on
Speaker 1: over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That
Speaker 1: is the mothership. That'she. We'll find all the episodes. You'll
Speaker 1: find links out to our social media accounts. You'll find
Speaker 1: that tab for the store. Uh yeah, it's a great place.
Speaker 1: Go check it out. Huge Things. As always to our
Speaker 1: wonderful audio producers Alex Williams and Terry Harrison. If you
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us directly to
Speaker 1: let us know feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 1: to send us a listener mail of your own, uh,
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, just to say hi.
Speaker 1: You can email us at blow the Mind at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: The Big Man