WEBVTT - From the Vault: Brain Soup and Liquid Brains 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.760 Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:10.719 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:13.520 Time to go into the vault. This episode originally aired 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:17.320 on June eleventh, nineteen, and it was called Brain Soup 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:21.240 and Liquid Brains. Uh. I don't know what to say 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.919 about it beyond that it's about liquid brains. Huh. Yeah, yeah, 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:27.080 I mean it's it's there is kind of this um, 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:29.720 you know, yucky horror vibe to our sort of selling 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:33.040 of the concepts certainly, but it really gets into like 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:36.400 what we can figure out via the liquefocation of brains 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:40.880 um regarding like the nature of intelligence in an organic brain. 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:44.440 This one was one that I was inspired to pick 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:49.320 up after the twenty nineteen World Science Festival in New York. 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:52.960 So yeah, so yeah, it's a pretty good one. Let's 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:58.320 jump right in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:07.240 a production of I Heart Radios has to ports. Hey, 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:09.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:13.000 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Joe, what what kind 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:16.240 of image enters your head when I say the words 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:20.280 brain soup? Brain soup? That's a Green Day song. Isn't it? 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:25.039 Is it? I'm having trouble making soup. I don't know. 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:27.720 I'm not I'm not I'm not not dukie, right, I 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:30.880 only know like green Green Day songs. I think I'm 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:34.520 getting this wrong. H No. I also think of there's 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.320 a horrible scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:41.119 Doom where they're they're eating all kinds of weird foods 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.760 that are parts of animals that you shouldn't eat, but 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.000 why not. But one of those parts is they eat 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:49.120 a monkey brain. I don't think that's supposed to be soup. 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:52.760 By the way, one of my favorite things on the 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:58.160 Internet is a total tangent is uh is franchise specific 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:04.240 WICKI entrees for inanimate objects. Allow me to explain, So, 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:07.160 there is like an Indiana Jones wiki that's just a 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:09.920 website out there. It's got entries on it for all 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:12.920 the characters minor characters in Indiana Jones movies, all the 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.280 adventures he went on. But then also they're just entries 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:18.960 because it's a wiki of just objects that appear in 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:22.240 the Indiana Jones movies. So this will include like individual 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:26.040 pages for each course of the meal in Indiana Jones 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:27.720 and the Temple of Doom, and one of them, the 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:29.600 one that's got all the snakes in it, is called 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.640 coiled Wrigley's. So it is it just it's just about 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.320 a fictional food, or is it attempting to draw lines 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:41.160 between these outrageous and you know, like shock oriented foods 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.800 and in some actual traditions, because that if they're not 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:45.680 doing it, that would actually be kind of a fun 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:48.560 thing to do to sort of take the shock that 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.400 they're that they're trying to to utilize in that scene 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.400 and say, we'll hold on. Actually, here are some actual 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:58.160 culinary traditions that are not really that shocking. Uh no, 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.799 it's not at all that informative mind opening. Just let 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:03.720 me allow me to quote directly from the page for 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:07.640 coiled Wriggles. Coiled Wriggles, also known as snakes Surprise, was 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.120 a dish served at the Guardian of Tradition dinner given 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.560 at Pancock Palace in n five As the second course. 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.240 It was live baby eels stuffed inside a moist boa constrictor. 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:19.400 One of the guests at the dinner, a merchant, was 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.520 very pleased when the dish was served. Another guest enjoyed 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:26.760 the eels with great gusto. I have not seen that 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:28.760 film in a very long time. I really don't know 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.440 how it would hold up. Some elements certainly do not. 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:35.160 You know, I should point out that, like you know, 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.160 talking about brain soup, actual brain soup does exist. Do 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.280 you have you know, various pork brain soups, etcetera. And 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:43.720 even though I'm a I'm a pet scutarian these days, 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.520 I wouldn't order pork brain soup at a restaurant. I 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.240 looked at some photos and it looks perfectly delicious and 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:52.760 not at all weird. Uh So I just want to 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:57.600 drive that home regarding the consumption of of brain based 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.160 soups before I bring up, uh something that comes to 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:03.160 my mind when I when I hear brain soup and 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:05.760 what came into my mind when I heard it recently, 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:12.160 I instantly think back to the film. It came from Hollywood. Oh, yes, 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:14.920 so this was this is a film. It's it's I 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:17.279 think you can watch most of it on YouTube these days. 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:21.520 But as Dan Ackroyd, John Candy Cheech and Chong Gilda Radner, 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.279 that whole crew, and sort of before Mystery Science Theater, 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.000 there was this movie it was just a clip show 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:32.080 of like bad sci fi films and stuff, with the 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:35.080 hosts of the movie making jokes about them. Yeah, and 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:37.279 so a lot of trailer clips, a lot of weird clips. 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:39.520 And there's a whole section that I that I loved 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:43.680 as a kid about brains. You know, all these weird 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:46.640 fifties and sixties brain monster films, which which I think 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.599 are probably expressing a certain amount of anxiety regarding like 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:53.640 post war advances in neuroscience and the sort of existential 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.000 conundrums that are raised. You know, like, am I just 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:58.599 a brain? What does it mean to be just a brain? Well, 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:00.839 a brain jump out of someone's ed and attacked me 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:04.800 with its tentacles. There was a lot of revolutionary neuroscience 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:07.640 going on in the nineteen fifties, and yeah, I can 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.120 see exactly why people would be concerned about this kind 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:11.880 of thing, though some of them are just more like 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:14.839 I think there's one called like the Brain from Planet 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:19.120 Rouse or something that, yeah, just giant brains swarming at people. 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.839 So I don't know exactly how much that plays on 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:24.840 anxieties about neurology, but I mean I get that what 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:27.000 I really get a sense of it when I see 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.360 clips from Fiend without a face because as we have 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.920 the fabulous stop motion brains and kind of like spinal 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.919 column tentacles people, yeah, all over the furniture. We just 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:44.440 sprayed for brains last week. But anyway, this particular segment 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:49.039 on brains was introduced by Dan ackroyd Uh and he's 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.200 he's he's in this this scene. It's like he's in 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:55.120 a butcher's shop and he's playing a maniacal Perhaps he's 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:57.520 supposed to be like a mad brain scientist, or a 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:02.680 brain butcher, or like a brain addict cannibal. It's it's 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:04.839 kind of hard to say, it's not entirely clear, but 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:08.279 it's it's silly and it's gross, and it's I was 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.960 tempted to play a clip from it here, but it's 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.400 just so over the top that I don't I don't 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:18.000 think it would translate well to an audio only environment. 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:21.919 You are correctly capturing here the strangeness of the premise 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.520 for this sketch in the movie. I don't just blithely 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:29.720 throw around the phrase cocaine fuel. But there there are 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.919 some cases where you get you get a suspicion. But 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.200 also in that scene, I remember Dan Ackroyd is doing 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.760 a voice that sounds a lot like a Monty Python voice. 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.360 It's he sounds like the leader of the Knights who 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.359 say knee, Yes he does. It's that kind of like 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:48.479 ridiculous cartoonish voice. Uh yeah, the whole segment is is fabulous, 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:50.760 all right, But all this sort of these sort of 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:55.279 visceral reactions to the idea of brain soup. Aside, we 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.159 are not going to be talking about eating brains today 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.400 on the show. We're going to to talk about the 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:05.880 very real practice, the scientific practice of making brain soup 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:10.800 to better understand the neural power of animal brains. Well, 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:14.200 I am very intrigued already now, Robert, I know this. 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.280 The subject is not coming out of nowhere. This is 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.120 inspired by something that you just saw when you were 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:22.560 at the World Science Festival in New York City last week. 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:24.920 That's right, Yeah, I just got back and uh yeah. 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.440 This is held every the last week of May every year, 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:29.160 and as usual I got to hear some of the 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.560 world's leading scientists and thinkers discussed a number of exciting topics, 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.600 and one of the talks I attended was rethinking thinking 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.120 how intelligent are other animals? This is always a great 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:42.120 subject and something we've revisited quite a few times on 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:45.200 the podcast before. One time we talked with friends devol 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:48.000 here on the podcast in an interview about his book. 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:50.600 His book, I remember had a kind of awkward title. 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:53.160 It was something it was something like, are we smart 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.400 enough to know how smart animals are? Doesn't really roll 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:58.760 off the tongue. But it's actually a really good book. Uh. 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:00.920 And and this has come up with reference to the 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.960 intelligence of birds, and and quite a few cases. Actually, yeah, 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.080 and so this particular talk was loaded with interesting participants, 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.040 but the participant that got me thinking about brain soup 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:16.480 was Susanna or Kolana Uzel, PhD, biologist and neuroscientists at 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:20.520 Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is Associate professor 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:24.680 in the Department of Psychology and Biological Sciences, and her 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:29.040 research focuses on what different brains are made off. Now, Robert, 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.720 I envy you getting to see a panel that involved her, 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:34.200 because I've actually watched a TED talk that she did 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.560 back from I think it was twenty thirteen. She's she's 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.440 a fantastic public speaker, So yeah, she seems like a 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:44.200 really good public science communicator. Yeah, Like when I say 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:46.839 you know that you have a panel of of leading 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:50.600 scientists there on the stage, like, don't don't imagine something stuffy, 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:54.079 because you often have some just really wonderful science communicators 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.080 up there that you know, are experts in their field, 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.000 but are also able to talk about that in a 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:02.559 way that people at you know, various levels of expertise 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.280 can can jump in on. And that's certainly the case 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.480 with Susanna her Colono Ozel. Now I do want to 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.559 mention you're probably you're hearing this last name. Sometimes you 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:16.360 will hear people pronounce it her colono hose l um. 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:18.200 If you're trying to look it up, it's h e 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:21.160 r c u l a n O dash h o 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.319 u z e l. Trying to to do the name 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:28.000 justice here with our bungling mouths. So, as she tells it, 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:32.480 her Colona Hoose was working as a science educator um 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:35.960 in Rio de Janaro, Brazil, and uh and she kept 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.200 running into an old myth that I'm sure many of 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:41.680 you have run into before as well. Now this is 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:44.240 not when we use the word myth too. In the 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:50.520 non derogatory sciences foundational story maybe involving supernatural elements. Yeah, 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.520 this is the derogatory myth, and that myth is we 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:57.280 only use ten percent of our brain. And this has 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:01.960 been used really overused in I FI movies, especially over 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:06.360 the years, as recently as Teens Lucy and twenty eleven 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:10.079 is Limitless Um, which by the way, decided to double it, 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:13.400 but still but still stuck to this idea that there's 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:17.199 only a small percentage of the human brain that is available. Uh. 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:19.880 And of course, all these these films and pretty much 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.320 anytime you see this trouted out, it's it's with the 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:24.680 idea like there's there are ways to open up the 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.640 rest of the brain. There's like this dormant brain. Uh, 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:31.000 these dormant brain portions that can be utilized if only 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:32.640 you have the key. And the key, of course is 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:35.240 left of the cage, right, and it's supplied by you know, 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:37.160 some sort of mad science. If you're in a fiction 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:39.920 or if you're encountering it saying some sort of self 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.440 help scenario, then they're going to sell you the key 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:44.960 or yeah, if you're encountering it, and uh, it's say 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.040 nutritional supplement marketing. I mean, this is a big thing 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:50.960 out there. Yeah, but we say it's a myth because 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:52.839 and we'll break this down a little bit here, but 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:56.240 but basically, there's nothing to these numbers. Now, we we 0:10:56.320 --> 0:11:00.440 all use of our brains. Well, when you instart, when 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:03.400 you start to look at the claim, it becomes less 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.160 and less clear what it even means. What does it 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:08.400 mean we only use ten percent of our brain at 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.200 a time? Do we only use ten percent of it 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:14.319 ever in our whole lives? Like what even counts as 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.760 quote using the brain in the first place. Yeah, I 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.600 feel like we've talked about about neuroscience on the show enough, 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:23.640 you know, and talking about various f m r I 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:25.960 S studies and like what parts of the brain are 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.120 lighting up, what parts of the brain, and what networks 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:32.439 of the brain are associated with different thoughts and behaviors, etcetera. 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.199 That it's it's clear that like there's there is definitely 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:38.320 a lot of stuff in play, and that virtually and 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:41.800 then really everything is in play. Um I guess, I 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.080 guess the confusion could be if you're looking at various 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:45.839 images of fMRI I s and you're thinking, oh, well, 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.000 that looks about like ten percent. That looks about like 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.680 ten percent. That's a really good point when people talk 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.840 about f m r I studies, sometimes they will loosely 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.120 and casually try to explain the findings of an fMRI 0:11:57.160 --> 0:11:59.760 I study by saying, hey, when somebody was doing this 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:01.360 to ask with their brain, you know, they were trying 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.000 to tie a knod or they were you know, whittling 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.560 a whittling a horsey out of soap. When they're doing 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:10.480 this task, this part of their brain lights up. That's 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.120 the phrase this lights up, which implies to the entire 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.320 rest of the brain is dark until it just lights up, 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.120 as if it's like totally dormant. And that's not true. 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.360 I mean brain imaging studies like you know, PT scans 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:26.000 and fm r I that they show relative activity, so 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:30.240 that they're charting activity and seeing what areas, uh get 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.760 get surges of activity relative to what they were doing 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:36.520 at other times. Right there, the areas that are not 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.240 lit up are not lifeless. Right. But I mean, even 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:41.600 back to this, I want to know again what what 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:44.920 would actually mean to use your whole brain or to 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.960 use certain percentages of your brain. I was reading around 0:12:49.000 --> 0:12:51.240 about this and I found one pretty interesting thing. So 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.920 the neuroscientist Gabrielle and Torrey. I think she's at Boston 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.880 University now. She wrote an interesting post about this myth 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:01.440 that I found on a website Knowing Neurons, and in 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:05.640 one section of her article, she discusses difficulties determining what 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.120 it would actually mean to use quote a hundred percent 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:11.640 of your brain, Like, there's no single way to measure 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:14.240 what portion of the brain is being used at any 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:17.120 given time. The default mode network, of course, is in 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.320 operation throughout the brain pretty much all the time. But 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.319 does that not count as the brain being used? I 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:25.400 mean that even when you're at rest, the default mode 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.199 network is whirring away all throughout the brain. Ye, quite 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:30.880 unfortunately in some cases. In some case I don't know 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:32.760 if you'd want to be without your default Well now 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:34.480 I wouldn't want to give it up, but it it 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:36.719 is kind of thorn in my side at times. It 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:40.040 certainly can be. But then interesting, I really like this part. 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:43.560 So she tries to take this claim seriously, like this 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:47.320 ten percent of the brain is being used claim, and 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:49.800 she's like, what would that actually mean? Well, she offers 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.559 one interpretation of what it would mean to use a 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:54.800 dred percent of your brain, and it would mean a 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.280 grand moll seizure, So it would be like limitless except 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:01.200 Bradley Cooper takes a magic and it just makes his 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:05.199 brain like like we almost explode. Yeah, exactly. So, to 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:08.480 read from tories where quote, seizures are defined by excessive 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:11.040 and synchronous neural activity. If we wanted to use a 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:14.200 hundred percent of our brains to stimulate each of the 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:17.600 brains one hundred billion neurons, this is funny. We should 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:20.440 come back to this in a second, to maximum capacity 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:25.080 firing would result in a likely fatal physical experience. To 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:28.480 hope for synchronous exit. Tory activity across the cortex is 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:32.240 in many ways synonymous to a Grand Mall seizure. Uh. 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:34.400 This is the most severe type of seizure and leads 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:37.880 to loss of consciousness and severe muscle contractions, not the 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:41.840 unlocking of superhuman abilities. So I think obviously we don't 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:46.120 just want universal synchronous patterns of excitation of every neuron 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:50.880 in the cortex. That's stupid. That's not something to wish for, right. 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:55.000 It's like, you don't want the brain working that hard universally. 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:56.520 It's like you don't want your your you don't want 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.760 your xbox to be clearly just just heating up and 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:02.360 that the fan is about to explode like that, you know, 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:08.320 something's wrong with it. Yeah, my CPU is constantly And 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:10.960 she also mentions the default mode network. You know, it's 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:15.359 this diffuse, interconnected set of activity notes that show activation 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.000 when the brain is otherwise at rest. You know, it 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.920 shows the brain is pretty much never dormant. There's activity 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:24.800 throughout most of the brain most of the time. So 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:29.000 where did this clearly false claim come from? The answer 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:31.480 actually isn't known for sure, but I found one commonly 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.560 cited early example is a quote falsely attributed to the 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:39.440 American psychologist William James, the author of a great classic text, 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:42.000 The Varieties of Religious Experience, which is still interesting to 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:44.120 read parts of today. Yeah, we've cited him a few 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:46.960 different times on the show. Yeah, but apparently James did 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:50.600 write something generically kind of like this, but without a 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:54.000 number sited uh, in a piece called The Energies of Men, 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:57.040 where you wrote, quote, we are making use of only 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:59.920 a small part of our possible mental and physical resource 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:02.640 is which is a very different kind of statement, right. Yeah, 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:04.720 he's not putting a fine number on it or saying like, 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:08.960 you know, I mean that that statement alone is not 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:11.880 not implying that the portions of the brain are inactive, 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:15.640 just that, you know, we're not taking full advantage of 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:19.360 our neurological potential. And I want to mention a bit 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:21.880 more about that in a second. Uh So, as to 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.440 the origin of the phrase, the ten percent figure is 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.440 also cited in the nineteen thirties, and this has been 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:30.080 pointed out by quite a few investigators by the author 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:34.320 of an introduction to Dale Carnegie's classic self help book 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.920 How to Win Friends and Influence People, which possibly little 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:41.840 known fact Charles Manson's favorite book Really Yeah, a classic 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.080 of business leaders and serial killers alike. But this explains 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:47.320 it a bit though. Right We have here an introduction 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.520 to a widely read popular book. Yeah, and the author 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:53.920 of the introduction says, we only act, you know, we 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:56.480 only use ten percent of our brains. The vast amount 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.880 of our mental potential is untapped. And I mentioned this 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.280 minute ago, but I just want to hammer home again. 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.280 I feel like I've seen this nonsensical ten percent fact 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:09.440 invoked by people selling some of the various like brain 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:14.000 booster pills and supposed new tropics supplements. Uh. I would 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:16.680 advise people to be cautious about that kind of stuff. 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.120 And I'm not ruling out the possibility that there are 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.840 some nutritional supplements or drugs that might in some cases 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:26.040 have a small effect on mental performance. But if somebody 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.720 is trying to sell you pills that will unlock the 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:32.560 untapped godlike potential of the you know, the paid access 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.360 part of your brain, the brain is premium content. As 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:38.280 a general rule, be suspicious of this. I would I 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:40.920 would advise in general, don't trust them and don't give 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.399 them your money, because they're certainly tapping into something I 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.240 think we all know to be true, and we all 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:48.359 certainly want to be true, the idea that there is 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:52.240 room for improvement exactly know that we can learn new things, 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:54.320 that we can we can take on new patterns, and 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:56.080 all of these things are true. You don't need a 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.359 phony number to back that up, exactly right. I mean, 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:00.399 I think a large part of the basis for false 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:03.919 fact about ten percent lies not in how much of 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:07.119 our brains we use as a as a ratio, but 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:10.040 in the way that we use our brains. And the 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.919 most salient example that comes to my mind is the 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:16.520 psychologist Daniel Konomon is really useful metaphors of system one 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.680 versus system to thinking. You know, so system one we've 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:22.720 discussed on the podcast before, but system one is a 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:25.880 suite of human brain functions that allow us to process 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:31.520 information in a fast, easy, automatic, and approximate way. It's intuition, 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:35.520 so you know, think rules of thumb, stereotypes, intuitive and 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:40.840 reactive thinking eyebawling it. Meanwhile, system two is described as 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:44.520 the slow, deliberate, effortful thinking, the kind of reasoning you 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:47.280 use when you make a list of pros and cons, 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:50.440 or you solve a math problem, or you carefully plan 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:54.160 a route of movement somewhere, or you effortfully trace out 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.320 the logic of an argument. We're all capable of both 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:00.200 kinds of thinking, but we also rely on systum tim 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.000 one most of the time for most things. And that's 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.800 because of efficiency. Like you can't process all information in 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:10.240 a slow, effortful way you don't have time. And system 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:12.480 one is not all bad in some tasks. I think 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.280 it might actually be superior. Like consider the way that 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:20.840 overthinking some athletic tasks like shooting a basketball actually makes 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.080 you worse at them, you know, like a lot of 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.600 players find that they sink more baskets if they just 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:28.120 try to relax and let the shot happen rather than 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:32.080 focusing on the distance and the angle and everything. And 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:34.320 I think this actually even comes through in some more 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.440 abstract tasks like sometimes I think people can be better 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.480 writers if they if they just kind of enter a 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:44.840 flow state and not sitting overthink over, deliberative lee about 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:48.760 the sentences they're constructing. This is very interesting and hopefully 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:50.800 this won't be too much of a tangent here, but um, 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:53.480 but it's also we have to be careful about thinking 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:56.520 about like system one a system to being just complete 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:00.600 like jackal and hides because actually the World's Science Festival, 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.600 another Penelty attendant had to do with risky behavior and 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:07.000 risk taking, especially in extreme sports UH such as say 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.480 free solo climbing UH and like free cloaks of solo 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:12.960 climbing is a great example because you have you have 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:17.280 certain individuals who definitely display more of a system to approach, 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:21.080 like they are methodical. They're they're not they're not climbing 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:25.399 at climbing that that that that that sheer cliff without 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:28.960 the aid of ropes, you know, without having practiced it 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:31.560 many times, without having climbed it many times with ropes 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.960 and thinking through several moves ahead, you see where you're 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:37.320 going to go. On the other hand, you have individuals 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:42.280 who do have more of an impulsive approach to risky behaviors, 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:46.280 risk taking activities. But like with the basketball, you can say, 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.520 well you can perhaps you're engaging in system too to 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.159 practice so that you can reach the point where you 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:56.480 can engage with the challenge with a system one mindset. 0:20:56.640 --> 0:20:58.639 I think that's exactly right. So, yeah, system one is 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.560 not necessarily bad. It's not all bad. Sometimes it's bad. 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:05.359 And I think we're all aware of cases where we 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:11.440 have used fast, intuitive, reactive, likely inaccurate thinking when we 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:14.640 know that we probably could have and should have stopped 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.479 to think things out slowly and deliberately. Like you can 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:21.159 probably immediately think of examples where you really wish you 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.440 had switched over to system to thinking, but you made 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.080 a fast, intuitive decision and you came to regret it. 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:31.119 And I think it's this kind of frequently squandered mental 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:34.040 potential that becomes the nugget of truth in the ten 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:37.040