WEBVTT - Supernormal Stimuli 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.280 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:17.119 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas, and 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:19.680 today is an episode of where we can call out 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:24.480 a particular listener for suggesting it. Yeah, listener Serena. She 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.960 sent us this excellent life Hacker article about why we 0:00:29.080 --> 0:00:32.479 feel the need to fill our pie holes in our 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:36.680 eye holes with exaggerated versions of stimuli every day. Yeah, 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:38.839 and just start up because you think Lifehacker, you think 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:41.440 I am. I'm reading a life Packer article and I'm 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:43.639 going to be a better equipped to sort of make 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:45.120 the best out of my day. You know, this kind 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:48.960 of an uplifting name aspect to that. And so I 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:50.960 don't know about you, but I entered into this topic 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:52.959 with that sort of idea in mind, like, oh, it's 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:55.280 just a little quirky insight into how we go about 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:57.040 our daily lives and maybe how you might improve it 0:00:57.040 --> 0:00:59.400 a little bit. But I found this topic to be 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:03.520 one of the more or ultimately disturbing topics that we've 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:07.040 looked at, like this condemning of of of human nature 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:08.800 and sort of makes you want to crawl into a 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:11.720 cave to a certain extent, Yeah, because you're right. The 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.440 premise was like, hey, we all love cheesecake, right, it's delicious, 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.279 it's fatty, it's got tons of sugar. But this happens 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:23.240 to be something called a super normal stimuli. Um. This 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.399 is a term evolutionary biologist used to describe any stimulus 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.960 that elicits a response stronger than the stimulus for which 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:33.240 it evolved, even if it's artificial. So, in other words, 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.160 we like sugar because that's a quick hit of energy. 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:39.959 We needed that back in the day. Um, but we 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:43.240 don't need a slice of cheesecake. Yeah. Sugar is probably 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.320 the easiest example to to just call out and and 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:49.760 and generally a not even really a harmless one, but 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:51.960 a less harmful version of some of the things we're 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.040 gonna look at here, because the basic idea is how 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.920 much raw sugar can you find in the natural environment. 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.800 If you're a you know, a prehistoric hunter gather. Maybe 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:01.760 you'll find some berries, maybe you'll find some sort of 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.960 a carrot, uh, but you're not going to find you know, 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.960 a big sucker, a big dumb dumb a health field 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:12.320 of TUTSI rolls to feast on. That is supernormal stimuli. 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.360 That is a a version of the stimuli that we 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:19.400 seek as a as an organism, except it is it 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.519 is blown out of proportion. It is the crack cocaine 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.760 of sugar and certainly crack and heroin methamphetamines. These are 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:30.440 these are other examples of of super normal stimuli that 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:33.720 have had a huge effect on humans. Yeah, in my mind, 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.200 there's a whole class of desserts called porn desserts. Yeah, 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:38.360 you know what I'm talking about. Like there's like sixteen 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:42.120 layer caramel cakes that are just so huge and big 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.760 and with you know, red frosting, and it's so over 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:47.919 the top. And we'll be talking about porn by the 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:51.360 way later on, but it's like such a good example. 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:55.720 Another great example um of this sort of supernormal stimuli 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:59.320 giant eyed dolls or even handime hare. I was thinking 0:02:59.360 --> 0:03:03.040 about this key ute. Yes, we've we've We've recorded at 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:04.840 least one podcast in the in the past on the 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:08.200 power of cute and and how cutely taps into our 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:12.600 our primal instincts to want to care for like a 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.200 small child, and so we end up seeing that smash 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:19.120 small child's face in a cat in a cartoon character. 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.760 But you look at some of these just super cute, hypercute, 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:26.239 dangerously cute animate characters or the or the or certainly 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:30.519 the avatar of this Hello Kitty, and uh, and it's overpowering. 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:35.760 It's cuteness, almost beyond our human ability to take it 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:40.600 in right. And as Dedra Bartlett of, a Harvard psychologist 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.760 and the author of super Normal Stimuli, how primal urges 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.960 overran the revolutionary purposes says, this human instinct for food, sex, 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:50.960 or even territorial protection, all of that is rooted in 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:53.880 our instincts, evolved, as you say, for hunting and gathering 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.040 an early man. And she says that evolution has been 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:00.280 unable to keep up with the pace of chain, this 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:03.560 rapid change in the modern life in which a taco bell, 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:07.600 Dorito's Loco taco, you know, daglo orange in your hand 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:11.400 suddenly arrives. Um our bodies in our minds aren't really 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:15.280 unable to water down that instinct, that response to that 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:17.919 food or that stimulus. Yeah, I mean, because on a 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:22.400 basic level, what does the human creature need in order 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.440 to survive? It needs to mate and uh and and 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.800 and reproduce. It needs to take in food. Um, it 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.680 needs to find these various tastes that please it. It 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:33.680 needs protection, It doesn't need a lot of things. But 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.960 then we layer on all the complexities of human civilization, 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:40.719 our technology, our art, our ability to find all the 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:44.240 stimuli that we crave, and then just just pump them 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:48.280 up to an unbelievable degree. Yeah, Bartlett says that as 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.479 a result, we have a glut of larger than like 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:55.000 objects from candy to pornography to atomic bombs, that cater 0:04:55.120 --> 0:05:00.080 to outmoded that persistent drives with dangerous results. Indeed, now, 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:01.800 in order to fully understand this, we have to go 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:05.120 to the roots of the term supernormal stimuli, which are 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:09.479 based in some rather uh simple biological principles, which is 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.520 nice because again, all these these human layers of human civilization, technology, 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:15.640 it complicates the issue. But when we look to the 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:18.720 animal world we can find a far simpler model, and 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:21.680 we we find that back in the nineteen thirties with 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:25.600 the work of Dutch noble laureate Nico Tinbergen. That's right, 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:28.760 he is the person who coined the term super normal 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:33.279 stimuli to describe these these uh sort of imitations that 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:37.080 appeal to primitive instincts and exert stronger attraction and the 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:41.880 real thing. So this biologist he set about isolating traits 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:46.760 that trigger certain instincts in animals and insects, and he 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:49.800 manipulated these traits in nature to see what would happen. 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:52.640 So this next bit is from the Life Hacker article 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:57.520 by Daniel Jody or Geoty. I suppose it says that 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:01.559 he constructed plaster eggs to see which one a bird 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:04.960 would prefer to sit on, finding that they would select 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:09.000 those that were larger, had more defined markings or more 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:13.640 saturated color. A day glow bright egg with black polka dots, 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:17.919 for instance, would be selected over the bird's own pale 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:22.520 dappled eggs, and in fact that perd would keep slipping 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:24.919 off the huge one, but it couldn't help it. It 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.200 was drawn to that super stimuli of the colors in 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:30.480 the markings, because the colors in the markings in the 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.040 natural world, in the in the in the natural course 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:36.920 of events, would indicate the healthier eggs, which ones have 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.000 the highest grade of survival, and therefore that's where the 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.040 bird is going to focus his attention. This artificial egg, though, 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:44.760 just pumps that completely out of proportion, and the bird 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:49.960 cannot help but respond by setting on this lifeless but beautiful, 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.400 gaudy egg and in riding that egg to the detriment 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:57.680 of its actual biological offspring in the surrounding eggs, which 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:02.400 are which are okay but less amazing. Yeah. This is actually, 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:04.560 to me the really depressing part when you see this 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.480 in nature, because it really does bear out this idea 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:09.080 that a lot of this is sort of hardwired in 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:13.280 us and all organisms. He also found that territorial male 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:17.720 stickleback fish would attack a wooden fish model more vigorously 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:21.560 than a real male if it's underside was redder, so 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:25.200 again pumping up those signs to it that would make 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:28.600 it say, oh that that's a competitor. Look how red 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.160 that underbelly is. And this is interesting too. I want 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:33.720 to make sure everyone sort of bookmarking this for later. Uh. 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.880 Here we have supernormal stimuli that is in kind of 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.560 in the negative realm as opposed to the positive, something 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.400 that's based in fear as opposed to desire. That's a 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:47.040 really good point, the aggressive part of it, right, Okay. 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:51.880 Another experiment was that he constructed a cardboard dummy butterfly 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:56.800 with more defined markings. Uh, that male butterflies would actually 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:01.360 try to mate with in preference to actual real female butterflies. 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:05.400 And that's another one to to definitely remember for later 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:07.840 when we can start getting into the human versions of 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.240 these same principles. Yeah, because if you think about um, 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:13.240 and we'll get into this later, but you know, I 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.120 always talk about gender performance. And Okay, if you take 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:17.880 a female and a male and you don't do really 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:22.120 much to them in terms of grooming them and clothing 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:25.119 them in ways that are coded for their gender, there's 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:27.760 not a ton of difference between them. But if you 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:31.160 slap on a bunch of makeup on a female plug 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:34.040 her eyebrows, she's really performing that gender. And I think 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:36.600 about it that with these butterflies like this must have 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.559 been like the Marylyn mon row of that butterfly. Yes, 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.040 and all the other male butterflies are like, yes, that 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:47.199 one even though she's wooden, looks great. Yes, the butterfly 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:51.679 becomes this a little closer to this, this ideal butterfly. Right, 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:54.280 And that's what really gets me about the topic of 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:57.839 super normal stimuli. Um My mind, in reading this get 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:02.040 kept returning to a Plato's theory of forms Plato's in 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:05.679 The Philosopher of Course, um he proposed that we live 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:09.400 in this material realm, right, okay, and beyond our plane 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:13.319 of existence, there's an immaterial realm of ideal forms, all right, 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:15.200 you can you can think of these ideal forms is 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:18.600 the absolute perfection of a given thing, a truth that 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.440 cannot be manifested in the material world. All we can 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:23.960 do is echo it. Okay. So in this world there's 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.840 no true beauty, but we have an innate understanding and 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.600 longing for the true form of beauty as as it 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:32.200 exists beyond the limits of the material world. In a 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.200 similar sense, see would argue that there's no true justice here, 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:37.880 but we all have a sense of justice because there's 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:42.040 an unreachable ideal that exists beyond our realm, okay, out 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:44.080 there in the realm of forms. And you can apply 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:46.960 this to just about any anything like the one argument 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.200 is often made as a chair, Like every chair in 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.040 our world is just to take an attempt to capture 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.520 the perfect chairness that we would find in the world 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:59.240 of forms beyond our material world. Every pretty face, every feeling, 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:03.280 every world of art, it's just a take on the ideal. 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:06.160 And so it's tempting to view a supernormal stimuli in 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.920 the same way we innately long for the true forms, 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:13.240 forms that simply do not occur in the natural world. 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:16.120 We do it through our art and our technology, and 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:18.680 in doing this we're able to inch a little closer 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:22.800 and a little closer to this awesome and terrible perfection 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:27.000 that we crave. And so so we end up engine 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.000 closer and closer and in creating an artificial thing that 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:33.760 just cannot exist in this world, and we're craving nothing 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:37.200 but but shadows of that and imitations of that. And 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.800 we're taking to your point that, I mean, the makeup 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:44.719 argument is perfect because we're taking real versions of beauty 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:47.400 and in a sense of defacing them and trying to 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:52.120 carve them into uh, into avatars of this true form, 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:55.720 this this perfect form that just cannot be achieved. Yeah, 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:59.520 this is essentially the Platonic ideal, right, this idea that 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:02.080 you're trying to get to this ideal as close to 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:04.720 perfection as possible. Other would Plato would say, there's no 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.720 perfection because we are mere copies of what God intended. Right, 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:14.280 So there's this obsession with, as you say, uh, perfection 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:19.480 and idealism and that this supernormal stimuli is really a 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.800 stand in for it. It's such an intriguing idea, especially 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:24.800 when we get to another section in which we talk 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.280 about porn and and other things that other types of 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.760 media that we consume. Um. But before we do that, 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.120 let's take a break, and when we get back, we're 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.520 going to talk about why humans are essentially like feagel 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:50.320 chicks when it comes to art. Alright, we're back. We 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:54.120 are going to revisit this topic art and why we're 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:57.160 drawn to it um because we need to podcast on this. 0:11:57.440 --> 0:11:59.079 I believe it was like the Science of beauty or 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.800 along so lines, and we talked about vs. Roma Gendren, 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:06.120 who has some really great and interesting ideas about art. 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.439 He says that are hardwired to the way that we 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:12.080 respond to our environments, and particularly he says, um, we 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:15.480 evolved in a camouflage environment, and we are rewarded when 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.680 we identify objects and patterns, and that's why we like 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:22.360 to seek them out so often in this idea called grouping. 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.320 So he says that when you are looking at an artwork, 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.319 you can't help but be pleased on some level if 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:32.080 you can detect those patterns. Now, he says, to really 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.280 understand why we are drawn to certain works of art, 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:39.880 you have to look at seagull chicks because when they hatch, 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:44.120 they start pecking at the mother's beak for food, and 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:47.679 the mother seagulls beak is a long yellow thing with 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.120 a red spot on the end. So for those chicks, 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.679 that red spot is that kind of stimuli that they 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:58.080 know if they tap it they get food. So action, reaction, 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:03.320 and reward. The archers quickly found is that you have okay, 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:05.600 so you have the beak with the markings, but you 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:07.640 can you can have just a beak. You don't need 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:10.720 the mother because the because nature takes shortcuts in our 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:14.480 associations here or and certainly in the associations of birds, 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:16.480 so you can take the mother out of the equation. 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.280 You can just put a beak on a stick and 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:21.840 they will respond to that. So that's that's kind of 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.560 the has to have the spot, has has to have 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:28.200 the appropriate markings. But where it gets even crazier is 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:32.320 that you turn those markings into super stimuli. You you 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:36.640 put three red lines on there, and then that just 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:41.280 makes it irresistible to the chick, like it just it 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:45.280 just overflows the circuitry overloads the circuitry, and they have 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.960 to go to that beak. Now, yeah, and actually you're 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.240 on chound and says that the chick prefers the fetishize 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:56.680 highly abstract representation of a beak to the real beak. Again, 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:59.000 will depressing here because the mother is attached to the 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.920 real beak. And yet here are these three stripes that 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:06.720 are very strong. Um, they're they're exhibiting a crazy reaction 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:10.040 to And this was researched done by mythologist Tim Burton, 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.440 by the way, Yeah, not to be confused with the 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.360 Tim Burton. Yeah, I was trying to because I was 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:17.839 reading the interview with the Ramashan Brennager for it to 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:19.840 Tim Burton. So I started doing all these searches for 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.560 Tim Burton birds, Tim Burton biologists, and it was still 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:27.000 getting nothing but information on the director Tim Burton. That's 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:29.080 bad because I would love to see some sort of 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:34.160 mash up like him directing a film about super normal stimuli. Yeah, yeah, 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:36.160 I mean I feel I want to see nothing but 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.680 films about super normal stimula. Now, um, super stimuli about 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:43.600 super stimuli indeed, But Ramaon says that this is the 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:48.160 same reason that we humans gravitate towards art, that these abstractions, 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:52.920 these metaphors and unusual combinations of elements play to instincts 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:58.400 wired deep in our reptilian brains, instincts that really don't 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:02.440 have any bounds, because, again Bartlett says, everything that's available 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:07.600 to us today and the supersized fashion is not something 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:11.240 that was available, you know, ten thousand years ago, and 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:13.760 so our brains and our bodies just have not been 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:17.760 able to be conscious enough really to tamp this down. Yeah, 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:20.720 and I love how he referred to the artificial beak 0:15:21.320 --> 0:15:23.560 for the bird as as a fetish, because it instantly 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:26.720 brings to mind some of these these ancient fetishes that 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:30.440 you see the venus figurines right where it's during like 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:35.000 almost a headless woman, bosoms and valley and uh. And 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:37.280 in a sense, even in a in a very primitive sense, 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.400 this is an idealized female form. And of course, through 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:43.720 the history of art you see lots of idealized versions 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.320 of the of the female form. I mean, the Venus 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:48.480 de Milo, for example, is just another venus in a 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:52.440 very long tradition of venus is well, yeah, I mean 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.200 the code of those pieces of art is basically that 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:59.120 your genetic material is going to survive better in this person, 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:03.080 maybe because perhaps there there would be um stronger offspring 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.440 or more of a chance to copulate with this person, 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:08.720 or you know. I mean, those are all the signs 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.240 that are coming from that particular piece of art. And 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.480 Rom Trndon says that artists are tapping into the figural 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:18.360 primitives of our perceptual grammar and creating ultra normal stimuli 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:22.600 that are more powerfully exciting certain visual neurons in our 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.640 brains as opposed to realistic looking images. Yeah, like when 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.120 we did our podcast in the art Savannahs came up 0:16:28.240 --> 0:16:32.600 landscapes that there are certain artistic interpretations of landscapes that arguably, 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:37.240 uh get into our brain more, that are more pleasing, 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.720 more pleasing, but essentially get their claws into us because 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:43.400 on a very primitive level, we see it and we 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:45.040 know that this would be a good place to live. 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:47.320 It's like, oh, there's some trees, I can seek some cover. There, 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:50.280 there's some water I can drink. Everything that Bob Ross 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:52.920 describes when he's painting a landscape like those are all 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:55.560 things that are those are all aspects of of a 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:59.720 landscape that would be pleasing to the human organism. Yeah, 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.440 but from that too, that um, the vantage point was 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:05.840 really important that you would want to be up on 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:08.520 a hill in those landscape um paintings so that you 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:10.359 would be able to see out not just you know, 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:13.080 over your kingdom, but be able to see any intruders 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:16.080 coming upon your al Right. So that's art. That's one. 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:19.880 It's one thing to think about the aesthetic world. But 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:21.719 but how do we take this and apply it to 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:26.480 the the less aesthetic worlds of say, fast food? Well, 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:30.160 as we had mentioned before, you mean, especially with sugar, 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:33.800 our bodies need a little bit of it, and so 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:37.320 we have those big crazy anime eyes looking at that 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:39.640 and taking all of that in and thinking I want 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:43.520 the entire thing. Um. So you know, for me, I 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:47.200 think this topic is really very large in junk food 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:51.359 because food is energy. We gravitate to it, um, But 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.000 we don't necessarily know when to stop, right, That's the 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.720 whole boundary thing with our instincts. So if you look 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:03.040 at a giant jar of peanut butter on on a shelf, 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:05.359 you know, I'm talking about Costco or any of those 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.639 other like super crazy places where they've got just giant 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.160 oversized cans of all types of food. On some level, 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:15.600 that's tapping into the primal brain in somewhere. I mean, 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.040 you know, some evolutionary bioto just might say that jar 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:20.960 of peanut butter is a promise to you that you're 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:22.959 not going to have to leave your cave very often 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:26.440 for food and you won't encounter as much danger. Yeah, 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:28.679 because your body is saying that stuff is great. That 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.000 is what I create. I want as much as that 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.160 as we can possibly get, so that I can stockpilot 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:36.080 and have it whenever I want. I will not have 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.880 to leave my apartment for three months with that jar 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:41.840 of peanut butter. But you know, of course, there's an 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:45.080 idea here that we live so much in the symbolic world. 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:47.560 So some of these meetings can't help but drill down 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:50.040 into us. No, I can't help but think of French 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.800 fries um in terms of super normal stimuli, because what 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:56.560 our French fries. Your average order of French fries, you know, 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.960 covered with ketchup, and that's and that's not counting if 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.760 you're adding bacon or chili or nacho cheese or whatever. 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.639 The latest s t g I Fridays sort of twist 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.080 on it happens to be. But in one plate, you're 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:12.080 you're you're satisfying your cravings for fat, for crispiness, that 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:14.560 you're that you're on on a on a on one level, 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:18.480 associating with fresh vegetables. You're getting sweetness, you're getting salt, 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.040 maybe you're getting a hit of hint of meat if 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.120 you have some sort of weird topping on it. And 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:26.480 all of this in one big blasphem is serving. You know. 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:28.919 What's really interesting about that is there is an article 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:31.480 out there somewhere about the physics of a potato chip 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.320 and why it's so appealing to us. And if I'm 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:38.399 remembering this correctly, the kind of crunch, that popping sound 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.879 that the chips make is the exact same that a 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:46.080 fresh fruit or vegetable might feel like in your mouth. 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.359 And this is something that our brains have been tagging for, 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:53.400 you know, tens of thousands of years, and so that 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:56.560 chip is really just riding into the circuitry of your 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.439 brain saying fresh, fresh, this is good, this is healthy. 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:02.640 Let's we cannot just eat just one eat the whole bag. 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:08.240 Yeah yeah, yeah, all right. In another area that uh again, 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:10.919 there's some there's a level of aesthetics involved in this 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:14.680 as well. But the world of gaming, video gaming everything 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:18.240 from you know, playing what is it candy corn candy 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:22.120 crush on your phone to some sort of deep MMO 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.480 immersion experience, because what do you get with video games? 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:28.639 You get an instant entry into a world of goal 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:33.919 achievement UM neurological award for that goal achievement, empowerment in 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:38.720 some cases graphic violence exploration. UM. The goal achievement is 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:42.800 something I often think about as when I find time 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:45.200 these days to to play like a quick video game, 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:48.200 like I think, well, this is clearly what's happening here 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:53.080 is my brain is adjusting to this false environment and saying, oh, well, 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:55.560 we just achieved something there, We just achieved something there, 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:57.560 even if in the course of the day maybe I 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:00.320 didn't actually close any loops, you know, or I am 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:04.119 closing loop after loop and just say fifteen minutes of gameplay. 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:05.879 So this reminds me of two things. One is the 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:09.280 stickleback fish, right, because you've got that the red underside 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:11.480 of the wooden fish, that more aggression towards that and 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:15.040 via games are so beautiful if I may say that, UM, 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:16.720 the way that they're rendered in the colors and the 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.360 sa creation. All of that is very intriguing and it's 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.919 kind of like hyper realism. So that's one thing I 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:25.760 think that people fall into. The other is this is 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:28.880 really playing into for me is an episode of It's 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:32.879 Always Sunny in Philadelphia And are you familiar with it? 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.679 I've watched the number of episodes. It's great. And when 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:38.919 the characters is D and she's kind of always shoved 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:41.800 around by the other guys in this gang of theirs, 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:45.600 so to speak, um, and she turns to the virtual 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:51.080 world with avatars to try to vanquish them in a sense, 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:54.720 because in real life she has not much power or 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:58.240 control over the situation. But she creates these characters and 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:02.400 everybody in the town gets to know the virtual reality 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:05.560 players in this game get to know that gang, and 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:08.119 they know what how D is describing them in this 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:11.879 other world. It is probably my favorite It's Always Funny 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:16.320 in Philadelphia episode, and there's this great idea behind it 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:19.000 all that um, they're just all in a turtle stream 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:21.439 and outer space. Oh, that's pretty awesome. I'll have to 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:23.320 check that episode out. Yes, I love the mention of 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:26.040