Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and for this week's s
Speaker 1: Y s K Selects, I've chosen an episode from two
Speaker 1: thousand and ten. Have all the good ideas been discovered? Uh?
Speaker 1: It's an interesting one and in a strange way, it
Speaker 1: ties into the planned Obsolescence episode we released recently, even
Speaker 1: though it was recorded almost ten years before. And I
Speaker 1: want to make a note it's possible that the listener
Speaker 1: male person who wrote in in this episode actually predicted
Speaker 1: the coming of the wildly popular site. Damn you auto
Speaker 1: correct proved me wrong at any rate. Enjoy this episode.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. With me as always is Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. And that makes the stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yes it is not. They're imitators. I wonder
Speaker 1: how many times I've said that that makes the stuff
Speaker 1: you should know. No, that's just the whole spiel, the
Speaker 1: whole opening. Hey, you welcome to the podcast. Well you've
Speaker 1: said it about two hundred and seventy. Sometimes I think,
Speaker 1: luckily we have them all saved, and we could count.
Speaker 1: We do I don't know if it's lucky though, Chuck.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of shows, dude, we should do something
Speaker 1: special for three hundred. That's like, that's a lot of shows.
Speaker 1: It is that makes me proud. Okay, well, do you
Speaker 1: think maybe we could get some cake around here or something?
Speaker 1: Shrimp cocktail? No, I'm allergic to shrimp now, remember I know,
Speaker 1: but I still like to throw it out there. Actually,
Speaker 1: I had a shrimp wanton the other day and nothing happened. Really,
Speaker 1: I ate a wanton with shrimp and nothing happened. So
Speaker 1: it's just like tiny little bits of shrimp. And I
Speaker 1: don't know. Either that or I'm getting stronger. Maybe so
Speaker 1: superhuman you might say, trans human speaking of human Yes, um, Chuck.
Speaker 1: There is a recent study that came out in part
Speaker 1: from one of our universities here in the city, Emory
Speaker 1: right down the street, great school. There's been this problem
Speaker 1: that's been plaguing researchers for a really long time, and
Speaker 1: that is, at the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic period,
Speaker 1: which is about two points seven million years ago, we
Speaker 1: started using sharp rocks as bashing and cutting tools. So
Speaker 1: we figured that out. Okay, you can take a rock
Speaker 1: that's technology. That's not horse, that's technology. Yes, okay, you
Speaker 1: can take this rock and you can use it to
Speaker 1: open a coconut or the head of someone who's wrong.
Speaker 1: Do you using an implement to complete attack? Well, specifically
Speaker 1: sharp rocks? Okay? It took two million years the end
Speaker 1: of the Lower Paleolithic period before we figured out that
Speaker 1: we could actually attach to handles to these things. And
Speaker 1: tournament how long it took? Yes, And this is baffled scientists, like,
Speaker 1: how could it possibly have taken can two million years
Speaker 1: to go from using your hand to attaching a stick?
Speaker 1: You know, this doesn't make any sense. So, um, well
Speaker 1: they were dumb back then. Well a dumb is close
Speaker 1: to it. They would literally were lacking the region of
Speaker 1: the brain needed. Apparently, according to this new study. Um,
Speaker 1: they they basically, we developed a region in the right hemisphere,
Speaker 1: specifically the supra marginal gyrus, which allowed us to go, hey,
Speaker 1: let's put a handle on this. And after we did that,
Speaker 1: we moved out of Africa and started colonizing the rest
Speaker 1: of the world. So that's they've pinpointed the region of
Speaker 1: the brain that is specific to innovation, too specific to
Speaker 1: um stone toolmaking. Okay, I thought you meant innovation in general. No, like,
Speaker 1: that's where your ideas come from. No, give me a
Speaker 1: second old rent all time. Shoot, did I ruin it?
Speaker 1: It's okay. Um. So we go from can't figure out
Speaker 1: how to attach a handle to a sharp rock? Okay,
Speaker 1: a million years we figured that out. We leave Africa
Speaker 1: and we start colonizing the rest of the world, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden things start entering light speed, right,
Speaker 1: And it seems like over the last couple hundred years,
Speaker 1: you know, especially since the Industrial Revolution, our ability to innovate,
Speaker 1: to grasp new ideas, to understand the world around us,
Speaker 1: has just been hitting this hyper speed, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people wonder if we've reached a point where all
Speaker 1: the ideas, all the good ones at least, have already
Speaker 1: been discovered, all the we understand how everything works, and
Speaker 1: there's really just figuring out how to dot the eyes
Speaker 1: and cross the teas right right. There was actually a
Speaker 1: guy who famously said in guy named Charles Buell. He
Speaker 1: was He was the commissioner of the Patents Office. That's
Speaker 1: attributed to him, I should say, But he said something
Speaker 1: like everything that can be invented has already been invented,
Speaker 1: and he said this in a memo, basically like you
Speaker 1: should go ahead and shut down the patent office. He
Speaker 1: clearly had never considered the snuggy Josh or anything that's
Speaker 1: been invented since. So here's what I'm gonna say. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and give you my summation early on. Okay,
Speaker 1: is that I think people think at various times in
Speaker 1: history that they've plateaued, and then I think things happen.
Speaker 1: People come along innovators, and then they reach new heights
Speaker 1: and they go, oh, well, we didn't know that, and
Speaker 1: we there are new ideas, right. It's it's almost umb.
Speaker 1: It almost displays a shameful lack of historic awareness to
Speaker 1: say we've reached the end of all of our good ideas.
Speaker 1: It's just silly. It's just ask him to be made
Speaker 1: a fool of yeah, or for people to maybe people
Speaker 1: do that on purpose, to go the innovators and to
Speaker 1: say no, yeah, right, using reverse psychology exactly, that's how
Speaker 1: innovation works. Yeah, you might as well just give up
Speaker 1: reverse psychology drive innovation. There are people though, that say
Speaker 1: that technological that real technological innovation has been stalled for
Speaker 1: quite a while. Yes, after the nineties computer revolution. Everything
Speaker 1: else since then has kind of been like, uh, packaging
Speaker 1: it and better looking cases and sleeker designs, and it's
Speaker 1: all like design oriented it is or marketing oriented marketing.
Speaker 1: These these guys, Cedric Lagare and Eric Virdo, we're both
Speaker 1: with scheme of business school. Um basically say, smartphones. Yes,
Speaker 1: they seem incredibly new and cutting edge, but really they're
Speaker 1: just the packaging of several already extant technologies into a
Speaker 1: really sharp looking handheld device. But that's still a new idea.
Speaker 1: I would argue it is still a new idea. But
Speaker 1: I think what their point is is saying, like, but
Speaker 1: before the late nineties and before the eighties, let's say,
Speaker 1: with computers, but especially the tech boom of the tele
Speaker 1: com boom of the late nineties, like this stuff wasn't around.
Speaker 1: Like it's not true innovation. It's it's kind of repurposing, right,
Speaker 1: And what you were saying, like the cosmetic changes to
Speaker 1: a computer. Um. One of the reasons why they believe
Speaker 1: that this is going on is because we've come to
Speaker 1: a point in the computer revolution. I think, chuck, where um,
Speaker 1: it's not you can still make tons of cash just
Speaker 1: by changing the casing of a CPU. Yeah, there's like
Speaker 1: no money in innovation basically, is what I got from
Speaker 1: this one article is that innovation costs more than it's
Speaker 1: worth when you can just repackage what you've got in
Speaker 1: a sleeker design and people buy it up exactly. Um.
Speaker 1: These two authors of this article, UM predict that we're
Speaker 1: gonna have two trends that will drive innovation. I guess currently, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: that consolidation where basically, like especially with I think they're
Speaker 1: talking just about computers. Yeah, because they're saying the big
Speaker 1: hardware firms are going to all consolidate all of the
Speaker 1: smaller hardware firms to where they'll just basically be like
Speaker 1: the big three or five, and that will leave it
Speaker 1: to the software firms to compete and innovate. So we'll
Speaker 1: see more innovation in the software side row than the
Speaker 1: hardware side, right. And they're also saying that, um, the
Speaker 1: green boom is going to drive innovation. That makes sense,
Speaker 1: like coming up with sustainable packages. Are sustainable solutions? Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: One of the other things they pointed out thought was
Speaker 1: interesting was the they said they said the tech uh
Speaker 1: they call it the tech refresh cycle is too small
Speaker 1: right now. So what's happening is they'll say, Um, you
Speaker 1: like your CD, well you're gonna love the the Super
Speaker 1: Audio CD or Blu ray. You like your DVD, You're
Speaker 1: gonna love Blu Ray. But guess what's coming up after
Speaker 1: blue ray. It's gonna be like Super Blue Ray. It's
Speaker 1: happening so fast. People aren't abandoning their current systems. They're
Speaker 1: just like, you know what, I'm gonna hold on because
Speaker 1: I don't want to be the guy stuck with the
Speaker 1: laser disc player in a couple of years. So all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the same thing happens. No one's buying it,
Speaker 1: so it's not worth as much money, which means that
Speaker 1: nobody's putting any effort into it and money into it.
Speaker 1: So innovations. Right. And there's a guy um named Edmund
Speaker 1: Phelps who's a professor of political economy at Columbia University, right,
Speaker 1: and he's basically kind of saying the same thing. He's
Speaker 1: saying that, um, there's not enough money going toward innovation.
Speaker 1: But rather than the the onus being put on consumers
Speaker 1: not buying blue rays out of fear of looking like
Speaker 1: laser disc jerks, um, it's actually government and big business
Speaker 1: that's not pouring money into small innovators. Yeah, he said
Speaker 1: that's the innovation is the only thing not subsidized by
Speaker 1: the United States government, which he says is actually attacks
Speaker 1: in a way because it's not being subsidized. Sort of
Speaker 1: a reach, you could definitely, Yeah, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of these guy's points are a reach. But, um, what
Speaker 1: he's suggesting is if the government isn't pouring money into
Speaker 1: big business so that they can pour money into I
Speaker 1: guess small venture firms. Um, these people who are in
Speaker 1: their garages aren't going to take you know, risks, They're
Speaker 1: not going to innovate. There's no incentive. Right. I disagree
Speaker 1: with this. I dispute this because he's saying, like the
Speaker 1: people who do work in their garages and you know,
Speaker 1: are the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in the seventies,
Speaker 1: that they were driven by this lust for money. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's wrong. I think that people innovate
Speaker 1: first and foremost to get this idea out of their
Speaker 1: head and birth into reality. Right. I'm glad you said
Speaker 1: this because I completely agreed. Regardless of what you think
Speaker 1: of the Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg didn't invent Facebook. To make
Speaker 1: gobs of money. He invented to make real friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to to innovate. And that's what that's my point that
Speaker 1: you made is that these people in the garage, the
Speaker 1: true innovators. They don't care if they have two pennies
Speaker 1: to rub the other, right, They're still gonna be trying
Speaker 1: to innovate and make a name for themselves and come
Speaker 1: up with something awesome. Right. And now there are people
Speaker 1: out there who are trying to innovate for you know,
Speaker 1: the riches Snuggy. Sure, the guy who invented the snugg
Speaker 1: he wasn't in his garage and just wanted to kind
Speaker 1: of get this out or else I'm never gonna sleep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the people that are looking for the next get
Speaker 1: rich quick thing. But I think you can also make
Speaker 1: a point that, um, when you introduce money to innovation,
Speaker 1: it leads to actual stagnation because when you introduce money,
Speaker 1: there's now, um something to lose, and people are less
Speaker 1: willing to take risks, and risk is one of the
Speaker 1: driving The willingness to take risk is one of the
Speaker 1: driving forces of innovation. You know, Yeah, stuff pholps had
Speaker 1: a good idea, uh, and this will never happen, of course,
Speaker 1: because it's a good idea to create the first national
Speaker 1: Bank of Innovation all capitalized capitalized not all caps, but
Speaker 1: each word is capitalized. He should do it all in
Speaker 1: all caps with exclamation points. But basically, it would be
Speaker 1: a bank that you could go and partner, you know,
Speaker 1: as a startup company and partner with his bank for financing,
Speaker 1: and you know, get I would guess some sort of
Speaker 1: low interest loans to spur innovation. Right. That was a
Speaker 1: great idea. So it is. It is a good idea,
Speaker 1: and this does happen in the real world, and the
Speaker 1: government does pour money into innovation. He's not exactly correct
Speaker 1: in that sense. And I also kind of resented that
Speaker 1: he placed big business in between you know, people in
Speaker 1: their garage innovating and you know, government subsidies that we
Speaker 1: have to have big business give them the money and
Speaker 1: then skimalt off the top and give it to this
Speaker 1: guy in the garage. He's drawing broad strokes here. For sure.
Speaker 1: There are government programs, and we'll talk about one from
Speaker 1: the National Institutes of Health where the government says, hey,
Speaker 1: you have a really good idea, Mr or MS research scientists,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna give you enough money to survive for
Speaker 1: three years. Yeah, because the deal is you can always
Speaker 1: get grants if you know, you put together a nice package.
Speaker 1: But this program with the ni H what's it called
Speaker 1: the New Innovator Award Director's New Innovator Award. This is
Speaker 1: UH intended for people who have such a good idea,
Speaker 1: but it's so new that they don't have the data
Speaker 1: to write a grant where people would say, like, it
Speaker 1: looks like you're onto something here, So they're sort of
Speaker 1: throwing money at stuff that's like, you know, you're the
Speaker 1: dude in the garage, and we believe in this idea,
Speaker 1: go see what you can find out, right, and we're
Speaker 1: keeping big business out of the way. Yes, But now
Speaker 1: that and I H owns you for the rest of
Speaker 1: your career probably. So so let's talk about UM. There's
Speaker 1: three people at u c l A that got these
Speaker 1: grants recently and they're up to some kind of some
Speaker 1: interesting one could say, innovative stuff. Right. They have some
Speaker 1: good ideas, hugely innovative about how to UM approach problems,
Speaker 1: like the professor Dino di Carlo. All these I think
Speaker 1: these people are younger than us by the way they
Speaker 1: are UM. Dino de Carlo is working on ways to
Speaker 1: basically apply heat or pressure or chemicals to very specific
Speaker 1: sites in cells using nanoparticles and magnets, which is tough,
Speaker 1: sounds like a winning idea to me. It is basically
Speaker 1: one of the big problems we have with UM getting cells,
Speaker 1: engineering cells to do specific things like UM, I don't know,
Speaker 1: attack other cells for fun. Like if tell me that
Speaker 1: wouldn't be like a big Christmas gift this year. If
Speaker 1: you could like make cells fight with one another under
Speaker 1: a microscope, UM, then what you have to basically try
Speaker 1: to engineer the cell, you know, time after time after time,
Speaker 1: and basically program it to do what you want it
Speaker 1: to do. What de Carlo is coming up with is
Speaker 1: a way to use UM very tiny magnets and even
Speaker 1: tinier nano particles that can basically you my brain is
Speaker 1: so small. When you move the magnet with a joystick,
Speaker 1: it attracts the nano particles in a certain direction or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you can have the nano particles apply heat or
Speaker 1: pressure or a specific chemical to a specific site on
Speaker 1: a cell and direct it to go attack another cell
Speaker 1: for your pleasure. That's awesome, your amusement. So one point
Speaker 1: five mill goes to uh de Carlo and for a
Speaker 1: good reason. And for a good reason, the other winner,
Speaker 1: one of the other winners was Hu Huang, And you
Speaker 1: came up with, uh, basically, I'm gonna break this down easy.
Speaker 1: Instead of saying, let me come up with a cure
Speaker 1: for cancer, hu Wang said, let me come up with
Speaker 1: a way to detect cancer so early, like way earlier
Speaker 1: than we've ever detected it before, that we can stop
Speaker 1: in this track, essentially curing cancer. And he's doing this,
Speaker 1: actually I don't know. She's doing this um through uh
Speaker 1: nano material called graphine that is just one atom thick. Yes,
Speaker 1: graphing is like the super clearly not of this world material.
Speaker 1: It's literally a carbon atom thick. That's it. So, but
Speaker 1: it is a biological sensor to tell you when cells
Speaker 1: aren't doing the things they should be doing. So did
Speaker 1: you know a graham of this stuff's flattened covers a
Speaker 1: football field? Am, Wow, it's ultra light. That is thin,
Speaker 1: my friend, it's one atom thin. So one point five
Speaker 1: mail to hu Wang, Right, well, did you explain how? Oh,
Speaker 1: let me let me try my hand at this. So
Speaker 1: basically what you do is you, um, you put a
Speaker 1: graphine conductor transistor UM in a cell and when these
Speaker 1: biological markers, right say his stones or something like that,
Speaker 1: start to accumulate, they're attracted to the graphing. And these,
Speaker 1: by the way these biological markers are, we found are
Speaker 1: correlated with the growth of cancer, the origin of cancer.
Speaker 1: That's where they're starting. UM. And when some of these
Speaker 1: markers like are attracted to the graphing, they create an
Speaker 1: electrical charge that we can sense. And the graphine is
Speaker 1: so thin but so highly conductive that UM. With just
Speaker 1: a couple of these molecules attaching to the graphing, we
Speaker 1: would be able to detect it and be like who right,
Speaker 1: We'd be like, oh crap, you have cancer, and we'd
Speaker 1: cure it right then. Wow. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: that's a good way to approach a cure for cancer.
Speaker 1: If you asked me, did I explain that? Well? I
Speaker 1: think so, I think. And the last winner this year
Speaker 1: was Jin Hi Lee and Jin is trying to debug
Speaker 1: the brain circuit useing. You know, we have the Wonder Machine,
Speaker 1: which is our favorite thing in the world. Fm r I,
Speaker 1: which measures UH measures measures blood and oxygen levels in
Speaker 1: the brain. So it tells you. These areas light up
Speaker 1: there called bold signals blood and oxygen level dependent. They
Speaker 1: light up to correspond a certain brain right, And we've
Speaker 1: talked about this before, Like you're seeing that there's more
Speaker 1: oxygen that's going to that part of the brain. So
Speaker 1: we've assumed this is the basis of the f m
Speaker 1: R I. If it has more oxygen being delivered to it,
Speaker 1: that must mean that that region of the brain is active.
Speaker 1: When you show somebody a picture of you know, their kid,
Speaker 1: like being carried away into a van, that you know,
Speaker 1: that's the fear region right there. Um, that doesn't really
Speaker 1: say anything though, and it doesn't it doesn't implicate well
Speaker 1: it's it's not it's showing Okay, well there's more oxygen
Speaker 1: in this region, right. What this is, um, What what
Speaker 1: genuine Lee is looking at is, um, how what specifically
Speaker 1: on the new ronal level is being activated? Right? And
Speaker 1: he's using opt to genetics. So it's going to be
Speaker 1: called the o f m R I. And that's beyond
Speaker 1: even what we thought was the Wonder machine. So this
Speaker 1: is the super duper Wonder machine. Basically, he's using light
Speaker 1: to allow genetically specified neurons to be activated. Right, do
Speaker 1: you know, um are one of our listeners that Emory
Speaker 1: has been harping on us doing one on opti genetics
Speaker 1: for a while. We should get this person in here.
Speaker 1: This is probably as closest forever going to come down
Speaker 1: to do it. Uh. Well, it's a great idea though,
Speaker 1: obviously because Jin Young Lee won one of the Innovator
Speaker 1: Awards as well. Yes, and they give these out every year,
Speaker 1: so they clearly believe that we're not out of good ideas.
Speaker 1: No excellent point the n I h No, and we're
Speaker 1: not out of good ideas. So yes, Chuck, we we
Speaker 1: you pick those out? You found those guys all right,
Speaker 1: Well I didn't personally find them. You're like, these guys
Speaker 1: should get the that and I found them. Um. There
Speaker 1: are very good ideas out there, right, But there is
Speaker 1: a debate that's raging in science UM about whether these
Speaker 1: ideas like optogenetics or um, you know, using graphine or
Speaker 1: nanoparticles to cure detect cancer. Um are these variations on
Speaker 1: a theme? Are they applying cosmetic changes to a computer
Speaker 1: rather than really creating new parts to it? Right? And
Speaker 1: basically the question is, um are are are there any
Speaker 1: more major discoveries for us to make or are these
Speaker 1: really just basically remember I've always said, like we we
Speaker 1: have the pieces on the table, now we just have
Speaker 1: to put it together. Is that the point that we're at, UM? Well,
Speaker 1: as you said we were, I did, and then we
Speaker 1: started researching this, and I'm like, I wonder, I think
Speaker 1: I still do believe that UM. But within that though,
Speaker 1: there's so much that it's to me a little bit
Speaker 1: like splitting hairs. Well, but you're absolutely right, especially when
Speaker 1: you throw in the word discovered, right, Discovery indicates something
Speaker 1: that's already out there. We just figure it out or
Speaker 1: stumble upon it. Sure, and an idea necessarily kind of
Speaker 1: UM invention leads Yeah, it leads to an invention. It's
Speaker 1: something we we've created. Like technology, let's talk about discovery, right,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of UM problems that are still
Speaker 1: facing us and how we understand the universe, like human consciousness.
Speaker 1: How do brain cells create our understanding of the world,
Speaker 1: like what we see as reality? How is that possible?
Speaker 1: And can we figure everything out? Well, that's the big question.
Speaker 1: Is there there's a UM there's Like I said, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of debate about whether or not we'll ever
Speaker 1: be able to figure everything out? Or if the human
Speaker 1: brain just simply isn't um programmed to understand the world,
Speaker 1: uh fully, you know will will. So there's a guy
Speaker 1: who's a physicist. His name is um Russell Standard, and
Speaker 1: he's written this book called The End of Discovery, And
Speaker 1: basically he's saying he says that we're in quote a
Speaker 1: transient age of human development, right where we're past the
Speaker 1: point where we figured out you can put a handle
Speaker 1: on a rock and make it an ax. But we're
Speaker 1: right before the point where we can no longer make discoveries,
Speaker 1: not because we've understood everything or figured everything out, but
Speaker 1: because we've reached the limits of what is noble for
Speaker 1: the mean brain. Sure, but even that look at that
Speaker 1: that part of the right hemisphere that developed and allowed
Speaker 1: us to put the acts handle on, Right, who's to
Speaker 1: say that our brain won't, that we won't reach that
Speaker 1: point where we can't know anything any longer or I
Speaker 1: can't know everything? And then uh, we evolve even further
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden we're even better at um
Speaker 1: understanding our world. Right, But will we end up eventually
Speaker 1: coming to a point where humans understand everything and there
Speaker 1: is no more discovery to make I say no, because
Speaker 1: he points out in here and this is I think
Speaker 1: very valid from the Midnight century, the nineteenth century. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry they said that. A lot of people in science said,
Speaker 1: you know, we've kind of debunked religion and philosophy and
Speaker 1: all these things with scientific discovery. But he points out,
Speaker 1: and I agree that even if you figure out all
Speaker 1: the problems of science, which will never happen, there's still
Speaker 1: human life and consciousness in the subjectivity of what goes
Speaker 1: on inside a person's head. You're never going to solve
Speaker 1: that's not solvable, right, That's what I argue. That's subjectivism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: before I think I believe in that there, well, they're
Speaker 1: the whole, I guess I I agree with you. Um,
Speaker 1: there's this aspect of the universe that Kant called the
Speaker 1: new Amenon new Amenon. Okay, that was specifically tailored from
Speaker 1: my thick time. But basically the new Aminon is the
Speaker 1: thing itself right where um it has it's just the objective.
Speaker 1: It's the objective universe, and we don't interact with that.
Speaker 1: Everything we know and understand is subjective. And this is
Speaker 1: where subjectivism is is based. That basically we can never
Speaker 1: fully know anything or and we certainly won't ever know everything,
Speaker 1: because one thing that will always be elusive is what
Speaker 1: you see. My reality is different than your reality exactly,
Speaker 1: and there's a different There's an extreme version of it
Speaker 1: called so solipsism, right, yes, and solipsism is the the um,
Speaker 1: this extreme version of subjectivism that basically says, um, we
Speaker 1: everything is so subjective that I can't fully verify that
Speaker 1: you exist. The only thing I know that exists is
Speaker 1: my reality. But all of you may be made up.
Speaker 1: I may be totally completely out of my mind and
Speaker 1: actually in a padded cell right now, and none of
Speaker 1: you are really real. Well that's sort of touches on
Speaker 1: the whole quantum mechanics thing, right, don't you think. Please? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't have a whole lot to say
Speaker 1: about it because we've covered it, but it definitely is
Speaker 1: along the same line. So you think, well, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a there's an interpretation of quantum mechanics that basically says, um,
Speaker 1: everything we know about the universe we know through observation,
Speaker 1: and but once you observe it, it it changes. That's part
Speaker 1: of it. And when when we observe we we gain information, right,
Speaker 1: but we can't observe everything at once. So all we
Speaker 1: know exists in our reality for sure, is what we're observing.
Speaker 1: So everything else, like what's going on out there in
Speaker 1: the office right now, doesn't exist because we're not there
Speaker 1: to observe it. Mind blowing. Once again, it is mind blowing.
Speaker 1: But it also that we say all this not just
Speaker 1: to you know, rock out to Floyd, but um, because
Speaker 1: this is this is what science is up against. This
Speaker 1: isn't just jibberish. This isn't just philosophical jibberish. As much
Speaker 1: as science would like it to be, there is a
Speaker 1: true problem with the fact that subjectivity, not objectivity, is
Speaker 1: how we interact with our universe. Even though science is
Speaker 1: based it's supposed to be based exclusively on objectivity. Right. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: Stephen Hawking, you might have heard of him, and another
Speaker 1: dude name Leonard load Loader. Now is how I'm going
Speaker 1: to pronounce that there's a silent m in there somewhere.
Speaker 1: They have a new book called The Grand Design, and
Speaker 1: they are now saying that I think scientists used to
Speaker 1: say we're going to find the theory of everything. Now
Speaker 1: they're saying, you know what, We're probably not going to
Speaker 1: find the theory of everything, but it's probably gonna be
Speaker 1: more like what they call, quote a family of interconnected theories,
Speaker 1: which describe your reality under very specific conditions. And this
Speaker 1: is kind of huge for Stephen Hawking because he's long
Speaker 1: been a big supporter of the theory of everything, which
Speaker 1: takes the standard model of physics, includes gravity, which has
Speaker 1: always been elusive, and then marries it with quantum mechanics
Speaker 1: to explain everything. That's the theory of everything. It's one
Speaker 1: theory that explains everything, right, Like that surfer guy exactly,
Speaker 1: Garrett Leacy. I think it's a long time ago it was,
Speaker 1: and you know it's going to be years before he's
Speaker 1: shown to be correct or incorrect. But Hawking saying it's
Speaker 1: probably not going to be the case. There's going to
Speaker 1: there's too many different variables that don't fit together. Right.
Speaker 1: But the thing that really scares a physicist, that will
Speaker 1: scare any physicist is this sports. Those are those models
Speaker 1: that we've come up with. Are they how the universe
Speaker 1: actually works or how we look at the universe and
Speaker 1: see how it works. You see what I'm saying. There's
Speaker 1: that subjectivism again. It can't be whipped well. And all
Speaker 1: the things that we've said over the years that we
Speaker 1: have formed to be true, are those even true? Or
Speaker 1: are or the conclusions we're reaching just based on years
Speaker 1: of thought compiled that may not have been true to
Speaker 1: begin with. So I mean like we arrive at reality
Speaker 1: by consensus. Yeah, but is that consensus was that even
Speaker 1: accurate along the way? Not necessarily. It's been showing time
Speaker 1: and time again that it's hasn't been accurate through these
Speaker 1: um the Five Revolutions, as VM Ramashchandra and puts them.
Speaker 1: Bernicus Copernicus was the first one who said that Earth
Speaker 1: is not the center of the universe. Darwinism dark very good.
Speaker 1: Chuck Darwin's says like, hey, we're actually just a bunch
Speaker 1: of apes DNA Freud Freud Freud saying like we we
Speaker 1: actually are driven by desires that we can't control and
Speaker 1: aren't really aware of d NA, which is saying I
Speaker 1: think James Watson, who found DNA along with Francis Crick,
Speaker 1: said quote, there are only molecules, everything else is sociologist.
Speaker 1: I love that quote, man, It's one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: And then um, the Fifth Revolution, the neuroscience revolution, that
Speaker 1: we're all everything, are all of our understanding of movements
Speaker 1: and and experiences are nothing but um neuronal transmissions electrochemical impulses. Right,
Speaker 1: so there's not even sociology that even is just based
Speaker 1: on firing neurons. Right, That's that's where we're at right now.
Speaker 1: That's why I say, I think we have everything on
Speaker 1: the table, just haven't put it together. But it's entirely
Speaker 1: possible historically speaking to say, well we thought that before
Speaker 1: and we didn't. And what revolution is next? Will that?
Speaker 1: Will the next revolution get us over the wall of subjectivism?
Speaker 1: Or will that be the wall that we always run into?
Speaker 1: This is a good one, and well I was worried
Speaker 1: about this one. It came out pretty good in it.
Speaker 1: I think, so, yeah, don't you like it when we
Speaker 1: like pat ourselves in the back of the end of
Speaker 1: the show. I think this one deserves it. Man. Well,
Speaker 1: so we're from blue Rays to Turns and at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, Josh and Chuck say, we are
Speaker 1: not out of new ideas. Canna speak for you, go ahead,
Speaker 1: We are not out of new ideas. And just when
Speaker 1: you think you're out of new ideas, just when you
Speaker 1: think of plateaued comes up. You wang along to say no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: there are new ideas, and here's one. Not give me
Speaker 1: the cash exactly. If you want to learn more about
Speaker 1: innovation and new ideas, we have tons of stuff all
Speaker 1: over the site. Just type in innovation, type in discovery.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that'll bring up a ton of stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: and type in neurons. That will bring up some pretty
Speaker 1: cool stuff too. Agreed. Uh. You can type all those
Speaker 1: words into the handy search bar at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com, which means it's time for a sner mail. Yes, Josh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna follow this very heavy podcast with the opposite
Speaker 1: an email for him. Okay, this is from our thirteen
Speaker 1: year old fan Peyton in California. Well, hello, I'm sending
Speaker 1: this from my eye touch while laying in bed. I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to be asleep, so anyway, I just started listening
Speaker 1: to your podcast after my friend Claire. Yes, that's the
Speaker 1: Claire from California whose email you read on the air,
Speaker 1: who thinks Jerry looks like Tina f A. Uh. Claire
Speaker 1: is his his Peyton's friend. So she said, oh, you
Speaker 1: got on the year. So I'm gonna start listening to you. Um, actually,
Speaker 1: I'm saying Peyton is a girl. Peyton maybe a boy?
Speaker 1: You never know? Oh? Really, yeah, it's in dragyn this right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: ambivalent at least. Uh. Claire posted on her Facebook page
Speaker 1: that I said, listen to the most recent podcast because
Speaker 1: you guys read her letter or something. I thought it
Speaker 1: was so cool. Claire and I are really good friends. Anyways,
Speaker 1: I love this podcast. Gosh, I feel so boring because
Speaker 1: I keep saying podcast. Is there like another word for that?
Speaker 1: Jared laughed at that. Anyways, I definitely she does that
Speaker 1: thing like the kids do now where they put like
Speaker 1: eight s at the end of a word. Have you
Speaker 1: seen that? Yeah? I don't get that. I don't either.
Speaker 1: We're getting old, I guess so. I most definitely enjoyed
Speaker 1: the podcast on the OCTOPI and stuff. I thought it
Speaker 1: was OCTOPI. I thought it was informational and funny. By
Speaker 1: the way, this email doesn't make any sense. It's because
Speaker 1: my eye touch is dumb and auto correct words that
Speaker 1: I've already spelled, right, ERG moving on your iPhone does
Speaker 1: that too? And mind does that? What's this? An email
Speaker 1: written with one of those pens that has like four
Speaker 1: different color inc you can select rons, but it feels
Speaker 1: like But the reason I brought that up is I
Speaker 1: have an idea to start a website called my Ipop
Speaker 1: my iPhone spelled what dot com because you ever look
Speaker 1: at some of them, you sinned and you're like, can
Speaker 1: you please make sure you take the sofa out of
Speaker 1: the oven when you get home when you meant to say, um, sturgeon,
Speaker 1: let's say, surgeon is so far I would surgeon, Okay,
Speaker 1: take the surgeon out of the oven? Which is I
Speaker 1: think so much better. I wish you would have planned this.
Speaker 1: It's okay, buddy. Anyway, it can make for a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. So that's my new idea. Okay, And that's um.
Speaker 1: Lots of love from Peyton age thirteen and Cali. Thanks
Speaker 1: a lot, Peyton, age thirteen and Callie boy or girl.
Speaker 1: We're not exactly sure, but either way, we appreciate you
Speaker 1: taking the time to write in. And if you have
Speaker 1: a movie that Chuck and I have not seen, you
Speaker 1: assume we haven't seen that you think we should see,
Speaker 1: best movie, best overlooked movie of all time. We're always
Speaker 1: looking for good suggestions. Wrap it up in an email
Speaker 1: and send it to Stuff podcast at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio is at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.