WEBVTT - Invertebrate Emotions, Part 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:05.440 Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind, production of by 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.480 Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:17.200 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:18.880 today is going to be the first and a couple 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:21.280 of episodes that we wanted to do on the subject 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:26.319 of invertebrate emotions. And strangely enough, I got interested in 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.520 this subject the other day after I was reading a poem, 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:31.520 not a scientific paper. I was reading a poem by 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:35.919 the American modernist poet Marianne Moore, who I like a lot. 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.559 She She writes a lot about like fish and you know, 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.720 marine organisms. She lived from eight seven to nineteen seventy two. 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:45.360 And uh, if it's okay with you, Robert, I wanted 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:47.920 to start off this episode just by reading this poem 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:50.880 that I encountered the other day. Okay. It is called 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:56.959 the paper Nautilus for authorities whose hopes are shaped by mercenaries, writers, 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:00.000 and trapped by tea time, fame and by commuters comfort. 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.880 It's not for these. The paper Nautilus constructs her thin 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:08.680 glass shell, giving her perishable souvenir of hope, a dull 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:13.040 white outside and smooth edged inner surface. Glossy is the sea, 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:16.200 the watchful maker of it, guards it day and night. 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:20.600 She scarcely eats until her eggs are hatched, buried eight 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.319 fold in her eight arms, for she is in a 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:27.440 sense of devil fish. Her glass ram's horn, cradled freight, 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:31.440 is hid but not crushed, as hercules bitten by a 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:35.360 crab loyal to the hydra, was hindered to succeed. The 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:39.280 intensively watched eggs coming from the shell free it when 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:43.080 they are freed, leaving its wasp nest flaws of white 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.880 on white and close laid ionic kite enfolds, like the 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:50.720 lines in the mane of a parthenon horse, round which 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.040 the arms had wound themselves, as if they knew. Love 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:58.160 is the only fortress strong enough to trust to. Oh 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.400 that's nice. I like that last art, especially me too. 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:04.480 I mean, I love the way it moves from um this, 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:09.399 uh this direct, almost clinical description of the actual biology 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:11.720 of the paper nautilus and how it builds its shell 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:15.320 and all that, and goes from that to these classical illusions, 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:18.280 and then ultimately ends on this powerfully emotional note that 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.160 kind of gives me a shiver. Uh So, the late 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:24.480 American poet Anthony Hate, writing about More, said that one 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:26.960 of the things he liked most about her poems was 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.520 that they had quote a capacity for pure praise that 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:33.840 has absolutely biblical awe in it, and I think you 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:35.880 kind of see that here. I like that quality a 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:40.080 lot too. It captures in language some of the overwhelming, 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.120 almost religious kind of power I feel when looking at 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:46.280 some animals, especially animals that live in the ocean. But 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.560 also the poem really just has a very worthy subject. 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:52.639 The paper nautilus, also known as the argonaut, is a 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.880 remarkable species, and the shell that has talked about in 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.280 the poem, the egg case, is a genuinely gorgeous under 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:04.799 of evolution. Yeah, this is quite a remarkable critter. So 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.280 the Argonaut, Uh, first, let's just talk about the name. 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.840 This is of course a reference to Greek mythology, and 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.120 we we recently talked about this on our other show Invention, 0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:18.200 the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, Right, Yeah, because 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.880 the argonaut just means sailors of the Argo, the Argo 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.720 being the ship built by Argus and the ship upon 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:27.840 which Jason sails in his quest to find the Golden Fleece, 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:32.200 which itself was a sacred pelt of a winged ram. 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:34.720 But the argonaut we're talking about here is again the 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:38.600 paper nautilus, a member of the genus Argonata. So they're 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.960 octopods cephalopods, and there as many as fifty three species 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:46.560 that have been described. They have this delicate calcite shell, 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.520 hence the nickname, and these shells were once thought to 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.000 be pilfered like the shells of a hermit crab. There 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.120 was a question of where did they acquire these things? Well, 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:56.760 they must have they must have stolen them. Uh, they 0:03:56.840 --> 0:03:59.280 must be using them, right, And they wouldn't be the 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:01.960 only octopus that finds a shell or some kind of 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:03.840 you know, a coconut or something and picks it up 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.920 and uses it, right, Uh and uh. And this was 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:10.840 also another contributing factor to this interpretation is the fact 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:15.320 that the the argonaut is not physically attached to the shell, 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:19.640 like when a specimen is examined. The creature can be 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:23.760 removed from the shell with ease, though it typically expires 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:26.800 if that is done to it. So, um, we've known 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:29.520 about them for these creatures for thousands of years. They 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.560 pop up an art from three thousand b C. According 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.920 to Mark Carnal writing for The Guardian. But we did 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:38.120 not know how they made their egg shells until the 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:41.599 nineteenth century. So this is what happens. The female and 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:46.480 only the female secretes the shells via specialized arms and 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:52.719 the resulting shell it's essentially a floatation device that resembles 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:57.360 the shell of extinct ammonites. They lay their eggs inside 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.800 of these shells. They retreat inside. Sometimes you'll you'll you'll 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:05.360 find the detached reproductive arm of a male a hectocotalist, 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:08.440 and then she'll use she'll use the shell though, to 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.160 control her buoyancy in the water. There's so many interesting 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:14.080 things going on here. I mean, number one is just 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.599 the implied history of mating that at some point a 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.080 male octopus came along and made it by what tearing 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:23.400 off one of its own arms and giving it to her. Yeah. Yeah, 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:28.520 basically it is like a detachable sexual organ, uh, that 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.400 then she keeps. But yeah, the other thing about this 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:33.760 shell that's so fascinating is when we think of shells, 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:35.800 we think of just pure defense. We think of the 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:38.880 hard shelter that has grown out of the animal that 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.320 the animal may retreat into. Right, But they're in the 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.160 common name the paper nautilus. It implies that the shell 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:47.800 is very delicate. Yeah, it is not a defensive structure, 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:49.760 at least not in the same way that a true 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:52.440 shell is. I mean it is you can't argue that 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:54.560 it is protected for the young that reside within it, 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:58.719 because it is a very slim barrier between them in 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:00.760 the open ocean, and you know, keeps them close to 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:04.760 the female. But mainly it is the means by which 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:09.080 this particular type of octopod returned to the open sea 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.799 as its skin had largely evolved for sea floor life, 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.240 and left the open waters to the squid. Okay, so 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:18.880 the octopus is generally going to be found, uh, I 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:21.520 don't know, along the bottom or maybe hiding along along 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:23.599 a reef or something like that. But this one just 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.760 takes out to the open waters with a flotation device 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.480 of its own, making like one way. And this is 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.360 you know, an elaborate and probably a little poetiquet to 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.679 think of it. But you can think of the squid 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.520 as the angel, and the octopus is the fallen angels 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:42.680 has lost its wings, but this particular octopod has I 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.839 guess Miltonian aspirations and or or is or is you know, 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.599 lined up with the thinking of data lists and icarus, 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:52.560 and it is building its own shell that will that 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.760 in this case, we'll will allow it to ascend up 0:06:56.040 --> 0:07:00.120 in the water towards the surface. Now there's another thing 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:01.640 I want to throw in as a when you get 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:04.960 into the sexual dimorphism here, the females are up to 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:08.080 six hundred times the weight of the males. Uh. And 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:10.480 again the males do not engage in this kind of 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.840 shell construction and growth. But a great deal of mystery 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.760 remains about how the argonaut lives its life and and 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:21.640 indeed how they even evolved. Uh Neil Monks and Sea 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:25.200 Phil Palmer, authors of the two thousand two Smithsonian book Ammonites. 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:29.040 They have suggested that these ancient octopuses might have depended 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:33.000 on the discarded shells of ammonites in prehistoric times and 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:36.920 use their abilities to mend the shells. So the idea 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.200 might be that originally they stole shells from a now 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.800 extinct animal and then use these uh uh, these abilities 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.040 to to patch them up and make them fit, to 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.560 customize them a little bit, but still largely depend on 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.560 the stolen shell. Interesting, I mean, there is a physical similarity. 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:53.800 If you haven't seen ammonite shells that they tend to 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:57.480 be spiral shaped there at some point in the past. 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:00.200 I talked about our recent trip to Lime Region us 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.680 in uh in the UK, where on the beach you 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:06.240 can find fossils of ammonites from you know, hundreds of 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:09.640 millions of years ago, and there are these colossal serial 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.080 killer spirals etched into the rocks. It's very very cool. 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:15.800 But yeah, at some point the ammonites disappeared, So they 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:20.360 went extinct in the Cretaceous Paleogene extinction event. And so 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:22.120 what what do you do if you depend upon that shell? 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.480 So the idea here is that the the ancient paper 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:29.400 nautilus is then had to use their mending skills to 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:32.480 just create a shell of their own in order to 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:34.520 do the same sort of things that they did previously. 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.160 So what they what they once used to repair, they 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:40.560 had to create from scratch. Yes, that's that's at least 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:44.120 one one theory that's out there. It's also highly possible 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.439 that we're just talking about covergent evolution here and the 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.640 paper nautilus is eggshell just happens to resemble that of 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.720 an ammonite. Sure, but it really does look similar, but 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:56.160 then again you can see other signs of similar types 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:59.160 of possible convergent evolution. I mean the nautilus, not the 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.160 paper nautilus, but the animal just normally called the nautilus 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:04.600 is like the a marine mollusk has a shell that 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:07.640 sort of resembles an m nite shell. Also, yeah, absolutely 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.720 still a fascinating creature and also definitely a creature worthy 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:15.880 of poetic consideration. Speaking and speaking of poetry. They also 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:19.880 show up in in other works of literature, including twenty 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:23.199 thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. Uh, there's 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.000 a there's a section in it where they are, uh 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:29.600 there they are aboard the nautilus, the submarine, and uh 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.280 they are They've come up to the surface and they 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:36.160 observe these creatures. They observed the paper nautilus, the argonaute 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:40.000 in action. So here's a quote from the book. Quote. Now, 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:42.960 it was a school of argonauts then voyaging on the 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:45.839 surface of the ocean. We could count several hundred of them. 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.319 They belong to that species of argonauts, covered with protuberances 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:53.640 and exclusive to the seas near India. These graceful mollusks 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:57.160 were swimming backwards by means of their locomotive tubes, sucking 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.240 water into these tubes and then expelling it. Six They're 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.000 eight tentacles were long, thin and floated on the water, 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:05.959 while the other two were rounded into palms and spread 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.160 to the wind like light sails. I could see perfectly. 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:13.400 They're undulating spiral shaped shells, which Cuvier aptly compared to 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:17.120 an elegant cockle boat. It's an actual boat. Indeed, it 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.680 transports the animal that secretes it without the animal sticking 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:23.120 to it. The Argonaut is free to leave its shell, 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:27.000 I told Consil, but it never does not, unlike Captain Nemo. 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.240 Conseil replied sage Lee, which is why he should have 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.920 christened it his ship, the Argonaut. Oh that's good, it's 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.360 a shell of his own design. Yeah. So now they're 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:40.040 also referring in this passage to this um, this myth 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:42.720 or this outdated idea that they could use their arms 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:44.959 as sails and sail across the top of the water, 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:48.000 and that the shell is like actually a boat, and 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:49.800 it really in some sense as it is, because it 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:53.160 aids the creature in it's in its buoyancy. But anyway, 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:57.720 that's just a fun little literary usage of the argonaut, 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.560 and it also alludes to that fact that yes, it can. 0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.880 It can technically leave the shell, because it doesn't actually 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:07.760 grow that the shell. It kind of makes it. But 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:09.880 if if you were to remove the species from it, 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.680 shall it typically dies. This is such a cool animal, 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:14.920 And I like the idea that Jules Verne was like 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:19.480 halfway through writing twenty Leagues and he discovered this animal 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:21.440 and He's like, oh, I should have gone back and 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.679 named it the argonaut from the beginning, but I'd take 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:26.880 too much revision. I'll just plow ahead and I'll have 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:29.280 a character acknowledge, like it really would have been better 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:31.920 if it was called this other thing. But anyway, I 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:34.040 wanted to come back to the ending of the poem 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.760 by Marianne Moore. This powerful ending is what got me 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.480 really thinking about the subject for today's episode and the 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:43.960 next one. This idea of this eight armed cephalopod clutching 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:46.520 at its egg case, as if each of its arms 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.720 knew that love is the only fortress strong enough to 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:54.120 trust too. Does the paper nautilus feel love? Do the 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:58.280 coiled arms of the argonauts simply clutch or do they embrace? 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.480 Do they hug? With all the emotional and you know, 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.480 the baggage that comes with that. I think most everyone 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:06.560 would probably I think the gut response that people are 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.560 generally gonna have is no, You're gonna think, no, a 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:14.200 a paper nautilus is not going to be capable of 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:17.480 of love. Love is what humans do. And you know, 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.560 maybe specific animals that we uh live closely with that 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:25.520 we anthropomorphize enough into, but not the not the octopi, 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.640 not the not the the world of invertebrates. Well, I 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:31.120 don't know, it's I mean, people would I think you'd 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:35.040 encounter a lot of divergent opinion about that. On one hand, 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:37.080 you can say, yeah, I mean, of course you're gonna 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:39.679 have a problem of if you believe that an octopus 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.600 can love? I mean, how could you prove that? Uh? 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:44.640 And so? And we'll address questions like that as we 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:49.000 move on. But more broadly, I guess, can you can 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:54.079 you imagine invertebrates in general feeling anything analogous to the 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.679 kind of plain, familiar emotions that we name in poems. 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.200 You know, does a does a crab feel fear? Does 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:04.160 a bumblebee feel hate? Uh? Does a snail feel discussed 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:08.160 or jealousy? Or joy or you know, is it as 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:11.559 you're sort of suggesting folly to meaningfully apply these words 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:16.040 outside of humans, and maybe they're more closely related vertebrate relatives. Well, 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:17.520 but then the other side to look at it, and 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.040 this is something we'll continue to discuss as well, is 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:23.000 that you bring up poetry, and poetry is very much 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.640 a part of the and I love poetry, but it 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:29.200 is part of the cult of human emotion indefinitely places 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.040 things like love on a golden pedestal. And and so 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:35.600 there's kind of a push and pull here when we 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:37.720 look to the world of animals. We have to be 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:42.160 willing to throw our emotions off of that golden pedestal 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:46.040 and and look at what they really are from you know, 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:49.880 psychological and even biological standpoint. And at the same time 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:51.560 we have to be able to look to the animal 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:57.280 world and be willing to attribute these uh, these knockdown 0:13:57.280 --> 0:13:59.480 emotions to them as well. Well, yeah, I mean that 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:01.400 that's the other side of it. I mean, some people, 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:04.160 I think would say you're being stingy if you say 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.719 that that an argonaut can't love. But then I think 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:09.440 there are also people who would say, like, you're really 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.600 you know, degrading my feeling of my relationships and and 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:14.640 my love. If you say that, an octopus can do 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:17.520 the same thing, right, So it gets it gets complicated, 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:19.520 and there's plenty of room to be piste off on 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.120 both sides. So hopefully we'll piss everyone off as we 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:24.200 proceed here. Well, maybe we should take a break, and 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:26.240 then when we come back we can try to address 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:33.120 the thorny difficult question of what our emotions than. All right, 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:35.560 we're back, So to proceed here, we're going to have 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:40.720 to take a quick stab an exceedingly huge and complicated question, 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:44.560 which is what our emotions. Obviously this is something we 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:48.080 can't answer adequately in a subsection of one episode, but 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:50.640 we'll do our best to try to to hint at 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:53.840 the broad picture of what this question entails. Yeah, it 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.480 can be so tricky to even contemplate this because because 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.160 and one of the big things is that emotions are 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:04.680 the tumultuous, see that we're constantly immersed in that where 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:06.920 we feel cast about in you know. And this is 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.160 again this gets into poetry as well, Right, how many 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:12.760 poems are about you know, the mail storm of emotion, 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:15.360 you know, and and and how we just feel like 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:17.520 we're just a victim to them. Well, yeah, I mean 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.080 we we often think of emotions as being something that's 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.320 inside us, but it's almost more apt to think of 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.040 us as being inside them. Like we can't see the 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.120 whole thing, We don't have perspective. We're it's more like 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:31.160 a c on which we are floating. I think that's 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:34.080 a great metaphor. And yet at the same time we 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.720 are the sea, you know, Like we often fall into this, uh, 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:39.720 into this model that I think is largely what you 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:41.520 see in the work of some of the you know, 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:45.240 the classic philosophers of logic and emotion, and then like 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:47.720 logic is the domain of you know, logic and reason 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:50.240 on one hand, and then they're the the enemies of 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:54.000 passion that uh that that tear us apart, the Apollo 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.760 and Dionysus model exactly. Yeah, and so it's easy to 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:58.720 fall back on that. It's just baked into so much 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.800 of our culture. Yeah, And and just in general, emotion 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:04.080 is just something we're too close to. I sometimes feel, 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:06.760 I feel that emotion is like a cantalope, you know, 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:09.200 like when you buy a cantaloupe, when you cut, you 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:10.960 don't know what it's gonna be you cut into it, though, 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.280 and when it's great, there's nothing else like it. It's amazing, 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.480 And when it's bad, it's just the worst. I don't 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:19.080 know if I feel this way about candle up, I 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:23.880 feel this way about tomatoes. Yeah, tomato. My favorite food 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.440 in the world is a really good ripe summer tomato. 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.800 And there's nothing worse than a meli off season tomato. Yes, 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:33.040 the tomato is also a great example of human emotion, 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:37.160 and I think a lot of our meditative and monastic 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:40.520 traditions are ultimately aimed at fostering as much as possible 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:44.200 a dependable honeydew melon mental state, something where you know, 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:46.640 you cut into it and it's not gonna be just 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:49.080 it's not gonna knock your socks off, but it's also 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:51.600 not going to discuss you. It's going to be a nice, pleasant, 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:55.000 dependable experience right there in the middle, calming the seas, 0:16:55.040 --> 0:17:00.280 eliminating the highs and lows, creating equanimity. So this is 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:02.520 this is where we are. You know, we're feeling creatures, 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:04.840 for better or worse. But we've always tried to figure 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.159 out emotions. We've tried to figure it out for for ages, 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:12.960 the greatest thinkers, philosophers, artist, scientist sages. Uh, you know, 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:17.639 religious leaders throughout history have contemplated their nature and formulated 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.680 various theories. And we could easily do a multi part 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:23.240 series on the question of human emotions. But the short 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:27.040 view is that we have basically three ways of considering them. 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.560 First of all, there's the idea of emotions as feelings. 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:33.040 The way they feel is what they are, so it's 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.920 a subjective state. And in that sense, the only emotion 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.320 you can ever really know is your own, Like you 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:43.560 cannot share in anybody else's. You can think you do, 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.199 but you can't know for sure. I mean, does somebody 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.560 else's sadness feel like yours? Does to somebody else's happiness 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.639 feel like yours? Does you know it's it's you? You 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.119 are trapped with your subjectivity here, right, And then when 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:57.360 you get into theory of mind, I mean, I mean, 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.800 that's a whole issue there and itself, like, to what 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.280 what degree do we attribute the same level of emotional 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:06.480 investment to others? And in what cases are we attributing 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:09.159 too much emotion to this individual and less emotion to 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.439 this individual based on a whole host of reasons. Well so, 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.359 But if emotion is just subjectivity, it seems hopeless that 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:17.640 you could ever try to study it in animals. Right, 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.280 If it's just a subjective experience, we have no access 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.560 to it whatsoever, right, and and and that would be 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.280 the danger, right if it was just perpetually tied up 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:31.520 in the other human concepts of say like consciousness and 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.720 u uh in theory of mind, etcetera. But then we 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:38.520 have these other two categories. First of all, emotions as evaluations. 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:44.400 Emotions are evaluations of the primary circumstances that we're dealing with. So, 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:48.120 you know, a huge tie to the environmental stimuli, situational 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:52.240 stimuli all around us. So emotions are ways of reacting 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:56.520 to the world that their internal states that signal a 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.840 certain response to what you're seeing or dealing with. Right, 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.959 go through a haunted attraction around Halloween, and you you 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.160 feel something like fear or that sort of related safe 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.920 feeling of fear, whatever however you want to categorize it. Uh, 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:14.119 That is a product of the environment you thrust yourself into, 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.080 all right, And if these are internal states that are 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:20.760 products of evaluating an environment, you could then start to 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:23.600 look at patterns about what the what the features of 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.280 those internal states are, what do they do to the brain? 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:28.800 What do they cause? How do they cause you to react? 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:30.520 And I guess that would bring us to the next 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:33.359 way of looking at it, right, Yes, emotions as motivations. 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:38.119 Emotions as primarily motivating states. So basically this would be 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.040 a situation of where I am angry and therefore I 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:43.800 strike out at somebody. It causes you to act in 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.439 a certain way. So there's a lot more to it 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:49.360 than this, but these are those sort of the three 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.800 basic pillars that are often discussed. So seemingly, you know, 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:56.000 we can strike because we are angry, we're angry because 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:59.040 we strike, and then we also just feel angry, and 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.000 it all becomes this kind of cat's cradle of um 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:06.439 of physiology, behavior, and situational context. Another way to think 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:09.159 of emotions is this UH. This is a definition that 0:20:09.240 --> 0:20:13.919 is often used conscious mental reactions that we subjectively experience, 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.040 and these strong feelings are typically directed towards a specific 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:21.360 object or person, resulting in or caused by UH or 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:25.960 certainly accompanied by physiological and behavioral change. However, as we'll 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:29.640 discussing these episodes, throwing consciousness into it rather complicates things 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:32.439 when we look to other animals, because while emotions are 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:37.040 certainly tied up in the human conscious experience, is consciousness 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:40.200 really required to have emotion? I think there's an extremely 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:44.240 strong argument that it is not. Well, you can certainly imagine, say, 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:50.199 a robot that models emotional states without being conscious, right right, 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:53.160 and and so you don't know if that's the case 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.480 for any other animals. You don't know to what extent 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:59.600 they're subjectively feeling emotions like you and I do, or 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:05.160 like you resumably do. The robot could still act angry, 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:07.359 and it would still do all the things that an 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.280 angry person would do. Or a robot could act sad 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.560 and still have all the reactions a sad person would have. 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:17.119 Like if again, if you're coming back to emotions as evaluations, 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:20.679 you could consider a screensaver on a This is a 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:23.280 very simple model of it, but a screensaver on a 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:26.920 computer screen is a response to um to what's going 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:30.160 on in the world. Like nobody's using the keyboard right now, 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:33.400 somebody's away from the machine. Uh so a relaxed date 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:37.000 comes into place. There's a paper we're gonna look at 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:38.800 later in the episode. Well, we'll come back to it 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:40.919 in a bit, But it's by a Clint J. Perry 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.960 and Luigi Battia Donna that tried to put together all 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:47.920