Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: we're back with listener mail. That's right, we received a
Speaker 1: great deal of cool listener feedback, and in order to
Speaker 1: harvest it all this time, our mail bot Carney has
Speaker 1: essentially become an aquatic humanoid, right, an aquatic humanoid robot. Now,
Speaker 1: Carney has been our mailbot for a long time now,
Speaker 1: and uh, we noticed that he has apparently some webbed
Speaker 1: feet now and uh, some gills, and we're not quite
Speaker 1: sure what that's all about, since he's a robot anyway,
Speaker 1: but he seems to be trying. He's really trying to
Speaker 1: get in there, become the aquatic ape that may never
Speaker 1: have been. I assume that the gills are part of
Speaker 1: a like a cooling system for for all of his hardware,
Speaker 1: you know, Oh right, that's where he chills his CPU. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's this probably what's going on, because he
Speaker 1: doesn't really need to breathe. But I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: does need to breathe. All of these cool listener mails
Speaker 1: that we've received, well, without any further ado, I say,
Speaker 1: we jump right in the waters warm all right. This
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Maria. Maria says, hi, guys,
Speaker 1: I am from Columbia and I was just listening to
Speaker 1: the Aquatic Humanoids podcast and I just couldn't stop thinking
Speaker 1: about one of the various native cultures in my country
Speaker 1: that had a sort of aquatic humanoid in its mythology.
Speaker 1: The Musica culture had the belief that they're shamans were
Speaker 1: going to become a mix of sacred animals. They became
Speaker 1: a humanoid with the tail of a fish. Uh. Some
Speaker 1: theories say that the penis was the body part that
Speaker 1: will become a fish tail, the head of a jaguar,
Speaker 1: and some other changes in some sacred parts of the
Speaker 1: body making them gods when they pray and make and
Speaker 1: made rituals. I don't know the complete story, but you
Speaker 1: may want to take a look at the researchers of
Speaker 1: this culture and others with a similar myth And if
Speaker 1: you ever go to Columbia, you can visit the Museo
Speaker 1: del Oro or Golden Museum, where you can learn about
Speaker 1: a lot of cultures and native objects. To sustain the
Speaker 1: myths with humanoids that were believed to be not inferiors,
Speaker 1: but superiors to ordinary humans. I mean, it's kind of
Speaker 1: hard not to imagine an aquatic humanoid as superior to humans, right,
Speaker 1: I guess they did it with Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. When you think of the abyss,
Speaker 1: somehow like being under under all the water seems to
Speaker 1: breed a kind of serenity. Yeah. Well, I would say
Speaker 1: again with with Creature from the Black Lagoon, there seems
Speaker 1: to be a lot of a lot of effort goes
Speaker 1: into making the creature look weak when we have at
Speaker 1: least one or two scenes that depict just how effective
Speaker 1: the creature is in its natural habitat under the water.
Speaker 1: I will say, in the Creature movies, the creature is
Speaker 1: certainly morally superior to the humans come in and start
Speaker 1: harassing it. But that's really interesting. I tried to look
Speaker 1: up some stuff about this, uh this moisca idea of
Speaker 1: the humanoid with the penis or the fish tail coming
Speaker 1: from the penis or something. I couldn't find anything about this,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to keep looking. I want to know more.
Speaker 1: This sounds very interesting. It looks like Carney has another
Speaker 1: bit of of Aquatic Humanoid listener mail here that he's
Speaker 1: brought up from the depth right. This is from our
Speaker 1: listener Jared. Jared says, Hello, Robert and Joe. I just
Speaker 1: listen to the second part of the Aquatic Humanoid episode,
Speaker 1: which I enjoyed, but it did not address one of
Speaker 1: my primary curiosities on the matter, which is why has
Speaker 1: an aquatic creature not evolved that disappear in intelligence to humans.
Speaker 1: This is more of a question of evolutionary intelligence, but
Speaker 1: the simple question is, if humans are the dominant land animal,
Speaker 1: why is there not a hyper smart crab that dominates
Speaker 1: the oceans. Coming from the viewpoint of an intelligent land animal,
Speaker 1: it would seem like intelligence is one of the most
Speaker 1: valuable adaptations, so I find it surprising that the trait
Speaker 1: is not more commonly. Especial is not more common, especially
Speaker 1: in animals like turtles that have existed for hundreds of
Speaker 1: millions of years. It would also surmise that if an
Speaker 1: animal was physically well adapted to its environment like a turtle,
Speaker 1: then mental adaptations would be the next priority trait. If
Speaker 1: you have any thoughts on the matter, I would be
Speaker 1: curious to hear them. Long story, short, how did intelligence evolve?
Speaker 1: And why are humans seemingly unique along? Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: that's the simple question will tackle me. Uh well, I
Speaker 1: think one of those obvious answers that comes to mind
Speaker 1: is like, how much more perfect does say a sea
Speaker 1: turtle need to be? Right? You know? Is it is
Speaker 1: arguably as smart as it needs to be. Evolution is
Speaker 1: a cheap skate, and brains, big powerful brains are incredibly expensive.
Speaker 1: They are. They come with so many downsides. Your brain
Speaker 1: is so energy hungry it's ridiculous. You need eat tons
Speaker 1: of calories to sustain it. It also requires a lot
Speaker 1: of development time through which you are You're very vulnerable
Speaker 1: in your youth because you you require such a long
Speaker 1: development period to have the powerful adult brain that you
Speaker 1: have today. So developing a smart brain is a difficult
Speaker 1: thing to do, and you've got to really justify it.
Speaker 1: Another thing I would say is you bring up the
Speaker 1: idea of physical adaptations. I would say, actually, the more
Speaker 1: physically adapted a creature is, the less intelligent it needs
Speaker 1: to be. Exactly. I mean that's what we see with
Speaker 1: with humans. Do we have great clause? Now? Do we
Speaker 1: have the natural body armor? No, we're not very strong
Speaker 1: for our body size. The one thing we have is
Speaker 1: that enormous brain. Yeah, everything else is done more efficiently
Speaker 1: by some other species. I mean, we've talked before about
Speaker 1: how if you see a hairless great ape like a
Speaker 1: chimpanzee or gorilla, it is the muscles are hilarious. It
Speaker 1: is jacked. These things are so much stronger than we are,
Speaker 1: and that they need to be because they're not as
Speaker 1: intelligent as we are. We can get around with less
Speaker 1: physical strength because we've got these smart workarounds. But to
Speaker 1: more directly address your question, obviously, neither of us knows
Speaker 1: exactly what is the cause of advance human intelligence. But
Speaker 1: I'd point to a couple of things I would suspect,
Speaker 1: and those things are tool use and social dynamics. I
Speaker 1: think those are probably two of the main things that
Speaker 1: shape to the modern human brain. I'm totally welcomed. I
Speaker 1: would love to hear opposing viewpoints, but I think those
Speaker 1: are things that seem pretty practical to me. Now. I
Speaker 1: think there's tons of evidence that the human brain, the
Speaker 1: smart human brain, is a social brain that evolved primarily
Speaker 1: to manage and maintain social relationships, to understand relationships with
Speaker 1: other members of the group to understand facial expressions and
Speaker 1: and nuanced social relationships and reciprocity and status and all
Speaker 1: these kind of things that we think about in highly advanced,
Speaker 1: very complicated social animals. Are there other animals underneath the
Speaker 1: sea that are that have complicated social relationships in that way?
Speaker 1: Maybe some marine mammals, right, maybe dolphins, Yes, certainly, the
Speaker 1: marine mammals are the ones that come to mind, and
Speaker 1: uh memory, serious, there is an example of of of
Speaker 1: a dolphin engaging in some form of tools. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've read about dolphins, like bottlenose dolphins using marine sponges
Speaker 1: to assist them in foraging for food. But then again,
Speaker 1: the dynamics of tool use. I think we pointed this
Speaker 1: out actually in part two of the Aquati Humanoids episode.
Speaker 1: The dynamics of tool use underwater are gonna be a
Speaker 1: little different than they are above water, right Like, if
Speaker 1: you think about so many of the most primitive early
Speaker 1: human tools, they appear to be things that were for
Speaker 1: hitting and throwing, right like these hand axes. We don't
Speaker 1: know exactly what they're for, but these sort of sharpened
Speaker 1: stones that appear to be able to be held in
Speaker 1: the hand look like you could use them to hit
Speaker 1: something or cut it something, maybe for processing animal carcasses.
Speaker 1: And then of course there are also like, uh, like
Speaker 1: spear tips and things like that. I don't know, I mean,
Speaker 1: is throwing as easy underwater maybe, I don't know. It
Speaker 1: seems a little bit harder. But I wonder, I wonder
Speaker 1: if some of just the different physics of resistance and
Speaker 1: buoyancy and things like that in underwater environments would not
Speaker 1: allow the same types of tool developing regimes that you
Speaker 1: could have above water. Yeah. Yeah, And of course I
Speaker 1: think we reference this as well, uh in that episode
Speaker 1: we have the past episodes about the about technology and fire,
Speaker 1: in which we we wonder, like, to what extent could
Speaker 1: an underwater intelligence, even if they got to the point
Speaker 1: where they had tools, could they ever have any kind
Speaker 1: of technology based on fire with being an aquatic organism.
Speaker 1: That's a very good point. Now, I would say that
Speaker 1: I think the evolutionary record indicates that, or the paleo
Speaker 1: anthropology record would indicate that human tool use and pretty
Speaker 1: extreme levels of intelligence were already present before we mastered fire.
Speaker 1: But but I don't know. I mean, you can definitely
Speaker 1: say that fire was instrumental in creating human technological society,
Speaker 1: and you couldn't create something like that underwater where there
Speaker 1: is no fire. But I do think that's a really
Speaker 1: interesting question, Jared and I would like to come back
Speaker 1: to that in the future. Alright, Arnie is signaling us
Speaker 1: now and letting us know that it is time to
Speaker 1: cover some of the listener mail we received following our
Speaker 1: evolution of the anus episode. We've got a lot of
Speaker 1: anacy feedback, that's right. Uh, Yeah, that was I felt
Speaker 1: like a really great episode. Uh, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people really took it to heart. Uh. They were able
Speaker 1: to sort of re see the anus or see the
Speaker 1: anus for the first time. I think it may have
Speaker 1: been our most popular episode ever on social media, though.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that just has to do with it
Speaker 1: having a picture of an anus next to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it was. It was abstract picture, but that was
Speaker 1: a tough one to pick out art for, I tell you,
Speaker 1: and you started going on on Getty images and start
Speaker 1: trying to find the perfect anus picture. Like, nobody's taking
Speaker 1: a photograph of an anus without some sort of an agenda, Right,
Speaker 1: you've got alterior motives. Yeah, A lot of like clinical
Speaker 1: photographs came up having to do the various uh uh,
Speaker 1: sexually transmitted diseases or not, so it was not a
Speaker 1: it was or oh in birth effects too, so it
Speaker 1: was not a pleasant image quest. Sometimes it's a lot
Speaker 1: of fun, this one was more frustrating and occasionally revolting. Well, Robert,
Speaker 1: I give you credit for finding the most pleasant stock
Speaker 1: ardanus out there. Yeah, well, thank you. So we we
Speaker 1: received a number of listener mails. This one comes to
Speaker 1: us from Nis in Copenhagen. Hi, guys, just found your
Speaker 1: podcast a few days ago, and it's really great. There
Speaker 1: is one fun fact regarding the evolution of the anus
Speaker 1: episode I would like to share and which is interesting
Speaker 1: to both the humorous and the serious spectator's mind. There
Speaker 1: is an old Chinese curse you'd wish on your most
Speaker 1: hated antagonists which goes quote, I curse your descendants to
Speaker 1: be born without a toll for ten generation. Sounds funny,
Speaker 1: but in the light of the facts so you laid
Speaker 1: out in the episode, it seems to be a very
Speaker 1: nasty thing to wish for. That is a deeply nasty thing.
Speaker 1: Best and thanks for the good work. Yeah. Indeed, uh
Speaker 1: to to to have the fate of say, certain species
Speaker 1: of scorpions that we mentioned that loses its anus if
Speaker 1: it ends up jettison and its tail because the anus
Speaker 1: is on one of the the outer tail segments, it
Speaker 1: ends up just swelling with the poop until it eventually dies. However,
Speaker 1: I did do some additional research on that scenario, and
Speaker 1: it turns out that it kind of it's not as
Speaker 1: terrible as it sounds, because, on one hand, without its stinger,
Speaker 1: the scorpion is not able to get larger prey, so
Speaker 1: it's having to depend on smaller prey anyway, it's not
Speaker 1: eating as much, and it can still breed. So so
Speaker 1: the idea is, once you lose your tail, you can't poop,
Speaker 1: you can't eat as much, so you're really just kind
Speaker 1: of a breeding missile, like you're trying to spread some
Speaker 1: genetic material before you die. Yeah, but that's what it
Speaker 1: was anyway, basically, So it doesn't it ultimately doesn't interfere
Speaker 1: with the pure functionality of the adult a scorpion. Aren't
Speaker 1: we all just an unpooping breeding missile sometimes? Yeah, when
Speaker 1: you when you get right down to the heart of
Speaker 1: the matter, that's all we are. Okay. This one is
Speaker 1: also about the anus episode from our listener, Jason Jason writes, Hi,
Speaker 1: as I was listening to this episode, I was reminded
Speaker 1: of a poster I remember from the late nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: to the best of my memory. It reads the parts
Speaker 1: of the body were arguing about who should be in charge.
Speaker 1: The legs said they should be in charge because they
Speaker 1: moved the body. The eyes said they should be in
Speaker 1: charge because they see where the body is going. The
Speaker 1: brain said it thinks that it thinks for the body,
Speaker 1: and it should be in charge. The anus said it
Speaker 1: should be in charge. The rest of the body parts
Speaker 1: just laughed. Then the anus stopped working, The legs grew wobbly,
Speaker 1: the eyes grew dam and the brain got foggy, and
Speaker 1: they all agreed to let the anus be in charge.
Speaker 1: The moral of the story is if you want to
Speaker 1: be in charge just to be an goal. Well, it
Speaker 1: certainly drives home. The fact that we touched on quite
Speaker 1: a bit in that episode is that, uh, for the
Speaker 1: most part, if the anus is working, fine, we don't
Speaker 1: really think about it. But if it's if it's not
Speaker 1: working fine, it's hard to think about anything else. That,
Speaker 1: of course, isn't you know, counting any kind of fetishization
Speaker 1: or or or sexual context, which we we basically just
Speaker 1: didn't have room to discuss. We We did get one
Speaker 1: mail we're not going to read here asking us why
Speaker 1: we didn't mention sexual pleasure. Uh, not for any particular reason.
Speaker 1: It just that was in the purview of that episode, right.
Speaker 1: It was challenging enough just to fit all of the
Speaker 1: or or as much of the evolution and functionality of
Speaker 1: the anus as possible into the episode without getting into
Speaker 1: additional um dimensions on the topic. But I mean, but
Speaker 1: certainly the dimension of pleasure and uh in the human anus.
Speaker 1: There is a lot of content out there. I've run
Speaker 1: across the research before, so I would not be opposed
Speaker 1: to exploring that or other dimensions of the anus in
Speaker 1: the future. But but this, this bit of listener mail continues.
Speaker 1: Oh right, So yeah, Jason says, I hope that made
Speaker 1: it us your content filters. It did. On a side note,
Speaker 1: I have a book recommendation. It is Lord of Light
Speaker 1: by Rogers A. Lasnie. I've heard of this one. I um,
Speaker 1: it's actually on my sort of short list because of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's it it has sort of Eastern elements. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: I had not heard of it, but Jason says it
Speaker 1: won the nineteen six Hugo Award. It contains subjects you've
Speaker 1: touched on in the podcast, from palamp cys to various
Speaker 1: ways of obtaining immortality said in a Hindu esque world,
Speaker 1: plus there are a few truly grown worthy puns. And
Speaker 1: then he gives a quote from the book Jacket. Earth
Speaker 1: is long since dead on a colony planet. A band
Speaker 1: of men has gained control of technology, made themselves immortal,
Speaker 1: and now rules the world as the gods of the
Speaker 1: Hindu pantheon. Only one dares oppose them, he who was
Speaker 1: once said Artha and is now Mahassa Matman, binder of demons,
Speaker 1: Lord of Light. That sounds great. I'm I'm all in,
Speaker 1: where how's my future in doing movie trail? It's pretty
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty good. Joe, that's pretty good. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: well this is this is this book made its way
Speaker 1: into my lengthy to read list because he does end
Speaker 1: up invoking the Hindu pantheon here and and there's just
Speaker 1: so much in our in our science fiction and our
Speaker 1: our fantasy that is that is so based on Western
Speaker 1: motifs and uh and Western myth cycles that it's it's
Speaker 1: pleasant to find even uh like, even if it's not
Speaker 1: perfectly executed, to find an example that that actually utilizes
Speaker 1: other mythologies. I've mentioned an author on here before, m A. R.
Speaker 1: Baker Baker. I'm not sure how this particular author pronounces
Speaker 1: it that these are interesting books because he creates this
Speaker 1: kind of far future fantasy scenario that has sci fi elements,
Speaker 1: but it's but it's based more on on on Eastern
Speaker 1: models of of of government and mythology. It's really the
Speaker 1: interesting world. He's well worth looking up if if if
Speaker 1: this at all interests you. His first book is The
Speaker 1: Man of Gold, and you can find it. I think
Speaker 1: it's some of it may be available that that one
Speaker 1: I think is available on kindall now. But also it
Speaker 1: has a fabulous paper bit of paperback art that I
Speaker 1: think was Michael Wheeling if I'm not mistaken. Oh, I
Speaker 1: just looked it up. It's fantastic. It's got a guy
Speaker 1: in the foreground who looks like he's wearing sort of
Speaker 1: a yellow bathrobe holding your crystal ball, and then there's
Speaker 1: a guy in the background who looks exactly like the
Speaker 1: suit the main character wears in Dead Space. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: and if you look closely enough, I think you'll find
Speaker 1: that the protagonist on the cover looks like Jermin and
Speaker 1: Clement if you like. Far. This is decades before the
Speaker 1: Fly of the Concords. But and yet there he is. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm on another literary note, and entirely the
Speaker 1: story about the the anus vying for control of the body.
Speaker 1: That of course reminds me of a segment in Williams
Speaker 1: Burrows Naked Lunch, and if anyone remembers that, I think
Speaker 1: it made its way into the Cronenberg film as well.
Speaker 1: It's been a long time since I've seen that where
Speaker 1: similar scenario the anus is vying for control of the body.
Speaker 1: You know, I should mention briefly that one other listener
Speaker 1: got in touch with us about a ho Chunk legend
Speaker 1: that is about why the anus is wrinkly, and it
Speaker 1: goes back to this story involving the trickster figure in
Speaker 1: the in the ho Chunk legends, uh, and he basically
Speaker 1: he gets a burned anus and somehow this leads him
Speaker 1: to create the wrinkles that are now in everybody's anus. Well,
Speaker 1: every every great great work of literature has to have
Speaker 1: a burned anus in it at some point. Uh, like
Speaker 1: the Miller's tale. Ye, yeah, in the Cannabury Tales. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that store spoiler for the tales, but that ends
Speaker 1: in a burned anus as well. Okay, one more we
Speaker 1: should look at real quick about about anuses and especially
Speaker 1: machines that poop. I guess we don't have to read
Speaker 1: this whole one, but we got an email from our
Speaker 1: listener Steve who mentioned an art slash science exhibit at
Speaker 1: the Mona or Museum of Old and New Art. I
Speaker 1: was assuming that meant Museum of Nasty Art in Tasmania, Australia.
Speaker 1: And uh. He says that there is this exhibit called
Speaker 1: Cloaca by a Belgian artist named whim or Vim Delvoy.
Speaker 1: And he says quote it was originally unveiled at a
Speaker 1: museum in Antwerp, but it was later commissioned for specific
Speaker 1: installation at Mona. The machine is fed twice a day
Speaker 1: and over the course of a number of hours you
Speaker 1: can witness the food progressing through a series of seven
Speaker 1: glass containers that contain the appropriate enzymes and chemicals to
Speaker 1: simulate the human digestive process. And if you time your
Speaker 1: visit to the room at about two PM, you can
Speaker 1: witness the smelly climax as the machine defecates through an
Speaker 1: artificial anus. He sent a video. It's gross. Yes, So
Speaker 1: you know, Cloaca is actually an old favorite of the
Speaker 1: show if you go back and listen to some of
Speaker 1: the older episodes. Uh, we definitely, uh, we definitely referenced it,
Speaker 1: and it is if memory serves uh. He created several
Speaker 1: different versions of the cloaca, So there was I don't
Speaker 1: know if he had a numbered or lettered or what
Speaker 1: have you, but I do seem to remember there were
Speaker 1: different incarnations of this this art installation and uh. And
Speaker 1: you know he wasn't the first to tackle this this
Speaker 1: type of scenario, because there was the the fabulous case
Speaker 1: of the digesting duck, created in the eighteenth century by
Speaker 1: Jaques Deva Kansin. Uh. There was labeled at the time
Speaker 1: as a philosophical toy. It was it was a duck,
Speaker 1: mechanical duck that you fed and then it would poop.
Speaker 1: But in this case, however, it didn't actually process the food. Essentially,
Speaker 1: you put grain in one end and then the other
Speaker 1: end would push out excrement that he had been pre placed.
Speaker 1: But still there was the dream of Cloaco was present
Speaker 1: even back then. If it eats like a duck, if
Speaker 1: it defecates like a duck, it's got to be a
Speaker 1: philosophical toy. Yeah. I also seem to recall there's a
Speaker 1: theory that the creator to get back to where nobody
Speaker 1: thinks about the anus unless a you're you know, um
Speaker 1: obsessed with it or be if it's if it's failing
Speaker 1: you in some way. There is a theory that the
Speaker 1: artist here or the the the machine maker here, uh,
Speaker 1: that he experienced some sort of digestive discomfort and that
Speaker 1: might have made him fixate on the creation of this device,
Speaker 1: the digesting duck. Look it up. In the meantime, we're
Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
Speaker 1: more listener mail. Alright, we're back. So it looks like
Speaker 1: our mail body is bringing us another listener mail. This
Speaker 1: one is seems to be drenched in honey and surrounded
Speaker 1: by swarming bees. Oh boy, this is from our listener Amy.
Speaker 1: Amy says, Dear Robert and Joe, I usually skip the
Speaker 1: Vault episodes because I tend to keep up with the
Speaker 1: podcast as it comes out. But I'm so glad I
Speaker 1: didn't skip this one, so obviously it's about the Tears
Speaker 1: of Ray episode. I'm an active Ray worshiper, with my
Speaker 1: major annual holiday being the Egyptian New Year or web Rumpet,
Speaker 1: the first day of the new year when the sun
Speaker 1: rises before the star serious usually somewhere between July and August,
Speaker 1: depending on your location. There is a whole beautiful mythology
Speaker 1: surrounding web Rumpet, which I encourage you both to look
Speaker 1: into because it's a wild ride. But I like to
Speaker 1: take the day and throw a pot luck and share
Speaker 1: the story of the new year with my friends. As
Speaker 1: you can imagine, one of the foods we keep on
Speaker 1: the table is honey, honey, lemon cakes, sliced apples with
Speaker 1: honey and cinnamon, fresh bread with butter, and honey, spiced
Speaker 1: tea with honey, anything we can think of, along with
Speaker 1: everything you mentioned in the podcast. Part of the importance
Speaker 1: is in the color kmetics. Modern day practitioners of the
Speaker 1: ancient Egyptian religion focus a lot on the symbolism surrounding
Speaker 1: color and for Ray, the color and element gold is
Speaker 1: highly prized and extremely important since most of us cannot
Speaker 1: afford to offer gold, honey, incense, and fire become offerings
Speaker 1: we can call infinitely present to Ray, thank you for
Speaker 1: always being respectful to people of different beliefs while also
Speaker 1: discussing facts and science. It's very refreshing and I appreciate
Speaker 1: you both for it. Best Amy Oh. She also thanks
Speaker 1: us for pronouncing Ray's name correctly, says it was wonderful
Speaker 1: to hear. Well. I can't promise will pronounce everything else
Speaker 1: in this email correctly. I hope I said web rom
Speaker 1: pet right. But this is a fascinating listener email. I
Speaker 1: really wasn't wasn't expecting to hear from modern Ray Worshiper,
Speaker 1: never heard. I don't think we've ever heard from a
Speaker 1: commeticist before. Maybe, but I don't recall I don't recall
Speaker 1: it coming up before now so but anyway, I looked
Speaker 1: up what she said the web rom pet ceremony. I
Speaker 1: have no idea if this practice is traditional or established
Speaker 1: in NACI in Egypt, but I just want to share
Speaker 1: what I found on a blog post by a modern
Speaker 1: commeticist describing what at least that person does for web
Speaker 1: ron pet, which involves the practice of writing all your
Speaker 1: frustrations and things you want to get rid of on
Speaker 1: a clay pot. Then you paint the pot red I
Speaker 1: guess for the color, some bullism that aim you mentioned.
Speaker 1: And then you spit on the pot and you defile
Speaker 1: it and smash it to pieces. So this is like
Speaker 1: a fictional version of the subduing I believe of apophis.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry if I'm getting that wrong, but I think
Speaker 1: you you subdue this evil deity and sort of get
Speaker 1: it out. You defile it, you punish it and destroy it. Wow,
Speaker 1: you know you think, and maybe this is the case.
Speaker 1: This would be a holiday that these paint your own
Speaker 1: pottery places would embrace market. You know, hey, it's it's
Speaker 1: time come in. Paint the paint the paint these these
Speaker 1: bits of pottery with your with with sort of your
Speaker 1: your emotional antagonists. And then you can spit on that.
Speaker 1: Well I don't know, at least defile them there in
Speaker 1: the shop or take them home and to file them.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm not gonna tell anybody how to
Speaker 1: run their pottery business, but it sounds like a great
Speaker 1: idea to me. Well, again, I don't know how widespread
Speaker 1: this practices. It might just be this, you know, this
Speaker 1: one blog post author and their friends. But that's where
Speaker 1: it begins. Right a year from now, I want to
Speaker 1: see it popping in pottery establishments. And hey, if anybody
Speaker 1: out there runs the pottery establishment, paint your own pottery, etcetera,
Speaker 1: or just a pottery studio, I would I would love
Speaker 1: to hear your thoughts on this sacred right. And speaking
Speaker 1: of honey, here comes a rare piece of physical mail, right,
Speaker 1: not even from Carney. Carney is sitting here crying because
Speaker 1: we got this through the snail mail. Right. And and
Speaker 1: by the way, if you're wondering how can I send
Speaker 1: them snail mail, well, if you go to stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com, there's an about section and
Speaker 1: that will include a physical address to send a mail to.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we we received a physical piece of mail
Speaker 1: along with some artwork. Yeah, so I'm gonna read it
Speaker 1: to you now. This comes to us from Gin love
Speaker 1: the show. I listened to all the stuffs. Thank you
Speaker 1: for helping my mind not turn too much during my
Speaker 1: years of raising small children. Keep it up, please, you're
Speaker 1: a recent from the Vault. Episode of Tears of Ray
Speaker 1: was so fascinating. I love gardening and bees. One if
Speaker 1: you pointed out that honey is in fact, be barf.
Speaker 1: That's I think this was you. It is It's true,
Speaker 1: which which made me stop in my tracks and crack up.
Speaker 1: It is be Barf. I painted a watercolor last year
Speaker 1: with a honey jar with more honest and funny labeling.
Speaker 1: I also made a modified honey label version for my
Speaker 1: friends and family who don't like to be reminded of
Speaker 1: the truth. Ha ha. There are two types of people
Speaker 1: in the world. Here are copies for you both. I
Speaker 1: pegged you as be bar if people too, God bless
Speaker 1: and thanks for all you do. So she sent us
Speaker 1: a copy of this watercolor she did, and it is
Speaker 1: a jar of honey with one of those little what
Speaker 1: do you call the thing that's a wooden thing with
Speaker 1: the honey comb shape on the end that you drizzle
Speaker 1: the honey off of. I don't know if that even
Speaker 1: has a name. Oh yeah, it's a honey dipper, which
Speaker 1: I have to say, I love the appearance of a
Speaker 1: honey dipper, but I just find it super messy when
Speaker 1: I try and use one. Maybe I'm using it incorrectly,
Speaker 1: but I just find the squeezy bear to be the
Speaker 1: best method. I thought that the honey dipper only existed
Speaker 1: in honey nut cheerios commercials. I thought it was a
Speaker 1: magical wand used by cartoon B's just the cartoon B
Speaker 1: that was the only person who had access. But anyway,
Speaker 1: it's leaning against a jar of honey with like a
Speaker 1: wooden stopper cork and a bee buzzing around it, and
Speaker 1: the jar of honey is labeled. I'm interested on the
Speaker 1: history of the honey dipper because it is it is
Speaker 1: a highly specialized device. It is a unitask and it's
Speaker 1: not good for anything else, unlike to say a spoon.
Speaker 1: A spoon can be used for anything, including your honey.
Speaker 1: So where did this particular gadget come from. It's also
Speaker 1: not you know, it's it's if you're looking at it
Speaker 1: from like a manufacturing standpoint or a wood maker, a
Speaker 1: woodcraftsman's standpoint, Like it's not a I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: simple device. I don't have any moving parts, but it's
Speaker 1: it's also fairly ornate. You have to you know, it
Speaker 1: has these grooves that collect the honey, kind of like
Speaker 1: stripes on a bee, well, stripes on a cartoon B.
Speaker 1: I don't know if real b is look exactly like that. No,
Speaker 1: not exactly. Their eyes are a little bit different. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Jen for sharing your art with us.
Speaker 1: It's very nice. I actually I took mine home as
Speaker 1: in a little frame. Very nice. All right, we have
Speaker 1: another listener email. Lise comes to us from Jeru quote.
Speaker 1: I'm an ordained priest in training in the Soto tradition
Speaker 1: of Zen Buddhism, and I wanted to comment on the
Speaker 1: recent episode Meditation Lab, Empathy and Energy in regards to
Speaker 1: your comments about Walmart Buddhism. I can't speak for all
Speaker 1: my Dharma brothers and sisters, but my personal opinion is
Speaker 1: that pop culture forms of meditation like iPhone apps and
Speaker 1: secular meditation practices in general are fine if all you're
Speaker 1: after is a kind of surface level self help practice.
Speaker 1: But it is essential to know that, at least in Buddhism,
Speaker 1: meditation is only one part of an integrated system, a
Speaker 1: whole life practice known as the eight fold Noble Path,
Speaker 1: which is designed to eliminate suffering and lead to spiritual awakening.
Speaker 1: When you remove the engine from an automobile, the engine
Speaker 1: still were, but without the rest of the car, you
Speaker 1: will not be going anywhere. And so I wonder if
Speaker 1: those who dabble in pop culture. Meditative practice will eventually
Speaker 1: grow bored when they find that when there is no
Speaker 1: context for their experience and either move on to serious
Speaker 1: practice or ultimately stop practicing. I love your show. It
Speaker 1: never fails to entertain and sometimes even educate me. Keep
Speaker 1: up the good work. I really appreciate this email. That's
Speaker 1: I think like there's a valid point about the UH.
Speaker 1: I like the analogy of removing the the engine from
Speaker 1: the auto automobile and the engine still works, but it's
Speaker 1: not moving the vehicle. Yeah, I definitely appreciate you. Are
Speaker 1: you putting it in the context of the the experience
Speaker 1: of pursuing the entire ratefold noble path, I would say,
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I don't know. He might be
Speaker 1: under selling a little bit the way that experiences and
Speaker 1: practices can be ultimately fulfilling, even decoupled from their original
Speaker 1: spiritual or cultural context. I mean, I think about what
Speaker 1: if a person and was trying to achieve some kind
Speaker 1: of spiritual significance from fasting, and it was inspired by
Speaker 1: the fasting during Ramadan or something, and then you might
Speaker 1: be able to say, well, if you're not going through
Speaker 1: the entire spiritual practice of Islam, you're not really getting
Speaker 1: the full experience of the Ramadan fasting, and that's probably true.
Speaker 1: You you're not getting the full spiritual experience that a
Speaker 1: Muslim would experience while they're doing that, But at the
Speaker 1: same time you might be getting some other truly worthwhile experience.
Speaker 1: I agree. And then, of course, on the topic of
Speaker 1: one is dabbling in and sort of pop culture meditative practices,
Speaker 1: about how they'll they might eventually grow bored or that
Speaker 1: they'll keep going and explore something deeper. I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like that's that's going to be the case, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's I think there's a value in something
Speaker 1: being uh, sort of the introductory level of of a practice,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, then they can keep moving if
Speaker 1: they want, or if they if they grow bored with it.
Speaker 1: I mean, who's to say that a more are spiritual
Speaker 1: and more even authentic version of the practice would have
Speaker 1: resonated with them if this shard of it does not.
Speaker 1: But maybe that's just me. Like I said, everyone's minleage
Speaker 1: may may differ on this, but but I think that's
Speaker 1: that's ultimately one of the cool things about meditative practices,
Speaker 1: yoga practices is that you will find uh, various versions
Speaker 1: of it. You will find incredibly secular versions of it,
Speaker 1: incredibly stripped down. You will find um spiritual versions that
Speaker 1: are either you know, fairly authentic or are sort of
Speaker 1: spiritual in a new way that have gone in a
Speaker 1: new direction that or maybe not as authentic, but present
Speaker 1: a sort of spiritual model for practitioners to involve themselves in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's totally worth pointing out. Is that things that are
Speaker 1: essentially meditation practices exist in multiple religions and outside religion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: even in hyper real religions. Right, Yeah, totally Okay. We've
Speaker 1: got a couple of messages coming in about our Don't
Speaker 1: Drink the Salt Water episode. One was a really great
Speaker 1: email from our listener Jess, and she says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I've been listening to Stuffed Bill your Mind for only
Speaker 1: a couple of months now, but I really dig it
Speaker 1: so far. I have an m f A and creative
Speaker 1: writing and write poetry in my spare time. The topics
Speaker 1: of your show are rife with inspiration for me. First off,
Speaker 1: I wanted to share with you a bit of synchronicity.
Speaker 1: Just a couple of days ago, I was rereading Good
Speaker 1: Old Sammy T. Coleridge's rhyme of the ancient Mariner, I
Speaker 1: would say cole Ridge. I think it's more sort of Coleridge,
Speaker 1: But Sammy T. Colly Ridge is rhyme of the ancient Mariner.
Speaker 1: So imagine my delight when I listened to this morning's episode.
Speaker 1: Just wanted to give you my take on why the poem,
Speaker 1: though very very dark, is still considered a romantic poem.
Speaker 1: Besides the fact of the time period and movement in
Speaker 1: which it was written, which of course is the Romantic
Speaker 1: period in English poetry, one of the main themes the
Speaker 1: poem conveys is finding love of the self and humanity
Speaker 1: by way of nature. The capital in nature, with its
Speaker 1: glory and beauty near superseding or even standing in as
Speaker 1: the concept of God is a very romantic notion, so
Speaker 1: if you care to get into it. Although the Mariner
Speaker 1: and his crew go through some very grim ordeals, and yes,
Speaker 1: everyone except the Graybeard Loon dies, the Mariner grows as
Speaker 1: a character through an act of deep affection for the
Speaker 1: remaining natural life around him that he had previously scorned.
Speaker 1: Right after the entire crew dies, the mariner moans alone alone,
Speaker 1: all all alone, alone, on a wide wide sea, and
Speaker 1: never a saint took pity on my soul in agony.
Speaker 1: The many men so beautiful, and they all dead did lie,
Speaker 1: and a thousand thousand slimy things lived on, and so
Speaker 1: did I. He is very disturbed that the only remaining
Speaker 1: living things are himself and all the gross little sea creatures.
Speaker 1: He reviles these slimy things and himself for bringing this
Speaker 1: misfortune on the ship, feeling utterly alone with no kinship
Speaker 1: for the slimy other living things nearby, However, several stands is. Later,
Speaker 1: something really great happens. He starts watching these water snakes
Speaker 1: swimming on the surface of the water in the moonlight.
Speaker 1: He observes that they are in fact beautiful. He declares, Oh,
Speaker 1: happy living things, no tongue. Their beauty might declare A
Speaker 1: spring of love gushed from my heart, and I blessed
Speaker 1: them unaware. Sure my kind state took pity on me,
Speaker 1: and I blessed them unaware the self same moment I
Speaker 1: could pray, and from my neck so free, the albatross
Speaker 1: fell off and sank like lead into the sea, and
Speaker 1: Jen writes, ah ha. He blesses these shining, previously slimy
Speaker 1: creatures unaware in a bursting moment of kinship and love.
Speaker 1: And of course this is the moment the albatross, the
Speaker 1: symbol of guilt, sin and self loathing, finally falls from
Speaker 1: his neck and he is free. If that isn't romantic,
Speaker 1: I don't know what is. Of course, there's quite a
Speaker 1: bit more to the poem, but he is freed from
Speaker 1: his spiritual burden from that point on, Jess, I think
Speaker 1: that's a great insight. And it is true that there
Speaker 1: there is no love greater than the love for sea snakes.
Speaker 1: You know, I just returned from Kauai, uh and I
Speaker 1: got to see a sea snake. Yeah. This is the
Speaker 1: second time I've gotten to see a sea snake while
Speaker 1: while snorkeling, and uh, it's always kind of a magical
Speaker 1: experience to watch them move amongst the rocks or the coral.
Speaker 1: Did you feel love and kinship? I did? Yeah, the
Speaker 1: like the season, it was cool. I got to see
Speaker 1: this one with my son and so he was we
Speaker 1: were in fairly shallow water, so I was able to
Speaker 1: like hold him and we're looking down this time without
Speaker 1: our snorkels and watching the sea snake move around. It's
Speaker 1: kind of it's kind of magical. Wow. Now. Jess also
Speaker 1: later in the email shares a story about a sodium
Speaker 1: deficiency and her family, kind of mirroring the story we
Speaker 1: talked about in the episode with my friend about sodium deficiency.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I really appreciate the insights on the poem, Jess.
Speaker 1: I I feel that too. The love of the slimy things,
Speaker 1: it matters, and yes it is romantic. I agree, this
Speaker 1: is Slimy things are great. That's why we cover them
Speaker 1: all the time time on this podcast. Totally all right.
Speaker 1: We have another bit of listener male related to the
Speaker 1: Saltwater episode. This comes from Omere. Omere writes, Hi, Robert
Speaker 1: and Joe, I'm a longtime listener to the show, and
Speaker 1: I'm writing to you about your newest episode, Don't Drink
Speaker 1: the Saltwater. I really enjoyed the episode, as I usually do,
Speaker 1: and it made me think about different animals that have
Speaker 1: developed mechanisms to excrete salt from their bodies. I live
Speaker 1: in Israel, and in the Israeli desert, you can find
Speaker 1: two species of rodents that can excrete urine with high
Speaker 1: concentrations of salt, the fat sand rat or fat jeered
Speaker 1: uh eats mostly the leaves of salty plants, like plants
Speaker 1: from the Atriplex genus. Plants from that genus contain a
Speaker 1: lot of salt in them. They have a strong salty
Speaker 1: taste uh and the Hebrew name for the atroplex can
Speaker 1: only be translated as salty plant or just salty. The
Speaker 1: sand rats have two mechanisms to survive such diet. The
Speaker 1: first is to rub their paws and of teeth against
Speaker 1: the salty leaves to excrete some salt crystals from them.
Speaker 1: The second mechanism is the rats ability to excrete urine
Speaker 1: with nine salt. The sand rats never drink water in
Speaker 1: the wild. Less information is available to me about the
Speaker 1: spiny golden mouse, but from what I know, it eats
Speaker 1: mostly the same plants as the sand rat. But the
Speaker 1: golden mouse adds on that diet with stylo metaphora snails,
Speaker 1: which are mostly made out of fresh water. Thanks for
Speaker 1: the great podcast, Looking forward for the next episodes. Well
Speaker 1: thanks Omer, Yeah, yeah, I you know, I didn't even
Speaker 1: think about the possibility of there being a particular species
Speaker 1: uh in the area of Israel, but it but it
Speaker 1: makes sense, uh, you know, get when we're talking about
Speaker 1: um high salt concentrated diets. So that's cool. And I
Speaker 1: just love the idea of of of a fat sand rat.
Speaker 1: It's just such a great name for an organism. Yeah. Oh,
Speaker 1: the scientific name of the fat sand ride is Samamas Obesus.
Speaker 1: I like that, you know, speaking of the desert. It
Speaker 1: looks like we have another bit of listener mail, and
Speaker 1: this one is related to another Vault episode that's come
Speaker 1: out recently about the science of done. Yeah. This one
Speaker 1: comes to us from Lisa, Hi, Joe, and Robert. Thank
Speaker 1: you for your recent from the Vault episodes on the
Speaker 1: technology and biology of Frank Herbert's Dune. Uh. Recent from
Speaker 1: the Vault sounds contradictory, but you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed them so much. I read the Dune series
Speaker 1: a long time ago. I think I was around fourteen
Speaker 1: or fifteen years old, and it truly did blow my mind.
Speaker 1: It'll do that. Yeah, the thrill and wonder of discovering
Speaker 1: the complex world of Dune and all those fabulous concepts
Speaker 1: that Frank Herbert stuffed into it. It's still a vivid memory,
Speaker 1: and your excellent exposition and expansion of those concepts really
Speaker 1: brought it all back. I'm fifty one now, although sometimes
Speaker 1: I think I'm still fourteen inside and I'm inspired to
Speaker 1: go read them again, well, at least the first few.
Speaker 1: I was known to be a bit of a bookworm
Speaker 1: when at school and always had a book on the go,
Speaker 1: always a good idea. I advised that even today, reading
Speaker 1: it every opportunity. I recall reading God Emperor of Doom
Speaker 1: while waiting for a year ten geography class to start.
Speaker 1: The teacher noticed and asked me how I found it,
Speaker 1: to which I replied quite tersely tedious, which made everyone
Speaker 1: around me laugh. I don't know why I wasn't joking,
Speaker 1: but maybe I need to try it again. Thanks for
Speaker 1: the hard work you guys put into your podcast. I
Speaker 1: love them and we'll keep listening. Well, thanks so much, Lisa. Yeah.
Speaker 1: God Emperor of Doom can be a bit tedious. Tedious, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but it was rewarded like I. When I think
Speaker 1: back on my reading of it, uh I I look
Speaker 1: back on it fondly. I don't. I don't think, oh,
Speaker 1: that was a tedious book. I I tend to think
Speaker 1: I finally read that book with the cool sand worm
Speaker 1: human illustration on the front that that I remembered seeing
Speaker 1: on the bookshelves as a child. Uh, and it has
Speaker 1: a it's it's an entertaining sort of philosophical sci fi work.
Speaker 1: I would a lot of being preached at by by
Speaker 1: the God Emperor himself. Less of an adventure though, I
Speaker 1: mean nothing like a five hundred page space sermon. Right, Hey,
Speaker 1: if you're in the mood for it, and nothing else
Speaker 1: will suit, Okay, I think we should look at a
Speaker 1: couple of emails from our Miasma Theory Episode one is
Speaker 1: just a quick correction that I really appreciate. Michael writes
Speaker 1: in saying, in the opening minutes of the Miasma Theory
Speaker 1: and the Evil Era episode, one of the host said
Speaker 1: that the first outbreak of the Black Death occurred in
Speaker 1: Europe in the thirteen forties. That is factually incorrect. The
Speaker 1: Justinian plagues of the five hundreds were the first strain
Speaker 1: of bacteria your sine epestis that caused the Black Death
Speaker 1: nearly a century later. I think meant maybe a millennium later.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Michael is correct about that. If that is
Speaker 1: indeed how we put it, that their forties outbreak was
Speaker 1: the first you're sending epestis outbreak in Europe, that is
Speaker 1: not actually true. Michael is right. The plague of Justinian
Speaker 1: is definitely believed to have been caused by your sending pestus,
Speaker 1: and that is backed up by solid DNA evidence from
Speaker 1: contemporaneous early medieval grave sites. So Michael's right, there was
Speaker 1: a plague in Europe before the forties. A second email
Speaker 1: about the miasma theory episode, Rick writes in with an
Speaker 1: interesting idea. Rick writes, Hey, guys, longtime listener of the show,
Speaker 1: and I really enjoy it. I recently listened to the
Speaker 1: miasma theory episode and kept waiting for radon gas to
Speaker 1: be discussed. It's interesting how the obsolete bad air theory
Speaker 1: actually has some sense of validity when radon gas is
Speaker 1: considered as it literally is bad air that emanates from
Speaker 1: the ground. This poisonous area is actually naturally occurring radioactive
Speaker 1: gas that seeps up from the ground from the decay
Speaker 1: of uranium that is hazardous to one's health, i e.
Speaker 1: Bad air from within the earth. Of course, people in
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages had no concept of rate on gas,
Speaker 1: but if you take the simple into our modern sense
Speaker 1: is laughable. Notion of bad air that comes in the
Speaker 1: night to make you sick and put it against rate
Speaker 1: on gas. Well, it's actually accurate in the plain meaning
Speaker 1: of this antiquated theory. It is fascinating when people create superstitious,
Speaker 1: spooky causes for real world effects and end up accidentally
Speaker 1: kind of sort of getting close to real scientific explanations. Thanks, Rick,
Speaker 1: and I think that's sort of what that episode was
Speaker 1: all about. I mean, they were very wrong about the causes,
Speaker 1: but sort of onto something. All right. Here's one that
Speaker 1: comes to us from Sarah regarding the tomb of the
Speaker 1: first Chinese Emperor. Hey, Rob, Hey Joe. I've been listening
Speaker 1: to the podcast for a couple of years now, and
Speaker 1: I love hearing what new and exciting things you talk
Speaker 1: about each week. This past week's episode on the mausoleum
Speaker 1: for she Huong d how I've always been told to
Speaker 1: write to write his name, reminded me of a conversation
Speaker 1: I had with the history teacher I had back in
Speaker 1: high school. Now, he generally taught U S History, but
Speaker 1: our class was the only World history class. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: had that year. He was one of those spectacular teachers
Speaker 1: who could just lecture and students actually paid attention and learned.
Speaker 1: He was actually the first person to point me in
Speaker 1: the direction of anthropology rather than teaching. We were actually
Speaker 1: discussing World War two at the time, the massacre of
Speaker 1: Nan King. Actually after class, I was asking him about
Speaker 1: other tragedies in China for a research paper for English
Speaker 1: and he kind of joked about how no one had
Speaker 1: gone down into the tomb of she Wong D. Now
Speaker 1: I didn't know what he was talking about at the time,
Speaker 1: but he reminded me of the Terracotta warriors. Ultimately renewed
Speaker 1: my interest in why the warriors were there. I remember
Speaker 1: that I couldn't find much at the time. It was
Speaker 1: two thousand seven and I didn't know about Google scholar,
Speaker 1: but I did present a rather interesting theory. My general
Speaker 1: idea was that she hongd was someone to not give
Speaker 1: up on trying to live forever, even after death. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's accurate. Uh. He might have had some shamans
Speaker 1: or wizards or necromancers bring him back, and he would
Speaker 1: need a deathless army. Hence the terra Cotta warriors. Terracotta
Speaker 1: is surprisingly more durable than a lot of people tend
Speaker 1: to think. It made sense to my seventeen year old mind,
Speaker 1: and it makes sense to my twenty seven year old mine,
Speaker 1: and I hope it makes sense to other people too.
Speaker 1: I was very excited to see this episode pop into
Speaker 1: my cue, and it gave me a reason to finally
Speaker 1: write to you guys. This subject has always interested me,
Speaker 1: and I always love to babble about it whenever it's
Speaker 1: brought up, not very often, if you were curious, Well,
Speaker 1: it won't be my area of study when I finally
Speaker 1: go back to college. I will always love hearing more
Speaker 1: about it. Thank you for doing another awesome episode. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to hear what you guys present to us
Speaker 1: next week from a possible future anthropologist. Sarah. Well, that's
Speaker 1: great to hear, Sarah. I love that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know about your theory. That's interesting and so
Speaker 1: he definitely did want to live forever if he could,
Speaker 1: and he definitely was envisioning some kind of afterlife. I
Speaker 1: don't know about the idea of whether he thought maybe
Speaker 1: he could be brought back from the dead and would
Speaker 1: need a deathless army to accompany him. But that's fascinating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it. I certainly encourage anyone who listened to
Speaker 1: that episode and had similar thoughts to listen to The
Speaker 1: Jade Immortal, the episode that I did with Christian, because
Speaker 1: we talk about a Chinese funeral custom that existed for
Speaker 1: a while where the dead kings and various other important
Speaker 1: royal figures would be entombed in armor of jade essentially
Speaker 1: stone armor um and it gets into we get into
Speaker 1: the various religious and superstistious ideas about the protective powers
Speaker 1: of the stone. I don't I don't know of any
Speaker 1: qualities like that that would have been associated with terra
Speaker 1: cotta offhand. I guess I tend to I tend to
Speaker 1: buy more of that idea that this was presented as
Speaker 1: an alternative to human sacrifice, because it makes sense that, Okay,
Speaker 1: if I'm dying and going somewhere else or becoming some
Speaker 1: other form after death, and warriors, yeah, and I need
Speaker 1: I need warriors. These warriors are great. I want to
Speaker 1: take them with me. And then it would fall to
Speaker 1: perhaps a very clever adviser to say, well, your lordship,
Speaker 1: this is a fine plan, but I know of a
Speaker 1: way that we can do this without totally destabilizing the
Speaker 1: empire after you have passed over, right, yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: well I think it's time to take one more quick
Speaker 1: break and when we come back we will read a
Speaker 1: few more listener mails. Thank thank alright, we're back. What
Speaker 1: have we got? What have we got? Now? What is
Speaker 1: Carney bringing forth? Well, Carney is handing out a mail
Speaker 1: that is waving claws about wildly with scuttling legs up
Speaker 1: in the air. Crab mail. Crab male strikes again. So
Speaker 1: we've got several messages all expressing a similar idea about
Speaker 1: Carl Sagan and the Samurai crabs. This is something that
Speaker 1: there was convergence of thoughts from many of our listeners.
Speaker 1: For example, just one of these expressing this idea, Michelle writes, Hello,
Speaker 1: Mr McCormick and Mr lab No need to be so formal, Michelle,
Speaker 1: But yes, uh glad to hear from you, she says,
Speaker 1: I just listen to your podcast Carl Sagan in the
Speaker 1: Samurai Crabs. Being of an artistic mind more so than scientific,
Speaker 1: I kept thinking of a completely backward sort of theory
Speaker 1: as an explanation for the stunning appearance of the samurai
Speaker 1: warrior's face on the back of the crab. It's probably
Speaker 1: ridiculously stupid, but I'm sharing it anyway. It's not ridiculously stupid.
Speaker 1: Don't feel bad, I'm glad you sent it. So here's
Speaker 1: her idea. The samurai mask is an extremely stylized depiction
Speaker 1: of the human face. Is it possible that the artisans
Speaker 1: designing the mask were familiar with these crabs and based
Speaker 1: the masks on the patterns of the crabs rather than
Speaker 1: the other way around. Artists do this all the time,
Speaker 1: taking designs and inspiration from nature. People see faces anywhere
Speaker 1: there is symmetry, and these crabs look like very stylized faces.
Speaker 1: As an artist, it makes more sense to me that
Speaker 1: some ancient Japanese dude saw one of these crabs and
Speaker 1: thought that would make a dope mask for a samurai
Speaker 1: totally fierce. Well there you have. It makes sense to me,
Speaker 1: but I am fairly dim. Thanks for listening. Love your podcast. Hey,
Speaker 1: no need to neg yourself on that. Lots of people
Speaker 1: got in contact with this idea that what if it
Speaker 1: went the other way around, what if people saw Of course,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't just be the masks. The mask were just
Speaker 1: one realization of this type of depiction of the samurai face.
Speaker 1: So there's the samurai face as depicted in medieval Japanese
Speaker 1: artwork and painting and also on the samurai armor masks
Speaker 1: and wherever you'd see a samurai's face, And quite a
Speaker 1: few people echoed that same kind of idea. What if
Speaker 1: somebody saw the crab and that's what created the faces
Speaker 1: that looked like that in the various artworks and craftworks. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's possible. But then again, we're
Speaker 1: we're sort of seeing a similar thing, which is that
Speaker 1: both of them are stylized depictions of what essentially cues
Speaker 1: from this very easy to signal face structure. Right, You've
Speaker 1: got these lobes at the top, two of them side
Speaker 1: by side, which looked like eyes, and then that comes
Speaker 1: down into some kind of central structure below which looks
Speaker 1: like a nose and a mouth. Uh uh. And so
Speaker 1: maybe it really does look like Samurai warriors. But if
Speaker 1: it didn't look like the mask, and if it didn't
Speaker 1: look like the art, it would still look a lot
Speaker 1: like a face of some kind. I also tend to think,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm certainly no expert on Japanese armor or
Speaker 1: or Japanese medieval art, but I would tend to think,
Speaker 1: if one we're going to adopt the crab motif for
Speaker 1: decorative purposes. You would you would you would invoke the
Speaker 1: full crab. You wouldn't invoke just the the the what
Speaker 1: may look like a face on the back, but there
Speaker 1: would be uh, you know, fancy uh you know there
Speaker 1: there would be there would be claws and legs as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. They're also the fact that
Speaker 1: these crabs are not particularly fearsome creatures, right, They're tiny.
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't necessarily think that somebody would look at
Speaker 1: a crab like this and think, oh, that's what I've
Speaker 1: got to make all the samurai and my art and
Speaker 1: my in my armor and everything look like I would
Speaker 1: think more that there is an artistic tradition established that
Speaker 1: has certain types of ways of exaggerating the facial features
Speaker 1: of a human being, and that this artistic tradition, by coincidence,
Speaker 1: resembles what's on the backs of the crabs. And I
Speaker 1: would write that is more likely, given the stuff we
Speaker 1: talked about in the episode, than the there being a
Speaker 1: causative factor going either way, that either the crabs established
Speaker 1: the faces as depicted in these traditions, or the faces
Speaker 1: shaped the crabs through artificial selection. But that's my take now.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm, I'm I am reminded, however, that there there
Speaker 1: was a Japanese pro wrestler who wrestled under the name
Speaker 1: Grand Naniwa, and he had a mask. It was kind
Speaker 1: of a comedic gimmick that he had, but he hit
Speaker 1: his his lucha libre style mask looked like a crab,
Speaker 1: and he would perform moves with the mannerisms of a crab.
Speaker 1: So he had this move where he would stand would
Speaker 1: be inside the ring and he'd stand on the middle
Speaker 1: rope and then he'd hold his his arms up and
Speaker 1: he did like a crab walk back and forth from
Speaker 1: the road, and then he would jump with like a
Speaker 1: diving elbow. Oh that's good, but definitely invoked the full crab. Robert,
Speaker 1: I've got a problem because I cannot finish doing this episode.
Speaker 1: I just want to go watch videos of that. It's
Speaker 1: pretty great. You you could you could do far worse
Speaker 1: than than spending a few minutes looking at at a
Speaker 1: comedic Japanese pro wrestling. Yeah, but to clarify, I don't
Speaker 1: think that's a stupid idea. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: good to think in that direction. So all the people
Speaker 1: who contacted us with that idea. I think maybe that
Speaker 1: something like that could be just as likely as the
Speaker 1: idea of the artificial selection happening the other way. It's
Speaker 1: just that I think it's a coincidence and that's more
Speaker 1: likely than either one. Yeah, either way, it's it's very
Speaker 1: scientific thinking to say, well, why that way or not
Speaker 1: this way? Then to explore that. That's always a really
Speaker 1: good exercise to try out. When you're seeing a correlation
Speaker 1: between things and you're assuming the cause and goes one way,
Speaker 1: entertain the opposite. What if it's going the other way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for instance, Grand naniwa, Uh, did he do the crab
Speaker 1: walk because he had the crab mask? Or did he
Speaker 1: have the crab mask because he did the crab walk?
Speaker 1: That's a great question. Yeah, we may never know the
Speaker 1: full answer on that one though, So Michelle and all
Speaker 1: the others who contacted us with that idea good thinking.
Speaker 1: I think that's an interesting possibility to consider. Before we
Speaker 1: leave the topic of Karl Sagan and the Samurai crabs,
Speaker 1: I have to mention that our listener, Kevin wants us
Speaker 1: to make giant mutant crabs. Oh, this is a solution
Speaker 1: to the green crab scenario was talking about the invasive
Speaker 1: green crabs and how we have to go to all
Speaker 1: of these various kind of technological extremes, or at least
Speaker 1: we have to contemplate advanced technology to properly process them
Speaker 1: for culinary purposes. Yeah, so, Kevin writes, still in the
Speaker 1: middle of your podcast about the green crab, considering much
Speaker 1: of the discussion had to do with possible selective breeding
Speaker 1: of the samurai crab, I was positive you would suggest
Speaker 1: that one solution to the invasive green crab problem would
Speaker 1: be to selectively breed them to be much larger and
Speaker 1: therefore becoming a better food source. Then continue to release
Speaker 1: these larger crab into the ocean. Over time, as they
Speaker 1: breed with the smaller green crab, the entire population will
Speaker 1: grow in size as a more practical source of food. Well, there,
Speaker 1: I can see various complications arising with that plan, and
Speaker 1: also it would be a very it would be a
Speaker 1: very long form scheme generally would take a while. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, changing wild populations for foods for food reasons
Speaker 1: is not always a great idea, and also is so
Speaker 1: that's gonna be something somebody would be paying to do.
Speaker 1: But then everybody who fishes these crabs would benefit from
Speaker 1: them instead of just the person who did the investment initially.
Speaker 1: And then also it seems like it might not work
Speaker 1: because you're dealing with wild conditions and can you keep
Speaker 1: these populations contained and control them properly? And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can see a lot of reasons that people probably
Speaker 1: aren't going to do that, right, Uh yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 1: I anytime you want to write in to or just
Speaker 1: to create giant mutant crabs, you can do that. That's
Speaker 1: okay to use our email address that way. Yeah, Joe
Speaker 1: is definitely going to notice your email if it includes
Speaker 1: some discussion of mutant crabs, be they telepathic or not.
Speaker 1: So thanks, Kevin. Al Right, here's here's one of our
Speaker 1: emails that received regarding the Proteus Effect episode. Sky writes in, Hey,
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe, kudos for another great episode. This one
Speaker 1: felt like it had mini strings connecting to other topics
Speaker 1: that I've looked into, including your episode on the Tetris effect.
Speaker 1: I can't seem to find a source at the moment,
Speaker 1: but I've also read an interesting point that notes the
Speaker 1: difference in perspective while playing role playing games. There's a
Speaker 1: subtle difference between I attacked the goblin or I tried
Speaker 1: to jump over the gumba and Rodner attacks the goblin
Speaker 1: or I tried to make Mario jump over the gumba.
Speaker 1: You know, this reminds me of playing video games as
Speaker 1: like a young rude child. Uh. And some of you
Speaker 1: may say, say, is there any other kind of child
Speaker 1: that plays the video game but a rude one? But
Speaker 1: I remember like being interrupted and charging people with you.
Speaker 1: You made you made me die? You killed me, you
Speaker 1: killed me? And I do wonder like why did I
Speaker 1: put it that? Why Why didn't I say you made
Speaker 1: my guy die? Like you know, what, is it one
Speaker 1: more syllable to to go that far? And and or
Speaker 1: is I just so connected to the character that I
Speaker 1: thought of Mario as myself. It's weird. It is very weird. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Sky continues to your open question about the proteus effect
Speaker 1: and Werewolf. Oh yeah, and just to revisit, I think
Speaker 1: what we said was, does playing a game like Werewolf
Speaker 1: also change you? Like if you are trying to pretend
Speaker 1: you're not a werewolf and lying in the game, does
Speaker 1: that make you more deceptive after the game's over? So
Speaker 1: Sky says, I have a recent anecdote that fits right
Speaker 1: in some friends and I. We're playing Insider recently, which
Speaker 1: plays similar to Mafia Werewolf, but with a focus on
Speaker 1: figuring out a secret word all our twenty questions. If
Speaker 1: you were assigned the Insider role, you know the word
Speaker 1: the whole time and have to guide the comments towards
Speaker 1: the right answer without making it obvious you know the
Speaker 1: word already by some bizarre string of chance, I ended
Speaker 1: up playing the Insider for seven out of the nine
Speaker 1: rounds we played out of eight players. By the end
Speaker 1: of the sounds like you were cheating. The odds on
Speaker 1: that are not good. I mean, it happens, though, and
Speaker 1: where will if you see like the person who ends
Speaker 1: up being a werewolf all night, and it it ends
Speaker 1: up you know, it ends up working to their favor,
Speaker 1: because what are the odds? Right After a while, by
Speaker 1: the end of the night, it became a running joke
Speaker 1: to just assume I was the Insider if no one
Speaker 1: had any good ideas for anyone else, which ended up
Speaker 1: working for the rest of the night. After the game, however,
Speaker 1: I felt hyper aware of everything I said and double
Speaker 1: checked my words before I said anything to think about
Speaker 1: how they might be interpret did. I couldn't help but
Speaker 1: analyze the complexity of my and others communications even when
Speaker 1: we had returned to normal conversation after the game, and
Speaker 1: this didn't really fade until I went to sleep a
Speaker 1: few hours later. It was truly exhausting. Thanks again for
Speaker 1: all you do. Looking forward to the next episode. Well, Sky,
Speaker 1: that is really interesting. So that's one more example of
Speaker 1: the way that gameplay mechanics and the type of character
Speaker 1: you have to be inside a game doesn't just affect
Speaker 1: you in the moment, but really does follow you home. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's a question of how long it always lasts and
Speaker 1: how intense it is. But now that you mentioned it,
Speaker 1: I think I have noticed that after playing as a werewolf,
Speaker 1: I mainly retain a feeling of mischievousness that follows me
Speaker 1: around after the game's over. That's if I've been one
Speaker 1: of the werewolves, not so much if I've been a townsperson.
Speaker 1: But in my experience, this feeling is retained. Robert, what
Speaker 1: do you think about this? You retain the feeling of
Speaker 1: mischievousness if you were a werewolf, and if the were
Speaker 1: wolves one like the winning and determines the extent to
Speaker 1: which that feeling carries over after the game, And I
Speaker 1: wonder how proteus like effects are modulated by win lost dynamics, Like,
Speaker 1: for example, I know personality manifestation can be controlled by hormones,
Speaker 1: and hormone levels can apparently be affected by winning and losing,
Speaker 1: Like I remember, I've read studies about how like winning
Speaker 1: tennis players have elevated testosterone levels compared to losing players.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's interesting the idea of retaining the
Speaker 1: sense of mischievousness after you've played, because it I wondered
Speaker 1: to what extent the framing mechanism works, because obviously we're
Speaker 1: humans playing the world wolf games, so we tend to
Speaker 1: frame it as a struggle between humanity and bloodthirsty monsters, right,
Speaker 1: but what if you played it the other way? You like,
Speaker 1: open your eyes where wolves, you were the last two
Speaker 1: members of your species just trying to survive, fighting against
Speaker 1: these bloodthirsty human And look how bloodthirsty they are. They're
Speaker 1: murdering each other just on the suspicion that one of
Speaker 1: their their their their fellow villagers might be awarewold they
Speaker 1: deserve to be eaten? Yeah, So, like if you frame
Speaker 1: it like that. I wonder how that would frame the
Speaker 1: way people feel at the end, would you Maybe you'd
Speaker 1: still feel mischievous, but you might feel more like I
Speaker 1: don't know if like truly victorious that you've it's not
Speaker 1: that you've You've you've overcome the odds against a righteous opponent.
Speaker 1: You've overcome the odds against the monsters. You are. You
Speaker 1: are the winning uh noble player here and not not
Speaker 1: the others. Now, I probably sound like a werewolf sympathizer. Now,
Speaker 1: so anyone playing werewolf of the uh will likely suspect
Speaker 1: me right off the bat. Okay, I think we got
Speaker 1: time for two more short ones, all right, uh. First
Speaker 1: one this comes from Tricia on our Animal Lies episode.
Speaker 1: Tricia Rights, Hey, guys, loved your most recent episode on
Speaker 1: animal lies. I work in dog training and behavior, and
Speaker 1: this episode reminded me of a study on dog deception
Speaker 1: published in the journal called Animal Cognition. It proves that
Speaker 1: dogs are definitely capable of deception for personal gain, sneaky
Speaker 1: little things. Uh. Here's an article she shares, and she says,
Speaker 1: for the record, I definitely think you should make animal
Speaker 1: lies a regular feature like Dangerous Food. All the best Trish,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to share this because I looked up
Speaker 1: the study to see what it was. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: was published an Animal Cognition in March. The lead author
Speaker 1: was Marian Haberline of the University of Zurich. And here's
Speaker 1: the short version. So you've got a bunch of dogs
Speaker 1: and you train the dogs to lead human partners to
Speaker 1: a container of food on command. So you say take
Speaker 1: me to food, and the dog takes you there. There
Speaker 1: were multiple containers. There'd be one container that's empty, no food,
Speaker 1: another one has a dry biscuit, and another one has
Speaker 1: an awesome sausage. And some human partners of the dogs
Speaker 1: were the dogs learned were cooperative, meaning when the dog
Speaker 1: takes them to food, the human partner would get the
Speaker 1: food and then give it to the dog, and other
Speaker 1: human partners were competitive, meaning when the dogs showed them
Speaker 1: where the food was, the human partner would keep the
Speaker 1: food for themselves. And after the task was done, the
Speaker 1: dogs learned that they would get a chance to eat
Speaker 1: whatever treats were left over in the unopened containers. So eventually,
Speaker 1: can you guess what happened When the humans would give
Speaker 1: the command to lead them to food, The dogs would
Speaker 1: act differently depending on whether you were cooperative or competitive,
Speaker 1: And if you were one of these competitive humans who
Speaker 1: did not share the food with the dogs, the dog
Speaker 1: would answer the take me to food command by leading
Speaker 1: you to an empty container that had no food in it.
Speaker 1: I don't know where the food went. So basically the
Speaker 1: dogs began to behave like, Hey, if you're not gonna share,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna show you where the sausage is. Interesting, huh.
Speaker 1: I wonder if if there any I wonder how this
Speaker 1: impacts any use of of of the you know, the
Speaker 1: various uses of dogs for say, detection of illicit substances
Speaker 1: or explosives or even some of these areas we're figuring
Speaker 1: out how to use dogs to just detect illnesses. Like,
Speaker 1: it does kind of change things to know that if
Speaker 1: you don't have the the parameters uh laid out correctly,
Speaker 1: that you're gonna have to deal with dog deception right
Speaker 1: as part of the the ordeal. Yeah, if the dog,
Speaker 1: if the dog figures out this isn't working out in
Speaker 1: its favor, it's gonna lie to you. Interesting, all right.
Speaker 1: We have one last bit of listener mail. This comes
Speaker 1: to us from Kennedy Kennedy says, first off, I'd like
Speaker 1: to say that I love the podcast. I've learned a
Speaker 1: lot from listening to it, and I really appreciate what
Speaker 1: you guys are doing. It helps me get through long,
Speaker 1: boring nights at work. A lot of the time. It
Speaker 1: makes me uncomfortable though. That sounds like a bad thing,
Speaker 1: but it's not. There's been a lot of things I've
Speaker 1: learned on the show that directly contradict the things I
Speaker 1: was taught when I was younger. Growing up in religious household,
Speaker 1: my parents put a lot more stock into religion than
Speaker 1: they did science. I'm not religious, and I know that
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff they told me was wrong,
Speaker 1: not because they intentionally misled me, but because as they themselves,
Speaker 1: believed what they said. But even when you know things
Speaker 1: are wrong, it's hard to hear that something you've believed
Speaker 1: for a large part of your life was wrong. Thank
Speaker 1: you for bringing all of this information out, and thank
Speaker 1: you for making me uncomfortable. I hope that as time
Speaker 1: goes by, I can learn to have a better grasp
Speaker 1: on how the world really is and outgrow what I
Speaker 1: was taught when I was younger. Love the show, Thanks
Speaker 1: for all the fantastic episodes. Kennedy, Well, Kennedy, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for getting touched on. I'm glad we could play
Speaker 1: that role for you. I mean, it's one of the
Speaker 1: hardest things to seek out things that make us uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: but it's something we should all try to do more, right, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, we we cover topics on the show that
Speaker 1: make me uncomfortable. Sometimes you know it, and it is
Speaker 1: part of kind of putting yourself in that uncomfortable state
Speaker 1: where you're willing to have your preconceived notions, your preconceived
Speaker 1: beliefs challenged or or even toppled. I mean, and it's
Speaker 1: really easy for us to say that, it's a harder
Speaker 1: thing to actually make yourself do it. You know, like
Speaker 1: everybody acknowledges it's good to think critically about your ideas.
Speaker 1: Everybody acknowledges it's good to try to seek out disconfirmation
Speaker 1: of your biases. But you you sit there and you
Speaker 1: say that, and then what do you really do? I mean,
Speaker 1: most of the time you seek confirmation of what you
Speaker 1: already thought. Uh, And it's just really hard to make
Speaker 1: yourself do that in the moment. But it's also a
Speaker 1: very rewarding thing to do that pays off in the
Speaker 1: long run when you can make yourself do it. I
Speaker 1: also have to say in this email, Kennedy talks about
Speaker 1: things that they were taught that they now see as
Speaker 1: as wrong. I have to say that, like, certainly they're
Speaker 1: gonna be things where you reach your point in life
Speaker 1: and you look back on something you used to believe
Speaker 1: and you think, well, that that was incorrect or that
Speaker 1: was maybe wrong and more of a like a moral
Speaker 1: or ethical way. But I think also in my experience,
Speaker 1: there are times when I can look back on something
Speaker 1: that I used to believe and maybe I can still
Speaker 1: value it, but now I see it from an additional
Speaker 1: per inspective, or maybe like two additional perspectives, and sometimes
Speaker 1: it can actually make that that thing more valuable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, totally. I mean, well, is so the example
Speaker 1: that Kennedy uses in this email is religious beliefs, and
Speaker 1: I think, obviously this being a science podcast, they're going
Speaker 1: to be a lot of religious like literal interpretations of
Speaker 1: a lot of religious beliefs that are just gonna kind
Speaker 1: of come into conflict with science. Right if you believe
Speaker 1: in like a literal six day creation, like sorry, science
Speaker 1: isn't gonna help you there, that's going to come into conflict.
Speaker 1: But also I don't think inherently that the nature of
Speaker 1: our show is necessarily hostile to religion, or certainly not
Speaker 1: hostile to it in all of its interpreted forms. Right. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's if if you believe in like literal historical facts
Speaker 1: through your religion, a lot of times, yeah, the scientific
Speaker 1: approach is gonna come into collision with that. But there
Speaker 1: are also just a lot of ways of being a
Speaker 1: religious person, of having religious beliefs that tend to not
Speaker 1: really overlap with the territory of science. Yeah. I always
Speaker 1: come back to the idea of the tele teleological and
Speaker 1: the causative why you know, one answering like a very
Speaker 1: like fact based why am I here? And one dealing
Speaker 1: with the more like the reason for being, you know,
Speaker 1: a more existential idea of of of who I am
Speaker 1: and why I am here? And in science can answer
Speaker 1: a lot of those questions, but but not necessarily all
Speaker 1: of them, not in a way that maybe as satisfying
Speaker 1: to an individual. And uh, I think it's it can
Speaker 1: be valuable to have a religion and or spirituality or
Speaker 1: or even mythology too to fall back on that. That's
Speaker 1: one thing I always try and stress too with discussions
Speaker 1: of mythology and legend and folklore is that these are
Speaker 1: stories that did not happen, but they are still stories
Speaker 1: that have importance, uh certainly to the to the cultures
Speaker 1: from which they emerged, and to other cultures as well
Speaker 1: that have adopted them. Different did not literally happen is
Speaker 1: sort of a different question than is it true or
Speaker 1: not right? I mean, it's one way of interpreting the
Speaker 1: word true. Yeah, But I mean my bottom line is
Speaker 1: just to say again, I hope that you don't ever
Speaker 1: walk away from our show with the idea that you know,
Speaker 1: adopting scientific skepticism and all that means that you need
Speaker 1: to to throw out all of your beliefs and meaning
Speaker 1: structures and everything like that. I mean, that's not a
Speaker 1: message I want to promote at all. It is, uh,
Speaker 1: the idea that you should critically examine it, and when
Speaker 1: the facts are in obvious contradiction with beliefs, well then yeah,
Speaker 1: you should pay attention to the facts. But I hope
Speaker 1: we never create the false impression that we're trying to
Speaker 1: create an environment where beliefs mythology that gives meaning and
Speaker 1: structure and all that that, all that, all that needs
Speaker 1: to get chucked down the drain. That's not what I feel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean neither. But that being said, if something doesn't
Speaker 1: bring you peace and happiness, then junk it out. What's
Speaker 1: it there for? Yeah, that's my take alright. Well, on
Speaker 1: that note, we've reached the end of our listener mail episode.
Speaker 1: If you would lie to send us listener mail, well,
Speaker 1: we have a few suggestions of how to go about it.
Speaker 1: First of all, we're on social media pretty much all
Speaker 1: the social media's I think we're on the Facebook, the Twitter,
Speaker 1: the Instagram, we're still on the tumbler. And you can
Speaker 1: get in touch with this via all of those websites,
Speaker 1: as well as our home page, the mothership stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com. You'll find links out to
Speaker 1: all of those different websites, as well as all of
Speaker 1: the podcast episodes and various blog posts. Thanks as always
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Tory Harrison.
Speaker 1: And if you'd like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: and send us some listener mail that might get read
Speaker 1: on the show in the future, you can email us
Speaker 1: at Blow the Mind at how stuff Works dot Com
Speaker 1: for more on this and bathands of other topics. Does
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