Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie Douglas, and
Speaker 1: today we're talking about isolation, splendid isolation, which I don't
Speaker 1: know if anyone out there catches the the title here
Speaker 1: with itself of the title of a warrant Sevon song
Speaker 1: that that I've always really done, because it has this
Speaker 1: It starts off by going, uh, I want to live
Speaker 1: alone in the desert. I want to be like Georgia O'Keefe.
Speaker 1: I want to live on the Upper east Side and
Speaker 1: never go down in the street like that. And it's
Speaker 1: so it's kind of like it's it starts off with
Speaker 1: this very very chipper kind of uh yeah, I wanna
Speaker 1: I want to just get away from all these people.
Speaker 1: I want to just you know, I want to move
Speaker 1: away from all these two souful social constraints in my
Speaker 1: life and just sort of do my own thing. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna be like George o'keef and move
Speaker 1: out in the desert, or I'm gonna to isolate myself
Speaker 1: and you know, focus on my art or my my
Speaker 1: writing or my video games or whatever a person solitary
Speaker 1: thing is. You know, I just want to point out,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen that Robert Lamb just just sing for you,
Speaker 1: and no other circumstance would he ever sing. So that
Speaker 1: was that was right. There are other circumstances where I sing.
Speaker 1: You just don't really bust out songs much. So I
Speaker 1: just wanted to to just say that was a really
Speaker 1: special moment. Well, I think the thing is, we did
Speaker 1: the Electronic Music podcast, and we we've used actual music
Speaker 1: samples and that's all. I'm good, but it takes a
Speaker 1: little more work. So it's it's not that I'm brave,
Speaker 1: I'm just lazy because we could actually just sample the
Speaker 1: Warren Yvon song, but or I could just sing it.
Speaker 1: But anyway, that the song in question starts off with
Speaker 1: this very idealized I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: to my isolation in my life. I'm gonna move away
Speaker 1: from people and and social requirements and I'm going to
Speaker 1: be better for it. Well, I mean it's the hermit fantasy, right,
Speaker 1: I Mean, every once in a while, we just get
Speaker 1: sick of our fellow humans and we say, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I'm just done with all you guys. Yeah. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: if I could just be free of all of you,
Speaker 1: I would be free of what ails me. That that
Speaker 1: is an illusion. But like a lot of warren Zy
Speaker 1: Fund songs, the lyrics get progressively darker as the song progresses.
Speaker 1: And uh, and so by the end, the lyrics like
Speaker 1: it's talking about Michael Jackson and Disney World taking Goofy's
Speaker 1: hand and vanishing into the world of self, and which
Speaker 1: is I think the darkest part of that song for
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons. Yeah, I mean, because it's at
Speaker 1: that point it's still kind of beautiful, but weird. It's
Speaker 1: like just departing into into personal fantasy. And then by
Speaker 1: the end he's talking about putting tinfoil up in the
Speaker 1: windows and lying down in the dark to dream. And um,
Speaker 1: and I find that when you when you look at
Speaker 1: the research and when you look at human experience, this
Speaker 1: is kind of how it goes. Like on one level,
Speaker 1: there is the hermit fantasy. But when people actually do
Speaker 1: find isolation, if they actually if it's thrust upon them,
Speaker 1: or they seek it out, or they just sort of
Speaker 1: find themselves there at some point in their life. Uh,
Speaker 1: the effects are only detrimental um. Like what one example
Speaker 1: that I come back to is U has to do
Speaker 1: with one of my favorite authors, a guy in the
Speaker 1: name of Clark Ashton Smith, who was a horror, fantasy,
Speaker 1: sci fi, weird fiction writer of the early mid twentieth century,
Speaker 1: and he ended up living kind of a hermit's life
Speaker 1: out in the middle of nowhere. And while he lived
Speaker 1: longer than either HP Lovecraft or Roberty Howard's sort of
Speaker 1: you know, famous contemporaries at the at that time, he
Speaker 1: ended up spending the like the last like large portion
Speaker 1: of his life just sort He would do some art
Speaker 1: and stuff, he would do some weird sculpture, but he
Speaker 1: didn't really write that much anymore. So I'll come back
Speaker 1: to that. I'll think of, like, here's a guy who
Speaker 1: moved out into the middle of nowhere and really didn't
Speaker 1: get that much done, or didn't get that much done
Speaker 1: that anybody would ultimately care about. Well, I think it's
Speaker 1: interesting that he didn't write any movie because some of
Speaker 1: that requires an understanding of relationships and and the way
Speaker 1: that we interact with one another, right, and if you
Speaker 1: don't would have that sort of feedback in your life,
Speaker 1: than you could seriously lose touch with with that part
Speaker 1: of yourself, part of your connition into the way that
Speaker 1: our brains work, and our brains are quite simply not
Speaker 1: meant to work in isolation. And so that's what we're
Speaker 1: gonna discuss in this podcast. Before we do, though, let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and hit on some loneliness stats. Uh. These
Speaker 1: are some stats I got out of a Psychology Today
Speaker 1: article called predict Predictors of Loneliness um And through not
Speaker 1: only in this article, but throughout the literature, you often
Speaker 1: find references to lonely people and non lonely people. I
Speaker 1: find non lonely people to be a very clunky term.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's a better line to use,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I think we just have to put up
Speaker 1: with it. Um. So, lonely people were more likely in
Speaker 1: studies to be younger, to have less sex, to get
Speaker 1: less sleep, to make less money, and have more health issues,
Speaker 1: with drug use being the number one health concern among
Speaker 1: lonely people. Non lonely people were more likely to older,
Speaker 1: to sleep eight to ten hours a night, to have
Speaker 1: sex at least once a week or a few times
Speaker 1: a month, describe themselves as a religious or spiritual U
Speaker 1: have a spouse or partner who access as email or
Speaker 1: the internet, daily volunteer, belonged to local community organization, have
Speaker 1: five or more people with whom they discuss personal issues
Speaker 1: and be married. So there you go. Well, and then
Speaker 1: there's this idea of social isolation to right, um, And
Speaker 1: this is from Molly Edmunds article on how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. It's called what are the Effects of Isolation
Speaker 1: in the Mind? And according to researcher John Cacabo. Sorry
Speaker 1: for our Italian listeners, if we have any um at
Speaker 1: the University of Chicago, of all people are unhappy because
Speaker 1: of social social isolation at any given moment. Okay, So
Speaker 1: social isolation could occur for a myriad of factors, right,
Speaker 1: I mean it could be because, uh, you know, you're
Speaker 1: you're part of the senior population and you just don't
Speaker 1: get to see people as often. Or could be that
Speaker 1: you have a disability that limits the amount of interaction
Speaker 1: you have with people, right, Yeah, and uh, and definitely
Speaker 1: there's social isolation, and then there there's isolation as far
Speaker 1: as your physical setting goes. And sometimes a person is
Speaker 1: encountering both of these or just one of these, um as,
Speaker 1: we'll discuss, right, And that's not to say that that
Speaker 1: the senior population, where people of disabilities all are socially isolated.
Speaker 1: It's just certain circumstances sort of lend themselves more to
Speaker 1: that um happening. So, and we also have social isolation
Speaker 1: that we foisted upon ourselves, and then there's also social
Speaker 1: isolation that we then coerced into. And we'll talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about that, particularly with the prison population, but
Speaker 1: let's talk about what actually happens in the brain when
Speaker 1: you are socially isolated. One study that I was looking
Speaker 1: at was from the University of Chicago, and this, like
Speaker 1: a lot of these, involved like two groups. There's the
Speaker 1: no non lonely group and the in the group the
Speaker 1: lonelies and the non lonelies, which you know, I guess
Speaker 1: you just put out the call for it. I wonder
Speaker 1: if it's easier to get the lonelies or easier to
Speaker 1: get the non lonelies, because the non lonelies maybe have
Speaker 1: stuff going on. And then do you run the risk
Speaker 1: of poisoning your lonely test group by bringing them in
Speaker 1: and having them hang out together, or do you just
Speaker 1: make sure they're isolated? And I think you isolate them. Also,
Speaker 1: there's a question about extrovert and introvert too. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: so as being part of this, Like, if you're an introvert,
Speaker 1: you're probably more lonely. I would say I don't know,
Speaker 1: because I'm a part time introvert, but I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: that I'm completely lonely. Okay. Anyway, this study University of
Speaker 1: the University of Chicago. They showed the lonelies and the
Speaker 1: non lonelies photographs of people in both pleasant settings and
Speaker 1: unpleasant settings. So like one, uh, one photo will be
Speaker 1: a person hanging out in a playground, and another one
Speaker 1: will be a picture of somebody getting bit by a
Speaker 1: poisonous snake in a playground. So okay, one's pleasant, one's
Speaker 1: not pleasant, right so um. When viewing the pleasant pictures,
Speaker 1: the non lonely subjects showed much more activity in the
Speaker 1: section of the brain known as the event roll straight um,
Speaker 1: more than the lonely subjects. Right and uh. This particular
Speaker 1: part of the brain plays an important role in learning.
Speaker 1: It's also the part of the brains the reward center
Speaker 1: that's generally stimulated by things like food and love. So
Speaker 1: the lonely subjects displayed far less activity in this region
Speaker 1: while viewing pleasant pictures, and they also had less brain
Speaker 1: activity when shown the unpleasant pictures. When non lonely subjects
Speaker 1: view the unpleasant pictures, they demonstrated activity in the temporal
Speaker 1: parietal junction, an area of the brain associated with empathy,
Speaker 1: and the non lonely subjects had a had a much
Speaker 1: lesser response. So this is an interesting view into how
Speaker 1: loneliness affects our empathy. The non lonelies were able to
Speaker 1: demonstrate more empathy for the person in the bad situation
Speaker 1: in the unpleasant photo than the lonely people, which I
Speaker 1: found found really interesting. Yeah. Well, and again that's because
Speaker 1: you know, we've got the mirror neurons, right, We've talked
Speaker 1: about mirror neurons and how we can't help but mimic
Speaker 1: each other, and in mimicking each other, when we are
Speaker 1: faced with each other and um communicating with with one another,
Speaker 1: you know we are experienced an emotional jolt because we're mimicking.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're smiling at me, then I'm going
Speaker 1: to smile back, and I'm going to feel that emotion.
Speaker 1: So that makes sense that if you're isolated, then you're
Speaker 1: not as connected to those feelings of empathy. Well, we
Speaker 1: can't help but think of the the stereotype of the
Speaker 1: crazy hermit with a shotgun, right, Yes, I wasn't thinking
Speaker 1: shotgun now really I think shotgun or maybe pitchfork or something.
Speaker 1: But well, yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's different. You
Speaker 1: grew up like in Michigan, right, but in the South,
Speaker 1: which in theory actually shotgun should be you know, front
Speaker 1: center in my mind. Okay, well, well, Michigan people know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about here. Okay, So the crazy hermit
Speaker 1: with a shotgun, and the idea that he's going to
Speaker 1: come up to you and he's going to be very
Speaker 1: obtuse and belligerent and he's gonna be all, get off,
Speaker 1: model daan Ander, I'll shoot you kind of a thing.
Speaker 1: Um with that accent, with that accent, I guess that's
Speaker 1: more of a that's my Michigan hermit accent. It would
Speaker 1: be more Southern are No, I'll roll with that. But
Speaker 1: that's interesting that you you look at it that way,
Speaker 1: because people who undergo sensory deprivation, right, which is part
Speaker 1: of isolation, they find that the central executive center of
Speaker 1: their brains are affected, and those that part of the
Speaker 1: brain controls language, memory, and vision. Yeah. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that a little bit more too when
Speaker 1: we talk about prisoners and hostages. Okay, but but yeah,
Speaker 1: just on a on a very basic level, you can
Speaker 1: imagine the hermit who is not able to empathize with
Speaker 1: the person. He's he's he's he's getting onto. He's maybe
Speaker 1: not able to communicate as well, and he's his brain
Speaker 1: seems a little foggy too because he has no or
Speaker 1: very limited interaction with people, and and and it's affecting
Speaker 1: his brain. It's crazy hermit brains. Well. And now that
Speaker 1: he's probably really stressed, because apparently lenliness actually leads to stress.
Speaker 1: And researchers have had subjects estimate room temperature. This is
Speaker 1: interesting room temperatures after recalling a time that they were
Speaker 1: snubbed or socially excluded, and the subjects reported colder temperatures
Speaker 1: than the participants who were asked to remember times with friends.
Speaker 1: And this actually suggests that we can we can feel
Speaker 1: social chills if we feel excluded or isolated. Um again,
Speaker 1: this is you know, acting on our body or physiology,
Speaker 1: and that you know, that's a type of stress that
Speaker 1: you would feel. Now another interesting study that relates to
Speaker 1: how loneliness affects just our basic mental process and um.
Speaker 1: There have been various studies with mice where they look
Speaker 1: at the effects of exercise on neurogenesis, which is u
Speaker 1: creating a new brain cells, just basic brain upkeep I
Speaker 1: guess you can think of it, uh in those terms.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the rewards of exercise, right right,
Speaker 1: right when you exercise, you get this big burst of
Speaker 1: new neurons and neural connections, right yeah, and and another
Speaker 1: great reason for exercise. So in these studies, they would
Speaker 1: put the mice through the wheels and then then study,
Speaker 1: you know, how much neurogenesis was going on. And then
Speaker 1: another study came along and they decided, well, we're going
Speaker 1: to test it with rats because rats are a much
Speaker 1: closer neurological for humans. Yeah, And so they put these
Speaker 1: rats in and the rats tanked across the board like
Speaker 1: the ones that had exercise and the ones that didn't.
Speaker 1: And they're like, what happened? So they studied it and
Speaker 1: they found that the problem was that these rats had
Speaker 1: been isolated beforehand. Okay, rats are are very um, they're
Speaker 1: very social, secial creatures, right, Yeah, that's why they're always
Speaker 1: hanging out together, you know, chatting coffee houses, coffee houses.
Speaker 1: And incidentally, as we discussed in the past, that's why
Speaker 1: they can be tickled and laugh. That's actually you're right,
Speaker 1: that can be We're not making that up. We have
Speaker 1: to go back to our humor podcast for details on
Speaker 1: that tidbit. Yeah. So they were putting them in there
Speaker 1: without without any socialization. They've been isolated, and it actually
Speaker 1: prevented the exercise from having a positive effect on brain activity. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And they think that is because when when you undergo exercise,
Speaker 1: it's a type of stress, right, and so the stress
Speaker 1: of isolation, the stress of exercise didn't allow this neurogenesis
Speaker 1: to take place, these new neural connections to take place.
Speaker 1: Whereas you know with with the the rats that were socialized, right,
Speaker 1: they did have they went back and there they started
Speaker 1: socializing these rats. Then they were benefiting from the exercise. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the solitary ones not at all. Yeah, which it
Speaker 1: makes me think of the various sci fi films that
Speaker 1: we've had where they'll be like a lone solitary person
Speaker 1: in space, generally with some robots be it. You know,
Speaker 1: Bruce Dearn and Silent Running, or Sam Rockwell in Moon
Speaker 1: or or you know Joe Robinson on the Mystery Sentence
Speaker 1: Theater to a lesser extent because they don't really get
Speaker 1: into the science there. But you'll see somebody like running
Speaker 1: on a treadmill, staying in shape, uh and uh and
Speaker 1: going a little crazy and uh. And now that I
Speaker 1: think about it, I'm like, well, Bruce Tern's character probably
Speaker 1: isn't benefiting from any exercise that he's doing because he
Speaker 1: doesn't have anybody to talk to except these two robots
Speaker 1: that are very not very expressive at all. It's interest
Speaker 1: thing that you say that, because they have noticed that
Speaker 1: people who are in isolation and animals who are in
Speaker 1: isolation begin to pace. And the reason they do this,
Speaker 1: they pose it that because they don't they're not getting
Speaker 1: this sort of stimulation that they would otherwise, they're creating
Speaker 1: it for themselves. Like the brain needs constant input, it
Speaker 1: turns out, and so being on a treadmill pacing back
Speaker 1: and forth, we'll give you at least something with the
Speaker 1: something that your brain can play with, some sort of input. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like you you know how like some or maybe
Speaker 1: a lot of I'm not really an engine person, guys.
Speaker 1: But you'll have like an engine on a boat, right,
Speaker 1: and it'll be designed to work in the water. It
Speaker 1: will depend on the water. If you run it out
Speaker 1: of the water too long, it's gonna overheat because it
Speaker 1: doesn't have water interacting with the mechanisms. I kind of
Speaker 1: think of that in terms of the brain, because our
Speaker 1: brains have evolved to help us navigate. As we've discussed before,
Speaker 1: a world of fixed and movable objects, multiple fixed and
Speaker 1: movable objects, a world of symbols, a world of social interaction,
Speaker 1: and just evolutionary we've survival has selected for those those
Speaker 1: those properties. So if you take us out of that
Speaker 1: environment and put us in a situation where things are
Speaker 1: not changing, where things are not moving, where there are
Speaker 1: no symbols, or there's the same symbols are are there
Speaker 1: and they're staying the same, and there's no social um
Speaker 1: strata to deal with, then what does the brain start doing? Right,
Speaker 1: as you say, it starts having to create work for itself.
Speaker 1: It starts having to Uh, this is where you end
Speaker 1: up with with situations of paranoia where someone has to
Speaker 1: sort of aspire some sort of movement or logic to
Speaker 1: the world around them. It needs a story to glom onto. Really. UM,
Speaker 1: this was interesting. There's a documentary called Alone. It's documentary
Speaker 1: by the BBC, and what they did is they recreated
Speaker 1: an experiment from the nineteen fifties in which um, some
Speaker 1: some college students were put in isolation for forty eight hours.
Speaker 1: And this documentary by a man with an axe, Yes
Speaker 1: with this with the hockey mask on UM. But in
Speaker 1: this documentary, what they did is they took six people
Speaker 1: and isolating for forty eight hours in various ways. But
Speaker 1: in the documentary, you see this woman becoming convinced that
Speaker 1: the sheets on her bed that she's in complete darkness
Speaker 1: by the way, are are sopping wet, and she becomes
Speaker 1: very angry about it. And what's happening is that she
Speaker 1: doesn't have that sensory input and so she's becoming confused
Speaker 1: about the you know what she can pick up around her. Um,
Speaker 1: And although the sheets were cold, they certainly weren't wet,
Speaker 1: and so she couldn't accurately square her sensory perceptions with reality. Again,
Speaker 1: that's that feedback that we really need. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: a it's also important to note and this is something
Speaker 1: that's definitely been observed in prison systems with people in
Speaker 1: solitary confinement. Is that there if there are pre existing
Speaker 1: mental conditions, if there's any kind of um, you know,
Speaker 1: psychosis going on already, Um, solitary confinement is just going
Speaker 1: to aggravate it and make it worse. And and and
Speaker 1: so people with with previousing conditions are going to be
Speaker 1: able to cope with it far less. Yeah, And we'll
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that in a second. But um,
Speaker 1: i'll write up this break, we'll talk more about that
Speaker 1: BBC documentary. We're gonna leave you alone for a minute.
Speaker 1: This podcast is brought to you by Intel, the sponsors
Speaker 1: of Tomorrow and the Discovery Channel. At Intel, we believe
Speaker 1: curiosity is the spark which drives innovation. Join us at
Speaker 1: curiosity dot com and explore the answers to life's questions.
Speaker 1: And we're back. I thought you would be back. See
Speaker 1: there's there's some feedback going on. Um, okay, So the
Speaker 1: BBC documentary alone, they just more specifics on this. There
Speaker 1: were six people. They're deprived of sensory input. Essentially, they're
Speaker 1: put in solitary confinement for forty eight hours and observed
Speaker 1: by researchers. UM. One of the findings is that around
Speaker 1: thirty hours into the experiment they began to pace back
Speaker 1: and forth, which we talked about and UM, it was
Speaker 1: also noted that they began to hallucinate and they began
Speaker 1: to get very aggressive. UM. And just so people know,
Speaker 1: like there are two groups of three, one of them,
Speaker 1: one of the groups were given UM these I think
Speaker 1: they're called arm cuffs, and so they can't feel anything,
Speaker 1: that just covers their entire arm. And then they are
Speaker 1: also given goggles and so although the lights are on,
Speaker 1: they can't see anything too clearly. It's just it's sort
Speaker 1: of fuzzy. And then they they're given white noise or
Speaker 1: sort of that's piped into their cell and a horror movie.
Speaker 1: Because I'm sure, I'm sure, And part of me did wonder,
Speaker 1: you know, because it's a documentary like where was the
Speaker 1: anti upped? Psychologically, because when people know that they're being filmed,
Speaker 1: obviously they behave in different ways. But then I thought
Speaker 1: to myself, no, I think that anybody who is under
Speaker 1: walk and key for forty eight hours by themselves, you know,
Speaker 1: either with arm cuffs on and goggles and white noise
Speaker 1: or in a cell that's completely dark for four hours
Speaker 1: is going to start ago a little bit nuts and um. Again,
Speaker 1: this was an experiment from the nineteen fifties that they
Speaker 1: recreated for this documentary. There was a two thousand seven
Speaker 1: study the ties in with this from the University of
Speaker 1: Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, and they reported that
Speaker 1: anxiety and aggression that results from social isolation trace to
Speaker 1: altered levels of an enzyme that controls production of a
Speaker 1: brain hormone. The two enzymes that are needed for the
Speaker 1: production of alo pregnant aline, a brain hormone that acts
Speaker 1: to reduce stress, to the regulation of gabba um and
Speaker 1: which is a really important neurotransmitter UH. They found that
Speaker 1: the level of one of these enzymes, called five alpha
Speaker 1: reductase type one, was reduced nearly fifty in lonesome mice UH,
Speaker 1: and levels of the other enzyme did not change. But
Speaker 1: but this is an interesting insight into how um, you know,
Speaker 1: aggressive behavior emerges in isolated individuals or mice. Right, the
Speaker 1: hermit becomes super as for the gun and starts freaking out. Yea,
Speaker 1: I you you're going to bring it back to the hermit.
Speaker 1: So isolation can't be used as a weapon. Yes it can. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: back go to your room. Well yeah, right, and in
Speaker 1: the corner. And if you're depriving your kid of social
Speaker 1: interaction and here's grounded, yes, and they have to go
Speaker 1: in the room, then I mean obviously they're bothered by
Speaker 1: unless they have access to their PlayStation and without no
Speaker 1: no computer, no internet, grounded from the internet for a week. Well,
Speaker 1: I never thought about it before. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I have a kid. I never thought about it. Was like,
Speaker 1: solitary confinement might go to your room. Okay, you have
Speaker 1: to think about that. So the roots of that go
Speaker 1: to the box. Kid. I'm gonna start saying that the
Speaker 1: roots of this actually go back to dr Well, actually,
Speaker 1: the roots of this or you know, this has gone
Speaker 1: back for a very long time, this idea of solitary confinement.
Speaker 1: But the first time a cave man was not invited
Speaker 1: to a party, yeah, felt chills, ye, and then painted
Speaker 1: about it in the cave. Uh. Doctor Donald Hebb, he
Speaker 1: was a prominent fixture in the nineteen fifties and sixties
Speaker 1: psychology community. Um, and there's not a lot of definitive
Speaker 1: information about his experiments with isolation. It's kind of you know,
Speaker 1: the heaven. Some people who say that he was sort
Speaker 1: of the feeder system for the CIA in terms of
Speaker 1: how they conduct torture then and even now today. Um.
Speaker 1: But we do know that he had student volunteers at
Speaker 1: McGill University where he was the head of psychology. Uh,
Speaker 1: put on UM goggles, gloves and ear muffs and then
Speaker 1: he put them in air conditioning cubicles and low and
Speaker 1: behold in twenty four hours hallucinations four to eight hours.
Speaker 1: They suffered complete breakdowns. Uh. And he noticed he noticed
Speaker 1: that they also suffered a disintegration of personality. And this
Speaker 1: is very again similar to the torture techniques used at
Speaker 1: Guantanamo Bay. His research was eventually tagged is too cruel
Speaker 1: and shut down. UM, but we do know from this
Speaker 1: research that this just could be very effective as a
Speaker 1: means of torture or as a weapon of of trying
Speaker 1: to get someone to um been to your will, so
Speaker 1: to speak. UM. In the BBC documentary again, uh, you
Speaker 1: know this was a recreation of of what heb had done.
Speaker 1: And you see this comedian who's who's one of the
Speaker 1: participants in this documentary, and he's the first to crack
Speaker 1: and you think about it, and this is this really
Speaker 1: extroverted guy who depends on feedback from his audience all
Speaker 1: the time, needs it, craves it. So it's very interesting
Speaker 1: to see that behavior began to show up very early on,
Speaker 1: so we know they began to get agitated, they began
Speaker 1: to hallucinate. But by the end of their stay in
Speaker 1: the documentary, it turns out that their memory and their
Speaker 1: information processing abilities were tested or retested, because they were
Speaker 1: tested at the beginning and they were found to be
Speaker 1: quite compromised, which would make sense because while they were
Speaker 1: in the tank, they were basically in a reality to
Speaker 1: the program. They were in a reality TV program. Their
Speaker 1: their minds were sapped. Yes, their minds were sapped, um,
Speaker 1: but also like the circadian rhythms, within within hours, they
Speaker 1: began to to lose touch of what time it was,
Speaker 1: and the circadian rhythms just sort of failed them and
Speaker 1: they began to nap and um think that, oh, well,
Speaker 1: it must be nighttime and while away the time in
Speaker 1: that manner. Yeah, I mean, it just goes back to
Speaker 1: we are beings that have evolved to live in a
Speaker 1: certain environment, and if we're in an altered environment or
Speaker 1: we're taken out of that environment entirely. Um. It's detrimental
Speaker 1: to how we work so um, which is why it's
Speaker 1: so effective. And in a place like Guantanamo, right right,
Speaker 1: you don't have to to do anything physically cruel when
Speaker 1: you can just say, well, I'm not going to you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to break your fingers, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to beat you. I'm just going to leave you alone
Speaker 1: until that loneliness drive you nights. Yeah. And this is
Speaker 1: from a Wired article and Solitary confinement um, in which
Speaker 1: they talked to psychologist Greg Haney, and he says that
Speaker 1: it's not just that psychological isolation is a painful experience,
Speaker 1: but that when people's sense of themselves is placed in jeopardy,
Speaker 1: they are more malleable and easily manipulated. In a certain sense.
Speaker 1: Solitary confinement is thought to enhance the effectiveness of other
Speaker 1: torture techniques, so it's used to break down the person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in general, Yeah, we interact with people. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like I was talking about it earlier. You have
Speaker 1: that that temptation. No, this isn't another podcast. Sorry, we're
Speaker 1: talking about something bothers you. And even if you're if
Speaker 1: there's no one around the vent to you might be
Speaker 1: attempted to go on the internet to vent about your
Speaker 1: pet peeve. Well, part of that is is we're reaching out.
Speaker 1: We have to have somebody else sort of tell us, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is So this is the way the world works,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. Yes, this is the way the world works.
Speaker 1: This is how I work, right, Yes, this is how
Speaker 1: you work. Someone that will agree with you, like, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: you know that reality shows totally are annoying, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I just did you verified you know what I just
Speaker 1: said and validated my my belief system. Well, it's this
Speaker 1: the story of I, right, And we've talked about this
Speaker 1: before too, unconscious or consciousness, the story of I that
Speaker 1: we continually are feeding data to. So once you write,
Speaker 1: once you take away the feedback, then then who am I?
Speaker 1: Without that we'll get more into space and a little bit.
Speaker 1: But NASA, of course, is very interested in how isolation
Speaker 1: affects us, you know, because they're very interested in sending
Speaker 1: people into isolated environments far from the Earth and far
Speaker 1: often from from most other people. So uh, they have
Speaker 1: they have found that one of the things they have
Speaker 1: to keep an eye on is that you'll say so
Speaker 1: you have eight people living in close confines, annoying the
Speaker 1: heck out of each other, and then who are they
Speaker 1: going to vent to? They can't vent to each other
Speaker 1: because you know, most of the time you're gonna have
Speaker 1: a little more decorum than that. You know, if if
Speaker 1: you if you're stuck in a in a tube with
Speaker 1: John and Sally and John keeps smacking his gum um,
Speaker 1: you know you're not gonna complain to to you know,
Speaker 1: to the to this guy about it. You're man to
Speaker 1: that person for five more months. Yeah, So they found
Speaker 1: that it's it's very much an item of concern. They
Speaker 1: found that journal keeping actually helps because it helps peo
Speaker 1: put sort of a they're venting, but then they're also
Speaker 1: they're forced to really think about how they're feeling about things.
Speaker 1: Like they they did a study where they uh took
Speaker 1: ten people on the International International Space Station and they
Speaker 1: had to keep a journal and it just, you know,
Speaker 1: generated like something like a thousand and something pages. It
Speaker 1: was a lot of a lot of journal writing came
Speaker 1: of this. But the people would generally they would start
Speaker 1: off being like, oh man, this sucks, but then they
Speaker 1: were forced to think, well, actually, the International Space station
Speaker 1: is pretty cool, and it's you know, the situation is
Speaker 1: not that bad really, and so they have to actually, um,
Speaker 1: look at at how they're feeling about that they were
Speaker 1: reframing it right so that they could survive, which is
Speaker 1: really interesting because that's something that a lot of prisoners do,
Speaker 1: specifically prisoners who are in solitary confinement. And it's estimated
Speaker 1: that there's about twenty five thousand prisoners sitting in solitary
Speaker 1: confinement right now in the us u UM. And when
Speaker 1: we talk about solitary confinement, we're talking about a six
Speaker 1: by eight foot sale right uh no windows, and prisoners
Speaker 1: are held there anywhere from like ten to fifteen days
Speaker 1: at a stretch. And they have been reports of people
Speaker 1: saying that they really they went into themselves when they
Speaker 1: had sensory deprivation. They were able to actually bring up
Speaker 1: sights and smells from their past and get lost in
Speaker 1: these four hours. And but but the downside of this,
Speaker 1: of course, I mean, well there's no upside of this, right, um,
Speaker 1: mayan because the ability to go into yourself and to
Speaker 1: survive is certainly something we'll remember. I think maybe I
Speaker 1: can't remember you brought it up or a listener brought
Speaker 1: it up after we had talked about the memory palace.
Speaker 1: They mentioned that in the book Silence of the Lambs,
Speaker 1: Hannibal lecter Um cops with his confinement by using the
Speaker 1: memory palace to construct this kind of place for him
Speaker 1: to go, and then he paints like pictures on the
Speaker 1: wall and stuff. But um, right, but then he also
Speaker 1: had access to things to stimulate his mind. But when
Speaker 1: you're in solitary confinement, I mean, it's it's a bed,
Speaker 1: it's the fluorescent lights are on for twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: and although you can hear things around you, you are alone.
Speaker 1: You are not really interacting. Um. And so yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean people they do go them into themselves, but what
Speaker 1: happens is that they're actually having some very big problems
Speaker 1: with their memory. I mean people who have been in
Speaker 1: a solitary confinement. There's one guy who was in um,
Speaker 1: I think, in and out for like eighteen years, and
Speaker 1: then he was cleared of his crime, and ten years
Speaker 1: later he still says that he has problems with memory,
Speaker 1: problems with interacting with people, and also problems with navigating.
Speaker 1: Which is interesting because you know, we've talked about the
Speaker 1: visual cortex and how important it is for memory, and
Speaker 1: you know, you walk into a room, you're you're actually
Speaker 1: trying to blueprint that room in your mind. Uh. So
Speaker 1: it would make sense that if you were stuck in
Speaker 1: this one place for so very long and uh you know,
Speaker 1: eighteen years and now you're out of it, then your
Speaker 1: context for the world world greatly changes. Um, well, and
Speaker 1: you end up. I mean, the list of symptoms that
Speaker 1: people have experienced from solitary environment the prison situation. I mean,
Speaker 1: it includes stuff like the depression to spare anxiety, rage, claustrophobia, hallucinations,
Speaker 1: problems with impulse control of impaired vision and hearing, weaking
Speaker 1: of the immune system, absence of menstrual periods and women
Speaker 1: premature menopause, aggressive behavior, and prisoners. Um. I mean it
Speaker 1: just that's that was interesting them. The menstruation too, because
Speaker 1: you wouldn't think of that as something that was dependent
Speaker 1: upon feedback. You know, that's something that just regularly happens. Right,
Speaker 1: But when you're taking if you're taken out of the
Speaker 1: rhythms of life, then it's greatly going to alter you
Speaker 1: at a physical level too, right, Um. And Hany actually
Speaker 1: talks about the fact that we don't know the long
Speaker 1: term effects. And the reason is because we don't have
Speaker 1: good data on follow ups of people who come out
Speaker 1: of the environment. It's not something that's easy to study,
Speaker 1: and it's not necessarily something that prison systems are eager
Speaker 1: for people to have a look at. Right. UM. I
Speaker 1: wanted to mention too that that documentary talked to a
Speaker 1: university professor by the name of Brian Keenan and he
Speaker 1: was taken hostage in Beirut and held in a windowless
Speaker 1: cell for eight months. Um. And he can't up for
Speaker 1: ten minutes at a time, and a walk the staircase constantly. Um.
Speaker 1: And the reason I bring him up is because I
Speaker 1: thought that his personal assessment of the situation was very
Speaker 1: interesting and we can sit here and talk about you know,
Speaker 1: here are the effects. It's you know, it's a cognitive impairments.
Speaker 1: But he said the nothingness was extremely hard because it
Speaker 1: was how am I going to get through these next
Speaker 1: ten minutes or months later? How am I going to
Speaker 1: get through the next day? The blackness was palpable. There
Speaker 1: was nothing there to confirm to me that there was
Speaker 1: human existence outside of me or even inside of me,
Speaker 1: which is really chilling. Because I thought, well, that just
Speaker 1: points back to this idea that your life becomes a
Speaker 1: joy division song. It's that is that could be chilling,
Speaker 1: you know if it's aun But again, this's this idea
Speaker 1: that you yourself, your sense of self becomes completely fragmented,
Speaker 1: you lose yourself. Now. One of the more newsworthy stories
Speaker 1: of isolation to occur in the last few years was,
Speaker 1: of course, the thirty three Chilian miners that spent sixty
Speaker 1: nine days trapped deep underground until they were finally brought
Speaker 1: to the surface on October two thousand ten, and just
Speaker 1: getting them out it took about twenty four hours. But
Speaker 1: but it was a really tense situation because you had
Speaker 1: thirty three people down there and had to get them out,
Speaker 1: had to figure out how to make sure that they're
Speaker 1: staying healthy and sane down there. Um. And they eventually
Speaker 1: brought in NASA for advice. But weirdly enough, this was
Speaker 1: in a popular science article. Um, they had sent down
Speaker 1: some music to help them pass the time. But also
Speaker 1: they sit down on monopoly board, which I know we're
Speaker 1: probably there's some probably some lest there's out there who
Speaker 1: are fans of monopoly, but uh, we all know that
Speaker 1: monopoly is an intensely irritating game. I mean, even if
Speaker 1: you enjoy, you've got to admit that, even in the
Speaker 1: best of situations, it can cause close friends and loved
Speaker 1: ones to try and stab each other and I with
Speaker 1: forks um or scald each other with pizza or just
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's a brutal pizza. There's specific Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking of a party party atmosphere turning violent,
Speaker 1: you know, or stabbing somebody with pizza who was sharp enough.
Speaker 1: But I mean, there have been articles about how Monopoly
Speaker 1: is a zero sum game like it and it brings
Speaker 1: out the worst in people because it's it's not about
Speaker 1: like working together as much. It's about brutally smacking down
Speaker 1: your opponent. And it also takes forever. Monopoly games tend
Speaker 1: to it to last until the wee hours or until
Speaker 1: the first person bleeds, and so and so. So the
Speaker 1: idea of sending this game down to people who are
Speaker 1: trapped in an isolated environment, who are already stressed, it
Speaker 1: just seems insane. Like were they trying to get them
Speaker 1: to turn on each other? And uh and and like
Speaker 1: just pummeling each other to death so nobody don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about dragging them back to the surface. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying monopoly sounds like a very odd choice.
Speaker 1: I think that you're going to have to talk to
Speaker 1: to whoever manages these sort of crises and say, you
Speaker 1: know what this is, this is my what were you
Speaker 1: thinking of acceptable games to stand down the hall? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Any anything that is well shoots and ladder, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, there's not there's not a lot of engagement.
Speaker 1: And well that's the problem. It's a game. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a foster's competition, not collaboration for the most part. Well,
Speaker 1: there there are a lot of fine collaborative games there.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I'm getting I'm getting off the point here.
Speaker 1: But but yes, I mean they're gonna like Larpe down there.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, there's not in the room for
Speaker 1: Larkin's um or or any large scale board games or
Speaker 1: tabletop cans. But at any rate, people working everyone was
Speaker 1: rightfully concerned about the physical and mental being of these individuals,
Speaker 1: and so NASA was actually brought in to advise in
Speaker 1: the situation, since they've have done studies and have some
Speaker 1: resident experts on the topic of isolation. Yeah, and in
Speaker 1: fact it is from now so that we get this
Speaker 1: term irrational antagonism, right, This is the term that describes
Speaker 1: what happens to people who are isolated together, which you
Speaker 1: talked about a little bit with people on missions roommates
Speaker 1: in space. Basically, yeah, yeah, familiarity breeds contempt exactly. So,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, one of the things that astronauts
Speaker 1: have talked about is that you're in this close environment
Speaker 1: and you you may feel anger at your your other astronauts,
Speaker 1: but but in most of the most of the cases,
Speaker 1: you don't want to vent it because you feel like
Speaker 1: you'll make the situation worse. So you end up with
Speaker 1: this kind of silent antagonism. Growing. Yeah, you're either journaling
Speaker 1: or you're blaming it on other people other than your
Speaker 1: fellow astronauts. Right, You're blaming it on mission control. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Mission control apparently is often the scapegoat for a lot
Speaker 1: of this anger because you're also up in a very
Speaker 1: risky situation. You're basically kind of like mountain climbing, and
Speaker 1: everybody's attached to the same wire. You don't want to
Speaker 1: set off any fireworks. These guys are are you're in space,
Speaker 1: You're depending on each other to get back home safely.
Speaker 1: And and so you lay it cool and then you
Speaker 1: just let ground control have it. Every little thing light
Speaker 1: into them. Yeah, the punching bag of the astronaut. So
Speaker 1: so I found I found that particularly interesting. And uh
Speaker 1: Mary Wroach actually talks about this a lot in her
Speaker 1: book on Mars, m Talking for Mars, which is filled
Speaker 1: with all sorts of curious stuff about the space program.
Speaker 1: But she had one particular quote that we were both
Speaker 1: really amused about. It had to do with I believe
Speaker 1: us submariners, right, I believe the submariners. And they were
Speaker 1: at a research station, and so when they were finally
Speaker 1: taken out of their confinement, um, and this is a
Speaker 1: quote from her book there, this is what they had
Speaker 1: to say about it. I once met a man who
Speaker 1: told me that after landing in christ Church after a
Speaker 1: winter at the South Pole Research Station, he and his
Speaker 1: companions spent a couple of days just wandering around stare
Speaker 1: ring in awe at flowers and trees. At one point,
Speaker 1: one of them spotted a woman pushing a stroller a baby.
Speaker 1: He shouted and they all rushed across the street to
Speaker 1: see the woman turned the turn the stroller and ran
Speaker 1: so isolation could potentially turn you into a baby chasing maniac. Yes,
Speaker 1: and it would make sense because if you're if you're
Speaker 1: isolated for six months, because even like a week, you know,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you're you're out and you see
Speaker 1: the sun and the leaves and you see the sun
Speaker 1: just you know, dappling the leaves in a newborn baby smile.
Speaker 1: And I mean, all of a sudden, you're This the
Speaker 1: a cliche of a song, right yeah. Roach also credits
Speaker 1: an interview with Norbert Craft's another individual NASA and Kraft
Speaker 1: mentioned that there had been some research into the possibility
Speaker 1: of sending married couples into space to limit to limit
Speaker 1: some of the the negative vibes that might happen up
Speaker 1: there and some of the feelings of isolation. I get
Speaker 1: the isolation part, but I do not, I mean the whole,
Speaker 1: like familiarity breeds contempt art. I mean, I just don't
Speaker 1: see a lot of marriages actually surviving. Um. And I
Speaker 1: say this just personally and made mabe this could happen.
Speaker 1: But UM, I love my spouse, he's wonderful. I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily want to work with him, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to be stuck in a capsule with him for six months.
Speaker 1: Well it's like, I mean, it's like that, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be in a capsule for six months. So
Speaker 1: there you go. Well, it's like the whole canoeing thing.
Speaker 1: Canoeing as a test of relationship. Yeah, which my wife
Speaker 1: and I survived canoeing twice so far, I think. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this is like the ultimate, Like this is even more
Speaker 1: than canoeing. And I don't know, I don't know if
Speaker 1: there are many marriages out there that are up to
Speaker 1: the test. Well, see now that you say that my
Speaker 1: my husband and I loved a canoe and when we
Speaker 1: lived in North Carolina we did it every weekend. But
Speaker 1: it does require like you couldn't be mad at each
Speaker 1: other in canoe, right, because you have to collaborate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to collaborate and if you get mad, you
Speaker 1: have to work through it. Otherwise you're not going to
Speaker 1: make it to your destination or you're just gonna float
Speaker 1: around out there in the middle of the lake until
Speaker 1: somebody comes and fetches you in a boat. Yeah again,
Speaker 1: you're just sitting there in your arms crossed. Yeah. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this too in terms of relationships
Speaker 1: that the isolation effect in families. Um, I think this
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons why families stay in business,
Speaker 1: because have you ever thought about this, Like when you've
Speaker 1: been isolated or alone for a long period of time
Speaker 1: and end and maybe there's a family member who's driving
Speaker 1: you nuts, and yet you still pick up the phone
Speaker 1: to call that person. I mean, this is really keeps
Speaker 1: moms in business. I think, Well, it makes me think
Speaker 1: of um, my wife sent and Judy, who has these
Speaker 1: two she has these two horses, and these horses hate
Speaker 1: each other, or one one in particular hates the other one,
Speaker 1: and it will if it gets a chance, it will
Speaker 1: bite it the horse and just just want to just
Speaker 1: bite it and kick it and just just a real jerk.
Speaker 1: But if they're separated, then the horse freaks out and
Speaker 1: it's like, where is my friend? Where is that horse?
Speaker 1: So that I might bite him? You know, and you
Speaker 1: completely other horse? Yeah, I know, and I've again, I
Speaker 1: think it's because it's pointing back at itself, right, because
Speaker 1: the same thing if I'm calling let's say that you know,
Speaker 1: my mom and I have been in a bit of
Speaker 1: a tizzy, and yet if I'm not feeling great or
Speaker 1: I'm feeling lonely, I will call her, even though I
Speaker 1: know that she might say something to sort of drive
Speaker 1: me nuts. I think simply because well because I love her,
Speaker 1: but be because it's sort of validates like us, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the story of you the I Yep, that's right, I'm
Speaker 1: your mom and that's all true. You exist. There, you go.
Speaker 1: That's that's all you need to know, right there, and
Speaker 1: that is why we are all manacled to one another.
Speaker 1: So yeah, human isolation, it's definitely something that, uh that
Speaker 1: may seem more attractive on the outside than it actually is.
Speaker 1: Especially you know, if we're really busy people, you may
Speaker 1: end up fantasizing about like, oh if I had everything
Speaker 1: to myself for like a weekend, if I was Georgia O'Keefe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if I was Georgia O'Keefe, everything would be knocked. But
Speaker 1: it's not only the case, Like I, I actually have
Speaker 1: this where I'll look at my own life specifically that
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about, like writing, like finding time to right,
Speaker 1: which takes up a lot of time, requires generally requires isolation,
Speaker 1: and it's just hard to fit into the schedule of
Speaker 1: a busy life. Um, you know, talking about outside of work,
Speaker 1: right and I'll think back to times in my life
Speaker 1: where I had lots of free time, where there was
Speaker 1: probably a fair amount of loneliness in my life, but
Speaker 1: I didn't get a lot of work done in those
Speaker 1: times either. You know, it's it's because you're procrastinating. Well,
Speaker 1: we've talked about well, I think there's a lot going on,
Speaker 1: you know, and obviously if you're isolated and your lonely,
Speaker 1: your your brains just not working as well, and your
Speaker 1: your time management, at least for me, ends up going
Speaker 1: out of whack too if I'm by myself. So I'll
Speaker 1: look back at these times and I'll and I'll I
Speaker 1: have to remind myself it's like, well, you had plenty
Speaker 1: of free time, then you didn't get get anything done,
Speaker 1: because it's only I feel like it's only when I'm
Speaker 1: really busy, when I'm having to find the time to
Speaker 1: fit things in, that I can actually maximize those times.
Speaker 1: And when I have, you know, enough social activity in
Speaker 1: my life and enough people in my life to give
Speaker 1: it all some sort of meaning. Well, the truth of
Speaker 1: the matter is that people are stimulating even though they
Speaker 1: make you know, annoy us sometimes or I might annoy someone,
Speaker 1: or someone might annoy me. But you know, we're always
Speaker 1: after a new experience, and we need those new experiences
Speaker 1: to you know, literally grow our brain cells. Um so,
Speaker 1: and it would make sense that that would inform our
Speaker 1: creativity and our ability to create. YEA. So like it
Speaker 1: or not, you know, we're we're shared up with with
Speaker 1: our fellow humans. So speaking of our fellow humans, I
Speaker 1: have a couple of emails to read here for us
Speaker 1: from some listeners and we listener by the name of
Speaker 1: David and David says, I love your recent episodes where
Speaker 1: you have delved into philosophical topics. I especially love the
Speaker 1: podcast entitled His Free Will and Illusion, as well as
Speaker 1: the one about the possibility of acute Earth. I do
Speaker 1: hope that you keep doing some more philosophical topics, UM.
Speaker 1: I would enjoy especially enjoy one on morality, ethics and
Speaker 1: health science can or cannot inform morality. UM also an
Speaker 1: an episode examining a Descartes famous axiom. I think, therefore
Speaker 1: I am would be awesome. I think that everyone is
Speaker 1: a philosopher, but not everyone knows it. People are often
Speaker 1: driven away from philosophy due to the fact that philosophers
Speaker 1: can be an intolerable lot. But behind all of the
Speaker 1: sometimes pretentious philosophical jargon are the questions that we all
Speaker 1: grapple with. You guys can put alienating concepts into everyday
Speaker 1: language that both phil philosophers and non philosophers can both enjoy.
Speaker 1: So keep up the good work here, mix of science
Speaker 1: and philosophy the spot. Thank you that. That's good to
Speaker 1: know that people are enjoying that. Yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: we try and inject a fair amount of philosophy into
Speaker 1: whatever we're talking about, because ultimately, like that's the whole
Speaker 1: like mind blowing areas where we have to fit ourselves
Speaker 1: in our own experience, into this new knowledge and and
Speaker 1: figure out how our view of everything relates to it.
Speaker 1: So true, and certainly philosophers can be a little off
Speaker 1: puting It's true it's the beards. The beards. Not all
Speaker 1: philosophers have beards, and not all lady philosophers have beards either. Well,
Speaker 1: in the case you're wondering, even though I know some philo,
Speaker 1: I mean I have known philosophers, and I can definitely
Speaker 1: identify rule people that are philosophers. I also I hear
Speaker 1: philosophers and I can't help but think like marble statue
Speaker 1: of some old dude. Well, yeah, well means that's that's
Speaker 1: just the patriarchal society, and yeah it it does draw
Speaker 1: back to the whole idea that, like philosophy, is often
Speaker 1: viewed as this this thing that is no longer relevant.
Speaker 1: But as we've discussed in previous episodes, new advances in neuroscience,
Speaker 1: new advances in our understanding of the universe, these forces
Speaker 1: to sometimes reevaluate old philosophical questions or or stir up
Speaker 1: new philosophical debates, like the whole issue of consciousness and
Speaker 1: free will, or the idea of are are we alone
Speaker 1: in the universe or are we just one of other
Speaker 1: of numerous species. It's the underpinnings of society, right. We
Speaker 1: can't really operate without having a philosophical discussion about things exactly.
Speaker 1: We also heard from a listener by the name of
Speaker 1: Megan Megan Rights and says, I want to start off
Speaker 1: by telling you what a big fan I am. I
Speaker 1: really love the wide breath topics you cover. I always
Speaker 1: feel like by the time of the podcast US is over,
Speaker 1: I am just a little bit smarter about something. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the listener mail section of a recent episode, what
Speaker 1: if Earth was a cube? The idea of actors being
Speaker 1: the biggest liars in the world was brought up as
Speaker 1: a professional actor who was of conservatorially trained. I am
Speaker 1: both amused and slightly put off. Actors do not lie.
Speaker 1: We create alternate realities. I feel very strongly about this,
Speaker 1: even though I know that not everyone will agree with me.
Speaker 1: In my experience, it is obviously the audience when an
Speaker 1: actor is lying because he she is not really living
Speaker 1: in the circumstances that have been created by the play,
Speaker 1: and the audience feels and quite honestly is jip uh.
Speaker 1: If we want to twelve really deeply into it, it
Speaker 1: goes back to creating a lie so detailed that you
Speaker 1: can believe it is reality. And this is where some
Speaker 1: actors get into trouble when they decide to really become
Speaker 1: their character for something more than the purpose of telling
Speaker 1: the story to the audience. I'm going to stop here
Speaker 1: before my points become too confusing. Thank you for all
Speaker 1: your hard work. That's really interesting. I was thinking about
Speaker 1: fiction writing too. They always say, like, you know, even
Speaker 1: though you're we being a tale, it should be as
Speaker 1: truthful as possible. Yeah, it should mirror truth. So it's
Speaker 1: great to hear from an actual actor about about about
Speaker 1: that about the idea of acting as as lie, but
Speaker 1: also in the in the podcast, I mean, the whole
Speaker 1: thing we're discussing too, is the idea of lying as
Speaker 1: an alteration of reality. I feel like there's a there's
Speaker 1: a little gift a pike from both of those. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not the same, but there are some definite links
Speaker 1: between what they're doing. Yeah, that's an interesting perspective from Megan. Yeah, yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: Thanks Megan for your feedback on that. And if you
Speaker 1: have feedback on something, if you have some sort of
Speaker 1: cool story you want to share, if if you have
Speaker 1: a particular area of expertise that aligns up with something
Speaker 1: we've been talking about, hunt us down. We are on
Speaker 1: Facebook and Twitter. We are Blow the Mind on both
Speaker 1: of those and you can see all sorts of stuff
Speaker 1: we're up to and what we're reading about, what we're researching,
Speaker 1: what we're considering podcasting about as well, and you can
Speaker 1: always drop us online at Below the Mind at how
Speaker 1: stuff courts dot com. Be sure to check out our
Speaker 1: new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how stafwork
Speaker 1: staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
Speaker 1: of tomorrow,