Speaker 1: My welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, and we're coming at you with a listener
Speaker 1: mail episode today. But we're broadcasting from the depths. We're
Speaker 1: down here in a in a nuclear submarine. It happens
Speaker 1: because apparently Submarine Command has appropriated our mail bought Carney. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we call it Deep Star seven, um and uh, and
Speaker 1: that's where we're hanging out for this episode. Yeah, Carney
Speaker 1: has been working down here in the deep, in the
Speaker 1: shadowy depths, which is which is perfect because some of
Speaker 1: the listener mail that we're going to be reading here
Speaker 1: today does relate to our recent episode on the idea
Speaker 1: on on studies related to to sleep and even dreaming
Speaker 1: within the confines of a of a nuclear ballistic missile submarine. Now,
Speaker 1: as always, we've got to say that we don't have
Speaker 1: time to respond to or read on the podcast all
Speaker 1: of the great listener mail we get. Just rest assured
Speaker 1: we we do try to read it all, uh, and
Speaker 1: so so thank you so much for sending it. But
Speaker 1: today you're going to get a selection of some of
Speaker 1: the stuff we've gotten since the last episode, the last
Speaker 1: listener mail episode, UH, concerning all kinds of things concerning
Speaker 1: quantum immortality, UH, submarines and the Alphabet and the Goddess
Speaker 1: and all kinds of good stuff. But maybe we should
Speaker 1: start with some of the responses to the Alphabet and
Speaker 1: the Goddess episodes. Yeah, we heard from a number of
Speaker 1: people about about this one, you know, in part because
Speaker 1: it does have a lot of really thought provoking ideas
Speaker 1: in it. But then also there are some issues with
Speaker 1: with with some of the uh, the main pieces that
Speaker 1: Slain uh was was utilizing in the work. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: if you'll recall, we we did a couple episodes on
Speaker 1: this book, The Alphabet and the Goddess by Leonard Slain,
Speaker 1: his book from the late nineties that made this sort
Speaker 1: of historical neuroscience argument that the rise of patriarchy and
Speaker 1: the klein or the relative decline of the power of
Speaker 1: goddesses and religious pantheons around the world was somehow correlated
Speaker 1: with the rise of alphabetic writing. And he makes a
Speaker 1: lot of arguments based on hemispheric lateralization of the brain
Speaker 1: and UH and how that how that's correlated with gender roles,
Speaker 1: and how that's correlated with alphabetic writing. And so we
Speaker 1: discussed in the original episode that we were that we
Speaker 1: were doing the topic because we thought it was kind
Speaker 1: of thought provoking and raised good questions, not because we
Speaker 1: were endorsing it as correct right, And I think it
Speaker 1: also within the context of the episode, we we discussed
Speaker 1: some of the areas where where I think his argument
Speaker 1: was a bit weak, such as when it comes to
Speaker 1: a Chinese writing or the Hindu pantheon. Well, and just
Speaker 1: generally the idea that that I got the feeling we
Speaker 1: might be dealing with some historical cherry picking in his arguments,
Speaker 1: that he was, you know, sort of selectively emphasizing the
Speaker 1: characteristic of societies or parts of societies that helped his
Speaker 1: argument and and not necessarily always giving the most balanced
Speaker 1: reading of things. Now, those were the kinds of concerns
Speaker 1: we raised in the original episode. I will say, actually,
Speaker 1: since then, I think I've I've become even more skeptical
Speaker 1: of his argument because I've I've started to wonder if
Speaker 1: not just his argument about the explanation for the rise
Speaker 1: of patriarchy is flawed, but I wonder if some of
Speaker 1: his underlying assumptions are flawed to like I think in
Speaker 1: the future, especially based on some some feedback we got
Speaker 1: after the episode that we should do an episode on
Speaker 1: the future questioning what the what the gender roles of
Speaker 1: prehistoric societies actually were, Like, what is the evidence from
Speaker 1: anthropology and archaeology and everything um about how gender dynamics
Speaker 1: work in prehistoric societies. Yeah, yeah, I would love to
Speaker 1: examine that, particularly when you get in not only you
Speaker 1: know what we can tell about ancient humans, but also
Speaker 1: ancient Neanderthals. You know, what exactly was the dynamic and
Speaker 1: what is the what is the relation between that ancient
Speaker 1: dynamic and the place we are today. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: an episode for the near future. But today we did
Speaker 1: want to review some of the most interesting listener mail
Speaker 1: that we got in response to the Alphabet and the
Speaker 1: Goddess episode. So Robert, you want to jump in with
Speaker 1: the first one? Sure? This one comes to us from Amelia.
Speaker 1: Amelia writes, I just started listening to the podcast a
Speaker 1: couple of months ago, and I've been loving it. I
Speaker 1: was especially excited when I saw the episode for The
Speaker 1: Alphabet and the Goddess. The transition from matriarchal to patriarchal
Speaker 1: religions in the ancient world has always was always a
Speaker 1: topic that interest me. In college, I studied classical studies
Speaker 1: as a minor with a concentration on ancient Greece. I
Speaker 1: was interested to see if you would discuss Minoan and
Speaker 1: my Sinian culture in ancient Greece and a change in
Speaker 1: religious symbols as a part of the discussion. Since it
Speaker 1: wasn't part of the discussion, I thought I'd write in
Speaker 1: and tell you a little of what I know. The
Speaker 1: Minoans were a seafaring civilization on crete in the Bronze Age,
Speaker 1: most famously known for its relation to King Minos and
Speaker 1: minote our myths. Yeah, man minotaur is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite monsters. I feel like one of the most underutilized monsters.
Speaker 1: They are there, They are tremendous, and I love it
Speaker 1: when somebody gets them right. The old Jim Hinson Storyteller
Speaker 1: series did a pretty good job with the minotaur. Um
Speaker 1: of course, House of Leaves of the Horror novel well,
Speaker 1: we'll just say book Uh does a fabulous job with
Speaker 1: the minotaur, and Uh the Dungeons and Dragons treatment of
Speaker 1: menatars is actually pretty good. Oh they're not just like
Speaker 1: some brute that's gonna throw you around. Well, they are
Speaker 1: a brute, they'll throw you around, but they have a
Speaker 1: pretty high wisdom and they can't become lost in amaze.
Speaker 1: Oh I like that, but sorry, we should go on
Speaker 1: with Amelia's email. So after mentioning, uh, the Minoans being
Speaker 1: related to King Minos and minotaur myths, yes, she continues quote.
Speaker 1: It is thought that the snake was used as a
Speaker 1: symbol of fertility or rebirth, similar to other cultures in
Speaker 1: the Middle East. So we think there was some quote
Speaker 1: unquote mother goddess aspect to Minoan religion and culture. As
Speaker 1: the Bronze Age progress that the Myscenians settled on the mainland,
Speaker 1: they were a more patriarchal and militaristic people. They lived
Speaker 1: in citadels in the mountains and depicted soldiers in their art.
Speaker 1: Their culture can represent the invasion of the male sky
Speaker 1: god and established ancient Earth goddess religions. As Indo Europeans
Speaker 1: move south, eventually the Minoan culture collapsed in Myssinian culture
Speaker 1: survived to influence the later Classical Greek periods. I think
Speaker 1: the most interesting thing to me about this transition is
Speaker 1: the change in symbology that makes it to present day.
Speaker 1: We can look over time and see the snake turn
Speaker 1: from this worship symbol of fertility and earth to this
Speaker 1: hated symbol of trickery and evil. We see in the
Speaker 1: Bible that the snake is the tempter and the devil
Speaker 1: in the garden of Eden Medusa, a generally evil character
Speaker 1: in Greek myth, has hair of snakes. Could this be
Speaker 1: the patriarchal culture's way of displacing matriarchal religious symbols anti
Speaker 1: snake propaganda and religious stories. It's something to think about.
Speaker 1: The Manoan and Messenian periods are just a place in
Speaker 1: history to study that transition. Looking at the cultures writing systems,
Speaker 1: Manowan's used a yet to be deciphered writing system called
Speaker 1: linear A, while the Messenians use Linear B, which is
Speaker 1: mostly h deciphered. Linear B used a combination of syllabic
Speaker 1: and ideographic characters. It is thought linear A is similar.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if that muddies the waters of the
Speaker 1: argument you presented in the series of episodes, but I
Speaker 1: agree that the premise uses a lot of generalizations to
Speaker 1: try and make a point. I just thought i'd share
Speaker 1: this lesser known slice of history. The Manoans are a
Speaker 1: particularly interesting people, and I and I think they don't
Speaker 1: get enough attention, so I like to talk about them
Speaker 1: when I can keep up the great work. Guys. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a great email, Thank you, Amelia. Um So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do think the Manoans are interesting and we should
Speaker 1: do more to study that. One of the things that
Speaker 1: comes up here is uh, something I guess we got
Speaker 1: out a minute ago, the question of actually how female
Speaker 1: friendly these earlier, lesser understood cultures actually were. Now, one
Speaker 1: of the types of feedback we got from some classic
Speaker 1: scholars after the episode was like a mining the idea
Speaker 1: that there's this popular idea that there was this sort
Speaker 1: of universal, worldwide matriarchal, goddess based culture before there was
Speaker 1: before there was civilization and before there was written history,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of evidence that that's just not true. Now,
Speaker 1: the question might be, was the preliterate pre civilization society
Speaker 1: more female friendly or more matriarchal but maybe not actually matriarchal? Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't even think Schlaine made the argument at least,
Speaker 1: and that in the book we discussed that that culture
Speaker 1: was ever largely matriarchal right. Uh, it's just a question
Speaker 1: of was it more balanced at some point? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think that is certainly an area of discussion.
Speaker 1: You know. Another thing that came that the that came
Speaker 1: to mind and when I was reading that and keeps
Speaker 1: coming back now, is is that regardless of what the
Speaker 1: previous gods or goddesses were. Uh, there's always this seems
Speaker 1: like there's this, Uh, there's this movement to repackage them
Speaker 1: sometimes as lesser deities or is just outright demons. And
Speaker 1: you have to ask yourself, well, is this always you know,
Speaker 1: to what extent gender is playing a role into this
Speaker 1: transformation or is it a transformation that is in many
Speaker 1: areas removed from gender concerns. Uh, you know the various
Speaker 1: pagan gods that were reduced to demons in the advent
Speaker 1: of Christianity, etcetera. Yeah, I mean, and you wonder about
Speaker 1: the idea of if there are gender correlations with the
Speaker 1: history of the understanding of snakes in uh in religion.
Speaker 1: Because Amelia brings up the Garden of Eden story and
Speaker 1: one of the funny things about the Garden of Eden story,
Speaker 1: do you know what never says the snake is Satan. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not in the story. It's just the snake. It's
Speaker 1: just the snake comes to eve the woman and tempts
Speaker 1: her with knowledge of good and evil. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I do know that, of course, that when you look
Speaker 1: at the Bible Old and New Testament, that the devil
Speaker 1: is kind of this character where it's it's almost like
Speaker 1: somebody wrote a really confusing screenplay and someone said, God,
Speaker 1: we have a number of these antagonists. Can we just
Speaker 1: combine these into one character, because it's confusing to have
Speaker 1: a snake and then there's this, uh, this satan character
Speaker 1: that's like a court official, and then there's this idea
Speaker 1: of a fallen angel and and and another devil. Just
Speaker 1: let's make them all the same guy. I mean, it
Speaker 1: really does make you wonder, though, if the snake is
Speaker 1: in the Garden of Eden's story a sort of reflection
Speaker 1: of an earlier story tradition where the snake is something
Speaker 1: more like a Prometheus character, a character that brings knowledge
Speaker 1: to the humans, and that that character is transformed into
Speaker 1: a villain in later versions of the story. Now she
Speaker 1: also mentioned Medusa here. I would love to do some
Speaker 1: sort of a deeper dive on Medusa in the future,
Speaker 1: because I'm one hand always one of my favorite monsters.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't until I was really an adult that
Speaker 1: I began to notice just this trend in art and
Speaker 1: and you know, particularly with statues. There's one statue in particular,
Speaker 1: I don't remember the sculpture's name, but you find it
Speaker 1: at at the met in New York City where our
Speaker 1: hero is holding the decapitated head of Medusa aloft uh.
Speaker 1: And there are various paintings where where he's in the
Speaker 1: act of swaying or and there's like a really kind
Speaker 1: of icky, violent vibe to those images, you know, the
Speaker 1: murder of this uh, this this feminine monster, this monster
Speaker 1: is female. Well this this attack on this primordially ugly woman. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it it doesn't sit well with me. I like the
Speaker 1: scenes where Medusa is dishing out death a lot more well.
Speaker 1: As beautiful as mythology can be, it's also something we
Speaker 1: should keep in mind. I mean, cultural values are encoded
Speaker 1: in myths, and a lot of cultures have had lots
Speaker 1: of strains of deep, powerful misogyny running through them, and
Speaker 1: that's there in a lot of the myths too. Now
Speaker 1: I do want to point out one more tippet from
Speaker 1: the alphabet. In the Goddess episode, i'm a I referenced
Speaker 1: a a particular paper by Laura Slatkin titled the the
Speaker 1: the Rate. It was the rage or the Wrath of Thetis. Uh.
Speaker 1: She had totally has a book that came out years
Speaker 1: and years ago titled The Power of Thetis and selected Essays.
Speaker 1: If anyone is interested to read more of her writings.
Speaker 1: All right, well, what else do we have? Karney? All right, well,
Speaker 1: this next one is also about the alphabet and the goddess.
Speaker 1: And this is from our listener hend And so she writes, Hi,
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe, I was listening to the second part
Speaker 1: of the Goddess versus Alphabet episode, and the Sparta Athens
Speaker 1: comparison struck me. Is either too good to be true
Speaker 1: or contrived. Now what we actually asked about that, We
Speaker 1: were like, I wonder to what extent sh Lane is
Speaker 1: cherry picking his argument here? And we asked for, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're a classic scholar out there, if you're or
Speaker 1: an ancient Greek historian, uh, you know, how does his
Speaker 1: argument strike you? And basically his argument was that Spartan
Speaker 1: society placed far, far less emphasis on the written word,
Speaker 1: and at the same time was more friendly to women's
Speaker 1: rights and women's empowerment than Athenian society was. And Athenian
Speaker 1: society was highly litigious, highly literate, highly written word oriented. Yea,
Speaker 1: it was an interesting argument, but I think at the
Speaker 1: same time we were we were both a little cautious
Speaker 1: with it at the time. Uh So this is what
Speaker 1: Hind is getting back to us with. So Hind says,
Speaker 1: first of all, uh, I don't think there's much validity
Speaker 1: to the left brain right brain argument, besides interesting oddities
Speaker 1: to do with split brain patients. Have you guys done
Speaker 1: an episode on that. I emailed one of my former professors,
Speaker 1: who is a professor of classics about this, and this
Speaker 1: is what he said, quote. I'm always a little wary
Speaker 1: about big left slash right brain arguments, since I doubt
Speaker 1: the brain functions so simplistically. But what do I know
Speaker 1: As for Spartan illiteracy, I think that is not so established.
Speaker 1: It is true that women had a lot more power
Speaker 1: over some things in Sparta, but I don't think the
Speaker 1: larger argument stands up, since I don't think it as
Speaker 1: much to do with literacy. Most of the Spartan and
Speaker 1: Athenian institutions regarding women were set during a time when
Speaker 1: both were mostly oral cultures. And then she provides a
Speaker 1: link to an article which I must say, I haven't
Speaker 1: had time to read yet, but I would like to
Speaker 1: look into. Uh So I appreciate that bit of feedback.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting point. So this could be a way
Speaker 1: that Slain might not only be cherry picking, but might
Speaker 1: be like acknowledging differences that are sort of irrelevant because
Speaker 1: the practices he's pointing to were established before the written
Speaker 1: word was important in either culture. That's a good point. Now,
Speaker 1: to come back to the left brain right brain thing,
Speaker 1: I think that that's something that's something that's important to
Speaker 1: strike a good balance on because you can absolutely go
Speaker 1: overboard with the left brain right brain kind of thing.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I think hemispheric lateralization is an
Speaker 1: important feature of the human brain. Now there, I think
Speaker 1: there are a lot of arguments, especially in the later
Speaker 1: twentieth century, that that overinterpreted the influence of of the
Speaker 1: left brain right brain division. But the left brain right
Speaker 1: brain division is a real thing, and it does have consequences.
Speaker 1: You just don't want to be overly general, overly simplistic
Speaker 1: about the power of it and explaining behavior. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I mean similar things go for a lot of the
Speaker 1: research that has gone into the inner workings of the brain,
Speaker 1: for instance, going from the idea that there is, say
Speaker 1: a pleasure center or a pain center of the brain,
Speaker 1: to a more nuanced understanding that well, it's not a
Speaker 1: center so much as a network. Yeah, neuroscience is one
Speaker 1: of those things that's just not very friendly to amateur interpretation,
Speaker 1: and it's something neither of us are neuroscientists, so we
Speaker 1: have to do our best to just sort through the
Speaker 1: science and what people have written about it and try
Speaker 1: to make sense of it. But you know, neuroscience is
Speaker 1: one of those things where it's almost never as simple
Speaker 1: as that headline you read. It's true, I get to
Speaker 1: kick out of a juicy neuroscience clickbait headline almost as
Speaker 1: as much as the black hole headlines. You always see
Speaker 1: something that's like, you know, brains God worship center activates
Speaker 1: when you view pizza or something. You know, you see
Speaker 1: those kind of studies and it's like that that can
Speaker 1: sort of conveys something that's kind of true, but it's
Speaker 1: not going to be really that simple. So anyway, hind,
Speaker 1: I think those are very good concerns to raise. All right,
Speaker 1: here's another one. This one comes to us from Matia,
Speaker 1: and this one concerns are I believe our our Phartonomicon episode. Hi,
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe, first time email writer, here, a long
Speaker 1: time listener. In your most recent mail bag episode, it
Speaker 1: would have been I guess the one before this you
Speaker 1: talked about Pathagoras and his comments on fava beans. I
Speaker 1: never thought beans, that's right, because that was basically his
Speaker 1: whole deal, as he hated beans and said he should
Speaker 1: not eat them. It's not his whole deal, not his
Speaker 1: whole deal obviously, but it was it seemed to be
Speaker 1: of some importance to Yeah, um, he said, As she continues,
Speaker 1: I never thought about the connection between the Greek numa
Speaker 1: and flatulence. It makes a lot of sense and adds
Speaker 1: a lot to pathagoras maniacal sect. Now, just to refresh, sorry,
Speaker 1: the idea of the connection between the numa and flatulence
Speaker 1: is that numa usually means breath. It's also funny enough
Speaker 1: the word for like spirit or ghosts, So you have
Speaker 1: like the Holy Spirit being a numa, and then you
Speaker 1: could breathe out a numa, but then also what would
Speaker 1: be another kind of numa? Well, but the factors is
Speaker 1: arguing here that you could essentially fart out your own soul. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that that's the basic ideas I interpreted, She continues. However,
Speaker 1: there is a more widespread explanation for pythagoras take on
Speaker 1: fava beans. A common mutation among Mediterranean people is G
Speaker 1: six p D deficiency, which causes severe anemia upon exposure
Speaker 1: to certain compounds, including antimalarial drugs, the antibiotic bactrum, and
Speaker 1: guess what, fava beans. The condition is commonly known as
Speaker 1: father is um because of this effect. Ever, the flamboyant
Speaker 1: to explainer path Agoras observed this condition and prohibited his
Speaker 1: followers from eating these beans, which were said to contain
Speaker 1: the soul of the dead. Keep up the great work.
Speaker 1: There is no podcast like yours. The Soul of the
Speaker 1: Dead in beans. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't make it
Speaker 1: to that part. So well, thank you. My son is
Speaker 1: distrustful of beans, that really. Yeah, and uh, and maybe
Speaker 1: that's why he knows deep down that they may contain
Speaker 1: the souls of the dead. Have they wronged him? No?
Speaker 1: He just they betrayed him. He just sometimes it's hard
Speaker 1: to get him excited about beans. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I fort for a kid who has has sworn off
Speaker 1: most meats, it would benefit him tremendously to be just
Speaker 1: all in on beans. But it's been an uphill battle.
Speaker 1: You know. You say he's into shellfish though, right, Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: she shellfish and beans don't really go together. It's true,
Speaker 1: maybe that said he deep down he knows that his
Speaker 1: favorite his favorite foods don't really work that well with that.
Speaker 1: But you know, on the other hand, I have had
Speaker 1: some wonderful like shrimp dishes that I think incorporate some
Speaker 1: forms of beans. Oh yeah, I guess guess now that
Speaker 1: I think about it. I mean not kidney beans obviously,
Speaker 1: but not fava beans. We all know that fava beans
Speaker 1: go best with human liver in kianti. But but but,
Speaker 1: you know, hilarity aside. This is an interesting argument, the
Speaker 1: idea that there could be something else at play here
Speaker 1: besides just mere superstition and far diversion. Right. Hey, speaking
Speaker 1: of goddesses, we've got an email from Athena at least
Speaker 1: that's her name is from Athena on on piss Myers.
Speaker 1: You remember crazy ants and when we we discovered the
Speaker 1: meaning of piss Myers. Uh so, yeah, Athena writes, Hi,
Speaker 1: I've been listening to your show for a little while
Speaker 1: and I enjoy it. I was listening to your show
Speaker 1: on crazy ants, and it's a topic very familiar having
Speaker 1: grown up in Texas. When you mentioned piss myers, I
Speaker 1: had to write in. My mother used that term to
Speaker 1: describe a specific ant that was around our home in
Speaker 1: South Texas, Victoria. They indeed smelled like their name suggests.
Speaker 1: A single aunt didn't smell, but the aunt hill sure did.
Speaker 1: On a side note, if I my siblings were misbehaving,
Speaker 1: she would call us pissmire's. Well that's well, that's great.
Speaker 1: We have to hear a little, little, little little field
Speaker 1: wisdom on the pissmer's here. Now, I wonder if the
Speaker 1: ant doesn't smell like the name suggests, but the ant
Speaker 1: mound does. Why is that? Is it just because a
Speaker 1: single ant doesn't put off enough for us to detect,
Speaker 1: and you've got to have a lot of them in
Speaker 1: a close proximity, or is it because I don't know,
Speaker 1: if something else, something else in the mound. Do they
Speaker 1: secrete stuff? In the mound. Yeah, I guess it without
Speaker 1: actually looking into it. My my, my, my guests would
Speaker 1: be the former that it's just the fact that you
Speaker 1: have so many ants in one area at a time
Speaker 1: that it's going to you know, create a strong or
Speaker 1: a roma because these are not like leaf cutter ants
Speaker 1: or not cultivating anything in there. So anyway, I admire
Speaker 1: the harshness of your mother, by the way, I think
Speaker 1: it's good. I mean, normally you just call your kid,
Speaker 1: you say you're being a brad or you're being a
Speaker 1: baby or something. But now you're saying like you're being
Speaker 1: you social insect that produces urine like smells, Well that
Speaker 1: that's kind of like children, except that you show you
Speaker 1: social part. They do produce produce the smell of urine
Speaker 1: sometimes and that can't be helped. Maybe we should take
Speaker 1: a break. Are you ready? Let's do it? All right,
Speaker 1: we'll be right back. Thank you. All right, we're back.
Speaker 1: We're still on the bottom of the ocean. We're still
Speaker 1: trapped in the submarine with Carney, and he is dishing
Speaker 1: out some listener mail for us to read. So are
Speaker 1: you ready for this epic email we got from jess Er.
Speaker 1: Let's have it. Yeah, Now, Jesser is a pseudonym, and
Speaker 1: I don't know their pronouns, so I'm just gonna go
Speaker 1: with they. Uh So, Jesser writes in to say, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: since you were talking about sci fi stories with a
Speaker 1: focus on Venus, I thought you might like to know
Speaker 1: about the book Radiance by Catherine M. Valente. It's an
Speaker 1: Art Deco styled sci fi novel set in a world
Speaker 1: where early twentieth century depictions of space travel we're true,
Speaker 1: and you really can shoot yourself in a bullet to
Speaker 1: the moon. It's also about the history of movie making
Speaker 1: in a way, and one of the main conflicts is
Speaker 1: a documentary that went awry on the surface of Venus.
Speaker 1: It's a really interesting book because it takes a nonlinear
Speaker 1: epistolary approach to telling its story. You know, in a way,
Speaker 1: you could look at the Soviet veneera Landers as a
Speaker 1: documentary that went awry on the surface of business, but
Speaker 1: also dys or continues. I also recently listened to the
Speaker 1: episodes on the Bicameral Mind and it brought to mind
Speaker 1: one particularly old text I studied in school, called The
Speaker 1: Instruction of Annie. It comes from about fourteen hundred to
Speaker 1: twelve hundred BC, sometime during the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt,
Speaker 1: and it's a moral code written in the form of
Speaker 1: advice from father to son. It came to mind particularly
Speaker 1: because it's both quite old and because it has a
Speaker 1: number of things you wouldn't expect to hear from a
Speaker 1: bicamerally minded people. Instructions against lying and being sneaky, for instance.
Speaker 1: It even ends with what's basically a debate between the
Speaker 1: son and the father about why the instructions should be
Speaker 1: fall load, though Julian James would probably just say maybe
Speaker 1: Egyptians lost by cameralism early. Uh maybe, or I don't know.
Speaker 1: I I could look at that and say, okay, I
Speaker 1: already don't agree that the bi cameral mind is correct,
Speaker 1: despite how interesting it is, but that could be a
Speaker 1: good piece of evidence against it. Yeah, I agree it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it kind of depends where you how you want to
Speaker 1: cherry pick it. Really, Um, I do like the the
Speaker 1: idea that that Ye James might have have argued that, well,
Speaker 1: this is the case of of by of the modern
Speaker 1: mind uh emerging early on uh in one of our
Speaker 1: most ancient civilizations. But but who knows. Yeah, In his defense,
Speaker 1: I think he would say that, you know, the process
Speaker 1: was gradual, and it happened in different places and not
Speaker 1: not all exactly at the same time. But then again,
Speaker 1: you could look at that as a weakness of the hypothesis,
Speaker 1: because if if, if a hypothesis is too accommodating, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're shaping it to accommodate too many different kind
Speaker 1: of evidence, that's often a sign that you're, you know,
Speaker 1: you're you're you're trying to cover your butt really right,
Speaker 1: And yeah, you get into this area where okay, am
Speaker 1: I talking about an actual hypothesis at this point? Where
Speaker 1: am I talking about something that is ultimately more philosophic
Speaker 1: or even religious in form uh? And I think their
Speaker 1: their value in those things as well. I've said before,
Speaker 1: I feel like my fascination with bi cameral mind at
Speaker 1: times fulfills the needs of religion for me personally, you know.
Speaker 1: And it's like almost like a novel you love or something. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it uh, it fills in some of the sort of
Speaker 1: I guess, uh, teleological holes and my understanding of humans.
Speaker 1: But anyway, the idea of like a father and son
Speaker 1: having this conversation, I do like the idea of a
Speaker 1: father saying, look, son, all these other people are not
Speaker 1: exactly like us. You're gonna be tempted to lie to
Speaker 1: these pe zombies because they're gonna believe you. But we
Speaker 1: we just can't live like that having that sort of
Speaker 1: a conversation. Man, I'm imagining what it is like to
Speaker 1: be a modern human among bicameral humans. Um. That's one
Speaker 1: of the issues that Terence Hawkins got into in his
Speaker 1: book or The Rage of Achilles. Oh yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: still mean to read that, by the way. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: quite good. I'll probably go into depth more about that
Speaker 1: in our upcoming UM Summer Reading episode. Alright, so we
Speaker 1: should go on with Jesser's email. So Jesser says regarding
Speaker 1: the recent episode on the relationship between gender roles and language,
Speaker 1: and that would be on the alphabet versus the Goddess episode.
Speaker 1: I actually took a class on gender roles in the
Speaker 1: ancient world in college, the theory of the origin of
Speaker 1: gender roles. I learned there had to do with the
Speaker 1: division of labor and hunter gatherer society. So that's somewhat
Speaker 1: along the same lines as Shlane's ideas in hunter gatherer societies.
Speaker 1: In the modern era, it seems like the profitability of
Speaker 1: hunting versus gathering roughly determines the relative balance of male
Speaker 1: versus female power. If there's little vegetation to be found,
Speaker 1: hunting is more important and men have more power vice versa.
Speaker 1: If there's little game, and in places where both are abundant,
Speaker 1: roles are roughly equal. Assuming that the same held true
Speaker 1: in ancient hunter gatherer societies, you can construct a rough
Speaker 1: conceptual history where women would have been the first to
Speaker 1: develop agriculture since they spent more time with plants, while
Speaker 1: men would have been the first to developed animal husbandry
Speaker 1: since they spent more time with animals. The fact that
Speaker 1: you can use animals to massively simplify agriculture could suggest
Speaker 1: that that's where the shift to male dominated societies came from.
Speaker 1: The men who can harness the most animal power to
Speaker 1: produce the most surplus crops would be able to leverage
Speaker 1: that to gain political power. Of course, this is only
Speaker 1: one theory in anyone theory may not be broadly applicable,
Speaker 1: considering in how many places the patriarchal sedentary societies emerged,
Speaker 1: but it's interesting to consider the ramifications of an early
Speaker 1: sex based division of labor. Yeah, I think that's an
Speaker 1: interesting possibility, maybe worth more of a look and to
Speaker 1: see what the evidence is. Yeah, of course. It makes
Speaker 1: me think a lot about the domestication of animals, and
Speaker 1: you know, sort of an animal by animal breakdown about
Speaker 1: how it occurred. You know, like, for instance, the dog
Speaker 1: and cat model that I've seen preson it sometimes where
Speaker 1: they essentially wander up to the campfire or the habitat.
Speaker 1: In these cases, it seems like it would be the
Speaker 1: non hunters who would be sort of on point for
Speaker 1: domestication of where, of course it would be. It would
Speaker 1: probably be different if it was you know, if you're
Speaker 1: talking about some sort of an ancient cow or a rock, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're talking about animals that aid in agricultural production,
Speaker 1: you'd be talking about like large draft animals well, or pigs. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's worth looking into. Yeah, or Stegosaurus is
Speaker 1: of course, yeah, Cambodian model. U that's I'm not serious
Speaker 1: that by the way, but these we we're advocating flint stones,
Speaker 1: is I'm care from now on? Yes, think to the
Speaker 1: flint stones. They had so many different domestic roles for
Speaker 1: the animals. How did that happen. We need a strong
Speaker 1: hypothesis for that as well. Okay, Jesser has some more
Speaker 1: interesting stuff. So Jesser says, also since I'm an Egyptologist,
Speaker 1: first mentioned of this, by the way, but Yesser is
Speaker 1: an Egyptologist. Apparently, I've had a couple of facts come
Speaker 1: to mind as I've listened to various episodes that might
Speaker 1: be interesting. First of all, in comparison to other religions,
Speaker 1: ancient Egyptian religion has an interesting inversion from the standard
Speaker 1: notion of Sky Father and Earth Mother as primordial gods.
Speaker 1: You know, we mentioned a lot of religions have that,
Speaker 1: and Yesser gives some examples e g. Gaya and Ranos
Speaker 1: and Greek myth Rangonui and Papa tuan Nuku in Maori myth. Uh.
Speaker 1: But anyway, continues saying that Egyptian religion had a sky
Speaker 1: mother newt she even births the sun god every morning
Speaker 1: in an Earth father geb. Okay, next point, yes, or
Speaker 1: makes Egyptian religion has a couple of creation myths. As
Speaker 1: far as scholars can tell, this was not really a
Speaker 1: problem to ancient Egyptian priests. They have some similarities. Often
Speaker 1: involving some sort of primordial mound and some act of
Speaker 1: self creation to start the cosmos. But they involve wildly
Speaker 1: different sets of gods and varied between regions. Yet there
Speaker 1: never seems to be any effort to unify or standardize
Speaker 1: the mythology. I think that's kind of interesting, like a
Speaker 1: lack of the cannon impulse. Yeah, they're the cinematic universe impulse, right, Uh.
Speaker 1: Next point, part of the purpose behind the creation of
Speaker 1: mummies was basically to turn the body into a statue.
Speaker 1: The opening of the mouth. Rituals used to turn the
Speaker 1: mummy into a ritually charged object that the deceased person's
Speaker 1: spirit could inhabit are similar to the rituals used for
Speaker 1: cult statues for temples of the gods, which were similarly
Speaker 1: meant to enable the gods to inhabit the statue and
Speaker 1: to consume offerings. Egyptians had some interesting views on gender relations.
Speaker 1: For example, they thought that in terms of reproduction, women
Speaker 1: were basically empty vessels and that men provided all the
Speaker 1: important elements. This is not a unique view of right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it ends up being reflected in the spermest
Speaker 1: that we discussed and fairly recent episode It's kind of
Speaker 1: not surprising that throughout history a lot of men have
Speaker 1: decided that, oh, it's men who are actually the the
Speaker 1: the only important part. But Yesser continues, while that sounds
Speaker 1: rough on women, it meant women were never really blamed
Speaker 1: for not being able to bear children. It was entirely
Speaker 1: the man's fault. It's interesting they were also pretty relaxed
Speaker 1: about marriage. To premarital sex seems not to have been
Speaker 1: a big deal, and marriage itself was more of a
Speaker 1: legal slash economic arrangement than a religious one. Women could
Speaker 1: even initiate a divorce if they wanted to. This is
Speaker 1: more recommendation. But the book The Woman Who Would Be King,
Speaker 1: which is a biography of hatchup Sets life by Professor Karakoon,
Speaker 1: has a really good scholarly exploration of Egyptian society that
Speaker 1: sounds like a good read. Lastly, I thought the story
Speaker 1: of inegaldy Nana would be your sort of thing. Essentially,
Speaker 1: archaeologists were excavating a palace during the Neo Babylonian Empire
Speaker 1: when they came across a bunch of artifacts from different
Speaker 1: places in much earlier times, all collected in one part
Speaker 1: of the palace. It turns out they'd stumbled onto a
Speaker 1: museum of artifacts from earlier Mesopotamian civilizations, curated by the
Speaker 1: Neo Babylonian princess inegaldy Nana, complete with Cunea form seals
Speaker 1: for each artifact like modern museum labels. Also, her museum
Speaker 1: dates to about a hundred years before Herodotus quote invented
Speaker 1: the study of history. Goes to show you what good
Speaker 1: publicity can do, and then yes or apologizes for the
Speaker 1: length of all this. Uh says they wanted to keep
Speaker 1: adding one more interesting idea before sending off, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for this email. This is great. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I they They really managed to pack a lot
Speaker 1: in here, all right. This one comes to us from Nile.
Speaker 1: Hi Nile from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Really enjoy the
Speaker 1: show's first time writing. When you were talking about life
Speaker 1: on a nuclear submarine, it reminded me of of when
Speaker 1: I worked for Xerox in Los Angeles. I asked my
Speaker 1: district manager, what was the weirdest service call you ever did?
Speaker 1: He said, he installed a Xerox ten ninety copier on
Speaker 1: a nuclear submarine. Why do you need to make copies
Speaker 1: on a submarine. I think, well, we'll get to that.
Speaker 1: So he had to take it apart and cut the
Speaker 1: frame with a torch to get it through the doors,
Speaker 1: weld it back together and get it functioning. If you
Speaker 1: look it up, you will see that it is a
Speaker 1: very large copier. I asked him, why on earth would
Speaker 1: they want such a such a huge copier in a
Speaker 1: nuclear submarine. He said, are you kidding? You have to
Speaker 1: have a form too, in triplicate to take a dump
Speaker 1: in the navy. Uh. It makes me think that the
Speaker 1: modern day nuclear submarine is a lot roomy, or the
Speaker 1: we might think. As for the focusing of the eyes
Speaker 1: and the confined environment. Once I was picking a friend
Speaker 1: up from prison, which tells you the kind of friends
Speaker 1: I have. He had been in a small, combined room
Speaker 1: for six months, and when he got in my car
Speaker 1: in New Mexico with vast landscapes, the first thing he
Speaker 1: talked about was the focusing of his eyes on the
Speaker 1: distant horizon. It really freaked him out and he had
Speaker 1: a hard time adjusting. Thanks for everything you do. Keep
Speaker 1: up the good work. Wow, that that's kind of scary
Speaker 1: to hear there at the end. It makes me think
Speaker 1: prisoners should definitely be given windows, right, Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: I mean, also, we've we've discussed on the show before
Speaker 1: just how horrible solitary confinement is as a form of
Speaker 1: essentially a neurological torture. Uh. It does a lot of
Speaker 1: terrible things to the mind. Uh, And we didn't but
Speaker 1: I don't think we even really got into what it
Speaker 1: might do to your your visual perception. But mainly, I
Speaker 1: just love the idea of a giant xerox machine cut
Speaker 1: apart art and then reassembled aboard a nuclear submarine just
Speaker 1: for bureaucratic purposes. I looked it up. It looks kind
Speaker 1: of like Sideways refrigerator with some little like droid embellishments. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a cross between the Sideways refrigerator and R two
Speaker 1: D two. It's we really need more xeroxes in our
Speaker 1: especially our sci fi underwater environments. Like when I think
Speaker 1: back on The Abyss or Leviathan Deep Star six, what
Speaker 1: these films really lack was that was a proper xerox seeing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're making copies six pack from Leviathan, making copies
Speaker 1: That would have been perfect. Oh, he'd be the kind
Speaker 1: of guy who had xerox his own posterior. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, there has to be an eleaded scene
Speaker 1: now that I think about it, you know, I must
Speaker 1: say Carney is very excited now that we're getting to
Speaker 1: the email about submarines. He must be really enjoying his
Speaker 1: new job. Well yeah, and I mean he's a little
Speaker 1: lonely down here, so he could use a xerox machine
Speaker 1: to hang out with oh as a friend. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so it looks like he is excitedly giving us more
Speaker 1: submarine related email. Yes. In fact, this one, this next
Speaker 1: one comes to us from an old friend, frequent long
Speaker 1: like long time UH listener mail participant Jim, Jim and
Speaker 1: New Jersey Man. He writes some great emails. And this
Speaker 1: is another good one. Jim rights, Robert and Joe. I've
Speaker 1: seen dost Boot twice and been on a German U
Speaker 1: boat twice too, but only in a museum. The U. S.
Speaker 1: Navy captured German U boat you five oh five during
Speaker 1: World War Two. It's a museum attraction at the Museum
Speaker 1: of Science and Industry in Chicago. I wish I'd been
Speaker 1: to that last time we were in Chicago. I'd like
Speaker 1: to go sometimes. Yeah, well, the next time. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: Jim continues, I haven't seen the movie or been to
Speaker 1: the museum in years, but from what I recall, I
Speaker 1: visited the museum in two successive summers and saw the
Speaker 1: movie in between those two visits. So you watch it
Speaker 1: twice in a year. This is kind of obsessive behavior, Jim,
Speaker 1: what's going on. It's a great film, dost boot, It's
Speaker 1: it's It's not like seeing Deep Star six twice in
Speaker 1: the same year, Jim rights. My memory is that the
Speaker 1: movie set and match the sub very well. The movie
Speaker 1: features several scenes at the captain's office, his bunk, and
Speaker 1: the officer's mess. Uh. These are all the same small
Speaker 1: part of the sub, which is not obvious from initial
Speaker 1: viewing in the movie, but more apparent once you see
Speaker 1: slash you know it. The space isn't much more than
Speaker 1: a nook along the sub's main passageway where there's a
Speaker 1: small bunk for the captain. There's a small table next
Speaker 1: to it. I can't remember if it's bolted down or
Speaker 1: whether it flips down like a murphy bed. The captain
Speaker 1: is sitting on his bunk while in his quote office,
Speaker 1: several officers are sitting on the bunk during meals too.
Speaker 1: I wonder if that would mess with you psychologically, like
Speaker 1: if you had to conduct your official managerial duties in
Speaker 1: your office from your bed. Well, certainly, I guess it's
Speaker 1: if it's slightly transformed, it might be a little different.
Speaker 1: But yeah, meetings, meetings on beds are always weird. M Well,
Speaker 1: but we I say that we've had a few of
Speaker 1: these when we're on on trips doing live show. God,
Speaker 1: You're right, it's all is weird. Yeah, you don't really
Speaker 1: have a we never have like a conference room to
Speaker 1: go to. I guess it's like a business area most hotels.
Speaker 1: But if we're like running through the presentation, yeah, it
Speaker 1: generally ends up like two or three of us setting
Speaker 1: on one of the beds that were in the room
Speaker 1: that we're staying in. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, Hey, Robert
Speaker 1: comes in on my bed, let's talk about h H. Holmes.
Speaker 1: But anyway, next time you're in a tense meeting with
Speaker 1: your manager, just imagine they're sitting on their bed and
Speaker 1: I'm sure that'll undercut it. Anyway, getting back to this,
Speaker 1: the tour when I was on it consisted of walking
Speaker 1: through the three middle sections of the sub and you
Speaker 1: can look into the four and aft sections too. Holes
Speaker 1: had been cut into the hull so you don't need
Speaker 1: to go up and down ladders. We could look up
Speaker 1: into the conning tower too. It didn't feel too cramped
Speaker 1: until we were told it was sixty men for ninety
Speaker 1: days with one toilet. Technically there were two toilets, but
Speaker 1: one was a food storage locker. When they first left port,
Speaker 1: there was one fairly small stove right across from the
Speaker 1: captain's nook. The cook had to produce a hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty meals a day from it. I like how the
Speaker 1: second toilet is sort of like an achievement that they
Speaker 1: unlocked through just through eating a food, and like eventually
Speaker 1: they come to that point where it's like, congratulations, survived
Speaker 1: this long and you get another toilet. We have a
Speaker 1: second toilet. Oh, and I guess it was incentive structures maybe,
Speaker 1: but you know, the captain pulled weight on that. It
Speaker 1: was like, oh, then the new toilets available. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: up because I've been waiting days for this. That's my
Speaker 1: office now. Is it weirder to to conduct meetings from
Speaker 1: a bed or from a toilet? From a toilet certainly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like even if you're not actually like using the toilet,
Speaker 1: if you're just setting up on it as if it
Speaker 1: were a chair, that it's got to be a little strange.
Speaker 1: Jim continues. The German Navy had a requirement that their
Speaker 1: boats had to go from surface to periscope level and
Speaker 1: under a minute. This was to hide from patrols. They
Speaker 1: would often drill this, and they do in the movie
Speaker 1: one of my favorite scenes, as the dive alarm sounds,
Speaker 1: the off duty seamen run to the front of the boat,
Speaker 1: becoming human ballast to help the nose of the sub
Speaker 1: dive underwater faster. That that is, that is messed up.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't be using the Oh my god. No, I
Speaker 1: mean it drives home the extreme environment and you know
Speaker 1: the limits of the technology. Yeah, I mean it makes
Speaker 1: me think of like those stunt car scenes in movies
Speaker 1: where somebody gets the car up on two wheels by
Speaker 1: like turning and leaning real hard. Yeah. Generally, we just
Speaker 1: want to be passengers in our vehicles and not some
Speaker 1: component in its functionality. Right. It's like imagine next time
Speaker 1: you're on an airplane and the captains like, all right,
Speaker 1: we need to get ready for landing, So everybody please
Speaker 1: move up to the front of the plane. Yeah, nobody
Speaker 1: wants to hear that, all right? If one comes to
Speaker 1: us from William, William writes, thanks for the podcast makes
Speaker 1: my long bus commute more bearable. Two things related to
Speaker 1: the Sleep and Creativity podcast. First of all, you mentioned
Speaker 1: a future for hotels where they may be able to
Speaker 1: teach languages, etcetera while you're asleep. Maybe I'm just cynical,
Speaker 1: but I suspect the more likely use will be advertising.
Speaker 1: Think of the money they could make selling dream space
Speaker 1: to advertisers. That's the thing in Futurama, isn't it It is.
Speaker 1: There's a scene where where Fry is first subjected to
Speaker 1: advertising in his dream and he's he's he's outraged over
Speaker 1: and he says, but you know, back in my day
Speaker 1: we only had advertisements like on the street, on TV
Speaker 1: and in the sky, but never in our dreams. But no,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I think it's perfect, doesn't he Like?
Speaker 1: He has the he's at school in his underwear dream,
Speaker 1: but then it's like very stylish underwear and it's trying
Speaker 1: to sell him on it. Yeah, yeah, Futurama touched on it.
Speaker 1: This listener Mail touches on it as well, that if
Speaker 1: we open up a new place in our experience of
Speaker 1: reality where advertising could potentially grow, then we will find
Speaker 1: a way to grow it there. He continues, I have
Speaker 1: four kids, and before they were born, I very rarely
Speaker 1: had bad dreams, but at least once for each of them,
Speaker 1: I've dreamt about something horrible and tragic happening to them.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it stems from anxiety about their well
Speaker 1: being or a way of my mind trying to identify
Speaker 1: the best way to protect them. Creativity imparirenting. Perhaps could
Speaker 1: dreaming be a survival mechanism in which one's mind draws
Speaker 1: on extreme scenarios for things that could happen in everyday
Speaker 1: life and create ways to address them, Like did ancient
Speaker 1: people dream of creative ways to hunt or what to
Speaker 1: do if the mammoth suddenly turns on them? The person
Speaker 1: who dreamed of of a solution got away, while the
Speaker 1: one who didn't was trampled. I mean, I think that's
Speaker 1: an extremely compelling way of explaining the emergence of the imagination.
Speaker 1: Why do we have an imagination? I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: kind of strange thing. Do you think lizards have an imagination.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe even it seems kind of unlikely. Uh
Speaker 1: we it seems pretty clear to me. We have an
Speaker 1: imagination as a way of simulating scenarios without having to
Speaker 1: test them out, Like you can imagine what would happen
Speaker 1: based on what you know, and that allows you to
Speaker 1: simulate something stupid that you might be about to do
Speaker 1: and then realize it's stupid and you shouldn't do it.
Speaker 1: But that that applies to waking imagination. So how did
Speaker 1: dreams change that? Yeah, I believe that's that's still an
Speaker 1: open question, but it's certainly one. It is addressed in
Speaker 1: some of these models that we've looked at. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In the in the episode where we talked about the
Speaker 1: usefulness or the potential usefulness of dreams, one idea is
Speaker 1: that the dreams that dreams, by sort of suppressing the
Speaker 1: part of your brain that sensors thought, allow you to
Speaker 1: explore much wilder types of imaginative scenarios, things that you
Speaker 1: would never go to in your waking life, and that
Speaker 1: might be useful as a way of sort of like
Speaker 1: increasing the mutation rate of thought experiments, you know it,
Speaker 1: doing stuff that your normal waking brain would never bother
Speaker 1: to try eye out right, Yeah, exactly. I guess it's
Speaker 1: kind of it ends up being becoming kind of complicated though,
Speaker 1: when you have when you seem to have some sort
Speaker 1: of simulation that is also just clothed in sort of
Speaker 1: ridiculous and garbled dream imagery. Yeah, and and unreality. Man,
Speaker 1: that is a weird thing to think about dreams. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're saying that the imagination is useful because it
Speaker 1: helps you simulate scenarios and and figure out what to
Speaker 1: do in the real world, why do we have dreams
Speaker 1: where we simulate scenarios that were saying the laws of
Speaker 1: physics don't apply, like you can fly and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: That that just seems like that might not be be
Speaker 1: actually useful if you're trying to simulate stuff that could
Speaker 1: happen in your life. Well, unless it's more about sort
Speaker 1: of very basic synaptic connections, you know. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's like the idea of here, here's a game you're
Speaker 1: going to play, but the game is preparing you for
Speaker 1: some sort of combat scenario, you know, um where you
Speaker 1: know the basic skills involved or per have some so
Speaker 1: in neural connections involved. U match up to the real
Speaker 1: life experience as well as the fantastic experience that you're
Speaker 1: actually engaging in your mind during dreams. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: you're somewhat right. I mean, I wouldn't be say I'm
Speaker 1: fully convinced by the model, but there's something to be
Speaker 1: said for the fact that dreams spur you to go
Speaker 1: to places with your brain that you wouldn't normally go to,
Speaker 1: and as such, they might often produce imaginative scenarios that
Speaker 1: are not very useful to you, but occasionally produced some
Speaker 1: very valuable breakthrough. You know, they might be like higher risk,
Speaker 1: higher reward types of imagination use. You know, I have
Speaker 1: to admit that I don't think I've ever had a
Speaker 1: dream that I remember um or a nightmare rather in
Speaker 1: which something bad has happened to my son. The only
Speaker 1: thing that comes to mind is I did have a
Speaker 1: dream once where I went to wake him up and
Speaker 1: like the next morning and he was a teenager. Like
Speaker 1: it's like he, you know, grown up overnight, which is
Speaker 1: this is something bad that happened to your son. That
Speaker 1: counts well, but it also seems it's like a very
Speaker 1: simplistic dream extension of the idea of like, oh, I
Speaker 1: don't want to miss you know, my child growing up,
Speaker 1: or or oh, my child is not going to be
Speaker 1: you know this young forever, that sort of thing. It's
Speaker 1: almost like the dream is an internal poem that uses
Speaker 1: metaphors and imagery to to inspire you to behave in
Speaker 1: certain ways. Yeah, that's often a very like stupid, poorly,
Speaker 1: poorly constructed poem, but it's more Yeah, but you feel them.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is again I'm talking about the general
Speaker 1: nature of dreams here that I think everyone can relate to. Uh,
Speaker 1: In for instance, the nightmare. How many times have you
Speaker 1: had a nightmare that was just absolutely just terrifying and
Speaker 1: you just woke up and you know, maybe woke up screaming,
Speaker 1: or woke up on the verge of tears, or just
Speaker 1: racked with anxiety, And then when you try to explain
Speaker 1: it to you know, your significant other or or someone
Speaker 1: else in the waking day, you just then realize how
Speaker 1: ridiculous it is. Just how you know that all the
Speaker 1: fear that you experienced in the dream is completely absent
Speaker 1: when you just reduce it to a description of events. Well,
Speaker 1: you're much more emotionally vulnerable in dreams, aren't you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you're free from like the logical constraints, like Roger
Speaker 1: Rabbit isn't scary and there's no reason he would be
Speaker 1: chasing me with a mallet. But within the confines of
Speaker 1: the nightmare, that doesn't matter. All that is, all that
Speaker 1: is real is the the emotion in the experience. Also,
Speaker 1: I say that, but Roger Rapp is kind of terrifying
Speaker 1: when you really think about it. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right. This next one comes to us from Jessica.
Speaker 1: Jessica says, Hello, I just finished an older episode about
Speaker 1: laughing during horror movies, and I thought it was incredibly interesting,
Speaker 1: especially the science and research about laughing and smiling. There
Speaker 1: was one phenomenon I found myself pondering over and wanted
Speaker 1: to know more about. Why do people I'm generalized, but
Speaker 1: often men like to tell other people women to smile more.
Speaker 1: This is something that comes up in culture a lot.
Speaker 1: I've read a lot about this. Um Jessica writes. I'm
Speaker 1: a woman and I can't tell you how many times
Speaker 1: throughout my schooling, both high school and college, and even
Speaker 1: in the professional workplace, I get told I need to
Speaker 1: smile more by male colleagues, or I'm told by female
Speaker 1: coworkers that I have the dreaded quote resting bitch face.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal here,
Speaker 1: but I don't think I've ever asked anyone to smile more,
Speaker 1: not not out not out of any sense of nobility
Speaker 1: or anything, but just because I really don't want to
Speaker 1: see anyone's teeth. I just tell people to wipe that
Speaker 1: grin off their face. I I just think I don't
Speaker 1: want to look at anyone's like mouth bones. You know,
Speaker 1: it's no matter how gorgeous or ghastly. Uh you know
Speaker 1: what you have there. Uh, you know may happen to be.
Speaker 1: I I just I'm find not seeing them. Never forget
Speaker 1: your teeth or outside bones. Yeah, yeah, I just I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily need to see more of them. However much,
Speaker 1: whatever dental display you're presenting currently is the appropriate dental display,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to ask you to give me
Speaker 1: more of it. I'm sorry, I'll try to smile less. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: you're you're doing the right amount. But it's it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where it's I'm not gonna look at
Speaker 1: someone and say, like, how well you know, I like
Speaker 1: Joe but I wish I could see more of the
Speaker 1: inside of his mouth. I wish I could see more
Speaker 1: of his teeth. You know, it's I don't know, Maybe
Speaker 1: I just I'm not I don't worship the smile in
Speaker 1: the same way that that is certainly American culture wants
Speaker 1: us to worship the smile to sort of Tom Cruise
Speaker 1: Hollywood smile. You know that's the color of bleached bone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just looks like my soul is hungry. Uh. Anyway,
Speaker 1: moving on, So is it an aura of unfriendliness that
Speaker 1: turns people off? Or is there another reason that people
Speaker 1: like those around them to be smiling all the time,
Speaker 1: especially if smiling is usually a sign of humor or
Speaker 1: uncomfortable nous. Because I can tell you when someone tells
Speaker 1: me to smile, if ever I do, it's not a
Speaker 1: friendly one. I was wondering if you had come across
Speaker 1: any discussions of these situations and your research, the good
Speaker 1: point me in the right direction for some further reading.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good question that might be something
Speaker 1: worth revisiting. I do wonder, and this is again this
Speaker 1: is without any research at this point, but I wonder
Speaker 1: if there are any arguments to be made for the
Speaker 1: human spile, smile, especially serving as some sort of reproductive
Speaker 1: signal of reproductive fitness to say, like, look at my smile.
Speaker 1: My my teeth are healthy. Therefore I am a healthy mate.
Speaker 1: Though it probably on top of that you could make
Speaker 1: the argument that it takes on all these various socioeconomic
Speaker 1: um uh complications as well in modern culture, because the
Speaker 1: smile is is a way of saying, look, how uh
Speaker 1: abnormally white my teeth are. Look how abnormally straight my
Speaker 1: teeth are. Clearly I am someone of some means and refinement, right,
Speaker 1: I I've paid doctors to make me this way. My
Speaker 1: soul is hungry. But again that's just off the top
Speaker 1: of my head. Yeah, and another thing I know, actually
Speaker 1: just saw a headline about this the other day is
Speaker 1: um the idea that smiling has different meanings in different cultures.
Speaker 1: Like there's this whole idea of the Russian smile. Right,
Speaker 1: does the Russian smile mean the same thing that the
Speaker 1: American smile does? Or do these expressions actually have different
Speaker 1: valences within the culture. Yeah, we'll have to we we
Speaker 1: have to come back to this. I know we've we've
Speaker 1: recorded episodes in the past on the you know sort
Speaker 1: of the fake smile and how you can tell a
Speaker 1: fake smile from a real smile, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, it's it's such a it's it's such
Speaker 1: an important aspect of the human experience. It would you
Speaker 1: could do with some revisiting. Yeah, But also Jessica allows
Speaker 1: us to be a voice of encouragement. Smile when you
Speaker 1: want to smile, don't smile when you don't want to smile. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what everybody. Stretch your face unwillingly. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: my I may mentioned before my my wife is a photographer. Uh.
Speaker 1: And part of being a photographer, of course, is you
Speaker 1: know sometimes you're you're asking people to do different things
Speaker 1: with their face and their posture. Uh. My son observes
Speaker 1: all of this, and then when when when he has
Speaker 1: given a camera, he will do like the five or
Speaker 1: six year old version of it. So he'll point a
Speaker 1: camera at me and say all right, stand stand up
Speaker 1: a little bit. And then they'll say, okay, let me
Speaker 1: see your teeth. Show me show me your teeth like
Speaker 1: it's a dentist getting out the drill. Yeah, And I'm like, no, no,
Speaker 1: this this is enough. I'm not showing you any more teeth.
Speaker 1: All right, I have one here. This is coming to
Speaker 1: us from David and this is one of a few
Speaker 1: different messages that came in via the discussion module, which
Speaker 1: is it's the Stuff to Blow your Mind discussion module.
Speaker 1: It is our Facebook group where you can have conversations
Speaker 1: and discuss topics with other listeners of the show and
Speaker 1: then also sometimes with with with with Joe and me
Speaker 1: as well and anyway. David writes in and says in
Speaker 1: the Finite and Infinite Games episode, there was a discussion
Speaker 1: of what happens in sports, in particular football when they
Speaker 1: can't break a tie. I think that ended with us saying,
Speaker 1: now we know we're about to get a lot of
Speaker 1: listener mail where people explain the rules of football to us,
Speaker 1: and it didn't happen. Well, this was the only one.
Speaker 1: He started this one by saying you knew this was coming.
Speaker 1: I think that was the title of response. He says,
Speaker 1: I am from Sydney, Australia and our football or rugby
Speaker 1: league has had some really long games. In the seventies,
Speaker 1: there were two Grand Finals final games to determine the
Speaker 1: champion that finished in a draw and the game was replayed,
Speaker 1: but The game I wanted you to know about was
Speaker 1: a second grade grand final played before the main first
Speaker 1: grade game a few years ago. They change what happens
Speaker 1: in a draw. The teams played the whole eighty minutes
Speaker 1: and had a draw. The rules stated that they played
Speaker 1: five minutes extra time, then if no one scored, uh,
Speaker 1: they change ends and play on until someone scores. The
Speaker 1: game went to the full five minutes uh, and then
Speaker 1: they played another thirty minutes until finally a team scored.
Speaker 1: That is one fifteen minutes in a game that has
Speaker 1: limited placements and some struggle to play the full eighty
Speaker 1: It went so long that it interfered with the pregame
Speaker 1: concert entertainment for the main game. In theory, that game
Speaker 1: could have gone on forever, but would always remain a
Speaker 1: finite game. Yes it would. I know most will not
Speaker 1: know the sport of rugby league, but it is a
Speaker 1: physically demanding game with limited stoppages. It is played in Australia,
Speaker 1: New Zealand and Britain, with a new team in Canada
Speaker 1: and a test match soon to be played in Denver.
Speaker 1: That's probably about the sports eest listener mail you're ever
Speaker 1: gonna hear on here. No, we might we might receive
Speaker 1: some more. Okay, I know we have. We have sports
Speaker 1: fans out there. Now, we're definitely gonna record at least
Speaker 1: one other listener Mail episode where the entire episode will
Speaker 1: just be people explaining the rules of football to us
Speaker 1: after they hear it didn't happen from this one. But
Speaker 1: we'll leave that for another day. All Right, We're gonna
Speaker 1: take one last break, and then when we come back,
Speaker 1: more listener mail. Thank thank thank, alright, we're back. All right.
Speaker 1: What have we got, Robert? Oh, let's see, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have some more here. Uh, here's another short message. This
Speaker 1: one comes to us via the discussion module as well. Uh.
Speaker 1: Terrence writes in and says, the recent episode on quantum
Speaker 1: immortality reminded me of a couple of Larry Nevins short
Speaker 1: stories from the late sixties early seventies, All the Myriad
Speaker 1: Ways and for a Foggy Night. The former concerns the
Speaker 1: psychological consequences of the proof of an infinitely branching multiverse
Speaker 1: not good, and the later the possibility of an inadvertent
Speaker 1: crossing over between them. So what are the consequences? Have
Speaker 1: you read these? I have not read these? Wow, I
Speaker 1: haven't read them either, so I don't know what to
Speaker 1: say about it, but but appreciate the recommendation. Terrence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was some back and forth on the discussion module
Speaker 1: about this from uh, you know, among individuals who have
Speaker 1: read uh, these Larry Nevin short stories. But it does
Speaker 1: make me want to pick him up because he's a
Speaker 1: He's very much an author that I've been aware of forever.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing his name when I would browse the
Speaker 1: science fiction section at the you know, the low bookstore
Speaker 1: as a kid. Uh, And for whatever reason, I just
Speaker 1: I never actually read any of his work. Okay, so
Speaker 1: let's say there were a way to prove the quantum multiverse,
Speaker 1: to prove that, say, the many worlds interpretation is the
Speaker 1: correct interpretation of quantum mechanics, and that that actually does
Speaker 1: lead to you know, every moment, all these infinitely branching
Speaker 1: multiverses that you're splitting off into in uncountable ways. How
Speaker 1: do you think that would change how you feel about life?
Speaker 1: Would it change anything? Well? I guess it depends on
Speaker 1: what you know, Like how much do you know? Like
Speaker 1: do I just know that there is a parallel existence?
Speaker 1: Do I know what the what the differences are and
Speaker 1: like the most uh, I guess the closest multiverse. I mean,
Speaker 1: one version you can think of it is it might
Speaker 1: encourage people to think that their choices are meaningless because
Speaker 1: every choice they make in other worlds, they've made the
Speaker 1: opposite choice. And so really what you are now is
Speaker 1: not the sum total of the choices you made from
Speaker 1: the available options. But you're just the version that made
Speaker 1: these particular choices, and other versions of you have made
Speaker 1: different ones. But how is that different from a lot
Speaker 1: of what we suspect about the nature of our reality,
Speaker 1: you know, questions of to what extent we have free will? Tom,
Speaker 1: we're just we're essentially without choice anyway, And which is
Speaker 1: trapped on this this rail? Well, I mean people. So
Speaker 1: I think the scientific case for the basic view of
Speaker 1: determinism is pretty solid. There's no way you can coherently
Speaker 1: say like, yes, I'm freely making choices and I could
Speaker 1: have done otherwise. There's no way you can prove that.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, we at least have the experience,
Speaker 1: the subjective experience of feeling like we are making free choices,
Speaker 1: So in a way, subjectively it kind of doesn't matter, right,
Speaker 1: Like you can't prove that you could have done otherwise
Speaker 1: in some past scenario, but it feels like you could,
Speaker 1: and it almost seems like that's enough, right. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I tend to suspect that if we were aware of
Speaker 1: of that have happenings in a in another universe that's
Speaker 1: closely aligned with what we're doing here, I think we'd
Speaker 1: still be able to hold on to that, that feeling
Speaker 1: of of freedom and free will, that we still live
Speaker 1: our lives with that in mind. Yeah, I think you're right,
Speaker 1: And whether we could have done otherwise or not, you're
Speaker 1: now the person you are, and the person you are
Speaker 1: now is a result of choices you've made. So whether
Speaker 1: or not you could have done otherwise with the reality
Speaker 1: that we're faced with is that you're the version of
Speaker 1: you that made the choices you did. We don't know
Speaker 1: whether there are other versions of you that made different choices. Well,
Speaker 1: when I think about the multiverse approach, I tend to think, well,
Speaker 1: and in most of those realities, I probably don't even exist.
Speaker 1: Earth doesn't even exist. There's only a slim uh selection
Speaker 1: in which I'm a thing at all. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm probably doing pretty well, uh compared to most of them.
Speaker 1: There are probably a lot of worse realities out there
Speaker 1: for me. Another weird thing well, yeah, I mean another
Speaker 1: weird thing that brings up is though you are aware, say,
Speaker 1: if the Many World's interpretation is true and there are
Speaker 1: these branching multiverses every time there's decoherence, Um, what what
Speaker 1: does it mean to be you? Why are you this
Speaker 1: version of you? Why aren't you some other version of you?
Speaker 1: And are those other versions of you actually you? Or
Speaker 1: are they something else there? You too? But they're not
Speaker 1: the same you. Yeah, they're what Many Worlds proponents called
Speaker 1: the edge. Well, it brings it. It's like the question, uh,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're asking like, is that really? If
Speaker 1: that's you? Then is that you as well? This you
Speaker 1: and another multiverse? But then the same question whom we
Speaker 1: asked just along the timeline, Well, how about how about
Speaker 1: the you that went in to have their wisdom teeth removed?
Speaker 1: How about the U while you were under n st you?
Speaker 1: Was there a you at all during that span of time?
Speaker 1: And then now there's this you that you are embodying.
Speaker 1: Now that's a good question. Does the universe? Does the
Speaker 1: multiverse go on with or without you? I don't know. Okay,
Speaker 1: we got one more email on the Quantum Immortality episode.
Speaker 1: We actually got a lot on this uh this episode.
Speaker 1: We don't have time to read them all, but here's one.
Speaker 1: This also came from Hind, who have gotten in touch
Speaker 1: with us about the alphabet and the goddess. But Hind
Speaker 1: writes quote listening to the Quantum Immortality episode right now.
Speaker 1: Just wanted to point out a slight error that Joe mentions.
Speaker 1: Although the Copenhagen interpretation is the interpretation that's in the
Speaker 1: majority of physics text books, it is in fact not
Speaker 1: what the majority of physicists believe is the right interpretation.
Speaker 1: There is no majority, though the Copenhagen adherents are the
Speaker 1: largest faction or the largest fraction many worlds is not
Speaker 1: too far behind. Here's an article from Sean Carroll's blog
Speaker 1: about this. Also love the shout out to tag Marks
Speaker 1: out Our Mathematical Universe, one of my favorite pop physics books. Um, So,
Speaker 1: I don't remember saying that the majority of physicists believe
Speaker 1: that the Copenhagen interpretation is correct. I thought what I
Speaker 1: had said is that the majority of physicists had believed that.
Speaker 1: But if I did say that's what they believe. Now
Speaker 1: I accept that correction. It seems to be the most
Speaker 1: popular interpretation among physicists, but it's not the majority. It's
Speaker 1: a it's the most popular minority. But what I definitely
Speaker 1: meant is that you know, over over the period of
Speaker 1: history where there have been interpretations of quantum mechanics, Copenhagen
Speaker 1: interpretation is what gets the most attention and the difference.
Speaker 1: Just as a quick refresher is. The Copenhagen interpretation says,
Speaker 1: you know, when you've got a quantum system in superposition,
Speaker 1: it's it's sitting there in superposition until interaction from the
Speaker 1: outside quote collapses the way of function, and then you've
Speaker 1: got a probability of that superposition going into one of
Speaker 1: its definite outcome states. So the pasic example is Shreddinger's cat.
Speaker 1: So you've got the cat in the box, and you've
Speaker 1: got a quantum system in superposition, and something causes it
Speaker 1: to go one way or the other, and the ideas
Speaker 1: that the cat in the box is still alive and
Speaker 1: dead at the same time until you open the box
Speaker 1: and interact with it to see what's going on, and
Speaker 1: then it just assumes one of those two states many worlds.
Speaker 1: Interpretation would say both states are continuously correct, branching off
Speaker 1: into different universes that don't interact with each other. Yes,
Speaker 1: but merely by putting the cat in the specially prepared
Speaker 1: box you created to like a branching path, the wave
Speaker 1: function never collapses into one outcome or the other. They're
Speaker 1: just both equally real going off into different directions that
Speaker 1: can't interact with each other anymore. But hind is correct
Speaker 1: that that the Copenhagen interpretation appears to have been losing
Speaker 1: ground all right. Here's another short bit of feedback from
Speaker 1: the discussion module, and this comes from Peter, who a
Speaker 1: longtime listener stuff to bow your mind and also a
Speaker 1: a VR enthusiast. Uh So I'm always on the lookout
Speaker 1: for for Peter's feedback whenever we touch on VR, and
Speaker 1: he was responding to the Submarine Sleep episode. He says,
Speaker 1: I love the Submarine Sleep episode and great points about
Speaker 1: VR and subs. I'd also be surprised if they weren't
Speaker 1: already experimenting with this. It will be better once the
Speaker 1: more mobile versions improve in quality, but I ideally you'd
Speaker 1: have at least three ms by three ms space for
Speaker 1: them to move around in ideally more but this would
Speaker 1: give them a fair amount of virtual freedom to feel
Speaker 1: like they were in a totally different world for a
Speaker 1: part of the day. I do wonder though, if there'd
Speaker 1: be a danger of feeling more claustrophobic if you had
Speaker 1: this sort of regular freedom. Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 1: Do you adapt to the claustrophobic environment so that it
Speaker 1: cuts down on your fear? Over time you become desensitized
Speaker 1: to it, And like, if you get to look out
Speaker 1: windows or get to have a VR experience, going back
Speaker 1: to the sub is a more horror dorble thing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's It's a great point. And also I like his
Speaker 1: point that that the virtual reality we we sometimes, especially
Speaker 1: those of us who are not actively engaging with with
Speaker 1: current VR tech, we we kind of get that sci
Speaker 1: fi vision in our head, which is somebody putting on
Speaker 1: a para magic goggles and then drooling for an hour.
Speaker 1: But there is a certain amount of physical space you
Speaker 1: need in order to then simulate greater physical space, And
Speaker 1: that becomes a question to like, maybe maybe there's no
Speaker 1: room for that on the sub because you just install
Speaker 1: that Xerox machine. Yeah, yeah, here's the question what is
Speaker 1: the minimum space that you could have to put goggles
Speaker 1: on somebody and give them the illusion of absolute freedom
Speaker 1: of movement? Does it? Does that make sense? Like? Uh? Like,
Speaker 1: so if you want people to be able to walk
Speaker 1: around in a VR world, you could manipulate their walking
Speaker 1: right through the through the sensory feedback so that instead
Speaker 1: of walking in a straight line forever, you eventually get
Speaker 1: them to kind of turn they think they're going straight.
Speaker 1: What's the minimum space to cause that to be convincing
Speaker 1: as infinite movement space? I don't know. I mean it
Speaker 1: sounds like like Peters saying it's three ms by three meters.
Speaker 1: That seems incredibly small. Surely that wouldn't work. What don't know?
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it also depends on like what
Speaker 1: version of the technology you're you're imagining here? Is it
Speaker 1: essentially somebody still like setting at a on a stool,
Speaker 1: or is there some sort of like a uh if
Speaker 1: we're walking on some sort of a treadmill. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it depends on the rig too,
Speaker 1: and just like what what version of existing or future
Speaker 1: technology you're talking about? All right, this one comes to
Speaker 1: us from our listener Andy, Robert and Joe. You asked
Speaker 1: in your Quantum Immortality episode whether anyone had entered an
Speaker 1: altered mental state after extensively restoring save states in video games.
Speaker 1: So this was your concept of saves coming. So you
Speaker 1: create these backup versions of the world you live in.
Speaker 1: Every time you mess up, you go back to the
Speaker 1: to the checkpoint and start over. Uh So, Andy writes,
Speaker 1: I'm ashamed to admit that I once spent a riveting
Speaker 1: six hours saves coming various Mega Man titles. The classic
Speaker 1: Mega Man is a great one. Uh. I then got
Speaker 1: into my car that I wonder where this is going.
Speaker 1: I missed my exit and had a moment of confusion
Speaker 1: as I reached out for a redo mechanism. Perhaps the
Speaker 1: oddest part of the experience was that I was seeking
Speaker 1: a mechanism outside my perceptual reality. It felt similar to
Speaker 1: how the world expands when you step back from an
Speaker 1: intense round of video gaming, becoming aware of the room
Speaker 1: around yourself. While it was not a full blown out
Speaker 1: of body experience, it left me a bit disoriented. Needless
Speaker 1: to say, it didn't work and I had to turn
Speaker 1: around at the next exit. Thanks for the many excellent episodes.
Speaker 1: I think stuff like this is really interesting. One thing
Speaker 1: Jared Lannier talks about is how one of the most
Speaker 1: interesting things about virtual reality is that it can change
Speaker 1: not only your perception of the environment around you, but
Speaker 1: change your perception of what your own body is. So like,
Speaker 1: you can put somebody in a virtual reality simulation where
Speaker 1: they have a tail, and they can do things to
Speaker 1: control their tail, and that very quickly people actually adapt
Speaker 1: to this and start to feel like, you know, the
Speaker 1: the movement of the tail feels intuitive to them. They
Speaker 1: they've got a prehensile tail they can move around and use.
Speaker 1: And the ways you could apply this can get weirder
Speaker 1: and weirder, And it's fascinating that our brains are plastic
Speaker 1: in this way. They can adapt not only to changes
Speaker 1: in the environment, but to changes in the physical makeup
Speaker 1: of the self. And I like the way this extends
Speaker 1: that principle not just to like having a different limb,
Speaker 1: but to having different sort of metaphysical capabilities, like restoring
Speaker 1: saves states in time. It's weird that he incorporated that
Speaker 1: as a thing his body could do. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Yeah, update essentially updated his body schema to
Speaker 1: represent this, Uh, this kind of virtual body. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the thing that that doesn't even have a physical manifestation,
Speaker 1: it would be like it. It would be like control
Speaker 1: over the metaphysical elements of the world itself through some
Speaker 1: kind of body action. And a classic example I think
Speaker 1: of this I brought up on the podcast before is
Speaker 1: when I've been in parts of my work where I've
Speaker 1: been using documents or Excel sheets a lot or something
Speaker 1: like that, there have been times when I in physical
Speaker 1: space tried to control lef you know, like I wanted
Speaker 1: to find something. I wanted a search function, but you
Speaker 1: have you It takes you a second to realize, like
Speaker 1: that doesn't exist in reality, but I thought my body
Speaker 1: could do it onto physical space. Fascinating. Um, I don't
Speaker 1: have an I don't think I have anything directly to
Speaker 1: compare to that, though. On the the video game front,
Speaker 1: I do remember when you know, anyone's familiar with what
Speaker 1: is Katamari Dama, say, oh, were you trying to That's
Speaker 1: the game where you roll up the ball of things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember playing like when that first came out. It
Speaker 1: was we were all super into it and I was
Speaker 1: my wife and I were playing it, and then I
Speaker 1: went to drive to work, and I didn't actively try
Speaker 1: and drive my car over things and and roll them
Speaker 1: up into a ball. But there was like this weird
Speaker 1: feeling like I should be able to do that that
Speaker 1: thankfully quickly vanished. But but yeah, it's interesting to think,
Speaker 1: especially as we get into into technologies that will enable
Speaker 1: us to take on new forms, certainly in the virtual realm,
Speaker 1: you know, to what extent does it become too weird
Speaker 1: to come back to our own bodies? Too shocking? Even?
Speaker 1: I mean, this makes it. Yeah, it makes me wonder if, like,
Speaker 1: is there anything we couldn't train ourselves to internalize if
Speaker 1: things as weird and non physical, as say like a
Speaker 1: search function, or like saves coming or you know, restore states,
Speaker 1: those things are nowhere to be found in the physical world,
Speaker 1: but we can internalize them as something that I expect
Speaker 1: my body to be able to do. Where does it stop?
Speaker 1: What else could you get your body to expect that
Speaker 1: it can do? Yeah, this guy's limit. That's a homework
Speaker 1: assignment for your listeners. What sort of like metaphysical capabilities
Speaker 1: do you think you could train people to expect to
Speaker 1: be able to carry out just by running them through
Speaker 1: some virtual reality or video games? Or something good or bad. Indeed,
Speaker 1: I like the idea of thinking about what are some
Speaker 1: of the beneficial ones. Could you one day have a
Speaker 1: situation where here's a video game, you play it, and
Speaker 1: it's some in some way like enhancing your abilities to
Speaker 1: operate as a functional human in the real world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think about like self editing technology and
Speaker 1: technology that would give people more willpower. You know, we're
Speaker 1: we're very very impulse driven. We're very driven by habit,
Speaker 1: by impulse, by sort of momentary desires that are in
Speaker 1: conflict with our long term goals and desires. This is
Speaker 1: why the social media apps are so addictive and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. They leverage our impulses against our long term
Speaker 1: goals for our time use and stuff like that. Could
Speaker 1: you could you get people through some kind of VR
Speaker 1: video game training to sort of um reprioritize, to like
Speaker 1: prioritize their long term goals up higher in the chain
Speaker 1: of action. I don't know. And then how would you
Speaker 1: how would you incorporate a first person shooter mechanism into
Speaker 1: this so that it would sell enough copies? Well, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't think it has to be a
Speaker 1: first person shooting. I think it does it looks like
Speaker 1: what most of the games are, or it needs to
Speaker 1: be um, it needs to be a sports game, one
Speaker 1: of the two, or a Jedi game. You know. I
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna make a very weird prediction. I
Speaker 1: think someday we will move beyond the first person shooter.
Speaker 1: People think that it's going to be what video games
Speaker 1: are forever. I think someday in the future, the first
Speaker 1: person shooter will just be an obscure genre that was
Speaker 1: very popular in the past, give way to the first
Speaker 1: person stabber that would be the primary uh mode of
Speaker 1: interface there. Huh but no, I hope you're right. I
Speaker 1: hope you're right, But it seems it seems to be
Speaker 1: stuck with us for now. All Right, we have time
Speaker 1: for one last listener mail. This one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Hope. Hi, Robert and Joe. I just recently listened
Speaker 1: to your episode on a Fantasia and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: While I was looking more into hyper Fantasia, it came
Speaker 1: to my mind that I have very vivid dreams. My
Speaker 1: husband has stunned sometimes at how well I can recall events, colors,
Speaker 1: and physical sensations. I've always thought it was strange how
Speaker 1: when he has a dream he can hardly seem to
Speaker 1: remember any of it, if any at all. I thought
Speaker 1: to myself, is that how differently our minds actually worked,
Speaker 1: Like the difference between a fantasia and hyper fantasia. My
Speaker 1: question to you is, would you consider doing an episode
Speaker 1: on vivid dreams and their causes, differences and individuals, etcetera.
Speaker 1: I would love to hear what you could find out. Lastly,
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for making my work days
Speaker 1: go by so much quicker. I'm lucky enough to work
Speaker 1: at a place where i can listen to podcasts almost
Speaker 1: all day, and I'm slowly working my way through the episodes.
Speaker 1: The best part is feeling like I've achieved something by
Speaker 1: learning about the different topics at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you know, other than the confused looks my co workers
Speaker 1: start giving me when I start ranting about things like peeps,
Speaker 1: pe zombies and by cameralism. I wish you all the best,
Speaker 1: yours hopeful. Uh, well, we're glad we can subjectively shorten
Speaker 1: the impression of the length of your life. No, that's
Speaker 1: not how it works, is it. No, well, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's an increase in quality. Even if it is, it
Speaker 1: seems to be a you know, relatistically, a decrease in quantity.
Speaker 1: I think we talked about this, uh. I think it
Speaker 1: might have been from the work of David Eagleman where
Speaker 1: we talked about in the Time and the Present moment
Speaker 1: episode where it's counterintuitive. But if I'm remembering correctly, I
Speaker 1: hope I'm not getting this wrong. But basically, experiences that
Speaker 1: seem very long in the moment are actually compressed and
Speaker 1: shortened in memory, whereas experiences that go by very quickly
Speaker 1: in the moment are lengthened in memory, so that like
Speaker 1: you get a retrospective lengthening of the life by having
Speaker 1: things that that you know, by having interesting, exciting experiences
Speaker 1: that go by very fast even though it feels like
Speaker 1: it's happening faster and while you're doing it now. On
Speaker 1: the topic of vivid dreams, certainly, I mean dreams are
Speaker 1: a topic that I feel like we'll never exhaust on
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind. Well, will inevitably come back
Speaker 1: to dreaming and sleep in the future, nightmares and what
Speaker 1: have you, So that that would be an interesting angle
Speaker 1: to to take you. Aside from some of these sort
Speaker 1: of you know, hyper state. You know, we've discussed lucid
Speaker 1: dreaming before, but but on a you know, much simpler question,
Speaker 1: what is the difference between a vivid dreamer and say,
Speaker 1: more typical dreamer. Do you find that you have more
Speaker 1: vivid dreams when you are in a more emotionally vulnerable state. See,
Speaker 1: it's hard to say, because I'll have vivid dreams that
Speaker 1: are so boring that I forget them before I wake up,
Speaker 1: you know, like and and then sometimes a dream isn't
Speaker 1: that it, But it had an amazing idea and there's
Speaker 1: some amazing bit detail to its substance, and that'll stick
Speaker 1: with me. Um. Yeah, it's uh. It kind of comes
Speaker 1: back to that basic bit of dream journaling wisdom to
Speaker 1: write it down immediately after it happens. And I almost
Speaker 1: never do that. It all becomes kind of lost in
Speaker 1: the shuffle, which I remind myself, I think it's supposed
Speaker 1: to do that. So, man, this has been an epic
Speaker 1: Listener Mail episode. Yeah, we've we've we've covered We've covered
Speaker 1: us about everything. Yeah, let's see. We got some some
Speaker 1: good criticisms of alphabet and got us some interesting tangents
Speaker 1: related to that. We got quantum immortality, we got uh,
Speaker 1: nuclear submarines got, We got all kinds of stuff, reading suggestions, episodes, suggestions,
Speaker 1: and we definitely want to remind everybody that, yeah, when
Speaker 1: when when you when you come across some topic that
Speaker 1: you would like for us to cover, uh some angle
Speaker 1: on a past episode that that that we glossed over
Speaker 1: and missed. Uh you know whatever, do right into us.
Speaker 1: So again, we don't always have time to to respond
Speaker 1: to you individually or to even feature them all on
Speaker 1: listener mail, but we do read them all. Uh, so
Speaker 1: we are always open to feedback. Oh, it looks like
Speaker 1: Carney is getting an ELF signal from the surface saying
Speaker 1: that we need to surface there. There must be we
Speaker 1: gotta go to periscope depth. All right, well let's do it.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, head on over to Stuff to Blow
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