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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In today,

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Speaker 1: we are going to be waiting into the murky pool

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Speaker 1: of immortality and and the deep waters that lie beyond.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And since we just celebrated Chinese New Year

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Speaker 1: and we're now officially in the Year of the Rooster,

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Speaker 1: the fire Rooster, uh, it seemed appropriate to focus in

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Speaker 1: on Chinese immortality because certainly immortality is is big business

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Speaker 1: for us humans. And any myth cycle that you find

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Speaker 1: is going to have a few immortals jumping around in there.

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Speaker 1: A few there's usually a lot of yeah, yeah, a

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Speaker 1: few a lot. You're gonna have some some undying heroes, gods, demigods, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: You know, whalen on each other, uh having a lot

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Speaker 1: of the emotions about their undying state, that sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: And there's just each each culture, each myth cycle is

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Speaker 1: going to have a pretty rich history of this and

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Speaker 1: and as well as their own mix of universal ideas

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Speaker 1: and individual cultural ideas regarding UH life, undying. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think it's very interesting to look at the diversity of

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Speaker 1: the ideas of transcending death, but like what what they

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Speaker 1: all remain or what they all have in common? I

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Speaker 1: guess yeah. Uh so, all over the world you see

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Speaker 1: ideas about the survival of death or about ways that

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Speaker 1: one could prolong ones life indefinitely, um and and there's

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Speaker 1: so many details that change, like do you do you

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Speaker 1: you survive death in some kind of immaterial state? Do

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Speaker 1: you go to a different place or do you stay

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Speaker 1: in the same place. Are there beings that naturally live

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Speaker 1: forever or do they have to do something to sustain

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Speaker 1: their immort plity? You know, do you have to eat

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Speaker 1: the fruit of of continued existence? And I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I love that there there are all these little fruits

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Speaker 1: that grow off the tree of the idea of immortality

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Speaker 1: that are very different in various But the thing you've

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Speaker 1: always got there is that you don't want to stop

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Speaker 1: being there in your mind, right, Yeah, it's I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's part of being human. Our earliest recorded stories, you

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Speaker 1: can go back to the Epic of Gilgamesh in there

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Speaker 1: there are that there's a plot line there about the

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Speaker 1: quest for immortality. But in this episode, we're going to

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Speaker 1: focus in on Chinese mythology. And when I say focus,

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Speaker 1: focus is maybe a poor word because Chinese mythology is

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Speaker 1: a is a is a big tent and we'll get

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Speaker 1: into into that as we go here. But but the

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Speaker 1: Chinese treatment on the idea, uh, definitely have this mix

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Speaker 1: of like universal ideas concerning living forever as well as

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Speaker 1: some uniquely Chinese ideas. We also want to you know,

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Speaker 1: drive home here that you know, we know we have

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Speaker 1: a number of Chinese listeners out there or listeners who

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Speaker 1: grew up amid Chinese culture, so certainly feel free to

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Speaker 1: chine in on any of this. I always love to

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Speaker 1: hear from folks on on this topic and you help

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Speaker 1: clarify things with your experience and provide specific takes on

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Speaker 1: traditions and and tales that are often, you know, quite

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Speaker 1: varied across the vast time and space of Chinese culture.

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Speaker 1: Right now, first of all, we should probably just take

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Speaker 1: another step back from the specifics of Chinese culture and

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Speaker 1: just talk about again about why we are so obsessed

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Speaker 1: with immortality. Yeah, I guess that's a good thing to do. Like,

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Speaker 1: what what is this concept? Because immortality is not something

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Speaker 1: that is necessarily found in nature, So why is it

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Speaker 1: such an obsession? I guess maybe I could frame it

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Speaker 1: like this, I'm gonna ask a stupid question. I like

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Speaker 1: doing this on the podcast to ask a stupid question

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Speaker 1: because a lot of the ideas that I find most

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Speaker 1: interesting somehow start from intentionally asking a stupid question. And

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Speaker 1: here it is, why we want to keep living? Why

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Speaker 1: do all animals have what appears to be an overwhelming

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Speaker 1: desire not to die? Part of the answer is going

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Speaker 1: to be obvious, of course, right, So if you think

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Speaker 1: about the evolutionary basis for behaviors and drives that we have,

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Speaker 1: one of the most basic drives we have is for reproduction,

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Speaker 1: of course, but pretty much all the other ones are

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Speaker 1: based around survival. So genes that lead an organism to

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Speaker 1: have more descendants are going to flourish in the gene pool,

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Speaker 1: and so organisms that do not desire strongly to survive seem,

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Speaker 1: like prima facy, to be likely to have fewer descendants.

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Speaker 1: You're just not going to spread those genes that say

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Speaker 1: don't care about living and dying around very much because

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Speaker 1: a certain amount of survival is necessary for reproduction. But

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Speaker 1: note that I say a certain amount, because here's something

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Speaker 1: I was just thinking about this last night. Many animals

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Speaker 1: reach an age of peak reproductive fitness, after which, even

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Speaker 1: if they survive, their ability to reproduce approaches zero. So,

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Speaker 1: from an evolutionary basis, how come we don't lose our

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Speaker 1: will to survive after we've passed childbearing age? Or how

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Speaker 1: come we don't lose our will to survive if we've suffered, uh, say,

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Speaker 1: injury to our reproductive organs or something like that that

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Speaker 1: prevents us from passing our genes along. What would be

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Speaker 1: the evolutionary incentive for selecting genes that make us desire

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Speaker 1: to just keep on living, going on and on and on,

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Speaker 1: even in old age, desiring to just extend indefinitely into

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Speaker 1: the future. I'm not sure, but I think that's interesting.

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Speaker 1: I guess there are There are a few ideas. Maybe

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Speaker 1: there's the idea that children with surviving grandparents have greater

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Speaker 1: reproductive fitness because they're adult caregivers, that they've got more

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Speaker 1: adult caregivers. Basically, if you've got grandparents, great grandparents and

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Speaker 1: all that. Uh. But here's another anomaly to think about.

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Speaker 1: For complex mammals like human the desire for extended life

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Speaker 1: doesn't just reside in the brain, but it applies specifically

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Speaker 1: to the mind rather than the body. And this is

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Speaker 1: so that seems obviously well, yeah, of course it would.

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Speaker 1: You know, your mind is the thing that's thinking. But

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Speaker 1: think about this again from a biological perspective. So imagine

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Speaker 1: a little weird illustration. You're lying in bed tonight, Robert

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Speaker 1: and the robots come for you. The robot sorcerers come

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Speaker 1: and sees you out of your bed. Uh. And these

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Speaker 1: are robot sorcerers that delight in putting humans in weird dilemmas.

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Speaker 1: And so they give you two options. You've got option A,

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Speaker 1: which is that your brain is going to be destroyed

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Speaker 1: and an artificially intelligent computer impostor will be implanted in

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Speaker 1: your former head and then we'll live out its stays,

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Speaker 1: controlling your body with all normal function intact as if

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Speaker 1: it were still you. Okay, I'm not crazy about that option,

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Speaker 1: but now let's hear what The next option B is

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Speaker 1: that your body will be destroyed, but your brain will

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Speaker 1: be inserted into a vat atop one of those Boston

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Speaker 1: Dynamics darker robots, you know, so they want wandering around

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Speaker 1: on the on the logs and stuff where you can

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Speaker 1: live out your days as a brain in a vat

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Speaker 1: in a robot body, Robert, which one do you pick? Well?

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Speaker 1: These are both horrible choices because they both hinge on

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Speaker 1: the fallacy that that the mind is separate from the body,

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Speaker 1: and that we don't have a mind body unity. Oh okay, well,

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Speaker 1: but I'm saying you so, you wouldn't You wouldn't prefer

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Speaker 1: your consciousness remain intact on the robot. Um I mean

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Speaker 1: is the is if the robot brain goes into my body,

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Speaker 1: is it going to is it going to raise my

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Speaker 1: kid for me? Oh, let's say it would. Okay, then

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Speaker 1: I'll go with that like I would rather. It's as

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Speaker 1: long as the the new robot me cannot tell anybody

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Speaker 1: that I actually died. It has to keep going doing

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Speaker 1: its thing, continue, you know, keeping up with my responsibilities.

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Speaker 1: Uh yeah, and uh and keep everybody happy around me. Well,

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Speaker 1: you could also keep up with your responsibilities as a

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Speaker 1: brain in a robot boty. That's just gonna upset everybody,

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Speaker 1: though nobody wants that at at Christmas dinner. That is

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Speaker 1: a beautiful answer, Robert, But I sincerely believe that is

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Speaker 1: not the answer most people would actually choose. Really, most

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Speaker 1: people would choose the vat I think you will, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to having your consciousness destroyed. I've just read

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Speaker 1: theereny horror stories about like brains in like Nego brain

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Speaker 1: canasters and whatnot, So I think even if it is

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Speaker 1: an exceedingly cruddy robot body, I think most people would

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Speaker 1: choose to have their consciousness preserved in a robot body

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Speaker 1: as opposed to have their body continue to do things

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Speaker 1: but their consciousness destroyed. Fair enough, Uh, it might not

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Speaker 1: be immediately clear why that's odd, but think about it

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Speaker 1: in the same terms as the past reproductive age example.

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Speaker 1: In option A, the impostor AI living in your body

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Speaker 1: could still reproduce Option B cannot. Uh. So your answer

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Speaker 1: there is probably the more biological, the intuitive one. But

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Speaker 1: I think the answer that I feel confident most people

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Speaker 1: would actually give if really faced by these robots sorcerers. Uh,

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Speaker 1: that that doesn't really make biological sense. So why does

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Speaker 1: your mind generally prefer its own survival to the survival

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Speaker 1: of the body that houses it and the genes that

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Speaker 1: created it. I don't know. To me that that's a

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Speaker 1: weird conundrum, And you can see this instantiated in many

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Speaker 1: beliefs about immortality that people have where they continue to

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Speaker 1: believe that their minds will go on existing after death,

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Speaker 1: even after their bodies are destroyed and there's no continued

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Speaker 1: possibility of reproduction. Well, I mean, I guess it comes

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Speaker 1: back to I think, therefore I am right. If I

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Speaker 1: am not conscious of my existence, I don't exist my

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Speaker 1: my and therefore my consciousness is my existence, even if

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Speaker 1: it's completely extracted from every other important aspect of existence. Well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's certainly experientially clear to me why I

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Speaker 1: would prefer the the survival of my consciousness. But from

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Speaker 1: a third party point of view, if an alien just

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Speaker 1: came down and looked at people making that choice, it's

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Speaker 1: not obvious why they would be doing that. Uh So, anyway,

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Speaker 1: I think that's kind of interesting. Another side note, I

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Speaker 1: wanted to go down. Uh this might be a tangent,

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Speaker 1: but I also want to say that not everyone in

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Speaker 1: history has expressed the view that it's good to desire

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Speaker 1: to live forever. Uh. Just one example I wanted to

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Speaker 1: think of was the influential twentieth century philosopher Martin Heideger,

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Speaker 1: who famously he had this whole logic of the relationship

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Speaker 1: between authentic existence and the acceptance of death. And in

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Speaker 1: this system, basically a person's life is given meaning by

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Speaker 1: the fact of its finitude. Uh. The fact that a

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Speaker 1: person can exist in time, finitely in time, and then

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Speaker 1: not exist at a later time gives life the possibility

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Speaker 1: of a definite, authentic character and kind of makes sense

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Speaker 1: to me, right like if if you live forever and

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Speaker 1: you always have the potential to change, who are you? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of like the difference between say,

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Speaker 1: having a free hour on a given day to you know,

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Speaker 1: engage in your hobbies or you know what have you

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Speaker 1: or a chore around the house, versus having the full

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Speaker 1: open day. Right now, people's approach this are gonna are

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Speaker 1: gonna differ, But my approach has my experience has often

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Speaker 1: been that if I only have an hour, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: be more inclined to make the best out of that hour.

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Speaker 1: And if, by some miracle having an entire day, then

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's likely to be this unstructured, uh, just

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Speaker 1: a bout of unproductivity. But it's even worse than that

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Speaker 1: from my point of view, because think about, uh, all

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Speaker 1: of the things that make you you, all the things

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Speaker 1: that make you Robert lamb Uh. They're all expressions, I

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Speaker 1: would say, of choices you make given the finitude of

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Speaker 1: time and resources. The fact that like you are who

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Speaker 1: you are hardly because of which books you've read and

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Speaker 1: which books you've read. That's just one aspect of your character. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: not everything is as a function of the fact that

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Speaker 1: you don't have time to read all books that exist

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Speaker 1: in the world, right, Yeah, you have to pick and choose.

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Speaker 1: And then this is this is actually a good point

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Speaker 1: because also the books one has read changes, the books

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Speaker 1: one remembers changes, the books that one puts stock in

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Speaker 1: that too changes, and therefore the expression of self is

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Speaker 1: continually transforming. Um, this is something we'll get into it

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Speaker 1: that when we look at the particular Chinese models here,

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Speaker 1: because this is this is the thing, right when we

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Speaker 1: when we talk about living forever, there's there's this classic

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Speaker 1: idea of living forever is also eternal youth. I'm going

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Speaker 1: to be young forever. I'm gonna be this idealized version

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Speaker 1: of myself forever. Whereas which wouldn't really be you as

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Speaker 1: you the person who lives for a finite amount of time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that that doesn't match up with the human experience like

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Speaker 1: either you would be an inhuman thing this like like

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Speaker 1: basically like a robot version of me that acts like

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Speaker 1: like current me forever and never reads any new books,

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Speaker 1: never forgets any books that are currently bouncing around my head,

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Speaker 1: and it's just in this state, uh, just frozen in time.

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Speaker 1: Whereas in reality, like the immortal, I feel like the

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Speaker 1: the sort of dark Methuselah immortals that we see in

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Speaker 1: science fiction are kind of the more intriguing models because

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Speaker 1: they often involved like somebody just getting older, older and

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Speaker 1: more inhuman, you know, just awful awful, super rich old

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Speaker 1: men and cyberpunk novels pan Well lo pan to to

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Speaker 1: draw an example from a you know, an Eastern influenced

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Speaker 1: Western property, we have a super ancient guy who's cursed

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Speaker 1: and just gets worse and worse for never dying, Like

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Speaker 1: there's not a he just continues to spoil and doesn't

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Speaker 1: reach the actual point where you throw him off the shelf.

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Speaker 1: To quick asterisks on mentioning Heidegger, one of them was,

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Speaker 1: I hope everything I said is contingent on the fact

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Speaker 1: that I understand Heidegger right, which is debatable because his

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Speaker 1: ideas are just notoriously hard to understand uses all this

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Speaker 1: weird specialized terminology. But then the other thing is saying

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Speaker 1: that you can't really mention Heidegger these days, even his

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Speaker 1: a political philosophy or seemingly a political philosophy, without also

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Speaker 1: mentioning that he was an unrepentant Nazi. Uh. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if that has any significance to the death philosophy,

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Speaker 1: But I don't know. Maybe we're thinking about, well, they

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Speaker 1: sure like skulls. But anyway, so all of that stuff

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Speaker 1: we've just said aside, I think we can say it's

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Speaker 1: a decidedly unusual attitude toward death to say that, you know, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a good thing that I'm going to cease to

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Speaker 1: exist at some point, uh yeah, Or it's it's it's

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Speaker 1: easier to embrace it in the abstract, yeah, but when

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Speaker 1: when the the reapers actually coming around the corner, I

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Speaker 1: feel like not every one is going to be as

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Speaker 1: game to embrace it. People go to enormous, enormous lengths

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Speaker 1: to avoid acknowledging death or thinking about the inevitability of death.

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Speaker 1: And there's actually the whole psychological framework known as terror

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Speaker 1: management theory that hypothesizes that much of human culture, A

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Speaker 1: lot of what we do as a species is all

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Speaker 1: built around unconsciously designing frameworks to deny the reality of

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Speaker 1: death and put it out of mind. So people apply

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Speaker 1: this hypothesis to explaining the existence of cultural norms like

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Speaker 1: rules in society and things like that, traditions, religions, activities

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Speaker 1: that we use to entertain ourselves. Art. Uh. And I'm

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Speaker 1: not going to say whether terror management theory is a

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Speaker 1: correct interpretation of human behavior, but I do think it

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Speaker 1: has some purchase on our explanatory desires. Obviously, because humans

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Speaker 1: just so clearly fear death above all else. It's it's

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Speaker 1: obvious everybody would have to acknowledge that this is going on. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I feel like, as with a lot of philosophical or

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Speaker 1: even religious frameworks, I kind of see them as like

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Speaker 1: a series of lenses that one may employ or or

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Speaker 1: pull away, depending on how you want to try and

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Speaker 1: view your your reality. And I feel like terror management

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Speaker 1: theory is one of those that, Yeah, I wouldn't want

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Speaker 1: to go walking around my life all the time seeing

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Speaker 1: everything within the framework of terror management theory, but occasionally

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Speaker 1: it is helpful to pull it down and say, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: this is it. Is interesting to view this aspect of

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Speaker 1: the the human experience um in you know, in reference

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Speaker 1: to our fear of death. Well, Robert, do you think

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Speaker 1: now we should transition to looking at the idea of

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Speaker 1: immortality specifically in Chinese mythology. Yeah. Yeah, let's let's go

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Speaker 1: ahead and dive in. So the important thing to drive

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Speaker 1: home here, of course, is that immortality is are from

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Speaker 1: a cut in dry topic in Chinese mythology, like they

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Speaker 1: don't have a systematic theology of it, right, yeah, and

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Speaker 1: and and again. Part of this is because Chinese mythology

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Speaker 1: is the thing that is so deep and wide. It

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Speaker 1: covers a great well of time as well as of

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Speaker 1: a vast geographic landscape. UM plus, a mythic history and

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Speaker 1: history have long experienced a certain amount of fusion into

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Speaker 1: a single timeline. And uh we we were chatting about

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Speaker 1: this before we came into the podcast room. Here you

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Speaker 1: you also see this, um there's less of a a

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Speaker 1: fusion and cannon canonization of Chinese mythology. It's not like

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Speaker 1: what we see in in the West, we say, Greek mythology,

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Speaker 1: where you certainly as you grow up in school there's

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Speaker 1: sort of a strict pantheon that's thrown at you. There's

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Speaker 1: there's more or less a strict canonization of Greek mythology

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Speaker 1: in classical literature. Um, there's no Homer and Hesiod. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the thing. In China and Chinese culture, you see

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Speaker 1: far fewer examples of of of important artist or writers

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Speaker 1: taking mythology and then using it to create something new

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Speaker 1: that in turn, uh, solidifies the tail. So in Chinese

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Speaker 1: culture you still have a lot of these different versions

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Speaker 1: of various myths and folk tales that retain their original form,

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Speaker 1: and you'll have, you know, multiple versions of the same

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Speaker 1: story depending on where you are and when you are. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: There is an interesting explanation of the sort of scattered

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Speaker 1: source nature of Chinese mythology in the intro to one

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Speaker 1: of the books we were using as a resource for

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Speaker 1: this episode, uh, the Handbook of Chinese Mythology by Li

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Speaker 1: Hui Yang and demming On with Jessica Anderson Turner. And

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Speaker 1: the intro of this book is good. It it talks

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Speaker 1: about what a lot of the sources were. But these

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Speaker 1: fragments that inform our understanding, our modern understanding of Chinese

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Speaker 1: mythology come from all over the place and in many cases,

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Speaker 1: they're they're like just small little inscriptions and things like that,

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Speaker 1: and then or some other larger texts that have various

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Speaker 1: versions of narratives and things like that. But there's not

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Speaker 1: like a Bible of Chinese mythology, right, Yeah, And sometimes

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Speaker 1: I like to compare it to to to Hindu mythology,

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Speaker 1: and Hinduism is another world where it's just a well

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Speaker 1: of ideas and religions and traditions all thrown together. But

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Speaker 1: yet there are there are several key epics that in

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Speaker 1: particular that help inform the backbone of the thing. If

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Speaker 1: you think of a faith as a snake rising up

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Speaker 1: through that well, uh, than Hindu mythology might be, you know,

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Speaker 1: a spiraling snake, but you can you can definitely pinpoint

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Speaker 1: keep key parts of its anatomy. So in Chinese mythology,

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Speaker 1: the line between more mortality and immortality often becomes a

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Speaker 1: bit blurred. Uh. You know, we mentioned a big trouble

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Speaker 1: little China earlier. Um, and this will be not a

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Speaker 1: traditional text, not a traditional text, but just I will

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Speaker 1: mention it one more time in this episode. Ah, I'm

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Speaker 1: a fan of the film, and I feel like, even

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Speaker 1: though it's very much a Western product. It actually does

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Speaker 1: an okay job giving like a broad treatment of Chinese mythology.

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Speaker 1: Uh in that it um you know, it's I feel

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Speaker 1: like it has a deceptively deep treatment of certain aspects

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Speaker 1: of Chinese mythology, even though it kind of plays fast

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Speaker 1: and loose with everything, but it grounds itself in some

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Speaker 1: key principles. And certainly we see that with Lopan in

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Speaker 1: his uh, his immortal and mortal duality. He's he's at

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Speaker 1: once this this frail old man and this uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: you know, tin foot tall spirit character. So keep that

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Speaker 1: in mind, you and as we move forward, Okay, so

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Speaker 1: as you if you go back all the way to

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Speaker 1: some of the earlier myths in in China, there's this

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Speaker 1: presumption of immortality about the primeval gods. So this is

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Speaker 1: a concept that falls in line with Judeo Christian concepts

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Speaker 1: of the divine, etcetera. And yet gods such as the

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Speaker 1: Yellow Emperor do suffer defeat and death. Though there's often

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Speaker 1: a metamorphosis trope here as well. So you might remember

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Speaker 1: from our Great Flood episode, the legendary hero kon Uh

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Speaker 1: drowns and becomes a bear or possibly a turtle or

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Speaker 1: a dragon depending on which version you're looking at. So

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Speaker 1: there's a transformation ELM. Yeah, so it's the idea of

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Speaker 1: living forever is not simply one of retaining your current state,

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Speaker 1: but transcending to a different state. But also in some

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Speaker 1: features of Chinese mythology we do see a kind of

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Speaker 1: a middle or liminal state of right, like in the

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Speaker 1: concept of undead creatures, like that they're not exactly immortals

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Speaker 1: living forever, not exactly regular mortals. There's something in between

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Speaker 1: or some state. We we do see some cool examples

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Speaker 1: of that, and Baryl points out some of these in

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Speaker 1: her excellent book Chinese Mythology and Introduction, which I highly recommend.

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Speaker 1: One of them is a woman show who is uh

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Speaker 1: this deity. She's actually a drought goddess and she's said

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Speaker 1: to have been born a corpse. Yeah, well maybe you know,

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Speaker 1: but take it all in here now. She she lived

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Speaker 1: through the world of the ten Sons. So there's this

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Speaker 1: story in the mythology where at one point in the

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Speaker 1: in the distant past, the Earth had ten sons in

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Speaker 1: the sky, or you might conceive this as nine extra

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Speaker 1: sons or nine extra sons, nine superfluous sons. So what

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Speaker 1: are you gonna do. There nine extra sons, and it's

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Speaker 1: scorching the earth. It's burning up all the crops. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And this is where ye the archer enters the picture.

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Speaker 1: He'll come again, come up again later and he starts

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Speaker 1: shooting down the surplus sons with his bow. Uh. Saves

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Speaker 1: the world uh and uh, and then the show is

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Speaker 1: able to come back to life. So she's affiliated with

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Speaker 1: with the crab because the crab, and sort of mythic understanding,

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Speaker 1: sheds its shell and regrows. Ever, so here we see

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Speaker 1: an idea of a of an immortal character who is

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Speaker 1: also a character that dies, but it's a it's but

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Speaker 1: there's a continual rebirth. I'm she drives out, but she

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Speaker 1: comes back. I'm seeing here the uh the myth. Maybe

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Speaker 1: this is the origin of that myth that was going

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Speaker 1: around on the internet a few years ago that Arthur

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Speaker 1: pods like lobsters live forever. Remember that, Yeah, I do

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Speaker 1: remember that that kind of going around, and it it

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Speaker 1: does tie into into some of these mythic interpretations of

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Speaker 1: what these animals are doing when they mold. From what

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Speaker 1: I recall, that turned out to be a very incorrect

400
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Speaker 1: understanding of what the research showed. Yes. Now another character

401
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Speaker 1: that does she brings up is one sing Tane, who

402
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Speaker 1: is this warrior god character, and he continues to fight

403
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Speaker 1: after being beheaded. So he's he's kind of a you know,

404
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Speaker 1: a headless horseman or a roll in the headless Thompson

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Speaker 1: gunner Um. He loses a battle to the Yellow Emperor,

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Speaker 1: and so he's essentially a failed hero. He transforms though,

407
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Speaker 1: rather than submit immediately to death, and it's quite a transformation. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: tell me about it. Right, here's the here's the quote

409
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Speaker 1: that Beryl rolls up. Sing Tane and the Yellow Emperor

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Speaker 1: came to this place and fought for divine rule. The

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Speaker 1: Yellow Emperor cut off his head and buried it on

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Speaker 1: chang Yang Mountain. Sing Tean made his nipples serve his

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Speaker 1: eyes and his navel as a mouth, and brandishing his

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Speaker 1: shield and battle axe, he danced whoa nipple ees naval mouth. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and there's some there's some like old images of this too.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty pretty monstrous awesome. But you know, he's stubborn

417
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Speaker 1: and he's he's going to fight to the bitter end,

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Speaker 1: even though he's gonna have to transform into something else

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Speaker 1: to do it. Okay, So here you've seen a couple

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Speaker 1: of examples of of survival of death or some form

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Speaker 1: of survival of death or immortality in a liminal or

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Speaker 1: middle state, or through metamorphosis or t information. Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: see this idea of immortality not as a state of

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Speaker 1: eternal youth, but as a change into something stranger, something

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Speaker 1: less human, something that's still very much like the biological

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Speaker 1: process of aging, only for lack of a better word,

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Speaker 1: like aging up. You mean that kind of like leveling up. Yeah, Like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're you're you're leveling up, you're getting older, because we

429
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:23,919
Speaker 1: certainly have you know, in the I feel like in

430
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:26,960
Speaker 1: certainly in western cult ravity universally, this is idea you

431
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 1: know that you're gonna go over the hill, you're gonna peak,

432
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:33,199
Speaker 1: and then the uh, the the years on the back end,

433
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:34,760
Speaker 1: or even the decades in the back end are going

434
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 1: to be a decline. Right. But in some of these

435
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:42,400
Speaker 1: mythic ideas of undying beings, there's the sense of you're,

436
00:25:42,440 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 1: they're aging, they're getting older and older, stranger and stranger,

437
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 1: and yet they're still an upward trajectory. And certainly some,

438
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 1: I mean some human lives are like that. If some

439
00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:55,160
Speaker 1: people don't really get into their prime until their final years.

440
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 1: Some great writers or artists have produced their finest work

441
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:03,440
Speaker 1: in those areads. Yeah, but uh, you know, it varies

442
00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 1: from case to case. I wonder if this has something

443
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:09,880
Speaker 1: to do with a general cultural relevance for the elderly

444
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 1: and and respect for for the wisdom that comes with age. Yeah,

445
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: I think that's an excellent read on it. It does

446
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:18,639
Speaker 1: match up with the the idea of filial piety, of

447
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: the veneration of ancestors, and the important role of of

448
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:27,200
Speaker 1: of grandparents in the traditional Chinese family. All right, well,

449
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:28,879
Speaker 1: maybe we should take a quick break and then when

450
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 1: we come back we can have a look at mushrooms

451
00:26:32,280 --> 00:26:40,400
Speaker 1: and grasses of immortality. So Robert tell me about living

452
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:44,160
Speaker 1: forever through mushrooms. Well, so this is one of those

453
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 1: areas where in in Chinese culture you have you have

454
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: mythology and folklore, you have you have Taoism, you have Confusism,

455
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:55,959
Speaker 1: and you you also have like Chinese traditional medicine. So

456
00:26:56,080 --> 00:26:57,920
Speaker 1: that's playing a role in all of this and getting

457
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 1: in the mix. And so, uh, we their their stories,

458
00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:04,880
Speaker 1: plenty of stories and continued use of the raci mushroom

459
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:09,399
Speaker 1: or the ling mushroom in China. Uh. They're known for

460
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 1: their life extending properties and they've been used medicinally for

461
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 1: at least two thousand years because they have this reputation

462
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 1: for promoting health and longevity. We talk about this one

463
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 1: a Christian and I talked about it in our Weird

464
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:24,640
Speaker 1: Mushrooms episode of the podcast a few months back. And

465
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 1: traditional Chinese medicine use continues to this day. In ancient

466
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:32,679
Speaker 1: use of this, uh go back at least to like

467
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:37,640
Speaker 1: four s b C. Just based on their textual appearance. Okay, well,

468
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: tell me about some kind of mythical plant that's going

469
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:42,399
Speaker 1: to give it immortality, because you've got to have that

470
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:44,680
Speaker 1: in your in your mythical basis, right. Oh yeah, yeah,

471
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 1: I think you alluded to it in the in the intro.

472
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 1: You always have like with the tree in the Garden

473
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: of Eden, don't you know, various apples and fruits that

474
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:57,960
Speaker 1: have divine properties and may give you eternal or long life.

475
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:00,280
Speaker 1: Then the Greek gods have a tree like that, believe

476
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 1: they did. I mean yeah, I mean there's a world

477
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 1: tree in Chinese tradition as well. But they're there also

478
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:12,239
Speaker 1: is grass. There's a there's mention of the Grass of Immortality. Uh,

479
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 1: they're numerous magical grasses, but the grass of Immortality pops

480
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 1: up in the legend of Lady White Snake. This is

481
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:21,119
Speaker 1: a pretty fun one. So it it grows along with

482
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:24,720
Speaker 1: other magical plants on the earthly paradise in the Koon

483
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:28,479
Speaker 1: Loon Mountains. H Lady White Snake was a monster who

484
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 1: turned into a woman married a kind man, but one

485
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:34,679
Speaker 1: day her husband sees her in her true form and

486
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:38,600
Speaker 1: it scares him to death. Yeah, it's kind of like, Uh,

487
00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: it reminds me a lot of the Lady in the

488
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 1: Snow story from Japanese culture, and that was also adapted

489
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,400
Speaker 1: into the Gargoyle story and Tales from the Dark Side

490
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 1: of the movie. If you remember that one um, there

491
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: was a Gargoya woman who takes mortal form and marry

492
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: as a kind man. So anyway, she's distraught because he's

493
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 1: dead now. So she flies to the Holy Mount and

494
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 1: she retrieves the grass of Immortality and and she but

495
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: she has to first convince the immortal Grandfather of the

496
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 1: South Pole, the god of Longevity, to give it to her.

497
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 1: And uh, this and this is a very interesting character

498
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 1: as well as we're going to discuss. Well, don't make

499
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: me wait, tell me about the immortal Grandfather. Yes, we're

500
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 1: talking about Nanji shing Wing a k A immortal Grandfather

501
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 1: of the South Pole, also often attributed as as simply Show,

502
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 1: which literally means longevity and mandarin um. He's also, you know,

503
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: symbolically a jovial old man with a great swollen forehead

504
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 1: because it's so full of knowledge and astrologically speaking, because

505
00:29:46,600 --> 00:29:49,800
Speaker 1: he's a figure that plays into Chinese astrology. He's also

506
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 1: the class F giant star Cannabis. You would generally expect

507
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: a person who is a giant star to have a

508
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 1: quite swollen head. Yeah, yeah, I mean he's he's old,

509
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:01,239
Speaker 1: he's full of wisdom, and he's he's lined up with

510
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 1: this particular star. And it makes sense. Canapis playsant into

511
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:08,440
Speaker 1: a number of different astrological traditions. It's the second brightest

512
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 1: star in the sky. Uh. And if you're wondering how

513
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: old it is, we're talking fifteen to twenty million years now.

514
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 1: I was not expecting to make a Dune reference in

515
00:30:18,040 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 1: this episode, but this is crazy. In Frank Herbert's done universe,

516
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 1: the planet Iracous such as the you know, the planet

517
00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 1: dune with the sandworms. Spice is actually orbiting Canapis, so

518
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: the home of the geriatic, the geriatric spice Melange the

519
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 1: mind expanding, life extending substance. In that fictional universe, it

520
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 1: orbits the ancient Chinese god of longevity and wisdom. Do

521
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:46,959
Speaker 1: you think that's by design? I don't know. I wouldn't

522
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 1: put it past Herbert. I'm not as immersed in Herbert's

523
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:53,600
Speaker 1: bio biography as many are, so I can't say one.

524
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 1: I know he doesn't seem to make a lot of

525
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: specifically Eastern references, but he also does seemed to incorporate

526
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: a lot about different does Yeah, I don't know, so

527
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:05,719
Speaker 1: I would not doubt it. If someone were to, you know,

528
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 1: to say, oh, he definitely drew interpretation from Johnny's mythology,

529
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 1: it would it would certainly, it would certainly make sense.

530
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:15,280
Speaker 1: I'm sensing the onset of a boat. Wait, there's more.

531
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 1: It's true. In Greek myth, Cannabis was the name of

532
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:22,480
Speaker 1: the pilot of the fleet of Mentalis, and Mentalais was

533
00:31:22,520 --> 00:31:26,040
Speaker 1: in a tradees. Yeah. So in Greek myth, the tradees

534
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 1: were the son the sons of the trays uh and

535
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:33,000
Speaker 1: of course, the Tradees Paul Trades. This is the central

536
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 1: family in the Dune saga, right, So yeah that if

537
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 1: you've seen the movie, they're the people with the pugy.

538
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 1: So the more the more I look at it, the

539
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 1: more I'm like, surely, surely this is intentional. Yeah. Otherwise

540
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:48,480
Speaker 1: it's just the most wonderful coincidence for for me personally

541
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 1: that these two things that I appreciate should be united. Wow,

542
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 1: that's interesting. Well, okay, give me more about the immortal

543
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 1: grandfather himself, so like what's his significance and in their

544
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: whole pan theon Alright, So for a lot of people listening,

545
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:06,520
Speaker 1: you might have seen him if you go into either

546
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 1: a Chinese home, a Chinese business, um, you know, Chinese restaurant.

547
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 1: I certainly noticed a lot of these for the first

548
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 1: time when I was in China and saw them in

549
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:18,959
Speaker 1: hotel lobbies because you see these three individuals and and

550
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:22,360
Speaker 1: Uh and Show and in particular stands out because he

551
00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: has that that forehead. So you have these three stars,

552
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:32,080
Speaker 1: these three gods, and there's a Foo Lou and Show.

553
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:36,640
Speaker 1: So Foo represents good fortune and we see that symbolized

554
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 1: in his scholars dress, cradled child and in fact, sometimes

555
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: he's crawling with children like he's infested. Sometimes he has

556
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 1: a scroll as well. Uh. And then there's a Lou,

557
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 1: and Lou has a fine clothes, a riyo scepter, and

558
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 1: he's he's the one you want to venerate for business

559
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: savvy and professional success. And then you have old man

560
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 1: show with the loaded skull that represents longevity, the wisdom

561
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 1: that comes with old age. Dallas mythology attributes his ancient

562
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:10,560
Speaker 1: appearance to ten years in his mother's womb, and and

563
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 1: that he was actually born an old man. And he

564
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: also often carries the peach of immortality as well, which

565
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 1: would have been obtained from another longevity god, the Queen

566
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 1: Mother of the West. So there are a lot of

567
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 1: symbols coming together in his in this particular figure. So

568
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 1: here we have another specific piece of plant matter of immortality,

569
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:34,720
Speaker 1: the peach of immortal. Yeah, I mean, if you start

570
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 1: taking in global myths in general, there's just an entire

571
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 1: salad buffet of of various things that will give you immortality,

572
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 1: right down to the bacon bits, peach of immortality, bacon bits,

573
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 1: fruit of the tree of life, ambrosia else what else. Well,

574
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: if I'm imagining what the shownees all you can eat buffet,

575
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 1: and you've got the seafood buffet at the end, so

576
00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 1: you get right down to the crab, I guess the

577
00:33:56,720 --> 00:34:00,719
Speaker 1: soft serve of immortality. So coming back this idea of

578
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:04,440
Speaker 1: aging up, of of the of the body, changing, of

579
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:08,920
Speaker 1: becoming this uh, this slightly in human aged form. We

580
00:34:08,960 --> 00:34:12,359
Speaker 1: see that with show, and certainly Chinese myth is full

581
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 1: of immortal and long living creatures, monsters, spirits, including the

582
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 1: Wutong Shin who you've mentioned before, but one in particular

583
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:25,239
Speaker 1: ties in with what we're talking about here. So we're

584
00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:31,800
Speaker 1: talking about the Shan, the dallast immortal body. So there's

585
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:37,359
Speaker 1: a writing about this from one Zwang Joe who wrote

586
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:43,320
Speaker 1: about immortality for mortals in reference to an enlightened human sage.

587
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:45,920
Speaker 1: So he said, so so we can get it. That's

588
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 1: the idea here is that there's a way for real,

589
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 1: least certain humans to obtain this. Maybe not you and me,

590
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 1: but maybe not not enlightened enough, but somebody could get

591
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:59,959
Speaker 1: it right. So this is what he said. He said,

592
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: there is a holy man living on far away Kushi

593
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:05,920
Speaker 1: Mountain with skin like ice or snow, and gentle and

594
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:09,120
Speaker 1: shy like a young girl. He doesn't eat the five grains,

595
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 1: but sucks the wind, drinks the dew, climbs up on

596
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:15,280
Speaker 1: the clouds and missed rides of flying dragon, and wanders

597
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:18,839
Speaker 1: beyond the four seas. By concentrating his spirit, he can

598
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:22,280
Speaker 1: protect creatures from sickness and plague and make the harvest plentiful.

599
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:26,440
Speaker 1: So and Barrel points to a number of aspects of

600
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:28,560
Speaker 1: this account that are noteworthy. So we have a hermit

601
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:31,400
Speaker 1: on a mountain. You're on a mountain, You're closer to heaven.

602
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:35,719
Speaker 1: Uh diet list, we have transformed gender, We see meditation,

603
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:40,480
Speaker 1: travel at will, magical powers of the beneficial nature, and

604
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:45,759
Speaker 1: UH carrying particular weight. In Dallas philosophy, this figure of

605
00:35:45,840 --> 00:35:50,760
Speaker 1: the of the Chien the or the transcendental being Um.

606
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 1: Though the particulars you know varied opinion on the exact

607
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:58,040
Speaker 1: reading Dallas Um Chinese alchemy, mythology, literature, folk tales, et cetera.

608
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:02,319
Speaker 1: Perhaps the most famed use of this trope is in

609
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:04,880
Speaker 1: the the Eight Immortals, which are a group of Dallas

610
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 1: immortals of feature into various works of art and literature,

611
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:10,840
Speaker 1: and they even show up in films. Hong Kong action movies,

612
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:15,560
Speaker 1: even the Drunken Master films. It's been forever since I

613
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:18,359
Speaker 1: saw one of those, but apparently the Eight Immortals show

614
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:22,720
Speaker 1: up there. They they they found new forms in comic books,

615
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 1: so they're they're pretty big, big money. Do they still

616
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 1: embody these traditional characteristics? Yeah? Yeah, I mean these are

617
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 1: kind of like the tropes of the the the Old

618
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:39,359
Speaker 1: Immortal Sage of of Dallas tradition, and I think it's

619
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 1: it's all quite interesting. I mean, you can take a

620
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 1: literal reading of them and just say how they're they're magical,

621
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:47,719
Speaker 1: weird dudes. But I like how the aspects of the

622
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:53,279
Speaker 1: the enlightened transcendental body here seemed to be supernatural reflections

623
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 1: of the actual biological factors of old age, right, changes

624
00:36:57,239 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 1: in appetite, softening of gender, the potential for solitude, and

625
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 1: increased empathy. Well, one thing I was looking at this

626
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 1: and I thought it was quite interesting how some of

627
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 1: these features that are being associated with this transcendental immortal

628
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:16,839
Speaker 1: um are actually paralleled in real scientific research on longevity.

629
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 1: Uh So, for example, one of them is so it's

630
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: an old man who seems to lose some primary sex characteristics.

631
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:27,239
Speaker 1: And this made me think, well, that sort of goes

632
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:31,239
Speaker 1: along with some research we have indicating that men can

633
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:35,400
Speaker 1: see increased longevity through castration. Oh yeah, this is probably

634
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:38,000
Speaker 1: not the option everyone will end up going for to

635
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 1: prolong their life. But I just wanted to mention a

636
00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 1: couple of couple of studies. There was a nineteen sixty

637
00:37:43,160 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 1: nine study in the Journal of Gerontology by James Hamilton

638
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,960
Speaker 1: and Gordon Messler UH, and its studied the longevity unfortunately

639
00:37:51,080 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 1: in early mid to twentieth century institutionalized men who had

640
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:58,960
Speaker 1: been forcibly castrated as a result of the eugenics ideology

641
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 1: of the time. So that's pretty unfortunate circumstances. But what

642
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 1: they did find out from it was that from so

643
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: they looked at two hundred and ninety seven cast rated

644
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:13,840
Speaker 1: men and compared them with UH seven hundred and thirty

645
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:17,600
Speaker 1: five age matched controls, so men who were living in

646
00:38:17,600 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 1: the same conditions, and they revealed that the castrated men

647
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:25,319
Speaker 1: had a significantly increased lifespan. I think it was a

648
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 1: difference of about six years. And if only that those

649
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:33,319
Speaker 1: that were castrated earlier in life were considered, that the

650
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 1: effect on lifespan was even more drastic. It was more

651
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 1: than eleven years. And there was also a study that

652
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 1: was published in the twelve issue of Current Biology that um.

653
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:48,799
Speaker 1: It was called the Lifespan of Korean Unix by King

654
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:55,000
Speaker 1: Kung Jin, Men Chilkoo Lee, and Hannam Park, and they

655
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 1: said that their goal was to look at the effects

656
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 1: of castration by analyzing historical Korean unis. So they looked

657
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:06,360
Speaker 1: at the genealogical records of eighty one historical Korean unix

658
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 1: and then compared those two similar men of similar socioeconomic

659
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:14,800
Speaker 1: status but who had not been castrated. And they determined

660
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 1: that quote, the average lifespan of unis was uh seventy

661
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 1: plus or minus one point seventy six years, which was

662
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:27,160
Speaker 1: fourteen point four to nineteen point one years longer than

663
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 1: the lifespan of non castrated men who had the similar

664
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:34,800
Speaker 1: station in society. So this all feeds into this body

665
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:36,879
Speaker 1: of literature that people have been looking at to say

666
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:40,400
Speaker 1: that perhaps male sex hormones in some way decrease one's

667
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 1: ability to live to an older age. Well, that raises

668
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:48,640
Speaker 1: some interesting possibilities then about the possible link between unis

669
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 1: and this This this trope of the the the aged

670
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:57,200
Speaker 1: immortal beca I mean, certainly we we had unis in

671
00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:00,879
Speaker 1: China in Chinese tradition. Uh. I don't know, it would

672
00:40:00,880 --> 00:40:02,239
Speaker 1: be interested to come I can explore that more. I

673
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:04,759
Speaker 1: would love I've long wanted to do an episode on

674
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 1: UNIX sort of talk about not only the science of units,

675
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:10,840
Speaker 1: like what's actually happening, but also their role in society,

676
00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:14,040
Speaker 1: which has has very greatly. You've had certainly you've had

677
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 1: plenty of situations where units are treated as a third gender,

678
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:21,120
Speaker 1: as a second class kind of citizen, but they have

679
00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: also ascended to tremendous power at certain times and in

680
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: certain conditions. I think in many cases you can look

681
00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 1: at it as an analog to the way celibacy was

682
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 1: practiced in other contexts where there there's like a fear

683
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:40,480
Speaker 1: of people establishing hereditary corruption. Uh. And in situations like

684
00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:44,279
Speaker 1: that there is often either enforced celibacy or preference for

685
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:48,839
Speaker 1: castrated men or something like that. Um. But I want

686
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:52,800
Speaker 1: to go with another example of the the Enlightened Immortal. Uh.

687
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:55,840
Speaker 1: It says that the Enlightened Immortal what sucks the wind

688
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:59,839
Speaker 1: and drinks the do that's their diet. I also wanted

689
00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 1: to tied this into the research on the link between

690
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 1: caloric restriction and longevity, which is not um not fully established.

691
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:09,279
Speaker 1: I think that we've seen some back and forth in

692
00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:12,560
Speaker 1: the research there, but the idea here is that restricting

693
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: daily food intake below the level of satiation but above

694
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:20,000
Speaker 1: the level of malnutrition generally, I think what's looked at

695
00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:23,840
Speaker 1: is about a thirty percent reduction below standard intake of

696
00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:28,960
Speaker 1: daily calories could lead to longer lifespan in animals. Uh

697
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 1: And the effect has been observed in short lived species

698
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 1: like mice and rats, but the question is wouldn't apply

699
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:37,760
Speaker 1: to big primates like us. Well, there now been several

700
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:41,960
Speaker 1: studies looking at long term caloric restriction and REESEUS monkeys

701
00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 1: and the results have been mixed. So there was one

702
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 1: study in two thousand nine that was a twenty year

703
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 1: longitudinal adult on set caloric restriction study and REESEUS monkeys

704
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:56,960
Speaker 1: and they did find that the caloric restriction lead to

705
00:41:57,239 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 1: increased lifespan and the REESUS monkeys. Then there was a

706
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 1: different study published in Nature in twelve that did a

707
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:07,839
Speaker 1: twenty three year study on Rhesis macaques and it did

708
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:11,440
Speaker 1: not find It found a very slight increase through caloric

709
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: restriction as compared to a control group, but it was

710
00:42:14,640 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 1: not The difference wasn't statistically significant, so they said, you know,

711
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:21,959
Speaker 1: this is not replicated. But then I found one more

712
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:27,640
Speaker 1: analysis published in Nature Communications in teen looking at the

713
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:32,239
Speaker 1: previous twelve study that didn't find support for caloric restriction

714
00:42:32,280 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 1: and longevity, and they ended up suggesting that what was

715
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:39,120
Speaker 1: really going on with the study. The problem there was

716
00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:43,800
Speaker 1: that the control monkeys were effectively actually undergoing caloric restriction.

717
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 1: Uh so there wasn't a proper control. Basically, all the

718
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:51,160
Speaker 1: monkeys were having caloric restriction. So, uh so, the jury

719
00:42:51,239 --> 00:42:54,439
Speaker 1: is not not in yet on exactly the relationship there,

720
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:56,759
Speaker 1: but there are some indications that there could be a

721
00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:01,600
Speaker 1: real connection between to know, being this diet less kind

722
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:04,560
Speaker 1: of creature, well probably not eating nothing right but more

723
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:07,640
Speaker 1: than the dew in the wind um, but but less

724
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 1: than you want to eat, and living much longer than average.

725
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 1: So yeah, perhaps the just the symbol of this ancient

726
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:20,720
Speaker 1: stage encompasses, uh some some basic ideas that are helpful

727
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:24,359
Speaker 1: for living a long life. Right now, that's all well

728
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 1: and good to say, Oh, well, maybe you should, uh

729
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:29,800
Speaker 1: maybe you should eat less, Maybe you should be a

730
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: little less masculine, Maybe you should you know, walk around

731
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:35,640
Speaker 1: in the mountains more. Yeah, that's all well and good.

732
00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:40,160
Speaker 1: But here in modern times, what we want is a pill, right,

733
00:43:40,239 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 1: what we want is a drink. What we want is

734
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:45,480
Speaker 1: a magic potion. It's so much easier, so much easier

735
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:49,120
Speaker 1: than getting castrated and not eating all the pizza. Yeah. Well, fortunately,

736
00:43:49,160 --> 00:43:53,880
Speaker 1: there is a long history of alchemy in Chinese history

737
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:58,759
Speaker 1: and in Chinese mythology, so we can turn to automical

738
00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 1: means to produce use the same effect, tell me, you know,

739
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:06,759
Speaker 1: mythologically speaking. So in Cohen's Biographies of Holy Immortals, this

740
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: is a fourth century tone of immortality and longevity, sorcery,

741
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:15,040
Speaker 1: counts of supernatural beings and what have you. It contains

742
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:18,520
Speaker 1: instructions for the creation of various potions, such as one

743
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 1: for gold. And gold here I'm I'm fairly certain we

744
00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:26,120
Speaker 1: are not to supposed to interpret is simply the element gold.

745
00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:32,000
Speaker 1: It's something something more in line with Western alchemy's sorcerer's stone,

746
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:35,440
Speaker 1: kind of a thing which itself was not necessarily a stone,

747
00:44:35,800 --> 00:44:39,200
Speaker 1: but a substance. So we get this, this gold, and

748
00:44:39,239 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 1: then you simply ingest one pound of the gold to

749
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 1: cure disease and make quote three worms cry for mercy.

750
00:44:47,080 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 1: What does that mean? I guess that like the three

751
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:52,920
Speaker 1: worms that would like eat its you and aide you.

752
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 1: You know, you know the three worms. No, I don't.

753
00:44:56,280 --> 00:45:00,759
Speaker 1: I'm confused. Okay, three pounds of the old will make

754
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:04,600
Speaker 1: you live till the world's end, only till the world's end. Well,

755
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 1: I think that the actual phrasing is essentially like, you

756
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 1: will live as long as the natural world, like presumably

757
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:13,719
Speaker 1: you could still like if the world, if you've no

758
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:15,640
Speaker 1: where to live, you're you're done. So it's kind of

759
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:18,839
Speaker 1: like a biological immortality. I guess now I'm interested in

760
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:23,760
Speaker 1: the differentiation between indefinite immortality, like you will live forever

761
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 1: versus you will just live for many thousands of years. Yeah, Like,

762
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:32,399
Speaker 1: are these effectively actually different propositions? Well, yeah, I mean

763
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:34,000
Speaker 1: it comes down we we broke it down a little

764
00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:36,400
Speaker 1: bit earlier. Yeah. Are you saying if you say you

765
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: want to live forever? Are you saying I want to

766
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 1: transform into something cosmic? Are you saying I want to

767
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 1: be exactly like I am right now forever? I want

768
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:47,359
Speaker 1: to be basically like I am right now, except I'm

769
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:51,359
Speaker 1: gonna keep getting smarter and stuff, or like I'm I'm

770
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 1: going to continue to age as I'm aging, but with

771
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:56,799
Speaker 1: absolutely no stop date, Like I'm just going to get

772
00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 1: just take aging to the limit. I mean, I guess

773
00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:03,360
Speaker 1: if you lived until the end of the universe, Uh,

774
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:05,520
Speaker 1: there'd be nothing left for you to do, right if

775
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:10,960
Speaker 1: the universe becomes homogeneous, just heat, death, everything is just

776
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:14,279
Speaker 1: cold darkness. Yeah, I don't know. And if you love

777
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:17,920
Speaker 1: just hanging out on mountaintops and riding dragons and drinking

778
00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:19,799
Speaker 1: the dew out of the air, like, none of that's

779
00:46:19,800 --> 00:46:23,240
Speaker 1: gonna be around anymore, so why bother? Uh? So three

780
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:25,439
Speaker 1: three pounds of the gold will get you that far.

781
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:27,360
Speaker 1: But also you can put it in a corpse. You

782
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:29,320
Speaker 1: can put a pill of it in a corpse's mouth

783
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:32,239
Speaker 1: along with some spit and resurrect them from the debt.

784
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:35,760
Speaker 1: So there's that. I do find it interesting that seems

785
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:38,080
Speaker 1: to take far less to resurrect the dead and then

786
00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:43,400
Speaker 1: to simply um sustain human life. And definitely all right, Well,

787
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 1: I think we should take a quick break and then

788
00:46:45,160 --> 00:46:48,320
Speaker 1: when we come back we will talk about the elixir

789
00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:56,360
Speaker 1: of immortality. So Robert tell me about the elixir of

790
00:46:56,400 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 1: immortality in Chinese mythology. All right, So this is of

791
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 1: all of the various potions and concoctions, this particular magic

792
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:07,239
Speaker 1: potion is probably the most famous of Chinese immatory immortality

793
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,600
Speaker 1: quest items, okay, in part because it involves a number

794
00:47:10,640 --> 00:47:13,560
Speaker 1: of big name gods and heroes. It concerns the moon.

795
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:16,920
Speaker 1: So as with all these stories, the details and the

796
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 1: shape of the narrative changes depending on where you're dipping

797
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:22,480
Speaker 1: your net in the waters of Chinese myth. But these

798
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:27,360
Speaker 1: are the basics, okay. So while various shamans and deities

799
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 1: have access to this elixir, it's primarily a sad associated

800
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:34,000
Speaker 1: with the Queen Mother of the West, and a jade

801
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:38,360
Speaker 1: rabbit pounds it in a mortar for so, So imagine this,

802
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:42,319
Speaker 1: this divine feminine entity, and here is a magical jade

803
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:45,600
Speaker 1: rabbit pounding something in a in a mortar, and that

804
00:47:45,719 --> 00:47:48,879
Speaker 1: it's creating this potion. And I've seen at least one

805
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 1: ancient painting or depiction that has that. It's exactly as

806
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:55,320
Speaker 1: literal as it sounds. It's a rabbit holding a pestle

807
00:47:55,480 --> 00:48:00,440
Speaker 1: pounding in the mortar. Yes, okay, so that's established. Remember ye,

808
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:02,920
Speaker 1: the archer from earlier we're talking about who's shot down

809
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:05,279
Speaker 1: the surplus sons, right, we had nine too many. He

810
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 1: took them out. Well, the Queen Mother of the West

811
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 1: Uh I guess it, was impressed with this gives him

812
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 1: the potion so that he might live forever and rule

813
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: over men for ages to come. It makes sense, right,

814
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: he's a big name hero. He either he's rewarded with

815
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:23,160
Speaker 1: this or he asked for it and he gets it.

816
00:48:23,560 --> 00:48:28,040
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. He has a wife, Uh changy okay,

817
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:33,520
Speaker 1: and she steals it, drinks it, and flees to the moon. Now,

818
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:36,400
Speaker 1: one of the things is that looking at the books

819
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 1: we used for this episode, there are a lot of

820
00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:44,040
Speaker 1: versions of this myth, and Chinese Uh role in them

821
00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:47,960
Speaker 1: is vastly different depending on which version you read. It's

822
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 1: kind of like looking in on if you look at

823
00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:53,640
Speaker 1: these these heroes and gods as celebrities, it's kind of

824
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:57,719
Speaker 1: like a celebrity domestic dispute of some sort. So at

825
00:48:57,760 --> 00:48:59,720
Speaker 1: first we can just say, all we know are the basics.

826
00:48:59,719 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 1: Here is this potion, she drank it, maybe she stole it,

827
00:49:03,600 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 1: and then and then she went to the moon. What happened?

828
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 1: What are the details? Changy is the villain of this story,

829
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:11,319
Speaker 1: and in some versions she does sort of get punished, right,

830
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:14,360
Speaker 1: like she gets turned into a toad or yeah, like

831
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 1: the earliest versions of it, she's punished by the gods

832
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:20,839
Speaker 1: for stealing essentially from the gods are stealing a gift

833
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:23,839
Speaker 1: of the gods, it was not hers, and she's transformed.

834
00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:26,080
Speaker 1: She gets to the moon, but there she's transformed into

835
00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:29,520
Speaker 1: a toad. And the toad is another symbolic animal of immortality.

836
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:32,879
Speaker 1: But the idea is that you could look up at

837
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 1: the moon and you could see a tree, a toad, uh,

838
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:39,080
Speaker 1: and and the rabbit. And we'll get to the tree

839
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:41,640
Speaker 1: in a bit. But there there are versions that are

840
00:49:41,680 --> 00:49:45,160
Speaker 1: more complex too. So there's one version that I like

841
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 1: to think of as like the love lady Hawk version. Okay,

842
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 1: And in this one, he loved Changy so too much

843
00:49:53,640 --> 00:49:56,880
Speaker 1: to drink the potion and become immortal without her. He

844
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 1: only had the one dose, so he just gave it

845
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:02,839
Speaker 1: to her for say of keeping. But then he's apprentice

846
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 1: fing Ming comes along and he's a he's a bad dude.

847
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:09,480
Speaker 1: He invied the heroic archer wanted his skills and in

848
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:12,960
Speaker 1: some tales would eventually murder him. Yeah, what they get

849
00:50:12,960 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 1: into like a duel with their bows and fing Ming

850
00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 1: can't match him in archery skills, so he clubs them

851
00:50:19,680 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 1: to death with I think the bow of a peach tree. Wow, well,

852
00:50:25,880 --> 00:50:28,000
Speaker 1: that's probably cheating in the duel is Yeah, Well, he's

853
00:50:28,040 --> 00:50:30,840
Speaker 1: a he's a bad he's a bad characters. He's not

854
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:32,799
Speaker 1: gonna play fair. The only way he's gonna defeat he

855
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:37,160
Speaker 1: is by cheating. So uh. In this particular story, Fingming

856
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:41,040
Speaker 1: catches wind of this. He finds out that his wife

857
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 1: has the potion, so he comes to her to take

858
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:45,680
Speaker 1: it from her, and she won't let him have it.

859
00:50:45,920 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 1: She swallows it instead to keep it from falling into

860
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:51,640
Speaker 1: his vile hands. And she immediately flies into the sky

861
00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:55,840
Speaker 1: and she chose, she chooses the moon to like fuse

862
00:50:55,960 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 1: with to become stuck on, become part of however you

863
00:50:58,160 --> 00:51:00,400
Speaker 1: want to interpret that, because it would be arrist to

864
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:05,600
Speaker 1: her beloved. Uh so remember immortality via transformation. He comes

865
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 1: home and he's so saddened by all of this that

866
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:10,600
Speaker 1: he offers fruit and cakes. Is offering to her in

867
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:13,239
Speaker 1: the first Autumn Moon Festival, or at least in the

868
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:16,239
Speaker 1: offering that will become Autumn Moon Festival. That that's sad

869
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:19,040
Speaker 1: but beautiful. Yeah, and I like this, and I feel

870
00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:21,640
Speaker 1: like this is my my favorite of the two two versions.

871
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 1: We're gonna look at here. Okay, well, what's the other one?

872
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:26,680
Speaker 1: But the other one is certainly more tragic, uh, And

873
00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:30,400
Speaker 1: this one he is certainly a hero, but then he

874
00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:34,000
Speaker 1: becomes the tyrannical ruler after the fall of the nine

875
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:36,719
Speaker 1: surplus suns. So he saved the day. But then when

876
00:51:36,760 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: he actually when it actually comes down to him governing

877
00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:43,320
Speaker 1: and ruling, he proves to be just a horrible dude. Hey,

878
00:51:43,360 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 1: this often happens, right, Yeah, I got a military hero.

879
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:49,200
Speaker 1: They save the day, but I don't know, during peacetime

880
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:52,480
Speaker 1: they get a little lancy. Yeah, power corrupts. And it's

881
00:51:52,520 --> 00:51:54,239
Speaker 1: interesting that you, I mean, it makes sense that you

882
00:51:54,239 --> 00:51:57,400
Speaker 1: would see a different interpretation of this through you know,

883
00:51:57,640 --> 00:52:01,920
Speaker 1: all through all these different dynastics chichaels in Chinese history.

884
00:52:02,239 --> 00:52:04,520
Speaker 1: You have some good rulers, you have some terrible rulers,

885
00:52:04,560 --> 00:52:08,040
Speaker 1: you have some beloved uh rulers, and you have some

886
00:52:08,200 --> 00:52:13,600
Speaker 1: despise rulers. So the way you interpret a mythic hero

887
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 1: like this, a military hero, is bound to be reinterpreted

888
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:20,080
Speaker 1: depending on what you have to work with. So in

889
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:24,160
Speaker 1: this version, he's awful, and he obtains the elixir so

890
00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:28,840
Speaker 1: that he can rule forever. And Uh Changy does not

891
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:30,759
Speaker 1: want this to happen. She can't bear to see the

892
00:52:30,760 --> 00:52:34,319
Speaker 1: people suffer, so she steals the elixir from him, drinks it,

893
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:36,759
Speaker 1: and then she starts rising up into the sky. He

894
00:52:36,960 --> 00:52:39,760
Speaker 1: shoots arrows at her if she flees to the into

895
00:52:39,760 --> 00:52:42,319
Speaker 1: the sky, and then when she makes it to the moon,

896
00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:46,799
Speaker 1: he dies of anger because he's so enraged by her

897
00:52:46,840 --> 00:52:50,960
Speaker 1: treachery and her escape. Dies of anger. That's intense. And

898
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:54,240
Speaker 1: then she just occupies the moon and the Autumn Moon festival.

899
00:52:54,280 --> 00:52:56,720
Speaker 1: He comes away for people to thank her for herself

900
00:52:56,760 --> 00:53:00,680
Speaker 1: with sacrifice. Okay, so instead of Ye initiating the festival,

901
00:53:01,000 --> 00:53:05,040
Speaker 1: it's people initiate it, thanking her for saving them from you. Yea.

902
00:53:05,719 --> 00:53:09,880
Speaker 1: So it's interesting. She's it's some sometimes she's vilified and

903
00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:12,399
Speaker 1: punished by the gods, but her character is a lot

904
00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:17,240
Speaker 1: more consistent as opposed to Ye's character. The ego seems

905
00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:20,000
Speaker 1: to swing a lot broader from hero to villain in

906
00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:24,279
Speaker 1: these in these two tellings, at any rate, now on

907
00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:27,720
Speaker 1: the Moon, her life varies depending on when and where

908
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:30,400
Speaker 1: you're gathering your your story from Uh so she may

909
00:53:30,440 --> 00:53:33,319
Speaker 1: have been turned into the toad perhaps this punishment, and

910
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:35,560
Speaker 1: also because the toad sheds its skin as in an

911
00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:40,040
Speaker 1: act of mythic immortality. Uh. And in the earlier tales

912
00:53:40,160 --> 00:53:42,400
Speaker 1: she's more punished. In the later ones, they're you know,

913
00:53:42,560 --> 00:53:46,239
Speaker 1: they're more sympathetic to her, and they forget the toad form.

914
00:53:46,520 --> 00:53:49,040
Speaker 1: There she may be forced to pound the elixir into

915
00:53:49,040 --> 00:53:51,759
Speaker 1: the mortar. Though. You also see this version where the

916
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:54,640
Speaker 1: jade rabbit joins around the moon and then does the

917
00:53:54,680 --> 00:53:57,480
Speaker 1: work for And then to top things off, there is

918
00:53:57,480 --> 00:53:59,919
Speaker 1: a tree on the moon and there's a guy there

919
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:03,880
Speaker 1: that came apparently to to to like steal immortality. And

920
00:54:03,920 --> 00:54:06,320
Speaker 1: his punishment, he has to continually chop at this tree.

921
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:09,440
Speaker 1: And every time he chops into it, yet uh, the

922
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:13,279
Speaker 1: the gouge in the tree heals back up. Oh no, yeah,

923
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:15,279
Speaker 1: so you have kind of, you know, a miss of

924
00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:20,279
Speaker 1: Sissiphus going on on the moon pointless eternal labor. But

925
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:23,080
Speaker 1: will he live forever in this pointless eternal he will?

926
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:25,520
Speaker 1: That's kind of the the interesting thing about it, irony,

927
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:29,200
Speaker 1: he got immortality, it's just a horrible immortality of doing

928
00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:31,160
Speaker 1: the same thing over and over again, which is kind

929
00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:33,799
Speaker 1: of a nice commentary on that, on what we were

930
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:36,120
Speaker 1: ripping on earlier, the idea like, why would you want

931
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:40,080
Speaker 1: to live together in a constant state that doesn't change? Well,

932
00:54:40,280 --> 00:54:43,759
Speaker 1: this guy got it um his name Woo Gang by

933
00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:48,600
Speaker 1: the way, Yeah, if you're not living towards something, if

934
00:54:48,640 --> 00:54:51,200
Speaker 1: you're if there's nothing you could ever finish and everything

935
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:54,160
Speaker 1: is stasis and always stays the same, do you want

936
00:54:54,200 --> 00:54:57,359
Speaker 1: to live forever? Indeed? I mean this is the This

937
00:54:57,400 --> 00:54:59,919
Speaker 1: is why these ideas are so so fun to to

938
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:03,200
Speaker 1: to talk about, so fun to explore in cultures both

939
00:55:04,640 --> 00:55:07,759
Speaker 1: close to home and uh and distant, because we find

940
00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:11,560
Speaker 1: these universal ideas, these universal questions. Okay, well, maybe we

941
00:55:11,560 --> 00:55:14,680
Speaker 1: should step back and say, uh, what do we make

942
00:55:14,719 --> 00:55:18,400
Speaker 1: of all these uh, these myths and these cultural beliefs,

943
00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:21,200
Speaker 1: Like what what does this have to do with our

944
00:55:21,239 --> 00:55:25,480
Speaker 1: cognition and the way we think about death today? Death

945
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:29,800
Speaker 1: end immortality? Well, you know, much has been written about

946
00:55:29,840 --> 00:55:33,239
Speaker 1: the manner by which myth and religion emerge from the

947
00:55:33,320 --> 00:55:36,360
Speaker 1: human mind, but the jury is still out on exactly

948
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:40,839
Speaker 1: what cognitive mechanisms are responsible for belief in such supernatural

949
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:46,120
Speaker 1: concepts as survival of consciousness, ghosts, gods, etcetera. And much

950
00:55:46,160 --> 00:55:49,239
Speaker 1: of what has been presented in in psychology and in

951
00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:52,280
Speaker 1: these studies is based upon the study of Western populations,

952
00:55:53,080 --> 00:55:57,600
Speaker 1: populations that are heavily influenced by Judeo Christian tradition, maybe

953
00:55:57,680 --> 00:55:59,919
Speaker 1: some Islam, but generally you know, people of the book,

954
00:56:00,040 --> 00:56:05,000
Speaker 1: people that are tied to this particular Abrahamic tradition and

955
00:56:05,120 --> 00:56:09,719
Speaker 1: that have a maybe not totally unified, but more canonical

956
00:56:10,360 --> 00:56:14,280
Speaker 1: prescriptive understanding of what the afterlife is. Yeah, and also

957
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:17,560
Speaker 1: from societies that were have at least been like traditionally

958
00:56:17,600 --> 00:56:24,399
Speaker 1: and historically religious tone. Now this leads out China, though,

959
00:56:24,560 --> 00:56:27,279
Speaker 1: which is a has long been a secular state with

960
00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:31,960
Speaker 1: a history of non religious philosophies and unique varied mythological

961
00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:36,560
Speaker 1: and religious roots. In two thousand fourteen, Dr Melanie Nioff

962
00:56:36,640 --> 00:56:40,240
Speaker 1: and Dr Kelly James Clark embarked on a study sponsored

963
00:56:40,239 --> 00:56:44,080
Speaker 1: by the John Templeton Foundation. And you see Riverside given

964
00:56:44,120 --> 00:56:47,480
Speaker 1: the at least the preliminary title afterlife beliefs and their

965
00:56:47,560 --> 00:56:51,560
Speaker 1: cognitive mechanisms among the Chinese past and present. And this

966
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:55,239
Speaker 1: is part of the Immortality Project. What's that? Uh, it's

967
00:56:55,280 --> 00:56:58,520
Speaker 1: a let's say, broader like I forget the dollar amount

968
00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:02,279
Speaker 1: is like a big dollar I um uh flight of

969
00:57:02,320 --> 00:57:06,960
Speaker 1: studies that are looking into various topics of circling around

970
00:57:07,040 --> 00:57:11,480
Speaker 1: the concept of immortality. So sadly this is not that

971
00:57:11,560 --> 00:57:14,880
Speaker 1: this is apparently still underway. They're apparently still working on this.

972
00:57:14,920 --> 00:57:19,120
Speaker 1: There's no public study out with this title. Hopefully we'll

973
00:57:19,120 --> 00:57:20,880
Speaker 1: get to see it in the in the near future.

974
00:57:21,560 --> 00:57:23,840
Speaker 1: But still it drives on the importance of when if

975
00:57:23,840 --> 00:57:28,760
Speaker 1: you're gonna look at the relationship between cognition and religion,

976
00:57:28,880 --> 00:57:31,919
Speaker 1: cognition and myth. Uh, you can't just depend on one

977
00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:36,760
Speaker 1: cultural model. You mean like studies on college students exacted

978
00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:39,120
Speaker 1: states in Great Britain or something. Right, Yeah, we see

979
00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:41,960
Speaker 1: the same thing in in uh, in scientific studies all

980
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:45,800
Speaker 1: over where people have increasingly said, wait, you, how are

981
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:49,600
Speaker 1: we basing all of this supposed universal understanding on a

982
00:57:49,800 --> 00:57:56,440
Speaker 1: very specific and select subset of human beings? Now? Um,

983
00:57:57,040 --> 00:58:00,400
Speaker 1: all this being said Dr Melanie Nilov also on the

984
00:58:00,520 --> 00:58:04,919
Speaker 1: Thrive Center project is Religion Natural the Chinese Challenge, which

985
00:58:04,960 --> 00:58:08,120
Speaker 1: addresses many of these concerns through two thousand years of

986
00:58:08,400 --> 00:58:11,640
Speaker 1: Chinese culture uh. And it makes the following points, and

987
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:16,520
Speaker 1: most of these are points for universality. Okay, First, high

988
00:58:16,600 --> 00:58:19,600
Speaker 1: gods as opposed to low gods and Chinese a myth

989
00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:23,600
Speaker 1: served as moral and for enforcers. Okay, So they rewarded

990
00:58:23,720 --> 00:58:26,440
Speaker 1: and punished the behaviors of human and in this we

991
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:30,320
Speaker 1: see uniformity with global trends toward human and vision gods.

992
00:58:30,360 --> 00:58:34,040
Speaker 1: The theory of a mind powered personification of the human

993
00:58:34,080 --> 00:58:37,840
Speaker 1: minds hunger for for reasons known and unknown, to explain

994
00:58:37,880 --> 00:58:40,680
Speaker 1: the universe. So this begins in early childhood and it

995
00:58:40,760 --> 00:58:45,840
Speaker 1: persists in to adulthood. Mainland Chinese children shared much in

996
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:48,920
Speaker 1: common with Western children and adults in this so purpose

997
00:58:48,960 --> 00:58:54,640
Speaker 1: based explanations for the world. So example given was when asked,

998
00:58:54,920 --> 00:58:56,680
Speaker 1: you know, what's the deal with mountains? Well, mountains were

999
00:58:56,680 --> 00:58:59,560
Speaker 1: created for climbing, just as hats were created for warmth.

1000
00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:02,520
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this, I've read about this before. Like children

1001
00:59:02,640 --> 00:59:07,360
Speaker 1: having a tendency to assume that things. Uh. If asked

1002
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:09,920
Speaker 1: to give an explanation for the existence of something, they

1003
00:59:09,960 --> 00:59:14,320
Speaker 1: explain it in terms of its usefulness to them. So

1004
00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:17,240
Speaker 1: like the the reason this table exists is so I

1005
00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 1: can sit at it. Well, that might be true. The

1006
00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:21,960
Speaker 1: reason this rock exists is so I can skip it

1007
00:59:22,040 --> 00:59:25,480
Speaker 1: over the water. Yeah, it's like they have a simplistic

1008
00:59:26,520 --> 00:59:32,040
Speaker 1: but very reasonable explanation incorrect explanation often for what the

1009
00:59:32,120 --> 00:59:35,160
Speaker 1: one of these things are there. And as we get older,

1010
00:59:35,320 --> 00:59:38,800
Speaker 1: we we don't really abandon this line of thinking. We

1011
00:59:38,920 --> 00:59:41,600
Speaker 1: just make it a little more complex, right, Well, like

1012
00:59:41,680 --> 00:59:44,640
Speaker 1: maybe we know it's not necessarily correct, but we still

1013
00:59:44,720 --> 00:59:47,040
Speaker 1: want to feel that way, right Yeah, I mean it's

1014
00:59:47,040 --> 00:59:49,640
Speaker 1: just this tendency to see purpose in nature. So it's

1015
00:59:49,640 --> 00:59:53,919
Speaker 1: a teleological understanding of the world. Um, three to five

1016
00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:57,120
Speaker 1: year olds in this particular state, they displayed a natural

1017
00:59:57,200 --> 01:00:01,400
Speaker 1: ease and imagining all knowing and all say ing invisible beings.

1018
01:00:02,040 --> 01:00:04,960
Speaker 1: So the idea here is that our our minds cling

1019
01:00:05,000 --> 01:00:08,200
Speaker 1: to intuitive religious ideas. I mean, gods and gods are

1020
01:00:08,240 --> 01:00:10,439
Speaker 1: just parents that love us for example. You know, we're

1021
01:00:10,440 --> 01:00:14,760
Speaker 1: just taking a relatable human relationship and extrapolating it into

1022
01:00:14,800 --> 01:00:19,720
Speaker 1: the supernatural scenario. But we also cling to counterintuitive ideas

1023
01:00:19,760 --> 01:00:23,440
Speaker 1: because they stand out, they're quirky, they're memorable, and God's

1024
01:00:23,640 --> 01:00:26,680
Speaker 1: after all, they tend to be counterintuitive. I've read a

1025
01:00:26,720 --> 01:00:28,919
Speaker 1: little bit about this in in the idea of meme

1026
01:00:29,040 --> 01:00:31,240
Speaker 1: theory as well, that like a lot of the memes

1027
01:00:31,280 --> 01:00:35,280
Speaker 1: that catch on are those that are familiar enough to

1028
01:00:35,360 --> 01:00:38,800
Speaker 1: be tractable to our minds, but also weird enough to

1029
01:00:38,840 --> 01:00:42,439
Speaker 1: be memorable. So the thing that that really sticks out

1030
01:00:42,440 --> 01:00:46,800
Speaker 1: in our brain and and merits remembering and repetition is

1031
01:00:46,840 --> 01:00:48,919
Speaker 1: the thing that's kind of like the thing you know,

1032
01:00:49,680 --> 01:00:53,520
Speaker 1: but also different enough that you don't forget it. Yeah, Like,

1033
01:00:53,560 --> 01:00:55,760
Speaker 1: I think a lot of examples that stick with me,

1034
01:00:56,400 --> 01:00:58,440
Speaker 1: like to go outside of Chinese mythology and think of

1035
01:00:58,480 --> 01:01:02,600
Speaker 1: like say Greek mythology or even Christianity. Like in Greek mythology,

1036
01:01:02,640 --> 01:01:06,200
Speaker 1: I instantly think of Zeus turning into random animals to

1037
01:01:06,840 --> 01:01:09,600
Speaker 1: have sexual relations with human women. Because when you hear

1038
01:01:09,640 --> 01:01:12,720
Speaker 1: about that, especially when you're a kid, you're like, that's

1039
01:01:12,720 --> 01:01:16,000
Speaker 1: that's insane. What this makes no sense? Why is that

1040
01:01:16,080 --> 01:01:18,800
Speaker 1: even happening. It's so absurd that it sticks with you,

1041
01:01:19,560 --> 01:01:22,760
Speaker 1: and it ultimately is kind of is telling about this character,

1042
01:01:22,880 --> 01:01:28,600
Speaker 1: this sort of absurd, horrible, kind of tyrannical god. So

1043
01:01:28,640 --> 01:01:30,800
Speaker 1: in both the in the study, in both UK and

1044
01:01:30,880 --> 01:01:35,320
Speaker 1: Chinese subjects, children had an easier time with counterintuitive ideas

1045
01:01:35,560 --> 01:01:38,560
Speaker 1: why a while adults struggled with them. So the ideas

1046
01:01:38,600 --> 01:01:40,640
Speaker 1: that you had like some sort of strange idea of

1047
01:01:40,640 --> 01:01:43,800
Speaker 1: a god the kids would be more inclined to, but

1048
01:01:43,920 --> 01:01:45,800
Speaker 1: to believe in it, the adults would have maybe a

1049
01:01:45,800 --> 01:01:50,320
Speaker 1: harder time digesting at all. But they found that quote

1050
01:01:50,800 --> 01:01:55,440
Speaker 1: natural intuitions underlying the practice of rituals exists across cultures,

1051
01:01:55,720 --> 01:01:59,200
Speaker 1: but the differences found between China and previously considered nations

1052
01:01:59,200 --> 01:02:03,520
Speaker 1: suggests that clatural differences may influence the types of rituals practice.

1053
01:02:03,840 --> 01:02:07,200
Speaker 1: Specifically in China, a few rituals were found in which

1054
01:02:07,240 --> 01:02:09,960
Speaker 1: a spirit or god acts upon humans, such as when

1055
01:02:09,960 --> 01:02:13,800
Speaker 1: a priest represents the god in a wedding to people,

1056
01:02:14,160 --> 01:02:17,120
Speaker 1: a common ritual type in much of the world. So

1057
01:02:17,160 --> 01:02:19,240
Speaker 1: they're saying that that type of thing is not very

1058
01:02:19,320 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 1: common in Chinese religion. And then they also pointed out

1059
01:02:23,720 --> 01:02:28,120
Speaker 1: that since you have a largely secularized society seeing the

1060
01:02:28,440 --> 01:02:32,440
Speaker 1: downplaying of religious expression, they predicted that there would be

1061
01:02:32,520 --> 01:02:36,000
Speaker 1: a natural inclination for religious thought that would in the

1062
01:02:36,080 --> 01:02:40,000
Speaker 1: seculary secularized society leak out in novel ways. So kind

1063
01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:42,160
Speaker 1: of like you know, the steams building up, it's got

1064
01:02:42,160 --> 01:02:46,720
Speaker 1: to release somehow. If religion is a natural inclination, you know,

1065
01:02:46,800 --> 01:02:50,240
Speaker 1: if of all these even though the strangest in the

1066
01:02:50,280 --> 01:02:54,000
Speaker 1: more elaborate supernatural beliefs have a grounding in the way

1067
01:02:54,000 --> 01:02:56,840
Speaker 1: our brains work. If we are if that is discouraged,

1068
01:02:56,960 --> 01:02:58,400
Speaker 1: is still going to have to find a way out.

1069
01:02:59,000 --> 01:03:01,480
Speaker 1: And I think this is one of these areas where

1070
01:03:01,520 --> 01:03:04,040
Speaker 1: you can you could probably chew on this concept for

1071
01:03:04,160 --> 01:03:07,040
Speaker 1: quite some time and find various examples. But the one

1072
01:03:07,080 --> 01:03:10,600
Speaker 1: that they pointed to his World of Warcraft what really, Yeah,

1073
01:03:10,640 --> 01:03:15,080
Speaker 1: they they highlighted it is quote an unorthodox vehicle for religious,

1074
01:03:15,120 --> 01:03:20,720
Speaker 1: spiritual and moral expression in China. So okay, which I

1075
01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:22,640
Speaker 1: can see that. You know, I'm not a World of

1076
01:03:22,640 --> 01:03:24,880
Speaker 1: Warcraft player, but I know it is an immersive game

1077
01:03:25,400 --> 01:03:28,960
Speaker 1: with a you know, a fairly deep fantasy mythos, full

1078
01:03:29,000 --> 01:03:33,840
Speaker 1: of heroes, and I assume God's good and evil battling

1079
01:03:33,880 --> 01:03:37,120
Speaker 1: against each other. Yeah, I mean, well, one of the

1080
01:03:37,120 --> 01:03:39,920
Speaker 1: things that, uh, that I guess this is implying is

1081
01:03:40,040 --> 01:03:44,200
Speaker 1: that you take a secular state and mostly secularized state

1082
01:03:44,280 --> 01:03:50,080
Speaker 1: where the importance of religion has greatly decreased um and

1083
01:03:50,160 --> 01:03:53,160
Speaker 1: yet people still have I mean, whatever the reason for

1084
01:03:53,240 --> 01:03:56,680
Speaker 1: the emergence of religion, it's easy to think about it

1085
01:03:56,720 --> 01:03:59,600
Speaker 1: having something to do with the desire for immortality or

1086
01:03:59,720 --> 01:04:02,720
Speaker 1: as are, for a belief in immortal beings of some kind,

1087
01:04:02,840 --> 01:04:08,600
Speaker 1: some kind of continuing beyond mortality and death. Um. That

1088
01:04:08,680 --> 01:04:11,880
Speaker 1: desire probably doesn't go away even if you have a

1089
01:04:11,920 --> 01:04:16,920
Speaker 1: mostly secularized state. So like, how does it find expression? Um?

1090
01:04:17,080 --> 01:04:19,360
Speaker 1: And so one of the things I'm interested in is

1091
01:04:19,360 --> 01:04:22,840
Speaker 1: is the parallels between this thing we've seen throughout uh

1092
01:04:22,960 --> 01:04:27,080
Speaker 1: this episode looking at Chinese immortality on immortality through transformation,

1093
01:04:27,720 --> 01:04:32,000
Speaker 1: the idea that you transcend your your mortal existence by

1094
01:04:32,000 --> 01:04:36,320
Speaker 1: becoming something else. The parallel between that in the secular

1095
01:04:36,520 --> 01:04:41,240
Speaker 1: immortality beliefs of trans humanism that we see today. I mean,

1096
01:04:41,480 --> 01:04:44,760
Speaker 1: this is a common thing now where you'll get all

1097
01:04:44,800 --> 01:04:49,000
Speaker 1: these very very smart, you know, technology oriented people saying

1098
01:04:49,000 --> 01:04:51,200
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, I'm gonna live forever. I mean there

1099
01:04:51,200 --> 01:04:54,000
Speaker 1: are people who think that today, who think they are

1100
01:04:54,120 --> 01:04:57,600
Speaker 1: materialists in a non religious sense. Well you can debate

1101
01:04:57,720 --> 01:04:59,560
Speaker 1: the extent to which it's religious, but at least in

1102
01:04:59,600 --> 01:05:02,800
Speaker 1: a non supernatural sense. They think that they're going to

1103
01:05:02,840 --> 01:05:07,480
Speaker 1: have an indefinite lifespan because computers will reach such a

1104
01:05:07,520 --> 01:05:09,960
Speaker 1: point of advancement that will be able to download our

1105
01:05:10,000 --> 01:05:16,160
Speaker 1: consciousness into them and transform ourselves into this new digital

1106
01:05:16,160 --> 01:05:19,520
Speaker 1: existence where you can live indefinitely. Yeah, and then likewise

1107
01:05:19,560 --> 01:05:23,080
Speaker 1: you have the Aubrey de Gray kind of approach to longevity,

1108
01:05:23,200 --> 01:05:28,800
Speaker 1: like breaking up death into various winnable battles. The war

1109
01:05:28,840 --> 01:05:31,320
Speaker 1: against death is a bit too much to consider. But

1110
01:05:31,360 --> 01:05:33,280
Speaker 1: if we break it down into I think it's like

1111
01:05:33,360 --> 01:05:36,720
Speaker 1: eight different categories. Maybe it's twelve categories. He says, like,

1112
01:05:36,800 --> 01:05:40,360
Speaker 1: these are the categories. These are the advancements that need

1113
01:05:40,400 --> 01:05:44,880
Speaker 1: to take place for us to essentially defeat death. Yeah,

1114
01:05:44,880 --> 01:05:48,240
Speaker 1: he's trying to reduce the problem to components. So he's saying, like,

1115
01:05:48,400 --> 01:05:50,680
Speaker 1: if we can solve these Yeah, I don't remember the

1116
01:05:50,760 --> 01:05:52,520
Speaker 1: number either, but it's like, if we can solve these

1117
01:05:52,560 --> 01:05:56,880
Speaker 1: eleven problems, Uh, then we will no longer age and die.

1118
01:05:57,360 --> 01:05:59,840
Speaker 1: Now that he has met a lot of resistance to that,

1119
01:06:00,120 --> 01:06:01,960
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people who disagree with him

1120
01:06:02,080 --> 01:06:07,040
Speaker 1: very strongly, despite his wizardly beard, sagely appearance. Maybe if

1121
01:06:07,080 --> 01:06:09,840
Speaker 1: he had just a slightly larger forehead, uh, in an

1122
01:06:09,840 --> 01:06:15,280
Speaker 1: appetite for do and wind, we might buy into it more. Perhaps,

1123
01:06:16,040 --> 01:06:17,880
Speaker 1: I know you're joking, but I do think he gets

1124
01:06:17,880 --> 01:06:21,280
Speaker 1: a lot of mileage out of that beard. It it

1125
01:06:21,320 --> 01:06:24,160
Speaker 1: helps he has he he has the the appearance of

1126
01:06:24,160 --> 01:06:26,480
Speaker 1: of a wizard who is going to to help you

1127
01:06:26,520 --> 01:06:28,920
Speaker 1: achieve your goals. And uh, you know, and if you're

1128
01:06:28,960 --> 01:06:33,800
Speaker 1: a an aged individual with a lot of extra research

1129
01:06:34,080 --> 01:06:38,200
Speaker 1: dollars floating around, you might be inclined to to fund him.

1130
01:06:38,240 --> 01:06:40,480
Speaker 1: You know. One more thing, sorry, I'm still thinking about this,

1131
01:06:41,040 --> 01:06:45,760
Speaker 1: the digital consciousness mortality thing that this is so assuming

1132
01:06:45,840 --> 01:06:49,520
Speaker 1: you have some kind of materialist conception of consciousness and

1133
01:06:49,640 --> 01:06:52,840
Speaker 1: you want to survive forever by having your consciousness downloaded

1134
01:06:52,840 --> 01:06:55,400
Speaker 1: into a computer. I'm skeptical of that idea too, by

1135
01:06:55,400 --> 01:06:57,520
Speaker 1: the way, because how does that transfer occur? But some

1136
01:06:57,560 --> 01:07:02,480
Speaker 1: people think that will happen. Um uh, you have just

1137
01:07:02,640 --> 01:07:07,400
Speaker 1: fully abandoned your biological imperatives, Like the genes that built

1138
01:07:07,520 --> 01:07:12,120
Speaker 1: your brain, which generated the phenomenon of your mind, are

1139
01:07:12,200 --> 01:07:14,720
Speaker 1: just completely gone. Now like in our example where that

1140
01:07:14,880 --> 01:07:16,720
Speaker 1: you know, you're you are the brain and the vat

1141
01:07:16,760 --> 01:07:20,720
Speaker 1: on the robot. Now, um, what is that existence like?

1142
01:07:21,000 --> 01:07:23,920
Speaker 1: And at some point does that existence come back to

1143
01:07:23,960 --> 01:07:27,840
Speaker 1: bite you? Well? I mean it comes back to the moon. Right.

1144
01:07:28,240 --> 01:07:31,720
Speaker 1: You can imagine obtaining the elixir and being told, hey,

1145
01:07:31,960 --> 01:07:33,480
Speaker 1: you sure you want to follow through with this? You know,

1146
01:07:33,520 --> 01:07:36,400
Speaker 1: you're gonna fly into the sky and become one with

1147
01:07:36,440 --> 01:07:40,880
Speaker 1: the moon or possibly live on the moon. Uh. I mean, yeah,

1148
01:07:40,920 --> 01:07:43,760
Speaker 1: that's that's immortality. You've gotta be willing to transform. So

1149
01:07:43,800 --> 01:07:48,720
Speaker 1: maybe the idea of the digitizing consciousness, becoming a robot,

1150
01:07:49,240 --> 01:07:51,680
Speaker 1: having your brain living a vat like all these are

1151
01:07:51,680 --> 01:07:54,840
Speaker 1: just examples of sure, if you want immortality, you need

1152
01:07:54,880 --> 01:07:57,560
Speaker 1: to be open to the idea that immortality is transformation.

1153
01:07:58,040 --> 01:08:00,240
Speaker 1: And whatever you have now is not what you're going

1154
01:08:00,280 --> 01:08:04,800
Speaker 1: to have on the moon. It never is. Nope. All right,

1155
01:08:05,200 --> 01:08:07,640
Speaker 1: so there you have it. Uh. You know, you can

1156
01:08:07,920 --> 01:08:10,200
Speaker 1: boil it down to specifics. You can certainly pick apart

1157
01:08:10,200 --> 01:08:15,440
Speaker 1: the details of Chinese symbolism, homophonic puns, the other particulars,

1158
01:08:15,480 --> 01:08:17,479
Speaker 1: but you know, in broader strokes, I think there's a

1159
01:08:17,479 --> 01:08:21,519
Speaker 1: lot of cohesion between these nit these universal ideas and

1160
01:08:21,600 --> 01:08:27,120
Speaker 1: questions concerning immortality, modern scientific inquiries into the possibility of

1161
01:08:27,120 --> 01:08:30,599
Speaker 1: immortality and our our hunger for it, uh, and these

1162
01:08:31,160 --> 01:08:34,960
Speaker 1: myths and folklore traditions that we've looked at here. Oh

1163
01:08:34,960 --> 01:08:36,880
Speaker 1: and on one final note, if you have found this

1164
01:08:36,960 --> 01:08:40,679
Speaker 1: particular topic fascinating and you're interested in in Asian society,

1165
01:08:40,720 --> 01:08:43,840
Speaker 1: Asian culture, well, you should check out Asia Society and

1166
01:08:43,920 --> 01:08:48,520
Speaker 1: Asia Society dot org. It's the leading educational organization dedicated

1167
01:08:48,560 --> 01:08:52,799
Speaker 1: to promoting mutual understanding and strengthening partnerships among people's leaders

1168
01:08:52,800 --> 01:08:55,120
Speaker 1: and institutions of Asia and the United States in a

1169
01:08:55,160 --> 01:08:59,960
Speaker 1: global context. So we're talking the fields of arts, businesses, culture, education,

1170
01:09:00,040 --> 01:09:04,360
Speaker 1: and policy. The society provides insight, generates ideas, and promotes

1171
01:09:04,520 --> 01:09:09,000
Speaker 1: collaboration to address present challenges and create a shared future.

1172
01:09:09,320 --> 01:09:11,559
Speaker 1: So check them out at AGES Society dot org. They

1173
01:09:11,560 --> 01:09:14,280
Speaker 1: have plenty of educational materials. There's a museum in New

1174
01:09:14,360 --> 01:09:16,960
Speaker 1: York City. Uh and you can donate and support at

1175
01:09:17,000 --> 01:09:19,280
Speaker 1: that website. Now, I know what some of you are

1176
01:09:19,280 --> 01:09:22,439
Speaker 1: probably thinking, Hey, Chinese mythology is great, but there are

1177
01:09:22,439 --> 01:09:27,040
Speaker 1: these other wonderful wells of of myth out there, and

1178
01:09:27,080 --> 01:09:30,200
Speaker 1: they're full of immortals as well. You guys should cover them. Well,

1179
01:09:30,840 --> 01:09:35,240
Speaker 1: we very well, we might if there's enough interest out there.

1180
01:09:35,479 --> 01:09:38,919
Speaker 1: I mean, immortality. It's a big subject. It's a big subject,

1181
01:09:39,120 --> 01:09:41,200
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, and I have a feeling that just

1182
01:09:41,280 --> 01:09:44,280
Speaker 1: about any major myth cycle is going to have something

1183
01:09:44,320 --> 01:09:48,120
Speaker 1: in there that it reflects something a little differently than

1184
01:09:48,120 --> 01:09:50,400
Speaker 1: what we looked at here today, so would be uh

1185
01:09:50,680 --> 01:09:53,760
Speaker 1: be cool to dive into them and there's enoughs and

1186
01:09:53,800 --> 01:09:55,200
Speaker 1: in the meantime, if you want to check out other

1187
01:09:55,200 --> 01:09:56,880
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, head and over

1188
01:09:56,920 --> 01:09:58,439
Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, that's where

1189
01:09:58,439 --> 01:10:02,400
Speaker 1: you'll find all the episod you'll find various blog posts, videos,

1190
01:10:02,520 --> 01:10:06,520
Speaker 1: links out to our social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram,

1191
01:10:06,640 --> 01:10:09,000
Speaker 1: you name it, we're probably on. And if you want

1192
01:10:09,000 --> 01:10:11,320
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us directly, as always, you

1193
01:10:11,360 --> 01:10:14,559
Speaker 1: can email us at blow the Mind at how stuff

1194
01:10:14,560 --> 01:10:26,360
Speaker 1: works dot com. For more on this and thousands of

1195
01:10:26,360 --> 01:10:51,439
Speaker 1: other topics. Is that how stuff Works dot com