WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: All We Know About Guessing 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.159 Hi, everyone, it's your pal Josh. And for this week's 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:06.080 s Y s K Selects, I've chosen How Guessing Works. 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:08.520 It was one of those great ideas for a topic 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:11.760 that didn't pan out to have much information on it actually, 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.160 so we just talked a lot about subjective stuff instead, 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.360 and it turned out well, I think in the end. 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:25.079 If I may say so, I hope you enjoy Welcome 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.360 to Stuff you should know, a production of my Heart 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:37.680 Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:41.640 I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:44.839 there in the corner. Everybody puts Jerry in a corner, 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.920 but you shouldn't, uh, and this is stuff you should not. 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:52.760 She's the opposite of baby. Jerry's back. She was back 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.440 from the mall. That's how where she's been. Yeah, I 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:59.120 remember we we said that she was at the mall. 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:01.400 She was buying a how she's doing all sorts of stuff. 0:01:02.880 --> 0:01:05.720 But she's back now and things are normal again. Yeah, 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:08.960 she was at the beach and she's now eating in 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:11.760 front of me. What I ate about an hour ago? 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:14.440 Do you want to throw up? Or do you want more? 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:18.000 I don't it's it's this weird in between. I'm drawn 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.399 to the smell, but I'm also full, so I'm kind 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:25.600 of like boo, yeah, oh man, what a life? I know? 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:30.360 Eating Who needs it? Right? Me? I do too? I 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:34.360 love eating, love it? You know what else? I love? What? 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:44.400 Really good? Magic? Like illusions? Well where does uh? What 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:46.960 do you mean? Because that could mean two different things. Well, 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.480 let me tell you, um, so I went you mean, 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:51.760 and I went to New York recently we saw this show. 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:55.600 It's called in and of itself. It's a one man 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:59.840 stage magic I guess you could call it that illusion 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:03.200 show by a guy named Derek del Guadio. That's how 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:05.920 you say his last name. I strongly recommend anyone go 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:08.800 see this show. It's it's um I think they extended 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:12.919 it through the rest of the year, but it's it's 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:16.000 like kind of his life story. It told like through 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:20.160 these different um these different acts, and like just the 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.520 the stuff he's doing is not like, oh man, that 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:25.040 rabbit came out of nowhere, nothing like that. It's all 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:29.800 much more psychological than that. But the basis of it 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.120 is that this guy must be just one of the 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:36.440 better guesters walking around today. He's just good. He's also 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:38.600 like a card shark. It's just a really neat show. 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:42.760 It's really original and different. But just to see somebody 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:47.400 do something to where they probably are guessing, but they're 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:49.799 doing such an amazing job at it that it just 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.720 appears to be magic. That's one of my favorite things 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.800 in the world to see, Like when he talks to 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.280 people and like think of a number except obviously more 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:01.480 fun and complex and that. Yes, yeah, and I don't 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:03.080 want to give any of it away. I don't want 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:04.600 to give it any bit of it away. Like for 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.119 anybody who's gonna go see it, everyone should go into 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:10.880 it fresh. But um, but yeah, just just after you 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.240 see it, go back and listen to this episode again 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:16.840 and you'll be like, oh, yeah, totally now. I think 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:19.680 the deal a lot of times with that situation is 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:25.640 powers of suggestion, correct. I don't know. I don't know, man, 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:28.440 I don't know if that's what this guy's doing or not. No, 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:30.840 he's not doing like cold readings or something like that 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.720 like John Edwards. No, no, no, nothing like that. But 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:36.839 powers of suggestion in that if you you can lead 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:40.440 someone to to think of a certain thing that they 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:46.880 then guess I guess, so get it didn't even mean that, 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.200 but that kind of dives into what we're talking about, 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:55.080 which is guessing in general. Um, there's this whole like 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.720 like science really doesn't have any idea about how we 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.760 make guesses. All we know is that we are capable 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:06.640 of making guesses, and that we make guesses almost constantly, 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:09.480 and that like our our brain is basically set up 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.200 to guests, Like our construction of reality is a series 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.880 of guesses, most of which pan out to be right, 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.080 but then can also be terribly wrong, which is what 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:23.760 optical illusions prove, you know. Yeah, and uh, I found this. 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:25.760 I thought it was going to be more interesting than 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:29.000 it was initially when I picked this one out, so 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:31.719 I was a little disappointed. And then we found like 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:34.880 other supplemental stuff that kind of helped it. But in 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:38.520 the end it felt a little unwieldy. But I think 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.080 that's just because of the nature of the topic, Like 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.880 there isn't a concise beginning, middle, and end to this 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.560 kind of topic, you know, no, because again science is 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:54.200 pretty well stumped, like even and sometimes Chuck, if you'll remember, 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.279 these can be our best episodes, like unless the ones 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:01.440 where there's just like a clear cut, complete, understandable, neat 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.359 explanation ones are great, and then on the other end 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:06.839 of the spectrum, like this one, were the ones where 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:09.720 science is just kind of like maybe this is it. 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.119 I don't know, this could be it. Those are usually 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:16.800 pretty good too, So this could this one has has potential. Alright, 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:19.440 that's my that's my estimation. Well, I thought it was 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.200 interesting that in our very own house Stuff Works article 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:26.680 and they started talking about um the in days of 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:31.480 yore with starting with took took and you know, basically 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:35.159 up until the point where we could like you know, 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:37.520 measure things or prove things, like, there was a lot 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:39.400 of and there's still a lot of guessing going on, 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:44.680 but like guessing was a daily survival tactic, right, Like 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:46.640 that's how that's how we learned. Should I go this 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.279 way and fall off a cliff? You know, I'm going 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.440 to take a guess? Or should I eat this thing? 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.760 Will it kill me? Or like in the case of 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:59.159 Lewis and Clark, I remember, um, Clark estimated and you 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:02.240 know they're guesses, and we'll get into different types of 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.680 an estimation is a kind of a guess, even if 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:09.239 it's informed and well reasoned. In Clark's case, of course, 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.640 he estimated. I think he's only off about forty miles 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.080 when they got to the Pacific. Uh. Oh really, I 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.000 don't remember that. Yeah, he he estimated four thousand, one 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:23.160 sixty two miles when he's off by forty I mean 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:27.640 that's remarkable. Yeah, but it wasn't a wild guess. It 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:31.000 was Clark being a very smart dude who probably took 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:35.520 copious notes. Not probably, he definitely took copious notes. Um, 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:37.000 but I don't know. I just never really thought about 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:40.400 guessing back in those days. Could you know you could? 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:42.760 You could end up a bad guest means the end 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.039 of view, Yes, But if your friends were standing around 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:51.400 watching you guess that that um lizard over there wasn't poisonous, 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:53.279 you can just go ahead and eat it raw and 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:56.120 then you keel over and die, they learned from your 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.680 bad guests taking one for the team very much. So yeah, 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:04.560 that's before the universal edibility test. Man, you were just 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.839 have you been going through the archives or something? No, 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.120 but I wrote that article back then, so that one 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:14.240 stuck with me because you know, I mean, we're I 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.920 thought you were too. I'm cursed with that new information 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:23.240 in old information getting squeezed out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:26.120 should we get into this I guess, So, I'm not 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.800 I don't mean to do this. I'm sorry what saying 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:33.000 I guess? Yeah, it's pretty commonplace, but it does kind 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:35.880 of under underscore just how much we do guess in 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:38.280 our lives. You know. Yeah, here's all right, let's go 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:40.360 ahead and start it with the brain then, because while 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.280 you're correct in saying that they don't know the the 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:48.600 pathways necessarily of a guess, um, all different kinds of 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.679 all different parts of the brain, not all the parts, 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:53.840 but many different parts of the brain are at work, 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:56.520 which makes a lot of sense when you think about 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.880 what different kinds of guesses can al, whether you're guessing 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.840 someone's age or guessing you know, because that involves like, 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:09.960 you know, recognition with your eyeballs or a memory of 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:12.760 someone else who was a certain age who looked like 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.480 that like you're you know, recall, Uh, there's all different 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.040 parts of the brain that are lighting up whenever you're 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:22.840 guessing something. Yeah, they they think that it's a global, 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:27.840 a global phenomenon, right, like brain brain a lely global Yes, 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.960 exactly right. So, um, there's like some region of your 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:35.439 brain that specializes in the particular task at hand. The 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.920 thing you're guessing about, whether it's say, like volume or 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:42.520 like you said, someone's age. UM, that region of the 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.560 brain that that has to do with say numbers, UM 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:49.760 would light up. I think it's the um parietal uh 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.760 anterior gyrus or something like that that lights up when 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:55.520 you're trying to guess someone's age based on how they look. 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:59.120 But then that that's just one I think right using 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:04.880 the Wonder Machine night. But that's just one functional part 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.040 of the whole process that the brain is going through. 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.920 They know that it's there's a number of different regions 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:16.200 that are operating at any given point in time when 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:19.679 you're making a guess, But they still can't say, well, 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:22.439 if somebody's guessing this, this is what's going to happen. 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:24.719 Here's the here's the cascade that's going to go through 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:27.120 the brain. We haven't reached that point yet. Yeah, they 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:30.240 think that, um, if you're guessing about a visual object 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:34.880 or subject, then your frontal lobe and occipital lobe are 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:40.960 at work. Numerical quantities like how many uh jelly beans 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:42.719 are in that jar. That's kind of the common thing 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:45.880 they mentioned that like that still happens. Is that sort 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:49.559 of thing? Um, you know, who is a jelly bean 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:55.200 jar guessing champions? My wife really is, yes, longstanding, her 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:59.960 special reasoning is is outstanding well. Spatial reasoning and new 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.400 miracle quantities are a big part of trying to guess 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:07.400 the quantity of something into something right And and so 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.920 if you, if your brain is kind of specialized in 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:14.640 that manner, um, you are probably going to be better 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.400 at it than somebody whose brain is not right. So 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.400 Umi would beat me every time. My spatial reasoning is horrific. Right, 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:25.959 But um, I'm really good at recognizing faces, so I'm 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:30.280 probably better at at guessing the someone's age based on 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:35.520 their face um or possibly how they're feeling based on 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:39.120 their facial expression than she might be. That's a whole 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:41.840 like I didn't even think about that being part of guessing. 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:47.400 But the emotional thing of guessing, uh yeah, like someone's feelings, 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:50.640 what they're thinking like that, that's a whole different thing 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.160 than guessing jelly beans in a jar, which is different 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.320 than guessing someone's age. It's like all lumped into guessing. 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:59.719 It's really more varied than I ever considered, right, And 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:02.880 so with with UM, well, let's talk about the different 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:06.120 different types of guesses you might make. That. So, I 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:07.720 think what you just kind of did, Chuck, was you 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:14.800 divided UM guesses into UM like buckets, the two buckets. 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.000 I'm trying to decide what the buckets would be called though. 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:20.560 So one bucket would be UM just kind of work, 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:25.760 working knowledge, and the other would be say, like emotional, right, Like, so, 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:27.959 how many jelly beans are in a jar? Would that 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.440 be in the working knowledge bucket? What somebody's feeling based 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:34.960 on your guests, based on say their facial expression, that's 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:41.080 that's emotional um or or intellectual. Yeah, that's why intellectual 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:45.280 or emotional buckets. BAM just carved them up. But I 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:47.520 think those are kind of like the two categories you 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:50.160 can put guesses into. Even though you can break types 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:55.280 of guesses down further. Yeah, and uh, breaking them down further, 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:57.600 you have your wild guesses. This is when you have 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:02.960 no information, no outside input whatsoever. And you know, you 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.240 often say, this is just a wild guess if I 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:09.440 had to guess, Yeah, something like that. You're saying here, 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.560 listen to me, I can speak has no basis in 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:15.360 factor reality or anything like that. Then you have your 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.360 educated guests, which is in the middle, and that's when 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:20.960 you have a little bit of information. Uh. There's a 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:23.640 military term that I had never heard of called swag, 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:32.679 which stands for um stuff we all get no scientific uh, 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:37.080 wild ass guessing okay, which is like a guestimate. But 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.439 it's a military term by all accounts. Uh. Most people 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.720 say it started in Vietnam with General Westmoreland. Um. And 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.120 you will hear military people say swag, and that's when 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:48.560 you know, I've got a little information. I'm not just 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:53.640 wild guessing here. This is a ballpark educated guess, right, 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.760 but it's not still less than an estimate. That's when 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:00.559 we have a lot more information. Yeah, just a lot 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:04.600 more information. But you're you're pretty familiar also with the 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:08.400 topic that you're you're guessing at as well. Right. So 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:13.359 Lewis and Clark, I think both of them, Um, we're surveyors. 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.120 So they would have had a lot of training as 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:19.880 far as you know, judging distance goes. They would have 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.760 had some information to put together. So Clark coming up with, 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:27.000 you know, with an estimate of how why the continent 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:29.280 is and just being off by forty miles, like you said, 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.480 that's remarkable, But if you had had one of us 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.040 do it, it would have been a wild guess. So 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:39.360 it has to do with the training, the expertise really UM, 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:42.120 and then the amount of information you have. That's that's 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:44.520 what an estimate is. Yeah, And you may not even 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.520 know that you have information stored away in your brain 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.920 that you're recalling when you're trying to hazard a guess 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.800 on something. You might just be uh, you might think 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:57.679 it's a wild guess, but you're really kind of picking 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:02.000 out something that happened in your past maybe, right. Or 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.160 another way to look at it is that UM is intuition, 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.920 which is um. From what I understand, intuition is kind 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:12.240 of its own category. But if it's most closely related 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.000 to any type of those three guests, as we just mentioned, 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.600 it would be an estimate. And it comes from years 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:23.240 and years and years of training UM or exposure to 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:27.640 whatever you're guessing at to the point where your guesses 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:30.400 don't even seem like guesses. It just seems like for 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:34.040 knowledge of what you're about to do. Yeah, Like I 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:38.120 used to be really really bad at guessing crowd sizes, 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:43.440 but through our live shows, I've gotten pretty good at 0:14:43.480 --> 0:14:45.680 it because when you go to these theaters, you know 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:47.840 how many people are in there, and then you stand 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:49.680 in front of that many people. And if you do 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.520 that enough times, I can now say, like, you know, 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:54.240 when people when I'll go to a show or something, 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:56.080 they'll be like, how many people you think this place holds? 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:58.160 I used to let's say like, I have no idea 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:00.200 I know, but now you say, you know better eight 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:04.520 or nine people. Yeah, and you're probably pretty close within 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:07.320 forty miles. All bad. And that's just because of exposure 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.960 and learning, right, And that actually brings up a really 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.760 good point that you can actually get better at guessing. 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.400 And we'll get into that right after this break. How 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:41.320 about that, Chuck, right? Mm hmmm. Alright, So Chuck, you 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.240 said that, um, that you got better at estimating crowd 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:48.000 sizes by just performing at Our Lives shows. Right, So 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.480 you were terrible at it before, very bad, but just 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:56.120 from from exposing yourself to it, going out on stage 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:59.240 and exposing yourself to crowds that you could judge the 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:06.800 size of Um, and everybody clapped that guy, yeah, Nelson 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:13.000 pointed in laughs Portland, Um, you you got better at it. 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:17.360 And when it comes to especially but probably both, but 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:22.880 especially intellectual guesses intellectual bucket guesses. Um, you can train 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.400 yourself to get better at it, and part of that 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:30.680 is making a guess, getting um, pretty much immediate feedback, 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:33.320 and then learning from that. Yeah, like you're wrong, this 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:36.400 is what the answer is. It's like anything else exactly. 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:39.240 Do that enough, you're gonna get better at it. Yeah. Um. 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.800 And there's this pretty interesting UM, I guess. That was 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.240 interesting little kind of sidetrack that the author of the 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:51.960 guesses article, Alea hoyt Um, took, and I have to say, no, 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:55.320 it is Aliyah. It's not Alicia. No, it's Aliyah. There's 0:16:55.360 --> 0:16:59.200 no saying Alicia for not only is the C silent, 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:04.560 it's not the it's invisible. So Aaliyah hoyt my hats 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:07.560 off to her because doing supplemental research for this, there 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:11.399 are not a lot of people who are coming up 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:17.240 with really substantial stuff about guesses. It's like it's barren. 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:21.440 It's probably the least amount of research I've ever encountered 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:24.879 in all of our almost thousand plus episodes. So the 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:27.480 fact that she put this together, my hats off to her. 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:30.479 But a sidetrack she takes is to teach the reader, 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:35.040 how to um get better at guessing a jar full 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:39.359 of jelly beans? Yeah, well that was exciting, I mean that, 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.800 oh yeah, yeah, because always, I mean my method was 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:48.479 always to pick out a smaller area, like the bottom 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:53.280 inch of the jar, count as many as I could, 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.959 and estimate that and then multiply that out. That's actually 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:01.600 a great techniquead. Well, I don't know, I haven't guessed 0:18:01.640 --> 0:18:04.800 jelly beans in a jar since I was probably twelve, right, 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:07.199 But that was always my method, which has a little 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:10.200 there's a little bit of method to it, but it's 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:13.840 definitely not as good as as this one. Okay, so 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:17.920 so this one it sounds a little more complex than 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:21.560 than it actually is. But if you say, if you 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.000 look at a jar and it's filled with jelly beans, 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:28.719 you can say, um, that jar is the volume of 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:33.040 that jar is say a court Okay, but then you 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.639 kind of want to begin with sure, right, But you 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:38.760 can learn, right, you can just look around, Like here's 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:41.240 the point. If you want to get good at guessing 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:43.840 jelly beans. It just takes a little bit of work. 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:47.359 Most people would walk up, say a million jelly beans, 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.960 and they're off by like nine thousand. They're like well, 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:52.280 I'm terrible at guessing jelly beans. I'm going to sleep 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:54.680 for the rest of my life. But if you want 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:56.879 to get good at guessing at jelly beans, all you 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.440 have to do is poke around, learn a few things, 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.200 and then you can basically apply those to every situation. 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:03.720 And one of the things you would need to learn 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:06.720 is how to judge the volume of the container to 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:09.879 start correct. So that's one part, right, yeah, which you 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.040 know most people would do that that by comparing it 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:14.280 to like a milk jug or a two leader bottle 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:16.399 or something like that, right, But in this case, to 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:20.560 get a really accurate estimate, you would want to know specifically, 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:25.600 say how many ounces a container held correct. Um. And 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:28.280 then another thing you would probably do if you started 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:32.760 researching guessing jelly beans and jar on the internet, um, 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:36.080 you would you would run across some research that found 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:42.040 that if you have uh, spherical objects in a jar, 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:46.199 they typically take up about if you fill the thing up, 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:50.320 they take typically take up about sixty four of the 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:53.160 actual volume of the jar. And that's if it's they're 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.000 just randomly dumped. Right. So if you come across a 0:19:56.080 --> 0:20:00.239 jar and you say, um, and it's filled with like 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:07.679 perfectly round. Um, okay, perfectly round bouncy balls, right, Um, 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:11.160 you can say, well, those are spherical and they're taking 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:13.840 up about six of the jar. So all I have 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.159 to do is figure out the um the basically the 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:22.200 size of each of the ball, right, and then divide 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:26.719 it by the volume, and then bam, you just guessed 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:29.520 how many are in there, and you're probably pretty close 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:32.960 to right. Sure, So this all sounds mind numbing. I've 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:35.880 got a little, um, a little trickle blood coming out 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:40.200 of my ear right now. But you can the whole point, 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:43.320 and you can train yourself to make better guesses, to 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.760 estimate better. That's the whole point. Yeah. And if it's 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:50.359 a non spherical by the way, like if it's peanuts 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:55.640 or something like that, or ice cubes, not disgusting circus peanuts. 0:20:56.119 --> 0:21:01.760 Oh man, the that conjures up so many memories. Did 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:05.800 you like those? Well? I think I might have when 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:07.560 I was a kid, but I haven't had one in 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:10.960 forty years. But I still remember the taste you me 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:13.560 just had something. She says, they still hold up, and 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:15.560 I'm like, I didn't like him, then I'm not gonna 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:17.240 like him now. Well, they hold up for you in 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.520 a bad way, right right, yeah, exactly, So I know, 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:23.480 I know I'm not supposed to yuck. Anyone's young, but yuck. 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:28.960 So uh, if it's circus peanuts, let's say, um, that 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:34.560 would be between fifty and of the space, not sixty four. Yeah, so, uh, 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:37.439 what is you mean's method? Did you ask her? She 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:42.600 says she just kind of knowsh So she's a precock exactly. 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:45.240 She she shaves her head once a while and lays 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:48.280 around in a vat of liquid. Wow, that would be see, 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.640 I would that would scare me if that would if 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:53.480 that was my wife's answer, if she just like kind 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:56.240 of walked by and said I just know, right, yeah, 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:59.199 I would be like, well, what else do you just know? Yeah? 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:03.040 She's kind of unstoppable too. You have no idea how 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:05.760 many calves we've won at county fairs in the last 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:11.000 year alone. Our house is overrun with them. Um. All right, 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:13.920 So that's just guessing volume of a thing and a thing. 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:18.160 That's an it's intellectual guessing. Yeah, right, But you can 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.240 train yourself to guess better. What's really up for for 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:25.960 questioning is whether you can train yourself to get better 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:29.960 at the other bucket of guessing emotional type of guessing 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:33.480 right where you're walking around and you are interacting with 0:22:33.520 --> 0:22:36.719 other people and you're making judgments about how they're feeling 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:39.520 right then, about what they're thinking, right then, what their 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:43.840 motives are. Um, you know, how how well they're actually 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:46.800 listening to you all of these things right? It's part 0:22:46.800 --> 0:22:51.480 of our interaction with other people. And there's something that 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:55.920 UM two researchers called X and took great combo that 0:22:56.000 --> 0:23:00.320 back established this kind of field of inquiry in which 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:02.359 they were trying to get to the bottom of what 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:07.199 they called empathic accuracy, which is how accurately we can 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:11.440 we can surmise what someone actually is feeling or thinking 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:15.360 just from interacting with them. Some people are supposedly good 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:18.640 at it, some people are not. And from what I saw, 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:22.000 there's a big kind of push and pull about whether 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:25.919 it's worth practicing or whether you should just not do 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:28.200 that at all for the sake of your own sanity 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:31.359 and just say, if you tell me that you're in 0:23:31.400 --> 0:23:34.000 a good mood, I'm going to take that at face value. 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:37.879 And if you're actually not, then you're you're covering up 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:41.200 your feelings for your own reason, and that's that's fine. 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:43.160 If you want to just keep them to yourself, that's fine. 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:45.240 If you want to share them, I'm here, but I'm 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:47.920 gonna I'm gonna take what you're saying on face value, 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:51.640 so Bully for you, that to me is sanity. He's 0:23:51.680 --> 0:23:59.000 like going, how are you really feeling that you can? Uh, 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:01.719