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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 and Robert.

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Speaker 1: I'd like you to think about something, and that's what

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Speaker 1: I'm here for. I want you to think about the

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Speaker 1: idea of the substance of absence in our in our

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Speaker 1: sensory experience of the world. So we all experience this

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Speaker 1: in our lives where there is a stark disconnect between

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Speaker 1: everything we know about physics and what are intuitions tell us.

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Speaker 1: And one of the examples of this is that there

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Speaker 1: is no such substance in physics as cold, right, Cold

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Speaker 1: is just the absence of heat energy. And yet if

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Speaker 1: you have an experience like mine, when you hold an

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Speaker 1: ice cube in your hand, it doesn't just feel like

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Speaker 1: heat is leaving your body. It certainly feels like you

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Speaker 1: are meeting cold. You are meeting a substance of coldness

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Speaker 1: that is an independent material reality in itself, not unlike

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Speaker 1: how many people process sight as a beam coming out

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Speaker 1: of their eyes, like they think about it in those terms,

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Speaker 1: even though most of those people, I think are going

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Speaker 1: to realize that that's not how vision works, but we

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Speaker 1: can't help it interpret what's happening it as such. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's almost like people think of sight as an apprehending power.

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Speaker 1: It's like you would reach out to pick something up.

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Speaker 1: So in order to get visions, you must be reaching

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Speaker 1: out with your eyes in some way to pull things in. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Also to mention light, there's no such substance in physics

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Speaker 1: as darkness. Of course, darkness is just the absence of light.

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Speaker 1: But when a cloud passes in front of the sun

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Speaker 1: and it casts a shadow over the earth, and you

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Speaker 1: get that little shiver when that happens, it is hard

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Speaker 1: not to think of that shadow, the darkness, as a

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Speaker 1: substance unto itself, at least if you're like me. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean unless an entity is actually stepping out of

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Speaker 1: the negative material plane, right, if there's actual actually a

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Speaker 1: denizen of the shadow realm uh, breaching your immediate universe. Well,

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Speaker 1: of course I speak not of beings of darkness, because

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Speaker 1: merely to speak of them is to summon them, and

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Speaker 1: now we should be watching our backs. But another substance

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Speaker 1: like this is the substance of silence. Right, So silence

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Speaker 1: is not a thing, it's merely the absence of the

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Speaker 1: vibrational pressure waves of energy that we call sound. But

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Speaker 1: in psychological terms, I wonder it is silence a substance

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Speaker 1: in the same way as cold and darker to me.

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Speaker 1: And if it is, I think we may have come

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Speaker 1: across some interesting biological reasons for feeling this way. So Robert,

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Speaker 1: back in, you and Julie did an episode of this

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Speaker 1: show where you talked about the quietest place in the

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Speaker 1: entire world. And I went back and listened to the episode,

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Speaker 1: and at this time, Uh, the quietest place in the

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Speaker 1: world was a type of room known as an an

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Speaker 1: a co wick chamber, meaning a chamber that's echo free

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Speaker 1: no echoes, at a facility in Minneapolis, Minnesota called or

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Speaker 1: Field Laboratories. You remember doing this episode. I assume no

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Speaker 1: one has wiped your memory. It's amazing how much I

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Speaker 1: forget about some some old episodes. Um, but I do

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Speaker 1: remember this one. Yes, Okay, So if you haven't seen it,

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Speaker 1: you should google pictures of this lab facility you out

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Speaker 1: there listening. According to Atlas Obscura, it's actually in the

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Speaker 1: same building where Bob Dylan recorded Blood on the Tracks,

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Speaker 1: not the same room, but the same building. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: so this room is used to test appliances and equipment

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Speaker 1: for sound production under very very sensitive conditions by creating

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Speaker 1: the most the quietest environment we could imagine. And to

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Speaker 1: achieve these conditions, the room has been built in a

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Speaker 1: very weird way. So it's got double layered steel and

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Speaker 1: foot thick concrete walls. It's got this vault type door,

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Speaker 1: and then on the walls from floor to see ling,

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Speaker 1: they are covered with fiberglass acoustic wedges, which are these

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Speaker 1: fuzzy looking three foot long axe blades that stab out

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Speaker 1: into the room from the walls. And it looks like

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Speaker 1: at any moment the trap is going to spring and

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Speaker 1: the walls will begin closing in and these wedges are

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Speaker 1: going to become interlocking teeth, you know, to grind your

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Speaker 1: bones between them. But as far as we know, it

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Speaker 1: is not a trap. People have been to the room

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Speaker 1: and survived, uh, though maybe not unscathed. So it's just

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Speaker 1: a room with a very powerful thirst for absorbing sound.

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Speaker 1: And according to the Guinness Book of World Records account

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Speaker 1: the ambient sound levels inside it are about negative thirteen

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Speaker 1: decibels or d b a actually, which is just an

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Speaker 1: adjusted version of decibel measurement we will horrify the audio

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Speaker 1: engineers and just use decibels for simplicity, say going forward.

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Speaker 1: But so when you when you hear something like negative

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Speaker 1: thirteen decibels, that might sound kind of weird, right, How

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Speaker 1: how could you have negative sound, especially since you you

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Speaker 1: look at various lists and near total silence is zero

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Speaker 1: A whispers fifteen, so it's like a negative whisper. How

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Speaker 1: is that possible? Well, zero decipels actually doesn't mean no sound.

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Speaker 1: Zero decibels is just taken to be the threshold of

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Speaker 1: normal human hearing and birth your best hearing. Infancy hearing

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Speaker 1: people can usually detect sounds above zero decibels. Below zero decibels,

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Speaker 1: you know, too bad a very human scale. It's a

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Speaker 1: scale based on human perception of sound, not sound is

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Speaker 1: some sort of um, concrete thing outside of human experience exactly.

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Speaker 1: And so going into this space of negative decibels is

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Speaker 1: like going into the underverse. It puts you in a

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Speaker 1: very bizarre state of mind. People who have gone here

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Speaker 1: report that they have a hard time staying in the

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Speaker 1: room too long. They used to have this thing. All

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Speaker 1: the articles about it mentioned this challenge that the owner

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Speaker 1: seems very excited about. Where he would test to people

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Speaker 1: to see how long they could stay in there. You

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Speaker 1: seem to get some kind of sadistic pleasure out of it.

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Speaker 1: But in the under verse with the necromongers from Chronicles

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Speaker 1: of Riddick, I do appreciate a good Chronicles of Riddick

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Speaker 1: reference to. Actually, I've never seen chronically that's the under

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Speaker 1: verse is a big deal in that. Oh, the under

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Speaker 1: verse is bigger than than Riddick. Oh well, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: ridd it's pretty big. If you've seen his arms, he's

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Speaker 1: very very big. I guess you'll. You'll have to show

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Speaker 1: it to me someday. But so anyway, supposedly, inside this

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Speaker 1: antichote chamber, what happens is people become just hyper aware

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Speaker 1: of the sounds produced by their own bodies. You are,

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Speaker 1: you start to hear the thump of your own heart,

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Speaker 1: and hear the kind of squelching of your digestive system,

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Speaker 1: and you hear this hissing and rustling which is your

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Speaker 1: own respiration. And media reports also claim that people become dizzy, disoriented,

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Speaker 1: sometimes kind of panicky, which suggests that our hearing is

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Speaker 1: in some way tied to our body orientation and movement. Right,

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Speaker 1: you may have read these stories about blind people using

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Speaker 1: forms of echolocation to hear where they are in a room.

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Speaker 1: This kind of suggests that even people with normal senses,

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Speaker 1: all of their senses functioning normally, might still use some

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Speaker 1: kind of echolocation and basic body orientation. My favorite detail

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Speaker 1: I heard was I read one story in The Guardian

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Speaker 1: about a man who went into this room and he

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Speaker 1: claimed that after his ears adjusted, he could hear his

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Speaker 1: own scalp moving over his skull when he changed facial expressions.

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Speaker 1: You know, one of the important things to keep in

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Speaker 1: mind about all this too, is that, of course it

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Speaker 1: goes without saying that humans have evolved to thrive in

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Speaker 1: a certain sort of environment and with a certain amount

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Speaker 1: of sound in their immediate environment. So we're we have

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Speaker 1: We did not evolve to to live in in quiet chambers.

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Speaker 1: We evolved to live in the world, and so when

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Speaker 1: we are deprived of almost like the oxygen of sound,

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Speaker 1: so much we have to it's almost like the mind

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Speaker 1: has to gulp in more of it. If it doesn't

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Speaker 1: have something to chew on, it will start chewing on itself,

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Speaker 1: which is certainly a trend that occurs time and time

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Speaker 1: again in any kind of experiment looking into sensory deprivation,

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Speaker 1: and we are discussing, you know, one major area of

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Speaker 1: sensory deprivation here. And this is another thing that gets

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Speaker 1: mentioned in in context with these anteco chambers is that

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Speaker 1: you might go into there and experience auditory hallucinations just

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Speaker 1: because of that sensory deprivation element. But anyway, since that

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Speaker 1: podcast that you and Julie recorded, there's a new kid

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Speaker 1: in town. Microsoft has built a silent mind flare chamber,

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Speaker 1: even more psychedelically quiet than the one at oar Field Labs.

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Speaker 1: And much like the other facility, this one is used

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Speaker 1: for sort of audio and device testing in very sensitive conditions.

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Speaker 1: But it's located at Microsoft's Audio lab in Redmond, Washington,

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Speaker 1: and according to Business Wire, Microsoft contracted a company called

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Speaker 1: Echo Noise Control Technology I think actually the same company

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Speaker 1: that built the oar Field room UH to build this

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Speaker 1: new dungeon of lost whisperhaps for them, and it was

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Speaker 1: completed in July. But compared to or fields negative thirteen decibles,

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Speaker 1: this room gets as quiet as negative twenty point six decibles.

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Speaker 1: And this is close to about as quiet as a

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Speaker 1: room filled with atmosphere can possibly be. So since sound

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Speaker 1: is caused by mechanical pressure waves in a medium such

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Speaker 1: as air or water. There is no sound at all

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Speaker 1: in a vacuum. If you were to go into the

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Speaker 1: vacuum of space, you wouldn't hear anything. But in a

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Speaker 1: room filled just screams exactly. But in a room filled

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Speaker 1: with normal atmosphere, negative twenty three decibles is about as

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Speaker 1: quiet as things can get, because that's the sound level

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Speaker 1: of what's known as Brownian motion, which is the random

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Speaker 1: movement of air particles rustling against one another. I would

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Speaker 1: love to hear what that sounds like. I think Brownian

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Speaker 1: motion of air particles. There's actually an email album, yeah yeah,

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Speaker 1: like a late seventies a perfect companion to metal machine music. Yea. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: so I started thinking about this room and about how

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Speaker 1: there are actually plenty of god beings and monsters from

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Speaker 1: the history of human imagination who have found themselves in

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Speaker 1: a dire quest for a place like this room. I

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Speaker 1: think that the quest for peace and quiet is it's

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Speaker 1: we think of it as something of the modern age, right,

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Speaker 1: you live in the city, or there's the traffic horns,

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Speaker 1: honking people, screaming people I don't know, arguing about Pokemon

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Speaker 1: go and about whether adults should play it or not

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Speaker 1: outside your window at all hours of the night. And

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Speaker 1: we come to associate this feeling of of this noisy

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Speaker 1: cacaphony with modernity. But but this feeling goes way back.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, really, humans haven't changed that much,

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Speaker 1: not so much that they've stopped being annoying and obnoxious

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Speaker 1: and loud. We've we've had a loud talkers among us.

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Speaker 1: We've had we've had individuals who cannot wake up silently.

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Speaker 1: Uh since time out of mind. Though, then again, I

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Speaker 1: do think it's kind of interesting. We're going to mention

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Speaker 1: a few of these that the quest for silence, the

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Speaker 1: desire for peace and quiet, is often associated with villains,

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Speaker 1: not heroes. Well you do see, Yeah, the I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think I think it falls on both sides. I

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Speaker 1: guess the heroes that are seeking silence, they tend to

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Speaker 1: want to share that path to silence with others. So

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Speaker 1: it's more about, hey, everybody, let me show you the

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Speaker 1: way to the silence. Let me show you a way

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Speaker 1: of silence that will better your life, whereas the monsters

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Speaker 1: are a little more selfish. Well, one great example of

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Speaker 1: this is the enemy a leash the creation myth of

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Speaker 1: ancient Mesopotamia, which you see in ancient Sumerian and Babylonian texts.

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Speaker 1: Originally at Sumerian focused on the god in Leal. Later

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Speaker 1: the Babylonian version is altered to glorify the Babylonian god

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Speaker 1: mar Duke. But the story is pretty much that the

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Speaker 1: gods Apsu and Tiamat freshwater and salt water personified. They

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Speaker 1: they sort of live in this primordial chaos and they

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Speaker 1: create a younger generation of gods who just make a

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Speaker 1: great rucus. They cause disorder, irritating noise, and Opsu, in

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Speaker 1: reaction to this, plots to destroy his creations in order

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Speaker 1: to get some peace and quiet. Quote, by day I

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Speaker 1: cannot rest, by night, I cannot lie down in peace,

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Speaker 1: but I will destroy their way. Let there be lamentation,

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Speaker 1: and let us lie down again in peace. Oh nice. Now,

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Speaker 1: of course, later a hero has to come and fight

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Speaker 1: these beings. Actually, so Opsu gets destroyed, and then Tiamatt

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Speaker 1: his his sort of companion, his female counterpart becomes a

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Speaker 1: monster that has to be fought. But so yeah, not

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Speaker 1: the heroes of the piece here, But they want some

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Speaker 1: peace and quiet, that all all these new created beings

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Speaker 1: are just too loud and irritating. It's in it always

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Speaker 1: the way. The youth are loud, and they need to

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Speaker 1: they need to pipe down because those old people are

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Speaker 1: trying to get some sleep. I wonder if that is

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Speaker 1: what's behind the idea of Grendel in Beowolf, because he

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Speaker 1: he quite famously is not a fan of the noise,

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Speaker 1: not a fan of the partying that's coming from the

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Speaker 1: mead hall across the way, right. So what's what's the

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Speaker 1: basic story of Grendel and Beowulf. It's Beowulf comes to

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Speaker 1: Rathgar's mead Hall of hero right in the land of

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Speaker 1: the Dane men, and they they party in the hall

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Speaker 1: and have their big feasts, and somewhere nearby there's this

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Speaker 1: monster called Grendel. Not actually described physically very much. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: virtually no physical descriptions um, which means basically any interpretation

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Speaker 1: you have is valid. I did read some great translations

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Speaker 1: of the description. What they do say about him the

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Speaker 1: march Stepper, famous who dwelt in the more fins, the

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Speaker 1: marsh and the fast nous, a fiend in hell. This

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Speaker 1: ghastly demon was named Grendel, infamous stalker of the marches

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Speaker 1: who held the Moor's finn and desolate stronghold, the land

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Speaker 1: of the marsh Monsters. Nice. I always liked that the

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Speaker 1: way John Gardner described him in his novel A Grendel,

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Speaker 1: which is one of my my favorites. He described him

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Speaker 1: his quote a shadow shooter, earth rim roamer, walker of

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Speaker 1: the world's weird wall. Oh, that's so great, and that

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Speaker 1: captures this is a feature of the Anglo Saxon poetry,

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Speaker 1: is the alliteration there where you hear the same words

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Speaker 1: starting consonants used over and over, and Gardner captures that

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Speaker 1: very well. But anyway, so in the story, of course,

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Speaker 1: Beowulf has to go and kill Grendel, and the reason

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Speaker 1: he does that is because he's a jerk, basically he is.

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Speaker 1: But also it's because Grendel comes into Rothgar's mead hall

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Speaker 1: and and messes him up. He comes in and kills

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Speaker 1: He does kill a lot of a lot of people

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Speaker 1: in the uh in the Damon's the sense. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: why does he come into the meat hall and kill

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Speaker 1: the Dane men? Well, there are a couple of ways

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Speaker 1: you could read this, but the basic way is the

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Speaker 1: way it's described in the poem. It's kind of vague,

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Speaker 1: but it seems like he's annoyed by the noise they're making.

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Speaker 1: So one translation reads quote then the bold spirit impatiently

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Speaker 1: endured dreary time, He who dwelt in darkness. He that

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Speaker 1: every day heard noise of revelry loud in the hall.

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Speaker 1: There was the harmony of the harp, the sweet song

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Speaker 1: of the poet. Uh, and he doesn't like this noise. Now,

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Speaker 1: it's unclear to me, and I think they're actually differing

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Speaker 1: opinions on this. Whether the text means that Grendel was

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Speaker 1: actually jealous of the Danes, you know, friendship and happiness,

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Speaker 1: their their camaraderie and the party, or merely that he

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Speaker 1: just couldn't stand the noise. The sound of it bothered him.

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Speaker 1: But is it the same question we ask ourselves when

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Speaker 1: whenever we're annoyed by a neighbor having a loud party?

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Speaker 1: Am I annoyed because they are loud and I want

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Speaker 1: to sleep right now? Where am I loud because I

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Speaker 1: was not invited? Or I am not invited to parties

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Speaker 1: like this anymore? That that line of questioning, well, it

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Speaker 1: might be hard to tell the difference. Yeah, Robert, you

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Speaker 1: made a fascinating observation I had never considered before. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: tell me tell me about Oh well, I've I read

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Speaker 1: a lot of Dr SEUs folks these days, and so

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Speaker 1: anytime I read or if we end up viewing The Grinch,

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Speaker 1: Who's still Christmas, the comparisons are are pretty uh, are

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Speaker 1: pretty obvious, because in Grendel you have a monster that

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Speaker 1: lives out in the boonies who comes into the center

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Speaker 1: of civilization and unleash's havoc when there is too much noise,

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Speaker 1: and the same thing happens with the Grinch. The Grinch

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Speaker 1: hates the noise of the Christmas season, even the g

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Speaker 1: r is there. Yea, it seems like it's got to

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Speaker 1: be intentional, right, Oh, the noise, noise, noise, noise, noise.

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Speaker 1: There's one thing I hate all the noise, noise, noise, noise.

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Speaker 1: It's the who's in Whoville are like the Dane men

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Speaker 1: and hero Yeah, except instead of uh, you know, coming

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Speaker 1: in and killing who's, he just was gonna he's gonna,

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Speaker 1: uh you know, he's gonna surgically remove the cause of

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Speaker 1: their joy, uh, and the joy being the cause of

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Speaker 1: their noise. But of course that backfires and he has

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Speaker 1: to remove Christmas. But then his heart grew three sizes

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Speaker 1: that day. Yeah, they're a number of anatomical complications in

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Speaker 1: the comparison, but it doesn't happen to Grendel. Grendel, I

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Speaker 1: believe his head shrinks many sizes that day. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: well I'm not sure he gets his head cut off. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Also of the arm, yeah, arm to the arm, the

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Speaker 1: arm is cut off? First, is that a call going

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Speaker 1: got cut off? Because I think blades don't quite cut him,

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Speaker 1: like blades melt or something when they when they they

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Speaker 1: hit his blood. Description, there's some descriptions that can be

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Speaker 1: interpreted that either Grendel's blood is acidic and is eating

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Speaker 1: through the blade or it is so hot that it

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Speaker 1: is melting the blade. But Beowulf just rips off the

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Speaker 1: arm and then Grendel runs away. Wow. So here we've

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Speaker 1: got these monsters and god beings, uh, causing mayhem and

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Speaker 1: havoc and trouble for the creatures that dwell under their

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Speaker 1: level of power by trying to shut them up, just

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Speaker 1: wanting silence. And and if we can only find a

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Speaker 1: room for Grendel, if we could find an antechoic chamber,

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Speaker 1: for him, this never would have happened. But I wondered

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Speaker 1: if there are any straight up gods of silence. Well

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Speaker 1: there is, um Hippocrates, the Greek god of silence, and

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Speaker 1: he's thought to have evolved from a childhood variant of

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Speaker 1: the Egyptian god Horace. But ultimately Hippocrates is really more

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Speaker 1: about secrets than silence. So it's it's more about yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, occult knowledge in many interpretations, as opposed to

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Speaker 1: just oh I need a nice meditative place to think.

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Speaker 1: I knew there was a group of monsters in Doctor

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Speaker 1: who called the Silence, but I looked at them up

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Speaker 1: and found that their name is somewhat misleading. Oh what

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Speaker 1: do they do? Uh? They engineer history and cause people

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Speaker 1: to have mass forgettings of events and stuff. But as

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Speaker 1: far as I know, they're not especially all that quiet. Uh, well,

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Speaker 1: one one that is quiet. I have to confess, I'm

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Speaker 1: not a doctor expert. I don't know that much. What

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00:19:12,200 --> 00:19:16,080
Speaker 1: did you ever watch Buffy? No? I actually didn't. Should

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00:19:16,760 --> 00:19:18,520
Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun. You know, you kind of

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Speaker 1: have to plow through that first season, but but it's

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Speaker 1: it's all it's all fun after that, As I recall

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Speaker 1: but one episode in particular, one of the best episodes UH,

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Speaker 1: is titled Hush, and it concerns a group of sort

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Speaker 1: of fairy tale ghoulish creatures called the Gentleman, and they

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Speaker 1: come to town to steal everyone's voices, leaving them unable

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Speaker 1: to scream when they come around and cut everyone's hearts out.

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Speaker 1: And then we finally learned that if you the reason

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Speaker 1: here is because loud noises such as those caused by

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Speaker 1: a screaming human, caused the creatures heads to explode. Now

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00:19:55,840 --> 00:19:58,000
Speaker 1: that's funny. You should mention it, because one thing we

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00:19:58,040 --> 00:20:01,960
Speaker 1: do know is that loud no noises can definitely cause

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Speaker 1: injury and damage to live in creatures. Oh yeah, I

348
00:20:04,800 --> 00:20:06,920
Speaker 1: mean there's a lot of data out there about about

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Speaker 1: noise pollution. UM. You know various uh, various humans, I

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00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:14,520
Speaker 1: mean humans even, but also playing of non human animals. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The distraction alone can put many prey animals at an

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Speaker 1: increasing risk of predation. Uh. And the more pronounced effects

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Speaker 1: are generally found in marine mammals such as whales and

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Speaker 1: also in cephalopods. UH. The giant squid actually offers the

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Speaker 1: clearest example of this. Yeah. In the in the early

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Speaker 1: two thousand's low frequency sound pulse exercises that I believe

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Speaker 1: we're being utilized by the oil industry. Um. It was

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00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:44,600
Speaker 1: like dynamite fishing for squid, right right, Yeah, essentially, so

359
00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:48,400
Speaker 1: they're they're blasting out these uh, these low frequency pulses

360
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Speaker 1: and then dead squid start up, start just popping up,

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Speaker 1: and they seem to have extensive bodily damage. And uh

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00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:59,359
Speaker 1: when they looked closer, they found that like their mantles

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00:20:59,359 --> 00:21:03,840
Speaker 1: were reduced pulp, there was bruised muscles, lesions in their statusists,

364
00:21:03,880 --> 00:21:07,040
Speaker 1: which are these fluid filled organs that rest behind the

365
00:21:07,040 --> 00:21:10,320
Speaker 1: creatures eyes that helped them maintain their ballots and position.

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Speaker 1: In a few years after this, Spanish marine biologists and

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00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:18,119
Speaker 1: gal Gara investigated this further and found that low frequency

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Speaker 1: sound exposure intensities between a hundred fifty seven hundred seventy

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Speaker 1: five decibels and frequency range which is very loud. Should say, Yeah,

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00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:29,760
Speaker 1: one of the things to drive home and throw some

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00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:33,600
Speaker 1: throughout some comparisons here in a bit is that, yeah, underwater, uh,

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Speaker 1: sounds can really get up there. Some of our loudest

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Speaker 1: noises on Earth they're occurring underwater. Um. But but anyway,

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Speaker 1: in this experiment, found that that there was a great

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00:21:45,040 --> 00:21:49,239
Speaker 1: deal of UH statusist tissue damage, including the destruction of

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Speaker 1: tiny inverted hair like sensory structures in the cells that

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00:21:53,080 --> 00:21:56,160
Speaker 1: helped the creatures maintain their balance. So this effectively crippled

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00:21:56,200 --> 00:22:01,120
Speaker 1: them and even the the the various salivods that they studied,

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00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:04,560
Speaker 1: the ones that survived the experiment exhibited in some cases

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00:22:04,720 --> 00:22:08,119
Speaker 1: visible holes in the tissues. So we're talking, you know,

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00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:13,239
Speaker 1: legitimate kind Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean the worst. If

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00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:16,359
Speaker 1: you're comparing places to be next to a bomb um,

383
00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:19,080
Speaker 1: the water is far worse. Like if someone throw If

384
00:22:19,080 --> 00:22:21,720
Speaker 1: you're at if your pool side and someone throws a grenade,

385
00:22:22,359 --> 00:22:25,400
Speaker 1: two grenades into your vicinity, one in the water, one

386
00:22:25,520 --> 00:22:29,160
Speaker 1: on the surface. Definitely stay on the surface, but also

387
00:22:29,240 --> 00:22:32,360
Speaker 1: avoid pool parties where grenades are being thrown around. How

388
00:22:32,359 --> 00:22:35,080
Speaker 1: do you keep getting invited to those I don't know? Um?

389
00:22:35,080 --> 00:22:37,159
Speaker 1: Like when I when I when they stopped inviting me,

390
00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:39,040
Speaker 1: And then I'm gonna I'm gonna feel bad. I'm gonna

391
00:22:39,040 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 1: look back on and say, why why don't they invite

392
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:45,439
Speaker 1: me to these loud, noisy grenade parties? Uh? And I

393
00:22:45,480 --> 00:22:48,119
Speaker 1: wish I could go to sleep now Robert right before

394
00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:50,479
Speaker 1: we get back to the subject of silence. I know

395
00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:52,480
Speaker 1: everybody wants to know how do you make a human

396
00:22:52,480 --> 00:22:55,199
Speaker 1: head explode with sound? All right, so this is a

397
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:59,000
Speaker 1: pretty cool There was a popular science article by seth

398
00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:01,960
Speaker 1: ET's horror at that came out a few years back,

399
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:04,199
Speaker 1: and he looked into this. Include but we'll make sure

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00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:05,600
Speaker 1: we include a link to this on the landing page

401
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:08,480
Speaker 1: for this episode, because it's worth checking out. But he

402
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:12,960
Speaker 1: ruled that yes, sufficiently powerful sound waves can make a

403
00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:17,720
Speaker 1: human head explode, much like the the Gentleman on Buffy Um.

404
00:23:17,800 --> 00:23:22,000
Speaker 1: Because uh infrasound is essentially a hell of a thing.

405
00:23:22,440 --> 00:23:25,840
Speaker 1: So if you crank it up to eighteen point ninety

406
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:29,640
Speaker 1: eight hurts the same resonance of the human eye, and

407
00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:34,840
Speaker 1: the resulting distortions can make you see weird ghostly shapes. However,

408
00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:38,280
Speaker 1: if you crank it up to two hundred and forty decibels,

409
00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:43,120
Speaker 1: you can get the skull to resonate destructively. Especially it's

410
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:45,439
Speaker 1: especially the case if you're using a debt like a

411
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:49,080
Speaker 1: cadaver head. But but this could conceivably be the case

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00:23:49,119 --> 00:23:52,080
Speaker 1: with a living head as well. To put that in perspective,

413
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:55,600
Speaker 1: low frequency sonar can reach two hundred and thirty five decibels,

414
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:59,440
Speaker 1: and the nineteen o eight Tunguska event, you know, of

415
00:23:59,520 --> 00:24:02,680
Speaker 1: course they and you earth object colliding with the Earth.

416
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 1: It's heard around the world, perhaps the loudest single event

417
00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 1: in modern history, and it probably hit three hundred to

418
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:14,880
Speaker 1: three so loud stuff. So we've never seen anybody's head

419
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:18,000
Speaker 1: explode from sound. No And I think the way that,

420
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 1: the way that Horowitz explained it is that if you

421
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:25,600
Speaker 1: were setting there, you if you had the technology to

422
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:27,719
Speaker 1: do it, you would still get bored, and you just

423
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:29,959
Speaker 1: probably want to brain the person in the head with

424
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:32,399
Speaker 1: the device you're using. Like it's it's not a bit.

425
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:34,440
Speaker 1: There are far better ways to make a head explode

426
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: than depending on sound. Okay. So we've been talking about

427
00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 1: the idea of silence as a substance and where you

428
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:45,480
Speaker 1: can find it. And one piece that I came across

429
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 1: that I thought was pretty interesting was a short article

430
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:51,320
Speaker 1: in High Country News, which is a very good magazine

431
00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 1: focusing on nature in the American West, uh and it

432
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:57,640
Speaker 1: was about places of quiet in the American wilderness. Now,

433
00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:00,240
Speaker 1: we often think about human activity is the prime very

434
00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:03,320
Speaker 1: purveyor of noise, which it usually is. But leaving the

435
00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:06,000
Speaker 1: city doesn't always mean heading to a place of quiet.

436
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 1: Of course. I think about William Butler Yates Lake Isle

437
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:10,320
Speaker 1: of innist Free. He wants to get away from the

438
00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 1: bustle of the city. But where he's going isn't going

439
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 1: to be silent, right, because he's going to live in

440
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:19,240
Speaker 1: the b loud glade. What a great term. But anyway,

441
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 1: you know nature, you hear the nature sounds, the crickets,

442
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:25,199
Speaker 1: the wind, wrestling the leaves. But even in nature, some

443
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 1: places are louder than others. So at uh that they

444
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 1: talked about Idaho's City of Rocks National Reserve. It's going

445
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 1: to be very quiet, but you'll still probably hear the

446
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: faint sounds of running water and wrestling leaves. Um and

447
00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 1: it can get quieter. One example is Colorado's Great Sand

448
00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:47,000
Speaker 1: Dunes National Park, which is very quiet. According to research

449
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:49,639
Speaker 1: by the National Park Service, It's almost as quiet as

450
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:54,040
Speaker 1: it was before the European colonization of America. But like

451
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:57,880
Speaker 1: the Antichoic Chamber, this level of silence sort of highlights

452
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 1: an underlying lack of islands. You go into the chamber

453
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 1: and you hear your heartbeat, your scalp moving all of

454
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 1: that creepy stuff. You apparently go to Great Sand Dunes

455
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 1: National Park and they say that you hear other sounds

456
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:16,000
Speaker 1: from very far away, for example, the sounds of the

457
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:19,480
Speaker 1: Denver International Airport. I did a quick Google Maps check

458
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 1: to see how far away that is, and it's about

459
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:24,439
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty miles or a four hour drive.

460
00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:29,119
Speaker 1: So if this is true, you're you're hearing planes taking

461
00:26:29,160 --> 00:26:34,479
Speaker 1: off from two fifty miles away. That's just crazy. They

462
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:37,399
Speaker 1: also put together, the National Park Service put together a

463
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 1: map of America with color coding for different levels of noise,

464
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:44,639
Speaker 1: and so they have these blue regions where it's very quiet,

465
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:47,439
Speaker 1: in these yellow regions where it's allowed. One thing I

466
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:51,639
Speaker 1: noticed is that there's a very sharp east west divide.

467
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 1: The west is much quieter than the east, and I

468
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 1: would say from experience, I think that's right. Even being

469
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 1: in the wilderness, if you get out of the City's

470
00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:03,919
Speaker 1: when I noticed. Going to the wilderness in the east,

471
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: it's I don't know, you hear bugs, and you hear wind,

472
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 1: rustling leaves and stuff like that. Probably the quietest place

473
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:15,399
Speaker 1: I can ever remember being was the desert in southwest Texas.

474
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 1: At Big Ben National Park where there was this one

475
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 1: day where I was riding around in a car with

476
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 1: my wife Rachel and her cousin Marie, and one day

477
00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 1: we we parked and I went off by myself to

478
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: hike up a short little trail, and by myself. At

479
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:34,200
Speaker 1: the top of this trail, I can remember just hearing nothing.

480
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 1: I couldn't hear any water, any insects, any birds, any

481
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 1: wind or leaves. The air was very still. I just

482
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 1: heard this kind of vague whir of things, very distant.

483
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:50,160
Speaker 1: And it's one of the bluest places on the map. Actually, yeah,

484
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's impressive to look one of these maps.

485
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 1: You know where not to move if you are a

486
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: Grendel or a granch So like obviously, don't go virtually

487
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:03,880
Speaker 1: where in New England, stay out of the Midwest. Don't

488
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:07,160
Speaker 1: go to Florida. Even the sparsely populated Midwest. It looks

489
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:08,879
Speaker 1: like they're there are a lot of places that are

490
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 1: kind of yellow, and I wonder if that's because of

491
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 1: it kind of flat landscape and a lot of highways.

492
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:17,679
Speaker 1: You can hear traffic from very far away. Yeah, you

493
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 1: pretty much have to go to the desert okay, but

494
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: I think we should actually talk about some medical research

495
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:27,240
Speaker 1: with reference to silence and noise. Now everybody knows, of course,

496
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:30,320
Speaker 1: that noise can be really irritating, but I think we

497
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,000
Speaker 1: don't often realize the extent to which noise takes a

498
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 1: measurable toll on human on human health, and some people

499
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 1: have actually tried to measure this. For example, I found

500
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: oneten study in the Lancet that said, quote, Observational and

501
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 1: experimental studies have shown that noise exposure leads to annoyance,

502
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: disturbed sleep, and causes daytime sleepiness, affects patient outcomes and

503
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 1: staff performance in hospitals, increases the occurrence of hypertension and

504
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:03,960
Speaker 1: cardiovascular disease, and impairs cognitive performance in school children. Now,

505
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: if all these things were being caused by some food

506
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 1: additive or something, we would be freaking out. Yeah, you

507
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 1: know there. I believe that the childhood front there there

508
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 1: have been studies in recent years that have looked into

509
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:18,720
Speaker 1: like the role background music plays and how that can

510
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:22,360
Speaker 1: actually that has a can have a detrimental effect on

511
00:29:23,320 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 1: on On one hand, I'm just communicating with the kid

512
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:29,120
Speaker 1: and like getting their attention because even though you're cool,

513
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: with some ambient music playing in the background, and that

514
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 1: enhances your experiences of the scenario. It can be actually

515
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 1: kind of distracting for them. And I believe that it

516
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 1: occasionally even has been shown to to bleed over into

517
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 1: language acquisition to some degree. I don't have the research

518
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 1: in front of me right now, but it's interesting. But

519
00:29:48,560 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 1: even but even then, the noise that we take for granted,

520
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 1: the stuff that's not noise, the stuff that we the

521
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:58,440
Speaker 1: adults put on to cancel out the noise, can itself, um,

522
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 1: you know, have a noisome effect. Yeah, And so when

523
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 1: you're exposed to a noise, of course, this activates a

524
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 1: stress response in the brain and goes to the amygdala,

525
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 1: and that triggers there is the release of stress hormones

526
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 1: like cortisol. And of course these hormones serve a purpose

527
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: in nature, right if you you've got you've got to

528
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: get ready for a fight, or you've got to be

529
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 1: able to run. But if you've just got continuously elevated

530
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:23,680
Speaker 1: levels of stress hormone being triggered by noises that have

531
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 1: no relevance to you whatsoever, that's not good for your health.

532
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: And there's no good reason for it. Yeah, so we're

533
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:34,560
Speaker 1: talking like horns, honking um, things out of the ordinary,

534
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:36,320
Speaker 1: things that your mind hasn't had a chance to sort

535
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 1: of program into the normal rate of sounds. Jackhammers on

536
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 1: the floor above you in the office. Yeah, it's weird

537
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: to think about this because I actually live next to

538
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 1: train tracks and I virtually never hear Like I hear

539
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 1: them all the time, but I almost never register them, uh,

540
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: And they never interfere with my in my sleep or anything,

541
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:58,880
Speaker 1: unless there's a sound that that happens that's out of

542
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 1: the ordinary, some sort of occasionally there's like this huge

543
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 1: shuddering um stop to a train it's making its way through.

544
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:12,040
Speaker 1: But other than that, I legitimately haven't really heard the

545
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 1: train in a distractive manner since the day I moved

546
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 1: into the house. Well, there's one thing I would say

547
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: is that you might not even be aware of the

548
00:31:20,160 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 1: extent to which it is disturbing your sleep, because noise

549
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:28,720
Speaker 1: disturbance of sleep is a major factor in these health outcomes.

550
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 1: In fact, in two thousand eleven, the World Health Organization

551
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 1: they put together this big report and they were collecting

552
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: evidence on the public health risks posed by noise in

553
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 1: European Union member states, and they actually put numbers on it.

554
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 1: They tried to take what we know and make some

555
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: estimates of what the total effects are. And of course

556
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: what they were calculating this in was something called dailies

557
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 1: or disability adjusted life here. So how many healthy years

558
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 1: is this issue taking off of people's lives? You can

559
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 1: measure a lot of negative health UH factors that way,

560
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:05,720
Speaker 1: and they said, quote, with conservative assumptions applied to the

561
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 1: calculation methods, it's estimated that UH daily is lost from

562
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: environmental noise are sixty one thousand years for heart disease,

563
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 1: forty five thousand years for cognitive impairment of children, nine

564
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: hundred and three thousand years for sleep disturbance, twenty two

565
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:27,160
Speaker 1: thousand years for tenadis six hundred and fifty four thousand

566
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:31,040
Speaker 1: years for annoyance. In the European Union member states, the

567
00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: results indicate that at least one million healthy life years

568
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 1: are lost every year from traffic related noise in the

569
00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 1: western part of Europe. Well, that's a good thing. I

570
00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: turned on that white noise in the evening. That does

571
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:45,760
Speaker 1: bring something up I want to keep thinking about throughout

572
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 1: this episode. Is white noise the same as silence, Like,

573
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 1: what really is silence? If we've established this principle where

574
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 1: you go into the antichotic chamber and there's silence, and

575
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:00,040
Speaker 1: that just means that you notice your heartbeat, and you

576
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: notice the you know, the creepy scalp. You go to

577
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:08,040
Speaker 1: a national park in Colorado and you notice planes taking

578
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:12,800
Speaker 1: off hundreds of miles away. You're always digging deeper into

579
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 1: the background sound palette. And so if that's the case,

580
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 1: what is silence? Is there actually such an experience as silence? Well,

581
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:26,480
Speaker 1: as far as white noise machines go, I feel like

582
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 1: in a way that the use of colors is kind

583
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 1: of telling. Now specifically, I use a brown noise. Yes,

584
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:35,000
Speaker 1: that's my favorite setting. It's a good one. Yeah, And

585
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 1: it's hard not to think of it in terms of

586
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 1: of of say wall that was once white. So like,

587
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 1: all right, it's got some smears on it, it's got

588
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 1: some scuffs. I could try and clean it down, I

589
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:48,880
Speaker 1: could try and go back to that that that white level.

590
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 1: I could try and subscribe everything away and get to

591
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 1: some level of silence. But I'm better off just putting

592
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 1: up a wall of sound and just make just painting

593
00:33:56,360 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 1: the wall brown. Sorry, I'm mixing my metaphors here, but

594
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 1: I don't know. I see what you're saying. A new

595
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 1: um and a new seamless sound. Uh, you know, base

596
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 1: level of noise that has no no variety. They're not

597
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 1: going to be any sudden Uh you know, goblin cackles

598
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:15,879
Speaker 1: or anything. Yeah, quiet, predictable sound you can tune out

599
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: and register is silence. Real silence is hard to tune

600
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:23,439
Speaker 1: out because you're constantly hearing tiny variations. Yeah, I don't

601
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 1: want to hear all the little noises that mightn't happen

602
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:28,879
Speaker 1: during the night. I don't want to. I certainly don't

603
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 1: want to hear anything the cats up to. So I

604
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:33,400
Speaker 1: would rather just just go ahead and put up this

605
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:35,160
Speaker 1: wall of sound you don't want to hear. Your kind

606
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: of research on how to take your soul, it's going

607
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:41,359
Speaker 1: through those books of the occult you got. You know,

608
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 1: you shouldn't have bought those, I know, especially the ones

609
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 1: written in cat So Robert. One of the things that

610
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 1: actually inspired me to do this episode was it was

611
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:53,959
Speaker 1: an article I read from Nautilus that was a July

612
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:57,880
Speaker 1: piece in Nautilus by Daniel A. Gross called this is

613
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 1: your Brain on silence and This actually turned me onto

614
00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:03,799
Speaker 1: a few more avenues of of inquiry that I want

615
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:07,520
Speaker 1: to talk about now. So in Gross's piece he mentions

616
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 1: a few studies, and one of them is this two

617
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:14,880
Speaker 1: thousand six study in the journal Heart by a scientist

618
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 1: named Luke Luciano Bernardi and colleagues. And it's called Cardiovascular,

619
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 1: cerebro vascular and Respiratory changes induced by different types of

620
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:28,760
Speaker 1: music in musicians and non musicians. The importance of silence

621
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:32,200
Speaker 1: long name, But the interesting takeaway from this is that

622
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:36,280
Speaker 1: they were intending to study physiological effects of different types

623
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 1: of music. This sounds like pretty standard research, right. So

624
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:41,279
Speaker 1: they hook you up to some machines and they want

625
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:43,840
Speaker 1: to play I don't know exactly what different music they played,

626
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 1: probably some probably some metal, probably some classical. They played

627
00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:52,279
Speaker 1: exciting music, arousing music, relaxing music, and they measured things

628
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 1: about your body respirations, is stelic blood pressure, circulation in

629
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 1: the brain, and they were trying to figure out, you know,

630
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:01,480
Speaker 1: do different types of music change these things? Now, of

631
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 1: course they did. Different types of music did indeed lead

632
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 1: to different states of arousal and cause physiological changes. But

633
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:12,359
Speaker 1: Bernardi and colleagues found that the most drastic changes and

634
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:17,279
Speaker 1: the most interesting changes happened when random two minute intervals

635
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 1: of silence were introduced as a control to the tests.

636
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: So these periods of silence had a physiologically measurable effect

637
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 1: of calming and relaxation, more so than the relaxing, calming

638
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 1: music that they were attempting to test. So this is

639
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 1: kind of like if you went to a fancy restaurant

640
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:38,279
Speaker 1: or a wine tasting and the best part of your

641
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 1: experience was the palate cleanser between courses, you know, the

642
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 1: crackers or the sorbet or whatever. Is that that actually

643
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:47,759
Speaker 1: does more for you than anything else. It's like that

644
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:51,320
Speaker 1: wonderful scene in Putti tang Um Yes, which which I

645
00:36:51,840 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 1: always have enjoyed as I think it's I think it's

646
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:57,000
Speaker 1: a fine movie. It's a great science fiction film. But

647
00:36:57,080 --> 00:37:00,320
Speaker 1: there's a scene where we're Putty tang the the the

648
00:37:00,600 --> 00:37:05,279
Speaker 1: the title character, who is himself an accomplished musician and

649
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 1: just sort of cultural phenomenon um. He goes around winner. Yeah,

650
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 1: it's all around Winner. He goes in and he's gonna

651
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 1: cut this new track. He's gonna drop this new track,

652
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:17,359
Speaker 1: and he gets the the sound engineer to just bring

653
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:20,959
Speaker 1: all the levels down, and he passionately performs a track

654
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:25,720
Speaker 1: of pure silence and and it becomes a sensation. And

655
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of a beautiful idea that it's

656
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: like in this in in an in an age where

657
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 1: like it's all about like the noise that the music,

658
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:35,759
Speaker 1: the constant music on top of all book sounds around us.

659
00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: That an actual silence, some force meditation it maybe even

660
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:43,920
Speaker 1: like essentially a two minute interval of silence enforced on

661
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 1: everyone would have a profound impact. Well, yeah, it's Putti

662
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 1: Tang spin on the the original work of the composer

663
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 1: John Cage, Right, So John Cage would do these experimental

664
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 1: music things where you know, it might be just like

665
00:37:57,239 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 1: random turned on radios or complete silence or something like that.

666
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:04,880
Speaker 1: And it's it's easy to make jokes about that. You know,

667
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:07,680
Speaker 1: you go to a classical music concert and sit there

668
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 1: while a pianist sits in front of a piano and

669
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: she doesn't play anything. That that's funny, but it's also yeah,

670
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 1: I can see the artistic merit in that causing people

671
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:21,040
Speaker 1: to notice other sounds in the room, to notice what

672
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:24,360
Speaker 1: the experience of listening is like by not having anything

673
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:27,560
Speaker 1: to listen to. But again it's also easy to make

674
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:32,680
Speaker 1: fun of. But another interesting fact here about the study,

675
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: so found these periods of silence more relaxing than the

676
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:38,799
Speaker 1: relaxing music. The relaxing effect of the silence was more

677
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 1: pronounced in these short intervals between music than it was

678
00:38:42,040 --> 00:38:45,520
Speaker 1: in a long period of silence before the test started. So,

679
00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 1: in other words, the most profound effect of silence seemed

680
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:51,840
Speaker 1: to be when it occurred in contrast, And this is

681
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:55,120
Speaker 1: a quote from Gross's article that that is quoting Bernardi

682
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 1: that the author of the study gives to the author

683
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 1: of the article quote, perhaps the arousal is something that

684
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 1: concentrates the mind in one direction, so that when there's

685
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:10,319
Speaker 1: nothing more arousing, then you have deeper relaxation, so you're

686
00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:13,640
Speaker 1: focused on something and then you take a break, which

687
00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 1: is much more relaxing than doing nothing in the first place. Well, certainly,

688
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:21,399
Speaker 1: I can think. I don't know how closely related this is,

689
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:25,560
Speaker 1: but you can think of of moments in modern music

690
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:28,600
Speaker 1: and older music where you have that that full stop.

691
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 1: Everything goes silent for a second and then the sound

692
00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:34,960
Speaker 1: comes back before they drop the drop, right, Yeah, like

693
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:38,960
Speaker 1: the drop that the dub step drop or even of course, um,

694
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:42,680
Speaker 1: what was it that the Beatles song with the famous drop.

695
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:46,880
Speaker 1: I'm not sure which day in the life, right is

696
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 1: that the one? Oh? I know what that song, but

697
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 1: I can't remember if there's a drop in it where

698
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 1: there's like everything gets very loud and then suddenly just

699
00:39:55,800 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 1: like in silence. Our Beatles fans will have to when

700
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:03,360
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong, But but certainly their example of this

701
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 1: throughout music the drop totally well, I mean it does

702
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:10,920
Speaker 1: focus the mind. The rests are as important as the beats.

703
00:40:11,600 --> 00:40:14,320
Speaker 1: But of course the finding that the brain responds mainly

704
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:18,760
Speaker 1: to contrast and change is borne out by other research

705
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:21,880
Speaker 1: research in mice. So here's one interesting one that is

706
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:25,480
Speaker 1: also cited in the Nautilus piece. Back in two thousand

707
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 1: ten at the University of Oregon, there was this interesting

708
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: finding about how the brain reacts to silence. So the

709
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 1: interesting fact is that the brain processes silence is a

710
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:39,920
Speaker 1: distinct type of input apart from sound. Remember we were

711
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 1: talking about silence as a substance, so the brain sees

712
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 1: it as such too. Yeah, the brain very much treats

713
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:48,840
Speaker 1: silence as a substance rather than just the absence of noise.

714
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:52,680
Speaker 1: So the researchers monitored the brains of rats exposed to

715
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 1: bursts of sound and charted the brain activity for wind

716
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: sounds began and when sounds ended. And what they found

717
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:04,640
Speaker 1: was that acts used to completely separate synaptic pathways for

718
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 1: processing these types of sensation. So you hear a new sound,

719
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 1: sound comes on, the brain does one thing, sound goes

720
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:15,279
Speaker 1: off the brains goes a completely different synaptic route to

721
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:18,480
Speaker 1: the auditory cortex. Something that it's it's doing a different

722
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 1: kind of processing. And the first thing to notice is,

723
00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:25,120
Speaker 1: of course this is necessary for the understanding of speech.

724
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:28,520
Speaker 1: When you're listening to somebody talk, how do you tell

725
00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 1: when one word ends and another begins? In spoken communication?

726
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 1: You have to hear the spaces, and that's not so

727
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:37,440
Speaker 1: easy to do. It's not easy to get computers to

728
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:40,719
Speaker 1: do this right, because certainly, if you hear yourself talk,

729
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:44,360
Speaker 1: you hear other people talk uh to varying degrees depending

730
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: on who's doing the during the talking. Yeah, though, the

731
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 1: spaces between the words become almost microscopic. Yeah. And then

732
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:55,360
Speaker 1: of course this is also a survival mechanism. Have you

733
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 1: ever thought about how unnerving it is to hear a

734
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:07,840
Speaker 1: sudden silence yes, I have Joe, So yeah, Fear is

735
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 1: an adaptive mechanism, right. It triggers these survival behaviors. You've

736
00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:15,359
Speaker 1: got a robot assassin coming at you, it's turning on

737
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:18,560
Speaker 1: its mini gun, wearing up and uh, and it triggers

738
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:22,280
Speaker 1: these survival behaviors. In dangerous situations, you've got an impulse

739
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:25,800
Speaker 1: to freeze and be quiet, or the body prepares itself

740
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:29,439
Speaker 1: to flee or or to fight for survival. Though I mean,

741
00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 1: if it's the robot with a mini gun, you don't

742
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 1: have much of a good chance. But so, how do

743
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:39,560
Speaker 1: animals know when to be afraid? Well, decent question, and

744
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 1: certainly one clue is if something has alerted other animals

745
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:45,920
Speaker 1: in their presence, right that if something has caused a

746
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:51,320
Speaker 1: quiet to spread amongst the surrounding organism. Right. And the

747
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:54,440
Speaker 1: question is is that sort of a universal language, an

748
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:57,799
Speaker 1: instinctual universal language among animals, And it looks like it

749
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:00,359
Speaker 1: might be so. One way, of course, and most can

750
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 1: be afraid is learned fear associations. If every time you

751
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:06,520
Speaker 1: go to the red food bowl it shocks you, you're

752
00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: going to be afraid of the red food bowl. There's

753
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 1: also instinctual, species specific triggers of fear like audible alarm

754
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:17,399
Speaker 1: calls or pheromones. But there was a study in two

755
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 1: thousand twelve in Current Biology called silence resulting from the

756
00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 1: cessation of movement signals danger. And what this study found

757
00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:29,839
Speaker 1: is that the other animal fear trigger is silence, specifically

758
00:43:30,160 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 1: the sudden cessation of the sound of movement. You hear walking,

759
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:36,880
Speaker 1: talking here, moving along through the brush. When whenever that

760
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 1: goes quiet, animals instinctively become afraid. They know something's wrong. Uh.

761
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:45,120
Speaker 1: And the author's right in their abstract quote as freezing

762
00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:49,000
Speaker 1: is a pervasive fear response in animals. Silence may constitute

763
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:53,280
Speaker 1: a truly public queue used by a variety of animals

764
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:56,880
Speaker 1: in the ecosystem to detect impending danger. So this is

765
00:43:56,920 --> 00:44:00,839
Speaker 1: interesting that it becomes across species language like you're you're not.

766
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:03,960
Speaker 1: You don't have to listen to your own uh, cod

767
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:07,040
Speaker 1: species you know calling out, be careful when you hear

768
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 1: the birds becoming quiet, you know something's up, even if

769
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:16,040
Speaker 1: you are an escaped monkey from a from a lab,

770
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:20,799
Speaker 1: even if you are even if you're a wolverine. But

771
00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 1: then to come back on the other side, there is

772
00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 1: another biological role that silence seems to play and it's

773
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:32,400
Speaker 1: a positive nurturing one toward brain development. So there's study

774
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:36,880
Speaker 1: by im Key Kirsty in brain structure and function called

775
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:40,840
Speaker 1: is silence golden effects of auditory stimuli and their absence

776
00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:45,440
Speaker 1: on adult hippocamp ll neurogenesis. So this essentially linked silence

777
00:44:45,640 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 1: to brain development. And they tested four different sound conditions,

778
00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 1: which was so they had some mice and they tested

779
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 1: standard background noise and an animal testing facility that sounds

780
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 1: like a really pleasant noise. Uh. But then they also

781
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:03,879
Speaker 1: compared this to white noise that they might have gone

782
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: with brown noise, but they didn't white noise the pup

783
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:09,839
Speaker 1: calls of mice, so you know, a little little mice

784
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:13,839
Speaker 1: calling out for the parents and silence. And the hypothesis

785
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 1: going into this experiment was that the baby mouse calls,

786
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:19,840
Speaker 1: the pup calls would stimulate the growth of new brain

787
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:23,320
Speaker 1: cells in adults. And at first, all of the sounds

788
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 1: except the white noise, did seem to encourage one specific

789
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:30,239
Speaker 1: type of brain cell growth neuro genesis in the hippocampus.

790
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:34,839
Speaker 1: But after seven days, only silence was still associated with

791
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:38,000
Speaker 1: this brain cell growth, and that was a total surprise.

792
00:45:39,200 --> 00:45:42,160
Speaker 1: But the author's right quote. Our results indicate that the

793
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: unnatural absence of auditory inputs, as well as spectro temporally

794
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:52,880
Speaker 1: rich albeit ethologically irrelevant stimuli, activate precursor cells in the

795
00:45:52,920 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 1: case of silence, also leading to greater numbers of newborn

796
00:45:56,239 --> 00:46:01,879
Speaker 1: immature neurons, whereas ambient and unstructured background auditory stimuli do

797
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: not so. In other words, the theory is that artificial

798
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:08,920
Speaker 1: silence presents a healthy challenge to the brain, which prompts

799
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 1: the brain to grow new brain cells in adaptation more

800
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:18,240
Speaker 1: so than any of these other background noises. It's interesting

801
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:20,560
Speaker 1: when you we need when you take that into account

802
00:46:20,560 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 1: thinking about our own uh Like, So you're driving along

803
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:26,319
Speaker 1: in the car and he might think, oh, I need

804
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 1: something to occupy my mind. Right, so I'm gonna put

805
00:46:28,960 --> 00:46:31,239
Speaker 1: on some music and put on some podcast or what

806
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:34,600
Speaker 1: have you. Um but really your mind is gonna be

807
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:38,040
Speaker 1: able to occupy itself. Maybe, but again, perhaps that's part

808
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 1: of the problem. You want you it's going to occupy itself.

809
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:42,759
Speaker 1: But maybe that's part of the problem. Well, it might

810
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:47,319
Speaker 1: just occupy itself with obsession over your own mortality or

811
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:50,359
Speaker 1: with other things that you just don't have time for. Yeah,

812
00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 1: the basic default mode network. Right, So this really complex

813
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:57,560
Speaker 1: picture of silence is emerging. For me, the substance of

814
00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 1: silence is is strange because uh, it's freedom from noise.

815
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:04,960
Speaker 1: Of course, it seems to promote relaxation, We've seen that.

816
00:47:05,400 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 1: But then you go into an intensely quiet room, we

817
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 1: become aware of deeper and deeper noises, deeper into the

818
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 1: quiet verse, and you start to go crazy. People lose

819
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:17,319
Speaker 1: their minds, they can't stand it. And then periods of

820
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:20,360
Speaker 1: silence seem to promote healthy growth of brain cells, seems

821
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:23,400
Speaker 1: to be good for at least the brains of mice. Um.

822
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:26,760
Speaker 1: But then the sudden silence also triggers fear and alarm.

823
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 1: So it seems our reactions to silence are almost as

824
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:33,160
Speaker 1: complex as our reactions to sound itself. Which makes me

825
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:37,319
Speaker 1: wonder is there really such a thing as silence? And

826
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:40,200
Speaker 1: if so, what is the ideal quiet? What are we

827
00:47:40,239 --> 00:47:43,360
Speaker 1: really going for when we want some peace and quiet?

828
00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:47,799
Speaker 1: What is it we have in mind? M hm, Well,

829
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:51,000
Speaker 1: I feel like this is um. This is a question

830
00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 1: that is complicated by just the human experience of silence form,

831
00:47:56,239 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: you know, for for one thing, because what I'm engaging

832
00:48:00,719 --> 00:48:05,120
Speaker 1: with with actual silence. I'm also very engaging to varying

833
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:09,600
Speaker 1: degrees with inner silence and weighing those two and then

834
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:13,240
Speaker 1: if that's going to color my memory about how quiet

835
00:48:13,239 --> 00:48:17,160
Speaker 1: a particular setting was, you know, like if I like

836
00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:19,560
Speaker 1: I've gone places before, like when I had to think

837
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:21,840
Speaker 1: of for this podcast, like what are the quietest places

838
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 1: I've been to? I can the places that come to

839
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:30,280
Speaker 1: mind are like wilderness environments. They were not necessarily quiet.

840
00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:32,600
Speaker 1: Like one was like, um, kind of on top of

841
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:36,960
Speaker 1: the mountain and Yosemite, and there weren't any human noises

842
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 1: around me other than like I think I was. I

843
00:48:39,120 --> 00:48:42,360
Speaker 1: was pretty worn out by the time I reached the top. Uh,

844
00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:46,160
Speaker 1: but you know that the wind was sweeping through, blowing

845
00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:49,040
Speaker 1: across the trees and the and the rocks. Uh that

846
00:48:49,120 --> 00:48:53,400
Speaker 1: there was a sound of loose rocks underfoot as I ascended.

847
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:56,759
Speaker 1: But yet, you know, part of part of it was

848
00:48:56,960 --> 00:48:59,799
Speaker 1: probably physical exertion, part of it was just the you know,

849
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 1: an entirely new physical environment, a slightly different you know,

850
00:49:06,040 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 1: sound environment. Like all of that further colored my interpretation

851
00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 1: of it as quiet. You know, So when I look

852
00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:17,319
Speaker 1: back on it now, I'm it's easy for me to say, oh,

853
00:49:17,400 --> 00:49:18,960
Speaker 1: that was one of the quietest places I've been to.

854
00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 1: But in a way it was just loud in different ways,

855
00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 1: both sonically and like just visually loud. I thought of

856
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:27,839
Speaker 1: the same thing. I mean, I was able to think

857
00:49:27,880 --> 00:49:31,520
Speaker 1: of Big Bend, which was actually I think, relatively quiet.

858
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:34,759
Speaker 1: But when I when I think of quiet places, I

859
00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:37,239
Speaker 1: just think of like nature and stuff like that. It's

860
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:40,440
Speaker 1: not quiet at all. There's bugs everywhere. I was up

861
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:43,960
Speaker 1: in Tennessee last weekend, sitting out on the porch one night,

862
00:49:44,640 --> 00:49:46,920
Speaker 1: and I was thinking, Man, it's so nice and quiet

863
00:49:46,920 --> 00:49:50,000
Speaker 1: out here. It was not even remotely quote. It was

864
00:49:50,160 --> 00:49:53,960
Speaker 1: incredibly loud with different like the uh. It's like a

865
00:49:54,040 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 1: it's like a Phil Specter wall of sound, engineered entirely

866
00:49:57,600 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 1: by bugs. They're filling in every single conceivable hole where

867
00:50:03,600 --> 00:50:05,920
Speaker 1: there could be a noise. They've all got their niche

868
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:08,839
Speaker 1: and it's all there. It's like a it's like a

869
00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:11,279
Speaker 1: like a Queen metal song, you know where they it's

870
00:50:11,360 --> 00:50:15,359
Speaker 1: just a floor to ceiling. Oh yeah. I camped in

871
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:18,920
Speaker 1: okay Finoki swamp here in Georgia several years back, went

872
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 1: on a canoe trip uh, and it was legitimately hard

873
00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:25,720
Speaker 1: to sleep that night because the insects were so loud

874
00:50:25,800 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 1: and the frogs, frogs like actually underneath the platform that

875
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:31,200
Speaker 1: we had our tents set up on, were just so

876
00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:34,840
Speaker 1: incredibly loud. It was it was worse than trying to

877
00:50:34,880 --> 00:50:37,480
Speaker 1: sleep in a city. But but in my memory I

878
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 1: interpreted this as peace and quiet. Yeah. Yeah, and in

879
00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:45,040
Speaker 1: a sense it is. But it's but again that that

880
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:48,319
Speaker 1: kind of that that's why so complicated to try and think, like, well,

881
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 1: what's what's my ideal level of silence, because you know what,

882
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:54,239
Speaker 1: a doctor's waiting room can be pretty quiet. But oh

883
00:50:54,320 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 1: that's no good at all. Yeah, but it's not good

884
00:50:56,560 --> 00:50:58,319
Speaker 1: because you're about to go and see the doctor. Your

885
00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:01,840
Speaker 1: head is probably more a lot I've with with worry

886
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 1: and concerns and what ifs than uh than any other time.

887
00:51:05,320 --> 00:51:07,880
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I wonder what it would be like

888
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:09,960
Speaker 1: to find it soothing to sit in a silent room

889
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:13,520
Speaker 1: and hear nothing but the sound of a pencil scraping

890
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:18,880
Speaker 1: against paper as it describes the shape of a mole. Yeah. Um,

891
00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:21,120
Speaker 1: you know, it also makes me think of airports we mentioned,

892
00:51:21,160 --> 00:51:24,479
Speaker 1: you know earlier in um in jest. But of course

893
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:28,879
Speaker 1: he created music for airports wonderful ambient album, and every

894
00:51:28,880 --> 00:51:30,839
Speaker 1: time I listened to it, or and or every time

895
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:33,279
Speaker 1: I'm in an actual airport, I think, why am I

896
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:38,239
Speaker 1: listening to CNN on several different TVs on top of

897
00:51:38,239 --> 00:51:40,840
Speaker 1: all the noise instead of music for airports? Is is

898
00:51:40,880 --> 00:51:45,240
Speaker 1: there an idea here that actually more distraction? Is is better?

899
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:48,400
Speaker 1: Like that is the form of silence that works better

900
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:52,000
Speaker 1: in an airport as opposed to be the the the

901
00:51:52,160 --> 00:51:55,760
Speaker 1: idea of silence, uh in the midst of ambient music.

902
00:51:56,440 --> 00:52:00,400
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know either. Or should we

903
00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:03,600
Speaker 1: just all have, you know, our our heads encased in

904
00:52:03,800 --> 00:52:09,640
Speaker 1: some sort of sarcophagus to enforce silence upon us? Well

905
00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:12,920
Speaker 1: that's another. Even even if you put in ear plugs

906
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:15,000
Speaker 1: and you you know, you're very good ones, and you

907
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:17,280
Speaker 1: don't hear what's going on around you, there is still

908
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:19,680
Speaker 1: a sort of connected sense of touch, you know, the

909
00:52:20,200 --> 00:52:23,959
Speaker 1: vibrational energy. There's some sort of blending between our sense

910
00:52:23,960 --> 00:52:25,880
Speaker 1: of touch and our sense of hearing. Yeah, yeah, and

911
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:29,160
Speaker 1: certainly you're still gonna receive those uh, those waves you're

912
00:52:29,160 --> 00:52:32,840
Speaker 1: certainly gonna hear with your skull uh to a large degree.

913
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:34,600
Speaker 1: So yeah, you're not gonna be able to to to

914
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:39,279
Speaker 1: completely silence it out. So Robert, here's something that I

915
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:42,560
Speaker 1: read about when I was, you know, doing some browsing

916
00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:46,160
Speaker 1: on the subject of silence, the idea of enforced silence.

917
00:52:46,760 --> 00:52:48,600
Speaker 1: That's a hard thing to pull off, right, because you

918
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:51,759
Speaker 1: can isolate somebody, you can put them in solitary, you

919
00:52:51,800 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 1: can go u you know, Cold War John C. Lily

920
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:58,520
Speaker 1: and drop somebody in an isolation tank. But for the

921
00:52:58,560 --> 00:53:00,719
Speaker 1: most partly people have a right to be loud, and

922
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:05,000
Speaker 1: people can be loud outwardly and certainly inwardly. You know,

923
00:53:05,040 --> 00:53:08,000
Speaker 1: I don't usually think of a prison as a place

924
00:53:08,080 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 1: that's going to be especially a refuge of peace and quiet.

925
00:53:11,920 --> 00:53:15,279
Speaker 1: But in the nineteenth century there was this regime that

926
00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:17,960
Speaker 1: I read about known as the Auburn system. It evolved

927
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:21,840
Speaker 1: in the Auburn Prison of Auburn, New York. And the

928
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:24,040
Speaker 1: way this worked is that you had prisoners whould go

929
00:53:24,080 --> 00:53:27,520
Speaker 1: out perform hard labor all day, and then they were

930
00:53:27,560 --> 00:53:31,480
Speaker 1: put in solitary confinement at night, with enforced silence at

931
00:53:31,480 --> 00:53:39,840
Speaker 1: all times, no talking. Well, that sounds absolutely dreadful, absolutely shredful. Well, anyway,

932
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:42,520
Speaker 1: the idea, I guess is that you know, criminals, they

933
00:53:42,600 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 1: learn habits, they learn things from each other, They learn

934
00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:49,879
Speaker 1: and reinforce bad behaviors from other criminals through some sort

935
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:54,200
Speaker 1: of perverted form of social education. But if the prisoners

936
00:53:54,239 --> 00:53:57,320
Speaker 1: can't make a sound, they can't communicate with one another

937
00:53:57,360 --> 00:54:01,759
Speaker 1: in order to reinforce and instruct. But I'm curious how,

938
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:04,520
Speaker 1: I mean, not like I think it would be ethical

939
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:07,840
Speaker 1: to do this in any case, But putting questions of

940
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:11,480
Speaker 1: ethicality aside, did this work? Did people really find that

941
00:54:11,560 --> 00:54:16,440
Speaker 1: this increased penitence caused people to stop living a criminal lifestyle?

942
00:54:17,440 --> 00:54:20,520
Speaker 1: I I am almost positive that this did not. My

943
00:54:20,880 --> 00:54:23,480
Speaker 1: bet is that this did not work, though it does

944
00:54:23,560 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 1: sound like, you know, perfectly deplorable from you know, by

945
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:31,759
Speaker 1: nineteenth century penal standards. I mean, I think I think

946
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:34,719
Speaker 1: it sort of fits with the idea of you know what,

947
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:37,280
Speaker 1: do you need? Nothing? You need? You need your Bible

948
00:54:37,400 --> 00:54:40,440
Speaker 1: and you need quiet reflection, and so they put you

949
00:54:40,480 --> 00:54:43,160
Speaker 1: in a room by yourself, no talking, read your Bible

950
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:46,360
Speaker 1: and that's it. And I guess it was supposed to

951
00:54:46,440 --> 00:54:50,239
Speaker 1: encourage guilt, you know, guilt and remorse and feelings of

952
00:54:50,520 --> 00:54:53,399
Speaker 1: wanting to reform. But I don't know. I think when

953
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:57,719
Speaker 1: you force people to be silent, do you also encourage

954
00:54:57,760 --> 00:55:03,879
Speaker 1: them to stew on what bothers them? Well, I yeah,

955
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:07,719
Speaker 1: I mean it's you're not necessarily making any positive movement there.

956
00:55:07,719 --> 00:55:10,680
Speaker 1: I mean, in researching this episode, it did a lot

957
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:15,719
Speaker 1: of searches around for silence related UM studies, and silence

958
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:18,920
Speaker 1: can have many meanings. Of course, as we've already discussed,

959
00:55:18,920 --> 00:55:21,120
Speaker 1: one meaning we haven't really gotten into is silence in

960
00:55:21,239 --> 00:55:24,880
Speaker 1: terms of not talking about your problems, not talking about

961
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:27,239
Speaker 1: what's botting, You're not talking about an issue. Well, that's

962
00:55:27,239 --> 00:55:30,040
Speaker 1: another You've done an episode of this show before. It

963
00:55:30,160 --> 00:55:33,160
Speaker 1: was also several years ago in the Spiral Silence, which

964
00:55:33,239 --> 00:55:36,400
Speaker 1: is not not so much about sound but just about

965
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:40,879
Speaker 1: not speaking up, And yeah, that that becomes an echo

966
00:55:41,040 --> 00:55:44,600
Speaker 1: chamber of its own. Um. But I mean on top

967
00:55:44,640 --> 00:55:48,280
Speaker 1: of that, of course, the all of the research indicates

968
00:55:48,320 --> 00:55:52,319
Speaker 1: that solitary confinement is just a brutal tactic to use

969
00:55:52,360 --> 00:55:55,480
Speaker 1: against anybody. So I think it is it is now

970
00:55:55,600 --> 00:55:58,600
Speaker 1: coming to be considered a form of torture, so I'd

971
00:55:58,600 --> 00:56:00,640
Speaker 1: be willing to look into it more. But I my

972
00:56:00,640 --> 00:56:04,680
Speaker 1: my firm suspicion is that this uh, this prison experiment

973
00:56:04,800 --> 00:56:07,520
Speaker 1: like so like pretty much anything you call a prison

974
00:56:07,560 --> 00:56:13,480
Speaker 1: experience probably did not have great, great outcome. Now, of course,

975
00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:17,480
Speaker 1: that's when silence is imposed upon you, inflicted upon you.

976
00:56:17,560 --> 00:56:20,480
Speaker 1: But but certainly they're there are plenty of models for

977
00:56:21,160 --> 00:56:25,520
Speaker 1: embracing silence, taking on vows of silence, certainly. Uh. There

978
00:56:25,600 --> 00:56:29,160
Speaker 1: a number of monastic traditions and the Catholic tradition that

979
00:56:29,200 --> 00:56:32,440
Speaker 1: come to mind. Uh. It Also, silence also plays a

980
00:56:32,520 --> 00:56:37,120
Speaker 1: role in Hindu philosophy, where it is uh mauna. Also,

981
00:56:37,600 --> 00:56:41,640
Speaker 1: even the Greek philosopher of Pythagoras of Samos imposed a

982
00:56:41,719 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 1: rule of silence on his uh disciples of Pythagora, in

983
00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:49,200
Speaker 1: silence stints of five years or more, even to prove

984
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:53,279
Speaker 1: your commitment. Apparently the music of the spheres you can't

985
00:56:53,320 --> 00:56:56,120
Speaker 1: hear it unless you stop talking. Yeah, And then of

986
00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:59,200
Speaker 1: course there's the whole issue of silence. Uh in the world,

987
00:56:59,280 --> 00:57:03,280
Speaker 1: place silence in study, you know here at how stuff works.

988
00:57:03,840 --> 00:57:08,000
Speaker 1: Over over the years, I've seen I've seen this this transformation.

989
00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:11,080
Speaker 1: So like when I first started here, like eight or

990
00:57:11,120 --> 00:57:13,040
Speaker 1: nine years ago, we had these bid and you were

991
00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:16,560
Speaker 1: here at at the time we have these big but

992
00:57:17,080 --> 00:57:19,000
Speaker 1: six years yeah, it was still in the same office.

993
00:57:19,280 --> 00:57:22,360
Speaker 1: So it was like sort of big three sided cubicles,

994
00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:26,919
Speaker 1: really spacious. Uh. You felt like a monk in um

995
00:57:27,920 --> 00:57:29,880
Speaker 1: in the library at times. You know, you're able to

996
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:32,120
Speaker 1: get your materials, you have your computer, and you were

997
00:57:32,160 --> 00:57:34,880
Speaker 1: working away on your on your own. There were days

998
00:57:35,240 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 1: where you didn't you didn't necessarily see anybody that was

999
00:57:38,680 --> 00:57:41,920
Speaker 1: seated on an opposite row from you. And uh, We've

1000
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:44,040
Speaker 1: had a couple of different offices since then, and things

1001
00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:47,080
Speaker 1: have gotten more open office, as is the trend right

1002
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:50,920
Speaker 1: where the ideas that oh, we're gonna treat treat everything

1003
00:57:50,960 --> 00:57:54,280
Speaker 1: like it's a newsroom, treat everything, uh in a way

1004
00:57:54,320 --> 00:57:56,840
Speaker 1: so that we're inspiring all sorts of uh, you know,

1005
00:57:57,200 --> 00:58:01,200
Speaker 1: vital and imaginative, creative energy. Easel will just free flow

1006
00:58:01,240 --> 00:58:04,360
Speaker 1: and ricochet around the office. Man, there is nothing more

1007
00:58:04,400 --> 00:58:10,360
Speaker 1: inspiring than overhearing somebody else's work conversation. Yeah, um, you know.

1008
00:58:10,440 --> 00:58:14,919
Speaker 1: And I feel like there are there are professions where

1009
00:58:14,920 --> 00:58:18,480
Speaker 1: an opus opened an office environment work better their individuals

1010
00:58:18,520 --> 00:58:21,600
Speaker 1: for whom it works better. Um. I think the problem

1011
00:58:21,640 --> 00:58:24,520
Speaker 1: is always we need try applying any kind of one

1012
00:58:24,560 --> 00:58:29,040
Speaker 1: size fits all um plan to a workforce. Well, it

1013
00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:31,880
Speaker 1: seems to me from what I've read, everything is open office.

1014
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:35,479
Speaker 1: Now it's what everybody does. I'm not quite sure why

1015
00:58:35,560 --> 00:58:38,560
Speaker 1: that trend has caught on, but but it's not just

1016
00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:41,400
Speaker 1: it's not just here in the work world. I mean

1017
00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:44,080
Speaker 1: you also see it out in the world of scientific research.

1018
00:58:44,160 --> 00:58:47,160
Speaker 1: In fact, there there have been some papers in recent

1019
00:58:47,200 --> 00:58:49,320
Speaker 1: years so they've brought this up saying that, hey, we

1020
00:58:49,400 --> 00:58:53,840
Speaker 1: have too much enforced interaction in science. Um. In fact,

1021
00:58:54,080 --> 00:58:57,440
Speaker 1: Peter Higgs has stated that the Higgs Boson of the

1022
00:58:57,520 --> 00:59:00,160
Speaker 1: Higgs Boson has stated that the piece and quiet at

1023
00:59:00,600 --> 00:59:03,840
Speaker 1: that he was afforded in the nineteen sixties, which resulted

1024
00:59:03,880 --> 00:59:07,200
Speaker 1: in his Nobel Prize winning work, is no longer possible,

1025
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:09,480
Speaker 1: you know. So you have you have a number of

1026
00:59:09,520 --> 00:59:12,200
Speaker 1: scientists over the years who have really been um the

1027
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:17,560
Speaker 1: proponents of silence. Newton, Einstein, just just to name a

1028
00:59:17,640 --> 00:59:21,040
Speaker 1: few here. They've all prized silence and isolation. And if

1029
00:59:21,040 --> 00:59:24,600
Speaker 1: they were working today, would they have it? And if

1030
00:59:24,640 --> 00:59:26,480
Speaker 1: they didn't have it, would they have been able to

1031
00:59:26,920 --> 00:59:30,320
Speaker 1: achieve the ends that they that they achieved in their lives. Well,

1032
00:59:30,360 --> 00:59:32,640
Speaker 1: not to mention how much they'd be required to tweet

1033
00:59:32,640 --> 00:59:36,880
Speaker 1: about their ongoing research and upcoming conferences. I'll do that.

1034
00:59:36,960 --> 00:59:40,840
Speaker 1: Facebook live. Make sure Newton that you do your Facebook life.

1035
00:59:40,880 --> 00:59:43,960
Speaker 1: You gotta understand you're gonna do something with an apple. Um,

1036
00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:46,240
Speaker 1: whether you have a dog, door something. Let's get some

1037
00:59:46,360 --> 00:59:50,000
Speaker 1: let's point some some cameras at that. Facebook wants to

1038
00:59:50,040 --> 00:59:55,360
Speaker 1: know what is this? Yes? Why am I seeing this? Who?

1039
00:59:55,440 --> 00:59:59,439
Speaker 1: Who are you? Uh? Well, it's the world. It's the world.

1040
00:59:59,480 --> 01:00:01,400
Speaker 1: We have the world we have to deal with. Uh,

1041
01:00:01,760 --> 01:00:04,040
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll find a way to work through the noise.

1042
01:00:04,080 --> 01:00:07,320
Speaker 1: I mean that's the scenario at any point, right right, No,

1043
01:00:07,320 --> 01:00:09,760
Speaker 1: no matter how noise do you think the world is.

1044
01:00:09,960 --> 01:00:13,040
Speaker 1: No matter how quiet a slice you've carved out for yourself,

1045
01:00:13,320 --> 01:00:15,320
Speaker 1: you're still going to have to work through the noise. Well,

1046
01:00:15,360 --> 01:00:17,680
Speaker 1: I mean that brings us back to the to the question.

1047
01:00:17,720 --> 01:00:20,520
Speaker 1: I guess the core questions substance of silence? What is it?

1048
01:00:20,600 --> 01:00:24,680
Speaker 1: And why is some silence desirable but other silence is not?

1049
01:00:25,640 --> 01:00:29,960
Speaker 1: So you might put in this loud white noise track

1050
01:00:30,600 --> 01:00:34,440
Speaker 1: at work in order to get some quiet from the

1051
01:00:34,480 --> 01:00:38,040
Speaker 1: conversations that are going on around you. So you're increasing

1052
01:00:38,080 --> 01:00:40,640
Speaker 1: the volume in order to get some peace and quiet.

1053
01:00:41,640 --> 01:00:45,520
Speaker 1: The signals again that that is clearly about something about

1054
01:00:45,560 --> 01:00:48,840
Speaker 1: the the introduction and novelty of sound rather than the

1055
01:00:48,920 --> 01:00:52,320
Speaker 1: volume of sound. I guess I'd be tempted to think

1056
01:00:52,320 --> 01:00:55,880
Speaker 1: of it as oxygen, you know, and like I might

1057
01:00:55,920 --> 01:00:57,960
Speaker 1: want to take a breath of pure oxygen every now

1058
01:00:58,000 --> 01:01:00,280
Speaker 1: and then, but I don't know, for fun, just for fun.

1059
01:01:00,360 --> 01:01:02,920
Speaker 1: But I don't want to necessarily live in an environment

1060
01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:06,320
Speaker 1: of pure oxygen and breathe it all the time. That

1061
01:01:06,760 --> 01:01:09,520
Speaker 1: would kill you. But but but every now and then

1062
01:01:09,520 --> 01:01:14,240
Speaker 1: I'll sleep in my specialized oxygen tent. Uh and uh,

1063
01:01:14,240 --> 01:01:17,440
Speaker 1: and it will revitalize me. But hey, that's uh, that's

1064
01:01:17,440 --> 01:01:20,160
Speaker 1: our take on the topic. We we put it to you, though,

1065
01:01:20,400 --> 01:01:24,720
Speaker 1: what is the quietest place you have ever found yourself in?

1066
01:01:24,800 --> 01:01:27,120
Speaker 1: What what's the quietest place you've visited? What is the

1067
01:01:27,240 --> 01:01:30,160
Speaker 1: quietest place you have created for yourself in your own life?

1068
01:01:30,360 --> 01:01:32,600
Speaker 1: And I guess the question is a dual question, right,

1069
01:01:32,640 --> 01:01:35,320
Speaker 1: what's the place that has felt the most quiet to you,

1070
01:01:35,440 --> 01:01:40,360
Speaker 1: like the ideal mind silence versus what's actually the lowest

1071
01:01:40,440 --> 01:01:44,640
Speaker 1: number of ambient decibels? Be very interested to hear, Hey,

1072
01:01:44,640 --> 01:01:47,040
Speaker 1: maybe you've even been to one of these, uh, these

1073
01:01:47,120 --> 01:01:50,680
Speaker 1: soundless chambers that we've created in the world. I want

1074
01:01:50,680 --> 01:01:52,400
Speaker 1: to hear from the people, and I know they've got

1075
01:01:52,400 --> 01:01:53,920
Speaker 1: to be out there, the people who went in one

1076
01:01:53,960 --> 01:01:56,400
Speaker 1: and did not get all freaked out, because I'm sure

1077
01:01:56,480 --> 01:01:58,840
Speaker 1: there are some people. I'm sure we hear about the

1078
01:01:58,840 --> 01:02:01,160
Speaker 1: ones that get freaked out. Have you been to one

1079
01:02:01,160 --> 01:02:03,520
Speaker 1: of these things and didn't really bother you? I want

1080
01:02:03,520 --> 01:02:05,760
Speaker 1: to hear about that. I mean, there are people who

1081
01:02:06,720 --> 01:02:10,040
Speaker 1: who are noisy enough and or make enough noises just

1082
01:02:10,120 --> 01:02:12,720
Speaker 1: moving around, uh that I think they would they would

1083
01:02:12,760 --> 01:02:14,960
Speaker 1: fare just fine, like they would never notice. They're just

1084
01:02:15,120 --> 01:02:17,760
Speaker 1: if you're just sitting there like groaning to yourself and

1085
01:02:18,320 --> 01:02:21,680
Speaker 1: cracking your knuckles and talking to yourself and groaning some

1086
01:02:21,760 --> 01:02:23,760
Speaker 1: more than you know, you're probably not gonna notice the

1087
01:02:23,800 --> 01:02:30,160
Speaker 1: desk about how we'll show all them, show all there

1088
01:02:30,160 --> 01:02:35,280
Speaker 1: griping about your office environment all that. Let's stop being grumpy, Robert.

1089
01:02:35,320 --> 01:02:37,000
Speaker 1: How can they get in touch with us? Oh? Hey,

1090
01:02:37,040 --> 01:02:39,440
Speaker 1: before we do that, we should also mention that this

1091
01:02:39,480 --> 01:02:42,040
Speaker 1: week we are going to be in New York. That's right,

1092
01:02:42,400 --> 01:02:45,120
Speaker 1: if you were in New York, specifically, if you were

1093
01:02:45,160 --> 01:02:50,360
Speaker 1: attending the The Star Trek Mission New York uh Con

1094
01:02:51,120 --> 01:02:53,760
Speaker 1: in New York City, then you should you should check

1095
01:02:53,800 --> 01:02:55,360
Speaker 1: us out. We're gonna be there, We're gonna be doing

1096
01:02:55,360 --> 01:02:57,960
Speaker 1: a presentation. It's gonna be Star Treky, it's gonna be science,

1097
01:02:58,120 --> 01:02:59,840
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a little cosmic, it's gonna be a

1098
01:03:00,000 --> 01:03:04,040
Speaker 1: will uh psychological. Yeah. So the conference goes from September

1099
01:03:04,080 --> 01:03:06,520
Speaker 1: two to September four. If if you're gonna be there,

1100
01:03:06,560 --> 01:03:10,080
Speaker 1: our panel will be on Friday afternoon in the early afternoon,

1101
01:03:10,560 --> 01:03:13,240
Speaker 1: and you can look us up in the conference materials.

1102
01:03:13,240 --> 01:03:16,480
Speaker 1: But yeah, so if if you're around, come say hi, yeah, yeah,

1103
01:03:16,560 --> 01:03:18,120
Speaker 1: come here what we have to say, and then uh

1104
01:03:18,360 --> 01:03:21,560
Speaker 1: have a little chat with us afterwards. And in the meantime,

1105
01:03:22,080 --> 01:03:23,880
Speaker 1: head on over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1106
01:03:23,920 --> 01:03:26,560
Speaker 1: That's where you'll find all of the podcast, the videos,

1107
01:03:26,680 --> 01:03:29,800
Speaker 1: blog post links out to our various social media accounts,

1108
01:03:30,160 --> 01:03:33,040
Speaker 1: uh and that Facebook account Blow the Mind. You will

1109
01:03:33,160 --> 01:03:37,560
Speaker 1: definitely find information there about the upcoming Star Trek thing.

1110
01:03:37,920 --> 01:03:39,440
Speaker 1: And if you want to get in touch with us,

1111
01:03:39,480 --> 01:03:41,880
Speaker 1: as always, you can email us and blow the mind

1112
01:03:41,960 --> 01:03:53,760
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this

1113
01:03:53,960 --> 01:03:56,480
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works

1114
01:03:56,480 --> 01:04:15,560
Speaker 1: dot com. Ayther Ynys starts four starts apart f