1 00:00:05,720 --> 00:00:07,920 Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to blow your mind. This 2 00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:11,040 Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday 3 00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:14,480 Speaker 1: time for a Vault episode. This one originally aired September 4 00:00:14,520 --> 00:00:17,919 Speaker 1: twenty nine. Rob, this was the interview that you did 5 00:00:18,079 --> 00:00:21,320 Speaker 1: with the neuroscientist David Eagleman. Yeah, this is a lot 6 00:00:21,320 --> 00:00:24,120 Speaker 1: of fun gets that he gets into some really cool ideas. 7 00:00:24,200 --> 00:00:28,920 Speaker 1: Here a possible explanation for what dreams are for? And uh, 8 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:32,040 Speaker 1: one of my favorite parts, how in which ways? Uh? 9 00:00:32,240 --> 00:00:35,360 Speaker 1: Is the human brain like a Mr Potato Is a 10 00:00:35,479 --> 00:00:38,839 Speaker 1: Mr Potato different from Mr potato Head? Well it's Mr 11 00:00:38,840 --> 00:00:41,519 Speaker 1: potato Head. Yes, Uh oh, I guess actually it's not 12 00:00:41,640 --> 00:00:44,200 Speaker 1: Mr It's just potato Head now right, Well, I think 13 00:00:44,240 --> 00:00:46,480 Speaker 1: now there is still a Mr. Potato Head, but there's 14 00:00:46,479 --> 00:00:50,120 Speaker 1: also a broader potato head concept. Okay, yeah, I haven't 15 00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:52,360 Speaker 1: followed all the potato head news, but I've I've caught 16 00:00:52,400 --> 00:00:55,080 Speaker 1: wind of some of the like the faux outrage over 17 00:00:55,440 --> 00:00:59,320 Speaker 1: over some of it. So at any rate, it's a 18 00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:02,760 Speaker 1: eagle and uses the potato head um as a wonderful 19 00:01:02,800 --> 00:01:05,760 Speaker 1: metaphor for exactly how our brain works when you plug 20 00:01:06,040 --> 00:01:09,960 Speaker 1: different sensory inputs into it, so I highly recommend it. 21 00:01:09,959 --> 00:01:12,360 Speaker 1: It's a great, great, really enjoyable interview. I enjoyed it. 22 00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:17,960 Speaker 1: I think folks will enjoy it as well. Welcome to 23 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:27,559 Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of My Heart Radio. Hey, 24 00:01:27,600 --> 00:01:29,640 Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is 25 00:01:29,720 --> 00:01:33,320 Speaker 1: Robert Lamb. Joe is away from work. He's realigning his 26 00:01:33,440 --> 00:01:35,920 Speaker 1: gray matter at the moment, so it's just me today, 27 00:01:35,959 --> 00:01:39,800 Speaker 1: but I'll be joined by neuroscientist, author, and science communicator 28 00:01:39,880 --> 00:01:43,720 Speaker 1: David Eagleman about his new book Live Wired, The Inside 29 00:01:43,760 --> 00:01:47,240 Speaker 1: Story of the Ever Changing Brain. Now we've mentioned David 30 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:50,760 Speaker 1: Eagelman on the show many times before. He's an adjunct 31 00:01:50,800 --> 00:01:54,960 Speaker 1: professor at Stanford University and his CEO of Neo Sensory, 32 00:01:55,000 --> 00:01:58,720 Speaker 1: a company that develops devices for sensory substitution. You may 33 00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:01,480 Speaker 1: also know him from his previous books about the human brain, 34 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:04,880 Speaker 1: his TV series The Brain with David Eagleman, and his 35 00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:08,240 Speaker 1: role as a scientific advisor on HBO's Westworld and the 36 00:02:08,280 --> 00:02:12,000 Speaker 1: TNT series Perception. I'm recording this on a Monday, and 37 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:14,640 Speaker 1: I actually read Live Wired over the weekend. It's a 38 00:02:14,760 --> 00:02:17,480 Speaker 1: highly addictive read and one that I think our listeners 39 00:02:17,480 --> 00:02:20,320 Speaker 1: will will really enjoy. David does an amazing job breaking 40 00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:24,200 Speaker 1: down the inner workings of the brain via relatable pop 41 00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:27,560 Speaker 1: culture and historical metaphorth everything from the colonization of the 42 00:02:27,560 --> 00:02:31,440 Speaker 1: America's to Mr Potato Head and Ellen Ripley from Aliens. 43 00:02:32,040 --> 00:02:35,000 Speaker 1: It's published by Pantheon Books and you can currently grab 44 00:02:35,040 --> 00:02:38,160 Speaker 1: it as a hardcover, an e book, or an audio book. 45 00:02:38,160 --> 00:02:40,280 Speaker 1: And the fun thing is that that David reads the 46 00:02:40,320 --> 00:02:42,399 Speaker 1: audio book. It's always great when you when you get 47 00:02:42,400 --> 00:02:46,680 Speaker 1: that with an audio book. So, without without any further ado, 48 00:02:46,919 --> 00:02:52,639 Speaker 1: let's jump right in. David Eagleman, thanks for joining me today. 49 00:02:52,760 --> 00:02:54,720 Speaker 1: Great to be here, Robert. First of all, I have 50 00:02:54,919 --> 00:02:56,600 Speaker 1: I just have to say that this book was such 51 00:02:56,639 --> 00:02:59,440 Speaker 1: an engaging read. I actually read it all over the weekend, 52 00:02:59,520 --> 00:03:02,079 Speaker 1: and while I was familiar with some of the findings 53 00:03:02,080 --> 00:03:05,639 Speaker 1: and technologies discussed, there was plenty I hadn't been exposed 54 00:03:05,639 --> 00:03:07,440 Speaker 1: to yet, and it was all delivered in such a 55 00:03:07,480 --> 00:03:09,799 Speaker 1: fashion that it all ended up feeling like, you know, 56 00:03:09,880 --> 00:03:12,519 Speaker 1: it's kind of like a revelation, um, and I feel 57 00:03:12,560 --> 00:03:15,880 Speaker 1: like that revelation is really well summarized in the title 58 00:03:15,919 --> 00:03:18,880 Speaker 1: of the book, Live Wired. If you would, could you 59 00:03:18,919 --> 00:03:22,600 Speaker 1: summarize the basic difference between the idea of the live 60 00:03:22,680 --> 00:03:26,280 Speaker 1: wired understanding of our brain as opposed to previous notions 61 00:03:26,280 --> 00:03:29,200 Speaker 1: of how the brain worked. Yeah, I mean the whole 62 00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:31,680 Speaker 1: The whole thing is that when you first pick up 63 00:03:31,720 --> 00:03:34,320 Speaker 1: a neuroscience textbook as a young person, you see a 64 00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:36,920 Speaker 1: picture of the brain and it says this parts or vision, 65 00:03:36,920 --> 00:03:38,600 Speaker 1: this parts are hearing, the parts are touch, and so on. 66 00:03:39,080 --> 00:03:42,480 Speaker 1: But in fact, um, I guess what I've spent the 67 00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:46,240 Speaker 1: last twenty years, you know, in my laboratory really understanding 68 00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:48,920 Speaker 1: the lesson of is that the brain is a is 69 00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:52,720 Speaker 1: a dynamic system that's constantly moving around. And so for example, 70 00:03:52,720 --> 00:03:55,360 Speaker 1: if you go blind, the part that we would have 71 00:03:55,360 --> 00:03:57,960 Speaker 1: called your visual system gets taken over by hearing and touch. 72 00:03:58,040 --> 00:04:00,560 Speaker 1: If you lose an arm, the part of your body 73 00:04:00,600 --> 00:04:03,640 Speaker 1: map that has an arm gets taken over by neighboring 74 00:04:03,640 --> 00:04:06,360 Speaker 1: areas and so on. The whole thing is this incredibly 75 00:04:06,480 --> 00:04:09,520 Speaker 1: dynamic system. It's not like anything that we know how 76 00:04:09,520 --> 00:04:12,200 Speaker 1: to build. Um. You know, here in Silicon Valley where 77 00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:16,320 Speaker 1: I live, everything is about hardware and software, and engineers 78 00:04:16,320 --> 00:04:19,240 Speaker 1: are praised for building an efficient system where you've got 79 00:04:19,240 --> 00:04:22,160 Speaker 1: these two layers and that's it. Um. But what's happening 80 00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:26,840 Speaker 1: in our skulls is an entirely different kind of technology, 81 00:04:26,960 --> 00:04:29,840 Speaker 1: and so I in the book, I ended up coining 82 00:04:29,839 --> 00:04:32,840 Speaker 1: a new term for this, live wired or live ware. 83 00:04:33,400 --> 00:04:36,679 Speaker 1: And the idea with live ware is that every moment 84 00:04:36,720 --> 00:04:39,920 Speaker 1: of your life, this is reconfiguring itself. So you've got 85 00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:43,279 Speaker 1: eighty six billion neurons, these are the cell types of 86 00:04:43,320 --> 00:04:48,680 Speaker 1: the brain. You've got about point to quadrillion connections, and 87 00:04:49,520 --> 00:04:52,120 Speaker 1: every moment in your life, these things are changing their 88 00:04:52,240 --> 00:04:56,279 Speaker 1: strength of connection. They're unplugging, they're replugging elsewhere, they're seeking around. 89 00:04:56,960 --> 00:05:01,160 Speaker 1: What you have are these dense jungles. And you know, 90 00:05:01,200 --> 00:05:04,320 Speaker 1: this level of complexity is something that bankrupts our language. 91 00:05:04,360 --> 00:05:07,160 Speaker 1: We don't have any way of talking about point two 92 00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:10,920 Speaker 1: quadrillion connections moving and changing. But everything in your life, 93 00:05:10,920 --> 00:05:15,320 Speaker 1: every experience that you have um changes who you are. 94 00:05:15,360 --> 00:05:18,080 Speaker 1: When you learn, for example, that my name is David, 95 00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:20,480 Speaker 1: there's a physical change in the structure of your brain. 96 00:05:20,480 --> 00:05:22,600 Speaker 1: And that's what it means for you to then remember, 97 00:05:23,040 --> 00:05:24,640 Speaker 1: you know, two months later, who's the guy you had 98 00:05:24,680 --> 00:05:27,480 Speaker 1: on your podcast David. You know, it's like it's it's 99 00:05:27,560 --> 00:05:31,880 Speaker 1: this constantly changing system and it's UM unlike anything that 100 00:05:31,920 --> 00:05:36,080 Speaker 1: we know how to build at the moment. So, um, 101 00:05:36,120 --> 00:05:38,240 Speaker 1: you know, as you as you saw in the book. 102 00:05:38,320 --> 00:05:41,120 Speaker 1: I tell these different stories just by way of introduction 103 00:05:41,640 --> 00:05:45,559 Speaker 1: that are so fascinating, Like you can take out half 104 00:05:45,600 --> 00:05:47,880 Speaker 1: the brain in a child. For example, when children have 105 00:05:47,960 --> 00:05:51,560 Speaker 1: this really bad type of epilepsy, there's a surgery that 106 00:05:51,600 --> 00:05:53,680 Speaker 1: they go through. Half the brain is removed, and they're 107 00:05:53,720 --> 00:05:57,479 Speaker 1: just fine cognitively, they're totally fine because the rest of 108 00:05:57,520 --> 00:05:59,960 Speaker 1: their brain, the other half says, okay, I'm gonna read 109 00:06:00,080 --> 00:06:02,840 Speaker 1: are the functions that are that went missing from there. 110 00:06:03,720 --> 00:06:06,080 Speaker 1: Sometimes a child is born with only half a brain, 111 00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:09,840 Speaker 1: you know, and things just get get rewired so that 112 00:06:09,960 --> 00:06:13,120 Speaker 1: it all is there and we can't you know, you 113 00:06:13,160 --> 00:06:15,799 Speaker 1: can't do this with your cell phone or your computer. 114 00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:18,320 Speaker 1: You can't take out half the circuitry and expect it 115 00:06:18,360 --> 00:06:21,599 Speaker 1: to still function. But it works just fine, especially with 116 00:06:21,640 --> 00:06:23,880 Speaker 1: a young brain. Now, with all of this in mind, 117 00:06:24,440 --> 00:06:27,920 Speaker 1: into this live wired understanding of the brain in mind, um, 118 00:06:28,640 --> 00:06:31,080 Speaker 1: I thought we might back up to a very basic question, 119 00:06:31,480 --> 00:06:33,320 Speaker 1: uh that sometimes I guess we don't think about because 120 00:06:33,320 --> 00:06:36,159 Speaker 1: we're I mean, we were trapped in the brain. We 121 00:06:36,160 --> 00:06:38,479 Speaker 1: can't see the forest for the trees. But what what 122 00:06:38,600 --> 00:06:41,919 Speaker 1: does the brain do? So the brain is locked in 123 00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:45,480 Speaker 1: silence and darkness inside the vault of your skull, and 124 00:06:45,520 --> 00:06:48,520 Speaker 1: all it's trying to do is make a model of 125 00:06:48,560 --> 00:06:52,000 Speaker 1: the world, as in, I've got all this incoming data. 126 00:06:52,160 --> 00:06:54,200 Speaker 1: And by the way, the data that comes into the 127 00:06:54,200 --> 00:06:58,919 Speaker 1: brain is just spikes, just little electrical spikes in these neurons. 128 00:06:59,160 --> 00:07:02,120 Speaker 1: It doesn't know that these spikes represent photons, and these 129 00:07:02,160 --> 00:07:05,720 Speaker 1: spikes represent air compression waves, and these spikes represent mixtures 130 00:07:05,720 --> 00:07:08,000 Speaker 1: of molecules hitting a membrane and so on. All it 131 00:07:08,080 --> 00:07:10,760 Speaker 1: knows is I've got data coming in as zeroes and 132 00:07:10,840 --> 00:07:14,880 Speaker 1: ones and um and it knows that it can control 133 00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:18,920 Speaker 1: a body. And so it's job is to figure out, 134 00:07:18,920 --> 00:07:20,520 Speaker 1: all right, how do I control the body, how does 135 00:07:20,560 --> 00:07:22,440 Speaker 1: that change the spikes coming in? And how do I 136 00:07:22,480 --> 00:07:24,880 Speaker 1: make a model of the world. And this is an 137 00:07:24,920 --> 00:07:29,600 Speaker 1: extraordinary technology that we have carrying around on our shoulders. 138 00:07:30,160 --> 00:07:33,000 Speaker 1: Um As I said, we we don't know how to 139 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:35,240 Speaker 1: build technology like this, and we're just scratching the surface 140 00:07:35,240 --> 00:07:37,360 Speaker 1: of even trying to figure this out. But that's what 141 00:07:37,400 --> 00:07:40,400 Speaker 1: the brain is doing, locked in its in its vault, 142 00:07:40,920 --> 00:07:43,480 Speaker 1: is figuring out, okay, how do I understand the world, 143 00:07:43,560 --> 00:07:47,120 Speaker 1: and and it's really extraordinarily good at at extracting patterns 144 00:07:47,760 --> 00:07:52,760 Speaker 1: and eventually making predictions. And um, yeah, that is that 145 00:07:52,880 --> 00:07:55,200 Speaker 1: is the main job that is trying to accomplish. Now, 146 00:07:55,240 --> 00:07:57,440 Speaker 1: the big part of the book deals with how our senses, 147 00:07:57,720 --> 00:07:59,840 Speaker 1: uh you know, speak to the brain and how the 148 00:08:00,040 --> 00:08:03,160 Speaker 1: rain works around limitations uh, such as they are the 149 00:08:03,160 --> 00:08:05,000 Speaker 1: ones you mentioned with the half of the brain being 150 00:08:05,040 --> 00:08:08,160 Speaker 1: missing at etcetera. And also uh you know, relating limbs 151 00:08:08,480 --> 00:08:11,400 Speaker 1: uh and uh and I love how you use these 152 00:08:11,480 --> 00:08:14,440 Speaker 1: various metaphors to explain that to the reader. Would you 153 00:08:14,480 --> 00:08:17,760 Speaker 1: mind uh explaining to our listeners how our brains are 154 00:08:17,760 --> 00:08:21,040 Speaker 1: like Mr potato head. Yeah, so this is something that 155 00:08:21,080 --> 00:08:23,920 Speaker 1: struck me many years ago where I realized that, so 156 00:08:23,960 --> 00:08:26,680 Speaker 1: we've got all these sensors like our eyes and our 157 00:08:26,720 --> 00:08:29,760 Speaker 1: ears and our nose and our fingertips, all these things 158 00:08:29,760 --> 00:08:31,640 Speaker 1: were used to and so we just sort of think 159 00:08:31,680 --> 00:08:34,280 Speaker 1: of these as fundamental. But but when you look across 160 00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:36,720 Speaker 1: the animal kingdom, what you find are all these other 161 00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:39,200 Speaker 1: weird kinds of sensors, things that you could take in 162 00:08:39,320 --> 00:08:44,800 Speaker 1: like snakes taken infrared information, honeybees taken ultra violet when 163 00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:47,200 Speaker 1: you look at something like the black ghost knifefish, it 164 00:08:47,240 --> 00:08:51,720 Speaker 1: has electro receptors where it's pulling in information about perturbations 165 00:08:51,720 --> 00:08:56,480 Speaker 1: and electrical fields. UM. Lots of birds and cows and 166 00:08:56,559 --> 00:08:59,560 Speaker 1: insects have magneto reception where they are picking up on 167 00:08:59,559 --> 00:09:02,040 Speaker 1: the magnet field of the planet and they're navigating that 168 00:09:02,080 --> 00:09:04,840 Speaker 1: way and so on. And what I realized is Mother 169 00:09:04,920 --> 00:09:08,520 Speaker 1: Nature doesn't actually have to recreate the brain every time 170 00:09:08,559 --> 00:09:13,200 Speaker 1: she does this. Instead, the principles of brain operation, she's 171 00:09:13,240 --> 00:09:15,520 Speaker 1: figured that out at the beginning, and then she can 172 00:09:15,559 --> 00:09:18,680 Speaker 1: just plug in anything she wants in terms of what 173 00:09:18,840 --> 00:09:21,640 Speaker 1: is the information that would be useful to sense. And 174 00:09:21,679 --> 00:09:25,200 Speaker 1: that's why I suggested this potato head model of how 175 00:09:25,240 --> 00:09:27,440 Speaker 1: to think about this, which is to say, you just 176 00:09:27,480 --> 00:09:29,280 Speaker 1: take any sensors and you stick it in and it's 177 00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:31,520 Speaker 1: good to go. The brain figures out, Okay, I've got 178 00:09:31,600 --> 00:09:35,680 Speaker 1: this kind of spikes coming in UM, and it seems 179 00:09:35,720 --> 00:09:37,720 Speaker 1: to correlate with this other sense, and it seems to 180 00:09:37,720 --> 00:09:40,880 Speaker 1: allow me to find food or avoid predators or whatever. 181 00:09:41,320 --> 00:09:43,000 Speaker 1: And so it just figures out what to do with 182 00:09:43,040 --> 00:09:46,000 Speaker 1: that information. And so this is a very new kind 183 00:09:46,040 --> 00:09:48,920 Speaker 1: of way to think about the brain. It's essentially understanding 184 00:09:48,960 --> 00:09:52,840 Speaker 1: the brain as a general purpose compute device. You feed 185 00:09:52,880 --> 00:09:55,360 Speaker 1: in whatever kind of data stream you want, and it's 186 00:09:55,520 --> 00:09:57,439 Speaker 1: and it's good to go. And this, you know, explains 187 00:09:57,480 --> 00:10:00,400 Speaker 1: a lot of what happens evolutionarily with janet x. It 188 00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:03,440 Speaker 1: just what it allows mother nature to do is just 189 00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:08,040 Speaker 1: tweak around with the genetics to make new kinds of sensors. 190 00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:10,360 Speaker 1: But one of the really amazing things you discussed in 191 00:10:10,400 --> 00:10:13,520 Speaker 1: this is that is that you can plug an eye 192 00:10:13,559 --> 00:10:15,320 Speaker 1: into an ear hole or an ear into an eye 193 00:10:15,320 --> 00:10:17,320 Speaker 1: hole on the Mr Potato head of our of our brain, 194 00:10:17,360 --> 00:10:20,600 Speaker 1: and the brain will roll with the data that that's 195 00:10:20,640 --> 00:10:25,240 Speaker 1: exactly right. And so this is an area called sensory substitution, 196 00:10:25,280 --> 00:10:28,599 Speaker 1: which is to say, you can feed information into the 197 00:10:28,640 --> 00:10:32,320 Speaker 1: brain via an unusual channel. And so something I started 198 00:10:32,320 --> 00:10:34,640 Speaker 1: in my lab about ten years ago was seeing if 199 00:10:34,640 --> 00:10:37,920 Speaker 1: we could build sensory substitution for people who are deaf. 200 00:10:38,720 --> 00:10:41,600 Speaker 1: So what we do. We started by building this as 201 00:10:41,640 --> 00:10:44,440 Speaker 1: a vest with vibratory motors in it. So you've got 202 00:10:44,440 --> 00:10:47,640 Speaker 1: a whole bunch of little buzzers like the buzzer in 203 00:10:47,679 --> 00:10:51,959 Speaker 1: your cell phone, and um, it captures sound and turns 204 00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:55,679 Speaker 1: out into patterns of vibration on the torso. And it 205 00:10:55,679 --> 00:10:57,880 Speaker 1: turns out that that worked really well. We could get 206 00:10:57,920 --> 00:11:01,800 Speaker 1: people who are profoundly deaf to start understanding what is 207 00:11:01,840 --> 00:11:06,040 Speaker 1: happening in the auditory world, just predicated on this spatio 208 00:11:06,120 --> 00:11:09,480 Speaker 1: temporal pattern of vibrations on their skin. And the reason 209 00:11:09,520 --> 00:11:12,360 Speaker 1: it worked is because it doesn't matter how the information 210 00:11:12,360 --> 00:11:13,880 Speaker 1: gets to the brain. As long as it gets there, 211 00:11:14,240 --> 00:11:16,400 Speaker 1: the brain will establish the correlations and figure out what 212 00:11:16,440 --> 00:11:18,240 Speaker 1: to do with it. So, as an example, if you see, 213 00:11:18,679 --> 00:11:21,040 Speaker 1: you know, the dog's mouth moving and you feel the 214 00:11:21,080 --> 00:11:23,480 Speaker 1: buzzing on your skin, you know, your brain puts that 215 00:11:23,559 --> 00:11:26,360 Speaker 1: together really easily. Or you know, you see somebody speaking, 216 00:11:26,440 --> 00:11:28,920 Speaker 1: or or we train people by showing a word and 217 00:11:28,960 --> 00:11:30,959 Speaker 1: you you know, you feel the word on the vest 218 00:11:31,040 --> 00:11:34,080 Speaker 1: and you start understanding what's going on. So what we 219 00:11:34,120 --> 00:11:36,560 Speaker 1: did then is we shrunk it down to the size 220 00:11:36,600 --> 00:11:39,840 Speaker 1: of a wrist band. And because you and I are 221 00:11:39,880 --> 00:11:42,160 Speaker 1: on video, Robert, you can see the wristband that I'm 222 00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:43,640 Speaker 1: wearing right now. It's you know, it looks about the 223 00:11:43,640 --> 00:11:47,160 Speaker 1: size of a fitbit, and it has very sophisticated computation 224 00:11:47,240 --> 00:11:50,040 Speaker 1: in here where it's capturing sound and turning that into 225 00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:54,240 Speaker 1: patterns vibration around the skin of the wrist and um. 226 00:11:54,520 --> 00:11:58,600 Speaker 1: So what we've been doing is we uh this Actually 227 00:11:58,640 --> 00:12:01,320 Speaker 1: now I spun a company out of my lab called 228 00:12:01,360 --> 00:12:05,320 Speaker 1: Neo Sensory, and we have been on the market since 229 00:12:05,480 --> 00:12:08,520 Speaker 1: March and we're now on risks all around the world. 230 00:12:08,600 --> 00:12:11,280 Speaker 1: So people who are deaf, for have hearing loss of 231 00:12:11,280 --> 00:12:14,280 Speaker 1: some degree where this and they are picking up on 232 00:12:14,320 --> 00:12:17,800 Speaker 1: the auditory world through their skin. Now, the interesting part 233 00:12:17,840 --> 00:12:19,720 Speaker 1: is this is exactly what the inner ear is doing. 234 00:12:19,760 --> 00:12:23,600 Speaker 1: Your inner ear is just registering vibrations of your ear 235 00:12:23,679 --> 00:12:27,320 Speaker 1: drum and it breaks sound up into from high to 236 00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:29,520 Speaker 1: low frequency, and then it ships it off to the brain. 237 00:12:30,240 --> 00:12:32,720 Speaker 1: And all we're doing is transferring the inner ear to 238 00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:36,160 Speaker 1: to the wrist and it works. So that's the idea 239 00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:40,280 Speaker 1: of sensory substitution. Is your um just getting the information 240 00:12:40,360 --> 00:12:42,800 Speaker 1: there via a different route and the brain figures out 241 00:12:42,800 --> 00:12:45,040 Speaker 1: what to do with it. And if this weren't amazing enough, 242 00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:48,520 Speaker 1: there's this then this this other additional step, this idea 243 00:12:49,120 --> 00:12:52,920 Speaker 1: of of plugging all new things into like new forms 244 00:12:52,960 --> 00:12:57,320 Speaker 1: of sensory information, new even uh you know, not only 245 00:12:57,640 --> 00:13:00,720 Speaker 1: limbs of replacement, but artificial addition. No limbs. You use 246 00:13:00,760 --> 00:13:05,480 Speaker 1: the example of doctor Octopus from the spider Man comics. Um, 247 00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:07,840 Speaker 1: can you tell us a little bit about how even 248 00:13:07,960 --> 00:13:11,120 Speaker 1: like this nineteen sixties sci fi concept is not that 249 00:13:11,240 --> 00:13:16,119 Speaker 1: far removed from our current understanding of the brain. Yeah, so, um, 250 00:13:16,240 --> 00:13:18,840 Speaker 1: let me actually let me say two things. Actually, one 251 00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:22,959 Speaker 1: is what we can do. So let me just separate 252 00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:26,040 Speaker 1: out sensory information coming in and motor information going out. 253 00:13:26,080 --> 00:13:29,079 Speaker 1: So sensory information coming in. One of the things we're 254 00:13:29,160 --> 00:13:33,120 Speaker 1: doing with the with our wristband called buzz um is 255 00:13:33,320 --> 00:13:36,160 Speaker 1: we can not only take in sound information for people 256 00:13:36,200 --> 00:13:40,120 Speaker 1: who are deaf, but we could actually expand the sensory 257 00:13:40,120 --> 00:13:42,040 Speaker 1: information that you would normally have. So, for example, with 258 00:13:42,080 --> 00:13:45,200 Speaker 1: somebody who's not deaf, we feed in ultra violet or 259 00:13:45,240 --> 00:13:47,880 Speaker 1: infrared or or things like that, where we're expanding senses 260 00:13:47,920 --> 00:13:49,640 Speaker 1: that you already have. And then we're doing this other 261 00:13:49,679 --> 00:13:53,040 Speaker 1: thing called sensory addition, where we're feeding in brand new 262 00:13:53,120 --> 00:13:55,719 Speaker 1: senses that you've never had. So we can feed in 263 00:13:55,760 --> 00:13:58,520 Speaker 1: any day to stream with this, like stock market data 264 00:13:58,559 --> 00:14:02,880 Speaker 1: or Twitter data or factory information or anything at all. 265 00:14:03,720 --> 00:14:05,520 Speaker 1: Feeding this in and as long as your brain can 266 00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:08,280 Speaker 1: make correlations with what it's seeing or hearing around it. 267 00:14:08,600 --> 00:14:11,920 Speaker 1: Then the brain can figure out how to utilize that information. 268 00:14:12,040 --> 00:14:15,400 Speaker 1: So we actually just finished a big developer contest where 269 00:14:15,440 --> 00:14:19,240 Speaker 1: people did all kinds of projects with you know, um 270 00:14:19,240 --> 00:14:23,080 Speaker 1: monitoring air quality or monitoring you know, blood sugar and 271 00:14:23,120 --> 00:14:27,520 Speaker 1: your bloodstream or um, um, many many different kinds of 272 00:14:27,680 --> 00:14:31,000 Speaker 1: monitoring of feeling, electrical fields and so on. UM. So 273 00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:33,320 Speaker 1: all this, by the way, if if anybody is interested, 274 00:14:33,400 --> 00:14:35,840 Speaker 1: we have an open a p I and an s 275 00:14:35,920 --> 00:14:39,120 Speaker 1: d K four buzz. You can get this on neo 276 00:14:39,160 --> 00:14:41,520 Speaker 1: central dot com and pursue any kind of project you 277 00:14:41,520 --> 00:14:43,800 Speaker 1: want this way. So we've had hundreds of people just 278 00:14:43,880 --> 00:14:45,640 Speaker 1: making their own thing, which has been which has been 279 00:14:45,720 --> 00:14:48,680 Speaker 1: very cool. Now to switch to the second thing about 280 00:14:48,760 --> 00:14:52,680 Speaker 1: motor output. UM, yeah, it turns out that your brain 281 00:14:53,240 --> 00:14:57,680 Speaker 1: UM is not pre programmed to drive your body, but 282 00:14:57,760 --> 00:15:02,000 Speaker 1: instead can figure out whatever the affordances are of whatever 283 00:15:02,080 --> 00:15:04,480 Speaker 1: is there. So just as an example, you know, one 284 00:15:04,480 --> 00:15:06,480 Speaker 1: of the things I tell the story about this dog 285 00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:09,480 Speaker 1: um that was born without fore limbs. It didn't have 286 00:15:09,560 --> 00:15:12,120 Speaker 1: his front legs, and so it just she walks by petally. 287 00:15:12,200 --> 00:15:14,360 Speaker 1: She walks on her back legs like a human, and 288 00:15:14,520 --> 00:15:17,840 Speaker 1: presumably any dog could do this, but they're not sufficiently motivated, 289 00:15:17,880 --> 00:15:20,960 Speaker 1: but so she just walks around her hind legs and um. 290 00:15:21,080 --> 00:15:24,080 Speaker 1: What this illustrates is that dog brains are not pre 291 00:15:24,200 --> 00:15:27,040 Speaker 1: programmed to drive dog bodies, but instead they figure out, Okay, 292 00:15:27,120 --> 00:15:28,480 Speaker 1: here's what I can do. I need to get to 293 00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:30,600 Speaker 1: my food, to my water, to my mother whatever. This 294 00:15:30,640 --> 00:15:34,280 Speaker 1: is how I do it. And so um. Also, I, 295 00:15:34,680 --> 00:15:36,360 Speaker 1: you know, tell the story of the guy who's the 296 00:15:36,360 --> 00:15:39,920 Speaker 1: world's best archer. He has the world's record for best 297 00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:42,680 Speaker 1: archery shot, and he doesn't have arms, so he does 298 00:15:42,680 --> 00:15:46,080 Speaker 1: this with his legs. And it's just another illustration that 299 00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:48,800 Speaker 1: the brain figures out whatever body it's in says okay, 300 00:15:48,800 --> 00:15:50,360 Speaker 1: I figure how to drive this. Of course, we see 301 00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:53,440 Speaker 1: this when people, for example, get an amputation. Let's say 302 00:15:53,440 --> 00:15:55,920 Speaker 1: they lose an arm and a motorcycle accent or something. 303 00:15:56,320 --> 00:16:01,000 Speaker 1: The map of their body in their brain readjust to say, okay, 304 00:16:01,200 --> 00:16:03,680 Speaker 1: I see I've got a body without an arm, so 305 00:16:03,720 --> 00:16:08,239 Speaker 1: I'm just gonna figure that out now. Okay. So, because 306 00:16:08,800 --> 00:16:14,160 Speaker 1: it is not pre programmed, it's extremely flexible. Um, I 307 00:16:14,200 --> 00:16:17,120 Speaker 1: think that we could actually build any kind of body 308 00:16:17,160 --> 00:16:20,920 Speaker 1: we want. So UM, coming back to your question, I 309 00:16:21,320 --> 00:16:24,840 Speaker 1: you know, mentioned about Doc Cock in the nineteen sixties, 310 00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:29,080 Speaker 1: which debuted in Spider Man. This scientist who plugs in 311 00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:32,200 Speaker 1: four robotic arms so that he can actually do extra 312 00:16:32,280 --> 00:16:34,920 Speaker 1: things and poor beakers and so on, and he controls 313 00:16:34,960 --> 00:16:36,560 Speaker 1: us with his brain. But then there's an explosion in 314 00:16:36,600 --> 00:16:39,120 Speaker 1: his lab and he turns evil and he scales buildings 315 00:16:39,120 --> 00:16:41,480 Speaker 1: and learns new forms of martial arts with with eight 316 00:16:41,560 --> 00:16:44,440 Speaker 1: arms and so on, and um, Dr Octavia starts to 317 00:16:44,440 --> 00:16:48,960 Speaker 1: go by Doc Cock anyway, Um, the exactly as you said, 318 00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:51,520 Speaker 1: this is not as far off and weird as we 319 00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:54,480 Speaker 1: used to think, because now what we're doing is with 320 00:16:54,560 --> 00:16:58,480 Speaker 1: for example, patients who are paralyzed. Um, you can put 321 00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:02,160 Speaker 1: electrodes into their motor cortex and they can learn to 322 00:17:02,280 --> 00:17:04,960 Speaker 1: drive a robotic arm even though they are paralyzed. They 323 00:17:05,080 --> 00:17:08,480 Speaker 1: drive the robotic arm with their thoughts, which sounds weird, 324 00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:10,680 Speaker 1: but that's of course, how you drive your fleshy arm. 325 00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:12,280 Speaker 1: You just you know, you think about it, you learn 326 00:17:12,359 --> 00:17:15,479 Speaker 1: the you learn what the output signals are that make 327 00:17:15,520 --> 00:17:17,840 Speaker 1: your arm respond. It's the same thing with the robotic arm, 328 00:17:17,840 --> 00:17:20,080 Speaker 1: and you can do that. And there have been experiments 329 00:17:20,080 --> 00:17:24,520 Speaker 1: with monkeys where they their bodies work fine. They're not paralyzed, 330 00:17:24,720 --> 00:17:27,119 Speaker 1: but they can drive a third arm with you know, 331 00:17:27,160 --> 00:17:29,240 Speaker 1: with their thoughts. So they're driving a robotic arm with 332 00:17:29,280 --> 00:17:32,440 Speaker 1: their thoughts. There was an experiment done where a monkey 333 00:17:32,560 --> 00:17:36,920 Speaker 1: um uses his motor cortex to make a robot walk. 334 00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:40,280 Speaker 1: But the interesting part was the robot happened to be 335 00:17:40,320 --> 00:17:42,800 Speaker 1: across the world. The monkey was in North Carolina and 336 00:17:42,800 --> 00:17:45,639 Speaker 1: the robot was in Japan, and the signals from the 337 00:17:45,640 --> 00:17:48,119 Speaker 1: monkey's brain were being sent over the internet and you 338 00:17:48,119 --> 00:17:51,679 Speaker 1: can get the robot, you know, the monkey to control 339 00:17:51,720 --> 00:17:55,040 Speaker 1: the robot just with the spikes in its motor cortex. 340 00:17:55,520 --> 00:17:58,560 Speaker 1: And so, UM, I think it's going to be no 341 00:17:58,720 --> 00:18:02,360 Speaker 1: time at all before we really to start controlling external 342 00:18:02,400 --> 00:18:05,840 Speaker 1: devices with our thoughts. And one of the things, one 343 00:18:05,880 --> 00:18:08,640 Speaker 1: of the frameworks that I build is this issue that 344 00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:11,359 Speaker 1: what we think of as the self, what you think 345 00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:13,919 Speaker 1: of as your body, just as a matter of control, 346 00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:15,880 Speaker 1: what can you control with your body? And I think 347 00:18:15,920 --> 00:18:20,120 Speaker 1: this is, by the way, why we understand our reflections 348 00:18:20,119 --> 00:18:22,639 Speaker 1: in the mirror to be us, because you move and 349 00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:26,560 Speaker 1: it moves, and so you're driving what you're seeing over there, 350 00:18:26,600 --> 00:18:29,879 Speaker 1: so you think, oh, yeah, that's me over there. Um, 351 00:18:29,960 --> 00:18:32,480 Speaker 1: But what this means is in you know, make up 352 00:18:32,520 --> 00:18:36,480 Speaker 1: a number thirty five years when we are controlling a 353 00:18:36,720 --> 00:18:40,040 Speaker 1: robot with our thoughts, it is essentially an extension of 354 00:18:40,080 --> 00:18:44,280 Speaker 1: our body. What it means is that that will become us. 355 00:18:44,359 --> 00:18:48,359 Speaker 1: It will be a part of of your body. All right, 356 00:18:48,359 --> 00:18:50,159 Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break, but I'll be right 357 00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:56,400 Speaker 1: back with David Eagleman. Thank alright, I'm back with David Eagleman. 358 00:18:56,960 --> 00:18:59,520 Speaker 1: In the book, you talk about the live wired brain 359 00:19:00,040 --> 00:19:04,280 Speaker 1: is um is being a place of competition, um based 360 00:19:04,320 --> 00:19:06,760 Speaker 1: on the input that's coming in. And I was just 361 00:19:06,840 --> 00:19:10,879 Speaker 1: really uh intrigued by this, uh, this new theory of 362 00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:13,920 Speaker 1: dreaming that you discuss. So would you would you mind 363 00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:17,439 Speaker 1: uh sharing that with our listeners. Yeah, um, yeah, this 364 00:19:17,520 --> 00:19:19,800 Speaker 1: is something very cool that's come out of our studies 365 00:19:19,800 --> 00:19:24,240 Speaker 1: of plasticity and UM here it is. It's that when 366 00:19:24,280 --> 00:19:27,320 Speaker 1: any part of the brain goes unused, it gets taken over. 367 00:19:27,400 --> 00:19:32,240 Speaker 1: And so for example, if you go blind, your systems 368 00:19:32,320 --> 00:19:34,920 Speaker 1: for hearing and touch and all of that real estate 369 00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:36,760 Speaker 1: will take over the part of the brain that we 370 00:19:36,840 --> 00:19:40,159 Speaker 1: used to call the visual cortex. So the surprise in 371 00:19:40,240 --> 00:19:44,720 Speaker 1: neuroscience has been how rapidly this happens um. What group 372 00:19:44,760 --> 00:19:48,359 Speaker 1: found about thirteen years ago was that if you take 373 00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:51,160 Speaker 1: sighted people and you blindfold them tightly and you stick 374 00:19:51,200 --> 00:19:54,240 Speaker 1: them in a brain scanner, within about an hour, you 375 00:19:54,320 --> 00:19:58,000 Speaker 1: can start seeing activity in the visual cortex just based 376 00:19:58,040 --> 00:20:01,439 Speaker 1: on um hearing or touch. If you touch them on 377 00:20:01,480 --> 00:20:03,960 Speaker 1: the hand or something, you start seeing activation in the 378 00:20:04,040 --> 00:20:07,159 Speaker 1: visual cortex. Now, it's not because the neurons have had 379 00:20:07,160 --> 00:20:10,160 Speaker 1: a chance to grow that fast from hearing and touch 380 00:20:10,280 --> 00:20:13,920 Speaker 1: into the visual cortex. Instead, there's all kinds of cross 381 00:20:13,960 --> 00:20:17,720 Speaker 1: wiring in the brain where those systems are already reaching 382 00:20:17,960 --> 00:20:20,439 Speaker 1: over into the visual cortex. It's just that they're normally 383 00:20:20,520 --> 00:20:23,280 Speaker 1: silenced and they're inhibited, so they don't get to do anything. 384 00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:27,359 Speaker 1: But that inhibition starts wearing off very quickly. And so 385 00:20:27,920 --> 00:20:30,720 Speaker 1: I was really shocked by the speed at which hearing 386 00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:32,520 Speaker 1: and touch could take over. And so my student and 387 00:20:32,520 --> 00:20:34,440 Speaker 1: I were talking about this one day, and what we 388 00:20:34,520 --> 00:20:37,199 Speaker 1: realized is there's a very critical thing that happens because 389 00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:40,240 Speaker 1: we live on a planet that rotates into darkness for 390 00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:43,040 Speaker 1: half the time. You know, in the dark, you can 391 00:20:43,040 --> 00:20:45,080 Speaker 1: still hear and touch and taste and smell and all 392 00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:47,320 Speaker 1: that just fine, but you can't see, and of course 393 00:20:47,359 --> 00:20:52,520 Speaker 1: I'm talking about evolutionary time, not recent electricity times. And so, um, 394 00:20:52,640 --> 00:20:54,879 Speaker 1: what this means is that the visual cortex has always 395 00:20:54,920 --> 00:20:58,920 Speaker 1: been in a big disadvantage when the planet rotates into darkness. 396 00:20:58,920 --> 00:21:00,639 Speaker 1: And so what we realized is, wow, if it doesn't 397 00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:03,399 Speaker 1: want to get taken over by the other senses, it 398 00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:06,280 Speaker 1: has to have some way of defending its territory. And 399 00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:08,760 Speaker 1: what we realized was that that's what dreams are. You 400 00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:12,440 Speaker 1: have this very specific circuitry that starts in the midbrain 401 00:21:12,840 --> 00:21:15,920 Speaker 1: and goes through a series of steps and just blasts 402 00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:19,920 Speaker 1: activity into the visual cortex every night, about every ninety minutes. 403 00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:23,520 Speaker 1: And and that's its only job. It's just blast activity 404 00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:26,080 Speaker 1: in there. It's very specialized circuitry. It's very specific of 405 00:21:26,080 --> 00:21:30,320 Speaker 1: the type of thing that, to the ananimous eye, is 406 00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:34,600 Speaker 1: not accidental. And so and of course, because it's our 407 00:21:34,680 --> 00:21:37,719 Speaker 1: visual cortex, we you know, we see and we think, oh, 408 00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:40,760 Speaker 1: I'm having this full, rich visual experience. Um. And of 409 00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:43,240 Speaker 1: course dream content might have to do with you know, 410 00:21:43,280 --> 00:21:45,760 Speaker 1: it certainly has to do with what you've experienced during 411 00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:48,040 Speaker 1: the day, in which synapses are still hot and so on. 412 00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:50,800 Speaker 1: But but the point is that it's just blasting activity 413 00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:55,320 Speaker 1: in there to defend the visual system against takeover. And 414 00:21:55,359 --> 00:21:58,080 Speaker 1: so we've now done big studies on this. For example, 415 00:21:58,200 --> 00:22:00,280 Speaker 1: where I'll just give you one thing that we just 416 00:22:00,320 --> 00:22:03,399 Speaker 1: published recently where we compare twenty five different species of 417 00:22:03,520 --> 00:22:06,440 Speaker 1: primates and we looked at how plastic they were, because 418 00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:10,119 Speaker 1: across even the primate kingdom, we have this um you know, 419 00:22:10,240 --> 00:22:13,320 Speaker 1: spectrum of how plastic you drop into the world and 420 00:22:13,359 --> 00:22:15,520 Speaker 1: then how much rem sleep they get in other words, 421 00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:17,679 Speaker 1: how much you know, rapid eye movement or or that 422 00:22:17,920 --> 00:22:20,520 Speaker 1: dreams sleep, because this is when dreams happen. And it 423 00:22:20,560 --> 00:22:23,600 Speaker 1: turns out that the more plastic you are as a species, 424 00:22:24,040 --> 00:22:26,320 Speaker 1: the more dream sleep you have because you need to 425 00:22:26,359 --> 00:22:28,080 Speaker 1: defend it more. As opposed to the other end of 426 00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:30,639 Speaker 1: the spectrum. Let's say lemurs drop into the world and 427 00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:33,560 Speaker 1: they're pretty much fully baked um and they have very 428 00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:37,639 Speaker 1: short you know, adolescents time and walking time and weaning 429 00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:40,280 Speaker 1: time and all that stuff. Um, they don't have much 430 00:22:40,320 --> 00:22:42,240 Speaker 1: dream sleep because they don't need it because their brain 431 00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:44,359 Speaker 1: is sort of baked into place. And by the way, 432 00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:46,760 Speaker 1: I'll just mention one other thing because people sometimes ask 433 00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:50,080 Speaker 1: about this, which is um you know, they say, do 434 00:22:50,200 --> 00:22:53,480 Speaker 1: blind people dream. Yes, blind people have dreams where activity 435 00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:56,640 Speaker 1: is getting shot into their occipital lobe at the back 436 00:22:56,640 --> 00:22:59,320 Speaker 1: of their head. But because they are blind, they don't 437 00:22:59,359 --> 00:23:02,520 Speaker 1: experience that is vision. Instead, they experience it is hearing 438 00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:05,639 Speaker 1: and touch. So blind people's dreams are all about you know, 439 00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:09,240 Speaker 1: weird bizarre things just like ours, but it's not involving vision. 440 00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:11,399 Speaker 1: It's you know, I'm I'm walking around my house and 441 00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:13,879 Speaker 1: all my furniture is rearranged, and I'm feeling stuff, and 442 00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:15,720 Speaker 1: then there's a bear and I'm feeling the bear and 443 00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:18,600 Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. So um, But it's exactly 444 00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:20,800 Speaker 1: the same circuitry that they have, because this is a 445 00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:24,560 Speaker 1: very fundamental circuitry that has burned into the system, and 446 00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:26,879 Speaker 1: it doesn't care whether your eyes are working or not, 447 00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:30,480 Speaker 1: because it's it's more, it's deeper than that, and has 448 00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:32,840 Speaker 1: working on this has has changed the way you reflect 449 00:23:32,920 --> 00:23:35,200 Speaker 1: on your own dreams at all. You know, I've always 450 00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:38,800 Speaker 1: actually felt that dreams are not terribly meaningful like my 451 00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:41,000 Speaker 1: own you know, I wake up. I've always described this 452 00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:43,600 Speaker 1: as sort of sticking your head in the night blender 453 00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:47,200 Speaker 1: each night. I kind of hate dreams, um, But now 454 00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:50,120 Speaker 1: I have a deeper appreciation for why I'm going through 455 00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:53,680 Speaker 1: that night blender, because um, if not, I would wake 456 00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:56,359 Speaker 1: up in my visual system would be really disadvantaged. It 457 00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:59,159 Speaker 1: would be taken over in large part by hearing it 458 00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:01,760 Speaker 1: by touch. Especially in the later portions of the book, 459 00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:04,800 Speaker 1: you you get into two memories and and even identity, 460 00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:07,800 Speaker 1: and there's there's a lot that really seems to resonate 461 00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:10,359 Speaker 1: with the state of the world right now. How do 462 00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:14,240 Speaker 1: you feel this book speaks to the reader? Yeah, I 463 00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:17,520 Speaker 1: think there. I think there are many ways. Um, I'll 464 00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:21,240 Speaker 1: mention too. One is actually, let me start with this 465 00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:26,480 Speaker 1: optimistic one, which is um as lousy as has been 466 00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:28,840 Speaker 1: for everybody. And you know, this is a year where 467 00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:34,000 Speaker 1: there's serious spikes for everybody in stress, anxiety, depression. It's 468 00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:36,000 Speaker 1: just there's all kinds of bad stuff. But I will 469 00:24:36,040 --> 00:24:40,520 Speaker 1: mention one tiny silver lining of this is that from 470 00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:43,360 Speaker 1: the point of view of brain plasticity, we've all been 471 00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:46,919 Speaker 1: kicked off of our hamster wheels and we're all being 472 00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:50,520 Speaker 1: forced to rethink many things that we never thought about before. 473 00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:53,240 Speaker 1: So I mentioned before that our brain is locked in 474 00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:55,760 Speaker 1: silence and darkness, is trying to make an internal model 475 00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:58,640 Speaker 1: of the world out there and we all pretty much 476 00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:01,120 Speaker 1: had that. We thought, Okay, I get how the world works, 477 00:25:01,119 --> 00:25:04,639 Speaker 1: I get how things operate, how people respond, how to 478 00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:07,040 Speaker 1: get toilet paper, how to get food in my fridge, 479 00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:10,240 Speaker 1: stuff like that, and all of a sudden everything changed. 480 00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:13,760 Speaker 1: And from the point of view of brain plasticity, this 481 00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:17,359 Speaker 1: is actually really useful. It has forced a kind of creativity, 482 00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:20,359 Speaker 1: an unwanted one for sure, but it's forced kind of 483 00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:22,600 Speaker 1: creativity where you're having to rethink everything. We're having to 484 00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:26,080 Speaker 1: understand many things in more depth that we never thought 485 00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:30,280 Speaker 1: twice about before. And um, it turns out when we 486 00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:35,159 Speaker 1: look at things like you know, dementia, what happens is 487 00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:39,160 Speaker 1: people retire and they stop challenging themselves, and their brains 488 00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:41,520 Speaker 1: end up in a worse and worse state. And the 489 00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:44,960 Speaker 1: people who retire and end up fine and much better 490 00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:47,879 Speaker 1: off are those who keep challenging themselves with novel things. 491 00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:50,399 Speaker 1: And that includes even basic things like just you know, 492 00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:53,280 Speaker 1: making sure you're not just sitting around watching TV but instead, 493 00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:56,280 Speaker 1: you know, taking on new sorts of challenges and tasks 494 00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:58,479 Speaker 1: and keeping an active social life and stuff like that. 495 00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:01,520 Speaker 1: So anyway, this is what's happening to all of us. 496 00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:03,800 Speaker 1: And I have a slight suspicion this will be hard 497 00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:07,080 Speaker 1: to prove, but just an intuition that we may find 498 00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,840 Speaker 1: a slight dip in dementia um in in the coming 499 00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:13,400 Speaker 1: years for people who have been you have lived through 500 00:26:13,480 --> 00:26:17,480 Speaker 1: this early twenties um simply because they've really gotten a 501 00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:19,880 Speaker 1: chance to build all kinds of new roadways in their brain, 502 00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:23,639 Speaker 1: whereas they might not have done that as as adults. 503 00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:27,239 Speaker 1: The second thing that I'll mention as far as is 504 00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:29,479 Speaker 1: one of the things that my lab has been studying 505 00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:33,760 Speaker 1: for a very long time is social neuroscience, which is 506 00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:36,920 Speaker 1: this issue of how there's a lot of the brain 507 00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:40,000 Speaker 1: circuitry that's devoted to other people. In other words, you know, 508 00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:41,520 Speaker 1: we normally look at the brain and we think already 509 00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:43,400 Speaker 1: there's hearing, the touchows, vision, and so on, But in fact, 510 00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:45,520 Speaker 1: a lot of your circuitry has to do with modeling 511 00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:47,840 Speaker 1: other people. And you might know a thousand people and 512 00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:51,120 Speaker 1: you've actually got circuitry devoted to every one of them, 513 00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:53,960 Speaker 1: and circuitry devoted to okay, who knows who and have 514 00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:56,360 Speaker 1: they dated before and blah blah blah. I mean, it's 515 00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:59,320 Speaker 1: it's a very sophiskated social system that we're carrying around. 516 00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:01,840 Speaker 1: And so one of the things that got me interested 517 00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:04,159 Speaker 1: a long time ago, and we've published and written on 518 00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:07,280 Speaker 1: this for years, but suddenly it really is important. Is 519 00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:09,600 Speaker 1: this issue about in groups and now groups. And it 520 00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:12,320 Speaker 1: turns out that, um, we here, I'll just tell you 521 00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:14,680 Speaker 1: really quickly about a study we did. We we take 522 00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:18,080 Speaker 1: people into the brain scanner and we show them six 523 00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:21,080 Speaker 1: hands on a screen and the computer goes around and 524 00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:23,240 Speaker 1: selects one of the hands at random, and then you 525 00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:26,760 Speaker 1: see that hand get stabbed with a syringe needle. And 526 00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:29,000 Speaker 1: what happens is you really cringe when you see that. 527 00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:32,240 Speaker 1: It's it's awful to see somebody's hand get stablished with 528 00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:35,560 Speaker 1: a needle, and that activates this network in your brain 529 00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,720 Speaker 1: that summarized is the pain matrix, which is to say, 530 00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:42,080 Speaker 1: you're you're such a feeling the pain of that. Um 531 00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:44,919 Speaker 1: that is the neural basis of empathy. You care about 532 00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:48,520 Speaker 1: somebody else because you're immediately running a simulation of what 533 00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:51,080 Speaker 1: if that was my hand, even though it's not physically 534 00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:53,879 Speaker 1: your hand getting touched. But what we do then is 535 00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:59,600 Speaker 1: we put a one word label on each of these hands. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, 536 00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:03,040 Speaker 1: Hindu scientologist and then the computer goes around and picks 537 00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:04,960 Speaker 1: a hand, and see the hand gets stabbing. The question 538 00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:08,320 Speaker 1: is do you care? Does your brain care as much 539 00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:11,399 Speaker 1: if it's someone in your outgroup versus a member of 540 00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:14,160 Speaker 1: your in group, And that's exactly what happens. If it's 541 00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:15,600 Speaker 1: a member of your in group, you have a much 542 00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:17,520 Speaker 1: bigger response, and if it's a member of your outgroup, 543 00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:20,080 Speaker 1: your brain doesn't really care that much. And it turns 544 00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:23,199 Speaker 1: out that we do all kinds of versions of this. 545 00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:26,680 Speaker 1: Just as one example, we then say, okay, the year 546 00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:30,840 Speaker 1: is twenty five, and these three religions have teamed up 547 00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:36,080 Speaker 1: against these three religions, and now your two allies you 548 00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:38,479 Speaker 1: care slightly more than you did a minute ago, just 549 00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:41,240 Speaker 1: because you're told in this one sense thing that that 550 00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:44,360 Speaker 1: they're allied with you, and the others are still clearly 551 00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:46,280 Speaker 1: in your out groups, so your brain just doesn't care 552 00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:48,280 Speaker 1: as much. And by the way, just as a side note, 553 00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:51,600 Speaker 1: atheists have exactly the same thing about seeing atheist hands 554 00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:53,440 Speaker 1: gets up. So it's not an indictment of religion. It's 555 00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:54,960 Speaker 1: just an issue about in groups and out groups who 556 00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,560 Speaker 1: you feel like, you know what your labels are. Um, 557 00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:00,720 Speaker 1: so we've done a lot of work on that, if 558 00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:03,400 Speaker 1: anyone's interested. I wrote in a uh an article in 559 00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:06,440 Speaker 1: The Economist last year called does your brain care about 560 00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:12,520 Speaker 1: other people? It depends? Um. But all of a sudden, unfortunately, 561 00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:16,640 Speaker 1: all of this stuff is more relevant because society is 562 00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:19,320 Speaker 1: really finding ways to divide themselves up with in groups 563 00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:22,960 Speaker 1: and now groups. Um. You know, some people blame social media. 564 00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:26,880 Speaker 1: The fact is, you know, I'm a real student of history, 565 00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:29,480 Speaker 1: and the fact is that we've had this kind of 566 00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:32,680 Speaker 1: stuff happened all the time, with the Chinese Cultural Revolution 567 00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:35,200 Speaker 1: or the Russian Revolution or you know, or what happened 568 00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:37,360 Speaker 1: to Nazi Germany or we we've we've seen this stuff 569 00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:39,720 Speaker 1: lots of times before the Internet. So it's not like 570 00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:41,800 Speaker 1: the Internet is this the single thing to blame here. 571 00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:46,440 Speaker 1: This is just human nature. Um. So anyway, this is 572 00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:49,640 Speaker 1: what I think is relevant. Alright, We're gonna take one 573 00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:52,200 Speaker 1: more break, but I'll be right back with David Eagelman. 574 00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:58,440 Speaker 1: Thank alright, I'm back with David Eagleman. So well, let's 575 00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:01,880 Speaker 1: let's take a brief journey into the future here again 576 00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:05,320 Speaker 1: coming back to the idea of neural technology in the 577 00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:09,040 Speaker 1: future allowing us to augment our senses our bodies. If you, 578 00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:11,040 Speaker 1: let's say you were to enter a state of suspended 579 00:30:11,080 --> 00:30:14,800 Speaker 1: animation and emerge a hundred years from now, how much 580 00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:18,880 Speaker 1: of the human sensory experience will have changed and how 581 00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:21,400 Speaker 1: different How difficult do you think it would be for 582 00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:26,160 Speaker 1: a twenty second century human to relate these senses to you? Yeah, 583 00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:29,240 Speaker 1: I think I think this is a key issue, which 584 00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:33,800 Speaker 1: is to say, we have certain what are called quality 585 00:30:33,840 --> 00:30:36,280 Speaker 1: of which is, you know, our internal experience of something 586 00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:38,680 Speaker 1: like vision and hearing and so on. And you know, 587 00:30:38,800 --> 00:30:41,240 Speaker 1: obviously the stuff is completely made up by our brains 588 00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:43,800 Speaker 1: in the sense that just an example, colors don't exist 589 00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:46,240 Speaker 1: in the world. All you have is different wavelength of 590 00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:49,120 Speaker 1: electromagnetic radiation. But your brain comes up with a way 591 00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:51,640 Speaker 1: of summarizing things quickly, so it can see the ripe 592 00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:54,080 Speaker 1: fruit against the green leaves. It says, okay, I'm gonna 593 00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:56,960 Speaker 1: call that red and that green perfect um, even though 594 00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:59,880 Speaker 1: that doesn't exist. So we have this internal experience of 595 00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:03,600 Speaker 1: the world. And of course, you know, sound also doesn't 596 00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:06,480 Speaker 1: exist as such, You've just got air compression waves, but 597 00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:10,000 Speaker 1: we turn it into you know, beautiful voices in music 598 00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:13,560 Speaker 1: and so on. Um, okay, but here's the thing, it's 599 00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:15,800 Speaker 1: because your brain has lots of experience with this that 600 00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:20,160 Speaker 1: it eventually turns it into this direct perceptual experience. And 601 00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:22,880 Speaker 1: so the question is, now, if you've fed in a 602 00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:27,520 Speaker 1: new kind of data stream through the Neo centry buzz, 603 00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,360 Speaker 1: for example, the wristband, if you fed in a completely 604 00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:32,480 Speaker 1: new kind of thing, would you come to have a 605 00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:35,360 Speaker 1: direct perceptual experience of it? And our data right now 606 00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:39,200 Speaker 1: suggests yes, that that you would. And the thing that's 607 00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:41,920 Speaker 1: so weird about this is there's actually no way to 608 00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:45,000 Speaker 1: describe it to somebody who has not had that experience. 609 00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,640 Speaker 1: So imagine that you had a friend who is color 610 00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:51,680 Speaker 1: blind and you tried to explain orange to your friend. 611 00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:55,320 Speaker 1: There's no way that she would understand. She could eventually 612 00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:57,600 Speaker 1: pretend and say, okay, rab' just quit talking and I'm 613 00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:00,000 Speaker 1: gonna pretend to understand, but she wouldn't ever understand orange. 614 00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:02,720 Speaker 1: This why because you have to experience it to get it. 615 00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:05,760 Speaker 1: And so um, and you know, if you have a 616 00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:09,960 Speaker 1: blind friend, try to explain what vision is your friends, 617 00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:12,360 Speaker 1: I don't understand. You're you're trying to You're you're capturing 618 00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:15,520 Speaker 1: fote that you're capturing millions of photons every second from 619 00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:20,000 Speaker 1: across great distances, and there's just no way that they 620 00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:24,200 Speaker 1: can understand what that's like. And so the same thing applies, 621 00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:28,160 Speaker 1: I think for twenty second century people who are getting 622 00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:32,160 Speaker 1: direct data streams fed to their brain of stock market 623 00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:36,719 Speaker 1: or microwave data information or um, you know, gamma ray 624 00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:39,240 Speaker 1: information or whatever the thing is that they're feeding in. 625 00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:42,680 Speaker 1: You're like the person who doesn't understand what orange is 626 00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:44,720 Speaker 1: or what vision is to them. And they can try 627 00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:46,480 Speaker 1: really hard to explain to you, and you can even 628 00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:48,960 Speaker 1: pretend at some point they understand, but you just won't. 629 00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:51,880 Speaker 1: And um, So I think we're on the verge of 630 00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:55,920 Speaker 1: a really interesting moment in history where where we're gonna 631 00:32:56,000 --> 00:33:00,080 Speaker 1: essentially start speciating, as in, people are going to have 632 00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:02,320 Speaker 1: such different experiences that they won't be able to relate 633 00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:04,480 Speaker 1: them to each other. Now, let me just say, there's 634 00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:06,640 Speaker 1: a sense in which this is no different from what 635 00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,080 Speaker 1: we've always had in the sense that you know, you 636 00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:11,200 Speaker 1: grew up in your hometown and had your experience. I 637 00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:13,360 Speaker 1: grew up my hometown and had my experiences. And there's 638 00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:16,480 Speaker 1: a sense in which brains are pretty different anyway. Um, 639 00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:18,560 Speaker 1: but this is just going to be more of that 640 00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:21,960 Speaker 1: where I'm you know, plugged directly into Twitter, and you're 641 00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:25,400 Speaker 1: plugged directly into infrared information and we just can't quite 642 00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:28,840 Speaker 1: get what the other person is experiencing. So you worked 643 00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:32,520 Speaker 1: as a science advisor on HBO's West World, that's right, 644 00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:36,840 Speaker 1: that's right, um. And you know, one of the things 645 00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:40,000 Speaker 1: that I've found in advising for television in general is 646 00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,240 Speaker 1: that there are all these topics that I and my 647 00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:46,880 Speaker 1: colleagues have debated for years, were you know, for example, 648 00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:49,760 Speaker 1: the question of could robot become conscious and what would 649 00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:51,960 Speaker 1: that mean? And would they have free will? And so on? Um, 650 00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:54,520 Speaker 1: and you know, we write all these academic papers on it. 651 00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:57,960 Speaker 1: But it's it's such a cool opportunity to get these 652 00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:02,440 Speaker 1: questions to, you know, into the public square with fiction. 653 00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:05,280 Speaker 1: And so something like west World is tremendously successful into 654 00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:09,040 Speaker 1: getting people to think about these sorts of questions. And 655 00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:13,440 Speaker 1: one of the things that I did as scientific advisor was, UM, 656 00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:17,480 Speaker 1: got our vest or neosensory vest into the show. So 657 00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:20,480 Speaker 1: you know, it was I don't know if anybody out 658 00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:23,839 Speaker 1: there I saw this episode during season two, but um, 659 00:34:23,880 --> 00:34:26,879 Speaker 1: these military contractors drop into west World to take care 660 00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:29,800 Speaker 1: of the hosts. The bad robots and they are feeling 661 00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:32,560 Speaker 1: on their vest their location of the robots. So, oh, 662 00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:34,600 Speaker 1: there's location over there there, sorry, there's a there's robot 663 00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:35,960 Speaker 1: over there. There's one over there, and then they can 664 00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:39,279 Speaker 1: shoot them accordingly. But we've actually used exactly that For 665 00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:41,719 Speaker 1: people who are blind, we've used the same idea, which 666 00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:44,800 Speaker 1: is a wearing the vest and they're feeling where people 667 00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:47,239 Speaker 1: are around them and oh, there's somebody coming up behind me, 668 00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:48,799 Speaker 1: there's someone over here on my left, and so on, 669 00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:52,480 Speaker 1: and then we can add navigation directions on top of that. 670 00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:55,520 Speaker 1: Um you know, so it buzzes okay, go four, oh go, 671 00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:58,399 Speaker 1: the left now goes straight and so on. Um. So yeah, 672 00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:01,440 Speaker 1: that was a very cool, very cool opportunity that we 673 00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:04,520 Speaker 1: had to get our technology into this futuristic show. I 674 00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,000 Speaker 1: love that sequence in the show because I felt like 675 00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:09,359 Speaker 1: like a lesser show would have just copied Aliens and 676 00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:12,160 Speaker 1: just had you know, blips on a map. Uh and 677 00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:16,400 Speaker 1: but this felt this, this felt thoroughly science fictional in nature, 678 00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:17,960 Speaker 1: you know. I mean, but then a golf course is 679 00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:22,279 Speaker 1: using actual technology that we're developing today exactly right now. 680 00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:26,560 Speaker 1: You mentioned West World bringing scientific topics or just topics 681 00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:30,080 Speaker 1: concerning things like consciousness out into the public square. The 682 00:35:30,120 --> 00:35:34,520 Speaker 1: first season at least discussed Julian james b cameral mind 683 00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:36,680 Speaker 1: hypothesis that brought that up a little bit. And I 684 00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:39,040 Speaker 1: know you wrote about this a little bit in incognito, 685 00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:42,759 Speaker 1: but what are your general thoughts on this hypothesis. You know, 686 00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:45,799 Speaker 1: what's interesting is that no one actually knows if it's 687 00:35:45,840 --> 00:35:48,520 Speaker 1: correct or not correct. So what Julian James proposed is 688 00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:53,800 Speaker 1: that it may be that you essentially have two sides 689 00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:56,000 Speaker 1: to the brain, the left and the right side, literally 690 00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:58,719 Speaker 1: the two hemispheres, and that those used to be more 691 00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:02,719 Speaker 1: separate and um, so it was as though people were 692 00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:06,320 Speaker 1: hearing a voice from somebody else. And what he argues 693 00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:09,200 Speaker 1: is that if you look at ancient literature, like ancient 694 00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:11,240 Speaker 1: Greek literature and so on, there's always this thing about 695 00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:13,759 Speaker 1: hearing a voice from God and so on. Um. And 696 00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:16,359 Speaker 1: the argument is that very recently the left and right 697 00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:21,879 Speaker 1: hemisphere started connecting in a deeper way, um, and so 698 00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:24,160 Speaker 1: there was this super highway of fibers that goes back 699 00:36:24,200 --> 00:36:26,160 Speaker 1: and forth between them. And so what we have now 700 00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:30,160 Speaker 1: is a unified consciousness instead of two separate voices going 701 00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:32,960 Speaker 1: on in our heads. As I said, nobody really knows 702 00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:35,640 Speaker 1: that this is right or not, because there's no simple 703 00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,560 Speaker 1: way to test this directly. What I argued, an incognito though, 704 00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:44,360 Speaker 1: is essentially a a distant cousin of that, which is 705 00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:47,319 Speaker 1: that what is absolutely clear is that we are not 706 00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:50,880 Speaker 1: a single thing. So we think of ourselves as individuals, 707 00:36:50,920 --> 00:36:53,960 Speaker 1: meaning not divisible into different parts. But but in fact 708 00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:57,000 Speaker 1: who you are is a collection of different neural networks 709 00:36:57,040 --> 00:36:59,200 Speaker 1: that all have different drives. And this is why we 710 00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:02,000 Speaker 1: can are you with ourselves and custed ourselves in contract 711 00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:05,120 Speaker 1: with ourselves, and canjole ourselves who's talking with whom? Here? 712 00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:07,719 Speaker 1: It's all us, but it's different parts of us. So 713 00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:10,439 Speaker 1: this is why if I take some warm chocolate chip 714 00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:12,160 Speaker 1: cookies out of the oven and put them in front 715 00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:14,319 Speaker 1: of you, part of your brain says, don't eat it, 716 00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:16,920 Speaker 1: you'll get fat, and party brain says that looks like 717 00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:18,880 Speaker 1: a high energy sort. You know, I totally want to 718 00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:20,920 Speaker 1: eat those cookies, And part of your brain says, okay, 719 00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:23,120 Speaker 1: how about I eat the cookies, but I'll go to 720 00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:26,160 Speaker 1: the gym tonight or whatever. Like everything that we do 721 00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:28,719 Speaker 1: in our lives, we have arguments with ourselves about Okay, 722 00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:30,399 Speaker 1: what should I do here? Part of me want to eat, 723 00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:33,040 Speaker 1: this part of me doesn't want to And so what's 724 00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:35,880 Speaker 1: going on? There are all the different voices, the different 725 00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:39,240 Speaker 1: political parties of this neural parliament that we have running 726 00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:42,239 Speaker 1: under the hood. And this is the framework that I 727 00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,200 Speaker 1: built in in incognito, is that we've got this parliament 728 00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:48,080 Speaker 1: and the way you go just depends on the majority 729 00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:51,879 Speaker 1: vote in any given moment, and so you're not one thing, 730 00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:54,879 Speaker 1: You're a collection of voters. All right. I have one 731 00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:57,960 Speaker 1: one last question for you. Um, if if you could 732 00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:01,040 Speaker 1: go back in time and serve as a sign advisor 733 00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:04,080 Speaker 1: on any past science fiction film, what would it be. 734 00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:06,120 Speaker 1: What would you most like to go back and tweak 735 00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:10,920 Speaker 1: or correct or make a little more neuroscientifically interesting? Oh gosh, 736 00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:13,120 Speaker 1: I'd have to think about that off the top of 737 00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:18,880 Speaker 1: my head. Um. Something like the Matrix is terrific because 738 00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:23,560 Speaker 1: that's an example actually of of a piece of fiction 739 00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:27,040 Speaker 1: that got everybody talking about this issue of how do 740 00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:29,880 Speaker 1: you know? Like you know, Decartes said, how would I know? 741 00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:33,560 Speaker 1: If I'm a brain in a vat um and and 742 00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:35,920 Speaker 1: I just think that I'm feeling and hearing and seeing 743 00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,480 Speaker 1: these different things and that that got upgraded that question 744 00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:42,840 Speaker 1: by philosophers um at different stages in history. But but 745 00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:45,920 Speaker 1: essentially that's the question is how do I how do 746 00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:47,839 Speaker 1: I know if there's a bunch of scientists that are 747 00:38:48,160 --> 00:38:50,640 Speaker 1: zapping my brain with electrodes that are making me feel 748 00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:53,279 Speaker 1: that I'm talking with you on zoom and the weather 749 00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:56,000 Speaker 1: is nice outside and so on. But then the matrix, 750 00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:59,080 Speaker 1: I think single handedly upgraded that question too. How do 751 00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:01,120 Speaker 1: I know if I'm in the matrix if I am 752 00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:04,120 Speaker 1: a simulation? And and as things have gone on, especially 753 00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:06,640 Speaker 1: in the last I don't know, ten years in Silicon Valley, 754 00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:10,200 Speaker 1: it feels like people talk about that question more and 755 00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:12,160 Speaker 1: more seriously all the time because you look at our 756 00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:15,120 Speaker 1: computational capacity and you think, well, gosh, it's it's really 757 00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:18,960 Speaker 1: not that hard to make super sophisticated VR in So 758 00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:21,520 Speaker 1: what's this gonna look like in twenty one twenty I mean, 759 00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:25,000 Speaker 1: you can make something that is absolutely convincing. I mean, 760 00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:27,440 Speaker 1: forget it, you can do that. It's just like a 761 00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:30,839 Speaker 1: convincing So the question is how would you know if 762 00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:32,719 Speaker 1: you exist in a simulation or not? And what they 763 00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:35,759 Speaker 1: cart concluded, by the way, is that there is no 764 00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:38,640 Speaker 1: way for him to know um, and this is what 765 00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:43,239 Speaker 1: led to his very famous declaration, japons don suite. I 766 00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:48,200 Speaker 1: think therefore I am um because what he meant by 767 00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:51,040 Speaker 1: that is, look, I don't know if I'm in a simulation. 768 00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:53,400 Speaker 1: But all I can tell you is that there's somebody 769 00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:58,200 Speaker 1: thinking about this question. So I exist, whoever, whoever, whatever 770 00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:00,799 Speaker 1: situation I'm actually and it doesn't matter. There's some eye 771 00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:04,120 Speaker 1: that exists. And that was actually a quite important move 772 00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:07,759 Speaker 1: in philosophy. But the point is, we have absolutely no 773 00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:10,080 Speaker 1: way of knowing if we are in a simulation or not. 774 00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:14,040 Speaker 1: And uh, we don't even have any good hypotheses about 775 00:40:14,080 --> 00:40:16,000 Speaker 1: how we would be able to find that out. And 776 00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:17,880 Speaker 1: by the way, it might not matter. I mean, you know, 777 00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:20,440 Speaker 1: if I told you with certainty that we are or 778 00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,000 Speaker 1: are not, it would it might not change anything about 779 00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:26,799 Speaker 1: what you're doing. Um So, But so I would love 780 00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:30,040 Speaker 1: to have been involved in in that movie and and 781 00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:33,239 Speaker 1: add in just a few neuroscience e uh twists and 782 00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:36,920 Speaker 1: sentences and questions there. Awesome, David, thanks again for chatting 783 00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:39,520 Speaker 1: with me today. Great, thank you, Robert. This is blessed 784 00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:44,280 Speaker 1: all right. So there you have it again. The book 785 00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:47,600 Speaker 1: is Live Wired the inside Story of the Ever Changing 786 00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:51,120 Speaker 1: Brain by David Eagleman. It's out now and if you 787 00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:53,360 Speaker 1: want to check out Neosensory you can just go to 788 00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:57,160 Speaker 1: neosensory dot com. If you'd like to listen to other 789 00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:59,279 Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you can find 790 00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:01,640 Speaker 1: us where every at your podcast and wherever that happens 791 00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:04,080 Speaker 1: to be. We just asked that you rate, review and subscribe. 792 00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:08,680 Speaker 1: Thanks as always to Seth Nicholas Johnson for his recording 793 00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:11,480 Speaker 1: skills and editing skills and bringing all this together especially 794 00:41:11,640 --> 00:41:14,040 Speaker 1: short to turn around today. And if you would like 795 00:41:14,080 --> 00:41:17,400 Speaker 1: to email us about this interview, about this episode, or 796 00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:20,759 Speaker 1: about forthcoming episodes or past episodes, you can do so 797 00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:31,480 Speaker 1: at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. 798 00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:34,040 Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. 799 00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:36,360 Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, this is at 800 00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:39,280 Speaker 1: the Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening 801 00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:49,000 Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.