WEBVTT - The Gods Must Be Counterintuitive 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.600 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.400 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and Robert. 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:20.320 This might be kind of a strange question, but if 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:24.280 I forced you to tell me the whole story of 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:26.799 Cinderella on command, do you think you could tell me 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:28.880 that folk tale? All right, it's not one of my 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:32.400 favorite folk tales, but I believe it goes something like this, 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:34.680 poor lady puts on a magic shoe and becomes a 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:38.720 rich lady. Uh the end you have you have missed 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:41.320 some key elements, but I bet you could do it. 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:44.000 Come on, you you know the story of Cinderella. Yeah, okay, 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:47.040 So there's some magic mice in there that that talk 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:51.599 and have engaged in some some comic mischief with a cat. Uh. 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:56.040 There's an evil stepmother. Uh, they're evil step sisters. And 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:59.120 I believe in the more uh, you know, classic versions 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:01.280 of the tale and non Disney versions, there's a little 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:05.280 bit of like nasty uh torture revenge at the end. Yeah, 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:07.680 there's a lot of foot cutting and stuff like that 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.440 in the In the classic versions, as told by like 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:15.080 the Brothers Grim and Charles Perrault. Uh. These old classic 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:18.800 folk tales that were collected hundreds of years ago often 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:22.959 had very strong, bloody, uh sadistic elements to them, but 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:26.440 they're also intensely memorable. Yeah. But at the same time, 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:28.200 it's you know, you get down to its roots. I 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:30.880 feel like it's a deeply unpleasant story. And then even 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.959 in the Disney version, like Nobody Nobody turns into a dragon, 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:36.560 there are no monsters. There's you know, a little bit 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:40.360 of magic, but it's it has it has a lot 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:42.800 to compete with with when it comes to other like 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:47.559 major Uh. You know, you know tent poles, fairy tales. Well, Robert, 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:50.640 you are a spoil sport for my examples today. Uh, 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:52.880 come on, you you know the story of Cinderella. You 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:55.200 definitely know the story of Rapunzel. That's got some good 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.840 to eye gouging and all kinds of weirdness. Uh. But 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.160 what I bet you don't know is the story of 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:03.800 the Donkey Cabbage is a k a. The Donkey Lettuce. 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:06.840 This is true. I was not familiar with this tale 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:10.800 prior to this recording. Also a story recounted by the 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:13.840 brothers Grim. It's a classic folk tale that that has 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:17.040 been put into these collections of folk tales, and I 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.800 think maybe I'm going to do the horrible, horrible act 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:23.520 of trying to tell it from memory. Stop me if 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:26.760 this is getting unbearable, Okay, donkey cabbages. So you've got 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:29.000 a young huntsman. He goes out one day into the 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.240 forest and he comes across an old crone in the forest, 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.120 and the old crone is begging for alms. So he 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:37.560 takes pity on her and he gives her what he 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.480 can afford. And she likes this. She's like, Wow, you 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:42.919 took pity on me. So I'm gonna give you some advice. 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:45.120 Up ahead in the forest, you're gonna come across a 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.240 tree that has nine birds in it, and those birds 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.000 are gonna be tearing at a cloak. Now, what you 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:54.000 need to do is shoot those birds and then one 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.200 of them will fall dead, and you need to take 0:02:56.240 --> 0:02:59.240 it's hard out and eat it. And when you eat 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:02.560 the heart, every time, every time you wake up, after 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.600 you eat that bird's heart, you will have a piece 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:09.239 of gold under your pillow. And also hang onto that cloak, 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.360 because by putting it on, you can wish yourself into 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:17.440 any place and magically appear there. So the young huntsman 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:19.839 walks a little bit further into the forest. Sure enough, 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:22.400 he comes across the birds. He shoots into the flock 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:24.840 of birds, one of them falls dead. He takes the 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:27.399 cloak from the birds, and he cuts the heart out 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:29.720 of the dead bird and he eats it. So then 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.080 he goes home. He goes to sleep next day. Sure enough, 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.920 there's gold under his pillow, and so he waits a 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:40.320 while accumulating the wealth right, the sleep wealth, until he's 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.000 got a good collection of gold, and now he thinks 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:45.880 time to go explore the world. Right, I'm I'm young, 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.320 I've got a magic transportation cloak, and I've got gold 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.160 under my pillow every night, So he goes roman all 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:54.120 over the place and eventually ends up at a castle. 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:57.520 At the castle, he sees another ugly old crone, but 0:03:57.600 --> 0:03:59.720 not the original crone. This is a different crone who 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:02.320 is in fact a witch. And he sees a beautiful 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:05.240 young woman, and so he asks to be let into 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.200 the castle where there is a witch who knows about 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:10.960 his magical items and wants to take them. And so 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:14.200 the witch gets her beautiful young daughter to seduce the 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.560 huntsman so that they can steal his magical items. And so, 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.159 first of all, the young daughter gets him to drink 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:24.120 and poisonous draft that the witch has created, uh that 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:27.200 will cause him to vomit up the bird heart that 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.680 he ate. And so she gets him to drink that 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:31.840 he vomits up the bird heart, she takes it and 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:34.320 she eats it, so now she can get the Now 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:37.080 she can get the gold under the pillow. Second thing, 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:40.320 the young the young beautiful daughter takes him up on 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:42.919 the mountains one day by saying, oh, I wish you 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.480 could use that cloak of transportation to take me where 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.440 we can gather some gyms up in the mountains. So 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:51.440 they travel there together with the use of the magic cloak, 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:54.400 and then while he is drowsy on the mountain, she 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:57.440 steals the cloak from him and leaves him there. He 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.000 comes across some giants on the mountain, and the giants 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:02.200 they discuss whether or not they should kill him, but 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:04.760 eventually they decide, now we'll just leave him here because 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:08.760 eventually the clouds will carry him away. So the young 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.440 huntsman gets carried away by the clouds. He ends up 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:14.800 getting deposited in a field of cabbage is. He's hungry, 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:17.880 and so he eats some of the cabbage. This cabbage 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:21.080 transforms him into a donkey. He doesn't really like being 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:24.320 transformed into a donkey, but he eats some other cabbage 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:27.080 from a nearby field and transforms back into a human. 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.400 He realizes that each of these fields grows cabbage. One 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.640 type of cabbage transforms people into donkeys, the other type 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:37.280 transforms donkeys into people. So he takes cabbages of both 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.200 kinds and he goes back to the castle. He goes 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.120 to the old witch and tricks her into eating some 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:45.719 of the bad cabbage that turns you into a donkey. 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.120 The old witch turns into a donkey. He also accidentally 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:52.600 tricks the maid servant and the young daughter who are 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.279 at the castle also into eating the donkey cabbage, and 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.000 they turn into donkeys. Then he takes the donkeys to 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:01.119 a miller and he tells the miller too, basically tells 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.680 them to mistreat the old donkey and to be nicer 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.400 to the young donkeys. The miller comes back to him 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.400 a little while after that and says, well, your old 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.240 donkey died, and the other two they're not going to 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.080 hang on much longer. But then the huntsman he relents 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:16.080 from his revenge and he says, you know what, I'll 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.560 transform those donkeys back into people. So he gives them 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.760 the good cabbage that transformed back into humans. And then 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:26.359 the the the witch's daughter and he get married and 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:30.520 they live happily ever after. Well, that is quite a story, Joe. 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:33.880 If it were, I would say it was. It would 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.320 be pretty great if it were. If this was a 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:40.800 summary of kind of like a freewheeling like randomly generated 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.360 like dungeons and dragons in a series of encounters, you know, 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:45.919 because it has that kind of vibe to it, like 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:49.719 there's just kind of a seeming randomness to it. The 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:55.640 magic it feels convoluted, the characters are confusing. The moral 0:06:55.800 --> 0:07:02.560 message of the piece is uh is equally lost on me. Yeah, um, now, 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:07.000 I certainly. Well it's sort of a weird revenge story. Yeah, 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:09.640 but it it really takes its time getting there. It's 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:11.520 kind of it does kind of feel like a winding 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:16.600 goat trail to nowhere. Uh, it's shaggy dog story. Yeah. 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:18.800 But but at the same time, it does remind me 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.720 of some of I mean, I've had this experience with 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.400 other folk tales before, where you start reading it and 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.480 it seems to be kind of going in circles and 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.120 it's making nonsensical choices. But then I often end up 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:35.960 reminding myself, well, I'm not encountering this story in its 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.120 original language. I am not a part of the culture 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.239 that that it was the intended, uh you know, listener 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.840 to the to the tale. Like I've had a similar 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:49.800 situation watching some of the old Russo Finish fairytale epics. Oh, 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:51.920 like Jack Frost, the one they did on Mystery Science 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:54.920 Theater three thousand, which is just the best. Yeah, it's 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.680 one of my favorite episode. It's tremendous in the movie itself, 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:02.480 that's father measure. I mean, the movie is beautiful. I 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.200 mean that if you challenge anyone who has only seen 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:08.440 that MST three k episode to to look online and 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:12.520 find a more pristine, uh copy of it, because the 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.320 footage is just beautiful. It's this is a high budget 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:19.320 film at the time. But the story, yeah, for for 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:23.080 for non Russo finished viewers, I guess it it is 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:26.320 confusing and you you kind of lose track of like 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:28.880 what magical piece of magic is in play and what's 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.360 the what's the morality of the character turning in like 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:34.360 having his head turned into the head of a bear 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:36.520 and then he he loses the head of a bear 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.360 just for promising to be good to the outsider. That 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:42.199 story just feels like the hell you go to if 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:46.680 you get killed in the tiger by a gnome. But 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.360 it reminds me a bit of Donkey Cabbages. Well, yeah, 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:51.960 so I guess that the big question that we're we've 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.560 we've led ourselves to at this point is like, what 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:58.280 is what is ultimately the difference? What what makes one 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.959 story Cinderella and one story a donkey Cabbages? And why 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:05.400 to Cinderella stick with us? Whereas donkey Cabbages is just 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:11.040 it's just leaking through your fingers almost immediately upon grasping it. Yeah, exactly. 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.760 I mean, one thing is that Cinderella is not just 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:17.640 the the sort of European tradition grim fairy tale Cinderella. 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.959 They're Cinderella type stories all over the world. This is 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.880 almost one of those those or stories you know that 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.280 seems to have an ancient prototype that filters into cultures 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:30.000 all around the world or maybe has parallel development because 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:35.280 it's themes are so basic. Um, Cinderella is a widely known, 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:43.040 widely distributed, ineradicable myth. Meanwhile, donkey cabbages is it feels 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:45.839 like donkey cabbages could disappear from the earth and we 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:48.520 would all be poorer for having lost donkey cabbages because 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.640 I kind of love donkey cabbages, but nobody not that 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.560 many people would notice it was missing, right, Um, it 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:58.120 has not penetrated the culture in the same way that 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:02.000 the Cinderella archetype near rative has. And so the question 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.920 is why are some narratives more successful than others? Like 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:10.280 you're saying, what makes one story, uh, the the the 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:15.040 narrative equivalent of a highly successful insect species, and the 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.199 other one and endangered species? Why is donkey cabbage is 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.600 endangered while Cinderella is thriving. It would be a shame 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:24.960 if we lost donkey cabbages forever, But it seems like 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:29.480 that's much more plausible of an outcome than losing Cinderella. Right, Okay, 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:32.199 Well we'll come back to this question in just a minute. First, 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:34.880 let's explore a related question and see how these two 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:39.000 subjects come together. This question is why do religions emerge 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:42.640 and what makes one religion more successful than another in 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.000 the same way that one narrative can be more successful 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:47.760 than another. You know, we've talked before on the show 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:51.720 about all of the various psychological and biological explanations that 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:54.920 people think may exist for the emergence of religions. I 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:57.160 think I think it's safe to say this is not 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.440 a subject where there is a settled, known answer, But 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:04.080 there are some answers that seem more plausible than others, right, 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.040 And I mean, you have some answers, are certainly models 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:09.960 for how it could occur, and I am often inclined 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.840 to think, well, it's probably multiple different models at once. 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.160 Of course, it's it's hard to just say that, like, 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.480 this is the equation for religion in human culture. Yeah, 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:23.240 there's probably not one cause of the emergence of religion. 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:27.920 But what are the dominant physical, biological, psychological factors that 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.360 make a religion a thing that exists? Why did how 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:32.960 did we get this way? Now some of you might 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:34.600 be wondering what you were talking about fairy tales, now 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.000 you're talking about about religion. You know, what is the 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.480 connection between Cinderella and the great religions of the modern world, 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.000 of the ancient world or the ancient world. I mean, 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:44.800 obviously one of the big ones is that there is 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:47.160 any religion you look at, there is going to be 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:50.560 some sort of narrative or narratives that they're at the 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:53.400 heart of its sacred narratives upon which it is based. Yeah, 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:56.520 there are almost no successful religions that don't have at 0:11:56.600 --> 0:12:00.480 least some strong narrative component in them. And uh, and 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:04.880 so obviously narrative might might be the common thread between 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.840 the success of folklore and the success of a religion. Yeah, 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.440 religions tend to have heroes. They didn't have villains. They 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:14.079 they they are stories that have just taken on a 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:17.960 grander cultural and personal meaning. So as far as the 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.920 emergence of religion explanation goes that, there are a lot 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.640 of ideas that have been put forward by scholars over 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:26.160 the years. I know, actually recently, Robert, you talked a 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:28.280 little bit to Barbara J. King about this at the 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:33.480 World Science Festival, like what psychological drives and biological drives 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.760 play into the emergence of religion? And I know part 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:39.920 of her answer had to do with with social cohesion 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:43.800 and stuff, right, Yeah, And in grieving and bereavement and 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:47.120 sort of the the precursors to grieving and bereavement that 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:51.680 they can arguably be identified in uh in certain animals, 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:56.440 such as some of our closer primate relatives exactly. Another 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.920 very common explanation from evolutionary psychology is the idea of 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.080 the hyperactive agency detection. And we've talked about this on 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:05.760 the show before, but the basic idea here is that 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:09.000 there's going to be an evolutionary selection pressure in favor 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:12.720 of people who are over sensitive about the possibility of 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:18.040 detecting agents, meaning beings with intentions like animals or other 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:22.240 people from ambiguous data. So the classic example, as you 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.199 imagine two different scenarios. One is you hear a twig 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:27.439 breaking in the forest at night and you think it's 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.120 a tiger or you know it's my nemesis, Jeffrey and 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:32.920 he's come for his revenge, and then you raise your 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.559 guard and try to get yourself out of the situation safely. 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:38.400 The other scenario is you hear a twig breaking in 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:40.720 the forest at night and you think it's probably nothing. 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.480 You just keep collecting firewood and then I don't know, 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:47.040 maybe break some other horror movie sins. You split up, 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.080 You drink some beer, you do all the bad stuff. 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:52.679 Those are the very people who either are either eaten 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.280 by tigers are killed by Jeffrey. Right. So the people 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:58.360 in the latter scenario are probably going to be correct 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.560 more often right. More often. It's probably nothing, but there's 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.840 a relatively small benefit to being correct. The person in 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:08.000 the first situation who's afraid hyper aware of what might 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.840 be an animal or a person, some kind of intentional agent. 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.560 They might waste some time and energy being overly cautious, 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.160 but they're less likely to get killed in the off 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.200 chance that they're correct about detecting an agent. And so, 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:23.280 because this person survives more often the genes that put 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.800 them on the hyperactive lookout for people or for animals, 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:30.520 these intentional agents, those genes proliferate in the gene pool, 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:34.000 and this causes us to read intentions into our environment 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:37.360 at an unusual rate just to be safe. And this 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.640 reading of intentions into all kinds of random phenomena lead 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.080 us to the belief that there actually our minds controlling 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.040 events that we don't understand, in essence to the idea 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:52.160 of God's So that's one interesting possible explanation. There's also 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:56.520 like the meme obedience duality, which basically says there's a 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.920 selection advantage for children with brains that tend to tell 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.040 them to believe what adults tell them. You know, if 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:05.680 you are warned that it's dangerous to leave the campfire 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.960 at night, more children who believe that warning and accepted 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:12.000 are going to survive to adulthood. And then pigging backing 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.360 on this, you'd eventually have adults spreading religious memes by 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.880 telling myths, stories, folk tales, and the beneficial belief in 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:23.040 obedience mechanism that causes children to survive after a warning 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.880 not to leave the firelight also causes them to take 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:28.840 these stories very seriously to believe them to pay heed 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:34.040 to their values. But whatever the actual biological and psychological 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:37.480 reasons for the emergence of religion, it leads to this 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.000 question that we asked a minute ago of why some 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:42.800 religions are more successful than others. I mean, there are 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.479 tons of religions throughout human history that have been invented 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:50.400 and now they're extinct, and very few people ever followed them. Right, 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.160 So they wanted that the ancient Egyptian religion, why is it? 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:56.360 Why is it not survived in a in a real 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:58.960 tangible sense in the modern age. Why did it not 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:02.360 even travel well beyond Egypt in its own day? But 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.240 even it was relatively successful at last time. I mean, 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.120 think about all the variations on it, or all of 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:11.520 the other types of mythologies that got started but never 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:15.480 really went anywhere. I think of all the cults that 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.680 emerge that we know relatively little about. I think of 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:22.680 all the heresies that were that were squashed out before 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:26.360 they could be really take on a name beyond heresy exactly. 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:28.560 I think because you think about how we refer to them, 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:30.720 we don't even refer to them as religions. They were 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:35.520 just upstarts that were destroyed by the more popular and 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:39.160 powerful models of belief exactly. So the question we want 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:43.160 to look at today is could the variable success of 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:45.920 new religions have anything to do with the question we 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:49.040 were asking a minute ago why some folk tales and 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:51.960 legends are more successful than others, Because Robert, as you 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:56.480 mentioned a minute ago, what religions and and folklore have 0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:00.920 in common is narrative. Almost all of the world's religions 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:05.119 past and present have major narrative elements. They're based on stories. 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.920 Um So even though there are other components to religions. 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:12.960 We know there's metaphysical incentives, a sense of meaning, social inclusion, 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:16.600 and all that stuff. Since the narrative element is so common, 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.720 wouldn't it be reasonable to guess that part of what 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:24.480 makes a successful religion is containing successful stories, Right, the 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:26.880 right kind of stories that you know, made me feel 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:28.399 a little bit good and also makes me feel a 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:31.199 little bit bad and just the right way. Right, a 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:36.160 good religious narrative, it hurts so good. Uh So this 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.199 this could be wrong. I mean, maybe narrative is not 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:40.120 actually a major element, but I think it's a very 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.439 reasonable starting assumption. And if this is the case that 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:45.960 the success of a narrative plays into the success of 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:49.439 a religion, what makes a story that leads to a 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.199 successful faith? Maybe we should take a quick break and 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:57.360 then explore more when we come back. Thank alright, we're back. 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.080 So we've asked the question what sort of narrative of 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:04.080 what kind of story is going to make a religion successful? 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:06.840 Or just make a story of a fairy tale successful? 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:09.879 In general? Like, what what are the elements that are 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:13.040 going to get guaranteed that it resonates and remains in 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.240 human culture? Yeah, I guess maybe it makes sense to 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:19.560 start with narratives and then see how this applies to religions. Um, 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.159 so it's time to explore. Basically, I would say, the 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:24.600 key idea of this episode the idea of what's come 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:29.960 to be known as minimally counterintuitive elements of belief. Now, 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:33.080 we can't know for sure what makes one religion or 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:35.720 one story more successful than another, and it's probably due 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.320 to multiple factors rather than just one. But this minimally 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:43.960 counterintuitive elements paradigm, I think, is a really clever answer, 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:46.639 offering what I guess is an important part of the 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:51.400 picture of the comparative success of stories, narratives, and belief structures. 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:53.959 There have been a ton of papers investigating this over 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:56.480 the years, a lot of studies, but I thought we 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.760 should examine the issue through one one important study from 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.800 the two thousand six and that's a paper published in 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:08.080 Cognitive Science by Aura norn Zion's got A Tran, Jason Faulkner, 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:12.360 and Mark Schaller called Memory and Mystery the Cultural selection 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:16.080 of minimally counterintuitive Narratives. So I want to read a 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:18.439 quote from their introduction starts to set the scene for 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.840 why memory would be a relevant issue here the author's 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:25.720 right quote. Of the many ecological and psychological factors that 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:30.240 influence the extent to which any such narrative achieves cultural success, 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:36.120 mnemonic resilience maybe one of the most important. Memorability places 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:40.359 necessary constraints on the cultural transmission of narratives and ideas 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:46.120 in oral traditions that characterize most of human cultures throughout history. 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:51.120 A narrative cannot be transmitted and achieve cultural success unless 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.879 it stands the test of memory. So, in other words, 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.639 in the telephone game of belief, you've got to have 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:00.200 a core story that is going to remain more or 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:04.359 less intact with each retelling and each embellishment. Yeah, and 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:06.439 I mean part of the problem is that most of 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:10.080 human history, most people have not had access to any 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:14.679 recording method for narratives. Most people throughout the history of 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:18.760 the world have been illiterate and have transmitted stories orally 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:22.320 by hearing them told and then retelling them to others. 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:27.280 So if a story cannot be accurately remembered, that story 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:30.680 doesn't really have much of a chance of survival, right right, 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:32.560 I mean, I'm reminded, I want to one of our 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.600 recent episodes that dealt with writing. I want to say 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:39.560 there was one description that UH discussed writing as an 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:43.840 ability to like freeze thought or too in some way 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:46.200 you have to to to to freeze thought in time, 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.080 And that's exactly what it's doing when otherwise have these 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:53.119 stories would be perpetually changing. Yeah, and of course I 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:55.479 think there there is plenty of evidence that stories do 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:59.240 change through transmission in in oral cultures, right, I mean 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:01.560 this happens all the time. Every time you tell the story, 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:03.840 you make little changes to it, and over time those 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:08.200 changes accumulate. But how does a story become resilient? How 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:11.800 do its key elements become set well enough that it 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:16.960 can survive the sort of changing landscape, of of forcing, 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:20.280 of of being stored in human minds alone and being 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:23.439 transmitted through human retelling alone. Well, there's the old quote, right, 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:25.280 it don't mean a thing of it if it ain't 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:27.639 got that swing, right, if this is what you know, 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:30.600 there's gotta be this that, there's gotta be that element 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.639 that just really stands out right, it makes it stick. Um. 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:37.280 And I think that probably seems like a no brainer 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:40.200 on the surface, right, Memorable stories are going to resonate 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:42.800 and survive. I can't help but think of the modern 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:45.280 elevator pitch idea and all of this. You know, like 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:47.600 you you're in the elevator, You've got you got two 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:49.920 sentences sell me on your script. You gotta you gotta 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:51.760