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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey are you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb and on Joe McCormick,

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Speaker 1: and we're back with part four of our series on horror.

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Speaker 1: Vacui or fear of the void or fear of the vacuum,

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Speaker 1: a concept that has relevance in art and design, where

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Speaker 1: it describes an impulse to fill in blank or uniform

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Speaker 1: spaces with detail, as well as relevance in philosophy and

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Speaker 1: in physics, where it's been used to describe the longstanding belief,

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Speaker 1: often derived from Aristotle, that a vacuum or a void

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Speaker 1: could not exist in nature, and that empty space was

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Speaker 1: in fact an incoherent concept. So in the previous episode

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Speaker 1: of this one, we talked about how this view in

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Speaker 1: physics persisted through the Middle Ages and part of the

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Speaker 1: early Modern period in Europe, and important experiments by figures

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Speaker 1: like Evangelista Torcelli, the man with the batman symbol for

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Speaker 1: a mustache, or rob I think, as you pointed out

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Speaker 1: at the sort of the crucifix goatee h as sort

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Speaker 1: of the crucifix Van Dyke, Yeah, yeah, him and uh

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Speaker 1: and Blaze. Pascal, of course, established that an approximate vacuum

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Speaker 1: could actually be created inside a glass tube, and that

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Speaker 1: the force truly responsible for preventing a void from forming

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Speaker 1: in most cases, such as in the case of like

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Speaker 1: a pump or a siphon, was not nature's mysterious hatred

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Speaker 1: for vacuums, but in fact the weight of the air

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Speaker 1: we breathe, known today as atmospheric pressure. But something we

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Speaker 1: alluded to in the previous episode is also the fact

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Speaker 1: that while the laws of nature don't exactly rule out

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Speaker 1: a vacuum in the way that Aristotle and the Scholastics thought,

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Speaker 1: there is also some nuance to the issue, because you

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Speaker 1: can create an approximate vacuum, but it's really hard or

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Speaker 1: perhaps impossible to create a perfect vacuum, depending on how

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Speaker 1: you define your goals. When we talk about a vacuum

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Speaker 1: in like real world examples, instead of you know, ideal

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Speaker 1: thought experiments, we are never talking about completely empty spaces

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Speaker 1: with no particles whatsoever. Instead, we're usually talking about an

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Speaker 1: area where the density of gas particles is very low,

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Speaker 1: or the inside of a container where the density of

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Speaker 1: gas particles is much lower than the density of particles

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Speaker 1: on the outside, and the latter type of vacuum, where

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Speaker 1: a container that has a lower density of gas particles

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Speaker 1: than the world outside is is common throughout the world

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Speaker 1: of technology and electrical appliances and scientific equipment, especially of

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Speaker 1: years past, but still somewhat today. A couple of classic

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Speaker 1: examples incandescent light bulbs. They make light by running current

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Speaker 1: through a filament. It gets so hot that it starts

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Speaker 1: to emit photons starts to glow. But these bulbs are

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Speaker 1: not full of air at regular atmospheric pressure, and if

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Speaker 1: they were, that would be a problem. The filament would

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Speaker 1: tend to fail very quickly. That's not good for incandescent bulbs,

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Speaker 1: so instead they are typically either filled with an inert

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Speaker 1: gas like argon or nitrogen, or they are pumped out

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Speaker 1: to contain a vacuum. The earliest light bulbs were vacuum

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Speaker 1: based rather than inert gas based. Another component used in electronics,

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Speaker 1: one that will be very familiar to electric guitar players,

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Speaker 1: as vacuum tubes, which were once commonly used to manipulate

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Speaker 1: current to amplify and rectify electrical signals. They've been replaced

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Speaker 1: with silicon transistors in most modern devices, but they still

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Speaker 1: have their uses. And by the way, if you want

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Speaker 1: to see something really weird and awesome, look up pictures

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Speaker 1: of vacuum tube based computers. Before transistors took over to

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Speaker 1: become the logic circuitry inside computers. I guess that happened

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Speaker 1: roughly around the sixties or so. But before that, the

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Speaker 1: information processing in computers was done on large arrays of

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Speaker 1: vacuum tubes. And I'm very tempted to say like that,

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Speaker 1: I wish to see a certain kind of computer snobbery

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Speaker 1: arise where they're like gamers who are like, oh, you

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Speaker 1: play on transistors, I've got a vacuum tube rig. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Some of the images that come up from me they

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Speaker 1: look very uh, there's a mad science quality to these.

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Speaker 1: They look like there's some sort of strange experiment containing uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, contained gases or something. Yeah, it does look

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Speaker 1: like that because they look like almost like kind of

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Speaker 1: like pills in a blister pack, you know, the little

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Speaker 1: blisters popping out. But they're they're not containing special gases.

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Speaker 1: They are containing lower density of gases. What that what

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Speaker 1: those tubes contain is relatively nothing compared to the atmosphere. Uh. Now,

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Speaker 1: one place tubes are still popular in electrical devices today

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Speaker 1: is in guitar amplifiers, where a lot of players prefer

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Speaker 1: the feeling of playing with tubes as opposed to solid

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Speaker 1: state amps. Rob, I don't know if you've ever come

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Speaker 1: across this debate, you know, sometimes I think people look

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Speaker 1: on the tube preference as a kind of snobbery. Personally,

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Speaker 1: I can see both sides, Like, I think solid state

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Speaker 1: amps sound great, but tubes are. They're cool? Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: not being a guitar player myself, I rarely get any

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Speaker 1: of these conversations, and I rarely hear any of this.

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Speaker 1: So is this something where I know a lot of

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Speaker 1: a lot of conversations for regarding like retro technology and

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Speaker 1: music and recording and production. It actually does come through

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Speaker 1: to the final product. It actually is something that affects

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Speaker 1: the final sound of the music. Is that the case here?

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Speaker 1: People argue about this, I mean the people argue about

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Speaker 1: to what extent you can hear the difference in something

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Speaker 1: that comes out of a tube amp versus a a

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Speaker 1: good modern attempt to approximate that with transistors. I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to try to weigh in on one side of

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Speaker 1: the bait here. Uh. Basically, my experience is that. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Solid state amps sound fine, they sound great, but there's

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Speaker 1: also just something kind of cool about tubes. They might

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Speaker 1: kind of feel differently when you're playing a guitar through one,

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Speaker 1: especially if you're in the room with it, as opposed

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Speaker 1: to listening to a recording. I'm not sure. Yeah, listeners,

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Speaker 1: let us know. Do you think tubes are tubular or

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Speaker 1: do you think solid state is solid? I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I will weigh in and say I think it's a

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Speaker 1: stupid thing to like get mad at people or criticize

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Speaker 1: people about one way or another. Calm down, guys, fair enough,

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Speaker 1: But coming back to the bigger point. In cases like

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Speaker 1: the vacuum lightbulb or the vacuum tube for current amplification, Uh,

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Speaker 1: the area inside the glass and these devices is again

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Speaker 1: not a perfect vacuum. There are particles of atmosphere in there,

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Speaker 1: they're just way fewer of them than in an equivalent

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Speaker 1: area outside. And there are actually designations for the different

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Speaker 1: levels of vacuum that are achieved through technological means. You know,

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Speaker 1: you can have like a medium vacuum, a high vacuum,

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Speaker 1: and ultra high vacuum uh and uh and and so

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Speaker 1: so that's what's possible on Earth. But then you might

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Speaker 1: be wondering in response to that, Wait a minute, though,

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Speaker 1: isn't outer space at least a vacuum? Isn't isn't the

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Speaker 1: space between the planets or the space between the stars

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Speaker 1: at least a vacuum. Again, the answer here is yes

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Speaker 1: and no. It depends on what you mean. Space is

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Speaker 1: a vacuum when compared to Earth's atmosphere, and it is

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Speaker 1: even lower density than most partial vacuums created by humans.

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Speaker 1: I was trying to find a good estimate for the

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Speaker 1: density of outer space, and I came across a couple

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Speaker 1: of things in that book I was talking about. In

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Speaker 1: the last episode called the Void by the by the

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Speaker 1: physicist Frank close Uh, he writes about well, he's writing

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Speaker 1: about the reasoning that led people to assume that outer

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Speaker 1: space was a vacuum. When scientists such as place Pascal

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Speaker 1: started to know, notice that the atmospheric pressure was different

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Speaker 1: at different altitude. So you go up on a mountain,

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Speaker 1: the atmospheric pressure is lower. That does tend to suggest

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Speaker 1: that if you go higher and higher, the density of

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Speaker 1: particles just keeps getting lower and lower, and you would

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Speaker 1: eventually reach an altitude at which there was effectively no

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Speaker 1: nowhere to breathe anymore, There was no atmosphere anymore, which

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Speaker 1: some people found maybe kind of like threatening in principle

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Speaker 1: or maybe threatening to their theological ideas of how the

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Speaker 1: universe was put together. Nevertheless, you could show it was true.

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Speaker 1: As you go higher and higher, the density gets lower,

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Speaker 1: so close rights quote, at a height of a hundred kilometers,

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Speaker 1: the pressure is less than a billion of that on

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Speaker 1: the ground, at four hundred kilometers a million million, and

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Speaker 1: en route to the Moon in space it is down

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Speaker 1: by ten to the nineteen, an amount that is less

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Speaker 1: than the size of a proton compared to a kilometer.

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Speaker 1: We can thus say that essentially all of the atmosphere

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Speaker 1: is a thin shell whose thickness is less than one

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Speaker 1: thousand of the Earth's radius. Wow. I I don't doubt

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Speaker 1: that's true. But that's the kind of thing that I

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Speaker 1: don't even I don't usually picture it that way. I

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Speaker 1: you know, I picture the atmosphere is extending much higher

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Speaker 1: up off the surface of the Earth. Yeah. And you know,

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Speaker 1: for for for me, this like the reality of of

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Speaker 1: the thinning of the air. Uh. At the higher altitude

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Speaker 1: you get to. This was always kind of spelled out

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Speaker 1: for me by looking at something like the Lockheed you

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Speaker 1: to the spy aircraft that have these just a super

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Speaker 1: long um super a wide wingspan than enabled it one

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Speaker 1: of several design functions, but the most obvious one that

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Speaker 1: enabled it to uh to to to to fly at

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Speaker 1: such high altitudes where there is just there's just less air. Yes,

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Speaker 1: the air is thinner, it's harder and harder to generate lift,

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Speaker 1: but okay, that's how much thinner the atmosphere gets as

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Speaker 1: you extend up off of the surface of the Earth.

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Speaker 1: What out when you go even beyond that? Well, I

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Speaker 1: came across some sort of quick and dirty estimates by

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Speaker 1: a radio astronomer named Alistair Gunn doing a short Q

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Speaker 1: and A for the BBC, And note that the following

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Speaker 1: are approximate. But what gun says is that roughly within

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Speaker 1: the Solar system uh space between the planets contains an

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Speaker 1: average of about five atoms per cubic centimeter. So that's

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Speaker 1: very low density, but there still is gas out there,

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Speaker 1: it's just extremely dispersed in interstellar space, the space between

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Speaker 1: Solar systems in our galaxy, so like where you know

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Speaker 1: where the voyager probes are eventually headed to or where

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Speaker 1: Mumua came from. That interstellar space has about one atom

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Speaker 1: per cubic centimeter according to gun here, and then in

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Speaker 1: intergalactic space, the space between galaxies, uh, the density is

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Speaker 1: about a hundred times less than that. It gets pretty

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Speaker 1: lonely out there, right, But still there are not no particles.

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Speaker 1: They just get farther and farther apart on average. So

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Speaker 1: the reason space is so empty is of course gravity.

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Speaker 1: Objects with mass attract one another, so mass tends to

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Speaker 1: clump together over time, creating this varied terrain of cosmic density,

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Speaker 1: with very high density say in the middle of a star,

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Speaker 1: and still still lower density around that star and around

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Speaker 1: the planets around that star, and then lower density in

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Speaker 1: between the stars, and then lower density in between the

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Speaker 1: galaxies and so forth. But it wasn't always this way.

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Speaker 1: In the early history of the universe, matter was dispersed

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Speaker 1: far more evenly, and you could think of the early

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Speaker 1: universe in a way as a kind of well in

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Speaker 1: a in a strange way, almost kind of like an ocean.

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Speaker 1: I guess it wasn't liquid, but like an ocean or

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Speaker 1: a cloud or something where uh, there were there were

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Speaker 1: more uniform distributions. But then as space expanded that more

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Speaker 1: varied terrain that we know today influenced by gravity emerged. Yea,

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Speaker 1: So we had the accretion of these various cosmic bodies

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Speaker 1: of different sizes, and then the resulting sort of shrinkage

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Speaker 1: between these accretions. So in a weird way, you could

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Speaker 1: argue that Aristotle is kind of technically vindicated in that

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Speaker 1: there probably are no large scale, long term areas of

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Speaker 1: perfectly empty space in the universe. But I think that

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Speaker 1: in the normal way of understanding Aristotle, he was wrong.

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Speaker 1: You can create a volume of functional vacuum, but it's

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Speaker 1: not a perfect vacuum. Yeah, and it sounds like you

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Speaker 1: can also do a fair amount of arguing over the

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Speaker 1: size of said vacuum. Yeah. This was making me wonder, like,

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Speaker 1: what what is the average density of the universe overall? Um?

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Speaker 1: And so I was looking around at that I did

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Speaker 1: find a NASA page on this. This is according to

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Speaker 1: research I think carried out by the by w MAP,

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Speaker 1: by the Wilkinson Microwave and Isotropy probe that was looking

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Speaker 1: at fluctuation in the cosmic microwave background. And in uh

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Speaker 1: in a write up on that research by NASA that

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Speaker 1: they say, quote w Map determined that the universe is flat,

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Speaker 1: from which he follows that the mean energy density in

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Speaker 1: the universe is equal to the critical density within a

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Speaker 1: zero point five percent margin of error. This is equivalent

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Speaker 1: to a mass density of because as an aside, ultimately

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Speaker 1: mass and energy can be exchanged for one another. They

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Speaker 1: are with you know, mass is just a huge amount

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Speaker 1: of energy um. Coming back to the quote, this is

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Speaker 1: equivalent to a mass density of nine point nine times

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Speaker 1: tend to the negative thirty grams per cubic centimeter. But

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Speaker 1: the density of normal matter is not even that high

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Speaker 1: because most of the energy density in the universe is

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Speaker 1: not normal matter. It's dark matter or dark energy. So

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Speaker 1: maybe normal it is not even the right word, because

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Speaker 1: the kind of matter we're talking about that we're familiar

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Speaker 1: with is the minority of stuff. Less than five percent

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Speaker 1: of the stuff in the universe is actually made of atoms.

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Speaker 1: So the the the quote actual energy density of atoms

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Speaker 1: is equivalent to roughly one proton per four cubic meters.

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Speaker 1: So you can imagine kind of a like a large

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Speaker 1: palette box and that's like one proton in there, and

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Speaker 1: that's the the average density of the universe. Yes, so

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Speaker 1: if we were to like redistribute it, that's how it

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Speaker 1: would play out. I think we should redistribute it get

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Speaker 1: a fresh start on this thing. Now. These numbers are admittedly, um,

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe a little bit challenging to sort of picture

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Speaker 1: in your head all the time. But I do like

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Speaker 1: that we're dealing with with with hard numbers. Here, we're

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Speaker 1: doing with dealing with objective numbers related to the vacuum

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Speaker 1: and the void. Uh, something we don't always have in

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Speaker 1: this particular journey. Uh. Sometimes we're dealing with very very

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Speaker 1: subjective qualities. Oh, you mean, like Aristotle's argument that you

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Speaker 1: couldn't have empty space because if it not be by

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Speaker 1: d it could not exist. Yeah, or certainly getting into

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Speaker 1: some of the philosophical uh ends of the spectrum where

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Speaker 1: we're dealing with what's the difference between uh, emptiness and nothingness,

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Speaker 1: what's the difference between eternity and nothing? Um, it can

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Speaker 1: it can get a little lucy goosey, well, the difference

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Speaker 1: between I'm gonna defend exploring the difference between emptiness and nothingness.

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Speaker 1: I think that is an interesting distinction, but one that

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure science has has all the answers on. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean a lot of it does come down to

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Speaker 1: the subjective experience. I was talking with my wife before

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Speaker 1: I came in here, and she brought up the example

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Speaker 1: of isolation tanks. Isolation tanks being a situation where on

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Speaker 1: one level, you have certainly limited your space. You are

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Speaker 1: isolated or within a tank. You're floating within a tank, uh,

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Speaker 1: and therefore you're cutting off how much of like the

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Speaker 1: the outside world you are in. But then there's also

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Speaker 1: something to the experience UH that is boundary breaking. You know,

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Speaker 1: floating in this salt um bath that is the same

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Speaker 1: temperature as your body uh serves to sort of break

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Speaker 1: down the division between where you stop and the rest

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Speaker 1: of the world begins. So, yeah, there are plenty of

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Speaker 1: cases like you don't have to have an isolation tank

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Speaker 1: to engage in that kind of uh boundary dispute. You know.

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Speaker 1: I think it's interesting that people often seek uh, maybe

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Speaker 1: not isolation tanks exactly, but isolation from stimuli specifically in

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Speaker 1: order to be creative. Is and that kind of strange

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Speaker 1: that almost implies that they think a principle of psychological

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Speaker 1: horror vakay is going to come into effect, right that

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Speaker 1: if you rob yourself of the normal overwhelming stimuli of

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Speaker 1: everyday existence, you will get your like you will team

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Speaker 1: with ideas. Yeah, but it is one of these things

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Speaker 1: too where it's like a lot of times you're just

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Speaker 1: you're just changing out one high stimuli environment for another. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And maybe it's just a new one, a novel. And

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Speaker 1: like when you go to the beach and you walk

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Speaker 1: on the beach, Yeah, it's a different experience than being

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Speaker 1: you know, stuck in a city or in a library

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Speaker 1: or in your own house. But I mean that there's

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Speaker 1: a lot going on at the beach. You know, there's

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Speaker 1: crashing waves and expanses of sand and birds and all

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Speaker 1: sorts of little shells to look at. Likewise, of course,

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Speaker 1: so I'll walk through the woods. Is just I mean,

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Speaker 1: we've we've talked about this before on the podcast, Like

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Speaker 1: your your senses are are able to fully engage in

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Speaker 1: the environment for which they have evolved, uh, taking in

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Speaker 1: all these details and in changing details in the world

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Speaker 1: around you. Oh yeah, that does relate to these theories

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Speaker 1: about how nature tends to engage our attention in a

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Speaker 1: different way than than built environments do. And that essentially

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Speaker 1: that it uh, I've forgotten all the details of exactly

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Speaker 1: what that theory is, but that it UH that nature

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Speaker 1: can basically be absorbing to the attention but essentially not

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Speaker 1: stress inducing. I think, yeah. And of course this is

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Speaker 1: not even getting into social isolation cutting yourself off from

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Speaker 1: UM wanted and unwanted UH social connections. UH. Certainly there's

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Speaker 1: a lot to be said for cutting yourself off from

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Speaker 1: the UH connection to one smart device and the internet

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Speaker 1: and so forth. Thank thank Finally, before we move on

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Speaker 1: from this, I was wondering, like, what are the superlatives

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Speaker 1: in terms of vacuums created by humans in the laboratory

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Speaker 1: or or with the aid of technology. What's the lowest

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Speaker 1: pressure humans can achieve. I'm not sure what the answer

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Speaker 1: is in terms of the lowest pressure overall, but I

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Speaker 1: definitely came across the contender and it is certainly one

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Speaker 1: of the most impressive artificial vacuum systems ever created by humans,

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Speaker 1: if not the lowest pressure. And it's actually the large

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Speaker 1: Head round collider at the way it's largest particle accelerator,

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Speaker 1: which is operated by the by the Ropean Organization for

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Speaker 1: Nuclear Research or CERN. I believe it is still the

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Speaker 1: largest vacuum system in operation in the world. It was

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Speaker 1: certainly at the time it was put together, and I

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Speaker 1: can't think of what would be larger than it. But

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Speaker 1: it has more than a hundred kilometers of piping held

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Speaker 1: in a state of vacuum for various purposes. There has

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Speaker 1: to be ultra high vacuum piping for the actual particle

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Speaker 1: beams to travel through so that like the accelerated particles

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Speaker 1: don't collide with gas molecules and ruin the experiments. And

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure what would happen if they did collide.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it could be worse than ruining experiments. Certainly wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be good. You don't want it. But there are also

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Speaker 1: advanced vacuum systems used to like insulate other elements of

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Speaker 1: the collider, such as the magnets or the helium distribution line.

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Speaker 1: So a lot a lot of evacuated space going on

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Speaker 1: at at the LHC facility, and it's at extremely low density.

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Speaker 1: They compare various vacuums that they create to the density

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Speaker 1: of interstellar space. So that is horror vakay in in physics.

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Speaker 1: But one thing I've been wanting to come back to

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Speaker 1: is the fear of emptiness or the fear of empty

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Speaker 1: spaces as as an actual literal fear that humans feel,

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Speaker 1: the kind of uneasiness that one experiences in a depopulated space. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this topic of chinophobia, um, and some and some other

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Speaker 1: related terms. I figured a good place to start on

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Speaker 1: all of this might be to return to cinema. We

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Speaker 1: talked a little bit about cinema earlier in this journey,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, we talked about the ninety seven Dario

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Speaker 1: Argento horror classic Suspiria, and there's a there's a scene

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Speaker 1: in that film that instantly came to mind when I

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Speaker 1: was thinking about this fear, this horror associated with depopulated spaces.

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Speaker 1: Like you're saying, uh, and if you've seen Suspiria the original, um,

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Speaker 1: although I really like the remake as well, and I

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Speaker 1: don't think they recreated this scene in the remake, but

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Speaker 1: I could be wrong. Uh. This scene involves a blind

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Speaker 1: man walking through an open, unoccupied city plaza at night.

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Speaker 1: There are no other human beings in sight. The environment

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Speaker 1: is is pretty well illuminated, though there's still some deep

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Speaker 1: pockets of shadow. There's a growing sense of threat and terror,

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Speaker 1: and eventually, and I think we get some very wide

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Speaker 1: shots here too, to really take in all that space.

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Speaker 1: And then as the tension builds, the dog begins to

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Speaker 1: bark and in a in a nasty twist, because again

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Speaker 1: this is a gilt film and they they're off a

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Speaker 1: nasty uh. The dog turns on the blind man and

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Speaker 1: kills him. But the way the scene builds up to

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Speaker 1: that moment takes just full advantage of this very open space. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This there this feeling that there's just something wrong in

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Speaker 1: the openness of all of this, that there's just just

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Speaker 1: this one individual and his dog out here, and something

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Speaker 1: terrible is about to happen. I think this scene is

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Speaker 1: a fantastic example, especially because of how different it is

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Speaker 1: than than more of uh, most of Suspiria and most

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Speaker 1: of other h you know, Italian horror films or Jealo films,

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Speaker 1: which we noted in the first episode in the series

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Speaker 1: are uh. They are often recognized for being especially visually busy.

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Speaker 1: You know, they have that artistic sense of horror vakoy

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Speaker 1: as in you you sense a desire to fill in

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Speaker 1: all emptier uniform spaces with detail and richness and stuff.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're full of patterns and so I think

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Speaker 1: the scene of you know, the man who is unfortunately

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Speaker 1: cursed by the witches and then this this attack happens

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Speaker 1: on him. It gets especially scary because it's so unlike

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Speaker 1: the rest of the movie, having all this emptiness and

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Speaker 1: blank space in the night. But I was thinking about

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Speaker 1: this and about how the horror genre in particular tends

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Speaker 1: to favor blank, vacant, empty locations in multiple ways. Uh So,

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Speaker 1: one way is that they tend to favor settings that

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Speaker 1: are like literally emptied in the narrative sense. They are

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Speaker 1: literally emptied of human activity or neglected by humans in

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Speaker 1: some way. So think of how much horror loves like

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Speaker 1: abandoned or empty buildings and settlements. Maybe the first idea

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Speaker 1: that comes to my mind is Dracula's Castle, which is

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Speaker 1: interesting because it is a castle that has no servants

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Speaker 1: bustling about, no courtiers, uh just empty halls and chambers,

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Speaker 1: and then the solitary figure of Dracula himself as the host.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like a like a Wear's waldo, except

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Speaker 1: there's just one guy there on the page and he

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Speaker 1: and he's really staring at your neck. Oh man, that

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Speaker 1: would be a great twist center where's wild a book

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Speaker 1: Where's Dracula, And each each page is a massive level

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Speaker 1: of Dracula's castle and there's just Dracula. There's nothing there.

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Speaker 1: It's just hum There are no other Waldos. By the way,

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Speaker 1: this reminds me of one of my favorite scenes in

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Speaker 1: the movie Shadow of the Vampire from the year two thousand,

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Speaker 1: which stars It's a sort of a horror comedy about

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Speaker 1: the making of the movie nos Ferrato, but it says

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Speaker 1: that Max Shrek, the actor who plays nos Ferrato in

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Speaker 1: the movie played by Willem Dafoe in this movie, was

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Speaker 1: actually a vampire. That is what it assumes, and uh,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of a great premise. And there's a moment

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Speaker 1: where they ask, uh, the character who is in this

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Speaker 1: telling a real vampire if he read the novel Dracula.

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Speaker 1: He says yes. He says the novel made him sad,

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Speaker 1: and they said why and he says, because Dracula had

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Speaker 1: no servants. I forgot about that part. That's good, but

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Speaker 1: it is kind of sad, isn't it. Like the when

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Speaker 1: when Harker in the novel realizes that like it was

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Speaker 1: the count himself who had to set out the meal

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Speaker 1: for him, and so forth, there's something kind of uh

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Speaker 1: not like not like I want vampires to have servants,

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Speaker 1: but I don't know, there's something kind of lonely and

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Speaker 1: uneasy about it. And I think it has a lot

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Speaker 1: to do with the fact that it's in a castle.

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Speaker 1: It's in this big space meant to be occupied by

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Speaker 1: many people, but he's the only one there. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I guess later we find out are some other you know,

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Speaker 1: ghoul type creatures, but at first it's just empty except

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Speaker 1: for him. But think of other movies with just abandoned locations,

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Speaker 1: ghost towns, abandoned settlements, you know, empty empty streets and

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Speaker 1: other places at night and so forth. Uh, Rob, I'm

431
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:16,679
Speaker 1: not sure if you've noticed the same thing, but it

432
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:21,880
Speaker 1: strikes me that horror movies, especially favor locations that are

433
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:24,640
Speaker 1: not just empty as a matter of course, like you'd

434
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 1: expect them to be empty, but locations that are empty

435
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:32,880
Speaker 1: in contrast to how we usually see them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

436
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: This has often played a great effect and various ghost

437
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: towns and your westerns and of course depopulated cities like

438
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:44,040
Speaker 1: It's it's not enough to just replace the you know,

439
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 1: you get into like post apocalyptic scenarios where it's like

440
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:50,840
Speaker 1: destroyed cities and bodies and so forth. And yes, zombies, um,

441
00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:54,199
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean you're necessarily going for this, uh

442
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:58,400
Speaker 1: this total feeling of emptiness. Uh, this this sense that

443
00:25:58,400 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: that all the activity in presence of the was there

444
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: previously is just gone. But one example that does come

445
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:05,680
Speaker 1: to nine, and this is a zombie film, but twenty

446
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:08,400
Speaker 1: eight days later, of course, that's all those wonderful shots

447
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 1: of what depopulated London and our our our character walking

448
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:16,160
Speaker 1: around there and sort of experiencing just the overwhelming emptiness

449
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: of the city. I think that's a great example. It's

450
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: incredibly unnerving that opening. Uh So you could contrast that

451
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:25,920
Speaker 1: with like say a movie with scenes in a desert

452
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:29,760
Speaker 1: or a forest wilderness, which might be empty of human activity,

453
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: but we would expect them to be empty of human activity.

454
00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:34,600
Speaker 1: And in cases where movies focus on that, in the

455
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: horror genre, at least, the horror usually comes from when

456
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: you find something or someone, or suspect the presence of

457
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:46,400
Speaker 1: something or someone that you wouldn't usually expect to encounter there. Instead,

458
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 1: locations that I think of his most common to horror

459
00:26:49,520 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 1: movies are like empty versions of places you would usually

460
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 1: expect to be full. So not just cities like at

461
00:26:55,600 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 1: the beginning of twenty days Later, but I think of

462
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 1: empty hospitals at the night shift, empty churches and cathedrals,

463
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: whereas the congregation, empty school buildings after hours, empty empty castles.

464
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: Like I said at the beginning, you know what happened

465
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:11,680
Speaker 1: to the crew of the event horizon? Why is this

466
00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:15,880
Speaker 1: spaceship empty? Uh So, I think empty locations like this

467
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 1: lend themselves well to horror for multiple reasons. One is

468
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:23,240
Speaker 1: a kind of just like literal understanding of danger in

469
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:26,439
Speaker 1: the world. Like you know, there's an uneasiness that comes

470
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:29,400
Speaker 1: from a location being empty, because it sort of means

471
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:31,919
Speaker 1: like you're on your own against whatever might threaten you.

472
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:34,119
Speaker 1: But if for the location is full of people, you

473
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:36,400
Speaker 1: might be able to get help from the werewolf if

474
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:38,640
Speaker 1: it's going to come at you, like people usually feel

475
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:41,919
Speaker 1: safer in numbers for totally good and logical reasons. You

476
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:44,120
Speaker 1: know two examples that come to mind. They're very related

477
00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:46,919
Speaker 1: because they both involved the same sort of location. I

478
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 1: think both of these examples kind of maybe you know,

479
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 1: bend this line a little bit and and and blurred

480
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 1: the distinction between uh emptiness being invigorating and empowering and

481
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: it being terrifying. They both take place in shopping malls,

482
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:05,240
Speaker 1: and of course thinking about Donna the Dead from George

483
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:08,680
Speaker 1: Romero and Shopping Mall both films in which our characters

484
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:14,200
Speaker 1: find themselves in a depopulated mall shopping mall environment and uh,

485
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:15,960
Speaker 1: and eventually they're gonna have to deal with of course

486
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 1: zombies in one film, and well and also um like

487
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 1: evil bikers in one film, but then in the other

488
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 1: film they're gonna have to deal with killer robots. And

489
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:25,399
Speaker 1: in both of these there's kind of like this um,

490
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:29,399
Speaker 1: I don't know, this kind of I guess capitalist rebellion

491
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 1: um energy to them where it's like this this this

492
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:37,720
Speaker 1: place that contained me through commerce and also just the

493
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: social environment of the mall. Now those constraints are not there,

494
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 1: and I can just go into any any store in

495
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: the mall and steal things. And then but then on

496
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 1: the other hand, yes, it's like all the things that

497
00:28:48,480 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: made this a normal place, that made this a you know,

498
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: cathedral of of American culture during the nineteen eighties or

499
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: what have you. Uh, that's gone as well. There's something

500
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: unholy about the environment that's great observation. Yeah, about the

501
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 1: malls in these movies, it's like the the fact that

502
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 1: we see them with all of the people taken out

503
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 1: of them, not shopping anymore, just automatically invites questions, kind

504
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 1: of critical questions about what this place was for in

505
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 1: the first place and what it meant. And of course, yeah,

506
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: it invites that uneasy feeling, and I think that goes

507
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 1: to the next thing. So there was the thing I

508
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: already said about empty locations are in a very literal sense,

509
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 1: they're scarier just because like their safety and numbers. But

510
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,240
Speaker 1: but empty locations and abandoned the locations I think are

511
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: also good fodder for horror on a conceptual level because

512
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 1: in some cases they invite you to wonder why the

513
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 1: place is empty, like what happened here? Where did the

514
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 1: people go? Or as you just said, they invite you

515
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: to sort of look upon the purpose of the place

516
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 1: with a newly critical eye, like when when people are

517
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:55,959
Speaker 1: not doing the things they're normally doing in this place,

518
00:29:56,440 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 1: what is this place actually for? Yeah, we just go

519
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:02,479
Speaker 1: some of that in our and you alluded to this

520
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:04,640
Speaker 1: a little bit already, But the episodes that we did

521
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:10,080
Speaker 1: about Christmas ghost stories from Northern Europe to deal with

522
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 1: this whole question like what is a church if it

523
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 1: is midnight and no one is there, Like is it

524
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: still a church? And if it is still a church,

525
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: what what does that mean? Is it still sacred or

526
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 1: just the sacredness come from the uh, you know, the

527
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:24,480
Speaker 1: congregation and the acts they do inside it. And so

528
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 1: could the same building the church be used for unholy rites?

529
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 1: Thank thank, thank, But finally, I think there are also

530
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 1: conceptual suggestions, like a place that is empty in contrast

531
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 1: to the expectation that it should be full, like all

532
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 1: of these depopulated places we've been talking about that has

533
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,320
Speaker 1: long been associated with death, right like you would think

534
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 1: under normal old ideas like humans have left this formerly

535
00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 1: inhabited place, like a like a soul leaving a body.

536
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 1: But in addition to all these more literal concerns, I

537
00:31:03,880 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: think horror films in particular, but other genres as well,

538
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:12,719
Speaker 1: often use blank space also known as negative space, in

539
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 1: the frame of of the film as a visual marker

540
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 1: to create uneasiness. So this is less literal about like

541
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 1: what is threatening the characters, and more just kind of

542
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: the feelings that we get from how a movie looks

543
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of this is a natural

544
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:32,680
Speaker 1: psychological expectation that humans have and how much is just

545
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 1: sort of a like a learned convention and emergent convention

546
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:40,760
Speaker 1: of filmmaking that we have all learned implicitly from watching movies.

547
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:43,920
Speaker 1: But I think the baseline fact is that when we

548
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 1: see negative space in a movie, we somewhat expect it

549
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 1: to become filled. There's empty space on the screen. We

550
00:31:50,920 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: expect something to come to occupy that space, and of course,

551
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 1: once you have expectation, you have the ability to create tension,

552
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 1: and by denying the fulfillment of that expectation, like you know,

553
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 1: like a character peers out into the darkness and it's

554
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:08,640
Speaker 1: uniform darkness, not not filled in with detail, there's no detail,

555
00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:11,239
Speaker 1: or they look into an empty room with nothing in it,

556
00:32:11,360 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 1: or some other negative space. We expect something to happen,

557
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 1: something to fill that space, sort to come into view,

558
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 1: and if it doesn't, that is unresolved tension and uneasiness

559
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: and the sort of the prime example, like one of

560
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: the core feelings that is evoked by weird fiction and cinema. Yeah, yeah,

561
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 1: And I think a great recent example of all this

562
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 1: would be Jordan Peel's Note that came out just last year.

563
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do any spoilers for it, because I

564
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 1: don't think you've seen it yet, have you. I still haven't, no,

565
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:43,080
Speaker 1: and I know a lot of listeners haven't, So I'm

566
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 1: not gonna spoil it. But I will say that there

567
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:49,080
Speaker 1: are a lot of shots that established the sky as

568
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 1: the domain of some manner of inhuman threat and uh.

569
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 1: And then below beneath the sky you have the this

570
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 1: wonderful California desert setting as well, so it's very geographically open.

571
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: But then you have this open sky, you also have

572
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 1: some some wonderful clouds at play, both during the daytime

573
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 1: sequences in the nighttime sequences. But still it does this

574
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:12,720
Speaker 1: fabulous job of establishing um a cloudy or even open

575
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 1: skies being possibly a threat. And I found when I

576
00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 1: watched it in the theater when I left the theater,

577
00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:21,880
Speaker 1: when I left the dark theater and went out into

578
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 1: the day, because it was Mattenee that I attended, Uh, instantly,

579
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:28,600
Speaker 1: I kind of felt in danger. I kind of felt

580
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:32,520
Speaker 1: some of the danger from the film still, like residually

581
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: coursing through my body to where I was like, let's

582
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:36,200
Speaker 1: go ahead, and get to the car. I don't want to.

583
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: I don't feel great walking across this this wide open

584
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:44,320
Speaker 1: parking lot beneath this uh this scary sky. Oh boy. Well,

585
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:47,440
Speaker 1: I will admit that when I come out of a mattenee,

586
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 1: I often feel uneasy. Uh, No matter what the movie was,

587
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 1: there's just something weird about coming out of a dark

588
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 1: ended movie theater and it's still light outside. Yeah, it's

589
00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 1: like other worlds, It's what's what's going on? Yeah, it

590
00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: kind of reminds me of that feeling like when you

591
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: take too long of a nap in the middle of

592
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:09,520
Speaker 1: the day. It's like, yeah, it's disorienting. You've you've been

593
00:34:09,560 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 1: in a cave watching a cinema, and then then you

594
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 1: go out into the real world. Now, in thinking about

595
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:19,640
Speaker 1: how Note made me temporarily feel about open skies, I

596
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:22,560
Speaker 1: did find it interesting to come across various mentions of

597
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 1: a supposed phobia online dubbed cassadastrophobia, which is described as

598
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 1: a fear of essentially falling up into the sky. M Now,

599
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:37,800
Speaker 1: I I couldn't find any academic discussion of this alleged phobia,

600
00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 1: and I'm not doubting anyone's experiences around it because for starters,

601
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 1: there's plenty of room for anxiety and paranoia to creep

602
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:49,000
Speaker 1: up in one's experience of reality. Um. It may simply

603
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:53,320
Speaker 1: just be newly defined and understudied UM. But to whatever

604
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 1: extent it's an actual phobia, it would seem to be

605
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:59,120
Speaker 1: kind of a subset of this idea of quenophobia pronounced

606
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 1: fear of of the open You know, a feeling that

607
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:06,240
Speaker 1: this open sky might either swallow you up or somehow

608
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: gravity is going to fail and you'll float up into it.

609
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:12,880
Speaker 1: That is an interesting fear because it doesn't correspond to

610
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:16,360
Speaker 1: anything that I can think of that ever happens in reality.

611
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:21,319
Speaker 1: And it's very specific. Yeah, And it's interesting because I

612
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 1: can kind of relate to these overwhelming feelings of viewing

613
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: either a clear blue sky in the day or certainly

614
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:30,520
Speaker 1: a sprawling star escape in a rural environment where you're

615
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:34,040
Speaker 1: free of light pollution and cloud cover and everything's really expansive.

616
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 1: Um and and it. But it's also it's weird because

617
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 1: these are both This is that can be very inspiring

618
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 1: and beautiful but can maybe reach the point of being

619
00:35:45,360 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 1: overwhelming and and maybe it ends up having this effect

620
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: where you think about what would happen if I like,

621
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:53,400
Speaker 1: what if I just fell up into it? And it

622
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. Nobody's like, this is not going

623
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:57,400
Speaker 1: to happen. You have, you have a number of other

624
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 1: concerns if gravity stops working. Besides, you know where you're

625
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 1: gonna float to. But um, but yeah, I can. I

626
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:07,839
Speaker 1: can sort of look back on times in my life

627
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:09,760
Speaker 1: where I've been looking up at like a big, clear

628
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:13,360
Speaker 1: blue sky or some sort of star escape and feeling this,

629
00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:16,799
Speaker 1: especially with the blue sky. I think there are times

630
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 1: where I looked up at the star escape and I

631
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 1: was maybe a little afraid of aliens more than I

632
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 1: was afraid of just falling up into the blue Were

633
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 1: you afraid of aliens because you watched Unsolved Mysteries and

634
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 1: they had the scary Yes. As a child, I was.

635
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:32,359
Speaker 1: I was afraid of it, afraid of aliens because there

636
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:34,279
Speaker 1: was no counter narrative. I think of discusses on the

637
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 1: show before you would just encounter this said this episode

638
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 1: or episodes of Unsolved Mysteries and they're like, Yep, there

639
00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:43,879
Speaker 1: might be aliens out there. It seems like there's good

640
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 1: evidence for it. I don't know, And you know, you

641
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 1: didn't have Carl Sagan coming on afterwards and explaining all

642
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: the reasons why you shouldn't be worried. That would be hilarious.

643
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:55,400
Speaker 1: Each episode ends with like a formal debate between Robert

644
00:36:55,480 --> 00:37:01,239
Speaker 1: Stack and Carl say, um, yeah, that so. But with

645
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 1: the with the blue, It's hard to say. It's just

646
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 1: at times I felt kind of an unnerving sense when

647
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: there was like this really big blue sky. I don't know,

648
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 1: I'll get back to this, but but it also I

649
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:14,600
Speaker 1: went on a tangent here where I was reminded of

650
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 1: something that Geraldine Pinch discusses in her book Egyptian Mythology

651
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 1: about how the cloudless skies above ancient Egypt would have

652
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 1: provided ready viewing of the stars and planets, thus instilling

653
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:28,520
Speaker 1: a great interest in the movement of the heavens in

654
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:33,720
Speaker 1: Egyptian mythology. And uh this I wasn't able to find

655
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 1: a satisfying answer on this, but I mean, this definitely

656
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:39,840
Speaker 1: seems to be the case with the ancient Egyptians. But

657
00:37:40,280 --> 00:37:44,560
Speaker 1: the ancient Egyptians were not the only people to find

658
00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: the sky very interesting. They weren't the only ones to

659
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 1: have ah an advanced astronomy. I mean, you look at

660
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:52,880
Speaker 1: various examples from the ancient world, the Babylonians, the Greeks,

661
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 1: uh India, China, Persia, the Mayans. They all had robust

662
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 1: astronomical systems, and there there are disciplines that look into

663
00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 1: this sort of question, like how did the perception of

664
00:38:07,280 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 1: the sky and the understanding of the cosmos and the

665
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 1: movements of the stars. More specifically, like how did this

666
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 1: affect a given civilization and their beliefs and their views.

667
00:38:16,040 --> 00:38:20,879
Speaker 1: You have the disciplines of arco astronomy and ethno astrology,

668
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of interesting work out there concerning, say,

669
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:26,840
Speaker 1: for an example, certain architectural traditions and to what extent

670
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:30,720
Speaker 1: they were created with astronomy and astronomical data in mind.

671
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:34,279
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I see, like buildings that may or may

672
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 1: not have been intended to align with the stars in

673
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 1: a certain way. Yeah, And so what I guess I

674
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 1: was curious about was, Okay, does this mean that are

675
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:46,359
Speaker 1: you going to have certain civilizations located in regions or

676
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: with high population density and regions that had maybe more

677
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:53,320
Speaker 1: understructed views of the night sky with a lean towards

678
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 1: a more robust astronomical culture or something. Um I didn't

679
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: encounter much to really back that up. You know, there

680
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 1: there wasn't much that I was encountering that said that

681
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:08,480
Speaker 1: there's any kind of like astrophilic or astrophobic division between

682
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:10,920
Speaker 1: cultures or anything not that I could tell. If it's

683
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 1: out there and I missed it, and you know about it,

684
00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:15,359
Speaker 1: listeners right in and let me know. But more often

685
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 1: you seem to see this mix related to astronomical traditions

686
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:23,799
Speaker 1: that where a culture civilization realizes that okay, you know

687
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:26,200
Speaker 1: that the trackable movement of the sun and the stars

688
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:29,280
Speaker 1: is linked to various cycles of life, the passage of time,

689
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:34,399
Speaker 1: the seasons, navigation, and then you also have purely supernatural

690
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 1: concepts such as omens and portents and the looking to

691
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 1: the stars to try and divine the future, and and

692
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 1: looking for yet individual data data about the individual experience

693
00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: UH in the heavens, alongside broader information about UH like

694
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 1: how life works in the long term on Earth. So

695
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:58,040
Speaker 1: within a given astronomical culture, there might be a number

696
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:01,719
Speaker 1: of important but kind of mone aim considerations about the sky,

697
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:06,920
Speaker 1: alongside lofty or religious cosmological ideas and negative superstitions concerning

698
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: certain anomalies such as say, eclipses, which we've discussed in

699
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 1: the show before, as well as things that certain lunar

700
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 1: phases and and other things that might in some cases

701
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 1: might be out of the ordinary or somehow novel, but

702
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:21,799
Speaker 1: being anomalies, these would probably not be things where the

703
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 1: source of the anxiety is anything you could identify as

704
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 1: like fear of the openness of the sky, right right, Yeah,

705
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 1: it's more you read about, you know, some of these

706
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:36,840
Speaker 1: eclipse myths and all there are fear based um interpretations

707
00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: of them and and and myths involving you know, some

708
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:42,880
Speaker 1: sort of monster threatening reality and so forth. But then

709
00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:45,440
Speaker 1: on the other side, you have even though they may

710
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:48,880
Speaker 1: seem like strange anomalies out of nowhere to some observers,

711
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:52,440
Speaker 1: and perhaps it's sometimes you're still gonna have astronomy get

712
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 1: on top of that. As we discussed in those those

713
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 1: episodes we did on eclipse myths, and uh, you know,

714
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:01,080
Speaker 1: people begin to realize, okay, these things are trackable and

715
00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 1: we can tell when they will occur or we can

716
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 1: predict them. Thank thank thank Now, within the context of

717
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:20,200
Speaker 1: horror Um, this idea of fearing the sky, fearing big

718
00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: open places um, it does line up not only thematically

719
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:30,360
Speaker 1: but specifically with the twentieth century writings of HP love Draft.

720
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 1: I was looking around, and you know, I don't think

721
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:38,280
Speaker 1: I don't remember reading this story, but there's story titled

722
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 1: The Other Gods, and there's this bit in it where

723
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 1: the character who's I'm sure clearly um going mad thinking about,

724
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: you know, the some sort of monstrous reality all around him, uh,

725
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:53,440
Speaker 1: exclaims the other gods, the other gods, the gods of

726
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:55,719
Speaker 1: the outer hells that guard the feeble gods of Earth.

727
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:58,320
Speaker 1: Look away, go back, do not see, do not see

728
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:01,760
Speaker 1: the vengeance of the infinite to this is that cursed,

729
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 1: that damnable pit, merciful gods of Earth. I am falling

730
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:08,160
Speaker 1: into the sky. Ah. Yeah, Well, that kind of fear

731
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:11,400
Speaker 1: does seem to fit into the I mean, probably not

732
00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 1: just Lovecraft, but you could say the broader convention of

733
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:18,320
Speaker 1: of cosmic horror, which uh, you know, is a horror

734
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 1: that that has a lot to do not just with

735
00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 1: like specific threats to the individual characters, but a kind

736
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:29,439
Speaker 1: of terror at the idea of the insignificance of humankind

737
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 1: when compared to some kind of greater force or greater

738
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:36,239
Speaker 1: meaninglessness in the in the cosmos as a whole. And

739
00:42:36,360 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 1: one way you could really imagine that that sort of

740
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 1: absurdity or meaninglessness being highlighted is just like, I don't know,

741
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:47,480
Speaker 1: capricious violations of the laws of physics. Suddenly you fall

742
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 1: up instead of down. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a there's

743
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 1: a lot of that in the weird fiction world. Um.

744
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:57,640
Speaker 1: And a lot of this is is described as being

745
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:02,000
Speaker 1: in line with the literary philosophy of cosmicism, which is

746
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:04,320
Speaker 1: this idea that, yeah, though the universe is just teeming

747
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:08,000
Speaker 1: with alien threats, monster gods from space, but also it's

748
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:13,719
Speaker 1: related to this fear regarding humanity seemingly inconsequential place in

749
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,640
Speaker 1: a vast and alien universe. And I think this is

750
00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:18,719
Speaker 1: often you know, you often see this emerging in a

751
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 1: context of of of our increasing scientific understanding of of

752
00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:26,839
Speaker 1: who we are and what the planet is and uh,

753
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:29,560
Speaker 1: you know, and getting away from these older ideas about

754
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 1: and also religious ideas about the importance of earth, the

755
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:37,359
Speaker 1: importance of humanity. Uh, and then what are you left with? Um,

756
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 1: or at least what are you left with? And maybe

757
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 1: in your darker moments or in your your moments of doubt, right,

758
00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: I mean, it's sort of the antisocial side of the

759
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:51,239
Speaker 1: Copernican principle. Yeah, so like, yeah, I don't think the

760
00:43:51,239 --> 00:43:54,360
Speaker 1: compernic in principle, like the fact that you should not

761
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 1: assume that you are looking at the universe from a

762
00:43:56,480 --> 00:43:59,840
Speaker 1: privileged place or that you are the center of the universe. Instead,

763
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 1: should um assume you are looking at the universe from

764
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: an average place within the universe. And of course that

765
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:08,920
Speaker 1: goes along with our discovery of uh, you know, the

766
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:11,200
Speaker 1: Earth not being the center of the solar system and

767
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:14,480
Speaker 1: so forth. Uh. Yeah, I think that's just a fact

768
00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 1: of life, and that is a good way to look

769
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:19,719
Speaker 1: at the universe. One need not feel despairing about it.

770
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:23,200
Speaker 1: But if one chooses to feel despairing about that realization,

771
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:26,479
Speaker 1: you kind of end up in the cosmic horror area. Yeah.

772
00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:28,840
Speaker 1: And and in the case of love Craft in particular,

773
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:33,040
Speaker 1: and perhaps related authors as well, you're not just dealing

774
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:38,759
Speaker 1: with this fear of cosmic insignificance either. Uh. You know,

775
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 1: you also have to throw in there a healthy dose

776
00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:46,440
Speaker 1: of misanthropy, of xenophobia and so forth. So uh, put

777
00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,360
Speaker 1: that all in the stew together, and um, yeah, a

778
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:51,960
Speaker 1: lot of horror can can emerge. But also, yeah, this

779
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: this feeling that maybe nothing matters. But a lot of

780
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:58,040
Speaker 1: this I think this, this thinking about the sky and

781
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:02,399
Speaker 1: this feeling about the perhaps fears of falling into the sky,

782
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:04,719
Speaker 1: And maybe they're not like, you know, a literal fear

783
00:45:04,760 --> 00:45:06,719
Speaker 1: like oh I better hold onto the grass, but it's

784
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 1: this sort of overwhelming sense of of the vast. I

785
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:11,799
Speaker 1: think a lot of it does come back to what

786
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: we discussed earlier, this connection between UM, the infinite and

787
00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 1: the finite, between how this is of great expanse can

788
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:23,279
Speaker 1: affect us. So to one line of thinking, clear of

789
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 1: the blue sky might be relaxing and a brilliant star

790
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 1: escape inspiring, but to others this could certainly be overpowering,

791
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:34,720
Speaker 1: perhaps bringing out feelings of vulnerability and insignificance. Yes, certainly,

792
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:37,200
Speaker 1: And this comes back to UM. You know something we

793
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:39,759
Speaker 1: talked about a couple of episodes ago about like the

794
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:44,680
Speaker 1: difference in art styles that people use to h to

795
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 1: create sacred or RESTful or contemplative spaces in UH in

796
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:54,040
Speaker 1: different environments, and how it's not clear that there's always

797
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:58,239
Speaker 1: a correlation in this direction, but it's possible that you

798
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:00,920
Speaker 1: could have trends where people who spend more of their

799
00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:04,120
Speaker 1: time in a kind of like a busy environment might

800
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 1: be more inclined to have their sacred or RESTful or

801
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: contemplative spaces decorated in a minimalist way that has more blankness,

802
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:14,960
Speaker 1: more uniformity of color, and things like that, whereas people

803
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:19,799
Speaker 1: who live in uh in more pastoral environments might be

804
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:24,239
Speaker 1: more attracted to sacred, RESTful, or or contemplative spaces that

805
00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 1: are full of rich detail. And the example was Tibetan art. Yeah. Yeah,

806
00:46:29,239 --> 00:46:32,520
Speaker 1: so I think I think all that applies here as well. Again,

807
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 1: this this becomes so subjective depending on where one's head

808
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:39,720
Speaker 1: is and um, and you know what you're thinking about,

809
00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:43,280
Speaker 1: and then suddenly you encounter, say a wide open space

810
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 1: or an enclosed space, and then how does that affect

811
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:51,279
Speaker 1: how you're feeling? Now? I was looking around for other

812
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 1: other sources commenting on some of this, and I did

813
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: find a very interesting paper by Dr Francisco Matta. The

814
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:05,279
Speaker 1: papers all they a phenomenological investigation of the presence thing

815
00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 1: of space, and this was, Uh, this is an interesting paper.

816
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:12,839
Speaker 1: You can find it online, um and uh and read

817
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:14,920
Speaker 1: it for free of an interest here, But I just

818
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:16,600
Speaker 1: want to read one quote from it that kind of

819
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:20,240
Speaker 1: gets down to what we're talking about here quote. However,

820
00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:23,720
Speaker 1: this search for freedom or empowerment can be frightening whenever

821
00:47:23,800 --> 00:47:26,320
Speaker 1: one is searching for what we used to call a

822
00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:30,719
Speaker 1: horizontality and puts oneself in situations in which one may

823
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:34,880
Speaker 1: perceive larger volumes of space, one runs the risk of

824
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 1: losing sight of the limits of such a volume, in

825
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:42,279
Speaker 1: which case one will likely feel keenophobic. One may have

826
00:47:42,480 --> 00:47:45,920
Speaker 1: this fearful experience since one has no anchors of reference,

827
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: and therefore one is unable to become aware of any

828
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:53,800
Speaker 1: volume of space. For example, when out at c departing

829
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:57,400
Speaker 1: from the coastline and heading farther and farther into the ocean,

830
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:00,320
Speaker 1: one comes to be in the midst of a vast

831
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:05,600
Speaker 1: extension of limitless water. Canophobia is in fact the opposite

832
00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:09,360
Speaker 1: of being placed, the being at home that comes with

833
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:12,879
Speaker 1: top ophilia. So that's interesting. I like that explanation a lot,

834
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 1: This feeling of that you could be hit with that. Again,

835
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:19,360
Speaker 1: this is highly subjective, but you encounter this vast expands

836
00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:23,439
Speaker 1: of ocean or sky or desert, and you you loose

837
00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 1: side of the limits, and you might think, well, you know,

838
00:48:26,120 --> 00:48:27,880
Speaker 1: I have no place here, I have I have no

839
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:30,800
Speaker 1: belonging here. This is the overwhelming scope of the world

840
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:34,960
Speaker 1: kind of unhinges me from that, like that spatial sense

841
00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:38,399
Speaker 1: of belonging. Alright, looks like we've gone the limit here.

842
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:41,200
Speaker 1: We're we're late for the sky, so we're gonna go

843
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:43,279
Speaker 1: ahead and close it out. But we'd love to hear

844
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 1: from everyone out there if you have thoughts and reflections

845
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:47,799
Speaker 1: on all of this. I'd especially love to hear from

846
00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:50,880
Speaker 1: anyone out there who has had a similar or conflicting

847
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 1: reaction to say, a very open blue sky or a

848
00:48:54,640 --> 00:49:00,040
Speaker 1: very open um starvista at night. Uh be interesting to

849
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 1: continue to discuss this on our listener mail episodes. Our

850
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:05,239
Speaker 1: listener Mail episodes of course published on Mondays in the

851
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:08,360
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed Our Core Science

852
00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:12,000
Speaker 1: episodes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form Monster Fact

853
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:14,960
Speaker 1: on Wednesdays, and then on Fridays, we set aside most

854
00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:17,279
Speaker 1: serious concerns and just talk about a strange film on

855
00:49:17,400 --> 00:49:21,920
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema. Huge thanks to our audio producer J J. Pauseway.

856
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

857
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

858
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Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

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Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind dot com Stuff to Blow your Mind. It's

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Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my

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Speaker 1: heart Radio with the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

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Speaker 1: wherever you're listening to your favorite shows. It stored propa