WEBVTT - The Minotaur, Part 3 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:05.840 He lives there. From there he plots my destiny and 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:11.039 schemes to usurp my throne. His eyelids of stone taunt me, 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:17.600 insatiable minotaur. My dreams chafe against his horns. In my dreams, 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:22.960 I enter the labyrinth. I'm there alone, unchained. The scepter 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:31.840 bends in my fist, and he comes before me, monstrous, sweet, monstrous, free, 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:35.920 And I can no longer govern my dreams. So many 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:39.800 deliberations wait for the day when the world of men 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:44.440 will harbor my story and blood. Secret River. You have 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:48.720 not heard me yet. Kill me first. Now you provoke 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:51.720 me as if you're plotting some kind of scheme I've 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:56.040 made up my mind. Ultimate freedom is fostered by that 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.639 blade which you hold in your fist, the same as 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.360 a sun and parting of waters in the ocean deep. 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:08.360 What do you know of death grant her of profound life? Look, 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:11.920 there is only one way to kill a monster, and 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:22.560 that is to embrace you. Welcome to stot to Blow 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:31.920 Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, you welcome 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:34.000 to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:37.800 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with Part three. 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:40.760 Of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth. We're coming out of 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:44.400 the dark at you once again. So those opening selections 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:48.080 were from a play called The King's by Julio Cortissar, 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:52.480 who's an Argentinean writer that we've been talking about recently. 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:56.920 That that translation was by Kari Dad's veach. But so 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:58.960 the first part I read were the words of of 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.240 King Minos, and then after that was an exchange between 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.600 Theseus and the Minotaur, with our producer Seth as Theseus 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:09.400 as the jerk of the story. Yes, um, this is 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:13.200 a This is such an interesting uh play. I had 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:15.800 never heard of this before until I ran across this 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:21.400 very translation at in translation dot Brooklyn Rail dot org Um. 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:24.880 Because I don't believe it is currently in print in English. 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:26.360 I could be wrong on that. I see that it 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:30.239 is in print in Spanish, but not in English. Cortessar 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.160 has a number of really interesting short stories that I 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.000 read back when I was in college. One of them 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.079 that I remember really liking is called Axcelotal, and it's 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.480 a story about a man who repeatedly visits an axcel 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:46.200 lotal tank at the Jardine de Paris, and he gradually 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:50.280 finds himself transforming into an axl odal as he watches them. 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:52.959 It's pretty good. Yeah, I'm looking forward to read that one. 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:56.320 Uh you you sent me a copy to check out. 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:58.600 In fact, a number of his short story sound just 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.520 right up my alley. But I've never at anything by Cortazar. 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:05.120 Now another fun thing about this, so some of you 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:07.600 might remember that we had a call an opening reading 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:11.799 on a previous episode about the minotaur from uh Borhes 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.960 the House of Asterion. Bores, of course, was also an 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.160 Argentinian writer. Um, perhaps you know, one of the most 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.640 famous Argentinian writers. And it's interesting that this play The 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:28.280 Kings or las Areles was published in nineteen forty seven, 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:32.240 just a year after Borges wrote, uh that story to 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.280 begin with the House of Hysterion. Oh, is there like 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:39.440 an implication of inspiration or common inspiration between the two. Well, 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:41.600 I was looking into this because I think a lot 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:46.200 of people assumed that Cortisar was inspired by the House 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:51.280 of Hysterian Um. Borges himself actually published the play alongside 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:55.480 Asterian in the literary journal that he edited in ninety seven. 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:58.960 But I was I was looking at an article titled 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.880 the Incessant Return of a Minotaur by Amy Fraser Yoder 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.480 and just keeps coming back. Yeah, And they write that 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:09.520 while it was often assumed that bores story influence cortis Are, 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:14.440 there's evidence from letters between Cortazar and Borhees that cortis 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:17.440 Are might not have read borhees story previously, so there 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:21.120 might be more convergence here than inspiration. But still it 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.120 seems that Borees was was very much a fan of 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:27.000 this piece. I mean, he published it, and obviously how 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:30.039 could Bores not like an entire play with all of 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:34.760 this this this beautiful you know, poetic language and contemplation 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.520 of the labyrinth and the and the the various kings 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.800 that are caught within its grasp. Really, this is what 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:43.880 I was just telling you earlier, before we started hitting 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:46.200 the court. You could basically you could print this play out. 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:48.040 You could throw a dart at it, and you could 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.159 you could find something beautiful. Uh. That's like, there's this 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:54.000 whole stretch where because I should point out that the 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:58.480 minotaur and theseus have a very long conversation, uh, considering 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:00.479 that most of the time it's just about and fighting, 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.360 they have a long conversation in this play, and there's 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:07.279 this whole bit about the string that theseus has uh 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:10.400 has has has has wound out behind him, you know, 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:12.680 so he can return so you can escape the labyrinth, 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.320 about how it is like a river flowing out to 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.480 the ocean. Uh. So it's and and then the ocean 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.599 is also the minute, our sister, there's there's just a 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:23.680 lot of beautiful stuff in it. So even if you're 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:26.520 you're not really into reading a lot of unproduced plays, 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:29.800 you should, you should. I recommend you check this out 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:31.800 at the website we mentioned earlier, and if you've had 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.560 a chance to see it, Uh, that sounds awesome. I'd 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:37.560 love to hear about it. That's interesting that you mentioned 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:39.680 the twine as a river, because that goes back to 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.400 in Avid Avid's telling of the story when he's talking 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:47.560 about Dadalus's design of the labyrinth. He describes it as 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.120 like a river that twists and turns back and forth, 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.760 and waters that churn in upon themselves going this way 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.360 and that. Ah, that's right, that's right. So this is 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:01.760 indeed our our third episode on the Minotaur Um and 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.680 we wanted to I guess kick things off here first 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:07.800 of all with that that that brief reading, but also 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:10.920 just to discuss pop culture. Minotaur is a little bit 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.279 um and cultural minotaurs of the more modern era in 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.599 a little bit more more detail. Um. As far as 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:20.320 just cinema goes, I have to say, I think it's 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:24.039 it's really hard to find a quality minotaur in a 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:26.880 film or TV. I don't know if you've had the 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.200 same experience, Joe, but I feel like even when the 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.520 costume or the c g I or overall presentation is 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:37.080 solid enough, and lord knows, it often isn't um. Minotaurs 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:40.840 are often presented as just mirror beastly brutes. You know 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:43.440 they're there, They're in that. A big part of that 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:45.960 is that they are not in the labyrinth. Yes, a 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:48.880 minotaur out of its labyrinth is like a hermit crab 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.000 out of its shell. It's just not even really the 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:55.080 same creature, is it. The best on screen minotaur I 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.159 can think of is actually one that we mentioned in 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.520 the first episode, which is the one in Jim Henson's 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:02.400 Story to Aller Greek Myths with Michael Gambon as as 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.400 deadal as I think, or at least as the storyteller. Uh, 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:10.000 And that that one is really good because you don't 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:13.320 get too much of a look at the minotaur. I think, 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:15.400 as it should be, you know, it should be glances 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.560 here and there, and or glances or glimpses whichever. I 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:20.640 meant to say that. But the glimpses you do get 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.600 are full of terror and pity. It's it's very good. 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:26.440 It conveys sort of both of the meanings of the 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.800 story as we read it today, the probably the more original, 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.640 terrifying reading, but also the subtle reading where you see 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:37.960 the monster as an object of of of sadness and pity. Yeah, yeah, yeah, again, 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:40.480 that one is is just excellent and I highly recommend 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:42.560 folks check that out if you haven't seen it already. 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:46.160 I think it all holds up really well. Uh. David Morrissey, 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:48.480 who would go on to of course play the Governor 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.000 and the Walking Dead? Uh? Is in that a young 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:54.680 David Morrissey As theseus. I have never seen The Walking 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:56.960 Dead or I've never made it past the second episode. 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:59.960 But but when I was looking at him, first of all, 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.760 he kind of reminds me of Tom Cruise's creepy looking 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.880 brother who was in Lost. Do you remember that guy? No, 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.200 I don't. Tom Cruise's brother was in what was Unlost 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:13.480 Seth offers a correction, I was entirely wrong. He his 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:18.160 name is William Pother and he's Tom Cruise's first cousin, 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:20.880 not his brother. But he looks kind of like Tom Cruise, 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:25.120 but with an extra dose of boyish charm and creepiness 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:27.760 at the same time. And he played a role in 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.880 Lost that was I don't know. I lost ultimately was 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.960 such a betrayal, but but there was a really good 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:38.680 moment in the first season involving his his character. But anyway, 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:40.559 I thought he kind of looked like him, And in 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.400 any case, he does look like a jock bully, which 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:47.760 is kind of what Theseus is. Yeah, I think I 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:51.520 mentioned in a previous episode that John Would, another great 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:55.360 actor of the British stage, was in the The Greek 0:08:55.760 --> 0:09:00.600 myths Um series as well, playing Minos. But uh in 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:04.040 another episode that's about Data List and Icarus. But still, 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:05.560 if you take them all in you kind of you 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.680 kind of get into different We're really multiple episodes. You 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:13.800 get the story of of Minos and the Minotaur and Theseus. Well, 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:17.400 somebody out there who is a filmmaker who is dedicated 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.160 to practical sets and effects, you make this movie, make 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.320 the Labyrinth and Minotaur movie. No, no, no green screen 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.400 set junk no uh no c G I Minotaur. I 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:31.280 want a good costume with really classic makeup effects and 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:34.800 and go all out. Now in terms of Minotaurs out 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:38.400 of context, there is one example that I think works 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.880 really well, and it is from the music video for 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:46.360 Einstreew's Into New Baton's song Sabrina, which is which is 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:48.960 on YouTube. I I have no idea. Check it out. 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:51.640 Oh it's well. Einstreet's on the New Baton is a 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:55.600 Is this this great German band? They started out more 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:59.600 industrial or post industrial, but then they kind of change 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:01.959 their sound as they win. They have a number of 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:07.079 great songs, but this particular video consists entirely of this 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:12.120 sad minotaur. That's that's well brought to life. Uh, putting 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:17.120 on makeup in this really dank kind of bathroom. I'm 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.040 looking at it now. Yeah, it's that's all that happens 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.360 in it. But it captures this. It captures the sadness 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.720 of minotaur at least that that I feel like should 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:31.240 be a vital component alongside the savage minotaur. This video 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:35.600 is strong, with the cinematography of a nineties anti drug 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:40.559 p S A commercial. Yeah, it's got that that gross 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:43.480 green film on everything like that, This is your brain 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.400 on drugs. Yeah it does. It does remind me in 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.160 some ways of various p s as I remember from 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:53.679 UH as a child watching Canadian television, where there might 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:55.960 be something that's like really weird and fantastic, and then 0:10:56.000 --> 0:11:00.439 at the end you find out, oh, this is the message. Now, 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.880 before we get a little more into the science of 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:07.080 mazes and UH and zoonotic diseases, you promised at some 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:08.600 point that you were going to come back to talk 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:10.880 a little bit about the minotaur and D and D. 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:14.360 You mentioned this in the first episode. Oh yeah, So 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:17.920 if the the error is to take the minotaur out 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:21.520 of its place and just presented as a mere brute uh, 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.560 Dungeons and Dragons has certainly been guilty of that. Uh 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:27.840 and and not only Dungeons and Dragons, but just individual 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.680 dungeon masters, who of course have the power to to 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:33.480 take a minotaur and drop him in anywhere you go 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:35.760 into the you go into the end, the inn keeps 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:39.400 a minotaur as see what you'd like to drink? Yeah, so, 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:40.880 I mean, you know, there's a lot of room to 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.520 to misuse the minotaur, you know, at an individual level. 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:49.280 But I will say that at least in the fifth edition. 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:51.800 I can't really speak to earlier editions because I just 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:53.920 don't have those numbers in my head. But in the 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.480 most recent edition they do have a very high wisdom 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:01.520 score and they have an ability called labor then recall. Uh, 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:05.280 so the minotaur can perfectly recall any path that has traveled, 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.400 which I feel like that ability. It'll least, at the 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:11.760 very least, it is a nudge to the dungeon master. Hey, 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:13.960 you should put this minotaur somewhere where it can take 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:17.240 advantage of this. You should create some sort of labyrinth. 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:21.320 Be that labyrinth an actual you know, stone dungeon, or 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:25.200 perhaps something like a hedge maze or like a really um, 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:27.839 you know, complicated city. I mean, there's so many different 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.480 directions you could go in there. And in terms of 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:34.680 actual adventure modules and campaigns, uh, the campaign out of 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:39.840 the Abyss does put minotaurs in a place referred to 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:42.920 as the Labyrinth, which which is very nice and I 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.360 thought they did a good job in that. The labyrinth 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:48.160 then recall things seems like it would also close to 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:53.160 the adventurers. The option of certain strategic responses to the minotaur, 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.480 like you can't do to the minotaur what Danny does 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:58.839 to Jack at the end of the Shining movie, right, 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:01.160 you can't get it turned to ound in his own maze, 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:03.680 like he's going to know his way around. Yeah, he 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.400 is the ultimate master of this location unless you have 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:11.120 some sort of privileged knowledge or magical um abilities that 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.320 have been gifted to you by other parties. So I 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.319 was thinking about mazes, and I actually had an etymological 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:19.400 question that I had to look up because I was 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:24.040 wondering are the English words maze and a maze as 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.319 an amazing related, And it turns out that they are. 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:30.600 They probably do come from the same linguistic route. So 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.920 by around the beginning of the fourteenth century, the now 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:39.800 maze meant something like a delusion or a bewilderment, a confusion, 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.000 and this is related to the Old English verb a 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.040 mac n or a m a s i a n 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:50.480 meaning to confuse, and so the origins of this word 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:54.040 are not exactly clear. I saw one comparison on the 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:59.160 online Etymological Dictionary to a Norwegian word um mass m 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:02.240 a s or mace meaning exhausting labor, which I thought 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:04.320 would be a kind of interesting place for that concept 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:08.120 to come from. But apparently maze came to have its 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:11.160 current meaning in English, meaning something like a labyrinth the 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:15.079 structure with branching paths around the end of the fourteenth century. 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:19.200 But but so now you know, like amazement is related 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:21.080 to a maze. They're the same thing, and they come 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:25.240 from the idea of bewilderment, confusion and and being confounded. 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:31.360 But hey, practical survival question. Imagine you are not theseus, 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:33.840 You're not armed with a with a sword or whatever. 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:35.840 You don't have a ball of twine to make your 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:38.080 way out of a maze. If you were just one 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:42.400 of the Athenian youths finding yourself trapped in an unfamiliar maze, 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.680 could you get out? Is there actually a strategy for 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.240 optimizing the solution of a maze other than trying to 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:51.800 cut through walls? Obviously you can't do that well. I mean, 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:53.400 I think a lot of us have heard the whole 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:58.280 only take like right hand turns right, keep turning right exactly, 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:01.800 So it depends on how maze is constructed. But that 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:06.080 actually is a successful strategy for most mazes. The solution 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.200 if you don't have a ball of twine. Is what's 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.400 known as the right hand rule, and that's actually arbitrary, 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:13.480 could be the right hand or the left hand rule, 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:15.720 but it's as simple as this. So you reach out 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:18.360 with your right hand and you touch the right side 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:22.200 wall of the corridor, and then you just proceed forward 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:24.800 without ever taking your hand off the wall. So if 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:26.800 you come to a dead end, you pivot around with 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:30.120 your hands still touching the right side of the wall. Again, 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:32.080 the same thing would work with the left hand. It's 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:36.800 also known as the wall follower algorithm. And always following 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.720 the same wall surface will mean that you bear in 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:41.920 the same direction at every turn, which is what you 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.080 were saying. If you always make the right turn, eventually 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:47.920 you will find your way out. This will uh you know, 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:50.000 even if you hit a dead end, you'll double back 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:52.520 on your path. And if you keep following this method, 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.680 you could actually solve the maze even blindfolded, because it 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:59.760 doesn't matter what orientation you have mentally, you will just 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.400 always be executing a new pathway unless you're trying to 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:05.720 get yourself out of a dead end. But there is 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.200 a catch here, and the catches that for this to work, 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.240 the maze has to be what they call simply constructed, 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:14.800 and what that means is all of the walls of 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.320 the maze are connected to the outer wall or to 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:21.840 each other, and this method will not necessarily work in 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:24.640 a maze with what are called island walls, walls that 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:27.840 are not connected to the outer boundary, and with these 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:29.760 types of mazes you can just end up going in 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:33.680 circles around a wall segment in the middle. I've actually 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:37.040 read about some funny cases of people going people going 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:39.840 into corn mazes, you know, these things for fun or 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.360 hedge mazes, and they get stuck in there and they 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:44.560 try to use the wall follower pathway to get out, 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:46.920 but they get stuck in there because they're just tracing 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:50.120 around some isolated internal wall that doesn't connect to the 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:54.280 outer walls, forced to wander forever until the fall festival 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.560 employees come and retrieve you. But there there is another catch. 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.240 So even if you are in a maze with island 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:04.239 walls walls that don't connect to the outer boundary, you 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.280 can still use the right hand rule if you use 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.600 it beginning at the entrance, Because if you start at 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.200 the entrance and you stick to it, you will never 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:16.560 actually start following an island wall to begin with, because 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.720 you'll always be attached to a wall that's attached to 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.920 the exterior boundary. So if you start doing the doing 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:25.600 the right hand rule at the entrance, it will work, 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.000 though it might make the maze less fun, I mean, 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:31.040 depending on whether this is like a torture human sacrifice 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.120 scenario or just like a corn maze for fun. Right. 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.520 But I guess if you if you use the right 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:40.359 hand rule and it's the right kind of maze, you 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.560 are in a sense transforming a maze into a labyrinth, 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.320 if we're going to that, if you're using those terms 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.520 exclusively for a maze is something with many different branching 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:51.560 paths in which you can get lost in a labyrinth 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.280 as being this complex system through which there is only 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:56.960 one path, uh, and you don't have to to think 0:17:57.000 --> 0:17:59.800 about what you're doing as you follow it. Right, multi 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:03.080 cur soul versus unicursal, you're turning it into a unicursal 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:07.400 pathway where you are again just submitting to the design 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:10.960 of the maze and taking decision making entirely out of it. Right. 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:13.000 It's kind of like if you go to Ikea and 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.119 you just decide, I'm just gonna go with the I'm 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.040 not gonna buy anything, but I'm just gonna just go straight, 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.480 just gonna follow the path. By everything my right hand touches, 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:27.200 you end up in a maze of meatballs. But thinking 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:29.719 about how to solve maze is also got me, uh, 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.919 thinking about another tangent here, which is the role that 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:38.040 mazes have played in the history of psychological research, so 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:42.080 much that in a way, the maze became almost a 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:47.400 physical emblem of the discipline of psychology and popular culture 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:51.639 like well, especially the behavior at schools. Of course, So 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:55.119 if you saw a research psychologist in a movie made 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:58.200 in the nineteen forties or fifties, what were they doing? 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:01.399 I mean, they're probably running rats through a maze, right, 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.120 Like every psychology lab in a movie has a rat 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:07.840 maze in it. Yeah, and you think, I feel like 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:11.520 they're a fair number of educational shorts that also feature 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:14.480 footage of mice and mazes. And here I think the 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.720 maze as a research tool emerges in a very interesting 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.880 relationship with the maze of myths. So consider the following 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:24.520 with the myth of Theseus and the minotaur in mind. 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.520 I was reading an article about the history of maze 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:32.480 research by a psychologist named ce James Goodwin in the 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.199 Monitor on Psychology, which is the magazine of the American 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:39.800 Psychological Association or the a p A. And Goodwin begins 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:45.000 by producing a really unbelievable quote from a neo behaviorist 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:49.560 psychologist named Edward Chase Tolman, who was president of the 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:52.520 APIA at the time. He uttered these words, and this 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:54.480 was part of his yearly addressed to the a p 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:57.560 A in nineteen thirty seven, And this is what he said. 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:02.680 Everything important in psych cocology can be investigated in essence 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:07.480 through the continued experimental and theoretical analysis of the determinants 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:11.359 of rat behavior at a choice point in a maze. 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:15.879 So everything, every everything, everything you could want to know 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:20.080 about minds can be understood by watching how rats behave 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:22.919 in a maze. Like, given enough time and enough rats 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:27.440 and enough mazes, we can fully understand minds. I mean, 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:32.320 undoubtedly it's useful for various things. That everything is going 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.240 a bit far. Yeah, So I mean, I guess, to 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.280 be fair to Tolman, I think maybe he was intentionally 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:41.640 overstating his case a bit to be provocative. But this 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:44.919 is actually indicative of like a powerful strain of thinking 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:49.399 in the history of behaviorist psychology, basically that psychological science 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:52.879 is not really concerned with internal phenomena. I remember, this 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:55.440 was the behaviorist school, so it's not really about thoughts 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:59.600 or feelings and uh. And also the belief that differences 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:03.919 between in species are not necessarily very relevant. Brains in 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.960 general were just sort of imagined as learning and conditioning 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:12.560 machines that produce behavior based on how they've been conditioned, 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:16.399 and so careful study of how rats behave under various 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:20.080 controlled conditions and how they respond to various incentives and 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:24.080 stimuli and training can eventually tell you pretty much everything 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:26.640 that you would want to know about brains, even about 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:30.800 human psychology. Now, I think this is clearly an extremely 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:34.160 misguided point of view, But an interesting question is how 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:36.199 did you get to their Like, how how did you 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:38.399 get to the place where somebody could say that about 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:42.239 rats and mazes and not immediately be mocked for it, 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:45.400 you know, like, it just sounds so ridiculous. So maybe 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:46.840 we should take a break and then when we come 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:54.479 back we can talk about the origins of rat maze research. Alright, 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:58.160 we're back, So how did we get so many mice 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:03.200 in these mazes. Okay. So I mentioned this article by 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:06.560 by C. James Goodwin, and Goodwin writes in his article 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:10.200 that most historians of science agreed that the animal maze 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:13.920 as a research tool was really pioneered in the eighteen 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:19.119 nineties by researchers at Clark University. Specifically, this was a 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:23.359 couple of graduate students named Willard Small and Linus Klein, 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:26.040 who were working in the lab of the early American 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:31.240 psychologist Edmund Sandford Uh. Though sometime around the same time, 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:35.480 the psychologist Edward Thorndyke also experimented with building a sort 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:39.080 of maze for research on baby birds. He did this 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.680 by stacking books in odd configurations, but he he thought 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:47.359 of these structures as pens. But the mazes constructed in 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:51.120 the Sanford lab at Clark University had an interesting couple 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:56.199 of points of inspiration. So one was in the structures 0:22:56.240 --> 0:22:59.840 built by rats under a porch. Uh the so Klein's 0:23:00.040 --> 0:23:03.840