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Speaker 1: Why do brains love stories? How do brains move so

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Speaker 1: easily from assessing reality out there to slipping into totally

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Speaker 1: made up worlds that you know are made up? What

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Speaker 1: do authors of great literature have in common with stage

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Speaker 1: magicians and comedians? And what does any of this have

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Speaker 1: to do with cognitive shortcuts? Or how the brain is

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Speaker 1: a prediction machine? Or Marcel Proust or Tony Morrison or

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Speaker 1: Jane Austen, or why jokes always come in threes. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to enter cosmos with me, David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist

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Speaker 1: and an author at Stanford and in these episodes we

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Speaker 1: sail deeply into our three pound universe to uncover some

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Speaker 1: of the most surprising aspects of our lives. Today's episode

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Speaker 1: is about why humans read books. I was watching my

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Speaker 1: young daughter the other day. She loves to jump around

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Speaker 1: and dance and be on the move, but she was

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Speaker 1: sitting stock still in the kitchen, staring at symbols of

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Speaker 1: strange shapes written on a page, something like hieroglyphics or

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Speaker 1: weird squiggles. Now, it just so happens that English is

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Speaker 1: the language that I speak and read, so the squiggles

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Speaker 1: of that alphabet don't look strange to me.

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Speaker 2: My brain has overtrained on them so that.

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Speaker 1: They immediately carry meaning, and my daughter, in the last

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Speaker 1: several years, has also overtrained on them. But obviously, if

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Speaker 1: I were from another place on the planet, I would

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Speaker 1: see these only as weird squiggles. Anyway, she was staring

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Speaker 1: at these and was obviously transported internally to another world.

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Speaker 1: Even though she was sitting in our kitchen, her mind

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Speaker 1: was elsewhere. Now this is strange because any neuroscience textbook

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Speaker 1: that you read, including my own, will assert that brains

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Speaker 1: are all about gathering information from their environment. Your eyes

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Speaker 1: are scanning for threats and opportunities in front of you.

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Speaker 1: Your ears are listening, your nose is smelling, your skin

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Speaker 1: is registering information. All of it is about monitoring what

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Speaker 1: is happening around you. And yet it is extraordinarily easy

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Speaker 1: for us to stare at these cryptic symbols and be

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Speaker 1: transported into completely new worlds. In this case, my daughter

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Speaker 1: was in the life of somebody else. Specifically, she was

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Speaker 1: on a long trip through space with a cat and

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Speaker 1: a monkey.

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Speaker 2: That's what her brain thought. At least for the most part.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't so aware of the details of the kitchen

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Speaker 1: and the sounds around her. Instead, most of the processing

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Speaker 1: hardware was busy living in this other world, one which

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Speaker 1: had its own trials and tribulations, and, by the way,

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Speaker 1: one which doesn't actually exist, but which nonetheless has no

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Speaker 1: problem making her laugh and cry and occupy all of

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Speaker 1: her attention. So this kind of thing got me wondering

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Speaker 1: a long time ago about why it is so easy

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Speaker 1: for us to slip into other worlds, and more importantly,

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Speaker 1: into other characters' lives and to experience their situation and

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Speaker 1: their emotions. So to this point, one of the classes

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Speaker 1: I teach at Stanford is called Literature and the Brain.

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Speaker 1: I co teach this with a wonderful colleague of mine,

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Speaker 1: doctor Joshua Landy, who works in the Comparative Literature department.

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Speaker 2: For years, josh.

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Speaker 1: And I have both been obsessed from different angles about

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Speaker 1: the big picture of how and why stories pervade all

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Speaker 1: human cultures, and not only are they there, but they're

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Speaker 1: the main thing that characterizes the culture. We are more

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Speaker 1: than information gatherers. We are a very particular type of

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Speaker 1: information gatherer, and universally, it seems that the optimal way

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Speaker 1: to swallow the jagged pill of information is to wrap

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Speaker 1: it in story. So here's my interview with my colleague

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Speaker 1: Joshua Landy. So, josh you and I have known each

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Speaker 1: other for a long time and for many years now

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Speaker 1: we've been teaching a class at Stanford called Literature and

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Speaker 1: the Brain, and that's proven to be a very popular class.

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Speaker 2: Happily people are in thanks to you. Yeah, thanks to you.

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Speaker 1: And so I'm you know, I'm a neuroscientist. You're in

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Speaker 1: the comparative literature department. But I love literature. You love

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Speaker 1: cognitive science, and so that's what's put us together.

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Speaker 2: It's been very fruitful.

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Speaker 1: So today let's talk about You have a statement that

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Speaker 1: you make, which is that cognitive biases, which are all

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Speaker 1: the funny things that our brain does when they're taking

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Speaker 1: shortcuts and so on, that these are a writer's best friend.

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Speaker 2: So let's start there. What do you mean by that? Yeah,

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Speaker 2: so you've written beautifully about these quirks of the human brain,

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Speaker 2: right that it's constantly making shortcuts because we just don't

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Speaker 2: have the glucose, we don't have the energy, we don't

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Speaker 2: have the time to be thinking everything through down to

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Speaker 2: the last detail. So we have to make little cognitive

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Speaker 2: shortcuts rules of thumb to get us through our day.

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Speaker 2: And for the most part these were great, But I'm

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Speaker 2: gonna and again they get us into a little bit

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Speaker 2: of trouble, and sometimes it's fun trouble, right, That's the

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Speaker 2: basis of some jokes. Some of these jokes depend on

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Speaker 2: tempting the listener into making a certain kind of mistake.

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Speaker 2: So it's an example of such a joke, well, one

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Speaker 2: of Mike's. It's not particularly funny joke, but it's a

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Speaker 2: good example, which is the pot is in the kitchen cabinet,

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Speaker 2: don't smoke it all at once. This is an example

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Speaker 2: of a garden path joke, or as Americans say, garden

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Speaker 2: path joke. What you're doing is you're tempting the listener

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Speaker 2: to think that you're saying a particular thing. Well, the

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Speaker 2: pot is in the kitchen cabinet. If it's the kitchen cabinet,

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Speaker 2: it must be some kind of utensil. But not haha,

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Speaker 2: the joke's on you. Obviously that's not what it was

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Speaker 2: in the first place. So this is a case where

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Speaker 2: you're exploiting a certain tendency on the part of the brain,

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Speaker 2: which is to kind of you know, project out into

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Speaker 2: the future, to predict things, to fill things in when

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Speaker 2: they're not fully given to you, which we need in

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Speaker 2: our daily lives.

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Speaker 1: Exactly the brain. The brain, of course, there's a prediction machine.

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Speaker 1: And that's because the world is so complex, and really

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Speaker 1: the art of growing up and the job of brain

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Speaker 1: plasticity is to say, ah, okay, this is the likely

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Speaker 1: next token, as we would phrase it now in the

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Speaker 1: age of llms, but it's to say.

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Speaker 2: This is the likely thing that's going to happen next. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: You have a good example of a joke, and in

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Speaker 2: that vein the doctor joke, Oh yeah, I heard that

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Speaker 2: from a comedian a long time ago.

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Speaker 1: He said, I went to the doctor and the doctor said, okay,

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Speaker 1: take off your clothes and put him there in the

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Speaker 1: corner next to mine.

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Speaker 2: There you go. And the reason it works as a

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Speaker 2: joke is.

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Speaker 1: Because we have an internal model of the world and

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Speaker 1: all that language, ever is, is throwing small bits of

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Speaker 1: data over the transom and we say, oh, I got it,

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Speaker 1: I've got this word, I've got the next word. Great,

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Speaker 1: I can put together this very rich model of what's

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Speaker 1: going on.

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Speaker 2: So we never expected that.

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Speaker 1: And this is the notion of the garden path, And

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Speaker 1: so how do writers exploit this cognitive bias exactly right?

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Speaker 2: So that you know, these great riances will often tempt

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Speaker 2: you to make certain kinds of prediction, and then they'll,

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Speaker 2: you know, pull the rug out of mone of you.

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Speaker 2: And sometimes it's in jokes, because often that rule of

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Speaker 2: three where you sort of say the first thing, say

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Speaker 2: a second similar thing established as a pattern. Now we're

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Speaker 2: fully predicting that the third thing is going to be

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Speaker 2: the same, and then ha ha, no joke's on you.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes it's serious. So one of my favorite examples is

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Speaker 2: from Madame Bowin. I don't want to spoil too much

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Speaker 2: about the plot here, so I'll just say a particular

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Speaker 2: unfortunate thing happens, and then a very similar and fortunate

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Speaker 2: happened thing happens again. And so by the time you're

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Speaker 2: in a third similar situation, you're fully expecting this is

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Speaker 2: probably not going to go very well, right, So so

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Speaker 2: this can be for humorous effect, but can also be

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Speaker 2: for very serious effect. These great riances are setting us

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Speaker 2: up to make certain predictions about what's going to come next,

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Speaker 2: which they can then satisfy or undermine.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly right. So it's used in literary fiction. It's

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Speaker 1: also used in genre fiction. Obviously, in any sort of

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Speaker 1: mystery book, what or thriller. What the author is doing

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Speaker 1: is saying, Okay, look at this, look at this, look

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Speaker 1: at this, and he or she is just making sure

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Speaker 1: that we make particular kinds of predictions. And then at

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Speaker 1: the end they say, ha ha, it's actually this other

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Speaker 1: thing that you totally miss because we led you down

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Speaker 1: the garden path.

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Speaker 2: Which brings me to another cognitiviance that writes this can exploit,

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Speaker 2: which is selective attention. So this is of course the

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Speaker 2: staple of stage magic, right that magicians I don't even

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Speaker 2: I mean I sort of know how they do it,

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Speaker 2: but I basically don't know how they do it because

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Speaker 2: it's extraordinary. But they're able to exploit the fact that

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Speaker 2: our our brains cannot attend to everything at once in

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Speaker 2: order to hide things almost in plain sight, like close

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Speaker 2: up magic. They're right in front of you, and yet

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Speaker 2: you have no idea how they did this thing they did. Interestingly,

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Speaker 2: literary writers can do the same thing, and this is

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Speaker 2: one of my favorite phenomena in literature, the experience of

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Speaker 2: oh my god, of course, and so how do you

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Speaker 2: pull that off? Right? How do you pull off the

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Speaker 2: experience for the reader or the viewer of Oh my God?

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Speaker 2: Of course? Well, essentially you have to put something in

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Speaker 2: your movie, in your TV show, in your novel that's

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Speaker 2: visible just enough so that the viewer remembers it later on.

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Speaker 2: What's an example? All right? So, one of not just

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Speaker 2: my favorite novels, but I know your favorite novels because

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Speaker 2: we teach it together in our class is Tony Morrison's

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Speaker 2: novel Song of Solomon. And I'm not going to say

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Speaker 2: too much about the plot here. It's just be a

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Speaker 2: very mild spoiler. There is a fantastic scene right at

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Speaker 2: the beginning of the novel where you see this guy

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Speaker 2: at the top of a tall building with these homemade

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Speaker 2: wings on his back, and he's announced to everybody he's

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Speaker 2: gonna fly. He's gonna take off from the tower and fly,

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Speaker 2: and you're kind of worried that he's not actually gonna fly.

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Speaker 2: It's gonna go very badly for him. Meanwhile, somebody's going

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Speaker 2: into labor down on the ground, and somebody else expills

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Speaker 2: this this basket full of homemade petals and all kinds

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Speaker 2: of stuff is going on it's a bright colors, the

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Speaker 2: blue wings, the white snow, the red petals, the woman

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Speaker 2: going into labor, the man at risk of dying, and

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Speaker 2: by the way, somebody's singing a song. Now, this song

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Speaker 2: is going to turn out to be very important much

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Speaker 2: later on in the novel. And indeed the song is

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Speaker 2: in the title of the novel. But I will bet

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Speaker 2: you dollars to donuts that the vast majority of readers

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Speaker 2: just do not notice the song, or they notice it

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Speaker 2: just enough that when it comes back towards the end

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Speaker 2: of the novel, they're like, oh my god, that song.

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Speaker 2: But it's hidden in plain sight because you're attending to

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Speaker 2: this potential death, and you're attending to the birth, and

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Speaker 2: you're attending to the spilling of the petals and the

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Speaker 2: colors and everything else. Brilliant. It's a kind of genius

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Speaker 2: move on the part of Tony Morris. Yeah, exactly right.

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Speaker 1: And just to flesh out of this idea of selective attention,

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Speaker 1: you know, let's let's take visual attention.

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Speaker 2: It's like a little spotlight and you.

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Speaker 1: Can make it narrow or you can make it slightly wider,

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Speaker 1: but everything outside of your field of attention you just

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Speaker 1: completely miss and hence all these things. Everyone's seen these

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Speaker 1: on the internet. At this, you know, inattentional blindness, where

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Speaker 1: you're trying, you're paying attention to something and as a

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Speaker 1: result of that, you don't see something else, like the

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Speaker 1: guy in the gorilla suit who walks in and beats

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Speaker 1: his chest. So, and of course this is why it

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Speaker 1: works with magic, because the magician does something.

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Speaker 2: You know, magicians do this thing.

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Speaker 1: Instead of moving their hands and straight lines, they typically

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Speaker 1: do it in a curve. And I don't know, this

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Speaker 1: is just something they picked up on a while ago

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Speaker 1: that you just can't help but watch if someone's hand

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Speaker 1: does something, you think, hey, that hand is up to something,

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Speaker 1: and your.

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Speaker 2: Attention goes to that.

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Speaker 1: Even if your eyeballs are watching the thing they're supposed

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Speaker 1: to be watching, your attention is on the hand moving.

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Speaker 1: And so then the magician can do whatever they want

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Speaker 1: outside of your field of attention. And so this is

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Speaker 1: indeed related to the garden path issue because the writer

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Speaker 1: gets to drop clues on things, but just so long

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Speaker 1: as making sure that your attention is elsewhere.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, good.

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Speaker 1: So these are things that neuroscientists have been studying for

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Speaker 1: a long time and novelists have been exploiting presumably for

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Speaker 1: much longer that neuroscientists have been studying this.

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Speaker 2: That is right, and that's an important point, right. The

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Speaker 2: thought is not that, you know, Shakespeare gotten a time

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Speaker 2: machine and traveled to the twentieth or twenty first century

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Speaker 2: and read a bunch of cogni science. No, but you know,

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Speaker 2: honests tend to work great art sent to work intuitively.

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Speaker 2: They have this intuitive sense of what's gonna land. How

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Speaker 2: obviously the same it's the stage magicians. Stage magic's been

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Speaker 2: around for a very long time. It got a kind

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Speaker 2: of you know, it entered its sort of modern phase

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Speaker 2: in the nineteenth century with people like Udin long name,

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Speaker 2: but that's Houdini named himself after this guy, and he

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Speaker 2: was he was the first one to really transform into

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Speaker 2: something kind of professional where he wasn't pretending to summon spirits.

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Speaker 2: He called his tricks experiments as though he were a scientist.

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Speaker 2: Wow magician. So anyway, this is a kind of digression

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Speaker 2: into something that I'm excited about, but it's not totally

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Speaker 2: on topic. But the main point is all of these

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Speaker 2: folks have this intuitive sense, based on experience of how

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Speaker 2: you get things to land. In a certain way, and

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Speaker 2: now we have all these wonderful scientists like you who

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Speaker 2: are explaining why they got it right.

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Speaker 1: You know, it makes me wonder when magicians, let's say

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Speaker 1: a thousand years ago, performing to the king and maybe

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Speaker 1: summoning spirits, whatever they were doing.

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Speaker 2: But it makes me wonder what vocabulary they used among

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Speaker 2: one another?

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Speaker 1: Did they talk about the spotlight of attention in some way?

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Speaker 1: Did they intuit the mechanism as much as the what

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Speaker 1: to do about it?

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Speaker 2: I mean, we don't have all the records of what

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Speaker 2: we would need for that, especially as magicians keep diffe.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting wonder about.

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Speaker 1: Authors though, Let's say a thousand years ago, an author

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Speaker 1: who dropped clues over here but wanted to make sure

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Speaker 1: the audience's tension was over there.

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Speaker 2: I wonder how they described.

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Speaker 1: That when they, let's say, taught small seminar classes to

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Speaker 1: other authors, how do they talk about it?

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Speaker 2: So we don't have those records, but it's very interesting

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Speaker 2: to read what people are saying, you know, in the

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Speaker 2: late nineteth century, early twentieth century, because that we have

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Speaker 2: a bunch of people's letters, and we have people's essays,

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Speaker 2: and you know, one of my Favorites is an essay

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Speaker 2: by my favorite novelist, Marcel Proust, author of the three

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Speaker 2: thousand page be Off in Search of Lost Time. Have

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Speaker 2: you read the whole thing? Oh? Yeah, many times? Wow?

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Speaker 2: How long does it take you to go through the

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Speaker 2: first time? It took me seven years. Yeah, it's you know,

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Speaker 2: it's an investment. But that's well, that's part of what

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Speaker 2: you and I think about in the classes. You know,

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Speaker 2: why do we make those investments? And it's not just

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Speaker 2: for entertainment, and it's not irrational, it's completely irrational where

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Speaker 2: there are huge benefits that we get from the time

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Speaker 2: that we spend in our loving engagement with novels and

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Speaker 2: TV shows and movies that are that are challenging, not

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Speaker 2: just the ones that wear cars blow up. But to

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Speaker 2: go back to your question, you know, Pruce writes this

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Speaker 2: essay on Flaubert, the nineteenth century novelist, and he says,

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Speaker 2: you know, you're My favorite line in Flaubert is he

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Speaker 2: traveled two words sentence. It's a two words sentence, and

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Speaker 2: what Prusce loves about it is the use of verb tense,

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Speaker 2: so that this novel that is talking about by Flaubert, sorry,

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Speaker 2: sentimental education suddenly shifts from this kind of gradual imperfect

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Speaker 2: tense where things are kind of moving slowly and you

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Speaker 2: have maybe one hundred pages for an afternoon to this

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Speaker 2: He traveled, where you're compressing ten years into two words. Oh,

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Speaker 2: so you have these really interesting instances of writing just

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Speaker 2: talking about their craft, and they will talk about things

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Speaker 2: like that. They will say, you know, think about the

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Speaker 2: verb tenses using think about the way in which you're

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Speaker 2: handling time. Think about the point of view in the

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Speaker 2: novel and how it can shift, and how you can

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Speaker 2: trick the reader. I mean, that's a big thing in Flaubert,

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Speaker 2: and also in Jane Austen, tricking the She doesn't we

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Speaker 2: don't have the as far as I know, the records

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Speaker 2: of her talking about this, but it's clear in Flaubert

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Speaker 2: these writers are deliberately tricking us. They are tricking us

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Speaker 2: into thinking that some sequence of words is said to

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Speaker 2: you by the author and a ratre and it's just true,

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Speaker 2: when in reality it's actually just somebody's point of view.

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Speaker 2: And this turns out to be really good for us,

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Speaker 2: And why do you think it's good for us? So

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Speaker 2: this is another way in which, you know, I think

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Speaker 2: writers can in a salutary way exploit the frailties of

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Speaker 2: our cognitive apparatus, right, so why is it good for us?

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Speaker 2: You know, we encounter some kind of claim in a

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Speaker 2: work of fiction. A good example in Jane Austen's Pride

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Speaker 2: and Prejudice. There's a scene where this I borrow from

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Speaker 2: my friend and colleague Nnie Anderson. There's this scene where

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Speaker 2: Elizabeth Bennett is looking talking to mister Darcy, and everyone

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Speaker 2: will remember this from the novel of the Fantastic TV adaptation,

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Speaker 2: and she's talking to about this, this horrible situation with

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Speaker 2: her sister, and everyone's afraid of it and afraid what's

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Speaker 2: going to happen? And Darcy says something, and then the

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Speaker 2: line is a deeper shape of auteur spread across his features. Oh,

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Speaker 2: he's even more arrogant and supercilious than he ever was before.

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Speaker 2: He's disgusted. What a horrible family. These guys are trailer trash.

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Speaker 2: You know what am I getting myself involved in? Turns

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Speaker 2: out much later than the novel, It wasn't out at all.

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Speaker 2: So his expression did change. He was thinking about something,

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Speaker 2: he was feeling something. What was he feeling? Concern? He

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Speaker 2: was feeling all kinds of possib feelings. He was feeling concern,

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Speaker 2: he was thinking about his own situation. He happened to

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Speaker 2: know this bad guy that's involved in the situation. In

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Speaker 2: other words, this little, just this little sentence, this little

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Speaker 2: innocent looking sentence that looks like it's a statement of

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Speaker 2: fact about what's happening in the novel turns out to

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Speaker 2: be Elizabeth's point of view. Why is that good for us?

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Speaker 2: Because well, look, the whole novel is about pride and prejudice.

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Speaker 2: It's not just about the pride and prejudice of the characters,

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Speaker 2: it's about ours. Why did we we so quick to

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Speaker 2: interpret the sentence that way? Because we're prejudiced because we

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Speaker 2: have an existing belief about who Darcy is and what

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Speaker 2: kind of character he has, and he can't possibly be different,

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Speaker 2: he can't possibly be changed. Guess what we're wrong?

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: It strikes me this is part of the passage.

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Speaker 1: Into maturity that we all go through as humans, is

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Speaker 1: learning that our first interpretation of something in life is

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Speaker 1: not necessarily what we thought it was.

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Speaker 2: But we have these.

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Speaker 1: Internal models, and it's so hard to get over when

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Speaker 1: we think that someone's just given us a mean look

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Speaker 1: or something. I see my daughter who's in the fourth

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Speaker 1: grade now constantly come home and say, oh, so and

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Speaker 1: so looked or did this thing, And I think, gosh,

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Speaker 1: there are probably many interpretations for what happened there, right,

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Speaker 1: But all we ever live inside of is our internal model.

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Speaker 1: And one thing the brain is good at doing is

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Speaker 1: coming to conclusions. Instead of saying, well, there's a whole

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Speaker 1: table of hypotheses here that I could hold on to,

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Speaker 1: it collapses down to one theory about what just happened.

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Speaker 2: I totally agree with you, and I think that's one

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Speaker 2: of the enormous benefits of novel reading generally. I mean, obviously, again,

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Speaker 2: you could read novels just you know, sort of light,

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Speaker 2: fluffy stuff. You can read it for pleasure. Is nothing

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Speaker 2: wrong with that, But the kind that really challenge us,

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Speaker 2: like like J. Nausten's novels, like Tony Marshall's novels, like

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Speaker 2: Flaubert's novels, Proof three thousand page Meema, they do us

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Speaker 2: this enormous favorite. Milan Kundera talks about it. As you know,

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Speaker 2: reality is always more complicated than you think, and novels,

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Speaker 2: I think, get us into a better state of mind.

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Speaker 2: About that by what I think of as handing our

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Speaker 2: rear end to.

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Speaker 1: Us, so as in making you think, okay, I've got this,

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Speaker 1: I understand exactly what's going on, and then realizing, wow,

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Speaker 1: I really misinterpreted exactly. It's practice at real life in

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Speaker 1: that way, practice at real life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it you know, if you do enough of it,

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Speaker 2: if you get into a kind of habit of novel reading,

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Speaker 2: you're more likely to be just a little slower and

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Speaker 2: jumping to these conclusions. And I think this habit of

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Speaker 2: reading these interesting novels that challenge us and pull a

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Speaker 2: rug out from under us should make us a little

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Speaker 2: bit more circumspect.

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Speaker 1: Exactly because the novel is like a sandbox that you

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Speaker 1: get to play in, and you get to follow these

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Speaker 1: trajectories and say, oh.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, things can turn out.

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Speaker 1: I expect it, and yes, it strengthens our muscles for

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Speaker 1: realizing that can happen in real life.

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Speaker 2: You know, I just posted on my substack this issue.

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Speaker 1: We've talked about this study before about how reading even

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Speaker 1: short bits of literature can expand your empathy and your

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Speaker 1: ability to see other people. This is a related issue

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Speaker 1: because it's allowing you to see not only what someone

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Speaker 1: else might be thinking, but what the whole situation could

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Speaker 1: be and how you misinterpreted it.

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Speaker 2: By the way, there's a good.

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Speaker 1: Example in the movie Oppenheimert where Robert Downey Junior's character

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Speaker 1: Lewis Strauss he's going to say something to Oppenheimer and

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Speaker 1: Albert Einstein passes him and looks very angry, and so

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Speaker 1: Strauss takes that personally and believes that Oppenheimer has just

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Speaker 1: said something to Einstein against him, and the whole movie

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Speaker 1: he hates Oppenheimer in part because of this, And at

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Speaker 1: the very end of the movie, I hope this is

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Speaker 1: a this is a minor spoiler, but at the very

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Speaker 1: end of the movie we find out that this wasn't

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Speaker 1: at all why Einstein had this concerned look on his face.

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Speaker 1: It's because Oppenheimer had just told him about the nuclear

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Speaker 1: bomb test and Einstein pictured the whole world going up

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Speaker 1: in flames and was so struck and depressed. Why this

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Speaker 1: vision he had of what was what the future was

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Speaker 1: that he walked by, And when Strauss said hello, Einstein

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Speaker 1: didn't even respond to him. And so we as the

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Speaker 1: audience find out that this misinterpretation has been with Strauss

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Speaker 1: for his whole career because of this, this one moment.

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Speaker 2: That's a great example, and you know, it reminds us

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Speaker 2: that these works of fiction makes self correction pleasurable. Right.

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Speaker 2: And of course, you know, we make mistakes all the

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Speaker 2: time in real life too, and sometimes we get our

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Speaker 2: rear ends handed twists in real life too, but that's

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Speaker 2: not pleasurable. But in fiction it's you know, oh wow,

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Speaker 2: oh that's so interesting. And I think that kind of

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Speaker 2: makes you know, it makes it go down easier, right,

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Speaker 2: It makes us associate recognizing the limits of our capacities

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Speaker 2: to know things with pleasure or at least not discomfort.

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Speaker 2: And I think that's that's going to be good for

434
00:24:58,000 --> 00:24:59,199
Speaker 2: us in the long run. In other way, it's the

435
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 2: other sign to what we're talking about at the beginning

436
00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 2: about how rights can exploit biases. This is a way

437
00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:08,440
Speaker 2: in which runs us can gently push back against biases. Right,

438
00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:14,199
Speaker 2: these ways that we have of just distorting reality, of

439
00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:16,639
Speaker 2: getting things wrong, of thinking we know everything when we don't.

440
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 2: You can't completely undo that rain is what it is,

441
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 2: but you can gently nudge back against it and make

442
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:26,639
Speaker 2: us a little bit better equipped to deal with the

443
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:28,600
Speaker 2: world and each other. So let me ask you this.

444
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 1: You know, everybody's fictions of the future are always incorrect

445
00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:37,439
Speaker 1: in terms of how will kids be consuming entertainment in

446
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,080
Speaker 1: the future. But one thing that does seem a little

447
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 1: bit of a problem is that there's a lot more

448
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:45,360
Speaker 1: video game playing and a lot less novel reading.

449
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 2: And the question is if we take that to its extreme.

450
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:50,560
Speaker 1: I don't know if that'll actually happen, but if kids

451
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,480
Speaker 1: didn't read any literature and instead they just played role

452
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:56,719
Speaker 1: playing action games, what is lost there?

453
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:01,080
Speaker 2: So I don't want to not all video games. I

454
00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:03,119
Speaker 2: think there are actually some really interesting ones. There are

455
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 2: some very interesting games where you have choices to make

456
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 2: and at the end the game tells you this is

457
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:11,639
Speaker 2: what you chose. How do you feel about that? So

458
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 2: there are actually some very interesting cases. But I do

459
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:17,879
Speaker 2: think nonetheless, even with the best video games out there, Look,

460
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:23,719
Speaker 2: each of our modes or cultural modes, has its own affordances,

461
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:27,120
Speaker 2: has its own specific things to offer. So video games

462
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 2: have a particular thing to offer, but novels have this

463
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,160
Speaker 2: particular thing to offer, and this particular trick that Jane

464
00:26:33,200 --> 00:26:36,639
Speaker 2: Austen pulls and that Flaubert Polls and other writers pull,

465
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 2: you kind of can't do that as well in other things.

466
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 1: Including by the way, TikTok videos or Instagram or tweet them.

467
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 2: Yeah.

468
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, that concerns me just a little bit because investing

469
00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:51,159
Speaker 1: maybe not a three thousand page novel, but investing in

470
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:53,879
Speaker 1: a novel and you think you have an interpretation, then

471
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:55,119
Speaker 1: you find out that was wrong.

472
00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:58,120
Speaker 2: I just don't know if you can get that through

473
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:01,640
Speaker 2: other media. I think it's right, I think especially short films. Right,

474
00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 2: there are certain effects that can only be produced at

475
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:09,639
Speaker 2: a certain length. Certain emotions require time to produce. Not

476
00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:12,879
Speaker 2: all emotions, but some emotions, you know, gosh, you have

477
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:14,679
Speaker 2: to you need to spend the time of the characters

478
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 2: to get so invested that you will be profoundly affected

479
00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 2: by their death in a story, for example. Right, So

480
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 2: there's a variety of things that kind of only really

481
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:29,159
Speaker 2: work or work out their strongest if you're reading a

482
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 2: novel a couple hundred pages, maybe three thousand, let's tone

483
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 2: it down a few undred pages. But similarly, you know,

484
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:38,679
Speaker 2: films have particular things to offer, and TV shows are

485
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:39,520
Speaker 2: particular things to.

486
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 1: Offer exactly right, And you can watch a multi season

487
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 1: television show and get that same sort of effect out

488
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 1: of it. Yes, although I do want I just read

489
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:51,880
Speaker 1: a statistic that YouTube, the revenue that YouTube makes swamps

490
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 1: Netflix and Disney and everyone else. And you know, they

491
00:27:56,560 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 1: tend to be standalone things. You know, they're getting longer, interesting,

492
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 1: like half an hour in length. But I you know, look,

493
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 1: I'm not a cultural pessimist. I think that generally speaking,

494
00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: you know, each generation is good at some things and

495
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 1: bad as of other things. And you know it's foolish

496
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: to say, ah, the kids these days, things going to hell, right,

497
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 1: So there are some great things happening now. But I

498
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:24,920
Speaker 1: also want to say, on the other side of that,

499
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:27,159
Speaker 1: I think we need to try to hang on to

500
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 1: the practice of engaging with long form works of fiction,

501
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:35,480
Speaker 1: long form works in nonfiction as well. But in the

502
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: context of our conversation, I don't want the world to

503
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 1: devolve into just tiktoks or you know, a two minute

504
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: YouTube video one after the other after the other. There

505
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 1: are things that we're losing if we lose that.

506
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 2: I agreed.

507
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 1: Are there any other cognitive biases that writers exploit?

508
00:28:56,640 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, so one obvious one is the peak end, which

509
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:04,800
Speaker 2: Conoman talks about. So that's the phenomenon where if you're

510
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 2: thinking about an experience that lasted for a certain length

511
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 2: of time. Let's say you went to Paris for a

512
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 2: week and somebody asks you, how was Paris. You're very likely,

513
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 2: you know, if you want to give like a one

514
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 2: would answer it was great. It was Paris. Of course

515
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 2: it was great. But you know, you're going to be

516
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 2: more influenced by the experience at its peak and the

517
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:30,280
Speaker 2: experience at its sense. So whatever the last thing was

518
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 2: you did in Paris, and then whatever was either the

519
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 2: greatest thing or the most horrible thing that happened in Paris.

520
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:40,280
Speaker 2: That affects our reading of literature too. It makes endings

521
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 2: unusually important. Right, A great ending can almost save a

522
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 2: mediocre work of art, and a terrible edd it can

523
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 2: ruin what was otherwise a great work of art. So

524
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 2: that's one another one which Viera Tobin has talked about,

525
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 2: just this brilliant theory about this thing called the curse

526
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 2: of knowledge and the curse of knowledg Knowledge is basically

527
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 2: this phenomenon where once you know something, it becomes more

528
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:09,520
Speaker 2: difficult for you to imagine not knowing it. And it

529
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:14,160
Speaker 2: even applies to yourself of five minutes ago. So when

530
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 2: when you're watching a quiz show and they give the answer,

531
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 2: you think, ah, I should have known that, because now

532
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:23,400
Speaker 2: you know it, and so vera. Tobin says, this is

533
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 2: one of the ways in which twists work in literature

534
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 2: and in movies, that you want the reader or viewer

535
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 2: to have this experience of of course it was Jimmy.

536
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:41,800
Speaker 2: Of course it was Jimmy. I should have known all along.

537
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 2: But you don't want people to figure out it was

538
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 2: Jimmy after five minutes. And that's a difficult thing to

539
00:30:47,600 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 2: pull off as a writer or a screenwriter. So Tobin says, well, look,

540
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 2: you exploit the curse of knowledge. You drop a few

541
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 2: breadcrumbs around where you know it could be Jimmy, and

542
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:00,720
Speaker 2: by the time time you get to the end you

543
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 2: reveal it's Jimmy. Because of the curse of knowledge, the

544
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 2: viewer is going to say, oh, that's such a satisfying

545
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 2: of of course it was Jimmy. So these are a

546
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 2: couple more of these little quirks of our cognitive apparatus

547
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:16,240
Speaker 2: that writers can exploit to delight and challenge and and

548
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 2: and push us not just out of our comfort zone,

549
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 2: terrific and.

550
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:23,720
Speaker 1: So for other biases that writers can exploit, what about priming.

551
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 2: What is priming great? So priming is a phenomenon where

552
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 2: basically exposure to a given stimulus makes subsequent related stimuli

553
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 2: more salient. So that's a lot of jargon. The basic

554
00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 2: thought is that if you've just seen a wolf and

555
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 2: you're walking around in the forest, then some sudden rustling

556
00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:48,760
Speaker 2: might make you think that's another wolf. Right, You're going

557
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:51,720
Speaker 2: to be more sensitive either to real or even imagined

558
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 2: phenomena that are that are similar to what you've just experienced.

559
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 2: So this shows up in all kinds of ways in

560
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 2: literary texts. You can get people to anticipate things, whether

561
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:09,640
Speaker 2: they're going to be there or not. Priming works in

562
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 2: some surprising ways.

563
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:15,239
Speaker 3: So for example, if you you know, if you if

564
00:32:15,280 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 3: you flash up on a screen for fraction of a

565
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 3: second the word eight, people will be quicker.

566
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 2: As in E E I G H D I G

567
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 2: H T got it. People with quicker to notice the

568
00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:32,520
Speaker 2: number eight. That's straightforward. But they'll also be quicker to

569
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 2: notice things that rhyme with that. And here's a really

570
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 2: wild one. If you flash up the word towed t

571
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 2: O W E D as in they towed my car yesterday,

572
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:48,000
Speaker 2: people are going to be quicker at recognizing the word frog.

573
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 2: Why because obviously t O w D sounds a bit

574
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 2: like t O A D the wart amphibian. So that's fascinating.

575
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 2: Then what's going on in there? Somehow the brain is

576
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 2: registering this, translate it into sounds and then generating associations

577
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 2: based on those sounds, and.

578
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 1: All that's happening under the hood. And and what this

579
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:09,440
Speaker 1: tells us, by the way, is that all this activity

580
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 1: is constantly churning under the hood, even when we have

581
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: no idea.

582
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 2: Word flashes and I mean just.

583
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:20,640
Speaker 1: Exactly all the pathways that are tickled as a result

584
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 1: of that exactly.

585
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 2: So then this is a delicious thing for poets to exploit. Yeah,

586
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 2: so Shakespeare. Shakespeare's Sonnet seven is a sonnet that is

587
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:38,480
Speaker 2: basically a sonnet about how how much it sucks to

588
00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:43,800
Speaker 2: geld and it's it compares, you know, the search dijectorial

589
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 2: life to the sun rising being high in the sky

590
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 2: and then setting and and and the speaker basically says,

591
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 2: you know, sounds pretty glorious when it rises, and then

592
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:57,520
Speaker 2: it's really powerful. Everyone's in all of the sun when

593
00:33:57,560 --> 00:33:59,760
Speaker 2: it's at its height. But then when it goes down

594
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 2: and doesn't give a monkey's about it anymore. And this

595
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:08,040
Speaker 2: is my situation, David, just kid. But here's the cool thing.

596
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:12,759
Speaker 2: The last coumpl it is so thou thyself outgoing in

597
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:17,799
Speaker 2: thy noon, unlooked on, diest unless thou hast a son.

598
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:23,400
Speaker 2: So what the speaker saying is, you're going to be

599
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:27,439
Speaker 2: in the situation of that son as it sets, where

600
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:30,680
Speaker 2: no one cares about you. You're going to be going

601
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 2: to die unlooked on. People aren't going to pay any

602
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:37,160
Speaker 2: attention to you unless you have a child, Unless you

603
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:41,239
Speaker 2: have a son. This comes out of nowhere in the poem, right,

604
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 2: there's nothing at all about love or marriage or procreation. Nothing.

605
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 2: Suddenly the speaker's like, so anyway, you should have children,

606
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 2: but specifically a son, specifically a son. And I hope

607
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:56,920
Speaker 2: you see where I'm going with this. On the one end,

608
00:34:56,960 --> 00:34:58,440
Speaker 2: it comes out of nowhere, But on the other end

609
00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 2: doesn't feel like it comes out of nowhere. Why because

610
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:03,400
Speaker 2: we've been hearing the entire time about the sun s

611
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 2: U N And that works on us exactly the same

612
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:10,800
Speaker 2: way that tweed works on us. And it makes the

613
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 2: word sun feel completely natural. Yeah, we're primed to sort

614
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:18,759
Speaker 2: of half expect the word s O n son.

615
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:34,759
Speaker 1: So this comes back to the question I asked before,

616
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:37,759
Speaker 1: which is how in the world when Shakespeare or the

617
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:41,239
Speaker 1: different authors who we summarized Shakespeare, when they sat around

618
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:43,319
Speaker 1: and talked about this sort of thing, how did they

619
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 1: How did they? Was it just an intuition that word

620
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 1: feels right there?

621
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 2: Possibly? I think we don't know enough abounce it. Uh,

622
00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:56,720
Speaker 2: you know, we have some we have some writ things

623
00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:00,320
Speaker 2: from for example, seventeenth century France. They were there's a

624
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 2: big period of thinking hard about dramatic technique in particular,

625
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 2: so there's lots of raging debates about how you do

626
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:11,319
Speaker 2: things and why there are stuff we have from tenth

627
00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 2: century Kashmir. So one of my fantastic former students now

628
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 2: teaching at Claremont works on two guys named Ibnvagupta Ananda Vardner,

629
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:22,480
Speaker 2: and they're thinking about how do you produce poetry that

630
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:28,680
Speaker 2: elicits certain experiences, particularly emotional experiences in viewers, listeners, readers.

631
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:34,240
Speaker 2: So at certain times, in certain places you get actual

632
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 2: explicit reflection on it, sometimes really insightful. But I think

633
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:44,440
Speaker 2: it's really the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in at least

634
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 2: in the European tradition that people really start digging in

635
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:49,799
Speaker 2: to a bunch of these things, and so we can

636
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 2: you know, we could be absolutely sure that Flaubert was

637
00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:56,480
Speaker 2: thinking about the way his sentences sounded and their shape,

638
00:36:56,600 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 2: and Prus was thinking about verb tenses. And that's something

639
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 2: that is clearly happening. You know, as these as these

640
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 2: crafts sort of become more professionalized and people are thinking

641
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:13,480
Speaker 2: about what they're doing. The central point for us is, yes,

642
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 2: these many of these folks were just intuitive, aren'tists. They

643
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:19,319
Speaker 2: had a feeling this is how it's going to work,

644
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 2: sometimes just by trying it on themselves.

645
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 1: So this makes me think of something which is as

646
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 1: a field, neuroscience constantly thinks, hey, we're just covering on things.

647
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:31,840
Speaker 1: Often there are plenty of examples scattered through the millennia

648
00:37:32,120 --> 00:37:33,160
Speaker 1: where we see people have.

649
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 2: Thought about these topics before. So here's the question I

650
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 2: have for you.

651
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:40,279
Speaker 1: Let me take one step back to introduce this question,

652
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:42,600
Speaker 1: which is, if you look at what's happened, for example,

653
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:44,480
Speaker 1: in the game of chess or the game of go,

654
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 1: what's happened is that Ai has come along beat the

655
00:37:49,040 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 1: world champion, but all the human players have gotten better

656
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 1: as a result, all the chess players in the world

657
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:58,040
Speaker 1: are better players now because they're training with AI. They're

658
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:02,319
Speaker 1: taking new hints and strategies from AI in both chess

659
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 1: and go. And I've been very interested in what writers

660
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 1: will do, and I'm very curious about things that maybe

661
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:14,760
Speaker 1: just haven't been intuited over the last couple of millennia.

662
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:18,319
Speaker 2: But we will realize, Hey, there's this whole new thing

663
00:38:18,400 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 2: we can do here. Have you thought about this topic.

664
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,479
Speaker 2: We'll bound to be wrong whenever we say, I guess

665
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:30,480
Speaker 2: there's a couple of interesting analogs. Right, You've mentioned one

666
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 2: the world of go and chess. Another is photography. So

667
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:39,680
Speaker 2: photography comes in in the nineteenth century, and some answersts

668
00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 2: are a little worried by that because you know, for

669
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:46,600
Speaker 2: some folks they saw themselves as being in the business

670
00:38:46,680 --> 00:38:51,720
Speaker 2: of representing the world of sort of producing a faithful depiction.

671
00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:57,279
Speaker 2: You mean painters, Yes, painters. Not everyone saw themselves in that,

672
00:38:57,320 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 2: but just as some did. And so it's kind of

673
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 2: an interesting challenge. Now, notice that you can go two ways.

674
00:39:03,239 --> 00:39:07,319
Speaker 2: Some folks became photography artists. Right, We're going to take

675
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 2: this new medium and exploit it for what it can

676
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 2: do in the world was, you know, not just thinking

677
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:18,800
Speaker 2: of it as a kind of information gathering information gathering machine,

678
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:21,800
Speaker 2: but hey, you know, we can scratch the photo. We

679
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:23,920
Speaker 2: can you know, we can overexpose it. We're not under

680
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 2: exposed it. We can solarize it. All kinds of cool things, right,

681
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 2: or we can we can make photographs that are kind

682
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 2: of surreal by juxtaposing things, all kinds of fantastic stuff

683
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:36,840
Speaker 2: in the domain of photography. But another very different trajectory

684
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 2: consists of artists who are saying I'm going to do

685
00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 2: a thing that photography can't do, right, and that happens

686
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:47,840
Speaker 2: not only in photography, but interestingly also in literature. Of

687
00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 2: people even in literature are saying, well, this whole, this

688
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 2: whole business photography is making me think literature shouldn't be

689
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:59,439
Speaker 2: photography either. Metaphorically speaking, literature shouldn't just be a kind

690
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 2: of well, you know what, there are five houses on

691
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:06,280
Speaker 2: that street and one of them is read right, Okay,

692
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 2: you're fine, you know, you take your camera out and

693
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 2: you can you can transmit that information. I think we

694
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 2: could potentially anticipate one or both of those things happening

695
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 2: with the world of AI, so you could potentially imagine

696
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:25,359
Speaker 2: people taking this AI thing and making interesting as ounce

697
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:28,360
Speaker 2: of it. And I've seen some cases of that, but

698
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 2: you could also, hopefully, I would like to think, imagine novelists,

699
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:39,319
Speaker 2: filmmakers and TV show ritss and so on saying themselves, Okay,

700
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:43,120
Speaker 2: this is an opportunity to think about what's special and

701
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 2: distinctive about the medium that we have. What is it

702
00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:51,920
Speaker 2: that we do that this technology can't do, and to

703
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:54,840
Speaker 2: try to really lean into that and push that to

704
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:55,399
Speaker 2: its limit.

705
00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 1: I love that and just a flesh set out, you know,

706
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:05,879
Speaker 1: with painting that led to the Impressionists and the surrealists

707
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 1: and the Cubists and so on, because they said, look,

708
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: photo can't do this. That's we're going to move into

709
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 1: that realm there. And so it's very interesting to me.

710
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:16,880
Speaker 1: I can tell when I'm reading substack articles, I can

711
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:19,919
Speaker 1: tell who's just popped out of chat GYPTV who's really

712
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 1: written it, because at least right now, there still exists

713
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:25,280
Speaker 1: a pretty big difference and you can tell human writing

714
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 1: and it's so lovely. I feel like it's more appreciated

715
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: than ever now.

716
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 2: Yeah that's true, Thank goodness, right, and you know it's Yeah,

717
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:37,320
Speaker 2: it's an opportunity obviously a bunch of things are happening,

718
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:42,359
Speaker 2: some are good, some not so good. But whatever, whatever

719
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 2: is happening, it's an opportunity for rest All to think about, Okay,

720
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:46,840
Speaker 2: why is it we value what we value? Why do

721
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 2: we value I totally value it when an actual person

722
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 2: wrote it right. Somebody said, watched I bother reading if

723
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 2: you couldn't even be bothered to write it? And I

724
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:58,520
Speaker 2: think there's something about our relationship to Jane Austen, to

725
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:03,360
Speaker 2: Tony Morrison, to Marssell proof to these writers that we

726
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 2: love spending time around too. Great filmmakers like Charlie Kaufman.

727
00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 2: There's something of a connection that we establish with them,

728
00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:14,520
Speaker 2: almost a communion that we establish with them across their artwork,

729
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 2: which is just not going to be the case with

730
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 2: AI generated material. Now. You know, in some cases, like

731
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of pop music, and I often

732
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 2: care who wrote a song, but I don't always care

733
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 2: who wrote a song right. So there are some cases

734
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 2: where that's not necessarily the most important thing that's going

735
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:37,959
Speaker 2: on in the transaction, But there are other cases where

736
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 2: it clearly is absolutely essential.

737
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 1: Also, I would assert that as possible that you maybe

738
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 1: care that the song was written by somebody.

739
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 2: And part of this plugs is great.

740
00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, part of the plugs into what I'm calling the

741
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 1: effort phenomenon, which is just that we really care about

742
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:58,840
Speaker 1: the effort that's gone into something. And so when we

743
00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:01,320
Speaker 1: look at Proust writing three thousand page novel and we

744
00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:04,279
Speaker 1: imagine the years or possibly decades.

745
00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:04,800
Speaker 2: That it took him to do that.

746
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 1: You know, I could generate a three thousand page thing

747
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:09,760
Speaker 1: on chat GPT and you say, what a waste.

748
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 2: I can't believe you'd actually want someone to read that.

749
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it's the it's our understanding of what he

750
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:19,879
Speaker 1: did to get there that makes the difference. And by

751
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 1: the way, this is why I, for example, you know,

752
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:26,440
Speaker 1: I give public lectures and I'm not at all worried

753
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 1: about that going away because people really care.

754
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 2: I think, possibly now more than.

755
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:36,400
Speaker 1: Ever, about seeing a human, you know, and having that

756
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:38,840
Speaker 1: human fly across the country and stand on that stage

757
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:39,799
Speaker 1: where I can see them.

758
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:41,880
Speaker 2: That makes a big difference. That's a great point. And

759
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:44,000
Speaker 2: then of course the Q and A where you yeah,

760
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:48,279
Speaker 2: you're not chat gptaying it. Yeah, it's real you, yeah,

761
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 2: real them. I love this point, and it can be

762
00:43:51,120 --> 00:43:54,080
Speaker 2: much more imperfect one of the abogies give this. I

763
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:57,080
Speaker 2: gave this analogy on on an episode a while ago.

764
00:43:57,160 --> 00:44:00,920
Speaker 2: But there's this interesting thing with synthetic diamonds. Now, you

765
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 2: can in a laboratory generate a synthetic diamond that is perfect,

766
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:07,200
Speaker 2: that has no flaws in it, but still people care

767
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 2: about the real thing with the flaws and won't pay

768
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 2: much more money for it because, in a sense, Mother

769
00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:16,319
Speaker 2: Nature put a billion years of effort into making that thing,

770
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:18,400
Speaker 2: as opposed to five days in the lab. That's a

771
00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 2: lovely analogy. I love that. I always think of Michelangelo's

772
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:26,880
Speaker 2: Sistine Champel ceiling. I mean, it's intrinsically beautiful, but part

773
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,480
Speaker 2: of what we're experiencing is how did he do that?

774
00:44:30,200 --> 00:44:33,120
Speaker 2: The virtue walcity is part of the experience. Yeah, how

775
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:35,000
Speaker 2: did you do that? How did Michael Angelier pay the

776
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 2: Sisting Champel ceiling? How did Tony Morrison manage to pull

777
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 2: that incredible trick on us? And it's not just a

778
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 2: cheap trick. Yeah, it's a trick that moves us. It's

779
00:44:44,120 --> 00:44:46,440
Speaker 2: a trick that challenges us. It's a trick that makes

780
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:48,879
Speaker 2: us relate to the world in a different way. It's

781
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:51,359
Speaker 2: extraordinaring and you just have to take your hat off

782
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:54,200
Speaker 2: to Tony Morrison, and that is an experience of a

783
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 2: human being that cannot be replicated through technology.

784
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:04,360
Speaker 1: That was my interview with my colleague at stand for,

785
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:07,759
Speaker 1: Joshua Landy, as we talked about just a few of

786
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:11,800
Speaker 1: the issues that surface in our course literature and the brain.

787
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:14,200
Speaker 1: And so this brings me back to the beginning of

788
00:45:14,280 --> 00:45:18,960
Speaker 1: the podcast, to my kitchen where my daughter sits frozen,

789
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:22,480
Speaker 1: her eyes darting around while her head is locked on

790
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 1: a page, and she is living in a world with

791
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 1: a monkey and a cat in outer space. Her body

792
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:32,600
Speaker 1: is in the here and now, but her mind is elsewhere.

793
00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 1: And that I think is the extraordinary magic of literature.

794
00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:41,840
Speaker 1: It takes the most advanced piece of biological hardware in

795
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: the known universe, the brain, and invites it to simulate

796
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: entire worlds, to run experiments in alternate lives, to dance

797
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:57,440
Speaker 1: with ambiguity, and to revise its assumptions again and again.

798
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 1: What literature offers us isn't just entertainment. It's a rehearsal

799
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 1: space for empathy, for introspection, for humility. It teaches us

800
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: that our first instincts can be wrong, that people are

801
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:15,799
Speaker 1: more complicated than they seem, that the world sometimes resists

802
00:46:15,960 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: tidy packaging, and the active reading becomes a kind of

803
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 1: cognitive calisthenics, one that exercises the mental muscles we need

804
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:33,240
Speaker 1: in a complex, unpredictable society. We need curiosity and perspective taking,

805
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:38,399
Speaker 1: and nuance and self doubt. So writers, most of whom

806
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:43,560
Speaker 1: presumably had no training in neuroscience, have for millennia intuited

807
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:47,880
Speaker 1: how to guide our attention, how to play on our biases,

808
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:51,600
Speaker 1: how to surprise and disarm us, how to steer us

809
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:55,279
Speaker 1: down garden paths, and how to leave us saying, oh,

810
00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:57,000
Speaker 1: my god, of course that's what happened.

811
00:46:57,440 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 2: These aren't just parlor tricks.

812
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 1: These are acts of generosity, because what they offer us

813
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:08,360
Speaker 1: is the chance to rewire ourselves to become slightly different,

814
00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 1: slightly better versions of who we were before we picked

815
00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:16,920
Speaker 1: up the book. And that's why we might worry just

816
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:21,280
Speaker 1: a little about the declining time that many people, especially

817
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:25,600
Speaker 1: young people, are spending in the deep space of novels.

818
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:29,239
Speaker 1: This is not because video games or tiktoks or youtubes

819
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:33,880
Speaker 1: are inherently bad, but because they rarely offer the same

820
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 1: rigor of cognitive training. These short form things aren't generally

821
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:45,440
Speaker 1: built to cultivate ambiguity or to stretch empathy across chapters

822
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:48,200
Speaker 1: or lifetimes. Some might do it once in a while,

823
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:51,800
Speaker 1: but novels specialize in it. So let's make sure we

824
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:57,200
Speaker 1: don't lose the habit. Let's remember the strange human superpower

825
00:47:57,280 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: that we've developed to sit still, to decode squiggles on

826
00:48:01,640 --> 00:48:05,879
Speaker 1: a page, and to be emotionally transformed by people who

827
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:10,800
Speaker 1: never existed. Let's honor the decades long effort that a

828
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:16,200
Speaker 1: great author might spend to gift us with one transcendent moment.

829
00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 1: And let's recognize that reading literature isn't passive consumption.

830
00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:27,440
Speaker 2: It's active simulation. It's mental travel in time and space.

831
00:48:28,239 --> 00:48:32,360
Speaker 1: It's the brain doing what it does best, building models

832
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 1: of the world, running them forward, learning, updating, and every

833
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:41,239
Speaker 1: once in a while feeling awe. So the next time

834
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 1: use it down with a good novel, know this, you're

835
00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:49,520
Speaker 1: not wasting time. You're going to the cognitive gym to

836
00:48:49,640 --> 00:48:58,760
Speaker 1: become a stronger human. Go to Eagleman dot com slash

837
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 1: podcast for more and and to find further reading. Check

838
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:04,840
Speaker 1: out my newsletter on substack and be a part of

839
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:07,840
Speaker 1: the online chats there and you can watch videos of

840
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:10,880
Speaker 1: Inner Cosmos on YouTube, or you can leave comments.

841
00:49:13,200 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 2: Until next time. I'm David Eagleman and this is Inner Cosmos.