WEBVTT - Ep107 "Why do brains love stories?" (with Joshua Landy) 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:10.600 Why do brains love stories? How do brains move so 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:16.040 easily from assessing reality out there to slipping into totally 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:19.040 made up worlds that you know are made up? What 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:23.400 do authors of great literature have in common with stage 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.400 magicians and comedians? And what does any of this have 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:30.240 to do with cognitive shortcuts? Or how the brain is 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:34.479 a prediction machine? Or Marcel Proust or Tony Morrison or 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:43.320 Jane Austen, or why jokes always come in threes. Welcome 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:46.680 to enter cosmos with me, David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:49.599 and an author at Stanford and in these episodes we 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:54.160 sail deeply into our three pound universe to uncover some 0:00:54.240 --> 0:01:13.240 of the most surprising aspects of our lives. Today's episode 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:18.080 is about why humans read books. I was watching my 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:21.480 young daughter the other day. She loves to jump around 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.200 and dance and be on the move, but she was 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:29.280 sitting stock still in the kitchen, staring at symbols of 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:33.480 strange shapes written on a page, something like hieroglyphics or 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:37.399 weird squiggles. Now, it just so happens that English is 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.520 the language that I speak and read, so the squiggles 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.000 of that alphabet don't look strange to me. 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.360 My brain has overtrained on them so that. 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.560 They immediately carry meaning, and my daughter, in the last 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:54.720 several years, has also overtrained on them. But obviously, if 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:58.320 I were from another place on the planet, I would 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:02.640 see these only as weird squiggles. Anyway, she was staring 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:08.680 at these and was obviously transported internally to another world. 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.440 Even though she was sitting in our kitchen, her mind 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:18.240 was elsewhere. Now this is strange because any neuroscience textbook 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:22.360 that you read, including my own, will assert that brains 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:27.919 are all about gathering information from their environment. Your eyes 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:32.040 are scanning for threats and opportunities in front of you. 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.600 Your ears are listening, your nose is smelling, your skin 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:40.480 is registering information. All of it is about monitoring what 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:45.799 is happening around you. And yet it is extraordinarily easy 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:50.120 for us to stare at these cryptic symbols and be 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:55.000 transported into completely new worlds. In this case, my daughter 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:59.160 was in the life of somebody else. Specifically, she was 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:03.040 on a long trip through space with a cat and 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:03.640 a monkey. 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:06.959 That's what her brain thought. At least for the most part. 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:11.480 It wasn't so aware of the details of the kitchen 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:16.720 and the sounds around her. Instead, most of the processing 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:21.480 hardware was busy living in this other world, one which 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:25.119 had its own trials and tribulations, and, by the way, 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.760 one which doesn't actually exist, but which nonetheless has no 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:34.280 problem making her laugh and cry and occupy all of 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:37.240 her attention. So this kind of thing got me wondering 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:40.600 a long time ago about why it is so easy 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:45.120 for us to slip into other worlds, and more importantly, 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:50.800 into other characters' lives and to experience their situation and 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.160 their emotions. So to this point, one of the classes 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:59.440 I teach at Stanford is called Literature and the Brain. 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.840 I co teach this with a wonderful colleague of mine, 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:07.000 doctor Joshua Landy, who works in the Comparative Literature department. 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:09.280 For years, josh. 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.240 And I have both been obsessed from different angles about 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:16.839 the big picture of how and why stories pervade all 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:20.200 human cultures, and not only are they there, but they're 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:24.640 the main thing that characterizes the culture. We are more 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.479 than information gatherers. We are a very particular type of 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:34.080 information gatherer, and universally, it seems that the optimal way 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:39.200 to swallow the jagged pill of information is to wrap 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:43.680 it in story. So here's my interview with my colleague 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:50.520 Joshua Landy. So, josh you and I have known each 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:52.520 other for a long time and for many years now 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.240 we've been teaching a class at Stanford called Literature and 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.880 the Brain, and that's proven to be a very popular class. 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:00.960 Happily people are in thanks to you. Yeah, thanks to you. 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.560 And so I'm you know, I'm a neuroscientist. You're in 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.720 the comparative literature department. But I love literature. You love 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.440 cognitive science, and so that's what's put us together. 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:11.440 It's been very fruitful. 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:16.960 So today let's talk about You have a statement that 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:21.440 you make, which is that cognitive biases, which are all 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:23.920 the funny things that our brain does when they're taking 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:27.880 shortcuts and so on, that these are a writer's best friend. 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:30.360 So let's start there. What do you mean by that? Yeah, 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:36.200 so you've written beautifully about these quirks of the human brain, 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:40.760 right that it's constantly making shortcuts because we just don't 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:42.839 have the glucose, we don't have the energy, we don't 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.000 have the time to be thinking everything through down to 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:48.719 the last detail. So we have to make little cognitive 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.479 shortcuts rules of thumb to get us through our day. 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:54.760 And for the most part these were great, But I'm 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:56.159 gonna and again they get us into a little bit 0:05:56.160 --> 0:06:00.320 of trouble, and sometimes it's fun trouble, right, That's the 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.840 basis of some jokes. Some of these jokes depend on 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.920 tempting the listener into making a certain kind of mistake. 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:11.520 So it's an example of such a joke, well, one 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:13.760 of Mike's. It's not particularly funny joke, but it's a 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:17.599 good example, which is the pot is in the kitchen cabinet, 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.280 don't smoke it all at once. This is an example 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.560 of a garden path joke, or as Americans say, garden 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:30.080 path joke. What you're doing is you're tempting the listener 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.880 to think that you're saying a particular thing. Well, the 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.400 pot is in the kitchen cabinet. If it's the kitchen cabinet, 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.120 it must be some kind of utensil. But not haha, 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:41.760 the joke's on you. Obviously that's not what it was 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.440 in the first place. So this is a case where 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:49.400 you're exploiting a certain tendency on the part of the brain, 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.120 which is to kind of you know, project out into 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:54.560 the future, to predict things, to fill things in when 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.279 they're not fully given to you, which we need in 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:58.200 our daily lives. 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:02.200 Exactly the brain. The brain, of course, there's a prediction machine. 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.320 And that's because the world is so complex, and really 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:09.040 the art of growing up and the job of brain 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.200 plasticity is to say, ah, okay, this is the likely 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.360 next token, as we would phrase it now in the 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:17.280 age of llms, but it's to say. 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:20.760 This is the likely thing that's going to happen next. Yeah. 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:22.800 You have a good example of a joke, and in 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:25.240 that vein the doctor joke, Oh yeah, I heard that 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:26.440 from a comedian a long time ago. 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.240 He said, I went to the doctor and the doctor said, okay, 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:31.960 take off your clothes and put him there in the 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:33.520 corner next to mine. 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.200 There you go. And the reason it works as a 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:36.920 joke is. 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:40.600 Because we have an internal model of the world and 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:45.720 all that language, ever is, is throwing small bits of 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.840 data over the transom and we say, oh, I got it, 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:50.640 I've got this word, I've got the next word. Great, 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.320 I can put together this very rich model of what's 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:53.720 going on. 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:55.440 So we never expected that. 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:59.160 And this is the notion of the garden path, And 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:03.800 so how do writers exploit this cognitive bias exactly right? 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:07.160 So that you know, these great riances will often tempt 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:11.680 you to make certain kinds of prediction, and then they'll, 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:13.160 you know, pull the rug out of mone of you. 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:16.360 And sometimes it's in jokes, because often that rule of 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.800 three where you sort of say the first thing, say 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:23.360 a second similar thing established as a pattern. Now we're 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:25.400 fully predicting that the third thing is going to be 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:27.840 the same, and then ha ha, no joke's on you. 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:31.480 Sometimes it's serious. So one of my favorite examples is 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:33.360 from Madame Bowin. I don't want to spoil too much 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:36.120 about the plot here, so I'll just say a particular 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:41.240 unfortunate thing happens, and then a very similar and fortunate 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.040 happened thing happens again. And so by the time you're 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:47.760 in a third similar situation, you're fully expecting this is 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:50.240 probably not going to go very well, right, So so 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:53.120 this can be for humorous effect, but can also be 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:58.400 for very serious effect. These great riances are setting us 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:02.120 up to make certain predictions about what's going to come next, 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:04.400 which they can then satisfy or undermine. 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.000 That's exactly right. So it's used in literary fiction. It's 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.599 also used in genre fiction. Obviously, in any sort of 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:15.880 mystery book, what or thriller. What the author is doing 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:20.200 is saying, Okay, look at this, look at this, look 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.360 at this, and he or she is just making sure 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.280 that we make particular kinds of predictions. And then at 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:28.560 the end they say, ha ha, it's actually this other 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.439 thing that you totally miss because we led you down 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:32.320 the garden path. 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:36.160 Which brings me to another cognitiviance that writes this can exploit, 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:40.520 which is selective attention. So this is of course the 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:44.400 staple of stage magic, right that magicians I don't even 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:46.480 I mean I sort of know how they do it, 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:48.440 but I basically don't know how they do it because 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:52.240 it's extraordinary. But they're able to exploit the fact that 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:56.960 our our brains cannot attend to everything at once in 0:09:57.080 --> 0:09:59.520 order to hide things almost in plain sight, like close 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:01.600 up magic. They're right in front of you, and yet 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.400 you have no idea how they did this thing they did. Interestingly, 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:08.720 literary writers can do the same thing, and this is 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:12.480 one of my favorite phenomena in literature, the experience of 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.960 oh my god, of course, and so how do you 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:18.400 pull that off? Right? How do you pull off the 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.680 experience for the reader or the viewer of Oh my God? 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:25.320 Of course? Well, essentially you have to put something in 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.320 your movie, in your TV show, in your novel that's 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:33.400 visible just enough so that the viewer remembers it later on. 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:36.880 What's an example? All right? So, one of not just 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:38.960 my favorite novels, but I know your favorite novels because 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.440 we teach it together in our class is Tony Morrison's 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:44.880 novel Song of Solomon. And I'm not going to say 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.280 too much about the plot here. It's just be a 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:53.280 very mild spoiler. There is a fantastic scene right at 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:55.800 the beginning of the novel where you see this guy 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:59.559 at the top of a tall building with these homemade 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:03.600 wings on his back, and he's announced to everybody he's 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.360 gonna fly. He's gonna take off from the tower and fly, 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:10.079 and you're kind of worried that he's not actually gonna fly. 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:14.640 It's gonna go very badly for him. Meanwhile, somebody's going 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:18.319 into labor down on the ground, and somebody else expills 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:22.040 this this basket full of homemade petals and all kinds 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:24.480 of stuff is going on it's a bright colors, the 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:28.480 blue wings, the white snow, the red petals, the woman 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.720 going into labor, the man at risk of dying, and 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.880 by the way, somebody's singing a song. Now, this song 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:39.960 is going to turn out to be very important much 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.320 later on in the novel. And indeed the song is 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.000 in the title of the novel. But I will bet 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.439 you dollars to donuts that the vast majority of readers 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:52.600 just do not notice the song, or they notice it 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:56.280 just enough that when it comes back towards the end 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:59.040 of the novel, they're like, oh my god, that song. 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.440 But it's hidden in plain sight because you're attending to 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.240 this potential death, and you're attending to the birth, and 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.360 you're attending to the spilling of the petals and the 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:11.080 colors and everything else. Brilliant. It's a kind of genius 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:15.880 move on the part of Tony Morris. Yeah, exactly right. 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.080 And just to flesh out of this idea of selective attention, 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:21.400 you know, let's let's take visual attention. 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:24.720 It's like a little spotlight and you. 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:26.880 Can make it narrow or you can make it slightly wider, 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.880 but everything outside of your field of attention you just 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.920 completely miss and hence all these things. Everyone's seen these 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:38.080 on the internet. At this, you know, inattentional blindness, where 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:41.360 you're trying, you're paying attention to something and as a 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.600 result of that, you don't see something else, like the 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:46.679 guy in the gorilla suit who walks in and beats 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:51.160 his chest. So, and of course this is why it 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:53.800 works with magic, because the magician does something. 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:54.880 You know, magicians do this thing. 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:57.160 Instead of moving their hands and straight lines, they typically 0:12:57.160 --> 0:12:59.640 do it in a curve. And I don't know, this 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:01.280 is just something they picked up on a while ago 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:03.560 that you just can't help but watch if someone's hand 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.480 does something, you think, hey, that hand is up to something, 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:07.000 and your. 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:08.160 Attention goes to that. 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:12.040 Even if your eyeballs are watching the thing they're supposed 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:14.600 to be watching, your attention is on the hand moving. 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:17.800 And so then the magician can do whatever they want 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:22.400 outside of your field of attention. And so this is 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:25.600 indeed related to the garden path issue because the writer 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:29.720 gets to drop clues on things, but just so long 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:32.240 as making sure that your attention is elsewhere. 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:34.440 Yeah, okay, good. 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:38.400 So these are things that neuroscientists have been studying for 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:42.440 a long time and novelists have been exploiting presumably for 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:45.040 much longer that neuroscientists have been studying this. 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:47.240 That is right, and that's an important point, right. The 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:51.679 thought is not that, you know, Shakespeare gotten a time 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:55.319 machine and traveled to the twentieth or twenty first century 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:59.000 and read a bunch of cogni science. No, but you know, 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.400 honests tend to work great art sent to work intuitively. 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.160 They have this intuitive sense of what's gonna land. How 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.280 obviously the same it's the stage magicians. Stage magic's been 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:11.400 around for a very long time. It got a kind 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.000 of you know, it entered its sort of modern phase 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:19.800 in the nineteenth century with people like Udin long name, 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.080 but that's Houdini named himself after this guy, and he 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:26.400 was he was the first one to really transform into 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:30.360 something kind of professional where he wasn't pretending to summon spirits. 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:35.440 He called his tricks experiments as though he were a scientist. 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.000 Wow magician. So anyway, this is a kind of digression 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:42.200 into something that I'm excited about, but it's not totally 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:45.960 on topic. But the main point is all of these 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:49.800 folks have this intuitive sense, based on experience of how 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:51.440 you get things to land. In a certain way, and 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:54.280 now we have all these wonderful scientists like you who 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:56.480 are explaining why they got it right. 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:01.120 You know, it makes me wonder when magicians, let's say 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.800 a thousand years ago, performing to the king and maybe 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:05.480 summoning spirits, whatever they were doing. 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.920 But it makes me wonder what vocabulary they used among 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:09.680 one another? 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:15.520 Did they talk about the spotlight of attention in some way? 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.080 Did they intuit the mechanism as much as the what 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:19.160 to do about it? 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.000 I mean, we don't have all the records of what 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:24.680 we would need for that, especially as magicians keep diffe. 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.080 It's interesting wonder about. 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:30.200 Authors though, Let's say a thousand years ago, an author 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:32.560 who dropped clues over here but wanted to make sure 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:34.120 the audience's tension was over there. 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:36.840 I wonder how they described. 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.280 That when they, let's say, taught small seminar classes to 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.600 other authors, how do they talk about it? 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:45.400 So we don't have those records, but it's very interesting 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:48.520 to read what people are saying, you know, in the 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:50.800 late nineteth century, early twentieth century, because that we have 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.440 a bunch of people's letters, and we have people's essays, 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:55.320 and you know, one of my Favorites is an essay 0:15:55.320 --> 0:16:00.360 by my favorite novelist, Marcel Proust, author of the three 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:04.880 thousand page be Off in Search of Lost Time. Have 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:07.280 you read the whole thing? Oh? Yeah, many times? Wow? 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:09.640 How long does it take you to go through the 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:14.640 first time? It took me seven years. Yeah, it's you know, 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:17.880 it's an investment. But that's well, that's part of what 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:19.400 you and I think about in the classes. You know, 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.040 why do we make those investments? And it's not just 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.640 for entertainment, and it's not irrational, it's completely irrational where 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.440 there are huge benefits that we get from the time 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.080 that we spend in our loving engagement with novels and 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:34.360 TV shows and movies that are that are challenging, not 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:36.880 just the ones that wear cars blow up. But to 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.800 go back to your question, you know, Pruce writes this 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:43.360 essay on Flaubert, the nineteenth century novelist, and he says, 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.440 you know, you're My favorite line in Flaubert is he 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:53.520 traveled two words sentence. It's a two words sentence, and 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:57.280 what Prusce loves about it is the use of verb tense, 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:03.080 so that this novel that is talking about by Flaubert, sorry, 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:09.520 sentimental education suddenly shifts from this kind of gradual imperfect 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.800 tense where things are kind of moving slowly and you 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:16.160 have maybe one hundred pages for an afternoon to this 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:21.440 He traveled, where you're compressing ten years into two words. Oh, 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:25.879 so you have these really interesting instances of writing just 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:29.000 talking about their craft, and they will talk about things 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:30.679 like that. They will say, you know, think about the 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:33.040 verb tenses using think about the way in which you're 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.119 handling time. Think about the point of view in the 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:37.479 novel and how it can shift, and how you can 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:39.560 trick the reader. I mean, that's a big thing in Flaubert, 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:42.960 and also in Jane Austen, tricking the She doesn't we 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:44.960 don't have the as far as I know, the records 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:47.720 of her talking about this, but it's clear in Flaubert 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:53.359 these writers are deliberately tricking us. They are tricking us 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:58.919 into thinking that some sequence of words is said to 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:01.240 you by the author and a ratre and it's just true, 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.680 when in reality it's actually just somebody's point of view. 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.440 And this turns out to be really good for us, 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:11.280 And why do you think it's good for us? So 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:14.120 this is another way in which, you know, I think 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:20.879 writers can in a salutary way exploit the frailties of 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.639 our cognitive apparatus, right, so why is it good for us? 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:28.240 You know, we encounter some kind of claim in a 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:31.600 work of fiction. A good example in Jane Austen's Pride 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:35.320 and Prejudice. There's a scene where this I borrow from 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:39.040 my friend and colleague Nnie Anderson. There's this scene where 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:44.119 Elizabeth Bennett is looking talking to mister Darcy, and everyone 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.040 will remember this from the novel of the Fantastic TV adaptation, 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:52.159 and she's talking to about this, this horrible situation with 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.480 her sister, and everyone's afraid of it and afraid what's 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:58.639 going to happen? And Darcy says something, and then the 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:03.400 line is a deeper shape of auteur spread across his features. Oh, 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:07.440 he's even more arrogant and supercilious than he ever was before. 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:12.280 He's disgusted. What a horrible family. These guys are trailer trash. 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:15.640 You know what am I getting myself involved in? Turns 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:17.560 out much later than the novel, It wasn't out at all. 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:22.320 So his expression did change. He was thinking about something, 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.840 he was feeling something. What was he feeling? Concern? He 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:28.600 was feeling all kinds of possib feelings. He was feeling concern, 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:32.560 he was thinking about his own situation. He happened to 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:35.199 know this bad guy that's involved in the situation. In 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:40.359 other words, this little, just this little sentence, this little 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:44.119 innocent looking sentence that looks like it's a statement of 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.040 fact about what's happening in the novel turns out to 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.800 be Elizabeth's point of view. Why is that good for us? 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.520 Because well, look, the whole novel is about pride and prejudice. 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.000 It's not just about the pride and prejudice of the characters, 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:01.480 it's about ours. Why did we we so quick to 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:05.879 interpret the sentence that way? Because we're prejudiced because we 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.560 have an existing belief about who Darcy is and what 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:11.800 kind of character he has, and he can't possibly be different, 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:14.639 he can't possibly be changed. Guess what we're wrong? 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:32.959 You know. 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.080 It strikes me this is part of the passage. 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:39.040 Into maturity that we all go through as humans, is 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:42.879 learning that our first interpretation of something in life is 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.040 not necessarily what we thought it was. 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:45.960 But we have these. 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.160 Internal models, and it's so hard to get over when 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:50.720 we think that someone's just given us a mean look 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.040 or something. I see my daughter who's in the fourth 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:55.560 grade now constantly come home and say, oh, so and 0:20:55.600 --> 0:20:57.680 so looked or did this thing, And I think, gosh, 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:01.480 there are probably many interpretations for what happened there, right, 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.800 But all we ever live inside of is our internal model. 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:08.800 And one thing the brain is good at doing is 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.120 coming to conclusions. Instead of saying, well, there's a whole 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:14.840 table of hypotheses here that I could hold on to, 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:20.360 it collapses down to one theory about what just happened. 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:22.600 I totally agree with you, and I think that's one 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:28.399 of the enormous benefits of novel reading generally. I mean, obviously, again, 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:30.399 you could read novels just you know, sort of light, 0:21:30.480 --> 0:21:32.040 fluffy stuff. You can read it for pleasure. Is nothing 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:36.280 wrong with that, But the kind that really challenge us, 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:38.919 like like J. Nausten's novels, like Tony Marshall's novels, like 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:43.359 Flaubert's novels, Proof three thousand page Meema, they do us 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:46.479 this enormous favorite. Milan Kundera talks about it. As you know, 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:50.800 reality is always more complicated than you think, and novels, 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:54.560 I think, get us into a better state of mind. 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:58.639 About that by what I think of as handing our 0:21:58.680 --> 0:21:59.280 rear end to. 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:03.439 Us, so as in making you think, okay, I've got this, 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:05.640 I understand exactly what's going on, and then realizing, wow, 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:09.399 I really misinterpreted exactly. It's practice at real life in 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:10.760 that way, practice at real life. 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:13.600 Yeah, and it you know, if you do enough of it, 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:16.040 if you get into a kind of habit of novel reading, 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:19.879 you're more likely to be just a little slower and 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:22.080 jumping to these conclusions. And I think this habit of 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:25.800 reading these interesting novels that challenge us and pull a 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:28.680 rug out from under us should make us a little 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:30.119 bit more circumspect. 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:32.320 Exactly because the novel is like a sandbox that you 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:34.920 get to play in, and you get to follow these 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:37.000 trajectories and say, oh. 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:37.719 Yeah, things can turn out. 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:41.520 I expect it, and yes, it strengthens our muscles for 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:43.639 realizing that can happen in real life. 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:45.720 You know, I just posted on my substack this issue. 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:50.200 We've talked about this study before about how reading even 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:53.640 short bits of literature can expand your empathy and your 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:56.440 ability to see other people. This is a related issue 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.720