WEBVTT - The Spiral of Silence 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.640 Works dot com. Hey you wasn't it Stuff to Blow 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:15.400 your Mind? My name is Robert Lamb. Hey, my name 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.040 is Julie Douglas. Julie, have you ever gone on a 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:20.960 silent retreat? Now? It's one of those things I really 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:23.800 really want to do and I really really don't want 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:25.759 to do. They can explain what this is for people 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:28.720 who are who are unfamiliar with the term. Um. It's 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:31.640 usually you'll you'll find it kind of like a Buddhist 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:33.960 retreat in which you go and it's usually like a 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:40.360 woodsy environment and you and your other retreaters sit in 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.199 absolute silence, usually in meditation. But the point is is 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:48.920 whether or not you're eating, walking, meditating, silence prevails. Okay, 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:51.920 so it for like ten days, why not just go 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:54.520 by yourself on a trip somewhere and then you can 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:58.520 have as much silence as you want, because apparently the 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:03.160 deafening silence is so maddening that a lot of people 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:07.039 struggle with it the first couple of days, and that 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.560 even in that contained environment. So can you imagine just 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:12.520 trying to do this on your own and you're like, hey, 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:15.240 I'll just go to San Francisco and have my own 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:17.120 silent retreat. You're going to break out of that. You're 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:19.280 gonna belly up to the bar and be like, I can't, 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.200 I gotta talk to someone. So you need the communal 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:26.000 support to remain silent, to drown out the maddening thoughts. 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.320 You know, this reminds me of The Leftovers. I don't 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.600 know if you've been watching this or read the book 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.240 upon which was based, but there's not ready there's there's 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:36.399 a cult in the in the in the book, and 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:40.520 in the and in the TV show, and they remain silent. 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:42.520 They also wear white and they smoke all the time. 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.559 I'm not finished with the first season, so I don't 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:48.600 know what their deal is yet completely, but but it's 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:50.720 but certainly it's something to keep in mind as we 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.280 go through this episode. That'd be something, you know, a 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:57.880 smoking Buddhist silent retreat. Yeah, I mean, certainly you have monasteries. 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:01.440 There's a long tradition of of nks taking a vow 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:04.600 of silence in the Western tradition, So so you have 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.120 the idea that there is something to be found, something 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:11.239 holy about silence, something therapeutic about silence. Is a is 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:15.920 a very old concept but also something very uncomfortable about silence. 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:18.640 And we all have had that before. We have experienced 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:22.840 that awkward moment and conversation. And apparently this is actually 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:26.040 like a thing that people have tried to fit into 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.640 a phenomenon, right, this idea that if you are in 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.840 a group, that a hush will fall over the room 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.040 after about twenty minutes or so, yeah, twenty minutes after 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:39.400 the hour. Even is is this specific version of this 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:42.040 which was news to me, the idea that you're hanging 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:43.960 out with a bunch of people, it's going to suddenly 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:47.000 be uh, you know, one twenty and everyone's going to 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:51.840 go silent. And there's some crazy ideas for why this 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.120 crazy thing could possibly be happening. And you know, this 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:57.600 interesting thing about that is I bet that everybody listening 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:00.560 has experienced that. You know, you've been in a group situation, 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:03.480 everybody's talking, chatting, and then then that hush falls over. 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.480 But you probably have never set yourself, ah, it's twenty 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:10.360 minutes after the hour. It must be because one of 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:14.240 two crazy superstitions. Yes, now that the first one is 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:16.680 the one that I'm I'm more into, And that's the 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.320 idea that. Okay, first of all, buy into the idea 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:24.160 that there are angels in the world, Okay, supernatural beings 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.359 that do God's will, or perhaps don't do God's will 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:29.480 because they fall from grace and live in hell. Now 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:31.920 it depends on which version of the story you go with, 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:34.800 but there are angels. Maybe we can't see them, maybe 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.520 we can. And they like to sing. And when they sing, 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:41.720 their otherworldly voices are so beautiful, even if we're only 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:44.720 hearing them with the with the the subconscious mind, it 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:47.280 just forces us to be silent. It just it just 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.160 chills us to silence. What I love about this is 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.320 that apparently they start their heavenly do wopping like twenty 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:56.160 minutes after the hour, and that's why we would instinctively 0:03:56.320 --> 0:03:58.640 falls silence that we could hear. Are the clocks in 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.440 heaven like twenty men? It's slower than they're singing at 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.000 the top of the hour, or do they they They're 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:06.240 they're being patient, you know, waiting for us to be 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:07.880 quiet so they can sing, and then they give up 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:09.560 and they're like, all right, let's just start the show, right. 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.040 Is there a heavenly course of angels for each time zone? 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:14.440 How is this working. Yeah, and I never I don't 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:16.240 know when I think of the angels, I mean, when 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:17.800 do they have time to sing? They have a lot 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.839 of death instruction to lay out on mankind. It seems 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:23.960 like it's a pretty busy work schedule. Why are there 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:26.200 enough angels just to stand around in sting. I like 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:30.719 to imagine it's the cherubic um, like fat baby angels 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.040 that are doing this. Oh well, okay, I can imagine 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.400 that that the bones that are in stein Mart. You know, 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:39.840 they're like a wooden cut out with their hands underneath 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:42.960 their their chins because the original cherubs and uh and 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.359 when you really go back into the mythology, they're terrifying. 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:50.760 They're they're beastual human hybrids that that are there to 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:54.120 lay waste. So and but who's to say they don't 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:56.000 have a nice singing voice. I'm talking about the cute 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:02.960 version here. Now, another superstition here is that because Abraham 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:09.560 Lincoln was killed at seven twenty pm, that we again, 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:16.080 somehow instinctively will commemorate the death of Lincoln at twenty 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.680 past the hour, which this one has all sorts of 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.360 wholely logic in it. And if you if I had 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:23.919 not heard this yesterday. If I had not read about 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.840 this online yesterday, I would think you were making this 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.000 up right now, because this is even crazier to me 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:33.680 than the angel idea. Because for the angel idea to work, Okay, 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.160 I have to I have to accept that there are angels. 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:40.159 I have to buy into the supernatural and admit that 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:44.040 their supernatural beings out there that are singing and causing 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.080 people to go silent, and they're beying some sort of 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.040 crazy schedule. Okay, I can buy into that on some level. 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:51.839 I can buy into that. But to say that Abraham 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:57.560 Lincoln's death resonated so strongly in human culture that it 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:01.320 causes everyone to fall silent twenty minutes after the hour 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.800 every hour apparently, And and then you have to ask questions, well, 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:06.400 then does it is it only in the in the 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:10.919 United States? What happens if you were pro slavery? You 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:13.280 know what happens if you're just you just don't have 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:16.440 a good understanding of history. Or is it something so 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:19.839 powerful that it moves forward and backward in time. Well, 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:21.720 that that was the thing I was going to say. 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.960 In a linear way like that also supposes that before 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:30.839 Lincoln died there was no group hush, right, Like there 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:34.359 was just a continuum of conversation and no one ever paused. 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:38.520 But we were coming up with a different theory here earlier, 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:42.640 and I guess you could call it the theory, yes, 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:46.760 because that's another twenty minute after um trope that comes up, right, 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:52.159 is the time to to consume cannabis? Right, And so 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:56.120 the idea there maybe is that after the consumption, it 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.720 takes about twenty minutes for the wall of stone ery 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:04.000 to set in, in which the group hush becomes apparent. 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.320 So people are actually lighting up at four as opposed 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.400 to four. They lit up at four, and at four 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:14.760 twenty is when the crushing silence of stonerism set in. Okay, 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:17.320 all right, I could see that that possibly being so 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:19.320 as you think it could be the cause of the phenomenon, 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.640 because another read would be that it stems from the phenomenon, 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:25.560 like suddenly everybody's quiet, and so out of that social 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:29.080 anxiety they light up. You know, these are just amusing, 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:34.480 These are mid morning musings over coffee. Probably the better 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:40.240 explanation is that it's just a natural arc to our narratives, 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.440 and maybe twenty minutes into a conversation we've kind of 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.280 plumb the depths of a joke or a topic. Um. 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:52.440 There is another explanation, however, that is called the protection postulate. Yeah, 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:54.480 and this one is pretty good. This one is significantly 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.280 less crazy though also, uh, you know, not completely proven out, 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.160 but this is the idea that you know, again, take 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:04.520 who're going to travel back in time to primordial age. 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.760 We're out there around the fire, around the fire, yeah, 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.679 and we're talking about our day at work, killing animals 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:14.480 and foraging for food and uh, and then a hush 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.840 falls over us because we have to stop and listen 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:20.920 to for the the sound of approaching predators coming to 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:24.080 eat us at our fire, or the the or approaching 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.480 rival tribes people coming to slay us in the night. 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:29.560 You know what, I think there may be something to that. 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:31.800 I have to say. I think there's something to an 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:34.040 arc of a conversation. And I think there's something to 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.480 a group falling silent as a sort of instinctive measure 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:43.400 to gauge what's going on outside that environment, because because 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:45.280 you know, we've all had those conversations that are so good, 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:47.720 you're just completely wrapped up in it, and you're gonna 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.080 kind of reach the height where you have to fall 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:51.920 down again. You have to realize that I'm just I'm 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.480 standing here in the room and who's kind of awkward 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:56.440 actually because they don't really know this person and I 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.120 was just really drilling into them with my whole diet 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.079 tribe of about the Ring movies or something. Yeah, and 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:04.800 now they're crouched in a corner and the silence has 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:07.360 fallen over the room. I love that though. I love 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.160 when the silence falls and everybody's kind of like nervously 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:13.160 titters and there's that one person who's like, whoa ye, 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:16.600 gotten quiet, and then they call off the awkward silence. 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.440 In any case, all the silence leaves us, uh with 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:25.000 something that feels, you know, very intimate, but sometimes very isolating. 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.520 It's like this bubble that surrounds us. And so we're 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.840 going to talk about this today, this idea that within 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.360 silence there's a merit to it and then there's also 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.520 kind of, um, a demerit I guess you could say 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.080 to it. Yeah. It kind of calls back to our 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:41.960 episode A Splendid Isolation that we did back in the day, 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:45.240 where we talked about how a little isolation is great, 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:48.480 a lot of isolation not so great, you can have 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:52.080 the same as the and we encounter a similar situation 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:56.600 with silence. So let's start off by discussing the merits 0:09:56.640 --> 0:10:00.480 of silence, the benefits of silence, blissful silence. Well, and 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:03.760 we see this a lot in terms of education, people 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:08.800 exploring the idea of silence and reflection um as tools 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.640 in the classroom. And if you look at Helen E. 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:15.280 Lee's work, she's a research fellow in educational theory at 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:19.720 University of Stirling. She posits that classrooms silence really helps 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:24.760 college students to consider, retain, and reflect on her lectures. 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:28.040 And she actually brings an egg timer into the classroom 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:32.160 with her and sets it for three minute intervals twice 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.600 during the class. And I thought about that. I was like, 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:37.360 you know, that is actually, I think a very helpful 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.440 concept because anyone who's ever been in a lecture, any 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.800 sort of situation, well there's a ton of information coming 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.880 at them. You can't help your but you know, listen 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:50.560 to your brain, try to react to that information, draw 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:53.760 conclusions and connections. But if you're just trying to keep 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:56.480 up with the material itself, it's hard to really let 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.200 all of that coalesce. And indeed, I mean just thinking 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:01.839 back to say, some of the World Science Festival panels 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.959 that that we've attended. You know that you're you're being 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.440 hit with so many great concepts in different ways of 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.760 looking at history or the scientific world, and you just 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.160 need to stop and digest it. But instead you're moving on, 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:16.720 You're rolling under the next come and you just like, 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.120 I really hope that I got my notes down on 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:21.800 that one and I can check all this later. Yeah, 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:24.960 Philip our Golden, he's a researcher. He says, parents and 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:28.600 teachers tell kids a hundred times a day to pay attention, 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:32.320 but we never teach them how. And so what some 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:34.520 of these schools have been doing is they've been drawing 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:36.840 on the work of John cabot Zen, who is a 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:41.800 molecular biologist who pioneered the secular use of mindfulness at 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:46.760 the University of Massachusetts UH, initially to help medical patients 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.760 cope with chronic pain and anxiety and depression. So what 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:53.960 you see is his mindfulness work beginning to be used 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.000 in K through twelve schools here in the United States. 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.480 And the idea is that those kids have a little 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:04.280 bit of time um to focus on what they call 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.000 a design element, which is solitude and reflection. And even 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:11.760 my kid in kindergarten does this in her classroom. But 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:15.160 you'll see it at different levels as you go up 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.000 through the grades. The degree to which some of these 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.560 kids will actually engage in mindfulness. Now, it's worth noting 0:12:21.600 --> 0:12:24.320 when we look at mindfulness and meditation some of the 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.120 core health benefits that have been proven out in studies 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:31.520 to the lowest blood pressure and it lessons agitation, which 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:34.360 which even though that those are concepts that definitely have 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.800 a role in the treatment of ailments, they also have 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:42.320 a key role in education and reaching students, particularly students 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:46.000 who may be themselves agitated. Yeah, and um, this is 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:49.400 we've kind of touched on this before, that students aren't 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.480 getting educated in how to live their lives per se. 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:57.040 That's largely left up to guardians and parents. Um, so 0:12:57.120 --> 0:12:59.960 you can't really treat a kid's depression, but you can't 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.640 give them a couple of tools to work through that anxiety, 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.440 say in school, and be able to focus themselves better 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.640 on schoolwork. There's something called the Mindful Life Projects, a 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:14.680 nonprofit that's based out of Richmond, California, and it teaches 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:18.480 mindfulness in yoga and therapeutic art and hip hop performing 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:22.360 arts to elementary students in underserved schools and communities, and 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:29.679 all the schools have seen drops in detention and referrals. 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:33.240 But in one school, eighteen kids eighteen accounted for eighty 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.960 two per cent of the suspensions, and at the beginning 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:40.160 of their mindfulness training, those kids were suspended sixty two 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:44.120 times in the first trimester. Now after three trimesters of 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:48.559 this mindful practice, that rate had dropped to twenty. Which 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.760 think about these kids, Um, they obviously are acting out, 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:56.200 they're they're exhibiting certain behaviors because they are agitated, because 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.640 there are some root problems going on. To know that 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:04.160 exty two times down to twenty was the drop and 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:07.520 just having these moments of silence and reflection is really 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.560 powerful stuff. And that's just this really tiny corner of 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.560 this pocket of the educational world. Yeah, I mean, certainly 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.400 when you start thinking about I mean really all all 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.760 ages of children, but especially middle school, high school, there's 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:23.560 so much angst. You know, there's so much to to 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.760 distract yourself with in the in the even when you're 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.520 in the classroom. That being able to just stop everything 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:35.480 and still everything and then kind of teach in the aftermath, 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:38.240 in the wake of that silence, that that would be 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.280 incredibly beneficial. Yeah, and we've talked about how behavior has 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:46.000 this kind of group contagion quality to it. So if 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:47.720 if that's the sort of thing that you're doing in 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:51.640 the classroom, that and everybody is stilling themselves, then you 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:55.760 began to see that positive ripple effect. Now here's another 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:59.040 study that that consent to the use of silence in 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:02.160 the classroom and fronment. And this just comes down to, uh, 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:06.000 not so much the noise inside the mind mind, but 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:10.400 the noise outside the head and even outside the school. UH. 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:13.240 Two thousand five study from the University of London aimed 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:16.040 to understand the psychological impact that noise might have, and 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:20.720 in this experiment, researcher studied children in eighty nine schools. Now, 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:23.040 some of these schools were located next to airports, while 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:25.680 others were not. Chill. They found that children exposed to 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.200 high levels of aircraft noise had much poorer reading skills 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.920 than children in quieter neighborhoods. UH and the researchers use 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:36.800 the term cognitive fatigue to describe why reading skills might 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:40.680 suffer in children living in noisy environments. So in these conditions, 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:44.000 their long term memory is interrupted and they simply stopped 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:48.240 paying attention. So we see the importance again not only 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:50.840 the of some inner silence, some inner peace, so you 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.840 can actually digest the information coming at you can actually 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.520 shut out some of the angst and take it in. 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:00.680 But also, you know, we're we're organisms that exists in 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:03.680 a world of sensory bombardment. And if you can cut 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:05.720 out some of that bombardment, if you can cut out 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.160 some of the environmental noise coming at you from trains 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:13.000 and planes and whatever, then then that can have an effect. 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:14.600 You can take just a little bit off of the 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.360 cognitive load so that you can handle some more of 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.440 the concepts. And that's kind of interesting because you can 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:23.240 then apply that to what Felicity Miller, who is a 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:26.760 senior lecturer in Science, Communication and Imperial College, says when 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:31.840 it comes to people in the sciences and their intellectual progress, 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:34.280 Because what she's saying is that there is a big 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:39.760 initiative to enforce interaction. Yes, and we've talked about this too, 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:44.480 and open office spaces trend all over really yeah, and 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:46.760 you're just gonna spark and you're just gonna collaborate all 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:48.800 the time, and the genius will arrive. It comes from 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:50.920 a good place because we thought we've also talked about 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.600 the importance of interaction, the importance of collaboration. How the 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:58.600 coffee houses of old were, you know, a place that 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:02.560 sparked innovation because for drinking coffee and sharing ideas together. 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:04.720 But you can't take that to the extreme and say, 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.399 all right, we're gonna do that everywhere. Every office is 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:11.200 going to be a coffee house of ideas, every classroom, 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:15.200 every laboratory. You know, you just can't it. One size 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:17.480 is not fit all. Yeah, And that's what Mailer is saying, 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:21.119 especially in the academic setting. And she says, hey, you 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.480 have to have some sort of silence and solitude to 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.359 really make all of those ideas coalesced into something meaningful. 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:30.719 And to make her point, she says, hey, look at 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:34.000 Sir Isaac Newton. She said that he was a proponent 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:39.200 of isolated working, shutting himself away in his rooms, publishing reluctantly, 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.600 and restricting his audience to only those he thought capable 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.680 of appreciating his work. You know, he also had cat 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:47.560 doors so the cats could come in and out without 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.399 this disrupting him will flaps another reason why he was 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.840 a genius. And uh. She says that you know, if 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:58.120 you look at physicists today, they don't quite have that 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:02.119 level of solid two in silence, and that they do 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:05.600 best by striking a balance between silence and communication. And 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:09.320 she gives a couple of other examples. Wrener Heisenberg, she says, 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:12.720 retreated to the island of legal Land to escape hay 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:16.080 fever and the constant chatter of his colleague and mentor, 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:20.080 Neils Boor, who knew that that the quantum theorist with 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:22.680 such chatter box. And she's not to be confused with 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.119 Lego Land, of course, the horrible place to go and 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:29.359 try and work. Yes, Heligo Land isn't not Lego Land. Um. 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:31.760 She says that it was here that Heisenberg was able 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:35.240 to reflect on these discussions that he had with bar 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:40.119 and laid down the basic foundation of quantum mechanics. And 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:44.399 another great example, Peter Higgs has claimed that he would 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.320 not have been able to complete his Noble prize winning 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.760 work in this current research environment. Uh. You know, he 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:53.399 insists that the peace and quiet that he had in 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:58.240 the sixties, Uh, in order to to actually tackle his 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:00.479 work he just would not be able to have today. 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:03.280 So that's interesting to think of as well. And so 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:06.000 the idea is that if all we're doing is engaging 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.840 and engaging and engaging, which is really easy for us 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:11.800 to do in this day and age, particularly with social media, um, 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:14.760 then we're missing a key part of reflecting on our 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:18.680 experiences and then the formation of new ideas with those 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:21.679 novel associations. That we have to have that silence in 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.360 that time. And you could argue that, hey, you can, 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:27.919 My brain doesn't when I sleep. Yeah, but as we 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.480 have talked about before, we're like probably less efficient at 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:33.480 sleep now in this day and age and we ever 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:35.719 have been before. Yeah. Yeah, if you're falling back on 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:40.440 sleep alone for your information processing, then you're really welking 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:50.880 a fine line. You're gonna fall. All right, we're back. 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:53.760 We're talking about silence and the role of silence blaze 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:56.840 in our lives in our world. So far, we've talked 0:19:56.840 --> 0:19:59.399 about the importance of silence when it comes to u 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:04.560 quieting inner turmoil, quieting outer turmoil, its effects on our 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.560 ability to learn in school, our ability to get things 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.800 done at work, to tackle new concepts, and turn them 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:15.520 around and and ultimately work on an inventive new concepts. 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:19.360 But there's a different kind of silence that people experience, 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.359 and and it's more in a social situation, but it 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:28.359 can actually color um our experiences and cultural experiences. In fact, 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:31.439 it can color history. And what I'm talking about is 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:34.760 the spiral of silence. This is an interesting theory that 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:39.040 comes to us from German political science. Elizabeth Noel Newman 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:43.040 UH developus in nineteen seventy four, and basically the idea 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:46.760 here is that people have the tendency to remain silent 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:49.600 when they feel that their views are in opposition to 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.679 the majority of view on a subject. And it's very interesting, 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:54.879 of course that this comes out of Germany in nineteen 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.560 seventy four, you know, definitely coming in in the wake 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:00.919 of the Second World War, in the wake of the 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.439 rise and fall of the Nazis, in the wake of 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:07.720 the Holocaust, where you have you know, individuals inside and 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.840 outside of of of the German people asking the question, know, 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:14.800 how how could this have happened? How does how does 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:20.360 this extreme UH take on global affairs, and how does 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:23.480 this become the norm? How does all of this rise 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:26.240 to power? Right and and so this is in a 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:29.080 way an attempt to look at that, you know, just 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:31.520 to to say, well, you know, why why didn't people 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:35.000 speak out when when there were these extreme opinions in 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.080 their midst Why did they remain silent instead of saying, 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:39.959 you know, that's actually a really dangerous idea. Yeah, and 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.480 the the the extreme actions that in sued in This 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:45.679 is what Newman was predicating her model on. And the 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:48.399 model is based on three premises. One that people have 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:52.119 a quasi statistical organ a kind of sixth cents or 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:55.159 the ability, I could say, the ability to read the 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:58.720 room to figure out what the prevailing in public opinion is. 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:02.359 Two that people have a fear of isolation and they 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:07.280 know what behaviors will increase their likelihood of being socially isolated. 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:11.280 And three, people are reticent to express their minority views 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:14.440 because of that fear of isolation. And she says that 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:18.240 the spiral is created or reinforced when someone in the 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.840 perceived opinion majority speaks out really confidently in support of 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:26.240 the majority opinion, and then of course those in the 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:30.040