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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday

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Speaker 1: vault time, folks. This episode originally aired on October nineteen,

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Speaker 1: and it is our Anthology of Horror volume two. That's right.

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Speaker 1: I mean we'll introduce this in the episode itself, but briefly,

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Speaker 1: this is you know and Thought TV anthology episodes that

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Speaker 1: are horror themed. We take them, we use them as

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Speaker 1: a springboard to talk about science. This was the second

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Speaker 1: one in this series, and we'll be sharing the third

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Speaker 1: one in the series as a vault episode in the

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Speaker 1: weeks ahead, and hey, might even get an all new

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Speaker 1: fourth volume. We'll see what we can put together. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, Welcome to Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind, and my name is Robert Gooley Lamb.

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Speaker 1: I am Corrosive Joseph McCormick, and we are here with

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Speaker 1: our producer death Nicholas Johnson. Yes, and it is that

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Speaker 1: time again. Uh, it's it's been a year since we

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Speaker 1: did Anthology of Horror volume one, and so we're about

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Speaker 1: to assault you with Anthology of Horror volume two, and

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Speaker 1: then guess what the episode after this, He's going to

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Speaker 1: be Anthology of Horror volume three. It's not an anthology

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Speaker 1: unless they're at least three volume exactly. So yeah, I've

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Speaker 1: been looking forward to this all year pretty much, Robert.

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Speaker 1: I know the back corners of your brain are just

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Speaker 1: full of cobwebs made of old horror anthology TV episodes.

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Speaker 1: Every time we get talking about this, you dredge something

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Speaker 1: up from the void, something you saw on TV as

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Speaker 1: a kid. Am I wrong about this? Pretty much? Because

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Speaker 1: when I was a kid, I watched a lot of television,

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Speaker 1: and of the various joyfully weird things that were on

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Speaker 1: television reruns or syndicated horror and oology shows were one

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Speaker 1: of the best because you never knew exactly what you're

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Speaker 1: going to get each episode. It's an anthology. So each

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Speaker 1: episode of something like The Twilight Zone or Night Gallery

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Speaker 1: or Outer Limits or Tales from the Crypt, each one

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Speaker 1: is its own thing, its own world. It has its

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Speaker 1: own cast, its own monster or threat or sci fi weirdness,

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Speaker 1: and it's completely encapsulated. I love especially some of these

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Speaker 1: are really good. Actually, the Twilight Zone I think is

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Speaker 1: even better than a lot of people remember, and I

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Speaker 1: think a lot of times it's because The Twilight Zone

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Speaker 1: was not an hour long show, or I think maybe

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Speaker 1: it was in one of its later seasons which turned

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Speaker 1: out to be disastrous. I mean, you know, this is

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Speaker 1: a type twentysomething minute short story. It's it's a good

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Speaker 1: way not to get bogged down and stuff that doesn't

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Speaker 1: matter with when you're not going into like in depth

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Speaker 1: character storytelling, but you're like exploring high level premises. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's it's more it's more in line with

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Speaker 1: certainly some of the short stories you you know, the

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Speaker 1: classic short stories you think of a say like Philip K. Dick,

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Speaker 1: where it's it's really about rolling out a cool idea,

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Speaker 1: maybe a cool twist or a shock, but mostly about

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Speaker 1: you know, to make you think about something. And uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I I love a really great episode of an

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Speaker 1: anthology show. Certainly, like you said, some of those Twilight

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Speaker 1: Zones hold up amazingly. Well, we're gonna be talking about

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Speaker 1: one of my favorites of all time today. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: then also some of the worst examples. I have one show,

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Speaker 1: and this is a show I didn't I don't think

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Speaker 1: I even watched when it came on, but Perversions of Science.

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Speaker 1: It was sci fi sort of spinoff of Tales from

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Speaker 1: the Crypt and uh, I haven't watched fully sleazy, but

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Speaker 1: very like future smooth. Yeah. Yeah, lots of cursing, some

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Speaker 1: gratuitous nudity, but like a lot of these shows, often

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Speaker 1: tremendous talent packed into each episode, like some great actors,

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Speaker 1: some great directors. Um. So every horror anthology show, I

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Speaker 1: feel like the ones that i've I look back on

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Speaker 1: finally are the ones I haven't even seen yet. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there's so many treasures to ever. I watched so many

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Speaker 1: of these things. It's very specifically on Beach Hotel cable.

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Speaker 1: This is what I remember. Yeah, it was like I

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Speaker 1: watched Mystery Science Theater three thousand that way. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I guess basically when my family went to the beach,

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Speaker 1: everybody else would be out in the sun and I'd

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Speaker 1: be watching the sci fi channel. But that's how you

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Speaker 1: see reruns of Monsters, which is a show that I

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Speaker 1: had completely forgotten about until you you sent me something

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Speaker 1: about it the other day and I was looking at

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Speaker 1: the images from the opening credits and I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, yes, that's way back in there. Somewhere

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Speaker 1: deep in the recesses of my mind. This is there.

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Speaker 1: I've seen it before, all right, Well, before we get

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Speaker 1: more properly into into monsters, I just want to tell everybody,

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Speaker 1: like what the basic format here is. If you haven't

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Speaker 1: heard one of our anthority of horror episodes before, or

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Speaker 1: the creepy Pasta episodes that preceded it, the idea is, uh,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna grab a few in in each episode. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna each grab one episode of a horror anthology show.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna tell you what it's about, remind you what

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Speaker 1: it's about if you've seen it before, and then we're

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Speaker 1: gonna break down some of the ideas involved there, you know,

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Speaker 1: some of the science of the thing, whatever it happens

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Speaker 1: to to be, even if we have to shoehorn it

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Speaker 1: a little bit. And uh, and that's where the fun

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Speaker 1: is exactly. We are nothing if not experts at dragging

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Speaker 1: deep thoughts out of strangely shallow places. Yes. Uh again,

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Speaker 1: We're gonna also go to some I think some rather

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Speaker 1: deep waters in these twilight zones. Yeah, so let's begin

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Speaker 1: with monsters. Okay. This This ran for three seasons from

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Speaker 1: eight through ninete and I think I only caught it

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Speaker 1: once at like my aunt's house back in the day,

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Speaker 1: and I don't even know if it was in syndication

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Speaker 1: or on the Sci Fi channel after it had finished

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Speaker 1: its run. But today you can find all of it

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Speaker 1: on Amazon Prime. You can find a lot of the episodes,

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Speaker 1: maybe all of them just on YouTube. But but yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's like a lot of these shows, it's a wealth

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Speaker 1: of talent and weirdness. I was wondering how many people

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Speaker 1: were hoping that this show would have disappeared into history forever,

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Speaker 1: only to have the digital age to revive all of

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Speaker 1: these old things that these actors did. Yeah, yeah, possible. Possibly, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because there you see some some interesting people show up

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Speaker 1: in Monsters for instance. Uh, you know you have you

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Speaker 1: have some great authors like Dan Simons shows up tom

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Speaker 1: Noonan shows up writing and directing like a couple of episodes,

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Speaker 1: Tony Shalub shows up, Gina Gershaun, Steve U Simmy in

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Speaker 1: an excellent pig Monster related episode that I won't spoil

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Speaker 1: for anybody. Oh man, we were just talking about pig Monsters. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this is a great pig Monster episode. I gotta

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Speaker 1: dive in. But yeah, this show is kind of a

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Speaker 1: spiritual successor to Tails from the Dark Side, which one

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Speaker 1: eighty eight, which I did see a lot of and

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Speaker 1: was traumatized to times by as a child. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: the Monsters featured many of the same people, and again

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Speaker 1: an incredible opening sequence, like a lot of these anthologies

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Speaker 1: shows had, in which a humorous family of monsters settled

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Speaker 1: in to watch TV together, I believe, right before they

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Speaker 1: start watching their show, the mother monster shows up with

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Speaker 1: a dish full of something she's been cooking, and the

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Speaker 1: child monster declares, candied critters, Yeah, it's it's cheesy, it's great. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and then it and then you proceed into some new

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Speaker 1: story that's going to center around a monster. And usually

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Speaker 1: that's like really cool practical effects too. So these episodes

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Speaker 1: it can be a little hokey intentionally, so at times

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Speaker 1: that the music is a little weird, this kind of

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Speaker 1: sense music that I even have trouble loving at times,

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Speaker 1: like synthetic saxophone music. You've got a very open heart

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Speaker 1: for synth. Yeah, but great cast, cool monster and Uh.

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Speaker 1: The episode I'm going to talk about today is one

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Speaker 1: titled Far Below. And the reason I was so excited

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Speaker 1: I didn't even know they'd covered this, but Far Below

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Speaker 1: is one of my favorite short stories by Robert Barbour Johnson,

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Speaker 1: who lived nineteen o seven through seven. Uh, this is

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Speaker 1: like a Weird Tales era story that I read years

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Speaker 1: and years ago, and I've just I've lived my entire

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Speaker 1: life up until like this week, having no idea that

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Speaker 1: anybody had ever adapted it. So so I was instantly

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Speaker 1: excited and I and I said, all right, I've got

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Speaker 1: to cover this. So it takes place in the deepest

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Speaker 1: depths of the New York subway system, one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite places anyway, and you have a you have a

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Speaker 1: special segment of city services that wage an endless campaign

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Speaker 1: against the ghouls that burrow up from the depths. It's

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Speaker 1: a it's a haunting tale. The positions them as workers

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Speaker 1: in a dark and human place against an inhuman enemy,

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Speaker 1: and they all are on the risk of losing their

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Speaker 1: own humanity in the process. So this season two adaptation

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Speaker 1: of Far Below has a lot going for it. So

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Speaker 1: not only do you have Johnson's short story as the

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Speaker 1: you know, the the inspiration for it. It was adapted

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Speaker 1: for the screen by Michael McDowell, the screenwriter who gave

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Speaker 1: us Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and perhaps to a

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Speaker 1: lesser extent, Thinner. Two out of three ain't bad. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Plus it's directed by the legendary producer Deborah Hill, whoa

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Speaker 1: Deborah Hill of like John Carpenter movie fame. Yeah Yeah,

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Speaker 1: longtime collab collaborator and producer of John Carpenter's films such

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Speaker 1: as Halloween, Halloween to the Fog, Halloween three, Season of

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Speaker 1: the Witch, Yes, Escape from New York, Escape from l A.

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Speaker 1: She also produced Clue, The Dead Zone, The Fisher King,

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Speaker 1: and Big Top Peeweek. So, but this was one of

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Speaker 1: the only two things she ever directed. So I was instantly,

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Speaker 1: you know, intrigued. And then the cast is small but

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Speaker 1: pretty fun. In that veteran actor Barry Nelson places his

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Speaker 1: character Dr. Vernon Rathmore Barry Nelson was he in Planet

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Speaker 1: of the Vampires? Oh, he might have been. Maybe you

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Speaker 1: can do a quick look up on that while I

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Speaker 1: cover some of other things he was in. Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: he's one of these character actress that was in everything.

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Speaker 1: A lot of TV work back in the day. A

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Speaker 1: few classic horror anthology shows as well, like Twilight Zone,

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Speaker 1: Suspense and The Alfred Hitchcock hour, but I think most

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Speaker 1: people will probably remember him from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining,

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Speaker 1: in which he played Ullman opposite Jack Nicholson in the

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Speaker 1: job interview scene. That's correct that I was also mistaken

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Speaker 1: Planet of the Vampire, says Barry Sullivan. Okay, different bar

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Speaker 1: They were like there are a lot of Berriers back

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Speaker 1: in the day. Um. So the adaptation itself is pretty fun.

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Speaker 1: It introduces a new twist, and they opted to present

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Speaker 1: the Ghoules, which are not really referred to as such

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Speaker 1: if I remember correctly. They present them much more like

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Speaker 1: the more Locks from the nineteen sixty adaptation of HD

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Speaker 1: Wells The Time Machine, which I think is a fine choice.

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Speaker 1: You know, you need some sort of subterranean humanoid but

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Speaker 1: in human creature. If you're not gonna go for like

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Speaker 1: what I imagine is the straight up Google or perhaps

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Speaker 1: sort of the dog like love crafty and goul, than

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Speaker 1: I think a Morelock is a solid choice. Now, I

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Speaker 1: want to know more about the the ghouls in the

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Speaker 1: story in the in the segment, are I mean, are

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Speaker 1: they sort of the grave flesh eating scavengers we we

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Speaker 1: know of as gools? Um? Not so, I mean, there's

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Speaker 1: clearly an inspiration from Pigman's model the Lovecraft story, in

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Speaker 1: which ghoules are bubbling out from the like the underworld,

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Speaker 1: um and uh and potentially corrupting mortal minds. Like, clearly

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Speaker 1: that was part of the inspiration. That's part of the

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Speaker 1: world from which the story emerges. But in in the

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Speaker 1: story itself and in the adaptation, it's more like these

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Speaker 1: are creatures. They are wandering up from the depths like

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Speaker 1: we've It's kind of a tolken Esque idea of if

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Speaker 1: we've dug too far into the earth, and now these

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Speaker 1: things are coming up, and we have to stop them

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Speaker 1: because they're going to continue to pick off subway workers

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Speaker 1: and you know, vagrants and then eventually other people, and

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Speaker 1: if we don't keep them in check, they will just

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Speaker 1: overwhelm us. This is funny. I was just reading The

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Speaker 1: Two Towers in the chapter where Gandalf explains what happens after,

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Speaker 1: you know, after he plunged down, after the Balaragi says,

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Speaker 1: they went into the depths of the earth, far below

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Speaker 1: where any you know, the thing that lives above, and

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Speaker 1: it is the abode of slimy things and things that

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Speaker 1: cannot be named yes, and and indeed these are these

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Speaker 1: are some of those nameless things. So on the subject

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Speaker 1: of Google's, we of course have an entire episode in

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Speaker 1: the Vault about the idea of Google's. We've talked at

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Speaker 1: length as well about life underground and the effects of

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Speaker 1: human life underground, and so I don't want to retread

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Speaker 1: on much of that content. It's it's definitely there and

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Speaker 1: we love it. And if you want more subterranean humans

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Speaker 1: and Googles, go check those episodes out. But I did

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Speaker 1: find a line of the inquiry on this that I

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Speaker 1: think is pretty solid. So we have an underground war

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Speaker 1: in a great modern metropolis against inhuman enemy that rises

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Speaker 1: from the depths, and yet these more lockesque creatures are

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Speaker 1: drawn up to feed on humans, the humans that have

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Speaker 1: overpopulated this region. They seem to feast on vagrant and

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Speaker 1: subway workers, and would feast on far more of the

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Speaker 1: populace if not for the efforts of Dr Rathmore and

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Speaker 1: his you know, basically, the premises auditors have come to

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Speaker 1: check him out because his department is seems to be

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Speaker 1: way overfunded, way were armed, and the outsiders asking why

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Speaker 1: do you need all these weapons? Why do you need

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Speaker 1: all this funding, and and then the story is about

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Speaker 1: presenting exactly why this funding is needed. But basically, in

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Speaker 1: this fight, uh, the fictional characters are far below have

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Speaker 1: much in common with those who battle various organisms that

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Speaker 1: we label pests in the real world. And the most

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Speaker 1: obvious parallel is the rat, the true citizen of the

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Speaker 1: subway tunnels exactly. I mean when you go down there

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Speaker 1: to take a train, they're not in your way or

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Speaker 1: you know, getting into your stuff. You're in their world.

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Speaker 1: You're just a guest. Yeah. Now, to be sure, a

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Speaker 1: single rat can be a problem even in a you know,

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Speaker 1: a sort of a prehistoric, precity sense of human existence.

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Speaker 1: And the same can be said of same mosquitoes. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, they both can spread or help spread pathogens. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The same can be said of something like the locust.

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Speaker 1: But but all these examples of our organisms as well,

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Speaker 1: that can become an even greater problem when they are

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Speaker 1: imbalanced by human activity. So let's let's think about the

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Speaker 1: rat as biologists Ken Appland put it quoted in the

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Speaker 1: Case for Leaving City Rats Alone by Becca Cudmore for Nautilus.

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Speaker 1: Rats are disruption specialists, so they thrive in disrupted ecosystems,

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Speaker 1: they spill into unbalanced realms and carve out a kingdom

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Speaker 1: for themselves. And he points out that the very few

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Speaker 1: wild animals have done this quite as well as the

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Speaker 1: rats in the human world without undergoing domestication. That's an

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Speaker 1: interesting point. Yeah, so we we think about organisms that

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Speaker 1: can successfully thrive at the edges of human civilization. You've

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Speaker 1: you've got two main versions. You've got those that become

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Speaker 1: tame and and eventually get bred by humans, like dogs

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Speaker 1: or farm animals or even cats, which are a little

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Speaker 1: bit wilder versions wilder but still definitely domesticated. Yeah. Then

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Speaker 1: you've got the ones that are just sort of destroyed

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Speaker 1: by our presence, which are i'd say maybe the majority

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Speaker 1: of animals, and like when we change an ecosystem, they suffer.

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Speaker 1: And then yeah, you've got this third category, the ones

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Speaker 1: we think of as unwelcome survivors in our environments. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because you've disrupted everything. But this is an organism that

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Speaker 1: thrives on disruption. They can go right in there and

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Speaker 1: find a place for itself. You know, all the rat

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Speaker 1: needs is a is a is a place to borrow

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Speaker 1: fifty grams of calorie rich or moderately calorie rich food

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Speaker 1: per day and some water to drink. Um. And they

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Speaker 1: they're going to find that they're going to find an

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Speaker 1: abundance of that in our environments. I mean in our garbage,

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Speaker 1: in our in our you know, in our refuse, and

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Speaker 1: in the in the leavings of our civilization, and for

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Speaker 1: all of our domesticated minions, for all of our traps

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Speaker 1: and our poisons. Rats still rule cities like New York City.

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Speaker 1: In previous episodes, I think we've even talked about rats

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Speaker 1: societies in New York City, And yeah, there are sort

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Speaker 1: of separate subcultures of rats within the cities that that

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Speaker 1: they occupy. Yes, and that's gonna that's indeed gonna become

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Speaker 1: very important to or in just a minute. Okay, the

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Speaker 1: rat was already perfectly evolved to do all of this. Uh,

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Speaker 1: they were stealing from other organisms before us. Most likely,

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Speaker 1: we just continue to offer more and more to steal,

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Speaker 1: creating waste, disruption and hiding places everywhere we go. And

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Speaker 1: of course we went absolutely everywhere, bringing rats in our wake.

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Speaker 1: Becca Cudmore's article, however, deals mostly with the Vancouver rat Project,

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Speaker 1: which points out that some experts identify the potential dangers

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Speaker 1: posed by fighting back against the rat occupation too hard.

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Speaker 1: And part of it comes down to this, to the

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Speaker 1: disruption of these stable rat colonies. Uh, these these stable areas,

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Speaker 1: these little little pocket civilizations that the rats have established

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Speaker 1: in these disrupted ecosystems. These are some of the key

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Speaker 1: points that have been made. First of all, drive rats

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Speaker 1: out of one home or block and into another home

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Speaker 1: or block, and you might be spreading rat pathogens that

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Speaker 1: otherwise be quarantined within this stable group. Oh yeah. Plus,

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Speaker 1: urban rats have a garbage based diet, meaning that they

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Speaker 1: absorb a lot of bacteria, and this is often place

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Speaker 1: specific bacteria. It's tied to the building, to the people

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Speaker 1: that live in that particular building. Drive them out and

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Speaker 1: you spread these particular bacteria elsewhere. You're stirring the pot, right,

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Speaker 1: and then rats in one area will wage bloody war

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Speaker 1: against any stranger rat that arrives. This applies to New

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Speaker 1: York City as well, where I've read and I think

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Speaker 1: we've talked about this before about how a native rat

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Speaker 1: population tends to do a decent job of fighting off

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Speaker 1: rat invasions that come in on ships, etcetera. Um, And

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Speaker 1: so it's a perpetual turf war. But these turf wars,

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Speaker 1: especially when you stir them up by fighting back against

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Speaker 1: the rats too hard, potentially, uh, those turf war wars

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Speaker 1: spill rat blood. They cause rats to urinate out of fear,

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Speaker 1: and so what we get is a mix of rat

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Speaker 1: blood and rat urine and rat gut contents real which

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Speaker 1: is brew. In fact, Kaylee Buyers of the Vancouver Rat

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Speaker 1: Project points out that these brawls allow bacteria to converge,

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Speaker 1: to mix and potentially create new disease. It's bacteria that

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Speaker 1: wouldn't otherwise interact with each other, are pooled together, swap

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Speaker 1: genes and form new diseases, such as a methocillin resistant

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Speaker 1: staff or m r S. A. Oh wow, I didn't

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Speaker 1: even think about that as a consequence of another thing

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Speaker 1: we've talked about before, of course, horizontal gene transfer between

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Speaker 1: single celled organisms like bacteria. You know, if one acquires

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Speaker 1: a useful adaptation and say resisting a certain antibiotic, they

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Speaker 1: can share that gene for that adaptation via a sort

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Speaker 1: of analogy of bacterial sex. It's not sexual reproduction, but

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Speaker 1: they can take part of their genome and just put

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Speaker 1: it in another bacterium. Yeah, so we have a situation

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Speaker 1: where we disrupted the environment. Organism that thrives and disruption

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Speaker 1: is moved in, and then if we attempt to remove

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Speaker 1: that organism, we bring more this eruption into the scenario,

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Speaker 1: We bring more more chaos. Uh So the idea of

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Speaker 1: of fixing these probably becomes more of a hard problem

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Speaker 1: of dealing with these rat infestations. Uh So. Anyway, not

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Speaker 1: not to say that we shouldn't fight against rats and

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Speaker 1: keep them from living too high on the hog, but

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Speaker 1: we got here through disruption, so we shouldn't be surprised

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Speaker 1: if there are consequences for disrupting it further totally. And

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Speaker 1: if you're going to fight a secret war against the ghouls,

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Speaker 1: well then perhaps it's worth fighting. Uh you know, at

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Speaker 1: a perpetual stalemate, right White turn a cold war into

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Speaker 1: a hot war, exactly. All Right, I'm gonna have more

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Speaker 1: about the war against rats and potentially ghouls here in

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Speaker 1: a second, but first let's talk go an ad break here.

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Speaker 1: All right, all right, we're back to city rats the

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Speaker 1: ghouls of the real world. Yeah, and comparing it to

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Speaker 1: that episode of Monsters far Below based on a beloved

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Speaker 1: ghoule short story. Uh. So here's another thing to think

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Speaker 1: about here. Uh. We've talked about how rats spread with

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Speaker 1: human civilization, and there's such a highly successful organism, and

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Speaker 1: yet there are a few areas of the world that

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Speaker 1: have remained essentially rat free, the most notable of which

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Speaker 1: is the Canadian province of Alberta. Uh. It's virtually free

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Speaker 1: of the Norway rat. Uh. Now, while rats do turn

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Speaker 1: up from time to time, brought in through traditional means,

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Speaker 1: you know, they come in, you know, on a shipment

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Speaker 1: or or so forth, but the province has been very

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Speaker 1: proactive in squashing these flare ups to hold onto that

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Speaker 1: rat free championship that they've that they've earned. You know,

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Speaker 1: I have been to Alberta. Actually, I have been to

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Speaker 1: the city of Calgary and and driven around in there,

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Speaker 1: and I never noticed roving teams of anti rat sorcerers,

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Speaker 1: rat exorcists of any kind. And so, so what's the secret? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's like everybody's next question. How did they get rat free?

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Speaker 1: What they do? What can I do to get that

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Speaker 1: in my city? Well, basically they were just able to

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Speaker 1: heat the rats out before they moved in, which I

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Speaker 1: think lines up rather nicely with the story of far

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Speaker 1: below the idea of keep the ghouls from boiling up

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Speaker 1: into New York City because once they're up, there's no

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Speaker 1: getting rid of them. Announce of prevention is worth a

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Speaker 1: pound of cure. Yeah. So basically this is how it

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Speaker 1: went went down. The Norway rat arrived in North America

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Speaker 1: and roughly seventeen seventy five keyports cities never had a chance.

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Speaker 1: But from there they gradually spread across the continent, and

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Speaker 1: that took time for certain areas. The rats didn't enter

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Speaker 1: eastern Saskatchewan until the nineteen twenties, and according to Alberta's

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Speaker 1: official website on their history of rat control, the rats

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Speaker 1: continue to spread northwest at a rate of fifteen miles

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Speaker 1: or twenty four kilometers per year. So they first reached

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Speaker 1: the eastern border of Alberta in nineteen fifty and that's

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Speaker 1: where they stopped them with rat control measures, keeping the

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Speaker 1: province and its cities free of the furry invaders. And

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Speaker 1: uh and that also includes its largest city, Calgary. Basically,

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Speaker 1: they realized the threat to all levels of human activities,

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Speaker 1: especially agriculture, you know, which there was a lot of,

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Speaker 1: which is why the Department of Agriculture did a lot

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Speaker 1: of the heavy lifting, especially early on, but legislation also

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Speaker 1: mandated control of tests by quote every person and every

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Speaker 1: level of government like county clerks or yeah, well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I mean essentially, like they basically they've spread the message

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Speaker 1: to absolutely everyone, and then every municipality had to have

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Speaker 1: a pest control inspector. A control zone was established. And

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Speaker 1: and this is good far below hinges in part in

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Speaker 1: the idea that a bureaucratic outsider, uh, you know, like

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Speaker 1: most of the world has no idea about the Google threat.

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Speaker 1: The whole tale is his education into the reality of

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Speaker 1: the struggle against the ghouls. And Alberta's efforts actually mirrored

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Speaker 1: this in some to some degree. They had to. They

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Speaker 1: sought to enlist the population against the rap threat, you know,

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Speaker 1: to build up, you know, the public awareness. So they

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Speaker 1: had to educate the pub like about rats. Most people

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Speaker 1: in Alberta had never seen a rat before. It's hard

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Speaker 1: to imagine. Yeah, so Alberta's so Alberta agriculture educators traveled

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Speaker 1: around with preserved rats specimens to inform the public. There's

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Speaker 1: a fabulous photocolored photographs that the Alberta's website includes of

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Speaker 1: these educators on a farm in Alberta with a bunch

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Speaker 1: of preserved rats, not in a container, just laid out

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Speaker 1: on the grass. There's a child holding one up by

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00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:31,760
Speaker 1: the tail, and they're just saying, like, these are rats.

426
00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 1: This is why you need to be vigilant about. This

427
00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:34,919
Speaker 1: is what you need to look out for. It's like

428
00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:39,280
Speaker 1: teaching New Zealanders about squirrels. Yeah, I guess so, um,

429
00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:41,840
Speaker 1: and I mean, what better way than the physical thing itself.

430
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:44,480
Speaker 1: But on top of that, there were conferences, there were posters,

431
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:46,840
Speaker 1: there were pamphlets, you know, some of these like straight

432
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:51,159
Speaker 1: up propaganda posters about the terror of the rat. They

433
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:54,159
Speaker 1: advocated the use of poisons to fight back, though they

434
00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:56,639
Speaker 1: also had to bring in outside experts to help them,

435
00:23:56,680 --> 00:24:00,280
Speaker 1: because again, most Alberta residents had no experience with cats,

436
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 1: and that includes experience fighting them. Uh So they were

437
00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:06,320
Speaker 1: able to battle the rat infestations along the eastern border

438
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:09,399
Speaker 1: and keep them mostly within ten to twenty kilometers of

439
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:12,800
Speaker 1: the border, and the program continues today in an altered

440
00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:15,639
Speaker 1: but still effective form. It's actually illegal to own a

441
00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:19,080
Speaker 1: pet rat in the province. You've got to be a zoo,

442
00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:23,360
Speaker 1: a university, or a recognized research institution. Uh there's also

443
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:27,400
Speaker 1: a rat hotline where you report rat and flare ups

444
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: in case, you know they when they do occur. But

445
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 1: one of the problems is that, again most Alberta residents

446
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:36,119
Speaker 1: don't have a good eye for rats. Hello, and extremely

447
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:39,800
Speaker 1: tiny dog just ran across my kitchen floor. Well, what

448
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 1: happens if they end up reporting muskrats, gophers, ground squirrels

449
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 1: and other similar organisms and then you know, the rat

450
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 1: police come out to check and they're like, oh, those

451
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:50,399
Speaker 1: are not rats, those are muskrats. Uh, you know, we

452
00:24:50,400 --> 00:24:54,200
Speaker 1: can't really do anything about that. Uh. By the way,

453
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:58,040
Speaker 1: to come back to monsters, the anthology series If if

454
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:00,760
Speaker 1: you're wondering if there is an episod out of monsters

455
00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:05,440
Speaker 1: that expressly concerns rats, there is. There's one called Stressed Environment,

456
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:08,679
Speaker 1: in which a female scientist who spent twelve years raising

457
00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 1: rats in a stressed environment, uh, you know, in the

458
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 1: hopes of evolving their intelligence, faces to the terrifying results

459
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 1: of your experiment. It stars Carol Linley, and it has

460
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:21,680
Speaker 1: stop motion rats that end up using spears against their

461
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 1: human captors. Smart rats. Indeed, so this whole thing from

462
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:30,120
Speaker 1: far below about this team of bureaucratic professionals who work

463
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 1: for the city who have to go underground to fight

464
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 1: the uh, the menace coming up from below. Of course,

465
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:39,120
Speaker 1: in the story it's ghouls. You've got the analogy to rats,

466
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 1: but I can't help but think of the fat bergs.

467
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 1: The people up above are completely oblivious to the fact

468
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: that there are workers down beneath the streets, in the tunnels,

469
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: in the darkness, waging battle against a monster that lives

470
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:55,640
Speaker 1: down there. And of course the agglomerations of fats, oils,

471
00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:59,919
Speaker 1: grease and wet wipes and various fibrous substances that clagge

472
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:03,879
Speaker 1: kilometers of sewers, especially in places like England and or

473
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:06,720
Speaker 1: I guess the UK more broadly, but also in US cities.

474
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 1: It seems like another perfect analogy for the wars being

475
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:13,120
Speaker 1: waged on our behalf below our feet that we don't

476
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 1: even think about. Yeah, you create this vast, unnatural underworld,

477
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:20,440
Speaker 1: and it's going to it it's gonna end up potentially

478
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:25,120
Speaker 1: being populated by by opportunistic organisms or you know, they're

479
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:28,840
Speaker 1: gonna be situations where things like fat burgs emerge and

480
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:31,000
Speaker 1: you need people to go wage war against them. If

481
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:32,560
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about fat Birgs. We have

482
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:34,760
Speaker 1: a whole episode about them from earlier this year that

483
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 1: you can check out. So that was Monsters. Sub Monsters

484
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:40,639
Speaker 1: I think falls more in the you know, the category

485
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 1: of fun but often kind of a little bit cheesy

486
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 1: when it comes to horror anthology shows. But again, some

487
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:49,720
Speaker 1: of the like one of the big names, one of

488
00:26:49,760 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 1: them the classier names in horror anthology is of course

489
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 1: the classic Twilight Zone, right uh. And so there there's

490
00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:58,720
Speaker 1: so many great episodes of the Twilight Zone that really

491
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 1: do pose interesting questions that still remain interesting today. I mean,

492
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,160
Speaker 1: there are some that also have kind of hokey premises

493
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: that don't hold up. But I want to talk about

494
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,679
Speaker 1: one that I really think does hold up and is

495
00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:13,680
Speaker 1: still more and more mind blowing the more you think

496
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:16,119
Speaker 1: about it, and yet at the same time has an

497
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 1: incredibly simple premise. I feel like this is a great

498
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 1: example of a story premise getting a lot of bang

499
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:24,720
Speaker 1: for its buck. And so this is one of my

500
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 1: favorite episodes of the Twilight Zone. Originally aired in nineteen

501
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 1: fifty nine, and it's called shadow Play. So in the

502
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 1: beginning of this episode of The Twilight Zone, a man

503
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:38,320
Speaker 1: named Adam Grant is awaiting the verdict. After being put

504
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 1: on trial for murder, the juror's return from deliberation and

505
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:45,880
Speaker 1: they proclaim him guilty, and then the judge sentences him

506
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 1: to death by the electric chair. But as he's being sentenced,

507
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 1: Grant begins to laugh hysterically, and in a fit of

508
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 1: rage and frustration, he runs around the courtroom yelling at people,

509
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 1: not again. You can't do it to me again. You'll

510
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 1: all die. Uh So in his jail cell, Grant starts

511
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,640
Speaker 1: talking with his roommates about how this has all happened

512
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 1: to him before the trial, the sentencing, the imprisonment, and

513
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 1: the execution have all happened to him a thousand times,

514
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:20,920
Speaker 1: but not as reality, always as a nightmare. Grant says,

515
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:24,200
Speaker 1: he's in a dream right now, and at the moment

516
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,920
Speaker 1: of his electrocution, he's going to wake up screaming back

517
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 1: in reality. And because it's always been a dream in

518
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:33,679
Speaker 1: the past, this time it must be a dream too.

519
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: So he tells everybody he can, don't let them send

520
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: me to the chair, because when I die, I'll wake up,

521
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 1: and when I wake up, you'll all die because I'll

522
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:47,040
Speaker 1: stop dreaming you. Then there's this newspaper reporter who was

523
00:28:47,080 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 1: present at Grant's trial, and he starts to become a

524
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 1: little worried that he is, in fact, maybe only being

525
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:57,840
Speaker 1: dreamed by Grant, and if Grant wakes up, he and

526
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: everybody else in the world will see to exist. So

527
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 1: he gets drunk and he goes to the house of

528
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: his friend, who's the district attorney who was in the

529
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:09,479
Speaker 1: courtroom also who presented the case against Grant, and the

530
00:29:09,480 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: newspaper reporter begins to beg the district attorney to stay

531
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: the execution, and the d A of course, thinks this

532
00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 1: is preposterous, obviously, but the more his friend talks to

533
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: him about it, the more doubts begin to creep in,

534
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 1: however much he tries to resist them. Doesn't the world

535
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 1: ever feel just not quite real? Isn't it sometimes just

536
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:34,880
Speaker 1: too perfect or just too full of too many coincidences?

537
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: I think most people can actually identify with having this

538
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 1: feeling every now and then about their own lives. Yeah, yeah,

539
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: I mean especially we've talked before about some about coincidence,

540
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 1: you know, and how we would do a whole episode

541
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 1: to it, I believe, and and how we can over

542
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 1: interpret that or at least that there's some vast conspiracy

543
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 1: of foot well. I mean, this is what led like

544
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 1: Carl Young to believe in this concept of synchronicity, that

545
00:29:57,520 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: there could be that there was a connecting inciple in

546
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 1: reality that was not based on physical causation but was

547
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:08,680
Speaker 1: based on like, based on meaning. Essentially, that events could

548
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 1: be not caused by one another, but connected to one

549
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:14,640
Speaker 1: another through meaning. And this is why we have this

550
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 1: feeling that there are too many coincidences in our lives now.

551
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 1: But anyway, so after this moment, the District Attorney agrees

552
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:24,560
Speaker 1: to go speak to Grant in the prison before the

553
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: execution takes place. Grant expects him before he arrives, and

554
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 1: the d A tries to interrogate Grant on his theory.

555
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 1: He tries to convince him that it couldn't be true.

556
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:37,720
Speaker 1: It's not possible that you are dreaming all this and

557
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:40,239
Speaker 1: we're just in your dream. The d A says, like,

558
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 1: what you mean to tell me that my family, my friends,

559
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: everybody in this city, in this state, everybody in the

560
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 1: world is just living inside your dream. And Grant says,

561
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: a dream builds its own world, and the d A asks, well,

562
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 1: how can I be a part of your dream if

563
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:58,960
Speaker 1: I sleep and dream myself every night. And then Grant says,

564
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 1: in this great line, you only sleep and dream because

565
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 1: I dream you that way. So Grant is then headed

566
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: to the electric chair at midnight, and the d A

567
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:10,040
Speaker 1: is faced with this choice. Should he call the governor

568
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: to get a stay of execution? But that would be ridiculous,

569
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: wouldn't it? But he has doubts. I'm not going to

570
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:20,320
Speaker 1: spoil the ending beyond that, but I will say my

571
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: favorite part of this episode, aside from the great performance

572
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 1: by Dennis Weaver as Adam Grant, is is in the

573
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 1: middle part of the episode. It's the part where the

574
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 1: doubts begin to set in for the reporter and the

575
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:34,959
Speaker 1: d A and the other prisoners on Grant's row. I

576
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 1: feel like this story at once raises several of the deepest,

577
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 1: most challenging questions at the core of metaphysics, psychology, and

578
00:31:43,200 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: the philosophy of mind, questions like how do you know

579
00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: for sure that other people in the outside world are real?

580
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:53,000
Speaker 1: And how do you know your current experience is real

581
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:54,960
Speaker 1: as opposed to a dream? How do you know you're

582
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 1: not dreaming right now? And then I think that the

583
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 1: most mind blowing question from it, of course, is that

584
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 1: if you're one of these other people in the story,

585
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:05,120
Speaker 1: like the d a or the reporter, how do you

586
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 1: know that you're real? Could you, in fact be an

587
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: imaginary person in somebody else's dream. And of course, with

588
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 1: that last question, you may think the answer is just

589
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 1: obviously self evidently no. I think it's probably no, but

590
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 1: it might not be as cut and dry as we

591
00:32:20,080 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 1: might hope. I want to come back to that in

592
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 1: a minute. Yeah, I watched this episode this morning, and yeah,

593
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 1: it's it's really good. It's it's one of the again,

594
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:30,720
Speaker 1: a lot of these Twilight Zone episodes, they hold up

595
00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 1: so well, the shot and like stunning black and white. Uh.

596
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 1: These you know, I guess at times the acting might

597
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 1: feel a little dated to what you might have today,

598
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:41,959
Speaker 1: but it's it's all really solid. Also, this episode was

599
00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:47,040
Speaker 1: adapted in the revival of The Twilight Zone, starring Peter

600
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 1: Coyote Uh in The Elite. Yeah, I haven't either, but

601
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:53,640
Speaker 1: but I looked it up and I was like, oh, yeah,

602
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 1: there's Peter Cody. And then of course this episode was

603
00:32:56,720 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 1: written by Charles Beaumont, who is one of like the

604
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 1: legendary names of the Twilight Zone. You have a number

605
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 1: of killer episodes. Yeah, it's really really good. Uh, it's

606
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: a really tight, well told story. Um, and I highly recommended,

607
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 1: And in fact, I was just I was watching it

608
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 1: on Netflix. So the Twilight Zones all on Netflix right now,

609
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 1: so you can go look it up if you've got

610
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:19,560
Speaker 1: a subscription, and it's also on Hulu, I believe, if

611
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 1: anyone wishes to watch them there. But there's tons of

612
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone awaiting you. I always forget just how many

613
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:27,240
Speaker 1: episodes of the show they did. I think there's like

614
00:33:27,320 --> 00:33:30,640
Speaker 1: thirty six episodes in the first season, and not all

615
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: of them are great, but a striking number of them

616
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: are great. Yeah. Yeah, Well, maybe we should take a

617
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 1: quick break and when we come back, we can address

618
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 1: these questions about dreams and being all right, we awaken

619
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 1: you from the dream of advertising and back into the

620
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:50,160
Speaker 1: reality of our episode. All right, So I think we

621
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:52,480
Speaker 1: should deal with some of the questions I was just

622
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:55,719
Speaker 1: posing that are raised by this episode of The Twilight Zone. Uh.

623
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 1: And the first one I think would be the most

624
00:33:57,320 --> 00:34:00,720
Speaker 1: basic question, how do you know that you're entire life

625
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 1: hasn't been a dream? How do you know that the

626
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:06,960
Speaker 1: people you interact with aren't just figments of your imagination.

627
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:10,399
Speaker 1: I think we all assume that other people are real

628
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:12,799
Speaker 1: and independent, or at least you probably should assume that

629
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: the outside world really exists, will it will continue after

630
00:34:16,760 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 1: I die and so forth. But it's harder than you

631
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 1: might expect to prove this with certainty. Uh though, I

632
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 1: think almost nobody actually holds this view. If you actually

633
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:29,239
Speaker 1: were to believe that your mind is the only thing

634
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:31,400
Speaker 1: that exists, and the rest of the outside world and

635
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 1: all the people of it, they're just merely products of

636
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:36,839
Speaker 1: your imagination or your dream or whatever, this is known

637
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:39,719
Speaker 1: as sollipsism, and to be more specific, I think it

638
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 1: would be metaphysical solipsism, metaphysical meaning this is how the

639
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: world is, as opposed to something like methodological solipsism, which

640
00:34:47,600 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 1: you might say is one of the tools of Saint Descartes,

641
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 1: who I'll talk about in a minute, which would just

642
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 1: mean like solipsism might be a useful philosophical tool for

643
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 1: a moment. And by the way, listeners who are fans

644
00:34:58,200 --> 00:35:01,279
Speaker 1: of the excellence sitcom The Good Play will recognize this

645
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 1: is one of the philosophies that is currently being explored

646
00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:07,319
Speaker 1: in season three. Oh yeah, yeah, I haven't gotten there yet.

647
00:35:07,440 --> 00:35:09,560
Speaker 1: I think I only did season one. Does it stay good?

648
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it it just gets better. They do a

649
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: really good job of mixing it up and defying expectations. Uh. Yeah,

650
00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:21,640
Speaker 1: but I do want to stress I think solipsis um

651
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,399
Speaker 1: is one of those points of view that especially can

652
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:26,879
Speaker 1: be frustrating to normal people because you can point out

653
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:29,320
Speaker 1: that it's really hard to disprove, and that can create

654
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:32,759
Speaker 1: the false impression that, like, some philosophers actually believe this.

655
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 1: I don't think any philosophers actually believe in solipsism, but

656
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:39,280
Speaker 1: it's one of those weird edge cases, right that everybody

657
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:41,399
Speaker 1: just sort of accepts that you have to leap over

658
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:44,439
Speaker 1: it with an axiomatic assumption. I can't prove it. I'll

659
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 1: just assume the outside world is real and other people

660
00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:49,719
Speaker 1: are conscious, right, because if you give you if you

661
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 1: were to believe this, like things get pointless or silly

662
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: or dangerous really quickly. Right. Yeah, of course, I mean

663
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,759
Speaker 1: it's not a disprove But there's a funny implication of

664
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 1: instability that follows from the assumption of metaphysical solipsis um. Uh.

665
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:05,840
Speaker 1: And it would go like this, if you're actually a

666
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 1: metaphysical solipsist. You believe nothing that you experience as real.

667
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 1: None of the other people actually exist, Uh, they're just

668
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: figments of your imagination or something like that. What would

669
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 1: be the point of telling anybody about it? Just like

670
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 1: for your own amusement? Like would any of the imaginary

671
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 1: people you interact with benefit from you explaining why you

672
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 1: think that solipsism is true? Now for me, I guess

673
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 1: the two reasons to tell people come to mind, though,

674
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 1: though neither is really grounded in the reality of living

675
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:36,919
Speaker 1: within a dream. On one hand, you know, what better

676
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:39,480
Speaker 1: way to dismiss the stressors in your life than to

677
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:42,360
Speaker 1: tell them they're but figments of your imagination, right to

678
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:44,759
Speaker 1: go to full Scrooge on them. But you'd also have

679
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 1: to tell that to all the people you like and love,

680
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 1: and and that though is actually more attractive than one

681
00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 1: might think. I mean, this is essentially an exercise of detachment.

682
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 1: Buddhist and Hindu teaching speak to the importance of freeing

683
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:02,279
Speaker 1: ourselves from the chains attachment. Both chains of iron, you know,

684
00:37:02,400 --> 00:37:05,319
Speaker 1: chains to two things that are less desirable, but also

685
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 1: chains of gold. Uh, change to the things in life

686
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 1: that we love or or or give us, you know,

687
00:37:12,760 --> 00:37:15,359
Speaker 1: stability and peace. We have to free ourselves from our

688
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 1: hates and our loves and connect with the true underlying

689
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 1: reality of Brahmin and uh and and so you know,

690
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:25,840
Speaker 1: that feels a little on par with what we're talking

691
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:28,600
Speaker 1: about here. So I think some of the incarnations of

692
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:31,880
Speaker 1: this philosophy has realized in like Hinduism. I think especially

693
00:37:32,719 --> 00:37:36,400
Speaker 1: I recall them being even more radical than sollipsism, actually

694
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:39,319
Speaker 1: and saying not only is the not only is all

695
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 1: of the sense data of the outside world potentially an illusion,

696
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:45,520
Speaker 1: but also the self is potentially an illusion. So it's

697
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:47,720
Speaker 1: not it's not that I am the only thing that exists,

698
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 1: but maybe even I don't exist. Yeah, and I think

699
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 1: we're going to get into even more of this continue.

700
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 1: But then again, since almost nobody who thinks about it

701
00:37:56,200 --> 00:37:58,840
Speaker 1: seriously is tempted to believe in sollipsism, I think we

702
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:01,839
Speaker 1: can just like use the axiomatic pole vault and jump

703
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 1: over the question. Yeah, I mean, I guess we don't

704
00:38:04,239 --> 00:38:08,200
Speaker 1: even really follow into full blown solop sisum via social media,

705
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:12,279
Speaker 1: in which we all have, like you know, we have

706
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:16,279
Speaker 1: a carefully maintained version of ourselves, an unreal version of

707
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 1: ourselves that interacts with unreal versions of other people, like

708
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:22,680
Speaker 1: it's just a bunch of masks, and uh, you know,

709
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 1: I think if anything we're going to lead us to

710
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:28,120
Speaker 1: like this full blown solipsism, it would be that. Yeah. Well,

711
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:30,200
Speaker 1: I mean there's there are plenty of ways the word

712
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 1: salop sisum is used that aren't exactly the same. I mean,

713
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:34,799
Speaker 1: I think one thing you're getting on there is like

714
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 1: people often do behave very solipsistic lee on on social media.

715
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:41,400
Speaker 1: But that's more in the sense of not necessarily not

716
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:45,320
Speaker 1: believing that other minds exist or that the outside worlds exists,

717
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 1: but just acting as if you only care about yourselves. True. Yeah, yeah,

718
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:51,840
Speaker 1: So it's it's beyond that. It's not just I'm the

719
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:55,240
Speaker 1: only one that matters, or that everybody is that everybody

720
00:38:55,239 --> 00:38:58,839
Speaker 1: else only matters insofar as their attention to me. It's

721
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: that they are not real. They are all figments of

722
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:05,319
Speaker 1: my mind. They are all but a dream. All right.

723
00:39:05,320 --> 00:39:07,600
Speaker 1: So we're gonna jump over this question. If somebody actually

724
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 1: holds metaphysical solipsism, I can't disprove them. I'm just gonna

725
00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 1: push them in a ditch. Um, So we go onto

726
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:16,720
Speaker 1: the next thing. Which is maybe a more vexing problem,

727
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 1: which is the problem with Cartesian skepticism. How do you

728
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:22,840
Speaker 1: know that your experience right now, in this very moment

729
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: is real and not a dream? In shadow Play, Grant

730
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: repeatedly explores this question. He's looking for clues in the

731
00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:33,680
Speaker 1: opposite direction, trying to notice details about his environment that

732
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 1: would tell him he's in a dream. He'll point out, Hey,

733
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 1: this thing doesn't make sense. That must mean I'm in

734
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:41,840
Speaker 1: a dream. They wouldn't put that right there. They wouldn't

735
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 1: let you have this in there. They wouldn't you know,

736
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:46,799
Speaker 1: this wouldn't be scheduled in this way. Why am I?

737
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 1: Why am I getting executed the same day I got sentence?

738
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 1: That doesn't make any sense. I must be in a dream.

739
00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: Why are steaks being cooked in the oven? That sort

740
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:57,759
Speaker 1: of thing. That's a good one. No, I think that's

741
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 1: just the nine But yeah, nineteen fifties culinary culture in America,

742
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 1: it might be a largely bad dream. Uh so uh.

743
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 1: The seventeenth century French philosopher, scientists mathematician Renee des Card,

744
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:14,799
Speaker 1: of course, was famously concerned with this question in a

745
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:17,440
Speaker 1: lot of his philosophical works, such as his meditations on

746
00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 1: first philosophy, uh, having doubts about philosophy that gave primacy

747
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:25,440
Speaker 1: to the evidence of our senses. So like, if I

748
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:27,880
Speaker 1: assume is a starting point that I'm sitting in a

749
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:31,440
Speaker 1: chair in a studio talking into a microphone, I could

750
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: turn out to be completely wrong, because I already know.

751
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:37,719
Speaker 1: There have been thousands of times in my life when

752
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:40,720
Speaker 1: I was a hundred percent convinced that I was really

753
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 1: physically in my elementary school lunchline next to Foghorn Leghorn,

754
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:49,080
Speaker 1: or on a boat headed to Greenland wearing a I

755
00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:51,480
Speaker 1: don't know, a Superman cape or something, only to wake

756
00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:53,840
Speaker 1: up and realize that I was actually asleep in my

757
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:57,839
Speaker 1: bed dreaming. And I was totally convinced in the moment. Yeah,

758
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:00,839
Speaker 1: I mean, granted, it's it's it's west version of us

759
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, Like we there are things that

760
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 1: we're not picking up on that we would otherwise pick

761
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:07,319
Speaker 1: up on a lot of the times, but within the

762
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:10,399
Speaker 1: context of the dream, we buy it as our reality. Well, yeah,

763
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 1: that's one of the things. So you say that, and

764
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:17,560
Speaker 1: I agree with you. There is a textural difference to dreams. Dreams,

765
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 1: you know, are waking reality. Doesn't feel like a dream, right.

766
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:26,320
Speaker 1: Dreams are hazy and ethereal and and absurd in ways

767
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:28,960
Speaker 1: that we don't notice in the moment. And my surroundings

768
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:31,520
Speaker 1: right now feel very lucid and solid, right, And it

769
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 1: feels like there's a qualitative difference, right, of course, until

770
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 1: we start really looking at how we observe the world

771
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:41,440
Speaker 1: right exactly, Yes, there does seem to be a qualitative difference,

772
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:46,440
Speaker 1: But maybe dreams only seem hazy and ethereal in comparison

773
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:51,280
Speaker 1: in retrospect, because in the moment, doesn't a dream often

774
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: feel exactly as solid and lucid as real life. I've

775
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:58,759
Speaker 1: actually had a number of dreams I recall that almost

776
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:01,640
Speaker 1: became a lucid dream, and the sequence goes pretty much

777
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:04,600
Speaker 1: like this. Every time in the dream, I think, wait

778
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 1: a second, I'm dreaming, aren't I? And then I look

779
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: around and I test my surroundings. Doesn't this seem like

780
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:13,120
Speaker 1: a dream? Doesn't anything seem out of place? Can I

781
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:16,600
Speaker 1: fly that kind of thing? And whenever this happens, I conclude,

782
00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:20,000
Speaker 1: oh no, everything around me is normal. I can't fly

783
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:23,360
Speaker 1: totally real and lucid. This must be real and not

784
00:42:23,480 --> 00:42:26,239
Speaker 1: a dream. I don't know if you've ever had this experience,

785
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:29,640
Speaker 1: mine is similar. But what happens with me is I'll

786
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:31,880
Speaker 1: realize it's a dream, and I'll be like this annoying,

787
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:34,200
Speaker 1: And generally it's an annoying dream. It's something that's it's

788
00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 1: not a full blown nightmare, but it's like it's annoying.

789
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 1: I realize it's a dream, and then I just fall

790
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:41,920
Speaker 1: back into it anyway, like like as if it's just

791
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:46,000
Speaker 1: I don't know that, and that in itself is frustrating.

792
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:47,879
Speaker 1: It's like, I I woke from the dream, I could

793
00:42:47,880 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 1: have why didn't I go lucid at that point? Now?

794
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 1: Instead I just kind of shrugged and went right back

795
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:54,080
Speaker 1: into the same old crap. Well, this is one of

796
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:57,040
Speaker 1: the things that the studies of dreams have found is

797
00:42:57,080 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: that our critical reasoning abilities are extremely limited in dreams.

798
00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 1: Dreams suppress certain kinds of brain function, especially the types

799
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 1: of brain function that cause us to question our surroundings

800
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 1: and think critically about sense data, which of course inherently

801
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 1: makes us very prone to thinking dreams are reality even

802
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:21,040
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, it's hard to know how

803
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 1: real they really seem in the moment, except for the

804
00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 1: fact that we feel like they're real right, like well,

805
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:29,439
Speaker 1: like one bit of sort of folk wisdom is often

806
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:31,840
Speaker 1: thrown around. It's like, oh, well, letters are backwards and

807
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:34,279
Speaker 1: dreams you can't read text in dreams or you know,

808
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:36,239
Speaker 1: something like that. I don't think that's true. I don't

809
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 1: think so either. But I have had situations where I've

810
00:43:38,560 --> 00:43:41,360
Speaker 1: been reading something in a dream and it's difficult. But

811
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:44,240
Speaker 1: my experience and then that is like, this is difficult

812
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:46,719
Speaker 1: to read. I must be dreaming. It's more, this is

813
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:49,839
Speaker 1: difficult to read. What's wrong? You know? I don't think

814
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:53,719
Speaker 1: about it about the dream answer being the solution, right.

815
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 1: And so this whole dream problem is one way of

816
00:43:56,960 --> 00:44:00,399
Speaker 1: getting to the position sometimes known as Cartesian skepticism, named

817
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:05,880
Speaker 1: after Descartes, and also affecting our our mail about Carnie Uh.

818
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:09,680
Speaker 1: Since dreams and also hallucinations such as the kind generated

819
00:44:09,719 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 1: by a this figure, Decard imagines this evil demon who

820
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 1: wants to deceive him with false visions of the world.

821
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:18,319
Speaker 1: Since they demonstrate that it's possible for us to be

822
00:44:18,400 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 1: totally convinced of perceptions about the outside world while also

823
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 1: being ad percent wrong. Descartes thinks, you know, we should

824
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:28,360
Speaker 1: doubt all of our perceptions unless we justify them in

825
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:32,279
Speaker 1: a logically airtight way, And of course, descartes ultimate justification

826
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:34,719
Speaker 1: for the evidence of his of his senses, invokes a

827
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:38,280
Speaker 1: benevolent God who wouldn't trick him. But is there any

828
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:41,280
Speaker 1: non theological way to get around this? And he tells

829
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 1: or tests to separate dreaming life from waking life. There

830
00:44:45,120 --> 00:44:47,399
Speaker 1: have been philosophers who have looked into this and tried

831
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:49,760
Speaker 1: to come up with here's how you tell the difference.

832
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 1: The English philosopher John Locke thought he had one. He

833
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:56,400
Speaker 1: had one that was pain. Right. Blocke said, you can't

834
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:59,360
Speaker 1: feel pain in a dream like you can in waking life,

835
00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 1: and that's your easy way to tell the difference. Right.

836
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:05,880
Speaker 1: So maybe if you think you're in a dream, I

837
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:07,879
Speaker 1: don't know, poke your finger with a needle and see

838
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 1: if it actually hurts, and if it does, you're awake,

839
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:13,160
Speaker 1: and if it doesn't, you're in a dream. But twentieth

840
00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:17,560
Speaker 1: century psychology research has found this is not true. This

841
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:20,440
Speaker 1: is this before we get the whole pinch me situation.

842
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:23,320
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think it may very well be. Yeah, yeah,

843
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:25,799
Speaker 1: that's interesting. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah, pinch me.

844
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 1: See if I'm dreaming. I think this would not actually

845
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 1: due to the research though. I think this would not

846
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 1: actually be a full proof test, because people do, in

847
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: fact sometimes report the impression that they have felt pain

848
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:40,080
Speaker 1: in dreams. Just one example is a nine study in

849
00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 1: the journal Sleep by Nielsen at all uh and to

850
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 1: read a couple of quotes from them, uh quote. Some

851
00:45:45,640 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 1: studies indicate that pain is rare and it may be

852
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:52,960
Speaker 1: beyond the representational capability of dreaming. However, the present study

853
00:45:53,040 --> 00:45:57,560
Speaker 1: describes experiences of dreamed pain that were reported incidentally in

854
00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:02,279
Speaker 1: experiments on the effects of somato since restimulation administered during

855
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:05,759
Speaker 1: rapid eye movement sleep. The results indicate that although pain

856
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: is rare in dreams, it is nevertheless compatible with the

857
00:46:08,640 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 1: representational code of dreaming advantage Freddy Krueger, Right. And this

858
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:16,640
Speaker 1: actually comes out comes through in shadow play. Right. There's

859
00:46:16,680 --> 00:46:19,840
Speaker 1: a part where uh, where Grant talks about going to

860
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:21,880
Speaker 1: the electric chair and how he doesn't want to be

861
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 1: sent there to die again, and somebody's arguing with them.

862
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:27,239
Speaker 1: They say, if you're just dreaming, you won't feel it,

863
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:29,680
Speaker 1: but he says, no, Wait, I mean when you dream

864
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:33,040
Speaker 1: something bad, doesn't it doesn't it terrify you. Doesn't it

865
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:35,400
Speaker 1: hurt when it happens in the dream? Yeah? I mean

866
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:39,320
Speaker 1: I'm struggling to think of examples from my own remembered

867
00:46:39,360 --> 00:46:42,960
Speaker 1: dreams in which I experienced physical pain, But but yeah,

868
00:46:43,000 --> 00:46:45,080
Speaker 1: it sounds completely possible. I'd be interested to hear from

869
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:47,520
Speaker 1: any listeners who have had dreams in which they have

870
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:50,440
Speaker 1: felt pain. Yeah. They also acknowledged that it might not

871
00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:52,799
Speaker 1: be very common, but it does appear to happen. So

872
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:56,640
Speaker 1: I think it looks like the scientific research disproved lock here. Now,

873
00:46:56,640 --> 00:46:58,480
Speaker 1: there was another test I came across, and it was

874
00:46:58,520 --> 00:47:01,960
Speaker 1: that the American philosop of for Norman Malcolm wrote a

875
00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:04,840
Speaker 1: couple of influential works about dreaming in the nineteen fifties

876
00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:07,400
Speaker 1: in which he argued that dreams could be put to

877
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:11,240
Speaker 1: the test of quote a principle of coherence. So the ideas,

878
00:47:11,320 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 1: do the events of your present circumstances connect logically with

879
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:17,920
Speaker 1: the preceding events and the rest of your life? So

880
00:47:18,080 --> 00:47:21,800
Speaker 1: if you are currently having a sword fight with Christoph Lambert,

881
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:24,279
Speaker 1: why are you having that sword fight? How did you

882
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:28,359
Speaker 1: get there? Does the sequence of events make sense to you? Uh?

883
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:30,359
Speaker 1: And this is kind of similar to the test used

884
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:32,719
Speaker 1: in the movie Inception, when you ask how did I

885
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:35,799
Speaker 1: get here? Right, the characters do that there to see

886
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:38,359
Speaker 1: if they're dreaming. If you find you can't recall how

887
00:47:38,400 --> 00:47:41,200
Speaker 1: you got where you are, this allows you to realize

888
00:47:41,200 --> 00:47:43,920
Speaker 1: that the present moment does not connect coherently with the

889
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 1: rest of your past, and thus you're probably dreaming. But

890
00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:49,480
Speaker 1: then again, I'm not sure this is a full proof test.

891
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:51,840
Speaker 1: It might be a sort of helpful test, but it

892
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:54,040
Speaker 1: doesn't get you to the right answer all the time.

893
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 1: We know that the dreaming mind state, again, as we

894
00:47:56,680 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 1: were saying earlier, greatly reduces critical reasoning capacity is and

895
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 1: it often seems to short circuit logical inquiries with false answers. Right,

896
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 1: So you might ask a question that would be a

897
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:10,960
Speaker 1: good question if you could really think it through to

898
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:12,920
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of whether you're dreaming or not.

899
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:15,760
Speaker 1: But in your dreaming state, you don't think it through

900
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 1: very well, right, You don't have full control of your

901
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:21,920
Speaker 1: critical thinking. So that's a self reflective question like that

902
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:23,759
Speaker 1: might not be helpful. Right, So, as far as I

903
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:26,880
Speaker 1: can tell, no one has introduced an airtight test to

904
00:48:26,920 --> 00:48:30,239
Speaker 1: tell the difference between a dream and reality. Waking life

905
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:32,759
Speaker 1: of course seems real enough. It doesn't feel the way

906
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:36,279
Speaker 1: dreams feel in retrospect and our memories of them, but

907
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:39,480
Speaker 1: that still doesn't help us achieve certainty in the moment.

908
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:42,080
Speaker 1: And then this year gets us to one final thing,

909
00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:44,640
Speaker 1: which I think is the weirdest place we might go

910
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 1: about dreams. This is the crazy part of shadow play.

911
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:51,560
Speaker 1: Grant tells people around him that if he's sent to

912
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 1: the electric chair, he's going to wake up from his nightmare,

913
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 1: and if he wakes up, everybody in the world will die,

914
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:03,800
Speaker 1: because this entire world is nothing more than his dream.

915
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:06,399
Speaker 1: And this is my favorite part of the episode. So

916
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:09,759
Speaker 1: on one hand, you might think, well, what would it matter.

917
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:11,600
Speaker 1: You know the people that you imagine in your dream

918
00:49:11,640 --> 00:49:14,280
Speaker 1: are not conscious. Of course, there are many different ways

919
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:16,799
Speaker 1: to fear death, but one common neurosis here is the

920
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:20,040
Speaker 1: anxiety of being snuffed out right, of no longer existing,

921
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:23,600
Speaker 1: of their being a permanent end your conscious experience. And

922
00:49:23,640 --> 00:49:26,080
Speaker 1: if the people in Grants dream are not conscious, there's

923
00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:28,480
Speaker 1: nothing for them to be afraid of, no experience to

924
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:30,759
Speaker 1: exist in the first place, and thus nothing to come

925
00:49:30,800 --> 00:49:34,240
Speaker 1: to an end. But in the story they do seem afraid.

926
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:37,040
Speaker 1: The ones who start to doubt their reality. They don't

927
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 1: want to be snuffed out. And this story seems to

928
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:42,520
Speaker 1: imply that they actually do have minds that they want

929
00:49:42,560 --> 00:49:45,279
Speaker 1: to live on. They don't want to be blinked out

930
00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:49,319
Speaker 1: of existence by alterations in Grant's brain activity. And this

931
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 1: is also the only part of the story that's actually fantastical,

932
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:56,799
Speaker 1: because otherwise the story isn't even fantasy or science fiction, Like,

933
00:49:56,840 --> 00:49:59,239
Speaker 1: it's just perfectly plausible, right that a man has the

934
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:02,120
Speaker 1: same night or over and over. Uh. And I want

935
00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:05,040
Speaker 1: to take this idea seriously for just a moment, could

936
00:50:05,120 --> 00:50:08,719
Speaker 1: you the conscious entity with a mind, the person you

937
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:14,280
Speaker 1: are now actually be a person in someone else's dream

938
00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 1: to spare some similarities to the simulation argument that we've

939
00:50:17,560 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: discussed on the show in the past. Yeah, yeah, the

940
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:23,560
Speaker 1: idea that that the reality we're experiencing now is a

941
00:50:23,600 --> 00:50:27,440
Speaker 1: simulation created by a far future society that's currently just

942
00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 1: really excited about the idea of the right um that

943
00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:36,319
Speaker 1: we really want to simulate nineteen again. Oh thank god

944
00:50:36,360 --> 00:50:38,600
Speaker 1: for that. Well, look at I mean, look at our

945
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:42,600
Speaker 1: cycles of nostalgia, right, I mean, look at some of

946
00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:45,719
Speaker 1: our video games simulated worlds that we get into going

947
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 1: back to you know, like an Old West setting or

948
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:52,560
Speaker 1: a hard boiled detective world or the nineteen eighties, etcetera.

949
00:50:52,600 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 1: So it's it's not impossible. But but just as Grant

950
00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:59,920
Speaker 1: argues that the perfection of one's life is an argument

951
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:02,719
Speaker 1: for simulation, like this is too perfect, it's it's too

952
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 1: you know, there's something wrong here. I believe there was

953
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:07,720
Speaker 1: a character in one of I. N. N. Banks culture

954
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:10,200
Speaker 1: novels who observed that the world is just too full

955
00:51:10,239 --> 00:51:13,120
Speaker 1: of viciousness to be a simulation. That this must be

956
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:16,759
Speaker 1: the base reality, because who would dream it up otherwise. Now,

957
00:51:16,760 --> 00:51:19,480
Speaker 1: I suppose that's kind of interesting, uh, to to think though,

958
00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 1: that these are the thoughts attributed to a character within

959
00:51:22,040 --> 00:51:24,759
Speaker 1: a fictional sci fi novel. But still I think it's

960
00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 1: an interesting point. Right. But then again, like what kind

961
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:29,480
Speaker 1: of frame of reference do we have if we have

962
00:51:29,520 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 1: no memory or no understanding of the world outside of

963
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 1: the simulation? Right? But I mean thinking about one way

964
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 1: to think about the idea of being a simulation in

965
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:42,520
Speaker 1: a computer program is that you are being dreamed by

966
00:51:42,560 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 1: the computer. Uh. Now, one hurdle to the simulation argument

967
00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:50,680
Speaker 1: has always been is it possible for a computer to

968
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:54,480
Speaker 1: generate and host conscious minds. We don't know. It's impossible.

969
00:51:54,520 --> 00:51:57,279
Speaker 1: It's often assumed to be possible, but we just don't

970
00:51:57,280 --> 00:52:00,080
Speaker 1: really know. The only thing we can be relative of

971
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 1: least certain works to generate and host consciousness is a brain.

972
00:52:04,160 --> 00:52:06,680
Speaker 1: We know for sure they can do that, because your

973
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:09,600
Speaker 1: brain is doing it right now, right. But here's where,

974
00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:12,680
Speaker 1: in some respects, the possibility of living in someone else's

975
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:16,960
Speaker 1: stream becomes more plausible, maybe than living in a computer simulation.

976
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:21,360
Speaker 1: We know a brain can generate at least one conscious mind.

977
00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:26,319
Speaker 1: Who says it can't generate more than one. There have

978
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:29,440
Speaker 1: been a number of experiments in fact and observations and

979
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:32,719
Speaker 1: neuroscience too, especially throughout the twentieth century, that have led

980
00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 1: some experts to believe it might be possible to have

981
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:41,080
Speaker 1: at least two distinct conscious minds occupying the same brain.

982
00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:44,520
Speaker 1: One big example, of of course, is something we've covered

983
00:52:44,560 --> 00:52:46,440
Speaker 1: on the show in the past. We did I think

984
00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:48,400
Speaker 1: a two part episode about it that you can look up,

985
00:52:48,560 --> 00:52:52,000
Speaker 1: and it's the split brain experiments. These were the originally

986
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:55,440
Speaker 1: experiments done by Roger's Ferry and Michael Gazaniga in the

987
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:58,759
Speaker 1: middle of the twentieth century, and they dealt with epilepsy

988
00:52:58,800 --> 00:53:03,480
Speaker 1: patients of people who suffered really intense seizures and no

989
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:06,400
Speaker 1: other treatment worked, and so the treatment that they eventually

990
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:09,800
Speaker 1: went in for was known as a total corpus callistotomy,

991
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 1: a severing of the corpus colossum, which is a bundle

992
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:16,560
Speaker 1: of nerve fiber that connects the two hemispheres of the brain.

993
00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:21,200
Speaker 1: And the procedure apparently worked pretty well. When you sever

994
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:24,759
Speaker 1: that the corpus colosum, it does help to stave off

995
00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:27,799
Speaker 1: these these horrible seizures. But there were a lot of

996
00:53:27,880 --> 00:53:30,719
Speaker 1: interesting side effects that made the people who underwent this

997
00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:35,879
Speaker 1: procedure very valuable to neuroscience research. For example, to give

998
00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:39,800
Speaker 1: a very short version, you could show in some experiments

999
00:53:39,840 --> 00:53:43,880
Speaker 1: that the part of the brain that talks, which appears

1000
00:53:43,920 --> 00:53:46,920
Speaker 1: to be primarily in most people, the left hemisphere of

1001
00:53:46,960 --> 00:53:51,080
Speaker 1: the brain, which is capable of speech, could not explain

1002
00:53:51,719 --> 00:53:55,239
Speaker 1: what the right hemisphere was doing. And so if you

1003
00:53:55,320 --> 00:53:59,200
Speaker 1: show an image to only the part of the visual

1004
00:53:59,320 --> 00:54:02,040
Speaker 1: field that can next to the right hemisphere of the

1005
00:54:02,040 --> 00:54:05,360
Speaker 1: brain and controls only one of the hands, the hand

1006
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:09,799
Speaker 1: controlled mostly by that hemisphere of the brain could do

1007
00:54:10,080 --> 00:54:13,560
Speaker 1: things like select an object that was associated with the

1008
00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:16,960
Speaker 1: image displayed in that part of the visual field. But

1009
00:54:17,120 --> 00:54:20,840
Speaker 1: then the person talking against speech is thought to be

1010
00:54:20,880 --> 00:54:24,440
Speaker 1: mostly generated by the left hemisphere, couldn't explain in a

1011
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:28,719
Speaker 1: logical way why that object was chosen, and that in

1012
00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:32,840
Speaker 1: many experiments like it led some researchers to an obvious question.

1013
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:37,480
Speaker 1: Is it possible that both hemispheres in split brain patients

1014
00:54:37,719 --> 00:54:43,040
Speaker 1: are conscious but separately conscious within the same skull In

1015
00:54:43,080 --> 00:54:47,799
Speaker 1: some sense, could there be two conscious minds within one brain? Yeah,

1016
00:54:47,880 --> 00:54:50,520
Speaker 1: it's one of the This is a total like real

1017
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:54,279
Speaker 1: life Twilight Zone scenario we've we've thought about before on

1018
00:54:54,280 --> 00:54:57,040
Speaker 1: the show, Like maybe by virtue of once being one,

1019
00:54:57,719 --> 00:54:59,799
Speaker 1: like there's still like each one still thinks they are

1020
00:54:59,880 --> 00:55:03,080
Speaker 1: the one, but they are too. Yeah. Well, and another

1021
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 1: thing that would be very creepy is, again because of

1022
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:09,800
Speaker 1: the localization of speech function in the brain, maybe only

1023
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:13,800
Speaker 1: one of these can really talk to the outside world

1024
00:55:13,840 --> 00:55:15,799
Speaker 1: and the other one just can't really. It can still

1025
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:19,719
Speaker 1: act with the body, but it can't generate complex sentences

1026
00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:23,000
Speaker 1: or anything, which would be an obvious asymmetry in which

1027
00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:25,960
Speaker 1: one of the conscious minds within the brain gets represented

1028
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:28,560
Speaker 1: to the outside world. One of them has no mouth

1029
00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:31,520
Speaker 1: and cannot scream now. I definitely want to acknowledge that

1030
00:55:31,600 --> 00:55:34,839
Speaker 1: I think our picture of this has been somewhat complicated

1031
00:55:34,880 --> 00:55:37,160
Speaker 1: by more recent research. I think we do talk about

1032
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:38,920
Speaker 1: the center split brain episodes if you want to go

1033
00:55:39,200 --> 00:55:42,880
Speaker 1: revisit those and and see more detail. But our picture

1034
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:46,160
Speaker 1: on how information might or might not be shared between

1035
00:55:46,200 --> 00:55:49,160
Speaker 1: brain brain hemispheres, even in the cases of a full

1036
00:55:49,520 --> 00:55:53,200
Speaker 1: corpus calisotomy, seems to have been complicated by recent studies.

1037
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:55,480
Speaker 1: I remember there was one we talked about by researcher

1038
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:58,560
Speaker 1: named I think a Ya or Pinto who uh did

1039
00:55:58,640 --> 00:56:01,440
Speaker 1: research undercutting the idea that there could be two conscious

1040
00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:04,440
Speaker 1: minds within the same brain. Um. I feel like this

1041
00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 1: is an issue that that's not fully settled and is

1042
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:09,360
Speaker 1: still full of like weird mysteries that we don't know

1043
00:56:09,400 --> 00:56:12,960
Speaker 1: exactly what's going on. Another example from neuroscience case history

1044
00:56:13,640 --> 00:56:16,759
Speaker 1: that has been taken as possible evidence that there could

1045
00:56:16,800 --> 00:56:20,240
Speaker 1: be multiple conscious minds within the same brain, as the

1046
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:23,840
Speaker 1: the idea of alien hand syndrome, where you know, hands

1047
00:56:23,920 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 1: may interfere with one another's behaviors as if they're guided

1048
00:56:27,960 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 1: by different wills. So one hand tries to button up

1049
00:56:31,600 --> 00:56:34,759
Speaker 1: a shirt, the other hand, tries to unbutton the shirt. Now,

1050
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:36,960
Speaker 1: I want to stress that there is by no means

1051
00:56:37,040 --> 00:56:40,240
Speaker 1: proof or even necessarily strong evidence that there are multiple

1052
00:56:40,280 --> 00:56:43,680
Speaker 1: consciousness is within the same brain, because again, you can't

1053
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:47,080
Speaker 1: know for sure that there's consciousness anywhere unless somebody tells

1054
00:56:47,080 --> 00:56:49,480
Speaker 1: you that they have consciousness. Right, I mean, that's the

1055
00:56:49,520 --> 00:56:52,319
Speaker 1: inherent problem leading back to the solve sism issue to

1056
00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:54,640
Speaker 1: begin with. Right. But but again I also have to

1057
00:56:54,640 --> 00:56:56,480
Speaker 1: to throw in, you know, we we have to be

1058
00:56:56,520 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 1: careful about the idea of thinking about like the unity

1059
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:02,960
Speaker 1: of self for the yes, yes, yes, is it? Is it?

1060
00:57:03,680 --> 00:57:05,280
Speaker 1: I think the more you look at it, this idea

1061
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:10,000
Speaker 1: that there is one central unchanging you in there is

1062
00:57:10,040 --> 00:57:13,640
Speaker 1: a fallacy and one that we we still have a

1063
00:57:13,640 --> 00:57:16,160
Speaker 1: lot of trouble with when it seems like the more

1064
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:20,760
Speaker 1: reasonable explanation is that first of all, you're an entity

1065
00:57:20,760 --> 00:57:22,920
Speaker 1: of perfessional change, but also there is kind of a

1066
00:57:23,000 --> 00:57:27,040
Speaker 1: chorus of of of of yourself in there. Yeah. And

1067
00:57:27,120 --> 00:57:29,880
Speaker 1: one interpretation that that brings together a lot of the

1068
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:34,600
Speaker 1: sceneroscience is the interpreter theory and interpretation is the interpreter theory.

1069
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:38,760
Speaker 1: The interpreter theory of Michael Kazaniga, one of the researchers

1070
00:57:38,920 --> 00:57:42,120
Speaker 1: involved in in the split brain experiments, where he's got

1071
00:57:42,120 --> 00:57:43,840
Speaker 1: this idea that there's sort of a region of your

1072
00:57:43,880 --> 00:57:47,120
Speaker 1: brain that's associated with the speech production parts of your

1073
00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:52,320
Speaker 1: brain that is there to unify brain phenomena you know,

1074
00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:54,680
Speaker 1: that are disparate in the beginning, and it's sort of

1075
00:57:55,120 --> 00:57:58,960
Speaker 1: its job is to tell one unified, coherent story to

1076
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:02,520
Speaker 1: you about what's happening throughout your brain. So it takes

1077
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:05,440
Speaker 1: all these disparate plot threads and says, here's how I'll

1078
00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:08,400
Speaker 1: finish up the story. Uh, and then and that creates

1079
00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:10,680
Speaker 1: the sense of you. Your sense of self is generated

1080
00:58:10,680 --> 00:58:13,520
Speaker 1: by this sort of like a concatenation process in the

1081
00:58:13,560 --> 00:58:16,320
Speaker 1: interpreter part of the brain. But to come back to

1082
00:58:16,360 --> 00:58:19,200
Speaker 1: the idea of multiple consciousness is in the same head

1083
00:58:19,200 --> 00:58:21,560
Speaker 1: and maybe the idea of being someone else's dream. I've

1084
00:58:21,600 --> 00:58:24,120
Speaker 1: had this idea before. Again, this is not something that

1085
00:58:24,160 --> 00:58:27,040
Speaker 1: I would argue is strongly indicated by evidence, just a

1086
00:58:27,120 --> 00:58:30,200
Speaker 1: very strange possibility that seems hard to rule out on

1087
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:33,520
Speaker 1: the basis of any evidence I'm aware of. What if

1088
00:58:33,600 --> 00:58:39,000
Speaker 1: the process of imagining the workings of other minds involves

1089
00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:44,760
Speaker 1: the low resolution simulation of separate conscious minds. What if

1090
00:58:45,000 --> 00:58:47,919
Speaker 1: when you're trying to understand somebody else's behavior, you trying

1091
00:58:47,920 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 1: to understand, you know, why did Jeff say what he said,

1092
00:58:50,840 --> 00:58:53,680
Speaker 1: and so you imagine his thought processes, Or when you're

1093
00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:56,840
Speaker 1: trying to write dialogue for a fictional character. What if,

1094
00:58:56,880 --> 00:58:59,880
Speaker 1: in cases like this you're practicing theory of mind, the

1095
00:59:00,120 --> 00:59:04,800
Speaker 1: brain temporarily carves out a bit of its consciousness potential

1096
00:59:05,240 --> 00:59:08,880
Speaker 1: to devote to this imagined person in order to better

1097
00:59:08,920 --> 00:59:13,040
Speaker 1: simulate their behavior. Interesting, Yeah, yeah, I mean in many

1098
00:59:13,120 --> 00:59:17,040
Speaker 1: cases it would, especially if it's a perceived enemy. Right,

1099
00:59:17,080 --> 00:59:19,280
Speaker 1: It's probably gonna be a rather simple model. You know,

1100
00:59:19,360 --> 00:59:23,840
Speaker 1: it's you're you're reducing them to like, you know, cartoon

1101
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:27,680
Speaker 1: villain levels of of impulse and desire. But I mean

1102
00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:31,000
Speaker 1: there's no limiting it just two enemies. I mean, in

1103
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:34,439
Speaker 1: any case, whenever you try to imagine somebody, you don't

1104
00:59:34,440 --> 00:59:38,120
Speaker 1: know exactly everything your brain is doing to create that

1105
00:59:38,200 --> 00:59:42,240
Speaker 1: simulation of them within you. Right, Like even the people

1106
00:59:42,280 --> 00:59:45,200
Speaker 1: we know they the best in our lives. For instance,

1107
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:48,160
Speaker 1: our you know, our our you know, uh, you know

1108
00:59:48,600 --> 00:59:51,920
Speaker 1: life partners, you know or you know, loved ones, family members,

1109
00:59:52,080 --> 00:59:56,240
Speaker 1: really close friends, we might have a more robust simulation

1110
00:59:56,320 --> 00:59:58,800
Speaker 1: of them in our theory VR theory of mind, but

1111
00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:02,440
Speaker 1: it is still just a model of how their mind

1112
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:05,200
Speaker 1: works and what they want and how they think. Yeah,

1113
01:00:05,240 --> 01:00:07,560
Speaker 1: it's our best guess, it's our I mean, it's not

1114
01:00:07,640 --> 01:00:10,160
Speaker 1: their brain, it's our brain trying to do it. And

1115
01:00:10,240 --> 01:00:12,880
Speaker 1: if this were the case, you could be, in some

1116
01:00:12,960 --> 01:00:18,640
Speaker 1: sense creating separate conscious people in your head whenever you

1117
01:00:18,680 --> 01:00:21,560
Speaker 1: try to analyze a friend's behavior, or write a scene

1118
01:00:21,600 --> 01:00:24,520
Speaker 1: for a character in a story, or dream about a

1119
01:00:24,560 --> 01:00:27,439
Speaker 1: district attorney sitting across from you in a prison cell.

1120
01:00:27,880 --> 01:00:30,720
Speaker 1: Now you might say, well, if they're all generated by

1121
01:00:30,840 --> 01:00:33,840
Speaker 1: your brain, they're all you. I mean, anatomically, they are

1122
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:37,440
Speaker 1: all you. They're all made by your body. The other

1123
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:39,640
Speaker 1: side of this, too, is like when you read a novel,

1124
01:00:39,800 --> 01:00:42,400
Speaker 1: yeah exactly, I mean, in any time you imagine a person.

1125
01:00:42,520 --> 01:00:45,960
Speaker 1: I wonder if this is possible, if there's any validity

1126
01:00:46,000 --> 01:00:49,720
Speaker 1: to some of these alternative theories of dual consciousness. For example,

1127
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:53,720
Speaker 1: you know, uh, Michael Gazzaniga's left brain interpreter theory. Perhaps

1128
01:00:53,880 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 1: the part of your brain that talks and interprets and

1129
01:00:56,760 --> 01:01:00,000
Speaker 1: seems to be in charge makes meaning of the self

1130
01:00:59,840 --> 01:01:04,000
Speaker 1: is not aware that the same brain is also generating

1131
01:01:04,160 --> 01:01:09,720
Speaker 1: little conscious simulations of people partitioned from the interpreter and

1132
01:01:09,760 --> 01:01:13,240
Speaker 1: the rest of the self. Yeah, yeah, I mean it

1133
01:01:13,280 --> 01:01:15,680
Speaker 1: makes me think. For instance, I've read a fair amount

1134
01:01:15,720 --> 01:01:17,680
Speaker 1: of Carl Sagan. I love picking up a Carl Sagan

1135
01:01:17,720 --> 01:01:20,880
Speaker 1: book and reading it. Uh, you know, it gives me comfort.

1136
01:01:20,920 --> 01:01:23,400
Speaker 1: And as as such, I do kind of have like

1137
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:26,600
Speaker 1: a tiny Carl Sagan in my brain, like an idea

1138
01:01:26,760 --> 01:01:29,920
Speaker 1: of Sagan that is kind of walking around in there

1139
01:01:30,040 --> 01:01:33,040
Speaker 1: or maybe summoned. But the really mind blowing idea is

1140
01:01:33,080 --> 01:01:36,400
Speaker 1: what if that little Carl Sagan has an experience? What

1141
01:01:36,480 --> 01:01:39,440
Speaker 1: if there's something that it's like to be that simulated

1142
01:01:39,480 --> 01:01:42,160
Speaker 1: Carl Sagan. What if he gets into an argument with

1143
01:01:42,200 --> 01:01:44,720
Speaker 1: the little Terence McKenna in my head? Right, I mean,

1144
01:01:44,760 --> 01:01:47,240
Speaker 1: it's still your brain, it's still all the tissue in

1145
01:01:47,320 --> 01:01:50,080
Speaker 1: your head. But what if there's something in there that's

1146
01:01:50,080 --> 01:01:53,440
Speaker 1: a little Carl Sagan simulated by your mind sometimes that

1147
01:01:53,520 --> 01:01:57,640
Speaker 1: has its own wants, the desires, experiences. Now, again, I

1148
01:01:58,000 --> 01:02:01,000
Speaker 1: recognize that this is way out there and aculative territory,

1149
01:02:01,040 --> 01:02:03,520
Speaker 1: and I do not claim that there is strong evidence

1150
01:02:03,600 --> 01:02:06,240
Speaker 1: for this, but it is one of those strange things

1151
01:02:06,280 --> 01:02:08,680
Speaker 1: that I'm trying to think of reasons to rule it out,

1152
01:02:08,920 --> 01:02:12,840
Speaker 1: and I can't. Uh So, if this seemingly weird scenario

1153
01:02:12,920 --> 01:02:15,240
Speaker 1: were the case, would there be any way to know

1154
01:02:15,400 --> 01:02:20,200
Speaker 1: for sure that you weren't a conscious, low resolution simulation

1155
01:02:20,240 --> 01:02:23,880
Speaker 1: of a mind inside a brain ruled by the tyrannical

1156
01:02:23,960 --> 01:02:26,120
Speaker 1: dictator mind that could blink you in and out of

1157
01:02:26,160 --> 01:02:29,520
Speaker 1: existence by the whims of a dream or imagination. Well,

1158
01:02:29,520 --> 01:02:33,040
Speaker 1: that sounds like a theological model there. Yeah. Fortunately, again,

1159
01:02:33,080 --> 01:02:35,200
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any strong evidence this is the case.

1160
01:02:35,480 --> 01:02:39,520
Speaker 1: Sleep tight. All right, Well, there you have it. That

1161
01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:43,160
Speaker 1: is uh Anthology of Horror volume two, And if you

1162
01:02:43,240 --> 01:02:45,160
Speaker 1: loved it, you don't have to wait an entire year.

1163
01:02:45,200 --> 01:02:47,560
Speaker 1: You just have to wait a couple of days for

1164
01:02:47,600 --> 01:02:50,840
Speaker 1: the next installment, because we're gonna be back with Anthology

1165
01:02:50,840 --> 01:02:54,200
Speaker 1: of Horror Volume three, in which show will look at

1166
01:02:54,280 --> 01:02:57,120
Speaker 1: an episode of The Outer Limits and an episode of

1167
01:02:57,160 --> 01:03:01,000
Speaker 1: the Simpson's Treehouse of Horror. I can't wait. In the meantime,

1168
01:03:01,000 --> 01:03:02,560
Speaker 1: if you want to check out other episodes of Stuff

1169
01:03:02,560 --> 01:03:03,800
Speaker 1: to Bow your Mind, heading it over to Stuff to

1170
01:03:03,800 --> 01:03:06,640
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com. That's where you will find them.

1171
01:03:06,720 --> 01:03:08,760
Speaker 1: And oh see, what else can you do? You can

1172
01:03:08,880 --> 01:03:12,720
Speaker 1: find the show wherever you find podcasts, rate, interview, subscribe.

1173
01:03:12,720 --> 01:03:15,080
Speaker 1: That's a great way to help check out our other show, Invention.

1174
01:03:15,560 --> 01:03:17,720
Speaker 1: Uh it's an Invention pod dot com and is that

1175
01:03:17,800 --> 01:03:20,480
Speaker 1: it is available everywhere as well. And if you want

1176
01:03:20,520 --> 01:03:22,560
Speaker 1: to interact with other fans of the show, you can

1177
01:03:22,560 --> 01:03:25,080
Speaker 1: go to our Facebook group that is the Stuff to

1178
01:03:25,120 --> 01:03:28,200
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind discussion the module Huge Things. As always

1179
01:03:28,240 --> 01:03:32,040
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Death Nicholas Johnson. If you

1180
01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:34,200
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

1181
01:03:34,280 --> 01:03:36,760
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic

1182
01:03:36,840 --> 01:03:38,680
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hello, you can

1183
01:03:38,720 --> 01:03:41,800
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1184
01:03:41,960 --> 01:03:51,240
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production

1185
01:03:51,280 --> 01:03:53,800
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from

1186
01:03:53,800 --> 01:03:56,600
Speaker 1: my heart Radio is at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

1187
01:03:56,720 --> 01:04:07,080
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Lit by

1188
01:04:07,120 --> 01:04:13,960
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