1
00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:05,880
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

2
00:00:05,880 --> 00:00:14,480
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, wasn't the Stuff to Blow your Mind.

3
00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:16,880
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I am Christian Seger

4
00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:19,480
Speaker 1: and I am Joe McCormick, and we're here for another

5
00:00:19,600 --> 00:00:22,280
Speaker 1: listener mail episodes. We've been doing more of these lately

6
00:00:22,280 --> 00:00:26,000
Speaker 1: because we begin we've been getting so much good listener mail. Yeah,

7
00:00:26,040 --> 00:00:30,080
Speaker 1: the mail bag inside Carney has been very full. It's

8
00:00:30,120 --> 00:00:32,600
Speaker 1: and it's and it's been full of really good stuff too.

9
00:00:32,600 --> 00:00:35,240
Speaker 1: And I gotta throw this out up front, like, we've

10
00:00:35,280 --> 00:00:37,279
Speaker 1: gotten so much that there's no way that we can

11
00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:39,519
Speaker 1: address it in every listener mail episode. Now, even if

12
00:00:39,560 --> 00:00:41,839
Speaker 1: we do them more often, we could do them like

13
00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:44,240
Speaker 1: once a week, and we wouldn't be able to get there.

14
00:00:44,320 --> 00:00:46,800
Speaker 1: That's right. I mean, we're hearing from people via email

15
00:00:47,040 --> 00:00:49,080
Speaker 1: blow the mind at how stuff Works dot Com. We're

16
00:00:49,080 --> 00:00:52,400
Speaker 1: getting people from Facebook and Twitter. We're blow the mind

17
00:00:52,400 --> 00:00:54,640
Speaker 1: on both of those. Some people right into us on

18
00:00:54,720 --> 00:00:56,800
Speaker 1: Tumbler where we were stuff to Blow your Mind. Some

19
00:00:56,880 --> 00:01:00,520
Speaker 1: people on LinkedIn. We did get one on LinkedIn once, Yes,

20
00:01:01,400 --> 00:01:04,280
Speaker 1: and I don't even think it was just your LinkedIn profile. Yeah,

21
00:01:04,880 --> 00:01:09,160
Speaker 1: everybody go follow Robert on LinkedIn, but yeah, somebody wrote

22
00:01:09,240 --> 00:01:11,880
Speaker 1: us there, So yeah, thanks for everybody who's written in.

23
00:01:11,959 --> 00:01:14,480
Speaker 1: And you know, just these are the ones that we

24
00:01:14,520 --> 00:01:18,000
Speaker 1: felt would make like the most compelling listener mail episode.

25
00:01:18,360 --> 00:01:21,119
Speaker 1: But there's lots of other stuff out there, and I'm

26
00:01:21,160 --> 00:01:22,960
Speaker 1: gonna make an effort to try to sit down and

27
00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:24,600
Speaker 1: respond to all of them. I need to take a

28
00:01:24,680 --> 00:01:27,480
Speaker 1: day and just go through everyone. Yeah, it kind of

29
00:01:27,480 --> 00:01:28,760
Speaker 1: depends on what day they come in, but we get

30
00:01:28,800 --> 00:01:31,360
Speaker 1: a lot of great stuff for sure. Anyway, the takeaway

31
00:01:31,400 --> 00:01:33,880
Speaker 1: is if you sent us an email, we don't get

32
00:01:33,880 --> 00:01:35,640
Speaker 1: a chance to read it today. Please don't take that

33
00:01:35,680 --> 00:01:38,119
Speaker 1: as a slide against We've just got way more than

34
00:01:38,160 --> 00:01:40,759
Speaker 1: we can get to. But we really do appreciate all

35
00:01:40,800 --> 00:01:44,480
Speaker 1: of your correspondence. And Carney does too. Because Carney is

36
00:01:44,520 --> 00:01:48,680
Speaker 1: just bulging with happy energy. I see a lot of

37
00:01:48,760 --> 00:01:53,920
Speaker 1: energy around him. There's like a rainbow field of luminescence. No,

38
00:01:54,400 --> 00:01:57,920
Speaker 1: you know what that is. Earlier this week, I set

39
00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:00,880
Speaker 1: Carney to try to solve all of the P versus

40
00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:04,520
Speaker 1: MP problem, and I think this morning he might have

41
00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:07,560
Speaker 1: actually found a solution. He hasn't. He hasn't given us

42
00:02:07,560 --> 00:02:09,760
Speaker 1: the solution yet. Maybe he judged that it's not for

43
00:02:09,840 --> 00:02:12,600
Speaker 1: our minds to know, but he has been glowing with

44
00:02:12,680 --> 00:02:16,120
Speaker 1: a radiant light and emitting choirs of angels. The sound,

45
00:02:16,160 --> 00:02:20,160
Speaker 1: you know, it's just coming out from inside him. So yeah,

46
00:02:20,400 --> 00:02:23,000
Speaker 1: it's it's been kind of warm and happy sitting in

47
00:02:23,160 --> 00:02:26,360
Speaker 1: his presence. Yeah, I'm basking in the glow of Carney. Well,

48
00:02:26,440 --> 00:02:31,519
Speaker 1: if if Carney has not evolved too far beyond our understanding,

49
00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:36,840
Speaker 1: perhaps he slash, she slash yet can present us with

50
00:02:36,840 --> 00:02:41,200
Speaker 1: some listener mail. Alright, so this first message is from

51
00:02:41,200 --> 00:02:44,440
Speaker 1: our listener, Nicole, and it's with reference to the episode

52
00:02:44,520 --> 00:02:48,200
Speaker 1: Robert and I did on the intelligence of birds. Nicole says, Hi,

53
00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:52,079
Speaker 1: I just finished listening to your episode on avian intelligence

54
00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:54,400
Speaker 1: and it brought to mind and experience I had as

55
00:02:54,440 --> 00:02:58,119
Speaker 1: a teenager. We had some problem crows that were attacking

56
00:02:58,160 --> 00:03:01,360
Speaker 1: our postman and ripping the shingles off our roof to

57
00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:04,400
Speaker 1: pitch them onto the lawn. My dad heard that if

58
00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:07,640
Speaker 1: you kill a crow and hang it from a tree,

59
00:03:08,240 --> 00:03:11,239
Speaker 1: it will drive the other crows off, so he shot

60
00:03:11,320 --> 00:03:13,560
Speaker 1: one with a pellet gun and hung it from a

61
00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:16,480
Speaker 1: tree in our backyard. I've heard this as well, not

62
00:03:16,680 --> 00:03:19,360
Speaker 1: I've never I haven't shot one but I've heard this, yeah,

63
00:03:19,639 --> 00:03:23,040
Speaker 1: she continues. The next morning, I looked out the window

64
00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:26,720
Speaker 1: to see hundreds and hundreds of crows sitting in the

65
00:03:26,760 --> 00:03:31,320
Speaker 1: trees encircling our backyard like a black wall. They were

66
00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:34,200
Speaker 1: making no noise and staring at the body of the

67
00:03:34,280 --> 00:03:38,400
Speaker 1: dead crow hanging from the tree. They stayed the entire day,

68
00:03:38,440 --> 00:03:41,480
Speaker 1: barely moving, never making a sound. I don't know if

69
00:03:41,480 --> 00:03:44,240
Speaker 1: crows typically hold awake, or if my dad happened to

70
00:03:44,240 --> 00:03:48,120
Speaker 1: have shot their grand chief, but the experience was chillingly terrifying.

71
00:03:48,440 --> 00:03:53,640
Speaker 1: Love your podcast, Nicole. That that is the most disturbing

72
00:03:53,720 --> 00:03:57,760
Speaker 1: piece of listener mail I've ever read. That's like the

73
00:03:57,920 --> 00:04:00,480
Speaker 1: Dark Half. Do you remember that it was a dark half?

74
00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:05,120
Speaker 1: What it was it sparrows and the sparrows are flying. Yeah.

75
00:04:05,560 --> 00:04:09,040
Speaker 1: They were like psychopomps. They were like embedded with the

76
00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:12,600
Speaker 1: energy of of malice or something that kind of drag

77
00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:16,840
Speaker 1: you away. Yeah. Well, I mean I do kind of

78
00:04:16,880 --> 00:04:19,560
Speaker 1: wonder about her question, there was there something special about

79
00:04:19,600 --> 00:04:22,719
Speaker 1: this crow or was it? Was it just don't you

80
00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:25,599
Speaker 1: guys come across anything even even remotely like this in

81
00:04:25,600 --> 00:04:29,400
Speaker 1: the episode. I mean, crows do have a startlingly complex

82
00:04:29,440 --> 00:04:33,640
Speaker 1: social intelligence. Yeah, they have social relationships, and they seem

83
00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:37,320
Speaker 1: to display theory of mind where they can imagine the

84
00:04:37,400 --> 00:04:41,080
Speaker 1: intentions of other entities. Maybe they were like fronting to

85
00:04:41,120 --> 00:04:43,040
Speaker 1: her dad. They were like, oh, you want to kill

86
00:04:43,080 --> 00:04:46,320
Speaker 1: one of us, and then just like swarmed and we're like,

87
00:04:46,560 --> 00:04:51,440
Speaker 1: this is our gang. You can't row more so than

88
00:04:51,560 --> 00:04:54,680
Speaker 1: most birds. I believe there's the possibility for something I

89
00:04:54,760 --> 00:04:59,240
Speaker 1: had to be taking place. Yea though. Yeah, so thanks

90
00:04:59,279 --> 00:05:02,440
Speaker 1: for sharing, Nicole. That is very weird alright. This next

91
00:05:02,440 --> 00:05:05,799
Speaker 1: one is from Issha. I believe, and she says, hello,

92
00:05:05,839 --> 00:05:08,200
Speaker 1: I love the podcast and love the episode on Jeff

93
00:05:08,200 --> 00:05:11,440
Speaker 1: the Killer. That's the creepy pasta two episode we did.

94
00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:14,160
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to nitpick, but when you guys were

95
00:05:14,160 --> 00:05:17,039
Speaker 1: talking about acid burning, one of you said it is

96
00:05:17,080 --> 00:05:20,440
Speaker 1: more prevalent in countries where it is quote more acceptable

97
00:05:20,440 --> 00:05:23,320
Speaker 1: in society. I'm from Pakistan and I would like to

98
00:05:23,320 --> 00:05:27,000
Speaker 1: assure you that acid burning is not socially acceptable there.

99
00:05:27,160 --> 00:05:30,200
Speaker 1: It is a crime and perpetrators are punished. Saying it

100
00:05:30,279 --> 00:05:33,279
Speaker 1: is acceptable in society simply because the rate of occurrence

101
00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:35,839
Speaker 1: is high is the same as saying that gun violence

102
00:05:35,880 --> 00:05:39,520
Speaker 1: is acceptable in America's society for the same reason, I

103
00:05:39,560 --> 00:05:43,120
Speaker 1: have attached an article detailing the legal repercussions of committing

104
00:05:43,160 --> 00:05:46,800
Speaker 1: the crime of attacking someone with acid in Pakistan. Once again,

105
00:05:46,880 --> 00:05:48,960
Speaker 1: I love the podcast and apologize if it was a

106
00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:51,120
Speaker 1: little harsh. I don't I don't think that's a little

107
00:05:51,120 --> 00:05:54,039
Speaker 1: harsh at all. And actually when I first read this,

108
00:05:54,120 --> 00:05:56,359
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, jeez, I really hope I didn't

109
00:05:56,360 --> 00:05:59,960
Speaker 1: imply something like that. I think what we were trying

110
00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:03,159
Speaker 1: to get across was just that there are societies where

111
00:06:03,160 --> 00:06:08,240
Speaker 1: it's culturally prevalent. Yes, so that the exact quote in

112
00:06:08,240 --> 00:06:10,960
Speaker 1: that bit in in that episode was there have been

113
00:06:10,960 --> 00:06:13,480
Speaker 1: a couple of incidents where there have been Western tourists

114
00:06:13,520 --> 00:06:17,159
Speaker 1: in foreign countries where this is more acceptable, and um,

115
00:06:17,279 --> 00:06:20,560
Speaker 1: you know, to the to the listeners point, yeah, acceptable

116
00:06:20,640 --> 00:06:25,000
Speaker 1: is maybe not the right word here, said yeah, yeah,

117
00:06:25,080 --> 00:06:27,479
Speaker 1: that that I mean, that's a spur of the moment

118
00:06:27,520 --> 00:06:29,920
Speaker 1: thing that and that's my bad. But I would say,

119
00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:33,599
Speaker 1: like to her analogy here, like, I think you could

120
00:06:33,640 --> 00:06:39,080
Speaker 1: make the the statement that gun violence in American society

121
00:06:39,120 --> 00:06:41,960
Speaker 1: is prevalent. Yeah, I think that there there's a strong

122
00:06:42,160 --> 00:06:44,279
Speaker 1: comparison to be made here where a gun violence is

123
00:06:44,320 --> 00:06:48,320
Speaker 1: not something that is at all. I mean particularly the

124
00:06:48,360 --> 00:06:50,159
Speaker 1: kind of like mass shooting thing to it it's been

125
00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:53,240
Speaker 1: dealing with. Certainly, nobody is out there saying this is good,

126
00:06:53,279 --> 00:06:55,760
Speaker 1: this is great, this is happening, but it is happening

127
00:06:55,800 --> 00:06:59,479
Speaker 1: with enough of of a frequency that it exists in

128
00:06:59,800 --> 00:07:02,360
Speaker 1: the uh in like the public mindset. And if one

129
00:07:02,440 --> 00:07:05,920
Speaker 1: is to get you know, slightly poetic here, I guess

130
00:07:05,960 --> 00:07:08,040
Speaker 1: if one's heart were to go to a dark place,

131
00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:12,400
Speaker 1: then that experience, that motive behavior is waiting for them

132
00:07:12,440 --> 00:07:16,080
Speaker 1: there as an American um. But yeah, I don't. I

133
00:07:16,640 --> 00:07:19,320
Speaker 1: think it's the use of the word acceptable. Maybe that

134
00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:23,520
Speaker 1: caused the confusion, and that's certainly not what I was implaying. Yeah,

135
00:07:23,560 --> 00:07:25,920
Speaker 1: but that's a good clarification. Thank you, actually, and thank

136
00:07:25,960 --> 00:07:28,080
Speaker 1: you for letting us know. All right, Well, you know,

137
00:07:28,440 --> 00:07:30,480
Speaker 1: Joe and I did an episode on the Tip of

138
00:07:30,520 --> 00:07:33,280
Speaker 1: the Tongue or taught so we when we asked everyone

139
00:07:33,280 --> 00:07:35,040
Speaker 1: out there to share their taughts, and we receive a

140
00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:38,720
Speaker 1: lot of good feedback. So here's one from Ashley says, Hey, guys,

141
00:07:38,720 --> 00:07:40,160
Speaker 1: just finished up your Tip of the Tongue episode and

142
00:07:40,160 --> 00:07:42,160
Speaker 1: I thought I might have some insight into a couple

143
00:07:42,200 --> 00:07:44,239
Speaker 1: of topics that you brought up. First, I am fluent

144
00:07:44,320 --> 00:07:47,400
Speaker 1: in both English and as all American Sign Language. I

145
00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:50,280
Speaker 1: found that this is a most helpful skill in resolving

146
00:07:50,320 --> 00:07:52,720
Speaker 1: taughts in my world. Not only is a s L

147
00:07:52,840 --> 00:07:57,360
Speaker 1: far more primitive of a language than English, whose discrepancy

148
00:07:57,920 --> 00:08:00,360
Speaker 1: aids me in thinking of words by their death nisition

149
00:08:00,440 --> 00:08:02,680
Speaker 1: and not just their uses, but since ASL is a

150
00:08:02,840 --> 00:08:06,960
Speaker 1: physical language and English verbal, I often have the pieces

151
00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:10,200
Speaker 1: in one side when I don't on the other, translating

152
00:08:10,240 --> 00:08:13,760
Speaker 1: the discovery into the desired language becomes easy at that point.

153
00:08:13,920 --> 00:08:15,800
Speaker 1: This is an interesting point because we talked in the

154
00:08:15,840 --> 00:08:18,880
Speaker 1: episode about how I was surprised to find that there

155
00:08:18,960 --> 00:08:22,520
Speaker 1: is such a similarity between looking for the word in

156
00:08:22,600 --> 00:08:25,440
Speaker 1: English and or any language in a spoken language. And

157
00:08:25,440 --> 00:08:27,200
Speaker 1: then this also this thing known as the tip of

158
00:08:27,200 --> 00:08:30,680
Speaker 1: the fingers phenomenon in deaf signers, where they have the

159
00:08:30,680 --> 00:08:33,520
Speaker 1: same experience. They're looking for the sign and they have

160
00:08:33,640 --> 00:08:35,960
Speaker 1: the semantic meaning of the word, but they can't remember

161
00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:38,320
Speaker 1: what you do with your hands. So I wasn't on

162
00:08:38,360 --> 00:08:40,960
Speaker 1: this episode, but it reminds me of when we did

163
00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:43,520
Speaker 1: the Cyborg episode recently. We were talking about how one

164
00:08:43,520 --> 00:08:46,160
Speaker 1: of the guys had coined the word cyborg was very

165
00:08:46,240 --> 00:08:51,120
Speaker 1: interested in the ways that uh cyborgs could process language differently,

166
00:08:51,160 --> 00:08:52,960
Speaker 1: to the point that he was trying to come up

167
00:08:52,960 --> 00:08:56,560
Speaker 1: with a way to come up with averages of words,

168
00:08:56,640 --> 00:08:59,800
Speaker 1: like he was thinking about words as math and I

169
00:08:59,840 --> 00:09:01,320
Speaker 1: think there's a bit of a connection here. And at

170
00:09:01,320 --> 00:09:03,200
Speaker 1: the time I said, you know, this reminds me of

171
00:09:03,200 --> 00:09:06,319
Speaker 1: structuralism and post structuralism. This seems to be, as often

172
00:09:06,400 --> 00:09:08,160
Speaker 1: happens on stuff to blow your mind, one of those

173
00:09:08,559 --> 00:09:11,920
Speaker 1: topics that we circle around. Maybe we should do something

174
00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:15,000
Speaker 1: about it in the future. Although uh Man, post structuralism

175
00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:19,120
Speaker 1: with your real tough topic to try to spell out

176
00:09:19,160 --> 00:09:22,040
Speaker 1: in a like an hour long podcast. It would be

177
00:09:22,040 --> 00:09:24,560
Speaker 1: a challenge, but hey, we're all about a good challenge.

178
00:09:24,720 --> 00:09:27,439
Speaker 1: But anyway, Ashley does continue. Yes, she says, I also

179
00:09:27,480 --> 00:09:30,199
Speaker 1: produce write the words the anchors say at my local

180
00:09:30,240 --> 00:09:32,800
Speaker 1: news station. You mentioned during the podcast some of the

181
00:09:32,800 --> 00:09:36,040
Speaker 1: differences between speech and written Producing is a fun exercise

182
00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:38,200
Speaker 1: in both rooms. Not only must the words make sense

183
00:09:38,240 --> 00:09:40,280
Speaker 1: to the viewer who listens, but also to the anchor

184
00:09:40,320 --> 00:09:43,640
Speaker 1: who reads the words I assemble. Anyways, thanks for keeping

185
00:09:43,640 --> 00:09:47,319
Speaker 1: my mind entertained as I drive about town. Ashley. So,

186
00:09:47,360 --> 00:09:50,920
Speaker 1: Ashley is the shadow figure behind the news echo borg.

187
00:09:52,320 --> 00:09:53,559
Speaker 1: This is kind of like how you and I are

188
00:09:53,559 --> 00:09:57,320
Speaker 1: the shadow figures behind brain stuff. Yeah. Yeah, Jonathan Strickland

189
00:09:57,360 --> 00:09:59,480
Speaker 1: is our little puppet. Yeah. Most people have only seen

190
00:09:59,559 --> 00:10:01,959
Speaker 1: him from the but from the behind. But from looking

191
00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:04,320
Speaker 1: him from behind, it's just like the flesh opens up

192
00:10:04,320 --> 00:10:09,280
Speaker 1: into these rods. They've never seen the armhole. I kid,

193
00:10:09,440 --> 00:10:12,600
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland is full of wonderful insights on his own

194
00:10:12,800 --> 00:10:15,480
Speaker 1: and rods and gears. Okay. Also a couple of quick

195
00:10:15,480 --> 00:10:18,120
Speaker 1: messages we got back about the Tip of the Tongue episode.

196
00:10:18,360 --> 00:10:21,240
Speaker 1: Listener Sophia writes in good morning, gentlemen, love love, love

197
00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:24,320
Speaker 1: of the podcast. You're too kind, she says, seeing as

198
00:10:24,320 --> 00:10:26,559
Speaker 1: you asked, I constantly have a tip of the Tongue

199
00:10:26,559 --> 00:10:29,840
Speaker 1: moment with Christopher Walkin. I've seen most of his films,

200
00:10:29,880 --> 00:10:34,240
Speaker 1: his infamous SNL episode, and perhaps every celebrity imitation of him.

201
00:10:34,240 --> 00:10:36,040
Speaker 1: But when I talk about him, for whatever reason, I

202
00:10:36,080 --> 00:10:38,640
Speaker 1: cannot get his name out. Fun fact of which I'm

203
00:10:38,679 --> 00:10:41,439
Speaker 1: sure you're aware. He was in The Deer Hunter, which

204
00:10:41,480 --> 00:10:44,440
Speaker 1: is what I googled to get his name with wait

205
00:10:44,480 --> 00:10:49,760
Speaker 1: for it, John Kaze, John Kaze. Christian figured big into

206
00:10:49,760 --> 00:10:52,360
Speaker 1: our tip of the Tongue episode, Oh is he one

207
00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:55,120
Speaker 1: that you? One of you have a tip of the tongue?

208
00:10:55,559 --> 00:10:58,199
Speaker 1: We I mean, if i'd asked you who played Fredo

209
00:10:58,280 --> 00:11:00,920
Speaker 1: in The Godfather, would you have that name? No, and

210
00:11:00,920 --> 00:11:03,680
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why. I've never seen The god What. Yeah, well,

211
00:11:03,920 --> 00:11:06,800
Speaker 1: I know it's stunning. I've never seen any of the

212
00:11:06,800 --> 00:11:11,400
Speaker 1: Godfather films. I'm planning to sometime this year though. Okay, well, um,

213
00:11:11,559 --> 00:11:13,520
Speaker 1: don't let anybody build them up too much for you.

214
00:11:14,200 --> 00:11:17,880
Speaker 1: Oh okay, but I think I know who Jun Kazale is.

215
00:11:17,960 --> 00:11:20,120
Speaker 1: I know he was in a Deer Hunter dog day

216
00:11:20,120 --> 00:11:22,240
Speaker 1: after Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that guy. Yeah. So

217
00:11:22,280 --> 00:11:25,199
Speaker 1: thanks for writing in, Sophia. Sophia comments that she's in

218
00:11:25,320 --> 00:11:28,200
Speaker 1: Rome and so we appreciate that message. But I had

219
00:11:28,280 --> 00:11:30,920
Speaker 1: to read back to back with this, also a message

220
00:11:30,920 --> 00:11:35,760
Speaker 1: from Parker, who has a strange convergence here with Sophia's comments.

221
00:11:35,840 --> 00:11:39,840
Speaker 1: So Parker writes in says hey guys. Also Parker's referencing

222
00:11:39,840 --> 00:11:41,600
Speaker 1: the Tip of the Tongue episode. He says, hey guys,

223
00:11:41,600 --> 00:11:44,599
Speaker 1: super interesting episode. As always, you asked what were the

224
00:11:44,640 --> 00:11:47,319
Speaker 1: words that always tripped us up? For myself, I had

225
00:11:47,360 --> 00:11:51,559
Speaker 1: many years where I had ceaselessly confused Paul Giamati, Steve Bashemi,

226
00:11:51,880 --> 00:11:56,120
Speaker 1: and Christopher walkin Uh. It's likely that they all have

227
00:11:56,240 --> 00:12:01,360
Speaker 1: somewhat sad faces, and specifically that Giomati and Bashemy have

228
00:12:01,400 --> 00:12:05,600
Speaker 1: Italian last names, while Bashimmy and Walking looks somewhat similar

229
00:12:05,679 --> 00:12:09,280
Speaker 1: in their character, acting a bit scrawny and pale. It's

230
00:12:09,320 --> 00:12:13,000
Speaker 1: interesting as a Venn diagram, however, because the subsets of

231
00:12:13,040 --> 00:12:16,839
Speaker 1: two would always be confused, but never all three. I eat,

232
00:12:17,559 --> 00:12:22,120
Speaker 1: Giamati and Bashemmy interchangeable. Bashemy and Walking were interchangeable, but

233
00:12:22,160 --> 00:12:26,240
Speaker 1: I would never confuse Geomati and Walking. Uh. This aspect

234
00:12:26,320 --> 00:12:29,280
Speaker 1: is surely an extra phenomenon of its own, but it

235
00:12:29,320 --> 00:12:31,480
Speaker 1: seems as if it came into play as well. Do

236
00:12:31,520 --> 00:12:33,439
Speaker 1: you think the same part of the brain would be

237
00:12:33,480 --> 00:12:37,640
Speaker 1: affected when confusing people and trying to recollect people slash words?

238
00:12:38,120 --> 00:12:40,400
Speaker 1: Thanks for everything always entertained as I listen to you

239
00:12:40,400 --> 00:12:43,400
Speaker 1: guys while crunching numbers at my business management job. Have

240
00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:45,599
Speaker 1: a great day. Thank you for the message. But I

241
00:12:45,640 --> 00:12:48,840
Speaker 1: think that's an interesting question. I do pretty much think

242
00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:50,960
Speaker 1: it's it's going to be the same part of the brain.

243
00:12:51,160 --> 00:12:53,520
Speaker 1: I am not a neurologist, or a psychologist or an

244
00:12:53,559 --> 00:12:56,480
Speaker 1: expert on speech production. So that is my my lay

245
00:12:56,559 --> 00:12:59,040
Speaker 1: person's opinion as somebody who's read about this. But from

246
00:12:59,040 --> 00:13:03,120
Speaker 1: what I've read, I think, yeah, that we use sort

247
00:13:03,160 --> 00:13:05,959
Speaker 1: of most of the same gear in our brains to

248
00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:07,920
Speaker 1: come up with proper names that we do to come

249
00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:10,880
Speaker 1: up with words where in either case, you know the

250
00:13:10,920 --> 00:13:13,640
Speaker 1: semantic meaning you're either thinking about the person, you're thinking

251
00:13:13,640 --> 00:13:15,800
Speaker 1: about the definition of the word, but you just can't

252
00:13:15,800 --> 00:13:18,600
Speaker 1: come up with the sounds your mouth is supposed to make. Yeah,

253
00:13:18,640 --> 00:13:22,000
Speaker 1: so spoilers for our our listeners. Actually this happens to

254
00:13:22,120 --> 00:13:25,040
Speaker 1: us in the studio quite often, and we just edited

255
00:13:25,080 --> 00:13:28,440
Speaker 1: out where it will be me going, uh that, what's

256
00:13:28,440 --> 00:13:34,040
Speaker 1: his name? Uh, and then our producer Noel thankfully edits

257
00:13:34,040 --> 00:13:37,319
Speaker 1: it out so we sound, uh, you know, the right

258
00:13:37,360 --> 00:13:39,320
Speaker 1: thing as we as we brought up in the episode.

259
00:13:39,440 --> 00:13:41,800
Speaker 1: The best thing you can do to solve that problem

260
00:13:41,880 --> 00:13:44,200
Speaker 1: more or less on your own as quickly as possible.

261
00:13:45,120 --> 00:13:49,360
Speaker 1: That otherwise that the part of the brain ties Paul,

262
00:13:49,960 --> 00:13:51,920
Speaker 1: part of your brain. Yeah, don't sit in that tip

263
00:13:51,960 --> 00:13:54,439
Speaker 1: of the tongue state forever. It's not interesting to think

264
00:13:54,480 --> 00:13:57,000
Speaker 1: of Steve Bushemi as being like the sort of center

265
00:13:57,120 --> 00:14:00,400
Speaker 1: of this uh universe of character actor is that are

266
00:14:00,440 --> 00:14:03,200
Speaker 1: easy to confuse with one another. I would never be

267
00:14:03,240 --> 00:14:05,800
Speaker 1: confused about Steve to shimmy like his name. I look

268
00:14:05,840 --> 00:14:07,720
Speaker 1: at people who aren't Steve for shimmy, and I think

269
00:14:07,760 --> 00:14:11,679
Speaker 1: Steve a shimmy. All right, here's another one. This one

270
00:14:11,720 --> 00:14:16,120
Speaker 1: comes to us from Jonathan in Melbourne, Australia says, quote

271
00:14:16,320 --> 00:14:18,840
Speaker 1: in the show, you mentioned the French version of the phrase,

272
00:14:19,320 --> 00:14:22,120
Speaker 1: which translates to hole in the head. However, I think

273
00:14:22,160 --> 00:14:24,720
Speaker 1: you may have taken the phrase too literally. From your

274
00:14:24,720 --> 00:14:26,560
Speaker 1: banter around the show, it sounds like you interpreted the

275
00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:29,680
Speaker 1: phrase as being like a hole through the skull. And granted,

276
00:14:29,720 --> 00:14:32,800
Speaker 1: given a trepidation style, and since we've covered trepidation on

277
00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:34,360
Speaker 1: the show, we kind of can't help but do that.

278
00:14:34,600 --> 00:14:36,720
Speaker 1: We can just have a predisposition to talk about holes

279
00:14:36,720 --> 00:14:42,240
Speaker 1: in the skull. Um. That's another topic that the show keeps. Yeah, well,

280
00:14:42,240 --> 00:14:43,760
Speaker 1: it's kind of in the title of the show, right,

281
00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:45,320
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind? How are you gonna blow

282
00:14:45,320 --> 00:14:47,680
Speaker 1: the mind of not creating a hole? And speaking of Todd,

283
00:14:47,760 --> 00:14:49,760
Speaker 1: what's the guy we've talked about him on the show before,

284
00:14:49,880 --> 00:14:56,360
Speaker 1: the famous guy with a rod through the head. Yeah, yeah, anyway,

285
00:14:56,440 --> 00:14:59,720
Speaker 1: Jonathan continues, However, I interpret it as a meaning u

286
00:15:00,080 --> 00:15:02,920
Speaker 1: of a void or space in which the name or

287
00:15:03,040 --> 00:15:05,800
Speaker 1: idea should exist but is missing. That makes the phrase

288
00:15:05,840 --> 00:15:08,200
Speaker 1: more like the descriptions earlier in the episode where you

289
00:15:08,280 --> 00:15:10,360
Speaker 1: quoted descriptions of the feeling is being similar to have

290
00:15:10,960 --> 00:15:13,440
Speaker 1: having the shape for the idea in your head and

291
00:15:13,480 --> 00:15:16,040
Speaker 1: nothing else would quite fit there, but the idea itself

292
00:15:16,120 --> 00:15:19,040
Speaker 1: is missing, it can't be grasped. That interpretation makes the

293
00:15:19,080 --> 00:15:21,960
Speaker 1: French version of the phrase perhaps the most accurate. Thanks

294
00:15:21,960 --> 00:15:23,920
Speaker 1: again for a great podcast. I think it makes it.

295
00:15:24,000 --> 00:15:25,800
Speaker 1: I like this, It makes this as a black hole

296
00:15:26,240 --> 00:15:28,960
Speaker 1: in the mind. Yeah, I think Jonathan sounds like you're

297
00:15:28,960 --> 00:15:31,560
Speaker 1: exactly right. I bet you are interpreting this right and

298
00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:34,800
Speaker 1: we were interpreting it wrong. Uh. The hole in the

299
00:15:34,840 --> 00:15:37,200
Speaker 1: head is like what you're referencing is when we talked

300
00:15:37,200 --> 00:15:40,320
Speaker 1: about William James. You know, William James sort of has

301
00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:42,520
Speaker 1: this idea of the wraith, the wraith of the name.

302
00:15:42,600 --> 00:15:46,160
Speaker 1: It's this mold where the name should be, and nothing

303
00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:48,440
Speaker 1: else will fit in the mold except the name. But

304
00:15:48,480 --> 00:15:52,120
Speaker 1: you can't come up with the name. Yeah, that's scary. Actually,

305
00:15:52,880 --> 00:15:55,640
Speaker 1: I thought about the black hole in your head, and

306
00:15:55,680 --> 00:15:59,000
Speaker 1: it getting larger larger the longer he's been thinking about it.

307
00:15:59,040 --> 00:16:02,560
Speaker 1: Always starts with Steve. Okay, one more about the tip

308
00:16:02,560 --> 00:16:04,920
Speaker 1: of the tongue episode before we move on. We heard

309
00:16:04,960 --> 00:16:08,840
Speaker 1: from our listener Tyler, who said, hello there. I frequently

310
00:16:08,880 --> 00:16:12,080
Speaker 1: experience taught moments as a bilingual, and this is something

311
00:16:12,120 --> 00:16:15,320
Speaker 1: that actually comes up in the literature, is bilingualism and taughts.

312
00:16:16,080 --> 00:16:19,160
Speaker 1: Tyler writes, often I experienced the problem of having the

313
00:16:19,160 --> 00:16:23,360
Speaker 1: correct word but not in the correct language. This happens

314
00:16:23,360 --> 00:16:25,920
Speaker 1: more frequently in times when I've when I have to

315
00:16:25,960 --> 00:16:29,280
Speaker 1: switch back and forth from Spanish to English. I enjoyed

316
00:16:29,320 --> 00:16:32,560
Speaker 1: the explanation on knowing the starting point and the ending

317
00:16:32,720 --> 00:16:35,960
Speaker 1: but not being able to make the connection. I've personally

318
00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:38,880
Speaker 1: felt that it's caused by modes. Sometimes when I'm in

319
00:16:38,880 --> 00:16:42,480
Speaker 1: a Spanish mode, it's hard to get out of it. Uh. Similarly,

320
00:16:42,640 --> 00:16:45,960
Speaker 1: I experience it when talking on different subjects. I might

321
00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:48,440
Speaker 1: be in a movie mode and then the conversation goes

322
00:16:48,480 --> 00:16:51,320
Speaker 1: to music, but the connections are still trying for movies.

323
00:16:52,120 --> 00:16:54,720
Speaker 1: Thanks for the episode. I very much enjoy your explanations

324
00:16:54,720 --> 00:16:59,440
Speaker 1: of every day often overlooked occurrences Kadado uh Tyler, and

325
00:16:59,520 --> 00:17:03,520
Speaker 1: so I think that's an interesting insight, like the different modes,

326
00:17:03,560 --> 00:17:06,800
Speaker 1: Like you're you're almost in one warehouse in your brain

327
00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:09,919
Speaker 1: looking for product codes to locate the correct items on

328
00:17:09,960 --> 00:17:13,280
Speaker 1: the shelves, and if you quickly transition to a different

329
00:17:13,320 --> 00:17:16,240
Speaker 1: warehouse part of your brain, that that it might be

330
00:17:16,280 --> 00:17:18,520
Speaker 1: harder to locate the things you're looking for. I can

331
00:17:18,520 --> 00:17:21,320
Speaker 1: see how that would be true. Yeah, yeah, indeed. Okay,

332
00:17:21,359 --> 00:17:23,600
Speaker 1: here's two that are about the same thing, and it's

333
00:17:23,640 --> 00:17:26,000
Speaker 1: something that came up in our episode on cargo Cults

334
00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:29,200
Speaker 1: and Richard Feynman. The first comes from Carson and he says,

335
00:17:29,280 --> 00:17:31,919
Speaker 1: just listening to the cargo cult episode, I laughed at

336
00:17:31,920 --> 00:17:34,600
Speaker 1: the part about the reflexology student and then realized what

337
00:17:34,720 --> 00:17:36,960
Speaker 1: was probably going on. I'm not going to call it

338
00:17:37,040 --> 00:17:39,760
Speaker 1: mumbo jumbo because someone near and dear to me practices it,

339
00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:43,320
Speaker 1: but I am also not ready to deny the placebo effect. Well,

340
00:17:43,359 --> 00:17:45,240
Speaker 1: I'll just say that I think that we should do

341
00:17:45,280 --> 00:17:47,360
Speaker 1: an episode on reflexology. So I don't think it's mumbo

342
00:17:47,440 --> 00:17:51,080
Speaker 1: jumbo either. But anyway, the theory is that your body

343
00:17:51,080 --> 00:17:54,080
Speaker 1: has energy fields that are all connected, all across the body,

344
00:17:54,119 --> 00:17:57,400
Speaker 1: and using this knowledge, you can massage a specific pressure

345
00:17:57,440 --> 00:18:01,359
Speaker 1: point on the foot and have an effect on the pituitary.

346
00:18:01,440 --> 00:18:04,399
Speaker 1: So the student probably didn't think the pituitary was actually

347
00:18:04,480 --> 00:18:07,000
Speaker 1: in the foot. He probably just meant he was on

348
00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:09,719
Speaker 1: the pressure point. However, I wasn't personally there in that

349
00:18:09,760 --> 00:18:13,320
Speaker 1: hot tub, so I can't say for sure. Thanks for

350
00:18:13,359 --> 00:18:16,840
Speaker 1: that clarification, Carson. Yeah, and then we received another message

351
00:18:17,320 --> 00:18:20,560
Speaker 1: from Jonathan similar thing. He says, a wonderful podcast on

352
00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:23,040
Speaker 1: cargo cults. But I have one comment that's not for you,

353
00:18:23,080 --> 00:18:25,600
Speaker 1: but for Richard Feynman. I don't think Richard Feynman still

354
00:18:25,600 --> 00:18:27,879
Speaker 1: a lot of this now. He's quite yeah, I have

355
00:18:28,040 --> 00:18:31,080
Speaker 1: no desire to validate foot reflexology as a science. But

356
00:18:31,200 --> 00:18:33,320
Speaker 1: according to a system, there are channels of energy that

357
00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:35,520
Speaker 1: run through the body. Points of the feet correspond to

358
00:18:35,520 --> 00:18:38,000
Speaker 1: different organs of the body. So this is the same thing. Uh.

359
00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:41,479
Speaker 1: And he's basically saying that it's possible that Feynman just

360
00:18:41,520 --> 00:18:43,600
Speaker 1: took this the wrong way. So to recap from that

361
00:18:43,640 --> 00:18:46,480
Speaker 1: episode Fineman, the story goes that Fineman wasn't a hot

362
00:18:46,520 --> 00:18:49,480
Speaker 1: tub with some reflexology students, and they were kind of

363
00:18:49,520 --> 00:18:52,840
Speaker 1: like rubbing on each other, and one said I think

364
00:18:52,840 --> 00:18:55,280
Speaker 1: that I've got your pituitary and he was rubbing on

365
00:18:55,320 --> 00:18:58,239
Speaker 1: a girl's foot, and Fineman was like, clearly, that's not

366
00:18:58,280 --> 00:19:01,000
Speaker 1: your pituitary, and he uses that as an example of

367
00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:05,880
Speaker 1: cargo cult science and then like they didn't really understand science. However,

368
00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:09,280
Speaker 1: these two messages seem to indicate that the student actually

369
00:19:09,840 --> 00:19:14,200
Speaker 1: was probably thinking he was accessing the energy lines connecting

370
00:19:14,200 --> 00:19:18,640
Speaker 1: to the pituitary, and that Feynman was just being grumpy. Well,

371
00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:21,360
Speaker 1: I don't want to be unfair because I haven't read

372
00:19:21,359 --> 00:19:24,080
Speaker 1: all that much about reflexology, but it it sounds like

373
00:19:24,119 --> 00:19:27,680
Speaker 1: it is a reasonable assumption to say, massaging somebody's foot

374
00:19:27,760 --> 00:19:32,320
Speaker 1: is not really affecting the energy lines going to their pituitary. See,

375
00:19:32,359 --> 00:19:33,800
Speaker 1: I don't know, And that's why I think we should

376
00:19:33,840 --> 00:19:35,320
Speaker 1: do an episode on it, because I don't know. Well,

377
00:19:35,320 --> 00:19:37,840
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like it's based on some kind

378
00:19:37,880 --> 00:19:42,960
Speaker 1: of non evidence based thoughts about like spirit energy and stuff.

379
00:19:43,320 --> 00:19:45,760
Speaker 1: Maybe well maybe I I always took it to be

380
00:19:45,840 --> 00:19:47,919
Speaker 1: like more like pressure points and things like that, like

381
00:19:48,000 --> 00:19:51,280
Speaker 1: similar to acupuncture. But yeah, maybe we should investigate this

382
00:19:51,359 --> 00:19:53,960
Speaker 1: and unravel it. Oh man, if we want to open

383
00:19:54,040 --> 00:19:56,800
Speaker 1: that can of worms. I don't know if you. We

384
00:19:56,840 --> 00:19:59,640
Speaker 1: could start with me rubbing your feet, Joe, see what happens. Well,

385
00:19:59,640 --> 00:20:01,800
Speaker 1: we can do some acupuncture and see if we get

386
00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:04,920
Speaker 1: the CBO effect. Okay, alright, So next we're gonna talk

387
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:08,399
Speaker 1: about some emails we got with reference to the episode

388
00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:10,960
Speaker 1: Robert and I did on hyper Real Religions. That was

389
00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:14,879
Speaker 1: the episode about religions that are founded based on texts

390
00:20:15,080 --> 00:20:18,720
Speaker 1: or or canons or ideas that the believers in the

391
00:20:18,720 --> 00:20:22,919
Speaker 1: religion explicitly acknowledge our fictional and there's not like a

392
00:20:23,080 --> 00:20:25,920
Speaker 1: you know, somebody thinks there's a real spiritual revelation, you're

393
00:20:25,960 --> 00:20:28,679
Speaker 1: basing it on the Big Lebowski or Star Wars or

394
00:20:28,760 --> 00:20:31,560
Speaker 1: something you know is not real to begin with. And

395
00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:33,560
Speaker 1: the way that Robert put it to me later on

396
00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:37,280
Speaker 1: was sort of like a Cyborgian version of religion, and

397
00:20:37,359 --> 00:20:40,400
Speaker 1: that like, you take aspects that work for your personal

398
00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:43,520
Speaker 1: worldview and helped the kind of guide you along what

399
00:20:43,600 --> 00:20:46,720
Speaker 1: you consider to be a sort of righteous path already. Yeah,

400
00:20:46,760 --> 00:20:49,400
Speaker 1: so we got a lot of interesting feedback about this episode.

401
00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:51,760
Speaker 1: And it's true that I think almost any time we

402
00:20:51,800 --> 00:20:54,320
Speaker 1: talk about religion, which we do a fair amount on

403
00:20:54,359 --> 00:20:59,160
Speaker 1: the show, we get results sort of from both sides

404
00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:01,480
Speaker 1: of the the issue. It seems like if you bring

405
00:21:01,560 --> 00:21:06,400
Speaker 1: up religion from a you know, critical or investigatory way

406
00:21:06,440 --> 00:21:09,639
Speaker 1: of thinking, you're you're gonna get some feedback. You know,

407
00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:12,760
Speaker 1: people are gonna have some feelings. Yeah. I always feel

408
00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:14,560
Speaker 1: that the approach that we take to religion on the

409
00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:17,440
Speaker 1: show is let's let's get it out of the box,

410
00:21:17,520 --> 00:21:19,360
Speaker 1: let's look at it, Let's hold it up to the light,

411
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:22,399
Speaker 1: Let's see how how the light goes through it, you know,

412
00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:26,199
Speaker 1: treat it like this sort of crystal object. And in

413
00:21:26,359 --> 00:21:29,280
Speaker 1: doing that, you have to put yourself sometimes in a

414
00:21:29,320 --> 00:21:32,640
Speaker 1: state of vulnerable open mindedness. And that's where that's where

415
00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:35,000
Speaker 1: I like to put myself, and that's where I try

416
00:21:35,040 --> 00:21:38,120
Speaker 1: to invite the listeners to reach that point as well.

417
00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:41,640
Speaker 1: But that's not always a comfortable place. Well. I mean,

418
00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:43,159
Speaker 1: we hear from a lot of you guys out there

419
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:45,600
Speaker 1: who seem to really like this approach, and this is

420
00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:48,200
Speaker 1: I totally agree, Robert. That's exactly the same way I

421
00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:50,920
Speaker 1: like to come at it, to to to understand it more,

422
00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:53,480
Speaker 1: to look at it, uh, and not just to be

423
00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:57,560
Speaker 1: focused on either propping it up as perfect and wonderful

424
00:21:57,600 --> 00:21:59,720
Speaker 1: and true, or in bashing it and tearing it down.

425
00:22:00,160 --> 00:22:03,520
Speaker 1: But you know, we will hear from people who have

426
00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:07,439
Speaker 1: their feelings stimulated by us talking about this. So we

427
00:22:07,480 --> 00:22:09,800
Speaker 1: wanted to give a sampling of a couple of types

428
00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:12,560
Speaker 1: of responses we got from the hyper Real Religions episode,

429
00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:15,560
Speaker 1: right and and in reading these, and especially in reading

430
00:22:15,800 --> 00:22:19,240
Speaker 1: one or two of the more critical bits of listener

431
00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:22,639
Speaker 1: mail we're received, I want to also recognize that sometimes

432
00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:25,920
Speaker 1: a hostile reaction is sort of like the the initial

433
00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:29,080
Speaker 1: reaction to immunization, you know. It's it's kind of like

434
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:31,119
Speaker 1: like like I can look back at my own history

435
00:22:31,119 --> 00:22:33,720
Speaker 1: with religion, and there have been times where I go

436
00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:36,000
Speaker 1: into a situation with a certain set of beliefs, those

437
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:41,280
Speaker 1: beliefs are challenged, and my initial response is to harden up,

438
00:22:41,600 --> 00:22:43,600
Speaker 1: you know, and uh and say, you know, get away

439
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:45,280
Speaker 1: from me. I don't want to think about that. It's

440
00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:47,720
Speaker 1: only later than I'm able to to think about some

441
00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:50,880
Speaker 1: of these criticisms and incorporate that in and emerge ultimately

442
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:54,240
Speaker 1: stronger from it. Now. Specifically, I think what some listeners

443
00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:56,840
Speaker 1: were responding to in the hyper Real Religion episode was

444
00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:59,919
Speaker 1: us talking about Young Earth creationism because we had to

445
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 1: explain the origins of the postafarianism idea, and that that

446
00:23:04,359 --> 00:23:07,960
Speaker 1: comes out of a criticism of the campaign to teach

447
00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:12,040
Speaker 1: creationist ideas in American public schools. So it's it's like

448
00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:15,600
Speaker 1: a datast kind of performance. Yeah, it's a it's basically

449
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:18,359
Speaker 1: a parody, all right. So I'm gonna kick off this

450
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:21,440
Speaker 1: kick this off by reading a listener mail from a

451
00:23:21,480 --> 00:23:24,480
Speaker 1: listener who wants to remain anonymous. I'm just gonna read

452
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:27,480
Speaker 1: a segment here, and they were essentially comparing our handling

453
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:31,240
Speaker 1: of religion to other house stuff Works podcast handling of religion. Uh?

454
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:34,520
Speaker 1: And did that? I cannot speak because I cannot specifically

455
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 1: remember an example of another show handling religion uh in

456
00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:41,640
Speaker 1: any way, shape or form. I know they have, but

457
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:43,840
Speaker 1: I don't listen to all the episodes that come out

458
00:23:43,840 --> 00:23:46,960
Speaker 1: on the other shows. So this individual says, as I

459
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:49,679
Speaker 1: listened listen to your show on hyper real religions, I

460
00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:53,640
Speaker 1: discovered that no such mutual respect exists on your part.

461
00:23:54,119 --> 00:23:57,679
Speaker 1: My faith was blatantly attacked. My belief system was literally mocked.

462
00:23:57,840 --> 00:24:00,119
Speaker 1: As one of you laughed out loud when mentioning the

463
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:02,639
Speaker 1: Young Earth model of creation. And I was made to

464
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:04,760
Speaker 1: feel shamed for being a Christian and a fan of

465
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:07,120
Speaker 1: your show at the same time. Please know that I'm

466
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:09,680
Speaker 1: not trying to retaliate or speak out of anger or

467
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:11,920
Speaker 1: anything like that. I'm not looking for an apology or

468
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 1: any sort of acknowledgement at all. I just wanted to

469
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:15,920
Speaker 1: let you know that I'm sorry you had to speak

470
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:18,240
Speaker 1: this way, and I sincerely hope that you will cease

471
00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:21,240
Speaker 1: from abusing people for their beliefs in the future. Well,

472
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 1: it's certainly not my intention when we talk about religion

473
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 1: to abuse anybody for their beliefs, and certainly not to

474
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:29,879
Speaker 1: make them feel ashamed. I just uh, I just like

475
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 1: to think and talk about these ideas. Uh. And so

476
00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 1: if you are a Christian or somebody of any other faith,

477
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 1: please do not feel ashamed listening to the show. I

478
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:41,359
Speaker 1: hope you will go on this journey of exploration with us.

479
00:24:41,760 --> 00:24:43,399
Speaker 1: I also think we should be able to laugh at

480
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,360
Speaker 1: about just we should be able to laugh at anything. Yeah,

481
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:48,680
Speaker 1: well just about that's another point. Yeah, I mean, we

482
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:51,399
Speaker 1: we make jokes about every kind of idea that we

483
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 1: talk about on the show, including scientific ideas. Uh. And

484
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: so that certainly if you're if you're especially troubled by

485
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 1: making jokes about out a certain subject that I guess

486
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:04,320
Speaker 1: maybe we we might be able to get to you

487
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: in that sense, and we're not trying to hurt your feelings.

488
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:08,840
Speaker 1: So like, I wasn't on this episode, but I do

489
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 1: just want to chime in and back up what you

490
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:12,720
Speaker 1: guys are saying in the sense that, like, yeah, there's

491
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 1: lots of opportunities out there where you can be listening

492
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 1: to things, especially in the podcast world, right where like

493
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 1: we're not all going to have the exact same beliefs

494
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 1: and they're not going to overlap, but like podcasts in

495
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:25,919
Speaker 1: particular have like a sort of personal resonance with a

496
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 1: lot of people right where they start to feel like

497
00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:31,040
Speaker 1: we're in your with us, right. Uh, Like, I'll give

498
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:33,360
Speaker 1: you an example from my own life. So, like, I'm

499
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:36,240
Speaker 1: a big fan of stand up comedy. I like Louis Black.

500
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:38,640
Speaker 1: You guys know Louis Black, right. Lewis Black on one

501
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 1: of his albums has this pretty long bit about like

502
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 1: how stupid soy milk is Okay? I drink soy milk,

503
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 1: I love Louis Black. I listened to it and I

504
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:52,680
Speaker 1: just go, Okay, we disagree, drink soy milk. I didn't

505
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 1: know you were such a moron exactly. Well, but see,

506
00:25:56,000 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 1: like you know, I remember the first time out there.

507
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:02,359
Speaker 1: Please know I'm kidding. Yeah, he is totally choking. Uh.

508
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:04,439
Speaker 1: But but you know, like that's a sort of like

509
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:07,480
Speaker 1: non religious version of this where it's like you can

510
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:10,680
Speaker 1: hear something like that and go, well, we don't agree

511
00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:13,119
Speaker 1: on this particular thing, but I still like this person.

512
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:15,200
Speaker 1: I like what they're bringing to me. I'm going to

513
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 1: keep up with it, you know, And I can and

514
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 1: I can also laugh at jokes about SWI milk. Well,

515
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:22,919
Speaker 1: I hope it comes through at least most of the

516
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:25,960
Speaker 1: time that we do take an inquisitive approach to religion

517
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:28,240
Speaker 1: on the show. But we also I tend to think

518
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:30,879
Speaker 1: we're fairly friendly and open minded about it. I like

519
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 1: to think so too, especially knowing you guys, you know,

520
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:36,440
Speaker 1: outside of the studio as well. Whenever we've talked about religion,

521
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 1: you guys, it's not like your bemoana or demeaning and

522
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:44,440
Speaker 1: you know, any particular kind of beliefs. Yeah, and it's

523
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:46,199
Speaker 1: not like even within this room, the three of us

524
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 1: have a uniformed outlook on religion, spirituality. Like we each

525
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: have our own system, we have our own worldview that

526
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: had it may incorporate religion religion into it to varying degrees. Yeah,

527
00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 1: I worship the Great God Cthulhu and and and I'm

528
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:02,880
Speaker 1: I'm of the cult of Falsa Doom. We all know

529
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: what is stronger than steel? You don't know, do you?

530
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:13,239
Speaker 1: It's a flash. Yeah, of course the flesh really does

531
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: not hold up well to steal on that movie. I

532
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 1: recall that's a good point. Steel really cuts through it.

533
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 1: Falsa Doom's philosophy. It sounds real good until it meets

534
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:24,440
Speaker 1: the steel, so clear clarifying for the audience. Thalsa Doom

535
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 1: is the James Earl Jones character from the movie, Yes,

536
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 1: from the Barbarian Yeah. So anyway, following up, but we

537
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:33,280
Speaker 1: got one more email we wanted to share, actually a

538
00:27:33,320 --> 00:27:35,600
Speaker 1: couple more, but here's one that we got about the

539
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:39,119
Speaker 1: hyper Real Religions episode, and this is from our listener, Gustavo. So.

540
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:42,560
Speaker 1: Gustavo says, Hi, guys, I really enjoyed the hyper Real

541
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:45,919
Speaker 1: Religion episode. You made some new connections between both official

542
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: religions and the hyper real stuff that I hadn't really

543
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:52,399
Speaker 1: considered the search for meaning means quite a lot to me.

544
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:55,239
Speaker 1: My life is more or less built on seeking the

545
00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 1: deepest truths I can find. The question never ends. Having

546
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:01,159
Speaker 1: read Dune quite a few times, I can relate to

547
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:04,120
Speaker 1: the idea of reverence for a story that becomes part

548
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: of one's being. You didn't quite say that, but I

549
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:10,639
Speaker 1: hope I'm reflecting your intention. Yeah. Yeah, you don't have

550
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 1: to believe Dune is literally true for it to start

551
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:15,680
Speaker 1: to take on some kind of deep meaning or spiritual

552
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:20,199
Speaker 1: significance for you. Anyway, Gustavo continues, maybe I'll memorize the

553
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:22,399
Speaker 1: Litany against Fear to quote it now that I know

554
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: at least one person who who has done that. That

555
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 1: was impressive to me. I wanted to clarify, as I

556
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:30,679
Speaker 1: did replying to Gustavo, I have not memorized the Litany

557
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 1: against Fear, though I think I should. I was reading

558
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 1: it off of the screen and this is the thing

559
00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: when they put their hand in the box here, Yeah,

560
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:41,000
Speaker 1: the little death that brings total obliteration. Yeah. Total. I

561
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 1: once wrote it on my arm before a job interview,

562
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 1: like you know, not where it could be seen, but

563
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 1: it would be a good tattoo. Yeah, I would would

564
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:54,760
Speaker 1: uh anyway, Gustavo continues, when I was twenty, I found Mormonism.

565
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 1: Before that, I was Catholic. I searched so many philosophies

566
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 1: and religions. Nowadays, I can't say I identify with any

567
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: particular belief system, but I love systems of evidence along

568
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: with speculation about what might be. I call myself a nonbeliever.

569
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: I don't think the supernatural is real, but I'd like

570
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:15,880
Speaker 1: to fly, breathe underwater, and do some other things rather

571
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 1: fantastic and deliberately escapist. That would be damn cool. So

572
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: I hope there's more. Maybe this is a simulation, and

573
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 1: we'll wake up saying, holy jumping, Juniper Batman, that was

574
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: a trip. What's next? I love that reference, good old

575
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 1: Burt word as robin Uh. Gustavo rights, you were fair,

576
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: reverent and kind, considering especially how religious slash spiritual discussions

577
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 1: so often devolved into needless, wasteful arguments. Your podcast is informative,

578
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: and I feel pleased for having listened. Related one funny

579
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 1: thing about the Wicked Problems episode is that explaining wicked

580
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: problems is somewhat of a wicked problem. We know it.

581
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 1: The recursion leads to endless complexity, as with the nature

582
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 1: of life evolution in the quest for meaning. I hope

583
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: your day is pleasant, which is a great way to

584
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 1: end an email. But um, yeah, and so I find

585
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 1: it kind of funny that we've heard both from people

586
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:11,080
Speaker 1: who thought that we were way too harsh about religion,

587
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: and we heard from multiple people who said that they

588
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 1: were very uh, they appreciated how fair and polite we were.

589
00:30:17,600 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 1: So I don't know what to make of that. I

590
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: think that's a good sign. I think if you hear

591
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 1: two extremes that we're probably doing something right. I hope so.

592
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 1: But that might just be my own narcissism talking. But

593
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: thanks for the email, Gustavo. This is it was really great.

594
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 1: All right. Here's another one Chris from San Marcos, California

595
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 1: Rights and it says have been listening to your podcast

596
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:40,760
Speaker 1: for a while and have never been moved to write

597
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: in until now. I just wanted to say that I

598
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 1: really appreciate Robert's win app analogy with regard to religion

599
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 1: or religious beliefs. This is about the win App skins. Yes,

600
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 1: perhaps we are all really just trying to choose the

601
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:55,719
Speaker 1: right skin. As the case may be, it was a rich,

602
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 1: engaging episode, and I hope that you'll do a follow up.

603
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:00,720
Speaker 1: Perhaps some day I can say that I was listening

604
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:04,959
Speaker 1: to the launch of Winampism and I like that, and

605
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: we'll be able to classify myself as one of the

606
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: early win ampist Or is it when when I'm Pete

607
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 1: and there'd be like real playerism and stuff like that,

608
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: be the really bad religion during your episodes? During your episode,

609
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:24,600
Speaker 1: and image sprang to mind of the theme in Galaxy

610
00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:28,960
Speaker 1: Quest and the reverence for the quote historical documents. Not

611
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 1: sure if this falls under hyper religion or cargo cult

612
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 1: or just an interesting crossover for both. Thank you for

613
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 1: helping to keep my brain functioning during a nasty so

614
00:31:37,880 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 1: Cow commute. I think Galaxy Quest is actually a really

615
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: great point of comparison because in in the movie Galaxy Quest,

616
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 1: we meet aliens who have seen old episodes of what's

617
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 1: essentially Star Trek and they've interpreted it as true. Late

618
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:54,960
Speaker 1: great Ellen Rickman, yeah and so, and then they build

619
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 1: this entire way of interacting with the world around the

620
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 1: assumption that Star Trek is reality that's owns like cargo

621
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: cult to me, Big time. Yeah, and it's interesting because

622
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 1: instead of it being a technological cargo cold it it's

623
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:11,120
Speaker 1: it's like, um, an imagination cargo call. Yeah. Yeah, this

624
00:32:11,640 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 1: We didn't have time to read this listener mail, but

625
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 1: somebody else wrote into us to say that the scene

626
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 1: at the beginning of Star Trek into Darkness is a

627
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:22,360
Speaker 1: really good example of cargo cults. They violate the prime

628
00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 1: directive and interact with this, like they let people see

629
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: the starship Enterprise on this I don't want to say

630
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:30,480
Speaker 1: primitive planet, but it's like a planet that doesn't have

631
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 1: that technology yet, and they like, isn't it implied that

632
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 1: they like worship the Enterprise as a god? After that? Yeah,

633
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 1: it's a pre warp drive planet. They see they see

634
00:32:38,400 --> 00:32:40,600
Speaker 1: a starship and they think it's a god. Yeah, that's

635
00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: the science fiction is full of great examples like that. Okay,

636
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 1: this email comes to us from another person who listened

637
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 1: to the Creepy Pasta two episode, the Jeff the Killer one,

638
00:32:50,320 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 1: and to sort of, uh, you know, summarize that episode again,

639
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:56,440
Speaker 1: Like we looked at all the various supposed attributes of

640
00:32:57,040 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 1: Jeff the Killer, one of which was the idea that

641
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:02,080
Speaker 1: he cut his own lids off, and we looked at

642
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 1: the science of whether that was possible. And this listener writes,

643
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 1: and hey, guys, I know I'm late to the game

644
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 1: on this one, but I just heard the Creepy Pasta

645
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 1: two episode. While listening to it, I immediately thought, this

646
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:15,480
Speaker 1: podcast applies to me. When you were talking about eyelid reconstruction.

647
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 1: I was in a car wreck when I was when

648
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 1: I was sixteen. I was in the passenger seat and

649
00:33:20,000 --> 00:33:22,480
Speaker 1: the car flipped over and slid on its hood. My

650
00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 1: face went out the sunroof, and consequently I lost most

651
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 1: of the skin on my forehead down to the skull

652
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: and the skin on the left side of my face,

653
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 1: more specifically my left cheek and eyebrow eye area. I

654
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: was fortunate that I didn't lose my eye, but the

655
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 1: initial skin grafts used to replace the missing skin twisted

656
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 1: and pulled my eye open, so I couldn't close, especially

657
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: when I was asleep. And this is exactly what we

658
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: talked about in the episode. I had to put a

659
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 1: greasy ointment in my eye to keep it from drying

660
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 1: out for about a year until the scar tissue settled. Okay, Wow,

661
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 1: we didn't read anything about that kind of stuff. What

662
00:33:55,480 --> 00:33:57,959
Speaker 1: they ended up doing was taking the skin from behind

663
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 1: my ears because it is the closest smiliarity to eyelids

664
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:04,920
Speaker 1: skin thickness and softness. I'm assuming he means for grafts,

665
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:09,359
Speaker 1: and I think we all just touched. Yeah, they used

666
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:11,600
Speaker 1: the skin from behind both ears from my upper and

667
00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 1: lower eyelids on my left eye. Fun story, I think

668
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:18,839
Speaker 1: he's being sarcastic. The hospital I went to for these

669
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,319
Speaker 1: procedures was about three hours from where I lived. When

670
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 1: I got home from getting the stitches removed from behind

671
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:26,439
Speaker 1: my ear, I took my shirt off not carefully enough

672
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 1: and ripped the incision behind my ear open and had

673
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:31,239
Speaker 1: to get back in the car and read back to

674
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:33,880
Speaker 1: the hospital to have my ear restitched. I ended up

675
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:37,319
Speaker 1: spending twelve hours in a car that day. I also

676
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:39,400
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting when you referenced the paper that

677
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 1: said an odyssey. I'm pretty sure the procedure they used

678
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:45,399
Speaker 1: to replace the skin on my forehead was fairly experimental,

679
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:47,880
Speaker 1: as they had to rotate muscle from the top of

680
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 1: my head to my forehead and then cut the skin

681
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:52,839
Speaker 1: graph so it kind of looked like a fishing net.

682
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: This is fascinating and this is the kind of stuff

683
00:34:55,680 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 1: you don't get out of the academic literature, you know. Yeah,

684
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: you only get the not even sometimes the surgical, but

685
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 1: the standpoint. But then sometimes it's like one step removed

686
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,360
Speaker 1: from that sort of the academic view of the surgical

687
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:11,279
Speaker 1: procedure as opposed to the user experience. Uh. Just to

688
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 1: follow up on that last fishnet thing, he said, the

689
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:16,080
Speaker 1: skin then grew together to be full, one full piece.

690
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:19,960
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine how that works. But that's fascinating.

691
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:25,200
Speaker 1: Plastic surgery, reconstructive surgery is just so amazing. Yeah, having

692
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:27,239
Speaker 1: seen like you know, what was done to my own

693
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:29,839
Speaker 1: song with his palette, right, it's just crazy to just

694
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:32,360
Speaker 1: like they went in there, they closed it and it

695
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:35,720
Speaker 1: became solid flash again. It's just it's it's a testament

696
00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:38,080
Speaker 1: to not only a surgical ability, but just the healing

697
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 1: ability and flexibility of biology. Uh. Less bit here he

698
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 1: says this was just for functionality, not for looks. Of

699
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,359
Speaker 1: the course of five years, I had fifteen surgeries, six

700
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:50,399
Speaker 1: of which were skin expander projects to replace the scar

701
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,279
Speaker 1: tissue on my forehead and cheek with smooth, healthy skin.

702
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:56,440
Speaker 1: Not unless you're really paying attention, it looks like I'm

703
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 1: missing an eyebrow and have a black eye. I wear

704
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 1: glasses some most people don't notice. Happy ending. I have

705
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:04,720
Speaker 1: an identical twin brother, and now and then my family

706
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:07,840
Speaker 1: members will call me by the wrong name, which always

707
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:11,319
Speaker 1: makes me smile. It's awesome. Man. Wow, Well, thanks for

708
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:13,840
Speaker 1: sharing that story with us. His name is Jason. Thanks

709
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:16,280
Speaker 1: for sharing that. And yeah again, so like that amazing.

710
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:17,839
Speaker 1: That's the kind of thing I like to hear about

711
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 1: because we do the research and we pull that all

712
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 1: together and we try to extrapolate out of that. But

713
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:26,279
Speaker 1: like these real life experiences really, I think add another

714
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 1: dimension to it. Hey, so we got a lot of

715
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 1: listener feedback on our P versus n P episode, the

716
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 1: one Robert and I did about algorithms, complexity theory and

717
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: this great unsolved problem in computer science that would be

718
00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 1: sort of revolutionary. It's what Carney's glowing with right now. Yeah,

719
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:45,719
Speaker 1: that's right. So we we don't know yet if he

720
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: solved it, but I don't know. The fact that he's

721
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:51,319
Speaker 1: just like pooping out harps at an enormous rate does

722
00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 1: make me think he's entered the computing realm of the gods.

723
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:56,960
Speaker 1: They sound great at these harps. I mean they're perfectly

724
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: tuned when they clung to the floor. Anyway, so we

725
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 1: got quite a few pieces of feedback, and one of

726
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:05,239
Speaker 1: them that I thought we should start with was an

727
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 1: email we got from Jim in New Jersey. Now, Jim

728
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:10,360
Speaker 1: is the listener out there who inspired us to do

729
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 1: the episode. I've been emailing back and forth with him

730
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:16,440
Speaker 1: over a long time and he sent us some really smart,

731
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:20,319
Speaker 1: insightful emails that helped me figure out some ways to

732
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:23,040
Speaker 1: approach the topic on the show. So big thanks to him.

733
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:25,399
Speaker 1: But he contacted us after we did it. He said,

734
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:28,360
Speaker 1: great job on the P versus n P segment, especially

735
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 1: without visuals. I wonder if we'll ever know the answer.

736
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:34,280
Speaker 1: What if it's one of Girdle's statements that cannot be proven.

737
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 1: This is referencing Kurt Girdle, who we talked about in

738
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 1: the episode with the idea of the incompleteness theorems, the

739
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:43,279
Speaker 1: idea that in a self consistent mathematical system, you can

740
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 1: never know the answer to every question. Um. But anyway,

741
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 1: Jim continues, you stated that P might not be m

742
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:54,160
Speaker 1: P for us mortals, but it could be for the gods.

743
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:57,839
Speaker 1: While that argument is completely hypothetical. I don't think that

744
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:00,520
Speaker 1: could be the case. If we were to have insistent

745
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:03,719
Speaker 1: logical models, then if it's the case for Man, it

746
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:06,600
Speaker 1: must be the case for the gods as well. However,

747
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:09,680
Speaker 1: the gods might have a nondeterministic machine that can solve

748
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 1: problems in P time. Keep in mind that NP are

749
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:18,319
Speaker 1: still polynomial problems, but only a nondeterministic model. I could

750
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:21,520
Speaker 1: see a nondeterministic machine being the realm of the gods

751
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: and not for Man. That Yeah, so he's saying that,

752
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 1: you know, P versus MP is about logic. It's it's

753
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:32,359
Speaker 1: not something that could be different depending on what the

754
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: you know, physical facts of the universe, where if it's

755
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:38,680
Speaker 1: true here or not true here, the same would hold

756
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 1: true in whether it's the any other universe. I just

757
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 1: want to throw in on the P versus MP thing,

758
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:46,800
Speaker 1: because you guys are too humble to pat yourselves on

759
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 1: the back about this. But not only did we receive

760
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,239
Speaker 1: a ton of listener mail, uh some of which we're

761
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:54,400
Speaker 1: going to go through now about how great that episode was.

762
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 1: There are a lot of messages that came to us

763
00:38:56,640 --> 00:39:00,399
Speaker 1: through Facebook and Twitter saying how great that they thought

764
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:04,280
Speaker 1: you guys did at exactly what what he just mentions here,

765
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:08,279
Speaker 1: in particular without using visual reference explaining something like this,

766
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 1: and that you tackled a computer science topic that most

767
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:14,399
Speaker 1: people would shy away from. So I'm giving you guys

768
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:17,879
Speaker 1: high fives. Yeah, well, we were a little nervous going

769
00:39:17,960 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 1: into it, but uh yeah, yeah, well, I mean I

770
00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 1: think we have to be honest and say, neither Robert

771
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 1: or I or you know, we're we're not big computer

772
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: science and logic guys. So we were a little bit

773
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 1: out of our depth, but we we get our best

774
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 1: to make it, to understand it, and to make it

775
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 1: understandable to you. And you know, I found that actually

776
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:37,880
Speaker 1: sometimes I can man an advantage that's been my experience

777
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 1: in the past. It's like we're we're the we can

778
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 1: be the ones that venture into the woods, uh, retrieve

779
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: the mysteries and bring them back and explain them to

780
00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 1: to to everyone else. Well, yeah, we we don't have

781
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 1: the This is actually a phrase that Jim used in

782
00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:54,320
Speaker 1: his emails that that I was having with him. He

783
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:56,520
Speaker 1: talked about the curse of knowledge. We don't have the

784
00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:59,359
Speaker 1: curse of knowledge on this issue, like, uh, knowing it

785
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:03,240
Speaker 1: with such depth and complexity of understanding that we lose

786
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: the ability to give the gist of it. You ever

787
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 1: have that problem where you know a topic so well

788
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:11,400
Speaker 1: you can't explain it in a simple way. This was

789
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 1: actually one of the reasons when I was a kid.

790
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 1: This is why my parents explained to me that my

791
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:19,880
Speaker 1: math teacher was so mean to us. Was that, like,

792
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,319
Speaker 1: she understood it so well that she didn't know how

793
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 1: this was like fifth grade, but she she had the

794
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:27,959
Speaker 1: curse of knowledge. Yeah, and that she like was so

795
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:32,520
Speaker 1: frustrated trying to explain these simple mathematical things to us

796
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 1: and that we didn't get it. I've heard that from

797
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:38,439
Speaker 1: an other disciplines before, Like people who are who find

798
00:40:38,440 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 1: themselves given the opportunity to teach a thing that they

799
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:44,160
Speaker 1: are great at, and sometimes they just don't have the

800
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 1: patients for it because it's like you know, breaking down

801
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 1: the basics and the end of the introductory material. It's

802
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:54,319
Speaker 1: just ultimately difficult for somebody that's gone too far beyond. Yeah.

803
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:56,960
Speaker 1: If there's anything I learned from grad school, it's that

804
00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:00,080
Speaker 1: there's a huge difference between an expert and something and

805
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:03,840
Speaker 1: somebody who's a great teacher and something. Oh yeah, sometimes

806
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:06,880
Speaker 1: they overlap. I don't mean that they're mutually exclusive, but

807
00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:09,239
Speaker 1: oh no, this is true. This is true outside the

808
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:12,240
Speaker 1: sciences as well. This is true. And like writing and stuff,

809
00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:14,320
Speaker 1: a lot of people you go to a writing program

810
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:16,279
Speaker 1: or something, you want to go where the famous, really

811
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:18,880
Speaker 1: good writer is that famous really good writer might not

812
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:22,440
Speaker 1: be a very good teacher. Yeah, and even like physical

813
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 1: crafts as well. I've heard this with professional wrestlers. Actually,

814
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,319
Speaker 1: I think it is uh the wrestler Daniel Bryan who

815
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:32,359
Speaker 1: recently retired, and he is he's known for just being

816
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:34,799
Speaker 1: a real master of his craft. You know, a lot

817
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:37,040
Speaker 1: of people think, oh, he should train. He can't. You know,

818
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:39,000
Speaker 1: he's not gonna be an active competitor anymore. He can

819
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:41,400
Speaker 1: teach people what he knows, but he's he's gone on

820
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:43,359
Speaker 1: record is saying no, I tried it. It's just not

821
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 1: for me. I can't. I can't deal with the basics. Interesting,

822
00:41:48,000 --> 00:41:51,200
Speaker 1: we can't all be Rocky Balboa and Creed. That's right.

823
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 1: Who would have thought the curse of knowledge would apply

824
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:58,120
Speaker 1: to wrestling? Indeed, now I think Christian you should read

825
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:00,040
Speaker 1: another message and then maybe we'll get back to a

826
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: few more P versus NP messages. So this one comes

827
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:06,439
Speaker 1: back to the episode the second only the second time

828
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 1: that Joe and I have done an episode by ourselves

829
00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:13,000
Speaker 1: without Robert. It was our episode about Wilhelm Reich and Uh.

830
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:15,720
Speaker 1: This guy says high hosts, I really enjoyed your Wilhelm

831
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 1: Reich episode, which connected some historical dots that I was

832
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 1: vaguely aware of but had not really seen together. I

833
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:25,040
Speaker 1: may a quote classically trained scientist with a PhD in

834
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 1: quantitative ecology. Uh. And he says that that means lots

835
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:32,440
Speaker 1: of probability and statistics and a master's in a hydrology.

836
00:42:32,480 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 1: But I also went to a far out hippie massage

837
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: school prior to my graduate trade, and I'm an amateur

838
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:42,040
Speaker 1: herbalist and gardner. This guy sounds fascinating. So I feel

839
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:45,160
Speaker 1: like I've seen both sides of the science as dominant

840
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,439
Speaker 1: worldview divide. I feel like you show did a great

841
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 1: job of exploring the myth and mythos that Reik's ideology

842
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:57,400
Speaker 1: is so revealent of being neither dismissive and condescending nor credulous,

843
00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:00,600
Speaker 1: that middle ground seems especially difficult to mind in the

844
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 1: modern era. I do have one comment, Slash critique that

845
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 1: arose in my mind several times throughout the episode. I

846
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 1: felt like you perhaps assigned an excess of rationality to

847
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 1: the status quo of the era. Both in the legal

848
00:43:12,600 --> 00:43:16,440
Speaker 1: judicial system and in the medical field. Both are fields

849
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:20,719
Speaker 1: where systematic discrimination, profiteering, and all around human venality have

850
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:24,040
Speaker 1: historically been a rule rather than an exception, from the

851
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: Dreadscott Decision to early twentieth century eugenics movements to McCarthy

852
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:30,440
Speaker 1: is m the U. S Government has not exactly been

853
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 1: a paragon of fairness and equality. Likewise, with the medical profession.

854
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:37,920
Speaker 1: In the past twenty years alone, many clear ethical breaches

855
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,680
Speaker 1: have been driven by profit, and countless more ambiguous cases

856
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 1: of shoddy science and possible conflicts of interest exist. I

857
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: find this all so interesting because it's exactly what allows

858
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:52,560
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories to take root and flourish. From using prozac

859
00:43:52,640 --> 00:43:56,920
Speaker 1: and children to full hysterectomyse the medical field is littered

860
00:43:56,960 --> 00:44:00,919
Speaker 1: with cases of expensive and invasive interventions being used long

861
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:04,879
Speaker 1: before any evidence of the efficacy has been shown. So

862
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:08,240
Speaker 1: when someone claims that all of modern science is flawed,

863
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:12,200
Speaker 1: there's an emotionally appealing argument to be made. In many cases,

864
00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 1: older models of treatment such as relaxation, including things like prayer, yoga, etcetera. Massage,

865
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:21,839
Speaker 1: and herbs are quote as good and less harmful than

866
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:26,840
Speaker 1: modern medical treatments for which limited scientific evidence of efficacy exists.

867
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:30,720
Speaker 1: One interesting example is cancer, which you discussed at some length.

868
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:35,320
Speaker 1: Only recently has quality of life emerged as a valuable metric.

869
00:44:35,800 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 1: Prolonging life has been the historical target, so that an

870
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:42,320
Speaker 1: aggressive treatment that had some chance of extending a patient's

871
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:45,920
Speaker 1: life by months would be common, even if the quality

872
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 1: of those extra months was low. Increasingly, doctors are having

873
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 1: conversations with patients to ask their wishes and desired outcomes,

874
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 1: which I suppose is something we can all agree is

875
00:44:56,560 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 1: a good thing from a different perspective, pat It's absolutely

876
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:04,320
Speaker 1: drive drug development, as indicated by the Great S s

877
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:07,560
Speaker 1: r I Medical ghostwriting program in the face of prozacs

878
00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:10,759
Speaker 1: patent expiration. That's something that would be great to talk

879
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 1: about actually on the show. This in turn means that

880
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:18,280
Speaker 1: unpatentable drugs receive much less scientific scrutiny solely due to funding.

881
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:21,160
Speaker 1: So the fact that traditional herbs are rarely studied by

882
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 1: modern medicine is a no brainer. Natural products are difficult

883
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:27,959
Speaker 1: or impossible to patent. There's a logical jump from Big

884
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 1: Pharma's greedy bag of beep demonstrably true to big Pharma

885
00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 1: is suppressing the cure to cancer, which is unlikely. Still,

886
00:45:36,120 --> 00:45:38,319
Speaker 1: it's not hard to see how some middle ground is

887
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 1: plausibly true, buying up competitors or even generics in the

888
00:45:41,960 --> 00:45:45,440
Speaker 1: interest of profit rather than health, for example. There's more

889
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:47,480
Speaker 1: to this, but I just want to pause and interject here.

890
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:49,919
Speaker 1: Uh So, one thing that we've covered on the show

891
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 1: before that's very connected to what he's talking about here

892
00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:56,040
Speaker 1: is m d m A and its use in both

893
00:45:56,400 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 1: cancer studies and uh in treating PTSD. And I just

894
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 1: did a write up on it for how stuff works now.

895
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:08,240
Speaker 1: Because the group MAPS that has been working on studying

896
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 1: therapeutic applications of m d m A for PTSD, that's

897
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:16,120
Speaker 1: a bunch of acronyms for you. Uh They just said

898
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:19,240
Speaker 1: that they're about five years out from it being legal

899
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:22,680
Speaker 1: for therapeutic application. And that's one of the problems with

900
00:46:22,760 --> 00:46:25,000
Speaker 1: that too, is that m d m A doesn't have

901
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 1: I guess a patent applied to it and or at

902
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:30,359
Speaker 1: least as expired, and so so there's not a huge

903
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:33,319
Speaker 1: amount of money behind exactly. The argument goes that that's

904
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,759
Speaker 1: why pharmaceutical companies aren't making a great effort to do

905
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 1: similar studies. So you've got a group like Maps, which

906
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:42,719
Speaker 1: is a nonprofit that's raising millions of dollars through donations

907
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:45,480
Speaker 1: to do this kind of study. Um, you know, speaking

908
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 1: of M D M A, I wanted to throw out

909
00:46:47,680 --> 00:46:51,200
Speaker 1: a quick reference to a quote from Alexander Shulgun that

910
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:54,319
Speaker 1: I ran across instantly, and that was that he was

911
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:57,080
Speaker 1: arguing that you could essentially find M D M A

912
00:46:57,239 --> 00:47:00,080
Speaker 1: in the Pyramids. I mean, you will not find it

913
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,360
Speaker 1: in the pyramids. Let's say the ancient Egyptians had it.

914
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 1: He apparently said that if you found it in the pyramids,

915
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: it would still be usable, Like it would really that

916
00:47:08,360 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 1: kind of like long term story. Yeah, we didn't talk

917
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 1: about that, like the longevity of Yeah, well Shulgun is fascinating.

918
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 1: Uh So there's two more paragraphs. No, it's okay, I'm

919
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:22,799
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna keep reading it just because this guy

920
00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:25,600
Speaker 1: Christians stuff. It's not me, his name is also Christian.

921
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 1: It's just really like good, Yeah, like there's a lot

922
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:30,880
Speaker 1: to respond. He needs to start his own podcast. This

923
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:33,600
Speaker 1: is pretty pretty good stuff, all right, he says, All

924
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:35,279
Speaker 1: of which is to say that it's not hard to

925
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 1: see of the nineteen forties establishment railroaded this particular quack

926
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:41,759
Speaker 1: he's talking about William right here, and how even the

927
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:44,799
Speaker 1: quackiest quacks have plenty of good ideas, and the most

928
00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:48,600
Speaker 1: well meaning establishment players like judges or doctors will embrace

929
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:52,719
Speaker 1: whatever hocum is in vogue. Uh. And the great challenge

930
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 1: is teasing out the truth from wishful thinking like reich mass,

931
00:47:56,160 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 1: hysteria or greed. To do this requires basic research and

932
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:03,320
Speaker 1: a wrong educational system, which in turn requires government funding,

933
00:48:03,480 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 1: which in turn has shrunk. So, just like infrastructure, research

934
00:48:07,560 --> 00:48:11,200
Speaker 1: and education have the potential to greatly increase human well being,

935
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 1: and they're expensive and often poorly supported by prevailing businesses

936
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:19,000
Speaker 1: and political interests. In that case, today is not so

937
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:22,920
Speaker 1: unlike Right's time. Thanks again for the intriguing history lesson

938
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:26,000
Speaker 1: Christian And this was a really great email full of

939
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:27,759
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting ideas. A lot of it I

940
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 1: think I can agree with here, Like I like the

941
00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 1: new nuance and what he's talking about saying that, um,

942
00:48:33,719 --> 00:48:39,400
Speaker 1: he it's easy for people to have conspiracy theories against

943
00:48:39,640 --> 00:48:42,720
Speaker 1: say the scientific establishment, and say like, oh, they're trying

944
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:47,240
Speaker 1: to shut you down, um, because the scientific establishment is fallible.

945
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:51,760
Speaker 1: Even if I would like, what I would say is that, Um,

946
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 1: there's sort of an equivocation issue on the word science

947
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:57,480
Speaker 1: between how people use the word science, Like there's one

948
00:48:57,520 --> 00:49:00,239
Speaker 1: definition where you'd say it's basically a method it or

949
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:04,000
Speaker 1: a process like uh, you know, I, I replied to Christian,

950
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:06,759
Speaker 1: and I tried to define it like a systematic cognitive

951
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:11,040
Speaker 1: toolbox for removing error and bias from observations and forming

952
00:49:11,040 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 1: predictive theory. And in that meaning it's kind of unassailable, right,

953
00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:18,880
Speaker 1: I mean, science is pretty unambiguously a good thing. But

954
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:21,879
Speaker 1: then there's also science. As you know, when the lay

955
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:26,080
Speaker 1: person says science, they're often talking about some vaguely uh

956
00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:30,120
Speaker 1: vaguely imagined group of people who are in white lab

957
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:32,800
Speaker 1: coats doing things. And of course those people are people

958
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 1: are people like any other people, and they might be

959
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:38,320
Speaker 1: doing really good work, or they might have selfish motives

960
00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:41,440
Speaker 1: or whatever. It kind of gets to Cary exactly. That's

961
00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 1: where it's going with the idea that the sort of

962
00:49:43,400 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 1: I love science, bumper sticker level of scientific understanding exactly. Yeah,

963
00:49:48,719 --> 00:49:50,800
Speaker 1: that we talk about that in the Cargo. Cold science

964
00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 1: is just this force that makes things better at it

965
00:49:53,880 --> 00:49:56,120
Speaker 1: and is treated in a lot of ways by some

966
00:49:56,160 --> 00:49:59,600
Speaker 1: people like an infallible religion. Just one other thing that

967
00:49:59,640 --> 00:50:01,960
Speaker 1: I wanted to say about Christians message in particular. You know,

968
00:50:02,040 --> 00:50:05,279
Speaker 1: his his comment critique was about how we were we

969
00:50:05,280 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 1: were maybe too nice to the legal judicial system in

970
00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:10,959
Speaker 1: the medical field at the time, and I certainly didn't

971
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: mean to come across that way, no, And well, if

972
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:16,920
Speaker 1: we were being careful. It's funny because this is another

973
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:21,040
Speaker 1: example of an episode where we received listener mail on

974
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:23,040
Speaker 1: two sides of it, right. Oh yeah, we we got

975
00:50:23,080 --> 00:50:25,879
Speaker 1: some rich Ian's writing in we did not happy. They

976
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:28,799
Speaker 1: thought that we were completely unfair, yeah, and that we

977
00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:31,800
Speaker 1: hadn't done our research and that we were totally unfair

978
00:50:31,800 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: to Reich and that we were rude about it. So

979
00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:36,799
Speaker 1: it's again, this is another one of those moments where

980
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:38,680
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, you know, and I'm seeing these

981
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:42,040
Speaker 1: two different types of messages come in that that makes

982
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:45,120
Speaker 1: me think like, maybe we did something right sides, then

983
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:47,799
Speaker 1: you must have hit the right Not that I would

984
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: say that Christians seems piste off, He's he's got a

985
00:50:50,080 --> 00:50:52,239
Speaker 1: very rational kind of critique. But I think that I

986
00:50:52,840 --> 00:50:55,839
Speaker 1: thought that we were probably being careful during that just

987
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:57,839
Speaker 1: so that we could give Reich like as fair shake

988
00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:00,479
Speaker 1: as possible. Well, I mean, you don't have to buy

989
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:03,560
Speaker 1: into Ricky and pseudoscience to say that, you know, he

990
00:51:03,719 --> 00:51:07,120
Speaker 1: was probably still mistreated by the government. It is very

991
00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:12,239
Speaker 1: possible for existing authorities to to unfairly prosecute someone who

992
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:14,279
Speaker 1: is in fact a quack. And I think that's what

993
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 1: Christians outlining here is like all the ways that that

994
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 1: that could be possible and still is possible. Okay, it

995
00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:24,880
Speaker 1: looks like Carney has has another P versus MP listener

996
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:26,840
Speaker 1: to mail for you to read here, Joe, Oh wow,

997
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 1: and look at this glitter is just dangling right, It's

998
00:51:30,120 --> 00:51:34,320
Speaker 1: going everywhere heavenly glitter. Okay, uh so this is P

999
00:51:34,560 --> 00:51:37,759
Speaker 1: versus MP and it's from our listener, Rowan. So Rowan

1000
00:51:37,800 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 1: Wright said, Hey, I'm Rowan, longtime listener, first time comment

1001
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:44,240
Speaker 1: or love the show, YadA YadA. Anyway, I was listening

1002
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:46,360
Speaker 1: to your P versus n P episode and as a

1003
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 1: biologist starting to dip their toes into computer science, I

1004
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:52,759
Speaker 1: was fascinated. So it sounds like you are right in

1005
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:57,120
Speaker 1: the bull's eye of this episode, Rowan. But anyway, Rowan says,

1006
00:51:57,160 --> 00:51:58,799
Speaker 1: you guys broke it down in a way that made

1007
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:01,440
Speaker 1: it more accessible than all the cops ie resources I've

1008
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:04,239
Speaker 1: checked out and appreciated how you got into the implications

1009
00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:06,919
Speaker 1: without getting bogged down into the mats. Well, thank you, Rohan.

1010
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:10,879
Speaker 1: That's very encouraging to hear. Anyway, Rowan goes on, as

1011
00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:13,680
Speaker 1: for the question of whether natural selection is a brute

1012
00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:18,400
Speaker 1: force algorithm, I vote no Rowan's and so this is

1013
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 1: great because he's got experience with both biology and computer science.

1014
00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:25,919
Speaker 1: So Rowan says, I'm going to use the peppered moth

1015
00:52:26,040 --> 00:52:30,480
Speaker 1: evolution during the Industrial Revolution as an example. The peppered

1016
00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:34,600
Speaker 1: moth always had these random light and dark variants which

1017
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 1: would have arisen thanks to random mutation, like a brute

1018
00:52:37,640 --> 00:52:41,719
Speaker 1: force algorithm. But when the Industrial Revolution came around and

1019
00:52:41,800 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: everything got covered in gross soot, the ratio shifted drastically

1020
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 1: towards more black moths because they blended in better. They

1021
00:52:50,239 --> 00:52:53,080
Speaker 1: didn't need to wait for baby moths to get random

1022
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:56,799
Speaker 1: mutations for better camouflage. Because there was a huge environmental

1023
00:52:56,840 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 1: pressure killing off the white moths. If we want to

1024
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:03,120
Speaker 1: stick the comps ie analogies, the white moths subroutine gets

1025
00:53:03,160 --> 00:53:06,920
Speaker 1: shut off early before it goes through every possible variation

1026
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:10,080
Speaker 1: on white moths. You could think of natural selection within

1027
00:53:10,160 --> 00:53:13,080
Speaker 1: an individual as a brute force algorithm, but when you

1028
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:17,040
Speaker 1: zoom out to the population level, it's definitely more sophisticated.

1029
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: That's my take on it. Anyway, side note, uh oh.

1030
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:23,279
Speaker 1: He also asked that we put our email some more

1031
00:53:23,360 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 1: more prominent on the site for people who don't like

1032
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 1: to go to social media networks. Look, the site is

1033
00:53:28,719 --> 00:53:31,239
Speaker 1: supposedly going to get redesigned in the next couple of months,

1034
00:53:31,239 --> 00:53:33,319
Speaker 1: so we'll see. Yeah, yeah, we can definitely throw that out. Yeah,

1035
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 1: if you if you've been to Stuff to Blow your

1036
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:37,959
Speaker 1: mind in the past, if you're a regular visitor, then

1037
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:41,640
Speaker 1: get excited because facelift is on the way. But we

1038
00:53:41,680 --> 00:53:43,160
Speaker 1: also try to throw it out at the top and

1039
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 1: the end of every episode. And and if you're listening

1040
00:53:45,560 --> 00:53:47,200
Speaker 1: right now, I wondering what it is, it's blow the

1041
00:53:47,239 --> 00:53:49,759
Speaker 1: mind at how stuff works dot com. Yeah, so thanks

1042
00:53:49,760 --> 00:53:51,520
Speaker 1: a lot for that email, row, and I think that's

1043
00:53:51,520 --> 00:53:54,319
Speaker 1: an interesting way to think about it. So that we

1044
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:57,839
Speaker 1: were essentially asking you know, whether evolution is in any

1045
00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:01,759
Speaker 1: way optimized or whether it's just force and and this

1046
00:54:01,840 --> 00:54:04,480
Speaker 1: makes sense, it's sort of optimized by the number you

1047
00:54:04,480 --> 00:54:09,680
Speaker 1: know that that their natural variations occurring already. Yeah. One

1048
00:54:09,680 --> 00:54:11,960
Speaker 1: of the things that I really like about getting listener

1049
00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:15,680
Speaker 1: mail like this is that kind of example, the moths

1050
00:54:15,760 --> 00:54:18,439
Speaker 1: and the soot and the environmental qualities of it. That's

1051
00:54:18,440 --> 00:54:20,600
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that even for us, like when

1052
00:54:20,600 --> 00:54:23,759
Speaker 1: we're digging through research constantly to try to find something

1053
00:54:23,760 --> 00:54:27,040
Speaker 1: to talk about, are likely to is likely to get missed, right,

1054
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:31,320
Speaker 1: But it's fascinating. And it's also one of those things

1055
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:34,280
Speaker 1: that you won't see in a lot of like pop

1056
00:54:34,400 --> 00:54:38,719
Speaker 1: si uh like magazines or feeds or whatever, because it

1057
00:54:38,719 --> 00:54:41,640
Speaker 1: doesn't have like a sexy headline, right, like soit covered

1058
00:54:41,680 --> 00:54:43,640
Speaker 1: moths evolve blah blah blah, you know what I mean,

1059
00:54:43,719 --> 00:54:46,359
Speaker 1: Like like that it's old news. It's not something that

1060
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:50,640
Speaker 1: exactly but that is like a really important thing to

1061
00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:52,560
Speaker 1: learn from and one of the reasons why I love

1062
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:56,239
Speaker 1: doing this show. Yeah. All right, here's another little bit

1063
00:54:56,280 --> 00:54:58,839
Speaker 1: on P versus MP, and this one comes to us

1064
00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:01,880
Speaker 1: from Jonathan. Jonathan. It's a great job on making a

1065
00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:05,960
Speaker 1: difficult topic understandable taking the issue in a specifically human context.

1066
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:08,919
Speaker 1: Are you open minded enough for a thought experiment? Are we?

1067
00:55:10,719 --> 00:55:13,000
Speaker 1: How about if we postulate the existence of a different

1068
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:16,640
Speaker 1: form of human intelligence, not digital, we can call intuition.

1069
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:20,799
Speaker 1: In this thought experiment, we style intuition is operating only conditionally,

1070
00:55:21,280 --> 00:55:24,719
Speaker 1: the specific conditions irrelevant for this purpose. With intuition, it's

1071
00:55:24,719 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 1: possible to solve a problem directly without the need to

1072
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:29,920
Speaker 1: test a number of alternatives. This type of cognition is

1073
00:55:29,960 --> 00:55:33,880
Speaker 1: it is not repeatable using our standard scientific method, but

1074
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:36,360
Speaker 1: it is experienced by many people at different times, and

1075
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:39,960
Speaker 1: apparently has been throughout history. For a possible example, let's

1076
00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:42,640
Speaker 1: again for the sake of thought experiment, consider the development

1077
00:55:42,680 --> 00:55:46,399
Speaker 1: of folklore medicine. Willow bark was used by some Native

1078
00:55:46,440 --> 00:55:49,279
Speaker 1: American people as an analgesic and have been proven to

1079
00:55:49,320 --> 00:55:53,320
Speaker 1: contain salosilic acid, the main ingredient in aspirant. For ancient

1080
00:55:53,320 --> 00:55:56,440
Speaker 1: people to experiment with dozens, perhaps hundreds of plant remedies

1081
00:55:56,520 --> 00:55:59,239
Speaker 1: would not only have been time wasting, but extremely dangerous.

1082
00:55:59,520 --> 00:56:02,000
Speaker 1: In this thought experiment, p equals in p under certain

1083
00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:05,320
Speaker 1: conditions only and only within the context of human intelligence.

1084
00:56:05,520 --> 00:56:08,400
Speaker 1: For the podcasts keep up the great work. Well, that's interesting.

1085
00:56:08,440 --> 00:56:12,160
Speaker 1: I mean, I I don't tend to ascribe intuition any

1086
00:56:12,200 --> 00:56:15,160
Speaker 1: any spooky significance like that, but that is an interesting

1087
00:56:15,520 --> 00:56:18,600
Speaker 1: sort of counterfactual to think about. Now. I would tend

1088
00:56:18,640 --> 00:56:21,600
Speaker 1: to think that P equals in P or it doesn't.

1089
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 1: Right that there there there can't be conditions where it

1090
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:27,960
Speaker 1: does and conditions where it doesn't. Either that's the universe

1091
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:30,719
Speaker 1: we live in or it's not. It's sort of like saying, uh,

1092
00:56:30,760 --> 00:56:34,480
Speaker 1: the law of non contradiction exists in some conditions but

1093
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:37,239
Speaker 1: not in others. It's kind of seems like if A

1094
00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:41,399
Speaker 1: cannot equal not A, then there can't be conditions where

1095
00:56:41,440 --> 00:56:44,080
Speaker 1: that's not the case. But I don't know. I like

1096
00:56:44,200 --> 00:56:47,320
Speaker 1: this discussion of intuition in all of this because I

1097
00:56:47,880 --> 00:56:51,400
Speaker 1: seem to remember that Ian M. Banks incorporates this a

1098
00:56:51,440 --> 00:56:53,480
Speaker 1: little bit into one of the early Culture novels that

1099
00:56:53,600 --> 00:56:56,840
Speaker 1: the the all powerful computer aies that run the culture.

1100
00:56:57,239 --> 00:57:00,120
Speaker 1: They keep humans around, of course because they're benevolent and

1101
00:57:00,160 --> 00:57:02,800
Speaker 1: they take care of the humans, but behind the humans

1102
00:57:02,800 --> 00:57:06,120
Speaker 1: are sometimes involved in operations because humans get bored and

1103
00:57:06,120 --> 00:57:10,600
Speaker 1: one adventures, but also because humans bring something unique to

1104
00:57:10,600 --> 00:57:15,120
Speaker 1: the problem solving scenario sometimes. Yeah, well, I mean that

1105
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:17,120
Speaker 1: sort of gets into one of the examples we talked

1106
00:57:17,160 --> 00:57:19,160
Speaker 1: about in the P versus NP episode is you know,

1107
00:57:19,680 --> 00:57:21,800
Speaker 1: one of the people writing on this subject, I believe

1108
00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:24,400
Speaker 1: it was Scott Aaronson said, you know, if we live

1109
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:27,920
Speaker 1: in a P equals MP universe, then there's nothing all

1110
00:57:27,960 --> 00:57:30,920
Speaker 1: that special about being able to compose the most beautiful

1111
00:57:30,960 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 1: symphony on earth. Really that anybody should have the toolbox

1112
00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 1: to do that equally um, And so I think that's

1113
00:57:37,680 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 1: an interesting way of looking at it. Like all of

1114
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:42,800
Speaker 1: the problem solving tasks, all of the mental algorithms that

1115
00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:45,680
Speaker 1: are the most interesting and the most impressive to us,

1116
00:57:46,480 --> 00:57:49,880
Speaker 1: tend to be mysterious. It's difficult to see how one

1117
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:53,120
Speaker 1: got from one end to the other, you know, So

1118
00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:56,960
Speaker 1: when you see somebody have a really novel solution to something,

1119
00:57:57,040 --> 00:58:01,320
Speaker 1: it's often kind of mysterious where that solution came from. Wait, well,

1120
00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:04,000
Speaker 1: I hope I hate to interrupt you, Joe, but Carney

1121
00:58:04,040 --> 00:58:06,560
Speaker 1: is coming at us again, and he has one last

1122
00:58:06,640 --> 00:58:09,600
Speaker 1: piece of listener mail there for us. Okay, I'm gonna

1123
00:58:09,600 --> 00:58:13,200
Speaker 1: read this one. Uh, and it this is right up

1124
00:58:13,200 --> 00:58:17,439
Speaker 1: our alley. It's from Daniel, and he says, hey, there,

1125
00:58:17,840 --> 00:58:20,200
Speaker 1: I have a kind of interesting use for wicked problems

1126
00:58:20,240 --> 00:58:22,320
Speaker 1: that might not make it on the show, but you

1127
00:58:22,400 --> 00:58:24,880
Speaker 1: might just find it interesting. Oh, Daniel, it's gonna make

1128
00:58:24,920 --> 00:58:28,440
Speaker 1: it on the show alright. I've run tabletop role playing

1129
00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:31,560
Speaker 1: games with my friends, like Dungeons and Dragons, where I

1130
00:58:31,600 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 1: have to create a story with some kind of theme

1131
00:58:33,760 --> 00:58:37,440
Speaker 1: and objective to overcome. I tend to start with a

1132
00:58:37,520 --> 00:58:41,320
Speaker 1: simple problem that has some kind of emotional component, like quote,

1133
00:58:41,560 --> 00:58:44,240
Speaker 1: your king is corrupt. But then I add a layer

1134
00:58:44,320 --> 00:58:47,400
Speaker 1: of difficulty to prevent the players from approaching it traditionally

1135
00:58:47,640 --> 00:58:51,200
Speaker 1: via a wicked problem. Let's say, in the same scenario,

1136
00:58:51,640 --> 00:58:54,120
Speaker 1: every other person that would take over for the king

1137
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:56,240
Speaker 1: if he were to be killed or removed from power

1138
00:58:56,560 --> 00:58:59,800
Speaker 1: is just as corrupt. This way, my players have to

1139
00:58:59,800 --> 00:59:03,440
Speaker 1: think very dynamically about how to approach corruption in government,

1140
00:59:03,760 --> 00:59:06,920
Speaker 1: rather than something simple and emotionless like go get rid

1141
00:59:06,960 --> 00:59:09,360
Speaker 1: of that guy. This is a great example, and I

1142
00:59:09,440 --> 00:59:11,800
Speaker 1: must say, if I understand the concept of a wicked

1143
00:59:11,840 --> 00:59:15,720
Speaker 1: problem correctly, I think the classic way of of creating

1144
00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:17,840
Speaker 1: a wicked problem here would be to have the notion

1145
00:59:17,920 --> 00:59:21,000
Speaker 1: that absolute power corrupts. So what if you have a

1146
00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:24,720
Speaker 1: corrupt king, but putting somebody else into that role necessarily

1147
00:59:24,760 --> 00:59:27,800
Speaker 1: corrupts them. Yeah. Yeah, I think like the people who

1148
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:32,280
Speaker 1: have defined wicked, wicked problem, wicked problems, wicked problems over

1149
00:59:32,320 --> 00:59:35,360
Speaker 1: the years would agree. Yeah that, Uh. I think it's

1150
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:38,760
Speaker 1: just sort of like that politics would be a wicked problem, right,

1151
00:59:38,800 --> 00:59:40,640
Speaker 1: The power is a wicked problem. And I do think

1152
00:59:40,640 --> 00:59:42,800
Speaker 1: that the role playing is role playing games it's a

1153
00:59:42,840 --> 00:59:46,320
Speaker 1: great place to explore these because man, yeah, more more

1154
00:59:46,960 --> 00:59:50,320
Speaker 1: government officials should be playing DD to hash out issues,

1155
00:59:50,480 --> 00:59:52,680
Speaker 1: right yeah, because you can. Because in a role playing game,

1156
00:59:52,720 --> 00:59:54,440
Speaker 1: you can do the straight up combat, you can do

1157
00:59:54,480 --> 00:59:57,400
Speaker 1: the you know some some just sort of basic mystery solving,

1158
00:59:57,440 --> 01:00:00,440
Speaker 1: and that's that's great, be tons of fun. It is

1159
01:00:00,520 --> 01:00:03,400
Speaker 1: cool when you can put that little, uh, a little

1160
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:06,360
Speaker 1: shift on the situation where the players really don't know

1161
01:00:06,560 --> 01:00:09,360
Speaker 1: what the right decision is, if there's absolutely actually actually

1162
01:00:09,400 --> 01:00:12,800
Speaker 1: no right decision. To me, yeah, I totally agree. And

1163
01:00:13,000 --> 01:00:15,360
Speaker 1: Daniel sounds like the exact kind of d M that

1164
01:00:15,360 --> 01:00:17,520
Speaker 1: I would want to play with. So so the reason

1165
01:00:17,560 --> 01:00:19,880
Speaker 1: why we we got really excited about this is yet

1166
01:00:19,960 --> 01:00:22,840
Speaker 1: we're all gaming nerds here. Uh, we love dn d

1167
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:25,520
Speaker 1: Robert runs a D and D game I have in

1168
01:00:25,520 --> 01:00:29,560
Speaker 1: the past. I love playing him, and man, it sounds

1169
01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:31,120
Speaker 1: like he would be great to play with. Now here's

1170
01:00:31,120 --> 01:00:33,560
Speaker 1: a question, what do you think is the highest level

1171
01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:36,080
Speaker 1: of government ever achieved by a D n D player?

1172
01:00:36,960 --> 01:00:39,400
Speaker 1: That's a great Have we ever had a president who

1173
01:00:39,400 --> 01:00:43,120
Speaker 1: has played? You know? I want to say, Uh, there's

1174
01:00:43,120 --> 01:00:45,560
Speaker 1: a guy in Japan that I've read about who's a

1175
01:00:45,600 --> 01:00:48,200
Speaker 1: politician that is definitely a gamer. I don't know if

1176
01:00:48,200 --> 01:00:50,520
Speaker 1: he's in particular D and D guy, but he's in

1177
01:00:50,560 --> 01:00:54,160
Speaker 1: the tabletop role playing. Yeah. But I don't know if

1178
01:00:54,200 --> 01:00:57,919
Speaker 1: anybody out there knows the answer to this. Our first

1179
01:00:58,040 --> 01:01:04,120
Speaker 1: DND play President President, teach your president social media accounts

1180
01:01:04,160 --> 01:01:06,880
Speaker 1: for uh? For the President United States? At that point,

1181
01:01:06,880 --> 01:01:10,720
Speaker 1: who is Mary? Maybe Barry Obama is like secretly like

1182
01:01:10,760 --> 01:01:13,720
Speaker 1: a crazy D and D player, Like every every Sunday

1183
01:01:13,720 --> 01:01:17,680
Speaker 1: afternoon they're rolling up and playing games. Yeah, but I

1184
01:01:17,720 --> 01:01:19,760
Speaker 1: bet he's annoying to play with. He always plays a

1185
01:01:19,800 --> 01:01:24,880
Speaker 1: lawful good cleric. Right, that's the thing. Right, they'd all

1186
01:01:24,920 --> 01:01:27,080
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I'm lawful good. They'd all roll up

1187
01:01:27,120 --> 01:01:33,520
Speaker 1: lawful good characters. Maybe not Bernie Sanders Man. Yeah, well

1188
01:01:33,520 --> 01:01:36,600
Speaker 1: we would, Hey, I would love to hear listeners this

1189
01:01:36,680 --> 01:01:40,000
Speaker 1: year right in and let us know what what each

1190
01:01:40,040 --> 01:01:43,120
Speaker 1: of the candidates would be in terms of their their alignment,

1191
01:01:43,280 --> 01:01:46,480
Speaker 1: their species, and their role and their their character class

1192
01:01:46,480 --> 01:01:48,640
Speaker 1: within a dungeon and dragon's environment. Now, of course we

1193
01:01:48,680 --> 01:01:51,040
Speaker 1: know that we're going to get both sides of this too. Now,

1194
01:01:51,080 --> 01:01:54,960
Speaker 1: everybody is gonna think since we mentioned presidential candidates. Hopefully,

1195
01:01:55,040 --> 01:01:57,440
Speaker 1: I don't think we made any judgments here, but people

1196
01:01:57,440 --> 01:01:59,880
Speaker 1: are gonna say, oh, you trashed mine. I said, They're

1197
01:02:00,080 --> 01:02:03,600
Speaker 1: made judgments on all of them. I'm pretty sure Bernie

1198
01:02:03,600 --> 01:02:08,200
Speaker 1: would be a gnome that's my god, like David the gnome. No, no, no,

1199
01:02:08,280 --> 01:02:13,160
Speaker 1: like like maybe a deep gnome. Oh, I don't know what. Yeah, yeah,

1200
01:02:13,200 --> 01:02:16,640
Speaker 1: those those guys, they're great. We'll educate you on for

1201
01:02:16,760 --> 01:02:21,720
Speaker 1: Nipplin after the after the recording, Joe, all right, well,

1202
01:02:21,720 --> 01:02:25,160
Speaker 1: there you have it. Another listener Maile episode in the books,

1203
01:02:25,400 --> 01:02:27,880
Speaker 1: um As, as we've said before, we didn't have time

1204
01:02:27,880 --> 01:02:30,720
Speaker 1: to get to everything. We just tried to focus in

1205
01:02:30,760 --> 01:02:34,240
Speaker 1: on some of the great correspondence that you guys and

1206
01:02:34,240 --> 01:02:36,040
Speaker 1: gals have been sending in and we would allow to

1207
01:02:36,040 --> 01:02:38,320
Speaker 1: read more of in the future. Yeah, and so you

1208
01:02:38,320 --> 01:02:40,480
Speaker 1: know we We obviously brought up a lot of ideas

1209
01:02:40,480 --> 01:02:42,640
Speaker 1: here where we asked you for even more listener mail.

1210
01:02:43,360 --> 01:02:45,280
Speaker 1: Keep it coming, Yeah, we love it and the best

1211
01:02:45,320 --> 01:02:49,520
Speaker 1: way is to hit us up Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler and

1212
01:02:49,760 --> 01:02:53,160
Speaker 1: the old fashioned way guys blow the mind at House

1213
01:02:53,200 --> 01:03:04,600
Speaker 1: to court stuff For more on this and thousands of

1214
01:03:04,600 --> 01:03:22,040
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com five