Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, wasn't the Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I am Christian Seger
Speaker 1: and I am Joe McCormick, and we're here for another
Speaker 1: listener mail episodes. We've been doing more of these lately
Speaker 1: because we begin we've been getting so much good listener mail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the mail bag inside Carney has been very full. It's
Speaker 1: and it's and it's been full of really good stuff too.
Speaker 1: And I gotta throw this out up front, like, we've
Speaker 1: gotten so much that there's no way that we can
Speaker 1: address it in every listener mail episode. Now, even if
Speaker 1: we do them more often, we could do them like
Speaker 1: once a week, and we wouldn't be able to get there.
Speaker 1: That's right. I mean, we're hearing from people via email
Speaker 1: blow the mind at how stuff Works dot Com. We're
Speaker 1: getting people from Facebook and Twitter. We're blow the mind
Speaker 1: on both of those. Some people right into us on
Speaker 1: Tumbler where we were stuff to Blow your Mind. Some
Speaker 1: people on LinkedIn. We did get one on LinkedIn once, Yes,
Speaker 1: and I don't even think it was just your LinkedIn profile. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody go follow Robert on LinkedIn, but yeah, somebody wrote
Speaker 1: us there, So yeah, thanks for everybody who's written in.
Speaker 1: And you know, just these are the ones that we
Speaker 1: felt would make like the most compelling listener mail episode.
Speaker 1: But there's lots of other stuff out there, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make an effort to try to sit down and
Speaker 1: respond to all of them. I need to take a
Speaker 1: day and just go through everyone. Yeah, it kind of
Speaker 1: depends on what day they come in, but we get
Speaker 1: a lot of great stuff for sure. Anyway, the takeaway
Speaker 1: is if you sent us an email, we don't get
Speaker 1: a chance to read it today. Please don't take that
Speaker 1: as a slide against We've just got way more than
Speaker 1: we can get to. But we really do appreciate all
Speaker 1: of your correspondence. And Carney does too. Because Carney is
Speaker 1: just bulging with happy energy. I see a lot of
Speaker 1: energy around him. There's like a rainbow field of luminescence. No,
Speaker 1: you know what that is. Earlier this week, I set
Speaker 1: Carney to try to solve all of the P versus
Speaker 1: MP problem, and I think this morning he might have
Speaker 1: actually found a solution. He hasn't. He hasn't given us
Speaker 1: the solution yet. Maybe he judged that it's not for
Speaker 1: our minds to know, but he has been glowing with
Speaker 1: a radiant light and emitting choirs of angels. The sound,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just coming out from inside him. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's been kind of warm and happy sitting in
Speaker 1: his presence. Yeah, I'm basking in the glow of Carney. Well,
Speaker 1: if if Carney has not evolved too far beyond our understanding,
Speaker 1: perhaps he slash, she slash yet can present us with
Speaker 1: some listener mail. Alright, so this first message is from
Speaker 1: our listener, Nicole, and it's with reference to the episode
Speaker 1: Robert and I did on the intelligence of birds. Nicole says, Hi,
Speaker 1: I just finished listening to your episode on avian intelligence
Speaker 1: and it brought to mind and experience I had as
Speaker 1: a teenager. We had some problem crows that were attacking
Speaker 1: our postman and ripping the shingles off our roof to
Speaker 1: pitch them onto the lawn. My dad heard that if
Speaker 1: you kill a crow and hang it from a tree,
Speaker 1: it will drive the other crows off, so he shot
Speaker 1: one with a pellet gun and hung it from a
Speaker 1: tree in our backyard. I've heard this as well, not
Speaker 1: I've never I haven't shot one but I've heard this, yeah,
Speaker 1: she continues. The next morning, I looked out the window
Speaker 1: to see hundreds and hundreds of crows sitting in the
Speaker 1: trees encircling our backyard like a black wall. They were
Speaker 1: making no noise and staring at the body of the
Speaker 1: dead crow hanging from the tree. They stayed the entire day,
Speaker 1: barely moving, never making a sound. I don't know if
Speaker 1: crows typically hold awake, or if my dad happened to
Speaker 1: have shot their grand chief, but the experience was chillingly terrifying.
Speaker 1: Love your podcast, Nicole. That that is the most disturbing
Speaker 1: piece of listener mail I've ever read. That's like the
Speaker 1: Dark Half. Do you remember that it was a dark half?
Speaker 1: What it was it sparrows and the sparrows are flying. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They were like psychopomps. They were like embedded with the
Speaker 1: energy of of malice or something that kind of drag
Speaker 1: you away. Yeah. Well, I mean I do kind of
Speaker 1: wonder about her question, there was there something special about
Speaker 1: this crow or was it? Was it just don't you
Speaker 1: guys come across anything even even remotely like this in
Speaker 1: the episode. I mean, crows do have a startlingly complex
Speaker 1: social intelligence. Yeah, they have social relationships, and they seem
Speaker 1: to display theory of mind where they can imagine the
Speaker 1: intentions of other entities. Maybe they were like fronting to
Speaker 1: her dad. They were like, oh, you want to kill
Speaker 1: one of us, and then just like swarmed and we're like,
Speaker 1: this is our gang. You can't row more so than
Speaker 1: most birds. I believe there's the possibility for something I
Speaker 1: had to be taking place. Yea though. Yeah, so thanks
Speaker 1: for sharing, Nicole. That is very weird alright. This next
Speaker 1: one is from Issha. I believe, and she says, hello,
Speaker 1: I love the podcast and love the episode on Jeff
Speaker 1: the Killer. That's the creepy pasta two episode we did.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to nitpick, but when you guys were
Speaker 1: talking about acid burning, one of you said it is
Speaker 1: more prevalent in countries where it is quote more acceptable
Speaker 1: in society. I'm from Pakistan and I would like to
Speaker 1: assure you that acid burning is not socially acceptable there.
Speaker 1: It is a crime and perpetrators are punished. Saying it
Speaker 1: is acceptable in society simply because the rate of occurrence
Speaker 1: is high is the same as saying that gun violence
Speaker 1: is acceptable in America's society for the same reason, I
Speaker 1: have attached an article detailing the legal repercussions of committing
Speaker 1: the crime of attacking someone with acid in Pakistan. Once again,
Speaker 1: I love the podcast and apologize if it was a
Speaker 1: little harsh. I don't I don't think that's a little
Speaker 1: harsh at all. And actually when I first read this,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, jeez, I really hope I didn't
Speaker 1: imply something like that. I think what we were trying
Speaker 1: to get across was just that there are societies where
Speaker 1: it's culturally prevalent. Yes, so that the exact quote in
Speaker 1: that bit in in that episode was there have been
Speaker 1: a couple of incidents where there have been Western tourists
Speaker 1: in foreign countries where this is more acceptable, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, to the to the listeners point, yeah, acceptable
Speaker 1: is maybe not the right word here, said yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that I mean, that's a spur of the moment
Speaker 1: thing that and that's my bad. But I would say,
Speaker 1: like to her analogy here, like, I think you could
Speaker 1: make the the statement that gun violence in American society
Speaker 1: is prevalent. Yeah, I think that there there's a strong
Speaker 1: comparison to be made here where a gun violence is
Speaker 1: not something that is at all. I mean particularly the
Speaker 1: kind of like mass shooting thing to it it's been
Speaker 1: dealing with. Certainly, nobody is out there saying this is good,
Speaker 1: this is great, this is happening, but it is happening
Speaker 1: with enough of of a frequency that it exists in
Speaker 1: the uh in like the public mindset. And if one
Speaker 1: is to get you know, slightly poetic here, I guess
Speaker 1: if one's heart were to go to a dark place,
Speaker 1: then that experience, that motive behavior is waiting for them
Speaker 1: there as an American um. But yeah, I don't. I
Speaker 1: think it's the use of the word acceptable. Maybe that
Speaker 1: caused the confusion, and that's certainly not what I was implaying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's a good clarification. Thank you, actually, and thank
Speaker 1: you for letting us know. All right, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: Joe and I did an episode on the Tip of
Speaker 1: the Tongue or taught so we when we asked everyone
Speaker 1: out there to share their taughts, and we receive a
Speaker 1: lot of good feedback. So here's one from Ashley says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: just finished up your Tip of the Tongue episode and
Speaker 1: I thought I might have some insight into a couple
Speaker 1: of topics that you brought up. First, I am fluent
Speaker 1: in both English and as all American Sign Language. I
Speaker 1: found that this is a most helpful skill in resolving
Speaker 1: taughts in my world. Not only is a s L
Speaker 1: far more primitive of a language than English, whose discrepancy
Speaker 1: aids me in thinking of words by their death nisition
Speaker 1: and not just their uses, but since ASL is a
Speaker 1: physical language and English verbal, I often have the pieces
Speaker 1: in one side when I don't on the other, translating
Speaker 1: the discovery into the desired language becomes easy at that point.
Speaker 1: This is an interesting point because we talked in the
Speaker 1: episode about how I was surprised to find that there
Speaker 1: is such a similarity between looking for the word in
Speaker 1: English and or any language in a spoken language. And
Speaker 1: then this also this thing known as the tip of
Speaker 1: the fingers phenomenon in deaf signers, where they have the
Speaker 1: same experience. They're looking for the sign and they have
Speaker 1: the semantic meaning of the word, but they can't remember
Speaker 1: what you do with your hands. So I wasn't on
Speaker 1: this episode, but it reminds me of when we did
Speaker 1: the Cyborg episode recently. We were talking about how one
Speaker 1: of the guys had coined the word cyborg was very
Speaker 1: interested in the ways that uh cyborgs could process language differently,
Speaker 1: to the point that he was trying to come up
Speaker 1: with a way to come up with averages of words,
Speaker 1: like he was thinking about words as math and I
Speaker 1: think there's a bit of a connection here. And at
Speaker 1: the time I said, you know, this reminds me of
Speaker 1: structuralism and post structuralism. This seems to be, as often
Speaker 1: happens on stuff to blow your mind, one of those
Speaker 1: topics that we circle around. Maybe we should do something
Speaker 1: about it in the future. Although uh Man, post structuralism
Speaker 1: with your real tough topic to try to spell out
Speaker 1: in a like an hour long podcast. It would be
Speaker 1: a challenge, but hey, we're all about a good challenge.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Ashley does continue. Yes, she says, I also
Speaker 1: produce write the words the anchors say at my local
Speaker 1: news station. You mentioned during the podcast some of the
Speaker 1: differences between speech and written Producing is a fun exercise
Speaker 1: in both rooms. Not only must the words make sense
Speaker 1: to the viewer who listens, but also to the anchor
Speaker 1: who reads the words I assemble. Anyways, thanks for keeping
Speaker 1: my mind entertained as I drive about town. Ashley. So,
Speaker 1: Ashley is the shadow figure behind the news echo borg.
Speaker 1: This is kind of like how you and I are
Speaker 1: the shadow figures behind brain stuff. Yeah. Yeah, Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: is our little puppet. Yeah. Most people have only seen
Speaker 1: him from the but from the behind. But from looking
Speaker 1: him from behind, it's just like the flesh opens up
Speaker 1: into these rods. They've never seen the armhole. I kid,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland is full of wonderful insights on his own
Speaker 1: and rods and gears. Okay. Also a couple of quick
Speaker 1: messages we got back about the Tip of the Tongue episode.
Speaker 1: Listener Sophia writes in good morning, gentlemen, love love, love
Speaker 1: of the podcast. You're too kind, she says, seeing as
Speaker 1: you asked, I constantly have a tip of the Tongue
Speaker 1: moment with Christopher Walkin. I've seen most of his films,
Speaker 1: his infamous SNL episode, and perhaps every celebrity imitation of him.
Speaker 1: But when I talk about him, for whatever reason, I
Speaker 1: cannot get his name out. Fun fact of which I'm
Speaker 1: sure you're aware. He was in The Deer Hunter, which
Speaker 1: is what I googled to get his name with wait
Speaker 1: for it, John Kaze, John Kaze. Christian figured big into
Speaker 1: our tip of the Tongue episode, Oh is he one
Speaker 1: that you? One of you have a tip of the tongue?
Speaker 1: We I mean, if i'd asked you who played Fredo
Speaker 1: in The Godfather, would you have that name? No, and
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why. I've never seen The god What. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I know it's stunning. I've never seen any of the
Speaker 1: Godfather films. I'm planning to sometime this year though. Okay, well, um,
Speaker 1: don't let anybody build them up too much for you.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, but I think I know who Jun Kazale is.
Speaker 1: I know he was in a Deer Hunter dog day
Speaker 1: after Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that guy. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: thanks for writing in, Sophia. Sophia comments that she's in
Speaker 1: Rome and so we appreciate that message. But I had
Speaker 1: to read back to back with this, also a message
Speaker 1: from Parker, who has a strange convergence here with Sophia's comments.
Speaker 1: So Parker writes in says hey guys. Also Parker's referencing
Speaker 1: the Tip of the Tongue episode. He says, hey guys,
Speaker 1: super interesting episode. As always, you asked what were the
Speaker 1: words that always tripped us up? For myself, I had
Speaker 1: many years where I had ceaselessly confused Paul Giamati, Steve Bashemi,
Speaker 1: and Christopher walkin Uh. It's likely that they all have
Speaker 1: somewhat sad faces, and specifically that Giomati and Bashemy have
Speaker 1: Italian last names, while Bashimmy and Walking looks somewhat similar
Speaker 1: in their character, acting a bit scrawny and pale. It's
Speaker 1: interesting as a Venn diagram, however, because the subsets of
Speaker 1: two would always be confused, but never all three. I eat,
Speaker 1: Giamati and Bashemmy interchangeable. Bashemy and Walking were interchangeable, but
Speaker 1: I would never confuse Geomati and Walking. Uh. This aspect
Speaker 1: is surely an extra phenomenon of its own, but it
Speaker 1: seems as if it came into play as well. Do
Speaker 1: you think the same part of the brain would be
Speaker 1: affected when confusing people and trying to recollect people slash words?
Speaker 1: Thanks for everything always entertained as I listen to you
Speaker 1: guys while crunching numbers at my business management job. Have
Speaker 1: a great day. Thank you for the message. But I
Speaker 1: think that's an interesting question. I do pretty much think
Speaker 1: it's it's going to be the same part of the brain.
Speaker 1: I am not a neurologist, or a psychologist or an
Speaker 1: expert on speech production. So that is my my lay
Speaker 1: person's opinion as somebody who's read about this. But from
Speaker 1: what I've read, I think, yeah, that we use sort
Speaker 1: of most of the same gear in our brains to
Speaker 1: come up with proper names that we do to come
Speaker 1: up with words where in either case, you know the
Speaker 1: semantic meaning you're either thinking about the person, you're thinking
Speaker 1: about the definition of the word, but you just can't
Speaker 1: come up with the sounds your mouth is supposed to make. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so spoilers for our our listeners. Actually this happens to
Speaker 1: us in the studio quite often, and we just edited
Speaker 1: out where it will be me going, uh that, what's
Speaker 1: his name? Uh, and then our producer Noel thankfully edits
Speaker 1: it out so we sound, uh, you know, the right
Speaker 1: thing as we as we brought up in the episode.
Speaker 1: The best thing you can do to solve that problem
Speaker 1: more or less on your own as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: That otherwise that the part of the brain ties Paul,
Speaker 1: part of your brain. Yeah, don't sit in that tip
Speaker 1: of the tongue state forever. It's not interesting to think
Speaker 1: of Steve Bushemi as being like the sort of center
Speaker 1: of this uh universe of character actor is that are
Speaker 1: easy to confuse with one another. I would never be
Speaker 1: confused about Steve to shimmy like his name. I look
Speaker 1: at people who aren't Steve for shimmy, and I think
Speaker 1: Steve a shimmy. All right, here's another one. This one
Speaker 1: comes to us from Jonathan in Melbourne, Australia says, quote
Speaker 1: in the show, you mentioned the French version of the phrase,
Speaker 1: which translates to hole in the head. However, I think
Speaker 1: you may have taken the phrase too literally. From your
Speaker 1: banter around the show, it sounds like you interpreted the
Speaker 1: phrase as being like a hole through the skull. And granted,
Speaker 1: given a trepidation style, and since we've covered trepidation on
Speaker 1: the show, we kind of can't help but do that.
Speaker 1: We can just have a predisposition to talk about holes
Speaker 1: in the skull. Um. That's another topic that the show keeps. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of in the title of the show, right,
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind? How are you gonna blow
Speaker 1: the mind of not creating a hole? And speaking of Todd,
Speaker 1: what's the guy we've talked about him on the show before,
Speaker 1: the famous guy with a rod through the head. Yeah, yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: Jonathan continues, However, I interpret it as a meaning u
Speaker 1: of a void or space in which the name or
Speaker 1: idea should exist but is missing. That makes the phrase
Speaker 1: more like the descriptions earlier in the episode where you
Speaker 1: quoted descriptions of the feeling is being similar to have
Speaker 1: having the shape for the idea in your head and
Speaker 1: nothing else would quite fit there, but the idea itself
Speaker 1: is missing, it can't be grasped. That interpretation makes the
Speaker 1: French version of the phrase perhaps the most accurate. Thanks
Speaker 1: again for a great podcast. I think it makes it.
Speaker 1: I like this, It makes this as a black hole
Speaker 1: in the mind. Yeah, I think Jonathan sounds like you're
Speaker 1: exactly right. I bet you are interpreting this right and
Speaker 1: we were interpreting it wrong. Uh. The hole in the
Speaker 1: head is like what you're referencing is when we talked
Speaker 1: about William James. You know, William James sort of has
Speaker 1: this idea of the wraith, the wraith of the name.
Speaker 1: It's this mold where the name should be, and nothing
Speaker 1: else will fit in the mold except the name. But
Speaker 1: you can't come up with the name. Yeah, that's scary. Actually,
Speaker 1: I thought about the black hole in your head, and
Speaker 1: it getting larger larger the longer he's been thinking about it.
Speaker 1: Always starts with Steve. Okay, one more about the tip
Speaker 1: of the tongue episode before we move on. We heard
Speaker 1: from our listener Tyler, who said, hello there. I frequently
Speaker 1: experience taught moments as a bilingual, and this is something
Speaker 1: that actually comes up in the literature, is bilingualism and taughts.
Speaker 1: Tyler writes, often I experienced the problem of having the
Speaker 1: correct word but not in the correct language. This happens
Speaker 1: more frequently in times when I've when I have to
Speaker 1: switch back and forth from Spanish to English. I enjoyed
Speaker 1: the explanation on knowing the starting point and the ending
Speaker 1: but not being able to make the connection. I've personally
Speaker 1: felt that it's caused by modes. Sometimes when I'm in
Speaker 1: a Spanish mode, it's hard to get out of it. Uh. Similarly,
Speaker 1: I experience it when talking on different subjects. I might
Speaker 1: be in a movie mode and then the conversation goes
Speaker 1: to music, but the connections are still trying for movies.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the episode. I very much enjoy your explanations
Speaker 1: of every day often overlooked occurrences Kadado uh Tyler, and
Speaker 1: so I think that's an interesting insight, like the different modes,
Speaker 1: Like you're you're almost in one warehouse in your brain
Speaker 1: looking for product codes to locate the correct items on
Speaker 1: the shelves, and if you quickly transition to a different
Speaker 1: warehouse part of your brain, that that it might be
Speaker 1: harder to locate the things you're looking for. I can
Speaker 1: see how that would be true. Yeah, yeah, indeed. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's two that are about the same thing, and it's
Speaker 1: something that came up in our episode on cargo Cults
Speaker 1: and Richard Feynman. The first comes from Carson and he says,
Speaker 1: just listening to the cargo cult episode, I laughed at
Speaker 1: the part about the reflexology student and then realized what
Speaker 1: was probably going on. I'm not going to call it
Speaker 1: mumbo jumbo because someone near and dear to me practices it,
Speaker 1: but I am also not ready to deny the placebo effect. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll just say that I think that we should do
Speaker 1: an episode on reflexology. So I don't think it's mumbo
Speaker 1: jumbo either. But anyway, the theory is that your body
Speaker 1: has energy fields that are all connected, all across the body,
Speaker 1: and using this knowledge, you can massage a specific pressure
Speaker 1: point on the foot and have an effect on the pituitary.
Speaker 1: So the student probably didn't think the pituitary was actually
Speaker 1: in the foot. He probably just meant he was on
Speaker 1: the pressure point. However, I wasn't personally there in that
Speaker 1: hot tub, so I can't say for sure. Thanks for
Speaker 1: that clarification, Carson. Yeah, and then we received another message
Speaker 1: from Jonathan similar thing. He says, a wonderful podcast on
Speaker 1: cargo cults. But I have one comment that's not for you,
Speaker 1: but for Richard Feynman. I don't think Richard Feynman still
Speaker 1: a lot of this now. He's quite yeah, I have
Speaker 1: no desire to validate foot reflexology as a science. But
Speaker 1: according to a system, there are channels of energy that
Speaker 1: run through the body. Points of the feet correspond to
Speaker 1: different organs of the body. So this is the same thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he's basically saying that it's possible that Feynman just
Speaker 1: took this the wrong way. So to recap from that
Speaker 1: episode Fineman, the story goes that Fineman wasn't a hot
Speaker 1: tub with some reflexology students, and they were kind of
Speaker 1: like rubbing on each other, and one said I think
Speaker 1: that I've got your pituitary and he was rubbing on
Speaker 1: a girl's foot, and Fineman was like, clearly, that's not
Speaker 1: your pituitary, and he uses that as an example of
Speaker 1: cargo cult science and then like they didn't really understand science. However,
Speaker 1: these two messages seem to indicate that the student actually
Speaker 1: was probably thinking he was accessing the energy lines connecting
Speaker 1: to the pituitary, and that Feynman was just being grumpy. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be unfair because I haven't read
Speaker 1: all that much about reflexology, but it it sounds like
Speaker 1: it is a reasonable assumption to say, massaging somebody's foot
Speaker 1: is not really affecting the energy lines going to their pituitary. See,
Speaker 1: I don't know, And that's why I think we should
Speaker 1: do an episode on it, because I don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds like it's based on some kind
Speaker 1: of non evidence based thoughts about like spirit energy and stuff.
Speaker 1: Maybe well maybe I I always took it to be
Speaker 1: like more like pressure points and things like that, like
Speaker 1: similar to acupuncture. But yeah, maybe we should investigate this
Speaker 1: and unravel it. Oh man, if we want to open
Speaker 1: that can of worms. I don't know if you. We
Speaker 1: could start with me rubbing your feet, Joe, see what happens. Well,
Speaker 1: we can do some acupuncture and see if we get
Speaker 1: the CBO effect. Okay, alright, So next we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about some emails we got with reference to the episode
Speaker 1: Robert and I did on hyper Real Religions. That was
Speaker 1: the episode about religions that are founded based on texts
Speaker 1: or or canons or ideas that the believers in the
Speaker 1: religion explicitly acknowledge our fictional and there's not like a
Speaker 1: you know, somebody thinks there's a real spiritual revelation, you're
Speaker 1: basing it on the Big Lebowski or Star Wars or
Speaker 1: something you know is not real to begin with. And
Speaker 1: the way that Robert put it to me later on
Speaker 1: was sort of like a Cyborgian version of religion, and
Speaker 1: that like, you take aspects that work for your personal
Speaker 1: worldview and helped the kind of guide you along what
Speaker 1: you consider to be a sort of righteous path already. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we got a lot of interesting feedback about this episode.
Speaker 1: And it's true that I think almost any time we
Speaker 1: talk about religion, which we do a fair amount on
Speaker 1: the show, we get results sort of from both sides
Speaker 1: of the the issue. It seems like if you bring
Speaker 1: up religion from a you know, critical or investigatory way
Speaker 1: of thinking, you're you're gonna get some feedback. You know,
Speaker 1: people are gonna have some feelings. Yeah. I always feel
Speaker 1: that the approach that we take to religion on the
Speaker 1: show is let's let's get it out of the box,
Speaker 1: let's look at it, Let's hold it up to the light,
Speaker 1: Let's see how how the light goes through it, you know,
Speaker 1: treat it like this sort of crystal object. And in
Speaker 1: doing that, you have to put yourself sometimes in a
Speaker 1: state of vulnerable open mindedness. And that's where that's where
Speaker 1: I like to put myself, and that's where I try
Speaker 1: to invite the listeners to reach that point as well.
Speaker 1: But that's not always a comfortable place. Well. I mean,
Speaker 1: we hear from a lot of you guys out there
Speaker 1: who seem to really like this approach, and this is
Speaker 1: I totally agree, Robert. That's exactly the same way I
Speaker 1: like to come at it, to to to understand it more,
Speaker 1: to look at it, uh, and not just to be
Speaker 1: focused on either propping it up as perfect and wonderful
Speaker 1: and true, or in bashing it and tearing it down.
Speaker 1: But you know, we will hear from people who have
Speaker 1: their feelings stimulated by us talking about this. So we
Speaker 1: wanted to give a sampling of a couple of types
Speaker 1: of responses we got from the hyper Real Religions episode,
Speaker 1: right and and in reading these, and especially in reading
Speaker 1: one or two of the more critical bits of listener
Speaker 1: mail we're received, I want to also recognize that sometimes
Speaker 1: a hostile reaction is sort of like the the initial
Speaker 1: reaction to immunization, you know. It's it's kind of like
Speaker 1: like like I can look back at my own history
Speaker 1: with religion, and there have been times where I go
Speaker 1: into a situation with a certain set of beliefs, those
Speaker 1: beliefs are challenged, and my initial response is to harden up,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh and say, you know, get away
Speaker 1: from me. I don't want to think about that. It's
Speaker 1: only later than I'm able to to think about some
Speaker 1: of these criticisms and incorporate that in and emerge ultimately
Speaker 1: stronger from it. Now. Specifically, I think what some listeners
Speaker 1: were responding to in the hyper Real Religion episode was
Speaker 1: us talking about Young Earth creationism because we had to
Speaker 1: explain the origins of the postafarianism idea, and that that
Speaker 1: comes out of a criticism of the campaign to teach
Speaker 1: creationist ideas in American public schools. So it's it's like
Speaker 1: a datast kind of performance. Yeah, it's a it's basically
Speaker 1: a parody, all right. So I'm gonna kick off this
Speaker 1: kick this off by reading a listener mail from a
Speaker 1: listener who wants to remain anonymous. I'm just gonna read
Speaker 1: a segment here, and they were essentially comparing our handling
Speaker 1: of religion to other house stuff Works podcast handling of religion. Uh?
Speaker 1: And did that? I cannot speak because I cannot specifically
Speaker 1: remember an example of another show handling religion uh in
Speaker 1: any way, shape or form. I know they have, but
Speaker 1: I don't listen to all the episodes that come out
Speaker 1: on the other shows. So this individual says, as I
Speaker 1: listened listen to your show on hyper real religions, I
Speaker 1: discovered that no such mutual respect exists on your part.
Speaker 1: My faith was blatantly attacked. My belief system was literally mocked.
Speaker 1: As one of you laughed out loud when mentioning the
Speaker 1: Young Earth model of creation. And I was made to
Speaker 1: feel shamed for being a Christian and a fan of
Speaker 1: your show at the same time. Please know that I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to retaliate or speak out of anger or
Speaker 1: anything like that. I'm not looking for an apology or
Speaker 1: any sort of acknowledgement at all. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: let you know that I'm sorry you had to speak
Speaker 1: this way, and I sincerely hope that you will cease
Speaker 1: from abusing people for their beliefs in the future. Well,
Speaker 1: it's certainly not my intention when we talk about religion
Speaker 1: to abuse anybody for their beliefs, and certainly not to
Speaker 1: make them feel ashamed. I just uh, I just like
Speaker 1: to think and talk about these ideas. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: if you are a Christian or somebody of any other faith,
Speaker 1: please do not feel ashamed listening to the show. I
Speaker 1: hope you will go on this journey of exploration with us.
Speaker 1: I also think we should be able to laugh at
Speaker 1: about just we should be able to laugh at anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well just about that's another point. Yeah, I mean, we
Speaker 1: we make jokes about every kind of idea that we
Speaker 1: talk about on the show, including scientific ideas. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so that certainly if you're if you're especially troubled by
Speaker 1: making jokes about out a certain subject that I guess
Speaker 1: maybe we we might be able to get to you
Speaker 1: in that sense, and we're not trying to hurt your feelings.
Speaker 1: So like, I wasn't on this episode, but I do
Speaker 1: just want to chime in and back up what you
Speaker 1: guys are saying in the sense that, like, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: lots of opportunities out there where you can be listening
Speaker 1: to things, especially in the podcast world, right where like
Speaker 1: we're not all going to have the exact same beliefs
Speaker 1: and they're not going to overlap, but like podcasts in
Speaker 1: particular have like a sort of personal resonance with a
Speaker 1: lot of people right where they start to feel like
Speaker 1: we're in your with us, right. Uh, Like, I'll give
Speaker 1: you an example from my own life. So, like, I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of stand up comedy. I like Louis Black.
Speaker 1: You guys know Louis Black, right. Lewis Black on one
Speaker 1: of his albums has this pretty long bit about like
Speaker 1: how stupid soy milk is Okay? I drink soy milk,
Speaker 1: I love Louis Black. I listened to it and I
Speaker 1: just go, Okay, we disagree, drink soy milk. I didn't
Speaker 1: know you were such a moron exactly. Well, but see,
Speaker 1: like you know, I remember the first time out there.
Speaker 1: Please know I'm kidding. Yeah, he is totally choking. Uh.
Speaker 1: But but you know, like that's a sort of like
Speaker 1: non religious version of this where it's like you can
Speaker 1: hear something like that and go, well, we don't agree
Speaker 1: on this particular thing, but I still like this person.
Speaker 1: I like what they're bringing to me. I'm going to
Speaker 1: keep up with it, you know, And I can and
Speaker 1: I can also laugh at jokes about SWI milk. Well,
Speaker 1: I hope it comes through at least most of the
Speaker 1: time that we do take an inquisitive approach to religion
Speaker 1: on the show. But we also I tend to think
Speaker 1: we're fairly friendly and open minded about it. I like
Speaker 1: to think so too, especially knowing you guys, you know,
Speaker 1: outside of the studio as well. Whenever we've talked about religion,
Speaker 1: you guys, it's not like your bemoana or demeaning and
Speaker 1: you know, any particular kind of beliefs. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: not like even within this room, the three of us
Speaker 1: have a uniformed outlook on religion, spirituality. Like we each
Speaker 1: have our own system, we have our own worldview that
Speaker 1: had it may incorporate religion religion into it to varying degrees. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I worship the Great God Cthulhu and and and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm of the cult of Falsa Doom. We all know
Speaker 1: what is stronger than steel? You don't know, do you?
Speaker 1: It's a flash. Yeah, of course the flesh really does
Speaker 1: not hold up well to steal on that movie. I
Speaker 1: recall that's a good point. Steel really cuts through it.
Speaker 1: Falsa Doom's philosophy. It sounds real good until it meets
Speaker 1: the steel, so clear clarifying for the audience. Thalsa Doom
Speaker 1: is the James Earl Jones character from the movie, Yes,
Speaker 1: from the Barbarian Yeah. So anyway, following up, but we
Speaker 1: got one more email we wanted to share, actually a
Speaker 1: couple more, but here's one that we got about the
Speaker 1: hyper Real Religions episode, and this is from our listener, Gustavo. So.
Speaker 1: Gustavo says, Hi, guys, I really enjoyed the hyper Real
Speaker 1: Religion episode. You made some new connections between both official
Speaker 1: religions and the hyper real stuff that I hadn't really
Speaker 1: considered the search for meaning means quite a lot to me.
Speaker 1: My life is more or less built on seeking the
Speaker 1: deepest truths I can find. The question never ends. Having
Speaker 1: read Dune quite a few times, I can relate to
Speaker 1: the idea of reverence for a story that becomes part
Speaker 1: of one's being. You didn't quite say that, but I
Speaker 1: hope I'm reflecting your intention. Yeah. Yeah, you don't have
Speaker 1: to believe Dune is literally true for it to start
Speaker 1: to take on some kind of deep meaning or spiritual
Speaker 1: significance for you. Anyway, Gustavo continues, maybe I'll memorize the
Speaker 1: Litany against Fear to quote it now that I know
Speaker 1: at least one person who who has done that. That
Speaker 1: was impressive to me. I wanted to clarify, as I
Speaker 1: did replying to Gustavo, I have not memorized the Litany
Speaker 1: against Fear, though I think I should. I was reading
Speaker 1: it off of the screen and this is the thing
Speaker 1: when they put their hand in the box here, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the little death that brings total obliteration. Yeah. Total. I
Speaker 1: once wrote it on my arm before a job interview,
Speaker 1: like you know, not where it could be seen, but
Speaker 1: it would be a good tattoo. Yeah, I would would
Speaker 1: uh anyway, Gustavo continues, when I was twenty, I found Mormonism.
Speaker 1: Before that, I was Catholic. I searched so many philosophies
Speaker 1: and religions. Nowadays, I can't say I identify with any
Speaker 1: particular belief system, but I love systems of evidence along
Speaker 1: with speculation about what might be. I call myself a nonbeliever.
Speaker 1: I don't think the supernatural is real, but I'd like
Speaker 1: to fly, breathe underwater, and do some other things rather
Speaker 1: fantastic and deliberately escapist. That would be damn cool. So
Speaker 1: I hope there's more. Maybe this is a simulation, and
Speaker 1: we'll wake up saying, holy jumping, Juniper Batman, that was
Speaker 1: a trip. What's next? I love that reference, good old
Speaker 1: Burt word as robin Uh. Gustavo rights, you were fair,
Speaker 1: reverent and kind, considering especially how religious slash spiritual discussions
Speaker 1: so often devolved into needless, wasteful arguments. Your podcast is informative,
Speaker 1: and I feel pleased for having listened. Related one funny
Speaker 1: thing about the Wicked Problems episode is that explaining wicked
Speaker 1: problems is somewhat of a wicked problem. We know it.
Speaker 1: The recursion leads to endless complexity, as with the nature
Speaker 1: of life evolution in the quest for meaning. I hope
Speaker 1: your day is pleasant, which is a great way to
Speaker 1: end an email. But um, yeah, and so I find
Speaker 1: it kind of funny that we've heard both from people
Speaker 1: who thought that we were way too harsh about religion,
Speaker 1: and we heard from multiple people who said that they
Speaker 1: were very uh, they appreciated how fair and polite we were.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what to make of that. I
Speaker 1: think that's a good sign. I think if you hear
Speaker 1: two extremes that we're probably doing something right. I hope so.
Speaker 1: But that might just be my own narcissism talking. But
Speaker 1: thanks for the email, Gustavo. This is it was really great.
Speaker 1: All right. Here's another one Chris from San Marcos, California
Speaker 1: Rights and it says have been listening to your podcast
Speaker 1: for a while and have never been moved to write
Speaker 1: in until now. I just wanted to say that I
Speaker 1: really appreciate Robert's win app analogy with regard to religion
Speaker 1: or religious beliefs. This is about the win App skins. Yes,
Speaker 1: perhaps we are all really just trying to choose the
Speaker 1: right skin. As the case may be, it was a rich,
Speaker 1: engaging episode, and I hope that you'll do a follow up.
Speaker 1: Perhaps some day I can say that I was listening
Speaker 1: to the launch of Winampism and I like that, and
Speaker 1: we'll be able to classify myself as one of the
Speaker 1: early win ampist Or is it when when I'm Pete
Speaker 1: and there'd be like real playerism and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: be the really bad religion during your episodes? During your episode,
Speaker 1: and image sprang to mind of the theme in Galaxy
Speaker 1: Quest and the reverence for the quote historical documents. Not
Speaker 1: sure if this falls under hyper religion or cargo cult
Speaker 1: or just an interesting crossover for both. Thank you for
Speaker 1: helping to keep my brain functioning during a nasty so
Speaker 1: Cow commute. I think Galaxy Quest is actually a really
Speaker 1: great point of comparison because in in the movie Galaxy Quest,
Speaker 1: we meet aliens who have seen old episodes of what's
Speaker 1: essentially Star Trek and they've interpreted it as true. Late
Speaker 1: great Ellen Rickman, yeah and so, and then they build
Speaker 1: this entire way of interacting with the world around the
Speaker 1: assumption that Star Trek is reality that's owns like cargo
Speaker 1: cult to me, Big time. Yeah, and it's interesting because
Speaker 1: instead of it being a technological cargo cold it it's
Speaker 1: it's like, um, an imagination cargo call. Yeah. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: We didn't have time to read this listener mail, but
Speaker 1: somebody else wrote into us to say that the scene
Speaker 1: at the beginning of Star Trek into Darkness is a
Speaker 1: really good example of cargo cults. They violate the prime
Speaker 1: directive and interact with this, like they let people see
Speaker 1: the starship Enterprise on this I don't want to say
Speaker 1: primitive planet, but it's like a planet that doesn't have
Speaker 1: that technology yet, and they like, isn't it implied that
Speaker 1: they like worship the Enterprise as a god? After that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a pre warp drive planet. They see they see
Speaker 1: a starship and they think it's a god. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the science fiction is full of great examples like that. Okay,
Speaker 1: this email comes to us from another person who listened
Speaker 1: to the Creepy Pasta two episode, the Jeff the Killer one,
Speaker 1: and to sort of, uh, you know, summarize that episode again,
Speaker 1: Like we looked at all the various supposed attributes of
Speaker 1: Jeff the Killer, one of which was the idea that
Speaker 1: he cut his own lids off, and we looked at
Speaker 1: the science of whether that was possible. And this listener writes,
Speaker 1: and hey, guys, I know I'm late to the game
Speaker 1: on this one, but I just heard the Creepy Pasta
Speaker 1: two episode. While listening to it, I immediately thought, this
Speaker 1: podcast applies to me. When you were talking about eyelid reconstruction.
Speaker 1: I was in a car wreck when I was when
Speaker 1: I was sixteen. I was in the passenger seat and
Speaker 1: the car flipped over and slid on its hood. My
Speaker 1: face went out the sunroof, and consequently I lost most
Speaker 1: of the skin on my forehead down to the skull
Speaker 1: and the skin on the left side of my face,
Speaker 1: more specifically my left cheek and eyebrow eye area. I
Speaker 1: was fortunate that I didn't lose my eye, but the
Speaker 1: initial skin grafts used to replace the missing skin twisted
Speaker 1: and pulled my eye open, so I couldn't close, especially
Speaker 1: when I was asleep. And this is exactly what we
Speaker 1: talked about in the episode. I had to put a
Speaker 1: greasy ointment in my eye to keep it from drying
Speaker 1: out for about a year until the scar tissue settled. Okay, Wow,
Speaker 1: we didn't read anything about that kind of stuff. What
Speaker 1: they ended up doing was taking the skin from behind
Speaker 1: my ears because it is the closest smiliarity to eyelids
Speaker 1: skin thickness and softness. I'm assuming he means for grafts,
Speaker 1: and I think we all just touched. Yeah, they used
Speaker 1: the skin from behind both ears from my upper and
Speaker 1: lower eyelids on my left eye. Fun story, I think
Speaker 1: he's being sarcastic. The hospital I went to for these
Speaker 1: procedures was about three hours from where I lived. When
Speaker 1: I got home from getting the stitches removed from behind
Speaker 1: my ear, I took my shirt off not carefully enough
Speaker 1: and ripped the incision behind my ear open and had
Speaker 1: to get back in the car and read back to
Speaker 1: the hospital to have my ear restitched. I ended up
Speaker 1: spending twelve hours in a car that day. I also
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting when you referenced the paper that
Speaker 1: said an odyssey. I'm pretty sure the procedure they used
Speaker 1: to replace the skin on my forehead was fairly experimental,
Speaker 1: as they had to rotate muscle from the top of
Speaker 1: my head to my forehead and then cut the skin
Speaker 1: graph so it kind of looked like a fishing net.
Speaker 1: This is fascinating and this is the kind of stuff
Speaker 1: you don't get out of the academic literature, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you only get the not even sometimes the surgical, but
Speaker 1: the standpoint. But then sometimes it's like one step removed
Speaker 1: from that sort of the academic view of the surgical
Speaker 1: procedure as opposed to the user experience. Uh. Just to
Speaker 1: follow up on that last fishnet thing, he said, the
Speaker 1: skin then grew together to be full, one full piece.
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine how that works. But that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: Plastic surgery, reconstructive surgery is just so amazing. Yeah, having
Speaker 1: seen like you know, what was done to my own
Speaker 1: song with his palette, right, it's just crazy to just
Speaker 1: like they went in there, they closed it and it
Speaker 1: became solid flash again. It's just it's it's a testament
Speaker 1: to not only a surgical ability, but just the healing
Speaker 1: ability and flexibility of biology. Uh. Less bit here he
Speaker 1: says this was just for functionality, not for looks. Of
Speaker 1: the course of five years, I had fifteen surgeries, six
Speaker 1: of which were skin expander projects to replace the scar
Speaker 1: tissue on my forehead and cheek with smooth, healthy skin.
Speaker 1: Not unless you're really paying attention, it looks like I'm
Speaker 1: missing an eyebrow and have a black eye. I wear
Speaker 1: glasses some most people don't notice. Happy ending. I have
Speaker 1: an identical twin brother, and now and then my family
Speaker 1: members will call me by the wrong name, which always
Speaker 1: makes me smile. It's awesome. Man. Wow, Well, thanks for
Speaker 1: sharing that story with us. His name is Jason. Thanks
Speaker 1: for sharing that. And yeah again, so like that amazing.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of thing I like to hear about
Speaker 1: because we do the research and we pull that all
Speaker 1: together and we try to extrapolate out of that. But
Speaker 1: like these real life experiences really, I think add another
Speaker 1: dimension to it. Hey, so we got a lot of
Speaker 1: listener feedback on our P versus n P episode, the
Speaker 1: one Robert and I did about algorithms, complexity theory and
Speaker 1: this great unsolved problem in computer science that would be
Speaker 1: sort of revolutionary. It's what Carney's glowing with right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. So we we don't know yet if he
Speaker 1: solved it, but I don't know. The fact that he's
Speaker 1: just like pooping out harps at an enormous rate does
Speaker 1: make me think he's entered the computing realm of the gods.
Speaker 1: They sound great at these harps. I mean they're perfectly
Speaker 1: tuned when they clung to the floor. Anyway, so we
Speaker 1: got quite a few pieces of feedback, and one of
Speaker 1: them that I thought we should start with was an
Speaker 1: email we got from Jim in New Jersey. Now, Jim
Speaker 1: is the listener out there who inspired us to do
Speaker 1: the episode. I've been emailing back and forth with him
Speaker 1: over a long time and he sent us some really smart,
Speaker 1: insightful emails that helped me figure out some ways to
Speaker 1: approach the topic on the show. So big thanks to him.
Speaker 1: But he contacted us after we did it. He said,
Speaker 1: great job on the P versus n P segment, especially
Speaker 1: without visuals. I wonder if we'll ever know the answer.
Speaker 1: What if it's one of Girdle's statements that cannot be proven.
Speaker 1: This is referencing Kurt Girdle, who we talked about in
Speaker 1: the episode with the idea of the incompleteness theorems, the
Speaker 1: idea that in a self consistent mathematical system, you can
Speaker 1: never know the answer to every question. Um. But anyway,
Speaker 1: Jim continues, you stated that P might not be m
Speaker 1: P for us mortals, but it could be for the gods.
Speaker 1: While that argument is completely hypothetical. I don't think that
Speaker 1: could be the case. If we were to have insistent
Speaker 1: logical models, then if it's the case for Man, it
Speaker 1: must be the case for the gods as well. However,
Speaker 1: the gods might have a nondeterministic machine that can solve
Speaker 1: problems in P time. Keep in mind that NP are
Speaker 1: still polynomial problems, but only a nondeterministic model. I could
Speaker 1: see a nondeterministic machine being the realm of the gods
Speaker 1: and not for Man. That Yeah, so he's saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, P versus MP is about logic. It's it's
Speaker 1: not something that could be different depending on what the
Speaker 1: you know, physical facts of the universe, where if it's
Speaker 1: true here or not true here, the same would hold
Speaker 1: true in whether it's the any other universe. I just
Speaker 1: want to throw in on the P versus MP thing,
Speaker 1: because you guys are too humble to pat yourselves on
Speaker 1: the back about this. But not only did we receive
Speaker 1: a ton of listener mail, uh some of which we're
Speaker 1: going to go through now about how great that episode was.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of messages that came to us
Speaker 1: through Facebook and Twitter saying how great that they thought
Speaker 1: you guys did at exactly what what he just mentions here,
Speaker 1: in particular without using visual reference explaining something like this,
Speaker 1: and that you tackled a computer science topic that most
Speaker 1: people would shy away from. So I'm giving you guys
Speaker 1: high fives. Yeah, well, we were a little nervous going
Speaker 1: into it, but uh yeah, yeah, well, I mean I
Speaker 1: think we have to be honest and say, neither Robert
Speaker 1: or I or you know, we're we're not big computer
Speaker 1: science and logic guys. So we were a little bit
Speaker 1: out of our depth, but we we get our best
Speaker 1: to make it, to understand it, and to make it
Speaker 1: understandable to you. And you know, I found that actually
Speaker 1: sometimes I can man an advantage that's been my experience
Speaker 1: in the past. It's like we're we're the we can
Speaker 1: be the ones that venture into the woods, uh, retrieve
Speaker 1: the mysteries and bring them back and explain them to
Speaker 1: to to everyone else. Well, yeah, we we don't have
Speaker 1: the This is actually a phrase that Jim used in
Speaker 1: his emails that that I was having with him. He
Speaker 1: talked about the curse of knowledge. We don't have the
Speaker 1: curse of knowledge on this issue, like, uh, knowing it
Speaker 1: with such depth and complexity of understanding that we lose
Speaker 1: the ability to give the gist of it. You ever
Speaker 1: have that problem where you know a topic so well
Speaker 1: you can't explain it in a simple way. This was
Speaker 1: actually one of the reasons when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: This is why my parents explained to me that my
Speaker 1: math teacher was so mean to us. Was that, like,
Speaker 1: she understood it so well that she didn't know how
Speaker 1: this was like fifth grade, but she she had the
Speaker 1: curse of knowledge. Yeah, and that she like was so
Speaker 1: frustrated trying to explain these simple mathematical things to us
Speaker 1: and that we didn't get it. I've heard that from
Speaker 1: an other disciplines before, Like people who are who find
Speaker 1: themselves given the opportunity to teach a thing that they
Speaker 1: are great at, and sometimes they just don't have the
Speaker 1: patients for it because it's like you know, breaking down
Speaker 1: the basics and the end of the introductory material. It's
Speaker 1: just ultimately difficult for somebody that's gone too far beyond. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If there's anything I learned from grad school, it's that
Speaker 1: there's a huge difference between an expert and something and
Speaker 1: somebody who's a great teacher and something. Oh yeah, sometimes
Speaker 1: they overlap. I don't mean that they're mutually exclusive, but
Speaker 1: oh no, this is true. This is true outside the
Speaker 1: sciences as well. This is true. And like writing and stuff,
Speaker 1: a lot of people you go to a writing program
Speaker 1: or something, you want to go where the famous, really
Speaker 1: good writer is that famous really good writer might not
Speaker 1: be a very good teacher. Yeah, and even like physical
Speaker 1: crafts as well. I've heard this with professional wrestlers. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think it is uh the wrestler Daniel Bryan who
Speaker 1: recently retired, and he is he's known for just being
Speaker 1: a real master of his craft. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of people think, oh, he should train. He can't. You know,
Speaker 1: he's not gonna be an active competitor anymore. He can
Speaker 1: teach people what he knows, but he's he's gone on
Speaker 1: record is saying no, I tried it. It's just not
Speaker 1: for me. I can't. I can't deal with the basics. Interesting,
Speaker 1: we can't all be Rocky Balboa and Creed. That's right.
Speaker 1: Who would have thought the curse of knowledge would apply
Speaker 1: to wrestling? Indeed, now I think Christian you should read
Speaker 1: another message and then maybe we'll get back to a
Speaker 1: few more P versus NP messages. So this one comes
Speaker 1: back to the episode the second only the second time
Speaker 1: that Joe and I have done an episode by ourselves
Speaker 1: without Robert. It was our episode about Wilhelm Reich and Uh.
Speaker 1: This guy says high hosts, I really enjoyed your Wilhelm
Speaker 1: Reich episode, which connected some historical dots that I was
Speaker 1: vaguely aware of but had not really seen together. I
Speaker 1: may a quote classically trained scientist with a PhD in
Speaker 1: quantitative ecology. Uh. And he says that that means lots
Speaker 1: of probability and statistics and a master's in a hydrology.
Speaker 1: But I also went to a far out hippie massage
Speaker 1: school prior to my graduate trade, and I'm an amateur
Speaker 1: herbalist and gardner. This guy sounds fascinating. So I feel
Speaker 1: like I've seen both sides of the science as dominant
Speaker 1: worldview divide. I feel like you show did a great
Speaker 1: job of exploring the myth and mythos that Reik's ideology
Speaker 1: is so revealent of being neither dismissive and condescending nor credulous,
Speaker 1: that middle ground seems especially difficult to mind in the
Speaker 1: modern era. I do have one comment, Slash critique that
Speaker 1: arose in my mind several times throughout the episode. I
Speaker 1: felt like you perhaps assigned an excess of rationality to
Speaker 1: the status quo of the era. Both in the legal
Speaker 1: judicial system and in the medical field. Both are fields
Speaker 1: where systematic discrimination, profiteering, and all around human venality have
Speaker 1: historically been a rule rather than an exception, from the
Speaker 1: Dreadscott Decision to early twentieth century eugenics movements to McCarthy
Speaker 1: is m the U. S Government has not exactly been
Speaker 1: a paragon of fairness and equality. Likewise, with the medical profession.
Speaker 1: In the past twenty years alone, many clear ethical breaches
Speaker 1: have been driven by profit, and countless more ambiguous cases
Speaker 1: of shoddy science and possible conflicts of interest exist. I
Speaker 1: find this all so interesting because it's exactly what allows
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories to take root and flourish. From using prozac
Speaker 1: and children to full hysterectomyse the medical field is littered
Speaker 1: with cases of expensive and invasive interventions being used long
Speaker 1: before any evidence of the efficacy has been shown. So
Speaker 1: when someone claims that all of modern science is flawed,
Speaker 1: there's an emotionally appealing argument to be made. In many cases,
Speaker 1: older models of treatment such as relaxation, including things like prayer, yoga, etcetera. Massage,
Speaker 1: and herbs are quote as good and less harmful than
Speaker 1: modern medical treatments for which limited scientific evidence of efficacy exists.
Speaker 1: One interesting example is cancer, which you discussed at some length.
Speaker 1: Only recently has quality of life emerged as a valuable metric.
Speaker 1: Prolonging life has been the historical target, so that an
Speaker 1: aggressive treatment that had some chance of extending a patient's
Speaker 1: life by months would be common, even if the quality
Speaker 1: of those extra months was low. Increasingly, doctors are having
Speaker 1: conversations with patients to ask their wishes and desired outcomes,
Speaker 1: which I suppose is something we can all agree is
Speaker 1: a good thing from a different perspective, pat It's absolutely
Speaker 1: drive drug development, as indicated by the Great S s
Speaker 1: r I Medical ghostwriting program in the face of prozacs
Speaker 1: patent expiration. That's something that would be great to talk
Speaker 1: about actually on the show. This in turn means that
Speaker 1: unpatentable drugs receive much less scientific scrutiny solely due to funding.
Speaker 1: So the fact that traditional herbs are rarely studied by
Speaker 1: modern medicine is a no brainer. Natural products are difficult
Speaker 1: or impossible to patent. There's a logical jump from Big
Speaker 1: Pharma's greedy bag of beep demonstrably true to big Pharma
Speaker 1: is suppressing the cure to cancer, which is unlikely. Still,
Speaker 1: it's not hard to see how some middle ground is
Speaker 1: plausibly true, buying up competitors or even generics in the
Speaker 1: interest of profit rather than health, for example. There's more
Speaker 1: to this, but I just want to pause and interject here.
Speaker 1: Uh So, one thing that we've covered on the show
Speaker 1: before that's very connected to what he's talking about here
Speaker 1: is m d m A and its use in both
Speaker 1: cancer studies and uh in treating PTSD. And I just
Speaker 1: did a write up on it for how stuff works now.
Speaker 1: Because the group MAPS that has been working on studying
Speaker 1: therapeutic applications of m d m A for PTSD, that's
Speaker 1: a bunch of acronyms for you. Uh They just said
Speaker 1: that they're about five years out from it being legal
Speaker 1: for therapeutic application. And that's one of the problems with
Speaker 1: that too, is that m d m A doesn't have
Speaker 1: I guess a patent applied to it and or at
Speaker 1: least as expired, and so so there's not a huge
Speaker 1: amount of money behind exactly. The argument goes that that's
Speaker 1: why pharmaceutical companies aren't making a great effort to do
Speaker 1: similar studies. So you've got a group like Maps, which
Speaker 1: is a nonprofit that's raising millions of dollars through donations
Speaker 1: to do this kind of study. Um, you know, speaking
Speaker 1: of M D M A, I wanted to throw out
Speaker 1: a quick reference to a quote from Alexander Shulgun that
Speaker 1: I ran across instantly, and that was that he was
Speaker 1: arguing that you could essentially find M D M A
Speaker 1: in the Pyramids. I mean, you will not find it
Speaker 1: in the pyramids. Let's say the ancient Egyptians had it.
Speaker 1: He apparently said that if you found it in the pyramids,
Speaker 1: it would still be usable, Like it would really that
Speaker 1: kind of like long term story. Yeah, we didn't talk
Speaker 1: about that, like the longevity of Yeah, well Shulgun is fascinating.
Speaker 1: Uh So there's two more paragraphs. No, it's okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna keep reading it just because this guy
Speaker 1: Christians stuff. It's not me, his name is also Christian.
Speaker 1: It's just really like good, Yeah, like there's a lot
Speaker 1: to respond. He needs to start his own podcast. This
Speaker 1: is pretty pretty good stuff, all right, he says, All
Speaker 1: of which is to say that it's not hard to
Speaker 1: see of the nineteen forties establishment railroaded this particular quack
Speaker 1: he's talking about William right here, and how even the
Speaker 1: quackiest quacks have plenty of good ideas, and the most
Speaker 1: well meaning establishment players like judges or doctors will embrace
Speaker 1: whatever hocum is in vogue. Uh. And the great challenge
Speaker 1: is teasing out the truth from wishful thinking like reich mass,
Speaker 1: hysteria or greed. To do this requires basic research and
Speaker 1: a wrong educational system, which in turn requires government funding,
Speaker 1: which in turn has shrunk. So, just like infrastructure, research
Speaker 1: and education have the potential to greatly increase human well being,
Speaker 1: and they're expensive and often poorly supported by prevailing businesses
Speaker 1: and political interests. In that case, today is not so
Speaker 1: unlike Right's time. Thanks again for the intriguing history lesson
Speaker 1: Christian And this was a really great email full of
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting ideas. A lot of it I
Speaker 1: think I can agree with here, Like I like the
Speaker 1: new nuance and what he's talking about saying that, um,
Speaker 1: he it's easy for people to have conspiracy theories against
Speaker 1: say the scientific establishment, and say like, oh, they're trying
Speaker 1: to shut you down, um, because the scientific establishment is fallible.
Speaker 1: Even if I would like, what I would say is that, Um,
Speaker 1: there's sort of an equivocation issue on the word science
Speaker 1: between how people use the word science, Like there's one
Speaker 1: definition where you'd say it's basically a method it or
Speaker 1: a process like uh, you know, I, I replied to Christian,
Speaker 1: and I tried to define it like a systematic cognitive
Speaker 1: toolbox for removing error and bias from observations and forming
Speaker 1: predictive theory. And in that meaning it's kind of unassailable, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, science is pretty unambiguously a good thing. But
Speaker 1: then there's also science. As you know, when the lay
Speaker 1: person says science, they're often talking about some vaguely uh
Speaker 1: vaguely imagined group of people who are in white lab
Speaker 1: coats doing things. And of course those people are people
Speaker 1: are people like any other people, and they might be
Speaker 1: doing really good work, or they might have selfish motives
Speaker 1: or whatever. It kind of gets to Cary exactly. That's
Speaker 1: where it's going with the idea that the sort of
Speaker 1: I love science, bumper sticker level of scientific understanding exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that we talk about that in the Cargo. Cold science
Speaker 1: is just this force that makes things better at it
Speaker 1: and is treated in a lot of ways by some
Speaker 1: people like an infallible religion. Just one other thing that
Speaker 1: I wanted to say about Christians message in particular. You know,
Speaker 1: his his comment critique was about how we were we
Speaker 1: were maybe too nice to the legal judicial system in
Speaker 1: the medical field at the time, and I certainly didn't
Speaker 1: mean to come across that way, no, And well, if
Speaker 1: we were being careful. It's funny because this is another
Speaker 1: example of an episode where we received listener mail on
Speaker 1: two sides of it, right. Oh yeah, we we got
Speaker 1: some rich Ian's writing in we did not happy. They
Speaker 1: thought that we were completely unfair, yeah, and that we
Speaker 1: hadn't done our research and that we were totally unfair
Speaker 1: to Reich and that we were rude about it. So
Speaker 1: it's again, this is another one of those moments where
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, you know, and I'm seeing these
Speaker 1: two different types of messages come in that that makes
Speaker 1: me think like, maybe we did something right sides, then
Speaker 1: you must have hit the right Not that I would
Speaker 1: say that Christians seems piste off, He's he's got a
Speaker 1: very rational kind of critique. But I think that I
Speaker 1: thought that we were probably being careful during that just
Speaker 1: so that we could give Reich like as fair shake
Speaker 1: as possible. Well, I mean, you don't have to buy
Speaker 1: into Ricky and pseudoscience to say that, you know, he
Speaker 1: was probably still mistreated by the government. It is very
Speaker 1: possible for existing authorities to to unfairly prosecute someone who
Speaker 1: is in fact a quack. And I think that's what
Speaker 1: Christians outlining here is like all the ways that that
Speaker 1: that could be possible and still is possible. Okay, it
Speaker 1: looks like Carney has has another P versus MP listener
Speaker 1: to mail for you to read here, Joe, Oh wow,
Speaker 1: and look at this glitter is just dangling right, It's
Speaker 1: going everywhere heavenly glitter. Okay, uh so this is P
Speaker 1: versus MP and it's from our listener, Rowan. So Rowan
Speaker 1: Wright said, Hey, I'm Rowan, longtime listener, first time comment
Speaker 1: or love the show, YadA YadA. Anyway, I was listening
Speaker 1: to your P versus n P episode and as a
Speaker 1: biologist starting to dip their toes into computer science, I
Speaker 1: was fascinated. So it sounds like you are right in
Speaker 1: the bull's eye of this episode, Rowan. But anyway, Rowan says,
Speaker 1: you guys broke it down in a way that made
Speaker 1: it more accessible than all the cops ie resources I've
Speaker 1: checked out and appreciated how you got into the implications
Speaker 1: without getting bogged down into the mats. Well, thank you, Rohan.
Speaker 1: That's very encouraging to hear. Anyway, Rowan goes on, as
Speaker 1: for the question of whether natural selection is a brute
Speaker 1: force algorithm, I vote no Rowan's and so this is
Speaker 1: great because he's got experience with both biology and computer science.
Speaker 1: So Rowan says, I'm going to use the peppered moth
Speaker 1: evolution during the Industrial Revolution as an example. The peppered
Speaker 1: moth always had these random light and dark variants which
Speaker 1: would have arisen thanks to random mutation, like a brute
Speaker 1: force algorithm. But when the Industrial Revolution came around and
Speaker 1: everything got covered in gross soot, the ratio shifted drastically
Speaker 1: towards more black moths because they blended in better. They
Speaker 1: didn't need to wait for baby moths to get random
Speaker 1: mutations for better camouflage. Because there was a huge environmental
Speaker 1: pressure killing off the white moths. If we want to
Speaker 1: stick the comps ie analogies, the white moths subroutine gets
Speaker 1: shut off early before it goes through every possible variation
Speaker 1: on white moths. You could think of natural selection within
Speaker 1: an individual as a brute force algorithm, but when you
Speaker 1: zoom out to the population level, it's definitely more sophisticated.
Speaker 1: That's my take on it. Anyway, side note, uh oh.
Speaker 1: He also asked that we put our email some more
Speaker 1: more prominent on the site for people who don't like
Speaker 1: to go to social media networks. Look, the site is
Speaker 1: supposedly going to get redesigned in the next couple of months,
Speaker 1: so we'll see. Yeah, yeah, we can definitely throw that out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you if you've been to Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: mind in the past, if you're a regular visitor, then
Speaker 1: get excited because facelift is on the way. But we
Speaker 1: also try to throw it out at the top and
Speaker 1: the end of every episode. And and if you're listening
Speaker 1: right now, I wondering what it is, it's blow the
Speaker 1: mind at how stuff works dot com. Yeah, so thanks
Speaker 1: a lot for that email, row, and I think that's
Speaker 1: an interesting way to think about it. So that we
Speaker 1: were essentially asking you know, whether evolution is in any
Speaker 1: way optimized or whether it's just force and and this
Speaker 1: makes sense, it's sort of optimized by the number you
Speaker 1: know that that their natural variations occurring already. Yeah. One
Speaker 1: of the things that I really like about getting listener
Speaker 1: mail like this is that kind of example, the moths
Speaker 1: and the soot and the environmental qualities of it. That's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that even for us, like when
Speaker 1: we're digging through research constantly to try to find something
Speaker 1: to talk about, are likely to is likely to get missed, right,
Speaker 1: But it's fascinating. And it's also one of those things
Speaker 1: that you won't see in a lot of like pop
Speaker 1: si uh like magazines or feeds or whatever, because it
Speaker 1: doesn't have like a sexy headline, right, like soit covered
Speaker 1: moths evolve blah blah blah, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like like that it's old news. It's not something that
Speaker 1: exactly but that is like a really important thing to
Speaker 1: learn from and one of the reasons why I love
Speaker 1: doing this show. Yeah. All right, here's another little bit
Speaker 1: on P versus MP, and this one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Jonathan. Jonathan. It's a great job on making a
Speaker 1: difficult topic understandable taking the issue in a specifically human context.
Speaker 1: Are you open minded enough for a thought experiment? Are we?
Speaker 1: How about if we postulate the existence of a different
Speaker 1: form of human intelligence, not digital, we can call intuition.
Speaker 1: In this thought experiment, we style intuition is operating only conditionally,
Speaker 1: the specific conditions irrelevant for this purpose. With intuition, it's
Speaker 1: possible to solve a problem directly without the need to
Speaker 1: test a number of alternatives. This type of cognition is
Speaker 1: it is not repeatable using our standard scientific method, but
Speaker 1: it is experienced by many people at different times, and
Speaker 1: apparently has been throughout history. For a possible example, let's
Speaker 1: again for the sake of thought experiment, consider the development
Speaker 1: of folklore medicine. Willow bark was used by some Native
Speaker 1: American people as an analgesic and have been proven to
Speaker 1: contain salosilic acid, the main ingredient in aspirant. For ancient
Speaker 1: people to experiment with dozens, perhaps hundreds of plant remedies
Speaker 1: would not only have been time wasting, but extremely dangerous.
Speaker 1: In this thought experiment, p equals in p under certain
Speaker 1: conditions only and only within the context of human intelligence.
Speaker 1: For the podcasts keep up the great work. Well, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I don't tend to ascribe intuition any
Speaker 1: any spooky significance like that, but that is an interesting
Speaker 1: sort of counterfactual to think about. Now. I would tend
Speaker 1: to think that P equals in P or it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Right that there there there can't be conditions where it
Speaker 1: does and conditions where it doesn't. Either that's the universe
Speaker 1: we live in or it's not. It's sort of like saying, uh,
Speaker 1: the law of non contradiction exists in some conditions but
Speaker 1: not in others. It's kind of seems like if A
Speaker 1: cannot equal not A, then there can't be conditions where
Speaker 1: that's not the case. But I don't know. I like
Speaker 1: this discussion of intuition in all of this because I
Speaker 1: seem to remember that Ian M. Banks incorporates this a
Speaker 1: little bit into one of the early Culture novels that
Speaker 1: the the all powerful computer aies that run the culture.
Speaker 1: They keep humans around, of course because they're benevolent and
Speaker 1: they take care of the humans, but behind the humans
Speaker 1: are sometimes involved in operations because humans get bored and
Speaker 1: one adventures, but also because humans bring something unique to
Speaker 1: the problem solving scenario sometimes. Yeah, well, I mean that
Speaker 1: sort of gets into one of the examples we talked
Speaker 1: about in the P versus NP episode is you know,
Speaker 1: one of the people writing on this subject, I believe
Speaker 1: it was Scott Aaronson said, you know, if we live
Speaker 1: in a P equals MP universe, then there's nothing all
Speaker 1: that special about being able to compose the most beautiful
Speaker 1: symphony on earth. Really that anybody should have the toolbox
Speaker 1: to do that equally um, And so I think that's
Speaker 1: an interesting way of looking at it. Like all of
Speaker 1: the problem solving tasks, all of the mental algorithms that
Speaker 1: are the most interesting and the most impressive to us,
Speaker 1: tend to be mysterious. It's difficult to see how one
Speaker 1: got from one end to the other, you know, So
Speaker 1: when you see somebody have a really novel solution to something,
Speaker 1: it's often kind of mysterious where that solution came from. Wait, well,
Speaker 1: I hope I hate to interrupt you, Joe, but Carney
Speaker 1: is coming at us again, and he has one last
Speaker 1: piece of listener mail there for us. Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: read this one. Uh, and it this is right up
Speaker 1: our alley. It's from Daniel, and he says, hey, there,
Speaker 1: I have a kind of interesting use for wicked problems
Speaker 1: that might not make it on the show, but you
Speaker 1: might just find it interesting. Oh, Daniel, it's gonna make
Speaker 1: it on the show alright. I've run tabletop role playing
Speaker 1: games with my friends, like Dungeons and Dragons, where I
Speaker 1: have to create a story with some kind of theme
Speaker 1: and objective to overcome. I tend to start with a
Speaker 1: simple problem that has some kind of emotional component, like quote,
Speaker 1: your king is corrupt. But then I add a layer
Speaker 1: of difficulty to prevent the players from approaching it traditionally
Speaker 1: via a wicked problem. Let's say, in the same scenario,
Speaker 1: every other person that would take over for the king
Speaker 1: if he were to be killed or removed from power
Speaker 1: is just as corrupt. This way, my players have to
Speaker 1: think very dynamically about how to approach corruption in government,
Speaker 1: rather than something simple and emotionless like go get rid
Speaker 1: of that guy. This is a great example, and I
Speaker 1: must say, if I understand the concept of a wicked
Speaker 1: problem correctly, I think the classic way of of creating
Speaker 1: a wicked problem here would be to have the notion
Speaker 1: that absolute power corrupts. So what if you have a
Speaker 1: corrupt king, but putting somebody else into that role necessarily
Speaker 1: corrupts them. Yeah. Yeah, I think like the people who
Speaker 1: have defined wicked, wicked problem, wicked problems, wicked problems over
Speaker 1: the years would agree. Yeah that, Uh. I think it's
Speaker 1: just sort of like that politics would be a wicked problem, right,
Speaker 1: The power is a wicked problem. And I do think
Speaker 1: that the role playing is role playing games it's a
Speaker 1: great place to explore these because man, yeah, more more
Speaker 1: government officials should be playing DD to hash out issues,
Speaker 1: right yeah, because you can. Because in a role playing game,
Speaker 1: you can do the straight up combat, you can do
Speaker 1: the you know some some just sort of basic mystery solving,
Speaker 1: and that's that's great, be tons of fun. It is
Speaker 1: cool when you can put that little, uh, a little
Speaker 1: shift on the situation where the players really don't know
Speaker 1: what the right decision is, if there's absolutely actually actually
Speaker 1: no right decision. To me, yeah, I totally agree. And
Speaker 1: Daniel sounds like the exact kind of d M that
Speaker 1: I would want to play with. So so the reason
Speaker 1: why we we got really excited about this is yet
Speaker 1: we're all gaming nerds here. Uh, we love dn d
Speaker 1: Robert runs a D and D game I have in
Speaker 1: the past. I love playing him, and man, it sounds
Speaker 1: like he would be great to play with. Now here's
Speaker 1: a question, what do you think is the highest level
Speaker 1: of government ever achieved by a D n D player?
Speaker 1: That's a great Have we ever had a president who
Speaker 1: has played? You know? I want to say, Uh, there's
Speaker 1: a guy in Japan that I've read about who's a
Speaker 1: politician that is definitely a gamer. I don't know if
Speaker 1: he's in particular D and D guy, but he's in
Speaker 1: the tabletop role playing. Yeah. But I don't know if
Speaker 1: anybody out there knows the answer to this. Our first
Speaker 1: DND play President President, teach your president social media accounts
Speaker 1: for uh? For the President United States? At that point,
Speaker 1: who is Mary? Maybe Barry Obama is like secretly like
Speaker 1: a crazy D and D player, Like every every Sunday
Speaker 1: afternoon they're rolling up and playing games. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: bet he's annoying to play with. He always plays a
Speaker 1: lawful good cleric. Right, that's the thing. Right, they'd all
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I'm lawful good. They'd all roll up
Speaker 1: lawful good characters. Maybe not Bernie Sanders Man. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: we would, Hey, I would love to hear listeners this
Speaker 1: year right in and let us know what what each
Speaker 1: of the candidates would be in terms of their their alignment,
Speaker 1: their species, and their role and their their character class
Speaker 1: within a dungeon and dragon's environment. Now, of course we
Speaker 1: know that we're going to get both sides of this too. Now,
Speaker 1: everybody is gonna think since we mentioned presidential candidates. Hopefully,
Speaker 1: I don't think we made any judgments here, but people
Speaker 1: are gonna say, oh, you trashed mine. I said, They're
Speaker 1: made judgments on all of them. I'm pretty sure Bernie
Speaker 1: would be a gnome that's my god, like David the gnome. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: like like maybe a deep gnome. Oh, I don't know what. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: those those guys, they're great. We'll educate you on for
Speaker 1: Nipplin after the after the recording, Joe, all right, well,
Speaker 1: there you have it. Another listener Maile episode in the books,
Speaker 1: um As, as we've said before, we didn't have time
Speaker 1: to get to everything. We just tried to focus in
Speaker 1: on some of the great correspondence that you guys and
Speaker 1: gals have been sending in and we would allow to
Speaker 1: read more of in the future. Yeah, and so you
Speaker 1: know we We obviously brought up a lot of ideas
Speaker 1: here where we asked you for even more listener mail.
Speaker 1: Keep it coming, Yeah, we love it and the best
Speaker 1: way is to hit us up Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler and
Speaker 1: the old fashioned way guys blow the mind at House
Speaker 1: to court stuff For more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com five