Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
Speaker 1: we were surrounded by symbols, like even right now, care
Speaker 1: are symbols in our midst, on the recording equipment, on
Speaker 1: on our shirt center clothing. We're not yours symbol cree
Speaker 1: is about design. Well, I'm wearing black and you could
Speaker 1: say that, Um, I'm sort of trying to communicate some
Speaker 1: sort of message here. Yes, some absence of symbols, but
Speaker 1: that's in itself is kind of a symbol exactly. You know,
Speaker 1: I embraced the void and that's what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: tell people with this. You have your Boards of Canada
Speaker 1: shirt on, yeah, which kind of has a logo symbol
Speaker 1: thing going on for sure, And just going through a
Speaker 1: daily life, just think of how many symbols we encounter,
Speaker 1: I mean, corporate logos, um, religious iconography, basic like male bathroom,
Speaker 1: female bathroom, no parking, wheelchair accessible. I mean, the symbols
Speaker 1: just completely crowd our world. And even though we don't
Speaker 1: think about it, those symbols are constantly communicating with us,
Speaker 1: our brain is in sync with all of them and uh.
Speaker 1: And so in this episode, we'd like to really step
Speaker 1: back and think about symbols, about what they are, how
Speaker 1: they work, how our brain interfaces with them, and uh
Speaker 1: and and really to what extent they control us? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we're essentially talking about the conceptual life of a
Speaker 1: stand in for something else. It's how we make meaning
Speaker 1: of our world. So even something as simple as say
Speaker 1: me working on my computer and seeing a spinning rainbow
Speaker 1: that looks like a mint, uh, this means something to me.
Speaker 1: It means that I'm now in the dull droom dull
Speaker 1: drooms of uncertainty here, and I'm going to get frustrated
Speaker 1: pretty soon because an application isn't working. Right, of course,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the mac um hick No wheel of doom. Well,
Speaker 1: the wheel as a symbol of endless cycle and of frustration.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's all I mean. The Buddhist smol of
Speaker 1: the wheel is about, uh, you know, being being trapped
Speaker 1: in a cycle that won't end. And so so the
Speaker 1: frustration on the wheel, even that is an old symbol
Speaker 1: that takes on new meaning and our technological age, right,
Speaker 1: that's that's really powerful. Right that this thing can communicate
Speaker 1: this test um. So signs, as you say, they can
Speaker 1: take all sorts of forms that can take or excuse me,
Speaker 1: symbols can take all sorts of forms like signs, uh, words, letters, odors,
Speaker 1: even flavors. All these things are a stand in for
Speaker 1: some sort of experience or some sort of idea, and
Speaker 1: they have no meaning unless we invest them with meaning
Speaker 1: and they have context. In fact, some Otians generally say
Speaker 1: that there are no pure icons. So you mentioned the
Speaker 1: bathroom icons of the male and the female, the stick
Speaker 1: figures one is wearing a skirt, one is not. But
Speaker 1: if you are coming from a culture where say that
Speaker 1: the men wear skirts or some sort of clothing mean
Speaker 1: like a kilted culture, like I'm not so much Scotland
Speaker 1: because I feel like they're they're in the now in
Speaker 1: the West. About what those sort of icons mean. But
Speaker 1: maybe let's say, uh, you were in an undiscovered tribe
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, for some reason, you
Speaker 1: were discovered and ferried into a um area where there
Speaker 1: was a Western bathroom. Well, there's a lot that's gonna
Speaker 1: there's gonna be so much that you're trying to take
Speaker 1: in there. But those symbols aren't necessarily going to mean
Speaker 1: something to you, particularly if the males wear a clothing
Speaker 1: item that resemble a skirt, right, I mean, clearly that's
Speaker 1: a person on that sign that one sign. Is it
Speaker 1: a male? Is it female? I don't know. It must
Speaker 1: mean humans go in here or this is where humans
Speaker 1: come from. And then likewise there's another sort of mouth
Speaker 1: shaped human. Yeah, and what is that supposed to mean?
Speaker 1: Is it a human? Is it a monster of some
Speaker 1: kind hybrid form? Yeah? And what is what is this
Speaker 1: plumbing thing? This this machine I'm supposed to poop in? Yeah,
Speaker 1: with the clean water, the drinking water in it, exactly.
Speaker 1: So Yeah, there are a lot of different issues there,
Speaker 1: but yeah, all these things are stand ins for experience.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to bring up the Marble Man because
Speaker 1: I feel like in the West, particularly during a certain
Speaker 1: historical era, the marble Man was big. I mean, he
Speaker 1: was like the symbol of rugged individualism reality. Um, just
Speaker 1: like the male dominance. Yeah, he was, he was, he
Speaker 1: was virile, he was, he was macho. He's a cowboy,
Speaker 1: he's smoking, he's not Karen, He's he's he's everything he
Speaker 1: would want to be. He's living off the land, and
Speaker 1: of course now we see that and we think a
Speaker 1: little bit more like a black and lung. It doesn't
Speaker 1: quite have the same power that it used to. So
Speaker 1: the symbol all the Marlboro Man has has kind of shifted,
Speaker 1: at least for my interpretation, I think for a lot
Speaker 1: of people's interpretation, based on the shift in our culture
Speaker 1: right now. I don't think that's a surprise to say
Speaker 1: that symbols are not static and that they change because
Speaker 1: our language changes all of the time. It has to
Speaker 1: be fluid, um. It has to in order to you
Speaker 1: deliver those memes that we talked about, right these ideas
Speaker 1: that rise to the surface and carry the symbol with
Speaker 1: them to the greater culture out there. Yeah. Another big
Speaker 1: example of a symbol that's meaning has changed is the swastika.
Speaker 1: Swastikas of course is a very old image, and there
Speaker 1: are various forms of the swastika, you know, and kind
Speaker 1: of the there's of course the more modern um German
Speaker 1: swastika that was used during the Second World War by
Speaker 1: the Nazis that you have you have Hindu swastick as,
Speaker 1: you have Buddhi swastikas. Uh. The dates back all the
Speaker 1: way to the Indus Valley civilization and the if you
Speaker 1: look back at Zoroastrian religion of Persia, uh, the swastick
Speaker 1: was more symbol of a revolving son of Infinity, of
Speaker 1: continuing creation. And if you weren't exposed to the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: the swastika might still inspire that in your mind, because
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the basic form of the thing, the
Speaker 1: motif of the thing. There's a sense of of cycle
Speaker 1: to it us and in a very sunlike imagery in it.
Speaker 1: But we come into it with our knowledge of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century, with our knowledge of the Natzi, these of
Speaker 1: all the transpired during the Second World War and the Holocaust,
Speaker 1: and so all of that gets factored into the image.
Speaker 1: So an image that for the longest time just stood
Speaker 1: for basic basically very positive ideas and powerful ideas becomes
Speaker 1: this dark image of hatred. All right, it was appropriated
Speaker 1: and it's now what is the stand in for what
Speaker 1: it formerly was. So again this idea that it can change,
Speaker 1: that it's fluid. And this made me think of the
Speaker 1: Pioneer plaque, because this this is a great example of
Speaker 1: not just um the changing ideas we have of what
Speaker 1: the human species is or should be represented, but also
Speaker 1: a great example of how powerful symbols are, because how
Speaker 1: do you try to um to communicate with the universe.
Speaker 1: You try to boil down the Earth and the human
Speaker 1: experience with a couple of symbols, which is exactly what
Speaker 1: happened when the Pioneer was put on the Pioneer probe
Speaker 1: that was launched in nineteen seventy two. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: the idea here was, let's sum up who we are
Speaker 1: where we are in an attempt to possibly communicate with
Speaker 1: an extraterrestrial species, or at the very least to serve
Speaker 1: as kind of a time capsule. To say, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, uh, the humans, the human race as a
Speaker 1: pair of lovers carving their name into a tree. That's
Speaker 1: kind of yea. And ultimately that's kind of how Sagan
Speaker 1: solid too. The more of a time capsule and less
Speaker 1: of an actual communication. But still it was created in
Speaker 1: the name of communicating with another species. Yeah, and we're
Speaker 1: talking about simple line drawings that are engraved in this plaque.
Speaker 1: So it has diagrams of the Earth's location and drawings
Speaker 1: of a nude man and a nude woman. Now very
Speaker 1: simple and straightforward, right, But If you look at this
Speaker 1: a little bit closer, you notice that the man has
Speaker 1: his hand up as if he's waving, or as if
Speaker 1: he has a question there's something he doesn't understand, yeah,
Speaker 1: or if he's just checking the wind direction yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: or he's uh, he's he's he's hailing a cab, or
Speaker 1: he's stretching, or he's stretching yeah, or he's got some
Speaker 1: sort of like a weird limb thing where his arm
Speaker 1: just rises. Oh, alien hands syndrome. Yeah. Yeah. So he's
Speaker 1: got his hand up and the female does not. And
Speaker 1: if you look at this, you can start to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can infer here that this man, he is this
Speaker 1: signifier the form that an idea takes, and what is
Speaker 1: being signified is the concept. So the concept here is
Speaker 1: that the man is the representative for the human species,
Speaker 1: that he is the person who is trying to communicate.
Speaker 1: And if you really really start to look at this closely,
Speaker 1: then you from the perspective of humans, of course, because
Speaker 1: we can occupy no other perspective, you begin to understand
Speaker 1: that there is a hierarchy involved here, even though we're
Speaker 1: talking about very simple line drawings. Now, is this representative
Speaker 1: of the culture right now because we were close now
Speaker 1: like we did back then. Well, there might be a
Speaker 1: different kind of plaque that is sent out to try
Speaker 1: to communicate what we are who we are. I think
Speaker 1: maybe the male and female would be a little more
Speaker 1: equal in that now. Of course, the plaque involves some
Speaker 1: other stuff to it. It showed the hyperfine transition of
Speaker 1: neutral hydrogen. It showed a relative position of the Sun
Speaker 1: to the center of the galaxy, and fourteen pulsars solar
Speaker 1: systems spacecraft. You know. But but certainly the depictions of
Speaker 1: us are central there. And uh, and there are a
Speaker 1: number of criticisms to make. Obviously they're they're the the
Speaker 1: cultural implications of the whole raising of the hand? What
Speaker 1: does that mean? But would but would another culture understand that?
Speaker 1: Would then would extraterrestrials who don't have arms, who say,
Speaker 1: have tentacles instead, What would they make of this? Would they?
Speaker 1: Would they understand the hand signified, or even if they
Speaker 1: had hands, perhaps in their culture it's more of a
Speaker 1: they might say, Oh, well, look, the man is clearly
Speaker 1: the subservient of these two because he has to rush
Speaker 1: forward and eat the food that the other creature is
Speaker 1: going to eat later. You know, they might have some
Speaker 1: sort of weird connotation that totally excuse it. Well, of course,
Speaker 1: and that's where the context is everything, right, Like what
Speaker 1: if raising your hand to another culture is the extent
Speaker 1: is the equivalent of putting up the middle finger, Like
Speaker 1: imagine the Pioneer plaque if he was if he was
Speaker 1: flipping off the other other species. I mean, then you
Speaker 1: can also into things like, for the error, arrows are
Speaker 1: used on that on that plaque, and would the arrow
Speaker 1: as a symbol makes sense to a species that never
Speaker 1: used a bow and arrow, never used a javelin, they
Speaker 1: didn't have some sort of hunter gatherer ancestry, or as
Speaker 1: we were talking about earlier, you you said should we
Speaker 1: should they have had a child on there? And that
Speaker 1: made me think of the fossil record where we were
Speaker 1: always running into these situations when we're looking at dinosaur bones,
Speaker 1: where we say, now, is this a different creature or
Speaker 1: is this the female of the species? Is this a
Speaker 1: is this merely an infant of the species. So you
Speaker 1: can imagine a situation where they might look and not
Speaker 1: realize that they're dealing with two with two genders, because
Speaker 1: what if the what if the aliens looking as blaque
Speaker 1: did not have genders. What if they had five genders?
Speaker 1: You know what, what would they make of this? How
Speaker 1: would they interpret it? Right? So, I mean it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to try to to make something that would
Speaker 1: really make sense unless you have an understanding of how
Speaker 1: another culture or civilization or species would conceive of it.
Speaker 1: So uh, but still it's a really it's a really
Speaker 1: fine attempt to boil down a lot of information into
Speaker 1: a very concise package. And that's ultimately what's so amazing symbols. Well,
Speaker 1: but I also think that the Pioneer plaque is largely
Speaker 1: for us as humans. Is the excitement of saying, guess what,
Speaker 1: we're humans, We're we're cool. Here's our name written on
Speaker 1: the on the tree. Here's our coordinates, right, here's some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that's in our atmosphere. But yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what I love about symbols is that a symbol can
Speaker 1: be something very simple, like the at symbol or the
Speaker 1: proposed the symbol, which looks like a ten an h
Speaker 1: that where all you have is okay, you have some
Speaker 1: letters that are symbols, and those symbols make a word
Speaker 1: that is a symbol for something and then we have
Speaker 1: a slightly smaller, more concise symbol just to represent that
Speaker 1: word or that or in that concept. But then you
Speaker 1: have again things like the swastika, things like the Marlboro man,
Speaker 1: things like the Pioneer plaque, where the symbol instantly conveys
Speaker 1: a lot of data. And if you had to to
Speaker 1: describe even to even to to like in modern terms,
Speaker 1: what a swastika means, what a crucifix means, what a
Speaker 1: Marlboro Man means, you're talking like a whole essay. You
Speaker 1: have to sit there and write it out. You have
Speaker 1: to sit there and and use a verbal language to
Speaker 1: describe it for you know, five minutes or so. Whereas
Speaker 1: the symbol instantly, that's right, because you get it coded
Speaker 1: in your brain and then you just bring it up
Speaker 1: and up again. We'll talk about that a little bit
Speaker 1: more when we talk about how our brain works on symbols.
Speaker 1: Side note, Do we really need a symbol for the
Speaker 1: that's th h? I mean, are we that lazy? We
Speaker 1: just I mean it's one letter, well, just the It
Speaker 1: would make tweets easier and texting easier. But but there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people that argue that it is
Speaker 1: unnecessary but but you're losing one letter. That's that's it.
Speaker 1: We'll see, I mean, and we can really go we
Speaker 1: could go ahead and just reduce it to thh to
Speaker 1: cut out one letter, or just reduce it to duh
Speaker 1: d A. Okay, I have an idea about that, but
Speaker 1: I want to save it until we talk about the brain. Okay, okay, alright,
Speaker 1: So to make this case, we also wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about Neanderthals and crows because they figure into this symbolic
Speaker 1: representation as well. Yes, so Neanderthals of course, um our
Speaker 1: hominid brethren who are no longer with us people before people.
Speaker 1: We did an entire podcast episode about these ladies and
Speaker 1: gentlemen uh and uh. And they're they're always endlessly fascinating
Speaker 1: because they are before us. They are different from us.
Speaker 1: They are in a sense as close as we can
Speaker 1: get to an extraterrestrial being, you know, I mean, they're
Speaker 1: terrestrial obviously, but they are like us, but unlike us. Well,
Speaker 1: and we have some of their DNA we know this.
Speaker 1: So we were looking at this particular study where archaeologist
Speaker 1: gals How of being Verity of Bristol in England and
Speaker 1: his colleagues found a fifty thousand year old uh perforated
Speaker 1: painted seashells and pigment containers on the Iberian Peninsula in
Speaker 1: southwestern Europe. And this was a region that was inhabited
Speaker 1: solely by any der dolls at the time. Modern humans
Speaker 1: who lived in Africa at the time these similar objects
Speaker 1: as jewelry and for body painting, to symbolizing under various
Speaker 1: social standing, etcetera. But this particular study, the particular to
Speaker 1: find suggests that the brains of the common ancestor of
Speaker 1: both species must have already had the biological basis for
Speaker 1: symbolic thought. Uh So, way back then there are easingly shells,
Speaker 1: there reason pigments as as a way to signify roles
Speaker 1: and positions within their society. Yeah, I mean, Zelho is
Speaker 1: saying that they had the biological basis for symbolic thought
Speaker 1: dating back about half a million years ago, because he
Speaker 1: says assigning specific meanings to arbitrary words and sounds is
Speaker 1: symbolic thinking by definition. Yeah. So it really makes you
Speaker 1: think about how this was the pre assessor for actual language. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it boils down to one of the hallmarks of
Speaker 1: the human species. And and and to their point, some
Speaker 1: some predecessors of humans as well about what makes us
Speaker 1: so successful, and that's our ability to externalize internal processes
Speaker 1: such as cooking of course is externalizing internal digestion, and
Speaker 1: symbolic thought is essentially externalizing aspects of our thinking. That
Speaker 1: that that free up our cognitive abilities so that we
Speaker 1: can maximize what we're doing internally. Of course, all of
Speaker 1: this is predicated on the idea that we have to survive.
Speaker 1: In order to survive, we've got to be able to
Speaker 1: suss out these symbols and figure out our universe. And
Speaker 1: you have to look at crows as a as a
Speaker 1: really good example of this. We're talking about crows capable
Speaker 1: of distinguishing symbols. This was from a study led by
Speaker 1: Choice Sugita who used eight jungle crows, relatives of the
Speaker 1: American crow. By the way and the job In scientists
Speaker 1: also found that the jungle crows were able to determine
Speaker 1: which container that they had in front of The crows
Speaker 1: held food in which did not, based on a symbol system. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the content containers would have either two or
Speaker 1: five Yeah. And they had a pretty like success rate.
Speaker 1: And they did about twenty different experiments with food and symbols,
Speaker 1: and eventually that the crows clocked in about seventy success
Speaker 1: rate as they did this more and more matching food
Speaker 1: the symbol. So we know that this is just a
Speaker 1: very basic, uh rudimentary skill that all animals have, including humans,
Speaker 1: in order to suss out how to get to what
Speaker 1: we need. All right, Well, on that note, we're going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to discuss language. We're going to discuss symbols
Speaker 1: some more, and we're gonna discuss how symbols interact with
Speaker 1: our brain. All right, we're back, and let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about language. What what is language and uh
Speaker 1: and and how it releases symbols. I mean, ultimately, as
Speaker 1: we're talking about earlier, we're talking about externalizing internal processes,
Speaker 1: we're talking about using them as h as kind of
Speaker 1: footholds as we ascend it to uh more complicated topics. Uh.
Speaker 1: I mean basically the use of words verbal were written
Speaker 1: signifiers and symbols. They represent ideas and when they're combined
Speaker 1: they allow us to build more complicated ideas. That's right. So, um,
Speaker 1: it is basically the way that we navigate the world.
Speaker 1: But just do not think of it that way, because language,
Speaker 1: each letter is a symbol of right, each word, each phrase,
Speaker 1: each paragraph has more and more meaning that's built upon it,
Speaker 1: more and more symbols that become these shorthands. And you
Speaker 1: begin to look around, you know, widen your scope a
Speaker 1: little bit, and you see that the traffic signals that
Speaker 1: direct you, um whether or not you're taking a train
Speaker 1: or you're driving a car, there are all sorts of
Speaker 1: navigational signals. They're telling you how to order your world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we've discussed before the idea to that language is
Speaker 1: essentially the operating system for the human brain that we
Speaker 1: have all the hardware, and then language is what we
Speaker 1: use to actually think about things and to actually tackle concepts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's something like the periodic table of elements, right, This
Speaker 1: is this is a good example of symbols and us
Speaker 1: trying to make the invisible world visible to us, albeit
Speaker 1: in this form where we can try to figure out
Speaker 1: the properties of each element. Yeah, because at the periodic table,
Speaker 1: obviously it's not a true map, it's not a place.
Speaker 1: It's summing up a lot of things that are invisible
Speaker 1: or are a lot more complicated and taking that boiling
Speaker 1: it down into a version of reality that makes sense
Speaker 1: even at a quick glance. You look at it the
Speaker 1: periodic table, and you realize this is the scientific underpinning
Speaker 1: of the substances that that to make up physical reality. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Even the coordinates on it have a meaning to them, right,
Speaker 1: So if you'rely can at a certain vertical column, then
Speaker 1: you know that they all share similar properties. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: even even though it's not a true map, it is
Speaker 1: a map of sorts. So and so that's just an
Speaker 1: example of our outer universe that we are ordering, but
Speaker 1: we also are ordering our inner universe. And I can't
Speaker 1: help but bring up Karl Hung. Yes, of course, the
Speaker 1: Swiss psychoanalysts, because you're a union. I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I appreciate Young and I have the
Speaker 1: Red Book, which is a bunch of his drawings of
Speaker 1: the unconscious via symbols, and it's fascinating and beautiful and
Speaker 1: and also kind of horrific too, because he's using this
Speaker 1: these archetypes, these symbols to try to delve into the mind,
Speaker 1: into the unconscious. And so what he was doing is
Speaker 1: trying to use this universality of symbols to suss out
Speaker 1: the human experience the inner world. Yeah, and we've all
Speaker 1: looked at like dream interpretation guides before, whether talk about
Speaker 1: what these different symbols mean, what these like, what does
Speaker 1: it mean if you're falling, And if you're falling in
Speaker 1: a dream, then it means that that bad stuff may
Speaker 1: happen during the daylight. If you're being chased through streets,
Speaker 1: the same thing if you're if you're turning, if your
Speaker 1: flesh is turning into a tree roots, then it means
Speaker 1: you're gonna get disease. You know, people look for all
Speaker 1: sorts of portance in in this kind of imagery. But
Speaker 1: but but it boils down to the idea that symbols
Speaker 1: are that powerful. They connect with the subconscious and if
Speaker 1: you want to apply supernatural thinking to it, you might
Speaker 1: think that that symbols also connect us to hidden knowledge
Speaker 1: outside of ourselves. And you should also look at it
Speaker 1: like dreams, they don't come to you in a highly
Speaker 1: realistic way. They come to you fully symbolically packaged. Right.
Speaker 1: You don't necessarily read a book in your dream, right,
Speaker 1: Or I've tried to actually in my dreams, but it's
Speaker 1: always blurry or something. Um. You know, you you get
Speaker 1: pounded over the head with all these different archetypes, and
Speaker 1: so it's very clear that this is important to the
Speaker 1: operating system of our brains in a way, it's to
Speaker 1: try to figure out what's been going on. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's fascinating that's represented to us in that way. Ye. Now,
Speaker 1: another area of symbolic use that has always fascinating me,
Speaker 1: and going back to the idea of adding supernatural elements
Speaker 1: to it, is the use of sickles uh symbolic representations
Speaker 1: of demons or a wizard's desired outcome, and then you
Speaker 1: also have hyper sickles uh such as this is popularized
Speaker 1: by Grant Morrison, the writer of graphic novels who saw
Speaker 1: a hypercyle is an extended work of art with magical
Speaker 1: meaning and willpower. So like a comic book or a
Speaker 1: novel or a movie where it's a bunch of symbols
Speaker 1: that are put together in a way to where the
Speaker 1: symbols kind of overlap to form some greater symbol uh.
Speaker 1: So I always find that interesting as well. In a sense,
Speaker 1: a really crazy dream is the kind of hypercycle and
Speaker 1: is and if you want to check out some of
Speaker 1: some of the archetypes that have been collected by eras.
Speaker 1: This is the archive for research and our type of symbolism.
Speaker 1: Go to airrors dot org. You can kind of browse
Speaker 1: a little bit. You do have to become a member
Speaker 1: to check out the full catalog, but it is an
Speaker 1: amazing amount of symbolic, mythological, ritualistic images that you can
Speaker 1: search and then it actually give you not just the
Speaker 1: accompanying um information about what it means, but will tell
Speaker 1: you during what periods of history that it was in
Speaker 1: popular use and what regions of the world. So it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: So we've plopped through what symbols are, why they're important
Speaker 1: to us, How powerful their their their communication is. How
Speaker 1: about how a symbol can instantly convey something that we
Speaker 1: take you paragraphs and paragraphs to uh to to completely
Speaker 1: spell out that they can sum up things that are
Speaker 1: impossible even to completely relate with language. But how do
Speaker 1: they interact with the brain itself? All right, So the
Speaker 1: brain is going to try to visualize a symbol in
Speaker 1: three different ways. This is according to information designer Ted Whushak,
Speaker 1: who has a Ted talk on this, and he says
Speaker 1: that the brain doesn't actually see the world as it is,
Speaker 1: but instead creates a series of mental models. And we've
Speaker 1: talked about this before too, to get to those ah
Speaker 1: ha moments, and David Eagleman talks about this a lot too,
Speaker 1: that the unconscious usually kind of burps up an idea
Speaker 1: and you have that aha moment that you don't realize
Speaker 1: that it's been uh, that that idea has been worked
Speaker 1: on for months, maybe even years before it served up.
Speaker 1: Nobody's view of the real world is actually the real world.
Speaker 1: It is just a worldview that we take on. It's
Speaker 1: a simulation in a sense. So what happens, what what?
Speaker 1: What happens before this symbol emblazons itself in our minds. Well,
Speaker 1: of course it begins with the eyes. You have light
Speaker 1: entering hitting the back of the retina, and it's circulated
Speaker 1: mostly to the back of the brain to the primary
Speaker 1: visual cortex. But then, according to Wushack, it acts like
Speaker 1: a relay station that reradiates and redirects information to other
Speaker 1: parts of the brain. So we're talking about thirty different
Speaker 1: person of the brain that get in on this, but
Speaker 1: there are three really important ones. The first one is
Speaker 1: the ventral stream, and this is the part of the
Speaker 1: brain that recognizes what something is so if I look
Speaker 1: at my hand, that's the what that's my hand, that's
Speaker 1: a book, that's a remote control. The second one is
Speaker 1: the dorsal stream, and what this does it locates the
Speaker 1: object and it creates a mental map in your mind.
Speaker 1: The third one is the limbic system, which we've talked
Speaker 1: about a lot in terms of processing emotions. So that's
Speaker 1: the part that feels like the ah ha, the the
Speaker 1: emotional response to what that symbol begins to mean that
Speaker 1: the form that it's taking as an abstract, And this
Speaker 1: combination of these processing centers help us to make meaning
Speaker 1: in a bunch of different ways. So one way to
Speaker 1: understand how symbols interact with the mind is to look
Speaker 1: at how children learn language and uh, some of the
Speaker 1: materials we're looking at there talking about how when children
Speaker 1: are learning language, simple use in the prefrontal vortex that's
Speaker 1: where all the activities taking place. But then as they
Speaker 1: become accustomed to what these symbols mean, to what language means,
Speaker 1: the paratical region takes over the job. The association has
Speaker 1: become more automatic. So it comes back to this idea
Speaker 1: of symbols as a place holder for for more complex
Speaker 1: thought in a sense, it's kind of like we figure
Speaker 1: out what that basic idea is, We form an idea
Speaker 1: of what this is about, and then we assign it
Speaker 1: that symbol, and then that symbol squared away in the
Speaker 1: same way that we might circle a paragraph in a
Speaker 1: book we're reading and then market with a signal like
Speaker 1: maybe just a star. That star signifies this is an
Speaker 1: important passage and it's a passage that I need to
Speaker 1: come back to. And so in a sense, we we
Speaker 1: do the same thing with our symbolic understanding of the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting that you see that in kids, right,
Speaker 1: that they began to shorthand that knowledge so that it
Speaker 1: can be mapped out in their brains so they can
Speaker 1: recall it later. And it reminds me of another study
Speaker 1: that we saw that talked about how expectations speed up
Speaker 1: conscious perception. So those archetypes that you learn, turns out
Speaker 1: that when you're taking in a bunch of stimuli, if
Speaker 1: you recognize that symbol, well, then we're talking about your
Speaker 1: ability to speed up your processing by something like a
Speaker 1: hundred milliseconds. Now that doesn't sound huge, but just consider
Speaker 1: that when you're taking in data, it usually takes about
Speaker 1: three hundred milliseconds for it to get perceived. So if
Speaker 1: you can cut that down by about by those archetypes,
Speaker 1: that's when the the th h E to the th
Speaker 1: H sort of makes sense, right, Yeah, because it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, how do you win a war? You want
Speaker 1: to You can win a war with overwhelming force, but
Speaker 1: a lot of times if the if the two sides
Speaker 1: are more equal, you win a war. You win a
Speaker 1: battle with a lot of petty advantages that stack up.
Speaker 1: So all that that lost time, I mean, all that
Speaker 1: game time, a hundred milliseconds here, a hundred milliseconds there,
Speaker 1: it's it's eventually gonna potentially make the difference when you're
Speaker 1: having to think on your feet really fast and uh
Speaker 1: and and choose that, you know, make that savor tooth
Speaker 1: tie related decision in your modern life. Yeah. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you are saving a hundreds of millisecond every single
Speaker 1: time that you're taking in a new piece of data,
Speaker 1: then you are conserving a lot more energy. And now
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan of cutting down th E to
Speaker 1: th H, but it's prevalence in the language. I do
Speaker 1: understand that there is a conservation of energy in the act. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you don't want to you don't want to boil it
Speaker 1: down so much that you don't think. And I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the problems that sometimes occur with with symbols,
Speaker 1: is that they are so powerful that they are cutting
Speaker 1: out our reasoning and depending on existing um thought that
Speaker 1: they're they're kind of they're kind of viral. There's a
Speaker 1: viral power to symbols, especially within certain cultures, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: depending how how resonant it is. Like again, I come
Speaker 1: back to the swastica about how powerful the swastika becomes
Speaker 1: as the symbol of hate in modern society, to the
Speaker 1: point where it's, for instance, you know, it's outlawed in Germany.
Speaker 1: You can't go around publishing a swastika on things, even
Speaker 1: if it's a historic, historically accurate and model airplane. Then
Speaker 1: if you're buying the kit in Germany, you need to
Speaker 1: see about acquiring your slastikas separately. Now, So we were
Speaker 1: talking about this on our commute full of signs this
Speaker 1: morning about how this this sort of short shorthand placement
Speaker 1: stand in and our brains is really really helpful, right
Speaker 1: because it does it's like it's shortening the th e
Speaker 1: to th h but it can be a problem because
Speaker 1: what you're talking about is unconscious stereotyping, and we don't
Speaker 1: necessarily know that we're always doing this, but when we're
Speaker 1: taking in data and we're thin slicing, as Malcolm glad
Speaker 1: Law might say, am blink, we're trying to get that
Speaker 1: really quick perception and most of the time that helps
Speaker 1: us out a lot, but it can really actually show
Speaker 1: up as errors in our thinking. And it made me
Speaker 1: think about this study that came up about foreign languages
Speaker 1: and people using a second language to consider high risk scenarios.
Speaker 1: The study is called the Foreign Language Effect Thinking in
Speaker 1: a fog and tongue reduces decision biases, which documents a
Speaker 1: series of experiments on more than three people from the
Speaker 1: US and Korea. And this is from a Wired article
Speaker 1: by Brian King, who says that human reasoning is shaped
Speaker 1: by two distinct modes of thought. One that's systematic, analytical,
Speaker 1: and cognition intensive, and the other that's fast, unconscious, and
Speaker 1: emotionally charged. Right, that's the feelings that we get, that
Speaker 1: Olympic system coming into play. So the idea is that
Speaker 1: the cognitive demands of thinking in a non native language
Speaker 1: would leave people with a little leftover mental horsepower, ultimately
Speaker 1: increasing the reliance on quick and dirty cogitation right, just
Speaker 1: that quick analytical and they did. They found that in
Speaker 1: the study that people were able to make better, more
Speaker 1: rational decisions when working in their second language as opposed
Speaker 1: to their mother tongue, which was freighted with emotion, because
Speaker 1: you're stepping outside of culture, you're stepping outside of self,
Speaker 1: stepping outside of symbol to a certain degree, because if
Speaker 1: that symbol I mean that simple will mean something to you,
Speaker 1: but it's going to mean something different in a second language,
Speaker 1: which has a distance from from what was ingrained in
Speaker 1: your brain when you were being brought up in this
Speaker 1: one language. It comes back to that idea of language
Speaker 1: is as an operating system. One language is MAC, one
Speaker 1: language is is PC, and certain things are going to
Speaker 1: travel from one to the next, but some aren't. Um
Speaker 1: In Neil Stevenson's book Snow Crash, which is one of
Speaker 1: his earlier novels, a cyberpunk classic UH these days, rather
Speaker 1: different from some of his more recent work. But there's
Speaker 1: a great deal in that book that has to do
Speaker 1: UH with a trend toward towards divergence in language and
Speaker 1: about how the fact that we have various languages in
Speaker 1: the world actually prevents and protects from widespread harm. Uh.
Speaker 1: So you know, we all know the story of a
Speaker 1: farmer grows only one crop, then his entire farm is
Speaker 1: susceptible to devastation by a single parasite. So Stevenson draws
Speaker 1: draws in the eye that say, Nazism is a cultural virus.
Speaker 1: And uh, and if you have a universal language, then
Speaker 1: that cultural virus is more has more potential to spread
Speaker 1: to everyone. So the kind of factors into what you're
Speaker 1: saying there. Well, let's talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: how our behaviors altered and our ideas are altered by simples.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking specifically about Adam Alter, the psychologist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the guy wh wrote a book on drunk
Speaker 1: pink pink Um, which feels also a lot with color theory.
Speaker 1: And hopefully we'll come back and do an episode on
Speaker 1: color theory of there's interests out there in us covering
Speaker 1: that topic. But he pointed out that Christians tend to
Speaker 1: behave more honestly when they're exposed to an image of
Speaker 1: a crucifix, even when they have no conscious memory of
Speaker 1: having seen it. So there's just across and crosses a
Speaker 1: lot like the swastick, and in a sense of prost
Speaker 1: and a swastika are are at at very base level
Speaker 1: the same thing, and both are cruciform up and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of different crucifixes out there, depending on
Speaker 1: which you created your adhering to. But the idea that
Speaker 1: just in the background, just this, this one image that's
Speaker 1: heavily charged with meaning and religious purpose that even if
Speaker 1: you see it, uh, and you're not even consciously processing it,
Speaker 1: it's jumping over your conscious thought into the unconscious and
Speaker 1: affecting the way you're feeling, the way you're thinking, really
Speaker 1: hacking your entire mindset. What about Pope John Paul the Second? Yes,
Speaker 1: this was experiment from the University of Michigan and they
Speaker 1: this one found that Christians felt less virtuous after subliminal
Speaker 1: exposure to an image of Pope John Paul the Second.
Speaker 1: I mean that, I mean it's because he has well
Speaker 1: the ideas that there are impossible high standards to live
Speaker 1: up to. Right, So some of our younger listeners may
Speaker 1: not remember John Paul all that much, but he had
Speaker 1: more of a you know, a peaceful grandfather, really kind
Speaker 1: of demeanor for a lot of people. Well, and in
Speaker 1: terms of popularity, isn't he more like a bit of
Speaker 1: a rock star in terms and that the popetum? Yeah yeah, yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: so so people. So he was a very charged he
Speaker 1: himself became a symbol and and merely glancing around and
Speaker 1: catching it was influencing the way people thought about themselves. Now,
Speaker 1: what about a computer lego? You think that could make
Speaker 1: you feel more creative? Well, I don't. I don't know
Speaker 1: about me because I'm not as much of a of
Speaker 1: a Mac person. I mean, I think they make some
Speaker 1: great products, but I'm not one of you. I don't
Speaker 1: have the bumper sticker on my car or anything. But
Speaker 1: the studies have found that when people are exposed to
Speaker 1: that Mac symbol, they are more likely to think creatively.
Speaker 1: And likewise, if they're exposed to a symbol of an
Speaker 1: incandescent light bulb, the whole oh, I've got an idea
Speaker 1: and then the light bulb lights up, that they're exposed
Speaker 1: to that they're likely to think creative because these are
Speaker 1: both symbols that are charged with ideas of creative endeavor.
Speaker 1: And so just by glimpsing them, where were they hook
Speaker 1: into our subconscious and make us think about that. Now,
Speaker 1: that's a two thousand and eight study back fit Simmons
Speaker 1: at all. So you have to wonder if two thousand
Speaker 1: and thirteen does Apple have the same staying power. Again,
Speaker 1: we're talking about fluidity of symbols and their meanings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you know, a lot of stuff has happened that
Speaker 1: the product itself is arguably taken a dive, and some
Speaker 1: people's maybe not to die, but let's say I decline. Uh.
Speaker 1: But then on the other hand, Steve Jobs passing the
Speaker 1: results that made everyone really uh, you know, nostalgic for
Speaker 1: Apple and really really you know, celebrate his contributions to
Speaker 1: our technological life. And then of course you also have
Speaker 1: had had varying bits of scandal about how our Apple
Speaker 1: devices are made, which may also add new uh nuance
Speaker 1: to the symbol itself. So again, these symbols become um
Speaker 1: dependent on all the cultural things feeding into and they're
Speaker 1: kind of like they're kind of like a tree growing
Speaker 1: out of the ground. And the roots system runs throughout
Speaker 1: our culture and and even into our history, and it
Speaker 1: depends on how far those roots are going and what
Speaker 1: they're sucking in, what kind of nutrients they're drawing from
Speaker 1: our culture to depend on what the form of that
Speaker 1: treat is. Yeah, it's interesting that that one symbol can
Speaker 1: bring up so many different threads of thought because you
Speaker 1: have the biography, if you have jobs, you have um
Speaker 1: nations in their economics being powered or not powered by Apple.
Speaker 1: You have people who are being affected just the level
Speaker 1: of not only pay, but what they're exposed to in
Speaker 1: terms of the technologies that they're using. And then you
Speaker 1: have this idea of creativity all wrapped up into one
Speaker 1: tiny logo. Yeah. So, so it's important to think about
Speaker 1: these experience, not because we want to make a definite
Speaker 1: point about crosses and Christians and Apple fans, but bear
Speaker 1: in mind at all symbols are interacting with us to
Speaker 1: varying levels like this, So we encounter them subconsciously or
Speaker 1: even mind a little bit consciously, and they're having some
Speaker 1: sort of an impact on us. If it's the McDonald's
Speaker 1: golden arches, if it's the Coca cola or the pepsi symbol,
Speaker 1: if it's a cross, if it is UH, if it
Speaker 1: is the Star of David, if it's a swastika, whatever, Like,
Speaker 1: we encounter these and they convey something to us. And
Speaker 1: then if you start combining them, if you say, slap
Speaker 1: a swastika on Ronald McDonald, then it's instantly going to
Speaker 1: create some sort of new, unsteady symbol and convey that
Speaker 1: to your mind. He just gave someone a really great
Speaker 1: art project. Well, I'm sure it's probably already been. I
Speaker 1: was somewhere, uh Paris on Potts and they have a
Speaker 1: Ronald McDonald there that's made out of something. What is
Speaker 1: it made out? Oh? Yeah, no, I know, it's a
Speaker 1: corporate logo. Yeah, it's like an eight foot tall I mean,
Speaker 1: Ronald McDonald in my eyes, has always been menacing, but
Speaker 1: this one is particularly menacing. But yeah, not a corporate logos. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so in a way, it becomes kind of a
Speaker 1: hyper sickle itself because you're combining these these various symbols
Speaker 1: that stand for things into another symbol. And but then
Speaker 1: you get into situations too if you combine too many symbols,
Speaker 1: does it is it kind of like combining all about
Speaker 1: the Crayo crayons where you end up with just a blur.
Speaker 1: You end up with things like uh, well like the
Speaker 1: rose right Zamburdo echo points out the roses symbolized so
Speaker 1: many different things, and it pretty much becomes a devoid
Speaker 1: of meaning. It's kind of that the symbol has been
Speaker 1: completely worn out to the point where it cannot convey
Speaker 1: any true message anymore. One of the lines of philosophy
Speaker 1: that I really like about this is from Louise alf Tusar.
Speaker 1: Flave said that correctly, and he described our existence as
Speaker 1: being tied to something called the ideology state apparatus and um,
Speaker 1: it's this idea that we're always ready, we're always already,
Speaker 1: and by always already, what he means is that we
Speaker 1: are even before we're born. We're born into this expectation,
Speaker 1: in this um embodiment of symbols. And so even when
Speaker 1: you are just stating in your mother's uterus, you are
Speaker 1: the symbol of whatever it is that the society has
Speaker 1: going to put upon you. So if you're a girl,
Speaker 1: you're going to be wrapped in pink and all sorts
Speaker 1: of expectations. And it's a very interesting idea. Um. He
Speaker 1: says that it's the way that we're defined, that we
Speaker 1: are walking symbols, and essentially that allows us or I
Speaker 1: shouldn't say allows, but those expectations give us a roadmap
Speaker 1: on how to behave. So it's it's this idea of
Speaker 1: being both objectified but also subjected as um as a
Speaker 1: placeholder in language. You know, it reminds me too of execution, torture,
Speaker 1: and even imagined execution and torture as as we encountered
Speaker 1: in our study of hell various sins or punished varying ways.
Speaker 1: And there's a strong argument that any form of real
Speaker 1: life torture or execution uh and any kind of imagined
Speaker 1: form like those are all symbols that the idea of
Speaker 1: executing somebody in a certain fashion, it's loaded with symbolic meaning,
Speaker 1: especially when you deal with public executions, because you are
Speaker 1: creating a symbol to to try and uh and illustrate
Speaker 1: a point and convey a message to the popular. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: So a hanging would be very different from having your
Speaker 1: head cut off right with the guillotine. So yeah, what
Speaker 1: does what does it mean? What does being drawn and
Speaker 1: quartered mean? What is being thrown into a sack with
Speaker 1: live animals mean? Like all of these bare certain symbolic
Speaker 1: messages for the intended audience to be absorbed, right yeah,
Speaker 1: And and I mean I could go on on this
Speaker 1: kind of thing too. But it also reminds me of
Speaker 1: the works of bosh Uh. You know all those uh,
Speaker 1: those hellish apocalyptic sceneries where you have all these strange
Speaker 1: monsters doing strange things and tormenting people and all that. Like,
Speaker 1: even a scene like that, we don't understand a lot
Speaker 1: of it. But to the the individuals who would be
Speaker 1: who would have viewed that work of art at the time,
Speaker 1: loaded with symbols known symbols uh and and so in
Speaker 1: a sense that painting is speaking a language of symbols
Speaker 1: to the viewer. And if you would like to actually
Speaker 1: experience these symbols firsthand in the form of a Buddhist
Speaker 1: hell theme park. We actually find out yesterday that there
Speaker 1: is one in Singapore where you can go and look
Speaker 1: at all these visual representations of what Buddhist hell might be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks amazing. And I know we have listeners all over.
Speaker 1: So if any of you are in Singapore or end
Speaker 1: up traveling there, or have traveled there and have visited
Speaker 1: that place, do let us know all about it? Symbolic
Speaker 1: rich that one? All? Right? Well, there you go, a
Speaker 1: crash course in symbols. Uh. Like I said, if nothing else,
Speaker 1: I just hope that this makes you a little more
Speaker 1: alert to the power of symbols and how loaded our
Speaker 1: lives are with symbols, how they're very they're they're very
Speaker 1: useful to us. There are footholds in the mountain of
Speaker 1: understanding that allows us to ascend and learn new things
Speaker 1: and grapple with concepts that are really too much for
Speaker 1: our our puny minds to to deal with without the
Speaker 1: the the advantage of language. But then also about how
Speaker 1: all these symbols around us are constantly influencing us and
Speaker 1: arguably controlling us on that word, let's call over the robot,
Speaker 1: all right, So this is an interesting when this comes
Speaker 1: to us for Isabell von Finkelstein. She writes in about
Speaker 1: our Sideshow Secrets episode, she says, hello listening to the
Speaker 1: Sideshow Secrets episode. My grandma on my mom's side, was
Speaker 1: apparently one of the headless women in Blackpool in England.
Speaker 1: She also swallowed swords and red tarot. Apparently my great
Speaker 1: grandpa ended up joining the circus at fourteen after stabbing
Speaker 1: someone in the leg and running away. He ended up
Speaker 1: with tuberculosis and then somehow was picked up by the carneys.
Speaker 1: So my grandma was brought up with them. Given that
Speaker 1: my family sways to the theatrical and creative side of life,
Speaker 1: we weren't at all surprised that she had circus in
Speaker 1: the jeans. It explained a lot. Ha ha. I just
Speaker 1: wish I knew more of the history. I have a
Speaker 1: copy of a newspaper cutting somewhere. If I can find it,
Speaker 1: I'll forward it onto you again. Another great podcast. I
Speaker 1: need to finish listening to it now, Thanks guys. Isabelle. Wow.
Speaker 1: And I thought that my family's history was colorful. I
Speaker 1: know that's that's amazing. And of course Blackpool, England is
Speaker 1: um it's kind of a historically like a vacation area,
Speaker 1: like a little bit of a of a Carney town
Speaker 1: in of itself. And I know that professional wrestler Stephen
Speaker 1: Regal hails from there. Yeah, and so you know there's
Speaker 1: the wrestling that is a part of the carname. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's part of the whole tradition. Um. That also reminded
Speaker 1: me of the book Geek Love. Did we bring that
Speaker 1: up in the in the last podcast. Sometimes there's a
Speaker 1: reference that's so key that we actually forget to bring
Speaker 1: it up when we do the podcast And we're like, OK,
Speaker 1: I believe we didn't mention that. Geek Love by Katherine
Speaker 1: Dunn amazing fictionalized account of the carnival world and a
Speaker 1: fictional family that um is created essentially by the parents
Speaker 1: by messing with jeans to create sideshow kids. It sounds good.
Speaker 1: I have not read it. I hear great things. I
Speaker 1: know they locally did a production of it years ago.
Speaker 1: It was like six months long, six hours. Yeah. Alright, Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, we're going to go ahead and uh
Speaker 1: and leave you. But in the meantime, if you have
Speaker 1: something you would like to share with us, uh, go
Speaker 1: for it. Particularly related to symbols. What is your experience
Speaker 1: with symbols, How do they how do you interact with them?
Speaker 1: Are you conscious of what symbols are doing to you?
Speaker 1: Is there a symbol that is particularly important to you
Speaker 1: let us know about. I was talking earlier about how
Speaker 1: a symbol instantly conveys something that would take you a
Speaker 1: little a little more time to actually to explain in words.
Speaker 1: So explain in words to us why a symbol is
Speaker 1: important to you and what it means to you when
Speaker 1: you look at it. We'd love to hear that kind
Speaker 1: of thing and you can find us in all the
Speaker 1: normal places. Our main website, of course, is stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com. We're also on Facebook and
Speaker 1: tumbler at stuff to Blow your Mind, and on Twitter
Speaker 1: we go by the handle blow the Mind and then
Speaker 1: oh YouTube mind stuff Show. That's where we are there. Okay,
Speaker 1: And there are two things I'm interested in in hearing
Speaker 1: from you guys about yea or nay on the th
Speaker 1: H e versus th H. The second thing. Today there
Speaker 1: was a story about Mattel and NASA creating a barbie
Speaker 1: that's a Mars barbie who's clad in pink progress or no.
Speaker 1: Let us know, and you can do so by sending
Speaker 1: us an email at blow the Mind at discovery dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com.