WEBVTT - Listener Mail: Spoonman 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:10.840 My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:14.800 Listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:17.640 and we're here. It's Monday. It's not Monday for us, 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:19.799 but it's Monday for you, and it's time to read 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:21.800 some of the messages that you have sent into the 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.200 show over the past few weeks. So if you're ready 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:26.279 to jump right in, rob, I could read this message 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:35.440 from Amy on our episodes on Brain and Head Theft. Okay, 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.239 this comes from Amy, she says. Hi, all, I just 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:40.920 finished the second episode on Brain and Head Theft today 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:43.520 and thought i'd drop you a note. When the episode started, 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:47.880 I immediately thought of the strange afterlife of Albert Einstein's brain. 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:52.199 The pathologist who performed the autopsy on Einstein took Einstein's 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.240 brain without permission and kept it for decades, and then 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:57.720 she attaches a BBC article for us to look at. Yeah, 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:00.000 we made a brief reference to this in the episode, 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:01.920 but it didn't go deep on this one because I 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:04.120 figured this story was better known than many of the 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.440 other ones we talked about, like Hayden and Ish and 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:09.480 uh and all those and so so I wanted to 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:12.280 focus on the lesser known ones. Also, I remembered when 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.119 I was actually looking into the story about Einstein's brain, 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:19.200 I encountered some like just discrepancies in the accounts. I 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:21.040 don't remember all the details now, but I think they 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:24.000 were like conflicting accounts of like whether or not there 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.600 was permission or what form that permission took and so forth. Yeah, 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:30.280 the article they sent is The Strange Afterlife of Einstein's 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:34.560 Brain by William Kramer for BBC. So, yeah, if you 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:36.240 want to look that up, that's where you'll find it. 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:39.479 Amy continues the second thought, I wanted to share concerns 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:43.039 how is She's brain was eventually returned to his tribal descendants. 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.679 I was an anthropology major focusing on physical anthropology in 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.960 the early two thousands, and the Native American Graves and 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.960 Repatriation Act or nag PRO was important to learn about 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.160 in light of how human remains and other artifacts were collected. 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:01.440 The return of is She's brain was likely nag PRO related. Finally, 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:05.120 my research for my master's thesis in forensic anthropology involved 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:08.280 looking at head trauma in people buried in a London 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:12.720 church crypt versus former British sailors buried at a naval 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.480 retirement home. No surprise, sailors were more likely to have 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:20.240 head trauma than the average British population. Both groups thought 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.200 they were being buried in their final resting place before 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:27.359 being uncovered during church renovations and archaeological excavations at the 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.440 sailor's home, and didn't expect to be used for research 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:32.960 a hundred plus years on. Thanks for all the fun 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.320 hours of listening enjoyment. Amy, Oh, that that's neat, but 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:37.640 we may have to look that up. I love a 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:42.880 good study involving uh historical head trauma. I remember there's 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.160 a really good one about gladiator um head trauma that 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:48.520 we we looked at a while back. Is that for 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:52.120 an Invention episode or for I think it's maybe come 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.799 up a couple of times, but probably for invention. Yeah, 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:58.400 at one point we were talking about helmets. It came up. 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:06.760 Yeah anyway, yeah, thanks me. All right. We also heard 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:10.120 from folks about Halo's and mirages. That was kind of 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.640 a I guess like a three episode spread of content 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.600 that we did. When comes from Robin, they say, hi, 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:19.960 Rob and Joe and Seth. Listening to your latest email 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:21.560 round up, I thought I would just send you a 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.720 real life example of sun dogs encountered in the wild, 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.560 quite a common sight in the winter here in Edmonton, Alberta. 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:31.800 Notice these while waiting at the bus stop. You can 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:35.200 see two sundogs to either side which are continuous with 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.960 a faint rainbow slash halo around the sun, the topmost 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.600 part of which is a little brighter, and then new 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.000 to me that day, there was also a little segment 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:48.120 of a reversely arched rainbow further up, almost directly above 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.000 the sky. If you look closely, you can also see 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:56.000 what looks like glitter saturating the sky, small ice crystal sparkling. 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.760 Cheers Robin. Yeah, this was really interesting. So Robin at 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.320 shched a video file for us to look at. And 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.400 so you see the sun dog, and the sun dog 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:07.080 of course has the sun in the middle, and then 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:09.480 it's sort of a ring around the sun with uh 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:13.960 with sort of flaring second sun nodes at what looked 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.080 like the nine d degree verticy is around around that ring. 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:20.600 And then if you pan the camera up, which Robin 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.920 does from the from that initial ring, there is another 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:28.440 inverted arch above so like I guess if you were 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.120 to shift along like the z axis nine d degrees 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.120 up from that roughly, it's like there's another circle and 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.640 you can see it reflected, but but in the mirror image, 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.520 which was really cool. And this also reminds me of 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:43.640 an experience I just had a few days ago when 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.480 I was using the hose in the yard, uh, and 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.880 I had that experience of making a rainbow around your 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.200 own shadow with the spray of the hose. You ever 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:55.920 you ever noticed this, Rob, Yeah, this figs about now 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:59.040 that you mentioned it. This is another interesting optical phenomenon 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:01.120 here that has to do with the fraction and reflection 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.880 of sunlight through different types of like droplets or crystals 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:06.960 in the atmosphere. In this case, it's a mist of 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.960 water droplets in the atmosphere. You can make a rainbow 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.480 around your own shadow because because if you're standing out, 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.560 you know, in the yard, in the bright sun, uh, 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.440 the rainbow is always going to form around your anti 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:23.920 solar point. So so like if you imagine a line 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:27.839 going from the sun through your head then down to 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.400 your shadows head, that's sort of like the the line 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:33.800 that will form the middle of the ring of that 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:36.760 you're going to see a rainbow forming around. So if 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.039 you if you squared a bunch of water up in 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.719 the air around that point sort of around that your 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.440 shadows head, you will probably be able to see a 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:47.400 rainbow in the bright sunlight. And it's the same principle 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.320 that causes a rainbow to form from your point of 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.320 view in a you know, in a storm that's going 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:55.920 on in the atmosphere in a distance. Uh. And this 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:58.119 is an interesting reminder of why you can never actually 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:01.120 get to the end of a rainbow, because a rainbow 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:04.240 is not a thing that has a fixed physical location. 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.200 Like plenty of other optical phenomenon in the sky, a 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:10.440 rainbows apparent location is actually determined by the sort of 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:14.400 convergence of several different things. It's the location of the 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:17.400 sun which shines the light, and then the location of 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:20.719 a bunch of water droplets somewhere in the atmosphere, and 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.360 these water droplets or would bend and reflect the light 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:26.880 back toward us, and then your eyes, which perceive the 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:30.880 frequencies of light broken apart into their individual colors when 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.440 they refract through those water droplets and then come back 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:36.800 and hit your eyes. So you could roughly say that 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.320 the rainbow is from your perspective wherever that water that's 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.520 doing the reflecting and refracting is. But if you were 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:45.960 to approach it, the rainbow would no longer be there 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:48.480 because it's a product of your point of view, your 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:51.200 perspective when you're looking at that water, so it wouldn't 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:54.000 be there anymore when you got there. It's the natural 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.599 place for lepre cons to send you though, in search 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.120 of their gold, because they inherent tricksters, and they of 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:05.839 they love sending humans, sending mortals on fruitless errands in 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:08.640 pursuit of their greed, but educating you about the behavior 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:17.920 of light in the process. Yeah, they're really into optics alright. 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.720 This next message comes to us from Diana. This is 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.000 about the Moses ilusion. Diana writes, Hi, Joe and Robert, 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:26.160 I'm listening to your episode on the Moses Solution, and 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.600 it made me remember this sort of dumb prank one 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:30.840 of my older cousins would play on me when we 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.120 were little. Uh mind you that this played out in Spanish. 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.320 We're from Peru, but it went what color was the 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:40.560 white horse of Simone Bolivard. I'll try to do the 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:44.800 Spanish deck colore era El Cabayo Blanco de Simone Bolivar, 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:48.360 and about Simon Bolivar, Diana writes he was known as 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.600 the Liberator as he led armies and revolutions against Spain 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:56.120 for the independence of several countries, including Venezuela, Columbia, and Peru. 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:59.160 So he is a well known historical figure in South America. 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.400 And when I would say I didn't know, she'd laugh 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.760 about how she gave the answer in the sentence She'd 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:08.200 pulled the same prank on several members of our family, 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:10.960 and no one ever caught on. I wonder if that 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:14.240 could be classified as the same effect or something similar 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:17.520 to the Moses solution. Perhaps it works better in Spanish 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:21.640 since it's noun plus adjective, unlike English, where it's adjective 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:24.720 plus down. Your mind goes to the horse first, and 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.840 its color goes right over your head. That's in I 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.320 was just thinking about that, looking at never since I 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:31.760 have them both here in front of me, and the 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:36.320 listener mail, Yeah, we get to the color first in English, 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:39.880 but it's secondary in the Spanish. Right to repeat again, 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.520 In English, it's what color was the white horse, but 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:46.520 in Spanish it's what color was the cabayo blanco. Yeah, anyway, 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:48.720 Diana says, just my two cents to add to the 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.960 weirdness of human language and understanding. Love the show, and 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:56.280 my mind is constantly being blown. So thank you best, Diana. Yeah, 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:58.920 thanks for this message, Diana, This is really interesting. I'm 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:03.160 not sure whether this would technically constitute a form of 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:05.760 knowledge neglect like we were talking about like the Moses 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.599 illusion is one example of knowledge to neglect, because I 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:13.200 guess the question would be whether the problem people have 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:17.840 with noticing the color being given away in the sentence uh, 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:21.280 is like where that error arises? Is it that the 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:26.280 color is heard and processed and then subsequently ignored, or 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.520 is it whether people are somehow prone to hear the 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.960 question without ever processing the color in the first place, 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:36.280 Like does it just not even enter your mind? Yeah? Um, 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:38.480 And then I wonder I can't but also wonder on 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.760 this one, if you're if you're more familiar with the 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.720 with the figure historical figure of Simon Bolivar, you would 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:48.960 you might be more inclined to stumble in this one, 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:51.600 you know, because I think we've we've touched on this 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.040 in the episode before, like some of these that they 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.880 involve a historic person, you end up immediately like doing 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.480 like a flash presentation in your mind mind off of 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:03.800 all the history you know, all the sort of trivia 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.800 facts you know about them. And sometimes I feel like 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:10.120 that can do railists from from something like this. But 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.960 even the punch line of a joke, like when we 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:15.640 we mentioned on a recent episode the whole where did 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:18.640 General Washington keep his armies? Yeah, I mean, there's no 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.680 reason you should anticipate that the answer is in his sleevies. 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:26.840 But but you still, you're you're automatically going to going 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:30.120 to like facts stored in your knowledge bank, and thus 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:32.680 it I think that is one of the reasons that 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:35.720 it's especially funny if it is funny to you when 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.559 the answer is just a silly like way of pronouncing 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.600 a word. Yeah, the joke is actually that you have 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:47.439 been thinking about answering this question on completely the wrong level, right, Yeah, 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:49.959 I mean, and also I mean with with with questions 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.200 like this, I mean, yeah, it's not a question that 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.720 is in good faith because it because the answer is 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.720 hidden in the question. Um, and you're you're and if 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:00.960 you interpret it as being in faith, you you just 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:06.160 assume that the answer is not blatantly present in the question. Yeah. So, 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:08.760 whether or not this is technically a form of knowledge neglect, 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:10.800 I do think it's still really interesting. It does tie 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:13.720 into that general experience that happens every day and seems 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.160 totally mundane. But when you think about it, it's actually 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.760 pretty strange. Uh. Like we talked about in the episode, 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.920 that you are able to get the gist of sentences 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:28.200 correctly without really retaining all of the information in the sentence. Like, 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:30.640 how do we do that? How do our brains manage 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.960 so quickly to extract and retain the global meaning of 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.520 a statement or of a question, but not notice major 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:46.160 information contained inside it? All? Right, here's another one. This 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:50.720 one comes to us from Charlie. Charlie writes hello science boys, 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:54.440 and they spell boys bo i sum, which I think 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:58.240 ultimately that works better in print than it does out loud. Um, 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.520 But anyway, that's what they write. Then they continue Short 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:05.200 time listener, first time emailer. I have listened to the 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.800 whole archive, and don't worry, it only took me a 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.120 couple of years. I like to speed up my podcast. 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.040 Y'all are the only podcast I got up to. Um 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:17.600 uh three time speed on and you had over a 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:21.640 thousand episodes, no human way to listen to them all normally. 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:25.840 I finally weaned you down to one point eight times speeds. 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:29.079 Since I got caught up, this raises the number of 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.120 questions for me. So first of all, I mean I 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:34.680 always kind of cringe a little when when someone tells 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:36.640 me they've listened to all the episodes they went back 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.520 to the beginning. Um, you know, just because that's that's 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:43.840 from all, that's a white ways back and and when 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:45.440 we started this thing out, we had no idea of 0:12:45.480 --> 0:12:48.160 what we were doing. So so I mean I would 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.680 generally advise people to start from the present and and 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.320 and work and you know, maybe work back a little 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:56.680 bit that sort of thing. But you know, to to 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:58.200 eat your them. You know, you don't have to listen 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:00.679 to the album in the or or that the artist 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:03.000 gives it. You can put it on shuffle. Who are 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.040 who are we to argue with that? But then on 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:08.520 the speed point, uh um, I mean I admire anyone 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.920 who can listen to a podcast at three times it's 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.920 normal speed. I feel like when I'm if i q 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.240 A and episode of our show before it goes out, 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.280 I'll bump it up to one point five and that's 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.520 about my limit if I do. If I go much 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.040 higher than that, then when I'm done, I feel like 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:29.920 I'm I'm kind of having a slight nervous breakdown. Like 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:33.320 it's kind of like my mind speeds up to it, 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:35.360 and then I can't take it anymore, Like I get 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:37.280 out of it, and it's kind of like this whiplash 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:41.920 of reality. Oh. I sometimes listen to podcasts in audiobooks 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:46.360 at an accelerated speed, and the problem is actually that 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:50.480 after I have done that, now regular talking speed is 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:53.160 intolerable to me. Like if so I do that and 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:55.520 then I hear myself talk at a normal speed or 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:57.640 someone else talk at a normal speed, and it sounds 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:01.320 like everything's happening in slow motion. Yeah, I mean, I 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:06.240 definitely prefer to listen to us at uh one point 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:09.960 five speed because it sounds just a little different, you know, 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:12.480 on my own voice especially, sounds just a little bit different. 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:15.480 So I can almost appreciate, say, an episode of Weird 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.280 How Cinema as if it were not me, uh, in 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.360 a weird way. But yeah, if I go too far 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:22.840 up it, it feels like a nightmare. Voice, I don't know, 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.360 and then it starts unsettling me. Yeah, folks out there, 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:28.440 if you if you never tried it, it is hard 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:30.440 to listen to yourself. We have to listen to ourselves 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.840 constantly to preview these episodes before they go out. And man, 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.960 that that's just consistently a tall order. All right, Well, 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.280 they continue with the email anyway, I was listening to 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.160 your episode on the Moses Illusion, and I realized that 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:45.960 I had an experience that seemed related. Apologies if you 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:47.840 end up discussing it later in the episode. I am 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:50.360 sending this part of the way through. It was the 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:52.760 end of my eighth grade year and my science teacher 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:56.400 had us doing Jeopardy esque game with buzzers and everything. 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.040 I remember very little about that day, only that I 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.040 knew the to a question who was the first person 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:05.240 to receive a lobotomy. Now, this is something that happens 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:08.120 to me frequently where I will think one thing and 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.360 then say something different or related. So while my brain 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:14.600 told me that the answer was Phineas Gauge, my mouth 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:19.760 shouted Nicholas Cage in response. Um, I mean I could 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:25.160 see Cage as Gauge in a biopic. Uh, anyway they 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:28.240 continue Q thirteen year old means intense embarrassment, to the 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:30.800 point that I could not even correct myself. My team 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:34.840 obviously did not win those points. I most frequently experienced 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:37.720 this phenomenon with numbers, where I will be writing a 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:39.840 number and do it correctly, but when I have to 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:42.200 say them out loud, they frequently are in the wrong order. 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:44.360 I used to work a job that required me to 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:46.960 read credit card numbers back to people over the phone, 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:49.720 and somehow never was able to train my brain to 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:53.280 do it consistently. Anyway, I just thought you might find 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.840 this interesting. Love the show Weird al Cinema has brought 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.000 me so much joy, and I can't wait to watch 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:02.000 Santo in the Treasure of drag Uh. Thanks Charlie. Oh, 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:04.880 thanks Charlie. Yeah, that is a great example. I guess 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.040 that that's somewhat different than the Moses solution that I 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:10.600 guess that would constitute a form of knowledge neglect, Like 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:13.920 your outward behavior is not, for some reason able to 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.320 perform the thing that you do know is stored in 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:19.520 your memory correctly. Obviously, one of the factors here seems 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.120 to be a sort of the pressure added by a 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:26.400 public performance I actually remember very vividly and experience I 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.200 had kind of like this where, uh, Rob, did you 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:32.200 ever do a public spelling bee at school where you 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:34.040 know you're in front of everybody and you're trying to 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:37.520 spell words? And no, I never thought, Yeah, I I 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.480 did this one time in middle school, and I remember 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:43.120 I spelled a word wrong, even though I was like 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:45.680 a hundred percent positive that I knew how to spell 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.680 it right. And the way it went was my word. 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:50.320 I was up at the microphone and I had to 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:56.800 spell waltz and I said waltz w a lt z, 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:01.480 and then they were they were about to say, like 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:05.120 that is correct, and then I went E. I don't 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:07.720 don't know why I have. No. I did not think 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:09.720 there was an e at the the end of the word, 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:14.480 but I was just compelled the Obviously, there's something about 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:16.440 being in front of an audience and having that kind 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:19.240 of pressure that suddenly that makes you just act out 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:32.920 in strange ways. Sometimes walt see walt say all right. 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.040 So this next message comes to us from Ryan. This 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:38.680 is also about Moses illusion. Ryan says, Hi, Robert and Joe, 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:41.120 I'm a longtime listener writing in for the first time. 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:44.119 Thank you for all the intelligent and well researched discussion 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:47.400 on topics that I would otherwise never encounter. Uh. The 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:51.000 way you discussed and draw connections into religion, philosophy, psychology, 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:53.440 and weird movies is unique and wonderful. Well, thank you 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.080 so much, Ryan, Ryan says, I am a middle school 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.600 band director, or at least I will be when we 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.040 are allowed to play instruments in a room together again. 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:04.080 Last week, I was listening to the Moses Illusion episode 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:06.879 and I began to see some connections to learning and 0:18:07.040 --> 0:18:11.840 memory as they relate to music education, specifically to practice habits. 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:15.280 During the episode, you mentioned the idea that hearing incorrect 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:18.800 information can cloud the memory of information that we know 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:22.080 to be correct. This instantly brought to mind the way 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.960 that I teach students to practice music. I strongly encourage 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.440 students to break down a difficult passage as they practice 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:33.199 so that they are always playing it correctly. This can 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:36.000 mean putting your instrument down and clapping a rhythm you 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.920 are having trouble with, or playing a passage one note 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.600 at a time, or simply slowing it down. The idea 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:45.840 here is to make the music more simple so that 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:48.480 they are less likely to make a mistake. This would 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:50.640 mean that every time they hear it and play it, 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:54.040 it is correct. Contrast this with a student who simply 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:56.960 tries to play the passage straight away, and maybe they 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:00.480 do this correctly six out of ten times. That means 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:03.679 they now have four incorrect versions of the passage in 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:07.359 their mind. Now, there are some differences between the linguistic 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:10.080 and musical examples, but I think the core idea of 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:14.320 information interference supplies when the first student goes to perform 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:16.840 the piece, there is only one version of it, the 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:20.000 correct version in their mind. The second student, on the 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:23.040 other hand, has a handful of different versions of it 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:26.000 in their mind, and this student must now actively choose 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:29.560 the correct one. This is significantly more mental effort, which 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:31.879 happens to be something in short supply when we are 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:35.800 nervous on stage. Here's stage performance again. I never thought 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:38.360 of this concept in such an explicit and direct way, 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:40.160 but once you put a name to it, the idea 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.119 was already there in my mind. Learning like this is 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:45.840 what helps make me a better teacher. I look forward 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:48.280 to going on more weird journeys and learning more with 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:51.600 both of you in the future. Thank you, Ryan, that's great, 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:55.360 and I m I certainly admire anybody who can who 0:19:55.400 --> 0:20:00.119 can and you know, not only uh, maintain their sanity, 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:02.920 but excel as a is a is a junior high 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:06.320 band director. I remember, even as a junior high kid, 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:08.960 and that's usually kind of an oblivious state to be in. 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:12.879 I remember, you know, looking at my director and been thinking, man, 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:15.879 this this guy really puts up with a lot. I 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:20.720 was an awful, rambunctious band kid in middle school. We 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:24.280 we essentially turned our middle school band class into the 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:27.080 ww E. Back then it was the WWF and it 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:30.040 was the attitude era. So everybody wanted to be stone 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:32.399 cold or the undertaker or whatever, and it was a 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:34.480 it was a free for all. Oh man, that's got 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:36.840 gotta be rough on the tubas. There's another point that 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:39.440 comes up here that is something that I have thought 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.800 for years and has come up in the context of 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.600 all kinds of skills like writing and stuff. You know, 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:50.840 there is I think often a an attitude among many 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:53.959 people that you know, practice is always good, Practice makes perfect, 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:55.760 and you know, you want to get any good at 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:58.159 any skill, you do have to practice it. But I 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:01.600 do think it is entirely possible. To practice yourself worse 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:05.320 set things. Practice is not always good. You need to 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:07.760 be practicing in the right kind of way because sometimes 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:12.640 practice if it. You know, if you are practicing counterproductive habits, 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.520 they can really take over and sort of prevent your 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:23.640 growth in the skill in the future. All right, here's 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:26.760 another one. This one comes to us from Scott. Hey, guys, 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:30.080 love the show Slash Shows. Thank you. In the most 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:32.679 illusion episode, you touched on the idea of how we 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:36.480 know stuff but can't relate details on how the thing 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:39.440