WEBVTT - Supernormal Stimuli 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:13.680 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.360 My name is Robert Lamb and m Julie Douglas, and 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:18.959 we're gonna give you a second dose of one of 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:21.319 our favorite episodes from last year to dealt with a 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:23.520 topic that once we brought it up, we could we 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.680 just couldn't stop seeing it. In additional topic, we're talking, 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:30.000 of course, about super normal stimula. Yeah, that explains so 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.320 much in our daily lives. If you look around and say, ah, 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.480 that is why that thing exists. Yeah, it's some core 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:39.839 sceptable your mind content. So if you enjoy it the 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:43.320 first time, enjoy it again if not prepared to have 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:53.040 your mind on it. Today is an episode of where 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:57.600 we can call out a particular listener for suggesting it. Yeah, listener, Serena. 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:02.720 She sent us this excellent life Hacker article about why 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:06.280 we feel the need to fill our pie holes in 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:10.720 our eye holes with exaggerated versions of stimuli every day. Yeah, 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:12.520 and at the startup because you think life Hacker, do 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.200 you think I am? I'm reading a life Hacker article 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.000 and I'm going to be a better equipped to sort 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:18.800 of make the best out of my day. You know, 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:22.480 there's kind of an uplifting aspect to that. And so 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:24.560 I don't know about you, but I entered into this 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:26.840 topic with that sort of idea in mind, like, oh, 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.080 it's just a little quirky inside into how we go 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:31.000 about our daily lives and maybe how you might improve 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:33.320 it a little bit. But I found this topic to 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:37.560 be one of the more ultimately disturbing topics that we've 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.080 looked at, like this condemning of of of human nature 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:42.840 and sort of makes you want to crawl into a 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:45.760 cave to a certain extent. Yeah, because you're right. The 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.480 premise was like, hey, we all love cheesecake, right, it's delicious, 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:53.320 it's patty, it's got tons of sugar. But this happens 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:57.280 to be something called a super normal stimuli. Um. This 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.440 is a term evolutionary biologist used to describe any simulus 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.600 that a listits a response stronger than the stimulus for 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:07.279 which it evolved, even if it's artificial. So, in other words, 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.200 we like sugar because that's a quick hit of energy. 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.000 We needed that back in the day. Um, but we 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:17.280 don't need a slice of cheesecake. Yeah, sugar is probably 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.680 the easiest example to to just call out and and 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:23.680 and generally a well not even really a harmless one, 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:25.840 but a less harmful version of some of the things 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:28.080 we're gonna look at here, because the basic ideas, how 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:30.960 much raw sugar can you find in the natural environment 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.880 if you're a you know, a prehistoric hunter gatherer. Maybe 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:35.800 you'll find some berries, maybe you'll find some sort of 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:39.000 a carrot, uh, but you're not gonna find, you know, 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:42.560 a big sucker, a big dumb, dumb of a whole 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.440 field of TUTSI rolls to feast on. That is super 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:49.080 normal stimuli. That is a a version of the stimuli 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:52.760 that we seek as a as an organism, except it 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.760 is it is blown out of proportion. It is the 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.200 crack cocaine of sugar, and certainly crack and heroin, methamphetamines. 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:03.600 These are these are other examples of of super normal 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:07.239 stimuli that have had a huge effect on humans. Yeah, 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:09.200 in my mind, there's a whole class of desserts called 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.520 porn desserts, you know what I'm talking about. Like there's 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:15.480 like sixteen layer caramel cakes that are just so huge 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:19.079 and big and with you know, red frosting, and it's 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.800 so over the top. And we'll be talking about porn 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:24.520 by the way later on. But it's like such a 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:28.359 good example, another great example, um of the sort of 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:32.919 supernormal stimuli, giant eyed dolls or even anime character. I 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.960 was thinking about this cute. Yes, we've we've we've recorded 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:38.720 at least one podcast in the in the past on 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:41.560 the power of cute and and how cute really taps 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:46.160 into our our primal instincts to want to care for 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:48.680 like a small child. And so we end up seeing 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.240 that smash small child's face in a cat in a 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:54.560 cartoon character. But you look at some of these just 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:59.160 super cute, hypercute, dangerously cute anime characters or the or 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:03.560 the or certainly the avatar of this Hello kitty, and uh, 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:08.400 and it's overpowering. It's cuteness almost beyond our human ability 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:13.120 to take it in right. And as Dedra Bartlett of, 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:16.680 a Harvard psychologist and the author of super Normal Stimuli, 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:20.559 how primal urges overran the revolutionary purposes says, this human 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:24.159 instinct for food, sex, or even territorial protection, all of 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.800 that is rooted in our instincts evolved, as you say, 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.559 for hunting and gathering. An early man and she says 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.599 that evolution has been unable to keep up with the 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.920 pace of change, this rapid change in the modern life, 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.159 in which a taco bell, Dorito's Loco taco, you know, 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:44.520 day glo orange in your hand suddenly arrives. Um Our bodies, 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:48.120 in our minds aren't really unable to water down that instinct, 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.440 that response to that food or that stimulus. Yeah. I mean, 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.400 because that on a basic level, what does the human 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:57.760 creature need in order to survive? It needs to mate 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:00.880 and uh and and and report use. It needs to 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.360 take in food, um, it needs to find uh these 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:06.839 various tastes that please it. It needs protection. It doesn't 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:08.640 need a lot of things. But then we layer on 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:12.720 all the complexities of human civilization, our technology, our art, 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.040 our ability to find all the stimuli that we crave, 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:21.320 and then just just pump them up to an unbelievable degree. Yeah. 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:23.560 Bartlett says that as a result, we have a glut 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:27.240 of larger than life objects, from candy to pornography to 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:31.520 atomic bombs, that cater to outmoded but persistent drives with 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.440 dangerous results. Indeed, now, in order to fully understand this, 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:37.080 we have to go to the roots of the term 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:41.680 supernormal stimuli, which are based in some rather uh simple 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:45.160 biological principles, which is nice because again, all these these 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:48.839 human layers of human civilization technology, it complicates the issue. 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:50.560 But when we look to the animal world we can 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.760 find a far simpler model, and we we find that 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:56.559 back in the nineteen thirties with the work of Dutch 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:00.760 Noble laureate Nico Tinbergen. That's right, he is the person 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:05.479 who coined the term super normal stimuli to describe these 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:09.200 these uh sort of imitations that appeal to primitive instincts 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:13.000 and exert stronger attraction than the real thing. So this biologist, 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:18.359 he set about isolating traits that trigger certain instincts in 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:22.680 animals and insects, and he manipulated these traits in nature 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:25.320 to see what would happen. So this next bit is 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:29.599 from the Live Hacker article by Daniel Jodi or Giotty. 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:33.719 I suppose it says that he constructed plaster eggs to 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:36.719 see which one a bird would prefer to sit on, 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:41.160 finding that they would select those that were larger, had 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:45.400 more defined markings or more saturated color. A day glow 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:49.120 bright egg with black polka dots, for instance, would be 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:54.039 selected over the bird's own pale, dappled eggs, and in 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.800 fact that bert would keep slipping off the huge one, 0:06:57.920 --> 0:06:59.880 but it couldn't help it. It was drawn to that 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.240 super stimuli of the colors in the markings, because the 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:05.760 colors in the markings in the natural world, in the 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.560 in the in the natural course of events, would indicate 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:12.320 the healthier eggs, which ones have the highest graded survival, 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:13.880 and therefore that's where the bird is going to focus 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:17.440 his attention. This artificial egg, though, just pumps that completely 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:21.400 out of proportion, and the bird cannot help but respond 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:25.520 by setting on this lifeless but beautiful, gaudy egg and 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.440 in riding that egg to the detriment of its actual 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:32.320 biological offspring in the surrounding eggs, which are which are 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:36.760 okay but less amazing. Yeah, this is actually, to me 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:39.600 the really depressing part when you see this in nature, Yes, 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:41.760 because it really does bear out this idea that a 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:43.920 lot of this is sort of hardwired in us and 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:48.640 all organisms. He also found that territorial male stickleback fish 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.200 would attack a wooden fish model more vigorously than a 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:57.120 real male if it's underside was redder, so again, pumping 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:59.600 up those signs to it that would make it say, 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.600 oh that that's a competitor. Look how red that underbelly is. 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:05.720 And this is interesting too. I want to make sure 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.240 everyone sort of bookmark this for later. Uh. Here we 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:11.120 have supernormal stimuli that is in kind of in the 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.280 negative realm as opposed to the positive, something that's based 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:18.080 in fear as opposed to desire. That's a really good point, 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:22.840 the aggressive part of it, right. Okay. Another experiment was 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:27.320 that he constructed a cardboard dummy butterfly with more defined 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:31.800 markings that male butterflies would actually try to mate with 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:36.720 in preference to actual real female butterflies. And that's another 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.840 one to to definitely remember for later when we can 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:43.480 start getting into the human versions of these same principles. Yeah, 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:46.640 because if you think about, um, we'll get into this later. 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:49.439 But you know, I always talk about gender performance. And Okay, 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:51.280 if you take a female and a male and you 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.480 don't do really much to them in terms of grooming 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:58.000 them and clothing them in ways that are coded for 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.440 their gender, there's not a ton of difference between them. 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.000 But if you slap on a bunch of makeup on 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.760 a female, plug her eyebrows. She's really performing that gender. 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:10.120 And I think about it that with these butterflies like 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:13.600 this must have been like the Marilyn Monroe of that butterfly. Yes, 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.280 and all the other male butterflies are like, Yes, that one, 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:22.240 even though she's wooden, looks great. Yes, the butterfly becomes 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.719 this a little closer to this, this ideal butterfly. Right, 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.320 And that's what really gives me about the topic of 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:32.320 supernormal stimuli. Um My mind in reading this get kept 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:36.280 returning to a Plato's theory of forms. Plato's in The 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.800 Philosopher of Course, Um. He proposed that we live in 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:44.040 this material realm, right, okay, and beyond our plane of existence, 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:47.480 there's an immaterial realm of ideal forms, all right, you 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:49.360 can you can think of these ideal forms is the 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:53.000 absolute perfection of a given thing, a truth that cannot 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:55.600 be manifested in the material world. All we can do 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.160 is echo it. Okay. So in this world there's no 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.400 true beauty, but we have in an understanding and longing 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.080 for the true form of beauty as as it exists 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.920 beyond the limits of the material world. In a similar sense, 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.360 see would argue that there's no true justice here. But 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.160 we all have a sense of justice because there's an 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:16.280 unreachable ideal that exists beyond our realm okay out there 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:18.240 in the realm of forms. And you can apply this 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.160 to just about any anything like a one argument is 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:23.480 often made as a chair, Like every chair in our 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:26.200 world is just a take, an attempt to capture the 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.520 perfect chairness, uh that we would find in the world 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:33.280 of forms, beyond our material world. Every pretty face, every feeling, 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:37.320 every work of art, it's just a take on the ideal. 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.200 And so it's tempting to view a supernormal stimuli in 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:43.959 the same way we innately long for the true forms, 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.280 forms that simply do not occur in the natural world. 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:50.160 We do it through our art and our technology, and 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:52.760 in doing this we're able to inch a little closer 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:56.839 and a little closer to this awesome and terrible perfection 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:01.040 that we crave. And so so we end up engine 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.040 closer and closer and in creating an artificial thing that 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.840 just cannot exist in this world, and we're craving nothing 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:11.240 but but shadows of that and imitations of that. And 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:13.800 we're taking to your point that, I mean, the makeup 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:18.760 argument is perfect because we're taking real versions of beauty 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.440 and in a sense of defacing them and trying to 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:26.320 carve them into into avatars of this true form. This 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.920 this perfect form that just cannot be achieved. Yeah, this 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:33.800 is essentially the Platonic ideal, right, this idea that you're 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:36.720 trying to get to this ideal as close to perfection 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.480 as possible. Other Plato would say there's no perfection because 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:43.400 we are mere copies of what God intended. Right, So 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:49.280 there's this obsession with, as you say, uh, perfection and idealism, 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:54.160 and that this supernormal stimuli is really a stand in 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.080 for it. It's such an intriguing idea, especially when we 0:11:57.120 --> 0:11:59.800 get to another section in which we talk about poor 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.800 and and other things that other types of media that 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:06.280 we consume. Um. But before we do that, let's take 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:08.440 a break, and when we get back, we're going to 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.199 talk about why humans are essentially like sea gold chicks 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:23.280 when it comes to art. Alright, we're back. We are 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:27.280 going to revisit this topic art and why we're drawn 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:29.920 to it, um because we need to podcast on this. 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:31.880 I believe it was like the science of beauty or 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.600 along there's lines, and we talked about vs. Roma Tendren, 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:38.880 who has some really great and interesting ideas about art 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:40.960 that he says that are hardwired to the way that 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:44.640 we respond to our environments. And particularly he says, um, 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:48.040 we evolved in a camouflage environment, and we are rewarded 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.920 when we identify objects and patterns, and that's why we 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:53.800 like to seek them out so often in this idea 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:57.000 called grouping. So he says that when you are looking 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.280 at an artwork, you can't help but be please on 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:04.240 some level if you can detect those patterns. Now, he's 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.360 just to really understand why we are drawn to certain 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:11.160 works of art, you have to look at seagull chicks 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:15.000 because when they hatch, they start pecking at the mother's 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.680 beak for food. And the mother seagulls beak is a 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:22.199 long yellow thing with a red spot on the end. 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:25.760 So for those chicks, that red spot is that kind 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.560 of stimuli that they know if they tap it they 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:33.160 get food. So action, reaction, and reward. But the researchers 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.400 quickly found is that you have okay, so you have 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:39.240 the beak with the markings, but you can you can 0:13:39.240 --> 0:13:41.199 have just a beak. You don't need the mother because 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:44.640 the because nature takes shortcuts in our associations here or 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:48.080 and certainly in the associations of birds. So you can 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:49.640 take the mother out of the equation. You can just 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:52.920 put a beak on a stick and they will respond 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:56.280 to that. So that's that's kind of the spot has 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.359 to have the spot has has to the the appropriate markings. 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.000 But where it gets even crazier is that you turn 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:06.200 those markings into super stimuli. You you put three red 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:11.959 lines on there, and then that just makes it irresistible 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:16.160 to the chick, like it just it just overflows the circuitry, 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:20.920 overloads the circuitry, and they have to go to that beak. Now. Yeah, 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:25.040 And actually Ron Chandon says that the chick prefers the fetishized, 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:29.440 highly abstract representation of a beak to the real beak. Again, 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:31.760 little depressing here because the mother is attached to the 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.720 real beak. And yet here are these three stripes that 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.880 are very strong. Um, they're that they're exhibiting a crazy 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:42.800 reaction to. And this was researched done by athologist Tim Burton, 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:45.200 by the way, Yeah, not to be confused with the 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.120 Tim Burton. Yeah, I was trying to because I was 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:50.600 reading the interview with the Rama shandren Nafer it to 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:52.520 Tim Burton. So I started doing all these searches for 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:56.320 Tim Burton Birds, Tim Burton Biologist, and it was still 0:14:56.360 --> 0:15:00.280 getting nothing but information on the director Tim Burton, because 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.560 I would love to see some sort of mash up 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.920 like him directing a film about super normal stimuli. Yeah, yeah, 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:08.880 I mean I feel I want to see nothing but 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:12.480 films about super normal stimuli now, um super stimuli about 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:16.200 super stimuli. Indeed, but rum Children says that this is 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.400 the same reason that we humans gravitate towards art, that 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:24.520 these abstractions, these metaphors and unusual combinations of elements play 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:30.400 to instincts wired deep in our reptilian brains, instincts that 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:33.560 really don't have any bounds because, again, as Bartlett says, 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.760 everything that's available to us today and the super sized 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:42.120 fashion is not something that was available, you know, ten 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:45.680 thousand years ago, and so our brains and our bodies 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:48.720 just have not been able to be conscious enough really 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:51.640 to tamp this down. Yeah. And I love how he 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:55.080 referred to the artificial beak for the bird as as 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:57.720 a fetish, because it instantly brings to mind some of 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:01.080 these these ancient fetishes that you see the the venous 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.640 figurines right where it's during like almost a headless woman 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.800 bosoms and valley and uh. And in a sense, even 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:10.960 in a in a very primitive sense, this is an 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:13.720 idealized female form. And of course through the history of 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.800 art you see lots of idealized versions of the of 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:20.200 the female forming the venus de Milo, for example, is 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.080 just another venus in a very long tradition of venus 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:26.640 is well, yeah, I mean the code of those pieces 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:30.120 of art is basically that your genetic material is going 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.320 to survive better in this person, maybe because perhaps there 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:36.440 would there would be um stronger offspring or more of 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.960 a chance to copulate with this person, or you know. 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:41.960 I mean, those are all the signs that are coming 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:44.920 from that particular piece of art. And rom Trondon says 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:48.160 that artists are tapping into the figural primitives of our 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:51.640 perceptual grammar and creating ultra normal stimuli that are more 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:56.080 powerfully exciting certain visual neurons in our brains as opposed 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:58.840 to realistic looking images. Yeah. Like when we did our 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.040 podcast on the art, Savannahs came up landscapes that there 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:07.280 are certain artistic interpretations of landscapes that arguably, uh get 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.679 into our brain more that are more pleasing, more pleasing, 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.879 but essentially get their claws into us because on a 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:16.440 very primitive level, we see it and we know that 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:18.439 this would be a good place to live. It's like, oh, 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:20.320 there's some trees, I can seek some cover. There, there's 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.479 some water I can drink. Everything that Bob Roth describes 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:25.880 when he's painting a landscape like, those are all things 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:28.880 that are those are all aspects of of a landscape 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.399 that would be pleasing to the human organism. Yeah, I 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:36.159 remember from that too, that, um, the vantage point was 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:38.560 really important that you would want to be up on 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.520 a hill and those landscape painting so that you would 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:43.280 be able to see out not just you know, over 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.080 your kingdom, but be able to see any intruders coming 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:48.840 upon you. Right, all right, So that's art. That's one. 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.040 It's one thing to think about the aesthetic world. But 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:54.440 but how do we take this and apply it to 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:59.200 the the less esthetic worlds of say fast food. Well, 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.800 as we had mentioned before, you mean the especially with sugar. 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.480 Our bodies need a little bit of it, and so 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.040 we have those big crazy anime eyes looking at that 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:12.400 and taking all of that in and thinking I want 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:16.240 the entire thing. Um. So you know, for me, I 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:19.920 think this topic is really very large in junk food 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.080 because food is energy. We gravitate to it, um, but 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.720 we don't necessarily know when to stop, right. That's the 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.480 whole boundary thing with our instincts. So if you look 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:35.760 at a giant jar of peanut butter on on a shelf, 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.080 you know, I'm talking about Costco or any of those 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:41.399 other like super crazy places where they've got just giant, 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:44.920 oversized cans of all types of food. On some level, 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:48.320 that's tapping into the primal brain in somewhere. I mean, 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:51.800 you know, some evolutionary bottles just might say that jar 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:53.760 of peanut butter is a promise to you that you're 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:55.720 not going to have to leave your cave very often 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:59.200 for food and you won't encounter as much danger. Yeah, 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:01.399 because your body is saying that stuff is great, that 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:03.720 is what I crave. I want as much of that 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.920 as we can possibly get, so that I can stockpilot 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:08.800 and have it whenever I want. I will not have 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.600 to leave my apartment for three months with that jar 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.600 of peanut butter. But you know, of course there's an 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.800 idea here that we live so much in the symbolic world, 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:20.040 and so some of these meetings can't help but drill 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.440 down into us. Now, I can't help but think of 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:26.320 French fries um in terms of super normal stimuli, because 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.120 what our French fries, your average order of French fries, 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:31.760 you know, covered with ketchup, and that's and that's not 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:35.000 counting if you're adding bacon or chili or nacho cheese 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.879 or whatever the latest t G. I. Friday's sort of 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:40.600 twist on it happens to be. But in one plate, 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:44.480 you're you're you're satisfying your cravings for fat, for crispiness, 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:46.720 that you're that you're on on a on a on 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.680 one level, associating with fresh vegetables. You're getting sweetness, you're 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:52.680 getting salt, maybe you're getting a hit of hint of 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.560 meat if you have some sort of weird topping on it. 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:58.520 And all of this in one big blasphem is serving. 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:01.239 You know what's really interesting that is there is an 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:03.920 article out there somewhere about the physics of a potato 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:06.840 chip and why it's so appealing to us. And if 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.760 I'm remembering this correctly, the kind of crunch, That popping 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:14.320 sound that the chips make is the exact same that 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:18.840 a fresh fruit or vegetable might feel like in your mouth. 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:21.879 And this is something that our brains have been tagging for, 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:26.040 you know, tens of thousands of years, and so that 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:29.280 chip is really just riding into the circuitry of your 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:32.200 brain saying fresh fresh, this is good, this is healthy. 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.360 Let's we cannot just eat just one eat the whole pag. 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:41.000 Yeah that's salty too. Yeah, alright, another area that again, 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:43.639 there's some there's a level of aesthetics involved in this 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:47.400 as well, but the world of gaming video gaming everything 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:50.960 from you know, playing what is it candy corn candy 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:54.240 crush on your phone to some sort of deep m 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:58.240 emo immersion experience, because what do you get with video games? 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:00.800 Do you get an instant entry into a world of 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:06.120 goal achievement UM neurological award for that goal achievement, empowerment 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:11.360 in some cases graphic violence, exploration UM. The goal achievement 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:15.200 is something I often think about as when I find 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:18.280 time these days to to play like a quick video game, like, 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:21.040 I think, well, this is clearly what's happening here is 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:25.840 my brain is adjusting to this false environment and saying, oh, well, 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:28.320 we just achieved something there. We just achieved something there, 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:30.320 even if in the course of the day maybe I 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:33.040 didn't actually close any loops, you know, here I am 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:36.560 closing loop after loop and just say fifteen minutes of gameplay. 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:38.639 So this reminds me of two things. One is the 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:42.040 stickleback fish, right, because you've got that the red underside 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:44.280 of the wooden fish. That more aggression towards that. And 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:47.800 video games are so beautiful, if I may say that, Um, 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:50.119 the way that they're rendered in the colors and the saturation, 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:52.480 all of that is very intriguing and it's kind of 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:55.960 like hyper realism. So that's one thing I think that 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:59.160 people fall into. The other is this is really playing 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:02.280 into for me, is an episode of It's Always Sunny 0:22:02.320 --> 0:22:06.880 in Philadelphia And are you familiar with us? I've watched 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:09.959 the number of episodes. It's great. And when the characters 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:12.199 is d and she's kind of always shoved around by 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:15.880 the other guys in this gang of theirs, so to speak, um, 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:20.680 and she turns to the virtual world with avatars to 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:24.600 try to vanquish them in a sense because in real 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:28.760