WEBVTT - From the Vault: Burned from the Mind’s Eye, Parts 1 & 2 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:07.880 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:11.320 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and hey, Happy Halloween. 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:13.560 That's right, we have a special treat for you. We 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.680 normally have a Vault episode for you on Saturday, but 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:20.680 since this Saturday is also Halloween itself, we thought we 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.920 would feature a two parter from last year. Right, So 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:27.159 this was parts one and two of our episode on 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:30.960 psychic photography. This belief some people have that you could 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:35.000 project images from the brain onto photographs. And so that 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:37.840 we get into the ring. We talked about some real 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:42.440 strange para psychology research. We talked about vision and I 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:44.920 remember this being a lot of fun. All right, let's 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:50.360 dive right in. Welcome Stuff to Blow your Mind, a 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:59.240 production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Work. Hey you, 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:01.040 welcome to Stuff to Alow your Mind. My name is 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.920 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's October. So 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:09.199 we're continuing with our Halloween spooky, ghostly kind of theme, 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:12.520 and today we wanted to explore a somewhat ghostly topic 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:16.960 that ties into neuroscience to stuff we've talked about recently 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:20.280 on the Invention Podcast with the history of photography. But 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:22.160 before we get into that, I wanted to start with 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:24.840 a question to kind of orient us here, And that 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.759 question is, what is it that makes somebody skilled at 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.800 an art like realistic drawing or realistic sculpture. I should say, 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.240 by the way, I am not skilled at this at all. 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:38.959 I cannot draw realistically for the life of me. In fact, 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:41.920 when I try to draw pictures of people, it's the 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.119 it's a source of great amusement to Rachel. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.000 I'm the same way. I can. I can draw a 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:52.120 pretty mean goblin, but um, I can't really draw a human. 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:56.720 My my son whose seven, is already a better better 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:59.560 artist when it comes to depicting actual human beings than I. 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:02.160 But obviously so a huge part of what's going on 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.720 here is is practice, right, you gotta learn techniques. But 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.200 another part of this I think could just be thought 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:13.200 of as some kind of motor power of translation, Like 0:02:13.320 --> 0:02:16.560 how do you take an image represented in your brain 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.560 and it's in your brain either way, whether you're currently 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:22.320 looking at it or calling up out of a memory 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:26.760 or an imagination. Either way, the images coming from your brain, 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:30.120 and then it's being translated somehow through a series of 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:33.520 hand motions into a physical object in the world, whether 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.799 that's a sculpture, painting, or drawing. Like, there's some kind 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:40.400 of skill there that I think remains ineffable to us. 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:43.600 It's mysterious. Sometimes it's even kind of spooky because we 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:48.080 don't understand what's happening with that translation process. But what 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:52.520 if there were no translation process? What if there were 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:56.960 no way for clumsy arms and hands and failures of 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:01.080 technique to impede the physical manifestation and of what you've 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:03.760 got in your mind's I what if we could just 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:08.200 project the objects of the mind's eye directly onto the 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:12.000 physical world. Would such a thing be possible? And if so, 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.440 would such a power be in a way terrifying, sort 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:19.200 of godlike in the worst and most ancient sense. Ah, 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:23.639 And here you're getting into the uh, the Halloween aspects 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:25.560 of this topic. This is the reason that we have 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:29.720 decided to approach this during the month of October, exactly 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:32.839 because this power does show up in horror fiction. One 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:34.840 place that you might have encountered it is in the 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.920 books or the movies. Uh. There have been several different 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:40.040 series at this point, but The Ring, the story of 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:43.880 The Ring, the the scary ghost girl who can print 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:48.920 media with her brain. She can psychically print images onto 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:52.880 photographs or onto o the wall of a barn, or 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.520 onto a videotape. She can just make a videotape without 0:03:56.560 --> 0:03:59.760 filming it, just straight out of her mind's eye. Of course, 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:02.280 this played up for horror in the film, and I 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:04.520 I sort of stand by taking it in that direction. 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.040 I think if anybody actually had this power, it would 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.000 be horrifying, and it would be it would be a 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.760 little irritating to everyone who's has put a lot of 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:17.840 time and effort into honing their craft. Right, Um, so 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.560 it's possible you're you're familiar with The Ring via Gore 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:25.240 Rabinski's two thousand and two remake The Ring. This is 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:27.640 where I saw it for the first time. But you 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.919 also may have seen it by watching the original Japanese 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:35.680 horror film directed by Hideo Nakata. This came out in 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.880 and I severely hope that if you, if you did 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.159 see the original Japanese version back in the late nineties, 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.880 you watched it on a crumb a dubbed VHS, because 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:50.080 that would be most appropriate, right, because either way, if 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.000 you haven't seen the movies or read the see. The 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.880 original Japanese movie was also based on a book by 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:00.919 by Koji Suzuki, but in any case, the story is 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:04.679 about a cursed videotape that is made by this ghost girl. 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.280 She uses the psychic power of projecting her thoughts directly 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.320 onto media to make a videotape that kills the people 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:16.120 who watch it. Yeah, a curse videotape containing disturbing it's 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:20.799 basically a disturbing surrealistic art video kills you in seven days. 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.080 So there's kind of a uh what do you call 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:29.240 in the medicinal terms, uh, delayed react effects effects. Uh. 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:31.200 It takes that alone to work through your system, you know, 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:33.920 time to release. Sometimes artists like that it's time released. 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:35.760 You know, you go, you want to see it at 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:37.520 the museum, and you're like, I don't really know what 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:40.080 what I how I feel about this or or you know, 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.760 how I think about this piece and how it relates 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.359 to me, and then seven days later it kicks in 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.440 and you die. Uh weird, look at it, fist. But yeah, 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:50.680 this is basically an update of a very old notion, 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:54.520 right of a haunted object, or of haunted media, only 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:57.760 instead of a dark and magical book instead of something 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:01.200 like you know, the Necronomicon or you know the Book 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:04.359 of Sand or any of these other treatments. We have 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:07.960 a dark and magical video recording and it unleashes a 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:11.400 world of terror and death. It's an inherently compelling idea 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:14.279 in horror. I think actually some piece of media, whether 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.080 it's a book or now a movie, I think there 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.520 there's some There's Stephen King's story with like a painting 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:25.440 that kills you or something. There's the representage Herror, and 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:28.080 it's one of one of King's best short stories. I 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.039 highly recommend. I agree. Maybe that is what I was 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.520 thinking of. That is a fantastic story. Um, but yeah, 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.119 I mean obviously the idea of like a a work 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.279 of art or something that cannot be experienced without cursing 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.080 or killing you. Yeah, that's scary. It's also fertile ground 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.240 for any kind of metaphor that the artist wants to 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:48.720 sew about, you know, about art itself, and art does 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:51.240 have an effect on us. I mean, there's an old 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:53.520 episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind where Julie and 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:57.919 I discussed Stendahl syndrome and some of its related alleged syndromes. 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.000 You know, it deals with the reality that, yes, sometimes 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:04.120 times great works of art, Uh. You know, with great 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.560 works of art with appropriate priming, UH can overwhelm us, 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.360 can have a physical reaction on us. So uh you 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.920 know it's it's not unrealistic. Um. Yeah, you know. I 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.000 want to say about the gor Verbinsky remake of The Ring, well, 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.520 I don't inherently love the idea of just like American 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:24.120 remakes of foreign films just to sort of americanize it, 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:27.080 because it had only been like a few years since 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:29.200 the original film had been made at that point, and 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:33.080 they americanized the heck out of it exactly. But at 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:35.560 the same time, one thing I will defend about it 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:39.520 is it is a very um visually imaginative film. Like 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:44.160 it's got great creepy abstract imagery in it. Oh yeah, great, 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:49.120 great visuals, great performances, uh, and wonderful special effects. Uh. 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:51.600 That remake I remember really had an effect on it. 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:55.360 Was so the last time a horror film like made 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.360 me sleep with the lights on. Uh. So I look 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:01.480 back fondly on it for that reason. However, I have 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:04.480 to say certain aspects of the film stuck with me 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:06.720 and others. I kind of forgot about. Like some of 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:08.800 you might be like, oh, yeah, I guess that girl 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.240 did write video tapes with her mind like that I 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:14.520 kind of forgot about. I also kind of forgot that 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:19.400 it had this that it's essentially adoption sploitation horror, not 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.560 the only yeah, basically, yeah, basically, because the whole idea 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:26.040 is that this this couple that adopts this child, and 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.640 the child is troubled, and I forgot that she was adopted. Yeah, 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:34.000 So you know, I have a very queasy attitude towards 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:36.320 that kind of horror at this point in my life. 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:40.800 For sure, totally. But but still those are the things 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.520 I tend to forget about it. I remember, you know, 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.440 those scenes with Samara Um climbing out of the television 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.000 with the creepy walk where they think they filmed her 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:52.840 backwards and then made it go forwards. I remember, I 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:55.520 think Hans Zimmer did the music, and it's very effective 0:08:55.600 --> 0:08:58.960 horror music. Um. And then on and then on the 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:01.480 on top of that, you have some performances. Uh, did 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.360 you ever see the sequel? I did spoil it all 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.640 as I saw it in the theater even um and 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:12.280 I don't recommend it, but but no, it's a it 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:14.840 is a film that is still both films are considered 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:17.600 classics in their own way, and I think they earned 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:21.200 that that reputation just if nothing else, by just scaring 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:27.080 us so terribly and really connecting with our relationship with media. 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:29.480 And at that time it was it was dealing with 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.920 the VHS and UH and and and how we were 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:36.000 connecting with with this kind of you know, physical media. 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:38.480 And I should say also, you know, getting into that 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:42.520 idea of finding weird things, finding weird footage. And at 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:44.400 that point it was most of us through like tape 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.320 trading or I guess as to a certain extent, downloads, 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:52.800 but I definitely remember ordering up like weird dubs of 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:56.920 the Japanese laser disc of say um El Topo or 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:00.240 Holy Mountain, and there was this weird you know, well, 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:02.360 you know, you have you're not really sure exactly how 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:04.560 this got to you. You know, what are the hands 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.080 that dubbed it from this format to this format and 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:09.560 then re dubbed it here and then finally it's in 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:11.480 my hands. I think that is actually one of my 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:16.280 favorite types of story forms for horror is the the 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:20.000 creepy found piece of media. I can remember One of 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.320 my favorite horror short stories I've read in a long 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.320 time was won by Laird Baron. I think it's called 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:29.480 Mysterium Tremendum, where the narrator of the story you just 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.800 finds this travel guide and I think some weird use 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:35.000 bookstore or something, but it turns out to be a 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.679 nefarious sort of magic travel guide that leads to very 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.880 dark places. So yeah, I love that nowadays though, and 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:43.760 maybe they do this, and I think maybe they did 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.040 this one of the recent Ring movies. It's like, essentially, 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.719 it's gotta be on YouTube, which takes the punch out 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.400 of it because it's like, you have the dark media, 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:53.640 but then the dark media is on an even more 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:58.120 deplorable social media you know, bum or format. But it 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:00.720 also takes away the ironic distance that makes the horror 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.560 fun because YouTube just will melt your brain and kill you. 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.360 It doesn't it doesn't need any like horror upgrades. The 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.560 real actual YouTube is just waiting to destroy you at 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.320 the moment. Yeah, though it is. I it is kind 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.160 of comforting to think that that all the commentators at 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.680 the bottom of the Ring video then YouTube died seven 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:23.800 days later. So like the guy says that WTF is disreal? Yes, yes, 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.080 as long as we're just talking about the Ring, though 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:29.600 the American remake, we should point out again that that 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:35.200 cast is tremendous. Um talking about Samara. Her mom is 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:39.520 played by Shannon cochrane who plays who played Pam's mother 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:42.560 on the Office, and then her father is played by 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:46.200 Brian Cox, the legendary Brian Cox. Brian Cox one of 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.520 my favorite actors of all time. He he kind of 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:51.480 makes the movie and in the the the the young 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.560 actor playing Samara herself. I don't know if we said 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:56.600 Samara is the ghost Girl and the Ghost Girl, she's 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.400 Samara and the American version, and she's a Sedaco in 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:03.360 the Japanese version, so that the name changes. But anyway, 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:06.839 in the in the even the remake, Devey case Chase, 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:09.240 I hope I'm saying her name right. Uh. This actor 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:13.080 played Samara, and she also voiced Lilo in Lilo in 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:16.520 and Stitching Disney film about the you know, the the 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:19.880 alien visiting Hawaii. Going to her IMDb page is hilarious 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:22.160 because I found out she also is the girl in 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.440 the Sparkle Dance Troupe in Donnie Dark and she's the 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.160 voice of the main character in the in the English 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:33.240 dub of Spirited Away. Ah, yeah, the Manzaki film great. Okay, So, 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:37.520 first of all, the idea that Samara can create a 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.360 surrealistic film that she can pour like all the the 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:47.280 nihilistic misanthropic visions in her head into a videotape and 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:50.800 make it so potent that it can kill people, either 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:52.880 just through the sheer power of the art or you know, 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:56.720 probably through some sort of supernatural um you know whatever. Uh. 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.000 That's a really cool trick and one that I would 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:02.880 think could have been put to much more profitable use, right, Um, Like, 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:05.360 why isn't there a sequel where like the U. S 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:08.439 Military ends up acquiring Samara Like it, that would be 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.000 great because since she ends up killing all the like 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:13.240 the evil mk Ultra gate dudes, it basically rights itself, right, 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.160 but sort of a crossover with The Ring and Stranger 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:19.679 Things would have been. Yeah. Now to to go a 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.600 little deeper though, I think in a way this concept 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:24.720 really really works though, Like you can think of any 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:28.839 creative endeavor, especially filmmaking, as an attempt to bring that 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.920 ideal image that mentally imagine your head into the world, 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:35.600 and of course for a number of reasons we generally 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.480 don't succeed in pulling that off. And part of the reason, 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:40.319 of course, is that is that the idea in our 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.320 mind is rarely as fully formed as we think it is. 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:46.560 I think that's exactly right. I mean an experience I 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:48.960 definitely have when writing, and I think you've said you 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.640 have this before, is I don't necessarily know what I'm 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:53.880 going to write until I start writing, Like if I'm 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:57.040 writing a scene in fiction, you know like that it's 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:01.640 the process of writing that helps bring out the content. Yeah, exactly. Uh, 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:03.319 you know in other issues coming to play as well, 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.800 in the final version perhaps feels a bit lacking. So 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:09.599 you know, you can forgive a lot of us we 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.800 we wonder, you know, imagine how perfect it would it 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:14.960 would have been if you've been able to simply beam 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:18.440 your vision directly onto a video tape. You don't have 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.880 to worry about casting it where you're gonna film all 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.200 your weird art, film your artifacts. How are you going 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:26.400 to get that that chair to go upside down? No, 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.320 you can just beam it directly onto the onto the 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.960 tape um. And so maybe the power then of your 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.920 vision would be so pure and uncut that it would 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.200 just literally slay table. Well, I like that, But on 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:40.720 the other hand, I mean, I think it's sort of 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:45.360 trying to imagine. This highlights the unreality of what it 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:47.880 is you're trying to imagine. I mean, I feel like 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:50.440 our image of the thing we want to create is 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.680 never really fully formed, even when it seems like it is. 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:58.080 I wonder if even people who have extremely vivid mental 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:02.840 imagery can actually see a full completed painting that they 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:06.240 haven't finished painting yet. Uh and and and not just 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.960 sort of like see glimpses of little bits of color 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.760 and shape that that ultimately add up to something concrete 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.280 and finalized once you've you know, translated through your hand 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.920 movements into that painting. I kind of doubt that people 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.760 can actually see a full painting that they haven't painted yet, right. 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:25.960 And maybe we may be part of his linguistic you know, 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.280 like we we tend to say. A sculptor might say, 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:32.560 I see the horse trapped in this block, and I 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:34.600 wish to free it. I'm just going to remove all 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:37.560 the pieces around the finished piece that I envisioned within 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:39.680 it with In reality, it's more like I see the 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.440 inspiration for the thing that I am going to create, yeah, 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:46.400 a kind of fuzzy, low resolution suggestion of the thing 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:48.880 that you will create maybe, Yeah, And then comes the 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.920 hard work. Then comes the talent, uh, and the skill. 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:54.960 One more one more thing about the Ring, and then 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.880 I'll I'll mostly let it go. But ultimately, what is 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:02.360 the message of this film? It's seen because basically the 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.600 whole plot is, oh, this these tanks are killing people? 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:07.360 Why is it killing people? Always? Because of this little 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:10.040 girl that died? And then they go on this question like, oh, 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.760 we can set her spirit free, should be happy, and 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:15.240 everyone will be saved, and then you realize, oh, no, 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:17.760 that doesn't work because she can't be saved. She's just 0:16:17.840 --> 0:16:21.560 evil to the core, and everybody's gonna keep on dying. Right. Well, 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:23.840 but they do figure out a way to get around 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.680 the curse, which is just keep passing it, keep spreading it. 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:29.520 So right, if you spread the curse to more people, 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:33.400 she won't kill you. Yeah, basically the plot of of 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:37.200 it follows as well, right, but yeah, but ultimately in 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.640 the Ring, well, you only get temporarily spared, and it follows, right, 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:42.640 But then I think in the Ring they acknowledge what 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.000 happens when like you know that didn't mind come back 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:48.200 to them as well. But maybe that's in the sequels. No, No, 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:50.160 I think that was it was kind of at least 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.840 hinted at in the first Yeah. I don't really trying 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:56.120 to think about the sequels. But but ultimately, like the messages, 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:58.720 don't try to help people, don't try and fix the world, 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.880 like everybody's gonna that's so just so bleak and nihilistic. Uh, 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:04.959 maybe it's just too bleak and nihilistic for me now. 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:06.680 It's the kind of thing I would have loved when 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:10.040 I was younger. But but yeah, that's such a harsh 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.760 way to land it, isn't it. Yeah, Um, it's not 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:17.240 an inspiring story on close examination. But but I do 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.080 still stand by a lot of the visual imagery in 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:21.919 the film, which I think holds up really well. And 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:26.080 Brian Cox is just an absolute treat absolutely. All Right, 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:27.840 we're gonna take a quick break when we come back. 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:30.560 We're going to move on from just discussing the Ring 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:33.480 in general, and we're going to discuss this this thing 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.440 that she is supposed to do, this idea that a 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:41.000 mind could somehow imprint an image on something or in 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:44.640 something or in like on Cape on Film. Uh, and 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:46.640 it's gonna be one of these topics that I think, 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:49.920 you know, draws in from a number of past episodes 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:56.080 of both stuff to blow your mind and invention. All right, 0:17:56.119 --> 0:18:01.800 we're back. So we're exploring the topic of kick photography, 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:05.920 or just generally being able to print the mind's eye 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:09.640 into some manifestation in the physical world without going through 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:14.320 any kind of normal motor translation process like drawing with 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:17.280 your hand or explaining a mental image with your mouth, 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.760 just printing the mind's eye directly onto film or onto 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:24.160 a piece of paper. Yes, and this is a topic 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:26.760 that if you're if you're already thinking, well that just 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:31.639 sounds silly. Um, well, hang with us, because you know, ultimately, 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:33.359 I I think it's pretty safe to say this is 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.480 not actually occurring. This is not a power that human 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:41.240 beings actually have. But but by looking at it and considering, 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:42.960 like how we get to this point of thinking that 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:45.639 it's possible in some cases, Uh, you know what it 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:50.280 reveals about our relationship with our own mind and considerations 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:52.719 of our own mind and mental states, as well as 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:56.840 our understanding of photography itself. Yeah, this episode made me 0:18:56.960 --> 0:18:59.560 keep thinking back to the series on photography that we 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:02.040 did on our other podcast, Invention, which if you're not 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.600 subscribed yet, go subscribe to Invention. That's right, it's a 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.199 journey through human techno history. And yeah, we did a 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:10.840 whole series on photography, also stuff before photography, like the 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:14.359 camera obscura, and then also on motion picture technology afterwards. 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:19.080 And really, you know, we can't, uh you know, overstate 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.200 the degree to which photography changed the world. It changed 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:25.160 the way we thought about the world, how we thought 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:29.239 about ourselves. It gave us new metaphors for uh, you know, 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.520 thinking about our own minds and how we're perceiving the world. 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:38.360 And uh also arguably made the modern celebrity possible. Uh 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:40.720 so we can lay that crime at its feet as well, 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.359 but it also lent itself well to a number of 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:49.679 pseudo scientific ideas and ultimately downright occult notions about what 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.560 photography was and what it might capture. Well. Sure, because 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:58.200 if you are, say, somebody who is adamant that there 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:01.680 is a type of reality that we can't normally see, 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.879 a very commonplace to go to try to find bits 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.680 of evidence of that reality that we can't normally see 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:11.919 is some kind of objective recorded media. I mean, I 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:15.639 think about the people who do e VP ghost recordings 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.919 electronic voice phenomena. Again, this is not something that I 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:20.840 think is real evidence of ghosts, but a lot of 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:23.760 people think, Okay, you know, I take my tape recorder 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.240 to a haunted graveyard and I just leave it going, 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:28.520 and then I play it back and in through the 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:31.480 static and the rustling in the wind, I hear voices 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:34.320 saying things. If I can be psychological for a minute, 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.440 I think what's mostly going on is that drawing from 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:41.560 objective recording media like that allows people to generate the 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:45.359 noise into which they can read a signal yes. And 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:48.080 of course photography when it was new, provided a whole 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.160 new way of doing something like this, right, And then 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:53.200 other technologies that were coming out around, you know, in 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.800 the same era we all said the X ray, which 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:58.679 we also have an episode of Invention about which deals 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:03.040 with invisible um, you know, processes, you know, invisible rays, 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:06.600 an invisible world, and and also was a big game 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:10.160 changer and how we we thought about reality. Sure, So 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:12.240 I was reading a little more about this, and I 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.280 ran across a two thousand five book titled The Perfect 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:19.840 Medium by Shiro at All, and it it gets into 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:24.560 the intersections between the occult and photography, which are numerous, numerous, 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.400 but the author's point out that they generally generally fall 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:31.280 into three categories. First of all, photographs of spirits, in 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:34.119 which a spirit entity shows up in the photograph. I 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:37.960 think we're mover with examples of this, uh uh. And 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:41.800 then another is photographs of mediums in which the spirit medium, 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:43.560 which is a you know, human like us who is 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:47.639 leading a seance or something, is doing something supernatural. Okay, 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.119 so it might be like a photograph that shows that 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:54.880 during a seance this medium was levitating, or that this medium, 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:58.679 during some kind of session was generating ectoplasm, right, And 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:02.720 that's the next one. Photographs of fluids and and this 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:06.720 one is interesting because the obvious subject matter here is exoplasm, 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:11.080 some weird substance emerging from the individual, and in reality 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:14.560 it's generally wet sheep's cloth or or something like that. Uh. 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:16.800 And it's easy to just think of this as ghost 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:21.200 slime and a ghostbuster's fashion. Maybe we should explain ectoplasm 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:23.440 just a little bit more so. It was this phenomenon 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:27.639 where a medium would claim that they can generate some 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:31.119 kind of physical manifestation of the spirit world that shows 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:33.200 up when you take a picture of them in the dark. 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:36.080 Maybe uh, and it would yeah, so it would look 0:22:36.119 --> 0:22:38.960 like some kind of weird cloth or slime beside their 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:42.040 head or on their body, like like a big like 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:45.520 mucus something like. No, it doesn't even generally it just 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:48.080 looks like some sort of weird mucasy cloth they got 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:51.480 slimed or slimber exactly. I mean, that's where that comes from. 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:54.000 But it's also a bit more more complex in this 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:56.920 society and the fluids in these photographs, as Sharrow and 0:22:56.960 --> 0:22:58.760 I'll point out, you know, it's dealing with this the 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:01.240 idea that you're capturing a sense of the vital force, 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:05.360 the soul, the thoughts, feelings, dreams, etcetera. All this directly 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:08.280 captured on a photographic plate without the use of a 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:11.480 camera in some cases. So it has a strong connection 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:13.200 to what was going on at the time and observation 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:16.960 of X rays and radioactivity. They point out that in France, 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:20.400 so Luis darg and others quote sought to photograph their 0:23:20.400 --> 0:23:23.800 own vital energy or thoughts simply by placing their fingers 0:23:23.880 --> 0:23:29.480 or foreheads on the census eze plate. Despite numerous refutations 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:32.600 by scientists who demonstrated that the traces thus obtained were 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:35.879 no more than photographic artifacts arising out of the experimental 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:40.119 conditions themselves. Attempts to record human fluids continued throughout the 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:43.399 twentieth century. And so this these fluids would not just 0:23:43.480 --> 0:23:46.400 be like blood or something, that would be these these 0:23:46.440 --> 0:23:48.880 spiritual fluids. Yeah, and it gets beyond just like mere 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:52.760 fluids and into also things like horrors. Um so in 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:56.639 other words, and then people still do photographing as absolutely 0:23:56.680 --> 0:23:59.440 that's like big business. Yeah, so, you know, in other words, 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:02.040 in the midst of all this what was essentially future shock, 0:24:02.160 --> 0:24:05.600 you know, uh, at this emerging technology and the hidden 0:24:05.640 --> 0:24:09.200 world's exposed through X rays. This idea of capturing thoughts 0:24:09.200 --> 0:24:12.080 through photography carried a fair amount of weight, no matter 0:24:12.119 --> 0:24:15.159 what the science said and is still saying about it. 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:18.520 So the author's point to to uh to a couple 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:21.800 of examples, one of which is the work of Simon 0:24:22.359 --> 0:24:26.560 Kurlean in the nineteen forties. Uh. Kurlan, of course, is 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:31.080 where we get Kurlean photography. He lived ninety eight, and 0:24:31.080 --> 0:24:33.560 it's the process in which an image is obtained by 0:24:33.600 --> 0:24:36.840 the application of a high frequency electric field to an 0:24:36.840 --> 0:24:40.360 object so that it radiates a characteristic pattern of luminescence 0:24:40.640 --> 0:24:44.200 that is recorded on photographic film. And it ultimately has 0:24:44.240 --> 0:24:46.800 to do with moisture and other factors. But but claims 0:24:46.800 --> 0:24:50.040 were made that it captured some aspect of an individual's health, 0:24:50.119 --> 0:24:54.080 their essence, or their vital bodily energy. So there's some 0:24:54.200 --> 0:24:56.760 kind of like invisible quality they have this showing up 0:24:56.760 --> 0:24:59.480 when you run this electric current and take a picture, right, 0:24:59.560 --> 0:25:01.920 And I think it's still factors into some sort of 0:25:02.160 --> 0:25:05.879 as to some like alternative like new age of systems. 0:25:06.520 --> 0:25:09.280 And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I mean, 0:25:09.320 --> 0:25:12.240 it's ultimately you're you're dealing with something that is perhaps 0:25:12.280 --> 0:25:19.800 a a what you know, supernatural interpretation of some visual 0:25:19.880 --> 0:25:23.399 data that you've created, which you know, as long as 0:25:23.400 --> 0:25:26.960 you're not not you know, claiming that it's scientific, I guess, 0:25:27.320 --> 0:25:29.960 you know, go for it. Um. It just falls under 0:25:30.000 --> 0:25:34.240 the domain of of of of of spiritualism and religion. 0:25:34.800 --> 0:25:36.959 They also point to a man by the name of 0:25:36.960 --> 0:25:40.560 ted Sirius, who we will come back to in a bit. Yes, 0:25:40.800 --> 0:25:43.040 because we before we get to Sirius, we have to 0:25:43.200 --> 0:25:47.760 explore the origins of this very act that Samara in 0:25:47.800 --> 0:25:52.399 the Ring is is engaging in. Uh, this idea that 0:25:52.600 --> 0:25:56.160 human beings are capable not only of photography, which photography 0:25:56.200 --> 0:25:59.680 in and of itself is an amazing accomplishment. This, this, 0:25:59.680 --> 0:26:02.359 this much have seemed magic when it was new, Oh, absolutely, 0:26:02.359 --> 0:26:05.040 because at least we discussed an invention. You know. It's 0:26:05.440 --> 0:26:10.200 it's this perfect convergence of of optical expertise and chemical 0:26:10.240 --> 0:26:14.000 expertise and artistic expertise, all of it coming together in 0:26:14.080 --> 0:26:17.280 this new way of of of of dealing with the 0:26:17.359 --> 0:26:21.080 visual world. Um. But then we have this added idea 0:26:21.240 --> 0:26:26.639 that people can also engage in thought ptography, right, thoughtography. Uh, 0:26:27.000 --> 0:26:31.720 it goes by several names, now, psychic photography maybe thoughtography, 0:26:31.760 --> 0:26:35.240 and it's modern origins are I think you could you 0:26:35.240 --> 0:26:38.000 could argue that they are in Japan. So I want 0:26:38.000 --> 0:26:42.159 to talk about a researcher named Fukuai Tomochichi, who is 0:26:42.200 --> 0:26:45.600 a Japanese psychologist who lived from eighteen sixty nine to 0:26:45.760 --> 0:26:50.440 nineteen fifty two. He was educated at Tokyo Imperial University 0:26:50.480 --> 0:26:53.360 in the eighteen nineties. He studied in their philosophy department. 0:26:53.359 --> 0:26:55.719 Because this would have been when psychology was brand new 0:26:55.760 --> 0:26:58.840 there weren't like psychology departments, you know that there there 0:26:58.960 --> 0:27:00.880 would have been many of the were any at the time, 0:27:00.960 --> 0:27:04.760 and he received his PhD after doing a dissertation on hypnotism. 0:27:05.080 --> 0:27:09.480 And according to the History of Japanese Psychology by Brian J. McVeigh, 0:27:09.520 --> 0:27:12.000 which is my source on most of this about Fukurai, 0:27:12.480 --> 0:27:15.800 Fukarai played an important role in introducing the work of 0:27:15.840 --> 0:27:20.639 the pioneering American psychologist William James to Japanese scholars. Of course, 0:27:20.680 --> 0:27:24.359 William James would have been a contemporary of Fuguais. James 0:27:24.480 --> 0:27:27.280 Is The Principles of Psychology came out in eighteen ninety 0:27:27.880 --> 0:27:31.000 and his lectures which became the Varieties of Religious Experience, 0:27:31.040 --> 0:27:32.920 which we've talked about a number of times on the show. 0:27:33.040 --> 0:27:35.640 That those happened around nineteen o one and nineteen o two, 0:27:35.680 --> 0:27:37.639 I think, But so this would have been around the 0:27:37.680 --> 0:27:40.480 same time that Fukurai was working and uh and doing 0:27:40.520 --> 0:27:45.120 his dissertation and doing his early research. Now, according to McVeigh, 0:27:45.280 --> 0:27:49.359 Fukarai also published work on the subject of education, and 0:27:49.440 --> 0:27:52.439 he became a lecturer and an associate professor in the 0:27:52.440 --> 0:27:55.479 field of abnormal psychology, which today we would just call 0:27:55.640 --> 0:27:58.639 the study of mental illnesses and he so he was 0:27:58.720 --> 0:28:01.640 a lecturer at Tokyo and Real University on these subjects. 0:28:01.720 --> 0:28:05.640 But from here his interests apparently took a turn for 0:28:05.760 --> 0:28:11.640 the paranormal. So, beginning sometime around nineteen ten, Farai became 0:28:12.240 --> 0:28:17.640 extremely interested in spiritualism, especially in the subject of clair voyance. Now, 0:28:17.680 --> 0:28:19.560 of course, we should note that he would not have 0:28:19.640 --> 0:28:24.080 been alone in this at the time. Interest in spiritualism, mediums, 0:28:24.080 --> 0:28:28.320 and the paranormal enjoyed extreme popularity and elite circles all 0:28:28.359 --> 0:28:32.200 around the world at this time. Now today, clair voyance 0:28:32.280 --> 0:28:35.480 is usually understood to be a special kind of psychic power. 0:28:35.680 --> 0:28:39.120 Common definition of it is quote the supposed faculty of 0:28:39.240 --> 0:28:42.680 perceiving things or events in the future or beyond normal 0:28:42.760 --> 0:28:47.800 sensory contact. Now, like a lot of psychic concepts, I 0:28:47.840 --> 0:28:51.720 see claire voyance invoked to refer to a sort of 0:28:51.760 --> 0:28:54.560 a broad range of things. H So I think it 0:28:54.640 --> 0:28:58.200 can include all manner of cases of remote viewing. So 0:28:58.280 --> 0:29:01.960 like seeing things that are hind physical barriers. You know, 0:29:02.040 --> 0:29:04.040 you shouldn't be able to see through the closed door 0:29:04.080 --> 0:29:06.680 into the next room, but you can seeing things that 0:29:06.720 --> 0:29:09.360 are far away, you know, maybe seeing things that are 0:29:09.360 --> 0:29:12.440 happening in another country, seeing things that are separated in 0:29:12.600 --> 0:29:16.080 time in the future or the past. Uh, And sometimes 0:29:16.120 --> 0:29:19.280 but less often, seeing things that can't normally be seen 0:29:19.320 --> 0:29:22.800 at all, such as spiritual essences or the contents of 0:29:22.840 --> 0:29:25.800 other people's thoughts, or otherwise having knowledge that you just 0:29:25.840 --> 0:29:29.000 couldn't acquire by normal means. Now, of course, it's worth 0:29:29.120 --> 0:29:34.440 noting that all of these things as psychic phenomenon, they 0:29:34.520 --> 0:29:39.400 are basically exaggerations of things that the human mind does 0:29:40.000 --> 0:29:44.080 through um, you know, through mental time travel, for instance, 0:29:44.200 --> 0:29:47.040 imagining what the future will be like, or remembering what 0:29:47.120 --> 0:29:50.480 the past was. The idea of not being able to 0:29:50.480 --> 0:29:52.400 see through a wall into the next room and see 0:29:52.400 --> 0:29:55.480 what's going on there, but perform but you know, conceiving 0:29:55.520 --> 0:29:58.080 a mental picture of what it might be like. Like 0:29:58.160 --> 0:30:00.719 for instance, there's another recording studio here or in the office. 0:30:01.200 --> 0:30:03.320 I cannot see in there with my mind, but with 0:30:03.440 --> 0:30:06.680 my mind I can imagine that the guys from stuff 0:30:06.720 --> 0:30:08.720 they don't want you to know are in there right 0:30:08.760 --> 0:30:12.320 now recording something. But you cannot imagine what they are doing. 0:30:13.600 --> 0:30:15.960 But I can form a pretty basic idea that of 0:30:16.040 --> 0:30:18.280 setting around a table talking it will not fit in 0:30:18.280 --> 0:30:21.040 your brain. When they're doing it's it's it looks just 0:30:21.080 --> 0:30:24.200 like what we're doing. This the subject matter is slightly different. 0:30:24.400 --> 0:30:26.840 But but at any rate, what I'm saying is I 0:30:27.320 --> 0:30:29.920 can form a pretty good idea, but I know that 0:30:29.920 --> 0:30:34.960 that is just my brain creating a simulation of my environment, right. 0:30:35.000 --> 0:30:37.000 But I mean, I think a lot of this clairvoyant 0:30:37.000 --> 0:30:40.560 stuff hinges on the concept of generating accurate knowledge. It's 0:30:40.600 --> 0:30:42.920 like all the stuff we can do with our imagination, 0:30:43.000 --> 0:30:47.120 except they can do it to see reality. Um And 0:30:47.160 --> 0:30:49.680 the kind of clear voyants that Fukurai was most interested 0:30:49.680 --> 0:30:51.600 in I think would be covered by the first two 0:30:51.640 --> 0:30:54.440 categories of things I said, so mostly like seeing things 0:30:54.440 --> 0:30:58.440 that are far away and seeing across physical barriers. According 0:30:58.440 --> 0:31:01.960 to McVeigh, he was focused on something called toshi, which 0:31:02.000 --> 0:31:05.480 meant something like seeing through, as in seeing through barriers, 0:31:05.880 --> 0:31:10.000 and on syndrigan, which meant the far seeing eye. And 0:31:10.120 --> 0:31:13.000 in this parapsychology phase of his life, Fukurai was aided 0:31:13.000 --> 0:31:18.440 by another Japanese researcher named Imamura Shinkichi. Now Fukuai studied 0:31:18.920 --> 0:31:24.000 a reputed Japanese clairvoyant named Mfuni Chizuko and another named 0:31:24.120 --> 0:31:28.320 Nagao Ikuko, and McVeigh writes that in nineteen ten, Fukurai 0:31:28.440 --> 0:31:31.280 performed a series of experiments in front of a panel 0:31:31.320 --> 0:31:35.360 of scholars and experts that he believed would demonstrate Mfuna 0:31:35.440 --> 0:31:39.280 Chizuko's power to read out written messages even after they 0:31:39.320 --> 0:31:43.840 had been sealed inside envelopes and then placed inside lead containers, 0:31:44.320 --> 0:31:47.720 and apparently an attempt to replicate these experiments the following 0:31:47.760 --> 0:31:51.080 year in nineteen eleven was not as successful as Fukurai 0:31:51.120 --> 0:31:54.040 and Mfuni had hoped, and a lot of people considered 0:31:54.080 --> 0:31:59.160 that Fugarais research was clearly misguided After some failed demonstrations 0:31:59.600 --> 0:32:02.560 and he in his supposed clairvoyant subjects like Nigau and 0:32:02.640 --> 0:32:06.000 mfune were criticized in the press, and at least I 0:32:06.000 --> 0:32:08.480 think it's implied that partially as a result of these 0:32:08.480 --> 0:32:12.760 failures in subsequent criticism, McVeigh writes that both mufuney and 0:32:13.080 --> 0:32:17.360 Nigau Ikuko committed suicide in the year nineteen eleven, but 0:32:17.680 --> 0:32:22.200 before I've also seen another cause of death attributed to Nagaikuko, 0:32:22.320 --> 0:32:24.640 so I'm not sure about that, But McVeigh says that 0:32:24.760 --> 0:32:27.360 that she also died by suicide. But before she died 0:32:27.880 --> 0:32:32.520 in nineteen eleven, Nagaikuko appeared to demonstrate a novel form 0:32:32.680 --> 0:32:36.160 of psychic power that fascinated Fukurai, and this was apart 0:32:36.200 --> 0:32:41.880 from traditional clairvoyance. This was the power that Fukurai called ninsha, 0:32:41.960 --> 0:32:46.720 which would have roughly translated as thoughtography. The Japanese term 0:32:46.840 --> 0:32:50.000 ninha comes from the combination of nin meaning like sense 0:32:50.080 --> 0:32:53.960 or feeling, and shah meaning picture, and in concrete terms, 0:32:54.080 --> 0:32:56.280 this just means that Fukua I believe that Nigau had 0:32:56.320 --> 0:32:59.680 the power to use her mind's eye to expose a 0:32:59.760 --> 0:33:03.600 draw I played a photographic film, essentially burning her thoughts 0:33:04.080 --> 0:33:07.600 directly onto the physical substrate, the same way that light 0:33:07.680 --> 0:33:11.040 prints and image onto a piece of film. After Mifunei 0:33:11.080 --> 0:33:14.280 and Nagau died, Fukurai continued his research and he published 0:33:14.280 --> 0:33:18.080 a book about clairvoyance and photography in nineteen thirteen, which 0:33:18.200 --> 0:33:21.960 was widely criticized as credulous and unscientific, and fugura I 0:33:22.000 --> 0:33:25.640 eventually lost his university position moved on to other things 0:33:25.640 --> 0:33:29.120 that he apparently continued to be interested in paranormal research 0:33:29.200 --> 0:33:33.760 well into his retirement in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties. Um. 0:33:33.960 --> 0:33:37.040 One weird thing is Before he was publicly ridiculed and 0:33:37.120 --> 0:33:41.360 ousted from his position at Tokyo University, Fugaray was considered 0:33:41.400 --> 0:33:44.280 an elite scholar at the head of Japanese psychology. He 0:33:44.320 --> 0:33:46.880 was not, you know, just some crank writing pamphlets in 0:33:46.920 --> 0:33:50.760 his basement. He was. He was a top scholar, and 0:33:50.840 --> 0:33:54.040 his his academic exile had consequences. I was reading in 0:33:54.040 --> 0:33:57.840 the Oxford Handbook of the History of Psychology Global Perspectives 0:33:57.840 --> 0:34:01.520 by David B. Baker that, in action to the Fukarai affair, 0:34:01.920 --> 0:34:05.200 a new head of the psychology department at Tokyo Imperial 0:34:05.280 --> 0:34:10.160 University decided that the department could rehabilitate its reputation by 0:34:10.200 --> 0:34:15.839 only focusing on quote normal psychology, ignoring both of fucharais 0:34:15.880 --> 0:34:19.239 areas of study meaning parapsychology like the study of psychics 0:34:19.239 --> 0:34:22.920 and quote abnormal psychology, which again would amount to the 0:34:22.960 --> 0:34:26.439 study of mental illness. Uh. Now, of course, saying we're 0:34:26.440 --> 0:34:29.400 not going to study mental illnesses is a huge limitation 0:34:29.480 --> 0:34:32.839 on academic psychology, which the authors right in this book 0:34:33.280 --> 0:34:36.160 a quote stunted the rise of clinical psychology and pre 0:34:36.200 --> 0:34:40.320 war Japan. Yeah, absolutely though, because, yeah, studying an mental 0:34:40.440 --> 0:34:43.360 illness is a way not only of understanding how to 0:34:43.400 --> 0:34:47.400 trade mental illness, but also to understand, like what, you know, 0:34:47.719 --> 0:34:50.920 how the mind is functioning in individuals who are are 0:34:51.000 --> 0:34:55.280 not experiencing mental illness, right, I mean it. It provides 0:34:55.360 --> 0:34:59.080 a frame of reference. Yeah, A lot of the For example, 0:34:59.120 --> 0:35:01.719 a lot of the biggest breakthroughs in the history of 0:35:01.760 --> 0:35:05.120 psychology have come from studying patients who have brain injuries 0:35:05.200 --> 0:35:08.759 or legions some kind that like they show you how 0:35:08.840 --> 0:35:12.360 the brain changes when certain or how the mind changes 0:35:12.400 --> 0:35:15.560 and how behavior changes when certain physical changes are made 0:35:15.560 --> 0:35:18.200 to the brain. And of course, I I've seen it 0:35:18.239 --> 0:35:21.279 alleged by a number of writers that the stories of 0:35:21.360 --> 0:35:25.400 people like me Funi Chizuko and Nagai Kuko inspired the 0:35:25.440 --> 0:35:28.279 fictional ghost in the original Ring by Suzuki Koji. I 0:35:28.480 --> 0:35:30.960 don't know if that's uh correct, but it's at least 0:35:31.000 --> 0:35:34.319 been alleged that there's some threat of inspiration there um. 0:35:34.600 --> 0:35:36.440 And you know, I want to be a little bit 0:35:36.520 --> 0:35:40.680 sympathetic to Fukurai and consider the historical context, Like in 0:35:40.680 --> 0:35:44.680 the year nineteen ten, it was only fifteen years previous 0:35:44.719 --> 0:35:47.320 that X rays and X ray photography had been discovered. 0:35:47.360 --> 0:35:50.520 We sort of alluded to this earlier right. The German 0:35:50.520 --> 0:35:54.800 physicist Wilhelm Runkin. He discovered X rays by accident in 0:35:54.840 --> 0:35:58.480 the year eighteen when he was performing experiments with a 0:35:58.520 --> 0:36:01.280 type of early cathode ray tube, which was an electrical 0:36:01.320 --> 0:36:05.120 device that shoots a beam of electrons across space inside 0:36:05.120 --> 0:36:09.120 an evacuated tube from one electrode to another. And Runkin 0:36:09.239 --> 0:36:11.760 noticed when he was running these experiments he'd put current 0:36:11.800 --> 0:36:14.440 through the cathode ray tube in the darkened room, it 0:36:14.440 --> 0:36:17.800 would make this particular screen in the room. It was 0:36:17.840 --> 0:36:20.960 a screen of barium platinum cyanide, which is like a 0:36:21.000 --> 0:36:24.480 type of photographic plate. It would make that glow. And 0:36:24.560 --> 0:36:26.640 this puzzled him, of course, so he tried to run 0:36:26.640 --> 0:36:29.359 some more experiments, and he discovered that he could use 0:36:29.440 --> 0:36:34.120 the cathode ray tube to expose photographic plates inside a 0:36:34.200 --> 0:36:38.360 completely dark room, except the photos were nothing like anybody 0:36:38.360 --> 0:36:41.360 on Earth had ever seen. A human hand placed in 0:36:41.400 --> 0:36:44.200 front of the tube between the tube and the plate 0:36:45.080 --> 0:36:49.040 would create an exposure almost completely ignoring the fleshy parts 0:36:49.080 --> 0:36:53.200 of the hand, but showing the bones hidden underneath the flesh. 0:36:53.280 --> 0:36:56.120 And when Runkin created an X ray exposure of his 0:36:56.160 --> 0:36:58.680 wife's hand. She reportedly looked at the images of her 0:36:58.719 --> 0:37:02.439 bones and said, I have seen my death. Uh yeah. 0:37:02.520 --> 0:37:04.239 And if you want more about this, we talked about 0:37:04.239 --> 0:37:06.200 this in our X ray episode of Invention. But the 0:37:06.560 --> 0:37:09.640 X ray photo was a radically completely new way of 0:37:09.800 --> 0:37:12.920 imaging the hidden reality inside the body. It had been 0:37:12.960 --> 0:37:15.879 discovered almost completely by accident, and it had been only 0:37:15.920 --> 0:37:19.080 like fifteen years before this. Of course, photography itself was 0:37:19.120 --> 0:37:21.440 maybe like eighty to ninety years old at the time, 0:37:22.000 --> 0:37:23.839 And so you add to that the fact that people 0:37:23.880 --> 0:37:27.640 were proposing all kinds of other hypothetical classes of raise 0:37:27.800 --> 0:37:30.000 at the time. You remember we talked about in rays. 0:37:30.840 --> 0:37:33.799 Those didn't exist, but people were just thinking that they 0:37:33.840 --> 0:37:36.759 were all kinds of rays we didn't detect or understand 0:37:36.840 --> 0:37:40.800 yet invisible forces beaming out from one object to another. 0:37:41.320 --> 0:37:43.680 Um Fukurai was wrong. I think he. I think he 0:37:43.719 --> 0:37:46.160 was misguided, But I don't think it was crazy at 0:37:46.160 --> 0:37:49.400 the time, or certainly not as crazy as it seems 0:37:49.440 --> 0:37:53.080 now to think that the hidden anatomy that governed the 0:37:53.120 --> 0:37:55.680 mind's eye and the brain might leave some kind of 0:37:55.760 --> 0:37:59.040 print on a piece of film Via raise projected out 0:37:59.040 --> 0:38:01.319 of the head. I don't know, does that make sense 0:38:01.320 --> 0:38:03.319 to you? Yeah? Yeah, I mean we have to put 0:38:03.320 --> 0:38:06.640 ourselves in the framework of the time and uh and 0:38:06.640 --> 0:38:09.400 and and really again in the sense of future shock 0:38:09.520 --> 0:38:12.279 that would have would have still been resonating and to 0:38:12.360 --> 0:38:14.360 a certain extence still resonates. Because I think one of 0:38:14.400 --> 0:38:16.239 the one of the things that we're going to keep 0:38:16.680 --> 0:38:19.799 seeing in these episodes is that and I think this 0:38:19.920 --> 0:38:23.600 was revealed again in our our photography series on Invention, 0:38:23.760 --> 0:38:28.240 is that photography is a complicated process that brings in uh, 0:38:28.400 --> 0:38:31.239 you know, at least two different fields the third if 0:38:31.239 --> 0:38:36.000 you count the artistic world as well, but certainly optics 0:38:36.040 --> 0:38:40.400 and chemistry and not everyone really has a firm grasp 0:38:40.640 --> 0:38:42.600 on that like it too. For a lot of us, 0:38:42.600 --> 0:38:46.440 it's still kind of feels like magic. A polaroid camera, uh, 0:38:46.520 --> 0:38:49.880 you know where you know, instantly gives you the images 0:38:50.400 --> 0:38:54.600 sort of magic. Uh. And when we when we don't 0:38:54.640 --> 0:39:00.000 understand something completely, it it allows us to engage in uh, 0:39:00.280 --> 0:39:04.439 unrealistic modes of thought about what is going on with 0:39:04.760 --> 0:39:08.799 the camera, What is going on with photography? All Right, 0:39:08.800 --> 0:39:11.040 we're gonna keep talking about all this, but we're gonna 0:39:11.040 --> 0:39:17.759 take one quick break first. Alright, we're back. So I 0:39:17.760 --> 0:39:20.000 want to talk just a little bit about this idea 0:39:20.000 --> 0:39:24.239 of remote viewing, which which Fukarai was definitely involved in. Yeah, 0:39:25.040 --> 0:39:26.879 this idea that you know, you could just you could 0:39:26.920 --> 0:39:29.759 see what's going on in another place, either in another room, 0:39:30.120 --> 0:39:33.800 another part of the world, sealed envelope, sealed envelope, or 0:39:33.840 --> 0:39:37.480 another planet. And you know, another example of an accomplished 0:39:37.480 --> 0:39:41.000 individual in their field who is also a prominent UH 0:39:41.320 --> 0:39:46.400 proponent of remote viewing is Atlanta's own Courtney Brown, an 0:39:46.400 --> 0:39:50.000 associate professor in the Political Science department at Emory University. 0:39:50.400 --> 0:39:54.160 It also works in non linear mathematics. So we see 0:39:54.520 --> 0:39:58.360 in Fukarai an interest in hypnosis uh. And then Brown 0:39:58.760 --> 0:40:03.400 is versed in meditation shan UH. Meditation induced light experiences 0:40:03.480 --> 0:40:06.480 can occur and have been linked to similar experiences in 0:40:06.560 --> 0:40:10.239 sensory deprivation uh. And and I've seen things like that 0:40:10.280 --> 0:40:13.319 in yoga meditation as well, where you will be you know, 0:40:13.360 --> 0:40:17.000 you're you're you're seeing lights or shapes or or some 0:40:17.080 --> 0:40:21.200 sort of imagery that feels as if it is it 0:40:21.320 --> 0:40:24.040 is arising and it is not called forth. You know 0:40:24.080 --> 0:40:26.640 what I'm saying like, it doesn't feel like it's something 0:40:26.680 --> 0:40:29.719 that you are consciously imagining. It doesn't feel like something 0:40:29.719 --> 0:40:32.640 that is dictated by the default mode network, you know, 0:40:32.880 --> 0:40:35.840 it doesn't feel like the sort of images um or 0:40:35.920 --> 0:40:38.920 thoughts that are normally bombarding our brain. Well, I think 0:40:38.920 --> 0:40:42.960 about how often in psychedelic experiences people talk about believing 0:40:43.000 --> 0:40:46.160 they have encountered an other where if you just I mean, 0:40:46.440 --> 0:40:48.279 you know, it's impossible to know for sure, but it 0:40:48.280 --> 0:40:50.440 seems like probably what's going on is they're having an 0:40:50.440 --> 0:40:53.960 internal experience with their own brain. But there are some 0:40:54.080 --> 0:40:58.280 types of experiences that we've just for whatever reason, feel 0:40:58.440 --> 0:41:03.000 our exogenous. It feels like it's coming from outside you, right, 0:41:03.080 --> 0:41:06.920 and so with with the right amount of of priming, expectation, 0:41:07.040 --> 0:41:11.239 and ultimately consolidation, Like any one of these experiences, be 0:41:11.280 --> 0:41:14.240 it something that is due to the use of psychedelics 0:41:14.360 --> 0:41:18.760 or something that is acquired through meditation, hypnosis, etcetera um, 0:41:18.800 --> 0:41:22.040 because as we've discussed before, like even normal, our normal 0:41:22.080 --> 0:41:27.759 sensory view of the world is inherently hallucinatory, you know, 0:41:27.800 --> 0:41:29.680 it is in its in its own way and illusion. 0:41:30.239 --> 0:41:32.120 It's not the way things are. It's just like a 0:41:32.320 --> 0:41:35.360 useful sort of movie that we can interact with the 0:41:35.360 --> 0:41:37.880 world through. Right. So if you're having an experience like 0:41:37.920 --> 0:41:41.759 that and it feels real, right, and then you can 0:41:41.800 --> 0:41:46.080 see how even like certainly very intelligent people, uh can 0:41:46.520 --> 0:41:50.120 can can come to believe that that they are actually 0:41:50.560 --> 0:41:54.920 perceiving the reality of a distant location and become very 0:41:54.920 --> 0:41:57.840 convinced of it. And then certainly if you have a 0:41:58.000 --> 0:42:00.600 name for this as well, you know, becomes kind of 0:42:00.719 --> 0:42:04.799 established in parapsychology. Than than that also helps that gives 0:42:04.800 --> 0:42:08.440 you even more like priming and conditioning, uh too, in 0:42:08.440 --> 0:42:11.920 which to frame this experience. And and also I mean 0:42:11.920 --> 0:42:13.600 just to go back to psychedelics too, and certainly our 0:42:13.640 --> 0:42:16.960 episode on psychedelics, like we see that trend uh in 0:42:17.040 --> 0:42:20.640 the twentieth century, right, this this counterculture emerge, this idea 0:42:21.000 --> 0:42:27.040 taking shape that secular individuals can have a essentially a 0:42:27.080 --> 0:42:32.200 mystical experience that is not due to the imachinations of 0:42:32.239 --> 0:42:36.400 gods or angels, you know, um And and so you know, 0:42:36.440 --> 0:42:38.600 it's it's not surprising that we see all, you know, 0:42:39.480 --> 0:42:42.040 cases like this arising. So I also say on top 0:42:42.080 --> 0:42:45.200 of that, there's just I think there's a very respectable 0:42:45.280 --> 0:42:49.080 humility impulse that says like, Okay, you know, we should 0:42:49.080 --> 0:42:51.440 always accept that there may be forces at work in 0:42:51.440 --> 0:42:54.120 our day to day surroundings that we don't fully understand. 0:42:54.560 --> 0:42:57.280 You know, we don't have a scientific theory that accounts 0:42:57.320 --> 0:42:59.640 for them yet. And I think that's a good thing 0:43:00.000 --> 0:43:02.400 to start from. But I think a lot of like 0:43:02.440 --> 0:43:06.680 parapsychology and paranormal type people jump from there too, because 0:43:06.840 --> 0:43:09.439 we we should acknowledge that there are lots of things 0:43:09.520 --> 0:43:12.640 about the world we don't understand yet. Therefore remote viewing 0:43:12.719 --> 0:43:16.400 is real, you know, or like therefore, you know, you 0:43:16.440 --> 0:43:20.319 can't discount thoughtography and finding the right balance there, I 0:43:20.320 --> 0:43:23.600 think is part of the difficulty of living the skeptical life. 0:43:23.640 --> 0:43:25.000 You know, you don't want to live a life of 0:43:25.040 --> 0:43:29.200 denialism where you just like, anytime something is strange, you're unexplained, 0:43:29.239 --> 0:43:31.840 you just say like, oh, that's nonsense. But at the 0:43:31.840 --> 0:43:34.400 same time, you want to maintain a high standard of evidence, 0:43:34.440 --> 0:43:36.960 and that's that's the tightrope walk I guess you've got 0:43:36.960 --> 0:43:39.200 to do if you want to be a scientific investigator, 0:43:39.520 --> 0:43:41.680 if you want to try to have the most accurate 0:43:41.760 --> 0:43:44.319 view you can of the world. And they're always going 0:43:44.360 --> 0:43:47.759 to be these edge cases where somebody's presenting you know, 0:43:47.880 --> 0:43:52.279 evidence that maybe maybe seems compelling for some kind of 0:43:52.280 --> 0:43:55.800 phenomenon that doesn't really seem like it like it fits 0:43:55.840 --> 0:43:59.240 with well tested theories that otherwise predict the physical world. 0:43:59.560 --> 0:44:01.359 And I think that's the case that some of these 0:44:01.360 --> 0:44:05.400 investigators have run into with psychic photography, especially in the 0:44:05.400 --> 0:44:08.600 cases we'll talk about with Ted serious. Absolutely. I should 0:44:08.640 --> 0:44:11.000 also point out that we always have to remember that 0:44:11.040 --> 0:44:14.120 the c i A sunk something like twenty million dollars 0:44:14.560 --> 0:44:17.440 into the Stargate project in the nine nineties and an 0:44:17.440 --> 0:44:21.640 attempt to ascertain the effectiveness and military potential of remote viewing, 0:44:22.000 --> 0:44:25.000 and this project was ultimately terminated in remote viewing was 0:44:25.040 --> 0:44:32.040 found unfruitful to their needs. But maybe it was a conspiracy, No, No, 0:44:32.200 --> 0:44:34.880 I mean yeah, I tend to think like if there. 0:44:34.920 --> 0:44:37.400 I mean, first of all, I've got major objections to 0:44:37.440 --> 0:44:41.600 remote viewing just on like a plausibility basis. Like you know, again, 0:44:41.880 --> 0:44:44.080 you can't rule things out just because you don't know 0:44:44.160 --> 0:44:46.480 the mechanism. But if you've got a pretty good picture 0:44:46.520 --> 0:44:49.480 of how physics works, and they just you know, their 0:44:49.520 --> 0:44:52.640 powers proposed that don't seem to fit in any way 0:44:52.760 --> 0:44:57.240 with any you know, any physical forces that you could identify. 0:44:57.440 --> 0:44:59.839 That's that should definitely be a red flag to start with. 0:45:00.200 --> 0:45:02.120 And then on top of that, I think there are 0:45:02.160 --> 0:45:05.759 additional plausibility problems with remote viewing, which is like, if 0:45:05.880 --> 0:45:08.479 it is, if it does exist, why isn't it being 0:45:08.520 --> 0:45:12.560 taken better advantage of Yeah? Uh, and that thing said, 0:45:12.600 --> 0:45:14.560 I do come back to like what I said earlier, like, 0:45:15.280 --> 0:45:19.400 even though it's not scientifically feasible as far as we 0:45:19.480 --> 0:45:22.279 understand it, um, you know, that doesn't mean that you know, 0:45:22.280 --> 0:45:25.560 people shouldn't be interested in it and uh or even 0:45:25.800 --> 0:45:28.000 you know, practice it, but it needs to be more 0:45:28.040 --> 0:45:30.120 of I feel like it is more definitely in the 0:45:30.160 --> 0:45:34.000 line of like a spiritual or religious practice, you know. Um. 0:45:34.040 --> 0:45:36.120 But that's my just my two cents on it. And 0:45:36.160 --> 0:45:38.279 I think that's one of the problems that and we're 0:45:38.280 --> 0:45:39.839 going to see that with a lot of these these 0:45:39.840 --> 0:45:43.400 people that are they're claiming these abilities, is they are 0:45:43.440 --> 0:45:47.000 not presenting them as something that is uh, you know, 0:45:47.080 --> 0:45:50.400 ultimately like the domain of the spiritual, something that can't 0:45:50.400 --> 0:45:53.160 really be proven or disproven. But they're but they're agreeing 0:45:53.200 --> 0:45:57.880 to test, they're agreeing to uh to uh performances of 0:45:57.920 --> 0:46:02.200 their ability and in fighting in some cases experts, to 0:46:02.200 --> 0:46:04.439 to see what they're doing and to to to try 0:46:04.480 --> 0:46:08.879 and find the problems in it. Uh. So Um, it's 0:46:08.880 --> 0:46:11.640 something to keep in mind as we've moved forward. All Right, 0:46:11.680 --> 0:46:13.839 So let's come back to a figure that we've We've 0:46:13.840 --> 0:46:17.800 mentioned the name already, uh ted Sirius. That's s c 0:46:18.000 --> 0:46:23.040 r iOS. Is it serious or Sirios Sirius? With Sirius, 0:46:23.040 --> 0:46:26.480 well you say that, I'll say Sirius just confusing like 0:46:26.520 --> 0:46:31.680 serious black Um. So. Sirius lived through two thousand six, 0:46:32.320 --> 0:46:35.319 and he claimed to be able to create thoutographs on 0:46:35.400 --> 0:46:41.359 polaroid film. So, um, this is an interesting figure, um 0:46:41.840 --> 0:46:45.799 to say the least. So um. I was reading a 0:46:45.800 --> 0:46:47.920 little bit about this in that in that book The 0:46:47.920 --> 0:46:53.040 Perfect Medium, paras psychologist Stephen E. Broad writes about him 0:46:53.200 --> 0:46:57.920 who brought is also a philosophy professor, uh, and he 0:46:58.000 --> 0:47:01.200 contends that Sirius is photograph fee is perhaps the best 0:47:01.239 --> 0:47:04.000 documented and perhaps the most impressive. Does he seem a 0:47:04.000 --> 0:47:09.680 little uh sympathetic to maybe he did have some psychic powers? Um? 0:47:09.920 --> 0:47:14.520 I mean I encourage everyone to read Broad's work for 0:47:14.560 --> 0:47:20.480 themselves because he um. He certainly is more inclined to 0:47:20.480 --> 0:47:25.799 to criticize some of the the individuals who have been 0:47:25.840 --> 0:47:29.359 attributed as being like solid debunkers. At the very least, 0:47:29.360 --> 0:47:33.480 he seems to be saying, look, whatever Ciris was doing, 0:47:33.880 --> 0:47:36.000 it's not nearly as debunked as you think it is. 0:47:36.760 --> 0:47:39.319 Um And I'm and he is a para psychologist. He 0:47:39.400 --> 0:47:42.040 is a para psychologist. So so I want to stress 0:47:42.080 --> 0:47:45.080 all of that, but it's still an interesting read. He 0:47:45.120 --> 0:47:48.480 does seem to be more inclined to um entertain the 0:47:48.520 --> 0:47:53.560 possibility though. So. Sirius was a Chicago bellhop who had 0:47:53.560 --> 0:47:57.600 experimented with with hypnosis and uh. He claims that during 0:47:57.640 --> 0:48:00.200 this time he found that he could use his trying 0:48:00.200 --> 0:48:04.759 to project images onto camera film in later instant polaroid film. 0:48:04.800 --> 0:48:07.680 And he apparently demonstrated this to various folks and was 0:48:07.760 --> 0:48:11.799 quite convincing. And this caught the attention of Denver psychiatrist 0:48:11.880 --> 0:48:16.560 and researcher Jewel Eisenbudd, who took a strong interest in 0:48:16.600 --> 0:48:21.000 his work and conducted numerous trials resulting in hundreds of images. Yeah, 0:48:21.040 --> 0:48:23.200 and I've read that Eisenbudd is one of the main 0:48:23.280 --> 0:48:26.359 reasons that people really know about Ted Seriously, he sort 0:48:26.360 --> 0:48:29.040 of took up the cause like or at least from 0:48:29.080 --> 0:48:33.440 what I read, Eisenbudd claimed he was initially skeptical of 0:48:33.440 --> 0:48:36.680 Ted Serious his abilities, but then after spending time with 0:48:36.800 --> 0:48:39.840 him and seeing his photographs, he he came more and 0:48:39.880 --> 0:48:42.319 more to believe that these powers were real and that 0:48:42.600 --> 0:48:45.839 Serious really could project his mind's eye onto a piece 0:48:45.880 --> 0:48:50.120 of film. Yeah, Eisenbud at one point believed that Sirius 0:48:50.440 --> 0:48:54.560 was seeing the essentially remote viewing the surface of the 0:48:54.680 --> 0:49:00.200 Jovian moon Ghannamede, and then using photography to imply at 0:49:00.239 --> 0:49:03.399 that image on onto film. Right, And it gets more 0:49:03.400 --> 0:49:06.120 complex than that, actually, because I was reading that so 0:49:07.120 --> 0:49:10.520 Serious apparently made these images that Eisenbudd later said, oh, 0:49:10.640 --> 0:49:13.319 this is the surface of Ganymede, because he said that 0:49:13.400 --> 0:49:16.799 Serious was very interested in space exploration and had been 0:49:16.840 --> 0:49:20.000 thinking about the voyager to probe and that must have 0:49:20.040 --> 0:49:22.680 been what triggered his generation of this image of the 0:49:22.680 --> 0:49:26.400 surface of of Ganymede. But at the time he generated 0:49:26.400 --> 0:49:29.719 the image, the photographs from the voyager probe had not 0:49:29.840 --> 0:49:34.200 been taken yet. So I think Eisenbudd is suggesting that 0:49:34.239 --> 0:49:38.640 if these photos are real, serious actually not only projected 0:49:38.680 --> 0:49:42.120 his thoughts directly on the film, but also pre cognitively 0:49:42.320 --> 0:49:48.680 remote viewed the surface of of wait, precognitively. Well, I 0:49:48.719 --> 0:49:50.960 guess it wouldn't have mattered whether the voyager probe got 0:49:51.000 --> 0:49:53.200 there yet he was seeing the surface of the moon 0:49:53.239 --> 0:49:55.440 before the probe got there, right, And I've seen this 0:49:55.480 --> 0:49:59.560 in other uh you know, accounts of remote viewing, where 0:49:59.600 --> 0:50:02.960 they have they have essentially seen other worlds or have 0:50:03.120 --> 0:50:06.600 encountered historic figures, that sort of thing. Right now, Another 0:50:06.640 --> 0:50:09.680 thing worth noting about Cirios here is that is that 0:50:09.880 --> 0:50:14.120 even eisenbud like points out that that that ted it 0:50:14.200 --> 0:50:17.640 was definitely an alcoholic and that's sort of part of 0:50:17.680 --> 0:50:21.239 the thing, but also displayed like a lot of you know, 0:50:21.400 --> 0:50:23.960 at times kind of like irrational behavior and seemed to 0:50:23.960 --> 0:50:28.560 have you know, definite uh you know, psychological issues. So 0:50:29.360 --> 0:50:34.239 but but anyway, this was basically Sirius is process. So 0:50:34.600 --> 0:50:38.400 he generally he needed to be drunk, generally very drunk 0:50:38.760 --> 0:50:42.120 to perform this art, which I mean, I guess that's 0:50:42.160 --> 0:50:45.080 fair enough, right, I mean, I mean, really even podcasting, 0:50:45.080 --> 0:50:48.080 I remember when when when we first started podcasting, um, 0:50:48.719 --> 0:50:50.799 Jerry told us like, have a little to drink before 0:50:50.800 --> 0:50:53.120 you go into the podcast, but if it'll help. Jerry 0:50:53.160 --> 0:50:56.319 Ever told me that, well maybe maybe I just look 0:50:56.360 --> 0:50:58.480 like I needed to drink at the time. I don't know. 0:50:58.760 --> 0:51:00.840 But wait, are you serious? Serious? Yeah? I mean I 0:51:00.880 --> 0:51:04.240 think she's joking. But at any rate, like the idea 0:51:04.400 --> 0:51:08.560 that you would need a social lubricant to essentially to 0:51:08.640 --> 0:51:14.680 perform something, um either you know, a legitimate psychic ability, 0:51:14.840 --> 0:51:17.680 or to perform some sort of a trick, some sort 0:51:17.719 --> 0:51:22.400 of a um an illusion or even a confidence trick. Right, um, 0:51:22.480 --> 0:51:25.520 So that's one part of it. Also, he preferred to 0:51:25.680 --> 0:51:28.239 hold a quota he called a gizmo in his hand 0:51:28.719 --> 0:51:32.560 to help him focus his powers. And it was a short, 0:51:32.640 --> 0:51:36.000 open cylinder about an inch in diameter. And of course 0:51:36.080 --> 0:51:38.920 this is highly suspicious. You don't have to be Sherlock 0:51:38.920 --> 0:51:42.200 Holmes to suspect that the gizmo is either the heart 0:51:42.320 --> 0:51:45.520 of the trick that he is going to perform, or 0:51:45.600 --> 0:51:49.160 it's a decoy to distract onlookers from the actual trick. 0:51:50.200 --> 0:51:53.600 Because he'd often placed this in front of the camera lens, 0:51:53.640 --> 0:51:56.640 like he'd get up into the into the camera lens 0:51:56.680 --> 0:51:59.800 with the gizmo and then also like you know, mugging 0:52:00.120 --> 0:52:02.920 or the camera, placing his forehead in the way and 0:52:03.200 --> 0:52:07.120 somehow using the gizmo allegedly to focus his thoughts into 0:52:07.160 --> 0:52:09.560 the camera. Yeah, he said he needed to connect his 0:52:09.640 --> 0:52:12.799 body to the camera. Uh. Though there are allegations also 0:52:12.880 --> 0:52:16.319 that he was able to produce autographs and uh and 0:52:16.320 --> 0:52:19.600 and actually make images on a camera while being far 0:52:19.640 --> 0:52:22.719 away from the camera. That at least is alleged. But 0:52:22.800 --> 0:52:25.560 he most of the time, it has said, would like 0:52:25.640 --> 0:52:28.239 put his forehead right on this thing and stick it 0:52:28.280 --> 0:52:32.080 in the camera camera lyn So, Yeah, raises some red flags, right, 0:52:32.320 --> 0:52:35.120 But then the idea is that he's essentially taking a 0:52:35.160 --> 0:52:37.719 snapshot of the mental image that he is forming in 0:52:37.760 --> 0:52:41.200 his mind. The be it a mental image that is 0:52:41.239 --> 0:52:45.800 formed via memory or just sort of general mental imaging, 0:52:45.960 --> 0:52:48.200 or it's something that is that he has acquired through 0:52:48.680 --> 0:52:52.400 um uh you know, sending his consciousness to a to 0:52:52.800 --> 0:52:55.399 the moons of Jupiter. Yeah. And now I read some 0:52:55.920 --> 0:52:59.880 conflicting reports that sometimes it seems like the images he produced, 0:52:59.880 --> 0:53:03.080 he claimed, were like not what he was thinking about consciously, 0:53:03.160 --> 0:53:06.160 but just would be these unconscious kind of associative images. 0:53:06.560 --> 0:53:11.440 That's what's suggested by Eisenbud uh, the Galilean moon, right, 0:53:12.280 --> 0:53:14.560 is that he just had the Voyager two probe on 0:53:14.640 --> 0:53:17.080 his mind and happened to generate an image of the 0:53:17.120 --> 0:53:19.919 surface of Ganymede. And so if we're approaching it from 0:53:19.960 --> 0:53:22.440 the you know, the pro psychic side, we can say, well, 0:53:22.440 --> 0:53:25.360 that makes sense. The mind is difficult to control. Mental 0:53:25.400 --> 0:53:28.040 images may form in the mind that you're not trying 0:53:28.080 --> 0:53:30.239 to summon. Certainly we can all attest to that. On 0:53:30.280 --> 0:53:32.680 the other hand, from a purely skeptical point of view, 0:53:32.880 --> 0:53:35.279 if you're going to be drawn in and put to 0:53:35.320 --> 0:53:38.120 the test by asking, you know, being asked to think 0:53:38.120 --> 0:53:41.200 of a particular thing, how convenient would it be if 0:53:41.239 --> 0:53:43.200 you could say, well, I tried to think of that 0:53:43.680 --> 0:53:45.760 that that bird feeder that you wanted me to imagine, 0:53:45.760 --> 0:53:48.040 but I'm just so obsessed with space travel right now, 0:53:48.600 --> 0:53:51.080 I give you Ganymede instead, right. I mean that makes 0:53:51.360 --> 0:53:54.759 that suggests that maybe you've already got an image of 0:53:54.840 --> 0:53:57.120 something that looks like a moon's surface on hand with 0:53:57.160 --> 0:53:59.400 you or something, right, And I guess that gets to 0:53:59.680 --> 0:54:01.759 what the actual trick would be if there is a 0:54:01.800 --> 0:54:05.279 trick here, which I assume there probably is right now 0:54:05.400 --> 0:54:08.200 now in that article in the Perfect Medium, A broad 0:54:08.360 --> 0:54:11.799 certainly focuses on the aspects of Ted's art that kind 0:54:11.800 --> 0:54:14.160 of continue to mystify, as he mentions, for instance, that 0:54:14.200 --> 0:54:17.200 Eisenbudd offered a cash reward for anyone able to replicate 0:54:17.239 --> 0:54:20.600 Ted's results quote under conditions similar to those prevailing during 0:54:20.600 --> 0:54:23.040 the during the experiments. Now I've read that there was 0:54:23.120 --> 0:54:27.680 serious dispute about like them negotiating with skeptics about what 0:54:27.719 --> 0:54:31.439 would be acceptable for those uh conditions, Like I think 0:54:31.440 --> 0:54:34.920 I read that James Randy wanted to try to replicate it, 0:54:34.960 --> 0:54:37.680 but that Eisenbudd said, well, you have to be really drunk, 0:54:37.800 --> 0:54:41.120 because Ted is always really drunk when he does it. Yeah, 0:54:41.120 --> 0:54:44.560 the famous debunker James Randy, who we had the privilege 0:54:44.600 --> 0:54:48.600 to meet, um but last year. Um. It definitely plays 0:54:48.600 --> 0:54:51.600 into some of this, And it's kind of if you 0:54:51.800 --> 0:54:54.960 if you read some of the more pro serious material, 0:54:55.520 --> 0:54:58.680 Randy's kind of portrayed as a villain. Oh all, Randy 0:54:58.760 --> 0:55:01.160 is always the villain of some thing written by pro 0:55:01.280 --> 0:55:05.960 psychic powers people. Uh so so Yeah, some of these 0:55:06.000 --> 0:55:09.319 account like brought accountants to highlight the things that were 0:55:09.320 --> 0:55:13.520 not you know, they're still a little mysterious or or 0:55:13.760 --> 0:55:19.160 or certainly accounts of replications that don't meet the same 0:55:19.200 --> 0:55:22.080 degree of replication, Like you weren't able to do exactly 0:55:22.160 --> 0:55:25.879 what Sirius is doing, therefore you didn't fully debunk him. 0:55:26.120 --> 0:55:28.640 I've I've read some of his defenders say, Okay, people 0:55:28.719 --> 0:55:32.640 have used tricks to replicate what serious was doing, but 0:55:32.680 --> 0:55:35.480 they couldn't do it without those tricks being evident to 0:55:35.520 --> 0:55:38.879 people who were watching, right. Um. I mean the other 0:55:38.880 --> 0:55:41.839 way to think about it is, can I can I 0:55:41.880 --> 0:55:45.680 paint the Mona Lisa? No? I cannot. Can I demonstrate 0:55:45.760 --> 0:55:50.040 some of the techniques personally that that that the artists 0:55:50.120 --> 0:55:54.279 used to create the Mona Lisa? Uh? Certainly, Uh. We 0:55:54.360 --> 0:55:57.160 have to take it into account that Sirius, assuming again 0:55:57.239 --> 0:56:00.319 that he's not a psychic, that he's not a not 0:56:00.680 --> 0:56:05.320 capable of photography, that he's just a performer, an illusionist, Uh, 0:56:05.360 --> 0:56:08.040 you know, a trickster, there is still an art to 0:56:08.080 --> 0:56:10.640 what he is doing. Uh. There is still a performance 0:56:10.680 --> 0:56:13.880 aspect of charismatic aspect to it, and their aspects of 0:56:13.920 --> 0:56:16.640 that that are going to depend in part on like 0:56:17.080 --> 0:56:21.440 innate charisma, but also in in practice, in in like 0:56:21.520 --> 0:56:25.880 sheer devotion to to the trick and I think you 0:56:25.920 --> 0:56:28.759 can't discount that and on likewise, you can't expect a 0:56:28.800 --> 0:56:32.719 debunker to rise to that level of performance. Well, I 0:56:32.719 --> 0:56:34.640 guess you can expect them to try. But I mean 0:56:35.239 --> 0:56:38.120 that's one thing that you know, as long as we're 0:56:38.800 --> 0:56:42.560 probing the depths of the unexplained, you could say, well, 0:56:42.640 --> 0:56:44.880 you know, there's some kind of mystical power that this 0:56:44.960 --> 0:56:46.799 person has that we just don't have the power to 0:56:46.840 --> 0:56:49.840 explain it. Or you could say that there's an extreme 0:56:49.880 --> 0:56:53.320 talent this person has for performing a trick that hasn't 0:56:53.400 --> 0:56:55.920 been explained yet. Yeah, because certainly one of the things 0:56:55.920 --> 0:56:58.080 that would come into play is slight of hand, right, 0:56:58.120 --> 0:57:03.719 because the main charge is that is that Sirios had it. 0:57:03.800 --> 0:57:05.680 Kind of varies. Sometimes they talk of just using the 0:57:05.719 --> 0:57:10.360 microfilm um or using microfilm affixed to a marble or 0:57:10.840 --> 0:57:13.239 you know, a film affixed to the end of a 0:57:13.280 --> 0:57:17.120 tiny tube like inside the quote gizmo that her up 0:57:17.160 --> 0:57:19.520 against the camera, because that's the obvious, right, is that 0:57:19.560 --> 0:57:22.560 the gizmo contains something, And if it contains something, some 0:57:22.640 --> 0:57:25.680 film would be ideal because then you have that pre 0:57:25.720 --> 0:57:28.960 existing photograph that can be the thing that he imprints. 0:57:29.720 --> 0:57:34.080 Um skeptic Karen's Hines also charged that Ted used a 0:57:34.200 --> 0:57:37.880 secondary tube about one inch long with a tiny magnifying 0:57:37.960 --> 0:57:40.360 lens that could hold a small slide, and then he 0:57:40.400 --> 0:57:43.480 would conceal this within the gizmo, but also he could 0:57:43.560 --> 0:57:46.000 use it when the gizmo was taken away, again getting 0:57:46.000 --> 0:57:49.280 into that idea that the gizmos not merely useful as 0:57:49.920 --> 0:57:53.960 something to um to hide the trick, but also can 0:57:54.000 --> 0:57:56.240 be used as a distraction, can be the thing that, oh, 0:57:56.240 --> 0:57:58.320 when it's taken away, look I can still do it. 0:57:58.520 --> 0:58:00.600 I don't even have the gizmo on me, right, And 0:58:00.680 --> 0:58:03.560 it was alleged that sometimes he could, I mean usually 0:58:03.560 --> 0:58:05.960 he used the gizmo, but it's alleged that sometimes he 0:58:06.000 --> 0:58:08.760 did it without the gizmo. Now, there were a number 0:58:08.840 --> 0:58:11.160 of expose a s at the time that claimed to 0:58:11.200 --> 0:58:14.360 show that Ted Sirius was a fraud. The entry in 0:58:14.400 --> 0:58:17.200 the Skeptics Dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll suggests that two 0:58:17.240 --> 0:58:21.800 amateur magicians and photographers named Charlie Reynolds and David Eisendraft 0:58:22.600 --> 0:58:26.320 exposed Serious as a fraud. Basically, they would and spend 0:58:26.320 --> 0:58:28.680 a weekend with him and jewel Iz and bud and 0:58:28.720 --> 0:58:31.840 they saw his stuff, and they came to the conclusion 0:58:31.840 --> 0:58:33.560 that he was a fraud and wrote this up in 0:58:33.600 --> 0:58:36.840 the article. Uh and Reynolds and Eisendraft claimed to have 0:58:36.840 --> 0:58:42.360 spotted Serious quote slipping something inside his little gizmo before demonstrations, 0:58:42.680 --> 0:58:44.800 and they think it was a picture of something that 0:58:44.880 --> 0:58:48.160 Sirius wanted to show up in the camera exposure. They 0:58:48.200 --> 0:58:52.320 also published an article explaining their findings in October nineteen 0:58:52.400 --> 0:58:56.600 sixty seven issue of Popular Photography. It was a photography magazine. Now, 0:58:56.640 --> 0:59:00.560 according to the skeptic investigator Joe Nichols account of Serious 0:59:00.680 --> 0:59:03.920 is confrontation with magicians and sleight of hand experts. Quote. 0:59:04.160 --> 0:59:07.439 At one point during the session, after an exposure was made, 0:59:07.720 --> 0:59:10.640 a magician asked to examine the paper tube to see 0:59:10.680 --> 0:59:13.200 if there was anything inside. This would be the gizmo, right, 0:59:13.240 --> 0:59:16.720 the gizmo. Uh. Serious backed away, putting his hand in 0:59:16.800 --> 0:59:21.160 his pocket. Now that's suspicious behavior. But then, weirdly, during 0:59:21.200 --> 0:59:24.520 this session, Serious was unable to produce the autographs, so 0:59:24.520 --> 0:59:27.040 apparently he had been using the gizmo. They said, let 0:59:27.040 --> 0:59:29.120 me see the gizmo, he wouldn't show it to them, 0:59:29.200 --> 0:59:31.280 And then none of the pictures came out anyway, there 0:59:31.280 --> 0:59:34.760 were no autographs. Uh, And he and Eisenbudd blamed the 0:59:34.880 --> 0:59:38.720 quote hostile atmosphere for interfering with Serious his powers. This 0:59:38.760 --> 0:59:41.920 is always a red flag also, I think. But there's 0:59:41.920 --> 0:59:44.280 still plenty of people, I think, who hold out for 0:59:44.320 --> 0:59:48.520 psychic photography, claiming that Ted Serious's powers were real and 0:59:48.600 --> 0:59:51.880 could not be explained. And he's got defenders who say 0:59:52.000 --> 0:59:55.160 that some of his feats are just impossible to explain. 0:59:55.240 --> 0:59:58.320 For example, I was reading claims in an article in 0:59:58.320 --> 1:00:01.360 the Chronicle of Higher Education which about a gallery exhibit 1:00:01.360 --> 1:00:04.240 of Serious as thoutographs which I would like to see that. 1:00:04.680 --> 1:00:07.480 Oh yeah, I mean they're interesting images, certainly when you 1:00:07.520 --> 1:00:09.920 know the background for them, especially if you just think 1:00:09.920 --> 1:00:12.080 about him as works of art, not as like displays 1:00:12.080 --> 1:00:14.760 of real psychic powers. Um. But to quote from this 1:00:14.880 --> 1:00:17.920 article quote, on occasion, volunteers were asked to attend the 1:00:17.960 --> 1:00:21.000 experiment with a photograph sealed and a cardboard back to 1:00:21.040 --> 1:00:24.840 Manila envelope. Serious then managed to reproduce the image with 1:00:24.960 --> 1:00:27.800 no prior knowledge of it. So again, that's like double 1:00:27.840 --> 1:00:31.040 psychic powers. That's not just the photography, which would be 1:00:31.080 --> 1:00:33.160 a feat even if he was looking directly at what 1:00:33.200 --> 1:00:36.600 the photo should be. Um. But also I guess seeing 1:00:36.640 --> 1:00:39.400 into this envelope if I'm reading that right, I don't know. 1:00:39.440 --> 1:00:41.760 That might also be suggesting that they just arrived with 1:00:41.800 --> 1:00:43.560 it sealed and then showed it to him and he 1:00:43.680 --> 1:00:46.560 reproduced it. Either way, I mean, if you saw that, 1:00:46.600 --> 1:00:48.640 I wouldn't say that would prove it was real, but 1:00:48.680 --> 1:00:50.720 that would be impressive. You know, you'd be like, wow, 1:00:50.760 --> 1:00:54.200 that that's either real or some impressive trickery. I'd lean 1:00:54.240 --> 1:00:57.440 toward the ladder. Um. But in other cases, he apparently 1:00:57.480 --> 1:00:59.840 managed to produce what appeared to be images of land 1:01:00.040 --> 1:01:03.240 arcs from up above, like aerial views that his supporters 1:01:03.280 --> 1:01:06.960 claimed could not be explained through trickery. But it seems 1:01:06.960 --> 1:01:10.240 like he stopped doing his thing after the late nineteen sixties, 1:01:10.280 --> 1:01:12.840 which seems a little weird, Yeah, especially consider he lived 1:01:13.240 --> 1:01:15.560 until two thousand and six. You know, I mean, that's 1:01:15.600 --> 1:01:18.040 that's a lot of time to not at least not 1:01:18.120 --> 1:01:22.720 be publicly doing this displaying this uh this ability. Uh. 1:01:22.920 --> 1:01:25.000 But then again, UM, you know, we do have to 1:01:25.080 --> 1:01:29.160 come back to you. The fact that Eisenbud himself wrote 1:01:29.160 --> 1:01:33.560 that serious was you know, psychologically disturbed. Alcoholic, So you know, 1:01:34.520 --> 1:01:36.720 you can come up with various, you know, reasons that 1:01:36.840 --> 1:01:40.400 somebody with that kind of with with those kind of 1:01:40.400 --> 1:01:44.400 demons would not engage in their art. Now, he wasn't 1:01:44.440 --> 1:01:46.600 the only one in the later twentieth century to get 1:01:46.600 --> 1:01:48.800 in on the psychic photography thing. Over the years, a 1:01:48.840 --> 1:01:52.680 lot of figures, including Uri Geller, got into psychic photography. 1:01:53.000 --> 1:01:55.920 One of one of Geller's many demonstrations was that he 1:01:55.920 --> 1:01:58.720 would leave the lens cap on a camera, placed the 1:01:58.760 --> 1:02:01.880 camera to his forehead, then take a picture, supposedly saying, 1:02:02.000 --> 1:02:03.800 you know the same kind of thing. I'm using my 1:02:03.880 --> 1:02:06.960 mind's eye to imprint upon the film, and then the 1:02:07.000 --> 1:02:10.240 photo would reveal whatever he had been imagining. Again, James 1:02:10.360 --> 1:02:12.960 Randy shows up, as he often does whenever Uri Geller 1:02:13.000 --> 1:02:17.120 claims something. James Randy criticized this and other psychic photography 1:02:17.200 --> 1:02:21.160 is having two main explanations, either using a handheld device 1:02:21.240 --> 1:02:23.560 to project the image into the camera lens as the 1:02:23.560 --> 1:02:27.600 photo was taken, or loading the camera with pre exposed 1:02:27.600 --> 1:02:31.400 film already bearing the desired image, and the latter seems 1:02:31.400 --> 1:02:34.640 to be the case with a later twentieth century alleged 1:02:34.640 --> 1:02:38.840 psychic named Matsuaki Kyota, who claimed to be able to 1:02:38.880 --> 1:02:42.360 produce photographs on film again, and skeptical critics such as 1:02:42.440 --> 1:02:45.600 Joe Nicole have pointed out that when Massaaki Kyoto was 1:02:45.640 --> 1:02:49.720 asked to perform his thoughtography under controlled conditions for a 1:02:49.800 --> 1:02:53.400 TV crew in London, he couldn't produce the images, and 1:02:53.520 --> 1:02:56.040 Nicol claims that it was only times when he was 1:02:56.120 --> 1:02:59.920 able uh to get the film and have it alone 1:03:00.040 --> 1:03:02.600 one with him, like basically to get hold of the 1:03:02.640 --> 1:03:05.640 film and have it in a private place before the test, 1:03:06.000 --> 1:03:09.120 that he could demonstrate his powers, which again makes you 1:03:09.160 --> 1:03:11.160 think he was doing something to the film before it 1:03:11.200 --> 1:03:13.920 was loaded in the camera. Alright, Well, on that note, 1:03:14.120 --> 1:03:16.800 we are going to have to call it for episode 1:03:16.840 --> 1:03:20.440 one of this exploration, but we are going to return 1:03:20.480 --> 1:03:23.320 in a second episode where we're going to continue to 1:03:23.320 --> 1:03:26.280 explore this idea, like how would it work if this 1:03:26.320 --> 1:03:30.360 were possible? Like what what what can we grasp onto 1:03:30.400 --> 1:03:33.720 in the labyrinth of the human mind and the complexity 1:03:33.760 --> 1:03:38.120 of our our our sensory perception, but also what can 1:03:38.200 --> 1:03:41.480 this question reveal about the reality of of mental imagery 1:03:41.520 --> 1:03:45.480 and how that happens in the brain, Which is fascinating 1:03:45.480 --> 1:03:48.120 mysterious and even spooky topic on its own, even though 1:03:48.160 --> 1:03:51.680 we don't necessarily credit the reality of psychic photography. There's 1:03:51.680 --> 1:03:54.000 a lot of spooky stuff going on when you picture 1:03:54.080 --> 1:03:56.800 something right. And we'll probably talk about the Ring a 1:03:56.800 --> 1:03:59.200 little bit more, and we'll probably bring up a few 1:03:59.200 --> 1:04:03.800 other film such as Scanners, so hey, be sure to 1:04:03.840 --> 1:04:05.560 tune in for that episode. Tune in for all of 1:04:05.600 --> 1:04:09.040 our episodes in October, which are going to be Halloween flavored. 1:04:09.600 --> 1:04:12.080 Uh and we encourage you again to check out Invention 1:04:12.160 --> 1:04:13.840 if you haven't already, can find it wherever you get 1:04:13.880 --> 1:04:16.760 your podcast. You can find the website at inventioned pod 1:04:16.880 --> 1:04:19.160 dot com. If you want to support our show, the 1:04:19.160 --> 1:04:20.760 best thing you can do is rate and review it 1:04:20.800 --> 1:04:22.240 wherever you have the power to do so, and make 1:04:22.280 --> 1:04:25.160 sure you have subscribed. Huge thanks as always to our 1:04:25.280 --> 1:04:28.760 awesome audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like 1:04:28.800 --> 1:04:30.600 to get in touch with us with feedback on this 1:04:30.640 --> 1:04:33.240 episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, 1:04:33.400 --> 1:04:36.360 just to say hello, you can email us at contact 1:04:36.440 --> 1:04:46.480 at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to 1:04:46.480 --> 1:04:48.440 Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's How 1:04:48.480 --> 1:04:51.000 Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit 1:04:51.000 --> 1:04:53.800 the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 1:04:53.840 --> 1:04:58.560 to your favorite shows. Bla bla bla bla bla bl 1:04:58.600 --> 1:05:18.560 bl blah blah blah blad. Welcome to Stuff to Blow 1:05:18.560 --> 1:05:27.880 Your Mind, a production of I Heeart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, 1:05:27.960 --> 1:05:30.040 welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name is 1:05:30.160 --> 1:05:33.240 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we are back 1:05:33.320 --> 1:05:36.720 with part two of our discussion of psychic photography the 1:05:37.640 --> 1:05:40.520 press of the Mind's eye. That's right. We kicked off 1:05:40.600 --> 1:05:46.000 last episode talking about the ring in which a psychically gifted, 1:05:46.760 --> 1:05:51.280 disturbed little girl is able to use her the power 1:05:51.280 --> 1:05:55.720 of her mind to burn images into things, including into 1:05:55.840 --> 1:06:00.120 the film of a VHS tape. Sure, but all so 1:06:00.160 --> 1:06:02.919 into all kinds of surfaces, right, Yeah, But but she's 1:06:02.960 --> 1:06:08.040 most famous for her her video work is the video artist. Yeah, 1:06:08.040 --> 1:06:12.280 she's a video artist, true artist and true artist Harrington. Yeah, 1:06:12.400 --> 1:06:14.800 so that's where we started out. But we use that 1:06:14.880 --> 1:06:18.920 then to get into this idea of photography of uh, 1:06:19.000 --> 1:06:23.800 this this alleged psychic power by which certain individuals were 1:06:23.840 --> 1:06:27.040 able to use the powers of their mind, uh to 1:06:27.240 --> 1:06:33.160 either you know, focused mental images into say, undeveloped camera film, 1:06:33.320 --> 1:06:36.040 or make it so they could like point a camera 1:06:36.080 --> 1:06:39.480 at their own forehead and take a picture of the 1:06:39.520 --> 1:06:43.680 interior imaging of their mind. Things of that nature. Yeah. 1:06:43.680 --> 1:06:46.800 The idea was that somehow mental imagery, you know, things 1:06:46.880 --> 1:06:50.720 that you are picturing in your brain, could be projected 1:06:50.840 --> 1:06:53.880 out onto the world without being translated through you know, 1:06:54.000 --> 1:06:58.000 you putting them into language or you sketching with a hand. Um. 1:06:58.160 --> 1:07:00.880 And so I was wondering if you try to take 1:07:00.880 --> 1:07:04.640 this idea seriously and say, okay, if this really did work, 1:07:04.880 --> 1:07:08.760 how would it work. I was having trouble coming across 1:07:08.880 --> 1:07:11.880 anything that seemed all that plausible to me. Uh, you know, 1:07:11.920 --> 1:07:15.520 I found one article with somebody's talking about how, well, 1:07:15.600 --> 1:07:20.880 maybe consciousness is like an electromagnetic field. I'm not sure 1:07:20.880 --> 1:07:22.640 if I buy that. But even if you did buy 1:07:22.680 --> 1:07:26.280 the consciousness as an electromagnetic field, how exactly would that 1:07:26.360 --> 1:07:30.200 translate into you thinking about an image physically pressing the 1:07:30.280 --> 1:07:32.560 image onto a thing outside your brain, Because there's no 1:07:32.600 --> 1:07:35.600 reason to think that the electromagnetic field would be like 1:07:35.640 --> 1:07:38.640 a two dimensional image that's the same as the thing 1:07:38.720 --> 1:07:42.680 you're picturing. Yeah, and then I mean there's so many 1:07:42.680 --> 1:07:45.800 problems with it's almost difficult to roll out individual problems, 1:07:45.880 --> 1:07:49.360 like what would be the evolved necessity of doing that? 1:07:50.040 --> 1:07:52.160 You know why we would have to just be like 1:07:52.240 --> 1:07:56.200 an accidental byproduct or something, you know, random mutation? Uh? 1:07:56.240 --> 1:07:58.680 And then would there be a survival advantage to having 1:07:58.720 --> 1:08:04.520 that mutation? It gets it gets really sticky, really fast. Yeah, 1:08:04.520 --> 1:08:09.040 and I think it highlights a kind of like shallow 1:08:09.160 --> 1:08:12.080 understanding of what mental image rey is. So yeah, and 1:08:12.120 --> 1:08:15.560 then specifically what photography is concerning those examples of the 1:08:15.560 --> 1:08:19.360 photography we discussed in the last episode, Yes, exactly. So 1:08:19.400 --> 1:08:22.200 I thought maybe we should start today by thinking about 1:08:22.960 --> 1:08:26.760 what is the physical reality of an image in the 1:08:26.800 --> 1:08:29.679 mind's eye? When you okay, so you stopping, you picture 1:08:29.800 --> 1:08:35.160 something you picture Garfield Garfield in mind? What is happening 1:08:35.280 --> 1:08:39.559 in your brain when you picture Garfield? Like, is there 1:08:39.640 --> 1:08:42.920 some two dimensional grid of brain cells that's like a 1:08:43.040 --> 1:08:46.639 screen where colors fill in like pixels on a computer 1:08:46.720 --> 1:08:51.080 screen and they form Garfield. It seems kind of implausible, 1:08:51.120 --> 1:08:54.080 but you know, entertained that for a second. If there 1:08:54.120 --> 1:08:57.480 were a way for a mental image to be projected 1:08:57.600 --> 1:09:01.360 into a physical space, what would be the physical nature 1:09:01.360 --> 1:09:04.280 of the original signal in the brain and how would 1:09:04.320 --> 1:09:08.120 it be transferred to the physical form without being interpreted 1:09:08.160 --> 1:09:10.280 through the body. So I was looking at a couple 1:09:10.280 --> 1:09:13.360 of papers on the subject of like research and thought 1:09:13.520 --> 1:09:16.400 about mental imagery. And one one of the ones I 1:09:16.439 --> 1:09:19.480 was looking at was called Unpicturing a Candle The Prehistory 1:09:19.520 --> 1:09:22.640 of Imagery science, and this was published in Frontiers and 1:09:22.720 --> 1:09:28.880 Psychology by Matthew mckissicks, Susan Aldworth, Fiona McPherson, John Onion's, 1:09:29.320 --> 1:09:32.480 Crawford Winlove, and Adam Zema and this lot of names. 1:09:32.600 --> 1:09:37.000 Uh In and the authors here focus on the history 1:09:37.080 --> 1:09:42.760 of scholarship and philosophy concerning visual imagination before modern neuroscience, 1:09:42.760 --> 1:09:46.599 but they also cover some modern neuroscience with a specific 1:09:46.640 --> 1:09:50.680 focus on the idea of imagining a concrete object, for 1:09:50.720 --> 1:09:55.840 example picturing a candle. And so the authors explored the 1:09:55.920 --> 1:09:58.680 history and so for example, they start by looking at 1:09:58.720 --> 1:10:01.400 like Plato and Aristotle, and they point out that Plato 1:10:01.479 --> 1:10:04.240 actually did not hold a very high regard for the 1:10:04.280 --> 1:10:09.600 importance of mental imagination uh Like. For Plato, mental imagery 1:10:09.640 --> 1:10:11.800 is a copy of a copy. It is a sort 1:10:11.800 --> 1:10:15.439 of imperfect fac simile of an object in the world 1:10:15.800 --> 1:10:19.639 which is already merely an imperfect copy of a perfect 1:10:19.800 --> 1:10:22.880 divine form that we're getting into the idea of the 1:10:22.880 --> 1:10:26.960 realm of forms, the idea that a chair, that there's 1:10:26.960 --> 1:10:28.840 a perfect version of a chair that exists in the 1:10:28.840 --> 1:10:31.599 realm of forms. The chair we can build is an 1:10:31.600 --> 1:10:36.000 imperfect interpretation of that. But then the then his view 1:10:36.200 --> 1:10:38.880 is because I'm more likely to think of it the 1:10:38.880 --> 1:10:41.600 other way, like I'm thinking, then, well, the version of 1:10:41.600 --> 1:10:43.880 the chair in our mind, that's the realm of forms. 1:10:43.920 --> 1:10:47.760 But he's saying, no, that's that's even another level removed 1:10:47.800 --> 1:10:50.439 from the realm of forms. It's an imperfect version of 1:10:50.439 --> 1:10:53.840 the imperfect chair that is in itself an imperfect version 1:10:53.880 --> 1:10:57.160 of the ideal chair. Absolutely, your mental image of a 1:10:57.240 --> 1:11:00.840 pineapple is a flawed copy of some act wold pineapple, 1:11:01.040 --> 1:11:05.080 which is an imperfect realization of eternal pineapple nous. Yeah, 1:11:05.120 --> 1:11:07.639 and I and I think I think he is correct here, because, 1:11:08.000 --> 1:11:11.280 as we stayed in the last episode, we often we 1:11:11.360 --> 1:11:14.599 often attribute a lot of detail and accuracy to our 1:11:14.640 --> 1:11:19.040 mental images when they're when it's really not there. It's 1:11:19.160 --> 1:11:23.760 it's often a lot more obscure and unfinished than we 1:11:23.800 --> 1:11:26.040 give it credit. Yeah, I mean I almost wouldn't think 1:11:26.080 --> 1:11:28.439 about it in terms of accuracy, but in terms and 1:11:28.520 --> 1:11:31.479 maybe this is more specific to the way my brain works, 1:11:31.520 --> 1:11:34.760 but I think about it even in terms of completeness, 1:11:34.800 --> 1:11:37.200 like that, when I have a mental image of something, 1:11:37.520 --> 1:11:40.439 it's not the same as looking at the thing, because 1:11:40.479 --> 1:11:45.160 I'm not I'm only vaguely grasping the totality of the image. 1:11:45.200 --> 1:11:48.800 When I'm mentally picture something, it's not like it's just 1:11:48.880 --> 1:11:51.920 not like looking at a fixed version of the image. 1:11:51.920 --> 1:11:55.479 It's kind of like a hazy scanning of different little 1:11:55.560 --> 1:11:58.320 elements of the image that I can picture in a 1:11:58.400 --> 1:12:02.240 moment against a field of a general impression of the 1:12:02.360 --> 1:12:04.559 larger image. Does that make sense? Yeah? Yeah, I believe. 1:12:04.680 --> 1:12:07.599 An example that's often used here is that of a bicycle. 1:12:07.640 --> 1:12:10.800 If I say, hey, imagine a bicycle. Easy done. I'm 1:12:10.800 --> 1:12:12.960 imagining a bicycle right now. But if we go to 1:12:13.000 --> 1:12:16.439 the next step and say that bicycle you're imagining, describe 1:12:16.439 --> 1:12:19.040 for me the functionality of its of the of the 1:12:19.040 --> 1:12:22.719 wheels and the gears and the pedals and everything. Explain 1:12:22.800 --> 1:12:24.920 to me how that works. Oh yeah, This goes back 1:12:24.960 --> 1:12:29.200 to our illusion of explanatory depth. Episodes where everybody can 1:12:29.240 --> 1:12:32.640 picture a bicycle, but can you draw a bicycle? And 1:12:32.760 --> 1:12:35.720 it turns out it's just try it. You might end 1:12:35.800 --> 1:12:38.240 up laughing really hard at yourself because you think you 1:12:38.240 --> 1:12:41.160 can draw a bicycle, but there's a decent chance you can't. 1:12:41.400 --> 1:12:45.479 I don't know where the bars go, which wheel connects 1:12:45.479 --> 1:12:48.080 to what? You just don't know even though you think 1:12:48.120 --> 1:12:51.600 you can picture it right now. So again, Plato, I 1:12:51.600 --> 1:12:54.360 think was definitely onto something here. I think Plato hit 1:12:54.400 --> 1:12:57.559 this one out of the park. Yeah. But Aristotle, to 1:12:57.680 --> 1:13:01.679 the contrary, he thought that not only was mental imagery important, 1:13:02.040 --> 1:13:05.280 he thought that you literally could not think without it. 1:13:05.720 --> 1:13:10.040 They quote him saying, the soul never thinks without a fantasma, 1:13:10.080 --> 1:13:12.799 and the phantasma is like some kind of mental image, 1:13:13.240 --> 1:13:15.599 which I'm sure this would come as news to our 1:13:15.640 --> 1:13:19.280 many listeners who tell us about their experiences with a fantasia, 1:13:19.360 --> 1:13:22.519 meaning that they say they don't have the ability to 1:13:22.760 --> 1:13:26.080 form mental images, they can't picture something in their heads. 1:13:26.280 --> 1:13:28.519 And yet you know, we've got no reason to disbelieve 1:13:28.560 --> 1:13:30.439 them on that, And at the same time they seem 1:13:30.479 --> 1:13:34.280 perfectly capable of thinking. So it seems perfectly clear to 1:13:34.320 --> 1:13:37.760 me that mental imagery is not necessary for thought, right, 1:13:38.040 --> 1:13:41.320 it is necessary for choosing the form of the Destroyer. 1:13:41.920 --> 1:13:46.000 Should Gozer uh the Traveler appear to you. I have 1:13:46.120 --> 1:13:49.360 to think back of that scene and Ghostbusters. Uh, that's 1:13:49.360 --> 1:13:52.439 how they choose the stay Puff marshmallow man form. But 1:13:52.800 --> 1:13:55.480 you have all of the Ghostbusters that had a fantasia, 1:13:55.880 --> 1:13:59.160 then the the Destroyer would not have been able to manifest. 1:13:59.400 --> 1:14:02.000 I think you of that in the original episode. Probably did. 1:14:02.160 --> 1:14:04.400 I haven't thought about it since then. But that's great 1:14:04.760 --> 1:14:07.240 unless goes Are the Destroyer is even more nefarious than 1:14:07.280 --> 1:14:10.920 we imagine, and he can also manifest in the shape 1:14:11.040 --> 1:14:15.559 of something that you put together through, say words or whatever. Maybe, 1:14:15.680 --> 1:14:18.559 but I kind of like the idea that it's being 1:14:18.600 --> 1:14:22.439 an interdimensional entity. It's it's limited, and it really like it. 1:14:22.520 --> 1:14:26.000 It cannot venture into this form unless there is a 1:14:26.040 --> 1:14:29.960 clear visual image that it can draw from, Like that 1:14:30.040 --> 1:14:33.360 has to be the uh, the foothold for it to 1:14:33.760 --> 1:14:36.519 climb back in and begin destroying. Well, to tie it 1:14:36.560 --> 1:14:39.559 back to psychic photography, actually, this is what the case 1:14:39.600 --> 1:14:41.960 of goes Are taking the form you imagine would be 1:14:42.080 --> 1:14:45.679 exactly like thoughtography would be the case of mental imagery 1:14:45.720 --> 1:14:49.400 being manifested as a physical object in the world. Yeah, 1:14:49.520 --> 1:14:51.599 but but it would also it would make more sense 1:14:52.000 --> 1:14:56.120 that a god can read your mind, then your mind 1:14:56.439 --> 1:15:01.160 can blast a photo, blast an image. John Toison undeveloped 1:15:01.200 --> 1:15:04.800 sel I agree. Uh So, picking up again with the 1:15:05.120 --> 1:15:08.519 history of mental imagery. Uh, Descartes had thoughts about visual 1:15:08.560 --> 1:15:12.320 imagination apparently placed it on par with the senses as 1:15:12.439 --> 1:15:16.639 manifestations of the body, which, of course, for in Descartes's view, 1:15:16.680 --> 1:15:19.240 that makes them fallible because of course they can always 1:15:19.280 --> 1:15:23.080 be mistaken, unlike in his view pure logical deduction. If 1:15:23.120 --> 1:15:27.320 you recall like the fight between Descartes and the the empiricists, 1:15:27.320 --> 1:15:29.919 you know, the empiricists thought that the senses should be primary, 1:15:29.960 --> 1:15:32.240 but deck Heart thought, no, you can't ever fully trust 1:15:32.280 --> 1:15:34.280 the senses. You've got to go on just like pure 1:15:34.400 --> 1:15:37.759 logical proofs. I'm not quite sure why, for some reason 1:15:37.800 --> 1:15:40.519 that that seems like a funny belief looking back on 1:15:40.600 --> 1:15:43.559 it now. Of course, later mental imagery became the domain 1:15:43.600 --> 1:15:46.200 of psychology. Uh. And of course you know that that 1:15:46.240 --> 1:15:48.599 would be treated in different ways depending on the different 1:15:48.640 --> 1:15:51.200 schools of psychology. One thing that I think is interesting 1:15:51.240 --> 1:15:54.360 in the history of psychology is the behaviorist school of course, 1:15:54.520 --> 1:15:58.320 not being interested in mental imagery because it's not an 1:15:58.360 --> 1:16:03.240 outwardly measurable behavior. So J. B. Watson apparently referred to 1:16:03.320 --> 1:16:08.240 mental imagery as quote motor habits in the larynx, which 1:16:08.280 --> 1:16:11.000 I think is a behaviorist way of saying something you 1:16:11.080 --> 1:16:15.200 only know about because people talk about it. I am 1:16:15.320 --> 1:16:19.639 continually fascinated by thinking about behaviorism because we occasionally hear 1:16:19.680 --> 1:16:22.479 from people, uh we We've gotten a couple of listener 1:16:22.560 --> 1:16:25.280 emails over the years, people responding to topics from a 1:16:25.320 --> 1:16:29.679 behaviorist point of view, essentially not crediting anything that's about 1:16:29.760 --> 1:16:33.920 the inner experiences or consciousness of people. It's only you know, 1:16:34.000 --> 1:16:38.240 the psychology can only be about outwardly measured behaviors. Yeah, 1:16:38.320 --> 1:16:40.439 it's a statement like that. Though. It makes me wonder 1:16:40.520 --> 1:16:44.400 if J. B. Watson was perhaps perhaps had a fantasia. 1:16:44.520 --> 1:16:47.040 You know, I mean this idea because we this lines 1:16:47.120 --> 1:16:48.840 up with what we've heard from a lot of people 1:16:49.000 --> 1:16:51.920 who's claimed to have a fantasia. And they'll say, oh, yeah, 1:16:51.960 --> 1:16:54.439 I heard people talking about picturing something in their mind 1:16:54.439 --> 1:16:56.599 when they read a book, and I thought they were 1:16:56.640 --> 1:16:59.599 just being you know, just figurative. You know, they weren't 1:17:00.000 --> 1:17:02.519 saying that they actually saw something in their head like 1:17:02.560 --> 1:17:06.680 it's it seems like it is difficult to imagine the 1:17:06.720 --> 1:17:09.360 mental image if you have no frame of reference for it, 1:17:09.439 --> 1:17:12.320 you know. Uh yeah, Except I would say that for Watson, 1:17:12.320 --> 1:17:15.720 it's not just mental imagery. It's all internal mental phenomenon. 1:17:15.880 --> 1:17:19.479 I mean, that's everything that's not outward behavior. So it 1:17:19.560 --> 1:17:21.800 wouldn't be just I think he would probably think that 1:17:21.880 --> 1:17:23.920 mental imagery is not the only thing that's just a 1:17:23.960 --> 1:17:26.920 motor habit in the larynx. That uh that, I don't know, 1:17:27.080 --> 1:17:30.960 imagination that, like anything inside your head, is a motor 1:17:31.000 --> 1:17:33.240 habit in the larynx. Do you think Ether would have 1:17:33.320 --> 1:17:37.639 changed his mind at all? I don't know. Then again, 1:17:37.680 --> 1:17:39.400 maybe I'm not being fair. I don't want to put 1:17:39.400 --> 1:17:42.760 words in Watson's mouth, but uh yeah, So I think 1:17:42.800 --> 1:17:45.880 we don't need to feel bound by the behaviorist view 1:17:45.880 --> 1:17:47.720 of this thing, and we can entertain the idea of 1:17:47.760 --> 1:17:51.320 mental imagery. You experience it, other people say they experience it. 1:17:51.360 --> 1:17:53.479 You've got no reason to disbelieve them. So I think 1:17:53.560 --> 1:17:58.040 humans probably have mental imagery. But but long in history, 1:17:58.400 --> 1:18:02.040 it has clearly been assumed that there is some kind 1:18:02.120 --> 1:18:08.519 of physical representation space and perceiver within the brain for 1:18:08.640 --> 1:18:11.680 mental imagery. Uh. And one thing I'm thinking about that 1:18:11.720 --> 1:18:14.120 I came across while preparing for this episode is an 1:18:14.160 --> 1:18:18.280 illustration by the sixteenth seventeenth century English physician and occultist 1:18:18.800 --> 1:18:23.040 Robert Flood spelled f l U d D kind of 1:18:23.040 --> 1:18:26.320 like Elmer Flood Flood with an L flood, also like 1:18:26.400 --> 1:18:30.360 Randall Flag. Oh yeah, that's true. Maybe this is one 1:18:30.360 --> 1:18:34.320 of the incarnations of the Man from the Desert. But anyway, 1:18:34.320 --> 1:18:38.559 And one of Robert Flood's tracts he illustrated the eye 1:18:38.600 --> 1:18:43.439 of imagination or the oculus imagination onis, which was this 1:18:43.680 --> 1:18:46.880 third eye inside the brain which, getting it wrong and 1:18:46.920 --> 1:18:51.439 backwards in multiple ways, projected mental images onto some kind 1:18:51.479 --> 1:18:55.200 of screen or representation space in the back or like 1:18:55.280 --> 1:18:57.200 in the back of the head or behind the head, 1:18:57.600 --> 1:19:01.160 where mental images would take form after being projected by 1:19:01.200 --> 1:19:03.680 this third eye. And now, of course we know that 1:19:03.720 --> 1:19:06.439 the eye does not project a beam of seeing, but 1:19:06.560 --> 1:19:11.120 receives incoming light. So even yeah, I think we're we're 1:19:11.160 --> 1:19:13.519 confused in more ways than one here. Yeah, Like if 1:19:13.520 --> 1:19:17.000 there really were a tiny viewing screen inside the brain 1:19:17.120 --> 1:19:18.800 and an eye to see it, it would be too 1:19:18.840 --> 1:19:21.760 dark to watch the movie, right, so that would be 1:19:21.760 --> 1:19:24.120 a problem. But but yeah, I mean, like I think 1:19:24.320 --> 1:19:28.519 third eye views are are popular throughout history. People kind 1:19:28.560 --> 1:19:31.479 of think there's an observer in the observer, right, And 1:19:31.479 --> 1:19:34.760 and granted, we do have a pennial gland, which is 1:19:34.840 --> 1:19:39.160 essentially an atrophied photo receptor with some connections to the 1:19:39.240 --> 1:19:44.000 parietal eye of reptiles. But but it produces uh a melotonin, 1:19:44.200 --> 1:19:47.360 a serotonin derived hormone, and is not involved in the 1:19:47.400 --> 1:19:50.120 generation of mental images, or at least I don't think 1:19:50.120 --> 1:19:53.200 there's any evidence that, not that I've ever seen. Uh. 1:19:53.760 --> 1:19:55.719 This is funny because I was reading that deck Cart 1:19:55.800 --> 1:19:58.880 believed that the pineal gland was the point of interaction 1:19:59.000 --> 1:20:01.880 between the body and the immaterial soul. That did you 1:20:01.920 --> 1:20:05.320 know this, um? And may we did. We did episode 1:20:05.320 --> 1:20:07.680 on the pineal gland way back in the day, so 1:20:07.720 --> 1:20:11.040 it's possible, Okay, I came across this. Yeah, but I'm 1:20:11.080 --> 1:20:13.200 thinking back to this idea of having, yeah, a viewer 1:20:13.240 --> 1:20:16.839 inside the viewer, like an internal I inside the brain 1:20:17.040 --> 1:20:21.120 for mental imagery. And there are reasons I think that 1:20:21.320 --> 1:20:24.400 there are problems with this because if in order to 1:20:24.439 --> 1:20:28.960 see mental images we have to project them physically somewhere 1:20:29.000 --> 1:20:32.320 inside the brain. What is the part of the brain 1:20:32.439 --> 1:20:35.479 that is looking at the image? Is that another brain 1:20:35.840 --> 1:20:40.360 with eyes inside the brain? Uh? Incognitive philosophy. This is 1:20:40.400 --> 1:20:43.720 sometimes called the homunculous theory. That's a you know, a 1:20:43.840 --> 1:20:46.360 name of ridicule for it, like the idea that there 1:20:46.360 --> 1:20:48.400 has to be somebody inside your brain to see what 1:20:48.520 --> 1:20:51.080 your brain is seeing or thinking. Right, as with like 1:20:51.120 --> 1:20:54.439 the homunculous ideas and human reproduction where there's a tiny 1:20:54.520 --> 1:20:58.120 little version of you inside of a sperm cell. Yes, 1:20:58.160 --> 1:21:01.439 And like the homunculous idea of of reproduction, it's an 1:21:01.439 --> 1:21:04.400 infinite regress, right, because if there's a little eyes and 1:21:04.439 --> 1:21:06.840 a brain inside your head in order to see what 1:21:06.880 --> 1:21:09.479 you're thinking, then that brain must have little eyes and 1:21:09.520 --> 1:21:11.920 a brain inside that brain to see what that brain 1:21:12.040 --> 1:21:15.479 is thinking about. And it goes on forever. And another 1:21:15.600 --> 1:21:18.640 version of this, extended to total brain function, is what 1:21:18.760 --> 1:21:22.799 Daniel Dennet calls the Cartesian theater. Again, this is something 1:21:22.880 --> 1:21:28.400 he's he's ridiculing. Basically, it's uh imagining or implicitly assuming 1:21:28.439 --> 1:21:31.320 that the brain has some sort of little pilot inside 1:21:31.320 --> 1:21:35.639 who witnesses all of our sense data and controls our reactions. Um, 1:21:35.760 --> 1:21:38.679 and again it's basically a reduct, you ad absurdam because 1:21:38.680 --> 1:21:41.559 it leads to this infinite regress. Who's seeing the images 1:21:41.600 --> 1:21:44.519 inside the brain, and the homunculus or the pilot or 1:21:44.560 --> 1:21:47.840 the Cartesian theater must be another smaller one. So I 1:21:47.840 --> 1:21:50.320 don't think it can be that inside the brain mental 1:21:50.360 --> 1:21:53.840 images are seeing the same way our eyes see things 1:21:53.880 --> 1:21:57.240 in the world. So what actually is happening in the 1:21:57.280 --> 1:22:00.000 brain when you're asked to imagine a concrete image. Maybe 1:22:00.000 --> 1:22:01.720 we should take a break and then explore that when 1:22:01.720 --> 1:22:05.519 we come back. Yes, everyone think of a bicycle during 1:22:05.560 --> 1:22:10.960 this commercial break. Alright, we're back, and hopefully you still 1:22:11.000 --> 1:22:14.360 have that bicycle floating around inside your mind. We should 1:22:14.360 --> 1:22:19.240 give them something more interesting to picture concretely, something with details. 1:22:19.840 --> 1:22:23.879 Picture a democorgan democgorgan is good. Yeah, It's just interesting 1:22:23.920 --> 1:22:30.800 how many like fabled unreal entities are good things to 1:22:30.840 --> 1:22:32.880 focus your mind on. And I think it perhaps it's 1:22:32.920 --> 1:22:37.040 because there are there are combinations, they're they're hybrids with 1:22:37.080 --> 1:22:40.479 different elements. So you you're you're you know what, you're 1:22:40.520 --> 1:22:43.559 kind of thinking of a list and compiling that list 1:22:43.960 --> 1:22:48.240 into this single mental image and ultimately gives you something 1:22:48.280 --> 1:22:51.479 to focus on, right, but the details are provided to you. 1:22:51.960 --> 1:22:54.880 Whereas the bicycle, you're just saying bicycle, we're not saying, 1:22:54.960 --> 1:23:00.320 imagine a contraption with two wheels and its etcetera. Two 1:23:00.360 --> 1:23:04.680 wheels and nine tentacles and three baboon heads. Yes, yes, 1:23:04.760 --> 1:23:06.400 and in one hand the sun and in the other 1:23:06.400 --> 1:23:09.760 hand and move. Okay, Now, when you do picture the demogorgon, 1:23:10.040 --> 1:23:13.560 what is actually happening in your brain? Has modern neuroscience 1:23:13.640 --> 1:23:18.280 discovered any answers to this question? Actually the answer is yes, 1:23:18.360 --> 1:23:20.439 we do know a decent amount. We don't know everything, 1:23:20.520 --> 1:23:22.479 we know a decent amount about what happens in the 1:23:22.520 --> 1:23:26.799 brain when you picture mental imagery. Um, So, brain cells 1:23:26.920 --> 1:23:30.080 in the temporal lobe, and this is the temporal lobes 1:23:30.080 --> 1:23:32.439 are at the bottom and sides of the brain, sort 1:23:32.439 --> 1:23:37.040 of around the ears. They become activated. And previous research 1:23:37.120 --> 1:23:41.360 has shown that the temporal lobes are involved in attributing 1:23:41.400 --> 1:23:46.920 and storing information about the visual characteristics of objects. So normally, 1:23:47.000 --> 1:23:50.760 like when you see something, uh, information might there might 1:23:50.800 --> 1:23:53.160 be activity in the temporal lobes that seems to be 1:23:53.560 --> 1:23:57.720 creating associations with the thing you're looking at right, like 1:23:58.479 --> 1:24:02.280 the foam on the walls in our studio, they look 1:24:02.320 --> 1:24:04.960 like tiny pyramids. So I can look at one of those, 1:24:04.960 --> 1:24:07.720 and then I can I can't help but imagine a 1:24:07.800 --> 1:24:10.880 great pyramid. Yes, And so what's happening there when you're 1:24:10.960 --> 1:24:13.639 using your eyes is probably the lights coming through the eyes. 1:24:14.080 --> 1:24:18.080 Signals are passing from your optic nerve, from your retina's 1:24:18.120 --> 1:24:20.800 the optic nerve, and uh, they're ending up in the 1:24:20.880 --> 1:24:23.600 visual processing areas and the back of your head, and 1:24:23.720 --> 1:24:26.599 that's known as the occipital cortex, the back of the head, 1:24:27.080 --> 1:24:30.720 and then that start signals that cascade out to other 1:24:30.760 --> 1:24:34.080 brain regions. Where you form those associations probably has a 1:24:34.080 --> 1:24:37.120 lot to do with your temporal lobes. But when you're 1:24:37.120 --> 1:24:40.000 asked to picture something concrete, like I say, picture the 1:24:40.120 --> 1:24:43.320 great Pyramids of Gizah, we seem to be starting with 1:24:43.400 --> 1:24:47.040 activity that involves visual memory. So there's stuff going on 1:24:47.120 --> 1:24:50.679 in the temporal lobes, and the excitation of these cells 1:24:50.680 --> 1:24:54.360 then triggers activity in the visual cortices of the occipital lobe. 1:24:54.360 --> 1:24:57.000 Again that's the very back of the head. And of 1:24:57.040 --> 1:24:58.800 course this is the same part of the brain that 1:24:58.880 --> 1:25:02.000 receives and begins to process visual information received by the 1:25:02.040 --> 1:25:05.559 retina transmitted by the optic nerve when you normally see something. 1:25:06.080 --> 1:25:08.280 And the authors of this paper I mentioned earlier, they 1:25:08.400 --> 1:25:11.760 they point out that when you conjure mental imagery, it's 1:25:11.800 --> 1:25:15.280 not exactly but it's sort of roughly an inversion of 1:25:15.360 --> 1:25:18.960 the process of seeing with the eyes. Basically, it's similar 1:25:19.000 --> 1:25:23.080 cascades going in opposite directions. And it also, i would say, 1:25:23.080 --> 1:25:25.919 seems to suggest that if it were possible to project 1:25:25.960 --> 1:25:29.799 an image from ted serious head onto film, if anything, 1:25:30.120 --> 1:25:32.519 he should have been holding the gizmo and the camera 1:25:32.600 --> 1:25:35.040 on the back of his head rather than the forehead. 1:25:35.040 --> 1:25:37.720 Because it seems like the activity is going from a 1:25:37.840 --> 1:25:41.280 sort of beginning with uh, with executive function. Of course, 1:25:41.400 --> 1:25:44.920 that's uh, you know, intentionally causing the memories. Then there's 1:25:45.120 --> 1:25:48.400 memory stuff in the temporal lobes, and then it's going 1:25:48.439 --> 1:25:50.559 to the occipital lobe in the back of the head. 1:25:50.680 --> 1:25:52.280 I'll see, if you'd only known that, it would have 1:25:52.320 --> 1:25:57.120 worked every time. Now, why do you need executive function 1:25:57.160 --> 1:25:59.559 in the front of the brain as well? Well? Apparently 1:25:59.600 --> 1:26:03.040 that's involved in intentionally trying to call up and hold 1:26:03.240 --> 1:26:07.320 mental images. So like conscious management of what's happening in 1:26:07.360 --> 1:26:10.639 the brain tends to be thought that that's executive function. 1:26:10.680 --> 1:26:15.240 It's deliberate thinking and maintenance of attention, and that entails 1:26:15.280 --> 1:26:18.120 activity in the frontal and parietal regions of the brain. 1:26:18.200 --> 1:26:21.240 So stuff up front and to the front and sides. Uh. 1:26:21.280 --> 1:26:25.040 And mental imagery may also involve executive function because it 1:26:25.160 --> 1:26:31.080 requires the suppression of incoming imagery from the eyes, or 1:26:31.120 --> 1:26:36.280 at least the diversion of visual processing resources from quote 1:26:36.360 --> 1:26:39.840 signals based on light entering the eyes. Right now, two 1:26:40.360 --> 1:26:44.200 images generated from memory. It's crazy to think about the 1:26:44.560 --> 1:26:46.360 and I'm thinking about it in this terms because we're 1:26:46.400 --> 1:26:48.719 also researching an episode that has to do with driving 1:26:49.240 --> 1:26:51.320 and the what's going on in your mind when you 1:26:51.400 --> 1:26:55.320 drive an automobile? And isn't it crazy that we can 1:26:55.360 --> 1:27:01.360 engage in the cognitively demanding job of say, driving up 1:27:01.439 --> 1:27:05.519 a speeding automobile down an interstate, watching what all the 1:27:05.560 --> 1:27:08.759 cars are doing, and you know, reading an occasional sign 1:27:08.800 --> 1:27:11.200 looking up for speed traps, all of these things that 1:27:11.240 --> 1:27:13.679 we're doing, and at the same time, we might have 1:27:14.439 --> 1:27:17.880 an audio book playing that is filling our head with 1:27:18.040 --> 1:27:21.240 like with a you know a rich visual world, and 1:27:21.280 --> 1:27:24.080 we're entertaining both of these at the same time. I 1:27:24.120 --> 1:27:27.439 would say that that is, while I accept that we 1:27:27.520 --> 1:27:29.680 can handle those things both at the same time, I 1:27:29.720 --> 1:27:32.960 would say it is not without costs to uh to 1:27:33.080 --> 1:27:35.439 either one. Like I would say that you probably have 1:27:35.640 --> 1:27:39.840 a more rich experience of the book and mental image 1:27:39.840 --> 1:27:42.519 reassociated with the book if you were not driving, and 1:27:42.560 --> 1:27:44.840 you'd probably be better at driving if you were not 1:27:44.920 --> 1:27:48.480 listening to the book, because there is actually a competition 1:27:48.520 --> 1:27:51.800 for resources going on. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. I mean, 1:27:52.520 --> 1:27:54.960 of course that I think a lot of us tended 1:27:55.120 --> 1:27:58.760 to read in environments where there are other distractions. Maybe 1:27:58.840 --> 1:28:03.479 not is cognitively demanding as piloting an automobile, but but still, 1:28:03.520 --> 1:28:05.120 this would be an interesting one to get some feedback 1:28:05.120 --> 1:28:06.840 from listeners, because I know that we have a number 1:28:06.880 --> 1:28:09.240 of listeners who who are on the road a lot 1:28:09.320 --> 1:28:11.080 and listen listen to us on the road and listen 1:28:11.120 --> 1:28:14.720 to to other bits of audio as well. Yeah, that's 1:28:14.720 --> 1:28:17.280 a good point. Please only listen to our podcast if 1:28:17.439 --> 1:28:22.080 if it is safe to do so. It's don't devote 1:28:22.080 --> 1:28:25.280 too much mental resources to us. If if you're piloting 1:28:25.280 --> 1:28:27.439 a dangerous vehicle. But then again, even if you're not 1:28:27.560 --> 1:28:30.439 listening to a podcast or an audio book, oh yeah, 1:28:30.439 --> 1:28:33.040 your mind's want your mind's gonna wander. And then I mean, 1:28:33.080 --> 1:28:35.719 it's not even going to necessarily be a situation where 1:28:35.720 --> 1:28:38.800 you're consciously choosing things to imagine. You know, you're you're 1:28:38.800 --> 1:28:43.240 gonna be subject to the visual summonings of the default 1:28:43.240 --> 1:28:46.160 mode network where uh, you know, mental images from the 1:28:46.520 --> 1:28:48.920 past or the physy future are going to you know, 1:28:49.040 --> 1:28:53.400 venture into your mind like Victorian ghosts. But speaking of ghosts, 1:28:53.400 --> 1:28:55.320 I mean, I do think it's a little bit spooky 1:28:55.400 --> 1:28:58.200 that once I read this, this does in fact seem 1:28:58.240 --> 1:29:00.160 true to me. I just had never really thought of 1:29:00.160 --> 1:29:04.360 it this way, that when you mentally picture something, you're 1:29:04.400 --> 1:29:07.680 you are intentionally using your brain. You're performing some kind 1:29:07.680 --> 1:29:12.080 of internal brain resources management with the executive function mostly 1:29:12.080 --> 1:29:15.000 in your frontal lobe. I think to say, turned down 1:29:15.120 --> 1:29:19.760 resolution on incoming mint visual imagery and devote some of 1:29:19.800 --> 1:29:23.360 those resources to mental imagery. And if you, if you 1:29:23.439 --> 1:29:25.920 practice it right now, I think you'll probably notice the 1:29:25.920 --> 1:29:28.479 same thing. You just like, look at something and then 1:29:28.520 --> 1:29:32.080 try to picture something mentally, and you'll notice that you're 1:29:32.200 --> 1:29:37.120 looking kind of gets downgraded in like quality and and arrested. 1:29:37.479 --> 1:29:39.680 Are are you feeling this? Yeah? I mean, but this 1:29:39.800 --> 1:29:43.679 is also kind of the It kind of goes both ways, right, 1:29:43.960 --> 1:29:48.160 Like both cannot have have complete dominance at the same time. 1:29:48.640 --> 1:29:52.160 So you might be able to to dim the thermist 1:29:52.240 --> 1:29:55.880 that you're staring at by allowing mental images to you know, 1:29:55.960 --> 1:29:57.840 to to be summoned into your mind. But on the 1:29:57.880 --> 1:30:04.320 same level, if you feel haunted by various visual imagery ghosts, 1:30:04.560 --> 1:30:07.839 you know, the visualizations that are in some way troubling 1:30:07.960 --> 1:30:10.519 or traumatic, uh, you know, one of the exercises is 1:30:10.560 --> 1:30:13.880 to focus your awareness on something, uh that that is 1:30:13.920 --> 1:30:17.200 a physically present be at the ambient environment or a 1:30:17.200 --> 1:30:20.960 specific object. I think that that would probably absolutely work, 1:30:21.000 --> 1:30:23.000 at least based on what I've read, that you can 1:30:23.040 --> 1:30:26.240 that you can greatly lessen the power of mental image 1:30:26.320 --> 1:30:30.160 ory just by using your senses. Yeah, Like it reminds 1:30:30.200 --> 1:30:32.639 me of meditation practices. Like, certainly they are closed eye 1:30:32.640 --> 1:30:36.320 meditation practices, which in that environment you're really opening it 1:30:36.400 --> 1:30:39.400 up to the visual way of seeing, you know, uh, 1:30:39.640 --> 1:30:42.400 to to the mental image alone. But there are plenty 1:30:42.439 --> 1:30:45.599 of open eye practices where you know, the instructor will say, 1:30:45.640 --> 1:30:47.559 you know, pick something in the room, doesn't matter what 1:30:47.640 --> 1:30:50.200 it is. It can be an electrical socket. But stare 1:30:50.200 --> 1:30:53.439 at that electrical socket. Stare long and hard at that 1:30:53.520 --> 1:30:56.519 electrical socket, and that becomes kind of the you know, 1:30:56.560 --> 1:31:01.439 the visual mantra that will force out the other other ghosts. Yeah. 1:31:01.680 --> 1:31:04.200 I like this metaphor for thinking about it, that there's 1:31:04.280 --> 1:31:07.200 this war in your brain, this war for control of 1:31:07.240 --> 1:31:10.040 the resources in your brain, and one of them is 1:31:10.720 --> 1:31:14.320 things in your immediate surroundings, your sense perceptions, and the 1:31:14.360 --> 1:31:17.400 other is things conjured by the void, which could be good, 1:31:17.400 --> 1:31:19.840 things could be bad, things could be useful, things could 1:31:19.880 --> 1:31:23.000 be debilitating things. I mean, it's just what comes up 1:31:23.040 --> 1:31:26.160 out out of you know, either the intentional use of 1:31:26.240 --> 1:31:29.120 mental imagery by the executive part of your brain, or 1:31:29.400 --> 1:31:33.599 just you know, things that are subconsciously arising from the depths. 1:31:34.040 --> 1:31:36.560 And your brain has to have some kind of partitioning 1:31:36.560 --> 1:31:40.240 system for this, this sort of visual processing, right. Uh. 1:31:40.640 --> 1:31:43.800 It uses regions in the occipital lobe to process image 1:31:43.880 --> 1:31:46.439 data coming from your eyes, but you also use some 1:31:46.520 --> 1:31:50.680 of the same regions to process images generated based on 1:31:50.760 --> 1:31:53.280 your memories or based on your imagination, which I think 1:31:53.320 --> 1:31:56.759 involves the memories, and these two processes are just constantly 1:31:56.840 --> 1:32:01.479 going on simultaneously and competing for the same neural resources. Yea, 1:32:01.600 --> 1:32:05.360 most of the time, most people, uh, this is an 1:32:05.360 --> 1:32:07.920 interesting thing. Most of the time, most people manage not 1:32:08.040 --> 1:32:11.720 to get confused. Isn't that interesting too, Like what kind 1:32:11.720 --> 1:32:14.240 of partitioning must be going on in the brain, because 1:32:14.320 --> 1:32:17.920 you can picture a pineapple on the desk in front 1:32:17.960 --> 1:32:20.880 of you right now, and you can picture that, But 1:32:21.160 --> 1:32:23.960 most of the time you don't become confused and think 1:32:23.960 --> 1:32:27.840 you're actually seeing a pineapple there. Yeah, not even awareness 1:32:27.920 --> 1:32:30.360 is focused, you know, certainly, certainly we all have those 1:32:30.479 --> 1:32:32.840 those situations where you walk into a room and out 1:32:32.840 --> 1:32:34.880 of the corner of your eye you think, for a second, 1:32:35.080 --> 1:32:37.120 there's a there's a goblin standing in the corner, or 1:32:37.160 --> 1:32:40.080 there's a cat, or or something's out of place, and 1:32:40.120 --> 1:32:42.280 then you know a second glance, you realize, oh, it's 1:32:42.320 --> 1:32:45.559 just the way that the shadow is following, or it's 1:32:45.560 --> 1:32:48.360 the way that the drape is positioned, etcetera. Like we 1:32:48.720 --> 1:32:51.800 come back to it again, like our awareness doesn't just 1:32:52.360 --> 1:32:54.360 do a single take. It as a double take, and 1:32:54.400 --> 1:32:57.720 it you know, you confirms or denies the presence of 1:32:57.720 --> 1:32:59.639 the thing you thought was there initially, right. I think 1:32:59.680 --> 1:33:03.320 the the persistence of the stimulus is one key there 1:33:03.360 --> 1:33:06.080 that like, you can keep looking at something and your 1:33:06.200 --> 1:33:09.320 you know, your imagination will fluctuate, but the light coming 1:33:09.360 --> 1:33:11.040 into your eyes is going to stay about the same. 1:33:11.960 --> 1:33:14.360 Um and some beautiful lyrics there that could be an 1:33:14.360 --> 1:33:20.400 eagle song. I just tried to sing some eagles. But 1:33:20.439 --> 1:33:22.360 we don't want to get night cheese, so we're not 1:33:22.360 --> 1:33:24.920 gonna leave it in. Uh Now, Now, it does appear 1:33:24.960 --> 1:33:28.519 that there's a possibility for some bleed over in the 1:33:28.880 --> 1:33:33.880 visual processing between mental imagery and actual uh uh seeing 1:33:33.880 --> 1:33:37.640 with the eyes. For example, this thing called the Perky effect. 1:33:38.160 --> 1:33:41.680 This is named after the American psychologist C. W. Perky. 1:33:41.840 --> 1:33:44.559 So how does this work? Well? Uh Perky She she 1:33:44.600 --> 1:33:48.879 would have somebody try to visualize something like a leaf 1:33:49.000 --> 1:33:52.439 or a banana while looking at a blank screen, and 1:33:52.479 --> 1:33:57.320 then meanwhile she would project a very faint, soft focus 1:33:57.479 --> 1:34:01.040 image of something like a leaf or a banana onto 1:34:01.080 --> 1:34:06.280 the screen at just about the threshold brightness of visual perception. 1:34:06.920 --> 1:34:11.120 And in these experiments, Perky found that subjects would incorporate 1:34:11.360 --> 1:34:15.520 visual features of the actual image that was faintly projected 1:34:16.080 --> 1:34:20.240 thinking that these were features of their imagined image, for example, 1:34:20.520 --> 1:34:24.360 the type of leaf or the orientation of the banana. 1:34:24.479 --> 1:34:27.080 And there have been various attempts to replicate this finding, 1:34:27.200 --> 1:34:30.599 some successful and some unsuccessful, so I think we're not 1:34:30.720 --> 1:34:34.439 totally sure how robust this effect is. But I think 1:34:34.479 --> 1:34:37.960 now a common assessment of what of this effect is 1:34:38.000 --> 1:34:40.360 that what's really being detected here is the fact that 1:34:40.680 --> 1:34:47.280 using visual imagination steals processing resources from normal visual perception, 1:34:47.320 --> 1:34:49.360 like we were talking about earlier, So if you're trying 1:34:49.400 --> 1:34:53.240 to imagine something, you're less likely to notice consciously than 1:34:53.280 --> 1:34:56.080 an image is being faintly projected in front of you, 1:34:56.160 --> 1:34:59.240 even though you might pick up some visual cues such 1:34:59.280 --> 1:35:02.960 as color shape from that image and just hold them 1:35:02.960 --> 1:35:05.800 in mind to think they're part of your imagination, which 1:35:05.800 --> 1:35:08.080 again is creepy. I mean, this isn't the only finding 1:35:08.160 --> 1:35:11.360 like this that that you can like give people cues 1:35:11.439 --> 1:35:13.960 from the outside that people come to believe or just 1:35:14.080 --> 1:35:17.200 part of their own imagination. But I guess maybe it's 1:35:17.240 --> 1:35:19.920 needless to say that after looking through all this, I 1:35:19.960 --> 1:35:23.720 don't think there's any evidence at all that representation of 1:35:23.760 --> 1:35:27.519 an image in the mind involves the brain building a 1:35:27.560 --> 1:35:31.519 physical two dimensional picture of the image which could be 1:35:32.160 --> 1:35:35.720 projected onto an external substrate like film. It's kind of 1:35:35.760 --> 1:35:39.320 like imagining that you could save a JPEG of Garfield, 1:35:39.360 --> 1:35:42.000 to say, got Garfield and a jpeg, and that's not 1:35:42.080 --> 1:35:45.759 an old computer floppy disk, and then you could somehow 1:35:46.320 --> 1:35:50.040 you're trying to project the image of Garfield physically from 1:35:50.040 --> 1:35:54.040 the floppy disk onto a photograph or a piece of paper. 1:35:54.560 --> 1:35:58.240 The two D pixel layout of Garfield is not found 1:35:58.320 --> 1:36:01.160 anywhere on the disc. You know, it's broken down and 1:36:01.280 --> 1:36:04.439 encoded as information which can later be read by a 1:36:04.479 --> 1:36:07.240 program to create a copy of the same original image 1:36:07.240 --> 1:36:10.000 on a computer screen. But the image of Garfield can 1:36:10.080 --> 1:36:12.360 be seen anywhere on the disk. You can't pull it 1:36:12.360 --> 1:36:16.080 out by projecting something through it, even with the strongest microscope. 1:36:16.400 --> 1:36:19.479 It's encoded as information that only yields the image when 1:36:19.560 --> 1:36:24.759 decoded correctly, and as best I can tell, imageries works 1:36:24.800 --> 1:36:27.960 a similar way. In the brain. It's somehow coded through 1:36:28.040 --> 1:36:31.080 neuronal activity. It's it's not an image that you could 1:36:31.160 --> 1:36:35.600 find anywhere in the brain. You've touched on. One of 1:36:35.600 --> 1:36:39.880 my big problems with David Cronenberg scanners, which is a 1:36:39.920 --> 1:36:43.120 movie I love otherwise. Uh, there's a lot to love 1:36:43.120 --> 1:36:46.120 about Crona about about scanners and not just you know, 1:36:46.160 --> 1:36:50.320 people's heads exploding and Michael ironsides of you know, fabulous 1:36:50.680 --> 1:36:54.680 you know, psychic facial strains. But but there is this 1:36:54.760 --> 1:36:57.439 with this one section of the film where the character 1:36:57.520 --> 1:37:02.040 Cameron Veil can cyberpath thickly scan a computer hide hard 1:37:02.160 --> 1:37:06.040 drive with his brain. Uh. And that always bugged me 1:37:06.120 --> 1:37:09.160 because I'm like, Okay, it's one thing to imagine one 1:37:09.240 --> 1:37:13.240 brain speaking to another brain, you know, even though there's 1:37:13.360 --> 1:37:18.400 you know, there's no defined way that that would actually occur, uh, 1:37:18.439 --> 1:37:20.679 you know, at least in terms of like the human 1:37:20.680 --> 1:37:23.639 mind talking to another human mind. But but it's even 1:37:23.680 --> 1:37:26.599 a greater stretch than to imagine that he is scanning 1:37:26.680 --> 1:37:29.960 a computer hard drive. Yeah, because his brain does not 1:37:30.120 --> 1:37:34.320 it can't execute the code right, Like, in order for 1:37:34.360 --> 1:37:37.080 the data on the hard drive to be read correctly 1:37:37.160 --> 1:37:40.480 has to be executed somehow. There's like a decoding procedure 1:37:40.920 --> 1:37:43.920 that yields the text or the sound files or whatever 1:37:43.960 --> 1:37:47.320 it is he's trying to discover, and presumably his brain 1:37:47.439 --> 1:37:51.280 doesn't have that decoding function within it. Yeah. Yeah, so 1:37:51.720 --> 1:37:55.280 it's the same problem with this idea of photography, that 1:37:55.280 --> 1:37:57.479 that somehow you could you could put the mental image 1:37:57.520 --> 1:38:01.559 in your mind onto the film. That's why I prefer one. 1:38:01.560 --> 1:38:05.719 A great example of a far more believable system of 1:38:05.760 --> 1:38:09.840 telepathic communication would be that used by the Gelflings in 1:38:09.960 --> 1:38:13.519 the Dark Crystal and also in the the new so 1:38:13.600 --> 1:38:19.080 far really fabulous Netflix of prequel series. Oh I also 1:38:19.120 --> 1:38:22.479 started it, haven't finished great loving it so far. But 1:38:22.600 --> 1:38:26.120 the the Gelflings are able to to dream vast where 1:38:26.160 --> 1:38:29.760 they're able to u to to like touch grasp hands, 1:38:29.840 --> 1:38:33.719 and in doing so, they share their mental images mental 1:38:33.760 --> 1:38:36.880 images of you know, their memories with each other so 1:38:36.920 --> 1:38:40.080 that they can share an inexperience and uh, you know, 1:38:40.200 --> 1:38:42.880 that's a version of mental image sharing that you know. 1:38:42.920 --> 1:38:45.880 I'm not sure exactly what the you know, the biological 1:38:45.920 --> 1:38:50.280 explanation would be for it, but it's conceivable. It's conceivable 1:38:50.320 --> 1:38:53.840 that these two um you know, you know, neural systems 1:38:53.880 --> 1:38:58.760 in the same species could link up to share information 1:38:59.080 --> 1:39:01.240 and that would also have that would have a survival 1:39:02.040 --> 1:39:04.000 that would be a survival adaptation as well. Like that's 1:39:04.000 --> 1:39:07.160 something that would be uh, you know, supported through natural selection. Well, 1:39:07.200 --> 1:39:09.080 you can think about it as another form of language. 1:39:09.120 --> 1:39:12.120 I mean, we've got language to code experiences and share 1:39:12.160 --> 1:39:15.320 them between each other. So you could imagine creatures could 1:39:15.360 --> 1:39:19.880 I don't know, project electromagnetic symbols or something to each other, 1:39:19.920 --> 1:39:22.759 you know, pulses of stuff that would encode and decode 1:39:22.800 --> 1:39:25.880 information across brains the same way. I don't think there's 1:39:25.920 --> 1:39:28.559 any good evidence that humans can do that, but you 1:39:28.560 --> 1:39:32.400 could imagine a species that did do that. Right. Likewise, 1:39:32.560 --> 1:39:35.080 it's and perhaps there's a science fiction Surely there's a 1:39:35.080 --> 1:39:37.360 science fiction or fantasy treatment of this out there somewhere. 1:39:37.680 --> 1:39:42.160 You can imagine something with the chromatophores along the lines 1:39:42.200 --> 1:39:45.840 of cuttlefish, or you know, an octopus being able to 1:39:46.840 --> 1:39:49.720 take a ntal image in its head and recreated on 1:39:49.800 --> 1:39:52.880 its body. Oh, I love that that. Somebody has surely 1:39:52.920 --> 1:39:54.600 done that before, and that would be that would be 1:39:54.640 --> 1:39:57.280 an interesting way to do it. And of course humans 1:39:57.320 --> 1:40:01.320 have a similar ability through language and uh and and 1:40:01.320 --> 1:40:05.240 an artistic skill. We can take a mental image and 1:40:05.320 --> 1:40:09.280 we can recreate some version of it outside of our 1:40:09.320 --> 1:40:12.760 body in a way that that stays stationary. But it 1:40:12.920 --> 1:40:15.800 is not uh, it is not the you know the 1:40:15.960 --> 1:40:21.040 art of of of telepathy. Or or or the thoughtography 1:40:21.120 --> 1:40:23.720 or whatever it is. It is the the the it 1:40:23.880 --> 1:40:25.640 is the arts themselves. It is that it is the 1:40:25.720 --> 1:40:28.160 use of language. I think that's dead on. I mean, 1:40:28.680 --> 1:40:31.400 we're used to it, so it seems less astounding to us. 1:40:31.400 --> 1:40:33.920 But I try to make people remember all the time 1:40:33.920 --> 1:40:36.360 that language is like magic. I mean, the language is 1:40:36.400 --> 1:40:41.160 the most is the most astounding, strangest thing you can. 1:40:41.280 --> 1:40:44.040 You can use words, you make sounds with your mouth 1:40:44.160 --> 1:40:47.839 to change what's in somebody else's brain. And it works. 1:40:47.960 --> 1:40:50.920 It works almost all the time. Now quickly, before we 1:40:50.960 --> 1:40:52.840 go to another break, I just wanted to mention I 1:40:52.880 --> 1:40:56.320 was looking at another paper about a recent research in 1:40:56.880 --> 1:40:59.960 mental imagery, and this is called mental imagery, Functional Mechanisms 1:41:00.120 --> 1:41:03.559 and Clinical Applications. This is in Trends and Cognitive Sciences 1:41:03.600 --> 1:41:08.680 from but Joel Pearson, Thomas Nasa Lauris, Emily Holmes, and 1:41:08.760 --> 1:41:12.479 Stephen Kostlin Um. And one of the things that they 1:41:12.520 --> 1:41:14.560 said in the paper it echoes a lot of the 1:41:14.560 --> 1:41:18.080 stuff we were talking about already. But um, one thing 1:41:18.120 --> 1:41:21.320 they say that stuck with me is that the authors 1:41:21.400 --> 1:41:25.960 conclude that the existing research suggests mental imagery should be 1:41:26.000 --> 1:41:31.479 considered quote a weak form of perception. And that's interesting 1:41:31.479 --> 1:41:35.360 because you don't normally think about mental imagery as perception. Normally, 1:41:35.360 --> 1:41:37.800 perception is what you know, your five senses, or maybe 1:41:37.800 --> 1:41:41.000 the other senses, if you know about the weirder ones. Um. 1:41:41.040 --> 1:41:43.519 But here they're saying, no, it is like a form 1:41:43.600 --> 1:41:49.080 of perception. It's almost like a lower resolution form of seeing. Now, 1:41:49.160 --> 1:41:52.000 why is it a weak form of perception? Well, visual 1:41:52.040 --> 1:41:55.800 regions in the brains show less blood flow and less 1:41:55.840 --> 1:41:59.599 excitation of neurons during the generation of mental imagery than 1:41:59.640 --> 1:42:02.639 they do in the actual viewing of images with the eyes, 1:42:02.800 --> 1:42:05.599 even though you use some of the same regions for both. 1:42:05.920 --> 1:42:08.520 And I also just wanted to mention some interesting questions 1:42:08.560 --> 1:42:11.600 that the authors bring up as sort of unresolved in 1:42:11.640 --> 1:42:15.200 this review. Again, this was from so there maybe development 1:42:15.280 --> 1:42:18.400 since then. But um. One of the things they ask is, 1:42:18.400 --> 1:42:21.639 we know that there are strong similarities between normal visual 1:42:21.640 --> 1:42:25.120 perception seeing with the eyes and mental imagery. What are 1:42:25.280 --> 1:42:29.480 the major differences. Another thing that I was really interested 1:42:29.520 --> 1:42:33.240 in is they asked the question of can mental imagery 1:42:33.240 --> 1:42:37.880 be unconscious? And if you try to understand that for 1:42:37.880 --> 1:42:42.360 a second, is it possible to picture something without being 1:42:42.400 --> 1:42:46.400 aware that you're picturing it or is mental imagery something 1:42:46.439 --> 1:42:50.519 that only occurs consciously? Can you only picture something if 1:42:50.560 --> 1:42:53.719 you're aware that you're picturing it? So? Well, what would 1:42:53.720 --> 1:42:56.280 be what would be an example then, based on that 1:42:56.360 --> 1:43:00.720 logic of someone picturing something without realizing they pick drink something. Well, 1:43:00.760 --> 1:43:02.200 I don't know. I mean that that's sort of the 1:43:02.240 --> 1:43:05.640 tough question, like is because it would be difficult to 1:43:05.720 --> 1:43:09.200 measure that. I think it. Would it be like an hallucination? Well, no, 1:43:09.400 --> 1:43:12.960 because you'd be presumably you'd be conscious of an hallucination. 1:43:13.520 --> 1:43:15.559 So the idea would have to be that, you know, 1:43:15.840 --> 1:43:19.439 you can show unconscious things going on in the brain 1:43:19.600 --> 1:43:22.280 just by like asking people if they're aware of things, 1:43:22.280 --> 1:43:25.080 but tracking their behaviors that realize, you know, the show 1:43:25.120 --> 1:43:27.599 they are aware of this thing or that thing. But 1:43:28.160 --> 1:43:31.320 it's difficult to say, can people imagine a picture of 1:43:31.360 --> 1:43:35.920 something without knowing that they're picturing it? I would think, 1:43:36.040 --> 1:43:38.360 you know, I would say the default answer would probably 1:43:38.360 --> 1:43:40.760 be no, because it's hard to imagine what that would be. 1:43:40.840 --> 1:43:42.800 Like you tend to think, Okay, the only times I 1:43:42.880 --> 1:43:46.280 know that I'm picturing something or when I'm conscious of it, Well, 1:43:46.280 --> 1:43:49.320 for that matter, is it possible to unconsciously look at 1:43:49.400 --> 1:43:52.439 something with your visual perception. Like I think maybe that 1:43:52.600 --> 1:43:55.880 is possible, Like because if I'm but I'm looking at something, 1:43:55.960 --> 1:43:58.880 I am looking at something, right, I mean, it seems 1:43:58.920 --> 1:44:01.920 like it follows the same process. Well, I don't know 1:44:01.960 --> 1:44:04.800 what about Like there could be some stuff along the 1:44:04.800 --> 1:44:08.559 lines of like the Invisible Guerillas experiment that indicate that 1:44:08.680 --> 1:44:11.320 sometimes you can see things without being aware that you're 1:44:11.360 --> 1:44:13.800 seeing them, right, Or certainly we've already touched on what 1:44:13.880 --> 1:44:16.439 happens if you are looking at something in the physical 1:44:16.439 --> 1:44:19.479 world but focus focusing far more intently on something that 1:44:19.640 --> 1:44:24.120 is just a mental image. But yeah, I mean I 1:44:24.120 --> 1:44:26.080 can see why it's an unanswered question, but it is 1:44:26.160 --> 1:44:28.720 kind of it's a tricky question too. Yeah. Now, I 1:44:28.800 --> 1:44:31.479 think what does seem pretty clear is that there can 1:44:31.479 --> 1:44:34.920 be unconscious reasons for the generation of mental imagery. I 1:44:34.920 --> 1:44:37.920 mean that this is a huge thing in mental imagery research. 1:44:38.000 --> 1:44:41.520 Is like the origins of mental imagery, for example, intrusive 1:44:41.600 --> 1:44:44.640 unwanted mental images. Yeah, I think that's that's that's an 1:44:44.640 --> 1:44:47.559 example that I imagine a lot of us can relate to. 1:44:48.320 --> 1:44:52.120 But also in terms of say meditative states, you know, 1:44:52.160 --> 1:44:56.000 the idea of encountering an image that isn't at least 1:44:56.080 --> 1:44:58.599 consciously summoned. You know, not to say that it comes 1:44:58.640 --> 1:45:01.960 from the outside. It's still coming from sort of the 1:45:01.960 --> 1:45:06.599 the internal contents of your your psychic library, but but 1:45:06.800 --> 1:45:11.040 not in a way that feels um lately you assembled 1:45:11.040 --> 1:45:13.920 it hands on. Uh And then likewise, there's a domain 1:45:13.960 --> 1:45:17.280 of hallucination and dream. Yeah, I've got another maybe weird 1:45:17.360 --> 1:45:20.599 question about mental imagery. See if this makes any sense. 1:45:21.080 --> 1:45:23.920 Um So, the authors in these studies find strong links 1:45:23.920 --> 1:45:27.640 between visual imagery and things like working memory. But I 1:45:27.720 --> 1:45:32.840 wonder does the ability to recall visually recognized features of 1:45:32.840 --> 1:45:38.160 a thing always or even usually rely on mental imagery? 1:45:38.320 --> 1:45:41.120 And uh? So? For example, if I ask you to 1:45:41.400 --> 1:45:44.519 picture a character from a movie, you've seen a picture 1:45:44.960 --> 1:45:50.400 the Chamberlain from the Dark Crystal or let's see, Actually, uh, 1:45:50.680 --> 1:45:52.880 I think I screwed that up. Okay, No, actually, don't, 1:45:52.920 --> 1:45:55.080 don't picture him yet. It's too late. I've done it 1:45:55.200 --> 1:45:58.000 like twice. Okay, Well, I just want you to list 1:45:58.080 --> 1:46:04.400 physical characteristics of the Chamberlain from the Dark Crystal. Okay, um, 1:46:04.600 --> 1:46:16.360 bird like, um, sneaky, serpentine um, splendid, decade, I guess 1:46:16.400 --> 1:46:19.479 I bring this up because my question is, when you 1:46:19.560 --> 1:46:23.599 recall visual characteristics of a thing you've seen, do you 1:46:23.640 --> 1:46:27.519 recall them exclusively by calling up a mental image of 1:46:27.520 --> 1:46:30.720 the thing and examining it like you would a thing 1:46:30.760 --> 1:46:33.840 you're looking at currently, or do you have other ways 1:46:33.920 --> 1:46:37.799 of remembering the visual characteristics of something other than by 1:46:37.840 --> 1:46:40.720 picturing it and then examining what you're looking at in 1:46:40.760 --> 1:46:43.519 your mind's eye. Well, with the Chamberlain, I think I 1:46:44.080 --> 1:46:48.040 draw specifically on just visuals. Now, it would be different 1:46:48.040 --> 1:46:50.240 if I was described, if it was asked to describe 1:46:50.240 --> 1:46:54.240 a literary character in which the character is is like 1:46:54.280 --> 1:46:58.040 initially build out of language, but that the Chamberlain is 1:46:58.080 --> 1:47:02.120 all is all visual and does not, at least in 1:47:02.160 --> 1:47:08.000 anything I remember, describe itself. So because there are characters 1:47:08.000 --> 1:47:11.400 that one encounters visually where that the character is going 1:47:11.439 --> 1:47:13.560 to describe itself or there's gonna be some voice to 1:47:13.600 --> 1:47:16.360 describe it, but there's no language attached to it. So yeah, 1:47:16.400 --> 1:47:19.920 I would say almost purely visual. Yeah, I noticed most 1:47:19.960 --> 1:47:22.800 of the time when I'm trying to recall visual characteristics 1:47:22.800 --> 1:47:25.800 of something, I picture it first. But yeah, it gets 1:47:25.880 --> 1:47:30.320 especially complicated when you're thinking about characteristics of something that 1:47:30.360 --> 1:47:34.840 you've imagined from writing but not from seeing. Yeah, Like 1:47:35.040 --> 1:47:36.680 when you asked me to think of the Chamberlain, too, 1:47:36.680 --> 1:47:39.680 I found myself doing it in two ways. Like basically 1:47:39.720 --> 1:47:43.800 a mental image of a scene from the film, like 1:47:43.840 --> 1:47:46.799 where I'm seeing in my mind not only the character, 1:47:46.920 --> 1:47:50.559 but the backdrop, the lighting, everything. And then there's kind 1:47:50.560 --> 1:47:53.919 of a mental image of, say, the head of the creature, 1:47:54.160 --> 1:47:56.360 as if it were in the room with me, you know. 1:47:57.120 --> 1:48:00.120 So that makes me wonder too, Yeah, do we have 1:48:00.200 --> 1:48:03.760 different different sorts of mental imagery. Mental imagery that's more 1:48:04.520 --> 1:48:07.320 based on thinking. Maybe in a way, it's kind of 1:48:07.360 --> 1:48:09.760 like thinking about the way we uh we think about 1:48:09.800 --> 1:48:11.920 the past and the future, a way of thinking about 1:48:11.960 --> 1:48:15.000 the way something was and then imagining the way something 1:48:15.080 --> 1:48:16.880 would be, what it would be like if it were 1:48:16.960 --> 1:48:19.759 here or if I were encountering it in the near future. 1:48:20.400 --> 1:48:22.640 I wonder if that plays into it at all. All Right, 1:48:22.680 --> 1:48:24.160 on that note, we're gonna take a quick break, but 1:48:24.200 --> 1:48:29.200 we'll be right back. Thank alright, we're back. Okay. So 1:48:29.240 --> 1:48:34.400 we've been talking about psychic photography or thoughtography, this alleged 1:48:34.560 --> 1:48:37.960 ability that some people have to project the contents of 1:48:38.000 --> 1:48:41.840 their mental imagery onto film or onto objects in the 1:48:41.880 --> 1:48:44.920 external world. And I think we're probably in agreement that 1:48:45.160 --> 1:48:47.720 even though a lot of people have claimed to have 1:48:47.880 --> 1:48:50.800 this power or claim to have demonstrated this power, this 1:48:51.000 --> 1:48:54.120 probably is not really going on in in some ways, 1:48:54.200 --> 1:48:57.400 the mechanism of it seems incoherent, right, And that's what 1:48:57.520 --> 1:49:00.720 it basically, the mechanism is in going are It's it's 1:49:00.760 --> 1:49:04.800 again like imagining the psychics and scanners being able to 1:49:04.840 --> 1:49:08.439 read hard drives, like this just doesn't make sense. But 1:49:09.280 --> 1:49:13.160 there are a number of experiments that sort of would 1:49:13.200 --> 1:49:17.400 find a way around this incoherence. We're talking about through 1:49:17.520 --> 1:49:21.840 another layer of encoding and decoding of brain activity that 1:49:22.280 --> 1:49:26.719 that could be learned through brain computer interfaces and machine learning. 1:49:27.160 --> 1:49:31.080 And this we're getting into into the creation of a 1:49:31.160 --> 1:49:34.840 of a technological translator. Yes exactly. It kind of the 1:49:34.840 --> 1:49:37.680 same way that you would use language to translate the 1:49:38.040 --> 1:49:41.479 contents of your mind's eye into something in the outside world. 1:49:42.000 --> 1:49:46.200 A computer could potentially translate the brain activity that it 1:49:46.240 --> 1:49:48.760 reads off of your scalp or in blood flow in 1:49:48.760 --> 1:49:52.080 your brain through fm r I into something in the 1:49:52.120 --> 1:49:55.760 outside world that could be trained to correlate with your 1:49:55.800 --> 1:49:59.639 mental imagery. Now, I think I've got lots of questions 1:49:59.640 --> 1:50:02.960 about how accurate and how realistic this project actually is. 1:50:03.360 --> 1:50:05.720 But there are at least these experiments that that have 1:50:05.840 --> 1:50:08.360 purported to get part of the way there, and they're 1:50:08.400 --> 1:50:11.040 they're kind of freaky. I won't lie. I would say 1:50:11.200 --> 1:50:12.880 this starts to get me a little bit worried. I 1:50:12.960 --> 1:50:16.400 want to start with a news piece in Science from January. 1:50:17.479 --> 1:50:20.320 The news piece was by Matthew Hudson and it covers 1:50:20.600 --> 1:50:23.600 the brain computer interface work of a group of researchers 1:50:23.640 --> 1:50:28.639 including uh u Kiasu Kamitani, a neuroscientist at Kyoto University 1:50:28.640 --> 1:50:32.519 in Japan, and a computer scientist named Zoe ming Lu 1:50:32.800 --> 1:50:36.320 at Purdue University in the United States. And this work 1:50:36.400 --> 1:50:40.240 is focused on it's using brain computer interfaces to directly 1:50:40.400 --> 1:50:43.720 read and record mental imagery, which is the imagining of 1:50:43.760 --> 1:50:47.280 a picture. So you try to imagine, like, why would 1:50:47.280 --> 1:50:49.400 anybody be doing this? You know, what would be the 1:50:49.439 --> 1:50:53.880 supposed benefits of a technology to read people's mental imagery. Well, 1:50:54.000 --> 1:50:56.639 we're asked to imagine in this article, maybe being able 1:50:56.680 --> 1:51:00.240 to search through a collection of digital images simply by 1:51:00.280 --> 1:51:03.439 mentally picturing the image we want Okay, that might be 1:51:03.479 --> 1:51:06.360 a thing like I bet you've tried before to Google 1:51:06.400 --> 1:51:08.920 an image that you've seen before, but you didn't know 1:51:09.000 --> 1:51:12.720 what search terms to use and couldn't find it. Yeah, yeah, 1:51:12.800 --> 1:51:16.880 there's I could see where that could have an application. Well, granted, 1:51:16.920 --> 1:51:19.640 it's not something that is really life or death, and 1:51:20.240 --> 1:51:22.640 it would be more like, Oh, I vaguely remember a 1:51:22.720 --> 1:51:28.400 really cool advertisement for a community college on television in 1:51:28.439 --> 1:51:31.479 the summer in my childhood, and they played a song 1:51:31.560 --> 1:51:33.400 on it that kind of sounded like Boards of Canada. 1:51:33.439 --> 1:51:35.800 I wonder if it was actually Boards of Canada. Like 1:51:35.880 --> 1:51:38.080 that is a legit thing that I think about from 1:51:38.080 --> 1:51:39.880 time to time, and there's no way for me to 1:51:39.920 --> 1:51:43.960 look it up. But true enough, if a machine could 1:51:44.000 --> 1:51:48.000 look at my mental imagery of that memory of watching 1:51:48.040 --> 1:51:51.599 that TV spot, then it's conceivable that it could then 1:51:51.720 --> 1:51:56.040 look into some vast database and find that footage for me. Yeah. 1:51:56.080 --> 1:51:58.760 I'm not saying that will necessarily ever get there, but 1:51:58.880 --> 1:52:01.080 that that is the kind of thing they're asking you 1:52:01.120 --> 1:52:05.120 to imagine. Another one, this is probably more straightforward drawing 1:52:05.120 --> 1:52:08.680 without the hands, straight from imagination too, recorded two D 1:52:08.800 --> 1:52:11.280 media that might be interesting. I mean, I wonder if 1:52:11.280 --> 1:52:14.479 I could open up whole other realms of visual art 1:52:15.120 --> 1:52:17.920 for people who are not good at drawing with their hands, right, 1:52:18.040 --> 1:52:20.759 or or for people who are disabled to some degree. 1:52:20.920 --> 1:52:23.400 Right that I could see that being advantageous as well. 1:52:23.560 --> 1:52:25.559 And it can go further than that. I mean, technically, 1:52:25.600 --> 1:52:28.320 you could imagine something like this allowing people without the 1:52:28.360 --> 1:52:31.840 power of speech you're writing to share their thoughts. Uh, 1:52:31.880 --> 1:52:33.600 you know you can't Maybe if you can't speak, you 1:52:33.640 --> 1:52:36.360 can't describe your visual imagery, maybe you could share it 1:52:36.400 --> 1:52:39.679 with something like this. But I want to say, Okay, 1:52:39.720 --> 1:52:42.240 those are the positive versions of what we're imagining. We 1:52:42.479 --> 1:52:46.000 could explore negative versions later on. And so the researchers 1:52:46.040 --> 1:52:49.360 here have been working on computer algorithms that are trained 1:52:49.400 --> 1:52:53.799 through machine learning to match patterns of brain activity recorded 1:52:53.800 --> 1:52:56.680 through things like fm r I with imagery that a 1:52:56.760 --> 1:53:00.640 subject is looking at. And because actually looking at an 1:53:00.680 --> 1:53:03.840 image and then mentally imagining the same image are sort 1:53:03.880 --> 1:53:06.040 of similar in the brain, They're not exactly the same, 1:53:06.080 --> 1:53:09.680 but there's some similar stuff going on, researchers have experimented 1:53:09.720 --> 1:53:12.640 with measuring activity in the visual processing areas of the 1:53:12.680 --> 1:53:15.040 brain with f m R I while person is looking 1:53:15.080 --> 1:53:18.360 at different images and then using that data about blood 1:53:18.360 --> 1:53:21.679 flow in the brain to later guess what a person 1:53:21.800 --> 1:53:24.960 is looking at without knowing now ideally what you would 1:53:24.960 --> 1:53:27.799 have at the end of this kind of research. Multi 1:53:27.840 --> 1:53:31.200 stage process is an algorithm that could read the activity 1:53:31.240 --> 1:53:35.479 of a person's visual processing center and materialize an image 1:53:35.560 --> 1:53:38.840 directly on the screen that corresponds to what the person 1:53:38.960 --> 1:53:42.880 is either looking at or imagining. Uh and again, to 1:53:42.960 --> 1:53:46.000 whatever extent the technology will ever fully be realized, it's 1:53:46.000 --> 1:53:48.880 still in the very early stages. Um. But in the 1:53:48.960 --> 1:53:51.280 example sided in this article, I should say that the 1:53:51.320 --> 1:53:54.879 image generation portion was not carried out on real brains. 1:53:55.000 --> 1:53:58.519 The data acquired from human subjects was instead used to 1:53:58.640 --> 1:54:01.720 train a deep neural net work that stood in for 1:54:01.800 --> 1:54:05.840 an actual brain while they tested their image generating program. 1:54:05.880 --> 1:54:09.160 And to quote from Hudson's article here quote the system 1:54:09.200 --> 1:54:13.040 starts with something random similar to TV static, and slowly 1:54:13.080 --> 1:54:16.000 refines its painting over the course of two hundred rounds 1:54:16.360 --> 1:54:19.280 to get closer to the ideal image. The system calculates 1:54:19.320 --> 1:54:22.519 the difference between the deep neural network activity and the 1:54:22.600 --> 1:54:26.600 templated deep neural network activity. Those calculations cause it to 1:54:26.720 --> 1:54:30.000 nudge one pixel this way and another pixel that way 1:54:30.240 --> 1:54:33.520 until it gets closer to the ideal image. Now, apparently 1:54:33.520 --> 1:54:35.880 at the stage, the algorithms are not very good at 1:54:35.920 --> 1:54:38.680 all at guessing what imagery people have in mind when 1:54:38.720 --> 1:54:42.280 they're imagining realistic photos, but they are pretty good at 1:54:42.320 --> 1:54:45.720 picking out when people imagine abstract shapes. And that makes 1:54:45.720 --> 1:54:49.040 sense because I think those would be like clearer signals 1:54:49.080 --> 1:54:53.040 in the brain probably. But yeah, there's some images along 1:54:53.040 --> 1:54:58.200 with this article that are the paintings generated by this algorithm. Uh, 1:54:58.240 --> 1:55:01.480 and then they're they're compared with the images that originally 1:55:01.520 --> 1:55:06.120 gave rise to them, and the comparisons are wonderfully creepy. Yeah. 1:55:06.200 --> 1:55:09.400 They look like like psychedelic entities that have come to 1:55:10.120 --> 1:55:14.760 convey some sort of occult knowledge under the listener. Like 1:55:14.960 --> 1:55:17.839 there's a there's one that's originally a picture of an owl, 1:55:18.040 --> 1:55:20.920 and then the approximation of it is some kind of 1:55:20.960 --> 1:55:27.640 like like primordial worm walrus from the center of the earth. Yeah. Yeah, 1:55:27.240 --> 1:55:32.640 a red mailbox becomes this kind of alien burning crimson pillar. 1:55:32.880 --> 1:55:35.560 So there are some patterns that seems like they're picking 1:55:35.640 --> 1:55:39.760 up in in this version, where like some basic shapes emerge, 1:55:39.880 --> 1:55:44.080 some color patterns seem like detectable. It seems like you 1:55:44.080 --> 1:55:47.600 can detect when something is basically a face. But I 1:55:47.640 --> 1:55:50.680 have questions about the ultimate potential of this technology, like 1:55:50.720 --> 1:55:53.720 the versions that exist today have limitations such as relying 1:55:53.760 --> 1:55:56.560 on training and feedback. And also I wonder about the 1:55:56.720 --> 1:56:00.600 rules for reading mental imagery, like how transfer are they 1:56:00.720 --> 1:56:04.960 from one person to another? How idiosyncratic is your brain 1:56:05.160 --> 1:56:08.040 looking at an image versus somebody else's brain looking at 1:56:08.080 --> 1:56:11.320 the same image. It makes me think of the holophoner 1:56:11.480 --> 1:56:15.000 from Futurama. Do you remember this instrument? It's a musical 1:56:15.040 --> 1:56:18.000 instrument that Fry attempts to learn at one point and 1:56:18.040 --> 1:56:22.560 at one point masters thanks to the parasitic worms living 1:56:22.560 --> 1:56:25.120 inside his gut that have made him super intelligent. Uh, 1:56:25.320 --> 1:56:27.760 but then he pleases that ability. But anyway, it's it's this. 1:56:28.280 --> 1:56:32.600 It's basically like a small musical instrument, like a woodwind instrument, 1:56:33.080 --> 1:56:36.760 but it has the technologically capability to take a mental 1:56:36.800 --> 1:56:39.040 image in your mind and projected into the air for 1:56:39.080 --> 1:56:42.800 others to see. But it takes It's like it's notably 1:56:42.840 --> 1:56:45.640 difficult to learn and takes a lot of intense training 1:56:45.640 --> 1:56:49.640 and concentration to even form a very vague image in 1:56:49.680 --> 1:56:51.919 the air, and so some of the like the initial 1:56:51.960 --> 1:56:55.240 images that Fry is able to summon using the holophone 1:56:55.400 --> 1:56:59.160 are basically as abstract as these examples we've discussed in 1:56:59.160 --> 1:57:03.080 this study. Uh. But I mean, so on one hand, 1:57:03.080 --> 1:57:04.840 you could say, well, maybe this kind of thing will 1:57:04.880 --> 1:57:07.800 just never get very accurate in any way that's applicable. 1:57:07.880 --> 1:57:11.520 That's possible. But also if this technology ever does get 1:57:11.520 --> 1:57:14.920 more accurate, can you imagine this would I mean, I'm 1:57:15.000 --> 1:57:18.320 thinking about the way it would be incorporated into machine 1:57:18.400 --> 1:57:24.960 learning user feedback mechanisms that serve us content on social media. Um, 1:57:25.200 --> 1:57:28.080 you know, imagine a Facebook news feed that could not 1:57:28.120 --> 1:57:30.320 only fine tune itself based on what you do with 1:57:30.360 --> 1:57:32.840 your mouse cursor and how you scroll and what you 1:57:32.880 --> 1:57:35.360 click on and how long you look at things, but 1:57:35.480 --> 1:57:38.920 based on neurofeedback that allows it to detect how you're 1:57:39.040 --> 1:57:42.920 using your visual imagination, you know, so they sell you 1:57:42.920 --> 1:57:45.000 on the good stuff, right draw without your hands, and 1:57:45.320 --> 1:57:47.720 you get this kind of interface that that hooks up 1:57:47.720 --> 1:57:50.480 to your brain and then it can sense patterns and 1:57:50.600 --> 1:57:54.000 what users are picturing in their mind's eye and reaction 1:57:54.040 --> 1:57:57.280 to media stimuli at a massive scale. Even if this 1:57:57.360 --> 1:58:01.400 can't be used to pull images accurate directly from your brain. 1:58:02.080 --> 1:58:04.280 Just imagine what it could do based on the brain 1:58:04.360 --> 1:58:09.120 activity correlations across populations alone. Uh. And also I'm imagining 1:58:09.160 --> 1:58:11.880 if it ever did get good enough at reading brain activity, 1:58:12.640 --> 1:58:16.280 the brain activity underlying mental imagery, and turning that directly 1:58:16.320 --> 1:58:19.879 into physical images outside the brain, what kind of crazy 1:58:19.920 --> 1:58:23.600 cyber feedback processes could that lead to? Yeah, I mean, 1:58:23.640 --> 1:58:30.360 anyway you shake it, it's a it's a nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. 1:58:30.360 --> 1:58:33.600 I really don't like the idea of machines being able 1:58:33.640 --> 1:58:36.640 to look inside our head and do anything with our 1:58:36.680 --> 1:58:39.680 our mental images and draw them out. I mean, that's 1:58:39.680 --> 1:58:44.320 that's just pure dystopia juice right there. Anyway, anyway you 1:58:44.360 --> 1:58:46.360 shake it, I mean, it seems like even the positives 1:58:46.440 --> 1:58:50.040 I have to like really construct an artificial scenario where 1:58:50.080 --> 1:58:52.400 it's like, okay, there's been a kidnapping and we have 1:58:52.520 --> 1:58:54.720 to draw the mental images out of the the only 1:58:54.760 --> 1:58:58.200 so you know, you get into ridiculous scenarios like that, which, okay, yes, 1:58:58.280 --> 1:59:01.560 given that very particular scenario, perhaps it would make sense. 1:59:01.840 --> 1:59:05.520 But then you get into just basic considerations of of 1:59:05.560 --> 1:59:08.600 privacy to like, would you ever have the right to 1:59:08.960 --> 1:59:12.760 look inside someone's head and draw out their mental images. 1:59:13.040 --> 1:59:15.120 Depends on who writes the laws, and I would think 1:59:15.160 --> 1:59:17.360 it is the big corporation with all the lawyers that 1:59:17.400 --> 1:59:19.920 will write the laws. And I guess looking at the 1:59:20.680 --> 1:59:23.240 like sort of certainly the social media examples too, it's like, 1:59:23.280 --> 1:59:26.120 are you It depends to are you born into a 1:59:26.200 --> 1:59:30.560 world in which it's normal for your machines to look 1:59:30.600 --> 1:59:33.640 inside your brain and draw from your mental images, probably 1:59:33.640 --> 1:59:36.360 with some sort of an agreement. Uh. In the same 1:59:36.400 --> 1:59:39.320 way that you know, our emails are read by machines, 1:59:39.400 --> 1:59:42.080 but they're not actually read by people, there would be 1:59:42.120 --> 1:59:45.440 this idea like, oh yeah, nobody's actually watching your mental images. 1:59:45.480 --> 1:59:47.840 It's just our algorithms are keeping track on them so 1:59:47.880 --> 1:59:51.280 we can better serve you content. I mean, I think 1:59:51.560 --> 1:59:56.120 a lot of times we have overestimated our people's desire 1:59:56.400 --> 2:00:01.640 for privacy. Uh. Like, I just think about how years 2:00:01.680 --> 2:00:05.200 ago if you had told people here's all the things 2:00:05.240 --> 2:00:07.680 people will be sharing on social media and all the 2:00:07.760 --> 2:00:11.520 kinds of privileges they will be allowing these companies to 2:00:11.560 --> 2:00:14.320 have and learning about their lives and learning about their data, 2:00:14.480 --> 2:00:17.760 people will be like, no way, nobody will ever surrender 2:00:17.840 --> 2:00:20.800 that amount of you know, privacy and autonomy about their 2:00:20.800 --> 2:00:23.080 lives and their data. But people just gave it up 2:00:23.120 --> 2:00:27.560 so willingly. Yeah, and so many are still seemingly fine 2:00:27.600 --> 2:00:30.640 with it. Yeah. So I wonder if I don't know, 2:00:30.760 --> 2:00:33.400 maybe it has to do with something about the advertising, 2:00:33.440 --> 2:00:35.760 the marketing, how these things are are rolled out to 2:00:35.800 --> 2:00:39.840 the public that that breaks down our defenses and and 2:00:40.040 --> 2:00:42.640 has us ending up being like, ah, yeah, you know whatever, 2:00:42.680 --> 2:00:45.880 I'll get the brain device. You know, Jeffrey's got one. 2:00:45.960 --> 2:00:49.360 He likes it, you know, Yeah. Yeah, Well, I hold 2:00:49.360 --> 2:00:50.840 out hope that it would be a you know, the 2:00:50.880 --> 2:00:54.360 bridge too far, and that that humans would would rise 2:00:54.440 --> 2:00:57.240 up and reject it so as well. But but I 2:00:57.240 --> 2:00:59.960 also feel like we're already at that point where humans 2:01:00.000 --> 2:01:03.840 should rise up and reject what is being presented to them. Uh, 2:01:04.000 --> 2:01:06.960 you know, certainly by the large social media companies and 2:01:07.160 --> 2:01:10.000 um and uh, I don't know. Some people are rising up, 2:01:10.320 --> 2:01:12.240 but we're not quite rising up in the numbers so 2:01:12.360 --> 2:01:17.080 far to limit their power. Protect your mental imagery instead, 2:01:17.400 --> 2:01:20.040 if you want to have more power in sharing your 2:01:20.040 --> 2:01:22.920 mental imagery in the cases where you actually do want 2:01:22.920 --> 2:01:26.080 to share it, when your powers of translation, that means 2:01:26.120 --> 2:01:29.440 practice becoming better at language, better at drawing, better at 2:01:29.600 --> 2:01:32.440 art of whatever kind. Yeah, and indeed, I don't want 2:01:32.440 --> 2:01:35.520 to in this on a you know, too pessimistic note 2:01:35.760 --> 2:01:38.840 dystopian and note is, etcetera, because ultimately, like what all 2:01:38.920 --> 2:01:43.160 this reveals, it's just like just how incredible our brain's 2:01:43.280 --> 2:01:47.280 capacity for mental imagery really is. Because you know, certainly, 2:01:47.320 --> 2:01:50.400 these technologies that attempt to understand it or even replicated 2:01:50.760 --> 2:01:55.440 these uh pseudo scientific or outright superstitious ideas about what 2:01:55.480 --> 2:01:57.840 a mental image is and how it might be you know, 2:01:57.880 --> 2:02:01.040 inflicted on the world, they all get. They're all circle 2:02:01.160 --> 2:02:04.760 circling the mystery and the wonder uh that we all 2:02:04.800 --> 2:02:08.040 experience every day. It's yet another case where you know, 2:02:08.080 --> 2:02:12.440 there's a purported magical ability that is actually maybe less 2:02:12.480 --> 2:02:15.960 fascinating than the reality that we're just so used to 2:02:16.080 --> 2:02:19.760 of the fact that we have something like language. Absolutely 2:02:20.760 --> 2:02:22.960 all right, Well, there you have it are two part 2:02:23.040 --> 2:02:27.120 look at the mental image and various ideas surrounding it. 2:02:27.160 --> 2:02:30.440 And I think we we crammed a fair number of 2:02:30.440 --> 2:02:34.800 of horror film and other uh you know, horror related 2:02:34.880 --> 2:02:38.120 ideas in there, so I think it's it's firmly implanted 2:02:38.240 --> 2:02:42.120 in our October offerings, but if you're new to the show, 2:02:42.360 --> 2:02:44.760 we do this every October. Every October is wall to 2:02:44.800 --> 2:02:48.440 wall Halloween related content. Uh So, if you want to 2:02:48.480 --> 2:02:50.200 you want more, you can go to stuff to Blow 2:02:50.240 --> 2:02:53.839 your Mind dot com and check out past October's. Likewise, 2:02:54.080 --> 2:02:55.920 if you want to check out some of our Invention 2:02:56.080 --> 2:02:59.000 episodes that are October theme, go check that out as well. 2:02:59.040 --> 2:03:01.880 That's our other show. It's a journey through human techno history, 2:03:02.200 --> 2:03:06.080 and indeed we are rolling out October episodes as well 2:03:06.080 --> 2:03:09.280 over there, so help both shows out. Make sure you 2:03:09.320 --> 2:03:12.640 have subscribed and rate in review huge thanks as always 2:03:12.680 --> 2:03:16.000 to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. 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