WEBVTT - Listener Mail: Media and Memory 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:01.680 Are you a Stuff to Blow your Mind fan? Are 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:03.880 you a New Yorker? Do you plan to attend this 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:06.800 year's New York Comic Con. If so, then you've got 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:10.639 to check out our exclusive live show NYCC presents Stuff 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:14.000 to Blow Your Mind Live Stranger Science. Join all three 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:16.880 of us as we record a live podcast about the 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:21.560 exciting science and tantalizing pseudo science underlying the hit Netflix 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:25.840 show Stranger Things. It all goes down Friday October six, 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.240 from seven pm to eight thirty pm at the Hudson 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.279 Mercantile in Manhattan. Stuff you missed in history class has 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:34.920 a show right before us, so you can really double down, 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:37.920 learn more and buy your tickets today at New York 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:46.239 Comic Con dot com slash NYCC hyphen presents Welcome to 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:55.600 Stuff to Blow Your Mind from How Stuff Works dot com. 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:57.480 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:00.120 name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Christian Seger, and I'm 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.400 Joe McCormick. And hey, it is time for another listener 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:06.600 Maile episode. It's been a while since we did one, right, guys, Yeah, 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:08.800 it's been a while since Carney has come out of 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:13.280 his layer to greet us. With various bits of listener 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:16.360 mail from our our our listeners all over the world. 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:20.080 Carney's has some life changes recently, though, right guys, Well, 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:24.640 Carney I believe has a crush Carney the mail Bot, 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:27.559 of course, if you're not familiar, Formerly Arnie the mail Bot. 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.720 With the addition of Cartesian doubt, we became Carney. And 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.480 now I think he has learned to love because I've 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:39.360 seen him writing the name of another machine here in 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:42.119 the office, if y'all, if you'll notice, I noticed somebody 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.160 etched a serial number really long, went into the wall 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.200 with a saw of some sort. That would be Carney. 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.120 I get a big heart around it, Honestly, I try 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:52.000 to stay out of the whole thing. They both tried 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:53.880 to get me into a room to mitigate the whole 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:56.040 situation the other day, and I just you know, I'm 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:58.720 busy to a podcast. Sorry, Carney, you don't want to 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.320 get into machine politics. Well, maybe by the end of 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:04.720 today's episode he and the coffee machine can work it out. 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:07.640 I hope so, I hope so. But for now he 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:09.840 needs to do his job, that's right, and that is 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.040 to spit out listener mail for us. And it's and 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:14.320 we need a note here that we receive a great 0:02:14.360 --> 0:02:16.560 deal of listener mail. We we get it in on 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:20.480 the email, we get it through the various social media accounts. 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:23.400 We get it lots of cool feedback on the discussion 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:27.320 module our group on Facebook. These are all tremendous ways 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:29.520 to get in touch with us. Occasionally, even some snail 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:33.480 mail comes in, but not a lot. Uh, no reason 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:36.519 you should stop. Actually do some stuff from Twitter this time. 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:39.520 Oh yeah, cool, I know we see stuff on tumbler 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:42.000 even so. The bottom line is we receive a great 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:44.960 deal of cool stuff. We try to respond to to 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:47.040 a lot of it, but there's a lot that we 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:49.360 can't even you know, we don't have time to respond to. 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.160 But we do like to have Carney bring us some 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:54.960 choice bits of listener mail so that we can read 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.120 them on the air and and discuss the questions. The 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.160 answers are just sort of basking, you know, the the 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:04.679 glory of the moment. Well, time is precious, so let's 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:06.600 get right into it. I can see he's spitting one 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:09.880 out right now. All right, what's it look like? This 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:13.200 came in on the discussion module that group on Facebook 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:15.000 that we were talking about that all of you are 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:18.520 welcome to to join in on uh. Darwin writes in 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.679 and says you mentioned on the podcast last week that 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.160 perhaps the living in a simulation trope might someday replace 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:29.639 the alien abduction narrative. Last week on BBC's Infinite Monkey Cage, 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:33.560 Brian Cox, this is the the younger scientists, Brian Cox, 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:39.400 This isn't the classic character actoran not Manhunter anyway, Cox 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.200 and his panel discussed this very topic, even submitting that 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.080 such a belief bordered on the same leap of faith 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:48.839 that is required for religious beliefs. I think it is fascinating, 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:50.960 even though I doubt that you would be able to 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.680 create certain physical phenomena as we observe them using digital methods, 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.320 the problem of pseudo random versus truly random physical events. 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.960 Of course, maybe with highly advanced technology is required to 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:07.640 recreate a universe such limitations and uh maybe surmountable. It 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:10.080 is endlessly fascinating topic and I would love to hear 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:12.280 you guys weigh in on it at some point. Well. 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.480 Speaking of Cartesian doubt, this is actually a good point 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.039 for it, because we talked about this during the Mandela 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:21.240 Effect episode. This is where I believe this This came up, 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:23.480 and then you guys also did it in a what 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.720 was Your Computer Simulated? Episode? Was that the created universe 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:28.880 is one yes. In the episode where we talked about 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:30.960 creating a universe in the lab, we also talked about 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:33.640 the idea of creating a universe and a computer simulation 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:36.360 and how you could know that. I'm skeptical about this idea. 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:38.880 I voiced some of my skepticism in that episode, and 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:42.599 we actually got some replies about that. We several people 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:44.520 send us really interesting emails about that. I'm going to 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:46.320 try to read at least one of those today. And 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:50.120 Darwin here mentions the alien abduction episode, and yeah, in 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.000 that one, we were talking about this, this trope of 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:56.440 of alien abduction being the narrative that you draw in 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.400 when trying to make sense of some sort of you know, 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:04.320 paranormal sensory experience, and to what degree we might replace 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.600 that in the future with something like the idea that 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:10.599 our reality is a computer simulation, Like, at what point 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.760 would there be a tipping point at which this would 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:17.200 become the default or one of the default narratives for 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.800 some people understanding what happened? Syndia being that like the 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:26.120 matrix would sort of replace alien abduction as these the 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.240 narrative of explanation for these things that we have no 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:33.159 scientific explanation for. Well, wait a minute, then what is 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:37.240 the experience narrative there? So if an alien abduction, it's 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:39.520 you know, there's certain patterns of like I woke up, 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:41.400 I was in a room surrounded by beings, I was 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.080 taken up into another place, X, Y, and Z happened 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:48.520 to me. What what's the simulated universe version of that? Well, Joe, 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:52.200 I was. I was coming back from from the joint 0:05:52.240 --> 0:05:55.840 uptown a few nights back, and suddenly everything got a 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:58.720 little flashy, and the next thing I knew, these uh, 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:01.120 these people were come infor me. I think what had 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.599 happened is that I had I had glitched out of 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.520 the computer simulation for a moment. The anti virus software 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:10.720 is on your case, Yeah, they're on my case. I 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:12.599 think I might have flopped out of the future tank 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.039 that I'm that my actual body is positioned in. So 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:17.800 they put me back in and they've done something to 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:20.240 my memory. But I did get to see through the 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.920 veil and see through the computer simulation that we all 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:25.479 buy into every day. This is an actual argument that 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.839 a few people have have proposed as an explanation for 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:31.480 the Mandela effect, that we exist within a kind of 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:35.000 like hollow deck simulation, and that when the Mandela effect 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.160 is observed by people, it's because there's some glitch in 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:42.640 the software. We do not buy it. Our episode strongly 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:46.480 argues that the Mandela effect is just a false memory 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:49.320 and false memory shared false memory. The amazing part about 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:52.240 it is what it reveals about the inner working of memory. Well, yeah, 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:54.720 didn't we get at least one email from someone who 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.800 is fairly angry arguing that it's more likely that we 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.120 live in parallel universes or a glitchy simulation then that 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.880 people misremember things. I thought that was just you, you're 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:08.039 trolling Probert and me, but it maybe it was a 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:10.080 real person. I don't know. I think it's kind of 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.760 likely that people really often misremember things. Well, yeah, I 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.080 think that we make a strong case for that, and 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:19.680 it's it's connected to the alien abduction episode two. We've 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:21.640 had kind of like a false memory theme going for 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:26.880 the last month. Okay, well, I've got at least one 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:29.800 more email about the idea of living in a computer simulation. 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:31.720 I mentioned that we this came up in our episode 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:33.640 about how to create a universe in the Lab. Now, 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.200 a lot of that episode was on the physics idea. 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:38.200 It was that we talked about one book in particular, 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.320 but the work of cosmologists like Alan Gooth over the 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:45.679 years about how it might hypothetically be possible. It seems 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.880 like kind of a stretch, but there are plausible physical 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.840 hypotheses about how you might be able to do an 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.240 experiment in high energy particle collider that could create a 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:57.160 universe in the lab. But we also talked about the 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:01.120 idea of creating a universe as a simulation on software, 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:03.960 and I talked about multiple reasons I don't think this 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:07.840 is likely that our universe is a simulation. Uh number one, 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.760 It would just require so much energy to simulate a 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:16.040 realistic universe. Why is that something that we think future 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:20.720 civilizations would spend their limited resources on. Well, well, because 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:24.600 well yeah, but also a lot of people spend their 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.640 limited resources now on simulated worlds. You just you have 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:31.200 to extrapolate it to like a global economy where just batteries, man, 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:33.800 I mean, they're just taking our energy right back. Just 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:38.160 thinking about the information density of simulating an actual world 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:40.559 with actual physics that works. I mean, one of the 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.559 problems is you can do science experiments and the laws 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.679 of physics always seem to hold. So that means at 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:50.440 some level they're simulating everything all the way down. It's 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:53.000 not just like a low res simulation with some kind 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.280 of put together sprites. At the higher level, they're simulating 0:08:56.360 --> 0:09:00.600 every physical interaction of every atom and molecule. Well, that 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:04.560 just seems like that would be so energy intensive, it's ridiculous. 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:06.560 So I'm gonna I'm just playing defl's advocate here. I 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.520 agree with you, But like I immediately think of like 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.120 rag doll physics in like the video games I play, 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:15.160 like like sky Rim or Fallout or something like that. Right, right, 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:17.960 that's a very limited version of what you're talking about, 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:21.800 which are just orders of magnitude simpler than simulating real physics. 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:23.560 And what I was saying is the easiest way to 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:26.679 simulate real physics would just be to have a real universe. Well, 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:28.600 one of the things that we brought up in that episode, 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.280 I think was was the issue of mirrors and video games. 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:34.160 If you see a working mirror in a video game, 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:37.760 you're probably you're seeing a great deal of work place 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.160 and all, and some of the times you're actually seeing 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.040 some trickery to you know, to because there's no light 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:45.920 in a video game. You don't have photons in a 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.480 video game. But to have this kind of simulation that 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:50.679 Joe is talking about, you would need to have that. 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:53.880 I had another objection to the idea of that, that 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:56.079 we're living in a simulated universe, and it went sort 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.800 of like this, Um, if we are living in a 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:01.920 simulated universe that perfectly mirrors a real universe, we should 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:05.320 be able to create a simulated universe within our simulated universe, 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:08.280 and then within the created simulated universe, they should be 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:11.480 able to create a universe within the simulated universe. If 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:14.880 this is all running on hardware that is upstream of 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:18.040 the simulations that go all the way down, you'd eventually 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:22.200 reach a sort of peak information density that the hardware 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:25.040 at the top could no longer sustain. And that's where 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:27.160 this next email comes in. So this comes from our 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.200 listener Jared, who says, Hi, guys, love the show. I 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.679 was listening to your Out of Chaos podcast and had 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:36.360 a few thoughts pertaining to the computational requirements of complex 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:40.880 simulation UM and he calls the section relative relativity of 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:46.240 our programmer God's time. I work on virtually prototyping satellite 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:50.800 imaging systems by simulating photo realistic imagery, taking into account 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:54.720 the physics of the imaging system and the lights interaction 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.520 with the observed scene. Now I can do a pretty 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:01.160 darn good job simulating imagery with any computer. It just 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:04.800 takes longer given a less powerful computer. Maybe the being 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.640 simulating us have a lot more time, so an hour 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.640 in their time is a second in hours, Or they 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:14.120 have us turn off for the night and start us 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.480 back up in the morning for maintenance. My simulations don't 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:22.240 notice any or my temporal discontinuity. Also, now the beings 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.680 want to create a simulation inside their simulation, sure, but 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.320 they have finite computing power too, so it will go 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:32.520 extremely slow relative to the original programmer gods, and the 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:39.120 embedded simulations will asymptotically approach some constant computational requirement. I 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.679 thought that was really interesting, but he goes on. Another 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:45.200 solution is to give your world some natural equalizer, like 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:49.040 an ego. I'd argue the past three years, as humans 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:53.800 have gotten way more computationally complex, the loss of biodiversity 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:58.440 has made the earth as a whole way less computationally complex. 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.920 Someday we'll have some computationally tricky doomsday device which will 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:06.520 solve its own computational problem. Uh. And then he goes 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:08.720 on to just say some very nice things about our 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.720 show and and all that, and we appreciate the flattery, 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:15.400 but really especially appreciate these ideas. I think I'm not 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:18.599 convinced by them that we do live in a computer simulation, 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.560 but I think that is a reasonable objection to my 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:26.040 time of computation and information density objection. I have another 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.520 one too. They just came to mind hearing just just 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:32.280 just a spring off of this fantastic response, is that 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:34.560 you know, we we can. We can easily think of 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.520 like a whole world simulation and all the inherent problems there, 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.040 a multi user situation and all the problems there. But 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.640 how about this. The next time you're in a small windowless, 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:48.120 mirror less bathroom, I think, what if this is the 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:53.880 simulation and it began basically the moment I walked in here. Yes, 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:56.480 like this is when the simulation kicked on. Everything else 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.960 is just you know, false memory essentially, and the simul 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.200 nation is going to end when I flush the toilet. 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:04.760 It's it's kind of like if you're filming a TV 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:06.559 series and you don't have a lot of money for 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.360 an episode to do what a bottle episode? Right? So 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:11.920 that's maybe that's how the our far future selves are 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:14.920 dealing with this, Like we can't actually recreate the twenty 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:17.640 one century, but let's just do a bathroom scene because 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:20.440 bathrooms from the twenty one century were pretty cool, and 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:23.679 that will immerse the single user in that world, and 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:27.760 giving the entire world full of people false memories actually 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.160 would help, because this goes right along with what y'all 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:32.760 were saying about the failures of memory related to the 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.720 Mandela effect. Memory is very low resolution compared to reality. 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:40.240 It's incredibly low resolution. It's you know, so you It 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:44.040 would not be all that computationally difficult to supply somebody 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.160 with the vague kind of memories people actually have, but 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:50.280 they have the illusion that their memories are vivid. This 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:52.800 may explain why sometimes when I go into the bathroom, 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:54.960 I imagine what life would be like if I was 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.439 stuck in there forever, Like like how would I sleep 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:01.120 on the floor? Would I drink water from the sink? 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.240 Would I bathe? In the toilet, et cetera. I would say, 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:08.440 next time you are in a work meeting that seems 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:11.360 to go on forever, you should contemplate the possibility that 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.760 the universe actually began at the beginning of this meeting, 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:16.800 and the rest of your life up until this point 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.960 is just an inserted false memory at low resolution to 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.040 justify you listening to this pitch about how you're going 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:27.160 to optimize your new whatever your seo. Dude. Yeah, and 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.080 then then you get to snap back into it and 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:31.920 try and remember what the person was telling you. Sounds good. 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.160 All right? We got another one related to uh, I 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.200 think Carney's hand in one do you Oh hey, oh 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.640 this is sharp okay. Oh, this is one about our 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.960 samurai swords episode. Oh no, wonder okay. So this is 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.240 from Steve and he says, enjoyed your program on Japanese 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:51.480 katana swords. Thanks. I think the development that you skipped 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:55.280 over was the reintroduction of swords as standard equipment for 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:59.520 officers and sergeants during the period just before World War Two. 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.120 Most of these individuals were not samurai class and did 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:07.600 not own swords, so mass produced pieces were issued to them. 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:12.600 These so called showato were distinguished by minuki of three 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:18.240 imperial chrysanthemums rather than the traditional heraldic manuki of older swords. 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:22.160 Most were destroyed during the occupation, but many survive. So 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:24.280 what Steve's referring to here is a study that we 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:27.440 looked at during our Samurai Swords episode that took a 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:31.600 sword that was recovered from presumably some battle during World 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.200 War Two, so this was the nineteen forties. The U. 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:38.800 S Army commissioned a metallurgical composition composition study of the 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:42.720 sword to determine how it was smith and they found 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:46.480 that the sword that they had recovered was actually significantly 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.200 lower in quality than they had been led to believe 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:52.800 from the history of sword smith things specifically for katanas, 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.320 like if I remember correctly, like the carbon composition was 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:00.600 off by percentages, the angle of the sword wasn't right way, 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.120 things like that. So it seems like Steve is telling 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.480 us here why that's the case. They had this entire 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.840 other line of swords that were made specifically for the 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.520 Big War. That's interesting. Yeah, that did not come up 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:14.960 in in our episode, but that adds a little more 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:17.800 background to what they were observing here. Yeah, and so 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:20.760 like let's let's try to apply this to a fictional example. Okay, 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.760 so we talked about kill Bill in the Samura Swords 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.280 episode when uh the Bride is fighting the Crazy eighty 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.360 eight with her like super awesome samurai sword that is 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:34.840 is smithed in the very traditional way, so it's both 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.840 sharp and flexible and has a has a solid core. Right, 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:43.240 she's able to cut in half. Other warriors swords from 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:46.600 the Crazy eight eighty eight attack her. So maybe they've 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:52.480 got these mass manufactured showato swords, but she's got the 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.320 real deal. She's got hottri Hanzo steel. Crazy eight eight 0:16:56.360 --> 0:17:00.280 should have really paid more attention to their true gear, 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:07.040 but it's probably exactly. Yeah, each sword is priceless, so 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.960 that's priceless times eight. Yeah. And I guess the argument 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:12.800 too is it's like, if you're whaling on someone with 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:15.080 the A eight Samurai swords, they don't they really don't 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:16.680 even need to be sharp. They can you don't even 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.800 take to take them out of the sheath. Yep. But 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.719 thank you, Steve, I really appreciate that that clarifies that 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:25.200 way we assumed, I think in that episode that there 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.960 was something along those lines that probably like late uh, 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:33.000 nineteenth century and early twenty century katanas were not of 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.600 the same Make all right, We're gonna take a quick 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.000 break and when we come back, we will get some 0:17:38.040 --> 0:17:40.560 more listener mail from Carney and share it with the 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:48.760 rest of you. All Right, we're back. We have a 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.720 little bit of listener mail here dealing with the episode 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.960 that Joe and I recorded, The buddhais a Mountain, which 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:57.480 was a pretty pretty fun episode about the Lashawn Buddha, 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:01.440 the giant Buddha uh at one of fines in China, 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:05.639 this enormous humanoid structure that has been carved into the 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:08.720 mountain itself, lording over the river below, kind of like 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:11.560 Stone Mountain here in Georgia. Well we we do. I 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.280 think Stone Mountain came up in that. Actually, that was 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:17.720 a very interest less racist Well that this was a 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.160 very interesting episode because it did come out ahead of 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.560 a lot of the a lot of the political discussions 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.600 have been going on regarding monuments and statues here in 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.360 the United States. Yeah, I guess I didn't even think 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:32.240 about that really, but maybe we did get a little 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:34.840 listener mail about that. But yeah, we talked in the 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:39.199 episode about the idea of statuary being a type of 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:43.320 depiction that inherently carries like a like a moral valence 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:46.720 to it. It's like if you were to have a 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:50.800 photograph of somebody or have well maybe not a photograph, 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:52.359 I don't know, But if you like write a book 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:55.560 about somebody, it's not assumed that you think that person 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:57.360 was a good person. You might write a book about 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:00.159 a serial killer or a horrible dictator. But if you 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.520 put up a statue of a person, it is just 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:07.080 part of our cultural uh language, that that is a 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:09.439 thing of honor. You never put up a statue of 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:12.800 somebody you don't like. Yeah, you know, we I think 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.439 we we barely if it all discussed Confederate monuments in 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:20.520 that episode, because again it was before it really picked 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.520 up as a topic here. But I do encourage anyone 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:25.720 out there who's interested in that topic to listen to 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:28.600 that episode because it's kind of an interesting way to 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:34.280 think about it about a controversial topic free of the actual, um, 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.399 you know, current events. But the bit of listener, may 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:41.520 I'm gonna read here doesn't concern anything happening here in America. 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.639 It concerns something happening in China and concerns some of 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.040 the local accounts of the Leshan Buddha. We heard from 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.640 a listener by the name of Danny. He's an American 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:54.359 with a with a company in Shandu, and they he 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:58.280 has his staff listen to our podcast to improve their English. 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:03.560 Oh no, sorry, sorry staff, No no, he says. He says, 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:05.160 they get a lot of a lot of great stuff 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:06.720 out of it, out of it and they enjoy They 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:09.840 really enjoyed the episode. Uh, since it related to something 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:13.359 local to uh. So he said that he had they 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.920 had no corrections aside from the fact that, uh, the 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:22.320 mountain itself it is you may Shawn Shawn mining mountains, 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:25.800 so you you may mountain if you will. But then 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:28.760 he he went on to share some various tidbits from 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:34.000 a local inhabitants about basically bits of folklore related to 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:37.439 the Lashan Buddha. Uh. And he he adds that we 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:39.920 don't actually believe any of these points, but a lot 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:42.879 of sexilantees do, and they are relatively well known things 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.359 that are said of the Buddha. Um. He said. They 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:48.879 also give a little insight into how even modern day 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.800 Chinese mythology bends up the line between the animate and 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:55.800 the inanimate. So I'm just gonna run through these. I 0:20:55.840 --> 0:21:00.640 found these tremendously fascinating. Apparently the Buddhist facial expression changes 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.399 in reaction to tragic events in China. First, he points 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:08.800 to the lashaan Giant Buddha closed tears event. That's that's 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:12.199 a translation from Chinese, where apparently the Buddha closed his 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:15.480 eyes and shed tears for all the lost souls as 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:18.480 a result of the nineteen fifty nine through sixty one famine, 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:21.639 which killed between fifteen and thirty million people. Uh. He 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:24.240 says the Buddha was seen to look very angry in 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:27.800 nineteen seventy six, in the year when mal Zadong died. 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:31.840 In the same year, the same year that Tangshan earthquake 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:36.560 killed thousands of people, says, the Buddha also apparently expresses 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:39.879 joy or pride for China as well. His head started 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:42.640 to glow with a pulsating light in the year two thousand, 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:45.679 when China joined the w t O and made the 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:48.919 bid to host the two thousand eight to Beijing Olympic Games. 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:51.639