WEBVTT - Is free will an illusion? 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:13.720 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.320 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglass. Julie, 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:19.120 what did you do this weekend? Oh? Well, I had 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:22.560 the privilege of going to see David Eagleman speak at 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.799 the Decatur Book Festival. And uh, I'm talking about science 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.800 hunky nous all rolled together in one package. He un No, 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.040 it's not really hunky, but you know, the media sort 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:37.120 of plays that image out as suppose yeah, I would. 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:38.879 You know, he's an attractive guy. He's up there with 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:42.720 like Brian Cox, not Brian Cox the old grizzly actor, 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.560 but Brian Cox, the young cosmologist in terms of like, yeah, 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:48.840 you're sort of if they had like a teen magazine 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:52.040 for science, two year old science geeks, Eagleman would be 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.240 on the cover every other month. Yeah, I'd be like 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.680 saber tooth tiger Beat, yeah or something like that. Definitely, 0:00:57.720 --> 0:00:59.960 he he would fulfill that role. And he's got fancy jacket, 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.120 but more and more importantly, he's got fancy thoughts. Yes, 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:05.840 that's the most important part. And he's great at relating 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:08.720 these thoughts to a general audience, which we all love, 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:10.160 I mean, because that's that's the whole thing is, like 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:11.920 scientists can do their own their own thing in a 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.880 bubble all day and it's great, but somebody has to 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.400 bring that knowledge to the outside world. And it's great 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:20.759 when the scientists can do it themselves. Eagleman has also 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:23.800 been on Colbert Report. People probably seen him there. He's 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:25.959 all over the place to total media darling. Yeah, and 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:28.479 we've actually talked about him before in a podcast about 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:32.119 possibility andism. Oh yeah, yeah, which he is. He's actually 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:34.480 sort of founded this idea of Yeah, that's what I 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:36.880 actually yeah, I interviewed him about that. Yeah. Yeah, he 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:38.440 took a few minutes out of his time to talk 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:40.399 to me. But in this podcast, we're talking about a 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:44.319 little something called free will. What Yeah, free will, which 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:47.080 is which is like the one of the big ideas 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:50.240 of human culture and what it is to be human, 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:54.240 the idea that obviously we make choices in life and 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:56.640 those choices lead us where we need to be. And 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.880 we we recently recorded and published in an episode about 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.480 decision fatigue. So so this kind of plays nicely with 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:05.440 that or in a in a way kind of conflicts 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:08.200 with it at times at times, but sometimes they sort 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:10.880 of melt together because and that we were talking about 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:12.960 how we were we have so many choices in any 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.160 given day, little choices and big choices that it just 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:20.160 wears us out. But but there's a theme here. There's 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:24.359 finite mental energy, finite mental energy which plays into, as 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:28.760 we'll find out, free will or our perception that we 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:32.440 have free will. Yeah, and at hard here we have 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:37.360 a very old idea too, the idea very old philosophical 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:42.400 religious discussion of whether we are in charge of our 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:44.720 own destiny, if we're really the captains of our soul 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.919 or yeah, like Invictus, or if we're destined to do things, 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:51.520 if our fate is outside of our own control. Now, 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:53.440 the old days, it was kind of a question of 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:55.760 whether we were this self moving soul or it's the 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.120 gods or the fates or some of their force is 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:02.200 is writing the book and we're just carrying along with it. 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.120 But today the discussion is steeped in neuroscience with a 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.320 nice sprinkling of philosophy or a layer of Chico philosophy 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.160 on top. Well, you can't separate the philosophy from this, right, 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:13.240 This is just one of those subjects that, yeah, you can, 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.200 you can pour a bunch of neuroscience on, and you 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:17.880 should because it's pretty illuminating. But at the end of 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:20.600 the day, it's still is this. It's still a big 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:22.919 question mark. And that's what's really exciting about it too, 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:25.120 is that in some of these older philosophical arguments that 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:26.880 they've been around forever, but now we have these new 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:30.760 ideas and neuroscience, these new findings. It's forcing the philosophers 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.440 to like kind of rush in and make sense of things, 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.040 and they're kind of, uh, you know, I'm kind of 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:37.520 having fun with the idea here. But it's kind of 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:39.360 like if you have like a fire department and hasn't 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.040 been a fire in town in years and years and years, 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:43.800 and there's finally a little blaze and all these old 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:45.800 guys are like, yeah, let's get in there and do it. 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.760 In a way, it's kind of like fresh philosophical territory 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.920 and that they get to tackle old arguments but in 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.760 a light of new scientific discoveries. Yeah, and we're going 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.560 to talk about that, particularly in the context of David 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:01.360 Eagleman's Incognito. This is his new book, The Secret Lives 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.600 of the brain, and Eagleman claims that the brain is 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:08.240 running the show incognito, hence the title, and that this consciousness, 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:13.600 this I that we feel that I, Julie Um really 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.039 is just a bit player to the vast network of 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:20.400 our neural circuitry. Okay um, So this is a quote. 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:22.600 He says, we are not at the center of ourselves, 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.400 but instead like the Earth in the Milky Way and 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:27.680 the milky Way in the universe, far out on a 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:32.039 distant edge, hearing little of what's transpiring. So, in a 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.160 simple sense, instead of going with the idea I am 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:37.480 my brain or and it's more like I am a 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.080 character in the story that is told by my brain, 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:42.919 or something to that effect. Well, yeah, And he uses 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.520 the analogy of a newspaper, like your brain sort of 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:50.000 gathering all of this data and doing all the legwork. Um, 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:54.360 you know, the brain sort of like these localized population, 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:56.400 sort of like you you see in a newspaper, these 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.719 local communities, and all of a sudden that the headline 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:03.840 gets served up in your brain and you the reader, 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.920 I take all the credit for the headline, Like can 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.160 you read it and think, oh, yeah, I knew that, 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:13.919 But in fact, he's saying that these these ideas, these 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:18.960 um concepts, our choices are really just a result of 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:23.280 this activity, activity bubbling in our brains for sometimes years, 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:28.000 you know, sometimes months, hours, um coming up with these concepts. 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.120 It is not the eye saying, oh, yeah, I had 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:33.279 that idea, and we're going to talk about that how 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:36.200 because right now that sounds really abstract, but we're gonna 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:38.040 talk about some studies that bear this out at a 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.640 physical level. It also makes me think of The Daily 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:42.400 Show to a certain extent, because if you if you 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:44.560 just tune into The Daily Show, as I'm sure a 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:46.960 lot of a lot of you guys do, it's easy 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:48.640 to think, oh, man, that John Stewart is a really 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:51.280 funny guy. He's so clever. He is and he is, 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.320 he's a very clever guy, very funny guy. But that 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:57.000 show is coming at the end of the whole day 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:02.440 of writing, a team of writers cracking a out around 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.360 the table. Yeah, and you know, just working, working, putting 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:07.200 all this work into it, all for just a few 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.159 minutes of payoff. But if you're not privy to that information, 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.280 it's just like, well, look at that guy's that guy 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:14.960 is awesome. Yeah, and this analogy. Yeah that John John 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:17.320 Stewart is the eye of the brain. Yeah, and John 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.719 Stewart is an illusion. And that is so okay. What 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.600 do we do when we have consciousness or I as 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:25.919 a bit player on the sidelines, what do we do 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:30.480 with this information? Well, we could freak out, I guess 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:33.960 that's one way some people are yeh, because it's I mean, 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:38.440 it really turns everything we sort of believe on its head. 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:40.560 We really want to believe in this idea of the 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.520 self moving soul, and the idea that we're making choices 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.680 and getting stuff done, and the idea that we're just 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:49.799 this kind of surface illusion on a on a sea 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.280 of cognitive depth. It's it's really kind of hard to swallow, 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.600 and it makes you. I mean Daniel Dinnett, for instance, 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:57.760 he argues that we kind of have to tweak the 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.320 language a little to make sense of it all, taking 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.440 the stance that we need to redefine what free will is. Yeah, yeah, 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:07.719 interesting enough. Freud actually sort of to tap into this, 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.680 this idea or actually this problem a long time ago 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.440 when he was thinking about his own relationship to his 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.960 father and realizing that although he had he admired his 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:19.480 his father there were all the things that play sort 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:23.080 of shame and um also at times hatred and love, 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.440 all these different things bubbling underneath the surface of subconscious, 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:30.320 the subconscious, you know, our buddy Freud and the subconscious. 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:33.640 And that's when he decided to say to himself, well, okay, 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.160 if I've got all these hidden mental processes, then free 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:38.880 choice is either an illusion or at the very least 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:42.440 it's playing second fiddle to the unconscious. Wow, there you go. 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:44.640 So you know, of course he didn't have neuroscience to 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:46.440 back him up at that time, but he had an 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.880 inkling that this was the case. Although he got ladies 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:54.040 all wrong, I will say, yeah, unfortunate. So yeah, it 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:55.840 forces us to ask the question like how does an 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:58.560 idea even form? Because the way we feel it, the 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:02.040 way we experience it is eureka, right, that light bulb 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:03.840 going off above the head. Well, and that's why why 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:05.520 a lot of people say, yeah, we do have free will, 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.560 because I feel like I made that choice right. You 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:10.200 look look at some of these other ideas and it's 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:11.920 it maybe seems like it's a little more like a 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:14.360 like when you turn on the hot water, you know, 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.760 and the hot water comes out of the faucet, but 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.000 there's really a lot going on behind the wall and 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:24.200 under the house. There was this guy named Johann Frederick Herbart, 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:29.480 German philosopher and psychologists. He argued that ideas might best 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:34.040 be understand is a structured mathematical framework. So an idea 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:36.200 is opposed by an opposite idea. You know, it's kind 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.400 of like the to use a very simple analogy, Um, 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:42.079 like the devil and the angel on the shoulder. One 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:45.400 idea is opposed by an opposite is happening underneath us, 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:47.480 right that we're not aware of this. We're not conscious 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:49.200 of this. Yeah, so they're not maybe on your shoulder. 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.600 Maybe they're like hanging out in your armpits, you know, 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.760 as they should, and they're they're contrasting back and forth 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:56.200 at the devil and the angel, that guy, I think 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:57.679 we should do this, I think we should do that. 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:01.040 And eventually one of these guys is beaten down below 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:04.880 the threshold of awareness, and so the idea is sort 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:08.920 of discounted right when it runs contrary. But if there 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.040 is another idea that that has sort of a network 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:15.880 of support already some proof right of the pudding, then 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:18.640 it rises to the top and it becomes something that 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:22.760 we're aware of, which I think is really fascinating. Uh, 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:27.160 that you have these thoughts struggling at these deeper levels 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:29.640 and they kind of get kicked out sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.680 He he coined the term appreciative mass to indicate that 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:36.079 an idea becomes conscious not in isolation, but only in 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:40.160 assimilation with a with a complex of other ideas already 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:42.000 in consciousness. And I was thinking about that. I was 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:43.880 thinking again that back to this idea that we have 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.199 a finite amount of mental energy, which we talked about 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.839 with decision fatigue, and it would make sense that you 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:52.640 would tamp down what seemed contrary to yourself because your 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:55.719 brain really has to sort of fold up in a sense. 0:09:55.840 --> 0:10:00.720 Can you imagine being completely aware at every goal moment? 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:04.960 Like if if your brain flagged every stimuli that that 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:08.079 was floating past, I mean you would be you might 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:11.160 actually be mad, right yeah, because I mean, we'll we'll 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:13.800 discuss a little Morris. That's the podcast unrolls, and there's 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:16.120 a lot of stimuli because on one one level light 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:17.920 right now, we're just talking about the stuff going on 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:21.920 inside your brain. It's facing facing choices and weighing one 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:25.280 choice against the other. So it's all the hard mathematical programming, 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:27.440 if you will, beny the operating system that would be 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.719 actually perceive or are. But then there's also going to 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:33.240 be all this environmental stimuli coming at us and all 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:36.360 these influences that are taking hold of biological biological level. 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:40.280 So yeah, it's impossible for me to imagine like what 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:42.240 that would be like if you were actually conscious of 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:44.480 all these things, I mean to a certain extent. Uh, 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:46.400 you know, we've talked about people who are who engage 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.120 in meditation, Like a lot of that is trying to 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:53.120 become conscious of thought, becoming conscious of how the environment 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:55.880 is affecting you. But even that is only like if 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:58.439 if you know, if if we are experiencing this this 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.400 surface layer above an ocean and of cognitive wheels and 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:06.559 and and gears, and even even like deep practice meditation 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:08.240 is not going to take you all the way down 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:10.560 to the bottom. But with so paradox all about that 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.280 is that if you're going to get to that sort 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.319 of level of awareness, you have to tamp down so 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.520 much else, right, Like your your brain is still going 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.640 to have to batten down the hatches and say, Okay, 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:24.840 that's just a dog barking, if that's just this and 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:29.440 that in order to become very aware of what your own, 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.640 well your own not your own thoughts, but the important thoughts, 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:37.120 like on some level, you're still having a cherry pick 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.319 through the mind and figure out what's important and what's 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:42.839 not important. And so I think that's why I think 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:45.680 this is so interesting, because because Eagleman sort of pointed 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.480 to this too and um in the book and also 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:53.880 in his talk, that we're really the only animal that 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.080 has sort of like a computer, Like if you can 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:00.760 imagine a computer taking itself apart and taken the camera 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:03.160 and aimed at ourselves to figure out what in the 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.360 world is going on? You mean, you obviously don't see 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.840 this in the animal world, and if it were going on, 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.120 we wouldn't be privy to it, right, That sort of 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.160 part and parcel of why this is so fascinating and 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:15.920 mysterious that we are trying at the end of the 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:17.840 day to get to this question of who am I? 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:19.920 Who is this person in my head talking to me 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:23.640 and this consciousness and am I really making the decisions 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:27.360 in my life? And he talks again about our brains 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:30.960 again battening down the hatches with these predictive models. And 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:33.080 we've talked about this before that you know, this is 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.520 really important from an evolutionary standpoint that we would have 0:12:36.600 --> 0:12:39.360 to come up with these predictive models of operating because 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:43.720 every time we came into a new situation, if every 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.960 single bit of information that was beamed toward us was 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:50.440 being judged, it would be really hard to react. Right, 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:52.600 So there are certain things that you have to model 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.240 blueprint for yourself. So you come into a room you 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:57.920 expected to, or you expect a window, you expect this, 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:00.959 so on and so forth. And she was actually talking 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.880 about how our visual cortex is the model generator for that. 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:06.760 For this, it receives data from the bretna and then 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:12.400 it sends its predictions based on past experience to the thalamus, 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:15.920 which runs a report on the differences of what came 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:19.280 in and what was expected. And this is really important 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:24.920 because our expectations certainly color our perceptions um and actually 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.800 what we think is going on. So then the thalamus 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.200 sends the report back to the visual cortex and it 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.920 updates its models. So it's constantly doing this and when 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:36.040 you think about it that way, it's really cool, right. 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:39.840 But on the other hand, what things are we missing, 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:42.960 what things are we tamping down that are going on 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:45.760 that that that don't fit into the model, That could 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:48.480 perhaps give us a little bit more information about choices 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:50.480 that we might or might not make if we had 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.480 more access to that information. Yeah, the I mean, the 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.040 whole visual realm of this alone is fascinating. Was reading 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:58.280 the articles to see You, sent by Susan Blackmark. There's 0:13:58.320 --> 0:13:59.760 a whole section too, for she was going into the 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.160 way way sound is interpreted in the brain. But just 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:08.120 but there are like various theories about just how we see, uh, 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.240 not in terms of how the eyes work, but how 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:13.160 the brain makes sense of that data. Because our entire 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:15.560 field of vision is not a precision instrument. It's like 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.720 there's like a tiny area of precision site and the 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:21.000 rest is kind of vague. Side And Daniel Bennet, who 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.160 mentioned earlier, who's a philosopher, he's one of the old 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:27.520 fireman rushed in to extinguish the blazes or or at 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:29.960 least deal with the blazes that have risen up in 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:31.920 the way of all this New New York scientific data. 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:35.120 But he he makes a lot of arguments based on 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:36.520 the way our eyes work and I thought one of 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:38.640 the most interesting things that he pointed out was if 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:42.120 you go to a mirror and look, you look at 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:44.520 one eye and then you look at the other, and 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:47.840 if you try and see your eyes moving from one 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.800 eye to the next, you can't see it. The brain 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:54.080 doesn't read about this. I was like, this is such 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.640 a stonar moment. Did you do like I do when 0:14:57.640 --> 0:14:59.160 you ran to the bathroom and tried it out for 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:01.320 about ten minutes? I didn't. I just had the moment 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:03.360 in my head. I was like, whoa, because you know 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.040 that your brain does that, right, but you you believe 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.680 that everything that your eyes are telling you or the truth. Yeah, 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:12.800 And so it creates this moment of wow, Okay again 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.760 here I am questioning reality around me, if if my 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:20.080 brain is has these blind spots, or if things just 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.520 aren't that important that it's not reporting things to me. Yeah, which, 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:26.080 of course that leads us right into change blindness, this 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.760 idea that um and then there are various studies along 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:31.800 this this line as well that that have shown that 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:34.520 you you make minute changes to say, picture between picture 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.840 A and picture BT, and people want will inevitably like, 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:39.680 they'll stare at it and will eventually get it and 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:41.200 they'll be like, oh, well, this is the difference. I 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:43.760 feel like there are numerous examples of this too, various. 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:45.360 Can you spot the difference between this picture and this 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:47.920 which I think Uffington Post or somebody does that. But yeah, 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:50.240 that the brain is just blind to it unless you 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.840 actually center your processing on it for for several seconds 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:56.160 in the case of some of these. Yeah, it's it's 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:59.160 very it's really fascinating. And right after this break, we're 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.760 going to talk about how all of this really serves EO. 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:08.120 This podcast is brought to you by Intel, the sponsors 0:16:08.160 --> 0:16:12.640 of Tomorrow and the Discovery Channel. At Intel, we believe 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:16.600 curiosity is the spark which drives innovation. Join us at 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:20.520 curiosity dot com and explore the answers to life's questions. 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:26.960 And we're back. So ego, Yeah, the ego and the 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:31.040 illusion of consciousness. That's right, Implicit egotism is what we're 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.080 talking about again. Eagleman is talking about this in the 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:37.960 context of why we may or may not have free Well. 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:40.760 He talks about psychologist John Jones, who was looking to 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:44.120 see if he could detect a pattern in a literative 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:48.480 romantic pairings. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love this. 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.240 He examined fifteen thousand public records from two counties in 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:54.560 Georgia and Florida, and he saw that there was a 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.479 pattern that emerged that was greater than chance that cutles 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:00.480 with the same first letter of their first names. We're 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:05.280 getting hitched to one another. I don't know about that, 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:07.320 I know, I know, yeah, yeah, Well, there was some 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:09.159 there was some information that was like, you've got to 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:11.560 be kidding. It doesn't it doesn't feel like we could 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:16.399 be so easily manipulated or self manipulated on that level. 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.600 But there are a ton of studies that are coming out, 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.720 like if your name is Dennis, then you're more likely 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:27.320 to be a dentist or Denise. Um. There's these associations, 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.600 and I think it the studies said that, like it 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:32.560 implied that I would have been more likely to run 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.720 a hardware store or something than become a writer. So 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:42.120 r it was something about like both both possibilities were 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:46.320 equally kind of dreadful to me. But but then also 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:48.600 it's yeah, the whole you're more likely to marry somebody 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.439 with the same letter of Well, now this isn't happening, like, 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:55.720 you know, this isn't a great occurrence, but it's significant 0:17:55.840 --> 0:18:00.719 enough that it raises eyebrows and Eagleman say, in this idea, 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.640 this implicit egotism is a result of us being so 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:07.640 enamored with ourselves that we can't help but find reflections 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.959 of ourselves and others, and it could be behind they 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.760 need to align ourselves with that familiar feeling on some 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:17.240 unconscious level. Oh yes, and then this is also where 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:21.080 Resputin comes in, the idea that if you tell somebody 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:24.560 that they share a birthday with Resputin, they're more likely 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:28.639 to be sympathetic towards the Resputin or or to behave 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:32.320 more gregarious themselves. Right, yeah, Yeah, there's a university study. 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:34.560 They took a bunch of college kids. They had this 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:37.440 same essay. The only thing they fussed with is they 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:40.720 in the biographical data on the essay. They matched it 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:43.680 to each person's birthday. So the person reading it and 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:46.399 then you know, half the class it was it just 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:48.879 had a random birthday that didn't match theirs. So of 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:52.600 course the birthdays that match, those students were more likely 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.040 to say that Resputin was a stand up citizen or 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:58.960 something along those lines. Are report that on a biographical level, 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.840 this guy was pretty great, not necessarily like that the 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:04.359 content of the essay itself. So if one were to 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:07.359 be deceptive when applying for a job, and I'm not 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:09.399 arguing that one should, because you can get a lot 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:11.120 and do a lot of trouble for things like this, 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:14.520 but if you were to lie and say that you 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:17.240 had the same birthday as the person hiring you or 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:21.159 is your boss, that would theoretically be beneficial. Yeah, but 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:23.600 I mean all this points back to the fact that 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:27.800 we can't help but find commonalities with one another. Our 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:30.920 brain is sort of hard wired to for these sort 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.000 of confirmation biases, which we've talked about before. Yeah, it's 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:35.919 I mean we've talked before in the in the past, 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:38.280 we form these stories where the center of the story, 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:40.800 where the center of this world view. No matter what 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:43.520 other characters are involved, be it God or just the 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:46.600 neighbor across the street, it all ultimately comes down to 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:47.919 what am I getting out of it? How does it 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.399 relate to me. It's a story, there's a main character. 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:52.520 I'm the main character. If there's another character in it, 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.320 I need to know what the relationship is. And Yeah, 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:57.560 it's funny because we can't. We try to inhabit someone 0:19:57.560 --> 0:19:59.840 else's perspective, but we can't help coloring that with our 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.280 perspective all the time, and on the unconscious level. Right, 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:05.560 So if I'm like, oh, Wow, I really love that 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:07.440 blue and gray shirt that you're wear right now, that's 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.000 that's one of my favorite colors, and all of a sudden, 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:13.560 I feel like, man, I'm really connecting with Robert today. He's, 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:16.640