WEBVTT - The Moses Illusion 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:14.440 My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.759 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:21.680 today we're going to be talking about an interesting observation 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:26.360 in cognitive psychology that deals with language that starts off 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.080 as kind of just a funny little quirk about the 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:32.479 way we process certain kinds of sentences, but ends up 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:36.440 having some some broader and more interesting implications about knowledge 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:38.680 and language and thought. But I thought the best way 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:42.839 to start here would just be to illustrate the prime 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:45.400 example of the effect we're going to be talking about. 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:47.400 And to do that, I think we need to do 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.040 a bit of Bible trivia. Rob Are you ready to 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:55.960 go to Sunday School. Let's do it. Let's go to 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:58.360 Sunday School. Okay, if you I'm gonna ask you a 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:00.800 few questions about the Bible. If you get one wrong, 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:03.800 you are going to get a paddling. WHOA, what the 0:01:03.840 --> 0:01:08.240 domination is this one of the ones that means business? Okay? 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:12.959 So how let's see it? So um in in the 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.440 garden of Eden, what type of animal is it that 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.720 tempts Eve to eat from the tree. Oh, that's a snake, 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.600 that's right, the serpent, it is, uh. Okay. When after 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:26.119 God created the world, on which day of the week 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.680 did he rest? Oh, that was the seventh day. He 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.000 got that one, right, Okay, next one, How many animals 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:35.840 of each kind did Moses take on the arc? Too? 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:41.480 Of course? And there you go. That is the prime example. Now, Rob, 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:43.520 I know you were playing along because you already know 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:45.920 the trick in here what I actually said when I 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.240 asked that question. Hopefully you were playing along at home 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:50.320 as as you're listening, or maybe you're not at home, 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.400 wherever the heck you are. Um, you may have thought 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:56.080 the same thing, right, Moses took two of each animal 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.640 on the arc. But in fact, in the Bible story 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.720 which maybe not everybody knows, but maybe you do know 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.480 this story of of the arc and in the Book 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:06.760 of Genesis, and you do, in fact to know that 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:09.800 it was not Moses who did that. It was Noah 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:12.280 in the story who took animals on the arc. And 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:14.640 yet you thought, after I said the question that the 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:18.200 answer is too and didn't even register the fact that 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:22.920 the name was wrong. Yeah, it's it's an interesting uh 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:27.560 phenomenon to uh, to encounter you others, but also in yourself, 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:31.760 because you there's several different ways to look at it, 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:33.000 and we'll get into a number of these here. But 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:34.959 like even just now, when you ask me those questions 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:37.520 like the serpent one, I'm totally firm on that, Like 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:39.320 I know that I know that aspect of the story 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:41.600 inside and out. Uh, And of course I know it's 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:44.000 the seventh day that he rested on the God rested 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:46.280 on he. She Yet however you want to look at it, 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.200 But there was still like this moment of hesitation because 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:52.000 I was like, it's seven, right, it is seven. I 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.639 don't want to come come off with the wrong answer 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:58.120 on the podcast. Um. But then when one encountering granted 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.399 already knew the answer to the third one, but there 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:02.600 is this temptation though to like when you when you 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:06.120 know why, when you know the answer to something, like 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:08.520 you just you can just jump in without hesitation, Like 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:12.320 there's a certainty that just propels you. Um, you're excited 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:15.200 to get your answer in and then you know, get 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.320 the acclaim and the praise for getting it right. Yeah, 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:20.359 there's a certain kind of way in which a question, 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:24.080 especially a question posed in quiz format where you feel 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.800 you are under performance pressure and you're being evaluated for 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:29.480 whether or not you're going to get the right answer. 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.120 It sort of takes away some amount of critical thinking 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:36.200 that would normally go into reading a sentence and causes 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.280 you to focus more exclusively on like, just can I 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.760 get the right answer? And so it's not hard to 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:43.680 see how now, and this of course might not be 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:46.520 the only explanation for why this is happening, but it's 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:49.320 not hard to see why you could pretty easily miss 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.880 a major error in a question that is not you know, 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.800 that is not necessarily something that you're fuzzy on to 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.560 begin with, Like you could know perfectly well that it's 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.280 Noah in the story, and yet it just goes completely 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.120 over your head. Yeah, and you know, we've we've been 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:05.960 doing this podcast quite a while at this point, and 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:08.840 occasionally this this comes up in our data, not so 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.720 much in things that we've researched for the podcast, because 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:14.800 I feel like if we've been crunching the facts or 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:17.159 the numbers, you know, or the you know, we're we're 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:19.400 more likely to be putting a lot of thought into 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:22.359 the situation and we're maybe just a you know, a 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.839 little hesitant anyway. But the times where I've personally like 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.880 said something that was absolutely incorrect, it would be something 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:30.880 that I felt so sure about that I just belt 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:33.520 it out without fact checking it at all. You know, Uh, 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.560 something you generally it's something not directly related to the episode, 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:39.320 but something that just kind of comes up in organic conversation. 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.600 That's exactly right. Yeah, it's when you feel so confident 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:45.440 that you're not even being careful, you know that that 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:49.000 you can really make some big blunders. Uh. There was 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:50.880 some other questions I was reading about in one of 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:54.160 the I think the earliest study on this phenomenon we're 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:56.800 talking about today. Some of the other questions were in 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.920 the Biblical story, what is Joshua swallowed by? Of cour 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.000 that's Jonah that is swallowed by the whale or the 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.240 great fish, the sea monster. Joshua, of course, is the 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.240 the conquering leader of the Israelites as they go about Kanaan. 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:12.279 Another one I really liked was in the novel Moby Dick. 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.200 What color was the whale that Captain Nemo was after? 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.599 I think I think I might have fallen for that one. Yeah, 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:20.680 I mean, I wonder how much of the ego is 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:22.960 involved here because it's like you're kind of like, all right, 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:24.480 let's get to the part of this where I get 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:26.640 to talk and get to be the one is correct, 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:29.239 you know, like like fast forward through all this other stuff. 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.480 I don't care. I have an answer and it is 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:36.000 the correct one. Yeah. Um, that's that's quite perceptive and 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:39.080 I think that's right. Um. But but anyway, so this 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:41.880 question that we're looking at today, that this effect of 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:46.279 not noticing that the question says Moses and just barreling 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.760 right on through to the answer, even if you know 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:51.400 that it's actually Noah and the story and not Moses. 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.159 This effect has a name, and it's known as the 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:58.760 Moses illusion. It's a particular type of semantic illusion that 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:03.400 occurs when we are trying to process certain kinds of sentences. 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.520 And this was first explored in a classic study in psychology. 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.120 It was a study called from Words to Meaning, a 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:13.240 Semantic Illusion, published in the Journal of Verbal Learning and 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:16.520 Verbal Behavior in nineteen eighty one by Thomas D. Ericsson 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.400 and Mark E. Mattson. And I think it's interesting that 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:23.280 this original observation about this this question about Moses, it 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:27.880 comes out of a mysterious question about how we process 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:32.159 the meaning of sentences. Uh, the authors of this study ask, quote, 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:36.640 how are the meanings of individual words combined to form 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:40.760 a more global description of meaning? And if you start 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:44.280 to think hard about this question about the human capacity 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:48.680 for language, I would argue it is absolutely astonishing. It's 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:52.000 almost baffling the way that we're not only able to 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.960 associate symbolic meaning with certain sounds coming out of our 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.000 mouths or glyphs on a page, but you're able to 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:04.839 combine those things endlessly to form and comprehend infinite variations 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:09.159 of combinations of those sounds, to create sentences that actually 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.680 means something and other people can understand what you mean 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:14.520 when you say them. Like, I think this type of 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.120 capacity for language is one of the features of the 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:21.720 natural world that to me seems closest to magic. Yeah. Absolutely, 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:23.760 And I feel like that the mostest illusion is one 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.280 of those things that that reveals the magic, that makes 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:31.280 you more aware of the magic trick that is inherent 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.160 to your just everyday perception of reality and how you 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.360 engage with facts and information and the fact that you're 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:41.240 just like, it's crazy that we're just constantly throwing together 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:46.080 sentences almost effortlessly that are combining all these words together. 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.800 Each word has a huge range of of possible meanings 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:52.760 and associations, and that we are able to do this 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.320 with such fluency, I mean, sometimes with more fluency than 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.680 other times. But uh, but yeah, it is truly a 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.400 staund unding to me. And so the authors here are 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:04.720 sort of talking about this process and some of the 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:08.720 question marks that existed at the time in science about 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:12.040 how we form sentences and how we comprehend sentences. So 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:14.640 they start in their introduction by talking about how quote, 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:18.520 a central process in language comprehension is the construction of 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:22.239 a global description of the sentence meaning from the meanings 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.240 of individual words which make up the sentence. Right, So 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:28.480 you know what individual words mean, but somehow, like we're 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:31.600 just talking about, you can combine them into these overall 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:35.400 gist forms of what somebody's getting at, you know, like 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.480 like what kind of answer is being requested by a 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.480 question that might be made up of ten different words 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:43.240 that are all, you know, throwing your brain in ten 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:46.120 different directions. Yet you can get the gist of the 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:49.400 question and figure out what is getting at pretty quickly actually, 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:51.360 And they talk about how there's been a lot of 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:54.480 work on how language processing works in the realm of 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:57.439 artificial intelligence, but at the time of this paper, there 0:08:57.480 --> 0:08:59.520 was still a lot that we didn't know about the 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:03.040 globe whole meaning of of a sentence and and how 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:06.319 that's constructed in the brain. And so they summarize the 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.000 way they're starting this paper by saying, uh, it has 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:13.079 become widely assumed that sentences are subject to exhaustive analysis 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:17.840 and consistency checks during processing, but this is not the case. 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.040 People do not always understand what is said to them. 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:25.280 Sometimes they fail to understand, sometimes they misunderstand. And while 0:09:25.360 --> 0:09:28.360 these failures of comprehension are sometimes due to lack of 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.040 appropriate knowledge or error on the part of the speaker, 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:34.520 there are other cases in which such failures occur when 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:39.640 the understander possesses all the knowledge necessary for correct understanding. 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:43.520 This paper explores such a phenomenon, and then they give 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:46.520 the example of the Moses illusion that we already talked about. 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.800 The question that they pose is how many animals of 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:52.680 each kind did Moses take on the arc? And so 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:54.800 what the authors here found in their original study in 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:57.800 eighty one was that the majority of people fail to 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:01.440 notice a problem with the question and simply answer to 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:06.440 despite later displaying knowledge that it was in fact Noah 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:10.120 and the story and not Moses, and so that it's 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:12.800 not that they just don't know that much about the Bible, 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:16.160 like they can answer the question correctly when it's posed like, hey, 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.080 was it Noah or Moses who took animals onto the ark? 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:21.920 They can answer that correctly and yet still fail to 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:24.960 notice a problem in the question, And studies find that 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.800 people do this even when they're not rushed. They still 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:30.480 make the mistake when they are given unlimited time to 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.480 think about it. Another interesting thing here they found was 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:37.520 that the effect is not caused by people misreading or 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:41.440 mishearing the question, because people still make the Moses illusion 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:45.200 mistake even if they themselves read the question out loud, 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.240 including the name Moses, so they are saying Moses out 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.440 of their own lips and they still might not notice it. Now. 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:55.000 In this first study, the authors conclude that what's very 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:58.040 important because they're getting at things about the semantics of 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:00.480 words and a sentence and how the meanings of sentences 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:04.400 are formed. They conclude that shared semantic features of the 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:08.400 mix up are probably significantly contributing to the effect. In 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:12.199 other words, this effect would probably not be nearly as pronounced, 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:15.600 maybe not even maybe totally non existent if the items 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:19.200 were not in some way closely related in the way 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:23.120 that's a two Bible characters are. If you ask, you know, 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:25.800 how many of each kind did Captain Hook take into 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.120 the arc, the effect probably vanishes. Another study, I was 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.400 looking at side at an example I found really funny, 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.840 which was how many animals of each kind did Nixon 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:38.200 take on the arc? And yeah, and and I like 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:40.400 that because they were saying, Okay, well, what if it's 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:44.679 just like phonological similarities, like Nixon and Noah have some similarities. 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:46.559 They start with the same sound, they've got the same 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.840 number of syllables. But clearly when you put Nixon in 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:53.960 the sentence, people notice. And so the Moses illusion is 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:57.960 just one persistent example from a class of mental phenomena 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:00.800 that could be called knowledge neglect act. This is a 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.319 term used by a couple of authors that will cite 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:07.040 later in the episode, But knowledge neglect and simplified terms, 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.760 is when you behave as if you don't know something 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.440 even though you definitely do know it, And the Moses 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:17.240 illusion is of course an example of knowledge neglect because 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.760 the problem isn't that people think Moses was the biblical 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:22.880 character who built the arc. You can know that it 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.920 was Noah, not Moses. If you're asked directly, you'll get 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.199 the answer right, But you don't notice the problem when 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.000 it's phrased in a question like this. And of course 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:33.960 it's not just Moses and Noah. There are plenty of 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:36.640 other sentences in studies that have shown the same thing. 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.480 Though it is interesting that Moses and Noah are like, 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.240 sort of the perfect example of it. I think there 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.640 might be particular characteristics of these two names and characters 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:50.440 that make it like that make people especially prone to 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:52.360 the mix up in this case, though it is true 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.760 for lots of other types of you know, words and objects. Well, 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:58.280 speaking of that, let's do a quick breakdown. I'm just 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:01.840 especially for folks who are not up on Moses and Noah. Uh, 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:05.760 just to give a little you know, basic information about 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:07.560 each of them, and give me the give me the 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.400 magic the gathering card on each one. Okay, well, let's start. 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:14.080 Let's start with with Noah. Okay, certainly the the older 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:16.920 of the two, the first that in the chronological order. 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:21.080 So Noah was is written as as A was an 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:26.360 antediluvian patriarch in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. The basic story, 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:28.640 God grows sick of humanity, so he tells Noah to 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:30.600 round up his family and two of every animal and 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.520 get them on a big old boat the arc, uh, 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:35.679 the first of two arcs we're going to discuss here, 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:38.680 so they alone can survive the global flood that's about 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:42.480 to happen. Yeah. Now, one interesting variation. I think most 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.120 people probably wouldn't even their brains wouldn't go this far 0:13:45.160 --> 0:13:49.040 into the question. Uh, it is actually more complicated than 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:51.640 two of every kind, because it also says in the 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.680 Noah's ark story that I think they're supposed to bring 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:58.080 more of every kind of like certain types of animals, 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:01.319 like certain clean animals and just two of the unclean 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.079 animals or something. But but yeah, when you get into 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:06.440 the nitty gritty of it, he gets a little more complicated, right, 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.560 I mean it's all kinds of animal management, Yeah, which 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.959 I would love to see somebody fail the test of 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:18.040 the the Noah illusion the Moses illusion here by by 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.400 going into a lot of detail about the you know, 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.680 the the actual biblical text while still failing. I think 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:25.680 that was right. Well it was fourteen of every kind 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:32.360 of clean animal. Alright. Well, anyway, Noah strengths megaproject management 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:37.360 and animal handling. Obviously weakness, alcoholism. That's a major part 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:41.240 of the story. Um. Actors of note who have betrayed him. Uh. 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.760 This is not a complete list, but these are the 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:48.680 main main ones. John Houston, Russell Crowe, David thrill Full 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:51.040 This is a guy on Shameless. He also played Dr 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:56.400 John d and Elizabeth the Golden Age. John Voight, David Rentall. Uh, 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.680 David Rentall is the guy who played Aries Targarian on 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:03.360 the Game of Thrones show. Oh interesting, wait a Aries 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:08.760 to the Mad King. I believe. So that's the main areas, right, Okay, yeah, 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:10.680 well maybe I guess for some reason I thought there 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.720 was another one. I am wrong. Um, okay, so the 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:16.920 I've got a really funny story about John Voight playing Noah. 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:19.480 I remember seeing this one, oh I have. It was 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:22.480 made for TV. I think came out when I was 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.880 in like middle school, and it is not at all 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.880 faithful to the Bible and to say, very hollywooded up 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:33.680 version of the Noah's arks story. John Voight does play 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:37.400 Noah and the arc is attacked by pirates. What. Yeah, 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.200 it's attacked by like water World pirates. I mean, it 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:42.400 might as well be Dennis Hopper and the Smokers, but 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:45.840 it's actually I think they get attacked by pirates led 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:50.200 by the biblical character Lot. Okay, alright, Well, if that 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:52.560 is in the Bible, at least they're they're playing around 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:56.720 with it. Was this brought up at all when um Uh, 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:01.040 when Darren Arnosky was being criticized for the plot of 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:05.080 his Noah movie, which has like um Uh giants and 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:07.560 nephelim in it. Oh he I kind of liked his 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:11.600 Noah movie. It was way more more faithful to I 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:15.120 think it included stuff from non canonical ancient texts, but 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:18.920 was actually inspired by ancient texts. Okay, alright, I still 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:21.080 haven't seen it. It's it's been on the list for 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.720 a while. All right. Let's talk about Moses real quick, Okay. 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:27.480 So Moses comes later. He's an Old Testament prophet um 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:31.280 central figure in the narrative of the Exodus. In the account, 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:33.920 he helps the Jewish people in their liberation from Egypt 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:37.280 Egyptian captivity and following tim the tin Plegs of Egypt, 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.040 he assists them in the Exodus, and he also is 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.120 involved with an arc. But it's the Ark of the 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.160 Covenant that we've discussed on the show before. Not a boat, 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:50.360 but a golden vessel that contains sacred items. Yeah. I 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.040 would assume that the words are related because they're both 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.840 like a container of kinds, like a big box. Okay, 0:16:56.840 --> 0:17:00.640 So Moses his strength community organizing of course, and sorcery 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:04.400 his weaknesses. This is this is kind of interesting, I guess, 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.480 because it's either not obeying God and everything or obeying 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:10.440 God and everything depending on who you ask, right, Uh, 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:13.080 I mean, if you ask God, he would say, well, 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:15.040 he didn't obey me in everything. That's why I didn't 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:18.040 get to go into the Promised Land. But especially modern 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:19.920 critics are like, it seems like he he may be 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:22.280 followed the letter of the law a little bit too. 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:26.600 Uh uh too. Seriously, I seem to recall at one 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:29.359 point him commanding the death penalty for a dude who 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:31.800 was working on the Sabbath. That seems a little harsh. Yeah, 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.800 it seems it seems a little harsh. Um. Okay, So 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:38.480 actors of note who have betrayed Moses, well, Charlton Heston obviously, 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:43.760 Bert Lancaster, mel Brooks, Ben Kingsley, Val Kilmer though that 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:48.040 that may have just been a voice role. And Christian Bale. Now, 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:50.560 the last one is interesting because as I was looking 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:52.439 at these actors was one of the interesting things is 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:56.720 even though they're basically interchangeable, like the same. Um, you know, 0:17:57.000 --> 0:17:58.960 in most of these cases, you're dealing with the same 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:01.240 white dude that could play either of these characters in 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:05.600 a big Hollywood production. Um, but it's interesting that I 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:09.600 don't think anyone has actually played both Moses and Noah, 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:14.480 though Christian Bale reportedly came very close because Darren Aronovski 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:17.800 originally wanted Christian Bale to play the title role in 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:21.840 his Noah film, but scheduling conflicts prohibited that from happening. 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.080 Oh he couldn't because he was filming like Terminator Mick 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:28.439 g or whatever. Yeah. I don't know, but um, but 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:32.760 imagine if if Bale had played both Noah and Moses. 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.480 What would that have meant for the Moses illusion? Would 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:37.920 it have made the would would it just destroyed our 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:42.080 semantic understanding of reality? Maybe there's a secret council. There's 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.520 like no Hollywood no actor can play both of these 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:49.000 roles because it will totally tear our understanding of of 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.840 of facts and fiction apart. I could see that. I mean, so, 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:54.960 I think what some of the authors here are proposing 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.320 is that the the fact that it's not just that 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.400 Moses and Noah are words that kind of sounds similar. 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:04.520 They've got some similar consonants and in the same number 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.600 of syllables, similar vowel sounds. That's all true, and that 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.880 does seem to matter, but it's also very important that 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.520 they are semantically related, that they are both characters from 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:17.719 the Torah, from the Old Testament, and that sort of 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:19.800 links them together. And I think the more you could 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:22.680 do to link them even further together and associate them 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.480 in in our minds, like yes, having one actor play both, 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:30.120 I think that would actually probably make people even more susceptible. Yeah. Um, 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:32.920 I was thinking about this too, Like obviously we've already 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:35.480 touched on a few extra examples of this, but I 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:37.480 was trying to come up with with other examples that 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:39.960 would play on the same energy here, and one that 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:42.040 came to mind would be, Uh, if we were to 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:44.880 look to Chinese mythology, if we were to say, hey, 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:47.080 how did the Yellow Emperor decide how to order the 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:50.080 animals of the zodiac? And you might respond with, oh, well, 0:19:50.119 --> 0:19:54.280 there's this cool little story about a race for the animals, etcetera. Um, 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:56.600 but it wasn't the Yellow Emperor. It was the Jade Emperor, 0:19:56.600 --> 0:20:01.200 who's an even more primordial god ruler than the low Whimperer. Um. 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:02.800 So I don't know. That seems like it could be 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:07.280 could play in the similar could work in a similar 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:11.320 way to the Moses and Noah illusion. Or how about 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:13.239 this in Return of the Jedi, what was Django fet 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.200 swallowed by? Oh? I just see. For some reason, I 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:18.359 feel like that one doesn't work because then learn as 0:20:18.359 --> 0:20:20.600 you as soon as you say the word django, like 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:23.280 people's alarms go off and like, wait a minute, what 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:26.640 are we talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well maybe 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:29.840 it would. Okay, here's one for Avatar the last Airbender 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:32.880 fans out there, Um, we're hearing from several of them, 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:37.240 which nation was the Avatar Apa born into. I don't 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:39.040 know if that one worked or not, but of course 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:41.399 Ang is the last and not the last Avatar. A 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:44.400 is the avatar uh Appa is the sky by sin 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:47.320 that he rides on. Ah, I see, so I don't know, 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.440 ang Appa, maybe that works. Not sure? Well that went 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:59.240 over my head anyway. So you might think, well, now 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:01.000 that we have told told you there is such a 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.639 thing as the Moses illusion, uh you know you would 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:07.040 never fall for it, right because you know you will 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:10.600 now always having this knowledge in your mind. Notice when 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:13.400 there will be substitutions of this kind in a question 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.240 orous sentence. But it turns out that's not necessarily true. 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.800 Uh So there was this original research from nineteen eighty one, 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:22.119 but there have been a bunch of studies in the 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:26.680 decades since then replicating the original finding and further probing 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.480