WEBVTT - Ep149 "What makes a brain grow up resilient?" with David Sussillo 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:08.080 How can a brain grow up in chaos and still 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:11.000 find its way to order? There are many ways to 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:14.560 have a bad childhood, But why do some children break 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:18.439 while others bend and keep going. How much of who 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.200 you are is written in your genes and how much 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:23.920 is sculpted by your environment? And if we could know 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:28.040 everything about a child's genes and environment, would we be 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:30.280 able to predict who they would become? 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:31.479 Why or why not? 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.040 How many versions of you were possible? And why did 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:39.160 this one win out? When you look back at your childhood, 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:43.080 which moments mattered more than you realized at the time. 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.760 Today we're joined by David Cicillo, who grew up in 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.800 a very tough childhood, abandoned by his parents when he 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:54.200 was eight, and he had about thirteen sets of surrogate 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.040 parents over the years. But he grew up and he 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.000 became a neuroscientist at Stanford and then at Google Brain 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.480 and now it met up and today we're going to 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:06.720 explore that unlikely trajectory and what it teaches us about 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:13.720 genes and brains and our own lives. Welcome to Inner 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:16.759 Cosmos with me David Eagleman. I'm a neuroscientist and author 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:20.200 at Stanford, and in these episodes we sail deeply into 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:22.759 our three pound universe to uncover some of the most 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:43.480 surprising aspects of our lives. Today's episode is about the 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:48.240 determinants of who we become. When a baby human drops 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:51.680 into the world, the brain is not yet finished. As 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.279 I put this in my book Live Wired. Their brain 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:58.320 is half baked. It is still in a full tilt 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:03.640 construction project where you've got billions of neurons wiring themselves together. 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:08.000 And this wiring is guided partly by genetic instructions and 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:12.520 largely by the experiences they pick up. So every moment 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:16.960 in a baby's life is laying down traces. Every interaction 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.760 they have is nudging their life trajectory to go in 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.200 different possible directions. So when we look at the big 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:30.000 picture of who someone becomes, we know the ingredients. Genes matter, 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:34.639 and environment matters environment like nutrition and stress and language 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.280 and safety and love and so on. These all shape 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:41.320 the architecture. But here's the strange part. Because we can't 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:46.679 possibly know all the details about these ingredients and their interactions, 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:50.280 we can't even possibly predict the outcome. 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:51.800 And we see this all the time. 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:56.040 When two children begin in similar circumstances and end up 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:57.600 in very different places. 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.160 Whereas we'll talk about today, someone can be in. 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:05.040 Circumstances that seem really difficult, but they emerge into something 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.640 really great. So what is it about the developing brain 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:13.160 that allows for such divergence? Can we even understand the 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:18.520 thousand small moments that tip the scales? Today's conversation circles 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:22.320 around exactly this question. This is with a colleague of mind, 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.480 someone who has worked at the frontiers of neuroscience and 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:29.600 artificial intelligence, from Stanford to Google, Brain to Meta. His 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.600 name is David Sicilo, and he's just written a very 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:37.760 moving memoir about his trajectory called Emergence. Part of his 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:40.480 book touches on Modern AI. But that's not what we're 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.480 focusing on today. Instead, we're looking at the rest of 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:49.160 the story, because David's early life was all about instability 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:52.560 at a scale that's hard for most of us to fathom. 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:55.960 He was abandoned by his parents and he moved through 0:03:56.360 --> 0:04:00.520 something like thirteen different foster parents. And the question that 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:03.320 sits the center of his story is how does a 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:07.160 brain travel from there to here? How does the life 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.880 take shape under those conditions? And what does that tell 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:15.560 us about development and resilience and who we become. Here's 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:23.599 my conversation with David Cicillo. Okay, so David, let's start 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:25.279 with what you're doing now. 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:30.039 Sure. So I'm a research scientist at Meta Reality Labs. 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:35.200 I work on their EMG device. So this is electromagram 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:39.000 electromagram So basically, it's a wristband. You put it on 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:42.440 and it reads out your muscle signals so that you can, 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.599 for example, control a computer, or if you're betting on 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.039 computers that are wearable like for example, glasses, that you 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:51.840 could control the glasses in a way that's more intuitive. 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:56.440 So that's an interesting applied machine learning problem because well, 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.760 you want it to work for everybody. So that's that's 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.640 what I do there at Stanford, I'm an adjunct professor. 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:07.680 I work on computational neuroscience problems. So basically, how do 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:13.400 our brains use electrical activity to compute in such a 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:17.159 way that leads to behavior, computation, emotions, and so forth. 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:21.159 And so we're looking at this intermediate layer between say 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:24.680 the neuron and the big computations of mind so to speak. 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.080 Oh great, okay, so you and I spin in a 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:32.279 lot of the same world, and I was surprised and 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:35.200 pleased to find out that we both grew up in Albuquerque, 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:38.520 New Mexico in the seventies. Yea, So let's start with 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:41.719 what Albuquerque was, like, what do you remember about Albuquerque 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:43.320 at that time childhood? 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:45.720 You know, well, I go up very poor, but I 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:49.000 my memories of Albuquerque and New Mexico more broadly are 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:51.000 I think it's beautiful. I agree with you. 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.599 And I was surprised when I got older and learned 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:58.720 that Albuquerque had the highest violent crime rate in the nation. Absolutely, 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:01.880 because where whatever you grew up, that's just reality what 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:02.120 you do. 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:03.359 Yeah, exactly. 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.600 Okay, So what we want to get into is your childhood, 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:12.600 because ending up where you are, you had very unusual childhood. 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.160 So let's talk about that. Tell us that story. Yeah, 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.600 so my parents were both drug addicts. They were both heroneutics, 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.360 which was common, which apparently was common back back in 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:26.159 the day. Now it's all phyl hentyl and other drugs. 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:30.560 But so they I think my parents, my sister and 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.320 I I had a sister esther. You know, they loved us, 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:36.120 they you know, but they were negligent parents, and so 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:40.360 I sort of grew up in an environment where their addiction, 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:42.480 not that I understood it as a kid, sort of 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:46.200 overshadowed every single thing, growing up in very deep poverty, 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:49.800 growing up in very bad neighborhoods. Ultimately there was a divorce, 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:52.719 and so you know, the whole thing is just sort of, 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:55.000 you know, like the bird just never made it out 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:57.120 of the nests for the family, so to speak, that 0:06:57.200 --> 0:06:59.720 because of the drugs. How did they become addicted? Do 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.680 you know? I don't know the story of my mother 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:07.159 at all, honestly with my father, his siblings were able 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.520 to shed some light on it. And basically my father 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:14.240 is part of generational tragedy. His father died in a 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:19.480 Navy plane accident. And so now five kids ages three 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.200 months through seven are all living with a single mother 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:26.440 in the fifties, right, So that's he was the middle kid, 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:28.760 if you put any stock in that, and he just 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:32.520 got into huge arguments with his mother. They were in Tucson, Arizona, 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:35.120 and they moved back to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. None of 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.160 the kids had ever dealt with like Brooklyn and asphalt 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.360 and brownstone, and so I think my father just fell 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:43.520 through the cracks and by the time he was thirteen, 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:47.640 he was experimenting with heroin. By the time he was fifteen, 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:51.040 he probably had a habit. So he just never he 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.280 just never made it out of the gate. And what 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:59.240 did your father and mother do? Sort of jobs? I 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.960 don't remember, Like they kind of didn't work, okay, in 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:04.720 the fact, I'm not even sure how they made the 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.440 bills pay that there might there might have been some 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.480 work as a taxi driver for a little bit, but 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:14.240 I'm pretty sure that my mother's parents were keeping us 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:15.240 afloat financially. 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:18.040 I see. Okay, So back to the story. So that's 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:20.840 who you were born to, and then what happened with you? 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:26.120 And asked your sister, so, well, my mother tried to. 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:29.880 So there was a big fight, my mother divorces my father, 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.880 and so we're now living with my mother. She tries 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:35.600 to get her act together. Actually she moves up to 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.680 Santa Fe, tried, goes and gets a nursing tries to 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:41.959 get a nursing degree. That very quickly becomes clearly that 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:45.040 not going to work. So we a year later moved 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:49.319 back to Albuquerque into a very very bad neighborhood colloquially 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:51.040 known as the war zone on the map it's called 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.679 La Mesa, And so, you know, this was kind of 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.640 the first time I kind of now I'm like eight 0:08:57.720 --> 0:08:59.160 years old, right, so kind of the first time like 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.640 wait a minute, this isn't a great area, this isn't 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:04.880 you know. But still I'm in that like childhood innocence 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:08.040 phase where I don't really understand what's going on. And 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:13.400 so while that didn't work out either, and eventually my 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.000 mother was actually contending with very serious depression. So she 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.559 went into the hospital and my sister and I ended 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:24.160 up on the west side of town in what we 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.480 now call a group home, basically a modern day orphanage 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.120 called the Albuquerque Christian Children's Home, which is still there 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:32.600 today celebrating it's like fiftieth or fifty fifth anniversary or something. 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.080 So how long were you guys there from that orphanage. 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.120 We were there for five years. It's a long time. 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:43.360 It was never really meant to be a long term facility. 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.240 And what was that like for you guys? You know, 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.880 it was like being alone. My example is, you know, 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:53.760 imagine you're a kid and you get lost at them, 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:58.000 all right, what do you do? After an hour? You're 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:01.360 freaked out, You're wigging out, to two hours. What if 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:03.720 you lost for a day, Like, what do you do? Right? 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:08.440 And so eventually you figure out that you're just kind 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.360 of by yourself, right, and so it you know, we 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.400 had house parents, and the house parents are well meaning, 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.320 practicing Christians. They believe in the work. They're there for 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:20.840 a reason, right, But it's an impossible job, like a 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:24.080 truly impossible job. Imagine all the problems that all these 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:26.440 kids are coming in with at the time there, it 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:31.000 could have been at any point ten to sixteen kids 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:33.920 in a student home in one of the little cottages. 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:35.920 There were three cottages there, so at any given time, 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:40.400 it's like thirty to fifty kids there. Everything's turning over constantly. 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:42.360 The kids are coming and going, the house parents are 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:46.120 coming and going. So there's really no sense of stability 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:48.880 at all. There's nothing you can sort of lean against. 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.720 And so that was you know what that experience was like. 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:56.480 And you were in elementary school at that time, you 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:58.079 go to the public schools, that's right. 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:02.080 Yeah, yeah, sister Esther, you guys were close. 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:04.319 Uh no, not really, we you know, we just we 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:06.640 were pretty close in age, actually a year and a 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:10.360 half year and a half apart. And she was older, 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.160 far more mature than me, and I think very much 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:19.640 more attuned to frankly, just how screwed up our situation was. 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:21.679 I had my head down. I was just I was 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:23.559 just curious about video games. I was just I was 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:25.760 just a dumb kid, right, And so I think that 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:29.480 for me was actually really lucky, a real blessing. Which 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:32.280 video games or Esther's maturity? Oh oh no, sorry, the 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:34.520 video games. I think I think it was a bad 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:38.199 outcome for Esther to have been as mature as she was. Ah, okay, 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.040 because she was facing all this stuff at uh, you know, 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.800 it just wasn't like imagine middle school and everything in 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:47.040 your life is terrible, right, like actually terrible, and not 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:49.520 just because you're in middle school. So you guys were 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.120 at that home for five years and then you moved on, 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:58.480 that's right. Yes, So so my mother passes away, right, 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.160 so she hadn't been living with her, but she was 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:04.160 still involved in our lives. She would take us out 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:07.120 every couple of weeks, so for a weekend or a day. 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:08.680 Was that like when she would come by and you'd 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.439 see her. You know, it's it, you know, as a kid, 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:15.960 it's I think you don't really understand your emotions when 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:18.000 you're a kid, right, So what I would say as 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.640 an adult is like, it was clear that I loved 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:23.240 my mother, But I wouldn't have never I would have 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:25.360 never said that, right. I would just been like, well, 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:28.160 this is here's this, here's the mom coming to come 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:28.520 see me. 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:29.360 Right. 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.400 But so now she passes away, and I was like, oh, okay, 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.080 my whole my life, like life just kind of falls apart. 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:39.520 You know, I've had behavioral problems because I'm basically feral 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:43.240 for all of my childhood and now I really you know, 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.160 I'm in seventh grade here, So eleven twelve, Right, how 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.680 did you find out she died? Did somebody come out? Yeah, 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:51.200 our grandparents came and told us at the group home. Yeah. 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:54.600 Were you close with your grandparents? Not particularly? No, they 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:57.760 were sort of they were running the uh they're basically running. 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:00.640 They were quarterbacking the whole thing from a distance. So 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:02.280 you know, we'd spend we'd go to church with them 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:04.520 on the weekends on occasion and like you know, maybe 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.200 go out to have a hammerger or something. But no, 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:10.280 not really, And how does your mom die? Medication makes 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:17.720 up So basically methadone meets whatever, like a tailored suite 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:21.120 of medications she was on for her mental health. 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:24.360 Oh boy, yeah, okay, so your grandparents come and tell you, 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:28.960 and then I assume the orphanage wasn't the place to 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:29.720 stay anymore. 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:33.800 Yes, So, well what happened was, it's this weird thing 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:37.280 where her passing away, my father is just not in 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:41.120 the picture. Right, So her passing away actually makes life 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.040 easier for us because my extended family and my keep 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:47.840 in mind, my father has four siblings, they feel like 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.880 they can get involved now, right because there's this like 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.480 sacred bond between the mom and the kids. And like, 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:56.839 you know, again, my grandparents were quarterbacking the whole thing. 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:58.520 They may have like kept us in that group home 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.640 on the hopes that we would like help get her better. Right, 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:04.400 So there's a lot going on there. But now she's 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:09.080 passed away, and so one of my uncles gets involved 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:13.040 and he offers to take me, and he's a newlywed. 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:15.600 He offers to take me, and he does not make 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:19.640 this offer to my sister, which was crushing, you know. 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:21.480 And so what ended up happening is she ended up 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:25.040 going to a boarding school in New York and I 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:27.480 ended up going to live with my aunt uncle in Virginia. 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:28.800 When you say it was crushing, do you mean to 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:30.800 you or to her? I mean I had I was 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:32.440 guilt ridden over the whole thing as well, but it 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:34.720 was like really crushing for her. In the end, it 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.360 didn't work out. I ended up going to a boarding 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.040 school within a year of living with my ount uncle. 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:42.320 Got it is a lot. I mean, they weren't prepared 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:44.720 to have a kid, especially kid the kind of background 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.720 I'm coming in with, you know. So I ended up 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:51.640 at this boarding school called the Milton Hershey School for 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:53.560 my high school years. Got it? 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:57.440 And then, sorry, am I remembering correctly though? That you 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:01.560 ended up at many different what would you call it 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:02.360 foster homes? 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:07.480 It only two. But so the real turnover is that 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:11.040 the house parents are there for anywhere from six months 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:14.080 to a year and a half. So in my time there, 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:20.600 I'm boy ten twelve thirteen sets of house parents. So 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.520 there's a real there's a real sense. The only stable 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:27.080 thing there is me. You're talking about the orphanage, now, yeah, 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:29.040 I got it, got it, yep, yep, right, And you 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:31.360 know there was some turnover at Milton Hershery School too, 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:34.440 But so, so that's the sense in which there's just 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:38.560 nothing stable about any of it, right, got it? 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:40.560 Okay, so you did that through high school and then 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:44.560 you left for college. Okay, that's right, Yeah, okay, And 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:45.080 where'd you go? 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:47.720 Carnegie Mellon. I started off in physics and then I 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:50.280 took an experimental physics class. It was like, oh no, 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:53.640 so I moved to computer science and mathematics. 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:56.520 Great, And how did you know that you were going 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:58.960 to thrive in those? Was it just something that resonated 0:15:59.000 --> 0:15:59.280 with you? 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.240 Well? So I had been told my since my very 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.280 early childhood years that I was a smart kid. And 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.240 that's something you really focus or fixate on, even when 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:13.960 you've got nothing else. So, like, you know, I was 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:16.120 tested for the Gifted and Talented program when I'm in 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:18.840 third grade, you know, and I pass the test, and 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:21.080 all of a sudden, I'm different classes and I'm special. 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:25.480 And so I built this whole sort of psychological shield. 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.120 I call it, like my patronis Charm from Harry Potter, 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.400 like just to protect me from all the dementors out there. Right, 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.360 So I had a whole story, a whole narrative about myself, 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:40.560 you know, a real decision like to go become somebody 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:42.160 who was smart. I don't think at the age of ten, 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:43.760 which is when I was making all these decisions, I 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.800 had the vocabulary for it. But I figured out that, 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.040 you know, college was a thing and that you could 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.640 get a scholarship if you worked at it. And so 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:57.000 from basically the age of ten, my life goal was 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.800 to go to college. So then coming to your question, 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:03.960 you know, I'm in high school now, and you know 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.040 I had the goal to go to MIT. I was 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.040 grossly unprepared for that and did not get accepted. But 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:12.920 still Connie Millon's is fabulous school. I'm super happy about that. 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:16.520 And so it's in that sense that like, yes, I 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.560 was attuned to that experience. I was ready and prepared 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.919 for that experience at least emotionally great. 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.040 Yeah, so going to Corneie Melton, that's a big deal. 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:27.640 Who is advising you at the time in your life, 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:29.840 Who's telling you about college and here's how you apply 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:30.800 and here's how you get there. 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:35.119 You know, I think it was just part of so 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:40.200 at Milton Hershey School is a very different organization than 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:44.760 the Albuquerque Christian Trones Home. It's explicitly meant to serve 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.800 kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, whatever you want to call that, 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:53.360 And so there were many sort of avenues you could 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.720 go down or well trodden roads at that school about 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.720 like college prep or business prep or vocational trades or 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:02.880 something like this. So by that time I just knew 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:03.959 I was going to apply to colleges. 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:06.719 So you wrote a wonderful book that just came out 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:12.760 called Emergence, about this path from your childhood to where 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:14.760 you are now. And one of the stories you tell 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:18.400 in the book is that you gave a talk at Princeton. 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.359 I guess it was your first talk on your life 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:24.199 and how you got where you're going, and you relate 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.000 that a young woman came up to you afterwards and said, 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:30.560 how did you do it? Yeah, and you said to her, 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:33.960 persistence and a lot of luck. But then you said 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.880 you sort of regretted that answer because it. 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:38.679 Just it was a sort of an answer. Yeah, it 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:40.120 was the only thing you could think of at the moment. 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.000 So my question for you is, and then you sat 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:45.320 and wrote the book for years and you've really thought 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.320 about this lot. So my question for you is when 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.400 you think about what answer you would give her now? 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:56.000 Besides you know the full book. What percentage is persistence? 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.840 What percentage is luck? And how has your answer changed? 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:00.560 I think a lot of it is luck, if I'm 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:03.720 being real, because even persistence or resilience, which I apparently 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:05.400 have a lot of, I don't know how I got 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:06.160 it right. 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:08.960 So that's like genetic luck. 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:11.320 In yeah, genetic luck. I think it was important to 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:13.080 be smart, I mean the answer I would give her, 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:15.800 and resilient, Yeah, exactly, that's right. And resilient. I think 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.960 resilient is far more important than being intelligent. Honestly, you 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:20.560 know what I would say to her now is I 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.000 found a way to become whole. Right. There was a 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:27.160 whole series of events, including people I have never met 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:30.159 in my life who developed technologies that I used, to 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:35.000 people in my family, to mentors and therapists, my PhD 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.720 mentor Larry Abbott, you know all these things what I 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:39.679 would say. And thus the title of the book is 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:41.959 we are all, you know, greater than some of our parts. 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:46.080 And so the telling of this story is just a 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:48.680 in depth example of this. 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:04.720 Now I want to stick with your story, but let's 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.800 pull out for one second. Let's talk about the concept 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.720 of emergence. The scientific concepts, so give us a sense 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:12.919 of that. Yes, so it means a few different things 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:15.520 to a few different people. For me, it means that 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.240 when you take a bunch of sort of simple parts 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:22.520 and you allow them to interact, then what can happen 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:25.640 can sort of be profoundly different than what you would 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:30.240 expect from just those simple things alone. So classic examples 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.160 of this are like the schooling of fish. You would 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:35.639 never think that fish would school by looking at a fish, 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:40.760 or the murmuration of starling's a tornado or hurricane. So 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:45.440 these are examples, right, and so I'm making the analogy 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:50.080 that our lives are like this also, Yeah, and just to. 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:51.639 Dive into emergence for a more second. 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.080 Right, this is one of the key principles in science 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:57.320 is that you put a bunch of small stuff together 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:01.600 and you get things at a higher level that you 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:03.000 cannot explain. 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:03.680 With this small stuff. 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:05.440 So just back up for a second, because I think 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:08.200 this is such a great concept. You know, the idea 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:11.840 of reductionism in science is okay, you know, if you 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.400 figure out the atoms or the transistors or whatever, we'll 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:18.960 have an explanation for the thing. But that essentially doesn't 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:22.719 work for most things. For example, you can't explain something 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:27.320 like resilience or your love for your wife, or something 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:31.679 predicated on just if you studied the neurons. In my 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:34.560 book Incognitos some years ago, I wrote about emergent properties. 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:36.720 I use the example of you know, if you look 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:39.479 at a single bar of metal, it doesn't have the 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:43.520 property of lion tightness. But if I put a bunch 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:45.720 of those bars in a certain configuration, that I've made 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:47.760 a cage and it can hold a lion. But that's 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:51.160 not a property of any of the individual bars. Or 0:21:51.200 --> 0:21:54.720 you know, a molecule of H two O is not wet, 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:56.159 but you put a bunch of them together, you have 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.320 the property of wetness. Okay, So this is the concept 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:05.040