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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 3: we're back with part three in our series on dust. Now,

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Speaker 3: if you haven't heard the previous episodes, you might want

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Speaker 3: to go back and check those out first. This will

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Speaker 3: probably make a little more sense if you have those

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Speaker 3: in the pocket. In part one, we talked about how

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Speaker 3: to define dust. We talked about our perpetual roommates, the

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Speaker 3: pyroglyphid dust mites. We talked about atmospheric dust and its

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Speaker 3: complex relationship to weather and climate. That was Part one.

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Speaker 3: In Part two, we talked mainly about dust bunnies both

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Speaker 3: within the home and in outer space, as well as

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Speaker 3: how some historical attitudes toward dust dust in the home

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Speaker 3: may have affected trends in interior design choices and even

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Speaker 3: some literary themes and horror. And today we are back

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Speaker 3: to talk more dust.

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Speaker 2: That's right, and you know we're gonna so we mentioned

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Speaker 2: how we'll eventually get to some magical mythological ideas religious

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Speaker 2: ideas about dust that's still on the way. That's going

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Speaker 2: to be a future episode. This particular episode, I'm going

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Speaker 2: to continue looking at Victorian dust. We're gonna get a

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Speaker 2: little philosophic, but we will also talk briefly about Dracula,

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Speaker 2: but in a way that connects directly to what we're

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Speaker 2: talking about here. So yeah, to kick things off, I'd

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Speaker 2: like to just pick up more or less where we

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Speaker 2: left off with the theme of Victorian attitudes toward dust,

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Speaker 2: a topic that I've ended up finding far more fascinating

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Speaker 2: than I expected. All Right, So in the last episode

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Speaker 2: I briefly mentioned a source an article or paper by

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Speaker 2: e Lean Cleary titled Victorian Dust Traps, and I went

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Speaker 2: ahead and sought that out. It's collected in her book

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Speaker 2: The Sanitary Arts, Esthetic Culture, and the Victorian Cleanliness Campaigns,

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Speaker 2: which is in itself a very interesting book, highly recommended

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Speaker 2: if anyone wants a deeper dive into the topic of

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Speaker 2: Victorian cleanliness. Now, Victorian London was indeed a world in

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Speaker 2: the throes of the Industrial Revolution. The Victorian period, of course,

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Speaker 2: is so named for the reign of Queen Victoria the

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Speaker 2: Rain in Question eighteen thirty seven through nineteen oh one,

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Speaker 2: but her rule encompassed much of the industrialization of English life.

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Speaker 2: So we have a period here marked by rapid advancements

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Speaker 2: in industrial technology. Population swelled, a new business leader class emerged,

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Speaker 2: challenging the aristocracy for that top spot over a swelling

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Speaker 2: working class and virtually non existent middle class. So you

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Speaker 2: had vast socioeconomic differences going on, impacting the manner in

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Speaker 2: which the spoils and the horrors of industrialism were distributed

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Speaker 2: to a large degree, because while upper classes obviously enjoyed

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Speaker 2: more freedom, everyone breathed the same air and ultimately the

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Speaker 2: same dust and dust. You know, dust doesn't care who

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Speaker 2: you are, dust doesn't care what part of society you

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Speaker 2: come from. Now a lot has been written about Victorian sanitation,

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Speaker 2: like that in and of itself is a huge topic

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Speaker 2: because again the throes of industrialization, all these changes, changes

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Speaker 2: in population, changes in technology. We've touched on some of

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Speaker 2: these technologies in the past, especially on invention. You know,

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Speaker 2: how are you going to keep everything sanitary? Like the

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Speaker 2: story of sanitation is ultimately the story of any civilization

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Speaker 2: or any empire, going way back in ancient times. Now.

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Speaker 2: According to Lee Jackson, author of Dirty Old London that

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Speaker 2: cided on MPR's Fresh Air in twenty fifteen, this other

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Speaker 2: points out that by the eighteen nineties there were approximately

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Speaker 2: three hundred thousand horses and a thousand tons of dung

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Speaker 2: a day in London.

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Speaker 3: That's just horse dung.

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Speaker 2: That's just horse dung. We're not even getting into people

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Speaker 2: or anything. That's just horses living and pooping in the city.

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Speaker 2: And London's capacity for managing all of that was vastly insufficient.

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Speaker 2: So in the streets the dung essentially became the mud,

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Speaker 2: and naturally, if it's dry enough, that dung also becomes

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Speaker 2: the dust of London, or part of the dust of London,

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Speaker 2: to be clear. On top of that, the other points

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Speaker 2: out that London was a quote city of cesspools, with

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Speaker 2: each house typically hosting a believe it was like a

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Speaker 2: six foot deep, four foot wide cesspool for all of

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Speaker 2: the home's toiletry waste and I think various other wastes

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Speaker 2: as well, but a keynote the toiletry waste. And then

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Speaker 2: you had all of the coal lash produced by domestic

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Speaker 2: households in addition to coal lash produced by industry. Now

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Speaker 2: it was really fascinating. There was actually a system of

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Speaker 2: dust yards and dust men. They would come to your

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Speaker 2: house and haul off your dust or they would haul

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Speaker 2: off dust from the street and so forth. And then

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Speaker 2: there were the night soil men as well. These were

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Speaker 2: the people who would arrive in the middle of the

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Speaker 2: night to haul away your night soil from your cesspool.

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Speaker 2: Because the stinch of these activities, especially the night soil

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Speaker 2: removal here was legally deemed too odorous for daylight hours,

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Speaker 2: so in the night they would come haul it away,

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Speaker 2: put it in baskets, haulowed up out of that pit

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Speaker 2: and take it out where it could be used in

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Speaker 2: the countryside. The manure night soil it goes out to

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Speaker 2: help ultimately grow more food for the growing population of London.

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Speaker 2: I was reading an article by clearly A chill Me

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Speaker 2: of ground Shore, who wrote a piece about the dust

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Speaker 2: yards for this is in twenty fifteen for two Day's Conveyancer.

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Speaker 2: And this article points out some interesting facts about the

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Speaker 2: dust yards. And I have some other sources I'm going

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Speaker 2: to refer to about the dust yards here, But in

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Speaker 2: the eighteen fifties, the average amount of coal burn by

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Speaker 2: each household in London was estimated at eleven tons per year.

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Speaker 2: According to this article, coal lash was in demand by

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Speaker 2: the brick industry for brickmaking, though it was also needed

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Speaker 2: for fertilizer. Both of these needs were increased by urban expansion,

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Speaker 2: so for food, for construction for all of those bodies

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Speaker 2: in the city. So in order to help meet these needs,

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Speaker 2: we actually see an early example of a large scale

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Speaker 2: zero waste system, essentially a recycling program, though one that

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Speaker 2: of course is driven purely by economics here and also

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Speaker 2: one that is without any kind of modern health, environmental,

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Speaker 2: or labor standards. So, for instance, children would work at

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Speaker 2: these dust yards along with adults.

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Speaker 3: And we know in many modern contexts, such as mining

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Speaker 3: and certain types of industrial settings, occupational exposure to dust

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Speaker 3: is a major health hazard and you have to take

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Speaker 3: special precautions to, you know, if you're a worker in

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Speaker 3: a cement factory or in a mine or something, to

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Speaker 3: protect yourself from exposure to dust, to protect your lungs.

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Speaker 3: And so I would imagine some of those risks were

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Speaker 3: probably involved here as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, So we have to be we have to

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Speaker 2: be careful about patting them on the back too much

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Speaker 2: for this program because again a lot of these standards

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Speaker 2: were not in place, and it was purely driven by economics.

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Speaker 2: But still dust yards were in many ways recycling centers

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Speaker 2: where the dust was hauled off to by the dustmen

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Speaker 2: and the street sweepers. The dust yards entailed and organized

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Speaker 2: sifting and separation of different elements in the dust, radiating

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Speaker 2: out from like a central heap. I included an old

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Speaker 2: like illustration here for you, Joe. You can find these

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Speaker 2: online too, if you look up Victorian dust yard. And

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Speaker 2: here we see examples of women out sifting through the dust.

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Speaker 2: It looks like there is a child there as well.

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Speaker 2: There's a man shoveling dust as well, and various animals

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Speaker 2: milling about.

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Speaker 3: I do not see masks no in the picture. However,

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Speaker 3: it looks like a grand old time. They're just like

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Speaker 3: hanging out with ducks and pigs, and everybody's yeah, it

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Speaker 3: looks looks great.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a little more upbeat, I guess. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 2: going back to the writings of Cleary, she writes that

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Speaker 2: these dust yards, along with various other things in and

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Speaker 2: around London again product of industrialization and just life in general.

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Speaker 2: You had slums, you had docs, you had brickyards, all

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Speaker 2: of this going on within London, and this helped to

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Speaker 2: establish a kind of moral geography of city life. Again,

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Speaker 2: morality here being very tied up with ideas of hygiene

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Speaker 2: and cleanliness and of course class. So while there was

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Speaker 2: in many respects just one London and certainly one atmosphere

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Speaker 2: and one smoggy sky, there was also this kind of

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Speaker 2: attempt to regulate the clean moral city within the industrial husk.

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Speaker 2: And the home especially, she points out, was increasingly thought

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Speaker 2: to constitute a quote self contained moral universe that can

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Speaker 2: in some sense be hermetically sealed from the pre germ

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Speaker 2: theory threats of miasma and spontaneous generation. And the home

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Speaker 2: was a haven, a safe place where all that disease,

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Speaker 2: all that horror could be shut out, or at least

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Speaker 2: there's the hope that you're shutting it out, and maybe

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Speaker 2: like the heartfelt belief that you were able to shut

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Speaker 2: it out of your home, and probably like the immediate

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Speaker 2: unreal geography surrounding your home. But then, as we touched

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Speaker 2: on in the last episode, you get the growing acceptance

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Speaker 2: of germ theory, and is this caught on in the

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Speaker 2: public mindset. It changed all of this. It kind of

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Speaker 2: inverted this view of where the health threats are to

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Speaker 2: your way of life. So I want to read a

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Speaker 2: bit here from cleary that I thought was very insightful.

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Speaker 2: Quote Miismatic theories of bad air, foul smells, and spontaneous

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Speaker 2: generation continued to dominate sanitary discourse in the eighteen seventies

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Speaker 2: and eighties, but as germ theories entered circulation, the impenetrable

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Speaker 2: Victorian home became an increasingly anxious fantasy rather than a

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Speaker 2: reliable domestic construct. Sanitary geographies of the city turned inward,

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Speaker 2: eventually producing analogous geographies of the over decorated, architecturally busy

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Speaker 2: Victorian interior. Even purpose built environments could contain pockets of

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Speaker 2: potential contamination and illness. In fact, the architectural flourishes and

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Speaker 2: decorative fittings so identified with mid Victorian style became sites

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Speaker 2: of suspicion and fear as the nineteenth century waned. In

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Speaker 2: these new domestic geographies, I argue the decorative dust trap

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Speaker 2: rivaled the urban fever nest as a primary locust of

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Speaker 2: pollution anxiety, emerging as a contested site of cultural value

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Speaker 2: and meaning in a variety of Victorian texts.

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Speaker 3: Mmmm, okay, so explain that a little the dust trap

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Speaker 3: mirrors the outside world.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So instead of having these pockets of town that

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Speaker 2: you would avoid or kind of cut yourself off from,

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Speaker 2: or even I guess I'm reading into it here but

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Speaker 2: kind of pretend or not there, which I think is

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Speaker 2: something that goes on in a lot of a lot

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Speaker 2: of cities even to this day. But instead of just

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Speaker 2: relying on that kind of a sanitary geography, as she

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Speaker 2: terms it, suddenly you're applying that line of thinking to

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Speaker 2: your own home and you're thinking about those dust bunnies

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Speaker 2: under the bed, You're thinking about those corners in the

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Speaker 2: house where dust is kind of swept to and it accumulates,

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Speaker 2: or even like clearly brings an example up in the

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Speaker 2: book of a just a Victorian text on how to

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Speaker 2: hang like paintings or pictures of some sort in your house,

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Speaker 2: even that exercise would have warnings about dust traps, about

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Speaker 2: trying to do it in such a way as to

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Speaker 2: not permit these dust traps to occur.

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Speaker 3: And the argument is that this view of the interior

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Speaker 3: geography somewhat coincides with or is influenced by the emergence

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Speaker 3: of germ theory, like the correct understanding that disease is

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Speaker 3: to a large extent caused by tiny organisms that are

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Speaker 3: invisible to the eye and all around us.

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Speaker 2: Right, and of course we know that new information, even

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Speaker 2: when it is accurate, it doesn't mean that reactions to

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Speaker 2: set accurate information are always you know, completely as as

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Speaker 2: on point, I guess you would say.

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Speaker 3: You can respond to true information in an irrational way.

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Speaker 2: Right now, not to say that anything that we've I

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Speaker 2: certainly didn't find much in the way of anyone arguing, hey,

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Speaker 2: let the dust build up in your house, it's good

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Speaker 2: for you. But it does seem like there's a certain

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Speaker 2: amount of sort of dust anxiety overreach at the time,

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Speaker 2: or dust mania. But she also points out that this

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Speaker 2: doesn't mean that dust was just seen as a threat.

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Speaker 2: I mean, because again, dust is ubiquitous and and you also,

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Speaker 2: I think, have this kind of like you know, modern

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Speaker 2: fascination with the world. I mean, in the same sort

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Speaker 2: of scientific awakening that is making it possible to understand

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Speaker 2: what's going on with disease also with sort of illuminating

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Speaker 2: this idea of learning more about the world around you.

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Speaker 2: So she points out that dust, you know, is complex

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Speaker 2: in the way that we view it. Even at the

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Speaker 2: time quote when particles of dirt were illuminated by sunlight

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Speaker 2: or other atmospheric conditions, victorians could simultaneously experience the transformative

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Speaker 2: beauty and the contaminating agency of dust. And I'm going

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Speaker 2: to turn to an example of that here in just

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Speaker 2: a little bit.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think I can experience that duality depending on

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Speaker 3: the context in which I see the dust. For example,

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Speaker 3: there are certain filmmakers that really love to show say

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Speaker 3: maybe a strong beam of light cutting through a dark

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Speaker 3: environment and you see little particles of dust floating in

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Speaker 3: that Beam's It's a beautiful effect when achieved in film.

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Speaker 3: If I see that same effect inside my house, it

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Speaker 3: feels a little gross.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Or if it is beyond a particle and it

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Speaker 2: becomes like visible cat here, Yeah, you know, it's like

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Speaker 2: I'm trying to like take my contact that's the worst.

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Speaker 2: I'm like, I've washed my hands, I'm going to take

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Speaker 2: a contact out or put one in, and somehow I've

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Speaker 2: already gotten the cat here attached to my finger, and yeah,

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Speaker 2: that is floating around and is part of the whole

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Speaker 2: dust bunny scenario.

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Speaker 3: Of course, I'm trying to think, what who do I

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Speaker 3: have in mind? Who there's like a director who really

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Speaker 3: loves like a beam of light with dust floating in it.

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Speaker 3: But I can't think of who it is.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's a motif you see from time

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Speaker 2: to time, and it can be it'd be quite beautiful.

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Speaker 2: There is this kind of sense of sort of revealing

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Speaker 2: the particles of nature, you know, there's kind of like this,

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Speaker 2: even even though we are not obviously looking at atoms

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Speaker 2: or anything, you know, in that beam of light, there

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Speaker 2: is this kind of like revelation. It's like, oh, there

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Speaker 2: are smaller realms than this.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you're not literally seeing the smallest things. I mean,

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Speaker 3: in the same way that consciousness of dust is equated

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Speaker 3: to consciousness of germs. You're not literally seeing the germs,

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Speaker 3: but it like reminds you that you're surrounded by things

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Speaker 3: on a scale that's very small, and that most times

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Speaker 3: you don't most of the time you don't see or

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Speaker 3: notice them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So you know, I don't think it's it's it's

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Speaker 2: that much of a stretch to put ourselves in this mindset,

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Speaker 2: this mindset where she says that that that these like

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Speaker 2: the dusty corners of these homes were quote simultaneously places

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Speaker 2: of artistic imagination and filthy accumulation. So I was like, okay,

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Speaker 2: I need to throw in some examples of this, and

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Speaker 2: I've leave, and she mentions a number. I already mentioned

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Speaker 2: the picture hanging guide, and I was thinking, well, I

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Speaker 2: need to probably bust out some Charles Dickens here. But

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Speaker 2: then I discovered that there are examples of both attitudes

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Speaker 2: toward dust in the Victorian horror classic novel Dracula by

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Speaker 2: Bram Stoker from eighteen ninety seven.

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Speaker 3: Okay, eighteen ninety seven would be very late Victorian, but

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Speaker 3: still technically under the wire.

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Speaker 2: It gets in under the wire, and I think, you know,

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Speaker 2: it's definitely all that time and that culture. Okay, so

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Speaker 2: I'm going to read a little from Dracula here. Didn't

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Speaker 2: think I was going to get to do that. So

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Speaker 2: anytime we get to discuss Dracula without warning, it's nice.

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Speaker 2: So the first bit, this is from early on. This

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Speaker 2: is in Dracula's castle. I was not alone. The room

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Speaker 2: was the same, unchanged in any way since I came

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Speaker 2: into it. I could see along the floor in the

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Speaker 2: brilliant moonlight, my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed

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Speaker 2: the long accumulation of dust.

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Speaker 3: All right, so this this is Harker writing about being

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Speaker 3: in draculus castle. We're here clearly that the dust is

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Speaker 3: viewed as a kind of as a signal of something wrong,

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Speaker 3: like that this is not a place that is occupied

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Speaker 3: by living people, that it is only unnatural beings that

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Speaker 3: dwell here, and that the way in which they dwell

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Speaker 3: is not really life right.

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Speaker 2: And so I was looking into this a bit more,

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Speaker 2: and I found an excellent paper that gets into this

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Speaker 2: and other related topics. This is from Lily s May

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Speaker 2: from nineteen ninety eight. It's titled Foul Things of the

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Speaker 2: Night Dread in the Victorian Body. And so we have

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Speaker 2: another passage here, and this is also from Draculus Castle

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Speaker 2: from the same point of view. I thought I would

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Speaker 2: watch for the Count's return, and for a long time

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Speaker 2: set doggedly at the window. Then I began to notice

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Speaker 2: that there were some quaint little specks floating in the

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Speaker 2: rays of the moonlight. They were like the tiniest grains

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Speaker 2: of dust, and they whirled around and gathered in clusters

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Speaker 2: and a nebulus sort of way. I watch them with

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Speaker 2: a sense of soothing and a sort of calm stole

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Speaker 2: over me. I lean back in the embrasure in a

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Speaker 2: more comfortable position, so that I can enjoy more fully

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Speaker 2: the aerial gamboling.

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Speaker 3: Oh, I would not have remembered this moment at.

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Speaker 2: All, but yeah, but it's like a nice little you know,

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Speaker 2: caught up in the moment, just sort of noticing dust

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Speaker 2: and out of context that it's been a long time

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Speaker 2: since I've read Dracula in full. I am not sure

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Speaker 2: if this is meant to be just dust or if

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Speaker 2: this is some hint of the Count's doing. But as

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Speaker 2: we'll discuss, we can easily wrap all of this up

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Speaker 2: under the same heading.

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Speaker 3: But it's funny that in Dracula's Castle the dust is

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Speaker 3: clearly meant to show a lack of life that there is,

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Speaker 3: that this castle is not currently occupied by living beings

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Speaker 3: who and it's and the fact that everything is covered

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Speaker 3: in dust is a sign of disuse and decay and unnaturalness.

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Speaker 3: At the same time, dust is overwhelmingly associated with life

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Speaker 3: and activity of the city of the period.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and maybe this is what we get a

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Speaker 2: glimpse of in this this second quotation here, Yeah, where

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Speaker 2: it sounds lively. You know, he's talking about it in

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Speaker 2: terms of motion and in life and interaction. Okay, so

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Speaker 2: those are both from Dracula's Castle, but we also glimpse

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Speaker 2: dust in London as well. This is from Lucy's perspective

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Speaker 2: much later on in the book. The air seems full

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Speaker 2: of specs floating and circling in the draft from the window,

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Speaker 2: and the lights burn blue and dim. What am I

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Speaker 2: to do? God shield me from harm this night? I

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Speaker 2: shall hide this paper in my breast, where they shall

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Speaker 2: find it when they come to lay me out. My

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Speaker 2: dear mother gone. It is time that I go to Goodbye,

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Speaker 2: dear Arthur. If I should not survive this night, God

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Speaker 2: keep you, dear, and God help me.

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Speaker 3: This is interesting in the air being full of dust

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Speaker 3: almost it's like an indicat that death is imminent.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, almost, like there's almost kind of like a

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Speaker 2: fairy fire kind of vibe to it, you know. Now.

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Speaker 2: Later on in the novel, as pointed out by May

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Speaker 2: in that write up, Dracula's London layer is said to

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Speaker 2: have walls quote fluffy and heavy with dust, which I like.

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Speaker 2: It's almost like there's a strong sense that Dracula's presence

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Speaker 2: alone makes the place dustier than it could have logically been.

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Speaker 2: And then, of course you know what happens at the end.

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Speaker 2: Dracula is staked Dracula is slain and quote his whole

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Speaker 2: body crumbled into dust.

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Speaker 3: This would go back to that theme we talked about

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Speaker 3: at the beginning of the first episode, how most often

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Speaker 3: in literature it seems that imagery of dust is used

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Speaker 3: to signify a kind of worthlessness. And yeah, so when

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Speaker 3: a body in a story crumbles into dust, it seems

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Speaker 3: to it seems to indicate it almost a magical signal

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Speaker 3: of good riddance.

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00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:06,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so we definitely have that going on. There's

365
00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:08,960
Speaker 2: no denying that you know from dust you came, does

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Speaker 2: you become? And this creature of on life is now

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00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:17,720
Speaker 2: reduced to dust. And yet May stresses that throughout that, Okay,

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00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:19,439
Speaker 2: we have this time period in which we have all

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Speaker 2: these attitudes about dust, and we also have the titular

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Speaker 2: vampire here, who is an infectious creature. And much has

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Speaker 2: been written comparing like the infectious nature of vampires to

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00:21:31,359 --> 00:21:37,200
Speaker 2: various pathogens, sometimes to syphilis and other maladies, and May

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Speaker 2: stresses that quote terror of contamination by minute particles of

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Speaker 2: corruption is thoroughly reinforced in Stoker's novel. I was looking

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Speaker 2: around briefly at screen grabs, and I'm like, what is

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Speaker 2: the dustiest Dracula movie that we have, And I'm not

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Speaker 2: sure offhand. You know, he turns into dust at the

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Speaker 2: end of a lot of these movies. But I was wondering, like,

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Speaker 2: which one has the dustiest sets. Now I feel like

380
00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:01,040
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have keep an eye open for that.

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Speaker 3: I feel like the Todd Browning Dracula emphasizes dust in

382
00:22:05,840 --> 00:22:10,359
Speaker 3: Legosi's castle. There's less dust that I recall once they

383
00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:11,720
Speaker 3: move on back to London.

384
00:22:12,400 --> 00:22:16,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm not sure about the ninetiese version from

385
00:22:16,119 --> 00:22:19,919
Speaker 2: Francis Ford Coppola. I do. I am long overdue to

386
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:22,560
Speaker 2: rewatch that one, But if I were to guess, I

387
00:22:22,600 --> 00:22:26,879
Speaker 2: would maybe expect some fine dust in the castle. But

388
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Speaker 2: maybe they end up avoiding it in London because there's

389
00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:32,800
Speaker 2: like a sense I feel like they probably shot London

390
00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:37,359
Speaker 2: with a certain air of modern gleaming there. But then again,

391
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Speaker 2: if you end up going into a crypt, what's the

392
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:41,159
Speaker 2: first thing you're at least tempted to do? Set wise,

393
00:22:41,359 --> 00:22:44,160
Speaker 2: that's dust everything, right, give it that n nice Gothic air.

394
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Speaker 3: We could quite possibly do the Copola Dracula on Weird House.

395
00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:51,359
Speaker 3: It is weirder than it needs to be, and I

396
00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:53,720
Speaker 3: don't know, there are things about that you could argue

397
00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:55,879
Speaker 3: are not good, but I think it's a heck of

398
00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:56,720
Speaker 3: a good time.

399
00:22:57,160 --> 00:22:59,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's greatness within it for sure.

400
00:22:59,400 --> 00:22:59,880
Speaker 3: Yeah.

401
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:05,280
Speaker 2: Anyways, more on Dracula, inevitably later on in another episode

402
00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:08,680
Speaker 2: of one of our shows, but in the larger picture again,

403
00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:12,240
Speaker 2: as we've already touched on, Clary argues that the aversion

404
00:23:12,280 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 2: to dust and dust traps in architecture, art and design

405
00:23:15,680 --> 00:23:19,440
Speaker 2: helped fuel a more minimalist, modernist aesthetic, free from the

406
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:23,200
Speaker 2: various nooks and crannies that might allow dust to accumulate.

407
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:26,919
Speaker 3: Okay, so that would make sense because I'm not a

408
00:23:27,119 --> 00:23:30,479
Speaker 3: you know, I don't have a great knowledge about interior design,

409
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:35,240
Speaker 3: especially historically. But what I picture the interior of a

410
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:39,240
Speaker 3: Victorian home, especially like an upper class one, I picture

411
00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:41,879
Speaker 3: it as a very craggy landscape. There's just like a

412
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:45,080
Speaker 3: lot of stuff going on, a lot of like nooks

413
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:47,639
Speaker 3: and crannies, Yeah, and things poking out in places that

414
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:49,840
Speaker 3: would just be like hard to access with a broom

415
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:54,119
Speaker 3: or a duster. And yeah, and I contrast that very

416
00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:56,639
Speaker 3: much with what I think of as like, I don't know,

417
00:23:56,680 --> 00:24:01,920
Speaker 3: the mid century modern interior style in American homes, which

418
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 3: is just like a lot of clean surfaces places that

419
00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:07,600
Speaker 3: would be easy to get dust out of.

420
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:10,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, and clearly also discusses some other ideas, a much

421
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:13,119
Speaker 2: deeper dive that we can get into here, but she

422
00:24:13,200 --> 00:24:16,960
Speaker 2: also explores some other like class based and economic factors

423
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:20,120
Speaker 2: may have played in like if nothing else, if there's

424
00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:23,639
Speaker 2: this new in general, you don't want your house to

425
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:27,639
Speaker 2: be super dusty. There's this new emphasis on keeping things

426
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 2: from getting too dusty, and therefore there's kind of this

427
00:24:29,920 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 2: additional cost to having furniture like this or household molding

428
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:38,000
Speaker 2: like this, because it is harder to clean, and then

429
00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:42,680
Speaker 2: you're potentially having to pay more or put more into

430
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:48,320
Speaker 2: the into the battle against that dust. So, yeah, anytime

431
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 2: you have shifts in design like this, there are multiple

432
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 2: things going on, but it is interesting to think about

433
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:55,040
Speaker 2: how this may have played a role in all of that.

434
00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 2: It's also interesting to think about this idea of like, Okay,

435
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,719
Speaker 2: you know hermetically fel the home. The home is separate

436
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:05,119
Speaker 2: from the world surrounding you, be that an urban environment

437
00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:08,080
Speaker 2: or a rural environment, or some mix of the two.

438
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:12,000
Speaker 2: And you know, we're still sort of feeling ourselves out

439
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:14,720
Speaker 2: and having different shifts in all of this. While I

440
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 2: haven't run across anything that has said, yes, let the

441
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 2: dust build up in your house, we have seen examples

442
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 2: of studies that have argued that exposure to cats and

443
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 2: especially dogs, especially at a young age, can help bolster

444
00:25:27,920 --> 00:25:30,399
Speaker 2: the immune system. You know, there's a lot about the

445
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 2: complexity of the microbial world that we're still figuring out,

446
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:37,399
Speaker 2: and we're still figuring out how where we are in

447
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:41,159
Speaker 2: that whole equation and where our artificial environments and our

448
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:44,560
Speaker 2: cities currently stand in all of that as well.

449
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:57,159
Speaker 3: Okay, well, for today's episode, I got to thinking about

450
00:25:57,320 --> 00:26:01,119
Speaker 3: dust in the context of a of an age old

451
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 3: philosophical problem, and I was thinking about it like this, So,

452
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:07,879
Speaker 3: of course dust is everywhere, there's some amount of it

453
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 3: in pretty much all environments and all homes. But at

454
00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:16,680
Speaker 3: what point does something actually become dusty? We talked about

455
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:19,120
Speaker 3: this in part one of our series, this weird phenomenon

456
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:21,760
Speaker 3: where you know, you look at a desk surface, or

457
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:24,119
Speaker 3: a lamp or a shelf in your house and it

458
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:26,679
Speaker 3: can seem like, well, it's not dusty at all, no

459
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:30,960
Speaker 3: intervention needed, you know, it's fine, no notes, until suddenly

460
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:34,199
Speaker 3: one day you notice it needs dusting. In fact, it

461
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,919
Speaker 3: doesn't just need dusting. It is now revolting. How did

462
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:39,040
Speaker 3: I let it go this far?

463
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm reminded again. We talked about Hollywood dust machines.

464
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 2: What if you didn't have one and you just had

465
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 2: to wait for things to set to get dusty again.

466
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:49,680
Speaker 2: What would that be like? It's like, okay, not yet,

467
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:53,160
Speaker 2: not yet, Okay, now now it's dusty again.

468
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 3: But would that ever happen if you were watching it constantly?

469
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:58,360
Speaker 3: It seems like, you know, it's the trying to watch

470
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 3: a pot boil, except it would take months, I guess.

471
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 3: But it is weird how, at least to me, things

472
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:08,440
Speaker 3: tend to go from not noticeably dusty to too dusty,

473
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:13,920
Speaker 3: And presumably this is not usually because of a massive

474
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 3: quantity of dust being deposited all at once. Instead, there's

475
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 3: something going on with our perception. Some amount of dust

476
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:25,919
Speaker 3: is always present, and that amount is slowly accumulating a

477
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 3: little by little, and it doesn't register as dustiness to

478
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 3: us until it is past a certain threshold, and maybe

479
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 3: the light strikes it in the right way, maybe we're

480
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 3: in the right mood or mental state to see it,

481
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 3: and suddenly it does look dusty. Now we're here, and

482
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:46,320
Speaker 3: it occurred to me that this is actually a specific

483
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 3: manifestation of a famous dilemma in philosophy known as the

484
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:56,040
Speaker 3: Sobriety's paradox or the paradox of the heap. The word

485
00:27:56,160 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 3: sobrieties spelled sories, from the Greek word for pile or heap.

486
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:06,760
Speaker 3: It is named after the most famous example used in

487
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:11,159
Speaker 3: these these thought experiments, and that example is a heap

488
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 3: of sand. So I'll illustrate the dilemma like this. Imagine

489
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 3: one million grains of sand piled up together on the ground.

490
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 3: Is this a heap of sand? I think most people

491
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:26,120
Speaker 3: would say, yes, it is that. That's not a very

492
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 3: controversial thing to call it.

493
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:32,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, And just the summoning the word million instantly makes

494
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 2: you think, well, that's a lot. That sounds heapworthy. Though

495
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:37,120
Speaker 2: then I begin to second guess myself and think, well,

496
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 2: grains are small. What does a million grains of sand

497
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:41,480
Speaker 2: pile together look like?

498
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:44,959
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, it doesn't matter what the number is actually,

499
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 3: but I think we you know, imagine you say you

500
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 3: start with a heap of sand, whatever you think a

501
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:54,000
Speaker 3: heap is. Now you remove one single grain of sand

502
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 3: from that heap. So if you start with a million,

503
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 3: you're left with nine hundred ninety nine nine ninety nine.

504
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 3: Is it still a heap? Yes, in fact it would.

505
00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 3: It would seem not only wrong but silly to suggest

506
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 3: that removing one grain of sand makes a heap into

507
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 3: a non heap. One grain does not make the difference clearly.

508
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 3: But assume you repeat the process a million times, remove

509
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:22,960
Speaker 3: one grain, ask if it's still a heap. Eventually you

510
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 3: would have only one grain of sand left, and by

511
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 3: that point you know it is definitely not a heap. Obviously,

512
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:32,480
Speaker 3: nobody would call a single grain of sand a heap,

513
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 3: And yet it seems impossible to identify any particular point

514
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 3: along the way where removing one more grain of sand

515
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:44,160
Speaker 3: would make it no longer a heap. It's like, oh,

516
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 3: we went from one hundred and thirty eight to one

517
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty seven grains. Now it's not a heap anymore.

518
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 3: That obviously doesn't seem right. But if you can't identify

519
00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 3: the number at which it ceases to become a heap

520
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 3: of sand, what is a heap? You could use the

521
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 3: same process to question the concept of dustiness. Is this

522
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 3: lamp dusty. I'm looking at a lamp right now that

523
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:11,080
Speaker 3: it's pretty dusty. I should have dusted it before we

524
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:14,640
Speaker 3: started recording here. So yes, it's definitely dusty. But if

525
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 3: I were to remove one grain of dust at a time,

526
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:20,320
Speaker 3: is there a point at which it would become no

527
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 3: longer dusty? Well, certainly there is. There's some point you

528
00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 3: would get to where everybody would say, yeah, that's not

529
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 3: a dusty lamp. But you can't say where that point is.

530
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 3: You know you'd hit there before you get to zero

531
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 3: grains of dust or one grain of dust, But where

532
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 3: is it? And no single subtraction of a grain of

533
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 3: dust ever makes sense as the threshold, And so you

534
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 3: can note that it doesn't matter which way you go.

535
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 3: We've been talking about subtraction. But you can illustrate the

536
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 3: paradox by addition as well. So you can start with

537
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 3: one grain of dust, add another grain, add one pyroglyphic

538
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,400
Speaker 3: dust might fecal pellet at a time, and it's hard

539
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:02,680
Speaker 3: to say when the surface goes from not dusty to dusty.

540
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 3: The Sobriety's paradox is usually thought of as relevant to

541
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:10,560
Speaker 3: the philosophical problem of vagueness. It can arise in connection

542
00:31:10,760 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 3: to any term that makes sense and is useful, but

543
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 3: is also vague, And so we can think of examples

544
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:20,960
Speaker 3: from multiple parts of speech. So when you think of

545
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 3: adjective adjectives, you can think of tall, short, long, wide, narrow, loud, quiet, bald, hairy, crowded, sparse,

546
00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 3: all of these where you know, you can make a

547
00:31:36,080 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 3: list of thousands of words like this, all of them

548
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 3: could be subject to a Sobriety's attack. Is a seven

549
00:31:43,440 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 3: foot tall person tall? I think basically everybody would say yes,

550
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 3: Now subtract a millimeter? Is that person still tall? You

551
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 3: can't find a clear cutoff. But also the Sobriety's paradox

552
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 3: goes a bit deeper because you can apply it or

553
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 3: a similar principle to concepts that you might not think

554
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 3: of as readily, concepts that are not usually considered a

555
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:09,480
Speaker 3: type of measure or as counting. Based one example in

556
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 3: a paper that I was reading by a philosopher named

557
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 3: Diana Rathman, any color descriptor, for example, red red color

558
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 3: is usually thought of as visible light at a frequency

559
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 3: of you know, somewhere around four hundred and thirty to

560
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 3: four hundred and forty terra herts. It's a frequency of

561
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 3: reflected visible light, and you can place that range in

562
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 3: different places. You know, some websites I was looking at

563
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:39,600
Speaker 3: said red is between like four hundred and four hundred

564
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:41,960
Speaker 3: and eighty tarra hertz, or it just said it's four

565
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:44,479
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty tarra hertz or four hundred and forty.

566
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 3: So there's obviously a range of frequencies that most people

567
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 3: will look at and say, yeah, that's red, and there

568
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 3: are ranges of other frequencies that most people will look

569
00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 3: at and say that's definitely not red because it's blue

570
00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 3: or it's orange or something. But whatever your starting point,

571
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:04,320
Speaker 3: if you say start within the common red range, you

572
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 3: could vary the frequency of the reflected light rays one

573
00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 3: at a time, you know, one hurts at a time,

574
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 3: one tear, heurts at a time, up and down the spectrum.

575
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 3: At what point is a color no longer red and

576
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 3: instead orange or purple? There are just tons of in

577
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 3: between colors. So either you have to impose a hard

578
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 3: frequency cutoff or some other kind of arbitrary rule that

579
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:31,360
Speaker 3: does not conform to our true experience of seeing colors,

580
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:35,240
Speaker 3: or you have to say that all colors are red.

581
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:39,240
Speaker 3: You know, even blue is red, or even invisible gamma

582
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 3: rays are red too. Or you could say that red

583
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 3: like doesn't exist or is not a meaningful concept. But

584
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 3: I think that's obviously wrong because red is a perfectly

585
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 3: useful concept. We use it all the time. You could say,

586
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 3: can you hand me the red the hammer with the

587
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:57,520
Speaker 3: red handle, and people know what you mean, they pick

588
00:33:57,520 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 3: it up.

589
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. The only time that kind of a request causes

590
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 2: confusion is when you are straight over into an area

591
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 2: where you could make a case for it being a

592
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:11,480
Speaker 2: different color, right, And even then you'd have to have

593
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:14,320
Speaker 2: some other situations. The situation have to be more complex

594
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 2: than that, or you'd have to be particularly fussy to say, oh,

595
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:19,799
Speaker 2: don't you mean the fusia hammer, like, I mean, if

596
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 2: there's one hammer there, you know which one they want, right,

597
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:23,879
Speaker 2: pick the closest one to red.

598
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:26,520
Speaker 3: Right. So I don't think it's a good solution to

599
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 3: this paradox to say, actually red does not exist and

600
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:33,719
Speaker 3: heaps do not exist, because clearly, I mean, we use

601
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:37,399
Speaker 3: these concepts successfully. They are useful and meaningful. There are

602
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 3: objects that are red but not orange, or red but

603
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 3: not blue for that matter, And there's no and at

604
00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 3: the same time, there's no good way to mark a

605
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,279
Speaker 3: universal cutoff point between the frequencies of light that are

606
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 3: red versus orange.

607
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 2: Yeah.

608
00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 3: Now we've already established that the Sobiety's paradox applies to

609
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:59,279
Speaker 3: concepts like heap or pile. Those It's clear how it

610
00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:03,360
Speaker 3: works there, because those are concepts that involve an implicit

611
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:06,759
Speaker 3: counting of things. But also, if you think about it,

612
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 3: it doesn't only apply to collection categories. Most nouns are

613
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:17,319
Speaker 3: defined by some unspecified quantity of mass or measure, or

614
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:22,080
Speaker 3: some unspecified degree of quality. In fact, some philosophers have

615
00:35:22,120 --> 00:35:25,440
Speaker 3: pointed out that you can attack the identity of basically

616
00:35:25,520 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 3: any object with a Sobriety's decomposition. So you know this

617
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:33,319
Speaker 3: is a VHS copy of Highlander two the quickening. Now

618
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:37,399
Speaker 3: take one atom away from it. Is it still Highlander two?

619
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:40,760
Speaker 3: Is it still the VHS? I obviously yes, one atom

620
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 3: doesn't make a difference, And you, obviously at the same time,

621
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:48,440
Speaker 3: cannot do this forever, because like a single carbon atom remaining,

622
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 3: or just a little fleck of black plastic from the

623
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:55,239
Speaker 3: VHS would not be a copy of highland Er two

624
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 3: on VHS. But it is impossible to pick a boundary

625
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 3: where removing a single atom at a time makes a difference.

626
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:06,279
Speaker 3: So these paradoxes arise from common words in terms that

627
00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 3: don't have strict physical or mathematical definitions. Some words, not most,

628
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:17,600
Speaker 3: but some words do have strict physical or mathematical definitions.

629
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 3: For example, the word trio. You could refer to a

630
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 3: trio of sand grains, and there would be three of them.

631
00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 3: If there are more or less than three, it's not

632
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:31,360
Speaker 3: a trio, but a heap of sand or a dusty lamp.

633
00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 3: Those those terms are vague and they don't entail numerical specificity.

634
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 3: Now you might respond to this by saying, well, you know,

635
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 3: this is this problem of vagueness in the soariety's paradox.

636
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 3: It just arises because you know, we're being sloppy, right,

637
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:49,800
Speaker 3: We're using vague words and concepts, and we could speak

638
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 3: more specifically. We should be more specific with our language

639
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 3: and avoid these philosophical problems. But is that achievable and

640
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:02,760
Speaker 3: is that even desirable? The majority of the descriptive words

641
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:07,160
Speaker 3: we use, again, do not have physically and mathematically precise

642
00:37:07,239 --> 00:37:11,719
Speaker 3: definitions and are, to varying extents subject to this kind

643
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 3: of vagueness and Furthermore, I would argue that they have

644
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:19,279
Speaker 3: to be because it would be impossible to build a

645
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 3: language system that was actually usable in which all terms

646
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 3: and expressions had physically precise and mathematically precise definitions. And

647
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 3: if you doubt this, just try it. See if you

648
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:35,560
Speaker 3: can communicate with somebody about everyday matters using no terms

649
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:39,360
Speaker 3: that could invoke a Soroiety's paradox, or only terms with

650
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 3: physically precise definitions. I think if you do this, language

651
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:48,760
Speaker 3: just becomes impossibly inefficient and non expressive. You just can't

652
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 3: really communicate this way, so we actually need vague terms

653
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:56,719
Speaker 3: like dusty, even though we can't tell you exactly how

654
00:37:56,760 --> 00:38:00,880
Speaker 3: many dust grains or pyroglyphic feces are in. At the

655
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:03,160
Speaker 3: same time, I think it's important to be aware of

656
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:09,160
Speaker 3: the Sobriety's paradox because people try to invoke versions of

657
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 3: it or similar types of logic, I think, for purposes

658
00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:17,440
Speaker 3: of deceptive argumentation or to try to affect your thinking

659
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 3: with fallacies. For example, one classic way to try to

660
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 3: resolve the Sobriety's paradox that I think is not valid,

661
00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:28,359
Speaker 3: you know, with the heap of sand, is to say

662
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 3: that the paradox proves that heaps cannot exist. Since n

663
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 3: plus one grains of sand starting at one never constitutes

664
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 3: a heap, and since you can't tell me at what

665
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 3: number it becomes a heap, heaps do not exist. You

666
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:45,359
Speaker 3: can imagine a kid pulling this with his parents when

667
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 3: they tell him to clean his dusty bedroom. It's like, oh,

668
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:51,960
Speaker 3: how many grains of dust constitutes dustiness? Mom? You know,

669
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 3: tell me or your argument is invalid.

670
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:55,920
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, that's going to end well for you.

671
00:38:56,000 --> 00:39:00,560
Speaker 2: Kid can't lose your switch privileges exactly.

672
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:03,919
Speaker 3: So I mean it does sort of in a way

673
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:09,040
Speaker 3: involve an interesting question in philosophy that that you know,

674
00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:12,440
Speaker 3: raises deeper questions about the vagueness of language, But it

675
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 3: doesn't prove what it's supposed to prove. It doesn't prove

676
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:18,319
Speaker 3: that heaps or dustiness do not exist. But people do

677
00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 3: try to use this argument that way. You know, in

678
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 3: a silly example, you could argue that no macroscopic object exists,

679
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 3: since you could you could do a soroiety's paradox on

680
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 3: them by adding or subtracting one atom at a time.

681
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:35,920
Speaker 3: And people do use arguments like this to attack what

682
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:39,239
Speaker 3: I think are basic valid observations, but that they might

683
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 3: not like. So, like a billionaire could could say I'm

684
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:46,640
Speaker 3: not rich by doing a society's paradox with one dollar increments.

685
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 3: Oh well, if you had one more dollar, would that

686
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:53,040
Speaker 3: make me rich? Obviously, it doesn't undermine the idea that

687
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 3: somebody can have a billion dollars and that that means

688
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:58,839
Speaker 3: they're quite wealthy. It just because you can't pick a

689
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 3: single dollar incre meant where they become wealthy.

690
00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 2: Well, unless you are a taxing body, I guess, right,

691
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 2: and then you can put certain thresholds right, But but

692
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 2: then you kind of run into that situation too, where

693
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:13,720
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, so really, if I made a dollar less,

694
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:16,400
Speaker 2: it would be it would be different, it would be

695
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 2: a different bracket, and so forth. I guess. The thing

696
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 2: is we for like legal purposes and so forth, or

697
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:26,319
Speaker 2: even like rule based systems, you know, we sometimes have

698
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 2: to decide on what the cutoff point is, you know,

699
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:31,880
Speaker 2: like that's right, you have to be this tall to

700
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:35,040
Speaker 2: ride this ride. And if if you are just a

701
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:37,279
Speaker 2: little too short or a little too tall for the

702
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:39,319
Speaker 2: ride or whatever, like, then yeah, you get into this

703
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 2: gray area. But sometimes you do have to call.

704
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:43,680
Speaker 3: It, well, yeah, I think much in the same way

705
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 3: that we've talked about on the show before, that like

706
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 3: life is impossible without relying on heuristics for judgment, which

707
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:54,800
Speaker 3: can often be quite inaccurate. And so there are certain

708
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:59,440
Speaker 3: domains where you have to override that natural reliance on

709
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:04,239
Speaker 3: heuristic and involve laborious analytical thinking. Domains like science or

710
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:07,680
Speaker 3: philosophy or something where if you just go on heuristics,

711
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 3: you're going to get the wrong answers. So you can't

712
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 3: do that. And at the same time, it's not possible

713
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:17,719
Speaker 3: to live life by by judging everything based on laborious,

714
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:20,839
Speaker 3: you know, deliberate analytical thinking. I think in the same

715
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:24,000
Speaker 3: way you cannot have a language and a culture and

716
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:27,279
Speaker 3: a life without relying on vague terms. But like when

717
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:29,880
Speaker 3: it comes to the law, vague terms create a lot

718
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:31,920
Speaker 3: of problems, so you have to go out of your

719
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:34,399
Speaker 3: way to try to reduce them. And even then, there

720
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:36,880
Speaker 3: are still lots of vague terms in the law. Like

721
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:40,240
Speaker 3: in the law, you have concepts of reasonableness and stuff

722
00:41:40,520 --> 00:41:45,600
Speaker 3: you know that just that ultimately is saying, like you know,

723
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:50,760
Speaker 3: later jurists, insert your interpretation here as to what reasonableness means.

724
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:54,799
Speaker 2: You know, earlier you mentioned like short and bald and

725
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:57,919
Speaker 2: hairy as examples, and that has only made me think

726
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:01,799
Speaker 2: too of various works of fiction or even nonfiction where

727
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:06,400
Speaker 2: an individual a character is described, and sometimes you'll have

728
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:08,799
Speaker 2: an author who says little more than that, you know,

729
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 2: describes them perhaps as like a short, bald, hairy man

730
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:16,640
Speaker 2: walked across the street, and that does give you like

731
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:19,919
Speaker 2: enough material to sort of run with it and help

732
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 2: generate an image in your mind for that character. But

733
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:26,279
Speaker 2: it's going to vary greatly from one writer to the next.

734
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 2: There are some writers who will, you know, go into

735
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 2: great detail, telling you exactly how hairy they are, exactly

736
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:36,279
Speaker 2: how bald, and exactly how short, you know, drawing on

737
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:38,760
Speaker 2: all the tools of literature to make it very clear

738
00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:42,720
Speaker 2: and perhaps very engaging or funny or terrifying or whatever

739
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:47,799
Speaker 2: in doing so. Or sometimes they'll say something that they're

740
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:49,919
Speaker 2: really not saying much at all, but they'll say something

741
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 2: very specific. You know, it'll be one specific metaphor or

742
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:56,799
Speaker 2: analogy that will that will give you just enough to

743
00:42:56,840 --> 00:42:58,800
Speaker 2: go on and form that kind of concrete idea in

744
00:42:58,840 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 2: your head.

745
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:02,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is interesting, and I guess it is a

746
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:06,959
Speaker 3: feature of each author's individual literary style, how much sort

747
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:11,480
Speaker 3: of laxity and tolerance they want to allow in their descriptions,

748
00:43:11,520 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 3: you know, how much they want to rely on vague

749
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:17,920
Speaker 3: terms that could allow a wide range of interpretations. If

750
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:21,239
Speaker 3: you call a character bald, that could be interpreted as

751
00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 3: them having a completely shaved head, or it could just

752
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:28,799
Speaker 3: suggest significantly thinning hair and so forth. And so some

753
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:31,560
Speaker 3: authors might be comfortable with that whole range, and other

754
00:43:31,600 --> 00:43:35,560
Speaker 3: authors want to impose a more kind of I don't know,

755
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:39,239
Speaker 3: authoritarian take on the reader's imagination and say here's exactly

756
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:41,239
Speaker 3: what you should imagine. I'm going to tell you how

757
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:42,319
Speaker 3: many hairs there are?

758
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 2: You know, I was trying to think of an example

759
00:43:44,680 --> 00:43:48,239
Speaker 2: of you know, I mentioned how sometimes it's very specific,

760
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 2: but in a way that is not giving you a

761
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:54,640
Speaker 2: whole lot of detail either. And I'm trying to think

762
00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:56,839
Speaker 2: of a specific example, and I had to look up

763
00:43:57,239 --> 00:43:59,239
Speaker 2: here online to find one. I believe this is a

764
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 2: book I've read. But in Raymond Chandler's Belong Goodbye, the

765
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:07,799
Speaker 2: character of Philip Marlowe's describing somebody and says he had

766
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:11,239
Speaker 2: a face like a collapsed lung. I mean, what are

767
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:14,440
Speaker 2: you perfect it's somehow it's perfect, and yet like, what

768
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:17,759
Speaker 2: does it mean? How do you? How do you? How

769
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 2: would you do a sketch based on that? I don't know,

770
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 2: but it works. It's distinct enough to work, and it's amusing.

771
00:44:24,560 --> 00:44:27,799
Speaker 3: I really appreciate things like that. You might call those

772
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 3: more kind of spiritual analogies, because you can't imagine that

773
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:35,360
Speaker 3: it means. Literally, it looks like the tissue of a

774
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:39,040
Speaker 3: collapsed lung, but there's something, there's something of a collapsed

775
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:42,360
Speaker 3: lung eness about it. Yeah, that's beautiful.

776
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 2: But this is a great area of contemplation. Touches on

777
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 2: some of the other paradoxes that we've discussed and discussed

778
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 2: in the show before, you know, topics of like infinity,

779
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:56,239
Speaker 2: like in what is infinity plus one? The ship of

780
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 2: theseus and so forth.

781
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 3: And to be fair to the sarri these paradox literature,

782
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 3: it goes a lot deeper. I didn't take us deep

783
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:05,400
Speaker 3: into the weeds on it, but there have been, for example,

784
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:08,719
Speaker 3: some philosophers who have tried to use this paradox to

785
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:14,759
Speaker 3: attack the very foundations of logic, saying like, well, you know,

786
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:18,799
Speaker 3: so there's principle in classical logic that says either a

787
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 3: statement or its negation is true. So you know, it's

788
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:24,880
Speaker 3: got to be the case that either A or not

789
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:29,799
Speaker 3: A is true. And if you've got something like the

790
00:45:29,840 --> 00:45:34,279
Speaker 3: paradox of the heap, then you've got potentially something that

791
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 3: is neither a heap nor not a heap. And so

792
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:40,800
Speaker 3: some people have said, well, then maybe there's something wrong

793
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:44,160
Speaker 3: with logic, and people have come back and argued that way,

794
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:46,520
Speaker 3: and so again, I didn't get deep into those dilemmas,

795
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:48,160
Speaker 3: but if you want to look it up, it's out there.

796
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:51,919
Speaker 2: All right. Well, we're gonna go ahead and close out

797
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 2: this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, our third

798
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 2: episode on Dust, and we will be back for at

799
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:01,839
Speaker 2: least a fourth episode. So if you're trying to figure

800
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:03,880
Speaker 2: out exactly how long we're going to go on Dust,

801
00:46:04,560 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 2: we don't know. We don't know where the heap ends

802
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 2: on this one, but there will at least be one

803
00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 2: more episode on Dust, maybe two more episodes, who knows.

804
00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:16,480
Speaker 2: We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, we'll just

805
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 2: remind you that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily

806
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:23,120
Speaker 2: a science podcast, with core episodes dealing with science and culture.

807
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:25,480
Speaker 2: In the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed on

808
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:28,480
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Mondays we do listener mail, on

809
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:31,440
Speaker 2: Wednesdays we do a short form episode, and on Fridays

810
00:46:31,560 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 2: we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about

811
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 2: a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

812
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

813
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

814
00:46:41,680 --> 00:46:44,400
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

815
00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:46,359
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

816
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:49,040
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

817
00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

818
00:46:57,480 --> 00:47:00,440
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

819
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:03,279
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

820
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:19,280
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.