Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: we're coming at you with new listener mail. It's a
Speaker 1: it's our listener mail round up, our first of the
Speaker 1: new year. Yeah. Yeah, the years starting to get away
Speaker 1: from us. Here, Wait a minute, did I just lie?
Speaker 1: I think maybe we did do one at like the
Speaker 1: very beginning of January. Yeah, but we probably recorded that
Speaker 1: one in the previous year. That's true. This is the
Speaker 1: first recording of nineteen. Okay, I'm sorry. Now I have
Speaker 1: to I have to say this. We always have assistance
Speaker 1: from our mail bought Carney. Say, hi Carney, and UH.
Speaker 1: Today we're having to just tiptoe around a couple of
Speaker 1: topics because um looking on robot egg shells exactly, because
Speaker 1: there's a there's a certain holiday coming up this week
Speaker 1: which we shall not name, that Carney has become very
Speaker 1: sensitive about, and it is UH is prone to U
Speaker 1: two bouts of rage if it is even mentioned now.
Speaker 1: It may have to do with a certain recent breakup
Speaker 1: with a certain office machine that say, makes copies of
Speaker 1: pieces of paper. Yeah, I think I think that's exactly
Speaker 1: what happened. Um, so he's a little touchy. Um. We're
Speaker 1: gonna try and avoid using the the L word and
Speaker 1: certainly the V word. Um, but I don't, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna get in the way, but
Speaker 1: it let's just be very cautious as we proceed through
Speaker 1: these various bits of listener mail. All right, Carney's bringing
Speaker 1: one over right now, let's let's take a look at it. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: this first one is I'm not going to read the
Speaker 1: whole message. It's just part of a genre of listener
Speaker 1: responses that Robert and I have gotten to. Uh. Back
Speaker 1: in the was in in the summer or last fall,
Speaker 1: we did a couple of episodes about the age of
Speaker 1: the Earth because listeners were asking about this, like how
Speaker 1: we actually know that the Earth is about four and
Speaker 1: a half billion years old, and so we talked about that,
Speaker 1: and then at one when in the episode we discussed
Speaker 1: how multiple scientists we were reading had used an expression
Speaker 1: I think was thousands of millions or something, and we
Speaker 1: were like, well, just why not billions? And multiple listeners
Speaker 1: got in touch with us to give us a very
Speaker 1: good answer to this question to say, the reason some
Speaker 1: scientists avoid using the word billion is because billion means
Speaker 1: different things in different languages. Now, isn't that confusing where
Speaker 1: different languages have different like words for orders of magnitude
Speaker 1: that are used to mean a different order of magnitude
Speaker 1: and another language that's horrible and not confusing at all.
Speaker 1: So I think, for example, in like in French and
Speaker 1: in Dutch, like a billion actually means in English a trillion.
Speaker 1: So just to avoid confusion, the term they would use
Speaker 1: sometimes would be they'd either like use scientific notation in
Speaker 1: the number of years, which is one reason. Scientific notation
Speaker 1: with like the tend to the power of something is
Speaker 1: very useful. But then also they could just say thousands
Speaker 1: of millions. So cleared that all right? Here's another one.
Speaker 1: This one comes to us from A C. J. C
Speaker 1: J Rides. Hi, Guys, I've been listening for years, but
Speaker 1: I haven't had anything interesting to comment on until I
Speaker 1: really listen to the episode un Biophilia. I've been working
Speaker 1: with horses for almost my entire life, about two decades now.
Speaker 1: It's my job to train grsage horses. Oh boy. One
Speaker 1: of the things I've noticed is horses are indeed terrified
Speaker 1: of anything that is shaped like a snake, even remotely.
Speaker 1: Here in part of Michigan, we only have very tiny snakes,
Speaker 1: so the horses really don't spook at real snakes, but
Speaker 1: objects on the ground like lead ropes, pitch four candles,
Speaker 1: electrical cords, large branches, pieces of plastic, rustling, leaves, their
Speaker 1: own shadow, and hoses especially scare them to death. The
Speaker 1: young horses are the worst with this, but all of
Speaker 1: them are susceptible to snake meltdowns. Leaping, snorting, bucking, stomping, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Is common. This earns them an annoyed glare and stern
Speaker 1: knock it off from me. It's so common that it
Speaker 1: really has zero fact on my fight or flight instinct anymore.
Speaker 1: Usually I can feel it in my hands way before
Speaker 1: they actually spook. Well, anyway, I thought you might get
Speaker 1: a kick out of the prominent example of biophilia that
Speaker 1: horses exhibit. Horses are also scared of puddles they look
Speaker 1: like black holes to them because they have very little
Speaker 1: death perception, or dark objects close to the ground, which
Speaker 1: I think resemble a crouching predator. I enjoy every episode
Speaker 1: that comes out, and it makes my long commute, much
Speaker 1: better keep it up. A firsthand account of biophobia. Now,
Speaker 1: I know, I can't remember if in that Biophilia episode
Speaker 1: we talked about the idea of like, uh, like sneaking
Speaker 1: up behind a cat with a cucumber in your hand.
Speaker 1: We may, I know we've I know I've brought that
Speaker 1: up on the show before. But yeah, I loved this.
Speaker 1: H this account here in part because my wife what
Speaker 1: is was a horse person and UH and her aunt
Speaker 1: UH still has horses and we go out and visit
Speaker 1: visit them in Arizona every so often. So I'm exposed
Speaker 1: to a lot of people telling me about horses. And
Speaker 1: the horses do come up a bit in our research
Speaker 1: as well. I mean when you when you consider the uh,
Speaker 1: the history of a humanity, and the horse plays a
Speaker 1: vital role, I mean, depending on who is doing the analysis,
Speaker 1: sometimes an essential role. Absolutely, so, thank you very much,
Speaker 1: c J. I mean, and then on top of that,
Speaker 1: there they are animals. We often kind of take that
Speaker 1: for granted. Those of us who do actually work with
Speaker 1: horses to realize that this is this is a like
Speaker 1: a a a sort of a herd based prey animal
Speaker 1: that we have domesticated for our use, but it is
Speaker 1: still a large creature. It is still a creature with
Speaker 1: a lot of hardwired responses to the natural world. Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, looks like there is another animal based
Speaker 1: listener mail coming in here. Oh yeah, So remember in
Speaker 1: our episode about thought experiments, we were talking about Isaac
Speaker 1: Newton using the you know, Cannonball Mountain to illustrate the
Speaker 1: idea of orbital mechanics. Why things an orbit in space?
Speaker 1: And so Isaac Newton, you'll recall, we discussed had an enemy,
Speaker 1: the Royal astronomer John Flamsteed, who Newton just mercilessly harassed.
Speaker 1: And there's this diary entry that we discussed in the
Speaker 1: episode where Flamsteed was complaining that Newton was coming at
Speaker 1: him with quote Navish talk and calling him quote puppy, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And we wondered what that meant. Well, our listener Dolly,
Speaker 1: got in touch to let us know, and Dolly wrote,
Speaker 1: I got to haul out my old friends. Slang and
Speaker 1: its analogs by Farmer and Henley, published in eighteen ninety
Speaker 1: And here's the entry for puppy and this is puppy
Speaker 1: pup or puppy dog colloquial a vain or unmannerly fool
Speaker 1: pop a coxcomb hence puppy ish, conceit or affection, puppy
Speaker 1: ish or puppie impertinent, puppy headed stupid. I love I
Speaker 1: love it. When we can we can find a bit
Speaker 1: of derogatory slaying that has gone extinct and kind of
Speaker 1: pull up the fossil and look at it again and
Speaker 1: try to imagine daily interactions in which this was the
Speaker 1: vile thing to say that somebody would like they like
Speaker 1: write in their diary about it, like this is really
Speaker 1: he called me puppy. I can't believe it. Yeah, or
Speaker 1: some yeah, someone drops puppy during a conversation. Everyone's like, whoa, WHOA,
Speaker 1: cool down there, buddy, don't need to get mean about
Speaker 1: all of this. All right, Well, we have a couple
Speaker 1: of listener mails here regarding demon Eaters and Possessed Tools
Speaker 1: or Lunar New Year episode. Yeah, I just came out
Speaker 1: the other week. This is probably one of the most
Speaker 1: recent episodes will be UH dealing with in this listener mail.
Speaker 1: The first one comes from Brandon. Brandon writes in and says, hey,
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe just finished listening to demon Eaters and
Speaker 1: Possessed Tools episode great topic. I loved it For whatever reason.
Speaker 1: The possessed tool portion or one of your thoughts about
Speaker 1: why they developed a personality or traits reminded me of
Speaker 1: a great short story by Arthur C. Clark called dial
Speaker 1: f for Frankenstone. In summary, the story is set in
Speaker 1: so pre interwebs. At O one thirty, all of the
Speaker 1: phones in the world start to ring. People pick up
Speaker 1: to hear strange inhuman noises. The following day, all the
Speaker 1: crazy happens. Everything is shutting down, planes crashing, electrical grid
Speaker 1: is erratic, missiles are launched. Then the protagonists figure out
Speaker 1: the world's phone system has become so large and complex
Speaker 1: it is now sentient. This is the plot determinator. But
Speaker 1: like more than ten years before Terminator, around ten years
Speaker 1: before he continues. It makes me think that over a
Speaker 1: lifetime of handling duty and maybe different owners or at
Speaker 1: least users would change the personality of these possessed tools,
Speaker 1: like if you used a knife strictly for cutting bread
Speaker 1: versus strictly for cutting meat. Uh ANYWOOSEL love the show?
Speaker 1: B Well, yeah, thank you Brandon. Yeah, I've never read
Speaker 1: that story. That is Terminator, right, like that you you
Speaker 1: connect enough machines together and they become too smart and
Speaker 1: become sentient. Essentially. Yeah, I think that's the basic concept.
Speaker 1: I will say, I do. I do love it. Anytime
Speaker 1: someone either writes in via listener mail or shares with
Speaker 1: this on the Stuff to Blow your mind to Facebook
Speaker 1: group the discussion module, uh, some bit of of old
Speaker 1: sci fi or recent sci fi that ties into a
Speaker 1: topic we've covered. It's always a joy because it's usually
Speaker 1: something I've I've never heard of, or I've heard of,
Speaker 1: but I don't really know about the you know, the
Speaker 1: details of the plot. You know, I can certainly see
Speaker 1: how obviously it sounds like this story is meant to
Speaker 1: be a little bit funny, but I can certainly see
Speaker 1: how in the seventies, before people had really tried this
Speaker 1: level of networking, you could wonder like, well, what would prevent,
Speaker 1: you know, just massive networking of machines from somehow getting
Speaker 1: some kind of emergent intelligent property that we couldn't predict
Speaker 1: from the beginning. Basically, all you need to start with
Speaker 1: is the idea that no individual neuron is sentient or conscious,
Speaker 1: but you network enough of them together in the right
Speaker 1: configuration and somehow the mind emerges. But then again we
Speaker 1: don't know, and that no individual neuron is conscious. Maybe
Speaker 1: it is. Maybe consciousness is additive, you just like concatinate
Speaker 1: enough of it inside the same skull. All right. This
Speaker 1: next one comes to us from Clarissa. Clarissa says, I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed the latest podcast on demon hunts and other
Speaker 1: lunar New Year themes. One of my favorite things about
Speaker 1: all the podcasts from How Stuff Works is is that
Speaker 1: while it's clearly a US based network, you cover topics
Speaker 1: from around the world. I love learning about other cultures.
Speaker 1: I've heard a few podcasts can't remember exactly which ones,
Speaker 1: but they were definitely from HSW that have reminded me
Speaker 1: of a favorite y A book, The Demon Hunter Story
Speaker 1: brought it to mind again, and I thought you two
Speaker 1: might really enjoy the book. It's a very quick read
Speaker 1: in plays with a lot of fun concepts about reality.
Speaker 1: It's called The Homeward Bounders by Diana Wynn Jones. She
Speaker 1: writes a lot of really good to early y A stories,
Speaker 1: the most well known being Howel's Moving Castle. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: this is this would be the book that Miyazaki based
Speaker 1: his movie house Moving Castle hun Yeah, yeah, I like
Speaker 1: that movie. Yeah, I've never I've never read the original material,
Speaker 1: but I absolutely adore that film. I didn't know there
Speaker 1: was original material. I guess I thought it was just
Speaker 1: a movie anyway. Uh, Clarissa continues, but I would recommend
Speaker 1: Homeward Bounders and the game. Homeward Bounders is about a
Speaker 1: kid whose entire world is being secretly run by people
Speaker 1: playing intricate RPG table games. The game is about Roman
Speaker 1: gods as kids in modern time and plays with themes
Speaker 1: that run through myth worldwide. Both are really clever illustrations
Speaker 1: of unique ways to imagine the world. I know Robert
Speaker 1: has a son who may be old enough to enjoy
Speaker 1: the books. I'd guess they're about the same level as
Speaker 1: the first couple of Harry Potter novels. Thank you for
Speaker 1: the show. Oh well, thanks for the recommendation. Yeah, indeed,
Speaker 1: my son is. My wife is currently reading my son
Speaker 1: um the Harry Potter novels. Indeed, they're on. I think
Speaker 1: they're about ready to start the fourth one. I read
Speaker 1: him The Hobbit. We started on The Lord of the
Speaker 1: Rings and we kind of petered out for the time
Speaker 1: being because there's a lot of there's a lot of
Speaker 1: not much happening at the beginning of that book. What
Speaker 1: was the story? He asked about the Hobbit, like, you've
Speaker 1: been reading it, awhile, and he said, like, when does
Speaker 1: the story started? The Hobbit was all gold, it was
Speaker 1: it was Lord of the Rings reading and you know,
Speaker 1: there is a lot of material at the beginning about
Speaker 1: the life of Hobbits and you know, their various meals
Speaker 1: and whatnot. And he was he asked me, he said,
Speaker 1: is it the Lord of the Rings yet? And so
Speaker 1: it will come back to that one. But I would
Speaker 1: love to have, you know, some some sort of good
Speaker 1: chapter book that I could read to him that I
Speaker 1: have some attachment to, or can you know something I
Speaker 1: can discover for the first time. So I've been I'm
Speaker 1: currently reading, uh like a kid's adaptation of the Ramin
Speaker 1: Yana to In and after that maybe yeah, maybe this
Speaker 1: maybe maybe the last Unicorn. I can't decide. That sounds
Speaker 1: like a good problem to have. Oh yeah, alright, On
Speaker 1: that note, we're going to take a quick right and
Speaker 1: when we come back, more listener mail than Alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: So this next group of emails came in about our
Speaker 1: episodes on the split brain experiments where the there were
Speaker 1: experiments in like the nineteen sixties on patients who had
Speaker 1: undergone a corpus callisotomy where their two brain hemispheres were
Speaker 1: severed in order to cure epilepsy, and that that involved
Speaker 1: the severing of the corpus closum and it produced these
Speaker 1: very strange effects. So this first message comes from our listener,
Speaker 1: Chris nij She says, Hey, Rob and Joe, I listen
Speaker 1: to your two party on the split brain and was
Speaker 1: amused with the parts regarding the nuances of language coming
Speaker 1: from the left brain versus a very rudimentary grasp of
Speaker 1: it from the right brain, and that is something we discussed.
Speaker 1: In most cases, most people's left hemisphere is very dominant
Speaker 1: in language. Uh, she continues, I have temporal lobe epilepsy,
Speaker 1: and one of the symptoms of that is aphasia, which
Speaker 1: is trouble with speech or understanding or generating speech, whether
Speaker 1: as part of an absence seizure or after a tonic
Speaker 1: chronic seizure. When others are around me after the seizure,
Speaker 1: including paramedics, I can understand them perfectly, but have a
Speaker 1: very hard time coming up with words. To communicate since
Speaker 1: the epilepsy affects the left side of my brain. Three
Speaker 1: things I usually can say though, are um and sorry,
Speaker 1: Yes I'm Canadian. Uh. I think it reassures people to
Speaker 1: hear me swear because they know it's me. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: glad I can explain to these people that these words
Speaker 1: are probably so ingrained in me that my right brain
Speaker 1: can handle them while my left brain no pork too good.
Speaker 1: Those were very fascinating episodes. I look forward to hearing
Speaker 1: more podcasts about the other topics touched on in these ones.
Speaker 1: All the best, Chris Nash, Well, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: sharing your experience. Uh yeah, this, uh, this seems to
Speaker 1: line up with a lot of what we were reading
Speaker 1: that like, in some cases it seems to very from
Speaker 1: person to person, and in some cases, the right brain
Speaker 1: can understand much more language than it can generate, like
Speaker 1: it can sometimes respond to speech but not really create
Speaker 1: much speech. It looks like you've got three words here,
Speaker 1: and I wish you great power in using them. All right,
Speaker 1: here's another one from Shannon. Shannon writes in and says,
Speaker 1: Dear Robert and Joe, thanks for the fascinating two parter
Speaker 1: unsplit brains. I've been interested in the topic ever since
Speaker 1: my sixth grade science fair, where I attempted to determine
Speaker 1: if left handed people are more typically right brain creat
Speaker 1: a visual, intuitive, etcetera, and vice versa. Only later did
Speaker 1: I learn the left brain versus right brain people concept
Speaker 1: is largely a myth, which explains why I found little
Speaker 1: to no correlation on the question you, Hey, I want
Speaker 1: to say a null result is a good result. It's
Speaker 1: worthwhile to do that. Yeah, it's It's still a good
Speaker 1: science experiment. On the question you raise of how it's
Speaker 1: possible that corpus calacotomy patients display such little behavioral change
Speaker 1: after the surgery, specifically when it comes to moral reasoning
Speaker 1: and theory of mind, I have two thoughts you brought up.
Speaker 1: How odd it is that these patients apparently not noticeably
Speaker 1: change in everyday moral decision making, where they are presumably
Speaker 1: using a system one reasoning. This made me wonder if
Speaker 1: perhaps the area in the right parietal lobe has been
Speaker 1: linked to this type of moral reasoning is in fact
Speaker 1: part of a system to mechanism, and maybe there is
Speaker 1: a separate system one process that is harder to replicate
Speaker 1: in a lab In other words, when calasotomy patients are
Speaker 1: making quick, everyday judgments, maybe they are using a different,
Speaker 1: quicker neurological process that is not affected by splitting the brain,
Speaker 1: and it is only when they are made to sit
Speaker 1: down and rationalize slowly through choices in an experimental hypothetical
Speaker 1: that this right brain process occurs or fails too. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, I also like the idea of various
Speaker 1: compensation mechanisms that work in real world situations but not
Speaker 1: in the lab. One of these might be experiential memory,
Speaker 1: as you touched on while discussing the band or snatch.
Speaker 1: We do make theory of mind related moral judgments every day,
Speaker 1: but perhaps not too many of our novel situations. For example,
Speaker 1: maybe you have a friend who sometimes makes inappropriate jokes,
Speaker 1: but you know not to take him seriously because you
Speaker 1: understand he doesn't mean to be insulting. Then one day
Speaker 1: your corpus colossum gets cut. The next time he makes
Speaker 1: an inappropriate comment. You might not be able to imagine
Speaker 1: his intentions in the same way, but you can still
Speaker 1: remember dismissing him as harmless in the past, and maybe
Speaker 1: you can even remember imagining his attention is his intentions
Speaker 1: in some way the neural pathway is already there, so
Speaker 1: maybe you don't have to rely on the same cut
Speaker 1: off right brain area to make that judgment. Just some
Speaker 1: wild speculations of mine. Hope they make some kind of sense.
Speaker 1: Thank you again for consistently delivering entertaining and thought provoking shows.
Speaker 1: And I'm loving Invention too, sincerely, Shannon. Oh, thanks Shannon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are some really interesting ideas. So one of the
Speaker 1: things when you talk about the idea of system one
Speaker 1: versus system too, that's sort of along the lines of
Speaker 1: what the authors speculate in their conclusion, though they might
Speaker 1: have had it inverted from what you say. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I really like this idea of using memory. Like one reason,
Speaker 1: even if you can't access certain parts of the brain
Speaker 1: you would commonly use for moral reasoning, you might just
Speaker 1: rely on your memory of how you normally interact with
Speaker 1: certain people. And and the fact is probably most of
Speaker 1: the people you're making important moral judgments about throughout the day,
Speaker 1: or probably people you already know, unless you're like a
Speaker 1: judge or in a jury or something. Now, I love
Speaker 1: that she also mentioned that she's listening to Invention because
Speaker 1: we we have had some exciting episodes of Invention come
Speaker 1: out come out recently, including one on the Wheel, while
Speaker 1: we have two part are on the wheel actually, um,
Speaker 1: where we discuss, of course just key archaeological cultural evidence
Speaker 1: for the emergence of wheel technology, but also with you know,
Speaker 1: throw in some discussion of everything from Gary Larson's Far
Speaker 1: Side cartoons to you know, Tibetan Buddhism. Well, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: high five you across the table mime wise for remembering
Speaker 1: to plug invention. If you haven't checked out Invention yet,
Speaker 1: go check it out, check it out and subscribe. It'll
Speaker 1: do you good, It'll do us good. But anyway, let's
Speaker 1: get to the next message. This is from our listener Adam.
Speaker 1: So Adam writes and says, Hi, Robert and Joe, I
Speaker 1: was just listening to the episode Split Brain, Part two
Speaker 1: and wanted to share a thought no pun intended. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if that's a pun, Adam, but okay, um,
Speaker 1: your final point was to encourage people to think for
Speaker 1: themselves rather than base their beliefs on someone else's, such
Speaker 1: as those of a public figure. I found myself pausing
Speaker 1: and thinking about this for a minute. On one hand,
Speaker 1: I agree that being able to think for yourself is
Speaker 1: very important, and that that skill is undertaught. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, there's been a very clear increase in a
Speaker 1: distorted faux critical thinking recently. I think I know where
Speaker 1: you're going with this, Adam, and I think I agree.
Speaker 1: This is manifested in Michael Gove's sick of Experts vision
Speaker 1: of the world, where people feel their feelings hold the
Speaker 1: same objective value as an expert's actual knowledge. In years
Speaker 1: of experience, we've seen the downsides of this in public
Speaker 1: discourse already. Worse we see in the failure to solve
Speaker 1: major problems such as climate change. I'm quite confident this
Speaker 1: isn't what you meant, but I thought it was worth
Speaker 1: bringing up, since to a degree, we must rely on
Speaker 1: others as a source of information. Since none of us
Speaker 1: can be an expert in everything or experience everything, the
Speaker 1: outside world acts almost as a third hemisphere to our brains. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it feeds in both necessary and incorrect information. Even the
Speaker 1: post talk rationalizations that you talked about being used to
Speaker 1: explain what the brain did unconsciously sounds a lot like
Speaker 1: the political and non political tribalism we're seeing so much of. Somehow,
Speaker 1: I feel this may tie together as one side of
Speaker 1: the brain responds to a message that the other side
Speaker 1: would not, but still needs to defend anyway. Apologies if
Speaker 1: I ranted too long. I just wanted to comment also
Speaker 1: and say thank you for the work you do. I
Speaker 1: started listening to podcasts to keep me occupied during my
Speaker 1: daily train commute, but now have so many that I'm
Speaker 1: rarely not listening to something. Stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: is a lot of fun and a good bit different
Speaker 1: than most of my economics, politics, news and side shows.
Speaker 1: Keep up the great work, best Adam. Oh thanks, Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks Adam, and Adam, I think you make a really
Speaker 1: excellent point part of what I what I think I
Speaker 1: was trying to say in this episode has been a
Speaker 1: while now, but I remember talking about the idea that,
Speaker 1: you know, the the left brain. If Michael Gazzaniga's left
Speaker 1: brain interpreter theory is correct, it just sort of like
Speaker 1: immediately incorporates the deliverances of the right hemisphere into the
Speaker 1: idea of self and says, this is just me thinking,
Speaker 1: and that is kind of normal because like that's your brain, right.
Speaker 1: But the idea was that we were discussing Peter Watts
Speaker 1: and uh, and his idea that well, if you can,
Speaker 1: like if you could insert thoughts into the brain, like
Speaker 1: via a direct brain to computer interface or brain to
Speaker 1: brain interface, what would prevent the brain from taking those
Speaker 1: inserted thoughts just as if they were coming from the
Speaker 1: right hemisphere and saying like, Okay, this is just me thinking,
Speaker 1: this is actually just me like not even detecting that
Speaker 1: the thoughts are alien. But then I think that this
Speaker 1: other thing came up because Robert you pointed out that
Speaker 1: we often do this with with external actors anyway. I mean,
Speaker 1: the idea is that often to find out what we
Speaker 1: think about an issue, we just go and consult somebody
Speaker 1: who we listen to, and whatever their view is, that
Speaker 1: just gets incorporated directly as self. Yeah, that's just what
Speaker 1: I think now, And I guess that's what I was
Speaker 1: trying to discourage, the direct and automatic incorporation of the
Speaker 1: views of others as your own view. Instead, you should
Speaker 1: consider do I have a good reason to listen to
Speaker 1: this person's opinion on this subject? Yeah? I know, I
Speaker 1: don't know a lot about the uh this Michael Gove's
Speaker 1: UH six Sick of Experts vision that that is mentioned
Speaker 1: in this listener mail. But I do wonder sometimes that
Speaker 1: you do encounter people who, you know, they do have
Speaker 1: that idea like I, you know, I this is my
Speaker 1: gut feeling on this particular topic. And you know, granted
Speaker 1: they're probably influenced by voices here and there, you know,
Speaker 1: as we all are. But but still they have this
Speaker 1: idea that Nope, I'm I'm making up my own mind
Speaker 1: on this, and in my opinion on this has has
Speaker 1: as value and is you know, screw it, the correct
Speaker 1: vision of reality. And I wonder if sometimes this is
Speaker 1: an attractive way of thinking about say, scientific concepts, uh,
Speaker 1: because we erroneously turn to examples in artistic creation or
Speaker 1: music or you know, you name it outsider art where
Speaker 1: we say, well, you know that the story of like
Speaker 1: the self taught individual who never went to to art school, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, can't read cheap music, but can play you know,
Speaker 1: you know that creates all these beautiful songs and so
Speaker 1: and some of these models. And you can sort of
Speaker 1: certainly you can get into a big argument within any
Speaker 1: artistic medium about uh, you know, the you know, outsider
Speaker 1: artists versus you know, the highly trained artists and traditions, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But there's certainly not. It's it's apples and oranges. I
Speaker 1: think when you're comparing um the artist to the scientist, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly right. I mean, arts or a
Speaker 1: field in which we highly prize intuition and sort of
Speaker 1: inherent skillfulness over over training a lot of times. And
Speaker 1: also the purpose of art is to create a response
Speaker 1: in the audience, and if it creates that response, then
Speaker 1: in a way it's successful. There's not like I mean,
Speaker 1: people could have arguments about this, but I don't think
Speaker 1: that there's a way to be right or wrong in
Speaker 1: art or music or whatever. Well the artist is, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever the medium they're they're they're trying to create a
Speaker 1: shape based on something inside themselves that maybe inside another
Speaker 1: person as well. They're creating something, you know, based on
Speaker 1: an intimate knowledge, inner knowledge, but say something like someone
Speaker 1: like a like a climate scientist, they are or or
Speaker 1: um um, you know, various other scientific field You're you're
Speaker 1: trying to take something that we do not have innate
Speaker 1: knowledge of. You know, it's a complex system that is
Speaker 1: beyond the human experience. There is a shape out there,
Speaker 1: it's like buried in the sand, and you're trying to
Speaker 1: un cover it and get a good model of what
Speaker 1: it looks like. And you can't use that that intuition
Speaker 1: it works so so well in many cases on the
Speaker 1: inner exploration, you can't use that on the outer exploration. Yes,
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good way of thinking about it,
Speaker 1: and I really appreciate Adam getting in touch her because
Speaker 1: this is I think one of the big tensions of
Speaker 1: modern intellectual life is the tension between thinking for yourself
Speaker 1: and listening to people who know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: And these two things, like, they're both very important and
Speaker 1: an important part of like practicing good critical thinking and
Speaker 1: being a well informed person who's more likely to come
Speaker 1: to the you know, to know what's true about things,
Speaker 1: is finding the correct balance of wind exercise these two thoughts.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think one thing is it's it's good
Speaker 1: to think for yourself. But as Adam points out, you
Speaker 1: don't have time to think for yourself on every issue.
Speaker 1: It's impossible. So you have to know what a real
Speaker 1: expert looks like and sounds like versus somebody who's just
Speaker 1: claiming to be an expert and be able to like
Speaker 1: know when to listen to them on subjects that you
Speaker 1: don't have the time to become fully educated on yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so many topics I do not want to be
Speaker 1: an expert in. I don't want to be an expert in.
Speaker 1: Uh uh, you know auto mechanics. That that's somebody else's domain,
Speaker 1: and I'll gladly refer to their expertise. All right. I
Speaker 1: think Carney has one more dripping bit of brain listener
Speaker 1: mail for us here. This one comes also from an atom,
Speaker 1: but a totally different atom. Hello, Robert and Joe. I'm
Speaker 1: a longtime listener of the show for him North Carolina,
Speaker 1: but I've never felt like I had something worth writing
Speaker 1: in about until now. I have a condition known as
Speaker 1: confusional arousal, also called sleep drunkenness. While I have not
Speaker 1: been formally diagnosed, I have had several textbook episodes. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is just an expression, as I don't believe there
Speaker 1: is much literature on the condition. After doing a little research,
Speaker 1: I have found that it is not even mentioned in
Speaker 1: the D S M five, but there are several articles
Speaker 1: about it online. My experiences with the condition have all
Speaker 1: been told to me by others, as I have virtually
Speaker 1: no memory of the events, but several people, including my
Speaker 1: mother and former girlfriend have shared similar reports. It goes
Speaker 1: something like this. I fall asleep while trying to stay awake.
Speaker 1: Someone wakes me up. I am seemingly alert, but extremely confused,
Speaker 1: unable to recognize people or where I am, and sometimes
Speaker 1: mumbling or talking nonsensely. Then I go back to sleep
Speaker 1: and wake up with no memory of the event, although
Speaker 1: sometimes I have sort of a feeling that something happened.
Speaker 1: One particular episode was quite frightening. I was watching TV
Speaker 1: with my then girlfriend and fell asleep on her couch.
Speaker 1: The next thing I remember, she was driving and we
Speaker 1: were nearly to my house, about a fifteen minute drive
Speaker 1: from hers. She was very upset, and I eventually got
Speaker 1: her to tell me that I had an episode, and
Speaker 1: along the way I said I hate you. I remember
Speaker 1: saying something like that. Wasn't me in response, but I
Speaker 1: believe still that because I have no memory of it,
Speaker 1: and my conscious self would never have thought, much less
Speaker 1: said something like that. Still, it raised the question to
Speaker 1: her and myself of whether part of my unconscious mind
Speaker 1: felt that way. Even before I listened to your split
Speaker 1: brain episode, I had the intuition that this episode was
Speaker 1: due to parts of my brain, perhaps one whole hemisphere
Speaker 1: remaining asleep on the rest was awake. I recognize that
Speaker 1: this assumption could be false, as this phenomenon is barely
Speaker 1: recognized in psychology, must let much less explained, but I
Speaker 1: don't know how else this could be explained. Any insight
Speaker 1: you could give would be appreciated, and I believe this
Speaker 1: would fit in well with any future paras omnia episodes
Speaker 1: you would record. Anyway, Thank you for this seemingly endless,
Speaker 1: insightful and fascinating content you have me. Uh. You have
Speaker 1: brought me hours of entertainment and blown my mind many times.
Speaker 1: I especially enjoy your episodes related to space travel and
Speaker 1: science fiction, but all of them are great. Best regards, Adam, Well,
Speaker 1: thanks Adam. Uh yeah, I mean, I think the realm
Speaker 1: of sleep is one of the easiest places people can
Speaker 1: go to to understand what it's like to not know
Speaker 1: your own brain, you know, because they're everybody's had the
Speaker 1: experience I bet of doing something in a dream that
Speaker 1: you would you would think you would never do in
Speaker 1: normal life, and you would never want to do. You
Speaker 1: feel horrible about right, and then you wake up and
Speaker 1: you think, oh my god, you know, I just had
Speaker 1: a dream. Where I slapped my grandmother or something that
Speaker 1: that would just be horrible, Um, why did I do that?
Speaker 1: Is that part of what my brain really wants to do?
Speaker 1: It You're you're confronted with the idea that you have
Speaker 1: things going on in your brain that are not part
Speaker 1: of your volition, you know, not not part of your
Speaker 1: normal will or your normal understanding of yourself that you know,
Speaker 1: I can't say that I ever really have dreams where
Speaker 1: I do things that I wouldn't do in reality. Really yeah,
Speaker 1: like and not now. I certainly have dreams where the
Speaker 1: protagonist of the dream is not me, you know, where
Speaker 1: it's more of a narrative dream, it's a dream about
Speaker 1: somebody else or some other people. But dreams in which
Speaker 1: I am myself. I am often like really inconveniently tied
Speaker 1: to my own um uh, you know, moral behavior, like
Speaker 1: they would be. It would be a lot more fun
Speaker 1: if in some of these cases if I was just
Speaker 1: essentially lucid dreaming and could you know, play the bad
Speaker 1: guy internal grand theft autoing essentially, But it never goes
Speaker 1: that way. It's more like it's just me being like,
Speaker 1: I know I really can't do that, I shouldn't do that. No,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say no to that as well. And then
Speaker 1: later I wake up and I told that was a dream?
Speaker 1: Why did I say say no? I should have just
Speaker 1: I should have just you know, flown through the ceiling
Speaker 1: and been got in my own universe. And I really
Speaker 1: need to make this lucid dreaming thing happen at some point. No,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you're saving yourself a lot of guilt.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it is normal for people to
Speaker 1: have dreams where they do things they don't feel good
Speaker 1: about when they wake up, even though they didn't actually
Speaker 1: do them. You can just be worried that, like, why
Speaker 1: did my brain produce that? I'll see, I I don't know.
Speaker 1: I would. I don't think I've ever had that experience.
Speaker 1: I almost would would would like to try something different differently,
Speaker 1: because yeah, I've just had I just have way too
Speaker 1: many dreams, especially now, like there's like nothing even interesting
Speaker 1: happens in the dream. It's just, uh, in large part
Speaker 1: because I end up playing by the rules so much
Speaker 1: in them. You know, I bet somewhere out there there's
Speaker 1: somebody who's got a book it's like the five step
Speaker 1: process for becoming bad in dreams. I mean, certainly their
Speaker 1: their their process is to help you with lucy dreaming.
Speaker 1: And if i've I've known people who have had get
Speaker 1: some success with it. But it's just it's a lot
Speaker 1: of work and and there's so many other things I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do as as as I'm you know, ramping
Speaker 1: up to bedtime. Well, maybe your brain is just saving
Speaker 1: all your creativity for your waking hours. That would be
Speaker 1: a thing to be thankful for. Maybe that's what's happening.
Speaker 1: That's the positive spin. Alright, Well, on that note, we're
Speaker 1: going to take one more break and when we come
Speaker 1: back a little more listener mail. Alright, we're back. So
Speaker 1: this next message comes from our listener Emmett and it's
Speaker 1: on the subject of Omamua and im it rights Hi again.
Speaker 1: In the recent listener Mail episode, you mentioned that Omumu
Speaker 1: gained momentum by traveling past our son. This is not
Speaker 1: likely to be the case in the sense I think
Speaker 1: you meant as a traveling object inners a gravity well,
Speaker 1: it does gain momentum, but it would then lose all
Speaker 1: that momentum as leaves the well. I think that's correct,
Speaker 1: and it says there are two maneuvers that you can
Speaker 1: gain momentum from a gravity well. The one we usually
Speaker 1: hear about is a slingshot maneuver, which can't be used
Speaker 1: by objects from our Solar system when it comes to
Speaker 1: the Sun because the Sun's momentum is zero from our
Speaker 1: reference frame. Mumua is not from our solar system, true,
Speaker 1: but it's momentum is similar to the Sun's, so I'm
Speaker 1: not sure it could effectively steal momentum from the Sun
Speaker 1: this way. Even if it could, it would depend on
Speaker 1: what side of the Sun it passed by on. If
Speaker 1: it passed in front of the Sun's motion, it would
Speaker 1: actually lose speed. There's another way for an object to
Speaker 1: get a speed boost from the Sun's gravity well, through
Speaker 1: the oh Birth effect. Drive systems in spacecraft are more
Speaker 1: efficient at higher speeds up to a point, and you
Speaker 1: can use the fall into the Sun's gravity well to
Speaker 1: build up some velocity and then activate your drive. This
Speaker 1: will give your drive a small but very real efficiency boost.
Speaker 1: The last way that applies to Mumua is that near
Speaker 1: the Sun, radiation pressure is going to be high, so
Speaker 1: the boost Omumua felt was probably just because it was
Speaker 1: getting blasted with more intense solar wind and radiation um
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think im it's correct about that, And
Speaker 1: what we were talking about in the episode was probably
Speaker 1: that the radiation pressure led to the net gain in
Speaker 1: momentum that omum experience. But I think immats responding to
Speaker 1: somebody asking us um if omumu would gain speed by
Speaker 1: traveling near the Sun, and I think we said it would,
Speaker 1: which of course it would. But immage is entirely correct
Speaker 1: that as it leaves it also loses that speed as well,
Speaker 1: so it would be at the fastest point near its parahelion,
Speaker 1: when it's closest to the Sun in that parabola. So
Speaker 1: you're saying it might be aliens. No, well, what does
Speaker 1: it might mean? I don't know. You know, how small
Speaker 1: of a chance does that encompass. I'm still clinging to
Speaker 1: the the out of control alien derelict ship possibility. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I put a higher chance on it being aliens than
Speaker 1: I do on it being humans from the future. All right,
Speaker 1: I want to read a quick listener mail here that
Speaker 1: came to us. So is related to an older episode
Speaker 1: one that I did with Christian about Chinese ghost marriage.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this one comes to us from Nicole. She says, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I was just listening to your episode on Chinese ghost marriage,
Speaker 1: and I know I'm late to the party, but I
Speaker 1: have a story for you. A couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: my dad attended his father's funeral in Northeast China. A
Speaker 1: man dressed in white, which is typically warned by family
Speaker 1: members of the deceased, approached my dad and greeted him
Speaker 1: as a brother. Neither my dad nor any of his
Speaker 1: sisters had met this man before. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: my grandfather had an older sister who passed away before
Speaker 1: she was married. Around the same time, a boy from
Speaker 1: the same village died, also unmarried. The two were married posthumously.
Speaker 1: The boy's family then went the extra mile and adopted
Speaker 1: a son on behalf of their dead son and daughter
Speaker 1: in law, without the knowledge of my family. That son
Speaker 1: was my dad's cousin. He had come to pay his
Speaker 1: respects to his uncle. Just thought you might like an
Speaker 1: example of how this seemingly archaic rite exists in living memory.
Speaker 1: Keep up the good work, Nicole from Australia. Well, thank you, Nicole.
Speaker 1: That was a wonderful tidday. Yeah that this this was
Speaker 1: an older episode. Uh that that that looked at Chinese
Speaker 1: ghost marriage and uh and you know, tried to get
Speaker 1: to the heart like, you know what why it exists
Speaker 1: and existed as as a practice and what it says
Speaker 1: about um these you know, these traditional Chinese models of
Speaker 1: a family and ideas about uh, you know what, what
Speaker 1: what happens when we die? Now we deal with the
Speaker 1: passing of individuals who have h you know, haven't to
Speaker 1: quite fit into the ideal family form. Uh. So it
Speaker 1: was great to get great to hear from somebody that
Speaker 1: has you know, personal family experience of of this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: totally thank you for getting in touch, Nicole. All Right,
Speaker 1: this next one, we got at least a couple of
Speaker 1: messages in response to the episode Robert and I did
Speaker 1: back in October about curses. It was an episode called
Speaker 1: The Curse, and I was kind of surprised given the
Speaker 1: norm all approach to the show. But we heard from
Speaker 1: a couple of listeners who were unhappy with the episode
Speaker 1: because they thought we were too dismissive or closed minded
Speaker 1: about the idea that magic spells literally work. Um. And
Speaker 1: and of course we did discuss plenty of the potential
Speaker 1: psychological power and meaning of of spell work and witchcraft
Speaker 1: and all that. But uh, they seem to think we
Speaker 1: were too dismissive of spells literally having an effect. Well, well,
Speaker 1: let's let's hear what she had to say. Okay, so
Speaker 1: this is from Michelle. I found your episode on curses
Speaker 1: very interesting, and I have a link to information about
Speaker 1: book curses that you may find interesting as well. However,
Speaker 1: in the podcast, you mentioned more than once that course
Speaker 1: curses were invoked by common folk that the end that
Speaker 1: they had no scientific understanding, and you even stated with
Speaker 1: certainty that magic isn't real. This is surprising because you
Speaker 1: normally keep such open minds. I think you make these
Speaker 1: statements based on the belief that magic is supernatural. But
Speaker 1: what if magic is as naturally possible as gravy or
Speaker 1: quantum physics. I'm no expert on many scientific things, but
Speaker 1: I accept them to be true without clear evidence presented
Speaker 1: to my eyes. I'd encourage you to do some reading
Speaker 1: on magic and modern paganism. You may find it interesting.
Speaker 1: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Wicca and Witchcraft is a
Speaker 1: good place to start. It was highly recommended to me
Speaker 1: by the proprietor of a local witchcraft store, and I
Speaker 1: did find it to be informative as promised. Blessed be Michelle. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks for getting in touch, Michelle, and Um, I while
Speaker 1: I'm going to disagree with you partially, I take your
Speaker 1: point seriously. Um. The first thought I have is that,
Speaker 1: as we talked about in the episode, I think it's
Speaker 1: really important to distinguish between like literal magical causation, like
Speaker 1: the power of spells to levitate objects or strike a
Speaker 1: cloak thief dead at a distance, um, and like the
Speaker 1: personal psychological power of sacred rights like spells. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean I've had people cast spells, you know, pagan spells,
Speaker 1: say in my house as a protective you know, sort
Speaker 1: of housewarming kind of uh an effect. I've had spells
Speaker 1: cast on me that have kind of like a healing objective.
Speaker 1: And certainly neither of these am I going to expect
Speaker 1: you know, them to work. To these two it's for
Speaker 1: the home protection spell to be like a security system
Speaker 1: or the or the the healing spell to be as
Speaker 1: good as uh, you know, going to see a doctor
Speaker 1: about my knee or you know, something to that effect.
Speaker 1: But they certainly have social value. They certainly have There
Speaker 1: is a value in somebody saying I care about you
Speaker 1: or your circumstance, and here is here is a ritual
Speaker 1: that proves it out. I mean, that's that's just how
Speaker 1: I look at it. Yeah, exactly. I mean I feel
Speaker 1: very much the same way about religious rights and rituals
Speaker 1: that you don't have to believe that there's literal supernatural
Speaker 1: power at work in order to see them as valuable,
Speaker 1: because they are psychological dramas. They have meaning and significance
Speaker 1: between people that they establish feelings and relationships. Like when
Speaker 1: I listened to the Song of the Tiger Um. I
Speaker 1: know that it doesn't actually have a magical effect on me,
Speaker 1: but it but it certainly gets me pumped up. It
Speaker 1: makes me feel like like I'm a little bit uh invincible.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And in many ways, I think magic and
Speaker 1: spells and rites and all that can be a lot
Speaker 1: like music. It's not like music is invoking the you know,
Speaker 1: the literal might of some god that exists somewhere, But
Speaker 1: it does something to the people who listen to it
Speaker 1: and the people who play it, and it can be.
Speaker 1: It can be it can be a driving force in
Speaker 1: your life. It can be a reason to live the
Speaker 1: same with with with magic, with religion, with various supernatural
Speaker 1: ideas if we choose to layer them over the objective
Speaker 1: reality that we deal with now. But more directly to
Speaker 1: Michelle's point, so when it does come to like the
Speaker 1: literal magical causation she's talking about, I mean she she
Speaker 1: is correct that I don't like believe in it, and
Speaker 1: we don't tend to consider it on the show as
Speaker 1: like a serious possibility and explaining why things happened, and
Speaker 1: I don't think. Essentially my point is, I don't think
Speaker 1: that it is closed minded to not attribute things to
Speaker 1: literal magical causation, because I think being open minded means
Speaker 1: being opened evidence. And if there's good evidence that there's
Speaker 1: literal magical causation in the world, I think, of course
Speaker 1: we would be open to it. I think we demonstrate
Speaker 1: that all the time. But I just say, personally, since
Speaker 1: like I'm really interested in this sort of thing, and
Speaker 1: I read about this sort of thing a lot, and
Speaker 1: I've never come across anything that seems like good evidence
Speaker 1: of literal magic, I couldn't honestly claim on the show
Speaker 1: to think that maybe magic is actually a good explanation
Speaker 1: for something. So I would feel disingenuous if I was
Speaker 1: on here saying like, maybe magical curses are real. I
Speaker 1: just don't think that's likely to be true. And I
Speaker 1: wouldn't feel honest if I was saying that. But ultimately,
Speaker 1: our show it's not about it's not about say, dismissing
Speaker 1: the idea of curses, is about like saying, well, but
Speaker 1: but look, but look at what Look at all these
Speaker 1: these rituals and all these beliefs that have existed that
Speaker 1: do involve curses, Like why do we have curses? It's
Speaker 1: finding what's important and powerful about curses even if there
Speaker 1: is no literal magic. Yeah, Like none of these things
Speaker 1: are meaningless, like anytime we talk about uh, you know,
Speaker 1: religious concept, mythological concept, like these are not just meaningless
Speaker 1: doodles in the corners of of the the Earth's scientific narrative,
Speaker 1: like these are these are important things. That's say, important
Speaker 1: things about us, about our world and how we interact
Speaker 1: with it. And uh and yeah, I I feel like
Speaker 1: that we always try and keep that part of the
Speaker 1: mission here on stuff to blow your mind. I totally agree.
Speaker 1: I'm finding what's interesting and meaningful about things, no matter
Speaker 1: what those things are. I mean, like, and I would
Speaker 1: also say that I feel like this way of looking
Speaker 1: at the world goes way beyond just like magic and
Speaker 1: spell work, paganism and witchcraft, for example, I know of
Speaker 1: Christians who pray for their loved ones without believing the
Speaker 1: prayer will literally bring supernatural benefits to the people they
Speaker 1: pray for. Instead, it's more like performing an inner drama,
Speaker 1: like reinforces value of selflessness and love and goodwill. It's
Speaker 1: sort of a self conditioning Yeah, I mean, I I
Speaker 1: we employee prayer in my house. It's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: if nothing else, it is a reason to stop and
Speaker 1: think about someone other than yourself, you know. And uh,
Speaker 1: and that alone I think has value in one's life.
Speaker 1: That again, this is just my take on the topic
Speaker 1: totally man, So, I mean, I guess my final thought
Speaker 1: here is that even when it comes to non practitioners,
Speaker 1: a person doesn't have to believe in literal magical causation
Speaker 1: to see what's fascinating and wonderful about things like paganism
Speaker 1: and witchcraft and religious rituals in general. It's is fascinating phenomena.
Speaker 1: It's something I want to understand and learn more about.
Speaker 1: And if we didn't think these were worthy subjects, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't talk about them so much on the show. Now,
Speaker 1: on that note, I am glad that we still have
Speaker 1: not uttered the V word or the L word, and
Speaker 1: thus enraged are our our male body here? That would
Speaker 1: be like invoking the wrath of an angry god. However,
Speaker 1: we do have one last spit of listener mail here
Speaker 1: that does relate to certain red little packages showing up
Speaker 1: on your doorstep. Uh during certain parts of the year,
Speaker 1: We're gonna we have a little bit of regarding Christmas
Speaker 1: Island crabs. Boy. This two comes to us from Dan.
Speaker 1: Dan says, I recently finished listening to the second part
Speaker 1: of your Christmas Island Crab episode, and also, on your recommendation,
Speaker 1: watched Roger Corman's Attack of the Crab Monster. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: spreading the love. After watching the movie, I had an
Speaker 1: idea for a possible remake that is also partially based
Speaker 1: on your episode. The basic plot would stay the same.
Speaker 1: A group of scientists and soldiers land on a remote
Speaker 1: island to discover what happened to the previous group of
Speaker 1: scientists and beyonder a giant, super intelligent crab monster bent
Speaker 1: on world domination. But here's where the remake would differ
Speaker 1: from the nine seven original. It would be set during
Speaker 1: Christmas on Christmas Island and involve enormous, super intelligent coconut
Speaker 1: crabs who have used their psychic powers to turn the
Speaker 1: coal human population into slave labor, who worshiped the giant
Speaker 1: decapods as God's continuously clear roads and build homes for them,
Speaker 1: before ending up as a food source when their usefulness
Speaker 1: runs out. Now, if you had a giant like god
Speaker 1: sized coconut crab, can you imagine the amount of limpid oil?
Speaker 1: What's more frightening a God sized crab or a crab
Speaker 1: sized God. I'm not sure. Okay, Dan continues, and in
Speaker 1: case you're wondering, Yes, it would involve radiation. Some ideas
Speaker 1: are just too good to change. It has to be
Speaker 1: atomic radiation. It's up to a rag tag group of
Speaker 1: scientists and soldiers led by Brian Cox and Peter Stormare
Speaker 1: to put an end to the crabs tyranny and liberate
Speaker 1: the human slaves. Maybe we could use Robert's Wonderful Christmas
Speaker 1: song during the end credits, coming soon into a theater
Speaker 1: near you. Keep up the great work. I look forward
Speaker 1: to more mind blowing episodes in the new year. Somebody
Speaker 1: get Dan in touch with twenty century Fox their paramount.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know what studios do, what
Speaker 1: whoever would make this movie get them going. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think we're overdue for a Giant Crab movie. Somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: do it. It's gonna come back. There's going to be
Speaker 1: another Giant Crab movie. Might as well be this one.
Speaker 1: This one sounds pretty fun, And we have one. More
Speaker 1: about Christmas Islands comes from Chris. Chris writes, Hi, Robert,
Speaker 1: and Joe. I couldn't believe my ears when my wife
Speaker 1: Michelle told me that you guys did not one, but
Speaker 1: two pods about Christmas Island, a place I called home
Speaker 1: for ten years between nine and two thousand six. Wow.
Speaker 1: We we were like, hey, have you lived on Christmas Island?
Speaker 1: If so? Right in we heard from multiple people who
Speaker 1: had been to Christmas Island. I couldn't believe this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it was multiple people. But I knew there
Speaker 1: would there would be at least one person out there.
Speaker 1: I knew. I knew, So I guess it's not too surprising.
Speaker 1: But Chris and Michelle actually lived there. They lived on
Speaker 1: Christmas Island. So Chris continues, we thoroughly enjoyed both episodes,
Speaker 1: and so I thought i'd dig up a few old
Speaker 1: family photos from my childhood featuring days spent amongst the
Speaker 1: red crabs. Every year we look forward to the onset
Speaker 1: of the rainy season, which, as you described so wonderfully,
Speaker 1: initiated the annual crab migration. We'd spend hours running around
Speaker 1: the quiet streets, studying the crabs and watching the hordes
Speaker 1: go by. Thanks for the great podcast and spreading the
Speaker 1: word about my beautiful former home. Hope you like the photos.
Speaker 1: And Chris attached some photos that are so good. One
Speaker 1: is children playing in the street surrounded by crabs. Another
Speaker 1: one is a cat sitting on like a looks like
Speaker 1: a front lawn walkway, just lying there in that wonderful,
Speaker 1: perfect lazy cat repose, surrounded by crabs on all sides.
Speaker 1: The cat does not seem worried. Yeah, this looks like
Speaker 1: a cat that was maybe in really into messing with
Speaker 1: these crabs are checking him out a while ago, and
Speaker 1: now it's just like so over it and it's just
Speaker 1: just napping in the sun. But it looks like the
Speaker 1: cat just is just gonna let the crabs crawl right
Speaker 1: over him. Well, you got a nap somewhere. That's our
Speaker 1: new motto. All right, Well, we're gonna close it off
Speaker 1: there for today, but certainly we we had so much
Speaker 1: more listener mail we didn't have time to get to.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we'll come back to some of it in the
Speaker 1: next installment in about a month or so. But but
Speaker 1: again we thank everybody for writing in because we we
Speaker 1: we really try and read it all. We don't have
Speaker 1: time to respond to it all. We don't have time
Speaker 1: on the show to feature it all, but we just
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