WEBVTT - Inner Cosmos Inbox 2 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:04.280 Hey, this is David Eagleman on the Inner Cosmos inbox, 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:07.760 and I'm going to answer your questions about the brain. Okay, 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.440 Christina from Minnesota asks, what do I think about the 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:16.439 claims of the government hiding evidence of aliens? Okay, we 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.880 don't really know, but I'll make a general statement from 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.000 the science point of view and one from the neuroscience 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:26.400 point of view. From the science point of view, it 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:30.680 certainly seems unlikely that we're the only intelligence civilization in 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:33.320 the cosmos, given that there are at least one hundred 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:37.120 billion other galaxies, and every galaxy contains about one hundred 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.360 billion stars, and any number of those may have planets 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:43.440 rolling around them, and so the number of planets in 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:46.440 the so called Goldilocks zone where it's not too hot, 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.960 not too cold, and could theoretically sustain life, this is 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:54.200 a mind bogglingly high number. So there's no really good 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:56.840 reason to think that we're all alone in the universe. 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.560 So I would say that whenever we have interesting data, 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.120 we should all be examining it, and therefore, if the 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:08.480 government has data, we should be putting that immediately in 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.120 front of the scientific community. On the other hand, I 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.440 want to emphasize a general neuroscience point, which is that 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:21.400 just because somebody asserts something to be true doesn't necessitate 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:23.959 that it is true. There are dozens of ways that 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:28.880 people can be diluted or fooled, or can pursue opportunities 0:01:28.920 --> 0:01:32.280 for attention, or can misunderstand what they're seeing even with 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:36.040 the best intentions. And so the media coverage around this, 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:39.360 I often hear things like, Oh, this guy is a 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:45.080 decorated soldier, and this is being taken seriously by elected officials, 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:47.440 And let me just make a general statement. I hope 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:50.160 this is not offensive to anybody. But we all have 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:53.320 the same brains. And whether you are a decorated soldier 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:57.200 or an elected public official, when you go home and 0:01:57.240 --> 0:01:59.080 you're lying in your bed and you close your eyes 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:02.280 and you're thinking about life and insecurity is in your 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.760 own death and so on, you're no different than anyone else. 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:09.680 All the rest, the resume and the titles and so on, 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.400 that's all just decorations and it doesn't mean anything. And 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:15.600 so I hope I'm not being offensive when I say 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:19.000 that I have met elected officials and I'm not necessarily 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:21.920 more impressed by their intelligence and insight than I am 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:24.960 with other people I meet. One does not have to 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:27.720 be a genius to get elected. One just needs to 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:30.839 want it badly enough. So the fact that a few 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:35.440 people with titles assert something to be true has little 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.880 to no bearing on whether it is actually true. So 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.520 my general take on this whole thing is that the 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.359 data is totally insufficient right now for us to say 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:47.480 there we have found alien life. And as far as 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:50.240 I can tell, there are a lot of claims about 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.799 the existence of clear data, but not a thing has 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:57.680 been demonstrated yet or unveiled to the public. So we 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:00.880 are in a position of having only a clear data 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.120 and a lot of claims, and in a court of 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:07.280 law that would translate to little or nothing. Let me 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.520 just add one more thing. Some people make the false 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:14.440 assertion that scientists tend to be closed minded about these 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:17.959 alien claims, But I think you would see that scientists 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:21.520 are the most willing to dive into data and completely 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.920 change their minds in an afternoon, faster than you would 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:28.720 believe if they see something that counts as meaningful data. 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.400 A lot of people just stick with their views just 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:36.800 as a matter of political positioning, but the scientific mindset 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.040 is one that is always perfectly happy to change stance, 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:43.600 even one hundred and eighty degrees, if the data support it. 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:46.920 So the issue right now is that we're waiting on 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.640 the claimed existence of some data, and if the weight 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.080 goes on long enough, eventually it's going to start to 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.040 look less and less likely that the data is actually there. 0:03:56.800 --> 0:04:02.240 Claims are not sufficient to convince data is Thanks for 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:18.520 that question, Nathan from Colorado asks, how does being a 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:23.119 neuroscientist affect your experience of the world? Does knowing about 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:28.560 the mechanisms of perception diminish the pleasure of your conscious experience? 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.839 Terrific question. First of all, one of the weird parts 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:36.840 about life is that we can't run a control experiment 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.960 to know what life would be like from a different heads. 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:43.880 So it's hard to know how my experiences would be 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:47.520 different if my trajectory through life hadn't been exactly what 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.799 it was. But generally I would answer you a question 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:55.279 by saying my knowledge of neuroscience affects my own sense 0:04:55.320 --> 0:05:01.359 of experience zero, not at all. So I should unpack that, 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:03.359 which is to say, you know, let's imagine that you 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.600 love mint chocolate chip ice cream. I could write a 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:11.760 whole book on taste receptors on your tongue and the 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:14.600 signals they send to your gustatory cortex and where the 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:17.320 signals go through your brain and leads to the release 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.440 of dopamine and serotonin and blah blah blah. The question is, 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.279 if you read the book, would you enjoy the eating 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:28.080 of mint chocolate chip ice cream any more or any less? 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.720 And my assertion is that the information might be fascinating 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:36.760 to you, but it wouldn't change your experience at all. 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:42.800 Why because the information exists in one place, that of molecules, neurons, 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:46.320 and so on, and the experience of the ice cream 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.960 exists at the level of your conscious experience and never 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:54.880 the Twain shall meet. Knowing everything at one level has 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.440 no influence at another level. So the fact that I'm 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:02.320 a neuroscientist, it doesn't really change much of anything about 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:09.599 my experience in the world. Agga from Turkey asks, what 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.200 if we have no free will? Does that depress you? 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:14.960 I've had so many emails about free will that I'm 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:17.280 going to do an episode on that very soon. But 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:19.920 let me just summarize what I think is an interesting 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:24.080 concept here, which is that what all the experiments have 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.520 shown about free will is that it's problematic to trust 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:32.560 our intuitions about the freedom of our choices. At the moment. 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:38.280 We don't have perfect experiments to entirely rule free will 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:41.240 in or out. It's a very complex topic, and one 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:45.080 that our science might simply be too young to nail 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:49.000 down thoroughly. But let's entertain for a moment the prospect 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.680 that there really is no free will. The brain is 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.359 just a big, giant, wet machine, and when you arrive 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.839 at that fork in the road, your choice is predetermined 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:01.719 every time. If I re history a thousand times, you'd 0:07:02.000 --> 0:07:05.000 take the same turn every single time. Now, on the 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:09.080 face of it, a life that's predictable doesn't sound like 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.440 a life worth living. The good news is that the 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:18.720 brain's unbelievable complexity means that in actuality, nothing is predictable. 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.800 So in my television show The Brain, I set up 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:26.720 a tank with rows of ping pong balls along the bottom, 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:31.239 and each one was delicately poised on its own mouse trap, 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:34.320 which was sprung and ready to go. So when I 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.440 dropped in one more ping pong ball from the top, 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:41.600 it's pretty straightforward to mathematically predict where that ball will land. 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.960 But as soon as that ball hits the bottom, it 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:49.400 sets off an unpredictable chain reaction. It causes other balls 0:07:49.800 --> 0:07:53.280 to believe to be flung from their mousetraps, and those 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:57.680 balls trigger yet other balls, and the situation quickly explodes 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:02.840 in complexity. Any error in the initial prediction, no matter 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:07.560 how small it is, it becomes magnified as balls collide 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.440 and bounce off the sides and land on other balls 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:14.320 on mouse traps. It takes just a moment before it's 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:19.120 completely impossible to make any kind of forecast about where 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:20.880 the balls are going to be and how things are 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.680 going to end up. Now, the thing to note about 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.320 the bing pong balls on the mouse traps is that 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.800 these follow totally basic physical rules that you learn in 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:34.080 high school physics, but where they end up is totally 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:39.720 impossible to predict in practice. Now, by analogy, your brain 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:43.680 is comprised of billions of brain cells and trillions of 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:46.400 signals interacting every second of your life, and so even 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:50.960 though it's a physical system, we could never predict precisely 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:53.400 what is going to happen next. So our brains are 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:58.600 like the ping pong ball tank, but massively more complex. 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.160 You can fit a few hund ping pong balls in 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:04.920 the tank, But your skull houses trillions of times more 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:07.520 interactions than the tank, and it goes on screaming with 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:11.880 activity every second of your lifetime. And from those innumerable 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:17.160 exchanges of energy, your thoughts, your feelings, your decisions emerge. 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:22.320 And that's only the beginning of the unpredictability. Every individual brain, 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.520 yours and mind and everyone else's, is embedded in a 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:29.840 world of other brains. So when you're sitting across a 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:32.920 dinner table from people, or you're sitting in a lecture hall, 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:35.520 or or you have the reach of the internet, you 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:39.120 can contact all the human neurons on the planet. All 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:42.960 the neurons are influencing one another, which creates a system 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:47.199 of unimaginable complexity. And this means that even though neurons 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:52.480 follow straightforward physical rules, in practice, it's always going to 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:57.240 be impossible to predict exactly what any individual is going 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:00.079 to do next, much less than months from now, a 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:05.800 year from now. The Titanic complexity leaves us with just 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.559 enough insight to understand a simple fact, which is that 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:13.960 our lives are steered by forces far beyond our capacity 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.840 for any awareness or control, and That's why I'm not 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:20.360 too worried if we do run like a giant machine 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:24.000 and don't have free will, because it is truly a 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:29.280 colossal machine, one whose size alone makes it totally unpredictable, 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:35.200 and who's embedding among other machines makes it totally unpredictable. 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.120 Keep sending in your questions to podcasts at Eagleman dot 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:42.040 com and listen to the full episodes of Inner Cosmos 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.199 wherever you listen to your podcasts, and also on YouTube, 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.480 where you can leave questions or comments. Until next time, 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:52.480 I'm David Eagleman, and this is the Inner Cosmos inbox.