WEBVTT - David Eagleman 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:04.400 The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now. 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:07.880 It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:12.440 it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.760 on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me, 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.520 buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:21.400 see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones. 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:23.880 I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:26.120 you should at least know what's happening, and it is. 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:30.120 The tour kicks off late September and goes through the 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.960 end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:37.440 the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They're available 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:40.720 at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour or 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:45.080 at your local outlet in your region. My name is 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:49.879 Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:53.600 talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness. 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:00.680 On the podcast today, my guest is David Eagleman. 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:06.000 Professor David Eagleman to be precise. Professor Eagleman, or David 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.240 as I call him, is a neuroscientist he knows a 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:11.280 lot about the human brain, but as it turns out, 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:13.679 he knows a lot about artificial brains too. 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:15.240 He's just a very brainy guy. 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:17.280 So I'm going to sound a bit more stupid than 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:29.279 usual in Jomi, David. Let me just say this before 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:29.800 we start. 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:32.959 Do I call you David? Do I call you mister Eagleman? 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:35.440 Do I call you doctor Eagleman? Or do you call 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:36.839 you professor Eagleman? 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:41.480 Or sir? Please call me David. All right? Is it 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.600 a doctor? By the way, you're doctor? Yeah? Doctor Eagelman 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.320 would be what yes, but my mother would call me yes. 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.240 Now I gotta apologize because I'm going to not so 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:55.320 much to you personally, because I think you'll probably be 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:59.360 able to handle it, but to people who already know 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.320 and and understand what you do, I'm going to come 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:07.520 across as someone who doesn't know anything about what you do. Now, 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.440 let's just say that I actually do know what you're doing. 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:16.440 I know everything about your studies and and what you 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:20.239 kind of do. And I'm not an ideot, but everybody 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:26.079 knows I kind of a little bit. Because neuroscience is 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:30.720 I barely understand the Dictionary definition of neuroscience correct me 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:34.720 if I'm wrong. I think it is the study of 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:38.160 how the brain works due to the physicality of the brain. 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:42.639 Is that. Yeah, you don't even need the second half. 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:44.320 Just trying to figure out how the brain works, trying 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:46.440 to figure out what's going on with the brain. And 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:50.800 it can be anything from understanding how vision works, are hearing, 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:55.399 to understanding decision making, to understanding emotions, to understanding why 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:59.000 we have consciousness or how we perceive time. Any of 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.440 that falls under the umbrella of neuroscience. 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:04.880 But it's interesting because it seems to me to be 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:08.720 something that it's an interesting science because it seems to 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:13.160 kind of wonder the theology and metaphysics, and because everything 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.880 is perception. Even the study of neuroscience is perception. So 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.760 how do you feel like you kind of examining yourself 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:22.760 from the inside. 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:25.919 Yeah, that's right. Well, I would say at the edges, 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:30.960 neuroscience scratches lots of things, certainly philosophy, maybe theology, but 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:36.640 the you know, the way you can do things is 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.720 set things up objectively in the real world where you 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:44.120 can verify. Look, I have, you know, three circles that 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.560 are the color red, you know, projecting this wavelength on 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:50.480 the screen and you know, what are people seeing. That's 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:52.920 still example, But the point is we can set things 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:58.680 up in the world and understand what people are individually experiencing. 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:00.840 I'll give you an example. One of the things I 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.640 study is called synesthesia, and that's where people have a 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:07.400 blending of the senses. So they might look at letters 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.160 on the page and it triggers a color experience for them, 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:13.800 so they'll see Jay is purple, and why is blue? 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:18.400 And m is red and so on, and you know, 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:21.080 it's just an internal experience that they're having. We can 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:23.040 verify what's going on in the real world. We can 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:25.680 compare people to each other. About three percent of the 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:29.240 population has synesthesia. But there are lots of things like 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:33.400 this that we do where we study across people to 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:38.240 understand how perception differs. You know, there are other things 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:43.480 like if I ask you Craig to imagine a you know, 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:46.960 an ant crawling our red and white table cloth towards 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.760 jar of purple jelly. How do you perceive that in 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:52.760 your head? Is it clear like a movie or is 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:55.680 it you don't really see anything at all, it's just conceptual. 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.080 Does it involve you then? And like, for example, you 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.039 just gave me the the ant on the If you say, 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:05.240 is it clear like a movie, it's such a weirdly Uh, 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.400 it's semantics because I mean, if I do I imagine 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:10.800 a clear iPhone film? 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:15.320 Is it show on? Is a sixteen millimeters or print? 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:17.000 Is it? Do you know what I mean? Is it 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:19.159 black and white? Right? So, if you had to have 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:22.000 if there was a spectrum from no picture at all 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.840 in your head to a movie at you know, at 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:27.120 the other end of the extreme, where would where would 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:30.000 you be with the ant on the paper? Yeah, the 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:30.880 on on the table cloth. 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:33.680 I think I could get myself right up to imax 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:35.200 with the end on the paper. 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.120 Okay, that's that's amazing. So it turns out that there 0:05:39.200 --> 0:05:42.640 is a spectrum across the population. Everyone's spread pretty evenly 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:48.039 across this in terms of how how visually you imagine 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.920 things on the inside. And again, this is something that 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.400 we can test across the population, and we can also 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:57.920 test it objectively using grain imaging to see how much 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.400 activity there is in the visual part of the brain. 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:04.880 And we see that across anything we measure people exist 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:08.560 on a spectrum. For example, if I ask you how 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.440 loud or intrusive is your internal voice? You know, everyone 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.640 has a dialogue with themselves, right right? Are you aware 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:17.920 of your internal voice all the time or hardly? Ever? 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.400 I would say that that is very much situationally dependent. 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:26.320 When I'm you know, when I'm calm, not at all. 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:31.200 When I'm angry, probably not at all. And when i'm 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:33.919 you know, when I'm trying to make a difficult or 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:39.960 political decision a lot, you know so, or or am 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:41.480 I thinking about the wrong thing? 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.359 No? No, that's that's right. That's a good observation that 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.640 it differs moment to moment. But across the population, we 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.240 also find, you know, some people are really overwhelmed by 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:55.880 their internal radio. Other people have what's called an endophasia, 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.000 which means no internal voice. They just know it's totally 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:03.400 silent in there. Essentially, across anything we measure, we find 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:05.799 that people have very different results. Or how about your memory? 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.600 Are you do you have a great autobiographical memory? Can 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.320 you remember exactly what you were doing at this time 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:13.000 last year or five years ago? 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.720 And I think it's deteriorating as well. Actually as I age, 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:20.720 I really am beginning to think there may be something 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:21.040 in that. 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.280 Yeah, yeah, you just said that three minutes ago. No, 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:28.240 I'm kidding her. Yeah, that's the thing. But you know, 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.080 some people like Mary Lou Henner the actress, and you 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:36.200 know somebody I have this, you know, untaxable autobiographical memory 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:37.800 and everywhere in between. 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:40.280 I talked to Mary Lou Henna rctly and asked her 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.480 about that, and she I tested her because I had 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.400 worked with her years before on a different show. This 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:48.360 was and I talked to her on late night and 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:50.000 she had been on the drink, you know why. I 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:51.880 got even remember why I was talking to her about it. 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:55.760 But she really she really could do that. It's kind 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.960 of it's like a weird trick. It's very it's impressive. 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.040 I guess is a genetic I guess it's genetics. 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:06.400 Right, yeah, yeah, and so and actually so are all 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:08.440 these things, at least as far as we can tell, 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:11.520 you know, all this. But what it goes to illustrate 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:13.960 is that people are very different from one another on 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:16.160 the inside. And one of the this has been one 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:18.680 of my eras of interest in neuroscience is figuring out 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:23.160 why what are the genes or what are the experiences 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:25.120 or you know, what is the thing that has led 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.880 to different circuitry in Mary Leeu's brain in your brain, 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:31.880 that would lead you to have different experiences of what 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:32.559 memory is. 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:37.079 What would happen or have you ever encountered anithon divid 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.680 I can imagine that it could be potentially very explosive 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:45.000 if you say you know, well you know, because it 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.040 could lead you into horrible areas of racism. Like you say, 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:52.040 Medisranean people tend their brains stand to be like this, 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:54.760 or Nordic people their brains stand to. 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:56.800 Be like this. Is that a real thing or is 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:03.400 that made up by Nazis? The general story is, you know, 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.520 Homo sapiens have only spread around the earth very recently. 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:10.040 So you know, we originated in Africa about two hudred 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.000 fift thousand years ago. We came out the top and 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:14.600 half the people turned left and half turned right and 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:19.720 became you know, Europeans or Asians. But on the inside, 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.640 the organ that we have, that three pound mission control 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:27.120 center hasn't changed. That's the same same thing. Why because 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:30.120 two hundred fift thousand years just isn't enough time. In 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:32.800 the same way that people's hearts and lungs and kidneys 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.360 are the same as you go around the world. So 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:40.480 while there's an enormous amount of difference between people, there 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:43.800 aren't between groups of people. On average. You find this 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:45.560 giant distribution everywhere. 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:50.520 Well about the idea, I mean, I presume this study. 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:54.440 Is it driven, I mean it's knowledge driven. I guess 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:58.360 it's science. But is it a medical Is that what. 0:09:58.320 --> 0:09:58.880 We're looking for? 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:04.040 Is it to try and solve problem? Like one of 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:06.960 this brings to mind is demanchia obviously in Alzheimer's, which 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:11.080 is a real kind of cognitive problem. 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:15.520 Yes, yeah, exactly right. So you know, the field of 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:22.280 neuroscience traditionally studies diseases and disorders and what happens with 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.640 the brain to make it change, for example, in cases 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.680 of dementia. I also study that. A lot of the 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:30.920 things I do have to do with those areas, but 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:33.880 just personally, I got very interested in the topic of 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:38.719 you know, how does the brain run in everyone under 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:42.880 normal circumstances, and again, what are the differences between people? 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:45.240 And by the way, how does it matter for society. 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:47.000 So one of the things I do I run this 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:52.240 Center for Neuroscience and Law, which is all the things 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:54.839 that we're learning in neuroscience. How does this affect the 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.920 legal system and how we think about things there. 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:03.000 I mean, so if it there's a behavioral problem, for example, 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.880 excuse me, if you find out that someone reacts a 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:10.400 certain way being triggered by a certain stimulus. Like off 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:11.679 the top of my head, I'm not a doctor and 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:13.640 I don't know what I'm talking about, but say that 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:16.560 I have a brain that if you touch me, I 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:20.480 get very very upset. Is that something that you could 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:23.200 bring into the legal world where you say, well, this 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.360 person behaved very badly when they were being arrested, but 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:28.200 now we found out they've got the type of brain 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:29.840 if you touch them, they get very upset. 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:35.200 So here's the thing, great question. It turns out none 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:38.160 of this lets people off the hook. So if you 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:40.760 break the law, if you cross a sideal line, you 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:43.680 still have to confront the legal system for it. But 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:46.400 one of the things that tells us a lot about 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.560 is new methods for rehabilitation. So what we do right 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:51.160 now is a society and it is true around the 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:54.480 world we treat incarceration as a one size fits all solution, 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:57.720 but in fact, we know so much about the brain 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:01.040 now that if you come in with this particular disorder 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:03.520 where touching you on your shoulder, makes you react badly. 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:05.400 You know, maybe there's something we can do to help 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:12.000 you out, at least such that you know at least 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:15.319 exactly what we're not gonna do. And then it turns 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:17.560 out that you know, we might be able to help 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:19.720 you for the next time. Now, again, it doesn't let 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:22.640 people off the hook. It's not that you go without punishment, 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:25.320 but that's that's the idea, and there are lots of 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:29.160 ways we can do this. Just one example. I've been 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:33.760 a strong advocate for having specialized mental health courts. So 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:35.160 what we do right now as everyone goes to the 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:37.680 same court system, but if somebody has mental illness, which 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:39.720 is a you know, quite a high number of people 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.160 with mental illness end up on the wrong side of 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:44.559 legal system. You know, you have judges and juries that 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.760 maybe don't know anything about let's say schizophrenia or take 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:52.240 drug rehabilitation. Yeah, most judges and juries don't know a 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.479 great deal about what options are available. So having specialized 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:57.800 mental health courts, specialized drug courts, things like this are 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:00.760 really helpful where you have people that expertise, they know 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:02.840 the strategy is available. 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:07.560 It's an interesting thing that you mentioned excuse me schizophrenia 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:12.480 and drug rehabilitation, because schizophrenia. Remember I know nothing about this. 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.160 You know, you're the brain. I'm pinky, right, So that 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.760 my understanding of is or the tinium and I know 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.800 about it is that schizophrenia is a condition which you 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:25.920 I develop. 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:29.240 From a genetic position. Right. It's it's an illness that 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.320 is born within you. Right. It has a strong generic 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:35.160 component to it. It's not entirely can it be brought 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:40.520 on by by outside stimulus. It certainly can be exacerbated 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.560 and brought on early by things like drugs, for example. 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:45.760 So for sure, example, this is a real problem with 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:49.520 young people using marijuana, which has a much higher percentage 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:53.040 of THHC now than it used to in earlier strains. 0:13:53.600 --> 0:13:57.240 A lot of young people are getting psychotic breaks as 0:13:57.280 --> 0:13:59.520 a result of that much higher percentage than used to. 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.240 That happened to me when I took marijuana when I 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:05.360 was when I was young, I stopped take it. 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:05.800 I started. 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:09.199 I took marimana when it was about eighteen through until 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:12.240 I was about twenty, which is all terrible thing to do. 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:15.199 And I didn't do tons of it, but there was 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:17.440 at one point I took some and it it was 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:22.359 one of the most horrendous experiences of my life from marijuana, 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:24.520 and it's very hard to explain that to people who 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:26.520 don't get affected. 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.520 By it that way, right, right, exactly, And there's probably 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:31.600 a genetic component to that in terms of who gets 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.560 affected and who doesn't. But yeah, So back to your 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.720 question about schizophrenia though, right, So, what were you going 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.600 to So it's mostly genetic, but there are environmental things 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:41.560 that exacerbate it. 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:51.280 Well, I was going to ask you about drug addiction, 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.560 which I think I don't know. Is that the same 0:14:55.720 --> 0:15:00.360 is it percent more percentage genetic for schizophrenia is for 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.880 drug addiction? Is it more environmental and land behavior for 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.640 drug and alcohol addiction? I can't imagine there is peer 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.760 pressure to become schizophrenic, you know. It seems like it's 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:17.840 almost accidental. Whereas I speak, is a sober alcoholic? I mean, 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.560 I didn't say out for that to happen, you know, 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:23.760 I say for the sober thing to happen, it basically, 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.080 but it kind of crept up on me. Is there 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:29.000 a genetic predisposition to both of these things? Is what 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:29.520 I'm saying. 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:33.440 There is, although completely separate genetics on the Sudie. But yes, 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.680 there is a genetic predisposition for addiction, for having an 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:42.600 addictive personality. That is clearly a thing. But there are 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.600 very few things really that can be separated cleanly into 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:48.920 nature versus nurture, because there are influences on both. I'll 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:50.520 just give you an example. It turns out that with 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:55.600 back to schizophrenia, one of the things that influences whether 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:58.000 someone has a psychotic break in part has to do 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:00.640 with whether they are living in a place where they 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:03.120 are in their culture, in their language, or whether they 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:06.560 have immigrated somewhere else. And when you're living somewhere else, 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:10.920 there are things like you know, you can't for example, 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:14.160 you can't make jokes in your new language as well, 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:17.200 or you can't fit in exactly as well. And it 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.200 turns out that more people have psychotic breaks. In my 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:22.440 book in Cognito, I talked about this as you know, 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.560 one of the risks of getting schatphrenia is the color 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:30.120 of your passport. So you know that's that's a surprising 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:32.920 social aspect of it that people have discovered. 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:35.960 Well, that's that's kind of fascinating to me. Then does 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:40.920 that does that lead you to study more men aloneness, 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:44.200 because clearly there are things like it's not a man 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:47.640 in aloneness, but clearly if someone is dyslexic, they're bre dyslexic. Right, 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:50.160 it's not something you learn as a little baby, that's right. 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.760 But if someone's left handed or right handed? I was, 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:55.440 was that do you learn? 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:56.280 That? Is it? 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:58.800 I mean, how much information you get right in the beginning, 0:16:58.840 --> 0:16:59.840 I think, is what I'm saying. 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.320 Yeah, yeah, these are great questions. The fact is, when 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:05.080 it comes to nature versus nurture, the answer is almost 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:09.200 always both. There are a very tiny number of things 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:11.560 that are one or the other. Four example, the first 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:14.720 gene that was pulled for a disease was Huntington's disease, 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:19.600 and everyone thought, great, if you have this gene, you're 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:21.800 gonna get Huntington's that's it. And never thought this is 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:23.359 going to be easy. But it turns out it's one 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:27.040 of the few monogenetic diseases that exist, meaning you know, 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:29.200 if you have this gene, blah blah, because everything turns 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:33.439 out to be more complicated. Other diseases involve genetics. They 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.240 have all lots of different genes, whole families of genes. 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:37.800 We're still trying to get to the bottom of them. 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:42.679 But also most of everything involves what's going on societally too. 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:44.320 Let me give you an example of this. This came 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:48.520 out some years ago. The question is are there genes 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:51.680 for depression? Well, it turns out if you're a carrier 0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:55.320 of particular genes, the question is, okay, are you more 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:57.560 likely to get depression? And the answer is that totally 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:01.160 depends on the number of really traumatic life events you have. 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:03.879 So let's say, you know, a terrible car accident or 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:05.960 the death of a loved one, things like that. If 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.879 you've had a lot of traumatic life experiences and you 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.960 carry these genes, then your chance of getting depression is 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.760 much higher than someone who's had the same number of 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.600 traumatic life experiences but don't carry the genes. But if 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:21.080 you don't have let's say any or just a few 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:24.680 life experiences that are bad, your chances are no different 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:28.280 than anyone else. So this is now we refer to 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:34.240 this as gene times environment you know, gene x environment interactions. 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.160 So it depends on both things. 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:41.040 So it's kind of like a recipe then, right, yeah, yeah, 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.439 Like so I want to stay about like some some 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:45.919 bit of this and some bit of that. 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:47.359 You know, you get a little bit of sugar and 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:48.800 a little bit of salt and a little. 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.560 Bit of trauma, and you get you know, you get 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:53.280 a spatial thing, exactly. 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:55.400 And what this points to is the complexity of both 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:59.560 biology and life, right you know, yeah, born, Yeah, things 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:01.639 can happen to you that we're unexpected, and you can 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.080 have genes that interact in unexpected ways. 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:08.080 Yes, And that's so I imagine those probably an almost 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:11.239 infinite amount of variables and all these different things. So 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.040 to depend on how someone is ever going to be, 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:16.680 it just remains as elusive as ever then, right, that 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:18.000 is exactly right. 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:21.560 So you take a movie like Minority Report, where the 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:23.640 shtick was that you could predict who's going to commit 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.920 a crime in the future. It's total fantasy and it'll 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.479 never happen. In other words, people think, hey, as we 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:32.159 get better with brain imaging or with AI, won't we 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:34.919 get to that point someday? But the answer is never happened. 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:40.240 Why Because your brain is changing and rewiring every second 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.920 of your life depending on your interactions. So, for example, 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.440 your brain and my brain are different than they were 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:51.080 five minutes ago, just from conversing with each other. Right, So, 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:54.320 and this is the notion of brain plasticity, which is 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:57.840 that fundamentally, what mother nature has done is built a 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:04.320 system that absorbs the world and is constantly reconfiguring itself. 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.840 So I kind of you mentioned the AI there, so 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:10.960 I kind of find that fascinating because the idea I 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.480 suppose of AI. Again, I know not of AI either, 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:17.359 but the idea is that it mimics the landing pattern 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:19.439 of a human brain, right, because that's all it can do, 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:21.440 given the fact that's all we have to build it with. 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:24.080 Sort of, So this is the really interesting thing. So 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:28.760 AI launched many decades ago, and the idea was, okay, look, 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:32.320 the brain is super complicated, but fundamentally you've got these units, 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.120 and you've got these connections between the units in the brain. 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:37.240 These are neurons, and these are all the connections between 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:40.000 the urts. So people said, look, what if we just 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:42.199 make a cartoon version of this where you just have 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.120 these you know, little units that we've got these connections 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:47.040 that you are just changing the strength of those connections 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:52.560 across the big network. So that's where artificial neural networks 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:55.280 took off and went in that direction, and it turns 0:20:55.320 --> 0:21:00.000 out that's become incredibly successful. We've got this great renaissance 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:04.240 going on of AI. But it's actually not that much 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:07.959 like the human brain. It's it's quite different. So there 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:10.960 are many many things that the human brain does that 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:15.000 AI simply can't, and at least in its current architecture, 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:19.119 you won't do anytime soon. I'll give you an example 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:21.080 of that. But I'll also say really quickly that it's 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:24.600 not to say that we can't build artificial neural networks 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.120 that are just like the brain and someday, maybe five 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:29.440 years now, maybe fifty years from now, do everything in 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:33.360 brain does. But our current stuff like chat GPT, for example, 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:36.560 does not have an internal model of the world. So 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:40.520 if I ask GPT, hey, when Craig Ferguson walks into 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:44.080 a room, does his nose come with him? It won't 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:46.880 know the answer to that because it has no model 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:50.200