1 00:00:05,800 --> 00:00:07,720 Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 2 00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:11,120 Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday. 3 00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:12,760 Speaker 1: That means time to go into the vault for a 4 00:00:12,840 --> 00:00:15,360 Speaker 1: classic episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This one 5 00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:20,759 Speaker 1: originally aired September. And if you've heard us on the 6 00:00:20,800 --> 00:00:23,760 Speaker 1: show making casual references here and there to a strange 7 00:00:23,840 --> 00:00:27,760 Speaker 1: hypothesis from the history of psychology called bicameralism or the 8 00:00:27,760 --> 00:00:30,440 Speaker 1: bicameral mind, and you've wondered what we were talking about, 9 00:00:30,800 --> 00:00:33,559 Speaker 1: here you are. Here's our episode on it. Yeah, this 10 00:00:33,760 --> 00:00:35,879 Speaker 1: these were These were really popular episodes, and they were 11 00:00:35,920 --> 00:00:38,880 Speaker 1: really fun to put together. I will have to drive 12 00:00:38,920 --> 00:00:41,040 Speaker 1: home that you know that we have we we have 13 00:00:41,159 --> 00:00:45,720 Speaker 1: recorded a number of episodes since uh these episodes originally aired, Like, 14 00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:48,680 Speaker 1: for instance, I believe in one of these two episodes, 15 00:00:49,080 --> 00:00:53,320 Speaker 1: I mentioned the book by Terrence Hawkins, uh, The Rage 16 00:00:53,320 --> 00:00:56,360 Speaker 1: of Achilles, and how it sounds interesting. Why I've since 17 00:00:56,400 --> 00:00:59,440 Speaker 1: then read that book, loved that book. And also I 18 00:00:59,440 --> 00:01:01,160 Speaker 1: think in general all we've had a lot of time 19 00:01:01,160 --> 00:01:04,120 Speaker 1: to sort of continue to to turn the concepts of 20 00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:08,399 Speaker 1: Julian Janes around in our mind and think more about them. Yeah, 21 00:01:08,440 --> 00:01:10,640 Speaker 1: I'll say, as far as the credibility of the full 22 00:01:10,720 --> 00:01:14,000 Speaker 1: hypothesis goes about the origins of consciousness and the breakdown 23 00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:16,440 Speaker 1: of the bi cameral mind, I'm no more convinced by 24 00:01:16,440 --> 00:01:18,600 Speaker 1: it than I was when I first read the book, 25 00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:21,720 Speaker 1: And in fact, I think now I have even stronger 26 00:01:21,760 --> 00:01:24,800 Speaker 1: doubts than I originally did, so I ultimately I think 27 00:01:24,840 --> 00:01:27,760 Speaker 1: I've come to the conclusion I think Jans was mostly wrong. 28 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:31,600 Speaker 1: But this remains one of the most interesting books I've 29 00:01:31,640 --> 00:01:34,680 Speaker 1: ever read. It's just a really fascinating way to approach 30 00:01:34,760 --> 00:01:37,960 Speaker 1: a difficult problem like the origin of consciousness, and bringing 31 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:41,720 Speaker 1: together so many different disciplines and and all that. Another 32 00:01:41,760 --> 00:01:45,160 Speaker 1: thing I've mentioned on episodes since then, but that I've 33 00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:47,160 Speaker 1: definitely been thinking about, is how well I think his 34 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:51,720 Speaker 1: whole hypothesis about the origin of consciousness is probably wrong. 35 00:01:52,200 --> 00:01:54,160 Speaker 1: I think there could be something in his idea that 36 00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:58,560 Speaker 1: the quality of religious behavior was was fundamentally different back 37 00:01:58,560 --> 00:02:01,880 Speaker 1: then that perhaps may be in the ancient world, like 38 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:06,040 Speaker 1: true hallucinations were much more common within religion and some 39 00:02:06,120 --> 00:02:08,959 Speaker 1: things like that. Uh, there could be bits of truth 40 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:12,240 Speaker 1: in it, even if ultimately a bicameral mind never existed 41 00:02:12,280 --> 00:02:16,359 Speaker 1: in humans. Yeah, my trajectory with the idea was I 42 00:02:16,400 --> 00:02:19,000 Speaker 1: was really super into it for a little bit, and 43 00:02:19,040 --> 00:02:21,760 Speaker 1: I probably backed off on it a fair amount. I 44 00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:23,880 Speaker 1: still I still really like it, and I think there's 45 00:02:23,919 --> 00:02:26,680 Speaker 1: probably a fair amount of truth in it. I think 46 00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:28,760 Speaker 1: one of the most attractive things about it, though, is 47 00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:34,640 Speaker 1: that it provides an hypothesis for how the gods could 48 00:02:34,639 --> 00:02:37,160 Speaker 1: have spoken to people, like how the voice of God 49 00:02:37,200 --> 00:02:39,640 Speaker 1: could have been true, and how this thing that we 50 00:02:39,720 --> 00:02:43,280 Speaker 1: see in all of these different myths and religions could 51 00:02:43,320 --> 00:02:46,960 Speaker 1: actually be occurring from a you know, from more of 52 00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:52,360 Speaker 1: a grounded, skeptical um mindset. So anyway, we'll just dive 53 00:02:52,360 --> 00:02:54,480 Speaker 1: back into it. We're gonna you know, going back in time, 54 00:02:54,800 --> 00:03:02,240 Speaker 1: and it's re exploring our first episode on the Bicameral Mind. 55 00:03:02,360 --> 00:03:05,440 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks 56 00:03:05,480 --> 00:03:14,080 Speaker 1: dot Com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 57 00:03:14,120 --> 00:03:16,400 Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 58 00:03:16,400 --> 00:03:19,040 Speaker 1: today we're gonna be returning to one of our favorite 59 00:03:19,240 --> 00:03:21,600 Speaker 1: mind blowing topics here on the show, and that's going 60 00:03:21,639 --> 00:03:25,920 Speaker 1: to be the problems inherent in our experience of consciousness. Yeah, 61 00:03:25,919 --> 00:03:27,520 Speaker 1: this is a great one because there's no danger of 62 00:03:27,600 --> 00:03:31,400 Speaker 1: us really explaining it and figuring out consciousness anytime soon. 63 00:03:31,480 --> 00:03:33,360 Speaker 1: And there have been so many different approaches to it, 64 00:03:33,480 --> 00:03:37,400 Speaker 1: right from the neuroscientific to the psychological to the philosophic, 65 00:03:37,640 --> 00:03:41,800 Speaker 1: everyone trying to understand this question. Who am I? What 66 00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:44,200 Speaker 1: am I? What is this thing I'm experiencing? One of 67 00:03:44,240 --> 00:03:47,520 Speaker 1: the most persistent, fascinating questions in the study of mind 68 00:03:47,560 --> 00:03:51,160 Speaker 1: and biology is the question of the function of consciousness, 69 00:03:51,200 --> 00:03:53,520 Speaker 1: not just what is it, but what does it do? 70 00:03:54,240 --> 00:03:58,040 Speaker 1: I mean, you know that you have an internal subjective experience, 71 00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:00,840 Speaker 1: that you're aware of your awareness, that you can turn 72 00:04:00,960 --> 00:04:04,760 Speaker 1: your mind's eye to work over content in this deep 73 00:04:04,760 --> 00:04:08,120 Speaker 1: place in your brain. And by analogy, you believe everybody 74 00:04:08,120 --> 00:04:10,800 Speaker 1: else has this ability as well. They seem to have it, 75 00:04:11,040 --> 00:04:15,560 Speaker 1: But biologically speaking, why does anybody have it? Now? You 76 00:04:15,640 --> 00:04:18,040 Speaker 1: might think it's just a necessary part of being an 77 00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:20,920 Speaker 1: animal with a brain, right, Like, I've got stuff to do. 78 00:04:21,040 --> 00:04:23,000 Speaker 1: I've got to eat, got to go get the groceries, 79 00:04:23,040 --> 00:04:25,760 Speaker 1: got to seek shelter, got to check the coin returns 80 00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:29,039 Speaker 1: in all these candy machines. So my brain needs to 81 00:04:29,080 --> 00:04:32,240 Speaker 1: be able to think about doing that stuff in order 82 00:04:32,279 --> 00:04:35,120 Speaker 1: to do it right. But hold up for a second. 83 00:04:35,800 --> 00:04:38,120 Speaker 1: I wonder if you've ever had this experience, Robert, tell 84 00:04:38,160 --> 00:04:40,480 Speaker 1: me if you have. Do you ever have that experience 85 00:04:40,520 --> 00:04:44,080 Speaker 1: where you're driving a car and you arrive at your 86 00:04:44,120 --> 00:04:47,480 Speaker 1: destination and you suddenly realize and sort of like the 87 00:04:47,480 --> 00:04:51,200 Speaker 1: transition between activities when you get there, that you were 88 00:04:51,320 --> 00:04:55,600 Speaker 1: not conscious of the act of driving. Oh yeah, yeah, 89 00:04:55,440 --> 00:04:58,359 Speaker 1: you go on a sort of autopilot. I've had that 90 00:04:58,400 --> 00:05:01,400 Speaker 1: happened with generally with routine ta asks. Uh, it might 91 00:05:01,440 --> 00:05:05,680 Speaker 1: be driving, it might be emptying a dishwasher, loading a dishwasher, 92 00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:10,799 Speaker 1: that sort of thing, you know, taking dealing with laundry. Yeah, 93 00:05:10,880 --> 00:05:13,280 Speaker 1: and so when in the example with driving, this is 94 00:05:13,320 --> 00:05:16,240 Speaker 1: often known as highway hypnosis. Maybe you were lost in 95 00:05:16,279 --> 00:05:19,080 Speaker 1: your thoughts while on the road and you just managed 96 00:05:19,120 --> 00:05:23,200 Speaker 1: to drive from one place to another without consciously thinking 97 00:05:23,240 --> 00:05:26,520 Speaker 1: about driving at all, and yet you did it. Driving 98 00:05:26,600 --> 00:05:31,080 Speaker 1: is this highly complicated mental task. It involves massive integration 99 00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:34,839 Speaker 1: of sense, information, and coordination of different parts of the body. 100 00:05:34,880 --> 00:05:37,560 Speaker 1: You've got a time, everything just right, and yet your 101 00:05:37,600 --> 00:05:40,320 Speaker 1: brain has the power to make your body do it 102 00:05:40,640 --> 00:05:45,840 Speaker 1: without you thinking about it at all. And unlike dealing 103 00:05:45,920 --> 00:05:48,880 Speaker 1: with laundry or unloading the dishwasher. If you do it wrong, 104 00:05:48,960 --> 00:05:52,279 Speaker 1: people die, So right, it's it's I think it's one 105 00:05:52,320 --> 00:05:54,479 Speaker 1: of the reasons we tend to highlight it is because 106 00:05:54,520 --> 00:05:56,919 Speaker 1: you think about the fact, Oh, I don't really remember 107 00:05:57,000 --> 00:05:59,840 Speaker 1: driving to work, I just kind of did it. And 108 00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:04,360 Speaker 1: it's such a dangerous thing for us to engage in 109 00:06:04,400 --> 00:06:07,120 Speaker 1: and seemingly turn our brain off to. Yeah, it can 110 00:06:07,120 --> 00:06:09,840 Speaker 1: be a terrifying experience for multiple reasons. I mean, one 111 00:06:09,960 --> 00:06:12,839 Speaker 1: is the danger, but the other is just how alien 112 00:06:12,920 --> 00:06:16,240 Speaker 1: it feels to realize that your body is capable of 113 00:06:16,279 --> 00:06:20,640 Speaker 1: doing complex behavior without your knowledge, essentially without you really 114 00:06:20,680 --> 00:06:24,479 Speaker 1: being aware of the entire time. So now, the next 115 00:06:24,520 --> 00:06:26,320 Speaker 1: step I want to take you on is very simple. 116 00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:36,120 Speaker 1: Just imagine everything you do is like this, cooking, cleaning, working, talking, fighting, parenting. 117 00:06:36,640 --> 00:06:40,520 Speaker 1: Imagine your brain is just as capable of doing everything 118 00:06:40,560 --> 00:06:44,960 Speaker 1: it does, but simply without reflecting upon those actions within 119 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:48,800 Speaker 1: the mental theater of your consciousness. So it's highway hypnosis 120 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:53,520 Speaker 1: for your entire life. It's total behavior hypnosis. Is it 121 00:06:53,560 --> 00:06:56,839 Speaker 1: possible for you to imagine this? It's difficult to imagine 122 00:06:56,839 --> 00:07:00,480 Speaker 1: this sort of thing, for sure, because because in this scenario, 123 00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:03,120 Speaker 1: being conscious of your drive like that would be the 124 00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:07,960 Speaker 1: abnormality you're talking about, you know, an abnormal state of 125 00:07:07,960 --> 00:07:11,160 Speaker 1: consciousness or or even a lack of consciousness really would 126 00:07:11,160 --> 00:07:15,480 Speaker 1: be the normal, That would be the predominant human experience exactly. 127 00:07:15,520 --> 00:07:18,640 Speaker 1: And now that you're considering that possibility, we ask again, 128 00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:23,360 Speaker 1: if that's possible, what does consciousness do and where does 129 00:07:23,440 --> 00:07:26,320 Speaker 1: it come from? And why? You know, I think we 130 00:07:26,360 --> 00:07:31,120 Speaker 1: often turned to various metaphors to partially explain our thought processes. Yeah, 131 00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:32,840 Speaker 1: how often, I mean, how often do we fall back 132 00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:36,320 Speaker 1: on computer program movie or or written fiction is a 133 00:07:36,360 --> 00:07:39,080 Speaker 1: loose means of understanding at all. But one of the 134 00:07:39,440 --> 00:07:41,720 Speaker 1: you know, the real damnable things about trying to understand 135 00:07:41,760 --> 00:07:44,520 Speaker 1: consciousness is that like we're stuck within it. It's like 136 00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:49,400 Speaker 1: it's like trying to understand that the Earth is not flat. Right. 137 00:07:49,440 --> 00:07:52,560 Speaker 1: We have all of these various means of of of 138 00:07:52,560 --> 00:07:55,520 Speaker 1: of testing it, of of looking at the data and 139 00:07:55,520 --> 00:07:57,120 Speaker 1: knowing for a fact that the world is not like 140 00:07:57,360 --> 00:08:00,280 Speaker 1: just a flat plane, and we can even in into 141 00:08:00,320 --> 00:08:03,120 Speaker 1: satellite or even a human being up into orbit to 142 00:08:03,280 --> 00:08:05,800 Speaker 1: look back down on the Earth and see it for us. 143 00:08:06,360 --> 00:08:09,600 Speaker 1: But with consciousness, it's not that easy. Uh, you know, 144 00:08:09,720 --> 00:08:13,280 Speaker 1: despite whatever different tools you might be using neuroscientific, psychological 145 00:08:13,400 --> 00:08:17,120 Speaker 1: philosophical to step outside of our consciousness and understand what 146 00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:20,040 Speaker 1: it actually is. Yeah, I mean one of the problems 147 00:08:20,120 --> 00:08:23,360 Speaker 1: is you can't really be conscious of the fact that 148 00:08:23,400 --> 00:08:27,760 Speaker 1: you do things unconsciously, Like you can't feel what that's 149 00:08:27,800 --> 00:08:29,520 Speaker 1: like in the moment, because as soon as you pay 150 00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:32,320 Speaker 1: attention to it to feel it, you're conscious again. Yeah, 151 00:08:32,360 --> 00:08:36,079 Speaker 1: and it's wouldn't be the same thing, really. Perhaps you 152 00:08:36,200 --> 00:08:40,160 Speaker 1: agree or disagree as not remembering doing something, right, you 153 00:08:40,160 --> 00:08:42,199 Speaker 1: could have been conscious of doing something and then had 154 00:08:42,240 --> 00:08:44,520 Speaker 1: amnesia and forgotten about it. Yeah, Or you know, you 155 00:08:44,559 --> 00:08:48,280 Speaker 1: hear people about here about people who consume too much 156 00:08:48,320 --> 00:08:52,840 Speaker 1: alcoholics have a blackout experience, or accounts of people who 157 00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:56,679 Speaker 1: who use ambient to sleep and uh, and they do 158 00:08:56,760 --> 00:08:58,959 Speaker 1: something that they do not remember, and you know, various 159 00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:01,560 Speaker 1: other psychological fact us that can create that experience like 160 00:09:01,640 --> 00:09:05,640 Speaker 1: this order thirty frying pans on Amazon, right, right. But 161 00:09:05,760 --> 00:09:07,880 Speaker 1: for for the for what we're talking about here, this 162 00:09:07,920 --> 00:09:10,160 Speaker 1: is a case where yes, you remember driving to work, 163 00:09:10,920 --> 00:09:14,920 Speaker 1: but you weren't really there for it. Yeah. Yeah, you 164 00:09:14,960 --> 00:09:19,640 Speaker 1: know it happened, but it's just your mind was not present, right, likewise, 165 00:09:19,679 --> 00:09:23,800 Speaker 1: it's not like undergoing anesthesia and just being out for 166 00:09:23,920 --> 00:09:26,360 Speaker 1: the course of a surgery. In thinking about all this, 167 00:09:26,400 --> 00:09:28,840 Speaker 1: you know, I often come back to a quote from 168 00:09:28,840 --> 00:09:32,120 Speaker 1: the author are Scott Baker, who was recently an honor show, 169 00:09:32,240 --> 00:09:35,719 Speaker 1: and he he said this about consciousness. The magic can 170 00:09:35,760 --> 00:09:38,559 Speaker 1: only vanish as soon as the coin trick is explained. 171 00:09:38,600 --> 00:09:42,280 Speaker 1: In this case, we are the magic. So, uh, I 172 00:09:42,360 --> 00:09:44,640 Speaker 1: have to think about that when trying to unravel consciousness, 173 00:09:44,640 --> 00:09:48,280 Speaker 1: like we're we're within consciousness, we're creatures of consciousness. And 174 00:09:48,320 --> 00:09:50,640 Speaker 1: then to try and take it apart as to take 175 00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:54,680 Speaker 1: about ourselves. Well, I know Scott has some anxieties about 176 00:09:54,760 --> 00:09:56,520 Speaker 1: the Well I don't want to put words into his mouth, 177 00:09:56,559 --> 00:09:59,160 Speaker 1: but I think he has some anxieties about you know, 178 00:09:59,240 --> 00:10:02,960 Speaker 1: the consequence is of explaining consciousness too much, Like if 179 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:05,480 Speaker 1: you do explain it, does that create a sort of 180 00:10:05,559 --> 00:10:10,680 Speaker 1: crisis of meaning of existence? Yeah, the sonantic apocalypse. Yeah. 181 00:10:10,760 --> 00:10:13,760 Speaker 1: So this leads us into what we're gonna be talking 182 00:10:13,800 --> 00:10:16,000 Speaker 1: about for the next two episodes of the show. This 183 00:10:16,080 --> 00:10:17,800 Speaker 1: is going to be the first part of a two 184 00:10:17,840 --> 00:10:21,520 Speaker 1: part series where we're going to be discussing a fascinating 185 00:10:21,600 --> 00:10:27,920 Speaker 1: hypothesis in the history of psychology known as bicameralism. Now, specifically, 186 00:10:27,920 --> 00:10:29,920 Speaker 1: we're gonna be looking at the work of the American 187 00:10:29,960 --> 00:10:34,160 Speaker 1: psychologist Julian Jaynes in his nineteen seventy six book The 188 00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:37,959 Speaker 1: Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. 189 00:10:38,440 --> 00:10:40,520 Speaker 1: The two episodes that we're gonna do, we're gonna break 190 00:10:40,520 --> 00:10:43,600 Speaker 1: down roughly like this. In the first episode, we're going 191 00:10:43,640 --> 00:10:48,200 Speaker 1: to just try to explain what Julian Jane's theory of 192 00:10:48,280 --> 00:10:52,720 Speaker 1: the bicameral mind and of modern consciousness is and how 193 00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:55,880 Speaker 1: he gets there from the problem of consciousness. And then 194 00:10:55,880 --> 00:10:58,800 Speaker 1: in the second episode, we want to discuss his argument, 195 00:10:58,880 --> 00:11:02,040 Speaker 1: like his evidence for the theory of the bi cameral mind, 196 00:11:02,200 --> 00:11:05,240 Speaker 1: how he sees evidence of this in history, and maybe 197 00:11:05,280 --> 00:11:09,160 Speaker 1: some reactions to the idea since the bicameral mind. And 198 00:11:09,200 --> 00:11:11,880 Speaker 1: we should be super clear here at the beginning that 199 00:11:11,960 --> 00:11:16,120 Speaker 1: this was and still is a controversial hypothesis. For the 200 00:11:16,160 --> 00:11:18,880 Speaker 1: purposes of discussion today, we're going to be entertaining it 201 00:11:18,960 --> 00:11:22,000 Speaker 1: as a hypothetical, but you should not take this to 202 00:11:22,040 --> 00:11:26,120 Speaker 1: be an endorsement of the hypothesis as fact. It's not 203 00:11:26,280 --> 00:11:29,199 Speaker 1: widely believed to be correct and full though it has 204 00:11:29,240 --> 00:11:31,960 Speaker 1: had many supporters, and even if it's not correct and full, 205 00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:35,079 Speaker 1: which is probably not, it might be correct in part. Yeah. Indeed, 206 00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:36,720 Speaker 1: there are gonna be a lot of points in this 207 00:11:36,760 --> 00:11:40,319 Speaker 1: episode where we're discussing the theory of the bicameral mind 208 00:11:40,600 --> 00:11:44,160 Speaker 1: as if it is something that we are totally convinced of. Yeah, 209 00:11:44,240 --> 00:11:46,760 Speaker 1: and this book I just mentioned the origin of consciousness 210 00:11:46,800 --> 00:11:48,800 Speaker 1: in the Breakdown of the bi cameral Mind. I would 211 00:11:48,840 --> 00:11:52,840 Speaker 1: compare it to the work of, for example, James Fraser 212 00:11:53,360 --> 00:11:55,559 Speaker 1: because I think it's one of those books that's worth 213 00:11:55,679 --> 00:12:00,160 Speaker 1: reading even if it's almost completely wrong, because it's just 214 00:12:00,280 --> 00:12:03,959 Speaker 1: such a fascinating synthesis of so many disciplines. Today and 215 00:12:04,080 --> 00:12:07,920 Speaker 1: the next episode, we're going to be diving through history, archaeology, 216 00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:13,880 Speaker 1: ancient literature, philosophy, psychiatry, neuroscience, and just direct phenomenological experience. 217 00:12:14,600 --> 00:12:18,520 Speaker 1: I read that Dawkins criticized, Well, what Dawkins said of 218 00:12:18,520 --> 00:12:20,880 Speaker 1: the book is that it's either Richard Dawkins either said 219 00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:22,880 Speaker 1: that it's brilliant or it's rubbish, and that there's no 220 00:12:22,920 --> 00:12:26,880 Speaker 1: in between. I disagree with that, Yeah, I would. Yeah, 221 00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:29,280 Speaker 1: I think that it's very possible that it is both 222 00:12:29,440 --> 00:12:33,120 Speaker 1: brilliant and wrong. Yeah, if nothing else, I think it 223 00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:36,679 Speaker 1: serves as a fascinating thought experiment. Yeah, what if this 224 00:12:36,760 --> 00:12:39,719 Speaker 1: is true? What if this were true? And how does 225 00:12:39,760 --> 00:12:42,880 Speaker 1: it force us to reinterpret the past and the legacy 226 00:12:42,920 --> 00:12:45,920 Speaker 1: of our species? Yeah? So, even though I suspect its 227 00:12:45,920 --> 00:12:49,360 Speaker 1: conclusions are probably wrong or at least wrong in part, 228 00:12:49,679 --> 00:12:51,719 Speaker 1: this is one of the most interesting books I've ever 229 00:12:51,760 --> 00:12:54,959 Speaker 1: read in my life. So, strap in, I think we 230 00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:58,079 Speaker 1: should start just by giving a straight version of Jane's 231 00:12:58,120 --> 00:13:01,280 Speaker 1: conclusion and then work our way back to it. Does 232 00:13:01,320 --> 00:13:03,480 Speaker 1: that make sense to you, Robert, Oh, Yeah, that's pretty 233 00:13:03,520 --> 00:13:05,520 Speaker 1: much what he does in the book. Yeah, here's this 234 00:13:05,640 --> 00:13:10,720 Speaker 1: amazing theory of what consciousness consists of and what it 235 00:13:11,120 --> 00:13:13,800 Speaker 1: used to consist of or not consist of, and then 236 00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:16,520 Speaker 1: he works backwards from there. Right, And so here's the 237 00:13:16,520 --> 00:13:19,960 Speaker 1: most basic summary I can give of his conclusion. Until 238 00:13:20,120 --> 00:13:25,040 Speaker 1: roughly three thousand years ago, human beings were not conscious. 239 00:13:26,320 --> 00:13:31,280 Speaker 1: Around that time, modern human consciousness began as a cultural invention, 240 00:13:31,720 --> 00:13:35,520 Speaker 1: probably in Mesopotamia that's spread across the world over time. 241 00:13:36,080 --> 00:13:40,160 Speaker 1: And before that time, for thousands of years, almost all 242 00:13:40,360 --> 00:13:43,440 Speaker 1: humans were not conscious in the way we are, But 243 00:13:43,559 --> 00:13:48,880 Speaker 1: instead we're commanded in all novel behaviors by hallucinated voices 244 00:13:49,240 --> 00:13:52,040 Speaker 1: that they called gods. And I just want to drive 245 00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:55,240 Speaker 1: home the impact of this. The argument is that ancient 246 00:13:55,280 --> 00:13:59,880 Speaker 1: people's did not think like we think. The god run human, 247 00:14:00,400 --> 00:14:03,520 Speaker 1: as he refers to him, at one point experience something 248 00:14:03,559 --> 00:14:05,520 Speaker 1: that for us would feel like an altered state of 249 00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:09,800 Speaker 1: consciousness or spiritual event. Is if we were hypnotized by 250 00:14:09,840 --> 00:14:12,280 Speaker 1: a voice like that of a god and it just 251 00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:15,959 Speaker 1: told us what to do, and then catastrophe forces us 252 00:14:15,960 --> 00:14:19,400 Speaker 1: to learn consciousness, and in doing so, we ceased hearing 253 00:14:19,400 --> 00:14:22,280 Speaker 1: the voices of the gods as we once did. Yeah. So, 254 00:14:22,680 --> 00:14:25,280 Speaker 1: just to be clear about this, what is being proposed 255 00:14:25,400 --> 00:14:28,280 Speaker 1: is in this period, which he calls the period before consciousness, 256 00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:31,400 Speaker 1: is the period of the bicameral human being. In the 257 00:14:31,440 --> 00:14:36,920 Speaker 1: bicameral mind, there was no consciousness. There was just action 258 00:14:37,320 --> 00:14:42,280 Speaker 1: commanded by hallucinated voices from another part of the brain 259 00:14:42,560 --> 00:14:44,800 Speaker 1: that was believed to be a god. Yeah. And what 260 00:14:44,880 --> 00:14:47,960 Speaker 1: we'll get into the idea of schizophrenia as it released 261 00:14:48,000 --> 00:14:51,920 Speaker 1: all of this in the second episode. But James does 262 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:54,520 Speaker 1: say that, like straight up, this was a time when 263 00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:58,120 Speaker 1: everybody was essentially schizophrenic. Now One of the things that's 264 00:14:58,120 --> 00:15:00,680 Speaker 1: interesting about this is it runs own or to a 265 00:15:00,680 --> 00:15:03,560 Speaker 1: lot of what we do when we read ancient literature 266 00:15:03,720 --> 00:15:07,640 Speaker 1: and and flip through ancient history, is that here's I 267 00:15:07,640 --> 00:15:10,240 Speaker 1: would describe my experience this way. Maybe maybe you'll tell 268 00:15:10,240 --> 00:15:12,200 Speaker 1: me whether you think it's the same for you. When 269 00:15:12,240 --> 00:15:16,360 Speaker 1: I read a work of ancient poetry, or I read 270 00:15:16,440 --> 00:15:19,920 Speaker 1: about you know, very very ancient, like the ancient Egypt 271 00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:22,880 Speaker 1: or ancient Mesopotamia, stuff that goes way way back from 272 00:15:22,880 --> 00:15:27,120 Speaker 1: before the Roman Empire, say, I feel like, on the 273 00:15:27,200 --> 00:15:32,560 Speaker 1: face of it, I encounter humans who are completely alien 274 00:15:32,680 --> 00:15:36,240 Speaker 1: to me. I feel like I can't identify with them, 275 00:15:36,400 --> 00:15:40,400 Speaker 1: and I don't understand the way they're being described. And 276 00:15:40,440 --> 00:15:42,880 Speaker 1: what usually happens is I say, okay, well, this is 277 00:15:42,920 --> 00:15:46,240 Speaker 1: just a problem of translation, Like I'm not getting some 278 00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:49,560 Speaker 1: things about the cultural ways that their lives are communicated 279 00:15:49,600 --> 00:15:52,960 Speaker 1: through this literature and recorded. Um so I just need 280 00:15:52,960 --> 00:15:56,640 Speaker 1: to find ways of seeing the analogies between people like 281 00:15:56,760 --> 00:15:59,760 Speaker 1: us and people like them and say, Okay, here they 282 00:15:59,760 --> 00:16:02,680 Speaker 1: were really more like us, and here's why things are 283 00:16:02,680 --> 00:16:06,480 Speaker 1: being misunderstood. But another way, do you kind of have 284 00:16:06,520 --> 00:16:11,200 Speaker 1: that same experience? Um? Yeah, well it depends I mean definitely. 285 00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:13,720 Speaker 1: I would say with the oldest civilization that we continually 286 00:16:13,840 --> 00:16:17,160 Speaker 1: discuss here, it is probably you know, ancient Egypt, and 287 00:16:17,200 --> 00:16:18,680 Speaker 1: you know, we've touched on the fact that like the 288 00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:22,000 Speaker 1: religion of ancient Egypt did not did not travel well 289 00:16:22,040 --> 00:16:24,960 Speaker 1: beyond its borders, and that that's they were, They were 290 00:16:25,040 --> 00:16:28,080 Speaker 1: really alien people to try and understand. So yeah, I 291 00:16:28,120 --> 00:16:32,480 Speaker 1: definitely feel that when I'm whenever we're researching the ancient Egyptians, uh, 292 00:16:32,600 --> 00:16:35,520 Speaker 1: to a certain extent, I felt that we were talking about, uh, 293 00:16:35,560 --> 00:16:38,600 Speaker 1: the you know, ancient ancient Mesopotamia as it relates to 294 00:16:39,080 --> 00:16:42,920 Speaker 1: the Tower of Babel. But but there's I feel like 295 00:16:42,920 --> 00:16:45,920 Speaker 1: there's often also this issue that I guess is best 296 00:16:45,920 --> 00:16:50,240 Speaker 1: summed up by the various medieval pieces of art where 297 00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:52,440 Speaker 1: you know, such as you know, the stuff by Brugal 298 00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:55,120 Speaker 1: the Elder, where you have some sort of mythic thing 299 00:16:55,200 --> 00:16:57,600 Speaker 1: going on, like the Tower of of Babel, but then 300 00:16:57,640 --> 00:17:00,720 Speaker 1: you also have scenes of everyday life. And so I think, well, 301 00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:03,720 Speaker 1: if I'm encountering something that doesn't feel very human and 302 00:17:03,760 --> 00:17:07,240 Speaker 1: looking at an ancient culture, then perhaps that's because this 303 00:17:07,320 --> 00:17:09,960 Speaker 1: is just like the skeleton of experience. This is just 304 00:17:10,040 --> 00:17:13,680 Speaker 1: the heroes the gods, the myths, and very little is 305 00:17:13,720 --> 00:17:17,600 Speaker 1: recorded of daily struggles and daily life. Yeah, but what 306 00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:21,159 Speaker 1: if the issue is not so much that the ways 307 00:17:21,240 --> 00:17:24,639 Speaker 1: they're similar to us is being lost in translation, but 308 00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:28,600 Speaker 1: it's that we're reading that basically correct at face value, 309 00:17:28,760 --> 00:17:31,840 Speaker 1: and they just weren't like us. Yeah. I feel like 310 00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:34,159 Speaker 1: it's it's kind of a challenging perspective to try and 311 00:17:34,160 --> 00:17:38,000 Speaker 1: wrestle with because I want to humanize figures of the past, 312 00:17:38,359 --> 00:17:41,879 Speaker 1: especially you know, people in other cultures. It feels wrong 313 00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:47,760 Speaker 1: to say, look at at at ancient Egyptians, individuals and 314 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:52,240 Speaker 1: you know, in ancient civilizations of Asia or Africa, and 315 00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:54,320 Speaker 1: and think of them as alien, to think of them 316 00:17:54,320 --> 00:17:57,160 Speaker 1: as having a different thought process than than we have, right. 317 00:17:57,200 --> 00:17:59,600 Speaker 1: I Mean, one way I think that we're resistant to 318 00:17:59,640 --> 00:18:02,560 Speaker 1: that is that there's a sort of implied like denigration 319 00:18:02,640 --> 00:18:04,720 Speaker 1: in that saying like, oh, if they were very different 320 00:18:04,760 --> 00:18:07,480 Speaker 1: from us, they weren't as good as us, And we 321 00:18:07,520 --> 00:18:10,720 Speaker 1: certainly don't want to think that way, but we it 322 00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:15,320 Speaker 1: might just be the case that their internal mental life 323 00:18:15,359 --> 00:18:18,080 Speaker 1: was very different than the internal mental life of people 324 00:18:18,119 --> 00:18:20,960 Speaker 1: on Earth today. Yeah, And before we dive in any deeper, 325 00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:22,800 Speaker 1: I do want to point out that, yes, the bicameral 326 00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:26,640 Speaker 1: mind is referenced in HBO's Westworld, UH. And I really 327 00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:29,520 Speaker 1: love Westward. I think it's a wonderful show. However, I 328 00:18:29,520 --> 00:18:32,800 Speaker 1: think you'll find that the the idea of the bicameral 329 00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:38,520 Speaker 1: mind and the ramifications of bicameralism are far more complex, rewarding, 330 00:18:38,600 --> 00:18:43,000 Speaker 1: and terrifying, uh than anything that's explored in that show. 331 00:18:43,400 --> 00:18:45,679 Speaker 1: I totally agree. I remember that it came up, but 332 00:18:45,720 --> 00:18:49,760 Speaker 1: I don't remember there being much about it in the show. Well, Robert, 333 00:18:49,800 --> 00:18:53,479 Speaker 1: I think maybe we should start where Jane's starts in 334 00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:56,879 Speaker 1: his book, which is with the problem of consciousness. And 335 00:18:56,960 --> 00:18:59,480 Speaker 1: he's got he's got an introduction to his book that 336 00:18:59,680 --> 00:19:02,399 Speaker 1: just get is a brief history of all the solutions 337 00:19:02,440 --> 00:19:04,359 Speaker 1: that people have tried to offer to the problem of 338 00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:07,439 Speaker 1: consciousness over the years, which, even if you don't if 339 00:19:07,480 --> 00:19:10,679 Speaker 1: you're not interested in his bicameral theory, this is a 340 00:19:10,720 --> 00:19:13,960 Speaker 1: cool intro to read because it's such a well written 341 00:19:13,960 --> 00:19:17,600 Speaker 1: and concise summary of the history of people trying to 342 00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:20,800 Speaker 1: deal with with what consciousness is and where it came 343 00:19:20,840 --> 00:19:24,120 Speaker 1: from up until the mid nineteen seventies. And he's got 344 00:19:24,119 --> 00:19:27,159 Speaker 1: a quote where he describes the you know, the question 345 00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:29,399 Speaker 1: at the root of the problem of consciousness that is 346 00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:31,919 Speaker 1: so good I had to read it. So consciousness is 347 00:19:32,040 --> 00:19:37,000 Speaker 1: quote a secret theater of speechless monologue and prevenient counsel, 348 00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:41,680 Speaker 1: an invisible mansion of all moods, musings, and mysteries, and 349 00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:46,520 Speaker 1: infinite resort of disappointments and discoveries. A whole kingdom where 350 00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:50,600 Speaker 1: each of us reigns reclusively alone, questioning what we will, 351 00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:54,400 Speaker 1: commanding what we can. A hidden hermitage where we may 352 00:19:54,440 --> 00:19:56,960 Speaker 1: study out the troubled book of what we have done 353 00:19:57,040 --> 00:20:01,040 Speaker 1: and yet may do. An introcosum that is more myself 354 00:20:01,080 --> 00:20:04,480 Speaker 1: than anything I can find in a mirror, This consciousness 355 00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:07,760 Speaker 1: that is myself of selves, that is everything and yet 356 00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:10,600 Speaker 1: nothing at all. What is it? And where did it 357 00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:14,320 Speaker 1: come from? And why? I should also say that the 358 00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:18,320 Speaker 1: description and an infinite resort of disappointments and discoveries a 359 00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:24,560 Speaker 1: perfect review for Disney World. Wait, what are the discoveries 360 00:20:24,600 --> 00:20:27,639 Speaker 1: the discoveries of disappointments or no, no no, the discoveries are 361 00:20:27,680 --> 00:20:30,960 Speaker 1: you are discoveries. It's full of just wonders and disappointments. 362 00:20:31,119 --> 00:20:33,760 Speaker 1: So I mean, I loved it, but yeah, it's a 363 00:20:34,280 --> 00:20:37,280 Speaker 1: it's a it's it's hard to contemplate the discovery of 364 00:20:37,280 --> 00:20:41,240 Speaker 1: what other people throw in the trash. Maybe, isn't that 365 00:20:41,280 --> 00:20:43,239 Speaker 1: one of the most interesting things about going to an 366 00:20:43,240 --> 00:20:45,760 Speaker 1: amusement park is looking in the trash can and seeing 367 00:20:45,760 --> 00:20:48,600 Speaker 1: what people throw away. Maybe this is just me um, 368 00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:50,399 Speaker 1: Maybe this is a huge Joe. I don't know. I 369 00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:54,040 Speaker 1: don't remember the trash cans of Disney World so that much. 370 00:20:55,080 --> 00:20:58,720 Speaker 1: But maybe that's just because it was you know, stimulation overload. No, 371 00:20:58,800 --> 00:21:00,800 Speaker 1: it's great when you let you see a our glasses 372 00:21:00,840 --> 00:21:04,920 Speaker 1: in there or something and it's like, huh hm. Anyway 373 00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:08,560 Speaker 1: back to the problem of consciousness. So, in other words, 374 00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:12,520 Speaker 1: it's not hard to understand where human beings came from. 375 00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:17,040 Speaker 1: Biology and evolution seemed totally sufficient to explain the existence 376 00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:21,199 Speaker 1: of bipedal primates eating and reproducing and making tools. But 377 00:21:21,240 --> 00:21:24,160 Speaker 1: the question is not why are those creatures here? It's 378 00:21:24,200 --> 00:21:28,040 Speaker 1: why are we here? These entities of reflection and awareness 379 00:21:28,320 --> 00:21:31,679 Speaker 1: that seemed to inhabit the bodies of these bipedal primates, 380 00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:35,200 Speaker 1: and so one can easily imagine, as we talked about 381 00:21:35,400 --> 00:21:38,520 Speaker 1: earlier in the introduction, bipedal primates that do all the 382 00:21:38,560 --> 00:21:42,280 Speaker 1: same stuff we do, but our automata there's no inner 383 00:21:42,359 --> 00:21:47,040 Speaker 1: awareness or capacity for deliberative thought or reflection. So if 384 00:21:47,080 --> 00:21:50,600 Speaker 1: if we're evolved beings, at what point in our evolution 385 00:21:50,680 --> 00:21:54,600 Speaker 1: did consciousness appear? And so he he offers a few 386 00:21:54,640 --> 00:21:56,480 Speaker 1: thoughts of this. One of them is the idea that 387 00:21:56,520 --> 00:22:00,480 Speaker 1: consciousness is a property of matter. Right, so the relationship 388 00:22:00,520 --> 00:22:04,080 Speaker 1: of consciousness to what we are conscious of is not 389 00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:08,479 Speaker 1: fundamentally different from the relationship between objects interacting physically by 390 00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:13,080 Speaker 1: contact or by gravity. It's only different in complexity. Of course, 391 00:22:13,240 --> 00:22:17,120 Speaker 1: Jaynes is not persuaded by this view, And I would 392 00:22:17,160 --> 00:22:20,359 Speaker 1: just say, if consciousness is an inherent property of matter, 393 00:22:20,520 --> 00:22:23,800 Speaker 1: like a can of baked beans is in some way conscious, 394 00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:28,639 Speaker 1: why do we completely lose consciousness under general anesthesia? Like 395 00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:31,040 Speaker 1: if you've ever been put under for surgery, you know 396 00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:34,439 Speaker 1: what it's like. There's no consciousness whatsoever. It's just a 397 00:22:34,520 --> 00:22:39,120 Speaker 1: black hole in your in your experience. But so yeah, 398 00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:42,359 Speaker 1: there's no reflection, no internal experience, no memory, no choice, 399 00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:45,560 Speaker 1: no dreams. Your mind just ceases until you wake up. 400 00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:49,080 Speaker 1: But while you're under anesthesia, you still have the same 401 00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:53,679 Speaker 1: mass you did. So if it's something about matter that 402 00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:58,000 Speaker 1: would see, I don't see why changing the chemical uh, 403 00:22:58,240 --> 00:23:01,520 Speaker 1: you know, chemicals flowing through your brain would cause you 404 00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:04,280 Speaker 1: to completely lose consciousness. It's just that some part of 405 00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:06,679 Speaker 1: the brain has been chemically deactivated. The signals to me 406 00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:10,119 Speaker 1: that consciousness has something to do with something happening in 407 00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:13,600 Speaker 1: the brain. Yeah, And I think distinctions like this tend 408 00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:16,280 Speaker 1: to make a lot of sense to modern humans, in 409 00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:19,320 Speaker 1: large part because we have that handy metaphor of hardware 410 00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:22,040 Speaker 1: and software, Right, so it's really easy for us to 411 00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:26,920 Speaker 1: think of of consciousness arising as essentially like software arising 412 00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:30,720 Speaker 1: from the hardware um of the of the brain. Yeah, 413 00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:33,280 Speaker 1: it's not there in the hardware. It has to it 414 00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:37,600 Speaker 1: has to be run by the hardware. Okay, so so 415 00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:40,439 Speaker 1: maybe it's not there in all living matter. But maybe 416 00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:43,040 Speaker 1: Jane says, what if it's a property of all living 417 00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:47,000 Speaker 1: things like amba's have some form of consciousness. It's just 418 00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:50,560 Speaker 1: when life arises, that's when you start having consciousness. Apparently 419 00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:53,639 Speaker 1: Darwin was fond of this idea. He's he sort of 420 00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:58,400 Speaker 1: saw a rudimentary consciousness in all living things. But according 421 00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:00,440 Speaker 1: to Jane's and I think I'd probably have to with them, 422 00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:04,400 Speaker 1: there is just not any evidence that simple organisms possess consciousness. 423 00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:08,080 Speaker 1: Our tendency to project consciousness onto them is just some 424 00:24:08,280 --> 00:24:12,359 Speaker 1: fallacy of sympathy. Like we see behavior and sympathizing with 425 00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:16,680 Speaker 1: the consciousness behind similar types of behaviors in human beings, 426 00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:21,560 Speaker 1: we assume consciousness is behind those similar behaviors in all creatures. 427 00:24:21,560 --> 00:24:25,120 Speaker 1: In Amiba's because you know what, a human being fleeing 428 00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:28,439 Speaker 1: a needle would be conscious. You imagine an amiba fleeing 429 00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:31,040 Speaker 1: a needle would be conscious, But there's just no evidence 430 00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:34,080 Speaker 1: that that's true. Yeah, I think it's important to remember 431 00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:38,040 Speaker 1: that as humans, we we anthropomorphize like mad gods. We're 432 00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:40,480 Speaker 1: wired to see faces, but we're also wired to detect 433 00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:44,119 Speaker 1: minds totally even when there's nothing there. Right, Okay, So 434 00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:49,240 Speaker 1: maybe here's another theory. Jane says, what if consciousness is learning. 435 00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:52,640 Speaker 1: He says a lot of people were persuaded this by 436 00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:55,919 Speaker 1: this view for many years. And here's a quote. If 437 00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:58,879 Speaker 1: an animal could modify its behavior on the basis of 438 00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:03,080 Speaker 1: its experience, it must be having an experience. It must 439 00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:06,360 Speaker 1: be conscious. Thus, if one wished to study the evolution 440 00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:10,520 Speaker 1: of consciousness, one simply studied the evolution of learning. And 441 00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:13,400 Speaker 1: in fact, James himself along with many other psychologists, worked 442 00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:16,679 Speaker 1: under this assumption for many years of psychological research before 443 00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:19,840 Speaker 1: rejecting it. For example, he tells stories about how he 444 00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:22,919 Speaker 1: did experiments to see if a mimosa plant could be 445 00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:26,000 Speaker 1: trained through conditioning, and he in the end determined that 446 00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:30,119 Speaker 1: the mimosa plant was not conscious. Uh. He he found 447 00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:34,720 Speaker 1: that species with synaptic nervous systems like fish, flatworms, earthworms, 448 00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:37,960 Speaker 1: and so forth, could learn, and originally he took this 449 00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:41,760 Speaker 1: as evidence that they possessed some form of consciousness, but 450 00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:45,159 Speaker 1: later research has shown this to be just obviously wrong. 451 00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:49,080 Speaker 1: You don't need consciousness for learning, because we can show 452 00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:52,480 Speaker 1: in human beings that there's a tremendous amount of totally 453 00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:57,480 Speaker 1: unconscious learning, unconscious conditioning. Yeah. Plus we need only think 454 00:25:57,520 --> 00:26:00,320 Speaker 1: to the slime mold for an example of learning taking 455 00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:03,240 Speaker 1: place in the absence of a brain. So um, yeah, 456 00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:06,000 Speaker 1: I feel like we've we've moved beyond that. Okay, the 457 00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:09,720 Speaker 1: next one is just consciousness is a metaphysical, metaphysical imposition. 458 00:26:10,280 --> 00:26:14,600 Speaker 1: It's it's magic, you know. And Okay, well, if if 459 00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:19,160 Speaker 1: you think it's magic, enjoy, But that's that's not really 460 00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:22,160 Speaker 1: something that's very productive to proceed with from a scientific 461 00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,560 Speaker 1: point of view, it's hard to do experiments to see 462 00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:29,399 Speaker 1: if consciousness is magic. So uh so you believe that 463 00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:31,840 Speaker 1: if you want, but that's not really going to give 464 00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:34,920 Speaker 1: you a program of experimentation to work with. Yeah. I 465 00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:37,560 Speaker 1: think we can only engage in dualism so far from 466 00:26:37,560 --> 00:26:40,600 Speaker 1: a scientific standpoint, because the mind that stands apart from 467 00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:44,080 Speaker 1: body must still be rooted in our universe. Uh. Yeah, 468 00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:46,680 Speaker 1: so we can't really do much with magic. Here's another one. 469 00:26:46,760 --> 00:26:48,600 Speaker 1: We've talked about this one on the show before. Here's 470 00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:53,320 Speaker 1: the helpless spectator theory. Consciousness does nothing, and in fact 471 00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:56,320 Speaker 1: it can do nothing. So the idea is that at 472 00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:59,760 Speaker 1: some point an evolution, sufficiently complex brains begin to create 473 00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:03,320 Speaker 1: this sense of awareness of deliberate thought. Uh. And the 474 00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:06,919 Speaker 1: relationship between this sensation of experience and the actions in 475 00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:11,679 Speaker 1: your body is a complete illusion. Your consciousness does not 476 00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:14,600 Speaker 1: in fact control your body. Your body acts, and your 477 00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:19,280 Speaker 1: consciousness watches you act. It's a helpless passenger. You're essentially 478 00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:22,679 Speaker 1: watching a movie of your own mind, suffering from the 479 00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:26,520 Speaker 1: delusion that you're participating in the movie. This is also 480 00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:32,359 Speaker 1: known sometimes as epiphenomenalism, that consciousness is just an epiphenomenal, uh, 481 00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:37,720 Speaker 1: byproduct of mental processes. Yeah. Thomas Huxley was fond of this, 482 00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:41,560 Speaker 1: and he would compare conscious mind and the physical brain 483 00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:45,040 Speaker 1: to a genie and a lamp. Yeah. But so a 484 00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:47,840 Speaker 1: lot of people have found this not very productive. I mean, 485 00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:51,840 Speaker 1: one would one question would be well, but still what 486 00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:56,640 Speaker 1: is it? Another thing would be the American psychologist William James, 487 00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:58,840 Speaker 1: the guy who wrote The Varieties of Religious Experience. He 488 00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:02,760 Speaker 1: argued against this view, as paraphrased by Jane's quote, If 489 00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:06,199 Speaker 1: consciousness is the mere, impotent shadow of action, why is 490 00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:10,240 Speaker 1: it more intense when action is most hesitant? And why 491 00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:14,320 Speaker 1: are we least conscious when doing something most habitual? I 492 00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:18,080 Speaker 1: think that's a reasonable question. So Janes ends up saying 493 00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:20,600 Speaker 1: that he thinks any viable theory of consciousness should at 494 00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:25,160 Speaker 1: least try to explain a relationship between consciousness and behavior. Okay, 495 00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:27,240 Speaker 1: we're getting close to the end of this timeline. How 496 00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:31,359 Speaker 1: about consciousness as an emergent property. We've talked about this 497 00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:35,320 Speaker 1: idea before too, Right, So, hydrogen is not wet, oxygen 498 00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:37,760 Speaker 1: is not wet, but you combine them into H two oh, 499 00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:40,480 Speaker 1: and you can create the property of wetness with enough 500 00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:43,320 Speaker 1: of these atoms. So in that sense, consciousness would be 501 00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:47,080 Speaker 1: a property of certain arrangements of matter. Uh, that is 502 00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:49,240 Speaker 1: more than the sum of its parts. It's sort of 503 00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:54,200 Speaker 1: a feature emerging from interactions, like from a sufficiently complex 504 00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:59,120 Speaker 1: biological system. Exactly. So this may be true. And for Janes, 505 00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:02,400 Speaker 1: I think he rectially reacts to this by saying, well, 506 00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:05,840 Speaker 1: it's not that that's false, it's just that that doesn't 507 00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:09,680 Speaker 1: answer the question. Consciousness may in fact be emergent, but 508 00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:12,920 Speaker 1: so what if it is? Still what is it and 509 00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:16,760 Speaker 1: what does it do? Then we get into the middle 510 00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:21,400 Speaker 1: of the twentieth century with a really really distressing viewpoint 511 00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:26,360 Speaker 1: consciousness doesn't exist. This is often identified with the behaviorist 512 00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:29,080 Speaker 1: school of psychology like B. F. Skinner, very strong in 513 00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:33,200 Speaker 1: mid century psychology. Uh, Jane's says, quote, it is an 514 00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:36,000 Speaker 1: interesting exercise to sit down and try to be conscious 515 00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:39,880 Speaker 1: of what it means to say that consciousness does not exist. Yeah, 516 00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:44,880 Speaker 1: you know, some would call that kind of mental exercise meditation. Yeah, okay. 517 00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:49,720 Speaker 1: I believe it's Kartole who frequently advises one to think 518 00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:52,880 Speaker 1: the following I wonder what my next thought is going 519 00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:56,040 Speaker 1: to be in order to clear the mind and uh, 520 00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:00,480 Speaker 1: paralyzing thought. Well, no, I wouldn't say paralyzing is rating. 521 00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:02,040 Speaker 1: You know, if you just sort of set there and 522 00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:04,040 Speaker 1: if you start, if you ask yourself, well, what my 523 00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:05,600 Speaker 1: next thought is going to be? What's my next thought 524 00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:07,440 Speaker 1: going to be? And then you kind of or at 525 00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:10,160 Speaker 1: least I kind of feel things that feel like that 526 00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:13,840 Speaker 1: the weight of the default mode network, the weight of 527 00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:17,760 Speaker 1: consciousness kind of lifting for a second. It's kind of 528 00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:20,440 Speaker 1: like standing on one leg to relieve the weight on 529 00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:23,520 Speaker 1: the other. Yeah, that's appealing. So Jane's has a fairly 530 00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:27,160 Speaker 1: substantial discussion about the influence of behaviorism, and so the 531 00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:30,520 Speaker 1: behavior As School of Psychology had a research program that, 532 00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:34,520 Speaker 1: just to summarize it, tried to focus exclusively on externally 533 00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:38,560 Speaker 1: measurable behaviors, and it posited that these behaviors could be 534 00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:42,360 Speaker 1: explained by the interplay of mere instinctual reactions and stimuli, 535 00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:46,200 Speaker 1: or not just instinctual ones, I mean conditioned reactions. It 536 00:30:46,280 --> 00:30:50,040 Speaker 1: was big on conditioning and it was not really interested 537 00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:52,680 Speaker 1: in the inner experience. And Jane says that in the beginning, 538 00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:56,880 Speaker 1: what behavior is we're really saying was consciousness is not important. 539 00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:00,360 Speaker 1: And this sort of transformed into the doctor and that 540 00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:04,160 Speaker 1: consciousness does not exist. And James actually believes that by 541 00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:08,040 Speaker 1: focusing on these externally miasurable actions, behaviorism was very useful. 542 00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:11,840 Speaker 1: It sort of got psychology out of that squashy realm 543 00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:14,520 Speaker 1: of philosophy that you think about with like Freud and 544 00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:19,520 Speaker 1: Young and made it a more respectable experimental science. But 545 00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:22,400 Speaker 1: Jane says, quote, but having once been part of its 546 00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:24,960 Speaker 1: major school, I confess that it was really not what 547 00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:28,360 Speaker 1: it seemed off the printed page. Behaviorism was only a 548 00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:32,760 Speaker 1: refusal to talk about consciousness. Nobody really believed he was 549 00:31:32,880 --> 00:31:35,760 Speaker 1: not conscious. So the way I interpret that is that 550 00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:39,080 Speaker 1: behaviorism was in fact a method, not a theory, and 551 00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:41,040 Speaker 1: it did a lot of good for psychology. But now 552 00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:44,280 Speaker 1: that psychology has sort of like had had its room 553 00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:47,600 Speaker 1: cleaned up by this process of going through a behaviorist phase, 554 00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:53,120 Speaker 1: you can return to introspective experience, the internality. What is consciousness? 555 00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:56,000 Speaker 1: What does it do? Where did it come from? Now, 556 00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:57,640 Speaker 1: one last thing he deals with, and I think this 557 00:31:57,720 --> 00:31:59,960 Speaker 1: is a very good point to make, is he focuses 558 00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:03,560 Speaker 1: on neuroscience. So that you may have read studies, or 559 00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:08,000 Speaker 1: not studies, maybe news reports that say, like, hey, scientists 560 00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:12,120 Speaker 1: have identified the X as the source of consciousness in 561 00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:15,880 Speaker 1: the brain. Maybe it was the reticular activating system, or 562 00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:19,240 Speaker 1: maybe it was the clos strum or something else in 563 00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:21,440 Speaker 1: the brain. There's some region of the brain that some 564 00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:25,880 Speaker 1: neuroscientists now think they've identified as the place where consciousness 565 00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,960 Speaker 1: happens or is made possible. You they may be right. 566 00:32:30,360 --> 00:32:32,800 Speaker 1: It may be that you can isolate some sort of 567 00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:36,440 Speaker 1: on off switch for consciousness in the brain. But yet again, 568 00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:39,760 Speaker 1: I would say, this doesn't answer the fundamental question. You've 569 00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:43,080 Speaker 1: just basically narrowed down the physical space of the tissue 570 00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:46,000 Speaker 1: that generates it. You still have the question of what 571 00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:48,280 Speaker 1: is it, where did it come from, and what does 572 00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:51,240 Speaker 1: it do? Yeah? If I draw a hole through um 573 00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,280 Speaker 1: like a hard drive, am I necessarily drilling a hole 574 00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:57,520 Speaker 1: through like the seat of like the center of computation, 575 00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:01,040 Speaker 1: or I mean just disrupting the the integrated system that 576 00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:04,320 Speaker 1: makes it possible? Yeah? Yeah, you could identify some part 577 00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:07,480 Speaker 1: of a computer that says, as you say, well, without 578 00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:09,960 Speaker 1: this part of the computer, he couldn't compute. Yeah, I 579 00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:12,480 Speaker 1: mean I can. I can steal like the battery off 580 00:33:12,480 --> 00:33:16,160 Speaker 1: of somebody's laptop, right, But that really doesn't necessarily answer this, 581 00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:18,920 Speaker 1: Like deeper question of like, what is the nature of 582 00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:22,600 Speaker 1: computing and why does it occur? Much easier to answer 583 00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:25,000 Speaker 1: in the nature in the discussion of the nature of 584 00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:27,040 Speaker 1: a computer. Yeah, and I have to say we we 585 00:33:27,160 --> 00:33:29,080 Speaker 1: went into this a little bit in the episode Where 586 00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:31,440 Speaker 1: Is My Mind? Yeah, there's a good one to refer 587 00:33:31,480 --> 00:33:35,560 Speaker 1: back to if anyone wants more on this topic. Alright, 588 00:33:35,560 --> 00:33:37,160 Speaker 1: and then we're gonna take a quick break and when 589 00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:42,960 Speaker 1: we come back, we will dive right back into consciousness 590 00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:46,000 Speaker 1: than alright, we're back. All right. We've been discussing in 591 00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:48,920 Speaker 1: trying to work our way up to Julian Jane's theory 592 00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:51,160 Speaker 1: of the origins of consciousness in the Breakdown of the 593 00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:54,840 Speaker 1: Bicameral Mind. We're starting with his discussion of what consciousness 594 00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:58,560 Speaker 1: is um So another thing that he points out in 595 00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:00,680 Speaker 1: his book is that there's an important distinction to be 596 00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:05,280 Speaker 1: made between consciousness and reactivity. So this is something interesting 597 00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:07,080 Speaker 1: to think about. You know, we talked about the the 598 00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:09,840 Speaker 1: high the highway hypnosis state where you can drive without 599 00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:12,640 Speaker 1: really being conscious of it. It's a fact that people 600 00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:19,080 Speaker 1: in some nambulistic states, meaning sleepwalking, can react without being conscious, 601 00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:21,000 Speaker 1: like you put an obstacle in their path. And they 602 00:34:21,080 --> 00:34:23,120 Speaker 1: might go around it, or they can they can react 603 00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:27,000 Speaker 1: to their environment and yet not be conscious the entire time. 604 00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:30,440 Speaker 1: That people don't know what they're doing, and so we 605 00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:34,480 Speaker 1: react unconsciously to all kinds of things. For example, unconscious 606 00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:39,120 Speaker 1: learning through conditioning and reactivity can also be explained through 607 00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:43,160 Speaker 1: neurology and behavior, but consciousness not so easily. I've got 608 00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:46,760 Speaker 1: another thing to ask you, you listener, right now, Where 609 00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:52,200 Speaker 1: are you now? Before I ask you that question, I 610 00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:55,759 Speaker 1: think it's very likely that you were not conscious of 611 00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,440 Speaker 1: where you were. And that's not the same thing as 612 00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:01,840 Speaker 1: saying you didn't know where you or like, if somebody 613 00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:04,640 Speaker 1: asks you, you can turn your attention to the answer 614 00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:08,160 Speaker 1: to that question and immediately provide the answer. But you 615 00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:12,400 Speaker 1: were not thinking about where you were. The fact of 616 00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:16,520 Speaker 1: your physical location was not present in the theater of 617 00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:18,880 Speaker 1: your mind at that moment, unless it just happened to 618 00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:21,600 Speaker 1: be by chance. Yeah, Like kind of a more extreme 619 00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:23,799 Speaker 1: example of this would be if I am reading a 620 00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:27,680 Speaker 1: really exciting book in my living room, Am I really 621 00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:29,920 Speaker 1: in my living room? Or am I on that you 622 00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:32,799 Speaker 1: know that that epic battlefield that I'm reading about. Yeah, 623 00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:35,120 Speaker 1: that's a great example. I mean, one of the interesting 624 00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,320 Speaker 1: things about engaging with fiction and like watching a movie 625 00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:41,520 Speaker 1: or reading a book, is that you enter this kind 626 00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:45,440 Speaker 1: of unconscious flow state, or what you're unconscious about is 627 00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:48,959 Speaker 1: your own physical life and your surroundings, and that you're 628 00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:53,360 Speaker 1: engaged deeply with the ongoing narratives, such that you forget 629 00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:56,360 Speaker 1: yourself and where you are, yeah, or you know. Another 630 00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:59,239 Speaker 1: example would be if someone is played by traumatic memory. 631 00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:02,600 Speaker 1: You know, you you're aware of your actual physical surroundings, 632 00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,160 Speaker 1: though your mind is continually going back to this one 633 00:36:06,239 --> 00:36:10,279 Speaker 1: place or time and experience. So with those really simple experiments, 634 00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:14,040 Speaker 1: you can demonstrate that consciousness is actually a much narrower 635 00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:18,160 Speaker 1: part of your mental experience than your entire mental life. Right. 636 00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:22,200 Speaker 1: Not everything you do with your brain is conscious. In fact, 637 00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:24,440 Speaker 1: most of what you do with your brain is not 638 00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:28,560 Speaker 1: conscious consciousness. James uses this one image that I think 639 00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:31,600 Speaker 1: is very effective. It's sort of like a flashlight shining 640 00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,360 Speaker 1: around in a dark room. The whole room is there, 641 00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:38,080 Speaker 1: but you can use your You can use the flashlight 642 00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:41,440 Speaker 1: to shine on any individual object. And then once you 643 00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:44,200 Speaker 1: shine it there and you try to imagine, Okay, what 644 00:36:44,200 --> 00:36:46,400 Speaker 1: what is going on in my brain that's not conscious? 645 00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:49,120 Speaker 1: So you move the flashlight around to look at things 646 00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:52,520 Speaker 1: that you're not conscious of, you immediately become conscious of 647 00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:54,719 Speaker 1: them when you shine the light on them. Yeah. This 648 00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:57,440 Speaker 1: gets into ideas too that we've discussed about consciousness as 649 00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:00,320 Speaker 1: being potentially being just like basically an ass act of 650 00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:04,400 Speaker 1: who of awareness, which is not exactly the same as 651 00:37:04,480 --> 00:37:07,200 Speaker 1: James is going to propose for the definition of consciousness, 652 00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:10,719 Speaker 1: but we're getting there. So James gives this list of 653 00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:14,399 Speaker 1: things saying what consciousness is not. So he says, it's 654 00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:17,520 Speaker 1: not mental activity. We have demonstrated that tons of mental 655 00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:22,920 Speaker 1: activity is Unconsciousness is unconscious. Uh, it's not recording information 656 00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:26,800 Speaker 1: because a whole lot of memory is clearly established unconsciously. 657 00:37:26,840 --> 00:37:30,040 Speaker 1: Think about the ways that, Uh, there are things that 658 00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:33,960 Speaker 1: you could not physically draw a picture of because you 659 00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:36,520 Speaker 1: don't remember what they look like, but you would notice 660 00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,279 Speaker 1: if something was wrong with them. To think about, like 661 00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:42,080 Speaker 1: if you came home from your house today and somebody 662 00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:44,839 Speaker 1: had moved the pictures around on the wall. You might 663 00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:47,920 Speaker 1: not be able to consciously recall where all the pictures 664 00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:49,480 Speaker 1: are if you tried to draw a picture of it 665 00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:52,319 Speaker 1: right now, but you might notice something was off if 666 00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:55,000 Speaker 1: they had been moved. You know. It kind of reminds 667 00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:57,040 Speaker 1: me how some you know, some books you read there 668 00:37:57,120 --> 00:38:00,680 Speaker 1: is a very detailed description of a particular character. Other 669 00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:04,000 Speaker 1: times there's not. And I know when I was younger, 670 00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:06,240 Speaker 1: I used to engage in an exercise where I would 671 00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:10,719 Speaker 1: basically pick a movie star and slot them in as 672 00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:14,239 Speaker 1: that character, and uh, I don't. I haven't done that 673 00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:17,000 Speaker 1: really in years. Occasionally, like there'll be an actor or 674 00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:19,640 Speaker 1: some you know, a particular face that kind of becomes 675 00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:23,680 Speaker 1: that character in my mind always Jeff Goldblum. Just universe 676 00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:27,080 Speaker 1: is full of Goldblums. It's not a bad choice. But 677 00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:28,560 Speaker 1: but I find a lot of times if if the 678 00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:31,919 Speaker 1: author is not giving a very detailed description, I kind 679 00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:34,600 Speaker 1: of have a loose idea of what that character looks like. 680 00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:36,799 Speaker 1: And I don't think about it much. But if you 681 00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:39,480 Speaker 1: were to present me with an artist sketch of that character, 682 00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:42,640 Speaker 1: I could instantly tell you if I liked it or not, 683 00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:46,719 Speaker 1: or if you know, whether it matched my, uh my 684 00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:48,759 Speaker 1: vision of what that character would be, even though my 685 00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:51,040 Speaker 1: vision of the character is rather abstract, like in your 686 00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:54,239 Speaker 1: mental theater, it's like they're wearing the scramble masks from 687 00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:56,759 Speaker 1: a scanner darkly. You know that they look like many 688 00:38:56,800 --> 00:38:58,799 Speaker 1: things at once as kind of a blur, but you 689 00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:02,319 Speaker 1: can identify particular that you think it does not fit 690 00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:05,319 Speaker 1: that character as soon as you see it. Okay, So 691 00:39:05,400 --> 00:39:08,560 Speaker 1: it's not recording of information, he says, it's not the 692 00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:11,200 Speaker 1: basis for forming concepts. I think he's right about this, 693 00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:15,680 Speaker 1: because how about the concept of a tree. Now he 694 00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:18,080 Speaker 1: talks about the idea that no one has ever seen 695 00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:21,239 Speaker 1: a tree. In fact, you've only seen this tree or 696 00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:24,040 Speaker 1: that tree. But he sort of disagrees with it because 697 00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:26,920 Speaker 1: he says, you know, animals have to have categories of 698 00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:30,080 Speaker 1: things that they react to in a certain way. So 699 00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:32,800 Speaker 1: it would kind of be hard to imagine the life 700 00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:35,680 Speaker 1: of a squirrel if a squirrel did not have something 701 00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:38,440 Speaker 1: like the concept of a tree. It's got to be 702 00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,360 Speaker 1: able to scramble into a tree that's never scrambled into 703 00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:43,840 Speaker 1: before by recognizing it as a thing that can be 704 00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:46,920 Speaker 1: scrambled into, which is a tree. Yeah, And it's difficult, 705 00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:48,160 Speaker 1: I think for us to think about that kind of 706 00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:51,080 Speaker 1: thing because it's very difficult for us to think about 707 00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:55,440 Speaker 1: it outside of language. Yeah. So Jane says that consciousness 708 00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:58,200 Speaker 1: is not, in fact the basis of learning, and we 709 00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:00,719 Speaker 1: we know this to be true through experience menation. Now, 710 00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:04,960 Speaker 1: signal learning happens automatically. Now that's just like you know conditioning, 711 00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:08,600 Speaker 1: Pavlovian conditioning. You see a signal and you expect something 712 00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:12,760 Speaker 1: to happen according to association with it. UH. Skill learning 713 00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:16,240 Speaker 1: also seems to happen when we're least conscious. Think about training. 714 00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:18,640 Speaker 1: You ever trained for like some kind of athletic feed 715 00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:21,879 Speaker 1: or trained on a musical instrument, you probably know from 716 00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:25,640 Speaker 1: experience that you can't focus too much on your actions. 717 00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:28,880 Speaker 1: You have to sort of let go and not overthink it. 718 00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:33,640 Speaker 1: How about solution learning? Uh? He he talked about how 719 00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:37,560 Speaker 1: even even the solutions to like working toward a goal 720 00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:41,600 Speaker 1: or a problem, the solutions are things we arrive at unconsciously. 721 00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:45,840 Speaker 1: So he describes this experiment where UH students were performing 722 00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:48,719 Speaker 1: an experiment on their professor, where every time the professor 723 00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:51,400 Speaker 1: moved to the right side of the room, the students, 724 00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:54,680 Speaker 1: instead of being board paid rapped attention and they laughed 725 00:40:54,719 --> 00:40:56,920 Speaker 1: really hard when you would make a joke. And so 726 00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,480 Speaker 1: by you know, the end of a week, he's basically 727 00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:01,520 Speaker 1: so far to the right of the room that he's 728 00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:04,239 Speaker 1: going out the door, and he was not aware that 729 00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:07,560 Speaker 1: they had been training him this way. Interesting, he says, 730 00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:11,759 Speaker 1: consciousness is also not the process of thinking, thinking, like 731 00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:16,200 Speaker 1: making judgments. So here's a quick test. Hold two objects 732 00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:18,839 Speaker 1: in each hand or one, sorry, one object in each hand? 733 00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:22,880 Speaker 1: Which one is heavier? All right? So you think about 734 00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:26,200 Speaker 1: that and you make a judgment, but you're not conscious 735 00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:29,680 Speaker 1: of how the judgment arises. Your brain just sort of 736 00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:33,799 Speaker 1: presents the answer to you. Right, one feels heavier, and 737 00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:36,759 Speaker 1: your brain tells you that's the one that's heavier. But 738 00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:39,400 Speaker 1: you you don't, like you've done some kind of unconscious 739 00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:42,239 Speaker 1: arithmetic and you're not aware of the process by which 740 00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:44,640 Speaker 1: the answer was generated. Yeah, it's kind of difficult to 741 00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:48,520 Speaker 1: show your work exactly. It's sort of like saying, why 742 00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:52,239 Speaker 1: is too greater than one? Or like I give you 743 00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:55,320 Speaker 1: two numbers, you know, six and four? Which one is larger? 744 00:41:56,280 --> 00:42:00,359 Speaker 1: You can't explain a conscious process of deciding which one 745 00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:03,000 Speaker 1: was larger. Well, I mean I intrinsically know that that 746 00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:05,319 Speaker 1: six is greater than one and I and those are 747 00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:08,359 Speaker 1: small enough numbers two that I can I can visualize 748 00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:11,960 Speaker 1: the quantity. Yeah, I can imagine six eggs and four eggs. 749 00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:14,000 Speaker 1: So I can engage in that kind of like basic 750 00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:18,440 Speaker 1: visual uh judgment. But you didn't have to do that, 751 00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:22,040 Speaker 1: did you. You just had the answer immediately. Yeah, I guess. 752 00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:24,319 Speaker 1: I guess it does become tricky like that because you 753 00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:28,000 Speaker 1: because because I'm doing it all in in reverse. I'm 754 00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:31,160 Speaker 1: looking back on my decision making, looking back at my 755 00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:33,640 Speaker 1: judgment and trying to figure out how it took place 756 00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:36,520 Speaker 1: in the mind. Yeah, you're trying to consciously reverse engineer 757 00:42:36,600 --> 00:42:40,840 Speaker 1: your unconscious thought process. So here's another one. He he mentions. 758 00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:44,399 Speaker 1: Let's go with a pattern. Tell me if you say 759 00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:50,919 Speaker 1: what comes next A B, A B A question mark B. Right, 760 00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:54,640 Speaker 1: everyone can get the answer. It's totally simple. But notice 761 00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:58,160 Speaker 1: how you're not consciously aware of how the answer is generated. 762 00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:01,080 Speaker 1: You can consciously reflect on the answer once you have it, 763 00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:05,680 Speaker 1: but it's not generated by consciousness, it's just there. Yeah. 764 00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:09,040 Speaker 1: This is actually a standard part of of of testing 765 00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:11,920 Speaker 1: for kindergarteners. By the way, my son just went through this, 766 00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:14,000 Speaker 1: and I get to see like the questions he was asking, 767 00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:16,800 Speaker 1: and one of them involves a couple of different rounds 768 00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:18,480 Speaker 1: of this to see if they what kind of pattern 769 00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:22,000 Speaker 1: recognition they have. Yeah. Uh, so here's a crazy thing. 770 00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:26,239 Speaker 1: He says that consciousness is not even the process of reasoning. 771 00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:29,800 Speaker 1: How would that be the case. Surely we think reason 772 00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:31,759 Speaker 1: has something to do with consciousness, and it may have 773 00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:35,319 Speaker 1: something to do with consciousness, like, for example, reasoning may 774 00:43:35,520 --> 00:43:39,719 Speaker 1: require conscious laying of the groundwork of sort of the 775 00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:43,319 Speaker 1: reasoning space. But it is curious to pay attention to 776 00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:47,239 Speaker 1: stories of scientists coming up with answers to like complex 777 00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:52,680 Speaker 1: mathematical problems or physics problems. They very very often report 778 00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:55,400 Speaker 1: that the solutions come to them out of the blue 779 00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:58,879 Speaker 1: when they're doing unrelated activities. Like there's a story about 780 00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:02,320 Speaker 1: how Einstein had be careful when he was shaving because 781 00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:05,719 Speaker 1: suddenly solutions to problems in physics would leap into his 782 00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:09,200 Speaker 1: mind and surprise him when he hadn't been thinking about them, 783 00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:10,840 Speaker 1: and he had to be careful not to cut his 784 00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:15,239 Speaker 1: own throat with his razor when this happened. That's interesting. Yeah, 785 00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:17,960 Speaker 1: I mean, I think we can all relate to situations 786 00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:20,200 Speaker 1: where you you know, you go out on a walk 787 00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:22,120 Speaker 1: or you engage in some of their activity and yeah, 788 00:44:22,160 --> 00:44:24,520 Speaker 1: that's when the thoughts begin to come. Yeah, it's like 789 00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:27,680 Speaker 1: it's it's in the bath that you have your Eureka moment. 790 00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:32,719 Speaker 1: So having excluded all that stuff in deciding what consciousness is, 791 00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:36,920 Speaker 1: it's time to get to the bones here, Jane says, 792 00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:38,920 Speaker 1: or would this be the meat? Would it be the bones? 793 00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:42,239 Speaker 1: Would it be the fat to chew on? M let's 794 00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:44,120 Speaker 1: go with Let's go with the meat, the meat. Okay, 795 00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:47,799 Speaker 1: maybe this is the meat, so Jane says again, I'll 796 00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:49,200 Speaker 1: just hit you with it and then we can try 797 00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:53,600 Speaker 1: to explain it. Consciousness is a metaphor based model of 798 00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:58,800 Speaker 1: the world, and it arises from language. Without language, according 799 00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:02,480 Speaker 1: to Jane's you could not have consciousness, uh. And it 800 00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:05,400 Speaker 1: comes from the way we use language to create metaphors 801 00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:08,880 Speaker 1: and how those metaphors themselves lead to new ways of thinking. 802 00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:12,160 Speaker 1: So how does this work? Well, let's explore real quick. 803 00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:14,840 Speaker 1: So a metaphor is actually, when you think about it, 804 00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:17,600 Speaker 1: one of the most fascinating things about language. It's a 805 00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:22,160 Speaker 1: thing that without language we cannot do. Right. Language makes 806 00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:25,960 Speaker 1: metaphors possible. And it's the use of a term for 807 00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:29,279 Speaker 1: one thing to describe another because of some kind of 808 00:45:29,320 --> 00:45:33,440 Speaker 1: similarity between them or between their relations to other things. 809 00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:36,239 Speaker 1: That sounds kind of complex, but you use metaphors in 810 00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:39,279 Speaker 1: your life you basically know what they are, right, So uh. 811 00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:42,680 Speaker 1: He introduces two terms for the two halves of a metaphor. 812 00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:45,799 Speaker 1: You've got the meta frand, which is a new thing, 813 00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:48,480 Speaker 1: a thing to be described that you don't already know about. 814 00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:51,319 Speaker 1: And then you've got the meta fire, and that's the 815 00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:54,759 Speaker 1: known thing, the thing in relation used to describe the 816 00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:57,319 Speaker 1: new thing. So here's an example. Let's say there's a 817 00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:00,880 Speaker 1: new species of beetle that's got a large horn, protuberants 818 00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:04,480 Speaker 1: branching off of its head. That's the meta frand it's 819 00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:07,319 Speaker 1: something new. You've got the meta fire something you're familiar with, 820 00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:10,600 Speaker 1: a stag and its antlers, and the metaphor is a 821 00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:15,360 Speaker 1: stag beetle. Okay, but I'm guessing this also applies to say, like, 822 00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:18,480 Speaker 1: the meta fran could be a feeling that I have exactly, 823 00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:22,680 Speaker 1: and the metaphere is, say a tiger. I've seen a tiger, 824 00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:25,560 Speaker 1: but this, this emotion that I'm feeling is new to me. 825 00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:28,640 Speaker 1: But I can use the tigers a way to describe 826 00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:32,759 Speaker 1: what I'm feeling exactly. Now. That is one of his 827 00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:37,600 Speaker 1: key insights. We use meta fires based on the natural 828 00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:42,200 Speaker 1: physical world around us to understand the meta frans. Of 829 00:46:42,480 --> 00:46:47,040 Speaker 1: inscrutable internal consciousness. So you have mental activity that is 830 00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:51,520 Speaker 1: turned into a metaphor through comparison to some concrete action 831 00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:56,400 Speaker 1: in the world, and this process gives rise to conscious thought. 832 00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:59,680 Speaker 1: So here's a version of that. How about your your 833 00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:02,359 Speaker 1: trying to solve a problem and you've you've got going 834 00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:04,480 Speaker 1: on in your mind what we just described, like you 835 00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:07,880 Speaker 1: the A B A B A B problem, what comes next? 836 00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:11,400 Speaker 1: If you think A comes next, you don't understand what 837 00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:15,160 Speaker 1: happened in your brain to to give you that answer. 838 00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:18,440 Speaker 1: So that might be the metaphrand, the thing that needs 839 00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:21,440 Speaker 1: to be described, the unfamiliar thing. It's the inscrutable process 840 00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:24,400 Speaker 1: of coming to comprehend the solution to a problem, and 841 00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:27,320 Speaker 1: you've got to metaphire something that's totally familiar, to compare 842 00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:30,600 Speaker 1: it to seeing with your eyes something that happens in 843 00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:35,279 Speaker 1: the physical world. The metaphor is the conscious thought is 844 00:47:35,600 --> 00:47:40,560 Speaker 1: now I see the answer. So consciousness, for Jayne's is 845 00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:45,520 Speaker 1: something that is taking place in a metaphorical mind space 846 00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:50,319 Speaker 1: that is an analog of physical space in reality. It's 847 00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:54,759 Speaker 1: when we invent this metaphor of a world inside to 848 00:47:54,840 --> 00:47:58,440 Speaker 1: match the world outside, and we use metaphors from the 849 00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:03,239 Speaker 1: physical world to understand and describe our own mental activity. 850 00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:08,200 Speaker 1: And through these metaphors, we generate this self reflective process, 851 00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:13,160 Speaker 1: this spatialized stuff in the head, the mind space where 852 00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:17,280 Speaker 1: we create narratives. We reflect on our behaviors and generate 853 00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:20,640 Speaker 1: the circumstances that produce consciousness. And for James, this is 854 00:48:20,680 --> 00:48:24,840 Speaker 1: how consciousness arises. I think. I'm not sure I agree 855 00:48:24,880 --> 00:48:26,400 Speaker 1: with it, but I do think this is one of 856 00:48:26,440 --> 00:48:29,879 Speaker 1: the most fascinating propositions for the origin of consciousness I've 857 00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:33,200 Speaker 1: ever heard. Yeah, yeah, it's I agree with you, it's 858 00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:37,000 Speaker 1: and I'm hesitant to, you know, endorse it because I really, 859 00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:41,120 Speaker 1: for one thing, I really do like the the awareness explanation. 860 00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:44,320 Speaker 1: But but but yeah, when I started thinking about about 861 00:48:44,360 --> 00:48:48,360 Speaker 1: the power of metaphors, it it does. It does have 862 00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:50,520 Speaker 1: a bit of it does feel true. Yeah, I mean, 863 00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:54,080 Speaker 1: it's amazing the way metaphors do pervade our thinking about things. 864 00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:56,480 Speaker 1: It's one of the funny things about languages that language 865 00:48:56,520 --> 00:48:59,960 Speaker 1: makes metaphors possible, but almost all language is built out 866 00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:03,960 Speaker 1: of metaphors. Even the word metaphor is a metaphor. Like 867 00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:07,320 Speaker 1: the word metaphor comes from the Greek meaning to carry across, 868 00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:11,000 Speaker 1: so you've got this abstract action of taking the meanings 869 00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:13,680 Speaker 1: of one word and putting them on another word, But 870 00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:16,800 Speaker 1: then it is described in terms of a physical, concrete 871 00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:19,359 Speaker 1: action in the world that we're familiar with, carrying one 872 00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:21,880 Speaker 1: thing to another place. Yeah. So even if you think 873 00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:25,880 Speaker 1: you're being very literal, yeah, you're still you're still walking 874 00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:29,200 Speaker 1: on metaphors. Yeah, I mean pretty much the only language 875 00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:32,120 Speaker 1: that is not based on metaphors is that of the physical, 876 00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:37,080 Speaker 1: concrete world and basic activities in space. So, uh so 877 00:49:37,400 --> 00:49:41,359 Speaker 1: James gets to what are the most important features of consciousness? So, like, 878 00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:44,239 Speaker 1: what what is consciousness? According to him, he says, one 879 00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:47,719 Speaker 1: of the main features is spatialization, and this means that 880 00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:51,640 Speaker 1: conscious thoughts metaphorically seem to take place in a quote 881 00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:55,879 Speaker 1: mind space, which is not a physical space, and within 882 00:49:55,920 --> 00:49:58,440 Speaker 1: the mind space of consciousness, things that do not in 883 00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:02,960 Speaker 1: reality have a spatial qualit ity become what he calls spatialized, 884 00:50:03,120 --> 00:50:06,880 Speaker 1: that is imagined with spatial qualities. So, for example, time 885 00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:13,680 Speaker 1: in direct experience, we apprehend time as this continuous, impermanent 886 00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:17,400 Speaker 1: succession of moments. Right, it's hard to describe how you 887 00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:21,640 Speaker 1: experience time without using a conscious metaphor that turns it 888 00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:25,359 Speaker 1: into space, like can you how how can you even 889 00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:29,080 Speaker 1: describe what time is without changing it into space in 890 00:50:29,120 --> 00:50:31,680 Speaker 1: your consciousness? Yeah, I mean you end up having to 891 00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:34,320 Speaker 1: come up with some sort of physical description, like for instance, 892 00:50:34,520 --> 00:50:37,600 Speaker 1: Card Vonnegut in The slaughter House five had the description 893 00:50:37,960 --> 00:50:41,400 Speaker 1: for for a linear experience of time of a man 894 00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:45,279 Speaker 1: on a train with blinders on looking at mountains roll 895 00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:47,640 Speaker 1: by and he can't turn his head. Yeah, exactly. So 896 00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:52,399 Speaker 1: it's much like that. In our unconscious direct experience, each 897 00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:55,960 Speaker 1: moment is sort of lived in and then disappears. But 898 00:50:56,040 --> 00:50:59,920 Speaker 1: in our conscious mind space we can organize temporal of 899 00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:03,799 Speaker 1: events into a timeline, something that does not exist in 900 00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:06,560 Speaker 1: any detectable way in reality. There is no such thing 901 00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:09,400 Speaker 1: as a time line in the world. It's only a 902 00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:14,319 Speaker 1: mental uh construct. So consciousness makes the past and the 903 00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:19,399 Speaker 1: future comprehensible and organizable to us. Suddenly, when you have consciousness, 904 00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:22,719 Speaker 1: the past and the future in some sense exist. Yeah, 905 00:51:22,840 --> 00:51:25,120 Speaker 1: then this is a This is cool because this ties 906 00:51:25,160 --> 00:51:28,400 Speaker 1: into some past discussions we've had about the difference between 907 00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:33,000 Speaker 1: linear linear existence random and modern humans and the more 908 00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:37,600 Speaker 1: cyclical existence of the past. Yeah, totally. Another feature he 909 00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:41,799 Speaker 1: isolates of of being unique to consciousness. He calls it exerption. 910 00:51:42,160 --> 00:51:45,080 Speaker 1: So this is when you isolate a detail for attention, 911 00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:49,200 Speaker 1: using it to represent the whole. So I'm gonna ask you, Robert, 912 00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:52,200 Speaker 1: what did you do the summer after ninth grade? I 913 00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:56,120 Speaker 1: have no idea. I have no idea whatsoever. No, I'd 914 00:51:56,120 --> 00:51:59,080 Speaker 1: have to really think about it. I guess I probably 915 00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:02,839 Speaker 1: summer hip nosis, just totally totally. I don't know. I mean, 916 00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:05,520 Speaker 1: if you if you ask the question about earlier year, 917 00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:06,919 Speaker 1: I could have said, oh, I went to scout camp, 918 00:52:07,040 --> 00:52:08,760 Speaker 1: you know, or I went to this camper or another. 919 00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:11,960 Speaker 1: But for ninth grade, I'm not sure what I did. Well, Okay, 920 00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:14,840 Speaker 1: So I want to say for most memories of time 921 00:52:14,920 --> 00:52:17,799 Speaker 1: period memories, I would ask like that you probably have 922 00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:20,920 Speaker 1: at least one image rise to the top from the 923 00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:23,799 Speaker 1: time I ask you about, and that is the exerpt 924 00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:27,359 Speaker 1: that represents the summer. And then from that one exerpted 925 00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:29,600 Speaker 1: memory might be an image, you might be a specific 926 00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:33,560 Speaker 1: episode you recall from that one exert you can associate 927 00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:36,400 Speaker 1: around to others that have something to do with it. 928 00:52:36,520 --> 00:52:41,480 Speaker 1: Rather in this imagined physical spatialized timeline or by you know, 929 00:52:41,600 --> 00:52:44,600 Speaker 1: sort of theme associations and this is a process that 930 00:52:44,640 --> 00:52:48,400 Speaker 1: we know as reminiscing. Right, So, think about how a 931 00:52:48,480 --> 00:52:53,360 Speaker 1: human like us without consciousness could recall information about the past. 932 00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:59,000 Speaker 1: It's impossible to imagine that person reminiscing. Does that make sense? 933 00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:01,759 Speaker 1: Like a person without consciousness might be able to use 934 00:53:01,920 --> 00:53:05,760 Speaker 1: information from their past to make a decision about the future. 935 00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:09,680 Speaker 1: But and so they'd have memory, and the memory could 936 00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:13,000 Speaker 1: be recalled, but there would be no process of wandering 937 00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:16,160 Speaker 1: through the mind space of memory, of the memory theater, 938 00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:20,520 Speaker 1: looking at one exerpt of the past after another. Right. Well, 939 00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:22,520 Speaker 1: that it's crazy to try to imagine that, because it 940 00:53:22,520 --> 00:53:25,239 Speaker 1: would mean that you could not look longingly back on 941 00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:29,160 Speaker 1: something in the past. You exactly couldn't experience nostalgia. You couldn't. 942 00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:33,240 Speaker 1: I mean, one would wonder even if you could be traumatized. 943 00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:36,279 Speaker 1: I mean maybe you could, because you could certainly have 944 00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:40,480 Speaker 1: positive and negative associations with events. Uh, And you you 945 00:53:40,520 --> 00:53:44,319 Speaker 1: could have things you wanted that would be associated with 946 00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:48,480 Speaker 1: past stimuli. But you couldn't. You couldn't wander through your 947 00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:52,799 Speaker 1: memory because what would you wander with. So a bicameral 948 00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:57,120 Speaker 1: human who had been you know, experienced horrific burn, they 949 00:53:57,360 --> 00:54:00,680 Speaker 1: might they might have a strong reaction to seeing fire, 950 00:54:01,239 --> 00:54:04,560 Speaker 1: but they wouldn't just setting there eating their you know, 951 00:54:04,600 --> 00:54:07,680 Speaker 1: their grass and their berries and then just think out 952 00:54:07,680 --> 00:54:10,960 Speaker 1: of the blue fire is terrifying and I'm afraid of it. No, 953 00:54:11,080 --> 00:54:13,480 Speaker 1: I think they probably wouldn't. Yeah, they would not have 954 00:54:13,719 --> 00:54:18,440 Speaker 1: memories of that event. The memory would be accessible and 955 00:54:18,560 --> 00:54:21,960 Speaker 1: useful to their brain and behavior, but they wouldn't go 956 00:54:22,120 --> 00:54:25,480 Speaker 1: back to the memory and experience it with their attention. 957 00:54:25,719 --> 00:54:28,040 Speaker 1: So it's kind of liberating because you you wouldn't be 958 00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:32,640 Speaker 1: sitting around constantly fretting about the past and the future. Right, Okay, 959 00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:35,480 Speaker 1: So I asked just the question, if you didn't have consciousness, 960 00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:38,279 Speaker 1: what would you wander through your memory with? The thing 961 00:54:38,360 --> 00:54:41,400 Speaker 1: you wander through your memory with is the next feature 962 00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:45,440 Speaker 1: Janes identifies the analog I. So, for Jane's an analog 963 00:54:45,560 --> 00:54:48,640 Speaker 1: is something that at every point is generated by the thing. 964 00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:51,080 Speaker 1: It's an analog of A good example would be a map. 965 00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:53,640 Speaker 1: A map is an analog of a part of the 966 00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:57,560 Speaker 1: surface of the earth. So the analog I that James 967 00:54:57,600 --> 00:55:01,840 Speaker 1: talks about is the mental analog of your body in reality, 968 00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:05,560 Speaker 1: and it moves mentally through mind space to observe and 969 00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:10,680 Speaker 1: perform metaphorical quote action within the mind space. If that's thick, 970 00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:13,360 Speaker 1: just think about it's the mental version of you that 971 00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:16,480 Speaker 1: does the looking. So when you wander through your memory, 972 00:55:16,640 --> 00:55:19,279 Speaker 1: it's your analog eye that does the wandering. It's the 973 00:55:19,320 --> 00:55:23,960 Speaker 1: mental representation of yourself as a subject Edworth noting that 974 00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:26,480 Speaker 1: in his book, he he does stress that the analog 975 00:55:26,600 --> 00:55:28,680 Speaker 1: I came into being towards the end of the second 976 00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:32,720 Speaker 1: millennium BC. Yeah, and that's about the time that he's 977 00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:35,920 Speaker 1: saying that the bi cameral mind largely began to transition 978 00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:40,120 Speaker 1: into the conscious mind after the analog eye. He's also 979 00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:43,640 Speaker 1: got a feature of consciousness is the metaphor me. This 980 00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:47,480 Speaker 1: is the metaphorical object version of yourself that you observe. 981 00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:50,240 Speaker 1: So when you say, when you say I see myself 982 00:55:50,360 --> 00:55:53,840 Speaker 1: doing X in a memory, the eye in that sentence, 983 00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:56,760 Speaker 1: the subject is the analog eye. The the the analog 984 00:55:56,920 --> 00:55:59,640 Speaker 1: version of you that looks, and the me version of 985 00:55:59,680 --> 00:56:02,920 Speaker 1: yourself offen that sentence is the metaphor me, the subject 986 00:56:03,040 --> 00:56:05,440 Speaker 1: version or sorry, the object version of yourself that gets 987 00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:08,600 Speaker 1: looked at. That's crazy because it's it forces you to 988 00:56:08,640 --> 00:56:11,239 Speaker 1: try to imagine what if you only had I, or 989 00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:14,600 Speaker 1: you only had me. Yeah, Now that affects your your 990 00:56:14,680 --> 00:56:18,080 Speaker 1: your conscious experience of the world. Well, it seems to be, 991 00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:21,359 Speaker 1: at least in his theory. The bicameral human has neither one, 992 00:56:21,440 --> 00:56:24,120 Speaker 1: and the conscious human has both. So yeah, what if 993 00:56:24,120 --> 00:56:27,520 Speaker 1: you're some kind of transitionary human where you you you 994 00:56:27,600 --> 00:56:31,799 Speaker 1: can't imagine yourself, but you can wander through mental space? Yeah, 995 00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:34,200 Speaker 1: or kind of like things only happen to me, but 996 00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:37,480 Speaker 1: I don't do things. Uh, yeah, I don't know. I 997 00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:41,359 Speaker 1: wonder if that's possible anyway. Two more features of consciousness 998 00:56:41,360 --> 00:56:45,279 Speaker 1: he identifies. So he says consciousness enables neurotization. So an 999 00:56:45,360 --> 00:56:51,040 Speaker 1: unconscious being could not form thoughts into coherent stories. You 1000 00:56:51,120 --> 00:56:55,320 Speaker 1: make a narrative that makes sense. So the non conscious 1001 00:56:55,320 --> 00:56:58,640 Speaker 1: brain would react to events of the present, perhaps based 1002 00:56:58,640 --> 00:57:01,239 Speaker 1: on things learned from experiences in the past. But the 1003 00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:04,880 Speaker 1: conscious mind weaves past, present, and future into a story, 1004 00:57:05,360 --> 00:57:08,320 Speaker 1: and the story also includes dependencies of cause and effect, 1005 00:57:08,320 --> 00:57:11,560 Speaker 1: and a story things didn't just happen, They happened for 1006 00:57:11,600 --> 00:57:14,200 Speaker 1: a reason. So this is the part of the conscious 1007 00:57:14,200 --> 00:57:19,200 Speaker 1: mind that makes us concerned with the question why. A 1008 00:57:19,280 --> 00:57:23,760 Speaker 1: final feature of consciousness is what he calls conciliation or 1009 00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:27,200 Speaker 1: later in his afterward, he calls concilience, and this is 1010 00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:31,880 Speaker 1: fusing exerpted mental contents together to make it spatially compatible 1011 00:57:31,920 --> 00:57:34,480 Speaker 1: in a way that makes sense. So if I, Robert, 1012 00:57:34,480 --> 00:57:36,280 Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you to imagine a couple of things, 1013 00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:40,760 Speaker 1: a plate and a bunch of spaghetti. Okay, Now you're 1014 00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:43,840 Speaker 1: probably imagining the spaghetti on top of the plate, yes, 1015 00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:46,800 Speaker 1: not the other way around. There was no hesitation there. Yeah, 1016 00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:49,360 Speaker 1: but I didn't tell you to do that. That's concilience 1017 00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:52,440 Speaker 1: in your mind. You're organizing things in your mind into 1018 00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:54,440 Speaker 1: a way that makes sense. Yeah. I would never put 1019 00:57:54,440 --> 00:57:56,960 Speaker 1: the plate on the spaghetti. At most, I would imagine 1020 00:57:56,960 --> 00:57:59,479 Speaker 1: the spaghetti in a pile here and the plate over here. 1021 00:57:59,520 --> 00:58:02,560 Speaker 1: But my mind didn't go there either, Yea. So here 1022 00:58:02,600 --> 00:58:05,200 Speaker 1: we finally worked our way up to Jane's idea of 1023 00:58:05,200 --> 00:58:08,439 Speaker 1: what consciousness is. He says, it's quote an operation, rather 1024 00:58:08,520 --> 00:58:12,560 Speaker 1: than a thing, a repository, or a function. It operates 1025 00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:16,080 Speaker 1: by way of analogy, by way of constructing an analog 1026 00:58:16,360 --> 00:58:20,680 Speaker 1: space with an analog I that can observe that space 1027 00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:24,640 Speaker 1: and move metaphorically in it. Or the even shorter version, 1028 00:58:24,720 --> 00:58:29,400 Speaker 1: He says, consciousness is quote an analog I neratizing, so 1029 00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:33,040 Speaker 1: creating stories in a mind space, which I think is 1030 00:58:33,040 --> 00:58:36,480 Speaker 1: a very elegant way of reckoning with what consciousness is. 1031 00:58:36,720 --> 00:58:40,280 Speaker 1: I'm not sure that he's correct about the generative mechanism 1032 00:58:40,360 --> 00:58:43,200 Speaker 1: that like language creates consciousness, though I do think it's 1033 00:58:43,200 --> 00:58:46,520 Speaker 1: possible that he's correct about that. Um, I'm not sure 1034 00:58:46,520 --> 00:58:48,320 Speaker 1: he's right about that, but I do think the way 1035 00:58:48,320 --> 00:58:53,440 Speaker 1: he describes the phenomena of it is very credible. Yeah, alright, 1036 00:58:53,480 --> 00:58:55,560 Speaker 1: on that note, we're gonna take one more break, and 1037 00:58:55,560 --> 00:58:59,760 Speaker 1: when we come back, we're going to transition from James's 1038 00:58:59,840 --> 00:59:02,520 Speaker 1: view us on what we have now and get into 1039 00:59:02,600 --> 00:59:07,920 Speaker 1: this concept of the bicameral mind what came before. Thank alright, 1040 00:59:07,920 --> 00:59:10,520 Speaker 1: we're back, all right, So it's time to explore the 1041 00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:15,040 Speaker 1: bicameral mind as proposed by Julian Jaynes. So, you we 1042 00:59:15,040 --> 00:59:16,920 Speaker 1: we talked to the beginning about how you can have 1043 00:59:17,040 --> 00:59:20,520 Speaker 1: this experience of highway hypnosis. Your body can perform complex 1044 00:59:20,560 --> 00:59:24,400 Speaker 1: behaviors with you really just not being aware that it's happening. 1045 00:59:24,440 --> 00:59:27,360 Speaker 1: Your brains work in all the stuff. It's pulling the levers, 1046 00:59:27,680 --> 00:59:30,280 Speaker 1: it's using your vision and your hearing, and it's making 1047 00:59:30,320 --> 00:59:33,280 Speaker 1: your body move, but you're just not there for it. 1048 00:59:33,960 --> 00:59:36,680 Speaker 1: You can do all that stuff almost perfectly unconscious of 1049 00:59:36,680 --> 00:59:40,080 Speaker 1: the process of driving, if it's highway hypnosis or whatever else, 1050 00:59:40,360 --> 00:59:44,320 Speaker 1: acting purely out of habit an instinct. When suddenly there's 1051 00:59:44,360 --> 00:59:46,840 Speaker 1: a mime in the middle of the street pretending to 1052 00:59:46,880 --> 00:59:49,520 Speaker 1: be stuck in a glass box, Well that's gonna that's 1053 00:59:49,520 --> 00:59:51,520 Speaker 1: gonna shake you out of it right there. H yeah, 1054 00:59:51,560 --> 00:59:53,680 Speaker 1: So what do you do about this? Obviously, if you 1055 00:59:53,720 --> 00:59:57,280 Speaker 1: are a conscious human like us, you snap out of it. 1056 00:59:57,640 --> 01:00:01,560 Speaker 1: Your highway hypnosis goes away. You suddenly become very conscious 1057 01:00:01,560 --> 01:00:04,560 Speaker 1: of yourself. You become conscious of your driving. You start 1058 01:00:04,680 --> 01:00:09,840 Speaker 1: nearratizing your imagine self, performing possible reactions to the situation. Right, 1059 01:00:09,840 --> 01:00:13,320 Speaker 1: you're working through what should I do? And you compare 1060 01:00:13,400 --> 01:00:17,880 Speaker 1: these imagined hypotheticals to decide what's going to happen. And 1061 01:00:17,920 --> 01:00:21,760 Speaker 1: this is one way we often find ourselves quote using consciousness, 1062 01:00:21,800 --> 01:00:25,400 Speaker 1: when we have to suddenly deal with novel stimuli. A 1063 01:00:25,440 --> 01:00:28,400 Speaker 1: thing you didn't expect, that isn't part of your habit 1064 01:00:28,480 --> 01:00:31,240 Speaker 1: process gets thrown in front of you, and now you've 1065 01:00:31,280 --> 01:00:34,960 Speaker 1: got a novelty problem. It's an outside context problem, and 1066 01:00:35,000 --> 01:00:37,520 Speaker 1: you've got to deal with it. Yeah, mine in the street. Yeah, 1067 01:00:37,720 --> 01:00:39,440 Speaker 1: nothing has prepared you for this? How are you going 1068 01:00:39,480 --> 01:00:41,840 Speaker 1: to roll with this change? Right? So, in in Jane's 1069 01:00:41,960 --> 01:00:45,760 Speaker 1: vision of consciousness, this is what consciousness mainly does. We 1070 01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:50,200 Speaker 1: employ our consciousness in volition and decision making when we're 1071 01:00:50,320 --> 01:00:53,880 Speaker 1: encountering something that we were not used to. But so 1072 01:00:53,960 --> 01:00:56,720 Speaker 1: that's for us, that's conscious people. What if you were 1073 01:00:56,800 --> 01:01:00,320 Speaker 1: not capable of consciousness? What if you were entire earlier 1074 01:01:00,440 --> 01:01:04,880 Speaker 1: creature of habit behaviors like like you know, you're you're 1075 01:01:04,960 --> 01:01:06,760 Speaker 1: like you are when you're driving the car out of 1076 01:01:06,800 --> 01:01:10,040 Speaker 1: habit and you just can't turn to the internal nearrotization, 1077 01:01:10,200 --> 01:01:15,280 Speaker 1: What do you do well, Jane says the hypothetical bicameral 1078 01:01:15,320 --> 01:01:19,240 Speaker 1: person of antiquity. In this example, I've given um instead 1079 01:01:19,280 --> 01:01:21,960 Speaker 1: of being conscious when faced with the mime in the street, 1080 01:01:22,000 --> 01:01:25,680 Speaker 1: instead of becoming conscious of the novel, stimuli would instead 1081 01:01:25,800 --> 01:01:30,600 Speaker 1: unconsciously hear a voice telling them what to do about it, 1082 01:01:30,760 --> 01:01:35,840 Speaker 1: and they would obey avoid the min Yeah, it would say. 1083 01:01:35,920 --> 01:01:39,840 Speaker 1: It would be as if a parent said, like, go 1084 01:01:39,920 --> 01:01:42,720 Speaker 1: around it, and you hear the voice of maybe your 1085 01:01:42,760 --> 01:01:46,480 Speaker 1: mom or your dad, or some authority figure, your boss 1086 01:01:46,600 --> 01:01:51,760 Speaker 1: or your chieftain and whatever. Yeah, suddenly would tell you, okay, 1087 01:01:51,840 --> 01:01:53,640 Speaker 1: just drive to the left and go around it and 1088 01:01:53,680 --> 01:01:57,960 Speaker 1: then proceed as normal, and then you would obey. So 1089 01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:01,360 Speaker 1: in the next episode, we're going to go into the 1090 01:02:01,840 --> 01:02:05,640 Speaker 1: into great depth about the evidence that James presents for 1091 01:02:05,800 --> 01:02:08,560 Speaker 1: the bicameral mind in history. So we're gonna look at 1092 01:02:08,600 --> 01:02:11,320 Speaker 1: literature and archaeology and all this stuff about what what 1093 01:02:11,360 --> 01:02:13,840 Speaker 1: he thinks makes the case for the existence of the 1094 01:02:13,840 --> 01:02:16,560 Speaker 1: bicameral mind. But first I think we should just look 1095 01:02:16,600 --> 01:02:19,120 Speaker 1: at a couple of objections you might have to how 1096 01:02:19,160 --> 01:02:22,240 Speaker 1: could this be possible? How could humans be like this? Yeah? 1097 01:02:22,280 --> 01:02:24,720 Speaker 1: And I mean, of course when all of this we 1098 01:02:24,760 --> 01:02:26,840 Speaker 1: have to state the obvious that it is just it 1099 01:02:27,000 --> 01:02:32,000 Speaker 1: is difficult to try and imagine a default, uh human 1100 01:02:32,120 --> 01:02:36,120 Speaker 1: mindset that is like this. Absolutely, So here's one objection. 1101 01:02:36,160 --> 01:02:40,200 Speaker 1: Can people really hear hallucinatory voices that are indistinguishable from 1102 01:02:40,200 --> 01:02:44,440 Speaker 1: real voices? The answer to this is undoubtable. Yes, just absolutely. 1103 01:02:44,560 --> 01:02:48,400 Speaker 1: If you doubt this, go read about auditory hallucinations. Auditory 1104 01:02:48,440 --> 01:02:52,080 Speaker 1: hallucinations are number one, They're very common. Even lots of 1105 01:02:52,080 --> 01:02:54,880 Speaker 1: people who don't normally hallucinate at some point in their 1106 01:02:54,880 --> 01:02:58,240 Speaker 1: life will have an auditory hallucination, often in a period 1107 01:02:58,240 --> 01:03:02,960 Speaker 1: of intense stress. And auditory hallucinations are often perceived as 1108 01:03:03,080 --> 01:03:07,120 Speaker 1: absolutely real, not necessarily fuzzy or dreamlike, though they can 1109 01:03:07,200 --> 01:03:10,000 Speaker 1: be like that too, But in many cases they are 1110 01:03:10,040 --> 01:03:13,320 Speaker 1: perceived as as lucid and clear and real as the 1111 01:03:13,400 --> 01:03:17,240 Speaker 1: voices of people around them. Here's another question. You might 1112 01:03:17,280 --> 01:03:20,560 Speaker 1: be like, well, wait a minute, can hallucinatory voices really 1113 01:03:20,640 --> 01:03:24,120 Speaker 1: provide helpful information? Like don't they? Just if you're imagining 1114 01:03:24,480 --> 01:03:27,760 Speaker 1: the experience of a person with schizophrenia who is caused 1115 01:03:27,760 --> 01:03:31,120 Speaker 1: a lot of suffering by their condition, that certainly does happen. 1116 01:03:31,160 --> 01:03:34,720 Speaker 1: People can be, you know, told very nasty, negative, unpleasant 1117 01:03:34,720 --> 01:03:37,800 Speaker 1: things by voices in their head. But there are cases 1118 01:03:37,840 --> 01:03:40,720 Speaker 1: where these voices do seem to provide comfort and helpful 1119 01:03:40,760 --> 01:03:44,560 Speaker 1: information and to guide into into guide behaviors in a 1120 01:03:44,640 --> 01:03:47,600 Speaker 1: in a useful way. It just depends on the case. Well, 1121 01:03:47,640 --> 01:03:51,520 Speaker 1: and plus not every example James makes about the bi 1122 01:03:51,560 --> 01:03:54,160 Speaker 1: cameral mind is a case where the voice or the 1123 01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:57,440 Speaker 1: voice of the gods is is telling the individual to 1124 01:03:57,440 --> 01:04:00,640 Speaker 1: do something that's beneficial. Right, Uh right, I mean just 1125 01:04:00,760 --> 01:04:03,960 Speaker 1: the same way that conscious humans can make bad decisions. 1126 01:04:04,880 --> 01:04:08,160 Speaker 1: You're a bicameral human could have part of their brain 1127 01:04:08,280 --> 01:04:10,560 Speaker 1: tell them to do something that is a bad decision. 1128 01:04:10,960 --> 01:04:13,160 Speaker 1: It's just part of the human brain that sometimes it 1129 01:04:13,280 --> 01:04:16,880 Speaker 1: makes bad decisions, whether it's existing in a bicameral state 1130 01:04:16,960 --> 01:04:20,200 Speaker 1: or a conscious state. But so anyway, Yeah, these voices, 1131 01:04:20,280 --> 01:04:23,640 Speaker 1: it's not necessarily that they're omnipotent or godlike in their knowledge, 1132 01:04:23,680 --> 01:04:26,480 Speaker 1: but rather when they are helpful, they tend to command 1133 01:04:26,480 --> 01:04:29,640 Speaker 1: information and insight on about the level of a human brain. 1134 01:04:30,120 --> 01:04:32,520 Speaker 1: This is not really surprising because they are from a 1135 01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:35,680 Speaker 1: human brain. So then okay, So if you're with us 1136 01:04:35,680 --> 01:04:37,880 Speaker 1: so far, you might be thinking, okay, well, what actually 1137 01:04:38,000 --> 01:04:42,560 Speaker 1: causes hallucinations? Where they come from? If you're hearing voices? Uh, 1138 01:04:42,760 --> 01:04:46,040 Speaker 1: it depends on many factors. Different people have vastly different 1139 01:04:46,120 --> 01:04:49,360 Speaker 1: levels of susceptibility to hallucination. Some people are very prone 1140 01:04:49,360 --> 01:04:52,240 Speaker 1: to them experienced them all the time. Other people are 1141 01:04:52,280 --> 01:04:54,439 Speaker 1: not prone to them, but at some point in their 1142 01:04:54,440 --> 01:04:58,760 Speaker 1: life will experience one, and in almost all cases, Jane says, 1143 01:04:58,800 --> 01:05:03,200 Speaker 1: the trigger for hallucination is stress. In hallucination prone people, 1144 01:05:03,240 --> 01:05:06,080 Speaker 1: it takes very little stress to trigger one. In less 1145 01:05:06,080 --> 01:05:09,520 Speaker 1: prone people, it takes a lot of stress. Jane says quote, 1146 01:05:09,800 --> 01:05:12,400 Speaker 1: during the eras of the bicameral mind, we may suppose 1147 01:05:12,480 --> 01:05:16,280 Speaker 1: that the stress threshold for hallucinations was much much lower 1148 01:05:16,560 --> 01:05:20,720 Speaker 1: than either normal people or schizophrenics today. The only stress 1149 01:05:20,800 --> 01:05:24,200 Speaker 1: necessary was that which occurs when a change in behavior 1150 01:05:24,320 --> 01:05:27,560 Speaker 1: is necessary because of some novelty in a situation. This 1151 01:05:27,600 --> 01:05:29,120 Speaker 1: is what we were talking about with the mime in 1152 01:05:29,160 --> 01:05:31,880 Speaker 1: the road. You've suddenly had something that your habits do 1153 01:05:31,960 --> 01:05:34,400 Speaker 1: not account for, and you need to make a decision 1154 01:05:34,520 --> 01:05:39,320 Speaker 1: based on volition. So, resuming the quote, anything that could 1155 01:05:39,320 --> 01:05:41,439 Speaker 1: not be dealt with on the basis of habit, any 1156 01:05:41,520 --> 01:05:45,720 Speaker 1: conflict between work and fatigue, between attack and flight, any 1157 01:05:45,800 --> 01:05:48,760 Speaker 1: choice between whom do obey or what to do, anything 1158 01:05:48,800 --> 01:05:52,000 Speaker 1: that required any decision at all, was sufficient to cause 1159 01:05:52,160 --> 01:05:55,480 Speaker 1: an auditory hallucination, you know. To get back to to 1160 01:05:55,640 --> 01:05:58,480 Speaker 1: Westworld just a little bit. You know, I mentioned that 1161 01:05:58,560 --> 01:06:01,840 Speaker 1: they that they is the bicameral mind in that series, 1162 01:06:01,880 --> 01:06:04,840 Speaker 1: and the ideas that at at an earlier point, the 1163 01:06:05,000 --> 01:06:09,080 Speaker 1: robots essentially at a bicameral mind where the creators we're 1164 01:06:09,280 --> 01:06:12,480 Speaker 1: speaking in their head. It does remind me of a 1165 01:06:12,520 --> 01:06:15,400 Speaker 1: lot of the modern science of drones, where you have 1166 01:06:15,520 --> 01:06:19,960 Speaker 1: a quote man in a loop scenario um, where you 1167 01:06:19,960 --> 01:06:22,680 Speaker 1: could have you have a machine that's going about its 1168 01:06:22,720 --> 01:06:27,680 Speaker 1: business and when necessary a a human adjust the behavior 1169 01:06:27,680 --> 01:06:31,080 Speaker 1: of the machine. Yes, yes, totally. Or I think about 1170 01:06:31,360 --> 01:06:34,680 Speaker 1: like the hybrid machine human chess players. Have you read 1171 01:06:34,680 --> 01:06:37,400 Speaker 1: about this, haven't? Well, I don't know if it's still 1172 01:06:37,440 --> 01:06:39,520 Speaker 1: the case. For a while, so you had the point 1173 01:06:39,520 --> 01:06:42,919 Speaker 1: where suddenly the best chess programs could outperform the best 1174 01:06:42,960 --> 01:06:45,880 Speaker 1: human players. But then there was a period and we 1175 01:06:45,960 --> 01:06:49,240 Speaker 1: may still be in that period where, in fact, better 1176 01:06:49,320 --> 01:06:53,800 Speaker 1: than the best chess programs are players that are chess 1177 01:06:53,880 --> 01:06:58,520 Speaker 1: programs assisted by human players. Okay, so it's almost like, 1178 01:06:58,520 --> 01:07:01,280 Speaker 1: you know, the chess program it basically knows what to 1179 01:07:01,280 --> 01:07:04,920 Speaker 1: do all the time, but maybe to introduce some novelty, 1180 01:07:05,000 --> 01:07:08,840 Speaker 1: the human player steps in and does something clever. All right, well, 1181 01:07:08,840 --> 01:07:12,960 Speaker 1: what about neuro neurological evidence for this hypothesis? Right? So, 1182 01:07:13,200 --> 01:07:15,240 Speaker 1: this is one where I don't want to go into 1183 01:07:15,280 --> 01:07:18,280 Speaker 1: a whole lot of detail on Jane's hypothesis because, for 1184 01:07:18,360 --> 01:07:19,920 Speaker 1: one thing, a lot of it. We don't want to 1185 01:07:19,920 --> 01:07:22,640 Speaker 1: get too bogged down here. And in the next episode 1186 01:07:22,640 --> 01:07:26,360 Speaker 1: we're gonna primarily talk about evidence for that James presents 1187 01:07:26,440 --> 01:07:30,800 Speaker 1: for the theory um, but his neurological hypothesis may also 1188 01:07:30,920 --> 01:07:34,600 Speaker 1: just in some cases be proven wrong by later experiments, 1189 01:07:34,600 --> 01:07:37,000 Speaker 1: and we'll talk about that some more in the second episode, 1190 01:07:37,400 --> 01:07:40,880 Speaker 1: but here's the gist. There is generally a sense in 1191 01:07:40,920 --> 01:07:44,040 Speaker 1: which the two hemispheres of the brain, the right hemisphere 1192 01:07:44,040 --> 01:07:48,560 Speaker 1: in the left hemisphere are genuinely divided and can in 1193 01:07:48,680 --> 01:07:52,080 Speaker 1: some senses act independently, almost as if they were two 1194 01:07:52,280 --> 01:07:55,240 Speaker 1: separate persons. Now, I think we've talked about some of 1195 01:07:55,240 --> 01:07:59,120 Speaker 1: the evidence for this before and episodes in the past, right, Yeah, 1196 01:07:59,160 --> 01:08:01,640 Speaker 1: And and we only have talked about it when we've 1197 01:08:01,680 --> 01:08:05,080 Speaker 1: discussed uni himispheric sleep and what it would be like 1198 01:08:05,120 --> 01:08:08,400 Speaker 1: if a human experience uni hemispheric sleep. There's a character 1199 01:08:08,440 --> 01:08:11,600 Speaker 1: in an Ian and Banks culture novel that has that 1200 01:08:11,680 --> 01:08:15,040 Speaker 1: scenario going on, and they've essentially got two different personalities. 1201 01:08:15,080 --> 01:08:18,160 Speaker 1: When there different personalities because if one side is active, 1202 01:08:18,240 --> 01:08:20,839 Speaker 1: they're they're one way, of the other side at active 1203 01:08:20,840 --> 01:08:23,719 Speaker 1: they're another way. And then the if both sides are active, 1204 01:08:24,160 --> 01:08:26,280 Speaker 1: you know, the standard human experience, you have a mix 1205 01:08:26,320 --> 01:08:30,600 Speaker 1: of both. Now, it's interesting that James points out that 1206 01:08:30,680 --> 01:08:33,000 Speaker 1: on the left hemisphere, in most people, this is going 1207 01:08:33,040 --> 01:08:35,839 Speaker 1: to be the dominant hemisphere, and you know right handed 1208 01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:38,439 Speaker 1: people generally this will be the left left hemisphere of 1209 01:08:38,439 --> 01:08:41,000 Speaker 1: the brain that it can alternate for other people. Um, 1210 01:08:41,720 --> 01:08:46,000 Speaker 1: the left hemisphere is where speech generally happens, but James 1211 01:08:46,040 --> 01:08:50,160 Speaker 1: turns his attention to the analog speech areas of the 1212 01:08:50,240 --> 01:08:54,040 Speaker 1: right brain in most people. So under Jane's schema, in 1213 01:08:54,080 --> 01:08:57,920 Speaker 1: the bicameral mind, the non dominant hemisphere, which is the 1214 01:08:58,000 --> 01:09:04,400 Speaker 1: right hemisphere in most people, generates auditory hallucinated voices perceived 1215 01:09:04,439 --> 01:09:07,920 Speaker 1: by the dominant hemisphere or the left hemisphere in most people. 1216 01:09:08,439 --> 01:09:12,439 Speaker 1: And his explicit neurological hypothesis is quote, the speech of 1217 01:09:12,479 --> 01:09:16,840 Speaker 1: the gods was directly organized in what corresponds to Vernicke's 1218 01:09:16,920 --> 01:09:20,719 Speaker 1: area on the right hemisphere and spoken or heard over 1219 01:09:20,760 --> 01:09:25,400 Speaker 1: the interior commissures to or by the auditory areas of 1220 01:09:25,439 --> 01:09:30,080 Speaker 1: the left temporal lobe. And these commands are then obeyed 1221 01:09:30,320 --> 01:09:33,880 Speaker 1: more or less automatically, as an obedient child obeys the 1222 01:09:33,920 --> 01:09:36,240 Speaker 1: commands of a parent or a member of a social 1223 01:09:36,240 --> 01:09:40,040 Speaker 1: animal species submits to the authority of another individual higher 1224 01:09:40,120 --> 01:09:42,879 Speaker 1: up the dominance hierarchy. And he goes into great detail 1225 01:09:43,000 --> 01:09:48,200 Speaker 1: about about verbal dominance like the UH the research on 1226 01:09:48,360 --> 01:09:51,160 Speaker 1: like how people obey commands and how you can control 1227 01:09:51,240 --> 01:09:53,840 Speaker 1: people's minds by getting right up in their space and 1228 01:09:53,880 --> 01:09:57,200 Speaker 1: giving them verbal commands. Um. You know. In in reading 1229 01:09:57,240 --> 01:09:59,400 Speaker 1: about all of this, I kept thinking back to uh 1230 01:09:59,479 --> 01:10:02,320 Speaker 1: to yog class. I love going to I love doing 1231 01:10:02,400 --> 01:10:04,799 Speaker 1: yoga on my own or I'm essentially calling the shots 1232 01:10:04,800 --> 01:10:06,800 Speaker 1: and following a pattern. But I also love going to 1233 01:10:06,840 --> 01:10:09,160 Speaker 1: a class where there is a uh there, there is 1234 01:10:09,200 --> 01:10:12,439 Speaker 1: a leader, there is a teacher who is telling us 1235 01:10:12,479 --> 01:10:15,439 Speaker 1: how to move our bodies for for an hour and 1236 01:10:15,439 --> 01:10:17,719 Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, an hour and a half, And there's something 1237 01:10:17,840 --> 01:10:21,639 Speaker 1: very liberating in that. Yeah. Uh So. In other words, 1238 01:10:22,320 --> 01:10:25,479 Speaker 1: in Jane's hypothesis about the neurology of this, the non 1239 01:10:25,640 --> 01:10:30,000 Speaker 1: dominant hemisphere does the integration of information in the difficult 1240 01:10:30,280 --> 01:10:33,880 Speaker 1: thinking about how to deal with stressful situations brought about 1241 01:10:33,880 --> 01:10:37,240 Speaker 1: by novel stimuli, and then that that right hemisphere or 1242 01:10:37,280 --> 01:10:41,360 Speaker 1: the non dominant hemisphere, tells the dominant hemisphere what to do, 1243 01:10:41,600 --> 01:10:46,400 Speaker 1: and the dominant dominant hemisphere incorporates that information and enacts it. 1244 01:10:47,360 --> 01:10:50,400 Speaker 1: So he offers five main pieces of evidence for his 1245 01:10:50,439 --> 01:10:54,320 Speaker 1: neurological hypothesis. I just want to present his summary of 1246 01:10:54,400 --> 01:10:56,720 Speaker 1: them very very quickly, and some of these will get 1247 01:10:56,760 --> 01:11:00,000 Speaker 1: into more detail in part two. Yes, so he says 1248 01:11:00,040 --> 01:11:03,440 Speaker 1: the pieces of evidence are that quote one, both hemispheres 1249 01:11:03,479 --> 01:11:06,439 Speaker 1: are able to understand language, while normally only the left 1250 01:11:06,560 --> 01:11:10,640 Speaker 1: can speak. That's kind of interesting too, that there is 1251 01:11:10,680 --> 01:11:14,240 Speaker 1: some vestigial functioning in the right Vernicke's area in a 1252 01:11:14,240 --> 01:11:17,120 Speaker 1: way similar to the voices of God. So he identifies 1253 01:11:17,200 --> 01:11:19,960 Speaker 1: that with like activity in the right hemisphere, and most 1254 01:11:19,960 --> 01:11:24,160 Speaker 1: people the non dominant hemisphere in this speech associated area 1255 01:11:24,600 --> 01:11:29,680 Speaker 1: being associated in say, people with schizophrenia hearing voices auditory 1256 01:11:29,720 --> 01:11:33,479 Speaker 1: hallucinations for example, if there are somewhat severed or one 1257 01:11:33,600 --> 01:11:37,080 Speaker 1: is turned off essentially the other can behave as a 1258 01:11:37,120 --> 01:11:42,640 Speaker 1: person independently with some adaptation. Um for that, the contemporary 1259 01:11:42,680 --> 01:11:47,040 Speaker 1: differences between the hemispheres and cognitive functions at least echo 1260 01:11:47,200 --> 01:11:50,679 Speaker 1: such differences of function between man and God as seen 1261 01:11:50,720 --> 01:11:54,080 Speaker 1: in the literature of bicameral Man. So he's comparing. He's 1262 01:11:54,120 --> 01:11:56,880 Speaker 1: saying that there are some analogies between the functions of 1263 01:11:56,920 --> 01:12:00,280 Speaker 1: the left brain and right right brain to man God, 1264 01:12:00,320 --> 01:12:03,639 Speaker 1: as we will see in some ancient literature. And finally 1265 01:12:03,680 --> 01:12:06,360 Speaker 1: he appeals to the sort of plasticity of the brain, 1266 01:12:06,479 --> 01:12:09,920 Speaker 1: that the environment shapes the way the brain functions to 1267 01:12:10,000 --> 01:12:12,639 Speaker 1: an incredible extent. A lot of what the brain does 1268 01:12:12,800 --> 01:12:15,920 Speaker 1: is not determined by your genes, but is determined by 1269 01:12:16,040 --> 01:12:19,320 Speaker 1: how you grow up and your social environment. All right, 1270 01:12:19,400 --> 01:12:22,240 Speaker 1: So those are the basics, alright. So yeah, so we've 1271 01:12:22,320 --> 01:12:24,439 Speaker 1: established that. In the next episode, we're going to explore 1272 01:12:24,600 --> 01:12:27,439 Speaker 1: what James presents as the evidence for the existence of 1273 01:12:27,479 --> 01:12:30,519 Speaker 1: the bicameral mind and the transition from the bicameral mind 1274 01:12:30,560 --> 01:12:33,320 Speaker 1: to the conscious mind. But I want to end just 1275 01:12:33,360 --> 01:12:36,639 Speaker 1: by comparing the ideas the bicameral mind versus the conscious mind. 1276 01:12:36,800 --> 01:12:39,040 Speaker 1: I think one of the hardest things to recognize and 1277 01:12:39,160 --> 01:12:42,280 Speaker 1: keep in mind here is that we have such a 1278 01:12:42,400 --> 01:12:46,720 Speaker 1: pro consciousness bias. I mean, we we just tend to say, like, well, 1279 01:12:46,720 --> 01:12:50,000 Speaker 1: consciousness is obviously what what you know, the good life 1280 01:12:50,040 --> 01:12:52,720 Speaker 1: is all about. But Jane's I don't think it's ever 1281 01:12:52,840 --> 01:12:56,559 Speaker 1: explicitly saying that one kind of mind is better than another, 1282 01:12:57,080 --> 01:12:59,639 Speaker 1: or even that one kind of mind is smarter than 1283 01:12:59,640 --> 01:13:02,759 Speaker 1: the other, because they do just seem to offer different 1284 01:13:02,800 --> 01:13:06,200 Speaker 1: adaptive capabilities, right, Yeah, I mean, and as will explore, 1285 01:13:06,240 --> 01:13:09,120 Speaker 1: I mean, there's a strong case that when the bicameral 1286 01:13:09,160 --> 01:13:13,120 Speaker 1: mind goes away, I mean that it has tremendous catastrophic 1287 01:13:13,160 --> 01:13:16,960 Speaker 1: consequences for these these early cultures. Right. So, if there's 1288 01:13:17,000 --> 01:13:19,519 Speaker 1: any truth to his theory, it may be the case that, 1289 01:13:19,560 --> 01:13:22,960 Speaker 1: for example, people of the bicameral mind have strengths like 1290 01:13:23,000 --> 01:13:25,880 Speaker 1: they work better in groups. They on average have greater 1291 01:13:26,040 --> 01:13:30,200 Speaker 1: mental endurance, you know, they can do things more and 1292 01:13:30,439 --> 01:13:32,879 Speaker 1: so they're sort of like tougher in keeping at tasks, 1293 01:13:33,400 --> 01:13:37,400 Speaker 1: and they have more creativity, more fluid linguistic creativity. They 1294 01:13:37,400 --> 01:13:40,240 Speaker 1: may have been better poets, They may have been just 1295 01:13:40,439 --> 01:13:43,240 Speaker 1: as we've been discussing, they may have been happier, if 1296 01:13:43,360 --> 01:13:45,639 Speaker 1: in a way that is not like our happiness. Right. 1297 01:13:45,720 --> 01:13:47,680 Speaker 1: And then on the other hand, of course, people with 1298 01:13:47,680 --> 01:13:51,080 Speaker 1: conscious minds he's saying, are probably on average more adaptable 1299 01:13:51,200 --> 01:13:54,120 Speaker 1: that are able to deal with new stimuli when it 1300 01:13:54,160 --> 01:13:57,799 Speaker 1: comes up and the mime appears in the street. Uh, 1301 01:13:57,920 --> 01:14:00,599 Speaker 1: you know, I m I won't stop and surrender to it. Right. 1302 01:14:01,200 --> 01:14:03,800 Speaker 1: But but the takeaway if there's any truth to Jane's theory, 1303 01:14:03,880 --> 01:14:07,360 Speaker 1: I just want to stress, is not bicameral mind equals old, 1304 01:14:07,479 --> 01:14:11,639 Speaker 1: stupid and bad and conscious mind equals new smart and good. 1305 01:14:12,080 --> 01:14:15,960 Speaker 1: They're they're subjectively different models of experiencing the world, with 1306 01:14:16,040 --> 01:14:20,960 Speaker 1: different strengths and weaknesses. However, that the message is still 1307 01:14:21,840 --> 01:14:26,200 Speaker 1: that ancient people were strange. Ancient people to us, we're 1308 01:14:26,280 --> 01:14:29,960 Speaker 1: alien to us. Yeah, So in the next episode, we're 1309 01:14:29,960 --> 01:14:35,559 Speaker 1: going to run through historical, religious, and even modern cultural 1310 01:14:35,640 --> 01:14:39,320 Speaker 1: evidence that he says supports this theory. So if you 1311 01:14:39,360 --> 01:14:42,599 Speaker 1: thought there wasn't enough bloodshed in this episode, hang on, 1312 01:14:42,880 --> 01:14:49,439 Speaker 1: because empires will fall, gods and goddesses will rage, the whole, 1313 01:14:49,600 --> 01:14:51,759 Speaker 1: the whole nine yards, the whole clash of the Titans 1314 01:14:51,760 --> 01:14:55,559 Speaker 1: will take place in the second episode and in the meantime, 1315 01:14:55,760 --> 01:14:57,439 Speaker 1: if you want to check out other episodes of Stuff 1316 01:14:57,479 --> 01:14:59,519 Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, head on over to Stuff to 1317 01:14:59,520 --> 01:15:01,400 Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind and dot com. That is the mothership 1318 01:15:01,439 --> 01:15:03,640 Speaker 1: and that's where you can find all the episodes of 1319 01:15:03,640 --> 01:15:06,600 Speaker 1: the show. You also find videos and blog posts and 1320 01:15:06,760 --> 01:15:11,400 Speaker 1: links out to our various social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumbler, 1321 01:15:11,600 --> 01:15:14,679 Speaker 1: and Hey. On Facebook, we have a discussion group called 1322 01:15:14,720 --> 01:15:17,080 Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow Your Mind Discussion Module that's a 1323 01:15:17,120 --> 01:15:20,000 Speaker 1: great place for you to interact with other fans and 1324 01:15:20,160 --> 01:15:22,719 Speaker 1: with us uh in. In more of a long form 1325 01:15:22,800 --> 01:15:24,920 Speaker 1: format and if you want to get in touch from 1326 01:15:24,920 --> 01:15:27,360 Speaker 1: this directly the old fashioned way as always, you can 1327 01:15:27,439 --> 01:15:29,920 Speaker 1: email us at blow the Mind at how stuff works 1328 01:15:30,040 --> 01:15:42,719 Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. 1329 01:15:42,880 --> 01:16:03,600 Speaker 1: Does it how stuff works dot com The proper posts 1330 01:16:03,800 --> 01:16:04,519 Speaker 1: Farms by bo