back to indexLisa Feldman Barrett: Love, Evolution, and the Human Brain | Lex Fridman Podcast #140
link |
The following is a conversation with Lisa Feldman Barrett,
link |
her second time on the podcast.
link |
She's a neuroscientist at Northeastern University
link |
and one of my favorite people.
link |
Her new book called Seven and a Half Lessons
link |
about the Brain is out now as of a couple of days ago,
link |
so you should definitely support Lisa by buying it
link |
and sharing with friends if you like it.
link |
It's a great short intro to the human brain.
link |
Quick mention of each sponsor,
link |
followed by some thoughts related to the episode.
link |
Athletic Greens, the all in one drink
link |
that I start every day with
link |
to cover all my nutritional bases.
link |
Eight Sleep, a mattress that cools itself
link |
and gives me yet another reason to enjoy sleep.
link |
Masterclass, online courses that I enjoy
link |
from some of the most amazing people in history.
link |
And BetterHelp, online therapy with a licensed professional.
link |
Please check out these sponsors in the description
link |
to get a discount and to support this podcast.
link |
As a side note, let me say that Lisa,
link |
just like Manolis Calles,
link |
is a local brilliant mind and friend
link |
and someone I can see talking to many more times.
link |
Sometimes it's fun to talk to a scientist
link |
not just about their field of expertise,
link |
but also about random topics, even silly ones,
link |
from love to music to philosophy.
link |
Ultimately, it's about having fun,
link |
something I know nothing about.
link |
This conversation is certainly that.
link |
It may not always work, but it's worth a shot.
link |
I think it's valuable to alternate
link |
along all kinds of dimensions,
link |
like between deeper technical discussions
link |
and more fun random discussion,
link |
from liberal thinker to conservative thinker,
link |
from musician to athlete, from CEO to junior engineer,
link |
from friend to stranger.
link |
Variety makes life and conversation more interesting.
link |
Let's see where this little podcast journey goes.
link |
If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
link |
review it with five stars on Apple Podcast,
link |
follow on Spotify, support it on Patreon,
link |
or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
link |
And now, here's my conversation with Lisa Feldman Barrett.
link |
Based on the comments in our previous conversation,
link |
I think a lot of people will be very disappointed,
link |
I should say, to learn that you are in fact married.
link |
As they say, all the good ones are taken.
link |
Okay, so I'm a fan of your husband as well, Dan.
link |
He's a programmer and musician,
link |
so a man after my own heart.
link |
Can I ask a ridiculously over romanticized question
link |
of when did you first fall in love with Dan?
link |
It's actually, it's a really romantic story, I think.
link |
So I was divorced by the time I was 26, 27, 26, I guess.
link |
And I was in my first academic job,
link |
which was Penn State University,
link |
which is in the middle of Pennsylvania,
link |
surrounded by mountains.
link |
So you have, it's four hours to get anywhere,
link |
to get to Philadelphia, New York, Washington.
link |
I mean, you're basically stuck, you know.
link |
And I was very fortunate to have
link |
a lot of other assistant professors
link |
who were hired at the same time as I was.
link |
So there were a lot of us,
link |
we were all friends, which was really fun.
link |
But I was single and I didn't wanna date a student.
link |
And there were no,
link |
and I wasn't gonna date somebody in my department,
link |
that's just a recipe for disaster.
link |
So even at 20, whatever you were,
link |
you were already wise enough to know that.
link |
Yeah, a little bit, maybe, yeah.
link |
I wouldn't call me wise at that age.
link |
But anyways, not sure that I would say that I'm wise now,
link |
I was spending probably 16 hours a day in the lab
link |
because it was my first year as an assistant professor
link |
and there's a lot to do.
link |
And I was also bitching and moaning to my friends
link |
that I hadn't had sex in I don't know how many months
link |
and I was starting to become unhappy with my life.
link |
And I think at a certain point,
link |
they just got tired of listening to me bitch and moan
link |
and said, just do something about it then,
link |
like if you're unhappy.
link |
And so the first thing I did was I made friends
link |
with a sushi chef in town.
link |
And this is like a State College, Pennsylvania
link |
in the early 90s was there was like a pizza shop
link |
and a sub shop and actually a very good bagel shop
link |
and one good coffee shop and maybe one nice restaurant.
link |
I mean, there was really,
link |
but there was the second son of a Japanese sushi chef
link |
who was not going to inherit the restaurant.
link |
And so he moved to Pennsylvania and was giving sushi lessons.
link |
So I met this guy, the sushi chef
link |
and we decided to throw a sushi party at the coffee shop.
link |
So we basically, it was the goal was to invite
link |
every eligible bachelor really within like a 20 mile radius.
link |
We had a totally fun time.
link |
I wore an awesome crushed velvet burgundy dress,
link |
it was beautiful dress.
link |
And I didn't meet any, I met a lot of new friends,
link |
but I did not meet anybody.
link |
So then I thought, okay, well,
link |
maybe I'll try the Personals ads,
link |
which I had never used before in my life.
link |
And I first tried the paper Personals ads.
link |
Like in the newspaper?
link |
Like in the newspaper, that didn't work.
link |
And then a friend of mine said,
link |
oh, you know, there's this thing called Net News.
link |
So we're going, this is like 1992 maybe.
link |
So there was this anonymous, you could do it anonymously.
link |
So you would read, you could post or you could read ads
link |
and then respond to an address which was anonymous
link |
and that was yoked to somebody's real address.
link |
And there was always a lag
link |
because it was this like a bulletin board sort of thing.
link |
So at first I read them over
link |
and I decided to respond to one or two.
link |
And, you know, it was interesting.
link |
Sorry, this is not on the internet.
link |
Yeah, this is totally on the internet.
link |
But it takes, there's a delay of a couple of days
link |
Yeah, right, right.
link |
It's 1992, there's no web, web pictures.
link |
There's no pictures, the web doesn't exist.
link |
It's all done in ASCII format sort of.
link |
And, you know, but the ratio,
link |
but the ratio of men to women was like 10 to one.
link |
I mean, there were many more men
link |
because it was basically academics and the government.
link |
I mean, I think AOL maybe was just starting
link |
to become popular, but.
link |
And so the first person I met told me that he was a scientist
link |
who worked for NASA and, yeah.
link |
Anyways, it turned out that he didn't actually.
link |
Yeah, this is how they brag is like you elevate your,
link |
as opposed to saying you're taller than you are,
link |
you say like your position is higher.
link |
Yeah, and I actually, I would have been fine
link |
dating somebody who wasn't a scientist.
link |
It's just that they have, it's just that whoever I date
link |
has to just accept that I am and that I was pretty ambitious
link |
and was trying to make my career.
link |
And, you know, that's not, I think it's maybe more common
link |
now for men to maybe accept that in their female partners,
link |
but at that time, not so common.
link |
It could be intimidating, I guess.
link |
Yes, that has been said.
link |
And so then the next one I actually corresponded with,
link |
and we actually got to the point of talking on the phone,
link |
and we had this really kind of funny conversation
link |
where, you know, we're chatting and he said,
link |
he introduces the idea that, you know,
link |
he's really looking for a dominant woman.
link |
And I'm thinking, I'm a psychologist by training,
link |
so I'm thinking, oh, he means sex roles.
link |
Like, I'm like, no, I'm very assertive
link |
and I'm glad you think that, you know, okay.
link |
Anyways, long story short, that's not really what he meant.
link |
Yeah, so, and I just, you know,
link |
that will just show you my level of naivete.
link |
Like, I was like, I didn't completely understand,
link |
but I was like, well, yeah, you know, no.
link |
At one point he asked me how I felt
link |
about him wearing my lingerie, and I was like,
link |
I don't even share my lingerie with my sister.
link |
Like, I don't share my lingerie with anybody, you know?
link |
The third one I interacted with was a banker
link |
who lived in Singapore, and that conversation
link |
didn't last very long because he made an analogy,
link |
I guess he made an analogy between me
link |
and a character in The Fountainhead,
link |
the woman who's raped in The Fountainhead,
link |
and I was like, okay, that's not.
link |
That's not a good.
link |
That's not a good, no, that's not a good one.
link |
Not that part, not that scene.
link |
So then I was like, okay, you know what?
link |
I'm gonna post my own ad, and so I did.
link |
I posted, well, first I wrote my ad,
link |
and then I, of course, I checked it with my friends
link |
who were all also assistant professors.
link |
They were like my little Greek chorus,
link |
and then I posted it, and I got something like,
link |
I don't know, 80 something responses in 24 hours.
link |
I mean, it was very.
link |
Do you remember the pitch?
link |
Like how you, I guess, condensed yourself?
link |
I don't remember it exactly, although Dan has it,
link |
but actually for our 20th wedding anniversary,
link |
he took our exchanges, and he printed them off
link |
and put them in a leather bound book for us to read,
link |
which was really sweet.
link |
Yeah, I think I was just really direct.
link |
Like I'm almost 30.
link |
I'm not looking, I'm looking for something serious.
link |
But the thing is, I forgot to say where my location was
link |
and my age, which I forgot.
link |
So I got lots of, I mean, I will say,
link |
so I printed off all of the responses,
link |
and I had all my friends over, and we had a big,
link |
I made a big pot of gumbo,
link |
and we drank through several bottles of wine
link |
reading these responses.
link |
And I would say for the most part, they were really sweet,
link |
like earnest and genuine as much as you could tell
link |
that somebody is being genuine.
link |
I mean, it seemed, there were a couple of really funky ones,
link |
like this one couple who told me
link |
that I was their soulmate, the two of them,
link |
when they were looking for a third person,
link |
and I was like, oh, okay.
link |
But mostly super, seemed like super genuine people.
link |
And so I chose five men to start corresponding with,
link |
and I was corresponding with them.
link |
And then about a week later, I get this other email.
link |
And okay, and then I post something the next day
link |
that said, okay, thank you so much,
link |
and I'm gonna, I answered every person back.
link |
But then after that, I said, okay,
link |
and I'm not gonna answer anymore,
link |
because they were still coming in,
link |
and I couldn't, I have a job,
link |
and a house to take care of and stuff.
link |
So, and then about a week later, I get this other email.
link |
And he says, he just describes himself,
link |
like I'm this, I'm this, I'm this, I'm a chef,
link |
I'm a scientist, I'm a this, I'm a this.
link |
And so I emailed him back, and I said, you know,
link |
you seem interesting, you can write me
link |
at my actual address if you want, here's my address.
link |
I'm not really responding,
link |
I'm not really responding to other people anymore,
link |
but you seem interesting, you know,
link |
you can write to me if you want.
link |
And then he wrote to me, and I wrote him back,
link |
and it was a nondescript kind of email,
link |
and I wrote him back, and I said, thanks for responding.
link |
You know, I'm really busy right now.
link |
I was in the middle of writing
link |
my first slate of grant applications,
link |
so I was really consumed, and I said,
link |
I'll get back to you in a couple of days.
link |
And so I did, I waited a couple days
link |
till my grants were, you know, safe,
link |
grant applications safely out the door.
link |
And then I emailed him back, and then he emailed me,
link |
and then really across two days, we sent 100 emails.
link |
And text only, was there pictures or any of that stuff?
link |
Text only, text only.
link |
And then, so this was like a Thursday and a Friday,
link |
and then Friday, he said,
link |
let's talk on the weekend on the phone.
link |
And he wanted to talk Sunday night,
link |
and I had a date Sunday night.
link |
So I said, okay, sure, we can talk Sunday night.
link |
And then I was like, well, you know,
link |
I don't really wanna cancel my date,
link |
so I'm just gonna call him on Saturday.
link |
So I just called, I cold called him on Saturday,
link |
and a woman answered.
link |
And so she says, you know, hello.
link |
And I say, oh, you know, stand there.
link |
And she said, sure, can I ask who's calling?
link |
And I said, tell him it's Lisa.
link |
And she went, oh my God, oh my God, I'm just a friend.
link |
I'm just a friend.
link |
I just need to tell you, I'm just a friend.
link |
And I was like, this is adorable, right?
link |
She doesn't, and then he gets on the phone,
link |
not hi, nice to meet you.
link |
The first thing he says to me, she's just a friend.
link |
So I was just so charmed really by the whole thing.
link |
So it was Yom Kippur.
link |
It was the Jewish day of atonement that was ending
link |
and they were baking cookies and going to a break fast.
link |
So people, you know, as you know, fast all day,
link |
and then they go to a party and they break fast.
link |
So I thought, okay, I'll just cancel my date.
link |
So I did, and I stayed home and we talked for eight hours.
link |
And then the next night for six hours.
link |
And basically it just went on like that.
link |
And then by the end of the week, he flew to stay college.
link |
And, you know, we'd gone through this whole thing
link |
where I'd said, we're gonna take it slow.
link |
We're gonna get to know each other, you know.
link |
And then really by, I think we talked like two or three times
link |
these like really long conversations.
link |
And then he said, I'm just gonna fly there.
link |
And then, so of course there's,
link |
I don't even know that there were fax machines
link |
Maybe there were, but I don't think so.
link |
Anyway, so he, we decided we'll exchange pictures.
link |
And so he, you know, I take my photograph
link |
and I give it to my secretary.
link |
And I say to my secretary.
link |
I say that, send this priority mail.
link |
Priority mail, yeah.
link |
And he goes, okay, I'll send a priority mail.
link |
And I'm like, it's a priority mail.
link |
He's like, I know, priority mail, okay.
link |
And then, so I get Dan's photograph in the mail.
link |
And, you know, it's him in shorts.
link |
And you can see that he's probably somewhere
link |
like the Bahamas or something like that.
link |
And it's like cropped.
link |
So clearly what he's done is he's taken a photograph
link |
where, you know, he's in it with someone else
link |
who turned out to be his ex wife.
link |
So I'm thinking, well, this is awesome.
link |
You know, I've hit the jackpot.
link |
He's, you know, very appealing to me, very attractive.
link |
And then, you know, my photograph doesn't show up
link |
and it doesn't show up.
link |
And, you know, so like one day and then two days
link |
and then, you know, he's like, you know, I said,
link |
well, I asked my secretary to send a priority.
link |
I mean, I don't know, you know, what he did.
link |
And he's like, I said, I'm like, well, you don't have to,
link |
you know, you don't have to come.
link |
And he's like, no, no, no, I'm gonna, you know,
link |
we've had like five dates,
link |
the equivalent of five dates practically.
link |
And then, so he's supposed to fly on a Thursday or Friday,
link |
And I get a call like maybe an hour
link |
before his flight's supposed to leave.
link |
And I say, and it's just something in his voice, right?
link |
And I say, cause at this point I think I've talked to him
link |
like for 25 hours, I don't know.
link |
And I'm like, you got the picture.
link |
And he's like, yeah.
link |
And I'm like, you don't like it.
link |
And he's like, well,
link |
I'm sure it's not, I'm sure it's your,
link |
I'm sure it's just not a good, you know,
link |
it's not, it's probably not your best.
link |
You know, you don't, you don't have to come.
link |
And he's like, no, no, no, I'm coming.
link |
And I'm like, no, you don't have to come.
link |
And he's like, no, no, I really wanna,
link |
I'm, you know, I'm getting on the plane.
link |
I'm like, you don't have to get on the plane.
link |
He's like, no, I'm getting on the plane.
link |
And so I go down to my, I go,
link |
I'm in my office, this is happening, right?
link |
So I go downstairs to one of my closest friends
link |
who is still actually one of my closest friends,
link |
who is one of my colleagues and Kevin.
link |
And I say, Kevin, and I go to Kevin,
link |
I go, Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, he doesn't like the photograph.
link |
And Kevin's like, well, which photograph should you send?
link |
And I'm like, well, you know the one
link |
where we're shooting pool?
link |
And he's like, you sent that photograph?
link |
That's a horrible photograph.
link |
I'm like, yeah, but it's the only one that I had
link |
that was like, where my hair was kind of similar
link |
to what it is now, and he's like, Lisa,
link |
like, do I have to check everything for you?
link |
You should not have sent that, you know?
link |
But still, he flew over.
link |
So he flew. Where from, by the way?
link |
He was in graduate school at Amherst,
link |
yeah, at UMass Amherst.
link |
So he flew and I picked him up at the airport
link |
and he was happy, so whatever the concern was, was gone.
link |
And I was dressed, you know, I carefully, carefully dressed.
link |
I was really, really nervous.
link |
Because I don't really believe in fate
link |
and I don't really think there's only one person
link |
that you can be with.
link |
But I think some people are curvy,
link |
you know, people who, some people are curvy,
link |
they're kind of complicated,
link |
and so the number of people who fit them
link |
is maybe less than.
link |
I like it, mathematically speaking, yeah.
link |
And so when I was going to pick him up at the airport,
link |
I was thinking, well, this could,
link |
I could be going to pick up the person I'm gonna marry.
link |
I mean, like, I really, but I really, you know,
link |
like, our conversations were just very authentic
link |
and very moving and we really connected.
link |
And I really felt like he understood me, actually,
link |
in a way that a lot of people don't.
link |
And what was really nice was, at the time,
link |
you know, the airport was this tiny little airport
link |
out in a cornfield, basically.
link |
And so driving back to the town,
link |
we were in the car for 15 minutes,
link |
completely in the dark, as I was driving.
link |
And so it was very similar to,
link |
we had just spent, you know, 20 something hours
link |
on the telephone, sitting in the dark,
link |
talking to each other.
link |
So it was very familiar.
link |
And we basically spent the whole weekend together
link |
and he met all my friends and we had a big party.
link |
And at the end of the weekend,
link |
I said, okay, you know,
link |
if we're gonna give this a shot,
link |
we probably shouldn't see other people.
link |
So it's a risk, you know?
link |
But I just didn't see how it would work
link |
if we were dating people locally
link |
and then also seeing each other at a distance.
link |
Because, you know, I've had long distance relationships
link |
before and they're hard and they take a lot of effort.
link |
And so we decided we'd give it three months
link |
and see what happened and that was it.
link |
This is an interesting thing.
link |
Like we're all, what is it?
link |
There's several billion of us
link |
and we're kind of roaming this world
link |
and then you kind of stick together.
link |
You find somebody that just like gets you.
link |
And it's interesting to think about,
link |
there's probably thousands if not millions of people
link |
that would be sticky to you,
link |
depending on the curvature of your space.
link |
But what is the, could you speak to the stickiness?
link |
Like to the, just the falling in love?
link |
Like seeing that somebody really gets you?
link |
Maybe by way of telling, do you think,
link |
do you remember there was a moment
link |
when you just realized, damn it, I think I'm,
link |
like I think this is the guy.
link |
I think I'm in love.
link |
We were having these conversations actually
link |
from the, really from the second weekend we were together.
link |
So he flew back the next weekend to State College
link |
because it was my birthday.
link |
It was my 30th birthday.
link |
My friends were throwing me a party.
link |
And we went hiking and we hiked up some mountain
link |
and we were sitting on a cliff over this overlook
link |
and talking to each other.
link |
And I was thinking, and I actually said to him,
link |
like I haven't really known you very long,
link |
but I feel like I'm falling in love with you,
link |
which can't possibly be happening.
link |
I must be projecting, but it certainly feels that way.
link |
Like I don't believe in love at first sight.
link |
So this can't really be happening,
link |
but it sort of feels like it is.
link |
And he was like, I know what you mean.
link |
And so for the first three months or four months,
link |
we would say things to each other.
link |
Like, I feel like I'm in love with you,
link |
but you know, but that can't,
link |
but things don't really work like that.
link |
So, but you know, so, and then it became a joke.
link |
Like I feel like I'm in love with you.
link |
And then eventually, you know, I think,
link |
but I think that was one moment
link |
where we were talking about just,
link |
you know, not just all the great aspirations you have
link |
or all the things,
link |
but also things you don't like about yourself,
link |
things that you're worried about,
link |
things that you're scared of.
link |
And then I think that was sort of solidified
link |
And then there was one weekend
link |
where we went to Maine in the winter,
link |
which I mean, I really love the beach always,
link |
but in the winter, particularly.
link |
Because it's just beautiful and calm and whatever.
link |
And I also, I do find beauty in starkness sometimes.
link |
Like, so there's this grand majestic scene
link |
of, you know, this very powerful ocean
link |
and it's all these like beautiful blue grays
link |
and it's just stunning.
link |
And so we were sitting on this huge rock in Maine
link |
and where we'd gone for the weekend,
link |
it was freezing cold.
link |
And I honestly can't remember what he said
link |
or what I said or what,
link |
but I definitely remember having this feeling of,
link |
I absolutely wanna stay with this person.
link |
And I don't know what my life will be like
link |
if I'm not with this person.
link |
Like I need to be with this person.
link |
Can we, from a scientific and a human perspective,
link |
dig into your belief that first love at first sight
link |
You don't believe in it?
link |
Cause there is, you don't think there's like a magic
link |
where you see somebody in the Jack Kerouac way
link |
and you're like, wow, that's something.
link |
That's a special little glimmer or something.
link |
Oh, I definitely think you can connect with someone
link |
instant, in an instance.
link |
And I definitely think you can say,
link |
oh, there's something there
link |
and I'm really clicking with that person.
link |
Romantically, but also just as friends,
link |
it's possible to do that.
link |
You recognize a mind that's like yours
link |
or that's compatible with yours.
link |
There are ways that you feel like you're being understood
link |
or that you understand something about this person
link |
or maybe you see something in this person
link |
that you find really compelling or intriguing.
link |
But I think your brain is predictive organ, right?
link |
You're using your past.
link |
You're projecting.
link |
You're using your past to make predictions
link |
and I mean, not deliberately.
link |
That's how your brain is wired.
link |
That's what it does.
link |
And so it's filling in all of the gaps that you,
link |
there are lots of gaps of information
link |
that you don't, information you don't have.
link |
And so your brain is filling those in and.
link |
But isn't that what love is?
link |
No, I don't think so, actually.
link |
I mean, to some extent, sure, you always,
link |
there's research to show that people who are in love
link |
always see the best in each other
link |
and when there's a negative interpretation
link |
or a positive interpretation,
link |
they choose the positive ones.
link |
There's a little bit of positive illusion there going on.
link |
That's what the research shows.
link |
But I think that when you find somebody
link |
when you find somebody who not just appreciates
link |
your faults but loves you for them actually,
link |
like maybe even doesn't see them as a fault,
link |
that's, so you have to be honest enough
link |
about what your faults are.
link |
So it's easy to love someone for all the things
link |
that they, for all the wonderful characteristics they have.
link |
It's harder, I think, to love someone despite their faults
link |
or maybe even the faults that they see
link |
aren't really faults at all to you.
link |
They're actually something really special.
link |
But isn't that, can't you explain that
link |
by saying the brain kind of, like you're projecting,
link |
you have a conception of a human being
link |
or just a spirit that really connects with you
link |
and you're projecting that onto that person
link |
and within that framework, all their faults
link |
then become beautiful, like little.
link |
Maybe, but you just have to pay attention
link |
to the prediction error.
link |
No, but maybe that's what love,
link |
like maybe you started ignoring the prediction error.
link |
Maybe love is just your ability, like.
link |
To ignore the prediction error.
link |
Well, I think that there's some research
link |
that might say that, but that's not my experience, I guess.
link |
But there is some research that says,
link |
I mean, there's some research that says
link |
you have to have an optimal margin of illusion,
link |
which means that you put a positive spin on smaller things,
link |
but you don't ignore the bigger things, right?
link |
And I think without being judgmental at all,
link |
when someone says to me, you're not who I thought you were,
link |
I mean, nobody has said that to me in a really long time,
link |
but certainly when I was younger,
link |
that was, you're not who I thought you were.
link |
My reaction to that was, well, whose fault is that?
link |
You know, I'm a pretty upfront person.
link |
I mean, I will though say that in my experience,
link |
people don't lie to you about who they are.
link |
They lie to themselves in your presence.
link |
And so, you know, you don't wanna get tied up in that,
link |
tangled up in that.
link |
And I think from the get go,
link |
Dan and I were just for whatever reason,
link |
maybe it's because we both had been divorced already
link |
and, you know, he told me who we thought he was
link |
and he was pretty accurate as far as I could,
link |
pretty much actually.
link |
I mean, there's very,
link |
I can't say that I've ever come across a characteristic
link |
in him that really surprised me in a bad way.
link |
It's hard to know yourself.
link |
It is hard to know yourself.
link |
And to communicate that.
link |
I mean, I'll say, you know,
link |
I had the advantage of training as a therapist,
link |
which meant for five years I was under a fucking microscope.
link |
You know, when I was training as a therapist,
link |
it was hour for hour supervision,
link |
which meant if you were in a room with a client for an hour,
link |
you had an hour with a supervisor.
link |
So that supervisor was behind the mirror for your session.
link |
And then you went and had an hour of discussion
link |
about what you said, what you didn't say,
link |
learning to use your own feelings and thoughts
link |
as a tool to probe the mind of the client and so on.
link |
And so you can't help but learn a lot of,
link |
you can't help but learn a lot about yourself
link |
Do you think knowing or learning how the sausage is made
link |
ruins the magic of the actual experience?
link |
Like you as a neuroscientist who studies the brain,
link |
do you think it ruins the magic of like love at first sight?
link |
Or are you, do you consciously are still able
link |
to lose yourself in the moment?
link |
I'm definitely able to lose myself in the moment.
link |
Not always, chocolate.
link |
I mean, some kind of mind altering substance, right?
link |
But yeah, for sure.
link |
I mean, I guess what I would say though,
link |
is that for me, part of the magic is the process.
link |
Like, so I remember a day there was,
link |
while I was working on this book of essays,
link |
I was in New York.
link |
I can't remember why I was in New York,
link |
but I was in New York for something.
link |
And I was in Central Park and I was looking
link |
at all the people with their babies.
link |
And I was thinking, each one of these,
link |
there's a tiny little brain that's wiring itself right now.
link |
And I just, I felt in that moment,
link |
I was like, I am never gonna look at an infant
link |
in the same way ever again.
link |
And so to me, I mean, honestly,
link |
before I started learning about brain development,
link |
I thought babies were cute, but not that interesting
link |
until they could do interact with you and do things.
link |
Of course, my own infant, I thought,
link |
was extraordinarily interesting,
link |
but they're kind of like lumps.
link |
That's until they can interact with you,
link |
but they are anything but lumps.
link |
I mean, so, and part of the,
link |
I mean, all I can say is I have deep affection now
link |
for like tiny little babies in a way
link |
that I didn't really before
link |
because of the, I'm just so curious.
link |
But the actual process of the mechanisms
link |
of the wiring of the brain, the learning,
link |
all the magic of the neurobiology.
link |
Yeah, and or something like,
link |
when you make eye contact with someone directly,
link |
sometimes you feel something, right?
link |
Yeah, that's weird.
link |
And so to me, that's not backing away from the moment.
link |
That's like expanding the moment.
link |
It's like, that's incredibly cool.
link |
You know, when I was, I'll just say that
link |
when I was in graduate school,
link |
I also was in therapy because it's almost a given
link |
that you're gonna be in therapy yourself
link |
if you're gonna become a therapist.
link |
And I had a deal with my therapist,
link |
which was that I could call timeout
link |
at any moment that I wanted to,
link |
as long as I was being responsible about it.
link |
And I wasn't using it as a way to get out of something.
link |
And he could tell me, no, he could decline and say,
link |
no, you're using this to get out of something.
link |
But I could call timeout whenever I want
link |
and say, what are you doing right now?
link |
Like, what are you, here's what I'm experiencing.
link |
What are you trying to do?
link |
Like I wanted to use my own experience
link |
to interrogate what the process was.
link |
And that made it more helpful in a way.
link |
Do you know what I mean?
link |
So yeah, I don't think learning how something works
link |
makes it less magical actually,
link |
but that's just me, I guess.
link |
I don't know, would you?
link |
I tend to have two modes.
link |
One is an engineer and one is a romantic.
link |
And I'm conscious of like, there's two rooms.
link |
You can go into the one, the engineer room.
link |
And I think that ruins the romance.
link |
So I tend to, there's two rooms.
link |
One is the engineering room.
link |
Think from first principles, how do we build the thing
link |
that creates this kind of behavior?
link |
And then you go into the romantic room
link |
where you're like emotional, it's a roller coaster.
link |
And then the thing is, let's take it slow.
link |
And then you get married the next night
link |
that you just this giant mess and you write a song
link |
and then you cry and then you send a bunch of texts
link |
and anger and whatever.
link |
And somehow you're in Vegas and there's random people
link |
and you're drunk and whatever, all that,
link |
like in poetry and just mess of it, fighting.
link |
Yeah, that's not, those are two rooms
link |
and you go back between them.
link |
But I think the way you put it is quite poetic.
link |
I think you're much better at adulting
link |
with love than perhaps I am.
link |
Because there's a magic to children.
link |
I also think like of adults as children.
link |
It's kind of cool to see, it's a cool thought experiment
link |
to look at adults and think like that used to be a baby.
link |
And then that's like a fully wired baby.
link |
And it's just walking around pretending to be like
link |
all serious and important, wearing a suit or something.
link |
But that used to be a baby.
link |
And then you think of like the parenting
link |
and all the experiences they had.
link |
Like it's cool to think of it that way.
link |
But then I start thinking like
link |
from a machine learning perspective.
link |
But once you're like the romantic moments,
link |
all that kind of stuff, all that falls away.
link |
I forget about all of that, I don't know.
link |
That's the Russian thing.
link |
But I also think it might be an age thing
link |
or maybe an experience thing.
link |
So I think we all, I mean,
link |
if you're exposed to Western culture at all,
link |
you are exposed to the sort of idealized,
link |
stereotypic, romantic exchange.
link |
And what does it mean to be romantic?
link |
And so here's a test.
link |
I'm seeing how to phrase it.
link |
Okay, so not really a test,
link |
but this tells you something about
link |
your own ideas about romance.
link |
For Valentine's Day one year,
link |
my husband bought me a six way plug.
link |
Is that romantic or not romantic?
link |
Like, sorry, six way plug, is that like an outlet?
link |
Yeah, like to put it in an outlet.
link |
Is that romantic or not romantic?
link |
I mean, it depends the look in his eyes when he does it.
link |
I mean, it depends on the conversation
link |
that led up to that point.
link |
Depends how much, it's like the music,
link |
because you have a very, you're both from the,
link |
my experiences with you as a fan,
link |
you have both a romantic niche,
link |
but you have a very pragmatic,
link |
like you cut through the bullshit of the fuzziness.
link |
And there's something about a six way plug
link |
that cuts through the bullshit
link |
that connects to the human,
link |
like he understands who you are.
link |
That was the most romantic gift he could have given me
link |
because he knows me so well.
link |
He has a deep understanding of me,
link |
which is that I will sit and suffer and complain
link |
about the fact that I have to plug and unplug things.
link |
And I will bitch and moan until the cows come home,
link |
but it would never occur to me to go buy
link |
a bloody six way plug.
link |
Whereas for him, he bought it, he plugged it in,
link |
he arranged, he taped up all my wires,
link |
he made it like really usable.
link |
And for me, that was the best present.
link |
It was the most romantic thing
link |
because he understood who I was
link |
and he did something very,
link |
or just the casual, like we moved into a house
link |
that we went from having a two car garage
link |
to a one car garage.
link |
And I said, okay, I'm from Canada,
link |
I'm not bothered by snow.
link |
Well, I mean, I'm a little bothered by snow,
link |
but he's very bothered by snow.
link |
So I'm like, okay, you can park your car in the garage,
link |
Every day when it snows, he goes out and cleans my car.
link |
I never asked him to do it, he just does it
link |
because he knows that I'm cutting it really close
link |
in the morning, when we all used to go to work.
link |
I have a time to the second
link |
so that I can get up as late as possible,
link |
work out as long as possible,
link |
and make it into my office
link |
like a minute before my first meeting.
link |
And so if it snows unexpectedly or something,
link |
I'm screwed because now that's an added 10 or 15 minutes
link |
and I'm gonna be late.
link |
Anyways, it's just these little tiny things.
link |
He's a really easygoing guy
link |
and he doesn't look like somebody
link |
who pays attention to detail.
link |
He doesn't fuss about detail,
link |
but he definitely pays attention to detail.
link |
And it is very, very romantic in the sense
link |
that he loves me despite my little details.
link |
And understands you.
link |
Yeah, he understands me.
link |
It is kind of hilarious that that is,
link |
the six way plug is the most fulfilling,
link |
richest display of romance in your life.
link |
That's what I mean about romance.
link |
Romance is really, it's not all about chocolates
link |
and flowers and whatever.
link |
I mean, those are all nice too, but...
link |
Sometimes it's about the six way plug.
link |
Sometimes it's about the six way plug.
link |
So maybe one way I could ask
link |
before we talk about the details,
link |
you also have the author of another book
link |
as we talked about how emotions are made.
link |
So it's interesting to talk about the process of writing.
link |
You mentioned you were in New York.
link |
What have you learned from writing these two books
link |
about the actual process of writing?
link |
And maybe, I don't know what's the most interesting thing
link |
to talk about there.
link |
Maybe the biggest challenges
link |
or the boring, mundane, systematic,
link |
like day to day of what worked for you,
link |
like hacks or even just about the neuroscience
link |
that you've learned through the process
link |
of trying to write them.
link |
Here's the thing I learned.
link |
If you think that it's gonna take you a year
link |
to write your book,
link |
it's going to take you three years to write your book.
link |
That's the first thing I learned
link |
is that no matter how organized you are,
link |
it's always gonna take way longer than what you think
link |
in part because very few people make an outline
link |
and then just stick to it.
link |
Some of the topics really take on a life of their own
link |
and to some extent you wanna let them have their voice.
link |
You wanna follow leads until you feel satisfied
link |
that you've dealt with the topic appropriately.
link |
But that part is actually fun.
link |
It's not fun to feel like you're constantly behind the eight
link |
ball in terms of time.
link |
But it is the exploration and the foraging for information
link |
is incredibly fun.
link |
For me anyways, I found it really enjoyable.
link |
And if I wasn't also running a lab at the same time
link |
and trying to keep my family going,
link |
the whole thing would have just been fun.
link |
But I would say the hardest thing about,
link |
the most important thing I think I learned
link |
is also the hardest thing and that for me,
link |
which is knowing what to leave out.
link |
A really good storyteller knows what to leave out.
link |
In academic writing, you shouldn't leave anything out.
link |
All the details should be there.
link |
I've written or participated in writing
link |
over 200 papers, peer reviewed papers.
link |
So I'm pretty good with detail.
link |
Knowing what to leave out and not harming
link |
the validity of the story.
link |
That is a tricky, tricky thing.
link |
It was tricky when I wrote How Emotions Are Made,
link |
but that's a standard popular science book.
link |
So it's 300 something pages.
link |
And then it has like a thousand end notes.
link |
And then each of the end notes is attached to a web note,
link |
which is also long.
link |
So I mean, it's, and it start, and I mean the final draft,
link |
I mean, I wrote three drafts of that book actually.
link |
And the final draft, and then I had to cut by a third.
link |
I mean, it was like 150,000 words or something.
link |
And I had to cut it down to like 110.
link |
So obviously it's, I struggle with what to leave out.
link |
Brevity is not my strong suit.
link |
I'm always telling people that it's a warning.
link |
So that's why this book was,
link |
I'd always been really fascinated with essays.
link |
I love reading essays.
link |
And after reading a small set of essays by Anne Fadiman
link |
called At Large and At Small,
link |
which I just love these little essays.
link |
What's the topic of those essays?
link |
They are, they're called familiar essays.
link |
So the topics are like everyday topics,
link |
like mail, coffee, chocolate.
link |
I mean, just like, and what she does
link |
is she weaves her own experience.
link |
It's a little bit like these conversations
link |
that you're so good at curating, actually.
link |
You're weaving together history and philosophy and science
link |
and also personal reflections.
link |
And a little bit, you feel like you're like eavesdropping
link |
on someone's train of thought in a way.
link |
It's really, they're really compelling to me.
link |
Even if it's just a mundane topic.
link |
Yeah, but it's so interesting
link |
to learn about like all of these little stories
link |
in the wrapping of the history of like mail.
link |
Like that's really interesting.
link |
And so I read these essays
link |
and then I wrote to her a little fan girl email.
link |
This was many years ago.
link |
And I said, I just love this book.
link |
And how did you learn to write essays like this?
link |
And she gave me a reading list of essays
link |
that I should read like writers.
link |
And so I read them all.
link |
And anyway, so I decided it would be a really good challenge
link |
for me to try to write something really brief
link |
where I could focus on one or two really fascinating tidbits
link |
of neuroscience, connect each one
link |
to something philosophical or like just a question
link |
about human nature.
link |
Do it in a really brief format
link |
without violating the validity of the science.
link |
That was a, I just set myself this,
link |
what I thought of as a really, really big challenge
link |
in part because it was an incredibly hard thing
link |
for me to do in the first book.
link |
Yeah, we should say that this is,
link |
The Seven and a Half Lessons is a very short book.
link |
I mean, it's like it embodies brevity, right?
link |
The whole point throughout is just,
link |
I mean, you could tell that there's editing,
link |
like there's pain in trying to bring it
link |
as brief as possible, as clean as possible, yeah.
link |
Yeah, so it's, the way I think of it is,
link |
it's a little book of big science and big ideas.
link |
Yeah, really big ideas in brief little packages.
link |
And I wrote it so that people could read it.
link |
I love reading on the beach.
link |
I love reading essays on the beach.
link |
I read it, I wrote it so people could read it on the beach
link |
or in the bathtub or a subway stop.
link |
Even if the beach is frozen over in the snow.
link |
Yeah, so my husband, Dan, calls it
link |
the first neuroscience beach read.
link |
That's his phrasing, yeah.
link |
And like you said, you learn a lot about writing
link |
from your husband, like you were saying offline.
link |
Well, he is, of the two of us, he is the better writer.
link |
He is a masterful writer.
link |
He's also, I mean, he's a PhD in computer science.
link |
He's a software engineer,
link |
but he's also really good at organization of knowledge.
link |
So he built for a company he used to work for,
link |
he built one of the first knowledge management systems.
link |
And he now works at Google
link |
where he does engineering education.
link |
Like he understands how to tell a good story,
link |
just about anything, really.
link |
He's got impeccable timing, he's really funny.
link |
And luckily for me, he knows very little
link |
about psychology or neuroscience.
link |
Well, now he knows more, obviously, but.
link |
So when How Emotions Were Made, he was really, really helpful
link |
to me because the first draft of every chapter
link |
was me talking to him about what,
link |
I would talk out loud about what I wanted to say
link |
and the order in which I wanted to say it.
link |
And then I would write it and then he would read it
link |
and tell me all the bits that could be excised.
link |
And sometimes we would, I should say,
link |
I mean, we don't, he and I don't really argue about much
link |
except directions in the car.
link |
Like if we're gonna have an argument,
link |
that's gonna be where it's gonna happen, where.
link |
What's the nature of the argument about directions exactly?
link |
I don't really know, it's just that we're very,
link |
I think it's that spatially,
link |
I use egocentric space.
link |
So I wanna say, turn left.
link |
Like I'm reasoning in relation
link |
to my own physical corporeal body.
link |
So you walk to the church and you turn left and you,
link |
then whatever, I'm always like,
link |
and he gives directions allocentrically,
link |
which means organized around north, south, east, west.
link |
So to you, the earth is at the center of the solar system
link |
and to him, reasonably.
link |
I'm at the center.
link |
You're at the center of the solar system.
link |
Anyway, but here, we had some really riproaring arguments,
link |
like really riproaring arguments where he would say,
link |
like, who is this for?
link |
Is this for the 1%?
link |
And I'd be like, 1% meaning not wealth,
link |
but like civilians versus academics.
link |
Are these for the scientists
link |
or is this for the civilians, right?
link |
So he speaks for the people, for the civilians.
link |
He speaks for the people and I'd be like, no, you have to.
link |
And so he made, after one terrible argument that we had
link |
where it was really starting to affect our relationship
link |
because we were so mad at each other all the time,
link |
he made these little signs, writing and science.
link |
And we only use them, this was like,
link |
when you pulled out a sign, that's it.
link |
Like the other person just wins
link |
and you have to stop fighting about it and that's it.
link |
And so we just did that.
link |
And we didn't really have to use it too much for this book
link |
because this book was in some ways,
link |
I didn't have to learn a lot of new things for this book.
link |
I had to learn some, but a lot of
link |
what I learned for How Emotions Are Made
link |
really stood me in good stead for this book.
link |
So there was a little bit,
link |
each essay was a little bit of learning.
link |
A couple were, was a little more than the small amount.
link |
But I didn't have so much trouble here.
link |
I had a lot of trouble with the first book.
link |
But still even here, he would tell me
link |
that I could take something out
link |
and I really wanted to keep it.
link |
And I think we only use the signs once.
link |
Well, if we could dive in some aspects of the book,
link |
I would love that.
link |
Can we talk about, so one of the essays looks at evolution.
link |
It looks at evolution.
link |
Let me ask the big question.
link |
Did the human brain evolve to think?
link |
That's essentially the question that you address in the essay.
link |
Can you speak to it?
link |
The big caveat here is that
link |
we don't really know why brains evolved.
link |
The big why questions are called teleological questions.
link |
And in general, scientists should avoid those questions
link |
because we don't know really why, we don't know the why.
link |
However, for a very long time,
link |
the assumption was that evolution worked
link |
in a progressive upward scale,
link |
that you start off with simple organisms
link |
and those organisms get more complex
link |
and more complex and more complex.
link |
Now, obviously that's true in some like really general way,
link |
right, that life started off as single cell organisms
link |
and things got more complex.
link |
But the idea that brains evolved in some upward trajectory
link |
from simple brains in simple animals
link |
to complex brains in complex animals
link |
is called a phylogenetic scale.
link |
And that phylogenetic scale is embedded
link |
in a lot of evolutionary thinking,
link |
including Darwin's actually.
link |
And it's been seriously challenged, I would say,
link |
by modern evolutionary biology.
link |
And so thinking is something that,
link |
rationality is something that humans,
link |
at least in the West, really prize
link |
as a great human achievement.
link |
And so the idea that the most common evolutionary story
link |
is that brains evolved in like sedimentary rock
link |
with a layer for instincts, that's your lizard brain,
link |
and a layer on top of that for emotions,
link |
that's your limbic system, limbic meaning border.
link |
So it borders the parts that are for instincts.
link |
And then the neocortex or new cortex
link |
where rationality is supposed to live.
link |
That's the sort of traditional story.
link |
It just keeps getting layered on top by evolution.
link |
And so you can think about, I mean,
link |
sedimentary rock is the way typically people describe it.
link |
The way I sometimes like to think about it
link |
is thinking about the cerebral cortex
link |
like icing on an already baked cake,
link |
where the cake is your inner beast.
link |
These like boiling, roiling instincts and emotions
link |
that have to be contained by the cortex.
link |
And it's just, it's a fiction, it's a myth.
link |
It's a myth that you can trace all the way back
link |
to stories about morality in ancient Greece.
link |
But what you can do is look at the scientific record
link |
and say, well, there are other stories
link |
that you could tell about brain evolution
link |
and the context in which brains evolved.
link |
So when you look at creatures who don't have brains
link |
and you look at creatures who do, what's the difference?
link |
And you can look at some animals.
link |
So we call, scientists call an environment
link |
that an animal lives in a niche, their environmental niche.
link |
What are the things, what are the parts
link |
of the environment that matter to that animal?
link |
And so there are some animals whose niche
link |
hasn't changed in 400 million years.
link |
So they're not, these creatures are modern creatures
link |
but they're living in a niche that hasn't changed much.
link |
And so their biology hasn't changed much.
link |
And you can kind of verify that by looking at the genes
link |
that lurk deep in the molecular structure of cells.
link |
And so you can, by looking at various animals
link |
in their developmental state, meaning not,
link |
you don't look at adult animals,
link |
you look at embryos of animals and developing animals,
link |
you can see, you can piece together a different story.
link |
And that story is that brains evolved
link |
under the selection pressure of hunting.
link |
That in the Cambrian period, hunting emerged on the scene
link |
where animals deliberately ate one another.
link |
And what, so before the Cambrian period,
link |
the animals didn't really have,
link |
well, they didn't have brains,
link |
but they also didn't have senses really,
link |
the very, very rudimentary senses.
link |
So the animal that I wrote about in seven and a half lessons
link |
is called an amphioxus or a lancelet.
link |
And little amphioxus has no eyes,
link |
it has no ears, it has no nose, it has no eyes.
link |
It has a couple of cells for detecting light and dark
link |
for circadian rhythm purposes.
link |
And it can't hear, it has a vestibular cell
link |
to keep its body upright.
link |
It has a very rudimentary sense of touch
link |
and it doesn't really have any internal organs
link |
other than this like basically stomach.
link |
It's like a, just like a,
link |
it doesn't have an enteric nervous system.
link |
It doesn't have like a gut that moves like we do.
link |
It just has basically a tube.
link |
So it's like a little container, yeah.
link |
And so, and really it doesn't move very much.
link |
It can move, it just sort of wriggles.
link |
It doesn't have very sophisticated movement.
link |
And it's this really sweet little animal.
link |
It sort of wriggles its way to a spot
link |
and then plants itself in the sand
link |
and just filters food as the food goes by.
link |
And then when the food concentration decreases,
link |
it just ejects itself, wriggles to some spot randomly
link |
where probabilistically there will be more food
link |
and plants itself again.
link |
So it's not really aware,
link |
very aware that it has an environment.
link |
It has a niche, but that niche is very small
link |
and it's not really experiencing that niche very much.
link |
So it's basically like a little stomach on a stick.
link |
That's really what it is.
link |
And, but when animals start to literally hunt each other,
link |
all of a sudden it becomes important
link |
to have, to be able to sense your environment.
link |
Cause you need to know, is that blob up ahead
link |
gonna eat me or should I eat it?
link |
And so all of a sudden you want,
link |
distance senses are very useful.
link |
And so in the water, distance senses are vision
link |
and a little bit hearing.
link |
Olfaction, smelling and touch,
link |
because in the water touch is a distance sense
link |
cause you can feel the vibration, so it's right.
link |
So on land, you know, vision is a distance sense,
link |
touch not so much, but for elephants maybe, right?
link |
Vibrations, olfaction definitely
link |
because of the distance sense.
link |
And so it's very important to have a sense of touch
link |
and olfaction definitely because of the concentration
link |
of, you know, the more concentrated something is,
link |
the more likely it is to be close to you.
link |
So animals developed senses.
link |
They developed a head, like a literal head.
link |
So amphyoxus doesn't even have a head really.
link |
What's the purpose of a head?
link |
That's a great question.
link |
Is it to have a jaw?
link |
That's a great question.
link |
So jaw, so yes, jaws are a major.
link |
Yeah, obviously they're a major adaptation
link |
after there's a split between vertebrates and invertebrates.
link |
So amphyoxus is thought to be very, very similar
link |
to the animal that's before that split.
link |
But then after the development,
link |
very quickly after the development of a head
link |
is the development of a jaw, which is a big thing.
link |
And what goes along with that
link |
is the development of a brain.
link |
It's weird, is that just a coincidence
link |
that the thing, the part of our body,
link |
of the mammal, I think, body that we eat with
link |
and attack others with is also the thing
link |
that contains all the majority of the brain type of stuff.
link |
Well, actually the brain goes with the development of a head
link |
and the development of a visual system
link |
and an auditory system and an olfactory system and so on.
link |
So your senses are developing
link |
and the other thing that's happening
link |
is that animals are getting bigger
link |
because they're, and also their niche is getting bigger.
link |
Well, this is the, just sorry to take a tiny tangent
link |
on the niche thing is it seems like the niche
link |
is getting bigger, but not just bigger,
link |
like more complicated, like shaped in weird ways.
link |
So predation seems to create, the whole world
link |
becomes your oyster, whatever,
link |
but you also start to carve out the places
link |
in which you can operate the best.
link |
Yeah, and in fact, that's absolutely right.
link |
And in fact, some scientists think that theory of mind,
link |
your ability to make inferences
link |
about the inner life of other creatures
link |
actually developed under the selection pressure of predation
link |
because it makes you a better predator.
link |
Do you ever look at, you just said you looked at babies
link |
as these wiring creatures.
link |
Do you ever think of humans as just clever predators?
link |
Like that there's, underneath it all is this
link |
the Nietzschean will to power in all of its forms?
link |
Or are we now friendlier?
link |
Yeah, so it's interesting.
link |
I mean, there are zeitgeists
link |
in how humans think about themselves, right?
link |
And so if you look in the 20th century,
link |
you can see that the idea of an inner beast
link |
that we're just predators, we're just basically animals,
link |
baseless animals, violent animals
link |
that have to be contained by culture
link |
and by our prodigious neocortex
link |
really took hold, particularly after World War I,
link |
and really held sway for much of that century.
link |
And then around, at least in Western writing, I would say,
link |
you know, we're talking mainly
link |
about Western scientific writing,
link |
Western philosophical writing.
link |
And then, you know, late 90s maybe,
link |
you start to see books and articles
link |
about our social nature, that we're social animals.
link |
And we are social animals,
link |
but what does that mean exactly?
link |
It's us carving out different niches
link |
in the space of ideas, it looks like.
link |
I think so, I think so.
link |
So, you know, do humans, can humans be violent?
link |
Can humans be really helpful?
link |
And humans are interesting creatures
link |
because, you know, other animals
link |
can also be helpful to one another.
link |
In fact, there's a whole literature, booming literature
link |
on how other animals support one another.
link |
They regulate each other's nervous systems
link |
in interesting ways,
link |
and they will be helpful to one another, right?
link |
So for example, there's a whole literature on rodents
link |
and how they signal one another what is safe to eat,
link |
and they will perform acts of generosity
link |
to their conspecifics that are related to them,
link |
or who they were raised with.
link |
So if an animal was raised in a litter
link |
that they were raised in,
link |
although not even at the same time,
link |
they'll be more likely to help that animal.
link |
So there's always some kind of physical relationship
link |
between animals that predicts
link |
whether or not they'll help one another.
link |
For humans, you know, we have ways of categorizing
link |
who's in our group and who isn't by nonphysical ways, right?
link |
Even by just something abstract, like an idea.
link |
And we are much more likely to extend help
link |
to people in our own group,
link |
whatever that group may be at that moment,
link |
whatever feature you're using to do that.
link |
Feature you're using to define who's in your group
link |
We're more likely to help those people
link |
than even members of our own family at times.
link |
So humans are much more flexible in their,
link |
in the way that they help one another,
link |
but also in the way that they harm one another.
link |
So I don't think I subscribe to,
link |
I don't think I subscribe to, you know,
link |
we are primarily this or we are primarily that.
link |
I don't think humans have essences in that way, really.
link |
I apologize to take us in this direction
link |
for a brief moment,
link |
but I've been really deep on Stalin and Hitler recently
link |
in terms of reading.
link |
And is there something that you think about
link |
in terms of the nature of evil
link |
from a neuroscience perspective?
link |
Is there some lessons that are sort of hopeful
link |
about human civilization that we can find in our brain
link |
with regard to the Hitlers of the world?
link |
Do you think about the nature of evil?
link |
I don't know that what I have to say is so useful
link |
from a, I don't know that I can say as a neuroscientist,
link |
well, here's a study that, you know,
link |
so I sort of have to take off my lab coat, right?
link |
And now I'm gonna now conjecture as a human
link |
who just also, who has opinions,
link |
but who also maybe has some knowledge about neuroscience.
link |
But I'm not speaking as a neuroscientist when I say this,
link |
cause I don't think neuroscientists know enough really
link |
to be able to say,
link |
but I guess the kinds of things I think about are,
link |
what, so I have always thought,
link |
even before I knew anything about neuroscience,
link |
I've always thought that,
link |
I don't think anybody could become Hitler,
link |
but I think the majority of people can be,
link |
can do, are capable of doing very bad things.
link |
It's just, the question is really
link |
how much encouragement does it take from the environment
link |
to get them to do something bad?
link |
That's what I kind of, when I look at the life of Hitler,
link |
it seems like there's so many places where...
link |
Something could have intervened.
link |
Intervene, no, it could change completely the person.
link |
I mean, there's like the caricature,
link |
like the obvious places where he was an artist
link |
and if he wasn't rejected as an artist,
link |
he was a reasonably good artist.
link |
So that could have changed,
link |
but just his entire, like where he went in Vienna
link |
and all these kinds of things,
link |
like little interactions could have changed
link |
and there's probably millions of other people
link |
who are capable, who the environment may be able to mold
link |
in the same way it did this particular person
link |
to create this particular kind of charismatic leader
link |
in this particular moment of time.
link |
Absolutely, and I guess the way that I would say it,
link |
I would agree 100% and I guess the way that I would say it
link |
is like this, in the West,
link |
we have a way of reasoning about causation,
link |
which focuses on single, simple causes for things.
link |
There's an essence to Hitler,
link |
there's an essence to his character.
link |
He was born with that essence
link |
or it was forged very, very early in his life
link |
and that explains the horrible landscape of his behavior.
link |
But there's another way to think about it,
link |
a way that actually is much more consistent
link |
with what we know about biology,
link |
how biology works in the physical world.
link |
And that is that most things are complex,
link |
not as in, wow, this is really complex and hard,
link |
but complex as in complexity,
link |
that is more than the sum of their parts
link |
and that most phenomena have many, many
link |
weak nonlinear interacting causes.
link |
And so little things that we might not even be aware of
link |
can shift someone's developmental trajectory
link |
from this to that and that's enough
link |
to take it on a whole set of other paths
link |
and that these things are happening all the time.
link |
So it's not random and it's not really,
link |
it's not deterministic in the sense
link |
that like everything you do determines your outcome,
link |
but it's a little more like you're nudging someone
link |
from one set of possibilities
link |
to another set of possibilities.
link |
But I think the thing that I find optimistic
link |
is that the other side of that coin is also true.
link |
So look at all the people who risked their lives
link |
to help people they didn't even know.
link |
I mean, I just watched Borat, the new Borat movie.
link |
And the thing that I came away with,
link |
but the thing I came away with was,
link |
look at how generous people were in that.
link |
Oh, he's making, there are a lot of people he makes fun of
link |
and that's fine, but think about like those two people
link |
The Trump supporter guys.
link |
The Trump supporter guys.
link |
That was cool, there was kindness in them, right?
link |
They took a complete stranger in a pandemic
link |
Like that's a really nice thing.
link |
Or there's one scene, I mean, I don't wanna spoil it
link |
for people who haven't seen it,
link |
but there's one scene where he goes in,
link |
he dresses up as a Jew, I laugh myself sick at that scene,
link |
seriously, but he goes in
link |
and there are these two old Jewish ladies.
link |
What a bunch of sweethearts, oh my gosh.
link |
Like really, I mean, that was what I was struck by actually.
link |
I mean, there are other ones or like the babysitter, right?
link |
I mean, she was really kind.
link |
And yeah, so that's really what I was more struck by.
link |
Like sure, there are other people
link |
who do very bad things or say bad things or whatever,
link |
but like there's one guy who's completely stoic,
link |
like the guy who's sending the messages,
link |
I don't know if it's facts or whatever.
link |
He's just completely stoic,
link |
but he's doing his job actually.
link |
Like you don't know what he was thinking inside his head,
link |
you don't know what he's feeling,
link |
but he was totally professional doing his job.
link |
So I guess I just, I had a bit of a different view, I guess.
link |
So I also think that about people,
link |
I think everybody is capable of kindness,
link |
but the question is how much does it take
link |
and what are the circumstances?
link |
So for some people it's gonna take a lot
link |
and for some people it only takes a little bit,
link |
but are we actually cultivating an environment
link |
for the next generation that provides opportunities
link |
for people to go in the direction of caring and kindness
link |
or, and I'm not saying that as like a Pollyanna ish person.
link |
I think there's a lot of room for competition
link |
and debate and so on,
link |
but I don't see Hitler as an anomaly and I never have,
link |
that was even before I learned anything about neuroscience.
link |
And now I would say knowing what we know
link |
about developmental trajectories and life histories
link |
and how important that is,
link |
knowing what we know about that the whole question
link |
of like nature versus nurture is a completely wrong question.
link |
We have the kind of nature that requires nurture,
link |
we have the kind of genes that allow infants to be born
link |
with unfinished brains where the brains,
link |
their brains are wired across a 25 year period
link |
with wiring instructions from the world
link |
that is created for them.
link |
And so I don't think Hitler is an anomaly,
link |
even if it's less probable that that would happen,
link |
it's possible that it could happen again
link |
and it's not like, you know, he's a bad seed.
link |
I mean, that doesn't, I just wanna say for like,
link |
of course he's completely 100% responsible for his actions
link |
and all the bad things that happen.
link |
So I'm not in any way, this is not me saying.
link |
But the environment is also responsible in part
link |
for creating the evil in this world.
link |
So like Hitler's in different versions of even more subtle,
link |
more smaller scale versions of evil.
link |
But I tend to believe that there's a much stronger,
link |
I don't like to talk about evolutionary advantages,
link |
but it seems like it makes sense for love
link |
to be a more powerful emergent phenomena
link |
of our collective intelligence versus hate
link |
and evil and destruction.
link |
Because from a survival, from a niche perspective,
link |
it seems to be like in my own life
link |
and my thinking about the intuition
link |
about the way humans work together to solve problems,
link |
it seems that love is a very useful tool.
link |
I definitely agree with you.
link |
But I think the caveat here is that, you know,
link |
humans, the research suggests that humans are capable
link |
of great acts of kindness and great acts of generosity
link |
to people in their in group.
link |
Right, so we're also tribal.
link |
Yeah, I mean, that's the kitschy way to say it.
link |
We're tribes, we're tribal, yeah.
link |
So that's the kitschy way to say it.
link |
What I would say is that, you know,
link |
there are a lot of features
link |
that you can use to describe yourself.
link |
You don't have one identity, you don't have one self,
link |
you have many selves, you have many identities.
link |
Sometimes you're a man, sometimes you're a scientist,
link |
sometimes you're a, do you have a brother or a sister?
link |
So sometimes you're a brother.
link |
You know, sometimes you're a friend.
link |
Sometimes you're a human so you can keep zooming out.
link |
Living organism on Earth.
link |
Yes, exactly, that's exactly right.
link |
And so there are some people
link |
who there is research which suggests
link |
that there are some people who will tell you,
link |
I think it's appropriate and better to help.
link |
I should help my family more than I should help my neighbors
link |
and I should help my neighbors more than I should help
link |
the average stranger.
link |
And I should help, you know, the average stranger
link |
in my country more than I should help
link |
somebody outside my country.
link |
And I should help humans more than I should help,
link |
you know, other animals.
link |
And I should, right, so there's a clear hierarchy
link |
of helping and there are other people who, you know,
link |
they are, their niche is much more inclusive, right?
link |
And that they're humans first, right?
link |
Or creatures of the Earth first, let's say.
link |
And I don't think we know how flexible those attitudes are
link |
because I don't think the research really tells us that.
link |
But in any case, there are, you know,
link |
and there are beliefs, people also have beliefs about,
link |
there's this really interesting research in,
link |
really in anthropology that looks at
link |
what are cultures particularly afraid of?
link |
Like what the people in a particular culture
link |
are organizing their social systems
link |
to prevent certain types of problems.
link |
So what are the problems that they're worried about?
link |
And so there are some cultures that are much more
link |
hierarchical and some cultures that are,
link |
you know, much more egalitarian.
link |
There are some cultures that, you know,
link |
in the debate of like getting along versus getting ahead,
link |
there are some cultures that really prioritize
link |
the individual over the group.
link |
And there are other cultures that really prioritize
link |
the group over the individual.
link |
You know, it's not like one of these is right
link |
and one of these is wrong, it's that, you know,
link |
different combinations of these features
link |
are different solutions that humans have come up with
link |
for living in groups,
link |
which is a major adaptive advantage of our species.
link |
And it's not the case that one of these is better
link |
and one of these is worse.
link |
Although as a person, of course, I have opinions about that.
link |
And as a person, I can say,
link |
I would very much prefer certain, I have certain beliefs
link |
and I really want everyone in the world
link |
to live by those beliefs, you know.
link |
But as a scientist, I know that it's not really the case
link |
that for the species,
link |
any one of these is better than any other.
link |
There are different solutions that work differentially well
link |
in particular, you know, ecological parts of the world.
link |
But for individual humans,
link |
there are definitely some systems that are better
link |
and some systems that are worse, right?
link |
But when anthropologists or when neuroscientists
link |
or biologists are talking,
link |
they're not usually talking about the lives
link |
of individual people,
link |
they're talking about, you know, the species,
link |
what's better for the species,
link |
the survivability of the species.
link |
And what's better for the survivability of the species
link |
that we have lots of cultures
link |
with lots of different solutions
link |
because if the environment were to change drastically,
link |
some of those solutions will work better than others.
link |
And you can see that happening with COVID.
link |
Right, so some people might be more susceptible
link |
to this virus than others.
link |
And so variation is very useful.
link |
Say COVID was much, much more destructive than it is.
link |
And like, I don't know, 20% of the population died.
link |
So, you know, it's good to have variability
link |
because then at least some percent will survive.
link |
Yeah, I mean, the way that I used to describe it
link |
was, you know, using, you know, those movies
link |
like the War of the Worlds or Pacific Rim,
link |
you know, where like aliens come down from outer space
link |
and they, you know, wanna kill humans.
link |
And so all the humans band together as a species
link |
and they all, like all the, you know,
link |
little squabbling from countries and whatever
link |
all, you know, goes away
link |
and everyone is just one big, you know.
link |
Well, that, you know, that doesn't happen.
link |
I mean, cause COVID is, you know,
link |
a virus like COVID 19 is like a creature from outer space.
link |
And that's not what you see happening.
link |
What you do see happening,
link |
it is true that some people, I mean,
link |
we could use this as an example of essentialism also.
link |
So just to say, like exposure to the virus does not mean
link |
that you will become infected with a disease.
link |
So, I mean, in controlled studies,
link |
one of which was actually a coronavirus, not COVID,
link |
but this was, these are studies from 10 or so years ago,
link |
you know, only somewhere between 20 and 40% of people
link |
were developed respiratory illness
link |
when a virus was placed in their nose.
link |
And there's a dose question, all those.
link |
Well, not in these studies, actually.
link |
So in these studies,
link |
the dose was consistent across all people
link |
and everything, you know,
link |
they were sequestered in hotel rooms
link |
and what they ate was, you know,
link |
measured out by scientists and so on.
link |
And so when you hold dose, I mean,
link |
the dose issue is a real issue in the real world,
link |
but in these studies, that was controlled.
link |
And only somewhere between 20,
link |
depending on the study,
link |
between 20 and 40% of people became infected with a disease.
link |
So exposure to a virus doesn't mean de facto
link |
that you will develop an illness.
link |
You will be a carrier
link |
and you will spread the virus to other people,
link |
but you yourself may not,
link |
your immune system may be in a state
link |
that you can make enough antibodies
link |
to not show symptoms, not develop symptoms.
link |
And so, of course, what this means is,
link |
again, is that, you know,
link |
like if I asked you, do you think, you know,
link |
a virus is the cause of a common cold or,
link |
you know, most people, if I asked this question,
link |
I can tell you, because I asked this question.
link |
So do you think a virus is the cause of a cold?
link |
Most people would say, yes, I think it is.
link |
And then I say, yeah, well,
link |
only 20 to 40% of people develop respiratory illness
link |
in exposure to a virus.
link |
So clearly it is a necessary cause,
link |
but it's not a sufficient cause.
link |
And there are other causes, again,
link |
so not simple single causes for things, right?
link |
Multiple interacting influences.
link |
So it is true that individuals vary
link |
in their susceptibility to illness upon exposure,
link |
but different cultures have different sets of norms
link |
and practices that allow,
link |
that will slow or speed the spread.
link |
And that's the point that I was actually trying to make here
link |
that, you know, when the environment changes,
link |
that is, there's a mutation of a virus
link |
that is incredibly infectious,
link |
some cultures will succumb,
link |
people in some cultures will succumb faster
link |
because of the particular norms and practices
link |
that they've developed in their culture
link |
versus other cultures.
link |
Now, there could be some other, you know,
link |
thing that changes that where those other cultures
link |
or, you know, would do better.
link |
So very individualistic cultures like ours
link |
may do much better under other types of selection pressures.
link |
But for COVID, for things like COVID,
link |
you know, my colleague Michelle Gelfant,
link |
her research shows that she looks at like loose cultures
link |
and tight cultures,
link |
so cultures that have very, very strict rules
link |
versus cultures that are much more individualistic
link |
and where personal freedoms are more valued.
link |
And she, you know, her research suggests that
link |
for pandemic circumstances, tight cultures actually,
link |
the people survive better.
link |
Just to linger a little bit longer,
link |
we started this part of the conversation talking about,
link |
you know, did humans evolve to think,
link |
did the human brain evolve to think,
link |
implying is there like a progress to the thing
link |
that's always improving?
link |
That's right, we never, yeah,
link |
and so the answer is no.
link |
But let me sort of push back,
link |
but so your intuition is very strong here,
link |
not your intuition, the way you describe this,
link |
but is it possible there's a direction to this evolution?
link |
Like, do you think of this evolution as having a direction?
link |
Like it's like walking along a certain path
link |
towards something?
link |
Is it, you know, what is it?
link |
Is it Elon Musk said like the Earth got bombarded
link |
with photons and then all of a sudden,
link |
like a Tesla was launched into space or whatever,
link |
a rocket started coming?
link |
Like, is there a sense in which,
link |
even though in the, like within the system,
link |
the evolution seems to be this mess of variation,
link |
we're kind of trying to find our niches and so on,
link |
but do you think there, ultimately, when you zoom out,
link |
there is a direction that's strong,
link |
that does tend towards greater complexity and intelligence?
link |
So, I mean, and again, what I would say is I'm really,
link |
I'm really just echoing people who are much smarter
link |
than I am about this.
link |
But see, you're saying smarter.
link |
I thought it doesn't, there's no,
link |
I thought there's no smarter.
link |
No, I didn't say there's no smarter.
link |
I said there's no direction.
link |
So I think the thing to say, or what I understand
link |
to be the case, is that there's variation.
link |
It's not unbounded variation.
link |
And there are selectors.
link |
There are pressures that will select.
link |
And so not anything is possible
link |
because we live on a planet
link |
that has certain physical realities to it, right?
link |
But those physical realities
link |
are what constrain the possibilities, the physical realities
link |
of our genes and the physical realities
link |
of our corporeal bodies and the physical realities
link |
of life on this planet.
link |
So what I would say is that there's no direction,
link |
but there is, it's not infinite possibility
link |
because we live on a particular planet
link |
that has particular statistical regularities in it,
link |
and some things will never happen.
link |
And so all of those things are interacting
link |
with our genes and so on,
link |
and the physical nature of our bodies
link |
to make some things more possible
link |
and some things less possible.
link |
Look, I mean, humans have very complex brains,
link |
but birds have complex brains,
link |
and so do octopuses have very complex brains.
link |
And all three sets of all three of those brains
link |
are somewhat different from one another.
link |
Some birds have very complex brains.
link |
Some even have rudimentary language.
link |
They have no cerebral cortex.
link |
I mean, admittedly, they have,
link |
this is now lesson two, right?
link |
They have, is it lesson two or lesson one?
link |
No, this is lesson one.
link |
They have the same neurons,
link |
the same neurons that in a human
link |
become the cerebral cortex.
link |
Birds have those neurons.
link |
They just don't form themselves into a cerebral cortex.
link |
But I mean, crows, for example,
link |
are very sophisticated animals.
link |
They can do a lot of the things that humans can do.
link |
In fact, all of the things that humans do
link |
that are very special, that seem very special,
link |
there's at least one other animal on the planet
link |
that can do those things too.
link |
What's special about the human brain
link |
is that we put them all together.
link |
So we learn from one another.
link |
We don't have to experience everything ourselves.
link |
We can watch another animal or another human
link |
experience something, and we can learn from that.
link |
Well, there are many other animals
link |
who can learn by copying.
link |
That we communicate with each other
link |
very, very efficiently.
link |
But we're not the only animals
link |
who are efficient communicators.
link |
There are lots of other animals
link |
who can efficiently communicate, like bees, for example.
link |
We cooperate really well with one another
link |
to do grand things.
link |
But there are other animals that cooperate too.
link |
And so every innovation that we have,
link |
other animals have too.
link |
What we have is we have all of those together
link |
interwoven in this very complex dance
link |
in a brain that is not unique exactly,
link |
but that is, it does have some features
link |
that make it particularly useful for us
link |
to do all of these things,
link |
to have all of these things intertwined.
link |
So our brains are, actually the last time we talked,
link |
I made a mistake because I said in my enthusiasm,
link |
I said, you know, our brains are not larger,
link |
or relative to our bodies,
link |
our brains are not larger than other primates.
link |
And that's actually not true, actually.
link |
Our brains relative to our body size is somewhat larger.
link |
So an ape who's not a human, that's not a human,
link |
their brains are larger than their body sizes
link |
than say, relative to like a smaller monkey.
link |
And a human's brain is larger relative to its body size
link |
So that's a good approximation of your, of whatever,
link |
of the bunch of stuff that you can shove in there.
link |
But, well, what I was gonna say is,
link |
but our cerebral cortex is not larger
link |
than what you would expect for a brain of its size.
link |
So relative to say an ape, like a gorilla or a chimp,
link |
or even a mammal like a dolphin or an elephant, you know,
link |
our brains, our cerebral cortex is as large
link |
as you would expect it to be for a brain of our size.
link |
So there's nothing special about our cerebral cortex.
link |
And this is something I explain in the book,
link |
where I say, okay, you know, like by analogy,
link |
if you walk into somebody's house
link |
and you see that they have a huge kitchen,
link |
you might think, well, maybe this is a place
link |
I really definitely wanna eat dinner at
link |
because these people must be gourmet cooks.
link |
But you don't know anything
link |
about what the size of their kitchen means
link |
unless you consider it in relation
link |
to the size of the rest of the house.
link |
If it's a big kitchen in a really big house,
link |
it's not telling you anything special, right?
link |
If it's a big kitchen in a small house,
link |
then that might be a place that you wanna eat for,
link |
you wanna stay for dinner because it's more likely
link |
that that kitchen is large for a special reason.
link |
And so the cerebral cortex of a human brain
link |
isn't in and of itself special because of its size.
link |
However, there are some genetic changes
link |
that have happened in the human brain as it's grown
link |
to whatever size is typical for the whole brain size, right?
link |
There are some changes that do give the human brain
link |
slightly more of some capacities.
link |
They're not special, but we can do some things
link |
much better than other animals.
link |
And correspondingly, other animals can do some things
link |
much better than we can.
link |
We can't grow back limbs,
link |
we can't lift 50 times our own body weight.
link |
Well, I mean, maybe you can,
link |
but I can't lift 50 times my own body weight.
link |
Ants with that regard are very impressive.
link |
And then you're saying with the frontal cortex,
link |
like that's the size is not always the right measure
link |
of capability, I guess.
link |
So size isn't everything.
link |
Size isn't everything.
link |
That's a quoted book.
link |
People like it when I disagree,
link |
so let me disagree with you on something
link |
or just like play devil's advocate a little bit.
link |
So you've painted a really nice picture
link |
that evolution doesn't have a direction, but is it possible
link |
if we just ran Earth over and over again,
link |
like this video game,
link |
that the final result will be the same.
link |
So in the sense that we're,
link |
eventually there'll be an AGI type,
link |
HAL 9000 type system that just like flies
link |
and colonizes nearby Earth like planets.
link |
And it's always will be the same.
link |
And the different organisms
link |
and the different evolution of the brain,
link |
like it doesn't feel like it has like a direction,
link |
but given the constraints of Earth
link |
and whatever this imperative,
link |
whatever the hell is running this universe,
link |
like it seems like it's running towards something,
link |
is it possible that it will always be the same?
link |
Thereby it will be a direction.
link |
Yeah, I think as you know better than anyone else
link |
that the answer to that question is,
link |
of course there's some probability that could happen, right?
link |
It's not a yes or no answer.
link |
It's what's the probability that that would happen?
link |
And there's a whole distribution of possibilities.
link |
So maybe we end up, what's the probability we end up
link |
with exactly the same compliment of creatures,
link |
What's the likelihood that we end up with
link |
creatures that are similar to humans,
link |
but similar in certain ways, let's say,
link |
but not exactly humans or all the way
link |
to a completely different distribution of creatures.
link |
What's the intuition?
link |
Like if you were to bet money,
link |
what does that distribution look like
link |
if we ran Earth over and over and over again?
link |
I would say given the, you're now asking me questions that.
link |
This is not science.
link |
This is not science.
link |
But I would say, okay, well,
link |
what's the probability that it's gonna be a carbon life form?
link |
But that's because I don't know anything about really.
link |
Yeah, I'm not really well versed that.
link |
What's the probability that,
link |
so what's the probability that the animals will begin
link |
in the ocean and crawl out onto land?
link |
Versus the other way.
link |
Versus the, I would say probably high.
link |
You know, but do I think what's the likelihood
link |
that we would end up with exactly the same or very similar?
link |
I think it's low actually.
link |
I wouldn't say it's low, but I would say it's not 100%.
link |
And I'm not even sure it's 50%.
link |
You know, I would say,
link |
I don't think that we're here by accident
link |
because I think, like I said, there are constraints.
link |
Like there are some physical constraints about Earth.
link |
Now, of course, if you were a cosmologist,
link |
you could say, well, the fact that the Earth is,
link |
if you were to do the Big Bang over again
link |
and keep doing it over and over and over again,
link |
would you still get the same solar systems?
link |
Would you still get the same planets?
link |
Would, you know, would you still get the same galaxies,
link |
the same solar systems, the same planets?
link |
You know, I don't know, but my guess is probably not
link |
because there are random things that happen
link |
that can, again, send things in one direct, you know,
link |
make one set of trajectories possible
link |
and another set impossible.
link |
So, but I guess my, if I were gonna bet money
link |
or something valuable, I would probably say,
link |
it's not zero and it's not 100%
link |
and it's probably not even 50%.
link |
So there's some probability, but I don't know.
link |
That it will be similar.
link |
That it will be similar, but I don't think,
link |
I just think there are too many degrees of freedom.
link |
There are too many degrees of freedom.
link |
I mean, one of the real tensions in writing this book
link |
is to, on the one hand, there's some truth in saying
link |
that humans are not special.
link |
We are just, you know,
link |
we're not special in the animal kingdom.
link |
All animals are well adapted.
link |
If they're survived, they're well adapted to their niche.
link |
It does happen to be the case that our niche is large.
link |
For any individual human, your niche is whatever it is.
link |
But for the species, right?
link |
We live almost everywhere, not everywhere,
link |
but almost everywhere on the planet, but not in the ocean.
link |
And actually other animals like bacteria, for example,
link |
have us beat miles, you know, hands down, right?
link |
So we're, by any definition,
link |
we're not special.
link |
We're just, you know, adapted to our environment.
link |
But bacteria don't have a podcast.
link |
And so that's the other, so that's the tension, right?
link |
So on the one hand, you know, we're not special animals.
link |
We're just, you know,
link |
particularly well adapted to our niche.
link |
On the other hand, our niche is huge.
link |
And we, you know, we don't just adapt to our environment.
link |
We add to our environment.
link |
We make stuff up, give it a name,
link |
and then it becomes real.
link |
And so no other animal can do that.
link |
And so I think the thing,
link |
the way to think about it from my perspective
link |
or the way I made sense of it is to say,
link |
you can look at any individual single characteristic
link |
that a human has that seems remarkable.
link |
And you can find that in some other animal.
link |
What you can't find in any other animal
link |
is all of those characteristics together
link |
in a brain that is souped up in particular ways,
link |
And if you combine these things,
link |
multiple interacting causes, right?
link |
Not one essence, like your cortex, your big neocortex,
link |
but which isn't really that big.
link |
I mean, it's just big for your big brain,
link |
for the size of your big brain.
link |
It's the size it should be.
link |
If you add all those things together
link |
and they interact with each other,
link |
that produces some pretty remarkable results.
link |
And if you're aware of that,
link |
then you can start asking different kinds of questions
link |
about what it means to be human
link |
and what kind of a human you wanna be
link |
and what kind of a world do you wanna curate
link |
for the next generation of humans.
link |
I think that's the goal anyways, right?
link |
Is just to have a glimpse of,
link |
instead of thinking about things in a simple linear way,
link |
just to have a glimpse of some of the things that matter,
link |
that evidence suggests matters
link |
to the kind of brain in the kind of bodies that we have.
link |
Once you know that, you can work with it a little bit.
link |
You write, words have power over your biology.
link |
Right now, I can text the words,
link |
I love you from the United States
link |
to my close friend in Belgium.
link |
And even though she cannot hear my voice or see my face,
link |
I will change her heart rate, her breathing
link |
and her metabolism.
link |
By the way, beautifully written.
link |
Or someone could text something ambiguous to you,
link |
like, is your door locked?
link |
And odds are that it would affect your nervous system
link |
in an unpleasant way.
link |
So, I mean, there's a lot of stuff to talk about here,
link |
but just one way to ask is,
link |
why do you think words have so much power over our brain?
link |
Well, I think we just have to look at the anatomy
link |
of the brain to answer that question.
link |
So, if you look at the parts of the brain,
link |
the systems that are important for processing language,
link |
you can see that some of these regions
link |
are also important for controlling
link |
your major organ systems.
link |
And like your autonomic nervous system,
link |
that controls your cardiovascular system,
link |
your respiratory system, and so on.
link |
That these regions control your endocrine system,
link |
your immune system, and so on.
link |
So, and you can actually see this in other animals too.
link |
So in birds, for example,
link |
the neurons that are responsible for birdsong
link |
also control the systems of a bird's body.
link |
And the reason why I bring that up is that the,
link |
there's some scientists think that the anatomy
link |
of a bird's brain that control birdsong
link |
are homologous or structurally have a similar origin
link |
to the human system for language.
link |
So, the parts of the brain that are important
link |
for processing language are not unique
link |
in, and specialized for language.
link |
They do many things.
link |
And one of the things they do is control
link |
your major organ systems.
link |
Do you think we can fall in love,
link |
I have arguments about this all the time.
link |
Do you think we can fall in love based on words alone?
link |
Well, I think people have been doing it for centuries.
link |
I mean, maybe it used to be the case
link |
that people wrote letters to each other,
link |
you know, and then that was how they communicated.
link |
I guess that's how you and Dan got it.
link |
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
link |
So is the answer a clear yes there?
link |
Because I get a lot of pushback from people often
link |
that you need the touch and the smell
link |
and, you know, the bodily stuff.
link |
I think the touch and the smell and the bodily stuff helps.
link |
But I don't think it's necessary.
link |
Do you think you can have a lifelong monogamous relationship
link |
with an AI system that only communicates
link |
with you on text, romantic relationship?
link |
Well, I suppose that's an empirical question
link |
that hasn't been answered yet.
link |
But I guess what I would say is
link |
I don't think I could.
link |
Could the average human?
link |
Could, you know, so if I,
link |
if I even, I wanna even modify that and say,
link |
I'm thinking now of Tom Hanks and the movie.
link |
Yeah, you know, with Wilson.
link |
I think if that was, if you had to make that work,
link |
if you had to make that work.
link |
With a volleyball, yeah.
link |
If you had to make it work, could you,
link |
could you, prediction and simulation, right?
link |
So if you had to make it work, could you make it work?
link |
Using simulation and, you know, your past experience,
link |
could you make it work?
link |
Could you make it work?
link |
You as a human, could you, could you like?
link |
Could you have a relationship literally
link |
with an inanimate object and have it sustain you
link |
in the way that another human could?
link |
Your life would probably be shorter
link |
because you wouldn't actually derive
link |
the body budgeting benefits from, right?
link |
So we've talked about, you know, how your brain,
link |
its most important job is to control your body
link |
and you can describe that as your brain running a budget
link |
for your body and there are metaphorical, you know,
link |
deposits and withdrawals into your body budget
link |
and you also make deposits and withdrawals
link |
in other people's body budgets, figuratively speaking.
link |
So you wouldn't have that particular benefit.
link |
So your life would probably be shorter
link |
but I think it would be harder for some people
link |
than for other people.
link |
Yeah, I tend to, my intuition is that you can have
link |
a deep fulfilling relationship with a volleyball.
link |
I think, I think a lot of the, the environments
link |
that set up, I think that's a really good example.
link |
Like the constraints of your particular environment
link |
define the, like I believe like scarcity is a good catalyst
link |
for deep, meaningful connection with other humans
link |
and with inanimate objects.
link |
So the less you have, the more fulfilling
link |
those relationships are.
link |
And I would say a relationship with a volleyball,
link |
the sex is not great but everything else,
link |
I feel like it could be a very fulfilling relationship
link |
which I don't know from an engineering perspective
link |
what to do with that.
link |
And just like you said, it is an empirical question but.
link |
But there are places to learn about that, right?
link |
So for example, think about children and their blankets.
link |
Right, so there, there's something tactile
link |
and there's something olfactory and it's very comforting.
link |
I mean, even for, even for nonhuman little animals, right?
link |
Like puppies and so I don't know about cats but, but.
link |
Cats are cold hearted, there's no,
link |
there's nothing going on there.
link |
I don't know, there are some cats that are very doglike.
link |
I mean, really, so.
link |
Some cats identify as dogs, yes.
link |
I think that's true, yeah, they're species fluid.
link |
So you also write, when it comes to human minds,
link |
variation is the norm.
link |
And what we call quote, human nature
link |
is really many human natures.
link |
So again, many questions I can ask here.
link |
But maybe an interesting one to ask is I often hear,
link |
we often hear this idea of be yourself.
link |
Is this possible to be yourself?
link |
Is it a good idea to strive to be yourself?
link |
Is it, does that even have any meaning?
link |
It's a very Western question, first of all,
link |
because which self are you talking about?
link |
You don't have one self.
link |
There is no self that's an essence of you.
link |
You have multiple selves.
link |
Actually, there is research on this.
link |
To quote the great social psychologist, Hazel Marcus,
link |
you're never, you cannot be a self by yourself.
link |
And so different contexts pull for
link |
or draw on different features of who you are
link |
or what you believe, what you feel, what your actions are.
link |
A different context will put certain things,
link |
make some features be more in the foreground
link |
and some in the background.
link |
It takes us back right to our discussion earlier
link |
about Stalin and Hitler and so on.
link |
The thing that I would caution,
link |
in addition to the fact that there is no single self,
link |
that you have multiple selves, who you can be,
link |
and you can certainly choose the situations
link |
that you put yourself in to some extent.
link |
Not everybody has complete choice,
link |
but everybody has a little bit of choice.
link |
And I think I said this to you before,
link |
that one of the pieces of advice that we gave Sophia
link |
when she went, our daughter,
link |
when she was going off to college,
link |
was try to spend time around people,
link |
choose relationships that allow you to be your best self.
link |
We should have said your best selves, but, you know.
link |
The pool of selves given the environment.
link |
Yeah, but the one thing I do wanna say
link |
is that the risk of saying be yourself, just be yourself,
link |
is that that can be used as an excuse.
link |
Well, this is just the way that I am, I'm just like this.
link |
And that, I think, should be tremendously resisted.
link |
So that's one, that's for the excuse side,
link |
but, you know, I'm really self critical often,
link |
I'm full of doubt, and people often tell me,
link |
just don't worry about it, just be yourself, man.
link |
And it's, the thing is, it almost,
link |
it's not, from an engineering perspective,
link |
does not seem like actionable advice.
link |
Because, I guess, constantly worrying about who,
link |
what are the right words to say
link |
to express how I'm feeling is, I guess, myself.
link |
There's a kind of line, I guess,
link |
that this might be a Western idea,
link |
but something that feels genuine
link |
and something that feels non genuine.
link |
And I'm not sure what that means,
link |
because I would like to be fully genuine and fully open,
link |
but I'm also aware, like this morning,
link |
I was very silly and giddy, I was like,
link |
this is just being funny and relaxed and light,
link |
like there's nothing that could bother me in the world,
link |
I was just smiling and happy.
link |
And then I remember last night,
link |
was just feeling very grumpy,
link |
like stuff was bothering me.
link |
Like certain things were bothering me.
link |
And like, what are those?
link |
Are those different selves?
link |
Like what, who am I in that?
link |
Because if we take Twitter as an example,
link |
if I actually send a tweet last night
link |
and a tweet this morning,
link |
it's gonna be very two different people tweeting that.
link |
And I don't know what to do with that,
link |
because one does seem to be more me than the other,
link |
but that's maybe because there's a story that I'm trying,
link |
there's something I'm striving to be,
link |
like the ultimate human that I might become,
link |
I have maybe a vision of that,
link |
and I'm trying to become that.
link |
But it does seem like there's a lot
link |
of different minds in there.
link |
And they're all like having a discussion
link |
and a battle for who's gonna win.
link |
I suppose you could think of it that way,
link |
but there's another way to think of it, I think,
link |
and that is that maybe the more Buddhist way to think of it,
link |
right, or a more contemplative way to think about it,
link |
which is not that you have multiple personalities
link |
inside your head, but you have,
link |
your brain has this amazing capacity.
link |
It has a population of experiences that you've had
link |
that it can regenerate, reconstitute.
link |
And it can even take bits and pieces of those experiences
link |
and combine them into something new.
link |
And it's often doing this to predict
link |
what's going to happen next and to plan your actions,
link |
but it's also happening, this also happens just,
link |
that's what mind wandering is,
link |
or just internal thought and so on.
link |
It's the same mechanism, really.
link |
And so a lot of times we hear the saying,
link |
just think, if you think differently,
link |
you'll feel differently.
link |
But your brain is having a conversation continually
link |
with your body, and your body,
link |
your brain's trying to control your body,
link |
well, trying, your brain is controlling your body,
link |
your body is sending information back to the brain,
link |
and in part, the information that your body sends back
link |
to your brain, just like the information
link |
coming from the world, initiates the next volley
link |
of predictions or simulations.
link |
So in some ways, you could also say,
link |
the way that you feel, I think we talked before
link |
about affective feeling or mood,
link |
coming from the sensations of body budgeting,
link |
influences what you think.
link |
And as much as, so feelings influence thought,
link |
as much as thought influence feeling, and maybe more.
link |
But just the whole thing doesn't seem stable.
link |
Well, it's a dynamic system, Mr. Engineer, right?
link |
It's a dynamic, it's a dynamical system, right?
link |
Nonlinear dynamical system.
link |
And I think that's, I'm actually writing a paper
link |
with a bunch of engineers about this actually.
link |
But I mean, other people have talked about the brain
link |
as a dynamical system before,
link |
but the real tricky bit is trying to figure out
link |
how do you get mental features out of that system?
link |
I guess one thing to figure out how you get
link |
a motor movement out of that system,
link |
it's another thing to figure out
link |
how you get a mental feature,
link |
like a feeling of being loved
link |
or a feeling of being worthwhile,
link |
or a feeling of just basically feeling like shit.
link |
How do you get a feeling,
link |
a mental features out of that system?
link |
So what I would say is that you aren't,
link |
the Buddhist thing to say is that you're not one person
link |
and you're not many people.
link |
You are the sum of your experiences
link |
and who you are in any given moment,
link |
meaning what your actions will be,
link |
is influenced by the state of your body
link |
and the state of the world that you've put yourself in.
link |
And you can change either of those things.
link |
One is a little easier to change than the other, right?
link |
You can change your environment
link |
by literally getting up and moving,
link |
or you can change it by paying attention
link |
to some things differently
link |
and letting some features come to the fore
link |
and other features be backgrounded.
link |
Like I'm looking around your place.
link |
Oh no, this is not something you should do.
link |
No, but I'm gonna say one thing.
link |
No green plants, no green plants.
link |
Because green plants mean a home
link |
and I want this to be temporary.
link |
What goes to your mind when you see no green plants?
link |
No, I'm just making the point that what if you,
link |
again, not everybody has control over their environment.
link |
Some people don't have control over the noise
link |
or the temperature or any of those things.
link |
But everybody has a little bit of control
link |
and you can place things in your environment,
link |
photographs, plants, anything that's meaningful to you
link |
and use it as a shift of environment when you need it.
link |
You can also do things to change
link |
the conditions of your body.
link |
When you exercise every day,
link |
you're making an investment in your body.
link |
Actually, you're making an investment in your brain too.
link |
It makes you, even though it's unpleasant
link |
and there's a cost to it, if you replenish,
link |
if you invest and you make up that,
link |
you make a deposit and you make up what you've spent,
link |
you're basically making an investment
link |
in making it easier for your brain
link |
to control your body in the future.
link |
So you can make sure you're hydrated.
link |
You don't have to drink bottled water.
link |
You can drink water from the tap.
link |
This is in most places, maybe not everywhere,
link |
but most places in the developed world.
link |
You can try to get enough sleep.
link |
Not everybody has that luxury,
link |
but everybody can do something to make their body budgets
link |
a little more solvent.
link |
And that will also make it more likely
link |
that certain thoughts will emerge
link |
from that prediction machine, basically.
link |
That's the control you do have,
link |
is being able to control the environment.
link |
That's really well put.
link |
I don't think we've talked about this,
link |
so let's go to the biggest unanswerable questions
link |
What is, you just rolled your eyes.
link |
I did, that was my, yeah.
link |
So what is consciousness from a neuroscience perspective?
link |
I know you, I mean.
link |
I made notes, you know,
link |
because you gave me some questions in advance
link |
and I made notes for every single.
link |
Oh, except that one?
link |
Yeah, well that one I had, what the fuck?
link |
And then I took it out.
link |
So is there something interesting,
link |
because you're so pragmatic.
link |
Is there something interesting to say about intuition
link |
building about consciousness?
link |
Or is this something that we're just totally clueless about
link |
that this is, let's focus on the body,
link |
the brain listens to the body,
link |
the body speaks to the brain,
link |
and let's just figure this piece out,
link |
and then consciousness will probably emerge somehow
link |
No, I think, you know, well, first of all,
link |
I'll just say up front,
link |
I am not a philosopher of consciousness
link |
and I'm not a neuroscientist who focuses on consciousness.
link |
I mean, in some sense, I do study it
link |
because I study affect and mood.
link |
you know, to use the phrase,
link |
that is the hard question of consciousness.
link |
How is it that your brain is modeling your body?
link |
Brain is modeling the sensory conditions of your body.
link |
And it's being updated,
link |
that model is being updated by the sense data
link |
that's coming from your body
link |
and it's happening continuously your whole life.
link |
And you don't feel those sensations directly.
link |
What you feel is a general sense of pleasantness
link |
or unpleasantness, comfort, discomfort,
link |
feeling worked up, feeling calm.
link |
So we call that affect, you know, most people call it mood.
link |
So how is it that your brain gives you
link |
this very low dimensional feeling of mood or affect
link |
when it's presumably receiving
link |
a very high dimensional array of sense data?
link |
And the model that the brain is running of the body
link |
has to be high dimensional
link |
because there's a lot going on in there, right?
link |
You're not aware, but as you're sitting there quietly,
link |
as your listeners or as our viewers are sitting.
link |
They might be working out, running now,
link |
or as many of them write to me.
link |
They're laying in bed, smoking weed
link |
with their eyes closed.
link |
That's fair, so maybe we should say that bit again then.
link |
So if, so some people may be working out,
link |
some people may be, you know, relaxing.
link |
But you know, even if you're sitting very still
link |
while you're watching this or listening to this,
link |
there's a whole drama going on inside your body
link |
that you're largely unaware of.
link |
Yet your brain makes you aware
link |
or gives you a status report in a sense
link |
by virtue of these mental features
link |
of feeling pleasant, feeling unpleasant,
link |
feeling comfortable, feeling uncomfortable,
link |
feeling energetic, feeling tired and so on.
link |
And so how the hell is it doing that?
link |
That is the basic question of consciousness.
link |
And like the status reports seem to be,
link |
in the way we experience them, seem to be quite simple.
link |
Like it doesn't feel like there's a lot of data.
link |
Yeah, no, there isn't.
link |
So when you feel, when you feel discomfort,
link |
when you're feeling basically like shit,
link |
you feel like shit, what does that tell you?
link |
Like, what are you supposed to do next?
link |
I mean, the thing is not one thing caused it, right?
link |
It's multiple factors probably influencing
link |
your physical state.
link |
It's very high dimensional, yeah.
link |
It's very high dimensional.
link |
And there are different temporal scales of influence, right?
link |
So the state of your gut is not just influenced
link |
by what you ate five minutes ago.
link |
It's also what you ate a day ago and two days ago
link |
So I think the, you know,
link |
when I'm, I'm not trying to weasel out of the question,
link |
I just think it's the hardest question actually.
link |
Do you think we'll ever understand it as scientists?
link |
I think that we will understand it
link |
as well as we understand other things
link |
like the birth of the universe or the, you know,
link |
the nature of the universe, I guess I would say.
link |
So do I think we can get to that level of an explanation?
link |
I do actually, but I think that we have to start asking
link |
somewhat different questions and approaching the science
link |
somewhat differently than we have in the past.
link |
I mean, it's also possible that consciousness
link |
is much more difficult to understand
link |
than the nature of the universe.
link |
It is, but I wasn't necessarily saying
link |
that it was a question that was of equivalent complexity.
link |
I was saying that I do think that we could get
link |
to some, I am optimistic that I would not,
link |
I would be very willing to invest the time,
link |
my time on this earth as a scientist
link |
in trying to answer that question
link |
if I could do it the way that I wanna do it,
link |
not in the way that it's currently being done.
link |
So like rigorously?
link |
I don't wanna say unrigorously.
link |
I just wanna say that there are certain set of assumptions
link |
that, you know, scientists have
link |
what I would call ontological commitments.
link |
They're commitments about the way the world is
link |
or the way that nature is.
link |
And these commitments lead scientists sometimes blindly
link |
without, they don't, scientists sometimes,
link |
sometimes scientists are aware of these commitments,
link |
but sometimes they're not.
link |
And these commitments on the list influence
link |
how scientists ask questions, what they measure,
link |
how they measure, and I just have very different views
link |
than a lot of my colleagues about the ways to approach this.
link |
Not everybody, but the way that I would approach it
link |
would be different and it would cost more
link |
and it would take longer.
link |
It doesn't fit very well
link |
into the current incentive structure of science.
link |
And so do I think that doing science
link |
the way science is currently done
link |
with the budget that it currently has
link |
and the incentive structure that it currently has
link |
will we have an answer?
link |
No, I think absolutely not.
link |
Good luck is what I would say.
link |
People love book recommendations.
link |
Let me ask what three books.
link |
Oh, you can't just like, you can't just give me three.
link |
I mean, like really three?
link |
What seven and a half books you can recommend.
link |
So you're also the author of seven and a half lessons
link |
You're a author of how emotions are made.
link |
Okay, so definitely those are the top two recommendations
link |
of all, the two greatest books of all time.
link |
Other than that, are there books that technical,
link |
fiction, philosophical that you've enjoyed
link |
or you might recommend to others?
link |
Yes, actually, you know, every PhD student
link |
when they graduate with their PhD,
link |
I give them a set, like a little library,
link |
like a set of books, you know,
link |
some of which they've already read,
link |
some of which I want them to read or,
link |
but I think nonfiction books, I would read,
link |
the things I would recommend are The Triple Helix
link |
by Richard Lewontin.
link |
It's a little book published in 2000,
link |
which is, I think, a really good introduction
link |
to complexity and population thinking
link |
as opposed to essentialism.
link |
So this idea, essentialism is this idea
link |
that, you know, there's an essence to each person,
link |
whether it's a soul or your genes or what have you,
link |
as opposed to this idea that you,
link |
we have the kind of nature that requires a nurture.
link |
We are, we are, you are the product of a complex dance
link |
between an environment, between a set of genes
link |
and an environment that turns those genes on and off
link |
to produce your brain and your body
link |
and really who you are at any given moment.
link |
It's a good title for that, Triple Helix.
link |
So playing on the double helix where it's just the biology,
link |
it's bigger than the biology.
link |
It's a wonderful book.
link |
I've read it probably six or seven times
link |
throughout the year.
link |
He has another book too, which is,
link |
it's more, I think scientists would find it,
link |
I don't know, I've loved it.
link |
It's called Biology as Ideology.
link |
And it really is all about,
link |
I wouldn't call it one of the best books of all time,
link |
but I love the book because it really does point out,
link |
you know, that science is its currently practice.
link |
I mean, the book was written in 1991,
link |
but it actually, I think, still holds,
link |
that science is a currently practice,
link |
has a set of ontological commitments,
link |
which are somewhat problematic.
link |
So the assumptions are limiting.
link |
Yeah, in ways that you, it's, you know,
link |
it's like you're a fish in water and you don't, like,
link |
okay, so, yeah, so here's the.
link |
David Foster Wallace, that stuff.
link |
Yeah, but, you know, but here's a really cool thing
link |
I just learned recently.
link |
Is it okay to go off on this tangent for a minute?
link |
Yeah, yeah, let's go tangents, great.
link |
I was just gonna say that I just learned recently
link |
that we don't have water receptors on our skin.
link |
So how do you know when you're sweating?
link |
How do you know when a raindrop,
link |
when, you know, when it's gonna rain and, you know,
link |
like a raindrop hits your skin
link |
and you can feel that little drop of wetness.
link |
How is it that you feel that drop of wetness
link |
when we don't have water receptors in our skin?
link |
And I was, when I.
link |
My mind's blown already.
link |
Yeah, that was, I have my reaction too, right?
link |
I was like, of course we don't
link |
because we evolved in the water.
link |
Like, why would we need, you know, it just,
link |
it was just this like, you know, you have these moments
link |
where you're like, oh, of course, there's like a, yeah, so.
link |
You'll never see rain the same way again.
link |
So the answer is it's a combination of temperature
link |
and touch, but it's a complex sense
link |
that's only computed in your brain.
link |
There's no receptor for it.
link |
Yeah, that's why like snow versus cold rain
link |
versus warm rain all feel different
link |
because you're trying to infer stuff from the temperature
link |
and the size of the droplets is fascinating.
link |
Yeah, your brain is a prediction machine.
link |
It's using lots and lots of information and combining it.
link |
You know, anyway, so.
link |
But so biology is ideology is,
link |
I wouldn't say it's one of the greatest books of all time,
link |
but it is a really useful book.
link |
There's a book by,
link |
if you're interested in psychology or the mind at all,
link |
there's a wonderful book, a little,
link |
it's a fairly small book called Naming the Mind
link |
by Kurt Danziger, who's a historian of psychology.
link |
Everybody in my lab reads both of these books.
link |
So what's the book?
link |
It's about the origin of the,
link |
where did we get the theory of mind that we have
link |
that the human mind is populated by thoughts and feelings
link |
and perceptions and where did those categories come from?
link |
Because they don't exist in all cultures.
link |
Oh, so this isn't, that's a cultural construct?
link |
The idea that you have thoughts and feelings
link |
and they're very distinct is definitely a cultural construct.
link |
That's another mind blowing thing, just like the rain.
link |
So Kurt Danziger is a,
link |
the opening chapter in that book
link |
is absolutely mind blowing.
link |
I love it, I love it.
link |
I just think it's fantastic.
link |
And I would say that there are many,
link |
many popular science books that I could recommend
link |
that I think are extremely well written in their own way.
link |
You know, before I, maybe I said this to you,
link |
but before I undertook writing How Emotions Are Made,
link |
I read, I don't know, somewhere on the order of 50 or 60
link |
popular science books to try to figure out
link |
how to write a popular science book.
link |
Because while there are many books about writing,
link |
Stephen King has a great book about writing.
link |
And, you know, where he gives tips
link |
interlaced with his own personal history.
link |
That was where I learned you write for a specific person.
link |
You have a specific person in mind.
link |
And that's, for me, that person is Dan.
link |
That's fascinating.
link |
I mean, that's a whole nother conversation
link |
to have like which popular science books,
link |
like what you learned from that search.
link |
Because there's, I have some,
link |
for me, some popular science books
link |
that like I just roll my eyes, like this is too,
link |
it's the same with TED Talks.
link |
Like some of them go too much into the flowery
link |
and don't, I would say don't give enough respect
link |
to the intelligence of the reader.
link |
And, but that's, this is my own bias very specifically.
link |
I completely agree with you.
link |
And in fact, I have a colleague, his name is Van Yang,
link |
who, you know, he produced a cinematic lecture
link |
of how emotions are made that we wrote together
link |
with Joseph Fridman, no relation.
link |
Well, we're all related.
link |
Well, I mean, you and I are probably,
link |
you know, have some, yeah.
link |
It's the memories are in there somewhere.
link |
Yeah, it's from many, many, many generations ago.
link |
Well, half my family is Russian, so from.
link |
The good half, right.
link |
But, you know, he, his goal actually is to produce,
link |
you know, videos and lectures
link |
that are beautiful and educational
link |
and that don't dumb the material down.
link |
And he's really remarkable at it actually.
link |
I mean, just, but again, you know,
link |
that requires a bit of a paradigm shift.
link |
We could have a whole conversation
link |
about the split between entertainment
link |
and education in this country
link |
and why it is the way it is,
link |
but that's another conversation.
link |
But I would say if I were to pick one book
link |
that I think is a really good example
link |
of good science writing, it would be The Beak of the Finch.
link |
Which won a Pulitzer Prize a number of years ago.
link |
And I'm not, I'm not remembering the author's name.
link |
But the, I'm guessing, is it focusing on birds
link |
and the evolution of birds?
link |
Actually, there's also The Evolution of Beauty,
link |
which is, yeah, which is also a great book.
link |
But no, The Beak of the Finch is,
link |
it's a, it has two storylines that are interwoven.
link |
One is about Darwin and Darwin's explorations
link |
in the Galapagos Island.
link |
And then modern day researchers from Princeton
link |
who have a research program in the Galapagos
link |
looking at Darwin's finches.
link |
And it's just a really, first of all,
link |
there's top notch science in there.
link |
And really science, like evolutionary biology
link |
that a lot of people don't know.
link |
And it's told really, really well.
link |
It sounds like they're also, there's a narrative in there.
link |
It's like storytelling too.
link |
Yeah, I think all good popular science books
link |
are storytelling, but storytelling grounded,
link |
constrained by the evidence.
link |
And then I just wanna say that there are,
link |
for fiction, I'm a really big fan of love stories,
link |
just to return us to the topic that we began with.
link |
And so my, some of my favorite love stories
link |
are Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson.
link |
It's a love story about people
link |
who you wouldn't expect to fall in love
link |
and all the people around them
link |
who have to overcome their prejudices.
link |
And I love this book.
link |
What do you like, like what makes a good love story?
link |
There isn't one thing.
link |
There are many different things
link |
that make a good love story.
link |
But I think in this case, you can feel,
link |
you can feel the journey.
link |
You can feel the journey that these characters are on
link |
and all the people around them are on this journey too,
link |
basically to come to grips with this really unexpected love,
link |
really profound love that develops
link |
between these two characters
link |
who are very unlikely to have fallen in love, but they do.
link |
And it's just, it's very gentle.
link |
Another book like that is the storied life of A.J. Fierke,
link |
which is also a love story.
link |
But in this case, it's a love story
link |
between a little girl and her adopted dad.
link |
And the dad is this like real curmudgeony, you know, guy.
link |
But of course there's a story there.
link |
And it's just a beautiful love story.
link |
But it also, it's like everybody in this community
link |
falls in love with him because he falls in love with her.
link |
And he, you know, she just gets left at his store,
link |
his bookstore, he has this failing bookstore.
link |
And he discovers that, you know,
link |
he feels like inexplicably this need
link |
to take care of this little baby.
link |
And this whole life emerges out of that one decision,
link |
which is really beautiful actually, very poignant.
link |
Do you think the greatest stories have a happy ending
link |
or a heartbreak at the end?
link |
That's such a Russian question.
link |
It's like Russian tragedies, you know.
link |
So I would say the answer to that for me,
link |
there has to be heartbreak.
link |
Yeah, I really don't like heartbreak.
link |
I don't like heartbreak.
link |
I want there to be a happy ending
link |
or at least a hopeful ending.
link |
But you know, like Dr. Chivago, like,
link |
or the English patient, oh my goodness, like why?
link |
Oh, it's just, yeah, no, mm mm.
link |
Well, I don't think there's a better way to end it
link |
on a happy note like this.
link |
Lisa, like I said, I'm a huge fan of yours.
link |
Thank you for wasting yet more time with me talking again.
link |
People should definitely get your book
link |
and maybe one day I can't wait to talk
link |
to your husband as well.
link |
Well, right back at you, Lexi.
link |
Thanks for listening to this conversation
link |
with Lisa Feldman Barrett and thank you to our sponsors.
link |
Athletic Greens, the all in one drink
link |
that I start every day with
link |
to cover all my nutritional bases.
link |
Eight Sleep, a mattress that cools itself
link |
and gives me yet another reason to enjoy sleep.
link |
Masterclass, online courses that I enjoy
link |
from some of the most amazing humans in history.
link |
And BetterHelp, online therapy with a licensed professional.
link |
Please check out these sponsors in the description
link |
to get a discount and to support this podcast.
link |
If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
link |
review it with five stars on Apple Podcast,
link |
follow on Spotify, support on Patreon,
link |
or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
link |
And now, let me leave you with some words
link |
from Sun Tzu and the Art of War.
link |
There are not more than five musical notes,
link |
yet the combination of these five give rise
link |
to more melodies that can ever be heard.
link |
There are not more than five primary colors,
link |
yet in combination they produce more hues
link |
that can ever be seen.
link |
There are not more than five cardinal tastes,
link |
and yet combinations of them yield more flavors
link |
than can ever be tasted.
link |
Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.