The following is a conversation with Lisa Feldman Barrett, her second time on the
podcast. She is a neuroscientist at Northeastern University and one of my favorite people.
Her new book called Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain is out now as of a couple days ago,
so you should definitely support Lisa by buying it and sharing with friends if you like it.
It's a great short intro to the human brain. Quick mention of each sponsor,
followed by some thoughts related to the episode. Athletic Greens, the all-in-one drink that I start
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professional. Please check out these sponsors in the description to get a discount and to
support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that Lisa, just like Manolis Callis, is a local
brilliant mind and friend and someone I can see talking to many more times. Sometimes it's fun to
talk to a scientist not just about their field of expertise but also about random topics,
even silly ones, from love to music to philosophy. Ultimately, it's about having fun, something I
know nothing about. This conversation is certainly that. It may not always work,
but it's worth a shot. I think it's valuable to alternate along all kinds of dimensions,
like between deeper technical discussions and more fun, random discussion, from liberal
thinker to conservative thinker, from musician to athlete, from CEO to junior engineer, from friend
to stranger. Variety makes life and conversation more interesting. Let's see where this little
podcast journey goes. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review five stars on our
podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Freedman.
And now, here's my conversation with Lisa Feldman Barrett.
Based on the comments in our previous conversation, I think a lot of people will be
very disappointed, I should say, to learn that you are, in fact, married. As they say,
all the good ones are taken. Okay, so I'm a fan of your husband as well, Dan. He's a programmer,
musician, so a man after my own heart. Can I ask a ridiculously over-romanticized question of
when did you first fall in love with Dan? It's actually, it's a really, it's a really romantic
story, I think. So I was divorced by the time I was 26, 27, 26, I guess. And I was in my first
academic job, which was Penn State University, which is in the middle of Pennsylvania, surrounded by
mountains. So you have, it's four hours to get anywhere, to get to Philadelphia, New York,
Washington. I mean, you're basically stuck, you know. And I was very fortunate to have
a lot of other assistant professors who were hired at the same time as I was. So there were a lot of
us, we were all friends, which was really fun. But I was single, and I didn't want to date a
student. And there were no, and I wasn't going to date somebody in my department, that's just a
recipe for disaster. So even at 20, whatever you were, you were already wise enough to know that.
Yeah, a little bit, maybe. Yeah, I wouldn't call me wise at that age. But anyways, not sure that
I would say that I'm wise now. But, and so after, you know, I was spending probably 16 hours a day
in the lab, because it was my first year. And as an assistant professor, and there's a lot to do.
And I was also bitching and moaning to my friends that, you know, I hadn't had sex. And I don't
know how many, you know, months. And it was, I was starting to, you know, become unhappy with my life.
And I think at a certain point, they just got tired of listening to me bitch and moan and said,
just do something about it then, like, you know, if you're unhappy. And so the first thing I did
was I made friends with a sushi chef in town. And this is like a state college, Pennsylvania,
in the early 90s was there was like a pizza shop and a sub shop and actually a very good bagel
shop. And one good coffee shop and maybe one nice restaurant. I mean, there was really,
but there was a the second son of a Japanese sushi chef who was not going to inherit the
restaurant. And so he moved to Pennsylvania and was giving sushi lessons. So I met this guy,
the sushi, the sushi chef, and we decided to throw a sushi party at the coffee shop. So we
basically it was the goal was to invite every eligible bachelor really within like a 20 mile
radius. We had a totally fun time. I wore an awesome crushed velvet burgundy dress. It was
beautiful dress. And I didn't meet any, I met a lot of new friends, but it did not meet anybody.
So then I thought, okay, well, maybe I'll try the personals ads, which I had never used before in
my life. And I first tried the paper personals ads, like in the newspaper, like in the newspaper,
that didn't work. And then a friend of mine said, oh, you know, there's this thing called net news.
So we're going, this is like 1992, maybe. So there was this anonymous, you could do it anonymously.
So you would, you would read, you could post or you could read ads and then respond to an address,
which was anonymous. And that was yoked to somebody's real address. And there was always a lag
because it was this like a bulletin board sort of thing. So at first, I read them over and I
decided to respond to one or two. And, you know, it was interesting. Sorry, this is not on the
internet. Yeah, this is totally on the internet. But it takes, there's a delay of a couple of days
or whatever. Yeah, right, right. It's 1992. There's no web web pictures. There's no pictures. The
web doesn't exist. It's all done in ASCII formats sort of. And, you know, but the ratio of men to
women was like 10 to one. I mean, there were many more men because it was basically academics in
the government. That was it. That was no, I mean, I think AOL maybe was just starting to become popular.
And so the first person I met told me that he was a, he was a scientist who worked for NASA.
And yeah. Anyways, it turned out that he didn't actually.
This is how they brag. As you elevate your, as opposed to saying you're taller than you are,
you say like your position is higher. Yeah. And I actually, I would have been fine dating somebody
who was a scientist. It's just that they have, it's just that whoever I date has to just accept
that I am and that I'm, I was pretty ambitious and was trying to make my career. And, you know,
that's not, that's not it. I think it's maybe more common now for men to maybe accept that in
their female partners, but at that time, not, not so common. To be intimidating, I guess.
Yes. I, that has been said. And so, and so then the next one I actually corresponded with,
and we actually got to the point of talking on the phone and we had this really kind of funny
conversation where, you know, we're chatting and he said, he's, he introduces the idea that, you
know, he's really looking for a dominant woman and I'm thinking, I'm a psychologist by training,
so I'm thinking, oh, he means sex roles. Like, I'm like, no, I'm very assertive and I'm glad
you think that, you know, okay. Anyways, long story short, that's not really what he meant.
Okay, got it. Yeah. So, and I just, you know, that will just show you my level of naivete.
Like, I was like, I didn't completely understand, but I was like, well, yeah, you know, no. At one
point, he asked me how I felt about him wearing my lingerie and I was like, I don't even share my
lingerie with my sister. Like, I don't share my lingerie with anybody, you know, no. The third
one I interacted with was a banker who lived in Singapore and that, that conversation didn't
last very long because he made an, I guess he made an analogy between me and a character in the fountain
head, the woman who's, who's raped in the fountain head. And I was like, okay, that's not, that's
not a good, that's not a good one. Not that scene. Not that scene. So then I, so then I was like,
okay, you know what, I'm going to post my own ad. And so I did, I posted, well, first I wrote my ad
and then of course I checked it with my, my friends who were all also assistant professors that are
like my little Greek chorus. And then I posted it and I got something like, I don't know, 80 something
responses in 24 hours. I mean, it was, do you remember the pitch? Like how, how you, I guess,
condensed yourself? I don't remember it exactly, although Dan has it. But actually for our 20th
wedding anniversary, he took our, our exchanges and he printed them off and put them in a leather
bound book for us to read, which was really sweet. Yeah, I think I was just really direct,
like I'm almost 30, I'm a scientist, I'm not looking just, you know, I'm, I'm looking for
something serious and yeah, but the thing is, I, I forgot to say where my location was
and my age, which I forgot. So I got lots of, I mean, I will say, so I printed off all of the
responses and I had all my friends over and we were, you know, had a big, I made a big pot of
gumbo and we drank through several bottles of wine reading these responses. And I would say
for the most part, they were really sweet, like earnest and genuine as much as you could tell
that somebody's being genuine. I mean, it seemed, you know, there were a couple of really funky
ones, like, you know, this one couple who told me that I was their soulmate, the two of them,
then they were looking for, you know, a third person. And I was like, okay, but mostly super
seemed seemed like super genuine people. And so I chose five men to start corresponding with and I
was corresponding with them. And then about a week later, I get this other email. And okay,
and then I post something the next day that said, okay, you know, thank you so much. And
I'm going to answered every person back. But then after that, I said, okay, and I'm not going to
answer anymore. You know, because it was they were still coming in, I couldn't, you know, I have a
job and, you know, a house to take care of and stuff. So and then about a week later, I get this
other email. And he says, you know, he just describes himself like, I'm this, I'm this,
I'm this, I'm a chef, I'm a scientist, I'm a this, I'm a this. And so I emailed him back and I said,
you know, you seem interesting, you can write me at my actual address if you want, here's my
address. I'm not really responding. I'm not really responding to other people anymore. But you seem
interesting, you know, you can write to me if you want. And then he wrote to me. And I, and I
wrote him back and I it was it was a nondescript kind of email. And I wrote him back. And I said,
thanks for responding. You know, I'm really busy right now. I was in the middle of writing my first
slate of grant applications. So I was really consumed. And I said, I'll get back to you in
a couple of days. And so I did, I waited a couple of days until my grants were, you know, safe grant
applications safely out the door. And then I emailed him back. And then he emailed me. And then
really across two days, we sent 100 emails. And text only, was there pictures or anything?
Text only, text only. And then so this was like a Thursday and a Friday. And then Friday, he said,
let's talk on the weekend on the phone. And I said, okay. And he wanted to talk Sunday night.
And I had a date Sunday night. So I said, okay, sure, we can talk Sunday night. And then I was
like, well, you know, I don't really want to cancel my date. So I'm just going to call him on
Saturday. So I just called, I call call them on Saturday. And a woman answered. Oh, wow.
Oh, wow. That's not cool. Not cool. And so she says, you know, hello, and I say, oh, you know,
stay on there. And she said, sure, can I ask who's calling? And I said, it tell him it's Lisa. And
she went, oh my God, oh my God, I'm just a friend. I'm just a friend. I just wanted to tell you,
I'm just a friend. And I was like, yeah, this is adorable, right? She doesn't and then he gets
on the phone, not high. Nice to meet the first thing he says to me, she's just a friend. So
I was just so charmed really by the whole thing. So it was, it was Yom Kippur. It was the Jewish
day of atonement that was ending. And they were baking cookies and going to a break fast. So
people, you know, as you know, fast all day, and then they go to a party and they break fast. So
I thought, okay, I'll just, I'll just, you know, cancel my date. So I did. And I stayed home and
we talked for eight hours. And then the next night for six hours. And basically, it just went on
like that. And then by the end of the week, he, he flew to stay college. And, you know, we had
gone through this whole thing where I'd said, we're going to take it slow, we're going to get to
know each other, you know, and then really by, I think we talked like two or three times, these
like really long conversations. And then he said, I'm just going to fly there. And then, so, of
course, there's, I don't even know that there were facts machines at that point. Maybe there were,
but I don't think so. Anyway, so he, we decided we'll exchange pictures. And so he, you know,
I take my photograph and I give it to my secretary and I say to my secretary, fax this.
I say this, send this priority mail. Priority mail. And he goes, okay, I'll send a priority
mail. I'll make his priority mail. He's like, I know priority mail. Okay. And then, so I get Dan's
photograph in the, in the mail. And, you know, it's, it's him in a, in a, in shorts. And you can
see that he's probably somewhere like the Bahamas or something like that. And it's like cropped.
So clearly what he's done is he's taken a photograph where, you know, he's in it with someone else who
turned out to be his ex-wife. So I'm thinking, well, this is awesome. You know, I've hit the jackpot.
He's, he's, you know, very appealing to me, very attractive. And, and then, you know, my
photograph doesn't show up and it doesn't show up. And, you know, so like one day and then two days.
And then, you know, he's, he's like, you know, you're, I said, well, I asked my secretary to
send a priority. I mean, I don't know, you know, what he did. And, and he's like, I said, I'm like,
well, you don't have to, you know, you don't have to come. And he's like, no, no, no, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna, you know, we've had like five dates, the equivalent of five dates practically.
And then, so he's supposed to fly on a Thursday or Friday. I can't remember. And I get a call,
like maybe an hour before his flight's supposed to leave. And he says, hi. And I say, and it's
just something in his voice, right? And I say, because at this point, I think I've talked to him
like for 25 hours, I don't know. And he says, hi. And I'm like, you got the picture. And he's like,
yeah. And I'm like, you don't like it. And he's like, well, I'm sure it's not, I'm sure it's your,
I'm sure it's just not a good, you know, it's not just probably not your best.
Oh, no. You know, you don't, you don't have to come. And he's like, no, no, no, I'm coming. And
I'm like, no, you don't have to come. And he's like, no, no, I really want to, I'm, you know,
I'm getting on the plane. I'm like, you don't have to get on the plane. He's like, no, I'm
getting on the plane. And so I go down to my, I go, I'm in my office, this is happening, right?
So I go downstairs to my, one of my closest friends who is still actually one of my closest friends,
who is one of my colleagues. And Kevin and I say, Kevin, and I go to Kevin, I go, Kevin, Kevin,
Kevin, he doesn't like the photograph. And Kevin's like, well, which photograph did you send?
And I'm like, well, you know, the one where we're shooting pool and he's like,
you sent that photograph? That's a horrible photograph. I'm like, yeah, but it's the only
one that I had that was like, where my hair was kind of similar to what it is now. And he's like,
Lisa, like, do I have to check everything for you? You should not have sent that, you know,
but still he flew over. So he flew, where from by the way, he was in, he was in graduate school
at Amherst, yeah, at UMass Amherst. So he flew and I picked him up and at the airport and he was
happy. So whatever the concern was was gone. And I was dressed, you know, I carefully,
carefully dressed. You nervous? I was really, really nervous. Because I, I am not, I don't
really believe in fate. And I don't really think there's only one person that you can be with. But
I think, you know, people who, some people are curvy, they're kind of complicated. And so the
number of people who fit them is maybe less than like it mathematically speaking. And so when I
was going to pick him up at the airport, I was thinking, well, this could, I could be going to
pick up the, the person I'm going to marry or not. I mean, like I really, but I really, you know,
like our conversations were just very authentic and very moving and, and we really connected. And,
and I really felt like he understood me actually in, in a way that a lot of people don't. And,
and, and what was really nice was at the time, you know, the airport was this tiny little
airport out in a cornfield basically. And so driving back to the town, we were in the car
for 15 minutes completely in the dark as I was driving. And so it was very similar to,
we had just spent, you know, 20 something hours on the telephone sitting in the dark talking to
each other. So it was very familiar. And we basically spent the whole weekend together. And
you met all my friends and we had a big party. And, and at the end of the weekend, I said, okay,
you know, if we're going to give this a shot, we can't, we probably can't, we shouldn't see
other people. So it's a risk, you know, commitment. But, but I just didn't see how it would work if
we were dating people locally and then also seeing each other at a distance because I,
you know, I've had long distance relationships before and they're hard and they,
they take a lot of, they take a lot of effort. And so we decided we'd give it three months and
see what happened. And that was it. This is an interesting thing. Like we're all,
what is it? There's several billion of us and we're kind of roaming this world. And then you
kind of stick together. You find, find somebody that just like gets you. And it's interesting to
think about there's probably thousands, if not millions of people that would, would be sticky
to you depending on the curvature of your space. But what, what is the, could you speak to the
stickiness, like to the, just the falling in love, like seeing that somebody really gets you,
maybe by way of telling, do you think, do you remember there was a moment when you just
realized, damn it. I think I'm like, I think that's, this is the guy. I think I'm in love.
We were having these conversations actually from the, really from the second weekend we were
together. So he flew back the next weekend to stay college because it was my birthday. It was
my 30th birthday. My friends were throwing me a party and we went hiking and we hiked up some
mountain and we were sitting on a cliff over this, you know, overlook and talking to each other.
And I was thinking, and I actually said to him, like, I, I haven't really known you very long,
but I feel like I'm falling in love with you, which can't possibly be happening. I must be
projecting, but it, but it, but it certainly feels that way. Right. Like, I don't believe in love at
first sight. So this can't really be happening, but it sort of feels like it is. And he was like,
I know what you mean. And so for the first three months or four months, we would say things to
each other. Like, I feel like I'm in love with you, but, you know, but that can't, but things
don't really work like that. So, but, you know, so, and then it became a joke. Like, I feel like
I'm in love with you. And then eventually, you know, I think, but I think that was one moment
where we were, we were talking about just, you know, not just all the great aspirations you have
or all the things, but also things you don't like about yourself, things that you're worried about,
things that you're scared of. And then I think the, that was sort of solidified the relationship.
And then there was one weekend where we went to Maine in the winter, which I love. I mean,
I really love the beach always, but in the winter, particularly. Because it's just beautiful and
calm and whatever. Yeah. And I also, I, I do find beauty in darkness sometimes. Like,
so there's this grand majestic scene of, you know, this very powerful ocean and it's all these like
beautiful blue grays. And it's just, it's just stunning. And so we were sitting on this huge
rock in Maine where we had gone for the weekend, it was freezing cold. And I honestly can't remember
what he said or what I said or what, but I definitely remember having this feeling of
I absolutely want to stay with this person. Like I, and I don't know what my life will be like
if I'm not with this person, like I need to be with this person. Can we, from a scientific and
a human perspective, dig into your belief that first love at first sight is not, is not possible.
You don't believe in it. Well, because there is, there, you don't think there's like a magic where
you see somebody in the, in the Jack Kerak way and you're like, wow, that's something. That's,
that's a special little. Oh, I definitely, oh, I definitely think you can connect with someone
instant in an instance. And I definitely think you can say, oh, there's something there. And I'm
really clicking with that person romantically, but also just with friends. It's possible to do that.
You recognize a mind that's like yours or that's compatible with yours. There are ways that you
feel like you're being understood or that you understand something about this person,
or maybe you see something in this person that you find really compelling or intriguing.
But I think, you know, your brain is predictive organ, right? You're using your past.
You're projecting. You're using your past to make predictions and I mean, not deliberately.
That's how your brain is wired. That's what it does. And so it's filling in all of the gaps
that you, you know, there are lots of gaps of information that you don't, you know,
the information you don't have. And so your brain is filling those in and
But isn't that what love is? No, I don't think so, actually. I mean,
to some extent, sure, you always, you know, there's research to show that people who are in love
always see the best in each other. And they, you know, when there's a, when there's a negative
interpretation or positive interpretation, you know, they choose the positive ones,
there's a little bit of positive illusion there, you know, going on. That's what the research shows.
But I think, I think that when you find somebody who not just appreciates your faults, but loves
you for them, actually, you know, like maybe even doesn't see them as a fault. That's,
so you have to be honest enough about what your, what your faults are. So it's easy to love someone
for all the things that they, for all the wonderful characteristics they have. It's harder, I think,
to love someone despite their faults, or maybe even the faults that they see aren't really
faults at all to you. They're actually something really special.
But isn't that, can't you explain that by saying the brain kind of, like you're projecting, it's
you're, you have a conception of a human being or just a spirit that really connects with you
and you're projecting that onto that person. And within that framework, all their faults then
become beautiful, like little- Maybe, but you just have to pay attention to the prediction error.
No, but maybe that's what love, like maybe you start ignoring the prediction error. That's,
maybe love is just your ability, like to ignore the prediction error. Well, I think that there's
some research that might say that, but that's not my experience, I guess. But there is some
research that says, I mean, there's some research that says you have to have an optimal margin of
illusion, which means that you, that you put a positive spin on, on smaller things, but you
don't ignore the bigger things, right? And I think without being judgmental at all, when someone says
to me, you know, you're not who I thought you were. I mean, nobody says I said that to me in a really
long time, but certainly when I was younger, that was, you know, you're not who I thought you were.
My reaction to that was, well, whose fault is that? You know, I'm a pretty, I'm a pretty upfront
person. I mean, I will though say that in my experience, people, people don't lie to you
about who they are. They lie to themselves in your presence.
Yeah. And so, you know, you don't want to get tied, tied up in that, tangled up in that. And I
think from the get go, Dan and I were just for whatever reason, maybe it's because we both have
been divorced already. And, you know, you know, he told me who we thought he was. And he was pretty
accurate as far as I can. Pretty much, actually. I mean, I, there's very, I can't say that I've ever
come across a characteristic in him that really surprised me in a bad way.
It's hard to know yourself.
It is hard to know yourself. And to communicate that.
For sure. I mean, I'll say, you know, I had the advantage of training as a therapist, which meant
for five years I was under a fucking microscope. You know, when I was training as a therapist,
it was hour for hour supervision, which meant if you were in a room with a client for an hour,
you had an hour with a, with a supervisor. So that supervisor was behind the mirror
for your session. And then you went and had an hour of discussion about what you said,
what you didn't say, learning to use your own react, your own feelings and thoughts as a tool
to probe the mind of the client and so on. And so you can't help but learn a lot of,
you can't help but learn a lot about yourself in that process.
Do you think knowing or learning how the sausage is made ruins the magic of the actual experience?
Like using your scientists who studies the brain, do you think it ruins the magic of
like love at first sight? Are you, do you consciously are still able to lose yourself in
the moment? I'm definitely able to lose myself in the moment. Is wine involved?
Not always. Chocolate. I mean, some kind of mind altering substance, right? But yeah, for sure.
I mean, I guess what I would say though is that for me, part of the magic is the process.
Like so, you know, so, so I remember a day, there was, while I was working on this,
on this, on this book of essays, I was in New York. I can't remember why I was in New York,
but I was in New York for something and I was in Central Park and I was looking at all the
people with their babies and I was thinking, every, every, each one of these, there's a tiny
little brain that's wiring itself right now. And I, and I, I just, I felt in that moment,
I was like, I am never going to look at an infant in the same way ever again. And so to me, I mean,
honestly, before I started learning about brain development, I thought babies were cute, but,
you know, not that interesting until they could do interact with you and do things. Of course,
my own infant, I thought was extraordinarily interesting, but, you know, they're kind of like
lumps. That's, you know, until they can, you know, interact with you, but they are anything but lumps.
I mean, like, you know, so, and part of the, I mean, all I can say is I have deep affection now for
like tiny little babies in a way that I didn't really before just because of the, I'm just so
curious. But the actual process, the mechanisms of the wiring of the brain, the learning, all the
magic of the neurobiology. Yeah. And, or, you know, something like, you know, when you make eye contact
with someone directly, sometimes, you know, you, you feel something, right? Yeah. And,
yeah, that's weird. What is it? And what is that? And so, so to me, that's not,
that's not backing away from the moment. That's like expanding the moment. It's like,
that's incredibly cool. You know, when I was, I'll just say that when I was, when I was in
graduate school, I also was in therapy because it's almost a given that you're going to be in
therapy yourself if you're going to become a therapist. And I had a deal, you know, with my
therapist, which was that I could call time out at any moment that I wanted to, as long as I was
being responsible about it. And I wasn't using it as a way to get out of something. And he could
tell me, no, you know, he could decline and say, no, you're, you know, you're using this to get
out of something. But I could call time out whenever I want and say, what are you doing right now?
Like, what are you, here's what I'm experiencing. What are you trying to do? Like, I wanted to use
my own experience to interrogate what the process was. And that made it more helpful in a way.
Do you know what I mean? So, yeah, I don't, I don't think learning how something works makes
it less magical, actually. But that's just me, I guess. I don't know, would you? Yes. I tend to
have two modes. One is one is an engineer and one is romantic. And I'm conscious of like,
like the gear, like you like, there's two rooms, you can go into the one, the engineer room.
And I think that ruins the romance. So I tend to, there's two rooms. One is the engineering room,
think from first principles, how do we build the thing that creates this kind of behavior?
And then you go into the romantic room, where you're like emotional, it's a roller coaster, and then
you're, the thing is, let's take it slow, and then you get married the next night, that you just,
this giant mess, and you write a song, and then you cry, and then you send a bunch of text and
anger and, and whatever, and somehow you're in Vegas, and there's random people and you're drunk,
and whatever, all that, like in poetry, and just mess of it. Fighting, yeah, that's not,
those are two rooms, and you go back between, between them. But I think the way you put it is
quite poetic. I think you're much, you're much better at adulting with love than perhaps I am,
because there's a magic to children. I also think, like of adults as children, it's kind of cool to
see, it's a cool thought experiment to look at adults and think like that used to be a baby,
and then that's like a fully wired baby, and it's just walking around pretending to be like all
serious and important, wearing a suit or something, but that used to be a baby, and then you think of
like the parenting and all the experiences they had, like it's cool to think of it that way,
but then you, I start thinking like from a machine learning perspective, but once you're like the
romantic moments, all that kind of stuff, all that falls away. I forget about all that, I don't
know. That's the Russian thing. Maybe, maybe. But I also think it might be an age thing or maybe
an experience thing. So I think we all, I mean, if you're exposed to Western culture at all,
you are exposed to the sort of idealized, stereotypic romantic exchange, and what does
it mean to be romantic? So here's a test. I'm gonna say how to phrase it. Okay, so not really a test,
but this tells you something about your own ideas about romance.
For Valentine's Day, one year, my husband bought me a six-way plug.
Is that romantic or not romantic?
Like, sorry, six-way plug. That's like an outlet, like a...
Yeah, like to put it in an outlet. Is that romantic or not romantic?
I mean, it depends the look in his eyes when he does it. I mean, it depends on
the conversation that led up to that point. It depends how much...
It's like the music, because you have a very... You're both from the... My experience is with
you as a fan. You have both a romantic niche, but you have a very pragmatic, like you cut through
the bullshit of the fuzziness. And then there's something about a six-way plug that cuts through
the bullshit, that connects to the human, like he understands who you are. Exactly.
Exactly. That was the most romantic gift he could have given me, because he knows me so well.
He has a deep understanding of me, which is that I will sit and suffer and complain about the fact
that I have to plug in unplug things, and I will bitch and moan until the cows come home,
but it would never occur to me to go buy a bloody six-way plug. Whereas for him,
he bought it, he plugged it in, he arranged, he taped up all my wires, he made it really usable.
And for me, that was the best present. The most romantic thing.
It was the most romantic thing, because he understood who I was and he did something very...
Or just the casual, like we moved into a house that went, we went from having a two-car garage
to a one-car garage. And I said, okay, I'm from Canada. I'm not bothered by snow. Well,
I mean, I'm a little bothered by snow, but he's very bothered by snow. So I'm like, okay,
you can park your car in the garage. It's fine. Every day when it snows, he goes out and cleans
my car. Every day. I never asked him to do it. He just does it, because he knows that I'm cutting
it really close in the morning, when we all used to go to work. I have a time to the second,
so that I can get up as late as possible, work out as long as possible, just to... And make it
into my office like a minute before my first meeting. And so if it snows unexpectedly or
something, I'm screwed, because now that's an added 10 or 15 minutes and I'm going to be late.
Anyways, it's just these little tiny things that he's a really easy going guy.
And he doesn't look like somebody who pays attention to detail. He doesn't fuss about detail,
but he definitely pays attention to detail. And it is very, very romantic in the sense that
he loves me despite my little details.
And it understands you.
Yeah, he understands you.
But it is kind of hilarious that that is the six-way plug is the most fulfilling,
richest display of romance in your life. I love it.
That's what I mean about romance. Romance is really, it's not all about chocolates
and flowers and whatever. I mean, those are all nice too, but...
Sometimes it's about the six-way plug.
Sometimes it's about the six-way plug.
So maybe one way I could ask before we talk about the details, you also have the author
of another book as we talked about how emotions are made. So it's interesting to talk about the
process of writing. You mentioned you were in New York. What have you learned from writing these
two books about the actual process of writing? And maybe I don't know what's the most interesting
thing to talk about there, maybe the biggest challenges or the boring mundane systematic
like day to day of what worked for you like hacks or even just about the neuroscience
that you've learned through the process of trying to write them.
Here's the thing I learned. If you think that it's going to take you a year to write your book,
it's going to take you three years to write your book. That's the first thing I learned
is that no matter how organized you are, it's always going to take way longer than what you think.
In part because very few people make an outline and then just stick to it.
Some of the topics really take on a life of their own. And to some extent, you want to let them
have their voice. You want to follow leads until you feel satisfied that you've dealt
with the topic appropriately. And that part is actually fun. It's not fun to feel like
you're constantly behind the eight ball in terms of time. But it is the exploration and the foraging
for information is incredibly fun for me anyways. I found it really enjoyable. And if I wasn't also
running a lab at the same time and trying to keep my family going, the whole thing would have just
been fun. But I would say the hardest thing about the most important thing I think I learned is also
the hardest thing and that it for me, which is knowing what to leave out. A really good storyteller
knows what to leave out. In academic writing, you shouldn't leave anything out. All the details
should be there. And I've written or participated in writing over 200 papers, peer review papers.
So I'm pretty good with detail, knowing what to leave out, knowing what to leave out and not
harming the validity of the story. That is a tricky, tricky thing. It was tricky when I wrote
how emotions are made, but that's a standard popular science book. So it's 300 something pages.
And then it has like 1000 end notes. And then each of the end notes is attached to a web note,
which is also long. And I wrote three drafts of that book, actually, and the final draft,
and then I had to cut by a third. It was like 150,000 words or something, and I had to cut it
down to like 110. So obviously, I struggle with what to leave out. Brevity is not my strong suit.
I'm always telling people that it's a warning. So that's why this book was... I'd always been
really fascinated with essays. I love reading essays. And after reading a small set of essays by Ann
Fatiman called At Large and At Small, which I just love these little essays.
What's the topic of those essays?
They're called familiar essays. So the topics are everyday topics like mail, coffee, chocolate.
And what she does is she weaves her own experience. It's a little bit like these
conversations that you're so good at curating, actually. You're weaving together history and
philosophy and science and also personal reflections. And a little bit you feel like you're
like eavesdropping on someone's train of thought, in a way. It's really... They're really compelling
to me. Even if it's just a mundane topic. Yeah, but it's so interesting to
learn about all of these little stories in the wrapping of the history of mail.
That's really interesting. And so I read these essays and then I wrote to her a little fan girl
email. This was many years ago. And I said, I just love this book and how did you learn
to write essays like this? And she gave me a reading list of essays that I should read,
like writers. And so I read them all. And anyway, so I decided it would be a really good challenge
for me to try to write something really brief where I could focus on one or two really fascinating
tidbits of neuroscience, connect each one to something philosophical or just a question
about human nature, do it in a really brief format without violating the validity of the science.
That was a... I just set myself this, what I thought of as a really, really big challenge,
in part because it was an incredibly hard thing for me to do in the first book.
Yeah, we should say that this is... The Seven and a Half Lesson is a very short book. I mean,
it's like it embodies brevity, right? The whole point throughout is just... I mean, you could
tell that there's editing, like there's pain in trying to bring it as brief as possible,
as clean as possible. Yeah. Yeah. So it's... The way I think of it is, it's a little book of
big science and big ideas. Yeah, really big ideas and brief little packages.
And I wrote it so that people could read it. I love reading on the beach. I love reading essays
on the beach. I wrote it so people could read it on the beach or in the bathtub or a subway stop.
Even if the beach is frozen over in the snow. Yeah. So my husband, Dan, calls it the first
neuroscience beach read. That's his... That's his phrasing. Yeah.
And like you said, you learn a lot about writing from your husband, like you were saying offline.
Well, he is... Of the two of us, he is the better writer. He is a masterful writer.
He's also... I mean, he's a PhD in computer science. He's a software engineer, but he's also
really good at organization of knowledge. So he built for a company he used to work for. He built
one of the first knowledge management systems and he's... He now works at Google where he does
engineering education. He understands how to tell a good story just about anything, really.
He's got impeccable timing. He's really funny. And luckily for me, he knows very little about
psychology or neuroscience. Well, now he knows more, obviously, but so he was really... When
how emotions were made, he was really, really helpful to me because the first draft of every
chapter was me talking to him about what... I would talk out loud about what I wanted to say
and the order in which I wanted to say it. And then I would write it and then he would read it
and tell me all the bits that could be excised. And sometimes we would... I should say, we don't...
He and I don't really argue about much except directions in the car. If we're gonna have an
argument, that's gonna be where it's gonna happen, where... What's the nature of the argument about
directions, exactly? I don't really know. It's just that we're very... I think it's that spatially,
he... I use egocentric space. So I want to say, turn left. I'm reasoning in relation to my own
physical, corporeal body. So you walk to the church and you turn left and you then whatever.
I'm always like... And he gives directions allocentrically, which means organized around North,
South, East, West. So to you, the Earth is at the center of the solar system and to him...
No, I'm at the center. I'm at the center. You're at the center of the solar system.
Okay, so... Anyway, so we... But here, we had some really rip-roaring arguments,
like really rip-roaring arguments where he would say, who is this for? Is this for the 1%?
And I'd be like 1% meaning not wealth, but civilians versus academics. Are these for
the scientists or is this for the civilians, right? So he speaks for the people, for the
civilians. He speaks for the people and I'd be like, no, you have to... And so he made... After
one terrible argument that we had where it was really starting to affect our relationship because
we were so mad at each other all the time, he made these little signs, writing and science.
And we only use them. This was like... When you pulled out a sign, that's it. Like the other person
just wins and you have to stop fighting about it. And that's it. And so we just did that.
And we didn't really have to use it too much for this book because this book was in some ways...
I didn't have to learn a lot of new things for this book. I had to learn some. But a lot of
what I learned for how emotions are made really stood me in good stead for this book. So there
was a little bit... Each essay was a little bit of learning. A couple was a little more than
the small amount. But I didn't have so much trouble here. I had a lot of trouble with the
first book. But still even here, he would tell me that I could take something out and I really
wanted to keep it. And I think we only use the signs once. Well, if we could dive in some
aspects of the book, I would love that. Can we talk about... So one of the essays looks at evolution.
Let me ask the big question. Did the human brain evolve to think? That's essentially
the question that you address in the essay. Can you speak to it?
Sure. The big caveat here is that we don't really know why brains evolved. The big why
questions are called teleological questions. And in general, scientists should avoid those
questions because we don't know really why. We don't know the why. However, for a very long time,
the assumption was that evolution worked in a progressive upward scale. That you start off
with simple organisms and those organisms get more complex and more complex and more complex.
Now, obviously, that's true in some really general way that life started off as single cell
organisms and things got more complex. But the idea that brains evolved in some upward
trajectory from simple brains in simple animals to complex brains in complex animals is called a
phylogenetic scale. And that phylogenetic scale is embedded in a lot of evolutionary thinking,
including Darwin's, actually. And it's been seriously challenged, I would say, by modern
evolutionary biology. And so thinking is something that, rationality is something that humans,
at least in the West, really prize as a great human achievement. And so the idea that
the most common evolutionary story is that brains evolved in like sedimentary rock
with a layer for instincts. That's your lizard brain and a layer on top of that for emotions.
That's your limbic system, limbic meaning border. So it borders the parts that are for instincts.
Oh, interesting. And then the neocortex or new cortex where
rationality is supposed to live. That's the sort of traditional story.
It just keeps getting layered on top by evolution.
Right. And so you can think about, I mean, sedimentary rock is the way typically people
describe it. The way I sometimes like to think about it is thinking about the cerebral cortex
like icing on an already baked cake, where the cake is your inner beast, these boiling,
roiling instincts and emotions that have to be contained. And by the cortex, and it's a fiction.
It's a myth that you can trace all the way back to stories about morality in ancient Greece.
But what you can do is look at the scientific record and say, well, there are other stories
that you could tell about brain evolution and the context in which brains evolved.
So when you look at creatures who don't have brains and you look at creatures who do,
what's the difference? And you can look at some animals.
So we call, scientists call an environment that an animal lives in a niche, their environmental
niche. What are the things, what are the parts of the environment that matter to that animal?
And so there are some animals whose niche hasn't changed in 400 million years.
So they're not, these creatures are modern creatures, but they're living in a niche that
hasn't changed much. And so their biology hasn't changed much. And you can kind of verify that
by looking at the genes that lurk deep in the molecular structure of cells.
And so you can, by looking at various animals in their developmental state,
meaning not, you don't look at adult animals, you look at embryos of animals and developing
animals, you can see, you can piece together a different story. And that story is that brains
evolved under the selection pressure of hunting that in the Cambrian period, hunting emerged
on the scene where animals deliberately ate one another. And what, so before the Cambrian period,
the animals didn't really have, well, they didn't have brains, but they also didn't have
senses really, the very, very rudimentary senses. So the animal that I wrote about in
seven and a half lessons is called an amphioxis or a lancelet. And little amphioxis has no eyes,
it has no ears, it has no nose, it has no eyes, it has a couple of cells for
detecting light and dark for circadian rhythm purposes. And it can't hear,
it has a vestibular cell to keep its body upright. It has a very rudimentary sense of touch,
and it doesn't really have any internal organs other than this, like, basically stomach. It's
like a, just like a, it doesn't, it doesn't have an enteric nervous system, it doesn't have like
a gut that, you know, moves like we do, it just has basically a tube. So it's like a little container.
Like a little container, yeah. And so, and really it doesn't, it doesn't move very much, it can move,
it just sort of wriggles, it doesn't have very sophisticated movement. And it's this really
sweet little animal, it sort of wriggles its way to a spot and then plants itself in the sand and
just filters food as the food goes by. And then when the food concentration decreases,
it, it just, it just ejects itself, wriggles to some spot randomly, where probabilistically
there will be more food and plants itself again. So it's, it's not, it's not really aware, very
aware that it has an environment. It has a niche, but that niche is very small, and it's not really
experiencing that niche very much. So it's, it's basically like a little stomach on a stick.
That's, that's really what it is. And, but, but when animals start to literally hunt each other,
all of a sudden, it becomes important to have, to be able to sense your environment,
because you need to know, is that blob up ahead going to eat me, or should I eat it?
And so all of a sudden you want, distant senses are very useful. And so in the water,
distant senses are vision and a little bit hearing, olfaction, smelling, and touch,
because in the water, touch is a distant sense, because you can feel the vibration. So it's,
right? So in, on air, on land, you know, vision is a distant sense, touch not so much, but for
elephants maybe, right? The vibration, vibrations, olfaction definitely, because of the concentration
of, you know, the more concentrated something is, the more likely it is to be close to you.
So animals developed senses, they developed a head, like a literal head. So Amphioxis doesn't
even have a head really, it's just a, you know, what's the purpose of a head?
That's a great question. Is it, is it to have a jaw? That's a great question. So jaw, so yes,
jaws are a major, useful feature. Yeah, obviously they're a major adaptation
after there's a split between vertebrates and invertebrates. So Amphioxis is thought to be
very, very similar to the animal that's before that split. But then after the development,
very quickly after the development of a head is the development of a jaw, which is a big thing.
And, and what goes along with that is the development of a brain.
It's weird. Is that just a coincidence that the thing, the part of our body of the mammal,
I think, body that we eat with, and like attack others with is also the thing that contains
the, all the majority of the brain type of stuff. Well, actually, the brain goes with the development
of a head and the development of a visual system and an auditory system and an olfactory system
and so on. So your senses are developing and, and the other thing that's happening, right,
is that animals are getting bigger. Yeah. Because they're, and also their niche is getting bigger.
Well, this is the, just sorry to take a tiny tangent on the niche thing is it seems like
the niche is getting bigger, but not just bigger, like more complicated, like shaped
in weird ways. So like predation seems to create like, like the whole world becomes your oyster,
whatever. But like, you also start to carve out like the places in which you can operate the best.
Yeah. And in fact, that's absolutely right. And in fact, some scientists think that theory of
mind, your ability to make inferences about the inner life of other creatures actually developed
under the selection pressure of predation, because it makes you a better predator.
Do you ever look at, you just said you looked at babies as these wiring creatures. Do you ever
think of humans as just clever predators? Like that there is under, underneath it all is this,
the Nietzschean will to power in all of its forms? Or are we now friendlier?
Yeah. So it's interesting. I mean, there, there, there are zeitgeists in how humans think about
themselves, right? And so if you look in the 20th century, you can see that the idea of an
inner beast that we're just predators, we're just basically animals, baseless animals,
violent animals that have to be contained by culture and by our prodigious neocortex,
really took hold, particularly after World War I, and really held sway for much of that century.
And then around, at least in Western writing, I would say, you know, we're talking mainly
about Western, Western scientific writing, Western philosophical writing. And, and then,
you know, late 90s, maybe you start to see books and articles about our social nature,
that we're social animals, and we are social animals. But what does that mean exactly? And
about? It's just carving out different niches in the space of ideas, it looks like.
I think so, I think so. So, you know, do humans, can humans be violent? Yes.
Can humans be really helpful? Yes, yes, actually. And humans are interesting creatures because,
you know, other animals can also be helpful to one another. In fact, there's a whole literature,
booming literature on how other animals support one another. They regulate each
other's nervous systems in interesting ways, and they will be helpful to one another, right?
So, for example, there's a whole literature on rodents and how they signal one another,
what is safe to eat, and they will perform acts of generosity to their conspecifics that are
related to them, or who they were raised with. So, if an animal was raised in a litter that is,
that they were raised in, although not even at the same time, they'll be more likely to help
that animal. So, there's always some kind of physical relationship between animals
that predicts whether or not they'll help one another. For humans, humans, you know, we have ways
of categorizing who's in our group and who isn't by non-physical ways, right? Even by just something
abstract like an idea. And we are much more likely to extend help to people in our own group, whatever
that group may be, at that moment, whatever feature you're using to define who's in your
group and who isn't. We're more likely to help those people than even members of our own family
at times. So, humans are much more flexible in their, in the way that they help one another,
but also in the way that they harm one another. So, I don't think I subscribe to,
you know, we are primarily this or we are primarily that. I don't think humans have
essences in that way, really. I apologize to take us in this direction for a brief moment,
but I've been really deep on Stalin and Hitler recently in terms of reading. And is there something
that you think about in terms of the nature of evil from a neuroscience perspective? Is there
some lessons that are sort of hopeful about human civilization that we can find in our
brain with regard to the hitlers of the world? Do you think about the nature of evil?
Yeah, I do. I don't know that what I have to say is so useful from a, I don't know that I
can say as a neuroscientist, well, here's a study that, you know, what I, so I sort of have to take
off my lab coat, right? And now, I'm going to now conjecture as a human who just also,
who has opinions, but who also maybe has some knowledge about neuroscience. But I'm not speaking
as a neuroscientist when I say this because I don't think neuroscientists know enough,
really, to be able to say. But I guess the kinds of things I think about are
what, so I have always thought, even before I knew anything about neuroscience,
I've always thought that I don't think anybody could become Hitler, but I think
the majority of people can be, can do, are capable of doing very bad things. It's just,
the question is really how much encouragement does it take from the environment to get them
to do something bad? That's what I kind of, when I look at the life of Hitler, it seems like
there's so many places where- Something could have intervened.
It could change completely the person. I mean, there's the caricature, the obvious places where
he was an artist, and if he wasn't rejected as an artist, he was a reasonably good artist,
so that could have changed. But just his entire, where he went in Vienna and all these kinds of
things, little interactions could have changed. And there's probably millions of other people who
are capable, who the environment may be able to mold in the same way did this particular person to
create this particular kind of charismatic leader in this particular moment of time.
Absolutely. And I guess the way that I would say it, I would agree 100%, and I guess the way
that I would say it is like this. In the West, we have a way of reasoning about causation, which
focuses on single, simple causes for things. There's an essence to Hitler. There's an essence
to his character. He was born with that essence, or it was forged very, very early in his life,
and that explains the landscape of his, the horrible landscape of his behavior. But there's
another way to think about it, a way that actually is much more consistent with what we know about
biology, how biology works in the physical world. And that is that most things are complex, not as
in, wow, this is really complex and hard, but complex as in complexity, that is more than the
sum of their parts. And that most phenomena have many, many weak nonlinear interacting causes.
And so little things that we might not even be aware of can shift someone's developmental
trajectory from this to that. And that's enough to take it on a whole set of other paths that,
you know, that, and that these things are happening all the time. So it's not random,
and it's not really, it's not deterministic in the sense that like everything you do determines
your outcome. But it's a little more like, you know, you're nudging someone from one set of
possibilities to another set of possibilities. And I, but I think the thing is, the thing that I
find optimistic is that the, the other side of that coin is also true, right? So look at all the
people who risked their lives to help people they didn't even know. I mean, I just watched Borat,
the new Borat movie. And the thing that I came away with, but you know, the thing I came away
with was look at how like generous people were in that. Oh, he's making, there are a lot of people
he makes fun of and that's fine. But think about like those two guys, those, those, the Trump
supporter guys, the Trump supporter guys, those guys, those kindness in them, right?
They took a complete stranger in a pandemic into their house. Who does that? Like that's a really
nice thing. Or there's one scene, I mean, I don't want to spoil it for people who haven't seen it,
but, but there's, you know, there's one scene where he goes in, he dresses up as a Jew.
I laughed myself sick at that scene seriously. But, but he goes in and he, and there are these
two old Jewish ladies. What a bunch of sweethearts. Oh my gosh. Like, really? I mean, that was what I
was struck by actually. I mean, there are other ones or, or like the babysitter, right? I mean,
she was really kind. And yeah, so that's really what I was more struck by. Like,
you know, sure, there are other people who, you know, who do very bad things or say bad things
or, or whatever. But, you know, or like, there's one guy who's completely stoic, like the guy at
the, who's doing the, like, you know, sending the messages. I don't know if it's facts or whatever.
He's just completely stoic, but he's doing his job actually. You know, like, you can't, you don't
know what he was thinking inside his head. You don't know what he's feeling, but he was totally
professional doing his job. So I guess I just, I had a bit of a different view, I guess. And I,
so I also think that about people. I think everybody is capable of kindness. And, but,
but, you know, it's the question is how much does it take and what are the circumstances?
So for a lot, some people, it's going to take a lot. And for some people, it only takes a little
bit. But, you know, are we actually cultivating an environment for the next generation that
provides opportunities for people to go in the direction of caring and kindness? Or, you know,
and I'm not saying that as like a, you know, Pollyanna-ish person. You know, I think there's
a lot of room for competition and debate and so on. But I don't see Hitler as an anomaly.
And I never have, that was even before I learned anything about neuroscience. And now
I would say knowing what we know about developmental trajectories and life histories and how important
that is, you know, knowing what we know about that the whole question of like nature versus
nurture is a completely wrong question. You know, we have the kind of nature that requires
nurture. We have the kind of genes that allow infants to be born with unfinished brains,
where the brains, their brains are wired across a 25 year period with wiring instructions from
the world that is created for them. And so I don't think Hitler is an anomaly.
You know, even if it's less probable that that would happen, it's possible that it
could happen again. And it's not like, you know, he's a bad seed. I mean, that doesn't,
I just want to say for, like, of course, he's completely 100% responsible for his actions
and all the bad things that happened. So I'm not in any way, this is not me saying.
But the environment is also responsible in part for creating the evil in this world. So, like,
Hitler's in different versions of even more subtle, more smaller scale versions of evil.
But I tend to believe that there's a much stronger, I don't like to talk about evolutionary
advantages, but it seems like it makes sense for love to be a more powerful emergent phenomena
of our collective intelligence versus hate and evil and destruction. Because from a survival,
from a niche perspective, it seems to be like in my own life, in my thinking about the intuition
about the way humans work together to solve problems, it seems that love is a very useful tool.
I definitely agree with you. But I think the caveat here is that humans, the research suggests
that humans are capable of great acts of kindness and great acts of generosity to people in their
in-group. So we're also tribal. Yeah, I mean, that's the kitschy way to say it. We're tribes,
we're tribal. So that's the kitschy way to say it. What I would say is that there are a lot of
features that you can use to describe yourself. You don't have one identity, you don't have one
self, you have many selves, you have many identities. Sometimes you're a man, sometimes
you're a scientist, sometimes you're a, do you have a brother or a sister? Yeah, brother.
So sometimes you're a brother, you know, you sometimes you're a friend.
As you're human, so you can keep zooming out, living organism on earth.
Yes, exactly. That's exactly right. And so there are some people who,
there is research which suggests that there are some people who will tell you,
I think it's appropriate and better to help, I should help my family more than I should help
my neighbors. And I should help my neighbors more than I should help the average stranger. And I should
help, you know, the average stranger in my country more than I should help somebody outside my
country. And I should help humans more than I should help, you know, other animals. And I should,
right? So there's a clear hierarchy of helping. And there are other people who,
you know, they are, their niche is much more inclusive, right? And that they're humans first,
right? Or creatures of the earth first, let's say. And I don't think we know how
flexible those attitudes are, because I don't think the research really tells us that. But
in any case, there are, you know, and there are beliefs, people also have beliefs about,
there's this really interesting research in really an anthropology that looks at
what are cultures particularly afraid of, like what the people in a particular culture are
organizing their social systems to prevent certain types of problems. So what are the
problems that they're worried about? And so there are some cultures that are much more hierarchical
and some cultures that are, you know, much more egalitarian. There are some cultures that,
you know, in the debate of like getting along versus getting ahead, there are some cultures
that really prioritize the individual over the group. And there are other cultures that
really prioritize the group over the individual. You know, it's not like one of these is right
and one of these is wrong. It's that, you know, different combinations of these features are
different solutions that humans have come up with for, for living in groups, which is a
major adaptive advantage of our species. And it's not the case that one of these is better
and one of these is worse. Although as a person, of course, I have opinions about that. And as
a person, I can say I would very much prefer certain, I have certain beliefs and I really
want everyone in the world to live by those beliefs, you know. But as a scientist, I know that
it's not really the case that for the species, any one of these is better than any other.
There are different solutions that work differentially well in particular,
you know, ecological parts of the world. But for individual humans, there are definitely
some systems that are better and some systems that are worse, right? But when anthropologists
or when neuroscientists or biologists are talking, they're not usually talking about the lives of
individual people, they're talking about, you know, the species, what's better for the species,
the survivability of the species. And what's better for the survivability of the species
is variation, that we have lots of cultures with lots of different solutions, because if the
environment were to change drastically, some of those solutions will work better than others.
And you can see that happening with COVID. Right, so some people might be more susceptible
to this virus than others. And so variation is very useful. Say COVID was much, much more
destructive than it is. And like, I don't know, 20% of the population was died. You know, that's
it's good to have variability, because then at least some percent will survive.
Yeah, I mean, the way that I used to describe it was, you know, using, you know, those movies
like the War of the Worlds or Pacific Rim, you know, where like aliens come down from outer space
and they, you know, want to kill humans. And so all the humans band together as a species,
like, and they all, like all the, you know, little squabbling from countries and whatever,
all, you know, goes away and everyone is just one big, you know, well, that, you know,
that doesn't happen. I mean, because COVID is, you know, the virus,
like COVID-19 is like a creature from outer space. And that's not what you see happening.
What you do see happening, it is true that some people, I mean, we could use this as an example
of essentialism also. So just to say, like, exposure to the virus does not mean that you
will become infected with a disease. So, I mean, in controlled studies, one of which was actually
a coronavirus, not COVID, but this was, these are studies from 10 or so years ago, you know,
only somewhere between 20 and 40% of people were developed respiratory illness when a virus was
placed in their nose. And so... Then there's a dose question and all those... Well, not in these
studies actually. So in these studies, the dose was consistent across all people. And everything,
you know, they were sequestered in hotel rooms and what they ate was, you know,
measured out by scientists and so on. And so when you hold dose, I mean, the dose issue is
a real issue in the real world. But in these studies, that was controlled. And only somewhere
between 20... Depending on the study, between 20 and 40% of people became infected with a disease.
So exposure to a virus doesn't mean de facto that you will develop an illness. You will be a
carrier and you will spread the virus to other people. But you yourself may not... Your immune
system may be in a state that you can make enough antibodies to not show symptoms, not develop symptoms.
And so, of course, what this means is, again, is that, you know, like if I asked you, do you think,
you know, a virus is the cause of a common cold? Or, you know, most people, if I ask this question,
I can tell you, I ask this question. So do you think a virus is the cause of a cold? Most people
would say, yes, I think it is. And then I say, yeah, well, only 20 to 40% of people develop
an illness in exposure to a virus. So clearly, it is a necessary cause, but it's not a sufficient
cause. And there are other causes. Again, so not simple, single causes for things, right?
Multiple, interacting influences. So it is true that individuals vary in their
susceptibility to illness upon exposure. But different cultures have different sets of norms
and practices that allow, that will slow or speed the spread. And that's the point that I was actually
trying to make here, that, you know, when the environment changes, that is, there's a mutation
of a virus that is incredibly infectious, some cultures will succumb, people in some
cultures will succumb faster because of the particular norms and practices that they've
developed in their culture versus other cultures. Now, there could be some other,
you know, thing that changes that where those other cultures would do better.
So very individualistic cultures like ours may do much better under other types of
selection pressures. But for COVID, for things like COVID, you know, my colleague Michelle
Galfont, her research shows that she looks at like loose cultures and tight cultures,
so cultures that have very, very strict rules versus cultures that are much more individualistic
and where personal freedoms are more valued. And she, you know, her research suggests that
for pandemic circumstances, tight cultures actually, the people survive better.
She's still lingering a little bit longer. We started this part of the conversation talking
about, you know, did humans evolve to think, did the human brain evolve to think,
implying, is there like a progress to the thing that's always improving?
That's right. We never, yeah. And so the answer is no.
But let me sort of push back. But so your intuition is very strong here, not your
intuition, the way you describe this. But is it possible there's a direction to this evolution?
Like, do you think of this evolution as having a direction? Like it's like walking along a certain
path towards something? Is it, you know, what is it? Is it Elon Musk said like the earth got
bombarded with photons? And then all of a sudden, like a Tesla was launched into space or whatever,
rockets started coming. Like, is there a sense in which, even though within the system, the
evolution seems to be this massive variation, we're kind of trying to find our niches and so on.
But do you think there ultimately, when you zoom out, there is a direction that's strong
that does tend towards greater complexity and intelligence?
No. So, I mean, and I, and again, what I would say is I'm really, I'm really just echoing
people who are much smarter than I am about this. But see, you're saying smarter. I thought
it doesn't, there's no, I thought there's no smarter. No, I didn't say there's no smarter.
I said there's no direction. Okay. So, I think the thing to say or what I understand to be the
case is that there's variation. It's not unbounded variation. And there are selectors. There are
there are, there are pressures that will select. And so, not anything is possible because we live
on a planet that has certain physical realities to it, right? And but those physical realities are
what constrain the possibilities. The physical realities of our genes and the physical realities
of our corporeal bodies and the physical realities of, you know, the, of life on, on this planet.
So, what I would say is that there's no direction. But there is no, it's not infinite possibility
because we live on a particular planet that has particular statistical regularities in it,
and some things will never happen. And so, all of those things are, are interacting with
with our genes and so on and our, you know, the physical nature of our bodies
to make some things more possible and some things less possible. Look, I mean, humans have very
complex brains, but birds have complex brains. And so do, you know, so do octopuses have very
complex brains. And all three sets of, all three of those brains are somewhat different from one
another. You know, birds, birds, some birds have very complex brains. Some even have rudimentary
language. They have no cerebral cortex. I mean, they admittedly, they have, this is now lesson
two, right? They have, is it lesson two or lesson one? Let me think. No, this is lesson one. They
have, they have the same neurons, the same neurons that, that in a human become the cerebral cortex,
birds have those neurons. They just don't form themselves into a cerebral cortex. But I mean,
crows, for example, are very sophisticated animals. They can do a lot of the things that humans can
do. In fact, all of the things that humans do that are very special, that seem very special,
there's at least one other animal on the planet that can do those things too. What's special
about the human brain is that we put them all together. So we learn from one another. We don't
have to experience everything ourselves. We can watch another animal or another human learn,
experience something, and we can learn from that. Well, there are many other animals who can learn
by copying that we communicate with each other very, very efficiently. We have language, but we're
not the only animals who are efficiently efficient communicators. There are lots of other animals
who can efficiently communicate, like bees, for example. We cooperate really well with one another
to do grand things, but there are other animals that cooperate too. And so every innovation that
we have, other animals have too. What we have is we have all of those together interwoven in this
very complex dance in a brain that is not unique exactly, but that is, it does have some features
that make it particularly useful for us to do all of these things, to have all of these things
intertwined. Actually, the last time we talked, I made a mistake because I said,
in my enthusiasm, I said, our brains are not larger, are relative to our bodies, our brains are
not larger than other primates. And that's actually not true, actually. Our brains relative to our
body size is somewhat larger. So an ape who's not a human, that's not a human, their brains are
larger than their body sizes than, let's say, relative to like a smaller monkey. And a human's
brain is larger relative to its body size than a gorilla. That's a good approximation of your,
of whatever, of the bunch of stuff that you can shove in there. But, well, what I was going to
say is, but our cerebral cortex is not larger than what you would expect for a brain of its size.
So relative to, say, an ape, like a gorilla or a chimp, or even a mammal, like a dolphin or an
elephant, our brains, our cerebral cortex is as large as you would expect it to be for a brain
of our size. So there's nothing special about our cerebral cortex. And this is something I explain
in the book where I say, okay, like by analogy, if you walk into somebody's house and you see that
they have a huge kitchen, you might think, well, maybe this is a place I really definitely want
to eat dinner at because these people must be gourmet cooks. But you don't know anything about
what the size of their kitchen means unless you consider it in relation to the size of the rest
of the house. If it's a big kitchen in a really big house, it's not telling you anything special,
right? If it's a big kitchen in a small house, then that might be a place that you want to
stay for dinner because it's more likely that that kitchen is large for a special reason.
And so the cerebral cortex of a human brain isn't in and of itself special because of its size.
However, there are some genetic changes that have happened in the human brain
as it's grown with to whatever size is typical for the whole brain size, right? There are some
changes that do give the human brain slightly more of some capacities. They're not special,
but we can do some things much better than other animals. And correspondingly,
other animals can do some things much better than we can. We can't grow back limbs. We can't lift
50 times our own body weight. Well, I mean, maybe you can, but I can't lift 50 times my own body.
Ants with that regard are very impressive. And then you're saying with the frontal cortex,
like that's the size is not always the right measure of capability, I guess. So size isn't
everything. Size isn't everything. That's a quotable. You know, people like it when I disagree.
So let me disagree with you on something or just like play devil's advocate a little bit.
So you've painted a really nice picture that evolution doesn't have a direction.
But is it possible if we just ran earth over and over again, like this video game,
that the final result will be the same? So in the sense that we're eventually there'll be an AGI type
Hal 9000 type system that just like flies and colonizes nearby earth like planets. And it's
always will be the same. And the different organisms and the different evolution of the
brain, like it doesn't feel like it has like a direction. But given the constraints of earth
and whatever this imperative, whatever the hell is running this universe, like it seems like it's
running towards something, is it possible that will always be the same?
Thereby, it will be a direction. Yeah, I think, you know, as you know better than anyone else,
that the answer to that question is, of course, there's some probability that could happen,
right? It's not a yes or no answer. It's what's the probability that that would happen.
And there's a whole distribution of possibilities. So maybe we end up, what's the probability we
end up with exactly the same complement of creatures, including us, what's the likelihood
that we end up with, you know, creatures that are similar to humans that are, but, you know,
similar in certain ways, let's say, but not exactly humans or, you know, all the way to a
completely different distribution of creatures. What's your intuition? Like if you were to
bet money, what does that distribution look like if we ran earth over and over again?
Yeah, so I would say given the, you're now asking me questions that.
This is not science. This is not science. So, but I would say, okay, well, what's the probability
that it's going to be a carbon life form? Probably high. Yeah. But that's because I don't know
anything about. Alternative. Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't, I'm not, I'm not really well versed
that. What's the probability that, you know, so what's the probability that the animals will begin
in the ocean and crawl out onto land? Versus the other way. Versus the, I would say probably high.
I don't know, but, you know, but do I think what's the likelihood that we would end up with exactly
the same or very similar? I think it's low actually. I wouldn't say it's low, but I would say it's not,
it's not 100% and I'm not even sure it's 50%. You know, I would say I don't think that we're here
by accident because I think, like I said, there are constraints, like there are some physical
constraints about earth. Now, of course, if you were a cosmologist, you could say, well,
the, the fact that the earth is, if you were to do the big bang over again and keep doing it over
and over and over again, would you still get the same solar systems? Would you still get the same
planets? Would, you know, would you still get the same galaxies, the same solar systems, the same
planets? You know, I don't know, but my guess is probably not. Because there are random things
that happen that can, again, send things in one direction, you know, make one set of trajectories
possible and another set impossible. So, um, but I, I guess my, my, my, if I were going to bet,
bet something, money or something valuable, I would probably say it's not zero and it's not
100% and it's probably not even 50%. So there's some probability, but it will be similar.
There will be similar, but I don't think, I just think there are too many degrees of freedom.
There are too many degrees of freedom. I mean, one of the real tensions in writing this book
is to, on the one hand, there's some truth in saying that humans are not special. We are just,
you know, we're not special in the animal kingdom. All animals are, um, well adapted,
if they're survived, they're well adapted to their niche. It does happen to be the case that our
niche is large for any individual human, your niche is whatever it is. But for the species,
right, we live almost everywhere, not everywhere, but almost everywhere on the planet,
but not in the ocean. And actually other animals like bacteria, for example, have us beat miles,
you know, hands down, right? So we're, by any, by any definition, we're not special.
We're just, you know, adapted to our environment. But bacteria don't have a podcast.
Exactly. Exactly. And so that's the other, so that's the tension, right? So on the one hand,
you know, we're not special animals. We're just, you know, you know, particularly well adapted
to our niche. On the other hand, our niche is huge. And we, you know, we don't just adapt
to our environment. We add to our environment. We make stuff up, give it a name, and then it
becomes real. And so no other animal can do that. And so I think the, the thing, the way to think
about it from my perspective or the way I made sense of it is to say, you can look at any individual
single characteristic that a human has that seems remarkable. And you can find that in some other
animal. What you can't find in any other animal is all of those characteristics together in a brain
that is souped up in particular ways like ours is. And if you combine these things,
multiple interacting causes, right? Not one, not one essence like your cortex, your big neocortex,
but which isn't really that big. I mean, it's just big for it, for your big brain,
for the size of your big brain. It's that, it's the size it should be.
If you add all those things together and they interact with each other,
that produces some pretty remarkable results. And if you're aware of that,
then you can start asking different kinds of questions about what it means to be human and
what kind of a human you want to be. And what kind of a world do you want to curate for the
next generation of humans? So I think that's the goal anyways, right? It's just to, just to have a
glimpse of, instead of thinking about things in a simple linear way, just to have a glimpse of the,
some of the things that matter, that seem, that evidence suggests matters to the kind of brain
in the kind of bodies that we have. Once you know that, you can, you can work with it a little bit.
You write, words have power over your biology. Right now, I can text the words, I love you,
from the United States to my close friend in Belgium. And even though she cannot hear my voice
or see my face, I will change her heart rate, her breathing and her metabolism. By the way,
beautifully written, or someone could text something ambiguous to you, like, is your door locked?
And odds are that it would affect your nervous system in an unpleasant way.
So, I mean, there's a lot of stuff to talk about here, but just one way to ask is,
why do you think words have so much power over our brain?
Well, I think we just have to look at the anatomy of the brain to answer that question. So,
if you look at the parts of the brain, the whole, the systems that are important for
processing language, you can see that some of these regions are also important for controlling
your major organ systems. And you're like your autonomic nervous system that controls your
cardiovascular system, your respiratory system, and so on, that these regions control your
endocrine system, your immune system, and so on. And you can actually see this in other animals,
too. So, in birds, for example, the neurons that are responsible for birdsong also control the
systems of a bird's body. And the reason why I bring that up is that there's some scientists think
that the anatomy of a bird's brain that control birdsong are homologous or structurally have
a similar origin to the human system for language. So, the parts of the brain that are important
for processing language are not unique in and specialized for language. They do many things.
And one of the things they do is control your major organ systems.
Do you think we can fall in love? I have arguments about this all the time. Do you think we can
fall in love based on words alone? Well, I think people have been doing it for centuries.
I mean, maybe it used to be the case that people wrote letters to each other.
You know, and then that was how they communicated. And I guess that's how you and Dan got it.
Exactly, exactly, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, is the answer a clear yes there?
Because I get a lot of pushback from people often that you need the touch and the smell
and the bodily stuff. I think the touch and the smell and the bodily stuff helps.
But I don't think it's necessary. Do you think you're going to have a
lifelong monogamous relationship with the AI system that only communicates with you on text,
romantic relationship? Well, I suppose that's an empirical question
that hasn't been answered yet. But I guess what I would say is,
I don't think I could. Could any human, could the average human, could, you know, so
if I even modify that and say, I'm thinking now of Tom Hanks and the movie Castaway.
Yeah, you know, with Wilson. If you had to make that work, if you had to make that work.
With the volleyball, yeah. If you had to make it work, could you
you, could you prediction and simulation, right? So, if you had to make it work,
could you make it work using simulation and, you know, your past experience, could you make it work?
Could you make it work? You as a human, could you, could you like-
Could you have a relationship literally with an inanimate object and have it sustain you in the
way that another human could? Your life would probably be shorter because you wouldn't actually
derive the body budgeting benefits from, right? So, we've talked about, you know, how
your brain, its most important job is to control your body and you can describe that as your brain
running a budget for your body. And there are metaphorical, you know, deposits and withdrawals
into your body budget and you also make deposits and withdrawals in other people's
body budgets, figuratively speaking. So, you wouldn't have that particular benefit.
So, your life would probably be shorter, but I think it would be harder for some people than
for other people. Yeah, I tend to, my intuition is that you can have a deep fulfilling relationship
with a volleyball. I think, I think a lot of the environments that set up, I think that's
a really good example, like the constraints of your particular environment define the,
like I believe like scarcity is a good catalyst for deep meaningful connection with other humans
and with inanimate objects. So, the less you have, the more fulfilling those relationships are.
And I would say a relationship with a volleyball, the sex is not great, but everything else,
I feel like it could be a very fulfilling relationship, which I don't know from an
engineering perspective what to do with that. And just like you said, it is an empirical question.
But there are places to learn about that, right? So, for example, think about children and their
blankets, right? So, there, there's something tactile and there's something olfactory.
And it's very comforting. I mean, even for, even for non-human little animals, right? Like puppies
and so I don't know about cats, but, but... Cats are cold-hearted and there's, there's no,
there's nothing going on there. I don't know. There are some cats that are very dog-like,
I mean, really. So... Some cats identify as dogs, yes. I think that's true. Yeah, they're,
they're species fluid. So, you also write, when it comes to human minds, variation is the norm.
And what we call, quote, human nature is really many human natures. Again, many questions I can
ask here, but maybe an interesting one to ask is, I often hear, you know, we often hear this idea
of be yourself. Is this possible to be yourself? Is it a good idea to strive to be yourself?
Does that even have any meaning? It's a very Western question, first of all,
because which self are you talking about? You don't have one self. There is no self that's
an essence of you. You have multiple selves. Actually, there is research on this, you know,
to quote the great social psychologist Hazel Marcus, you're never, you cannot be a self by
yourself. You, you know, you, and so different contexts pull for or draw on different features
of your, of who you are or what you're, what you believe, what you feel, what your actions are.
Different contexts, you know, will put certain things, make more, some features be more in
the foreground and some in the background. It takes us back right to our discussion earlier about
Stalin and Hitler and so on. The thing that I would caution, in addition to the fact that
there is no single self, you know, that you have multiple selves who you can be,
and you can certainly choose the situations that you put yourself in to some extent. Not everybody
has complete choice, but everybody has a little bit of choice. And I think I said this to you
before that, one of the pieces of advice that we gave Sophia, you know, when she went, our daughter,
when she was going off to college was try to spend time around people, choose relationships that
allow you to be your best self. We should have said your best selves, but the pool of selves given
the environment. Yeah. But I, the one thing I do want to say is that the risk of saying be yourself,
just be yourself, is that that can be used as an excuse. Well, this is just the way that I am. I'm
just like this. And that I think should be tremendously resistant. So that's one, that's
for the excuse side, but you know, I'm really self-critical often. I'm full of doubt and people
often tell me just don't worry about it. Just be yourself, man. And it's the thing is, it almost,
it's not from an engineering perspective, does not seem like actionable advice. Because I guess
constantly worrying about who, what are the right words to say to express how I'm feeling is, I guess
myself. There's, there's a kind of line, I guess, that this might be a Western idea, but
something that feels genuine and something that feels non-genuine. And I'm not sure what that means,
because I would like to be fully genuine and fully open, but I'm also aware. Like this morning, I was
like very silly and giddy. This is just being funny and relaxed and light. Like there's nothing
that could bother me in the world. I was just smiling and happy. And I remember last night was
just feeling like very grumpy. Like stuff was bothering me. Like certain things were bothering
me. And like, what are those? Are those the different selves? Like what? Who am I in that?
And what do I do? Because if, you know, if we take Twitter as an example, if I actually send a tweet
last night and a tweet this morning, it's going to be very two different people
tweeting that. And I don't know what to do with that, because one does seem to be more
me than the other. But that's maybe because there's a narrative, a story that I'm trying.
There's something I'm striving to be, like the ultimate human that I might become. I have maybe
a vision of that and I'm trying to become that. But it does seem like there's a lot of different
minds in there. And they're all like, like having a discussion and a battle for who's going to win.
I suppose you could think of it that way, but there's another way to think of it, I think.
And that is that maybe the more Buddhist way to think of it, right? Or a more contemplative
way to think about it, which is not that you have multiple personalities inside your head,
but your brain has this amazing capacity. It has a population of experiences that you've had that
it can regenerate, reconstitute. And it can even take bits and pieces of those experiences and
combine them into something new. And it's often doing this to predict what's going to happen next
and to plan your actions. But it's also happening, this also happens just,
that's what mind wandering is, or just internal thought and so on. It's the same mechanism,
really. And so a lot of times we hear the saying, just think, if you think differently,
you'll feel differently. But your brain is having a conversation continually with your body.
And your brain is trying to control your body. Well, trying. Your brain is controlling your
body. Your body is sending information back to the brain. And in part, the information that your
body sends back to your brain, just like the information coming from the world,
initiates the next volley of predictions or simulations. So in some ways, you could also say,
the way that you feel, I think we talked before about affective feeling or mood
coming from the sensations of body budgeting influences what you think.
And as much as, so feelings influence thought as much as thought influence feeling and maybe more.
But just the whole thing doesn't seem stable. Well, it's a dynamic system, Mr. Engineer.
Right? It's a dynamic, it's a dynamical system, right? Nonlinear dynamical system.
And I think that's, I'm actually writing a paper with a bunch of engineers about this actually.
But I mean, other people have talked about the brain as a dynamical system before, but
the real tricky bit is trying to figure out how do you get mental features out of that system?
Like it's one thing to figure out how you get a motor movement out of that system. It's another
thing to figure out how you get a mental feature, like a feeling of being loved or a feeling of
being worthwhile or a feeling of just basically feeling like, shit, how do you get a feeling,
a mental features out of that system? So what I would say is that you aren't,
the Buddhist thing to say is that you're not one person and you're not many people.
You are the sum of your experiences and who you are in any given moment,
meaning what your actions will be, is influenced by the state of your body and the state of the
world that you've put yourself in. And you can change either of those things. One is a little
easier to change than the other, right? You can change your environment by literally getting up
and moving, or you can change it by paying attention to some things differently and letting
other, some features come to the fore and other features be backgrounded, like I'm looking around
your place. Oh no, this is not something you should do. No, I'm not, but I'm going to say one
thing. No green plants. No green plants. Because green plants mean a home and I want this to be
temporary. Fair, fair. But what's what's what goes to your mind when you see no green plants?
No, I'm just making the point that what if you, again, not everybody has control over their
environment. Some people don't have control over the noise or the temperature or any of those things.
But everybody has a little bit of control and you can place things in your environment,
photographs, plants, anything that's meaningful to you and use it as a shift of environment when
you need it. You can also do things to change the conditions of your body. When you exercise every
day, you're making an investment in your body. Actually, you're making an investment in your
brain too. It makes your, even though it's unpleasant and there's a cost to it, if you replenish,
if you invest and you make up that, you make a deposit and you make up that what you've spent,
you're basically making an investment in making it easier for your brain to control your body in
the future. So you can make sure you're hydrated, drink water. You don't have to buy drink bottled
water. You can drink water from the tap. This is in most places, maybe not everywhere, but
most places in the developed world. You can try to get enough sleep. Not everybody has that luxury,
but everybody can do something to make their body budgets a little more solvent and that will also
make it more likely that certain thoughts will emerge from that prediction machine.
Yeah. That's the control you do have is being able to control the environment that's really well
put. I don't think we've talked about this. So let's go to the biggest unanswerable questions of
consciousness. What is, you just rolled your eyes. I did. That was my, yeah. So what is
consciousness from a neuroscience perspective? I know you, I mean,
I made notes, you know, because you gave me some questions in advance and I made notes for every
single, except that one. Yeah. Well, that one I had, what the fuck? So is there something interesting
because you're so pragmatic? Is there something interesting to say about intuition building
about consciousness? Or is this something that we're just totally coolest about that this is,
let's focus on the body, the brain listens to the body, the body speaks to the brain.
And let's just figure this piece out and then consciousness will probably emerge somehow after
that. No, I think, you know, well, first of all, I'll just say up front, I am not a philosopher
of consciousness and I'm not a neuroscientist who focuses on consciousness. I mean, in some sense,
I do study it because I study affect and mood. And that is the, you know, to use the phrase,
that is the hard question of consciousness. How is it that your brain is modeling your body?
Brain is modeling the sensory conditions of your body. It's, and it's being updated,
that model is being updated by the sense data that's coming from your body and it's happening
continuously your whole life. And you don't feel those sensations directly. What you feel is a
general sense of pleasantness or unpleasantness, comfort, discomfort, feeling worked up, feeling
calm. So we call that affect, you know, most people call it mood. So how is it that your brain
gives you this very low dimensional feeling of mood or affect when it's presumably receiving a
very high dimensional array of sense data and the model that the brain is running of the body
has to be high dimensional because there's a lot going on in there, right? You're not aware,
but as you're sitting there quietly, as your listeners or our, as our viewers are sitting,
they might be working out, running now, or as many of them write to me, they're laying in
bed, smoking weed with their eyes closed. That's fair. So maybe we should say that bit again then.
So if, so some people may be working out, some people may be relaxing, but, you know,
even if you're sitting very still while you're watching this or listening to this,
there's a whole drama going on inside your body that you're largely unaware of. Yet,
your brain makes you aware or gives you a status report in a sense by virtue of these
mental features of feeling pleasant, feeling unpleasant, feeling comfortable, feeling uncomfortable,
feeling energetic, feeling tired, and so on. And so how the hell is it doing that? That is the
basic question of, of consciousness. And like the status reports seem to be,
in the way we experience them, seem to be quite simple. Like,
it doesn't feel like there's a lot of data. Yeah, I know that there isn't. So when you feel,
when you feel discomfort, when you're feeling basically like shit, you feel like shit,
what does that tell you? Like, what are you supposed to do next? What caused it? I mean,
the thing is not one thing caused it, right? It's multiple factors probably influencing
your physical state, your body budget. It's very high dimensional. Yeah.
Very high dimensional. And that, and the, there are different temporal scales of influence, right?
So it, you know, the state of your gut is not just influenced by what you ate five minutes ago.
It's also what you ate a day ago and two days ago and, and so on. So,
so I think the, you know, when I'm, I'm not trying to weasel out of the question,
I just think it's a, it's the hardest question actually.
Do you think we'll ever understand it as scientists?
I think that we will understand it as well as we understand other things like the birth of the
universe or the, you know, the nature of the, of the universe, I guess I would say. So I,
do I think we can get to that level of an explanation? I do actually, but I think that we
have to start asking somewhat different questions and approaching the science somewhat differently
than we have in the past. I mean, it's also possible that consciousness is much more difficult to
understand than the nature of the universe. It is, but I wasn't necessarily saying that it was a
question that was of equivalent complexity. I was saying that I do think that we could get to
some, I am optimistic that I would not, I would be very willing to invest the time, my time on
this earth as a scientist in trying to answer that question if I could do it the way that I want to
do it, not in the way that it's currently being done. So like rigorously? I don't want to say
unrigorously. I just want to say that there are certain set of assumptions that, you know,
scientists have what I would call ontological commitments. Their commitments about the way
the world is or the way that nature is. And they, these commitments lead scientists sometimes
blindly without, they don't, scientists sometimes, sometimes scientists are aware of these commitments,
but sometimes they're not. And these commitments on the list influence how scientists
ask questions, how, what they measure, how they measure. And I, I just have very different views
than a lot of my colleagues about the ways to approach this, not everybody, but, but the way
that I would approach it would be different and it would cost more and it would take longer. It
doesn't fit very well into the current incentive structure of science. And so do I think that
doing science the way science is currently done with the budget that it currently has and the
incentive structure that it currently has, will we have an answer? No, I think absolutely not.
Good luck is what I would say. People love book recommendations. Let me ask, what three books?
Oh, you can't just like, you can't just give me three. I mean, like, really three?
What seven and a half books you can recommend. So you're also the author of seven and a half
lessons about the brain. You're author of how emotions are made. Okay. So definitely those
are the top two recommendations of all the two greatest books of all time. Other than that,
are there books that technical fiction philosophical that you've enjoyed or you might recommend to
others? Yes. Actually, you know, every PhD student when they, when they graduate with their PhD,
I give them a set like a little library, like a set of books, you know, some of which they've
already read some of which I want them to read or, but I think nonfiction books, I would read
the things I would recommend are The Triple Helix by Richard Luanton. It's a little book
published in 2000, which is, I think, a really good introduction to complexity and
population thinking, as opposed to essentialism. So this idea essentialism is this idea that,
there's an essence to each person, whether it's a soul or your genes or what have you,
as opposed to this idea that you, we have the kind of nature that requires the nurture.
We are, we are, you are the product of a complex dance between an environment, between a set of
genes and an environment that turns those genes on and off to produce your brain and your body
and really who you are at any given moment. It's a good title for that triple helix. So playing
on the double helix where it's just the biology, it's bigger than the biology.
Exactly. It's a wonderful book. I've read it probably six or seven times throughout the year.
He has another book too, which is, it's more, I think scientists would find it, I don't know,
I've loved it. It's called Biology as Ideology. And it really is all about,
I wouldn't call it one of the best books of all time, but I love the book because it really does
point out that science is, it's currently practiced. I mean, the book was written in 1991,
but it actually, I think still holds that scientists, science is currently practiced,
has a set of ontological commitments, which are somewhat problematic.
So the assumptions are limiting. Yeah. In ways that you, it's, you know,
it's like you're a fish in water and you don't like, okay. Right. So yeah. So here's,
David Foster Wallace stuff. But you know, but here's a, here's a really cool thing I just learned
recently. Is it okay to go off on this tangent for a minute? Yeah. Yeah. Let's go tangents.
Great. I was just going to say that I just learned recently that we don't have water
receptors on our skin. So how do you know when you're sweating? How do you know when, when a
raindrop, when, you know, when it's going to rain and, you know, like a raindrop hits your skin
and you can feel that little drop of wetness. How is it that you feel that drop of wetness
when we don't have water receptors in our skin? And I was, my mind is blown already.
Yeah. That was, I have my reaction too. Right. I was like, of course we don't because we evolved
in the water. Like why would we need, you know, it just, it was just this like, you know, you
have these moments where you're like, of course there's like a, yeah. So you'll never see rain
the same way again. So the answer is it's a, it's a, it's a combination of temperature and touch.
But it's a complex sense that's only computed in your brain. There's no receptor for it.
Anyways. Yeah. That's why like snow versus cold rain versus warm rain all feel different because
you're, you're trying to infer stuff from the temperature and the size of the droplets. It's
fascinating. Yeah. Your brain is a prediction machine. It's using lots and lots of information
combining it. Yeah. Anyway, so, but so biology is ideology is, I wouldn't say it's one of the
greatest books of all time, but it is a, it is a really useful book. There's a book by,
if you're interested in psychology or the mind at all, there's a wonderful book, a little,
it's a fairly, fairly small book called Naming the Mind by Kurt Danziger, who's a historian
of psychology. Everybody in my lab reads both of these books. So what's the book? It's about the
origin of the, where do, where did we get the theory of mind that we have that the human mind is
populated by thoughts and feelings and perceptions? And where did those categories come from? Because
they don't exist in all cultures. Oh, so this isn't, that's a cultural construct?
Nope. The idea that you have thoughts and feelings and they're very distinct is definitely a cultural
construct. It's another mind-blowing thing, just like the rain. So Kurt Danziger is a,
the opening chapter in that book is absolutely mind-blowing. I love it. I love it. I just think
it's fantastic. And I would say that there are many, many popular science books that I could
recommend that I think are extremely well-written in their own way. You know, before I, maybe I
said this to you, but before I undertook writing How Motions Are Made, I read, I don't know,
somewhere on the order of 50 or 60 popular science books to try to figure out how
to write a popular science book. Because while there are many books about writing, Stephen King
has a great book on writing and, you know, where he gives tips interlaced with his own personal
history. That was where I learned you write for a specific person. You have a specific person in
mind. And that's, for me, that person is down. That's fascinating. I mean, that's a whole
another conversation to have like, which popular science books, like what you learned from that
search, because there's a, I have some, for me, some popular science books are like,
I just roll my eyes like this is two. It's the same with Ted Talks. Like some of them go too much
into the flowery and don't, I don't, I would say don't give enough respect to the intelligence
of the reader. And, but this, this is my own bias. I completely agree with you. And in fact,
I have a colleague, his name is Van Yang, who, you know, he produced a cinematic lecture of
how emotions are made that we wrote together with Joseph Fridman, no relation. Yes. Well,
we're all related. Well, I mean, you and I are probably, you know, have some, yeah. Yeah. But
it's the memories are in there somewhere. Yeah, it's from many, many, many generations ago.
Well, half my family is Russian. So from the good half, the good half, right?
But, you know, he, what his goal actually is to produce, you know, videos and lectures that are
beautiful and educational and that don't, don't dumb the material down.
And he's really remarkable at it, actually. I mean, just, but again, you know, that's good,
that, that requires a bit of a paradigm shift. We could have a whole conversation about the
split between entertainment and education in this country and why it is the way it is. But
that's a, that's another conversation to be continued. But I would say the, if I were to pick
one book that I think is a really good example of good science writing, it would be The Beak of
the Finch, which is, it won a, a Pulitzer Prize a number of years ago. And I'm not, I'm, I'm not
remembering the author's name, I'm blanking. But the, I'm guessing is it, is it focusing on birds
and the evolution of birds? Actually, there's also the evolution of beauty, which is,
yeah, which is also a great book. But no, The Beak of the Finch is a, it, it has two
storylines that are interwoven. One is about Darwin and Darwin's explorations in the Galapagos Island
and then modern day researchers from Princeton who have a research program
in the Galapagos looking at Darwin's Finches. And it's just a really, first of all, there's
top-notch science in there and really science, like, you know, evolutionary biology that a lot
of people don't know. And it's told really, really well. It sounds like there also, there's a narrative
in there. It's like storytelling too. Yeah. I think all good popular science books are, are
storytelling for just, you know, but storytelling grounded constrained by, you know, the evidence.
And then I just want to say that there are, for fiction, I'm a really big fan of love stories
just to return us to the, the topic that we began with. And so my, some of my favorite
love stories are Major Pedigrees Last Stand by Helen Simonson. It's a, it's a love story about
people who you wouldn't expect to fall in love and all the people around them who have to overcome
their prejudices. And, and I love this book. What do you like? Like, what makes a good love story?
There isn't one thing, you know, there are many different things that make a good love story,
but I think in this case, you can feel, you, you can feel the journey, you can feel the journey
that these characters are on and all the people around them are on this journey to basically to
come to grips with this really unexpected love, really profound love that develops between these
two characters who are very unlikely to have fallen in love, but they do. And it's just,
it's very gentle. Another book like that is the, the storied life of AJ Fierke,
which is also a love story. But in this case, it's a love story between a little girl and her
adopted dad. And the dad is this like real curmudgeon-y, you know, guy. But of course,
there's a story there. And it's just a beautiful love story. And, but it also,
it's like everybody in this community falls in love with him because he falls in love with her.
And he, you know, she just gets left at his store, his bookstore, his this failing bookstore.
And he discovers that, you know, he feels like inexplicably, this need to take care of this
little baby. And this whole life emerges out of that one decision, which is really beautiful,
actually. Very poignant. Do you think the greatest stories have a happy ending or a heartbreak at
the end? That's such a Russian question. It's like, it's like Russian tragedies, you know.
So I would say the answer to that for me, there has to be heartbreak. Yeah, I really don't like
heartbreak. I don't like heartbreak. I want there to be a happy ending or at least
a hopeful ending. But the, but, you know, like Dr. Shavago, like, or the English patient, oh my
goodness, like why? Oh, it's just, yeah, no. Well, I don't think there's a better way to end it on a
happy note like this. Lisa, like I said, I'm a huge fan of yours. Thank you for wasting
yet more time with me talking again. People should definitely get your book. And maybe one day,
I can't wait to talk to your husband as well. Well, right back at you, Alexi.
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Lisa Feldman Barrett. And thank you to our sponsors,
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from Sun Tzu and the art of war. There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combination
of these five give rise to more melodies that can ever be heard. There are not more than five
primary colors, yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever be seen. There are not more
than five cardinal tastes, and yet combinations of them yield more flavors than can ever be tasted.
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.