Listener Mail: Crab Faces, Anus Myths and More

Once again, Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick read listener mail related to recent episodes. You'll hear myths about the anus, reflections on samurai crab faces, Egyptian religion, salt water consumption, virtual reality and more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuffworks
dot com. Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
we're back with listener mail. That's right, we received a
great deal of cool listener feedback, and in order to

(00:24):
harvest it all this time, our mail bot Carney has
essentially become an aquatic humanoid, right, an aquatic humanoid robot. Now,
Carney has been our mailbot for a long time now,
and uh, we noticed that he has apparently some webbed
feet now and uh, some gills, and we're not quite
sure what that's all about, since he's a robot anyway,

(00:44):
but he seems to be trying. He's really trying to
get in there, become the aquatic ape that may never
have been. I assume that the gills are part of
a like a cooling system for for all of his hardware,
you know, Oh right, that's where he chills his CPU. Yeah.
I think that's this probably what's going on, because he
doesn't really need to breathe. But I'll tell you what
does need to breathe. All of these cool listener mails
that we've received, well, without any further ado, I say,

(01:07):
we jump right in the waters warm all right. This
one comes to us from Maria. Maria says, hi, guys,
I am from Columbia and I was just listening to
the Aquatic Humanoids podcast and I just couldn't stop thinking
about one of the various native cultures in my country
that had a sort of aquatic humanoid in its mythology.

(01:27):
The Musica culture had the belief that they're shamans were
going to become a mix of sacred animals. They became
a humanoid with the tail of a fish. Uh. Some
theories say that the penis was the body part that
will become a fish tail, the head of a jaguar,
and some other changes in some sacred parts of the
body making them gods when they pray and make and

(01:50):
made rituals. I don't know the complete story, but you
may want to take a look at the researchers of
this culture and others with a similar myth And if
you ever go to Columbia, you can visit the Museo
del Oro or Golden Museum, where you can learn about
a lot of cultures and native objects. To sustain the
myths with humanoids that were believed to be not inferiors,

(02:11):
but superiors to ordinary humans. I mean, it's kind of
hard not to imagine an aquatic humanoid as superior to humans, right,
I guess they did it with Creature from the Black Lagoon.
But I don't know. When you think of the abyss,
somehow like being under under all the water seems to
breed a kind of serenity. Yeah. Well, I would say
again with with Creature from the Black Lagoon, there seems

(02:34):
to be a lot of a lot of effort goes
into making the creature look weak when we have at
least one or two scenes that depict just how effective
the creature is in its natural habitat under the water.
I will say, in the Creature movies, the creature is
certainly morally superior to the humans come in and start
harassing it. But that's really interesting. I tried to look

(02:55):
up some stuff about this, uh this moisca idea of
the humanoid with the penis or the fish tail coming
from the penis or something. I couldn't find anything about this,
but I'm going to keep looking. I want to know more.
This sounds very interesting. It looks like Carney has another
bit of of Aquatic Humanoid listener mail here that he's
brought up from the depth right. This is from our

(03:17):
listener Jared. Jared says, Hello, Robert and Joe. I just
listen to the second part of the Aquatic Humanoid episode,
which I enjoyed, but it did not address one of
my primary curiosities on the matter, which is why has
an aquatic creature not evolved that disappear in intelligence to humans.
This is more of a question of evolutionary intelligence, but
the simple question is, if humans are the dominant land animal,

(03:39):
why is there not a hyper smart crab that dominates
the oceans. Coming from the viewpoint of an intelligent land animal,
it would seem like intelligence is one of the most
valuable adaptations, so I find it surprising that the trait
is not more commonly. Especial is not more common, especially
in animals like turtles that have existed for hundreds of
millions of years. It would also surmise that if an

(04:02):
animal was physically well adapted to its environment like a turtle,
then mental adaptations would be the next priority trait. If
you have any thoughts on the matter, I would be
curious to hear them. Long story, short, how did intelligence evolve?
And why are humans seemingly unique along? Yeah, that's that's
that's the simple question will tackle me. Uh well, I
think one of those obvious answers that comes to mind

(04:23):
is like, how much more perfect does say a sea
turtle need to be? Right? You know? Is it is
arguably as smart as it needs to be. Evolution is
a cheap skate, and brains, big powerful brains are incredibly expensive.
They are. They come with so many downsides. Your brain
is so energy hungry it's ridiculous. You need eat tons

(04:46):
of calories to sustain it. It also requires a lot
of development time through which you are You're very vulnerable
in your youth because you you require such a long
development period to have the powerful adult brain that you
have today. So developing a smart brain is a difficult
thing to do, and you've got to really justify it.

(05:07):
Another thing I would say is you bring up the
idea of physical adaptations. I would say, actually, the more
physically adapted a creature is, the less intelligent it needs
to be. Exactly. I mean that's what we see with
with humans. Do we have great clause? Now? Do we
have the natural body armor? No, we're not very strong
for our body size. The one thing we have is
that enormous brain. Yeah, everything else is done more efficiently

(05:31):
by some other species. I mean, we've talked before about
how if you see a hairless great ape like a
chimpanzee or gorilla, it is the muscles are hilarious. It
is jacked. These things are so much stronger than we are,
and that they need to be because they're not as
intelligent as we are. We can get around with less
physical strength because we've got these smart workarounds. But to

(05:53):
more directly address your question, obviously, neither of us knows
exactly what is the cause of advance human intelligence. But
I'd point to a couple of things I would suspect,
and those things are tool use and social dynamics. I
think those are probably two of the main things that
shape to the modern human brain. I'm totally welcomed. I

(06:15):
would love to hear opposing viewpoints, but I think those
are things that seem pretty practical to me. Now. I
think there's tons of evidence that the human brain, the
smart human brain, is a social brain that evolved primarily
to manage and maintain social relationships, to understand relationships with
other members of the group to understand facial expressions and

(06:37):
and nuanced social relationships and reciprocity and status and all
these kind of things that we think about in highly advanced,
very complicated social animals. Are there other animals underneath the
sea that are that have complicated social relationships in that way?
Maybe some marine mammals, right, maybe dolphins, Yes, certainly, the

(06:57):
marine mammals are the ones that come to mind, and
uh memory, serious, there is an example of of of
a dolphin engaging in some form of tools. Yeah, yeah,
I've read about dolphins, like bottlenose dolphins using marine sponges
to assist them in foraging for food. But then again,
the dynamics of tool use. I think we pointed this
out actually in part two of the Aquati Humanoids episode.

(07:20):
The dynamics of tool use underwater are gonna be a
little different than they are above water, right Like, if
you think about so many of the most primitive early
human tools, they appear to be things that were for
hitting and throwing, right like these hand axes. We don't
know exactly what they're for, but these sort of sharpened
stones that appear to be able to be held in

(07:40):
the hand look like you could use them to hit
something or cut it something, maybe for processing animal carcasses.
And then of course there are also like, uh, like
spear tips and things like that. I don't know, I mean,
is throwing as easy underwater maybe, I don't know. It
seems a little bit harder. But I wonder, I wonder
if some of just the different physics of resistance and

(08:03):
buoyancy and things like that in underwater environments would not
allow the same types of tool developing regimes that you
could have above water. Yeah. Yeah, And of course I
think we reference this as well, uh in that episode
we have the past episodes about the about technology and fire,
in which we we wonder, like, to what extent could

(08:24):
an underwater intelligence, even if they got to the point
where they had tools, could they ever have any kind
of technology based on fire with being an aquatic organism.
That's a very good point. Now, I would say that
I think the evolutionary record indicates that, or the paleo
anthropology record would indicate that human tool use and pretty

(08:46):
extreme levels of intelligence were already present before we mastered fire.
But but I don't know. I mean, you can definitely
say that fire was instrumental in creating human technological society,
and you couldn't create something like that underwater where there
is no fire. But I do think that's a really
interesting question, Jared and I would like to come back
to that in the future. Alright, Arnie is signaling us

(09:09):
now and letting us know that it is time to
cover some of the listener mail we received following our
evolution of the anus episode. We've got a lot of
anacy feedback, that's right. Uh, Yeah, that was I felt
like a really great episode. Uh, and a lot of
people really took it to heart. Uh. They were able
to sort of re see the anus or see the

(09:29):
anus for the first time. I think it may have
been our most popular episode ever on social media, though.
I wonder if that just has to do with it
having a picture of an anus next to it. Yeah,
well it was. It was abstract picture, but that was
a tough one to pick out art for, I tell you,
and you started going on on Getty images and start
trying to find the perfect anus picture. Like, nobody's taking

(09:50):
a photograph of an anus without some sort of an agenda, Right,
you've got alterior motives. Yeah, A lot of like clinical
photographs came up having to do the various uh uh,
sexually transmitted diseases or not, so it was not a
it was or oh in birth effects too, so it
was not a pleasant image quest. Sometimes it's a lot
of fun, this one was more frustrating and occasionally revolting. Well, Robert,

(10:13):
I give you credit for finding the most pleasant stock
ardanus out there. Yeah, well, thank you. So we we
received a number of listener mails. This one comes to
us from Nis in Copenhagen. Hi, guys, just found your
podcast a few days ago, and it's really great. There
is one fun fact regarding the evolution of the anus
episode I would like to share and which is interesting

(10:35):
to both the humorous and the serious spectator's mind. There
is an old Chinese curse you'd wish on your most
hated antagonists which goes quote, I curse your descendants to
be born without a toll for ten generation. Sounds funny,
but in the light of the facts so you laid
out in the episode, it seems to be a very

(10:55):
nasty thing to wish for. That is a deeply nasty thing.
Best and thanks for the good work. Yeah. Indeed, uh
to to to have the fate of say, certain species
of scorpions that we mentioned that loses its anus if
it ends up jettison and its tail because the anus
is on one of the the outer tail segments, it

(11:15):
ends up just swelling with the poop until it eventually dies. However,
I did do some additional research on that scenario, and
it turns out that it kind of it's not as
terrible as it sounds, because, on one hand, without its stinger,
the scorpion is not able to get larger prey, so
it's having to depend on smaller prey anyway, it's not

(11:37):
eating as much, and it can still breed. So so
the idea is, once you lose your tail, you can't poop,
you can't eat as much, so you're really just kind
of a breeding missile, like you're trying to spread some
genetic material before you die. Yeah, but that's what it
was anyway, basically, So it doesn't it ultimately doesn't interfere
with the pure functionality of the adult a scorpion. Aren't

(12:01):
we all just an unpooping breeding missile sometimes? Yeah, when
you when you get right down to the heart of
the matter, that's all we are. Okay. This one is
also about the anus episode from our listener, Jason Jason writes, Hi,
as I was listening to this episode, I was reminded
of a poster I remember from the late nineteen sixties,
to the best of my memory. It reads the parts
of the body were arguing about who should be in charge.

(12:23):
The legs said they should be in charge because they
moved the body. The eyes said they should be in
charge because they see where the body is going. The
brain said it thinks that it thinks for the body,
and it should be in charge. The anus said it
should be in charge. The rest of the body parts
just laughed. Then the anus stopped working, The legs grew wobbly,
the eyes grew dam and the brain got foggy, and

(12:45):
they all agreed to let the anus be in charge.
The moral of the story is if you want to
be in charge just to be an goal. Well, it
certainly drives home. The fact that we touched on quite
a bit in that episode is that, uh, for the
most part, if the anus is working, fine, we don't
really think about it. But if it's if it's not
working fine, it's hard to think about anything else. That,

(13:07):
of course, isn't you know, counting any kind of fetishization
or or or sexual context, which we we basically just
didn't have room to discuss. We We did get one
mail we're not going to read here asking us why
we didn't mention sexual pleasure. Uh, not for any particular reason.
It just that was in the purview of that episode, right.
It was challenging enough just to fit all of the

(13:29):
or or as much of the evolution and functionality of
the anus as possible into the episode without getting into
additional um dimensions on the topic. But I mean, but
certainly the dimension of pleasure and uh in the human anus.
There is a lot of content out there. I've run
across the research before, so I would not be opposed
to exploring that or other dimensions of the anus in

(13:52):
the future. But but this, this bit of listener mail continues.
Oh right, So yeah, Jason says, I hope that made
it us your content filters. It did. On a side note,
I have a book recommendation. It is Lord of Light
by Rogers A. Lasnie. I've heard of this one. I um,
it's actually on my sort of short list because of it. Yeah,

(14:13):
because it's it it has sort of Eastern elements. Oh okay,
I had not heard of it, but Jason says it
won the nineteen six Hugo Award. It contains subjects you've
touched on in the podcast, from palamp cys to various
ways of obtaining immortality said in a Hindu esque world,
plus there are a few truly grown worthy puns. And
then he gives a quote from the book Jacket. Earth

(14:35):
is long since dead on a colony planet. A band
of men has gained control of technology, made themselves immortal,
and now rules the world as the gods of the
Hindu pantheon. Only one dares oppose them, he who was
once said Artha and is now Mahassa Matman, binder of demons,
Lord of Light. That sounds great. I'm I'm all in,

(14:57):
where how's my future in doing movie trail? It's pretty
I think it's pretty good. Joe, that's pretty good. Um yeah,
well this is this is this book made its way
into my lengthy to read list because he does end
up invoking the Hindu pantheon here and and there's just
so much in our in our science fiction and our

(15:19):
our fantasy that is that is so based on Western
motifs and uh and Western myth cycles that it's it's
pleasant to find even uh like, even if it's not
perfectly executed, to find an example that that actually utilizes
other mythologies. I've mentioned an author on here before, m A. R.

(15:39):
Baker Baker. I'm not sure how this particular author pronounces
it that these are interesting books because he creates this
kind of far future fantasy scenario that has sci fi elements,
but it's but it's based more on on on Eastern
models of of of government and mythology. It's really the

(16:00):
interesting world. He's well worth looking up if if if
this at all interests you. His first book is The
Man of Gold, and you can find it. I think
it's some of it may be available that that one
I think is available on kindall now. But also it
has a fabulous paper bit of paperback art that I
think was Michael Wheeling if I'm not mistaken. Oh, I
just looked it up. It's fantastic. It's got a guy

(16:21):
in the foreground who looks like he's wearing sort of
a yellow bathrobe holding your crystal ball, and then there's
a guy in the background who looks exactly like the
suit the main character wears in Dead Space. Yeah, it's
and if you look closely enough, I think you'll find
that the protagonist on the cover looks like Jermin and
Clement if you like. Far. This is decades before the

(16:42):
Fly of the Concords. But and yet there he is. Oh,
you know, I'm on another literary note, and entirely the
story about the the anus vying for control of the body.
That of course reminds me of a segment in Williams
Burrows Naked Lunch, and if anyone remembers that, I think
it made its way into the Cronenberg film as well.
It's been a long time since I've seen that where

(17:03):
similar scenario the anus is vying for control of the body.
You know, I should mention briefly that one other listener
got in touch with us about a ho Chunk legend
that is about why the anus is wrinkly, and it
goes back to this story involving the trickster figure in
the in the ho Chunk legends, uh, and he basically

(17:25):
he gets a burned anus and somehow this leads him
to create the wrinkles that are now in everybody's anus. Well,
every every great great work of literature has to have
a burned anus in it at some point. Uh, like
the Miller's tale. Ye, yeah, in the Cannabury Tales. Yeah,
that that store spoiler for the tales, but that ends

(17:47):
in a burned anus as well. Okay, one more we
should look at real quick about about anuses and especially
machines that poop. I guess we don't have to read
this whole one, but we got an email from our
listener Steve who mentioned an art slash science exhibit at
the Mona or Museum of Old and New Art. I
was assuming that meant Museum of Nasty Art in Tasmania, Australia.

(18:10):
And uh. He says that there is this exhibit called
Cloaca by a Belgian artist named whim or Vim Delvoy.
And he says quote it was originally unveiled at a
museum in Antwerp, but it was later commissioned for specific
installation at Mona. The machine is fed twice a day
and over the course of a number of hours you

(18:31):
can witness the food progressing through a series of seven
glass containers that contain the appropriate enzymes and chemicals to
simulate the human digestive process. And if you time your
visit to the room at about two PM, you can
witness the smelly climax as the machine defecates through an
artificial anus. He sent a video. It's gross. Yes, So
you know, Cloaca is actually an old favorite of the

(18:53):
show if you go back and listen to some of
the older episodes. Uh, we definitely, uh, we definitely referenced it,
and it is if memory serves uh. He created several
different versions of the cloaca, So there was I don't
know if he had a numbered or lettered or what
have you, but I do seem to remember there were
different incarnations of this this art installation and uh. And

(19:16):
you know he wasn't the first to tackle this this
type of scenario, because there was the the fabulous case
of the digesting duck, created in the eighteenth century by
Jaques Deva Kansin. Uh. There was labeled at the time
as a philosophical toy. It was it was a duck,
mechanical duck that you fed and then it would poop.
But in this case, however, it didn't actually process the food. Essentially,

(19:41):
you put grain in one end and then the other
end would push out excrement that he had been pre placed.
But still there was the dream of Cloaco was present
even back then. If it eats like a duck, if
it defecates like a duck, it's got to be a
philosophical toy. Yeah. I also seem to recall there's a

(20:01):
theory that the creator to get back to where nobody
thinks about the anus unless a you're you know, um
obsessed with it or be if it's if it's failing
you in some way. There is a theory that the
artist here or the the the machine maker here, uh,
that he experienced some sort of digestive discomfort and that

(20:24):
might have made him fixate on the creation of this device,
the digesting duck. Look it up. In the meantime, we're
gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
more listener mail. Alright, we're back. So it looks like
our mail body is bringing us another listener mail. This
one is seems to be drenched in honey and surrounded

(20:45):
by swarming bees. Oh boy, this is from our listener Amy.
Amy says, Dear Robert and Joe, I usually skip the
Vault episodes because I tend to keep up with the
podcast as it comes out. But I'm so glad I
didn't skip this one, so obviously it's about the Tears
of Ray episode. I'm an active Ray worshiper, with my
major annual holiday being the Egyptian New Year or web Rumpet,

(21:06):
the first day of the new year when the sun
rises before the star serious usually somewhere between July and August,
depending on your location. There is a whole beautiful mythology
surrounding web Rumpet, which I encourage you both to look
into because it's a wild ride. But I like to
take the day and throw a pot luck and share
the story of the new year with my friends. As

(21:27):
you can imagine, one of the foods we keep on
the table is honey, honey, lemon cakes, sliced apples with
honey and cinnamon, fresh bread with butter, and honey, spiced
tea with honey, anything we can think of, along with
everything you mentioned in the podcast. Part of the importance
is in the color kmetics. Modern day practitioners of the
ancient Egyptian religion focus a lot on the symbolism surrounding

(21:49):
color and for Ray, the color and element gold is
highly prized and extremely important since most of us cannot
afford to offer gold, honey, incense, and fire become offerings
we can call infinitely present to Ray, thank you for
always being respectful to people of different beliefs while also
discussing facts and science. It's very refreshing and I appreciate
you both for it. Best Amy Oh. She also thanks

(22:12):
us for pronouncing Ray's name correctly, says it was wonderful
to hear. Well. I can't promise will pronounce everything else
in this email correctly. I hope I said web rom
pet right. But this is a fascinating listener email. I
really wasn't wasn't expecting to hear from modern Ray Worshiper,
never heard. I don't think we've ever heard from a
commeticist before. Maybe, but I don't recall I don't recall

(22:35):
it coming up before now so but anyway, I looked
up what she said the web rom pet ceremony. I
have no idea if this practice is traditional or established
in NACI in Egypt, but I just want to share
what I found on a blog post by a modern
commeticist describing what at least that person does for web
ron pet, which involves the practice of writing all your
frustrations and things you want to get rid of on

(22:56):
a clay pot. Then you paint the pot red I
guess for the color, some bullism that aim you mentioned.
And then you spit on the pot and you defile
it and smash it to pieces. So this is like
a fictional version of the subduing I believe of apophis.
I'm sorry if I'm getting that wrong, but I think
you you subdue this evil deity and sort of get

(23:16):
it out. You defile it, you punish it and destroy it. Wow,
you know you think, and maybe this is the case.
This would be a holiday that these paint your own
pottery places would embrace market. You know, hey, it's it's
time come in. Paint the paint the paint these these
bits of pottery with your with with sort of your
your emotional antagonists. And then you can spit on that.

(23:38):
Well I don't know, at least defile them there in
the shop or take them home and to file them.
I don't know. I'm not gonna tell anybody how to
run their pottery business, but it sounds like a great
idea to me. Well, again, I don't know how widespread
this practices. It might just be this, you know, this
one blog post author and their friends. But that's where
it begins. Right a year from now, I want to

(23:59):
see it popping in pottery establishments. And hey, if anybody
out there runs the pottery establishment, paint your own pottery, etcetera,
or just a pottery studio, I would I would love
to hear your thoughts on this sacred right. And speaking
of honey, here comes a rare piece of physical mail, right,
not even from Carney. Carney is sitting here crying because

(24:20):
we got this through the snail mail. Right. And and
by the way, if you're wondering how can I send
them snail mail, well, if you go to stuff to
Blow your Mind dot com, there's an about section and
that will include a physical address to send a mail to.
But yeah, we we received a physical piece of mail
along with some artwork. Yeah, so I'm gonna read it
to you now. This comes to us from Gin love

(24:43):
the show. I listened to all the stuffs. Thank you
for helping my mind not turn too much during my
years of raising small children. Keep it up, please, you're
a recent from the Vault. Episode of Tears of Ray
was so fascinating. I love gardening and bees. One if
you pointed out that honey is in fact, be barf.
That's I think this was you. It is It's true,

(25:05):
which which made me stop in my tracks and crack up.
It is be Barf. I painted a watercolor last year
with a honey jar with more honest and funny labeling.
I also made a modified honey label version for my
friends and family who don't like to be reminded of
the truth. Ha ha. There are two types of people
in the world. Here are copies for you both. I

(25:26):
pegged you as be bar if people too, God bless
and thanks for all you do. So she sent us
a copy of this watercolor she did, and it is
a jar of honey with one of those little what
do you call the thing that's a wooden thing with
the honey comb shape on the end that you drizzle
the honey off of. I don't know if that even
has a name. Oh yeah, it's a honey dipper, which
I have to say, I love the appearance of a

(25:49):
honey dipper, but I just find it super messy when
I try and use one. Maybe I'm using it incorrectly,
but I just find the squeezy bear to be the
best method. I thought that the honey dipper only existed
in honey nut cheerios commercials. I thought it was a
magical wand used by cartoon B's just the cartoon B
that was the only person who had access. But anyway,

(26:09):
it's leaning against a jar of honey with like a
wooden stopper cork and a bee buzzing around it, and
the jar of honey is labeled. I'm interested on the
history of the honey dipper because it is it is
a highly specialized device. It is a unitask and it's
not good for anything else, unlike to say a spoon.
A spoon can be used for anything, including your honey.

(26:29):
So where did this particular gadget come from. It's also
not you know, it's it's if you're looking at it
from like a manufacturing standpoint or a wood maker, a
woodcraftsman's standpoint, Like it's not a I mean, it's a
simple device. I don't have any moving parts, but it's
it's also fairly ornate. You have to you know, it

(26:49):
has these grooves that collect the honey, kind of like
stripes on a bee, well, stripes on a cartoon B.
I don't know if real b is look exactly like that. No,
not exactly. Their eyes are a little bit different. Well, anyway,
thank you so much, Jen for sharing your art with us.
It's very nice. I actually I took mine home as
in a little frame. Very nice. All right, we have

(27:11):
another listener email. Lise comes to us from Jeru quote.
I'm an ordained priest in training in the Soto tradition
of Zen Buddhism, and I wanted to comment on the
recent episode Meditation Lab, Empathy and Energy in regards to
your comments about Walmart Buddhism. I can't speak for all
my Dharma brothers and sisters, but my personal opinion is

(27:31):
that pop culture forms of meditation like iPhone apps and
secular meditation practices in general are fine if all you're
after is a kind of surface level self help practice.
But it is essential to know that, at least in Buddhism,
meditation is only one part of an integrated system, a
whole life practice known as the eight fold Noble Path,

(27:52):
which is designed to eliminate suffering and lead to spiritual awakening.
When you remove the engine from an automobile, the engine
still were, but without the rest of the car, you
will not be going anywhere. And so I wonder if
those who dabble in pop culture. Meditative practice will eventually
grow bored when they find that when there is no
context for their experience and either move on to serious

(28:14):
practice or ultimately stop practicing. I love your show. It
never fails to entertain and sometimes even educate me. Keep
up the good work. I really appreciate this email. That's
I think like there's a valid point about the UH.
I like the analogy of removing the the engine from
the auto automobile and the engine still works, but it's
not moving the vehicle. Yeah, I definitely appreciate you. Are

(28:34):
you putting it in the context of the the experience
of pursuing the entire ratefold noble path, I would say,
On the other hand, I don't know. He might be
under selling a little bit the way that experiences and
practices can be ultimately fulfilling, even decoupled from their original

(28:55):
spiritual or cultural context. I mean, I think about what
if a person and was trying to achieve some kind
of spiritual significance from fasting, and it was inspired by
the fasting during Ramadan or something, and then you might
be able to say, well, if you're not going through
the entire spiritual practice of Islam, you're not really getting
the full experience of the Ramadan fasting, and that's probably true.

(29:19):
You you're not getting the full spiritual experience that a
Muslim would experience while they're doing that, But at the
same time you might be getting some other truly worthwhile experience.
I agree. And then, of course, on the topic of
one is dabbling in and sort of pop culture meditative practices,
about how they'll they might eventually grow bored or that
they'll keep going and explore something deeper. I mean, I

(29:42):
feel like that's that's going to be the case, right,
I mean, it's I think there's a value in something
being uh, sort of the introductory level of of a practice,
you know. I mean, then they can keep moving if
they want, or if they if they grow bored with it.
I mean, who's to say that a more are spiritual
and more even authentic version of the practice would have

(30:04):
resonated with them if this shard of it does not.
But maybe that's just me. Like I said, everyone's minleage
may may differ on this, but but I think that's
that's ultimately one of the cool things about meditative practices,
yoga practices is that you will find uh, various versions

(30:24):
of it. You will find incredibly secular versions of it,
incredibly stripped down. You will find um spiritual versions that
are either you know, fairly authentic or are sort of
spiritual in a new way that have gone in a
new direction that or maybe not as authentic, but present
a sort of spiritual model for practitioners to involve themselves in. Yeah,

(30:46):
that's totally worth pointing out. Is that things that are
essentially meditation practices exist in multiple religions and outside religion. Yeah,
even in hyper real religions. Right, Yeah, totally Okay. We've
got a couple of messages coming in about our Don't
Drink the Salt Water episode. One was a really great
email from our listener Jess, and she says, Hey, guys,

(31:07):
I've been listening to Stuffed Bill your Mind for only
a couple of months now, but I really dig it
so far. I have an m f A and creative
writing and write poetry in my spare time. The topics
of your show are rife with inspiration for me. First off,
I wanted to share with you a bit of synchronicity.
Just a couple of days ago, I was rereading Good
Old Sammy T. Coleridge's rhyme of the ancient Mariner, I

(31:27):
would say cole Ridge. I think it's more sort of Coleridge,
But Sammy T. Colly Ridge is rhyme of the ancient Mariner.
So imagine my delight when I listened to this morning's episode.
Just wanted to give you my take on why the poem,
though very very dark, is still considered a romantic poem.
Besides the fact of the time period and movement in
which it was written, which of course is the Romantic

(31:48):
period in English poetry, one of the main themes the
poem conveys is finding love of the self and humanity
by way of nature. The capital in nature, with its
glory and beauty near superseding or even standing in as
the concept of God is a very romantic notion, so
if you care to get into it. Although the Mariner
and his crew go through some very grim ordeals, and yes,

(32:11):
everyone except the Graybeard Loon dies, the Mariner grows as
a character through an act of deep affection for the
remaining natural life around him that he had previously scorned.
Right after the entire crew dies, the mariner moans alone alone,
all all alone, alone, on a wide wide sea, and
never a saint took pity on my soul in agony.

(32:33):
The many men so beautiful, and they all dead did lie,
and a thousand thousand slimy things lived on, and so
did I. He is very disturbed that the only remaining
living things are himself and all the gross little sea creatures.
He reviles these slimy things and himself for bringing this
misfortune on the ship, feeling utterly alone with no kinship

(32:54):
for the slimy other living things nearby, However, several stands is. Later,
something really great happens. He starts watching these water snakes
swimming on the surface of the water in the moonlight.
He observes that they are in fact beautiful. He declares, Oh,
happy living things, no tongue. Their beauty might declare A
spring of love gushed from my heart, and I blessed

(33:16):
them unaware. Sure my kind state took pity on me,
and I blessed them unaware the self same moment I
could pray, and from my neck so free, the albatross
fell off and sank like lead into the sea, and
Jen writes, ah ha. He blesses these shining, previously slimy
creatures unaware in a bursting moment of kinship and love.

(33:39):
And of course this is the moment the albatross, the
symbol of guilt, sin and self loathing, finally falls from
his neck and he is free. If that isn't romantic,
I don't know what is. Of course, there's quite a
bit more to the poem, but he is freed from
his spiritual burden from that point on, Jess, I think
that's a great insight. And it is true that there
there is no love greater than the love for sea snakes.

(34:02):
You know, I just returned from Kauai, uh and I
got to see a sea snake. Yeah. This is the
second time I've gotten to see a sea snake while
while snorkeling, and uh, it's always kind of a magical
experience to watch them move amongst the rocks or the coral.
Did you feel love and kinship? I did? Yeah, the
like the season, it was cool. I got to see

(34:23):
this one with my son and so he was we
were in fairly shallow water, so I was able to
like hold him and we're looking down this time without
our snorkels and watching the sea snake move around. It's
kind of it's kind of magical. Wow. Now. Jess also
later in the email shares a story about a sodium
deficiency and her family, kind of mirroring the story we

(34:43):
talked about in the episode with my friend about sodium deficiency.
But yeah, I really appreciate the insights on the poem, Jess.
I I feel that too. The love of the slimy things,
it matters, and yes it is romantic. I agree, this
is Slimy things are great. That's why we cover them
all the time time on this podcast. Totally all right.
We have another bit of listener male related to the

(35:04):
Saltwater episode. This comes from Omere. Omere writes, Hi, Robert
and Joe, I'm a longtime listener to the show, and
I'm writing to you about your newest episode, Don't Drink
the Saltwater. I really enjoyed the episode, as I usually do,
and it made me think about different animals that have
developed mechanisms to excrete salt from their bodies. I live
in Israel, and in the Israeli desert, you can find

(35:26):
two species of rodents that can excrete urine with high
concentrations of salt, the fat sand rat or fat jeered
uh eats mostly the leaves of salty plants, like plants
from the Atriplex genus. Plants from that genus contain a
lot of salt in them. They have a strong salty
taste uh and the Hebrew name for the atroplex can

(35:50):
only be translated as salty plant or just salty. The
sand rats have two mechanisms to survive such diet. The
first is to rub their paws and of teeth against
the salty leaves to excrete some salt crystals from them.
The second mechanism is the rats ability to excrete urine
with nine salt. The sand rats never drink water in

(36:12):
the wild. Less information is available to me about the
spiny golden mouse, but from what I know, it eats
mostly the same plants as the sand rat. But the
golden mouse adds on that diet with stylo metaphora snails,
which are mostly made out of fresh water. Thanks for
the great podcast, Looking forward for the next episodes. Well

(36:34):
thanks Omer, Yeah, yeah, I you know, I didn't even
think about the possibility of there being a particular species
uh in the area of Israel, but it but it
makes sense, uh, you know, get when we're talking about
um high salt concentrated diets. So that's cool. And I
just love the idea of of of a fat sand rat.
It's just such a great name for an organism. Yeah. Oh,

(36:55):
the scientific name of the fat sand ride is Samamas Obesus.
I like that, you know, speaking of the desert. It
looks like we have another bit of listener mail, and
this one is related to another Vault episode that's come
out recently about the science of done. Yeah. This one

(37:15):
comes to us from Lisa, Hi, Joe, and Robert. Thank
you for your recent from the Vault episodes on the
technology and biology of Frank Herbert's Dune. Uh. Recent from
the Vault sounds contradictory, but you know what I mean.
I enjoyed them so much. I read the Dune series
a long time ago. I think I was around fourteen
or fifteen years old, and it truly did blow my mind.

(37:36):
It'll do that. Yeah, the thrill and wonder of discovering
the complex world of Dune and all those fabulous concepts
that Frank Herbert stuffed into it. It's still a vivid memory,
and your excellent exposition and expansion of those concepts really
brought it all back. I'm fifty one now, although sometimes
I think I'm still fourteen inside and I'm inspired to
go read them again, well, at least the first few.

(37:56):
I was known to be a bit of a bookworm
when at school and always had a book on the go,
always a good idea. I advised that even today, reading
it every opportunity. I recall reading God Emperor of Doom
while waiting for a year ten geography class to start.
The teacher noticed and asked me how I found it,
to which I replied quite tersely tedious, which made everyone

(38:19):
around me laugh. I don't know why I wasn't joking,
but maybe I need to try it again. Thanks for
the hard work you guys put into your podcast. I
love them and we'll keep listening. Well, thanks so much, Lisa. Yeah.
God Emperor of Doom can be a bit tedious. Tedious, Yeah,
but but it was rewarded like I. When I think
back on my reading of it, uh I I look

(38:40):
back on it fondly. I don't. I don't think, oh,
that was a tedious book. I I tend to think
I finally read that book with the cool sand worm
human illustration on the front that that I remembered seeing
on the bookshelves as a child. Uh, and it has
a it's it's an entertaining sort of philosophical sci fi work.
I would a lot of being preached at by by

(39:03):
the God Emperor himself. Less of an adventure though, I
mean nothing like a five hundred page space sermon. Right, Hey,
if you're in the mood for it, and nothing else
will suit, Okay, I think we should look at a
couple of emails from our Miasma Theory Episode one is
just a quick correction that I really appreciate. Michael writes
in saying, in the opening minutes of the Miasma Theory

(39:25):
and the Evil Era episode, one of the host said
that the first outbreak of the Black Death occurred in
Europe in the thirteen forties. That is factually incorrect. The
Justinian plagues of the five hundreds were the first strain
of bacteria your sine epestis that caused the Black Death
nearly a century later. I think meant maybe a millennium later.
But yeah, Michael is correct about that. If that is

(39:48):
indeed how we put it, that their forties outbreak was
the first you're sending epestis outbreak in Europe, that is
not actually true. Michael is right. The plague of Justinian
is definitely believed to have been caused by your sending pestus,
and that is backed up by solid DNA evidence from
contemporaneous early medieval grave sites. So Michael's right, there was
a plague in Europe before the forties. A second email

(40:10):
about the miasma theory episode, Rick writes in with an
interesting idea. Rick writes, Hey, guys, longtime listener of the show,
and I really enjoy it. I recently listened to the
miasma theory episode and kept waiting for radon gas to
be discussed. It's interesting how the obsolete bad air theory
actually has some sense of validity when radon gas is

(40:31):
considered as it literally is bad air that emanates from
the ground. This poisonous area is actually naturally occurring radioactive
gas that seeps up from the ground from the decay
of uranium that is hazardous to one's health, i e.
Bad air from within the earth. Of course, people in
the Middle Ages had no concept of rate on gas,
but if you take the simple into our modern sense

(40:52):
is laughable. Notion of bad air that comes in the
night to make you sick and put it against rate
on gas. Well, it's actually accurate in the plain meaning
of this antiquated theory. It is fascinating when people create superstitious,
spooky causes for real world effects and end up accidentally
kind of sort of getting close to real scientific explanations. Thanks, Rick,

(41:13):
and I think that's sort of what that episode was
all about. I mean, they were very wrong about the causes,
but sort of onto something. All right. Here's one that
comes to us from Sarah regarding the tomb of the
first Chinese Emperor. Hey, Rob, Hey Joe. I've been listening
to the podcast for a couple of years now, and
I love hearing what new and exciting things you talk
about each week. This past week's episode on the mausoleum

(41:35):
for she Huong d how I've always been told to
write to write his name, reminded me of a conversation
I had with the history teacher I had back in
high school. Now, he generally taught U S History, but
our class was the only World history class. Yeah, he
had that year. He was one of those spectacular teachers
who could just lecture and students actually paid attention and learned.
He was actually the first person to point me in

(41:57):
the direction of anthropology rather than teaching. We were actually
discussing World War two at the time, the massacre of
Nan King. Actually after class, I was asking him about
other tragedies in China for a research paper for English
and he kind of joked about how no one had
gone down into the tomb of she Wong D. Now
I didn't know what he was talking about at the time,

(42:18):
but he reminded me of the Terracotta warriors. Ultimately renewed
my interest in why the warriors were there. I remember
that I couldn't find much at the time. It was
two thousand seven and I didn't know about Google scholar,
but I did present a rather interesting theory. My general
idea was that she hongd was someone to not give
up on trying to live forever, even after death. Yeah,

(42:42):
that's that's accurate. Uh. He might have had some shamans
or wizards or necromancers bring him back, and he would
need a deathless army. Hence the terra Cotta warriors. Terracotta
is surprisingly more durable than a lot of people tend
to think. It made sense to my seventeen year old mind,
and it makes sense to my twenty seven year old mine,
and I hope it makes sense to other people too.

(43:03):
I was very excited to see this episode pop into
my cue, and it gave me a reason to finally
write to you guys. This subject has always interested me,
and I always love to babble about it whenever it's
brought up, not very often, if you were curious, Well,
it won't be my area of study when I finally
go back to college. I will always love hearing more
about it. Thank you for doing another awesome episode. I
can't wait to hear what you guys present to us

(43:26):
next week from a possible future anthropologist. Sarah. Well, that's
great to hear, Sarah. I love that. I don't know.
I don't know about your theory. That's interesting and so
he definitely did want to live forever if he could,
and he definitely was envisioning some kind of afterlife. I
don't know about the idea of whether he thought maybe

(43:46):
he could be brought back from the dead and would
need a deathless army to accompany him. But that's fascinating. Yeah,
I mean it. I certainly encourage anyone who listened to
that episode and had similar thoughts to listen to The
Jade Immortal, the episode that I did with Christian, because
we talk about a Chinese funeral custom that existed for

(44:07):
a while where the dead kings and various other important
royal figures would be entombed in armor of jade essentially
stone armor um and it gets into we get into
the various religious and superstistious ideas about the protective powers

(44:27):
of the stone. I don't I don't know of any
qualities like that that would have been associated with terra
cotta offhand. I guess I tend to I tend to
buy more of that idea that this was presented as
an alternative to human sacrifice, because it makes sense that, Okay,
if I'm dying and going somewhere else or becoming some

(44:48):
other form after death, and warriors, yeah, and I need
I need warriors. These warriors are great. I want to
take them with me. And then it would fall to
perhaps a very clever adviser to say, well, your lordship,
this is a fine plan, but I know of a
way that we can do this without totally destabilizing the

(45:10):
empire after you have passed over, right, yeah, all right,
well I think it's time to take one more quick
break and when we come back we will read a
few more listener mails. Thank thank alright, we're back. What
have we got? What have we got? Now? What is
Carney bringing forth? Well, Carney is handing out a mail
that is waving claws about wildly with scuttling legs up

(45:31):
in the air. Crab mail. Crab male strikes again. So
we've got several messages all expressing a similar idea about
Carl Sagan and the Samurai crabs. This is something that
there was convergence of thoughts from many of our listeners.
For example, just one of these expressing this idea, Michelle writes, Hello,
Mr McCormick and Mr lab No need to be so formal, Michelle,

(45:54):
But yes, uh glad to hear from you, she says,
I just listen to your podcast Carl Sagan in the
Samurai Crabs. Being of an artistic mind more so than scientific,
I kept thinking of a completely backward sort of theory
as an explanation for the stunning appearance of the samurai
warrior's face on the back of the crab. It's probably
ridiculously stupid, but I'm sharing it anyway. It's not ridiculously stupid.

(46:16):
Don't feel bad, I'm glad you sent it. So here's
her idea. The samurai mask is an extremely stylized depiction
of the human face. Is it possible that the artisans
designing the mask were familiar with these crabs and based
the masks on the patterns of the crabs rather than
the other way around. Artists do this all the time,
taking designs and inspiration from nature. People see faces anywhere

(46:38):
there is symmetry, and these crabs look like very stylized faces.
As an artist, it makes more sense to me that
some ancient Japanese dude saw one of these crabs and
thought that would make a dope mask for a samurai
totally fierce. Well there you have. It makes sense to me,
but I am fairly dim. Thanks for listening. Love your podcast. Hey,
no need to neg yourself on that. Lots of people

(47:01):
got in contact with this idea that what if it
went the other way around, what if people saw Of course,
it wouldn't just be the masks. The mask were just
one realization of this type of depiction of the samurai face.
So there's the samurai face as depicted in medieval Japanese
artwork and painting and also on the samurai armor masks
and wherever you'd see a samurai's face, And quite a

(47:22):
few people echoed that same kind of idea. What if
somebody saw the crab and that's what created the faces
that looked like that in the various artworks and craftworks. Um,
I mean, I think that's possible. But then again, we're
we're sort of seeing a similar thing, which is that
both of them are stylized depictions of what essentially cues

(47:44):
from this very easy to signal face structure. Right, You've
got these lobes at the top, two of them side
by side, which looked like eyes, and then that comes
down into some kind of central structure below which looks
like a nose and a mouth. Uh uh. And so
maybe it really does look like Samurai warriors. But if

(48:04):
it didn't look like the mask, and if it didn't
look like the art, it would still look a lot
like a face of some kind. I also tend to think,
and I'm I'm certainly no expert on Japanese armor or
or Japanese medieval art, but I would tend to think,
if one we're going to adopt the crab motif for

(48:24):
decorative purposes. You would you would you would invoke the
full crab. You wouldn't invoke just the the the what
may look like a face on the back, but there
would be uh, you know, fancy uh you know there
there would be there would be claws and legs as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I see what you're saying. They're also the fact that
these crabs are not particularly fearsome creatures, right, They're tiny.

(48:48):
So I wouldn't necessarily think that somebody would look at
a crab like this and think, oh, that's what I've
got to make all the samurai and my art and
my in my armor and everything look like I would
think more that there is an artistic tradition established that
has certain types of ways of exaggerating the facial features
of a human being, and that this artistic tradition, by coincidence,

(49:11):
resembles what's on the backs of the crabs. And I
would write that is more likely, given the stuff we
talked about in the episode, than the there being a
causative factor going either way, that either the crabs established
the faces as depicted in these traditions, or the faces
shaped the crabs through artificial selection. But that's my take now.
I'm I'm, I'm I am reminded, however, that there there

(49:35):
was a Japanese pro wrestler who wrestled under the name
Grand Naniwa, and he had a mask. It was kind
of a comedic gimmick that he had, but he hit
his his lucha libre style mask looked like a crab,
and he would perform moves with the mannerisms of a crab.
So he had this move where he would stand would

(49:56):
be inside the ring and he'd stand on the middle
rope and then he'd hold his his arms up and
he did like a crab walk back and forth from
the road, and then he would jump with like a
diving elbow. Oh that's good, but definitely invoked the full crab. Robert,
I've got a problem because I cannot finish doing this episode.
I just want to go watch videos of that. It's

(50:17):
pretty great. You you could you could do far worse
than than spending a few minutes looking at at a
comedic Japanese pro wrestling. Yeah, but to clarify, I don't
think that's a stupid idea. I mean, I think it's
good to think in that direction. So all the people
who contacted us with that idea. I think maybe that
something like that could be just as likely as the

(50:40):
idea of the artificial selection happening the other way. It's
just that I think it's a coincidence and that's more
likely than either one. Yeah, either way, it's it's very
scientific thinking to say, well, why that way or not
this way? Then to explore that. That's always a really
good exercise to try out. When you're seeing a correlation
between things and you're assuming the cause and goes one way,

(51:01):
entertain the opposite. What if it's going the other way. Yeah,
for instance, Grand naniwa, Uh, did he do the crab
walk because he had the crab mask? Or did he
have the crab mask because he did the crab walk?
That's a great question. Yeah, we may never know the
full answer on that one though, So Michelle and all
the others who contacted us with that idea good thinking.
I think that's an interesting possibility to consider. Before we

(51:22):
leave the topic of Karl Sagan and the Samurai crabs,
I have to mention that our listener, Kevin wants us
to make giant mutant crabs. Oh, this is a solution
to the green crab scenario was talking about the invasive
green crabs and how we have to go to all
of these various kind of technological extremes, or at least
we have to contemplate advanced technology to properly process them

(51:44):
for culinary purposes. Yeah, so, Kevin writes, still in the
middle of your podcast about the green crab, considering much
of the discussion had to do with possible selective breeding
of the samurai crab, I was positive you would suggest
that one solution to the invasive green crab problem would
be to selectively breed them to be much larger and
therefore becoming a better food source. Then continue to release

(52:07):
these larger crab into the ocean. Over time, as they
breed with the smaller green crab, the entire population will
grow in size as a more practical source of food. Well, there,
I can see various complications arising with that plan, and
also it would be a very it would be a
very long form scheme generally would take a while. Yeah, well,

(52:30):
I mean, changing wild populations for foods for food reasons
is not always a great idea, and also is so
that's gonna be something somebody would be paying to do.
But then everybody who fishes these crabs would benefit from
them instead of just the person who did the investment initially.
And then also it seems like it might not work

(52:53):
because you're dealing with wild conditions and can you keep
these populations contained and control them properly? And I don't know.
I can see a lot of reasons that people probably
aren't going to do that, right, Uh yeah, yeah, but
I anytime you want to write in to or just
to create giant mutant crabs, you can do that. That's
okay to use our email address that way. Yeah, Joe

(53:15):
is definitely going to notice your email if it includes
some discussion of mutant crabs, be they telepathic or not.
So thanks, Kevin. Al Right, here's here's one of our
emails that received regarding the Proteus Effect episode. Sky writes in, Hey,
Robert and Joe, kudos for another great episode. This one
felt like it had mini strings connecting to other topics

(53:36):
that I've looked into, including your episode on the Tetris effect.
I can't seem to find a source at the moment,
but I've also read an interesting point that notes the
difference in perspective while playing role playing games. There's a
subtle difference between I attacked the goblin or I tried
to jump over the gumba and Rodner attacks the goblin
or I tried to make Mario jump over the gumba.

(53:57):
You know, this reminds me of playing video games as
like a young rude child. Uh. And some of you
may say, say, is there any other kind of child
that plays the video game but a rude one? But
I remember like being interrupted and charging people with you.
You made you made me die? You killed me, you

(54:18):
killed me? And I do wonder like why did I
put it that? Why Why didn't I say you made
my guy die? Like you know, what, is it one
more syllable to to go that far? And and or
is I just so connected to the character that I
thought of Mario as myself. It's weird. It is very weird. Anyway,
Sky continues to your open question about the proteus effect

(54:42):
and Werewolf. Oh yeah, and just to revisit, I think
what we said was, does playing a game like Werewolf
also change you? Like if you are trying to pretend
you're not a werewolf and lying in the game, does
that make you more deceptive after the game's over? So
Sky says, I have a recent anecdote that fits right
in some friends and I. We're playing Insider recently, which

(55:03):
plays similar to Mafia Werewolf, but with a focus on
figuring out a secret word all our twenty questions. If
you were assigned the Insider role, you know the word
the whole time and have to guide the comments towards
the right answer without making it obvious you know the
word already by some bizarre string of chance, I ended
up playing the Insider for seven out of the nine

(55:25):
rounds we played out of eight players. By the end
of the sounds like you were cheating. The odds on
that are not good. I mean, it happens, though, and
where will if you see like the person who ends
up being a werewolf all night, and it it ends
up you know, it ends up working to their favor,
because what are the odds? Right After a while, by
the end of the night, it became a running joke

(55:45):
to just assume I was the Insider if no one
had any good ideas for anyone else, which ended up
working for the rest of the night. After the game, however,
I felt hyper aware of everything I said and double
checked my words before I said anything to think about
how they might be interpret did. I couldn't help but
analyze the complexity of my and others communications even when
we had returned to normal conversation after the game, and

(56:08):
this didn't really fade until I went to sleep a
few hours later. It was truly exhausting. Thanks again for
all you do. Looking forward to the next episode. Well, Sky,
that is really interesting. So that's one more example of
the way that gameplay mechanics and the type of character
you have to be inside a game doesn't just affect
you in the moment, but really does follow you home. Uh,

(56:31):
it's a question of how long it always lasts and
how intense it is. But now that you mentioned it,
I think I have noticed that after playing as a werewolf,
I mainly retain a feeling of mischievousness that follows me
around after the game's over. That's if I've been one
of the werewolves, not so much if I've been a townsperson.
But in my experience, this feeling is retained. Robert, what

(56:53):
do you think about this? You retain the feeling of
mischievousness if you were a werewolf, and if the were
wolves one like the winning and determines the extent to
which that feeling carries over after the game, And I
wonder how proteus like effects are modulated by win lost dynamics, Like,

(57:13):
for example, I know personality manifestation can be controlled by hormones,
and hormone levels can apparently be affected by winning and losing,
Like I remember, I've read studies about how like winning
tennis players have elevated testosterone levels compared to losing players.
You know, it's it's interesting the idea of retaining the

(57:33):
sense of mischievousness after you've played, because it I wondered
to what extent the framing mechanism works, because obviously we're
humans playing the world wolf games, so we tend to
frame it as a struggle between humanity and bloodthirsty monsters, right,
but what if you played it the other way? You like,
open your eyes where wolves, you were the last two

(57:55):
members of your species just trying to survive, fighting against
these bloodthirsty human And look how bloodthirsty they are. They're
murdering each other just on the suspicion that one of
their their their their fellow villagers might be awarewold they
deserve to be eaten? Yeah, So, like if you frame
it like that. I wonder how that would frame the
way people feel at the end, would you Maybe you'd

(58:15):
still feel mischievous, but you might feel more like I
don't know if like truly victorious that you've it's not
that you've You've you've overcome the odds against a righteous opponent.
You've overcome the odds against the monsters. You are. You
are the winning uh noble player here and not not
the others. Now, I probably sound like a werewolf sympathizer. Now,

(58:37):
so anyone playing werewolf of the uh will likely suspect
me right off the bat. Okay, I think we got
time for two more short ones, all right, uh. First
one this comes from Tricia on our Animal Lies episode.
Tricia Rights, Hey, guys, loved your most recent episode on
animal lies. I work in dog training and behavior, and
this episode reminded me of a study on dog deception

(59:00):
published in the journal called Animal Cognition. It proves that
dogs are definitely capable of deception for personal gain, sneaky
little things. Uh. Here's an article she shares, and she says,
for the record, I definitely think you should make animal
lies a regular feature like Dangerous Food. All the best Trish,
I just wanted to share this because I looked up
the study to see what it was. So yeah, it

(59:21):
was published an Animal Cognition in March. The lead author
was Marian Haberline of the University of Zurich. And here's
the short version. So you've got a bunch of dogs
and you train the dogs to lead human partners to
a container of food on command. So you say take
me to food, and the dog takes you there. There
were multiple containers. There'd be one container that's empty, no food,

(59:44):
another one has a dry biscuit, and another one has
an awesome sausage. And some human partners of the dogs
were the dogs learned were cooperative, meaning when the dog
takes them to food, the human partner would get the
food and then give it to the dog, and other
human partners were competitive, meaning when the dogs showed them
where the food was, the human partner would keep the

(01:00:06):
food for themselves. And after the task was done, the
dogs learned that they would get a chance to eat
whatever treats were left over in the unopened containers. So eventually,
can you guess what happened When the humans would give
the command to lead them to food, The dogs would
act differently depending on whether you were cooperative or competitive,
And if you were one of these competitive humans who

(01:00:27):
did not share the food with the dogs, the dog
would answer the take me to food command by leading
you to an empty container that had no food in it.
I don't know where the food went. So basically the
dogs began to behave like, Hey, if you're not gonna share,
I'm not gonna show you where the sausage is. Interesting, huh.
I wonder if if there any I wonder how this

(01:00:47):
impacts any use of of of the you know, the
various uses of dogs for say, detection of illicit substances
or explosives or even some of these areas we're figuring
out how to use dogs to just detect illnesses. Like,
it does kind of change things to know that if
you don't have the the parameters uh laid out correctly,

(01:01:12):
that you're gonna have to deal with dog deception right
as part of the the ordeal. Yeah, if the dog,
if the dog figures out this isn't working out in
its favor, it's gonna lie to you. Interesting, all right.
We have one last bit of listener mail. This comes
to us from Kennedy Kennedy says, first off, I'd like
to say that I love the podcast. I've learned a
lot from listening to it, and I really appreciate what

(01:01:34):
you guys are doing. It helps me get through long,
boring nights at work. A lot of the time. It
makes me uncomfortable though. That sounds like a bad thing,
but it's not. There's been a lot of things I've
learned on the show that directly contradict the things I
was taught when I was younger. Growing up in religious household,
my parents put a lot more stock into religion than
they did science. I'm not religious, and I know that

(01:01:55):
a lot of the stuff they told me was wrong,
not because they intentionally misled me, but because as they themselves,
believed what they said. But even when you know things
are wrong, it's hard to hear that something you've believed
for a large part of your life was wrong. Thank
you for bringing all of this information out, and thank
you for making me uncomfortable. I hope that as time

(01:02:16):
goes by, I can learn to have a better grasp
on how the world really is and outgrow what I
was taught when I was younger. Love the show, Thanks
for all the fantastic episodes. Kennedy, Well, Kennedy, thanks so
much for getting touched on. I'm glad we could play
that role for you. I mean, it's one of the
hardest things to seek out things that make us uncomfortable,
but it's something we should all try to do more, right, Yeah, Yeah,

(01:02:38):
I mean, we we cover topics on the show that
make me uncomfortable. Sometimes you know it, and it is
part of kind of putting yourself in that uncomfortable state
where you're willing to have your preconceived notions, your preconceived
beliefs challenged or or even toppled. I mean, and it's
really easy for us to say that, it's a harder
thing to actually make yourself do it. You know, like

(01:03:00):
everybody acknowledges it's good to think critically about your ideas.
Everybody acknowledges it's good to try to seek out disconfirmation
of your biases. But you you sit there and you
say that, and then what do you really do? I mean,
most of the time you seek confirmation of what you
already thought. Uh, And it's just really hard to make
yourself do that in the moment. But it's also a

(01:03:21):
very rewarding thing to do that pays off in the
long run when you can make yourself do it. I
also have to say in this email, Kennedy talks about
things that they were taught that they now see as
as wrong. I have to say that, like, certainly they're
gonna be things where you reach your point in life
and you look back on something you used to believe
and you think, well, that that was incorrect or that

(01:03:41):
was maybe wrong and more of a like a moral
or ethical way. But I think also in my experience,
there are times when I can look back on something
that I used to believe and maybe I can still
value it, but now I see it from an additional
per inspective, or maybe like two additional perspectives, and sometimes

(01:04:03):
it can actually make that that thing more valuable. Yeah,
you know, totally. I mean, well, is so the example
that Kennedy uses in this email is religious beliefs, and
I think, obviously this being a science podcast, they're going
to be a lot of religious like literal interpretations of
a lot of religious beliefs that are just gonna kind
of come into conflict with science. Right if you believe

(01:04:24):
in like a literal six day creation, like sorry, science
isn't gonna help you there, that's going to come into conflict.
But also I don't think inherently that the nature of
our show is necessarily hostile to religion, or certainly not
hostile to it in all of its interpreted forms. Right. Uh,
it's if if you believe in like literal historical facts

(01:04:46):
through your religion, a lot of times, yeah, the scientific
approach is gonna come into collision with that. But there
are also just a lot of ways of being a
religious person, of having religious beliefs that tend to not
really overlap with the territory of science. Yeah. I always
come back to the idea of the tele teleological and
the causative why you know, one answering like a very

(01:05:09):
like fact based why am I here? And one dealing
with the more like the reason for being, you know,
a more existential idea of of of who I am
and why I am here? And in science can answer
a lot of those questions, but but not necessarily all
of them, not in a way that maybe as satisfying
to an individual. And uh, I think it's it can

(01:05:31):
be valuable to have a religion and or spirituality or
or even mythology too to fall back on that. That's
one thing I always try and stress too with discussions
of mythology and legend and folklore is that these are
stories that did not happen, but they are still stories
that have importance, uh certainly to the to the cultures

(01:05:51):
from which they emerged, and to other cultures as well
that have adopted them. Different did not literally happen is
sort of a different question than is it true or
not right? I mean, it's one way of interpreting the
word true. Yeah, But I mean my bottom line is
just to say again, I hope that you don't ever
walk away from our show with the idea that you know,

(01:06:13):
adopting scientific skepticism and all that means that you need
to to throw out all of your beliefs and meaning
structures and everything like that. I mean, that's not a
message I want to promote at all. It is, uh,
the idea that you should critically examine it, and when
the facts are in obvious contradiction with beliefs, well then yeah,
you should pay attention to the facts. But I hope

(01:06:33):
we never create the false impression that we're trying to
create an environment where beliefs mythology that gives meaning and
structure and all that that, all that, all that needs
to get chucked down the drain. That's not what I feel. Yeah,
I mean neither. But that being said, if something doesn't
bring you peace and happiness, then junk it out. What's
it there for? Yeah, that's my take alright. Well, on

(01:06:55):
that note, we've reached the end of our listener mail episode.
If you would lie to send us listener mail, well,
we have a few suggestions of how to go about it.
First of all, we're on social media pretty much all
the social media's I think we're on the Facebook, the Twitter,
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get in touch with this via all of those websites,

(01:07:17):
as well as our home page, the mothership stuff to
Blow your Mind dot com. You'll find links out to
all of those different websites, as well as all of
the podcast episodes and various blog posts. Thanks as always
to our excellent audio producers Alex Williams and Tory Harrison.
And if you'd like to get in touch with us
and send us some listener mail that might get read
on the show in the future, you can email us

(01:07:38):
at Blow the Mind at how stuff Works dot Com
for more on this and bathands of other topics. Does
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(01:08:10):
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