Listener Mail: Dreams, Subs and Goddesses

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to
Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Joe McCormick, and we're coming at you with a listener
mail episode today. But we're broadcasting from the depths. We're

(00:22):
down here in a in a nuclear submarine. It happens
because apparently Submarine Command has appropriated our mail bought Carney. Yeah, yeah,
we call it Deep Star seven, um and uh, and
that's where we're hanging out for this episode. Yeah, Carney
has been working down here in the deep, in the
shadowy depths, which is which is perfect because some of
the listener mail that we're going to be reading here

(00:45):
today does relate to our recent episode on the idea
on on studies related to to sleep and even dreaming
within the confines of a of a nuclear ballistic missile submarine. Now,
as always, we've got to say that we don't have
time to respond to or read on the podcast all
of the great listener mail we get. Just rest assured

(01:05):
we we do try to read it all, uh, and
so so thank you so much for sending it. But
today you're going to get a selection of some of
the stuff we've gotten since the last episode, the last
listener mail episode, UH, concerning all kinds of things concerning
quantum immortality, UH, submarines and the Alphabet and the Goddess
and all kinds of good stuff. But maybe we should
start with some of the responses to the Alphabet and

(01:27):
the Goddess episodes. Yeah, we heard from a number of
people about about this one, you know, in part because
it does have a lot of really thought provoking ideas
in it. But then also there are some issues with
with with some of the uh, the main pieces that
Slain uh was was utilizing in the work. Yeah, So
if you'll recall, we we did a couple episodes on

(01:48):
this book, The Alphabet and the Goddess by Leonard Slain,
his book from the late nineties that made this sort
of historical neuroscience argument that the rise of patriarchy and
the klein or the relative decline of the power of
goddesses and religious pantheons around the world was somehow correlated
with the rise of alphabetic writing. And he makes a

(02:10):
lot of arguments based on hemispheric lateralization of the brain
and UH and how that how that's correlated with gender roles,
and how that's correlated with alphabetic writing. And so we
discussed in the original episode that we were that we
were doing the topic because we thought it was kind
of thought provoking and raised good questions, not because we

(02:31):
were endorsing it as correct right, And I think it
also within the context of the episode, we we discussed
some of the areas where where I think his argument
was a bit weak, such as when it comes to
a Chinese writing or the Hindu pantheon. Well, and just
generally the idea that that I got the feeling we
might be dealing with some historical cherry picking in his arguments,

(02:54):
that he was, you know, sort of selectively emphasizing the
characteristic of societies or parts of societies that helped his
argument and and not necessarily always giving the most balanced
reading of things. Now, those were the kinds of concerns
we raised in the original episode. I will say, actually,
since then, I think I've I've become even more skeptical

(03:16):
of his argument because I've I've started to wonder if
not just his argument about the explanation for the rise
of patriarchy is flawed, but I wonder if some of
his underlying assumptions are flawed to like I think in
the future, especially based on some some feedback we got
after the episode that we should do an episode on
the future questioning what the what the gender roles of

(03:39):
prehistoric societies actually were, Like, what is the evidence from
anthropology and archaeology and everything um about how gender dynamics
work in prehistoric societies. Yeah, yeah, I would love to
examine that, particularly when you get in not only you
know what we can tell about ancient humans, but also
ancient Neanderthals. You know, what exactly was the dynamic and

(04:01):
what is the what is the relation between that ancient
dynamic and the place we are today. Yeah, so that's
an episode for the near future. But today we did
want to review some of the most interesting listener mail
that we got in response to the Alphabet and the
Goddess episode. So Robert, you want to jump in with
the first one? Sure? This one comes to us from Amelia.
Amelia writes, I just started listening to the podcast a

(04:23):
couple of months ago, and I've been loving it. I
was especially excited when I saw the episode for The
Alphabet and the Goddess. The transition from matriarchal to patriarchal
religions in the ancient world has always was always a
topic that interest me. In college, I studied classical studies
as a minor with a concentration on ancient Greece. I
was interested to see if you would discuss Minoan and
my Sinian culture in ancient Greece and a change in

(04:45):
religious symbols as a part of the discussion. Since it
wasn't part of the discussion, I thought I'd write in
and tell you a little of what I know. The
Minoans were a seafaring civilization on crete in the Bronze Age,
most famously known for its relation to King Minos and
minote our myths. Yeah, man minotaur is one of my
favorite monsters. I feel like one of the most underutilized monsters.

(05:07):
They are there, They are tremendous, and I love it
when somebody gets them right. The old Jim Hinson Storyteller
series did a pretty good job with the minotaur. Um
of course, House of Leaves of the Horror novel well,
we'll just say book Uh does a fabulous job with
the minotaur, and Uh the Dungeons and Dragons treatment of
menatars is actually pretty good. Oh they're not just like

(05:30):
some brute that's gonna throw you around. Well, they are
a brute, they'll throw you around, but they have a
pretty high wisdom and they can't become lost in amaze.
Oh I like that, but sorry, we should go on
with Amelia's email. So after mentioning, uh, the Minoans being
related to King Minos and minotaur myths, yes, she continues quote.
It is thought that the snake was used as a

(05:50):
symbol of fertility or rebirth, similar to other cultures in
the Middle East. So we think there was some quote
unquote mother goddess aspect to Minoan religion and culture. As
the Bronze Age progress that the Myscenians settled on the mainland,
they were a more patriarchal and militaristic people. They lived
in citadels in the mountains and depicted soldiers in their art.

(06:10):
Their culture can represent the invasion of the male sky
god and established ancient Earth goddess religions. As Indo Europeans
move south, eventually the Minoan culture collapsed in Myssinian culture
survived to influence the later Classical Greek periods. I think
the most interesting thing to me about this transition is
the change in symbology that makes it to present day.
We can look over time and see the snake turn

(06:33):
from this worship symbol of fertility and earth to this
hated symbol of trickery and evil. We see in the
Bible that the snake is the tempter and the devil
in the garden of Eden Medusa, a generally evil character
in Greek myth, has hair of snakes. Could this be
the patriarchal culture's way of displacing matriarchal religious symbols anti
snake propaganda and religious stories. It's something to think about.

(06:54):
The Manoan and Messenian periods are just a place in
history to study that transition. Looking at the cultures writing systems,
Manowan's used a yet to be deciphered writing system called
linear A, while the Messenians use Linear B, which is
mostly h deciphered. Linear B used a combination of syllabic
and ideographic characters. It is thought linear A is similar.

(07:17):
I'm not sure if that muddies the waters of the
argument you presented in the series of episodes, but I
agree that the premise uses a lot of generalizations to
try and make a point. I just thought i'd share
this lesser known slice of history. The Manoans are a
particularly interesting people, and I and I think they don't
get enough attention, so I like to talk about them
when I can keep up the great work. Guys. Well,
that's a great email, Thank you, Amelia. Um So, Yeah,

(07:38):
I do think the Manoans are interesting and we should
do more to study that. One of the things that
comes up here is uh, something I guess we got
out a minute ago, the question of actually how female
friendly these earlier, lesser understood cultures actually were. Now, one
of the types of feedback we got from some classic
scholars after the episode was like a mining the idea

(08:01):
that there's this popular idea that there was this sort
of universal, worldwide matriarchal, goddess based culture before there was
before there was civilization and before there was written history,
and there's a lot of evidence that that's just not true. Now,
the question might be, was the preliterate pre civilization society
more female friendly or more matriarchal but maybe not actually matriarchal? Yeah, Like,

(08:25):
I don't even think Schlaine made the argument at least,
and that in the book we discussed that that culture
was ever largely matriarchal right. Uh, it's just a question
of was it more balanced at some point? Um? Yeah,
so I think that is certainly an area of discussion.
You know. Another thing that came that the that came
to mind and when I was reading that and keeps

(08:47):
coming back now, is is that regardless of what the
previous gods or goddesses were. Uh, there's always this seems
like there's this, Uh, there's this movement to repackage them
sometimes as lesser deities or is just outright demons. And
you have to ask yourself, well, is this always you know,

(09:09):
to what extent gender is playing a role into this
transformation or is it a transformation that is in many
areas removed from gender concerns. Uh, you know the various
pagan gods that were reduced to demons in the advent
of Christianity, etcetera. Yeah, I mean, and you wonder about
the idea of if there are gender correlations with the

(09:31):
history of the understanding of snakes in uh in religion.
Because Amelia brings up the Garden of Eden story and
one of the funny things about the Garden of Eden story,
do you know what never says the snake is Satan. Oh, yeah,
that's not in the story. It's just the snake. It's
just the snake comes to eve the woman and tempts
her with knowledge of good and evil. Yeah, I mean

(09:52):
I do know that, of course, that when you look
at the Bible Old and New Testament, that the devil
is kind of this character where it's it's almost like
somebody wrote a really confusing screenplay and someone said, God,
we have a number of these antagonists. Can we just
combine these into one character, because it's confusing to have
a snake and then there's this, uh, this satan character
that's like a court official, and then there's this idea

(10:15):
of a fallen angel and and and another devil. Just
let's make them all the same guy. I mean, it
really does make you wonder, though, if the snake is
in the Garden of Eden's story a sort of reflection
of an earlier story tradition where the snake is something
more like a Prometheus character, a character that brings knowledge
to the humans, and that that character is transformed into

(10:39):
a villain in later versions of the story. Now she
also mentioned Medusa here. I would love to do some
sort of a deeper dive on Medusa in the future,
because I'm one hand always one of my favorite monsters.
But it wasn't until I was really an adult that
I began to notice just this trend in art and
and you know, particularly with statues. There's one statue in particular,

(11:01):
I don't remember the sculpture's name, but you find it
at at the met in New York City where our
hero is holding the decapitated head of Medusa aloft uh.
And there are various paintings where where he's in the
act of swaying or and there's like a really kind
of icky, violent vibe to those images, you know, the

(11:23):
murder of this uh, this this feminine monster, this monster
is female. Well this this attack on this primordially ugly woman. Yeah, yeah,
it it doesn't sit well with me. I like the
scenes where Medusa is dishing out death a lot more well.
As beautiful as mythology can be, it's also something we
should keep in mind. I mean, cultural values are encoded

(11:45):
in myths, and a lot of cultures have had lots
of strains of deep, powerful misogyny running through them, and
that's there in a lot of the myths too. Now
I do want to point out one more tippet from
the alphabet. In the Goddess episode, i'm a I referenced
a a particular paper by Laura Slatkin titled the the
the Rate. It was the rage or the Wrath of Thetis. Uh.

(12:08):
She had totally has a book that came out years
and years ago titled The Power of Thetis and selected Essays.
If anyone is interested to read more of her writings.
All right, well, what else do we have? Karney? All right, well,
this next one is also about the alphabet and the goddess.
And this is from our listener hend And so she writes, Hi,
Robert and Joe, I was listening to the second part

(12:28):
of the Goddess versus Alphabet episode, and the Sparta Athens
comparison struck me. Is either too good to be true
or contrived. Now what we actually asked about that, We
were like, I wonder to what extent sh Lane is
cherry picking his argument here? And we asked for, you know,
if you're a classic scholar out there, if you're or
an ancient Greek historian, uh, you know, how does his
argument strike you? And basically his argument was that Spartan

(12:51):
society placed far, far less emphasis on the written word,
and at the same time was more friendly to women's
rights and women's empowerment than Athenian society was. And Athenian
society was highly litigious, highly literate, highly written word oriented. Yea,
it was an interesting argument, but I think at the
same time we were we were both a little cautious

(13:12):
with it at the time. Uh So this is what
Hind is getting back to us with. So Hind says,
first of all, uh, I don't think there's much validity
to the left brain right brain argument, besides interesting oddities
to do with split brain patients. Have you guys done
an episode on that. I emailed one of my former professors,
who is a professor of classics about this, and this
is what he said, quote. I'm always a little wary

(13:34):
about big left slash right brain arguments, since I doubt
the brain functions so simplistically. But what do I know
As for Spartan illiteracy, I think that is not so established.
It is true that women had a lot more power
over some things in Sparta, but I don't think the
larger argument stands up, since I don't think it as
much to do with literacy. Most of the Spartan and

(13:55):
Athenian institutions regarding women were set during a time when
both were mostly oral cultures. And then she provides a
link to an article which I must say, I haven't
had time to read yet, but I would like to
look into. Uh So I appreciate that bit of feedback.
That's an interesting point. So this could be a way
that Slain might not only be cherry picking, but might
be like acknowledging differences that are sort of irrelevant because

(14:20):
the practices he's pointing to were established before the written
word was important in either culture. That's a good point. Now,
to come back to the left brain right brain thing,
I think that that's something that's something that's important to
strike a good balance on because you can absolutely go
overboard with the left brain right brain kind of thing.

(14:40):
At the same time, I think hemispheric lateralization is an
important feature of the human brain. Now there, I think
there are a lot of arguments, especially in the later
twentieth century, that that overinterpreted the influence of of the
left brain right brain division. But the left brain right
brain division is a real thing, and it does have consequences.
You just don't want to be overly general, overly simplistic

(15:04):
about the power of it and explaining behavior. Yeah, and
I mean similar things go for a lot of the
research that has gone into the inner workings of the brain,
for instance, going from the idea that there is, say
a pleasure center or a pain center of the brain,
to a more nuanced understanding that well, it's not a
center so much as a network. Yeah, neuroscience is one

(15:26):
of those things that's just not very friendly to amateur interpretation,
and it's something neither of us are neuroscientists, so we
have to do our best to just sort through the
science and what people have written about it and try
to make sense of it. But you know, neuroscience is
one of those things where it's almost never as simple
as that headline you read. It's true, I get to

(15:46):
kick out of a juicy neuroscience clickbait headline almost as
as much as the black hole headlines. You always see
something that's like, you know, brains God worship center activates
when you view pizza or something. You know, you see
those kind of studies and it's like that that can
sort of conveys something that's kind of true, but it's
not going to be really that simple. So anyway, hind,

(16:09):
I think those are very good concerns to raise. All right,
here's another one. This one comes to us from Matia,
and this one concerns are I believe our our Phartonomicon episode. Hi,
Robert and Joe, first time email writer, here, a long
time listener. In your most recent mail bag episode, it
would have been I guess the one before this you
talked about Pathagoras and his comments on fava beans. I

(16:33):
never thought beans, that's right, because that was basically his
whole deal, as he hated beans and said he should
not eat them. It's not his whole deal, not his
whole deal obviously, but it was it seemed to be
of some importance to Yeah, um, he said, As she continues,
I never thought about the connection between the Greek numa
and flatulence. It makes a lot of sense and adds

(16:55):
a lot to pathagoras maniacal sect. Now, just to refresh, sorry,
the idea of the connection between the numa and flatulence
is that numa usually means breath. It's also funny enough
the word for like spirit or ghosts, So you have
like the Holy Spirit being a numa, and then you
could breathe out a numa, but then also what would
be another kind of numa? Well, but the factors is

(17:17):
arguing here that you could essentially fart out your own soul. Yeah, okay,
that that's the basic ideas I interpreted, She continues. However,
there is a more widespread explanation for pythagoras take on
fava beans. A common mutation among Mediterranean people is G
six p D deficiency, which causes severe anemia upon exposure

(17:40):
to certain compounds, including antimalarial drugs, the antibiotic bactrum, and
guess what, fava beans. The condition is commonly known as
father is um because of this effect. Ever, the flamboyant
to explainer path Agoras observed this condition and prohibited his
followers from eating these beans, which were said to contain

(18:01):
the soul of the dead. Keep up the great work.
There is no podcast like yours. The Soul of the
Dead in beans. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't make it
to that part. So well, thank you. My son is
distrustful of beans, that really. Yeah, and uh, and maybe
that's why he knows deep down that they may contain
the souls of the dead. Have they wronged him? No?

(18:23):
He just they betrayed him. He just sometimes it's hard
to get him excited about beans. I don't know why.
I fort for a kid who has has sworn off
most meats, it would benefit him tremendously to be just
all in on beans. But it's been an uphill battle.
You know. You say he's into shellfish though, right, Oh, yes,
she shellfish and beans don't really go together. It's true,

(18:44):
maybe that said he deep down he knows that his
favorite his favorite foods don't really work that well with that.
But you know, on the other hand, I have had
some wonderful like shrimp dishes that I think incorporate some
forms of beans. Oh yeah, I guess guess now that
I think about it. I mean not kidney beans obviously,
but not fava beans. We all know that fava beans

(19:07):
go best with human liver in kianti. But but but,
you know, hilarity aside. This is an interesting argument, the
idea that there could be something else at play here
besides just mere superstition and far diversion. Right. Hey, speaking
of goddesses, we've got an email from Athena at least
that's her name is from Athena on on piss Myers.
You remember crazy ants and when we we discovered the

(19:30):
meaning of piss Myers. Uh so, yeah, Athena writes, Hi,
I've been listening to your show for a little while
and I enjoy it. I was listening to your show
on crazy ants, and it's a topic very familiar having
grown up in Texas. When you mentioned piss myers, I
had to write in. My mother used that term to
describe a specific ant that was around our home in
South Texas, Victoria. They indeed smelled like their name suggests.

(19:54):
A single aunt didn't smell, but the aunt hill sure did.
On a side note, if I my siblings were misbehaving,
she would call us pissmire's. Well that's well, that's great.
We have to hear a little, little, little little field
wisdom on the pissmer's here. Now, I wonder if the
ant doesn't smell like the name suggests, but the ant
mound does. Why is that? Is it just because a

(20:17):
single ant doesn't put off enough for us to detect,
and you've got to have a lot of them in
a close proximity, or is it because I don't know,
if something else, something else in the mound. Do they
secrete stuff? In the mound. Yeah, I guess it without
actually looking into it. My my, my, my guests would
be the former that it's just the fact that you

(20:38):
have so many ants in one area at a time
that it's going to you know, create a strong or
a roma because these are not like leaf cutter ants
or not cultivating anything in there. So anyway, I admire
the harshness of your mother, by the way, I think
it's good. I mean, normally you just call your kid,
you say you're being a brad or you're being a
baby or something. But now you're saying like you're being

(21:00):
you social insect that produces urine like smells, Well that
that's kind of like children, except that you show you
social part. They do produce produce the smell of urine
sometimes and that can't be helped. Maybe we should take
a break. Are you ready? Let's do it? All right,
we'll be right back. Thank you. All right, we're back.
We're still on the bottom of the ocean. We're still

(21:22):
trapped in the submarine with Carney, and he is dishing
out some listener mail for us to read. So are
you ready for this epic email we got from jess Er.
Let's have it. Yeah, Now, Jesser is a pseudonym, and
I don't know their pronouns, so I'm just gonna go
with they. Uh So, Jesser writes in to say, hey, guys,
since you were talking about sci fi stories with a

(21:44):
focus on Venus, I thought you might like to know
about the book Radiance by Catherine M. Valente. It's an
Art Deco styled sci fi novel set in a world
where early twentieth century depictions of space travel we're true,
and you really can shoot yourself in a bullet to
the moon. It's also about the history of movie making
in a way, and one of the main conflicts is
a documentary that went awry on the surface of Venus.

(22:08):
It's a really interesting book because it takes a nonlinear
epistolary approach to telling its story. You know, in a way,
you could look at the Soviet veneera Landers as a
documentary that went awry on the surface of business, but
also dys or continues. I also recently listened to the
episodes on the Bicameral Mind and it brought to mind
one particularly old text I studied in school, called The

(22:29):
Instruction of Annie. It comes from about fourteen hundred to
twelve hundred BC, sometime during the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt,
and it's a moral code written in the form of
advice from father to son. It came to mind particularly
because it's both quite old and because it has a
number of things you wouldn't expect to hear from a
bicamerally minded people. Instructions against lying and being sneaky, for instance.

(22:54):
It even ends with what's basically a debate between the
son and the father about why the instructions should be
fall load, though Julian James would probably just say maybe
Egyptians lost by cameralism early. Uh maybe, or I don't know.
I I could look at that and say, okay, I
already don't agree that the bi cameral mind is correct,
despite how interesting it is, but that could be a

(23:16):
good piece of evidence against it. Yeah, I agree it. Yeah,
it kind of depends where you how you want to
cherry pick it. Really, Um, I do like the the
idea that that Ye James might have have argued that, well,
this is the case of of by of the modern
mind uh emerging early on uh in one of our

(23:38):
most ancient civilizations. But but who knows. Yeah, In his defense,
I think he would say that, you know, the process
was gradual, and it happened in different places and not
not all exactly at the same time. But then again,
you could look at that as a weakness of the hypothesis,
because if if, if a hypothesis is too accommodating, you know,
if you're shaping it to accommodate too many different kind

(24:00):
of evidence, that's often a sign that you're, you know,
you're you're you're trying to cover your butt really right,
And yeah, you get into this area where okay, am
I talking about an actual hypothesis at this point? Where
am I talking about something that is ultimately more philosophic
or even religious in form uh? And I think their

(24:20):
their value in those things as well. I've said before,
I feel like my fascination with bi cameral mind at
times fulfills the needs of religion for me personally, you know.
And it's like almost like a novel you love or something. Yeah, yeah,
it uh, it fills in some of the sort of

(24:41):
I guess, uh, teleological holes and my understanding of humans.
But anyway, the idea of like a father and son
having this conversation, I do like the idea of a
father saying, look, son, all these other people are not
exactly like us. You're gonna be tempted to lie to

(25:02):
these pe zombies because they're gonna believe you. But we
we just can't live like that having that sort of
a conversation. Man, I'm imagining what it is like to
be a modern human among bicameral humans. Um. That's one
of the issues that Terence Hawkins got into in his
book or The Rage of Achilles. Oh yeah, yeah, I

(25:24):
still mean to read that, by the way. Yeah, it's
quite good. I'll probably go into depth more about that
in our upcoming UM Summer Reading episode. Alright, so we
should go on with Jesser's email. So Jesser says regarding
the recent episode on the relationship between gender roles and language,
and that would be on the alphabet versus the Goddess episode.
I actually took a class on gender roles in the

(25:45):
ancient world in college, the theory of the origin of
gender roles. I learned there had to do with the
division of labor and hunter gatherer society. So that's somewhat
along the same lines as Shlane's ideas in hunter gatherer societies.
In the modern era, it seems like the profitability of
hunting versus gathering roughly determines the relative balance of male

(26:06):
versus female power. If there's little vegetation to be found,
hunting is more important and men have more power vice versa.
If there's little game, and in places where both are abundant,
roles are roughly equal. Assuming that the same held true
in ancient hunter gatherer societies, you can construct a rough
conceptual history where women would have been the first to

(26:26):
develop agriculture since they spent more time with plants, while
men would have been the first to developed animal husbandry
since they spent more time with animals. The fact that
you can use animals to massively simplify agriculture could suggest
that that's where the shift to male dominated societies came from.
The men who can harness the most animal power to

(26:46):
produce the most surplus crops would be able to leverage
that to gain political power. Of course, this is only
one theory in anyone theory may not be broadly applicable,
considering in how many places the patriarchal sedentary societies emerged,
but it's interesting to consider the ramifications of an early
sex based division of labor. Yeah, I think that's an
interesting possibility, maybe worth more of a look and to

(27:09):
see what the evidence is. Yeah, of course. It makes
me think a lot about the domestication of animals, and
you know, sort of an animal by animal breakdown about
how it occurred. You know, like, for instance, the dog
and cat model that I've seen preson it sometimes where
they essentially wander up to the campfire or the habitat.

(27:30):
In these cases, it seems like it would be the
non hunters who would be sort of on point for
domestication of where, of course it would be. It would
probably be different if it was you know, if you're
talking about some sort of an ancient cow or a rock, well, yeah,
if you're talking about animals that aid in agricultural production,
you'd be talking about like large draft animals well, or pigs. Yeah, yeah,

(27:51):
I think that's worth looking into. Yeah, or Stegosaurus is
of course, yeah, Cambodian model. U that's I'm not serious
that by the way, but these we we're advocating flint stones,
is I'm care from now on? Yes, think to the
flint stones. They had so many different domestic roles for
the animals. How did that happen. We need a strong

(28:12):
hypothesis for that as well. Okay, Jesser has some more
interesting stuff. So Jesser says, also since I'm an Egyptologist,
first mentioned of this, by the way, but Yesser is
an Egyptologist. Apparently, I've had a couple of facts come
to mind as I've listened to various episodes that might
be interesting. First of all, in comparison to other religions,
ancient Egyptian religion has an interesting inversion from the standard

(28:35):
notion of Sky Father and Earth Mother as primordial gods.
You know, we mentioned a lot of religions have that,
and Yesser gives some examples e g. Gaya and Ranos
and Greek myth Rangonui and Papa tuan Nuku in Maori myth. Uh.
But anyway, continues saying that Egyptian religion had a sky

(28:56):
mother newt she even births the sun god every morning
in an Earth father geb. Okay, next point, yes, or
makes Egyptian religion has a couple of creation myths. As
far as scholars can tell, this was not really a
problem to ancient Egyptian priests. They have some similarities. Often
involving some sort of primordial mound and some act of

(29:16):
self creation to start the cosmos. But they involve wildly
different sets of gods and varied between regions. Yet there
never seems to be any effort to unify or standardize
the mythology. I think that's kind of interesting, like a
lack of the cannon impulse. Yeah, they're the cinematic universe impulse, right, Uh.

(29:36):
Next point, part of the purpose behind the creation of
mummies was basically to turn the body into a statue.
The opening of the mouth. Rituals used to turn the
mummy into a ritually charged object that the deceased person's
spirit could inhabit are similar to the rituals used for
cult statues for temples of the gods, which were similarly

(29:57):
meant to enable the gods to inhabit the statue and
to consume offerings. Egyptians had some interesting views on gender relations.
For example, they thought that in terms of reproduction, women
were basically empty vessels and that men provided all the
important elements. This is not a unique view of right, yeah,
I mean it ends up being reflected in the spermest

(30:18):
that we discussed and fairly recent episode It's kind of
not surprising that throughout history a lot of men have
decided that, oh, it's men who are actually the the
the only important part. But Yesser continues, while that sounds
rough on women, it meant women were never really blamed
for not being able to bear children. It was entirely
the man's fault. It's interesting they were also pretty relaxed

(30:41):
about marriage. To premarital sex seems not to have been
a big deal, and marriage itself was more of a
legal slash economic arrangement than a religious one. Women could
even initiate a divorce if they wanted to. This is
more recommendation. But the book The Woman Who Would Be King,
which is a biography of hatchup Sets life by Professor Karakoon,
has a really good scholarly exploration of Egyptian society that

(31:04):
sounds like a good read. Lastly, I thought the story
of inegaldy Nana would be your sort of thing. Essentially,
archaeologists were excavating a palace during the Neo Babylonian Empire
when they came across a bunch of artifacts from different
places in much earlier times, all collected in one part
of the palace. It turns out they'd stumbled onto a

(31:24):
museum of artifacts from earlier Mesopotamian civilizations, curated by the
Neo Babylonian princess inegaldy Nana, complete with Cunea form seals
for each artifact like modern museum labels. Also, her museum
dates to about a hundred years before Herodotus quote invented
the study of history. Goes to show you what good

(31:45):
publicity can do, and then yes or apologizes for the
length of all this. Uh says they wanted to keep
adding one more interesting idea before sending off, Thank you
so much for this email. This is great. Yeah, yeah,
I I they They really managed to pack a lot
in here, all right. This one comes to us from Nile.

(32:07):
Hi Nile from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Really enjoy the
show's first time writing. When you were talking about life
on a nuclear submarine, it reminded me of of when
I worked for Xerox in Los Angeles. I asked my
district manager, what was the weirdest service call you ever did?
He said, he installed a Xerox ten ninety copier on

(32:27):
a nuclear submarine. Why do you need to make copies
on a submarine. I think, well, we'll get to that.
So he had to take it apart and cut the
frame with a torch to get it through the doors,
weld it back together and get it functioning. If you
look it up, you will see that it is a
very large copier. I asked him, why on earth would
they want such a such a huge copier in a

(32:49):
nuclear submarine. He said, are you kidding? You have to
have a form too, in triplicate to take a dump
in the navy. Uh. It makes me think that the
modern day nuclear submarine is a lot roomy, or the
we might think. As for the focusing of the eyes
and the confined environment. Once I was picking a friend
up from prison, which tells you the kind of friends
I have. He had been in a small, combined room

(33:11):
for six months, and when he got in my car
in New Mexico with vast landscapes, the first thing he
talked about was the focusing of his eyes on the
distant horizon. It really freaked him out and he had
a hard time adjusting. Thanks for everything you do. Keep
up the good work. Wow, that that's kind of scary
to hear there at the end. It makes me think
prisoners should definitely be given windows, right, Yeah, yeah, definitely.

(33:35):
I mean, also, we've we've discussed on the show before
just how horrible solitary confinement is as a form of
essentially a neurological torture. Uh. It does a lot of
terrible things to the mind. Uh, And we didn't but
I don't think we even really got into what it
might do to your your visual perception. But mainly, I

(33:55):
just love the idea of a giant xerox machine cut
apart art and then reassembled aboard a nuclear submarine just
for bureaucratic purposes. I looked it up. It looks kind
of like Sideways refrigerator with some little like droid embellishments. Yeah,
it's a cross between the Sideways refrigerator and R two
D two. It's we really need more xeroxes in our

(34:18):
especially our sci fi underwater environments. Like when I think
back on The Abyss or Leviathan Deep Star six, what
these films really lack was that was a proper xerox seeing. Yeah,
they're they're making copies six pack from Leviathan, making copies
That would have been perfect. Oh, he'd be the kind
of guy who had xerox his own posterior. Oh yeah,

(34:39):
I mean, yeah, there has to be an eleaded scene
now that I think about it, you know, I must
say Carney is very excited now that we're getting to
the email about submarines. He must be really enjoying his
new job. Well yeah, and I mean he's a little
lonely down here, so he could use a xerox machine
to hang out with oh as a friend. Yeah, yeah,
so it looks like he is excitedly giving us more

(34:59):
submarine related email. Yes. In fact, this one, this next
one comes to us from an old friend, frequent long
like long time UH listener mail participant Jim, Jim and
New Jersey Man. He writes some great emails. And this
is another good one. Jim rights, Robert and Joe. I've
seen dost Boot twice and been on a German U

(35:19):
boat twice too, but only in a museum. The U. S.
Navy captured German U boat you five oh five during
World War Two. It's a museum attraction at the Museum
of Science and Industry in Chicago. I wish I'd been
to that last time we were in Chicago. I'd like
to go sometimes. Yeah, well, the next time. Yeah, anyway,
Jim continues, I haven't seen the movie or been to

(35:41):
the museum in years, but from what I recall, I
visited the museum in two successive summers and saw the
movie in between those two visits. So you watch it
twice in a year. This is kind of obsessive behavior, Jim,
what's going on. It's a great film, dost boot, It's
it's It's not like seeing Deep Star six twice in
the same year, Jim rights. My memory is that the

(36:01):
movie set and match the sub very well. The movie
features several scenes at the captain's office, his bunk, and
the officer's mess. Uh. These are all the same small
part of the sub, which is not obvious from initial
viewing in the movie, but more apparent once you see
slash you know it. The space isn't much more than
a nook along the sub's main passageway where there's a
small bunk for the captain. There's a small table next

(36:24):
to it. I can't remember if it's bolted down or
whether it flips down like a murphy bed. The captain
is sitting on his bunk while in his quote office,
several officers are sitting on the bunk during meals too.
I wonder if that would mess with you psychologically, like
if you had to conduct your official managerial duties in
your office from your bed. Well, certainly, I guess it's

(36:46):
if it's slightly transformed, it might be a little different.
But yeah, meetings, meetings on beds are always weird. M Well,
but we I say that we've had a few of
these when we're on on trips doing live show. God,
You're right, it's all is weird. Yeah, you don't really
have a we never have like a conference room to
go to. I guess it's like a business area most hotels.

(37:06):
But if we're like running through the presentation, yeah, it
generally ends up like two or three of us setting
on one of the beds that were in the room
that we're staying in. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, Hey, Robert
comes in on my bed, let's talk about h H. Holmes.
But anyway, next time you're in a tense meeting with
your manager, just imagine they're sitting on their bed and

(37:26):
I'm sure that'll undercut it. Anyway, getting back to this,
the tour when I was on it consisted of walking
through the three middle sections of the sub and you
can look into the four and aft sections too. Holes
had been cut into the hull so you don't need
to go up and down ladders. We could look up
into the conning tower too. It didn't feel too cramped
until we were told it was sixty men for ninety

(37:48):
days with one toilet. Technically there were two toilets, but
one was a food storage locker. When they first left port,
there was one fairly small stove right across from the
captain's nook. The cook had to produce a hundred and
eighty meals a day from it. I like how the
second toilet is sort of like an achievement that they

(38:09):
unlocked through just through eating a food, and like eventually
they come to that point where it's like, congratulations, survived
this long and you get another toilet. We have a
second toilet. Oh, and I guess it was incentive structures maybe,
but you know, the captain pulled weight on that. It
was like, oh, then the new toilets available. Well, I'm

(38:30):
up because I've been waiting days for this. That's my
office now. Is it weirder to to conduct meetings from
a bed or from a toilet? From a toilet certainly. Yeah,
Like even if you're not actually like using the toilet,
if you're just setting up on it as if it
were a chair, that it's got to be a little strange.
Jim continues. The German Navy had a requirement that their

(38:51):
boats had to go from surface to periscope level and
under a minute. This was to hide from patrols. They
would often drill this, and they do in the movie
one of my favorite scenes, as the dive alarm sounds,
the off duty seamen run to the front of the boat,
becoming human ballast to help the nose of the sub
dive underwater faster. That that is, that is messed up.

(39:14):
You shouldn't be using the Oh my god. No, I
mean it drives home the extreme environment and you know
the limits of the technology. Yeah, I mean it makes
me think of like those stunt car scenes in movies
where somebody gets the car up on two wheels by
like turning and leaning real hard. Yeah. Generally, we just
want to be passengers in our vehicles and not some

(39:35):
component in its functionality. Right. It's like imagine next time
you're on an airplane and the captains like, all right,
we need to get ready for landing, So everybody please
move up to the front of the plane. Yeah, nobody
wants to hear that, all right? If one comes to
us from William, William writes, thanks for the podcast makes
my long bus commute more bearable. Two things related to

(39:56):
the Sleep and Creativity podcast. First of all, you mentioned
a future for hotels where they may be able to
teach languages, etcetera while you're asleep. Maybe I'm just cynical,
but I suspect the more likely use will be advertising.
Think of the money they could make selling dream space
to advertisers. That's the thing in Futurama, isn't it It is.

(40:17):
There's a scene where where Fry is first subjected to
advertising in his dream and he's he's he's outraged over
and he says, but you know, back in my day
we only had advertisements like on the street, on TV
and in the sky, but never in our dreams. But no,
I mean, yeah, I think it's perfect, doesn't he Like?
He has the he's at school in his underwear dream,

(40:38):
but then it's like very stylish underwear and it's trying
to sell him on it. Yeah, yeah, Futurama touched on it.
This listener Mail touches on it as well, that if
we open up a new place in our experience of
reality where advertising could potentially grow, then we will find
a way to grow it there. He continues, I have

(41:00):
four kids, and before they were born, I very rarely
had bad dreams, but at least once for each of them,
I've dreamt about something horrible and tragic happening to them.
I wonder if it stems from anxiety about their well
being or a way of my mind trying to identify
the best way to protect them. Creativity imparirenting. Perhaps could

(41:21):
dreaming be a survival mechanism in which one's mind draws
on extreme scenarios for things that could happen in everyday
life and create ways to address them, Like did ancient
people dream of creative ways to hunt or what to
do if the mammoth suddenly turns on them? The person
who dreamed of of a solution got away, while the
one who didn't was trampled. I mean, I think that's

(41:42):
an extremely compelling way of explaining the emergence of the imagination.
Why do we have an imagination? I mean, that's a
kind of strange thing. Do you think lizards have an imagination.
I mean maybe even it seems kind of unlikely. Uh
we it seems pretty clear to me. We have an
imagination as a way of simulating scenarios without having to

(42:04):
test them out, Like you can imagine what would happen
based on what you know, and that allows you to
simulate something stupid that you might be about to do
and then realize it's stupid and you shouldn't do it.
But that that applies to waking imagination. So how did
dreams change that? Yeah, I believe that's that's still an
open question, but it's certainly one. It is addressed in

(42:25):
some of these models that we've looked at. Yeah. Yeah.
In the in the episode where we talked about the
usefulness or the potential usefulness of dreams, one idea is
that the dreams that dreams, by sort of suppressing the
part of your brain that sensors thought, allow you to
explore much wilder types of imaginative scenarios, things that you

(42:46):
would never go to in your waking life, and that
might be useful as a way of sort of like
increasing the mutation rate of thought experiments, you know it,
doing stuff that your normal waking brain would never bother
to try eye out right, Yeah, exactly. I guess it's
kind of it ends up being becoming kind of complicated though,
when you have when you seem to have some sort

(43:07):
of simulation that is also just clothed in sort of
ridiculous and garbled dream imagery. Yeah, and and unreality. Man,
that is a weird thing to think about dreams. I mean,
if you're saying that the imagination is useful because it
helps you simulate scenarios and and figure out what to
do in the real world, why do we have dreams

(43:28):
where we simulate scenarios that were saying the laws of
physics don't apply, like you can fly and stuff like that.
That that just seems like that might not be be
actually useful if you're trying to simulate stuff that could
happen in your life. Well, unless it's more about sort
of very basic synaptic connections, you know. It's it's it's
it's like the idea of here, here's a game you're

(43:49):
going to play, but the game is preparing you for
some sort of combat scenario, you know, um where you
know the basic skills involved or per have some so
in neural connections involved. U match up to the real
life experience as well as the fantastic experience that you're
actually engaging in your mind during dreams. Yeah, I think

(44:10):
you're somewhat right. I mean, I wouldn't be say I'm
fully convinced by the model, but there's something to be
said for the fact that dreams spur you to go
to places with your brain that you wouldn't normally go to,
and as such, they might often produce imaginative scenarios that
are not very useful to you, but occasionally produced some

(44:30):
very valuable breakthrough. You know, they might be like higher risk,
higher reward types of imagination use. You know, I have
to admit that I don't think I've ever had a
dream that I remember um or a nightmare rather in
which something bad has happened to my son. The only
thing that comes to mind is I did have a
dream once where I went to wake him up and

(44:54):
like the next morning and he was a teenager. Like
it's like he, you know, grown up overnight, which is
this is something bad that happened to your son. That
counts well, but it also seems it's like a very
simplistic dream extension of the idea of like, oh, I
don't want to miss you know, my child growing up,
or or oh, my child is not going to be

(45:16):
you know this young forever, that sort of thing. It's
almost like the dream is an internal poem that uses
metaphors and imagery to to inspire you to behave in
certain ways. Yeah, that's often a very like stupid, poorly,
poorly constructed poem, but it's more Yeah, but you feel them.
I mean, this is again I'm talking about the general

(45:38):
nature of dreams here that I think everyone can relate to. Uh,
In for instance, the nightmare. How many times have you
had a nightmare that was just absolutely just terrifying and
you just woke up and you know, maybe woke up screaming,
or woke up on the verge of tears, or just
racked with anxiety, And then when you try to explain
it to you know, your significant other or or someone

(46:00):
else in the waking day, you just then realize how
ridiculous it is. Just how you know that all the
fear that you experienced in the dream is completely absent
when you just reduce it to a description of events. Well,
you're much more emotionally vulnerable in dreams, aren't you. Yeah,
And you're free from like the logical constraints, like Roger

(46:24):
Rabbit isn't scary and there's no reason he would be
chasing me with a mallet. But within the confines of
the nightmare, that doesn't matter. All that is, all that
is real is the the emotion in the experience. Also,
I say that, but Roger Rapp is kind of terrifying
when you really think about it. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah,
all right. This next one comes to us from Jessica.
Jessica says, Hello, I just finished an older episode about

(46:47):
laughing during horror movies, and I thought it was incredibly interesting,
especially the science and research about laughing and smiling. There
was one phenomenon I found myself pondering over and wanted
to know more about. Why do people I'm generalized, but
often men like to tell other people women to smile more.
This is something that comes up in culture a lot.
I've read a lot about this. Um Jessica writes. I'm

(47:11):
a woman and I can't tell you how many times
throughout my schooling, both high school and college, and even
in the professional workplace, I get told I need to
smile more by male colleagues, or I'm told by female
coworkers that I have the dreaded quote resting bitch face.
I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal here,
but I don't think I've ever asked anyone to smile more,

(47:33):
not not out not out of any sense of nobility
or anything, but just because I really don't want to
see anyone's teeth. I just tell people to wipe that
grin off their face. I I just think I don't
want to look at anyone's like mouth bones. You know,
it's no matter how gorgeous or ghastly. Uh you know
what you have there. Uh, you know may happen to be.

(47:54):
I I just I'm find not seeing them. Never forget
your teeth or outside bones. Yeah, yeah, I just I
don't necessarily need to see more of them. However much,
whatever dental display you're presenting currently is the appropriate dental display,
and I'm not going to ask you to give me
more of it. I'm sorry, I'll try to smile less. No, no, no,
you're you're doing the right amount. But it's it's one

(48:16):
of those things where it's I'm not gonna look at
someone and say, like, how well you know, I like
Joe but I wish I could see more of the
inside of his mouth. I wish I could see more
of his teeth. You know, it's I don't know, Maybe
I just I'm not I don't worship the smile in
the same way that that is certainly American culture wants
us to worship the smile to sort of Tom Cruise

(48:36):
Hollywood smile. You know that's the color of bleached bone. Yeah,
it just looks like my soul is hungry. Uh. Anyway,
moving on, So is it an aura of unfriendliness that
turns people off? Or is there another reason that people
like those around them to be smiling all the time,
especially if smiling is usually a sign of humor or

(48:57):
uncomfortable nous. Because I can tell you when someone tells
me to smile, if ever I do, it's not a
friendly one. I was wondering if you had come across
any discussions of these situations and your research, the good
point me in the right direction for some further reading.
I think that's a good question that might be something
worth revisiting. I do wonder, and this is again this
is without any research at this point, but I wonder

(49:19):
if there are any arguments to be made for the
human spile, smile, especially serving as some sort of reproductive
signal of reproductive fitness to say, like, look at my smile.
My my teeth are healthy. Therefore I am a healthy mate.
Though it probably on top of that you could make
the argument that it takes on all these various socioeconomic

(49:41):
um uh complications as well in modern culture, because the
smile is is a way of saying, look, how uh
abnormally white my teeth are. Look how abnormally straight my
teeth are. Clearly I am someone of some means and refinement, right,
I I've paid doctors to make me this way. My
soul is hungry. But again that's just off the top

(50:02):
of my head. Yeah, and another thing I know, actually
just saw a headline about this the other day is
um the idea that smiling has different meanings in different cultures.
Like there's this whole idea of the Russian smile. Right,
does the Russian smile mean the same thing that the
American smile does? Or do these expressions actually have different
valences within the culture. Yeah, we'll have to we we

(50:24):
have to come back to this. I know we've we've
recorded episodes in the past on the you know sort
of the fake smile and how you can tell a
fake smile from a real smile, that sort of thing.
But but yeah, it's it's such a it's it's such
an important aspect of the human experience. It would you
could do with some revisiting. Yeah, But also Jessica allows
us to be a voice of encouragement. Smile when you

(50:44):
want to smile, don't smile when you don't want to smile. Yeah,
that's what everybody. Stretch your face unwillingly. Um. You know,
my I may mentioned before my my wife is a photographer. Uh.
And part of being a photographer, of course, is you
know sometimes you're you're asking people to do different things
with their face and their posture. Uh. My son observes

(51:05):
all of this, and then when when when he has
given a camera, he will do like the five or
six year old version of it. So he'll point a
camera at me and say all right, stand stand up
a little bit. And then they'll say, okay, let me
see your teeth. Show me show me your teeth like
it's a dentist getting out the drill. Yeah, And I'm like, no, no,

(51:26):
this this is enough. I'm not showing you any more teeth.
All right, I have one here. This is coming to
us from David and this is one of a few
different messages that came in via the discussion module, which
is it's the Stuff to Blow your Mind discussion module.
It is our Facebook group where you can have conversations
and discuss topics with other listeners of the show and

(51:46):
then also sometimes with with with with Joe and me
as well and anyway. David writes in and says in
the Finite and Infinite Games episode, there was a discussion
of what happens in sports, in particular football when they
can't break a tie. I think that ended with us saying,
now we know we're about to get a lot of
listener mail where people explain the rules of football to us,

(52:07):
and it didn't happen. Well, this was the only one.
He started this one by saying you knew this was coming.
I think that was the title of response. He says,
I am from Sydney, Australia and our football or rugby
league has had some really long games. In the seventies,
there were two Grand Finals final games to determine the
champion that finished in a draw and the game was replayed,

(52:28):
but The game I wanted you to know about was
a second grade grand final played before the main first
grade game a few years ago. They change what happens
in a draw. The teams played the whole eighty minutes
and had a draw. The rules stated that they played
five minutes extra time, then if no one scored, uh,
they change ends and play on until someone scores. The

(52:50):
game went to the full five minutes uh, and then
they played another thirty minutes until finally a team scored.
That is one fifteen minutes in a game that has
limited placements and some struggle to play the full eighty
It went so long that it interfered with the pregame
concert entertainment for the main game. In theory, that game
could have gone on forever, but would always remain a

(53:13):
finite game. Yes it would. I know most will not
know the sport of rugby league, but it is a
physically demanding game with limited stoppages. It is played in Australia,
New Zealand and Britain, with a new team in Canada
and a test match soon to be played in Denver.
That's probably about the sports eest listener mail you're ever
gonna hear on here. No, we might we might receive

(53:34):
some more. Okay, I know we have. We have sports
fans out there. Now, we're definitely gonna record at least
one other listener Mail episode where the entire episode will
just be people explaining the rules of football to us
after they hear it didn't happen from this one. But
we'll leave that for another day. All Right, We're gonna
take one last break, and then when we come back,
more listener mail. Thank thank thank, alright, we're back. All right.

(53:58):
What have we got, Robert? Oh, let's see, Yeah, I
have some more here. Uh, here's another short message. This
one comes to us via the discussion module as well. Uh.
Terrence writes in and says, the recent episode on quantum
immortality reminded me of a couple of Larry Nevins short
stories from the late sixties early seventies, All the Myriad
Ways and for a Foggy Night. The former concerns the

(54:22):
psychological consequences of the proof of an infinitely branching multiverse
not good, and the later the possibility of an inadvertent
crossing over between them. So what are the consequences? Have
you read these? I have not read these? Wow, I
haven't read them either, so I don't know what to
say about it, but but appreciate the recommendation. Terrence. Yeah,

(54:42):
there was some back and forth on the discussion module
about this from uh, you know, among individuals who have
read uh, these Larry Nevin short stories. But it does
make me want to pick him up because he's a
He's very much an author that I've been aware of forever.
I remember seeing his name when I would browse the
science fiction section at the you know, the low bookstore
as a kid. Uh, And for whatever reason, I just

(55:03):
I never actually read any of his work. Okay, so
let's say there were a way to prove the quantum multiverse,
to prove that, say, the many worlds interpretation is the
correct interpretation of quantum mechanics, and that that actually does
lead to you know, every moment, all these infinitely branching
multiverses that you're splitting off into in uncountable ways. How

(55:26):
do you think that would change how you feel about life?
Would it change anything? Well? I guess it depends on
what you know, Like how much do you know? Like
do I just know that there is a parallel existence?
Do I know what the what the differences are and
like the most uh, I guess the closest multiverse. I mean,
one version you can think of it is it might

(55:48):
encourage people to think that their choices are meaningless because
every choice they make in other worlds, they've made the
opposite choice. And so really what you are now is
not the sum total of the choices you made from
the available options. But you're just the version that made
these particular choices, and other versions of you have made

(56:11):
different ones. But how is that different from a lot
of what we suspect about the nature of our reality,
you know, questions of to what extent we have free will? Tom,
we're just we're essentially without choice anyway, And which is
trapped on this this rail? Well, I mean people. So
I think the scientific case for the basic view of

(56:32):
determinism is pretty solid. There's no way you can coherently
say like, yes, I'm freely making choices and I could
have done otherwise. There's no way you can prove that.
But at the same time, we at least have the experience,
the subjective experience of feeling like we are making free choices,
So in a way, subjectively it kind of doesn't matter, right,

(56:52):
Like you can't prove that you could have done otherwise
in some past scenario, but it feels like you could,
and it almost seems like that's enough, right. Yeah, And
I tend to suspect that if we were aware of
of that have happenings in a in another universe that's
closely aligned with what we're doing here, I think we'd

(57:14):
still be able to hold on to that, that feeling
of of freedom and free will, that we still live
our lives with that in mind. Yeah, I think you're right,
And whether we could have done otherwise or not, you're
now the person you are, and the person you are
now is a result of choices you've made. So whether
or not you could have done otherwise with the reality

(57:35):
that we're faced with is that you're the version of
you that made the choices you did. We don't know
whether there are other versions of you that made different choices. Well,
when I think about the multiverse approach, I tend to think, well,
and in most of those realities, I probably don't even exist.
Earth doesn't even exist. There's only a slim uh selection

(57:56):
in which I'm a thing at all. And you know,
I'm probably doing pretty well, uh compared to most of them.
There are probably a lot of worse realities out there
for me. Another weird thing well, yeah, I mean another
weird thing that brings up is though you are aware, say,
if the Many World's interpretation is true and there are
these branching multiverses every time there's decoherence, Um, what what

(58:22):
does it mean to be you? Why are you this
version of you? Why aren't you some other version of you?
And are those other versions of you actually you? Or
are they something else there? You too? But they're not
the same you. Yeah, they're what Many Worlds proponents called
the edge. Well, it brings it. It's like the question, uh,
if you're if you're asking like, is that really? If

(58:45):
that's you? Then is that you as well? This you
and another multiverse? But then the same question whom we
asked just along the timeline, Well, how about how about
the you that went in to have their wisdom teeth removed?
How about the U while you were under n st you?
Was there a you at all during that span of time?
And then now there's this you that you are embodying.

(59:06):
Now that's a good question. Does the universe? Does the
multiverse go on with or without you? I don't know. Okay,
we got one more email on the Quantum Immortality episode.
We actually got a lot on this uh this episode.
We don't have time to read them all, but here's one.
This also came from Hind, who have gotten in touch
with us about the alphabet and the goddess. But Hind

(59:28):
writes quote listening to the Quantum Immortality episode right now.
Just wanted to point out a slight error that Joe mentions.
Although the Copenhagen interpretation is the interpretation that's in the
majority of physics text books, it is in fact not
what the majority of physicists believe is the right interpretation.
There is no majority, though the Copenhagen adherents are the

(59:50):
largest faction or the largest fraction many worlds is not
too far behind. Here's an article from Sean Carroll's blog
about this. Also love the shout out to tag Marks
out Our Mathematical Universe, one of my favorite pop physics books. Um, So,
I don't remember saying that the majority of physicists believe
that the Copenhagen interpretation is correct. I thought what I

(01:00:12):
had said is that the majority of physicists had believed that.
But if I did say that's what they believe. Now
I accept that correction. It seems to be the most
popular interpretation among physicists, but it's not the majority. It's
a it's the most popular minority. But what I definitely
meant is that you know, over over the period of
history where there have been interpretations of quantum mechanics, Copenhagen

(01:00:35):
interpretation is what gets the most attention and the difference.
Just as a quick refresher is. The Copenhagen interpretation says,
you know, when you've got a quantum system in superposition,
it's it's sitting there in superposition until interaction from the
outside quote collapses the way of function, and then you've
got a probability of that superposition going into one of

(01:00:57):
its definite outcome states. So the pasic example is Shreddinger's cat.
So you've got the cat in the box, and you've
got a quantum system in superposition, and something causes it
to go one way or the other, and the ideas
that the cat in the box is still alive and
dead at the same time until you open the box
and interact with it to see what's going on, and

(01:01:18):
then it just assumes one of those two states many worlds.
Interpretation would say both states are continuously correct, branching off
into different universes that don't interact with each other. Yes,
but merely by putting the cat in the specially prepared
box you created to like a branching path, the wave
function never collapses into one outcome or the other. They're

(01:01:40):
just both equally real going off into different directions that
can't interact with each other anymore. But hind is correct
that that the Copenhagen interpretation appears to have been losing
ground all right. Here's another short bit of feedback from
the discussion module, and this comes from Peter, who a
longtime listener stuff to bow your mind and also a

(01:02:03):
a VR enthusiast. Uh So I'm always on the lookout
for for Peter's feedback whenever we touch on VR, and
he was responding to the Submarine Sleep episode. He says,
I love the Submarine Sleep episode and great points about
VR and subs. I'd also be surprised if they weren't
already experimenting with this. It will be better once the
more mobile versions improve in quality, but I ideally you'd

(01:02:27):
have at least three ms by three ms space for
them to move around in ideally more but this would
give them a fair amount of virtual freedom to feel
like they were in a totally different world for a
part of the day. I do wonder though, if there'd
be a danger of feeling more claustrophobic if you had
this sort of regular freedom. Yeah, that's a good question.

(01:02:47):
Do you adapt to the claustrophobic environment so that it
cuts down on your fear? Over time you become desensitized
to it, And like, if you get to look out
windows or get to have a VR experience, going back
to the sub is a more horror dorble thing. Yeah, yeah,
it's It's a great point. And also I like his
point that that the virtual reality we we sometimes, especially

(01:03:07):
those of us who are not actively engaging with with
current VR tech, we we kind of get that sci
fi vision in our head, which is somebody putting on
a para magic goggles and then drooling for an hour.
But there is a certain amount of physical space you
need in order to then simulate greater physical space, And
that becomes a question to like, maybe maybe there's no

(01:03:30):
room for that on the sub because you just install
that Xerox machine. Yeah, yeah, here's the question what is
the minimum space that you could have to put goggles
on somebody and give them the illusion of absolute freedom
of movement? Does it? Does that make sense? Like? Uh? Like,
so if you want people to be able to walk
around in a VR world, you could manipulate their walking

(01:03:52):
right through the through the sensory feedback so that instead
of walking in a straight line forever, you eventually get
them to kind of turn they think they're going straight.
What's the minimum space to cause that to be convincing
as infinite movement space? I don't know. I mean it
sounds like like Peters saying it's three ms by three meters.
That seems incredibly small. Surely that wouldn't work. What don't know?

(01:04:15):
I mean, I guess it also depends on like what
version of the technology you're you're imagining here? Is it
essentially somebody still like setting at a on a stool,
or is there some sort of like a uh if
we're walking on some sort of a treadmill. I mean,
I don't know. I think it depends on the rig too,
and just like what what version of existing or future

(01:04:37):
technology you're talking about? All right, this one comes to
us from our listener Andy, Robert and Joe. You asked
in your Quantum Immortality episode whether anyone had entered an
altered mental state after extensively restoring save states in video games.
So this was your concept of saves coming. So you
create these backup versions of the world you live in.

(01:04:59):
Every time you mess up, you go back to the
to the checkpoint and start over. Uh So, Andy writes,
I'm ashamed to admit that I once spent a riveting
six hours saves coming various Mega Man titles. The classic
Mega Man is a great one. Uh. I then got
into my car that I wonder where this is going.
I missed my exit and had a moment of confusion

(01:05:22):
as I reached out for a redo mechanism. Perhaps the
oddest part of the experience was that I was seeking
a mechanism outside my perceptual reality. It felt similar to
how the world expands when you step back from an
intense round of video gaming, becoming aware of the room
around yourself. While it was not a full blown out
of body experience, it left me a bit disoriented. Needless

(01:05:44):
to say, it didn't work and I had to turn
around at the next exit. Thanks for the many excellent episodes.
I think stuff like this is really interesting. One thing
Jared Lannier talks about is how one of the most
interesting things about virtual reality is that it can change
not only your perception of the environment around you, but
change your perception of what your own body is. So like,

(01:06:08):
you can put somebody in a virtual reality simulation where
they have a tail, and they can do things to
control their tail, and that very quickly people actually adapt
to this and start to feel like, you know, the
the movement of the tail feels intuitive to them. They
they've got a prehensile tail they can move around and use.
And the ways you could apply this can get weirder

(01:06:31):
and weirder, And it's fascinating that our brains are plastic
in this way. They can adapt not only to changes
in the environment, but to changes in the physical makeup
of the self. And I like the way this extends
that principle not just to like having a different limb,
but to having different sort of metaphysical capabilities, like restoring

(01:06:51):
saves states in time. It's weird that he incorporated that
as a thing his body could do. You know what
I mean, Yeah, update essentially updated his body schema to
represent this, Uh, this kind of virtual body. Yeah, and
the thing that that doesn't even have a physical manifestation,
it would be like it. It would be like control

(01:07:12):
over the metaphysical elements of the world itself through some
kind of body action. And a classic example I think
of this I brought up on the podcast before is
when I've been in parts of my work where I've
been using documents or Excel sheets a lot or something
like that, there have been times when I in physical
space tried to control lef you know, like I wanted

(01:07:34):
to find something. I wanted a search function, but you
have you It takes you a second to realize, like
that doesn't exist in reality, but I thought my body
could do it onto physical space. Fascinating. Um, I don't
have an I don't think I have anything directly to
compare to that, though. On the the video game front,
I do remember when you know, anyone's familiar with what

(01:07:56):
is Katamari Dama, say, oh, were you trying to That's
the game where you roll up the ball of things. Yeah,
I remember playing like when that first came out. It
was we were all super into it and I was
my wife and I were playing it, and then I
went to drive to work, and I didn't actively try
and drive my car over things and and roll them

(01:08:16):
up into a ball. But there was like this weird
feeling like I should be able to do that that
thankfully quickly vanished. But but yeah, it's interesting to think,
especially as we get into into technologies that will enable
us to take on new forms, certainly in the virtual realm,

(01:08:37):
you know, to what extent does it become too weird
to come back to our own bodies? Too shocking? Even?
I mean, this makes it. Yeah, it makes me wonder if, like,
is there anything we couldn't train ourselves to internalize if
things as weird and non physical, as say like a
search function, or like saves coming or you know, restore states,

(01:08:59):
those things are nowhere to be found in the physical world,
but we can internalize them as something that I expect
my body to be able to do. Where does it stop?
What else could you get your body to expect that
it can do? Yeah, this guy's limit. That's a homework
assignment for your listeners. What sort of like metaphysical capabilities
do you think you could train people to expect to

(01:09:21):
be able to carry out just by running them through
some virtual reality or video games? Or something good or bad. Indeed,
I like the idea of thinking about what are some
of the beneficial ones. Could you one day have a
situation where here's a video game, you play it, and
it's some in some way like enhancing your abilities to
operate as a functional human in the real world. Yeah,

(01:09:42):
I mean, I think about like self editing technology and
technology that would give people more willpower. You know, we're
we're very very impulse driven. We're very driven by habit,
by impulse, by sort of momentary desires that are in
conflict with our long term goals and desires. This is
why the social media apps are so addictive and stuff

(01:10:03):
like that. They leverage our impulses against our long term
goals for our time use and stuff like that. Could
you could you get people through some kind of VR
video game training to sort of um reprioritize, to like
prioritize their long term goals up higher in the chain
of action. I don't know. And then how would you

(01:10:24):
how would you incorporate a first person shooter mechanism into
this so that it would sell enough copies? Well, I
don't know. I don't think it has to be a
first person shooting. I think it does it looks like
what most of the games are, or it needs to
be um, it needs to be a sports game, one
of the two, or a Jedi game. You know. I
I'm gonna I'm gonna make a very weird prediction. I
think someday we will move beyond the first person shooter.

(01:10:44):
People think that it's going to be what video games
are forever. I think someday in the future, the first
person shooter will just be an obscure genre that was
very popular in the past, give way to the first
person stabber that would be the primary uh mode of
interface there. Huh but no, I hope you're right. I
hope you're right, But it seems it seems to be

(01:11:05):
stuck with us for now. All Right, we have time
for one last listener mail. This one comes to us
from Hope. Hi, Robert and Joe. I just recently listened
to your episode on a Fantasia and thoroughly enjoyed it.
While I was looking more into hyper Fantasia, it came
to my mind that I have very vivid dreams. My
husband has stunned sometimes at how well I can recall events, colors,
and physical sensations. I've always thought it was strange how

(01:11:27):
when he has a dream he can hardly seem to
remember any of it, if any at all. I thought
to myself, is that how differently our minds actually worked,
Like the difference between a fantasia and hyper fantasia. My
question to you is, would you consider doing an episode
on vivid dreams and their causes, differences and individuals, etcetera.
I would love to hear what you could find out. Lastly,

(01:11:48):
I want to thank you for making my work days
go by so much quicker. I'm lucky enough to work
at a place where i can listen to podcasts almost
all day, and I'm slowly working my way through the episodes.
The best part is feeling like I've achieved something by
learning about the different topics at the end of the day,
you know, other than the confused looks my co workers
start giving me when I start ranting about things like peeps,

(01:12:10):
pe zombies and by cameralism. I wish you all the best,
yours hopeful. Uh, well, we're glad we can subjectively shorten
the impression of the length of your life. No, that's
not how it works, is it. No, well, it's it's
it's an increase in quality. Even if it is, it
seems to be a you know, relatistically, a decrease in quantity.

(01:12:32):
I think we talked about this, uh. I think it
might have been from the work of David Eagleman where
we talked about in the Time and the Present moment
episode where it's counterintuitive. But if I'm remembering correctly, I
hope I'm not getting this wrong. But basically, experiences that
seem very long in the moment are actually compressed and
shortened in memory, whereas experiences that go by very quickly

(01:12:56):
in the moment are lengthened in memory, so that like
you get a retrospective lengthening of the life by having
things that that you know, by having interesting, exciting experiences
that go by very fast even though it feels like
it's happening faster and while you're doing it now. On
the topic of vivid dreams, certainly, I mean dreams are

(01:13:18):
a topic that I feel like we'll never exhaust on
stuff to blow your mind. Well, will inevitably come back
to dreaming and sleep in the future, nightmares and what
have you, So that that would be an interesting angle
to to take you. Aside from some of these sort
of you know, hyper state. You know, we've discussed lucid
dreaming before, but but on a you know, much simpler question,
what is the difference between a vivid dreamer and say,

(01:13:41):
more typical dreamer. Do you find that you have more
vivid dreams when you are in a more emotionally vulnerable state. See,
it's hard to say, because I'll have vivid dreams that
are so boring that I forget them before I wake up,
you know, like and and then sometimes a dream isn't
that it, But it had an amazing idea and there's

(01:14:02):
some amazing bit detail to its substance, and that'll stick
with me. Um. Yeah, it's uh. It kind of comes
back to that basic bit of dream journaling wisdom to
write it down immediately after it happens. And I almost
never do that. It all becomes kind of lost in
the shuffle, which I remind myself, I think it's supposed

(01:14:23):
to do that. So, man, this has been an epic
Listener Mail episode. Yeah, we've we've we've covered We've covered
us about everything. Yeah, let's see. We got some some
good criticisms of alphabet and got us some interesting tangents
related to that. We got quantum immortality, we got uh,
nuclear submarines got, We got all kinds of stuff, reading suggestions, episodes, suggestions,

(01:14:44):
and we definitely want to remind everybody that, yeah, when
when when you when you come across some topic that
you would like for us to cover, uh some angle
on a past episode that that that we glossed over
and missed. Uh you know whatever, do right into us.
So again, we don't always have time to to respond
to you individually or to even feature them all on

(01:15:05):
listener mail, but we do read them all. Uh, so
we are always open to feedback. Oh, it looks like
Carney is getting an ELF signal from the surface saying
that we need to surface there. There must be we
gotta go to periscope depth. All right, well let's do it.
In the meantime, head on over to Stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. That's the mothership. That's where we
will find all the episodes of the podcast, as well

(01:15:26):
as links out to our various social media accounts. I'll
remind everybody that the best way to to support the show,
which we provide you free a charge, is to go
to wherever you obtain the podcast and rate and review us.
If at all possible. Huge thanks as always to our
wonderful audio producers Alex Williams and Tarry Harrison. If you
would like to get in touch with us directly, they

(01:15:46):
let us know feedback on this episode or any other,
to suggest a topic for the future, maybe get some
listener mail featured on a future listener Mail episode. You
can always email us at blow the Mind at how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

(01:16:09):
of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com?
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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Listener Mail: Dreams, Subs and Goddesses