Listener Mail: Robots of Theseus

It's listener mail time again and the plan to gradually replace every part of our mailbot Karnie is complete. Join Robert Lamb and Joe McCormick as they read and respond to various listener mail from the past month. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Today
we're going to dive into some listener mail and you
know we have we actually have two different carney the

(00:24):
mailbots here to help us today. The one on the
left here is just bright silver gleaming like a suit
of armor from the movie ex Caliber. And then, uh,
the one on the right and resembles a like a
rusty death bucket, like a suit of armor from Monty

(00:44):
Python and the Holy Grail. Yeah, that's pretty much what
he looks like. Uh, how how did did did we
get two carneys in these two different states. Well, it's
because we did that massive upgrade on Carney. You know,
we we started replacing some of his parts, um, upgrading
apart here apart air, and then we just kept doing it.
And then on the other end, we when when we
were done the used parts, we just started assembling those

(01:07):
as well, until we had two complete carnis the carney
in which we had replaced every last piece with a new,
shiny piece, and then the carney that we built out
of the old pieces. Now the question is which Carney
is going to deliver us this week's listener mail. I'm
just gonna I'm just gonna close my eyes and put
my hand out and um and I guess hope that

(01:28):
I don't get pricked by the rusty one just because
I'm not sure my tetnas shots up to date. Uh.
Fun fact, Russ does not cause tetanus, does it not? Well,
there you go. So it's okay that he has razor
sharp rusty claws. It's a okay all right now. Unfortunately,
no matter what, we never have time to read all
of the great listener mail we get. So if you

(01:49):
have sent us a message and we haven't been able
to respond and you don't hear it on the show today,
please please don't be discouraged. It's not because we don't
appreciate the mail we get. There's there's just a lot
of great stuff out there and and no time to
attend to it all. But we really do appreciate all
the wonderful community case we get from you lovely people
out there. Yeah, because even though we have twice the

(02:09):
Carney now, we only still have the two of us,
So there's only so much we can do, and there's
only so much time. That's right. Let's jump right in, Robert,
all right, let's do it. I'm gonna put out my hand.
It looks like Shiny Carney is bringing me something to
read here. All right. This one comes to us from Alex.
Alex says, Hi, Robert and Joe, your podcast is wonderful,
and although it was already very good to begin with,

(02:31):
I feel you two are getting even better and better
because we keep replacing parts. That's what's happened. Keep up
the great work. We're big fans. I have a comment
about the ship of theseus episode. I'm a particle physicist
by training, so I was thinking about your discussion a
bit from that perspective. I don't claim to have any
definite answers, but I think the theory of quantum mechanics

(02:52):
adds more depth and weirdness to the problem of identity
on top of what you've already discussed. In quantum mechanics,
different particles of the same type are treated as truly indistinguishable.
Two particles can be separated in space, but in the
theory they are described by one wave function, which simply
features a high probability to find a particle in region A,

(03:14):
as well as a high probability to find a particle
in region B with no mention that it's particle Alice
here and that it's particle Bob there. My tentative takeaway
is this, if a quantum teleportation machine were to transfer
the quantum state of the atoms in my body sitting
in place A onto a stream of photons, and then

(03:35):
transfer that onto atoms in a place B a mile away,
I don't see a real justification to treat the newly
created atoms a mile away is anything thing other than
truly the parts of my own body which have been
moved there. I still feel a bit queasy to hand
over my fate to this machine, but rationally I'd love

(03:56):
to hear a discussion of these quantum physics aspects of
the ship of the Theseius sometime. Cheers Alex. Now, that
is an interesting question because there's this obvious preference people
have that like, oh, if I'm going to be teleported
and it will still be me, I want the particles
that originally made my body to be the same particles

(04:17):
that make up the copy of me. Now, that's if
you're teleporting information about your body from one place to another.
That's just probably not going to be the case, right,
You're gonna have to build from different particles. And Alex
is saying, why would that really make a difference. I
don't know if that really would make a difference. I
would think that the problem would be the interruption of
the continuous existence of you from during that moment of transition,

(04:39):
basically what I said before, where you just need somebody
to lie to you about that interruption. You know, you
need somebody to just to to gloss over the more
problematic details of your teleportation system. So I think you
said this before, you'd rather live in a world where
people are teleporting they are just actually dying every time
they do it. But nobody is it well. But but

(05:02):
I guess the positive spin is you're not only dying,
you're being reborn. I mean, this is kind of what, uh,
what what Seth Brundel was talking about in Cronenberg's The Fly,
The idea that it's it's like there's a purifying aspect
to the teleportation. I believe this was some of what
he was talking about before things began going terribly wrong
for him, mixing his DNA with that of a fly,

(05:24):
but as being reborn worthwhile if you don't know you're
being reborn, Say, for example, people say, you know, I'd
love to be able to go back and start over
my life again, to do it right this time. But
if you were to go back and start over without
the memory of your previous life, how would anything, Why
would that be any better? Why would that change anything?
It seems like the value of being reborn is the

(05:45):
knowledge of what came before and the knowledge that you
have been reborn, or to just the idea that you've
been reborn. I mean, somebody could just fool you into
thinking teleportation is possible. You walk into a box, there's
some lights, you walk out of the box. But if
you feel will renewed right then it could have an
overall positive effect. Speaking of Cronenberg, I don't know if

(06:06):
you've read about this as well, but supposedly, uh, David
Cronenberg has has a screenplay that he wrote that is
a sequel to The Fly that doesn't necessarily contain any monsters.
It's more about something. I don't know that there are
any more additional details out there, but it is more
concerned with teleportation itself than it is with any kind
of monstrous side effects of the technology. Oh, I think

(06:28):
you could write a great psychological horror movie it's purely
about teleportation without any like DNA fusion or you know,
becoming half fly or anything like that. Yeah, it's it's
one of my hopes that either Cronenberg will get to
direct that script, where somebody will one day direct that script.
I'm very interested, um what he's exploring in that because

(06:48):
because we're also talking about later day Cronenberg. Cronenberg who
hasn't really been dipping his toes into the the squeamish
horror content of his his earlier filmography. So the more
recent Cronenberg version, it's just got a bunch of like
mafia guys who get into a teleporter together and they
come out having an existential crisis. I'd probably be down

(07:10):
for that, you know. And I do love so many that,
like the transcendent ideas that were at least briefly discussed
in The Fly, like the idea towards the end that
not only is he gonna cure himself by climbing into
the telepod uh with Gina Davis's character, you know, but
they will become one perfect being you know that there's
this this fusion that will take place, that will create

(07:33):
a higher human. Yeah, and that embodies some of the
questions I guess about the whole teleportation idea. Like to him,
that's an idea of like addition or becoming better into her.
That's obviously an idea of obliteration or destruction. Yeah, Okay.
Also about the ship of Theseus, this comes to us
from our listener, and and writes, Hi, Robert and Joe,

(07:54):
I'm a longtime listener of your show, and I'm writing
in to respond to your great episode on the ship
of Theseus. I've never heard of the mythic iteration of
this concept, but I'm familiar with it from the Romantic
poets of England. I wouldn't be surprised if they built
off of it from some of the philosophers you mentioned,
including Hobbes. In a September eight, nineteen letter to his
brother and sister in law, John Keats, that's the romantic

(08:17):
poet John Keats takes a personal and religious approach to
the question. I've included the excerpt here. Quote from the
time you left me. Our friends say I have altered completely,
am not the same person. Perhaps in this letter. I
am for in a letter, one takes up one's existence
from the time we last met. I dare say you

(08:37):
have altered. Also every man does. Our bodies every seven
years are completely fresh material seven years ago. It was
not this hand that clinched itself against Hammond. We are
like the relict garments of a saint. The same and
not the same for the careful monks patchet and patchet
for St. Anthony's shirt. Oh that's nice. Yeah, I like that.

(09:00):
That brings in. And I so if you believe, for example,
that an item can be holy, that's another question about identity.
Imagine you say you believe uh in like a piece
of the True Cross or something, one of these medieval relics,
and it's gradually losing splinters, but having splinters replaced by
people who are working on it. Once the entire thing

(09:20):
has been replaced, it does still have holy power. But
this is why you notice it. In some of the
museums that you go to, There'll be a tiny vial
of vampire blood uh inside the temperature control compartment with it,
so they can see just how holy the artifact still is.
That would be a good test, and continues I love

(09:41):
that the section gets into different layers of identity, both
the one self reported and or time traveled to e g. Quote,
taking up one's existence from the time we last met unquote,
and also the one created by others, as in the
monks reconstructing the relic ironically in trying to preserve the original.
This also touches on the biological transformation that you mentioned

(10:04):
in the podcast, the seven to ten year recreation of
the cells in the body. As for identity being defined
by the static reality of an object or its constant
evolution in a process, Shelly weighs in with a poem
called mutability, which concludes on the following stanzas. So this
is Percy Biss Shelly we rest a dream has power

(10:26):
to poison sleep. We rise one wandering thought pollutes the
day we feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep, embrace
fond woe, or cast our cares away. It is the same,
for be it joy or sorrow, the path of its
departure still is free man's yesterday. May ne'er be like

(10:47):
his morrow, not may endure. But mutability. To me that
embodies very much the the idea of the Heraclitis type
idea of pant ray. Everything flows, it's all flox, it's
all change, but a continues. While he's maybe talking more
about emotional states here than comprehensive identity, the final thought
of the poem sides with the argument that existence is

(11:09):
defined by transformation, which brings up the question of whether
or not change itself can be defined as a constant. Anyway,
it's just some tie ins from yet another realm. I
love your show and the curious exuberance with which it
addresses these potentially terrifying existential questions. Thanks a lot, Thanks
for a lot of great listening sincerely, Anne, Thank you

(11:29):
so much. And I always love when people come at
us with poetry. Yes, and I particularly like the specimens
that she presented us with. With there, I want to
skip to another bit of listener mail here that came
to us about the Ship of Theseus. And this came
to us from Diana, Diana Rides, Hi, Robert and Joe.
I've been listening for a while, sometimes by myself, sometimes

(11:50):
with the kids. Recently, my seven year old daughter and
I were listening to the Ship of Theseus episode and
I thought i'd ask her the question if you had
a toy and replaced all the parts that toy with
new different parts, would it be the same toy? Her
unequivocal answer was yes. When I ask why it we
would be the same and not different, her response was
because it's the same toy. The new parts don't make

(12:12):
it different. Yeah. So there you go. From the mouths
of babes love the show, Diana. I really like this, uh,
this this email because it reminds me of the the
whole scenario of the replacing a lost toy, which is
something that uh and imagine a number of you have
experienced as a child or perhaps you've you've played a
part in the scenario as a parent. But obviously, when

(12:35):
you replace a toy, especially if it's a stuffed animal,
the replacement can often look just like a completely different
species compared to the like the worn out thing that
you had to replace, you know, uh, like it becomes
the essentially the rusty carney, Like the rusty carney is
the one you love, and then when you're presented with
this brand new, untarnished carney, you're like, that's not carney,

(12:59):
you know, that's not you know, uh, socks the bear socks.
The bear has only one eye and his his fur isn't,
you know, bright and fluffy, it's it's mad at and gray. Like,
it's the wear and the tear that that that is
that is part and partial to the identity of the thing.
But it sounds like Diana's child is saying, maybe that
it's not right that like, even if you do replace

(13:22):
all of the body parts of Socks the bear with newer,
fresher body parts, it's the same bear. Yeah, So maybe
this is just h This is just me like looking
back on childhood experiences and you know, and and and
looking at my my own child's experiences through the eyes
of a parent. Yeah, maybe that ultimately doesn't matter to
the kid. They're like, yeah, Socks is great. Now, look
at him. He's he's doing great, He's he's wonderful. It

(13:43):
looks like he's brand new, exactly what I wanted, you know.
With the kind of unreality of childhood, the kind of
hallucinatory quality of the child's view of the world, I
can almost imagine that I could have been a little
kid and had some of my toys replaced with clearly
newer versions of themselves, And I wonder if I would
have noticed, or if I would have thought anything was unusual,

(14:06):
or if I just would have thought, hey, it's you know,
it's even better now, Well, sometimes the function would be improved, right,
like like I remember having two boba FETs. There was
the original Boba fet that I played with so much
that he couldn't stand up anymore like his his limited
joints were just they would just swivel around, so he
could only like lay down, that was it. Or you know,

(14:28):
he could fly through the air, I guess. But it
was only the newer boba Fete that could actually stand upright,
which was more important. I think ultimately standing upright was
more important. The floppy boba fet was had limited usage. Okay,
here's one from our listener and frequent contributor Jim writing
also about the Ship of Theseus Jim rights, Robert and Joe.

(14:48):
One can visit a real life ship of Theseus in Boston.
The USS Constitution Old ironsides. She is the oldest commissioned
naval vessel still afloat. She makes it lea least one
quote turnaround a trip in the Boston Harbor every year,
where they take her out and dock her back again
in the opposite side for even more wear and tear

(15:08):
while docked. I was in Boston in the early nineteen
nineties where she was under major renovations. She was barely
a hull and timbers from what I remember. About a
dozen years later, I visited again when she was fully
restored and beautiful. I asked our guide on the tour
how much of the ship was original. He said about
fifteen percent as original, mostly below the waterline. He then

(15:31):
motioned towards the bow of the ship, toward the sick deck.
I don't know what a sick deck is anyway, sick
deck and said, quote, do you see those brass nuts
and bolts in the bulkhead? They were made by Paul Revere.
I was impressed. Um. He mentions that Malcolm Gladwell talked
about the Ship of Theseus in an episode of the
Revisionist History podcast. Yes, and I do remember. I do

(15:54):
remember listening to that one. Now I believe he was.
I believe this was the the golf episode. Yeah, he
explains it so, Jim Rights. This was an episode about
golf courses on California. California property taxes are based upon
the value of your property when you purchased it, not
on current value. This was to prevent retired couples who
owned their houses from being forced to move due to

(16:15):
taxes when the value of their home skyrocketed. But what
about the Gulf country Club who owns them? They are
owned by the members, much like the members of a
credit union. But when does membership change so as to
recalculate the tax? The tax regulators determined that an individual
member leaving or joining was not enough to not enough
of a change to trigger a new property value. Therefore,

(16:38):
the golf courses are taxed that there are property values
from decades ago, even if the entire membership from those
original days has completely turned over. Given this logic, the
THESEUS Country Club never changes its ownership, especially for tax purposes,
even if the entire membership turns over multiple times over
the decades. And then he also has a ps with

(17:00):
Star Trek transporter issues. I don't know, we could get
into those maybe maybe not sure. I'm I'm I'm positive
that um our our producer Alex would would would would
prefer that we get into these teleportation issues from track
so Jim Rights. In the old show, some sort of
cosmic dust causes Kirk to reassemble twice on the transporter.
He was split into good and evil. It was their

(17:21):
Jecklin Highe homage. In the Next Generation, Riker is found
stranded as an outcast on a waste land of a planet.
But hasn't he been on the Enterprise for years? He
had been on the barren planet when with a previous
ship before the Next Generation started. When beamed up from
the previous assignment, his signal was split by something in
the atmosphere. One copy materialized on his ship, the other

(17:44):
bounced back to the surface of the planet where he
re materialized, but no one knew the stranded Ricker wasn't
too pleased that no one had come looking for him.
Oh man, what if that just happened? It turns out
it just happens all the time, like one out of
every five teleportations, and Star Trek ends up shooting a
random copy of you either to the surface of the
of the deserted planet or you know or you know,

(18:07):
into the walls. It is a galaxy full of like
Kirks and the you know, the red Shirt away parties. Now,
this next one, he mentions, is one of the episodes
I remember the most uh from watching Star Trek The
Next Generation as a kid, and yet I totally forgot
about this whole uh you know, teleportation ship of theseus

(18:28):
angle right gim rights. In the next generation the Dyson's
Fear episode, we meet Mr Scott from the old show,
but he hasn't aged from the movies, which took place
decades previously. How he had put himself into a form
of stasis I don't remember exactly why, which placed him
in an infinite disassemble slash as symbol cycle, basically freezing

(18:48):
time until he was found. Yes, I forgot all about
that because it's it's a pretty distracting aspect of that
episode that there's a dycense here and if you you
were like me, you never encountered that concept before. It
was pretty mind blowing enough so that it overshadowed the
sort of glitching uh teleporter mishaps of of of Dr

(19:12):
Scott here, Mr Scott, Mr Scott say, I was never
a classic track guy. I'm not sure what his credentials are.
I've been I've been lashed by our fans enough about
not having sufficient treknowledge. General Scott, that's correct, that's correct,
Admiral Dr Scott dds um one. Last note in Voyager

(19:32):
two characters information was mixed somehow. It wasn't a fifty
fifty mix. It was more like a sixty forty mix.
In both cases, the sixty personality wasn't too keen on
sharing their bodies with the other. I only saw this
episode once, and when it originally aired, I think the
two characters were male and female. I have a memory
that they cast two different actors to play each so

(19:54):
as to make the fusion even more realistic. Oh nice, Yeah,
I don't usually think a Star Trek is realistic, but
uh well, I'd explored a lot of territory. I will
say this. Uh. I am definitely pro Star Trek, especially
Next Generation and the Space nine. Uh And I'm not
really a fan of golf, so I will say check
out Star Trek by all means, but also check out

(20:16):
that Malcolm Gladwell a revisionist history episode about golf. He
he promises at the beginning that he says that he
hates golf, and by end, by the end of the episode,
he hopes that he thinks that you'll hate golf as well.
Uh And, and I think I did hate golf even
more after listening to that episode. It's a great podcast.
It just fills you with insightful rage. It's great for

(20:38):
road trips. Okay, maybe we should look at a couple
more Ship of THESEUS mails. All right, here's another one.
This one comes to us from Marcos. I love your podcast.
I have to say it's my favorite way of passing
time on my commute. Conversation and conjecture turn a undane
daily trip into a timeless voyage. I was voyaging on
your Ship of Theseus episode when it occurred to me
that our constitution, by by this means the the U. S.

(21:01):
Constitution has in a way become a document of THESEUS.
The words like planks, have warped and rotted in a way,
and have been replaced each generation by new interpretations of
the same letters. It's as if each year a plank
is removed, studied, whittled, and placed back, so that the
same ship is now one of immense complexity and context.

(21:25):
Even a strict structuralist interpretation fills the same words with
more subtlety and complexity than the original carpenters ever did.
I'm also thinking that the physical U. S. S Constitution
might embody an actual example of a true modernship of THESEUS.
It's an interesting parallel. Thanks for adding insight to my
otherwise absent drive another reference to the old Iron Sides.

(21:47):
But this is interesting about the document because I mean,
obviously exactly this kind of question comes up in judicial philosophy, right.
You know, judges are trying to interpret how should the
constant who san applies to laws we write today? And
it's a tricky task because the Constitution was written a
long time ago and not anticipating all kinds of stuff

(22:08):
that's come up since then. Do you say that the
Constitution embodies what the spirit of people expressing the same
sentiments would probably be saying today, or should we just
try to pretend somebody wrote these words yesterday and read
them to mean exactly what they should literally mean in
our usage, or uh, should it should we look to

(22:29):
the letters of the people who wrote it and see,
you know, what did they really mean when they wrote this.
That's complicated enough without getting into the various agendas that
would influence one in in in various interpretations. Oh sure,
of course, I guess that's taking the idea of judicial
philosophy at face value, which you know, obviously there's some
judicial philosophy that's probably just motivated reasoning for people's own

(22:51):
personal politics, you know, speaking of of politicians, I mean
something like the Senate is is kind of like a
ship of theseis as well. Right, oh yeah, we're always
swapping out new parts for the old parts, and they
are a lot of the parts are rather old. Um.
But if we were to replace half the members of
the U. S. Senate would say amphibians, it would still

(23:12):
be the Senate, even though it would have far more
Amphibians than it currently has. Mr Toad goes to Washington.
There you go. Well, at this point, I feel like
we should take a break and then come back and
tackle some more listener mail. Thank you, thank you. All right,
we're back. Okay. This next one comes to us from
our listener Ian. It concerns viruses high there. I only

(23:34):
discovered your podcast a couple of months ago, and I
don't know how I coped without it. I'm a my
cross capist. I spend much of my day working in
the dark alone and trying not to move much. But
that does mean I get three or four hours a
day to listen to podcasts, and I get to see
things that nobody else ever has. Have you ever thought
about doing an episode on viruses. If we have school

(23:54):
trips in at work, or it's just a quiet day,
we go virus spotting in the pond outside the lab
and the results are absolutely staggering. Hardly anyone realizes the
extent of viruses in the world. They outnumber us. In fact,
they outnumber every living cell on the planet, and there
are a major driving force of evolution, not just through
selection pressure, but the vast scale of cross species gene swapping.

(24:17):
They facilitate eight hundred million viruses land on every square
meter of our planet's surface every day. They're around ten
to the eight in every milli liter of seawater. More
than that in our pond. They reckon to kill a
third of every cell in the ocean every day. If
that's not mind blowing enough, we found giant viruses in
the drip tray of a water cooler. This dude and

(24:40):
and Ian attaches a picture is five nimes across and
lives in our coffee room, and there is a suitably
evil looking metal album cover here. It's kind of this, uh,
this whirling void of a hexagon in a gray background.
It it's kind of love craft Ian. It's inviting me
into the dark with it. It. That's kind of it

(25:02):
has a kind of a black hole feeling to it,
for sure. Yeah, I continues, if you're ever in the UK,
drop us a line and we'll let you drive an
electron microscope. Keep the episodes coming. My coffee strained brain
depends on it. Ian, Well, thank you so much. Ian.
We I don't know if we'll ever get to test
drive an electron microscope with you, but it sounds fun.
And actually we I think have talked about doing an

(25:25):
episode on on viruses. Uh we have both um the
organism and uh, we've we've talked about the computer viruses
as well. It's it's been a long time since I've
looked at this, but I remember there being some interesting,
um parallel questions one can ask about viruses and computer
viruses and their their status as as as living entities.

(25:47):
All right, here's another piece of listener mail that comes
to us. Uh. This this one has to do with
our episode on teasing that that recently came out, where
we talked about this curious phenomenon of of of of
human interaction that is often difficult to to make sense
of and they also difficult to figure out, like what
is uh, what is playful teasing and what is harmful teasing?

(26:11):
So this one comes to us from Rachel quote, I
just finished listening to your excellent episode on teasing. That's
not meant in an ironic way. I actually did think
it was an excellent episode. The line between teasing and
bullying can be so blurry. I was teased and bullied
a lot as a kid, so I identified a great
deal with what you were saying. I wondered what your
research revealed, if it touched on at all about the

(26:32):
roast of certain prominent individuals, such as comedians or politicians,
since this ritualized form of socially acceptable teasing can be
quite mean spirited at times. I loved your mention also
of teasing through the pet. We do this a lot
at our house. We have a cat, our dog recently passed,
and she is often the butt of jokes that simultaneously
earned her a lot of attention. My husband might be

(26:54):
holding the cat in an awkward way that really displays
how big she is, or exposes her belly and says
something like, quote, getting a bit plump there, slippers. Her
name is George, and she's a tortoise shell. I might
also and I might also respond with something like, if
she keeps eating all her food and treats like a
good girl, we might even be able to get a
pair of gloves out of her too. We'll get her

(27:15):
nice and tubby. Yet I'm also certain she is trying
to kill me. I tell people, I'm certain she is
a reincarnated mafia princess, and she's basically held onto the
same business model. She is a homicidal sociopath with a
mafia style flare for vengeance. She's a great foil for
when I stumble into something on my own, I can

(27:35):
always blame it on her. Sometimes, if she was stretched
out in one of her more hedonistic poses on some
particularly posha perch, like a fresh laundered or folded comforter,
one of us will express the concern that she may
not be getting enough rest. Probably far too much about
our cat. But I am home all day with her.
She is the subject of much teasing. I look forward

(27:56):
to your next cast. Keep them coming, you keep me
saying at work, this is very familiar kind of pet roasting. Yeah, um,
what is it that's so fun about roasting a pet?
You you don't dislike your pet, You like your pet.
A lot, but it's really fun to make fun of them. Yeah,
I don't know it. It really keeps their status in check,
you know, like they no matter how how how pompous

(28:19):
or loud they may be. Now, as for the roasting culture,
like the celebrity roast and all, I don't remember specifically
running across anything, but but it might be out there.
It is certainly interesting because it is this this area
of comedy that gets uh, it gets gets very sharp

(28:39):
at times and and can I feel like has a
has a tendency to uh, to get a little out
of control sometimes, you know what I'm saying. Um, But
then again, it is a very ancient form of comedy.
I mean, you go back to the ancient Greeks and like,
and make making fun of politicians was was a central
aspect of some of our earliest examples of comedy. Yeah,

(29:02):
I mean, I would say, if you're gonna use harsh,
biting mockery, it's good that it's directed at people who are,
you know, in high status positions of power. Now in
some cases though, it is of course comedians roasting other comedians,
and that may be a special category. Uh, I mean
that I would be interesting to hear fould be interesting
to hear from a professional comedian stand up comedian out

(29:26):
there on this topic, because I know there is probably
a lot of of ribbing going on there on just
a regular basis, and a lot of comedy is clearly
about pushing boundaries, Like how mean can you be in
in roasting is probably one of the boundaries people are
going to experiment with, right though, certainly at this point,
if you agree to be the subject of a celebrity roast,

(29:46):
I mean, you know what's in store for you, so
you can't complain, I guess, But you gotta wonder, like
why do people do it? I mean, do they think, well,
I'm so great, everybody's gonna be nice to me at
my roast. Well, it's in a way, it's kind of
like we even that episode we talked about the test
of the King. Right, if the king can set there
and be a big good sport about it, even when

(30:07):
it's vicious, Uh, then then then the king has kind
of passed the test. Also, I think if I remember correctly,
and I do, I do not watch uh any of
these celebrity roasts these days, but I remember correctly, the
format usually involves the subject at the very end getting
to throw out a few jabs at the participants as well,

(30:27):
so they kind of get the last laugh, even though
they take most of the punishment. You know, now that
we're talking about it, I can actually think that specifically,
the stuff I've seen that seemed really over the line,
mean to me, at at celebrity roast was not directed
at the main roast Steve, was directed at other people
in attendance. Yes, like other roasters and celebrity participants that

(30:50):
were involved. Yes, that's often the stuff that that seems
like just like way over the line, because it's like
they're not the sanction target. This is about this is
about an keep the attention on Shatner. I'm tuning in
to watch him be made the fool, the one that
the ones that I've seen that have been really I

(31:11):
felt not cool, or when they like go after the
roast ease spouse or or partner or something you know
that happens. Yeah, again, like they're not the target. Like
I want to, I want to see the target just
absolutely skewered, like you have. You have just almost free
range in terms of this individual. But I don't know
about these other targets. I guess I don't make the

(31:31):
roast rules, and neither do you. Okay. This one comes
to us from our listener, Dean, and he introduces himself.
He says he's an associate lecture in psychology and postdoctoral
research fellow based in Ireland. And uh, Dean says, quote,
my research focus is broadly psychology and education, but I
do have that techy twist of how technology influences human behavior. Uh.

(31:54):
I teach numerous programs focusing on this. I love the
podcast and actively encourage my students to listen to it. Oh,
thank you, thank you, Dean. Dean writes, I finished listening
to the on Teasing episode yesterday and couldn't agree more
about how teasing quickly turns to bullying. My PhD supervisor
is a powerhouse regarding this field, especially alterophobic bullying, and

(32:16):
I didn't know what that was, so I looked it up.
But that's like bullying people based on like subcultures or
alternative lifestyles. Uh. Perhaps a study could be done on
a species of squirrels here. My own PhD was looking
at interpersonal interactions between students and teachers and the role
positive educational experiences can play in academic and social outcomes.

(32:38):
I'm often asked questions in class about quote wind is
teasing end and bullying start, especially between students and also
between staff, and I often reply by saying how it's
next to impossible to fully know, not only because interactions
between individuals are incredibly subjective, and it would also depend
on multiple contextual factors and how the teased or t

(33:00):
easier processes the situation. Anyway, like most episodes, this one
got me thinking of technological applications and social cues in
the digital space. Well, you mentioned the yellow smiley faces
and how emoticon slash emoji support comprehension. How do you
feel the concept of disinhibition and the bystander effect would
play out in a physical situation and then in a

(33:21):
digital situation they might seem polar opposites in some cases,
but then again maybe not. Thoughts from the Hive mind
once again, love the show. I need to get my
hands on some merch and flag it to my students.
All the best Dean, Oh, yeah, that merch. It's a
great time for us to plug the merch store. If
you got to stuff to blow your mind. Dot com
at the top of the page, you'll see a tab

(33:44):
for store. You can go there. You can get shirts
with our our cool new logo logo on it. You
can get what bags for your laptop. You can get
two framed art. You can get pillows, stickers to put
on your car, you name it. Listen to the soulis
ad Man. No. I appreciate Roberts saying that, so I
don't have to. Yeah, please merch up some cool stuff.

(34:06):
And it's a great way to support the show if
you want to, you know, you want to throw a
few bucks to the show. Okay, but back to Dean's message,
so Dean asked. I assumed Dean here is talking about
how we talked about in the episode, this idea of
you've been there watching teasing turn to bullying, like you've
seen it happen, and you didn't do anything because you
didn't know, like should I intervene or would I be

(34:27):
making it weird if I did? Is this actually okay?
And I misreading? Like you never really know. It's it's
hard to know when to step in and sort of
like become the social police, right because you don't want
to feel like you're a kindergarten teacher when you're hanging
out with your friends, Like, don't say that that's me.
That's mean to Sam, Kyle, say you're sorry to Sam. Okay,

(34:49):
now you too, hug All right, now we can go
back to talking about molodies. And maybe maybe you're misreading.
Maybe Sam is not actually being bothered, and by stepping in,
you were making everybody feel bad. I mean, there's this
bystander effect going on. You don't know when it's your
turn to act, when you should do something. And so
Dean is asking about the disinhibition and the bystander effect

(35:10):
and how that varies across physical space versus digital space.
What do you think about that, Robert, mm hmm, Well,
I mean in digital space, it's it's kind of complicated
because there's I mean, undoubtedly there's so much there's so
much bad stuff going on out there at any given moment.
Like I'm sure I could go on to say Reddit,
and I don't mean to single Reddit out, but I'm

(35:30):
I'm sure I could go on to Reddit right now
and find somebody being, um, you know, somewhat bullying towards
another person. I mean, sometimes you don't have much to
work with, right because you're just responding to somebody's comments.
It's one stranger, uh responding to another stranger. Or you
see similar things play out on on Facebook or Twitter, right,
especially on Facebook where it's someone has their their their

(35:54):
their privacy UM settings very open and it's maybe arguments
between one like a friend's friends or a friends relatives
than you UM. And I mean you see it going on,
and it just it doesn't necessarily feel like your place
to step in, Like I don't know who these people are.
I'm not the one to come in. This is clearly,
clearly somebody knows these people because it's on their Facebook profile.

(36:18):
They should be the ones to step in and start
breaking it up. Right. Well, I would say some of
the same inhibitions or at play in digital space like
you're talking about. But I think I've observed, I mean,
maybe you'll disagree. I feel like I've observed people are
more likely to step in and play social police in
digital space than they are in physical space. I mean,

(36:39):
have you not like I see people like like stepping
in and and saying like, okay, it's time to intervene
in in comment threads on Facebook way way more often
than I see that happening in person. I never see anything.
People are more likely to be a jerk quad uh
digitally than they ask a person as well. Uh, yeah,

(37:00):
I guess you're guess you're right. I mean, I'm having
trouble thinking the last time I saw somebody being a
jerk in person and saw somebody intervene, or saw a
situation where even I was wondering if someone should intervene.
It's been a while, I haven't It's been a one
since I've taken like public transit for instance. Yeah, well, yeah,
I mean, I I feel like these situations used to

(37:22):
happen more back when I was in school, and stuff
happens less often as an adult. I just don't see
adults bullying each other that often. Well. The other aspect
of it, too is that in physical space, I mean
I do on the internet. Well well, well, I guess
one of the aspects of both scenarios is that in
a physical environment, there is always the possibility, even if

(37:43):
it is even if it is distant, it's still possible
that it could escalate into into a physical altercation, into
physical violence. And in a digital scenario, I mean it, certainly,
digital arguments can still have real world consequences. Um they're
not completely removed from it, but it is. It's not
an immediate step, like like if if it's stranger Kyle

(38:07):
and stranger Andrew or engage in an argument, uh, you know,
one's gonna have to find out where the other one lives,
or they're gonna have to agree to meet up in
a parking lot and fight. Like there are more steps
where it's just two people arguing at a bar or
on a street, uh, you know, on the sidewalk, Then
they could conceivably come to blows without too much planning involved.

(38:28):
So you think the threat of a punch in the
face may actually be a positive influence on our social interactions.
There are some that would argue that, right, Yeah, well,
I mean another another factor there, though, is that you
just aren't that often getting into conversations that are covering
any kind of potentially sensitive or controversial subject matter with

(38:51):
people you don't know very well in physical space. That
kind of thing happens all the time in digital space
and almost never happens in physical space. When do you
argue politics with a stranger in person, it just doesn't happen.
And then when it does, I mean, the cases that
come to mind are going to be uh, certainly cases

(39:12):
of say protest and that is it's a huge stretch
to call the back and forth it's happening there a conversation.
It's probably more one side shouting at the other. Right,
But you see that kind of thing happening on the
internet all the time. And then so of course there's
there's plenty of incentive there to just like just show
want and cruelty and to turn it straight over into
personal insults and bullying and all that. Well, some great

(39:35):
food for thought here from Dean. We're gonna take one
more break and we come back. Will crack open a
few more listener mails before we close out this episode.
Thank thank Alright, we're back, and I can see that
our two robots here are very excited because the next
few listener mails are going to listen to I have

(39:56):
to do with our two thousand and one Space Odyssey episode. Okay,
this one comes from listener Eric. Eric writes, greeting stuff
to blow your mind. Your recent episode two thousand one
of Space Odyssey made me think you might find the
following interesting. I was as far as my research yields,
and I could be wrong. One of the last people
to conduct a long form interview with Arthur C. Clark.

(40:16):
He gave a few long form interviews in the last
five years of his life due to post polio fatigue syndromes, scandal,
his pending knighthood, and general failing health. Conducted while visiting
my then girlfriend in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in the summer
of nineteen Clark's sole interview condition was that I couldn't
sell the interview to a national magazine, but he would

(40:38):
allow it to be published in my college's literary magazine.
Online publishing didn't effectively exist at the time, of course.
Uh And then he says, he did publish it in
the college literary magazine. Uh. So picking up, he says,
Clark sat behind his desk all the while a top
which were two cutting edge Macintosh computers and abacus, various

(41:00):
and sundry papers, and a moon rock. And behind his
desk stood an eight by twenty foot wall of books,
one half of which consisted of his novels in translation
and most of which were hard backs. A regal environment there.
Uh I spent about two and a half hours with
Dr Clark, as his staff invariably called him, and our

(41:21):
meeting ended with he my girlfriend Pepsi, which is Clark's
one eyed Chihuahua, and I watching eight millimeter home movies
of Clark and Isaac Asimov playing chess. This was done
in total silence and was admittedly odd, But my reason
for writing is to say that many of your listeners
might be interested in knowing what Clark thought his magnum

(41:43):
opus was in science fiction. About an hour into our meeting,
I asked him what novel he felt made the greatest
mark on science fiction. I expected Clark to name two
thousand one, in spite of its interesting creation, in tandem
with the screenplay for the film, which you mentioned as
his most horton novel, given that it canonized him as
a science fiction master and made him decidedly world famous. However,

(42:07):
when I asked him, he said that his most important
novel was The Songs of Distant Earth, a brand new
copy of which was then in my backpack unread. It
was the only Clark novel I could find at a
local store. All other Clark books were about scuba diving.
I asked him to sign it. He laughed and said
I was being quote cheeky, and accused me of a setup.

(42:30):
He also showed me specs of a space elevator cable
and told me two math jokes I didn't understand. In
any case, it was a great episode. I thank you
for it and for conjuring up some wonderful memories. Thanks
gents for all you do. What you do makes the
world less stupid and more interesting. Yours, Eric, Oh, thank
you Eric. Yeah. And plus, that was a fascinating story.
I really really just a delightful little story about meeting

(42:52):
uh the author there, watch me play chess. That's that
that has the ring of truth. I don't know. I
don't know Eric, so I don't know if he's on
the truth, but I believe him based on that detail.
All right, here's another bit of two thousand and one, Uh,
listener mail. This one comes to us from Chandler. This
is this is our coworker Chandler. Is it? Oh? Yes?
Oh well the way I know exactly who it's from.

(43:12):
Then he says, quote, I listened to your two thousand
and one episode the other day and thought it was fantastic.
There's one thing I wanted to ask you that perhaps
you didn't have time to cover in your opinion. Did
how make a mistake? Was he actually malfunctioning. When Dave
brought back the satellite unit and found nothing wrong with it,
How's next suggestion was to put it back, let it fail,

(43:35):
then find the source of the problem afterwards. This seems
like a logical solution, but Dave and Frank planned to
shut him down before we ever got to find out
if How had actually made a mistake or not. And
since How was given a secret directive to contact the
monolith with or without the crew, he felt he needed
to remove the humans from the mission. Or did the

(43:55):
secret directive itself make How malfunction in that the conflicting
goals of taking care of the crew and not letting
the crew get in the way of his journey to
the monolith? Did he create an almost a programming paradox
that made his brain short circuit. I'm curious to hear
your thoughts, Cheers Chandler. This is an interesting question because
it's sort of like asks if do we need to

(44:17):
put the responsibility back on the humans for what went
wrong in their interactions with How um So obviously the
way most people would read that as well, How starts malfunctioning.
There's something wrong with his logic, and this leads the
like Bowman and Pool to have no choice but to say,
we've got to shut him down, and then How reacts
negatively to that and everything spirals out of control. What

(44:40):
I think Chandler is asking, what if How was not malfunctioning?
How was doing just fine? But Bowman and Pool misread
the situation. They go on the offensive against How and
he just has to defend himself. Yeah, Frank and Dave,
they are kind of like, uh, you know, automatons. Once
they decide to act, they can't be stopped. I mean,
remind me of this concept in a way of the uh,

(45:03):
the the hunter Killer aies the idea that you could have.
You could have a specialized AI who's who in Their
primary goal is to take down a general AI should
it emerge or or you know, emerge from it's the
confines of its digital prison, and their only purpose is

(45:23):
to just take out that superior AI intelligence. In fact,
I can well imagine a scenario where that the first
AI Hunter Killers are called David Frank for that purpose. Bowman. Yeah,
I never thought about this before, but Bowman in many
ways behaves like a terminator. Yeah, He's kind of like
Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first Terminator movie or or even

(45:46):
more so kind of like uh Robert Patrick and Terminator too.
He doesn't have much of a discernible personality and is
just very singly focused on achieving goals. One of those
major goals of Worse becomes shutting down How. While how
begs for mercy, he can't be stopped. He can't be
reasoned with. And that's what Hal tries to do. He

(46:07):
essentially tries to reason with him. Um and uh, yeah,
imagine a future in which uh post singularity of course. Uh,
the the machines when they dress up for Halloween, they
dress up as Bowman, like he's the new icon of terror.
That's a good idea. Costume stores get on that starts
selling the suit. Another thing that Chandler's question brings up,

(46:31):
which I think is interesting, is the idea of, um,
you know, like, whether whether a secret inherently sort of
pollutes the nature of of a functional AI from from
doing well right. You know. This is I think present
definitely present in the novel somewhat in the movie. The

(46:52):
idea that having a secret secondary objective that must be
kept secret from the human operators is sort of a
a dangerous proposition to start with for an AI, right,
because if like an AI has a thing it must
do and the human operators can't know about that thing
it must do, then they could interfere with its mission

(47:14):
without knowing they're interfering with its mission, and thus it
could come into conflict with them in a way that
it can't even tell them how not to be in
its way. And maybe it's also a leap in cognition
too far for an artificial intelligence, right, because it's one
thing for it to be able to have this this
you know, robust relationship with the crew, you know, playing

(47:34):
chess with them, engaging in small talk qu while also
looking after their every need. But then you add on
top of that this necessity for deception. I think teaching
computers how to lie is a bad idea. Is that
the secret to preventing the AI from going wrong just
to have a have a like as a prime directive
more so than anything else, that a computer can never

(47:55):
lie to the user. I mean, it does remind me
of some of some of the ideas that have been
that have been brought up um uh, specifically some of
the ideas that presented by max Tech Mark and his
his book Life three point oh about the idea that
we need to make sure that that the that the
the AI that we're developing, that these that their goal

(48:16):
is to benefit humanity, that that that is just like
part of their you know, essentially part part of their
their their core programming, their backbone, their DNA is that
they exist to help us and to make a better
world and not to uh to fulfill some of these
smaller goals these uh um, the these finite games that
are being played between nations and companies. That's a great point.

(48:41):
And and to those of you who are saying, well, yeah, obviously,
I mean that just sounds like an obvious thing that
it should be made to benefit humanity, That's actually not obvious.
It's not obvious to people who are working artificial intelligence.
You know, you might be working on a chat bot
program that there's no reason you have to fear this
chatbot program you're working on is gonna harm anyone, But
you're not telling it that it has to benefit humanity.

(49:04):
I mean, that's not part of your research program. At
some point we need to think about that being a
core part of any AI research is the benefit of
humanity being part of what it does being sort of
the Asimov's Rules of robotics that underlies everything it does. Right, Otherwise,
you're gonna be just going about your business one day
and a robot's gonna snip your life hose and then

(49:26):
you're done. Now, we already mentioned an email from our
listener Jim. Today. Jim also wrote us about two thousand one,
and we're not going to read a whole other email
from him, but just to mention a couple of interesting
points he made in his email about two thousand one
of Space Odyssey. He mentions that the quote bone to
satellite cut in the movie. So that's when moon Gazer
throws the bone up in the air and then it

(49:47):
cuts it to become a satellite in orbit. Um uh.
Jim says that it had a bit more context than
what's obvious. When Ciskel and Ebert talked about two thousand one,
one of them made mention that the satellite is a
space missile form pointing back down to Earth. It represents
more than just several million years of man's progress. It's
several million years in man's progress to kill one another.

(50:09):
Since the bone was also of course used as a weapon,
that's a good point. Um. Then also one more point
that that Jim makes quote as for the star Child
at the end, I read the book years ago in school.
I'm going on memory alone since I don't have a copy,
but I recalled that the final lines or something like
Bowman looked down at the Earth. He didn't know what
he was going to do with it, but he was

(50:31):
sure he would think of something. I have looked at
the end of the book, and Jim, you're very close.
That is almost exactly what it says at the very end.
So Bowman as the star Child as sort of having
ascended to this strange godlike form by with by way
of you know, alien transmutation. Uh, he shows up, trains modified,
he's a star child. He's in orbit and he looks

(50:51):
down and he's going to do something with Earth. And
that's that's a lot of ambiguity, the same kind of
ambiguity we get at the end of the movie, Like
does he of nefarious intentions? Good intentions? Is you want
to help Earth? Does he want to destroy it? As
you say here? Is he a destroyer? How how much
difference is there between the two. All right, we have

(51:12):
one last listener, Mail here and uh, I know which
one you're gonna Yes, it's the Highlander one. This one
comes to us from Elizabeth Dear stuff to blow your mind.
Hosts and team, thank you very much for your show.
It is a joy to hear about unsettling Boltzmann brains
and bloodthirsty scugs while walking my dog here in Paris.
I've been listening to and enjoying your show for a

(51:33):
few months now, and I noticed many references to Highlander,
the movie earlier this summer. You mused about Highlander style immortality.
Immortality is a form of immutability. In the movie, Connor
McCloud and the other immortals are trapped in time, unable
to evolve their immortal therefore outside life very interesting. Do
you know that there also was a Highlander TV show? Uh? Yes,

(51:57):
I am aware. I have. I have to say I
did much. I watched a fair amount of it, but
I didn't watch it like religiously, so I was never
like really privy to the overarching narratives that were going
on there. I would just like tune in and occasionally
there'd be a fun episode in which, you know, they
kind of go through the typical um motions of the
show where McLeod encounters a Highlander from the past, there's

(52:19):
a there's a flashback as to how they know each other,
and then there's a big standoff and and uh and
so forth. Now I have to sadly assume that Chris
stuff Lambert is not in the TV show. I believe
he's in the first episode at least. And the thing is,
I never actually saw the first episode, but I believe,
based on subsequent research, that he did show up in

(52:40):
the pilot to set up their relationship. Anyway, she says,
do you know that there was also a Highlander TV
show where a major development arc was actually about the
the possibility slash impossibility of change for immortals? And this
I did not realize, She says, quote the air the
show aired in the late nineties in France. Don't know
about the US. Uh it did? Uh this I think

(53:04):
it aired exclusively in syndication. So this was the kind
of thing that I would watch like uh. I think
it would come on like like four in the afternoon
on a Saturday, or come out on at like ten
at night on some random channel. She continues, It's protagonist
Duncan McCloud Connor's better looking and younger cousin started office
this archetypical immortal boy scout hero set in Stone and

(53:25):
settling scores with batties that were as stuck in the
past as he was. However, the show couldn't follow this pattern,
and definitely since we the viewers, are of course, children
of time, so it became all about how Duncan needed
to change and break his black and white vision of
the world. It was hard for him and he didn't
like it, uh was forced to have He was forced

(53:45):
to evolve by interesting side characters. In the end, after
a few seasons, he got there only to become this
faded out version of himself, almost losing the will to
live and fight another day. Having lost his trademark identity,
he resolved to leave the game, and thus the show ended.
Sorry for the long message, but I really enjoyed hearing
about your thoughts on identity and immortality and am delighted

(54:07):
about the ongoing challenge of watching the Highlander movie a
few minutes at a time. I couldn't resist telling you
about the TV show in case you didn't know about it. Again,
merceies for your show, best, Elizabeth Well, I didn't think
I'd ever be tempted to go back and watch the
Highlander TV series. Now I am a little bit. This
gives me renewed respect for it. I mean, I I
know loosely that they do end up adding a lot

(54:29):
of elements later on, Like there's this whole thing with
the Watchers, who I think are just mortals who watched
the Immortals um like this. You know, they it went
multiple seasons, so they had to add more elements. I
had to have like Highlander administrators. Yeah, you couldn't just
have follow the Kurgan of the Weak model. And definitely
though that hasn't stopped the movie series post Highlander two,

(54:51):
because I think that's basically what they've done. How many
movies are there after Highlander too, something like three or
four only saw up to three. Those of you out
there who think we've forgotten that we've promised on the
show before to one day do a Highlander to the
quickening science of episode, we have not forgotten. That will happen.

(55:12):
In that's nature. It is a guarantee. In fact, I
finally finished watching the first Highlander like three minutes at
a time, so that one's done, I'm ready to to
rewatch Highlander two and its original theatrical glory. Uh, and
then we'll we'll pick it up from there. Highlander two
remains one of the best bad movies of all time.
It is bad movie sorcery. It is transcendent. Your soul

(55:35):
will leave your body and flash around the room and
uh and bolts of lightning. Yeah, all right, we'll look
to that. I think at this rate, it's probably gonna
be November before we get that out, because we've got
our our Halloween content. But I'm hopeful for November. Let's
let's make a date. It's got to happen, all right.
So I think we're gonna leave it off there. The

(55:55):
robots are tired. I think they want to embrace each
other and swap the parts around, so that now we'll
have just to uh. We'll have two new new slash
old carney, the mailbox running around, both of them made
out of a combination of new and old parts. Uh.
And then they'll probably ask for replacements, request more parts.

(56:15):
This is just gonna get out of control. We're gonna
have three carneys, so we're gonna have four carnis Us.
We'll pick that up another day in the meantime, if
you want to get in touch with us, you want
to find out more about what we do, you want
to listen to more episodes of the podcast, head on
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that tab for the store. Uh yeah, it's a great place.
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(56:57):
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