July 30, 2015 • 48 mins
We've entered a new era of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, so it's time for Robert, Joe and Christian to reboot the mailbot with updated user data. As the former "Arnie" comes back online, your three hosts will answer some recent e-mail and social media missives from you the listener.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, what's the stuff to Blow your Mind?
My name is Robert Lamb. Hey, I'm Christian Seger and
I'm Joe McCormick, and all three of us are in
the same room at the same time. First time. It's
first Yeah, and it's a good time for us all
to get together because the mail bot that we use
(00:25):
on this show has been out of service for a
couple of months now, Old Arnie, Yeah, Arney, We're gonna
have to reboot the robot. We're going to have to
make sure that it imprints on you guys as as
new hosts, because we want to avoid any unnecessary, uh complications. Yeah,
except didn't I hear that We're gonna have to reboot
(00:46):
it under the new name Carney, with the C standing
for Cartesian doubt, the newest feature of the mail bot. Yes, yeah, because, uh,
I mean enough programming has changed on it. It's gonna
reject its old name. I'm not a roboticist. I don't
know the poticulars on it, but but yeah, we need it,
and we also need to make sure that it has
all three of the laws of robotics. Installed this time.
(01:08):
I've heard enough about this around the office that I'm
kind of nervous. I mean, hasn't attacked other podcasts before. Well,
that is why Scott Benjamin had to have all his
limbs sewn back one, that's why. Okay, well then that's
where he got the tail. Well, there were extra pieces
of and it's like ikea, you know, you could assemble it,
(01:28):
there's something missing what you need to you can't put
it back in the box. I'm always afraid to ask him.
You know, he's just a personal guy, doesn't doesn't like
to talk about stuff like that. Yeah, alright, so let's uh,
let's see flip the switch. Okay, Joe, can you get
that one? Yeah? All right, now, Christian can you pull
that back? That metal contraption to the big one? Yeah? Okay, okay, whoa,
(01:48):
what is with this sall blade? Well? Well that's um,
that's a different feature. Okay, push that back in, okay, okay, alright, okay,
Now see this metal flower thing opening up there like
the inside of a you know, the head portion of
an iron Maiden. Why is it presenting us pills? Um?
Those are optional, but you do need to stick your
face into this contraption real quick. This reminds me of
(02:10):
those robots in that movie R Runaways. Oh well that
that's a predecessor. Okay, prototype for Arnie. But hold on,
so you put your face in the flower. Yeah, and
then it's going to imprint, and then we can be
able to actually deliver the listener mail to us and
we can read through some of them. I think you did.
(02:30):
If you think I got to oh wait, didn't do
it again? Well, that's perfect, that's perfect. I'm not putting
my face in that thing. Well you wipe it down first,
the spray. Oh all right, I think they got to. Look,
it's folding up and everything. Uh, seems to be coming online,
(02:51):
all right. Now, we just have to see if Arnie
responds graciously or if it activates its latest Okay, are
you ever going to explain the sol blade or um?
That feature may become necessary later on right now, No,
don't worry about that. All right, there, he is all right,
you're accepted. Arnie seems to be operating, uh more or
(03:14):
less a long design parameters. Carney Carney, Yes, sorry, Carney,
I got your name wrong. All right, Carney, you're online,
bring us some listener mail. What do you got for us? Hey, guys,
I'm a newer listener of HSW and a big fan
of your podcasts and all the HSW shows. You get
me through long, lonely train rides to and from New
York City and where I live in New Jersey. I
(03:36):
just listened to your episode on Stigmata and heard you
reference the wound on the side of Jesus as happening
during his carrying of the cross, which I don't think
was the case. This is this is absolutely accurate. I
got this wrong in the episode. Uh, not being overly
Christian myself, but raised in such a manner with a
Bible hungry aunt that's sounds awful. I have always known
(03:58):
the story different. After my punch and some quick research,
I think the wound was given after he had been
nearly spent. The story. Yeah, the story I know goes
that he had been hanging for hours and hours, long
after typical people who are crucified would live. The Roman
centurion was seen as a do gooder, giving Jesus mercy
(04:18):
and making sure he was dead after his marathon of torture.
The unnamed soldier is also credited with saying, quote, truly,
this is the Son of God. Oh so that's where
that comes from. I didn't know that. Uh, not trying
to step on toes, just a big fan reaching out,
keep up the great work, thanks for reading, Michael. Yeah. Absolutely.
Somebody on Facebook also alerted us to that mistake. On
(04:41):
my part, I believe I somehow had it in my
head that the spear wound was inflicted as he's carrying
the cross to the crucifixion. But yeah, I believe. I
hate to call it canon, but I suppose it is canon.
Is that he was what Michael said, Yeah, I think
it's sort of considered the or the literal reroll it
plays in the narrative is it's the the Kuda gras.
(05:03):
You know, it's the final blow to make sure everybody knows, okay,
he's really, really, actually dead. So it's like it's a
compassionate thing from the way that Michael's making it sound
that the this this soldier didn't want him to suffer
any longer. Um, you know, I don't know if I
ever heard that exact interpretation of it. I always thought
he was doing his job, like so, I don't know
(05:27):
if the gospel narrative is is much No, not necessarily.
I don't think the Gospel narrative is much trying to
get in the head of the Roman soldier. I think
it's more serving the purpose of demonstrating to the reader
that Jesus was really dead, so the reader wouldn't be
wondering like, oh, maybe he wasn't dead, Oh, like he
would pull like a I almost just said a huge
(05:49):
game of thrownes spoiler. I'm going to keep that to myself. Yeah, now,
I I also want to point out Bible hungry aunt
that could be referring to Grimore's talk about individuals who
consider the book in order to gain its power. Maybe
that's what was going on there. All right, Michael, thank
you for writing in with with that little bit of
(06:10):
clarification there. What else do we have to read here? Alright?
So next, it looks like we've got one from Jonathan,
and Jonathan writes in being a member of an older
generation than yourselves, I've just started listening to podcasts, but
have become addicted to stuff to blow your mind. I
was intrigued by your two part podcast on religion and
technology that was Techno Religion for the Masses Parts one
(06:32):
and two, and he's he continues in researching a book.
I came across a very unusual object in the American
Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. It is basically an astrolabe manufactured
in the mid sixteenth century in Germany. The gnomon of
the sundial aspect of the object is a turbaned man,
indicating either the intention or origin as a timetelling in
(06:55):
geolocator device for Muslims. It was brought to America in
the l seventeenth century, probably by a group of German
Pietist mystics, and later fell into the hands of Benjamin Franklin,
who founded the American Philosophical Society. One of the most
intriguing features of the device is an engraving on the
bottom with two illustrations and a reference to a passage
(07:17):
in Isaiah where God turns back time. The device purports
to explain the miracle. When set up as a sun
dial and filled with water, the refraction of the shadow
quote throws time backward unquote by the same amount as
in the Miracle and Isaiah. This was, however, before the
principle of refraction was, if not known, at least codified
(07:38):
in Western science. This feature of the device was demonstrated
in the nineteen seventies. Then he gives a link to
an article that he actually wrote about this object, which
he says is referred to it the A. P. S
as the Schlisser Dial, after the smith whose name was
on it, and he says keep up the good work
and adds that he will miss Julie. Well, thank you
for that email, Jonathan. This is really interesting, indeed, and
(08:01):
we'll make sure to include a link to that article
of his on the landing page with this episode Stuff
to blow your mind dot com U, because certainly in
that episode we went into the the role of the astrolabe.
It's this kind of convergence of technology and religion. So
this is definitely that definitely flows in with what we
talked about totally. All right, here's one that comes to
(08:24):
us from from listener art Art rights in and says,
did I hear Roberts say that he had decided to
stop eating octopy because of their intelligence? Maybe a little
bit because they're kind of cute playing with things. I
can see why one might come to such a conclusion.
But knowing you are voracious learners and reasonably rational decision makers,
thank you. I felt I had to write you to
(08:44):
make sure you had all the octo facts in hand
to make this protein limiting decision. You are aware that
octopi are not shay shy about cannibalism. They are very
territorial and regularly attack and consume fellow octopus is when
they trustpassed. The truspassers had anittedly are their competition too,
But honestly, can you still feel bad about eating octopuses
(09:05):
now they eat each other? You're welcome, enjoy your sushi
sashimi next time. Thanks again, guys, keep up the great work.
Best art. So, okay, what was the rationale behind why
you wouldn't I think this was referring to the episode
about grizzly bears from outer space? So we were talking
about different kinds of alien intelligence and how at least
in my opinion, octopus is display and intelligence that doesn't
(09:28):
register is human, but that does register is significant and interesting. Yeah,
thus underlying, you know, some of the problems of thinking
about alien intelligence because we end up holding it up
to the model of human intelligence, which you know, even
life on Earth illustrates that there there may be other
types of consciousness going on. All right, Well, I mean
(09:49):
I can see why you would say that. Then, um, wait,
are you a vegetarian? No? And I'll be the first
to admit that I'm my My stance on what I
eat and what I don't eat is kind of hypocritical.
And I guess a lot of people, you know, a
lot of people have varying degrees of hypocrisy when it
comes to this sort of thing. But like, I still
eat occasionally, will eat pork, even though the pig is
(10:10):
a pretty smart creature. And you know, who am I
to say, you go in my belly? But the octopus
is off limits. But maybe I give the octopi some
sort of privileged status because it's so different, because it's
this kind of alien creature. So arts making an ethical
argument that because octopi are cannibals themselves, that it's okay
(10:31):
to eat them because they eat each other. That he's
presenting that as a as a potential reason that I
could hang onto and use octopus. I would counter that,
I would present you with the option of would it
be okay to eat people? Then if they were cannibals
by this yeah, by this Rationelle, that would be perfectly acceptable,
provided they are a cannibal. That would eat me. Not necessarily,
(10:53):
art might be going on a sort of like a
double qualifier model where they have to be below a
certain level of problem solving and tell legens or i
Q threshold, and that have to be evil or cannibalistic.
I actually, in response to arts email, I went and
looked into this because I was like, I've never heard
of this before, but I found an article on Scientific
(11:13):
American talking about octopus cannibalism, and I just want to
read this quote from it that I found. It says,
these amazing, if occasionally gruesome observations revealed that octopus has
chosen octopus meal even if there were plenty of other,
less feisty food options, such as muscles. But as the
authors point out, even the more docile muscles required more
(11:37):
energy to extract than a smaller octopus might to get
the same amount of meat. An octopus meat, the scientist's note,
is higher in protein per ounce than that of muscles. Additionally,
the octopus predator, after bringing back its prey, sealed off
its den, opening with rocks. This allowed the eating octopus
(11:57):
to feed in relative safety and privacy. Another advantage of
a single large catch over having to crack and carry
smaller bivalves. So my reaction to this was art, You're
incredibly correct. This is evil and scary, and this is
serial killer type behavior. But also I am now even
more impressed by the intelligence of the octopus than I
(12:19):
was before. It's smart about what it eats, and it
knows how to eat in privacy. Yeah, it sounds like
it has a real like return on investment style approach
to its eating. Well, you know it, it lives in
a different economy, and it lives in the economy of
of of the ocean, you know. So, I mean if we,
if we evolved to thrive in such a dangerous habitat,
(12:41):
we would likely be a little more cannibalistic as well.
So much like you know, the world of Mad Max. Yeah, yeah,
it's just a it's a different world. It's it's the
wild West down there, and sometimes you gotta eat your
own kind. So all right, before we move on from
arts letter, clearly I don't know, I don't know if
you guys know, what's the correct plural pronunciation of octopus,
(13:03):
octopi or octopuses. It's octopi. If you want to sound
like a jerk, it's octopus. If you just, you know,
want to sound like a normal person. So is octopi
is correct? I don't know. Oh, I always say octopuses
per the James Bond film. Yeah, yeah, I feel like
(13:24):
this just came up when we wrote a script for
a video recently about Octopi. Octopuses. Anyways, if anybody out
there knows, write us and we'll answer it in the
next listener mail episode. I'm curious. I mean, I'm sure
we could just google it, but I, in principle refuse
not on air. I prefer grammatical corrections from a thousand listeners.
(13:45):
That's how I learned. Um. All right, what else do
we have from the old mail bot here? Okay? This
next one is from Brian and it is also in
response to our Grizzly Bears from outer Space podcast, and
Brian says, Hey, guys, I listen to your episode on
grizzly Bears from outer Space, or more specifically, the theorized
shape and size of any potential aliens we may encounter
(14:07):
in the future, and I think I have a bit
of information that will put some of your more worrisome
listeners at ease. I present to you the rocket equation,
and then he gives a little equation. It's a d
V equals V times l N and the parentheses r M.
It seems to be important that one of the visa
is capitalized. Yes, that's right. Uh. And so that's my
(14:28):
input on math, right. Uh. And he explains that. He
says V is a rockets effective exhaust velocity limited by
precepts of chemistry and nozzle design. DV is the delta
V applied to the rocket, which is the controller of
how high it reaches before it runs out of fuel.
And r M is the ratio of the rockets initial
(14:50):
to final mass with fuel and then without. So does
that make sense? Like as the rocket ascends, it loses
mass and it becomes easier to propel itself, So it's
got to have enough fuel on board to carry not
just the rocket but the fuel. Um. So he continues
plug in some numbers and you get the same figures
that had NASA smashing their heads against the wall for
(15:12):
years in the late fifties. A solid fuel rocket requires
a nineties six percent fuel by mass composition to impart
enough delta V to reach Earth's orbit. That's crazy to
think about. Uh. That was my commic, not Brian's But
Brian goes on. The important thing to note here is
that the necessary delta V to leave a planet and
(15:33):
thus makes space travel possible, is determined by its gravity.
It's easy to see that if Earth's gravity were just
a little bit higher, space travel with conventional rockets would
be all but impossible. Any rocket we built would simply
be too heavy to reach orbit. This puts Earth at
the top of the range of planetary masses in which
(15:53):
the gravity is high enough to hold an atmosphere but
low enough to allow for space travel. If there were
any other space farings of realizations out there, and their
technology is anything like ours, which chemists, physicists, and mathematicians
suggest it most likely will be at our level, there
is a virtual certainty that their planets gravity will be
lower than ours, or else they would be trapped on
(16:15):
their world, unable to sail to the star ocean. Regardless
of their size or shape, it is practically guaranteed that
we not they are one of, if not the physically
strongest space capable species in our galaxy. Long story short,
humans are heavy worlders, stay heavy. Yeah, thank you so much, Brian.
(16:36):
This was a really interesting and informative email, and we did.
We did acknowledge in the episode that, uh, definitely some
other space and astrobiology experts had pointed out about the
study we talked about in that episode that it's sort
of was, while it was good reasoning, it was reasoning
in a vacuum, and that once you add in sort
of all these real world variables to think about, like
(16:58):
gravity and other things, that might definitely change the parameters
of the equations that Fergus Simpson used. Yeah, so now
I'm not as concerned about space trolls. I'm more concerned
with like space hobbits, space goblins. Pure. Yeah. So, thank
you Brian for that really interesting email. Yeah, totally, it's
a good one. Okay. Also, Angelo writes into us from Facebook,
(17:22):
so keep in mind for future listener mail episodes, you
can write into us on Twitter or Facebook or at
the email blow the mind at how stuff works dot com,
even Tumbler and Tumbler that's right. Yeah, uh, Angelo writes
really liked both episodes. By the way, the movie Stigmata
was not so much about a demonic possession, although the
trailer would lead you to think so, as it did
(17:42):
lead me to think so. The female character actually gets
the Stigmata because she had in her possession the rosary
of a stigmatic priest who died and I guess transferred
his soul in the rosary. Oh and it also had
something to do with the Gospel of Thomas. Okay, I
barely remember that movie, but that, I mean, obviously he's
(18:03):
seen it. That sounds about right. So so like what
we're talking about here is like, um St. Francis's rosary
falls into Patricia Arquette's possession, she's holding onto it, and
the soul of St. Francis enters her, thus making her
a stigmatic stewing upon her the wounds of Christ. All right, well,
(18:24):
that's that sounds plausible for the movie. I never saw
that movie, though I remember the trailer for it, and
I think at the time I was offended by it.
Why it was a different time for me. I was
gonna say, yeah, right before we did the Stigmata episode,
I rewatched that trailer and it does seem like she's
kind of possessed or something. But um, yeah, I feel
(18:45):
like I might have been in junior high, and you
know you're in junior high. They're all these changes happening
with your body wounds are opening up in your hands,
that sort of thing. So it hits a little close
to yeah, it was. It was definitely made for adolescence,
that's for sure, all right. This one comes to us
from Brooke brook writes in referring to an old episode
having to do with dinosaurs mating with each other. I
(19:08):
think it was called tyrannosaur sex. She writes it and says,
nothing astonishing or a stud here, But today I saw
two fed Ex trucks backed up to each other, hatch
to hatch, and the first thing to come to mind
was cloacal kiss. So um, thanks for that, I guess
in all seriousness, love the podcast, especially with how much
of it there is. I've been listening for months and
(19:28):
I'm still years behind and loving every minute. Thanks for
all the laughs and learning. So that explains the older episode.
I'm always a little um surprised and or horrified when
I hear that listeners have discovered the podcast and are
starting at the very big working their way up. I mean,
not because the old episodes are bad, but it's like,
if you start with the current stuff and work back,
(19:49):
you'll hopefully, you know, started at its best, you know. Yeah, yeah, no,
I understand that. That's kind of my approach to podcasts.
That's where when I start them. I know I have
friends who do that, who go back and listen from
the very beginning to shows. There's two hundred three d episodes,
And I went back and listened to the very first
episode of this show right before joining the programming Infestations. Yeah,
(20:11):
when it was you and Allison, Alison who still works
with us here at How Stuff Works. Yeah, yeah, that
was a good one. I liked it. Yeah. I actually
ended up looking it up recently because they did the
whole ten years of iTunes and so we we pumped
out the very first episode of then Stuff in the
Science Lab before we actually the same Stuff to Blow
your Mind. So it's kind of cool to look back
on it. But now the old episodes are great, but
(20:33):
you know, you're still there's so much of your time
with this show is sort of finding what that show is.
And you know, it wasn't even called Stuff to Blow
your Mind back then, so that slightly different shows. True,
was it called stuff to Blow your Mind? During the
Chloeacle kiss? It was? This was definitely the Stuff to
Blow your Mind era. That was the chloac Era if
you will. Is that why Julie has the what is
it kloeac A Boulevard on her desk? Yeah, I remember correctly, Listener,
(20:56):
Aaron sent that into her sheet. We each got out
road sign she got and I got sandworms. Oh yeah, yeah,
that makes sense. Well we've got another one here that
looks like it's about the stigmata episode. This is another
Facebook message. This one's from Nick. I was listening to
your pieces on stigmatics and your special treatment of the
subject material is anti intellectual. There is absolutely no difference
(21:20):
between the founding of these beliefs and modern comics. He
means comic books, not stand up comedians. Stuff you should
know that's not us. Uh. There is no one single
account of Jesus written by anyone who could have known him.
If you know something I do not, please do an
episode and inform me. I am not arguing to be
anti theist, but show this subject no more reverence than
(21:42):
facts in a DC comic. I don't get thinking like this.
I mean it seems to me that whether or not
you believe the mythology is like literally true, wouldn't it
be interesting to learn about where it came from and
the story behind it. Yeah, I mean I think I
think I actually responded. There was there was a back
and forth actually on Facebook. Yeah, and but I mean
one of my responses was, like, we'd love to do
(22:04):
stuff on characters in d C comics just as much
fun and learned just as much by looking at the
comic book characters, looking at superhero powers and applying real
world physics and you know, real science to that. I've
actually done a podcast like that on the other podcast
I do at how stuff works for thinking. We did
an episode a while back where we basically looked at
all the X Men and said, Okay, what rating of
(22:26):
plausibility do we give to all their powers? Yeah? Yeah,
I mean, like I can I can understand where he's
coming from here, and that like he listens to the
show as a science podcast and expects a certain amount
of I guess, as he put it, intellectualism. Um. But
but yeah, I think that what we try to do
is is, you know, bring a connection between things like
(22:48):
pop culture or or other you know, beliefs, whether it's
stigmata or for instance, like when we were talking earlier
in the other podcast about people cutting off literally sting
off their nose, despite their face, because of the term
despite your face. It just seems to me like we
we sat down and we looked at the stigmata as
(23:10):
a actual occurrence, what could possibly have caused it, whether
it was disease, self mutilation, uh, psychosomatic situations, what have you. Uh,
And yeah, let's do it. We should for for Nick,
I think we should do something on DC comics. I'd
be happy with anything. Yeah, totally. I mean, yeah, Ultimately,
we approached stigmata, even though at the heart you have
(23:33):
a purported supernatural event, approached it from a scientific standpoint,
psychological standpoint, you know, and also just looking at just
the way we think about these things from you know,
a mythic standpoint, how it factors into worldview, and that's
that's all part of what we do here. Yeah, and
you know, to say too, I think that he was
disappointed that we uh respected stigmata objectively within the episod,
(24:00):
so that we didn't outright say this is all lies. Uh,
that that wasn't in the title. I don't know, but
I'm sorry. I do appreciate the feedback, Nick, Definitely. It
stirred some interesting back and forth on Facebook, and we
love to discuss these topics with you. So even if
it's if the topic, even if the discussion is based,
(24:21):
you know, around criticism, and believe it or not, the
three of us do you know, legitimately read these and
talk about them amongst ourselves and sometimes we'll respond on Facebook.
Sometimes we'll we'll bring it here on the listener mail
episode talk to you about it directly. In fact, we're
gonna kick this hornet's nest right again by going back
to the podcasts that we did about the intersections of
(24:42):
religion and technology, so so bring on the criticism of
supernatural topics. So this seems to be the common intersection
here though, right is when we add religion plus science,
we stir hornets. And I mean, obviously that's a that's
a thing people on the internet opinions about. But I'll think, yeah,
people have you see, you see criticism from people on
(25:04):
the atheistic side of things. You see more religious folk
criticizing sometimes, and it just kind of kind of varies.
But I mean, ultimately that's because there's a lot to
discuss there, you know. Yeah, And that seems to be
like the fact that you're saying that it comes from
from all angles. It means that they're like, we're coming
close to having a dialogue, which is pretty awesome considering
that this podcast is broadcast a mass audience. Mass audience,
(25:27):
not mass. It's like everybody past, okay, Well, anyway, we
have a couple of fairly long ones, but I do
want to read them because they're really great listener mail.
So these are from Gillian or Jillian. How do you
pronounced that name? I think it depends because the way
(25:48):
that I always heard Jillian Anderson, which I believe, is
that she pronounces it, but then the woman from community
it's spelled the same. Hers pronounced Gillian. Well, I love Scully,
so I'm gonna say Jillian. So Jillian writes in to
tell us, I've been following your podcasts for a few
years now, enjoying the eclectic mix of weird subjects. But
(26:08):
I listened with heightened enthusiasm to your recent podcast on
religion and technology. This is a subject that has been
of great interest to me for some time, perhaps because
as an atheist, religion is a fascinating anomaly to one
not participating, and was the focus of my dissertation at
Glasgow School of Art two years ago. She might be
at Gillian then, like in Scottish pronunciation, maybe there's a
(26:31):
hard g Oh, Okay, it could be it's not Glascow,
you're correct or Glasco. However you say it anyway, does
it Lionel Alasco good? Jillian continues, Uh, My research was long,
extensive and really enjoyable. This is, after all a complex
area that requires an understanding of many quirks and areas
(26:52):
of human behavior. But where your podcast focused mostly on
the historical use of religious technology, my area of inquiry
focused on cyberspace. Humans have always sought to consecrate whatever
space it is that we're currently occupying or entering. Buzz
Aldrin is reported to have taken self administered communion when
first walking on the moon. I think, actually, yeah, I
(27:13):
thought about mentioning this in the podcast, but we didn't
have time for it, I think. But anyway, she goes
on to say, and we're doing the same thing with
cyberspace characterized as a purely mined space, cyberspace does offer
a new intriguing platform for spiritual exploration. I love that
you included prayer wheels in your exploration of technology. Buddhism
(27:35):
is one of the established religions that is integrating most
enthusiastically with technology and cyberspace. You can, in fact, turn
your computer's hard drive into a prayer wheel by saving
an image of the Sanskrit. And I apologize if I'm
not pronouncing this right. Oh mamane, pod me home, allowing
for thousands more revolutions per minute than a hand can deliver.
(27:57):
The question you raised about where the use of techno
logical prayer wheels becomes problematic as an interesting one. And
there I think we asked the question of like, can
you just write a computer program that simulates the turning
of a wheel without even having a picture if it's
just like a you know, a program that executes in
the background on a computer. She She goes on. She says,
(28:19):
as prayer and prana is both unquantifiable and unverifiable, we
can't see if it is indeed more effective. Rather, what
is important is the intention of the believer, the desire
to do as much good as possible and to bring
their faith into every area of their life. Physical prayer
wheels can be said to act as advertising for Buddhism
or one's faith and a moving gift image of one
(28:42):
on your blog or website does the same thing and
encouraging faith. There was even a Tibetan Buddhism blessing in
cyberspace delivered in the early nineties where four months prayed
in front of a laptop, sanctifying the space. Cornell University
has been part of a project to make three D
mendala's existing digitally in cyberspace, and these can be navigated
(29:03):
by camera within the program. The Dalai Lama enthusiastically tried
this out and laughed when he drove the camera into
a digital statue of the Buddha. It seems like the
appropriate response, right. Uh. The reason for Buddhism's acceptance of
cyberspace is providing legitimate space for spiritual engagement, maybe because
of their dualistic understanding of reality, with consciousness and matter
(29:26):
being separate. Take a trip to second life and you'll
also encounter Christian churches. I thought this was really actually
one of these, really well, I was in a physical church,
but then the individual giving the sermon um gave it
in second life and we got to view this on
the screen. It was interesting, lassinating, that's really cool. But yeah,
(29:49):
so she says that you'll encounter Christian churches, Jewish synagogues,
and Hindu temples available to visit, some with instructions on
clothing for one's avatar. Before entering. You can also engage
your avatar and meditation and yoga practices on second life.
This asks some very interesting questions about the validity of
experience online, as I assume that while my avatar is meditating,
(30:12):
I cannot be one can even receive virtual communion on
second life. This seems ludicrous at first, but when we
consider that transubstantiation is purely metaphorical, allowing us to become
closer to our Godhead and Avatar acting as a digitally
mediated metaphor for our mind, imbibing a metaphor for Christ
(30:32):
isn't too hard to understand. It all asks some very
difficult questions about embodiment, what it means to be human,
and the nature of mind slash consciousness. This really is
a fascinating and complex issue, mostly because religion is an
innate human drive, and in examining how we engage with
religion and cyberspace, we can use it almost as a
(30:52):
litmus test to assess how we feel about the validity
of experiences online. And then she actually attached her dissertation,
which I haven't had a chance to read yet, but
I would really like to get into and and maybe
at some point we could get a chance to share
that with our listeners if if she's interested. Yeah, most
I don't know how it works at her university, but
most universities published dissertations now as open access documents, so
(31:16):
perhaps we can get a u r L from Jillian
and share it with everybody. Yeah, and anyway, she finishes up.
But thanks if you made it to the end of
this long ramble. I just get so excited when I
encounter someone discussing the subject. Much love from the West
of Scotland. Thanks for all the great work and keep
it up. You're too kind, Jillian, and your email was awesome.
I love to this. Yeah, so many, uh so many
(31:37):
wonderful things. So the mention of Mandala's and you know,
the virtual spaces of Mendala's I'd love to do an
episode just on Mandalas at some point in the future.
In fact, I think Julian, you should take this subject
and do an entire podcast series of your own about it. Yeah. Oh,
it certainly sounds like something large enough that you could
you could do a whole series on it. Well, you know,
(31:58):
Robert and I were just originally planning doing one episode
about technology and religion, but then we got into it
and realized we've been talking for like two and a
half hour. I remember, I remember, because you win the
studio and didn't come out for a really long time,
and I and I thought, what happened? Yeah, yeah, I
mean it's the topic and we just only in it, right, Yeah,
there's a there's a lot there, so yeah, it could
(32:19):
easily be a podcast onto itself. So wait, before we
move on. Transubstantiation is purely metaphorical. That's well, I understanding
that depends I think. Okay, okay, so yeah, the idea there,
if you're not familiar, is that I think, in uh,
in the mass, if people in the Christian Mass are receiving, yeah,
the bread and the wine. Transubstantiation is the belief that
(32:43):
the bread and wine is becomes the body of in
blood of Christ when it's at what point I don't
maybe when it's blessed by the priest. I'm not quite sure,
but anyway, I think so some people would probably take
that literally and say, yes, in some sense, now it
is literally. Actually the body and Blood of Jesus and
(33:04):
then others I think would take a more metaphorical approach
to it. You know that that email was so good.
We actually have another one from Jillian here, she says,
I'd like to point your attention to another interest in
comparison you mentioned UFOs. I'd just like to point out
that Young postulated that UFOs are now filling the role
of heavenly, omniscient and powerful beings left by traditional godheads
(33:28):
that have been eradicated as their scientific knowledge has grown.
They fit the same circular mandalage shape as recognized by Young,
as well as the likes of Joseph Campbell and J. G. Frasier.
Artists Susan Hiller explored this in her compelling piece Witness,
in which small saucer shaped speakers were suspended on chords
from the ceiling in a large rectangle with a space
(33:50):
left for navigating in the shape of a crucifix. From
the speakers, the viewer could listen closely to whispered confession
like reports of individuals who claimed to have encountered UFOs.
Adding another layer, the work was displayed in a church
in England, alluding to the fact that where once we
saw angels, we now see advanced scientific beings. Of course,
you argues that this being we see in a UFO
(34:12):
is just a projection from our unconscious mind, revealing a
desire for what he calls individuation at seeking of holness,
to be close to an aspirational figure, and this desire
manifest in the circular mendola shape as seen in Halo's
ghostly Orbs, Navajo sand designs, et cetera. Anyway, thanks for reading. Again,
I promise this is the last one. Again, it doesn't
(34:34):
have to be. These are so great. Yeah, they're quite good.
In fact, you know, I'd like to hear a podcast
from Jillian now also, Like I'm fascinated about what her
dissertation might be about this. This is a really interesting stuff. Yeah,
so I think she's referring to the part in the
second part of the of the Techno Religion podcast where
we talked about the UFO cults like Railianism, which you know,
(34:59):
they might not want to be a called a UFO
coult actually, but what you know, they're they're a religion
that incorporates the technology of supposed encounters with alien beings,
where in fact it's it's a quite literal replacement of
God in in the writings of Royal Their their leader right,
because he tells the story of how the Aliens went
(35:20):
through the Bible with him and said, okay, this part
here where it says God did that. Actually what happened
is the Aliens used a nuclear powered radio to do X,
Y and Z. Yeah. That the whole bit with Raliens
was it was really interesting, especially when you got into
the specifics of of like what Satan was doing as
a like cloning engineer. I can't remember there's like Satan
(35:42):
and Lucifer in the in the Alien take is that
one the two separate entities, one worked on on Earth
in the cloning facility and the other one was an
anti Earth activist on the home planet. It's wonderful stuff.
Here's one that we actually got about our podcast about
the science of incidence, the one Robert and I did
there about methods of analyzing coincidences to see whether they're
(36:05):
actually statistically interesting or not. So Zara writes in and says, Hi,
guys love the show. I just finished listening to the
episode about coincidence and it was one of my favorites.
I'm always trying to tell people about the law of
large numbers. But then I'm a math person. Well, congratulations
on that, Zarah. I am not, but I wish it were.
(36:26):
She goes on. I especially liked the bit about only
needing a group of twenty three people to find two
that have the same birthday. I shared it with my
fiance as soon as I heard it, and he laughed
at me and told me I'm a geek. Guilty as charged.
Don't we have a brain Stuff episode about this? I
believe you do, Ben does. Yeah, so if you check
out our YouTube channel for for brain Stuff, which is
(36:47):
one of the shows that Joe and I write for
brain Stuff listeners outside of this show, and uh but yeah,
Ben Boland did an episode on that very topic. Yeah, anyway,
Zara goes on. She says, anyways, I wanted to share
my own coincidence the day I was born May sixteenth.
What a coincidence? You want to know? A coincidence? Yeah,
(37:07):
that's the day I was born. That's my birthday. Wow.
So I was born on I mean July sixteen, and
I was born in October sixteen. What we're all sixteen?
How does the police sang? Anyway? Sarah too, Yeah, So,
so Zara was born on May sixteenth. What a coincidence?
(37:27):
She says. My dad was wearing a T shirt from
an old radio station in California, k m E L
one oh six. His best friend worked at the station
before I was born. Well, wouldn't you know it? I
was born at one oh six in the morning. The
only thing that would have made it better is if
it had been an A M station. But no coincidence
is perfect. How true that is, Sarah, She says, thanks
(37:50):
for keeping us all educated and entertained. You're welcome. Thank
you for writing in. Yeah, that that's a well, thank
you for that feedback. It also brings to mind we
did receive an email that we didn't read, but it
had to do with where like the coincidence and the
numerology of our placement in iTunes ranking in relation to
Glenn Beck's podcast, so that I didn't quite I didn't
(38:14):
completely understand it, and we need some clarifications on the
I'm sure there are invisible threads between us and Glenn Beck, though, yeah,
not that I was aware that he had a podcast
until just now. Okay, so this one is from Dave,
who wrote a message to us through Facebook again, where
Blow the Mind on Facebook? Follow us there by the way.
(38:34):
We don't just post our own stuff there. We share
a lot of content that we find throughout the day
as we're doing research, kinds of weird science, weird links. Yeah, monsters,
monsters definitely are in there. Uh so, Dave says, Hi, guys,
you probably don't have time to reply or maybe even
read this an entire in its entirety, Boy, Dave, are
(38:57):
you in for a surprise. Nonetheless, I've out I should
send you both a message just to let you know
how much I love your podcast. I've been an avid
podcast listener for a few years when I stumbled across yours.
Until then, I've been listening to s gu and The
Reality Check. When I started listening to Stuff to Blow
Your Mind, I was impressed with the format of the
show and the sharing of science was done in a fun,
(39:18):
never belittling way. I really enjoyed the report between both
of you and look forward to my time so I
can listen to a few Stuff to Blow your Mind episodes.
I'm currently going through your backlog and I'm about halfway
through a little more than the Seven Dead Leads. This
is a series that you did with Julia. Yeah, we
did one on each of the seven Deadly Sins. Anyway,
(39:39):
I just felt compelled to drop you this message just
to let you know that I really enjoy and appreciate
the show and wanted to thank you both and everyone
else involved. That's us Joe for putting together such a
great show on a regular basis. Thanks, and then he
typed out smile emoticon like that. It's clever. Yeah, thanks Dave,
thanks for writing in. Uh and you have sounds like
(40:00):
another individual making their way through the back catalog of
episodes and you'll find all of those episodes that stuff
to blow your mind. Dot com if you ever want
to just check out, you know, go to search there
and just see what we have. All the podcasts, all
the blog posts, all the videos everything. It's you know,
I'm not just saying this because I'm on the show now,
Like when you actually go and engage with with that site, Like,
(40:23):
there's just a tremendous wealth of material that Robert and
his various coasts over the years have produced. It's pretty awesome. Yeah, Okay,
We've got just a couple more for you guys. This
one is from sa Shank Sa Shank writes and says, hey, guys,
just heard your podcast this morning. Lovely stuff about the
intersection of technology and religion. More about Techno Religion podcast
(40:44):
Sashank says, I had a few thoughts I wanted to
share when I thought about technology and religion. The first
thing that came to mind was how many modern cult
like religious movements were centered around technological profits. I speak primarily,
of course, about the mighty Apple. I'm sure you'd agree
that Apple fandom is rather religious about their allegiance, and
it was Steve Jobs who really inspired this cult following.
(41:06):
I've thought about this quite often, and my guest was
that Jobs really fulfilled all the criteria we look for
in someone to worship slash follow When we seek religious leaders,
we look for someone who has a hold over the
masses and unites people based on a belief or ideology.
Someone who disseminates information, communication and social media, someone who
tells us a prescribed way to do things, and someone
(41:28):
who can empower people by giving them the tools to
do said things, many of which you guys mentioned with
brilliant examples, and Jobs seemed to put his products in
this light. He made it clear that the technology he
was selling wasn't simply a tool, it was a way
of life. Today, Apple fans lament the death of jobs,
jobs while still performing their annual rituals of watching w
(41:52):
w d C, lining up for iPhones, and submitting almost
fanatically to the Apple doctrine. And I think that is
something we often crave for His humans to be given direction,
purpose prescribed rituals to perform in return for affiliation, belonging
to a unified cult with a shared ideology, and of
course that edge over the other guys. And then Sashank
(42:14):
links to a couple of articles covering phenomena similar to
what he's been describing here. Once again, thanks for the
great podcast, guys, totally helps me wake up every day. Well,
thank you so much for that email, Sashank. So, do
you guys remember the Big Brother commercial that Apple did
in the eighties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is what his
his letters making me think of, is that it was
(42:36):
sort of prescient in its own way. I feel like
they might have done like a parody version of that.
There's been a number of over the years, and that
there was one on Futurama. Okay, okay, yeah, but certainly yeah,
the um And there was a book that I read
in the nineties called micro Surfs. It was about sort
of Silicon Valleys startups and and and some of the
(42:58):
people who worked out there, and and their relationship to
Steve Jobs was very much described the way that he
was describing it as he was almost like an entity. Yeah,
I thought it was funny how in the email it
suddenly it wasn't Steve Jobs every time it became jobs,
like jobs is the name of like a Babylonian deity.
You've got bail, and you've got and you've got jobs, jobs, jobs,
(43:24):
the what the you know, the the winged lion. Now
I'm picturing they have the winged lion with with Steve
Jobs with a bite out of the side of it
and a single leaf. All right, and here's our last
bit of listener mail. This one comes in from Facebook
listener Good Vibes, Good Vibes Rights. I'm curious to know
your thoughts in the existence or non existence of extraterrestrials,
(43:47):
given thoughts and theories proposed by Eric van Duncan and
other supporters of their existence, do you think it is
plausible that they do exist? I'm really at at a
loss here I personally want to believe, but the only
evidence I have to go on his theory put forth
in photos and videos which may be real or not. Well.
Robert actually recorded an episode of brain Stuff, our video
(44:09):
series I mentioned earlier that I wrote the script for
along with I Believe You You, was with Christen Conger
about this very topic about whether aliens exist or not.
Was it the Drake equation? Maybe? I'd only vaguely remember.
It's been over a year since we did it. I
don't believe the Drake equation came into it, but we
did talk about, you know, the possibility of extra trustrial life, uh,
(44:30):
and specifically the Goldilocks zone concept of that, you know,
there's this particular zone in between a star and and
where a planet resides in order for the atmosphere to
potentially host life. So yes or no? Extraterrestrials? Oh? I
definitely think yes, definitely intelligent space faring. Yeah. Have they
(44:52):
visited Earth? No? Okay? Will they visit Earth? Yes, but
not in our understanding of time? All right? How about you? Oh? Yeah,
I think it's I mean, well, it's kind of presumptuous
to say either way, because we we don't there are
so many probabilities involved that we just don't even have
a number four, Like, what is the probability that a
(45:15):
biogenesis occurs on a on a habitable planet. I don't
know what that, you know. I mean, it might be
near one, or it might be one in ten trillion.
I just don't know, And I think even scientists don't
necessarily know the answer to that. But my hunch is that, yes,
there's plenty of life out there in the universe, but
we may very well never encounter it ever. Okay, my
(45:39):
take is that domight fake kind of varies. Like there
was a time in um junior high where I was
scared to death of alien abduction. Yeah, it's pretty like
this unsolved mysteries had had gotten into my head. We're
talking about like early nineties. Yeah, yeah, and I was
just you just look up into the night sky and
they would just suck you up, you know. Um. So
(46:00):
I feel like I'm there's definitely a strong uh uh
tendency in myself now to just dismiss extraterrestrials. But I
sometimes wonder if a part of that is was like
a defensive mechanism to that fear I used to have
so I found a reason to eradicate that fear through uh,
through you know, logic and common sense. But but I
(46:21):
still I still think there is life out there somewhere.
I don't know, I'm I'm not sure it's necessarily space
faring now or that ever will be. But sometimes I
do sort of think that lay there in bed at
night and I sort of imagine some sort of a
slime mold on another world. Yeah, yeah, that, Yeah, that's
where I fall, certainly. And I guess I would say
(46:43):
too that this seems like the perfect stuff to blow
your mind question to me, because this show is all
about sort of the wonder and awe. I think that
like science brings to us as people, you know, and
and that's what this says to me as well, too.
Is trying to use science or just your imagination to
theorize whether extraterrestrial life exists or not is one of
(47:05):
those wondrous moments that I think this show is great for. Yeah. Well,
I mean, I can't remember where this quote comes from.
Somebody said this and I heard it. It's that when
you think about extraterrestrial life, either there is extraterrestrial life
or there isn't and no matter which option is true,
that's mind blowing, right, Like the fact that we're alone
(47:26):
in the universe is scary and awe inspiring, and the
fact that there's other life out there is scary and
awe inspiring. Totally scary and inspiring. That's what we go
for here. So hey, we want to thank the robot
for a coming online, not destroying anybody. Um really just
pleased that that machine is up in morning? Is Let's yeah? Okay,
(47:50):
well we better wrap we better wrap it up. Um Hey.
If you want to learn more about our podcast, check
out old episodes, whatever, head over to stuff to bow
your mind dot com. That is the mothership. That's where
we'll find all the episodes, all the podcast, all the videos,
all the content links out to some of those social
media accounts as well. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,
and Tumbler. And if you wanted to write us an
(48:11):
email that will be featured in a future episode listener
mail episode, Arnie might just spit out your your your
message to us right to us at blow the Mind
at how stuff works dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works
dot com
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, what's the stuff to Blow your Mind?
My name is Robert Lamb. Hey, I'm Christian Seger and
I'm Joe McCormick, and all three of us are in
the same room at the same time. First time. It's
first Yeah, and it's a good time for us all
to get together because the mail bot that we use
(00:25):
on this show has been out of service for a
couple of months now, Old Arnie, Yeah, Arney, We're gonna
have to reboot the robot. We're going to have to
make sure that it imprints on you guys as as
new hosts, because we want to avoid any unnecessary, uh complications. Yeah,
except didn't I hear that We're gonna have to reboot
(00:46):
it under the new name Carney, with the C standing
for Cartesian doubt, the newest feature of the mail bot. Yes, yeah, because, uh,
I mean enough programming has changed on it. It's gonna
reject its old name. I'm not a roboticist. I don't
know the poticulars on it, but but yeah, we need it,
and we also need to make sure that it has
all three of the laws of robotics. Installed this time.
(01:08):
I've heard enough about this around the office that I'm
kind of nervous. I mean, hasn't attacked other podcasts before. Well,
that is why Scott Benjamin had to have all his
limbs sewn back one, that's why. Okay, well then that's
where he got the tail. Well, there were extra pieces
of and it's like ikea, you know, you could assemble it,
(01:28):
there's something missing what you need to you can't put
it back in the box. I'm always afraid to ask him.
You know, he's just a personal guy, doesn't doesn't like
to talk about stuff like that. Yeah, alright, so let's uh,
let's see flip the switch. Okay, Joe, can you get
that one? Yeah? All right, now, Christian can you pull
that back? That metal contraption to the big one? Yeah? Okay, okay, whoa,
(01:48):
what is with this sall blade? Well? Well that's um,
that's a different feature. Okay, push that back in, okay, okay, alright, okay,
Now see this metal flower thing opening up there like
the inside of a you know, the head portion of
an iron Maiden. Why is it presenting us pills? Um?
Those are optional, but you do need to stick your
face into this contraption real quick. This reminds me of
(02:10):
those robots in that movie R Runaways. Oh well that
that's a predecessor. Okay, prototype for Arnie. But hold on,
so you put your face in the flower. Yeah, and
then it's going to imprint, and then we can be
able to actually deliver the listener mail to us and
we can read through some of them. I think you did.
(02:30):
If you think I got to oh wait, didn't do
it again? Well, that's perfect, that's perfect. I'm not putting
my face in that thing. Well you wipe it down first,
the spray. Oh all right, I think they got to. Look,
it's folding up and everything. Uh, seems to be coming online,
(02:51):
all right. Now, we just have to see if Arnie
responds graciously or if it activates its latest Okay, are
you ever going to explain the sol blade or um?
That feature may become necessary later on right now, No,
don't worry about that. All right, there, he is all right,
you're accepted. Arnie seems to be operating, uh more or
(03:14):
less a long design parameters. Carney Carney, Yes, sorry, Carney,
I got your name wrong. All right, Carney, you're online,
bring us some listener mail. What do you got for us? Hey, guys,
I'm a newer listener of HSW and a big fan
of your podcasts and all the HSW shows. You get
me through long, lonely train rides to and from New
York City and where I live in New Jersey. I
(03:36):
just listened to your episode on Stigmata and heard you
reference the wound on the side of Jesus as happening
during his carrying of the cross, which I don't think
was the case. This is this is absolutely accurate. I
got this wrong in the episode. Uh, not being overly
Christian myself, but raised in such a manner with a
Bible hungry aunt that's sounds awful. I have always known
(03:58):
the story different. After my punch and some quick research,
I think the wound was given after he had been
nearly spent. The story. Yeah, the story I know goes
that he had been hanging for hours and hours, long
after typical people who are crucified would live. The Roman
centurion was seen as a do gooder, giving Jesus mercy
(04:18):
and making sure he was dead after his marathon of torture.
The unnamed soldier is also credited with saying, quote, truly,
this is the Son of God. Oh so that's where
that comes from. I didn't know that. Uh, not trying
to step on toes, just a big fan reaching out,
keep up the great work, thanks for reading, Michael. Yeah. Absolutely.
Somebody on Facebook also alerted us to that mistake. On
(04:41):
my part, I believe I somehow had it in my
head that the spear wound was inflicted as he's carrying
the cross to the crucifixion. But yeah, I believe. I
hate to call it canon, but I suppose it is canon.
Is that he was what Michael said, Yeah, I think
it's sort of considered the or the literal reroll it
plays in the narrative is it's the the Kuda gras.
(05:03):
You know, it's the final blow to make sure everybody knows, okay,
he's really, really, actually dead. So it's like it's a
compassionate thing from the way that Michael's making it sound
that the this this soldier didn't want him to suffer
any longer. Um, you know, I don't know if I
ever heard that exact interpretation of it. I always thought
he was doing his job, like so, I don't know
(05:27):
if the gospel narrative is is much No, not necessarily.
I don't think the Gospel narrative is much trying to
get in the head of the Roman soldier. I think
it's more serving the purpose of demonstrating to the reader
that Jesus was really dead, so the reader wouldn't be
wondering like, oh, maybe he wasn't dead, Oh, like he
would pull like a I almost just said a huge
(05:49):
game of thrownes spoiler. I'm going to keep that to myself. Yeah, now,
I I also want to point out Bible hungry aunt
that could be referring to Grimore's talk about individuals who
consider the book in order to gain its power. Maybe
that's what was going on there. All right, Michael, thank
you for writing in with with that little bit of
(06:10):
clarification there. What else do we have to read here? Alright?
So next, it looks like we've got one from Jonathan,
and Jonathan writes in being a member of an older
generation than yourselves, I've just started listening to podcasts, but
have become addicted to stuff to blow your mind. I
was intrigued by your two part podcast on religion and
technology that was Techno Religion for the Masses Parts one
(06:32):
and two, and he's he continues in researching a book.
I came across a very unusual object in the American
Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. It is basically an astrolabe manufactured
in the mid sixteenth century in Germany. The gnomon of
the sundial aspect of the object is a turbaned man,
indicating either the intention or origin as a timetelling in
(06:55):
geolocator device for Muslims. It was brought to America in
the l seventeenth century, probably by a group of German
Pietist mystics, and later fell into the hands of Benjamin Franklin,
who founded the American Philosophical Society. One of the most
intriguing features of the device is an engraving on the
bottom with two illustrations and a reference to a passage
(07:17):
in Isaiah where God turns back time. The device purports
to explain the miracle. When set up as a sun
dial and filled with water, the refraction of the shadow
quote throws time backward unquote by the same amount as
in the Miracle and Isaiah. This was, however, before the
principle of refraction was, if not known, at least codified
(07:38):
in Western science. This feature of the device was demonstrated
in the nineteen seventies. Then he gives a link to
an article that he actually wrote about this object, which
he says is referred to it the A. P. S
as the Schlisser Dial, after the smith whose name was
on it, and he says keep up the good work
and adds that he will miss Julie. Well, thank you
for that email, Jonathan. This is really interesting, indeed, and
(08:01):
we'll make sure to include a link to that article
of his on the landing page with this episode Stuff
to blow your mind dot com U, because certainly in
that episode we went into the the role of the astrolabe.
It's this kind of convergence of technology and religion. So
this is definitely that definitely flows in with what we
talked about totally. All right, here's one that comes to
(08:24):
us from from listener art Art rights in and says,
did I hear Roberts say that he had decided to
stop eating octopy because of their intelligence? Maybe a little
bit because they're kind of cute playing with things. I
can see why one might come to such a conclusion.
But knowing you are voracious learners and reasonably rational decision makers,
thank you. I felt I had to write you to
(08:44):
make sure you had all the octo facts in hand
to make this protein limiting decision. You are aware that
octopi are not shay shy about cannibalism. They are very
territorial and regularly attack and consume fellow octopus is when
they trustpassed. The truspassers had anittedly are their competition too,
But honestly, can you still feel bad about eating octopuses
(09:05):
now they eat each other? You're welcome, enjoy your sushi
sashimi next time. Thanks again, guys, keep up the great work.
Best art. So, okay, what was the rationale behind why
you wouldn't I think this was referring to the episode
about grizzly bears from outer space? So we were talking
about different kinds of alien intelligence and how at least
in my opinion, octopus is display and intelligence that doesn't
(09:28):
register is human, but that does register is significant and interesting. Yeah,
thus underlying, you know, some of the problems of thinking
about alien intelligence because we end up holding it up
to the model of human intelligence, which you know, even
life on Earth illustrates that there there may be other
types of consciousness going on. All right, Well, I mean
(09:49):
I can see why you would say that. Then, um, wait,
are you a vegetarian? No? And I'll be the first
to admit that I'm my My stance on what I
eat and what I don't eat is kind of hypocritical.
And I guess a lot of people, you know, a
lot of people have varying degrees of hypocrisy when it
comes to this sort of thing. But like, I still
eat occasionally, will eat pork, even though the pig is
(10:10):
a pretty smart creature. And you know, who am I
to say, you go in my belly? But the octopus
is off limits. But maybe I give the octopi some
sort of privileged status because it's so different, because it's
this kind of alien creature. So arts making an ethical
argument that because octopi are cannibals themselves, that it's okay
(10:31):
to eat them because they eat each other. That he's
presenting that as a as a potential reason that I
could hang onto and use octopus. I would counter that,
I would present you with the option of would it
be okay to eat people? Then if they were cannibals
by this yeah, by this Rationelle, that would be perfectly acceptable,
provided they are a cannibal. That would eat me. Not necessarily,
(10:53):
art might be going on a sort of like a
double qualifier model where they have to be below a
certain level of problem solving and tell legens or i
Q threshold, and that have to be evil or cannibalistic.
I actually, in response to arts email, I went and
looked into this because I was like, I've never heard
of this before, but I found an article on Scientific
(11:13):
American talking about octopus cannibalism, and I just want to
read this quote from it that I found. It says,
these amazing, if occasionally gruesome observations revealed that octopus has
chosen octopus meal even if there were plenty of other,
less feisty food options, such as muscles. But as the
authors point out, even the more docile muscles required more
(11:37):
energy to extract than a smaller octopus might to get
the same amount of meat. An octopus meat, the scientist's note,
is higher in protein per ounce than that of muscles. Additionally,
the octopus predator, after bringing back its prey, sealed off
its den, opening with rocks. This allowed the eating octopus
(11:57):
to feed in relative safety and privacy. Another advantage of
a single large catch over having to crack and carry
smaller bivalves. So my reaction to this was art, You're
incredibly correct. This is evil and scary, and this is
serial killer type behavior. But also I am now even
more impressed by the intelligence of the octopus than I
(12:19):
was before. It's smart about what it eats, and it
knows how to eat in privacy. Yeah, it sounds like
it has a real like return on investment style approach
to its eating. Well, you know it, it lives in
a different economy, and it lives in the economy of
of of the ocean, you know. So, I mean if we,
if we evolved to thrive in such a dangerous habitat,
(12:41):
we would likely be a little more cannibalistic as well.
So much like you know, the world of Mad Max. Yeah, yeah,
it's just a it's a different world. It's it's the
wild West down there, and sometimes you gotta eat your
own kind. So all right, before we move on from
arts letter, clearly I don't know, I don't know if
you guys know, what's the correct plural pronunciation of octopus,
(13:03):
octopi or octopuses. It's octopi. If you want to sound
like a jerk, it's octopus. If you just, you know,
want to sound like a normal person. So is octopi
is correct? I don't know. Oh, I always say octopuses
per the James Bond film. Yeah, yeah, I feel like
(13:24):
this just came up when we wrote a script for
a video recently about Octopi. Octopuses. Anyways, if anybody out
there knows, write us and we'll answer it in the
next listener mail episode. I'm curious. I mean, I'm sure
we could just google it, but I, in principle refuse
not on air. I prefer grammatical corrections from a thousand listeners.
(13:45):
That's how I learned. Um. All right, what else do
we have from the old mail bot here? Okay? This
next one is from Brian and it is also in
response to our Grizzly Bears from outer Space podcast, and
Brian says, Hey, guys, I listen to your episode on
grizzly Bears from outer Space, or more specifically, the theorized
shape and size of any potential aliens we may encounter
(14:07):
in the future, and I think I have a bit
of information that will put some of your more worrisome
listeners at ease. I present to you the rocket equation,
and then he gives a little equation. It's a d
V equals V times l N and the parentheses r M.
It seems to be important that one of the visa
is capitalized. Yes, that's right. Uh. And so that's my
(14:28):
input on math, right. Uh. And he explains that. He
says V is a rockets effective exhaust velocity limited by
precepts of chemistry and nozzle design. DV is the delta
V applied to the rocket, which is the controller of
how high it reaches before it runs out of fuel.
And r M is the ratio of the rockets initial
(14:50):
to final mass with fuel and then without. So does
that make sense? Like as the rocket ascends, it loses
mass and it becomes easier to propel itself, So it's
got to have enough fuel on board to carry not
just the rocket but the fuel. Um. So he continues
plug in some numbers and you get the same figures
that had NASA smashing their heads against the wall for
(15:12):
years in the late fifties. A solid fuel rocket requires
a nineties six percent fuel by mass composition to impart
enough delta V to reach Earth's orbit. That's crazy to
think about. Uh. That was my commic, not Brian's But
Brian goes on. The important thing to note here is
that the necessary delta V to leave a planet and
(15:33):
thus makes space travel possible, is determined by its gravity.
It's easy to see that if Earth's gravity were just
a little bit higher, space travel with conventional rockets would
be all but impossible. Any rocket we built would simply
be too heavy to reach orbit. This puts Earth at
the top of the range of planetary masses in which
(15:53):
the gravity is high enough to hold an atmosphere but
low enough to allow for space travel. If there were
any other space farings of realizations out there, and their
technology is anything like ours, which chemists, physicists, and mathematicians
suggest it most likely will be at our level, there
is a virtual certainty that their planets gravity will be
lower than ours, or else they would be trapped on
(16:15):
their world, unable to sail to the star ocean. Regardless
of their size or shape, it is practically guaranteed that
we not they are one of, if not the physically
strongest space capable species in our galaxy. Long story short,
humans are heavy worlders, stay heavy. Yeah, thank you so much, Brian.
(16:36):
This was a really interesting and informative email, and we did.
We did acknowledge in the episode that, uh, definitely some
other space and astrobiology experts had pointed out about the
study we talked about in that episode that it's sort
of was, while it was good reasoning, it was reasoning
in a vacuum, and that once you add in sort
of all these real world variables to think about, like
(16:58):
gravity and other things, that might definitely change the parameters
of the equations that Fergus Simpson used. Yeah, so now
I'm not as concerned about space trolls. I'm more concerned
with like space hobbits, space goblins. Pure. Yeah. So, thank
you Brian for that really interesting email. Yeah, totally, it's
a good one. Okay. Also, Angelo writes into us from Facebook,
(17:22):
so keep in mind for future listener mail episodes, you
can write into us on Twitter or Facebook or at
the email blow the mind at how stuff works dot com,
even Tumbler and Tumbler that's right. Yeah, uh, Angelo writes
really liked both episodes. By the way, the movie Stigmata
was not so much about a demonic possession, although the
trailer would lead you to think so, as it did
(17:42):
lead me to think so. The female character actually gets
the Stigmata because she had in her possession the rosary
of a stigmatic priest who died and I guess transferred
his soul in the rosary. Oh and it also had
something to do with the Gospel of Thomas. Okay, I
barely remember that movie, but that, I mean, obviously he's
(18:03):
seen it. That sounds about right. So so like what
we're talking about here is like, um St. Francis's rosary
falls into Patricia Arquette's possession, she's holding onto it, and
the soul of St. Francis enters her, thus making her
a stigmatic stewing upon her the wounds of Christ. All right, well,
(18:24):
that's that sounds plausible for the movie. I never saw
that movie, though I remember the trailer for it, and
I think at the time I was offended by it.
Why it was a different time for me. I was
gonna say, yeah, right before we did the Stigmata episode,
I rewatched that trailer and it does seem like she's
kind of possessed or something. But um, yeah, I feel
(18:45):
like I might have been in junior high, and you
know you're in junior high. They're all these changes happening
with your body wounds are opening up in your hands,
that sort of thing. So it hits a little close
to yeah, it was. It was definitely made for adolescence,
that's for sure, all right. This one comes to us
from Brooke brook writes in referring to an old episode
having to do with dinosaurs mating with each other. I
(19:08):
think it was called tyrannosaur sex. She writes it and says,
nothing astonishing or a stud here, But today I saw
two fed Ex trucks backed up to each other, hatch
to hatch, and the first thing to come to mind
was cloacal kiss. So um, thanks for that, I guess
in all seriousness, love the podcast, especially with how much
of it there is. I've been listening for months and
(19:28):
I'm still years behind and loving every minute. Thanks for
all the laughs and learning. So that explains the older episode.
I'm always a little um surprised and or horrified when
I hear that listeners have discovered the podcast and are
starting at the very big working their way up. I mean,
not because the old episodes are bad, but it's like,
if you start with the current stuff and work back,
(19:49):
you'll hopefully, you know, started at its best, you know. Yeah, yeah, no,
I understand that. That's kind of my approach to podcasts.
That's where when I start them. I know I have
friends who do that, who go back and listen from
the very beginning to shows. There's two hundred three d episodes,
And I went back and listened to the very first
episode of this show right before joining the programming Infestations. Yeah,
(20:11):
when it was you and Allison, Alison who still works
with us here at How Stuff Works. Yeah, yeah, that
was a good one. I liked it. Yeah. I actually
ended up looking it up recently because they did the
whole ten years of iTunes and so we we pumped
out the very first episode of then Stuff in the
Science Lab before we actually the same Stuff to Blow
your Mind. So it's kind of cool to look back
on it. But now the old episodes are great, but
(20:33):
you know, you're still there's so much of your time
with this show is sort of finding what that show is.
And you know, it wasn't even called Stuff to Blow
your Mind back then, so that slightly different shows. True,
was it called stuff to Blow your Mind? During the
Chloeacle kiss? It was? This was definitely the Stuff to
Blow your Mind era. That was the chloac Era if
you will. Is that why Julie has the what is
it kloeac A Boulevard on her desk? Yeah, I remember correctly, Listener,
(20:56):
Aaron sent that into her sheet. We each got out
road sign she got and I got sandworms. Oh yeah, yeah,
that makes sense. Well we've got another one here that
looks like it's about the stigmata episode. This is another
Facebook message. This one's from Nick. I was listening to
your pieces on stigmatics and your special treatment of the
subject material is anti intellectual. There is absolutely no difference
(21:20):
between the founding of these beliefs and modern comics. He
means comic books, not stand up comedians. Stuff you should
know that's not us. Uh. There is no one single
account of Jesus written by anyone who could have known him.
If you know something I do not, please do an
episode and inform me. I am not arguing to be
anti theist, but show this subject no more reverence than
(21:42):
facts in a DC comic. I don't get thinking like this.
I mean it seems to me that whether or not
you believe the mythology is like literally true, wouldn't it
be interesting to learn about where it came from and
the story behind it. Yeah, I mean I think I
think I actually responded. There was there was a back
and forth actually on Facebook. Yeah, and but I mean
one of my responses was, like, we'd love to do
(22:04):
stuff on characters in d C comics just as much
fun and learned just as much by looking at the
comic book characters, looking at superhero powers and applying real
world physics and you know, real science to that. I've
actually done a podcast like that on the other podcast
I do at how stuff works for thinking. We did
an episode a while back where we basically looked at
all the X Men and said, Okay, what rating of
(22:26):
plausibility do we give to all their powers? Yeah? Yeah,
I mean, like I can I can understand where he's
coming from here, and that like he listens to the
show as a science podcast and expects a certain amount
of I guess, as he put it, intellectualism. Um. But
but yeah, I think that what we try to do
is is, you know, bring a connection between things like
(22:48):
pop culture or or other you know, beliefs, whether it's
stigmata or for instance, like when we were talking earlier
in the other podcast about people cutting off literally sting
off their nose, despite their face, because of the term
despite your face. It just seems to me like we
we sat down and we looked at the stigmata as
(23:10):
a actual occurrence, what could possibly have caused it, whether
it was disease, self mutilation, uh, psychosomatic situations, what have you. Uh,
And yeah, let's do it. We should for for Nick,
I think we should do something on DC comics. I'd
be happy with anything. Yeah, totally. I mean, yeah, Ultimately,
we approached stigmata, even though at the heart you have
(23:33):
a purported supernatural event, approached it from a scientific standpoint,
psychological standpoint, you know, and also just looking at just
the way we think about these things from you know,
a mythic standpoint, how it factors into worldview, and that's
that's all part of what we do here. Yeah, and
you know, to say too, I think that he was
disappointed that we uh respected stigmata objectively within the episod,
(24:00):
so that we didn't outright say this is all lies. Uh,
that that wasn't in the title. I don't know, but
I'm sorry. I do appreciate the feedback, Nick, Definitely. It
stirred some interesting back and forth on Facebook, and we
love to discuss these topics with you. So even if
it's if the topic, even if the discussion is based,
(24:21):
you know, around criticism, and believe it or not, the
three of us do you know, legitimately read these and
talk about them amongst ourselves and sometimes we'll respond on Facebook.
Sometimes we'll we'll bring it here on the listener mail
episode talk to you about it directly. In fact, we're
gonna kick this hornet's nest right again by going back
to the podcasts that we did about the intersections of
(24:42):
religion and technology, so so bring on the criticism of
supernatural topics. So this seems to be the common intersection
here though, right is when we add religion plus science,
we stir hornets. And I mean, obviously that's a that's
a thing people on the internet opinions about. But I'll think, yeah,
people have you see, you see criticism from people on
(25:04):
the atheistic side of things. You see more religious folk
criticizing sometimes, and it just kind of kind of varies.
But I mean, ultimately that's because there's a lot to
discuss there, you know. Yeah, And that seems to be
like the fact that you're saying that it comes from
from all angles. It means that they're like, we're coming
close to having a dialogue, which is pretty awesome considering
that this podcast is broadcast a mass audience. Mass audience,
(25:27):
not mass. It's like everybody past, okay, Well, anyway, we
have a couple of fairly long ones, but I do
want to read them because they're really great listener mail.
So these are from Gillian or Jillian. How do you
pronounced that name? I think it depends because the way
(25:48):
that I always heard Jillian Anderson, which I believe, is
that she pronounces it, but then the woman from community
it's spelled the same. Hers pronounced Gillian. Well, I love Scully,
so I'm gonna say Jillian. So Jillian writes in to
tell us, I've been following your podcasts for a few
years now, enjoying the eclectic mix of weird subjects. But
(26:08):
I listened with heightened enthusiasm to your recent podcast on
religion and technology. This is a subject that has been
of great interest to me for some time, perhaps because
as an atheist, religion is a fascinating anomaly to one
not participating, and was the focus of my dissertation at
Glasgow School of Art two years ago. She might be
at Gillian then, like in Scottish pronunciation, maybe there's a
(26:31):
hard g Oh, Okay, it could be it's not Glascow,
you're correct or Glasco. However you say it anyway, does
it Lionel Alasco good? Jillian continues, Uh, My research was long,
extensive and really enjoyable. This is, after all a complex
area that requires an understanding of many quirks and areas
(26:52):
of human behavior. But where your podcast focused mostly on
the historical use of religious technology, my area of inquiry
focused on cyberspace. Humans have always sought to consecrate whatever
space it is that we're currently occupying or entering. Buzz
Aldrin is reported to have taken self administered communion when
first walking on the moon. I think, actually, yeah, I
(27:13):
thought about mentioning this in the podcast, but we didn't
have time for it, I think. But anyway, she goes
on to say, and we're doing the same thing with
cyberspace characterized as a purely mined space, cyberspace does offer
a new intriguing platform for spiritual exploration. I love that
you included prayer wheels in your exploration of technology. Buddhism
(27:35):
is one of the established religions that is integrating most
enthusiastically with technology and cyberspace. You can, in fact, turn
your computer's hard drive into a prayer wheel by saving
an image of the Sanskrit. And I apologize if I'm
not pronouncing this right. Oh mamane, pod me home, allowing
for thousands more revolutions per minute than a hand can deliver.
(27:57):
The question you raised about where the use of techno
logical prayer wheels becomes problematic as an interesting one. And
there I think we asked the question of like, can
you just write a computer program that simulates the turning
of a wheel without even having a picture if it's
just like a you know, a program that executes in
the background on a computer. She She goes on. She says,
(28:19):
as prayer and prana is both unquantifiable and unverifiable, we
can't see if it is indeed more effective. Rather, what
is important is the intention of the believer, the desire
to do as much good as possible and to bring
their faith into every area of their life. Physical prayer
wheels can be said to act as advertising for Buddhism
or one's faith and a moving gift image of one
(28:42):
on your blog or website does the same thing and
encouraging faith. There was even a Tibetan Buddhism blessing in
cyberspace delivered in the early nineties where four months prayed
in front of a laptop, sanctifying the space. Cornell University
has been part of a project to make three D
mendala's existing digitally in cyberspace, and these can be navigated
(29:03):
by camera within the program. The Dalai Lama enthusiastically tried
this out and laughed when he drove the camera into
a digital statue of the Buddha. It seems like the
appropriate response, right. Uh. The reason for Buddhism's acceptance of
cyberspace is providing legitimate space for spiritual engagement, maybe because
of their dualistic understanding of reality, with consciousness and matter
(29:26):
being separate. Take a trip to second life and you'll
also encounter Christian churches. I thought this was really actually
one of these, really well, I was in a physical church,
but then the individual giving the sermon um gave it
in second life and we got to view this on
the screen. It was interesting, lassinating, that's really cool. But yeah,
(29:49):
so she says that you'll encounter Christian churches, Jewish synagogues,
and Hindu temples available to visit, some with instructions on
clothing for one's avatar. Before entering. You can also engage
your avatar and meditation and yoga practices on second life.
This asks some very interesting questions about the validity of
experience online, as I assume that while my avatar is meditating,
(30:12):
I cannot be one can even receive virtual communion on
second life. This seems ludicrous at first, but when we
consider that transubstantiation is purely metaphorical, allowing us to become
closer to our Godhead and Avatar acting as a digitally
mediated metaphor for our mind, imbibing a metaphor for Christ
(30:32):
isn't too hard to understand. It all asks some very
difficult questions about embodiment, what it means to be human,
and the nature of mind slash consciousness. This really is
a fascinating and complex issue, mostly because religion is an
innate human drive, and in examining how we engage with
religion and cyberspace, we can use it almost as a
(30:52):
litmus test to assess how we feel about the validity
of experiences online. And then she actually attached her dissertation,
which I haven't had a chance to read yet, but
I would really like to get into and and maybe
at some point we could get a chance to share
that with our listeners if if she's interested. Yeah, most
I don't know how it works at her university, but
most universities published dissertations now as open access documents, so
(31:16):
perhaps we can get a u r L from Jillian
and share it with everybody. Yeah, and anyway, she finishes up.
But thanks if you made it to the end of
this long ramble. I just get so excited when I
encounter someone discussing the subject. Much love from the West
of Scotland. Thanks for all the great work and keep
it up. You're too kind, Jillian, and your email was awesome.
I love to this. Yeah, so many, uh so many
(31:37):
wonderful things. So the mention of Mandala's and you know,
the virtual spaces of Mendala's I'd love to do an
episode just on Mandalas at some point in the future.
In fact, I think Julian, you should take this subject
and do an entire podcast series of your own about it. Yeah. Oh,
it certainly sounds like something large enough that you could
you could do a whole series on it. Well, you know,
(31:58):
Robert and I were just originally planning doing one episode
about technology and religion, but then we got into it
and realized we've been talking for like two and a
half hour. I remember, I remember, because you win the
studio and didn't come out for a really long time,
and I and I thought, what happened? Yeah, yeah, I
mean it's the topic and we just only in it, right, Yeah,
there's a there's a lot there, so yeah, it could
(32:19):
easily be a podcast onto itself. So wait, before we
move on. Transubstantiation is purely metaphorical. That's well, I understanding
that depends I think. Okay, okay, so yeah, the idea there,
if you're not familiar, is that I think, in uh,
in the mass, if people in the Christian Mass are receiving, yeah,
the bread and the wine. Transubstantiation is the belief that
(32:43):
the bread and wine is becomes the body of in
blood of Christ when it's at what point I don't
maybe when it's blessed by the priest. I'm not quite sure,
but anyway, I think so some people would probably take
that literally and say, yes, in some sense, now it
is literally. Actually the body and Blood of Jesus and
(33:04):
then others I think would take a more metaphorical approach
to it. You know that that email was so good.
We actually have another one from Jillian here, she says,
I'd like to point your attention to another interest in
comparison you mentioned UFOs. I'd just like to point out
that Young postulated that UFOs are now filling the role
of heavenly, omniscient and powerful beings left by traditional godheads
(33:28):
that have been eradicated as their scientific knowledge has grown.
They fit the same circular mandalage shape as recognized by Young,
as well as the likes of Joseph Campbell and J. G. Frasier.
Artists Susan Hiller explored this in her compelling piece Witness,
in which small saucer shaped speakers were suspended on chords
from the ceiling in a large rectangle with a space
(33:50):
left for navigating in the shape of a crucifix. From
the speakers, the viewer could listen closely to whispered confession
like reports of individuals who claimed to have encountered UFOs.
Adding another layer, the work was displayed in a church
in England, alluding to the fact that where once we
saw angels, we now see advanced scientific beings. Of course,
you argues that this being we see in a UFO
(34:12):
is just a projection from our unconscious mind, revealing a
desire for what he calls individuation at seeking of holness,
to be close to an aspirational figure, and this desire
manifest in the circular mendola shape as seen in Halo's
ghostly Orbs, Navajo sand designs, et cetera. Anyway, thanks for reading. Again,
I promise this is the last one. Again, it doesn't
(34:34):
have to be. These are so great. Yeah, they're quite good.
In fact, you know, I'd like to hear a podcast
from Jillian now also, Like I'm fascinated about what her
dissertation might be about this. This is a really interesting stuff. Yeah,
so I think she's referring to the part in the
second part of the of the Techno Religion podcast where
we talked about the UFO cults like Railianism, which you know,
(34:59):
they might not want to be a called a UFO
coult actually, but what you know, they're they're a religion
that incorporates the technology of supposed encounters with alien beings,
where in fact it's it's a quite literal replacement of
God in in the writings of Royal Their their leader right,
because he tells the story of how the Aliens went
(35:20):
through the Bible with him and said, okay, this part
here where it says God did that. Actually what happened
is the Aliens used a nuclear powered radio to do X,
Y and Z. Yeah. That the whole bit with Raliens
was it was really interesting, especially when you got into
the specifics of of like what Satan was doing as
a like cloning engineer. I can't remember there's like Satan
(35:42):
and Lucifer in the in the Alien take is that
one the two separate entities, one worked on on Earth
in the cloning facility and the other one was an
anti Earth activist on the home planet. It's wonderful stuff.
Here's one that we actually got about our podcast about
the science of incidence, the one Robert and I did
there about methods of analyzing coincidences to see whether they're
(36:05):
actually statistically interesting or not. So Zara writes in and says, Hi,
guys love the show. I just finished listening to the
episode about coincidence and it was one of my favorites.
I'm always trying to tell people about the law of
large numbers. But then I'm a math person. Well, congratulations
on that, Zarah. I am not, but I wish it were.
(36:26):
She goes on. I especially liked the bit about only
needing a group of twenty three people to find two
that have the same birthday. I shared it with my
fiance as soon as I heard it, and he laughed
at me and told me I'm a geek. Guilty as charged.
Don't we have a brain Stuff episode about this? I
believe you do, Ben does. Yeah, so if you check
out our YouTube channel for for brain Stuff, which is
(36:47):
one of the shows that Joe and I write for
brain Stuff listeners outside of this show, and uh but yeah,
Ben Boland did an episode on that very topic. Yeah, anyway,
Zara goes on. She says, anyways, I wanted to share
my own coincidence the day I was born May sixteenth.
What a coincidence? You want to know? A coincidence? Yeah,
(37:07):
that's the day I was born. That's my birthday. Wow.
So I was born on I mean July sixteen, and
I was born in October sixteen. What we're all sixteen?
How does the police sang? Anyway? Sarah too, Yeah, So,
so Zara was born on May sixteenth. What a coincidence?
(37:27):
She says. My dad was wearing a T shirt from
an old radio station in California, k m E L
one oh six. His best friend worked at the station
before I was born. Well, wouldn't you know it? I
was born at one oh six in the morning. The
only thing that would have made it better is if
it had been an A M station. But no coincidence
is perfect. How true that is, Sarah, She says, thanks
(37:50):
for keeping us all educated and entertained. You're welcome. Thank
you for writing in. Yeah, that that's a well, thank
you for that feedback. It also brings to mind we
did receive an email that we didn't read, but it
had to do with where like the coincidence and the
numerology of our placement in iTunes ranking in relation to
Glenn Beck's podcast, so that I didn't quite I didn't
(38:14):
completely understand it, and we need some clarifications on the
I'm sure there are invisible threads between us and Glenn Beck, though, yeah,
not that I was aware that he had a podcast
until just now. Okay, so this one is from Dave,
who wrote a message to us through Facebook again, where
Blow the Mind on Facebook? Follow us there by the way.
(38:34):
We don't just post our own stuff there. We share
a lot of content that we find throughout the day
as we're doing research, kinds of weird science, weird links. Yeah, monsters,
monsters definitely are in there. Uh so, Dave says, Hi, guys,
you probably don't have time to reply or maybe even
read this an entire in its entirety, Boy, Dave, are
(38:57):
you in for a surprise. Nonetheless, I've out I should
send you both a message just to let you know
how much I love your podcast. I've been an avid
podcast listener for a few years when I stumbled across yours.
Until then, I've been listening to s gu and The
Reality Check. When I started listening to Stuff to Blow
Your Mind, I was impressed with the format of the
show and the sharing of science was done in a fun,
(39:18):
never belittling way. I really enjoyed the report between both
of you and look forward to my time so I
can listen to a few Stuff to Blow your Mind episodes.
I'm currently going through your backlog and I'm about halfway
through a little more than the Seven Dead Leads. This
is a series that you did with Julia. Yeah, we
did one on each of the seven Deadly Sins. Anyway,
(39:39):
I just felt compelled to drop you this message just
to let you know that I really enjoy and appreciate
the show and wanted to thank you both and everyone
else involved. That's us Joe for putting together such a
great show on a regular basis. Thanks, and then he
typed out smile emoticon like that. It's clever. Yeah, thanks Dave,
thanks for writing in. Uh and you have sounds like
(40:00):
another individual making their way through the back catalog of
episodes and you'll find all of those episodes that stuff
to blow your mind. Dot com if you ever want
to just check out, you know, go to search there
and just see what we have. All the podcasts, all
the blog posts, all the videos everything. It's you know,
I'm not just saying this because I'm on the show now,
Like when you actually go and engage with with that site, Like,
(40:23):
there's just a tremendous wealth of material that Robert and
his various coasts over the years have produced. It's pretty awesome. Yeah, Okay,
We've got just a couple more for you guys. This
one is from sa Shank Sa Shank writes and says, hey, guys,
just heard your podcast this morning. Lovely stuff about the
intersection of technology and religion. More about Techno Religion podcast
(40:44):
Sashank says, I had a few thoughts I wanted to
share when I thought about technology and religion. The first
thing that came to mind was how many modern cult
like religious movements were centered around technological profits. I speak primarily,
of course, about the mighty Apple. I'm sure you'd agree
that Apple fandom is rather religious about their allegiance, and
it was Steve Jobs who really inspired this cult following.
(41:06):
I've thought about this quite often, and my guest was
that Jobs really fulfilled all the criteria we look for
in someone to worship slash follow When we seek religious leaders,
we look for someone who has a hold over the
masses and unites people based on a belief or ideology.
Someone who disseminates information, communication and social media, someone who
tells us a prescribed way to do things, and someone
(41:28):
who can empower people by giving them the tools to
do said things, many of which you guys mentioned with
brilliant examples, and Jobs seemed to put his products in
this light. He made it clear that the technology he
was selling wasn't simply a tool, it was a way
of life. Today, Apple fans lament the death of jobs,
jobs while still performing their annual rituals of watching w
(41:52):
w d C, lining up for iPhones, and submitting almost
fanatically to the Apple doctrine. And I think that is
something we often crave for His humans to be given direction,
purpose prescribed rituals to perform in return for affiliation, belonging
to a unified cult with a shared ideology, and of
course that edge over the other guys. And then Sashank
(42:14):
links to a couple of articles covering phenomena similar to
what he's been describing here. Once again, thanks for the
great podcast, guys, totally helps me wake up every day. Well,
thank you so much for that email, Sashank. So, do
you guys remember the Big Brother commercial that Apple did
in the eighties. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is what his
his letters making me think of, is that it was
(42:36):
sort of prescient in its own way. I feel like
they might have done like a parody version of that.
There's been a number of over the years, and that
there was one on Futurama. Okay, okay, yeah, but certainly yeah,
the um And there was a book that I read
in the nineties called micro Surfs. It was about sort
of Silicon Valleys startups and and and some of the
(42:58):
people who worked out there, and and their relationship to
Steve Jobs was very much described the way that he
was describing it as he was almost like an entity. Yeah,
I thought it was funny how in the email it
suddenly it wasn't Steve Jobs every time it became jobs,
like jobs is the name of like a Babylonian deity.
You've got bail, and you've got and you've got jobs, jobs, jobs,
(43:24):
the what the you know, the the winged lion. Now
I'm picturing they have the winged lion with with Steve
Jobs with a bite out of the side of it
and a single leaf. All right, and here's our last
bit of listener mail. This one comes in from Facebook
listener Good Vibes, Good Vibes Rights. I'm curious to know
your thoughts in the existence or non existence of extraterrestrials,
(43:47):
given thoughts and theories proposed by Eric van Duncan and
other supporters of their existence, do you think it is
plausible that they do exist? I'm really at at a
loss here I personally want to believe, but the only
evidence I have to go on his theory put forth
in photos and videos which may be real or not. Well.
Robert actually recorded an episode of brain Stuff, our video
(44:09):
series I mentioned earlier that I wrote the script for
along with I Believe You You, was with Christen Conger
about this very topic about whether aliens exist or not.
Was it the Drake equation? Maybe? I'd only vaguely remember.
It's been over a year since we did it. I
don't believe the Drake equation came into it, but we
did talk about, you know, the possibility of extra trustrial life, uh,
(44:30):
and specifically the Goldilocks zone concept of that, you know,
there's this particular zone in between a star and and
where a planet resides in order for the atmosphere to
potentially host life. So yes or no? Extraterrestrials? Oh? I
definitely think yes, definitely intelligent space faring. Yeah. Have they
(44:52):
visited Earth? No? Okay? Will they visit Earth? Yes, but
not in our understanding of time? All right? How about you? Oh? Yeah,
I think it's I mean, well, it's kind of presumptuous
to say either way, because we we don't there are
so many probabilities involved that we just don't even have
a number four, Like, what is the probability that a
(45:15):
biogenesis occurs on a on a habitable planet. I don't
know what that, you know. I mean, it might be
near one, or it might be one in ten trillion.
I just don't know, And I think even scientists don't
necessarily know the answer to that. But my hunch is that, yes,
there's plenty of life out there in the universe, but
we may very well never encounter it ever. Okay, my
(45:39):
take is that domight fake kind of varies. Like there
was a time in um junior high where I was
scared to death of alien abduction. Yeah, it's pretty like
this unsolved mysteries had had gotten into my head. We're
talking about like early nineties. Yeah, yeah, and I was
just you just look up into the night sky and
they would just suck you up, you know. Um. So
(46:00):
I feel like I'm there's definitely a strong uh uh
tendency in myself now to just dismiss extraterrestrials. But I
sometimes wonder if a part of that is was like
a defensive mechanism to that fear I used to have
so I found a reason to eradicate that fear through uh,
through you know, logic and common sense. But but I
(46:21):
still I still think there is life out there somewhere.
I don't know, I'm I'm not sure it's necessarily space
faring now or that ever will be. But sometimes I
do sort of think that lay there in bed at
night and I sort of imagine some sort of a
slime mold on another world. Yeah, yeah, that, Yeah, that's
where I fall, certainly. And I guess I would say
(46:43):
too that this seems like the perfect stuff to blow
your mind question to me, because this show is all
about sort of the wonder and awe. I think that
like science brings to us as people, you know, and
and that's what this says to me as well, too.
Is trying to use science or just your imagination to
theorize whether extraterrestrial life exists or not is one of
(47:05):
those wondrous moments that I think this show is great for. Yeah. Well,
I mean, I can't remember where this quote comes from.
Somebody said this and I heard it. It's that when
you think about extraterrestrial life, either there is extraterrestrial life
or there isn't and no matter which option is true,
that's mind blowing, right, Like the fact that we're alone
(47:26):
in the universe is scary and awe inspiring, and the
fact that there's other life out there is scary and
awe inspiring. Totally scary and inspiring. That's what we go
for here. So hey, we want to thank the robot
for a coming online, not destroying anybody. Um really just
pleased that that machine is up in morning? Is Let's yeah? Okay,
(47:50):
well we better wrap we better wrap it up. Um Hey.
If you want to learn more about our podcast, check
out old episodes, whatever, head over to stuff to bow
your mind dot com. That is the mothership. That's where
we'll find all the episodes, all the podcast, all the videos,
all the content links out to some of those social
media accounts as well. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter,
and Tumbler. And if you wanted to write us an
(48:11):
email that will be featured in a future episode listener
mail episode, Arnie might just spit out your your your
message to us right to us at blow the Mind
at how stuff works dot com for more on this
and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works
dot com
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