February 1, 2024 • 55 mins
Ever wondered if the juiciness of a chicken thigh trumps the classic breast in a spicy sandwich? Join us as we embark on a culinary expedition, tasting our way through the spicy chicken sandwich landscape, with a side of light-hearted banter about our own quirky food rules and preferences. Bryan even reveals his unexpected take on the age-old tater tots versus french fries debate, firing up a discussion on how personal tastes can lead to surprising conversations and revelations.
But it's not all about the chicken—we're sipping on "hustler juice" and diving headfirst into the indulgent world of Taco Bell's larger-than-life offerings. As we reminisce about Glenn Bell's legacy and the evolution of our fast-food favorites, we also find ourselves reflecting on our dietary convictions. From Starbucks customization to the pull of default choices, we uncover the philosophy buried in our everyday fast food experiences, sharing laughs and insights along the way.
Time to switch gears and talk time—how we perceive it, how it shapes us, and how, sometimes, it downright confuses us. From the linear progression of events to the cyclical patterns in life and the universe, we navigate through the philosophical and psychological mazes of time. We touch on COVID-19 as our new temporal milestone and even dip our toes into the effects of relativity on time, ensuring our listeners leave with their minds buzzing and perhaps, just maybe, a new way to view their next chicken sandwich.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Help Yourself.
Food and Philosophy with Brianand Nick.
I'm Nick and I'm Brian.
Fruit flies like an arrow, buttime flies like a banana.
Wait, no, I messed that up.
Scratch that, reverse it, butcheatin' Brian.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
We'll see if that is actually true.
If time flies like an arrow,we're going to be apparently
talking about spoiler alert.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
But maybe fruit flies don't like a banana, I don't
know who knows who knows.
Everything is abroad.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
But cheatin' what am I eating?
Well, I wanted to shareactually a story about the last
24 hours of my life.
I've had two different chickensandwiches from two different
places, so I went on a littlebit of a chicken sandwich tear
over the last 24 hours.
What intentionally?
That's the only tear.
Yeah, somewhat intentionally,somewhat unintentionally.
(00:58):
Both of the chicken sandwicheswere spicy chicken sandwiches in
their own right, but spicy fordifferent reasons, and I enjoyed
them a lot.
But I was really just going tosort of talk about the fact that
chicken sandwiches are sort oflike popular right Every single
place.
Now they have chickensandwiches all over the place
(01:21):
and locally here we've got arestaurant, at least local to me
it's a little far for you, butthat does basically just chicken
.
It's chicken and beer is whatthe title of it is, and so it's
a little on the news.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So I had their spicy sandwich, which has like First
of all, one of the awesomethings about it is it's a
chicken thigh and not a chickenbreast, which is a lot more.
I won't say the word thateveryone cringes at, but it's
juicier, juicy.
No, I wasn't going to say theother word, but anyway.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yeah, it's just like in the moist.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, exactly, it rhymes with sealing joist.
Yes, everyone wants a sealingmoist.
So I had the sandwich there andI hadn't had one for a while.
The good thing is it wasn'tsuper spicy.
(02:23):
Ironically, we were justtalking about spicy food in our
Toastmasters meeting yesterday.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Is it ironic when you're the one that?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
selected the topic.
Sorry, it's interesting.
I'll say it's very interestingthat we were talking about, and
you're like, wait a minute,brian, didn't you choose the
topic?
Yeah, okay, so you're justtalking about the same thing.
Oh hey, stop pulling thecurtain back, man, come on this
is the magic of podcasting.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I'm metastasizing, so chicken sandwich.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Chicken sandwich.
It was really good.
It came with a jalapenocoleslaw on it, so it was a
jalapeno coleslaw with a chickenthigh that was fried and it had
habanero oil on it for extraspiciness and it was really,
really flavorful, tasty, all thegood things Like mayo.
(03:24):
Yeah, so it was.
Yeah, it did have some mayo inthere.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Is it a coleslaw?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah, and so enjoyed it thoroughly.
But then the cool thing aboutit was I had the chance to
compare because I had anotherchicken sandwich very, very
quickly thereafter.
So think about I had dinner onenight and then lunch the next
day, a chicken sandwich.
So the other chicken sandwichwas a chicken breast and it was
(03:53):
spicy because the breading on itwas like a Cajun seasoning
breading, so just without anysauces or anything else.
The actual chicken breastitself was spicy and it was good
, it was really good.
It was a lot drier than theother sandwich because it didn't
really come with anything on it.
It did have toppings on theside so I put pickles and a
(04:16):
tomato on it to make it a littlebit more or less dry, I should
say.
And both of them had likereally super soft buns, which
one of my pet peeves is a bunthat is really hard to bite
through on a burger or somethinglike that.
It just All your toppings willfly out and so yeah, so both of
(04:38):
those I had and they were reallyreally good.
One side I had mac and cheesewith the side from one and I had
what was the side for the oh,tater tots, your favorite tater
tots.
Oh, and I was telling you haveto know, nick, the person I was
eating with.
I was telling them your ruleabout french fries and that
(05:00):
you're allowed to eat tater totsbut not.
And you're like oh gosh, are wegonna get back into this again?
That Brian can't comprehend.
But I was telling them how I'mlike, how I went through the
whole thing with you on thepodcast, where I'm like wait, so
you can eat hash browns, youcan eat tater tots, you can eat
this.
But they're like.
And then they went into the sameexact thing.
(05:21):
Just to know that I'm not crazy.
I mean, I'm crazy, but just toknow that other people might
think along the same lines as me.
They went down the same path.
They're like yeah, but whatabout steak fries?
Could you have steak fries?
What about shoestring frenchfries?
And I'm like no, no frenchfries, but a potato in other
formats he's allowed to have.
And then I explained yourrationale is not every single
(05:44):
restaurant has tater tots, so itsaves you on the calories.
And then, when you do get to arestaurant that has tater tots,
you're like cool, I can gettater tots.
Right, was I summarizing thatcorrectly?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, and it's not the default.
I don't feel like I have to gettater tots, but it's like do
you want fries with that?
There's almost this assumptionthat you're gonna get the fries.
But if I say no to the fries,nobody assumes I'm gonna get
tater tots.
So right because, remember, I'mkind of a peacemaker and I want
to avoid confrontation ordisrupting people's expectations
(06:20):
.
Yeah.
But if I just have that rulewhere it's like, I just know
there isn't like a script for oh, you don't want fries, do you
want tots?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
So I break the script , I break that pattern and you
know it's truly a decision ofokay, do I want potato, a potato
based side, or not?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Or do I just do better by getting anything?
But it forces the unconsciousdecision into a conscious
decision.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Right, I mean, the funny thing is that I'm not I
think I've said this when we hadthis conversation last I'm not
a big fan of french fries anyway.
So when I get, I actually willprefer towards like I'll get a
sandwich and I'll get a side ofcoleslaw, or I'll get a side of
like that and that one, I got aside of mac and cheese, which is
probably not the healthiest.
I'd probably be better offgetting fries and that you know.
(07:04):
But I'm not a if given thechance and if there's not a good
side, then I'll just eat thesandwich and won't have a side
with it.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
So you're saying you could quit anytime you want.
You don't really enjoy it Icould quit.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I could try this anytime.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
You just have the habit.
I mean that's, that's whatthat's like addicts who are,
like, observed neurologicallyand also interviewed.
They, they don't actually enjoythe addictive behavior they
partake in like they don't likethe inherent joy of doing
something right.
They don't actually there's not.
(07:39):
The enjoyment circuit, so tospeak, doesn't fire, it's just
the habit, it's the routine.
It's their.
There are certain foods that Iget the reward, but they don't
actually inherently enjoy thething.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
There's certain foods that I'll eat that I am either
angry while I'm eating them orangry after I eat them, and
French fries is sort of one ofthose foods.
Like I'm like huh, didn'treally Like.
Now I feel bad, like I feel Iate maybe too much, like just
French fries.
A lot of times they'll give youlike a heaping serving and then
(08:10):
I'm a clean plate club kind ofperson, so if it's on the plate
it's probably going inside meand not the best way to put it,
but anyway, Poor parsley, Inever had a chance.
But basically I will.
You know, typically we'll gothrough that and finish what's
on the plate.
(08:31):
But then I get angry that I'mlike, why did I?
I don't even like French fries,Like I was like.
Even when I'm eating them I'mlike, ah, these are okay.
I mean it's not like I hatethem, it's not like I dislike
them, Like I will not eat them,it's just I don't prefer them.
And but then and same thingpopcorn at the movies is another
one, Like we always get a largepopcorn and then the kids will
(08:53):
eat some and then I'll eat some.
I mean, Jen will eat some andthen she usually hands it, like
when they're all done she handsme and there's probably like a
third of a large popcorn left.
But I don't even like popcorn.
But it's here, it's just handedto me.
Yeah, it's handed to me and Istart eating it and I'm like why
am I eating this?
I don't even like, I don'treally even like it.
And then I have popcorn stuckin my teeth and I'm like well,
(09:13):
it's your own fault, you idiot.
You know so.
So anyway, long story short.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
The chicken sandwich is really good Chicken sandwich,
mac and cheese and French fries.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
But I had to bring it up though, because I was
telling him the whole story oflike the voicemail that I still
have saved on my phone from theone time that you broke, and he
was telling me.
He said he was like imitatingthe voicemail and he's like,
he's like, he's like Brian.
I really need help.
I really need help.
I just I broke the French frything.
I need you to.
Can you come pick me up Likeyou were calling your sponsor,
(09:55):
like you just went into a barand had three shots.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Like I'm hungover on.
I got my foot to drive.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
I know you're like.
Please, I need your help.
I'm reaching out to my sponsor.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
That's so funny.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Anyway.
So yeah, so those were good.
The tater tots were good that Ihad.
With the second one they werereal crispy on the outside, so
very good, and I actually dolike a really good tater tot.
I'll say that, you know, nowI'm all of a sudden I'm like
arguing for.
I'm like, yeah, fries arestupid, you should only get
tater tots.
(10:30):
Like I'm just all of a suddenarguing for your premise, anyway
, so yeah.
So that's my eating over thelast, basically within the last
24 hours here, 48 hours.
And then what do I have todrink?
I got my trusty water thingthat has water in it.
(10:54):
And then I have a blender bottle, blender, blender bottle,
blender, blender bottle, blender, blender bottle, a blender
bottle that has this thingcalled amino energy in it.
And just to just to like, Itook two scoops, which is about
100 milligrams of caffeine andthen, and then I drank about
(11:17):
half of it and I filled it backup, so it's watered down,
watered down amino energy, soit's a little bit of flavored
water.
And then I have a cup of coffee, like a regular cup of coffee
here at the office, and theworst saying ever on a cup I
just don't like sayings likethis it says hustle juice on it
and I just I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
It's like Well, just don't let anybody take a Sharpie
and put an R at the end of thehustle.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
It's like.
It's like when, when someonehas a, you know like when a mom
has a wine glass and it sayslike mommy's go juice and it's
sort of like wine or something.
You know like that kind ofthing.
Or I'm like really I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
I mean it's sort of funny, but it's just like an
indicator there, that's.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
I mean it's not.
Yeah, I don't taste in yourmouth.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
It's exactly what we're doing right now is I don't
know how to feel about it.
Like I just see it and I'm likeam I supposed to be laughing at
that?
Am I supposed to be?
Is that cute?
Is it not cute?
What is it?
Are they hiding a problem?
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Exactly Are they?
Are they humanizing?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
a serious problem.
They're immediately droppingthe kids off at school and then,
just like at 10 am, they'rejust drinking a glass of wine.
Is that what this is, or whatyou know, anyway?
The hustle juice is just ametaphor for toxin Another
interesting thing because therewere multiple coffee cups and
this is the one that I selected.
So apparently I do like thehustler juice.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Is that worse or better than I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I don't know.
Anyway, those are my Brian'sBeverage Corner.
Three beverages I've got goingright now and that is enough
talking for me right now.
What is your?
What are you eating anddrinking?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I have before me one of my favorite mistakes twice
over.
It's the Taco Bell combo twochicken chalupas oversized I
mean any size from Taco Bell'soversized cherry, pepsi and
Nacho Fries.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Wow, I think they are my fries.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
No.
Anyway, I was waiting for youto detect the irony and you went
with a pun.
That was great.
I did so.
Yeah, I broke my vow and you'rehearing it and the audience
heard it.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yes, nacho Fries, because those are fries.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Are they actual fries ?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I thought they were like are they actual fries?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah, they're great for potatoes.
They just have like some kindof like a coating Like a coating
.
That is hilarious.
That is hilarious, they makethem.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
That like a minute ago.
You didn't tell me that beforeeither, Like before we recorded
anything and like you're sittingthere going, oh no, here it
comes.
I, just the whole audience, isgoing to know.
Oh, I didn't tell you thispodcast episode is an
intervention for your French fryproblem.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Okay, let me just finish this.
One more fry, okay.
Yeah, but they are really good,though, if I go two and a half
years between fries.
I'm feeling pretty good aboutit.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, I'd say that's pretty good.
I'd say that's a pretty goodthe pittance on the cuisine,
yeah.
I'd say the habit is prettystrong If you're going a couple
of years between each one.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
And the falling off the wagon really did fall prey
to that default sort of thing.
Right, I wanted the drink and Iwanted the entree and the fries
were there.
Okay, I went with the defaultoption.
Yeah.
And for that little moment Iwas tired of fighting the fight.
But now having to talk about itand face the feeling that I'm
(15:06):
feeling about letting myconviction waver, it's like, you
know, in that moment if itdidn't feel worth it, but in
this moment it's like, yeah,it's worth it, it's a good
reminder, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Glenn Bell is like is thinking right now, man, my
marketing machine works so well.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Is that why I didn't call it the bell?
It's because the bell comesfrom the top of the bell.
It's founded by Glenn Bell inCalifornia yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
The only reason I know that is because I listen to
another podcast that talksabout fast food.
They go through who startedcertain podcast things.
They have the Dave Thomastrophy on there for Dave
Thomas's, wendy's and Glenn Bell.
Yeah, they talk about a lot ofstuff like that.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Anyway, I will say if you go to Taco Bell and you
like Taco Bell and you likeburgers, can you ever have an
opportunity to go to Taco John's?
Really, yeah, it's sort oftoward the Well.
(16:22):
I don't travel a whole lot, soI don't know how pervasive and
where the hell I go.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It's in the Midwest.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah.
So I was going to say I've seenthem in the Midwest but they
have a Taco burger that is justreally good.
It's really good.
I remember loving them as a kidwhen I started out my life in
that area.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I've visited and gone back.
It's still really good.
Poor quality, but sinceeverything has equally gone down
in quality, it's really good.
Yeah, it's still really good.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
It's all relative, right, yeah, and that's what
I've noticed as I've gottenolder.
But then I try to figure outover the you know, through the
passage of time, if my tastebuds have changed or if the
ingredients for things like Iused to go to Taco Bell all the
time, and now it tastesdifferent to me, and so I'm
(17:14):
wondering, hey, are they usingcheaper ingredients?
Or is it me Be it getting older, my taste buds have changed and
so therefore and I don't eatthere as often and so I'm not
quote unquote used to it, Idon't know.
I do know that they have doneexactly what you said.
Yeah, they do reduce I don'twant to say reduce the quality.
(17:34):
I will say that they probablyhave constantly evaluated the
cost associated with ingredientsso that they can maximize their
profit, right?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Wow, that was a very politically correct term to say
they use cheaper ingredients.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
I'm just saying I was trying not to pass judgment.
As a peacekeeper.
I don't want no beef with TacoBell.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Oh, they don't want beef either.
Exactly All they offer ismistake.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
All right and scared chicken.
What are you drinking, though?
I saw you drink something asecond ago.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yes, yeah, I've got water from my more Cal Bell
bottle, glass bottle that hasbeen stripped of its plastic.
And then I have a green yourown cup, ordered to the mobile
app of Starbucks.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Decaf Grande iced hazelnut oat milk shaken
espresso.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Oh my gosh, it's a milkshake cream.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
So it's sugar.
No, it's lots of sugar.
No caffeine.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
That's complicated.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
And all kinds of fill it.
Yeah yeah, it's so important tohave any kind of status as my
uniqueness of coffee.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Like half calf, half decaf, with a shot of espresso
and an oat milk side.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
And one thing I haven't had in a long time I
need to go back to just for thefun of it, you know, because I'm
the kind of guy that will likeget a beer or a drink because
there's a pun to the name, youknow.
Yes.
And I came up with my owncoffee concoction where I said I
want you know like one, onepump of hazelnut, one pump of
(19:25):
coconut, one pump of I don'tknow some other nut and I and I
like almond milk or whatever.
Yeah.
And I call it my local nutespresso.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
And do they?
Have they taken to that?
Have they like they're?
We're going to add this as anew menu item.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
It was years ago that I did it and it wasn't
Starbucks, so I'll give itanother shot not espresso, let's
see if, if I like it or if itwas just the name I gave it that
made it fun.
And if it is, then I'll justkeep ordering it until they, you
know, create a conversationabout it.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
We'll see what happens.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
You heard it here first folks Well as I saw as I'm
seeing the clock tick away hereon our episode we're losing it
we're going to get into ourtopic.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yeah yeah, the philosophy of time, that's this
one yes.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
We decided that we were going to right.
We're going to dive intodifferent aspects of the concept
of time and when we it's atimely subject.
Yeah, and when we dove in thatpool was really deep, that just
we should have probably startedat the shallow end and waited
our whole life to get our way in.
But no, we just dove into deepend and it's yeah.
(20:55):
We're barely barely hanging onhere treading water.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
There is a way you can do a soft intro to it.
Some of it.
I found a video on YouTube.
I think it was sponsored bytime and I believe it's Brian
Green.
I'll get the link and we'llconfirm it.
He goes through different fivelevels of explaining time and he
starts at, like the child leveland then goes to the general
level and then the, you know,onto graduate, student level and
(21:23):
maybe even beyond that, and youget to see at what point you
get lost.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
One of the top comments was can I have the
fetus little yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Just no concept of time at all, just.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, Well, and there is a.
I don't know if this falls intothe.
I know we want to start withthe philosophy, but since it's
relevant to, what you just saidthere is a very they've done
studies with kids and there's avery innate sort of spatial
dimension that kids seem to haveto time and the way they
(22:00):
describe things.
They observe that we, when wewould use time like words to
describe something, they usemore spatial words.
Got it, but yeah, it's justthat's something I want to
explore more before I speak moreto you.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
It makes sense, though.
It makes sense that you knowyou.
When you have I guess you know,for I guess I will probably get
into this but like when youhave less constraints on your
time or less things that arelike, hey, I have to mark a
place in time, meaning I have togo to work at this time, or I
have to do this or I have to dothat, it seems logical that your
(22:39):
experience of time is going tobe less rigid.
Like that.
It's just going to be more likeyou know, like like you go on
vacation and you don't wear yourwatch and you're, you can sleep
in and you don't have an alarmwaking you up in the morning All
of a sudden.
Time feels a lot different thanwhen you're in the grind of
(22:59):
working every day and doing allthe things you feel like you
have to do every day.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Right, or, yeah, you can, if you go like on a binge
watch of YouTube and youincrease the playback speed,
just do a good solid hour ofwatching at you know, faster
speed and then you go and havelike a real conversation with a
real person.
It just feels so slow.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yes, yes, I've done that with Just get to the point
yeah, listening to podcasts,I've got time for this.
You speed up a podcast and thenyou go back to listening to
something at actual regular onetime speed and you're like why
are they talking so slowly?
And it's not right.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, what's really really fun is they sound drunk
if you go to like 85% of speed.
Yes, it's like they slur theirwords.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yes, yeah and they're so slow, All right, Well, so
yeah.
So the first thing I guess thefirst area that we want to talk
about was exactly what you saidis sort of the philosophical
concepts of time or you knowdifferent ways that time is
(24:11):
viewed, I guess yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Well, I think we also should probably follow our
tactic of defining time or, atleast for the sake of our
conversation, what we mean bytime.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yes, and that's a difficult thing to define, which
is why we're talking about itfor three episodes.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, that's fair.
Okay, well, one I think how tosay this is probably not
all-encompassing, but in timesof password, I've thought about
it.
To me it's just time.
Is the measure of change RightLike?
Any concept we have of wheretime is frozen right.
You could freeze time,Everything stops.
(25:04):
No change, no difference.
Some of our early concepts oftime is talking about things
before and after, Like you don'thave to have a clock to talk
about and this is what happenedand this is what happened, and
after that, this and next we'lldo this.
It's like a series of events orcausal relationships.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Well, and that's interesting because one of the
things, one of the differentways that people define time and
I'll link to this article, butwe have a there was an article
written by a PhD that you know,back in 2021, that talks about
excuse me, talks about a lot ofthese different concepts of time
(25:52):
, and one of those is lineartime and that's what you were
just talking about, which is,you know, this happens, then
this happens, then this happens,and you can visualize that on a
straight line where, sort oflike your pithy thing at the
beginning, time flies like abanana.
No, time flies like an arrow,you know, is that it goes
straight and it keeps going andthe part that's left behind is
(26:13):
gone and it hasn't reached itsdestination yet, whatever.
So that's sort of more thelinear time and it's and that's
the way that most people thinkof time.
So it's, you know, talkingabout our watches and our clocks
the mark time.
That's how they measure it is.
It's moving forward and it'smarking that time as it moves
(26:34):
forward right.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Right, except our clocks are cyclical.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Circular, Circular yeah.
That is true yes, but then youhave you know seconds to minutes
, to hours, to days, to weeks,to years, to millennia.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
All those are roughly arbitrary.
Yes well, it's all arbitrary.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
I mean, when you get down to it, all of it is just a
made up construct to try toquantify something right?
Why'd you give me that face?
Nick, just gave me a face like.
What are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (27:14):
No, no, no, I'm multitasking.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Oh, okay.
So I thought the face was at me.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
It's taking concentration, to listen and
think at the same time.
You're, you are perfectlyperfect in every perfect way,
brian.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
To be in you.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Thank you Good, don't let my face criticize you.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
I get worried, you know.
So the other thing that I foundthat was interesting was
there's another theory of timewhich is sort of what you
alluded to, which is calledcyclical time, and it says in
this article many early cultureshad a cyclical conception of
time, sometimes called the wheelof time.
(27:53):
Those cultures are the Incan,the Mayan, hinduism, buddhism
and Jainism.
They perceive time asconsisting of repeated ages and
time periods.
Helps.
It helps explain the idea ofreincarnation.
Circular, repeating conceptionsof time are still used today by
some cultures, including inIndia.
So you know, that's yeah.
(28:13):
Go ahead.
No, I was just going to say it'san interesting thing to think,
going back to some of our, youknow, self-important cognitive
biases and things like.
That is like we want to makesure that we feel important
about things and I think thatthe you know, the fact that I'm
(28:34):
doing something that nobody elsehas ever done like in this
particular moment, right now, inthis present moment that we're
dealing with, makes me feel likeoh, wow, okay, cool.
But most likely people in thepast and other things have done
exactly what we're doing in somedifferent format.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
So Sure it's.
Yeah, there's a some kind ofcycle to things, some patterns
of, you know, exploration andstasis, exploration and stasis.
So there's, you know, out withthe old and the new, yin and
yang, different patterns, thatsort of repeat themselves as one
(29:11):
increases, the other decreases.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Well it goes to that cognitive bias the cognitive
bias of declineism, I think,plays into this, because
basically you're saying like, oh, my stress is worse and it's
harder now than it was back then.
Back then everything was soinnocent.
Back then everything was sosimple.
Back then everything was this,and now it's all hard and
complicated and I don't have anymoney and I don't have any time
(29:38):
and whatever.
Right.
In essence, you're sayingeverything's getting worse and
worse and worse, and that Ithink that the cyclical nature
of time doesn't lend itself tothat, because it's basically
like no other people in the pasthave had the stresses you have,
they had the struggles that youhave, they have all the, and so
it's.
I'm probably paraphrasing alittle bit, or at least talking
(30:01):
peripherally to the idea thatthey're talking about in the
cyclical nature of time, but thepoint- is you know yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
If you're talking about economies or seasons of
the year, or even maybe even theexpansion of the universe,
there could be ebbs and flows,right, like it's all about your
time context.
So kids growing up right now,with the economy the way it is,
think that they have a bit ofdeclineism, right, that they
(30:30):
can't afford rent, they can'tafford a house, they don't have
a living wage, like things areonly going to get worse and
worse and worse.
But perhaps people who've livedthrough or been alive through a
couple of generations see thismore as sort of a winter of our
economy, and you know that, youknow this too shall pass and it
might be that you know thediscomfort of that particular
(30:53):
generation is going to be suchthat creates the impetus for
them to create the springtime oftheir generation.
Yeah, and that's another way ofsort of out with the old and
with the new, another form of,you know, new life into the
existing system of whatever itis.
But yeah, just like with everydarkness comes the dawn, with
(31:19):
every winter comes the spring,there's a cyclical nature to
change and the progression andregression of it.
You know Right, and we'vetalked before about order and
chaos.
One person's order is anotherperson's chaos.
Right.
(31:40):
It's like, hey, you might decidetomorrow, but hey, nick, I'm
just getting things straightwith my family and career right
now.
I can't do this podcast anymore.
Okay, you're creating moreorder for your life and that's a
positive progression of changefor you.
Yeah.
But then that creates chaos forme, right?
Yeah, and regression for me,Like what am I going to do with
(32:00):
my free time?
I really enjoy talking with you, Brian.
I don't know what else to.
How else am I going to scratchthis itch?
That's you know.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
There's certainly more productive ways to deal
with your time than hanging outwith me.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Right Now, you're perfectly, perfectly perfect, as
I said before.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, let's just keep that illusion going oh yeah, I
do so back to time.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah, you talk about the era of time, and even I'm
sure those who have a cyclicalconcept of time in terms of
seasons or reincarnation,they're still, they still have
to be faced with the fact thattime is not like a spatial
dimension, right?
Yeah, you can't.
We only go one direction.
(32:49):
You can't go up or down withtime, you can't go left or right
with time, you can only go,let's just say, to the right.
It seems like neurologicallymaybe, at least in Western
cultures.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yeah, the left or right.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Pre-conception is from left to right, like a
timeline.
I don't know if it's differentwhere languages like read from
right to left, for instance.
That'd be a cool thing toresearch.
I just didn't have time for it.
Well, I didn't make time for it, but yeah it's.
That's where I think part ofthat era of time comes from is
like you can't Arrows, don't flybackwards.
(33:26):
Right the hands of the clock,don't go the other direction.
You can't turn back time andtake back all the words that
hurt you.
What?
Speaker 2 (33:44):
does that do?
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
I was just going to say.
You can get a really nicetattoo across your butt, though.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yes, no regrets.
Anyway, sorry, Interrupted yeahso I guess what do we do with
that?
I don't know if that falls inthe philosophy or not, but it's
like nothing really goesbackwards when it comes to time.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Well the interesting thing is that you are With what
you were talking about.
You're jumping into a subjectthat we were going to get into
in the next episode, I believe.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Okay, well, I can walk it back.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
But just as a preview .
Yeah, you mentioned time as adimension.
That's one of the things thatthey talk about in basically
different theories of time.
There is a static.
(34:52):
I think this actually does fallinto this one.
This is our subject today.
There's a static concept oftime and then there's a dynamic
versus a concept of time.
I think I'm talking about theright thing.
This is where it gets dicey manI know, it's mind-bending.
(35:14):
There's so much to this.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
I know there is the idea of determinism, the laws of
physics and the theory ofrelativity, which affects time
because of speed of light andrelative perceptions of what
happens and things.
It's all consistent, cohesiveand predictable.
(35:38):
There's no denying the natureof things People have done brain
scans of people and when peoplebecome conscious of their
decision, when they thinkthey've made a decision is well
after when their neurologicalsystems and circuitry would
(36:01):
indicate that the decision wasactually made.
It is influenceable.
Mentalists can hijack yourdecision-making process and your
body language clues and suchwhere they know stuff about you,
or they can get you to dothings or believe things or say
(36:21):
things in the moment that youdidn't realize.
It's like if it's all differentstrings that are just pulled and
have already been pulled orwere pulled in the past, which
caused certain other strings inreaction to be pulled, then all
of the so-called choices andchanges were predetermined
(36:45):
previously.
There's this idea ofdeterminism that the free will
is an illusion, not just time.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
So I found what I was tied to the dynamic versus
static theory of time.
The static theory of time partof it says the universe is
spread out into four similardimensions which make up the
unified four-dimensionalmanifold appropriately called
space-time Three spatialdimensions and one chronological
(37:23):
dimension and then the dynamictheory of time.
The universe is spread out intothree dimensions of physical,
space and time, like modality.
It is a completely differentkind of dimension from spatial
dimensions, so it's like aseparate.
It's not a fourth dimensionthat's all combined into one
gigantic thing that we're livingin.
It's a separate dimension,that's by itself.
(37:47):
And so basically, like I said,I guess the bottom line is that
there are those two differenttheories and it's more physics,
like scientific, try to quantifythe actual time.
(38:14):
And how does it pass?
What is it exactly what you'resaying?
Does it fly through?
Does the arrow fly through theair?
And that's how it's going andit's by itself.
Or is it just one big thing?
The arrow is going in thatdirection and it's going at this
speed and it's going at this,so it's all wrapped up into one
(38:34):
big ball of time theory.
Sure.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
One, and I guess there's this context too of like
okay, yeah, so maybe the arrowof time, like we're all in this
planet, we're all flying throughspace at the same speed and the
rate of change of that quoteconstant.
But then we move around on thearrow, like we make decisions
and choices on the arrow thatalmost certainly have no impact
(39:04):
on the arrow itself, thetrajectory and whatnot.
We'd all have to jump at thesame time on the same side of
the arrow to you have theSuperman theory Weird thing like
that.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yeah, the fly background fly really fast
backwards, make the earth spinin the opposite direction, and
then time travels backwards.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Right, which we can't test that theory we can't
disprove, right yeah.
But it's not like the planet isa clock, is it?
You just wind it backwards andeverything goes backwards, right
?
I was that idea though ofentropy, where everything is
(39:49):
sort of floating towardsdisorder.
Yes.
Universe is expanding from theBig Bang.
Where did the order originate?
Which does have some fun, notfun.
Interesting implications of howreligion, western religion and
(40:10):
science have some overlap.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Because in the beginning God, who's like the
God of order, satan's the God ofchaos and created the heavens
and the earth.
But if it's all going towardsentropy, then it's sort of the
creation of evil, it's thecreation of disorder.
Right.
But by changing, becausechanging anything from
perfection is thereforeimperfection.
(40:35):
But what if all of thatexpansion, this change over time
expansion of the universe is?
This is a huge crazy.
What if?
But going back to that cyclicalidea of that expansion, what if
, eventually it contracts Right?
(40:57):
But back into that single quote, solitary piece of order.
Right where it's like all we areis just a small part inside an
extra dimensional beings long,and right now they're breathing
in, but several billion yearsinto the future they're going to
(41:21):
, you know they're going tobreathe out.
Our perception of severalbillion years.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Huh, our perception of several billion years, but
their perception of one breath.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Yeah.
I know that's a wild thing tosay, wild thing to bring up in a
conversation about time.
I mean, if you want to,reference one of our other
topics.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
You know we did talk about sylipsism and that's sort
of what that is.
Is what it's, that existentialkind of like?
Are we really on just a planetLike, is everything that we know
and science that we've studiedand we have a we can see in our
known solar system and in ourknown universe?
Is that really what it is?
Or are we just not seeing thebig?
Speaker 1 (42:02):
we can't back up far enough to see the big picture,
or there's we can't go off thearrow, right, you know, to see
the stream or the flow, you knowRight.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yet there's the theory, obviously, that somebody
could be somebody or something,or some entity or something
could be observing that.
And I mean and that's goingback to what you said is, you
know, I think a lot of religionactually is goes around this,
that topic of like there's a,there's a, there's a being that
can be so far removed that theyget to see the forest, and we
(42:38):
only get to see the trees, andso they understand what the
passage of time is, theyunderstand what and we've talked
about this before on thepodcast, we've been doing this
long enough.
We've talked about almosteverything on podcast, but
basically, you know, that's thesort of theory behind it is like
this omnipotent, omniscientbeing or entity or Energy.
(43:05):
Mm hmm, that Does understand allof this stuff and we're just
trying to make sense of it, andso that's one of the ways we try
to make sense of it, I think is, yeah, there's this Again,
there's this thing that is theuniverse or whatever it is, and
but yeah, I when we get back tothe philosophies of time, though
(43:29):
, there's that, like you said,the static, yes, and the dynamic
.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
I think I've heard physicists which I know aren't
philosophers, but physiciststalk about that.
There is no now and there's nopast and there's no presence.
It's like present or future.
It's like it's all.
It's just all one big thing.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
Block.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
And yeah, and it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Already happened or is?
Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Oh, it's interesting you bring that up because the
name for that is presentismversus eternalism.
So Presentism yes.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Eternalism is the one , that Right Is the one you're
talking about.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, and presentism is the idea that the only thing
that really truly exists is themoment that you're in right now,
the present, that one'sfleeting moment, because that
would make sense if it's.
If you're talking about alinear theory of time, where
you're On an arrow and it'sgoing in that direction and it
doesn't go up down sideways, itonly goes straightforward, then
(44:33):
the only thing that you have isjust right, that moment in time
that marked where the arrow isat that specific moment.
Right, whereas If the, if thearrow, could you know,
everything is all interlinkedand intermingled.
Then, yeah, eternalism, becauseit says that's the view that
the past, present and future areall equally real and that our
perception of only theexperience now is being being
(44:56):
real is merely a matter of ourbrain's consciousness, and
arbitrary place and time.
So that's that, that arbitrary.
There's what I said before islike isn't this all arbitrary?
Isn't it all just a constructthat we, we are like well, we
got to figure out a way to like,mark the date, like, oh, the
sun comes up, the sun comes down.
Well, let's mark that somehow.
(45:17):
How do we mark that?
You know, and which is?
I'll tell you why my argument is, for that is legitimate, the
fact that we have daylightsavings time, the fact that we
arbitrarily, at a given time,will just go hey, you know what,
we're going to move our clocksan hour back.
Hey, you know what, now we'regoing to move our clocks for
that, to me, says all of time isjust a thing that we just made
(45:41):
up and we decide, we control it.
We just say, yeah, we know what.
If we wanted to say today, youknow what tomorrow we're going
to do, we're going to flip a andam and PM.
So tomorrow everyone's going towork at 12 am.
By noon, you're eating lunch at12 am and you're asleep at 12
pm.
Right, we could flip night forday if we wanted to.
(46:03):
Would that affect anything,except for the fact that we
would just now say, hey, I'meating lunch and it's midnight
or it's.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
You know it's, it's all we decided to call the night
day and the day night Right.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
It.
Would that really?
Would that affect anything?
No, we would still go to workduring the daytime.
Most likely we wouldn't be like, oh well, now we have to be
there at 12 pm.
It's like, no, you work whenit's daylight hours, so or what
used to be called daylight Right.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Which to me, is like the crazy.
That's the biggest argumentthat it's all just made up, like
it's all just a thing that wejust decided.
We're going to do it this way,yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
And and we're really quickly getting into, like the
psychology and perceptions oftime.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Well, I think you're right.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
But, I'm just saying that in terms of the presentism
and the eternalism.
I feel like you know what.
The reason why is becauseeternalism is says that our
perception of the onlyexperienced quote unquote now
being real is merely a matter ofthe brain's consciousness and
our arbitrary place in time.
So that that could be our placein time meaning hey, we decided
(47:17):
at one point that there wasgoing to be a year zero and we
are now 2024 years away fromthat year zero, right, and we
basically just decided to havean anniversary.
We basically just say, hey, youknow what, how can we celebrate
an anniversary?
Hey, let's start with zero andjust start counting here and I'm
sorry if there's anyonelistening, that's not meant to
(47:37):
demean the birth of Christ andthat defining, you know,
defining thing in history.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
But we do that organically right, Like any
significant event we talk aboutin terms of coming back to that
before and after.
Right.
And here more recently, there'splenty of stories we tell you
know before the pandemic, duringthe pandemic and after the
pandemic right.
Yeah, Before COVID.
(48:06):
So you know, we talk about BCnow in terms of before COVID.
Yeah.
So it's a point of reference,right, and that comes into again
the psychology, where there'sparts of our circuitry, and even
our language, where time islike a spatial dimension.
(48:29):
Mm-hmm.
You know, time is a point ofreference.
Or if you and I wanted to meetsomewhere, we have to know the
time, otherwise we're not goingto meet.
Yeah, yeah, right, we're notgoing to connect.
We might know all I know.
I might know exactly where, onthe Empire State Building, I'm
going to meet you, yeah, butyou're only going to be there
for a certain period of timebefore you give up.
(48:50):
Stop waiting on me, you know.
So we can't.
We can't meet, and then.
But then there's also likelooking back or talking about
going forward.
We're going to do this and thisand this.
Why do we talk about it backand forward?
Because it's part of ourconcept that time flies like an
arrow, right.
Right, mm-hmm.
(49:11):
Yeah.
Well maybe that's just theteaser to what we're going to
talk about in the next episode.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
That's right.
Yeah, and there was somethingthat I was going to say to add
to that, but it was talkingabout what was it?
It was I think it was actuallygetting into our next concept of
time, but there's a bunch of,there's a bunch of things like
that where it's just a like it'sa necessary thing that we have
(49:41):
in, you know, making thingsorderly, of marking that time,
and in fact, now, as we do, ashumans, we always want to
continue to, you know perfect.
So now we have, like thesehyper accurate atomic clocks
(50:04):
that keep time, like you know.
So it's not a mechanical thing.
That's like.
Here's what a second is,because that mechanical thing,
no matter how fine you get thatmechanical thing, it's always
going to be slightly.
It can be slightly different.
It can slow down, it can speedup, right.
Atomic clock, atomic particlesobviously they're going to be
consistent in the way thatthey're.
Well, that's what they're well,but that's what they're, that's
(50:27):
what the theory is, you know, isthat we have an atomic clock
that is the accurate, the mostaccurate that we can get.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
right, Right, but but once you take two atomic clock
clocks and separate them, likeif you put like.
There was one video I saw wherethey said that if you put one
atomic clock on the table andyou put one on the floor beneath
it, they will get out of syncbecause of the because of
relativity and the gravity,gravitational pull of the earth,
(50:53):
that I think.
They said that the core of theearth is 2.5 years younger than
the crust.
Dude, I can't do this, I can'tdo it anymore.
I can't stop, dude.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
I can't Hot.
You're killing me.
My brain hurts.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
I can't function if I don't, if you taught yeah, if
you were moving, you weretalking about how.
What was it you said to youwere talking about how two
different things are moving.
Uh-huh, and that makes itdifficult.
I forgot.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
What you said earlier today.
Was it about, like the timespace thing?
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Maybe, but but that's that's it, right?
Is that our perception of timediffers?
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
Um from, not only by our distance, but by the speed
at which we're moving.
So time, because we're allmoving roughly at the same speed
because, we're all spinning onthe planet at the same time
right.
There's no difference in thesun seems to be in the same
place in the sky, for near eachother.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
And all that jazz.
But once we're both if twoobjects moving differently,
different directions um thenjust everything's different.
I'm going to see things soonerthan you will, even if we're
looking in the same direction,or if you're getting further,
for me then things are going togo slower and slower, or?
(52:26):
Get to you later and later.
Then they'll get to me If I'mmoving, looking the same
direction, but moving towards it.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I don't even know, I'mmy brain is broken.
I'm breaking the stuffseriously, like I'll just use
the rest of this time to stutterand, you know, drool out of the
rest of my mouth because Idon't even know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
And in this episode you get to verbally see Brian
drooling into real time.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
real time in real time, Going into a cognitive
coma at the prospect of time.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
Oh, real time, I got it, real time.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Real time.
Well, that's enough.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Yeah, I think that's good.
Well, so then yeah so in thenext couple episodes.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
I think next episode we're going to talk about sort
of what we got into a little bitthere, which is perception of
time, like how you know.
Those were sort of some of thephilosophies, obviously not an
exhaustive list, but talkingabout just how people deal with
time, perception of time, thingslike that.
(53:40):
So I think that's it All right.
Well, we hope you listen to thenext one.
Speaker 1 (53:47):
We're not going to draw any conclusions here.
We're just going to getourselves confused.
Come along for the read.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
Exactly All right.
Yeah, thank you yeah.
Welcome to Help Yourself.
Food and Philosophy with Brianand Nick.
I'm Nick and I'm Brian.
Fruit flies like an arrow, buttime flies like a banana.
Wait, no, I messed that up.
Scratch that, reverse it, butcheatin' Brian.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
We'll see if that is actually true.
If time flies like an arrow,we're going to be apparently
talking about spoiler alert.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
But maybe fruit flies don't like a banana, I don't
know who knows who knows.
Everything is abroad.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
But cheatin' what am I eating?
Well, I wanted to shareactually a story about the last
24 hours of my life.
I've had two different chickensandwiches from two different
places, so I went on a littlebit of a chicken sandwich tear
over the last 24 hours.
What intentionally?
That's the only tear.
Yeah, somewhat intentionally,somewhat unintentionally.
(00:58):
Both of the chicken sandwicheswere spicy chicken sandwiches in
their own right, but spicy fordifferent reasons, and I enjoyed
them a lot.
But I was really just going tosort of talk about the fact that
chicken sandwiches are sort oflike popular right Every single
place.
Now they have chickensandwiches all over the place
(01:21):
and locally here we've got arestaurant, at least local to me
it's a little far for you, butthat does basically just chicken
.
It's chicken and beer is whatthe title of it is, and so it's
a little on the news.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So I had their spicy sandwich, which has like First
of all, one of the awesomethings about it is it's a
chicken thigh and not a chickenbreast, which is a lot more.
I won't say the word thateveryone cringes at, but it's
juicier, juicy.
No, I wasn't going to say theother word, but anyway.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yeah, it's just like in the moist.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, exactly, it rhymes with sealing joist.
Yes, everyone wants a sealingmoist.
So I had the sandwich there andI hadn't had one for a while.
The good thing is it wasn'tsuper spicy.
(02:23):
Ironically, we were justtalking about spicy food in our
Toastmasters meeting yesterday.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Is it ironic when you're the one that?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
selected the topic.
Sorry, it's interesting.
I'll say it's very interestingthat we were talking about, and
you're like, wait a minute,brian, didn't you choose the
topic?
Yeah, okay, so you're justtalking about the same thing.
Oh hey, stop pulling thecurtain back, man, come on this
is the magic of podcasting.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
I'm metastasizing, so chicken sandwich.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Chicken sandwich.
It was really good.
It came with a jalapenocoleslaw on it, so it was a
jalapeno coleslaw with a chickenthigh that was fried and it had
habanero oil on it for extraspiciness and it was really,
really flavorful, tasty, all thegood things Like mayo.
(03:24):
Yeah, so it was.
Yeah, it did have some mayo inthere.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Is it a coleslaw?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yeah, and so enjoyed it thoroughly.
But then the cool thing aboutit was I had the chance to
compare because I had anotherchicken sandwich very, very
quickly thereafter.
So think about I had dinner onenight and then lunch the next
day, a chicken sandwich.
So the other chicken sandwichwas a chicken breast and it was
(03:53):
spicy because the breading on itwas like a Cajun seasoning
breading, so just without anysauces or anything else.
The actual chicken breastitself was spicy and it was good
, it was really good.
It was a lot drier than theother sandwich because it didn't
really come with anything on it.
It did have toppings on theside so I put pickles and a
(04:16):
tomato on it to make it a littlebit more or less dry, I should
say.
And both of them had likereally super soft buns, which
one of my pet peeves is a bunthat is really hard to bite
through on a burger or somethinglike that.
It just All your toppings willfly out and so yeah, so both of
(04:38):
those I had and they were reallyreally good.
One side I had mac and cheesewith the side from one and I had
what was the side for the oh,tater tots, your favorite tater
tots.
Oh, and I was telling you haveto know, nick, the person I was
eating with.
I was telling them your ruleabout french fries and that
(05:00):
you're allowed to eat tater totsbut not.
And you're like oh gosh, are wegonna get back into this again?
That Brian can't comprehend.
But I was telling them how I'mlike, how I went through the
whole thing with you on thepodcast, where I'm like wait, so
you can eat hash browns, youcan eat tater tots, you can eat
this.
But they're like.
And then they went into the sameexact thing.
(05:21):
Just to know that I'm not crazy.
I mean, I'm crazy, but just toknow that other people might
think along the same lines as me.
They went down the same path.
They're like yeah, but whatabout steak fries?
Could you have steak fries?
What about shoestring frenchfries?
And I'm like no, no frenchfries, but a potato in other
formats he's allowed to have.
And then I explained yourrationale is not every single
(05:44):
restaurant has tater tots, so itsaves you on the calories.
And then, when you do get to arestaurant that has tater tots,
you're like cool, I can gettater tots.
Right, was I summarizing thatcorrectly?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, and it's not the default.
I don't feel like I have to gettater tots, but it's like do
you want fries with that?
There's almost this assumptionthat you're gonna get the fries.
But if I say no to the fries,nobody assumes I'm gonna get
tater tots.
So right because, remember, I'mkind of a peacemaker and I want
to avoid confrontation ordisrupting people's expectations
(06:20):
.
Yeah.
But if I just have that rulewhere it's like, I just know
there isn't like a script for oh, you don't want fries, do you
want tots?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
So I break the script , I break that pattern and you
know it's truly a decision ofokay, do I want potato, a potato
based side, or not?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Or do I just do better by getting anything?
But it forces the unconsciousdecision into a conscious
decision.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Right, I mean, the funny thing is that I'm not I
think I've said this when we hadthis conversation last I'm not
a big fan of french fries anyway.
So when I get, I actually willprefer towards like I'll get a
sandwich and I'll get a side ofcoleslaw, or I'll get a side of
like that and that one, I got aside of mac and cheese, which is
probably not the healthiest.
I'd probably be better offgetting fries and that you know.
(07:04):
But I'm not a if given thechance and if there's not a good
side, then I'll just eat thesandwich and won't have a side
with it.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
So you're saying you could quit anytime you want.
You don't really enjoy it Icould quit.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I could try this anytime.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
You just have the habit.
I mean that's, that's whatthat's like addicts who are,
like, observed neurologicallyand also interviewed.
They, they don't actually enjoythe addictive behavior they
partake in like they don't likethe inherent joy of doing
something right.
They don't actually there's not.
(07:39):
The enjoyment circuit, so tospeak, doesn't fire, it's just
the habit, it's the routine.
It's their.
There are certain foods that Iget the reward, but they don't
actually inherently enjoy thething.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
There's certain foods that I'll eat that I am either
angry while I'm eating them orangry after I eat them, and
French fries is sort of one ofthose foods.
Like I'm like huh, didn'treally Like.
Now I feel bad, like I feel Iate maybe too much, like just
French fries.
A lot of times they'll give youlike a heaping serving and then
(08:10):
I'm a clean plate club kind ofperson, so if it's on the plate
it's probably going inside meand not the best way to put it,
but anyway, Poor parsley, Inever had a chance.
But basically I will.
You know, typically we'll gothrough that and finish what's
on the plate.
(08:31):
But then I get angry that I'mlike, why did I?
I don't even like French fries,Like I was like.
Even when I'm eating them I'mlike, ah, these are okay.
I mean it's not like I hatethem, it's not like I dislike
them, Like I will not eat them,it's just I don't prefer them.
And but then and same thingpopcorn at the movies is another
one, Like we always get a largepopcorn and then the kids will
(08:53):
eat some and then I'll eat some.
I mean, Jen will eat some andthen she usually hands it, like
when they're all done she handsme and there's probably like a
third of a large popcorn left.
But I don't even like popcorn.
But it's here, it's just handedto me.
Yeah, it's handed to me and Istart eating it and I'm like why
am I eating this?
I don't even like, I don'treally even like it.
And then I have popcorn stuckin my teeth and I'm like well,
(09:13):
it's your own fault, you idiot.
You know so.
So anyway, long story short.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
The chicken sandwich is really good Chicken sandwich,
mac and cheese and French fries.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
But I had to bring it up though, because I was
telling him the whole story oflike the voicemail that I still
have saved on my phone from theone time that you broke, and he
was telling me.
He said he was like imitatingthe voicemail and he's like,
he's like, he's like Brian.
I really need help.
I really need help.
I just I broke the French frything.
I need you to.
Can you come pick me up Likeyou were calling your sponsor,
(09:55):
like you just went into a barand had three shots.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Like I'm hungover on.
I got my foot to drive.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
I know you're like.
Please, I need your help.
I'm reaching out to my sponsor.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
That's so funny.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Anyway.
So yeah, so those were good.
The tater tots were good that Ihad.
With the second one they werereal crispy on the outside, so
very good, and I actually dolike a really good tater tot.
I'll say that, you know, nowI'm all of a sudden I'm like
arguing for.
I'm like, yeah, fries arestupid, you should only get
tater tots.
(10:30):
Like I'm just all of a suddenarguing for your premise, anyway
, so yeah.
So that's my eating over thelast, basically within the last
24 hours here, 48 hours.
And then what do I have todrink?
I got my trusty water thingthat has water in it.
(10:54):
And then I have a blender bottle, blender, blender bottle,
blender, blender bottle, blender, blender bottle, a blender
bottle that has this thingcalled amino energy in it.
And just to just to like, Itook two scoops, which is about
100 milligrams of caffeine andthen, and then I drank about
(11:17):
half of it and I filled it backup, so it's watered down,
watered down amino energy, soit's a little bit of flavored
water.
And then I have a cup of coffee, like a regular cup of coffee
here at the office, and theworst saying ever on a cup I
just don't like sayings likethis it says hustle juice on it
and I just I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
It's like Well, just don't let anybody take a Sharpie
and put an R at the end of thehustle.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
It's like.
It's like when, when someonehas a, you know like when a mom
has a wine glass and it sayslike mommy's go juice and it's
sort of like wine or something.
You know like that kind ofthing.
Or I'm like really I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
I mean it's sort of funny, but it's just like an
indicator there, that's.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
I mean it's not.
Yeah, I don't taste in yourmouth.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
It's exactly what we're doing right now is I don't
know how to feel about it.
Like I just see it and I'm likeam I supposed to be laughing at
that?
Am I supposed to be?
Is that cute?
Is it not cute?
What is it?
Are they hiding a problem?
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Exactly Are they?
Are they humanizing?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
a serious problem.
They're immediately droppingthe kids off at school and then,
just like at 10 am, they'rejust drinking a glass of wine.
Is that what this is, or whatyou know, anyway?
The hustle juice is just ametaphor for toxin Another
interesting thing because therewere multiple coffee cups and
this is the one that I selected.
So apparently I do like thehustler juice.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Is that worse or better than I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I don't know.
Anyway, those are my Brian'sBeverage Corner.
Three beverages I've got goingright now and that is enough
talking for me right now.
What is your?
What are you eating anddrinking?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I have before me one of my favorite mistakes twice
over.
It's the Taco Bell combo twochicken chalupas oversized I
mean any size from Taco Bell'soversized cherry, pepsi and
Nacho Fries.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Wow, I think they are my fries.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
No.
Anyway, I was waiting for youto detect the irony and you went
with a pun.
That was great.
I did so.
Yeah, I broke my vow and you'rehearing it and the audience
heard it.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yes, nacho Fries, because those are fries.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Are they actual fries ?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I thought they were like are they actual fries?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah, they're great for potatoes.
They just have like some kindof like a coating Like a coating
.
That is hilarious.
That is hilarious, they makethem.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
That like a minute ago.
You didn't tell me that beforeeither, Like before we recorded
anything and like you're sittingthere going, oh no, here it
comes.
I, just the whole audience, isgoing to know.
Oh, I didn't tell you thispodcast episode is an
intervention for your French fryproblem.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Okay, let me just finish this.
One more fry, okay.
Yeah, but they are really good,though, if I go two and a half
years between fries.
I'm feeling pretty good aboutit.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, I'd say that's pretty good.
I'd say that's a pretty goodthe pittance on the cuisine,
yeah.
I'd say the habit is prettystrong If you're going a couple
of years between each one.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
And the falling off the wagon really did fall prey
to that default sort of thing.
Right, I wanted the drink and Iwanted the entree and the fries
were there.
Okay, I went with the defaultoption.
Yeah.
And for that little moment Iwas tired of fighting the fight.
But now having to talk about itand face the feeling that I'm
(15:06):
feeling about letting myconviction waver, it's like, you
know, in that moment if itdidn't feel worth it, but in
this moment it's like, yeah,it's worth it, it's a good
reminder, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Glenn Bell is like is thinking right now, man, my
marketing machine works so well.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Is that why I didn't call it the bell?
It's because the bell comesfrom the top of the bell.
It's founded by Glenn Bell inCalifornia yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
The only reason I know that is because I listen to
another podcast that talksabout fast food.
They go through who startedcertain podcast things.
They have the Dave Thomastrophy on there for Dave
Thomas's, wendy's and Glenn Bell.
Yeah, they talk about a lot ofstuff like that.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Anyway, I will say if you go to Taco Bell and you
like Taco Bell and you likeburgers, can you ever have an
opportunity to go to Taco John's?
Really, yeah, it's sort oftoward the Well.
(16:22):
I don't travel a whole lot, soI don't know how pervasive and
where the hell I go.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
It's in the Midwest.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yeah.
So I was going to say I've seenthem in the Midwest but they
have a Taco burger that is justreally good.
It's really good.
I remember loving them as a kidwhen I started out my life in
that area.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I've visited and gone back.
It's still really good.
Poor quality, but sinceeverything has equally gone down
in quality, it's really good.
Yeah, it's still really good.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
It's all relative, right, yeah, and that's what
I've noticed as I've gottenolder.
But then I try to figure outover the you know, through the
passage of time, if my tastebuds have changed or if the
ingredients for things like Iused to go to Taco Bell all the
time, and now it tastesdifferent to me, and so I'm
(17:14):
wondering, hey, are they usingcheaper ingredients?
Or is it me Be it getting older, my taste buds have changed and
so therefore and I don't eatthere as often and so I'm not
quote unquote used to it, Idon't know.
I do know that they have doneexactly what you said.
Yeah, they do reduce I don'twant to say reduce the quality.
(17:34):
I will say that they probablyhave constantly evaluated the
cost associated with ingredientsso that they can maximize their
profit, right?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Wow, that was a very politically correct term to say
they use cheaper ingredients.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
I'm just saying I was trying not to pass judgment.
As a peacekeeper.
I don't want no beef with TacoBell.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Oh, they don't want beef either.
Exactly All they offer ismistake.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
All right and scared chicken.
What are you drinking, though?
I saw you drink something asecond ago.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yes, yeah, I've got water from my more Cal Bell
bottle, glass bottle that hasbeen stripped of its plastic.
And then I have a green yourown cup, ordered to the mobile
app of Starbucks.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Decaf Grande iced hazelnut oat milk shaken
espresso.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Oh my gosh, it's a milkshake cream.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
So it's sugar.
No, it's lots of sugar.
No caffeine.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
That's complicated.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
And all kinds of fill it.
Yeah yeah, it's so important tohave any kind of status as my
uniqueness of coffee.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Like half calf, half decaf, with a shot of espresso
and an oat milk side.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
And one thing I haven't had in a long time I
need to go back to just for thefun of it, you know, because I'm
the kind of guy that will likeget a beer or a drink because
there's a pun to the name, youknow.
Yes.
And I came up with my owncoffee concoction where I said I
want you know like one, onepump of hazelnut, one pump of
(19:25):
coconut, one pump of I don'tknow some other nut and I and I
like almond milk or whatever.
Yeah.
And I call it my local nutespresso.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
And do they?
Have they taken to that?
Have they like they're?
We're going to add this as anew menu item.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
It was years ago that I did it and it wasn't
Starbucks, so I'll give itanother shot not espresso, let's
see if, if I like it or if itwas just the name I gave it that
made it fun.
And if it is, then I'll justkeep ordering it until they, you
know, create a conversationabout it.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
We'll see what happens.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
You heard it here first folks Well as I saw as I'm
seeing the clock tick away hereon our episode we're losing it
we're going to get into ourtopic.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Yeah yeah, the philosophy of time, that's this
one yes.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
We decided that we were going to right.
We're going to dive intodifferent aspects of the concept
of time and when we it's atimely subject.
Yeah, and when we dove in thatpool was really deep, that just
we should have probably startedat the shallow end and waited
our whole life to get our way in.
But no, we just dove into deepend and it's yeah.
(20:55):
We're barely barely hanging onhere treading water.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
There is a way you can do a soft intro to it.
Some of it.
I found a video on YouTube.
I think it was sponsored bytime and I believe it's Brian
Green.
I'll get the link and we'llconfirm it.
He goes through different fivelevels of explaining time and he
starts at, like the child leveland then goes to the general
level and then the, you know,onto graduate, student level and
(21:23):
maybe even beyond that, and youget to see at what point you
get lost.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
One of the top comments was can I have the
fetus little yeah?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
Just no concept of time at all, just.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, Well, and there is a.
I don't know if this falls intothe.
I know we want to start withthe philosophy, but since it's
relevant to, what you just saidthere is a very they've done
studies with kids and there's avery innate sort of spatial
dimension that kids seem to haveto time and the way they
(22:00):
describe things.
They observe that we, when wewould use time like words to
describe something, they usemore spatial words.
Got it, but yeah, it's justthat's something I want to
explore more before I speak moreto you.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
It makes sense, though.
It makes sense that you knowyou.
When you have I guess you know,for I guess I will probably get
into this but like when youhave less constraints on your
time or less things that arelike, hey, I have to mark a
place in time, meaning I have togo to work at this time, or I
have to do this or I have to dothat, it seems logical that your
(22:39):
experience of time is going tobe less rigid.
Like that.
It's just going to be more likeyou know, like like you go on
vacation and you don't wear yourwatch and you're, you can sleep
in and you don't have an alarmwaking you up in the morning All
of a sudden.
Time feels a lot different thanwhen you're in the grind of
(22:59):
working every day and doing allthe things you feel like you
have to do every day.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Right, or, yeah, you can, if you go like on a binge
watch of YouTube and youincrease the playback speed,
just do a good solid hour ofwatching at you know, faster
speed and then you go and havelike a real conversation with a
real person.
It just feels so slow.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yes, yes, I've done that with Just get to the point
yeah, listening to podcasts,I've got time for this.
You speed up a podcast and thenyou go back to listening to
something at actual regular onetime speed and you're like why
are they talking so slowly?
And it's not right.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, what's really really fun is they sound drunk
if you go to like 85% of speed.
Yes, it's like they slur theirwords.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yes, yeah and they're so slow, All right, Well, so
yeah.
So the first thing I guess thefirst area that we want to talk
about was exactly what you saidis sort of the philosophical
concepts of time or you knowdifferent ways that time is
(24:11):
viewed, I guess yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Well, I think we also should probably follow our
tactic of defining time or, atleast for the sake of our
conversation, what we mean bytime.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yes, and that's a difficult thing to define, which
is why we're talking about itfor three episodes.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, that's fair.
Okay, well, one I think how tosay this is probably not
all-encompassing, but in timesof password, I've thought about
it.
To me it's just time.
Is the measure of change RightLike?
Any concept we have of wheretime is frozen right.
You could freeze time,Everything stops.
(25:04):
No change, no difference.
Some of our early concepts oftime is talking about things
before and after, Like you don'thave to have a clock to talk
about and this is what happenedand this is what happened, and
after that, this and next we'lldo this.
It's like a series of events orcausal relationships.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Well, and that's interesting because one of the
things, one of the differentways that people define time and
I'll link to this article, butwe have a there was an article
written by a PhD that you know,back in 2021, that talks about
excuse me, talks about a lot ofthese different concepts of time
(25:52):
, and one of those is lineartime and that's what you were
just talking about, which is,you know, this happens, then
this happens, then this happens,and you can visualize that on a
straight line where, sort oflike your pithy thing at the
beginning, time flies like abanana.
No, time flies like an arrow,you know, is that it goes
straight and it keeps going andthe part that's left behind is
(26:13):
gone and it hasn't reached itsdestination yet, whatever.
So that's sort of more thelinear time and it's and that's
the way that most people thinkof time.
So it's, you know, talkingabout our watches and our clocks
the mark time.
That's how they measure it is.
It's moving forward and it'smarking that time as it moves
(26:34):
forward right.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Right, except our clocks are cyclical.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Circular, Circular yeah.
That is true yes, but then youhave you know seconds to minutes
, to hours, to days, to weeks,to years, to millennia.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
All those are roughly arbitrary.
Yes well, it's all arbitrary.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
I mean, when you get down to it, all of it is just a
made up construct to try toquantify something right?
Why'd you give me that face?
Nick, just gave me a face like.
What are you talking about?
Speaker 1 (27:14):
No, no, no, I'm multitasking.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Oh, okay.
So I thought the face was at me.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
It's taking concentration, to listen and
think at the same time.
You're, you are perfectlyperfect in every perfect way,
brian.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
To be in you.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Thank you Good, don't let my face criticize you.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
I get worried, you know.
So the other thing that I foundthat was interesting was
there's another theory of timewhich is sort of what you
alluded to, which is calledcyclical time, and it says in
this article many early cultureshad a cyclical conception of
time, sometimes called the wheelof time.
(27:53):
Those cultures are the Incan,the Mayan, hinduism, buddhism
and Jainism.
They perceive time asconsisting of repeated ages and
time periods.
Helps.
It helps explain the idea ofreincarnation.
Circular, repeating conceptionsof time are still used today by
some cultures, including inIndia.
So you know, that's yeah.
(28:13):
Go ahead.
No, I was just going to say it'san interesting thing to think,
going back to some of our, youknow, self-important cognitive
biases and things like.
That is like we want to makesure that we feel important
about things and I think thatthe you know, the fact that I'm
(28:34):
doing something that nobody elsehas ever done like in this
particular moment, right now, inthis present moment that we're
dealing with, makes me feel likeoh, wow, okay, cool.
But most likely people in thepast and other things have done
exactly what we're doing in somedifferent format.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
So Sure it's.
Yeah, there's a some kind ofcycle to things, some patterns
of, you know, exploration andstasis, exploration and stasis.
So there's, you know, out withthe old and the new, yin and
yang, different patterns, thatsort of repeat themselves as one
(29:11):
increases, the other decreases.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Well it goes to that cognitive bias the cognitive
bias of declineism, I think,plays into this, because
basically you're saying like, oh, my stress is worse and it's
harder now than it was back then.
Back then everything was soinnocent.
Back then everything was sosimple.
Back then everything was this,and now it's all hard and
complicated and I don't have anymoney and I don't have any time
(29:38):
and whatever.
Right.
In essence, you're sayingeverything's getting worse and
worse and worse, and that Ithink that the cyclical nature
of time doesn't lend itself tothat, because it's basically
like no other people in the pasthave had the stresses you have,
they had the struggles that youhave, they have all the, and so
it's.
I'm probably paraphrasing alittle bit, or at least talking
(30:01):
peripherally to the idea thatthey're talking about in the
cyclical nature of time, but thepoint- is you know yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
If you're talking about economies or seasons of
the year, or even maybe even theexpansion of the universe,
there could be ebbs and flows,right, like it's all about your
time context.
So kids growing up right now,with the economy the way it is,
think that they have a bit ofdeclineism, right, that they
(30:30):
can't afford rent, they can'tafford a house, they don't have
a living wage, like things areonly going to get worse and
worse and worse.
But perhaps people who've livedthrough or been alive through a
couple of generations see thismore as sort of a winter of our
economy, and you know that, youknow this too shall pass and it
might be that you know thediscomfort of that particular
(30:53):
generation is going to be suchthat creates the impetus for
them to create the springtime oftheir generation.
Yeah, and that's another way ofsort of out with the old and
with the new, another form of,you know, new life into the
existing system of whatever itis.
But yeah, just like with everydarkness comes the dawn, with
(31:19):
every winter comes the spring,there's a cyclical nature to
change and the progression andregression of it.
You know Right, and we'vetalked before about order and
chaos.
One person's order is anotherperson's chaos.
Right.
(31:40):
It's like, hey, you might decidetomorrow, but hey, nick, I'm
just getting things straightwith my family and career right
now.
I can't do this podcast anymore.
Okay, you're creating moreorder for your life and that's a
positive progression of changefor you.
Yeah.
But then that creates chaos forme, right?
Yeah, and regression for me,Like what am I going to do with
(32:00):
my free time?
I really enjoy talking with you, Brian.
I don't know what else to.
How else am I going to scratchthis itch?
That's you know.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
There's certainly more productive ways to deal
with your time than hanging outwith me.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Right Now, you're perfectly, perfectly perfect, as
I said before.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah, let's just keep that illusion going oh yeah, I
do so back to time.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah, you talk about the era of time, and even I'm
sure those who have a cyclicalconcept of time in terms of
seasons or reincarnation,they're still, they still have
to be faced with the fact thattime is not like a spatial
dimension, right?
Yeah, you can't.
We only go one direction.
(32:49):
You can't go up or down withtime, you can't go left or right
with time, you can only go,let's just say, to the right.
It seems like neurologicallymaybe, at least in Western
cultures.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yeah, the left or right.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Pre-conception is from left to right, like a
timeline.
I don't know if it's differentwhere languages like read from
right to left, for instance.
That'd be a cool thing toresearch.
I just didn't have time for it.
Well, I didn't make time for it, but yeah it's.
That's where I think part ofthat era of time comes from is
like you can't Arrows, don't flybackwards.
(33:26):
Right the hands of the clock,don't go the other direction.
You can't turn back time andtake back all the words that
hurt you.
What?
Speaker 2 (33:44):
does that do?
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
I was just going to say.
You can get a really nicetattoo across your butt, though.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yes, no regrets.
Anyway, sorry, Interrupted yeahso I guess what do we do with
that?
I don't know if that falls inthe philosophy or not, but it's
like nothing really goesbackwards when it comes to time.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Well the interesting thing is that you are With what
you were talking about.
You're jumping into a subjectthat we were going to get into
in the next episode, I believe.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Okay, well, I can walk it back.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
But just as a preview .
Yeah, you mentioned time as adimension.
That's one of the things thatthey talk about in basically
different theories of time.
There is a static.
(34:52):
I think this actually does fallinto this one.
This is our subject today.
There's a static concept oftime and then there's a dynamic
versus a concept of time.
I think I'm talking about theright thing.
This is where it gets dicey manI know, it's mind-bending.
(35:14):
There's so much to this.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
I know there is the idea of determinism, the laws of
physics and the theory ofrelativity, which affects time
because of speed of light andrelative perceptions of what
happens and things.
It's all consistent, cohesiveand predictable.
(35:38):
There's no denying the natureof things People have done brain
scans of people and when peoplebecome conscious of their
decision, when they thinkthey've made a decision is well
after when their neurologicalsystems and circuitry would
(36:01):
indicate that the decision wasactually made.
It is influenceable.
Mentalists can hijack yourdecision-making process and your
body language clues and suchwhere they know stuff about you,
or they can get you to dothings or believe things or say
(36:21):
things in the moment that youdidn't realize.
It's like if it's all differentstrings that are just pulled and
have already been pulled orwere pulled in the past, which
caused certain other strings inreaction to be pulled, then all
of the so-called choices andchanges were predetermined
(36:45):
previously.
There's this idea ofdeterminism that the free will
is an illusion, not just time.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
So I found what I was tied to the dynamic versus
static theory of time.
The static theory of time partof it says the universe is
spread out into four similardimensions which make up the
unified four-dimensionalmanifold appropriately called
space-time Three spatialdimensions and one chronological
(37:23):
dimension and then the dynamictheory of time.
The universe is spread out intothree dimensions of physical,
space and time, like modality.
It is a completely differentkind of dimension from spatial
dimensions, so it's like aseparate.
It's not a fourth dimensionthat's all combined into one
gigantic thing that we're livingin.
It's a separate dimension,that's by itself.
(37:47):
And so basically, like I said,I guess the bottom line is that
there are those two differenttheories and it's more physics,
like scientific, try to quantifythe actual time.
(38:14):
And how does it pass?
What is it exactly what you'resaying?
Does it fly through?
Does the arrow fly through theair?
And that's how it's going andit's by itself.
Or is it just one big thing?
The arrow is going in thatdirection and it's going at this
speed and it's going at this,so it's all wrapped up into one
(38:34):
big ball of time theory.
Sure.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
One, and I guess there's this context too of like
okay, yeah, so maybe the arrowof time, like we're all in this
planet, we're all flying throughspace at the same speed and the
rate of change of that quoteconstant.
But then we move around on thearrow, like we make decisions
and choices on the arrow thatalmost certainly have no impact
(39:04):
on the arrow itself, thetrajectory and whatnot.
We'd all have to jump at thesame time on the same side of
the arrow to you have theSuperman theory Weird thing like
that.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yeah, the fly background fly really fast
backwards, make the earth spinin the opposite direction, and
then time travels backwards.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Right, which we can't test that theory we can't
disprove, right yeah.
But it's not like the planet isa clock, is it?
You just wind it backwards andeverything goes backwards, right
?
I was that idea though ofentropy, where everything is
(39:49):
sort of floating towardsdisorder.
Yes.
Universe is expanding from theBig Bang.
Where did the order originate?
Which does have some fun, notfun.
Interesting implications of howreligion, western religion and
(40:10):
science have some overlap.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Because in the beginning God, who's like the
God of order, satan's the God ofchaos and created the heavens
and the earth.
But if it's all going towardsentropy, then it's sort of the
creation of evil, it's thecreation of disorder.
Right.
But by changing, becausechanging anything from
perfection is thereforeimperfection.
(40:35):
But what if all of thatexpansion, this change over time
expansion of the universe is?
This is a huge crazy.
What if?
But going back to that cyclicalidea of that expansion, what if
, eventually it contracts Right?
(40:57):
But back into that single quote, solitary piece of order.
Right where it's like all we areis just a small part inside an
extra dimensional beings long,and right now they're breathing
in, but several billion yearsinto the future they're going to
(41:21):
, you know they're going tobreathe out.
Our perception of severalbillion years.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Huh, our perception of several billion years, but
their perception of one breath.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Yeah.
I know that's a wild thing tosay, wild thing to bring up in a
conversation about time.
I mean, if you want to,reference one of our other
topics.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
You know we did talk about sylipsism and that's sort
of what that is.
Is what it's, that existentialkind of like?
Are we really on just a planetLike, is everything that we know
and science that we've studiedand we have a we can see in our
known solar system and in ourknown universe?
Is that really what it is?
Or are we just not seeing thebig?
Speaker 1 (42:02):
we can't back up far enough to see the big picture,
or there's we can't go off thearrow, right, you know, to see
the stream or the flow, you knowRight.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yet there's the theory, obviously, that somebody
could be somebody or something,or some entity or something
could be observing that.
And I mean and that's goingback to what you said is, you
know, I think a lot of religionactually is goes around this,
that topic of like there's a,there's a, there's a being that
can be so far removed that theyget to see the forest, and we
(42:38):
only get to see the trees, andso they understand what the
passage of time is, theyunderstand what and we've talked
about this before on thepodcast, we've been doing this
long enough.
We've talked about almosteverything on podcast, but
basically, you know, that's thesort of theory behind it is like
this omnipotent, omniscientbeing or entity or Energy.
(43:05):
Mm hmm, that Does understand allof this stuff and we're just
trying to make sense of it, andso that's one of the ways we try
to make sense of it, I think is, yeah, there's this Again,
there's this thing that is theuniverse or whatever it is, and
but yeah, I when we get back tothe philosophies of time, though
(43:29):
, there's that, like you said,the static, yes, and the dynamic
.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
I think I've heard physicists which I know aren't
philosophers, but physiciststalk about that.
There is no now and there's nopast and there's no presence.
It's like present or future.
It's like it's all.
It's just all one big thing.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
Block.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
And yeah, and it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Already happened or is?
Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Oh, it's interesting you bring that up because the
name for that is presentismversus eternalism.
So Presentism yes.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Eternalism is the one , that Right Is the one you're
talking about.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Yeah, and presentism is the idea that the only thing
that really truly exists is themoment that you're in right now,
the present, that one'sfleeting moment, because that
would make sense if it's.
If you're talking about alinear theory of time, where
you're On an arrow and it'sgoing in that direction and it
doesn't go up down sideways, itonly goes straightforward, then
(44:33):
the only thing that you have isjust right, that moment in time
that marked where the arrow isat that specific moment.
Right, whereas If the, if thearrow, could you know,
everything is all interlinkedand intermingled.
Then, yeah, eternalism, becauseit says that's the view that
the past, present and future areall equally real and that our
perception of only theexperience now is being being
(44:56):
real is merely a matter of ourbrain's consciousness, and
arbitrary place and time.
So that's that, that arbitrary.
There's what I said before islike isn't this all arbitrary?
Isn't it all just a constructthat we, we are like well, we
got to figure out a way to like,mark the date, like, oh, the
sun comes up, the sun comes down.
Well, let's mark that somehow.
(45:17):
How do we mark that?
You know, and which is?
I'll tell you why my argument is, for that is legitimate, the
fact that we have daylightsavings time, the fact that we
arbitrarily, at a given time,will just go hey, you know what,
we're going to move our clocksan hour back.
Hey, you know what, now we'regoing to move our clocks for
that, to me, says all of time isjust a thing that we just made
(45:41):
up and we decide, we control it.
We just say, yeah, we know what.
If we wanted to say today, youknow what tomorrow we're going
to do, we're going to flip a andam and PM.
So tomorrow everyone's going towork at 12 am.
By noon, you're eating lunch at12 am and you're asleep at 12
pm.
Right, we could flip night forday if we wanted to.
(46:03):
Would that affect anything,except for the fact that we
would just now say, hey, I'meating lunch and it's midnight
or it's.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
You know it's, it's all we decided to call the night
day and the day night Right.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
It.
Would that really?
Would that affect anything?
No, we would still go to workduring the daytime.
Most likely we wouldn't be like, oh well, now we have to be
there at 12 pm.
It's like, no, you work whenit's daylight hours, so or what
used to be called daylight Right.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:33):
Which to me, is like the crazy.
That's the biggest argumentthat it's all just made up, like
it's all just a thing that wejust decided.
We're going to do it this way,yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
And and we're really quickly getting into, like the
psychology and perceptions oftime.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
Well, I think you're right.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
But, I'm just saying that in terms of the presentism
and the eternalism.
I feel like you know what.
The reason why is becauseeternalism is says that our
perception of the onlyexperienced quote unquote now
being real is merely a matter ofthe brain's consciousness and
our arbitrary place in time.
So that that could be our placein time meaning hey, we decided
(47:17):
at one point that there wasgoing to be a year zero and we
are now 2024 years away fromthat year zero, right, and we
basically just decided to havean anniversary.
We basically just say, hey, youknow what, how can we celebrate
an anniversary?
Hey, let's start with zero andjust start counting here and I'm
sorry if there's anyonelistening, that's not meant to
(47:37):
demean the birth of Christ andthat defining, you know,
defining thing in history.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
But we do that organically right, Like any
significant event we talk aboutin terms of coming back to that
before and after.
Right.
And here more recently, there'splenty of stories we tell you
know before the pandemic, duringthe pandemic and after the
pandemic right.
Yeah, Before COVID.
(48:06):
So you know, we talk about BCnow in terms of before COVID.
Yeah.
So it's a point of reference,right, and that comes into again
the psychology, where there'sparts of our circuitry, and even
our language, where time islike a spatial dimension.
(48:29):
Mm-hmm.
You know, time is a point ofreference.
Or if you and I wanted to meetsomewhere, we have to know the
time, otherwise we're not goingto meet.
Yeah, yeah, right, we're notgoing to connect.
We might know all I know.
I might know exactly where, onthe Empire State Building, I'm
going to meet you, yeah, butyou're only going to be there
for a certain period of timebefore you give up.
(48:50):
Stop waiting on me, you know.
So we can't.
We can't meet, and then.
But then there's also likelooking back or talking about
going forward.
We're going to do this and thisand this.
Why do we talk about it backand forward?
Because it's part of ourconcept that time flies like an
arrow, right.
Right, mm-hmm.
(49:11):
Yeah.
Well maybe that's just theteaser to what we're going to
talk about in the next episode.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
That's right.
Yeah, and there was somethingthat I was going to say to add
to that, but it was talkingabout what was it?
It was I think it was actuallygetting into our next concept of
time, but there's a bunch of,there's a bunch of things like
that where it's just a like it'sa necessary thing that we have
(49:41):
in, you know, making thingsorderly, of marking that time,
and in fact, now, as we do, ashumans, we always want to
continue to, you know perfect.
So now we have, like thesehyper accurate atomic clocks
(50:04):
that keep time, like you know.
So it's not a mechanical thing.
That's like.
Here's what a second is,because that mechanical thing,
no matter how fine you get thatmechanical thing, it's always
going to be slightly.
It can be slightly different.
It can slow down, it can speedup, right.
Atomic clock, atomic particlesobviously they're going to be
consistent in the way thatthey're.
Well, that's what they're well,but that's what they're, that's
(50:27):
what the theory is, you know, isthat we have an atomic clock
that is the accurate, the mostaccurate that we can get.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
right, Right, but but once you take two atomic clock
clocks and separate them, likeif you put like.
There was one video I saw wherethey said that if you put one
atomic clock on the table andyou put one on the floor beneath
it, they will get out of syncbecause of the because of
relativity and the gravity,gravitational pull of the earth,
(50:53):
that I think.
They said that the core of theearth is 2.5 years younger than
the crust.
Dude, I can't do this, I can'tdo it anymore.
I can't stop, dude.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
I can't Hot.
You're killing me.
My brain hurts.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
I can't function if I don't, if you taught yeah, if
you were moving, you weretalking about how.
What was it you said to youwere talking about how two
different things are moving.
Uh-huh, and that makes itdifficult.
I forgot.
Speaker 2 (51:33):
What you said earlier today.
Was it about, like the timespace thing?
Speaker 1 (51:39):
Maybe, but but that's that's it, right?
Is that our perception of timediffers?
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
Um from, not only by our distance, but by the speed
at which we're moving.
So time, because we're allmoving roughly at the same speed
because, we're all spinning onthe planet at the same time
right.
There's no difference in thesun seems to be in the same
place in the sky, for near eachother.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
And all that jazz.
But once we're both if twoobjects moving differently,
different directions um thenjust everything's different.
I'm going to see things soonerthan you will, even if we're
looking in the same direction,or if you're getting further,
for me then things are going togo slower and slower, or?
(52:26):
Get to you later and later.
Then they'll get to me If I'mmoving, looking the same
direction, but moving towards it.
Speaker 2 (52:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I don't even know, I'mmy brain is broken.
I'm breaking the stuffseriously, like I'll just use
the rest of this time to stutterand, you know, drool out of the
rest of my mouth because Idon't even know what's going on.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
And in this episode you get to verbally see Brian
drooling into real time.
Speaker 2 (53:03):
real time in real time, Going into a cognitive
coma at the prospect of time.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
Oh, real time, I got it, real time.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Real time.
Well, that's enough.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Yeah, I think that's good.
Well, so then yeah so in thenext couple episodes.
Speaker 2 (53:18):
I think next episode we're going to talk about sort
of what we got into a little bitthere, which is perception of
time, like how you know.
Those were sort of some of thephilosophies, obviously not an
exhaustive list, but talkingabout just how people deal with
time, perception of time, thingslike that.
(53:40):
So I think that's it All right.
Well, we hope you listen to thenext one.
Speaker 1 (53:47):
We're not going to draw any conclusions here.
We're just going to getourselves confused.
Come along for the read.
Speaker 2 (53:53):
Exactly All right.
Yeah, thank you yeah.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.