December 25, 2014 • 35 mins
Why are mystery packages so appealing? How do they improve our mental faculties and fuel our creativity? In this classic episode, Robert and Julie share tales of sealed envelopes, quantum thought experiments, virginity boxes and things Pandora should never have opened. You might even score a gift idea or two.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks
dot com. Hey, welcome the Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas, and
we have a classic episode for you here today, a
holiday episode to to get you through this period of
(00:23):
holiday stress and uh and gift giving. That's right. It's
called the Mystery of Box. And for some reason, I
want to go, Yeah, it's inter the mystery Box aspect
of this is interesting because I believe we do mention J.
J Abrams uh in this episode and uh. J j
Abrams has kind of made a name for himself with
the Mystery Box is one of the you know we
lost and then with his subsequent film work. Um, and
(00:45):
it's kind of it's kind of earned a backlash from
it at times, the idea that that maybe at times
you're you're actually withholding a little too much for us,
and sometimes the mystery box, like the Virginity box that
I discussed in this episode, turns out to be empty.
It's true. And I guess that's based on interpretation too. Yeah,
I mean it's heavily subjective, but but I just want
(01:07):
to I want to throw that out there in case
anybody that's really hating on J. J. Abrams right now,
and I'm not saying you should. Uh, you know, I
have high hopes for the new Star Wars films like
everybody else, but but just in case, just take just
understand that this is coming from from earlier Julius and Roberts.
That's right. And gentle listener, if you would like a
quick recommendation of a mystery box like documentary, check out
(01:30):
Finding Vivian Mayor. This is fascinating. I don't know if
anybody is familiar with us, but if you're not, it's
a great documentary about what happens when John Mloup, a
real estate agent, buys four hundred dollar box of mystery.
He's looking for some archival stuff and discovers one of
the richest tapestries of American street photographs and this very
(01:55):
mysterious woman behind the photographs. To check it out. Really,
here we are in the holidays, in the midst of it.
They're piping the music and to the mardest station. It's
like it's some sort of vaccine. It's going to protect
us simply being a wonderful chime. Yeah, that one that
(02:17):
makes seven in the morning, you know, you're trying to
listen to your own music or get stuck in your
own book. At any rate, it's not even December yet,
and I'm you know, I'm already I understand the train
station is U is killing your air drums with Christmas music. Yeah,
but I mean the big thing about Christmas, of course,
is the gift giving, right Christmas saw Holidays, So the
whole whatever you're you're calling your winter gift giving shenanigans, Uh,
(02:41):
it generally relates to taking something in a box, wrapping
it up, sticking in a bag, creating this air of mystery, right,
what's inside it? What could it be? And and people
get excited about it, right right, So in this podcast,
we're basically advocating give the gift of an empty box.
Well okay, not necessarily an empty box. And we'll talk
(03:02):
about this because maybe you could, you could fill this
box with ideas, thoughts and presented as a president, I'm
sure that will go over really well, especially with the kids.
I mean they're so cheat. Yeah. I do. My uncle
Craig and the gift raffle this year, So I think
I'm going to give him some like a box of
ideas and we'll see how that plays out. I think
(03:24):
he's gonna love it, and I think that that you should.
If he doesn't understand it, he's going to have to
listen to this podcast so he can really appreciate that.
Sometimes one of the base gifts is a mystery, right, um.
And we can't help but get really excited about a
mystery about what might be inside of a box. Um.
And sometimes we approach it, we unwrap it with gusto,
(03:45):
and sometimes we shy away. And so we're gonna talk
about that in various forms today, right, because that's what's is.
That is what it's always fascinating about a gift box
or a mystery box. It's the mystery. It's not I
want to tear into that thing and get what's in it.
And and Grant, we sort of lose track of that,
I think sometimes with our gift giving, with the with
the use of saying like an Amazon gift list and
(04:06):
all this, because it's like because it's it's so regimented,
it's like, these are the things I want, these are
the things you may give me, Please check them off.
And then you know people are cheating anyway, and seeing
there's no mystery there and seeing what they're going to
get ahead of time. But but yeah, mystery boxes in general.
We were chatting about this. We each have like a
few different stories that relate to mystery boxes in our
(04:27):
own life. Will you talk a little about the art
in your house? And yeah, yeah, we have um in
our house. We have a giant painting and it's an
abstract and it sort of looks like it could be
um maybe like an advertising, like a poll or something
that is that is has like a little advertisement on it.
And on top of that is an envelope that has
(04:51):
been attached to this painting and it is sealed and
there's no way you could remove it without absolutely destroying
the painting, or if you open it, you would destroy
the pain. But it is a part of the work.
It's not merely something that says like, hey, guys, hope
you enjoyed the piece I make for you. Here's the
receipt for the painting, suckers. Um. But no, this was
(05:11):
actually something that was given to us by a friend
and we traded out some of our work and so
and of course Jeff will never tell us what is
inside that envelope. But as you can see, if you
look at it, actually you can see the corners of
the envelope have been played with enough that they've been
kind of turned up. And so it drives everybody crazy,
(05:32):
particularly my father in law. He wants to know what
is in that envelope. Uh, and I'm pretty sure he's
probably tried to steam an open before two and we
haven't been home. But it does drive people nuts because
there's this idea that maybe it could contain the secrets
of the world, or maybe it would, I mean, at
the very least just have something really interesting to say, right,
(05:54):
because it contains basically anything in the world until you
open exactly, it has all the pa abilities in the
world until you open it. Right, But could it be
a Pandora's Box? Could all the ills of the world
fly out of that envelope and they can never be
stuffed back in, They can never be stuffed back in.
All the demons are out there. Um. And then the
other thing that you mentioned is a little postcard that
(06:16):
I have or a couple of them at my cubicle.
And uh, it's a scratch off like sort of like
a I guess what you call like a lottery ticket. Yeah,
a lottery ticket, and there's a woman in a beautiful
dress and she's got a big round scratch off over
her head. You can scratch off and see what's underneath,
but I refused to. I want the mystery. Now, did
(06:38):
you place them on there? Or did they come? They came?
They came that way, because every time I walk by
your desk, I see those and there is a temptation like,
what's going on under there? Yeah? What is what is
going on with that lady? Or in one of them
a llama or something? Yeah, there's a llama? Yeah, what
is this? Allama have a head? Is it is it's
head missing? I don't know, I know, is it? Is
it a monkey underneath a lama? And by the way,
(07:00):
you've just revealed yourself. If I ever find them scratched,
I know exactly who did it. Well. I mean, it's
really a miracle that that nobody has scratched it. Because
I brought a model airplane to work and it's been
broken twice by mysterious hands. Yeah, but how mysterious hands
are not going after your art? Because that whatever like
sort of gremlin we have is interested in model airplanes
(07:22):
and not art. Um So anyway, there's are some examples,
and then you have an example of a mystery thought.
Oh yes, yes, I have a really good one. This
is a story. I haven't actually told this one a lot,
but it's it's such a good story, so now I
will share with the world. Back when I was like
in junior high, my my family went to this Southern
Baptist church and they were big on the whole wait
(07:43):
till you're married to have sex. And if you've had
sex already as a junior high kid or a high
school kid, um, you need to sort of regain your virginity,
like sort of a new replacement virginity can be bestowed
upon you and then keep that one intact until such
time as you're married in the eyes of God and
all that. So a part of this campaign, if you will. Um.
(08:06):
We were all issued a little box who was wrapped
in gift paper. It was the size of a cassette tape.
For those of you who remember cassette tapes, the little
plastic case that it comes in. It was that size,
and indeed, if you pressed on it and sort of
felt the package, you could tell that it was in
fact like a cassette box that was wrapped up okay,
(08:26):
but it's sealed, right, But it's sealed, and and then,
of course the big question is is what's inside that
box now? Now, obviously, what is the purpose of the
SPOX Why the box is supposed to represent your virginity,
the special gift that God has bestowed upon you, and
you were supposed to keep it in treasure it and
uh and and you're not supposed to unwrap it until
(08:46):
such times. So when you make love and the Holy
Spirit then visits you, you're able to unwrap this. Yeah.
Yeah there. Yeah. Basically, so they were like, here you go.
Of course after you've been married yet, this is a reminder,
you know, and it's like a metaphor no now, So
I ended up sticking this package away for for a
long time because, as it turns out, I didn't actually
have to open it until I was into my twenties. Um,
(09:09):
which is no big deal. If you're you know, any
of your kids listening right now, and you feel like
some sort of weird pressure to go out there and
and have some sex, let me just tell you if
it's not that big a deal. So I just uh,
you know, chill out. It'll all make a lot more
sense later. But but so I'm in my twenties and
I'm you know, I'm doing whatever. And then I realized, hey, um,
this thing happened the other week, So now technically I
(09:30):
can open that package and I won't be cheating because
I imagine some of the kids took it home and
opened it immediately because they were like, oh, I wonder
what this is? What's inside this? And I'm supposed to
have You weren't married, right, like, you didn't know? Okay,
I just wanted to hear. I'm just saying like this,
you know, this was the the idea, but yeah, I
I didn't it was. There were other causes for me
(09:53):
not opening that package though I was in my twenties, right,
So but I'm saying, though, it's not like you wait
and you're like okay, no, no, it's just you're like, oh,
there's that package. Right. It just ended up not happening
in my life until I was at that, you know,
at this particular age. And then then I realized, hey,
I've got that package. And so the next time I
came home and I went through a box of my
old stuff and I found it. I'm like, all right,
(10:13):
I'm gonna go ahead. And open this up see what
this was all about. Because I was kind of superstitious
about it before. I was like, well, if I opened
it too early, what if that jinxes me for life?
And then you know, even though you don't subscribe to
any even though you don't subscribe to it, you know,
and uh. And then I was also thinking, like, what
if there's like this nasty note in it that it's
like it's from my youth pastor and he's like, wow,
(10:35):
you're really screwed up there, buddy, or or a way
to throw away your precious gift. You know, I don't know,
so I um, so I opened it up and the
box is empty. There's nothing inside it, Like there's not
a note saying I'm shaking my head now, God bless
or a note saying I hope you did the right thing,
or you know, a prize, a gift certificate. I think
(10:56):
that's really sad because I mean, that to me is
just laziness. Because or I would think that the church
thought so little of the kids ability to retain the
virginity that they were like, you know what, that's not
going to happen anyway, Let's not fill it with anything. Well,
it would have also been bed if they filled it
with something perishable, like some candy or something, because then
(11:16):
I'm like, wow, they had no faith in us at all.
They were like, just go ahead and put you know,
the expiration date is next month. Uh, they're probably gonna
open it tonight. Might as well have a treat in
there to keep them business. And see, so you were
disappointed because all of the possibilities ceased to exist, right,
I don't know if I was disappointed. Uh, it was
just more kind of fascinating, like why why didn't they
put something? And it was it intentional? I tend to
(11:38):
to think that probably they were just pressed for time
and they wanted to do something. But like a far
side cartoon, they could have thrown in anything. Yeah, you
know a fortune cookie? Um? Uh what you mud call it?
A little slip of paper? Yeah, I know the lottery
numbers on it. I don't know. I wasn't you know,
I wasn't disappointed, and I certainly wasn't like, oh I
(11:58):
wish I had opened this ages ago, literally or figuratively.
But yeah, it's it's It just shows you, though, how
the idea of something in a package can sort of
captivate your mind for years and years on end. Well, okay,
so let's talk about one more story. Ben Bolan gave
me a special gift the other day stuff they don't
(12:19):
want you to know. Yeah, And by a special gift,
I mean he gave me a package, not his virginity
but but it was. And I didn't know it was
from him at the time, but I came into work
and there's a package and it said mystery, Um, you know, gift.
You can choose to open it, keep it or throw
it away or cross out your name and give it.
(12:39):
It says, a mystery package arrives. Do you do? And
I shared this on the Facebook and we had different answers.
Some people were like, throw it away, give it away,
open it now, I must see what's inside it. And
it turned it was a book that we had been
talking about. But but it really captivated my well psychologically,
I think that everybody was like, what could it be?
Could it be something good or ill will? Which is
(13:00):
essentially what every box presented to you, is right? And
is it a test? I was kind of getting shadows
of the uh, the virginity box there because I'm like
Clay am I nant to open this am I meant
to give it to someone else, so I ended up
actually crossing out my name, putting yours on it. And
then you treat you were scared to death of it.
I was like, well, thanks, Lamb. So then I ticket
(13:22):
to someone else and then we crossed it out and
then back back. So it was meant to be. And
uh it was a book Illuminati trilogy. Yeah, there we go,
which lovely think for Ben does Ben? Thanks if you're listening. Yeah,
So okay, let's talk about when you you receive a
box that you don't want. And let's say that your
(13:43):
name is Enzo Antonia and you live in Genoa, Italy,
and your port worker who specializes in radiation detection. Ah,
this is the the story. I believe this was unwired
um about the the radioactive cargo container. Yeah, shows up.
I don't know what's inside it, but we know that
whatever is inside it is radioactive. Yeah. Like basically, it's
(14:06):
just another day, another thousand of these things a day
coming into this one particular port. So that's that's actually
a pretty sobering statistic, by the way, because if you
think about it, there are millions and millions of these
shipping containers and cargo containers um going around the world.
So here's this one port thousand a day and Zoe
shows up, turns on his radiation detector and the thing
(14:26):
goes nuts. In fact, it gets off the charts, and
he hasn't even gone into the area to actually try
to UM do his security check. So it turns out
that there is uh something inside of it obviously that
is highly radioactive, and they think that it could be
a dirty mom and they freak out and they move
(14:46):
it away as far as possible. In the meantime, it
languishes on that doc for almost a year, Yeah, because
they're trying to figure out who is going to pay
for it, Can we get it, can be a where
did it come from? And we ship it back Saudi
Arabia from from whence it originated? Was like no way, no,
thank you? Um. And you know these things are really
(15:09):
hard to track yea. And what does it contain? Is it?
Is it some sort of nefarious device? Is that? Is
it just waste material? Is it the ark of the Covenant?
But exactly exactly and it is actually tagged as waste material.
There's a picture of the inside bit. Of course, when
you're looking at all these copper coils, you know, twenty
two tons of copper coils. Something obviously could be put
(15:31):
in there and and you would never discover it. Uh
So anyway, sat there for a long time until they
finally got a robot to go in and um, they
use some cameras and they figured out that it was
a chunk of cobalt. Yeah, which was even odd because, um,
you know, this is not some sort of material that
you find every day. In fact, I believe that it
came from or at least they're thinking that it came
(15:53):
from some sort of medical device or machine used to
sterilized food. And it's really expensive to dispose of this
sort of thing. Um, but apparently this is just not
all that odd that you would have shipping containers with
nefarious things inside of it. In fact, that Wired dot
com the article wise is cargo container emitting so much radiation?
(16:14):
Said that there was this one guy who they found
and this was just six weeks after Nune eleven, by
the way, Um they found him inside of when the
shipping containers because they heard noise and they opened it
up and lo and behold, they found that this guy
was hanging out in there with a satellite phone, uh,
cell phone, a laptop, cameras, maps, security passes to airports
(16:37):
in Canada, Thailand and Egypt. And the container was outfitted
with a bed, a water supply, a heater, and a toilet.
Yeah so, and you know, okay, it was a little
bit odd, right, don't you think? Well, I don't know,
I've seen some magazine articles where dudes take a cargo
container and transforming into an upscale apartment, right right. But
(16:58):
he was not, you know, that some sort of model
for Dwell magazine, you know, saying oh look at my
great postmodern home here. Um. They actually nicknamed him container
Bob and the Kui posted bail and Italian court. It
was never seen again. Yeah so, I mean, you know,
and there's been a lot of talk actually about security
of shipping containers, and so that remains a pretty big problem,
(17:20):
or you know, I guess you would say a blind
spot in security, right, And of course we don't have
to dwell much on this, but obviously there are tons
of like the big thing, the big show today on
multiple networks is the whole antiquers and these people checking
out abandoned the storage facilities, uh where they get to
the auction off the contents of abandoned storage, especially in
(17:43):
this economy where people are no longer able to pay
for him, right, and they're mostly filled with nothing anyway,
But there's always that chance, and people get really into
that idea because they don't say, all right, everybody, go
in here and check it out and see if there's
anything you want to buy. They're like, we're gonna sell everything.
You buy, you buy everything or nothing, you keep everything
or nothing, and you just get a break. So so
(18:04):
that's that's a great example of people that are just
captivated by the possibility that in the midst of all
that junk and and left over uh material from somebody's
life and somebody's sob story. Uh, there's gonna be something
that I have read that mostly what people find are
like stacks of porn. I'm not kidding, really, Yeah, and
(18:25):
you know, maybe there's some vintage porn in there that
that you could sell on eBay. I don't know, but yeah,
most of the time, it's not anything that that's that's
very exciting. It's not like you get like Hannibal Lecters
storage unit had a vintage car and a severed head.
I was thinking of science of the lens too, because
it's not Hannibals, but like somebody else's and they have
somebody the new Hannibal, right, like a head in a
(18:46):
jar or something. You're right. It was Ruskin or something,
one of his patients. I think that was his name.
I don't know why I remember that. But in a
moment here we are going to talk about humans as
mystery boxes, and we'll get a little more into the science, uh,
and not just amusing tale. That's right, keeping containers. All right,
(19:11):
we're back. Let's uh, let's open this up. Okay, if
it was insided here, all right, So before we get
to humans, we're gonna have to talk about cats, specifically
a cat in a box. Yes, and this would have
This was one that I think most of our listeners
are gonna be familiar with, and that is, of course
shroed Injur's cat. We're not gonna dive too deep into
the quantum physics here because but but essentially this is
(19:34):
a this is a thought experiment, and it has to
do with the Copenhagen interpretation of uncertainly. Yeah, that was
the first proposed by boer Uh and it says that
a quantum particle doesn't exist in one state or another,
but in all of its possible states at once. It's
only when we observe its state that a quantum particle
is essentially forced to choose one probability, and that's the
(19:57):
state that we observe, all right, So it's essentially a
lesson in uncertainty and particle physics in the quantum world. Right.
So here comes Stroinger in Austrian physicist, right, and he
puts together a thought experiment. Like thought experiments are often
really useful to to to illustrate a point and to
make something that's a little uh hard to grasp a
(20:18):
little more concrete, right, And then in the point of
a thought of experiment is not to have a solution
per se, right, yeah, nor to kill cats, but to
just sort of make you think about it. So in
his experiment, he puts a cat in a box along
with a bit of radioactive material like and you know,
like we're talking about with this radioactive container um and
(20:38):
a Geiger counter, all right, which is a device that
measured radiation. Of course, So the the Geiger counter is
designed so that if it senses the decay of the
radioactive material and all radioactive material decays, it triggers a hammer,
which then breaks a flask that contains acid it put poison.
Their different versions of this, but basically you've if if
(21:01):
this radioactive elopment decays, it triggers something that kills the cat.
And so if you were to open that box, that
that that the particles are gonna have to be in
one state or the other. The cat is going to
be alive or dead. There's no there's no one between.
It's gonna be one or the other. Even the that
cat has been poisoned with the ham or whatever had
acid poured on it, or it's fine and just maybe
(21:24):
a little ticked off that you put it in the
thought experiment. But but it's unknowable. I mean, essentially it's unknowable.
And you have to sort of accept that this cat
is in both states, right, and and don't think you
can't listen for the me owing. Yeah, described and if
you start thinking about the hammer thing and the radioactive decay,
it's just sort of imagine shorting or as as a
(21:46):
sort of like a peewee of the physicists, like creating
these little contraptions. Yeah, and he also knew that the
more thought he put into. Actually, he also realized that
the more thought he put into into how the cat
actually dies, the creep period it would be so right again,
no cat died. This was just a thought experiment. But
why the reason why we're talking about it is that, um,
(22:06):
you could give a sort of alternative reading about whether
or not this really applies to us in how we
perceive reality. Right, because the cat in this in this
situation is in a quantum state. It is, it is
both dead and alive. It is in both states at
once until we open the box and by perceiving it,
(22:28):
change it. So there's this question consciousness of reality, right, Um,
you know, is there an actual consciousness of reality? Does
it only exist until we begin to think about it? Um?
Or is there just no material reality whatsoever? You know
I'm talking about here. So in terms of like, okay,
(22:50):
are we all just linking the cat in the box.
We're both dead and alive, We're both unconscious and conscious
until we begin to really speculate about life and sort
of peel back the layers and begin to to investigate
what it means to be alive or what it means
to even be part of this physical world. Yeah, does
does Spain exist if you don't know about it? That
(23:11):
kind of thing exactly true? Make a sound on the forest, yeah,
exactly to hear it all that, you know, it's it's it.
That's that's one of the reasons that the Stroger's Cat
is so endearing. Well, I don't of endearing. It's the words, right,
but but it's such a good u such a good
(23:32):
cognitive chew toy for everyone because it gets down to
a lot of really um, you know, mind rending philosophical
pondering about the state of reality. So you sent me
this link to this guy named Scott Aaronson, Yes, and
and he sort of takes this idea not not like wholesale,
but he applies it to us as automatums, right right, Yeah,
(23:56):
this guy Scott Aaronson came up with this notion presented
at this lecture. Uh. And it's basically a touring test
for free will. Turing test being something that I aimed
at to gauge the intelligence of the machine to see
if the machines can think on the same level as humans.
It's also been using a lot of sci fi and
all that. Yeah, and the main question that touring asked
(24:19):
was kN machines think right, this was the initial question,
and then he sort of threw that out said, you
know what, that's not even the question. The question is
are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in
the imitation game? Right? Right? Like he basically he redefined
the question in terms that it could be actually examined
a little closer and tested. Um. So Aaronson is is
(24:42):
dealing with similar question, but he's he's interested about free will,
all right, and it also involves super smart computers. And
that's when when when we say super smart computers, that's
what we're talking about the imitation game, right right? Okay,
So what does this test consist stuff? Um? Okay. On
the surface, it basically means somebody would hand you an envelope,
probably a robot when hand you the hanvelope, right, and
(25:04):
it would tell you that. The idea would be, if
you open this envelope, it'll tell you what you're thinking
or or saying or doing at a particular point in
the future. It would be like that. It would be
like the Virginity box if I opened it, however, many
years later and found a note inside to tell that
told me exactly where I lost my virginity and how
into who oh wow? Okay, so then with that and
(25:27):
that would be like whoa how did a machine know
that ahead of time? Clearly I'm if I'm not predictable,
if I'm that kind of a system that can you know,
It's it's like weather, right. We build these computer models
of weather and an atmospheric systems to try and figure
out what they're going to do in the in the future,
and we can only do that with a limited amount
(25:48):
of of success, with only so much accuracy. So could
you have data that can continue to bring you back
into a more accurate system, right? Right? So what if
we we dipped into something like the Blue Brain project,
you know, the idea of building a working copy, digital
copy of the human mind. What if a supercomputer was
able to build a copy of your mind and then
(26:10):
by analyzing that copy, that mathematical model of you, and
then they could accurately plan out the rest of your
life or anything you could conceivably do, say, or think,
and then tell you make up this note and printed out,
hand it to you and say open this next Thursday,
and I'll tell you what you did. Right, And this
is what Aaronson the same that you could do this
(26:30):
in a couple of ways, Like you could continue to
do some sort of trial and error process where you, uh,
you sort of get the landscape of someone's brain by
asking someone a ton of questions and then build a
model of predictability based upon that, right, Or you could
do something like the Blue Brain project, which is a
reverse engineering the brain by building a detailed, realistic computer
(26:52):
model of the human brain. And it's one trillion synapsis.
So then you have this this this other system that
is analyzed sing the way that you think, what how
your your snapses are firing and what they're responding to.
So yeah, essentially, what what Aaronson is saying what is
so interesting is he's saying, you know, maybe there's not
(27:13):
free will. You know, maybe there is a certain amount
of predictability unpredictability, but it's finite. Right, It's almost like
the cat in the box. There are only two choices.
There is a factor of unpredictability there because it's either
dead or alive, but it's still you know, just these
one of two things. Right, So through trial and error
(27:33):
there you're going to predict or accurately predict eventually what's
happening with this cat um And I'm not saying that's
what it's going to happen in quantum physics, but in
terms of how we begin to really think about technology
and how it's interacting with us at a meaningful level
as we go forward. Um, it does sort of beg
(27:55):
the question even more about free will. And we've talked
about it many times before, but this this is certainly
an interesting proposition, pretty predictable, Yeah, and it comes down to, uh,
we keep coming back to this idea of at what
point does science demystify, uh, the human experience and then
how do we relate to that? And then it tends
(28:17):
to to to divide into two basic camps. Either it's
terrifying or it's deliberating, Like the idea that that that
there that there's no free will. Uh, it either means great,
there's something maybe there's there's something in charge, or I
don't have to worry about it there's not you know,
I don't have to get been on a shape over
the over choices because ultimately there are no choices, or
(28:40):
that's ultimately really damning because you're you're thinking there's no
choice in life. I'm just this automaton mindlessly following its programs,
making the same mistakes over and over again, doing the
same stuff, and there's no changing it. And that's why
mysteries becomes really important again, right, because sometimes that's even
more important than the actual knowledge, because that's how you
to the heart of it. Yeah. I actually in researching this,
(29:02):
I found a book called and bear with me that
The title here is the Triumph of God over Evil
um by William Hasker of the University of Edinburgh. And
it's actually an interesting looking book if anybody would like
to read, like a whole thick book about the theology
and philosophy of comedy it uh. I think there's a
(29:24):
little humor in there, but but mostly it's like it's
Hasker getting really philosophical about what what is what is
the nature of free will? How does it factor into
the belief and God, the belief and evil, you know,
getting into some of the old questions about why would
God allow evil to exist? And basically he sets out
to justify the ways of God demand which which always
works well for for authors. But it looks like an
(29:45):
interesting book, so if you're into that, check it out.
But he was actually asking the same question with the
same sort of thought experiment. Imagine somebody handed you an
envelope and it and you opened it up, and it
told you what you just thought or said or did.
And he he predicted that pretty much anybody would be
frustrated and angry and resentful upon opening that envelope, even
(30:05):
if you agreed with everything it's said, and there's a
good chance you would not be happy with what it's
said anyway. But even if you were perfectly fine, you
were like, yeah, that's me to a t, you probably
wouldn't be particularly pleased. Well, no, because I mean, we
all want to believe that we're unique, and essentially I
do think that we are. But certainly there are some
things about humans that are predictable and that's so unique. Um, which,
of course is going to bring me to J. J. Abrams. Yes, yeah,
(30:28):
of course the mystery box thing. Um, he really blew
up when he did that on the internet because he
did that, Ted talk like a year a year ago.
Maybe no, no, it's more, maybe more because I don't
think lost. Yeah, And basically he was talking about well
he's doing a lot of talking, uh, And it was
it was a little rambley even for me, and because
(30:48):
I don't have a lot of room to talk. But
but basically his whole point was the idea of the
mystery box is is so inspiring. He was talking about
getting this mystery package from a magic store in New York,
I believe, and and you know it's some one of
these like you pay a certain amount. He's probably just
got some you know, some garbage in it from the
magic shops, some stuff they couldn't move, and so they
just packaged it up in this and sold it. But
(31:10):
the Archie McPhee mystery bag, everybody knows about Archie McPhee.
Who's Archie. It's an online emporium of all things silly,
and you can get you know, bacon, breath, mints, so
on and so forth. So so his Tellhole Ted Talk,
which you can you can find easily online Ted Talk,
j J Abrams and Google search. He was, he was.
(31:30):
He makes the argument that the the idea of the
mystery box is what stirs human creativity and what really
uh certainly his own creativity and really um motivates him
to to create. And you actually sent me a really
interesting um PDF about curiosity is a memory enhancer. Right,
So there's this idea that that that it's not just J. J.
(31:53):
Abrams talking about how great it is, that there's actually
some some research back. Yeah, yeah, that that you know, this,
this mystery has to be unraveled in our brains again,
like you said, needs a good chew toy which really
helps us to learn better into uh, get our noggains engaged. Yeah.
This particular study was from the California Institute of Technology
and they did some fm R eyes on people when
(32:13):
they There are a couple of different like phases of
this experiment, but people wanted they were reading trivia questions
to creating mixture of high and low creativity UM. They
measured subjects pupil dilation UH and tested their memory recall
and and the fm R I showed that the curiosity
increases activity in memory areas UM such as the pair
(32:37):
of hippocampal gyrus and the left inferior frontal gyrus when
subjects said guests incorrectly, which suggests that curiosity may enhance
memory for new information. And it's funny too. I was
thinking about that yesterday. I was working from a coffee
shop in there was a French tutor with her to
students and they were kind of like scraggle I don't know,
maybe like thirteen year old boys and you were working
(32:59):
like a Madeline children's book. Yesterday, Yes I was. I
was in Paris and there was a gypsy in the
corner that was going to kidnap us all. But before
that there was a French lesson and uh, they you
could tell the guys were kind of bored. And I
remember thinking to myself, if they had this context of like, okay,
this this phrase, this sort of rope phrase of like
(33:22):
how are you doing today? I love this artwork here,
you know, these sort of things, we might be so
much more interesting if their their curiosity was piqued, if
their imagination was engaged, if they might think that the
person that they were talking to could be uh, you know,
Stephen Hawking or a pretty girl or an attractive boy.
I don't know, like you know, they're there are different
(33:44):
ways I think that we can play with the blueprint
of our mind in the way that we acquire a knowledge.
And I thought that was so interesting that the curiosity
about something really does help this this flicker of our
um flame of memory, and uh, I don't know, it's
exciting to me. All right, there you have it. Hope
(34:07):
you enjoyed the mystery box. Do you have a mystery
box of information that you want to send to us?
You can, indeed, And you know, we'd also love to
hear any mystery box scenarios that have gone down in
your gift giving our gift receiving life. Um, I'm sure
you have some fascinating stories to share with us as well.
In the meantime, head on over to stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. That's where you'll find all the
(34:28):
podcast episodes, all the videos, all the blogs, all that
stuff we've done before, as well as links after our
social media account. There's a lot of great content there.
And if you you're ever wondering, hey, I wonder if
if they've ever done a podcast on this or they
should do a podcast on on this subject, go over
so seek it out. There's there's a chance we may
have done it. And uh, and if we've done it before,
maybe we need to update it for h for today's listeners. Yeah,
(34:50):
you're like, hey, do they have any episodes on the
insect that a female insect that has a penis, Yes,
and a male insect that has a vagina. Yeah, we've
got that, We're not going to pass up a story
like that. Indeed, all right, send us your thoughts in
your episode suggestions, Why don't you? You can do that
by sending us an email at blow the Mind at
how stuff works dot com for more on this and
(35:16):
thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot
com
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks
dot com. Hey, welcome the Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas, and
we have a classic episode for you here today, a
holiday episode to to get you through this period of
(00:23):
holiday stress and uh and gift giving. That's right. It's
called the Mystery of Box. And for some reason, I
want to go, Yeah, it's inter the mystery Box aspect
of this is interesting because I believe we do mention J.
J Abrams uh in this episode and uh. J j
Abrams has kind of made a name for himself with
the Mystery Box is one of the you know we
lost and then with his subsequent film work. Um, and
(00:45):
it's kind of it's kind of earned a backlash from
it at times, the idea that that maybe at times
you're you're actually withholding a little too much for us,
and sometimes the mystery box, like the Virginity box that
I discussed in this episode, turns out to be empty.
It's true. And I guess that's based on interpretation too. Yeah,
I mean it's heavily subjective, but but I just want
(01:07):
to I want to throw that out there in case
anybody that's really hating on J. J. Abrams right now,
and I'm not saying you should. Uh, you know, I
have high hopes for the new Star Wars films like
everybody else, but but just in case, just take just
understand that this is coming from from earlier Julius and Roberts.
That's right. And gentle listener, if you would like a
quick recommendation of a mystery box like documentary, check out
(01:30):
Finding Vivian Mayor. This is fascinating. I don't know if
anybody is familiar with us, but if you're not, it's
a great documentary about what happens when John Mloup, a
real estate agent, buys four hundred dollar box of mystery.
He's looking for some archival stuff and discovers one of
the richest tapestries of American street photographs and this very
(01:55):
mysterious woman behind the photographs. To check it out. Really,
here we are in the holidays, in the midst of it.
They're piping the music and to the mardest station. It's
like it's some sort of vaccine. It's going to protect
us simply being a wonderful chime. Yeah, that one that
(02:17):
makes seven in the morning, you know, you're trying to
listen to your own music or get stuck in your
own book. At any rate, it's not even December yet,
and I'm you know, I'm already I understand the train
station is U is killing your air drums with Christmas music. Yeah,
but I mean the big thing about Christmas, of course,
is the gift giving, right Christmas saw Holidays, So the
whole whatever you're you're calling your winter gift giving shenanigans, Uh,
(02:41):
it generally relates to taking something in a box, wrapping
it up, sticking in a bag, creating this air of mystery, right,
what's inside it? What could it be? And and people
get excited about it, right right, So in this podcast,
we're basically advocating give the gift of an empty box.
Well okay, not necessarily an empty box. And we'll talk
(03:02):
about this because maybe you could, you could fill this
box with ideas, thoughts and presented as a president, I'm
sure that will go over really well, especially with the kids.
I mean they're so cheat. Yeah. I do. My uncle
Craig and the gift raffle this year, So I think
I'm going to give him some like a box of
ideas and we'll see how that plays out. I think
(03:24):
he's gonna love it, and I think that that you should.
If he doesn't understand it, he's going to have to
listen to this podcast so he can really appreciate that.
Sometimes one of the base gifts is a mystery, right, um.
And we can't help but get really excited about a
mystery about what might be inside of a box. Um.
And sometimes we approach it, we unwrap it with gusto,
(03:45):
and sometimes we shy away. And so we're gonna talk
about that in various forms today, right, because that's what's is.
That is what it's always fascinating about a gift box
or a mystery box. It's the mystery. It's not I
want to tear into that thing and get what's in it.
And and Grant, we sort of lose track of that,
I think sometimes with our gift giving, with the with
the use of saying like an Amazon gift list and
(04:06):
all this, because it's like because it's it's so regimented,
it's like, these are the things I want, these are
the things you may give me, Please check them off.
And then you know people are cheating anyway, and seeing
there's no mystery there and seeing what they're going to
get ahead of time. But but yeah, mystery boxes in general.
We were chatting about this. We each have like a
few different stories that relate to mystery boxes in our
(04:27):
own life. Will you talk a little about the art
in your house? And yeah, yeah, we have um in
our house. We have a giant painting and it's an
abstract and it sort of looks like it could be
um maybe like an advertising, like a poll or something
that is that is has like a little advertisement on it.
And on top of that is an envelope that has
(04:51):
been attached to this painting and it is sealed and
there's no way you could remove it without absolutely destroying
the painting, or if you open it, you would destroy
the pain. But it is a part of the work.
It's not merely something that says like, hey, guys, hope
you enjoyed the piece I make for you. Here's the
receipt for the painting, suckers. Um. But no, this was
(05:11):
actually something that was given to us by a friend
and we traded out some of our work and so
and of course Jeff will never tell us what is
inside that envelope. But as you can see, if you
look at it, actually you can see the corners of
the envelope have been played with enough that they've been
kind of turned up. And so it drives everybody crazy,
(05:32):
particularly my father in law. He wants to know what
is in that envelope. Uh, and I'm pretty sure he's
probably tried to steam an open before two and we
haven't been home. But it does drive people nuts because
there's this idea that maybe it could contain the secrets
of the world, or maybe it would, I mean, at
the very least just have something really interesting to say, right,
(05:54):
because it contains basically anything in the world until you
open exactly, it has all the pa abilities in the
world until you open it. Right, But could it be
a Pandora's Box? Could all the ills of the world
fly out of that envelope and they can never be
stuffed back in, They can never be stuffed back in.
All the demons are out there. Um. And then the
other thing that you mentioned is a little postcard that
(06:16):
I have or a couple of them at my cubicle.
And uh, it's a scratch off like sort of like
a I guess what you call like a lottery ticket. Yeah,
a lottery ticket, and there's a woman in a beautiful
dress and she's got a big round scratch off over
her head. You can scratch off and see what's underneath,
but I refused to. I want the mystery. Now, did
(06:38):
you place them on there? Or did they come? They came?
They came that way, because every time I walk by
your desk, I see those and there is a temptation like,
what's going on under there? Yeah? What is what is
going on with that lady? Or in one of them
a llama or something? Yeah, there's a llama? Yeah, what
is this? Allama have a head? Is it is it's
head missing? I don't know, I know, is it? Is
it a monkey underneath a lama? And by the way,
(07:00):
you've just revealed yourself. If I ever find them scratched,
I know exactly who did it. Well. I mean, it's
really a miracle that that nobody has scratched it. Because
I brought a model airplane to work and it's been
broken twice by mysterious hands. Yeah, but how mysterious hands
are not going after your art? Because that whatever like
sort of gremlin we have is interested in model airplanes
(07:22):
and not art. Um So anyway, there's are some examples,
and then you have an example of a mystery thought.
Oh yes, yes, I have a really good one. This
is a story. I haven't actually told this one a lot,
but it's it's such a good story, so now I
will share with the world. Back when I was like
in junior high, my my family went to this Southern
Baptist church and they were big on the whole wait
(07:43):
till you're married to have sex. And if you've had
sex already as a junior high kid or a high
school kid, um, you need to sort of regain your virginity,
like sort of a new replacement virginity can be bestowed
upon you and then keep that one intact until such
time as you're married in the eyes of God and
all that. So a part of this campaign, if you will. Um.
(08:06):
We were all issued a little box who was wrapped
in gift paper. It was the size of a cassette tape.
For those of you who remember cassette tapes, the little
plastic case that it comes in. It was that size,
and indeed, if you pressed on it and sort of
felt the package, you could tell that it was in
fact like a cassette box that was wrapped up okay,
(08:26):
but it's sealed, right, But it's sealed, and and then,
of course the big question is is what's inside that
box now? Now, obviously, what is the purpose of the
SPOX Why the box is supposed to represent your virginity,
the special gift that God has bestowed upon you, and
you were supposed to keep it in treasure it and
uh and and you're not supposed to unwrap it until
(08:46):
such times. So when you make love and the Holy
Spirit then visits you, you're able to unwrap this. Yeah.
Yeah there. Yeah. Basically, so they were like, here you go.
Of course after you've been married yet, this is a reminder,
you know, and it's like a metaphor no now, So
I ended up sticking this package away for for a
long time because, as it turns out, I didn't actually
have to open it until I was into my twenties. Um,
(09:09):
which is no big deal. If you're you know, any
of your kids listening right now, and you feel like
some sort of weird pressure to go out there and
and have some sex, let me just tell you if
it's not that big a deal. So I just uh,
you know, chill out. It'll all make a lot more
sense later. But but so I'm in my twenties and
I'm you know, I'm doing whatever. And then I realized, hey, um,
this thing happened the other week, So now technically I
(09:30):
can open that package and I won't be cheating because
I imagine some of the kids took it home and
opened it immediately because they were like, oh, I wonder
what this is? What's inside this? And I'm supposed to
have You weren't married, right, like, you didn't know? Okay,
I just wanted to hear. I'm just saying like this,
you know, this was the the idea, but yeah, I
I didn't it was. There were other causes for me
(09:53):
not opening that package though I was in my twenties, right,
So but I'm saying, though, it's not like you wait
and you're like okay, no, no, it's just you're like, oh,
there's that package. Right. It just ended up not happening
in my life until I was at that, you know,
at this particular age. And then then I realized, hey,
I've got that package. And so the next time I
came home and I went through a box of my
old stuff and I found it. I'm like, all right,
(10:13):
I'm gonna go ahead. And open this up see what
this was all about. Because I was kind of superstitious
about it before. I was like, well, if I opened
it too early, what if that jinxes me for life?
And then you know, even though you don't subscribe to
any even though you don't subscribe to it, you know,
and uh. And then I was also thinking, like, what
if there's like this nasty note in it that it's
like it's from my youth pastor and he's like, wow,
(10:35):
you're really screwed up there, buddy, or or a way
to throw away your precious gift. You know, I don't know,
so I um, so I opened it up and the
box is empty. There's nothing inside it, Like there's not
a note saying I'm shaking my head now, God bless
or a note saying I hope you did the right thing,
or you know, a prize, a gift certificate. I think
(10:56):
that's really sad because I mean, that to me is
just laziness. Because or I would think that the church
thought so little of the kids ability to retain the
virginity that they were like, you know what, that's not
going to happen anyway, Let's not fill it with anything. Well,
it would have also been bed if they filled it
with something perishable, like some candy or something, because then
(11:16):
I'm like, wow, they had no faith in us at all.
They were like, just go ahead and put you know,
the expiration date is next month. Uh, they're probably gonna
open it tonight. Might as well have a treat in
there to keep them business. And see, so you were
disappointed because all of the possibilities ceased to exist, right,
I don't know if I was disappointed. Uh, it was
just more kind of fascinating, like why why didn't they
put something? And it was it intentional? I tend to
(11:38):
to think that probably they were just pressed for time
and they wanted to do something. But like a far
side cartoon, they could have thrown in anything. Yeah, you
know a fortune cookie? Um? Uh what you mud call it?
A little slip of paper? Yeah, I know the lottery
numbers on it. I don't know. I wasn't you know,
I wasn't disappointed, and I certainly wasn't like, oh I
(11:58):
wish I had opened this ages ago, literally or figuratively.
But yeah, it's it's It just shows you, though, how
the idea of something in a package can sort of
captivate your mind for years and years on end. Well, okay,
so let's talk about one more story. Ben Bolan gave
me a special gift the other day stuff they don't
(12:19):
want you to know. Yeah, And by a special gift,
I mean he gave me a package, not his virginity
but but it was. And I didn't know it was
from him at the time, but I came into work
and there's a package and it said mystery, Um, you know, gift.
You can choose to open it, keep it or throw
it away or cross out your name and give it.
(12:39):
It says, a mystery package arrives. Do you do? And
I shared this on the Facebook and we had different answers.
Some people were like, throw it away, give it away,
open it now, I must see what's inside it. And
it turned it was a book that we had been
talking about. But but it really captivated my well psychologically,
I think that everybody was like, what could it be?
Could it be something good or ill will? Which is
(13:00):
essentially what every box presented to you, is right? And
is it a test? I was kind of getting shadows
of the uh, the virginity box there because I'm like
Clay am I nant to open this am I meant
to give it to someone else, so I ended up
actually crossing out my name, putting yours on it. And
then you treat you were scared to death of it.
I was like, well, thanks, Lamb. So then I ticket
(13:22):
to someone else and then we crossed it out and
then back back. So it was meant to be. And
uh it was a book Illuminati trilogy. Yeah, there we go,
which lovely think for Ben does Ben? Thanks if you're listening. Yeah,
So okay, let's talk about when you you receive a
box that you don't want. And let's say that your
(13:43):
name is Enzo Antonia and you live in Genoa, Italy,
and your port worker who specializes in radiation detection. Ah,
this is the the story. I believe this was unwired
um about the the radioactive cargo container. Yeah, shows up.
I don't know what's inside it, but we know that
whatever is inside it is radioactive. Yeah. Like basically, it's
(14:06):
just another day, another thousand of these things a day
coming into this one particular port. So that's that's actually
a pretty sobering statistic, by the way, because if you
think about it, there are millions and millions of these
shipping containers and cargo containers um going around the world.
So here's this one port thousand a day and Zoe
shows up, turns on his radiation detector and the thing
(14:26):
goes nuts. In fact, it gets off the charts, and
he hasn't even gone into the area to actually try
to UM do his security check. So it turns out
that there is uh something inside of it obviously that
is highly radioactive, and they think that it could be
a dirty mom and they freak out and they move
(14:46):
it away as far as possible. In the meantime, it
languishes on that doc for almost a year, Yeah, because
they're trying to figure out who is going to pay
for it, Can we get it, can be a where
did it come from? And we ship it back Saudi
Arabia from from whence it originated? Was like no way, no,
thank you? Um. And you know these things are really
(15:09):
hard to track yea. And what does it contain? Is it?
Is it some sort of nefarious device? Is that? Is
it just waste material? Is it the ark of the Covenant?
But exactly exactly and it is actually tagged as waste material.
There's a picture of the inside bit. Of course, when
you're looking at all these copper coils, you know, twenty
two tons of copper coils. Something obviously could be put
(15:31):
in there and and you would never discover it. Uh
So anyway, sat there for a long time until they
finally got a robot to go in and um, they
use some cameras and they figured out that it was
a chunk of cobalt. Yeah, which was even odd because, um,
you know, this is not some sort of material that
you find every day. In fact, I believe that it
came from or at least they're thinking that it came
(15:53):
from some sort of medical device or machine used to
sterilized food. And it's really expensive to dispose of this
sort of thing. Um, but apparently this is just not
all that odd that you would have shipping containers with
nefarious things inside of it. In fact, that Wired dot
com the article wise is cargo container emitting so much radiation?
(16:14):
Said that there was this one guy who they found
and this was just six weeks after Nune eleven, by
the way, Um they found him inside of when the
shipping containers because they heard noise and they opened it
up and lo and behold, they found that this guy
was hanging out in there with a satellite phone, uh,
cell phone, a laptop, cameras, maps, security passes to airports
(16:37):
in Canada, Thailand and Egypt. And the container was outfitted
with a bed, a water supply, a heater, and a toilet.
Yeah so, and you know, okay, it was a little
bit odd, right, don't you think? Well, I don't know,
I've seen some magazine articles where dudes take a cargo
container and transforming into an upscale apartment, right right. But
(16:58):
he was not, you know, that some sort of model
for Dwell magazine, you know, saying oh look at my
great postmodern home here. Um. They actually nicknamed him container
Bob and the Kui posted bail and Italian court. It
was never seen again. Yeah so, I mean, you know,
and there's been a lot of talk actually about security
of shipping containers, and so that remains a pretty big problem,
(17:20):
or you know, I guess you would say a blind
spot in security, right, And of course we don't have
to dwell much on this, but obviously there are tons
of like the big thing, the big show today on
multiple networks is the whole antiquers and these people checking
out abandoned the storage facilities, uh where they get to
the auction off the contents of abandoned storage, especially in
(17:43):
this economy where people are no longer able to pay
for him, right, and they're mostly filled with nothing anyway,
But there's always that chance, and people get really into
that idea because they don't say, all right, everybody, go
in here and check it out and see if there's
anything you want to buy. They're like, we're gonna sell everything.
You buy, you buy everything or nothing, you keep everything
or nothing, and you just get a break. So so
(18:04):
that's that's a great example of people that are just
captivated by the possibility that in the midst of all
that junk and and left over uh material from somebody's
life and somebody's sob story. Uh, there's gonna be something
that I have read that mostly what people find are
like stacks of porn. I'm not kidding, really, Yeah, and
(18:25):
you know, maybe there's some vintage porn in there that
that you could sell on eBay. I don't know, but yeah,
most of the time, it's not anything that that's that's
very exciting. It's not like you get like Hannibal Lecters
storage unit had a vintage car and a severed head.
I was thinking of science of the lens too, because
it's not Hannibals, but like somebody else's and they have
somebody the new Hannibal, right, like a head in a
(18:46):
jar or something. You're right. It was Ruskin or something,
one of his patients. I think that was his name.
I don't know why I remember that. But in a
moment here we are going to talk about humans as
mystery boxes, and we'll get a little more into the science, uh,
and not just amusing tale. That's right, keeping containers. All right,
(19:11):
we're back. Let's uh, let's open this up. Okay, if
it was insided here, all right, So before we get
to humans, we're gonna have to talk about cats, specifically
a cat in a box. Yes, and this would have
This was one that I think most of our listeners
are gonna be familiar with, and that is, of course
shroed Injur's cat. We're not gonna dive too deep into
the quantum physics here because but but essentially this is
(19:34):
a this is a thought experiment, and it has to
do with the Copenhagen interpretation of uncertainly. Yeah, that was
the first proposed by boer Uh and it says that
a quantum particle doesn't exist in one state or another,
but in all of its possible states at once. It's
only when we observe its state that a quantum particle
is essentially forced to choose one probability, and that's the
(19:57):
state that we observe, all right, So it's essentially a
lesson in uncertainty and particle physics in the quantum world. Right.
So here comes Stroinger in Austrian physicist, right, and he
puts together a thought experiment. Like thought experiments are often
really useful to to to illustrate a point and to
make something that's a little uh hard to grasp a
(20:18):
little more concrete, right, And then in the point of
a thought of experiment is not to have a solution
per se, right, yeah, nor to kill cats, but to
just sort of make you think about it. So in
his experiment, he puts a cat in a box along
with a bit of radioactive material like and you know,
like we're talking about with this radioactive container um and
(20:38):
a Geiger counter, all right, which is a device that
measured radiation. Of course, So the the Geiger counter is
designed so that if it senses the decay of the
radioactive material and all radioactive material decays, it triggers a hammer,
which then breaks a flask that contains acid it put poison.
Their different versions of this, but basically you've if if
(21:01):
this radioactive elopment decays, it triggers something that kills the cat.
And so if you were to open that box, that
that that the particles are gonna have to be in
one state or the other. The cat is going to
be alive or dead. There's no there's no one between.
It's gonna be one or the other. Even the that
cat has been poisoned with the ham or whatever had
acid poured on it, or it's fine and just maybe
(21:24):
a little ticked off that you put it in the
thought experiment. But but it's unknowable. I mean, essentially it's unknowable.
And you have to sort of accept that this cat
is in both states, right, and and don't think you
can't listen for the me owing. Yeah, described and if
you start thinking about the hammer thing and the radioactive decay,
it's just sort of imagine shorting or as as a
(21:46):
sort of like a peewee of the physicists, like creating
these little contraptions. Yeah, and he also knew that the
more thought he put into. Actually, he also realized that
the more thought he put into into how the cat
actually dies, the creep period it would be so right again,
no cat died. This was just a thought experiment. But
why the reason why we're talking about it is that, um,
(22:06):
you could give a sort of alternative reading about whether
or not this really applies to us in how we
perceive reality. Right, because the cat in this in this
situation is in a quantum state. It is, it is
both dead and alive. It is in both states at
once until we open the box and by perceiving it,
(22:28):
change it. So there's this question consciousness of reality, right, Um,
you know, is there an actual consciousness of reality? Does
it only exist until we begin to think about it? Um?
Or is there just no material reality whatsoever? You know
I'm talking about here. So in terms of like, okay,
(22:50):
are we all just linking the cat in the box.
We're both dead and alive, We're both unconscious and conscious
until we begin to really speculate about life and sort
of peel back the layers and begin to to investigate
what it means to be alive or what it means
to even be part of this physical world. Yeah, does
does Spain exist if you don't know about it? That
(23:11):
kind of thing exactly true? Make a sound on the forest, yeah,
exactly to hear it all that, you know, it's it's it.
That's that's one of the reasons that the Stroger's Cat
is so endearing. Well, I don't of endearing. It's the words, right,
but but it's such a good u such a good
(23:32):
cognitive chew toy for everyone because it gets down to
a lot of really um, you know, mind rending philosophical
pondering about the state of reality. So you sent me
this link to this guy named Scott Aaronson, Yes, and
and he sort of takes this idea not not like wholesale,
but he applies it to us as automatums, right right, Yeah,
(23:56):
this guy Scott Aaronson came up with this notion presented
at this lecture. Uh. And it's basically a touring test
for free will. Turing test being something that I aimed
at to gauge the intelligence of the machine to see
if the machines can think on the same level as humans.
It's also been using a lot of sci fi and
all that. Yeah, and the main question that touring asked
(24:19):
was kN machines think right, this was the initial question,
and then he sort of threw that out said, you
know what, that's not even the question. The question is
are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in
the imitation game? Right? Right? Like he basically he redefined
the question in terms that it could be actually examined
a little closer and tested. Um. So Aaronson is is
(24:42):
dealing with similar question, but he's he's interested about free will,
all right, and it also involves super smart computers. And
that's when when when we say super smart computers, that's
what we're talking about the imitation game, right right? Okay,
So what does this test consist stuff? Um? Okay. On
the surface, it basically means somebody would hand you an envelope,
probably a robot when hand you the hanvelope, right, and
(25:04):
it would tell you that. The idea would be, if
you open this envelope, it'll tell you what you're thinking
or or saying or doing at a particular point in
the future. It would be like that. It would be
like the Virginity box if I opened it, however, many
years later and found a note inside to tell that
told me exactly where I lost my virginity and how
into who oh wow? Okay, so then with that and
(25:27):
that would be like whoa how did a machine know
that ahead of time? Clearly I'm if I'm not predictable,
if I'm that kind of a system that can you know,
It's it's like weather, right. We build these computer models
of weather and an atmospheric systems to try and figure
out what they're going to do in the in the future,
and we can only do that with a limited amount
(25:48):
of of success, with only so much accuracy. So could
you have data that can continue to bring you back
into a more accurate system, right? Right? So what if
we we dipped into something like the Blue Brain project,
you know, the idea of building a working copy, digital
copy of the human mind. What if a supercomputer was
able to build a copy of your mind and then
(26:10):
by analyzing that copy, that mathematical model of you, and
then they could accurately plan out the rest of your
life or anything you could conceivably do, say, or think,
and then tell you make up this note and printed out,
hand it to you and say open this next Thursday,
and I'll tell you what you did. Right, And this
is what Aaronson the same that you could do this
(26:30):
in a couple of ways, Like you could continue to
do some sort of trial and error process where you, uh,
you sort of get the landscape of someone's brain by
asking someone a ton of questions and then build a
model of predictability based upon that, right, Or you could
do something like the Blue Brain project, which is a
reverse engineering the brain by building a detailed, realistic computer
(26:52):
model of the human brain. And it's one trillion synapsis.
So then you have this this this other system that
is analyzed sing the way that you think, what how
your your snapses are firing and what they're responding to.
So yeah, essentially, what what Aaronson is saying what is
so interesting is he's saying, you know, maybe there's not
(27:13):
free will. You know, maybe there is a certain amount
of predictability unpredictability, but it's finite. Right, It's almost like
the cat in the box. There are only two choices.
There is a factor of unpredictability there because it's either
dead or alive, but it's still you know, just these
one of two things. Right, So through trial and error
(27:33):
there you're going to predict or accurately predict eventually what's
happening with this cat um And I'm not saying that's
what it's going to happen in quantum physics, but in
terms of how we begin to really think about technology
and how it's interacting with us at a meaningful level
as we go forward. Um, it does sort of beg
(27:55):
the question even more about free will. And we've talked
about it many times before, but this this is certainly
an interesting proposition, pretty predictable, Yeah, and it comes down to, uh,
we keep coming back to this idea of at what
point does science demystify, uh, the human experience and then
how do we relate to that? And then it tends
(28:17):
to to to divide into two basic camps. Either it's
terrifying or it's deliberating, Like the idea that that that
there that there's no free will. Uh, it either means great,
there's something maybe there's there's something in charge, or I
don't have to worry about it there's not you know,
I don't have to get been on a shape over
the over choices because ultimately there are no choices, or
(28:40):
that's ultimately really damning because you're you're thinking there's no
choice in life. I'm just this automaton mindlessly following its programs,
making the same mistakes over and over again, doing the
same stuff, and there's no changing it. And that's why
mysteries becomes really important again, right, because sometimes that's even
more important than the actual knowledge, because that's how you
to the heart of it. Yeah. I actually in researching this,
(29:02):
I found a book called and bear with me that
The title here is the Triumph of God over Evil
um by William Hasker of the University of Edinburgh. And
it's actually an interesting looking book if anybody would like
to read, like a whole thick book about the theology
and philosophy of comedy it uh. I think there's a
(29:24):
little humor in there, but but mostly it's like it's
Hasker getting really philosophical about what what is what is
the nature of free will? How does it factor into
the belief and God, the belief and evil, you know,
getting into some of the old questions about why would
God allow evil to exist? And basically he sets out
to justify the ways of God demand which which always
works well for for authors. But it looks like an
(29:45):
interesting book, so if you're into that, check it out.
But he was actually asking the same question with the
same sort of thought experiment. Imagine somebody handed you an
envelope and it and you opened it up, and it
told you what you just thought or said or did.
And he he predicted that pretty much anybody would be
frustrated and angry and resentful upon opening that envelope, even
(30:05):
if you agreed with everything it's said, and there's a
good chance you would not be happy with what it's
said anyway. But even if you were perfectly fine, you
were like, yeah, that's me to a t, you probably
wouldn't be particularly pleased. Well, no, because I mean, we
all want to believe that we're unique, and essentially I
do think that we are. But certainly there are some
things about humans that are predictable and that's so unique. Um, which,
of course is going to bring me to J. J. Abrams. Yes, yeah,
(30:28):
of course the mystery box thing. Um, he really blew
up when he did that on the internet because he
did that, Ted talk like a year a year ago.
Maybe no, no, it's more, maybe more because I don't
think lost. Yeah, And basically he was talking about well
he's doing a lot of talking, uh, And it was
it was a little rambley even for me, and because
(30:48):
I don't have a lot of room to talk. But
but basically his whole point was the idea of the
mystery box is is so inspiring. He was talking about
getting this mystery package from a magic store in New York,
I believe, and and you know it's some one of
these like you pay a certain amount. He's probably just
got some you know, some garbage in it from the
magic shops, some stuff they couldn't move, and so they
just packaged it up in this and sold it. But
(31:10):
the Archie McPhee mystery bag, everybody knows about Archie McPhee.
Who's Archie. It's an online emporium of all things silly,
and you can get you know, bacon, breath, mints, so
on and so forth. So so his Tellhole Ted Talk,
which you can you can find easily online Ted Talk,
j J Abrams and Google search. He was, he was.
(31:30):
He makes the argument that the the idea of the
mystery box is what stirs human creativity and what really
uh certainly his own creativity and really um motivates him
to to create. And you actually sent me a really
interesting um PDF about curiosity is a memory enhancer. Right,
So there's this idea that that that it's not just J. J.
(31:53):
Abrams talking about how great it is, that there's actually
some some research back. Yeah, yeah, that that you know, this,
this mystery has to be unraveled in our brains again,
like you said, needs a good chew toy which really
helps us to learn better into uh, get our noggains engaged. Yeah.
This particular study was from the California Institute of Technology
and they did some fm R eyes on people when
(32:13):
they There are a couple of different like phases of
this experiment, but people wanted they were reading trivia questions
to creating mixture of high and low creativity UM. They
measured subjects pupil dilation UH and tested their memory recall
and and the fm R I showed that the curiosity
increases activity in memory areas UM such as the pair
(32:37):
of hippocampal gyrus and the left inferior frontal gyrus when
subjects said guests incorrectly, which suggests that curiosity may enhance
memory for new information. And it's funny too. I was
thinking about that yesterday. I was working from a coffee
shop in there was a French tutor with her to
students and they were kind of like scraggle I don't know,
maybe like thirteen year old boys and you were working
(32:59):
like a Madeline children's book. Yesterday, Yes I was. I
was in Paris and there was a gypsy in the
corner that was going to kidnap us all. But before
that there was a French lesson and uh, they you
could tell the guys were kind of bored. And I
remember thinking to myself, if they had this context of like, okay,
this this phrase, this sort of rope phrase of like
(33:22):
how are you doing today? I love this artwork here,
you know, these sort of things, we might be so
much more interesting if their their curiosity was piqued, if
their imagination was engaged, if they might think that the
person that they were talking to could be uh, you know,
Stephen Hawking or a pretty girl or an attractive boy.
I don't know, like you know, they're there are different
(33:44):
ways I think that we can play with the blueprint
of our mind in the way that we acquire a knowledge.
And I thought that was so interesting that the curiosity
about something really does help this this flicker of our
um flame of memory, and uh, I don't know, it's
exciting to me. All right, there you have it. Hope
(34:07):
you enjoyed the mystery box. Do you have a mystery
box of information that you want to send to us?
You can, indeed, And you know, we'd also love to
hear any mystery box scenarios that have gone down in
your gift giving our gift receiving life. Um, I'm sure
you have some fascinating stories to share with us as well.
In the meantime, head on over to stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. That's where you'll find all the
(34:28):
podcast episodes, all the videos, all the blogs, all that
stuff we've done before, as well as links after our
social media account. There's a lot of great content there.
And if you you're ever wondering, hey, I wonder if
if they've ever done a podcast on this or they
should do a podcast on on this subject, go over
so seek it out. There's there's a chance we may
have done it. And uh, and if we've done it before,
maybe we need to update it for h for today's listeners. Yeah,
(34:50):
you're like, hey, do they have any episodes on the
insect that a female insect that has a penis, Yes,
and a male insect that has a vagina. Yeah, we've
got that, We're not going to pass up a story
like that. Indeed, all right, send us your thoughts in
your episode suggestions, Why don't you? You can do that
by sending us an email at blow the Mind at
how stuff works dot com for more on this and
(35:16):
thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot
com
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
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.