← Julian Dorey Podcast
Julian Dorey Podcast
#400 - “Human TERMINATOR!” - Harvard Neuroscientist on Psychopaths, Love, Telepathy & The Halo Effect
02:52:42
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Start filing today in the Credit Karma app. And there were so many things you were talking about in the last episode where I'm like, I could ask him, like, 40 things. All right, we just gotta pick one and roll with it. So there's some stuff I want to dig into deeper that we just kind of touched the surface of, and then other things I want to get to entirely new topics. But, yeah, I also know, like, you know, Jordan Peterson, you've been on his show before, have a little bit of a relationship with him. Yeah, he obviously is. Like, they publicly announced he's. He's not doing too well right now.
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B
Right.
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A
Heard any. Any updates on that, on his health?
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B
I haven't. So what I know is from what's known publicly about his health, unfortunately, you know, he went through some. Some health battles, as is known. But, yeah, I. I sent him my greetings, you know, well wishes through his wife, Tammy, and.
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A
And.
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B
But yeah, I'm not sure exactly what's. What's happening there, you know, hopefully.
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A
I never like to see that.
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B
Yeah. Yeah. I hope he recovers soon. Yeah, definitely.
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A
For sure. So this course you did on love. Yeah, we talked about it at the very end last time for the last 13, 14 minutes of that podcast, which I'm not sure when this one's coming out yet. We'll figure that out. But, you know, we got into some of the pop culture with, you know, breaking down the Titanic and Jack, played by Leo and how he kind of, like, courted Rose. So there's some of that I think we could probably rehash just because a lot of people want to know, didn't hear the last episode. And that was also at the very end. So they may not have gotten there, but you mentioned the different things you were teaching across the lectures for love. And you mentioned, like, sexual energy, transcendent love, parents love. So maybe we could just go one by one here and break down how. Put together each idea to explain it scientifically how love works.
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B
Well, I have to go back and retrieve some of those files because it's been a week, you know, and I've done so much in that week after, in terms of Just lecturing and talking about different things. So I definitely have to think, so what did I talk about? So romantic love. There are different stages of romantic love. There's obviously what's called infatuation and, and you might call the initial. So when you see a woman for the first time, you see a woman, she walks by you, she's very attractive, she comes towards you and you just find her attractive, right? That's testosterone driven. It's very much dopamine, ventral striatum of the brain. The ventral striatum is this portion of the brain important for dopamine, creating dopamine, as we know, dopamine is this reward chemical in the brain, makes you agitated, makes you sort of be, heart is beating, boom, boom, boom, all that. So that's initial state, okay, very testosterone and dopamine driven. Second. What might happen then is romantic love kicks in. You might, you know, you know, build a relationship with that girl. There's something going on that's a little bit deeper now. You start to get to know her and all that. And that is a different, different circuits in the brain. Now you're dealing with circuits like if it kind of expands a little bit again and it gets a bit deeper, you have things like serotonin dropping in the brain. This is actually counterintuitive because serotonin is this feel good hormone. Now when you have serotonin in the system, you kind of feel relaxed, you feel kind of, you know, calm, you feel good. You're very sort of inner driven. So you feel, you feel inner driven. You kind of have calmness in you. Now when it goes down, you become more obsessive. In fact, in fact, in monkeys, if you, that circuit in the brain going from the medial prefrontal cortex, the mid prefrontal cortex to the basal ganglia and other regions of the brain involved in sort of obsessive thinking. If you, if you, if you cut serotonin in that circuit, you become highly obsessive. So serotonin is very, very important for reducing obsessions. But obviously when you fall in love, you have a lot of obsessions. So serotonin goes out the window. In fact, the prefrontal cortex, the very front of your brain, the logical reasoning, you know, planning part of the brain shuts down. So you have that second. Second you have a part of the brain called the tpj, the temporal parietal junction. We talked about that last time. That is a region up here in this part of the brain. It's evolved in creating a sense of a body image. So Me, Baland. I feel like I occupy this body. I don't feel like I occupy, you know, Julian's body or Brad Pitt's body, unfortunately. Okay, I occupy this body. Right. Glad you like my jokes. These jokes sometime misfire during lectures.
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A
You're good. You're good. You got a bad audience if they're misfiring. Brad Pitt was looking good in F1. I gotta say. That motherfucker's like 65.
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B
He was.
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A
He was doing all right.
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B
He's pretty cool. He's pretty cool.
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A
Hey, guys, three quick things. Number one, if you haven't subscribed, please subscribe. It's a huge, huge help. Number two, if you'd like to join my Patreon for early uncensored releases of the full episodes, you can join via the link in my description or in the pin comment below. And number three, if you'd like to join my clipping community for a chance to make content from the show and make money, you can join via the Discord link in my description below.
- [05:43]
B
So the TPJ creates a sense of a body image. It's up here. And it works by pulling sensory information from various senses. Seeing, touch, taste, tactile sensations, and then draws that information and builds a sense of a self. So this is very. A very key structure to know. It's important in just creating you by pulling information from the world. So you have the TPJ now, the tpj. When you are in a romantic situation, it actually shuts down.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And so there's a sense of unison with the lover. You feel like you're becoming one with her. You know, that's very important. It's actually very critical and key piece of it.
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A
And that doesn't happen at all during the infatuation phase. That's when it gets to romantic phase.
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B
This is in the romantic phase, in the initial stages, in the pure, passionate infatuation stage. It's much more. It's much more. It's much more passionate, driven. It's much more sexual. You know what I mean? It doesn't have that. These neural circuits are not active in the same manner as we see now. It's clearly different when you actually have that romantic stage.
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A
Is there something specific, like a line in the sand, if you will, that happens or that needs to happen to cross officially from the infatuation stage to the romantic stage?
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B
It's a good question. I think what it is, is reciprocity. So once you get. Okay, so you see the girl, she's good looking, she's pretty and you have the initial drive, okay? Then there's some reciprocity. Maybe you get to know her a little bit. There's some continuity in time, so you get to see her a few times. That can lead to the more sort of romantic stage. Now the prefrontal kicks in. Now, the prefrontal is important because the prefrontal. I said, it shuts down. But there's also a prefrontal element in romantic love. Let me explain. So when you first see the girl in the infatuation stage, there's also another structure called the insula. It's behind the ears. It's very important, actually. This is the region of the brain that maps all your sensory states. So your breathing, your heart rate, all that is mapped onto the insula, okay? So it maps all that. And so any given moment, I'm sort of looking at Joey, I'm looking around in the studio. My insula is kind of mapping all that and saying, how is my stomach right now? How's my heart? How does the external world map onto my internal world? That's the insula doing that. And then based on that, it sends signals back to my prefrontal conceptual part of the brain. And then it helps me build a narrative around the world, if that makes sense. Now, when I see a girl for the first time, obviously there's a lot of insula going on. My heart is beating. Boom, boom, boom. I'm sweating a little bit. I could measure that if I wanted to using sort of galvanic skin response, skin conductance.
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A
Galvanic?
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B
Yeah, it's called galvanic skin response. So you can measure sweating on the body when you're. It's micro sweating. You know, you can't really. So you have that. So there's a. Clearly a physiological reaction. So you have the insula very active. You have a part of the brain I didn't mention before. It's called the hypothalamus. Hypothalamus. Did we talk about the hypothalamus?
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A
I think we touched it, but it was in another context.
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B
It's another context. It's one of the most fascinating part of the brains in the brain. It's fascinating because the hypothalamus is this marble, like structure, and it's kind of deeper in the brain. But what it does is it has tons of functions. And it is very small, but it has tons of functions. For example. For example, when I have. When I feel aggressive, okay. When I have aggression in me, okay. And I feel aggressive, guess what happens? The hypothalamus is all active and it sends commands to something called the pituitary. And it, and it then releases hormones. So cortisol, adrenaline is then released eventually from the adrenal glands. Behind here you find your kidneys. Above your kidneys, that's the hypothalamus. But it's also involved in sex drive. Curiously, the same part of the brain is evolved in sexual motivation and aggression. Which begs the question, like why are some men motivated sexually by aggressive scenarios? Like why do you have male dominance in prison, you know, in prison scenarios and males wanting to dominate others in the sexual component of that, or even rape scenarios or men just being turned on by highly violence scenarios. Well, it turns out the same part of the brain that mediates the, that processes aggression and processes sexuality is the same. It's the same, literally the same structure
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A
that makes a lot of sense. And like you said, it can, that can be very dark.
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B
It can be very dark.
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A
Wrong ways.
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B
It can be very. Yeah, absolutely.
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A
In other ways though, creates odd social situations. That's why it's just as tal is always time like whenever there's a woman involved, gets weird right in the middle. And I, I kind of liken it sometimes to like when you see dogs with a, with a, with a fire hydrant.
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B
Yep.
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You know what I mean?
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B
Yeah.
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Like when two tough looking dogs could be walking up towards the hydrant and one of them pisses on at first and the other like can never come back to that hydrant. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's a very strange thing. Like this competitive thing that happens. Like ah, you lose out once you get your balls cut off. In a way is the other dog got it right. Sorry to talk about this way, but this is how it is. And then doesn't matter. Like you go away, you come back, you strike, doesn't matter. You're kind of like, ah, can't ever go on that street again. You know, it's a strange, strange thing. I think it kind of comes from that same.
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B
Same thing. Yeah.
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A
Yeah.
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B
It's interesting with the, with the insula and how it works and how aggression and sexuality. But, but it definitely can explain a lot of things. In fact, the insula is also the disgust part of the brain. So when I feel disgusted, you know, let's say you're touching some vomit over there and I watch you, I feel disgusted, for example. So there's a disgust component and that's the insula. It lights up square whenever I'm disgusted. But it turns out that the insula is also activated when I experience social disgust. So for example, if you tell me that these people over there are barbarians, these people are evil, they want to occupy our land, they're just bad. The insula part of the brain also lights up. So it turns out the same part of the brain lights up when I'm socially disgusted and when I'm actually disgusted. And that brings us to a key point of sort of how we dehumanize other people and how wars are generated in the world. Well, it turns out if the same part of the brain turns out, you know, is activated with social, like with actual disgust and social disgust, you can see how you become disgusted, literally disgusted by another group of people, by somebody you think is evil and has bad intentions. So the brain is kind of sloppy in ways. It kind of reuses circuits all the time. And the more brain. Brain like regions in the brain, the more proxy. Closer the proximity, the more the cross activation and sort of. And misfiring, so to speak. So basically that is a principle in the brain. That's a principle. So there are. There's often the sloppy wiring and yeah, as I said, the closer the. The better and. And. Or sorry, the more crop potential for cross activation.
- [12:57]
A
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A
Are there ways to, I don't know, control these types of things and try to stop them from happening? Like if you, if I know, for example, I'm going to fuck up some of the names of the different regions of the brain. You just gave like 10 of them. But if I know that one reason region of the brain is, is literally evolutionary wired to make me do X and I know that ahead of time, is there a way for me to like, I don't know, like try to like program my brain to avoid that and actually be able to avoid the release of the hormones associated with whatever X feeling is, it's hard.
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B
But, but I think the knowledge of the fact that your brain repurposes itself all the time can be helpful. So just knowing that, for example, you, you have a wife and then you call her by your ex, by the ex wife's name.
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A
Oh, that's a no.
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B
No. That is a no.
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A
No.
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B
Right. But that is an example of how the brain sort of can reuse the same circuitry. Literally the circuitry that I have for my mother as a child. And we could go into. That is the same circuitry I will use for romantic partner 20 years later.
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A
Sigmund Freudian stuff going on.
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B
No, no. This is attachment theory. It's pretty well known. So this is a very robust finding. So we know that our attachments with our mothers and with our, with our, you know, our caregivers, that will translate into how we bond with future romantic partners. So this is well known, but on the repurposing and the cross activation part, there's another really curious observation. So in the brain, right. So in the. By the way, if I'm going too
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A
heavy with the technical terms, this is great, bro. Relax, you're good.
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B
Okay, good.
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A
Keep going.
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B
Good. So here there's a strip called the sensory map. This is a post central gyrus for the nerds out there. Post central gyrus. It's a sensory map of the entire body. So just like we have a map for our neurological sense of being anchored in this body, we also have an actual sensory map for our body. So if I was to hit my leg like this and slap it, literally there's a leg portion and there's a thigh portion in my brain. On my map here, there's like, actually there's a drawing almost, or literally there is a drawing of an actual human body on my sensory map. So if I. On the. Vice versa, if I go up here and I stimulate that part of the brain, I would literally feel sensations in my leg. So I can go that way too. So I touch it, it lights up, I stimulate it, I feel it in the leg. Okay. Now, so it's kind of drawn like a human being, but it's kind of disproportional to the actual human size. In other words, you'll find a big tongue. And the tongue is huge, humongous, gigantic. You'll find lips are huge. Okay. Feet are huge. Hands, especially the fingers, are huge. Then Julian might ask, how come? Why do you have certain parts of the sensory map being larger than others? What do you think? Take a guess.
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A
My only guess is that it's tied to, like, the things you look for in evolution. And here's what I mean by that.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Like, if you look at monkeys when they have to attack.
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B
Yeah.
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A
They go for the face and the hands, so the hands can't fight back and the face, you know, gets blinded and whatever. And it's because, like, that's at the top of their thought process of what can disable the enemy.
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B
Yes.
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A
And so I think my guess. Very uneducated, but my guess would be there, it has something to do with. There are things that we subconsciously pay attention to more on people than other things, and we make that maybe larger than life.
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B
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's very close. These are the parts that are more sensory rich.
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A
That doesn't sound like I was that close.
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B
No, no. You're saying these. These parts are most important. That's what you're saying, right? Yeah, we use them. They're most important because they're rich in sensory receptors. Think about it. Your lips, right, Extremely sensitive. Your tongue, you know, if I take a needle and prick Julian's tongue, lots of pain, right? Very sensitive versus, you know, if I prick your stomach, not very sensitive. So because there's so many, so many neurons devoted for your tongue, that part of the, of the brain is just. The map is just. The tongue is just huge. In fact, even your genitalia is huge up there. It's very sensual.
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A
It's huge in all of our minds.
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B
Now, now here's the punchline of all this. Okay. The punchline is the following you will find in that map. Even though it's kind of drawn as a human being, the feet are extremely close to the genitalia in that map. And then you might ask why this? Why does the disfigurement. What's going on here? Why would you have the feet being close to the genitalia?
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A
Right. Big foot, big. You know.
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B
And the answer seems to be that. Have you ever. Somebody ever told you like one of my Ramachandran. We talked about Ramachandran last time. Yes, My mentor, he told me, you never want to have another man give your wife a foot massage. Specifically, a foot massage is really bad. Now, obviously I wouldn't go for any massage, but I'm saying foot massage, you would definitely not go for it seems like because of the potential cross activation between feet and genitalia because they are so linked in the brain in that map. That explains why you can actually elicit sensual and erotic emotions by massaging the feet, if that makes sense.
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A
Is that why like, people are so into that? That's like one of the biggest things online.
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B
I think so. I think so. Definitely. Cross activation is in the brain is a major principle. And these, these two regions of the brain are just neighbors. They are literally like next door to each other. And so you would expect some cross activation when you touch the other. You might feel it in the other part you taught.
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A
You're talking when you say we're looking at the most sensory areas. In my head, I'm getting a little biased towards like touch and feel.
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B
Yes.
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A
But obviously the senses are far beyond that. And the most important sense maybe that we have, I don't know if that's correct, but is vision and seeing other people. Because my head immediately goes to the first thing I notice and someone is the thing I'm most drawn to is their eyes. Particularly with women. If I don't like you be the hottest girl of all time.
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B
If.
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A
If I don't have that connection with your eyes, it's never gonna happen.
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B
There's something with the eyes. Absolutely.
- [21:48]
A
Yeah, definitely.
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B
The vision is. Is important. And it is the most important sensory, you know, organ that we have, this, you know, sensory region. I mean, there's 30 regions in the brain for vision alone. I think in the cortex you have about. So the brain is 100 billion neurons and 30 billion. 30 billion is in the cortex. That's the outer layer had six part, as we talked about last, last time. And in that sensory region, I think about one third of that whole region is devoted to vision and love. It's the. That's. It's the sense most important for our survival. So, yes, absolutely. It is definitely crucial. But yeah, man, like. So as you were talking about, you have the hypothalamus, the aggression and the sex part of the brain activate when you have that initial view of that woman. There is the insula is active. So you have that whole body thing. Testosterone is active. Then you ask me the key question, how does it flip over? And I think, as I said, it's reciprocity is some kind of. Some kind of. I won't say bonding, because that's actually the next step. So if you have step. Step one is romantic. It's infatuation. Then you have the romance, and then you have as the third, the bonding attachment. So that comes later. So once that comes later, that comes later. So the initial stages is kind of. It's very dopamine driven as well. So there's a lot of dopamine there too. In other words, it's excitement, it's intoxicating. You see her, then she goes away. Is this dance between knowing and unknowing. It's very tantalizing, very titillating all the time. But then you hit the attachment stage and that's when you have something. You have oxytocin and vasopressin, these bonding hormones kick in and then they create safety around that person. You feel safe around them. You kind of feel like they will stay, they will not leave you. There's security. As we talked about last time. Cortisol also goes through the roof during that romantic infatuation stage.
- [23:50]
A
That's why you cannot say infatuation in particularly. Right.
- [23:53]
B
Infatuation and the romance stage. In fact, that six to eight weeks. For some it's more maybe three months.
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A
So you. Oh, so you tie. You put a timer on it too.
- [24:02]
B
Yeah, that you can go forever. So I Might say eight weeks. That part of. So it's interesting, that infatuation stage. Sorry, that romantic stage. Right. So let's call the first one attraction. Attraction stage Attraction versus romantic obsession versus bonding. These are the three stages. Okay? Now, in the romance, the heightened romance state, that is about eight weeks, maybe max, six months, you would run out your brain, literally. If I was to scan Julian in this romantic state and look at your brain, your dopaminergic neurons would look like somebody on crack cocaine. Literally. You would have a sense of. You would have a. You know, your brain would be hypersensitized to dopamine, and you would. And that also causes what's called globalization. So you go about in life and you see a dog and you find, oh, it's so cute. And you look at a flower and it's, wow, it's so beautiful. And the sunset and everything. The whole world is, in fact, beautiful. And that's because when we fall in love, we don't only fall in love with that person, we fall in love with the world. Yes. And. And the whole. And the whole world becomes poetic when we do fall in love. And it's. That is what it is. And. And
- [25:24]
A
I. The timeline is what's interesting.
- [25:27]
B
Yeah.
- [25:28]
A
Well, let me. Let me start with this question. How would you. How would you define love if you had to define it? And you can take as much time as you want to think about that.
- [25:41]
B
So I would define love as. It would depend on the kind of attachment there is. Right. So. Or the kind of experience you have. So the love between my mother and father, the love that I have for them, the maternal and paternal love is different, interestingly, you have many of the same structures being activated. So you do have. When I, for example, have bonding with my mother, you do have some of the same regions. Like the prefrontal might shut down a little bit. It's more kind of in the oxytocin bonding. So oxytocin gives you bonding and feeling of good, if that makes sense. But the key difference between romantic love and between love of a mother and paternal love, maternal love, is that. Is that hypothalamus region of the brain, that sexuality part that turns on. It dials up when it's. When you have. You have romance.
- [26:39]
A
But you do. To go into this for a second, you do form patterns in how you were nurtured with your mom and what you look for in a woman, in many cases, 100%.
- [26:51]
B
Yeah. So this goes back to what's called attachment theory. And this is the idea that this goes back to some experiments that were done a very long time ago. And what they showed were. So you had like a kid, you put a kid in a room in a laboratory and the kid is there with the mom. There's a stranger in the laboratory too. Then you observe how that kid first interacts with the stranger when the mom is there. That's the first step. Will the kid feel be clingy to the mom and just hold on to mom mom, you know, or would it literally go over to the. To the stranger and play around? There's some toys in that room as well. That's the first observation. Next, the mom will leave. So mom leaves as the next step. And then you observe the kid. Does it cry? Does it feel. So let's say in some cases it may feel safe, it may just maybe be a little bit sad. But then after a few minutes it kind of feels okay. It goes and plays with the stranger. It explores a territory even though it's kind of feels a little bit abandoned. But it's okay. It feels okay overall. Then what happens is the mom comes back. How does the child react? Does it hug mom? Does it reject mom? What's the reaction? Now, depending on the child's reaction in all of these scenarios, that will show what kind of attachment you have and what kind of attachment you will have later on in life. So a securely attached person when mom leaves, first of all, they're not very clingy with mom when mom is there. And then when mom leaves, they will play around, have fun with the stranger a little bit, you know, be very broadly explore the space. Then when mom comes back, they may feel a little bit sad, but then they feel okay and forgives her and continues and move on. This is securely attached. But then you have people that are insecurely attached, for example. So when mom, first of all, when mom is there, they're very clingy. They cling to mom all the time. They want to hold her and no one wants to go out to that stranger. And then when mom leaves, they cry, they ignore the stranger, they just stay in their place. And then when mom comes back, they feel resentment towards mom, they don't want to forgive mom, and they just feel like, you know, mom abandoned them.
- [29:15]
A
How do both of those people translate later into romantic? How they form their romantic relationships?
- [29:22]
B
I'll get there. There's a third one is, which is really interesting. This is this. Okay. This is the distant. This is the kind of the ambiguously attack. Like this is. This is not ambiguous. This is the one you call. So the. These are the avoidant people. These are the avoidant. Look, these are very interesting. When mom is there, they're very kind of cold, detached from mom. They're not really hugging mom much when she leaves. They're kind of. They don't show any reaction. They don't show any kind of, you know, sadness about her leaving. When she comes back, they kind of duh. By the way, they don't play with the stranger when mom is away. They kind of just sit there. This is a very interesting type avoidant. Now to your question. How does it translate into actual relationships later on? Literally, that pattern will play out in how you bond with others. So if I have a romantic partner and I'm this securely attached, I will feel okay with hers once in a while leaving. Right. I don't need to. Like, when she go on vacation, I don't panic. I don't become like, my heart won't, like, you know, become all agitated. My physiology won't just go all over the, you know, place. I can feel calm. I can soothe my nervous system. In fact, these experiments have been shown even with physiological measures. So you measure the bar, the, the body, the heart rate, sweating, and. And you literally see how the brain activates physiologically. And for the insecure people, insecure children, you'll have all these, these physiological reactions. Heartbeat, noradrenaline, adrenaline, it's just all over the roof. Everything goes through the roof. Now, in romantic scenarios, securely attached people will be fine with the lover going on vacation. They can soothe themselves, tell themselves, oh, it's okay, she's merely just left for a little, you know, vacation. They can soothe themselves when she comes back, they may feel a little bit annoyed if they, if she didn't tell, you know, warn them or something that she was leaving. But they could, they can forgive easily. Right. And then you can see the insecure. How that, how that kid would react. That kid would be when. When, you know, very, very clingy. And then when she leaves, they. They become all agitated and just all. All sort of. They can't control themselves. And then when she comes back, they feel angry at the lover. Does the pattern clear? I hope I'm not. It does.
- [31:48]
A
No, it's perfectly clear. I'm. I'm curious because those are polar opposites. Right.
- [31:52]
B
Polar opposite.
- [31:53]
A
So on the first one, who's not clingy and is secure. Yeah. There was a loving. I'm trying to figure out where the mom's responsibility of just how they handle love.
- [32:04]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [32:04]
A
Comes in here, like there was a loving relationship.
- [32:07]
B
Yes.
- [32:08]
A
With the mom, but there was an ability for. In the environment early on, from being an infant on, the mom was able to set some boundaries with like how much they were completely attached at the hip, if you will.
- [32:22]
B
Yes.
- [32:23]
A
In scenario two, the mom maybe was literally attached at the hip to the kid to the point that the kid developed in a way that when that's not the case, they don't even know what to do with themselves.
- [32:37]
B
It's true. And, and I, and I have a family member. I don't want to mention them because, you know, in the case, it's, it's. They might see this, for example. Right. So. But I do know somebody from my family. You know, the way she interacts with her kids, she's making them clingy. You know, she's just giving them so much love, but it doesn't allow them to sort of explore the world. The love is just too much. It's too much. It's like, you know, you have to be with me all the time. I have to take care of you. And it comes from a good place. Right. It's love. But I feel like those kids, whenever they go out to the world, they just can't be without mom. You got, you have to let children go helicopter. Yeah. You have to let children go out and, and explore the world and be independent. You can't give them too much love even though you love them.
- [33:23]
A
Right.
- [33:23]
B
You do want to put brakes on that a little bit. So. So your children become independent.
- [33:30]
A
Absolutely. It's just interesting how the nurturing aspect is how you later form the romantic aspect. But with the romantic aspect, you're adding the next layer of the hypothalamus gets involved.
- [33:41]
B
Yes.
- [33:41]
A
And there's a sexual element to it, obviously, which is perfectly how it's supposed to be. It's just evolution right there. But it's, it's. The part that keeps sticking out to me is the way that you put a time length on, on where you go from phase to phase. And I don't know, it's, it's definitely more anecdotal how I'm thinking about it because I'm thinking about like the three times in my life that I've been in love and they didn't follow a time phase at all. One time was like, you know, a three week kind of shotgun somewhere else in the world, total head over heels kind of thing. That probably happened in like three days.
- [34:20]
B
Yes.
- [34:20]
A
Falling in love. Another one took probably about three weeks or so. To get there. Another one took more like months. Protein is now at Starbucks and it's
- [34:33]
B
never tasted so good. You can add protein cold foam to your favorite drink or try one of our new protein lattes or matcha. Try it today at Starbucks.
- [34:46]
A
You know, so they, they followed different patterns, but I, I, I'd love to get your thoughts on this. When it comes to romantic love, I've always had two definitions.
- [34:54]
B
Yes.
- [34:54]
A
For how love works. And there's actually a different form on the way that I phrase each one.
- [35:00]
B
Yeah.
- [35:02]
A
One is strictly the word love.
- [35:04]
B
Yeah.
- [35:04]
A
And love is like a feeling that kind of gets under your skin and gets into your nervous system. You cannot explain it, but it's when you see, in my case, seeing a woman where out of nowhere, there's that little thing where time stops. You connect with her in a way that you cannot possibly explain. And you don't really know this person. Well. Maybe you've talked to them a few times, but you don't know them that well. But you have this moment in this context, in this place, in this time, wherever it may be.
- [35:34]
B
Yes.
- [35:34]
A
Or when you are looking at them, you're seeing a piece of your soul in them.
- [35:38]
B
Yes.
- [35:38]
A
And you realize that you would get in front of a train and lay down your life for this woman, no questions asked. But you cannot explain why.
- [35:46]
B
Yes.
- [35:47]
A
The second layer that happens is being in love.
- [35:51]
B
Yes.
- [35:51]
A
And there you have to, in my opinion, there's really two things that have to happen. The first one definitely has to happen. The second thing usually has to happen. The first one is you have to have gotten to know that person. Now this could happen over a day or two where you're just sitting there talking like there's no clock on the wall and understanding every single person's, about the, every single thing about this person's life and them understanding every part about your life and just that magnetic chemistry is there. I've been there. That's, that's a great feeling.
- [36:22]
B
Yeah.
- [36:23]
A
It could also take weeks and you know, going on multiple dates or seeing, seeing them in different contexts and, you know, slowly having, building yourself to these conversations.
- [36:32]
B
Ye.
- [36:33]
A
The second part is there usually has to be something physical, of course, exchanged in, in a way. I don't mean to say exchange like a trade, but you know what I mean? Like there's a sexual element to it. Like once you cross that Rubicon and like you have sex with a woman there, there's a connection there. And there is a, at least from what I've seen, there's usually A stronger connection from the woman to the male at the get go. But there is definitely still a connection in most cases, unless you're, like, having late night drunk sex or something, from the male to the female as well. If it's someone that you do care about and you have that infatuation stage.
- [37:10]
B
Yeah.
- [37:10]
A
Do you think that there's anything scientific to back up my anecdotal experience there and how I define those two words? Two phrases. Words. One of them is a word, the other one's a phrase.
- [37:19]
B
Julian is. It's. It's a beautiful definition, and I think I like your definition. What I think is that as scientists, we often. We often try to pinpoint various brain regions. We say, this part of the brain lights up, this shuts down, this becomes titillated, this becomes tantalized. You know, truth is, as Richard Feynman said, the physicist, it doesn't hurt the mystery to know a little about it. So knowing about love and knowing about the brain parts that light up and shut down and all that is great, and the chemistry of the. The hormones and all that. But you mentioned something that really struck me in Meet Joe Black. When have you seen that coffee shop scene? It's a very famous scene when he says lightning might strike. He's talking about meeting the one. And then he says, Brad Pitt's character, he says lightning might strike. And I think we can spend centuries, decades exploring the neuroscience of love. But when Shakespeare said, shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds to shake the darling buts of May. And summer's lease has all too short a date. Sometimes too hot, the eye of heaven shines. And often is his gold complexion dimmed. I think that captures much more than we can capture in brain scans what Shakespeare is saying here. He's saying, in short, your love is much more beautiful than a summer's day. It's much more temperate. A summer's day has a short lease. Its complexion might be too. The sun might be too shiny. Okay. And he's using all these vivid metaphors to capture what love is all about, that I think we could never capture using neuroscience and brain.
- [39:30]
A
So I think Billy Shakes was the truth.
- [39:32]
B
He was the truth. And I think there's something there. I think there's something there about love, about when lightning strikes that we cannot capture in words.
- [39:43]
A
There's a line that always stuck with me. It was a Sicilian saying that they put in the Godfather. When Michael sees Apollonia for the first time.
- [39:50]
B
Yes.
- [39:50]
A
And one of his guards says to him he's been struck by the thunderbolt.
- [39:56]
B
Yeah.
- [39:57]
A
And you see, I mean, it's perfectly shown on screen, just like the two staring at each other. And she's not really sure what to think yet, but you know what he's thinking.
- [40:05]
B
Yeah.
- [40:05]
A
And I, you know, the irony is, obviously there's no such thing as a thunderbolt, but it's like this unexplained phenomenon where you hear it.
- [40:13]
B
Yes.
- [40:13]
A
And you know what it means, even if it doesn't exist, it's just a thing. And definitely, I've definitely experienced that before. Before where, where you are in a situation where you don't. That's the thing. I've. I've experienced that at least four times before. And you never expect it to happen. That's the magic of it. You're never like, oh, this is, this is how it's gonna go, or like, this is gonna unfold right now. You're like, what? And. Yeah, what the just happened to me?
- [40:44]
B
Absolutely. It, it is like lightning striking you. And, and, and as a poetic person myself, somebody who loves poetry, you know, and, and having a poetic view and a spiritual view of the world, I literally cannot say other than it seems like a divinely divine thing when you, you do meet somebody and, and there's that connection and then when you get to know them and it kind of just. There's a harmony there and there's a sense of like, you know, souls connecting. Definitely that's something, Something special that, that, that science cannot capture. But I, but I do think poetry can sometimes tap into and give you, give you a feel for what. What it feels like, that experiential, that personal sense of having that connection.
- [41:31]
A
Oh, I agree completely. Yeah. Is there science to back the idea that some such thing as a soulmate exists? Like, people actually do have some. I always like the, the wedding crashers definition of this. A counterpoint of their soul and another person that exists on the planet.
- [41:50]
B
Yeah, it's a good question. I do. I, I kind of believe in. In that there are people out there that are divinely ordained to be ours and that just, you know, their souls is sort of souls connecting. But obviously that's outside parameters of science. From a scientific perspective, we had what we have what is called a positive delusion. So when you do fall in love, you have to. You. You will need to be. You need to have that feeling that she's the only one in the whole world that can. Yeah, that can. She's the only one. In other words, like that apollonia and. And. And like Michael Corleone, right. In Sicilia, that feeling must be there of. Of that she's the only one. And that is the prefrontal shutting down and the TPJ shutting down. So you kind of feel. And the dopamine centers are. Because they're so hyperactive, they can create delusions. We know that when serotonin goes down, when this chemical of calmness and all that goes down, and eventually dopamine goes up, especially with dopamine going up to the prefrontal cortex, that's when delusions can occur. Like in ocd, for example, you have the exact same pattern. OCD kind of looks like romantic love. Like that obsessional component, right? Obsession about the girl, you know, has she texted me? You go check the messages. Has she texted? And you keep checking. And, you know, so that's. That's. That's kind of like the OCD scenario. In ocd, you have tons of delusions, too. The whole world is contaminated. Everything is dangerous.
- [43:24]
A
You know, it's fascinating. That's on like the same wavelength.
- [43:27]
B
Same wavelength, right. So. But definitely dopamine and delusions are key component of that positive delusion. Of. Of that she's the only one. But it has to be there. You have to have that positive delusion. That's important. You need it for. For romantic. Romantic bonding, you know, and for romantic love.
- [43:46]
A
All right, Real fast. I just gotta use the bathroom. I want to stay on this. This is really good.
- [43:49]
B
Good.
- [43:50]
A
We'll be right back.
- [43:50]
B
All right.
- [43:52]
A
All right, we're back. So how do you. Attractions. Obviously a key part of forming love or getting to that point and whatever. But you also see the fact that male and female brains work entirely differently. They. They have different phases as well. And so attraction isn't like just this vacuum all the time where you have it and then it's just there. And that's what it is. You can go through hot and cold periods where it's like you like someone, and then out of nowhere, you can't explain why, but you hate them, and then eventually you like them again. Then maybe you love them, but then you really hate them. I'm not even talking about, like, when you're in a relationship, just in general with friendships as well, that could later become something like that. How do we scientifically maybe start with females? How does it happen to. Where females can go so hot and cold on liking you one minute and not being about you the next minute?
- [44:50]
B
Hot and cold is interesting. Did we talk about emotional contrast last time? No, emotional contrast is an interesting one. So I wasn't aware of this previously, but I kind of became. I had to study this and learn about this. It's fascinating. So we as men are taught that we have to be kind of cool and laid back and not really give ourselves to a woman. Not show our emotions, perhaps, and just kind of be laid back and all that. And it turns out there's a powerful concept with emotional contrast where if you can be extremely hot, like very hot by the heart, I mean, extremely warm at one person at one point in time, so you kind of reveal your emotions and you kind of let the person know that you're really into her, but then you call the next. Yeah, push. Pull. That titillates the dopaminergic centers, like, you know, drives them crazy. Obviously, you don't want to do this. You don't want to do this in a. Where you play games. But it teaches us that if you are vulnerable and let somebody know how you feel and they don't reciprocate that by going away, that can be one of the most attractive things ever to drive attraction.
- [46:06]
A
Because attraction grows in space.
- [46:08]
B
It grows in space, but it grows specifically when the dopaminergic neurons have something to anchor onto, to tether onto. So if you give them literally some, you know, some warmth, some. Some. Some. Some kind of clear signals of interest, and then go away and allow for the space. That's when I. When really something happens versus, like, being. Playing it cool all the time. So I think that is an interesting, you know, part of how dopamine works. I think that. How does attraction work? I think attraction works on a lot of things. There's a lot of. There's a lot of. When it comes to attraction, there are various components. There's the innate attraction females, for example, have for males and how males look. This is something innate. They can't help. So broad shoulders, your big breasts, for some extent, doing extended muscle musculature, upper breast and upper chest, I should say. And a little bit of masculine traits could help. And so they have. We have. Women have this. They have this. This innate inclination toward masculine traits. Traits that signal testosterone, right?
- [47:18]
A
Yeah. We have it, too. In the other direction.
- [47:19]
B
We have it in the other direction.
- [47:20]
A
Hourglass.
- [47:22]
B
Hourglass. We have a specific interest in a figure that's called 0.0.70. That's the playboy figure. That's. Males will consistently rate that figure as most attractive. In fact, they will rate that figure, that 0.70 female figure. As you know, women who have this figure as more intelligent, as more healthy, as better, more moral in every category is just better. So we'll put that up on the
- [47:49]
A
screen so people can see.
- [47:50]
B
It turns out good and beauty is mediated in the same part of the brain called the orbitofrontal cortex. So that's why you see a Disney character like Belle. She's beautiful and she's good. Right. There's tons of these examples. Jasmine is beautiful and good. And you know, Scar in Lion King, he's evil and he has a big scar and he's got kind of skinny compared to Mufasa and Simba and all those. So there's that component. And good cartoonists will exploit that.
- [48:23]
A
Absolutely.
- [48:24]
B
But yeah, that's the orbitofrontal cortex. And so for female. For males, obviously, big breasts, clear skin. Clear skin is a signal of good health for females. So if a female has clear skin, that is a indicator of good health, parasite infection is probably less in such women. Think about old in savannah days, right? So if she has clear skin, she was probably not infected by parasites in the womb. She had a better immune system, probably. Right. So these are all indicators of health and fertility. In fact, my mentor Ramachandran has a paper, it's called why Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Okay. Now this paper, he meant it as a satire, but he said to me, and he said that publicly that there's about 10% chance of it being true. But the argument is that male will prefer females that have very fair skin and are blondes because you can detect parasites and health easily on a skin that's fair. Like a more fair skin, a more white skin. And also things signs of blushing. For example, if she was to be. If she was to engage in infertility, you know, cheat on you, you would know easily. She would blush and it would be more visible on the skin. Now, since Ramachandran has said since that this is probably not all true, but there could be some truth to that. I mean, I don't personally know if it's always true. In my case, I actually have probably more attracted to more brown skin. That's kind of how I.
- [49:59]
A
But, yeah, I'm thinking of bias in my head right now. I like Mediterranean women.
- [50:04]
B
Yeah, Italian.
- [50:05]
A
But like, their skin is very often like incredible. And you can tell it's incredible. Like, maybe I'm biased, but they have like the best skin in the world. Yes, but what Ramachandran is talking about is that you can tell, I think what. Basically what he's saying is in that theory, you can see contrast More you
- [50:27]
B
can see contrast more to be able
- [50:29]
A
to identify a weakness. But also, I don't know, maybe I'm like trying to picture that in my head right now. It's hard for me to.
- [50:36]
B
Yeah,
- [50:39]
A
I guess it would depend on the tint or something.
- [50:41]
B
But like I agree, I think, I think basically what I agree with in that theory is that men prefer clear skin. Clear skin, that's what we prefer. And that's a signal, you know, an indicator of health and fertility. And so I think that is, I think that is correct. And yeah, man, I think overall why do you. So you might ask how, how come, how come Julian, how come Julian then prefers a woman with Mediterranean? How come I prefer a Brown.
- [51:08]
A
I don't know. I never. That's like the last six, seven years. I, I didn't used to like have a type. Yeah, I could tell you I damn well didn't have a type in college.
- [51:19]
B
I haven't.
- [51:20]
A
You can get it. But like, you know what I mean?
- [51:22]
B
Yeah, yeah, I know.
- [51:22]
A
Something happened there.
- [51:23]
B
Something happened there. So there's a theory to explain all this. So there's one theory where. So we personally Baland. When I grew up in Copenhagen, in ghetto in Copenhagen, you know, exposed to a lot of white women.
- [51:36]
A
He was a gangster, by the way. People didn't hear the last episode
- [51:41]
B
was
- [51:41]
A
wielding that knife around. No, no, he kept that thing on him definitely.
- [51:46]
B
You know, so what I was, what I was, what I was exposed to, where was. Was white women. And I think I had a little bit of that remnants of, of of of liking more. And this is talking about like a seven year old kid. Right. But finding girls with more brown hair attractive but, but obviously more of a Danish European. Right. The blondes didn't turn me on in that way. And blue eyes is just probably genetically was a little bit too far from my, from my. Right from my taste. But then I find over the years it kind of shifted more towards from Danish to more brown to more and then more brown with each gradient, like with each. With time. And we can talk about how that occurs in the brain. What's going on.
- [52:26]
A
Let's do that.
- [52:27]
B
Let's do that. So first of all, did we talk about the triangle and the square last time?
- [52:33]
A
No.
- [52:34]
B
So I sometimes mix these things up. Julian. I don't know where I talk about what. I don't want to repeat myself obviously, but.
- [52:40]
A
So we really haven't done anything in this episode we talked about last time.
- [52:44]
B
You're doing wonderful. I appreciate it, brother. So you show a rat A triangle, okay. Actually, you show a rat a rectangular figure versus a square. This is the rat, okay? Rectangular square, okay? And each time you show the rat the rectangular square, you give it a cheese piece of cheese. Now guess what happens when you just show the rectangular versus the square. Which will it prefer, the rectangular or the square?
- [53:12]
A
The one that you get the cheese on.
- [53:14]
B
Rectangular. Yeah. Now here's the kicker. Now you show a more rectangular shape than the original rectangular shape that, that the rat was exposed to. So you have the original rectangular shape that the rat saw that was paired with the cheese, and then a different, even more rectangular, longer one, elongated one. Which one will the rat prefer?
- [53:38]
A
The elongated one.
- [53:40]
B
Correct. The question is why? It makes no comment. It doesn't make sense. Why would it prefer a longer one? Why would it go for a mutated version?
- [53:48]
A
Because it's a bigger and better version of the thing that was already given them.
- [53:52]
B
Absolutely. It has learned a rule, rectangularity. Because the square and the rectangular, what differentiated between the two was the more rectangularity the better. So it has learned a rule that is the essence of the difference between rectangular and square. It has learned a rule. Now that gets to things like why caricatures are so damn, you know, we like them so much. Okay? You look at a picture of Nixon, or let's say, let's say Donald Trump, he's still president, right? Should be careful. Let's say you show them a picture of Baland, but you take the eyebrows and you amplify them. You take the nose even more pointy, okay? The face even more like, you create something that's even more Baland than Balant himself. This is what a caricature is about. Just like that rectangular shape. Right.
- [54:49]
A
When the guys draw the cartoons. Yeah, yeah.
- [54:51]
B
This is called a super normal stimulus. It's more the essence of me than actually me. And the brains become titillated by this. Okay, now let's take this to attraction. When we initially find somebody attractive, there's a learning going on. So I see that girl. She's very pretty, you know, I'm 7, 8 year old bland. I see that girl. I go, my God, my heart is pumping. No adrenaline in the system. Testosterone, maybe a little bit, even though I'm a kid. But I have dopamine, I have all those things now. Now when I see her, my brain creates a template for her. I go, my God, she is beautiful. She's gorgeous. She is just the perfect, you know, girl I want to play with in the, in the, in the, in school, right? I want to Play with her in school. It's. It's wonderful. Now my brain creates a circuitry around that girl. All the features, the hair color, the skin, it all gets burned into the circuitry. Then, then I play with her for maybe a year. Time goes by, I see another girl. Now I'm 13, 14, and lo and behold, I'm attracted to her even more than the one four, five years ago.
- [55:58]
A
And now you're 13, 14. So Lil Balon's attracted to her too.
- [56:02]
B
I see what you're saying. There's a sexual component, obviously. Definitely. Testosterone goes through the roof at this point. But my point is in this next, why do you become attracted to the next girl? And here the point is that your brain says, or one theory suggests that we take the initial features of that girl. Let's say she had a certain shape of a nose, certain lips, and they tend to be amplified in the next person. She is even more that girl than the girl itself. She has those amplified features. And you go for that. So there's a development of the attraction. It takes a development where you take those features and they're amplified in the next person, becoming a super normal stimulus. Just like that rectangular shape. It's just more. It's more rectangular than the original one. Does it make sense?
- [56:51]
A
Yeah. So like when Kanye married Bianca, she had a bigger rack than Kim K. But she looked just like Kim K. There you go. Yeah, yeah.
- [56:59]
B
So you have. You have the original features, but they're amplified. So this is one idea for why how attraction then evolves. And definitely there is strong learning and plasticity component. So when you fall in love, there's two neurotransmitters that are crucial for plasticity. By plasticity, I mean the brain's ability to change its shape. So your brain is made up of different modules and structures, and these structures can change their shape so they can reorganize. And the way they do that is by having two neurochemicals. One is dopamine, sense of reward. So I see that girl. I find her attractive. I find her interesting. You have tons of dopamine. That's the first principle for plasticity. And then I have acetylcholine, which is my attention system. This is based on a structure called the nucleus basalis in the midbrain, or 20,000 cells. They release. They have neurons that release this attention chemical. So I pay attention to her as well. So I have dopamine, I have attention, and I have the attention as well. Attentive focus on that woman. Woman. When I have This, I have tons of plasticity, by the way. When we are kids, we. We find ourselves in something called the critical period. The critical period is the fact that the brain is hyperplastic until like age 12 or 13. That's why when you learn a new language after 13, like me, Balan, learning English, it'll be kind of like English English. But Joe, you can tell it's not really like there's something off with his English, right? It's not completely.
- [58:26]
A
There's nothing off with you.
- [58:27]
B
No. No English. But it's not totally like you could hear it, right?
- [58:30]
A
Especially when, I mean, you have a small accent.
- [58:32]
B
That's about it, right? But.
- [58:38]
A
I don't know what the fuck you just said, okay?
- [58:39]
B
When I speak Danish, it's completely. I don't have any issues. Even if I'm sleep deprived, tired, I speak it like with no issues but English, I have to put a bit of an extra effort because it's not my first language. It's not my mother tongue. In fact, did you know that? It's that first mother tongue is structured and processed in a different part of the brain versus languages we learn after 13.
- [59:03]
A
And that doesn't surprise me at all.
- [59:05]
B
But that makes sense, right? This is harder. Like when you are sleep deprived, you are tired and so forth, you literally have a harder time with, in my case, English, it just becomes a little bit more clumsy. Just becomes a little bit more.
- [59:17]
A
Do you dream in English? Now?
- [59:20]
B
That's an interesting question. I've thought about this. I don't pay attention to it. That's why I can't, you know, because
- [59:28]
A
I get some subtitles on your dreams. See what's happening?
- [59:31]
B
You know what's going on, Julian? I think is that because dreams are all about the right hemisphere. And the right hemisphere is mute. So the right hemisphere has no processing, has no idea of language. The left hemisphere, you have a structure called the Wernicus that's involved in understanding language and Broca's area involved in production of language. And there's a fiber called acute fasciculus for the nerds out there that want to know, that combines the two. Now, these are in the left hemisphere. And the left hemisphere has all the language potential, all the language abilities, right? Is mute. Let me give you an example. So if I was to communicate solely with your right hemisphere and show the right hemisphere, the word run, right? I'll show you run. You know what it will do? It will literally start running, okay? You'll start running when you see that word. And imagine now this is a split brain patient. So the left and the right brain are completely separated. They cannot. They. The left and the brain cannot communicate. So there's that caveat. So you can actually sever the bridge between the two hemispheres, the two sides of the brain. So the left and the right operate separately. Now just want to add that caveat. So you have that and then you flash the word run to the right hemisphere over here. The person start running, then you stop them and say, julian, why are you running? And they will say, oh, doctor, I felt like I'm too out of shape. I need to get in shape. I need to build some muscle. I need to, you know, do some more exercise and work out. They will not say that they saw the word run in the screen because they don't have access to language. They have no ideas about the left hemisphere when it speaks. It's just completely has no access to that. Does that make sense?
- [61:20]
A
Yes.
- [61:20]
B
Yes. So that's an example of that.
- [61:23]
A
Is this also where maybe I'm relating a wrong idea here, but you. In our last conversation, you had been saying we can't totally understand the relationship between time and space in the brain because things aren't like. You can't say that. Every synapse is measured by a certain amount of time. Some you can, some you can't. So when you're trying to relate the left and right brain as well and what one distinguishes and then the action another one then takes.
- [61:51]
B
Yes.
- [61:51]
A
Is it the kind of situation where it's different brain to brain, but the patterns are similar? So time and space is a little weird, but we understand, like the direction it goes. Does that make sense?
- [62:02]
B
It makes sense. So. So definitely the right and left hemisphere are processed the world differently. Score more with the college branded Venmo debit card and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash.
- [62:13]
A
Got paid back with the Venmo debit card.
- [62:15]
B
You can instantly access your balance and spend on what you want, like game day, snacks, gear, tickets and more. The more you do, the more cash back you can earn. Plus, there's no monthly fee or minimum balance. Sign up now@venmo.com collegecard the Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank. NA Select Schools available. Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply at venmo me stashterms max $100 cash back per month. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even Scrolling home listings on Redfin. Saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home with agents who close twice as many deals. When you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started@redfin.com own the dream. You decode social. Social expressions, faces. For example, I'm decoding. What is Julian thinking right now? How is his. How is his facial features, by the way? There's a structure in the. Decoding facial features is much faster than visual recognition. Meaning there's a part of the brain involved in visual recognition, face processing. We talked about that last time. It's called the fusiform face area. Literally understanding faces and processing them and knowing, this is Julian, this is Joey. Okay. This is Melissa, for example. Now, there's a separate pathway going from the visual cortex. So when I see Julian's face, it goes from the optic nerve and then it jumps over the face recognition area to the emotional part initially. So in a split second, I know Julian is angry right now. Julian is happy right now. Julian is a threat right now. He might kill me. He's right. He has. You know what I mean? Yeah. My point is.
- [63:59]
A
Better watch your step.
- [64:01]
B
My point is, even before visually recognizing somebody, you will know the emotional expression. And women are particularly good at this, I can tell you. So they're very good at this.
- [64:12]
A
Yeah, they got us sized up on that.
- [64:15]
B
So this is very interesting that you have the separate pathway. And it just shows us that we are wired for survival. And. And knowing whether this person over here on the savannah is a friend or a foe is much more important than knowing who it is. In fact, going back to your original question. What was your original question? I think we kind of went off a tangent here.
- [64:36]
A
Which one?
- [64:37]
B
I think we were on attraction, talking about attraction.
- [64:39]
A
Right, right. So I was talking about. Oh, so you're going way back. What I had asked you was, why does attraction get hot and cold? Why does it flip between, like, being so into someone and then being completely disgusted by that person? It works in directions of both genders. I started by asking you about why females may be like that, but us males are like that too.
- [65:00]
B
Right.
- [65:01]
A
Be a different.
- [65:02]
B
And then we pivoted to language, and then we pivoted to plasticity and then all that. Yeah, I think to going back to the original attraction question and the rat. And. Yes, this is how attraction work in the brain. I think there's that component to it of Definitely. There's a huge prefrontal component to attraction as well.
- [65:18]
A
Just like pull the chair in a little bit. Yeah, I want you comfortable. Just like pull the chair in and sit like that. Sorry, I'm just lining you up on your mark here. There we go.
- [65:27]
B
That's not good.
- [65:28]
A
I cut you off, but we gotta get the. We gotta get the mics.
- [65:30]
B
Gotcha, gotcha.
- [65:31]
A
That's good.
- [65:32]
B
There's a huge prefrontal component to it. Have you seen Coming to America?
- [65:35]
A
Of course. Eddie Murphy?
- [65:37]
B
Yes. It's here in New Jersey, wasn't it? It was like. There's another.
- [65:40]
A
They filmed it in New York and then they had a.
- [65:43]
B
Wasn't Queens. I think it's like Queensland.
- [65:45]
A
That's where a little bit that might have gone over a Jersey.
- [65:47]
B
There's something going on there.
- [65:48]
A
Yeah.
- [65:50]
B
Now there's a scene in that movie where the princess, the prince's servant, Semi. Okay. When they arrived in that. And they work in that McDowell, that fake McDonald restaurant. And they're obviously into the girls that work there, the two boys. Eddie Murphy's character, the prince, and his servant, Semi. Now Semi is interested in Lisa's sister, Patricia.
- [66:18]
A
Yep.
- [66:18]
B
He's. He wants her. He. He wants to pursue her. But. But she is not into him at all. At all. Okay. She's not attracted to him whatsoever. But eventually, as things progress, Semi tells, you know, Patricia that. That he's actually a prince. He's lying. He's the prince servant. But he tells her that he's the prince. And there's a complete shift in her attraction to him. She suddenly find him attractive. He's, you know, now he's the man and all that. And my point is, in attraction, even though you have the initial, you know, parameters of attraction, you find you have. He has the right features, he looks good. He looks like the boy on the playground when, you know, you're a kid and all that. But then there's a cognitive social hierarchy component. Oh, this is a prince. Oh, this is a, you know. You know, multi billionaire. Oh, this is a this. This is a that. And so there is that. There is that cognitive component in. In prefrontal processing in the prefrontal cortex, saying, oh, my God, this is an attractive person.
- [67:19]
A
I think what you're also getting at with a bigger pattern is when people fall in love with the idea of somebody.
- [67:25]
B
Yes.
- [67:25]
A
And this is something. Both genders fall into the trap of this. It's like, you know, a guy may. May tell himself he's in love with a girl because she's good looking, she's from a good family, nice enough, you know, offers to help out when you take her to other places, which makes you look great. Yes. Has a great smile, you know, has a pretty good job, smart. And you're kind of like going down the checklist like, oh, this is all awesome. And you tell yourself, you know, sex might be great, but you tell yourself, oh I, I love this girl. Because you're also thinking about, well, what is my family going to think of them? What are my friends going to think of them? Is this the kind of person that like they're going to brag to their friends and family about? And then you get to a point where you can't explain it, but you realize, wow, why do I not feel like that spark? And it's because you've been checking these boxes. And like again, you also see the same thing happen with women towards men. They're like, oh, he's good looking, he has a good job, job, he's funny, my dad likes him, whatever. And then, you know, they wonder why it's not there. So the hierarchy thing is more. I guess the question I'm looking for here is when you're looking at like hierarchies or checking a box with people, is that more of like a trap in the brain to where you, you believe that the different functions of the brain that require love are firing the only to later learn that they never were at all? Or do you actually get your brain to fire in those ways to later then kind of come back to earth and be like, wait a minute, I never really felt that way.
- [69:10]
B
It's an interesting question. So there's something, what you're talking about is known as the halo effect. Exact thing that you find like whatever you see as, as, as, as beautiful, you give them positive traits. Oh, she's dependable. Oh, she's nurturing. Oh, she's potential good wife. Potential. Oh, she's a good mother as well, potentially. So you have all this tricklings trickles down. Now the question is then how does it work? I think there's a gender, there's a gender specificity to it. So it's gender specific and it's also person specific. So let's start with gender specificity first. Females are more context dependent in their love and attraction. So men, it's much more, more visual. Oh, she fits the category of she's beautiful, she is attractive, she, she has all these features. She's probably nurturing and she may show signs of also being nurturing and being highly, you Know, she's. The short thing is we are very visually driven. Much more than the conceptual parts of her being nurturing and a good mother, although we take that into account as well. Okay, now on that note, female, on the other hand, on the other hand are much more, more driven by context. So there's the initial attraction, but then the context comes in. Is this guy good potential? Can he make money? Is he, does he have, is he driven? Is he ambitious? Does he have social status? How does he fit in the social hierarchy and attention structure? So females have something called the attention structure. So you, for example, would be high in detention structure with all your, you know, videos and all that people pay attention to. But it's actually one of the things that females find very attractive is because in nature we only pay attention to important stuff. So being high in the attention structure is attractive. Does that make sense?
- [71:02]
A
It makes total sense. And it's also funny that, like,
- [71:07]
B
I'm
- [71:08]
A
way more attracted to the women that don't give a fuck about any of that.
- [71:13]
B
You are. But for them it's different though. Yes, for them it's different. And the point here is that female have these wired in because for them, childbearing nine months and then having to raise this child is a very heavy process. And it's a very, it's a very heavy duty. It is a very costly.
- [71:34]
A
Sorry, you said raise the child.
- [71:35]
B
Yeah, raise a child.
- [71:36]
A
I thought you said it raised a child. I was like, wait a minute.
- [71:38]
B
No, no, I raised. No, no.
- [71:39]
A
Okay.
- [71:40]
B
Raising a child and all that is a very costly process. It's a very costly thing. And so you need a male, a man that can provide and take care and be strong as well. Females like strong men. We talked about the bodyguard effect last time. They like men who can calm, composed, strong, can protect her. All these will help her with her pregnancy and then help raise the child in secure environment. So there is that difference between males and females and then there's the, the personal aspect. So I, for example, have heard, many have told me, like mentors, Ramachandran, for example, he would all often say, oh, this girl over here, she's perfect for you. Jalal. She used to call me Jalal for some reason. He just kind of Last name. Yeah, he grabbed onto that. In his culture you always call people by their last name. His name is not even Ramachandran, is Vilayanur, but you call it Ramachandran. So they use the last, last name.
- [72:38]
A
Now Jalal is a fun, fun name to say the one's fun too. But Like Jalal is like. It's got a little ring to it.
- [72:44]
B
They got a little ring to it.
- [72:45]
A
Little music in the.
- [72:46]
B
A little bit musical.
- [72:47]
A
Yeah.
- [72:48]
B
So my point was he would find some lady in his lab, in his laboratory that was. Maybe she fit the boxes of somebody, a scientist, kind of same area, you know, very driven and motivated and, and then attractive at the same time. And you say, jalal, this is for you. Let's, let's do something here. Let's. And I was like, no, even though if she, even if she was pretty and she was just me personally, I, I may find, and I may go to some country, I may go to Turkey, I may go to, I may go to Iraq, my home country, the Kurdish region of Iraq. And I may see a girl just walking about like Apollonia. And I would rather have her much more like the girl that you see in Lightning Strikes versus the, the one who fits all the boxes. I don't, I don't give any, I don't give a damn about how educated she is, how much money she has, her heritage. In fact, I don't even, I, in fact, I don't even like women who use their body too much to display their beauty. This is something I do not like.
- [73:52]
A
I agree.
- [73:53]
B
There is a study, research shows clearly that there's two kind of mating strategies for men. So. And for females too, by the way, it goes vice versa. If we look at faces initially when we see somebody and we kind of zoom in on that, that's a sign of a long term mate, that we're interested in long term mating. If we look at the body, that's a sign of lust and short term mating. And so for the women out there and the women that, I find that in later years, I find that especially as, you know, you become, as you do more and you do lectures and you go around, females sometimes will come at you. This is, you know, this is something that happens to men and they throw at themselves, at you with their bodies, thinking that they can use their bodies, use their, you know, showing their breasts, showing their bodies and that will make you like them. If I'm just, I'm saying if you're a female and you do that, you are titillating these short term mating circuits in the brain of a male. You know, it's not the right thing to do. It's not the right thing. If you want a man to fall in love with you and really be into you, the person. Personally, I like women with some like some sense of graceful modesty, a sense of like elegance. Elegance. Carrying herself with self, dignity. Not taking her body is sacred. Like it's. You know what I mean? Like, it's not something that should just be thrown at men left and right, but I see that. In fact, I don't know if it's just me, but when I was younger and like in high school and things like that, women were different. Maybe it's the times they were more elegant, they were more sort of. You fell in love with their, you know, you would potentially fall in love with their personality, their beauty. Apollonia, you see her face and you can make sense of her body. Like, it's not like her body is invisible, but it's just not like all over. I just don't feel that.
- [75:45]
A
I think it's what social media has done to people.
- [75:47]
B
Yeah. And.
- [75:47]
A
And I, I've seen it happen in both directions too. Like, I, I don't think in any way men are, are in a better. Yeah, definitely these charges in any way either. It's just, it's a competitive nature. It's getting on trends and you know, oh, she's dressing like that. Okay, I'll dress something like that too. Even if you don't realize you're doing it right.
- [76:09]
B
Right.
- [76:09]
A
It certainly happens, you know, so I see what you're saying and I also completely agree. I never, Whenever I'm thinking of like a girl I'm attracted to, the first thing I'm thinking about is her face. It's the first thing that pops in that's. I don't, I don't go like, oh, what's the size of her ass? Yeah, you know, that may come second, but, you know. Yeah. It's like you are thinking about the most important part, which is how I connect with you on a personal level.
- [76:30]
B
The soul. Right. The eyes as the poets and the mystics. Windows to the soul. Right. It's where it all happens. And so that is my. And I think women just get it wrong. Just like we men get it wrong and think we have to be bad boys, we have to be macho. We have to. Women like males that are hard and strong and cold and.
- [76:52]
A
But they can smell. When you're not in your own skin trying to do that.
- [76:55]
B
They can smell that. And it's simply not true. They do not like this. In fact, studies show that females and males for long term mating, prefer men that are kind and vice versa. This is for both genders. Kindness, sincerity, generosity, charitable. So this is a couple things there though. Yeah.
- [77:12]
A
First of all, you just said for long term.
- [77:14]
B
For long term mating. Yeah.
- [77:16]
A
And secondly, when you say they're preferring, is this based on what they're being pulled at? Like when you ask them what they service.
- [77:24]
B
Yeah. What they prefer in male. What kind of traits. And this is so.
- [77:27]
A
All right, I'm gonna push back on this a little bit. I think that there's, first of all, I think there's balance in, in two worlds. You have on one end of the spectrum, all of the characteristics that you just name. On the other end of the spectrum, you would have like what Andrew Tate says, like you're gonna everything them, you know, which is just like, I, I think that's crazy too.
- [77:45]
B
Yeah.
- [77:45]
A
But there's a balance here.
- [77:47]
B
Yes.
- [77:47]
A
That I think women want even if they don't say it. If, if you are absolutely all those things at all time, caring, nurturing, whatever, you can eventually kind of become safe friends. Yeah, but in the wrong ways.
- [78:02]
B
Yes.
- [78:02]
A
I think, I think part of being safe is also being something that in some small ways they always have to chase with you a little bit. What that doesn't mean is that you should try to set up systems or become something different to try to match that box of what that is. I think you have to absolutely be yourself.
- [78:20]
B
Yes.
- [78:20]
A
And if there are some weaknesses in attraction that exists with you being yourself, you have to live with that and make up for that in other ways. But when you're saying like women want all those things in a long term partner. Yes. They want aspects of that. But if you were all those kind of like almost more caring female characteristics 100% of the time, it'll get old for them. It, for most women, it does, 100% agree.
- [78:46]
B
So when I say they prefer generosity and kindness and all that as, as long term traits, that doesn't mean that you buy her like cars and roses and you're kind of totally into her in the, in the, in that sense, it means that you have those traits overall in you, that you have kindness, you have empathy, and you have these traits. A great example would be in two characters. In fact. Have you seen Beauty and the Beast? Of course you have Gostang on the one hand, okay. Big neck, very masculine muscles. He eats a dozen eggs a day. You've seen that. And he's just complete narcissist. So he's, he's, he has the dark triad traits that some people on social media might have. So he's Machiavellian, psychopathic and narcissistic.
- [79:35]
A
So he has what Nadine was talking about when she was here.
- [79:38]
B
So you can go into those traits, but these are traits that women find attractive when they are teenagers and one and more for short term mating. These are the Gastong. These are the ultra masculine red pill psychos. Okay, now the Beast. What is the Beast all about? When Belle goes to the castle and meets the Beast. Initially the Beast is a beast. He terrifies her. He's scary. She doesn't like her. But over time, Belle learns to like him. He's kind of clumsy, like the way he eats and you know, when they get to know each other, he's kind of messy, but he's human. You know, there's something. Something there that female like about clumsy men too. In the coffee she coffee scene, meet Joe Black. Joe Black is also kind of clumsy. Kind of the coffee kind of spills over a little bit and he's kind of a little bit. You know, there's. There's something endearing about that too, by the way. Now. So he has that. But the Beast has capacity. Even though he likes Belle, first of all, he's not completely clingy. He lets her go. In fact, he says, go to your dad. The dad is being harassed by Gestung and his men. So he says, go. Go to her. Go to your dad. You are no longer a prisoner. She was held as a prisoner, by the way. Belle in the castle of the Beast. He says, go to your dad. Out. You are no longer my prisoner. You're free. What trait does he signify there? That's an example of not being clingy. Learning that love is sacrifice. That love is all about loving somebody but understanding that you love them for. You love them for who they are, but you want them to be happy. That's what love is all about. Not you being possessive. It's not a possessive, narcissistic love for Gastong. It's all about a trophy. Belle is the trophy. I have another trophy on the wall. I have all my pictures of Gastong. But then I have Belle, the most beautiful girl in the village, as the next trophy. The Beast, on the other hand, is all about I love her and I want her to be happy. Let her go. That's the first trait. Second, now Belle goes out into the forest and the wolves attack. The wolves attack Belle. There's that attack of wolves. And the Beast can now he has this magic mirror so he can see what she's doing. And he sees that she's being attacked by these wolves. And he comes and protect her and sacrifices himself. In fact effect. He's almost dead. He's Being eaten by these wolves. But he protects her and saves her. That's the bodyguard effect. Strength, masculinity. All right. Then they go back to the castle and Belle is able to take care of him. That's another feature of romantic love. When the women take cares of a man and he's sick, he's a bit. That's the mother, the maternal instinct. You see, attachment comes in. Now it's. That's not a very. That's not a sexual thing. That's more attachment. That is oxytocin, these bonding hormones that we have mother with a child has, for example, that kicks in now and she starts bonding with the beast. So there's all these features of the beast having strength, sacrificing love. And then at the very end, Belle learns to love this beast that was so rude and held her as a prisoner.
- [82:55]
A
And why did she do that?
- [82:56]
B
She does that because he gradually reveals his character. He's a character that is strong. But he lets her go. He lets her go because he knows that that is the right thing for her happiness. Love is all about sacrifice. Have you seen that scene in Titanic where Jack says to Rose, there's only these. There's only so many boats. Only so many boats on the Titanic. And then he says to Rose, rose, you go. I will take another boat. Even though he knows there is no other boat. You take this boat, you go. And she kind of goes on that boat and the boat goes down and Jack is kind of looking at her and she looks at Jack and the boat goes down. And Jack knows for that moment, he knows he will never see Rose again. And there's a sadness in his eyes. He's trying to hold back his tears, but there's a sadness in his eyes. And then Rose looks at him and looks at him and looks at him, jumps back, jumps back on the bloody ship. That's what love is all about.
- [83:54]
A
That moment it was until that cold hearted bitch wouldn't let him on the fucking plank. There was a lot of room on that thing. There was a lot of room on that.
- [84:02]
B
There was enough room.
- [84:03]
A
There was enough room for two people there. And she let him die.
- [84:06]
B
100%. No, I can.
- [84:07]
A
I'll never get over that.
- [84:08]
B
I'll take that. I'll take that. But you see how. You see what I mean, right? You see that, that, that insanity of that action of that woman is what love is. It's insanity in that moment that she's ready to die with the man that she just had that, that poetic encounter with. How do you explain that scientifically? You tell me, Julian, because I have no idea.
- [84:29]
A
The fact looking at me, it's crazy. New Jersey.
- [84:32]
B
Right. It's like.
- [84:33]
A
Right. Explain it scientifically. Yeah, there's a lot going on there. The Beauty and the Beast example is an amazing example example, though, because you talk about love is sacrifice 100%. And then. And this is. This is where I love when philosophy and science kind of get like a little intertwined and you can't tell which is which at some point. But like, love is sacrifice. Great. 100%. Then Bell gets into danger.
- [85:03]
B
Yes.
- [85:03]
A
And a biologically, you know, in this case superior male is able to physically come in and protect and save her. Key word being, yes, save there. Because I think people misinterpret this a lot. They do with the, with the, with the gender dynamics. It is a common trap for a man to think a woman wants to be saved. And they don't just mean physically, like, go protect her if, like, she got in trouble or something like that, but they think, like, you gotta. To pull her in and, you know, kind of show her the way and save her in this world. It's so scary. The reality is that's actually usually the opposite of what they want. What they want is physical protection. And to know that's there, that's evolutionary. But in many ways, women like to see men as some sort of, like, you know, from a mental perspective, some sort of like, problem that they can help fix a little bit. Like they actually want to come in and save you. So it's like you exchange the physical saving protection for the mental and like, kind of spiritual saving and protection that they want. But men will often think that they need to do both for women. And one is something that repels them completely because it's like they're. They're very often not in every case, this is across the. The masses and percentages here. Very often they're more like, no, I can take care of my own mind. Like, I'm. I'm good. You don't need to come in and tell me how to think. Right. Or that everything's going to be okay. The time. You know what I mean?
- [86:34]
B
Yeah, I do. I definitely know what you mean. And. And there is that. That component to it. I think that's very true. Can we say we get a little break?
- [86:42]
A
Oh, hell.
- [86:43]
B
On the side. Middle of the conversation, I feel my bladders is expanding. That's perfect.
- [86:46]
A
We'll be right back.
- [86:47]
B
Great.
- [86:49]
A
All right, we're back. We had. We had started this whole Loop talking about the phases of love. So infatuation, romantic and then bonding. Is that the third one?
- [86:58]
B
Yeah, yeah. And by the, Exactly. And by the way, don't. They don't have to come in. In right. That order. So you can have, have, you know, you can have bonding first romantic and then, and then the, you know, infatuation. So it doesn't have to be, it depends. It's very, it can be cultural, culturally dependent, but it often is. That's like literally it often is you first seeing her and then having that romantic infatuation and then having the bonding. But it doesn't have to be that way.
- [87:23]
A
All right, so maybe a good way to go through this example would be one we started to talk about last time you and I were talking, which is the Titanic.
- [87:32]
B
Yes.
- [87:32]
A
Example with Jack and Rose, which you were just mentioning a few minutes ago. But like, can you walk me through how like in the movie, how each phase worked and like when it crossed from one to the other. That might be helpful.
- [87:46]
B
Yeah.
- [87:47]
A
For people to be able to understand.
- [87:48]
B
100. So I haven't watched a movie in a long time, but I've watched a lot of clips for my, for my course. Right. So Jack is on the ship and he sees Rose. The first time he sees her, she's up there and he, and he, and she's on the other deck, on the top deck and he's down there and she sees her and he's struck by lightning. That's the lightning striking.
- [88:09]
A
Yeah.
- [88:10]
B
So that's the first aspect then.
- [88:13]
A
That's infatuation.
- [88:13]
B
That's infatuation. That's the infatuation state. That's attraction. Then you have afterwards she's trying to kill herself in fact. So she's fed up with all the high class stuff, you know, her rich husband, you know, and that life, that high class life, she feels, it's constraining her and making her feel, you know, she doesn't feel good about that. And so she wants to now kill herself. Goes out on the ship, on the edge of the ship and wants to jump out. Jack comes out and says, you know, you can't jump, you know, the water's too cold, it's going to kill you. It's like freezing. And he's able to. What he does actually is an interesting trick, Julian. What he does is she is all, she's all limbic driven. So the emotional core of the brain, the fear part of the brain, the amygdala is hyperactive in her wanting to jump out of the ship. And kill herself. What he does is actually very clever trick. So I think. I'm not sure if the James Cameron thought of this, but what he does. But what Jack does, he says. He starts saying, well, do you know, I'm from. Like, I'm from Milwaukee or something, you know, this and that. And he starts talking about, like, cognitive stuff.
- [89:27]
A
Yes.
- [89:27]
B
Activating her prefrontal cortex. So now her prefrontal cortex comes online. And then he goes, oh, by the way, the water. Water is freezing cold as well, and starts to talk about, like, prefrontal stuff. And we know that when the prefrontal cortex is highly active, it will often dampen the activity of the amygdala and the fear centers. These two centers tend to not be active at the same time. They're very antagonistic. That's why in depression, for example, you see people with depression, you will have a literal activation of the emotional core of the brain, the amygdala, the ACC and fear departments, being activated in a temporal way that it precedes the prefrontal. So there is that. And Jack, really, very clever, he taps into that, and he's able to get her off, put it in a prefrontal state of being.
- [90:16]
A
Emotional override of the logical.
- [90:19]
B
Of the logical part of the brain. So we have that, and then that is a source for bonding. He becomes the beast that saves Belle out of the. From the wolves. This is literally the same scenario, just her jumping down. He's much more of a verbal guy. He's not the muscle guy. Elnardo DiCaprio in that movie. And so this is his way of saving her. Next. What he does, he takes this lady and takes her on a journey. Rose, basically. And what way does he do that? He. Basically, the way he does that is by saying, look, this is your life. Your life is trapped. You feel you are trapped. You're being told 24 hours what to do. You have to eat this food, you have to dress this way. You have to obey this man. You know, this is your life. And she's. She feels imprisoned. And so what Jack does is that he provides an alternative reality for her that's intoxicating. It's an escape from her world. It's very dopaminergic, driven. And we know love. Obviously, you have a lot of dopamine, and so he's able to give her that. And women, actually, I feel like I don't even feel that. But there's. Women do like that. When men can take a woman and take her on a ride in life, it's like you, when you take. When a father takes her child. When I take my child and I play with my child, lift my child and throw her around and lift her and put her here and, you know, do all these crazy games with her that are kind of a little bit aggressive, but the child loves it, the little girl loves it. I think women unconsciously want that from a man as well. A man that can take her for a ride on a magic carpet. Just like Aladdin and Jasmine. Yes. Take her out of the palace, take her out of the. Her world and show her a whole new world.
- [92:08]
A
Adventure.
- [92:09]
B
Adventure. And I think so. Women love that. And that's what Jack is doing. That's what Aladdin is doing with Jasmine as well. And so he does that. And she falls in love with that. That she goes back to being a teenager again to, to having that, that ride. And then they bond, obviously, and there's some bonding going on and attachment as well, although it's over a. The course of a few days, but there's some bonding going on. And then eventually, now, at some point in the movie, not going into too many details, Rose leaves him. She says, no, I cannot go into your world. I cannot continue to be with you. And he goes out on the deck that we talked about that last time. And then she later regrets.
- [92:53]
A
But he also. And you laid this out last time. He felt the emotion. He sat in it. But he was able to detach and not let it own him again.
- [93:04]
B
He was the beast. Like the beast scenario. He let her go, knowing that I want what is best for her.
- [93:09]
A
Yes.
- [93:10]
B
And when she leaves, I will stay in a masculine, calm composure. I will not let the emotional part of the brain overwhelm my prefrontal cortex. So I become destabilized.
- [93:21]
A
Yeah.
- [93:22]
B
And I think that's key for what a woman wanted, a man. The emotions have to be there. Like, he looks devastated out on the front deck and all that. He looks devastated. You can see he's kind of looking out with his eyes squirted. And he looks out and he's not happy. You can tell his heart is broken. But then when Rose comes out and says, I've changed my mind, and then he says. And then they do that, that, that, that classical scene when, when, you know, they look out and I'm a king of the world and all that, you know, that kind of, I'm flying, Jack and all that. Point is that that's. That's part of it. Eventually, then, then, then obviously this sinks, you know, the, the ship sinks. And all that happens. And. And, oh, there's another scene I have to say in that movie before we conclude this movie, on that. On that little thing on the. What do you call that? The. When they're drowning at the very end.
- [94:19]
A
Oh, on the board.
- [94:20]
B
On the board there. You know, do you notice at some. Like, he's down there. He's dying, right? He's actually dead at this point. He has given. He has told. Actually, before he dies, he says to Rose. He says to Rose, promise me that you will go on, that you will live and you will have children and be happy and all that. Right. He says all that stuff. Right. When the boats come back for her, Jack. There's a boat. Exactly. But you notice that she's ready to give up. But the only thing keeping her from giving up is the fact that the promise she gave to Jack and she then continues. It's a intense love story, but I think it captures what. What love is all about. What's happening in the brain, the positive delusion.
- [95:15]
A
Positive delusion, yeah.
- [95:16]
B
This is the only person in the world that can. Can be the one. And this is really the. The. These regions of the brain turning on and off in this. This pattern.
- [95:26]
A
Yeah. It is kind of a perfect story,
- [95:28]
B
the way they did that and craft.
- [95:29]
A
That's why it's such a.
- [95:30]
B
It's beautifully cinematically as well. Everything is.
- [95:33]
A
Now, what about the attraction, though, physically? That happens with sex? The reason I ask this is because obviously when you have sex. Well, at least from the male perspective, this isn't always the case for females. It's harder for them with. With full orgasm and everything. But with men, like, sex is great. That said, even with us, like, it can eventually get stale. And then that is tied sometimes scientifically, to us losing attraction for a woman. Like, okay, this is kind of the same thing over and over again, where we allow it to then override all the other things that might be great in the attraction that's happening with the woman outside of the bedroom. But what is it in the brain that can kind of cause that to wear away to where maybe it just gets stale and then you're unwilling to think that that will change at some point.
- [96:22]
B
Do you mean the habituation where you become, like, if it's repetitive? Is that what you're saying? So the dopaminergic system, and this is known as the Coolidge effect, If you have, like, you have. You have a hamster or a rat or something, you know, it will engage in sexual intercourse with other hamsters until. Until A certain point, but then at some point, it will just stop. It will become desensitized. The dopaminergic neurons will stop firing. And this is you. You have your. Did you know that dopamine in the brain is a set. We have a set amount at any given time. So I can only be happy at so much happy in a given week. And then eventually I have to go down to baseline beneath baseline in order to have dopamine recharge. So I can't be. Be having intercourse 24 hours. I mean, the hamster will. Would not be able to. But. But then if you introduce a new hamster into that cage, it will start doing this, the sexual act again. This is the Coolidge effect. Eventually, the same dopaminergic stimulus or stimuli, if there are multiple hamsters, will desensitize the dopaminergic system. And if you provide a novelty, then you will have potential attraction again. But let me tell you here, there's actually in that hamster or in a rat, right, when it's engaging in these acts, there's a circuit going from the. In the amygdala, right? That core fierce end of the brain. It actually has many sub components. So if you go into the nitty gritty of neuroscience and really look at it, there's subcomponents and there's a part of it called the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis.
- [98:10]
A
Nucleus of the stria terminalis.
- [98:12]
B
Bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. Yeah, that part of the brain. There's a circuit. There's a circuitry going to the hypothalamus, and you know the hypothalamus too well now, right? That circuit, if you sever it in these rats, guess what happens? It will. It will stop mating all together, regardless, like you provided tons of new hamsters, it will just stop mating.
- [98:35]
A
Takes away the impulse.
- [98:36]
B
It takes away the. You you have severed. You have cut the sexual. Sexual circuit in the brain. You have removed sexuality by severing the circuit in the amygdala to the hypothalamus, the bed nucleus of stratumnalis to the hypothalamus. That is the sex circuit. And if you stimulate that part of the brain while it's. Even though the dopaminergic system is dying off, it will keep engaging in the act. So literally, we have a sex circuit in rat that could perhaps also exist in humans. It's very interesting. It's very interesting. We have this, absolutely. But the Coolidge effects really is what explains it. That if males have, you know, are sexually engaged with a women, they will eventually desensitized.
- [99:25]
A
That's why you also got to mix it up too. You know, like if you start to make the way that you physically show love to be just kind of like a routine or chore, I don't know how it would get to that point, but it does for people.
- [99:41]
B
Yes.
- [99:41]
A
Then you. It's like a cascading effect to the rest of the attraction. It just kills it.
- [99:48]
B
100. So yeah, that when I. What I'm saying that when I'm saying the dopaminergic neurons will die off. By that, I mean, not that, you know, that you will start being. Not being attracted to your wife. It just means novelty. It means that you have to detach some, you know, sometimes and. And so forth. Meaning you don't, you know, have some abstinence might help for. For certain amounts of time could. Could recharge the dopaminergic circuits. But yeah, I think novelty is really. Is. Is the key for. For that. But yeah, man, the whole attraction love stuff is interesting. I also covered transcendent love. I'm not sure if you're interested in that.
- [100:26]
A
Transcendent love.
- [100:27]
B
Yeah. Love of God and spiritual spirituality. I think that was a key part of it and so of what I was talking about. And so it's a completely different type of love now. It's interesting with the romantic love, though, there's also a transcendent quality to it almost. It has a spiritual soul component. But then when you're dealing with love of God and love of spirituality, that's completely different realm. And so. So yeah, that's very interesting.
- [100:58]
A
And what. What makes it. I mean, it's obvious that it's. It's a different thing, but yes, I guess, like scientifically, what's so different about the way we express that love?
- [101:08]
B
Spiritual, Spiritual love. And put up my jacket. I kind of feel a little bit chilly.
- [101:14]
A
Yeah, yeah, we keep it. We keep it icy in here. Yeah, it's a little. It's a little trick of the trade. You don't want people hot in the chair because they get sleepy and they're not as good. So I like it cold rather than hot. Got a high air conditioning bill around here doing hot.
- [101:31]
B
Cold on me, huh?
- [101:32]
A
Yeah, that's right. That's actually. You're on to me.
- [101:36]
B
All right.
- [101:36]
A
It's. It was. It was actually inspired by some people smarter than me who understand the way the human brain works when it works, when they're talking.
- [101:46]
B
Awesome. So No, I think Transcendent love is interesting. It taps into consciousness and what consciousness is all about and where it all comes about. If you look at the brain, there's a part we talked about before called the limbic structure of the brain. Now, in the limbic. In the limbic brain, if you use a helmet called the God helmet, and you stimulate that helmet, you literally feel divine beings. You will have angels, you will see angels, you will. You will feel there's, you know, have all kinds of spiritual experiences. This is Michael persinger's helmet in 1990s. Very interesting work.
- [102:21]
A
See angels.
- [102:21]
B
People report seeing angels.
- [102:23]
A
What about, like, demons?
- [102:24]
B
They might as well. So it depends on your state and how you feel. If you have, in the temporal lobes, if you have epileptic seizures, meaning the neurons in the limbic structure go ballistic. They fire in a high rate and you have a seizure in that part of the brain, you can develop what's called temporal lobe epilepsy or temporal lobe personality. This is interesting. So imagine this just a part of the brain. This is a regular part of meat tissue in the brain. It becomes hyperactivated. And suddenly what happens is that you will become a spiritual person. You will see, I am. You will say, I'm in communication with God. You become spiritual, you will start writing poetry. You focus on solely on religious stuff, and you have all these spiritual qualities emerging from you merely from these brain circuits going awry. So I think that's fascinating that that can happen, and it shows us where spiritual tendencies might arise in the brain. It seems to be in that limbic circuit, in that limbic structure.
- [103:41]
A
Is there something. I don't want to get, like, way too meta here, but when it comes to, like, the spiritual realm with things and how we may experience love or seeing things like you just described, whether it be angels or demons. I had started to talk with you last time about this, but we, we kind of got off it. Like, is there something connected to our. Our consciousness with that meaning? We are filling in the gaps of why we are even who we are by trying to create something larger than life or outside the known realm to explain it.
- [104:21]
B
Yeah, yeah. So in terms of having something outside our, our scope skulls, this is really difficult to answer. Is this true? Is there something outside our skulls? Is there spiritual connection, you know, something out there, you know, communicating with us? I think that is true as a spiritual religious person. Yes, I do think it's true. And it could very well be the true truth. We talked about the radio analogy last time. If you have a Radio, you, you know, you play with it and the voice, you know, goes away. But really you don't know that this radio waves coming right similar to consciousness. So I think that is all true, but I think really in terms of consciousness about. And self, self can get. Let's talk about self a little bit and what self is, because then we can get to deeper into consciousness and spirituality. But let's start there, because what is self and how can self get deranged? Now, in the SPL region of the brain up here, if I have a stroke to that part of the brain, the spl, I might say that my left hand that is now paralyzed belongs to you. So I lose ownership of that hand. That's very common. So mind you, this person is perfectly lucid, ill, eloquent. You sit down with him, play chess with him, everything is normal. But you tell him, who is this? Who does this hand belong to? And he'll say, it belongs to you. So he develops this delusion. Or in some cases, the doctor might say, lift your hand, raise it. And they will try to raise it, you know, they can't, obviously, but then they will say, oh, doctor, it is an inch from your nose, doctor. So they will lie. They will confabulate.
- [106:12]
A
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- [106:17]
B
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A
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B
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- [106:43]
B
Refreshing Wild Cherry Cola meets Smooth Cream, the treat you deserve. Pepsi Wild Cherry and cream. Treat yourself. Are you waving it? Yes, doctor, it's waving right now. It's waving at you. It's fine. It's not paralyzed. Okay. So they have these bizarre delusions of selfhood. There's a case of Oliver Sacks, one of the. We looked up Oliver Sacks last time. He has a great case study of him. He's at a hospital and there's a patient of his, and the patient is lying in bed and he keeps throwing down his own leg. He keeps throwing it down and he keeps pushing it inside. And he calls the nurse and says this. There's this hairy thing, you know, to the nurse. This hairy thing on my body. It just. It's attached to me. It won't go away. What's happening, you know, and the Nurse is saying, what are you talking about? It's your leg. And he's completely adamant that there's something attached to him that is not his. And this always happens on the left side of the body. So it's the left leg or left arm. Why? Because we build a sense of a body image in the these right parietal structures up here. That's where we build a sense of a self. So you see that this can lead to these strange delusions of self. Let me give you yet another example that's even more bizarre. There are people out there that have healthy limbs. They have healthy limbs. Nothing is wrong with them. But for some reason, they want to amputate their healthy limb. Mind you, it's perfectly healthy in all respects. There's nothing wrong with the limb. They scan it, but the person says, keep saying, this arm doesn't belong to me. It's not my arm. And this could be any person. It could be the director of your bank. It could be your school principal. It could be your father. It could be Uncle Joe, Cashier, anybody. But they have this strange delusion that their arm does not belong to them. Then you might say, Julian might say, what's going on in the brain? What's happening? When you look at the brain and you want to scan their brains, and this has been done, you look at the somatosensory region, first of all, to see if their sensory information is coming to the arm. We talked about the sensory map. When you touch it, that part of the brain should light up. And lo and behold, it does. You touch Dances With Activity. Fine. Next, you go back in the brain to the SPL regions, where you construct a sense of a body image, but in a more abstract sense of a self. When you look there, the arm is missing. There's a lack of representation of that arm in your body image. So that explains why they want to cut it off. Each of us, you, me, Joey, all of us, have a body image, a neurologically scaffolded body image. A sense of a self with certain boundaries drawn into our brains, burned into the circuitry. And that will dictate what you feel like is your body. And if an arm is missing in that template, you would literally go and say, oh, my arm does not belong to me. It belongs to somebody else. In this case, they will say, I want to amputate that arm. It's not a part of me. Does this make sense, by the way?
- [109:57]
A
Yeah, it does. I'm kind of one. I'm thinking of, like, extreme examples in My head. But, like, I don't know if this is, like, a similar idea, but remember at Lady Rachel Dolezal?
- [110:08]
B
No.
- [110:09]
A
She was, like, a hundred percent white, but then she started dressing like she was black and convinced herself that she was black, and then told everyone she was black and was in charge of, like, an NAACP chapter. And then it all came out.
- [110:21]
B
Yeah.
- [110:22]
A
Is that because, like, in her head she was like, no, I am black.
- [110:26]
B
There's something similar going on with that. But in this case, it's. It's definitely, definitely body image specific. It's specific to the sense of body image. And what's really interesting, then, many of these folks go out and have the arm amputated. What do you think happened? Do they feel happy after the amputation or do they regret not happy? I'm gonna guess they actually feel thrilled.
- [110:47]
A
They do.
- [110:48]
B
They do. It's totally.
- [110:49]
A
Even after. What? Like, they don't, like, come to, like, oh, that was.
- [110:53]
B
That would be. That would be the normal reaction. Right. And that's what you see in many cases, like, of similar situations. But in this case, absolutely thrilled. They are excited. They're happy. The arm is no longer a part of me. I feel good. Now, there's an even more bizarre twist to this whole saga here. These guys coming back to our initial discussion about attraction, they tend to be attracted to people who are missing that limp that they want to have amputated. Okay? So imagine Baland over here sitting here. He wants to amputate his left arm. You with me?
- [111:29]
A
I'm with you.
- [111:30]
B
Okay. I want to amputate my left arm. And that is because the left arm is missing in the spl. In that body image. Now, if you have a girl over there and her left arm is actually amputated, corresponding to the arm that you want to amputate, you will find her extremely attractive. In fact, if you have her duplicate a copy of her with the full body, you'll say, nah, I'll go for the one with the amputation.
- [111:51]
A
It's like you complete me by missing some parts.
- [111:54]
B
Exactly. And the question is, why? What's going on? We think, and this is a theory that is proposed, that the spl, the body image part of the brain, is hooked up to the visual part of the brain and the emotional core and the dopaminergic centers explaining and dictating the human attraction to the human form. Why does Baland find the human form attractive overall? Why do I. Why am I not attractive to, like, attracted? Why are humans not generally attracted to a chair, a table I can find you a few. But, yeah, there are some weirdos out there, but you get what I'm saying. 100 on the Savannah. The human brain doesn't want to have any ambiguity. It wants to be fast at zooming in on that potential mate, that human shape, unambiguously behind a tree, behind the bushes. And so it wants a shortcut, a circuit for saying, oh, this is a human body. Find it attractive.
- [112:54]
A
Right now, let's get weird.
- [112:56]
B
Yeah, but does it make sense?
- [112:58]
A
It makes sense.
- [112:59]
B
It makes sense.
- [112:59]
A
Let's get weird.
- [113:00]
B
Go ahead.
- [113:01]
A
What about when we're living in a world where the physical form looks human but, you know, it's AI, you know, it's a robot.
- [113:09]
B
But I think that's exactly why. That's exactly why robots are pretending. Very tricky. That's why they can trick us, because they look like us, they speak like us, they have potential emotions or not emotions, but they can mimic emotions extremely wide, like in a very subtle way that's. That's hard for us to discern and, like, know that this is a human versus a robot. I always use the Terminator as an example. You know, look at the Terminator. I mean, at the very end. When have you seen. Did we talk about the last scene in the. Before. I didn't. I'm not sure we did.
- [113:47]
A
No, we didn't.
- [113:48]
B
But in the last scene, have you seen him when he's kind of like he's blown to pieces? This is the very, very end. He's about to raise himself down the steel, down into the lava thing, right? He, first of all, Arnold has a sense of humor. So he says, like, with one eye that's red and like, his half his face is blown off and arm is missing, says, I need a vacation. This is the first thing he says. This is interesting. And then he goes over to the edge, a very edge, with Sarah, Khanna and John, John Connor. And he says, john, I need to go away. I need to go because there's an extra chip up here that needs to go into the. To the. That needs to be destroyed so that humanity or cannot create AI and Skynet and all that. And Matt, of course, John Connor says, I order you not to go. I order you not to go. Stay Right? I order you not to go. But then he says. Then the Terminator says. He says, as John is hogging him and saying goodbye, he says, and John is crying. And the Terminator says, looks at him and says, now I know why you cry. It is something I can never do. Okay? He's having a very clear understanding what human emotion is all about. Human emotion is something that we feel, although he will never be able to feel it because he doesn't have an emotional brain. He doesn't have a limbic structure. So he cannot understand. He can never feel emotion, but he can understand it. And it could be feel very real, right? And then eventually, of course, he kills himself. He goes down into the steel there and into the lava.
- [115:27]
A
Spoiler alert.
- [115:28]
B
Spoiler alert. Right, for those who didn't see it, point of, point of all this is that AI machines, robots will use what's called the DLPFC out here, the outer layers of the brain. They will use that for computation of, of, of and on, trying to understand human emotions as well as possible. In other words, they will gauge what is human emotion all about. This is human emotions. This is how humans react in these scenarios. Abc, da da da da da. But there's no actual feeling, because to have a feeling, you have to have a medial prefrontal cortex. The middle of the prefrontal and its communication to the amygdala and the emotional core, there's a wire that goes to the emotional core. John Connor has that. That's why he cries and feels emotions. The Terminator, the AI robots do not have that. In fact, psychopaths, the medial prefrontal cortex completely shot off. There's no activity there. That's why they have no emotions. The limbic amygdala completely shut off completely like the Terminator. Psychopaths are human terminators in that regard. They are AIs robots. They are calculated. They use their utilitarian DLPFC out here, this part of the brain. And so that's, that's really the key. That's the difference between AI psychopaths and then human.
- [116:56]
A
Rest of us are psychopaths born, molded or both.
- [117:02]
B
Interesting question. So you have psychopaths on one hand, which are people that have no emotion. Completely flat emotionally. These are the guys that can sit at a church baptizing their niece or nephew while they are carrying out multiple murders.
- [117:30]
A
Michael Corleone.
- [117:31]
B
Or they can have spaghetti with their mother while a dead man is, or near dead man is in the trunk, trying to get out of the trunk.
- [117:37]
A
Good fellas.
- [117:38]
B
This is the psychopath. No emotions. They're being chased by the police. Their heart rate doesn't go up. There's no. There's no. The heartbeat is just completely flat. You measure the sweating? Nothing. Completely flat. There's no emotion. This is a psychopath born this way. Born, Born this way you look at genes for serotonin abnormalities, all kinds of abnormalities. These are, this is a psychopath. Tons of psychopaths, by the way, in politics and, and business.
- [118:07]
A
You don't say.
- [118:07]
B
Yeah, it's a very adaptive trait in some, in certain, in certain professions.
- [118:12]
A
An adaptive trait?
- [118:13]
B
Yes. If you can be a calculated, completely rigid athlete who does all your. Does everything that has to happen on time, you don't have emotion to interfere. Your mother's illness, your wife's agony won't interfere with how you perform. And you can be a top athlete. Though I think the true athletes, the true athletes out there, the great ones, have heart. The messis of the world, the maradonas of the world, the pele, they have heart. The greatness, you can be the perfect athlete otherwise. But the true greats, they do have heart. They're blessed with something that can be captured and, and they don't have this psychopathy like tendencies. But this is what a psychopath is all about. Psychopath is completely utilitarian, calculated. Let me give you an example. Something called the trolley problem. You know it. Should I mention it?
- [119:14]
A
Please mention it. Yes.
- [119:15]
B
Okay. All right. So there's two tracks. On one track, there's one person. On another track, there's five persons, right? A train is going fast towards the five people about to kill them. You're on the, you're on a bridge. You can see all that. You can flip a switch and the train will then go to. And change its direction and go to the track and kill one person instead of the five people. You ask most people this question, they will say unambiguously, they will just do it. I'll switch the flip and I'll save that one person, okay? Everybody says, I'll do that, right? Then there's a version of this where there's. On the bridge, there's a heavy guy, a chubby guy, he's in front of you. And as the train is coming beneath the bridge and it's about to kill five people now, so it's not going towards one, it's going towards the five people. If you're with me, if he pushes this guy over, he will fall down on the tracks and he will say he will die, but he will save the five people from dying. Now if you ask people, if you have, ask Joey, you have, ask any person out there, that's, that's fairly normal. They will say, no, I will not do it. Although the scenario is the same, right? You're killing one person and saving the five, but in this case, people won't do it. And, and then you might ask, why is that the case? And before I say answer this question, a psychopath, by the way, would have no issues pushing that guy over. He will say, I will push, push him over. And the reason is the following. In a normal healthy person like you and I, we consult our emotions. We consult the amygdala, we consult the insula. That's what I talked about before, our bodily states. We consult all these brain regions, emotional core. And then the medial prefrontal cortex says I just can't push this guy over. I cannot physically be like, push him over and kill him. It's just too much. Psychopath doesn't have these parts of the brain. He uses the, the utilitarian DLPFC again up here. And so for him it's very easy just to throw him over and push him over.
- [121:21]
A
It's kind of, you know, it reminds me of that scene in the Dark Knight where the Joker sends the two boats off the, off Gotham City Island. And one boat is filled with pretty much all the criminals.
- [121:35]
B
Yes.
- [121:35]
A
And the other boat is pretty filled with all the citizens and they each hold a trigger to blow up each other's boats. And he's expecting that. He says you got 15 minutes and, or you, or you all die. And he's expecting people in the trolley problem of life, regardless of whether it's the criminals or the so called normal people, non criminals of society, he's expecting them to push the fat man over. The criminals viewing the fat man as anyone else who's not them. The non criminals viewing it as, oh, they're the criminals. They already made their choice. But neither boat does it because they're unwilling to break a moral boundary to save themselves 100%.
- [122:16]
B
So this is a feature of the human brain. When we make decision making, are we making decisions using the DLPFC or are we, you know, the outer, the, the, the psychopath part of the brain or I just say the logical part of the brain. Or are we using the medial prefrontal which is a bridge between emotion and higher cognitive thinking. And this can be shown in other scenarios too. For example, if I was to say, Julian, do you want $100 now or $110 a week from now? Most people would say to this, they will say, I want a hundred dollars now. You know there's something special about the here and now, right? Something if I ask the same question, but I say, would you want a hundred dollars 52 weeks from now or $110 53 weeks from now, then it changes. They say give me the hundred and ten fifty three weeks from now. Okay, the point is goalposts. In the latter scenario, when it's not about here and now, you use the DLPFC utilitarian. But when you, when it is here and now and something you can have a reward now you use the medial prefrontal cortex. So I think basically understanding this basic difference between the medial prefrontal cortex, what it does, how it's important for decision making, can enrich our lives. We should make more decisions using the DL, the medial prefrontal cortex. We should consult our emotions for the right decisions. We shouldn't run to ChatGPT and ask how do I deal with this problem? How do I deal with this, this social conflict? Because it is the psychopath that is you are dealing with a psychopath when you're dealing with, with chat gbt and, and these kind of.
- [124:00]
A
You're saying genetically a lot of, a lot of them are pre wired for that. But do you also think that someone can be genetically not pre wired for it and then they're, you know, you don't choose where you're born. They're born into an environment that just completely makes. Molds them exact way? Yeah, come over it.
- [124:20]
B
This is what. Yes, this is true. This can happen. This is known as a sociopath. So that's the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath. But a sociopath, by the way, is somebody who does have some emotion, but through exposure, being in a tough neighborhood, just having, maybe being beaten as a child, having a lot of this, these bonding hormones kicked out of you almost. So you've learned that world is dangerous, that you have to be callous. And literally it has epigenetic markers. All the traumatic stuff that you witnessed as a child, you know, alcoholic parents perhaps. And that can also shape you into a sociopath. But a sociopath would always have a little bit of emotion, a little bit of regret, a little bit of guilt. There's something there that's not completely absent. The psychopath is just. No regret. Okay? A psychopath. A psychopath will do the following. If you break up with a psychopath, like a stung type scenario, okay? Who somebody who sees a woman as a trophy. If you break up with that guy, you know what he'll do? He might plan to get back to you by being romantic. So he'd be very romantic, get back to you and then he'll wait a year, make sure that she falls completely in love with him and then Just break up with him. Just to say, oh, this was all a ploy. I did this just to get back to you for. For. For. For insulting me and breaking up with me. This is a psychopath. Calculated. No empathy whatsoever. Zero empathy.
- [125:50]
A
Yeah, yeah, that was something I like, I remember when I was younger, there was someone who I actually really like a lot who was giving me, like, some theories on. On how to, like, go get your goals and stuff. And, like, we had the definition of a psychopath so wrong because we're like, oh, you could use it in a positive way because you're just so driven to do what you want to do. In reality, like, it's actually in many cases even worse, like you're pointing out, than a sociopath, because a sociopath can actually have the environment mold them into being that. Not to excuse being a sociopath, but you know what I mean? Like. Like, it's wild how much someone could just be born with that kind of tendency. And, you know, we use it. I'm guilty of it. We use it in parlance, like, I'm a psychological psychopath to go get my goals and whatever. But in reality, like, the. The root of the word itself and what it really is supposed to mean is in entirely different and not a good way.
- [126:43]
B
Yeah. A real. A real winner is somebody who.
- [126:46]
A
I'm trying to get you, by the way, Belon, I'm trying to get you over here just because, like, you're fading into Maximus behind you. So come this way a little bit and come into the table.
- [126:53]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [126:54]
A
I'm just looking at your mark and your hat's, like, blending in with the background. That's better.
- [126:59]
B
Grab a little bit more water.
- [127:00]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, we'll grab that. Keep going, though.
- [127:05]
B
A real winner in life, I think, is somebody who. Who can have the discipline. Keep going. Things get tough. They may have a death in the family, or they may experience hardship. They lose sleep over it, but they keep going. Yes, that fight between the emotional brain and the prefrontal cortex is definitely there, and they are suffering because of that, seeing their ill father or something. But they keep going. They keep going for it and don't give up. And they have that discipline, regardless of how many tears and how many things that they have to hold back in order to complete the work in front of them. That, for me, is a real winner. Not somebody who's completely cold and has no emotions whatsoever.
- [127:54]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that would be an awful way to go through life too, where you don't. You don't feel anything. You don't get the chance to. You also don't get the chance to empathize with how other people are feeling in a good or bad direction to learn from that, regardless of what direction it's in. You know what I mean? Like there's something about you never like to see someone around you sad or really, really down or something like that. It's, it's not a good feeling to see that at all. But there's something that can be learned from that afterwards that also then magnifies the beauty of life. Right. And magnifies the good things.
- [128:31]
B
Yeah, yeah. Empathy is an interesting one. So empathy is crucial. There's two types of empathy, by the way. There's cognitive and affective empathy. Cognitive empathy, Psychopaths have tons of empathy. It, you use the outer layer of the brain as you can mention, and, and you, and you know what somebody else is thinking, you know what their mind is up to. You can, you have access to their minds almost like you know, okay, this person is thinking this and that and I. And you have access to that. That's the cognitive empathy. Then there's affective empathy. That's the type of empathy where you feel, you feel what they're feeling, you have emotional connectedness with them. Did we talk about this last time? I can't remember.
- [129:13]
A
A little bit, A little bit. Okay, go ahead.
- [129:15]
B
It's coming. Okay, good. So I just want to make sure we got that. Okay, good. So go back and listen to that. But my point is we have these two subsystems of empathy, but empathy is crucial and empathy can sometimes override even cognitive barriers. So we did some experiments back in the day. I don't think we talked about this last time. I should tell you. So we have somebody over there, he's standing over there, he touches a contaminant, let's say fake vomit. This is Ramachandra and I doing.
- [129:48]
A
Oh, is this the OCD experiment?
- [129:50]
B
Did we talk about this?
- [129:50]
A
Yeah, we did.
- [129:51]
B
Okay, so then go back and listen to it. My point is that empathy is, is a crucial part of our well being. And now I'm completely off rail of what I want to talk about because I was planning to go down the OCD stuff.
- [130:04]
A
No, it's all good. I got plenty of other ideas to
- [130:07]
B
go with, I think. Okay, so if we want to take a big view, big view of the brain and how self comes about, because we started with the self and I wanted to touch upon the self. Self is the following to me, self is this. Self is the Prefrontal lobes. We engage in mental time travel. A sense of balance and some Julian through time. I was a child, I grew up in. In this ghetto Copenhagen, refugee child. Came to Denmark, came to the States and so forth. Prefrontal cortex, building a sense of self. Then we talked about the insula and mapping your bodily states. That's also part of the sense of self. Then you have the hippocampus, the memory part of the brain, all your memories, part of the self as well. Then you have the superior parietal lobule, those regions involved in a sense of a sense of body image. And my body belongs to me. That also helps you create a sense of self. The teacher, dpj, Sensory information and integrating all that. And I think conjointly, these circuits in the brain creates what's called the self. And from the self, then comes consciousness. You cannot talk about consciousness. A sense of a conscious being without a self, what would be. You can't have free floating consciousness. You have to have a self that's mapped onto that consciousness and linked to that consciousness.
- [131:19]
A
Right?
- [131:20]
B
So I think you have to have a self. You have to have these structures in the brain that conjointly create a self, and then you have consciousness. And then. Did you talk about qualia last time?
- [131:30]
A
Qualia.
- [131:31]
B
Qualia.
- [131:32]
A
That does sound familiar.
- [131:34]
B
Sound familiar?
- [131:34]
A
There were so many things.
- [131:35]
B
We talked about so many things, man. But qualia is an interesting one. Okay, we didn't talk about this. This is unique. You need this following for sense of. For a sense of consciousness. This is interesting. Okay, now if I. If I am a. Say I am a. There's a super scientist here from the future. He's here. He's mapping my brain. He's looking at my brain and he says, I can see all the cascades of chemicals and all this neural firings in your brain as you're about to choose between two football players and choose which you like the best, Messi or Cristiano. Okay, does that make sense? Now he can look at my brain, and by looking in my brain, he will know, even before I make the decision, he will know that I'll choose Messi.
- [132:24]
A
Right?
- [132:25]
B
Okay. He'll know that. And then I might be mischievous and say, look, look, scientist, before I choose Messi or Cristiano, show it to me on a piece of paper. And the sciences will do that. It will show it to you, you. And at this point, you choose to choose the other one. Does that make sense? And when you do that, you defy him?
- [132:52]
A
Yes.
- [132:53]
B
Does it make Sense. My point of this thought experiments is free will and consciousness and free will. Do we have free will or do we not have free will? And there's a lot of debate about free will.
- [133:08]
A
Yeah.
- [133:08]
B
And whether we have free will. I don't think we talk about this.
- [133:11]
A
We got that. This is actually some. I'm glad you're bringing up. I wanted to talk about this more, but we couldn't dig into it.
- [133:17]
B
We didn't have enough time.
- [133:18]
A
What you were saying is that you were defining the three different ways that we can try to basically, like, measure for three will or something like that. And then also what you were saying is that this is where I brought it up earlier, where the idea came from, where you're talking about. We can't totally measure time and space with consciousness, consciousness in the brain, such that it's hard to say whether it goes one way or another with free will. Did I say that?
- [133:43]
B
We talked about. Yeah. So free will is an interesting part. So see, this is when. This is when sleep deprivation then starts to mess me up. I get consciousness and free will. Wrong. But no. Do we have free will as human? This is the question, right? Do we have free will? And in order to have consciousness, you need to have a free will? Arguably. Arguably. Although many scientists do. You know, many scientists don't believe in free will. Did you know this?
- [134:10]
A
I've heard some scientists say it's not real. I didn't know. I don't know if I would use the word many, but I trust you to use the word a lot more than me. You're in the space.
- [134:19]
B
In the space. Most scientists will actually say, most neuroscientists will say we have no free will. They would literally say. They will point to things like the experiment I talked about last time, where if you can actually know, you can look at your brain and measure the brain. And even before a person consciously chooses to move his hand, the brain will pick that up. They will use that, perhaps. And then they will look at all kinds of genetics, epigenetics, environment, and say, look, every decision you made before you went into that bank and you shot that person was all driven by neurochemistry, how much sleep you had last night. And then the person just was in the. You know, he was there. But then all that chemistry, genetics, epigenetics, environment, brain circuitry inherited from the. From the parents, and all that just led up to that moment, and pop, you killed him. So you have no free will. So that's one view, what I was trying to illustrate with this thought experiment is that even if you have access to the brain circuitry and activation before he makes a conscious choice, it seems like you can always defy that at the very end. That was my point. So if you do have a choice between A and B at the very end, if somebody shows you the answer, for example, you can choose to go the other way or you can choose not to go the other way and it becomes the infinite loop. Do we have a sense of conscious awareness, free will, and can we choose our, you know, own path? And I do think we do have veto power to ultimately make our own decision.
- [135:51]
A
I do too. I don't think we're just some, some controlled robot ant and an experiment from an overlord to actually do the things that we command us to do. Like it's a Sims game.
- [136:02]
B
I think so.
- [136:03]
A
And part of that might be my bias to not wanting life to be meaningless because it would feel pretty meaningless if, if we knew otherwise. But I do think some things could be like pre production programmed to not necessarily happen, but to create a cause and effect. Like if certain people are born as a psychopath, they, they are pre programmed to create some sort of chaos in society that will then have a butterfly effect on many other people. Now what that butterfly effect causes, if the wave moves this way or that way and causes this thing or that thing, I think that's where free will comes into it. And I think that if we didn't have free will, we wouldn't have such an understanding of the good and the bad on so many things. Obviously there's gray area with stuff and you know, you can have the conversation about what is all good or what is all bad. And we have many times in different contexts on this podcast, but you know, there, there is the light and the darkness that exists overall where people can see like ah, or you know, and if that makes sense. And so I do think free will plays a role in that. And I also think, you know, you are the dreams expert. We haven't talked a ton about dreams today, but you know, we did get into dreams a lot last time and there's much more to go to. You spent so much of your life on it. But I think that the ways, the way our consciousness can behave, like in a format like that, where we, we fall asleep and then this uncontrollable thing happens where we start to inject what's real, what's fake and create these stories in our mind that's almost like attached to a separate universe while, while our body is resting and physically rebuilding itself. I think that things like that actually prove free will. I don't think that that's like, you know, some uploaded software that's injected into you. It's far too creative, it's far too complex. You know, I guess the counter argument could be, well, what is creative or complex to an entity that's all knowing, that's way above you doing it to you? I guess that's possible, but there's such. There's such clear beauty and chaos in the world that it just wouldn't make sense to me as a human here on earth, that free will would not be a thing.
- [138:26]
B
100. I think consciousness for consciousness, you have to have some kind of free will and you have to have some kind of at least flexible output. So what do I mean? You look at a bee, for example, and it's in its dancing, it does its wiggle dance when it's signaling to the other bees where the hive is and all that. It looks very complicated and complex. But which would most people say a bee is conscious? No, why wouldn't they say a bee is conscious? They would say a bee has no flexible output. It has one. One singular algorithm and it will only do this all the time. So it's not conscious in fact. But a human being, on the other hand, it has a choice. It can make that Cola versus Pepsi or Messi versus Ronaldo question and choose one. So we have flexible output. That's what makes us conscious. Another example would be. Let's take a look. The dream world, as you were talking about. You want to talk about sleep world? Let's talk about that. As an example, during sleep paralysis, are you conscious versus are you conscious during sleep walking? So some people during deep sleep can wake up, jolt awake. In fact, they jolt awake, but only so much so that they can start walking around in their house. They go around, they start maybe their car and start driving. This is well known on the freeway. They go, eyes are wide open, but they're deeply asleep. This is called sleepwalking. Now if you stop that sleepwalker and say, look, Joe Cristiano or Messi, Pepsi or Cola, Paris or London, they will not be able to choose why the prefrontal is shut down. So they have no sense of agency and they have no sense of flexible output. That person is not conscious. We can be clear on that definition. It's like a B or like an. Any kind of like primitive animal with no consciousness. So that we can be clear on the definition here. This is not a conscious agent. But during sleep Paralysis. In fact, the person is conscious. Because if I was to communicate with this person that's paralyzed and is aware of his surroundings, and if I could communicate with him, and in fact I can using his eyes, because the eyes can move, I could actually ask him, who do you prefer, Pele or Maradona? And he could move his eyes. Two to the left that would mean Pele, or one to the right could be Maradona. So that would be an example of consciousness. So definitions are important. And I think having flexible output, being able to choose between A and B and C. Of course, this would be an example of why consciousness, what consciousness is and what is consciousness and what is not conscious. So I think, think. I think that is important.
- [141:07]
A
I think it's going to get really weird though, for humanity in general when we actually can read each other's minds and stuff like that. I think that that could totally change the way people respond. Even experiments like this, because you are conscious of the fact that other people are in your head all the time. I mean, I, I don't. I'm not trying to get too dystopian, but as a neuroscientist who's looking at all the trends and, you know, science behind the brave new world we're entering, how close are we to, whether it be neuralink or whoever's going to do it, setting up a world where we are literally all in each other's heads all the time.
- [141:47]
B
Reading mind is difficult. Difficult, I would say what neuralink are doing with moving, like moving a screen with the brain and things like that, that's actually not too difficult because you have planning and motor regions of the brain. And so you could easily hook that up with an algorithm to move a cursor on a screen. Screen and things like that, you know, to gauge what somebody else is thinking is completely different business. I think that one tantalizing finding is in the dream world. So you can. You actually have studies creating movies of people's dreams.
- [142:22]
A
Creating movies of people's dreams.
- [142:23]
B
Images. Creating like images of what people is dreaming. So this is one way to have access to somebody else's brain. Now, it's very premature. It's very early days.
- [142:33]
A
Oh, wait, it's something you like, plug
- [142:35]
B
into them that creates the imagery, let me tell you. So what they do. So what they'll do is that they will have people lying in a scanner and show them images of a car, of a house, of a chair and so forth, forth. So they have those images and they keep them. Then they show them the Same items as they are awake, car, chair, so forth. So they have, and they scan their brain, they have those images, then they dream and then when they dream about and they ask them to report and then they scan their brain as they're dreaming and they report down, oh, in this, in this dream I saw a car, I saw a house, I saw da da da da. Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with epglis, a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four month or longer dosing phase.
- [143:27]
A
About four in ten people taking Eblis
- [143:28]
B
achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin
- [143:33]
A
that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.
- [143:35]
B
Emplis Lebricizumab LBKZ a 250mg per 2ml injection is a prescription medicine used to treat treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at
- [143:44]
A
least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic
- [143:48]
B
dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. EBGLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you are allergic to ebglis.
- [143:58]
A
Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur.
- [144:01]
B
Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems.
- [144:03]
A
You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with ebglis. Before starting ebglis, tell your doctor if
- [144:07]
B
you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about fglis and visit
- [144:11]
A
fgliss.lily.com or call 1-800-lilyrx or 1-800-545-5979.
- [144:16]
B
And they write that down and they have the images as well. Then they put all that into the AI machine learning, create an algorithm and then when they're dreaming and the brain is scanning their brain, once they hit and they dream on that house they were talking about, based on the images they saw, they can then feed the computer and they will see, they will start seeing a house of maybe a person walking maybe and so forth. So this is new stuff. Very few subjects, I think it's from Japan, but it shows that you can. It's getting to the early days of being able to spit out somebody's dream and putting on, putting on it.
- [144:51]
A
So we're going beyond just mind reading of base to base of basic conscious communication. We're going to mind reading Dreams?
- [145:00]
B
Yes. It started with just being able to say what a person is dreaming. Dreaming about. So they were able to say, okay, this person is dreaming about a car, is dreaming. But based on these photos, they can take their photos. When they're looking at photos and scanning their brains and so forth, they were able to say, a person is dreaming about a car, a house and so forth and like a chair and so on. They didn't have the specificity of saying, oh, this is a Ferrari versus a Honda. They knew that, but they just knew it was a car. But now it's gone too far as. As far as, like, they can put it on a screen and have. Have some of those images pop up. But of course, it's not what the person is actually dreaming about the original one, but it's a. Like a. It's a proxy of that. Who knows what happens in 50 years, 100 years. It probably may have very vivid, lifelike images of your dreams on a screen.
- [145:44]
A
Oh, my God, it's getting crazy out here.
- [145:47]
B
It is.
- [145:48]
A
One of the things I really enjoyed about our conversation last time is how much you're also like a student of history with things, and I didn't really get to ask you, like, the history of. Of dreams and how that's how that's been reflected into our reality. And to put that in English, like, there's so many ancient texts and stories that are told. Some are clearly more philosophical rather than literal. Others seem like they could be literal. But, you know, is it possible that things like, here's a good example. Is it possible something like Moses with the burning bush could just be the reflection of not even Moses's dream, but someone else's dream that. That was just so warped with reality in a way that they actually thought it was real.
- [146:40]
B
Could that be the case? It's hard to say. Right. The burning bush and all that. What happens? What happened? And was it somebody else's dream? What happened? You know, it's hard to say. I can't answer that, but I don't know. But looking at the history of dreams, it's definitely an interesting. There's an interesting unfolding of patterns. And so initially people would look at symbols and symbolize dreams and see them as messages from the God. We talked about Joseph and Joseph's dream from the Bible. He's, you know, in the Quran and what they saw and what he saw. Then later came along Sigmund Freud and said, no. Oh. In fact, dreams are the unconscious mind. You have something called the latent and the manifest content. The latent contents is all the symbols you're seeing jumping around in your brain. So you're seeing yourself on the moon, having tea with the queen. Everything is spacey, time, places, people, everything is warped. Your brain cannot tackle these anxiety inducing objects head on, so it creates a symbol. And if you were to see them as a manifest content as they actually were, you would be jolted awake. So your brain uses these symbols, this is Freud's idea. And then you would have the person, when he's awake, analyzes dreams, decode them and then by then removes, remove the neurosis, the anxiety and then that will heal him in many ways. Freud, I'm not a Freudian. In fact I don't like Freud very much, but he was ahead of his time. When it comes to dreams, like knowing it's the unconscious and there's something going on beyond just simple divine messages. The brain is definitely involved. As we talked about at length last time. After that came along other scientists and then looking at the brain and knowing that the brain is involved in various parts of, of the brain turn on and off when we are dreaming. And so that's kind of roughly the, the, the history of, of, of dreams, if that makes sense.
- [148:45]
A
When did we like what's the earliest where, where humankind people wrote down or you know, left some history of dreams where they clearly defined it as the fact that it was a dream and that you know, it was just when you were asleep. This is what they, they thought of.
- [149:03]
B
Interesting. So it wasn't like divine messages and all that.
- [149:06]
A
Right.
- [149:06]
B
It's. I don't know, I don't know exactly when the first time might have been. I'm inclined towards Freud in the sense of like in a major way that, that, that shifted society in a major societal way where he actually made a, like had a treatise and had like an actual, an argument. But there may have been other people before him that have, might have, you know, mentioned that, but they might have been burned at the stake or something for, for not following the, the, the, the, the paradigm of the time and the time, you know, the thought of the time so well.
- [149:41]
A
I mean I think one of the many things Freud talks about was, was the dreams of the unconscious mind also reflect like our attractions and stuff like that as well. Right. So what we dream is that do we dream about people we're attracted to that we may not even know we're attracted to or that might feel attracted to us and we didn't know it?
- [150:04]
B
It's a tricky thing here because yes, he did Say it's the royal road to the unconscious, that our unconscious mind is really bubbling away inside the dream. And that is what we are seeing, that it's our things that are beneath the surface. Right. He did say that. But does that, but does, Is that the, Is that the whole story? So when I see myself attracted to that, that girl at work, does it mean that I'm actually attracted to her and I'm trying to inhibit that? I don't think that's true necessarily because dreams don't follow in a completely logical pattern. There may be some aspects of her you are attracted to, but people will actually have. See themselves being sexually engaged with family members, incest scenarios and, or pedophilia or same sex. There's all kinds of bizarre things in dreams people will talk about that aren't
- [150:53]
A
reflective of how they feel.
- [150:54]
B
No, no, not whatsoever. So you can think of the instinctual brain being amygdala and the emotional part of the brain being 30% more active and the prefrontal cortex shutting down. And then you just have this messiness of concepts created in your mind where you cannot make sense of who is person A. Why am I attracted, Is this somebody else I'm attracted to? Is this, Maybe this is the per. Maybe this is a, A, A beautiful woman's body, but the head of somebody else. And things you can, you cannot. Like going into the realm of dreams is going down the rabbit hole. So trying to analyze that and say, look, no, I'm attracted to person, this person over here. And that's why I'm dreaming about them, is I think it can be dangerous, very dangerous.
- [151:40]
A
What's the difference between a dream, a dream and an illusion?
- [151:47]
B
Illusion, okay. In dreams there are several, several components to dreams. In dreams, you are delusional. You have false beliefs. You think that you may be a superman and that you are living in a palace. So this is called a delusion. So you have delusions when you're dreaming. You have amnesia. So you forget your dream. There's amnesia. You have hallucinations as well, meaning you have, you have perceptual view, you have perceptual percepts that are not true. These are hallucinations. These are not happening in real life. You're not actually jumping up, jump. You're not flying. In real life, you have hallucinations and then you have your temporarily psychotic as well. You have strange and bizarre scenarios unfolding. An illusion, on the other hand, is something I see in real life that is not actually the case. So that's an illusion. I have an illusion of something. I have an illusion. It's a false belief, but it's not a delusion. But it's a belief I have of something that turns out not to be the case. Maybe we can look it up. The actual definition and delusion is obviously pathological.
- [153:08]
A
The definition of illusion or delusion?
- [153:10]
B
Illusion. Yeah. An illusion could be an visual illusion. Something that is
- [153:16]
A
the definition of illusion is a thing that is or is likely to be wrongly perceived or interpreted by the senses.
- [153:23]
B
Correct. So this would be an illusion. Yeah. Okay. And whereas a delusion would be a false belief.
- [153:29]
A
The reason I'm asking because, like, in some ways, it seems like an obvious answer to me. One is like, when you're asleep. The other one is just when you see something, something wrong. But, like, I'm wondering. The reason I asked the question, like, what's the difference between a dream, a dream and an illusion? Is because we almost have, like, the safety net in my mind of just accepting the fact that, well, a dream is really happening.
- [153:50]
B
Yes.
- [153:51]
A
When you're asleep, meaning in a different state. But is it acted? Like, when we see an illusion, are we having the same. This is not the term for it, but like, psychedelic aspects of the brain being activated that happen in a dream. But because we're awake, we just differentiate it when we really shouldn't at all. Because when we're asleep, we're still the same person with the same brain. See what I'm saying?
- [154:15]
B
No, say that again. Sorry.
- [154:16]
A
So that. Get a little. That got a little convoluted at the end. When we're asleep, it's almost like we are viewing ourself as, like, different. We're. We're not the same person because we're not here. We're not conscious at the moment, whereas when we're awake. I'm Julian. I'm looking at this camera right now. I'm trying to figure out. Whatever I'm trying to figure out, I'm here in the moment. I'm present.
- [154:39]
B
Yes.
- [154:39]
A
So with an illusion, we may look at it and we know, like, right now we're present and we're actually looking at this illusion. Whereas with a dream, you know, we're asleep and we forget where we are. Yes. But in reality, the aspects of the brain that tie into both meaning like that make us notice that this. This is an illusion. Or make us notice that this is a dream.
- [155:00]
B
Yes.
- [155:00]
A
Are still being activated regardless of what state we're in, sleep or awake.
- [155:05]
B
Well, it actually shuts down when we're asleep. So the Part of the brain that can differentiate between real and false shuts down. And that's why everything in the dream feels so real. That's why when you see that monster or you see that girl, or you have that conversation, it feels very real. Sense of self agency shuts down. And in fact that's very adaptive. That's very adaptive. Why? Having a dream where you are running from an alligator, jumping over that stone, jumping into that river, removing that tree, what you're doing right there, you are crystallizing circuits in the brain that can help you survive better. You help you survive much better. And you are training dress rehearsing for real life inside the dream, if that makes sense. Make a dress rehearsal for real life in that dream. It's like virtual reality, crystallizing the circuit, making you more inept and being able to more powerfully deal with that in real life by having the circuitry laid out in the brain. This is really what the dream is all about. And then having that extra layer in the brain when sense of self agency goes away, that's really powerful because it makes it much more immersive. It feels much more real. So that is what a dream is all about. It's being in this scientific testing lab with no fatal consequences. And you do not know it's a testing lab. So it feels much more immersive and real, if that makes sense.
- [156:41]
A
Right.
- [156:42]
B
And so that's what, what a dream is all about.
- [156:44]
A
Yeah. I was struggling to. It's a very difficult question for me to ask. It's one of those where like I know in my head what I'm trying to say, but getting into words, people are probably like, what the. Did he just ask right there?
- [156:54]
B
Yeah.
- [156:54]
A
But the reason I was like trying to get it, the illusion part is, is because like if I look at an image where they, you'll see these on social media where they say, look at this in the middle for 10 seconds and it's gonna move.
- [157:09]
B
Yeah.
- [157:11]
A
You suddenly see it moving.
- [157:13]
B
Yes.
- [157:14]
A
You know it's not moving, but you're suspended in belief in that moment that you're like holy, it's moving. And you kind of can't tell the difference between the two. So to me, when you talk about dreams like being a suspension from reality.
- [157:27]
B
Yes.
- [157:27]
A
I think there's it, you know, my non academic opinion, I think there's a similar thing that's happening.
- [157:33]
B
Yeah.
- [157:34]
A
When you are caught in the moment of being faced with this thing that is being told to you that it's an illusion, but you actually then Believe like, oh, it really is moving. You know what I mean?
- [157:43]
B
Oh, yeah. No, look, the brain, obviously what it does is it does have. It fills in the blanks all the time and creates, you know, it has. It fills in perceptual holes all the time. An example would be. An example would be, for example, let's say I talked about last time how you have conceptual parts of the brain. When you look at an image, you can look at it from a conceptual point of view initially, or you can look at it from an actual sensory point of view. And these two blend. And then your brain makes up a decision based on both conceptual hippocampus, Wernicke's area, these meaning parts of the brain, and the actual sensory raw data and then makes up, up, oh, this is a table. This is this, this is that. And then if you have damage, let's say, to the eye, to the eye, it will fill in the blanks and it will give you all kinds of inputs and say the world looks like this, it looks like that. And the reason it does this, you have the syndrome. And that is because viewing the world is a controlled hallucination. The world is not actually the world I'm seeing out there is not the actual world. It is a constructed world. It's a controlled hallucination. Is my conceptual brain, my memory centers, chit chatting with my actually sensory centers and saying, oh, this is probably the world out there. It's making a prediction about the world. So in other words, at any given moment you can see the world in various ways. Let me give you an example. You know the Dalmatian dog, it kind of has splotches initially. You won't know it's a Dalmatian doc. Maybe you can look it up up here. But it's like a. It's. It's like sploshes. Maybe not, but. But it has like splashes. And then you see it and it becomes a dog all of a sudden. Have you seen that?
- [159:29]
A
I don't think I'm familiar with this.
- [159:31]
B
Dalmatian dog Sploshes Illusion.
- [159:36]
A
Dalmatian dog splashes illusion. Yeah. Oh, yes. Okay, so you're talking about where it's like. There's other illusions like this, where it's like, do you see a shape? Oh, now you see a dog.
- [159:52]
B
And there's a perceptual click.
- [159:53]
A
Yes.
- [159:54]
B
Yeah. This would be an example. There's other. What's called bistable illusion. So you look at a woman's face at one point, it looks like an old lady or it looks Like a beautiful young chick. So it kind of flips and that's again, your brain can conceptually drive this and then once you can, you can't see both. Either you see one or the other. Showing you how, how seeing is very conceptually driven. It's driven by our, our conceptual views of the world.
- [160:22]
A
May. I'm getting way outside my bounds right here, but I'm just, I'm. I'm trying to tie some of this together to like time and space and how it's odd if you look at the movie Interstellar.
- [160:33]
B
Yes.
- [160:33]
A
Which Kip Thorne advised on and it got a lot of things according to many scientists, like conceptually solid.
- [160:41]
B
Yeah.
- [160:41]
A
I think there's some scientists are like well this couldn't happen or that couldn't happen. But there was a lot of concepts that, that they seem to do a great job with.
- [160:48]
B
Yeah.
- [160:49]
A
The idea that they enter this Matthew McConaughey and and the team enter this black hole and then on the other side of the black hole go to these planets such that when they physically go onto the planets, time is changed to 20 years per every hour or whatever. It was something like that back home.
- [161:07]
B
Right.
- [161:08]
A
Meaning that when they're done this mission where they didn't age very much much, they go home and earth is aged 100 years or something like that. Is there a concept in them entering that black hole and then coming out on the other side onto the planets to where. How do I want to. So hard to ask. To where their consciousness has been suspended such that it seems that time has not passed. But time really did pass to them. But on Earth no consciousness was suspended. So time passed and the aging process took place in a way that it doesn't take place for McConaughey and his team on the other side of the black hole.
- [161:52]
B
That's a great question.
- [161:54]
A
Thank God.
- [161:59]
B
It's hard to say exactly from that the perspective of that movie. It's very hard to say whether how that would map. But consciousness time can stand still in your brain. This is actually clear cut example of this. This is a man called H.M. and his hippocampus region. He had his hippocampi, the two memories structures in the brain. Jelly roll structures behind the ears. You have two of them on each side and they help you take short term memory and store it in long term vaults in the cortex, the outer layer of the brain. Now this poor chap back in the day, he had both his hippocampi removed. So he has no hippocampus. So he's basically Staying in the realm of like one or two minutes all the time, and then he forgets everything else. So every time his wife appears, it's like seeing her for the first time in 30 years. They have a conversation and he has forgotten everything. 30 minute, 2 minutes has gone, she comes back and he's happy again for seeing her. So you could sit there and you could tell him the same joke over and over and he will just laugh, find it funny. He will find his wife attractive each time as if the first time he saw her and you can introduce yourself to him and the whole evening and he will forget you after two minutes and you have to reintroduce yourself. So this is an example of being stuck in time. Hm. And his brain was like extremely well studied. This would be an example of how consciousness can break down, how, like how time can, can, can, you know, unravel for, for some people.
- [163:39]
A
Yeah. That's from a short circuit perspective though, internally having to do with the brain organ itself.
- [163:45]
B
Do you mean time perception itself? It can expand. We talked about how time can expand in dreams, for example, become feel stretched out because neurons are firing more slowly in rem, in rats. And that could mean that the brain, time feels stretched out in dreams. I think there are some examples. For example, like when you look at an awe striking thing, like you look at a mountain that's just beautiful. Like I was recently in California and I saw this mountain and we have nothing like this in Copenhagen, for, for example. And this beautiful mountain is stunning. Okay, I looked at that and it's shown that people, when they look at awe striking things like a mountain, a beautiful tree, time expands, it feels longer. Cortisol goes down by the way as well. And they become more charitable. So if you are sitting underneath a beautiful awe striking tree, you become more charitable, you become more, you know, helpful, you become more kinder as a person as well. And overall time will just feel like it's stretching out. The converse scenario is when you are stressed and the amygdala is hyperactive and cortisol is through the roof and noradrenaline is through the roof, time feels compressed. You feel like time is running out all the time. So that would be the counter example.
- [165:03]
A
What you're talking about is perception of time.
- [165:05]
B
Perception of time.
- [165:06]
A
Yeah. Is there a way that perception meets physical reality scientifically? Because that's what interstellar was trying to say. Not, I mean they were talking about time dilation more than anything. But what I'm wondering is that if the, if there's, if there's a way to determine the time dilation in what we're explaining scientifically is actually like a perception, an illusion itself such that it feels like. And then physically manifests in a way such that they don't age.
- [165:37]
B
Yeah, it.
- [165:38]
A
And, and they feel like they only spent a year up there or something, but they actually did spend 80. And there's something where the consciousness was suspended.
- [165:46]
B
Yeah.
- [165:46]
A
That like, allowed them to not have that manifest physically, emotionally, or mentally.
- [165:52]
B
Yeah, it's.
- [165:53]
A
I mean, it's a. It's way beyond my pay grade. But no worries about it.
- [165:57]
B
I understand it's. It's a deep question, but I think in interstellar, for example, they end up on that bizarre planet with the ice and all that. You've seen that. And I think a few minutes there corresponds to like seven, eight years.
- [166:12]
A
I think it was every 20 minutes is like seven years or something like that.
- [166:16]
B
And then the poor chap is on the spaceship and he's been waiting 30 years. You've seen that 20.
- [166:21]
A
Yeah. 23. Yeah.
- [166:22]
B
Yeah. The question would be then, could you do something similar for consciousness? I don't think so, because what is happening, this is actually, this is actually time shrinking in a. Like you like. Or expanding or whatever it might be, depending on. This is physics. Right. Time, space. And if you are in a certain atmosphere and how, you know, how things rotate, rotation of the planets and all that, and then time will feel different, but you will physically age too. You will, like, the brain will age, the body will age. And could something similar happen on Earth? I mean, you would need, you would need to really be something that is more physics than neuroscience here because that would require extra aging and so forth of the body and the brain.
- [167:10]
A
That's what I was thinking about a lot after our last conversation. How much your world goes right up onto the edge such that it literally goes over the cliff into physics.
- [167:19]
B
Yeah.
- [167:20]
A
You know, even if it's not intended to be that way. Like, you're a neuroscientist, you're studying an organ, the brain and the effects it has. But then the things that you find and uncover in your various studies get right into like our physical reality.
- [167:32]
B
It does. It does. I think you're right. And I think as we're moving more into the future and we build machine, and we have machine brain interface, and you build like, you have TMS machines that can scan your brain and you have ultrasound that can go to deepen the brain and activate neurons deep in the brain and revive that neurons and things like that. It will be an interaction between physics and engineering and in one hand and then brain science on the other. So I think as we move along these specialized field would need to. Fields we need to cooperate a lot in order to get to, you know, to make advances, if that makes sense.
- [168:10]
A
Hell yeah. I got a million other things I want to talk with you about, but we're coming up close to three hours, so I think we should cut it there. We'll have to do this again, of course. I already knew that before you came in. But there's just like, God, I could talk with guys like you all day because it just gets so fascinating. I appreciate you having patience with some of my questions. Very hard to take some of these concepts as an. Especially as a non scientist or something and you know.
- [168:37]
B
Yeah.
- [168:37]
A
Express it into words. And you're very patient with that.
- [168:40]
B
Well, I love it, man. Thank you for having me. And. And if I was rambling a bit today, forgive me, you know, my sleep, sleep deprivation and all that can hit you after time zones and travels and all that. This is the tail end of my travel. So I was in California coming as I was here, California coming back here and then going to Copenhagen in a few hours. My bags.
- [168:57]
A
Oh, you're flying to Copenhagen from here.
- [168:59]
B
Nice. Yeah. So. All right.
- [169:01]
A
So I appreciate you fitting it in.
- [169:02]
B
Yeah.
- [169:03]
A
And you weren't rambling at all. Your explanations are great. There was some. We had a wide range today. But then a lot of the stuff on love and attraction, I mean Balon's work on that is some of the greatest since finers.
- [169:16]
B
Oh yeah.
- [169:17]
A
You know. You ever read finer before?
- [169:19]
B
No, I haven't.
- [169:19]
A
Oh, the 15, 1530 method is. Is that you're a Harvard neuroscientist. You never read this?
- [169:25]
B
No.
- [169:25]
A
It's incredible stuff. I'll send you afterwards. His work in. In the field of life, love, science is unprecedented. Stu Finer. But anyway, wonderful. Thank you so much for being here. We'll do it again, my friend.
- [169:36]
B
Sounds great, brother.
- [169:37]
A
All right, everyone else, you know what it is. Give it a thought, get back to me.
- [169:40]
B
Peace.
- [169:40]
A
What's up guys? Thanks so much for watching the video. If you have not subscribed, please hit that subscribe button before you leave. As well as leaving a like on the video. It's a huge, huge help. You can join my Patreon via the link in the description and you can also join my clipping community via the Discord link down below. See you for the next episode.
- [169:58]
B
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