1123: David Eagleman | Your Prehistoric Brain on Modern Problems

Summary

The Jordan Harbinger Show: Episode 1123 with David Eagleman | Your Prehistoric Brain on Modern Problems

Release Date: March 4, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 1123 of The Jordan Harbinger Show, neuroscientist Dr. David Eagleman delves into the intricate workings of the human brain and its implications on contemporary issues. From anti-counterfeiting measures to the philosophical quandaries of brain uploading, Eagleman's insights bridge neuroscience with everyday challenges and future technologies.

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Anti-Counterfeiting: Leveraging Neuroscience to Secure Currency

Dr. Eagleman discusses his collaboration with the European Central Bank (ECB) to combat counterfeiting. Traditional anti-counterfeiting measures, such as holograms and UV-reactive inks, often go unnoticed by the general public, rendering them less effective.

David Eagleman [05:07]: "What they wanted to know was what did people actually perceive when they look at a bill and what do they not perceive."

Eagleman proposed replacing intricate designs with faces, leveraging the brain's specialized ability to recognize faces. Although the ECB initially embraced the idea, logistical challenges—such as selecting a singular face representative for multiple European cultures—led to substituting the mythical goddess Europa.

David Eagleman [10:06]: "They felt like money has to be regal looking. And they felt like there's all this cultural momentum to money."

Despite the ECB's rejection of a minimalist design featuring a single hologram, Eagleman advocates for simplicity as a deterrent to counterfeiters, emphasizing that a blank bill with a central hologram could significantly reduce the feasibility of high-quality forgeries.

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Change Blindness and Inattentional Blindness: The Brain's Limitations

A significant portion of the discussion centers on human perceptual limitations, specifically change blindness and inattentional blindness. These phenomena illustrate how individuals often fail to notice significant alterations in their environment when their attention is focused elsewhere.

David Eagleman [18:53]: "This is what's classified as inattentional blindness."

Eagleman references experiments, including those conducted by magician Derren Brown and his own research at Harvard, demonstrating how easily the brain can overlook substantial changes or distractions when preoccupied with specific tasks. This cognitive oversight has profound implications, from everyday interactions to complex security measures.

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Empathy, In-Group vs. Out-Group Dynamics, and the Pain Matrix

Exploring the neural foundations of empathy, Eagleman reveals how the brain responds differently to individuals perceived as part of one's in-group versus out-group. Through fMRI studies, he discovered that empathy—measured by the activation of the 'pain matrix'—is significantly reduced when observing out-group members in distress.

David Eagleman [25:03]: "Your brain does not care as much if it's a member of any of your out groups that gets stabbed."

This reduced empathic response underscores inherent biases that can lead to social division and lack of concern for distant or culturally different individuals. Eagleman highlights how societal structures and personal interactions, such as those demonstrated by Daryl Davis with former Ku Klux Klan members, can help bridge these empathic gaps by redefining in-group boundaries through genuine connections.

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Social Media Algorithms: Shaping Empathy and Social Cohesion

Addressing the influence of technology on human relationships, Eagleman critiques current social media algorithms for exacerbating in-group/out-group distinctions by prioritizing content that aligns with users' existing beliefs. He proposes a more integrative approach where common interests, rather than divisive topics, form the basis of online interactions.

David Eagleman [45:03]: "Imagine that you and I have totally different political beliefs, but we both like hang gliding and this kind of dog... then we can talk."

By fostering connections based on shared hobbies and interests, social media platforms could enhance empathy and understanding across diverse groups, mitigating polarization and fostering a more cohesive society.

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Brain Uploading: Possibilities and Philosophical Implications

Eagleman explores the futuristic concept of uploading human consciousness to digital platforms. While acknowledging the immense technological advancements required—such as handling the brain's 200 trillion synapses and ensuring neuroplasticity—he engages with the philosophical debate on identity and continuity.

David Eagleman [46:27]: "If we took your brain and we put it onto a different substrate, let's say you go onto silicon, would it be you? In theory, yes."

He discusses scenarios where transferring consciousness could raise ethical dilemmas, such as the potential for duplicating individuals or the responsibilities of those controlling digital replicas. Furthermore, Eagleman emphasizes the significance of brain plasticity in maintaining a dynamic and evolving consciousness, which presents additional challenges for accurate simulations.

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Mind Reading and Lie Detection: Current Capabilities and Future Prospects

Addressing the intriguing possibility of reading thoughts through technologies like fMRI, Eagleman clarifies the current limitations and misconceptions. While specific brain regions, such as the visual and auditory cortices, can be mapped to certain perceptions, the complexity and individuality of thought processes make comprehensive mind reading unfeasible.

David Eagleman [62:14]: "The thought is... Oh, I've never been to David's house before... There's so much thinking that we're never going to be able to figure out."

Similarly, lie detection via brain imaging faces significant hurdles. Techniques that attempt to identify deceit by measuring stress responses can be easily circumvented by adept individuals or those inherently unaffected by stress, rendering such methods unreliable for legal or security purposes.

David Eagleman [66:54]: "It's super easy to fool these things... they're very sensitive signals."

Eagleman underscores that while technological advancements may enhance our ability to interpret specific neural activities, the nuanced and subjective nature of human thought ensures that true mind reading remains beyond our reach for the foreseeable future.

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Conclusion

Dr. David Eagleman's conversation on The Jordan Harbinger Show offers a profound exploration of how our prehistoric brain architecture grapples with modern challenges. From securing our financial systems to understanding and enhancing human empathy, Eagleman's insights reveal both the potential and the limitations of neuroscience in shaping our future. As technology evolves, the interplay between our biological predispositions and innovative solutions will continue to define the trajectory of human progress.

Notable Quotes:

• David Eagleman [05:07]: "What they wanted to know was what did people actually perceive when they look at a bill and what do they not perceive."
• David Eagleman [18:53]: "This is what's classified as inattentional blindness."
• David Eagleman [25:03]: "Your brain does not care as much if it's a member of any of your out groups that gets stabbed."
• David Eagleman [45:03]: "Imagine that you and I have totally different political beliefs, but we both like hang gliding and this kind of dog... then we can talk."
• David Eagleman [46:27]: "If we took your brain and we put it onto a different substrate, let's say you go onto silicon, would it be you? In theory, yes."
• David Eagleman [62:14]: "The thought is... Oh, I've never been to David's house before... There's so much thinking that we're never going to be able to figure out."
• David Eagleman [66:54]: "It's super easy to fool these things... they're very sensitive signals."

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For more insights from Dr. David Eagleman and other fascinating guests, visit jordanharbinger.com and tune into The Jordan Harbinger Show.

Transcript

[David Eagleman]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

It's not you, it's us.

[David Eagleman]

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[Eduardo]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, human, even the occasional Russian chess grandmaster, Hollywood filmmaker, cold case, homicide investigator, or money laundering expert. And if you're new to the show or you're looking for a handy way to tell your friends about it, I suggest our Episode Starter Packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. Neuroscientist Dr. David Eagleman is back on the show. He's been on several times. He's always a huge hit with y'all, y'all. Today we're talking about counterfeiting money. Why a neuroscientist was brought in to help solve this complex problem that largely relies on our brain's ability to detect counterfeits in the first place. Also, will we be able to upload our brains to the Internet? How would that work? Of course, there's a lot that goes into this also some philosophical questions come up as a result. Who's the real me after that? My body or my virtual self? Do I have to kill one of them? That seems a little creepy. Maybe we'll get into that here on the show.

And.

And will we be able to read people's thoughts using FMRI or some other similar technology? Why or why not? And more importantly, when? All this and a whole lot more here today with Dr. David Eagleman. All right, here we go.

Thanks for coming back to your semi yearly appearance on the Jordan Harbinger Show.

[David Eagleman]

Man, I love it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I say this every time I think. But we met through our mutual friend John Levy, who runs the unfortunately named Influencers dinners, which he picked that word before. It was like a slur. Influencer. He was great at connecting people. And I'm almost sure I've told this before too, but somebody had not shown up. And then you and I were tapped to give like a. In the pinch, five minute TED Talk. You did the something about the brain and I did something about North Korea because whoever it was didn't make it. They were stuck in traffic or something.

[David Eagleman]

Right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And then a woman asked if this thing with the brain that means telepathy must be real. And you very diplomatically handled that question. Was handled without making her look ridiculous, which I thought was nice of you. You've been up to some fun stuff. Tell me about the anti. Counterfeiting. I was going to say tell me about the Benjamins you're printing in the basement at Stanford.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, that's a project for a year in secret till it was all done.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Why is it secret? Because they don't want you to.

[David Eagleman]

Why was it secret? I don't know. They just didn't want me talking about it while I was doing it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, it seems obvious that you wouldn't want to talk about anti counterfeiting efforts. I guess they don't want an organized crime group to get to you and be like, we will pay you $10 million if you do this one thing for us. Put in this thing that we happen to be doing with our counterfeits. Ye. And we'll pay you or threaten you.

[David Eagleman]

That's right. That's right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[David Eagleman]

I had to sign all kinds of paperwork. They would take me to the European Central Bank. They like beat me through a door and then we go and we go do another door. You have to do another security badge and then another. It was really deep in there where they keep all the counterfeits.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, they have the counterfeits in. Oh, how Cool Is that they keep.

[David Eagleman]

Counterfeits that they collect and they've got them in piles. We think this is from Turkey and we think this is from Germany and whatever. And the way they can tell is just some signature of that counterfeit. So they just put those all together and wow.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is it easier, I wonder, to counterfeit euros or dollars?

[David Eagleman]

Both are very difficult, but dollars, apparently there are super bills, which means perfect counterfeits.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Really?

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, apparently those exist in the North.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Korea is supposed to be making those, I think supernotes.

[David Eagleman]

Jesus.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, which makes sense, right? Because they can dedicate a billion dollars to trying to figure out how to do this. God. And there's no authorities are breathing down their neck at all because it's. The whole regime is just isolated. So it's like nuclear program funded by counterfeiting. So why bother counterfeiting the euro if there's more US dollars in circulation?

[David Eagleman]

If you live in Europe, it's just easier to launder them.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I see.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So the anti counterfeiting, why did they tap you for this? What are they looking for?

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, what they wanted to know was what did people actually perceive when they look at a bill and what do they not perceive? So what they were doing was spending tons of money on anti counterfeiting measures. There's a hologram, there's color changing ink and there's a little stripe and there's little fibers in the bill that change color when you shine a UV light on them. Things like this, there's all kinds of stuff. And it turns out no one ever notices this stuff. As in, okay, forget the UV light part. Just looking at the bill, there's about five or six different security measures. People just don't notice. So what the EU realized is they're wasting tons of money every year on this stuff and they wanted to figure out what is the way we see the world and what would cause people to look at the bill and get it a little bit better. So I happened to be at a visual neuroscience conference and I was standing in the bed and there was this other guy standing there. So we start chatting at some point and he said he's from the European Central Bank. And I said, wow, what are you doing at this little visual neuroscience conference? And he said, I'm here to learn some things and figure out how to reduce counterfeiting. So we started chatting for a while and popped some ideas and then that's how they contracted me.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's pretty cool. It seems shockingly informal for how a government would normally go about anti Counterfeiting? Oh yeah, I met this guy at a conference. We were hanging out in the back, having a couple of pina coladas or whatever. And then I decided to hire him to figure out how to stop counterfeiting these euros.

[David Eagleman]

That's right. I mean, I suspect they did some research on me and they found out. I think so, yeah, I was capable of doing this. But yeah, I think it was so brave of them to do this because to my knowledge, other governments haven't done that before. They've got their guys and they try to figure stuff out about better and better security measures, but that doesn't work. In fact, the European Union had done this thing for a while where they ran public campaigns. This thing about, hey everyone, when you're handed a bill, you should really stop and look at the bill. And so. And they didn't work.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Who's gonna do that?

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

With five bucks.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly. So they spent 10 million more dollars doing these public service ads on it and didn't lead to anything. So that's why they were looking for a new strategy there.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that makes sense. If I got a counterfeit $100 bill, unless it was really bad, I would never notice.

And it's also kind of not my problem.

Cause I'm gonna go spend that at, I don't know, a gas station or something and then they're going to put it in the bag and then the bank is going to go, ah, crap, this is fake. And then I don't know how it works, but I think the business loses that money. And if they use the marker and it's a good counterfeit, it's going to work with the marker. I don't think anybody pays attention to this. So somebody just gets screwed later down the line. It's not going to be the person who's selling flowers at the stand on the side of the road who gets it. It's going to be somebody who's going to the bank. So these little tiny. Oh, this dollar has a spider in the corner on top of the five. No. Unless you're little kids look for that. Not grown ass adults who are handling $1,000 an hour in currency.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly right. But also it's really easy to copy that. The ecb, the European Central bank hired me to do this. So I said, okay, are you going to send me some counterfeits? And they said we can't for legal reasons. So you need to counterfeit yourself, you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Need to make your own.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly. And it turns out for the kind of studies I was doing, the difficulty with counterfeiting, for example, is getting the paper right. The paper is very special. I'll tell you how they do that in some places in Venezuela, when the economy was really crashing there, they would bleach the Bolivar bills. They would bleach their bills to make counterfeits for other countries, because it turned out to be economically worthwhile to do that. But yeah, so what I did though is I would, for example, you know, you can take a bill and you can just copy it with a high resolution scanner and print it and so on. It doesn't feel quite right. But the point is it's quite easy to get all the pieces and parts except for one, except for the watermark. The watermark is the part where you hold up the bill and you look, you can see a little figure through the thing there. That, it turns out, is the part that's the most difficult to counterfeit because that exists between the front and the back.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's what I thought.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, exactly. So you can't print that in any normal way. So typically counterfeit operations have an artist that draws that part. So this led to one of the main recommendations I made to the European Central bank, which is they had a building, a little structure as their watermark. So you look in the thing, you see the little building. I ran study showing that I can show you a building and then I can show you another bill that has a similar building and you can't tell the difference unless you're an architect who specializes in that kind of thing or something. You just don't know.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This has Doric columns and this has Ionic columns.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, exactly. What I recommend is they put a face there because faces we are super specialized for, we've got all this neural real estate for recognizing faces.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I see.

[David Eagleman]

So you can tell if a face doesn't look right. Imagine you're looking at your wife's face, someone's drawn to the side, you would immediately be able to tell. Now, the problem was they thought that was a great suggestion and went for that. But they didn't know whose face to use. Because in the European Union you've got all these different countries and everyone wants their own person, their own king, who.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Had a large control over a large portion of Europe for any period of time. Nobody that you want to put on the money these days.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I meant Napoleon, for the record. Yeah.

[David Eagleman]

So what they did finally is they used the face of the mythical goddess Europa.

[Jordan Harbinger]

There you go.

[David Eagleman]

Which is sort of a half step in the right direction because on the one hand we can get used to it and recognize, hey, that face doesn't look right. But it's not a face we immediately recognize because it's a made up face, first of all. So it wasn't the perfect solution, but it got us closer.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So looking at buildings is confusing for us. Not confusing, but we don't see the small differences, and that's part of the problem. And that for faces, we have more neural real estate. Do we know why that is? I got a painting of myself from a sponsor, and my initial reaction was, that doesn't look anything like me. How did they get this so wrong? But everybody else, including my wife, was like, what are you talking about? It looks exactly like you. It's totally fine. And then we shared it with my parents, and they're like, oh, it really does. And I was just thinking, are you all insane? This doesn't look like me. So that sort of familiarity with our own face or maybe the faces of others, we just have much higher degree of specificity that we can look at.

[David Eagleman]

Because there's two issues in there. So one is your ability to recognize other people's faces. This is evolutionarily very important. We're an extremely social species, so we live in small groups and we look at faces and the identity is massively important to us. And we're so good at it that when you realize that the difference from face to face is like a tiny difference in the distance between the eyes or the length of the nose or the frenulum, these are really subtle differences.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[David Eagleman]

But we are exquisitely good at it because we're a social creature. Now, the issue about why you don't recognize your own face, that's because you only see your face from a particular angle in the mirror, straight on. So it's backwards, by the way. It's left, right, reversed in the mirror. But also you don't see yourself from all the other angles.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, it was a side profile, too. Yeah, yeah. I was like, that's not what side profile looks like. I was like, you're crazy. It's exactly what your side profile looks like.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly. This is analogous to. For different reasons, but it's analogous to hearing your own voice. You and I, as podcasters are probably much more used to hearing our voice than other people. But when you're a kid and you hear your own voice on a tape recorder, you think, it doesn't sound anything like me. And that's because you only hear your own voice from inside your head. The resonance of the skull and the cavities in there is very different from how other people hear you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Starting off with podcasting is tough for a lot of people because they always go, I hate the way that I sound. And I always have to tell new podcasters that will eventually fade.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And they go, oh, why will my voice change? And I thought, no, you're just going to get so used to hearing yourself in a recording. It'll be almost like you're hearing yourself when you talk. But it's going to take a year or two because you need to build up the reps, the hours of hearing your own voice. But, yeah, until then, it sounds like the answering machines in the 80s where you go, oh, my God, is that what I sound like? This is horrible news.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly. So that's why when you saw your face and stuff. The other weird part is that you're constantly changing, right. Your face morphs through time. And when you look at a picture of yourself from a decade ago, two decades ago, and so on. But it's hard somehow to keep track of that about ourselves.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's interesting. So back to the money. People will notice faces more than buildings. Since that's intuitive, maybe thing that we might notice because no one's like, wait, this doesn't have that little strip on the side. When I shine the UV on it, it's not there. Or they mark it with a marker. If you pay with a hundred at Chuck E. Cheese to make sure they're not gonna counterfeit, they really just need to be able to look at it and go, eh, that face looks a little bit too cartoony. Maybe this is fake.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly. Now, here's the thing. The reason the watermark is important is because all the rest of it is just super easy to scan digitally and rep. So all the rest we just assume will be right. The watermark is a part that has to be done by hand, usually. And so that's why that really matters there. What's interesting, I'll tell you one of the other recommendations I made to these guys is I said, look, what I've realized from a year of doing this is that a bill is full of distractions. The thing, the trees, the flowers, the banners, the eagles, the whatever. Like, it's so full of stuff that you would not notice if that tree were missing or the eagle or, like, it just doesn't matter. And what that does is it distracts us from the security features. Therefore, the optimal thing to do would be to have a blank bill with a single hologram in the middle. Holograms are hard to counterfeit. That's it. You just want a single hologram that tells you the money. 20 or 50 or 100. And I made the argument to these guys and they all sat there and they said, you know what, in theory, we agree with you. The logic of it is indisputable. But what they felt like is money has to be regal looking. And they felt like there's all this cultural momentum to money. And so in the end they rejected that, they turned it down. But it's a real shame because that's how you stop counterfeiting or reduce it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So it would have been like a blank white or off white colored paper with a hologram in the middle and the number 20 on it.

[David Eagleman]

That's it. That's the whole thing. That's the right way to do it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I get the logic. They're like, oh, we hired this guy for the science. And we were hoping the science would look a little nicer at the end of the day, be a little bit neater, fit into our bucket more. We were kind of hoping you come back with a really simple design that we could print on the side. Yeah, they were probably regretting that. That makes sense. The blank money with a hologram only sounds like future money. Yeah, it sounds like something you'd see a hundred years from now.

[David Eagleman]

I hope that is where it'll go a hundred years from now. And by the way, let me just note in case any of the listeners are thinking, hey, who even uses cash anymore? What's interesting is how much it's used around the world. Cash is still king.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Really?

[David Eagleman]

Despite crypto, despite credit cards, all that stuff. Yeah. Because most of the world is at markets and stalls and flea markets. There's just tons of that stuff going on. Yeah. Even still, even now, I guess if.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You probably look at transaction amounts, maybe all that's digital when One company's wiring $300 million to another one. But if you look at the volume of individual transactions, you're right, it's probably like $2 or whatever. The average is probably globally like $4 or something like that. And usually done in cash in exchange for, I don't know, goat milk or something. Yeah, exactly like that. Because that totally makes sense. The only counterfeit money I've ever had, I went to Cambodia and I was in a non regular border. I took a boat from Vietnam to Cambodia and so I was in the middle of the jungle and somebody offered to break money for me and he gave me a $5 bill that was so obviously fake. And I could have said something But I thought, this is kind of a cool souvenir that I got for five bucks. It's like dark black ink. The paper's definitely just like trash quality Monopoly money paper. And it looks good, and I could almost surely get rid of it and spend it if I wanted to go to prison. But it's the kind of fake you get in the middle of the jungle in Cambodia. But first of all, who's printing $5 bills? Like, that's the low rent we're dealing with.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, exactly. Obviously, most counterfeiting is the high 50s and hundreds in Europe. By the way, there's one other thing about European money which I suggested to them, which is European money, is different sizes. So the 20 and the 50 and.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The 100 for blind people, Is that the idea?

[David Eagleman]

Exactly. Although note that we have blind people in the United States, too, and they out of luck.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Or do they have to have somebody be like, this is a 20. Let me fold the corner.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

How does that work?

[David Eagleman]

I don't know, actually.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All right, blind listeners, tell me how this works.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, tell me how this. I don't know the answer to that. But in Europe, that's why they do it. But that actually, from a counterfeiting point of view, is not that great an idea. And here's why. It's because when you are handed a bill in Europe, you immediately know what it is which causes people to look at the bill even less.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, sure.

[David Eagleman]

And so in America, we have to at least look at the bill for 200 milliseconds longer to figure out what am I holding? Because the size doesn't tell you the answer to that. So I think they should make them all the same size that you at least look at it a little bit longer. They said, we love the idea, but we'd have to retool all the vending machines in Europe.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So that's why they rejected. Yeah, they can retool them to take Apple pay. That's my suggestion. The phone pay. That's only a matter of time. Anyways. I suppose this kind of reminds me of, I think, Darren Brown to this, the Illusionist. He's been on the show. One of the things that he or someone else did was he had somebody asking for directions in some place. It was probably at Stanford or something like that. And then he would interrupt them with guys that are carrying a huge painting or drywall or I forget what it was. And then he would switch out the person behind. So you've seen this, right? This. He'd switch the person out behind It. It gets to the point of ridiculousness where it's like they change a guy with brown hair that looks a little bit like me to another guy with brown hair that looks a little bit like me. And then it was like, now they're changing it to a guy with no hair. Now they're changing it to an old man. Now they're changing it to African American dude. And then it becomes, like, a guy that looks like me and then, like, a African American woman. And the person who's talking just doesn't notice. That's not the same person that asked for directions. We'll link to this in the show notes. Because it's insane.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly right. And Darren did that experiment. But this was actually an experiment done at Harvard originally. Some colleagues of mine who did this, they were very interested in this concept of change blindness, which is, how much do we notice changes in the world. Now the fact is that the world tends to be stable. So I'm talking to you now, Jordan, and if I look somewhere else and then I look back, you're really likely to still be here because that's just how physics works. But. So they wanted to know, but what does that mean? If I'm assuming that I'm talking to you and then I look somewhere and you turn into somebody else, would I even notice? And so they did this experiment in the Harvard quad with the door passing in between people. But there are many different versions. Just the simplest is you show photograph, and then the photograph goes away, and you show the photograph again, and maybe you swap back and forth between A and B and A and B with a little blank space in between. Each time you tell the person there's some massive difference between photo A and photo B. Can you tell me what the difference is? And people are terrible at it. And once they finally do see it or you tell them the answer, they think, how could I not have seen that? There's, like a major difference. A car disappears from one to the other, or the railing in the background moves by three feet up and down. The engine of the airplane is missing, or not missing from photo A to B. But we just don't see that. Why? It's because all we ever see is our internal model of the world. So when I look at a photograph, let's say it's a bunch of soldiers lined up to get on an airplane. Big Hercules jet. When I'm asked to look at the photograph and see the details there, I think, okay, soldiers, jet, sky, tarmac. And then I'm crawling around the scene with my attentional capacities. And I'm trying to pull in more details to figure out what is the difference between these two photos that look the same to me. Okay, what are the soldiers wearing, what colors are thing, how many soldiers are there, and so on. But it takes me a while before I land on, oh, the jet engine that's appearing and disappearing between photos A and B. I just don't notice it. So the thing is, when I look at the photo, this is the important part. I'm not seeing it as though I am a camera of some sort. All I ever see is, however rich my model is. So all I see is, oh, there's people in plane and sky. And I go out in the world and I ask questions. And that's how you get more and more detail and stuff. This is the heart of change blindness. This is why we don't notice when there are massive changes. So in the case of the person giving directions to the pedestrian who asks, all you're thinking about is, oh, there's somebody, there's some stranger standing in front of me, and I'm just trying to do this job of telling them how to get the directions and I'll never see them again. So your brain just doesn't put that much effort into it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's shocking. When you see this video. And again, we'll link to it in the show notes. I want people to go check it out and watch it because you think, this either has to be fake and. Or I would never fall for this. These people all need to get a clue or a cup of coffee or whatever. But then I'm dying to know if it would work on me because I assume that it would. I assume I would also just not pay attention to who that person is.

[David Eagleman]

Oh, yeah, quite right. And I can show you other change blindness examples of things. For example, you could link this on the show notes. There's a British guy named Richard Wiseman who has this great card trick that he does on YouTube. I'm so sorry. Let me not tell what the punchline is, but link this on the show notes.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay?

[David Eagleman]

What you'll see is he does this card trick, essentially asking you what you notice and you see the trick and you think, wow, how did I not notice that? But it's extraordinary. It's a terrific video. I'll send me the link.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This isn't quite the same thing, but it reminds me of that video where they say, count how many times the basketball is passed back and forth.

[David Eagleman]

Same idea.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is it the same idea, Bob? The show Notes. Guy's gonna have a field day with this one. But we'll link to this in the show notes, too. It's count how many times the basketball has passed back and forth, and you're counting the basketball. And then it's, okay, how many of you noticed the gorilla walking in the background? And you go, oh, there's no gorilla. And then you replay it, and sure enough, there's a guy in a gorilla suit that's just walking in between all the people. It's ridiculous that you don't notice it. And if you don't tell someone to look at the basketball, all they see is a video of a gorilla walking past. Yeah, because that's what you would obviously notice if you weren't deliberately distracting yourself.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly right. So this is what's classified as inattentional blindness. Your attention is on the basketball. You're following the basketball very carefully to see where it's going. And as a result of attending in one spot, you have inattentional blindness to other things in the scene. Like the gorilla walking in Change blindness is essentially a version of that. You don't know what to look for in the photograph of the airplane. And so you just don't see things.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This must be part of what magicians rely on. Right? So they're, like, talking to somebody in the audience, like, hey, have you ever been to a magic show? And they're, like, got a hand behind their back folding something into a paper crane. I don't know.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, magicians have been for centuries very good at this. It's so easy to get the audience's attention to go here and there. They do all kinds of things. Like they never move their hand in a straight line. They move in a curved arc. And for whatever reason, you just can't resist having your attention follow that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, I didn't notice that. Yeah, yeah.

[David Eagleman]

And whatever they're doing, where they are moving their hand, what they do is they set things up so that you're a little suspicious maybe of what they're doing with their left hand. So you're thinking, I'm a smart audience member. I'm going to keep an eye on the left hand. And while they're doing that, while you're watching, the right hand is doing whatever they want. And it's total inattentional blindness to the right hand.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That is so interesting. And that's what, thousands of years. I don't know how old magic is. I assume it's thousands of years old because of Course, somebody sat around. They had nothing else to do. It's just trying to think a trick.

[David Eagleman]

Except for survive, right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Except for survive. Yeah. Once they were done hunting and gathering, they were probably like, look, it looks like I took his nose off. And he believes me because mirrors don't exist. Yeah. Tell me about this pain matrix, in group versus out group empathy thing. This was a little alarming. Yeah, almost. Yeah.

[David Eagleman]

So this is something I've been very interested in for a very long time, is about how, as a species, we're so cooperative. The reason we've built our whole civilization as well as we have is because we're so good at linking arms and making stuff happen. But we evolved in small groups, and so we are very prone to saying, this is my in group, and those people over there, they're my out group. And it turns out there's been lots of studies like that from my lab and many other labs, showing that we just have less empathy for people in our out groups. We just don't care about them as much as in if they get hurt or something. So here's a study that I ran in the lab some years ago. We put you in the brain scanner, functional magnetic resonance imaging, fmri. And you see six hands on the screen, six hands that all pretty much look alike. And the computer goes around and picks one of the hands, and then you see that hand either get touched with a Q tip or stabbed with a syringe needle. Yeah, and. Yeah, exactly. Watching us getting stabbed with a syringe.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Needle, is it real?

[David Eagleman]

The way we filmed it is we made a syringe needle that contracts. So as you're pushing, the needle is actually going back up.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm like, who's volunteering for that? Like, all right, I really need these $30. Go for it.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, but. Looks quite horrifying. And so what we do then is the way we analyze that kind of data is we compare the two cases, and in the case where the hand is getting stabbed, you have all this area come online, this network of areas, I should say that we summarize as the pain matrix. And that's what happens if you get hurt. If your hand gets stabbed, the same area comes online, which is to say when you are watching someone else get stabbed, this is the neural basis of empathy. You are empathizing with their pain even though you're not in pain. And this is great. This is what humans do, is they see the pain of someone else and they empathize. What would that feel like? So that's very important. But what we then did is we had the same six hands and we labeled each one with a one word label. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Scientologist, atheist. And now the computer goes around, do do do picks a hand. You see that hand get stabbed and the question is if it's a member of one of your out group versus your in group, does your brain care as much? And the answer is it does not. Your brain does not care as much if it's a member of any of your out groups that gets stabbed. And by the way, we tested this on all religions, including by the way atheists. Even atheists have this, which is when an atheist hang gets stabbed, they have a bigger empathic reaction than when any of the non atheist hands get stabbed. So this is really the first, lowest level signature of empathy that we have. And all it takes is a one word label for people to feel like, oh, I don't really care so much about that hand.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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I feel like we're seeing a little bit of this now in discussions at least online about the LA fires, right? So a lot of my friends were in the Pacific Palisades. They lost their homes. Other people are like, my house is heavily damaged but still there. And I feel really bad for them because they're my friends and they lost their homes and their kids don't have any toys anymore or anything in their, you know, imagine young kids and they lost all their clothes, all their toys. It sucks for the adults, but they can wrap their heads around it. They're trying to comfort their children. It's a terrible situation. But online people are like, who cares? Bunch of rich people lost their house. Or they're like, good, now they know what it feels like when nobody wants to help us, when we have problems. And I'm just like, these people just ran a fundraiser for, I don't know, whatever, the hurricane victims or something like that. And you're glad because you lost your house in the hurricane and you think that these people don't care about you, therefore you're glad their house is gone. I just see tons and tons of that. Now granted, people are not their best selves on the Internet. So I take it with a little bit of a grain of salt some of them are probably 15 year old kids who don't know what they're talking about or just pushing buttons. But I see it and I hear about it from other people too. In fact, I text from another friend of mine who I was really disappointed in. I said, oh, did you hear that? So and so lost his house. And he goes, yeah, well, the place wasn't that great anyway. And I'm like, it was on the shore of the Palisades. Like it was a pretty nice place. And I'm sure he's pretty upset about it. Maybe show a little empathy.

[David Eagleman]

We saw this happen when the CEO of United Healthcare was murdered in the street.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's a better example. People were like, okay, I totally understand why people felt that way. But also, he did have kids. If you can't feel bad for him, at least feel bad for his kids.

[David Eagleman]

I don't totally understand why people felt that way.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh really?

[David Eagleman]

Obviously people had bad experiences with the insurance company UnitedHealthcare or others. But it's not that guy Brian making the decision and putting the red stamp on their paper.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm not saying I can relate to it. I just, I can wrap my head around why they're upset. If their mother died because she couldn't get chemo from an insurance company, you might pin that on that one guy. It's not fair to do that. But I can rationalize how other people have done that with fires. Those people don't know you exist and you didn't know they existed until they told you their house burnt down and your first reaction is good, right?

[David Eagleman]

Okay. So this thing with la, it's interesting because LA is so multicultural. You can imagine if an equivalent fire happened in, we could name different countries, the reaction that some people would have, which is, oh, you know, good, I'm glad that happened to those Russians or the whatever.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's tough though. I don't think I would do that. But I don't know.

[David Eagleman]

But okay, here's the thing. You would. I don't know what country or what religion or what thing it would be for you, but here's the interesting part. We measured 128 people on the scanner. We don't know that all of them actually act badly to their neighbors and so on. Why? Because what we are measuring is the first brain response, which is, hey, I really care about these people in my Anger. I don't care so much about these people. But you might have other cognitive layers that say, you know what? That embarrasses me that I don't care as much about the Russians who are just in a fire. So I'm going to donate to that Russian charity because I'm. Yeah, so there's lots.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That makes me feel a little better because you're right. There's probably is something where I don't know if something happened in. I can't even think of a country that I don't like. And I'm hesitant to name one. But you're right. My gut reaction might be like, that's what you get for, well, who am. I'm a terrible person for thinking that this isn't women and children. What am I doing? I would think less of myself for a minute after that. But you're right. I wouldn't probably go write about how they deserved it on the Internet.

[David Eagleman]

And people have done these tests for years called the Implicit Association Task. And by implicit, they mean something that you can't even articulate. It's not explicit. And what they find is that everybody has biases against certain things, certain groups, certain sexual orientations, whatever it is. Everyone's got something going on deep down, but it doesn't mean anything about their behavior.

[Jordan Harbinger]

When all those Hezbollah pagers blew up, I was not super upset for a long time. I was like, ha. But then you hear that like it blew up in their daughter's face. And then you're like, oh, that's terrible. But yeah, I wasn't like, oh, those poor Hezbollah terrorism support or Hamas or whatever. I don't feel a ton of sympathy for the actual people who were guilty of terror to get blown up. But yeah, there was a lot of collateral damage. And then you feel bad because you're like, that guy could have just been a doctor who was associated with Hezbollah. That sort of sucks.

[David Eagleman]

Wouldn't had a pager. But here's the thing. So I felt the same way you did, but rewind history where you and I are born in Lebanon and for some reason our parents are Hezbollah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I would 100% have joined an organization like that. Yeah, totally.

[David Eagleman]

What I was going to say, aside from joining an organization, the question is, would we feel empathic for then, heck yeah, we would. Right. So it's just a matter of which in group and out group you belong to. Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. That's interesting. And of course we care more about people in our group. But just I think there's something I don't like admitting that about myself. And I can't be alone in that. I can't be alone in being like. Not me. Surely most of us think that way.

[David Eagleman]

What's very interesting is we also did, in parallel with these neuroimaging studies, we also gave people these very full questionnaires where they filled them out and they're these standardized tests for how empathic a person you are. And what we found was something we really didn't expect, which was that the people who showed the biggest difference between their in group and out group neural responses were also the people that described themselves as the most empathic, which is very interesting. I think there are a few possible interpretations of that. One is that they somehow, deep down know that they aren't seropathic. And so they're lying on the questionnaire. That's one possibility. One possibility is that when they think about their empathy, they're thinking about their in group.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I was going to say they're mostly thinking about the group that they're in.

[David Eagleman]

Like, what if I saw my uncle fall and twist his ankle? Would I be empathic? Oh, I'd be the most empathic person in the world. And they're right in assessing that. They're just not thinking about how they would feel if it was their out group. So. Yeah. Anyway, this all goes to your statement about what things we admit to ourselves and do not. I have a strong suspicion that if we could ever really know ourselves really deeply, it would be awful. I don't think we'd want to know all of our weird flaws and the lies we make to cover up the kind of personality things.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, yeah. I don't even do bad things. And I still feel like I'm constantly rationalizing behavior where I'm like, I really shouldn't let myself go on this, but I'm feeling awful about it. I'm just gonna make up an excuse and then never do this again. Yeah, I do that all the time.

[David Eagleman]

So, by the way. Yeah. I wrote about my book incognito, and years ago was this issue that really the way to think about the brain is that we are a team of rivals. You've got all these neural networks that all have different drives and they want different things. And you are a collection of these things. Okay. For example, if I put some chocolate chip cookies in front of you, part of your brain wants to eat that. Part of your brain says, don't eat it. I'm on a diet. Part of your brain says, okay, I'll eat it, but I'll promise my wife that I'll go to the gym tomorrow. Whatever. You can contract yourself, argue with yourself, cuss at yourself. This is the weird part about being human, is we've got all these different drives. Okay, here's what Nietzsche said. He said, every drive philosophizes in its own spirit. What he meant by that was, when you are gripped by rage or sexual desire or desire to eat the chocolate chip cookies, you have this way to philosophize, to rationalize, to say, this guy really deserves this. Or, yeah, I'm going to make this lie over here to get what I want sexually. Or, here's all the reasons why I should eat the cookie. But the point is, when you're in that moment, when you're being driven by these particular neural networks, you philosophize in that spirit. You say, you know what? Actually, this makes total sense. I should do this. I should do exactly what I want. Your aim makes the pathway open up to you. Oh, here's exactly what I should do so that I can eat these cookies.

[Jordan Harbinger]

There's a sort of similar term. It's not exactly the same thing. I'm trying to remember the name. I think it's called Moral License, where people say, well, I drive an electric car so I can fly more because I'm not using carbon when I drive. Something along those lines. And it seems like a stretch. And yet, of course, people like you test for these things, and they find that. I don't know how you make that connection if somebody doesn't make it directly, but they've found that over and over. And I remember there was something that people who drive electric cars slash Prius. Pri. Priuses that they do, and they found that they were correlated. And either it's the hypothesis that it's moral licensing, but there's something here that's similar to what you're saying.

[David Eagleman]

Whatever it is, like, not recycle the cans because you're feeling lazy or you want to. Let's take the simpler example. I want to eat the cookies. So when I'm gripped by that desire, I can cook up something.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I walked this morning extra far. Cause I took the dog out.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So I can eat these 300 calories.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly. What I'm doing is I'm philosophizing in such a way that I can land at the conclusion that I want.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, we all do that, for sure.

[David Eagleman]

Yes.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's just. It's uncomfortable to admit that we do that, and it's much more comfortable to admit we do that with a chocolate chip Cookie than it is to be like, I'm only a little bit racist against this one group because. And it's like, I don't wanna write that any surveys.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's a terrible thing to think about yourself.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So then you have to go the extra mile when you philosophize about it because otherwise you're a racist. And that's a really uncomfortable thing to admit to yourself.

[David Eagleman]

That's exactly right. But what's interesting is the end conclusion of that is that you might actually do really wonderful things in the world. You might go out of your way to go to some charity event. And in fact, people have long noted that sometimes the people who are the loudest about, let's say, being anti racist online, sometimes they're the people with the deepest internal demons that they're fighting.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's for sure true. I think whenever you watch these documentaries about the super racist folks, there was one documentary recently, this, I think she's a Muslim British gal. She did a documentary about going to all these very like deep south neo Nazi things. And she was like, but you guys and I get along and like, well, you're different the rest of your kind. And it was just so fascinating to watch them do these gymnastics around her because they liked her, she was nice to them and they were nice to her and they were like, you're one of the good ones. And she's. But I'm very average, run of the mill Muslim girl from the uk and they're like, that's not true. And they refused to recognize that they were like normal, middle of the road, secular ish Muslims. The dance they did around her, it was. That was the fascinating part of the documentary.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah. Although what's interesting is that every group is on a really broad distribution so that will always be available to people to say, I like you. But I think that in your group, whatever group it is, there are people who do XYZ and I don't like that. So what's interesting is that chess move will always be available to those guys.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's true.

[David Eagleman]

It actually wouldn't make sense for them to meet one young woman who they think is really great and then say, oh, I used to have these political opinions but now I've changed my mind entirely because of an end of one.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Have you ever heard of Daryl Davis? He's this African American dude, great jazz musician. And I won't say it's a hobby because that's a weird way to phrase this, but he's been on the show. What he did. One day he played jazz at a club, and there were these Ku Klux Klan guys there. And one guy was like, can I have a drink with you? And he's like, sure. And then the guy told him he was in the kkk, and he's like, okay, what's about to happen? Because if you haven't noticed, I'm black. And the guy was like, yeah, but you play like Jerry Lewis. And he's. I did play with Jerry Lewis. And he. These guys got acquainted and like, over years of talking, this Klansman turned in his robe and is, I just can't hate black people anymore. It doesn't make any sense because of my interactions with Daryl. So he got that robe, and then he's done this 50 times with 50 different Klansmen. He's de. Radicalized them by just becoming their friend and not being judgy. And it's weird because it's crazy, right? Because this guy will have a daughter who gets married and like, Daryl's there and the half the wedding is Klansmen or former Klansmen or people who are the brothers in the Klan. And it's like, okay, so the best man is this black dude here. What's going on? He's a fascinating guy because of his level of empathy and his ability to take shit from people, I guess, is part of it. I mean, he's an incredible human.

[David Eagleman]

Here's the thing. So there's two things I would say there. One is that, interestingly, if you measured any of these Klansmen who had hung up their robe, you'd probably find this really low level circuitry in their brain having a difference in their reaction to black and white. But this is an example of the guy layering on cognition and what we might call wisdom and saying, hey, you know what? Even though my very first reaction is this, I know that if I sit down at the bar with this guy and talk to him, he obviously had a desire to do that to see if he could discover something new, then he can do something wonderful. And obviously, we all know as kids, we grow up, whatever neighborhood we're in, we're maybe exposed to all these races and religions, but not these other ones. And so it's easy with our in group out group proclivities to say, okay, that's an outgroup. But then you go to college, you meet people at various things. This is the whole game. It's just meeting lots of people and seeing that. Look, here's how I viewed it. Humans moved out of Africa about 250,000 years ago, humans started radiating north out of Africa, and some turned left and became Europeans. Some turned right and became Asians. And that period of time is so short from a biological point of view, we're all exactly the same on the inside. We've all got brains and lungs and hearts. If you look from the point of view of a biologist, there's no difference between people. Obviously, cultural differences exist, religious differences exist. There's all kinds of, like, local cultural stuff, but people are the same. So the important part is to figure out how do we find ways to reach across the aisles. And so one of my big interests is if I can get to the right ears, to the right place, to tweak the social media algorithms. So here's what I mean. Currently, as we all know, the social media algorithms favor anger, and it's incentivized to be incendiary, let's call it. But here would be the optimal social media algorithm that I think can actually change the world is imagine that you and I have totally different political beliefs, but we both like hang gliding and this kind of dog, and we like biking on Sundays and whatever. So every time one of us makes a post on that, we're both seeing that. I'm seeing you. I don't know you yet. You're a stranger to me. But I see that post and you see my post. Oh, hang gliding. Oh, this. We find all these things that we have in common, then one day when we discover, oh, we have different political opinions, then we're like, oh, cool, Jordan, tell me about that. Why do you feel that way? And so on, then we can talk. But if the first thing you know about me is that I have a different political opinion, then it's a different ballgame. Then you relegate me to the out group.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's interesting. So if we can figure out how to get the social media algorithm to make the in group kind of everyone. Ish, that would change society. But instead the algorithm is everyone's in the out group except for the people that have my particular beliefs on these particular issues.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly right. And by the way, it doesn't have to be the in group everybody. It's my in group is other hang gliders and other people who like this kind of dog. Like, that's my only group. That's fine, because there's nothing about that that's going to make me pick up arms and go to war over that stuff.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, you're not going to prevent those people from getting health care because they like dachshunds. Instead, or how do you pronounce that?

[David Eagleman]

But yeah, exactly right. And by the way, obviously these social media companies, from our behavior and things we post, they know tons of data on us. So that could really be used for good by saying, hey, look, these two strangers have something in common that they like just whatever we like, Salvador Dali paintings or whatever it is. And then you emphasize that stuff.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Ah, good luck with that mission. I hope you get to do that. The counterfeiting thing was interesting, but changing society via this way would be absolutely incredible. Okay, I'm gonna shift gears here a little bit. Can we ever upload our brains to the Internet? Because my body, I work on it a lot. It's a losing battle. The hair turns gray no matter what. You get those weird dots on your skin or whatever. No matter what, it's harder to lose weight or keep it off. I'm not going to say I gave up on the body, but I'm aging and that's that. But my brain, so far so good, man. Maybe I should freeze a snapshot now and upload it, if that's a thing. But can I ever upload my brain? It doesn't have to be the Internet, but can I ever upload a replica of what's in there into the digital sphere?

[David Eagleman]

Great question. Yeah. So, okay, the short answer is, right now, we don't have the technology that would even get us close to that. Why? Because the brain is made up of 86 billion neurons, about that same number of glial cells. And the connections between the neurons is about 200 trillion synapses, the connections between them. Okay, what does that mean? It means we don't have. If you took all the computing power on the planet right now, it's not enough to actually do on the whole planet. On the whole planet? Yeah, because it's about. A zettabyte of information is what it would take to actually scan and store your brain. And we have probably a quarter of that capacity right now. So we can't do that yet. But a hundred years for sure, we'll have the capacity. No problem there. Okay, but the question is, if we took your brain and we put it onto a different substrate, let's say you go onto silicon, would it be you? In theory, yes. In theory it would be. Because if we're running the algorithm of Jordan, that is, you and I could probably replicate out of different material. I could make it out of beer cans and tennis balls. And if it's running the right algorithm, I can say, hey, Jordan, how you feeling? You Say, oh, I'm feeling good. Whatever. This is what's known as the computational hypothesis of neuroscience, which is it's the algorithms that matter and not the details of how mother Nature had to build it out of cells. Okay, fine.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But it's still a simulation of just my brain.

[David Eagleman]

Right? So here's the key.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is that me?

[David Eagleman]

Yeah. Well, there's a few interesting points here. One is we have to actually capture the mechanisms of brain plasticity. In other words, your brain's ability to change, move. Your brain is reconfiguring itself all the time, every second of your life. This was my last book, Livewire. It is all about this brain plasticity stuff. Because if we don't. If we simply replicate this snapshot, then you don't remember anything new.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, right.

[David Eagleman]

In other words, if I took a static snapshot of your brain, then you say, oh, great, today is whatever, January 20th of 2035, and you never get past it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm just in this room with you forever.

[David Eagleman]

Forever. Exactly. That's. Number one, is you gotta get brain plasticity. And then number two is there's this really interesting thing about whether it is you. So let's imagine we scan your brain, and then we kill you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You have.

[David Eagleman]

A hundred milliseconds later, we start the thing up. Then it's like you've transferred it. The thing that starts in this computer world says, whoa, I was just sitting in the living room with David, and now I'm here in this computer world. Okay. And it feels like you have transferred. The question is, the you sitting here right now, do you feel like you have transferred or do you feel like you just got. You just got killed?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that sucks.

[David Eagleman]

And then this other creature came up that happened to have all of your memories. But the question is, is it you? And it might not be.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't know how I feel about that. Yeah, like, I'm not doing that bad where I need to be euthanized right now with my brain uploaded. Yeah. Yeah. So then you would only want to do it when you were about to maybe die. Or you were. You were living your last few days in a hospital bed with a morphine drip. And it's like, okay, hit the upload now and transfer me. I guess you'd have to kill the person right away because otherwise there's two of you. One who's in a hospital bed with a morphine drip, and then one that's in the computer that's like, why are you keeping my body alive? Yeah, he's miserable.

[David Eagleman]

What's Weird is that if I kill you 100 milliseconds after the upload, then that's murder.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, you're just murdering.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, exactly. Whereas if I do it just 100 milliseconds before then, it's a transfer. Then you're.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Jeez, that's crazy. It's so not necessarily right around the corner. Um, one thing that was fascinating, programmers could change time for the simulation that's in the digital sphere. So right now time just goes however, nature. I'm not really sure how time works in the brain. That's a whole podcast, probably. But there's no physical body to maintain. So in theory, in the digital sphere, I could just spend the next billion years in one Earth year, hanging out with all my friends in one big long party, consuming things that would normally make my body hurt. Hey, there's no body to worry about now. Can just enjoy myself in the Matrix.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly right. I find this really interesting. Look, here's the thing. If we do upload ourselves at some point in the distance, let's say a thousand years from now, there's a couple things that we have to really watch for. One is who are the programmers? Who watches the watchmen? Like you are completely at the mercy of whoever is running the simulation.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yikes. Yeah, they're God, essentially.

[David Eagleman]

Their God. Exactly right. It's scary because in fact it's just some 21 year old guy with a goatee. So you got.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Who's like playing Warcraft at the same time on another screen.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly. So that's a really weird thing. There's presumably going to be whole bodies of legislation around this and what the rules are around this. But yes, one of the things I mentioned is that let's imagine we realized, oh God, the universe is collapsing and the universe is only going to last five more minutes. The programmer could speed it up so that you live a thousand years in those last five minutes and you didn't know it. Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Speaking of reading minds, I can tell that you are absolutely desperate to hear from the amazing sponsors who support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by the Defender. We all have those big goals that seem just out of reach, right? But the truth is, that's what keeps us moving forward. For the people who embrace challenges and explore their way, there's the Defender. The Defender is built to handle whatever comes its way, with legendary capability on road or off. It's engineered with a tough, rigid body, tested to the extreme and built with durable, lightweight architecture for strength and confidence. But it's not just about ruggedness. It's an icon, reimagined with a design that feels modern, yet honors its adventurous roots. Plus, there's a Defender for every kind of Explorer, from the Defender 90 to the 110 and even the 130, which seats up to eight people. So whether it's just you or the whole family, there's a model for your journey. If you're ready to embrace the impossible, the Defender is your perfect partner, beyond capable and ready to go wherever you're headed next. Build your defender@land roverusa.com this episode is sponsored in part by Airbnb. As a family, we're planning to spend more time away from home and exploring the world. It's been 10 years since we last visited China, and a lot has changed since then. Obviously, we're excited to take my parents on this journey before mobility becomes a challenge for them. While we're off exploring, we've been thinking about ways to make our time away even more rewarding. And who couldn't use a little extra cash these days? Whether it's funding a dream vacation, paying down bills, simply adding a financial cushion, hosting on Airbnb can be an incredible way to bring in extra income without taking on another job. Thanks to Airbnb's co host network. You don't have to do all the work yourself. You got a spare room, you got a guest house or a property that's going to be empty while you're away. Turn it into a source of income and a co host can handle it all. They can create your listing, manage the reservations, message the guests, and more. So let your space work for you. With Airbnb's co host support, earning extra cash on your terms has never been simpler. Find a co [e-mail] host this episode.

[Eduardo]

Is also sponsored in part by AG1. Do you have an AG1 buddy? Because I feel like that's the move. Having someone who reminds you to stay consistent, that's the key. Look, we all start strong with these health habits, but then life gets in the way. That's why I love having AG1 in my routine. It's simple, it's easy, and it actually makes a difference. AG1 is packed with the latest science in nutrition and wellness, and it's not just some random green powder. It's NSF certified for sport, which means it's been independently tested for quality. I take it every morning, so I know I'm starting the day with everything I need in just one scoop. If you've been meaning to dial in your nutrition. This is the easiest way to do it. When it comes to my health, I want something I can trust and that's why I choose AG1. With science backed ingredients and real benefits, I can feel AG1 makes it easy to support overall wellness every day. And that's why I've been partnering with AG1 for so long. And AG1 is offering new subscribers a free $76 gift. When you sign up, you'll get a welcome kit, a bottle of D3K2 and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure to check out drinkag1.com Jordan to get this offer. That's drinkag1.com Jordan to start your new year on a healthier note.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support the amazing sponsors who make the show possible. All of the deals, discount codes and ways to support the podcast are searchable and clickable on the [e-mail] deals we have our AI chatbot there that should help you surface codes, but if it doesn't, you can always email us jordanordanharbinger.com, i am more than happy to surface that code for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now for the rest of my conversation with David Eagleman.

I guess this is probably one of the only ways we can actually do super wide space travel though too, right? Because you can't put a body on a. I don't know how far away things are, but in the cosmos it's like thousands of light years or whatever it's going to take. Even if we figure out light speed travel, it's going to take centuries for these computers that we send to get there. And in theory you could put a person's brain in a robot over there, but that's the only way to do it because otherwise the whole freezing of the body thing, even that's not going to work. Over that time span, it might work.

[David Eagleman]

You certainly could freeze a body that long. We have not perfected cryogenics yet, but in theory it's not so hard. And we know that it works in the sense that sometimes people will fall through the ice on a lake and they will try to get out and they can't get out and they drown and they die and then their body is rescued and they're brought to the hospital and there's this whole thing where you extract the blood and warm the blood in a Machine, you're passing it back into your other and people end up fine. Like they actually come back to life from being frozen.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I've never heard of that happening.

That's incredible.

[David Eagleman]

Here's one to link in the show notes. I'll send you a Lancet article. It's a medical journal about a woman who was a young doctor, who this happened to on a skiing trip. And yeah, she's perfectly fine. She's practicing medicine now and so on, but she was dead. She was actually dead and frozen and she was brought back. This happens not infrequently.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In theory, she's a few minutes younger than her actual age.

Not bad.

[David Eagleman]

Not bad. So everything about cryogenics should work in theory. The problem is simply that how do you freeze things fast enough so that you don't get ice crystals and you get ice crystals that tears the cell membranes and blah, blah. So there's some stuff to be worked out there. But yeah, I think freezing people and setting them on space travel is certainly a possibility.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Every time I learn more about this, I'm like, maybe we really are in a simulation. I don't know. What do you think of that theory?

[David Eagleman]

What's interesting about that theory is that Descartes was at least one of the first people to talk about this thing. How do I know I'm not brain in a vat being stimulated by scientists so that I think I'm sitting in the sunny living room talking with Jordan and so on? And people have worked on better and better versions of this. And obviously in the modern computer era, this became. How do I know I'm not a computer simulation? Well, what's been so weird to watch just over the last decade really, is how extraordinary things are becoming. For example, with generative AI, people using this in VR now to create whole VR worlds instantly, like, hey, I want a 15th century whatever with a castle. And this just gets created the same way you would create an image, but a whole 3D VR world, and we're just in 2025. I mean, just imagine where things are going to be in 2045 or something. So the point is, it becomes more and more plausible to say, God, we know we can make extraordinary simulations, why not? And all it requires is imagining that maybe just imagine our civilization a thousand years from now they might be running these sims. And of course, this could be recursive all the way down.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's sims all the way down. It seems like there'll be people in our generation when we're older and we're not in Our best form. And maybe we can't walk. We'll just be living in one of those little simulations. Some of us will be like, I'm not doing that. But the younger generations, they'll probably be almost looking forward to that. And then eventually there'll be a generation that you can't like with our phones. You just can't pry them away from it because it's better than real life.

[David Eagleman]

You mean living in the metaverse as opposed to uploading their brains?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Living in the Metaverse because, Look, say I'm 85 and I'm like, ah, walking hurts. And a lot of my friends have passed away. I put this thing on and sit on my couch. Not only do I not have to walk, but all my friends are 25 again and we're hanging out. That's a pretty compelling offer, I'll tell you.

[David Eagleman]

So do you know. Do you remember the website called Second Life?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, of course.

[David Eagleman]

Philip Rosedale, a friend, you know, he's the guy who started that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Wow.

[David Eagleman]

And for those who don't remember Second Life, it's just you get to be an avatar in this little computer world. You walk around, you talk to other avatars, and you can talk to them first. I met a couple that had met in Second Life, and they were married to one another. That's how they met each other. But it turns out that's not uncommon. Here's the thing. Technology has moved way on beyond Second Life, but there's still about a million people that use Second Life every day. And these people, often, not always, but quite often, are people who, for example, are in wheelchairs or have other physical ailments. And they can be in Second Life and be avatars and live this other kind of life. Which is precisely what you're describing. It's exactly the kind of thing. So you and I will be hanging out in the Metaverse where we don't have any dots on our skin or gray hairs, and we'll be really great high resolution 3D avatars instead of low resolution second life avatars. But I think that's exactly where we're all.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, it seems compelling even now. And look, you hear about these people who've gone through, like, grief or trauma. Like, imagine your whole family gets wiped out in a car accident, and you're the sole survivor. You can either sit around being depressed and dealing with that, or you could potentially go to one of your favorite family vacations with all of your kids again in this imaginary world. I don't know if that would make dealing with Grief easier or harder because they're still there in that way. But maybe there's a way to use that in a therapeutic sense.

[David Eagleman]

Oh, that's really interesting. That's right. You know what I was thinking about is, imagine you were in that situation. People find themselves in these situations. Let's not even take something as awful. But just like a divorce, you know, they're alone again, building up a new relationship and getting a new spouse, that's a giant undertaking. So I've been very interested in what is the near term future of AI relationships. As you may know, there are tons of websites where people get, let's say, an AI girlfriend. It's typically males getting an AI girlfriend. There are some women who get AI boyfriends. But in Japan, apparently this is an enormous thing going on where the statistic. I heard. I haven't verified this, but I heard that 30% of young males have an AI girlfriend. Now, I'm fascinated by this because presumably that's not going away. So there's two things that could happen. The general prediction that I see in the media is that this is going to lead to the collapse of the population and people are getting married and stuff like that. Why? Because an AI girlfriend is always going to be better than a real girlfriend.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In the sense that they don't have needs.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, exactly. They don't get hangry, they don't get grumpy, they don't say mean things to you sometimes. But I have a more optimistic view on it. I think that this kind of thing might, in the best circumstances, actually improve relationships because it's sort of a way to get practice and do all the dumb stuff and say something. And the AI girlfriend says, hey, that really hurt my feelings when you said that. And maybe your AI girlfriend leaves you or whatever. But the point is, damn it, I.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Can'T even keep an AI girlfriend and they're still billing me.

[David Eagleman]

But the point is, you get practice. Like all of us as young men do stupid stuff and we learn and you get wiser in relationships. And I think if there's an AI girlfriend company that builds these things so that there is pushback and there are thresholds at which they say, I'm leaving, I'm not hanging out with you anymore. What great practice that would be.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's actually not bad. You could make all of your teenager, young adult mistakes while maybe also having a real girlfriend who would be really pissed and jealous. But also then you would go, you know, you could say, like, what about this? What about that? You know what? That's not going to go over well with your real girlfriend.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So don't do that. And you're like, oh, thank God I was able to simulate this particular conversation. Yes, that would be interesting because that's.

[David Eagleman]

What we do all the time, is we simulate conversations. Well, I'm going to say this, and then she's going to say that, then I'm going to say that to her and so on. What a great opportunity to actually run through it and say, oh, God, I hadn't even thought of that. That's a good, you know.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, smart.

[David Eagleman]

It's really going to hurt her feelings if I say that. And it's not worth it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it can simulate millions of different women's potential opinions. I can just imagine my AI girlfriend saying there's an 80% chance that she finds this argum totally uncompelling and does not believe you at all. So I would pick a different strategy.

[David Eagleman]

Interesting.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's fascinating. What about reading someone's thoughts via fmri? I mean, that seems like a good use of brain tech, but everyone's brain would have to kind of be the same organization, right?

[David Eagleman]

Nope. No. Great. So I'm glad he asked this question. The idea of mind reading using, let's say, FMRI, which is our current hot technology, but in 10 years it'll be outdated and there'll be XMRI or something better. But the point is, every brain is completely different. You and I have tons of stuff in common, but our brains are totally different. We grew up in different places, we had different childhood experiences, we had different parents or whatever. And as a result, all the fine structure of our brain is different. So there are certain things that you would find appealing, like a certain math problem or something. I might find something. And maybe you like flying an airplane, I like riding horses and whatever. Like, there's just a million differences. Okay, so that's the first problem. But the second problem is real thought, a real person is so rich and multilayered and highly textured that I assert it's actually impossible to do mind readings, certainly in our lifetime, maybe ever. So here's what I mean. Where this shows up in the media all the time is. Oh. Scientists have shown that we can measure, let's say, what's happening in visual cortex to the degree that you can actually understand what somebody is seeing, even if you're not seeing what they're seeing. Just by the activity in their visual cortex, you can understand what they're seeing. The way you do this is you put people in the scanner, you show Them hours and hours of videos and pictures and stuff like that. And for each image you're looking at, what am I seeing in the visual cortex? And so you end up with these very fine correlations.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So everyone has the same input, and then you're looking at that through the. But so then you would have to measure someone's input for their whole life then.

[David Eagleman]

Okay, so let's stick with vision for just one second. So if I'm measuring your visual cortex, I show you hours and hours of images, I measure your visual cortex, and eventually I can make a pretty good correlative map. Why? It's because your visual cortex is essentially like a warped television screen, your primary visual cortex. Okay. So the media looks at these things and says, wow, that's mind reading. I can show you an image. Let's say I don't know what the image is, but I look at your visual cortex, I say, oh, Jordan's just seeing a image of an elephant riding a unicycle. That's pretty amazing, right? But it's not mind reading. That's just reading your visual cortex. Same with auditory cortex. You can actually nowadays figure out what somebody is hearing in their ears from the activity on their auditory cortex. Very cool. Impressive stuff. It's not mind reading. The auditory cortex is just laying out the different frequencies. Okay, Think about what a thought actually is for you. The thought is, when you walked in my house, you're thinking, okay, let's see. I'm carrying this thing in my left hand. Oh, I've got to step over here because there's a rock in the way. I'm just moving over here and. Oh, I've never been to David's house before, even though David and I have known each other for a long time. And. Oh, look. Oh, what's that? Oh, there's a grill over there. Cool.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Funny, I did so much of that walking in.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't know if this word looks cool. It's in the middle of the living room. You must think it's important.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, exactly. There's so much thinking that we're never going to be able to figure out because it has to do with you and it has to do with. Oh, and I forgot I have to tell my brother about this thing that I forgot that happened last week and blah, blah. All these things are running through your head all the time. So point is, we can measure visual cortex, we can measure auditory cortex, but all the rest of it is what's happening in your brain. It's on your experiences.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that would all be like noise in this machine.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, exactly. We couldn't possibly understand what it's. Because let's imagine that I don't know that you have a brother and that something happened to you last week that you need to tell him about. Like, if I don't know that, there's no way for me to establish a correlation in the neuroimaging.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, man. Yeah, because I'm not giving you the full background with each thought. I'm not going. I have to tell my brother, who, by the way, is this person. He lives over here and this is what he looks like. That none of that happens in that moment.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So you'd almost have to be able to know all of this person's input that they got through their whole life.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In order to read their thoughts. And I don't know how you would do that.

[David Eagleman]

Okay, you can imagine a scenario a thousand years from now where there's so much cameras and things and everything that every moment of your life is tracked. And then in theory, gotta be a lot closer, but still you might have thoughts that are remixing things that you've experienced. I wouldn't know that. If you think, wait, I saw this piece of architecture over here and then I saw this other thing over here and what if I put that on a Euro bill? I wouldn't be able to read that because I've never seen you experience that you're reading.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's imagination, right? Yes.

[David Eagleman]

It's creativity.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That wouldn't even be in the input monitor sense you have. Geez. So, yeah, that does not bode well for mind reading technology coming anytime soon.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly. And by the way, people ask me sometimes like, hey, could we do mind reading technology so we could know in an airport as people are walking through if somebody's thinking about bombing a plane?

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's right, lie detection.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, yeah. But something specific, like a bomb on an airplane. But of course, half the people in the airport are thinking about a bomb because they're thinking, I hope there's not a bomb on the plane. And so it doesn't tell you. Yeah, yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So that's true.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I go through and I remember the time my idiot friend at the UN was like, I have a bomb. And then they were like, now we're going to search all you dumbass kids because we know you're joking, but we want to make an example out of you. That was fun. But what about lie detection? Is this in the same boat as mind reading? It seems like it would have to be, because lies are so Complicated.

[David Eagleman]

Lie detection is a very fascinating thing because you can actually measure things in neuroimaging when somebody's doing a lie. Because essentially, a lie requires two things. One is squelching the truth. Let's ask you a question. You know what the truth. I say, hey, what's your wife's name? You know what the true answer is. But then you have to squelch that, and then you have to cook up a new version, okay? And so what happens when you lie is there's a couple of different regions that we can see in the brain, okay? So when that was discovered about the year 2000, a couple companies started right away to do FMRI lie detection, but they both went out of business. And here's why. It's because it's super easy to fool these things. Because, for example, if I'm in the scanner, I can move my foot around or do other things or think about some other thing and screw up the whole signal. These are very sensitive signals. And it turns out lie detection. There's also. There's a misunderstanding about lie detection, which is there's no such thing as a lie that you're just reading. Let's say with the traditional lie detector, the polygraph test that they use in courts, you're not measuring a lie. What you're measuring is the stress, the physiological stress that's typically associated with the lie. So if you ask me a question and I'm lying to you, there's certain stress that goes with that, and that's what's being picked up on. But let's say I'm a particularly good liar, or I practice this lie a bunch, or I'm a psychopath, and I don't care that I'm lying. It doesn't stress me out at all. Then there's not gonna be that signal.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm a terrible liar. So I have all the tells, right? It's like I start turning my face and sweating and fidgeting with my hair and looking at the floor. And it's funny. We did this game, like, two truths and a lie a while ago at a dinner. And the women at the table were like. Like, you're one of the worst liars I've ever seen. They were laughing at me, and they're like, this is just pathetic. You should never lie just about anything.

[David Eagleman]

I believe you. But a good liar would say the same story that you're saying. I suppose they would.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I suppose they would. Although they probably wouldn't also then start sweating and looking at the Way they would.

[David Eagleman]

They would do that sometimes, sure.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, man.

[David Eagleman]

If you're a sophisticated liar, you would set this up so that then people around you think, oh, we know when Jordan's lying, so that then you can get away with this.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So now. So I'll let everybody guess as to which one of those is true. Either I'm a great liar or I'm a terrible liar. And you'll find out with FMRI or whatever lie detection. I'm trying to think, just for legal perspective, would you need a court order that says you can invade someone's brain?

[David Eagleman]

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. That's one of the issues is the sanctity of your inner cosmos. Yeah. So just as an example, there was a case in the 1960s where the police thought this guy probably had drugs, and they broke into his house and he ran upstairs, and they chased him after him when he got to his bedroom, and there were these pills on the dresser, and he stuck all the pills in his mouth and swallowed them and then said, you can't bust me on anything because you can't find anything. So they had him taken to the hospital and they pumped his stomach. And this went all the way up to the Supreme Court about whether that's okay to do that or that's an invasion of privacy. And so the Supreme Court ruled that that was an invasion of privacy to pump somebody's stomach. But there are other circumstances when you can be given a blood test or something. So anyway, this issue about brain imaging is always right in between. This is an active area in legislation right now about when it counts as private or not. But I think for a while, what we're going to see is that it's a step too far as far as invasion of privacy. Even if we had meaningful FMRI lie detection, the idea of saying, we're going to handcuff you and force you in the scanner and force your brain to tell us something that's not going to fly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, yeah. It depends on the police state we have in a thousand years when this technology.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly right. Typically what we have now, though, is that you can volunteer. You say, hey, I would like to take the lie detector test and present that as evidence. The court doesn't have to accept it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's true. Yeah. It's Minority Report. Ish.

[David Eagleman]

Yeah. Now, the interesting thing about Minority Report, which is important, is that it is a total fantasy to imagine that you could ever predict what somebody's going to do. Why? Because the world's really complicated, and every moment your brain is changing based on what the whole world is doing to you. So we can't ever know. Oh, now we've got such great technology. We know that in a week, Jordan's going to commit a crime. No possible way of ever knowing that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I think the whole premise of that movie was there was three psychic women.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That was beyond ridiculous. But I guess that's how they handled that plot hole, by being like, yeah, they have supernatural powers. Don't ask too many questions. I know. Our time is coming up. We have so many other topics for the next one, which is great. Thanks for having me over to your house. It's a fun little change.

[David Eagleman]

Terrific.

[Jordan Harbinger]

For those not watching on YouTube, we're surrounded completely by human brains and jars that I assume you've taken from other podcasters.

[David Eagleman]

Exactly right. So there may or may not be a next episode.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's right. Or I'll do it from my jar.

[David Eagleman]

Thank you, David. Great. Thanks, Jordan.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show about how technology can augment our brains and allow the blind to see and the deaf to hear.

[David Eagleman]

The conscious mind just gets access to the very top little bit, the newspaper headlines. And the reason is, you know, you've got almost 100 billion neurons. Neurons are the specialized cell type in the brain. These are doing incredibly complicated things. And by incredibly complicated, I mean things we haven't even scratched the surface of yet in terms of the algorithms that they're running that make us up. I don't think we could even function at our scale of space and time if we had access to that level of detail. I mean, you can't keep a hundred billion things in mind. And, you know, each one of these neurons is talking about 10,000 of its neighbors. I mean, just look at riding a bicycle if you really pay attention. Okay, how exactly am I moving my. You'll probably crash. If you play a musical instrument, you know that if you start paying attention what your fingers are doing, you're dead. You can't do it anymore because what's happening is so fast and sophisticated that you can't possibly address that with the slow, low bandwidth consciousness. This has to be something that the rest of your brain takes care of and just does for you. These are all zombie routines. They're just completely automatized. Most of them we'd never even have ever access to. The vest is probably our best bet for the next 50 years or something, until we figure out better ways to get deeper in there and plug things directly into the brain. But that is not as easy as people think. We're just now at this moment in history for the first time in billions of years where we can suddenly feed in completely new senses to the brain. In a year from now, the human species starts proliferating into all these different kinds of experiences that can be had.

[Jordan Harbinger]

To learn how it's possible to create completely new superhuman senses. Check out episode 655 with David Eagleman on the Jordan Harbinger Show. There is always so much more. I've got to do another one with him later this year. I barely got even through half my notes.

I love that though.

Love a good high quality problem. Must be exhausting being as fascinating as Dr. David Eagleman. I personally couldn't handle it. Thankfully, I'll never have that problem. All things Dr. David Eagleman will be in the show [e-mail] advertisers, deals and discount codes Ways to support this show [e-mail] deals Please consider supporting those who support the show. Also, our newsletter, Wee Bit Wiser comes out pretty much every Wednesday. I'm not going to say every Wednesday, but the idea is to give you something specific and practical that will have an immediate impact on your decisions, your psychology, your relationships in under two minutes. And if you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. It is a great companion to the show. Jordanharbinger.com news is where you can find it. Don't forget about six minute networking as well. Over at sixminutenetworking.com I'm ordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and this show is created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting, and the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who's interested in the brain, mind reading, uploading our brains to the Internet, anything along those lines, definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time.

[Eduardo]

Tired of listening to the same old playlists or podcasts over and over? Maybe it's time to mix things up. Try something new. Hit explore, Avoid the blah and the boring. Before you even put your headphones in, add some fun in the mix. Say yabba dabba do to a bowl of pebble cereal and enjoy by the spoonful fruity and cocoa pebble cereal Les blah more yabba dabba doo. Head to your nearest grocery store to buy pebble cereal today. The Flintstones and all related characters and elements Copyright and Trademark Hanna Barbera.

[Jordan Harbinger]

At.

[Eduardo]

Capella University, learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the courseroom to the workplace. Attention different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella. Eduardo.