Andrew Newberg (neuroscientist on the brain and religion)

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair.

[1] Expert, Expert.

[2] I'm Dan Rather.

[3] I'm joined by Mrs. Mr. Mouse.

[4] Hi there.

[5] We're sitting side by side, which is a little bit bizarre.

[6] Wonky.

[7] Yeah, novel.

[8] Today we have Dr. Andrew Newberg, who is a neuroscientist, a pioneer in the neurological study of religious and spiritual experiences, a field known as Neurotheology.

[9] I found this to be so fascinating.

[10] He has an incredible book out right now.

[11] called The Varieties of Spiritual Experience, 21st Century Research and Perspectives.

[12] He has many other books, check them all out.

[13] Brainweaver, The Rabbi's Brain, Neurotheology, how science can enlighten about spirituality and the metaphysical mind.

[14] So please enjoy Andrew Newberg.

[15] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to armchair expert early and ad free right now.

[16] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[17] or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[18] He's an arm chance for.

[19] Dr. Newberg, can you hear me?

[20] I can.

[21] How are you?

[22] Lovely.

[23] Are you in your home?

[24] It appears you're in your home.

[25] I am in my home, yes.

[26] In Philadelphia?

[27] Well, we've actually recently moved.

[28] We are down in Florida along the West Palm Beach area.

[29] Oh.

[30] I still am working with Jefferson up in Philadelphia.

[31] COVID allowed a lot of remote action.

[32] Yes.

[33] Nice.

[34] And particularly this time of year, you're very, very happy with the move, I imagine.

[35] Yeah, it's a little warmer here than it is in Philadelphia, as far as I understand.

[36] Yes.

[37] I'm a Michigander, so I too, I'm in exile of the cold.

[38] Where are you originally from?

[39] I am from Philadelphia, born and bred there, although this has always been a little bit of a second home.

[40] You know, we've been coming down here since I was three years old, different areas of the east coast of Florida and I guess slowly moved a little north as the Miami area got more and more crowded.

[41] So we wound up in this kind of West Palm Beach area.

[42] I don't know how familiar you are with it.

[43] I got kicked out of Breaker's Hotel not too long ago.

[44] Oh, good, good.

[45] Yeah, well, that must be a good place.

[46] Yes, we had a great time.

[47] We were advised not to swim and we swam anyways.

[48] We were escorted out by security.

[49] When was that?

[50] Aaron and I. Oh, my God.

[51] Yeah, I thought I told you that story.

[52] Yeah, yeah, of course.

[53] To have hosted us is probably to have kicked us out.

[54] But you can answer a question for me. I've always been curious about this.

[55] I have like a Pavlovian response to Florida because I'm from Detroit.

[56] It represents vacation to me. It's in my DNA.

[57] And whenever I go there and I get off the plane, I just smell the air.

[58] I'm like, oh, right, we're on vacation.

[59] Does that dissipate if you move there?

[60] That's my fear.

[61] Well, in fairness, we haven't lived here that long.

[62] We've really only been here for a few months.

[63] So at the moment, it still feels like we're on vacation.

[64] Oh, that's lovely.

[65] May it last forever.

[66] Yeah, I mean, you know, it's just nice.

[67] After a reasonably busy day, you can go out on the beach or you can go swimming.

[68] Are you in California?

[69] We are in California.

[70] Yeah.

[71] So it's the same kind of the thing, I'm sure.

[72] Similar, yeah.

[73] Yes, yes.

[74] Different clientele, but similar environment.

[75] Right.

[76] And do you have grown children?

[77] I have one daughter who actually is in law school at the University of Miami.

[78] She's a big fan, by the way.

[79] Oh, that's lovely.

[80] You have a good strategy going because, of course, I just want my children to stay with me forever.

[81] Knowing that they probably will go out and try to achieve something, you've got to make the landing pad attractive.

[82] So the fact that you've located yourself somewhere where they just would want to visit whether they liked you or not is genius.

[83] I think this is also a hack.

[84] So far it's worked well.

[85] And I'm not a lawyer.

[86] We have a couple lawyers in our family, I guess.

[87] But as we have kind of come to understand that in contrast to like the medical world where you really can kind of go anywhere after you go through medical school, once you learn the law of a state, there's a tendency to be there.

[88] Yeah, because you've got to pass the bar state to stay, which is supposed to be.

[89] Terrible.

[90] Too hard.

[91] Yeah, yeah.

[92] Now, you grew up in Philadelphia, and where did you go to school?

[93] Where did you matriculate?

[94] I actually went to a small college outside of Philadelphia called Haverford College, and then I went to the University of Pennsylvania for medical school.

[95] So I really have been pretty much in the Philadelphia area up until November.

[96] You don't happen to know Adam Grant, do you?

[97] Adam Grant.

[98] That's a no. You would know.

[99] Yeah, you would know.

[100] He's an organizational psychologist that teaches at Wharton, and he lives in Philadelphia, and Wharton's part of Penn, no?

[101] Mm -hmm.

[102] Yeah.

[103] So I thought, well, maybe there's some cross -pollination there.

[104] He writes a lot of great op -eds in the New York Times and stuff.

[105] He kind of made this term popular this year.

[106] Linguishing.

[107] Linguishing.

[108] He got a podcast.

[109] He's a cool dude.

[110] Well, I'll have to look him up, then.

[111] He's also the gateway to anyone you would possibly want to interview.

[112] Big time.

[113] The most, like a super connector by definition, right out of the book.

[114] I'd spend a lot of my early part of my career there.

[115] Because of my work in brain imaging, I did work a lot.

[116] with people in psychology and psychiatry, and it is a real powerhouse when it comes to people who've literally written the book on a lot of the ways that we look at mental health.

[117] Yeah.

[118] What drew you specifically to neurology?

[119] I really was always very interested in the fundamental question about how we look at reality.

[120] I was always kind of upset about the fact that people had different ways of looking at the world, and of course in today's world with the Republicans and Democrats.

[121] And it's like, how are we all looking at the same thing, the same country, the same world, and coming away with completely different perspectives on it.

[122] And certainly religion was a foremost way of looking at that.

[123] And so part of me said, well, it has to do with something with our brain.

[124] Our brains are operating on this information in different ways and leads some people down one path and other people down another.

[125] Did you find the notion that we are all looking at the same anatomical reality, but we're looking at it differently, that gave you anxiety in that if we could see the same thing somehow, we'd be mitigating all the duress?

[126] Could you even pinpoint why it was upsetting or something you focused on?

[127] I think a lot of it was just, I didn't understand.

[128] To me, it's like, well, there's a universe out there and shouldn't we all kind of look at it the same way?

[129] And as I grew up, I did come in contact with people who held very different religious or political perspectives to myself or my family.

[130] And suddenly, oh, you know, you're a horrible person or you're going to hell or something like that.

[131] And it was really, wow, you know, like I thought it was okay.

[132] I kept coming back to it.

[133] But maybe if I can figure this out, if I could find out why.

[134] we're looking at it differently.

[135] And ultimately, in my youthful idolism, which hopefully I still have, I'll help to find an answer to these questions and maybe bring people together.

[136] And in today's world, I hope that somehow it contributes to that a little bit.

[137] It's a big philosophical question.

[138] I was an anthropology major.

[139] So in fact, the thing I was most interested is like, let me see how many different ways people are computing this whole experience.

[140] And in fact, excited by that notion, yet narcissistically, I have to assume my perception is the authentic correct one.

[141] And if I were you truth but told, I would be setting out to prove that the way I'm viewing it is probably the most objectively accurate one.

[142] Yeah, to your point, it's like we got the same metrics everyone's reading and the conclusions and the causality of it all as no one agrees on.

[143] And that's the negative side.

[144] But then, of course, the huge upside is like, it's also the most wonderful aspect of being on planet Earth, right?

[145] Right.

[146] That's a large part of what I've come to learn.

[147] Did you inherit a theology in your household or was it largely agnostic?

[148] Yeah, it was very agnostic, I was very encouraged to ask a lot of questions because I'd come to my dad late at night when I'm pondering these questions and I would say, Dad, you know, how come some people believe in God and other people don't?

[149] And he'd say, well, that's a great question.

[150] What do you think?

[151] Now, I've got to go back and figure it out.

[152] So I think there was a lot of encouraging me to ask those questions.

[153] And that really was very important.

[154] But the more I pressed the questions, the more I really did challenge myself, I think this.

[155] Well, why do I think that is because my parents told me is because a friend told me because I read it in a book or a sacred text, why does it make sense to me?

[156] And why does something else not make sense to me?

[157] And so I really did have a real personal crisis.

[158] Oh, did I freeze on us here?

[159] Oh, wow.

[160] There's something really exciting happening in our and you've turned into kind of like a car.

[161] Oh, you're back.

[162] Yeah, you were like a cartoon version.

[163] I was enlightened there for a moment.

[164] You really were.

[165] That was cool.

[166] We were experiencing a different reality than we had grown accustomed to in the first 10 minutes.

[167] This is a trick he does.

[168] Oh my God, that was cool.

[169] You just neuroimage does somehow.

[170] Wait, what did your parents do professionally?

[171] My dad was a businessman.

[172] He actually taught a warden and my mom was a teacher and I never really had somebody specifically in my family who led me down those paths or suggested that I explored these questions.

[173] It was just something that was inside of me, I guess, to begin with.

[174] But how do I know what I'm thinking is right?

[175] So I really wanted to get to that answer.

[176] And so I started looking at the brain, but then after a little while realized that while science is terrific, and obviously I've been a scientist my whole life, I really felt that it didn't quite get you all the way there.

[177] And so I did start to explore other areas.

[178] My mentor in this whole world of looking at these questions was a psychiatrist, but also an anthropologist.

[179] And then I kind of went down this philosophical path of trying to look at every piece of information that I could have, and if I wasn't sure about it, I said, okay, well, you know, it doesn't mean it's wrong.

[180] It doesn't mean it's right, but I'll just kind of doubt it for now.

[181] But the more I kept exploring it and looking at different philosophies and different traditional spiritual systems and religious systems and so forth, more and more stuff just kept getting put into this realm of doubt to the point where I actually started to think, well, how do I even recognize myself and understand myself?

[182] You know, this is all like in college and I was just exploring kind of all these big questions.

[183] There's looking at, there's learning the history of, And then there's attempting to practice it.

[184] Were you endeavoring on that at all?

[185] Were you experimenting with meditation?

[186] Were you going to any services?

[187] What were you doing as far as participating in any of the things you were learning about?

[188] As I went down this path, it became a contemplation.

[189] I mean, I would literally lie in bed and I would ponder these questions.

[190] And it became very contemplative.

[191] It became very meditative.

[192] Eventually, in between actually college and medical school, I said, you know, look, I have to figure this out.

[193] This is just driving me crazy.

[194] I've got to find an answer to those.

[195] So I spent pretty much that whole summer just really in would have been arguably some kind of deep meditation.

[196] I always have trouble with that question because I wasn't doing Buddhist meditation.

[197] I wasn't doing a particular thing.

[198] It was kind of my own process.

[199] Ultimately, as I kind of kept doubting and doubting and doubting and trying to figure it out, I hit an experience that I refer to infinite doubt.

[200] And it was basically where I just said, there's nothing I can know.

[201] On one hand, when I tell that to some of my friends, they said, well, this is like the worst possible answer you could find.

[202] And I said, well, yeah, but, you know, it was one of the most comfortable kinds of feelings that I ever had.

[203] And everything was part of this.

[204] So there was this oneness of all things.

[205] Well, everything's unified in its uncertainty in some bizarre way, right?

[206] Yeah.

[207] Yeah, everything's equally unknown in some capacity.

[208] That's exactly right.

[209] And that had a lot of elements, as I have come to learn over the next 30 years of my life, that I felt kind of resembled aspects of a kind of mystical experience.

[210] this feeling of oneness, a loss of the sense of self.

[211] Immediately what I hear is surrender to.

[212] Totally.

[213] The thing that actually pushed me into that experience was a kind of moment of reflection of one of my philosophy teachers in college who said that sometimes you have to strive for the answer to your questions, and sometimes you have to let them come to you.

[214] And so I said, you know what?

[215] I keep trying to figure this out.

[216] I'm just going to sit back for a second and see what happens.

[217] And then this whole experience unfolded.

[218] That is one of the biggest leaps of faith.

[219] So I learned Transcendental Meditation.

[220] I've just returned to it like the last year I've done it every morning.

[221] Even in the period where I wasn't doing it habitually, when I would go away to write, I'd be working on a script.

[222] You got like 30 different threads you're trying to ultimately weave together for the third act.

[223] And you can sit and think about it, think about it.

[224] But then over time learning that in these 20 -minute TM sessions, literally it'd get downloaded on minute 17 of 20, all of a sudden, a full third act just gets put into my brain.

[225] And it's so counter to what I think you have to do is like wrestle everything, flesh everything out, beat everything to a pulp.

[226] I would not believe someone if they told me this.

[227] I had to experience it myself.

[228] But having had that experience several times than learning to get more and more confident in that exact principle that you can hang, shockingly, and some stuff can get downloaded to you.

[229] It's kind of wild.

[230] It is.

[231] As we have come to learn the brain, you know, flipping back over to the science side, we know that there are these networks in the brain and you're kind of talking about what's called the default mode network, which is what's working when we're not doing anything.

[232] And that's what's associated with things like daydreaming and just these kind of free floating ideas and mind wandering.

[233] And if you get more and more trained in a practice like TM or some of these other meditation practices, it can facilitate that.

[234] And it can potentially lead a person to be able to find those moments of insight and sometimes they're small ones, you know, maybe finding the ending to your story.

[235] And sometimes they're big ones that change the way you think about your life and the way you think about the universe.

[236] I kind of collect these stories about geniuses.

[237] I think I was always obsessed with geniuses when I was younger, but a seeming unifying quality between Ben Franklin, Isaac Newton, Galeigh, a lot of these folks was they would lose time.

[238] There'd be all these crazy stories of people.

[239] asking Isaac Newton a question in his office, and then he answers it, and it's literally a day and a half later, and the person's not there.

[240] Like, they have this huge capacity to enter this zone, which is not present, and drift, and then come out with some conclusion.

[241] There's stories of, I don't know if it was Thomas Jefferson, but certain people being hospitalized while writing the Constitution because they'd forget to eat, like all these elevated states.

[242] Flow, kind of.

[243] Yeah, like a really prolonged.

[244] crazy flow session.

[245] Absolutely.

[246] And there is a lot of overlap between the flow experiences that you're talking about and these experiences.

[247] I think part of it has this mystical quality.

[248] You know, one of the elements of the mysticism is becoming one.

[249] You become one with the concept or the issue that you're dealing with.

[250] And you think about it in a different way.

[251] I mean, the famous Isaac Newton, this is probably not a real story, but, you know, the apple hitting him on the head.

[252] Gravity was becoming part of him and he was becoming part of gravity.

[253] He's like, I got it now.

[254] Einstein.

[255] we hear about, you know, he started to think, well, what would it be like if I was riding on the edge of a wave of light?

[256] What would the world look like to me then?

[257] They need to go away from it for a little bit.

[258] They've contemplated the topic and they go away and they have this experience where they kind of become part of the problem.

[259] And I mean that in a good way.

[260] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[261] They're not thinking about it.

[262] They're becoming it.

[263] And as they become it, then they begin to get those insights that really transform the way they think about it and ultimately humanity thinks about a particular issue.

[264] And they've seemed to have an elevated aptitude to completely block out every other distraction.

[265] I think so, which is also common in meditative practices, the ability to get so focused, then that becomes the thing that you become one with, actually.

[266] And it can become a very profound and powerful experience on a lot of different levels.

[267] But I think that those kinds of experiences really lead these geniuses to be that creative.

[268] And in fact, actually, we did a small study on highly creative individuals.

[269] One of the things we found, which I thought was intriguing, although not surprising, is that when you look at the different fibers that connect in their brain, they had more fibers connecting the left and the right hemispheres to each other.

[270] You know, again, that kind of makes sense because we always talk about the left side being more analytical and more quantitative, and then the right side is a bit more artistic and holistic and I mean, I know that it's more complicated than that, but the idea of bringing those two different things together in new ways.

[271] And that's also part of the creative act, which is that you're suddenly thinking of a different kind of way of thinking about something that you haven't done before.

[272] This is a selfish inquiry, and I should know it because I've been diagnosed since I was eight with it.

[273] But dyslexia, do you know what's happening physiologically in the brain?

[274] It has been explained to me that it is often a case of not being left or right brain dominant.

[275] And that's the source of the confusion.

[276] Yeah.

[277] Normally, you kind of have a language area that's in one spot.

[278] the large majority of people, it tends to be on the left side.

[279] What's interesting is that if you're a right -handed individual, about 99 % of people have the language area on their left side.

[280] I'm left -handed.

[281] I just want to throw that into your data.

[282] Which is also very common.

[283] So if you're left -handed, you know, you still have about 70 % of people have the language area on their left side.

[284] About another 20 % have it on their right side and about 10 % have it kind of mixed between the two.

[285] Commingling.

[286] Interesting.

[287] Exactly.

[288] And that's probably part of what's going on, which is that your brain, when you're looking at letters and how you interpret what they mean, the symbols and so forth, it's got some connections in there that aren't quite the same as a person who doesn't have the dyslexia.

[289] And you can kind of learn past it, but sometimes it's always a little bit there.

[290] Yeah, it's interesting because there's these kind of now well -documented hurdles and then benefits.

[291] It took forever to get it to work.

[292] But I will say once it started working, I do have some increased aptitude for language.

[293] Relative to how I read, I read still like a ninth grader, yet I am pretty well spoken.

[294] So it's curious that it's like once all the pathways were really worn and worked out and the muscle memory was there to fire it all correctly, like it ended up having some kind of latent benefit.

[295] Right.

[296] I was doing a book on kind of philosophical thought.

[297] And I was thinking a lot about handedness and how we solve problems.

[298] And part of what was very intriguing to me is I started to look at famous left -handed people.

[299] You see famous left -handed people in men.

[300] many disciplines.

[301] I mean, music certainly, Jimmy Hendricks and Paul McCartney and Mozart, writers, actors, a lot of scientists.

[302] The one thing I found was kind of interesting, and I'd love to hear back from other people if I have this wrong, but I found very few philosophers who were left -handed, and famous ones.

[303] You know, I mean, obviously there's a lot of philosophers who were left -handed, but the only two that I actually could really find was Friedrich Nietzsche.

[304] Oh, a freak.

[305] And Aristotle, who arguably was more of a scientist than a philosopher, although certainly a philosopher as well.

[306] But it was a surprising lack all of a sudden.

[307] There's tons of musicians and tons of mathematicians and tons of politicians.

[308] Yeah, presidents.

[309] But then I got to philosophers and I was like, there's got to be more than this.

[310] So I don't know what that means.

[311] I don't know if that's something to do with how we analyze information.

[312] So are a lot of dyslexics left -handed then?

[313] I think it's more common.

[314] I mean, it's certainly not a requirement, no. Yeah.

[315] I was very, very heartbroken that neither of my daughters turned out left -handed.

[316] I don't know why that was important to me. They could be Philosophers.

[317] Yeah, I guess I should look at a glass half full.

[318] A stand -up philosopher.

[319] Okay, so your work ultimately finds its home in a lab looking at brain imaging.

[320] What's the difference between like an fMRI and nuclear scanning?

[321] Are those the same thing?

[322] What are the different technologies there?

[323] They are actually different.

[324] The magnetic resonance imaging MRI basically uses big magnets and it kind of gets your body aligned within that magnetic field.

[325] all of the magnetic protons that are in your body get lined up and then you can hit them with a little bit of a radio frequency pulse that deflects them and then you can see what's going on and where something is based on that.

[326] And we can do a lot of functional brain scans.

[327] You could scan dyslexics while they're reading and see what's going on differently in their brain compared to people who are not dyslexic and see where the abnormalities or the differences are.

[328] The nuclear studies that we do, basically what they involve is injecting some kind of radioactive material into the body, ultimately into the brain.

[329] Like an isotope?

[330] Exactly.

[331] It's a radioactive isotope.

[332] And what's very exciting about that area is that you can take a lot of molecules and make them radioactive and then you can see where they go.

[333] So, for example, if you said, gee, I really want to look at the neurotransmitter dopamine.

[334] Well, you can take dopamine and you can attach a little bit of radioactive trace isotope to it and then inject it into somebody.

[335] Then you can see where dopamine goes in the brain.

[336] Can I ask really quickly?

[337] because we hear this blood -brain barrier.

[338] Are you injecting it directly into the head, or can I inject it in my arm and it hits my brain?

[339] Yeah, so most of them are injected through an intravenous line in your arm or something like that, but that is always one of the issues that needs to be addressed, which is that you need to make sure that it crosses that blood -brain barrier and gets into the brain.

[340] And dopamine does.

[341] Exactly.

[342] And we just learned that dopamine's made in your stomach and serotonin.

[343] They're made in your brain and in other parts of your body.

[344] Yeah, exactly.

[345] So you can look at, you know, serotonin and dopamine.

[346] all these different neurotransmitters.

[347] A common study that we do is looking at things like blood flow, so you can radioactively label water or a molecule that just kind of follows the blood as it goes into your brain.

[348] Sugar, glucose, you can label.

[349] So they're very complementary approaches.

[350] All of them have contributed tremendously to our understanding of the brain.

[351] What happens when it's not going well, you know, so if you have a disorder like Parkinson's disease or schizophrenia, then your dopamine areas are not working properly, and we can see that.

[352] And that's part of what's helped us to understand.

[353] it.

[354] We can see the effects of different drugs that might be helpful for different disorders.

[355] And then we can use it to study meditation and prayer and so forth and see what areas of the brain become more active, less active.

[356] And we can even look at the different neurotransmitters as well.

[357] So it's really very exciting.

[358] We've never had this opportunity to do this until the last maybe 20 or 30 years.

[359] Yeah, it's incredible that we can look in some capacity inside of the head while it's functioning.

[360] This will sound critical.

[361] But as I was looking at some of the images that you've created.

[362] I also had the thought, it's still a little bit of a blunt instrument, though.

[363] Oh, totally.

[364] We're not watching molecules interact.

[365] We're not watching physical uptake.

[366] You know, we're filling in some blanks, but we're definitely seeing areas change color, depending on how that's coded, right?

[367] So yellow's kind of low blood flow area, and then we see it turn red, and we know that more blood is being sent there.

[368] Presumably, you could see more dopamine's being sent there, serotonin.

[369] Exactly.

[370] My first question is, how are you guys determining correlating versus causation.

[371] Oh, that's a huge question.

[372] Yeah, like, where are we at with that?

[373] Well, first of all, to take a step back and talk about this issue about the bluntness of the instrument, absolutely.

[374] You know, on one hand, we've never had the ability to peer into the brain the way we can.

[375] We get pretty good detail.

[376] We can get down to a centimeter or two of brain tissue, and that's not bad, but there are millions of neurons in every centimeter of brain tissue.

[377] And so when I see that one of them turns blobby red, does that mean that there's 10 neurons that got active or a hundred or a thousand or a million, and we don't know.

[378] And so it's great to have that opportunity, be wonderful to see sort of where we are a hundred years from now being able to look at things.

[379] Yeah.

[380] Now, the causal arrow is an even more intriguing question, intriguing on both the scientific as well as a philosophical level.

[381] So we have different ways of kind of thinking about that.

[382] If I look at a brain tumor in somebody and they lose some ability to do something, or maybe they have a weird spiritual experience because they have seizures or because they have a tumor, then we might say, well, the tumor caused that experience to happen.

[383] And that would be a fair way of looking at it, but it's also not the only way of looking at it.

[384] And one of the questions that I always raise to people is, what if it has something to do with just how the brain receives information or perceives things going on in the world?

[385] Maybe the best example in today's world are the psychedelic compounds.

[386] We sort of have this Western perspective of, well, you know, you take this psilocybin or LSD and you have this experience, the drug caused the experience.

[387] But if you go to a shamanic culture and you talk to a shaman and say, well, you know, what's going on?

[388] That magic mushroom, it's not an artificial experience for them.

[389] It's the doorway.

[390] It's the window.

[391] It's getting their brain into a state that allows them to have this experience, which is a very different way of thinking about it compared to how we tend to look at it in the U .S. I feel like this is related.

[392] But first of all, you wouldn't know this about me, but I'm an ex -drug addict.

[393] So I've done every single drug.

[394] I love them.

[395] They're great.

[396] I think it was curious for me to learn enough about it to recognize that the drug, itself is not what's giving you the reaction.

[397] That's fascinating on itself, that the pharmacology is in your head already.

[398] That's right.

[399] And I challenge my students with this question.

[400] Okay, so I got a brain scan that can look at blood flow and can look at the dopamine areas and you can put electrodes on your head and you can look at the electrical activity and you know that these millions of neurons are connecting.

[401] Where in all of that is your experience?

[402] Where in all of that are your thoughts?

[403] Right.

[404] Yeah.

[405] And we really don't know.

[406] I mean, that's the sort of scientific as well as philosophical issue with the causality, cocaine itself is not a high.

[407] You take it and now suddenly you block up these receptors and so now the brain is flooded with dopamine.

[408] Dopamine is a molecule, so it isn't high, arguably speaking.

[409] But somehow when there's a lot of it around, you feel something.

[410] But why are you feeling that?

[411] And how is that happening?

[412] That's more logical to think that your brain has already been designed to give you those states.

[413] and the compound triggers your body to give you the state it already evolved to give you.

[414] Now, whether it's in great trauma and it can release all this stuff, end of life, I think people speculate that you get some of this kind of DMT, wild psychedelic state.

[415] You know, sex.

[416] Yeah, sex.

[417] That's a good one.

[418] No hangover from that, generally.

[419] I mean, think about sexuality.

[420] You get like sort of this ecstasy, that sense of oneness, that very intense feeling.

[421] And, of course, sex would be something that would evolve in our brain.

[422] We've got to kind of like it.

[423] Otherwise, we're not going to do it.

[424] And we need to do it in order to have more of us.

[425] So nature knows all those things.

[426] Those experiences are a part of what's in your brain.

[427] And so how do you help your brain to have those experiences and to look at the world?

[428] And it kind of ties back into the very first question we were talking about.

[429] If your brain is kind of designed to be able to see the world and understand the world, then how do we let it do it in this effective way as possible?

[430] And that's what I keep searching for.

[431] The popular framing of it is you're in reality.

[432] If you take mushrooms, that's not reality.

[433] That's an alternate reality.

[434] But I would argue it also is a reality.

[435] It's a reality where your bridal lobe, is that the area that'll turn off that gives you the sense of self?

[436] That's right.

[437] That's reality with one's area of your brain dulled.

[438] Right, but the brain being dulled, it's not really a negative necessarily.

[439] I mean, our brain is always in a balance, so sometimes we want our brain to turn on so that we can do certain things.

[440] Sometimes we want it to turn off so we can do certain things.

[441] Dull is a pejorative, just inactive.

[442] Your body is inactivating all kinds of things all the time.

[443] Right.

[444] If I bend my elbow, I got certain muscles turn on and others have to relax in order for me to do that.

[445] So you're hitting on some really important points in terms of how do we understand our ability to see the world.

[446] So we call them epistemic states, meaning that epistemology, how you see reality.

[447] When you're in the state that we're in right now, we call that our everyday reality.

[448] I hear you, I see you, you seem clear.

[449] to me. There's continuances over time.

[450] So it all kind of makes sense, but that's our everyday reality.

[451] A drug -induced state is a different version of reality, but it's not necessarily a false reality.

[452] And one of the examples, I think, that everybody can appreciate are dream states.

[453] And when you have a dream, no matter how real it feels.

[454] And, you know, if somebody's chasing you in a dream, you're running in the dream.

[455] You don't say, wait a minute, you know, this is just a dream, don't worry.

[456] You're kind of fully engaged in the dream.

[457] But then you wake up and you say, that was an inferior version of reality now, but it wasn't when you were in it.

[458] Yeah.

[459] Whether it's a drug -induced state or specifically mystical states, when people are in those states, they look back on the everyday reality, this reality, by the way, which is where our science exists, and they say, this isn't really the real way of looking at the world.

[460] And so I don't know what the real answer is, but we talk about neurotheology, looking at that relationship between the brain and the spiritual, and that to me is what a lot of this is about, which is how do we really look at these different perspectives of reality?

[461] How do we help to assess them?

[462] And what do they mean for us in terms of understanding that reality?

[463] I do want to add anecdotally just because for me personally, I have memories of dreams.

[464] They're in a box.

[465] It totally didn't happen was fake.

[466] I have some vague memory of it.

[467] Now, all my drug experiences, they imprinted in my memory exactly how I experienced them.

[468] When I reflect on them, I can see the thing.

[469] I saw in the redwood tree on mushrooms in Santa Cruz in 1994.

[470] It actually logs as a real memory.

[471] It's tangible.

[472] I can associate the sensory feeling that was associated, unlike a dream.

[473] To me, it's a different compartment altogether.

[474] But is that because your body is active in the drug experience.

[475] Right.

[476] I don't know why that is, but one is real.

[477] By the way, I mean, I look at it and I can explain why I was seeing those things, but it's still a real experience.

[478] We actually published an article based on a survey that we ran of people's most intense spiritual experiences.

[479] And what we did was we looked at the ones that were described where people said had the spiritual experience under the influence of a psychedelic compound.

[480] And we compared them to the people who said they had under other circumstances, meditation, prayer and things like that, the quote -unquote natural, or at least not drug -induced.

[481] And they were extraordinarily similar, you know, in terms of the content, in terms of the realness of it, as you were saying, in terms of the kind of meaning and information that was gleaned from those experiences.

[482] So in many ways, those experiences can have a lot of elements that are every bit as real as other types of very intense experiences and other types of spiritual experiences, which then brings us back to the question of, well, so what do we do with that?

[483] Which is one of them really represented real reality versus a false reality.

[484] And so there's really exciting and fascinating questions for us to ultimately try to answer.

[485] The important point is we have to be really careful and have a great deal of compassion.

[486] and understanding for people who have had different experiences from us because it doesn't mean that they're right or wrong.

[487] It just means that they've had a different perception of the world than we did.

[488] And in many ways, when you think of how each of us has gotten to where we are today, between our genetics and our upbringing and the experiences we've had and the drugs we've taken and all the traumas and good things that happen to all of our lives that bring us to where we are today, I come to realize it's no surprise that we have all come to different conclusions.

[489] And if they're 7 .5 billion people on the planet, then there's probably 7 .5 billion religions on the world and 7 .5 billion political systems.

[490] And maybe we need to kind of embrace those differences and start to look at what they are and what they mean and try to understand where the common elements are that really bring us together.

[491] Because we all ultimately have brains that function more or less in the same ways.

[492] I mean, we all have frontal lobes and parietal lobes and things like that.

[493] Yeah.

[494] Stay tuned for more armchair expert.

[495] If you dare.

[496] We've all been there.

[497] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[498] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing.

[499] But for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[500] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[501] Hey, listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[502] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[503] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[504] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[505] Prime members can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[506] What's up, guys?

[507] This is your girl Kiki and my podcast.

[508] is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[509] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[510] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[511] And I don't mean just friends.

[512] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox.

[513] The list goes on.

[514] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[515] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[516] Okay, so you begin scanning people's brains across the spectrum, Buddhist monks, nuns doing their chant, people meditating.

[517] You started studying people.

[518] It's now been coined Neurotheology.

[519] And you started looking at all these images in trying to see what kind of correlation existed and what parts of the brain are active in these states.

[520] Could you tell us how those differed, like what you saw immediately, what was kind of the thread that all these things share?

[521] When we first started doing this study back in the 1990s, it was some of the first studies that ever looked at these kinds of questions.

[522] and I was very fortunate to work with someone who had a background in both psychiatry as well as anthropology to say, well, we should look at these different practices and experiences.

[523] But one way of answering your question is that there's really a very complex network of structures that are going on in the brain when people have spiritual experiences or do these spiritual practices.

[524] And I think for anyone who has done these kinds of practices or had that kind of experience, they'd appreciate that because sometimes they're really emotional and sometimes they evoke a lot of different thoughts in them, and sometimes they see things.

[525] So it makes sense that it's not just one part of our brain that turns on or turns off, but lots of different parts of our brain.

[526] And then how we access that network of structures is part of what has to do with what the practice is, how it works, and what the experiences are.

[527] So a lot of practices, for example, are very concentration -based, so to speak.

[528] We're focusing on a prayer.

[529] You're focusing on an image.

[530] You're focusing on your breath.

[531] And when you focus your attention, your funnel lobes turn on because that's what our funnel lobes do.

[532] It helps us to focus our mind on whatever's going on in our environment or, you know, if we get lost while we're driving a car and we've got to pay attention to our GPS, we use our funnel lobes to do that.

[533] And models out the future for us.

[534] Exactly.

[535] Very much involved in executive processes, as they call, and keeping your checkbook and figuring out what you've got to do next Friday and so forth.

[536] It handles all of those different things.

[537] and it also regulates your emotional responses as well.

[538] Somebody cuts you off on the freeway and you get really upset.

[539] Your emotional centers go way up and then your frontal lobe shut down.

[540] That's why you may say something stupid.

[541] Yeah, like your amygdala and your frontal lobe are on a seesaw a little bit, huh?

[542] Exactly.

[543] And so eventually your frontal lobe says, wait a minute, I got to get to work.

[544] I can't worry about this idiot out there on the freeway.

[545] I can't go to jail today.

[546] Right.

[547] And then your amygdala starts quieting down and off you go.

[548] There's always these kind of balances.

[549] And the same thing with these very intense spiritual experience.

[550] and even some of the drug -induced experiences as you were talking about.

[551] I mean, sometimes they can be very cognitive.

[552] Sometimes it's an incredible emotional rush, a powerful feeling of love or energy.

[553] And then you'd already mentioned the parietal lobe a little bit.

[554] A very common element of many of these experiences is that sense of connectedness, that sense of oneness.

[555] And it could be a sense of connectedness with just a group of people.

[556] And so the rituals that are part of religious rituals, political rituals, education rituals, athletic rituals, you know, football games and so forth, it brings people together, the people who are all part of that group, and these kinds of practices really do that, and it operates on your parietal lobe to blur that boundary between you and everyone else, and you feel connected to the group.

[557] But if the experience gets big enough, you could feel connected to the universe, God, there can be a variety of different things that people feel connected to.

[558] This is what mushrooms are particularly good at, and why advised by some people for end -of -life stuff, right, is it can really silence the part of your brain.

[559] that's constantly prosecuting a case that you are independent from everything around you.

[560] Right.

[561] When you start a practice where you're concentrating, your frontal lobe activity goes up.

[562] But if you do get to a state where you get into the flow state or that feeling of surrender, the frontal lobes drop down.

[563] And so some of these very profound mystical experiences are really a combination of both the frontal lobe and the parietal lobes quieting down, where not only do you kind of lose the spatial representation of yourself, but you kind of lose the willfulness part of yourself as well.

[564] And that is why these can be very powerful experiences that can be transformative, whether it's an end -of -life issue or even just a kind of enlightenment experience that somebody might be striving for where they get to rewire themselves and how they think about the world.

[565] Okay, so you break up an enlightened experience.

[566] Well, first of all, you have small E versus big E. Can you tell us the difference between small enlightenment and big enlightenment?

[567] Well, the small E enlightenements are really meant to help everyone understand what enlightenment is all about because I think we've all had those small e -experiences.

[568] Those are those little aha moments when you're trying to solve a problem or you're trying to work through something at work or a relationship and suddenly, you know, oh yeah, this is how I'm going to solve that problem.

[569] It hits you.

[570] Exactly.

[571] It changed a little part of your life.

[572] The biggie experiences typically refer more to these mystical experiences, these very, very intense spiritual states where a person not only solves a small problem but really revolutionizes the way they think about their entire self.

[573] It changes the way they think about relationships.

[574] It changes the way they think about life, the way they think about death, the way they think about something spiritual.

[575] These big E experiences are very powerful, very intense experiences that transform an entire person.

[576] I wonder, has it ever been tried or could it be tried with psychopaths or sociopaths who have effectively no empathy to mess with their parietal lobe, to like tinker with it with psychedelics to see if that oneness changes their idea of connectedness?

[577] I'm going to speak for Paul Bloom and say sociopaths are super empathetic.

[578] I'm just going to add that.

[579] No, they can fake empathy very well.

[580] They're brilliant at imagining exactly what you want and how you want to feel.

[581] It's straight up empathy.

[582] They have no conscious about doing the wrong thing.

[583] Well, you're both right.

[584] These are complex circumstances and no two sociopaths, no two psychopaths are exactly alike.

[585] But I think your question is right on the mark, which is to say, you know, are there certain approaches that can be taken?

[586] And whether they are drug -induced, you know, another thing that people are exploring is something called transcranial magnetic stimulation where you stimulate different parts of the brain magnetically.

[587] Can you get into a person's brain, so to speak, and change the way they think and give them the conscience that they need, give them the empathy that they need, you know, whatever it is that they are lacking.

[588] So it's a great idea and people are thinking about it.

[589] But at the moment, we don't have an answer.

[590] And also, to ask to your point about the.

[591] bluntness of things.

[592] I mean, that's part of the problem with psychedelics too, which is you take a psychedelic drug, it blankets your brain.

[593] It'd be great if it could just hit your amygdala or just hit your parietal over something like that.

[594] But it does a lot more.

[595] And that's also part of what causes the problems with these compounds as well.

[596] Yeah.

[597] Yeah, I was going to say that earlier, one could deduce by that conversation that we're saying all things are equal.

[598] I will say that the experience can be equal, but I will say one, drugs has a diminished return over time and the risk of dependency.

[599] So even though I would agree that objectively they can be indistinguishable, one's a more tenable or sustainable route to that and one's going to have increasingly diminished returns.

[600] Right.

[601] But a lot does depend on context as well.

[602] Taking a psychedelic compound at a rave party probably less likely to have a real intensive spiritual biggie kind of experience.

[603] But if you do it in a controlled environment, working with people who are spiritual guides, somebody, who's been trying to work on these questions and so forth, then you're probably more likely to have the kind of good experience that you're looking for.

[604] None of it's ever a guarantee, but it's more likely in the right context.

[605] One follow -up question on Biggie Enlightenment, because I think it's often presented to us in movies and pop culture.

[606] I think first and foremost, when people think of Enlightenment, they think of like Sid Arthur or some lifetime quest that through 40 years of dedication you'll achieve, but that's not what we're talking about.

[607] I'd also probably add Biggie Enlightenment can also be temperament, No, this is not a permanent state.

[608] Enlightenment kind of refers to two different things.

[609] One is the moment of it, and you're absolutely right.

[610] These are usually fairly momentary experiences.

[611] They can last seconds, maybe minutes, you know, in certain drug -induced states.

[612] It could be maybe an hour or something like that.

[613] They're relatively short -lived.

[614] But if they are transformative enough, these experiences can lead to a state of enlightenment where you have kind of this new way of looking at things.

[615] And so when we did do our survey of spiritual experiences, we did find that people frequently describe the transformation that occurred as basically lasting a lifetime, or at least until that particular moment where they were answering the questions.

[616] But the evidence suggests that they can last for many, many years and really for an entire lifetime, which in and of itself is a really interesting neurological question, is how does your brain just suddenly become rewired in a moment?

[617] And it changes you for a very, very long time.

[618] And we don't really know that.

[619] I think the reason I'm questioning it is I look at mental health and emotional state as being very much like physical exercise.

[620] It's a daily maintenance activity.

[621] Similarly, I've been in AA for 18 years.

[622] I've had two -year stretches where I was enlightened by the experience.

[623] I was participating in a way that elevated me and canceled any obsession.

[624] And then I had phases where I became unenlightened.

[625] And then I recaptured the enlightenment and maybe even my history with TM.

[626] There's two -year stretch where probably my overall disposition is calmer and all these things.

[627] And then I can lose that and I can recapture.

[628] So I guess I would hate for someone to think that they're going to go do a magic bullet anything and for the rest of their life, they're going to be changed.

[629] I think maintenance is almost required for all things, period.

[630] You're right.

[631] But it also raises an even bigger question, which is that there's a whole continuum of these different experiences.

[632] And some do make that proverbial enlightenment change and just change everything about the person forever.

[633] And then there are others that are along that continuum of intensity and so forth that can change a person for a while, and then sometimes they lose track of certain things, and you do need that element of maintenance.

[634] I mean, just because somebody achieves enlightenment doesn't mean they stop meditating, for example.

[635] Yeah, it slightly reeks of a happily ever after.

[636] I just always am nervous about a happily ever after.

[637] One other thing, which has not been studied very much, is when these experiences go wrong.

[638] It isn't all just happy and wonderful, but there are certainly times where people have experiences, whether the experience itself is good, and they just have trouble with how to understand it and how to make sense of it and bring it back into their life, into their belief systems, or they have actually negative experiences.

[639] People can become very fearful in those experiences where they feel like they're surrendering and kind of losing control.

[640] And so it doesn't happen very often.

[641] I would say maybe less than 5%, but they're still out there in their descriptions.

[642] And I think it's very interesting for us to try to understand how and why these experiences ultimately become problematic for people.

[643] Okay, so let's talk about the five core elements of an enlightened experience.

[644] We've looked at a couple thousand descriptions of these experiences, and what we were able to do is look at where the similarities are across different ideas and terms.

[645] And so we came up with these five core elements of these experiences.

[646] So we've touched on some of them already.

[647] One of them is a sense of unity, that sense of being connected to other people, to God, to the universe, and really that loss of the sense of self as well.

[648] So it's all part of that sense of connectedness and oneness.

[649] And that usually is a pretty fundamental part of almost all of these experiences.

[650] Another one is what I refer to as a sense of intensity.

[651] And so these experiences are the most of whatever that a person has ever had.

[652] It might be the most beautiful thing that they've ever seen, the most intense feeling of love that they've ever had, or the most intense feeling of unity or oneness that they've ever had.

[653] But it's something that differentiates it from our everyday experiences and all the things that we tend to feel and experience within our everyday reality.

[654] So the intensity really is part of what denotes it as something different and something usually spiritual.

[655] It's not just regular reality, but something more than reality.

[656] There is a sense of clarity.

[657] It transforms the way we think about things.

[658] And typically people will say, well, now I get it.

[659] Now I understand who I am or I understand how the world works.

[660] It gives them a sense of knowledge, wisdom, clarity that they never had before.

[661] there was a veil over them and they have thrown it off and now they see the world in a completely different way.

[662] This is more of a cognition question, but within that clarity, I guess I think about finally observing a pattern.

[663] That seems to be like what those clarity breakthroughs are.

[664] It's all the elements have been there.

[665] I just didn't see the pattern.

[666] And then once the pattern emerges, yeah, it's kind of a permanent recognition of the pattern.

[667] That's certainly one way of looking at it, that it opens up your brain and your mind to the way the world actually is to the patterns and the ways that reality actually presents itself.

[668] And it gets back to some of our earlier discussion about that.

[669] How do we look at reality and how do we understand it?

[670] And patterns and rhythms and so forth, these are really fundamental to who we are as human beings.

[671] Patterns and rhythms are fundamental to the universe itself.

[672] And so when our brain can finally see those patterns the right way, we get that new sense of clarity.

[673] And so many people talk about feeling blocked before that.

[674] They couldn't access the world the way they wanted to.

[675] They sort of felt like there was some other way of thinking about the world, but they just couldn't get there.

[676] They now see it in a very different way.

[677] It gets even back to the discussion about causality, too.

[678] And, you know, the analogy that I use is, you know, I wear glasses.

[679] And so when I wake up in the morning, it's a very blurry world.

[680] And I put my glasses on and I see the world clearly for the rest of the day.

[681] So the world didn't really change.

[682] And to some degree, I personally didn't change, but I see the world differently.

[683] And whether you do this through meditation or a psychedelic or, you know, whatever it is that the person does, Maybe it's kind of like putting glasses on your brain and just seeing the world in a way that you never had before.

[684] And, of course, we've talked about now psychedelic several times and meditation, but enormous and probably most prevalent and ubiquitous is religious pursuits, praying this is all in that realm.

[685] So no one shall feel left out.

[686] This includes you if you're religious.

[687] Oh, absolutely.

[688] And those religious experiences are in many ways, really what we have been trying to look at and study.

[689] And so when people get to that clarity, I mean, they feel that they completely understand how the universe works and they come to the conclusion that God is a part of that.

[690] And maybe a particular tradition encapsulates that the most effective way.

[691] But it's that person who has found that path that just really makes sense and works for them.

[692] And one of the things that I think is so powerful about these experiences is that it's sort of felt throughout your whole body.

[693] It's not even just something that goes on in your brain, but you feel it all the way through.

[694] And so you connect with it in a way that is completely different than just solving a math problem or something like that.

[695] I mean, your whole body kind of solves the problem, and that's part of what makes it feel so powerful.

[696] Now, the fourth element seems like it would be more accessible to people who are conventionally religious, and that is surrender because you have an object to surrender to.

[697] You have a concept that is greater and more powerful and bigger than you.

[698] and so to me that makes surrender that much more accessible i think when i've experienced it in meditation i guess for me i'm surrendering to the uncontrollability of life the unknown the chaos sometimes what's helpful is i think all the symmetry and the cohesion is enormously powerful and i imagine that i can be in tune with it or not in tune with it and that's kind of what i have to latch on to surrender to.

[699] You've achieved that in sobriety, I feel like you've achieved surrender there.

[700] Yes, surrender to a group of strangers, which is a wild one.

[701] I trust you guys to advise me on how to not do this as a wild surrender.

[702] And that you don't have control.

[703] Yeah, cocaine is more powerful than Dak Shepard.

[704] Yeah, that's a bummer.

[705] That sense of surrender is something that almost all of us have felt, at least to some degree.

[706] Again, a lot of these are experienced over a continuum.

[707] So the flow states that we talked about earlier, athletes who are in the zone, a musician who's just really, you know, whaling away on their instrument or improvising in a certain way, actors and actresses, when they really get into the character, it sort of takes them over.

[708] And so we all feel that in different ways.

[709] But obviously, you know, it's a very, very intense aspect of surrender that's part of this kind of an experience.

[710] You're not the one making it happen.

[711] You are along for the ride and you're just going to follow that roller coaster as far as you can, basically.

[712] I think all humans that have been blessed with moderately okay parents have also experienced it through childhood, which is like you're willful, you want to do it this way, you make the big mess, you catch the living room on fire, you do whatever you do, and then they arrive, and then ultimately you just kind of surrender to their care.

[713] And I have been on the other end of it, right, where my child is little and tantruming and I'm just calmly hugging.

[714] And then eventually there's this kind of submission to the hug.

[715] and this relaxed state.

[716] Hopefully we all have some kind of visceral experience with it in childhood.

[717] To tweak your anthropologically ear a little bit, if you think about animals and animal societies and communities and so forth and how they work and live together in herds and groups, there frequently is some alpha or queen or whatever who is at the top.

[718] Now, you know, in one hand, there's other underlings who are going to try to knock that person off the top.

[719] But if they keep trying to knock the person off the top, then you wind up with an unstable group.

[720] But once the top person is established, you need a level of surrender of everyone else because otherwise you won't have a socially cohesive group.

[721] So I think there is this built -in piece to us, and this goes all the way back to insects even.

[722] So for hundreds of millions of years, there is a bit of being able to defer to something that is a little bit higher than you.

[723] Any social animal is going to have a hierarchical structure.

[724] That's right.

[725] And so surrender is actually important because if you don't give up, it's like chaos.

[726] I mean, you're just constantly fighting a battle.

[727] But if you're willing to give up, you don't keep going back.

[728] Because I always wondered that.

[729] You know, it's like, well, the one bowl moose fought the alpha moose and lost.

[730] So why didn't you just do it tomorrow?

[731] Yes.

[732] But they don't.

[733] They've given up.

[734] Okay.

[735] And then reflecting on that experience is part of the enlightenment experience.

[736] Right.

[737] The moment of enlightenment versus being enlightened.

[738] You know, how do you now bring it into who you're, are as a person?

[739] What are you now going to do in terms of your thoughts, your beliefs, your behaviors?

[740] Is it consistent with the religious or spiritual beliefs that you've held?

[741] Maybe you were of one particular tradition, maybe you were Catholic your whole life and now you have this experience.

[742] Does it fit back into Catholicism?

[743] Do you now have to convert to something else?

[744] So how do you start to think about what that experience really means to you?

[745] And it gets back to, I think, something that you also said, that there is still life that you then have to live, even though you have this experience, you still got to go out and eat.

[746] You still got to do your laundry.

[747] You still got to do all the things that are a part of life.

[748] And part of that is what I think is a very profound part of that experience, which is that you still do all the things that you did before, but you look at them differently.

[749] Being enlightened doesn't mean that you have to be this Dalai Lama or you have to be sitting on some mount top.

[750] Anybody can be enlightened.

[751] In fact, that's what our data showed, that it didn't require people who were nuns and monks and all that.

[752] But it really can happen to anybody.

[753] And then it doesn't mean that it has to change what you do in your life.

[754] It's just how you do it and how you engage it.

[755] And you have some suggestions for people who are interested in achieving enlightenment.

[756] There's no guarantee.

[757] I wish there was.

[758] I wish I could say, do this, this, and this, and you will be enlightened.

[759] But part of it is people have to at least think about why they want to do it.

[760] Part of it is trying to find the right pathway for you as an individual, what types of rituals, practices, approaches that you might want to take.

[761] And I really encourage people to think about what their goals are and then to look at various approaches that are out there.

[762] Don't reinvent the wheel, but what are you trying to achieve?

[763] Is it something religious?

[764] Is it something spiritual?

[765] Is it something artistic?

[766] And how you might be able to engage different approaches, different rituals, different traditions that are out there that you can start to follow that are consistent with what your goals are.

[767] And then ultimately, you have to engage those rituals in ways that hopefully are effective and fairly wholeheartedly you've become part of and involved in.

[768] And then there is that piece, ultimately, of realizing that you may have to surrender or let go as part of that process.

[769] And then as you mentioned, you know, sort of the last part is then if you are fortunate enough to then have that experience, is how you bring that experience back into your life.

[770] But the early stages are sort of preparing yourself, thinking about things, challenging yourself, being open to change, and then trying to find those right paths and doing a little homework and reflecting on yourself as well to try to figure out what are the best ways for each individual.

[771] There's certainly no one size fits all.

[772] That's an important point.

[773] There's a parallel with diets.

[774] It's like the best diet is the one you can stick to.

[775] Know yourself.

[776] You can be realistic about which ones are going to be triggering or not for you.

[777] I think it is very important for each person to figure out the way that works best for them.

[778] There's no one size fits all.

[779] And it even has to do with sort of how you are as a person.

[780] You know, some people may really want to do something that.

[781] It's more cognitive.

[782] Some people are more emotional.

[783] Some people really like the experiences.

[784] There are many different paths down all of those different routes.

[785] And some combination is probably ultimately what works best for people, but it certainly can be more heavily reliant on one way of being than another.

[786] And each person has to find that path for themselves.

[787] Okay, so the last thing I want to ask you about is I imagine that your work could be easily weaponized by any side of any argument.

[788] I'm sure there are many religious people saying, oh, so you're just dismissing our source of this experience by saying it's a biochemical reaction.

[789] It's identical to all other states of this nature.

[790] I kind of like where you land on this.

[791] So if you want to tell people why it's neither a threat or anything to whatever they believe in, I think it would be useful.

[792] All of us have to be kind of careful about what types of conclusions we ultimately can draw from the data that.

[793] that I'm talking about from what people actually believe and experience.

[794] The story I like to tell, which may be a partial answer to your question, is when we did one of our early studies with a group of Franciscan nuns, I had a nun in there and we did her brain scan while she was doing prayer and I showed her her scan and she said, oh, this is great, you know, this shows me how when I pray to God, it's having a big effect on my brain and now I understand what it's doing to me and thank you so much.

[795] It really helped me to really consolidate my own ideas about why my beliefs and my practices are so important to me. And I thought, okay, this is great.

[796] I've made a nun happy.

[797] I'm not Catholic, but it's got to be a good thing.

[798] And I said, you're welcome.

[799] And off she went, she was very happy.

[800] And then after we published our data, I got a call from the president of the local atheist society.

[801] And I thought, okay, see how this goes.

[802] And he called up and he said, Dr. Newberg, I just wanted to thank you so much for proving that religion is nothing more than a manifestation of your brain's function.

[803] And that there is no God.

[804] And I said, you're welcome.

[805] There was some universal cosmic balance of making a nun and an atheist happy at the same time.

[806] But we can see what's going on in the brain when people have these experiences.

[807] We can talk about what psychedelics do to the brain.

[808] It tells us something about the biology of what's happening in a person when they have this experience.

[809] But it doesn't inherently prove one perspective or the other.

[810] It doesn't prove that the nun was in the room with God or that God came to her.

[811] It doesn't prove that God didn't come to her.

[812] And so, you know, part of what to me is a real important aspect of neurotheology is the openness to both sides, the openness to the scientific side and scientific inquiry, the openness to the religious and spiritual side and the importance of what that brings to the table.

[813] Someday we may have an answer.

[814] Maybe there will be a way of writing off one side of the other.

[815] In my infinite doubt, I can never say that that won't happen.

[816] I can tell you how I'm using it for my own confirmation bias, which if it proves a singular thing is that there's many different ways to skin the same cat.

[817] I think it should minimally give everyone a little humility that they may be having the exact same experience with different packaging and maybe the experience is what's important and not the packaging or the source or what you've attributed it to.

[818] I lied.

[819] I have one last question because I am an atheist.

[820] Do our brains look any different atheists?

[821] That's a great question.

[822] And there have been some approaches to looking at that.

[823] The biggest problem with the answer to the question is that there are lots of different kinds of atheists just like there's lots of different kinds of religious individuals.

[824] And what brought you to that perspective is different than what brings other people to that same perspective.

[825] And so I think it has to do with different ways of looking at the world.

[826] One way or the other isn't inherently the right or wrong way.

[827] They're just different ways of looking.

[828] There was a study that was done one time where they showed religious individuals and non -religious individuals, a photograph that had been pretty substantially blurred.

[829] And they say, what do you see in here?

[830] Religious individuals would see lots of things in the picture.

[831] They would see a lot of the things that were originally there in the picture.

[832] Sometimes they would see things that weren't originally there in the picture.

[833] Then they showed the same pictures to the atheist.

[834] Well, the atheist never saw something that wasn't really there, but sometimes didn't see the things that actually had been there.

[835] Interesting.

[836] Yeah.

[837] So they both made mistakes, but they made them in slightly different ways.

[838] And they're not really right or wrong.

[839] They can both be useful and valuable, but they look at the world a little bit differently.

[840] So I do suspect that there are probably multiple aspects.

[841] You know, for example, I think that atheists probably look at the world very analytically.

[842] But if you ever really talk to a good theologian, well, they're pretty darn analytical as well.

[843] They just have this belief in God that isn't there in the atheist.

[844] Some of it also may have something to do with how we do see patterns in the world and what patterns we're willing to accept or not accept.

[845] I think it is somewhat multifactorial in terms of what brings people to one perspective or the other.

[846] And of course, it's changeable too.

[847] You know, there's a lot of people who are very religious who become atheists, and there's a lot of atheists who become religious.

[848] I do think it's fascinating.

[849] I've read two different books, Behave and Dopamine Nation, and maybe even molecule more headed into, but looking at the different dopamine levels, baseline dopamine levels of conservatives and liberals.

[850] And I think that's so fascinating.

[851] So dopamine is the get up and move and explore and find something new chemicals.

[852] So it's not a stretch to think, yeah, liberals who want progress and change have more of that.

[853] When I read that, I go, there's no solution to that.

[854] If you predisposed chemically to this point of view, I can't really ask you to come have more dopamine with me. If there were some structural components to atheists and religious zealots, how much could we?

[855] But you're right, there's all this flexibility in the brain.

[856] I mean, the fact that you could have a stroke and they relocate all your motor control.

[857] I mean, it's bonkers what could be done in the brain.

[858] So I suppose the sky's the limit.

[859] This is the anthropology evolutionary perspective, which is it kind of depends on what the environment ultimately presents to you.

[860] Yeah.

[861] If you want to go out there and do lots of things, well, sometimes that's good because it prevents you from getting stuck in things that wind up being maladaptive.

[862] On the other hand, sometimes, you know, the first person over the wall gets shot.

[863] And if you just stayed home, you would have been okay.

[864] So which one is ultimately the best?

[865] It sometimes is a roll of the dice.

[866] That beautifully and poetically circles us back to the very first thing we said when we started talking.

[867] The great beauty is that in a group of a hundred hunter and gatherers, you had 20 that wanted to go explore for water.

[868] You had 30 that wanted to stay and keep the place safe.

[869] The real answer is having all those different options on the table as a group.

[870] And when the time arises where one shines, they protect the whole group.

[871] And then the other moment, that version protects the whole group.

[872] So we're back to loving that everyone has a different perspective.

[873] And that to me is what I think a lot of my research has certainly taught me and I hope teaches others that when you see how our brains work and how everybody has these different religious and spiritual views and then people who don't.

[874] We all have these different perspectives on what the world is.

[875] That to me is what makes it exciting and it's something that we have an opportunity to explore and why we feel the ways that we do.

[876] And hopefully it brings a sense of understanding and compassion and empathy for the people who don't look at the world the same way we do.

[877] It doesn't mean that they're horrible or wrong or whatever.

[878] It's just our brains are looking at the world differently.

[879] That's their version.

[880] You've got a lot of great books, why God won't go away.

[881] Words can change your brain.

[882] What's your newest book that I can urge people to check out?

[883] We just published a book called The Varieties of Spiritual Experience, which actually talks a lot about the topics that we were talking about today, all the different kinds of experiences that people can have.

[884] I don't want to exclude anyone, but if you're agnostic, this sounds ideal.

[885] Just take a little sampling of all these different pursuits and see if you respond to one.

[886] And atheists, too.

[887] First of all, it helps people who don't have these experiences to understand the people who do.

[888] And everybody has these flow elements and, you know, it could be creativity.

[889] Some of the experiences are aesthetic experiences and being in nature and all that.

[890] So it doesn't have to have something supernatural to necessarily be a spiritual kind of experience.

[891] We don't mean supernatural.

[892] We just mean spiritual.

[893] We were just interviewing this chef, Jose Andres.

[894] To watch some of these chefs we've interviewed, you know, and I asked them, there has to be a spectrum of taste buds anatomically.

[895] I'm witnessing some of these chefs have enlightened experiences.

[896] through the sense of smell and taste that I personally just haven't achieved, but it's very obvious to witness.

[897] Oh, absolutely.

[898] No, there's no question.

[899] And it gets back to, you know, some people like to try different foods because every time they try a food, it tastes good.

[900] And other people don't like to be very adventurousome because experiences taught them that they generally don't like it.

[901] Yeah, they've been burned enough.

[902] Well, Dr. Newberg, this has been so wonderful.

[903] I really appreciate your time, and this is such an exciting field, and it's only going to get more and more exciting as we get more and more finite in what we're seeing happen in there.

[904] I do have a science fiction fantasy where we put on this little umbrella over our head, a little cloth helmet with electrodes that we kind of can manipulate all this without ingesting anything.

[905] We'll see.

[906] You'll be at the forefront if that happens.

[907] Dr. Newberg, thank you so much for your time and good luck with everything.

[908] Thank you.

[909] Thanks.

[910] It was a pleasure.

[911] All right.

[912] Take care.

[913] Take care.

[914] Or armchair expert, if you dare.

[915] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate, Monica Padman.

[916] Do you have an appointment after this?

[917] No. It looks like you're going to a job interview after this.

[918] It does?

[919] Yeah, you look very dressed up for business casual.

[920] Yeah.

[921] Are you interviewing somewhere?

[922] No. I like these pants, but...

[923] Uh -oh.

[924] What's a problem?

[925] They're not my fave.

[926] Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[927] But I didn't want to wear jeans.

[928] For any reason in particular?

[929] Because it didn't match your sweater.

[930] No, jeans would have been great with the sweater, but I just didn't want to wear.

[931] Too constrictive?

[932] You need a softer Monday start?

[933] I guess.

[934] I don't know.

[935] I just had a block up about jeans.

[936] This is a good topic for us because I want to say this is the primary hurdle for me being in fashion.

[937] Okay.

[938] Is that, and my hunch is, and I'm hearing it, confirmed.

[939] you're great with like putting on a pair of pants that you like at a seven at a seven okay yeah like you'll just be like I want lots of looks these aren't my favorite they're a seven but I'm gonna wear them I if I have a pair of pants that are a 10 for me and then I have a pair of seven I'll just never wear the seven yeah I'll just only wear my favorites which is why I'm in the same outfits all the time but that's okay that's called a capsule wardrobe oh okay I guess I have a capsule yeah you're Yeah, you're doing that.

[940] But this is heritage today.

[941] I'm wearing heritage overalls.

[942] Yeah, those are cute.

[943] These are seven to eight years old, these overalls.

[944] Vintage.

[945] Vintage heritage.

[946] Oh, my God.

[947] You have a vintage capsule wardrobe.

[948] I do.

[949] Wow.

[950] I've been curating it for a year.

[951] Okay.

[952] So I was going to wear a slack.

[953] Right.

[954] Okay.

[955] And then I decided I didn't want to wear that because that seemed a little too fancy for what I wanted today.

[956] For your interview.

[957] Yeah.

[958] Yes.

[959] I want to be approachable during the interview.

[960] Yeah, you didn't want people to think you were coming in to be the CEO.

[961] Right.

[962] Just the CFO.

[963] I always am.

[964] Well, you're going to, of course, become the CEO, but you don't want to start there.

[965] Exactly.

[966] So I didn't want to wear the slacks.

[967] So I went middle ground.

[968] Okay.

[969] Which is this pant.

[970] It's actually a great pant.

[971] I just don't think I would pair a different shirt with it, not this sweater, but I was already wearing the sweater.

[972] Yeah, and you love the sweater.

[973] So that was a nine.

[974] Yeah, that's right.

[975] Speaking of interviews, speaking of CFOs, speaking of CEOs.

[976] Okay.

[977] I brought it up a few times.

[978] I'm reading this book, The Warburgs by Ron Chernow.

[979] Right, your favorite.

[980] My favorite biographer.

[981] Yes.

[982] And the Warburg family started in the 1800s banking in Germany, really successful.

[983] Some of them came to the U .S. Wall Street became successful.

[984] Then World War II happens.

[985] The Holocaust happens.

[986] They're driven out.

[987] It was monstrous, successful bank.

[988] this is stolen from them.

[989] It's just straight up stolen from them.

[990] Slowly, like first is like, oh, you've got to have 60 % Aryans as ownership.

[991] So then these deals are worked where it's like, we're going to give them shares of this.

[992] 32, 33, they're trying to figure out a way that when it's all blows over there, keep thinking, well, this guy, this nut will be out of here soon.

[993] How do we get this back?

[994] Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[995] Well, one of them, Sigmond, I'm learning a lot about him right now.

[996] He went to England.

[997] How to start over.

[998] Did it again.

[999] Wow.

[1000] Very impressive.

[1001] Very eccentric man, very, very skilled.

[1002] And it's getting into all the ethos of his bank.

[1003] And one of the things he believed in so deeply was graphology.

[1004] Okay.

[1005] Go on.

[1006] Is it graphology or...

[1007] That sounds like skin grafts.

[1008] What does graphology say?

[1009] Or is it...

[1010] Graphology, the interface of character from a person's handwriting.

[1011] Yeah.

[1012] Okay.

[1013] And so he would employ a graphology.

[1014] and there was a very, very famous Austrian female graphologist slash psychiatrist.

[1015] And he would send her samples of people's writing to tell him what they were really like.

[1016] Wow, I'm so interested in this.

[1017] Yes, and he sent his own samples to her.

[1018] And he concluded she knew more about him from reading his handwriting than any of the doctors he had ever worked with.

[1019] So he was like all in.

[1020] He ended up trying to fund like a graphology institute.

[1021] And many people that interviewed who had failed the interview process, he went back and had their writing samples submitted to the graphologist.

[1022] And ended up hiring some of them who had failed the in -person interview because it was determined from their graphology or had some characteristics that were good for whatever position.

[1023] I was like the whole thing's, it's got to be hooey, right?

[1024] Or at least I was thinking for myself, which is like I'm a left -handed dyslexic.

[1025] Oh, my God, this is a ding, ding, ding for later, but yeah.

[1026] Oh, great, earmark it.

[1027] Yeah, okay, watermarked.

[1028] I'm just thinking, like, any graphologist would be like, well, this guy's fucking disabled.

[1029] No, no, I don't think it's like that.

[1030] I don't think it's like.

[1031] Well, okay, he might go like, oh, you guys interviewed an eight -year -old.

[1032] No, they're smarter than that.

[1033] Are they?

[1034] Is it real, graphologist?

[1035] I want to believe it to be real, but I, because I have heard about this before because people have said Bill Clinton's, handwriting is like a liar's handwriting.

[1036] Oh, okay.

[1037] I know.

[1038] I know.

[1039] I know.

[1040] You're very great.

[1041] But like that type, there's like a type to it.

[1042] Okay.

[1043] A liar's name.

[1044] Like, maybe it's like loopy or something.

[1045] I don't know.

[1046] There's like a type that I guess means you're a liar.

[1047] Okay.

[1048] And that's part of this.

[1049] So yeah, I think it's coolie, as you said.

[1050] But I want to believe it.

[1051] You know, it could be a really fun thing for us to do here on the show is the Three of us submit writing sample.

[1052] Let's find a real graphologist that's still.

[1053] Austrian one.

[1054] Maybe even the like granddaughter of this one, Sigmund was obsessed with.

[1055] I also like that name Sigmund.

[1056] Yeah, I mean, it's hard to not think Freud immediately.

[1057] It's funny.

[1058] Now that you say that, that's so obvious, but I have not made that connection.

[1059] So I was just saying into you now, like, well, of course, Sigmund is Sigmund Freud.

[1060] Yeah.

[1061] Very, very esteemed.

[1062] That's also a ding, ding, ding.

[1063] There's so many ding ding ding.

[1064] Too many earmarks.

[1065] Oh, my gosh.

[1066] Okay, well, I like that.

[1067] We love quizzes and tests.

[1068] This is kind of like that.

[1069] And this would be like we would be getting profiled.

[1070] Yeah.

[1071] That's interesting.

[1072] I'm intrigued.

[1073] It's also...

[1074] He was putting a lot of stock in it.

[1075] Yeah.

[1076] That's what is also just an interesting layer.

[1077] If you believe in something, it works.

[1078] It just becomes true.

[1079] That's right, the secret.

[1080] Yeah.

[1081] Also, what do we do with the many people?

[1082] people that can't write, period.

[1083] Well, they might not.

[1084] It might not be the best for that job.

[1085] So an illiterate person, yeah, for running a bag, might not be a good fit.

[1086] Yeah.

[1087] That's a good point.

[1088] But what I was going to say about your handwriting is I think there must be like little tells.

[1089] There's clues.

[1090] But it's not if you have good handwriting or bad handwriting or childlike handwriting or not or left -handed or right -handed.

[1091] It's how you cross your T's and stuff.

[1092] Oh, okay, and dot your eyes.

[1093] Yeah.

[1094] If for the listener who's never seen my handwriting, it's terrible.

[1095] I mean...

[1096] It's not terrible.

[1097] It's just very specific and very you.

[1098] Okay.

[1099] It's nice.

[1100] I write in all caps.

[1101] That probably means I'm a psychopath or something.

[1102] But I can't...

[1103] When I'm doing lowercase, my already poor motor control really falls apart.

[1104] I got to do as big block lettery as I can to keep illegible.

[1105] Yeah.

[1106] Left -handed have a disadvantage.

[1107] Disadvantage.

[1108] Thank you.

[1109] They have a disadvantage in writing because of the drag as you've talked about.

[1110] Drag slash push.

[1111] I'm pushing your dragging.

[1112] Yes.

[1113] And we tried to help you with that and made you a journal.

[1114] Upside down, backwards.

[1115] Journal.

[1116] Yeah.

[1117] I gave up on that and I'm mad about that.

[1118] I was making some progress.

[1119] When I do a crossword, I still, I think I may have told you, when I do crossword puzzles because I get so much ink all over my fucking hand.

[1120] I fill out all of the, let's say like nine across is 13 letters, armchair.

[1121] Okay.

[1122] I start with the R. Okay.

[1123] I go R -I -A -H -C.

[1124] You know how to do that immediately?

[1125] I have to, or I just smear, if I do it in the correct direction, some of the paper of crossword puzzles, where these ones I'm using, it would just be a big blur of mess.

[1126] So I have to fill it out backwards or my whole hand is.

[1127] ink.

[1128] Okay.

[1129] Should we put it to the test?

[1130] How so?

[1131] Spell alligator backwards.

[1132] Oh, I don't do it quick.

[1133] It's hard.

[1134] Oh, okay.

[1135] I was going to say that's really hard to do.

[1136] But I do have a, okay, oh, this might be a really good clue into what it's like being dyslexic.

[1137] Okay.

[1138] It is equally hard for me to spell alligator forward as it is backwards.

[1139] Really?

[1140] Those are pretty much the same.

[1141] It's not harder for me to spell it alligator backwards.

[1142] Wow.

[1143] R -O -G -I -L -A.

[1144] I missed something?

[1145] The T -A.

[1146] I don't even know if that's right, because I can't do that.

[1147] You can't picture what I'm here.

[1148] That's very hard for me. Yeah.

[1149] Well, that's also how I would spell alligator forward, I think.

[1150] Yeah.

[1151] Anywho.

[1152] Wow, that is interesting.

[1153] Yeah.

[1154] That's a good test.

[1155] There's no I -N alligator other than after the L. There's two L. You did R -O -G.

[1156] You forgot the T and the A. Gator.

[1157] Oh, you forgot the G. Yeah, I didn't do a good job.

[1158] You're right.

[1159] You're absolutely right.

[1160] I did a bad job with that.

[1161] It was a hard one.

[1162] It was a hard word.

[1163] It really got thrown at me. So I just didn't know that was the skill we just unleashed.

[1164] Like Ricky's thing.

[1165] No, I don't think so.

[1166] I wish it was too, like a savant.

[1167] Yeah, I don't know.

[1168] How was your Super Bowl?

[1169] It was lovely.

[1170] I mean, I loved the Rihanna concert so much.

[1171] Oh, you did tell me. I loved it.

[1172] She is so sexy.

[1173] Yeah, she's got.

[1174] There's a thing.

[1175] There's a real thing.

[1176] I've been saying it for a year.

[1177] You have, you have.

[1178] And not to take from you, but so as the world.

[1179] I mean, she's like, no. But when I was actually saying there's another, it's transcending human sexuality.

[1180] That's all I'm saying.

[1181] It really.

[1182] Yeah, she's a bad bitch.

[1183] I know.

[1184] I was so jealous the whole time.

[1185] When she grabbed her butt cheek.

[1186] Yeah.

[1187] Can you get it hard?

[1188] Are you big enough of all that stuff?

[1189] Yeah, that's my favorite song.

[1190] I, at one of my best friend's weddings.

[1191] very early on, so right after college, it was our first, like, friend weddings was really exciting.

[1192] Yeah, yeah.

[1193] And I was requesting Rude Boy every, like, four minutes.

[1194] They weren't playing it.

[1195] And I was like, please, please.

[1196] And then finally they played it.

[1197] And in retrospect, it's not the most romantic song.

[1198] No, I don't think so.

[1199] Well, I mean, it's called Rude Boy on top of everything else.

[1200] What was really fun is I was watching it with Lincoln, and she at first didn't know who Rihanna was.

[1201] She's like, oh, who's this?

[1202] And I'm like, oh, she's huge.

[1203] And then the songs are popping up.

[1204] And all of a sudden she goes, oh, she sings, I love this song, right?

[1205] So, like, they're coming up and she's realizing, oh, I do know many of her songs, and I love her songs.

[1206] She doesn't know who she was.

[1207] Yeah, hit after hit.

[1208] Because she's been kind of out of the spotlight for at least five years, I feel like.

[1209] Yeah, is.

[1210] I mean, music -wise, I guess.

[1211] She has Fenty Beauty.

[1212] Oh, right.

[1213] Notes.

[1214] Notes?

[1215] Notes.

[1216] Cool visual.

[1217] But I was very frustrated with her.

[1218] how long she was cabled to the platform.

[1219] Oh.

[1220] Because it was like three songs.

[1221] Yeah.

[1222] And I'm like, guys, we got to unhook her.

[1223] Like, I'm over the excitement that she's in the air.

[1224] I need to see her moving around and walking and dancing and doing stuff.

[1225] I can see that.

[1226] And I'm like, when they get on hook her and I was just staring at the cable.

[1227] Who's going to do it?

[1228] Is it that dancer?

[1229] Oh, he's getting close.

[1230] He's going on hook her.

[1231] Nope, nope, she's back.

[1232] She's going, oh, we're going up again?

[1233] One time there was like, now we're going up.

[1234] Some ups and downs.

[1235] Yeah, and it looked like the elevator ride was over.

[1236] But then last minute elevator ride.

[1237] up.

[1238] You know when she grabbed her butt?

[1239] Yeah.

[1240] And she kind of like waved her hand like she farted.

[1241] Oh, right.

[1242] Oh yes.

[1243] Yeah.

[1244] She did.

[1245] I like that.

[1246] Yeah.

[1247] Yeah.

[1248] That was cool.

[1249] It's like, oh my God.

[1250] Maybe she did.

[1251] I know.

[1252] So sexy.

[1253] Yeah.

[1254] Totally.

[1255] Oh my God.

[1256] And she gave herself a tail.

[1257] Did you see that?

[1258] Yes, I love that for.

[1259] To be fair, or I guess to be forthcoming.

[1260] I watched it many times.

[1261] You got home and you had what recorded it?

[1262] No, I just watched it.

[1263] It's on YouTube.

[1264] Oh, it's on YouTube.

[1265] It was great.

[1266] What a performance.

[1267] I was nervous for it.

[1268] Like the final elevator ride to the top, my hands got sweaty.

[1269] Because I was like, you're watching that platform.

[1270] It's wobbling.

[1271] It is wobbling.

[1272] And I was also thinking like, God, she put herself in a rough position where it's like she's going to try to stay as calm as possible.

[1273] Yeah.

[1274] But maybe it's, there's a little tightness that wouldn't otherwise be there if we weren't doing this huge stunt.

[1275] Yeah.

[1276] I then, of course, was like, I wish I was a singer and I did a thing.

[1277] and I would have purposely done a fake fall and it's suspended by the cable and everyone would have been freaked out and I'd be hanging by the cable and then all of a sudden I'd start pop and locking from the cable I didn't really fall I was planning to dance for you like this and people would be like oh my god so I had that thought do you think the robot could maybe perform at the Super Bowl yes he's got to get going on writing his songs also he only has that one song in the way he talks that's okay he he i think could really pull it off a super bowl 45 the robot halftime show plugging your nose and then falling off platforms falling off the side of a scaffolding and stuff like a buster keating okay so my other so that was i was like this is cool and big swing but you can only be so loose when you're up that high you know it's just a little scary and then unfortunately just like having had last years in my mind which to me was such an emotional experience you had a very emotional experience still i tear up you know once a month talking about it yeah i don't think there's anything i talk about more than last year's yeah and i understand why it was very special but i loved that performance but i had a similar not the same but sort of a similar feeling with her i'm sure and for the same reason I had it for those guys yes which is I've got a white trash thing yeah yeah and you've got a woman thing a woman immigrant yeah so there's this fucking woman female foreigner yeah a suspended above everyone exactly look at me I'm the shit I fart and it's hot and everyone loves it yeah loves my farts I know it's empowering so confident I mean it's Rude to ask a woman, but she was pregnant, right?

[1278] Yes, okay.

[1279] And Lincoln said, is she pregnant?

[1280] And I was like, yes, but I'm like, I hope.

[1281] I'm saying.

[1282] It was confirmed.

[1283] Okay, good.

[1284] But, yeah, at the very beginning, you know, she like rubs her belly at the very beginning.

[1285] Okay.

[1286] As a tease.

[1287] Okay.

[1288] As a nod.

[1289] Yeah.

[1290] She did that, and I caught it, but was like, maybe she's just being sexy.

[1291] Right, sure, sure.

[1292] And.

[1293] Maybe she's got a beer belly.

[1294] She's going to bring that back in style.

[1295] Which would be great.

[1296] her big beer belly.

[1297] It should be so great.

[1298] But I, oh.

[1299] I'm robbing my tummy.

[1300] I am carrying an un -unabort robot.

[1301] I wish that was the truth.

[1302] Unfortunately, I will never procreate.

[1303] I know.

[1304] Once he started talking just now, I knew it was going to go there and I got sad.

[1305] Yeah.

[1306] Because you can't even, well, I guess he could take care of another small robot.

[1307] Oh, that would be great if a little compartment in his, belly opened up and then a little tray slid up and then you heard I am the little bitty robot if you didn't think my dad was annoying enough maybe I'll have a thing of helium with me and I'll do helium when I do the miniature robot that lives in his belly I'm I feel sad for that little robot because now he has to defend his dad because people don't like him I know seven guys seven guys he's the defending us of seven guys dedicate all of his attention meatheads any who yes she was pregnant oh and it was funny because molly was next to me and dolly was sitting in front of us and i said something to molly about i can't believe she has a kid and but she already has a kid oh she does oh riana's already a mother yes uh lincoln asked me that and i'm like i don't know yes she said she married i don't know i didn't know anything about riana not I know one thing about her, unfortunately, and I wasn't trying to tell.

[1308] That she's a sex draft.

[1309] Oh, I guess I know too.

[1310] That's about Chris Brown.

[1311] Yes, exactly.

[1312] Like, that's really all I know about her private life.

[1313] Honestly?

[1314] I also think I have a friend that had sex with her.

[1315] I'm pretty sure.

[1316] And then I was like, okay, I want to.

[1317] Did you text him immediately?

[1318] I was wanting to, but he was with his wife, his male wife.

[1319] And they didn't have sex while this person was married.

[1320] Okay.

[1321] But then I was like, probably not a good time to text and ask.

[1322] Oh, my God.

[1323] I'm surprised.

[1324] It'd be rude for him to tell me, but hopefully he will because we're good friends, you know.

[1325] Wouldn't it be rude?

[1326] To America, but in real life, no, you always, best friends say how the lovemaking was of people.

[1327] Yeah, that's the domain.

[1328] Yeah.

[1329] I guess because she's famous, you think, well, he shouldn't tell anyone if it was good or bad.

[1330] But he would be telling his best.

[1331] He was telling you.

[1332] Yeah.

[1333] Was it Aaron?

[1334] Weekly, yeah.

[1335] Oh, my God.

[1336] In a blackout.

[1337] So you might not remember much of it.

[1338] Dang.

[1339] Yeah.

[1340] She likes bad boys.

[1341] I know.

[1342] They're rude boys.

[1343] Yeah, but Aaron's not rude.

[1344] No, he's not.

[1345] He's a nice boy.

[1346] Although you've never seen him blacked out.

[1347] But he wasn't even rude then.

[1348] No, he's never rude.

[1349] He's very sweet boy.

[1350] I don't think you would be best friends with someone rude personally.

[1351] I don't think so either.

[1352] He's like rude all the time.

[1353] No. Who would be classified as a rude boy?

[1354] Right.

[1355] The closest friend I have to that is Healy, but he's joking.

[1356] Sure.

[1357] Yeah.

[1358] Yeah.

[1359] Yes, but.

[1360] Speaking of Aaron, can I tell you something?

[1361] Yeah.

[1362] Did you finish?

[1363] I want you to finish.

[1364] So, oh, she already has a child.

[1365] She has a kid and that and Dahlia kind of overheard us saying that and she turned to Molly and said, wait, she, she has a kid.

[1366] And Molly said, yeah.

[1367] And she said, that kid's so lucky.

[1368] I was like, that's right.

[1369] The kid is so lucky.

[1370] Anyway, go on.

[1371] Well, just because Aaron came up.

[1372] Yeah.

[1373] And people may know this because we.

[1374] played a video message he sent me of him on a chairlift and i might have said it then but aaron at 47 had never skied in his life and like six weeks ago he went for the first time begrudgingly to give his children a trip to yeah he went because his kids wanted to go and now he goes by himself skiing like three days a week oh my it's all he does it's all he thinks about is it close by yeah there's like um within i don't know 40 minutes from his house you have alpine valley where I grew up skiing.

[1375] Uh -huh.

[1376] You have Mount Holly, you have Pine Knob, and you have Brighton.

[1377] Oh, wow, a lot.

[1378] But they're all, they're trash hills.

[1379] They're like trash heaps that have been turned into ski hills.

[1380] Literally, I'm not being...

[1381] Really?

[1382] Yeah.

[1383] Oh, wow.

[1384] They're trash dumps, and it piles up, and then you have these kind of like mini mountains.

[1385] Oh, wow.

[1386] They're small, but then they're covered in dirt, and then the winter, they're ski hills.

[1387] Wow.

[1388] Yeah, so it's exciting.

[1389] The great use of trash.

[1390] So anyways, he's so into it.

[1391] It's all he thinks about and talks about.

[1392] I think it's so cute.

[1393] I'll add, three and a half years ago, he was just dying in a room.

[1394] Yeah.

[1395] And here's a 47 -year -old boy who's learning he loves to ski.

[1396] I love that.

[1397] I think it's so great, right?

[1398] How's it on his knees?

[1399] He's doing great.

[1400] He is?

[1401] Yeah, he loves it.

[1402] He's also down to like 238.

[1403] But it hurt my knees when I was in like the best shape of my life, when I was in high school.

[1404] It hurt your knees.

[1405] Yeah, I must have been doing it wrong.

[1406] Now that we're talking about.

[1407] Well, a couple of things about.

[1408] about Aaron that, again, it might not be obvious, which is he's a super athlete, which is so interesting, you know, like all growing up again, I'm like half as good at anything physical we ever tried.

[1409] He's a phenom.

[1410] He really is, the coordination, everything.

[1411] So even with him having 40 pounds on me in 15 more years of substance abuse, he probably is just as athletic as I am, sadly, for me. But anyways, the whole thing's so adorable.

[1412] And I said, I said, I said, You know, I quit skiing at 11.

[1413] I switched to snowboarding at 11 years old.

[1414] And so we're kind of probably at the same skill level scheme.

[1415] We should be doing this together.

[1416] You should.

[1417] And I said, wait till you go somewhere to a real mountain where you're run down the hill is actually 20 minutes long.

[1418] Because in Michigan, it is 35 seconds.

[1419] Whoa.

[1420] You're down the hill.

[1421] The trash.

[1422] Yeah, just when you're like, whoa, this is it.

[1423] And then you're back on the chairlift.

[1424] Oh, okay.

[1425] So, again, the fact that he's enjoying it so much and it's that.

[1426] So I said, we need to go skiing, you and I. You should.

[1427] So we're going.

[1428] We're going.

[1429] We're going.

[1430] I'm leaving Sunday.

[1431] This Sunday?

[1432] Yes.

[1433] We're going to Vail Colorado.

[1434] Oh, my God.

[1435] And we're skiing for three days.

[1436] And we got a room with two queen -sized beds.

[1437] And we're going to ski all day and watch movies at night.

[1438] And I am so excited.

[1439] How fun.

[1440] Wait, also, Vail's like best.

[1441] Well, here's these.

[1442] Crazy coincidences.

[1443] So I decide all this on last Friday.

[1444] And then I also go hiking with Nate.

[1445] And Nate just randomly says, you know where I love?

[1446] I've gone like three times now with the kids is Val.

[1447] And I'm like, whoa.

[1448] Whoa, that's weird.

[1449] That's freaky.

[1450] Yeah.

[1451] Then I'm at a good friend's birthday party yesterday.

[1452] Uh -huh.

[1453] And we're talking.

[1454] He's like, oh, he just went to the monster trucks with his family the night before.

[1455] I'm like, oh, I'm going to go next weekend and take Lincoln to Monster Trucks.

[1456] Oh, on Saturday.

[1457] And I'm like, we're living the same life, right?

[1458] Wow.

[1459] I go, you don't happen to be going to Vail on Sunday, do you?

[1460] And he goes, oh, my God, I'm going on Thursday.

[1461] No. Yes.

[1462] I do think it was really weird that he just was at the Monster Truck rally.

[1463] I'm going next weekend.

[1464] Is he going by himself or bring his kids?

[1465] No, a whole family.

[1466] Oh, my God.

[1467] Oh, big blunder, by the way.

[1468] What happened?

[1469] So, you know, Matt had his birthday party right before Christmas at K. And it was eight guys.

[1470] Yeah.

[1471] Very competitive.

[1472] You have a practice qualifying, then a race, then a trophy.

[1473] Yeah.

[1474] Two weeks later, I had my birthday party there.

[1475] Same thing, eight dudes.

[1476] Yeah.

[1477] You decided to repeat.

[1478] Yes, because it was perfect.

[1479] Yeah.

[1480] So much fun.

[1481] So then literally two weeks after my birthday party there, I get an invite from my friend's wife saying, you know, so -and -so's 45th birthday, K -1.

[1482] I'm like, oh, yes.

[1483] I know what this is.

[1484] I'm like, oh, great, I just did this same birthday.

[1485] I'm so excited.

[1486] I show up and the wife is there, which I think is interesting.

[1487] Yeah.

[1488] And then she goes, where's your family?

[1489] And I'm like, wait, this is for family.

[1490] I go inside, it's all kids.

[1491] Wait, what?

[1492] Yes, it's like a, as it should be.

[1493] It's a family party.

[1494] Oh.

[1495] There's like 10 families there with all these kids.

[1496] Oh.

[1497] And there's some carding for the grownups, but interspersed with lots of sessions for the little kids.

[1498] And it's not the, you know, practice qualifying.

[1499] Oh, it's not structure and then I look like a complete idiot I show up no family in my helmet she's like the fuck is wrong with you where's your family oh that is not what I would have that's not what I thought the blunder was going to be what do you think the blunder was going to be that you didn't invite him oh no to your birthday he would never be upset about no no okay whoa but I wouldn't have expected that so then I got it in my head I'm like they think I'm a terrible dad because AI just showed up at this cart track without them and then we all found out we're going to Vail but they're going as a family and I'm going with my childhood best friend and I was like I wonder if there's there anything like I'm not a great family person I don't think they think that okay did you win you be the kid no reason to talk about who won especially when it's not your birthday so but did did you raise grownups though yeah it would be like grown up because kids can't do it they have to be that by themselves at K1 so it's like they know don't let adults and kids out at the same time.

[1500] Okay.

[1501] So it's like the kids would have a session, then the adults would have a session, then the kids.

[1502] But we didn't have the cool structure that we had at my birthday party, which was adults only.

[1503] Yeah.

[1504] Anyways, it was a blast.

[1505] It was so fun.

[1506] But I did feel like a turd that I was the only person there without my family, and I am known to have a family.

[1507] You are.

[1508] That is true.

[1509] They did it on the Super Bowl?

[1510] Dicey, right?

[1511] But it concluded at 2 .30 and the game started at 3 .30.

[1512] So everyone was.

[1513] I was at home plenty of time to catch the kickoff.

[1514] The coin flip and the 12 patriotic messages and the...

[1515] I missed all that.

[1516] I was making my pizza dip.

[1517] At home still.

[1518] No, I put it in the oven at the Hansons.

[1519] But yeah, I got to the party at like 320.

[1520] Okay.

[1521] And then I was dealing with my pizza dip for a while.

[1522] How did it turn out?

[1523] So good.

[1524] Explain it to me. Build it.

[1525] Okay.

[1526] Pie dish and you do a layer of softened cream cheese.

[1527] then mozzarella Parm Pizza sauce Wait Parm Parmesan Parmesan I was thinking a layer of chicken covered in bread Oh no no Chicken farm No Shreda mozzarella Spare ribs Spare ribs Coleslaw Pizza Two Two large pizzas It's like your dad's Yeah His pizzas Yeah So cream cheese Cream cheese, mozzarella, shredded mozzarella.

[1528] Parm.

[1529] Pizza sauce, layer.

[1530] So these are layers.

[1531] You know, pizza sauce, they need a mozzarella again, parmesan again.

[1532] Then pepperonies.

[1533] Oh.

[1534] I did half pepperoni for the non -meat lovers.

[1535] Yeah, and said, figure it out.

[1536] Yes.

[1537] Somewhere there's pepperoni.

[1538] No, no, it's on top.

[1539] Oh, it's on top.

[1540] Wonderful.

[1541] Very clearly display.

[1542] Yeah.

[1543] Quick question about the pizza sauce.

[1544] It exists?

[1545] Yeah.

[1546] What brand?

[1547] I get ragoes.

[1548] No. I get Rayos.

[1549] Rayos, R -A -O.

[1550] Yeah.

[1551] I used to say rouse, but I've heard people saying Rayos lately.

[1552] Sure.

[1553] So I'm not sure what it is.

[1554] I think it's rouse, but I'm like.

[1555] I say Roa, like Boa constrictor.

[1556] Okay, I like that.

[1557] I'm flipping the, I'm flipping the hang of it.

[1558] So anyhow, so then you baked it.

[1559] Yeah, it was a hit.

[1560] Oh, congratulations.

[1561] Thank you.

[1562] And what do you dip in it?

[1563] I do scoops.

[1564] I love scoops.

[1565] I used scoops yesterday, too.

[1566] You did.

[1567] Yeah.

[1568] It's not healthy.

[1569] And it is perfect for the, Super Bowl.

[1570] Where'd you get the rest?

[1571] In college, my friend Maggie made it.

[1572] Oh, this is an old.

[1573] Oh, I figured this is something, Alan Borseshire or whatever.

[1574] Alton -Roman slash volleyball.

[1575] No, no, no. They wouldn't make fancy.

[1576] It's way too simple for that.

[1577] This is like the stuff I cook.

[1578] Yeah, and it's a fucking.

[1579] Yeah, it's a hit every time.

[1580] So, but I was dealing with that.

[1581] So I missed a lot.

[1582] I missed the Ben Affleck commercial.

[1583] Him at Dunkin' Donuts.

[1584] I guess everyone was screaming for me, but I was not, I was...

[1585] And then they also showed a trailer for their movie.

[1586] Did you catch that?

[1587] No. Yeah, the Ben and Matt movie.

[1588] Oh, shit.

[1589] Yeah, which I now know from the trailer is about the origin of the guys at Nike signing Jordan.

[1590] Cool.

[1591] Which I didn't know that was the thing they teamed up on.

[1592] That's interesting.

[1593] Well, that's exciting.

[1594] No, I missed that.

[1595] Missed the Dunkin' Donuts.

[1596] See Cooper's commercial?

[1597] I literally sat down and that came on.

[1598] Oh, okay, great timing.

[1599] Really cute commercial with his mom.

[1600] God bless Gloria.

[1601] What was your favorite commercial?

[1602] I'll tell you what mine was.

[1603] But then I had all kinds of thoughts about that.

[1604] Okay, tell me. Definitely the Caddyshack commercial is my favorite.

[1605] I don't think I saw it.

[1606] That's the one where it's like Serena Williams is golfing.

[1607] And then Brian Cox, the physicist.

[1608] No, the actor.

[1609] Oh, I was like, the physicist was all.

[1610] I know the actor.

[1611] That would have they were confused.

[1612] Brian Cox is playing the old, stodgy guy from the original Caddyshack.

[1613] And it's a whole take on it again.

[1614] Oh, that's cute.

[1615] High class versus, you know, which I like.

[1616] Yeah.

[1617] And then it was really funny and really well executed.

[1618] But I did have this thought of it.

[1619] I was like, who at this point knows the Caddyshack reference?

[1620] It's like I was on the very youngest end of someone who would have seen Caddyshack.

[1621] I saw it in reruns when I was like seven.

[1622] And I was just thinking like, well, I was thinking a few things.

[1623] Like, eight, what percentage of the audience gets this?

[1624] Right.

[1625] That this is Caddyshack.

[1626] Yeah.

[1627] Two, I was thinking, how cool for Caddyshack.

[1628] Like, that movie's 40 years old.

[1629] And it's in a commercial today.

[1630] And I was imagining being some of the people who worked on Caddyshack, seeing that and just thinking, like, that's so cool.

[1631] Like, we're like a pillar of society, you know, of culture.

[1632] I loved that.

[1633] And then I got sad that that's not how comedies are anymore.

[1634] Hell, yeah.

[1635] You know, like, there'll be no movie parody of a comedy in the last 15 years that makes it too.

[1636] Well, we don't know.

[1637] I don't want to be pessimistic.

[1638] I'm just saying it might be ahead of us.

[1639] Yeah, it might be ahead of us.

[1640] Currently, yeah.

[1641] That's true.

[1642] That is true.

[1643] Okay.

[1644] So many things to cover.

[1645] Okay.

[1646] The other thing is I've finally seen Triangle of Sadness.

[1647] Okay.

[1648] Wow.

[1649] Right?

[1650] Have you seen it, Rob?

[1651] Yeah.

[1652] Oh my God.

[1653] A revelation.

[1654] I know.

[1655] It is a movie like movies were to me in the 90s when I was watching when Wes Anderson was first making movies.

[1656] And I was like, whoa, this is a whole world.

[1657] And it's so meticulous and wonderful.

[1658] And then the fucking satire was incredible.

[1659] That boat seemed when they're shitting them.

[1660] And fucking everything, everything's breaking.

[1661] Everyone's, I mean, I was like, I was screaming laughing.

[1662] I was laughing way harder than I would laugh in any comedy I've seen, right?

[1663] Yes.

[1664] It's brilliant.

[1665] It's so fucking brilliant.

[1666] And then they get to the island and all the, I love it.

[1667] So many things happen in that movie and speak on so many different power and privilege and sex and all of it.

[1668] I loved that, and they skewered both sides equally, which I loved.

[1669] Yeah.

[1670] That's my favorite.

[1671] It's like, okay, now a woman's in charge.

[1672] Okay, so now if a woman's in charge, the male, too, will sell himself out to do whatever he wants.

[1673] And then she'll act like a fucking pig, just like men act.

[1674] I loved it all.

[1675] And power hungry and all of the same thing.

[1676] I know.

[1677] I know.

[1678] And that she would, you know, that ending.

[1679] I know.

[1680] Like, you'll do anything to keep it.

[1681] Oh, my God.

[1682] It is, no wonder it won the Palm de majeure.

[1683] Yeah, Palm tour.

[1684] What is that?

[1685] Palm to whore.

[1686] Palm to whore.

[1687] Palm to whore.

[1688] Palm to whore.

[1689] I loved it.

[1690] I'm going to watch it a few more times.

[1691] The only problem is it's so long.

[1692] How long was it?

[1693] Like three hours.

[1694] Is it?

[1695] I didn't even care.

[1696] Maybe two and have good.

[1697] Oh, I'm glad you.

[1698] I'm glad.

[1699] I know.

[1700] I know.

[1701] It's so good.

[1702] I was screaming laughing on that.

[1703] Just that opening scene about the credit card was so perfectly written.

[1704] It ended and I was like, when you get the real.

[1705] flow of conversation correct the it can be about anything yeah but if you nail the back and forth how subtly it builds yeah really nail that it's transcendent reading in between the lines becomes so much easier when that like when the cadence is right oh my god yeah I'm glad you watched it and then I found out that that actress died did you know that yeah yeah she died I found that I was like I was talking to everyone I can talk to about this movie now and someone right away I was like you know the lead actress she died of what bacterial sepsis isn't that heart breaking it was because she had her spleen removed and then she got oh my god she was so fun to watch and also revelatory that's scary oh hate that but I love the movie everyone should see triangle sadness it is incredible It really is.

[1706] I think what's really tricky, if it wasn't in the same year as everything, everywhere, all it want, like both of those to me are so once -in -a -lifetime movies.

[1707] 100%.

[1708] Yeah.

[1709] And it's sort of frustrating that they're at the same time.

[1710] Yeah.

[1711] But remember this used to happen all the time.

[1712] When there were tons of good movies, I remember many Academy Awards going like, God, I don't know.

[1713] It's like Hurt Locker versus Avatar.

[1714] True, true.

[1715] They're so different.

[1716] How are these even comparable?

[1717] But they're both so brilliant.

[1718] But anyways, yeah, those two movies combined have me very optimistic about movies, which I haven't been in so long.

[1719] That's good.

[1720] How long ago did you see it?

[1721] Where did you see it?

[1722] Do you see it at the movie theater?

[1723] I, no, I saw it right after it came out of theater.

[1724] In the back of a cab?

[1725] Yeah.

[1726] That's my favorite viewing experience.

[1727] Sure.

[1728] No, I saw it in my house.

[1729] I watched it.

[1730] Oh, you did?

[1731] Yeah.

[1732] Okay.

[1733] I guess it was, it was, I saw it during white lotus and glass onion.

[1734] I remember the combination of the three of those happening at once for me was really mind -blowing.

[1735] I was like, oh my God, all of these things are talking about similar themes and like social commentary, but doing it in a really smart, observant way that does look at a lot of different sides.

[1736] Anyway, all right, well, I have some facts.

[1737] Not that many, actually.

[1738] Okay, so tying up some of these loose ends, left -handed, are dyslexics.

[1739] Oh, do they over -index?

[1740] Yeah.

[1741] There's a lot on this.

[1742] So based on this one study, and this is kind of interesting, I don't really need to read the whole thing, but based on this study, but based on this study, there seems to be some association between dyslexia, left -handedness, and immune disorders.

[1743] Fucking wild.

[1744] Yeah, exactly.

[1745] Oh, wow.

[1746] Isn't that crazy?

[1747] What on earth?

[1748] Of the three factors, handiness seems to be the most important association.

[1749] With autoimmune.

[1750] With both, I guess.

[1751] Like, that would be the middle.

[1752] Isn't that nuts?

[1753] I'll send you this, but it's a dot -gov.

[1754] So if I learned to write with my right hand, do you think my autoimmune condition will disappear?

[1755] Oh, wow.

[1756] Yeah.

[1757] So easy.

[1758] That's what always says that here, actually.

[1759] Oh, wow.

[1760] Okay.

[1761] Or what if I fix my autoimmune?

[1762] We go the other way.

[1763] Fix my autoimmune disorder and all of a sudden I realize, oh, it's easier to write with my right hand.

[1764] But you don't want that.

[1765] You like being left -handed.

[1766] I do.

[1767] I do.

[1768] Yeah.

[1769] But you've read most of the benefits already of being left -handed.

[1770] Great point.

[1771] Now it would be time to transition.

[1772] Or you could just be ambidextrous.

[1773] That's the main.

[1774] Which I am.

[1775] Yeah, because I throw right -handed and I do several things right -handed.

[1776] That's an age -old debate right -deme.

[1777] Yeah.

[1778] I get into that.

[1779] Let's keep that dusty, put the dust pile up.

[1780] Highly creative people, that it is true that they have more fibers connecting the left and right brain.

[1781] Really?

[1782] Yeah.

[1783] It's not just like one side of the brain.

[1784] It's actually that there's just like more fibers connecting.

[1785] Different dopamine levels and liberals and conservatives.

[1786] We've talked about this a lot, but I just like wanted to deep dive on it.

[1787] And yeah, there's tons of.

[1788] There's lots of evidence that says so.

[1789] I think it was in both the dopamine books I really liked that I read.

[1790] Yeah.

[1791] Dopamine nation and the molecule more.

[1792] It's pretty fascinating.

[1793] And it was in Behave.

[1794] Oh.

[1795] Yeah.

[1796] The ultimate book ever written.

[1797] I need to read it, but it's so daunting.

[1798] It's so dense.

[1799] I know.

[1800] It's really, really dense.

[1801] I know.

[1802] But I fucking really loved it.

[1803] It's something we should try to have him on.

[1804] Big time.

[1805] I would love to have him on.

[1806] Famous philosophers who are left -handed, he said there weren't that many.

[1807] he could only find Aristotle and Nietzsche.

[1808] And then I found one, Mikhail Sirez, French philosopher.

[1809] Oh, great.

[1810] Theorist and writer, his work explore themes of science, time, and death, and later incorporated prose.

[1811] I mean, look, do we say he's as big as those other two?

[1812] Probably not, but he's big enough to have popped up.

[1813] on my search.

[1814] Right.

[1815] That says a lot.

[1816] Yeah.

[1817] He died in 2019.

[1818] Oh.

[1819] So contemporary.

[1820] But he was born in 1930.

[1821] Okay.

[1822] I wonder if he did any banking with the Warburgs.

[1823] Every time you say Warburgs, I feel like you are going to say Warbucks.

[1824] Daddy Warbucks.

[1825] Yeah.

[1826] Yeah.

[1827] Famously.

[1828] Daddy Warbux.

[1829] What's that from Annie?

[1830] Annie.

[1831] Annie.

[1832] Okay.

[1833] All right.

[1834] That's pretty much it.

[1835] Facts wise.

[1836] Oh, okay.

[1837] Yeah.

[1838] Well, that was.

[1839] That was easy.

[1840] Yeah.

[1841] Well, there's a little bit hanging of Paul Bloom's specific definition, but we're going to talk to an Easter egg.

[1842] We're going to talk to him soon.

[1843] I think we can say that, yeah.

[1844] Yeah.

[1845] We're going to talk to him soon, so we can get a little more clarity.

[1846] Sociopathicist empathy.

[1847] Right, right.

[1848] Yeah.

[1849] But, yeah, he'll be joining us soon.

[1850] He can get right in the middle of that debate.

[1851] Yeah, we can hand that over to him.

[1852] Yeah.

[1853] All right.

[1854] Love you.

[1855] Yeah, love you.

[1856] Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1857] You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[1858] Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.