Lisa Feldman Barrett: Counterintuitive Ideas About How the Brain Works
生物与进化心理与人性AI 与机器学习音乐与艺术哲学与宗教
📋 章节目录
暂无章节信息
🔑 关键词
braindonhumanemotionconceptsocialdoesnexperiencebrainstalkingphysicalinternalmodelpasttalkhumansfeaturespredictionbookmeaning
💬 精彩语录
暂无语录
🎙️ 完整对话（2683 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with Lisa Feldman Barrett,
以下是与丽莎·费尔德曼·巴雷特的对话，
Lex Fridman (00:03.600)
a professor of psychology at Northeastern University,
东北大学心理学教授，
Lex Fridman (00:06.880)
and one of the most brilliant and bold thinkers and scientists
最杰出、最大胆的思想家和科学家之一
Lex Fridman (00:10.400)
I've ever had the pleasure of speaking with.
我曾经有幸与之交谈过。
Lex Fridman (00:12.480)
She's the author of a book that revolutionized
她是一本革命性的书的作者
Lisa Feldman Barrett (00:15.120)
our understanding of emotion in the brain
我们对大脑中情绪的理解
Lex Fridman (00:17.200)
called How Emotions Are Made.
名为《情绪是如何产生的》。
Lex Fridman (00:19.440)
And she's coming out with a new book called
她即将出版一本新书，名为
Lex Fridman (00:22.320)
Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain
关于大脑的七个半课程
Lisa Feldman Barrett (00:24.960)
that you can and should preorder now.
您现在就可以而且应该预订。
Lex Fridman (00:28.160)
I got a chance to read it already,
我已经有机会读到了
Lex Fridman (00:30.320)
and it's one of the best short,
这是最好的短片之一
Lex Fridman (00:31.920)
whirlwind introductions to the human brain I've ever read.
我读过的关于人类大脑的旋风式介绍。
Lisa Feldman Barrett (00:35.440)
It comes out on November 17th,
11月17日上映，
Lex Fridman (00:37.280)
but again, if there's anybody worth supporting,
但话又说回来，如果有人值得支持的话，
Lisa Feldman Barrett (00:39.920)
it's Lisa, so please do preorder the book now.
我是丽莎，所以请立即预订这本书。
Lex Fridman (00:43.440)
Lisa and I agreed to speak once again
丽莎和我同意再次通话
Lisa Feldman Barrett (00:45.680)
around the time of the book release,
本书出版前后，
Lex Fridman (00:47.840)
especially because we felt that this first conversation
特别是因为我们觉得第一次谈话
Lisa Feldman Barrett (00:50.720)
is good to release now,
现在就可以发布了，
Lex Fridman (00:52.240)
since we talk about the divisive time
Lisa Feldman Barrett (00:54.480)
we're living through in the United States,
Lex Fridman (00:56.560)
leading up to the election.
Lex Fridman (00:58.800)
And she gives me a whole new way to think about it
Lex Fridman (01:01.760)
from a neuroscience perspective
Lisa Feldman Barrett (01:03.600)
that is ultimately inspiring of empathy,
Lex Fridman (01:06.400)
compassion, and love.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (01:08.640)
Quick mention of each sponsor,
Lex Fridman (01:10.400)
followed by some thoughts related to this episode.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (01:13.680)
First sponsor is Athletic Greens,
Lex Fridman (01:15.760)
the all in one drink that I start every day with
Lisa Feldman Barrett (01:18.880)
to cover all my nutritional bases
Lex Fridman (01:20.960)
that I don't otherwise get through my diet naturally.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (01:23.840)
Second is Magic Spoon,
Lex Fridman (01:25.520)
low carb, keto friendly, delicious cereal
Lisa Feldman Barrett (01:27.920)
that I reward myself with after a productive day.
Lex Fridman (01:31.360)
The cocoa flavor is my favorite.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (01:33.520)
Third sponsor is Cash App,
Lex Fridman (01:35.360)
the app I use to send money to friends for food, drinks,
Lex Fridman (01:39.520)
and unfortunately, for the many bets I have lost to them.
Lex Fridman (01:43.200)
Please check out these sponsors in the description
Lisa Feldman Barrett (01:45.360)
to get a discount and to support this podcast.
Lex Fridman (01:49.120)
As a side note, let me say that the bold,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (01:51.680)
first principles way that Lisa approaches
Lex Fridman (01:53.760)
our study of the brain is something that has inspired me
Lisa Feldman Barrett (01:57.200)
ever since I learned about her work.
Lex Fridman (01:59.200)
And in fact, I invited her to speak at the AGI series
Lisa Feldman Barrett (02:03.280)
I organized at MIT several years ago.
Lex Fridman (02:06.240)
But as a little twist, instead of a lecture,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (02:09.120)
we did a conversation in front of the class.
Lex Fridman (02:11.600)
I think that was one of the early moments
Lisa Feldman Barrett (02:13.600)
that led me to start this very podcast.
Lex Fridman (02:16.800)
It was scary and gratifying,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (02:18.960)
which is exactly what life is all about.
Lex Fridman (02:21.120)
And it's kind of funny how life turns on little moments
Lisa Feldman Barrett (02:24.000)
like these that at the time don't seem to be anything
Lex Fridman (02:27.360)
out of the ordinary.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (02:28.640)
If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
Lex Fridman (02:31.040)
review it with five stars on Apple Podcast,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (02:33.280)
follow on Spotify, support on Patreon,
Lex Fridman (02:35.920)
or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
Lex Fridman (02:39.760)
And now, here's my conversation with Lisa Feldman Barrett.
Lex Fridman (02:44.960)
Since we'll talk a lot about the brain today,
Lex Fridman (02:47.200)
do you think, let's ask the craziest question,
Lex Fridman (02:49.600)
do you think there's other intelligent life
Lex Fridman (02:51.520)
out there in the universe?
Lex Fridman (02:53.760)
Honestly, I've been asking myself lately
Lisa Feldman Barrett (02:55.680)
if there's intelligent life on this planet.
Lex Fridman (02:58.880)
You know, I have to think probabilities suggest yes.
Lex Fridman (03:05.120)
And also, secretly, I think I just hope that's true.
Lex Fridman (03:08.880)
It would be really, I know scientists
Lisa Feldman Barrett (03:11.840)
aren't supposed to have hopes and dreams,
Lex Fridman (03:13.520)
but I think it would be really cool.
Lex Fridman (03:16.640)
And I also think it would be really sad if it wasn't the case.
Lex Fridman (03:20.960)
If we really were alone, that would be,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (03:24.080)
that would seem profoundly sad, I think.
Lex Fridman (03:29.200)
So it's exciting to you, not scary?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (03:32.000)
Yeah, no, you know, I take a lot of comfort and curiosity.
Lex Fridman (03:36.640)
It's a great resource for dealing with stress.
Lex Fridman (03:44.400)
So I'm learning all about mushrooms and octopuses
Lex Fridman (03:49.280)
and, you know, all kinds of stuff.
Lex Fridman (03:51.840)
And so for me, this counts, I think, in the realm of awe.
Lex Fridman (03:55.760)
But also, I think I'm somebody who cultivates awe
Lex Fridman (03:59.600)
deliberately on purpose to feel like a speck, you know?
Lex Fridman (04:02.960)
I find it a relief occasionally.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (04:06.640)
To feel small.
Lex Fridman (04:07.360)
To feel small in a profoundly large and interesting universe.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (04:12.480)
So, maybe to dig more technically on the question of intelligence,
Lex Fridman (04:17.840)
do you think it's difficult for intelligent life to arise
Lex Fridman (04:20.960)
like it did on Earth?
Lex Fridman (04:22.560)
From everything you've written and studied about the brain,
Lex Fridman (04:26.320)
how magical of a thing is it in terms of the odds it takes to arise?
Lex Fridman (04:32.560)
Yeah, so, you know, magic is just, don't get me wrong.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (04:38.400)
I mean, I like a magic show as much as the next person.
Lex Fridman (04:43.440)
My husband was a magician at one time.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (04:45.680)
But, you know, magic is just a bunch of stuff
Lex Fridman (04:48.560)
that we don't really understand how it works yet.
Lex Fridman (04:50.640)
So I would say from what I understand,
Lex Fridman (04:53.440)
there are some major steps in the course of evolution
Lisa Feldman Barrett (04:59.040)
that at the beginning of life,
Lex Fridman (05:00.720)
the step from single cell to multicellular organisms,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (05:04.000)
things like that, which are really not known.
Lex Fridman (05:06.480)
I think for me, the question is not so much what's the likelihood
Lisa Feldman Barrett (05:16.000)
that it would happen again as much as what are the steps
Lex Fridman (05:22.560)
and how long would it take?
Lex Fridman (05:24.080)
And if it were to happen again on Earth,
Lex Fridman (05:28.160)
would we end up with the same menu of life forms
Lex Fridman (05:33.120)
that we currently have now?
Lex Fridman (05:34.400)
And I think the answer is probably no, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (05:36.320)
There's just so much about evolution
Lex Fridman (05:38.640)
that is stochastic and driven by chance.
Lex Fridman (05:43.120)
But the question is whether that menu
Lex Fridman (05:44.560)
would be equally delicious,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (05:46.240)
meaning like there'd be rich complexity of the kind of,
Lex Fridman (05:49.840)
like would we get dolphins and humans
Lisa Feldman Barrett (05:52.480)
or whoever else falls in that category
Lex Fridman (05:54.640)
of weirdly intelligent, seemingly intelligent?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (05:59.120)
However we define that.
Lex Fridman (06:01.120)
Well, I think that has to be true.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (06:03.200)
If you just look at the range of creatures
Lex Fridman (06:05.760)
who've gone extinct.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (06:06.960)
I mean, if you look at the range of creatures
Lex Fridman (06:09.600)
that are on the Earth now, it's incredible.
Lex Fridman (06:13.040)
And it's sort of tried to say that,
Lex Fridman (06:14.720)
but it actually is really incredible.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (06:18.080)
Particularly, I don't know, I mean, animals,
Lex Fridman (06:22.800)
there are animals that seem really ordinary
Lisa Feldman Barrett (06:26.160)
until you watch them closely
Lex Fridman (06:27.680)
and then they become miraculous,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (06:29.360)
like certain types of birds,
Lex Fridman (06:30.880)
which do very miraculous things,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (06:32.720)
build bowers and do dances
Lex Fridman (06:36.080)
and all these really funky things
Lisa Feldman Barrett (06:37.600)
that are hard to explain
Lex Fridman (06:39.840)
with a standard evolutionary story,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (06:41.600)
although people have them.
Lex Fridman (06:43.760)
Yeah, the birds are weird.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (06:44.720)
They do a lot for mating purposes.
Lex Fridman (06:47.280)
They have a concept of beauty
Lisa Feldman Barrett (06:49.840)
that I haven't quite, maybe you know much better,
Lex Fridman (06:52.560)
but it doesn't seem to fit evolutionary arguments well.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (06:55.600)
It does fit.
Lex Fridman (06:56.640)
Well, it depends, right?
Lex Fridman (06:57.760)
So I think you're talking about the evolution of beauty,
Lex Fridman (07:00.080)
the book that was written recently by,
Lex Fridman (07:03.200)
was it Frum, was that his name?
Lex Fridman (07:06.160)
Richard Frum, I think, at Yale.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (07:07.760)
Oh, I'm sorry, no, I didn't know.
Lex Fridman (07:09.040)
Oh, it's a great book.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (07:09.840)
It's very controversial, though,
Lex Fridman (07:11.120)
because he's making the argument
Lisa Feldman Barrett (07:14.400)
that the question about birds and some other animals
Lex Fridman (07:17.760)
is why would they engage
Lisa Feldman Barrett (07:19.680)
in such metabolically costly displays
Lex Fridman (07:24.880)
when it doesn't improve their fitness at all?
Lex Fridman (07:27.280)
And the answer that he gives is the answer that Darwin gave,
Lex Fridman (07:31.120)
which is sexual selection, not natural selection.
Lex Fridman (07:35.200)
But selection can occur for all kinds of reasons.
Lex Fridman (07:37.520)
There could be artificial selection,
Lex Fridman (07:39.200)
which is when we breed animals, right?
Lex Fridman (07:41.200)
Which is actually how Darwin,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (07:43.440)
that observation helped Darwin come to the idea
Lex Fridman (07:46.400)
of natural selection.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (07:47.760)
Oh, I see.
Lex Fridman (07:49.040)
And then there's sexual selection,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (07:50.800)
meaning, and the argument that,
Lex Fridman (07:53.440)
I think his name is Frum,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (07:55.040)
makes is that it's the pleasure,
Lex Fridman (07:59.760)
the selection pressure is the pleasure of female birds.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (08:03.680)
Which, as a woman, and as someone who studies affect,
Lex Fridman (08:07.200)
that's a great answer.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (08:09.200)
I actually think there probably is natural,
Lex Fridman (08:10.960)
I think there is an aspect of natural selection to it,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (08:13.040)
which he maybe hasn't considered.
Lex Fridman (08:15.280)
But you were saying the reason we brought up birds
Lisa Feldman Barrett (08:17.760)
is the life we've got now seems to be quite incredible.
Lex Fridman (08:20.960)
Yeah, so he brought up birds,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (08:22.880)
now seems to be quite incredible.
Lex Fridman (08:25.200)
Yeah, so you peek into the ocean,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (08:26.640)
peek into the sky, there are miraculous creatures.
Lex Fridman (08:29.600)
Look at creatures who've gone extinct.
Lex Fridman (08:31.920)
And in science fiction stories,
Lex Fridman (08:35.200)
you couldn't dream up something as interesting.
Lex Fridman (08:37.520)
So my guess is that intelligent life evolves
Lex Fridman (08:43.760)
in many different ways, even on this planet.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (08:47.040)
There isn't one form of intelligence.
Lex Fridman (08:48.880)
There's not one brain that gives you intelligence.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (08:51.120)
There are lots of different brain structures
Lex Fridman (08:52.720)
that can give you intelligence.
Lex Fridman (08:54.960)
So my guess is that the menagerie
Lex Fridman (08:59.200)
might not look exactly the way that it looks now,
Lex Fridman (09:01.520)
but it would certainly be as interesting.
Lex Fridman (09:04.800)
But if we look at the human brain versus the brains,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (09:09.840)
or whatever you call them,
Lex Fridman (09:11.440)
the mechanisms of intelligence in our ancestors,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (09:14.240)
even early ancestors,
Lex Fridman (09:15.920)
that you write about, for example, in your new book,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (09:18.240)
what's the difference between the fanciest brain we got,
Lex Fridman (09:25.440)
which is the human brain,
Lex Fridman (09:27.200)
and the ancestor brains that it came from?
Lex Fridman (09:31.520)
Yeah, I think it depends on how far back you want to go.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (09:34.560)
You go all the way back, right, in your book.
Lex Fridman (09:38.560)
So what's the interesting comparison, would you say?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (09:41.120)
Well, first of all, I wouldn't say that the human brain
Lex Fridman (09:43.440)
is the fanciest brain we've got.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (09:45.040)
I mean, an octopus brain is pretty different
Lex Fridman (09:48.000)
and pretty fancy,
Lex Fridman (09:48.960)
and they can do some pretty amazing things
Lex Fridman (09:51.040)
that we cannot do.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (09:52.720)
You know, we can't grow back limbs,
Lex Fridman (09:54.320)
we can't change color and texture,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (09:56.800)
we can't comport ourselves and squeeze ourselves
Lex Fridman (09:59.760)
into a little crevice.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (10:01.120)
I mean, these are things that we invent,
Lex Fridman (10:03.040)
these are like superhero abilities
Lex Fridman (10:04.640)
that we invent in stories, right?
Lex Fridman (10:06.160)
We can't do any of those things.
Lex Fridman (10:08.080)
And so the human brain is certainly,
Lex Fridman (10:11.120)
we can certainly do some things
Lisa Feldman Barrett (10:12.480)
that other animals can't do.
Lex Fridman (10:15.440)
That seemed pretty impressive to us.
Lex Fridman (10:16.960)
But I would say that there are a number of animal brains
Lex Fridman (10:21.520)
which seem pretty impressive to me
Lisa Feldman Barrett (10:23.440)
that can do interesting things
Lex Fridman (10:25.280)
and really impressive things that we can't do.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (10:28.160)
I mean, with your work on how emotions are made and so on,
Lex Fridman (10:31.040)
you kind of repaint the view of the brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett (10:34.560)
as less glamorous, I suppose,
Lex Fridman (10:38.400)
than you would otherwise think.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (10:41.760)
Or like, I guess you draw a thread
Lex Fridman (10:43.760)
that connects all brains together
Lisa Feldman Barrett (10:47.120)
in terms of homeostasis and all that kind of stuff.
Lex Fridman (10:50.080)
Yeah, I wouldn't say that the human brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett (10:53.600)
is any less miraculous than anybody else would say.
Lex Fridman (10:57.040)
I just think that there are other brain structures
Lisa Feldman Barrett (11:00.000)
which are also miraculous.
Lex Fridman (11:02.080)
And I also think that there are a number of things
Lisa Feldman Barrett (11:04.080)
about the human brain which we share
Lex Fridman (11:07.520)
with other vertebrates, other animals with backbones.
Lex Fridman (11:11.440)
But that we share these miraculous things.
Lex Fridman (11:16.480)
But we can do some things in abundance.
Lex Fridman (11:19.040)
And we can also do some things with our brains together,
Lex Fridman (11:23.680)
working together that other animals can't do.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (11:27.120)
Or at least we haven't discovered their ability to do it.
Lex Fridman (11:31.200)
Yeah, this social thing.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (11:33.120)
That's one of the things you write about.
Lex Fridman (11:37.040)
How do you make sense of the fact,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (11:39.760)
like the book Sapiens, and the fact that we're able
Lex Fridman (11:43.680)
to kind of connect, like network our brains together
Lex Fridman (11:47.280)
like you write about?
Lex Fridman (11:48.400)
I'll try to stop saying that.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (11:53.200)
Is that like some kind of feature
Lex Fridman (11:56.640)
that's built into there?
Lex Fridman (11:58.480)
Is that unique to our human brains?
Lex Fridman (12:00.160)
Like how do you make sense of that?
Lex Fridman (12:02.000)
What I would say is that our ability
Lex Fridman (12:04.240)
to coordinate with each other is not unique to humans.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (12:09.200)
There are lots of animals who can do that.
Lex Fridman (12:14.800)
But what we do with that coordination is unique
Lisa Feldman Barrett (12:20.560)
because of some of the structural features in our brains.
Lex Fridman (12:25.120)
And it's not that other animals
Lisa Feldman Barrett (12:29.040)
don't have those structural features.
Lex Fridman (12:30.560)
It's we have them in abundance.
Lex Fridman (12:33.440)
So the human brain is not larger
Lex Fridman (12:38.000)
than you would expect it to be for a primate of our size.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (12:42.560)
If you took a chimpanzee and you grew it
Lex Fridman (12:47.120)
to the size of a human, that chimpanzee would have a brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett (12:51.520)
that was the size of a human brain.
Lex Fridman (12:53.600)
So there's nothing special about our brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett (12:56.000)
in terms of its size.
Lex Fridman (12:57.360)
There's nothing special about our brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett (12:59.680)
in terms of the basic blueprint
Lex Fridman (13:04.000)
that builds our brain from an embryo
Lisa Feldman Barrett (13:06.800)
is the basic blueprint that builds all mammalian brains
Lex Fridman (13:10.640)
and maybe even all vertebrate brains.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (13:14.160)
It's just that because of its size
Lex Fridman (13:17.360)
and particularly because of the size
Lisa Feldman Barrett (13:19.120)
of the cerebral cortex, which is a part
Lex Fridman (13:23.200)
that people mistakenly attribute to rationality.
Lex Fridman (13:27.680)
Why mistakenly?
Lex Fridman (13:29.360)
Is that where all the clever stuff happens?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (13:31.600)
Well, no, it really isn't.
Lex Fridman (13:33.520)
And I will also say that lots of clever stuff happens
Lisa Feldman Barrett (13:36.240)
in animals who don't have a cerebral cortex.
Lex Fridman (13:38.560)
But because of the size of the cerebral cortex
Lex Fridman (13:43.920)
and because of some of the features
Lex Fridman (13:46.240)
that are enhanced by that size,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (13:49.680)
that gives us the capacity to do things
Lex Fridman (13:52.560)
like build civilizations and coordinate with each other,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (13:57.560)
not just to manipulate the physical world,
Lex Fridman (14:01.600)
but to add to it in very profound ways.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (14:05.920)
Like, other animals can cooperate with each other
Lex Fridman (14:09.040)
and use tools.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (14:11.040)
We draw a line in the sand and we make countries
Lex Fridman (14:14.240)
and then we create citizens and immigrants.
Lex Fridman (14:20.240)
But also ideas.
Lex Fridman (14:21.760)
I mean, the countries are centered around the concept
Lisa Feldman Barrett (14:24.400)
of like ideas.
Lex Fridman (14:25.840)
Well, what do you think a citizen is and an immigrant?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (14:28.880)
Those are ideas.
Lex Fridman (14:30.000)
Those are ideas that we impose on reality
Lex Fridman (14:33.760)
and make them real.
Lex Fridman (14:34.720)
And then they have very, very serious and real effects,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (14:38.640)
physical effects on people.
Lex Fridman (14:40.280)
What do you think about the idea
Lisa Feldman Barrett (14:42.160)
that a bunch of people have written about,
Lex Fridman (14:43.680)
Dawkins with memes, which is like ideas are breeding.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (14:48.320)
Like, we're just like the canvas for ideas to breed
Lex Fridman (14:53.320)
in our brains.
Lex Fridman (14:54.760)
So this kind of network that you talk about of brains
Lex Fridman (14:57.880)
is just a little canvas for ideas
Lisa Feldman Barrett (14:59.720)
to then compete against each other and so on.
Lex Fridman (15:02.600)
I think as a rhetorical tool, it's cool to think that way.
Lex Fridman (15:08.080)
So I think it was Michael Pollan.
Lex Fridman (15:10.800)
I don't remember if it was in the Botany of Desire,
Lex Fridman (15:12.960)
but it was in one of his early books on botany
Lex Fridman (15:18.440)
and gardening where he wrote about plants
Lex Fridman (15:23.440)
and he wrote about plants utilizing humans
Lex Fridman (15:29.440)
for their own evolutionary purposes.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (15:32.640)
Which is kind of interesting.
Lex Fridman (15:33.640)
You can think about a human gut in a sense
Lisa Feldman Barrett (15:36.520)
as a propagation device for the seeds of tomatoes
Lex Fridman (15:42.760)
and what have you.
Lex Fridman (15:43.760)
So it's kind of cool.
Lex Fridman (15:45.840)
So I think rhetorically it's an interesting device,
Lex Fridman (15:48.760)
but ideas are, as far as I know, invented by humans,
Lex Fridman (15:55.080)
propagated by humans.
Lex Fridman (15:58.240)
So I don't think they're separate from human brains
Lex Fridman (16:01.880)
in any way, although it is interesting
Lisa Feldman Barrett (16:04.640)
to think about it that way.
Lex Fridman (16:06.840)
Well, of course, the ideas that are using your brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett (16:09.680)
to communicate and write excellent books.
Lex Fridman (16:13.160)
And they basically picked you, Lisa,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (16:17.200)
as an effective communicator and thereby are winning.
Lex Fridman (16:21.360)
So that's an interesting worldview
Lisa Feldman Barrett (16:24.440)
to think that there's particular aspects of your brain
Lex Fridman (16:28.120)
that are conducive to certain sets of ideas
Lex Fridman (16:31.360)
and maybe those ideas will win out.
Lex Fridman (16:33.440)
Yeah, I think the way that I would say it really though
Lisa Feldman Barrett (16:35.520)
is that there are many species of animals
Lex Fridman (16:38.160)
that influence each other's nervous systems,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (16:40.280)
that regulate each other's nervous systems,
Lex Fridman (16:42.360)
and they mainly do it by physical means.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (16:44.640)
They do it by chemicals, scent.
Lex Fridman (16:47.600)
They do it by, so termites and ants and bees,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (16:51.880)
for example, use chemical scents.
Lex Fridman (16:55.280)
Mammals like rodents use scent
Lex Fridman (16:59.520)
and they also use hearing, audition,
Lex Fridman (17:02.600)
and that little bit of vision.
Lex Fridman (17:05.040)
Primates, nonhuman primates add vision, right?
Lex Fridman (17:09.400)
And I think everybody uses touch.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (17:13.520)
Humans, as far as I know, are the only species
Lex Fridman (17:16.000)
that use ideas and words to regulate each other, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (17:20.800)
I can text something to someone halfway around the world.
Lex Fridman (17:24.520)
They don't have to hear my voice.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (17:26.160)
They don't have to see my face
Lex Fridman (17:27.800)
and I can have an effect on their nervous system.
Lex Fridman (17:30.680)
And ideas, the ideas that we communicate with words,
Lex Fridman (17:35.000)
I mean, words are in a sense a way
Lex Fridman (17:36.720)
for us to do mental telepathy with each other, right?
Lex Fridman (17:39.200)
I mean, I'm not the first person to say that obviously,
Lex Fridman (17:41.760)
but how do I control your heart rate?
Lex Fridman (17:45.520)
How do I control your breathing?
Lex Fridman (17:46.760)
How do I control your actions with words?
Lex Fridman (17:49.960)
It's because those words are communicating ideas.
Lex Fridman (17:54.120)
So you also write, I think, let's go back to the brain.
Lex Fridman (17:57.840)
You write that Plato gave us the idea
Lisa Feldman Barrett (17:59.960)
that the human brain has three brains in it, three forces,
Lex Fridman (18:05.240)
which is kind of a compelling notion.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (18:08.320)
You disagree.
Lex Fridman (18:09.440)
First of all, what are the three parts of the brain
Lex Fridman (18:12.640)
and why do you disagree?
Lex Fridman (18:16.000)
So Plato's description of the psyche,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (18:20.600)
which for the moment we'll just assume
Lex Fridman (18:22.800)
is the same as a mind.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (18:24.640)
There are some scholars who would say a soul, a psyche,
Lex Fridman (18:27.600)
a mind, those aren't actually all the same thing
Lisa Feldman Barrett (18:29.760)
in ancient Greece, but we'll just for now gloss over that.
Lex Fridman (18:34.000)
So Plato's idea was that,
Lex Fridman (18:36.360)
and it was a description of really about moral behavior
Lex Fridman (18:41.680)
and moral responsibility in humans.
Lex Fridman (18:44.040)
So the idea was that the human psyche can be described
Lex Fridman (18:47.240)
with a metaphor of two horses and a charioteer.
Lex Fridman (18:53.640)
So one horse for instincts,
Lex Fridman (18:57.560)
like feeding and fighting and fleeing and reproduction.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (19:02.560)
I'm trying to control my salty language,
Lex Fridman (19:09.120)
which apparently they print in England.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (19:11.000)
Like I actually tossed off a fairly.
Lex Fridman (19:14.720)
F, S?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (19:15.560)
Yeah, F, F, yeah.
Lex Fridman (19:17.880)
I was like, you printed that?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (19:19.080)
I couldn't believe you printed that.
Lex Fridman (19:20.360)
Without like the stars or whatever?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (19:22.000)
No, no, no, it was full print.
Lex Fridman (19:23.920)
They also printed a B word and it was really, yeah.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (19:28.480)
Well, we should learn something from England.
Lex Fridman (19:32.240)
Indeed, anyways, but instincts.
Lex Fridman (19:34.360)
And then the other horse represents emotions.
Lex Fridman (19:37.920)
And then the charioteer represents rationality,
Lex Fridman (19:40.080)
which controls the two beasts, right?
Lex Fridman (19:43.640)
And fast forward a couple of centuries
Lex Fridman (19:49.440)
and in the middle of the 20th century,
Lex Fridman (19:54.440)
there was a very popular view of brain evolution,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (19:57.960)
which suggested that you have this reptilian core,
Lex Fridman (1:00:02.400)
So you're running, your brain's running this internal model
Lex Fridman (1:00:04.840)
and it's all outside of your awareness.
Lex Fridman (1:00:06.680)
You see the, you feel the products,
Lex Fridman (1:00:08.280)
but you don't sense the,
Lex Fridman (1:00:10.360)
you have no awareness of the mechanics of it, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:00:13.680)
It's going on all the time.
Lex Fridman (1:00:17.080)
And so one thing that's going on all the time
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:00:19.200)
that you're completely unaware of
Lex Fridman (1:00:20.760)
is that when your brain,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:00:22.720)
your brain is basically asking itself,
Lex Fridman (1:00:25.720)
figuratively speaking, not literally, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:00:27.760)
Like how is, the last time I was in this sensory array
Lex Fridman (1:00:32.160)
with this stuff going on in my body
Lex Fridman (1:00:33.960)
and this chain of events which just occurred,
Lex Fridman (1:00:37.680)
what did I do next?
Lex Fridman (1:00:39.440)
What did I feel next?
Lex Fridman (1:00:40.680)
What did I see next?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:00:42.000)
It doesn't come up with one answer.
Lex Fridman (1:00:43.600)
It comes up with a distribution of it, possible answers.
Lex Fridman (1:00:47.360)
And then there has to be some selection process.
Lex Fridman (1:00:50.360)
And so you have a network in your brain,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:00:54.000)
a sub network in your brain, a population of neurons
Lex Fridman (1:00:57.560)
that helps to choose.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:01:00.760)
It's not, I'm not talking about a homunculus in your brain
Lex Fridman (1:01:03.560)
or anything silly like that.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:01:07.200)
This is not the soul.
Lex Fridman (1:01:08.960)
It's not the center of yourself or anything like that.
Lex Fridman (1:01:11.800)
But there is a set of neurons
Lex Fridman (1:01:17.800)
that weighs the probabilities
Lex Fridman (1:01:21.960)
and helps to select or narrow the field, okay?
Lex Fridman (1:01:26.640)
And that network is working all the time.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:01:30.120)
It's actually called the control network,
Lex Fridman (1:01:32.160)
the executive control network,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:01:33.520)
or you can call it a frontoparietal
Lex Fridman (1:01:35.840)
because the regions of the brain that make it up
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:01:38.160)
are in the frontal lobe and the parietal lobe.
Lex Fridman (1:01:41.120)
There are also parts that belong
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:01:43.120)
to the subcortical parts of your brain.
Lex Fridman (1:01:44.840)
It doesn't really matter.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:01:45.680)
The point is that there is this network
Lex Fridman (1:01:47.680)
and it is working all the time.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:01:49.200)
Whether or not you feel in control,
Lex Fridman (1:01:50.800)
whether or not you feel like you're expending effort
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:01:52.680)
doesn't really matter.
Lex Fridman (1:01:53.520)
It's on all the time, except when you sleep.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:01:57.240)
When you sleep, it's a little bit relaxed.
Lex Fridman (1:02:03.000)
And so think about what's happening when you sleep.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:02:05.640)
When you sleep, the external world recedes,
Lex Fridman (1:02:09.760)
the sense data from,
Lex Fridman (1:02:11.400)
so basically your model becomes a little bit,
Lex Fridman (1:02:16.000)
the tethers from the world are loosened.
Lex Fridman (1:02:19.520)
And this network, which is involved in,
Lex Fridman (1:02:24.000)
you know, maybe weeding out unrealistic things
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:02:27.720)
is a little bit quiet.
Lex Fridman (1:02:29.960)
So use your dreams are really your internal model
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:02:34.040)
that's unconstrained by the immediate world.
Lex Fridman (1:02:40.040)
Except, so you can do things that you can't do
Lex Fridman (1:02:43.040)
in real life, in your dreams, right?
Lex Fridman (1:02:45.600)
You can fly.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:02:46.440)
Like I, for example, when I fly on my back in a dream,
Lex Fridman (1:02:49.320)
I'm much faster than when I fly on my front.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:02:51.640)
Don't ask me why, I don't know.
Lex Fridman (1:02:53.240)
Or when you're laying on your back in your dream.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:02:55.000)
No, when I'm in my dream and flying in a dream,
Lex Fridman (1:02:58.720)
I am much faster flyer in the air.
Lex Fridman (1:03:00.800)
You fly often?
Lex Fridman (1:03:02.040)
Not often, but I, You talk about it like you,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:03:04.480)
I don't think I've flown for many years.
Lex Fridman (1:03:06.400)
Well, you must try it.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:03:08.000)
I've flown, I've fallen.
Lex Fridman (1:03:11.480)
That's scary.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:03:12.400)
Yeah, but you're talking about like airplane.
Lex Fridman (1:03:14.440)
Yeah, I fly in my dreams.
Lex Fridman (1:03:16.600)
And I'm way faster, right? On your back.
Lex Fridman (1:03:18.840)
On my back, way faster.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:03:21.680)
Now you can say, well, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:03:22.560)
you never flew in your life.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:03:24.000)
Right, it's conceptual combination.
Lex Fridman (1:03:25.720)
I mean, I've flown in an airplane
Lex Fridman (1:03:27.680)
and I've seen birds fly
Lex Fridman (1:03:30.280)
and I've watched movies of people flying
Lex Fridman (1:03:31.920)
and I know Superman probably flies,
Lex Fridman (1:03:34.280)
I don't know if he flies faster on his back, but.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:03:36.040)
He's, I've never seen Superman.
Lex Fridman (1:03:37.880)
He's always flying on his front, right, but yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:03:40.040)
But anyways, my point is that, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:03:41.960)
all of this stuff really, all of these experiences
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:03:46.480)
really become part of your internal model.
Lex Fridman (1:03:48.840)
The thing is that when you're asleep,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:03:52.160)
your internal model is still being constrained
Lex Fridman (1:03:54.200)
by your body.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:03:56.040)
Your brain's always attached to your body.
Lex Fridman (1:03:58.520)
It's always receiving sense data from your body.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:04:01.040)
You're mostly never aware of it
Lex Fridman (1:04:04.200)
unless you run up the stairs
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:04:06.640)
or, you know, maybe you are ill in some way.
Lex Fridman (1:04:11.160)
But you're mostly not aware of it,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:04:12.720)
which is a really good thing.
Lex Fridman (1:04:13.800)
Because if you were, you know,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:04:16.040)
you'd never pay attention to anything
Lex Fridman (1:04:17.440)
outside your own skin ever again.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:04:19.080)
Like right now, you seem like
Lex Fridman (1:04:20.560)
you're sitting there very calmly,
Lex Fridman (1:04:21.840)
but you have a virtual drama, right?
Lex Fridman (1:04:25.320)
It's like an opera going on inside your body.
Lex Fridman (1:04:30.280)
And so I think that one of the things
Lex Fridman (1:04:33.520)
that happens when people take psilocybin
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:04:37.320)
or take, you know, ketamine, for example,
Lex Fridman (1:04:41.760)
is that the tethers are completely removed.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:04:47.920)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:04:48.840)
That's fascinating.
Lex Fridman (1:04:50.200)
And that's why it's helpful to have a guide, right?
Lex Fridman (1:04:53.480)
Because the guide is giving you sense data
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:04:57.040)
to steer that internal model
Lex Fridman (1:04:59.640)
so that it doesn't go completely off the rails.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:05:02.560)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:05:03.400)
Again, that wiring to the other brain,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:05:06.480)
that's the guide, is at least a tiny little tether.
Lex Fridman (1:05:09.840)
Exactly.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:05:10.680)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:05:11.520)
Let's talk about emotion a little bit, if we could.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:05:14.960)
Emotion comes up often.
Lex Fridman (1:05:16.960)
And I have never spoken with anybody
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:05:19.280)
who has a clarity about emotion
Lex Fridman (1:05:24.720)
from a biological and neuroscience perspective that you do.
Lex Fridman (1:05:29.200)
And I'm not sure I fully know how to,
Lex Fridman (1:05:34.240)
as a, I mentioned this way too much,
Lex Fridman (1:05:37.080)
but as somebody who was born in the Soviet Union
Lex Fridman (1:05:40.040)
and romanticizes basically everything,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:05:42.440)
talks about love nonstop,
Lex Fridman (1:05:44.920)
you know, emotion is a, I don't know what to make of it.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:05:48.520)
I don't know what to,
Lex Fridman (1:05:51.080)
so maybe let's just try to talk about it.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:05:53.960)
I mean, from a neuroscience perspective,
Lex Fridman (1:05:56.440)
we talked about it a little bit last time,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:05:58.440)
your book covers it, how emotions are made,
Lex Fridman (1:06:00.720)
but what are some misconceptions we writers of poetry,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:06:06.160)
we romanticizing humans have about emotion
Lex Fridman (1:06:10.200)
that we should move away from before
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:06:14.440)
to think about emotion from both a scientific
Lex Fridman (1:06:18.120)
and an engineering perspective?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:06:20.040)
Yeah, so there is a common view of emotion in the West.
Lex Fridman (1:06:25.040)
The caricature of that view is that,
Lex Fridman (1:06:30.600)
you know, we have an inner beast, right?
Lex Fridman (1:06:33.440)
Your limbic system, your inner lizard,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:06:38.160)
we have an inner beast
Lex Fridman (1:06:39.360)
and that comes baked in to the brain at birth.
Lex Fridman (1:06:41.960)
So you've got circuits for anger, sadness, fear.
Lex Fridman (1:06:44.280)
It's interesting that they all have English names,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:06:46.800)
these circuits.
Lex Fridman (1:06:47.960)
But, and they're there
Lex Fridman (1:06:50.520)
and they're triggered by things in the world.
Lex Fridman (1:06:52.760)
And then they cause you to do and say,
Lex Fridman (1:06:56.000)
and so when your fear circuit is triggered,
Lex Fridman (1:06:59.280)
you widen your eyes, you gasp,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:07:03.120)
your heart rate goes up,
Lex Fridman (1:07:06.680)
you prepare to flee or to freeze.
Lex Fridman (1:07:12.200)
And these are modal responses.
Lex Fridman (1:07:15.120)
They're not the only responses that you give,
Lex Fridman (1:07:16.840)
but on average, they're the prototypical responses.
Lex Fridman (1:07:20.680)
That's the view.
Lex Fridman (1:07:22.160)
And that's the view of emotion in the law.
Lex Fridman (1:07:25.880)
That's the view, you know,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:07:27.800)
that emotions are these profoundly unhelpful things
Lex Fridman (1:07:31.120)
that are obligatory kind of like reflexes.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:07:37.800)
The problem with that view
Lex Fridman (1:07:39.920)
is that it doesn't comport to the evidence.
Lex Fridman (1:07:44.480)
And it doesn't really matter.
Lex Fridman (1:07:46.360)
The evidence actually lines up beautifully with each other.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:07:49.160)
It just doesn't line up with that view.
Lex Fridman (1:07:50.800)
And it doesn't matter whether you're measuring people's faces,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:07:53.280)
facial movements, or you're measuring their body movements,
Lex Fridman (1:07:55.280)
or you're measuring their peripheral physiology,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:07:57.120)
or you're measuring their brains
Lex Fridman (1:07:59.360)
or their voices or whatever.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:08:00.640)
Pick any output that you wanna measure
Lex Fridman (1:08:03.600)
and any system you wanna measure,
Lex Fridman (1:08:05.760)
and you don't really find strong evidence for this.
Lex Fridman (1:08:09.080)
And I say this as somebody who not only has reviewed
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:08:13.000)
really thousands of articles and run big meta analyses,
Lex Fridman (1:08:17.800)
which are statistical summaries of published papers,
Lex Fridman (1:08:21.280)
but also as someone who has sent teams of researchers
Lex Fridman (1:08:25.120)
to small scale cultures,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:08:30.400)
you know, remote cultures,
Lex Fridman (1:08:32.520)
which are very different from urban,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:08:37.480)
large scale cultures like ours.
Lex Fridman (1:08:40.200)
And one culture that we visited,
Lex Fridman (1:08:42.760)
and I say we euphemistically because I myself didn't go
Lex Fridman (1:08:47.200)
because I only had two research permits,
Lex Fridman (1:08:49.880)
and I gave them to my students
Lex Fridman (1:08:52.160)
because I felt like it was better for them
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:08:54.880)
to have that experience
Lex Fridman (1:08:56.360)
and more formative for them to have that experience.
Lex Fridman (1:08:59.320)
But I was in contact with them every day by satellite phone.
Lex Fridman (1:09:03.040)
And this was to visit the Hadza hunter gatherers in Tanzania
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:09:09.840)
who are not an ancient people, they're a modern culture,
Lex Fridman (1:09:14.840)
but they live in circumstances, hunting and foraging,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:09:19.840)
circumstances that are very similar,
Lex Fridman (1:09:24.120)
in similar conditions to our ancestors,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:09:28.160)
hunting gathering ancestors,
Lex Fridman (1:09:30.640)
when expressions of emotion were supposed to have evolved,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:09:34.480)
at least by one view of, okay.
Lex Fridman (1:09:37.280)
So, you know, for many years,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:09:41.200)
I was sort of struggling with this set of observations,
Lex Fridman (1:09:45.600)
which is that I feel emotion,
Lex Fridman (1:09:48.240)
and I perceive emotion in other people,
Lex Fridman (1:09:52.360)
but scientists can't find a single marker,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:09:55.960)
a single biomarker,
Lex Fridman (1:09:57.360)
not a single individual measure or pattern of measures
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:10:01.320)
that can predict what kind of emotional state they're in.
Lex Fridman (1:10:06.640)
How could that possibly be?
Lex Fridman (1:10:08.000)
How can you possibly make sense of those two things?
Lex Fridman (1:10:12.680)
And through a lot of reading
Lex Fridman (1:10:15.840)
and a lot of an immersing myself in different literatures,
Lex Fridman (1:10:19.520)
I came to the hypothesis that the brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:10:24.320)
is constructing these instances
Lex Fridman (1:10:26.560)
out of more basic ingredients.
Lex Fridman (1:10:29.320)
So when I tell you that the brain,
Lex Fridman (1:10:32.080)
when I suggest to you that what your brain is doing
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:10:34.080)
is making a prediction,
Lex Fridman (1:10:37.000)
and it's asking itself, figuratively speaking,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:10:41.000)
the last time I was in this situation
Lex Fridman (1:10:43.640)
and this, you know, physical state,
Lex Fridman (1:10:46.440)
what did I do next?
Lex Fridman (1:10:47.600)
What did I see next?
Lex Fridman (1:10:48.600)
What did I hear next?
Lex Fridman (1:10:50.040)
It's basically asking what in my past
Lex Fridman (1:10:53.520)
is similar to the present?
Lex Fridman (1:10:59.120)
Things which are similar to one another
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:11:02.520)
are called a category.
Lex Fridman (1:11:03.960)
A group of things which are similar
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:11:05.240)
to one another is a category.
Lex Fridman (1:11:07.200)
And a mental representation of a category is a concept.
Lex Fridman (1:11:12.360)
So your brain is constructing categories or concepts
Lex Fridman (1:11:15.160)
on the fly continuously.
Lex Fridman (1:11:17.360)
So you really want to understand what a brain is doing.
Lex Fridman (1:11:19.760)
You don't, using machine learning like classification models
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:11:23.160)
is not going to help you
Lex Fridman (1:11:24.160)
because the brain doesn't classify.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:11:25.840)
It's doing category construction.
Lex Fridman (1:11:29.080)
And the categories change,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:11:31.480)
or you could say it's doing concept construction.
Lex Fridman (1:11:34.000)
It's using past experience to conjure a concept,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:11:37.920)
which is a prediction.
Lex Fridman (1:11:41.880)
And if it's using past experiences of emotion,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:11:45.840)
then it's constructing an emotion concept.
Lex Fridman (1:11:50.720)
Your concept will be,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:11:54.480)
the content of it changes
Lex Fridman (1:12:01.480)
depending on the situation that you're in.
Lex Fridman (1:12:03.160)
So for example, if your brain uses past experiences of anger
Lex Fridman (1:12:06.880)
that you have learned,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:12:10.040)
either because somebody labeled them for you,
Lex Fridman (1:12:13.480)
taught them to you, you observed them in movies and so on,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:12:18.560)
in one situation could be very different
Lex Fridman (1:12:20.320)
from your concept of for anger than another situation.
Lex Fridman (1:12:24.280)
And this is how anger, instances of anger are,
Lex Fridman (1:12:29.280)
we call a population of variable instances.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:12:32.520)
Sometimes when you're angry, you scowl.
Lex Fridman (1:12:34.800)
Sometimes when you're angry, you might smile.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:12:38.760)
Sometimes when you're angry, you might cry.
Lex Fridman (1:12:42.080)
Sometimes your heart rate will go up, it will go down,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:12:44.840)
it will stay the same.
Lex Fridman (1:12:46.200)
It depends on what action you're about to take
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:12:49.040)
because the way prediction, and I should say,
Lex Fridman (1:12:51.640)
the idea that physiology is yoked to action
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:12:56.640)
is a very old idea in the study
Lex Fridman (1:13:00.160)
of the peripheral nervous system
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:13:01.520)
that's been known for really decades.
Lex Fridman (1:13:04.480)
And so if you look at what the brain is doing,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:13:07.280)
if you just look at the anatomy and you,
Lex Fridman (1:13:09.800)
here's the hypothesis that you would come up with.
Lex Fridman (1:13:12.520)
And I can go into the details.
Lex Fridman (1:13:14.320)
I've published these details in scientific papers
Lex Fridman (1:13:18.040)
and they also appear somewhat in
Lex Fridman (1:13:20.680)
How Emotions Were Made, my first book.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:13:22.400)
They are not in the seven and a half lessons
Lex Fridman (1:13:25.360)
because that book is really not pitched
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:13:29.680)
at that level of explanation.
Lex Fridman (1:13:31.800)
It's just giving, it's really just a set of little essays.
Lex Fridman (1:13:36.680)
But the evidence, but what I'm about to say
Lex Fridman (1:13:38.680)
is actually based on scientific evidence.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:13:41.880)
When your brain begins to form a prediction,
Lex Fridman (1:13:46.280)
the first thing it's doing is it's making a prediction
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:13:51.280)
of how to change the internal systems of your body,
Lex Fridman (1:13:54.800)
your heart, your cardiovascular system,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:13:56.920)
the control of your heart, control of your lungs,
Lex Fridman (1:13:59.560)
a flush of cortisol, which is not a stress hormone.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:14:03.800)
It's a hormone that gets glucose
Lex Fridman (1:14:05.360)
into your bloodstream very fast
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:14:08.200)
because your brain is predicting you need to do this.
Lex Fridman (1:14:10.800)
Predicting you need to do something
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:14:13.200)
metabolically expensive.
Lex Fridman (1:14:18.600)
And so either that means either move or learn, okay?
Lex Fridman (1:14:24.520)
And so your brain is preparing your body,
Lex Fridman (1:14:28.400)
the internal systems of your body
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:14:30.480)
to execute some actions, to move in some way.
Lex Fridman (1:14:34.200)
And then it infers based on those motor predictions
Lex Fridman (1:14:42.960)
and what we call viscera motor predictions,
Lex Fridman (1:14:45.160)
meaning the changes in the viscera
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:14:48.760)
that your brain is preparing to execute,
Lex Fridman (1:14:54.200)
your brain makes an inference about what you will sense
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:14:59.640)
based on those motor movements.
Lex Fridman (1:15:01.600)
So your experience of the world
Lex Fridman (1:15:05.440)
and your experience of your own body
Lex Fridman (1:15:09.440)
are a consequence of those predictions, those concepts.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:15:13.800)
When your brain makes a concept for emotion,
Lex Fridman (1:15:16.800)
it's constructing an instance of that emotion.
Lex Fridman (1:15:21.680)
And that is how emotions are made.
Lex Fridman (1:15:24.240)
And those concepts load in,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:15:27.440)
the predictions that are made include contents
Lex Fridman (1:15:32.720)
inside the body, contents outside the body.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:15:36.560)
I mean, it includes other humans.
Lex Fridman (1:15:38.400)
So just this construction of a concept
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:15:42.120)
includes the variables that are much richer
Lex Fridman (1:15:46.160)
than just some sort of simple notion.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:15:51.160)
Yeah, so our colloquial notion of a concept
Lex Fridman (1:15:53.440)
where I say, well, what's a concept of a bird?
Lex Fridman (1:16:00.680)
And then you list a set of features off to me.
Lex Fridman (1:16:02.800)
That's people's understanding,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:16:04.760)
typically of what a concept is.
Lex Fridman (1:16:05.920)
But if you go into the literature in cognitive science,
Lex Fridman (1:16:10.960)
what you'll see is that the way
Lex Fridman (1:16:13.080)
that scientists have understood what a concept is
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:16:15.760)
has really changed over the years.
Lex Fridman (1:16:17.520)
So people used to think about a concept
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:16:19.720)
as philosophers and scientists used to think about a concept
Lex Fridman (1:16:24.320)
as a dictionary definition for a category.
Lex Fridman (1:16:27.400)
So there's a set of things which are similar
Lex Fridman (1:16:29.600)
out in the world.
Lex Fridman (1:16:31.280)
And your concept for that category
Lex Fridman (1:16:36.440)
is a dictionary definition of the features,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:16:39.440)
the necessary insufficient features of those instances.
Lex Fridman (1:16:43.120)
So for a bird, it would be.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:16:47.680)
Wings, feathers. Right, a beak.
Lex Fridman (1:16:50.800)
It flies, whatever, okay.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:16:53.360)
That's called the classical category.
Lex Fridman (1:16:55.680)
And scientists discovered, observed
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:16:58.160)
that actually not all instances of birds have feathers
Lex Fridman (1:17:02.840)
and not all instances of birds fly.
Lex Fridman (1:17:05.680)
And so the idea was that you don't have
Lex Fridman (1:17:08.400)
a single representation of necessary insufficient features
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:17:11.840)
stored in your brain somewhere.
Lex Fridman (1:17:13.000)
Instead, what you have is a prototype,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:17:15.840)
a prototype meaning you still have
Lex Fridman (1:17:18.400)
a single representation for the category, one,
Lex Fridman (1:17:22.320)
but the features are like of the most typical instance
Lex Fridman (1:17:27.240)
of the category or maybe the most frequent instance,
Lex Fridman (1:17:29.600)
but not all instances of the category
Lex Fridman (1:17:31.560)
have all the features, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:17:33.200)
They have some graded similarity to the prototype.
Lex Fridman (1:17:38.640)
And then, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:17:42.880)
what I'm gonna like incredibly simplify now,
Lex Fridman (1:17:48.440)
a lot of work to say that then a series of experiments
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:17:52.360)
were done to show that in fact,
Lex Fridman (1:17:56.040)
what your brain seems to be doing is coming up
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:17:58.600)
with a single exemplar or instance of the category
Lex Fridman (1:18:03.760)
and reading off the features
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:18:08.760)
when I ask you for the concept.
Lex Fridman (1:18:11.000)
So if we were in a pet store and I asked you
Lex Fridman (1:18:17.560)
what are the features of a bird,
Lex Fridman (1:18:20.000)
tell me the concept of bird,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:18:21.880)
you would be more likely to give me features of a good pet.
Lex Fridman (1:18:26.840)
And if we were in a restaurant,
Lex Fridman (1:18:29.240)
you would be more likely, you know, like a budgie, right?
Lex Fridman (1:18:31.840)
Or a canary.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:18:32.960)
If we were in a restaurant,
Lex Fridman (1:18:34.080)
you would be more likely to give me the features
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:18:36.560)
of a bird that you would eat, like a chicken.
Lex Fridman (1:18:39.240)
And if we were in a park,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:18:40.320)
you'd be more likely to give me in this country,
Lex Fridman (1:18:46.040)
you know, the features of a sparrow or a robin.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:18:49.240)
Whereas if we were in South America,
Lex Fridman (1:18:50.640)
you would probably give me the features of a peacock
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:18:54.560)
because that's more common
Lex Fridman (1:18:57.200)
or it is more common there than here
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:18:59.240)
that you would see a peacock in such circumstances.
Lex Fridman (1:19:01.520)
So the idea was that really what your brain was doing
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:19:06.520)
was conjuring a concept on the fly
Lex Fridman (1:19:12.240)
that meets the function that the category is being put to.
Lex Fridman (1:19:18.440)
Okay?
Lex Fridman (1:19:19.280)
Okay.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:19:21.360)
Then people started studying ad hoc concepts,
Lex Fridman (1:19:27.280)
meaning concepts where the instances don't share
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:19:32.280)
any physical features, but the function of the instances
Lex Fridman (1:19:39.200)
are the same.
Lex Fridman (1:19:40.320)
So for example, think about all the things
Lex Fridman (1:19:42.360)
that can protect you from the rain.
Lex Fridman (1:19:46.200)
What are all the things that can protect you from the rain?
Lex Fridman (1:19:49.080)
Umbrella, like this apartment.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:19:54.320)
Right.
Lex Fridman (1:19:56.720)
Your car.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:19:57.560)
Not giving a damn.
Lex Fridman (1:19:59.200)
Like a mindset.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:20:03.440)
Yeah, right, right.
Lex Fridman (1:20:05.360)
So the idea is that the function of the instances
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:20:08.920)
is the same in a given situation.
Lex Fridman (1:20:11.400)
Even if they look different, sound different,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:20:13.800)
smell different, this is called an abstract concept
Lex Fridman (1:20:17.880)
or a conceptual concept.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:20:22.480)
Now the really cool thing about conceptual categories
Lex Fridman (1:20:27.240)
or conceptual category is a category of things
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:20:31.800)
that are held together by a function,
Lex Fridman (1:20:35.400)
which is called an abstract concept
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:20:37.240)
or a conceptual category,
Lex Fridman (1:20:39.000)
because the things don't share physical features,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:20:41.600)
they share functional features.
Lex Fridman (1:20:44.000)
There are two really cool things about this.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:20:46.160)
One is that's what Darwin said a species was.
Lex Fridman (1:20:50.280)
So Darwin is known for discovering natural selection.
Lex Fridman (1:20:59.720)
But the other thing he really did,
Lex Fridman (1:21:02.280)
which was really profound, which he's less celebrated for,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:21:06.400)
is understanding that all biological categories
Lex Fridman (1:21:10.520)
have inherent variation, inherent variation.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:21:15.920)
Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species
Lex Fridman (1:21:19.160)
about before Darwin's book,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:21:22.280)
a species was thought to be a classical category
Lex Fridman (1:21:27.440)
where all the instances of dogs were the same,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:21:30.760)
had the exactly same features,
Lex Fridman (1:21:32.200)
and any variation from that perfect platonic instance
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:21:39.600)
was considered to be error.
Lex Fridman (1:21:41.400)
And Darwin said, no, it's not error, it's meaningful.
Lex Fridman (1:21:44.920)
So nature selects on the basis of that variation.
Lex Fridman (1:21:52.200)
The reason why natural selection is powerful and can exist
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:21:56.040)
is because there is variation in a species.
Lex Fridman (1:22:01.160)
And in dogs, we talk about that variation
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:22:03.960)
in terms of the size of the dog
Lex Fridman (1:22:06.040)
and the amount of fur the dog has and the color
Lex Fridman (1:22:09.640)
and how long is the tail and how long is the snout.
Lex Fridman (1:22:12.840)
In humans, we talk about that variation
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:22:16.200)
in all kinds of ways, right, including in cultural ways.
Lex Fridman (1:22:23.520)
So that's one thing that's really interesting
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:22:25.680)
about conceptual categories is that Darwin
Lex Fridman (1:22:28.200)
is basically saying a species is a conceptual category.
Lex Fridman (1:22:31.520)
And in fact, if you look at modern debates
Lex Fridman (1:22:34.640)
about what is a species, you can't find anybody
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:22:38.360)
agreeing on what the criteria are for a species,
Lex Fridman (1:22:43.040)
because they don't all share the same genome.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:22:46.320)
We don't all share, we don't,
Lex Fridman (1:22:47.720)
there isn't a single human genome.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:22:49.800)
There's a population of genomes, but they're variable.
Lex Fridman (1:22:56.200)
It's not unbounded variation, but they are variable, right?
Lex Fridman (1:23:00.640)
And the other thing that's really cool
Lex Fridman (1:23:03.000)
about conceptual categories is that they are the categories
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:23:10.440)
that we use to make civilization.
Lex Fridman (1:23:15.160)
So think about money, for example.
Lex Fridman (1:23:19.200)
What are all the physical things
Lex Fridman (1:23:21.760)
that make something a currency?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:23:25.520)
Is there any physical feature that all the currencies
Lex Fridman (1:23:28.680)
in all the worlds that's ever been used by humans share?
Lex Fridman (1:23:33.540)
Well, certainly, right, but what is it?
Lex Fridman (1:23:36.600)
Is it definable?
Lex Fridman (1:23:38.440)
So it's getting to the point that you make this function.
Lex Fridman (1:23:43.080)
It's the function, right.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:23:44.680)
It's that we trade it for material goods.
Lex Fridman (1:23:47.200)
And we have to agree, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:23:49.000)
We all impose on whatever it is, salt, barley,
Lex Fridman (1:23:52.680)
little shells, big rocks in the ocean that can't move,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:23:55.480)
Bitcoin, pieces of plastic, mortgages,
Lex Fridman (1:23:58.240)
which are basically a promise of something in the future,
Lex Fridman (1:24:00.720)
nothing more, right?
Lex Fridman (1:24:02.280)
All of these things, we impose value on them.
Lex Fridman (1:24:06.240)
And we all agree that we can exchange them
Lex Fridman (1:24:09.680)
for material goods.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:24:11.200)
Yeah, and yes, that's brilliant.
Lex Fridman (1:24:13.840)
By the way, you're attributing some of that to Darwin,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:24:16.040)
that he thought.
Lex Fridman (1:24:16.880)
No, no, I'm saying that what Darwin.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:24:18.440)
Because it's a brilliant view
Lex Fridman (1:24:19.480)
of what a species is, is the function.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:24:21.720)
Yeah, what I'm saying is that what Darwin,
Lex Fridman (1:24:24.480)
Darwin really talked about variation in,
Lex Fridman (1:24:28.280)
so if you read, for example,
Lex Fridman (1:24:29.320)
the biologist Ernst Mayr,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:24:31.160)
who was an evolutionary biologist,
Lex Fridman (1:24:33.280)
and then when he retired,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:24:34.440)
became a historian and philosopher of biology.
Lex Fridman (1:24:38.400)
And his suggestion is that Darwin,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:24:42.960)
Darwin did talk about variation.
Lex Fridman (1:24:45.640)
He vanquished what's called essentialism,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:24:48.080)
the idea that there's a single set of features
Lex Fridman (1:24:51.960)
that define any species.
Lex Fridman (1:24:56.080)
And out of that grew really discussions
Lex Fridman (1:25:02.840)
of some of the functional features that species have,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:25:07.160)
like they can reproduce, they can have offspring,
Lex Fridman (1:25:10.680)
the individuals of a species can have offspring.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:25:12.720)
It turns out that's not a perfect criterion to use,
Lex Fridman (1:25:18.880)
but it's a functional criterion, right?
Lex Fridman (1:25:20.680)
So what I'm saying is that in cognitive science,
Lex Fridman (1:25:23.040)
people came up with the idea,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:25:24.640)
they discovered the idea of conceptual categories
Lex Fridman (1:25:26.960)
or ad hoc concepts, these concepts that can change
Lex Fridman (1:25:30.880)
based on the function they're serving, right?
Lex Fridman (1:25:33.440)
And that it's there, it's in Darwin,
Lex Fridman (1:25:38.760)
and it's also in the philosophy of social reality.
Lex Fridman (1:25:42.240)
The way that philosophers talk about social reality,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:25:44.880)
just look around you.
Lex Fridman (1:25:46.200)
I mean, we impose,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:25:47.800)
we're treating a bunch of things as similar,
Lex Fridman (1:25:49.840)
which are physically different.
Lex Fridman (1:25:52.040)
And sometimes we take things that are physically the same
Lex Fridman (1:25:55.920)
and we treat them as separate categories.
Lex Fridman (1:25:58.360)
But it feels like the number of variables involved
Lex Fridman (1:26:02.280)
in that kind of categorization is nearly infinite.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:26:04.840)
No, I don't think so,
Lex Fridman (1:26:06.160)
because there is a physical constraint, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:26:08.560)
Like you and I could agree that we can fly in real life,
Lex Fridman (1:26:13.720)
but we can't.
Lex Fridman (1:26:14.800)
That's a physical constraint that we can't break, right?
Lex Fridman (1:26:18.840)
You and I could agree that we could walk through the walls,
Lex Fridman (1:26:21.520)
but we can't.
Lex Fridman (1:26:22.400)
We could agree that we could eat glass,
Lex Fridman (1:26:24.200)
but we can't.
Lex Fridman (1:26:25.040)
Oh, there's a lot of constraints, but I just.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:26:25.880)
Yeah, we could agree that the virus doesn't exist
Lex Fridman (1:26:28.720)
and we don't have to wear masks.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:26:30.320)
Right, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:26:33.040)
But physical reality still holds the Trump card, right?
Lex Fridman (1:26:37.240)
But still there's a lot of.
Lex Fridman (1:26:38.080)
The Trump card, well, pun unintended.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:26:41.560)
Pun completely unintended, but there you go,
Lex Fridman (1:26:43.160)
that's a predicting brain for you.
Lex Fridman (1:26:44.960)
But there is a tremendous amount of leeway.
Lex Fridman (1:26:49.600)
Yes.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:26:50.440)
Yeah, that's the point.
Lex Fridman (1:26:51.600)
So what I'm saying is that emotions are like money.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:26:55.680)
Basically, they're like money, they're like countries,
Lex Fridman (1:26:59.000)
they're like kings and queens and presidents.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:27:02.360)
They're like everything that we construct
Lex Fridman (1:27:05.200)
that we impose meaning on.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:27:07.320)
We take these physical signals and we give them meanings
Lex Fridman (1:27:10.480)
that they don't otherwise have by their physical nature.
Lex Fridman (1:27:13.840)
And because we agree, they have that function.
Lex Fridman (1:27:19.360)
But the beautiful thing, so maybe unlike money,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:27:23.000)
I love this similarity is it's not obvious to me
Lex Fridman (1:27:26.680)
that this kind of emergent agreement
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:27:29.440)
should happen with emotion,
Lex Fridman (1:27:31.120)
because our experiences are so different
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:27:33.320)
for each of us humans, and yet we kind of converge.
Lex Fridman (1:27:36.600)
Well, in a culture we converge, but not across cultures.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:27:39.760)
There are huge, huge differences.
Lex Fridman (1:27:41.680)
There are huge differences in what concepts exist,
Lex Fridman (1:27:44.960)
what they look like.
Lex Fridman (1:27:48.480)
So what I would say is that what we're doing
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:27:54.000)
with our young children as their brains become wired
Lex Fridman (1:28:00.120)
to their physical and their social environment
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:28:03.840)
is that we are curating for them.
Lex Fridman (1:28:05.960)
We are bootstrapping into their brains
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:28:07.920)
a set of emotion concepts.
Lex Fridman (1:28:11.600)
That's partly what they're learning.
Lex Fridman (1:28:13.000)
And we curate those for infants
Lex Fridman (1:28:15.080)
just the way we curate for them what is a dog,
Lex Fridman (1:28:17.240)
what is a cat, what is a truck.
Lex Fridman (1:28:19.640)
We sometimes explicitly label
Lex Fridman (1:28:22.360)
and we sometimes just use mental words.
Lex Fridman (1:28:26.200)
When your kid is throwing Cheerios on the floor
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:28:30.640)
instead of eating them, or your kid is crying
Lex Fridman (1:28:33.680)
when she won't put herself to sleep or whatever.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:28:37.400)
We use mental words.
Lex Fridman (1:28:39.360)
And a word is this, words for infants,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:28:44.000)
words are these really special things
Lex Fridman (1:28:46.560)
that they help infants learn abstract categories.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:28:49.320)
There's a huge literature showing that children can take
Lex Fridman (1:28:54.320)
things that don't look infants,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:28:56.400)
like infants, really young infants,
Lex Fridman (1:28:58.840)
preverbal infants can take, if you label,
Lex Fridman (1:29:03.080)
if I say to you, and you're an infant, okay?
Lex Fridman (1:29:07.000)
So I say, Lexi, this is a bling.
Lex Fridman (1:29:13.440)
And I put it down and the bling makes a squeaky noise.
Lex Fridman (1:29:17.080)
And then I say, Lexi, this is a bling.
Lex Fridman (1:29:22.080)
And I put it down and it makes a squeaky noise.
Lex Fridman (1:29:24.760)
And then I say, Lexi, this is a bling.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:29:30.720)
You, as young as four months old,
Lex Fridman (1:29:34.120)
will expect this to make a noise, a squeaky noise.
Lex Fridman (1:29:39.520)
And if you don't, if it doesn't, you'll be surprised
Lex Fridman (1:29:41.920)
because it violated your expectation, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:29:44.680)
I'm building for you an internal model of a bling.
Lex Fridman (1:29:49.680)
Okay, infants can do this really, really at a young age.
Lex Fridman (1:29:53.200)
And so there's no reason to believe
Lex Fridman (1:29:55.600)
that they couldn't learn emotion categories
Lex Fridman (1:29:58.440)
and concepts in the same way.
Lex Fridman (1:29:59.680)
And what happens when you go to a new culture?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:30:04.320)
When you go to a new culture,
Lex Fridman (1:30:07.000)
you have to do what's called emotion acculturation.
Lex Fridman (1:30:11.320)
So my colleague Bacha Mesquita in Belgium
Lex Fridman (1:30:13.680)
studies emotion acculturation.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:30:15.080)
She studies how, when people move
Lex Fridman (1:30:16.560)
from one culture to another,
Lex Fridman (1:30:18.080)
how do they learn the emotion concepts of that culture?
Lex Fridman (1:30:21.720)
How do they learn to make sense
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:30:23.440)
of their own internal sensations
Lex Fridman (1:30:25.920)
and also the movements, the raise of an eyebrow,
Lex Fridman (1:30:29.640)
the tilt of a head?
Lex Fridman (1:30:30.560)
How do they learn to make sense of cues from other people
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:30:34.640)
using concepts they don't have,
Lex Fridman (1:30:37.760)
but have to make on the fly?
Lex Fridman (1:30:40.600)
So that's the difference between cultures.
Lex Fridman (1:30:43.240)
Let me open another door.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:30:45.200)
I'm not sure I wanna open,
Lex Fridman (1:30:46.400)
but the difference between men and women.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:30:49.320)
Is there a difference between the emotional lives
Lex Fridman (1:30:53.840)
of those two categories of biological systems?
Lex Fridman (1:30:57.180)
So here's what I would say.
Lex Fridman (1:31:00.300)
We did a series of studies in the 1990s
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:31:04.740)
where we asked men and women
Lex Fridman (1:31:07.300)
to tell us about their emotional lives.
Lex Fridman (1:31:10.020)
And women described themselves
Lex Fridman (1:31:11.340)
as much more emotional than men.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:31:13.620)
They believed that they were more emotional than men
Lex Fridman (1:31:15.460)
and men agreed.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:31:17.140)
Women are much more emotional than men.
Lex Fridman (1:31:19.580)
And then we gave them little handheld computers.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:31:24.260)
These were little Hewlett Packard computers.
Lex Fridman (1:31:26.340)
They fit in the palm of your hand.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:31:28.860)
They weighed a couple of pounds.
Lex Fridman (1:31:29.700)
So this was like pre palm pilot even,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:31:31.680)
like this was 1990s and like early.
Lex Fridman (1:31:36.740)
And we asked them,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:31:41.540)
we would ping them like 10 times a day
Lex Fridman (1:31:45.780)
and just ask them to report how they were feeling,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:31:48.900)
which is called experience sampling.
Lex Fridman (1:31:51.920)
So we experienced sampled.
Lex Fridman (1:31:53.940)
And then at the end,
Lex Fridman (1:31:57.760)
and then we looked at their reports
Lex Fridman (1:31:59.420)
and what we found is that men and women
Lex Fridman (1:32:01.060)
basically didn't differ.
Lex Fridman (1:32:02.500)
And there were some people who were really,
Lex Fridman (1:32:05.540)
had many more instances of emotion.
Lex Fridman (1:32:07.780)
So they were treading water in a tumultuous sea of emotion.
Lex Fridman (1:32:15.980)
And then there were other people
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:32:17.360)
who were like floating tranquilly in a lake.
Lex Fridman (1:32:21.060)
It was really not perturbed very often.
Lex Fridman (1:32:23.060)
And everyone in between,
Lex Fridman (1:32:25.160)
but there were no difference between men and women.
Lex Fridman (1:32:28.260)
And the really interesting thing is at the end
Lex Fridman (1:32:30.220)
of the sampling period, we asked people,
Lex Fridman (1:32:33.580)
so reflect over the past two weeks and tell it.
Lex Fridman (1:32:36.800)
So we've been now pinging people like again
Lex Fridman (1:32:39.700)
and again and again, right?
Lex Fridman (1:32:41.140)
So tell us how emotional do you think you are?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:32:44.120)
No change from the beginning.
Lex Fridman (1:32:45.440)
So men and women believe that they are different.
Lex Fridman (1:32:50.440)
And when they are looking at other people,
Lex Fridman (1:32:53.360)
they make different inferences about emotion.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:32:56.880)
If a man is scowling,
Lex Fridman (1:32:59.400)
like if you and I were together
Lex Fridman (1:33:01.080)
and so somebody is watching this, okay?
Lex Fridman (1:33:04.520)
And yeah, hey, who are you saying?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:33:07.360)
Hey, hi.
Lex Fridman (1:33:08.200)
Yeah, hi.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:33:09.840)
By the way, people love it when you look at the camera.
Lex Fridman (1:33:15.480)
If you and I make exactly the same set of facial movements,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:33:20.320)
when people look at you, both men and women look at you,
Lex Fridman (1:33:25.920)
they are more likely to think,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:33:27.760)
oh, he's reacting to the situation.
Lex Fridman (1:33:30.720)
And when they look at me, they'll say,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:33:33.320)
oh, she's having an emotion.
Lex Fridman (1:33:34.680)
She's, you know, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:33:36.380)
And I wrote about this actually
Lex Fridman (1:33:40.380)
right before the 2016 election.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:33:46.620)
You know what, maybe I could confess.
Lex Fridman (1:33:49.220)
Let me try to carefully confess.
Lex Fridman (1:33:51.680)
But you are really gonna.
Lex Fridman (1:33:53.040)
Yeah, that when I,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:33:57.560)
that there is an element when I see Hillary Clinton
Lex Fridman (1:34:02.440)
that there was something annoying about her to me.
Lex Fridman (1:34:06.880)
And I, just that feeling,
Lex Fridman (1:34:09.400)
and then I tried to reduce that to what is that?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:34:13.960)
Because I think the same attributes
Lex Fridman (1:34:17.320)
that are annoying about her
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:34:19.560)
when I see in other people wouldn't be annoying.
Lex Fridman (1:34:22.040)
So I was trying to understand what is it?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:34:25.000)
Because it certainly does feel like that concept
Lex Fridman (1:34:28.000)
that I've constructed in my mind.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:34:30.080)
Well, I'll tell you that I think,
Lex Fridman (1:34:32.160)
well, let me just say that what you would predict about,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:34:35.920)
for example, the performance of the two of them
Lex Fridman (1:34:39.040)
in the debates, and I wrote an op ed
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:34:42.000)
for the New York Times actually before the second debate.
Lex Fridman (1:34:46.320)
And it played out really pretty much
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:34:48.640)
as I thought that it would based on research.
Lex Fridman (1:34:51.200)
It's not like I'm like a great fortune teller or anything.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:34:53.220)
It's just, I was just applying the research,
Lex Fridman (1:34:54.560)
which was that when a woman,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:34:58.920)
a woman's, people make internal attributions, it's called.
Lex Fridman (1:35:03.200)
They infer that the facial movements and body posture
Lex Fridman (1:35:07.160)
and vocalizations of a woman reflect her interstate.
Lex Fridman (1:35:10.580)
But for a man, they're more likely to assume
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:35:12.880)
that they reflect his response to the situation.
Lex Fridman (1:35:15.260)
It doesn't say anything about him.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:35:16.440)
It says something about the situation he's in.
Lex Fridman (1:35:19.120)
Now, for the thing that you were describing
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:35:22.920)
about Hillary Clinton, I think a lot of people experienced,
Lex Fridman (1:35:27.840)
but it's also in line with research, which shows,
Lex Fridman (1:35:30.640)
and particularly research actually
Lex Fridman (1:35:34.200)
about teaching evaluations is one place
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:35:36.160)
that you really see it, where the expectation
Lex Fridman (1:35:39.600)
is that a woman will be nurturant
Lex Fridman (1:35:42.080)
and that a man, there's just no expectation
Lex Fridman (1:35:46.160)
for him to be nurturant.
Lex Fridman (1:35:47.280)
So if he is nurturant, he gets points.
Lex Fridman (1:35:51.960)
If he's not, he gets points.
Lex Fridman (1:35:54.200)
They're just different points, right?
Lex Fridman (1:35:56.000)
Whereas for a woman, especially a woman
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:35:58.440)
who's an authority figure, she's really in a catch 22.
Lex Fridman (1:36:02.440)
Because if she's serious, she's a bitch.
Lex Fridman (1:36:05.400)
And if she's empathic, then she's weak.
Lex Fridman (1:36:09.480)
Right, that's brilliant. I mean, one of the bigger questions
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:36:12.920)
to ask here, so that's one example
Lex Fridman (1:36:15.320)
where our construction of concepts gets in trouble.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:36:20.640)
So, but remember I said science and philosophy
Lex Fridman (1:36:24.240)
are like tools for living.
Lex Fridman (1:36:26.000)
So I learned recently that if you ask me
Lex Fridman (1:36:30.440)
what is my intuition about what regulates my eating,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:36:34.240)
I will say carbohydrates.
Lex Fridman (1:36:36.340)
I love carbohydrates.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:36:37.480)
I love pasta.
Lex Fridman (1:36:38.480)
I love bread.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:36:39.320)
I love, I just love carbohydrates.
Lex Fridman (1:36:42.200)
But actually research shows, and it's beautiful research.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:36:45.960)
I love this research because it so violates my own
Lex Fridman (1:36:49.160)
like deeply, deeply held beliefs about myself
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:36:53.840)
that most animals on this planet who have been studied
Lex Fridman (1:36:57.480)
and there are many actually eat
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:37:00.640)
to regulate their protein intake.
Lex Fridman (1:37:04.160)
So you will overeat carbohydrates
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:37:06.440)
if you, in order to get enough protein.
Lex Fridman (1:37:10.000)
And this research has been done with human,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:37:12.320)
very beautiful research with humans, with crickets,
Lex Fridman (1:37:15.780)
with like, you know, bonobos.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:37:17.280)
I mean, just like all these different animals, not bonobos,
Lex Fridman (1:37:19.200)
but I think like baboons.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:37:21.680)
Now that I have no intuition about that.
Lex Fridman (1:37:24.580)
And I, even now as I regulate my eating,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:37:27.800)
I still, I just have no intuition.
Lex Fridman (1:37:30.500)
It just, I can't feel it.
Lex Fridman (1:37:32.800)
What I feel is only about the carbohydrates.
Lex Fridman (1:37:35.800)
It feels like you're regulating around carbohydrates,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:37:38.040)
not the protein.
Lex Fridman (1:37:38.880)
Yeah, but in fact, actually what I am doing,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:37:41.100)
if I am like most animals on the planet,
Lex Fridman (1:37:43.920)
I am regulating around protein.
Lex Fridman (1:37:45.240)
So knowing this, what do I do?
Lex Fridman (1:37:48.440)
I correct my behavior to eat,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:37:51.580)
to actually deliberately try to focus on the protein.
Lex Fridman (1:37:56.260)
This is the idea behind bias training, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:38:00.140)
Like if you,
Lex Fridman (1:38:01.820)
I also did not experience Hillary Clinton
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:38:09.700)
as the warmest candidate.
Lex Fridman (1:38:12.820)
However, you can use consistent science,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:38:19.780)
since the consistent scientific findings
Lex Fridman (1:38:21.340)
to organize your behavior.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:38:24.380)
That doesn't mean that rationality
Lex Fridman (1:38:26.460)
is the absence of emotion,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:38:28.420)
because sometimes emotion or any feelings in general,
Lex Fridman (1:38:33.180)
not the same thing as emotion, that's another topic,
Lex Fridman (1:38:37.300)
but are a source of information
Lex Fridman (1:38:41.540)
and their wisdom and helpful.
Lex Fridman (1:38:42.820)
So I'm not saying that,
Lex Fridman (1:38:44.380)
but what I am saying is that
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:38:45.380)
if you have a deeply held belief
Lex Fridman (1:38:46.820)
and the evidence shows that you're wrong, then you're wrong.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:38:50.340)
It doesn't really matter how confident you feel.
Lex Fridman (1:38:53.660)
That confidence could be also explained by science, right?
Lex Fridman (1:38:56.160)
So it would be the same thing as if I,
Lex Fridman (1:38:59.640)
regardless of whether someone is like Charlie Baker,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:39:02.340)
regardless of whether somebody is a Republican
Lex Fridman (1:39:04.380)
or a Democrat,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:39:05.220)
if that person has a record that you can see
Lex Fridman (1:39:09.300)
is consistent with what you believe,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:39:11.900)
then that is information that you can act on.
Lex Fridman (1:39:15.700)
Yeah, and then try to,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:39:17.980)
I mean, this is kind of what empathy is in open mindedness,
Lex Fridman (1:39:21.100)
is try to consider that the set of concepts
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:39:25.280)
that your brain has constructed
Lex Fridman (1:39:27.420)
through which you are now perceiving the world
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:39:30.220)
is not painting the full picture.
Lex Fridman (1:39:32.240)
I mean, this is now true for basically every,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:39:35.140)
it doesn't have to be men and women,
Lex Fridman (1:39:36.500)
it could be basically the prism through which we perceive
Lex Fridman (1:39:39.580)
actually the political discourse, right?
Lex Fridman (1:39:41.660)
Absolutely, so here's what I would say.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:39:49.040)
There are people who, scientists who will talk to you
Lex Fridman (1:39:52.180)
about cognitive empathy and emotional empathy
Lex Fridman (1:39:54.740)
and I prefer to think of it,
Lex Fridman (1:39:59.540)
I think the evidence is more consistent
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:40:01.980)
with what I'm about to say,
Lex Fridman (1:40:03.160)
which is that your brain is always making predictions
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:40:08.180)
using your own past experience and what you've learned
Lex Fridman (1:40:11.420)
from books and movies and other people telling you
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:40:14.900)
about their experiences and so on.
Lex Fridman (1:40:17.700)
And if your brain cannot make a concept
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:40:22.700)
to make sense of those, anticipate what those sense data are
Lex Fridman (1:40:25.840)
and make sense of them, you will be experientially blind.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:40:31.080)
So, when I'm giving lectures to people,
Lex Fridman (1:40:34.160)
I'll show them like a blobby black and white image
Lex Fridman (1:40:37.920)
and they're experientially blind to the image,
Lex Fridman (1:40:42.240)
they can't see anything in it.
Lex Fridman (1:40:44.200)
And then I show them a photograph
Lex Fridman (1:40:45.860)
and then I show them the image again, the blobby image
Lex Fridman (1:40:48.700)
and then they see actually an object in it.
Lex Fridman (1:40:51.040)
But the image is the same.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:40:53.840)
It's they're actually adding,
Lex Fridman (1:40:55.720)
their predictions now are adding, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:40:57.760)
Or anybody who's learned a language,
Lex Fridman (1:41:03.920)
a second language after their first language
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:41:07.400)
also has this experience of things
Lex Fridman (1:41:10.800)
that initially sound like sounds
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:41:12.320)
that they can't quite make sense of,
Lex Fridman (1:41:14.100)
eventually come to make sense of them.
Lex Fridman (1:41:18.160)
And in fact, there are really cool examples
Lex Fridman (1:41:20.600)
of people who were like born blind
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:41:23.280)
because they have cataracts or they have corneal damage
Lex Fridman (1:41:28.200)
so that no light is reaching the brain.
Lex Fridman (1:41:33.800)
And then they have an operation
Lex Fridman (1:41:35.960)
and then light reaches the brain and they can't see.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:41:41.320)
For days and weeks and sometimes years,
Lex Fridman (1:41:45.120)
they are experientially blind to certain things.
Lex Fridman (1:41:47.600)
So what happens with empathy, right?
Lex Fridman (1:41:51.040)
Is that your brain is making a prediction.
Lex Fridman (1:41:54.820)
And if it doesn't have the capacity to make,
Lex Fridman (1:42:04.160)
if you don't share, if you're not similar,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:42:06.620)
remember categories are instances
Lex Fridman (1:42:10.520)
which are similar in some way.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:42:12.020)
If you are not similar enough to that person,
Lex Fridman (1:42:16.040)
you will have a hard time making a prediction
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:42:17.800)
about what they feel.
Lex Fridman (1:42:19.440)
You will be experientially blind to what they feel.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:42:24.920)
In the United States, children of color
Lex Fridman (1:42:29.420)
are under prescribed medicine by their physicians.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:42:34.960)
This is been documented.
Lex Fridman (1:42:38.760)
It's not that the physicians are racist necessarily
Lex Fridman (1:42:43.760)
but they might be experientially blind.
Lex Fridman (1:42:52.140)
The same thing is true of male physicians
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:42:54.500)
with female patients.
Lex Fridman (1:42:56.780)
I could tell you some hair raising stories really
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:43:00.220)
that where people die as a consequence
Lex Fridman (1:43:03.020)
of a physician making the wrong inference,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:43:07.100)
the wrong prediction because of being experientially blind.
Lex Fridman (1:43:11.120)
So we are, empathy is not, it's not magic.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:43:21.220)
We make inferences about each other,
Lex Fridman (1:43:23.620)
about what each other's feeling and thinking.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:43:26.180)
In this culture more than,
Lex Fridman (1:43:28.260)
there are some cultures where people
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:43:31.740)
have what's called opacity of mind
Lex Fridman (1:43:33.500)
where they will make a prediction
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:43:34.820)
about someone else's actions
Lex Fridman (1:43:35.860)
but they're not inferring anything
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:43:37.140)
about the internal state of that person.
Lex Fridman (1:43:39.940)
But in our culture, we're constantly making inferences.
Lex Fridman (1:43:43.460)
What is this person thinking?
Lex Fridman (1:43:44.980)
And we're not doing it necessarily consciously
Lex Fridman (1:43:47.300)
but we're just doing it really automatically
Lex Fridman (1:43:48.780)
using our predictions, what we know.
Lex Fridman (1:43:51.660)
And if you expose yourself to information
Lex Fridman (1:43:57.620)
which is very different from somebody else,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:43:59.980)
I mean, really what we have is we have different cultures
Lex Fridman (1:44:03.740)
in this country right now that are,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:44:07.140)
there are a number of reasons for this.
Lex Fridman (1:44:08.920)
I mean, part of it is, I don't know if you saw
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:44:10.620)
the Social Dilemma, the Netflix.
Lex Fridman (1:44:14.740)
Heard about it.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:44:15.580)
Yeah, it's a great, it's really great documentary and...
Lex Fridman (1:44:20.900)
About what social networks are doing to our society?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:44:23.260)
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:44:24.740)
But nothing, no phenomenon has a simple single cause.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:44:31.700)
There are multiple small causes
Lex Fridman (1:44:35.020)
which all add up to a perfect storm.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:44:37.100)
That's just how most things work.
Lex Fridman (1:44:41.900)
And so the fact that machine learning algorithms
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:44:45.140)
are serving people up information on social media
Lex Fridman (1:44:48.860)
that is consistent with what they've already viewed
Lex Fridman (1:44:51.380)
and making, is part of the reason that you have these silos
Lex Fridman (1:44:57.600)
but it's not the only reason why you have these silos.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:45:00.860)
I think there are other things afoot
Lex Fridman (1:45:04.540)
that enhance people's inability
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:45:09.500)
to even have a decent conversation.
Lex Fridman (1:45:13.340)
Yeah, I mean, okay, so many things you said
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:45:15.700)
are just brilliant, so the experiential blindness
Lex Fridman (1:45:20.000)
but also from my perspective, like I preach
Lex Fridman (1:45:24.140)
and I try to practice empathy a lot
Lex Fridman (1:45:27.180)
and something about the way you've explained it
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:45:30.780)
makes me almost see it as a kind of exercise
Lex Fridman (1:45:33.620)
that we should all do, like to train,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:45:35.820)
like to add experiences to the brain
Lex Fridman (1:45:38.740)
to expand this capacity to predict more effectively.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:45:42.660)
Absolutely.
Lex Fridman (1:45:43.620)
So like what I do is kind of like a method acting thing
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:45:47.660)
which is I imagine what the life of a person is like.
Lex Fridman (1:45:52.900)
Just think, I mean, this is something you see
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:45:54.900)
with Black Lives Matter and police officers.
Lex Fridman (1:45:58.220)
It feels like they're both, not both,
Lex Fridman (1:46:01.900)
but I have, because martial arts and so on,
Lex Fridman (1:46:03.940)
I have a lot of friends who are cops.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:46:06.580)
They don't necessarily
Lex Fridman (1:46:11.780)
have empathy or visualize the experience of the other.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:46:14.940)
Certainly, currently, unfortunately,
Lex Fridman (1:46:17.000)
people aren't doing that with police officers.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:46:19.380)
They're not imagining, they're not empathizing
Lex Fridman (1:46:22.980)
or putting themselves in the shoes of a police officer
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:46:26.300)
to realize how difficult that job is,
Lex Fridman (1:46:28.620)
how dangerous it is, how difficult it is to maintain calm
Lex Fridman (1:46:32.340)
and under so much uncertainty, all those kinds of things.
Lex Fridman (1:46:35.140)
But there's more, there's even, that's all that's true,
Lex Fridman (1:46:37.720)
but I think that there's even more,
Lex Fridman (1:46:39.500)
there's even more to be said there.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:46:41.300)
I mean, like from a predicting brain standpoint,
Lex Fridman (1:46:44.400)
there's even more that can be said there.
Lex Fridman (1:46:47.100)
So I don't know if you wanna go down that path
Lex Fridman (1:46:48.680)
or you wanna stick on empathy,
Lex Fridman (1:46:49.920)
but I will also say that one of the things
Lex Fridman (1:46:52.980)
that I was most gratified by, I still am receiving,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:46:57.020)
it's been more than three and a half years
Lex Fridman (1:46:59.660)
since How Motions Are Made came out
Lex Fridman (1:47:00.940)
and I'm still receiving daily emails from people, right?
Lex Fridman (1:47:04.380)
So that's gratifying.
Lex Fridman (1:47:05.780)
But one of the most gratifying emails I received
Lex Fridman (1:47:09.700)
was from a police officer in Texas
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:47:12.780)
who told me that he thought that How Motions Are Made
Lex Fridman (1:47:19.180)
contained information that would be really helpful
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:47:24.180)
to resolving some of these difficulties.
Lex Fridman (1:47:28.820)
And he hadn't even read my op ed piece
Lex Fridman (1:47:33.100)
about when is a gun not a gun?
Lex Fridman (1:47:35.060)
And like using what we know about the science of perception
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:47:39.260)
from a prediction standpoint,
Lex Fridman (1:47:41.740)
like the brain is a predictor,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:47:43.660)
to understand a little differently
Lex Fridman (1:47:45.820)
what might be happening in these circumstances.
Lex Fridman (1:47:49.180)
So there's a real, what's hard about,
Lex Fridman (1:47:52.340)
it's hard to talk about because everyone gets mad at you
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:47:57.580)
when you talk about this, like, you know.
Lex Fridman (1:47:59.460)
And there is a way to understand this
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:48:02.620)
which has profound empathy
Lex Fridman (1:48:05.020)
for the suffering of people of color
Lex Fridman (1:48:10.020)
and that definitely is in line with Black Lives Matter
Lex Fridman (1:48:15.780)
at the same time as understanding
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:48:18.100)
the really difficult situation
Lex Fridman (1:48:21.060)
that police officers find themselves in.
Lex Fridman (1:48:23.460)
And I'm not talking about this bad apple or that bad apple.
Lex Fridman (1:48:26.500)
I'm not talking about police officers
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:48:28.020)
who are necessarily shooting people in the back
Lex Fridman (1:48:30.220)
as they run away.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:48:31.260)
I'm talking about the cases of really good,
Lex Fridman (1:48:34.420)
well meaning cops who have the kind of predicting brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:48:39.460)
that everybody else has.
Lex Fridman (1:48:42.540)
They're in a really difficult situation
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:48:45.980)
that I think both they and the people
Lex Fridman (1:48:50.420)
who are harmed don't realize,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:48:55.260)
like the way that these situations are constructed,
Lex Fridman (1:48:58.300)
I think it's just, there's a lot to be said there I guess
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:49:01.420)
is what I want to say.
Lex Fridman (1:49:02.260)
Yeah, is there something we can try to say in a sense,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:49:06.060)
like what I'm, from the perspective of the predictive brain
Lex Fridman (1:49:09.660)
which is a fascinating perspective to take on this,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:49:15.100)
you know, all the protests that are going on,
Lex Fridman (1:49:18.100)
there seems to be a concept of a police officer being built.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:49:22.540)
No, I think that concept is there.
Lex Fridman (1:49:25.620)
But it's gaining strength, so it's being re, I mean.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:49:30.940)
Yeah, it is.
Lex Fridman (1:49:31.780)
Sure, it is there.
Lex Fridman (1:49:32.940)
But I think, yeah, for sure, I think that that's right.
Lex Fridman (1:49:35.380)
I think that there's a shift in the stereotype
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:49:42.580)
of what I would say is a stereotype.
Lex Fridman (1:49:44.380)
There's a stereotype of a black man in this country
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:49:48.260)
that's always in movies and television,
Lex Fridman (1:49:50.740)
not always, but like largely, that many people watch.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:49:56.660)
I mean, you think you're watching a 10 o clock drama
Lex Fridman (1:50:00.220)
and all you're doing is like kicking back and relaxing,
Lex Fridman (1:50:02.660)
but actually you're having certain predictions reinforced
Lex Fridman (1:50:07.020)
and others not.
Lex Fridman (1:50:07.940)
And what's happening now with police is the same thing,
Lex Fridman (1:50:12.740)
that there are certain stereotypes of a police officer
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:50:16.860)
that are being abandoned and other stereotypes
Lex Fridman (1:50:19.540)
that are being reinforced by what you see happening.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:50:23.900)
All I'll say is that if you remember,
Lex Fridman (1:50:26.420)
I mean, there's a lot to say about this, really,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:50:28.500)
that regardless of whether it makes people mad or not,
Lex Fridman (1:50:33.180)
I mean, I just, the science is what it is.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:50:37.700)
Just remember what I said.
Lex Fridman (1:50:39.140)
The brain makes predictions about internal changes
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:50:45.500)
in the body first and then it starts to prepare motor action
Lex Fridman (1:50:49.140)
and then it makes a prediction about what you will see
Lex Fridman (1:50:52.980)
and hear and feel based on those actions, okay?
Lex Fridman (1:50:57.220)
So it's also the case that we didn't talk about
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:51:01.740)
is that sensory sampling,
Lex Fridman (1:51:04.260)
like your brain's ability to sample what's out there
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:51:07.100)
is yoked to your heart rate, it's yoked to your heartbeats.
Lex Fridman (1:51:12.900)
There are certain phases of the heartbeat
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:51:15.260)
where it's easier for you to see what's happening
Lex Fridman (1:51:17.620)
in the world than in others.
Lex Fridman (1:51:20.140)
And so if your heart rate goes through the roof,
Lex Fridman (1:51:26.260)
you will be less likely, you will be more likely
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:51:28.540)
to just go with your prediction and not correct
Lex Fridman (1:51:32.180)
based on what's out there
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:51:34.740)
because you're actually literally not seeing as well.
Lex Fridman (1:51:39.180)
Or you will see things that aren't there, basically.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:51:43.700)
Is there something that we could say by way of advice
Lex Fridman (1:51:48.380)
for when this episode is released
Lex Fridman (1:51:52.500)
in the chaos of emotion?
Lex Fridman (1:51:57.100)
Sorry, I don't know about a term
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:51:58.900)
that's just flying around on social media.
Lex Fridman (1:52:01.340)
What's?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:52:02.780)
Well, I actually think it is emotion in the following sense.
Lex Fridman (1:52:07.460)
And it sounds a little bit like,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:52:10.260)
it sounds a little bit like artificial
Lex Fridman (1:52:14.420)
in the way that I'm about to say it,
Lex Fridman (1:52:16.060)
but I really think that this is what's happening.
Lex Fridman (1:52:18.940)
One thing we haven't talked about is brains evolved,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:52:24.020)
didn't evolve for you to see,
Lex Fridman (1:52:25.300)
they didn't evolve for you to hear,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:52:26.980)
they didn't evolve for you to feel,
Lex Fridman (1:52:28.180)
they evolved to control your body.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:52:30.020)
That's why you have a brain.
Lex Fridman (1:52:31.700)
You have a brain so that it can control your body.
Lex Fridman (1:52:34.260)
And the metaphor,
Lex Fridman (1:52:36.340)
the scientific term for predictively controlling your body
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:52:39.220)
is allostasis.
Lex Fridman (1:52:40.540)
Your brain is attempting to anticipate the needs
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:52:45.620)
of your body and meet those needs before they arise
Lex Fridman (1:52:48.180)
so that you can act as you need to act.
Lex Fridman (1:52:51.340)
And the metaphor that I use is a body budget.
Lex Fridman (1:52:55.060)
You know, your brain is running a budget for your body.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:52:57.420)
It's not budgeting money,
Lex Fridman (1:52:58.540)
it's budgeting glucose and salt and water.
Lex Fridman (1:53:01.860)
And instead of having, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:53:04.180)
one or two bank accounts, it has gazillions.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:53:06.940)
There are all these systems in your body
Lex Fridman (1:53:08.380)
that have to be kept in balance.
Lex Fridman (1:53:10.820)
And it's monitoring very closely,
Lex Fridman (1:53:14.460)
it's making predictions about like,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:53:16.820)
when is it good to spend and when is it good to save
Lex Fridman (1:53:19.620)
and what would be a good investment
Lex Fridman (1:53:21.140)
and am I gonna get a return on my investment?
Lex Fridman (1:53:23.860)
Whenever people talk about reward or reward prediction error
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:53:27.060)
or anything to do with reward or punishment,
Lex Fridman (1:53:29.820)
they're talking about the body budget.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:53:32.900)
They're talking about your brain's predictions
Lex Fridman (1:53:34.540)
about whether or not there will be a deposit or withdrawal.
Lex Fridman (1:53:39.440)
So when your brain is running a deficit
Lex Fridman (1:53:47.720)
in your body budgets,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:53:48.640)
you have some kind of metabolic imbalance,
Lex Fridman (1:53:51.660)
you experience that as discomfort.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:53:55.080)
You experience that as distress.
Lex Fridman (1:53:58.040)
When your brain, when things are chaotic,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:54:00.980)
you can't predict what's going to happen next.
Lex Fridman (1:54:05.500)
So I have this absolutely brilliant scientist
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:54:08.840)
working in my lab, his name is Jordan Theriot
Lex Fridman (1:54:13.560)
and he's published this really terrific paper
Lex Fridman (1:54:17.040)
on a sense of should, like why do we have social rules?
Lex Fridman (1:54:22.040)
Why do we adhere to social norms?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:54:27.360)
It's because if I make myself predictable to you,
Lex Fridman (1:54:31.320)
then you are predictable to me.
Lex Fridman (1:54:33.680)
And if you're predictable to me, that's good
Lex Fridman (1:54:36.760)
because that is less metabolically expensive for me.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:54:41.520)
Novelty or unpredictability at the extreme is expensive.
Lex Fridman (1:54:46.520)
And if it goes on for long enough,
Lex Fridman (1:54:48.520)
what happens is first of all,
Lex Fridman (1:54:50.760)
you will feel really jittery and antsy,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:54:53.760)
which we describe as anxiety.
Lex Fridman (1:54:56.880)
It isn't necessarily anxiety.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:54:58.560)
It could be just something is not predictable
Lex Fridman (1:55:04.000)
and you are experiencing arousal
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:55:06.400)
because the chemicals that help you learn
Lex Fridman (1:55:09.920)
increase your feeling of arousal basically.
Lex Fridman (1:55:13.400)
But if it goes on for long enough,
Lex Fridman (1:55:15.160)
you will become depleted
Lex Fridman (1:55:17.900)
and you will start to feel really, really,
Lex Fridman (1:55:20.120)
really distressed.
Lex Fridman (1:55:22.080)
So what we have is a culture full of people right now
Lex Fridman (1:55:27.000)
who their body budgets are just decimated
Lex Fridman (1:55:32.120)
and there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty.
Lex Fridman (1:55:36.720)
When you talk about it as depression and anxiety,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:55:39.720)
it makes you think that it's not about your metabolism,
Lex Fridman (1:55:43.860)
that it's not about your body budgeting,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:55:46.000)
that it's not about getting enough sleep
Lex Fridman (1:55:48.360)
or about eating well or about making sure
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:55:51.480)
that you have social connections.
Lex Fridman (1:55:55.120)
You think that it's something separate from that.
Lex Fridman (1:55:57.000)
But depression and anxiety are just a way
Lex Fridman (1:55:58.840)
of being in the world.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:56:01.640)
They're a way of being in the world
Lex Fridman (1:56:04.040)
when things aren't quite right with your predictions.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:56:08.720)
That's such a deep way of thinking.
Lex Fridman (1:56:10.600)
Like the brain is maintaining homeostasis.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:56:16.560)
It's actually allostasis.
Lex Fridman (1:56:17.880)
I'm sorry.
Lex Fridman (1:56:19.800)
And it's constantly making predictions
Lex Fridman (1:56:22.840)
and metabolically speaking,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:56:24.420)
it's very costly to make novel,
Lex Fridman (1:56:26.640)
like constantly be learning to making adjustments.
Lex Fridman (1:56:29.920)
And then over time, there's a cost to be paid
Lex Fridman (1:56:35.240)
if you're just in a place of chaos
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:56:39.200)
where there's constant need for adjusting
Lex Fridman (1:56:42.760)
and learning and experience novel things.
Lex Fridman (1:56:46.880)
And so part of the problem here,
Lex Fridman (1:56:49.520)
there are a couple of things.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:56:50.480)
Like I said, it's a perfect storm.
Lex Fridman (1:56:52.400)
There isn't a single cause.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:56:54.760)
There are multiple cause,
Lex Fridman (1:56:55.800)
multiple things that combine together.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:56:57.440)
It's a complex system, multiple things.
Lex Fridman (1:57:01.520)
Part of it is that they're metabolically encumbered
Lex Fridman (1:57:08.040)
and they're distressed.
Lex Fridman (1:57:10.120)
And in order to try to have empathy
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:57:12.760)
for someone who is very much unlike you,
Lex Fridman (1:57:16.120)
you have to forage for information.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:57:19.040)
You have to explore information
Lex Fridman (1:57:22.480)
that is novel to you and unexpected.
Lex Fridman (1:57:25.960)
And that's expensive.
Lex Fridman (1:57:27.960)
And at a time when people feel,
Lex Fridman (1:57:31.040)
what do you do when you are running a deficit
Lex Fridman (1:57:33.720)
in your bank account?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:57:34.880)
You stop spending.
Lex Fridman (1:57:37.000)
What does it mean for a brain to stop spending?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:57:40.400)
A brain stops moving very much,
Lex Fridman (1:57:43.160)
stops moving the body and it stops learning.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:57:46.920)
It just goes with its internal model.
Lex Fridman (1:57:48.720)
Brilliantly put, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:57:50.720)
So empathy requires,
Lex Fridman (1:57:54.000)
to have empathy for someone who is unlike you
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:57:57.920)
requires learning and practice, foraging for information.
Lex Fridman (1:58:04.280)
I mean, it is something I talk about in the book
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:58:07.200)
in seven and a half lessons about the brain.
Lex Fridman (1:58:08.800)
I think it's really important.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:58:10.440)
It's hard, but it's hard.
Lex Fridman (1:58:13.160)
I think it's hard for people to have,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:58:16.520)
to be curious about views that are unlike their own
Lex Fridman (1:58:22.640)
when they feel so encumbered.
Lex Fridman (1:58:26.360)
And I'll just tell you, I had this epiphany really.
Lex Fridman (1:58:30.160)
I was listening to Robert Reich's The System.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:58:34.640)
He was talking about oligarchy versus democracy.
Lex Fridman (1:58:39.000)
And so oligarchy is where very wealthy people,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:58:41.800)
like extremely wealthy people,
Lex Fridman (1:58:46.480)
shift power so that they become even more wealthy
Lex Fridman (1:58:51.000)
and even more insulated
Lex Fridman (1:58:52.400)
and from the pressures of the common person.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:58:58.000)
It's actually the kind of system
Lex Fridman (1:59:00.800)
that leads to the collapse of civilizations
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:59:04.120)
if you believe Jared Diamond.
Lex Fridman (1:59:05.920)
Just say that.
Lex Fridman (1:59:06.760)
But anyways, I'm listening to this
Lex Fridman (1:59:08.640)
and I'm listening to him describe in fairly decent detail
Lex Fridman (1:59:13.960)
how the CEOs of these companies,
Lex Fridman (1:59:18.560)
there's been a shift in what it means to be a CEO
Lex Fridman (1:59:21.080)
and no longer being a steward of the community and so on,
Lex Fridman (1:59:25.280)
but like in the 1980s, it sort of shifted
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:59:27.440)
to this other model of being like an oligarch.
Lex Fridman (1:59:30.680)
And he's talking about how it used to be the case
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:59:35.120)
that CEOs made like 20 times what their employees made
Lex Fridman (1:59:45.240)
and now they make about 300 times on average
Lex Fridman (1:59:48.000)
what their employees made.
Lex Fridman (1:59:49.080)
So where did that money come from?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:59:51.640)
It came from the pockets of the employees.
Lex Fridman (1:59:55.040)
And they don't know about it, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (1:59:57.360)
No one knows about it.
Lex Fridman (1:59:58.360)
They just know they can't feed their children,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (20:03.680)
like an inner lizard brain for instincts.
Lex Fridman (20:08.280)
And then wrapped around that evolved,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (20:10.880)
layer on top of that evolved a limbic system in mammals.
Lex Fridman (20:16.120)
So the novelty was in a mammalian brain,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (20:18.680)
which bestowed mammals with, gave them emotions,
Lex Fridman (20:23.360)
the capacity for emotions.
Lex Fridman (20:24.600)
And then on top of that evolved a cerebral cortex,
Lex Fridman (20:32.520)
which in largely in primates, but very large in humans.
Lex Fridman (20:41.600)
And it's not that I personally disagree.
Lex Fridman (20:46.480)
It's that as far back as the 1960s,
Lex Fridman (20:49.440)
but really by the 1970s, it was shown pretty clearly
Lex Fridman (20:54.040)
with evidence from molecular genetics.
Lex Fridman (20:55.840)
So peering into cells in the brain
Lex Fridman (20:59.120)
to look at the molecular makeup of genes
Lisa Feldman Barrett (21:02.960)
that the brain did not evolve that way.
Lex Fridman (21:05.840)
And the irony is that the idea of the three layered brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett (21:15.760)
with an inner lizard that hijacks your behavior
Lex Fridman (21:20.680)
and causes you to do and say things
Lisa Feldman Barrett (21:22.600)
that you would otherwise not,
Lex Fridman (21:24.680)
or maybe that you will regret later.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (21:27.040)
That idea became very popular,
Lex Fridman (21:30.920)
was popularized by Carl Sagan in The Dragons of Eden,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (21:36.840)
which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1977,
Lex Fridman (21:40.800)
when it was already known pretty much
Lisa Feldman Barrett (21:42.680)
in evolutionary neuroscience
Lex Fridman (21:44.360)
that the whole narrative was a myth.
Lex Fridman (21:47.720)
So what the narrative is on the way it evolved,
Lex Fridman (21:50.680)
but do you, I mean, again, it's that problem
Lisa Feldman Barrett (21:54.040)
of it being a useful tool of conversation
Lex Fridman (22:00.320)
to say like there's a lizard brain
Lex Fridman (22:02.320)
and there's a, like if I get overly emotional on Twitter,
Lex Fridman (22:05.800)
that was the lizard brain and so on.
Lex Fridman (22:09.280)
But do you?
Lex Fridman (22:10.360)
No, I don't think it's useful.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (22:11.760)
I think it's, I think that.
Lex Fridman (22:13.520)
Is it useful, is it accurate?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (22:16.880)
I don't think it's accurate,
Lex Fridman (22:18.320)
and therefore I don't think it's useful.
Lex Fridman (22:20.880)
So here's what I would say.
Lex Fridman (22:22.960)
I think that the way I think about philosophy and science
Lisa Feldman Barrett (22:30.200)
is that they are useful tools for living.
Lex Fridman (22:34.360)
And in order to be useful tools for living,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (22:39.160)
they have to help you make good decisions.
Lex Fridman (22:44.160)
The triune brain, as it's called, this three layer brain,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (22:47.480)
the idea that your brain is like an already baked cake
Lex Fridman (22:50.240)
and the cortex, cerebral cortex,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (22:53.160)
just layered on top like icing.
Lex Fridman (22:54.920)
The idea, that idea is the foundation of the law
Lisa Feldman Barrett (23:01.280)
in most Western countries.
Lex Fridman (23:03.560)
It's the foundation of economic theory
Lex Fridman (23:07.920)
and it's a great narrative.
Lex Fridman (23:11.000)
It sort of fits in with what I've been saying
Lisa Feldman Barrett (23:13.800)
fits our intuitions about how we work.
Lex Fridman (23:17.640)
But it also, in addition to being wrong,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (23:22.840)
it lets people off the hook for nasty behavior.
Lex Fridman (23:29.160)
And it also suggests that emotions
Lisa Feldman Barrett (23:32.040)
can't be a source of wisdom, which they often are.
Lex Fridman (23:36.040)
In fact, you would not wanna be around someone
Lisa Feldman Barrett (23:39.040)
who didn't have emotions.
Lex Fridman (23:40.720)
That would be, that's a psychopath.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (23:43.280)
I mean, that's not someone you wanna really
Lex Fridman (23:49.280)
have that person deciding your outcome.
Lex Fridman (23:50.760)
So I guess my, and I could sort of go on and on and on,
Lex Fridman (23:54.120)
but my point is that I don't think,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (23:59.240)
I don't think it's a useful narrative in the end.
Lex Fridman (24:03.440)
What's the more accurate view of the brain
Lex Fridman (24:06.440)
that we should use when we're thinking about it?
Lex Fridman (24:08.760)
I'll answer that in a second,
Lex Fridman (24:09.680)
but I'll say that even our notion of what an instinct is
Lex Fridman (24:12.760)
or what a reflex is, it's not quite right, right?
Lex Fridman (24:16.840)
So if you look at evidence from ecology, for example,
Lex Fridman (24:22.280)
and you look at animals in their ecological context,
Lex Fridman (24:25.680)
what you can see is that even things
Lex Fridman (24:27.440)
which are reflexes are very context sensitive.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (24:33.920)
The brains of those animals are executing
Lex Fridman (24:37.000)
so called instinctual actions
Lisa Feldman Barrett (24:39.440)
in a very, very context sensitive way.
Lex Fridman (24:42.120)
And so even when a physician takes the,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (24:46.880)
it's like the idea of your patellar reflex
Lex Fridman (24:49.520)
where they hit your patellar tendon on your knee
Lex Fridman (24:52.200)
and you kick, the force with which you kick and so on
Lex Fridman (24:57.640)
is influenced by all kinds of things.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (25:00.360)
A reflex isn't like a robotic response.
Lex Fridman (25:05.120)
And so I think a better way is a way that,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (25:10.120)
to think about how brains work,
Lex Fridman (25:12.000)
is the way that matches our best understanding,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (25:16.320)
our best scientific understanding,
Lex Fridman (25:17.760)
which I think is really cool
Lisa Feldman Barrett (25:21.040)
because it's really counterintuitive.
Lex Fridman (25:24.360)
So how I came to this view,
Lex Fridman (25:26.000)
and I'm certainly not the only one who holds this view.
Lex Fridman (25:28.560)
I was reading work on neuroanatomy
Lex Fridman (25:31.400)
and the view that I'm about to tell you
Lex Fridman (25:34.320)
was strongly suggested by that.
Lex Fridman (25:36.880)
And then I was reading work in signal processing,
Lex Fridman (25:39.080)
like by electrical engineering.
Lex Fridman (25:41.360)
And similarly, the work suggested that,
Lex Fridman (25:45.840)
the research suggested that the brain worked this way.
Lex Fridman (25:48.080)
And I'll just say that I was reading
Lex Fridman (25:49.920)
across multiple literatures
Lex Fridman (25:51.360)
and they were who don't speak to each other
Lex Fridman (25:53.720)
and they were all pointing in this direction.
Lex Fridman (25:56.920)
And so far, although some of the details
Lex Fridman (26:00.560)
are still up for grabs,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (26:02.120)
the general gist I think is I've not come across anything yet
Lex Fridman (26:07.120)
which really violates, and I'm looking.
Lex Fridman (26:11.600)
And so the idea is something like this.
Lex Fridman (26:13.240)
It's very counterintuitive.
Lex Fridman (26:15.720)
So the way to describe it is to say
Lex Fridman (26:18.440)
that your brain doesn't react to things in the world.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (26:22.360)
It's not, to us it feels like our eyes
Lex Fridman (26:25.360)
are windows on the world.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (26:27.400)
We see things, we hear things, we react to them.
Lex Fridman (26:32.080)
In psychology, we call this stimulus response.
Lex Fridman (26:34.880)
So your face, your voice is a stimulus to me.
Lex Fridman (26:39.400)
I receive input and then I react to it.
Lex Fridman (26:44.240)
And I might react very automatically, system one.
Lex Fridman (26:50.400)
But I also might execute some control
Lisa Feldman Barrett (26:53.920)
where I maybe stop myself from saying something
Lex Fridman (26:57.360)
or doing something and in a more reflective way
Lex Fridman (27:02.520)
execute a different action, right?
Lex Fridman (27:04.200)
That's system two.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (27:06.440)
The way the brain works though,
Lex Fridman (27:08.240)
is it's predicting all the time.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (27:10.360)
It's constantly talking to itself,
Lex Fridman (27:12.760)
constantly talking to your body,
Lex Fridman (27:15.840)
and it's constantly predicting what's going on in the body
Lex Fridman (27:20.840)
and what's going on in the world and making predictions
Lex Fridman (27:24.520)
and the information from your body and from the world
Lex Fridman (27:29.080)
really confirm or correct those predictions.
Lex Fridman (27:32.320)
So fundamentally the thing that the brain does
Lex Fridman (27:35.320)
most of the time is just like talking to itself
Lex Fridman (27:39.960)
and predicting stuff about the world,
Lex Fridman (27:41.560)
not like this dumb thing that just senses and responds,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (27:45.680)
senses and responds.
Lex Fridman (27:46.520)
Yeah, so the way to think about it is like this.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (27:48.440)
You know, your brain is trapped in a dark silent box.
Lex Fridman (27:52.480)
Yeah, that's very romantic of you.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (27:56.000)
Which is your skull.
Lex Fridman (27:57.200)
And the only information that it receives
Lisa Feldman Barrett (28:01.280)
from your body and from the world, right,
Lex Fridman (28:04.440)
is through the senses, through the sense organs,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (28:07.440)
your eyes, your ears,
Lex Fridman (28:09.200)
and you have sensory data that comes from your body
Lisa Feldman Barrett (28:14.960)
that you're largely unaware of to your brain,
Lex Fridman (28:17.920)
which we call interoceptive,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (28:20.240)
as opposed to exteroceptive, which is the world around you.
Lex Fridman (28:23.280)
But your brain is receiving sense data continuously,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (28:31.280)
which are the effect of some set of causes.
Lex Fridman (28:37.080)
Your brain doesn't know the cause of these sense data.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (28:41.240)
It's only receiving the effects of those causes,
Lex Fridman (28:44.480)
which are the data themselves.
Lex Fridman (28:46.360)
And so your brain has to solve what philosophers call
Lex Fridman (28:49.280)
an inverse inference problem.
Lex Fridman (28:51.240)
How do you know, when you only receive
Lex Fridman (28:53.520)
the effects of something,
Lex Fridman (28:54.480)
how do you know what caused those effects?
Lex Fridman (28:56.000)
So when there's a flash of light or a change in air pressure
Lisa Feldman Barrett (29:00.840)
or a tug somewhere in your body,
Lex Fridman (29:04.120)
how does your brain know what caused those events
Lex Fridman (29:09.520)
so that it knows what to do next to keep you alive and well?
Lex Fridman (29:15.560)
And the answer is that your brain has one other source
Lisa Feldman Barrett (29:18.520)
of information available to it,
Lex Fridman (29:21.040)
which is your past experience.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (29:23.760)
It can reconstitute in its wiring past experiences,
Lex Fridman (29:30.160)
and it can combine those past experiences in novel ways.
Lex Fridman (29:34.360)
And so we have lots of names for this in psychology.
Lex Fridman (29:39.080)
We call it memory.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (29:40.800)
We call it perceptual inference.
Lex Fridman (29:42.400)
We call it simulation.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (29:45.800)
It's also, we call it concepts or conceptual knowledge.
Lex Fridman (29:49.440)
We call it prediction.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (29:50.920)
Basically, if we were to stop the world right now,
Lex Fridman (29:54.840)
stop time, your brain is in a state,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:00:00.960)
they can't pay for healthcare,
Lex Fridman (2:00:03.400)
they can't take care of their family
Lex Fridman (2:00:05.240)
and they worry about what's gonna happen to their,
Lex Fridman (2:00:08.280)
they're living like months a month basically.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:00:11.280)
Any one big bill could completely
Lex Fridman (2:00:13.960)
put them out on the street.
Lex Fridman (2:00:15.240)
So there are a huge number of people living like this.
Lex Fridman (2:00:17.880)
So all they, what they're experiencing,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:00:19.880)
they don't know why they're experiencing it.
Lex Fridman (2:00:22.280)
And then someone comes along and gives them a narrative.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:00:26.720)
Well, somebody else butted in line in front of you
Lex Fridman (2:00:29.880)
and that's why you're this way.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:00:32.960)
That's why you experience what you're experiencing.
Lex Fridman (2:00:35.120)
And just for a minute, I was thinking,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:00:39.280)
I had deep empathy for people who have beliefs
Lex Fridman (2:00:44.640)
that are really, really, really different from mine.
Lex Fridman (2:00:50.360)
But I was trying really hard to see it through their eyes.
Lex Fridman (2:00:55.440)
And did it cost me something metabolically?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:00:59.320)
I'm sure, I'm sure.
Lex Fridman (2:01:02.080)
But you had something in the gas tank.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:01:04.640)
Well, I. In order to allocate that.
Lex Fridman (2:01:07.120)
I mean, that's the question is like,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:01:08.600)
where did you, what resources did your brain draw on
Lex Fridman (2:01:13.080)
in order to actually make that effort?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:01:14.680)
Well, I'll tell you something, honestly, Lex.
Lex Fridman (2:01:17.520)
I don't have that much in the gas tank right now.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:01:19.920)
Right, so I am surfing the stress that,
Lex Fridman (2:01:26.920)
stress is just, what is stress?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:01:28.560)
Stress is your brain is preparing for a big metabolic outlay
Lex Fridman (2:01:31.680)
and it just keeps preparing and preparing
Lex Fridman (2:01:33.560)
and preparing and preparing.
Lex Fridman (2:01:35.240)
You as a professor, you as a human.
Lex Fridman (2:01:37.480)
Both, right?
Lex Fridman (2:01:39.040)
For me, this is a moment of existential crisis
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:01:42.680)
as much as anybody else, democracy, all of these things.
Lex Fridman (2:01:45.480)
So in many of my roles, so I guess what I'm trying to say
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:01:50.360)
is that I get up every morning and I exercise.
Lex Fridman (2:01:55.360)
I run, I row, I lift weights, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:01:58.880)
You exercise in the middle of the day.
Lex Fridman (2:02:00.360)
I saw your like, you know, daily thing.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:02:03.160)
Yeah, I hate it actually.
Lex Fridman (2:02:06.000)
You love it, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:02:07.040)
You get a...
Lex Fridman (2:02:07.880)
No, I hate it.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:02:08.700)
I hate it, but I do it religiously.
Lex Fridman (2:02:13.400)
Why?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:02:14.520)
Because it's a really good investment.
Lex Fridman (2:02:16.560)
It's an expenditure that is a really good investment.
Lex Fridman (2:02:20.320)
And so when I was exercising, I was listening to the book
Lex Fridman (2:02:25.320)
and when I realized the insights that I was sort of like
Lex Fridman (2:02:28.320)
playing around with, like, is this, does this make sense?
Lex Fridman (2:02:31.200)
Does this make sense?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:02:32.040)
I didn't immediately plunge into it.
Lex Fridman (2:02:34.320)
I basically wrote some stuff down, I set it aside
Lex Fridman (2:02:38.080)
and then I did what I prepared myself to make an expenditure.
Lex Fridman (2:02:42.320)
I don't know what you do before you exercise.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:02:44.720)
I always have a protein shake, always have a protein shake
Lex Fridman (2:02:48.200)
because I need to fuel up
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:02:50.120)
before I make this really big expenditure.
Lex Fridman (2:02:52.280)
And so I did the same thing.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:02:55.640)
I didn't have a protein drink, but I did the same thing.
Lex Fridman (2:02:58.920)
And fueling up can mean lots of different things.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:03:01.640)
It can mean talking to a friend about it.
Lex Fridman (2:03:03.520)
It can mean, you know, it can mean making sure
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:03:07.160)
you get a good night's sleep before you do it.
Lex Fridman (2:03:08.800)
It can mean lots of different things,
Lex Fridman (2:03:10.320)
but I guess I think we have to do these things.
Lex Fridman (2:03:17.840)
Yeah, that's a good question.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:03:20.640)
Yeah, I'm gonna re listen to this conversation
Lex Fridman (2:03:24.320)
several times, this is brilliant.
Lex Fridman (2:03:26.320)
But I do think about, you know, I've encountered
Lex Fridman (2:03:31.880)
so many people that can't possibly imagine
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:03:35.560)
that a good human being can vote for Donald Trump.
Lex Fridman (2:03:38.560)
And I've also encountered people that can't imagine
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:03:43.880)
that an intelligent person can possibly vote for Democrat.
Lex Fridman (2:03:47.880)
And I look at both these people,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:03:52.040)
many of whom are friends, and let's just say,
Lex Fridman (2:03:57.360)
after this conversation, I can see as they're predicting
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:04:00.280)
brains not willing to invest the resources
Lex Fridman (2:04:04.360)
to empathize with the other side.
Lex Fridman (2:04:06.160)
And I think you have to in order to be able to,
Lex Fridman (2:04:10.000)
like, to see the obvious common humanity in us.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:04:14.520)
I don't know what the system is
Lex Fridman (2:04:16.100)
that's creating this division.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:04:17.840)
We can put it, like you said, it's a perfect storm.
Lex Fridman (2:04:20.240)
It might be the social media,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:04:22.200)
I don't know what the hell it is.
Lex Fridman (2:04:23.040)
I think it's a bunch of things.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:04:24.540)
I think it's, there's an economic system,
Lex Fridman (2:04:27.560)
which is disadvantaging large numbers of people.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:04:30.960)
There's a use of social media.
Lex Fridman (2:04:34.420)
Like if you, you know, if I had to orchestrate
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:04:37.360)
or architect a system that would screw up
Lex Fridman (2:04:40.960)
a human body budget, it would be the one that we live in.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:04:44.360)
You know, we don't sleep enough.
Lex Fridman (2:04:45.600)
We eat pseudo food, basically.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:04:48.960)
We are on social media too much,
Lex Fridman (2:04:51.600)
which is full of ambiguity,
Lex Fridman (2:04:52.920)
which is really hard for a human nervous system, right?
Lex Fridman (2:04:55.980)
Really, really hard.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:04:57.060)
Like ambiguity with no context to predict in.
Lex Fridman (2:04:59.700)
I mean, it's like, really?
Lex Fridman (2:05:01.160)
And then, you know, there are the economic concerns
Lex Fridman (2:05:03.800)
that affect large swaths of people in this country.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:05:06.280)
I mean, it's really, I'm not saying everything
Lex Fridman (2:05:09.300)
is reducible to metabolism.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:05:11.780)
Not everything is reducible to metabolism,
Lex Fridman (2:05:13.600)
but there, if you combine all these things together.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:05:18.500)
It's helpful to think of it that way.
Lex Fridman (2:05:20.080)
Then somehow it's also,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:05:24.040)
somehow it reduces the entirety of the human experience,
Lex Fridman (2:05:27.040)
the same kind of obvious logic.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:05:28.520)
Like we should exercise every day in the same kind of way.
Lex Fridman (2:05:31.720)
We should empathize every day.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:05:34.880)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:05:35.880)
You know, there are these really wonderful,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:05:37.720)
wonderful programs for teens
Lex Fridman (2:05:41.580)
and sometimes also for parents of people
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:05:44.160)
who've lost children in wars and in conflicts,
Lex Fridman (2:05:47.480)
in political conflicts,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:05:48.940)
where they go to a bucolic setting
Lex Fridman (2:05:51.540)
and they talk to each other about their experiences.
Lex Fridman (2:05:54.020)
And miraculous things happen, you know?
Lex Fridman (2:05:59.120)
So, you know, it's easy to sort of shrug this stuff off
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:06:04.120)
It's easy to sort of shrug this stuff off
Lex Fridman (2:06:10.160)
as kind of Pollyanna ish.
Lex Fridman (2:06:12.200)
You know, like, what's this really gonna do?
Lex Fridman (2:06:13.800)
But you have to think about,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:06:20.120)
when my daughter went to college, I gave her advice.
Lex Fridman (2:06:23.520)
I said, try to be around people
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:06:29.400)
who let you be the kind of person you wanna be.
Lex Fridman (2:06:32.080)
We're back to free will.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:06:35.640)
You have a choice, you have a choice.
Lex Fridman (2:06:40.360)
It might seem like a really hard choice.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:06:41.960)
It might seem like an unimaginably difficult choice.
Lex Fridman (2:06:46.080)
You have a choice.
Lex Fridman (2:06:47.280)
Do you wanna be somebody who is wrapped in fury and agony?
Lex Fridman (2:06:54.600)
Or do you wanna be somebody who extends a little empathy
Lex Fridman (2:06:59.280)
to somebody else?
Lex Fridman (2:07:00.100)
And in the process, maybe learn something.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:07:02.720)
Curiosity is the thing that protects you.
Lex Fridman (2:07:07.440)
Curiosity is the thing, it's curative curiosity.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:07:12.460)
On social media, the thing I recommend to people,
Lex Fridman (2:07:16.760)
at least that's the way I've been approaching social media.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:07:20.000)
It doesn't seem to be the common approach,
Lex Fridman (2:07:22.040)
but I basically give love to people
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:07:27.040)
who seem to also give love to others.
Lex Fridman (2:07:30.620)
So it's the same similar concept of surrounding yourself
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:07:34.420)
by the people you wanna become.
Lex Fridman (2:07:36.260)
And I ignore, sometimes block, but just ignore.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:07:40.460)
I don't add aggression to people
Lex Fridman (2:07:43.260)
who are just constantly full of aggression
Lex Fridman (2:07:46.420)
and negativity and toxicity.
Lex Fridman (2:07:48.420)
There's a certain desire when somebody says something mean
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:07:52.380)
to say something, to say why,
Lex Fridman (2:07:59.020)
or try to alleviate the meanness and so on.
Lex Fridman (2:08:01.720)
But what you're doing essentially
Lex Fridman (2:08:03.060)
is you're now surrounding yourself
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:08:05.620)
by that group of folks that have that negativity.
Lex Fridman (2:08:09.220)
So even just the conversation.
Lex Fridman (2:08:11.220)
So I think it's just so powerful
Lex Fridman (2:08:15.540)
to put yourself amongst people
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:08:18.500)
whose basic mode of interaction is kindness.
Lex Fridman (2:08:23.900)
Because I don't know what it is,
Lex Fridman (2:08:26.980)
but maybe it's the way I'm built,
Lex Fridman (2:08:28.680)
is that to me is energizing for the gas tank
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:08:32.180)
that then I can pull to when I start reading
Lex Fridman (2:08:36.380)
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Lex Fridman (2:08:38.100)
and start thinking about Nazi Germany.
Lex Fridman (2:08:40.980)
I can empathize with everybody involved.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:08:43.620)
I can start to make these difficult thinking
Lex Fridman (2:08:47.820)
that's required to understand our little planet Earth.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:08:52.140)
Well, there is research to back up what you said.
Lex Fridman (2:08:54.820)
There's research that's consistent
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:08:56.580)
with your intuition there,
Lex Fridman (2:08:58.500)
that there's research that shows
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:09:00.660)
that being kind to other people,
Lex Fridman (2:09:04.060)
doing something nice for someone else
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:09:06.900)
is like making a deposit to some extent.
Lex Fridman (2:09:11.340)
Because I think making a deposit
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:09:15.860)
not only in their body budgets,
Lex Fridman (2:09:17.220)
but also in yours.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:09:18.820)
Like people feel good when they do good things
Lex Fridman (2:09:22.500)
for other people.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:09:24.180)
We are social animals.
Lex Fridman (2:09:26.060)
We regulate each other's nervous systems
Lex Fridman (2:09:28.300)
for better and for worse, right?
Lex Fridman (2:09:30.780)
The best thing for a human nervous system is another human.
Lex Fridman (2:09:36.820)
And the worst thing for a human nervous system
Lex Fridman (2:09:40.540)
is another human.
Lex Fridman (2:09:41.820)
So you decide, do you wanna be somebody
Lex Fridman (2:09:44.540)
who makes people feel better
Lex Fridman (2:09:49.860)
or do you wanna be somebody who causes people pain?
Lex Fridman (2:09:53.200)
And we are more responsible for one another
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:09:58.220)
than we might like or than we might want.
Lex Fridman (2:10:02.520)
But remember what we said about social reality.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:10:05.460)
Social reality, there are lots of different cultural norms
Lex Fridman (2:10:10.460)
about independence or collective nature of people.
Lex Fridman (2:10:20.100)
But the fact is we have socially dependent nervous systems.
Lex Fridman (2:10:24.980)
We evolved that way as a species.
Lex Fridman (2:10:27.620)
And in this country,
Lex Fridman (2:10:29.420)
we prize individual rights and freedoms.
Lex Fridman (2:10:32.880)
And that is a dilemma that we have to grapple with.
Lex Fridman (2:10:38.560)
And we have to do it in a way
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:10:40.100)
if we're gonna be productive about it.
Lex Fridman (2:10:41.580)
We have to do it in a way
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:10:43.180)
that requires engaging with each other,
Lex Fridman (2:10:48.500)
and which is what I understand
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:10:50.340)
the founding members of this country intended.
Lex Fridman (2:10:57.700)
Beautifully put.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:10:58.580)
Let me ask a few final silly questions.
Lex Fridman (2:11:01.820)
So one, talked a bit about love,
Lex Fridman (2:11:05.300)
but it's fun to ask somebody like you
Lex Fridman (2:11:08.620)
who can effectively, from at least neuroscience perspective,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:11:13.140)
disassemble some of these romantic notions.
Lex Fridman (2:11:15.060)
But what do you make of romantic love?
Lex Fridman (2:11:18.380)
Why do human beings seem to fall in love?
Lex Fridman (2:11:22.020)
At least a bunch of 80s hair bands have written about it.
Lex Fridman (2:11:27.740)
Is that a nice feature to have?
Lex Fridman (2:11:29.700)
Is that a bug?
Lex Fridman (2:11:31.100)
What is it?
Lex Fridman (2:11:31.940)
Well, I'm really happy that I fell in love.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:11:35.100)
I wouldn't want it any other way.
Lex Fridman (2:11:37.620)
But I would say.
Lex Fridman (2:11:38.940)
Is that you the person speaking or the neuroscientist?
Lex Fridman (2:11:41.740)
Well, that's me the person speaking.
Lex Fridman (2:11:44.060)
But I would say as a neuroscientist,
Lex Fridman (2:11:47.460)
babies are born not able to regulate their own body budgets
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:11:51.340)
because their brains aren't fully wired yet.
Lex Fridman (2:11:54.580)
When you feed a baby, when you cuddle a baby,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:12:00.740)
everything you do with a baby
Lex Fridman (2:12:02.220)
impacts that baby's body budget
Lex Fridman (2:12:04.460)
and helps to wire that baby's brain
Lex Fridman (2:12:09.900)
to manage eventually her own body budget to some extent.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:12:13.580)
That's the basis biologically of attachment.
Lex Fridman (2:12:20.340)
Humans evolved as a species to be socially dependent,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:12:26.780)
meaning you cannot manage your body budget
Lex Fridman (2:12:31.780)
on your own without a tax
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:12:35.740)
that eventually you pay many years later
Lex Fridman (2:12:40.180)
in terms of some metabolic illness.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:12:43.620)
Loneliness, when you break up with someone that you love
Lex Fridman (2:12:47.740)
or you lose them, you feel like it's gonna kill you,
Lex Fridman (2:12:52.300)
but it doesn't.
Lex Fridman (2:12:53.380)
But loneliness will kill you.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:12:55.300)
It will kill you approximately,
Lex Fridman (2:12:57.740)
what is it, seven years earlier?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:12:59.380)
I can't remember exactly the exact number.
Lex Fridman (2:13:01.060)
It's actually in the web notes to seven and a half lessons.
Lex Fridman (2:13:05.260)
But social isolation and loneliness will kill you earlier
Lex Fridman (2:13:10.460)
than you would otherwise die.
Lex Fridman (2:13:11.780)
And the reason why is that you didn't evolve
Lex Fridman (2:13:15.740)
to manage your nervous system on your own.
Lex Fridman (2:13:18.540)
And when you do, you pay a little tax
Lex Fridman (2:13:20.740)
and that tax accrues very slightly over time,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:13:24.300)
over a long period of time
Lex Fridman (2:13:26.260)
so that by the time you're in middle age or a little older,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:13:30.620)
you are more likely to die sooner
Lex Fridman (2:13:33.660)
from some metabolic illness,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:13:35.260)
from heart disease, from diabetes, from depression.
Lex Fridman (2:13:38.700)
You're more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:13:40.860)
I mean, it takes a long time for that tax to accrue,
Lex Fridman (2:13:47.020)
but it does.
Lex Fridman (2:13:47.860)
So yes, I think it's a good thing for people to fall in love.
Lex Fridman (2:13:53.820)
But I think the funny view of it is that it's clear
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:13:58.300)
that humans need the social attachment
Lex Fridman (2:14:01.900)
to, what is it, manage their nervous system
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:14:05.580)
as you're describing.
Lex Fridman (2:14:08.500)
And the reason you wanna stay with somebody for a long time
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:14:12.300)
is so you don't have, is the novelty is very costly for.
Lex Fridman (2:14:16.500)
Well, now you're mixing thing.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:14:18.580)
Now you're, you know, you have to decide whether.
Lex Fridman (2:14:21.540)
But what I would say is when you lose someone you love,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:14:25.180)
it feels like you've lost a part of you.
Lex Fridman (2:14:29.740)
And that's because you have.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:14:32.260)
You've lost someone who was contributing
Lex Fridman (2:14:36.020)
to your body budget.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:14:37.340)
We are the caretakers of one another's nervous systems,
Lex Fridman (2:14:40.500)
like it or not.
Lex Fridman (2:14:41.780)
And out of that comes very deep feelings of attachment,
Lex Fridman (2:14:47.260)
some of which are romantic love.
Lex Fridman (2:14:50.220)
Are you afraid of your own mortality?
Lex Fridman (2:14:55.940)
We're two humans sitting here.
Lex Fridman (2:14:57.420)
Do you think, do you ponder your own mortality?
Lex Fridman (2:15:01.780)
I mean, somebody thinks about your brain a lot.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:15:05.580)
It seems one of the more terrifying or, I don't know.
Lex Fridman (2:15:12.700)
I don't know how to feel about it,
Lex Fridman (2:15:13.860)
but it seems to be one of the most definitive aspects
Lex Fridman (2:15:16.140)
of life is that it ends.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:15:18.500)
It's a complicated answer, but I think the best I can do
Lex Fridman (2:15:21.340)
in a short snippet would be to say,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:15:24.220)
for a very long time, I did not fear my own mortality.
Lex Fridman (2:15:27.820)
I feared pain and suffering.
Lex Fridman (2:15:33.980)
So that's what I feared.
Lex Fridman (2:15:36.060)
I feared being harmed or dying in a way
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:15:38.740)
that would be painful.
Lex Fridman (2:15:41.900)
But I didn't fear having my life be over.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:15:45.580)
Now, as a mother, I think I fear dying
Lex Fridman (2:15:54.380)
before my daughter is ready to be without me.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:16:03.340)
That's what I fear.
Lex Fridman (2:16:05.460)
It's, that's really what I fear.
Lex Fridman (2:16:10.380)
And frankly, honestly, I fear my husband dying before me
Lex Fridman (2:16:13.820)
much more than I fear my own death.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:16:16.700)
There's that love and social attachment again.
Lex Fridman (2:16:19.300)
Yeah, because I know it's just gonna,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:16:23.020)
I'm gonna feel like I wish I was dead.
Lex Fridman (2:16:27.020)
A final question about life.
Lex Fridman (2:16:29.220)
What do you think is the meaning of it all?
Lex Fridman (2:16:32.220)
What's the meaning of life?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:16:36.300)
Yeah, I think that there isn't one meaning of life.
Lex Fridman (2:16:38.780)
There's like many meanings of life.
Lex Fridman (2:16:41.020)
And you use different ones on different days.
Lex Fridman (2:16:43.860)
But for me.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:16:45.260)
Depending on the day.
Lex Fridman (2:16:46.300)
Depending on the day.
Lex Fridman (2:16:47.140)
But for me, I would say sometimes the meaning of life
Lex Fridman (2:16:51.700)
is to understand, to make meaning actually.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:16:55.780)
The meaning of life is to make meaning.
Lex Fridman (2:16:58.540)
Sometimes it's that.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:16:59.940)
Sometimes it's to leave the world
Lex Fridman (2:17:03.660)
just slightly a little bit better
Lex Fridman (2:17:06.460)
than like the Johnny Appleseed view, you know?
Lex Fridman (2:17:09.860)
Sometimes the meaning of life is to clear the path
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:17:21.580)
for my daughter or for my students.
Lex Fridman (2:17:26.740)
So sometimes it's that.
Lex Fridman (2:17:28.340)
And sometimes it's just,
Lex Fridman (2:17:34.380)
even in moments where you're looking at the sky
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:17:38.700)
or you're by the ocean.
Lex Fridman (2:17:42.780)
Or sometimes for me it's even like
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:17:45.180)
I'll see a weed poking out of a crack
Lex Fridman (2:17:51.060)
in a sidewalk, you know?
Lex Fridman (2:17:52.980)
And you just have this overwhelming sense
Lex Fridman (2:17:56.620)
of the wonder of the world.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:18:03.300)
Like the world is, just like the physical world
Lex Fridman (2:18:06.580)
is so wondrous and you just get very immersed
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:18:12.780)
in the moment, like the sensation of the moment.
Lex Fridman (2:18:18.220)
Sometimes that's the meaning of life.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:18:19.860)
I don't think there's one meaning of life.
Lex Fridman (2:18:21.740)
I think it's a population of instances
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:18:24.460)
just like any other category.
Lex Fridman (2:18:28.460)
I don't think there's a better way to end it, Lisa.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:18:30.820)
The first time we spoke is I think if not the,
Lex Fridman (2:18:35.820)
then one of, I think it's the first conversation I had
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:18:39.980)
that basically launched this podcast.
Lex Fridman (2:18:41.740)
Yeah, that's actually the first conversation
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:18:43.700)
I've had that launched this podcast.
Lex Fridman (2:18:45.660)
And now we get to finally do it the right way.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:18:49.180)
It's a huge honor to talk to you,
Lex Fridman (2:18:50.580)
that you spent time with me.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:18:53.020)
I can't wait for hopefully the many more books you write.
Lex Fridman (2:18:56.620)
Certainly can't wait to, I already read this book,
Lex Fridman (2:19:00.500)
but I can't wait to listen to it
Lex Fridman (2:19:02.140)
because as you said offline that you're reading it
Lex Fridman (2:19:05.980)
and I think you have a great voice.
Lex Fridman (2:19:07.460)
You have a great, I don't know what the nice way to put it,
Lex Fridman (2:19:10.020)
but maybe NPR voice in the best version of what that is.
Lex Fridman (2:19:14.660)
So thanks again for talking today.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:19:16.540)
Oh, it's my pleasure.
Lex Fridman (2:19:17.380)
Thank you so much for having me back.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:19:20.940)
Thank you for listening to this conversation
Lex Fridman (2:19:22.620)
with Lisa Feldman Barrett and thank you to our sponsors,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:19:26.300)
Athletic Greens, which is an all in one nutritional drink,
Lex Fridman (2:19:30.340)
Magic Spoon, which is a low carb keto friendly cereal
Lex Fridman (2:19:34.220)
and Cash App, which is an app
Lex Fridman (2:19:36.300)
for sending money to your friends.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:19:38.580)
Please check out these sponsors in the description
Lex Fridman (2:19:40.620)
to get a discount and to support this podcast.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:19:44.260)
If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,
Lex Fridman (2:19:46.660)
review it with five stars on Apple Podcast,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:19:48.940)
follow on Spotify, support on Patreon
Lex Fridman (2:19:51.540)
or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
Lex Fridman (2:19:55.140)
And now let me leave you with some words
Lex Fridman (2:19:57.380)
from Lisa Feldman Barrett.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:19:59.700)
It takes more than one human brain to create a human mind.
Lex Fridman (2:20:04.820)
Thank you for listening.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (2:20:06.060)
I hope to see you next time.
Lex Fridman (30:00.320)
and it's representing what it believes
Lisa Feldman Barrett (30:05.680)
is going on in your body and in the world.
Lex Fridman (30:08.440)
And it's predicting what will happen next
Lex Fridman (30:11.520)
based on past experience, right?
Lex Fridman (30:13.360)
Probabilistically, what's most likely to happen.
Lex Fridman (30:15.880)
And it begins to prepare your action,
Lex Fridman (30:24.200)
and it begins to prepare your experience based,
Lex Fridman (30:31.040)
so it's anticipating the sense data it's going to receive.
Lex Fridman (30:35.640)
And then when those data come in,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (30:38.160)
they either confirm that prediction
Lex Fridman (30:40.240)
and your action executes
Lisa Feldman Barrett (30:42.560)
because the plan's already been made,
Lex Fridman (30:44.880)
or there's some sense data that your brain didn't predict
Lisa Feldman Barrett (30:51.320)
that's unexpected, and your brain takes it in.
Lex Fridman (30:54.000)
We say encodes it.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (30:55.600)
We have a fancy name for that.
Lex Fridman (30:57.400)
We call it learning.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (30:58.840)
Your brain learns,
Lex Fridman (31:00.520)
and it updates its storehouse of knowledge,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (31:03.880)
which we call an internal model
Lex Fridman (31:07.200)
so that you can predict better next time.
Lex Fridman (31:08.720)
And it turns out that predicting and correcting,
Lex Fridman (31:11.280)
predicting and correcting is a much more metabolically
Lisa Feldman Barrett (31:14.800)
efficient way to run a system
Lex Fridman (31:16.760)
than constantly reacting all the time.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (31:18.760)
Because if you're constantly reacting,
Lex Fridman (31:20.120)
it means you can't anticipate in any way
Lisa Feldman Barrett (31:22.760)
what's going to happen.
Lex Fridman (31:24.200)
And so the amount of uncertainty that you have to deal with
Lisa Feldman Barrett (31:27.680)
is overwhelming to a nervous system.
Lex Fridman (31:30.880)
Metabolically costly.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (31:32.200)
I like it.
Lex Fridman (31:33.040)
And so what is a reflex?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (31:34.240)
A reflex is when your brain doesn't check
Lex Fridman (31:38.440)
against the sense data.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (31:40.360)
That the potential cost to you is so great,
Lex Fridman (31:45.400)
maybe because your life is threatened,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (31:48.360)
that your brain makes the prediction
Lex Fridman (31:50.760)
and executes the action without checking.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (31:55.240)
Yeah, so but prediction is still at the core.
Lex Fridman (31:57.080)
That's a beautiful vision of the brain.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (31:58.640)
I wonder, from almost an AI perspective,
Lex Fridman (32:01.560)
but just computationally,
Lex Fridman (32:03.880)
is the brain just mostly a prediction machine then?
Lex Fridman (32:07.000)
Like is the perception just the nice little feature
Lex Fridman (32:11.240)
added on top?
Lex Fridman (32:12.200)
Like the, both the integration
Lisa Feldman Barrett (32:15.480)
of new perceptual information.
Lex Fridman (32:17.280)
I wonder how big of an impressive system is that
Lisa Feldman Barrett (32:21.360)
relative to just the big predictor, model constructor.
Lex Fridman (32:25.680)
Well, I think that we can look to evolution for that,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (32:28.760)
for one answer, which is that when you go back,
Lex Fridman (32:32.120)
you know, 550 million years, give or take,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (32:35.640)
we, you know, the world was populated by creatures,
Lex Fridman (32:38.720)
really ruled by creatures without brains.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (32:43.080)
And, you know, that's a biological statement,
Lex Fridman (32:46.480)
not a political statement.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (32:48.360)
Really ruled with creatures with a.
Lex Fridman (32:49.200)
You calling dinosaurs dumb?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (32:50.560)
You're talking about like.
Lex Fridman (32:51.440)
Oh no, I'm not talking about dinosaurs, honey.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (32:53.400)
I'm talking way back, further back than that.
Lex Fridman (32:56.760)
Really these, there are these little,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (32:58.600)
little creatures called amphioxus,
Lex Fridman (33:01.840)
which is the modern, it's a, or a lancet.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (33:04.240)
That's the modern animal,
Lex Fridman (33:06.040)
but it's an animal that scientists believe is very similar
Lisa Feldman Barrett (33:10.320)
to our common,
Lex Fridman (33:12.280)
the common ancestor that we share with invertebrates
Lisa Feldman Barrett (33:16.680)
because, basically because of the tracing back,
Lex Fridman (33:21.120)
the molecular genetics and cells.
Lex Fridman (33:23.040)
And that animal had no brain.
Lex Fridman (33:27.320)
It had some cells that would later turn into a brain,
Lex Fridman (33:30.960)
but in that animal, there's no brain,
Lex Fridman (33:32.240)
but that animal also had no head,
Lex Fridman (33:34.520)
and it had no eyes, and it had no ears,
Lex Fridman (33:36.840)
and it had really, really no senses for the most part.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (33:40.880)
It had very, very limited sense of touch.
Lex Fridman (33:43.960)
It had an eye spot for, not for seeing,
Lex Fridman (33:47.480)
but just for entraining to circadian rhythm,
Lex Fridman (33:50.840)
to light and dark.
Lex Fridman (33:52.920)
And it had no hearing.
Lex Fridman (33:54.480)
It had a vestibular cell
Lex Fridman (33:56.000)
so that it could keep upright in the water.
Lex Fridman (33:58.160)
So at the time, we're talking evolutionary scale here,
Lex Fridman (34:02.800)
so give or take some 100 million years or something,
Lex Fridman (34:07.000)
but at the time, what are the vertebrate,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (34:09.080)
like when a backbone evolved and a brain evolved,
Lex Fridman (34:13.280)
a full brain, that was when a head evolved with sense organs
Lex Fridman (34:19.160)
and when that's when your viscera,
Lex Fridman (34:22.160)
like internal systems involved.
Lex Fridman (34:23.760)
So the answer I would say is that senses,
Lex Fridman (34:30.120)
motor neuroscientists,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (34:31.080)
people who study the control of motor behavior
Lex Fridman (34:34.880)
believe that senses evolved in the service of motor action.
Lex Fridman (34:41.520)
So the idea is that,
Lex Fridman (34:44.400)
like what triggered, what was the big evolutionary change?
Lex Fridman (34:49.400)
What was the big pressure that made it useful
Lex Fridman (34:53.360)
to have eyes and ears and a visual system
Lex Fridman (34:56.840)
and an auditory system and a brain basically?
Lex Fridman (34:59.240)
And the answer that is commonly entertained right now
Lisa Feldman Barrett (35:05.320)
is that it was predation,
Lex Fridman (35:07.560)
that when at some point an animal evolved
Lisa Feldman Barrett (35:11.880)
that deliberately ate another animal
Lex Fridman (35:14.680)
and this launched an arms race between predators and prey
Lex Fridman (35:20.080)
and it became very useful to have senses, right?
Lex Fridman (35:24.080)
So these little amphioxies don't really have,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (35:32.760)
they're not aware of their environment very much, really.
Lex Fridman (35:36.560)
And so being able to look up ahead and ask yourself,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (35:46.480)
should I eat that or will it eat me is a very useful thing.
Lex Fridman (35:53.480)
So the idea is that sense data
Lisa Feldman Barrett (35:59.240)
is not there for consciousness.
Lex Fridman (36:01.160)
It didn't evolve for the purposes of consciousness.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (36:03.920)
It didn't evolve for the purposes of experiencing anything.
Lex Fridman (36:08.800)
It evolved to be in the service of motor control.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (36:13.360)
However, maybe it's useful.
Lex Fridman (36:18.200)
This is why scientists sometimes avoid questions
Lisa Feldman Barrett (36:23.720)
about why things evolved.
Lex Fridman (36:25.520)
This is what philosophers call this teleology.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (36:28.400)
You might be able to say something about how things evolve,
Lex Fridman (36:33.360)
but not necessarily why.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (36:35.800)
We don't really know the why.
Lex Fridman (36:38.680)
That's all speculation.
Lex Fridman (36:40.480)
But the why is kind of nice here.
Lex Fridman (36:42.080)
The interesting thing is,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (36:44.240)
that was the first element of social interaction is,
Lex Fridman (36:47.400)
am I gonna eat you or are you gonna eat me?
Lex Fridman (36:50.360)
And for that, it's useful to be able to see each other,
Lex Fridman (36:55.560)
sense each other.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (36:57.720)
That's kind of fascinating that there was a time
Lex Fridman (37:00.680)
when life didn't eat each other.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (37:03.040)
Or they did by accident.
Lex Fridman (37:04.760)
So an amphioxus, for example,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (37:08.600)
it kind of like gyrates in the water,
Lex Fridman (37:11.300)
and then it plants itself in the sand
Lisa Feldman Barrett (37:14.620)
like a living blade of grass,
Lex Fridman (37:17.040)
and then it just filters whatever comes into its mouth.
Lex Fridman (37:21.460)
So it is eating, but it's not actively hunting.
Lex Fridman (37:25.960)
And when the concentration of food decreases,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (37:30.960)
the amphioxus can sense this.
Lex Fridman (37:35.280)
And so it basically wriggles itself randomly
Lisa Feldman Barrett (37:40.640)
to some other spot,
Lex Fridman (37:41.760)
which probabilistically will have more food
Lisa Feldman Barrett (37:44.700)
than wherever it is.
Lex Fridman (37:46.040)
So it's not guiding its actions on the basis of,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (37:52.320)
we would say there's no real intentional action
Lex Fridman (37:55.920)
in the traditional sense.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (37:58.560)
Speaking of intentional action, and if the brain is,
Lex Fridman (38:02.600)
if prediction is indeed a core component of the brain,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (38:05.960)
let me ask you a question that scientists also hate
Lex Fridman (38:09.560)
is about free will.
Lex Fridman (38:11.640)
So how does, do you think about free will much?
Lex Fridman (38:15.520)
How does that fit into this, into your view of the brain?
Lex Fridman (38:19.480)
Why does it feel like we make decisions in this world?
Lex Fridman (38:24.960)
This is a hard, we scientists hate this,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (38:26.960)
this is a hard question we don't have the answer to.
Lex Fridman (38:28.800)
Have you taken a side?
Lex Fridman (38:30.360)
I think I have. Do you have free will?
Lex Fridman (38:31.680)
I think I have taken a side,
Lex Fridman (38:32.920)
but I don't put a lot of stock in my own intuitions
Lex Fridman (38:37.960)
or anybody's intuitions about the cause of things.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (38:41.000)
One thing we know about the brain for sure
Lex Fridman (38:42.880)
is that the brain creates experiences for us.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (38:46.320)
My brain creates experiences for me,
Lex Fridman (38:47.900)
your brain creates experiences for you
Lisa Feldman Barrett (38:49.940)
in a way that lures you to believe that those experiences
Lex Fridman (38:53.720)
actually reveals the way that it works,
Lex Fridman (38:56.280)
but it doesn't.
Lex Fridman (38:59.640)
So you don't trust your own intuition about free will?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (39:01.640)
Not really, not really.
Lex Fridman (39:03.760)
No, I mean, no, but I am also somewhat persuaded by,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (39:07.320)
I think Dan Dennett wrote at one point,
Lex Fridman (39:11.760)
the philosopher Dan Dennett wrote at one point that it's,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (39:16.040)
I can't say it as eloquently as him,
Lex Fridman (39:18.080)
but people obviously have free will,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (39:20.760)
they are obviously making choices.
Lex Fridman (39:22.540)
So there is this observation that we're not robots
Lex Fridman (39:27.960)
and we can do some things
Lex Fridman (39:29.440)
like a little more sophisticated than an amphioxus.
Lex Fridman (39:31.800)
So here's what I would say.
Lex Fridman (39:35.200)
I would say that your predictions,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (39:39.480)
your internal model that's running right now,
Lex Fridman (39:43.680)
your ability to understand the sounds that I'm making
Lex Fridman (39:46.920)
and attach them to ideas is based on the fact
Lex Fridman (39:50.460)
that you have years of experience
Lisa Feldman Barrett (39:54.360)
knowing what these sounds mean
Lex Fridman (39:55.880)
in a particular statistical pattern, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (40:01.040)
I mean, that's how you can understand the words
Lex Fridman (40:03.220)
that are coming out of my mouth.
Lex Fridman (40:06.280)
Right, I think we did this once before too, didn't we?
Lex Fridman (40:09.320)
When we were.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (40:10.160)
I don't know, I would have to access my memory module.
Lex Fridman (40:12.400)
I think when I was in your, when I.
Lex Fridman (40:14.280)
The class thing?
Lex Fridman (40:15.120)
Yeah, I think we did it just like that actually, so bravo.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (40:18.440)
Wow, I have to go look back to the tape.
Lex Fridman (40:21.520)
Yeah, anyways, the idea though
Lisa Feldman Barrett (40:25.560)
is that your brain is using past experience
Lex Fridman (40:28.860)
and it can use past experience in,
Lex Fridman (40:33.560)
so it's remembering, but you're not consciously remembering.
Lex Fridman (40:36.200)
It's basically re implementing prior experiences
Lisa Feldman Barrett (40:40.080)
as a way of predicting what's gonna happen next.
Lex Fridman (40:42.120)
And it can do something called conceptual combination,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (40:44.720)
which is it can take bits and pieces of the past
Lex Fridman (40:48.240)
and combine it in new ways.
Lex Fridman (40:50.280)
So you can experience and make sense of things
Lex Fridman (40:55.720)
that you've never encountered before
Lisa Feldman Barrett (40:57.600)
because you've encountered something similar to them.
Lex Fridman (41:04.160)
And so a brain in a sense is not just,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (41:10.900)
doesn't just contain information.
Lex Fridman (41:13.000)
It is information gaining,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (41:14.840)
meaning it can create new information
Lex Fridman (41:17.880)
by this generative process.
Lex Fridman (41:19.600)
So in a sense, you could say, well,
Lex Fridman (41:20.820)
that maybe that's a source of free will.
Lex Fridman (41:23.260)
But I think really where free will comes from
Lex Fridman (41:25.760)
or the kind of free will that I think
Lisa Feldman Barrett (41:27.320)
is worth having a conversation about
Lex Fridman (41:32.160)
involves cultivating experiences for yourself
Lisa Feldman Barrett (41:36.400)
that change your internal model.
Lex Fridman (41:40.200)
When you were born and you were raised
Lisa Feldman Barrett (41:42.940)
in a particular context, your brain wired itself
Lex Fridman (41:48.680)
to your surroundings, to your physical surroundings
Lex Fridman (41:51.640)
and also to your social surroundings.
Lex Fridman (41:53.480)
So you were handed an internal model basically.
Lex Fridman (41:58.300)
But when you grow up,
Lex Fridman (42:01.520)
the more control you have over where you are
Lex Fridman (42:05.560)
and what you do, you can cultivate new experiences
Lex Fridman (42:10.200)
for yourself.
Lex Fridman (42:11.500)
And those new experiences can change your internal model.
Lex Fridman (42:16.520)
And you can actually practice those experiences
Lisa Feldman Barrett (42:21.080)
in a way that makes them automatic,
Lex Fridman (42:24.280)
meaning it makes it easier for the brain,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (42:26.840)
your brain to make them again.
Lex Fridman (42:28.920)
And I think that that is something like
Lex Fridman (42:33.480)
what you would call free will.
Lex Fridman (42:35.320)
You aren't responsible for the model that you were handed,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (42:40.320)
that someone, your caregivers cultivated a model
Lex Fridman (42:46.120)
in your brain.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (42:47.160)
You're not responsible for that model,
Lex Fridman (42:49.280)
but you are responsible for the one you have now.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (42:52.400)
You can choose, you choose what you expose yourself to.
Lex Fridman (42:56.320)
You choose how you spend your time.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (42:59.360)
Not everybody has choice over everything,
Lex Fridman (43:02.080)
but everybody has a little bit of choice.
Lex Fridman (43:04.480)
And so I think that is something that I think
Lex Fridman (43:11.640)
is arguably called free will.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (43:13.520)
Yeah, the ripple effects of the billions of decisions
Lex Fridman (43:18.340)
you make early on in life are so great
Lisa Feldman Barrett (43:23.720)
that even if it's not,
Lex Fridman (43:27.400)
even if it's like all deterministic,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (43:30.280)
just the amount of possibilities that are created
Lex Fridman (43:35.680)
and then the focusing on those possibilities
Lisa Feldman Barrett (43:38.480)
into a single trajectory,
Lex Fridman (43:41.600)
that somewhere within that, that's free will.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (43:45.000)
Even if it's all deterministic,
Lex Fridman (43:47.340)
that might as well be just the number of choices
Lisa Feldman Barrett (43:51.920)
that are possible and the fact that you just make
Lex Fridman (43:53.800)
one trajectory to those set of choices
Lisa Feldman Barrett (43:56.200)
seems to be like something like
Lex Fridman (43:58.200)
they'll be called free will.
Lex Fridman (43:59.480)
But it's still kind of sad to think like
Lex Fridman (44:02.200)
there doesn't seem to be a place
Lisa Feldman Barrett (44:03.880)
where there's magic in there,
Lex Fridman (44:05.800)
where it is all just the computer.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (44:08.120)
Well, there's lots of magic, I would say, so far,
Lex Fridman (44:10.680)
because we don't really understand
Lex Fridman (44:13.720)
how all of this is exactly played out at a,
Lex Fridman (44:20.740)
I mean, scientists are working hard
Lex Fridman (44:23.060)
and disagree about some of the details
Lex Fridman (44:26.120)
under the hood of what I just described,
Lex Fridman (44:28.520)
but I think there's quite a bit of magic actually.
Lex Fridman (44:31.360)
And also there's also stochastic firing of,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (44:38.160)
neurons don't, they're not purely digital
Lex Fridman (44:42.700)
in the sense that there is,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (44:45.100)
there's also analog communication between neurons,
Lex Fridman (44:47.600)
not just digital.
Lex Fridman (44:48.840)
So it's not just with firing of axons.
Lex Fridman (44:51.960)
And some of that, there are other ways to communicate.
Lex Fridman (44:55.680)
And also there's noise in the system
Lex Fridman (45:01.640)
and the noise is there for a really good reason.
Lex Fridman (45:04.200)
And that is the more variability there is,
Lex Fridman (45:08.560)
the more potential there is for your brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett (45:12.320)
to be able to be information bearing.
Lex Fridman (45:15.600)
So basically, there are some animals
Lisa Feldman Barrett (45:20.340)
that have clusters of cells.
Lex Fridman (45:22.720)
The only job is to inject noise.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (45:25.600)
You know, into their neural patterns.
Lex Fridman (45:27.960)
So maybe noise is the source of free will.
Lex Fridman (45:30.200)
So you can think about stochasticity or noise
Lex Fridman (45:34.560)
as a source of free will,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (45:36.760)
or you can think of conceptual combination
Lex Fridman (45:40.480)
as a source of free will.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (45:42.320)
You can certainly think about cultivating,
Lex Fridman (45:46.720)
you know, you can't reach back into your past
Lex Fridman (45:49.200)
and change your past.
Lex Fridman (45:51.080)
You know, people try by psychotherapy and so on,
Lex Fridman (45:54.280)
but what you can do is change your present,
Lex Fridman (45:59.240)
which becomes your past.
Lex Fridman (46:02.120)
Right?
Lex Fridman (46:03.760)
So one way to think about it is that you're continuously,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (46:08.040)
this is a colleague of mine, a friend of mine said,
Lex Fridman (46:10.800)
so what you're saying is that people
Lisa Feldman Barrett (46:12.560)
are continually cultivating their past.
Lex Fridman (46:15.640)
And I was like, that's very poetic.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (46:17.200)
Yes, you are continually cultivating your past
Lex Fridman (46:21.200)
as a means of controlling your future.
Lex Fridman (46:26.760)
So you think, yeah, I guess the construction
Lex Fridman (46:29.700)
of the mental model that you use for prediction
Lisa Feldman Barrett (46:32.880)
ultimately contains within it your perception of the past,
Lex Fridman (46:36.660)
like the way you interpret the past,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (46:38.800)
or even just the entirety of your narrative about the past.
Lex Fridman (46:41.860)
So you're constantly rewriting the story of your past.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (46:45.480)
Oh boy.
Lex Fridman (46:46.960)
Yeah.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (46:48.080)
That's one poetic and also just awe inspiring.
Lex Fridman (46:51.120)
What about the other thing you talk about?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (46:55.320)
You've mentioned about sensory perception
Lex Fridman (46:57.280)
as a thing that like is just,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (47:00.760)
you have to infer about the sources of the thing
Lex Fridman (47:03.600)
that you have perceived through your senses.
Lex Fridman (47:07.560)
So let me ask another ridiculous question.
Lex Fridman (47:12.160)
Is anything real at all?
Lex Fridman (47:14.200)
Like, how do we know it's real?
Lex Fridman (47:15.720)
How do we make sense of the fact that just like you said,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (47:19.080)
there's this brain sitting alone in the darkness
Lex Fridman (47:21.320)
trying to perceive the world.
Lex Fridman (47:23.160)
How do we know that the world is out there to be perceived?
Lex Fridman (47:27.200)
Yeah, so I don't think that you should be asking questions
Lisa Feldman Barrett (47:30.360)
like that without passing a joint.
Lex Fridman (47:32.520)
Right, no, for sure.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (47:33.760)
I actually did before this, so I apologize.
Lex Fridman (47:36.200)
Okay, no, well, that's okay.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (47:37.640)
You apologize for not sharing.
Lex Fridman (47:38.720)
That's okay.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (47:39.560)
So, I mean, here's what I would say.
Lex Fridman (47:41.080)
What I would say is that the reason why
Lisa Feldman Barrett (47:43.280)
we can be pretty sure that there's a there there
Lex Fridman (47:46.120)
is that the structure of the information in the world,
Lex Fridman (47:51.600)
what we call statistical regularities
Lex Fridman (47:53.920)
in sights and sounds and so on,
Lex Fridman (47:56.040)
and the structure of the information
Lex Fridman (47:57.840)
that comes from your body, it's not random stuff.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (48:00.640)
There's a structure to it.
Lex Fridman (48:02.000)
There's a spatial structure and a temporal structure.
Lex Fridman (48:05.040)
And that spatial and temporal structure wires your brain.
Lex Fridman (48:08.640)
So an infant brain is not a miniature adult brain.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (48:13.000)
It's a brain that is waiting for wiring instructions
Lex Fridman (48:16.800)
from the world.
Lex Fridman (48:18.320)
And it must receive those wiring instructions
Lex Fridman (48:21.400)
to develop in a typical way.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (48:23.960)
So, for example, when a newborn is born,
Lex Fridman (48:27.480)
when a newborn is born, when a baby is born,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (48:32.240)
the baby can't see very well
Lex Fridman (48:36.560)
because the visual system in that baby's brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett (48:39.280)
is not complete.
Lex Fridman (48:42.440)
The retina of your eye, which actually is part of your brain,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (48:47.120)
has to be stimulated with photons of light.
Lex Fridman (48:49.800)
If it's not, the baby won't develop normally
Lisa Feldman Barrett (48:53.440)
to be able to see in a neurotypical way.
Lex Fridman (48:56.240)
Same thing is true for hearing.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (48:57.840)
The same thing is true really for all your senses.
Lex Fridman (49:00.440)
So the point is that the physical world
Lisa Feldman Barrett (49:05.440)
the physical world, the sense data from the physical world
Lex Fridman (49:09.160)
wires your brain so that you have an internal model
Lisa Feldman Barrett (49:12.760)
of that world so that your brain can predict well
Lex Fridman (49:16.240)
to keep you alive and well and allow you to thrive.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (49:19.800)
That's fascinating that the brain is waiting
Lex Fridman (49:23.200)
for a very specific kind of set of instructions
Lisa Feldman Barrett (49:26.600)
from the world.
Lex Fridman (49:27.440)
Like not the specific,
Lex Fridman (49:29.040)
but a very specific kind of instructions.
Lex Fridman (49:31.880)
So scientists call it expectable input.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (49:35.120)
The brain needs some input in order to develop normally.
Lex Fridman (49:39.320)
And we are genetically, as I say in the book,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (49:44.760)
we have the kind of nature that requires nurture.
Lex Fridman (49:48.320)
We can't develop normally without sensory input
Lisa Feldman Barrett (49:53.200)
from the world and from the body.
Lex Fridman (49:55.240)
And what's really interesting about humans
Lex Fridman (49:57.960)
and some other animals too, but really seriously in humans,
Lex Fridman (50:02.960)
is the input that we need is not just physical.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (50:08.040)
It's also social.
Lex Fridman (50:10.280)
We, in order for an infant, a human infant
Lisa Feldman Barrett (50:14.040)
to develop normally, that infant needs eye contact, touch.
Lex Fridman (50:19.880)
It needs certain types of smells.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (50:22.480)
It needs to be cuddled.
Lex Fridman (50:24.640)
It needs, right?
Lex Fridman (50:25.800)
So without social input,
Lex Fridman (50:30.800)
that infant's brain will not wire itself
Lisa Feldman Barrett (50:36.800)
in a neurotypical way.
Lex Fridman (50:38.000)
And again, I would say there are lots
Lisa Feldman Barrett (50:41.040)
of cultural patterns of caring for an infant.
Lex Fridman (50:46.440)
It's not like the infant has to be cared for in one way.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (50:50.240)
Whatever the social environment is for an infant,
Lex Fridman (50:54.880)
that will be reflected in that infant's internal model.
Lex Fridman (50:59.120)
So we have lots of different cultures,
Lex Fridman (51:00.520)
lots of different ways of rearing children.
Lex Fridman (51:02.760)
And that's an advantage for our species,
Lex Fridman (51:05.640)
although we don't always experience it that way.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (51:07.320)
That is an advantage for our species.
Lex Fridman (51:10.000)
But if you just feed and water a baby
Lisa Feldman Barrett (51:15.920)
without all the extra social doodads,
Lex Fridman (51:20.240)
what you get is a profoundly impaired human.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (51:25.440)
Yeah, but nevertheless, you're kind of saying
Lex Fridman (51:28.640)
that the physical reality has a consistent thing
Lisa Feldman Barrett (51:34.440)
throughout that keeps feeding these set
Lex Fridman (51:38.080)
of sensory information that our brains are constructed for.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (51:43.880)
Yeah, the cool thing though,
Lex Fridman (51:44.880)
is that if you change the consistency,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (51:47.120)
if you change the statistical regularities,
Lex Fridman (51:49.720)
so prediction error, your brain can learn it.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (51:52.040)
It's expensive for your brain to learn it.
Lex Fridman (51:53.800)
And it takes a while for the brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett (51:55.800)
to get really automated with it.
Lex Fridman (51:57.080)
But you had a wonderful conversation with David Edelman,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (52:01.680)
who just published a book about this
Lex Fridman (52:04.200)
and gave lots and lots of really very, very cool examples.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (52:07.720)
Some of which I actually discussed
Lex Fridman (52:09.840)
in How Emotions Were Made,
Lex Fridman (52:11.000)
but not obviously to the extent that he did in his book.
Lex Fridman (52:14.360)
It's a fascinating book,
Lex Fridman (52:15.560)
but it speaks to the point that your internal model
Lex Fridman (52:21.560)
is always under construction.
Lex Fridman (52:23.120)
And therefore, you always can modify your experience.
Lex Fridman (52:30.440)
I wonder what the limits are.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (52:31.720)
Like if we put it on Mars or if we put it in virtual reality
Lex Fridman (52:36.240)
or if we sit at home during a pandemic
Lex Fridman (52:39.280)
and we spend most of our day on Twitter and TikTok,
Lex Fridman (52:42.720)
like I wonder where the breaking point,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (52:45.000)
like the limitations of the brain's capacity
Lex Fridman (52:48.200)
to properly continue wiring itself.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (52:54.120)
Well, I think what I would say is that
Lex Fridman (52:56.440)
there are different ways to specify your question, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (53:00.200)
Like one way to specify it
Lex Fridman (53:01.760)
would be the way that David phrases it,
Lex Fridman (53:05.800)
which is can we create a new sense?
Lex Fridman (53:09.840)
Like can we create a new sensory modality?
Lex Fridman (53:14.040)
How hard would that be?
Lex Fridman (53:15.520)
What are the limits in doing that?
Lex Fridman (53:19.520)
But another way to say it is what happens to a brain
Lex Fridman (53:23.760)
when you remove some of those statistical regularities,
Lex Fridman (53:27.360)
right?
Lex Fridman (53:28.200)
Like what happens to an adult brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett (53:30.160)
when you remove some of the statistical patterns
Lex Fridman (53:36.040)
that were there and they're not there anymore?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (53:37.920)
Are you talking about in the environment
Lex Fridman (53:39.720)
or in the actual like you remove eyesight, for example?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (53:43.880)
Well, either way.
Lex Fridman (53:44.800)
I mean, basically one way to limit the inputs to your brain
Lisa Feldman Barrett (53:49.800)
are to stay home and protect yourself.
Lex Fridman (53:53.080)
Another way is to put someone in solitary confinement.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (53:57.480)
Another way is to stick them in a nursing home.
Lex Fridman (54:02.720)
Well, not all nursing homes, but there are some, right?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (54:06.960)
Which really are where people are somewhat impoverished
Lex Fridman (54:11.960)
in the interactions and the variety
Lisa Feldman Barrett (54:15.200)
of sensory stimulation that they get.
Lex Fridman (54:17.440)
Another way is that you lose a sense, right?
Lex Fridman (54:20.960)
But the point is I think that the human brain
Lex Fridman (54:25.920)
really likes variety, to say it in a sort of Cartesian way.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (54:36.560)
Variety is a good thing for a brain.
Lex Fridman (54:39.600)
And there are risks that you take
Lisa Feldman Barrett (54:48.680)
when you restrict what you expose yourself to.
Lex Fridman (54:54.080)
Yeah, you know, there's all this talk of diversity.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (54:56.960)
The brain loves it to the fullest definition
Lex Fridman (55:00.360)
and degree of diversity.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (55:01.920)
Yeah, I mean, I would say the only thing,
Lex Fridman (55:04.080)
basically human brains thrive on diversity.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (55:07.480)
The only place where we seem to have difficulty
Lex Fridman (55:10.120)
with diversity is with each other, right?
Lex Fridman (55:13.680)
But who wants to eat the same food every day?
Lex Fridman (55:16.480)
You never would.
Lex Fridman (55:17.440)
Who wants to wear the same clothes every day?
Lex Fridman (55:19.360)
I mean, my husband, if you ask him to close his eyes,
Lex Fridman (55:21.800)
he won't be able to tell you what he's wearing, right?
Lex Fridman (55:24.680)
He'll buy seven shirts of exactly the same style
Lex Fridman (55:27.800)
in different colors, but they are in different colors, right?
Lex Fridman (55:30.840)
It's not like he's wearing.
Lex Fridman (55:31.800)
How would you then explain my brain,
Lex Fridman (55:35.200)
which is terrified of choice
Lex Fridman (55:36.920)
and therefore wear the same thing every time?
Lex Fridman (55:39.400)
Well, you must be getting your diversity.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (55:41.440)
Well, first of all, you are a fairly sharp dresser,
Lex Fridman (55:43.440)
so there is that, but you're getting some reinforcement
Lisa Feldman Barrett (55:47.080)
for dressing the way you do.
Lex Fridman (55:48.440)
But no, your brain must get diversity in other places.
Lex Fridman (55:52.400)
But I think we, you know,
Lex Fridman (55:56.080)
so the two most expensive things your brain can do,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (55:59.280)
metabolically speaking, is move your body and learn.
Lex Fridman (56:04.280)
And learn something new.
Lex Fridman (56:08.080)
So novelty, that is diversity, right,
Lex Fridman (56:12.520)
comes at a cost, a metabolic cost,
Lex Fridman (56:14.280)
but it's a cost, it's an investment that gives returns.
Lex Fridman (56:19.200)
And in general, people vary
Lisa Feldman Barrett (56:21.920)
in how much they like novelty, unexpected things.
Lex Fridman (56:24.480)
Some people really like it.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (56:26.000)
Some people really don't like it,
Lex Fridman (56:27.680)
and there's everybody in between.
Lex Fridman (56:29.320)
But in general, we don't eat the same thing every day.
Lex Fridman (56:32.800)
We don't usually do exactly the same thing
Lisa Feldman Barrett (56:36.240)
in exactly the same order,
Lex Fridman (56:37.840)
in exactly the same place every day.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (56:41.440)
The only place we have difficulty
Lex Fridman (56:43.960)
with diversity is in each other.
Lex Fridman (56:48.400)
And then we have considerable problems there,
Lex Fridman (56:50.800)
I would say, as a species.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (56:52.960)
Let me ask, I don't know if you're familiar
Lex Fridman (56:55.000)
with Donald Hoffman's work about questions of reality.
Lex Fridman (57:00.000)
What are your thoughts of the possibility
Lex Fridman (57:03.920)
that the very thing we've been talking about,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (57:06.920)
of the brain wiring itself from birth
Lex Fridman (57:10.680)
to a particular set of inputs,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (57:12.840)
is just a little slice of reality,
Lex Fridman (57:15.360)
that there is something much bigger out there
Lisa Feldman Barrett (57:17.480)
that we humans, with our cognition, cognitive capabilities,
Lex Fridman (57:21.680)
is just not even perceiving.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (57:23.800)
The thing we're perceiving is just a crappy,
Lex Fridman (57:26.880)
like Windows 95 interface onto a much bigger,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (57:32.200)
richer set of complex physics
Lex Fridman (57:35.360)
that we're not even in touch with.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (57:38.840)
Well, without getting too metaphysical about it,
Lex Fridman (57:41.280)
I think we know for sure.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (57:42.600)
It doesn't have to be the crappy version of anything,
Lex Fridman (57:47.800)
but we definitely have a limited,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (57:50.120)
we have a set of senses that are limited
Lex Fridman (57:53.240)
in very physical ways,
Lex Fridman (57:55.080)
and we're clearly not perceiving everything
Lex Fridman (57:57.240)
there is to perceive.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (57:58.600)
That's clear.
Lex Fridman (57:59.840)
I mean, it's just, it's not that hard.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (58:01.560)
We can't, without special,
Lex Fridman (58:03.280)
why do we invent scientific tools?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (58:04.960)
It's so that we can overcome our senses
Lex Fridman (58:07.080)
and experience things that we couldn't otherwise,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (58:10.360)
whether they are different parts of the visual spectrum,
Lex Fridman (58:14.200)
the light spectrum,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (58:15.200)
or things that are too microscopically small for us to see
Lex Fridman (58:19.480)
or too far away for us to see.
Lex Fridman (58:22.480)
So clearly, we're only getting a slice,
Lex Fridman (58:27.440)
and that slice,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (58:32.360)
the interesting or potentially sad thing about humans
Lex Fridman (58:38.120)
is that we, whatever we experience,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (58:40.640)
we think there's a natural reason for experiencing it,
Lex Fridman (58:44.600)
and we think it's obvious and natural
Lex Fridman (58:46.360)
and it must be this way,
Lex Fridman (58:48.440)
and that all the other stuff isn't important.
Lex Fridman (58:50.720)
And that's clearly not true.
Lex Fridman (58:53.200)
Many of the things that we think of as natural
Lisa Feldman Barrett (58:55.400)
are anything but,
Lex Fridman (58:57.000)
they're certainly real, but we've created them.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (59:00.240)
They certainly have very real impacts,
Lex Fridman (59:02.080)
but we've created those impacts.
Lex Fridman (59:04.280)
And we also know that there are many things
Lex Fridman (59:06.560)
outside of our awareness that have tremendous influence
Lisa Feldman Barrett (59:10.600)
on what we experience and what we do.
Lex Fridman (59:13.160)
So there's no question that that's true.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (59:16.640)
I mean, just, it's,
Lex Fridman (59:18.480)
but the extent is how, really the question is,
Lex Fridman (59:22.560)
how fantastical is it?
Lex Fridman (59:23.840)
Yeah, like what, you know, a lot of people ask me,
Lex Fridman (59:26.280)
am I allowed to say this?
Lex Fridman (59:27.560)
I think I'm allowed to say this.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (59:28.840)
I've eaten shrooms a couple of times,
Lex Fridman (59:31.560)
but I haven't gone the full,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (59:33.200)
I'm talking to a few researchers in psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (59:35.720)
It's an interesting scientifically place.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (59:37.880)
Like what is the portal you're entering
Lex Fridman (59:40.520)
when you take psychedelics?
Lisa Feldman Barrett (59:41.760)
Or another way to ask is like dreams.
Lex Fridman (59:45.240)
So let me tell you what I think,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (59:46.760)
which is based on nothing.
Lex Fridman (59:48.440)
Like this is based on my, right, so I don't.
Lisa Feldman Barrett (59:51.440)
Your intuition.
Lex Fridman (59:52.400)
It's based on my, I'm guessing now,
Lisa Feldman Barrett (59:56.760)
based on what I do know, I would say.
Lex Fridman (59:59.320)
But I think that, well, think about what happens.
🔗 相关节目
Alex Garland: Ex Machina, Devs, Annihilation, and the Poetry of Science
Alex Garland
Andrew Huberman: Sleep, Dreams, Creativity & the Limits of the Human Mind
Andrew Huberman
Andrew Huberman: Neuroscience of Optimal Performance
Andrew Huberman
Andrew Ng: Deep Learning, Education, and Real-World AI
Andrew Ng