Do We All Have an Inner Voice? Descriptive Experience Sampling & Myths of Mind | Russell Hurlburt

What really goes on in our inner lives? Do we all think in words, narrating our experience with a constant "inner voice"? Or is that just a myth of the mind?In this conversation, Dr Tevin Naidu speaks with Professor Russell Hurlburt, pioneer of the Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) method, a groundbreaking approach to studying inner experience using random beepers and in-depth interviews. Hurlburt challenges our assumptions about consciousness, showing that what people think their minds are like often doesn’t match reality.About Russell Hurlburt:Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Originator of the Descriptive Experience Sampling method, and author of six books on inner experience. He has studied everyday and clinical populations alike, from adolescents to patients with schizophrenia, anxiety, and bulimia.
TIMESTAMPS:00:00 Intro & Inner Experience: Who is Russell Hurlburt and why inner experience matters03:02 Consciousness vs Mind: Why Russ avoids strict definitions and focuses on lived experience05:34 Inventing the Beeper (1973): Origins of Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES)07:41 From Questionnaires to DES: Why self-report methods failed and random sampling was needed10:03 Intellectual Roots of DES: Phenomenology, eyewitness memory, and psychology’s blind spots16:52 Skinner & Radical Behaviorism: Agreements, divergences, and the reality of private events18:20 How DES Works: Random beeps, sampling, and expositional interviews explained21:01 Inside the Method: What participants do during a DES study and how data is collected23:32 Iterative Interviewing: Correcting armchair reports and improving experiential fidelity30:18 Engineering Mind Meets Psychology: Why random sampling reveals hidden mental processes33:48 Biggest Surprises from DES: Counterintuitive discoveries about everyday inner experience36:16 Inner Speech is Rare: Why inner monologue is less common than most assume42:01 Phenomenology of Inner Speech: Full sentences, missing words, voices, and spatial location49:44 Clinical Relevance: How DES challenges psychiatric categories like DSM and ICD54:44 Schizophrenia & Splattered Perception: Figure/ground breakdowns in inner experience58:10 Inner Seeing vs. Mental Images: The difference between "seeing" and mere imagery1:02:26 The Problem of the Self: Why defining the self is philosophically problematic1:37:28 Future Directions in DES: AI, methodology, and a fidelity-based science of mind1:53:45 Malleability of Inner Experience: Case studies (Fran, Mel) and closing reflectionsEPISODE LINKS:- Russell's Website: https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu//- Russell's DES interviews: https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/ieo/ieo.html- Russell's Books: https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu//sampling.html#books - Exploring Inner Experience: https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu//sampling.htmlCONNECT:- Website: https://tevinnaidu.com - Podcast: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/mindbodysolution- YouTube: https://youtube.com/mindbodysolution- Twitter: https://twitter.com/drtevinnaidu- Facebook: https://facebook.com/drtevinnaidu - Instagram: https://instagram.com/drtevinnaidu- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/drtevinnaidu=============================Disclaimer: The information provided on this channel is for educational purposes only. The content is shared in the spirit of open discourse and does not constitute, nor does it substitute, professional or medical advice. We do not accept any liability for any loss or damage incurred from you acting or not acting as a result of listening/watching any of our contents. You acknowledge that you use the information provided at your own risk. Listeners/viewers are advised to conduct their own research and consult with their own experts in the respective fields.
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Thank you so much for joining
me, Russ.
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It's it's an honor to chat to
someone who's spent decades
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exploring this field we both
love so passionately and dearly.
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You spent, as I said, decades in
this field exploring something
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that's deeply fascinating, Inner
experience.
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For those new to your work, I'm
I'm pretty sure this podcast
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people are quite familiar.
But for those who are not
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familiar, how do you define
inner experience and why does it
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matter?
Well, I define inner experience
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as whatever is occurring.
What I would say is before the
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Footlights of consciousness at
some particular moment.
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So I usually define almost
always in my work to find that
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moment by a beep.
So I give you a beep.
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So I'm like beep.
And I want to know what is, what
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is what you, what your bag of
neurons and bones has selected
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as being of enough interest to
to be present to you.
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What I call directly apprehended
at the at some particular
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moment, not in response to the
beep, but what I call the last
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undisturbed moment just before
the beep, which is of course not
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really undisturbed.
And it's not really the last
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moment, but it's.
But I think what I have found, I
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guess, is that most people most
of the time know what I'm
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talking about after a couple of
iterations of going through that
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kind of a conversation.
So that So what I would say is
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that there are a welter of
things in the universe in the
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immediate environment and your
past environment and whatever
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that that could that you could
be interested in at the moment.
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But out of those you have
probably chosen one or two or a
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few or none to be interested in
at some particular what I would
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usually have as randomly
selected moments and inner
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experiences.
Whatever it is that that you
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have found interesting enough to
have placed before your
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Footlights of consciousness.
So that's what inner experience.
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Why, why is it important?
I I guess because I think since
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the beginning of time, it was
probably the most interesting
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question in the in the world and
people are asking a penny for
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your thoughts.
What as soon as there were
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people, I suppose.
And if you go back and read
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Gilgamesh or the very earliest
writings, they're, they're about
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people interest, interested in
other people's consciousness.
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And that's what I'm interested
in.
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I'm, I'm, I'm no more and no
less interested in it than than
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trying to get a good answer to
the to the question of what's in
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your experience at some
particular moment.
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Russ, it's your work touches on
such deep philosophical,
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psychological, neuroscientific
topics.
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What I love to do is for the
audience, for myself, is to try
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and define concepts.
If you had to think about your
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definition of consciousness, you
mentioned that that word
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experience and mind.
How do you differentiate or
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define these concepts?
Well, that's either an easy
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question or a difficult
question, depending on how you
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ask.
I I don't know what
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consciousness is, so I don't try
to define it.
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I don't know what the mind is,
and so I don't try to define it.
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I do think that there is things
that are directly apprehended
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and that's what I call inner
experience.
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What causes that?
I presume other people presume,
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I don't really care, but other
people presume is consciousness
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or mind or something.
And and that's, I think that's
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too hard a problem for me,
probably too hard a problem,
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maybe too hard a problem for
anyone.
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And So what I, what I try to do
is to limit myself to what I
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think I can say with some
confidence, which is to say I'm
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interested in what I call inner
experience, what is directly
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apprehended.
And I think anybody who is
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interested in consciousness or
mind or whatever ought to take
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my work seriously or, or do
better than, than me.
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I don't, I don't consider myself
the pinnacle of, of this kind of
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thing.
I've, I've been working at it
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pretty hard, doing it as best I
can for quite a quite a while.
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But I think there might be other
people who come along doing it
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better.
If I, if I knew of any, I would
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be doing it their way.
But, but I think, I think
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directly apprehended inner
experience ought to be something
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like a building block or at
least item of consideration for
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someone who is interested in
consciousness or mind.
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But I don't, I I'm not being
glib when I say I don't know
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anything about consciousness or
mind.
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I just don't know anything about
consciousness or mind.
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And I'm telling you that as
straightforwardly as I can.
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I, I think that's the perfect
answer.
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It's kind of like the more you
understand the mind, the more
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you learn about it, the more
ignorant you become about the
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fundamental essence of what this
deeply fascinating experience
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is.
And that's how I feel the more I
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explore this topic.
And this this podcast is
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obviously dedicated to the mind
body problem.
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And, and while I came to this
podcast with a certain view, the
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more I explore this with, with
professors from different
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backgrounds, different thought
processes, it's very difficult
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to give a definition.
Do you find that that's been the
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case when you first started out?
I mean, in the 1970s, you put
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beepers on people.
Firstly, what was that like?
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What, what were you hoping to
uncover at the time?
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And how have your views changed
over time since you've done
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something so strange and yet so
incredible?
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Well, it's true.
I, I, I invented a beeper in
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1973, started using it in 1973
and, and I at that time was a
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first year graduate student.
Basically, I figured out how to
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build a beeper on the truck on
the way to my, my graduate
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training in clinical psychology.
And when I got to the, when I
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got there, the director of
clinical training said, what do
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you want to do, Russ?
And I said, I want to randomly
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sample people's thoughts.
And he said he didn't think that
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was possible, but I said, I
think I can do it.
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And, and, and he said, well,
then go for it.
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Much to his credit, Carl Saprell
was his name.
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Very nice guy.
But so, so basically, I, I was
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brought up, I, I grew up in the
behaviorist tradition and, and
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came of age more or less at the
same time as the behaviors
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tradition was maybe beginning to
crumble a little bit.
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There were cracks in the
behavior.
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The behaviors have been the by
far the leaders for quite some
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number of decades by that time.
But there was dissatisfaction
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because, because most people,
many people, including me,
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thought that behavior was
important.
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But it, it wasn't the only thing
it would, what people were
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thinking was, was important.
And at that time in the 70s, I
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was, well, let's put this way,
what I, in my version of the
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history, the, the behaviorist
tradition cracked in the
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direction of the cognitive
tradition.
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And so I was there at the
beginning and contributed to
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the, to those cracks, I would
say.
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And the cognitive tradition was
primarily interested in thinking
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and, and so my original work was
mostly about thinking.
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So I asked people about their
thoughts.
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I gave people a beeper.
What made me different from from
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other folks is I gave people a
beeper and a questionnaire so
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that you, if you had a pad of
paper, which was a bunch of
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Likert scales, questionnaire
scales, and you were supposed to
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respond to those about your
thoughts or thoughts about the
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past or the president, about sex
or about whatever.
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And and then I analyzed those in
the way that people analyze
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questionnaires.
So I factor analyzed and
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whatever.
And very soon I discovered that
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I didn't know what a, what it
really meant when I was so some
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subject was saying a three and
a, some Likert scale about
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whether this is about sex or
not.
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And I didn't know what that
meant.
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And so I started to ask people
all, you know, you called this a
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three wouldn't why did you do
that?
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And so we started having
conversations about that and
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they didn't know what why they
put a three on there.
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And I didn't know why they put a
three on there.
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And so I came fairly early in my
career, very early in my career
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to say science.
Science can't be built on that.
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A science that's going to last
can't start on observations that
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nobody knows what the fuck
they're talking about.
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And it just, it would so, so I
started asking people tried to
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try to tell me about something
that they knew what they were
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talking about.
And very soon within a well with
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very soon with like 5 years
maybe I'm, I, I thought, well,
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I, I so, so I abandoned
questionnaires pretty early on.
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By the, by the time the 70s had
ended, I, I was pretty sure that
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questionnaires about inner
experience couldn't do it.
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And, and I had decided that
thinking was not necessarily the
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most important thing.
Because when I started asking
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people about what was important
to them, it turned what was
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going on with them.
When the beep beeped, which is
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what my interest was, they were
telling me about things that
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were not necessarily cognitive.
So the cognitive start became
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one thing that they might be
interested in, but they were
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also interested in feelings and
sensations or whatever.
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And I was became interested in
that it's.
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So I had a beeper which I
thought was a good idea.
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I had a questionnaire which I
thought was a bad idea.
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I had interviews which I thought
were pretty good idea.
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And then the, and the question
became, well, what to do with
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that?
So I started to read the
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literature that was available
and it seemed sort of relevant
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to this stuff, which would have
been the phenomenology
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literature and the cognitive
science literature and the
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memory literature and the
eyewitness testimony literature
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and Buddhism and Christianity
and Jainism and people who were,
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who were trying to take take
consciousness or whatever
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seriously.
And out of that came the
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descriptive experience sampling
by about 1980.
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And, and it's changed a little
bit over the years since 1980.
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Not very much, but I think I've
gotten better at it over the
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years.
But the the thrust of it was
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pretty much set for me and which
which was basically it was worth
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it, I thought in 1980 and still
think to try to get somebody to
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tell me in a way that I found
believable what was occurring
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already in their consciousness,
whatever that was in which I
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prefer to call in her
experience, whatever, whatever
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they were directly apprehending
just before they were disturbed
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by the beep.
Now I've forgotten.
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I've forgotten what your
original question was, but that
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was what my what I was.
Trying to answer your answer
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perfectly lays out so many
things I want to dissect and
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discuss moving forward.
One being, you mentioned
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behaviorism as a huge
fundamental shift in philosophy
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and science.
And at some point, while it grew
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and peaked and then obviously
sank at some point, you often
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defend BF Skinner as being
misunderstood.
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You, you know exactly what he
meant when he said certain
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things within the field of
behaviorism.
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I, I know that you met him once
and you had one encounter with
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him.
What was it like?
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What was that experience like?
And just for all of those who
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are not familiar with BF
Skinner's work, maybe perhaps
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you could describe what his
thesis was, How's yours, how
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yours perhaps differs from it,
and why people interpret BF
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Skinner's work incorrectly.
That, that is a very difficult
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question.
I only, I only ever met him once
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in A and it was not an important
deal for him.
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I'm sure it was a, in a crowded,
crowded room.
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And I was one of several people
that, that he met at that time.
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I, I have spent some time with
some people who were his
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disciples and what he, what he,
what he said was that the world
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before him.
So we're, he's we're now we're
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talking about the 1950s, maybe
forties, 40s or 50s before him,
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the world was interested in
mental events and habits and
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things.
And he said, and I think
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entirely correctly.
So I'm going to, I'm what I'm
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going to say about about Skinner
right now.
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I totally agree with it.
What what he said was the the
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world, the world of philosophy
and psychology was built on what
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he would call mentalisms, which
was the people people gave
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mental existing in the mind or
conscious of something credit
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for causing behavior.
And so people would do things
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like measure habit strength or
memory strength or or whatever.
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And, and, and Skinner thought
that was a mistake because it
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turns out when you try to
measure habits or, or even even
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things like hunger, that turns
out to be a very different, very
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00:13:33,880 --> 00:13:36,920
difficult thing to do.
But the world, the, the
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philosophical and psychological
world at that time was, was
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trying to do that.
And so it would say things like
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I eat because I'm hungry.
And hunger would be a, what
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Skinner would call a mentalism.
But then people would use that
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as an explanation for why they
eat while I'm eating because I
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got this hunger stuff.
And so people are trying to
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measure hunger.
Well, that turns out to be a
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very difficult thing to do even
in in a rat.
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For example, when you try to
measure hunger in a rat, you can
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do that by the number of hours
or days or whatever since you
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have allowed him to eat.
Or the amount of quinine that
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you can put in his food before
he'll stop eating it.
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Or the amount of shock that he
will endure to walk across a
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grid to get to something to eat
or, or a variety of other kinds
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of things.
And they don't correlate very
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well with each other.
And, and even if they did, well,
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I guess I don't have to say that
because they don't.
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00:14:31,400 --> 00:14:36,600
So they so, so Skinner came to
believe that you just shouldn't
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00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:41,000
credit mentalistic events.
And I think he's 100% correct
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about that.
And so his solution was to say,
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well, then we should just look
at directly observable behaviors
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00:14:48,360 --> 00:14:52,840
and we should count, we should
count them and we should observe
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00:14:52,840 --> 00:14:54,720
them.
And then we can say, well, the
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00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:58,520
behaviors that occur in Skinner
said that behaviors that occur
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00:14:58,520 --> 00:15:02,120
at at high frequencies are ones
which have been followed by
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00:15:02,480 --> 00:15:06,240
things which are reinforcement.
But, and this is where Skinner
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00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:08,280
and I sort of part ways.
I think he was sort of partially
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right about that.
But, but, but he said, and his,
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his version of the world was
what he called radical
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00:15:15,200 --> 00:15:17,320
behaviorism.
And by radical he meant
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radically eliminating
mentalisms.
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00:15:21,520 --> 00:15:24,680
So radical is the same way as
you would say about a radical
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00:15:24,680 --> 00:15:27,080
surgery.
Radical mastectomy is to remove
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00:15:27,080 --> 00:15:30,160
the whole thing to remove, to
remove everything.
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00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:32,760
That's so that's he didn't mean
radical as being like a
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00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:37,880
revolutionary.
He meant radical by me as being
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00:15:37,880 --> 00:15:41,440
complete.
So his his version of radical
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00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:44,280
behaviorism was to say, let's
stick with it, with what we can
266
00:15:44,280 --> 00:15:50,640
observe.
That's so he is given credit.
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00:15:50,640 --> 00:15:52,920
Skinner is given credit as
saying, well, what they didn't
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00:15:52,920 --> 00:15:56,600
think that mental life existed
and that is not true.
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00:15:56,600 --> 00:15:58,600
That I think is not what Skinner
thought.
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00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:01,960
Skinner understood that that
there were things would happen.
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00:16:01,960 --> 00:16:05,160
You took touched a hot stone.
There was pain that that
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00:16:05,160 --> 00:16:09,200
occurred and that was you know,
I didn't I don't see your pain
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00:16:09,200 --> 00:16:11,200
when you touch a hot stove.
I don't see your pain.
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00:16:11,200 --> 00:16:17,200
I see you recoil from the stove
or whatever, but the so Skinner,
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00:16:17,280 --> 00:16:21,760
Skinner understood that that
that experience existed.
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00:16:21,760 --> 00:16:24,080
He just didn't think it was easy
to measure.
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00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:29,360
And so I came along a generation
after Skinner and said, well,
278
00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:31,040
Skinner was right about
mentalisms.
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00:16:31,080 --> 00:16:35,680
You can't, can't do mentalisms.
But he was overly zealous, I
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00:16:35,680 --> 00:16:40,360
would think, about eliminating
inner experience because inner
281
00:16:40,360 --> 00:16:45,120
experience, as I came to define
it, I think is as directly as
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00:16:45,160 --> 00:16:50,200
apprehended as external behavior
in the sense that someone is
283
00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:53,800
seeing it.
So when I see you recoil from
284
00:16:53,800 --> 00:16:58,320
the stove that I am experiencing
your recoil and I'm counting it.
285
00:16:58,320 --> 00:17:01,400
And I can, you know, I can say,
well, stove was a punishing
286
00:17:01,400 --> 00:17:04,839
event for whatever, but it but
it comes down to an observation,
287
00:17:04,839 --> 00:17:06,680
which is basically a private
event.
288
00:17:07,800 --> 00:17:10,599
And what I call inner experience
is a private event.
289
00:17:10,599 --> 00:17:17,240
But it's as is, is, I think as
directly apprehended as your
290
00:17:17,240 --> 00:17:20,440
stove recoil.
I'm, I am directly apprehending
291
00:17:20,440 --> 00:17:23,920
that.
So my job, as I saw it in 1980
292
00:17:23,920 --> 00:17:27,280
and still do basically is to
say, well, Skinner was right.
293
00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:33,160
We shouldn't try to credit
things that we can't directly
294
00:17:33,160 --> 00:17:35,640
apprehend.
But he was overly zealous in
295
00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:38,600
saying, well, we should then
just eliminate all inner
296
00:17:38,600 --> 00:17:41,040
experience from our from our
science.
297
00:17:41,040 --> 00:17:43,000
And so the question is, well,
what do you do about that?
298
00:17:43,000 --> 00:17:45,280
And my answer to that, there
might very well be better
299
00:17:45,280 --> 00:17:49,440
answers, but my answer is, well,
we should accept that inner
300
00:17:49,440 --> 00:17:50,920
experience is directly
apprehended.
301
00:17:50,920 --> 00:17:55,040
We should try to try to make
that more public, more
302
00:17:55,560 --> 00:17:58,880
accessible, even though it's
fundamentally private.
303
00:18:01,040 --> 00:18:05,440
So I'm a, I'm, I'm 100% in
agreement with Skinner and, and,
304
00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:09,360
and Skinner.
Skinner was quite clear, but he
305
00:18:09,360 --> 00:18:11,280
doesn't get, doesn't get enough
credit for it.
306
00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:13,120
He was.
He was quite clear that inner
307
00:18:13,120 --> 00:18:15,640
experience existed.
But they're private.
308
00:18:16,600 --> 00:18:21,280
Russ, you, you, you mentioned
descriptive experience sampling
309
00:18:21,280 --> 00:18:23,640
and that's one of the deep
foundations of your work.
310
00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:27,840
For for anyone not familiar with
it, could you explain how DES or
311
00:18:27,840 --> 00:18:31,240
deep experience sampling?
Descriptive, sorry experience
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00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:35,680
sampling works from the beeper
signal to interview process in a
313
00:18:35,680 --> 00:18:38,280
way that's clear for most
listeners who are either
314
00:18:38,280 --> 00:18:40,320
familiar or not familiar with
your work.
315
00:18:40,840 --> 00:18:43,840
And for anyone who are familiar,
anyone who is familiar, sorry,
316
00:18:44,360 --> 00:18:46,440
would you perhaps take it
further for them?
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00:18:48,080 --> 00:18:52,600
So I will let me grab a beeper.
Oh, this is perfect.
318
00:18:52,640 --> 00:18:55,400
I've actually been.
I was hoping you'd do something
319
00:18:55,400 --> 00:18:58,400
like this.
So I have a beeper.
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00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:00,440
This is this is this is the
beeper that I've used.
321
00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:04,280
I've I've used, I can actually
probably still have this is the
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00:19:04,280 --> 00:19:09,280
original beeper.
This is the this is the beeper
323
00:19:09,280 --> 00:19:15,960
from 1973 and this is the beeper
from 19 #2000 maybe.
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00:19:15,960 --> 00:19:19,680
And I've been using this, this
beeper, and this is, this is the
325
00:19:19,680 --> 00:19:22,120
beeper that I have a patent on.
This is a beeper that uses a
326
00:19:22,120 --> 00:19:25,440
little computer that this has a
little computer in inside it.
327
00:19:26,520 --> 00:19:30,680
But basically it, it, this
beeper is nothing more than
328
00:19:30,680 --> 00:19:35,280
basically a, a, a random
interval generator.
329
00:19:35,680 --> 00:19:37,640
And you turn it on and it
delivers a beep, but you
330
00:19:37,640 --> 00:19:41,680
probably can't hear because zoom
is zoom filters it out.
331
00:19:41,680 --> 00:19:42,880
But let's see whether you can
hear a beep.
332
00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:47,600
Did you hear anything?
No.
333
00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:50,600
So zoom, zoom is very aggressive
about that and, and effective
334
00:19:50,600 --> 00:19:54,360
and, and, and so, yeah, I can't,
I can't argue against against
335
00:19:54,840 --> 00:19:56,720
zoom for that.
But there's a beep and it goes
336
00:19:57,040 --> 00:20:03,800
and it's a 700 Hertz signal
which which sounds like beep and
337
00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:08,600
it go and, and, and the the
moment that I am interested in
338
00:20:08,800 --> 00:20:13,120
is the moment that's right
before that beep so.
339
00:20:17,280 --> 00:20:22,280
If I were to draw time going
like this, here's time going,
340
00:20:22,280 --> 00:20:25,640
something beeps and the thing
continues to beep until you stop
341
00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:27,360
the beep.
So you push the button on the
342
00:20:27,360 --> 00:20:30,480
top of the beeper to stop the
beep and time continues to mark
343
00:20:30,600 --> 00:20:34,080
March along like that.
So this is time going in this
344
00:20:34,080 --> 00:20:36,120
direction.
The moment that I'm interested
345
00:20:36,120 --> 00:20:41,400
in is this one right there.
One, I sometimes say 1
346
00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:43,120
microsecond just before the beep
occurs.
347
00:20:43,120 --> 00:20:45,680
It's not really a microsecond.
Sometimes I say it's a
348
00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:47,120
millisecond.
It's not really a millisecond
349
00:20:47,120 --> 00:20:49,040
either.
Sometimes I say it's the last
350
00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:52,800
undisturbed moment.
It's not really undisturbed, but
351
00:20:53,040 --> 00:20:55,680
but that's the this is the
moment that I'm interested in.
352
00:20:55,680 --> 00:20:59,120
I want us to focus in on what
was happening just before the
353
00:20:59,120 --> 00:21:02,680
beep interrupted your
environment.
354
00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:06,040
So I sent, I give you a beeper,
send you out into the natural
355
00:21:06,040 --> 00:21:08,680
environment in your natural
environment doing whatever it is
356
00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:10,720
that you would normally do
because that is what I think is
357
00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:12,920
interesting.
I'm not particularly interested
358
00:21:12,920 --> 00:21:16,600
in what you do in a laboratory
when I'm setting you up to do
359
00:21:17,080 --> 00:21:20,520
artificial stuff, but I send you
into your natural environment.
360
00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:23,720
The thing beeps.
You write down in a notebook.
361
00:21:23,720 --> 00:21:26,080
It's a little 3 by 5 regular
little notebook.
362
00:21:26,080 --> 00:21:28,840
You jot down some notes about
that.
363
00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:32,720
You can put them in your phone.
If if if you if you prefer.
364
00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:36,080
I think the notes are better,
but different people do a
365
00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:37,240
different way.
I don't really care.
366
00:21:37,800 --> 00:21:41,880
And, and then we'll get so you
so you get a half a dozen of
367
00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:44,320
those samples, you get a half a
half a dozen notes in your
368
00:21:44,320 --> 00:21:45,480
notebook.
And then we get together and
369
00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:49,160
talk about that.
And, and we do that in what I
370
00:21:49,160 --> 00:21:53,440
call an expositional interview.
And the expositional interview
371
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:56,840
is basically I say to you, well,
what was going on Tevin in, in
372
00:21:56,840 --> 00:21:59,240
the first beep?
What was, what was it?
373
00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:01,440
What did you directly apprehend
at the first beep?
374
00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:05,160
And then we have a conversation
about that in which I, if that's
375
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:07,680
the only question that I'm
interested in, but I'll ask
376
00:22:07,680 --> 00:22:12,200
follow up questions to try to
get it, try to get you to tell
377
00:22:12,200 --> 00:22:14,240
me what was in your, in your
inner experience.
378
00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:15,880
And you're probably not going to
be very good at it.
379
00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:18,880
And so you tell me about a lot
of stuff that's not at the
380
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:22,640
moment of the beep and that's
not in, in your experience.
381
00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:24,800
So you'll tell me what was
happening before the beep and
382
00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:26,000
what was happening after the
beep.
383
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,520
I was startled by the beep.
Well, that's obviously after the
384
00:22:28,520 --> 00:22:31,600
moment that I'm interested in.
And you'll tell me about things
385
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:34,480
that you always do rather than
things that were happening right
386
00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:37,680
then and things that you, that
you want me to hear instead of
387
00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:41,040
what was actually going on.
And you'll tell me about all
388
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:43,800
kinds of stuff that's not
directly apprehended.
389
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:46,200
And I will point that out to
you.
390
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:49,320
And I, and I would say, tab,
you're not telling me about what
391
00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:52,800
I'm what, what I'm asking about.
I'm, I'm really interested in
392
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:54,000
what was actually going on with
you.
393
00:22:55,280 --> 00:23:00,440
And my art is to, is to be
confrontational like that.
394
00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:02,560
So I, I will be very
confrontational, but I say, you
395
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:07,200
know, that's not, not experience
that, but the art of it is to be
396
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:10,400
confrontational and have you
recognize that I'm on your side
397
00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:13,640
in, in this regard.
I'm not being critical of you
398
00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:16,120
because I will tell you nobody
is any good at it on the first
399
00:23:16,120 --> 00:23:18,440
day.
And I'm not very good at asking
400
00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:21,640
questions about your experience
on the first day either because
401
00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:23,560
I've never, I don't know what
your experience is going to be
402
00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:26,200
like.
So we have to learn together how
403
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:30,680
to how to do this, which I call
the iterative process that we're
404
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:33,560
going to, we're going to get
better at it as as we go.
405
00:23:34,040 --> 00:23:37,120
Yeah, Russ, those and so sorry I
cut you off there.
406
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:41,040
This was back in the 1970s.
My one of the questions I
407
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:44,000
thought about many years ago
when I when I saw this work come
408
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:48,800
out was as a as a young, let's
say up and Comer.
409
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:52,240
What, what, what actually made
you think that this would work?
410
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:55,800
Because obviously when people
grew up in certain philosophical
411
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:58,720
views, particularly someone
who's a fan of BF Skinner, you
412
00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:01,400
have a certain behaviour as
outlook on life.
413
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:06,200
At what point did you think that
these idiosyncratic detailed
414
00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:10,320
descriptions, rather than these
broader generalizations would
415
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:12,680
give us these fine grained
details about someone's inner
416
00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:19,360
experience?
I don't know the answer to that.
417
00:24:19,360 --> 00:24:22,600
I think I'll, I'll tell you some
stories and you can, and you can
418
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:24,160
speculate as well as I can about
that.
419
00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:26,760
I was, I was trained as an
engineer.
420
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:28,880
I have an engineering, a
master's degree in engineering.
421
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:40,000
And so I have AI have a an
appreciation for knowing,
422
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:41,800
knowing what I'm doing.
That's what engineers are trying
423
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:42,720
to do.
You know, they're trying to
424
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:44,520
build a bridge that actually
doesn't fall into the lake.
425
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:49,440
And so, so and, and, and I was
an aeronautical engineer.
426
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:51,720
So you want to, you want to
build airplanes that actually do
427
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:54,560
fly.
So you, you take seriously what
428
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:56,960
you know and what you don't know
and how much you know so that
429
00:24:56,960 --> 00:24:59,720
you can sleep because you know
people are going to be on your
430
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:04,320
airplane and, and you want to be
able to sleep with the knowledge
431
00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:06,400
that they're going to be able to
take off and land with an
432
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:13,080
incident.
So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm in the, I
433
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:22,160
exist clearly in the real world.
And I, I after, after I worked
434
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:25,480
as an engineer for a while, I
decided I wanted to really be a
435
00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:27,280
trumpet player, a classical
trumpet player.
436
00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:33,520
And so that was Vietnam time.
And I was, I was working as, as
437
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,040
an aeronautical engineer for a
company that built nuclear
438
00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:38,040
weapons that was keeping me out
of the Army basically.
439
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:41,280
But if I wanted to be a trumpet
player, then I, I didn't have
440
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:45,360
much choice in the, in the
matter except to join the Army.
441
00:25:45,360 --> 00:25:49,760
So I joined the Army and
audition for the United States
442
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:54,840
Army Band, which is the
official, what they call the
443
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:57,440
Special band of the in in the
United States Army.
444
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:01,320
And it's stationed in Fort Myer,
VA, which is adjacent to
445
00:26:01,360 --> 00:26:03,800
Arlington Cemetery, which is
right across the Potomac River
446
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:06,560
from Washington, DC.
So basically I spent three years
447
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:11,200
in the environs of Washington
and my job, much of it became
448
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:15,000
playing Taps in Arlington
Cemetery for people who were
449
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:19,480
killed in Vietnam.
And that job involved sitting in
450
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:24,360
my car and the cemetery waiting
for a funeral to arrive.
451
00:26:24,360 --> 00:26:26,400
So I drive to where the funeral
was going to be, and then I'd
452
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:28,720
wait and the funeral would
arrive and I would get out of
453
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:31,080
out of my car and play taps and
get back in my car and drive to
454
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:34,040
the next place and wait there.
So I spent a lot of time waiting
455
00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:38,880
in my car and I would went to
the Arlington County Library and
456
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:43,000
and put a arm load of books in
my car to give me something to
457
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,400
do while I waited.
And the books were everything
458
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:48,360
that a engineer doesn't get a
chance to read, which would have
459
00:26:48,360 --> 00:26:52,480
been history and literature and
philosophy and psychology and
460
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:56,720
sociology and mathematician peer
peer math and whatever.
461
00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:02,000
And eventually I discovered that
I had read the entire psychology
462
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:05,280
collection.
So I had read all the original
463
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:08,800
sources in psychology as curated
by the Arlington County Library
464
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:12,560
and, and what I my reading.
So I'm still trying to answer
465
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:16,960
your question, I think.
And, but the, but what I found
466
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:20,480
was that the, the books in
psychology started out by
467
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:22,360
saying, I'm going to tell you
something really interesting
468
00:27:22,360 --> 00:27:25,040
about people.
And then I'd read the book and
469
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:26,960
I'd get to the end and I'd say,
well, I didn't learn anything
470
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:28,360
that was really interesting
about people.
471
00:27:28,360 --> 00:27:32,040
I learned some theory about it
that was not that was not good
472
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:35,320
enough for me.
So I developed in that I
473
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:40,960
developed an appreciation for
really wanting to know about
474
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:44,720
individual people.
I wanted to I wanted some access
475
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:47,440
to to something that I thought
was real.
476
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:49,520
That's my engineering band, I
suppose.
477
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,760
And my musical band, I suppose
is I have AI have an
478
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:56,360
appreciation for the way things
sound and look and whatever.
479
00:27:56,360 --> 00:28:02,760
And, and then I went back to, I
went back to Sandy where I
480
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:06,000
worked for a while and worked as
a computer person in there as a
481
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:08,320
aeronautical engineer
department.
482
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:14,320
And one of my jobs there was to
maintain the computers, which at
483
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:16,600
at that time were big, big
things.
484
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:20,800
This is the 70s.
And, and they, they gave me a, a
485
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:22,400
version of BASIC.
I don't know whether you know
486
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:25,200
anything about computers, but
BASIC was those sort of the
487
00:28:25,200 --> 00:28:32,000
first language for operating
systems of, of computers.
488
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:34,680
And they gave me this.
And the problem, the problem was
489
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:37,200
that the engineers were using
these computers to turn on
490
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:38,720
switches and make readings and
whatever.
491
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:40,760
And when something got their
particular temperature, then
492
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:41,920
they were going to flip this
switch.
493
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:43,800
And when something else
happened, they're going to flip
494
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:46,120
that other switch.
And the computers wouldn't keep
495
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:51,920
up because BASIC was slow.
And so they said to me basically
496
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:55,800
make BASIC run faster.
And they gave me a, they gave me
497
00:28:55,800 --> 00:29:00,200
the source code of, of digital
equipment basic and said, and
498
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:04,600
said, this is not fast enough.
And So what, what do you do
499
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:09,800
about that?
And, and I, what, what I did
500
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:13,760
about that was I hooked up an
external clock to the computer
501
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:17,120
and I, and I put the clock in
these guys laboratories and I
502
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:19,320
said, run your experiments.
Do whatever it is that you do in
503
00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:20,840
this clock.
Every now and then it's going to
504
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:23,120
emit a signal.
And when it emits a signal, it's
505
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:27,000
going to keep track of what
instruction your computer is
506
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:29,520
operating and run that for a
while.
507
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:32,640
And then, and then, and you
know, it's going to store it on,
508
00:29:32,800 --> 00:29:37,120
on a floppy disk at that time
and, and bring that floppy disk
509
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:38,280
back to me.
And then I'll try to figure out
510
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:40,120
what's going on.
And well, it turned out that was
511
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:43,320
very successful because it
pointed out where the bottleneck
512
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:46,800
was in digital equipment BASIC.
And I could speed up BASIC by a
513
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:53,800
factor of 10 by by improving the
way, the way that little, it was
514
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:56,840
a just a little section of code.
It was only like, you know, 100
515
00:29:56,840 --> 00:30:00,720
lines worth of worth of code.
But but every it, it went that
516
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:02,560
it went to that little section
all the time.
517
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:10,000
And so I became a a proponent of
random sampling, which, you
518
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:12,920
know, I, I was an engineer, I
knew about random sampling.
519
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:14,160
I knew, I knew about all that
stuff.
520
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:19,560
But but this, but, but it was
obvious to me that this was a,
521
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:22,480
this was a very complicated
thing that this computer was
522
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:23,800
doing.
There was no way that I was
523
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:26,040
going to be able to figure it
out.
524
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:28,320
But random sampling was the key
to that.
525
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:33,760
So I'm sorry, continue.
You mix, you mix all that, you
526
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:37,680
mix all that stuff together and
that that's and, and, and the
527
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:43,160
readings and, and philosophy and
psychology and cognitive
528
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:44,680
psychology and behaviors and
whatever.
529
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:49,080
And out of that comes
descriptive experience sampling.
530
00:30:50,800 --> 00:30:55,480
The rest with with DES or
descriptive experience sampling.
531
00:30:55,960 --> 00:31:01,600
Some might argue, let's say that
if you take or if you ask people
532
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:06,760
about their thoughts, isn't it
too subjective?
533
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:09,320
Let's say you're trying to
critically analyze someone's
534
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:11,600
thoughts.
Whether it's, whether it's
535
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:15,200
random, whether it's not.
How objective is this, or is it
536
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:18,000
too subjective?
How do you generally respond?
537
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:22,680
Well, if you ask somebody about
their thoughts, then I would, I
538
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:26,480
would be absolutely as critical
as you would as you might be
539
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:29,960
about that because that's a
mentalistic question you're
540
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:32,560
asking.
You're asking, you're asking
541
00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:35,000
about, you're presuming that
there are thoughts that are
542
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:37,360
going on and ask somebody to
tell you about them and people
543
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:39,800
being nice guys and cooperative
and whatever they will tell you,
544
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:41,960
they will tell you about that.
And the answer that they give
545
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:45,120
you is mostly baloney because
you've asked about a mentalism
546
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:47,760
and they've given you a
mentalistic explanation, which
547
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:50,080
makes sense to them, but it
probably doesn't have anything
548
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:54,120
to do with anything really.
And I'm just parroting Skinner
549
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:58,120
there, assenting to what what
Skinner had to say.
550
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:01,480
So that's that, that's not the
that's not a question that that
551
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:05,520
is worthy of being asked the
question.
552
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:10,000
It's a different question to ask
what was going on, what, if
553
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:13,000
anything was going on in your
experience at some particular
554
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:17,800
moment that I want to.
I want to know what you are
555
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:19,880
directly apprehending.
I don't want to know about your
556
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:21,040
thoughts.
I don't know about thoughts.
557
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:22,680
You don't know about thoughts.
Nobody knows about thoughts.
558
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:24,280
There are a lot of people who
write a lot of crap about
559
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:26,440
thoughts, but nobody knows what
they're really talking about.
560
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:29,960
I don't think they have some
theories about them, which a lot
561
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:32,880
of people confuse as being about
things that were actually
562
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:35,600
happening in some mind
somewhere, which maybe they are.
563
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:37,800
I don't know anything about it.
I don't think they do either.
564
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:42,880
But that's I that they
criticized me for the questions
565
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:46,000
that they ask, which is not the
questions that I ask.
566
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:49,480
The question that I ask is the
same question over and over
567
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:53,200
again.
What do you directly apprehend
568
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:55,600
as being ongoing before the
Footlights of your
569
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:58,040
consciousness, whatever that
means, but directly apprehended,
570
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:01,320
that's a synonym for before the
Footlights of your consciousness
571
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:06,520
for me at a particular moment.
And that is not tell me about
572
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:10,720
your thoughts, that is about
whatever it is that you happen
573
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:12,880
to be apprehending.
If that's a thought, well then
574
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:14,680
tell me about a thought.
If it's a feeling, tell me about
575
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:16,160
a feeling.
If it's a sensation, tell me
576
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:20,480
about that.
Whatever it is that is directly
577
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:26,640
apprehended, then tell me.
So Russ, it's the 1970s.
578
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:30,680
You start, you create these
beepers, such a ground breaking
579
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:34,040
thought experiments and then you
apply this practically.
580
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:38,640
What have been the most
surprising or counterintuitive
581
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:43,840
findings from DES SO?
You broke up a little bit.
582
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:44,920
What was the end of that
sentence?
583
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:48,000
What has been surprising about?
I was saying that it's the
584
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,000
1970s.
You make this beeper, you start
585
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:54,320
to experiment to people, and DES
reveals certain things about
586
00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:56,440
experience.
What have been the most
587
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:00,840
surprising or counterintuitive
findings of your descriptive
588
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:05,160
experience openly?
OK, so I think the answer to
589
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:10,760
that is almost everything.
And, and by almost everything, I
590
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:14,719
mean I, I mean that with not a
hint of irony.
591
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:19,360
The when I started out, I was
interested in thoughts.
592
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:21,080
I would have asked the question,
you know what?
593
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:24,080
Tell me about your thoughts.
And when people, when people
594
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:26,120
started telling me about they,
they were telling me about stuff
595
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:27,840
that weren't, that weren't
thoughts.
596
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:36,880
So that was surprising.
And, and whenever and, and I
597
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:39,840
would, I would say, and this is
an absolutely true, not ironic
598
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:43,040
statement.
Whenever I feel like I know what
599
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:47,400
I'm talking about, I'm generally
demonstrated to be wrong by the
600
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:52,760
next guy that I sample with.
And, and, and, and I've had,
601
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:58,000
I've had to cultivate that over
the, over the years that, that
602
00:34:58,000 --> 00:35:00,400
the, when, when a feeling arises
in me, like I know what I'm
603
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:02,480
talking about.
I know I'm in deep trouble
604
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:04,680
because I'm not going to hear
anything.
605
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:07,800
I'm not going to hear what you
are going to tell me about your
606
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:10,760
inner experience anymore.
I'm going to hear what confirms
607
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:15,800
my, my theory.
So I, I would say a big part of
608
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:21,280
my art, if you want to call it
that, my big part of my art is
609
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:26,200
recognizing when that feeling of
I know what I'm talking about
610
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:30,320
arises and then working against
that.
611
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:32,720
I'd say that's a very big part
about what I do.
612
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:36,120
But but almost almost everything
is surprising.
613
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:41,320
I some some surprises are bigger
than others, but well.
614
00:35:45,240 --> 00:35:48,680
One one of the things was you
found that inner experience, for
615
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:52,600
example, occurs less often than
many people assume.
616
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:55,720
Now what does that actually tell
us about how the human mind
617
00:35:55,720 --> 00:35:59,920
actually works?
So that's not true.
618
00:35:59,920 --> 00:36:02,520
What you just what you just said
is not a characteristic
619
00:36:02,720 --> 00:36:06,440
characterization of my work
because what I have found what
620
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:09,600
what I took you to say was that
inner experience occurs less
621
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:11,240
frequently than people think.
That's not I.
622
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:14,240
Meant in a speech.
That that I would agree with.
623
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:16,160
No, that, that that.
But.
624
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:19,000
In a speech.
That's what I thought you meant,
625
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:21,360
but what I want to ask, I want
to answer your first question
626
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:23,920
too, because it's actually an
interesting question, probably
627
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:26,680
more interesting than the inner
speech question, but but inner
628
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:29,960
experience does occur.
Most people most of the time
629
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:34,240
have something going on and, and
what that and what's going on is
630
00:36:34,240 --> 00:36:39,400
their own creation.
It is not, it is not just simply
631
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:43,640
what's falling on their retina
or falling on their stirrups and
632
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:46,920
anvil or whatever.
Whatever is, whatever their
633
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:53,520
apparatus is, they're, they have
created something and, and it is
634
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:56,880
there in front of the Footlights
of and that's true for most
635
00:36:56,880 --> 00:36:59,480
people, most of the time.
There are some exceptions about
636
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:01,720
that.
There are some people who have
637
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:03,760
basically nothing going on in
their inner experience and
638
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:06,720
they're totally successful
people, but they're the
639
00:37:06,720 --> 00:37:10,640
exception rather than the rule.
Most people have something going
640
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:17,600
on and that that is a, a
fundamentally interesting thing.
641
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:20,040
And, and, and the thing that
they have going on is, is their
642
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:24,120
own creation.
That's, that's also
643
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:27,680
fundamentally important for me.
And by their own creation, I
644
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:30,520
don't, I don't mean that they,
they sit down and say, well, I
645
00:37:30,520 --> 00:37:32,520
think I'll create something and
then I'm going to review it.
646
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:41,640
What I mean is they're, they're,
they are choosing what is of
647
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:44,280
interest to them out of the
welter of things that are, that
648
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:48,200
are possibly out there.
They're, they're paying
649
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:52,080
attention to this and not to and
not to that other thing, which
650
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:53,360
is why I call it inner
experience.
651
00:37:54,720 --> 00:37:57,200
So but your question was about
the people don't have a lot of
652
00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:01,200
inner speech.
The remarkable thing about that
653
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:04,440
is that everybody thinks they do
have inner speech.
654
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:06,680
And the question is, well, why
is it that everybody thinks they
655
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:09,680
do have inner speech?
And one possible answer to that
656
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:11,360
would be, well, because
everybody does have inner
657
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:13,760
speech, but that turns out not
to be true.
658
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:19,120
It turns out that my research I
think pretty robustly shows, but
659
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:24,280
some people, a few people do
have inner speech a lot and most
660
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:26,560
and a lot of people have inner
speech occasionally and some
661
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:28,200
people have inner speech almost
never heard.
662
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:31,520
And so if you take all of the
samples that I have collected in
663
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:35,760
my non random 500 or a
thousandish people that I've
664
00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:40,840
sampled, sampled with maybe 1/4
of the samples include inner
665
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:47,720
speech.
And, and, and that is because,
666
00:38:47,720 --> 00:38:52,480
well, so if your question is
why, why do people think that
667
00:38:52,480 --> 00:38:54,880
they have inner speech a lot?
I think there's two reasons for
668
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:57,560
their, there are many reasons,
but two that I will tell you,
669
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:02,680
maybe I'll tell you more. 11 is
when you pose the question to
670
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:05,240
yourself, what I call the
armchair introspection question.
671
00:39:05,240 --> 00:39:10,680
What's going on in my experience
now that generally starts as a
672
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:12,600
verbal question.
What's going on?
673
00:39:12,600 --> 00:39:17,040
In my experience now UN quote
which puts you into a verbal
674
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:23,120
whatever, it puts you into the
verbal realm.
675
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:28,040
So almost like a linguistic
experience sort of changes the
676
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:30,400
way or the part of the brain
you're kind of using.
677
00:39:31,640 --> 00:39:34,520
That I that I don't know too
much about, but but but yes,
678
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:37,200
what it does, it awakens
whatever part of the brain is
679
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:39,160
required to do to do verbal
stuff.
680
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:42,160
It it, it, it does that.
I don't know what, what that
681
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:47,600
part of the brain is, but it, it
puts you into a verbal mode and
682
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:51,000
then you ask, well, what what's
going on in my inner experience?
683
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:53,240
And what you find is you're in a
verbal mode.
684
00:39:53,560 --> 00:39:55,840
So more or less whenever you ask
that question, you're in a
685
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:58,240
verbal mode.
But that's the refrigerator
686
00:39:58,240 --> 00:39:59,760
light phenomenon.
You're only looking inside the
687
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:02,240
refrigerator when the doors open
and you're only looking inside
688
00:40:02,240 --> 00:40:08,000
the inside your mind, whatever
that is when you, it occurs to
689
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:11,360
you to look inside your mind.
So that's why.
690
00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:14,600
That's why the randomness of the
beeper is an important deal.
691
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:17,720
I don't want you to be looking
inside your mind when you think
692
00:40:17,720 --> 00:40:20,720
about looking inside your mind.
I want you to be looking inside
693
00:40:20,720 --> 00:40:26,080
your mind at times that are
chosen by something other than
694
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:31,080
your mind, like the beeper.
Yeah, I think it's it's it's one
695
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:35,160
of those things where I look
back at a philosophy and
696
00:40:35,160 --> 00:40:40,000
science, when we look at humans
and how I would say we use
697
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:43,240
heuristic adaptations.
We have very limited processing
698
00:40:43,240 --> 00:40:45,480
powers.
And when we experience reality,
699
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:50,120
we often find these shortcuts
or, or ways to interact with
700
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:51,600
reality in a way that's
effective.
701
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:57,320
And, and in a sense to assume
that we all have this narrative
702
00:40:57,320 --> 00:41:01,280
or this inner monologue that's
always ongoing, it's kind of
703
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:04,560
easier because everyone else
sort of does it.
704
00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:07,800
It's one of these consensus
reality things when when you
705
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:10,880
figure this out or when you sort
of notice that people lack this
706
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:13,960
inner speech, how much of A
shock was that to you?
707
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:18,920
Or did you already have this
preconceived idea that this is
708
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:24,960
something that would happen?
Well, if you're talking about my
709
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:29,080
personal history, I would say as
best I can reflect on it 50
710
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:32,920
years later, I expected to find
a lot of inner speech.
711
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:37,560
I, I thought like everybody else
did, The thinking was in words
712
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:40,080
and I was interested in thinking
and therefore I thought I was
713
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:44,480
going to find words.
But what I, what I, what I found
714
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:47,320
for my satisfaction was there
wasn't thinking that was
715
00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:50,960
actually going on.
And so that was I guess the
716
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:53,800
most, the first surprise.
It wasn't just the words weren't
717
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:55,680
there was that thinking in
general, wasn't there?
718
00:41:56,720 --> 00:42:01,680
I'm paying attention to the
colors or the feelings or, or
719
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:05,240
something else.
So the so by the time, by the
720
00:42:05,240 --> 00:42:07,760
time I was actually focused on
words, which I never really
721
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:10,600
have, my work has never actually
been focused particularly on
722
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:12,760
words.
I've always been focused on
723
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:16,040
whatever it is that's a before
the Footlights of your
724
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:20,040
consciousness.
I'm, I'm known, I guess,
725
00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:25,600
because, because the popular
culture thinks that words are
726
00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:28,360
super important.
And I've and I've said fairly
727
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:30,880
consistently over a lot of years
that that's not the case.
728
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:36,320
And so I get credit for for
being a word inner speech guy,
729
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,960
but it's not really true.
Yeah, it's it's, it's almost
730
00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:44,480
like the words do require so
many more conscious efforts post
731
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:47,360
production almost.
It's kind of like you want to
732
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:50,600
catch something in the spot
that's a lot further in.
733
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:56,120
Well, the, the, so the kinds of
things that are surprising if
734
00:42:56,120 --> 00:43:02,920
you're interested in words, what
I what I would say is that if,
735
00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:05,440
if, if you start to look
carefully at words, these are
736
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:07,480
the, this is this is the
phenomenon that you're going to
737
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:13,720
find, you're going to find that
much most of the time words
738
00:43:13,720 --> 00:43:17,360
occur in complete sentences.
There's a theory, there are
739
00:43:17,360 --> 00:43:20,480
theorists out there about inner
speech that following Bygotsky
740
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:23,160
who, who's thought that all
inner speech was going to be
741
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:25,400
condensed and you didn't really
need to have the whole subject
742
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:27,800
and the predicate because you
knew what you were talking
743
00:43:27,800 --> 00:43:28,800
about.
So you didn't really need the
744
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:30,920
subject.
So I guess he thought that inner
745
00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:34,400
speech was going to be
predicated just just the
746
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:38,240
predicate without the subject.
And that turns out not to be
747
00:43:38,240 --> 00:43:40,360
true for most people.
For some people it is.
748
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:43,800
But, but for most people
they're, they're, it's a
749
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:49,920
complete sentence.
And it turns out, So if you, if
750
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:52,760
you, if you really are going to
be interested in what, what
751
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:55,680
passes for inner speech, this,
these are the kinds of things
752
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:57,160
that you have to take into
consideration.
753
00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:00,080
Is it a complete sense or not?
It could be one way or the
754
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:02,080
other.
Is it really the experience of
755
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:04,760
speaking or the experience of
hearing, which turns out to be
756
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:08,640
very different things, just as
different as when you speak into
757
00:44:08,640 --> 00:44:11,160
a tape recorder and when you
hear your voice playback.
758
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:13,160
Those are two very different
things.
759
00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:16,920
Experientially, you wouldn't
there, there's no way that you
760
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:19,800
would be in a position to say,
well, am I saying that or am I
761
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:23,160
hearing that coming back to me?
Then that's, those are, those
762
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:25,800
are very different and they're
very different in, in inner
763
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:29,040
experience as well.
Philosophical, philosophical
764
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:32,360
types often refer to inner
speech as a auditory phenomenon,
765
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:34,360
as if it was really inner
hearing, which most of the time
766
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:36,600
it's not.
Most of the time it's more like
767
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:38,040
speaking than it is like
hearing.
768
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:44,800
I think you can always argue
with what I think about it, But
769
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:48,320
but, and, and, and I wouldn't, I
would also, I want, I want to
770
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:50,160
give you the opinion.
I want to give you a
771
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:52,360
characterization of the richness
of this phenomenon.
772
00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:55,360
Sometimes there are words
missing and they can be the most
773
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:57,160
important words.
So you can have, you can speak
774
00:44:57,160 --> 00:45:00,240
a, a complete sentence without
one particular word in it or
775
00:45:02,560 --> 00:45:05,400
several different words in it,
or you can speak without having
776
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:07,040
any words.
You can have the experience of
777
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:10,400
speaking with no words at all.
I'm, I'm speaking them.
778
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:11,920
Sometimes they'll be a rhythm to
it.
779
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:14,080
Sometimes they'll just I
experienced myself a speaking,
780
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:15,720
but I don't experience the words
that I'm speaking.
781
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:21,120
Sometimes you will people will
experience the words as having a
782
00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:23,280
physical location.
Sometimes it's in their head,
783
00:45:23,280 --> 00:45:24,720
sometimes it's in the back of
their head.
784
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:28,880
The expression, the I was
thinking it in the back of my
785
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:30,760
mind.
For some people, it is
786
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:34,840
absolutely meant literally.
For other people, it's entirely
787
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:37,480
metaphorical because the
metaphor, the metaphor has come
788
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:41,120
to be the predominant way that
that's understood.
789
00:45:41,720 --> 00:45:43,760
I'm not really interested in
that, but I'm I'm thinking about
790
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:46,240
it in the back of my mind.
For some people, it's actually
791
00:45:46,240 --> 00:45:49,560
there.
I've written about one woman who
792
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:51,640
who had sentences that divided
up.
793
00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:54,040
Some were the first couple of
words in the sentence would be
794
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:56,120
in the back of the head and the
next word would be in the front
795
00:45:56,120 --> 00:45:57,760
of the head and the next word
would be in the back of the head
796
00:45:57,760 --> 00:46:04,200
and back and forth like that.
Sometimes you can speak in your
797
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:06,720
own voice, and sometimes you can
speak in Barbra Streisand's
798
00:46:06,720 --> 00:46:12,080
voice or.
I think, I think that's one of
799
00:46:12,080 --> 00:46:15,400
the most fascinating things
about studying the human
800
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:18,360
experience.
I often say that to not consider
801
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:22,880
a typical phenomenon or or
pathological states of mind, you
802
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:27,640
often make a very misinformed
opinion on what reality is for
803
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:30,440
human beings.
So all the human experience and
804
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:33,600
my work in psychiatry, when I
used to work in psychiatry, I
805
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:38,240
often found that when you study
the atypical mind, you have so
806
00:46:38,240 --> 00:46:41,840
much more access to various
states of mind.
807
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:45,760
And I know for you, for example,
studying patients like the ones
808
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:49,080
you just mentioned or someone
with schizophrenia, maybe a
809
00:46:49,080 --> 00:46:53,560
borderline personality when you
look at these patients.
810
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:58,400
Because for me, it makes a lot
of sense that someone would not
811
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:02,360
have an inner speech when in a
dialogue because I've interacted
812
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:03,840
with patients who have said that
to me.
813
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:06,960
Maybe they weren't as accurate
as I hoped.
814
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:11,120
But when that first happened to
you, what, what did that feel
815
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:13,120
like?
Was it a was it a very strange
816
00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:17,880
moment to have this random
statistic that, OK, most people
817
00:47:18,240 --> 00:47:22,320
we expect to talk to themselves
or experience this feeling of
818
00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:24,520
having it in his speech just
don't have it?
819
00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:29,480
Was it very shocking to you or
was it just a normal walk in the
820
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:33,320
park type of thing?
So, so I want to push back on
821
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:36,480
the premise of your question 1st
and that is the, all of those
822
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:40,920
things that that I listed that
that's normal experience.
823
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:43,560
This is not, this is not
impatient.
824
00:47:43,600 --> 00:47:45,920
This is, this is people that
you're going to walk, that
825
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:47,640
you're going to run across when
you walk from here to the
826
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:50,320
grocery store, you're going to,
you're going to run across
827
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:54,440
people who have those
characteristics that I now,
828
00:47:55,440 --> 00:47:59,160
people who have, who have
disturbed inner experience have
829
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:01,680
a lot of other kinds of
characteristics as well.
830
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:06,720
And, and, and, and they're all
fascinating.
831
00:48:06,720 --> 00:48:11,400
They're but for me personally,
they're not that much more
832
00:48:11,400 --> 00:48:15,880
fascinating than the everyday
non pathological they're.
833
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:22,960
So I, I think inner experience
is of vital importance in
834
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:28,000
understanding psychopathology.
I don't think psychological
835
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:31,120
science, psychiat, psychiatry
understands inner experience
836
00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:33,840
very well.
And if they did, they'd have a
837
00:48:34,120 --> 00:48:37,320
better idea about
psychopathology, I think.
838
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:40,040
And it might be very, very
different from what it is that,
839
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:43,440
that, that we do now, you know,
we divide people up into this is
840
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:46,600
the depressed camp and this is
the anxiety camp, and this is
841
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:48,440
the bulimia and the roast camp
or whatever we're going to.
842
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:52,520
We, we, we get into the
diagnostic categories based on
843
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:55,920
external, mostly externally
observable thing.
844
00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:00,800
My guess is that there might be
more productive if we had a
845
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:03,880
real, a real science of inner
experience, which we don't from
846
00:49:03,880 --> 00:49:06,680
my point of view.
But if we did that, would we
847
00:49:06,720 --> 00:49:10,480
divide people up into different
categories or we would probably
848
00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:13,280
even abandoned categories all
together and.
849
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:19,040
It's kind of disappointing
because we know that we use
850
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:23,560
certain classification systems
like the DSM, the ICD, We go
851
00:49:23,560 --> 00:49:26,400
through all these processes and
yet there's so much data like
852
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:31,240
the work you've done and many
others with that, that sort of
853
00:49:31,240 --> 00:49:35,360
show that human experience is so
diverse with so much variation
854
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:39,640
and difference that to actually
box certain experiences is such
855
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:43,000
a flaw and and yet we always do
it.
856
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:46,600
Does that still surprise you?
It doesn't surprise me.
857
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:49,400
It disappoints me greatly, but
it doesn't surprise me.
858
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:54,240
And it is what if?
If you want to know what really
859
00:49:54,240 --> 00:49:56,960
surprised me about the whole,
the whole thing is that there
860
00:49:56,960 --> 00:49:59,120
aren't, there aren't just a
whole lot of people doing what
861
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:03,440
it is that I do or better.
When I, I wrote my first book,
862
00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:06,720
which was in 1990, my first book
about about inner experience,
863
00:50:06,720 --> 00:50:09,720
which is in 1990, I thought I
just put myself out of a job.
864
00:50:10,240 --> 00:50:12,880
I thought, you know, I'd, I'd
told people what it is that,
865
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:14,880
that you could have a beeper and
you could pay attention inner,
866
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:17,200
inner experience and everybody
was going to do that and nobody
867
00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:20,720
was going to care about what I
thought anymore, which just
868
00:50:20,720 --> 00:50:22,760
turned out to be absolutely not
true.
869
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:25,840
Nobody has really paid much
attention to any of them and any
870
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:28,920
of that stuff for the largely,
largely speaking.
871
00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:35,360
And and that is fundamentally
surprising to me.
872
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:42,720
I just, I, it amazes me the
drug, a drug company, for
873
00:50:42,720 --> 00:50:45,120
example, making psychotropic
medications for anxiety,
874
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:47,560
depression or whatever.
I would have thought those guys
875
00:50:47,560 --> 00:50:50,920
would be blind up outside my
door saying I, you know, I'm
876
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:52,960
going to make Prozac here and I
want to know what happens to
877
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:55,440
Prozac.
You should can you can you can,
878
00:50:55,440 --> 00:50:59,800
you talked to some people who
were before they took Prozac and
879
00:50:59,800 --> 00:51:01,880
after they took Prozac and tell
me what happened in their inner
880
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:07,120
experience.
I just, it amazes me that I
881
00:51:07,120 --> 00:51:12,200
don't get those requests.
I but I don't and, and, and so
882
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:17,560
that the explanation of why that
is either either there's only
883
00:51:17,560 --> 00:51:20,680
two possibilities. 1 is that
Hurlburt's crazy, which is fine.
884
00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:23,480
Take take that as a as a
possibility that he's just wrong
885
00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:26,280
about most everything.
I think that's possible.
886
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:30,640
I don't think that's true, but
I'm the I have the care capable
887
00:51:30,640 --> 00:51:32,200
of delusion as much as anybody
else does.
888
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:38,040
So but but that's possible.
Or that there are forces in the,
889
00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:42,720
in the social world or the
economic world or the whatever
890
00:51:42,720 --> 00:51:45,360
other world that says, well, you
just can't do what it is just
891
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:47,520
that Earl Bird says they've got
to do.
892
00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:55,800
And then, Russ, have you noticed
that certain DES or inner speech
893
00:51:55,800 --> 00:51:59,960
monologues exist more in others
and less in other subtypes?
894
00:52:00,960 --> 00:52:03,280
So mostly I don't know the
answer to that question.
895
00:52:03,560 --> 00:52:10,400
The the one of the and it and it
exposes the the weakness of the
896
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:14,120
work that I have done.
So I have not done anywhere near
897
00:52:14,120 --> 00:52:19,680
enough cross cultural stuff.
I think it would be totally
898
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:22,440
interesting to see whether a
person who speaks Chinese and a
899
00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:25,080
person who speaks English has
the same same processes.
900
00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:29,960
A person who has not been
exposed to the Western
901
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:34,880
civilization in the jungles of
wherever what, what, what their
902
00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:37,120
inner experience would like.
I I think that would be totally
903
00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:39,040
interesting.
Absolutely totally interesting.
904
00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:42,280
If I had another life to live,
I'd probably start start that
905
00:52:42,280 --> 00:52:45,640
way, but it's difficult.
In my defense, it's difficult
906
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:50,080
because the DES is not a
trivially easy thing to do.
907
00:52:50,080 --> 00:52:53,360
You got to be paying attention
pretty carefully to what people
908
00:52:53,360 --> 00:52:55,600
say and how they say it and what
they don't say.
909
00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:56,960
And you.
So you got to know the culture
910
00:52:56,960 --> 00:53:00,560
and you got to know the language
and you got to, you got to be
911
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:03,360
willing to hear and willing and
able to hear what people are
912
00:53:03,480 --> 00:53:09,240
saying and not and not saying.
And so it to the thought of
913
00:53:09,720 --> 00:53:15,920
doing DES through translation is
a little bit is a little bit
914
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:19,320
scary to me and.
The, the reason why I ask that
915
00:53:19,320 --> 00:53:21,560
question, Ross, is I'm not sure
if you're familiar with this,
916
00:53:21,560 --> 00:53:26,240
but I'm, I'm a huge fan of, of
magic illusions, tricks of the
917
00:53:26,240 --> 00:53:28,520
mind.
And, and something I always
918
00:53:28,520 --> 00:53:31,200
found fascinating was, well,
visual illusions.
919
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:35,040
For example, when you take a
psychiatric patient with
920
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:37,280
schizophrenia.
And I'm not, I'm not trying to
921
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:40,840
say that these experience have
to be psychiatric or mental
922
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:43,880
illness, but the human
experience is so diverse, as we
923
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:48,560
just discussed that it's quite
cool that certain patients who
924
00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:52,680
have psychosis, let's say, and,
and are currently acutely
925
00:53:52,680 --> 00:53:56,760
psychotic, they don't fall for
certain visual illusions, which
926
00:53:56,760 --> 00:53:58,800
is quite interesting.
So if you take the checkerboard
927
00:53:58,840 --> 00:54:02,200
illusion and you put put a
psychiatric patient there, they,
928
00:54:02,720 --> 00:54:06,920
they don't see the difference in
Shades of Grey that the average
929
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:09,800
human would see.
And so if you take that in a
930
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:12,880
philosophical way, you can
almost say that they have a
931
00:54:12,880 --> 00:54:17,560
better understanding of the
veridical nature of reality than
932
00:54:17,560 --> 00:54:20,880
we do.
So it's a fascinating question
933
00:54:20,880 --> 00:54:25,040
in the sense that not only does
cultural diversity or
934
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:28,960
neurodiversity play a role in
how we perceive reality, but
935
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:33,640
reality in itself is very much
subjective.
936
00:54:34,040 --> 00:54:37,920
And, and whenever someone thinks
they're seeing a vertical truth,
937
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:41,920
that's still always up for
debate because no one
938
00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:45,480
technically does.
Is that something you ever think
939
00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:47,560
about or?
Absolutely, absolutely.
940
00:54:47,560 --> 00:54:50,360
So I, I agree with almost every
everything that you said, except
941
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:54,000
possibly that people who are
seriously disturbed see things
942
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:56,200
more accurately.
I'm, I don't, I don't think, I
943
00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:58,800
think that might be true in a,
in a pretty narrow, narrow
944
00:54:58,800 --> 00:55:01,760
sense.
So the, the, the way I
945
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:10,680
conceptualize that is I think
that most people, most, most
946
00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:11,760
perception, let's put it this
way.
947
00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:14,760
If you, if you ask a perceptual
psychologist, they would say,
948
00:55:14,880 --> 00:55:18,640
since the Gestalt psychologist
of the 1910s or whatever and
949
00:55:18,640 --> 00:55:22,960
onwards would say that people
are people have a figure in the
950
00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:24,200
ground.
That the figure ground
951
00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:27,120
phenomenon is the fundamental
perceptual deal.
952
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:30,120
And the figure is a sort of a
coherent thing that's usually in
953
00:55:30,120 --> 00:55:32,240
the center of the visual field
if we're talking about vision.
954
00:55:32,640 --> 00:55:36,200
And what's in the ground is
around that usually, and it's
955
00:55:36,200 --> 00:55:38,840
not usually seen as distinct.
And if there's a border between
956
00:55:38,840 --> 00:55:43,080
the visual visual figure in the
ground, the border belongs to
957
00:55:43,080 --> 00:55:44,480
the figure and doesn't belong to
the ground.
958
00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:47,640
And whatever all that stuff is
has been known since that time,
959
00:55:49,480 --> 00:55:56,200
you know, and, and I have
written about people who have,
960
00:55:56,240 --> 00:55:58,080
who do not have a figure ground
phenomenon.
961
00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:01,440
And they're, they're pretty
seriously disturbed.
962
00:56:02,200 --> 00:56:07,000
And, and, and I think that I
think that's a fundamental
963
00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:13,720
observation.
And, and, and what, what that
964
00:56:13,720 --> 00:56:17,400
allows them to do is to see like
10 or 10 or 20 different things
965
00:56:17,400 --> 00:56:19,560
going on at the same time.
Because the bigger ground
966
00:56:19,560 --> 00:56:22,480
phenomenon is basically to take
the whole welter of perception,
967
00:56:23,080 --> 00:56:27,200
make one thing, figure out what
that one thing is and put
968
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:28,960
everything else back into the
background.
969
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:35,760
That and I and I think that sort
of healthy everyday people do
970
00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:39,880
that kind of thing a lot.
And so the so you pay attention
971
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:42,080
to my voice and then you pay
attention to the book that's on
972
00:56:42,080 --> 00:56:44,240
like over my shoulder.
And then you pay attention to
973
00:56:44,240 --> 00:56:46,200
the itch that's on the neck that
you just scratched.
974
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:48,640
And then you pay attention to
that and your experience goes
975
00:56:48,640 --> 00:56:51,000
all over the place.
And each time you're making
976
00:56:51,000 --> 00:56:52,800
something in the figure and
everything else is going to the
977
00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:55,480
ground.
So when you pay attention to
978
00:56:55,480 --> 00:56:58,400
your itch, you destroy Hurlburt.
And when you when you're paying
979
00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:00,320
attention to Hurlburt and the
itch doesn't matter.
980
00:57:00,320 --> 00:57:02,720
And then when the itch 10s comes
back and then Hurlburt, then you
981
00:57:02,720 --> 00:57:05,080
destroy Hurlburt.
And so all this time is I'm
982
00:57:05,080 --> 00:57:06,520
creating this and destroying
that.
983
00:57:06,520 --> 00:57:12,480
That's normal human perception.
But in abnormality, I think that
984
00:57:12,480 --> 00:57:14,640
break or that breaks down or
doesn't happen.
985
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:18,520
And so I've sampled with a with
some schizophrenic individuals.
986
00:57:18,520 --> 00:57:21,880
My first book is actually about
schizophrenia in a way.
987
00:57:21,880 --> 00:57:25,160
It's about more about Sam more
more about whether you should do
988
00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:27,800
sampling.
But it involves some
989
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:33,120
schizophrenia people and the
their their visual environment
990
00:57:36,040 --> 00:57:37,800
is not the way I just described
it.
991
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:41,440
So their, their visual
environment bends around to some
992
00:57:41,440 --> 00:57:46,520
degree or they splatter.
There's like their thing, their
993
00:57:46,560 --> 00:57:50,800
visual experiences splattered
and things splattered on it.
994
00:57:52,760 --> 00:57:56,840
So, so let me, let me merge back
away from this.
995
00:57:56,840 --> 00:58:00,480
So most, most people, including
most philosophers, I think,
996
00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:04,120
think, think about the visual
experiences and at least inner
997
00:58:04,120 --> 00:58:06,360
experience and maybe external
experience as well as seeing an
998
00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:08,760
image.
I think that's, I think that's
999
00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:14,200
bad, bad way to think about the
world because I don't, because
1000
00:58:14,200 --> 00:58:17,560
it, it's a Cartesian view and it
says that the, the, the mind,
1001
00:58:17,560 --> 00:58:19,480
whatever that is, creates an
image and then some other part
1002
00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:20,960
of the mind creates a viewer of
that image.
1003
00:58:20,960 --> 00:58:22,360
And then you get these two
things going on there.
1004
00:58:22,360 --> 00:58:24,040
And I think that's probably
baloney.
1005
00:58:24,720 --> 00:58:28,560
I don't really know.
But, but I, but I think most
1006
00:58:28,560 --> 00:58:32,720
people don't see an image and in
their, when they, when they see
1007
00:58:32,720 --> 00:58:36,800
something in, in their inner
world that is not out there in
1008
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:38,760
the real world, they're not
seeing an image of it.
1009
00:58:38,760 --> 00:58:42,040
They're just seeing it.
So if you see a castle in Spain,
1010
00:58:42,040 --> 00:58:45,160
it's not like you're seeing an
image of a castle in Spain.
1011
00:58:45,480 --> 00:58:48,720
You're seeing a castle in Spain,
and the castle in Spain doesn't
1012
00:58:48,720 --> 00:58:51,680
happen to be there.
So I think you should talk about
1013
00:58:51,680 --> 00:58:55,040
as as innerly seeing rather than
seeing an image.
1014
00:58:57,000 --> 00:59:01,880
But if you talk to a
schizophrenic individual, it
1015
00:59:01,880 --> 00:59:04,920
makes sense to say that they,
they see an image because they
1016
00:59:04,920 --> 00:59:08,560
don't see an, a castle in Spain.
They see an image of a castle in
1017
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:11,680
Spain which has borders to it,
and they can see the image curl
1018
00:59:11,680 --> 00:59:14,040
around and they can see the
image float away.
1019
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:16,320
And when I was talking about the
spattering, which is what
1020
00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:19,120
brought me to tell you this
story, they would say that they,
1021
00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:23,040
they, they see black crap that's
on the image.
1022
00:59:23,600 --> 00:59:25,680
And the image might be the
castle in Spain, but the black
1023
00:59:25,680 --> 00:59:28,000
crap would be some on the castle
and some on the trees that are
1024
00:59:28,000 --> 00:59:30,200
on the castle and some dripping
off the side of the image.
1025
00:59:30,200 --> 00:59:35,240
And whatever it's it, they see
an image.
1026
00:59:35,920 --> 00:59:38,560
And when they see you, they
don't see you.
1027
00:59:38,560 --> 00:59:39,880
They don't have a perception of
seeing you.
1028
00:59:39,880 --> 00:59:43,840
They have a perception of seeing
an image of you and the and, and
1029
00:59:43,840 --> 00:59:46,120
you in the image, instead of
having a tan shirt, they it
1030
00:59:46,120 --> 00:59:50,360
might have a red shirt in their
image of you because they are in
1031
00:59:50,360 --> 00:59:53,760
fact seeing an image of you.
And that image might be like
1032
00:59:53,760 --> 00:59:56,120
ripped in half.
And when they RIP it in half, it
1033
00:59:56,120 --> 01:00:00,480
might RIP right down the middle
of your, your, your face or, or
1034
01:00:00,480 --> 01:00:04,440
whatever, which you wouldn't do
if you were seeing me, but you
1035
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:06,560
could do if you were seeing an
image of me.
1036
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:11,920
So I don't care.
I don't mostly I don't care
1037
01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:14,480
about words, what I care about.
And so I don't care about the
1038
01:00:14,480 --> 01:00:18,040
word image.
But what I, what I want people
1039
01:00:18,040 --> 01:00:23,240
to do is to recognize that most
normalish people don't see
1040
01:00:23,240 --> 01:00:25,480
images.
They innerly see things.
1041
01:00:26,080 --> 01:00:29,760
I I appreciate the the
clarification about that because
1042
01:00:29,760 --> 01:00:33,360
it reminds me of something that
Thomas Metziger once told me
1043
01:00:33,360 --> 01:00:36,920
about when he used to say that
the self is an illusion.
1044
01:00:37,320 --> 01:00:39,920
When he looks back at it, you
often regrets it.
1045
01:00:39,920 --> 01:00:43,160
And he doesn't.
He, he, he believes he's wrong
1046
01:00:43,160 --> 01:00:46,080
in certain ways, but also
doesn't like the psychological
1047
01:00:46,080 --> 01:00:50,240
impact it's had on certain
people because many philosophers
1048
01:00:50,240 --> 01:00:55,160
and thinkers started to believe
that certain abnormal mental
1049
01:00:55,160 --> 01:01:01,880
phenomena that justified
illusory selves almost explained
1050
01:01:02,200 --> 01:01:04,640
normal selves.
If, if, if I'm explaining that
1051
01:01:04,640 --> 01:01:06,480
correctly.
But he, he sort of didn't like
1052
01:01:06,480 --> 01:01:09,240
that once he was at a lecture
and he, he noticed a lot of
1053
01:01:09,240 --> 01:01:13,920
people from a psych ward had
entered his lecture just to
1054
01:01:14,160 --> 01:01:17,160
appreciate the fact that he
would justify how many of us
1055
01:01:17,160 --> 01:01:20,480
don't have a self.
But it's almost like they didn't
1056
01:01:20,480 --> 01:01:23,640
understand the nuance of what he
was trying to say about certain
1057
01:01:23,640 --> 01:01:27,440
human experiences.
And it's easy for anyone to sort
1058
01:01:27,440 --> 01:01:30,840
of fit into whatever we're
talking about South the way the
1059
01:01:30,840 --> 01:01:32,720
same way you're talking about an
image versus the actual
1060
01:01:32,720 --> 01:01:36,440
experience of it.
Two people might not necessarily
1061
01:01:36,440 --> 01:01:40,760
have that same first person
subjective experience, but it
1062
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:45,200
might sound or seem similar when
we describe it.
1063
01:01:48,800 --> 01:01:51,040
So that's an interesting story
and I got a couple of reactions
1064
01:01:51,040 --> 01:01:56,040
to that 11 is it it is the case
that whenever I describe inner
1065
01:01:56,040 --> 01:01:59,920
phenomenon to somebody that took
the modal response to that is
1066
01:01:59,920 --> 01:02:01,560
oh, oh, yeah, I know exactly
what you're talking about.
1067
01:02:01,560 --> 01:02:03,600
I know for a fact they don't
know what the fuck I'm talking
1068
01:02:03,600 --> 01:02:07,280
about.
They're they couldn't possibly,
1069
01:02:07,280 --> 01:02:09,680
but they but people believe that
they do.
1070
01:02:11,440 --> 01:02:15,720
So I I'm on Mexico side, Mexican
side about that.
1071
01:02:17,320 --> 01:02:21,440
I don't that well, the end.
That's one thing.
1072
01:02:21,680 --> 01:02:31,560
Another thing is the self is a
mentalism and I think it's risky
1073
01:02:32,120 --> 01:02:34,240
to delve into the mentalism
world.
1074
01:02:34,400 --> 01:02:35,880
So I don't know anything about
selves.
1075
01:02:36,080 --> 01:02:38,360
I doubt that.
If, if you ask me, if I had to
1076
01:02:38,360 --> 01:02:42,680
bet, you know, like, yeah, I'm
at the gate, I'm at the, I'm at
1077
01:02:42,680 --> 01:02:45,560
the pearly gates and, and, and
the question is you can come in.
1078
01:02:45,560 --> 01:02:47,920
If you give me the correct
answer, whether there is a self
1079
01:02:47,920 --> 01:02:50,000
or not, then if you get the
wrong answer, then you're going
1080
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:52,480
to spend the rest of your life
in nether regions.
1081
01:02:52,800 --> 01:02:56,680
If I I would say there probably
is not a self, but I don't know.
1082
01:02:56,680 --> 01:02:58,280
I don't know the answer to that
question.
1083
01:02:58,280 --> 01:03:01,200
I would have preferred to Saint
Peter asked me if I knew the
1084
01:03:01,200 --> 01:03:04,360
answer to that question and I
confidently say no, then I could
1085
01:03:04,360 --> 01:03:08,040
probably get in, but I don't.
I don't know the answer.
1086
01:03:08,360 --> 01:03:12,040
But the problem, the problem
that he's telling you about is
1087
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:15,600
that if you define the self,
then you get people who are into
1088
01:03:15,600 --> 01:03:18,280
it some kind of an argument
about whether the self exists.
1089
01:03:18,280 --> 01:03:20,560
And everybody's got a different
definition of what the self is.
1090
01:03:20,960 --> 01:03:23,080
If you try to define the self,
you're in real trouble.
1091
01:03:23,080 --> 01:03:25,960
I spent quite a number of years
early, very early on in my
1092
01:03:26,720 --> 01:03:29,880
career wrestling with this
issue, trying to could it, could
1093
01:03:29,880 --> 01:03:31,840
I, you know, people wanted to
tell me about themselves.
1094
01:03:31,840 --> 01:03:35,440
And was that really true for
most people, what that meant?
1095
01:03:37,560 --> 01:03:42,280
And I think most people, most,
most people have stories about
1096
01:03:42,280 --> 01:03:46,080
themselves, but they very rarely
occur in inner experience.
1097
01:03:47,160 --> 01:03:52,120
And so my work is to say, you
know, I, I, I would prefer to
1098
01:03:52,120 --> 01:03:54,280
limit myself to talking about
things that I know what I'm
1099
01:03:54,280 --> 01:03:56,360
talking about.
And the self is not one of them.
1100
01:03:57,200 --> 01:04:00,280
And the, the reason why that
came up, that came to my mind as
1101
01:04:00,280 --> 01:04:03,680
well was everything about DES or
the way everything you're
1102
01:04:03,680 --> 01:04:09,160
talking about reminds me of a
certain paper that Thomas wrote
1103
01:04:09,160 --> 01:04:12,280
about mind wandering.
And he was sitting with two
1104
01:04:12,280 --> 01:04:18,480
people, 2 professors discussing
the fact that every time you
1105
01:04:18,480 --> 01:04:20,600
talk to them and you ask them
exactly what are you thinking
1106
01:04:20,600 --> 01:04:23,760
about right now, Almost always
people are incorrect.
1107
01:04:25,840 --> 01:04:29,480
People are incorrect usually
when they when they're directly
1108
01:04:29,480 --> 01:04:32,120
asked about that question, which
is fascinating because that is
1109
01:04:32,120 --> 01:04:35,960
the main premise of this current
talk is is this current
1110
01:04:35,960 --> 01:04:38,200
subjective encounter with that
moment.
1111
01:04:38,520 --> 01:04:43,080
But when people try to recollect
what they were talking about,
1112
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:45,280
more often than not, they're
wrong.
1113
01:04:45,400 --> 01:04:47,400
So.
So I guess my question would be
1114
01:04:47,600 --> 01:04:52,880
how is DS different and almost
more reliable?
1115
01:04:55,080 --> 01:04:58,080
So I agree with the premise of
this question that people, that
1116
01:04:58,080 --> 01:05:00,840
people are mostly mistaken when
they think about their own inner
1117
01:05:00,840 --> 01:05:03,680
experience.
So doubling back to one of your
1118
01:05:03,680 --> 01:05:05,520
earlier questions, what is
surprising about that?
1119
01:05:06,040 --> 01:05:08,000
What is surprising to me about
the work that I've done?
1120
01:05:08,160 --> 01:05:10,040
That's one of them.
The people, the people for the
1121
01:05:10,040 --> 01:05:11,760
most part don't know about their
inner experience.
1122
01:05:11,760 --> 01:05:15,280
I wouldn't have expected that, I
don't think 50 years ago now.
1123
01:05:15,280 --> 01:05:18,680
I think that's maybe the
fundamental thing that I have
1124
01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:22,400
established to my satisfaction
is the people, people are
1125
01:05:22,400 --> 01:05:24,400
largely mistaken about their own
inner experience.
1126
01:05:25,640 --> 01:05:30,440
And so the, the question of why
is the question of armchair
1127
01:05:30,440 --> 01:05:33,920
introspection?
So the, the problem, the problem
1128
01:05:33,920 --> 01:05:36,320
with armchair introspection is
that it's, it's an impossible
1129
01:05:36,320 --> 01:05:40,440
task because armchair
introspection at its heart is
1130
01:05:40,440 --> 01:05:42,840
something like, I'm going to ask
myself the question, what's
1131
01:05:42,840 --> 01:05:44,480
going on in my inner experience
right now.
1132
01:05:44,920 --> 01:05:47,680
But I'm going to rule out the
fact that I'm asking myself the
1133
01:05:47,680 --> 01:05:49,400
question, what's going on in
inner experience right now,
1134
01:05:49,400 --> 01:05:52,160
because that doesn't count.
I'm looking for something beyond
1135
01:05:52,160 --> 01:05:54,800
that.
But the problem is that when
1136
01:05:54,800 --> 01:05:56,560
you're asking yourself that
question, there isn't anything
1137
01:05:56,560 --> 01:05:59,240
beyond it.
And so if you're really sort of
1138
01:05:59,240 --> 01:06:03,440
honest about that, the answer to
your question is either nothing
1139
01:06:03,440 --> 01:06:09,480
is in my experience or I'm
asking myself the question, but
1140
01:06:09,480 --> 01:06:11,520
I don't know anything at all
about what's what.
1141
01:06:11,520 --> 01:06:13,840
My normal everyday in your
experience is when I'm not
1142
01:06:13,840 --> 01:06:17,240
asking myself that question.
So I'm very critical of armchair
1143
01:06:17,240 --> 01:06:20,760
introspection, including by
philosophers who who make their
1144
01:06:20,760 --> 01:06:22,400
career and I'm armchair
introspection.
1145
01:06:22,400 --> 01:06:27,440
I don't think, I don't, I don't
think I, I think it's, I think
1146
01:06:27,440 --> 01:06:29,560
it's very difficult to do, let's
put it that way.
1147
01:06:29,600 --> 01:06:31,080
I, I do think that it's
possible.
1148
01:06:31,080 --> 01:06:35,240
So I think I think the adept
meditators are armchair
1149
01:06:35,240 --> 01:06:38,720
introspectors who have learned
how to do it after 10,000 hours
1150
01:06:38,720 --> 01:06:44,160
of trying and and and.
And, and do you think, do you
1151
01:06:44,160 --> 01:06:45,880
think they successfully cracked
that code?
1152
01:06:45,880 --> 01:06:49,240
Do you think that they reach a
point where they're really good?
1153
01:06:50,080 --> 01:06:52,280
But but their but their inner
experience is way different from
1154
01:06:52,280 --> 01:06:57,760
the from everybody else's.
But I but I didn't get to the
1155
01:06:57,760 --> 01:07:00,000
answer to the to the question is
why?
1156
01:07:00,440 --> 01:07:03,040
The second part of your question
is why is DES better?
1157
01:07:03,560 --> 01:07:06,120
And the answer is there's
several, several reasons.
1158
01:07:06,120 --> 01:07:10,760
One is it uses a beep and people
say, oh, that's the magic beep.
1159
01:07:10,760 --> 01:07:12,840
Rover thinks he's got a magic
beeper, which he doesn't.
1160
01:07:13,520 --> 01:07:18,000
But what it what the beep has
characteristics which are
1161
01:07:18,000 --> 01:07:22,400
entirely useful.
One is it has a fast rise time.
1162
01:07:23,520 --> 01:07:30,040
The beep goes from nothing to
something in, you know, within
1163
01:07:30,040 --> 01:07:34,800
within a few milliseconds.
Couple couple 7 hundredths of a
1164
01:07:34,800 --> 01:07:38,920
second few few milliseconds, it
goes from something to nothing.
1165
01:07:39,400 --> 01:07:45,000
And so, so it, so it, it, it
clearly defines the time.
1166
01:07:45,320 --> 01:07:47,600
Now, when you hear that, when
you hear the beep, there's a lot
1167
01:07:47,600 --> 01:07:50,320
of processing that goes on.
So that I'm, I'm not saying that
1168
01:07:50,320 --> 01:07:51,960
you hear the beep exactly the
way the beep is.
1169
01:07:51,960 --> 01:07:55,600
I don't think that's true.
Your brain, whatever has to
1170
01:07:55,600 --> 01:08:00,400
process that beep, but somewhere
within probably on the order of
1171
01:08:00,400 --> 01:08:03,400
1/4 of a second or something
like that, we have gone from
1172
01:08:03,400 --> 01:08:05,720
nothing to something.
And you, you said yet that
1173
01:08:05,720 --> 01:08:09,160
that's the beep.
So that's one thing fast rise
1174
01:08:09,160 --> 01:08:11,120
time.
The next thing is that the beep
1175
01:08:11,120 --> 01:08:15,000
means one and only one thing.
It means pay attention to by
1176
01:08:15,000 --> 01:08:16,920
inner experience right now
without having to ask the
1177
01:08:16,920 --> 01:08:19,680
question, pay attention to what
am I thinking about right now?
1178
01:08:19,800 --> 01:08:22,040
It means what am I thinking
about right now?
1179
01:08:22,640 --> 01:08:26,040
And, and we're going to have
some practice because I didn't
1180
01:08:26,040 --> 01:08:30,399
say when back half an hour ago
when I described the, the
1181
01:08:30,399 --> 01:08:33,240
process on, on the first thing,
you're not going to be very good
1182
01:08:33,240 --> 01:08:34,640
at it.
So then we're going to do it
1183
01:08:34,640 --> 01:08:36,880
again and you're still not going
to be very good at it.
1184
01:08:36,880 --> 01:08:38,880
And then we're going to do it
again and on the third day of
1185
01:08:38,880 --> 01:08:40,359
it, then you might be pretty
good at it.
1186
01:08:40,359 --> 01:08:43,000
That is a fundamentally
important thing, which I call
1187
01:08:43,000 --> 01:08:45,720
the iterative process.
I think you need that kind of
1188
01:08:45,720 --> 01:08:48,760
stuff.
You need to learn whatever that
1189
01:08:48,760 --> 01:08:50,000
means.
I don't know what that means,
1190
01:08:50,000 --> 01:08:53,560
but you need to acquire the
skill of paying attention to
1191
01:08:53,560 --> 01:08:56,800
what that is in your experience
right then and nothing else.
1192
01:08:56,800 --> 01:08:59,160
Got to know what experience is.
You got to know when the what,
1193
01:08:59,200 --> 01:09:01,800
what the what the beat means.
That takes time.
1194
01:09:02,520 --> 01:09:04,479
Skill you got, you got to
acquire that skill.
1195
01:09:07,200 --> 01:09:11,040
So the beep means pay attention
to my inner experience right now
1196
01:09:11,040 --> 01:09:13,279
and nothing and nothing else.
And it and it happens
1197
01:09:13,760 --> 01:09:17,439
immediately.
So that's two things that makes
1198
01:09:17,439 --> 01:09:19,479
my method, I think, more
believable.
1199
01:09:19,479 --> 01:09:23,240
And the third is then you're
going to tell me about it and
1200
01:09:23,240 --> 01:09:25,359
I'm a pretty good at it.
Listen, I'm pretty good at
1201
01:09:25,359 --> 01:09:27,319
listening to what it is that
you're that you're telling me.
1202
01:09:27,319 --> 01:09:28,960
I'm not perfect at it by any
means.
1203
01:09:29,160 --> 01:09:34,800
And I generally do these
expositional interviews with Co
1204
01:09:34,800 --> 01:09:38,000
interviewers so that there's
somebody else and other than me
1205
01:09:38,120 --> 01:09:40,200
who's listening to the same
thing, asking the same kind of
1206
01:09:40,200 --> 01:09:43,680
questions.
And then we can disagree with
1207
01:09:43,680 --> 01:09:46,520
each other, disagree with each
other, or you can say, well, you
1208
01:09:46,520 --> 01:09:48,840
got a blind spot there, Russ.
And and I can say, well, you're
1209
01:09:48,840 --> 01:09:50,840
probably right about that.
Why won't you ask that question
1210
01:09:50,840 --> 01:09:56,440
or whatever?
So, so, so you, but what you got
1211
01:09:56,440 --> 01:09:58,320
to tell me about it.
And the reason that that's
1212
01:09:58,320 --> 01:10:01,000
important is that you have
whatever presuppositions that
1213
01:10:01,000 --> 01:10:03,360
you have about what your inner
experience is.
1214
01:10:03,560 --> 01:10:06,120
And you're going to tell me
about your presuppositions,
1215
01:10:06,120 --> 01:10:09,000
probably, rather than telling me
about your inner experience.
1216
01:10:10,400 --> 01:10:15,440
And I, my art, if you want to
call it that, is to, is to be
1217
01:10:15,440 --> 01:10:18,160
sensitive to that and to, and to
be able to tell the difference
1218
01:10:18,160 --> 01:10:20,720
between when somebody is telling
me about their presuppositions
1219
01:10:20,720 --> 01:10:22,240
and tell them and when they're
telling me about their
1220
01:10:22,240 --> 01:10:24,040
experience.
And we can spend the whole
1221
01:10:24,040 --> 01:10:27,640
interview talking about how,
the, how I do that, but it's,
1222
01:10:27,640 --> 01:10:30,920
there's nothing magic about it.
It is I, I know what people are
1223
01:10:30,920 --> 01:10:32,520
sounding like when they're
telling me about experience.
1224
01:10:32,520 --> 01:10:34,040
And I know what people sound
like when they're telling me
1225
01:10:34,040 --> 01:10:36,200
about their presuppositions.
And and I try to get them to
1226
01:10:36,200 --> 01:10:38,400
tell me when when it sounds to
me like they're talking about
1227
01:10:38,400 --> 01:10:39,040
their.
Experience.
1228
01:10:39,640 --> 01:10:40,920
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's definitely a
1229
01:10:40,920 --> 01:10:44,480
skill that is nurtured and
eventually becomes something you
1230
01:10:44,480 --> 01:10:46,960
can sort of master.
And I remember writing a note
1231
01:10:46,960 --> 01:10:52,320
when when reading your work, and
my note said that one second,
1232
01:10:52,320 --> 01:10:54,880
let me just check.
You've done a great way of, of
1233
01:10:56,440 --> 01:10:58,920
almost countering subjective
biases.
1234
01:10:59,680 --> 01:11:04,440
You've put in these safeguards
to assist to avoid things like
1235
01:11:04,440 --> 01:11:07,520
memory interpretation and
framing because of this very
1236
01:11:07,520 --> 01:11:10,000
method you've just described.
And I thought that was a
1237
01:11:10,000 --> 01:11:14,720
brilliant way to to bypass a lot
of these issues that human
1238
01:11:14,720 --> 01:11:18,120
thought generates.
I think, I think that's exactly
1239
01:11:18,120 --> 01:11:20,080
right.
I would, I would see it, I would
1240
01:11:20,080 --> 01:11:22,160
see it the other way around.
What I, what I would say is all
1241
01:11:22,160 --> 01:11:25,040
those things that you mentioned,
those are total, total risks.
1242
01:11:25,400 --> 01:11:28,800
And so my method from my
perspective is, well, what do
1243
01:11:28,800 --> 01:11:31,040
you do to try to keep those
risks under control?
1244
01:11:31,200 --> 01:11:33,000
You use a beeper.
You have interviews that
1245
01:11:33,000 --> 01:11:37,760
happened when that happened very
shortly after the the, so the my
1246
01:11:37,760 --> 01:11:41,160
expositional interviews have to
be the same day or the next day,
1247
01:11:41,160 --> 01:11:43,920
24 hours turns out to be turns
out to be sort of OK.
1248
01:11:44,920 --> 01:11:47,840
I require that you write down
something, write immediately
1249
01:11:47,840 --> 01:11:51,000
after the beep to minimize the
memory, whatever.
1250
01:11:51,400 --> 01:11:54,760
So all those things which which
you see are challenges to
1251
01:11:54,760 --> 01:11:58,040
subjective reports, I see as
challenges to subjective
1252
01:11:58,040 --> 01:12:01,680
reports.
And DES is nothing more than and
1253
01:12:01,680 --> 01:12:06,160
nothing less than my attempt to
try to keep those under control
1254
01:12:06,840 --> 01:12:09,040
as much as I can.
And I think it's a great, it's
1255
01:12:09,080 --> 01:12:12,600
a, it's a great way to do that
because you, you almost remove
1256
01:12:12,600 --> 01:12:16,720
the thinking and you replace it
with acting or, or, or
1257
01:12:17,040 --> 01:12:21,640
experience rather than someone
thinking about the outcome or,
1258
01:12:21,760 --> 01:12:25,360
or having this major cognitive
thought process prior to it.
1259
01:12:25,360 --> 01:12:29,040
It's more about that subjective
phenomenal experience in the
1260
01:12:29,040 --> 01:12:33,360
moment, which then begs the
deepest question, which is
1261
01:12:33,600 --> 01:12:35,400
fundamentally what this podcast
is about.
1262
01:12:35,920 --> 01:12:39,960
What?
For decades your work on DAS has
1263
01:12:40,320 --> 01:12:43,080
explained so many different mind
phenomena.
1264
01:12:43,480 --> 01:12:46,080
How and what do you think this
could do?
1265
01:12:46,120 --> 01:12:50,680
Sorry, what could this tell us
about the mind body problem or
1266
01:12:50,680 --> 01:12:53,280
this relationship between brain
and experience?
1267
01:12:53,280 --> 01:12:57,320
Do you think there's a mind body
problem and and what do you
1268
01:12:57,320 --> 01:13:00,720
think DES could provide us
toward a solution?
1269
01:13:02,040 --> 01:13:04,520
So there's two things that one,
one is I want to, I want to push
1270
01:13:04,560 --> 01:13:07,280
back a little bit of on on your
summary before because I don't,
1271
01:13:07,280 --> 01:13:10,360
I don't think of inner
experience as being subjective.
1272
01:13:10,840 --> 01:13:14,640
I think inner experience is
every bit as objective as
1273
01:13:14,640 --> 01:13:19,560
external experience.
It's private, which makes it
1274
01:13:19,560 --> 01:13:22,440
problematic, but it's not
subjective.
1275
01:13:22,880 --> 01:13:26,280
I don't think we can have a long
conversation about that, but I
1276
01:13:26,320 --> 01:13:28,240
just don't want to.
Sorry, before before you move
1277
01:13:28,240 --> 01:13:31,440
on, you move on from that.
A question I had prior to that
1278
01:13:31,440 --> 01:13:37,400
was the role of statistics and
capturing that exact subjective
1279
01:13:37,400 --> 01:13:39,880
experience, because I know you
wrote a textbook about that.
1280
01:13:40,200 --> 01:13:42,080
Maybe you would.
Maybe it's best that you
1281
01:13:42,080 --> 01:13:45,160
actually do explore that.
I I have written a textbook
1282
01:13:45,160 --> 01:13:53,720
about that and that's a sort of
the, the, the work that the work
1283
01:13:53,720 --> 01:13:56,240
that I do is fundamentally non
statistical.
1284
01:13:57,400 --> 01:14:01,400
I do count things, but when I
count things, I generally
1285
01:14:01,480 --> 01:14:04,240
explicitly say I don't really
care about how many of these
1286
01:14:04,240 --> 01:14:05,720
things I get.
I'm going to count them because
1287
01:14:05,880 --> 01:14:09,040
I want to be able to say, well,
Tev's got sort of a lot of this
1288
01:14:09,040 --> 01:14:12,240
and not very much of that.
And if you say things like that,
1289
01:14:12,480 --> 01:14:17,040
then you then you're obligated
to count because a lot and not
1290
01:14:17,040 --> 01:14:19,320
very much is a is a county kind
of a thing.
1291
01:14:19,560 --> 01:14:24,040
And so I count, but I'm also
acutely aware that I'm when, if,
1292
01:14:24,120 --> 01:14:26,640
if we sample together and we do
10 days of sampling, which is a
1293
01:14:26,640 --> 01:14:29,920
lot from my point of view at six
samples a day, that's only 60
1294
01:14:29,920 --> 01:14:33,720
samples.
And so by the error bars around
1295
01:14:33,720 --> 01:14:36,840
any frequency that I get are
going to are going to be fairly
1296
01:14:36,840 --> 01:14:40,600
high.
And so I'm, I'm just, I'm not
1297
01:14:40,600 --> 01:14:45,920
interested in statistical
significance and in the, in the
1298
01:14:45,920 --> 01:14:48,320
work that we're talking about
here, I write a book, the whole
1299
01:14:48,320 --> 01:14:49,880
book is about statistical
significance.
1300
01:14:49,880 --> 01:14:53,400
And I wrote that back in 1990
because I wanted to be taken
1301
01:14:53,400 --> 01:14:56,120
seriously.
And I knew that if I just
1302
01:14:56,120 --> 01:14:58,760
eschewed statistics all
together, that people would
1303
01:14:58,760 --> 01:15:02,320
think I was a soft headed guy
like anybody else interested in
1304
01:15:02,320 --> 01:15:04,040
consciousness.
So I said, well, I'll write a
1305
01:15:04,040 --> 01:15:08,360
statistics book and, and be
known as a, as a statistics guy
1306
01:15:08,360 --> 01:15:10,080
and then they'll take me
seriously and, and what I'm
1307
01:15:10,080 --> 01:15:16,160
really interested in.
So probably not a wise decision
1308
01:15:16,160 --> 01:15:18,840
that I made, but that was a, a
decision that that I made.
1309
01:15:18,840 --> 01:15:22,440
So I have written a statistic.
That's it over there or over
1310
01:15:22,440 --> 01:15:23,800
there.
And.
1311
01:15:24,560 --> 01:15:27,880
I think that's. 6th edition now.
That's always a good approach
1312
01:15:27,880 --> 01:15:30,440
because you you want to be taken
serious.
1313
01:15:30,840 --> 01:15:34,480
Studying this objective is never
easy and many people tend to
1314
01:15:35,360 --> 01:15:38,200
disregarded in in various
unreasonable ways.
1315
01:15:38,200 --> 01:15:44,920
But how do you think DES or, or
could you explain how DES
1316
01:15:45,440 --> 01:15:48,920
bridges that gap between first
person phenomenological
1317
01:15:48,920 --> 01:15:55,120
experience versus third person
objective experience?
1318
01:15:59,680 --> 01:16:04,560
So I think all experience is
fundamentally first person and
1319
01:16:04,560 --> 01:16:08,040
we can we can try to abstract
away the first person, this of
1320
01:16:08,040 --> 01:16:11,240
it and call it third person, but
it never really is third person.
1321
01:16:13,640 --> 01:16:16,080
So what?
So my counsel would be, well,
1322
01:16:16,080 --> 01:16:19,200
let's get good at the first
person, which I don't think very
1323
01:16:19,200 --> 01:16:22,240
many people are.
And the and the And so I think
1324
01:16:22,320 --> 01:16:24,960
that the reason that I rankle at
the term subjective, I think is
1325
01:16:24,960 --> 01:16:31,920
that is that most people, most
people think that something
1326
01:16:31,920 --> 01:16:34,400
that's done badly is done is
subjective.
1327
01:16:34,880 --> 01:16:36,600
And I just don't think that's
necessarily true.
1328
01:16:36,600 --> 01:16:40,640
I think you can, you can help
somebody become a have a pretty
1329
01:16:40,920 --> 01:16:43,320
what I would call high fidelity
observer of their own inner
1330
01:16:43,320 --> 01:16:46,280
experience.
Or I prefer apprehender rather
1331
01:16:46,280 --> 01:16:48,040
than observer because of the
Cartesian stuff.
1332
01:16:48,040 --> 01:16:53,760
But the I would, I would say I
would, I think people can become
1333
01:16:54,800 --> 01:16:57,400
people start out as not knowing
what's going on in their inner
1334
01:16:57,400 --> 01:17:00,400
experience.
And after 5 or 8 days of, of
1335
01:17:00,520 --> 01:17:03,760
sampling, they can, they can
come to be able to apprehend
1336
01:17:03,760 --> 01:17:05,600
their inner experience as it
actually occurs.
1337
01:17:06,240 --> 01:17:09,080
And that makes it as as
objective as anything else in,
1338
01:17:09,080 --> 01:17:10,600
in the world.
It's private.
1339
01:17:11,520 --> 01:17:14,920
It's only them that is seeing it
or hearing it or whatever.
1340
01:17:14,920 --> 01:17:18,560
But but it's not just a, an
opinion.
1341
01:17:18,560 --> 01:17:23,640
It's so.
Well, well, Russ, that sort of,
1342
01:17:23,800 --> 01:17:27,040
it sort of gives us an idea of
where your mind's at regarding
1343
01:17:27,320 --> 01:17:29,840
the mind body problem.
But I asked you about that
1344
01:17:29,840 --> 01:17:32,320
earlier.
Do you mind defining?
1345
01:17:32,320 --> 01:17:35,160
Do you think there's a mind body
problem, this relationship
1346
01:17:35,160 --> 01:17:38,000
between brain and and
experience?
1347
01:17:38,320 --> 01:17:44,680
And do you ever think that we
could map inner experience onto
1348
01:17:44,680 --> 01:17:48,360
neural correlates?
Or will some aspects always
1349
01:17:48,360 --> 01:17:54,240
resist reduction?
Well, that's a good, that's a
1350
01:17:54,240 --> 01:18:01,480
good question.
I, I have I with some colleagues
1351
01:18:01,480 --> 01:18:06,320
and, and, and Berlin and, and
the UKI.
1352
01:18:07,440 --> 01:18:11,400
We have done a small study where
we put people into the scanner,
1353
01:18:13,000 --> 01:18:16,840
into an FMR scanner and, and let
him do whatever it is that they
1354
01:18:16,840 --> 01:18:18,360
wanted to do and beat them every
now and then.
1355
01:18:18,880 --> 01:18:21,240
And then took him out of the
scanner and interviewed them the
1356
01:18:21,240 --> 01:18:23,240
way I would generally interview
him and put him back in the
1357
01:18:23,240 --> 01:18:25,680
scanner and took him back out
and interviewed him and put him
1358
01:18:25,680 --> 01:18:27,080
back in the scanner, took him
back in the scanner.
1359
01:18:27,160 --> 01:18:31,560
So we spent people in and out of
the scanner over several,
1360
01:18:31,560 --> 01:18:35,560
several weeks, many, many times
in the scanner to see whether we
1361
01:18:35,560 --> 01:18:41,400
can find something of the
correlates of, of inner
1362
01:18:41,400 --> 01:18:44,880
experience.
And I guess I before I said that
1363
01:18:44,880 --> 01:18:48,400
I what I one of the things that
I didn't say when I, when I was
1364
01:18:48,400 --> 01:18:50,800
talking about inner speech back
in the characteristics of inner
1365
01:18:50,800 --> 01:18:54,960
speech.
One of the findings and not
1366
01:18:54,960 --> 01:18:58,480
surprising results, not
surprising results to me of the
1367
01:18:58,520 --> 01:19:02,080
of the scanner.
This scanner study which my
1368
01:19:02,080 --> 01:19:07,640
colleagues I have written about
is that inner speech as it
1369
01:19:07,640 --> 01:19:11,000
naturally occurs, people going
about their everyday life
1370
01:19:11,000 --> 01:19:13,680
sometimes engages inner speaking
and sometimes they don't.
1371
01:19:13,960 --> 01:19:16,920
That is not the same thing as
inner speech on demand.
1372
01:19:17,760 --> 01:19:21,400
So almost all studies, all
psychological studies of inner
1373
01:19:21,400 --> 01:19:25,360
speech are, are on demand.
So I say say elephant or say
1374
01:19:25,360 --> 01:19:28,960
pencil or recite this sentence
or whatever.
1375
01:19:29,440 --> 01:19:31,080
All right, all right, I'm
interested in reading.
1376
01:19:31,080 --> 01:19:32,640
And I show you one word and then
another word.
1377
01:19:32,640 --> 01:19:35,760
And then it went 10 milliseconds
later, another word or 100
1378
01:19:35,760 --> 01:19:37,440
milliseconds later, another word
and then another word.
1379
01:19:38,080 --> 01:19:41,520
That's just not you.
You I'm, I'm highly skeptical
1380
01:19:41,520 --> 01:19:43,280
about whether you're going to
learn anything about what is
1381
01:19:43,280 --> 01:19:44,960
naturally occurring inner
speaking.
1382
01:19:45,960 --> 01:19:49,440
So if you want to find out about
the answer to your question, the
1383
01:19:49,440 --> 01:19:53,280
mind body question, you have to
put somebody into the scanner or
1384
01:19:53,280 --> 01:19:55,960
wait around for until they
happen to have inner speaking.
1385
01:19:56,160 --> 01:20:00,160
And then if they do, then you
might be able to look at a
1386
01:20:00,160 --> 01:20:04,480
correlate between that and, and
whatever was going on in their
1387
01:20:05,320 --> 01:20:07,440
oxygen production in their
brains or whatever.
1388
01:20:08,840 --> 01:20:10,360
And I so I think that's
possible.
1389
01:20:10,360 --> 01:20:15,040
And I think we did discover some
things, one of them being inner
1390
01:20:15,040 --> 01:20:18,080
speaking on demand is not the
same thing as inner speech as
1391
01:20:18,080 --> 01:20:23,520
normal inner speaking.
So I think it I think it is
1392
01:20:23,520 --> 01:20:32,120
possible to map something about.
Inner experience into neural
1393
01:20:32,120 --> 01:20:36,040
correlates, whether I think
that's going to be useful, I
1394
01:20:36,040 --> 01:20:37,440
don't think I know the answer to
that question.
1395
01:20:38,280 --> 01:20:46,280
The, the temporal resolution of
fMRI is still pretty slow.
1396
01:20:47,400 --> 01:20:50,560
You know, we're measuring in
terms of seconds and, and in,
1397
01:20:51,200 --> 01:20:54,160
in, in the world of inner
experience, a lot of stuff can
1398
01:20:54,320 --> 01:20:56,400
go all over the place in a
couple of seconds.
1399
01:20:57,760 --> 01:21:03,200
So can we speed up fMRI?
You know, maybe, maybe we can.
1400
01:21:03,200 --> 01:21:05,000
I don't, I don't have a good
prediction.
1401
01:21:05,000 --> 01:21:07,080
I don't have a good prediction
about that.
1402
01:21:08,360 --> 01:21:12,840
And I'm not, I'm not a fan of
neural correlates in the sense
1403
01:21:12,840 --> 01:21:16,560
that I think speaking is going
to take place here and
1404
01:21:16,920 --> 01:21:18,680
visualization is going to be
here or whatever.
1405
01:21:18,680 --> 01:21:20,800
I think the whole brain is
involved all the time.
1406
01:21:21,440 --> 01:21:28,560
Sometimes some more, some some
less, but the the, but I don't
1407
01:21:28,560 --> 01:21:30,040
really know.
I don't really know the answer
1408
01:21:30,040 --> 01:21:30,560
to that.
What.
1409
01:21:30,560 --> 01:21:34,560
But what I what I do think I
know about that is if you cared
1410
01:21:34,560 --> 01:21:40,880
about the mind body problem,
then you should be really
1411
01:21:40,880 --> 01:21:44,320
worried about things that are
mentalisms, which is almost
1412
01:21:44,320 --> 01:21:46,640
everything in, in the way people
think about the mind body
1413
01:21:46,640 --> 01:21:47,360
problem.
I'm afraid.
1414
01:21:47,360 --> 01:21:53,600
But but you should be you should
be scared of any theory that is
1415
01:21:53,600 --> 01:21:56,280
tries to link the a mentalism to
anything.
1416
01:21:57,680 --> 01:22:01,920
And if you, if you advanced as I
would so I'll call it advanced
1417
01:22:01,920 --> 01:22:06,800
beyond a mentalism to directly
apprehended in your experience,
1418
01:22:08,840 --> 01:22:12,560
then you you got your work cut
out for you because it's hard
1419
01:22:12,560 --> 01:22:14,200
work.
The descriptive experience
1420
01:22:14,200 --> 01:22:16,400
sampling is not an easy thing to
do.
1421
01:22:16,400 --> 01:22:20,120
You got to develop some skills,
which is, you know, sort of like
1422
01:22:20,120 --> 01:22:23,120
developing skills of being a
virtuoso violinist or whatever.
1423
01:22:23,160 --> 01:22:25,800
You, you, you need practice in
the, in the practice room or
1424
01:22:25,800 --> 01:22:27,560
whatever construction and
whatever.
1425
01:22:28,480 --> 01:22:35,160
And, and, and then you need
enough of those people who to,
1426
01:22:35,480 --> 01:22:39,640
to be good at it, at finding out
what's actually in, in your
1427
01:22:39,640 --> 01:22:41,560
experience, which is a
challenge.
1428
01:22:41,600 --> 01:22:44,160
And then you can start to do
some correlations.
1429
01:22:45,320 --> 01:22:48,840
So when the one of the
correlations as as Herbert would
1430
01:22:48,840 --> 01:22:50,840
say in his textbook or
something, you know, you need
1431
01:22:50,840 --> 01:22:54,600
hundreds of people to have a
correlation where that you, that
1432
01:22:54,600 --> 01:22:57,600
you can start to occur because
the error there are bars around
1433
01:22:58,000 --> 01:23:01,200
the size of correlations are
really pretty big when you've
1434
01:23:01,200 --> 01:23:07,000
got just a few, a few subjects.
And the problem with DES is it's
1435
01:23:07,000 --> 01:23:10,800
hard to get, you know, in my
lifetime, I have sampled with
1436
01:23:10,800 --> 01:23:13,480
500 or 1000 people or something
like that.
1437
01:23:13,680 --> 01:23:18,400
It's that's 10 or 100 a year,
not a Goodyear, but.
1438
01:23:19,880 --> 01:23:22,800
Russ, if you there's something I
thought about when I already
1439
01:23:22,800 --> 01:23:26,920
work was I thought about
Benjamin Libett and I thought
1440
01:23:26,920 --> 01:23:29,680
about his free will experience
and I thought what if you
1441
01:23:29,680 --> 01:23:35,520
replace the beeper with a buzzer
when a shock and and I'm talking
1442
01:23:35,920 --> 01:23:41,720
within microseconds, would this
impact someone's experience
1443
01:23:41,720 --> 01:23:45,080
firstly?
And what do you think about free
1444
01:23:45,080 --> 01:23:52,080
will?
Well, I've I have toyed with
1445
01:23:52,240 --> 01:23:59,040
with reproducing some of Libet's
experience and experience
1446
01:23:59,080 --> 01:24:01,280
experiments is what I meant to
say there.
1447
01:24:02,680 --> 01:24:06,160
And I and I think that I think
there is some some things to be
1448
01:24:06,160 --> 01:24:08,920
learned there.
So so for example, I think.
1449
01:24:14,320 --> 01:24:16,760
Is the name Maskaline mean
anything to you, though?
1450
01:24:16,760 --> 01:24:19,920
He's the astronomer's assistant
back back back in the day when
1451
01:24:20,400 --> 01:24:23,400
when we were talking about the,
the, the personal equation.
1452
01:24:23,400 --> 01:24:24,880
Does a personal equation mean
anything to you?
1453
01:24:25,560 --> 01:24:28,800
The person, the, the, the
personal equation came the, the,
1454
01:24:28,880 --> 01:24:31,360
the famous astronomer whose name
I forget.
1455
01:24:31,360 --> 01:24:34,600
Now that's sort of weird because
I remember Maskaline's name, but
1456
01:24:34,840 --> 01:24:39,160
there's the astronomer.
The, the, the task was to mark
1457
01:24:39,160 --> 01:24:42,160
transit times.
So you got a clock and the clock
1458
01:24:42,160 --> 01:24:45,800
is ticking away and we want to
know when Mars passes through
1459
01:24:45,800 --> 01:24:48,720
the Meridian or whatever.
And I'm not an astronomer, but,
1460
01:24:48,760 --> 01:24:50,480
but basically you're looking
through a telescope.
1461
01:24:50,480 --> 01:24:56,200
There's a, there's a hair down,
down the crosshair and, and the
1462
01:24:56,200 --> 01:24:58,520
thing and, and you want to know
what time it is that Mars
1463
01:24:58,520 --> 01:25:00,840
passes.
And so masculine is dutifully
1464
01:25:00,840 --> 01:25:02,160
written it down.
And the way you do is you look
1465
01:25:02,160 --> 01:25:06,480
at a clock and the clock is
saying, you know, ten O 6 O
1466
01:25:06,480 --> 01:25:10,240
102-0304.
And then when the, when the,
1467
01:25:10,720 --> 01:25:13,960
when the Mars passes the line,
then you have counted those,
1468
01:25:13,960 --> 01:25:17,680
those things and you say that it
happened to ten O 4.3 or, or, or
1469
01:25:18,000 --> 01:25:21,360
or whatever.
And it turns out that there are
1470
01:25:21,360 --> 01:25:27,400
huge individual differences on
like on, on the order of seconds
1471
01:25:27,880 --> 01:25:34,000
about the, on the accuracy of
those of those observations.
1472
01:25:34,000 --> 01:25:37,200
And masculine got himself fired
because his, his aspirations
1473
01:25:37,200 --> 01:25:40,240
didn't, didn't match up with the
with the astronomer.
1474
01:25:40,240 --> 01:25:42,680
And the astronomer is really a
famous, famous guy who's I can't
1475
01:25:42,680 --> 01:25:48,040
remember which one it is now,
but but, but that became known
1476
01:25:48,040 --> 01:25:49,600
as the personal, personal
equation.
1477
01:25:49,600 --> 01:25:54,360
And, and it, and it has to do
with mental processing of clocks
1478
01:25:54,360 --> 01:25:56,880
and visual processing and how
you get these things together
1479
01:25:57,360 --> 01:26:02,560
and those, those things they do
not obey the laws of physics.
1480
01:26:03,440 --> 01:26:07,160
They're, you would think that
the mind was processing this and
1481
01:26:07,160 --> 01:26:09,320
the visual processing this in
the event and the same, but it,
1482
01:26:09,320 --> 01:26:13,480
but it's not true.
And and so that's one of the
1483
01:26:13,480 --> 01:26:17,480
things that the that I was
influenced by, which is sort of
1484
01:26:17,480 --> 01:26:23,360
the labet experiment, experiment
that, that I try to take that
1485
01:26:23,360 --> 01:26:26,520
stuff seriously.
So I, I understand when I said a
1486
01:26:26,520 --> 01:26:29,360
minute ago, when I, when I said
what the beep, the beep happened
1487
01:26:29,360 --> 01:26:31,760
in a couple of microseconds.
Your experience doesn't happen
1488
01:26:31,760 --> 01:26:33,760
in a couple of microseconds.
It takes a while to process
1489
01:26:33,760 --> 01:26:36,440
that.
And so it could very well be
1490
01:26:36,680 --> 01:26:40,280
that you're processing that that
you're processing of the beep
1491
01:26:40,480 --> 01:26:44,080
takes this amount of time and
processing and a schizophrenic
1492
01:26:44,080 --> 01:26:46,560
individuals takes a different
amount of time and a during a
1493
01:26:46,560 --> 01:26:49,560
kind of processing.
And So what turns out to be your
1494
01:26:49,560 --> 01:26:52,520
reports of inner experience are
really pretty much messed up by
1495
01:26:52,520 --> 01:26:55,040
the by the processing of the
beep.
1496
01:26:55,080 --> 01:27:00,360
I think that's possible.
I don't, I haven't one of the
1497
01:27:00,360 --> 01:27:03,920
many things that I have not
explored much in depth, but I
1498
01:27:03,960 --> 01:27:07,600
but I recognize it as a as an
absolute possibility.
1499
01:27:08,640 --> 01:27:11,080
I think it's a much smaller
possibility than most other
1500
01:27:11,080 --> 01:27:14,960
people, but it's but it's
something to be taken taken
1501
01:27:14,960 --> 01:27:17,560
seriously and in the and in the
world of schizophrenia, I think
1502
01:27:17,560 --> 01:27:22,480
it might be a big deal.
I think it might be, you know,
1503
01:27:22,680 --> 01:27:26,160
several seconds and, and, and
that that can explain things
1504
01:27:26,160 --> 01:27:29,200
like how, how is it that a
schizophrenic individual can,
1505
01:27:29,280 --> 01:27:33,200
can think that the light that,
that I, I turned on the light
1506
01:27:33,200 --> 01:27:34,960
switch because the light came
on.
1507
01:27:35,760 --> 01:27:40,520
You know, well, if, if you're,
if you've got your timing circus
1508
01:27:40,760 --> 01:27:45,040
wacky so that the lighting, so
the lighting coming on is
1509
01:27:45,040 --> 01:27:49,160
experienced as being before the
switch switching.
1510
01:27:50,080 --> 01:27:54,360
If if your time processing is
that wacky, well that that then
1511
01:27:54,360 --> 01:27:58,200
you then you're theorizing self
theorizing about cause and
1512
01:27:58,200 --> 01:28:00,880
effect.
It's wacky.
1513
01:28:02,760 --> 01:28:06,240
But all all of that is is to say
I don't I don't know most about
1514
01:28:06,240 --> 01:28:12,120
what I'm talking about other
than I think it's possible to to
1515
01:28:12,120 --> 01:28:20,400
do this attending to whatever is
apprehended carefully and it's
1516
01:28:20,680 --> 01:28:25,160
and it's worth doing.
But I but it could be that when
1517
01:28:25,160 --> 01:28:27,760
people when people do it in the
you know, and there's a lot of
1518
01:28:27,760 --> 01:28:29,600
people who are doing it and they
got better equipment than I have
1519
01:28:29,600 --> 01:28:32,000
when they're younger than I am.
Whatever that they would that
1520
01:28:32,000 --> 01:28:35,720
they would discover that there
that there are some limitations
1521
01:28:35,720 --> 01:28:38,040
and those limitations might be
more important than the method
1522
01:28:38,040 --> 01:28:40,680
itself.
More or less than in the same
1523
01:28:40,680 --> 01:28:45,880
way as the you know then leaving
hook the microscope inventor
1524
01:28:45,880 --> 01:28:49,040
whatever believed in the animal
cules and whatever else he
1525
01:28:49,040 --> 01:28:51,520
believed in which weren't
weren't true in the long haul
1526
01:28:51,520 --> 01:28:55,440
long haul he he but the
microscope has turned out to be
1527
01:28:55,440 --> 01:28:59,480
a pretty important deal in the
in the philosophy of science or
1528
01:28:59,480 --> 01:29:04,840
the science of biology or even
even though he was he was wrong
1529
01:29:04,840 --> 01:29:08,360
about what he was looking at.
And I, and I think of DES as
1530
01:29:08,360 --> 01:29:10,360
sort of the same way DES is a
tool.
1531
01:29:11,760 --> 01:29:17,240
I, I think, I believe that my
career has demonstrated that
1532
01:29:17,240 --> 01:29:21,000
it's possible to do it.
People don't, people don't use
1533
01:29:21,000 --> 01:29:24,080
it.
Sort of disappointing to me,
1534
01:29:24,080 --> 01:29:28,320
but, but I think it's possible.
And if and if we did it, it
1535
01:29:28,320 --> 01:29:32,800
would it would revolutionize
what we thought about crazy
1536
01:29:32,800 --> 01:29:36,960
people and about mind body
issues and but.
1537
01:29:38,520 --> 01:29:42,440
Russ, before we before we touch
on those broad implications of
1538
01:29:42,440 --> 01:29:47,480
future directions, but I wanted
to find out, you briefly touched
1539
01:29:47,480 --> 01:29:50,960
on this, but in philosophy,
people often talk about whether
1540
01:29:50,960 --> 01:29:53,440
we can truly know someone else's
consciousness.
1541
01:29:53,760 --> 01:29:59,320
And, and I believe that DES has
a very intriguing approach
1542
01:29:59,320 --> 01:30:02,760
toward explaining this
phenomenon.
1543
01:30:03,680 --> 01:30:06,440
Do you have a specific
philosophical view on
1544
01:30:06,440 --> 01:30:08,600
consciousness?
For example, do you consider
1545
01:30:08,600 --> 01:30:11,320
yourself to be someone who's
more inclined to a version of
1546
01:30:11,320 --> 01:30:14,880
illusionism?
A version of emergentism?
1547
01:30:15,200 --> 01:30:18,840
Do you have a certain view in
philosophy or, or for you, is
1548
01:30:18,840 --> 01:30:23,600
this just sort of a spectrum of,
of experience that you're open
1549
01:30:23,600 --> 01:30:26,440
to explore and and dissect over
time?
1550
01:30:29,080 --> 01:30:34,800
I do not have a view of
consciousness.
1551
01:30:37,120 --> 01:30:39,800
I don't know what people mean by
consciousness.
1552
01:30:40,880 --> 01:30:43,040
I don't try to explore
understand other people's
1553
01:30:43,040 --> 01:30:45,200
consciousness.
I don't try to understand my own
1554
01:30:45,200 --> 01:30:49,200
consciousness.
What I am interested in is what
1555
01:30:49,640 --> 01:30:53,520
people direct apprehensions of
their inner experiences.
1556
01:30:54,280 --> 01:30:58,240
And I think it is possible to
describe, to apprehend For me,
1557
01:30:58,240 --> 01:31:03,880
if, if, if we, if I offered to
do with a beeper and we took, we
1558
01:31:03,880 --> 01:31:06,280
did whatever we had to do to
figure figure it out, I could, I
1559
01:31:06,280 --> 01:31:09,400
could find out something about
with, with pretty good fidelity.
1560
01:31:09,880 --> 01:31:15,080
What is in Tevin's inner
experience as he describes them
1561
01:31:15,080 --> 01:31:16,920
at particular beeps.
And that would probably have
1562
01:31:16,920 --> 01:31:20,360
quite a bit to do with what is
actually in his experience, but
1563
01:31:20,360 --> 01:31:22,640
it wouldn't be perfect, but it
would be what I call high
1564
01:31:22,640 --> 01:31:26,040
fidelity.
Probably we haven't done it.
1565
01:31:26,040 --> 01:31:27,520
So maybe, maybe it wouldn't work
with him.
1566
01:31:27,520 --> 01:31:36,400
But but that's I, I, that's as
close as I can get to knowing
1567
01:31:36,400 --> 01:31:38,600
about what's in somebody else's
mind.
1568
01:31:39,400 --> 01:31:42,480
Which is to say, I don't know
what's in Tevin's mind, but I
1569
01:31:42,480 --> 01:31:45,000
think I could know about what's
in his inner experience.
1570
01:31:49,160 --> 01:31:53,920
With that being said, Russ, how
let's move on to that deeper
1571
01:31:54,400 --> 01:31:55,920
implication and future
direction.
1572
01:31:56,120 --> 01:32:01,640
How would DES inform clinical
practice or therapy and could it
1573
01:32:01,640 --> 01:32:04,640
change how we understand or
treat mental illness?
1574
01:32:06,520 --> 01:32:12,160
Yes, I think so.
Hang on, hang on just a minute.
1575
01:32:12,880 --> 01:32:15,760
OK, I'm good.
I had another appointment, but
1576
01:32:15,760 --> 01:32:16,600
it's been cancelled.
So I'm.
1577
01:32:16,840 --> 01:32:21,400
I'm even checked the time.
Yeah.
1578
01:32:22,440 --> 01:32:24,560
So neither did I.
So tell me again what your
1579
01:32:24,560 --> 01:32:25,160
question is.
How?
1580
01:32:25,400 --> 01:32:27,520
How would?
It change, I was saying, let's
1581
01:32:27,520 --> 01:32:29,600
move on to these broader
implications and future
1582
01:32:29,600 --> 01:32:32,800
directions for DES and and for
anyone watching or listening.
1583
01:32:32,800 --> 01:32:36,160
I think it's, it's, it's a great
way for potential researchers,
1584
01:32:36,440 --> 01:32:39,320
philosophers, scientists, if
they want to jump on board and
1585
01:32:39,320 --> 01:32:42,400
maybe work on your, on your work
and take it further.
1586
01:32:42,720 --> 01:32:46,640
How do you think DES informs
clinical practice or therapy and
1587
01:32:46,720 --> 01:32:49,920
and could it change how we
understand and treat mental
1588
01:32:49,920 --> 01:32:54,560
illness?
So, so I think that I think
1589
01:32:54,560 --> 01:33:03,800
there are fundamentally there
are, if you really take DES
1590
01:33:03,800 --> 01:33:08,120
seriously, there would be
fundamental shifts in almost
1591
01:33:08,120 --> 01:33:16,760
everything that you do.
So therapy, I, I, I'm a licensed
1592
01:33:16,760 --> 01:33:18,520
psychologist.
I don't, I don't practice at it,
1593
01:33:18,520 --> 01:33:20,400
but I am, I am a licensed
psychologist.
1594
01:33:20,960 --> 01:33:25,040
The therapy is, is basically if
I'm the therapist and you're the
1595
01:33:25,040 --> 01:33:29,920
client, I'm I'm supposed to set
out to change your change you in
1596
01:33:29,920 --> 01:33:35,600
some important way.
That is not DESDES is not a
1597
01:33:35,600 --> 01:33:41,000
manipulative thing.
DES is a let's discover Tevin
1598
01:33:41,000 --> 01:33:44,480
the way he is not let's try to
make Tevin better or Devin
1599
01:33:44,480 --> 01:33:48,400
different or, or whatever.
That's a that's a hugely
1600
01:33:48,400 --> 01:33:50,240
different deal from my point of
view.
1601
01:33:51,000 --> 01:33:57,640
And, and my my guess is that for
Tevin, it would be better for
1602
01:33:57,640 --> 01:33:59,880
him.
I don't really know because I'm
1603
01:33:59,920 --> 01:34:06,400
a ignorant mortal, but the my
guess is it is of more value for
1604
01:34:06,400 --> 01:34:12,040
Tevin to know what his inner
experience is than for someone
1605
01:34:12,040 --> 01:34:13,840
to try to change his inner
experience.
1606
01:34:14,920 --> 01:34:19,240
That is, know thyself is
probably a better maxim than
1607
01:34:19,600 --> 01:34:23,480
change thyself.
And that of course is
1608
01:34:23,960 --> 01:34:28,200
fundamentally different from the
whole psychotherapy mindset,
1609
01:34:30,920 --> 01:34:35,000
hugely different.
And then I think I touched as
1610
01:34:35,000 --> 01:34:39,320
far as psychopathology is
concerned, I think it probably,
1611
01:34:42,120 --> 01:34:49,000
if you, I think, I think it's a
psychopathology science based on
1612
01:34:49,800 --> 01:34:52,320
what, what on on the
characteristics of inner
1613
01:34:52,320 --> 01:34:56,640
experience would but probably be
different from the science that
1614
01:34:56,640 --> 01:34:58,440
we've got.
Now, how that how that would be
1615
01:34:58,440 --> 01:35:03,120
different, I don't know exactly,
but I think, I think people with
1616
01:35:03,120 --> 01:35:06,120
psychological disturbances have
messy inner experiences.
1617
01:35:06,120 --> 01:35:11,880
And by messy, there's some
people who just, they, they
1618
01:35:11,880 --> 01:35:14,600
don't have their, their figure.
The figure never gets to be
1619
01:35:14,600 --> 01:35:16,040
clear for them for whatever
reason.
1620
01:35:16,080 --> 01:35:18,880
Either there's no figure at all
or they've got a sort of a
1621
01:35:18,880 --> 01:35:21,600
cloudy figure and it's not, it's
not really clear.
1622
01:35:21,600 --> 01:35:23,960
And, and I think those things
are difficult for people.
1623
01:35:24,360 --> 01:35:29,160
I think it's people are, it's
generally easier for people to
1624
01:35:29,160 --> 01:35:32,360
be able to see clearly what
they're looking at and to hear
1625
01:35:32,360 --> 01:35:34,720
clearly what they're hearing.
And it's an environment,
1626
01:35:34,760 --> 01:35:38,360
whatever.
And for people, for people to
1627
01:35:38,360 --> 01:35:42,320
recognize their own inner
experience with skills so that
1628
01:35:42,800 --> 01:35:46,200
they don't find their anger
coming at them like by surprise
1629
01:35:46,200 --> 01:35:49,600
out of the blue.
They see the anger as it arises.
1630
01:35:50,000 --> 01:35:52,400
They feel the anger as it arises
when they're just a little bit
1631
01:35:52,400 --> 01:35:55,000
angry, when they're still
capable of doing something about
1632
01:35:55,000 --> 01:35:57,440
it.
But if they don't, if they
1633
01:35:57,440 --> 01:36:02,600
can't, can't apprehend that,
then by the time their anger
1634
01:36:02,680 --> 01:36:04,480
really shows up, that's too late
for them.
1635
01:36:05,680 --> 01:36:11,640
Do do you see AI or machine
learning helping us analyze DES
1636
01:36:11,680 --> 01:36:15,520
data or even simulate in
experiences?
1637
01:36:18,200 --> 01:36:22,280
I don't know the answer to that.
I am and right now actively
1638
01:36:22,280 --> 01:36:26,840
involved in an AI simulated
learning project that is trying
1639
01:36:26,840 --> 01:36:29,840
to answer that question for DES.
That's basically can we use the,
1640
01:36:29,840 --> 01:36:34,600
the can we use AI to make a, a
computer version of Hurlburt
1641
01:36:34,680 --> 01:36:39,360
and, and we're trying to figure
out the answer to that, for
1642
01:36:39,360 --> 01:36:40,840
better or for worse.
I don't, I don't know whether
1643
01:36:40,840 --> 01:36:43,880
that was a it's a good thing to
be doing that or a bad thing to
1644
01:36:43,880 --> 01:36:45,800
be doing that.
It's, it seems like an
1645
01:36:45,800 --> 01:36:49,040
inevitable thing to be doing.
So I'm doing it and.
1646
01:36:49,280 --> 01:36:53,760
How does one work?
But one finds people who know
1647
01:36:53,760 --> 01:36:57,360
how to do it and then gives them
all, all of your stuff and then
1648
01:36:57,360 --> 01:36:59,360
and then they, they, they report
back.
1649
01:36:59,840 --> 01:37:01,520
And so that's basically where we
are.
1650
01:37:01,880 --> 01:37:05,360
There is a group of people who
have I've given them.
1651
01:37:05,840 --> 01:37:07,560
So I've, I've got out on the
web.
1652
01:37:08,360 --> 01:37:10,640
Your, your readers probably
ought to know about this or your
1653
01:37:10,640 --> 01:37:12,040
listeners probably.
I don't know about this, but I
1654
01:37:12,040 --> 01:37:16,880
have on the web a whole series.
I think there's eleven of them
1655
01:37:16,880 --> 01:37:22,120
out now that are in DES
investigations from beginning to
1656
01:37:22,120 --> 01:37:25,840
end, from the first time I met
the guy to all the all the
1657
01:37:25,840 --> 01:37:27,920
interviews that I've had to what
I've written about him.
1658
01:37:28,040 --> 01:37:31,720
All that stuff is, is the videos
are out on YouTube.
1659
01:37:31,720 --> 01:37:35,480
And so I have a YouTube channel
basically that that puts all
1660
01:37:35,480 --> 01:37:38,840
these things out there,
including transcripts and
1661
01:37:38,840 --> 01:37:40,880
commentary that I've written
about the transcripts that I
1662
01:37:40,880 --> 01:37:42,960
think people like you would be
might be interested in reading
1663
01:37:42,960 --> 01:37:44,800
about.
All that stuff is there.
1664
01:37:47,440 --> 01:37:50,320
And so in answer to your AI
question, I said, well, I've,
1665
01:37:50,440 --> 01:37:53,400
I've given all this stuff to the
AI people, people who know
1666
01:37:53,400 --> 01:37:56,000
something about AI and and they
say, you know, you want to know
1667
01:37:56,000 --> 01:37:57,120
something about what Herbert
does.
1668
01:37:57,120 --> 01:37:59,120
Well, this is what Herbert does.
You got 100 hours of it.
1669
01:37:59,880 --> 01:38:02,920
This is, you know, figured out
and get back to me.
1670
01:38:03,520 --> 01:38:05,840
Yeah, I think, I think that's
such a that's such a great way
1671
01:38:06,480 --> 01:38:12,920
to get to get stuff done because
that amount of content is so
1672
01:38:12,920 --> 01:38:14,840
useful for any sort of
algorithm.
1673
01:38:14,840 --> 01:38:20,760
They can put this together into
a much more solid summary or
1674
01:38:20,760 --> 01:38:23,680
synopsis.
Because with all that, by the
1675
01:38:23,680 --> 01:38:26,840
way, I'll put a link to that,
Russ, to your channel and to all
1676
01:38:26,840 --> 01:38:29,760
this all to, to all these
investigations and your papers.
1677
01:38:30,120 --> 01:38:35,080
But if you could design the next
generation of studies in this
1678
01:38:35,080 --> 01:38:40,560
area, what questions about inner
experience are you personally
1679
01:38:40,560 --> 01:38:44,640
most eager to answer?
My guess is that the answer to
1680
01:38:44,640 --> 01:38:46,720
that question is that it's the
wrong question.
1681
01:38:49,520 --> 01:38:53,000
And I don't, I, I don't presume
to have a crystal ball that's
1682
01:38:53,000 --> 01:38:56,160
that's any good.
And I, I have personal examples
1683
01:38:56,160 --> 01:38:58,880
of where my old crystal balls
are terribly, terribly bad.
1684
01:38:58,880 --> 01:39:01,240
So I shouldn't take this
anything more than Russ's
1685
01:39:02,760 --> 01:39:05,600
meanderings on whatever today
is.
1686
01:39:05,600 --> 01:39:16,120
And but I, I think, I think
science has to get over the, the
1687
01:39:16,120 --> 01:39:19,520
asking the answering questions
model.
1688
01:39:20,360 --> 01:39:21,560
I don't think that's the right
model.
1689
01:39:22,680 --> 01:39:25,080
I, I, I think there's
limitations of that.
1690
01:39:27,720 --> 01:39:32,720
I think exploring phenomena is
probably more useful than
1691
01:39:32,720 --> 01:39:41,720
answering questions.
That is, that is a fundamentally
1692
01:39:41,720 --> 01:39:43,920
different way of almost science.
Every everybody thinks of
1693
01:39:43,920 --> 01:39:46,800
science as you ask a question
and then try to answer the
1694
01:39:46,800 --> 01:39:49,880
question.
That is what I for for myself, I
1695
01:39:49,880 --> 01:39:54,160
call validity based thing.
You have a theory and you try to
1696
01:39:54,160 --> 01:39:58,960
validate the theory or whatever.
And I think validity based
1697
01:39:58,960 --> 01:40:02,800
science is doomed.
I don't know whether I'm right
1698
01:40:02,800 --> 01:40:06,360
about that, but that's what I
think and I think.
1699
01:40:06,960 --> 01:40:11,440
The alternative that is what I
call fidelity based science,
1700
01:40:11,440 --> 01:40:16,520
where we're trying to find out
about phenomena as they are.
1701
01:40:19,480 --> 01:40:22,800
And it could very well be that
if if you had a mature fidelity
1702
01:40:22,800 --> 01:40:26,440
based science, then validity
based science would be a really
1703
01:40:26,440 --> 01:40:29,840
good thing to do.
But as it is, I think validity
1704
01:40:29,840 --> 01:40:36,600
based science is out over its
skis and it's, it needs the, the
1705
01:40:36,600 --> 01:40:41,240
corrective it needs is to
recognize that it's possibly,
1706
01:40:41,240 --> 01:40:44,680
quite possibly substantially
misguided.
1707
01:40:45,040 --> 01:40:51,600
And so we, we just need to, we
need to roll back the of the
1708
01:40:51,600 --> 01:40:57,320
interest in answering particular
questions and to try to just
1709
01:40:57,320 --> 01:41:01,320
describe phenomena and discover
phenomena the way they are.
1710
01:41:02,040 --> 01:41:04,320
The problem is, the problem is
the, the questions are always
1711
01:41:04,320 --> 01:41:05,960
backwards looking.
You know, you got a question,
1712
01:41:05,960 --> 01:41:08,120
you're trying to validate
something you that's a rear view
1713
01:41:08,120 --> 01:41:12,280
mirror question.
Validating questions is always
1714
01:41:12,280 --> 01:41:16,520
looking in the rear view mirror.
And until you got a really good
1715
01:41:16,520 --> 01:41:18,440
view of what's back there, until
you really know what's back
1716
01:41:18,440 --> 01:41:21,280
there, then probably a good idea
to look out the windshield.
1717
01:41:24,840 --> 01:41:30,000
Russ, when after all you years
of research, what do you think
1718
01:41:30,640 --> 01:41:34,440
is the most common misconception
people have about their own
1719
01:41:34,440 --> 01:41:37,720
experience?
That they know what it is.
1720
01:41:41,360 --> 01:41:45,360
Could you elaborate on that even
though you already have, but
1721
01:41:46,000 --> 01:41:49,280
just to round this up for people
just so they get a clear picture
1722
01:41:49,280 --> 01:41:50,720
of exactly what your work has
done.
1723
01:41:52,680 --> 01:41:56,640
The, the Maybe this is my first
answer was a little glib or
1724
01:41:56,640 --> 01:42:03,320
whatever, but the I think people
have presuppositions about their
1725
01:42:03,320 --> 01:42:06,360
own inner experience.
And when you ask them about
1726
01:42:06,360 --> 01:42:08,840
their inner inner experience,
they tell you what they
1727
01:42:08,840 --> 01:42:11,160
presuppositionally know about
their inner experience.
1728
01:42:12,640 --> 01:42:15,520
And I think people's
presuppositions are delusions.
1729
01:42:18,240 --> 01:42:21,120
And so they tell you about the
results of their delusions.
1730
01:42:21,680 --> 01:42:24,000
And like all delusions, they
believe they're telling you
1731
01:42:24,000 --> 01:42:27,920
about the truth.
But it's not the case.
1732
01:42:32,640 --> 01:42:34,400
Do you think there's a way?
That, that is, that's the,
1733
01:42:34,400 --> 01:42:37,440
that's the fundamental thing.
The, the, the fundamental deal
1734
01:42:37,440 --> 01:42:39,680
is if, if, if everybody
recognized that they were, they
1735
01:42:39,680 --> 01:42:43,360
were really delusional,
sometimes big delusions,
1736
01:42:43,360 --> 01:42:46,360
sometimes little illusion.
But, but the fundamental part of
1737
01:42:46,360 --> 01:42:48,760
the human condition is, is
basically delusional.
1738
01:42:50,520 --> 01:42:51,680
The world would be a different
place.
1739
01:42:53,240 --> 01:42:55,800
Republicans wouldn't be arguing
with the Democrats.
1740
01:42:55,800 --> 01:42:59,880
And if they all recognize that
they were really, both of them
1741
01:42:59,920 --> 01:43:06,760
fucked up and delusional, and as
at the core, they pretend that
1742
01:43:06,760 --> 01:43:09,440
they know what they're talking
about and they're the good guy
1743
01:43:09,440 --> 01:43:11,600
and that they know the right
thing and everybody else does
1744
01:43:11,600 --> 01:43:15,320
the wrong thing, when it's
probably true that they're both
1745
01:43:16,120 --> 01:43:20,720
delusional.
Russ, it's such a pleasure and
1746
01:43:20,720 --> 01:43:24,080
honor for me to chat to you.
Such a big fan of your work,
1747
01:43:24,480 --> 01:43:28,240
been following it for many years
and hope you continue to succeed
1748
01:43:28,240 --> 01:43:30,640
and produce such quality work
and research.
1749
01:43:31,320 --> 01:43:33,440
Is there anything about your
work that you feel I haven't
1750
01:43:33,440 --> 01:43:37,600
touched on or that you would
like to reiterate to make sure
1751
01:43:37,600 --> 01:43:42,360
people really take home?
Yes, I would say one more thing
1752
01:43:42,360 --> 01:43:46,600
about it, and that is that it's,
it's genuinely interesting.
1753
01:43:46,640 --> 01:43:49,600
I've been doing the same work
for 50 years and it's at least
1754
01:43:49,600 --> 01:43:51,560
as interesting to me now as it
was 50 years ago.
1755
01:43:52,680 --> 01:43:57,920
Everybody is different.
Getting people to be able to
1756
01:43:57,920 --> 01:44:00,960
tell you about their own inner
experience because you have to,
1757
01:44:01,240 --> 01:44:03,560
you have to wade through their
own presuppositions and
1758
01:44:03,960 --> 01:44:10,640
distortions and, and whatever.
It's totally challenging and
1759
01:44:10,640 --> 01:44:15,560
it's, it's a totally interesting
and challenging thing for me
1760
01:44:15,560 --> 01:44:22,280
personally to do.
It's and it's not a, it's not
1761
01:44:22,280 --> 01:44:25,120
going to work for me.
It's it's the privilege of
1762
01:44:25,760 --> 01:44:30,120
trying to have somebody tell me
about what's actually their
1763
01:44:31,000 --> 01:44:34,880
fundamental private experience,
which is pretty cool.
1764
01:44:35,880 --> 01:44:37,360
I mean, that's, that's beautiful
for us.
1765
01:44:37,360 --> 01:44:40,760
The, the fact that you still
enjoy it after all these years
1766
01:44:40,760 --> 01:44:42,280
and still so passionate about
it.
1767
01:44:42,280 --> 01:44:43,840
You can see it by the way you
talk about it.
1768
01:44:43,840 --> 01:44:47,720
And if, if anyone wants to reach
out, I'll put links to your
1769
01:44:47,720 --> 01:44:51,040
website, put links to all the
work you've done from my side.
1770
01:44:51,040 --> 01:44:52,800
Thank you so much for all the
incredible work.
1771
01:44:53,400 --> 01:44:55,720
I appreciate it very much.
Well, you're welcome.
1772
01:44:56,480 --> 01:44:59,520
And and I would say just in one,
one last thing is that the
1773
01:44:59,520 --> 01:45:04,320
website that I put out there
that is my version of, of, of,
1774
01:45:04,760 --> 01:45:09,960
of phenomenon oriented.
I'm, I'm not trying to answer
1775
01:45:09,960 --> 01:45:12,560
any questions in that.
I'm trying to tell you this is
1776
01:45:12,560 --> 01:45:16,200
what Ryan's inner experience was
and this is what Lena's
1777
01:45:16,200 --> 01:45:17,520
experience was.
And this is what Mel's
1778
01:45:17,520 --> 01:45:20,400
experience was.
And this is what Kerry's inner
1779
01:45:20,400 --> 01:45:22,280
experience was.
And this is how I got there.
1780
01:45:22,280 --> 01:45:26,920
And this is the, you know, most
of the time I've had I've had Co
1781
01:45:27,240 --> 01:45:30,080
investigators with me and this
is what I thought about the Co
1782
01:45:30,080 --> 01:45:32,200
investigators questions and this
is what they thought about my
1783
01:45:32,200 --> 01:45:35,280
questions.
And this is the it's the nuts
1784
01:45:35,280 --> 01:45:40,800
and bolts of it.
Russ, before before we close,
1785
01:45:41,160 --> 01:45:46,040
something else I thought about
when we before we chat was I
1786
01:45:46,040 --> 01:45:48,480
remember your book with Eric
Schweitzkebel, the two of you,
1787
01:45:48,480 --> 01:45:49,720
because I've had Eric on the
show.
1788
01:45:50,560 --> 01:45:54,480
I know you guys did that sort of
a back and forth discussion when
1789
01:45:54,480 --> 01:45:57,200
people look at your work, read
through it, discuss a dissect
1790
01:45:57,200 --> 01:45:58,640
it.
When viewers listen to this or
1791
01:45:58,640 --> 01:46:02,240
watch this, what do you think of
the questions they will ask you
1792
01:46:02,240 --> 01:46:09,680
or or sort of debate with you
and retaliate in terms of things
1793
01:46:09,680 --> 01:46:12,520
that you most commonly encounter
when discussing these views?
1794
01:46:12,920 --> 01:46:17,360
So if you're to almost pre
emptively defend yourself, what
1795
01:46:17,360 --> 01:46:20,960
did you say?
Well, I, I would say I, I did a
1796
01:46:20,960 --> 01:46:23,360
pretty good job of answering
that question in this interview.
1797
01:46:23,360 --> 01:46:25,920
So the questions that you asked
are the pretty much the same
1798
01:46:25,920 --> 01:46:28,920
kind of questions that I get.
And I answered them the way that
1799
01:46:28,920 --> 01:46:34,720
I would generally ask them.
And my, and, and So what I
1800
01:46:34,720 --> 01:46:38,240
would, what I, the, the general
thing is, I agree with all the,
1801
01:46:38,440 --> 01:46:41,920
all the criticisms, everybody's
criticism from Eric Signup, all
1802
01:46:41,920 --> 01:46:43,720
those, all those criticisms are
valid.
1803
01:46:44,640 --> 01:46:49,280
I have done my, I can, I can
sleep easily at night saying
1804
01:46:49,280 --> 01:46:53,600
I've done the best that, that I
can do to, to live in a world
1805
01:46:53,600 --> 01:46:56,120
where those, where I take those
criticisms seriously.
1806
01:46:56,880 --> 01:47:00,960
That doesn't mean that I am good
at it even, or that I'm right
1807
01:47:00,960 --> 01:47:05,040
about it or anything.
And I'm, I'm pretty comfortable
1808
01:47:05,040 --> 01:47:08,680
with that.
But I've, but I have taken them,
1809
01:47:09,880 --> 01:47:12,720
I've taken them seriously.
And I would say if you're going
1810
01:47:12,720 --> 01:47:17,120
to mention Schvitz Cable's book,
I've got that.
1811
01:47:17,200 --> 01:47:21,200
That book, I think is sort of a
model of good communication,
1812
01:47:22,800 --> 01:47:28,160
that of, of people taking each
other, taking each other
1813
01:47:28,160 --> 01:47:31,480
seriously and not trying to talk
past each other, which I think
1814
01:47:31,480 --> 01:47:34,600
is sort of the fundamentaliest,
interestingest thing to do.
1815
01:47:34,600 --> 01:47:42,520
That that I think that's just
that's a that's that's a good
1816
01:47:42,520 --> 01:47:45,320
book from from the from the
standpoint of modeling that I
1817
01:47:45,320 --> 01:47:47,920
think Eric and I I did a good
book.
1818
01:47:48,520 --> 01:47:51,040
Yeah, I think that's that's
something that's very incredible
1819
01:47:51,040 --> 01:47:53,520
to watch is 2 people actually
discuss something very
1820
01:47:54,440 --> 01:47:59,240
engagingly intellectually and
with so much respect, Russ, if
1821
01:47:59,240 --> 01:48:03,360
there's any, if there's a
postdoc student, professor,
1822
01:48:03,360 --> 01:48:07,240
anyone, a scholar watching this,
trying to enter this field,
1823
01:48:07,240 --> 01:48:11,640
assist with DS, propagate it,
move it forward, What advice
1824
01:48:11,640 --> 01:48:14,120
would you give them?
Is there any sort of direction
1825
01:48:14,120 --> 01:48:15,520
you'd like this to go in the
future?
1826
01:48:17,920 --> 01:48:19,720
I don't, I don't know that I got
a good answer to that.
1827
01:48:19,720 --> 01:48:24,160
What I what I would say is my
book with Eric, I think is is
1828
01:48:24,960 --> 01:48:30,120
something about engagement.
My book with Marco Caracciolo
1829
01:48:31,360 --> 01:48:35,320
is, is an extension of that, but
in in some ways better than the
1830
01:48:35,880 --> 01:48:38,400
Eric book.
The book, the book with Eric
1831
01:48:38,400 --> 01:48:43,040
basically is we had, we had
conversations back and forth and
1832
01:48:43,040 --> 01:48:46,360
then as as a result of the
conversations, we, we refined
1833
01:48:46,360 --> 01:48:48,120
for each other what it was we're
we're trying to do.
1834
01:48:48,120 --> 01:48:51,080
And then eventually put those,
put those out there about, about
1835
01:48:51,080 --> 01:48:54,720
each one.
That was the book with Eric,
1836
01:48:54,720 --> 01:48:57,560
which I thought was a, a good, a
good book.
1837
01:48:57,640 --> 01:49:00,480
The book with Marco is basically
it's the whole conversation.
1838
01:49:00,480 --> 01:49:02,160
So there's no distillation
involved.
1839
01:49:02,160 --> 01:49:05,720
It's the whole, it's the whole
deal out there that so you can,
1840
01:49:05,720 --> 01:49:09,160
you can, it's basically he wrote
me an e-mail some he's a guy
1841
01:49:09,160 --> 01:49:10,640
that I'd never met.
He wrote me an e-mail, I
1842
01:49:10,640 --> 01:49:13,480
responded, he wrote me back
another e-mail and I responded
1843
01:49:13,480 --> 01:49:15,800
and then we went back and forth.
And so it's basically a
1844
01:49:15,800 --> 01:49:20,320
collection of, of emails between
him and me about, about these,
1845
01:49:20,520 --> 01:49:24,800
these topics with no, no
filtering hard hardly at all.
1846
01:49:24,800 --> 01:49:27,360
So it's sort of like an
epistolary novel, except it's in
1847
01:49:27,520 --> 01:49:29,160
a real life, the right life
review.
1848
01:49:30,000 --> 01:49:34,960
And then the, the interviews
that I've put out are sort of
1849
01:49:34,960 --> 01:49:37,480
the next step in, in that the,
the, the interviews are just
1850
01:49:37,480 --> 01:49:42,040
the, the basic thing, the whole
deal.
1851
01:49:43,280 --> 01:49:46,120
So the, so the Eric, the, the
Eric is sort of the homogenized
1852
01:49:46,120 --> 01:49:48,240
whole deal.
And the, and the Marco thing is
1853
01:49:48,240 --> 01:49:52,480
the, is the whole old deal from
one perspective.
1854
01:49:52,480 --> 01:49:56,200
And, and then the, the, the
interviews are the whole deal
1855
01:49:57,160 --> 01:50:00,880
really from the very, from, from
everything with the video and
1856
01:50:00,880 --> 01:50:03,320
the word for word and all the
whole deal.
1857
01:50:03,320 --> 01:50:05,680
So if you really want to know
what I think about things,
1858
01:50:06,560 --> 01:50:08,360
that's, that's the transition of
it.
1859
01:50:09,720 --> 01:50:14,120
Well, and I, and, and I think
rightly or wrongly, I think we
1860
01:50:14,120 --> 01:50:19,600
need to do more of the kinds of
science that is in the, the kind
1861
01:50:19,600 --> 01:50:23,360
of interviews where we're just
trying to discover phenomena,
1862
01:50:23,360 --> 01:50:27,920
trying to discover the, the
difficulties and limitations and
1863
01:50:27,920 --> 01:50:32,960
blind spots and whatever you
know, there, there are.
1864
01:50:33,200 --> 01:50:35,960
So for your, for your Philip,
for your philosophical friends,
1865
01:50:36,200 --> 01:50:39,120
the people who might be watching
this in the, in those
1866
01:50:39,120 --> 01:50:44,120
interviews, there are
philosophical questions raised,
1867
01:50:48,360 --> 01:50:59,200
particularly in the last in the,
in the, in the, yeah, I take it
1868
01:50:59,200 --> 01:51:00,080
back.
I think they're all the way
1869
01:51:00,080 --> 01:51:01,880
through.
But there are, there are, there
1870
01:51:01,880 --> 01:51:06,720
are philosophical debates in, I
don't know, I'd have to look and
1871
01:51:06,720 --> 01:51:09,360
see what my chapters are here.
I don't actually remember what,
1872
01:51:12,880 --> 01:51:15,280
but let me your readers might
want to know.
1873
01:51:15,280 --> 01:51:16,680
Or you can filter this out or
whatever.
1874
01:51:16,680 --> 01:51:19,480
Yeah, I think, I think they'll
be excited to hear this.
1875
01:51:19,640 --> 01:51:23,040
So I think they'll want to know
exactly which aspects they'd
1876
01:51:23,040 --> 01:51:25,560
found most intriguing.
This is very much a
1877
01:51:25,600 --> 01:51:29,440
philosophical scientific
podcast, so the audience are
1878
01:51:29,440 --> 01:51:30,920
probably waiting for something
like this.
1879
01:51:34,320 --> 01:51:37,720
So let me so I'll give you a
little bit of a guided thing.
1880
01:51:38,080 --> 01:51:44,320
Part 8X VI I8 Gabriel.
Gabriel was a college senior
1881
01:51:44,320 --> 01:51:47,720
interested in philosophy and so
there are discussions of
1882
01:51:47,760 --> 01:51:54,760
philosophical issues that go
along with his his interest in
1883
01:51:54,760 --> 01:51:56,840
philosophical questions that are
but that, but that.
1884
01:51:57,560 --> 01:52:00,440
But the the advantage of that is
that they're asked in the
1885
01:52:00,440 --> 01:52:05,000
context of a particular sample.
This is we this is a sample and
1886
01:52:05,000 --> 01:52:07,360
you know, what is this?
What how should I take this?
1887
01:52:07,360 --> 01:52:10,720
How should I understand that or
whatever That's part eight, part
1888
01:52:10,920 --> 01:52:18,160
X, part 10.
IA guy came to me and said, I
1889
01:52:18,200 --> 01:52:22,120
think I know how to do DES, but
then you can and better than you
1890
01:52:22,120 --> 01:52:24,360
do.
And and so let me teach you some
1891
01:52:24,360 --> 01:52:26,040
stuff about that.
And I said, OK.
1892
01:52:26,040 --> 01:52:33,800
And so we we enlisted a woman,
Mel Mel May and we and we
1893
01:52:33,800 --> 01:52:37,040
interviewed, we Co inter Co
interviewed her.
1894
01:52:38,200 --> 01:52:43,280
And in the context of that,
there are decided backs and
1895
01:52:43,280 --> 01:52:47,280
forth between the, the person
whose name is Julian Bass
1896
01:52:47,280 --> 01:52:49,920
Krueger.
Julian and I debated each other
1897
01:52:49,920 --> 01:52:53,120
about what you really could and
couldn't do and ask about inner
1898
01:52:53,120 --> 01:52:57,440
experience and whatever.
So those, those debates are raw
1899
01:52:57,440 --> 01:53:03,920
and, and opinionated.
And I guess you could, I guess
1900
01:53:03,920 --> 01:53:08,560
you could say but there but but,
but all based on what we could
1901
01:53:08,560 --> 01:53:12,320
say about about Mel's
experience.
1902
01:53:13,560 --> 01:53:25,000
So they're they're the, you
know, the the 11 notch more or
1903
01:53:25,440 --> 01:53:29,840
rawer, I guess so.
So the markup book is a little
1904
01:53:29,840 --> 01:53:32,320
bit raw.
The Caricello book is pretty raw
1905
01:53:32,320 --> 01:53:35,680
and the Mel Melodeel is very
raw.
1906
01:53:36,720 --> 01:53:40,400
And, and then and then the the
next one I think they might find
1907
01:53:40,400 --> 01:53:43,680
interesting if they got that far
is part 11, which is Carrie.
1908
01:53:44,200 --> 01:53:46,160
And Carrie turns out to be Mel's
friend.
1909
01:53:46,160 --> 01:53:49,440
And the the back story there is
Mel turns out to have almost no
1910
01:53:49,440 --> 01:53:53,000
inner experience by by chance
note, nobody knew this going and
1911
01:53:53,000 --> 01:53:55,360
going in, but she ended up
having relatively little inner
1912
01:53:55,360 --> 01:53:57,520
experience and thought that's
the way everybody else was
1913
01:53:57,520 --> 01:53:59,760
because everybody thinks that
everybody else is just like
1914
01:53:59,760 --> 01:54:02,760
them.
But in the course of the
1915
01:54:02,760 --> 01:54:05,400
interviewing, she became
convinced that maybe she's not
1916
01:54:05,640 --> 01:54:08,360
that similar because I would
say, you know, well this isn't
1917
01:54:08,360 --> 01:54:10,440
what I usually see, but let's
see.
1918
01:54:10,800 --> 01:54:14,360
So she recruited a friend of
hers to be a subject.
1919
01:54:15,400 --> 01:54:20,320
And, and then the three of us,
which would be Julian and me and
1920
01:54:20,320 --> 01:54:24,000
Mel were Co interviews with
Carrie.
1921
01:54:24,440 --> 01:54:27,240
And Carrie, it turns out, was
quite a bit different from Mel,
1922
01:54:27,240 --> 01:54:29,200
which isn't too surprising
because everybody's different
1923
01:54:29,200 --> 01:54:31,800
from everybody and Mel is pretty
unusual in the 1st place.
1924
01:54:31,800 --> 01:54:34,920
So Mel and Kerry are very, very
different.
1925
01:54:34,920 --> 01:54:38,360
But then, but then you get a
chance to see how that plays
1926
01:54:38,360 --> 01:54:42,240
out.
And Russ, is that malleable?
1927
01:54:42,440 --> 01:54:47,160
Do you, do you find that once
the realization is there that
1928
01:54:47,880 --> 01:54:50,920
let's say Mel doesn't have this
experience, is this something
1929
01:54:50,920 --> 01:54:55,320
that is trainable or is that
permanent?
1930
01:54:56,360 --> 01:55:00,280
Inner experience can change and,
and can change dramatically and,
1931
01:55:00,320 --> 01:55:03,720
and I would say miraculously,
I've, I've seen a few miracles
1932
01:55:03,720 --> 01:55:06,240
along the way.
One of which I've told in a the
1933
01:55:06,240 --> 01:55:10,240
story of Fran, I've told fairly
frequently is a inner experience
1934
01:55:10,240 --> 01:55:13,600
that I think changes
dramatically over the course of,
1935
01:55:14,640 --> 01:55:22,280
of, of her sampling with me.
And I, I don't have time, we
1936
01:55:22,280 --> 01:55:25,000
don't have time to tell that
story again, but I've told it
1937
01:55:25,000 --> 01:55:27,000
recently on a podcast.
I can give you the link to that
1938
01:55:27,000 --> 01:55:30,200
podcast.
It's also in my several of my,
1939
01:55:30,680 --> 01:55:33,960
my books.
My, I think my second book, my
1940
01:55:33,960 --> 01:55:37,720
1993 book, tells the story of
Fran and I've told it in in
1941
01:55:37,720 --> 01:55:41,360
journal articles.
Ross, Ross, it's it's such a
1942
01:55:41,360 --> 01:55:44,040
pleasure.
Thank you so much for joining
1943
01:55:44,040 --> 01:55:45,720
me.
Any final words, anything from
1944
01:55:45,720 --> 01:55:47,440
your side that you feel you
haven't touched on?
1945
01:55:47,920 --> 01:55:51,080
You good?
I think I'm good, I've enjoyed
1946
01:55:51,080 --> 01:55:53,080
the conversation, I've thought
the questions were good, and
1947
01:55:53,800 --> 01:55:54,200
good luck.