The Art of Manliness - Why We Like Puzzles, and What We Get From Them

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:11.020 puzzles may seem like fairly pedestrian pastimes fun ways to while away a rainy afternoon while

00:00:16.220 they certainly do make for satisfying diversions my guest would say they're also more than that

00:00:20.540 he teaches plenty about life as well his name is aj jacobs and he's the author of the puzzler

00:00:25.300 one man's quest to solve the most baffling puzzles ever from crosswords to jigsaws to the meaning of

00:00:30.340 life today in the show aj explains what makes a puzzle a puzzle and why we're drawn to them and

00:00:34.200 enjoy them so much we then discuss the charm of certain puzzles from crosswords and rupus cubes

00:00:38.060 to jigsaws and mazes along the way we discuss some of the strategies behind solving these puzzles and

00:00:42.440 how these strategies can help you become an all-around better thinker and decision maker

00:00:45.440 and better navigating the puzzling dilemmas of life itself after the show's over check out our show

00:00:50.040 notes at awim.is slash puzzles aj jacobs welcome back to the show i am delighted to be back it's

00:01:07.680 been since episode 53 man yeah you're one of the one of the first ones you're on the first now honored

00:01:13.100 to be yeah yeah now we're look at you now yeah now we're in the 800s and you got a new book out called

00:01:18.700 the puzzler one man's quest to solve the most baffling puzzles ever from crosswords to jigsaws

00:01:24.740 to the meaning of life and again this book is you take this sort of george plimpton-esque adventure

00:01:30.520 sort of immersion journalism and this time you explore puzzles what what led you down on that path

00:01:36.680 well i've always loved puzzles since i was a kid i i used to do crosswords i would make these pencil

00:01:43.940 mazes and that took up my whole living room floor and i think it informed my worldview i think i saw

00:01:51.520 all of life as a puzzle so some of my previous books i actually can sort of reframe as puzzles i wrote

00:01:59.220 a book on the year of living biblically and that was about the puzzle of religion and what do i teach

00:02:05.180 my kids so i'd always loved them and i i like to have a nice strong starting story for my books and

00:02:14.140 a few years ago i had this crazy experience that provided me one which was that i was the answer

00:02:21.580 to one down in the new york times crossword puzzle it was author aj blank and i was the answer aj jacobs

00:02:30.540 and i thought as a word nerd this is the greatest moment of my life you know this is the holy grail

00:02:36.500 my wedding was pretty good but this this is great and then my brother-in-law emailed me

00:02:43.380 and he did congratulate me he did say you know congrats but he also pointed out i was in the

00:02:49.920 saturday new york times puzzle and as you may know that is the hardest puzzle of the week harder than

00:02:57.360 sunday all the answers are totally obscure so his point was this is not a compliment this is

00:03:04.340 actually proof that no one knows who you are this is proof in black and white of your obscurity

00:03:09.680 so then i was you know kind of bumming out uh the roller coaster it hit the nadir and then i went on a

00:03:19.300 podcast and i told that story and it happened that one of the new york times crossword makers was

00:03:26.160 listening and he decided to save me and put me in a tuesday puzzle which is one of the easier ones

00:03:32.740 it's not monday but tuesday is where lady gaga and joe biden that's where they appear so he saved me

00:03:40.720 from my obscurity and i'll forever be grateful and i thought well this is fun and it had gotten me back

00:03:48.420 into doing crosswords on a regular basis i had become addicted and i thought well why do i love these so

00:03:55.440 much why do millions of people spend millions of hours on puzzles of all kinds so i thought let me

00:04:01.660 do a deep dive and just spend two years hanging out with the best puzzle makers and puzzle solvers and

00:04:09.940 going around the world when i could and that's what i did and that's the uh the book is the result of

00:04:16.460 that okay we'll start off with a very basic question like what makes a puzzle a puzzle have

00:04:21.880 are there philosophers you know knocking this question around i think so i mean it's not as

00:04:27.860 popular as the meaning of life but it is it all depends on your definition and i have a very big

00:04:33.380 tent for my definition of puzzles so in the book i talk about 20 different kinds of puzzles everything

00:04:39.040 from visual puzzles like where's waldo to crosswords to japanese puzzle boxes but what i think what unites

00:04:46.500 them all is that they all are a problem that requires a solution that involves ingenuity you've

00:04:57.700 got to have an unusual idea to solve them i guess the cliche is out of the box you've got to think

00:05:05.520 outside the box and that cliche comes from a puzzle so i feel okay using it it was originally meant there's a

00:05:12.980 puzzle with nine dots in a square and you have to draw four lines to connect all the dots the only

00:05:18.540 way to do it is to go outside the box with your lines so that to me is what puzzles the definition

00:05:25.920 and also the attraction because i think i personally love to think of creative ideas and i think that's what

00:05:35.160 has propelled humans that's how we got the wheel and fire that is the type of thinking that has brought

00:05:41.360 us humanity's greatest advances well i like a japanese puzzle maker gave this really succinct

00:05:47.040 definition of a puzzle and i really liked it and uses just symbols it's question mark arrow exclamation

00:05:53.180 point yeah i love that and it means the question mark is when you arrive and you're baffled and what's

00:05:59.540 going on the arrow is the struggle the like trying things out trying to figure to solve the problem

00:06:06.460 and the exclamation point is that aha moment that oh my god that's great that is and what's

00:06:13.360 interesting two things first of all i think that's a good not just for puzzles i think it's a good

00:06:18.980 summary of so much of stories stories provide require conflict and resolution life perhaps

00:06:26.920 but i also love this guy his name was makikaji he's the godfather of sudoku he popularized sudoku

00:06:35.020 and he said the key to puzzles and the key to life is you have to enjoy that arrow you can't be all

00:06:42.760 about the exclamation point you have to enjoy the solving process and the journey and i love that and

00:06:49.040 i try to remember that when i am in the middle of the most frustrating puzzle and i want to throw it

00:06:54.420 across the room i try to remind myself this is the arrow just enjoy the arrow it's all part of the

00:07:00.860 journey well yeah so that arrow part puzzles can be really frustrating at times and yet people spend

00:07:07.800 hours on them there's something enjoyable about the frustration what is it about puzzles like why do

00:07:13.100 we like why do we even do puzzles anyways well i think it's the same reason we do marathons and climb

00:07:21.660 mountains and you i don't know if you've had paul bloom on your podcast but he's a great psychologist

00:07:29.060 and he talks a lot about why do we enjoy painful things and there are a couple of reasons one is

00:07:37.000 the cultural we have the puritan work ethic we are sort of accustomed to associating hard work with good

00:07:45.080 things but the second is that it's wired into us as humans we are wired to want to work hard to achieve

00:07:54.120 our goals and you know there's the cliche no pain no gain i actually don't think that's technically true

00:08:00.540 you can't have gain without pain but a lot of times the pain does yield something good so i prefer you know

00:08:10.520 different people like different kinds of pain so i am not uh someone who's going to climb everest but i

00:08:16.820 am happy to tackle the hardest puzzles in the world i also too y'all you talk about this throughout the

00:08:22.660 book some of the people you talk about that puzzles like you know there's a solution to it and a lot of

00:08:28.300 life is just uncertain and you don't know what the right thing to do is for you know in a relationship

00:08:33.320 or should i take this job puzzles even though it might take you forever you know there's an answer

00:08:38.200 and there's something satisfying about that oh yeah especially now that's you know life is so

00:08:43.800 confusing and there are no easy answers this is the platonic ideal of a problem where there is always

00:08:49.620 an answer and i say to me there are many parallels between life and puzzles but uh but life is more

00:08:56.620 like a jigsaw puzzle where the pieces are always changing shape and maybe the picture is also changing

00:09:02.500 so it's it's more complicated but uh but puzzles are good training for it nonetheless

00:09:07.740 so do we know how long humans have been doing puzzles like what's the earliest known puzzle

00:09:11.920 again the it depends how you define puzzle i mean there is i talked to a scientist who studies slime

00:09:18.660 molds and they solve mazes it's great she's studying how they put food at the end of a maze and a slime

00:09:25.980 mold figures out how to get to the food so there's that type of puzzle the earliest puzzles that i know of

00:09:32.260 in terms of actual what we consider puzzles are probably riddles riddles have been around for

00:09:38.000 millennia and uh in every culture you can find them the earliest riddle i'll tell it to you it's not a

00:09:46.240 knee slapper it's not like the whole that you're not gonna love it but i guess it was funny back in

00:09:52.100 ancient babylon it's a babylonian riddle and it says what gets fat without eating and pregnant

00:09:59.260 without having sex and the answer is i won't even make you guess because it's i remember it it's

00:10:06.960 clouds oh you do yeah it's exactly it's a rain cloud nice work remembering so yeah that was the

00:10:13.000 first and that has continued riddles continue to be a puzzle form that's in every culture and also

00:10:18.940 there's the crossover of history and puzzles i talk in the book about a puzzle that helped save western

00:10:25.920 civilization which was it was in 1942 and there was a really hard puzzle in the london telegraph

00:10:34.080 newspaper and at the end it said if you have solved this crossword in less than 12 minutes

00:10:39.500 then contact this number and that number happened to be the code-breaking arm of the british spy agency

00:10:48.340 it was the bletchley park where they helped crack the nazi code and win the war so 0.81

00:10:55.000 puzzles can save the world that's my thesis that's that's great so let's talk about some

00:10:59.880 of these puzzles you highlight and you start off with crossword puzzles which is a good starting

00:11:03.100 point because this whole thing kick-started with you being a answer to a crossword puzzle clue

00:11:07.480 one thing i was surprised about crossword puzzles is it's a relative relatively new type of puzzle

00:11:12.760 when was the first crossword puzzle published the first one was in 1913 in the new york world

00:11:18.840 newspaper and what i love my favorite part about that history is the new york times looked down on

00:11:27.060 crosswords a lot of other newspapers started to print them and they became a big craze they were

00:11:33.200 there was a broadway show about them but in the 20s and 30s if you look at the new york times

00:11:39.640 they ran articles about how horrible crosswords were for society it was like they treated it like

00:11:47.580 crack cocaine they said it was a pestilence they said that people were murdering each other and

00:11:54.600 divorces were happening that there were prison riots over crosswords literally these are all headlines in

00:12:01.400 the times and then in 1942 world war ii came and they decided people needed a distraction and they

00:12:08.880 finally embraced it and now they're considered the top of the puzzle pyramid so what makes a good

00:12:16.200 makes for a good crossword puzzle like have they the crossword puzzle makers like do they have

00:12:20.700 they have this down to a science yet i wouldn't say it's a science it's still an art and a science

00:12:26.420 but there are definitely parts that make it better and to me there are two parts of the crossword

00:12:34.200 there's the trivia so what's the river in uganda and then there's the word play and that is what

00:12:42.440 true crossword puzzle lovers usually prefer the word play will shorts who's the editor of the new

00:12:49.740 york times crossword says his favorite clue ever it was something like it turns into another

00:12:56.140 story and the answer was spiral staircase so i i am a fan of word play as well so you do these

00:13:04.340 crossword puzzles you do the hard one and along the way you find these insights about problem solving

00:13:09.600 from crossword puzzles what were the big ones that stood out to you that were applicable to other parts

00:13:14.220 of your life well a whole bunch i mean one is some people do the crossword in pen i do it in pencil and

00:13:23.100 i am proud because i think the eraser is one of the greatest inventions we have or the delete key

00:13:29.260 i do it online sometimes so the key to made solving any problem is cognitive flexibility you cannot

00:13:36.960 you cannot fall in love with your hypothesis and say this is the way it's got to be whether in

00:13:42.220 crosswords or in life and i think that's a huge problem that afflicts us as a society we are so

00:13:48.620 sure that our answer is the right one we are unwilling to listen to evidence or to the other

00:13:54.620 side so eraser the way of the eraser that's a big one another one i have is and bill clinton actually

00:14:03.320 talked about this in the crossword puzzle documentary it's called wordplay and he talked

00:14:09.500 about sometimes you look at a really hard crossword and nothing will click for five minutes you'll just be

00:14:16.620 going through and nothing and then finally you get the get one answer you get a little toehold

00:14:22.300 and from that you can work out and get another and another and another so that is a way i solve a lot

00:14:31.580 of problems is i just find that one toehold that one way in and then you can expand out even writing the

00:14:39.260 book like or a chapter i'll find that one quote or vivid anecdote that i know will work and then i will

00:14:47.060 expand from there so that was another lesson and there are tons others but yeah i find crosswords and

00:14:54.440 puzzles are like they're like wise philosophy teachers they teach you how to think and live yeah

00:15:00.440 the find the toehold i mean i think people naturally do that with a crossword puzzle they just find the clue

00:15:04.980 they can answer right away because then it just from there you just gets the ball rolling i've done

00:15:08.940 that technique like you in writing right when i have to write something like the you try to write

00:15:13.680 the beginnings like this is not coming but i'll just write the part that just it's really easy and then

00:15:17.960 the beginning writes itself once you exactly get going oh yeah that's so huge and the other the other

00:15:23.640 thing i noticed with with crossword puzzles when i when i did them being patient like being able to put it

00:15:28.560 aside and then you know sort of marinating and letting it stew and then you come back to it and you look

00:15:34.720 at it again like oh yeah this is what that is it was so obvious and i've applied that to my life as

00:15:40.540 well so important i i mean first of all i love the word marinate because i think that's what your brain

00:15:47.700 is kind of doing marinating on the problem not consciously but somewhere back there and there is

00:15:52.860 there's lots of science on this that one of the best ways to solve problems is put it away

00:15:57.960 do something else for an hour a day a week and then you come back and you'll have a fresh perspective

00:16:04.640 and you'll have been working on it and what i love is this is not a new insight leonardo da vinci

00:16:10.780 wrote a guide to how to be a painter and one of his main suggestions is if you get to a tricky part

00:16:17.960 a problem in your painting and can't solve it walk away and then come back and you will be able to solve

00:16:24.360 it well another thing i did so i did crosswords puzzles a lot when i was in high school this one

00:16:30.200 summer i worked at the paint shop at the university of oklahoma's medical school and i was just with

00:16:35.820 these salty they were like 50 60 year old guys you know just really gritty but they loved doing the

00:16:42.940 crossword puzzle i'd get there in the morning and there'd be some guy there with the paper folded

00:16:47.860 doing the crossword and we work on it at lunch break and then our different breaks but like it was

00:16:52.780 a very communal activity like we did it together so you have these guys who were you know telling

00:16:57.320 dirty jokes um you know five minutes earlier and like trying to like figure out some wordplay

00:17:03.120 sophisticated wordplay well i love that you bring that up because there is a stereotype that puzzles

00:17:10.120 are a solo activity and like you just sit in the corner with your crosswords but almost everyone in

00:17:16.340 the in the puzzle community i ran into it's the complete opposite it's such a communal activity and

00:17:22.440 you're talking with your friends and comparing and saying you know you have any hints for this or

00:17:28.080 what do you think that is and it really bonds people together there's even some social science that

00:17:34.080 says one of the if you have people of different opinions like liberals and conservatives one of the

00:17:40.920 best ways to bring them together is to have them solve a puzzle and you can see that in a team built my

00:17:47.700 wife actually owns a company watching adventures it's wonderful and they put on scavenger hunts and

00:17:53.220 it's all about people collaborating to solve these puzzles because it works for this everyone has a

00:18:00.660 strength you know someone might be really good at visual puzzles or or at math puzzles or word puzzles

00:18:06.920 so i love that aspect we're gonna take a quick break for your word from our sponsors

00:18:11.100 and now back to the show okay so we've talked about crossword puzzles another puzzle you highlight

00:18:17.700 is the rubik's cube it's an issue this is a new puzzle too but it became this cultural phenomenon i

00:18:22.980 mean i can't imagine a world without rubik's cube so yeah what's the story there well that well first

00:18:29.180 of all what's your history with have you ever solved it uh i solved it when i was like 10 by taking it

00:18:35.400 apart and then putting it together i had there's actually there's that book like that was written

00:18:40.900 in the 70s by that one kid right my my parents actually had that and i remember i think i was

00:18:46.400 like nine or 10 trying to follow the instructions in that book and i was like no i'm just gonna take

00:18:51.300 it apart and put together that's the only time i saw the rubik's cube well first of all that is one

00:18:57.160 interesting way to solve a puzzle yeah is it's sort of the gordian knot you chop it in half i'll say

00:19:03.300 enough of this i'm gonna so kudos to you for solving it that way it started in the 80s and it was like

00:19:11.480 huge and then it kind of faded away but then it came back because of youtube so now there are millions

00:19:17.600 of kids who are obsessed with it and they there's the speed cubing competitions which will blow your

00:19:24.640 mind i mean these kids the world record for solving a rubik's cube is three and a half seconds it's crazy

00:19:32.900 like i can't even look at it in three and a half seconds and i don't know where to start but

00:19:38.560 anyway i did i eventually during this project i solved the rubik's cube it took me uh you know 50

00:19:46.360 plus years i guess 40 plus years but i learned a lot about rubik's and and the allure of it and why

00:19:53.260 people love it so much and i think part of it is is just an extraordinary fact that this little cube

00:20:02.580 has i don't know if you remember but the number is insane 45 quintillion possible arrangements it's

00:20:11.420 just a mind-boggling number we can't even comprehend that that's like more than the stars that you can

00:20:17.280 see it is just insane and yet if you do it correctly you can get that one arrangement that

00:20:25.500 is the right solution so to me that's like that is super inspiring 45 quintillion that's like the

00:20:32.460 smallest needle in the biggest haystack ever you can actually solve something that has 45 quintillion

00:20:38.780 options yeah that 45 quintillion number really instills a lot of humility in you yeah thinking

00:20:45.160 about it like how big it is but i like how you you use the rubik's cube to explore the difference

00:20:51.060 between creative problem solving and skill and there seems to be some like tension there between

00:20:57.040 the generations like the original rubik's cube solvers and today's kids who are solving these

00:21:02.060 things in three seconds tell us about that distinction in problem solving that the rubik's cube can

00:21:07.140 shed a light on yeah i one of the people i spent some time with was one of the original champions way

00:21:15.920 back in 1981 or two and he he's one who wrote the book how to solve the cube in 45 seconds which now

00:21:24.880 is like an eternity but back then that was a big deal and he's he's funny he loves the people kids love

00:21:32.340 the rubik's cube but he's a little grumpy because he does say that it's different back then people had

00:21:39.920 to discover how to solve the rubik's cube you had to create your own algorithm your own way of solving it

00:21:48.020 and now you can go on youtube and memorize a couple dozen algorithms and solve it that way so it's a

00:21:57.940 different skill it's sort of exploratory and science versus memorization and both are important i admire

00:22:08.340 both but i do prefer puzzles where you have to come up with the solution in a totally new way and it

00:22:16.100 doesn't require as much memorization so maybe i'm on the old fogey side of like uh like this guy yeah

00:22:23.240 i'm kind of on the old fogey side because it kind of takes the puzzle out of the puzzle if you just

00:22:26.820 you know what the answer is if you just input these things you'll get it right i don't know it doesn't

00:22:30.960 seem as fun although i i just wanted to defend the these young kids because it does require some

00:22:36.300 a lot of skill to figure out which algorithms to do so that is a puzzle yeah and i noticed like with

00:22:42.020 my kids too that they youtube is crazy it's great it i like how it motivates them to do things

00:22:47.540 but i've noticed that they'll like my daughter's really into minecraft and instead of trying to

00:22:52.300 figure out how to build things on her own like she'll just watch a youtube video and just kind

00:22:55.820 of pause and then like do the thing and then watch it and then like and she builds this cool thing

00:22:59.960 and it's i mean it took a lot of patience to do it but it's like yeah i don't i don't want to

00:23:04.740 you know diss on my daughter uh but i was like well you know you just watched a video on how to

00:23:09.260 do that like it would have been cooler i want to see what you wanted like if you were you know

00:23:12.520 free building what would you make right well it's like the uh the difference between legos when we

00:23:18.260 were kids and legos now oh yeah when i when i was a kid it was just a bunch of blocks and you had to

00:23:24.540 create something and now they have these elaborate kits where you have to follow 150 instructions and get

00:23:30.980 and they are both they both have their benefits so i don't want to be too much of an old fogey and

00:23:37.400 this following instructions to create this spaceship but i still i think i prefer the old type where

00:23:44.920 you're just given a bunch of random lego bricks and you create yourself so let's talk about my favorite

00:23:51.040 puzzle which is the jigsaw puzzle i love that you love it so i'm curious like you you spent your time

00:23:57.260 talking to people who make just really simple jigsaw puzzles to the individuals in vermont who

00:24:02.900 make a hundred thousand dollar jigsaw puzzles handcrafted and you've been putting together a

00:24:07.720 lot of jigsaw puzzles did you figure out like what it is about jigsaw puzzles that are you know they're

00:24:11.620 so relaxing and soothing but at the same time like they're incredibly addictive they really are i know

00:24:18.700 i had that feeling when like it's just one more i'm just gonna get one more piece yeah that's more

00:24:26.060 and then it's three in the morning and it's funny because i was a jigsaw puzzle skeptic and i became a

00:24:32.500 convert i don't know why i was so snobby but i um i for some reason hadn't done them and then i started

00:24:39.480 to do them and i was like oh yeah and i think there are two there there are two different ways you can do

00:24:46.560 jigsaw puzzle one is as meditation and i think that was big in the pandemic i mean jigsaws at the

00:24:54.620 beginning of the pandemic you couldn't find them they were like hand sanitizing you couldn't people just

00:25:00.100 snapped them up because they needed that that escape and it you can get into the flow and and the hours just

00:25:07.840 pass by like minutes so that is one but then there are the jigsaw puzzles where it's more about trying

00:25:14.940 to solve a really complex puzzle and either that could be speed there are people who are obsessed

00:25:21.000 with solving them quickly and i wrote in the book one of my favorite adventures that my family and i went on

00:25:27.640 was we went to spain and competed as team usa in the world jigsaw puzzle championship and we

00:25:36.680 humiliated our country i apologized to my fellow americans we came in second to last but it was

00:25:43.920 wonderful because you got to see these people at the top of their game the you know the lebron james

00:25:48.660 of uh of jigsaws and just how fast their minds and hands were moving and it was remarkable but then

00:25:56.340 there's another type of challenging jigsaw which are the ones you mentioned sort of these artisanal

00:26:01.900 woodcut jigsaw puzzles that uh that are super tricky and have you know edge pieces look like

00:26:09.900 regular pieces they're 3d there are pieces from other puzzles thrown in just to mess with you

00:26:16.220 and i learned to love those those those you have to have you you have to know that frustration is

00:26:24.220 going to be a large part of it but i find them just fun and weird and absurd and delightful

00:26:31.380 yeah my i do jigsaws for the meditative purposes that's that's why i do them um i was saying earlier

00:26:37.380 i'm very particular about my jigsaw puzzling i what do you like and what do you not like okay so well

00:26:42.420 there's one there's jigsaw puzzle season and it starts september 1st and goes through december 31st

00:26:48.060 that's the only time i do jigsaw puzzles and um they have to be i i like the like americana folk art

00:26:54.920 puzzles right charles wysocki is my favorite and then uh i have to listen to my puzzle playing

00:27:02.960 playlist which is oh it's primarily schmaltzy easy listening and muzak so like i'm talking like the

00:27:10.340 dale orchestra like i basically want to feel like i'm walking through a montgomery's ward

00:27:15.400 in 1987 when i'm doing puzzles i'm relaxed just hearing about it yeah that sounds lovely yeah

00:27:23.100 but you um highlight some things like the same sort of things that you know how to tackle puzzles

00:27:28.420 that i've kind of picked up on my on my own you get that toehold sometimes you just start with the

00:27:33.300 like if you see something that you can put together easy start there and from there you can build off

00:27:37.760 and then you found some other little cool little tricks to put together jigsaw puzzles

00:27:41.100 yeah one that i did not expect but if these high level jigsaws they don't only do it by color

00:27:49.480 they also paid a lot of attention to the shape and if you're hit with a like a big blue sky

00:27:55.940 and you don't know what to do they will sort the sky pieces by shape so they'll have a section of

00:28:04.560 one audi and three innies and two audies and two innies and they'll have these little piles and

00:28:10.640 then using those they'll be able to assemble it quickly so i think that's great i just i never

00:28:16.400 thought of jigsaws as having a lot of strategy but they do at the high level you can really um

00:28:23.680 you know separate yourself using these tricks so you also did mazes you talked about when you were a kid

00:28:29.560 you drew mazes on the ground that covered your whole apartment i'm sure every kid has done that

00:28:34.360 when they're in class and they're bored they drew they'd make their own maze on their folder do how

00:28:40.540 long have humans been using mazes as puzzles did you figure that out well yeah definitely millennia

00:28:46.860 there's the myth i don't think it actually existed of the the minotaur and the in the middle of a maze

00:28:54.060 in the island of crete and that was a maze you didn't want to go into because if you got lost

00:28:58.900 then the minotaur would eat you but they have been used they've been used for spiritual purposes

00:29:05.660 people talk about how mazes are like prayer through walking but then uh they're also entertainment

00:29:13.680 in the middle age or yeah the middle ages or a little later europe had a ton of hedge mazes

00:29:21.680 and people would have trysts in them so they have a long history and then you tackled like once

00:29:27.840 something became really popular in america in the past i would say 25 30 years these corn mazes and

00:29:33.740 you went to vermont to tackle the largest most complicated corn maze tell us about that experience

00:29:40.860 yeah i love this this is the great vermont uh corn maze it's called and it's huge 24 acres and

00:29:51.560 there's no governing body that says this is the hardest corn maze but it seems that this is probably

00:29:58.240 the hardest in america and the guy who who started it mike boudreau he's a great guy uh and just uh

00:30:06.380 delightfully sadistic though he is you know he'll he will gleefully tell you that people will weep

00:30:14.420 they'll get lost they'll get in fights uh one father drove abandoned his family wife and kids

00:30:21.220 and drove off because he was so frustrated and he says you know don't bring your teenage kids because

00:30:28.080 it's too hard and it is yeah like you know i got it took me over four hours and twists and turns and

00:30:34.980 and there are all sorts of you know dead ends that will just mess with your mind and i love it

00:30:41.440 one of the things i loved was talking to him because he says he stands up on a platform

00:30:47.740 above the maze and watches like like a god he watches these mortals as they try to make their way

00:30:54.640 and he says it's a real lesson in human psychology and he says a lot of times people he says especially

00:31:02.600 young men which i thought was telling will have that cognitive inflexibility i was talking about

00:31:09.320 they are so convinced they're right so they'll go down a corridor they'll hit a dead end and they're

00:31:15.160 like okay and then they go back and they go down it again and they just keep going down that same

00:31:21.020 corridor so convinced that they're right despite the evidence the clear evidence that it's a dead end

00:31:26.880 so mazes like every other puzzle and and i think every every activity you need to be more flexible

00:31:34.540 you talked about logic puzzles and this reminded me there was a period of my life where i became

00:31:40.260 obsessed with logic puzzles because they're part of the lsat the test you take to get into law school

00:31:46.520 yeah yeah and so tell us about what's what's typical law you know a logic puzzle look like and

00:31:52.980 why would law schools think you need to learn how to do these things in order to get into law school

00:31:57.800 well that is interesting do you remember and the any of the logic puzzles that you so there's this sort

00:32:03.960 of things where there's like you know there's five people sam alex uh jane brad and they are going to

00:32:11.900 uh bring five different items on these seven different days and like you get a clue like okay

00:32:18.460 brad brought this on this day but like not on that day and then you have to figure out who brings what

00:32:23.640 on what day that's right that's interesting yeah i there are lots of different types of logic puzzles

00:32:30.740 that one i think of as sort of the clue uh the board game yeah it's like clue and to me the big

00:32:37.360 lesson of those is they they're not that hard if you figure out how to diagram them yeah so it's if

00:32:45.640 you do it in your head then it's a mess but if you just diagram it correctly then you're able to check

00:32:52.520 them off then it's pretty easy and i don't know a lot why the lsat people put it in i assume it's

00:32:59.300 because they think that it's a sign of clear thinking and rational thinking which i do believe

00:33:05.140 i don't know how much it helps you as a lawyer but there are lots of other types of logic puzzles

00:33:10.440 i am particularly a fan of the lateral thinking puzzles i don't know if you know those the ones

00:33:16.760 where it's like a there's a man in a field and uh he's got an unopened backpack on his back

00:33:23.920 and he's face down and he's dead what happened oh yeah my kids love those my kids love i love

00:33:30.340 yeah and the answer to that one just okay if you want to pause it and try to figure it out

00:33:36.040 but he's a parachutist and uh the the pack didn't know and then there's other ones that are similar i

00:33:43.540 wouldn't call them quite lateral thinking but they do require some sort of leap of imagination so

00:33:50.100 for instance there are two girls in a classroom and they were born to the same mother on the same

00:33:56.580 month the same year the same day but they're not twins what's going on yeah i remember my actually

00:34:04.400 my kids told me this one i can't remember what is the answer they are triplets or quadruplets could

00:34:11.220 be quintuplets you name it so yeah i am a fan of the logic puzzles and one of the people i interviewed

00:34:18.760 one of my favorite was this soviet mathematician who is uh well formerly soviet she's an emigre she 0.99

00:34:25.660 came here and fled the soviet union and she has a math blog called tanya's math puzzle blog and it is

00:34:36.560 so uh she has solved pretty much every logic puzzle ever created by humans and one thing she talks about

00:34:45.880 she talks a lot about how you do have to think outside the box but her students have taught her

00:34:52.220 to think even farther outside the box that she's in a box of her own so the example she gives is

00:34:58.760 there's a famous logic puzzle where there's you have a basket full of five apples and you give out

00:35:08.300 all the apples to you have five friends and you give an apple to each of your five friends

00:35:13.940 but there's still one apple left in the basket what's going on and the answer the traditional

00:35:21.420 answer is that you give that last apple to a friend in the basket you're like gifting them a basket in

00:35:27.960 addition to an apple a little bonus so that's why but she says her students have come up with all these

00:35:35.120 other creative possibilities like you know even one of your um could be that the basket is your friend

00:35:42.680 you know maybe inanimate objects are your friend or maybe one of your one of the five people died

00:35:48.400 so it's uh i love that idea that you can think outside the box or you can think way outside the

00:35:55.060 box uh there's another genre of puzzles you tackled and that is ciphers and codes and you went to the

00:36:01.660 headquarters of ciphers and codes in the united states to the cia right there's an art installment there

00:36:07.660 with this code on it that has not been cracked in over 30 years uh what's going on there why is there

00:36:13.240 art with the code that can't be cracked by the cia at the cia yeah this was one and that chapter was i

00:36:20.320 loved researching because codes are everywhere i mean that is it's why we can use credit cards it's

00:36:25.460 you know there's uh cryptocurrency is all about codes but the cia one of their stated purposes is to

00:36:33.720 crack codes and about 30 years ago they hired a sculptor to create a sculpture on the grounds of

00:36:40.840 the cia headquarters in virginia and he teamed up with an ex-cia cryptographer and they created this

00:36:47.580 work of art that's a a huge metal wall and into it are carved hundreds of letters and those letters

00:36:55.940 they're they look random but they are a code and even though it's in the middle of the cia

00:37:03.460 no one has been able to fully crack that code in all of those 30 years including the cia

00:37:10.560 they've cracked parts of it so we have parts and some of them some of the code seems to be

00:37:18.460 like a longitude and latitude maybe of some buried treasure some of it are quotes from the guy who

00:37:25.200 discovered king tut's tomb but there's a part that is still unsolved and what i love is that there are

00:37:32.020 thousands of people uh mostly in an online community who spend inordinate amounts of time

00:37:39.180 trying to crack this code and it's been 30 years and they every day they have a new theory oh i think

00:37:46.060 it's i think it's morse code i think it's related to the navajo wind talkers you know all sorts of

00:37:52.680 theories but they haven't given up and it's been 30 years 32 years and so i try to take that as

00:37:59.900 inspiration when i'm helping my kids with their math homework and i want to give up after 45 seconds

00:38:06.120 i say you know what these guys have been going for 32 years let me give it another couple of minutes

00:38:11.960 but the uh the world of code breaking and cipher puzzle solvers taught you a lot about the dark

00:38:17.660 side of puzzles what was that well this is interesting i think um puzzles are all about finding patterns and

00:38:25.900 science is all about finding patterns and that is that can be a great thing that has huge benefits

00:38:31.720 but we are wired so hardwired to find patterns that sometimes we find patterns that don't exist

00:38:38.360 and that is the word for that is apophenia that's the psychological word and for instance finding the

00:38:46.400 virgin mary's face in a piece of french toast that's classic apophenia and the problem with apophenia is

00:38:54.340 you become attached to that pattern and you refuse to let it go even if you are presented with

00:39:02.040 evidence that it's not true or it's not going where anywhere so the key to avoiding apophenia is to keep

00:39:08.800 your mind flexible but apophenia has huge real life repercussions and i think it's responsible for a lot of the

00:39:17.400 problems we have right now so people are finding patterns in the world that don't exist it's what

00:39:23.760 can a lot of conspiracy theories are basically solving puzzles that don't exist so q anon they

00:39:33.440 have found all these puzzle pieces and put them together and they have quote unquote solved this

00:39:40.480 puzzle but the pieces don't fit together it is not true and but they refuse to change their thesis no

00:39:49.860 matter how much evidence they're given so apophenia is solving puzzles that don't exist and you've got

00:39:57.600 to be very careful so don't fall in love with your hypothesis keep an open mind keep flexible that is

00:40:04.680 the only way to battle this this dangerous drive in our minds and i think all of us experience apophenia

00:40:11.980 on some level it might not be conspiracy theory level but we i'm sure we've all encountered things

00:40:16.740 where we think you know we try to read people's minds for example and we see we start seeing things

00:40:22.100 like on what they're saying or not saying or like what they're doing we're saying yes this means they

00:40:26.880 don't like me um and they got this vendetta against me and basically you're just putting together pieces

00:40:32.840 of information that are disparate and have no meaning to make meaning in your head so true i mean i'm sure

00:40:40.200 that half of my beliefs are based on apophenia and i've got to try to go through and and think about

00:40:48.060 them but it is such a drive and even during this year solving puzzles i remember i was doing a

00:40:53.720 scavenger hunt i didn't even write about it but one of the clues had to do with a mouse in central park

00:40:59.620 and it had arches and it just so happened i had seen stuart little 2 the movie and it was stuart

00:41:05.740 little had an airplane and he drove it through arches in central park and so i was like oh it's

00:41:11.900 gotta be stuart little that's the answer and i went to central park and i spent hours trying to

00:41:18.020 verify my and it was totally wrong it had nothing to do with the answer but i was so attached to it

00:41:24.720 i couldn't see through it so one thing you've you've taken away from this book after researching

00:41:30.280 and writing it is trying to take the lessons you've learned from puzzle doing and puzzle solving

00:41:35.920 and puzzle creating and applying it to life i mean do you think it's possible to treat all of life's

00:41:42.480 problems and challenges and annoyances as puzzles do you think that is that something it's do you think

00:41:47.760 we can do in our head that and it can actually make things better i definitely think that that frame

00:41:53.220 can make things better i don't know about all problems and puzzles but a lot of them and i try to do it

00:42:00.200 in my life quincy jones the great musician he has a quote where he says i don't have problems i have

00:42:06.140 puzzles and i think it's so inspiring because problems are are thorny and depressing and insoluble

00:42:14.760 a lot of times whereas puzzles they can be solved and they uh you know they are inspiring they you want

00:42:22.300 to solve them then even sometimes they involve playfulness so i try to frame

00:42:29.120 my life's challenges as puzzles how can i solve them and one of the one of the hardest puzzles we face

00:42:39.520 now is just you know how do we bridge the gap between the culture the culture war that to me is a huge

00:42:48.940 puzzle and when i'm talking to someone from the other side of the political spectrum i could try to

00:42:55.880 debate them but that rarely you know this sort of war of words it rarely yields anything in fact

00:43:04.640 usually polarizes both sides so instead i try to treat it as a puzzle and i say you know why do you

00:43:12.400 believe what you believe why do i believe what i believe is there any evidence that we could change

00:43:18.560 our minds is where do we go from here is there any common ground we have now all those are puzzles

00:43:26.020 that you can work on collaboratively in a conversation and i think that's much more likely to yield something

00:43:32.460 useful than to you know berate each other so to me one of the phrases i i learned during the pandemic

00:43:41.440 was uh don't get furious get curious and i think that is a very nice little puzzle motto that i try to

00:43:50.820 remember all the time have you tried to help your kids take uh you take up the puzzle mentality with

00:43:56.280 their life oh sure i'm you know it's a puzzle of how to get them to listen to me which i have not

00:44:03.280 solved that puzzle but uh but i do think uh yeah if they are faced with something you know we often

00:44:12.340 talk about the strategies we use in puzzling like you know if they are faced with a big sort of term

00:44:19.240 paper you know well just take it step by step and lamont has that great uh quote bird by bird like

00:44:26.440 her brother had to write a paper on all birds in north america and he's like what do i do

00:44:33.040 and their father said just do bird by bird and that is a great puzzle strategy just one step at a time

00:44:40.500 well aj this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about the book in your

00:44:44.520 work i'm at ajjacobs.com or the puzzler book.com where i'm on twitter at aj jacobs but and i would

00:44:51.360 love to hear from folks and about their favorite puzzles and there's tons of puzzles in the book for

00:44:57.040 them to solve so if they need hints on that then they can also contact me well aj jacobs thanks

00:45:02.860 for your time it's been a pleasure my pleasure and i hope to come back before episode it would be

00:45:09.140 like 1700 we'll make it happen thanks my guest is aj jacobs he's the author of the puzzler it's

00:45:16.920 available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find more information about his work at

00:45:20.380 his website ajjacobs.com also check out our show notes at aom.is slash puzzles you can find links

00:45:25.540 to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:45:27.540 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at

00:45:38.780 art of manless.com where you find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles written

00:45:42.420 over there is about pretty much anything you think of and if you'd like to enjoy ad free episodes of

00:45:45.780 the aom podcast you can do so on stitcher premium head over to stitcher premium.com sign up use code

00:45:50.120 manless at checkout for a free month trial once you're signed up download the stitcher app on android

00:45:53.880 ios and you start enjoying ad free episodes of the aom podcast and if you haven't done so already

00:45:57.820 i'd appreciate if you take one minute to get your view on apple podcast or spotify helps out a lot

00:46:01.800 if you've done that already thank you please consider sharing the show with a friend or family

00:46:05.160 member who would think we get something out of it as always think of the continued support until next

00:46:08.620 time's brett mckay remind you on the list they win podcast but put what you've heard into action

00:46:23.880 you

00:46:25.940 you

00:46:27.820 you

00:46:29.760 you

00:46:31.760 you

00:46:33.760 you

The Art of Manliness - June 08, 2022

Why We Like Puzzles, and What We Get From Them

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript