The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - Structuring Your Perceptions (part one)

00:00:00.960 Hey everyone, real quick before you skip, I want to talk to you about something serious and important.

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00:00:57.420 Welcome to the Jordan B. Peterson podcast. I'm Michaela Peterson, Jordan's daughter.

00:01:04.300 I updated you last week on Dad's health. He's improving every week, and I'm really hoping we'll be back in North America later this week.

00:01:12.800 So yay for that. I really, really, really, really miss home.

00:01:16.860 Not being able to speak a language in a foreign country is pretty disconcerting, and we've been here for a month and a half.

00:01:23.400 Literally going into a store and buying anything is a chore.

00:01:27.540 I definitely have a new appreciation for immigrants who have to learn a new language after immigrating to a new country.

00:01:33.840 I hope you enjoy this episode. It's called Structuring Your Perceptions Part 1, and was recorded in Canberra, Australia, on February 15th, 2019.

00:01:42.840 Structuring Your Perceptions Part 1, a Jordan B. Peterson 12 Rules for Life Lecture

00:01:51.480 Well, thank you.

00:02:01.480 You're either very enthusiastic or there's a very large number of people in a small room.

00:02:09.840 It's very nice to be here, and thank you. Thank you all for coming.

00:02:14.740 I'm looking forward. I'm really looking forward to this talk.

00:02:17.980 I've been pulling together ideas tightly over the last couple of weeks, and I'm really interested to see if I can weave a variety of things together

00:02:30.640 that I've never quite been able to get to cohere. So we'll see if that works.

00:02:36.260 So I'm going to concentrate tonight on Rule 10, which is be precise in your speech, which I think is a very interesting rule.

00:02:46.860 Because it's way more complicated than it looks.

00:02:52.820 Well, like, oh, I would say that's true of all the rules. It's funny, because, you know, one of the criticisms that's been leveled at the book is

00:02:59.320 that the rules are cliches, or that they're obvious, and that's true. Both of those are true.

00:03:09.880 It wasn't like I didn't know that when I wrote them.

00:03:12.560 The question, of course, is why do certain maxims become cliches in some sense?

00:03:20.060 Why are they universally regarded as true? Because that's what happens with a cliché.

00:03:25.420 And then what happens if you forget why they're true, which is even more important?

00:03:30.480 And the answer is, well, if you start to forget why the axioms that you take for granted are true,

00:03:36.980 then you're in trouble. And then you need to revisit the underlying structure of the axioms,

00:03:45.040 of the presuppositions, so that you can relearn consciously why it is that you need to know these things.

00:03:52.240 And so that's what I was trying to do with 12 rules.

00:03:56.400 And that's what I'm trying to do with Rule 10, which is to be precise in your speech.

00:04:02.360 So I'm going to give you a run-through of a very large psychological domain tonight,

00:04:09.080 right from the bottom to the top, if I can manage it.

00:04:13.200 And I think you'll find it interesting, hopefully interesting.

00:04:18.680 It's certainly been trying to sort this out has kept me interested,

00:04:25.100 like seriously interested for 30 years.

00:04:27.560 And so it's a very compelling topic.

00:04:31.660 But more than that, it's also really useful practically,

00:04:35.780 because it helps you understand all sorts of things that you can't really understand otherwise,

00:04:41.100 like your emotional response to the world,

00:04:46.800 and the magnitude of your emotional response,

00:04:49.320 and the reason that there are positive and negative emotions,

00:04:51.780 and the reason that it matters to you whether your belief system remains intact,

00:04:57.600 and the reason that it matters that you share your belief system with other people,

00:05:02.800 because that really does matter,

00:05:04.800 and what it is that a belief system is aiming at,

00:05:08.660 and why it has to aim at something,

00:05:10.980 and what it should aim at, all of those things.

00:05:14.000 And I think all of those are answerable questions,

00:05:16.800 and I really think they need to be answered.

00:05:19.360 They're not optional.

00:05:21.880 If you don't know the answers,

00:05:24.180 well, if you don't know the answers and you're guided by tradition,

00:05:27.560 like an unbroken tradition,

00:05:29.600 well, that's fine.

00:05:31.000 Then you're guided by an unbroken tradition.

00:05:33.200 But if your tradition is fragmented,

00:05:35.160 and all of those answers have been replaced by questions,

00:05:39.840 or worse, by ignorance and doubt,

00:05:43.120 then you have nothing,

00:05:44.560 and you're disoriented in the world.

00:05:46.480 And you can't be disoriented in the world,

00:05:48.820 because then you're lost,

00:05:49.920 and it's not a good thing to be lost.

00:05:51.740 It's intrinsically a bad thing to be lost.

00:05:56.480 And so you don't want to be lost.

00:05:59.100 So let's look into this,

00:06:02.220 and see how far we can get.

00:06:03.660 So the first thing that I would like to explain to you is that,

00:06:09.060 and this is a very complicated technical problem,

00:06:11.560 and it's caused havoc in many disciplines,

00:06:16.860 scientific and otherwise.

00:06:18.260 So the first complicated problem is that

00:06:20.360 there are an awful lot of ways of looking at the world.

00:06:24.440 And in fact, there's so many ways of looking at the world.

00:06:27.700 Even something simple,

00:06:29.840 like if I look at this carpet, for example,

00:06:32.260 if I was a painter and I wanted to paint this area,

00:06:35.980 you know, to make an artistic portrayal of it,

00:06:38.820 although I'm not sure exactly why it would.

00:06:41.500 But if I did want to,

00:06:43.840 you know, when I just glance at it,

00:06:46.500 I see, well, this is a gray, this piece of carpet,

00:06:49.160 and the wood here is basically brown.

00:06:51.240 And that's that, and these speakers are black.

00:06:53.960 And so I kind of have an iconic perception

00:06:57.000 of the area that I'm looking at.

00:07:00.440 An icon like an animated icon.

00:07:02.760 You know, and that's why we can watch animated programs

00:07:05.140 like The Simpsons, let's say,

00:07:06.820 where most things are really flat in color.

00:07:09.460 And, well, they're even two-dimensional.

00:07:11.400 You see that even more in South Park, right?

00:07:13.820 I mean, Jesus, the animation in South Park,

00:07:16.060 it's just dreadful.

00:07:17.460 But it's completely, but it's okay.

00:07:19.820 It's purposeful.

00:07:20.760 And it's completely irrelevant

00:07:21.860 because the simplified icons

00:07:24.020 are perfectly useful

00:07:27.080 with regards to representing

00:07:28.420 what needs to be represented.

00:07:29.640 And they're all we need.

00:07:31.260 And a lot of what we perceive

00:07:32.900 when we look at the world,

00:07:33.980 a lot of what we see

00:07:35.060 are simplified icons instead of the world.

00:07:38.020 In fact, really, what we see

00:07:39.660 when we look at the world

00:07:40.600 are simplified icons,

00:07:42.040 even if we have very detailed perceptions

00:07:44.600 because we're just not,

00:07:46.960 there's just not enough of us

00:07:48.340 to see everything that's there.

00:07:50.200 Now, I had a friend

00:07:51.660 who did a series of portraits of his feet

00:07:55.620 in different parts of the country

00:07:57.580 wearing different shoes, you know.

00:07:59.180 He was kind of interested in this idea

00:08:01.020 that wherever he was,

00:08:02.260 he occupied a place

00:08:04.400 that he had some physical control over.

00:08:07.540 And so I have a couple of his paintings

00:08:09.760 where he's standing on a highway,

00:08:12.600 like a blacktop highway

00:08:14.480 by the side of the road,

00:08:15.840 one in the desert.

00:08:17.100 And he did an unbelievably careful job

00:08:19.160 of outlining all of the pebbles

00:08:22.140 and the rocks and everything,

00:08:24.260 all the variations in color

00:08:26.460 in the blacktop

00:08:27.600 and with the yellow lines.

00:08:29.180 Like, it looks very realistic.

00:08:31.300 And it took a tremendous amount

00:08:33.320 of concentration on his part to do that

00:08:35.340 because, you know,

00:08:36.540 when I look at this floor,

00:08:38.300 I can say, well, what color is it?

00:08:39.880 And I can say, well, it's brown.

00:08:41.840 But if you look at it,

00:08:43.660 that's just wrong.

00:08:46.520 You know, it's basically

00:08:48.460 something approximating brown,

00:08:50.620 but there's white in it

00:08:52.620 and there's yellow

00:08:53.380 and there's orange

00:08:54.260 and there's black

00:08:55.240 and there's very,

00:08:56.420 like there's an infinite number

00:08:57.780 of variations of color

00:08:59.320 and maybe not infinite,

00:09:01.300 but there's millions of variations

00:09:03.600 and that's close enough to infinite

00:09:05.160 to be a big problem.

00:09:07.640 And so, you know,

00:09:08.680 if you're going to make

00:09:09.420 an accurate representation,

00:09:10.560 even if something

00:09:11.660 is extraordinarily simple

00:09:13.220 as a tiny fragment of the world,

00:09:15.580 it's almost impossibly complex.

00:09:18.640 And that's why it's often

00:09:19.620 so interesting to look at something

00:09:20.920 like a photorealistic painting,

00:09:23.080 you know, to see that someone

00:09:24.120 can manage that degree

00:09:25.660 of perceptual accuracy.

00:09:27.680 And you kind of take it for granted

00:09:28.980 because you look at it

00:09:29.660 and you think,

00:09:30.180 well, that looks just like the thing.

00:09:31.980 It's like, well, that's hard

00:09:33.200 because the thing is complicated

00:09:35.060 and to make a representation

00:09:36.580 that looks just like the thing,

00:09:38.680 that's no simple matter.

00:09:40.440 And most of the time,

00:09:41.480 we don't bother with it.

00:09:42.840 And like, we really don't bother with it.

00:09:44.940 You can't believe

00:09:46.320 how much we don't bother with it.

00:09:47.840 So there's this scientist

00:09:49.440 named Dan Simon

00:09:50.560 who's a real scientist

00:09:51.700 and a real psychologist.

00:09:54.200 And he did some unbelievably

00:09:55.840 interesting experiments

00:09:57.080 on a phenomenon

00:09:57.960 called change blindness.

00:10:02.140 That's one of the names of it.

00:10:04.700 It's part of a broader category

00:10:07.140 of phenomena

00:10:08.020 called perceptual blindness.

00:10:11.500 And so here's one of his experiments.

00:10:13.700 It's a really,

00:10:14.940 it's the sort of experiment

00:10:16.000 you can't bloody well believe

00:10:17.420 until you see

00:10:19.180 that it actually happened.

00:10:20.360 And it's replicated many times.

00:10:22.400 This is actually

00:10:23.080 a reliable psychology experiment.

00:10:26.860 And there aren't that many of them.

00:10:28.660 And so this is one of them.

00:10:30.660 And I'm not being cynical about that.

00:10:32.320 I mean, psychology

00:10:32.940 is a very complicated science.

00:10:34.420 And the fact that a lot of it

00:10:35.480 doesn't replicate

00:10:36.140 is not surprising

00:10:37.060 because it's really hard

00:10:38.520 to learn things about people.

00:10:40.140 It's amazing

00:10:40.620 we get any of it to replicate.

00:10:41.740 So what Simon did,

00:10:43.320 Dan Simon was,

00:10:44.960 he set up some cameras

00:10:46.140 on the top of some buildings

00:10:47.820 at Harvard campus.

00:10:50.300 And there's a lot of people

00:10:51.720 walking through Harvard campus.

00:10:53.500 Students, obviously,

00:10:54.560 and faculty members.

00:10:55.380 But lots of tourists

00:10:56.300 and people who are there.

00:10:57.700 Well, because maybe

00:10:58.380 they want to bring

00:10:58.880 their kids there sometimes

00:10:59.880 or they just want to see it.

00:11:00.980 It's a beautiful place

00:11:01.980 and a historic place

00:11:03.380 and it's worth seeing.

00:11:04.680 And so there's always

00:11:05.260 people wandering through

00:11:06.220 and they don't know

00:11:06.740 where they're going.

00:11:07.340 And so what Simon did

00:11:10.240 was had some students

00:11:12.920 play like a trick

00:11:14.620 on people that were

00:11:16.180 walking through.

00:11:17.140 And it was a, you know,

00:11:18.240 not a mean trick or anything,

00:11:19.960 just a trivial trick.

00:11:21.680 And so what he would do

00:11:22.800 is he'd have the undergraduates

00:11:24.840 come up to somebody

00:11:26.220 who was walking through,

00:11:27.960 who looked like a tourist,

00:11:29.320 and the undergraduate

00:11:30.860 would be holding a map

00:11:32.100 and then they would start

00:11:34.300 to interact with the tourist

00:11:36.320 and ask for directions

00:11:38.360 using the map.

00:11:40.620 Now, obviously,

00:11:41.340 a map is already

00:11:42.200 an iconic representation, right?

00:11:44.440 And it needs to be

00:11:45.240 because you don't want a map

00:11:46.860 that's as complicated

00:11:47.760 as the territory

00:11:48.640 because then you'd have to carry

00:11:49.880 the whole territory

00:11:50.600 around with you.

00:11:51.480 You want the simplest

00:11:53.300 possible representation

00:11:54.900 of the situation

00:11:57.140 that gets you

00:11:58.420 from point A to point B.

00:12:00.900 Okay, so that's worth

00:12:02.060 thinking about

00:12:02.640 right off the bat

00:12:03.380 because that's like

00:12:04.000 a rule for perception.

00:12:05.220 You want the simplest

00:12:06.020 representation

00:12:06.700 that you can possibly manage

00:12:08.260 that will get you

00:12:09.160 from point A to point B

00:12:10.340 and that implies

00:12:11.620 the utility of simplicity

00:12:13.340 but it also implies

00:12:14.580 that what you're doing

00:12:15.420 all the time

00:12:16.020 is going from point A

00:12:17.240 to point B

00:12:17.840 and so we'll keep

00:12:19.080 that in mind.

00:12:19.980 Anyways,

00:12:20.700 so here's the undergraduate

00:12:21.820 standing here with the map

00:12:23.340 and here's the tourist

00:12:24.640 standing here

00:12:25.660 helping the undergraduate

00:12:26.640 and then over here

00:12:27.820 there's two other undergraduates

00:12:29.840 and they're carrying a door

00:12:31.280 and the door

00:12:32.300 they're carrying it like this

00:12:34.100 I guess no

00:12:35.860 they're carrying it like this

00:12:36.880 and the door's up like this

00:12:38.360 and it covers their faces

00:12:39.740 right

00:12:40.340 and so

00:12:41.120 they rudely walk

00:12:42.860 right between

00:12:43.680 the person

00:12:45.300 who's now giving directions

00:12:46.900 and the undergraduate

00:12:48.040 who's asking for directions

00:12:49.780 and as they walk through

00:12:51.560 the undergraduate

00:12:52.960 grabs the door like this

00:12:55.020 and keeps walking

00:12:56.560 and the other undergraduate

00:12:58.800 who's holding the door

00:12:59.860 takes the map

00:13:00.880 and stands there

00:13:02.660 and so basically

00:13:03.960 what's happened

00:13:04.560 is that

00:13:05.020 there's now

00:13:06.680 a new undergraduate

00:13:08.200 asking for instructions

00:13:11.260 and more than half

00:13:13.140 of the people

00:13:13.900 upon whom this trick

00:13:15.440 is played

00:13:16.120 don't notice

00:13:18.120 and the reason for that

00:13:21.280 is

00:13:21.560 well

00:13:22.180 who cares

00:13:23.420 what undergraduate

00:13:24.520 you're giving instructions to

00:13:26.280 it's like

00:13:27.860 they're interchangeable

00:13:29.020 right

00:13:29.500 so

00:13:31.780 and so

00:13:33.000 and then

00:13:34.120 he

00:13:34.580 and Simon played around

00:13:35.920 a lot with this

00:13:36.680 like he'd have people

00:13:37.360 of different height

00:13:38.060 and people with different

00:13:39.240 clothing on

00:13:39.960 and you

00:13:40.920 you could get

00:13:41.700 tremendous variation

00:13:43.020 in the people

00:13:43.860 who were being

00:13:44.600 swapped

00:13:45.280 and no one would notice

00:13:46.900 now you know

00:13:47.460 on the one hand

00:13:48.200 no one's gonna think

00:13:49.460 well Jesus you know

00:13:50.540 someone just swapped

00:13:51.860 a person on me

00:13:53.220 you know

00:13:53.840 so it's a violation

00:13:55.040 of expectation

00:13:56.020 but you might expect

00:13:57.280 that a violation

00:13:57.940 of expectation

00:13:58.620 like that would

00:13:59.360 really attract

00:14:00.540 your attention

00:14:01.180 rather than be

00:14:02.180 something you wouldn't

00:14:03.100 notice

00:14:03.620 right

00:14:04.100 and for the longest

00:14:05.480 time before Simon's work

00:14:06.800 that is what people

00:14:07.800 thought

00:14:08.180 they thought

00:14:08.620 the bigger the

00:14:09.280 violation of expectation

00:14:10.680 the more likely

00:14:12.020 you would be

00:14:12.840 to perceive it

00:14:13.880 and that turns out

00:14:15.080 not to be the case

00:14:16.000 it's much more

00:14:17.120 specific than that

00:14:18.160 so

00:14:18.960 so that's pretty

00:14:19.980 damn cool

00:14:21.760 I mean 0.98

00:14:22.080 that experiment

00:14:22.720 got really famous

00:14:24.100 and then he did

00:14:25.360 another one

00:14:25.860 which was

00:14:26.280 quite similar

00:14:27.100 where people

00:14:28.640 would come to a

00:14:29.300 counter at a

00:14:30.100 like a convenience

00:14:31.380 store

00:14:31.920 and the person

00:14:33.620 behind the counter

00:14:34.320 would be helping

00:14:34.940 them with something

00:14:35.620 and then they'd say

00:14:37.240 excuse me

00:14:37.860 and duck down

00:14:39.200 beneath the counter

00:14:40.000 and then another

00:14:40.700 person would pop up

00:14:42.060 and continue helping

00:14:43.160 them

00:14:43.360 same thing

00:14:44.200 about 50%

00:14:45.200 didn't notice

00:14:45.980 the switch

00:14:46.680 and so

00:14:47.640 that's

00:14:48.560 see right now

00:14:49.540 people could be

00:14:50.220 just popping in

00:14:51.200 and out

00:14:51.600 right beside you

00:14:53.020 everywhere here

00:14:53.920 and you wouldn't

00:14:54.340 even notice

00:14:55.000 as long as they

00:14:55.700 didn't do anything

00:14:56.460 strange

00:14:57.260 while they were

00:14:58.100 disappearing

00:14:58.760 and reappearing

00:14:59.540 you wouldn't

00:15:00.300 notice

00:15:00.700 you know

00:15:01.400 if you close

00:15:02.220 you could try this

00:15:03.160 like

00:15:03.420 if you close your eyes

00:15:05.160 for a second

00:15:05.760 and then guess

00:15:07.520 at the color

00:15:08.380 of the clothing

00:15:09.380 that the person

00:15:10.460 to the right

00:15:11.080 of you is wearing

00:15:11.920 just close your eyes

00:15:12.800 for a second

00:15:13.260 and guess

00:15:13.780 the probability

00:15:14.720 that you know

00:15:15.560 is like zero

00:15:16.640 I suspect even

00:15:18.260 you could even try this

00:15:19.900 close your eyes

00:15:20.580 for a second

00:15:21.180 and see if you can

00:15:23.900 remember what color

00:15:24.880 the chairs you're

00:15:25.820 sitting on are

00:15:26.720 now maybe you

00:15:28.440 maybe you do

00:15:29.280 and maybe you don't

00:15:30.580 but you don't have to

00:15:32.380 that's the thing

00:15:33.540 that's cool

00:15:34.120 because who cares

00:15:35.080 if they're

00:15:35.740 they happen to be red

00:15:36.980 but it doesn't matter

00:15:38.300 if they're red 0.96

00:15:38.840 because if they were black

00:15:39.960 you could still sit on them 0.99

00:15:41.660 and all you care about

00:15:43.480 really

00:15:44.240 while you're sitting

00:15:45.300 on a chair

00:15:45.920 is that

00:15:46.760 it functions

00:15:48.480 as a chair

00:15:49.720 and so

00:15:51.060 the color

00:15:52.020 isn't that relevant

00:15:52.960 and so you don't

00:15:53.900 need to remember it

00:15:54.820 any more than you

00:15:55.480 remember the texture

00:15:56.380 or any of the number

00:15:58.080 of other things

00:15:58.700 that you might

00:15:59.240 consider about the chair

00:16:01.080 as long as the

00:16:02.320 thing that you're

00:16:03.580 perceiving

00:16:04.240 fulfills

00:16:05.380 the function

00:16:06.320 that you're

00:16:07.820 undertaking

00:16:08.820 while you're

00:16:09.640 looking at it

00:16:10.540 then your

00:16:11.580 perceptual representation

00:16:13.100 is good enough

00:16:14.640 and it's so interesting

00:16:16.300 because that's

00:16:16.860 that's actually

00:16:17.680 a definition

00:16:18.360 of truth

00:16:19.260 it's a very

00:16:20.240 interesting definition

00:16:21.220 of truth

00:16:21.640 you know 0.99

00:16:22.060 we're all ignorant 1.00

00:16:22.740 people 1.00

00:16:23.180 we don't know

00:16:24.100 everything

00:16:24.580 our knowledge

00:16:25.400 about everything

00:16:26.080 is bounded

00:16:26.860 and so fundamentally

00:16:28.800 we flounder

00:16:29.620 in a sea of

00:16:30.200 ignorance

00:16:30.520 and so 0.92

00:16:30.960 you kind of

00:16:31.540 wonder

00:16:31.740 well how the

00:16:32.200 hell is it

00:16:32.700 that you ever

00:16:33.160 manage anything

00:16:34.200 because you can

00:16:34.880 keep asking

00:16:35.560 questions

00:16:36.120 until you run

00:16:36.900 out of answers

00:16:37.580 so how do you

00:16:38.560 ever know

00:16:39.000 what you should

00:16:39.720 be doing

00:16:40.180 and the answer

00:16:40.720 is

00:16:40.960 well you pick

00:16:41.740 bounded goals

00:16:43.040 and we'll talk

00:16:44.900 about how you

00:16:45.420 do that

00:16:45.840 and then

00:16:46.480 you pick

00:16:47.200 low resolution

00:16:49.480 perceptions

00:16:50.280 and if the

00:16:51.360 low resolution

00:16:52.040 perceptions

00:16:52.660 allow you

00:16:53.600 to meet

00:16:54.520 your bounded

00:16:55.220 goals

00:16:55.960 then they're

00:16:56.680 good enough

00:16:57.600 right

00:16:58.620 they're true

00:16:59.200 enough

00:16:59.680 and it's not

00:17:01.080 it's not a

00:17:01.860 denial of the

00:17:02.920 idea that there's

00:17:03.900 such a thing

00:17:04.520 as truth

00:17:05.400 because that 0.87

00:17:05.960 would be foolish 0.83

00:17:06.600 it's an attempt 0.96

00:17:08.080 to explain how

00:17:09.040 it is that

00:17:09.640 people such as

00:17:10.600 us who have

00:17:11.280 very limited

00:17:12.360 perceptual capacities

00:17:13.700 and who

00:17:14.460 and who are

00:17:16.160 ignorant beyond 1.00

00:17:17.720 comprehension 1.00

00:17:18.440 can still actually

00:17:19.940 manage in the

00:17:21.040 world

00:17:21.380 now

00:17:21.960 that's one

00:17:23.220 way we do it

00:17:24.500 we bind our

00:17:25.700 goals and then

00:17:26.360 we simplify our

00:17:27.080 perceptions

00:17:27.440 there's lots of

00:17:28.520 other ways that

00:17:29.180 we simplify the

00:17:30.720 world so that

00:17:31.920 we can act in

00:17:32.640 it but

00:17:32.940 but that's

00:17:34.280 but that's

00:17:34.980 two of them

00:17:35.460 so now

00:17:36.920 Simon did another

00:17:37.800 experiment which

00:17:38.600 was very

00:17:39.160 very famous

00:17:40.220 called

00:17:40.960 I think he

00:17:41.860 called it

00:17:42.240 gorillas in

00:17:42.960 the gorillas in

00:17:44.140 our midst

00:17:44.740 which was a

00:17:45.780 nice funny

00:17:46.480 take off of

00:17:47.240 the gorillas in

00:17:48.060 the mist book

00:17:48.780 by Fosse I

00:17:50.420 believe it was

00:17:51.000 so it was

00:17:51.320 witty you don't

00:17:52.280 see that in a

00:17:52.860 scientific article

00:17:53.620 very often

00:17:54.260 but it was

00:17:55.240 but it was

00:17:56.020 witty and

00:17:57.360 he did this

00:17:58.420 crazy experiment

00:17:59.700 where he

00:18:00.640 set up a

00:18:01.520 videotape in

00:18:02.240 front of some

00:18:03.300 elevator doors

00:18:04.140 and the

00:18:06.200 camera was

00:18:06.760 pretty close

00:18:07.380 and there were

00:18:08.020 six people in

00:18:08.980 the video and

00:18:09.660 they were I

00:18:10.760 would say they

00:18:11.380 they were about

00:18:12.140 as far from the

00:18:13.280 camera as the

00:18:13.920 second row of

00:18:14.640 people here is

00:18:15.340 from me so

00:18:16.040 close they

00:18:16.660 weren't like

00:18:17.140 you know

00:18:17.660 huddling over in

00:18:18.540 the corner there

00:18:19.080 this high

00:18:19.740 they filled up

00:18:20.840 the video so

00:18:21.980 you could you

00:18:22.520 could distinguish

00:18:23.320 their individual

00:18:24.140 facial features

00:18:25.140 so there was no

00:18:26.600 there was no

00:18:27.280 game being played

00:18:28.420 here now

00:18:29.060 so and

00:18:30.420 three of the

00:18:31.320 people in the

00:18:31.820 video were

00:18:32.280 dressed in

00:18:32.780 white and

00:18:33.220 three of them

00:18:33.680 were dressed in

00:18:34.320 black and

00:18:34.880 the black team

00:18:36.560 had a

00:18:37.420 basketball

00:18:38.000 and the

00:18:38.500 white team

00:18:39.100 had a

00:18:39.460 basketball

00:18:39.900 and the

00:18:41.500 your goal

00:18:42.800 when you came

00:18:43.360 into the lab

00:18:43.940 was to do

00:18:44.740 what the lab

00:18:45.360 instructor asked

00:18:46.440 you because

00:18:47.040 you're a good

00:18:47.680 participant and

00:18:48.660 socialized and

00:18:49.780 so you were

00:18:50.180 going to do

00:18:50.580 that and

00:18:51.520 all you were

00:18:52.200 asked to do

00:18:52.780 was to count

00:18:53.980 the number of

00:18:54.700 times that the

00:18:55.840 white dressed

00:18:57.020 team passed

00:18:58.520 the basketball

00:18:59.700 back and

00:19:00.340 forth and so

00:19:01.420 the video

00:19:02.080 started and

00:19:02.880 everyone was

00:19:03.700 mulling

00:19:04.580 milling

00:19:05.340 mulling

00:19:06.620 no milling

00:19:08.280 milling around

00:19:09.240 mulling is when

00:19:10.200 they're thinking

00:19:10.840 I was mulling

00:19:12.260 about milling

00:19:12.960 I guess

00:19:13.340 they're all

00:19:15.540 bouncing the

00:19:16.100 basketballs around

00:19:17.020 and you know

00:19:18.060 passing and

00:19:19.100 throwing and so

00:19:19.800 forth and

00:19:20.320 and intermingling

00:19:21.380 and you're

00:19:22.440 watching the

00:19:23.700 white team

00:19:24.620 pass and

00:19:26.060 it takes three

00:19:27.440 minutes and

00:19:27.980 you're focused

00:19:28.580 on it and you

00:19:29.120 want to do a

00:19:29.560 good job because

00:19:30.200 you're in a

00:19:30.600 university lab and

00:19:31.420 you don't want to

00:19:31.900 be a complete 0.97

00:19:32.680 bloody clunk about 0.99

00:19:33.780 it so maybe you

00:19:34.740 want to at least

00:19:35.320 demonstrate that

00:19:36.120 you can count

00:19:36.920 so you're

00:19:37.720 focused and

00:19:38.660 then that's

00:19:39.060 interesting too

00:19:39.760 because you

00:19:40.080 might ask

00:19:40.580 yourself well 0.61

00:19:41.120 why the hell 0.96

00:19:41.960 are you doing 0.91

00:19:43.120 what the

00:19:43.780 instructor is

00:19:45.200 asking you to

00:19:45.940 do in the

00:19:46.380 experiment right

00:19:47.740 it's not

00:19:48.060 self-evident and

00:19:49.420 you could be

00:19:50.160 playing tricks

00:19:51.440 on him or

00:19:52.820 her but you

00:19:53.640 likely wouldn't

00:19:54.200 be you go in

00:19:54.860 there and you

00:19:55.520 do your best

00:19:56.360 it's like well

00:19:57.360 why well the

00:19:58.520 context sort of

00:19:59.440 requires it

00:20:00.260 well then the

00:20:01.000 question is well

00:20:01.620 what is it about

00:20:02.440 the context that

00:20:03.540 requires it right

00:20:04.720 there's a whole

00:20:05.360 set of unwritten

00:20:06.140 rules about why

00:20:07.240 you would go

00:20:07.680 there and

00:20:08.260 participate cleanly

00:20:09.800 and honestly in

00:20:10.620 an experiment like

00:20:11.480 that you don't

00:20:11.980 know what the

00:20:12.420 rules are same

00:20:13.460 rules that

00:20:14.100 basically enabled

00:20:16.260 you to come and

00:20:17.220 sit in here

00:20:17.780 tonight all

00:20:18.540 together as

00:20:19.520 strangers in a

00:20:21.340 civilized manner

00:20:22.160 and all do

00:20:23.180 basically exactly

00:20:24.720 the same thing

00:20:25.640 and without fear

00:20:26.820 you know like

00:20:27.600 there's 1400 of

00:20:28.820 you in here

00:20:29.300 right that means

00:20:30.240 at least 14 of

00:20:31.700 you are really

00:20:32.640 you should probably

00:20:34.640 be institutionalized

00:20:36.400 right right I'm

00:20:38.540 serious about that

00:20:39.640 I'm not pointing

00:20:41.260 any fingers and

00:20:42.080 maybe one of them

00:20:42.760 is me you know

00:20:43.920 but all of you

00:20:47.340 came in here and

00:20:48.460 look you're all

00:20:49.080 sitting peacefully

00:20:49.880 together and not

00:20:51.140 only that you're

00:20:51.720 all doing the same

00:20:52.660 thing like notice

00:20:53.640 you're all pointing

00:20:54.340 at the front of the

00:20:55.560 theater like you

00:20:56.840 wouldn't be feeling

00:20:57.580 very good if you

00:20:58.800 were sitting in the

00:20:59.580 fifth row and the

00:21:00.460 person in the

00:21:01.160 fourth row in front

00:21:02.420 of you was turned

00:21:03.160 around and looking

00:21:04.380 at you right you

00:21:06.400 know that makes you

00:21:07.160 laugh and you see

00:21:08.020 what you see right

00:21:08.820 there how important

00:21:10.400 how important it is

00:21:11.980 that adherence to

00:21:13.620 social norms how

00:21:15.680 important a role

00:21:16.660 adherence to social

00:21:17.660 norms plays in your

00:21:18.840 emotional regulation

00:21:19.880 so you watch

00:21:21.140 everybody come in

00:21:21.880 you don't know who

00:21:22.400 the hell they are

00:21:23.160 the stage is set

00:21:25.060 the entire room is

00:21:25.980 set to tell you

00:21:27.320 how to act it's

00:21:28.500 basically set up so

00:21:30.000 that this is the

00:21:30.680 focal point and

00:21:31.800 there are chairs and

00:21:32.920 you walk in here and

00:21:33.700 the chairs tell you to

00:21:35.020 sit in them and

00:21:36.280 they're facing forward

00:21:38.100 and the fact that

00:21:39.240 they're facing forward

00:21:40.240 suggests to you that

00:21:42.580 you orient your

00:21:43.600 attention toward the

00:21:44.700 stage and because

00:21:45.940 you're socialized

00:21:47.040 creatures and you

00:21:47.820 understand architecture

00:21:49.660 and social behavior

00:21:51.260 then you all do that

00:21:52.780 and because you all do

00:21:54.060 that then you can all

00:21:55.220 sit here even though

00:21:56.040 you don't know each

00:21:56.740 other and you can not

00:21:58.000 be nervous out of

00:21:59.320 your mind and you

00:22:01.040 know people can be

00:22:01.760 pretty crazy and like

00:22:02.820 I said there's let's

00:22:04.200 say one percent of the

00:22:05.300 people in here are

00:22:06.500 not as stable as you

00:22:08.640 might want them to be

00:22:09.620 but it doesn't matter

00:22:10.720 they're stable enough

00:22:11.800 to abide by this set

00:22:13.400 of rules and that's

00:22:15.180 enough to keep

00:22:15.780 everybody's emotions

00:22:16.760 regulated so that's

00:22:18.400 that's very important

00:22:19.200 so anyways and so

00:22:20.540 that's part of the

00:22:21.200 reason for example

00:22:21.960 why when you go to a

00:22:22.980 university and you

00:22:23.720 participate in a

00:22:24.620 psychology experiment

00:22:25.480 that you do what's

00:22:26.840 required of you you

00:22:27.920 know you went there

00:22:28.560 voluntarily and you

00:22:29.700 play the game and

00:22:31.060 that's part of well

00:22:32.480 let's call it part of

00:22:33.460 being socialized or

00:22:35.300 part of being a good

00:22:36.080 citizen or part of

00:22:37.400 being trustworthy or

00:22:38.520 part of being

00:22:38.980 predictable or all of

00:22:41.240 those things that can

00:22:41.980 be you know they can

00:22:43.020 degenerate into well

00:22:44.660 what is that when

00:22:45.400 you're too much like

00:22:46.320 other people there's a

00:22:47.640 word for that too

00:22:49.380 conventional let's

00:22:50.380 say it can degenerate

00:22:51.720 into conventionality but

00:22:52.800 most of the time you

00:22:53.780 want people to do what

00:22:54.820 people do and and

00:22:56.400 and normal people so

00:22:58.320 to speak because it

00:22:59.160 just keeps life a hell

00:23:00.500 of a lot simpler if

00:23:02.000 that's the case and

00:23:02.820 it's a real favor that

00:23:06.200 you do to other people

00:23:07.340 to do the same thing

00:23:09.740 right which is you know

00:23:10.840 in many businesses

00:23:12.740 people go to their

00:23:14.320 business and they wear

00:23:15.040 a suit well why well

00:23:17.640 a suit is a derivation

00:23:18.840 of a uniform a military

00:23:20.200 uniform and uniform

00:23:21.500 uniform means uniform

00:23:23.240 well why do you want

00:23:24.660 everybody to wear a

00:23:25.760 uniform is because you

00:23:26.940 don't want to deal with

00:23:27.820 their bloody diversity 0.94

00:23:29.320 right it's like I don't 0.98

00:23:30.880 want to hear about your

00:23:31.780 diversity for God's sake

00:23:33.800 you know I mean I'd be

00:23:35.500 listening forever about

00:23:36.860 how idiosyncratic and

00:23:38.680 peculiar you are and and

00:23:40.160 how many problems you have

00:23:41.600 in your life and what a

00:23:42.480 bloody catastrophe your 0.98

00:23:43.740 family is and all of that

00:23:45.020 and and there is a time

00:23:46.760 and a place for that but

00:23:47.860 no but but not always

00:23:49.620 sometimes there's a time

00:23:51.140 to wear a uniform and

00:23:52.700 be just like everyone

00:23:54.380 else as you pursue a

00:23:56.560 agreed-upon goal for

00:23:58.360 agreed-upon reasons

00:23:59.580 right and that's society

00:24:00.880 society is also the

00:24:02.720 opportunity now and then

00:24:04.340 to have the what would

00:24:05.760 you call privilege of

00:24:07.220 expressing your trouble

00:24:08.720 or your individuality but

00:24:10.360 like a little of that

00:24:11.520 goes a long ways it's

00:24:12.860 crucial it's crucial it's

00:24:15.860 absolutely vital but a

00:24:17.860 little of it goes a long

00:24:18.860 ways so you don't

00:24:20.160 underestimate the utility

00:24:21.560 of conventional behavior

00:24:23.400 it's way more important

00:24:24.700 to you than you think you

00:24:26.320 don't want to be well

00:24:27.720 think about how what

00:24:28.540 happens when you walk

00:24:29.320 down the street and

00:24:30.480 you're you're walking

00:24:31.080 down the street and

00:24:31.860 there's somebody there

00:24:32.700 who's obviously not

00:24:34.140 functioning very well

00:24:35.120 homeless person

00:24:36.300 hygienic mess a

00:24:41.740 conceptual mess they're

00:24:43.900 talking to themselves well

00:24:45.320 now you have to check and

00:24:46.440 see if they're talking on

00:24:47.420 their cell phone because

00:24:48.440 like everybody's walking

00:24:49.820 down the street talking

00:24:50.780 to themselves but assuming

00:24:52.640 they're not they're

00:24:53.840 muttering or maybe they're

00:24:54.880 yelling you know and

00:24:56.380 gesturing to things that

00:24:57.640 aren't there and like

00:24:58.940 your your natural response

00:25:02.080 to that is to give the

00:25:03.900 person a relatively wide

00:25:05.780 berth and not to make eye

00:25:09.400 contact because that

00:25:10.620 indicates interest right it

00:25:12.140 indicates interest and

00:25:13.200 that's a that's a come on

00:25:14.720 eye contact so and so you

00:25:18.320 don't do that and the

00:25:19.140 reason you don't do that is

00:25:20.140 because that person is not

00:25:22.100 abiding by social norms and

00:25:25.340 it isn't like you're judging

00:25:26.540 them because you hate them or

00:25:27.820 despise them or anything like

00:25:29.100 that you might feel like you

00:25:30.440 might feel real bad that it's

00:25:31.800 like well it's really bad when

00:25:33.480 you see this sort of thing in

00:25:34.420 Canada because it's like 30 0.89

00:25:35.600 below and there's people out

00:25:36.780 there on the street who are in

00:25:38.100 that situation and no one's

00:25:40.220 pleased about that but by the

00:25:41.820 same token you don't know

00:25:43.000 what to do about it and you

00:25:44.800 don't want to get involved

00:25:46.500 because how what are you

00:25:48.180 going to do you don't know

00:25:49.080 what to do you haven't got a

00:25:50.240 clue what to do about a

00:25:51.520 situation like that and the

00:25:52.700 probability that you're going

00:25:54.300 to help that person compared

00:25:55.660 to having them tear you down

00:25:57.500 is extraordinarily low so you

00:25:59.880 don't like violation of social

00:26:01.420 norms at all really not at

00:26:04.280 all especially when they're

00:26:06.000 accidental purposeful that's

00:26:07.880 different a comedian will do

00:26:08.960 that a comedian's on station

00:26:10.820 he'll say something or she'll

00:26:11.960 say something that you're not

00:26:13.160 really supposed to say but

00:26:14.760 everybody's there to hear

00:26:15.820 there's someone say something

00:26:17.040 that they're not supposed to

00:26:18.040 say and so that constitutes an

00:26:19.920 acceptable violation and we can

00:26:21.520 all have a laugh about that and

00:26:23.280 be a little relieved that we're

00:26:24.620 not quite as conventional as we

00:26:26.160 normally are but even then it's

00:26:28.040 it's it's within tight

00:26:29.820 constraints and so okay so back to

00:26:32.340 the gorilla video so there you are

00:26:34.920 being being conventional and doing

00:26:38.440 your best to count the basketballs

00:26:40.820 like a good student even though

00:26:42.220 you're not a student and the

00:26:45.000 video runs for three minutes and

00:26:46.680 the experimenter says well how many

00:26:48.460 times did the white team pass the

00:26:50.780 basketball back and forth and you

00:26:52.260 say 16 because you were paying

00:26:54.620 attention and the experimenter says

00:26:57.660 very good and you feel good about

00:26:59.880 that and then they say did you see

00:27:03.280 anything that you didn't expect did

00:27:07.520 you see anything strange during the

00:27:09.360 video and you say well what do you

00:27:11.840 mean and they say well did you see

00:27:14.600 the gorilla and you say what do you

00:27:20.640 mean did I see the gorilla it's like

00:27:22.420 you know if a gorilla comes dancing out

00:27:25.140 on stage here you know you think 0.99

00:27:27.180 you're gonna see the damn gorilla right 0.99

00:27:29.140 that there's no question about that and 0.99

00:27:30.820 so a question like that just it isn't a

00:27:34.280 sensible question and the experimenter

00:27:37.240 says well halfway through the video a

00:27:40.880 gorilla came out in the middle of the

00:27:42.640 stage right where the basketball players

00:27:45.460 were and beat his chest for like three

00:27:48.140 seconds and then walked off the stage 0.95

00:27:50.900 and you say no no no and so he says

00:27:56.760 well how about if we replay it this

00:27:58.780 time don't count the balls okay so

00:28:02.200 that's interesting eh because now 0.96

00:28:03.720 you're doing something different eh

00:28:05.000 your attention was focused very very

00:28:06.980 precisely on a task and that was to

00:28:09.280 pay attention to the basketball and to

00:28:11.500 see it move right and even though the

00:28:14.160 video screen isn't very big and you

00:28:16.500 kind of have a sense that you see the

00:28:18.540 whole thing while you're watching it

00:28:20.400 you don't you you see little pin

00:28:22.920 pricks of it because your eyes are

00:28:24.580 always darting around like little laser

00:28:26.180 beams and you're you're kind of making

00:28:27.840 the world out of these laser beam

00:28:29.380 perceptions and organizing it but you

00:28:31.520 you you see extraordinarily clearly

00:28:34.460 only with a tiny fragment of your

00:28:36.960 visual field there's a part of your

00:28:38.700 brain eye called the fovea which is very

00:28:41.260 heavily innervated optically and it

00:28:44.900 sends neurons to part of your brain the

00:28:48.000 visual cortex and each of the neurons is

00:28:50.840 represented by 10,000 neurons at the

00:28:53.120 first level of processing in the visual

00:28:55.360 cortex and you just can't handle that for

00:28:57.540 your whole eye like if you if that was

00:29:00.040 the case for your whole eye your head

00:29:01.460 would be this big and then you'd be

00:29:03.140 laying on the ground and even though you

00:29:04.680 could see you wouldn't be able to move so

00:29:06.280 that wouldn't be helpful so you have this

00:29:09.440 central vision fovea and you're moving

00:29:11.840 it around all the time and you can tell

00:29:13.680 like if I look at well if I look at

00:29:16.480 someone in the second row if I look at

00:29:18.180 you for example sir I look at you and I

00:29:20.440 can see your eyebrows and your eyes and

00:29:22.280 your nose and your and your mouth I can

00:29:23.840 see your eyebrows moving but the two

00:29:25.460 people beside you they're pretty blurry

00:29:27.880 saw you when you moved your you moved

00:29:29.500 your head and I could see that I as long

00:29:31.680 as I look at you I really can't see your

00:29:33.840 eyes you I can't even tell your gender

00:29:37.140 you I can't even tell you from the chair

00:29:40.660 and so that's and so that's not much of

00:29:43.380 a gradient you know but normally I'd be

00:29:45.680 looking back and forth and I'd be keeping

00:29:47.220 track of all of you but I can only really

00:29:49.460 see your face and the expression on your

00:29:51.860 face and everything else gets blurry now

00:29:54.020 it's interesting if I look at you and I

00:29:56.220 do this for me if you would so I'm going

00:29:58.340 to look at you bury your teeth go like

00:30:00.260 this there I can see that and so what we

00:30:03.980 do is we have very acute central vision and

00:30:07.640 when we do very high resolution processing

00:30:10.040 with it especially of faces because faces

00:30:12.020 are unbelievably informative and then out

00:30:14.420 towards the periphery we use tricks like

00:30:17.120 way out here we use movement so like

00:30:20.720 dinosaurs you you saw Jurassic Park

00:30:22.700 dinosaur can't see anything unless it's

00:30:24.980 moving neither can a frog neither can you

00:30:27.620 not out here you can in the middle of

00:30:30.260 your visual cortex but not out here your

00:30:32.240 vision is actually black and white out

00:30:34.280 here as well and so and then there's

00:30:36.440 other things that you might see

00:30:37.700 preferentially like a little farther away

00:30:40.100 from the foveal center you're attuned to

00:30:43.520 emotional display so you can see eye

00:30:45.680 movements and you can see teeth because

00:30:48.260 well it's important if something near

00:30:51.200 you that's alive moves its eyes that's a

00:30:53.600 clue that something's going on it's also

00:30:55.400 important if something near you shows its

00:30:57.740 teeth because well it might eat you and

00:31:00.560 you should probably clue into that and so

00:31:03.140 that'll attract your foveal vision and

00:31:04.940 then you'll do high resolution processing

00:31:06.620 anyways that's how it works so now you

00:31:09.260 reverse the video and the experimenter

00:31:13.400 reverses it so that you can watch the

00:31:15.780 whole thing reverse you know so that you

00:31:17.680 know there's no tricks and then he plays

00:31:19.320 it forward and sure enough man minute and a

00:31:22.420 half out in the video out comes this guy

00:31:25.300 it's not a real gorilla because he didn't

00:31:27.920 have the research money to train a real

00:31:30.980 gorilla okay so it's a guy in a gorilla

00:31:33.080 suit but it's not it's not this guy you

00:31:35.720 know I could say it's not Ben Shapiro I

00:31:39.100 suppose I could say that you know it's a

00:31:43.960 big guy I mean he's like six foot four and

00:31:46.120 he's in a big gorilla suit and he comes 0.97

00:31:48.180 right out in the middle and all the

00:31:50.060 basketball players are playing around him

00:31:51.880 and he looks right at the camera right in

00:31:55.000 the center of the video and he beats his

00:31:56.920 chest and he does it for like a few

00:31:58.880 seconds you know and then he ambles off

00:32:01.300 it's not like he zips in does this and

00:32:03.580 runs off it's no it's casual man and he's

00:32:06.440 and so he beats his chest and he wanders

00:32:08.420 off and and you don't see that and you

00:32:11.120 think yeah sure I'd see it it's like no

00:32:14.620 you wouldn't you wouldn't see it I had a

00:32:17.280 graduate student I showed it to twice and

00:32:19.240 he missed it both times even even

00:32:21.660 remembered like he remembered seeing it

00:32:23.800 he missed it the second time and then

00:32:25.700 Simon made a second video which is called

00:32:28.420 I don't actually don't remember it doesn't

00:32:33.040 matter same thing same same team

00:32:36.140 structure okay so three and three black

00:32:38.280 and white and he made this because

00:32:42.300 everybody had watched the gorilla video

00:32:44.240 and now they thought they were smart

00:32:45.340 they said oh ha now I know I now I've

00:32:47.400 learned to see I'll see everything and so

00:32:50.180 the gorilla comes out and beats his chest

00:32:53.080 and wanders off and you ask the

00:32:56.680 experimental victims what they saw and

00:33:00.080 they saw ah 16 interchanges passes and a gorilla

00:33:05.280 they think smart and and and Simon says

00:33:09.460 well then let's rewind it and see what

00:33:11.340 happens and so he rewinds it and then you

00:33:13.880 find out that halfway through one of the

00:33:16.840 black team players left so there's like

00:33:21.120 two instead of three and that's actually

00:33:22.960 quite a a lot fewer people right you lost

00:33:27.420 like 50 you lost 33 percent of the team

00:33:30.620 it's a lot you think you might notice that

00:33:32.960 you don't and so you you don't notice that

00:33:36.040 and then the curtain changes from red to

00:33:38.700 gold and not just a little bit like

00:33:41.040 completely and so you saw the gorilla

00:33:43.900 but you missed the fact that one third of

00:33:47.900 the team left and you missed the fact that

00:33:50.560 something that shouldn't change color

00:33:53.380 that's really large that's right there in

00:33:56.460 the scene changed and so the moral of that

00:33:59.500 story is sometimes when you're looking for a

00:34:03.200 gorilla other unexpected things happen and

00:34:06.440 so you're kind of screwed both ways right you

00:34:08.460 think well I'm gonna look at the world my 0.95

00:34:10.740 normal way but I'm gonna be paying attention

00:34:12.660 for what changes and so then you're paying

00:34:14.880 attention for the thing you think will

00:34:17.040 change and some other thing completely

00:34:18.600 changes and you miss that blind unbelievably

00:34:22.680 blind it's it's really those are 0.99

00:34:24.740 miraculous experiments because

00:34:27.300 psychologists really were convinced before

00:34:29.280 that that if something unexpected happened

00:34:32.580 you would see it but but but we learned we

00:34:36.180 learned from that we learned about one what

00:34:37.980 unexpected meant and unexpected means

00:34:40.800 something very specific it doesn't just

00:34:42.740 mean unexpected because look there's

00:34:44.580 unexpected things happening all the time

00:34:46.500 around you unexpected so that you will perceive

00:34:50.940 it means unexpected in a way that interferes with

00:34:55.140 with the specifics of your ongoing goal directed activity so for example had the white team being passing the basketball back and forth and the gorilla had come out and grab the ball and left you would have noticed that because your job was to count the number of passes and that would have directly interfered with your job

00:35:16.780 whereas if the gorilla just wanders out he's an irrelevant figure like the black team right because you zeroed out the black team when you're watching the ball being passed back and forth between the white players the black teams just become icons of essentially irrelevant and so the gorilla comes out he's kind of like a black team member and so you just don't pay any attention to him because he isn't causing any trouble and so that's that's kind of a lesson 0.91

00:35:46.780 and and and then another lesson is we don't really like to see the world when it causes trouble that's the next lesson and and there's reasons there's very good reasons for that

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00:38:43.100 shopify.com slash jbp okay so so let let's take that apart a bit so how is it that you what is it

00:38:53.040 that you use to frame in the world so that you can see it now with the with the gorilla video example

00:39:00.460 what happened was you framed your perceptions because you had an aim right and your aim was

00:39:06.840 to aim your eyes at the ball and then to count accurately the number of of passes very specific

00:39:14.580 aim right very high resolution aim right there's a trillion other things you could have been doing

00:39:19.820 with your life at that moment but that was what you were doing you were sitting in that chair

00:39:23.620 you were narrowly focused on a on a video screen which was narrow focus to begin with and then you

00:39:29.420 were focused on a team but even more than that you were focused on a ball and you were focused on the

00:39:34.860 movement of the ball and that's what you were doing so you had taken the whole world the entire

00:39:39.340 complicated insanely complicated world and reduced it to only that and you know it wasn't that easy to

00:39:48.420 set the situation up so that you could do that that's the other thing is because you think well what

00:39:53.820 about all that world that you weren't paying attention to what the hell is it up to while you're sitting 0.54

00:39:58.500 there watching people play ball on a video and the answer is well we've done an awful lot of work

00:40:05.820 screening out the rest of the complexity so that you don't have to deal with it right so you can just

00:40:10.880 ignore it like even you're sitting here and you're paying attention to the lecture we hope and and why is

00:40:17.080 it that you can do that well i mean there's a lot of reasons well first someone built this it wasn't

00:40:24.820 easy to build this this is a hard thing to build and and it's and standing up right that's good it's

00:40:30.780 built solidly enough so that none of you are worried too much that it's going to collapse while we're

00:40:35.500 talking you can just take that for granted you think the floor is going to stay in place you think

00:40:39.700 the seats aren't going to move you trust your fellow citizens so you're not so nervous that you're

00:40:44.960 you know you're you're you're distracted by what what they might do as we already said what what they

00:40:51.280 might do while you're while they're sitting there and that means that your society is so civilized and

00:40:56.600 social that you don't really have to be worried about being robbed and you don't really have to be

00:41:01.100 worried about being molested you can just assume that everybody's going to act well kind of like you're

00:41:05.820 going to act and so you can ignore all that and you know the electricity is on and so that's kind

00:41:10.620 of helpful because it indicates that the background infrastructure is working and the sound equipment

00:41:16.060 is is working the amplification is working and so you know that there's a competent staff here and

00:41:21.020 like there's a lot of work going into allowing you to sit here and pretend that the only part of the

00:41:29.520 world that matters for the next hour and a half or so is the dialogue that we're having

00:41:34.940 it's walls it's like you're you're in a wall inside a wall inside a wall inside a wall inside a wall

00:41:43.300 etc you know and and i haven't even described all the walls you're in a city and it functions pretty

00:41:48.680 well and the city's in a state and it's not doing too badly and the state's in a country and it's well

00:41:54.240 defended and it has a good legal structure right and the economy's doing all right so you're not all

00:41:59.860 sitting there worried about where your next meal is going to come from i mean god it's it's there's so

00:42:05.760 much work has gone into enabling you to zero your perceptions into this you know tiny fragment of

00:42:13.040 reality and to act like you're seeing the world it's a complete bloody miracle that that we can manage

00:42:18.900 that and a tremendous amount of our social organization is exactly that is it's to make things orderly and

00:42:26.100 predictable enough functional as well so that we can concentrate on the tiny things that we can

00:42:32.680 concentrate on without being terrified out of our skulls and it's no simple thing to manage that

00:42:39.560 and we by and large have managed it which is extraordinarily cool and and very much worth being

00:42:46.080 grateful for even though it's hard to be grateful for it because look as you sit here you're not worried

00:42:53.120 and because you're not worried you're not paying attention to anything that's making you not

00:42:59.540 worried right because you're only you only pay attention to the things that get in the way and

00:43:04.360 so there isn't anything getting in the way and so you don't pay any attention to it and so you take

00:43:08.000 it for granted and that that's very dangerous you don't want to take things that are that miraculous

00:43:13.640 for granted because they're unlikely and they take a lot of work to to to make work and to continue to

00:43:20.520 work and so you know we should always be thankful when we can come to an event like this and you

00:43:26.660 know it's it's peaceful and productive because that's really something and so and it's hard to

00:43:33.740 be conscious enough to remember that okay so how do you structure your perceptions well look you're a

00:43:39.580 moving creature that's that's an important thing and creatures have been moving around for a long time

00:43:44.400 for billions of years and you're one of them you've come from a very long line of creatures who move

00:43:50.660 and the fact that we move is very much relevant to understanding the mechanisms of our perception

00:43:56.440 because part of what we're doing is trying to move from one place to another all the time

00:44:01.900 and basically that's what adds valence to life it's what adds value to life because you think well why do

00:44:08.680 you want to move from one place to another it's the old joke about the chicken why did the chicken

00:44:13.580 cross the road and answer is because he thought the other side of the road was better obviously

00:44:20.460 and unless unless that unless he was a deluded chicken and was aiming at something worse you know

00:44:26.700 it's like why do you move from one place to another throughout your life why do you do one thing instead

00:44:32.740 of another you think well here i am and it has its problems this place that i'm at maybe it's not as bad

00:44:40.000 as it could be but there's some other place that would be slightly better than the place i'm at

00:44:45.440 and so that's where you're headed and you're always in a valence gradient because of that where you are

00:44:52.800 isn't quite good enough and where you're going is better or or if that reverses on you you know you

00:44:59.360 think well where i'm going isn't so good but where i'm headed is worse that's not good right you don't

00:45:06.480 want to be in that situation we don't aim at that that's a mistake what we're trying to do is

00:45:11.800 climb uphill all the time and and and we're interested in that we're interested in that

00:45:18.360 because that's what interest is for technically biologically interest is to get you to go to the

00:45:24.160 next place that's slightly better and that can be physical it can be conceptual it doesn't matter

00:45:29.560 it can be both of those so you're at point a and you're going to point b whatever point b happens

00:45:36.140 to be now so we can take that apart because it it tells you how perception works so let's say i'm

00:45:42.340 standing here and i want to go over to that speaker on the far side of the stage and i'm looking at the

00:45:49.320 stage and i'm thinking i'm not thinking by the way i'm i'm seeing you know your eyes this isn't how

00:45:57.260 this is how your eyes don't work okay you don't look at the world see objects think about the

00:46:04.100 objects evaluate the objects and then decide what to do you don't do that well you do a little bit

00:46:10.000 but it's very hard and it takes a tremendous amount of work your eyes neurologically they're connected

00:46:16.480 all through your body like your eyes are connected right to your spinal cord for example so if you're

00:46:21.500 walking down a pathway and something looks like a snake beside you and you happen to catch it out of the

00:46:26.920 corner of your eye you'll jump and it isn't because you saw the snake and thought snake and

00:46:32.580 then thought snakes are dangerous and then thought i better jump and then sent a message to your muscles

00:46:38.040 consciously to get you to jump because like the snakes not only bitten you by then it's got you half

00:46:43.780 digested by the time you've done all that so that isn't how it works it's like snake pattern

00:46:49.580 couple of neuronal connections snake jump pattern leap really fast fast enough so that maybe you'll

00:46:58.520 get out of the way before the snake strikes you and that's like in the hundreds of a second you don't 0.89

00:47:02.660 have time to see the damn snake you have a time to map the pattern of the snake onto your spinal cord 0.88

00:47:08.280 you know and it turns out you know your spinal cord is a lot more complicated than you think if you take 0.99

00:47:13.800 paraplegic people and you suspend them by their arms over a treadmill they'll walk now not voluntarily 1.00

00:47:22.000 because they can't walk voluntarily but the tread their legs will move on the treadmill because there's

00:47:28.500 enough brain in the spinal cord to do that kind of activity and actually when you're walking really

00:47:33.920 what you're doing is learning leaning forward and falling so now you know sometimes you see people who

00:47:39.680 actually look like that but so so a lot so a lot of what you're doing is is automatic perception your

00:47:46.860 eyes and your eyes are mapping the world the eyes are your eyes are mapping the world onto your body

00:47:52.980 and onto your motivations and onto your emotions and onto your perceptions and the perceptual part is

00:47:59.240 actually quite a long ways down the chain of processing so there are these people who have uh they call it

00:48:06.700 um uh what's the name of it it's cortical blindness and so uh they they're blind you ask them can you see

00:48:16.360 they say no well you think okay man you're the one that would know so if i ask you if you're blind and you

00:48:23.080 say no well then you're blind it's like maybe okay you're one of these people can you see no okay we're gonna

00:48:32.800 play a game i'm gonna hold up my hand and you're gonna guess which hand okay right left right right

00:48:41.980 left right it's like can you see my hand no well how come you're guessing accurately and the answer is

00:48:50.660 well your eyes are mapping onto other parts of your brain that don't have much to do with direct

00:48:55.820 conscious visual perception so maybe like if i'm looking at you and you're sitting sort of like this

00:49:01.480 part of what happens is when i look at you i map the way that your body is onto my body so that i can

00:49:08.080 feel it that helps me understand who you are and so my eyes feel the way that your body is configured

00:49:14.900 and then use my body as a representational structure either directly or in imagination so that i can

00:49:20.800 understand who you are well so if you have cortical blindness that's what you do is you look at someone

00:49:26.120 you map their body onto your body and then you can feel whether which which hand is up even if even

00:49:31.980 though you don't know that you can't perceive it and if you take the same people and you can do these

00:49:37.700 experiments with galvanic skin response it's pretty straightforward you just measure electrical

00:49:41.960 resistance in the palm of the hand and and that can change pretty quickly with emotional response

00:49:46.760 like very rapidly and and so like if if um if i if i uh put a galvanometer on your hand and then i show

00:49:58.040 you a frightening picture your skin conductance increases because you sweat a little bit

00:50:03.100 so you can tell if people are responding emotionally by using a device like this and so you can take people

00:50:09.960 with cortical blindness and you can show them pictures of people's faces that are angry or fearful

00:50:16.260 and they'll show a galvanic skin response to the emotion because the eyes are still mapped onto the

00:50:21.860 part of the brain that processes emotion so so that's quite cool and then um even simpler things

00:50:28.760 like for example if i want to have a glass or i want to have some water here which i actually do

00:50:35.180 um then i look at this thing there and you know you think well i see bottle and i think bottle

00:50:42.900 and i think drink and i think walk over and pick it up and and drink and it's not true what happens

00:50:49.940 is that at least in part is that my eyes see that shape and then they directly map the shape onto the

00:50:57.580 configuration of my hand and so that that's kind of what it would mean to understand what that thing

00:51:03.700 is right because to understand it would be to know that it was a grippable object that was usable for

00:51:09.020 a certain function and so my eyes map directly onto my motor system and so by the time i come over

00:51:14.460 here i've already see that i've already got my hand in exactly the right shape and size to grip this

00:51:21.060 and it's almost perfect and that's a form of imitation too because you know this is like this

00:51:29.200 and that's quite cool too because that's the beginning of representation you know so because you

00:51:35.500 know if you had a three-year-old and and or two-year-old let's say the two-year-old couldn't

00:51:39.720 talk and sort of pointed to that and went like this if you had a clue you'd think oh the baby would

00:51:46.040 like to have the the bottle why what's that that's not bottle that's that's that's that's like a claw

00:51:53.520 it's not a bottle but like you look at the baby and you can infer the motivations of the baby and you

00:52:01.120 know the baby's pointing so specifying an area of perception for you and then makes a gesture and so

00:52:06.940 you put all that together and you think ah you know and you go get the bottle and you give it to the

00:52:12.740 baby and the baby's happy and and that's representation it's part of how we get a grip on the world and

00:52:17.980 understand the world so okay so now i'm over here and i want to go over there for whatever reason

00:52:26.260 um i guess for the purposes of the demonstration of this part of the lecture so um i'm setting myself

00:52:33.420 up emotionally here for success or failure right because if i get over there then i succeed and if

00:52:41.020 i don't get over there i fail so i'm taking a risk here and and and and i'm setting up this gradient

00:52:47.780 i've decided in this particular circumstance that that side of the stage is preferable to this side

00:52:53.800 okay so now i'm i'm i'm in an emotional world all of a sudden that's laid on top of the perceptual

00:53:00.200 world this place isn't as good as that place now then we can think about how i could get there and

00:53:07.220 we can think about qualities of pathway and i would say well this is a pretty good pathway i mean i might

00:53:14.480 trip over this and so i see that and i get a little twinge of negative emotion about that thing

00:53:19.460 because it's a thing i could trip over and that's actually what you see you don't see objects you see

00:53:27.060 places you could fall off of you see things you could trip over you see obstacles and tools and you

00:53:34.440 see them directly you don't see objects and think about them as tools and obstacles you see tools and

00:53:40.720 obstacles and after thousands of years of cogitation you're able to think about that scientifically and

00:53:47.340 turn those into objective objects we see a falling off place we know this with little babies like

00:53:53.460 if you take a space like this imagine there were two little cliffs like this this far apart and you

00:54:00.520 put a piece of glass over them and you have a baby that can only crawl six months old the baby will not

00:54:05.700 crawl over the glass now it's not because the baby has fallen off places like this before it's because

00:54:11.260 the baby sees a falling off place where you might die and there's an emotional response to that like

00:54:19.040 you would have if you get too close to the balcony on a high rise you know you you see a falling off

00:54:24.340 place and you can bloody well see that with your whole body right you get a most people at least get a

00:54:29.920 sense of vertigo and they get a sense that they might go over and so they don't take chances they might

00:54:36.760 they might play with it but generally speaking you know you're you're you're you're on alert that's a

00:54:41.780 place you might die and we're living creatures and we care about whether or not we're going to die

00:54:46.880 and so we don't see the object and then make it dangerous we see the damn danger and then derive the 0.59

00:54:53.140 object so anyways this isn't a bad pathway because i could walk to that speaker with virtually nothing in

00:55:00.780 the way little danger here might trip over that rug other than that it's looking pretty good

00:55:06.460 so so then i look at this pathway and what happens is the part of my brain that produces positive emotion

00:55:14.200 produces some positive emotion because part of the reason this is really really important it's it's it's

00:55:21.140 a crucial thing to understand part of the reason that you produce positive emotion is because you see

00:55:27.480 an open pathway toward a valued goal okay so you got to think that through the first thing that implies

00:55:34.720 is you need a valid goal you need a valued goal no valued goal no positive emotion so that's really

00:55:43.180 worth thinking about especially if you start to think about that in a more sophisticated way because

00:55:47.440 then you might also think the more valued the goal the more positive emotion you see when you see an open

00:55:55.500 pathway to it and so that implies that open pathways are important and it implies that valued goals are

00:56:03.100 important assuming that you want to be happy i don't mean satisfied i don't mean you've just had a

00:56:07.780 turkey dinner for thanksgiving and now you're do you have thanksgiving in australia no that you don't have

00:56:12.720 anything to be thankful for except kangaroos so so okay but in north america you eat a whole turkey and

00:56:20.100 then you're thankful that you're not a turkey and then you go to sleep you go to sleep on the floor

00:56:24.760 like a lion that's just eating a whole wildebeest and that's not exactly happy it's just

00:56:30.340 done right satiated it's a different form of positive emotion and it's not the part you really

00:56:37.480 like you know if you're going out for a night of wild drug use you don't take a pill that makes you

00:56:42.900 feel like you ate a whole turkey you take cocaine or methamphetamine or something like that and the

00:56:48.080 reason you or alcohol and or nicotine or caffeine and the reason you do that is because those drugs

00:56:53.580 activate the system that's activated when you perceive a valid goal and you can see a clear

00:56:59.980 pathway to it that's why you like those drugs that's why they're addictive they make you feel as

00:57:05.180 if you're doing something useful and that's the basic biochemistry of dopaminergic agonists and those

00:57:10.880 are drugs of abuse and so and so you know one of the ways if you are addicted or abusing drugs that

00:57:17.980 are of that form one thing that you might consider is that you should get a life because i'm dead

00:57:24.760 serious about this it is not merely a matter of getting off the drug it's like well i'm going to

00:57:29.540 get off the drug and now i'm going to sit and watch tv it's like bored to death no not going to work you

00:57:36.460 might get rid of the dependence you might get rid of the addiction and that doesn't even take that long

00:57:41.240 technically speaking although it takes a while for the cued addiction to go away but you need a 0.64

00:57:47.000 replacement you need to have something to do that's better than the damn drug and actually that's most

00:57:55.940 of the reason why most people aren't addicted to drugs of that sort all the time and the reason is 0.93

00:58:01.960 well sometimes they're fortunate enough not to really be powerfully affected by the drug it's a bit of

00:58:07.480 genetic variation but a lot of the other reason is they have better things to do if you take rats

00:58:13.100 you take a rat rat's a social guy he likes to live in a rat family and do rat things with his rat friends 0.53

00:58:19.560 and and and and and you can't get him addicted to cocaine if he lives in his natural habitat he'll

00:58:25.320 mostly ignore it but if you take him by the tail and you drop him in a cage and now he's like bored

00:58:30.620 lonesome isolated rat and then give him access to cocaine he'll just bar press forever forever 0.97

00:58:38.800 he'll ignore water food sexual access just bar press for cocaine and it's because he doesn't 0.99

00:58:45.240 have anything better to do like he's not even a rat he's just a he's like you in solitary confinement 0.89

00:58:51.320 it's sort of you but it's you with no future it's you with no past it's you with no present it's you

00:58:58.080 with no friends it's no it's you with no community so it's sort of you but it's a truncated and

00:59:04.560 miserable version of you and and if there's cocaine in that cell you might think god you know if you

00:59:10.120 put animals if you isolate animals and you set them up so that they can voluntarily give themselves

00:59:16.580 electric shocks if you isolate them they will do that just for entertainment

00:59:22.880 if you found this conversation meaningful you might think about picking up dad's books maps of

00:59:29.600 meaning the architecture of belief or his newer bestseller 12 rules for life and antidote to

00:59:34.700 chaos both of these works delve much deeper into the topics covered in the jordan b peterson podcast

00:59:40.400 see jordanbpeterson.com for audio ebook and text links or pick up the books at your favorite bookseller

00:59:46.440 remember to check out jordanbpeterson.com slash personality for information on his new e-course

00:59:52.100 tag jordan or i on instagram to share your results from the discovering personality course

00:59:56.540 i really hope you enjoyed this podcast talk to you next week follow me on my youtube channel

01:00:03.420 jordanbpeterson on twitter at jordanbpeterson on facebook at dr jordanbpeterson and at instagram

01:00:11.600 jordanbpeterson details on this show access to my blog information about my tour dates and other

01:00:19.900 events and my list of recommended books can be found on my website jordanbpeterson.com my online

01:00:27.200 writing programs designed to help people straighten out their pasts understand themselves in the present

01:00:33.000 and develop a sophisticated vision and strategy for the future can be found at self-authoring.com

01:00:39.180 that's self-authoring.com from the westwood one podcast network

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01:01:37.040 foreign

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - February 16, 2020

Structuring Your Perceptions (part one)

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