Listener Mail: Centaur on Fire

so in our three part are on Pacific Island navigation. Uh. One thing we asked for was if any listeners had experienced themselves with sailing, if they had thoughts about it. Uh. And so we did hear from someone. Kate wrote in to say hello, Robert, Joe, and Seth. I'm writing in today in regards to the navigation episodes. I have multiple reasons this episode hit home, but I will try to keep it brief. First, I have the book you referenced throughout the series and it is next on my reading list.

She's talking about We the Navigators by David Lewis um. But then second, I am a licensed day skipper small sailboats and also lived on a tall ship for five

months and crossed the Atlantic. During this crossing, the second mate on board offered the opportunity to learn to navigate by the stars, and no one else took advantage of it, which was good in that it allowed me a solo course for our twenty one day crossing, but also may say something of people's disinterest in something they don't directly require.

The other thing I wanted to mention was that although there may have been specialized navigators, there would have been a massive amount of knowledge of the sea that would have been as commonplace as our understanding of a stop sign within today's society. The decline of this knowledge it could be compared to even fifty years ago, when the majority of people were able to keep a decent sense of direction in the bush, or at least enough knowledge to stay on a path that they wouldn't get lost on,

even if it wasn't a very noticeable path. Now out with the urbanization of humanity, there's considerably less common knowledge about bushcraft. It takes very little time for this information to be lost to a culture. Anyways, I really enjoy your shows, and my long drives to work are much more enjoyable when I have something to occupy my mind.

Hope you're all well, Kate. Uh, thanks Kate, And yeah, one thing you say in here that I think is absolutely true and that sort of comes through in uh in in Lewis's book, is that knowledge is a is a fragile thing, especially if you don't have a written culture like knowledge. In an oral culture, it could take hundreds of years maybe to build up this this vast store of wisdom and lore that's communicated from generation to generation. But if you don't have like written sources of it,

it could easily be lost in just one generation. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, even of course in a in a written culture and in modern culture, there is still the risk of slipping into another dark age. And of course writers have been um, I've been discussing this are pretty much as as long as as we've been out of the dark ages. Um, So it's always worth keeping in mind. Now, I like what the what Kate shared about about knowledge of of of the bush Bushcraft. This reminds me of

our discussions I'm getting Lost in the Woods. I can't recall that those were stand different episodes or that was

part of our look at the leshy. Oh I think, yeah, it was in the lesson and some follow up stuff we did about the less Yeah, but just the idea that that if you don't know anything about the woods, if you're just you've just stuck to the path, you might well think that you can get off the path and easily return, that your sense of direction will will guide you and it will be something you can trust. And as we discussed in that episode, experiments have shown

that humans do not have that innate ability. Um, if you if you don't know what you're doing, leaving the path can be fatal. Yes, and of course that varies a lot with like individual skill in the local terrain. You know, some places are easier to get lost than others.

But there are these stories, uh that we did discuss in the least the episode about Yeah, people go, you know, they think they're just going ten or twenty feet off the path to go to the bathroom and then suddenly like they have no idea where they are and they can't find the path again. So I'd say that, together with the Pacific Navigation episodes, just should make you to to keep in mind appreciate direction finding and appreciate the tools and the resources you have. Appreciate the skills people

have in that area. It's it's very valuable, and this something we often take for granted. Absolutely all right, This next one comes to us from ian Ian Ritson and says, Dear Rob and Joe, I am still writing in about robot punishment, despite it having been a couple of weeks since I listened to it. In that episode, you mentioned in passing that humans often have less conscious control of

our actions than we like to believe. This has come up in other episodes as well, specifically the one you did about how our choices effect our preferences instead of the other way around. I meditate daily, a practice that, among other things, can be looked at as a way to gain more conscious control of your actions, emotions, and even your thoughts. Of course, this is easier said than done. I wrote most of this email in my head this morning while attempting to clear my mind of all thoughts

I've certainly been there. It's got me thinking about the rider and the horse analogy and the criticism that this view separates the mind and body in a way that isn't justified. We are inherently embodied beings. You've also discussed this idea, which I believe with that. I believe Rob saying we are more like a centaur, which I like. However, I wonder if it isn't more apt than we give

it credit for. The common way the analogy is explained is that people think of the mind as a rider in command of a horse the body, but considered that in reality, a human rider isn't actually in command of the horse they're riding. As much as they might like to think they are sound familiar, a human is not strong enough to actually make the horse do anything it doesn't want to do. All the human can do is create incentives and disincentives to try to encourage the horse

to behave in the way the human desires. But ultimately it is still the horse that is deciding what it will do. And this is I think this is a valid point. And certainly uh in meditation and meditative practices, Uh, sometimes your body is a bit barn sour, you know. Uh, sometimes it's in a bit too much of a hurry uh to get out of the wilds and back to uh,

you know, the sweet hay of the barn. Anyway, Ian continues, even though our consciousness isn't in charge of our actions like we think it is, and it's mostly post facto explanation. Perhaps it evolved as an incentive system to train our other mental processes. For instance, it may be my emotions and other lower mental processes that determine whether I have that second piece of cake, but maybe those are influenced by my conscious thoughts, or at least the conscious thoughts

I've had in the past. Perhaps my doctor has told me I need to cut back on sugar, but at the last birthday party I decided to have a second piece of cake anyway, and then, upon reflection, felt guilt about having done so, which changes the emotional calculus this time. As you've mentioned before, evolution is stingy and expensive. Things like mental processes don't tend to stick around unless they

serve a purpose. Perhaps this is that purpose. So maybe the horse and rider idea isn't so bad after all, we're just drawing the line in the wrong place. Maybe instead of the rider being the mind and the horse being the body, the rider is our consciousness and the horses the rest of our mental, emotional, and bodily processes. The rider thinks they're in charge, but really they're just one influence on the horse among many as an aside, this brings up another way this analogy works well, the

feeling of loss of control when very upset. I'm sure we all have experienced being so upset that we act entirely on our emotions while simultaneously experiencing the conscious part of ourselves watching our actions and thinking stop, I shouldn't be doing this, but being unable to actually stop ourselves. I suppose this would be akin to the horse buck king and the rider not being able to do much

besides hold on. To go back to my original thoughts about meditation, perhaps the way that helps us gain control was by teaching us to be a horse whisper. We're still without true control of the horse, but it helps us be a heck of a lot better at motivating it to do what we want. Ian Ian, I think this is a fantastic analogy. I mean, and I think there are, uh, there are truths to both methods here.

I mean, rob in your analogy of the centaur, you're emphasizing that you can't make a clear distinction between the brain and the body. The body influences the brain, of course, the brain influences the body, but it goes the other way too. You know, they're they're inherently connected, and trying to think about them as like two separate things, uh leads to some confusion. But I think Ian also has

a very good point here. Yeah, yeah, I I love all of this, but also I can't help may be reminded of the most recent episode of Weird House Cinema where we discussed Spontaneous Combustion starring Brad Dorrif because that is a that is, as we discussed, it's a film about an individual who has trouble controlling his emotions, and when his emotions are out of control, um, fire erupts from his body, from the world around him, from bits

of technology, etcetera. And and he had he seems to have very little, if if if any control over these these flames, and the flames are indiscriminate and who and what they burn. Uh So I feel like that is kind of a proper analogy for for some of this as well. You know, this idea of loss of control. Stop, I shouldn't be doing this because once the fire is out, the fire does what fire does? It burns and um, and what can you do but watch very apt all

John Landises take note. Um, But I would also say that, um, I can see some merit to Ian's other points. So Ian is uh I think sort of making a case against epiphenomenalism. You know, So epiphenomenalism is one take on the mind by the problem that would tend to say that actually consciousness does nothing. I mean, consciousness exists and it is. It is the part of your brain that can reflect upon itself. But your brain could do everything

it does without being conscious. Consciousness is just some sort of strange byproduct maybe that we don't understand, but it doesn't actually have power over anything, and epiphenomenalism would be

something that's difficult to demonstrate. But but here I think Ian is sort of equating consciousness with having some kind of reinforcing power on the metacognition of the brain in order to influence future the future behavior of the brain, saying that the consciousness actually does play this role in metacognition, that that helps us better rain in our own mental processes. And I guess that's possible, but it's hard to know.

I can't recall who's written like this before, but I know I have encountered this idea that in some ways basically sees uh consciousness as necessary to or coextensive with metacognition, so it remains an open question. Is the human mental condition? Is it a is it a centaur? Is it a rider on a horse? Is it a character actor on fire? Is it a satyr? I don't know. You can go in various directions, all right, Oh, and so also apologies to and I had to make some abridgements to the

previous email for length. Apologies to the next writer because Sean. I also had to make some abridgements to this email as well. I'm sure you'll understand. But Sean writes to us about sorry. I was just thinking, we've we've we telled everybody not to not to say they sorry for writing a long email, but now we're apologizing for a carving uploo emails. Well, okay, No, So I don't usually mention if I just cut out like a line here or there at the beginning or end, that's just sort

of introductory material or whatever. But if I have to, if I have to chop out like huge paragraphs or something, I might note it just just so the writer doesn't believe I missed it by accident. But maybe me saying this now means I won't have to say it in the future. Yeah. Sometimes, folks, I'm just gonna have to edit emails down a bit anyway. Uh, thank you very much, Ian, And then Sean gets in touch with us about finger counting and free San. Sean says, Hi, Joe, Robert, and Seth.

Someone might have written in to tell you this already, but I have a method of counting to thirty three. On one hand, I first learned this method from my late father in law, who was teaching me how to make thicker. Um. Well, okay, so the word here is spelled d h i k r or d h i k i r. I've heard it pronounced thicker before, um, but Sean gives a pronunciation guide in which he says to pronounce it thick keer, which might be like a

regional language variation. I'm not sure. But but since, uh, since Sean gives that, I'm going to say the keyer instead of thicker for the rest of the email. So uh in thick ear here, which is in his Lamic practice of praying, Sean says, the first time he showed me how to count this way. On one hand, I nodded along, but really it took a long time before I understood. I'll try to describe the method. Imagine each finger split into four sections. The fingertip, then each crease

where there is a joint. By placing your thumb before the first joint crease of a finger, you can count to one, then after that same crease makes two. Continue up the finger, counting up one both before and after each crease, finally counting one when you reach the fingertip. This makes a total of account of seven for each finger. You can do the same with the index finger on

the thumb, counting to a total of five. As there are only two joint creases in the thumb, four times seven plus five makes a total of thirty three for one hand. This is useful for the gear as each mantra should be said thirty three times. However, I can't imagine many other situations and what you need to count to a base thirty three. I'm sure if one has been learning to count this way since childhood it would

be easier to remember. But after learning this method as a second language, I doubt I'll ever be able to master it for day to day needs. Technically, with mastery of this counting method, you could count these single digits on one hand up to thirty three, then count orders of magnitude on the other hand, again up to thirty three. So theoretically one could count up to one thousand, eighty

nine or thirty three times thirty three with just two hands. Absolutely, I've never heard about this before, But then Sean goes on. Sean says, changing topic. I wanted to offer my experience of Freesan. I noticed while listening to an episode of Listener Mail that you were talking about the backing vocals of Gimme Shelter, and I experienced a wave of goose bumps.

I first heard these particular vocals in the original Freesan episode and they triggered Freesan in me, but it was unexpected that a mere description of the vocals would trigger it too. I often experienced musical free song, as well as a similar sensation in emotional movies or podcasts, and sometimes while just thinking about an emotional story or movie scene all the best Sean. Now, that does make me wonder when Sean is is thinking about these particular musical bits,

are they playing out in their head? You know? Because I find that like that's the case for me, like if if someone was to mention say, um, like the the very opening of Radioheads everything in its right place or um, you know, or to or to say, hey, how about that really that really uh dramatic part of Carmina barana um which I know which which dramatic part, but um, but like if if there's enough of a of a hook there, then I will I do replay it in my mind and then I can certainly feel

a certain amount of chills, you know, I can experience goose bumps if it is the right song. Yeah, parts of le miss for me, I will do that. Yeah, I'm not sorry, no, no, lately, this is a good music. I got to see it once. It had the big the big wheel stage. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, you know that actually powers the the whole the whole theater. It's just the pure acting energy of the of the of the cast and crew. They've got a little gavroche on

a hamster wheel. Yeah all right. Here's one from Taylor and this has to comes to the response to our episode on Queuing Robert and Joe. Great episode on waiting. It finally prompted me to write. After years listing uh consistently since the how stuff works days. In the Waiting episodes, I'd be curious to hear more of our tendency to wait or follow orderly lines when there is no line

or correct order. For example, in New York City, when hailing a cab, there's always the situation where a cab can pull over, but it takes time for it to stop, so he overshoots you by a few feet. Innately, people understand that the cab pulled over for me from the line of I was earlier in the streets, so he saw me, even if they may be closer to where he finally stopped. So we make a line of where you are in the street, even though there isn't an

actual line. I think I understand that you should prove this nuance. How we innately create unwritten laws by labeling the show the Waiting Part four, only to a week later have a the Waiting Part three for thirty seconds when you point out many people probably waited patiently for a part three before listening to part four, because that's what people do. Great show, Taylor, I love these this guidance on how to screw with listeners heads. Yeah, I

would do. I feel like we're doing enough of that, um um without trying to So I don't know if we need to to orchestrate anything to sinister here the Taylor. I do think that's interesting about the understanding of the unspoken queuing rules for for cabs on the New York City streets, especially since there is this there's this uh cultural meme or reputation for like people in New York being like rude and pushy and selfish and just trying

to get ahead of everything. Um. I mean, for one thing, we saw plenty of opposition to that in those Stanley Milgram experiments which were carried out in New York City or at least around the New York City area. But but also I think that's, you know, to whatever extent that's true, it clearly doesn't extend to people not obeying lines like you know, lines dominate even when everybody's really got to get a cab. Yeah, I mean, if things get too out of hand out, what we're gonna have

to do is just make everybody roll for initiative. That's just the only way to handle it. Let's get those dexterity uh rolls out here. Let's let's see what we get on a d twenty and we will rank everybody accordingly, and you will know exactly what order you go in. Alright. This next listener wanted to remain anonymous, but they write in concerning queuing at a place where where I have experienced some of the most nerve racking lines and wait

times ever, which is at border crossing checkpoints. You ever have this experience, rob Um, Yeah, I mean going through customs at the airport. That's that kind of thing. Yeah. So, this anonymous listener says, I currently live in Chula Vista, California, and I crossed almost religiously to Tijuana for family and business. One of the biggest fight starters that always happens at the border are those who cut in line via car

or foot. Fights and arrests happen weekly, especially people who cross without appropriate documentations such as spring breakers or weekend drunks. There are people who cross daily because of work or school, and there's always people who don't respect the line, And when you least expected, a fight breaks out and the cops show up, and then the border has to close for a while until everything is calmed down. People are

always in a rush. There aren't enough CBP officers and the lines have taken from two minutes to four hours on foot and ten minutes to ten wors via car. Uh. This is through my own experience crossing through the port at Santa Cedro. Thanks for taking the time to read my email. Uh and man this one well, thank you for getting in touch. But also this one makes me think about some of the downsides of the single file queuing for access to things where they're like wildly different

stakes for different cures. So you have somebody like the person writing in or here, who probably has to cross the border frequently, maybe every day for work and family and stuff like that, and then at the same time, like the same cues are being shared by like drunk tourists who are just partying. I can't believe it didn't bring us up. But this reminds me of a form of queuing that I have really appreciated in the I

guess few establishments that I found it integrated. And that is the idea of having two lines that I know what I want line and the I need some helpline um that's smart, that can that can really strange and move things along. You know, if you know exactly what you're getting, let's going back to our bagel sandwich analogy. If you just know you're getting the number three, no changes whatever, then then yeah, let's have a line for

those people. But if you need to enquire about about changes to the menu, about about the ingredients, if you need some guidance on which bagel sandwich to order, then yes, let's have a separate line for that, and we can have a specialized teller that deals with with those clientele. Yeah. I mean it may be the case that some border

border checkpoints have something like this. I don't know, but I mean, if they don't, you should find a way to organize things into, you know, one line for people who have business and family obligations, and then the other all the spring breakers and stuff. Could they get their own line? Yeah, but I guess that one of the challenges is just how do you any time you get into a system like that, how do you do it in a in a way that's that's fair for everybody? Right? Yeah,

all right, here's another one. Some comes to us from Chris, Dear Robert and Mr Joe listening. Okay, it's the one might might be maybe this is, uh Mr Joe, the only person I think I've introduced you to as Mr Joe as my son um. But it's okay. I guess if the people call you Mr Joe listener from the Science Lab days thanks for years of podcast stuff in the Science Lab was, of course, the original name of this podcast way back in the day when I co

hosted with Alice and Loudermilk. Anyway, Chris continues queueing. I had an experience with queuing yesterday that I had that I thought i'd write in with. I was at the county Clerk's office to get a title from my car. The queuing system was a paper system. You would get a number and have a waiting area. The wait was long, an hour and a half, and during that time I saw a couple of things you may be interested in. First Off, several people left after waiting for a while.

This meant their number was getting unused. What is the morality of taking their number? I didn't get the chance, as they threw it out while leaving. But would it be cutting in line? I don't think anyone would have noticed. They were too busy looking at their phones. What would that change the morality of it? Second, in a system where it is easy to understand once you understand what

the system is. What is your responsibility as a line waiter to communicate with others who are trying to understand the system. In a normal queue, people point out the line and the end of the line for the person, I think, to make sure the system is orderly for their own convenience. In this case, someone stood waiting where you would get called up as if there were a

regular queue. Do you tell them or let them learn to pay attention, perhaps allowing a person or two to grab a number in front of them as a lesson. It felt like it was an an easy system. I had seen many people figure it out before her. Or am I just being rude because I don't like to talk to people anyhow? Great podcast. Thanks Chris Well on the first question, I think yes, taking the number of someone who has there's actually a technical term for this

in the queuing literature. It's known as bulking. People who who look day line or look at a queuing system and then just say like, Okay, the service or product I want is not worth whatever this waiting or queuing situation is and they just leave. That's called balking. So somebody boks they've already got a number they you know, they do a late balk and then they leave. If you take your their number, yes, you are violating the first in, first out principle there, So I would say

that is cutting. I would say the only real variation on that is if somehow an abandoned number took as much time as a as like an actual customer. But usually an abandoned number just means like they call it out, nobody comes and they go to the next one. Right, Yeah, I don't I don't know how. I never really thought about this before because yet, generally, I don't think I've ever seen anyone say, hey, I'm leaving, I'm I'm out

of here. Who wants my number? It's generally just discarded or maybe they might sort of casually lead it out. I don't know, but um, yeah, I guess I could

see a case going either way. Kind of a gray area. Now, now, this idea of balking, it's interesting because I I heard, uh, I think an NPR story recently about balking in terms of reservations for restaurants, UH, which especially during you know this time when restaurants are are opening up often from very um slim down models of operation, and you have people do something that can make a lot of sense on the consumer end. You you're not sure if you're

gonna eat at this restaurant or not. You're gonna go ahead and get a reservation. Maybe you'll go ahead and get two reservations for restaurants that are close to each other and see how you feel when you get closer to the time. And of course that may give you a lot of options, but it takes options away from the restaurant that's trying to to to you know, to

to run a business. And so they're talking about how some places are turning this model of of of requiring you in order to make a reservation you have to pay a small fee um, which which I have I have done. I was kind of surprised when that came up. I was like, oh wow, this this place thinks they're fancy, but they weren't that fancy. And after I heard the radio story, it made a lot more sense. It's like, yeah, yeah, you want you want people to have um an investment

in actually following up on that reservation. As somebody who has worked in restaurants, people don't do this. This is so annoying to the to the staff that works at the restaurant. It can mean lost business of course, but it also is just like a huge pain in the neck for like the host or whoever's managing the seating. And a lot of restaurants they have like, uh cycles of they go through cycles of giving the tables to

the different servers. So like you might have a server who's getting skipped in one cycle of seating because they know they've got a big party coming next with a reservation. But then if that party doesn't show up, they're just out that table and out the tip. It just it screws things up for everybody. It's extremely rude. Don't do that. Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to get a two finger wagg either, but no, no, I know it from the other end, Yeah yeah, I mean and from the consumer and like it.

You know, it sucks to try and get a reservation somewhere you can or you show up at a place and you can't get a table. Uh, So help reduce the number of like of ghosts that have reservations, you know, people that are never going to show up. Okay, one last message here. This is in response I think to a previous Listener mail episode and generally too Weird House Cinema.

This is from Megan. Megan says, hello, I've been an avid listener for many years now, and I love the addition of Weird House Cinema and your recent Listener Mail episode. You were discussing why nuclear radiation is depicted as a green glow rather than a more realistic blue glow. Something you didn't discuss was a fact I learned while getting my Film studies degree, a fact that I can't unsee ever since I learned it. In film, the use of

green often foreshadows death. For example, if a character is bathed in green light during a tense scene, the outcome is usually not good for that character. Maybe the use of green to depict radiation glow is also related to this cinematic shorthand, since radioactive substances can lead to illness or death. Anyways, keep your eyes peeled for this. In movies, it is surprising how often a character's demise can be forecast by the color green being subtly added to the

character in some way. Thanks for all you do. Stuff to blow your mind is the metric by which I measure all other podcasts. Megan, all that's sweet. Uh, thank you Megan. Yeah, this is interesting. I think maybe I've heard this before, but it's definitely never been front of mind for me. Yeah, I guess it's something I need to look out for next time I sat down and

watch a film. But it does bring to mind. I was I was looking at different Brad Dorriff clips for a recent Weird House Cinema episode and I ran across one of those just unnecessarily grotesque scenes from David Lynch's Dune that invent the features Clan Harconan sitting around grossing it up, and and it has these just just disturbingly green walls in the background. You know the scene I'm

talking about. Oh yeah, the very first time we meet the Harcone And so you got Baron harcon in there, like I think he ends up like floating around the room. But it's, uh, what's Brad Dourf has Peter Davries there and what is sting in the room? I think, yeah, I think, um fad Ratha is there. Also the Beast is there, and yeah, so it's it's the whole crew just hanging out in the room. Yeah yeah, but they're

hanging out in the room is just green. It is just Lepericon green shockingly green, like green enough that by modern standards, you look at it and you're like, is this a finished scene? Is this is there? They were they gonna add something digitally in the background, and you're like, no, no, no, I think that no, this is before all that this is just a really green color choice for their wall.

Do I recall that also in in Lynches Dune when you see the harcon and planet, it's sort of green on the outside too, but not like a not like a natural green like trees and foliage and all that, but it's just like green buildings. That sounds familiar, But I I don't recall, It's been a while since I've seen it in full Well, it's quite appropriate. Harconan means death, yeah, and I think by the end of the movie or

all those characters dead. I believe they are. Um. I don't know what happens to the beast, but I think the beast dies. Yeah, Okay, spoiler for DOUN Sorry, Yeah, I mean these these these bad guys are all are all doomed. But um, but they cause a lot of havit before that comes. It comes around. So oh yeah, yeah, good good old Clan Harconan. All right, we're gonna go ahead and close the mail bag here, but we will

be back, so keep writing in. We didn't get to everything in this episode as usual, but we'll come back to it. So right in with your thoughts about navigation, about emotional outbursts and centaurs on fire, uh more, more listener mail, about Harkonen's and waiting in line. We'd love to hear all of it. Let's say yes if you want to hear listener mail. It occurs on Monday, as Artifact, occurs on Wednesday's Weird How Cinema occurs on Fridays, and

two season Thursdays. Those are our core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.

For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.