Splendid Isolation

I want to live on the Upper east Side and never go down in the street like that. And it's so it's kind of like it's it starts off with this very very chipper kind of uh yeah, I wanna I want to just get away from all these people. I want to just you know, I want to move away from all these two souful social constraints in my

life and just sort of do my own thing. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna be like George o'keef and move out in the desert, or I'm gonna to isolate myself and you know, focus on my art or my my writing or my video games or whatever a person solitary thing is. You know, I just want to point out, ladies and gentlemen that Robert Lamb just just sing for you, and no other circumstance would he ever sing. So that was that was right. There are other circumstances where I sing.

You just don't really bust out songs much. So I just wanted to to just say that was a really special moment. Well, I think the thing is, we did the Electronic Music podcast, and we we've used actual music samples and that's all. I'm good, but it takes a little more work. So it's it's not that I'm brave, I'm just lazy because we could actually just sample the Warren Yvon song, but or I could just sing it.

But anyway, that the song in question starts off with this very idealized I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna get to my isolation in my life. I'm gonna move away from people and and social requirements and I'm going to be better for it. Well, I mean it's the hermit fantasy, right, I Mean, every once in a while, we just get sick of our fellow humans and we say, oh, man, I'm just done with all you guys. Yeah. Yeah, And if I could just be free of all of you, I would be free of what ails me. That that

is an illusion. But like a lot of warren Zy Fund songs, the lyrics get progressively darker as the song progresses. And uh, and so by the end, the lyrics like it's talking about Michael Jackson and Disney World taking Goofy's hand and vanishing into the world of self, and which is I think the darkest part of that song for a lot of reasons. Yeah, I mean, because it's at that point it's still kind of beautiful, but weird. It's

like just departing into into personal fantasy. And then by the end he's talking about putting tinfoil up in the windows and lying down in the dark to dream. And um, and I find that when you when you look at the research and when you look at human experience, this is kind of how it goes. Like on one level, there is the hermit fantasy. But when people actually do find isolation, if they actually if it's thrust upon them, or they seek it out, or they just sort of

find themselves there at some point in their life. Uh, the effects are only detrimental um. Like what one example that I come back to is U has to do with one of my favorite authors, a guy in the name of Clark Ashton Smith, who was a horror, fantasy, sci fi, weird fiction writer of the early mid twentieth century, and he ended up living kind of a hermit's life

out in the middle of nowhere. And while he lived longer than either HP Lovecraft or Roberty Howard's sort of you know, famous contemporaries at the at that time, he ended up spending the like the last like large portion of his life just sort He would do some art and stuff, he would do some weird sculpture, but he didn't really write that much anymore. So I'll come back

to that. I'll think of, like, here's a guy who moved out into the middle of nowhere and really didn't get that much done, or didn't get that much done

that anybody would ultimately care about. Well, I think it's interesting that he didn't write any movie because some of that requires an understanding of relationships and and the way that we interact with one another, right, and if you don't would have that sort of feedback in your life, than you could seriously lose touch with with that part of yourself, part of your connition into the way that our brains work, and our brains are quite simply not

meant to work in isolation. And so that's what we're gonna discuss in this podcast. Before we do, though, let's go ahead and hit on some loneliness stats. Uh. These are some stats I got out of a Psychology Today article called predict Predictors of Loneliness um And through not only in this article, but throughout the literature, you often find references to lonely people and non lonely people. I find non lonely people to be a very clunky term.

I don't know if there's a better line to use, but yeah, I think we just have to put up with it. Um. So, lonely people were more likely in studies to be younger, to have less sex, to get less sleep, to make less money, and have more health issues, with drug use being the number one health concern among

lonely people. Non lonely people were more likely to older, to sleep eight to ten hours a night, to have sex at least once a week or a few times a month, describe themselves as a religious or spiritual U have a spouse or partner who access as email or the internet, daily volunteer, belonged to local community organization, have five or more people with whom they discuss personal issues

and be married. So there you go. Well, and then there's this idea of social isolation to right, um, And this is from Molly Edmunds article on how Stuff Works dot com. It's called what are the Effects of Isolation in the Mind? And according to researcher John Cacabo. Sorry for our Italian listeners, if we have any um at the University of Chicago, of all people are unhappy because

of social social isolation at any given moment. Okay, So social isolation could occur for a myriad of factors, right, I mean it could be because, uh, you know, you're you're part of the senior population and you just don't get to see people as often. Or could be that you have a disability that limits the amount of interaction you have with people, right, Yeah, and uh, and definitely there's social isolation, and then there there's isolation as far

as your physical setting goes. And sometimes a person is encountering both of these or just one of these, um as, we'll discuss, right, And that's not to say that that the senior population, where people of disabilities all are socially isolated. It's just certain circumstances sort of lend themselves more to that um happening. So, and we also have social isolation that we foisted upon ourselves, and then there's also social

isolation that we then coerced into. And we'll talk a little bit about that, particularly with the prison population, but let's talk about what actually happens in the brain when you are socially isolated. One study that I was looking at was from the University of Chicago, and this, like a lot of these, involved like two groups. There's the no non lonely group and the in the group the lonelies and the non lonelies, which you know, I guess

you just put out the call for it. I wonder if it's easier to get the lonelies or easier to get the non lonelies, because the non lonelies maybe have stuff going on. And then do you run the risk of poisoning your lonely test group by bringing them in and having them hang out together, or do you just make sure they're isolated? And I think you isolate them. Also, there's a question about extrovert and introvert too. Yeah, right, so as being part of this, Like, if you're an introvert,

you're probably more lonely. I would say I don't know, because I'm a part time introvert, but I wouldn't say that I'm completely lonely. Okay. Anyway, this study University of the University of Chicago. They showed the lonelies and the non lonelies photographs of people in both pleasant settings and unpleasant settings. So like one, uh, one photo will be a person hanging out in a playground, and another one will be a picture of somebody getting bit by a

poisonous snake in a playground. So okay, one's pleasant, one's not pleasant, right so um. When viewing the pleasant pictures, the non lonely subjects showed much more activity in the section of the brain known as the event roll straight um, more than the lonely subjects. Right and uh. This particular part of the brain plays an important role in learning. It's also the part of the brains the reward center

that's generally stimulated by things like food and love. So the lonely subjects displayed far less activity in this region while viewing pleasant pictures, and they also had less brain activity when shown the unpleasant pictures. When non lonely subjects view the unpleasant pictures, they demonstrated activity in the temporal parietal junction, an area of the brain associated with empathy, and the non lonely subjects had a had a much lesser response. So this is an interesting view into how

loneliness affects our empathy. The non lonelies were able to demonstrate more empathy for the person in the bad situation in the unpleasant photo than the lonely people, which I

found found really interesting. Yeah. Well, and again that's because you know, we've got the mirror neurons, right, We've talked about mirror neurons and how we can't help but mimic each other, and in mimicking each other, when we are faced with each other and um communicating with with one another, you know we are experienced an emotional jolt because we're mimicking. You know, if you're smiling at me, then I'm going to smile back, and I'm going to feel that emotion.

So that makes sense that if you're isolated, then you're not as connected to those feelings of empathy. Well, we can't help but think of the the stereotype of the crazy hermit with a shotgun, right, Yes, I wasn't thinking shotgun now really I think shotgun or maybe pitchfork or something. But well, yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's different. You grew up like in Michigan, right, but in the South, which in theory actually shotgun should be you know, front

center in my mind. Okay, well, well, Michigan people know what I'm talking about here. Okay, So the crazy hermit with a shotgun, and the idea that he's going to come up to you and he's going to be very obtuse and belligerent and he's gonna be all, get off, model daan Ander, I'll shoot you kind of a thing. Um with that accent, with that accent, I guess that's more of a that's my Michigan hermit accent. It would

be more Southern are No, I'll roll with that. But that's interesting that you you look at it that way, because people who undergo sensory deprivation, right, which is part of isolation, they find that the central executive center of their brains are affected, and those that part of the brain controls language, memory, and vision. Yeah. Yeah, so you know, we'll talk about that a little bit more too when

we talk about prisoners and hostages. Okay, but but yeah, just on a on a very basic level, you can imagine the hermit who is not able to empathize with the person. He's he's he's he's getting onto. He's maybe not able to communicate as well, and he's his brain seems a little foggy too because he has no or very limited interaction with people, and and and it's affecting

his brain. It's crazy hermit brains. Well. And now that he's probably really stressed, because apparently lenliness actually leads to stress. And researchers have had subjects estimate room temperature. This is interesting room temperatures after recalling a time that they were snubbed or socially excluded, and the subjects reported colder temperatures than the participants who were asked to remember times with friends. And this actually suggests that we can we can feel

social chills if we feel excluded or isolated. Um again, this is you know, acting on our body or physiology, and that you know, that's a type of stress that you would feel. Now another interesting study that relates to how loneliness affects just our basic mental process and um. There have been various studies with mice where they look at the effects of exercise on neurogenesis, which is u creating a new brain cells, just basic brain upkeep I guess you can think of it, uh in those terms.

And that's one of the rewards of exercise, right right, right when you exercise, you get this big burst of new neurons and neural connections, right yeah, and and another great reason for exercise. So in these studies, they would put the mice through the wheels and then then study, you know, how much neurogenesis was going on. And then another study came along and they decided, well, we're going to test it with rats because rats are a much

closer neurological for humans. Yeah, And so they put these rats in and the rats tanked across the board like the ones that had exercise and the ones that didn't. And they're like, what happened? So they studied it and they found that the problem was that these rats had been isolated beforehand. Okay, rats are are very um, they're very social, secial creatures, right, Yeah, that's why they're always hanging out together, you know, chatting coffee houses, coffee houses.

And incidentally, as we discussed in the past, that's why they can be tickled and laugh. That's actually you're right, that can be We're not making that up. We have to go back to our humor podcast for details on that tidbit. Yeah. So they were putting them in there without without any socialization. They've been isolated, and it actually prevented the exercise from having a positive effect on brain activity. Yeah.

And they think that is because when when you undergo exercise, it's a type of stress, right, and so the stress of isolation, the stress of exercise didn't allow this neurogenesis to take place, these new neural connections to take place. Whereas you know with with the the rats that were socialized, right, they did have they went back and there they started socializing these rats. Then they were benefiting from the exercise. Yeah,

but the solitary ones not at all. Yeah, which it makes me think of the various sci fi films that we've had where they'll be like a lone solitary person in space, generally with some robots be it. You know, Bruce Dearn and Silent Running, or Sam Rockwell in Moon or or you know Joe Robinson on the Mystery Sentence Theater to a lesser extent because they don't really get into the science there. But you'll see somebody like running on a treadmill, staying in shape, uh and uh and

going a little crazy and uh. And now that I think about it, I'm like, well, Bruce Tern's character probably isn't benefiting from any exercise that he's doing because he doesn't have anybody to talk to except these two robots that are very not very expressive at all. It's interest thing that you say that, because they have noticed that people who are in isolation and animals who are in

isolation begin to pace. And the reason they do this, they pose it that because they don't they're not getting this sort of stimulation that they would otherwise, they're creating it for themselves. Like the brain needs constant input, it turns out, and so being on a treadmill pacing back and forth, we'll give you at least something with the

something that your brain can play with, some sort of input. Yeah, it's like you you know how like some or maybe a lot of I'm not really an engine person, guys. But you'll have like an engine on a boat, right, and it'll be designed to work in the water. It will depend on the water. If you run it out of the water too long, it's gonna overheat because it doesn't have water interacting with the mechanisms. I kind of think of that in terms of the brain, because our

brains have evolved to help us navigate. As we've discussed before, a world of fixed and movable objects, multiple fixed and movable objects, a world of symbols, a world of social interaction, and just evolutionary we've survival has selected for those those

those properties. So if you take us out of that environment and put us in a situation where things are not changing, where things are not moving, where there are no symbols, or there's the same symbols are are there and they're staying the same, and there's no social um strata to deal with, then what does the brain start doing? Right, as you say, it starts having to create work for itself.

It starts having to Uh, this is where you end up with with situations of paranoia where someone has to sort of aspire some sort of movement or logic to the world around them. It needs a story to glom onto. Really. UM, this was interesting. There's a documentary called Alone. It's documentary by the BBC, and what they did is they recreated an experiment from the nineteen fifties in which um, some some college students were put in isolation for forty eight hours.

And this documentary by a man with an axe, Yes with this with the hockey mask on UM. But in this documentary, what they did is they took six people and isolating for forty eight hours in various ways. But in the documentary, you see this woman becoming convinced that the sheets on her bed that she's in complete darkness by the way, are are sopping wet, and she becomes very angry about it. And what's happening is that she doesn't have that sensory input and so she's becoming confused

about the you know what she can pick up around her. Um, And although the sheets were cold, they certainly weren't wet, and so she couldn't accurately square her sensory perceptions with reality. Again, that's that feedback that we really need. Yeah, and it's a it's also important to note and this is something that's definitely been observed in prison systems with people in

solitary confinement. Is that there if there are pre existing mental conditions, if there's any kind of um, you know, psychosis going on already, Um, solitary confinement is just going to aggravate it and make it worse. And and and so people with with previousing conditions are going to be able to cope with it far less. Yeah, And we'll talk a little bit about that in a second. But um, i'll write up this break, we'll talk more about that BBC documentary. We're gonna leave you alone for a minute.

This podcast is brought to you by Intel, the sponsors of Tomorrow and the Discovery Channel. At Intel, we believe curiosity is the spark which drives innovation. Join us at curiosity dot com and explore the answers to life's questions. And we're back. I thought you would be back. See there's there's some feedback going on. Um, okay, So the BBC documentary alone, they just more specifics on this. There

were six people. They're deprived of sensory input. Essentially, they're put in solitary confinement for forty eight hours and observed by researchers. UM. One of the findings is that around thirty hours into the experiment they began to pace back and forth, which we talked about and UM, it was also noted that they began to hallucinate and they began

to get very aggressive. UM. And just so people know, like there are two groups of three, one of them, one of the groups were given UM these I think they're called arm cuffs, and so they can't feel anything, that just covers their entire arm. And then they are also given goggles and so although the lights are on, they can't see anything too clearly. It's just it's sort of fuzzy. And then they they're given white noise or sort of that's piped into their cell and a horror movie.

Because I'm sure, I'm sure, And part of me did wonder, you know, because it's a documentary like where was the anti upped? Psychologically, because when people know that they're being filmed, obviously they behave in different ways. But then I thought to myself, no, I think that anybody who is under walk and key for forty eight hours by themselves, you know, either with arm cuffs on and goggles and white noise or in a cell that's completely dark for four hours

is going to start ago a little bit nuts and um. Again, this was an experiment from the nineteen fifties that they recreated for this documentary. There was a two thousand seven study the ties in with this from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, and they reported that anxiety and aggression that results from social isolation trace to altered levels of an enzyme that controls production of a

brain hormone. The two enzymes that are needed for the production of alo pregnant aline, a brain hormone that acts to reduce stress, to the regulation of gabba um and which is a really important neurotransmitter UH. They found that the level of one of these enzymes, called five alpha reductase type one, was reduced nearly fifty in lonesome mice UH, and levels of the other enzyme did not change. But but this is an interesting insight into how um, you know,

aggressive behavior emerges in isolated individuals or mice. Right, the hermit becomes super as for the gun and starts freaking out. Yea, I you you're going to bring it back to the hermit. So isolation can't be used as a weapon. Yes it can. Okay, okay, back go to your room. Well yeah, right, and in

the corner. And if you're depriving your kid of social interaction and here's grounded, yes, and they have to go in the room, then I mean obviously they're bothered by unless they have access to their PlayStation and without no no computer, no internet, grounded from the internet for a week. Well, I never thought about it before. I mean, you know, I have a kid. I never thought about it. Was like, solitary confinement might go to your room. Okay, you have

to think about that. So the roots of that go to the box. Kid. I'm gonna start saying that the roots of this actually go back to dr Well, actually, the roots of this or you know, this has gone back for a very long time, this idea of solitary confinement. But the first time a cave man was not invited to a party, yeah, felt chills, ye, and then painted about it in the cave. Uh. Doctor Donald Hebb, he was a prominent fixture in the nineteen fifties and sixties

psychology community. Um, and there's not a lot of definitive information about his experiments with isolation. It's kind of you know, the heaven. Some people who say that he was sort of the feeder system for the CIA in terms of how they conduct torture then and even now today. Um. But we do know that he had student volunteers at

McGill University where he was the head of psychology. Uh, put on UM goggles, gloves and ear muffs and then he put them in air conditioning cubicles and low and behold in twenty four hours hallucinations four to eight hours. They suffered complete breakdowns. Uh. And he noticed he noticed that they also suffered a disintegration of personality. And this is very again similar to the torture techniques used at Guantanamo Bay. His research was eventually tagged is too cruel

and shut down. UM, but we do know from this research that this just could be very effective as a means of torture or as a weapon of of trying to get someone to um been to your will, so to speak. UM. In the BBC documentary again, uh, you know this was a recreation of of what heb had done.

And you see this comedian who's who's one of the participants in this documentary, and he's the first to crack and you think about it, and this is this really extroverted guy who depends on feedback from his audience all the time, needs it, craves it. So it's very interesting to see that behavior began to show up very early on, so we know they began to get agitated, they began

to hallucinate. But by the end of their stay in the documentary, it turns out that their memory and their information processing abilities were tested or retested, because they were tested at the beginning and they were found to be quite compromised, which would make sense because while they were in the tank, they were basically in a reality to the program. They were in a reality TV program. Their

their minds were sapped. Yes, their minds were sapped, um, but also like the circadian rhythms, within within hours, they began to to lose touch of what time it was, and the circadian rhythms just sort of failed them and they began to nap and um think that, oh, well, it must be nighttime and while away the time in that manner. Yeah, I mean, it just goes back to we are beings that have evolved to live in a certain environment, and if we're in an altered environment or

we're taken out of that environment entirely. Um. It's detrimental to how we work so um, which is why it's so effective. And in a place like Guantanamo, right right, you don't have to to do anything physically cruel when you can just say, well, I'm not going to you know, I'm not going to break your fingers, I'm not going to beat you. I'm just going to leave you alone

until that loneliness drive you nights. Yeah. And this is from a Wired article and Solitary confinement um, in which they talked to psychologist Greg Haney, and he says that it's not just that psychological isolation is a painful experience, but that when people's sense of themselves is placed in jeopardy, they are more malleable and easily manipulated. In a certain sense. Solitary confinement is thought to enhance the effectiveness of other

torture techniques, so it's used to break down the person. Yeah, and in general, Yeah, we interact with people. It's kind of like I was talking about it earlier. You have that that temptation. No, this isn't another podcast. Sorry, we're talking about something bothers you. And even if you're if there's no one around the vent to you might be attempted to go on the internet to vent about your pet peeve. Well, part of that is is we're reaching out.

We have to have somebody else sort of tell us, Yeah, that is So this is the way the world works, doesn't it. Yes, this is the way the world works. This is how I work, right, Yes, this is how you work. Someone that will agree with you, like, yeah, um, you know that reality shows totally are annoying, Like, you know, I just did you verified you know what I just

said and validated my my belief system. Well, it's this the story of I, right, And we've talked about this before too, unconscious or consciousness, the story of I that we continually are feeding data to. So once you write, once you take away the feedback, then then who am I? Without that we'll get more into space and a little bit.

But NASA, of course, is very interested in how isolation affects us, you know, because they're very interested in sending people into isolated environments far from the Earth and far often from from most other people. So uh, they have they have found that one of the things they have to keep an eye on is that you'll say so you have eight people living in close confines, annoying the heck out of each other, and then who are they

going to vent to? They can't vent to each other because you know, most of the time you're gonna have a little more decorum than that. You know, if if you if you're stuck in a in a tube with John and Sally and John keeps smacking his gum um, you know you're not gonna complain to to you know, to the to this guy about it. You're man to that person for five more months. Yeah, So they found

that it's it's very much an item of concern. They found that journal keeping actually helps because it helps peo put sort of a they're venting, but then they're also they're forced to really think about how they're feeling about things. Like they they did a study where they uh took ten people on the International International Space Station and they had to keep a journal and it just, you know,

generated like something like a thousand and something pages. It was a lot of a lot of journal writing came

of this. But the people would generally they would start off being like, oh man, this sucks, but then they were forced to think, well, actually, the International Space station is pretty cool, and it's you know, the situation is not that bad really, and so they have to actually, um, look at at how they're feeling about that they were reframing it right so that they could survive, which is really interesting because that's something that a lot of prisoners do,

specifically prisoners who are in solitary confinement. And it's estimated that there's about twenty five thousand prisoners sitting in solitary confinement right now in the us u UM. And when we talk about solitary confinement, we're talking about a six by eight foot sale right uh no windows, and prisoners are held there anywhere from like ten to fifteen days at a stretch. And they have been reports of people saying that they really they went into themselves when they

had sensory deprivation. They were able to actually bring up sights and smells from their past and get lost in these four hours. And but but the downside of this, of course, I mean, well there's no upside of this, right, um, mayan because the ability to go into yourself and to survive is certainly something we'll remember. I think maybe I can't remember you brought it up or a listener brought it up after we had talked about the memory palace.

They mentioned that in the book Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal lecter Um cops with his confinement by using the memory palace to construct this kind of place for him to go, and then he paints like pictures on the wall and stuff. But um, right, but then he also had access to things to stimulate his mind. But when you're in solitary confinement, I mean, it's it's a bed, it's the fluorescent lights are on for twenty four hours, and although you can hear things around you, you are alone.

You are not really interacting. Um. And so yeah, I mean people they do go them into themselves, but what happens is that they're actually having some very big problems with their memory. I mean people who have been in a solitary confinement. There's one guy who was in um, I think, in and out for like eighteen years, and then he was cleared of his crime, and ten years later he still says that he has problems with memory, problems with interacting with people, and also problems with navigating.

Which is interesting because you know, we've talked about the visual cortex and how important it is for memory, and you know, you walk into a room, you're you're actually trying to blueprint that room in your mind. Uh. So it would make sense that if you were stuck in this one place for so very long and uh you know, eighteen years and now you're out of it, then your context for the world world greatly changes. Um, well, and you end up. I mean, the list of symptoms that

people have experienced from solitary environment the prison situation. I mean, it includes stuff like the depression to spare anxiety, rage, claustrophobia, hallucinations, problems with impulse control of impaired vision and hearing, weaking of the immune system, absence of menstrual periods and women premature menopause, aggressive behavior, and prisoners. Um. I mean it

just that's that was interesting them. The menstruation too, because you wouldn't think of that as something that was dependent upon feedback. You know, that's something that just regularly happens. Right, But when you're taking if you're taken out of the rhythms of life, then it's greatly going to alter you at a physical level too, right, Um. And Hany actually talks about the fact that we don't know the long

term effects. And the reason is because we don't have good data on follow ups of people who come out of the environment. It's not something that's easy to study, and it's not necessarily something that prison systems are eager for people to have a look at. Right. UM. I wanted to mention too that that documentary talked to a university professor by the name of Brian Keenan and he was taken hostage in Beirut and held in a windowless cell for eight months. Um. And he can't up for

ten minutes at a time, and a walk the staircase constantly. Um. And the reason I bring him up is because I thought that his personal assessment of the situation was very interesting and we can sit here and talk about you know, here are the effects. It's you know, it's a cognitive impairments. But he said the nothingness was extremely hard because it was how am I going to get through these next ten minutes or months later? How am I going to

get through the next day? The blackness was palpable. There was nothing there to confirm to me that there was human existence outside of me or even inside of me, which is really chilling. Because I thought, well, that just points back to this idea that your life becomes a joy division song. It's that is that could be chilling, you know if it's aun But again, this's this idea that you yourself, your sense of self becomes completely fragmented,

you lose yourself. Now. One of the more newsworthy stories of isolation to occur in the last few years was, of course, the thirty three Chilian miners that spent sixty nine days trapped deep underground until they were finally brought to the surface on October two thousand ten, and just getting them out it took about twenty four hours. But but it was a really tense situation because you had thirty three people down there and had to get them out, had to figure out how to make sure that they're

staying healthy and sane down there. Um. And they eventually brought in NASA for advice. But weirdly enough, this was in a popular science article. Um, they had sent down some music to help them pass the time. But also they sit down on monopoly board, which I know we're probably there's some probably some lest there's out there who are fans of monopoly, but uh, we all know that

monopoly is an intensely irritating game. I mean, even if you enjoy, you've got to admit that, even in the best of situations, it can cause close friends and loved ones to try and stab each other and I with forks um or scald each other with pizza or just I mean it's it's a brutal pizza. There's specific Yeah, well, I'm just thinking of a party party atmosphere turning violent, you know, or stabbing somebody with pizza who was sharp enough.

But I mean, there have been articles about how Monopoly is a zero sum game like it and it brings out the worst in people because it's it's not about like working together as much. It's about brutally smacking down your opponent. And it also takes forever. Monopoly games tend to it to last until the wee hours or until the first person bleeds, and so and so. So the idea of sending this game down to people who are trapped in an isolated environment, who are already stressed, it

just seems insane. Like were they trying to get them to turn on each other? And uh and and like just pummeling each other to death so nobody don't have to worry about dragging them back to the surface. Again, I'm just saying monopoly sounds like a very odd choice. I think that you're going to have to talk to to whoever manages these sort of crises and say, you know what this is, this is my what were you thinking of acceptable games to stand down the hall? Yeah?

Any anything that is well shoots and ladder, Yeah, I don't know, there's not there's not a lot of engagement. And well that's the problem. It's a game. I mean, there's a foster's competition, not collaboration for the most part. Well, there there are a lot of fine collaborative games there. But anyway, I'm getting I'm getting off the point here. But but yes, I mean they're gonna like Larpe down there.

I don't know. Well, there's not in the room for Larkin's um or or any large scale board games or tabletop cans. But at any rate, people working everyone was rightfully concerned about the physical and mental being of these individuals, and so NASA was actually brought in to advise in the situation, since they've have done studies and have some

resident experts on the topic of isolation. Yeah, and in fact it is from now so that we get this term irrational antagonism, right, This is the term that describes what happens to people who are isolated together, which you talked about a little bit with people on missions roommates

in space. Basically, yeah, yeah, familiarity breeds contempt exactly. So, as I mentioned earlier, one of the things that astronauts have talked about is that you're in this close environment and you you may feel anger at your your other astronauts, but but in most of the most of the cases, you don't want to vent it because you feel like you'll make the situation worse. So you end up with

this kind of silent antagonism. Growing. Yeah, you're either journaling or you're blaming it on other people other than your fellow astronauts. Right, You're blaming it on mission control. Yeah, yeah. Mission control apparently is often the scapegoat for a lot of this anger because you're also up in a very risky situation. You're basically kind of like mountain climbing, and everybody's attached to the same wire. You don't want to

set off any fireworks. These guys are are you're in space, You're depending on each other to get back home safely. And and so you lay it cool and then you just let ground control have it. Every little thing light into them. Yeah, the punching bag of the astronaut. So so I found I found that particularly interesting. And uh Mary Wroach actually talks about this a lot in her book on Mars, m Talking for Mars, which is filled with all sorts of curious stuff about the space program.

But she had one particular quote that we were both really amused about. It had to do with I believe us submariners, right, I believe the submariners. And they were at a research station, and so when they were finally taken out of their confinement, um, and this is a quote from her book there, this is what they had

to say about it. I once met a man who told me that after landing in christ Church after a winter at the South Pole Research Station, he and his companions spent a couple of days just wandering around stare ring in awe at flowers and trees. At one point, one of them spotted a woman pushing a stroller a baby. He shouted and they all rushed across the street to see the woman turned the turn the stroller and ran

so isolation could potentially turn you into a baby chasing maniac. Yes, and it would make sense because if you're if you're isolated for six months, because even like a week, you know, all of a sudden, you're you're out and you see the sun and the leaves and you see the sun just you know, dappling the leaves in a newborn baby smile. And I mean, all of a sudden, you're This the

a cliche of a song, right yeah. Roach also credits an interview with Norbert Craft's another individual NASA and Kraft mentioned that there had been some research into the possibility of sending married couples into space to limit to limit some of the the negative vibes that might happen up there and some of the feelings of isolation. I get the isolation part, but I do not, I mean the whole, like familiarity breeds contempt art. I mean, I just don't

see a lot of marriages actually surviving. Um. And I say this just personally and made mabe this could happen. But UM, I love my spouse, he's wonderful. I don't necessarily want to work with him, and I don't want to be stuck in a capsule with him for six months. Well it's like, I mean, it's like that, I don't want to be in a capsule for six months. So there you go. Well, it's like the whole canoeing thing. Canoeing as a test of relationship. Yeah, which my wife

and I survived canoeing twice so far, I think. But yeah, this is like the ultimate, Like this is even more than canoeing. And I don't know, I don't know if there are many marriages out there that are up to the test. Well, see now that you say that my my husband and I loved a canoe and when we lived in North Carolina we did it every weekend. But it does require like you couldn't be mad at each

other in canoe, right, because you have to collaborate. Yeah, you have to collaborate and if you get mad, you have to work through it. Otherwise you're not going to make it to your destination or you're just gonna float around out there in the middle of the lake until somebody comes and fetches you in a boat. Yeah again, you're just sitting there in your arms crossed. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I was thinking about this too in terms of relationships

that the isolation effect in families. Um, I think this is one of the reasons why families stay in business, because have you ever thought about this, Like when you've been isolated or alone for a long period of time and end and maybe there's a family member who's driving you nuts, and yet you still pick up the phone to call that person. I mean, this is really keeps

moms in business. I think, Well, it makes me think of um, my wife sent and Judy, who has these two she has these two horses, and these horses hate each other, or one one in particular hates the other one, and it will if it gets a chance, it will bite it the horse and just just want to just bite it and kick it and just just a real jerk. But if they're separated, then the horse freaks out and it's like, where is my friend? Where is that horse? So that I might bite him? You know, and you

completely other horse? Yeah, I know, and I've again, I think it's because it's pointing back at itself, right, because the same thing if I'm calling let's say that you know, my mom and I have been in a bit of a tizzy, and yet if I'm not feeling great or I'm feeling lonely, I will call her, even though I know that she might say something to sort of drive

me nuts. I think simply because well because I love her, but be because it's sort of validates like us, Yeah, the story of you the I Yep, that's right, I'm your mom and that's all true. You exist. There, you go. That's that's all you need to know, right there, and that is why we are all manacled to one another. So yeah, human isolation, it's definitely something that, uh that may seem more attractive on the outside than it actually is.

Especially you know, if we're really busy people, you may end up fantasizing about like, oh if I had everything to myself for like a weekend, if I was Georgia O'Keefe. Yeah,

if I was Georgia O'Keefe, everything would be knocked. But it's not only the case, Like I, I actually have this where I'll look at my own life specifically that I'm thinking about, like writing, like finding time to right, which takes up a lot of time, requires generally requires isolation, and it's just hard to fit into the schedule of

a busy life. Um, you know, talking about outside of work, right and I'll think back to times in my life where I had lots of free time, where there was probably a fair amount of loneliness in my life, but I didn't get a lot of work done in those

times either. You know, it's it's because you're procrastinating. Well, we've talked about well, I think there's a lot going on, you know, and obviously if you're isolated and your lonely, your your brains just not working as well, and your your time management, at least for me, ends up going

out of whack too if I'm by myself. So I'll look back at these times and I'll and I'll I have to remind myself it's like, well, you had plenty of free time, then you didn't get get anything done, because it's only I feel like it's only when I'm really busy, when I'm having to find the time to fit things in, that I can actually maximize those times. And when I have, you know, enough social activity in my life and enough people in my life to give

it all some sort of meaning. Well, the truth of the matter is that people are stimulating even though they make you know, annoy us sometimes or I might annoy someone, or someone might annoy me. But you know, we're always after a new experience, and we need those new experiences to you know, literally grow our brain cells. Um so, and it would make sense that that would inform our creativity and our ability to create. YEA. So like it or not, you know, we're we're shared up with with

our fellow humans. So speaking of our fellow humans, I have a couple of emails to read here for us from some listeners and we listener by the name of David and David says, I love your recent episodes where you have delved into philosophical topics. I especially love the podcast entitled His Free Will and Illusion, as well as the one about the possibility of acute Earth. I do hope that you keep doing some more philosophical topics, UM. I would enjoy especially enjoy one on morality, ethics and

health science can or cannot inform morality. UM also an an episode examining a Descartes famous axiom. I think, therefore I am would be awesome. I think that everyone is a philosopher, but not everyone knows it. People are often driven away from philosophy due to the fact that philosophers can be an intolerable lot. But behind all of the sometimes pretentious philosophical jargon are the questions that we all

grapple with. You guys can put alienating concepts into everyday language that both phil philosophers and non philosophers can both enjoy. So keep up the good work here, mix of science and philosophy the spot. Thank you that. That's good to

know that people are enjoying that. Yeah, I feel like we try and inject a fair amount of philosophy into whatever we're talking about, because ultimately, like that's the whole like mind blowing areas where we have to fit ourselves in our own experience, into this new knowledge and and figure out how our view of everything relates to it. So true, and certainly philosophers can be a little off puting It's true it's the beards. The beards. Not all

philosophers have beards, and not all lady philosophers have beards either. Well, in the case you're wondering, even though I know some philo, I mean I have known philosophers, and I can definitely identify rule people that are philosophers. I also I hear philosophers and I can't help but think like marble statue

of some old dude. Well, yeah, well means that's that's just the patriarchal society, and yeah it it does draw back to the whole idea that, like philosophy, is often viewed as this this thing that is no longer relevant.

But as we've discussed in previous episodes, new advances in neuroscience, new advances in our understanding of the universe, these forces to sometimes reevaluate old philosophical questions or or stir up new philosophical debates, like the whole issue of consciousness and free will, or the idea of are are we alone in the universe or are we just one of other

of numerous species. It's the underpinnings of society, right. We can't really operate without having a philosophical discussion about things exactly. We also heard from a listener by the name of Megan Megan Rights and says, I want to start off by telling you what a big fan I am. I really love the wide breath topics you cover. I always feel like by the time of the podcast US is over, I am just a little bit smarter about something. Uh. In the listener mail section of a recent episode, what

if Earth was a cube? The idea of actors being the biggest liars in the world was brought up as a professional actor who was of conservatorially trained. I am both amused and slightly put off. Actors do not lie. We create alternate realities. I feel very strongly about this, even though I know that not everyone will agree with me.

In my experience, it is obviously the audience when an actor is lying because he she is not really living in the circumstances that have been created by the play, and the audience feels and quite honestly is jip uh. If we want to twelve really deeply into it, it goes back to creating a lie so detailed that you can believe it is reality. And this is where some actors get into trouble when they decide to really become their character for something more than the purpose of telling

the story to the audience. I'm going to stop here before my points become too confusing. Thank you for all your hard work. That's really interesting. I was thinking about fiction writing too. They always say, like, you know, even though you're we being a tale, it should be as

truthful as possible. Yeah, it should mirror truth. So it's great to hear from an actual actor about about about that about the idea of acting as as lie, but also in the in the podcast, I mean, the whole thing we're discussing too, is the idea of lying as an alteration of reality. I feel like there's a there's a little gift a pike from both of those. Yeah, they're not the same, but there are some definite links

between what they're doing. Yeah, that's an interesting perspective from Megan. Yeah, yeah, definitely, Thanks Megan for your feedback on that. And if you have feedback on something, if you have some sort of cool story you want to share, if if you have a particular area of expertise that aligns up with something we've been talking about, hunt us down. We are on

Facebook and Twitter. We are Blow the Mind on both of those and you can see all sorts of stuff we're up to and what we're reading about, what we're researching, what we're considering podcasting about as well, and you can always drop us online at Below the Mind at how stuff courts dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how stafwork staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow,