I'll get a team. Welcomes from another instorm of the UW Project. Doctor Bill Sullivan is an award winning scientist, author, and science communicator. I'm doing a proper intro for you today. A science communicator renowned for his work in genetics, microbiology, biology, and infectious diseases. Put your teeth in, Craig. Doctor Sullivan is the author of the phenomenally successful science book Please to Meet Me, Jean's Germs, and the Curious Book Forces Makers.
Who we are. Here's the thing. If you're going to do an intro, Craig, do it properly. Sorry about that, I had to go morning doc.
Hey Greg, how you doing.
I'm very good, buddy. Well, of course it's nighttime where you are. It's nine thirty four now here? What is it? Is it like six thirty four or seven thirty four over there? What is it?
It's seven thirty in the evening here?
And so what do we Oh, it's Sunday for you, it's Monday for me. Has your Sunday been? Oh?
The Sunday was very pleasant, beautiful, made the routes and you know, it's just been a very pleasant day.
Imagine you spent most of us at church, just seeking forgiveness and being prostate and repentant.
Yeah right, if I set foot into a church, I'll go all Demian thorn, you remember from the Women?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you might spontaneously combust if you set foot in a house of worship. That would that would be fun It's funny because Americans are I don't know if they're actually genuinely real deal, you know, Christian, Biblical, but but like represent as a very Christian nation and I guess you have like lots of Christian in inverted commas. Friends, how do you how do you go with all them? You and your itheistic worldview?
Well, it's just fine. I mean, it's this nation actually supports a wide variety of faiths. There is a Christian majority, no doubt about it, and there's a segment of that that's particularly vocal and under the illusion that this country was founded to be Christian, which just is utterly false. Most of our laws are secular, our ethical system is secular,
education system secular. And that's all for a very good thing because instead of catering to one single religion, which doesn't have a monopoly on all that faith would require, we get to make laws, policy and education based on secular ethics, which I think is very reasonable and in fact, it incorporates a lot of the sensible, you know, morals that many different faiths subscribe to, kind of more or less universally. So I think that's really one of the
wonderful things. When our founders devised this country, it was one of the first that would not establish a federal religion.
Yeah right, It's like I find I find faith and faith and belief and knowledge and science and programming and conditioning and all of those kind of intersecting human variables where like I grew up in a religious house, and in that religious house or household, you're not you're not given suggestions or you know, theoreticals. You're given like absolutes. This is there is a God, there is this, there
is heaven, there is hell. And in the Catholic system there is purgatry, there are saints, there are you know, there are all of these things where you grow up in the middle of that and you end up, you know, most people anyway, end up believing whatever it is they were raised in. And I'm not saying this is good or bad everyone, and I'm not talking necessarily about religion. It could be that mum and dad were vegans, or mum and dad believe that a particular football club was
the best, or political system is the best. But like by and large, by the time you're fifteen or eighteen or twenty, you're probably going to be a version of what you grew up in and not having given that a lot of critical thinking, and you're a byproduct of that. Any has that got anything to do with genetics or is that just cultural and social programming?
Well, that's an excellent question, and I of like the way you segued into that, because there's a whole chapter in my book about Meet your Beliefs, and we talk about these sorts of things. And it does seem that the human brain, and even non primate brains to a small extent, non human primate brains to a small extent, have some kind of proclivity towards assigning agency to things that really don't require it. But our mind is oriented
in a very cause and effect kind of way. So if we see effects in the world that we can't explain, that makes our brain very uncomfortable. So we seem to be wired to subscribing some sort of cause to an effect we can't explain, like bad weather or bad things happening to good people, you know, a family member dying. There needs to be some sort of cause for that effect in our brain. And it's almost universal, you know.
Religion is a very universal thing amongst humans, which means there's something biological connected to it, which I find fascinating. And obviously these are just hypotheses. There's no concrete data on this, but it's see I think I worded it in the book like we are all born with like an electrical outlet, and different religions are the appliances that
can plug into it. And just like you said, the religion that you have, more than likely is the same one that your parents or maybe your community shared, So your choice of religion is kind of a delusion. It's no different than the language that you speak, the religion you were born into. And like you said, a lot of people don't critically think about it because it is so entrenched. It is so ingrained by that point, it
just like the God's honest truth, no pun intended. So yeah, and I think that's a really useful way of looking at it, and it kind of explains why an appeal to something supernatural is universal in all cultures, manifested by religion, yet it has all these different nuances. So all of the I think there's some there's some catalog out there that has like three thousand different religions have been invented by humans over time. It's an astronomical number.
Yeah, and you're right, it's like twelve twelve major religions and three to four thousand monorn religions.
I think, yeah, so all of them can't be right. And my philosophy is that means all of them are probably wrong. So what And then, just like you, Craig, I grew up in a religious household, Catholic to be precise.
But when I got to be about seventeen or eighteen and I learned about evolution and science and all these other alternative hypotheses that made a lot more sense to my mind than Adam and Eve and some you know, you know, great being in the sky sending people to heaven and hell, and this notion of an afterlife and
the fact that we have souls. None of that really made sense to me, but I had faith in it for about seventeen years, just kind of dusted the questions under the rug, as good religious people usually do, you know, because if you think about those things, you'll go to hell.
Right.
There's a lot of fear based in a lot of religions which deters people from thinking about it, which I think is utterly horrible and a terrible thing to teach children. But once I don't know where the I guess the courage to defy that prohibition of asking questions and critically thinking about your faith came from. Probably as I learned more about science and appreciated that other people had these same questions. I got a little more brave, if you will.
I'm a little more comfortable entertaining those sorts of questions. And I found that science explains so much so better that I gravitated to that as the model of my world rather than anything supernatural. Now that said, I never want to bash religion. I never want to bash people
of faith. I have many friends who are religious. I have many family members who are, and I don't hold anything against them for maintaining the beliefs that they have have And I would just ask people to have that same, you know, curiosity and respect for someone who believed, who believes in something very different. So I loved aspects of religion that we're based in, like community. I think that's a really important factor, and I love the most of
the moral system. There are some things in various religions that make a lot of sense to me, and that those are behaviors that I wanted to continue. But there are other things that religion can tell you to do that just don't make any sense at all and actually seem to be against some of the tenets of the religion. So being an atheist, I can jettison the beliefs that don't make any sense to me or that I find
to be unkind or unfair. But I can keep the beliefs that I leave are healthy, and evidence can guide you into what beliefs are important to keep and what you can jettison.
I love it.
Sorry, I didn't mean the launch in two of this huge sermon, but it is Sunday here, so that that's my that's my that's my sermon for the day.
Beautiful, beautiful for a scientist. That was a good sermon. Yeah, I think I've you know, I think people get sometimes when I talk about religion, I'm really talking about not is religion right or wrong? Good or bad, not not which theology or which doctrine or which like what's what's more, it's what's right or wrong or what's likely or was there?
Is there really a god? Or is there? But for me, it's more about I'm fascinated with the way people think about religion and the way people behave around religion, and that almost these cults of thought, I call them thought cults, where you have to think a certain way to be in our group. Now forget that it's a religion, it could be any group of people, but you have to
bide by these thoughts. And if you don't agree with these thoughts or ideas or constructs or whatever, then you're not in the group, or at the very least, you're rebellious and you're in sin. Right, Well, that's a really good way to control people and to instill them with fear and guilt for not for discouraging them from thinking critically. I remember being in church and thinking that does not
make sense to me. Like the first time was so when I was I don't know, maybe ten years old up until then, when I would go to church, which was Mass in the Catholic kind of reality, and women, ladies were not allowed on the altar. And then one day I'm at church and I'm sitting next to mom and dad and there's a lady on the altar and I'm like, Mum, why is there a lady on the altar? That's a sin? And then she went, no, the pope changed it, it's not a and I'm thinking, well, it's
or it's not a sin. It's like, can't be a sin on Friday, and it's not a sin on Sunday. Like that doesn't make sense. I'm like, well, what do you mean? And I remember thinking, oh, these are not absolutes, Like obviously I didn't think it that clearly at ten. But I think also, Bill, humans hate uncertainty and they hate not knowing. They hate not we hate not knowing.
And and so you if you know that there's a God and you know that this is the right book, and if you know that if you do these things your eternal you know, heavenly whatever is guaranteed, well then of course I know, and you don't know. And if
you don't align with me, you're the enemy versus. Look, this is what I believe and think, but I could be wrong, Like who says that I could be Okay, this is what I currently think, and maybe I think that because that's my programming and my family's influence and my upbringing. This is what I believe, this is my faith. However, I don't know. This is what I believe, But that's not knowledge, because if I had absolutely unequivocal knowledge, proof evidence, I wouldn't need faith anymore.
That's right. Yeah, And then those are the sorts of questions that ran through my mind as I got older and started learning about all these different things in school, different religions around the world, different cultures, and it made me start to question, well, why is my faith the quote right one? How do I know if I haven't even tried all these other ones? What if they're all wrong?
So I believe you're absolutely right, And there is a great comfort in pretending to know the answers, or even lying to yourself to the point where you just don't even REALI you're lying to yourself. You just accept it as fact. I've also had discussions with religious people, and again I understand how they feel because I've been on both sides of the fence, you know, having lived with religion for the first like eighteen years of my life. I know exactly what it feels like to believe and why.
So it's a really wonderful freedom for me. You know, when I was able to leave all those questions behind and all these things about faith that just didn't make sense, all these goofy things about supernatural you know, God's goddesses, heaven, hell, angels, devils, all these things that you just can't see or prove, it just felt so refreshing to be able to break away from that and get rid of all those questions
and turn and face reality, the real world. Focus my efforts on scientific method in trying to figure out how people how the universe really works, because science has a long history now of being the best tool that humans devised in order to get as close to the truth as we possibly can. Religion has failed catastrophically when it comes to trying to figure out how the real world works. What they are really good at is providing psychological tools
for people to get along. End mass again, another pun, I meant, you know, in large numbers, because this is really interesting, Craig. I don't know if you know this, but humans have been around a lot longer than religion has. Oh okay, so for people who accept evolution and that there was proto humans before us, and then you know cavemen. You know, there didn't used to be any sort of religion.
There didn't used to be gods. And there's actually an evolutionary process that anthropologists have put together for how how human beings became religious, and you can you can track the validity of this hypothesis by looking at hunter gatherer tribes that still exist today. So hunter gatherers were probably very similar to what our ancestors were very long ago.
And the way that gods first started forming were probably through ancestor gods, and these would have been these would have been relatives who have passed on but still speak to the living that would have that has argued to have been like the first semblance of a supernatural element,
a world beyond. And you have to always remember that we are the first species that seems to be capable of it an extraordinary capacity for imagination, and we can hold past, present, and future all in our mind at once. I don't think that's been demonstrated for too many other animals. We're very unique in this regard, and as a species that must seek a cause and effect relationship or else,
our mind gets very uncomfortable and anxious. We started to describe events we couldn't explain to our ancestors that have passed on. Okay, And if something good happened, it was because all this wonderful person was looking out for us. If something bad happened, it was because, oh, maybe we offended our ancestors in some way and we need to atone for that. That worked really well for small tribal units.
But as societies grew larger and larger, you know, what became a problem breaking laws, breaking rules because the more people there were, the harder it was to keep track of who was cheating or who was being bad. So we needed an eye in the sky, if you will. And that's where a single angry god came from, Okay, a punitive god. And before that, as you probably know, if you study like Roman or Greek societies, they had lots of different gods. Native Americans lots of different gods,
and in fact, many of them were like environmental. They would, you know, ascribe agency to things like the clouds and pray to the clouds to make it rain. You know, there were rain gods, there were sun gods, and all of these were tied into things that would help the community survive a good harvest, you know, a good hunt, things like that. So there's what I'm trying to say is there's actually an evolutionary progression of what humans experienced
is supernatural. It started out with maybe ghosts or ancestor gods of people who we knew, who passed on family members' relative friends. And then it became as humans grew in size, we needed more gods to look out for us, so there were gods for everything, and then it evolved into monotheism.
That seems to be the most recent evolutionary step outside of people doing away with supernatural elements altogether, because I would say the end of the evolution of religion was putting your faith, if you will, in science, because science came along roughly. I mean, I think humans have always been doing science, but it really started to be become, you know, a popular way to assess truth during the Renaissance.
It's maybe a few centuries earlier than that, but once we figured out that we could actually learn about the real world more effectively by testing and observing, generating hypotheses, and then using evidence to dictate what is true from false. That became the tool that we now use to move forward. So I think a lot of atheists respect the fact that religion is intimately woven into our psychology, and it's been that way for thousands of years, and that's why
it's so hard for humans to shake Today. Science has only been around for a few centuries. It's still relatively new way of thinking. But I think ultimately, ultimately, I don't know how long this will take, but I think an appeal to the supernatural will gradually fade away. And that's not to say that the sense of community or
the sense of morality is going to fade away. Those elements of religion I think are universal because the morals that we have are actually embedded in our genetics and in our behavior, in our psychology, So I don't think they're necessarily religious. But I think that might be one of the bridges that people can use to start waking up and walking away from these supernatural elements that just don't make any sense at all and aren't supported by a shred of evidence.
Yeah wow, so good, And I think so a couple of things. One of the challenges for many people, whatever their belief system, whether it's like being a veganist is the only dacent white to eight or Carlton Football Club, which is a team in Australia in the IFL they're the best, or the you know, the Broncos are the best in the NFL, or or Democrats. This is or whatever it is the belief system that we have, or whether or not it's you know or you know, Catholicism
or you know, Evangelical Christianity or whatever. It is the thing that we are intertwined with, the thing that we believe, the thing that we live, the thing that we advocate, the wheelbarrow that we're pushing, the philosophical, ideological, theological wheelbarrow that we are pushing, becomes our identity, at least in part. Absolutely, when you question my religion, doctor Bill, you question me, and so I'm going to push back because that's offensive.
And I did that as a kid. Yeah, yeah, I lived that life.
Yeah. And it's like you go, I always say to you know when you do that. I love doing a deep dive on the philosophical like, well, who am I? Well, I'm not a body. I've got a body, but I'm not a body, and I've got beliefs, but I'm not them. And and you know, I've got a couple of you know, I mean credentials, but they're not man, I'm not Then. I've got a bank balance, I've got a car, I've got a house, I've got things, but I'm not things.
And you start to kind of figure out, try to figure out this, you know, kind of almost circular who the fuck am I? But realizing that that that i'm that my belief the things that I attach myself to are really just me on a level giving myself an identity, and that we don't like I think the irony is for me anyway, And it's really only been in my sixty years a relevant kind of advent or occurrence. I feel more liberated when I say I don't know. Yeah, like I don't know.
It circles back to the philosophy of uncertainty that you alluded to earlier. And I think that's a tremendously freeing and an absolutely or absolutely healthier way to live. You know that it's really hard to describe how wonderful it is to be able to say, you know, is there a God? I don't know? That that's just it is to me, and and I guess it's the way my mind works that brings me more comfort than having to have an answer. You know, my mind doesn't get anxious
in the face of uncertainty. If it did, I could not function as a scientist. As a scientist, I'm surrounded by uncertainty and mysteries every day. But to me, that's what really makes life compelling and meaningful to live is being able to use our human mind to try to figure out how the world works or how the body works, and using science to do it, because religion will not be able to tell you those answers.
And I think also when you say, okay, I believe, I be and see and that is that is true. I don't have evidence, But for me, I don't have absolute evidence or proof. But that is for me, that's the truth. And that then when I believe that now one, I've built myself an ideological prison that I have to live in. And if anybody disagrees with the prison or my ideas or my beliefs, then they're kind of my
enemy now right. And also when I say, with absolute certainty or assumed certainty, I am right about this thing for which I have no evidence, I'm also making myself unteachable, and I'm also just backstroking in a sea of confirmation bias, where it doesn't matter how logical, rational, enlightened, wise somebody else is.
If it isn't what I think, you can fuck off. Yeah your growth is stunted. Yeah yeah, you might as well just cease living because you're not going to grow any more. You're not going to learn anything new. Where's the joy in life in that?
So? So, yeah, it is very much like a prison, and that describes how I kind of felt as a teenager. You know, there's there was this big, wide world out there with all these other people who believe differently than what I was taught. Yet I was told that they're all going to hell, and it's like this doesn't make any sense. This isn't kind, this isn't warm hearted, this isn't the Jesus that I was taught, you know. So it just there was so much cognitive dissonance that I
experienced as a kid. Finally being able to close the door on religion was one of the best things that have ever happened to me in my life.
Yeah. Yeah, it's And also even when you think, like I used to think about this just logically, and okay, you go, all right, well, if there's all these religions, I mean, every person in every religion believes that their religion is the right religion. Well even if we just go, well, logically, that's not true, like we have to like that can't be true that everybody's right because we all have different theologies, doctrines, whatever.
But even in the middle of that, you know, it's like logic doesn't seem to get a seat at the table. Like what has seems to have all the seats is emotion and really, more specifically fear.
Yeah. Faith literally means you have to leave reason at the door. You cannot use that as a system to validate or falsify your beliefs. You just have to have faith. And to me, that's the ultimate F word. Okay, that's the f balm For me, Faith is a dirty word in the universe I live in because we don't need to have faith. We have a brain that can figure things out, So why not do that. And if we do encounter something that we're not bright enough to figure
out yet, just don't draw any conclusions at all. Okay, I just I was literally be comfortable, be comfortable with that you know.
Yeah, sorry, sorry to interrupt. I was literally tald that I needed to think less and believe more that I was literally told that. I was told a lot of people. Yeah, my problem, my my thinking, my questioning. It wasn't critical thinking. It was lack of faith.
And I was told it was going to make me miserable, you know. I was told, just believe this, you'll be happy, You'll be fine. And I think that is why Karl Marx I believe it was referred to religion as the ultimate drug. It's an opiate, because yeah, you can suck at the nipple of religion and get nourishment, but it's
all an illusion, you know. So I'd rather take my chances and live in the real world and try to figure it out than just kind of plug myself into this spiritual IV unit and get pumped of artificial happiness, believing that if I'm a good person, I'll go to heaven. I'm a good person because I don't want to be a dick, you know. I think it makes sense to be good to one another. Okay. The Golden Rule is seen in non human primates, so it is deeply embedded
into our psyche. It's been around a lot longer than religion has. And it's a rule that just I think you can make any kind of ethical decision simply by going for kindness. And this is one of the one of the things that Buddhism teaches. You know, I wanted to go back a little bit about what you were saying about. You know, who the hell are we? What is a human being? What is this thing that I call myself? And Buddhism has an answer for that, and
it's basically, the self is an illusion. You know, this thing in our brain that we build up to represent our self is it is not a static entity. It certainly isn't a soul. Neurobiologically, that just doesn't make any sense anymore. But yeah, the self is an illusion and it changes minute by minute.
You know, we're not the.
Same people we were a week ago, month ago, or you know, years ago, but we failed to realize that. So Buddhism kind of teaches, you know, one of the tenets of if you can understand this concept that the self is an illusion, you start to let go of your ego. And the ego is one of the reasons why we have so many problems in this world. If everyone was able to suspend their ego and just be
compassionate for other people. Realizing that we're all in the same boat, we're all in this same rock that's going around the sun, and we're all in this grand show together. Why not help each other out? Why not be kind to one another rather than satiate this artificial construction called the ego. I find it very I find it very appealing.
Yeah, me too. And for those people who are listening, going, but doctor Bill, now you're talking about now you're quoting a religion, but talking about Buddhism. But Buddhism is a philosophy more than a religion, Like it's there's no God in per se in Buddhism. Am I correct.
There's various flavors of Bouddhism, but by and large you're right. It is more of a philosophical it's a way of thinking. But I believe there are some sects of Buddhism that have supernatural components. I obviously do not subscribe to those.
There's a wonderful book if listeners want to check it out, called I think it's called Why Buddhism Is Right, and it's written by a science journalist named Robert Wright W. R Ight, and he scientifically analyzes some of the major tenets of Buddhism in a very compelling, evidence based way that leads him to the conclusion that if anyone wants to follow a quote unquote religion, Buddhism really has evidence to back up the psychological tools that provides its followers.
So it's really worth looking into. I've done quite a bit of it myself. I wouldn't call myself a Buddhist, but I do like a lot of the philosophical arguments that the Buddha has made and that some of my favorite authors, Buddhist authors, have written in modern times. It just really provides you with a really great worldview, a very comforting one at that, and it promotes above all
other things, kindness, compassion, and nonviolence. And if everyone could practice that, I don't think we'd have a lot of problems in this world, you know so, And Buddhism doesn't
have monopoly on kindness and compassion. Those threads can be seen in many different religions all around the world, and in fact, that is part of the reason why these religions were invented so that people wouldn't be jerks to one another, so that people would believe that there's an eye in the sky with some kind of you know, Excel spreadsheet tallying up their behavior is good and bad and neutral, and that would dictate their fate in the afterlife.
If you go through life sincerely believing that your actions are being judged, you're probably going to be a better person. And that's why religion was effective, you know, until science came along and told us that, hey, these morals are already embedded in our psyche. Even non human primates have them. They weren't delivered to us by Moses or some other religious figure. They were already there.
Is So when we think about the relationship between you know, genes and like for example, I know you spoke about this in your book quite a bit, but just if you could unpack and we're doing a little bit of a left turn, but free will and I don't know, that's a whole part cast in itself. Yeah, can we like I think about We'll come back to that in one second. I talk to people about I say, maybe the biggest challenge we have is managing our own mind, because I in a way like our mind is almost
like our operational headquarters. It's where we process data, we feel to the external world. We give things meaning, we tell stories, we rate risk, we assess, you know. And then and then I think, but, like, how do I even manage my mind? Because the tool that I'm using to assess my mind is my mind? You know. It's
like it's this almost you know, this mind fuck. It's like I'm trying to I'm trying to figure out how I can have a level of objectivity about something I can't be objective about because I'm you know, like I'm looking through this window that is my beliefs and values, trying to get clarity. But I don't know what I'm saying. But talk to us about the mind and free will and even the idea of objectivity.
Well, I think part of what you're describing goes back to this concept of the self, and this is an image that our brain forms to kind of help us navigate the real world. But it gets very egocentric. The self is obviously most concerned about our own being, surviving and reproducing. On a second level, it's concerned with those
who are like us, who share our genetic makeup, our family. Okay, and then maybe there's another cycle that extends further for more distant relatives or even friends who seem to have a lot in common with us, because they're probably similar at a genetic level too. So the self and genes
are very intimately tied together. We are reproductive machines, and our genes basically want to replicate themselves, and many of our behaviors are rooted in survival and ultimately reproduction, and then then you know the survival of our progeny as well. So the ego, the self, and genetics are all very
tightly woven in to one another. But what gets really cool, Craig, is you can kind of measure using MRI what goes on in the brain when people contemplate themselves, and you can see distinct patterns light up on the brain imaging machines. Now you that person takes LSD and one of the main thing people describe when they take drugs like LSD is they lose their s of self, And you can
see this in the brain imaging experiments. You know, the pattern that when people think about themselves evaporates, it's gone, so they truly feel that their self is dissolving. And the flip side of that. The other side of that coin is that they feel more connected to the rest of the universe, including other people. So I think that's
pretty amazing. But you know what is even really cool when people do loving kindness meditation, which is a form of meditation where you just think loving thoughts about other people. You're wishing them well, You're hoping they have their dreams come true. Not just people you know, but strangers and even enemies. When you image someone who is thinking about loving kindness, their brain looks like it's on LSD. Self
dissolves and they are more connected to the universe. So there may be some sort of biological process that goes on in the brain that helps us keep an image of our self together, but that image dissolves when we think about helping other people. It's pretty fascinating. So there's a real, you know, bona fide psychological component to self and non self and help, you know, being to the point where you can let go of your ego and become a part of the whole and just be a
contributor that helps everybody you know get along better. And I don't mean get along in a sense of peace, but get along in life. You know, give help where it is needed, that sort of thing. So you can really see there's some wonderful ways that science can actually help us understand religion and morality. Now, you mentioned free will, so we can circle back to that if you like. But did I answer the other parts of the question? Okay, was that kind of what you were aiming for?
I think so, I'm just captivated anyway, keep going. I've got a couple more questions before we wind up. But yeah, talk to us about because I think we like to think we're really in charge of everything on planet us. You know, in my world, I'm in charge. Or maybe I'm just a passenger in my own life and my genetics, and maybe I'm just a spect an unwilling spectator. I feel like I'm a bit of both. Sometimes I'm driving the bus, sometimes I'm in the backseat.
Yeah, And there's a survival advantage to that, you know, there's a survival advantage to thinking that you have agency over things. But yeah, science has done some experiments starting in the nineteen eighty eighties with a fellow named Benjamin Libett, and I talk about this in my book as well, just some really jaw dropping experiments that made the scientists who discovered them question his own results for the rest of his life. But they've been repeated many times in
different ways by a people all around the world. But the thing that he discovered was that he would hook people up to brain imaging machine and basically ask them to look at a clock and then at a certain time they would decide whether to press a button or something like that. There's been a lot of permutations on this experiment. What he found was that there was activity in the brain before people were conscious that they pressed
the button. So, in other words, the brain decided what it was going to do on a subconscious level, and then our consciousness got wind of it and thought it made a story that, oh, I decided to press the button so wildly. That really blew the minds of a lot of people. It was basically saying that subconsciously we make decisions, we do them, and then our consciousness tries to explain what we've done, and that is what we
misperceive as free will. So and again, that has been done many, many times, and scientists have gotten to the point where they can look at the brain's activity and predict exactly when they actually when the participant will press the button. So even the scientists now will know when they're going to press the button based on the brain scan. It's really pretty remarkable. But the person in the experiment doesn't know when they're going to press it, you know,
they still think they're making these decisions. So, you know what else is cool. This also explains experiments where you can bring people into a room and I'm not getting the details of this experiment right because it's off the top of my head, but you can set up an experiment where people look at maybe two pieces of art and they pick out which one is their favorite, and then you bring them back in, you know, maybe thirty days later, and you tell them that this is the
piece of art that you picked as your favorite. But it was wrong. Okay, they swapped it on them. They actually told them that the one they didn't pick was the one that they picked. And seventy five percent of a time people didn't realize that the investigator swapped it on them, and they would invent reasons why they thought that one was the better painting. Wow, when in fact that was not the painting that they selected thirty days ago. Wow.
So that kind of mirrors exactly what Benjamin Libett discovered when he was doing his free will experiment. We're not making these decisions. We have a brain that it tries to explain what we've done. This also explains a lot of when you do something stupid or you say something dumb, you always try to like defend yourself, right, that's your brain trying to compensate for something your subconscious did.
Do you know have you heard of the artist? He's like a straight artist. He's very famous. His name's Banksy.
I think the name rings a bell.
Anyway, so this dude started out kind of as a graffiti artist and he ended up doing these phenomenal pieces of art, and nobody knows who he is, Like he's anonymous, but he just signs everything Banksy.
It's only me.
Yeah, I didn't think, well, all right, well that then I'm finished. But anyway, so if you get a Banksy will, he now does stuff. He still does, Like he just does all these pop ups where people walk down a street and at six am in the morning they see this thing that's on a wall somewhere and it's by him. But he also does other things which get auctioned off for charity and and I don't think he's really interested in well clear, and I'm interested in being known anyway
that kind of fame. And I don't know how much money means to him. But so anyway, a Banksy that just done on a piece of timber, like is worth two hundred grande hundred or it sells for that. I don't know what it's worth, but if what people pay
determines the value, well then it's worth that, right. So anyway, what he did, he did this experiment, and he gave this guy it was either I think it was eight pieces, eight original banksies, which is be worth well over a million dollars, like collectively, so each one was worth whatever, one hundred to two hundred grand. And this guy went to a market you know where they just sell people
have stores and they sell all kinds of shit. So this guy had all the banks he's set up at a stall and he said, all original Banksy artwork, blah blah blah, and they were all for sale for like sixty to eighty dollars. Now they were actually banks the originals. You can google this everybody. I'm fucking it up a little bit, but the gist of it is right, and
in the course of the day. I think of the eight, he sold four and all of them people bargained him down, right, so these things and then so then the people that then it came out. Then the people that bought the four actually sold them for like one hundred thousand dollars plus. But there were people, aren't People were walking past going well,
that can't be real. Now, despite the fact that they knew who Banks he was, they liked Banks's work, and here were some original Bankses, the context, the price, the context, the set and setting didn't make sense. And despite the fact that it said and he said, no, these are real, these are authentic Banksies. All of the information was true, but the context and the setting kind of skewed. And the price, of course. And so it's so funny what
people think, what people think. There was another one done recently Bill called they set Up I think it was in New York. They set up this high end shoe shop called Palesso. Like it was like this, so I think it was p A. L. E. S. S O. This beautiful logo, this beautiful they set up like, you know, like a pop up shop. Do you know what that is?
Yeah?
We have those, yeah, yeah, so they set up a pop up shop and they did this this invite to all these wealthy people, and so they made this totally fictitious brand Palso with all of these you know, everything was well lit all the like, the dacre was amazing. The shoes were you know, on shelves under spotlights, and all of the shoes were from Payless. Payless and Palesso was a play on Payless, right yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
So people were paying eight hundred dollars a thousand dollars for a pair of thirty dollars shoes, and they're all raving about how this is one of their favorite brands, and the brand coups exist and you had to justify it. Yeah, And so they sold all of these pay Less shoes, like I mean, I think they were fine shoes, right, but they certainly weren't thousand dollars shoes. And people were one thousand dollars for something that was probably worth fifty
or eighty and happy with their purchase. And you know, there were camera crews, there were media because this was a launch, it was a new outlet. And as people are coming out, they're talking about the shoes and how beautiful they are and they love the brand and how it's going to flourish, and yeah, and it was all bullshit. It was all psychology.
It's very humbling to hear experiments like that, but you know, it's also echoes this concept that we really don't make decisions based on reason and life logic sometimes, you know, we are basically making decisions on what we're told or what we're thinking that we perceive in the environment. Similar
studies have been done many times with wine. People are told that they're drinking a two hundred dollars bottle of wine when it's actually like two buck chuck or something, and they'll rerieve about how great it is, and you know, all these different flavors that they're catching. It's just a really cheap glass of wine, but you're told it's really expensive. It changes how you think about the experience.
Yeah, yeah, there was an even and further to that. Then I'll shut up. Then I've got one question, which is from a friend who wants me to ask you something. There was a I think they just call it the Milkshake Study. It was done in Canada. I think it was twenty ten. I've definitely spoken about this on the show before. I don't know if I've spoken to you, but they sat these people down who were so obviously you know what grelon is, the hunger hormone. I don't
need to actuate you, right. Do you remember this experiment where so they got people who were hungry, they hadn't eaten for a period of time, maybe eighteen to twenty four hours, and they brought them in and they sat them down three times where their grelon levels were elevated. All the people were hungry, and they gave them basically a low calorie milkshake like one hundred and twenty calories, medium like three hundred calories, and then milkshake with you
know burger with the lot like fat sugar cream. It was yummy. Right, So there was like one hundred and twenty a three hundred and a six hundred calorie version, and anyway, they all knew what the experiment was. And then accordingly, you know, the more calories they had, the lower the grelon levels were, post you know whatever, all of that, and then you know what I'm going to say. Then they sat them down and they said, you drank
three times, you drank the same thing. But what they thought they were drinking actually created a physiological change in you know, what was happening in their endocrin system in terms of Grellen levels. And it's like, it's so incredible what the mind or the brain thinks is happening, and that there's you know, the psychology and the physiology is intertwined.
It certainly is that those are fascinating experiments, and it kind of you know, there can be a real silver lining to those sorts of studies because they can be a little upsetting because it takes away a lot of our agency. But you can also interpret that as you can potentially change your neurochemistry and maybe your physiology just
by controlling your thoughts. Yeah. Now I'm not saying that people can like think their way out of cancer or something like that, but you can certainly make you know, more modest adjustments by learning how to adjust your thoughts to achieving more productive outputs. I forget her name, but she wrote The Optimism Bias Terry Shilow or something like that,
fascinating book. But there's a lot of psychological experiments that have been done showing that people who have a modestly optimistic outlook have much better physiology and people who have a pessimistic outlook who learn to regulate their thoughts more towards an optimistic bias. Yeah, these biomarkers actually increase in their favor. So there's some real science behind being able to use, you know, controlling your inner monologue to think
more positively and then benefiting from that physically. You know, it's it's not much different than the milkshake or Grellin experiment that you're describing.
Yeah, it's and it gives it gives.
Credence to the power of our thoughts. You know that that should not be underestimated. And I don't mean they'd sound too woo woo here, but you know, you know, there are what is thinking, what is thought? Well, that's a change in neurochemistry is basically what's going on. So I think it's completely plausible that if you change your neurochemistry in a certain way, it's going to manifest itself different ways physiologically.
I think.
So, I think it's plausible.
I think is it psycho neuro immunology that kind of explores the relationship between what's happening in our head and our immune system.
I think, what did you call it again.
It's called psycho neuro immunology.
It's probably Yeah, that seems to be an adequate title for it, but yeah, it's it's basically learning how to control your thoughts in a way that is going to improve your body's biochemistry.
Think about like, like, if I'm sitting here and I'm safe, there's no risk, there's no danger, I'm totally okay, nothing bad's going to happen. But I think something bad's going to happen. Well, I'm producing physiology that's consistent with threat danger. You know, now my blood pressures up, my heart rates up, my adrenalines going nuts, sympathetic nervous system has gone nuts. You know. Now I'm in I'm in a heightened state, not because the situation requires it, but because I had a thought.
Isn't that crazy? Yeah, you're you're You're like geared up for fight or flight, even when there's no danger around you. This is what horror films exploit all the time. You know, our mind gets wrapped into this fantasy and it's producing certain neurochemical reactions that elicit a real physiological response.
All right, last question before we go. This is from my friend who wants to know, does doctor Bill take any supplements? If yes, what and why now? Now that's a very random question by some way with pain.
For today's episode. Yeah, but if you know, people who have a history of listening to me Babbel on your podcast, we've certainly talked about diet and exercise and healthy living. I don't have any medical conditions that would warrant my taking a supplement, so you know, my doctor hasn't prescribed any such thing. Now, there are people out in the world who might have, you know, certain deficiencies in various vitamins or minerals, and if you are diagnosed, you should
take whatever supplement the doctor prescribes. But me personally, not having those conditions, I just get all of my nutrients from food, you know, a healthy diet. I don't see a need to take any sort of supplement whatsoever. And there's actually a lot of good scientific data that says supplements in isolation of the food really don't do you
any good. You know, there's something about you know, like when you eat an orange, there's something else in the orange that makes the vitamin C work a lot more efficiently and better than if you were to just pop a vitamin C pill right now. That said, if you're going into the desert and won't have vitamin C for a long time, by all means you should maybe take a supplement. So I think it's very contextual, but on a day to day basis, I take absolutely zero supplements.
Awesome. How do people connect with you? Darkwere? Can I find you? Follow you? Doctor? Bill's book is called Place to Make Me Jans Germs and the Curious Forces that make us who we are. Sorry, go ahead, thanks, Craig.
The best place to find me is author Bill Sullivan dot com. That's my website. You can learn about the book, and if you click on the media page, you'll see all these wonderful podcasts that I've been on talking with Craig and some other folks. If you click on writing, you'll see all of the latest articles that I've written for various publications.
Perfect, well, say goodbye off here, but as always, I appreciate you. Thanks for hanging out with us on the You project.
It's always my pleasure and I love hearing from your listeners.
Thanks buddy,