Justin:

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out part one of this episode with our guest Lizzie Pratt. Available wherever you get podcasts.

Mark:

Welcome to How I See It with me, Mark Pratt and

Justin:

Justin Sternberg. This is a podcast that works to counter cultural polarization through thoughtful conversation Yeah I’m curious, Lizzie, in like some of these classes you’ve taken, is there any m like mind-blowing things that you’ve come across where you’re like I don’t know, kinda kinda like that kind of stuff or um maybe stuff that uh is new understanding about the brains that kinda blows our minds. Is anything that’s kinda kinda come up Or is it a ton of things and we don’t have time for it?

Lizzie:

Well one thing I was thinking as we’re talking is is I’ve actually really appreciated and part of this is probably because I go to a Christian school. Um, but in some of these classes we’ve had the conversations of modernism and dualism and okay, so here we are learning about the brain. Let’s talk about the soul and so there are these, you know, classes of thought which monism is like there’s no distinction between mind, soul, body, all this stuff. But for dualism and also this is probably where most Christians fall, is that there is a difference between our you know, our our b body and then our mind or soul and even if you’re not a Christian you can still say, you know, we either have a soul or a mind and a lot of these conversations are come back to that question of can you separate them? And if so, like is this is it a physical entity that is still just contained in your body And so, you know, in my my my capstone classes I just took is we’ve are just basically asking the hard questions in science and one of the we spent days on this idea of dualism and if if we do believe that the soul and mind or soul and body are different, can they be separated or you know, w how does that look in in a Christian worldview and so A lot of times there’s still questions we still don’t have answers to, like physically literally, but it is it does come back to a worldview and look at how how I see it, I guess, of like how do your soul and your mind interact and um and your body and that kind of thing. Um but beyond that, I mean I think I’ve really just benefited from like the pathways learning like my my favorite class was neuroscience and literally just learning the distinct pathways of like this part of the brain to this part of the brain to this part of the brain crosses over the brain here down this, you know, down the spinal cord here or whatever. And also just uh I th I mean you’ve talked about this before, but the neuroplasticity of like their brains are just

Justin:

Yeah.

Lizzie:

You know, c crazy, like like it’s basically the new frontier of like what what we don’t know. We don’t like we pretty much know Almost nothing, you know, comparison to what we what is to be known, but also we know way more than we used to. Um And even just learning about like the different medications and how those impact like um I talked with dad a little bit after the the last podcast he did about this of like we have these, you know, antidepressants, um, and w you know, we know generally what they do. But real li in the past couple of years we’ve been realizing that they actually don’t work the way we we think they would and so we have this, you know, selective serotonin rhotake inhibitors or SSRIs that, you know, they they’re supposed to do this and we think they do this But they actually don’t work like we thought they would time wise. So maybe they’re not doing what we think they’re doing. So maybe we should figure out what they’re actually doing before we give them to people, right? So just like how much is fluid and dynamic and what we’re learning and you know, how we’re taking these really great steps, but also like We don’t really know exactly what we’re doing all the time. So

Justin:

Yeah.

Lizzie:

Yeah.

Justin:

And that’s what science is, right? It’s like a hypothesis and then testing that hypothesis and then when you test it long enough you’re like, Yeah, I think we got it. And but that but that never stops. The testing never stops if you like move it into real world. Like you’re saying we we’ve been using antidepressants for I don’t know, seventy years and maybe?

Mark:

Long time.

Justin:

Long time. And yeah, so we’re able to start to see some more of that where science so science can continue to learn from that. And I do think

Mark:

you were talking about the timetable. How long does it take

Lizzie:

Yeah, so you know, traditional antidepressants take six to eight weeks to really start kicking in. Like you take ’em for that long and theoretically they should work on your neurotransmitters, like your serotonin and dopamine, within hours to days. Um so

Mark:

yeah.

Lizzie:

And that’s another interesting thing, um, is just the crossover of um how interconnected your brain is in so this semester I got to do some research with one of my professors and using an antidepressant um on potential PTSD uh symptoms and because they target similar parts of the brain, um, but different you know, have different influences or different like outcomes and effects just how because of how interconnected your brain is, how much I think in the future we’ll learn is different things impact different parts of the brain in ways that we didn’t think they would. Um and you were talking about earlier how you can, you know, take some parts out of the brain and you don’t really see an effect but other parts you do It’s interesting because I think in a lot of reading and learning I’ve done is that it really does affect something. Yeah. Even if we don’t know. If you don’t know right now what it is or you know, it doesn’t have a im great impact on someone’s day to day like It’s it’s more there than I think.

Mark:

But there’s something that’s being impacted in such a way that says, Yeah, this is still important.

Justin:

biology c you know, s background study or whatever to be able to see well, you know, the body pays the toll probably in one way or another. And also, like you said, um, even like our long term thinking or long term ability to trust or believe or whatever it is, like I could see how that could be um n uh affected and maybe not see it right away. Right. Yeah.

Lizzie:

Yeah.

Mark:

Yeah.

Justin:

That’s interesting. Some of my favorite um doctors we we go to the doctor a lot for Jewel ’cause she has some some stuff that she deals with or whatever, but the way they talk about um Yeah, w those things people give. Uh prescription. Drugs. The ones that I respect the most they talk about it like, Well, we’ve seen that when this is a done like this it can have this effect. Sure. And they don’t s they’re not like sure about everything and like, oh yeah, this is what you take when you have this problem. They are more scientists and they’re able to say, you know, we can only go by what we see. And what we’ve seen is it seems to have this good effect for people in this situation that’s similar to what she’s in. Sure. Therefore we can say with reasonable certainty it could be helpful. They have a lot of disclaimers. What it’s because they don’t know and they know they don’t know and the smartest doctors, the smartest scientists actually are the most aware of how little they know. And that was cool about again this podcast of this guy just saying how little we know. And um there’s actually a quote from the Wait Book by blog post I wrote down By a guy named Moran Kerf. He’s a neuroscientist. He said, if the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we we would be so simple that we couldn’t.

Mark:

Yeah.

Justin:

I was like, wow, that’s good. That’s really good. Yeah. Um and yeah, it’s like every area of science we start to dip into and we get pretty far in Every single area. It’s like, whoa. You know? It goes so much deeper. And, you know, th the world’s renowned scientists in any given area will tell you the same thing. Sure. Which kind of ties back to what you’re saying, how great thou art.

Mark:

Yeah.

Justin:

This idea that like this creator had the ability and and what’s cool too is like with this stuff, all this technology, neuralink, all this kind of stuff Everything we’ve gained up to this point is a result, because again, we’re all believers and we believe in our higher power, you know, God and all the creator and creationism. um is a result of him unlocking certain aspects and saying, Okay, you can know this now you know? And we like to think we’re so smart and we figured it out and we’re, you know, like But like again, the smartest scientists go, no, we’re not that smart. We’re pretty dumb when it comes to this. But at least we figured this out, you know.

Mark:

We’re scratching the surface in many cases is what you tended to hear

Justin:

And even the areas that we feel like we we’ve got that part on lockdowns, like we’ve discovered new things, like antidepressants, like yeah, we’ve been using these for seventy years, we think we know how what they do and apparently there’s science saying Maybe we don’t quite know. You know?

Mark:

Yeah.

Justin:

And that’s that’s a pretty common theme, I would say, as as our technology grows and we’re able to see more about the effects of things and

Mark:

And I thought it was interesting too that uh in that podcast they definitely the the person they interviewed didn’t even necessarily dare cross over not dare. but didn’t desire to cross over into the pharmaceutical aspects of what our brain because he was just basically wanting to He understood that there was enough complexity in what they were trying to do with this, you know, electrical interface, if you will that it’s like now we have we don’t we don’t deal with that technology here.

Justin:

Yeah, like specialized kind of thing. Like th this vein is deep enough and wide enough that I don’t Specifically, I think it was related to neuroplasticity and like their brain’s ability to change and say um like pharmaceuticals and psilocybin stuff like that um has some pretty insane effects on our neuroplasticity and be able to our minds to be able to change It’s like, have you guys considered that? Like w what what if you guys tackled that problem too? He’s like, no, no, no. Like the ability that we can do that is so minuscule compared to these pharmaceuticals that we it doesn’t make sense for us to study that. We’re just about figuring out when your brain thinks this thing does a th signal fire and can we listen to that and then therefore do something. He’s like that’s that’s good enough. Yeah. Right. That’s kind of yeah. Yeah.

Mark:

Yep.

Justin:

I think that was pretty fascinating too, because again, you think it’s this simple like that It’s so typical. The less you know about a thing, the more simple you think it is. Sure. You know, and that’s why it’s so easy for clickbait and all these things. It’s like Now I know exactly what I need to know about Nurley because I read that headline.

Mark:

And I think for me that aspect I I I really like that imagery of the concert of the mind. You know, to where it’s just these little nuances, you know, the the piccolo, the the the flute, you know, you know, percussion, all of that just being timed together in our brain. in such a way that all that timing and I think that’s where the AI part came into was this ability to take this sequences the sequence of switches being turned on, turned off and being able to learn that in such a way that says, okay, when I create these electrical synopsis, these connections That’s in that order, that moves the cursor down and to the left. You know, and I think the part that uh fascinated me as well. He never um he never said how many of the transmitters they had to put in the brain, but it was like a definitely a number. you know, from my the way I heard it that we’re here, here, and here, you know, to be able to create these things. And it just it just it adds to what you were saying. I I I until you shared, I never realized that this connected to this like a flow chart. You know you know, it’s like I knew this area was responsible for hearing, this area was responsible for sight. you know, from a generalized aspect of the brain.

Lizzie:

Well, yeah, and so much of a lot of the testing they’re doing now and research is using GBC, which is uh global brain connectivity, and that’s something that like they’re using as a measure of uh health, shall we say, like, you know, in in studies of, you know, depression or whatever, like the s the person that has greater GBC tr from this specific area to this specific area. is doing better than this person and or, you know, vice versa, th when and there’s this connectivity that is cut off, that is actually a sign of detriment towards that and you know, so that’s kind of interesting how how much even just like the connections and the fluidity of the brain is recognized in a very concrete, like they basically measure it in There’s a word, but basically like if you think about pixels, like Minecraft pixels of like a bra a part of the brain and you measure that thing and how well it connects to this one and a different part, like that’s that’s a physical measurement they have now of like

Justin:

That’s cool.

Lizzie:

So we have this kind of intimidating thought of like, you know, neural link and brain control and that kind of stuff, but how much God’s not really intimidated by our questions and like how w uh we’ve learned a lot I’ve learned a lot about how science is a form of worship and like God is just never threatened by us. And granted there are things that, you know, cross the line and are unethical and you know, that we just because you know, not everything that I can do or should do, you know, Paul says that. But how much of just our scientific advancement can be seen as just like a worship and here we are just Learning more about our creator and our God and how he made us and the God’s just really not threatened by our questions ever So

Justin:

cool.

Mark:

I was thinking about what you were talking about, the GBC, the you know, global brain connectivity. We’re also learning a lot about that. And I was thinking about isn’t Isn’t that part of what, you know, well years ago it was Seduco, you know, would help offset Alzheimer’s and supposedly, but isn’t that kind of what you’re talking about. We even know how this is connected and we know that if we’re doing these types of things, that may and that may invariably help that connection to increase

Lizzie:

True.

Mark:

And I’m thinking about it, you know, it’s like it’s like developing your percussion section when you’ve, you know, focused most of your life on, you know, the Windwoods or whatever, you know. uh the readed instruments or you know it’s just it ‘s just kinda and I think that’s part of our our tendency, you know, is to focus on the things that I’m good at. And I think at times as humans we get scared of developing these other parts because it’s like what if I don’t do that well? What if it doesn’t sound right? What it you know and I think you know to be able to embrace that, you know, yes, you do that well and I do that well uh something else well but I I it’s all a part of my ability to worship when I’m even developing parts that I’m uncomfortable with.

Lizzie:

And you think about even individuals that have lost a sense, you know, whether that’s sight or sound or they ha we have a sensory cortex and it’s actually interesting because it’s You can lay it out and you can give, you know, look at it and assign all the different like hands and feet and even even all all your skin receptors go have a place on the on the brain and you know, of course you have different senses like your eyes and your ears are much bigger. Um but when you lose one of those, like the other ones creep into it. And so it’s not just dead space. It’s it’s now augmentation of the other senses that you know are close by to it physically. Like you’re physically if you’re you know, if your ear sense is closer to your, you know, eye sense and your eye you lose your eye sense, like your ear’s gonna creep into it physically like those those you know, neurons are gonna be taken over there.

Mark:

As as part of neuroplasticity, that ability to grow greater connection or enhance wow. Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah, it it ties into like why a lot of times blind people’s sense of hearing or or whatever can be enhanced compared to yeah. Which is fascinating. Again, it ties into like the brain’s capability too is much greater than we currently use. I mean, I remember growing up they always say we use six percent or ten percent of our brain that something like that. And I don’t know how accurate that is. I feel like that number’s been changed since then. I’m pretty sure we use the whole brain. It’s just that our brain is capable Its capability is unknown. I think that’s more accurate to say. But we use all of it. I don’t think like you said, if you take a little chunk out, it’s not like, well You still got, you know, ninety percent that you you can r lose and still have the same function. I don’t think that’s how um and I liked your analogy with the the concert too because Um going back to what Lizzie was saying about if you take out a part. So like if you remove the piccolo.

Mark:

Sure. Right? Don’t remove the piccolo.

Justin:

I’m just saying the piccolo player got a cold and they couldn’t play today, you know? Um You might not notice today, you know, but if you listen to this piece, you know, every weekend and it’s your favorite piece or whatever, eventually you mean, you know, I really want that piccolo back, right? Yeah. And it would it it has a part to play and it matters, you know, and the original intention of the creator of that piece of uh music or whatever said, There needs to be a piccolo right here, right? And so without that part playing its part, you will see an impact. You it will change things. And again, you may not notice it on the first run or you know, you might not be familiar with it or see its impacts. But it does play a part and I think I that’s why I really like that analogy ’cause I think it does tie into that too where um every part plays is part of the the entire concert, right? And if you remove a part it’s not like, well that we didn’t need the piccolo player anyway. And it’s like no they’re there for a reason.

Mark:

Yeah.

Justin:

Because Mark wants to hear the

Mark:

piccolo

Justin:

Do you? Yeah. What is a piccolo sound like?

Mark:

It’s a very high. It’s that really high above the flute, you know, when you get into that trilli, you know, sound that’s way up top. Yeah.

Justin:

Interesting. It makes me think of uh original in Nintendo Mario Bros. 3. There’s this uh Very high fluety song in one of the parts. And I bet you it was pickling.

Mark:

It could very well have been. Yeah. Lizzie used to play the flute. Yeah. She can describe what it sounds like maybe

Lizzie:

I’m not gonna try.

Mark:

Pressure for you right there.

Justin:

That’s right.

Mark:

Yeah.

Justin:

Uh Mark, I’d like to hear you make a piccolo sound.

Mark:

Uh we’ll pass on that. I mean, I it would be I just don’t know how to other than like sh Screet almost screeching into the you know, it’s like you know

Justin:

we’ll spare the listeners.

Mark:

Yeah, I can hear it in my mind. I can hear it in the concert in my mind.

Justin:

There you go. So don’t remove the piccolo. Yeah. I think that’s what we’re saying.

Mark:

Exact that’s one of the things we’re saying. Yes.

Justin:

That’s my takeaway.

Mark:

No. But The other any other any other parts that just kind of came to either one of your minds from the because for me, I’m just I’ll I’ll set it up. I shouldn’t just throw that question out there like that For me, listening to that podcast, it was interesting to see how it went from It was a two hour podcast. Let’s let’s be honest. I I struggled. I struggled. Um, but I I want to recognize that first, really, from my perspective, the first half hour to 45 minutes was about Neuralink and the brain connection And then they kind of developed off and they went and talked about, you know, animals and treating animals kindly and and research and, you know, and it It just to where really in that two hours, you know, thirty s thirty minutes to forty minutes was about the connecting of the brain.

Justin:

Well once he figured out all you’re doing is It’s like, all right, what else can we do?

Mark:

created a thought in such a way that you really hadn’t thought about. I mean you know, before

Justin:

I see Lizzie’s thinking. Okay. Uh one of the things he talked about has nothing to do with nerdling, but this guy has this implant in his hand.

Mark:

Yeah.

Justin:

His RFID chip Which I forget what that stands for.

Mark:

Radio frequency identification device.

Justin:

Nice job.

Mark:

I was awake at that time. That was honestly that was honestly one of the things that I was interested to hear about.

Justin:

Yeah.

Mark:

Because I I’ll be honest, I mean, a lot of what we do at how I see it It’s not that we know uh this information, but there’s passions involved, you know, interests. And I think we all have those. But yes, back to the uh RFID.

Justin:

Yeah, it’s uh it th that was interesting and it really has nothing to do with neural link, but they tied it in in some ways in the sense that like you’re willing to do that to yourself. As a scientist, would you be willing to do some neuraling brain stuff? And he’s like, Sure if we get to that point but right now it doesn’t make sense to try and do the things we’re doing for me because I can move my limbs and type on a keyboard just fine. So it’d be kind of setting that back, but if there was an opportunity to do something, you know, he would do it. But yeah, the RFID chip he was basically saying it helped it it uh um acts as his car key, it acts as a uh key to his house. Um like his uh bit Bitcoin wallet key, you know, that kind of thing. Passwords. Yeah, exactly. Passwords, yeah. Which um I don’t think the storage amount is enough for a real password storage uh really uh Uh yeah, I think I think the amount of storage is very small. Like I think I think you’d be surprised um in terms of like megabytes. I think it’s probably megabyte or less. Oh really?

Mark:

Okay.

Justin:

I I could be wrong.

Mark:

Oh, that’s okay.

Justin:

Probably wrong.

Mark:

That’s that’s part of your that’s part of your wisdom there, Justin. You’re willing to admit you may not know

Justin:

Um, just based on what I know of RFIDs. But um that could obviously be changing and they could m be making enhancements and that and I honestly didn’t even know that was a thing until he talked about he had it simply yeah Um I mean I knew no, I didn’t really know until I heard what I’m saying. Yeah, that’s true True.

Mark:

I mean that and I think in some cases when I hear of chipping animals, it’s like that becomes from my perspective based on your end times analogies. You know, it’s like, okay. Yeah, in some ways we may not be far off from that technology, the ability to have especially my identification.

Justin:

Yeah.

Mark:

Things that say that verify who I am and I no longer have to produce a You know, driver’s license or you know , and

Justin:

again it the thing is we already have that with our phones. It’s just not So this is you know, g when we come to the theologic conversation in um the end times theology or whatever, it g I get very fuzzy on it. Like, at what point does it become evil Right. Um because like you said, y there’s parts of um our phones that are I would say it’s nothing’s inherently evil. It’s it’s our Humanity that right, it’s amoral and the he our humanity is what makes it evil. So you know, when it comes to the mark of the beast, like well where where is that line crossed? Because clearly it’s not a device on you that helps identify you and helps you pay for stuff. Because we’ve been doing that for a while. You know, your phone can pay for stuff. It can identify you can carry a picture of your license on your phone and use it for identification and like it’s It’s that. We’re there already. It just happens to be something we carry instead of that’s you know, i in a in a pocket under my skin, it’s in a pocket on top of my skin.

Mark:

Sure.

Justin:

You get what I’m saying?

Mark:

I do, and I and I’ll be honest with you, I think You know, in some cases that is an awareness maybe that I bring into how I see it to the point of when we have these conversations, there’s a part of me that is basically saying, I want to be heard saying, I don’t know.

Justin:

Yeah.

Mark:

And I think, you know, in some ways, technology is very advantageous. It is amoral. And yet there is there is gonna be a line someday. And I think in some ways it It can become like a lie. I just accept a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit at a time, and suddenly, well, is that really a lie? You know, and I think I may carry the technology right now, but it’s like, well, we’re already doing this. What’s a chip underneath my skin? What’s, you know What’s a you know, that’s the part where my mind goes in that conversation is like same thing probably, more more so is where is that line?

Justin:

Yes

Mark:

And, you know, and the fact that, you know, we’re chipping animals, you know, for identification. So if they get lost makes perfect sense from a science perspective to be able to find somebody. We’re tracking people now. Yeah. You know, with the phone. You know It’s just and uh so I think that’s where and I and I think, you know, there is this connection, if you will, and and here again and my understanding is very limited, if we’re able to go to a digital currency. You know, that all of course makes sense as we think about, you know, the dollar or, you know, currency, you know, that we put in our hands, cash, you know, those kind of things to be able to have this digital currency that everybody around the world uses. you know, and I can tell how much I have by this chip and all I gotta do is pass it under this reader. All that makes perfect sense.

Justin:

We already do that.

Mark:

Exactly. And that’s where I’m at. It’s like

Justin:

I can’t tell you the last time I held a piece of paper to pay for something. I can’t even I honestly can’t remember. It’s all fake numbers that move from this thing to this thing to the yeah. I know you got your your wad there.

Mark:

No, it’s not wad. I’m just saying it’s like I don’t leave home without it. You know, as far as cash goes type stuff, you know. But yeah, I and I but that’s the part that I think.

Lizzie:

Well the question is when you say w where ‘s the line is the question that we’re probably asking is where’s the line and are we gonna know it when we get to it?

Mark:

That’s exactly right.

Justin:

Yeah. I think the Bible says that the words are that even the elect might be fooled. It’s something along those lines, this idea that it’s it’s so convincing that even the elect might be fooled, but it it gives this to me pretty clear indication that they won’t. At least that’s that’s my my reading of it, my understanding of it. And I trust that. Like I think ultimately I have to just go, All right, Holy Spirit, you’re inside me. You’ll know when I’m you’ll you’ll warn me. And and up until that line I don’t Like no one saying, Oh crap, I pay with my phone. Dang it, I accepted the mark of the beast already. I’m doomed. Yeah. We’re not at that point. And I’m not gonna s I’m not I guess I’m not too concerned about worrying about that line and slipping over it. I’m gonna trust that it will be clear in me from a spiritual sense, like through the Holy Spirit, you know, when when that line is tripped. I think I think it will be clearer than we think. But I think it will be easy for us to go, yeah, I can see why you’re saying this would be a good idea for all of us, but I believe it’s wrong a hundred percent. Like I have no doubt, and here’s why, and I’ll be able to point to

Mark:

And that’s where I wanna be I wanna be responsible in what we’re doing here and saying I don’t know.

Justin:

Yes

Mark:

And you have to be able to decide that line for yourself. This this information, this opportunity is out there, but whether that’s what you need to do, you know, it I just I guess we’re just conveying information at that point. Yeah. Yeah

Justin:

Yeah, and it’s definitely been a passion subject of mine to make science less scary, you know, kinda like what you’re saying, like it is an opportunity for worship because what’s the primary um job of a scientist? It’s observation, right? It’s just Watching a thing and seeing what it does and then testing a theory and now watching again. Okay, now that I have a hypothesis, let’s watch some more. Okay, that didn’t work out. Let’s come up with a new one. Alright, let’s watch again. Watch, watch, watch, watch, watch. Observe observe. And like that is a synonym for worship, really. You know, observation. Um ability to take in and go, wow, okay, you know, and like so I I definitely agree with that. So uh you know, uh this whole Mark of the Beast thing, I think for I’ve seen in the church I grew up in kind of some of that generation a fear of technology um which translates into a fear of science and I just I to me that’s a passion subject of mine. I don’t think we have to be afraid of science. I believe that everything we’re we learn, he’s given us. He’s opened that door. He’s op he’s turned the page for us, you know Um so I’m not afraid we’re gonna like turn and pages go, Oh, you weren’t supposed to see that one.

Mark:

Right.

Justin:

Um

Mark:

but I think even what and here again, not from a fearful standpoint, but I think with the information we have to be mindful of Kind of the lie, if you will. Did God really say that? You follow me? Kind of that original lie. It’s like, well, did he really say you couldn’t do that?

Justin:

Yeah

Mark:

You know, and I think that’s where it comes back to each person having that relationship and accountability, you know, ultimately with God, regardless of what a culture may do. So

Justin:

Or what you and I say.

Mark:

Very much so.

Justin:

Which is what kind of what you’re saying.

Mark:

Yeah. Did and uh back to that other quite I’m I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off, Justin, if you’re but um did you have any other thoughts that came out of the podcast? Or even your notebook for that matter.

Lizzie:

My trusty neuroscience notes here.

Justin:

That’s thick.

Lizzie:

It is. Not necessarily just from the podcast. I would say some of the conversations I’ve had recently surrounding like ethics and um just like what does it mean to augment or enhance um in a way that doesn’t c the whole question of like what is what does it mean to d to be better and to do things better and to advance as humanity. Um Because I think we need to be careful of not belittling or saying that someone’s current state is less than because of something that they have. So I you know, and I haven’t talked about this I haven’t talked about the neuralink, you know, neuroscience side of things in my classes, but we’ve also talked about like like genetics and like how okay, if we’re gonna we’re gonna do genetic enhancement kind of stuff Like, is that saying that someone’s current genetics aren’t good enough? Or is that actually being helpful? And so it’s, you know, I’m not I’m not making an opinion statement. I’m just saying that this is something that is a it’s a worthy question to ask of what is the purpose and I I I I would say in my opinion there is a good purpose to a lot of what’s happening and that, you know, that’s it is a natural progression of science and and just advancement, but also Not saying that someone’s lived experience with something that it’s like a a hardship in their life is not, you know, worthy of. is less than or is, you know, something so we think about someone with like Down syndrome that has the genetic, you know, the genetic um cut that condition.

Mark:

Okay.

Lizzie:

And, you know, there’s countries that have eliminated that you know, that condition Um and you know, maybe I’m not saying that neur let the neuroscience stuff is there yet or thinking about that and it is more for help than her

Mark:

but so

Lizzie:

would other peop other people would say that too about different genetic things and so does ma just asking the question of like what does it mean to enhance or be better or advance um in a way that doesn’t say that the current state is Less than that.

Mark:

Yeah.

Justin:

Yeah, we’ve briefly mentioned the thing about Down syndrome in past episodes and this idea that like If you could choose you know, if you could know and then choose, no, I don’t want my baby to have Down syndrome, fix that, you know. I think unanimously every parent would say, Of course we want to fix that and yet, you know, we’ve talked about um parents who have kids with Down syndrome and ha the beauty that comes as a result of that. that situation in their life and um I I can tell you that s many of the Down syndrome parents that I know would say, No, I would not change that about them. That is part of what how God made them and that’s beautiful because of all these reasons and yeah, so I I think that’s a good point and yeah, that’s it’s fascinating. I think That’s the beauty of our creator, right? Sure. In that he can um uh you know it’s it’s the work of redemption in our creator. creator where he can take something that’s bad and turn it to good. Sure. And when we rem, you know, the kind of go into that idea of trying to remove all the bad. I think limits some of the opportunities or or visibility into his ability to redeem things.

Mark:

Sure.

Justin:

Um But yeah, to whether if there was a a marker that you could say, uh, you know, I know that this baby’s gonna have Down syndrome unless you do X. Something non invasive or whatever, you know, obviously not uh certainly not abortion, which is I think I think I think when you say some countries or whatever that’s what they do. Hey, do you wanna t take care of the situation? Yes, please take care of it. You know, that kind of thing and it’s abortion. Uh but if there was a way to say, you know, use that thing and it will fix the chromosome or you know the genes or whatever. Um yeah. Ethically is that okay? I mean I think yes. But is it? Your your your

Mark:

piccolo player comes to mind. You know. I think you know when we miss out, I think on that we’re missing the the piccle piccolo player is no longer available that helps us see things or hear things differently. You know, without that diversity of valuing who people are the way they are, type thing. And and granted, like you say, if there’s a way to that a person could be. Well but I still think about it in the context of difficult situations In some ways, if we could remove all the difficult situations in our lives, would we?

Justin:

Well

Mark:

and I’m go ahead. Challenge.

Justin:

I think We’ve attempted to do that for the duration of our existence and we’ve done a pretty good job. We’ve come really far about removing difficulties to the point where life’s pretty convenient. I’ve air conditioning, I sit at a desk and work and that’s what I do for a job. Like I don’t have to go out in a field or remove rocks from a field. Like, you know, and even farmers, right? They have machinery, you know, whatever. w we’ve done that. And yet our existence is still painful and I don’t I don’t think we can err remove pain and sin and all these things. Like you just you just can’t because sin is the the true problem there And like we’ve talked about this before, but like as our culture moves forward, we’re seeing other maladies replace other you know, previous maladies. So now depression and anxiety are at s you know, insane levels because like all I’m left to do is consider the existential aspects of my life, you know, versus like, I don’t have time to think about that. I gotta go out in the field and remove the rocks. You know what I mean? that limitation that will always exist in that that we have a sinful human nature that will always exist no matter how much you remove the difficul difficult parts will find ways you know it will leak back in in a different way

Mark:

Sure.

Justin:

You know. So even if we remove the piccolo player of Down syndrome or whatever, you know, I just I think it’s silly to think that, well, there won’t be you know, another thing.

Mark:

Sure.

Justin:

Yeah.

Mark:

Yeah.

Justin:

I don’t know.

Mark:

Yeah. Anything else, Lizzie, it comes to mind.

Lizzie:

I don’t think so.

Mark:

No? I was also uh from the from the podcast I was also thinking about too. Um they talked about brain atrophy, how to have brain help. Hm. I thought that was a I thought that was a good thing, you know, and they did talk about the aspect of there is a definite ratio and here again I’m not you know, bashing alcohol. But, you know, they they definitely talked about how there is a direct correlation, the way I heard it, between the amount of you know, brain atrophy that occurs between a person who does not drink at all and a person who has one drink a week. You know, there’s definitely a correlation an atrophy, you know, or brain shrinkage. And he was talking about, you know, alcoholics that would have a brain basically the size of a walnut.

Justin:

Yeah.

Mark:

If you will. And it’s just, you know, that’s that’s kind of sad. And I think, you know uh being mindful of how we worship God by, you know, the ability to take care of what He has given us. Not that, you know, our bodies become God, you know. But I think, you know, that was that was another thing that I took away. It’s like, okay. Yeah, there’s some things that I can do that I do do that uh affect my brain health and the ability to recognize that in such a way that says, okay Yeah, how am I stewarding what I have been given? So I thought that was kind of a yeah, just just a good nice uh you know, a neat eye opener. And of course, you know, he mentioned uh, you know, pharmaceutics and so forth too and you know, different ones that, you know, alter brain. ability, that kind of thing. But I thought it was just interesting to be able to think about that. How do we how do we take care of our brains as in in this in this uh brain

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. Being involved in Celebrat Recovery for so many years, like I’ve certainly heard a bajillion stories of people who have no no right to be thinking. Like like you said, the walnut brain thing, like uh just the amount of chemicals that their body endured, whether it was drugs or alcohol. Um, to me it’s also amazing. It kinda again it comes back to the incredible nature of our our Creator and his ability to redeem, right? And to where someone who has no business being able to even use their brain the way they abused it is now, you know, standing in front of you in an very intellectually sharing their story. And like you just see how God our brain is not the sum of the chemicals, right? It’s not a s And we we don’t quite know how it all works, but what I do know is some of the smartest people I know are people who are recovering alcoholics and drug addicts and just like it’s almost like the out of the mouth of babes thing. They have a clarity, I think, sometimes uh that it’s like because of my normal functioning brain that hasn’t been abused by drugs or whatever, like, you know, uh there’s some clouds maybe where you know, I don’t know. I just I guess the point being, um, kind of number one, agreeing with you and I think it’s important to steward our brains, but also recognizing like how God can redeem even when we’ve abused you know, our brains.

Lizzie:

It’s almost like he knew we were gonna mess up.

Justin:

Yeah.

Mark:

Made allowance. Yeah. Made allowance for our ability. Yeah.

Justin:

It’s just grace, right? Like and that’s not true of every person who’s true abused their b brains with drugs and alcoholics. Some come out Scathed, right? Sure. Not unscathed. Like they are clearly um, you know, there’s the they’re missing the piccolo player and the drums and the flute and whatever and yet Again, that’s yeah, I don’t know.

Mark:

Yeah. But they play the clin clarinet very well. That’s right. Clearly.

Justin:

Yeah.

Mark:

Yeah. Fair enough. Anything else? Uh

Justin:

no. Well

Mark:

that being said, Lizzie, thank you for your time.

Lizzie:

Thank you.

Mark:

It’s been a pleasure to have you. Yeah.

Justin:

If you want, we can read through that folder there. We’ll be here another couple hours.

Lizzie:

That’s all right.

Mark:

And and uh to be fairly to be honest with you, Justin, thanks for the uh recommendation of the that Podcast. While it was two hours and that was plenty long.

Lizzie:

He called John to figure out how to put it on one and a half times.

Mark:

Yeah, but then I had to l download a app and it’s like so I ended up just listening to the link that you sent through the internet, so I wasn’t able to speed it up. So I think that would have been a That would have been helpful.

Justin:

Yeah.

Mark:

They had that it had that fast forward ten seconds though for seeing that.

Justin:

Yeah

Mark:

You know, it’s like, oh man, you get listened all sudden and that’s that’s why I’m saying we can’t do commercials. We heal you know, I don’t want to get to that point. But I understand they’re making the big bucks on that podcast, so they gotta have endorse those products.

Justin:

And we make we make a lot of money too

Mark:

Yes. Zero.

Justin:

Zero dollars. Zero dollars. Yeah.

Mark:

But that being said, that’s how I see it.

Justin:

Hey, thank you for listening to our podcast. If you like how I see it, please do all the things that podcasts tell you to do. Subscribe, rate, review, follow us, uh, and or talk nicely about us on social media. If you want to reach out, the email is us at howiseeit dot click. Yep, I said dot click. As in dot C-L-I -C -K. Please tell your friends about this show, and we’ll see you on the next one.