Mark:

This is a true dad joke.

Justin:

Oh no

Mark:

You know. You know what? You know why ducks have feathers?

Justin:

Mmm. No.

Mark:

To cover their butt quack

Justin:

What? Wait, what?

Mark:

Yes.

Justin:

Oh wow, you really got the crowd with that one.

Mark:

I did.

Lizzie:

It’s funny how funny you think it is.

Mark:

Well, you know, every joke has a context in which you hear it. And then that context goes through your mind. you know, it automatically it’s like who would even say that joke again, you know, short of a dad and it’s like, yes.

Justin:

I feel yeah, I feel like half of your laughter at it was embarrassment. So

Mark:

Oh no, it wasn’t embarrassment as much as well I I probably It’s probably empathy for the embarrassment of others, you know.

Justin:

That’s right. We have a special guest here today. Oh yeah, it happens to be someone who’s good at groaning at dad. Your dad jokes your dad jokes.

Mark:

Very familiar. She didn’t she didn’t crawl. underneath the couch but you know there just wasn’t enough people around so

Justin:

that’s right

Lizzie:

roll my eyes appropriately

Mark:

yes Welcome to How I See It with me, Mark Pratt and Justin Sternberg. This is a podcast that works to counter cultural Polarization through thoughtful conversations.

Justin:

Alright, would you like to introduce our special guest?

Mark:

Sure. Uh do you do you uh I know I know you as Elizabeth and Lizzie. How do you want us to pref uh refer to you this morning?

Lizzie:

I’ll go by Lizzie. I know you like to introduce me as Elizabeth, but

Mark:

There you go.

Lizzie:

Consider everybody out there my friend so they can call me Lizzie.

Mark:

There you go.

Justin:

You’re Lizzie’s friend, you get to call her Lizzie.

Lizzie:

Yeah. That’s right.

Mark:

Yeah, that’s it’s interesting that that uh what I’ll call a evolution, if you will.

Justin:

Okay.

Mark:

You know, of a name. As a you know, you name a child early on and you know, we went with Elizabeth because it had such a diversity. of what it what it could evolve into.

Lizzie:

Nicknames.

Justin:

Right.

Mark:

Nicknames and so forth. So how it derives. So it’s just interesting. Uh we didn’t necessarily always refer to Lizzie as Lizzie, you know, in our family, but you know, when now that when I interact with her and her friends and they refer to her as Lizzie or Even when she did her presentation, she had, you know, Lizzie. So it’s just kind of a yeah. It’s a neat thing as she’s grown into who she is. Yeah. And it’s nice to have Our daughter, I’ll say Chris is my daughter, uh Lizzie Pratt with us this year. Lizzie. Yes. I’m gonna have to work on that

Justin:

I think it’s okay if you call her Elizabeth.

Mark:

Well, it probably is, but I try to I try to defer when I can.

Justin:

That’s right.

Mark:

Yeah.

Justin:

Well we’re happy to have you, Elizabeth

Lizzie:

Glad to be here.

Justin:

So why do we have Elizabeth, Mark?

Mark:

Well, uh that’s uh that’s a great question. Um uh I’ll I’ll be honest with you, Justin. This wasn’t necessarily one of the topics that I would have necessarily chose. Okay. But as I uh listened, as I got further into it, it was uh it was just a good topic as far and I I honestly was You know that uh old hymn, How Great Thou Art? That was kind of my theme as I started to research or look into our topic for today. And it was just interesting that you invited Lizzie based on the fact that, you know, she has a neurobiological background or a desire to head in that direction and so like you say it makes uh it makes uh her a Um it makes her the professional in the room as far as I’m concerned.

Justin:

About

Mark:

about our brain and uh neuro neuro neurobiological connections and pathways and We’re actually a lot of what we’ve been looking into is what the uh the part based on the research from Neurolink, where they’re actually, you know, hooking the brain up to, you know chip a ch a chip basically or transmitters implementing inserting transmitters into the brain to be able to interface with computers and other things to be able to help people, you know, translate the electricity that floats through our brain and put it into another interface to be able to help you know, quadriplegics and ultimately what that could be on down the road for people with, you know, spinal cord injury and stuff like that. So it really r what was really kind of a, you know, what I thought was research by Neuralink became a For me, it became a progression in wow, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. And it just there was a lot of reminders for me in that So long story short, that’s

Justin:

brains. Thank you, Mark. Uh Lizzy

Mark:

You’re welcome.

Justin:

Uh could you share with us a little bit about your, you know, schooling and like kind of your idea of why this stuff is cool or you know, just some background.

Lizzie:

Absolutely, yes. So I’m currently a junior in college. Well just finished my junior year actually in college.

Mark:

There’s applause for that too.

Justin:

Oh no you don’t want me to try that again. I did it too good the last time.

Lizzie:

Um and I’m studying biopsychology um with hopes of eventually coming to a PA um and started off in the more like general applied health track. Um, but switched pretty quickly to biopsychology just because I really love um the psych side of things, specifically with the brain and um, what that how maybe the more holistic side of like your brain is such an integral part of like the rest of your body and um how do we kind of with the background of, you know, dad being a therapist and knowing that was important even going into school. Um kind of wanting to learn more about that and so definitely taking like the like the neuroscience classes and a really cool like class called biological basis of behavior and sensation and perception and all these different classes that are really cool incorporating kind of just the mind and the body and um yeah definitely not an expert but also definitely a learner so

Justin:

yeah

Lizzie:

yeah

Justin:

Which is really cool because a lot of things that we talk about, Mark and I, we’re just totally winging it and coming from, you know, like our our depth of understanding and a lot of these stuff. Well Some of the brain ones, some of the like neuroplasticity, some of those things. Um obviously Mark has a better background in that and has some studying, but like our depth of knowledge is is I guess I would say shallow in a lot a lot of things we talk about, but it’s from uh how we see it, so we get we have a license to do that, right? That’s right. Um but the cool thing is uh obviously you’re like currently studying a lot of the stuff, so I thought it would be really cool to kinda get a perspective for someone who’s currently studying this stuff and actually can correct um correct us in like as you have done in the past.

Mark:

Like I say, just from when I received my education, I think about how the past ten years, you know, research and w the things that we know, I feel very antiquated. in in in my knowledge of the brain, you know, based on what I studied, based on what we currently know. And that’s why I was excited to have Lizzie, because like I s there’s there’s a lot of times when I I d I dare say it’s a passion we share. So like I say, a lot of times there’s conversations about what she’s learned and it’s like, oh Well, that ties in with something I’ve learned years ago, you know, and it and it’s always kind of an interesting conversation to be able to do that. Yeah.

Justin:

Because you both kind of come to the conversation from two different two different angles. Your antiquated knowledge angles. I’m analog, she’s digital.

Lizzie:

But also more applied because he’s actually seen it, you know, in in root. And a therapy room and that kind of thing.

Mark:

Sure.

Justin:

So biological what do you call it?

Lizzie:

Biopsychology.

Justin:

Biopsychology. What does that mean exactly? Or what you know, like ’cause obviously there’s like neuroscience, neuroscientists, there’s Biology. Right. Like when this scene’s like maybe in the middle or something.

Lizzie:

Yeah, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of words for like how to how they kind of intersect. there but basically I just you know tell people that it’s a mix of biology and psychology and that I take a lot of biology classes, take a lot of psychology classes and then there’s a good few mix in between there which are which are like the neuroscience classes Um but yeah, it’s basically learning how they interplay and how they interact. And I think it’s really cool because, you know we’ve traditionally seen psychology as one of the more like soft sciences. And I I would still say that it is. Yeah, buffy a little bit. Um but it is cool because it is getting that more like, oh this is really important and this does have like an everyday impact on

Justin:

Yeah.

Lizzie:

Even the more like biology side of of who someone is. So

Justin:

that’s really cool. Um and it defin

Mark:

Yeah.

Justin:

Definitely ties into the Neuralink stuff too, because that’s I would say bio science in the sense that Yeah. But you were gonna say something?

Mark:

No, I was I was exactly I was kinda agreeing with Lizzie because and I think that’s where you were exactly what you were saying, and I think our awareness of, you know, uh traumatic brain injuries, TBIs, you know, and that connection with our, you know, ability to, you know uh have that injury and what it does to us after that is is you know is a psychological thing. You know, you can’t have such a change and lose function of some parts of your body or something you were able to once do so efficiently and now not be able to do that and think it would have no effect. So I think, you know, uh uh th much of this learning from my perspective um comes at the cost of many of our, you know, military individuals, you know, ’cause I think that’s a large part of, you know, uh w of that awareness where that comes from. Not that other people don’t, you know, car accidents and things like that produce them as well. But I think it’s it’s good that we are creating more and more awareness about the psychological effects of these injuries and how people are affected. And Still trying to work with individuals who experience, you know, a brain injury and ways that we might be able to learn how to decode, if you will. that electrical concert that goes on in the brain that makes the rest of our body work. And I think that’s just been really kind of need to think about with this podcast. So

Justin:

yeah, it’s interesting too because like the brains there are big big portions are big uh not big as in um geography big but like important parts of the brain where if it gets an injury or whatever it’s it causes dramatic or significant damage to the point where someone can’t behave

Mark:

Yeah, rod.

Justin:

Rod and it kinda changed everything about him or changed a a significant part of what he was able to do. And then in the episode that w uh we I was listening to that I sent you guys, he talked about this guy who had some sort of brain injury to the front part of his brain, I think he was saying, where it caused him to lose impulse control to where Like he had an awkward incident with the eighty year old nurse. Yeah. You know, that kind of thing where he d he couldn’t control his impulses and and yet they also talked about like Like you can take large chunks out of the I forget cortex, I think they were saying. I don’t there’s so many parts of the brain I kinda gave up on trying to understand the differences, but And it it didn’t seem to matter. Like people would take these S and they would a act the same, you know, give the same answers and then you know you know, you do have to really hear stories and I even know some people who have had PBI traumatic brain injuries to where it’s like I wouldn’t have a clue. Sure. Except that you know, that they shared that information. To me is like they’re just as smart, smarter than a lot of people I know. You know, it’s like I guess that to me is fascinating how there’s kind of just so much in the brain that some it’s neuroplasticity can go so f could s go to a certain degree to where it can kind of compensate for Failures of certain parts of the brain, but then there are certain parts of the brain where it’s like, no, that one that part’s pretty crucial.

Mark:

Yeah. And uh if you want to share, Lizzie, I think the the biological part of even what outside of TBIs what like tumors can do, you know, in certain parts of the brain. If you’d like to share some of the things that we’re going to do,

Lizzie:

Yeah, it was one of the uh one of the things we talked about after the neuroscience podcasts and I was you know sharing with data is There’s a couple different instances I talked about in some of my classes where there’s a pretty um popular one from the seventies. Um there was a guy that did a shooting at UT in Texas and basically asked he you know, wrote committed suicide during it and then commit gave a suicide note asking for an autopsy and later was found that he had this, you know, tumor in his amygdala.

Justin:

Oh wow.

Lizzie:

And similar story, um there’s more recently we talked about one of my classes about uh this high school teacher in I believe it was like two thousand who um was you know this great guy and then s suddenly uh became kind of more of like a pedophile essentially and was committed and just through a fluke was committed to the hospital for something else and then similarly found a a tumor and, you know, the tumor was removed and then it could kind of get put back into normal life and then the tumor grew back and it was just this whole whole story of like, you know, this is this is really important and really interesting how how this, you know, just one small tumor, they were like super small, but that had this huge impact on someone’s life and you know, to the point of even Causing someone to commit suicide or that kind of thing.

Justin:

Or change their baby behavior to that degree. Yeah. Impulse control or

Mark:

exactly.

Justin:

That’s a it’s crazy. Um Yeah, so the podcast we’re referencing is one from the Huberman Labs, which is an awesome podcast that I really like. Um and he had a guest on. The guest was like one of the I should have Neuralink this number or this name, but yeah, this scientist at Neuralink, um and they basically talked about Neuralink for a while, which is really cool because my previous understanding about Nurling came from a Wait But Why blog post, which is Wait But Why is a cool blog that he talks about really crazy science stuff from uh layperson perspective. There’s some choice words in there. So if you go there, don’t blame me for what you what you read. Um but uh No, he talked about Neuralink. I want to say I want to say he wrote that post maybe six to eight years ago. And that was when Neuralink was kind of getting started. And he basically talked about the lofty goals like Yeah, and what’s cool about listening to that podcast is like the stuff they’re doing right now it’s just barely scratching the surface of like what I understood of what they were gonna do. Like the whole idea was this brain machine interfaces where You connect a machine to your brain and it augments your brain. So you can do uh awesome things, right? So the there’s the scary side and the cool side, right? Like the cool side being you know, I can talk to Mark without talking to him. Like I you know, kind of that um

Mark:

I have some feelings about that, but

Justin:

yeah. Um And and yeah, I forget what’s that term when you can uh interface telepathy? Yeah. It’s kind of like that idea, but obviously with limitations. Just like Just like Mark, you know, doesn’t have to answer his phone or doesn’t have to look at his phone. You have abilities to turn those inputs off or whatever. But the but that’s the idea is like be able to communicate and not just communicate but augment what you know instantly with information from the internet. And that those are just limited understandings from like the paradigm of the world that we know right now. Um and then you take into account what’s possible. When this stuff is possible and it it becomes pretty interesting. Um another example is like being able to jump into any vehicle and just operate it. Um Because of this augmented state.

Mark:

I’m sitting in a room with two different generations practically of from a technological standpoint. With would does that interface the desire to, you know, speak something in your basically think something and have somebody else know it? Does that have any appeal to you? You both of you. I’m just curious.

Justin:

I’ll let Lizzie go first.

Lizzie:

Uh I would say not personally, but I would see people I think for sure it would for other people.

Mark:

Gotcha. Yeah. What about you, Justin?

Justin:

So we haven’t got there yet, but obviously there’s some theological concerns with w that kind of comes into play when you c start talking about uh machine stuff interfacing with your your body. Um obviously there’s some moral concerns, some ethical concerns, some theological concerns when it comes like the Bible Revelation talks about. um mark of the beast. Right. And so I know when I was younger we grew up in a church that was very focused on end times theology. Like their primary topic was end times theology and so I just remember hearing about the Mark of the Beast. It’s gonna be terrible. Everyone’s gonna need to have one. That’s how you’re gonna pay for your stuff and like if you took it like you were done for you weren’t going to heaven and all. So Obviously that’s always in my mind when I’m reading these things. Like I wonder how this could potentially tie into that, play into that. Sure. If it does, that kind of thing. So I’m gonna set that to the side and say but with that to the side, uh I’m very for the idea because

Mark:

Okay

Justin:

The the less technology gets in the way the more efficient the more effective I can be. So right now I have to go find my phone, I have to pick it up, I have to unlock it, I have to go to the app Yeah, I have to type words with my fingers, you know, in order just to say, Hey Mark, I’ll be out in a couple minutes, you know, or you go to say more It’s just much easier by just open the door and say, Hey Mark, I’ll be out in a couple minutes or whatever. Sure. Um and now if I can do that and you’re still at home And I don’t have to pick up my phone. I don’t ha I just can go, hmm, I should let Mark know and boom, I let Mark know. You know to me that makes that gets stuff out of the way or I think about Lizzie writing papers like Uh just think about all the disconnect from the stuff up here and then the stuff on your screen. Yeah. And like you have to somehow bring that stuff together through this physical interface and keyboard and and and all that kind of stuff Where if you could just start to like yeah, bring that down and just think it into existence, how much more efficient you would be, you know Sure. And so for me, I get excited about that kind of stuff. Or being like I said, um, right now we we already have limited versions of this, and this is one of the things I loved about um this podcast is he kinda they would talk about these kind of magical things and he said, We kinda already do this, right? He would say like like they were talking about this idea of conversating uh through our brains. He’s like, it’s that’s a crazy idea. He’s like, we kinda already do this, but we do it with an assistance device, which is our phone. We still we beam these ideas from my head to your head. And before that it was through this flapping meat, right? Is what he described it. Our mouths, our tongue is how I would move an idea from my brain to yours, right? Right. Um so he’s saying it’s not that far out to get to where we’re going. And so one of the things that excites me is like learning new things and being able to Like learn how like for instance I just did a bunch of work in our edition so there’s some new things that I was trying to learn so I’d Google it, I’d watch a YouTube video, maybe a couple, and then uh uh knowledge, you know, downloaded to my brain and I move forward and I did the thing, right?

Mark:

Sure.

Justin:

Now if I could short circuit that whole process, right? And like somehow make that happen quicker or not have to get my phone or like pause what I’m doing on the thing and then like just in my brain replay the part of the YouTube thing where he showed that thing. Okay, got it. Yeah, do it and then Like to me, those kinds of things are very appealing. You know?

Mark:

That’s why I asked the question. I’ll be honest, it has no appeal to me whatsoever. You know, I mean just

Justin:

I would expect no less than the instrument.

Mark:

And I and I’m thinking about it in I mean, granted, face-to-face is how I see relationships operating best. You follow me. Yeah. Because and I and I think about it when I think about it in my own aspect, it’s like putting it through my fingers, seeing it actually helps me formulate my thoughts because I’ll be the first to admit I don’t think my initial thoughts if I could communicate them would translate Well and granted I’m recognizing you know some of this may come down to the interface it but if I’m just being able to think something Sometimes it’s the matter of being able to rethink it or I put it on a screen and then I can see because I’m I there you go and in communication I think of how much communication we do, how much of the communication we do is also tone and you know body language. And if that’s not able to be conveyed, I don’t see it as being that much more advantageous from my perspective. But I understand and and even that I I think about it in that context of efficiency. Mm-hmm. And I’m someone who’s, you know, struggles with okay, trying to be efficient, but also not just letting efficiency rule my life in such a way that it’s always about striving and productivity and And those kind of things. Lizzie’s kind of smirking and nodding because she’s a little bit more. Valid point.

Justin:

That’s definitely my thinking as well. Yeah. Yeah, in the sense that how annoying it is for you to like get your phone and communicate a thing. Um I I th I think it yeah, I think I think your understanding of it currently is maybe a simplistic understanding and the idea that like whoops, I just thought it and it leaked out and they know. Like I don’t think it I think it would be no different than viewing it on a screen on your phone going Do I wanna say that? Do I do I wanna hit send or not? It’d be the same thing except instead of having your phone in your hand, it would just be you thinking it or whatever. Yeah, that’s the part that scares me. And being able to review your thing in your brain and be able to say, do uh you know, okay, yeah, send or whatever. And also, um, I don’t think anyone has this idea of replacing relationship. It’s this idea of Uh uh ’cause a lot of the listening, learning, reading stuff I’ve done about s science things and AI and robots and neuralink, all this kind of stuff is what’s what’s the point? The point is to give freedom b back to humans so they don’t have to do some of the the stuff they do now so they can do other cool stuff.

Mark:

Sure.

Justin:

Again, that’s the idea. I I um So you’re free now because, you know, you have that much more efficiency to create the world’s best art or have the best conversations with your spouse or whatever, you know, it like frees us up to have Some of the time now, obviously, again, we can come back from a theological perspective and recognize the Bible is pretty clear about we were made to work and that’s a big part of who we are and so if you take that away because it this ties into universal basic income too, this idea that like once robots are doing work for us then we just start getting divvied up, you know, certain amounts of of dollars that we can use and I don’t know, it’s it’s Again, there’s a lot of interesting facets to the future and like all of these things. Um that to me I look at as more exciting than than fearful in the same way that I recognize how far we’ve come. Sure. And um And how efficient it’s made us to this degree. Like I was saying about the YouTube example and like you know, being able to download information to our brains. But Anyway, yeah. Um Neuralink um is again their their lofty goals are kind of these crazy stuff. What they’re doing now is way simpler version of that to the degree where what they are trying to do right now, from my understanding, is be be able to get someone who can’t move their arms and legs to be able to control a mouse on a screen with their brain. You know And uh even the the host of the podcast kept getting it confused, like, wow, that’s amazing, you’re gonna be able to get them to like move their hand to move a mouse and you’re like, No, no, no, no. No, we’re skipping all of the meat part and we’re going right from the brain to the computer to move a mouse based on how these synapses are firing in your brain.

Mark:

Sure.

Justin:

Um and it was just such a like Almost like disappointing to be like, oh, that’s where you’re at. But also pretty cool. I mean amazing for people and that was their thing. Like this is these are people who are really terrible situations. Sure. So we can improve their quality of life a little bit, right? Because now they can communicate with their family by typing on a keyboard, you know, through their brain kind of thing. Um yeah, what do you think about that? That where they’re at and all that kind of stuff.

Lizzie:

Yeah. I thought honestly my first thought was like, Wow, this is not as much as I thought it was. Well, like okay, we’re not we’re not really at the telepathy part yet or even close. Um which is which is interesting because yes a lot of like the big like what you hear about. It was like all this crazy like mind control type stuff. When really like there he’s like he was very humble in their you know, sharing what they know because it’s still not a lot. Um So yeah, and it was really and it was interesting just to hear like, yeah, these are people that, you know, are really struggling and really have special like circumstances and like they’re gonna be really helped by this. Um, one conversation that we’ve had in our house recently is just how um interesting it is to think about like these really big like topics of like, oh yeah, like we are you know, researching like how to have, you know, people read minds and or like, you know, what what AI can do this kind of stuff. And I’m like, we’re just like, dang, like How is there still like cancer in the world? If like this is the kind of research we’re doing or like you know, it’s like it’s such a man, like how are we this far advanced and then we still have people that are like you know, dying from the crazy small illnesses in third world countries. So that was that was actually one of my other thoughts. So the two thoughts first being This is this is not as crazy far out as I thought. And then also like if there are things that are crazy far out, how are we still dealing with these like seemingly smaller bases that we’ve been working on for like decades.

Justin:

Yeah.

Mark:

Yeah.

Justin:

Well that gets into uh the money and you know, following the money and it’s like, well

Lizzie:

Yeah.

Justin:

It’s because there’s not enough money to to fix some of those problems where, you know, s someone like Elon Musk is like, I really care about brains and i and augmenting my brain to be more efficient, so I’m gonna support this whole thing. It’s like, well what about cancer? Well if Elon Musk gets cancer, maybe, maybe then.

Mark:

And you know what you bring up a great point. ‘Cause I think so often when we think about topics like this, it’s out there. You know, I don’t necessarily by God’s grace, I don’t necessarily have someone, you know who has suddenly become a quadriplegic.

Justin:

Yeah.

Mark:

You know, in my in my sphere of influence at this moment, you know, and being able to recognize how when something becomes personal you know, things like this take on a whole different perspective. You know, and I and I think that’s the that’s part of it for me is it’s like uh I don’t necessarily personally have that desire to have that interface in myself, but I really was kind of moved by that part and because there was another part where they talked about the lady that had um hearing issues.

Justin:

Yeah.

Mark:

And she had it in her interface and was actually and she, you know, loved things bird, you know, and you know, when she was actually able to hear, you know, pigeons, you know, cooing, that kind of thing, it just added to her life experience. And I think about that in a way that’s that’s just reception, let alone to be able to transmit. Because that’s what that was another part for me. You know, individuals who have a perfectly healthy brain. you know, who have somehow been injured to where now the ability to, you know, basically transmit electricity through the rest of my body has been impacted. So I have uh there’s no doubt that that person would have all the thoughts, that they would have all of the feeling, you know, that goes with emotion, you know in their brain and just not be able to communicate that. I mean, yeah, that’s that’s huge for that person to be able to do so even as we look at it and say Well this hasn’t this isn’t as far along as I thought it was.

Lizzie:

And I think you know the uh like it’s crazy to me more so just how exponential even like the opportunities are. Like you don’t we don’t even probably even completely know the potential implications which I think is super cool and and yes like first glance like it can be a little bit scary and a little bit like I don’t know how I feel about this. But then you think more and more about, okay, this is how this is really gonna impact humankind, essentially, and it is it is really like thinking about human advancement and like it’s really just like exponential from here if you think about that.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah, and then you get into I mean again all these conversations tie together so AI is another part of this conversation where Um if you get AI involved to where it can um using machine learning start to figure out how to where to put those nodes on your brain. You know, because Neuralink is essentially putting wires attached to certain parts of your brain, listening for electrical signals and then saying, Oh, that signal means move cursor left. That kind of thing, right? And so if you can bring AI to get involved to say, okay, but sometimes it means this, not that and like it starts to learn and then it starts to know, well, okay, we should put a note over here, note over here, and like it learns back and forth bet with you as you learn and you know um i it starts to become pretty interesting too. Again, it’s ex exponential in the sense that um AI is pretty powerful in um Yeah, and it’s also interesting too, like because of what they’re doing, there’s significant advances in I think robotic assistance in um surgery, brain surgery. So like he was saying humans literally can’t do what this robot can do. Right. And so ’cause basically um the host was asking him like how is this possible and well how do you get away with it? He’s basically saying, Well, there’s no way we can do it. We can’t hold still enough and you know, all that’s kind of too many limitations where a robot can be very precise. Um which I thought that was cool because they’re also developing Stuff that I think will impact the gr broader, you know, surgery field, you know. Which is yeah. Um and you were referencing the bird lady. Um I think her, if I if I remember correctly, she couldn’t hear. Is that correct? So she had a device that depending on the sounds the birds were making would vibrate differently and so she could tell like oh that you know right and um so yeah that was kind of cool and that’s that is an example of like an augmentation Sure. Right. Um and that’s kind of like we said, we we’re augmented in so many ways, but m everything so far is on the outside, you know? And so it’s not that foreign to us. And he also talked about a blind person with their stick

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Justin:

And basically that stick is just an augmentation device that allows them to have a sense that they don’t, right? Where they can, you know, use their stick and he said and then we’ve advanced to the point where we attach a whole nother nervous system to that person and let that nervous system you know, see for them and that’s what a seeing eye dog is, right? He’s like, we’ve gotten to that point where we do that as well. So again, it was cool to kinda hear him put some of these kind yeah, reframe again to be like, this isn’t that foreign um in the steps and so it makes you go, Oh, I can see how they could get to that sooner. It almost feels more reachable because of yeah, it’s just an extension of this or making that a little more uh efficient again.

Lizzie:

Right.

Justin:

I don’t know.

Mark:

Yeah.

Justin:

Um the other thing that I understood about Neuralink from the Wait But Vi Why blog post, because again his was really far reaching, right? was this idea of what is conscience consciousness and you know he does he’s not a wait but white guy he’s not a Christian, he’s not a believer, he’s not theological, he’s an atheist. Um So this idea of what makes you you and can we transfer that to something else? Like and when this meat sack, you know, degrades and fall falls away, what’s to say we can’t take this thing that makes us us and put it into another thing that makes us us or save it somewhere in a hard drive, right? And then, you know attach it to someone who, you know, is I don’t know, like has a brain injury, they have to take that brain out so they whatever, I don’t know. Like um he so he had a lot of thought experiments in terms of What makes us us and can we save that for the future and do different things and you know, basically store it in a hard drive till we have the technology in a hundred years to put it on a new you know, even if it’s a robot, right? But that’s me. I just have a new body and it happens to be, you know. uh a robot or whatever. Which to me was again, it’s so interesting to think about. It’s very sci-fi. But again it this is where it ties back into some theological things and ethical things and Um yeah, I’d love to hear from Mark a little bit ’cause I know that that whole idea probably just he’s squirming in his feet.

Mark:

You know, I I’ll I’ll be honest.

Justin:

Okay.

Mark:

In the in the context of Here again, I think it comes for me, it comes back to science and being able to recognize, yeah, there’s there’s a lot. That can be learned. And I also was able to bring it back from the aspect of being able to say, okay, this this makes sense if I’m not willing, if I’m not Uh willing might not be the right word, but if I’m not willing to recognize there’s a God and you know my identity is given by him from that perspective and being able to say, okay something about when my life ends , I I’m I don’t cease to exist You follow me? So part of what goes on isn’t isn’t is no longer available here. You know, and that would that is who I am. You know, so when you think about identity, I think it’s it’s far more. And from my perspective, I think there is this part of us that is very spiritual. And you know, here again, not judging the the the context of the conversation from a from a biological, neurological standpoint, I respect all those in you know the individuals there and it just and yet that spiritual component wasn’t something that was able to be addressed. And I’m not sure if we were being honest, because he was talking a lot about, you know, the the neocortex, the outside, and that was another part. Um just seeing that coral Many coral are sim um uh look the same as our neocortex in our brain. You know, it just made me think about okay, that’s that’s cool because we have the same creator You know, that said the brain is shaped this way, and I can even make coral look like that, you know, just because that’s who I am and that’s what I do. And, you know, and there was just so similarities even between the research they do with pigs and how similar that is. And you know, I’ve heard that before, you know, with you know, here again, burn victims and stuff like that. They’ll do research on pigs. But I was thinking about how Some of this was devoid of that spiritual of the spiritual part that I’m aware of based on who God is and who He’s created me to be And I think, you know, that’s that’s my concern at times that we elevate technology to a God level. And we can, you know, and if you just free yourself of this God image, you can be a more enlightened individual as we’re able to uh enhance, I think was the word they use sometimes. you know, your abilities. And so I that that I mean that’s the stuff that goes through my mind, but it it never made me squirm just because it makes sense. you know, if that’s the way I think about life.

Justin:

Hm. Yeah. Yeah, and all that some of those challenges you’re describing are no different than we have right now in the sense that, you know, technology becoming a god or like Yeah.

Mark:

And I’m you know, and I I think about it in that context. I think, you know, they they had even mentioned video games being, you know, advantageous possibly for for um surgeons to you know dexterity which I completely understand makes perfect sense but does that mean you know that those aren’t you know have a certain a addiction to them as well, you know, and it’s like finding that balance that is able to say, yes, there’s advantages and disadvantages to some of this. And I think it’s the same with the information and I when I think about it from the ability of someone who has been injured, you know, and granted they’re a long ways away from being able to have you know the brain connect with the body in such a way that my limbs are able to move. I think he’d he typically referred to that kind of stuff as years away.

Justin:

Yeah. A while. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark:

Exactly. You know, and so I it was it was still it was still inspiring for me when I think and I and I think about how I take for granted so many of, well, my eyes and my ears, how, you know, a organ can translate light energy into electrical energy, you know, through my eye and my ears can take that sound, you know, and it’s translated into electrical that my brain can, you know, and it It’s just really awe-inspiring when I think about how many interfaces we have, you know, to be able to do that. And, you know, yeah.

Justin:

Be sure to check out next week’s episode, part two, with Lizzie Pratt.

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