0:00

People think when they're working and they're attempting

0:02

to multitask, they're getting more done, But studies

0:04

show they're not, they're getting less done.

0:14

Welcome to the one you feed throughout

0:16

time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance

0:19

of the thoughts we have. Quotes like

0:21

garbage in, garbage out, or you

0:24

are what you think ring true, and

0:26

yet for many of us, our thoughts don't

0:28

strengthen or empower us. We

0:30

tend toward negativity, self pity,

0:33

jealousy, or fear. We see

0:35

what we don't have instead of what we do.

0:38

We think things that hold us back and dampen

0:40

our spirit. But it's not just about

0:43

thinking. Our actions matter. It

0:45

takes conscious, consistent, and creative

0:47

effort to make a life worth living. This

0:50

podcast is about how other people keep themselves

0:52

moving in the right direction, how they

0:55

feed their good wolf m

1:09

Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode

1:12

is Dr Daniel Leviton, an award

1:14

winning scientist, musician, author,

1:16

and record producer. He's the author of three

1:18

consecutive number one best selling books,

1:21

This Is Your Brain on Music, The World

1:23

in Six Songs, and The Organized

1:25

Mind. He's also the James McGill

1:27

Professor of psychology and behavioral neuroscience

1:30

at McGill University in Montreal, where

1:32

he runs the Laboratory for Music Cognition,

1:35

Perception and Expertise. Dr

1:37

Daniel Leviton earned his b a and Cognitive

1:40

psychology and Cognitive Science

1:42

at Stanford University and went on to earn

1:44

his PhD in psychology from the University

1:46

of Oregon. His newest book is

1:48

Weaponized Lies, How to Think

1:51

Critically in the Post truth Era.

1:53

If you value the content we put out each

1:55

week, then we need your help. As

1:58

the show has grown, so have our expenses

2:00

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2:26

Thank you in advance for your help.

2:30

Hi Daniel, Welcome to the show. Hi Eric,

2:32

thanks for having me. I'm very excited

2:34

to have you on. You have written a number

2:37

of different books. I think all of them best sellers

2:40

a lot of different topics music, which we're gonna

2:42

get into because I love You've talked about

2:44

how to organize our mind in a

2:46

time of information overload, which is something

2:48

we end up talking about a lot. And your latest

2:51

book is called Weaponized Lies, how

2:53

to Think critically in the post truth

2:55

Era. And we'll get into

2:57

all that here in a minute, but let's start like we you

3:00

usually do, with the parable. There's a grandfather

3:02

who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life,

3:05

there are two wolves inside of us that are

3:07

always at battle. One is a good

3:09

wolf, which represents things like kindness

3:11

and bravery and love, and the

3:13

other is a bad wolf, which represents things

3:15

like greed and hatred and fear. And

3:18

the ransom stops and he thinks about it for a

3:20

second, and he looks up at his grandfa and he says, grandfather,

3:23

which one wins? And the grandfather

3:25

says, the one you feed. So I'd

3:28

like to start off by asking you what that parable

3:30

means to you in your life and in the work that you

3:32

do. Well. It's a interesting way

3:34

to begin a conversation. I've

3:37

been thinking a lot in the last

3:39

few months about evidence

3:42

based thinking and in

3:44

some cases, I feel like I'm pushing Sisaphian

3:48

rock up a hill. I

3:51

understand part of evidence based thinking

3:54

is trying to

3:56

be precise with language and

3:58

to look at the claim is being made. And

4:02

in this parable, the good wolf represents

4:04

kindness, bravery, and love, and I think we

4:06

can all agree that these are desirable qualities,

4:09

and the bad wolf represents greed, hatred, and

4:11

fear. And I think that

4:14

the way it's set up, we're meant to feel that

4:16

these are undesirable qualities.

4:19

But I'd like to challenge that assumption

4:22

for a moment or that that view,

4:25

and in the service of critical

4:28

thinking, I think that hatred and fear are

4:30

really important emotions. We should hate

4:32

racism and tyrants. For example, Uh,

4:35

if there was an organization that

4:37

was trying to minimize hate crimes

4:39

and stamp out hate, a bunch

4:42

of people who hate hate,

4:45

I would join them.

4:47

Hatred motivates us to resist,

4:50

It motivates us and enables

4:52

us to um to

4:55

draw a line in the sand. We

4:57

should fear poisonous stakes. We should

4:59

fear are airplanes flown by people who

5:01

aren't licensed and it may not

5:03

know what they're doing. So I

5:06

like stories and I'm

5:08

a storyteller. Um,

5:10

I had a short career as a stand

5:12

up comedian, which involves storytelling.

5:15

But I think not to rain on your

5:18

parable parade, but I think that some

5:20

parables take a simplistic approach

5:23

which squelches critical thinking. They

5:25

try to reduce life to simple sayings

5:28

that some people will invoke mindlessly,

5:31

and I'm advocating for the opposite mindfulness.

5:33

That's a great take. Well, let's move

5:35

on and talk about critical thinking. Your

5:38

book called Weaponized Lies, How to Think

5:40

Critically in the Post Truth Era. It

5:43

seems like every day that post

5:45

truth era becomes more

5:48

and more upon us. And I, you know, we stay

5:50

out of politics on this show in general, but

5:52

I think that what you're talking about, and what I really

5:54

wrestle with, is the idea that

5:57

there are some things that do have a

5:59

truth. You know, there is truth in

6:02

in certain things. You know, there are facts,

6:04

not alternative facts, but real facts.

6:07

And so your book is really about how

6:09

to think critically through that. And I thought

6:11

one place might be interesting to start because

6:14

your book is I loved it. It's really

6:16

good, and i'd encourage anybody to

6:18

look at it and read it and learn a

6:21

lot of it. Is not the sort of stuff you just summarize

6:23

on a podcast really easily. There's some complexity

6:25

there, which is the nature of critical

6:27

thinking. But I thought that one way

6:29

to sum up a lot of the things in the book would

6:31

be to talk about the case study on

6:34

autism being caused by vaccines.

6:36

And in that one you really pulled together

6:39

four different common

6:41

errors that we go into. So I thought that might be a really

6:44

succinct way to show four common

6:46

errors in thinking around one particular case

6:48

study. So could you walk us through that? Yeah,

6:51

and I might ask for your help in the

6:53

categorization of the four absolutely

6:56

as we go, because I

6:58

didn't know this was going to be on the tab, but

7:01

I certainly do you want me to give you the

7:03

four Maybe we could start and you could rescue

7:05

me when I start hanging to myself. All right, fair

7:08

enough, And I know that this is going to make some people

7:10

mad. Some people have decided

7:14

that the MMR

7:16

vaccine Measles monster Bella vaccine

7:19

causes autism, and they're

7:21

suspicious of anyone who says otherwise.

7:24

They assume that somebody who denies

7:27

it is on the take,

7:29

is getting money from special interests, or

7:32

has their head in the sand, and

7:35

there's really a lot going on here. Um.

7:38

One of the factors is there's

7:40

a correlation that's

7:43

undeniable between the administration

7:46

of the vaccine and the diagnosis

7:48

of autism. Correlation

7:50

is very high, relatively

7:53

large number of people who

7:55

are diagnosed with autism previously

7:57

had the vaccine. But I think

7:59

that one of categories that is drawn

8:02

out in this example is that correlation doesn't

8:04

mean causation. So for example,

8:07

I had a cup of tea about ten

8:09

minutes ago, and then you called

8:11

me on Skype. Every

8:14

time, I'm gonna just gonna happen every time, Dan, Alight,

8:17

careful with your tea, all right, I don't

8:19

think one caused the other. And we

8:21

have to be careful here. In the case

8:24

of the autism UH and vaccine

8:26

link, it's unsafe

8:29

to give vaccines prior to a

8:31

certain age. The child's developing

8:34

physiology and immune system isn't

8:36

ready for vaccination, so

8:38

we wait until the child is a certain age.

8:41

Autism doesn't show up until a certain

8:43

age, because by definition it's

8:45

a delay in normal development. You

8:47

have to wait to see if the child misses

8:50

some developmental milestones. Now, it turns

8:52

out that in general, the shot

8:54

is given some months before an

8:57

autism diagnosis is possible. So

9:01

there's a third factor here which is

9:03

causing both the timing of both. But

9:06

and that's you know, age aging,

9:08

But it doesn't mean that one's causing the other. Another

9:12

factor here is that when

9:15

many people first heard about the link,

9:19

they were able to pull up examples

9:21

of people that they knew who

9:23

had autism and who had the vaccine first.

9:26

And the human brain is sort of configured

9:28

that we focus on these positive,

9:31

positive associations. This happened,

9:33

and this happened. We don't focus

9:35

on all the negatives. So how

9:37

many people do you know who got the vaccine who didn't

9:40

get autism? Well, it's it's an

9:42

enormous number of people. I mean, there's

9:44

there's no way that if you looked at both

9:47

of those you would conclude that the

9:49

vaccine caused autism. Another thing

9:52

is there's belief for severance. Am

9:54

I hitting the force so far?

9:57

Once people make a claim to you or proposal

9:59

about something in the world it might be true, your

10:02

brain starts trying to think of ways

10:04

that that might be possible. You try to generate

10:06

examples. That's one of the

10:08

things the human brain does, and so

10:10

you start thinking, oh, well, yeah, I guess so there

10:13

there could be some chemical in the vaccines

10:15

that causes autism. It

10:18

could be that the drug companies don't want us

10:20

to know this because they make so much

10:22

money selling vaccinations.

10:25

The problem is that once your mind starts

10:27

engaging in that thinking and you adopt

10:29

the belief before all the evidence is in

10:32

belief. Perseverance teaches us that

10:35

it's very difficult to unseat

10:37

or or unhinge a belief once

10:39

it's taken hold. It takes

10:41

a very deliberate effort

10:44

on all of us, on all of our parts,

10:47

to to adopt a new view, very

10:49

very hard to do. You have to be aware that

10:51

this bias exists. That one's so

10:53

tricky because I think, like you

10:56

said, we all have to be aware of it. But you

10:58

know, there's so many studies that just show that

11:00

you know, we will, we will that we come

11:02

up with a conclusion, we become

11:05

emotionally attached to it, and then we look for

11:07

the evidence to justify. You know, the confirmation

11:09

bias, I think is a is a similar way to

11:12

phrase it. There's two things that work here. One

11:14

is that we tend to make decisions

11:16

emotionally rather than based

11:18

on evidence. And that serves

11:21

us well for some things, like jumping out

11:23

of the way of a snake in the grass, but

11:25

it doesn't serve us well for other things. Any

11:28

failed romantic relationship you had

11:31

where after the fact you can see

11:33

the signs were there, you just

11:35

ignored them because we're trying

11:37

to not be rational, or you let your emotions

11:40

carry you. I'm not saying that emotions

11:42

are bad. I'm just saying that when you have

11:44

a decision to make, let the evidence

11:47

trickle in. Wait until you've

11:49

got a mound of evidence that weighs the

11:51

Teeger Totter of decision one

11:53

way or the other, and then use your

11:55

emotions to be joyful

11:58

or angry or you know, outraged

12:00

about whatever it is that you've decided. Uh,

12:04

the emotional decisions of the first part and

12:06

the other part is that we're

12:08

all overloaded. This is an age of information

12:11

overloud. We're deluged with factoids

12:14

and pseudo facts and science

12:16

and pseudoscience and um

12:18

Dan Gilbert from Harvard and others

12:21

have shown that when you're in a state like that, you

12:23

just don't have the gumption the

12:26

extra cycles to make a sound

12:28

decision, and so you throw up your hands and you go

12:30

with your gut to your detriment. Now

12:32

I'm not sure we have the fourth one of your autism.

12:35

It was the persuasion by association.

12:38

Ah, yes, so this is uh

12:40

Andrew Wakefield. Andrew Wakefield

12:43

is a British physician who

12:45

wrote a paper claiming a link between

12:47

autism and the MMR vaccine. We

12:50

associate m d s

12:52

with with rigorous thinking.

12:54

Generally, that's a good assumption. In this case,

12:57

Wakefield lost his medical license,

12:59

he had to retract the paper. He admitted

13:01

to fabricating data, and

13:03

so the evidence that let anybody

13:05

to form the opinion in the first place is now gone.

13:08

But because a belief for severance, we hold onto you. I

13:11

just think it was a good example. It shows kind of how

13:13

we get ourselves into believing

13:16

certain things in some of the logical fallacies.

13:18

The interesting thing here, Eric is

13:21

that if somebody is saying I'm

13:23

not sure I believe that there's no link,

13:27

that's exactly the kind of skepticism

13:30

that I think you and I are promoting. Question

13:32

the status quo, question the claim,

13:35

right, That's that's the basis of critical

13:37

thinking. The problem is um.

13:40

Critical thinking requires some systematic

13:43

follow through. Okay, it's not enough just

13:45

to raise the question. You have to figure

13:47

out what evidence can you get that will inform

13:49

the question, and then evaluate the

13:51

evidence in a rational way.

14:23

Easy does it on the fast

14:25

forward a couple of quick notes. We have a

14:27

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15:26

a review on iTunes. And now

15:28

back to the rest of the interview with Daniel

15:30

Levitton. Given where

15:33

we, particularly as a society in the

15:35

US, is headed right now, do

15:37

you see this continuing to get worse?

15:39

Do you think this is a anomaly?

15:43

You know, just because somebody's an expert, and one thing doesn't make

15:45

an expert another thing. So I'm asking for your

15:47

opinion here, not your deep study

15:50

on this thing. I'm just kind of curious how you see

15:52

this all playing out, this post fact era.

15:54

You know, I think a lot of it depends on predits.

15:56

Has been trump um

15:59

so far, As David

16:01

Brooks said in his column yesterday

16:03

in The Times, and I have a related piece

16:05

coming out in the Daily Beast this weekend.

16:08

So far, Trump has,

16:10

in his speech and his actions, has

16:13

led us to believe that facts are irrelevant

16:15

to decision making, and

16:17

he reflexively brands

16:20

as fake or untrue

16:22

anything that makes him look bad, anything

16:24

he disagrees with, and

16:27

he brands the media

16:29

as liars. I think the

16:33

media play a very important role here, and I

16:35

would include you in this. You are the media, Eric

16:38

uh In trying to keep a

16:41

sibyl and rational

16:44

conversation going about issues

16:46

of importance to citizens in a free country.

16:49

As long as Trump keeps sounding

16:52

the clarion call for

16:54

avoiding facts and information, there

16:56

are a lot of people who are persuaded by

16:58

him and who think that he is the person

17:01

who's going to drain the swamp and fix some of

17:03

the inefficiencies of government. And

17:05

I think people on both sides of the political

17:08

spectrum admit and agree that there are a number

17:10

of inefficiencies, and there's corruption,

17:12

and there's problems that need to be taken care

17:14

of. I think we may disagree about how

17:17

to fix it from one end

17:19

of the spectrum to the other, but I don't think we disagree

17:21

there are problems. But if Trump is

17:23

willing to change the conversation and say, look,

17:25

we we want to build some infrastructure, we

17:27

want to build some roads. We've commissioned

17:30

to study. Here's where we actually need the

17:32

roads. According to the study that's

17:34

fact based. And I think if he models

17:36

this kind of behavior, we'll get back

17:39

on track. If he doesn't We're

17:41

already seeing that the judiciary is modeling

17:44

that kind of behavior. When the panel

17:46

of three federal judges throughout

17:48

his initial immigration ban, I

17:51

don't even be the exact quote, but it was. The gist of

17:53

it was there was no evidence for the administration's

17:55

claim that these seven

17:58

countries pose a threat to US,

18:00

no evidence, which which elevates

18:03

evidence to a position of primacy,

18:05

which is of course the whole point of a judiciary.

18:08

They should be making decisions based on evidence,

18:10

not on earsay or rumor or

18:13

gut or anecdote or yep.

18:15

Exactly. Yeah, I just like I said,

18:17

you know, on the on the political side, I'm I'm

18:20

you know, I think I'm fairly

18:23

moderate, and I try and stay out of it. I just it's

18:26

the dialogue that we're having that troubles me

18:28

so much, or or lack of Yeah,

18:31

exactly. Look, I I'm not going

18:33

to come out as pro or anti Trump.

18:35

I want Trump to succeed. I want

18:37

to see the country made better by this president.

18:40

If I were Trump, I would get down

18:43

to business with elevating

18:45

science, elevating the arts,

18:47

and elevating a kind of non

18:49

belligerent, cooperative discussion

18:52

based on facts. Ye. Let's

18:55

move from facts and critical

18:57

thinking and let's talk about your book,

18:59

The Organized Mind. The basic premises

19:02

we have way more information coming at

19:04

us than we could ever handle, and

19:07

that despite that, there are

19:09

ways that we can become more organized

19:11

and and at least deal better

19:14

with the delusion information?

19:17

Is that how you say it? Deluse? Your deluse? I don't even

19:19

know. It's one of those words that I read, but I don't

19:21

know that I've ever heard anyways say out loud. I

19:23

always say deluge. But I

19:25

think your sense right. I have

19:27

a dictionary here, I'm happy to look at up. I

19:30

think your sounded more correct. So

19:32

one of the big things that you talk about

19:34

in that book is multitasking,

19:38

and I'd like to talk about multitasking

19:41

a little bit and what's wrong

19:43

with multitasking and what is the effect

19:46

that that has on us? It seems to be something

19:48

and I'm asking sort of from my own

19:50

personal life as somebody who seems to

19:53

engage in it more than I would like, even

19:56

though I know that it's probably not the best idea.

19:58

I'm just I'm curious to to hear more

20:00

about it from you. Let's say what multitasking

20:03

is not Multitasking

20:05

is not playing a musical instrument

20:07

while you're reading music and listening to the other

20:09

musicians around you. Multitasking

20:13

is not driving and listening to the radio

20:15

at the same time. Really, multitasking

20:18

is attempting to do a bunch of things at

20:20

the same time that compete for your

20:22

attentional resources with one another. And

20:25

the problem with it is that it doesn't actually

20:27

exist. It's an illusion. So

20:29

if you think that you can text and drive at

20:32

the same time, or that you can be

20:34

talking to somebody on the phone and doing your

20:36

email at the same time, there's

20:38

a lot of evidence that you can't. What's

20:40

happening is that your attentional

20:43

system rapidly shifts from one thing

20:45

to the next. So you do one thing

20:47

for a couple of seconds, and then another, and then another

20:49

and another, and then you come back around in the first

20:52

one. You're fractionating your attention

20:54

into itty bitty parts and pieces,

20:57

not really devoting full attention to

20:59

anything. And the danger here

21:01

is that we find it very titillating

21:03

and exciting to do this. All this kind of

21:05

switching gives us a little

21:07

bit of a high, and we don't want to let go of

21:09

it. Because you know, ample evidence

21:12

to your detriment. People think

21:15

when they're working and they're attempting to multitask,

21:17

they're getting more done, but studies

21:19

show they're not. They're getting less done. Unitaskers,

21:23

people who will immerse themselves in one thing, get

21:25

more done and the quality of their work

21:27

is rated as higher. The other thing I thought

21:29

was interesting was you talk about how

21:32

multitasking has been found to increase

21:34

cortisol levels. You've also said

21:36

elsewhere, and I mean not just you, but a lot of people have

21:38

talked about how raised levels

21:40

of cortisol actually stops

21:43

us from thinking clearly and thinking, well it

21:45

it gets in the way. Cortisol

21:47

is an interesting hormone. So

21:50

one of its primary missions is to help

21:52

prepare you for a fight or flight response,

21:55

and it begins a cascade

21:57

of several things, such as raising your heart rate

22:00

at your respiration rate. You know, imagine

22:02

being confronted by a tiger. You've

22:04

got a couple of choices. You either gonna fight it or you're gonna

22:06

run, and you don't have a lot of time

22:08

to make a decision, and there are a

22:10

bunch of things that are sapping

22:13

your bodily resources

22:15

that aren't gonna matter if you don't solve this problem.

22:19

Among them are your libido. You

22:21

don't need to have, you know, sexual drive at

22:23

this moment, hopefully not. You don't need to be

22:25

digesting your food because

22:27

you know that takes up a lot of resources.

22:30

Uh. And you don't need to be weighing

22:33

different options in a kind of systematic

22:36

way. You have to move quickly, so

22:38

those three kinds of things get put on

22:41

hold. Your libido, your digestion,

22:43

your immune system is a fourth

22:46

one, uh and and and systematic

22:48

thought so that you can act quickly.

22:51

The problem is that it's not just tigers

22:54

that release cortisol. Now, it's the stress

22:56

of multitasking. It's being yelled at by

22:58

your boss, being cut off, for given

23:00

the finger by somebody in traffic, and

23:02

you've got no way to work off the court assoul.

23:05

It's not like you can run, you know, for a mile

23:07

up. They only get away from you know,

23:10

your your your boss or something

23:12

like that. So toxic effects of

23:14

it linger. Yeah. One of the other

23:16

things you talked about, you say that nerve scientists

23:18

have discovered that unproductivity and loss

23:21

of drive can result from

23:23

decision overload. And the

23:25

thing about multitasking for me, And I know decision

23:27

overload and multitasking are are

23:29

different things, but for me, the thing

23:32

with multitasking that I get is

23:34

that I feel like it really wears me

23:36

out and it takes an emotional toll

23:38

on me in a way that I can't

23:40

quite put my words on. And by multitask,

23:43

I mainly mean I'm looking at my email

23:45

and then I remember, oh, I should check Twitter, and then I gotta

23:47

get something on my calendar, and then I've got to, you

23:49

know, uh, several hours of

23:51

that, and I feel very worn out

23:54

or just can't quite find the right word for

23:56

it, but it takes an it takes an emotional

23:58

toll. Well, I know what you mean, and I

24:00

guess I think of this not as multitasking

24:03

narrowly defined, but multitasking broadly

24:06

defined. And what you're really doing is rapid

24:08

task switching, which requires

24:10

that you redirect your attentional focus

24:12

to one thing and then another, and then another

24:14

and then another, and usually each

24:17

of those things required or some decision

24:19

making, and that's where this concept

24:21

you're raised of decision fatigue comes in.

24:23

So let's just take email for example.

24:26

Suppose you're working on something maybe

24:28

you're working on your weekly budget, or

24:31

you're writing a letter to your grandma,

24:34

or you're doing a report for work and

24:37

your email programs open because who knows,

24:39

something urgent could come up and you hear that ping,

24:42

So right away you've got to make a decision to do

24:44

I look at my email or not. Then

24:47

once you look at it, you have to decide

24:49

am I going to deal with this now or later?

24:53

Is it something that I can forward then

24:55

somebody else can deal with is

24:57

it SPAMH Do I need

24:59

to do a little bit of research in order to answer

25:02

this question. That's five decisions

25:04

right there. Each decision

25:07

comes with a metabolic cost. It

25:09

depletes glucose in our brains

25:12

that is required to keep neurons,

25:15

you know, functioning properly. So

25:17

after an hour or two of this

25:19

kind of rapid decision making, um,

25:22

you've literally depleted your neural resources.

25:25

And I think what you're describing is what the US

25:27

feel after a couple hours in the morning of work,

25:29

just depleted and worn out. Fortunately,

25:32

the cure is to take a break.

25:35

And I don't mean a break where you check Facebook or

25:37

you check you know, you know,

25:40

your news feed. I mean a

25:42

break where you allow your mind

25:45

to reset itself what I call

25:47

the mind wandering mode, by

25:50

walking in nature, exercising,

25:52

looking at art, listening to music,

25:56

taking a little nap, closing your eyes, just

25:58

something restorative like that. It

26:00

effectively hits the reset button in your brain

26:02

and restores the depleted chemicals. The idea

26:05

of doing work in focused

26:08

bursts, you know, doing um I think I've

26:10

heard people refer to it as as pulsing

26:12

or but of you know, setting the timer

26:15

for twenty minutes and only doing

26:17

one thing, turn off email. The

26:19

amount that I get done when I do that is

26:21

just staggering in comparison to the

26:23

amount I normally get done when I'm kind of just

26:26

doing that, sitting at my desk,

26:28

working on whatever comes up. And

26:30

I just noticed things like I flip over

26:32

to my calendar and then I don't remember why

26:34

I'm even in my calendar. There was something that made me want

26:37

to go there. And that's what happens when I'm in that

26:39

check email, do calendar, and you know, I'll

26:41

check my feed all that stuff. I just more

26:43

and more as time goes on,

26:45

and I recognizing the challenges

26:48

that cause and I elsewhere in the book, I think you said

26:50

something like, you know, make no mistake, Facebook

26:53

and all those things are neural addiction. Yeah,

26:55

I believe they are. And you know,

26:57

in writing The Organized Mind, I had the oppertu

27:00

tunity to debrief

27:03

and interview and shadow some people

27:05

who are really productive Nobel

27:07

Prize winners, great artists, um

27:11

ceo s of some big corporations,

27:13

members of the Obama White House. I

27:16

mean, you know, highly productive, efficient people.

27:19

And the trend there, the pattern

27:21

that I observed was that they

27:24

turn off the Internet for a couple hours at a time

27:26

and focus and if somebody

27:28

needs to reach them, they've got to get them

27:30

some other way. Uh. And

27:32

you know they're all different techniques that

27:35

we can talk about for Okay, well I have

27:37

to be reachable. Okay, well, but but manage

27:40

it right. Don't allow just everybody

27:42

to interrupt you all the time. Manage

27:44

it by having a second cell phone or a second

27:46

email account or you

27:49

know something like that. Set up a white

27:51

list for your email or what you know, on the

27:53

iPhone, you can set up a list of people that get

27:55

through that do not disturb it. So

27:58

you know, there are all these little things you can who

28:31

So let's turn our attention to music.

28:34

You were a engineer,

28:36

a producer, you played music. I'm sure you still

28:39

do play music. And um,

28:41

you wrote a book called This is Your Brain on music,

28:43

really exploring kind of what happens in

28:45

our brain as we listen to

28:47

and make music and listeners

28:49

on the show. No, you know, Chris and I are

28:52

both musicians. All the music breaks

28:54

in the show are always something we've written, so

28:56

big passion of mine. I loved the book,

28:59

and I have to start though. There's

29:01

so much to get into, and we don't have a lot of time, but I have to

29:03

start with. At one point,

29:06

you were meeting with somebody who didn't really

29:08

understand rock and roll. I can't remember

29:10

the gentleman's name, but John R. Pierce,

29:13

the inventor of satellite communication. Here you

29:15

go, lover of music, didn't understand

29:17

rock and roll, and you went to dinner and you

29:19

brought with him six songs.

29:22

And so I'm gonna read the six that you

29:24

brought. And then you did say

29:26

that I get a lot of mail about this

29:28

because people are they

29:30

do you, because this is a source of controversy.

29:34

I'm happy to do before you

29:36

read the list, I want to say

29:39

I'm not purporting that this

29:41

is the perfect list of the six songs that

29:43

explain rock and roll. It's the best

29:45

I could come up with on short notice. And

29:48

you said even when you wrote this book, which

29:50

was a long I mean, how long has it been ten

29:52

fifteen years this book? So

29:56

you know, you said, all our great songs, but even now I'd

29:58

like to make some adjustments. So I'm just gonna read

30:00

the list and then ask you for a couple more

30:02

you might add to that list if you were to do it again.

30:05

Very nice, Thank you, all right? So first

30:07

was Long Tall Sally by Little

30:09

Richard, roll Over Beethoven

30:11

by the Beatles, All Along the watch

30:13

Tower by Jimi Hendrix, Wonderful

30:16

Tonight by Eric Clapton, Little

30:18

Red Corvette by Prince An

30:20

Anarchy in the UK by the Sex Pistols.

30:23

So that was the list fifteen years

30:25

ago or so, what what are

30:27

some things you'd add to that list today?

30:29

You know that that are you know, are rock

30:32

songs that that you really either

30:34

love or think are important. This

30:36

is a what do you love? Question? More than

30:39

you know. I was trying to be systematic and scholarly

30:41

about it, and um

30:44

I felt that I wanted

30:46

to define rocket roll broadly

30:48

as the kind of popular music I listened

30:50

to, which pretty much fans

30:53

nineteen forties to

30:55

the present. And I thought,

30:57

well, you know, you've got to have something to

30:59

represe and the one

31:01

of the architects of rock and roll, you know, like

31:03

Little Richard or Chuck Berry

31:06

or the Beatles. I mean, they're all these these

31:08

you know, touchstones you want to get. The

31:11

Beatles were great writers, but they were also

31:13

a great band. Having

31:15

them do Roll over Beethoven as a way to get Chuck

31:18

Berry and the Beatles in one choice, you know, it

31:20

was complicated and wonderful.

31:22

Tonight was an attempt to try and capture

31:25

the soft rock of the seventies, you

31:27

know that included the

31:30

Carpenters and James

31:33

Bound, James Taylor right, and I mean it couldn't

31:35

than any of them. I knew

31:37

that John Pierce had

31:40

worked on in developing

31:42

the vacuum tube, and

31:45

so I wanted to also. The

31:47

other constraint is that I wanted him

31:50

to be able to experience a range of different

31:52

guitar tones so he could

31:54

see what his invention had wrought. I

31:57

think today I would add Hallelujah,

32:01

the Leonard Cohen song Um,

32:04

I mean it's not rock and roll, but it's

32:06

popular music. Uh.

32:09

And I would add it in, probably

32:11

in the version by

32:14

Jeff Buckley or

32:16

by Rufus Wainwright. I

32:18

mean, there are a lot of possibilities

32:21

there. Um, it's

32:23

been covered so much. Certainly

32:25

I would add something that's from hip hop,

32:29

and I'm not sure what, but I

32:31

would probably go back to the basics like Houdini

32:35

or Sir Mix a Lot or

32:38

you know, LLL cool j Um,

32:41

you know, just in terms of the origin story.

32:45

I also like Naz and Ludicrous, So

32:47

I mean that that's hip

32:50

hop is Dead would be an interesting

32:52

choice. You might want to get some

32:54

MOBI in there. I was sick

32:57

that I wasn't able to include Stevie Wonder

33:00

or led Zeppelin. Yeah yeah,

33:02

those are yeah. I mean it's it's preposterous

33:05

to try and think of six songs to represent

33:09

Oh man, boy, that's a well.

33:13

I love the sex Pistols choice.

33:16

Um. I really like the Prince choice too.

33:18

I think that's a great one. Um.

33:20

I think I probably would have to get the Rolling

33:22

Stones in there somehow. Yeah,

33:26

yeah, something like that or the

33:28

one that you reference in the book a lot, you know, Honky

33:30

tonk woman, this is a discussion we could

33:33

we could do for hours, so um,

33:35

we'll leave it there. But I just found it fascinating

33:38

to well, I didn't find it fascinating. What I found

33:40

it was fun to read the list

33:42

and to think about it. Um, I want

33:44

to talk a little bit about music

33:46

and the role it can have

33:49

in our brains and in

33:52

helping us to live better

33:54

lives. You say that, Uh,

33:56

current neuropsychological

33:59

theories associate positive mood and effect

34:01

with increased dopamine levels. Music

34:03

is clearly a means for improving people's

34:06

moods because music is acting on

34:08

the dopamine system. Um, can you talk

34:10

a little bit more about that and maybe anything

34:12

else that you would add since you wrote the book,

34:15

then about what we've learned about how

34:17

music can help us with mood

34:19

regulation. Well, already, so

34:21

many of us use music to regulate

34:24

our mood and the way we use drugs

34:26

like caffeine and alcohol. We've done

34:28

surveys of thousands of people

34:31

talking about how they use music, and it's

34:34

a typical thing is that people will

34:36

use a certain kind of music to help them get going

34:38

in the morning, another kind of music relax

34:40

before bed, if they have a fight with

34:42

someone close to them, there's a music

34:44

that they know, will you know, soothe them and comfort

34:47

them? Um, these different

34:49

uses of music, or what I explored in my

34:52

second book, The World in Six Songs, Music

34:55

as medicine. I do want to be fair

34:57

here and say that I think that in enroll

35:00

the arts and for all these benefits.

35:02

It's not just music. Uh,

35:05

I happen to study music, but there's

35:08

uh, you know, engagement with literature

35:10

and theater, with painting,

35:13

dance. Depending on which art forms

35:15

speak to you, these things can all

35:17

improve your mood. I think the

35:19

arts give us a broader

35:21

perspective on the world than

35:24

we get through say, journalism.

35:27

They helped to break down our resistance and our

35:29

barriers to understanding

35:31

other human beings because they reach

35:33

us emotionally, right, they have the ability

35:36

to go a little bit below the

35:39

conscious, hypercritical mind. That's

35:41

right. And I think that the real power

35:43

of the arts is to

35:46

re contextualize reality

35:48

for us, to help us see things in

35:50

a different way. And being

35:52

able to exercise that part of your brain

35:55

being you know, the ability to see things in a

35:57

different way is of course crucial

35:59

to problem ablem solving. Whether

36:01

you're talking about solving a personal problem,

36:04

or making a decision about a relationship or where

36:06

to invest your money, or whether you're trying

36:08

to get involved in politics. How are

36:10

we going to make the world a better place? What

36:12

can we do about climate change? What can we

36:15

do about the unequal distribution of wealth

36:17

and hunger and poverty?

36:19

How can we stop aggression across countries?

36:22

These are problems that require creativity

36:24

to solve. If they were easy to solve, that have been solved

36:26

already, And I think the arts play a fundamentally

36:29

important role in that. I agree

36:31

you say that as listeners, there is

36:33

every reason to believe that some of our

36:35

brain states will match those of

36:38

the musicians we are listening

36:40

to. So a lot of people

36:42

when they feel sad, right, they reach towards

36:45

sad music and there's a there's a comfort

36:47

in that. Is there anything that shows

36:49

that listening to, say, happy

36:51

music makes you happier. I'm

36:54

just interested in what kind of things we're

36:56

seeing there, because normally my reaction

36:58

is I feel down. At least certainly

37:00

a lot of my life, I would go to the

37:02

sad music I found myself as I've

37:04

gotten older, and maybe romanticize

37:07

feeling crappy less than maybe I did when

37:09

I was younger. I moved towards more positive

37:12

things now as a way to lift myself out of that.

37:14

Well. You know, I think that the terms

37:16

happy and sad are

37:20

broad, and there are a lot of different

37:22

ways to be happy, things to be happy

37:24

about. There are a lot of different neural

37:27

signatures to them, and I

37:29

think it's important to understand that

37:31

variability. In some sad

37:34

states, happy music will

37:36

soothe and comfort you, and in

37:38

other sad states, sad music will.

37:40

In a lot of cases, when you're feeling sad, it's

37:43

because you feel in some way fundamentally

37:45

misunderstood. But the right sad

37:48

song, you go, oh yeah, that person understands

37:50

me, and I have somebody to sit

37:52

on the edge of the cliff with, if that's exactly

37:55

right. Yeah, yeah, I was curious if you know

37:57

who are some of the thought leaders in using

38:00

music for therapeutic purposes, Like who

38:02

might I look to? You know that

38:04

that are real experts in this space or

38:06

just still doing research today

38:09

around music and emotion.

38:11

Your lab I think, just released a paper,

38:13

So you're still you still get your hand in. I

38:15

sure, hope. So that's my day job.

38:18

I would say music and emotion is different than music

38:20

therapy. That's true. On

38:22

the music therapy front, there's Suzanne

38:24

Handzer at at Berkeley College

38:26

of Music. There's and

38:29

Roth at Western Michigan State

38:31

University, Michael taught

38:33

in Colorado, t h a U t Um,

38:37

Connie Tomato in New York. On

38:39

the music and emotion front, this

38:41

is a more scholarly endeavor that's really

38:44

about basic research usually, and

38:48

some of the leaders in that field include

38:52

William Ford Thompson at

38:54

McQuary University in Australia.

38:58

My own lab, I don't know for at the forefront

39:01

of it, but we've published several

39:03

studies on music and emotion along with

39:05

my students. And there

39:08

is um Patrick uslan

39:10

j U s l i n another

39:13

leader in that field. And so you

39:15

guys had a recent paper that

39:17

was published in Nature. Was

39:20

the most recent paper that you guys did?

39:22

I think it was a paper that came out a week ago, uh

39:25

in the Nature journal called Scientific Reports,

39:27

And in that one we showed this

39:30

did have to do with music and emotion. My doctoral

39:32

student at Dill Malick a post

39:35

doct named Mona Lisa Chanda,

39:37

and I administered a drug

39:39

to people that temporarily blocked

39:42

one of the neurochemicals that we know is

39:44

associated in the

39:47

brain with pleasurable experiences,

39:49

such as taking drugs or

39:52

having an orgasm,

39:54

and um, we

39:57

were curious to know if that drug also

39:59

served the music system. So people

40:01

take a pill it's either the opioid

40:04

blocker or it's neutral

40:06

inert and they don't know it, and they listen

40:09

to music, and then we had a number of ways

40:11

of measuring whether they were experiencing

40:13

normal musical pleasure or not. And

40:16

um, it turns out when they took the drug,

40:18

they did not experience musical pleasure, which

40:22

was the first demonstration that

40:24

I know of, uh, that

40:26

opioids, the brain's own endogenous opioids,

40:29

in particular the MW opioids for those

40:31

of you were neurochemists, are

40:34

responsible or at least implicated musical

40:36

pleasure, just like food pleasure, sex

40:38

pleasure, and drug pleasure. So

40:40

that that old saying about sex, drugs, and rock

40:42

and roll going together is true,

40:45

Yeah, at a chemical level. Well,

40:48

Dan, thanks so much for for taking the time

40:50

to come on. Um, Like I said, I could probably

40:53

talk about several of these subjects for

40:55

for a long, long time, but I really

40:57

enjoyed your books. Thank you so much for coming

40:59

on. It was it was pleasure to have you. Thanks for having

41:01

me on. It was really great to talk to you. Bye

41:03

bye.

41:21

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